But rest easy, friends: the ever-vigilant Islamic guardians of the Maldives Customs Service are on the case. Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Customs, Police investigating attempt to import Bible," from Haveeru, November 23 (thanks to Michael):
The Maldives Customs Service and the Maldives Police Service are investigating the case of a Maldivian who had tried to import a bible into the country.Musthafa Luthufee, a Customs Media Official, said that a Maldivian who had arrived on a flight on Friday afternoon had brought a bible with him. The official also said that the bible was in the English language but that the man had not been arrested.
“If it is an item forbidden entry into the country then we will confiscated it,” the official said. “However, we do not have the authority to arrest anyone even if they attempt to import the item into the country. We have to report the incident to the Police. Still, we are also investigating the incident.”
A Police official said that they had received the report of a Maldivian who had tried to import a bible into the country and that they were investigating the case. Police also said that they had not arrested anyone in connection to the incident. Neither the Police nor the Customs would reveal the identity of the person or from which country he had arrived in Maldives from....
And well they should fear the demythologizing power of the Bible. A certain president-elect would do well to remember such discarded truths as Original Sin also.
And well they should fear the demythologizing power of the Bible. A certain president-elect would do well to remember such discarded truths as Original Sin also.
Muslims fear the Bible....
Someone should buy hundreds of pocket Bibles and fly over the country dropping them into populated areas.
Islam can only survive by keeping its followers ignorant and brainwashed.
From above: Someone should buy hundreds of pocket Bibles and fly over the country dropping them into populated areas.
Some S. Koreans are doing something like that. They float baloon's full of literature to the North.
In the early 1970s, I met in France a lady working for a Belgian Christian organization. That organization had taken it upon itself the task, no doubt shared with others, of preparing very small editions of the Bible, on onion-skin paper, suitable for smuggling into the Soviet Union, either by Western tourists, or by Soviet tourists in the West who were willing to take the risk. The totalitarian nature of Islam, the attempt to prevent people from finding out about any religion other than Islam -- and limiting them to finding out about them from the distorted, nearly crazed official versions that Islam itself presents, of both Christianity and Judaism (even as it calls those faiths examples of a "distorted" reception of the Message brought by Muhammad and received in a presumably uncorruptible form) -- clearly reveals itself in such actions as forbidding Bibles, whether in the tiny antediluvian Maldives, or in vast sand-duned Saudi Arabia.
So much for that 2.256: "There is no compulsion in religion." There's compulsion all over the damn place. Islam is nothing but compulsion, from soup to nuts, from what you eat, to what you say, to matters of excruciatingly detailed personal hygiene. The perfect faith for those who want to Follow Directions In All Things. In other words, for those who cannot stand mental freedom, and all the anxiety it brings, and also find it disturbing to have to exercise moral choice, Islam is the Thing For You. Get it while it's hot.
Reading accounts of Muslim converts to Christianity, it is often one or two biblical verses that leap out and shatter their entire Islamic mindset. The idea that 'God loves YOU' is so powerful and radical and intuitively satisfying to the human soul's yearnings, that the remote and bullying 'Allah' comes crashing down forever.
Just a few of these key verses could speak to millions of souls.
Mulai hari ini tanggal 19 Nov 2008, admins/moderators menutup forum ini demi terciptanya keharmonisan beragama di Indonesia. Forum ini adalah milik dan dikelola oleh http://www.faithfreedom.org, Dr. Ali Sina. Dengan ini admins/moderators tidak lagi terlibat dalam bentuk apapun dalam forum ini, dan meminta maaf bila kehadiran forum ini telah meresahkan masyarakat Indonesia.
In other words
In the interests of inter-religious harmony in Indonesia the forum has been closed
Faithfreedom, run by Ali Sina, has nine non English language versions, including an Indonesian one, or did until today.
The site has been shut down by its operators after it attracted the attention of various political and religious authorities in Indonesia, such as the Clerics’ Council/Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) and the Justice Party/Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS).
Ikhwan Syam of MUI asked the Department of Communications to take action against the site, while President of PKS Tifatul Sembiring said the PKS may stage public demonstrations
Currently the home page of this site contains a message explaining that in the interests of inter-religious harmony in Indonesia the forum has been closed:
Specifically, the main complaint against indonesia.faithfreedom.org is that it hosted two comic strips, entitled “Muhammad and Zainab” and “Muhammad and Hafsa”, in colloquial Indonesian language, which portray the prophet Muhammad in terms likely to be highly offensive to most Muslims, including in sexual poses.
Sadly, non-Muslims must collapse this tourism dependent economy to correct this policy, by traveling elsewhere. Any Asians reading this should eschew their fish products. A fragile economy like this will easily be brought to its knees, and I don't mean salat.
When I was a child, an old widow in our church used to go regularly to Hungary and Romania every summer and smuggle Bibles. She was so tiny and unassuming, the borderguards never gave her a second glance. She never told anyone this but my father. She was a great inspiration to me in my youth in demonstrating the call of Christ to be fishers of men.
