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Religion as a Source of Terrorism. Media sound images of a Muslim terrorist shouting “Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!” as one of the four 9/11 hijacked jets was spiraling toward the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, left an indelible mark of association between Islam jihadists and terrorism. Such a connection is not unique to Islam. Comparable images were etched in people’s minds about Christianity by the Crusades and the Inquisition, by John Brown’s nineteenth-century killings of slave owners in the name of Christ, and more recently by fundamentalist Christians who killed people at abortion clinics. Similar connections have been established with other religions: Hindu militants slaughtering Muslims, a Jewish extremist spraying machine-gun fire inside a Muslim mosque, and Buddhist extremists poisoning passengers in a train in Japan. It is tempting to conclude from such events, as many have, that religion is a source of conflict in general and an important cause of terrorism in particular.
There can be little doubt that religious extremism and intolerance have contributed to serious acts of terrorism. Still, religious intolerance and violence begin typically, and often most violently, within rather than between religions. Sunnis and Shi _a have killed many more Shi _a and Sunnis than they have Christians or Jews, as have Muslim militias in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the Muslim world. For many centuries, Christian fundamentalists have killed other Christians who departed from a prevailing orthodoxy, labeling them as “heretics.” More than 3,000 Christians were killed by other Christians during the strife between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. Wars have often had strong undercurrents of religious intolerance among different sects within major religions. The killing is often justified by references to sacred text, typically involving literal interpretations of passages that are often invoked out of context, separated from the larger meaning of the surrounding text.
Killing has become increasingly common as well between major religions. After centuries of relative calm among the religions of the world following the Crusades, battles have raged for decades between Muslims and Hindus in the twentieth century, both within India and, after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, between India and Pakistan. Then, what had been a fairly low-level struggle in the Middle East exploded into a major conflict with the 1967 Six- DayWar between Palestinians and Israelis. Subsequent conflict in theMiddle East has been fueled largely by Iranian support of Palestinians and Lebanese factions since the Iranian Revolution of 1979; what were once primarily local conflicts have now escalated into a far more dangerous and expansive one between the world of Islam (consisting of more than a billion people) and the West, consisting predominantly of Christians (more than two billion) and Jews (about 15 million).
It is the extreme militant factions of any particular religion that are the source of most episodes of religious conflict that lead to violence, both within and between religions. Militant extremists are typically fanatical and fundamentalist, but religious fundamentalism is generally less of a problem than militant extremism. In the domain of comparative religion, fundamentalism refers to the strict, literal interpretation of sacred texts – for Christians the Bible, for Muslims the Qur_an. Generally, fundamentalists who read the text literally take strong positions against modernism. But religious fundamentalists may have no interest in resorting to violence to defend their positions, whereas militant extremists typically do – it is, after all, the willingness of some religious fanatics to resort to violence that makes them militant. If the sacred text says that killing is forbidden, many fundamentalists will not kill; militant extremists are more inclined to find passages that can be interpreted as providing a justification for violence.
Some scholars see religion as the major impetus behind today’s wave of terrorism. Mark Juergensmeyer, for example, sees religion as “crucial . . . since it gives moral justifications for killing and provides images of cosmic war that allow activists to believe that they are waging spiritual scenarios”. He goes on to say that, although most people feel that religion should provide tranquility rather than terror, “all religions are inherently revolutionary . . . capable of providing the ideological resources for an alternative view of public order”. He argues that religion provides “the motivation, the justification, the organization, and the world view” to facilitate acts of terrorism. Juergensmeyer sees the “drama of religion” as “especially appropriate to the theater of terror.” Terrorists act out of religious and symbolic images: they play the martyrs, and their targets are the demons.
Edward O. Wilson, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning biologist – the father of biodiversity and sociobiology – makes a similar point, contrasting religious thinking to the thinking that emanated from the Enlightenment. Wilson sees reason and ethics offering a more direct path toward moral behaviour and away from violence than does religion: “Religion divides, science unites. In particular, religious dogma amplifies global conflict, and humanism based on science offers the only sure way to ameliorate this malign effect.” Wilson posits that, although the epic of scientific discovery tends to bring people together, the human brain is hard-wired through evolutionary forces in a way that induces humans to engage in myth-making and religious passion. He grants that religion has contributed to culture and to the ideals of altruism and public service, but that these gains are more than offset by the dark side of religion:
The essentially tribal origin of religions renders them forever and dangerously divisive, a fundamental and intractable flaw that has persisted into our own time. Our gods, the true believer asserts, stand against your false idols; our purity of soul against your corruption; our true knowledge against your error. This discordance, whether expressed as hate or mere humanitarian forbearance, continues in spite of the manifest absurdity of the mythologies that underlie traditional religion.
Wilson regards this as a cause for optimism. Arguing that “the more fantastical mythic beliefs are growing harder to swallow by all but the ignorant” and that educated people have a natural evolutionary advantage, he predicts that the naturalistic perspective, based on science, is likely to spread and “will secularize the foundations of moral reasoning: tragic conflicts make it clear that religious dogmas are no longer adequate guides”.
In a similar vein, theologian Peter Berger sees religion tipping the balance toward more violence, not less:
It would be nice to be able to say that religion is everywhere a force for peace. Unfortunately, it is not. Very probably religion in the modern world more often fosters war, both between and within nations. Religious institutions and movements are fanning wars and civil wars on the Indian subcontinent, in the Balkans, in the Middle East, and in Africa, to mention only the most obvious cases.
