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Forum / Naijapals Base (Metro life) / Re: Bomb Shell! An Akwa Ibom MAN carried out the attack on Christians at BUK |
on: 23-05-2012 12:09 PM
| Islam is itself a perfect example of how a new religion can destroy all other religions in its vicinity. Its prophet, Mohammed, was a deeply disturbed individual. He was a poor orphan looking for an identity and he found it by appealing to the ultimate father figure – Allah. Lacking a real father, he simply created a supernatural one. By the end of his life, he was the first ruler of all of Arabia, and all of his enemies had been despatched or converted. He himself was regarded by his followers as the perfect human being, the ideal, sacred pattern for all of humanity for all time. He is more or less what Christ is to Christians, though he is not regarded as God.
Yet it’s a remarkable fact that for the first 13 years of Islam, Mohammed only had around 150 followers. Islam made almost no impression at all on the pagan tribes of Mecca. It was only when Mohammed moved to Medina and involved himself first in politics and then war that Islam began to prosper i.e. it wasn’t for religious reasons that Islam succeeded. The vast majority of Mohammed’s efforts in Medina were devoted to the political and military success of Islam, and through those came its religious success, almost as an afterthought.
Politics and jihad are the real essence of Islam. Rather than Islam being compared and contrasted with Christianity, it should be seen as a rival model to capitalist democracy i.e. it's a political, social and economic view of life. As a religion, Islam has almost nothing to offer. It has no complexity at all. It really amounts to nothing more than the assertion that there is only one God – Allah – and Mohammed is his prophet and you must do everything it says in the Koran if you want to go to paradise. Otherwise, you will go to hell. That’s it. There’s nothing else. There’s none of the incredible theological complexity of Christianity.
Christians, in order to defend the concepts of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of God on earth (Jesus Christ) had to wrestle with mind-bogglingly difficult philosophical issues, all of which were absent from Islam: a simple religion for simple desert tribesmen. Islam was, and is, perfectly suited to people with no education, which is why Islam is a religion associated with almost no intellectual achievements. The only Muslims who ever contributed anything clever were those who studied pagan Greek philosophy!
CAN YOU IMAGINE!!!
Thanks for the exposition | | |
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Forum / Naijapals Base (Metro life) / Re: Bomb Shell! An Akwa Ibom MAN carried out the attack on Christians at BUK |
on: 23-05-2012 12:09 PM
| Islam is itself a perfect example of how a new religion can destroy all other religions in its vicinity. Its prophet, Mohammed, was a deeply disturbed individual. He was a poor orphan looking for an identity and he found it by appealing to the ultimate father figure – Allah. Lacking a real father, he simply created a supernatural one. By the end of his life, he was the first ruler of all of Arabia, and all of his enemies had been despatched or converted. He himself was regarded by his followers as the perfect human being, the ideal, sacred pattern for all of humanity for all time. He is more or less what Christ is to Christians, though he is not regarded as God.
Yet it’s a remarkable fact that for the first 13 years of Islam, Mohammed only had around 150 followers. Islam made almost no impression at all on the pagan tribes of Mecca. It was only when Mohammed moved to Medina and involved himself first in politics and then war that Islam began to prosper i.e. it wasn’t for religious reasons that Islam succeeded. The vast majority of Mohammed’s efforts in Medina were devoted to the political and military success of Islam, and through those came its religious success, almost as an afterthought.
Politics and jihad are the real essence of Islam. Rather than Islam being compared and contrasted with Christianity, it should be seen as a rival model to capitalist democracy i.e. it's a political, social and economic view of life. As a religion, Islam has almost nothing to offer. It has no complexity at all. It really amounts to nothing more than the assertion that there is only one God – Allah – and Mohammed is his prophet and you must do everything it says in the Koran if you want to go to paradise. Otherwise, you will go to hell. That’s it. There’s nothing else. There’s none of the incredible theological complexity of Christianity.
Christians, in order to defend the concepts of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of God on earth (Jesus Christ) had to wrestle with mind-bogglingly difficult philosophical issues, all of which were absent from Islam: a simple religion for simple desert tribesmen. Islam was, and is, perfectly suited to people with no education, which is why Islam is a religion associated with almost no intellectual achievements. The only Muslims who ever contributed anything clever were those who studied pagan Greek philosophy!
CAN YOU IMAGINE!!!
