From the interview above…

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

I thought that part was not necessary. It’s like giving the Muslims the opportunity to say that they’ve ALL been labelled as “ignorants”. And therefore disregard the whole interview as America propaganda.

Or maybe it’s just me….Walking on eggshells wearing white gloves.

Rob, keep it up and you’ll be fined three on-topic posts. You have been warned.

Rob, keep it up and you’ll be fined three on-topic posts. You have been warned.

(sternly buttoning my mao-shirt…)
I denounce you for the running-dog Topic Fundamentalist you are !

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Honestly, i’ve seen more interesting conversations killed by T&G Fundies, too many.  They are a serious problem in many forums, unfortunately.  In contrast, on technical forums (which are more resource than diversion) off-topic should be avoided. I, like many, enjoy the normal, natural flow of human conversations, not stagnated by such bizarre ideas as shreeked by the T&G Fundies lurking in our midst.

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In an attempt to appease and calm the now marching T&G Fundies, let me now submit a piece i started last evening, well before they started their recent shreekings:

While i sympathise with Wafa’s sentiments, she (as i mentioned earlier) is a little too resolute and sweeping in her support of Christians and Jews, never mind her condemnation of wider Islam.  In fact, she seems more emotionally reactionary to her own oppression than reasoned.  The holes in her arguements do not server her cause well.  They overshadow her truth.

[] Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc. have all had eras akin to what we’re now seeing in Islam. Some still do.  (BJP anyone?  Aryan Nation?  Khanist?) In fact, it could be argued it’s a common, expected *transformative* process of most ideologies, and a continuous cancer that needs constant address.

[] When this or that ideology is pushed to a philosophical extreme it often causes a fissure in the greater school—and a reformation.  Many Islami intellectuals believe this is just what is happening within the umma today, in nascent form.

[] Many of those tenents and practices that Westerners take exception to within Islam are hardly Koranic, and more to do with tribal customs and (slowly dying) elders shreekings for norms to be maintained.  (We all have our shreekers)

[] While there certainly do exist verses and even early commentaries that provide justification to these oft considered immoral practices (e.g., honor killings), the same type of shit can be found in the writings of that Jews and Christians hold uniquely sacred.  Islam isn’t exactly alone in this regard, which Wafa convienantly (and vigorously) ignores.

If she’s trying to convince the liberal-minded followers of Islam that there needs to be core changes to the umma’s culture, she severely negates this by these numerous and (too) convienant ommissions of history—never mind every day obersvations.

That’s a real shame.

Case in point:

NAZARETH, Israel—Three Jewish attackers disguised as pilgrims began throwing firecrackers inside one of Christianity’s holiest sites Friday, police said, sparking a riot in this biblical town in northern Israel.
..
The attackers remained barricaded in the church in the Israeli-Arab town late Friday, as several thousand angry protesters blocked police from entering.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Israel_Church_Attack.html

Question: Does religion more closely resemble a virus or an allergen?

Both viruses and allergens can make you sick, but allergens are not contagious.

Both viruses and allergens can make you sick, but allergens are not contagious.

Yes, but is religion contagious or do people succumb to an allergen that pervades the environment? Then again, people get better once an allergen is removed from their environment.

Maybe it isn’t an allergen, but a carcinogen.

In my book God-101 I talk about “Memes” (contagions of the mind)
Among some Psychologists and nearly all Sociologists in the last few decades, a new phrase has come into use that describes a “belief system�? which contains within itself the instructions for its own self-propagation.  This belief system we will call a replicator!
In The Selfish Gene-Viruses of the Mind (1976) Richard Dawkins put forth the proposition that just as biological evolution can be studied at various levels - so cultural evolution can also be broken down and studied in its most basic forms.  He argues that the clearest way to think about any form of evolution would be to work from the point of view of its smallest replicating entities.  In the case of genetics, it is the gene. 
By analogy, studies of cultural evolution in Darwinian terms can best be looked at by examining the smallest replicating units in a culture.  In this case, they are units, or ideas, that we call “Memes.�? 
Examples of these “Memes�? are popular tunes, catch phrases, fashion, and ways of making certain objects or cultural norms that are practiced by everyone.
Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so Memes propagate themselves in the Meme-pool by leaping from mind to mind by imitation.  In addition, this imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!  A perfect example of a self-replicating Meme is a catch phrase from a T.V. commercial for a hamburger that you might remember!
“Where’s the beef!�?

Since I missed the thread drift when it hit, I’ll bring it back.

Smile!

rob adams:
This bizarre habit of excessive adoration is an aberation of modern human civilization.  And, as we progress and embrace reason (and abandon emotion-based thinking), our clothing shall reflect this evolution of culture and ideals.
...
Future generations will look at your lives with utter awe, and severe, furious disdain.  Your children’s children wont have much respect for us.  They’ll see fat, bloated lifestyles, where frugality was not only shunned, but debased.
...
When that time arrives your children will look back upon our collective history and’ll understand our ancient ancestors’ frugality——and their cold, calculated, sterile-like worldview.  And they’ll look at us with even more, academically researched disdain.
...
Human civilization, under resource-strain, shall be forced to mature, and your children’s children shall look at your fancy-burlap-bling-obessesion with complete incomprehension, and some with hate.

