Saudi Arabia Uncovered

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80118888

"Saudi Arabia Uncovered"--Watch it.

The Jews had a temple, where the lambs were slaughtered and there was needed some management of the blood that flowed.

The Saudis have a "Chop-Chop" square, where people are beheaded and crucified.  There are drains in the middle to capture the blood that flows.




The butchering of Jews and Christians is called for in the books for children.  Shia also don't fare well.

What the video does not dare say is that it is not just the Saudi branch of Islam that promotes this butchery, but the Koran itself.

The Koran must be criticized also.

Hamed Abdel Samad steps out to protest the lack courage of our cultures to engage in critique of the Koran.

http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/replik-auf-hamed-abdel-samads-koran-buch-heilige-schriften.1008.de.html?dram%3Aarticle_id=367870

Harris: what do Jihadists want?

I started listening to Sam Harris' podcast that Facebook promoted to me.

It is titled:  "What do Jihadist's Really Want?"  

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/what-do-jihadists-really-want

Women's clothing at the Olympics and Song Lyrics for Small Children

Women and clothing.  Women and shame.  Women and honor.  Women and honor killings.

The evil West.  Lyrics of Songs.

An article in the National Post by Mireille Silcoff about the columnist's young child and the lyrics the little girls sings at home, having picked them up at camp and other places, strikes me where I care a lot.  She writes well, as usual.

http://news.nationalpost.com/life/what-do-i-do-when-my-four-year-old-thinks-a-song-about-keeping-your-genitals-tidy-for-visitors-is-a-ditty-about-bananas


Since I have grown into adulthood, a few decades ago, I have felt that there has been a war on the family.  This began in my mind when the stores began staying open on Sundays, women began working at marginal jobs at all hours, the orginial "precariat", and people went to the mall instead of to church.  Really, store hours seemed to me the thin edge of the wedge. We all are now only consumers, first and foremost.

In the eighties, our clothes were a little weird with shoulder pads and huge glasses and such, but they were neither overly modest, uncomfortable, confining nor provocative.  It seemed to me that the revolution  happened to my daughter's generation.  When the Spice Girls began performing the way they did, all the little girls wanted to look like them.  The clothes in the stores seemed transformed overnight to imitate these scantily clad idols.  How did this happen all at once?  As Silcoff says:  they began to look like very small prostitutes.  We went from dressing like a princess or a bride to dressing like a woman at a bar looking for action.  What the hell happened?  Now we had to start fighting about clothes with our daughters in the stores.  ("This is your back-to-school outfit?"  NOT.)

Meanwhile, the images traveled around the world and one can sometimes hardly blame the Islamic backlash. We were somehow powerless to control the way our culture was evolving, but they tried their best to stop theirs from going down the same road.  The Islamic culture warrior was born.

For some reasons, these wars are waged on the front line of women's clothing.  Personally, I was raised in Germany and there was not much problem with people going nude.  We wore bikinis and loose summer tops and nobody thought anything of it. So it's not the amount of skin per se that poses the problem.  It is how it is presented and when and where.  Is there skin because it is more comfortable for sport?  Is there skin because you have a thing for nude bathing at a nude beach?

Is there skin because you want to be provocative? And how does someone interpret provocative skin?  If you get a woman drunk in a bar, that is wearing more or less clothing, and then have sex with her that she can't remember, or can't remember inviting you to have, you have most likely "raped" her.  It is a tricky thing and scary thing. In my days, I would not have found myself in such places or drunk, but noways, it seems the norm for young adults to wear themselves out with use of substance and hanging around parties and bars. You mix in scantily clad, and the situation for our girls has become very hazardous.  You can't blame any parent for freaking out about these scenarios.  The damage to women and girls is unspeakable.  It is not acceptable.




This image became iconic last week during the Rio Olympics.  The German women played in bikinis.  The Egyptian women played fully covered.  The German's won the match.

Personally, I don't find either outfit obscene or provocative.  And as Hamed Abdel-Samad says:  we should just be glad, the Muslim woman gets to play volleyball.  Just that should be celebrated.  I see his point.

Still, if I was required to play in such a covered outfit, I would be furious.  This has got to be so hot.  I hardly like to have longer hair, as it makes me feel too hot.   If I had to be covered in a hot country, or any country, I would call it oppression not modesty.  I want to feel the air on my temples, the wind playing with my hair, the breeze around my neck, the cooling effect of the perspiration being carried away. As someone said, they would not subject an animal to such suffocating conditions.

