Well, brother QR (Or is it sister? Please clarify at least once with your full name.), looking at your question, I get the feeling that your mind is decent enough not to follow messages like, "punish/kill the infidels/apostates." Of course, looking at your comments in mukto-mona over a number of years, I think you would try all the way to find contexts that could make such messages reasonable, if they were from what you have been brainwashed to think of as your religion. In any case, I would not give you a direct answer. Instead, I would give you the following verses from a religious book, and let you do the homework of finding out what that book is. The translation of the book was done by a prestigious US university, and was recommended to me by a serious follower of that religion with the comment that it (the translation) was authentic.
"So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely God is Forgiving, Merciful."
"And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at .... until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers."
"O you who believe! Do not take the unbelievers for friends rather than the believers."
"O you who believe! Fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness."
Now let me repeat my thoughts, so that you would not bother mukto-mona with any kind of context that would make the verses bearable; no decent free-thinker would respect such messages of hatred no matter what the context was.
My Thoughts: When an honest and unbiased reader does not know/care about the context that can make the messages look not bad (they are not good under any circumstances), what would be the result? The book will not be respected, with no harm done to anyone in the world. When a seriously brainwashed follower of that religion does not know/care about the context that can make the messages not bad, what could be the result? A lot of hatred and injustice in the mind of the follower of that religion against a lot of ordinary good human beings who do not believe in that religion. So, context is not critical for the unbelievers; it is probably needed for the believing imbeciles. Of course, there is no point in trying to sanitize some insanity in a book; the point really has to be for people to use their common sense of decency, justice and civility for their thoughts and actions in the world.
Well, brother, I have spent too much of my time on you now. I hope it would help.
Sukhamaya Bain
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From: QR <qrahman@netscape.net>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2014 8:32 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 3, 2014 8:32 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
Just compare this innocent but ridiculous practice with the message of "punish/kill the infidels/apostates"!
>>>>>>>> Where did you see such message?
Shalom!
Shalom!
-----Original Message-----
From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 2, 2014 9:09 am
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 2, 2014 9:09 am
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
I am unclear as to whom Dr. Das has agreed with. But, I did not call Sunil Ganguli an idiot for not having significant knowledge on scripture; I called him an idiot for crudely provoking a lot of believers for no good reason.
As for kissing some idols/stones of certain shapes, I would not spend much time criticizing it as long as it is just silly and stupid with no hatred against any kind of people. Just compare this innocent but ridiculous practice with the message of "punish/kill the infidels/apostates"! The latter kind of message is what the civilized world must stop with all its intellect/power.
SuBain
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From: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:10 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 1, 2014 9:10 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understand life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
I would agree that Sunil Ganguly did not have significant knowledge on scripture either. But "tene chok Mara" is not much of a religious offense compared to kissing the Shivalingam or the Yoni at Kamakhya and Hajre - Aswad.
Sent from my iPad
Sent from my iPad
I disagree with Dr. Kamal Das. I think Sunil Ganguli was an idiot when he made the comment.What is the difference between putting the knowledge of Hindu religious scripture in context and putting the knowledge of Islamic scripture in context? Are we supposed to go by the scriptures, or by our common sense of decency, justice and civility? Sunil Ganguli's comment on Saraswati served no good purpose; it just worthlessly angered a lot of people who worshipped Saraswati with absolutely no hatred/injustice/incivility against any kind of people in the world.SuBain
=========================================From: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 1, 2014 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: context needed to understnad life of prophet Muhammad PBUH
There is nothing wrong in winking at Saraswati. She is the Goddess of learning, love and war. Her equivalent in Avesta is Anahita, a stark naked Goddess riding a lion. Those critics of Sunil Ganguly had no knowledge of religious scripture.
Sent from my iPadI mean he was born of a Hindu family. Probably he became an atheist at an old age. In the weddings of his son and daughter he followed the Hindu rituals.Remember Sunil Ganguly created controversy by saying that on his young life the goddess Saraswati used to provoke sex in him? He was sued by a retired Hindu police officer. He was criticized heavily by many atheists, liberals, and believers.