Sam Harris takes this view a few steps further. He argues, first, that most of the major religions tacitly encourage violence by diminishing their followers’ appreciation for the value of life in the here and now, elevating the status of life in the hereafter and thus discrediting what is ordinarily regarded as rational thinking to preserve life. Preference for heavenly immortality over a mundane mortal life becomes particularly harmful to society when the believer perceives that the path to eternal life is enhanced by righteous intolerance of nonbelievers and the courage to act out against infidels. Harris goes on to argue that this link between religion and violence is exacerbated by taboos, especially in the West, on criticizing either religion generally or the religion of a particular person:
On this subject, liberals and conservatives have reached a rare consensus: religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse. Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not. And so it is that when a Muslim suicide bomber obliterates himself along with a score of innocents on a Jerusalem street, the role that faith played in his actions is invariably discounted. His motives must have been political, economic, or entirely personal. Without faith, desperate people would still do terrible things. Faith itself is always, and everywhere, exonerated.
Harris concludes: “For anyone with eyes to see, there can be no doubt that religious faith remains a perpetual source of human conflict. Religion persuades otherwise intelligent men and women to not think, or to think badly, about questions of civilizational importance”. As for the relationship between religion and terrorism in particular, a few scholars see the connection as largely illusory. Robert Pape, for one, after a careful analysis of 462 suicide terrorist cases from 1980 to 2004, concludes that more than 95 percent of the cases were motivated by a secular rather than a religious goal: to compel democracies to withdraw their military forces from the land the terrorists regard as their homeland. It is, moreover, all too easy for people with strong political agendas to attempt to legitimize their acts under the cloak of religion. As the lines between the eligious and the secular thus remain largely muddled, distinctions among religious, political, and megalomaniacal motives for acts of terror will continue to be difficult to assess.
Religion as a Source of Moral Behavior. Religion is also widely seen as a source – and for many the ultimate source – of moral behavior. Devout practitioners of all the major faiths tend to see their beliefs and practices as a source of moral strength. Sacred texts of all the major religions include sets of prescriptions for good behavior: tolerance and restraint, love and charity, forgiveness and redemption, humility and kindness, faithfulness and fidelity, discipline and restraint, reflection and reverence, the ability to listen and attend to human distress, and so on. Accounts of sinners discovering the truth are often stories of people discovering moral lessons in passages from the sacred texts. They discover the value of reforming themselves through faith in a transcendent power – sometimes to go to heaven and avoid an afterlife in hell, sometimes to discover the richness available in the here and now, but always to experience a more profound meaning in their lives than is otherwise apparent or available.
We have noted that eminent scientists such as E. O. Wilson hold dissenting opinions on this point, but other scholars, including some physical scientists, see religion as a net stimulus for morality. Physicist Freeman Dyson, for example, puts it as follows:
In church or in synagogue, people from different walks of life work together in youth groups or adult education groups, making music or teaching children, collecting money for charitable causes, and taking care of each other when sickness or disaster strikes. Without religion, the life of the country would be greatly impoverished.
Dyson concludes, “My own prejudice, looking at religion from the inside, leads me to conclude that the good vastly outweighs the evil.”
Jonathan Sacks sees this good as long-lasting and indelible. He regards the long-term survival of the great faiths – the fact that they have outlived nation-states for centuries – as indirect evidence that they speak to something enduring in the human character. He observes that it was religion that first taught human beings to look beyond the city-state, the tribe, and the nation to see instead humanity as a whole. Holy texts, including the Bible and the Qur_an, advise followers to treat others as they would wish others to treat them. Rabbi Sacks reports meeting religious leaders from all the major faiths who embrace the tradition of unity worshiped in diversity, a spirit he calls “the dignity of difference.” We may be more alike than we are different, and we could use a universal “theology of commonality”; but to the extent that we are different, we can acknowledge the dignity of this too and can respect both the commonalities and the differences. For Rabbi Sacks, this is a deeply held religious belief, one that leaves little room for clashing civilizations: “Religion binds.” Difference is not to be merely tolerated; it is to be celebrated. It enlarges the sphere of human possibilities. The test is to see the divine presence in the face of a stranger – a capacity that builds trust and civility and may, in the process, inoculate societies against terrorism.
Given this prospect, how can religion possibly be invoked to justify violence? One answer is that it is done typically by people for whom political or genocidal goals underlie avowed spiritual expressions. The Ku Klux Klan’s justification of its savage racist acts in the name of Christianity is a case in point. Sacks sees Saddam Hussein as another such case: “Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is a good example – religion is invoked by essentially secular leaders as a way of mobilizing and directing popular passions. There are some combinations that are incendiary, and the mixture of religion and power is one”. He elaborates as follows:
The great tragedies of the twentieth century came when politics was turned into a religion, when the nation (in the case of fascism) or system (communism) was absolutized and turned into a god. The single greatest risk of the twentyfirst century is that the opposite may occur: not when politics is religionized but when religion is politicized.
