The basic message transmitted by all the religions revealed by God is

the fact that He is a Perfect Being. This becomes all the more apparent

when we witness all the entities created by God. In the ontological

argument, attainment of God is achieved not through exterior

means, but from the idea of “Perfection” or “Perfect Being” inherent

in each of us.

Farabi and Avicenna were among the first philosophers to refer to

the initial arguments of ontology. Farabi analyzes the ontological

argument together with the cosmological argument. According to

them, God must be self-existent (Necessary-Being); assuming that He

does not exist would be a contradiction in terms. All other creatures

are possible creatures; both their existence and nonexistence can be a

topic of discussion. If the possible entities are not resolved in the

Necessary-Being, there would be a contradiction in terms. Given the

fact that Farabi’s conclusion is a combination of ontological and cosmological

arguments, many thinkers believed to have found traces of

this for the first time in the works of Avicenna.

Nevertheless, this argument is, more often than not, associated

with Descartes. To avoid committing error, he sets out in his philosophical

quest by considering all past knowledge as if it were nonexistent.

He begins with the statement that many of the preconceived

opinions he has accepted since childhood have turned out to be unreliable;

so it is necessary once in a lifetime to demolish everything and

start again right from the foundations. There follows a systematic critique

of previous beliefs. Anything based on the senses is potentially

suspect, since I have found by experience that the senses sometimes

deceive and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have

deceived us even once.

Elsewhere Descartes expresses this “cogito argument” in the

famous phrase, “cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). He derives

from this argument that he exists incontestably and that thinking can

never be confuted. Later he realizes that knowing is more perfect than

doubting and explains how this idea of perfection leads him to the

most perfect, to the idea of a supremely Perfect Being.

He reasons that the representational content (or objective reality)

of this idea is so great that it cannot have originated from inside his

own (imperfect) mind, but must have been planted in him by an actual

Perfect Being – God. Things outside him like the sky, the earth, the

light and the heat and a thousand other things, all these things contained

nothing that would surpass him. If they were unreal he might

have concluded that he had acquired them from the void. However,

this could not hold true of a Perfect Being. He could not have

acquired it from nothingness.

Descartes concluded the existence of God after having examined

the evidence inherent in the self. He said that this conclusion was not

an invention of his imagination, and that to add or subtract anything

to or from it was beyond him. He had to accept the fact that he had

come to the world with this a priori sign. Like the initials that an artist

imprints on his work, God had implanted this idea as He created him.

While Leibniz contends that Descartes’ views need to be supplemented,

he formulates an ontological argument bearing similarities to

Avicenna.

The Quran uses “nafs” (self) to express consciousness, the quintessence

of our personality. “Nafs” is integrated with our physical body;

the author of all good and bad acts is our “nafs.”

The fact that the atoms of our physical body – of which 99% is vacuum

- deprived of all consciousness, perform such conscious acts as

seeing, hearing, and thinking, cannot be explained materialistically

will form the subject matter of another book I am intending to write,

in which this issue will be tackled within a larger framework, stretching

from the philosophy of mind to the quantum theory wherein

many scientific branches will find room. With this in mind, I refrain

from taking up this issue in this present work.

The point I should like to dwell upon now is the verse’s allusion to

signs in ourselves. There are a priori categories that the mind is constitutionally

endowed with, concepts or ideas that are not derived

from experience. The subject I speak of in this chapter is not based on

findings obtained by satellites, telescopes, submarines or on the recent

developments in physics, chemistry or biology. Here we find ourselves

surrounded by the available data of a rich philosophical background.

The tribe to which the Prophet belonged dealt in trade and animal

husbandry. The Prophet himself was not brought up in a milieu like

Plato’s Academy or in an environment where the colorful and lively

schools of philosophy like Cartesianism flourished. Therefore, the fact

that the Quran made a distinction between the outward signs and the

signs immanent in man’s soul is noteworthy.

33- It is He who created the night and the day, and the sun,

and the moon; each of them floating in an orbit.

21-The Prophets, 33

The word expressing totality in the Arabic language is “kullu” while

the Arabic expression “tasniya” refers to any two objects. In the verse

reference is made to the motion of two celestial bodies, namely the

sun and the moon. However, the reason why “tasniya” is not used

indicates that there should be more than two objects. If we suppose

that the night and the day take place on the earth, the other object

should be the earth. The Arabic word “falak” is used in Arabic to

denote the orbit traced by stars and planets.

