Who is oppressed ...

Many times we hear the slogan "Opression of Muslim Women" in our culture so
finely and deeply engraved that it is "fixed" within common speech ....

The ignorance of islaam in its details is something complex. The evolution
of this ignorance stems from 100's of years if not a millennia, from the middle ages at least Evolving from orientalists, Crusaders to politicians ....

Knowledge and slogans have been developed and to unwind this culture of ignorance is a mammoth task for the 1-2% of native and immigrant muslims in the West to achieve ....

Going back to the Slogan of "Women are opressed in islam" I would say that the one who is an advocate of this slogan to reflect upon "What is opression" .... and they would find that they fall into opression inadvertantly ... I will list now some opressions that we may fall into ....

I) Slave to the Wage ... the depression/recession that we have just gone throuh post 2007+ spurred by Usury has created an enourmous opression... House values were previously (50 years ago) at a ratio of 1:2 of a mans wage .. Now they are up to 6:1 .....
This has created a new culture of Huge Mortgages that has created a lifetime dependancy upon the bank for anyone. Freeing oneself from the dependancy of the banks is a mammoth task ... and Sacrificing ones family and time for this "freedoom" is surely an opression .... and has created something bordering on Poverty of existence ...


II) The opression of the Mind : A person who lacks an open mind and who has given up the struggle in understanding the world can be said to be opressed. His Vision Narrow, insights few and his life darkened .... Lost in the repetitve habitual bore of life ...

III) Opression of the Media : The opression of a person being dictated to daily by politicans and media in what to feel, in what to hate, in what to love is a source of opression .... The narrowness of this existence is one that is dark and contradictory ...

What is more empowering than for a muslilm to choose The level of his/her piety and for the muslim women to choose his/her closeness to God in their clothing or actions ...

Opression spans more than an apearance (a facade) and can be said to encompass many facets in human existence..

Islam or Liberal Atheism

Another devastating blow from an Andreas Tzortis debate ... (IERA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI9owlpOQl0

Distorting the True Picture ... Presenting information

Edward Said said of Bernard Lewis' literature in that it was typically a-Political .... This
rang a bell with me in how Orientalist literature and interpretation of Occident culture
is presented to the masses ...

Briefly, Orientalism being the study of "Other cultures" ... They were instrumental in giving Advice
to Napolean in his invasion of Egypt and (continuing in the tradition) for George Bush similar in his Iraq Foray ...

How facts are "presented" can itself give a distorted picture of reality...

For many years (pre-Iraq war) people thought that the Middle east was a place of conflict, purely from the isolated
Palestinian situation, the whole region was labelled as a "War zone" .. this again was the simplistic journalism inspired
mass "way of thinking"

when i read an article on pakistans history recently it was itself a list of facts presented (with unreoprtional weight given) illustrating a region of chaos,
where tradegy and strife is listed categoricaly in a way that a picture is presented can hide the "reality"

from a historical perspective the deep rooted (secular) principles of dismissing religions
is again followed in this model... The life and times of Zoroaster founder of the iranian religion is presented
so that it seems that Zoroaster influenced the notion of Monotheism within Christianity and islam ... This assumption/allegation
is again an interpretive way to strip divinity from the basis of religions and to purely "look" at it in cultural intercourse
terms in that men were sharing ideas ....

But if one looks closely and deeply into the monotheistic principles of islam is unique, in that it well defined, removed from any paganistic
associations and Rich in its theology ... The complex and wealth of the principles of islam is not given weight and since Monotheism and its purity
is THE most important facet in islam it is not given weight in its comparison with Zoroaster ....

And let us ask, did Monotheism START from
Zoroaster ? ..... or was he a continuation of the message (of old).... ? When the Hajj or Ka'ba is referenced by the orientalists they interpret it
as A Pagan practice that is left behind and islam adopting it ... I am surprised that they do not give another interpretation to this i.e. the Islamic
interpretation .....
In that Pagan practices crept in (via innovations) and abused the pure way of way of Worshiping God ....


Averoes (ibn rushd) and Aristotle

Let us digress again and see how ibn rush (Averoes) is presented ... Averoes is never given weight in what he achieved for Europe ....
He is known as the "Commentator" .... Averoes ideas of Greek-Islamic Rhetoric were "killed" off by islam by the likes of Ghazali) and
deemed heresy and survives to this day purely in academic circles.. Yet What Averoes for Europe is something completely different ....
In his systematic, methodological clarity, interpreting
and explaining what aristotle meant and then presenting this "Curriculum" to Europe aided in giving Europe its Greek culture .... Yet
he is again dismissed as purely a translator .... And as muslims know of Ibn Kathir, Ad-Dhahabee that the muslims are lost without the
"Explainers of texts" .. Yet Averoes in Europe is almost never acknowledged ...

Assyria and Western asia/middle east

http://www.atour.com/health/docs/20000720a.html

The Above link a scientific summary of the gentic closeness of the Weste Asian peoples (Middle easterners)
to one another is an eye opener. Professor Sforza is a a leading genticists and widely referenced. The relative
homegenity of this group is contradicted by the differing language families that are spoken by the set, indo-European, turkic and Semitic .....

