Contradictions in Islam

“The food for the people in Hell will be only “Dhari” [Sura 88:6], or only foul pus from the washing of wounds [S. 69:36], or will they also get to eat from the tree of Zaqqum [S. 37:66]? Together, these verses constitute three contradictions.”

Is God Imaginary?

In writing this article, I am going to assume you are an educated person belonging to one of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). You have a college degree, and you have been trained to think logically and rationally about the world we live in.

For example, you might be:
- An Engineer or Scientist
- A Doctor, Pharmacist or Nurse
- A Teacher
- A Manager or administrator
- A Government employee
- A Business owner
- An Account rep
- An Executive
- A Lawyer
- An Accountant
- Financial Sector
- Human resources
- An Architect or Designer
- A Software developer

You are a smart person. You know how the world works. You know how to think critically. If you are an educated theist (religious/believe in God), I would like to talk with you today about an important and interesting question. Have you ever thought about using your college education to think about your faith? Your life and your career demand that you behave and act rationally. Let’s apply your critical thinking skills as we discuss 10 simple questions about your religion.

Beauty

How can you not love a city as magnificent as Beirut?

Home of pure Beauty:

And home of the free (Arab). Btw, this is the HEZBOLLAH protest in Beirut – you know, the one USA calls terrorist…

And home of my future university:

Enjoy the pics!

The Democratic and the Presidency

“March 14 leaders remain wary of him (Michel Suleiman – Army General), partly because he did not order troops to suppress anti-government street protests.”

This is the description given by a pro-government news site of why the pro-US-backed government (ruled by March 14) is wary of the Army’s general and his attempt at the Presidency.

These are the ‘democratic’ leaders the West is supporting. Whenever I read about Lebanon and these hypocrits are in power, I think i’m reading about democracy in Pakistan.

Religion – way of rule!

What better way to think of consolidating your rule than to make a religion to scare everyone into submission! The Egyptians and Greek did it before us, then why is it not surprising that they would’ve done it 2 thousand years ago, if humans did it more than 6 thousand years ago!

Religion scares the crap out of its subjects to force them into doing what it tells you to do. Before religion, lying and stealing as well as rape were morally wrong. Religion did not introduce this concept for us, it was already there. What religion does though, is scare you into becoming moral. Whereas non-believers are moral because that is what is right – even though they are not rewarded for it.

A great philosopher once asked a religious man whether he is religious to avoid hell or to get into heaven. The religious man quiet predictably said both. When asked the same question back, he said he was moral because it is the right thing to do. The philosopher went on to claim that the biggest type of moral corruption is to avoid being immoral in fear of punishment and being moral in return for something.

Why does religion have to force people into being moral when the absence of religion quiet rightly portrays that one could be moral and perform moral deeds for no prize what so ever.

In fact, a study in South America (home of the far-right and Christianity – home of racism too) showed that there were more crimes in South American cities than their more Liberal counter-parts in less religious cities.

 

“A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed on Thursday after being run over by an Israeli army bulldozer during a military incursion in the Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.”

The Myth of Self-Defence

1948 (Lebanon) : After forcing the population to gather in the mosque of the village, the occupation forces ordered them to face the wall, then started shooting them from behind until the mosque was turned into bloodbath, 105 person were martyred.

Do I need to stress the time this massacre had been perpetrated? 1948. PLO had not existed in Lebanon. Amal didn’t form until 1978. Hezbollah wasn’t heard of before 1982-85. Today, you know better than to point a finger at Arab “terrorism” and should realise that Israel is hated even in the fairly moderate Lebanese society because of these actions. Nobody is born hating anyone else for no reason. But if any person is born and grows up to find out he doesn’t have a dad because the occupation massacred him, driven by insane racism and hate, then ofcourse this child will seek revenge and ultimately a vendetta.

The Lebanon-Israel problem started long before “terrorism”. Lebanon had not been a participant in the 1948 ‘war of independence’. Israel still saw that it was appropriate to intimidate the country (most likely to draw some hostility from it and occupy more land to establish settlements – or ‘rent’ occupied land for 999 years, which was the case with Jordan). Lebanon had also not participated in the 1967 six-day war, but was attacked and had the Sheba Farms occupied.

In 1976-78 Lebanon was invaded twice to drive out Palestinian militants. Then again in 1982 – why? Because an Israeli diplomat in London had been targeted for assassination. And people talk about conspiracies. What conspiracies?

