Charles Johnson at LGF has outrageous but unsurprising news from the Catholic Information Center in Washington DC. "Catholic Group Invites Radical Islamic Speaker":
Wednesday, May 24th“Revering Mary: Islamic & Catholic Perspectives in Dialogue”
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm (two 20-25 minute presentations, followed by Q&A, and a light non-alcoholic reception)Speakers:
Fr. Francis Tiso works on interfaith dialogue in the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the USCCB and is responsible for representing the American bishops in dialogue sessions with Muslims.Khaled Troudi will be the speaker from The International Institute of Islamic Thought. IIIT is located in Herndon, VA.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought has figured in several posts at LGF and was one of the North Virginia radical Islamic front groups raided by the Treasury Department in March 2002. An article about the raids from the Wall Street Journal links the group to Islamic Jihad kingpin Sami al-Arian and Osama bin Laden.
Hmmm. Tiso. I wonder if Fr. Francis Tiso is any relation to Fr. Jozef Tiso.
So they traded in their sherry for a pint of orange juice. My, my, they are getting ready. Where I come from, it's considered good manners to offer real drink at formal occasions. At the same time, no one is obliged to consume it. Evidently, no such civilized approach is possible here. I simply can't understand the mentality of people who think that it is reasonable for others to impose their absurd obsessions upon them. It may seem a small thing, but I'd say it's a harbinger of much more - it's already clear which side intends to conform itself with the practises of which.
Where I come from, it's considered good manners to offer real drink at formal occasions. At the same time, no one is obliged to consume it.
This is a significant difference between Christianity and Islam. Islam has to ban things - alcohol, for example - dress women in sacks and beat people if they don't pray at the right times, because the concept of self-discipline or self-restraint is alien to this religion.
Morality is meaningless when forced.
Revering Mary: Islamic & Catholic Perspectives in Dialogue
Whats there to talk about?
To one she is the mother of a third rate prophet, and at the same time the sister of another lower ranking holy man who lived 1500 or so years previously.
To the other she is the Mother of God, ever virgin, worthy of the upmost respect. Mother of the Messiah who so enjoyed a drink he turned water into better wine than had previously been served, gave his disciples and us wine to drink in his memory, and talked of wine to be drunk when he and the disciples were reunited in heaven.
An Pakistani Muslim once told me that she became pregnant with Jesus during a bath. She was sitting in the tub while holding a rose. Having no clothes on she concieved miraculously through the proximity of the rose. I remarked that God, being capable of such a thing, did not need a rose, or the bath come to that to do achieve his purpose.
“Revering Mary: Islamic & Catholic Perspectives in Dialogue”
There is a WHOLE lot of differences between the Christian and Islamic view of Mary. Just the simple fact that Christians regard her as the mother of both God and the Messiah, the differences are a lot larger then can be explain here.
It makes me wonder why even Muslims should even honor her if Jesus is considered a second rate prophet.
She was sitting in the tub while holding a rose.
Perhaps she had a rubber duck. (No Cockney rhyming slang intended.)
Monsignor Jozef Tiso was a war criminal and eager collaborator with the Nazis. He was hung in 1947. More on Tiso can be found in one of Malcolm Hay's books, the one with Pascal in the title (sorry, can't remember the rest).
It figures. I'll sit up and pay attention when they sit down and openly discuss the divinity of Jesus Christ--and not with the ostensibly "Christian" side slipping into Arianism or Socinianism.
Mary, in her own words (the Magnificat in Luke 1) numbered herself among the sinners awaiting redemption. Certainly her soul is in heaven (along with her firstborn son's soul and ever-living body as well) and in an honored place at that, but Mary is no proper object of anyone's veneration. Let's recall that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that more and more Muslims wake up to this glorious truth and leave the Socinian prequel they now follow.
Islamic Movement calls on Arabs not to let `Temple Mount faithfuls` ascend (Haaretz) ....this needs to stop...muslims do not own the temple mount----it belongs to the GOD of ISRAEL...who will take it back!..........And saviours shall come up on mount ZION...I LOVE THAT WORD...ZION...to judge the mount of esau;.......and the kingdom shall be the LORDS......SORRY no allahs allowed.
Abraham and Ishmael built the House and dedicated it, saying . . . "Lord, make us submissive to You; make of our descendants a nation that will submit to You..."
Q 2:127........And Sarah saw the son of hagar (ishmael) the egyptian mocking....Wherefore she said, Cast out this bondwoman and her son(ishmael)for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even ISAAC!.......there is no room on the TEMPLE MOUNT FOR MOCKERS!..
