Salah Ali: From quarreling about Niqabs we are now dueling about dualism.

Submitted by Plato (India), Oct 1, 2009 at 23:45

Salah Ali, you write,

>>I mean much of human culture is founded on religion. Take for example the so-called "Promised Land" ! This won't be a true story but an illusion used to displace the Palestinians.<<

Not much culture, just some of culture is founded on religion. Quite a bit is founded on evolutionarily ingrained instincts, language, geography, climate, and history.

Muslims believe in Moses, and Aaron and the Jews being the chosen people of Allah (until He discovered the Arabs). Why then do you say the story of the 'Promised land' is an illusion? If it is, then the story ofWhy can't Moses and Aaron found in the Koran is also an illusion? be illusions?

>>To uproot the Holy means to sweep what was based or founded on this holy across culture. <<

This is too abstruse for me to understand. You will have to rephrase it.

>>Even Mecca won't attract so many pilgrims every year. No fasting in Ramadan...<<

Mecca will be a better place without those pilgrims killing thousands of animals. Its culture would also improve and change from the mono-culture at present to a more variegated one.

True, with Islam gone there will not be many people indulging in this masochistic practice of starving themselves for a few hours and binging on food later. Nor will there be black blobs fearfully scurrying around in the streets afraid of sexual predators.

>>And what to do with religions without Gods like Buddism or the pagan creeds of India and Africa.<<

What to do with them? Why not just let them be? What problems are they causing in the world? How would you like it if a Buddhist asked what to do about intolerant monotheistic Muslims? People are beginning to ask that question about because Muslims because they cause pain wherever they exist.

Islam does have a short answer to the problem of Buddhists and pagans. Muslims when in power dealt a near death blow to Buddhism in India. Islam also was responsible for the deaths of nearly sixty million pagans duringover about 800 years of rule in India.

Given the chance Islam does have a final solution for Buddhists, Hindus and pagans. It can be found in 9:29 and 9:33.

>>Christians nust stop their missionary activities and who knows there might be a go-back to the primitivism with or without darkness.<<

The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Hindus, Buddhists were neither Christians nor Muslims. They did not shed blood in the names of their many gods and goddesses. They worshipped everything the monotheistic so hate and want to destroy. The chances are the world will go back to the light of tolerance that was destroyed by monotheistic faiths

>>The problem of Palestine will be solved and the age-long polemics will vanish in the air.<<

Back to Palestine. Why can't you think of Darfur, Kurds, Bahais, Ahmadias? When will they vanish into thin air?

>>In other words, is negating God or Allah only a theoretical issue?Or is a practical one. life will seem so bleak and man cannot go ahead with the burden of freedom alone.<<

You can never prove the existence of a god, gods or goddesses. So it is not even a theoretical issue, but a speculative one. Negating the supernatural seems impractical because of man's instinctive need for a purpose in life, and fear of death evolved into us. But many of us have managed that task and it is both easy and liberating and NOT bleak.

Men and women have fought with their lives for the freedom which you call a burden. No sane person in her or his right mind would fight to have the privilege to be burdened with anything. But Muslims do. They are proud to be the slaves of Allah and His prophet. Muslims instead of seeking liberation seek enslavement as demanded Muhammad by SUBMITTING themselves to a phantom of the Prophet's imagination.

>>And have we asked ourselves who does more need the other: God or man?<<

Here are some verses. Read them ask yourself who needs whom.

004.079 YUSUFALI: Whatever good, (O man!) happens to thee, is from Allah; but whatever evil happens to thee, is from thy (own) soul. and We have sent thee as a messenger to (instruct) mankind. And enough is Allah for a witness. [WOULD YOU TRUST ANYONE WHO TRIED TO SELL YOU THIS LEMON]

