Does Media dictate to us what we think ?

George Soros the infamous trader who famously brought down the bank of England

with a short sell wrote a book on his economic philosophy.

His Theory is one of Reflexivity, it is essentially that we shape the (Stock) market

trend and the interaction with this market shapes us in our decisions ..

We can borrow a bit form this philosophy and apply it to Media and current thinking.

The current News Networks dictate to us "The Story of the Day"

or what we shoulud think this "week" or "what is important in the world"

Even creating paranoia and joy within us.. This tool is a huge stimuli

to our instincts in daily life ... Globally the media

networks are interrelated, a story from one part of the world is borrowed,

modified and publicised in more or less the same fashion from "Central control"

Giving a piece, information, in a timely manner and disseminated to us (the masses) ,,

Shaping our opinions is not just the product of the Media directly, rather,

i say borrowing from Soros.... one that is Reflexive....

Take any example, the initiaor of an opinion (i.e. central Media)

or view is embued on us "the masses" The opinion is shared culturally, discussed,

and formed generally .... The "reinforced" opinion is fed-back to central media

where another "more stronger" opinion on the same matter is given ,.. The initiator

can thus reinforce that opinion ... since Now

the opinion or view is held by the "culture" of the society and has become

a connon a defacto "reality" ..

and so the cycle goes on ......

The problem with the French ? The Veil ,,,

No one likes the french, that is the cultural attitude of the English ..

at this point i am proud to be English ....!!

The banning of the veil (or the desire of) with reasons of absurd contexts

just shows how much islamaphobia and restriction of basic freedoms exist under

democracy !

The veil is worn by aprox. 1,900 muslim women and to bring a law out excluding those

minority in a country of 60 + million is a strange one..

The main reasons are that it shows some sort of dissent towards the republic ?!

If dissent were really the case then the ban should of been implemented since

at least the establishemtn of the republic of France...

other main reasoning include that it is an extremist interpretation ..

Well. really? Extremist? If major (Orthodox) past scholars of islam and Major Orthodox

scholars of islaam today hold the veil to be mandatory surely this cannot

be an extremist interpreation ? Islamaphobia and the persecution of minorities surely holds true today ! At least specifically with the frog eating French ?

Rather, those (veiled) women should be praised and encouraged,since they are choosing the

veil out of their own desire and piousness and God-fearingness! They should

be heralded as living Martyr's in God's Path ! Sacrificing themselves against

Alcohol abuse and death in the west (especially drink driving) related directly and indireclty causes death of persons but yet the beverage is not banned or a law passed for being intoxicated !

The direct discrimination against those that choose the path of God out of piousness and self-sacrifice is one that should be honoured as a great and noble characteristic !

But instead what do they get? politically spat on and more hardship By the "freedom loving, democracy flag waving politicians and peoples" who themselves need to change in their attitudes and beliefs in their feeeling uncomfortable in seeing a veiled women and at the same time feel totally comfortable with a woman half naked displaying all her ornaments in an enticing way.

I feel nothing but sadness and sorrow for my veiled sisters ..... We as muslims believe that Satan (or his demonic allies) whispers in the ears of mankind tempting him to bad actions ! So i ask you, who is the Bad (allies of the devil) and who is the Good (allies of God) ?

Why does God Allow Natural disasters ? (The First PRINCIPLE)

Why does God Allow Natural disasters ? (The First PRINCIPLE)

Excerpts from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8467755.stm

"As the philosopher David Hume (echoing Epicurus) put it in 1776: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"

Faced with this question, Archbishop of York John Sentamu said he had "nothing to say to make sense of this horror", while another clergyman, Canon Giles Fraser, preferred to respond "not with clever argument but with prayer".

I have nothing to say that makes sense of this horror - all I know is that the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus is that he is with us

Archbishop of York, John Sentamu

Perhaps their stance is understandable. ....[End Quote]"

First of all i am surprised at the Bishops Sentamu falling victim to such a frightened, confused/defensive almost media friendly answer ...

Understanding "Why?" Is a question that will depend "First" on the understanding of

God (his Will, Attribute, Mercy... etc).... Without this First principle the latter question becomes almost redundant ?! Nay, even more so, i say "It all depends on this first princple" ... Like so many things the first is the start to the End !

Why?

Question of Philosophy? Some principles pf Wittgensten can be brought into play here ..

Even though Wittgenstein dismisses "prepositions that take the form of "A believes P"

we will not go into detail here but let us borrow some logic ...

If someone (call him X) believes God to be a subservient "fatherly" Figure with the creation as his children.

Then from this we can derive that this disaster by its mere occurrence is abhorrent ... hence, God is allowing his children to suffer.

But again, i think what is hidden and subtle in the "God-Disaster" Controversy is the

Reverse, What is the Reverse ?.... What people are actually trying to say is

"If God actually does exist he wouldnt allow this to happen, so because it has happened he does not Exist?"