I have seen Muslim women, at the mall, shopping for clothing, with shimmering things attached to their headscarves, like roses and hearts, that advertised them as available for dating.  Is this less modest, less enticing to a man?  I am not a man, I can't say.  I don't think it's a great idea to walk around with the bust hanging out. As a woman, I don't really like to see that on other women. At the beach, fine.  I don't have to stare at them.  In public, where we interface a work, etc., not nice.  Keep your bust to yourself. That's basically it.  Keep your private parts covered in public.  You really want to be part of the meat market?

There are images of women in India.  The Hindu women wear beautiful robes that cover and are still designed to get the air moving around the body, to keep cooler. I'd love to wear such lovely fabrics.  The Muslim women in India, have this tight fitting thing around their heads and necks that look like torture. It would be enough for me not to convert to Islam to have to wear such a thing.

Still, overall, I think that the West should come up with some sense of propriety without blaming everything on women.  This is communicated through our movies and songs, our outings and manner of speech.  The transgender movement contributes to this misunderstanding of women as carriers of certain body parts and voice tones.  There is so much else to womanhood that needs protecting and nurturing and valuing.  We have all lost our way.

Ok.  There, I have blogged something.

Fiery Beasts and Fiery Blessings

Last night, I slept fairly well, but something I watched on Facebook/Youtube was busy in my head. I went to sleep with it and I woke up with it.  There was a panel of distinguished looking men who were very erudite and well-spoken explaining the threat of Islam to Europe. It was international with Swedes and Englishmen sitting together.  The cataclysm coming is civil war, apparently.   Sweden is already lost, and England must fight for its life.  America must never let it happen on the North American continent.  The demographic time-bomb is ticking in Great Britain, as the Muslim population doubles every so often and has children early on in young marriages and plural marriages, on top of that. --So much about what the gentlemen had to say.

In regards to shared humanity, we know that Muslims are dear and precious people, loved by God and neighbors, but the ideology is one of terrorism and submission of everything in its path.--And this is in the Koran.  We have read it. --Also, Muslims are exhorted to dissimulate and so you can't be sure if your neighbor is your friend or foe, that is if Muslims even attempt to assimilate so much as to live outside an enclave.  The police, the media, the elites, the authorities are folding in face of the onslaught of hostility and assertiveness.  On whose shoulders will it fall to defend the nation and the culture?--It seems it falls up on the population itself together with some brave spokespeople.  So-called populism is on the rise in many European countries and one wonders what kinds of beasts are being birthed with some of these movements.  Slovenia has a neo-nazi governor, now.

All this continues to unfold rapidly.  Before 2014 we had hardly worried about these developments.  ISIS changed everything.  The cruelty before our eyes is so despicable and the refrain that Islam has nothing to do with it rings very hollow.  We don't believe it and we don't believe those who keep repeating it.  This explains the rise of Donald Trump to me.  We are sick of lies and we worry about our nations.  Barack Obama still reigns as the prince of peace, but ideas have brought told and untold disasters upon whole populations.

Meanwhile, the fire rages in Northern Alberta.  The call it "the beast."  It is huge now.  It did not get dealt with soon enough.  Dry conditions, old forests, led to this inferno that keeps on adding to the population of evacuees.  There are places for them to go.  Where will Europeans go?

Europe is like the dried up forest in the North.  It is ripe for a burn.  The burn will come, sometime, like an earthquake at a fault line will surely come.  It is inescapable.  Will it burn to the ground so new seeds can sprout or will it be like the Middle East, where Christianity has been displaced from its cradle of birth almost completely?

It is like a Biblical size punishment, something like Noah's flood, something like the tower of Babel, something like slavery in Egypt, something the exile, something like the death of the first-born, something like a crucifixion, something like the destruction of Jerusalem where only a few stones remain.

God always preserved for himself a remnant.  From the root and a shoot a tree can grow again.

Thus the Jews have always survived, though few in numbers, as Jesus predicted, and Christianity grows in the underground quite well.  It is like a fire under the ground.  You think you have stamped it out, but it smolders and glows.  Still, the Lord says often enough:  smarten up or I will turn over your lamp, too.  We can lose all the oil in our lamps and the Lord can also throw them over.  And the darkness will be dark and there will be gnashing of teeth.  Fear the One who can make this happen.