When the radical priest came to get me released,
It was all on the cover of Newsweek!
I hate to nit-pick, Hugh, but I believe that Monsignor Tiso was hanged.
Dominic.
'The prejudices of Pascal: Concerning in particular the Jesuit order and the Jewish people' by Malcolm V Hay is out of print but listed as limited availability on amazon.com.
Dominic.
DEAR MUSLIM READER PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THIS.................For this Agar(hagar) is mount sinai Arabia, and answereth to JERUSALEM which now is, and is in BONDAGE with her children.But JERUSALEM which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. Galatians 4:25-26
MP:
And I'm on my way. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
WHY DOES YOUR DEMON DEMAND SO MUCH BLOOD?......Horrified eyewitnesses alerted Ramle police Tuesday evening to a stabbing underway in the parking lot behind the city's Bank Hapoalim branch. Within a minute of the report, a patrol car arrived on the scene to find a young woman covered in blood, an apparent victim of what is known as a 'family honor killing'.
The two police officers called for reinforcements from both police and MDA, and while one set out in pursuit of a man seen fleeing the scene, the second police officer remained with the mortally wounded young woman, a 24-year-old resident of the city. Attempts to resuscitate the young woman failed, and she was later pronounced dead on the scene.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1148482036398&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Other books by Malcolm V. Hay:
The foot of pride; the pressure of Christendom on the people of Israel for 1900 years.
Boston, Beacon Press, 1950
Thy brother's blood : the roots of Christian anti-semitism
New York ; Hart, 1975
I'd bet Hay was ignorant of the "pressure" of Islam on the people of Israel for 1400 years; too busy taking the speck out of his own eye to notice the beam elsewhere.
But you do see the trouble and grief they cause.
You take note of it and punish them.
The helpless put their trust in you.
You are the defender of orphans.
15
Break the arms of these wicked, evil people!
Go after them until the last one is destroyed!
16
The LORD is king forever and ever!
Let those who worship other gods be swept from the land.
17
LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless.
Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them.
Catholic tradition has it that Mary, the mother of Jesus had her body taken home to be reunited with her soul. This is the preview of what the resurrection of the Christian believers is going to be like.
PS : Catholics and Orthodox Christians do not worship Mary. We simply just ask for her prayerful intercision to God. Catholics and Orthodox worship God also.
Another PS : A correction, worship God only.
I think they're only serving soft drinks because they drank all of the altar wine.
Why else come up with this kind of pseudo-ecumencial drunken nonsense?
As noir author Raymond Chandler said, in another context, it's enough to "make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window".
Where's the guy with the whip when you need him?
"I hate to nit-pick, Hugh, but I believe that Monsignor Tiso was hanged."
-- from a posting by Dominic above
That's not nit-picking. That is useful correction. Haste explains, but does not excuse. When it comes to language, there is no such thing as nit-picking. Naturaly I will go over this again with my ESL teacher. Thank you.
"I hate to nit-pick, Hugh, but I believe that Monsignor Tiso was hanged."
-- from a posting by Dominic above
That's not nit-picking. That is useful correction. Haste explains, but does not excuse. When it comes to language, there is no such thing as nit-picking.
I like to nitpick: and I found three incorrectly used hyphens doing so.
"I'd bet Hay was ignorant of the "pressure" of Islam on the people of Israel for 1400 years; too busy taking the speck out of his own eye to notice the beam elsewhere."
-- from a posting above
No one who lived through the last century should ever describe antisemitism in the Westen world as merely a "speck." Hay was a magnificent historian and impassioned writer, and his books deserve to be reprinted ("The Foot of Pride" gas been, and is available as "Europe and the Jews"). I suspect Malcolm Hay did not know much about Islam, but why should that subject him to any criticism at all, when for the past half-century at least almost no one, save for a handful of aging scholars, wrote truthfully and uninhibitedly about Islam until the last decade? Hay deserves much praise and no blame.
He was writing about one thing. He was not writing about another.
"I like to nitpick: and I found three incorrectly used hyphens doing so."
-- from a posting above
Touche, but not completely, not yet offered with full-throated ease. Why the churlish (or so it must seem) reluctance to concede completely?
Here's why:
The word started out, and some continue to spell it, as "nit-pick." See the OED, first usage in "Collier's" as "nit-pick." Over time it became reduced for most, though not all, occasions, to "nitpick." If you google "nit-pick" you find tens of thousands of entries; for "nitpick" many more. I have used both, consciously, and consciously been pleased to exercise my freedom to do so. I pay no attention to AP style sheets, and in a job where I was supposed to, I simply refused if it got in the way of what I wanted to write, for reasons of my own.