We noted in the previous section a complementary explanation by Sam Harris: in giving people hope for salvation in an eternal hereafter, religion diminishes their appreciation for the value of living fully here on earth. This creates an opportunity for religious moderates and leaders to step up and control their extremist brethren and to distinguish in a public way those who use religion to legitimize political motives from those who are true first to their faith. Moderates are better positioned than others to constrain the most radical members of their own faiths. Therefore, Rabbi Sacks sees that moderates have an essential responsibility to maintain moral integrity and legitimacy: “Religious believers cannot stand aside when people are murdered in the name of God or a sacred cause. . . . If religion is not part of a solution, it will certainly be part of the problem” (emphasis in the original).
Along a similar line, Daniel Dennett likens religion to a swimming pool: those who derive the benefits of ownership must also be responsible for the harms that result when people are lured into causes that can kill others. Dennett sees it increasingly difficult to exercise this responsibility in an age of information and communication technology in which religious intolerance can spread and mutate like a pandemic virus.
How to exercise this responsibility raises a deep, ancient philosophical dilemma. Under what circumstances, if any, should religious intolerance be met with intolerance? Tolerance does have a downside. Knowledgeable observers attribute the establishment of Britain as a hotbed of radical Islamic violence to its tradition of tolerance, especially during the 1980s and ’90s, when it became a major refuge for political outcasts and expelled preachers of hatred from around the world. The large influx of Pakistani and other Muslim immigrants into London over this period resulted eventually in people referring to the city snidely as “Londonistan.” Then, after a series of terrorist attacks originating from these populations in the years following the 9/11 attack, Britain began a difficult process of deporting some of the most radical of these immigrants. Under such circumstances, the commonsense interests of self-preservation can outweigh the exercise of tolerance.
Another answer to the moral component of the dilemma – whether it is right to be intolerant of intolerance – may be suggested by a Christian teaching from the book of Matthew: turn the other cheek. One historical anecdote suggests that, when used skillfully, such a strategy can be not only moral but also effective. Walter Isaacson writes about how Benjamin Franklin dealt with the intolerance of Puritans in New England: he reacted not with intolerance, but with an ingenious mixture of tolerance and humor. Franklin put his capacity for tolerance to good use at the Constitutional Convention, displaying a willingness to compromise some of his core beliefs to help produce a near-perfect document. Isaacson observes, “It could not have been accomplished if the hall had contained only crusaders who stood on unwavering principle.”7 Franklin’s idea of confronting violent intolerance with humor was echoed a century later by the journalist Ambrose Bierce:
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
In the end, whether religion, on balance, produces more or less moral behavior remains an open question. Freeman Dyson sees “no way to draw up a balance sheet, to weigh the good done by religion against the evil and decide which is greater by some impartial process.”
About the Author:
RAJDHRUV SINGH who is persuing B.A,LL.B(Hons) from DR.RAM MANOHAR NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY LUCKNOW-226012 UTTAR PRADESH.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Prepare a Man for Tomorrow
We must accept that this child has been given by God to us and it is the best gift from His side. We, the parents have been nominated by God to prepare this child to become a man or a woman of tomorrow. We are given this work and God desires that the parents should function as God for the child and they must take care of the child to the full. It is the duty of the parents to look after the child. They shall be bringing up the child, they shall be giving him all traditions, they shall be giving him the religion to which this child belong, they shall give to the child the caste to which this child belong and at the same time the parents shall have to see that the child is given proper discipline of the family, of the society to which he belongs and they shall give him proper education, proper training and they shall bee that he is adjusted at a work from which he shall be drawing proper income with which the man of tomorrow shall be running the family administration. They must be cautious that the child is being trained for the work in which he shall be adjusted after completing the training and he shall not be in those lists where there are a number of people sitting idle and waiting for employment. The man is having a short life, therefore, the waiting period should be less and it could be done only if t he parents know which are the professions, trades, callings and employments where there are surplus people and which are the lines in which workers are in short supply. If need be, the parents should provide vocational guidance to the child.
The parents should limit their children so that they could see that the children are given proper help. If the income of the parents is on lower side, they should utilize family planning rules and must see that they have got limited number of children. The cost of preparing a child is on the higher side and therefore, each family must have a limited number of children. If they fail in raising this child in a proper manner, then they shall be repenting in old age because these children of today shall be bringing for them bad news and the people shall start criticizing the parents who had provided to the society such bad children. We do not need drunkards, drug addicts, criminals, people who commit sins and misconducts. We need people who are serving the people and are not creating any problems for the family and the people around them. Therefore, the duty of the parents is hard and they must be cautious at all the times till they are alive. The people who give proper people to the society around them are happy in old age, but the people who created criminals, drug addicts, opium eaters, drunkards for the society shall not feel peace and they shall be getting adverse remarks from the people around them.
In countries like India, the parents are not in a position to provide all these facilities to their children and even the state has got no resources to look after these children. That is the reason, we note that most of the youths are idle and are not getting proper jobs. They are fit for general vacancies which are short in number and that is the reason most of them turn drug addicts, criminals, drunkards, opium eaters, could be engaged as terrorists and could be deployed in riots. The parents in India have failed. The government of India has failed. That is the reason, there are unemployed people, there are beggars, there are people who have turned terrorists, there are people who are ready to indulge in riots, who could be deployed to kill people against money. When we are talking that we shall be in line with the developed countries by 2020 A.D., we do not know what shall be the methods with which we shall be able to root out all these problems attached with the youths of today. The parents and the state must join together and concentrate on the children of today so that we could be able to construct a good social life and a good society within the next twenty five years. If we go with the present speed, we should not reach any target.
