The Almighty created the world in six days and rested on the 7th,
The Almighty who created the world in six days, taught Moses the Torah
over a period of 40 days, above Mt. Sinai. When Moses came down from
the mountain his face was shining with an incandescent luminosity, and
after that he had to wear a mask.....
I know that the rational mind with which you are gifted will arrive at
some conclusions about that too.
The word "aql" intellect, occurs in the Quran, 77 times. "A Muslim is
by definition an intellectual" and so non-Muslims should try to
refrain from looking down on Muslims because they are Muslims. A
Muslim is not a mindless robot nor is he or she under the delusions of
superstition
I'm really not interested in getting into a theological kind of
discussion. What concerns us here is the political context in which
the religious emotions/ passions are set on fire. If you haven't done
so please find time to do so now as a really caring Nigerian. Click on
Books: Read Professor Toyin Falola's "Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis
of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies"
Our concern is the spate of violence that has occasionally been
erupting as part of the Muslim-Christian interface, mostly in
Northern Nigeria where Muslims are in the majority. In Anambra they
would be vastly outnumbered and therefore less daring about wielding
the jihad machete over the heads of the Kuffar or Christians say in
Enugu. Both religions say that killing is reprehensible... and it
wasn't blood-thirsty Muslims that started the first world war or the
second world war and so many other wars, Vietnam, Korea...
What's interesting is the educational de-programming ( or re-
programming) that you suggested in your original posting. I'm
impressed by your recommendations and to some extent they parallel the
sorts of reforms that Israeli authorities would like to see in the
education ( not brainwashing) of Palestinian children who are taught a
demonized version of the human beings called God's Chosen people.
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=Indoctrination+in+Palestinian+schools
But things are not that bad in Nigeria where we may legally opt to be
Olodumare, Chinyeke, or even followers of Pastor Adeboye but at least
we are all Nigerians.
The context of this blood-letting is the Nigerian secular state within
which the life of Nigerian citizens are of equal value before the law,
so it's also a basic matter of maintaining law and order – of crime
and punishment – and of equal importance is the responsibility of the
civic and religious leaders and teachers to preach harmony, not
discord.
As my Turkish friend Ihsan Kutlu was explaining to me when we met on
Tuesday, another difference between Islam and Christianity is that
whereas the Prophet of Islam salallahu alaihi wa salaam became head
of state in Medina – and of necessity, laws were promulgated for the
governance of that first Muslim society/ state of which he was
president , so to speak, the Charter of Medina etc, in the case of
Jesus of Nazareth (who said that his Kingdom was not of this world) he
was a colonial subject with his country under Roman occupation, so to
speak, so – although there is the Jewish Halakah , Sanhedrin etc, in
JC's time he did not become any real " King of the Jews", not even on
the cross, nor did he promulgate a new Jewish halakah or "Sharia".
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=halakhah
You convey the impression that it's Christians that have been targeted
in this latest cycle..... but is this so? The Charter of Medina
guarantees protection of the Dhimmis, but the Dhimmis too have some
responsibilities, to be law abiding, to stop rigging elections. People
are asking how could Goodluck reap a million votes in Kaduna???? Dear
Toyin, do you have any idea?
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=The+Charter+of+Medina
On Apr 21, 7:37 pm, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
> Cornelius,
>
> I suspect you are not sensitive to my efforts at careful qualification
> there.If you were, you might not be so critical.
>
> I state the authority of religions is often based on non-rational
> conceptions, conceptions so described because they are seen as being above
> reason. I understand there are different ways of characterising religion but
> this one has lot of value to it. At the core of all religions known to me is
> the idea of authority from a non-rational, supra-rational source.
>
> Non-rationality does not necessarily imply irrationality. The non-rational
> may be irrational, supra-rational or expressed in other ways. In being
> supra-rational, it is described as being above reason, transcending the
> limitations of human ratiocination. The Bible puts it superbly where God is
> described as stating along these lines 'My ways are above your ways and my
> thoughts above your thoughts as the heavens are above the earth'. The
> Christian mystic San Juan de la Cruz reinforces this perception in declaring
> that beside God, all human conceptions of beauty amount to supreme ugliness
> and that in entering the supernal presence, he reached there through 'a
> knowledge that annihilates itself, a knowledge that knows nothing'.