The beast of the fire in the North is being fought with a thousand firefighters.  It won't go out and stop consuming everything before it until the weather changes and rains come.  The weather has changed some.  Without the firefighters it will continue to destroy homes.  Spiritually, we are the same.  Destruction will reign without the help of the Lord without the Word of the Lord.  And if we are complacent, we will surely be engulfed.  Maybe the Christian West will wake up.  May it be so.

There is a fire, a different fire which is good.  It is often kindled when things look very bleak.  A spiritual zeal and need can arise and new work is done.  It is the fire of Pentecost, of Babel undone.  We speak to each other in a language we understand. It is the gift of fire from above.

In Berlin and Hamburg people are worried to walk the streets now, in places.  People don't want to send their children out unsupervised any more.  You could always do this in Germany.  Put your child on the public bus, let it roam in the forest, walk down the street to see grandma, without a worry.  It was a safe country.  But also in Berlin and Hamburg, Muslims are becoming Christians in considerable numbers.  These Christians are severely tested in the refugee homes living among those who pray how many times a day for all to see toward Mecca.  Through lack of participation in this worship, they stick out.  The enmity is more than palpable.

May the Spirit of the Lord turn us all to Him and his love.


See:  "Das Wunder von Stiegliz" in German language
http://www.bibeltv.de/mediathek/video/das-wunder-von-steglitz-5225/


http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/may/christian-refugees-in-germany-report-high-levels-of-religio.html?&visit_source=facebook

Tarek Fatah speaks sense to Canadian Senate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUXhBm-g3YE

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress speaks some sense to the Canadian Senate on security.  Very interesting points.  He tries to distance himself from the Mosque and contrasts it to real community leadership.  "Imams are not leaders.  Stop meeting with them.  Meet with me.  But I am banned from Facebook."  What happens when a Muslim stands up to a Mullah?  min. 42.
Tears apart a Liberal senator speaking from his usual script, in the last several min.

Shoot the messenger: the hypocrisy in criticizing dissidents from foreign lands for speaking out

The BBC had a story about this last night:  Kamel Daoud of Algeria is criticized by western liberals for calling Islamic sex lives miserable.  He feels their hypocrisy when he writes from Oran whereas they write from their "western cafe's".  I don't have words for this sort of dismissal of brave spokespeople who know what they are talking about.  There are many one could list, and the western intelligentsia does not dare cope with what they have to say.  We only recall the disinviting of Ayaan Hirsi Ali from Brandeis University.  The list is longer.  Houellebecq is in hiding.  How many fatwas... A western chiding of Kamel Daoud in Oran.  It is insane.  If the intelligentsia won't deal with the subject matter, who is surprised at the rise of the Donald Trump and the marches in the street?  

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/the-sexual-misery-of-the-arab-world.html?_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamel_Daoud

http://www.lrb.co.uk/2016/03/04/adam-shatz/the-daoud-affair

Hamed Abdel-Samad

Hamed Abdel-Samad had a fatwa issued against him and has gone into hiding.  He was born in Egypt, memorized the entire Koran as a child, and lives now in Germany. He loves freedom. 

Look at this on Deutsche Welle in English:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmagdEfTAp0

And this with English translations:   http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5356.htm


"Islam has a Birthdefect"--it is not reformable.  But he hopes Muslims themselves are reformable.

Cologne New Year's Raping

After watching several shows now on the subject from the Tagesschau Newscasts, it makes you wonder.

This yellow piece of paper was found after the, let's call it what it is, "attocities" of a mass of Arabic men against women who were out to celebrate New Year's Eve in public with their friends.  From eye-witness reports these men, right in front of one of the world's largest and most famous cathedrals, massed themselves together to render women, their accompanying friends and the police helpless, through simply outnumbering them.  The facts are being laid bare as we speak.  We don't need to repeat them all.

The yellow paper gives phrases in Arabic and in German:  "You have large breasts."  "I want to kiss you."  "I want to 'f' you" and even "I kill you", etc.

You get the idea.  Since the newly arrived men don't know how to say these things in German they are being coached from the Arabic.  Eyewitness say that the men spoke no German.  Some told a bodyguard at a hotel entrance that he should quit protecting women, that they were "our girls" (in English).  How could a recently arrived man, or rather masses of men, think that a woman that he, or they, had cornered was "his girl"?  It really is a frightful dehumanization, one that rattles me just to contemplate it.