Melbourne Jews

“It’s a community [thanks to the Holocaust] that in some ways is sick” Age journalist David Bernstein.

Assasination

“There has been a tragic pattern of political assassinations and attempted assassinations designed to silence those Lebanese who courageously defend their vision of an independent and democratic Lebanon,” Bush said in a statement.

“They have to disappear, go to paradise, all of them,” Avigdor Lieberman

“The Gaza Strip is about to turn into the biggest terrorist compound on earth,” Yuval Diskin

Israel orders killing of Hamas politicians

Searching Google, the phrase ‘Israel kidnaps politicians’ or ‘Israel kidnaps MP’ does not turn up a single hit. Even though Israel detained half of the freely elected Palestinian MPs sitting in Parliament belonging to the Hamas party (around 53), as well as the Deputy Prime Minister and the House Speaker. Add 10,000 civilians and Bush still agrees it isn’t tragic and in no way infringes the Freedom orIndependence of the Palestinians….

A Disfigured Land

Imagine this scenario:

Haifa, Israel’s third largest city. This city is now besieged by Palestinian fighters whom routinely undertake fly-overs of this piece of land of 1.4 million Israeli civilians. Settlements are being forces all over this city and declared Muslim-only settlements, with Muslim-only roads and highways to connect the to other settlement on the same piece of land and to the mainland – called Palestine.

This city of Haifa held it’s first democratic elections in many years. They elected an extremist Haredim group who called for Liberation from the Palestinians, and ultimately the destruction of the Palestinian state – replacing it with an Israeli one. The Palestinians do not take keenly on this group and therefore arrest half of their ministers in government and MP’s in Parliament. From there, they destroy everything belonging to this group systematically and regardless of what and who is in those structures. When Iran – the Palestinian country sponsor and ally – is asked why this is taking place, their reply is simply because the Israelis had voted the wrong way and need to vote for someone else.

I don’t get it

Why do attacks against occupying, aggressing or invading military soldiers end up being called terrorist attacks?

In 1983, when the US marines were present on Lebanese territory, they were bombed with a suicide-truck killing 241 marines and injuring practically every single other survivor present on the barracks.

These Marines were ordered to come into Lebanon, alongside the French and Italian militaries, to serve as peacekeeping force at a time of full-out civil war and an Israeli invasion.

What happened was the opposite of peacekeeping. The French started helping their fellow Maronite Christians in battling the muslims and druze, while the US helped its bretherin (who other than) Israelis in battling the Muslims, Druze and Palestinians.

What used to be a peace-keeping force, had effectively become an occupying and agressing one because of its participation in fuelling rather than stopping the war. It has also served them right. When the Second Lebanon War ended in August, Rice was asked if the US will participate in the peacekeeping force in South Lebanon. She obviously said no, when asked why, she said because of the ‘history’ of the US military in Lebanon.

A US federal court on September 7, 2007 ordered Iran to pay 2.65 billion dollars to the families of 241 soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing. Judge Royce C.Lamberth said “it was beyond question that the truck bombing was carried out by the terrorist group Hezbollah with the help of senior Iranian officials.” This was said even though there were no delegations or lawyers representing the defendants in court – and ofcourse without investigating the attacks in which the US ‘Peacekeeping’ force participated in.

Chapter of Resistance

This is a page officially found from a Hezbollah militants diary, who wrote of his experience during the 2006 Summer war:

“That evening, everyone was waiting for Hisham and Tayseer. Two nights ago they had set off for Bint Jbeil ahead of the occupation forces, to plant bombs on the road before the tanks arrived.

But I had a strange feeling of premonition during my woudou’, and I walked out to the spot where we posted our guards, at the entrance of the cave. The evening prayer echoed under the fading light of the sun from mosques in the villages scattered in the valleys and along the coast. Abu Hassan was sitting in the bunker with the Masba7a in his hand. The cold evening breeze rustled among the trees.

I worried that something bad had happened to them.
They should have arrived two hours ago.
Where did the shells fall yesterday? Did anything happen at Bint Jbeil?
Perhaps, I thought, only the hill of Massoud and those around it took the shelling.
Hopefully everything will be fine, Insha’ Allah.

Lebanon is a weird country populated by weirder inhabitants. Even though there are pretty much every single colour, frequency and spectrum of every political ideology in this small country of under 4 million, it is still a country that does not tolerate extremists religion-wise.