>
> The Koran also makes a similar point along the lines of 'The life of this
> world, begetting and being begotten.They think that is life but it is but a
> sport and a play'. Jesus spoke of the faith of a little child and often
> communicated in terms of paradox, not ratiocinative expression, which he
> also used, a style I understand is similar to that adopted by the Buddhist
> philosopher Nagarjuna who is described as depicting the self contradictory
> character of reasoning, creating a platform for the kind insight, unmediated
> by reasoning, evoked by Zen Buddhism, suggested par excellence by Zen
> koans, like 'show me the sound of one hand clapping' contemplation on which
> is meant to appeal not to to ratiocination but to the supra-rational.
>
> From what authority does the entire edifice of Judaism, Christianity, Islam
> and even Buddhism and Hinduism ultimately derive? In the case of the
> Abrahamic religions, is it not from claims of dialogue between humans beings
> and supra-natural entities, God or his non-human delegates, or even if seen
> as human like Jesus, paradoxically understood as also divine, God himself
> being seen in Judaism and Islam as not representable in any material form,
> being beyond nature, communicating with Abraham, Moses and other patriarchs
> through numinous, unhuman and supra-natural forms?
>
> Whatever the rational value of the Ten Commandments and of the entire
> ethical and intellectual forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, without
> the ultimate orientation towards what the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner
> calls the Incomprehensible One, would the historical core and justification
> of these religion as plans for the totality of life, even beyond the
> certainties of birth and death, reaching into the unknown , exist?
>
> One understanding of the ultimate goal of Buddhism, Nirvana, describes it as
> being beyond being and non-being. Buddhism also develops strong
> philosophical systems but I dont think they can replace the concept of
> Nirvana as an ultimate goal. Hinduism is centred on relationships with
> entities or possibilities of knowledge that cannot be reached through
> reason.
>
> The relationship between reason and religious faith, because faith is to me
> at the center of religion, is central to the philosophy of religion .One
> approach to this challenge is to declare the total inadequacy of critical
> reflection in the face of religious truth, a move that may lead to an
> uncritical reliance on dogma. The struggle between dogma and reason is at
> the heart of much of the history of the monotheistic religions on account of
> their relative rigidity in relation to conceptions of ultimate reality,
> leading to approaches to this problem being developed in Christianity and,
> to some degree, Islam, over centuries of often bitter struggle. Examples of
> this are the persecution of heretics like the astronomer Galileo who
> argued for the earth's revolution of the sun,and Peter Abelard, understood
> as championing a heretical claim to the value of reason in religion, the
> struggle between philosophy and religion in the Arab world, exemplified by
> the conflict between Al Ghazzali, represented by his*Tahāfut ʾal-Falāsifa, *
> *Incoherence of the Philosophers*, and Ibn Rushd, Averroes, represented by
> his rejoinder to Al Ghazzali, *Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, The Incoherence of the
> Incoherence,*and in a different context, between mystics and orthodox
> religionists, as between the Sufis and orthodox Muslims.
>
> The killing of Christians in Northern Nigeria clearly suggests that those
> doing it see people of the Christian faith as enemies. That is a warped and
> uncritical approach to the historical rivalry of Islam and Christianity. It
> is in the light of that, along with similar developments in Northern
> Nigeria, that I argue that such people are demonstrating an immersion in
> the interpretation of the core non-rationality of religion in irrational
> terms.
>
> thanks
> Toyin
>
> On 21 April 2011 01:59, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelb...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "the authority of Islam, like that of many religions, particularly
> > the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and
> > Islam, as
> > based on non-rational conceptions, described as being above reason,
> > and
> > one approach to which is to be absorb them in faith, without little
> > or no
> > critical reflection." ( Toyin Adepoju)
>
> > " based on non-rational conceptions, described as being above reason"?
