At 03:06 PM 12/23/2012, de Bivort Lawrence wrote:
Abdul-Rahman, many thanks for your posting. I was wondering how you
had become so thoughtful and knowledgeable about Islam.
I accepted Islam in about 1970, and was already widely read about
religion before then. I later became knowledgeable more specifically,
through learning to read the Qur'an in Arabic, and later, through
debate and discussion on Usenet, and I would research each issue. And
I did that over and over..
Muslim chaplain at San Quentin! That must have been fascinating,
given the different strains of Islam that you must have encountered,
to say nothing of the outlier Nation of Islam folks.
Absolutely. I know many former NOI members. The vast majority of them
followed the late son of Elijah Muhammad into mainstream Islam. I was
living in Tucson when that shift happened, and I remember walking
into the NOI temple there. It was still called that, and I may have
been the first "white person" to enter, it seemed like it. They were
very welcoming. I also served, as much as I could, NOI members in San
Quentin. There were very few.
I don't have time to comment on your observations here,
unfortunately as I am working on a couple of deadlines. Just one
item: of the three Middle Eastern monotheistic religions, my
understanding is that only Christianity (with the exception of
Unitarians) fell into the trinity idea in an effort to elevate Jesus
to divine status.
Well, let's not prejudge it with "effort." Debates over the nature of
Jesus raged for centuries, and the following is a reality. I had a
relative by marriage who had been a Jesuit priest, he had the full
training. I asked him what he thought about the nature of Jesus. He
said, "Probably pretty much the same as you." He knew I was Muslim
and he knew what Muslims generally believe. I've encountered this
with many Christians, in fact. They love Jesus. And they love God.
The intellectuals among them may make a distinction, but God does not
necessarily care. That is, what people *actually believe* may be
quite different from the dogma of their church, and, as I mentioned
in another post, the actual Catholic position on the trinty is that
it's a mystery, and any explanation of it is heretical. That's quite
a nifty way to dispose of a serious philosophical problem, I must admire it!
(Not necessarily wrong!)
Muslims hold Jesus one of the most important prophets,
Certainly there is more in the Qur'an about Jesus than about any
other "messenger" or "prophet." However, the Qur'an puts in the mouth
of the wise, "We make no distinction among them."
Whatever floats your boat, in other words.
along with Moses, Abraham, and Muhammad, Muhammad standing out as
the transmitter of the very word of God in the form of the Quran.
Besides this, Muslims view Muhammad as a mere man with no divine status.
That's so. Well, "mere", I don't know. Special, but, in fact, not
quite special like Jesus, about whom the Qur'an says some remarkable
things: Jesus is the word of God put in Mary's womb. The likeness of
Jesus is the likeness of Adam. (Parse that one!)
Does Jojo operate with maliciousness? His aggressive and
anti-collegial style may suggest that but this may be no more than
the choices of someone who truly believes he has been told the truth
and is shaken up upon finding that so many smart, well-informed
people don't "get it." Who knows.... Resorting to insult is what
people do when they can do nothing else.
There may be more reason for empathetic sadness than anger....
I went through all that. In the end, he's responsible for what he
does. I can't change that. I can say that generally, I'm not angry,
but where I do go toward anger, it's where he lies directly about
what has happened on this list. It is, as well, where he defiles the
name of Jesus by claiming to be Christian while practicing what Jesus
so clearly warned against.
(No more original content below).
On Dec 23, 2012, at 12:04 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Thanks to Lawrence. I should mention that my opinons about Islam
are my own. I was internationally known as a writer on Islam well
before 2000. I accepted Islam in 1971, but I wouldn't say that, at
that point, I understood it very well. I was Muslim Chaplain at San
Quentin State Prison, having volunteered there for quite a few
years, but that was only a temporary appointment, while the regular
chaplain was on vacation. While I do know a great deal about the
sources of Islam, and my perspectives on Islam are recognized as of
interest by genuine Muslim scholars, those who deeply know the
source materials, I am not a "Muslim scholar." My expertise on
Islam is relative.