Article Source: http://marketing.article24h.com/category/life-style.html
Author: Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate
The parents should limit their children so that they could see that the children are given proper help. If the income of the parents is on lower side, they should utilize family planning rules and must see that they have got limited number of children. The cost of preparing a child is on the higher side and therefore, each family must have a limited number of children. If they fail in raising this child in a proper manner, then they shall be repenting in old age because these children of today shall be bringing for them bad news and the people shall start criticizing the parents who had provided to the society such bad children. We do not need drunkards, drug addicts, criminals, people who commit sins and misconducts. We need people who are serving the people and are not creating any problems for the family and the people around them. Therefore, the duty of the parents is hard and they must be cautious at all the times till they are alive. The people who give proper people to the society around them are happy in old age, but the people who created criminals, drug addicts, opium eaters, drunkards for the society shall not feel peace and they shall be getting adverse remarks from the people around them.
In countries like India, the parents are not in a position to provide all these facilities to their children and even the state has got no resources to look after these children. That is the reason, we note that most of the youths are idle and are not getting proper jobs. They are fit for general vacancies which are short in number and that is the reason most of them turn drug addicts, criminals, drunkards, opium eaters, could be engaged as terrorists and could be deployed in riots. The parents in India have failed. The government of India has failed. That is the reason, there are unemployed people, there are beggars, there are people who have turned terrorists, there are people who are ready to indulge in riots, who could be deployed to kill people against money. When we are talking that we shall be in line with the developed countries by 2020 A.D., we do not know what shall be the methods with which we shall be able to root out all these problems attached with the youths of today. The parents and the state must join together and concentrate on the children of today so that we could be able to construct a good social life and a good society within the next twenty five years. If we go with the present speed, we should not reach any target.
Article Source: http://marketing.article24h.com/category/life-style.html
Author: Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Philosophy and Religious thoughts: in Islam, Judaism and Christianity - Part One
The Jewish Philosophical and theological world was closely linked to the Arabian intellectual tradition. The writings of Jewish authors were originally written in Arabic. Many, later translated to Hebrew and Latin. Beginning with Arabs and Jews philosophers who lived in an Islamic land, namely, Andalusia (Spain) for a long time, the intellect were educated in Arabic language. I studies Muslim, Jewish and Christian philosophers, for example in Islam I was fond of al-Kindi, al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rush (Averroes), In Judaism, Moses Maimonides, and Saadiah Gaon, and in Christianity, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Because I believed that the best human state is to be a philosopher, because wise men of the world are philosophers. They dealt with every question through reason until proved true. For them, reasons of things are gathered from things around them. In the early years of my studies at the university I was fond of studying theories and their application. When philosophy pumped up in my mind one day, I was in a group discussing the relation between the two R’s (reason and revelation).
From Aristotle (384-322 B.C) to Al-Razi (865 – 925), and Saadiah Gaon, or Saadiah bin Joseph (882-942), the Jewish philosopher, who wrote in Arabic in the 10th century, to Ibn Sina-Avecinna (980-1037) to Ibn Bajjah-Avempace (1090-1139), who was the first Muslim philosopher in Spain, who paved the way for both Jewish and Muslim philosophers, namely, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 1126-1198, and Maimonides (1138-1204) in logic and Mathematics.
On the Christian side, the Latin translation of James of Venice in the 12th century and especially those of William of Moerbeke (1215-1285) at Paris proves fundamental to Christian assimilation of philosophy, these translations were used later by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
On the Jewish side, Maimonides in the 12th century, born in Cordova was educated in philosophy by Arab Teachers, he sought to reconcile Aristotleism and Judaism in his “Guide of Perplexity” to help those who are perplexed with conflicts between knowledge and the center of Jewish revelation.
Maimonides translated Averroes’s commentaries from Arabic to Hebrew, then later translated to Latin, Where it became available for Europe philosophers.
Geronides or Levi bin Gershom in the 14th century, his “Super Commentaries” on Averroes was famous, he was an Aristotelian more than Aristotle himself, For many analysts, his book became the primary source.
The line of Jewish philosophy continued with Joseph Caspi, Moses of Norbonne, Judah Messer Leon and Elijah de Medigo in the 15th century,
Jews and Muslim philosophers in that period fought parallel battles concerning the study of philosophy especially in the subject of the two R’s. Moses Maimonides in his “treatise on Logic” referred the debate between superiority of logic over grammar, portraying logic as universal grammar and distinguishing between generally accepted religious opinions, traditions and universally as necessary valid ones.
Al-Ghazali (1059-1111) can be viewed as anti-philosophical, but in fact, he was not opposed to philosophy per say, but rather challenged the philosophical approaches of those who in uncritical way accepted too readily certain Greek philosophical positions. For example, Aristotelian theses concerning the natural world by affirming that God knows only universals, not particulars, and maintaining that the world and soul are eternal.