The nucleus of the atom contains protons charged with positive electricity.

These positive charges repel each other. The miracle of creation

occurs when protons adhere to each other forming a single

point. The power that confines the protons repelling each other and

the neutrons within a single point is immense; it is called strong

nuclear force. The elementary particles containing this force are

referred to with the French epithet “gluons” meaning “sticky” (The

immense destructive energy of the atomic bomb was obtained by the

use of this force). God, who devised everything in the universe with

mathematical precision, has also conceived this immense force with

mathematical exactitude. This force adheres the mutually repelling

protons to each other; had the power been weaker or stronger, the

protons could disintegrate or it could cause the intrusion of protons

and neutrons into each other.

Image from Wikipedia

Freedom is the utmost important right for every humans. The wave of ordinary people in Tunisia to take the streets for their rights from the country tyrant and succeed in doing so have made every tyrants all over the world shivering to their bones. They are running out of time and as usual this tyrants are turning to religion to save their seat of power.

Some of the reader in certain Asian country disliked what have been highlighted by writers that touch on human rights issue in Asian and especially Muslim majority country. However those that complains and even to the extend of threatening the safety of writers can be questioned their identities and intentions. Nobody in the right mind would like their human rights be taken away by power-hungry politician.

Bahrain, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and many more the ordinary people are taking to the streets and their demand are simple ; BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS!

Those countries leaders proudly declared they are the beholden and protector of Islam but their reaction to the demands of the little people are outrages! Those ordinary people are beaten, shot with lived bullet and even bomb by the used of fighter jets and tanks just for the sake of a few greedy men.

Politician in those trouble nations been going around Muslim country asking for help by using Islam as a reason. There’s none truth what so ever for this type of leader when they talk about Islam. If they really a true Muslim none of this would happen. People wouldn’t be hungry or crime wouldn’t be rampant or even no child be working to help their parents to put food on the table.

In Bahrain the leaders through their kin in Saudi been going around to other Muslim leader and ask to send arm forces to quash the uprising. They are pleading if Bahrain government of the day fall then it will be the end of Sunni Muslim. How stupid the reason sound. Sunni is Muslim and Shia is Muslim so what the problems. If Shia is deviate from the true teaching of Islam why does Iran and Syria been accepted into OIC. Even majority of religious scholar doesn’t have the balls to declare Shia as a deviate teaching. So stop using Shia as the reason for you to hold to power!

Woman been jailed, some were raped, even kidnapped and nobody knows of this women fates. They are treated worst then an enemy combatant during war. Children became orphan because their mom and dad got killed by the police and army. All this incidents will create a long-term problem for those country even if democracy win over dictatorship.

Libya, just because of a single crazy man thousand had died and still many more to come. Even the NATO air force can’t find this man and not because he been protected by Allah but he is hiding like a scary little mouse in a hole. If Muammar Khadafi a true leader he will be leading his men to the battle field. Please tyrants of the world don’t ever quote from the great Prophet (pbuh) just for the sake of power. Leaders like Muammar Khadafi been slandering Islam since day one he got on to power. No true leader of Islam will shot a civil airline out of the sky. No leaders of Islam will jailed or killed religious scholar for advising the leader to be compassion.

Saudi Arabia should be the one that lead the Ummah to reform countries that are ruled by tyrants. Two of the holiest place on earth are with them but the Saudi political leaders been showing bad example to the Ummah and to other non Muslim society. Saudi shouldn’t be the spoke person for those tyrants. Better yet Saudi should be the one that encourage those tyrants to let the people choose their fate.

The non Muslim countries been fooled by those tyrants which have tarnished the image of Islam. Those tyrants are worst than the terrorist leaders. They been lying and preaching Islam of their owned version. The ignorance of true Islam teaching among the non Muslim have made them assumed Islam as a religion that breed corrupt and power-hungry leaders. If true Islam been used those tyrants would already lose their head for cruelty done to the ordinary people. Leadership in Islam is not an easy task,a leader that stray away from the fundamental rights of the people would automatically be thrown out of his seat.

To the ordinary people in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and all other countries that are taking the street the world are praying for you and may the people power would bring down tyrants from their pedestals.

Additional reading: Ignorance of Islam True Teaching Caused Confusion.

No connection between 9/11 and Iraq? Simple-minded, politically expedient balderdash.