>
> As a writer on Islam, I engaged in on-line debate and discussion,
and becamse a moderator of the Usenet newsgroup soc.religion.islam,
and we welcomed people from all faiths, and atheists or agnostics,
to participate. Gross incivility was not tolerated, but discussion
of such matters as the alleged pedophilia of the Prophet were
on-topic and there were many. I came to know and consider as
personal friends certain well-known Christian apologists, who
actually became knowledgeable about Islam, unlike certain fanatics,
who only know what they hate, which is actually themselves, because
what they hate is what they have invented -- for the most part.
>
> "Islam" is a term that has many levels of meaning, and one of the
meanings is the extant and popular world religion *as it is.* We
can use the term "Christianity" in the same way, and then we have
lots of mud to toss, since people are people. If I were inclined to
attack Christianity (which would be contrary to the Qur'an), I'd
claim that Christianity is particularly vulnerable to abuse,
because, supposedly, Christians believe that *it doesn't matter
what they do, all they have to do is "believe in Jesus" and they
are safe. Never mind that Jesus himself, it's reported in the
Gospel, denied this. You can say the name and still end up rejected
and denied by him.
>
> It's not about names, it's about faith, and a sign of faith would
be light in the heart. I know Christians who have that light. It's
not about what words we use, but what we *are*.
>
> Jojo lies. That's the truth.
>
> Lawrence, you said that Jojo doesn't do what he does maliciously.
Yes, he does, and he's acknowledged that. He's announced his
intentions, clearly. I covered that in prior posts. He might start
with something sincere, but when he perceives a response as
insulting, he is going to *insult back*, and so strongly that it
will *force* others to back off.
>
> What's an "insult." Jojo has insisted that his ravings are not
insults, they are simply the truth. So the truth is not an insult.
Okay, let's accept that for a moment, though we'd have to be careful.
>
> If the truth is not an insult, then, if one is insulting back,
it's not the truth. It's something exaggerated or careless or even
plain wrong, but that one thinks will outrage, it's "fighting
words." It's not the truth, but he claims it is. Another lie. He
actually knows better.
>
> Now, maybe he's truly insane. That's possible. If he's truly
insane, he may not be functioning well eough to distinguish between
truth and falsehood. The truth, here, has been in front of him, and
now I'm talking about easily disciminable truth, like what happened
on this list. The list archive is accessible. It can be reviewed.
But Jojo may know that most people will not check, they will just
believe what they choose to believe.
>
> When I've made claims about Jojo's behavior, I have frequently
backed it up with actual citations, links, evidence. He doesn't do
that. He just repeats claims that are blatantly false. And is
either so blatantly out of control that he cannot keep his
promises, or he liest about his intentions as well.
>
> He does not respond to evidence with evidence, he responds to
evidence by just repeating claims, or making new claims about
evidence, such as his claims that I'm relying on Wikipedia as if it
were reliable. No, I'm relying on Wikipedia to judge notability and
as an independent review of a field. Where an article has many
editors, it can do that.
>
> For example, from the Wikipedia article on cold fusion, we can
tell that many still believe cold fusion is bogus. However, if you
search the Wikipedia article for *recent sources* that show that
this is still a scientific consensus, you won't find them. You will
find old sources, weak sources, and you will also find, if you look
carefully at the article and it's history, you can see that recent
sources from mainstream journals have been largely suppressed. The
cold fusion article is a battleground article. The article on Allah
as Moon-God is not. As such, it may contain material that violates
Wikipedia guidelines, but *not seriously.* The article has received
some level of administrative attention, from an admin who does not
appear to have an axe to grind. There is a banned editor who
contributed to the article, but he was banned for other behavior,
and he was strongly against the Moon-God idea, his edits --
excessively -- debunked it. The creator of the article seems to
have generally favored the idea, but not as a fanatic. He's not
banned, it looks like he simply lost interest.