Saadiah GAON, (882-942) the 10 century Egyptian expert in Jewish Law, Hebrew grammar and the translator from Arabic and commentator on biblical books, introduced dialectical theology into the medieval Jewish community, but the challenges faced the Jews in that period, were from both internal and external forces, From within was the perplexity due to the Karaites, (from Qar’a, read) Jews who rejected the authority of the oral rabbinical tradition, and considered the role of rational judgment of religion. The external, however were coming from both Muslims and Christians and Plutonian circles. His book “Doctrines of Beliefs” to enhance Jewish belief. He provided “Attributes of God” like Muslims who made “the 99 Best God’s names” Both al-Ghazali and Saadiah denunciated the Christian Trinity, and defended the four Aristotelian arguments about: Creation-nihilo, but opposed Aristotle’s theory of eternity of the world. For him, philosophy became a necessary instrument in facing these perplexities. The main conflict between philosophy and theology in Islam was similar to the Jewish experience in terms of the two Rs and reached their highest intensity when philosophy, is taken in its strictest sense, referring to the Platonic Philosophy in the earlier medieval conflicts, that led to the philosophy of Aristotle when his non-logical works become translated into Arabic and Latin.
Al-Kindi,(d. 870) earlier, however, a Muslim philosopher, began at Baghdad, where the translations of Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” and “On the Heavens” made and became available other philosophers east and west.
About The Author-- Hasan Yahya is an Arab American scholar, an Expert Writer and Poet. Graduated from Michigan State University with two Ph.D degrees. He published 20 plus books and 180 plus articles on sociology, psychology, politics, poetry, IQ Test Measurement, short stories and on Arab & Islamic Ethics in both Arabic and English. His articles may be found on articlesbase.com, Shelfari, Face-book and other internet sites. Dr. Yahya resides in Michigan, USA. His best-selling book is: 28 short Arabic Stories, in Arabic Language, 2008, and Personality and Stress Management, 2009, on amazon.
From Aristotle (384-322 B.C) to Al-Razi (865 – 925), and Saadiah Gaon, or Saadiah bin Joseph (882-942), the Jewish philosopher, who wrote in Arabic in the 10th century, to Ibn Sina-Avecinna (980-1037) to Ibn Bajjah-Avempace (1090-1139), who was the first Muslim philosopher in Spain, who paved the way for both Jewish and Muslim philosophers, namely, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 1126-1198, and Maimonides (1138-1204) in logic and Mathematics.
On the Christian side, the Latin translation of James of Venice in the 12th century and especially those of William of Moerbeke (1215-1285) at Paris proves fundamental to Christian assimilation of philosophy, these translations were used later by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
On the Jewish side, Maimonides in the 12th century, born in Cordova was educated in philosophy by Arab Teachers, he sought to reconcile Aristotleism and Judaism in his “Guide of Perplexity” to help those who are perplexed with conflicts between knowledge and the center of Jewish revelation.
Maimonides translated Averroes’s commentaries from Arabic to Hebrew, then later translated to Latin, Where it became available for Europe philosophers.
Geronides or Levi bin Gershom in the 14th century, his “Super Commentaries” on Averroes was famous, he was an Aristotelian more than Aristotle himself, For many analysts, his book became the primary source.
The line of Jewish philosophy continued with Joseph Caspi, Moses of Norbonne, Judah Messer Leon and Elijah de Medigo in the 15th century,
Jews and Muslim philosophers in that period fought parallel battles concerning the study of philosophy especially in the subject of the two R’s. Moses Maimonides in his “treatise on Logic” referred the debate between superiority of logic over grammar, portraying logic as universal grammar and distinguishing between generally accepted religious opinions, traditions and universally as necessary valid ones.
Al-Ghazali (1059-1111) can be viewed as anti-philosophical, but in fact, he was not opposed to philosophy per say, but rather challenged the philosophical approaches of those who in uncritical way accepted too readily certain Greek philosophical positions. For example, Aristotelian theses concerning the natural world by affirming that God knows only universals, not particulars, and maintaining that the world and soul are eternal.
Saadiah GAON, (882-942) the 10 century Egyptian expert in Jewish Law, Hebrew grammar and the translator from Arabic and commentator on biblical books, introduced dialectical theology into the medieval Jewish community, but the challenges faced the Jews in that period, were from both internal and external forces, From within was the perplexity due to the Karaites, (from Qar’a, read) Jews who rejected the authority of the oral rabbinical tradition, and considered the role of rational judgment of religion. The external, however were coming from both Muslims and Christians and Plutonian circles. His book “Doctrines of Beliefs” to enhance Jewish belief. He provided “Attributes of God” like Muslims who made “the 99 Best God’s names” Both al-Ghazali and Saadiah denunciated the Christian Trinity, and defended the four Aristotelian arguments about: Creation-nihilo, but opposed Aristotle’s theory of eternity of the world. For him, philosophy became a necessary instrument in facing these perplexities. The main conflict between philosophy and theology in Islam was similar to the Jewish experience in terms of the two Rs and reached their highest intensity when philosophy, is taken in its strictest sense, referring to the Platonic Philosophy in the earlier medieval conflicts, that led to the philosophy of Aristotle when his non-logical works become translated into Arabic and Latin.
Al-Kindi,(d. 870) earlier, however, a Muslim philosopher, began at Baghdad, where the translations of Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” and “On the Heavens” made and became available other philosophers east and west.