The chief of police has had to go because he did not come out with the information that the crimes had been committed by recently arrived immigrants and asylum seekers.  But the why and the wherefore of this organized attack?  Not only was this event planned and orchestrated for Cologne, it also happened in other cities in Germany and in Europe.  Some where foiled through advance intelligence and better handling than what happened in Cologne.  Through the internet, all kinds of things can be co-ordinated world-wide. And who can read Arabic?

Again, we are finding that the national media do not want to tackle this in any kind of depth. The Tagesschau today has a very banal commentary asking:  "Does Cologne really change everything?"  In essence, it is a pull-up-your-socks talk admonishing people to stay the course of open immigration and the work of trying to integrate just about anybody.

The most thoughtful and daring and still balanced essay on the subject, I found here, in the National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429432/muslim-mobs-rape-europe

Read it.

Islam's problem with women is profound and systemic.

Luther told us about it centuries before, when the Turk was at the gates of Vienna.  The average Muslim may be a good husband, father and business man, and pious in his own way, but there is something wrong with Islamic teaching itself.  It needs to be confronted and discussed.

Hamed Abdel-Samad on the "Downfall of the Islamic World"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syDMRI-0Hk4

Ezra Levant Interview with Young Muslim Men in Paris, this Week

http://www.therebel.media/the_ezra_levant_show_best_of_muslims_in_paris?utm_campaign=muslimsinparis&utm_medium=email&utm_source=therebel

Ezra may go over the top with some of his rants, but he has courage and drive.  Hats off.  We should listen to him for what it is he finds out.  In many ways, he is a champion of our rights and freedoms.

Also see this interview Ezra Levant had with Noam Chomsky.

Sura in context and fully explained

Often it is heard that Islam is a religion of peace and that the killing of people is forbidden in it.  This seems to fly in the face of the current emphasis on terrorism and the attempt to get Sharia accepted here, there and everywhere, and definitely not with peaceful means.

Answering Muslims has a simple and thorough explanation for a particular verse in the Koran that is constantly quoted only partially and out of context, here.

As the speaker explains:  Muslims in the world really need to decide if this is really the book and the religion they think they should follow.

Paris and the World

Yesterday, we were all grieved anew over the atrocities committed in Paris by murderous terrorists.  Daily, it seems, we must cope with the news of the deaths of innocents in many lands, demonstrators in Turkey, shoppers in Beirut and Kenya, Christians hounded and persecuted everywhere.  We worry that this has become guerrilla warfare, and indeed, the leader of the French nation spoke about  a war.  How will it end?  What is this war about?

Again and again we are told that Islam is not to blame, even though in the Koran we have strict instructions for the subjugation or killing of the so-called infidels where ever they are found.  But this has already become painfully obvious to every one, in spite of the window dressing.

We are also told that people don't just simply act according to their holy texts, and therefore Muslims everywhere are peace-loving people, in spite of the Koran.  I do not doubt it.  Most Muslims, like all people who want the best for their families, communities and countries are more or less peace-loving, in spite of their holy book even.

There are other inexcusable strictures in the holy book.  They deal with the denigration and subjugation of women.  We need not go here into all the details.  They are all becoming well known.  It seems to be an insurmountable problem very basic to the practice of Islam everywhere.  Every sophisticated Islam-friendly philosopher bemoans it.  The honor of the family is tied up with the conduct of the female.  Thus she is covered, veiled, prevented from driving cars, going to school and so on.  Girls marry too young and men they have not wanted.  Girls have less value.  A woman's word does not count.

We are told that the pious woman chooses all this garb and restrictions for herself.  We don't buy it.

With all that is wrong here and completely inexcusable and absolutely despicable, and terribly depressing, there is one thing that makes me pause, however, and one does not hear it mentioned:  we, the West, are decadent;  we are corrupted; we are also sick.

I had never heard of the Eagles of Death Metal.  When I first heard that a Concert Hall was targeted, I wondered:  was it Beethoven or was it Rock that was on the program?  Was it music or was it noise? --And I watched a couple of videos by Eagles of Death Metal and I heard one say:  "Are you ready to have a fun evening with the dark side?"  And I knew this is quite far from the Bach Cantatas I was taught to sing in Youth Choir.  Research it for yourself on Youtube.