32:13YUSUFALI: If We had so willed, We could certainly have brought every soul its true guidance: but the Word from Me will come true, "I will fill Hell with Jinns and men all together." [ALLAH WANTS TO FIND SOULS TO FILL HELL. SO HE FRAMES THE SOULS BY MISGUIDING THEM AND THROWS THEM INTO HELL FOR BEING MISGUIDED. TALK OF GIVINGCALLING A DOG A BAD NAME AND HANGING HIM. ALLAH DOES BETTER. HE ACTUALLY MAKES THE POOR SOULDOG THINK HE/SHE IS BAD]

010.019 YUSUFALI: Mankind was but one nation, but differed (later). Had it not been for a word that went forth before from thy Lord, their differences would have been settled between them. [THIS LORD OF THE UNIVERSE HAS A GREAT SENSE OF WHAT IS ETHICAL! OR A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOUR]

010.096 YUSUFALI: Those against whom the word of thy Lord hath been verified would not believe- [AND ALLAH CURSES, ABUSES AND THREATENS THESE POOR SOULS]

006.126 This is the way of thy Lord, leading straight: We have detailed the signs for those who receive admonition. [

How straight does this path of Allah look to you Salah Ali?]

>>And if we are going to write God with small g (god), then how should we write man? With a large m (Man).<<

If God is all He claims to be what does writing His name in one particular language in uppercapitals or lower case matter? Is he going to be insulted by how we start his name with in the English language? Your asking this inane question shows that Muslims think of god as just another creature with some of our worst characteristics like getting furious at imagined slights. By the rules of the English language if there is only one god we use the upper case and if we are talking of man as a single species we can use the capital letter M. Just as for planets we use lower case and for Pluto we use the upper case.

>> And suppose me and you would agree on the needlessness of faith of both God and Allah, will others follow in the footsteps?<<

They can decide for themselves. That is if religions like Islam allow them to, instead hanging a sword over them.

>>And suppose God and Allah, Yahweh and the like are to be forgotten in a similar manner to the disappearance of Zeus, Appolo or Posidon, what are the destiny of their representative and followers: Christians, Moslems and Jews?<<

Before the perennially angry and jealous Allah and Yahweh made their appearance there were innumerable friendly gods like Zeus and his merry gods and goddesses. If these two angry jealous Gods are sent back to where they materialized from, may be Zeus and his merry fellow gods and goddesses will reappear. Or may be we would have consigned them all to their final resting places, in our history books or in the case of a monotheistic god into our horror story books

>>What would a mew world look like? I mean a world without God? <<

The new world would move on without giving it a second thought or waiting to worry about this phantom of some people's imagination. It would laugh at the world which believed in a comic character that went into apoplectic rages at the thought of people worshipping anyone or anything except Him.

The new world would laugh at people's belief (like we laugh at people who thought that pixies lived in their hedges) in a being who claimed to be so powerful all He had to say was say BE and it would be and yet found it impossible to convey to most people the message about His existence. He took the idiotic step of conveying His message to an illiterate Arab, of bad moral fibre, in an poorly developed language via a strange winged creature called an angel.

Name just one place apart from some people's minds where you can locate this God?

>>We cannot mince thought and words irresponsibly for the world cannot be accounted for by formulas.<<

Nor can the world be accounted for by a phantom in some people's minds.

>>Marx, Darwin, Sartre and Freud cannot bring the miracle of existence, life and man's intelligence and culture to formula.<<

Dropping names of great names to add luster to whatever it is you are trying to convey is not as effective as using facts and logic to support your beliefs.

Don't accuse those greats of things you imagine they were trying to achieve. No one has so far claimed that a synthesis of their thoughts and discoveries can give us a formula for the miracle of existence. Each has had his own place in the history of human thought and for throwing light into dark corners of our existence.

>>There is so much poetry and passion than the triangle of the ego, the instincts and the super-ego...<<

With apologies to Freud, is there a Super-ego to surpass Allah? If you understand evolution even in its broad sense, the poetry and passion of your triangle will disappear.

>>And class is not history...<<

I find Muslims take their cue from the Koran's propensity to jump from theme to theme. From poetry and passion to history, you have left me gasping.