>
> > If this is not unprovoked and unreflected discriminatory and
> > deliberately disrespectful behaviour of Toyin Adepoju , then what is
> > truth?
>
> > On Apr 21, 2:37 am, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > * PERSISTENT MOB AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE *
> > > *
> > > *
> > > * IN*
> > > *
> > > *
> > > * NORTHERN NIGERIA*
>
> > > *
>
> > > AND
>
> > > NIGERIAN SECURITY CULTURE
>
> > > UNDERSTANDING AND RESOLVING A NATIONAL DILEMMA
>
> > > *
>
> > > * Toyin Adepoju
> > > *
>
> > > 20/04/11
>
> > > The eruption of mob and sectarian violence in Northern Nigeria, in
> > protest
> > > at the victory of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan against retired General
> > Muhammadu
> > > Buhari in the Presidential Elections of 16 April 2011, leadings to
> > > killings of civilians and of police personnel, the burning of
> > churches, the
> > > burning of the palace of an Emir, torching of police stations and of
> > houses
> > > of leaders of the ruling PDP, as well as offices of the the Independent
> > > National Electoral Comission, INEC, which conducted the elections,
> > locking
> > > fifty members of the National Youth Service Cops in a building and
> > setting
> > > it on fire, a situation from which the corpers escaped, along with
> > other
> > > acts of destruction of life and property, shares a number of elements in
> > > common with what has to be described as the culture of mob and sectarian
> > > violence in Northern Nigeria, a culture that suggests a group of people
> > who
> > > are convinced that they have a right to inflect violence with impunity
> > on
> > > other Nigerians .
>
> > > This culture of mob and sectarian violence is manifest most markedly in
> > the
> > > consistent horrors of Jos. It also emerges from time to time in other
> > > outbursts of violence in Northern Nigeria, as in the campaigns of Boko
> > > Haram. This manifestation of mob and sectarian violence on the news of
> > the
> > > victory of Goodluck Jonathan is one of the most blatant yet.
>
> > > During the crisis within the ruling PDP over the abrogation of the
> > party's
> > > zoning arrangements which might have disqualified Jonathan from running
> > for
> > > President, Atiku Abubakar, a candidate from the North, who was being
> > > sidelined, was quoted as prophesying the possibility of violence on
> > > account of these developments. After that, bomb blasts occurred in
> > public
> > > places in Northern Nigeria, killing innocent people, one near a PDP
> > rally
> > > in Abuja, perhaps one where the President spoke.
>
> > > Why does this culture of mob and sectarian violence in Northern Nigeria
> > > continued to grow without fundamental challenge, apart from some
> > perhaps
> > > palliative efforts by the armed forces and the police, and even as I
> > write
> > > I can read of no comprehensive plan to stop the current crisis in
> > Northern
> > > Nigeria apart from a curfew in some cities?
>
> > > Might this be due to the probable domination of the Nigerian security
> > > apparatus, particularly the army, by people from Northern Nigeria?
>
> > > Now, this suspicion of mine might have no truth in it. It is not based
> > on
> > > research or any knowledge of the composition of the Nigerian army and the
> > > country's security agencies, such as the SSS. It is based, however,
> > on
> > > deductions made about the militarisation of Nigerian government,
> > largely
> > > by coup plotters from Northern Nigeria, from Buhari to Babangida and
> > > Abacha, along with the fact that the country has largely been ruled by
> > > Northern leaders, who share with other Northerners the dominant ethnic
> > and
> > > religious roots that wield power in Northern Nigeria.
>
> > > I suspect that the Nigerian army might be significantly pro-North in its
> > > composition and leadership after the Nigerian Civil War, in the location
> > of
> > > arms consignments and the location and relative power and prestige of
> > > fighting units and commanders, and mechanised fighting equipment . Such
> > > imbalances might account for the apparent impossibility so far of dealing
> > > conclusively with the culture of mob and sectarian violence in Northern
>
> ...
>
> read more »
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