So, how’d we get from economic distress to the Global War on Terror?

Spirit.

The spirit of America.

And, hope*? No, not relly in America, herself — but in the Holy Spirit.

Which brings us back to the source of liberty, and all good things, including The Age of Enlightenment.

But that’s a story for another day.

Thank God for America.

Thank God for Americans.

God bless America!

Image via Wikipedia

As was their wont in the ancient times argument was sought to be resolved by an armed conflict. Imam Husayn with many followers was martyred at Karbala in the Battle of Karbala about half a century after the death of Prophet Mohammad in 632 AD.

That historic battle makes Shia Sunni strife in Karbala and Iraq by association almost as ancient as Islam itself. Sunnis continue to enjoy a huge majority in Karbala, while for a Shia a pilgrimage to that holy place has an importance equal to Hajj. These two facts ensure that hostility are triggered afresh every year without fail.

Shias continue their fight for Karbala and Iraq; regarding them as symbols of religious suffering engraved in mass collective subconscious. This mindset makes controlling Iraq symbolic of liberation from oppression for Shia Moslems. On the other hand Sunni Moslems view their struggle to control as symbolic of elimination of Shia resistance. Fight goes on with no end in sight even after more than 1300 years.

Obama might withdraw US troops but the real strife in Iraq caused by warring factions of shia and sunni Moslems would continue for ever. Sooner or later this strife would escalate again and require international intervention.

President Obama and his advisors would do well to find a solution to end this internal strife that has been an integral part of the social fabric of Iraq for over a millennium. Then and then only there could be a lasting peace in Iraq and its surroundings.

That Islam is essentially a theocracy with provision of Jazia, a tax on those practicing other religions in an Islamic country further indicates a religious approval of coercive methods to convert others to Islam.

Vertical split of the followers of Islam into Shia and Sunni soon after death of the prophet was as much a result of a fight to control the theocracy as Shias and Sunnis make it out to have been caused by their varying interpretations of Koran. Religious intolerance and avowed objective of eliminating the other has resulted in the Shia – Sunni strife, which has been the root cause of disturbances in Iraq and various Iraq wars.

How would you decide whether a burqa clad person is really a harmless woman or a terrorist using burqa as a cover to avoid detection? This is a problem most security personnel face almost every day. Moreover, every time they allow a burqa clad person enter a sensitive area without proper frisking innocent people are unnecessarily exposed to risk of a terrorist violence. That alone is enough of a reason for any civilized country to ban medieval practice of burqa.

Burqa might have been a necessity to protect women from prying eyes of enemies in the medieval times, though it could also have served to hide kidnapped women gagged and handcuffed behind the covering.

Ban on burqa in France ensures that French women or even men would not be kidnapped for ransom and transported covered in a burqa freely to avoid detection.

Criminals in such cases may or may not be Muslims but if burqa continues to remain in vogue then surely any criminal or terrorist can take advantage of the practice.

Muslims everywhere and those of France in particular must welcome this ban on burqa as a move forward to protect the world from terrorism and crime. Those opposing it should pause and consider whether opposing the ban on burqa would be construed as ill suited support for terrorism and crime by everyone in a modern civilized world and also as a total disregard for the laws of the land French Muslims are living in. Burqa brigade formed by some French Muslim women to oppose and fight the ban on burqa only goes to show blindness of their faith without application of mind to the prevailing social conditions. However, if the opposition gathers momentum and Islamic countries join hands with French Muslims opposing burqa ban, then it may well turnout to be an event of gigantic proportions in the World History.

The picture of Mubarak has now gone but his money may still be available to spend abroad and so only part of the overthrow has gone well, that he is no longer physically present. There are those millions of dollars that he has acquired through hos investments money which could have gone into proper health care and salaries for the average worker in Egypt, if one can use the word average as Mills might have done. Today expectations are high as far far as getting a good education in Egypt and not having to work for less than a dollar a day. The reality was until this latest overthrow forty percent of the population earn that amount and Mubarak amassed over 70 billion, his military followers are still there and there is still a military control over the state.

So one does not really know if the military will in good faith make sure of free elections or they are holding power until another person comes forth. The likelihood is small if it has been so supportive of the people’s movement. There is suspicion that suspending the constitution and dissolving parliament is not enough in ensuring that Egypt is on the path of having an elected democracy without the military interfering in who votes and what parties are created for that vote. If there is foreign pressure on how the military conducts its business in the form of American intervention that too complicates the issue of ensuring that all parties will be free to seek a political voice.