In the case above, my friendly corrector spelled it "nit-pick." Had I replied with the same sentiments, but spelling the word as "nitpick," the reply would have lost its intended friendliness, for it would now be taken to contain a pointed, if silent, reproach. I didn't want that. The choice was clear: "nit-pick" he has offered; "nit-pick" was a possible alternative; "nit-pick" it would be. In this case my motto was clear: I used the word unto others as they had used it unto me. "Nit-pick" may be slightly demode; the word's spelling can be tracked diachronically in the OED from its first appearance, as "nit-pick, " c. 1950, to find out when, and how thoroughly, "nitpick" has replaced "nit-pick." "Nit-pick" may have been reduced to a second, less favored way to spell the word, but as long as it is a word of such recent vintage, and so many continue to spell it as "nit-pick," and I had extra-textual reasons for choosing that spelling, I stand -- incompletely corrected.
I'll check with two authorities to see if they agree that I am still free to choose either "nitpick" (which I use most often) or "nit-pick" (which I use far less often), or whether I must stick with the first. For me, (but possibly for no one else), the joint decision of the two judges, Jacques Barzun and my mother, will be final. In the case of a tie, my mother wins.
Thank-you, Hugh, for taking my nit-picking in good part.
..........................
We Christians have been here before. We have already owned up to our role in the anti-semitic pogroms of the past. We have said sorry (sincerely) and we have examined our consciences and we admit that we were wrong and misled by our own propagandists.
Why Fr. Francis Tiso should now wish to get into bed with a devil-worshipping faith that is profoundly and deeply anti-semitic and anti-Christian is, quite simply, just baffling.
Khaled Troudi, however, has connections with ADAMS and is on the Schedule of Rotating Speakers at the Adamscenter: (the All Dulles Area Muslim Society) (ADAMS).
The following is from
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1291
ADAMS has numerous close affiliations with the main targets of "Operation Green Quest," "the largest U.S. terror finance investigation anywhere in the world." In March 2002, federal agents raided ADAMS's facility in Herndon, Virginia, as part of an investigation into financial support for terrorism. Federal affidavits state that the "Grove Street addresses" (500 and 555 Grove St. in Herndon) housed more than 100 interlocking Muslim organizations, most headed by Jamal Barzinji, and these groups gave material aid to terrorists. Among those raided were several major ADAMS associates, including its chairman. Magid himself was present when federal agents raided the Herndon offices of ADAMS in March 2002.
Soon after the raid, Magid held a public meeting encouraging "community building" among the organizations investigated. Although 100 people showed up at the Sterling, Virginia, public library for the meeting, another 150 members of the overflow crowd met at ADAMS headquarters itself.
ADAMS's office is located in Sterling Virginia, but the organization also maintains a "Grove Street Facility" at 500 Grove Street in Herndon. A former Justice Department prosecutor has alleged, in a lawsuit filed in Florida, that funds from this address (and 555 Grove Street, right across the street) were forwarded to Sami al-Arian.
An affidavit stated the "Grove Street" groups – all of which were lead by Jamal Barzinji – were "suspected of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering, and tax evasion through the use of a variety of for-profit companies and ostensible charitable entities under their control, most of which are located at 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia."
So, poor Fr. Tiso is going to debate with a moslem who will be well versed in all the arts of dissimulation and lying. Sometimes, congregations should be warned about their innocent priests, don't you think?
Dominic.
Ah, Hugh, I really feel, tonight, as if I am in The House of Intellect. Did Barzun not, also, admire Pascal - and, therefore, presumably, his prejudices?
Of course you mother must take precedence. Mine does. Indeed, she insists upon it.
Dominic.
Third line of my last post:
'you' should read 'your'.
Sorry.
Dominic.
This forum is swamped with Catholics, patriarchial, family values, anti abortion, ranting about Gramsci and Marxists, who are in bed with the Islamists, and supportive of them, and part of the reason is that they "revere" Mary, and they wilfully ignore the Arianism of Islam, and it's denial of the divinity of Jesus, on the other hand they hate pagans and atheists as much as Muslims do, and they defend and side with Islam because it is on the "side of the angels" (because of it's sexual repression, intolerance of homosexuals, and a perception that it is antiabortion and exalts the masculine while marginalizing the feminine (except for the "God ordained" role of breeding and taking care of hearth, brood and man).
Of course, one has to beware of mothers, sometimes. I think it was Rita Rudner who said:
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.