I don't have time anymore tonight to speak to low we are sinking, how we have abandoned basic instincts and institutions.  Let's just say:  part of me is willing to lash out with the Islamist.  Our children are neglected, drug-addicted, promiscuous and sad.   We have robbed them of the things that matter.  We, too, live in a very sick world.

In the press, we hear about how people cherish their freedoms and wanted to enjoy themselves on a Friday evening.  This is what Paris is about, after all.  Yes, it is, and that is why Paris was targeted, so we are told. Our societies have abandoned normal family life, normal sexual relations in faithful relationships, the fear of God and the afterlife, a life of prayer and community.  We have altogether become corrupt and gone astray.  We should think about it. Charlie Hebdo and others may satirize all religions, but who will satirize the sickness of secular culture? -- It is too sad to satirize.

In the end, it could have been a Bach Cantata going on in the Concert Hall, as, no doubt, an Islamist would find it offensive, too.  Music is not allowed, for one thing--another horrible rule.  So it does not really matter what kind of concert was being held.  It could have been the same bloodbath.   And still.  What are we doing? We are shoving trash into the world's media pipelines.  This stuff comes into people's homes and how do you keep it out?  You can't.  You can't keep it out.  It is another form of terrorism, a more insidious form, but also a lethal form.  Islamic people conflate this secular and vulgar culture with Christianity, as it is "Western".  No, some of us are getting this garbage pushed down our throats.

I want all of these people to stay away from my children.

DO NOT NEGLECT THE CATECHISM!

--When the Church shirks its catechetical responsibility, the result is not that it goes un-catechized. Far from it. The result, rather, is that, by default, the Church comes under the tutelage of that unholy adjunct, the devil, whom Luther calls "a master of a thousand arts." No slacker himself, he is eager to teach where the Church is silent, with his own commandments, his own prayer, his own creed, and his own "good news." He is, in other words, a master catechizer. We labor under a false dichotomy when we ask whether or not the Church will be catechized. The answer is always yes. The question is not whether, but by whom?






--Martin Luther's prescription for pastors and preachers (including himself) who neglect the catechetical training of their congregation was characteristically colorful and coarse: "we deserve not only to be given no food to eat, but also to have the dogs set upon us and to be pelted with horse manure." Pelted with equine feces after the hounds have been released? Even if his prescription is not to be taken literally—although all bets are off with the cantankerous Reformer—Luther's zeal for the catechetical instruction of the Church is unmistakable. Those (especially pastors) who are ignorant of the basics of the catechism, or who despise it through negligence, thought Luther, "should not be numbered among Christians." They are "lazy bellies and presumptuous spirits," "completely unskilled and incompetent teachers" who "live like simple cattle and irrational pigs." Conclusion: "Shame on you forever!"
Read more:http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=28-05-015-v#ixzz3jEDks7yw


The above were quotes.

When I grew up the chatechism was neglected.  My confirmation classes were useless in this regard, also.  We took religion in school and what was good about it was the memorizing of the great hymns.

I have read that Mohammed grew up, or lived among Christians and Jews, that is why the Koran is full of passages regarding Jesus, and so on. The problem obviously was that the message did not really come to Mohammed.  He got everything mixed up.  Some have said that the Christians were lacking clarity in their message and teaching. Muhammad quite liked them as people, I think. But being nice does not equal catechesis and obviously the message got lost.  What a tragedy.

No End to the Trauma

With the word having become frighteningly what it is, it can seem like--another day, another atrocity;  another day, another vile account.

It is traumatizing.  You want to push it away.  I have not watched any of the gruesome footage since the first batch, when the Iraqi soldiers were marched to their deaths by the hundreds or thousands.  Their plain surrender was surprising, their executions were swift and callous--all of it captured on video.  Of all the horrors comitted--the list is long and easily researched on the internet--it is the fate of the "sex slave" that seems to me to top the list of perversity.

Last week the New York Post featured a clearly worded article about the "The Theology of Rape".




It should be read.

Very, very young girls--children are used.  Yazidi women suffer unspeakable fates, all in the name of the "merciful" Allah.  It is so sick, it could make one scream and vomit.  Abuses have occurred in the world in many places and under many banners, but the "enshrinement of the rape theology" is a unique phenomenon, an evil to top evils.