Sent from my iPhoneWhen one stresses upon the need to understand the context, he forgets that it imposes the limits of non-universality upon the person being discussed curtailing the limit of his prophethood. With such followers, who needs non-believers?
On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote:
How can the man be a Hindu and an atheist at the same time, Professor Chakrabarty? You probably did not mean it that way.On a more serious note, I think Dr. Roy's question of "what's the meaning of "crude bashing"" needs to be addressed, discussed and debated.To me, an example of "crude bashing" of religion would be drawing a so-called prophet/avatar/god in a disrespectful manner, such as pig face or sexually explicit. It would serve only to provoke the believer, with no attempt to educate, and I would condemn it.However, calling an unjust/hateful/barbaric religious teaching unjust/hateful/barbaric is not what I would call "crude bashing", although personally I would avoid doing the criticism. That is primarily because I do realize that people were less educated and less civilized when those teachings came about. There is no point in criticizing, or in trying to find the context for respecting, the ignorance/mistakes of our forefathers (the foremothers had very little power). The point really is not to follow (and not allowing to follow) any unjust/hateful/barbaric teachings, irrespective of what religion/tradition had that.Sukhamaya Bain=========================================On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 6:48 PM, Subimal Chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com> wrote:I have a very close friend. He is Hindu. He was a professor of a renowned university of Bangladesh. Now he lives in a America. He is an atheist. Some of the comments he makes in Facebook are nothing but crude bashing of Hindu religion. I had an opportunity to read one of his ugly comments about goddess Kali in Facebook. This is called crude bashing. This does not help us.
Sent from my iPhoneSubimal Chakraborty Said: "I agree with Farida apa: crude bashing of Islam and for that matter any religion is indefensible. It is not only childish, it also provokes a fanatic and leaves in their hands 'weapons' to make an attempt to stop the progress of human thoughts and ideas. Therefore, critiquing of a religion should be objective and analytical with no preconceived hatred for it in the critic's mind."Who hates who? I do not think anybody here hates anybody personally; people just put forward opinions. The above statement means some people have hatred against some other people in this forum. This is a misguided notion.Now - what's the meaning of "crude bashing?" All we have heard so far from Ms. Majid and Mr. Rahman are terms like - "Islam bashing" and "hatred for Islam," when they run out of arguments to counter criticism. To them, every criticism of their religion is out of hatred for their religion. Now, an atheist is joining that cohort; this smells like a political stand, not ideological.The fact is – criticism of one's favorite object will always hurt his/her feeling; it does not matter how objective or analytical criticism may be. Also, how can someone defend a blind faith with a sound logic? They can't. Blind faith logic will always sound ridiculous to an open minded person. Mr. Rahman thinks that he knows the authentic version of Islam. Isn't it a ridiculous claims also? How could anyone be so sure that he/she has the most authentic version of religion, unless it's his faith.
Lately, I am hearing from Mr. Rahman that judging Prophet needs proper context. To me, a noble man is always a noble man; no context or excuse is needed to evaluate a noble man.Jiten Roy
On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 7:33 PM, Shah Deeldar <shahdeeldar@yahoo.com> wrote:Yes, you are so right about the collapse of the Persian empire. That removed the best wall that was ever built in the western frontier in that era. Had that been intact, we would have been saved from this abysmal mediocrity.
-SD
"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."
-Seuss
On Sunday, February 23, 2014 7:05 PM, Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com> wrote:Nothing is more blasphemous and moronic to think that a passionate and almighty God sent his best and last messenger to a community of desert oasis and forgot about his best creation since then. Even a blind could see that the last messenger was a failure till he adopted dacoits, blunder and mayhem of the weak Jewish communities from the hideout of Yatrib. It was the collapse of the Persian Empire due to war of succession that made Islam the winner. But again, the Ummayads, the archenemy of the Hashemites in which the Prophet belonged, was the winner. As Ms. Majid is a closet fundamentalist, she gets irritated by a correct analysis of Islamic history.
Sent from my iPadMaybe, we all should hide in a cave because the vicious mob will be angry and start killing innocents? Is that the thinking? A white flag with out a fight? We should only talk about flowers? Right?
-SD
"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."
-Seuss
On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 7:04 PM=
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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration:
Call For Articles:
http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68
http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585
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