It sort of sums my mother up. (Don't get me wrong, I really love her but why does she still come round to my flat just to wash my curtains?)
Dominic.
Jacques Barzun is 96, so I will not be phoning him. But I intend to look through such of his books as are relevant, including "A Word or Two Before You Go," to see if he has something on "nit-pick" or "nitpick." My mother, who can run circles around me (run circles, as on a track, as well as in every other sense), despite having Caller I.D., nonetheless is still willing to take my calls. So I'll check for her views on the spelling and use of "nit-picking" and "nitpicking."
Can all this "nitpicking" or "nit-picking" about "nit-picking" or "nitpicking" be called an Austinian performative? Or could it possibly be an Austenian performative, with Jane sitting in for J. L., while all the other guests take note of one another's verbal infelicities, round the table at Mansfield Park?
Surely, Hugh, if they are verbal infelicities then they are more likely to be constantive speech acts. The difference between being and the illusion generated by writings, perhaps?
Very surprised to learn Barzun is still alive. A great man.
Dominic.
Then again, perhaps nit-picking qua nitpicking is nothing more than a Davidsonian Event. But how would we know, that is the question?
Dominic.
Hugh-
And then there was nit-wit...
Looking in my 1930's 2-volume Webster's Universal Unabridged Dictionary, only "nit" was noted, and no compounds.
But I came across a word worth bringing back:
"Nithing" - n. (Anglo-Saxon nithing- a wicked man)- A coward; a dastard; a poltroon. (Obs.)
E.G. : Mahmoud and his fellow nithings.
(So many poltroons, so little time.)
"Nit-pick" is how I've always seen it, and used it.
Like ice-pick. (The dash makes it a nice semi-ideogram.)
profitsbeard,
I see you state nithing as obsolete. In many parts of England, including my own, it is still in use. A corruption, niding, is also still in use. It can also have the meaning 'traitor'.
Dominic.
profitsbeard,
There is also a tradition of the nithing-pole that is still erected in some parts of what used to be the Danelaw, but I think that most people have forgotten what it is abouit and confuse it with a Maypole.
Dominic.
'abouit' - presumably a small town in the Sahara; please read 'about'. Too many keys, not enough fingers.
Dominic.
Nariz,
These people must have a very shallow conception of Islamic sexual attitudes. For example, just at the most basic level there's more than one reason for thinking that a girl or woman should not be dressed too immodestly. On the one hand, one might be concerned to protect a girl's innocence; on the other, and at the extreme, one might consider that an adult woman's whole body is awrat and an offence to the sight.
I think people really ought to understand that sex for Islam is about the collective not the personal, and about domination and subordination - about who does what to whom. These people need to be woken up, if it be possible. Might it help if you posted some of the articles from Front Page Mag on Islam and sex there?
Granny Weatherwax:
Well, what does one get from a critical reading of the gospels?
John starts with a theological statement identifying Christ with the creative aspect of God, the Word*.
Mark begins with John the Baptist, identifying him with a figure from Isaiah, and moving on to his baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.
Only two of the gospels, Luke and Matthew, have a virgin birth. And Matthew doesn't seem too sure, since he begins (1: 1-16) with a genealogy intended to establish that Christ is a descendant of David in the direct male line.
There seems little need to get hung up on a virgin birth and even less need for some Pakistani to make up an event specifically to "disprove" it. I'm not a Christian, except culturally, but surely for Christians all that is necessary is for Christ to be conceived of as having a dual nature - human and divine.
Of course, it is not Christianity that is most in need of the critical reading of texts. But I guess people like Ibn Warraq are working on that one now.
Footnote
*Evidently, Cat Stevens did not realize the theological significance of the phrase "the Word" - or, indeed, the symbolism throughout in "Morning has Broken" or he wouldn't have sung it and put it in the pop charts.
Good Morning Yojimbo.
That Muslim did believe in the virgin birth (many Muslims don't dispute that.)I was just bemused in his belief that God needed to get her naked (hence the respectable bath - her being a modest lady) before she could immaculately concieve.
But as you rightly say, it is Christ's divinity that matters. And I would add God's love.
I'd pick nitpick over nit-pick. But in this case I'd avoid it altogether and say "I don't want to split hairs". "To nitpick" sounds like a split infinitive. These have their place, of course, but there is no need to gratuitously pepper your speech with them.
If "nitpick" is one word, "to nitpick" isn't really a split infinitive. But the listener is conscious of it having been two words more recently than, say "fishmonger" - monged any fish lately? - so it jars.