In Lebanon, only moderation works. You can be an extreme right-wing, but you can’t be religious at the same time. Religion in Lebanon is like fashion – it is only exists by label and only pursued for show. I think that the only exception is the Hezbollah. A very religious organisation with its own set of ideology and morals to all other Islamist groups.

I think Hezbollah has survived as a religious group because of a couple of reasons. They are tolerated by the non-Shi’a because they do not disturb or involve themselves in their affairs – mainly due to the demographic placement of Hezbollah strongholds – they are totally separate from the other communities. Also, Hezbollah has been the only party to refrain from sectarian strife during the civil war.

Demonstrators chant, ‘Tzipi Livni is the mother of terror’, as foreign minister arrives in northern city for Ramadan fast-breaking meal.

“It has served us well, this myth of Christ” – Pope Leo X, 16th Century.

No it hasn’t.

God – the Ultimate stinker!

God, Yehwa, Allah. These are the common names attributed to the mighty and higher being. He is believed to be the perfect of all perfects. The ultimate power. The ultimate mercy. The ultimate goodness.

What you don’t hear from religious croonies about God is the rest of the equation of perfection. If God is the perfect form of anything and everything – such as goodness, forgiveness, glamour and beauty – why is he not the ultimate evil as well?

This may sound weird or confusing. The theory goes that everything that exists in this world must have a perfect form in order to be compared to. This is like saying Person A is a good person, but Person B is better. The measurement metre that anything is to be compared with must have an ultimate. Ofcourse, this gap is filled with ‘God’. So, if this is the case then the following is also true; If i haven’t had a shower for many days and reak of a great bio-stink, then there must be an ultimate stinker to compare to – that ultimate stinker  – according to the theory presented to us by religious apologists – God should be that ultimate and perfect stink. He must also be the ultimate evil. The ultimate selfishness.

Hardly something inspiring in that.

Signed: The Perfect Contradiction

The Hezbollah Revolution (Part 1)

Hezbollah – the militant, political and social group in Lebanon – is todays most influencial and formidable force in the middle-eastern arena. It was established by a handfull of fanaticly religious scholars and a few dozen break-aways from the rival but Shi’a Amal group.

The main reason for militants to break from Amal and into Hezbollah was simple. During time of occupation, secular-pan-arabist-nationalist groups had not made any significant achievements in their struggle against Israeli aggression. Rather, there were scores of embaressments – such as the shipping of the Fatah group from Lebanon to Tunisia and Algeria after being beseiged by the IDF for 88 days.

Islamism had been seen as the new way forward. Although, the way early groups approached this new method of engagement was very wrong. Very wrong and back-ward indeed. Hezbollah very much included.

Notoriously feared for its secrecy and mystery – as well as fanaticsm in every extreme – Hezbollah started early life as an unpopular and unwanted gangof dissilussioned youth. One of the Hezbollah founders – Subhi al-Tufayli – and the first Secretery-General, had been at the realm of backwardness and extremism. Diluting the young and fresh-minded member of Hezbollah into hardcore extremist fanatics whom almost whole-heartedly believed in terrorist tactics and objectives as holy and blessed by god.

Sheikh Subhi was known for his formidable speeches and campaigns. His berzerk ideology goes something like this:

• If you shave your beard with a razor – you’re an infidel
• It is Halal (not forbidden) to kill an Amal (a militia) member or activist (even though Amal was Lebanese, Shi’a and resisting the Israelis – the same as Hezbollah)
• A shi’a theocratic state is to be set up in Lebanon
• One must always wear praying beads around their necks
• Long hair and beards are a sign of being religious

and the list goes on beyond this by so many times.

This ideology led to something of a cult in itself. Soon enough, Hezbollah had flared a fire-fight between itself and it’s Amal rivals. The blame was admittedly on Hezbollah. They had been caught distributing leaflets calling for the beheading of Amal members. Amal released a statement the same day claiming that in it’s territory – the south beirut suburbs and south Lebanon – Hezbollah is allowed to hold offices and even a small militia, under the condition that Hezbollah members do not provoke or threaten Amal or its members. The second condition had been to never try and infringe Amals authority and security aparatus in the territories.

Hezbollah did not comply but did the opposite. Sheikh Subhi stood up on a stage in the Beka’a Valley of Eastern Lebanon and proclaimed that in the morning he will pray in Ba’albeck, pray the afternoon in Tyre (Soor), and pray in Bint Jbeil in the evening. This speech was followed by a kidnap of 22 Amal militants by Hezbollah before being executed.