>
> I pointed to the Wikipedia article because it is a place to find
evidence on the issue, i.e., cited reports. Whatever is in the
article that is not backed with verifiable evidence from "reliable
sources," which can include sources that in a battleground article
would never be allowed, won't last. The neutral editors, who rather
quickly recognize such stuff, will, long-term, take it out.
Wikipedia is easy to find. Trackig down all the sources is not so
easy. Jojo claims that it's easy to find what he claims. He's then
claimed that one must go to a library. That's a contradiction! The
fact is that his sources are obscure, mostly. They aren't on-line,
it is not easy to find them. But there is material in the article
from people who have, indeed, read them.
>
> I'm not necessarily citing sources any more. It's a waste of
time, but if anyone doubts that I'm telling the truth about Jojo's
behavior, ask me. I won't be insulted. I'll respond. Except I
reserve the right not to respond to obvious trolling, as from Jojo
himself, or, say, "Orgasm Wikipedia."
>
> Jojo also writes incoherently. Below, he talks about knowing
"more about Islam" than "many so-called islam experts," and then he
makes it clear that he's not talking about "many experts," because
he narrows it to me, because he's made that "physics expert" claim about me.
>
> I have never claimed to be an expert on physics. There are people
on this list, a significant number, who know more about physics
than I. What I've "claimed" is just the truth. I was present for
the Feynman lectures on physics, and I know the years involved
without looking it up, because those were my freshman and sophomore
years at Caltech, i.e., 1961-1962 and 1962-1963. I did not
graduate, and, specifically, I took no more physics courses. Ever.
I had originally intended to major in nuclear physics, and studied
it from before I was in high school. But my interests shifted, and
ultimately shifted entirely outside of academia. Yet I never forgot
Feynman's approach, and Feynman visited my residence house (Page),
and told us his famous stories. I identified with him then, and
still do, my life has been like his in certain ways.
>
> But I'm not a physicist. I just know some physicists, and I know
enough physics to recognize some BS, but not all. I can read
Hagelstein and understand him. Takahashi, it took me years to
figure out what he's saying so that I could explain it to others,
and he's confirmed that I got it right. That's actually my role in
the field. I'm an interpreter.
>
> Below, Jojo claims this would be his last reply. He lied, as any
who has a list archive can see. (Specifically, he replied re Islam
again, with his post of Sun, 23 Dec 2012 13:51:48 +0800.)
>
> Is Islam a "peaceful religion"? That depends on what one means by
"peaceful." It also depends on what one means by "Islam." Normative
Islam is both peaceful and strong, i.e., "oppression is worse than
killing." Yet, in describing response to aggression, the Qur'an
also says that retaliation is acceptable, but "do not go beyond
limits." The Old Testament rule of lex talonis is repeated by the
Qur'an, but then, again, it's clear that "two eyes for an eye" is
forbidden, that lex talonis is a *protection and a mercy*, i.e., it
is a limit, not a command to retailiate, and the verse goes on to
say that forgiveness is better, but forgiveness with justice (i.e.,
compensation, according to "ma'ruwf," i.e., custom and community
law). In other words, the modern position. The Qur'anic Islam,
then, revealed in a tribal setting -- so tribal law is recognized
and accepted -- foreshadows and anticipates a much broader civil
law, and helped to create that.
>
> However, if "Islam" is the reality of all those who call
themselves "Muslim," it's basically the same as any other religion.
If I judge by the worst of these people, and what they have done,
I'd want to reject it all.
>
> Jojo, I don't doubt, may have done research, but when we do
research looking to find what will confirm what we believe, and if
we believe something fringe, yes, we may have to do serious
research, looking for obscure sources. A real scholar would, in
reporting this research, then cite the sources, knowing that it was
fringe, and would acknowledge that, and explain why it's fringe.