>>Scientists can hypothesize and propose solutions but the infinity of science, of being and the evolution itself cannot be solved.<<

What makes you so sure they cannot be solved? There is no precedent or any facts to back up your claim.

>>I should also stress the issue of history and cultural history. History is not just an idea, it is the very existence and life for the Arabs who live more in memory than in the presence. <<

You have given us a clue why Arabs cannot adjust to their present existence. As history is not just an idea for the Arabs like the rest of us they actually still exist in the past. The seventh century to be exact. But then you have not told us anything new.

>>And what about imagination...It is not a summation or a synthesis of what we perceive.<<

I am not a psychologist but I would imagine, imagination can be more than the sum of its parts (what we perceive). That is why some people believe in jinns, angels and Allah. Imagination gone wild.

>>It has a creativity...Both culture and literature are impossible without imagination.<<

Why have you stated something so obvious?

>>I was reading in Farid Al-din Al-Attar mathnawi which landed me to blake and started to reflect on teleologies.<<

What is the teleology of existence? Should existence have a purpose? Can't it just be, purposeless? What teleology do you see in a man born a quadriplegic? Is it to be a constant bother to his minders or as some kind of theological lesson for people who are intact?

>> Why everything has its opposite in the world? I mean Dualism.<<

The blog is about niqabs and here we are out on a limb discussing dualism. Does niqab have a dualistic or non-dualistic nature. Since you are a student of Western philosophy you have missed out on the Indian variety. Try to read about 'advaita', the non-dualism you find in the Upanishads. It is the complete antithesis of Islam's dualism, of the creator and the created. It teaches the Onenes of God and the Universe. The very same God resides in you, in a Jew, in Bush, in a pig, in a suicide bomber and also his backpack full of TNT. If you find that intriguing read some more about it. If you grasp it, the Koran and Allah will fade from your mind.

>>How can we account for this phenomenologically not evolutionally.<<

Account for what? Imagination? Teleology? Dualism? From my understanding (which is very patchy) Phenomenology is about conscious reality or subjective reality. Evolution is an explanation of how organisms arose and took diverse forms from an original ancestor organism. So it is like asking how we can account for something phenomenologically not quantum physically or relativistically. Maybe possible, but beyond my ken. Phenomenology must be (maybe I am wrong) a philosophical explanation for reality as we perceive it in our minds.

>> Because evolution, like Marxism or psychoanalysis is becoming a hoppy-horse a sort of fire-exist from serious questions.<<

Allah wants everyone to hop on to the Islam hobby horse and Islam is the favourite hobby horse of most Muslim posters here.

Evolution makes you take responsibility for yourself and not let Allah decide for you as He keeps claiming that everything happens according to a pre-determined plan as in the verses quoted above (10:96, 4:79)

Allah and Islam provide the best fire-exit of all. Allah is responsible for all our actions as nothing can happen that is not previously known to Him. Or better still just believe in Allah and all your previous sins are forgiven. Allah gives Muslims the easy fire-exit of submission to His will as a way to salvation. The fire-exit of easy divorce skirts the serious question of protecting the right of women and children.

>>Then. as you see, it is not Islam that we should only concern ourselves with but rather the issue of Faith, belief, disbelief, science and the philosophy of man's existence, man's consciousness and the essences of concepts as justice, goodness, evil, laws of physics and afterall the destiny of man? Phenomenology<<

Yes I totally agree. Islam is not really worth concerning ourselves with at all because of all the ethical flaws it contains, its contradictions, bad science, and a theology which is a cocktail of religions like Judaism, Christianity and paganism. Yes horror of horrors, paganism. Do Muslims not circumambulate the black stone just as the pagans did. Do they not run between Safa and Marwah as the pagans did? Do you not make blood sacrifices like the pagans did?

Islam interferes and muddies everything with its mantra of submission to Allah. The only faith that must survive on the face of the earth is submission to Allah. Science must submit to this Allah. Justice is limited only to the "rights" of Allah and His prophet. The philosophy of existence is explained by the theology of a non-explainable Allah. Not phenomenology. Submissionology.

Regards

Plato

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