What followed was a year-long, Amal-Hezbollah, Shi’a-Shi’a civil war between the two groups. The consequences were catastrophic. The normally impoverished Shi’a people of Lebanon had had infrastructure destroyed, jobs lost, homelessnes, and further poverty. This coupled by a full-out civil war in Lebanon between all the countries sects, Israel, Syria and the partitioned Lebanese Army.

What had happened next astonished the Lebanese and later on, historians from all around the world. Hezbollah held an internal election and elected their secretary-general out in favour for another man – Sayyid Abbas Al-Musawi. Hezbollah had managed to wake up and learn from the materialistic catastrophy it had ignited and fuelled. More significantly was the symbolism of this flare-up. Hezbollah members realised that they had originally broke from Amal to create a better organisation. A deciplined and non-corrupt organisation. One that rejected civil war and shedding Lebanese blood.

What exactly had transformed Hezbollahs direction and mind as whole remains a mystery. Although, from much speculation and analysis, one could say that since Hezbollah was from the Shi’a community, it reflected what hardships it’s fellow Shi’a citizens had felt. The Amal-Hezbollah mini-war was ubsurd in every sense of the word. Thousands had been killed in a pointless confrontation that resulted in family feuds and vendettas as well as brother against brother battles (this is not a metaphor – there was at least one famous case of two brothers realising they had fought against each other in the same battle).

Some may ask, why did Hezbollah change but Amal did not – if the above argument is true. There are many possible answers. It may be that Amal was seen as a rightful defender and Hezbollah as an aggressor. Or it may be that since Amal was a secular nationalist movement, it did not necesserily bind with the Shi’a street in a spiritual or symbolic way.

Never the less, back to the Hezbollah argument. The new secretary general, Abbas Al-Musawi, had returned from Iraq after finishing his studies and incidently being kicked out by the anti-Shi’a Saddam regime. He was an extremely religious man who was described as “non-materialistic” and “observant”. This short assesment will shed some light on his character and how this affected Hezbollah and its supportes as a whole.

Sayyid Abbas Al-Musawi had been inspired by the very fact that God is invisible. His argument is that, since God does not want us to follow materialistic and physical objects in life, it would be contradictive if God himself was a tangible being. Therefore, Sayyid Al-Musawi had been very admired by God himself to a larger degree than religion – if that makes sense to anyone. He rejected all materialistic objectsin his life-time. At the same time – since he was a commando in the Amal militia before breaking out with it – he thought tacticly and realisticly. His faith and spiritual emotion did not blind him of what is realistic and what isn’t. He was famous for claiming that while he and his brothers in arms pray daily for victory against his enemies, succesful operations and fighters who are efficient – he did not turn a blind eye to the ground basics of what realisticly needed to happen. Therefore, while he and others pray – the organisation needed to arm, finance and train itself and its members. Try t achieve the maximum of preperadness to confront any danger. Draw up succesful and rehearsed tactics and strategies as well as use the most enhanced technology the organisations’ pockets could buy. Only then do you pray for what you have and hope it is used to best effect.

This had been somewhat a groundbreaking tactic by an Islamist group and way forward. Other Islamist groups very much believed – and clinged on – the theory of fate. That whatever is to happen will happen regardless of what one might try to do to change that. This is the equivilent of saying if in an attack a hand grenade kills 10 soldiers – then those ten soldiers’ fate were to die that day, and the rest to live. Even if a truck-load of bombs were rammed into them, only ten would die because that’s those 10 peoples’ fate. This obviously seemed as a half-truth. It is a fact that it was those ten soldiers’ fate to die that day simply because they had died that day! But to continue and say that even if a truck full of bombs is detonated in the middle of the group of soldiers, the exact same ten would die is ubsurd. MAYBE by freak chance not one soldier dies. Maybe all die. Who knows. One thing is for sure, a hand-grenade does not kill more people than a truck rigged with explosives. That’s one thing Iraq taught me.

Part 2 will be posted soon; It will include

How Hezbollah is today socially, politically and militarily.

The influence Hezbollah commands and what it’s new ultimate goals are.

Its new belief system – from fanatism to mainstream.

All in Part 2

Iraq v Lebanon

It’s official “The Lebanese Olympic football team suffered a great loss against its Iraqi counterpart 5-0 at Beirut Municipality Stadium in the Asian qualification match-ups for Beijing Olympic Games 2008″

You have the US spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a war campaign in Iraq that’s gone into quagmire chin-deep. Then it horribly goes wrong, with the only institution getting better in the country is their football club.