On the heels of this article, we heard this weekend, that Kayla Mueller, ISIS captive was repeatedly raped by the self-declared Calif, the ISIS leader.  He took her as a "wife".  We know that in some branches of Islam it is legal to take a wife for a day or so, i.e. you can have a prostitute, or, in this case, you can rape a woman.  This is theologically sanctioned.  The leader is going ahead of the troops by "good" example.  It is such awful barbarism that you would think there would be an outcry from the Muslim world.  I searched Al Jazeera, English for the story, but it was not there.

In fact, from Muslims you only ever hear, "we don't do things like that".  Yes, they may indeed not do things like that, but how do you argue with the theology?  Is there any arguing possible?  Muhammad did it, Muhammad commanded it.--???

And indeed, this abuse of women is enshrined.  It has been on-going through the centuries. Millions of Europeans have been captured and held as slaves over the centuries. Christian North Africa was overrun.  The atrocities need accounting for theologically.  We are not talking about isolated incidents and misfits.  We are talking about an enduring totalitarian ideology of the most misogynistic kind possible.

It must be vehemently decried.  It must be exposed.  It must be exterminated. It must be fought tooth and nail. -- Where are our intellectuals?

Richard Dawkins, strange bedfellow though he may be, at least makes an effort:

Women's Issues / Honor Diaries

Last night, I finally viewed the "Honor Diaries" on Netflix.  It is only one hour in length and presents the views and voices of a variety of women, some Muslim, some Christian from the Middle East, and some Sikh.

The concept of "honor" is explored, especially in "patriarchal" societies.  The honor of a family seems to be deeply connected to the subjugation and conduct of women.  With Sharia law there are expectations for women's decent behavior but they are not clearly spelled out, leaving women exposed to the vagaries of  subjective judgments and unexpected harassment, dangers and punishments.

Girls are married off as child brides, or have no say in choosing a husband. They must stay in the house, they may be deprived of education, employment, normal freedoms and joys.  They suffer female circumcision, acid in the face, threats, intimidation, beatings and are murdered.  The cruelty is astounding and reprehensible.  How can you treat a child or a woman in such fashion?  How can you treat a wife like a slave?

In the name of "Honor".

We keep hearing that so many millions and billions of people are Muslims;  however, we see that many of them are enslaved, especially the women,  It obvious to say that females make up 50% of the population.

Honor Diaries challenges us to stand with these abused women.

This interesting article on BBC about early satiric cartoons in Islam also illustrates what women deal with: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31640643

On Netflix, a recent movie about a girl in Saudi Arabia who would like to ride a bicycle, filmed on location in Saudi Arabia, demonstrates the cruel restrictions placed on women's lives.
It is called "Wadjda".  Wadjda is the name of the 10 year old girl.  She is able to ride a bicycle at the end of the movie, which provides a moment of hope and vision for the future.



I really recommend the movie.  My husband laughed through it, enjoying the girls spirit. I found more to cry about than laugh about.

As a Christian woman, I always feel bewildered by the extremes which abound.  On one hand, we have those who want to radically redefine who and what people are, seemingly hell-bent on abolishing the traditional family, favoring every sexual perversion knowable to man and womankind, and needing to teach every soul about that from Kindergarden on...  On the other hand, we have those who want to repress women sexually, emotionally, vocationally.  They can hardly aspire to anything at all besides bearing male offspring.

There is really only one answer, and it is to promote Christian marriage in the freedom of the Gospel.  We are free to live decently, and honorably, with God's help.   It is for freedom Christ has set us free. Galations 5.

Finnish Broadcaster will read through the Koran beginning March 7

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31601739

"The Koran will be read from cover to cover on Finnish public radio as part of a new series, it's been announced.

The country's public broadcaster, Yle, has divided the reading into 60 half-hour segments, including a discussion between two experts on the context and meaning of each part. Beginning on 7 March, the project is "intended to increase people's knowledge of the Koran and Muslim culture in Finland", Yle says on its website. A leader from Finland's Muslim community, Imam Anas Hajjar, will discuss each section with Professor Jaakko Hameen-Anttila, who translated the text into Finnish. "It is important that the Koran is read in its entirety, and not just select items that show that Islam is bad and violent or good and beautiful," says Mr Hameen-Anttila. "All of the text material is served up for the listener to assess."

Interpreting the 1,400-year-old text for the series wasn't always straightforward. "We haven't been at loggerheads, but Imam Anas Hajjar and I have often read the same passage and approached it from a very different point of view," the professor says. "Imam Hajjar reads practical, contemporary meanings into the text and I see it as an historic work that is tied to the time in which it was created." An estimated 60,000 Muslims live in Finland, out of a population of about 5.4 million people. Yle says the wider Finnish Muslim community was involved in making the programme and approves of the finished product."