About The Author-- Hasan Yahya is an Arab American scholar, an Expert Writer and Poet. Graduated from Michigan State University with two Ph.D degrees. He published 20 plus books and 180 plus articles on sociology, psychology, politics, poetry, IQ Test Measurement, short stories and on Arab & Islamic Ethics in both Arabic and English. His articles may be found on articlesbase.com, Shelfari, Face-book and other internet sites. Dr. Yahya resides in Michigan, USA. His best-selling book is: 28 short Arabic Stories, in Arabic Language, 2008, and Personality and Stress Management, 2009, on amazon.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Reading the Signs Life Gives Us
To look is one thing.
To see what you look at is another.
To understand what you see is a third.
To learn from what you understand is still something else.
But to act on what you learn is all that really matters!
- Native American Wisdom
Your spirit has great plans for you this lifetime! Want to know what they are? Our souls are enjoying a fun adventure, while most egos are enduring a frustrating nightmare. Our souls are creating exactly what they dream. Most personalities fall short in satisfying their desires. The vibrant success of the soul is little known only because most of us aren’t taught how to connect with the exciting scenario of the soul.
Spirit Rules!
The soul is in charge of our lives! Our souls have been running the show from behind the scenes since the beginning of time. And you can easily tap into your soul’s point of view and find out what your soul’s been up to since the moment you were born.
The most direct route the soul takes to connect with us is by speaking with a silent inner voice or urging. It tries to reach us through intuition. But often we don't, or can't, receive this direct inner communication. Spirit then resorts to using our outer world to get our attention to deliver its guidance. The ever-inventive soul tries to get through to us by way of noticeable, distinctive, strategically-timed signs in the form of events in our daily life.
Constant Guidance
Reading outer signs is a way to intuitively and gracefully open your personality to the wonders, wisdom, support and guidance of your own brilliant soul plan. Our soul is always trying to guide us. Spirit uses these outer signposts to steer us toward our goals. We live in an interactive, responsive Universe that is designed to fulfill our deepest dreams—if we would only play along!
The Deck is Stacked in Our Favor
There is a science, as well as an art, to reading signs and signals. Our beliefs and intentions go out from us and have an impact not only on other people, but also on what happens to us.
Signs and synchronicity are pure physics. All outer signs are a mirror reflection of our inner consciousness. The quantum mechanics of meaningful coincidences is constantly working for us. Our magnetic field of energy is always attracting exactly what we need to create our hearts’ desires. We’re destined to enjoy an abundant life—and the Universe is designed to help us find it.
You can successfully navigate through the myriad of your life choices by using the precise guidance system that the outer world constantly presents. You can increase the number of fulfilling life opportunities by increasing the accuracy of your interpretations of signs. And you can open the door to more magic, meaning and money in your world by learning to suspend skepticism and conditioned responses.
All our emotions and dreams are encoded messages from Spirit. The soul also talks to us through inner and outer coded symbols, sounds and unusual lights, or intermediaries like angels and spirit guides. Often the soul has to resort to dramatic, external events to grab our attention, like body symptoms or car and computer trouble. When has your soul had to resort to strong medicine to get your attention? (for example, sickness, accident, divorce)
Cloaked in Mystery
The traditional path of outer sign reading is one of mystery and mysticism. It has been an intrigue full of secrecy and sacred rites. But this ancient divining path can also be walked with practical feet! The mystical approach once simplified and clarified, can be a very easy, dynamic, productive and rewarding way to live your everyday life—and to create the realities you want for your enjoyment and growth.
Reconnect with an Ancient Approach to Life
For thousands of years human civilization has used the outer world for guidance. Only in the last few hundred years have we lost touch with this ancient and effective way to follow the divine destiny of our lives. The successful civilizations of Babylon, Egypt and Greece followed oracles who divined omens and messages from beyond. Even up to the time of Shakespeare, folks were guided by reading the signs of the outer world. The Bard’s plays are full of references to omens and signs.
You can employ this ancient approach to create miracles in your everyday modern world—and attract abundance in your bank account, vitality in your body and satisfaction in your bedroom. Reading signs is a very practical ways to make room in your personal Universe for daily magic.
A Helpful Early Warning System
Life offers us a practical Early Warning System—if we pay attention! Life gives us messages. When we fail to get the message, life gives us a lesson. If we don’t learn the lesson, life gives us a problem. If we don’t deal with the problem, life gives us a crisis. If we don’t handle the crisis, life quits giving!
What early warning signals from your universe have you been disregarding?
Action Means You Got the Message
In many Native American languages, the word for “getting the message” is the same word used for “my life has changed.” In other words, in their culture, if you don’t act on the guiding signs presented by the Great Spirit, you didn’t really get the message. If you don’t make the necessary changes in your behavior and attitude to alter the course of your destiny, you never really understood the true import of the message.
Being in intimate touch with the ebb and flow of the interconnectedness of life, indigenous peoples recognize life’s outer signals as useful Early Warning Signs. These outer signs are reflecting the inevitable outer course of our inner river of consciousness. Native peoples know the only way to have their life unfold harmoniously is to respond immediately to the accurate feedback life gives them. For indigenous people, there is no middle ground as there is for most modern, intellectual Westerners.