As for gathering small pocketsized bibles and sending them through....people, this is the 21st Century. Behold! Electronic Bible Smuggling from the comforts of your home!
http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com
Do you fear being manhandled and violated by overly zealous sons of Allah in their never ending quest for infidel reading materials hidden in your luggage? Well, with just a click of a mouse, you too can violate the imperial but ludicrous directives of the Kingdom of Outer Darkness!
http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com
Downloading a New Testament to an iddy biddy flash drive has never been easier than now.
You don't even have to go to Uncle Saud's Playground of Indolence in order to import this highly influential mind elixir! No! Just send your friends Khaled or Ahmed or Abdallah their very own forbidden audio Bible by sending them the link! That's all it takes! And people, the beautimus thing about this is that MOST PEOPLE are illiterate in the Vast Barbary! Indeed they be anhungered for more than just the koranic platitudes which have been beaten into them from childhood, and they won't arouse suspicion from the ubiquitous mutaween with as much as they would with a book that has AL INJIL AL MASIH splashed all over the cover. Nosirree bob!
http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com
There's an organization called Open Doors that started in the Netherlands in the 1950's. They would smuggle Christian literature into communist countries back in the old Soviet Union era. I was reading about them awhile back, and it sounded like a lot of their emphasis now has shifted to Islamic countries.
One of the powerfully attractive things about Christianity, for a non-Arab Muslim, is that it speaks in the mother tongue.
Hebrew and Greek are honoured, as being the languages in which the TaNaKh and the Christian Scriptures were originally written (and all modern clergy undergo basic training in those languages, and all modern translations of scripture are not undertaken without reference to the best available scholarly editions of the original language text) but from very early on Christianity has had little hesitation about translating its sacred texts.
So, although this particular bible coming into the Maldives was in English, sooner or later - the translation work has already begun - Maldivians twiddling their radio dials may come across a radio broadcast of the Bible read in Dhivehi. Then may come the electronic/ digital version...
It is gospel broadcasts in the Berber languages that have helped create a Berber-speaking church in North Africa; and recent translations of the Bible into Tatar and into certain Kurdish languages have had fascinating results (indeed, a secular Muslim Kurdish scholar, in Turkey, converted to Christianity as a result of having been asked to assist with the Kurdish NT..).
And as for Kyrgyzstan, I understand that "the New Testament was translated in 1992 and 1997, the same time as a Kyrgyz version of the Quran. Many have compared the two, and are favorably impressed with the Bible".
Islam tries desperately to keep Muslims from encountering alternatives. In the past they could police their boundaries and burn books, and keep people illiterate.
But right now, while modern communications - satellite, internet, radio - still function, and myriads of receiving devices cannot all be hunted down and destroyed, there is a 'window' through which non-Muslims can pour alternative information in floods into Muslim lands without ever having to physically set foot there, nor physically hand a book to a person; and illiterate persons can listen to the radio or a recording, while playback and reception devices get smaller, cheaper, more robust, and therefore easier to smuggle and to hide.
The sons of the desert quite correctly fear the bible: the greatest enemy of totalitarianism is the truth.
The Maldives are threatened by high water levels and are expect to be completely swamped by the Atlantic Ocean this century. I saw a report that said residents are hoping to immigrate to America or South Africa. UK is a bit too cold for them I suppose but I'm sure our government would love to accommodate them.
"The Maldives are threatened by high water levels and are expect to be completely swamped by the Atlantic Ocean this century.....residents are hoping to immigrate to America or South Africa. Maldives."
-- from a posting above
Like the tens of billions of Muslims from Bangladesh who will attempt to find refuge in India, after having made life hell for Hindus and other non-Muslims (Buddhists in the Chittagong Hills, Christians around the country), the Maldivians should be re-directed to Muslim lands. It would be foolish for the citizens of Dar al-Islam to ask for, and surely get, more trouble than they have already gotten as a result of their ignorant and extravagant generosity in opening up their countries to those who bring with them, in their mental baggage, not only an alien but an alien and a hostile creed.
Perhaps Aceh is just the place. Or, on specially chartered boats -- the Saudis have an extra trillion on hand most of the time -- bringing them straight to the port of Aden, from which they can fan out to such places as Yemen, Somalia, and even, as house-slaves, to Saudi Arabia itself.
Interesting, dumbledoresarmy, that you say how the Kyrgyz NT comparing favorably to the Kyrgyz translation of the Koran. One of the arguments of Muslims is that the Koran, having been handed down in Arabic cannot be 'translated' perfectly into other languages, yet, it puts forth a challenge to the reader to produce or find any book as noble and perfect as the Koran. Many do find perfection in a book other than the Arabic Koran. Perhaps it is a loophole through which Islam will hang itself. Oh well, a girl can dream.
Imagine if someone had smuggled in the Bill of Rights. Oh, the horror!
Hugh - did you miss out on your morning coffee?
A couple of minor 'oops' in your posting above: it's 'tens of millions' (of Bangladeshi Muslim climate refugees), surely, rather than 'tens of billions' (!).
And in the second sentence I'm sure you meant 'citizens of dar al Harb' or of the 'Bilad al-Kafir', rather than 'citizens of dar al Islam'...