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As I said, I started reading the Koran, again, for educational purposes.  Though I have not got too far, at this point, I am hoping to read through it gradually.  It would be good to have CBC radio take up a project like the Finnish broadcaster, so everyone could understand and discuss the text.

Maybe next, they can take up the Bible, and reacquaint the culture with it.

It would be great if our public discourse could include intelligent discussion of holy books. 

I should send this suggestion on to the CBC radio.  

Islam and Women

It is not as if we are not all overwhelmed with the subject, but it bears being informed about.  While we all know that there are multitudes of honorable Muslim families who love each other dearly, we also know that there is much wrong in the teaching and the ideology.  The abuses need to be uncovered, acknowledged and remedied.  Of course, I would think that adherents should become followers of Jesus Christ, who loved and elevated women, teaching them with much grace, and restoring the most fallen with gentility.  But even without this, human decency teaches us differently from what is actually happening.

This show came across my stream today: a documentary movie called Honor Diaries is being highlighted.  We should all support it.

http://www.honordiaries.com/

It looks like it is available on Netflix.  I will try and watch it with my husband.

Another piece that came across was this image summarizing some scriptures that perpetuate abuses:

Thirdly, Barbara Kay discussed the problem with the woman activist who demands to be sworn in as a new Canadian wearing a face veil.  She shows clearly how this demand is different from other accommodations, and the injustice involved with the face veil, as women in a various Islamic societies do not have the option of NOT wearing it.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/17/barbara-kay-zunera-ishaq-does-a-disservice-to-women-forced-to-wear-the-veil/

I am really not much of a feminist, and I have not had reason to be.  The men in my family have all been wonderful, loving, married to one woman at a time, indulgent toward their daughters and granddaughters, encouraging education, etc.  I was able to study or work or stay home when I wanted.  I was able to marry the young man of my young first love.  I have really had to deal with any sort of coercion or denigration.  I think the most denigrating thing that happened to me was that my uncle would not take the girls out on his fishing boat.  Also, my grandmother said that girls do not whistle.  Come to think of it, I have been chastised several times, in my life, for whistling.

But, among all the oppression a woman can face, this abhorrence of her sexuality is the most demonic thing of all the possible oppression.  A woman wants to love and nurture.  A woman wants to marry a prince and be swept away.  A woman wants to give, give, give and receive.  A woman is romantic and wants to be united to a lover...  How can you cut our her clitoris, marry her to ancient men in her prepubesence, raper her, shut her in, allow the punishments allowed in the Koran and Hadith.  Has she no feelings?  Has she no value?  Is she not a human being?

Where are all the feminists?  Where are all the liberal theologians?  Where are all those seeking self-fulfillment?  Will you not stand up for those who are not even allowed to be a human woman, at the most basic level?

Matters of Taste 5 / Satire, the Pope, Mohammed

Very recently, the killings of several cartoonists were perpetrated in Paris.  After that thousand and millions stood in solidarity and were themselves "Charlie".  The leaders of nations found their way to walk arm in arm through the streets of Paris.




I myself would have to declare myself "Charlie", as well, because I passionately would resist all destruction of printing presses and suppression of freedoms.   Among some Lutherans there was a discussion as of whether we would support the production of very nasty anti-religious propaganda, as expressed in this very left-leaning magazine.

The most powerful argument there was, for me, that during the Reformation some pretty strong cartoons were produced, as well.  The printing press had just invented by Gutenberg in Mainz (I went to see the museum there);  on it was first printed the Bible in vernacular languages, and then also the political and religious discussions and pamphlets.  Erasmus wrote some satirical work of the Roman Catholic church, that is still banned I believe.  The printing press changed the world, and we would not want to go back.

Where ever dictators and scurrilous figures have wanted to establish their rule, preferences, and hide hedonistic or other escapades, they have wanted to intimidate the press, burn down the print shops, put dissident writers in prison, suppress the truth, etc.  So, we do have the overriding principle of the freedom of the press.

Yet, so much can go wrong.  Hitler's propaganda, for example was not subtle, at all, but striking and avant-garde.  The posters were stunning and installed fear of the enemy, in the population.  An elite took charge of the universities, the intelligentsia, and the propaganda.  We should talk more about how this happened, as not to repeat this sort of thing.  In the same light, it is worrisome that "Charlie" is a propaganda machine of sorts.  We don't have to dig very deep, here.  Peter Hitchens wrote about it.