All the talking about sameness brought that flash to mind and because I have to study Nietzsche’s Last Man for a paper I need to write my mind is also on this particular passage:

When Zarathustra had spoken these words, he again looked at the people, and was silent. “There they stand,“ said he to his heart; “there they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears.

Must one first batter their ears, that they may learn to hear with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and penitential preachers? Or do they only believe the stammerer?

They have something of which they are proud. What do they call it, that which makes them proud? Culture, they call it; it distinguishes them from the goatherds.

They dislike, therefore, to hear of ‘contempt’ of themselves. So I will appeal to their pride.

I will speak to them of the most contemptible thing: that, however, is the last man!“

And thus spoke Zarathustra to the people:

It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope.

His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow there.

Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man- and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whiz!

I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves.

Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.

Lo! I show you the last man.

“What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?“- so asks the last man, and blinks.

The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.

“We have discovered happiness”- say the last men, and they blink.

They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs against him; for one needs warmth.

Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or men!

A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end for a pleasant death.

One still works, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.

One no longer becomes poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too burdensome.

No shepherd, and one herd! Everyone wants the same; everyone is the same: he who has other sentiments goes voluntarily into the madhouse.

“Formerly all the world was insane,“- say the subtlest of them, and they blink.

They are clever and know all that has happened: so there is no end to their derision. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled- otherwise it upsets their stomachs.

They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health.

“We have discovered happiness,“- say the last men, and they blink-

And here ended the first discourse of Zarathustra, which is also called “The Prologue”, for at this point the shouting and mirth of the multitude interrupted him. “Give us this last man, O Zarathustra,“- they called out- “make us into these last men! Then will we make you a gift of the Superman!“ And all the people exulted and smacked their lips. Zarathustra, however, turned sad, and said to his heart:

“They do not understand me: I am not the mouth for these ears.

Perhaps I have lived too long in the mountains; I have hearkened too much to the brooks and trees: now I speak to them as to the goatherds.

Adaptation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche translated by Thomas Common
Source: http://www.luminary.us/nz/zarathustra.html#A0

Who cares if future generations look back on us with contempt through the glasses of “academically researched disdain?“  They have become the last man if they do that.  If they must disdain us they must do it frothing at the mouth before I care.  If your “prophecy” comes true my grandchildren won’t be able to look at my generation with hate, just a vague unpleasant emotion until they “blink.“  I agree with DOF.  More tolerance not less expression.

Who cares if future generations look back on us with contempt through the glasses of “academically researched disdain?�?

What’s being referred to here on Rob’s part is not that he particularly gives a damn about what someone says about him long after he’s dead (although he may or may not), but that there’s a reality of efficiency that the future generations will see that we are forgetting. It’s not about what they say about us, it’s about what we’re doing. As I’ve indicated, though, much of what we “need” is propogated by culture. My parents and I, for instance, live totally different lifestyles in terms of consumption. Perhaps they had motivations to consume like they did, but I don’t. I get by fine with far less of the many things that they wouldn’t do without.

There’s a reason why i referenced the attitude of our grandchildren and other future generations.  It’s not because they’ll have a more accurate understanding of the consequences of our contemporary, wasteful culture, nor because they’ll, generally, be a more calm, rational and reasoned species than ourselves.  If past generations could, somehow, see how we live today, i would have felt just as obliged to mention their attitudes, too.  Alas, when i peered into my nietzsche-esque crystal ball, voices from the past didn’t speak to me, only ahead. ;-]

Maybe the past can, in a way…
I would often see my grandparents exhibiting, what i thought, we extreme, almost maniacal acts of frugality.  I’d see them do weird things like washing and saving plastic sandwich bags, saran-wrap, and aluminum foil, and them till they, quite literally, fell-apart.  When i would see these habits i immediately chalked it up “This is the infamous Perkins Puritan frugality my mother would often warn me about.“

Then, years later, i had the obligation to live and work with someone in his early 80’s (yes, he was still working, and like some mad ox).  After our first evening meal together i, immediately, noticed him washing some plastic wrap and, setting it out to dry.  I was wrong about my grandparents.  I asked him about this.  He replied, as if he had dealt with such questions before, “I’m not shy of a little work if it will save me a lot over time.“  (and that wasn’t the last time i heard that from him)

Here’s the point.  Things have not always been like they are now, since, say, the late 1950’s to the present.  We are the oddity.  Indeed, anyone outside this aberrant period (past or future) would hold the same disdain i attributed to our grandchildren.

We are the sick generations.

Religion on the rise = civilization in decline history has taught this to us many times

Need more voices like sister Wafa Sultan to fight these backwards, evils

I have watched this interview in Aljazeeera, tHE SCRIPT THAT YOU SHOWED HERE WAS EDITED TO THE MAX,  I urged everyone to watch the full length of this interview and how easily one can see that wafa sultan is an outright liar and have no background in what she is talking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkU8zA4Yxmk&feature=related