That people derive the existence of Non-Existence of God via the events occurring, which is a damning almost arrogant assumption ....

But surely the logic is flawed here since we NEED TO UNDERSTAND GOD FIRST (OR THE EVEN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD) before embarking on the "Why such things occur?" The Logic that people follow is almost blind and condemning without remorse... as Wittgenstein-esc style ... We need to use philosophy to sharpen and gain clarity in our thoughts ...

if my Motorbike broke down i would say "How can i a great engineer build this bike if it has broken down for me"? Then i find out that i had to top up the oil ?! Suddenly my proposition "How can a great engineer build this bike?" Has fallen apart ...?

The first principle is fundemental here .... !

Early Readings on Wittgenstein

My early Readings on Witggenstein (Tractatus Loico-Philosophicus)

- To create a new synatax/language for Philosophy to erradicate the

misinterpretations of the current body of knowledge and framewowork of doctrine

- That all philosophy (in it's past and current application) is non-sense has no sense

- That philosophy is like a tool that can be applied to any knowledge

to sharpen the understanding and aproach clarity and truth and is not initself

a doctrine ....

- It should not be used in transcendental and only in the bounded limits

of our reality

and much more .... ?

Wittgenstein cuts philosphy apart condemning it but with an elegant style !

He has a sort of arrogance to him, Wittgensteins work can be expanded upon

and developed further and more Framewoworks of aproach can be developed ...

I think Wittgenstein is philosophies worst enemy at the same time a friend

(maybe a contradictory proposition ?)

I find He shows the limits of philosophy and the HOLES in which it contains !

Douglas Murray and Extremism

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/whys/whys_20091230-1928a.mp3

Douglas Murray (http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/people)

is very smart in his rhetoric during this shallow debate,,,

He (Douglas Murray) is a person who is congratulated and praised by Christopher Hitchens " the "Babbling idiot.. " (paraphrasing) George Galloway, when George devasted Hitchens and "exposed him" on stage whilst Hitchens mumbled defiantly justifying the war in iraq via text book rhetoric! Hitchens and Dawkins are the famous "idiot Athesists" as so many people people and scholars put it....

Back To Douglas, the main areas of criticism being His ;

1.) Not Acknowledging to the deserved extent at which foreign policy has played in

this the new "War on Terror" .... If he Douglas had an ounce of honesty and truthfulness

( i guess being a Hitchenite this would not be possible ) he would of realised the state of affairs 10 years ago and the state of affairs now ...

Yes! There was Extremism to the level of a cult following rather than what we have now spreading like wildfire ...

2.) the dialogue and Douglas was a tremendous failure and the panel failed in being concise ;

that Extremism is one principle ... That anyone can be 95% inline with Orthodox islam

and fail on a single "principle" thus crossing the line into "Extremism" and rebellion .... That single principle is well known within islam but is close to the emotions of mankind ..."wars" "death", "occupation" (the fact we live in a highly charged information age) activate emotional instincts in the person and sometimes crossing the line (into extremism) is not an intellectual one but an emotion-linked one.

Thus, the Government could do well in supporting the Wahaby groups rather than

attacking them as they have credibility behind them and it is so ironic that they

attack a group whose Main Scholar "Ibn Baaz" issued a FATWA against Bin Laden and Al-Qaeeda in 1997. The famous illegitimate fatwa on Salman Rushdie's (head) has got so much Media attention but yet no-one has heard of Ibn Baaz's "infamous fatwa"

.... is this the political-Machinations (games) churning away yet again, i wonder .... ?

3.) I have personally been within 4 college and university ISOCS (Islamic societies) and the realities of politicized islaam were true in the 1990's as the "justified jehads" were inas full flow Bosnia, Chechnya etc.. but nowadays the spectrum of the ISOCS have changed and the politicizers have been driven underground and debunked such as in the case with HT, Muhajiroun etc, a major contributor and alternative to this trend has been "funnily enough" the spread of Wahabi'ism material and understanding !.... of which the government continues to blame .

4)

The Killings perpetuated by muslims

--------------------------------------

Douglas again simplifies and blatantly tries to "trick" listeners and covering up indirect killings ... those (indirect) killings that are perpertrated amidst the chaos that "occupation" brings and has which has always brought! the deaths

of civilians and the relative stability of Iraq is no mystery under Sadam as any iraqi family will tell you ....

The chaos that the war in iraq war should not be a "surprise". Just in 1994 a senior representative of the US government live on TV (as can be seen on youtube) gave the reason why the decision was not taken to chase Sadam into Baghdad in the first gulf war the "quagmire" and the exact details with the iranians, kurds etc. was given by him and "prophetically" is exactly what has happened now.