It isn't quite one word, then, but nor is it two. A nitpicker isn't a picker of nits in the way that a pickled pepper picker is a picker of pickled pepper who picks it by the peck.
And try saying that after a few beers. Followed by "I'm not a pheasant plucker..." or "Mrs Puggy Wuggy had a square cut punt..." You'll slip up badly, and the pheasant plucker may take a square cut punt up the Cam.
You can find a not-so-short "short" bio of Father Tiso at this address. He is the University Chaplain at San Francisco State and an expert on Buddhism.
http://www.stmchurch.com/tisocv.htm
In 2004 he was a speaker at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America. The description of his panel reads:
Interfaith Relations and Dialogue--
Muslims cannot dispel many of the misunderstandings and stereotyping against
them. Hear from important religious leaders of other faith communities who are
committed to helping dispel misunderstanding about Islam and work to build
bridges of understanding between people of faith in our pluralistic society.
Speakers: Muhammad Shafiq, Father Francis Tiso, Rabbi Peter Knobel,
Shanta Premawardhna
Moderator: Muzammil Siddiqi
You can order a cassette tape "CHRIST IN BUDDHA NATURE: TWO WORLDS-ONE HEART with Father Francis Tiso" at:
http://www.newdimensions.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=2926&Category_Code=re
The descrription reads: "If you have ever struggled with the dilemma of reconciling Buddhist philosophy with Christian theology, you will find yourself quickly absorbed in this rich and informative conversation with Father Francis Tiso, scholar, poet, artist, musician, botanist, alchemist, exorcist, mystic and gourmet cook - a Renaissance man in the truest sense of the term. Responding to the question of how a Catholic priest becomes so involved with Buddhism, Fr. Tiso launches into the story of his calling and the extraordinary unfolding of his lifework. We hear about his travels to Asia to meet Tibetan Buddhist masters; the Tibetan Buddhist phenomenon of the rainbow body and its connection to the resurrection of Christ, and his thoughts on metaphors and symbols. "We have to be aware that culturally we have a lot invested in the term "symbol or metaphor" as a limit feature of phenomenon. When traditional cultures talk about symbols and metaphors they are talking about greater reality. Not only greater in the sense of having more meaning, but representing the way things really are in their depths."
Tiso is quoted in the following story extract with regard to Tariq Ramadan when he was denied entry into the US to teach at Notre Dame:
Father Francis Tiso, an associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said from his reading of some of Ramadan's work the theologian would be a valuable asset to Muslim-Christian understanding in the United States.
He likened Ramadan's perspectives on the secularization of Islam in Europe to the kind of thinking among Catholic theologians that preceded the Second Vatican Council.
"He discusses Islamic reform in terms of modernizing on its own terms, using its own resources," Father Tiso told Catholic News Service.
Like Christianity, Islam in Europe struggles with the effects of a secular society, he explained. Religion in the United States faces secularism also, but in very different ways.
"I think it would have been useful to Catholic-Muslim dialogue in this country for him to teach in the United States," Father Tiso said. And Ramadan's studies could benefit from closely observing the very different role religion plays in U.S. society than it does in Europe, he added.
I actually attended the event.
Troudi actually was pretty straightforward. He stated what Islam thought of Mary, but added that it has not greatly affected islamic religious practice, and was unsure of how great a bridge it provided between Islam and Christianity.
Tiso mainly talked about how Mary matters to Cthlics. There wasn't too much multi-culti feelgood crap.
BECAUSE ISLAM MEANS PEACE..AND THE MUSLIM FAITH LOVES CHILDREN..JUST NOT YOURS......Malvo, who had never before taken the witness stand against his fellow sniper, gave the most detailed account yet of the planning that went into the three-week shooting spree that left 10 people dead at gas stations and parking lots.
Malvo also said Muhammad devised a two-phase plan to shoot as many as six random people each day for 30 days in the Washington area and then target children and police officers with explosives. They planned to place explosives on school buses in Baltimore, kill a Baltimore police officer, and then set off explosives packed with ball bearings at the officer's funeral.
When Malvo asked Muhammad why, he said, "For the sheer terror of it - the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."
http://michellemalkin.com/
"An Pakistani Muslim once told me that she became pregnant with Jesus during a bath"
So from what islamic scripture did he get this?
Has anyone on this board have actually read the whole chapter dedicated to Mary (peace be upon her) in the Quran - chapter 19 ?