Thanks for the exposition | | |
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Forum / Politics / Re: Jonathan Replies Buhari: Dogs And Baboons Can't Determine Nigeria's Future |
on: 16-05-2012 10:27 AM
| President Goodluck Jonathan has responded to the presidential candidate of the CPC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who yesterday threatened bloodshed if the 2015 Presidential elections are not free and fair. Below is the statement from the Presidency as signed by Reuben Abati, spokesman to President Jonathan: BUHARI’S PREDICTION OF BLOODSHED IN 2015 AND COMMENTS ON BOKO HARAM, SAD AND UNFORTUNATE -PRESIDENCYThe attention of the Presidency has been drawn to unfortunate statements in the media made by former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in which he allegedly predicted bloodshed in 2015 and labelled the Federal Government led by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as " the biggest Boko Haram". But perhaps the most unfortunate part of the statement was the portion in which Buhari said that, " Since the leaders now don’t listen to anybody but do whatever they wish, there is nothing the north can do." Come to think of it, as the CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 election, how many states in the Federation did he visit to campaign for votes? Buhari never bothered to campaign in the southern part of the country and consistently played up the North-South divide to the chagrin of patriotic and well-meaning Nigerians. As the results revealed, Nigerians will never vote for anyone who wants to divide the country. Is Buhari going to continue to be a sectional leader ?The Federal Government led by President Jonathan is not Boko Haram. Boko Harammeans Western Education is sin. That being the case, one wonders how a government that devoted the largest sectoral allocation in the 2012 budget to education could be said to be Boko Haram.Only on April 10, 2012, President Jonathan commissioned the first of 400 Federal Government Model Almajiri Schools, equipped with modern facilities such as a Language Laboratory, Qur'an Recitation Hall, classrooms and dormitories as well as a clinic, vocational workshop, dining hall and quarters for the Mallams. As Nigerians read this, more of such schools have been completed. We now challenge Major General Buhari (rtd) to tell Nigerians what he has done, whether in his capacity as the head of a military junta or in his private capacity, to bring education to vulnerable children. If he cannot live up to this challenge, perhaps he has to reassess who really is Boko Haram.Buhari claims that the Federal Government does not listen. Such an accusation ought not to emanate from a man overthrown by his own hand- picked colleagues in the military for refusing to listen to advice and behaving as if he had a monopoly of knowledge. It is on record that the Federal Government led by President Jonathan is a listening administration hence its decision to pursue all means of resolving the Boko Haram insurgency including through dialogue.When Buhari says that " if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, ‘the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood", we hereby state that it is Buhari himself who does not listen. He has obviously refused to listen to the Nigerian People, the European Union, the Commonwealth Monitoring Group, the African Union and a multitude of independent electoral monitors who testified that the 2011 elections were free and fair and "the best elections since Nigeria returned to civil rule." Indeed, such a reaction from Buhari is not totally unexpected since he has become aserial election loser who has never taken his past election defeats graciously even when such elections were generally acknowledged to be free and fair. Still on the issue of Boko Haram, we wonder what locus a man whose party's Secretary General, Buba Galadima, told the British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC) in December, 2010, that the Federal Government is underestimating the support base of Boko Haram, has to accuse a government that has been threatened on camera by the leaders of Boko Haram of itself being Boko Haram?Major General Buhari (rtd) also boasts of his knowledge of the Petroleum Industry because of his time as Federal Commissioner for Petroleum. We wonder why he did not boast of the infamous scandal that occurred in that ministry where under his watch billions of Naira (in the 1970s) were reported stolen, a matter which led to the setting up of the Justice Ayo Irikefe panel. Finally, we wish to make it known to Buhari that given his reference to "dogs and baboons", perhaps his best course of action would be to travel to the zoo of his imagination because President Goodluck Jonathan was elected by human beings to preside over human beings and it is human beings who will determine what happens in Nigeria at any material time not "dogs and baboons".I think he is a Boko member? Arrest him Mr. President. Buhari is a useless politician seeking for sympathy. His house will turn to blood before 2015! | | |
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Forum / Naijapals Base (Metro life) / Re: Worker Pays Spiritualist N11m To Kill Chivita Boss |
on: 15-03-2012 08:18 AM
| ISLAM IS EVIL
A simple reading of such Qur'anic passages makes it obvious how easy it is for many Muslims to feel hatred and enmity against Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims. Although, many Muslims are very fond of quoting some of the more "open-minded" and "inclusive" verses of the Qur'an, one cannot ignore the weight and impact of the above passages on a devout Muslim who wants to find and obey the will of God as found in the Qur'an. Before, we go on to other examples from prophet Muhammad himself, we need to respond to two issues that some Muslims bring up at this point.