Modern folks often respond differently to divine assistance. Instead of responding immediately as would native peoples, contemporary Americans typically “think” about the signs being given by Spirit. Even after recognizing the wisdom of the message, most people still don’t make the indicated changes in their life. In allowing the thinking mind to enter into the equation, we invite misinterpretation, discounting, invalidation and even denial of the message. And most often, the result of this mental intervention is inaction. We always have our “good reasons” not to make the changes suggested by Spirit!
The Road to Magic
I happened upon this invaluable, built-in divination system in my youth. I found when I acted from the outer signals Spirit sent me, my life unfolded in wondrous and magical ways. And I noticed that when I hesitated and questioned my external guidance, I often ended up not taking the suggested actions, which usually led to unfavorable and even disastrous outcomes.
After years of painful personal experimentation with ignoring and denying the Early Warning Signs life constantly gives me, I now heed Spirit’s messages—without hesitation or analysis!
Article Source: http://marketing.article24h.com/category/life-style.html
Author: Keith Varnum
Drawing from the wisdom of native and ancient spiritual traditions, Keith Varnum shares his 30 years of practical success as an author, personal coach, acupuncturist, filmmaker, radio host, restaurateur, vision quest guide and international seminar leader with “The Dream Workshops”. Keith helps people get the love, money, and health they want with his F-r-e-e Prosperity Ezine, F-r-e-e Abundance Tape and F-r-e-e Coaching at http://www.TheDream.com
To see what you look at is another.
To understand what you see is a third.
To learn from what you understand is still something else.
But to act on what you learn is all that really matters!
- Native American Wisdom
Your spirit has great plans for you this lifetime! Want to know what they are? Our souls are enjoying a fun adventure, while most egos are enduring a frustrating nightmare. Our souls are creating exactly what they dream. Most personalities fall short in satisfying their desires. The vibrant success of the soul is little known only because most of us aren’t taught how to connect with the exciting scenario of the soul.
Spirit Rules!
The soul is in charge of our lives! Our souls have been running the show from behind the scenes since the beginning of time. And you can easily tap into your soul’s point of view and find out what your soul’s been up to since the moment you were born.
The most direct route the soul takes to connect with us is by speaking with a silent inner voice or urging. It tries to reach us through intuition. But often we don't, or can't, receive this direct inner communication. Spirit then resorts to using our outer world to get our attention to deliver its guidance. The ever-inventive soul tries to get through to us by way of noticeable, distinctive, strategically-timed signs in the form of events in our daily life.
Constant Guidance
Reading outer signs is a way to intuitively and gracefully open your personality to the wonders, wisdom, support and guidance of your own brilliant soul plan. Our soul is always trying to guide us. Spirit uses these outer signposts to steer us toward our goals. We live in an interactive, responsive Universe that is designed to fulfill our deepest dreams—if we would only play along!
The Deck is Stacked in Our Favor
There is a science, as well as an art, to reading signs and signals. Our beliefs and intentions go out from us and have an impact not only on other people, but also on what happens to us.
Signs and synchronicity are pure physics. All outer signs are a mirror reflection of our inner consciousness. The quantum mechanics of meaningful coincidences is constantly working for us. Our magnetic field of energy is always attracting exactly what we need to create our hearts’ desires. We’re destined to enjoy an abundant life—and the Universe is designed to help us find it.
You can successfully navigate through the myriad of your life choices by using the precise guidance system that the outer world constantly presents. You can increase the number of fulfilling life opportunities by increasing the accuracy of your interpretations of signs. And you can open the door to more magic, meaning and money in your world by learning to suspend skepticism and conditioned responses.
All our emotions and dreams are encoded messages from Spirit. The soul also talks to us through inner and outer coded symbols, sounds and unusual lights, or intermediaries like angels and spirit guides. Often the soul has to resort to dramatic, external events to grab our attention, like body symptoms or car and computer trouble. When has your soul had to resort to strong medicine to get your attention? (for example, sickness, accident, divorce)
Cloaked in Mystery
The traditional path of outer sign reading is one of mystery and mysticism. It has been an intrigue full of secrecy and sacred rites. But this ancient divining path can also be walked with practical feet! The mystical approach once simplified and clarified, can be a very easy, dynamic, productive and rewarding way to live your everyday life—and to create the realities you want for your enjoyment and growth.
Reconnect with an Ancient Approach to Life
For thousands of years human civilization has used the outer world for guidance. Only in the last few hundred years have we lost touch with this ancient and effective way to follow the divine destiny of our lives. The successful civilizations of Babylon, Egypt and Greece followed oracles who divined omens and messages from beyond. Even up to the time of Shakespeare, folks were guided by reading the signs of the outer world. The Bard’s plays are full of references to omens and signs.
You can employ this ancient approach to create miracles in your everyday modern world—and attract abundance in your bank account, vitality in your body and satisfaction in your bedroom. Reading signs is a very practical ways to make room in your personal Universe for daily magic.
A Helpful Early Warning System
Life offers us a practical Early Warning System—if we pay attention! Life gives us messages. When we fail to get the message, life gives us a lesson. If we don’t learn the lesson, life gives us a problem. If we don’t deal with the problem, life gives us a crisis. If we don’t handle the crisis, life quits giving!
What early warning signals from your universe have you been disregarding?