Apparently the Muslim brotherhood is not looked at well in the US and is seen as a threat to furthering the peace in the Middle East. This may mean that America has to rethink its strategy on which groups it will support  for peace to reign in the Middle East especially since the brotherhood represents 20 percent of the voting population. America would be respecting the power base in a country which has a different religious base. That base cannot dissapear because one neighbour is uncomfortable about Muslim extremism and Muslim extremism paints a poor image of the general culture that is Sunni or Shiite based. Religious groups have their power bases all over the world and tend to influence each other and their own members according to the principles of family origins, wealth and esteem that Mills had recognized. This won’t change but the way we look at it can.

If Mills were still alive based on what he wrote in the Power Elite, it is likely he would say that having already had a military in place which has seen the overthrow of the last king in the early fifties, the turmoil following Sadat’s death and now the latest overthrow, it will probably together with those people who have guided the country economically see to change but in a very controlled and selective way, without necessarily accepting all the demands that the demonstrators have put forth. This is because institutions have had time to create roots which involve part of those same supporters of the overthrow.

Perhaps this is why the military is holding the power until the summer and not allowing elections to occur now, just as Mubarak wanted to stay on until elections that were to occur late summer. There is also religious angst that is resurfacing from the Shiites that had been fueled by Mubarak’s remarks and it is easier for the military to repress that sentiment, instead of allowing for a free voice. The Al Ahram states that Egypt has had a strong Shia base and there should be no conflict with the Sunnis. Only the future will  show.

What Secularism to you is

You will note that religions have emerged in the historical time only. You will also note that a section of people, in a few regions in the world,  have accepted parts of nature as divine forces. Such considerations have begun in the pre-historic age and have gradually helped to shape formal religions in some places. The sun is still one of the gods to a large number of people in India. Pagan faith is still very much present in different parts of the globe.  Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Jainism are some of the major religions. In India Brahminism has not been termed as a religion although this one has a history of a few centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. The term ‘Hindu’ as one of the religions has never been found in any text before the tenth century, yes, in India only.

The followers of these religions and other religious ideas have been in a race for supremacy over others since the days of their inception. Such race has left certain non-ephemeral burnt in the history of human civilization. The skirmishes between the Buddhists and the Hindus, the Crusades in which the Christians and Muslims have ‘do or die’ involvement, the endless Hindu-Muslim feuds in India are a few examples. Each religious organization has also a continuous internal fighting for leadership. We have seen the bloody spectacle of this internal fight for inheritance in the Islam. Again, a particular religious organization has been divided into two or more factions time to time and they have remained engaged in continuous mutual feuds. You can recollect the conflicts between the Vaishnavites and Shivaites in India, between the Shias and Sunnis in the Arabian territory, and between the Catholics and Protestants in Europe.

Political authorities in different countries in the world have to search out means to end such recurring violence and the concept of secularism has thus emerged. It is definitely a modern concept. The fundamental problem with this concept rests in the fact that every interested section of the people has its own and opportunistic interpretation. These interpretations differ from each other and at times the differences are very sharp and uncompromising.

Atheists and agnostics have thought that the concept of secularism is strong enough to cause an end to the unnecessary violence among the followers of different religions. They have been disappointed. Rather, to surprise them suddenly, political parties have appeared in many countries with strong and distinct religious leanings. In many countries of the eastern hemisphere Islam has been announced as the religion of the state. Countries like India have people with diverse religious faith. This has led the political leaders in India feel the necessity to include the term secularism even in the constitution of the country.

A section of people has the desire that secularism should be meant to establish absence of participation or absence of interference of the state machineries in religious practices. They favor the idea that religious faith should be limited to one’s individual periphery. Another section views that the state should patronize each and every faith. There is one more consideration. Some pilots of political parties demand that the religion of the majority of the people in a region should be held high. You must not forget that suppression of religious faith has been practiced in the socialist states in recent history.

Toleration is a human virtue. You may not agree with your friends on some questions. Still it is wise to value them and respect them and you will then only find options to vent out what is your own ideas and opinions. You have knowledge and you can be assertive and you can be assertive to such an extent that your accounts may be removed from the watch lists of your friends. It has always been better to have chances to let other know how you do think and what you do think.