Many have claimed that Qur'anic verses in support of fighting, were for a special historical situation concerning the beginning of Islam. They argue that since prophet Muhammad, was persecuted in Mecca for the first thirteen years of his ministry, he was justified in his military actions in the last ten years of his life in Medina and for the support of the budding Islamic movement. The problem with this reasoning is that nowhere in the Qur'an itself the above commands to fight are restricted to a special time period or against a special people group. Unlike the divine commands found in the book of Joshua in the OT, that were specific to a time, place and people group, Orthodox Muslims believe that the Qur'anic commands are universal and thus applicable for all times and places.
A second objection that one hears is that Islam is a religion of peace and war in Islam is only for self-defense. Jamal Badawi, a popular Muslim apologist, claims, "Actual armed jihad is permissible under two conditions alone: one is for self-defense, and the other is for fighting against oppression." (cited in Diana Eck, A New Religious America, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, p. 238). Although, Badawi is quite accurate in describing the conditions of armed jihad in Islam, what he fails to say is that the definitions of "self-defense" and "fighting against oppression" are much broader than usually understood. Many Orthodox Muslims believe that if a nation's leaders do not acknowledge the rule of Islam, then those rulers are "oppressors" and thus a legitimate target for war (see John Kelsay, Islam and War, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p. 35). Many Muslims argue that America is a cultural aggressor by exporting its Hollywood values all over the world, and thus any fight against Americans is done in self-defense (see the article by Mark Galli, "Now What? A Christian response to religious terrorism," Christianity Today, Oct 22, 2001). Therefore, there is no end to how a Muslim group can define "self-defense" and "oppression" and thus find an Islamic justification for violence.
We will now turn our attention to just a few examples of some of the actions and sayings of prophet Muhammad to see if Muslims can find any legitimacy for the use of violence as witnessed in the contemporary world. We want to remind the reader that we will only use the most ancient, authoritative and original Islamic writings in support of our thesis. The earliest biography of prophet Muhammad was written by Ibn Ishaq in the second century of the Islamic era and was later edited by Ibn Hisham in the third century. This work was translated into English under the title, The Life of Muhammad, by A. Guillaume and published by Oxford University Press in 1955. The following accounts are some of the sayings and actions of prophet Muhammad and his close companions found in this biography.
In the constitution of Medina, whom prophet wrote when he and his followers migrated from Mecca in the year 622, we read, "A believer shall not slay a believer for the sake of an unbeliever, nor shall he aid an unbeliever against a believer ... Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders ... The believers must avenge the blood of one another shed in the way of God" (p. 232).
The first in the series of assassinations that the prophet ordered was an old Jewish man named Ibnu’l-Ashraf. His crime was writing poetry against Muslims. "The apostle said, ‘Who will rid me of Ibnu’l-Ashraf?’" One of his followers volunteered said, "I will deal with him for you, O apostle of God, I will kill him." And the prophet responded by saying, "Do so if you can." The prophet also explicitly gave his assassins permission to lie and use trickery in order to accomplish their mission. The report goes on to describe how the prophet's followers deceived the old man out of his house in the middle of the night and jumped on him with swords and daggers and brutally murdered him. After completing their mission, the followers reported back to the prophet that they "had killed God's enemy." The author concludes this incident by writing, "Our attack upon God's enemy cast terror among the Jews, and there was no Jew in Medina who did not fear for his life" (pp. 367-368).
In the very next incident in this biography of prophet Muhammad we read, "The apostle said, ‘Kill any Jew that falls into your power.’" The author then recounts the story of two brothers, the younger one of which was a Muslim. Upon hearing this command, the younger Muslim brother kills a Jewish merchant. The older brother became very critical of the action of his younger sibling. In response the younger brother says, "Had the one who ordered me to kill him ordered me to kill you I would have cut your head off." The older brother exclaimed. " ‘By God, a religion which can bring you to this is marvelous!’ and he became a Muslim" (p. 369).