The scholar would do this whether or not the scholar believes the
fringe position. Jojo, to the contrary, claims that "anyone who
researches this will recognize that he's telling the truth." Look
at the first statement below. He "can't convince" if we "don't do
our own research." But that presumes that anyone who researches
what he claims will be convinced, and that must mean that the
sources needed, that would presumably overwhelm *all other
scholarship*, are easy to find. Given how many people believe the
Moon God trope, why aren't those sources available on-line, for
easy citation? Jojo doesn't even give *any* of them. He doesn't
mention the names of authors, nor of works.
>
> That allows him to get away with claiming whatever he wants. And
if one tries to verify it, and comes up empty, he simply claims
that one didn't try hard enough.
>
> Yes, I found "sources." Such as a Christian evangelist
comic-book. That simply states the claims without evidence. Oh,
there are some books you can buy. If you belong to a certain kind
of church, they might have then in the church library. Hey, if you
want to find out the truth about Islam, join a church and read what
they have in their library, and you can be as "informed" as Jojo!
>
> On-line, though, you can find
> http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm
> Bold face from that page: "The reader must know that Islam,
Judaism, and organized Christianity (so-called) all worship a trinity of gods."
> I.e., everyone is astray but us. That's the definition of a sect,
in the Qur'an. (And, yes, any "Muslim" who thinks like that is
sectarian. The Qur'an is a message *to Muslims* and it is not a
collection of arguments to hurl at others, it's a reminder and a
warning, that is exactly how it describes itself.)
>
> http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-moon-god-allah.htm
>
> One of the sources cited on the above page has a page of quotes
cited there. The source is "The Archaeology of World Religions."
The page of quotes is at
http://www.bible.ca/islam/library/islam-quotes-finegan.htm
>
> The claims of the site are not supported by those quotes, except
as material is taken out of context and used to claim what is not
supported there. There is no scholarship here, on the "bible.ca"
page, it's polemic, where alleged fact is strung together to lead
to a desired conclusion, regardless of balance. The encyclopedia
itself, as quoted, seems like a work of scholarship, with what I
can recognize as personal opinion of the author plays only a minor
role. He does speculate in line with his own opinion, but seems
also to be careful to signify this with "it seems," or language
like that, speculating about the *motives* of the Prophet. There is
a lost reference there, "it seems" *to whom*? To him, obviously.
And that might be a shared opinion, but the speculation is also
clearly that of a non-Muslim, who believes that Muhammad made up
the Qur'an for a purpose (a somewhat noble one, by the way, the
scholar is not attacking Islam, merely identifying himself as
non-Muslim in the traditional sense.)
>
> Jojo made a claim about a pilot and copilot who were allegedly
murdered by pilgrims incensed by a flight delay. That story was
told as some kind of alleged evidence as to the violent tendencies
of "Muslims." He gave no specifics, but I searched, and eventually
I found a story that was close enough to his that it might have
been the origin of his claim. But crucial details were quite
different from what he confidently asserted as fact, and those
details make the story completely suspect as to being anything like
what he wants to make uot of it. So I can't be sure that there
isn't some *other* story that would be a closer match. I kept
looking. I didn't find it. Now, I could go to a library, but what
would I look for? This is the kind of search that any present
scholar would do on-line, unless they happen to have access to
certain specific databases.
>
> I cited my result, linking to stories about it. The most
reputable of the sources was the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/15/afghanistan2
>
> I did not find follow-up on this, but if the story in the
Guardian is covering the incident Jojo wrote about (as being "a
true story that you can research also," his facts were severely
distorted, Jojo got the facts radically wrong, in the way that
happens with someone who believes unverified rumors, because they
confirm preconceptions. The pilot and copilot were not killed, nor
even harmed, though the story is not completely clear. The man
killed was an Afghan government minister, and the Guardian reports
government claims that this was not a mob killing, though there may
have been a attempt to make it so, it was (allegedly), a political
assassination. Kabul, Afghanistan, 2002. Messy place. A war going
on. Etc. Early reports claimed that two women had died from
exposure to cold, waiting for a flight for days. That could be the
fog of rumor, but if there really was a mob attack, as such, there
may have been more at stake than a mere ordinary flight delay.