Action Means You Got the Message
In many Native American languages, the word for “getting the message” is the same word used for “my life has changed.” In other words, in their culture, if you don’t act on the guiding signs presented by the Great Spirit, you didn’t really get the message. If you don’t make the necessary changes in your behavior and attitude to alter the course of your destiny, you never really understood the true import of the message.
Being in intimate touch with the ebb and flow of the interconnectedness of life, indigenous peoples recognize life’s outer signals as useful Early Warning Signs. These outer signs are reflecting the inevitable outer course of our inner river of consciousness. Native peoples know the only way to have their life unfold harmoniously is to respond immediately to the accurate feedback life gives them. For indigenous people, there is no middle ground as there is for most modern, intellectual Westerners.
Modern folks often respond differently to divine assistance. Instead of responding immediately as would native peoples, contemporary Americans typically “think” about the signs being given by Spirit. Even after recognizing the wisdom of the message, most people still don’t make the indicated changes in their life. In allowing the thinking mind to enter into the equation, we invite misinterpretation, discounting, invalidation and even denial of the message. And most often, the result of this mental intervention is inaction. We always have our “good reasons” not to make the changes suggested by Spirit!
The Road to Magic
I happened upon this invaluable, built-in divination system in my youth. I found when I acted from the outer signals Spirit sent me, my life unfolded in wondrous and magical ways. And I noticed that when I hesitated and questioned my external guidance, I often ended up not taking the suggested actions, which usually led to unfavorable and even disastrous outcomes.
After years of painful personal experimentation with ignoring and denying the Early Warning Signs life constantly gives me, I now heed Spirit’s messages—without hesitation or analysis!
Article Source: http://marketing.article24h.com/category/life-style.html
Author: Keith Varnum
Drawing from the wisdom of native and ancient spiritual traditions, Keith Varnum shares his 30 years of practical success as an author, personal coach, acupuncturist, filmmaker, radio host, restaurateur, vision quest guide and international seminar leader with “The Dream Workshops”. Keith helps people get the love, money, and health they want with his F-r-e-e Prosperity Ezine, F-r-e-e Abundance Tape and F-r-e-e Coaching at http://www.TheDream.com
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Awakened To The Connection!
Sadly, Judaism has God throwing Adam and Eve out of the allegorical garden, and Christianity continued the illusion of separation, while keeping the original sin curse for mankind to deal with in some perverse fashion. We are on an ever increasing journey to re-connecting to that which I AM and that we ARE.
We are ALL connected to one another. There is no us and them, no we and they, just US! ONE!
Most religions don't want to share any power or authority with anyone but their own. Islam and Christianity particularly (the two biggest religions of course) feel that ONLY THEY have the WAY, only THEY know the truth. Such BS, such arrogance, and such destruction to us all. We are connected to that Center, the light within, and the Light from without that has no beginning, nor end.
May we forget trying to get patent rights on the Source, the Spirit, the One!
May we awaken to the universal consciousness and realize there every major religion has some piece of the puzzle regardless of the language or words that are used. Buddhist mystics called it the Unborn, mystic Padmasambhava described it as Absolute Awareness, Hindu mystic Shankara referred to it as Brahman, and Jesus in his Christ Consciousness addressed it as Father, heaven, light, or One to mention a few. Scientists describe God as the Central Point, torsion field, Zero Point Field, or the Matrix.
Walls are coming down and no one religion or denomination can stop the pulse!
Baptists can kick out churches for accepting homosexuals, but they'll continue to diminish. Mega churches can continue to offer programs that compete with what they call the "world"; however, LARGE is no longer IN. Radical Muslims can kill infidels, Catholics can ex-communicate whomever they want, but the games are over. The ONENESS and the awakening to our CONNECTIVITY to ALL cannot be stopped. It's the plan of the Grand Designer.
It's easier to go with the flow than kick against the pricks!
About the Author:
Ernie Fitzpatrick
As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.
We are ALL connected to one another. There is no us and them, no we and they, just US! ONE!
Most religions don't want to share any power or authority with anyone but their own. Islam and Christianity particularly (the two biggest religions of course) feel that ONLY THEY have the WAY, only THEY know the truth. Such BS, such arrogance, and such destruction to us all. We are connected to that Center, the light within, and the Light from without that has no beginning, nor end.
May we forget trying to get patent rights on the Source, the Spirit, the One!
May we awaken to the universal consciousness and realize there every major religion has some piece of the puzzle regardless of the language or words that are used. Buddhist mystics called it the Unborn, mystic Padmasambhava described it as Absolute Awareness, Hindu mystic Shankara referred to it as Brahman, and Jesus in his Christ Consciousness addressed it as Father, heaven, light, or One to mention a few. Scientists describe God as the Central Point, torsion field, Zero Point Field, or the Matrix.
Walls are coming down and no one religion or denomination can stop the pulse!
Baptists can kick out churches for accepting homosexuals, but they'll continue to diminish. Mega churches can continue to offer programs that compete with what they call the "world"; however, LARGE is no longer IN. Radical Muslims can kill infidels, Catholics can ex-communicate whomever they want, but the games are over. The ONENESS and the awakening to our CONNECTIVITY to ALL cannot be stopped. It's the plan of the Grand Designer.
It's easier to go with the flow than kick against the pricks!
About the Author:
Ernie Fitzpatrick
As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.
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