In one of the battles, after one of prophet Muhammad's uncles was savagely killed, Muhammad became so angry that he said, "If God gives me victory over Quraysh in the future I will mutilate 30 of their men." Seeing the grief of their prophet, Muhammad's followers claimed, "By God, if God give us victory over them in the future we will mutilate them as no Arab has ever mutilated anyone." Thankfully, the prophet had a change of mind and later decided to forbid mutilation. (p. 387)
In another famous incident with Jewish people, after having already expelled two Jewish tribes from the city of Medina, the prophet orchestrated the execution of all the adult males of the last Jewish tribe of the city, and the taking of all the property and the women and children. The Muslim sources put the number of the Jewish men who were beheaded in one day anywhere between 600 to 900. (p. 464)
On another occasion, the prophet and his companions were looking for the hidden treasure of a conquered tribe. An individual was brought to Muhammad who was supposed to know where the hidden treasure was located. The prophet threatened to kill the individual if he did not tell the Muslims where the treasure was. Upon refusal to cooperate, "The apostle gave orders to al-Zubayr b. al-Awwam, ‘Torture him until you extract what he has,’ so he kindled a fire with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead. Then the apostle delivered him to Muhammad b. Maslama and he struck off his head" (p. 515).
Upon conquering Mecca, a number of individuals were ordered to be killed by the prophet without any immunity. The crimes committed by the majority of these people were making "satirical songs" against Muhammad or having insulted him during his ministry in Mecca (p. 551). One person who was fortunate enough to be pardoned was Abdullah b. Sa’d. "The reason he [Muhammad] ordered him to be killed was that he had been a Muslim and used to write down revelation; then he apostatized and returned to Quraysh." Since Abdullah was a foster brother of a close companion of Muhammad, he was able to receive a hearing from the prophet and ask for immunity. The prophet unwillingly granted the immunity. After the pardoned person left, Muhammad said to his companions "‘I kept silent so that one of you might get up and strike off his head!’ One of the Ansar said, ‘Then why didn't you give me a sign, O apostle of God?’ He answered that a prophet does not kill by pointing’" (p. 550).
To one of his commanders whom the prophet was sending on an "expedition", he gave this advice, "Fight everyone in the way of God and kill those who disbelieve in God. Do not be deceitful with the spoil; do not be treacherous, nor mutilate, nor kill children. This is God's ordinance and the practice of his prophet among you" (p. 672).
Another assassination ordered by the prophet was regarding his uncle Abu Sufyan, the leader of the pagan opposition in Mecca. Muslim volunteers traveled to Mecca to carry out this mission. The assassination attempt failed, however. On the way back to Medina, one of the followers of the prophet encountered a one-eyed shepherd who confidently claimed that he would never accept Islam. We pick up the account from the Muslim assassin himself. As soon as the man was "asleep and snoring I got up and killed him in a more horrible way than any man has been killed. I put the end of my bow in his sound eye, then I bore down on it until I forced it out at the back of his neck ... When I got to Medina ... the apostle asked my news and when I told him what had happened he blessed me" (pp. 674-675).
The biography of the prophet follows this account with two more reports of successful assassinations ordered by the prophet. Abu Afak had "showed his disaffection with the apostle" by composing a poem. "The apostle said, ‘Who will deal with this rascal for me?’ whereupon Salim b. Umayr ... went forth and killed him." (p. 675). After this assassination, a woman by the name of Asma b. Marwan "displayed disaffection" and also composed a poem against the prophet. "When the apostle heard what she had said he said, ‘Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?’ Umayr … who was with him heard him, and that very night he went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done and he [Muhammad] said, ‘You have helped God and His apostle, O Umayr’" (pp. 675-676).
Once again, I think the above sample (which by no means is an exhaustive list of the violence found in the earliest biography of the prophet) is enough to provide more than an adequate justification for the killing and destruction of anyone who opposes the ideology of Islam and its demand for total submission. However, what is even more important for the shaping of Muslim attitude and behavior is not the reports of such a biography, but the collections of Muhammad's sayings and actions in the hadith literature. We will now look at a few examples from the hadith. The following are a few examples in the hadith collection of Bukhari, the most authoritative book in Sunni Islam, second only to the Qur'an (Sahih Al-Bukhari, 9 vols. translated by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Al Nabawiya: Dar Ahya Us-Sunnah, n.d.).
Thanks for such exposition. I wish they could read it. | | | |