Jesus and The Virgin Mary in Islam
By Juan Galvan
http://www.islamfortoday.com/galvan03.htm
Jesus Christ The Son of Mary and His Blessed Mother
http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/archives/2005/lessons-in-the-story-of-jesus-the-son-of-mary-and-his-most-blessed-mother/#article
Mary the Blessed Virgin of Islam
http://www.fonsvitae.com/marybless.html
No offence, but Muslims love Jesus as much as Christians do
http://www.islamfortoday.com/jesus02.htm
Muslim Passion for the Christ
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=3168&CATE=142
"Father Francis Tiso, scholar, poet, artist, musician, botanist, alchemist, exorcist, mystic and gourmet cook - a Renaissance man in the truest sense of the term. Responding to the question of how a Catholic priest becomes so involved with Buddhism, Fr. Tiso launches into the story of his calling and the extraordinary unfolding of his lifework. We hear about his travels to Asia to meet Tibetan Buddhist masters..."
-- from a description of Father Tiso quoted in a posting above
A blend of Poggio Bracciolini, Dante, Michelangelo, Palestrina, Prosper Alpini, not to mention being an "exorcist" (!), "mystic," and "gourmet cook," Fr. Tiso also appears to be, when he is not painting or writing or cooking or exorcizing down at the Y, what with all those "travels to Asia to meet Tibetan Buddhist masters," a veritable Sir Aurel Stein or Przhevalsky or possibly Richard Gere.
Surely this is the kind of breathless description (who supplied the information on which that description is based, if not Fr. Tiso himself?) that requires, that demands, that makes positively de rigueur, the inclusion of the word "extraordinaire" as a rhetorical cherry on top, so that the revised phrase should now praise him as "a Renaissance man extraordinaire in the truest sense of the term."
Fr. Tiso deserves no less.
The Muslim propagandist above ("truth speaker") inquires as to whether visitors to this site actually have read about the Muslim veneration for Jesus, adding "Muslims love Jesus as much as Christians do." This is nonsense, and he knows it. Jesus is simply one among many previous prophets -- not a handful, but thousands are alluded to here and there in the Qur'an. The only Muslim or quasi-Muslim sect that venerates Mary, in a bit of obvious syncretism, is that of the Alawites, and it is precisely for that veneration of Mary that the Alawites are regaded with such hostility by real Muslims, who if they ever came to power in Syria would simply wipe those Alawites out (and the Alawites know it).
Of course Islam is a blend of bits and pieces of pre-Islamic Arab pagan lore (those djinns), and stories and figures approriated from both Christiantiy and Judaism. The concoction of a belief-system out of what already present, in order to come up with not so much a "new, imporved" version of the exiseting religions, but something billed as the "always existing, but until the Seal of the Prophets came along was imperfectly received" doctrines of Islam, provided a belief-system to justify and promote conquests, by primitive Arabs, of much more advanced and civilized populations, of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians, during the first centuries of conquest throughout the Middle East and North Africa, all the way to Spain.
By now this appeal to Christians, by which they are expected to ignore their own miserable treatment at the hands of Muslims (see "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam") and to be satisfied with some nonsense about "we revere Jesus too" though of course the Muslim Jesus is entirely different -- not the Son of God, obviously, and never crucified, to start with -- from the figure of Jesus in Christiantiy.
As with Naseem, this propagandist serves a useful purpose, so we'll keep his postings.
This was actually a quotation from the article, he linked to. It was by John Casey of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and originally appeared in (of all places) the Telegraph. But Casey is not some "academic lefty". His political philosophy is a somewhat Hegelian conservatism, and he was a founder of the Conservative Philosophy Group, and an occasional contributor to the Salisbury Review.
Casey occasionally writes rather anodyne and misleading articles for the Telegraph about Islam, presumably because he has little understanding of it and believes implicitly what his informants tell him - IIRC, he quotes in that article from what Hizbollah members said to him .
Casey's subject is English, and I believe he also has a pretty impressive grounding in philosophy. He would know about Christianity, having had a traditional Roman Catholic education in Ireland. I thought he had some interesting things to say in The Language of Criticism. But I don't believe there are any grounds for considering him a useful source of information on Islam. His Telegraph articles on the subject come across as rather meagre travel chit-chat.
The Salisbury Review? Roger Scruton lets this kind of thing in? Because someone has written a book on Donne? Should Wayne Booth's political views be treated with respect because he wrote "The Rhetoric of Fiction"? Or Chomsky be listened to on Iran and Darfur and Nicaragua because of some elegant blue Mouton & Co. ('s Gravenhage) monographs on syntactic structures, with Morris Halle and those metallic MIT halls, and even the ghost of Roman Jakobson all hovering in the background?