It is also somewhat surprising how the support lined up behind this particular victim, as there have been plenty of victims recently, for whom nobody seemed to speak up. Where is the support behind Ayaan Hirsi Ali?  Where is the outcry for the multitude of Christians persecuted in many lands?  Why the solidarity with Charlie, in particular?

Because it makes fun of all religions?

Satire hurts.  Cartoons hurt.  As an average housewife, I have more occasions to laugh at cartoons than to be hurt by them.  Perhaps, if I were a consumer of Charlie, I would be deeply offended, too.  The news I subject myself to is relatively tastefully presented, as much as the subject matter generally allows.

But it has happened to me, on-line, that I was involved in a conversation with someone who considers himself a philosopher, who sent me some cartoons ridiculing Christianity, the cross, and the meaning of the cross.   Undoubtedly, this was meant to spark the discussion further, but the insult to me was profound.  It could have been as if we had gone to a coffee-shop to have a relaxed or animated discussion, and my partner had just pulled out a knife and stuck it in my ribs. The wound and the scar are still there.  This event has impacted my profoundly and permanently.

So part of me understands the Muslim sensitivity.  As ridiculous as we find it, for example, that the impulse to go to heaven is to be rewarded with 70 perpetual virgins, and other many objectionable doctrines (very, very many), and as easy as it is to make fun of all this (very easy), I feel for the average faithful.  The Pope was trying to feel for the average faithful when he made the now famous, or infamous, remark that, analogously speaking, the natural reaction to having your mother insulted would be the throwing of a fist.

Myself, I am not a thrower of fists, and I am not given to fits of rage.  Anger is not me.  More so sorrow, pain--anger turned inward, as they say.  A female response, perhaps, to indulge in stereotyping.

Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  This, I imagine, is supposed to involve neither anger, nor anger turned inward, not to mention not retribution by killings and executions.  Maybe one can get so tough that these kinds of images and cartoons would not call forth a strong response.  But what are we, if they don't call forth a strong response?  Jesus had strong responses, too.  Most similarily, perhaps, we can consider the desecration of the temple by the presence of all the mercantile enterprise.  The house of prayer had been turned into a bazaar.  Here he went in with the whip.  So, actually, no turning of the cheek here, now that we think it over.  A heart-felt response is appropriate, but also one that is measured.  Lynching would never be ok.

So, therefore, I cannot really be "friend" to one who chooses to bring out my deep pain for his amusement.  I cannot really be "friend" to one who insults my God, and that gratuitously. We are not made of the same stuff.  We are not brothers and sisters. We don't have the same blood.  At the same time, I find that those who like to do this sort of provoking, do not actually allow for a reasoned discussion of the matter at hand.  It would not suit them at all.  In contrast, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is into reasoned discussion.  I can be her friend, though she is not a Christian.  She speaks calmly, decently and rationally.  I can respect her tremendously.  The art and provocation she produced together with Theo Van Gogh, who also was killed in cold blood, were perhaps of similar kind as Charlie's.  The subjugation of women in Islam was highlighted.  Delving  into this subject matter cost them dearly.

And here, things really go beyond religion and faith in God.  The treatment of women concerns us all.   We are talking about human rights issues, now.  What is done to women in the name of Allah is highly objectionable and deserves strong treatment. On the other hand, Muslims are offended by what the "West" does to women.  They have a point, too.  What the "West" does to women is also highly objectionable.

We have to be able to talk about these matters.  And we have to be able to make cartoons and art about problems.  The less gratuitous, random or tasteless they appear, however, the better.   They need not be weak, but they need not be uglier than necessary.







Also see "Fighting Satire with Satire".

http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2015/01/12/how-a-religion-can-respond-to-public-ridicule/

Insightful analysis from Muslim about Muslims:

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564693-on-muslims-lessons-from-charlie

Manifesto of the Twelve in English and in German / Critiquing Islam, is it "Islamophobia"?

http://www.thegully.com/essays/world/060403_islam_totalitarian.html

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/europa/gegen-den-islamismus-das-manifest-der-zwoelf-13357663.html

Islamophobia?-- We think not.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/04/father-raymond-j-de-souza-islamophobia-is-not-the-problem/

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right?language=en