Jojo's story says nothing about Islam (which prohibits "mob
justice"). As I mentioned, fighting of any kind is expressly
prohibited during the pilgrimage, which would include any waiting
at the airport. But this is not a story about Islam, as such, it's
a story about people. Yes, a group of pilgrims might be expected to
have a greater knowledge about Islam than the average Muslim, but
"it ain't necessarily so."
>
> Jojo is not about to make his story verifiable, I strongly
suspect. He is not about to correct his errors, or to point to the
real event, if it's different. No, he's done his work by making the
outrageous claim. He knows that what he's written is not true, but
he does not correct it, because his intenion was not truth, it was
insult. He's trolling. And that is just about all he cares about.
>
> He certainly does not care about reaching Muslims with the truth,
like my Christian friends were. His approach to Muslims would
either leave them bewildered, at his ignorance, or, yes, for a few,
angry. But nobody is going to call for a "fatwa against him,"
suggesting he should be killed for "insulting Islam." Nobody here
has even remotely approached that. I'm, to my knowledge, the only
declared Muslim participating here, and I've not even called for
him to be banned. I've suggested that the list owner might warn
him, that's the extent of it.
>
> Jojo doesn't recognize what's in front of his face, much less
what is out in the world about a subject as complex as Islam, or
anything else that he raves about.
>
>
> At 10:15 PM 12/22/2012, Jojo Jaro wrote:
>> Hey, I can't convince you if you don't do your own research.
>>
>> Everything I've said so far is the truth; and even muslim
scholars acknowledge it. But if you rely on Wikipedia (stable or
not) then you only have yourself to blame.
>>
>> You know, even in college, even before the Jihad aginst the
"Great Satan" of 2001, I already knew more about Islam than many so
called islam experts (who also claim to be physics expert but did
not graduate.) My friends, I have done my research in real
libraries, not wikipedia and the Internet blogs and "politically
correct" opinion news we find today. I did my research the real
way people do research; thru hard work and long hours of fact
finding; not simply regurgitating wikipedia. LOL ...
>>
>> If you want to be convinced by deception that islam is a
"peaceful" religion, it's your right to be stupid. A simple
research effort will reveal that I am speaking the truth about islam.
>>
>> This is the last reply I will make regarding the matter. You
have a right to be deceived if you want.
>>
>>
>> Jojo
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "de Bivort Lawrence"
<[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2012 3:29 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Vo]:[OT] Moon God, Dozens of wives, and marriageable age
>>
>>
>> Essentially, all that Jojo has written about Islam is flat-out
incorrect. Lomax did a great job explaining and providing sources
for the reality.
>>
>> I don't believe that Joho is doing so maliciously: he is, I
believe, merely repeating misinformation that he has picked up
elsewhere. Alas, given the current levels of Islamophobia he has
plenty to choose from. I also believe that Jojo is not interested
in genuine discussion or education on this matter, and so have
merely pointed out for the benefit of anyone else interested here
that his posts on Islam are deeply mistaken.
>>
>> If anyone on this list is interested in Islam, I'll be happy to
discuss further, perhaps off-list.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Lawry
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Dec 22, 2012, at 10:58 AM, Harvey Norris <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Are all muslims preoccupied with obsessions? Someone told me
they have animal sex and it is advocated in the Koran. Could this
be like a virus from (that activity) and a medical condition
causing undue speculation as a mental syndrome. Does it make
muslims to be insulted or mad to suggest this? I assume that the
freedom of information act is allowed with OT posts, but if it aint
I will cease and desist, but my opinion is just the whole subject
is obsessional or just plain stupid. HDN
>>> Pioneering the Applications of Interphasal Resonances
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/teslafy/
>>>
>>
>