I don't whether or not Casey has written on Islam for the Salisbury Review. He has written for it - that's the point I was making there - but not, I think, on that. But I haven't seen a copy for some years. (BTW, Scruton has moved on to other interests and is only one of a number of "consulting editors" now.)
But, as I say, Casey has written on Islam for the Telegraph. I thought this piece was particularly questionable. Muslim violence, Casey suggests, is to be traced to two events, thus blithely ignoring 1350 years of jihad history.
Hugh,
"Of course Islam is a blend of bits and pieces of pre-Islamic Arab pagan lore (those djinns), and stories and figures approriated from both Christiantiy and Judaism. The concoction of a belief-system out of what already present, in order to come up with not so much a "new, imporved" version of the exiseting religions, but something billed as the "always existing, but until the Seal of the Prophets came along was imperfectly received" doctrines of Islam, provided a belief-system to justify and promote conquests, by primitive Arabs, of much more advanced and civilized populations, of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians, during the first centuries of conquest throughout the Middle East and North Africa, all the way to Spain. "
If my memory is correct, did not Islam get its viewpoints about Jesus and the Christian faith from the Arians and the gnostic gospels?
truth speaker,
If Muslims truly love Jesus, why is Jesus regarded as a second rate prophet in Islam?
Bad, very bad, although sadly there are many " syncretists" that say that there are catholics, the mentality that all religions are the same, is very powerful in catholic circles in US and Europe. Not surprising, and sadly the Pope isn´t the dictator that protestants think, I would like this, but the things are much complicated.
Nariz- your war on Christians can wait until This one is dealt with.
Many of the Catholic clergy are as ignorant of Islam as most others in the West.
The other day I mentioned to a Catholic priest the historical conflict between Christianity and Islam and I was astounded to hear him say, in a light breezy sort of way, that he didn't know why Islam has been so antagonistic to Christianity.
He has simply never bothered, as most Wesetrners haven't, to educate himself about Islam.
Christian clergy are often referred to as "shepherds" guiding their flocks.. but sadly, lately they seem to be guiding their congregations, unwittingly, via the roads of humanism, socialism and cultural religious and moral relativism, directly to the slaughterhouse.
Still, I have faith that unltimately good will prevail but I fear it will get awful bloody.
No one who lived through the last century should ever describe antisemitism in the Westen world as merely a "speck."
I didn't mean speck prosaically; I was of course thinking of the words of Jesus (Matthew 7, Luke 6; though I'd momentarily neglected to use the quainter synonym mote) who, when he enjoined his disciples to reverse their priority of criticizing others first before criticizing themselves colorfully characterized the fault in the other as a "mote" compared to the fault in oneself as a "beam", didn't thereby intend to
demote the other's fault literally to a speck, in the sense that it was trivial: it becomes minimized in the light of Jesus's radical reorientation of ethics -- which, nevertheless, we cannot afford to adopt against an enemy like Islam. At any rate, the antisemitism of the last century had less to do with the "Christendom" that was Hay's main focus than with modern, post-Christian mythologies drawing from heretical quasi-Gnostic streams normally condemned under the purview of orthodox Christianity for most of those 1900 years.
He was writing about one thing. He was not writing about another.
Those two books of Hay don't look like monographs, where a historian's restricted focus is reasonable. Islam ignored is a great lacuna for an otherwise "magnificent" historian writing a general historical study about antisemitism and the people of Israel over the past 1900 years when 1400 of those years involved worse antisemitism under Muslims.
A former professor of mine, teaching a history of religions, illustrated the literalistic psychology of the Muslim mind by using the example of why they cannot accept the divine "Sonship" of Jesus (God the Father being the father of Jesus, Mary his mother): For the Muslim, to say that Jesus is the Son of God would be to say that God the Father inserted His penis into the vagina of Mary and had intercourse with her. (This was a regular statement made by this professor for this class: I took the class twice (1983, then 1984 as his T.A.), and he said the same thing, no doubt to titillate and interest the normally bored freshmen & sophomores -- though somehow, I doubt he would be saying that nowadays (if he weren't retired), for fear of a less-than-benign backpack being brought into class one day.)
As for nitpcking vs. nit-picking: I guess the issue revolves around the relation between orthography and changing standards: what constitutes an incorrect standard, formerly correct? Were I -- a reader fond of Older writings of years of Yore --; when Punctuation, if not also Syntax, seemed bereft of control and all Godly standards (let alone Standardization); and when Sentences could go on seemingly forever -- peppered with semicolons; not to mention em dashes -- to fail to accede to the March of progress in right writing, my prose might well resemble the aforementioned &cetera.
didn't thereby intend to demote the other's fault literally to a speck, in the sense that it was trivial
Or even demote it to a mote.
