This is a busy week for me so posting may be light.
First up, news of a fatwa issued against blogger The Anarchangel for his Team Infidel project- in a nutshell he and some friends shot, blew up, burned and urinated on copies of the Koran he had bought. Now, his actions might be considered juvenile or inflammatory but having said that I can see no reason for threatening to kill a man because of what he did to a book. He says,
I have no regrets about destroying the Koran. Their religion tells them to kill or enslave me, and I have no qualms about destroying their "holy" book. In fact I wont refer to it as desecrating, because that concedes that the printed word of a madman from 1400 years ago is somehow sacred.
I feel much the same about the Bible by the way. Interesting reading, some great teaching, more than a little insanity, but a bible isnt sacred; even if you believe the thoughts within it are. The bible is a book like any other.
Remember the Newsweek allegations that were proven to be false? Well, the point of that story was that the desecration had been carried out by the Muslim inmates of Gitmo themselves. I haven't yet heard of any fatwa being issued against them.
Anarchangel goes on to say-
I think the idea that thousands of people would riot, and that dozens would die because of a fraudulent news story is offensive, and absurd.
I want everyone to be able to burn the bible if they want to, or the flag, or the constitution, or the declaration of independence, or anything else for that matter.
I CERTAINLY don't want our soldiers being punished because they mishandled Korans.
Islam wants me to die because of this. Our entire society is based on the freedom to do much of what we please, and they want to kill us all because of it.
I bought those Korans, and they were mine to do with as I please. They were nothing but ink stains on a page, and the very fact that people would react to it by either saying I shouldnt have done it, or I was stupid for doing it; or saying that I must be killed because of it...
I jsut dont have the words. I keep trying to explain, but they jsut arent forming in my head. How do I make the point to you that what we did wasnt anti-muslim, or rednecky, or triumpahlsit bullshit, or ignorant or anything else that so many of you believe it to be.
It was an expression of freedom.
6 comments:
Tight argument, UNTIL i go round and call his mum a Ho.
I've heard people get stressed when that happens.
I'm not saying that his actions weren't provocative, in bad taste, insensitve, offensive or anything else BUT he is now being threatened with death.
There's a big difference between being offensive and resorting to murder, isn't there?
Difference? Of course there are diffences between those things.
But say someone tells me about a big old lever over there. And i spent a good part of my childhood and teen years pulling levers so i'm kinda habituated on lever-pulling. Then i'm told this particular lever is hooked up to the mains. But i was born to pull levers and come from a long line of lever pullers. And there is no law against pulling levers. Then i'm told it's probably kinda dumb to go over and pull it as "it's HOOKED UP TO THE MAINS!". And i'm thinkin "But hey, there is no law against pulling levers is there?"
The physical action of pulling this lever is going to be no different to pulling any other lever and it looks exactly the same to all the other levers he's seen so what's the big deal? The deal is that this lever is known to Hooked Up To The Mains.
You know how i feel about blasphemy laws, and I'm NOT saying that Islam is a primal force on a par with electricity, all i'm saying is the lever was H.U.T.T.M for fuck's sake and what does knobhead go and do? He knew that what the lever did. AND he pulled it precisely because he knew what it did.
He pretty much entered into a Contract To Be Shat Upon.
So technically what's the problem here?
Turns out in the comments of the Anarchangel there is this:
"Actually you didn't even do anything offensive. The 'Koran' you used wasn't a real Koran. It was just a translation of the Koran. A Muslim believes a Koran is only worthy of protection if it is in Arabic and an actual representation of the Prophet's revelation. Translations are just that -- translations. They do not receive the protection of a true Koran. So whoever issued this 'fatwa' is ignorant of the teachings of Islam."
I think i have an amazon wish list somewhere i should dust off... We all have more reading to do.
So, he does something which he knows will offend Muslims and that is justification for someone coming and murdering him? There is a difference between being offended by something and killing someone.
I heard that argument already today- let's say you bump into someone and spill his pint- he's a known "hard man" at your local and everyone knows not to mess with him- and you spilt his pint!
Is it okay that he beats you to death?
One group of people gets angered by a certain action. A man carries out just that action knowing that it will anger them. The group gets angry. But is it okay to murder the man? Just because they're angry? Really?
As for your link- I was somewhat taken aback by the logic of their arguments-
1. The Koran is genuine because it's very well written. It contains the true word of God because Mohammed wasn't allowed to write anything else but that.
2. Jihad doesn't mean holy war- it means struggle, gives examples and then adds- oh, and it also includes armed struggle i.e. holy war.
3. You cannot take individual verses out of context because they have more meaning than what they actually say- it's a bigger picture sort of thing.
4. Jihad is only permitted in self-defence in the widest possible definition. So not the actual definition of self-defence, as in protecting oneself but also in establishing "freedom to worship".
5. Men and women ARE equal and, despite what we just told you about quoting out of context, here's a quote. BTW, the language is very sophisticated so you might not understand it.
Point 5 is a little odd because the Koran says-
4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.
In other words, men are better than women and if your wife "rebels" against you then you can tell her off, refuse to have sex with her or beat her. I believe that that is the usual interpretation of this passage.
It also says that you are not permitted to pray if you have touched a woman, because women are somehow unclean. (4:43)
That doesn't sound like equality to me.
Heh, hard man or high voltage, death is not going to find favour with me and you know that.
You buy the For Dunmmies book me and i'll have some grounds for replying to that but as it stands we both have no idea what we are talking about do we?
Some copies of the Koran online for your perusal-
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
The usual arguments are- you need to read it in Arabic to really understand it or it's very complicated and you can't quote from it out of context.
I reject both of these arguments as being spurious.
1. No other work in the world may be said to become unintelligible once translated into another language. "Mistakes" in translation may be reuduced by reference to more than one translation.
2. A sentence means one thing. Yes it is possible to change the meaning of what someone says by taking one sentence out of context, but by reading the section in which the sentence is you can quite clearly understand what a sentence is trying to say.
Post a Comment