4) Douglas brings the attack to the Muslim, he says: "What about Darfur, Sadam, Why do you remain quiet about those muslim Tyrants?"

Well, Darfur is a recent phenomena and Sadam as "all muslims know" was attacked repeatedly on the pulpit and was Al-Qaeedahs number 1 target for oft so long ,,,,, Saying all of this We Muslims know that we have and will continue to have "internal" problems, this is the case for many nations and cultures .... by "internal" and "external" problems should and is seperated, as Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, Somalia are "external" problems .....

Mega-machine, Life and God

The denial of God has lead man to seek marvel at oneself and at the creation by man by his own hands The building of structures of Marvel starting with the Pyramids of Egypt to the mega-machines of the modern day; i would argue has added to the arrogance of man.

 Jumping forward a few thousand years and to the modern industrial revolution of a couple of Hundred years ago, mixing this with Liberalism and the secular world order philosophy negating God-and-the-natural-law.

 Lewis Mumford is a scholar of Philosophy and Technics and civilization and ontologically maps the evolution of technology and civilization (see: Pentagon of Power)

 This evolution of technology and civilization has continued but I would argue to disastrous conclusions! That Man suddenly marvelled at the Mechanics and science and it has become "the God" to all the mechanistic modes of life, seeing and understanding the world purely in a scientific or rational mind, the "Clock in Clock out" nature of work etc. are all proof of this and embodiment of this principle.

 Humankind mapping the mechanistic machines to ourselves, we, replicating, mimicking the Machines we have built! In a reflexive manner.  Creating, shaping and feeding off the machine, the machine shaping us, dictating! Has the Machine become our God! Are we a slave to the machine?

Lo! Certainly, the machine is bigger; being a slave to the machine is no erroneous position!

I say the debt (Usury) slave is real! In addition, a modern social norm for humankind!

The machine has become bigger, we are living in the machine, the way we live, our morality i would argue is defined, dictated, shackled, and humankind easily exploited in all forms including philosophically and morally by this machine

The "City" is a modern mechanistic articulation of Engineering for society, the modern work-life balance is an expression of the machine! The tall cubicle structured-buildings that we live in in the city is a machine like (anti-natural) expression of a mechanistic nature.

 I would argue that Liberalism/Atheism breeds this (mechanistic type of) expression and will continually do so to the detriment of quality of life (if left uncontrolled) the speed at which technology is developed, speeds up the pace of mankind at which it works !

Left uncontrolled, how much more will we have to give our lives to the Machine! 60 hour workweeks are already practiced is their room for more sacrifice.

Capitalism, Liberalism and atheism are all intertwined into this mechanistic mode....

I believe in best practices in living life Some of the natural ways of the God-Worshipping way is in harmony with obeying the natural way differs remarkably in the fundamentals of the mechanistic way.

 

Erroneous islamic positions in debate ?

Muslims have a tendency to debate with almost UTOPIAN litter when debating or talking secularists .... We have a cycle of rehasing utopian visions in our stances !

Since many of the principles and rituals of islam Cannot or is hard to be understood by the libralists ... "Why do we fast? Why do we have to pray 5 times a day? Why do we do wear hijab etc. etc.

Sharia law is now a sticking point for the "new world order" ... We should not allow ourselves to fall into the dialogue the communistics or any of the other isms fell into ....

We also bring apologetics into the equation heavily ...

We should bring more of a realistic aim to the debate ....i advocate the following few points ...

1. Pointing out some benefits of sharia ...

i.e. abandonment of the Usury model and moving to another

2) Seperate segregated gender education increases understanding

3) etc...

5) Pointing out that many of the principles and rituals are linked to the orders of God and are for the believers, for example, a woman wearing hijab which is an order for the "believing women" i.e. a sign of Piousness for the individual person and since the state Caliphate is a state for the believers, muslims in general i..e comprising of majority of muslims, this law can be followed quite easily as is linked to God-Fearing-ness of the individual ....

6) Many of the non-believers believe that Sharia law will be applied when 95% of the population are non-muslims, this is an erroneous understanding and should be made clear from the beginning....

7) That they will have to all convert to islam ... which is an erroneous misconception although if the Sharia is implemented it will probably comprise of a majority of Muslims ...

8) Many principles of islam are easily understood and obeyed when a person is muslim since the foundations and roots of the nature of the person has been changed. And since Sharia law is a complete way they all compliment one another and are easily followed as part of the culture as a whole ... Therefore It is folly to go into sharia specifics ...

In concluding, Nit-Picking from Sharia which is the norm can be a dangerous way of dialogue, since no context is given and the individual is left out of the equation .. and importantly they will see Sharia through the secular glasses .... Give the context, give the Culture and norm of the society, be generalistic and not specific since being specific leads to confusion in understanding for the non-muslim.