I'm the last person to nitpick, but you don't mean "literally", do you? A fault can't literally be a speck, though a beam could literally be a mote if you chopped it up and ground it small enough, as the mills of God are said to do.
According to my American Heritage dictionary, literal is defined as 1) "Conforming or limited to the simplest, nonfigurative, or most obvious meaning of a word or words", and 3) "Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or embellishment" (number 2 is not relevant -- "word for word" or "verbatim"). Only the sense of that buried adjective "nonfigurative" would support the case implied by your question: i.e., even something "literal" can be figurative (the word is based on "letter" after all, not "reality" per se): a fault that is literally a speck is a fault that is deemed to be minor; Jesus was referring figuratively to the fault of the other as a speck, in the metaphorical context where even a major fault is to be radically reinterpreted according to a new ethics, rendered vivid through fabulous tropes (employed rather often by Jesus) reminiscent of Aesop's Fables.
On another related note, in my other post I referred to the "literalistic" Muslim mind: again, my American Heritage dictionary defines "literalism" in terms of "realism". Of course, hovering near the edge of this discussion is a philosophical precipice where no definitive line separates the letter from the res, insofar as reality known must be reality expressed and speech is a part of reality.
Television,
Talking of literalism, it's clear that the Muslim visions of hell are meant to be taken quite literally. (Similarly, with "paradise"—Muslim theologians seriously discuss matters such as whether erections will be permanent or not in paradise.)
And so far as I can tell, Muslims do take the notion of enduring "hellfire" pretty seriously, too. (Naseem is no exception.) The Bible is actually not overburdened with visions of hell. I believe I'm correct in saying that the notion of any kind of resurrection made a late appearance in Israelite religion (q.v. Ezekiel's vision) and by the time of Christ there was still dispute, with the Pharisees accepting the doctrine and the Sadducees (q.v. Matthew 22:23) rejecting it. Something like the reference that occurs a little earlier in that chapter (Matthew 22:13) can't be taken as a literal statement by Christ that, for example, "hell is without light"—after all it comes in the context of a parable, and no one's going to be damned for not wearing suitable clothing.
To be sure, many Christians have often been haunted by a fear of damnation, but whether that is theologically sound is surely questionable. Hell is there in their scriptures, but whether it should loom large is another matter. And it surely shouldn't be taken as being described literally anywhere. Indeed, if it did exist, how could it be?—for obvious (Kantian) reasons.
P.S. I've just discovered Robert's software will recognize an em dash typed as:
& mdash ;
but with no spaces.
Yojimbo,
Thanks for the em dash&emdashI'll try it now.
Woops: it didn't work; or I wasn't clear about your instructions.
As for eschatological literalism: not only do Christians inherit a more flexible mythological apparatus than do Muslims (no surprise there), but the modern West is more than dogmatic Christianity -- and that's thanks to the flexibility of Christianity itself, one of the main historical motors of modernity, notwithstanding a certain number of ahistorical Christians among us.
Let's try it again&mdashdid that work?
PS: mythological apparatus = mythologoumena.
Television-
Don't forget a nice word coined by Robert Graves' in his classic "The White Goddess":
iconotropically.
"...a technique of deliberate misrepresentation by which ancient ritual icons are twisted in meaning in order to confirm a profound change of the existent religious system - usually... from matriarchal to patriarchal- and the new meanings are embodied in myth."
Islam, anyone?
Yojimbo:
On permanent erections in paradise, I believe that there is a side-effects warning on the Viagra of pseudo-religious texts (the Qur'an) that reads:
Warning: Viagqur'an should not be taken if you have a tendency to lose your grip on reality or are prone to temper flare-ups. Viagqur'an may effect your ability to discern or tell the truth. Those taking Viagqur'an should not operate heavy machinery (such as short-range missile systems or large passenger aircraft) or motor vehicles (particularly when laden with high explosives). The Viagqur'an may cause dizziness, restlessness, hallucinations, nausea (to non-Muslims), feelings of despair, and general silliness. Those who might be depressed or suicidal should not take Viaqur'an, as suicidal tendencies are often elevated to homicidal tendencies for those on Viagqur'an. Should suicide occur and the the Viagqur'an patient reach paradise, erections are unlikely as most Viagqur'an patients are generally lacking sufficient male genitalia to achieve an erection to begin with. For those on Viagqur'an who believe they are dealing permanent erections in paradise, you are not actually dead,you are most likely just completly insane.