My previous blog showed the Ancient Mergarh Civilization of india linked to the Middle east .. Again we have here
more proof of intercource of current islamic populations that are (also) rooted in pre-islamic times. As the islamic
Global sphere, Golden age and Civilization that heralded the principles of what we have now can be
understood in that it was not the starting point of interaction for these populations but rather a defining one ....

The so called disparate groups of west asia are shown to be close genetically suggesting more than cultural
interaction within the peoples ...

Wars caused by Religion?

The widespread notion that is often heard is that "Religion causes Wars"

Maybe the "Wars of Religions" were better than the "wars" we have now,

since 2 armies in the modern era

never meet on a field rather "Carpet bombing" and indiscriminate bombings

of the Modern-era wars are so more indiscrimnate in comparison...

Some OR most people forget of the WARS OF EMPIRES which started and modelled on

"a continuation" of Roman Imperialism ...

Let us take the three leading Modern empires American, Britain and

the French .... The Wars Started in these Single entities are countless and

almost too much and intricate to document , Since they encompass many ways

direct and indirect ways in Genocide being committed

Racism and Slavery and the "Free Era"

Let us take South Africa where the Apartheid was only recently abolished (and the hidden

Apartheid in the USA) which

was a remnant of modern Empire ...

And

The Communistic Machine was again inspired

by rolling across central asia and Easten Europe in the Tradition of Modern-Imperium ....

The Atlantic Slavery which existed for 500 years was in itself the most murderous

of Enterprises .... Although Slavery existed and even permissible in Islam, this

must NOT be confused with the Atlantic Slave Trade Enterprise, Rather the Islamic

form is a more restricted servitude ... (i.e. a restricted male/female Servant)

World War 2, Again the genocide of this War is in itself a proof , and if we

take the last 300 years combining the Wars for Empire expansionism,

WW2 the Atlantic

Slave Trade, I think there can never be a precedent in history for the most

bloodiest of Eras....

We are too quick in "forgetting" in the "Enlightened" Era what tragedy was

committed

and often sit comfortable choosing to forget what wars were not the result of

Religious Clashes but rather of modern philosophies ..... The statement

"Religion causes Wars" should now be made redundant ...

Reworking Pascals wager....

Lets take pascals wager into account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager ..
Has it any validility ? in purely philosophical terms .. ? Juwayni the islamic scholar born in present day Afghanistan presented a similar wager based on Islamic lines 1000 years before Pascal ...

Lets look at the main at some crititics of the the wager ..

"your inability to believe, because reason compels you to [believe] and yet you cannot, [comes] from your passions."

And as dawkins put it ...

"Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest skepticism?"

Further ...

"Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists. Nevertheless,

it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on

his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping

him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc."

Lets set a framework for the wager .... Some premises in moving forward to the wager, so we can understand it with some sophistication.

Starting by explaining some premises

Religions provide the gateway for the afterlife, the evolution of humankind has had with it a "gateway" culture, we can understand this

"Gateway" culture as anything "spiritual" movement giving understanding to the afterlife ....

Furthermore, by adding some more intelligence and rules one can narrow down the "Religions/Gateways" that provide the greater "truth" via

certain principles ? For sake of argument some of these can be:

1) The Origin of the "Gateway"

2) The message of the "Gateway"

3) Miracles, claims of its truthfulness

4) Sensibility "it making sense"

5) Proofs to its truthfulness on its principles and how they weigh

Even to go as Far as weighting each religion we can define Pascals wager further .... and narrow down the possibilities of what "Gateways" are more truthful than others.

Betting on modern Skepticism ultimately leads you on betting your life on doubt. Dawkins point of "sacrificing" oneself for God is inaccurate, since

it is clearly "known" that those who have a "spiritual" element in their lives lead a better life and many "seek" this .... Sacrificing

oneself occurs in the rare occasions that ultimately can mean loss of ones life .... and is a complicated issue since Sacrificing oneself can occur

by sacrifing oneself in the persuit of wealth.

betting on skepticism is ultimately betting on doubt and not having sure knowledge ..

Conclusion

We can conculde that

- The wager is favoured to the religious inclined, since the Atheist has no belief in a "Gateway" and ultimately the "loss" is guaranteed for the Atheist and a chance exists for the Believer.

- That the Atheist Relies on his "Doubt" as his religion, via philosophy of modern skepticism and empirical observation as a means of belief

- The wager is not realistic since that the issue of belief in "the truth" cannot be obtained by everyone via rationality since we can easily say that

after rationality is exhausted and the Wager cannot be relied upon by its own principle (in that it "being a bet" on the "Gateway" ) since in Reality we cannot lead out lifes on a bet, since it itself negates belief in anything.

- The wager is a dangerous principle for the muslim since it can lead one in having "doubt" about the "Truth" Islaam and can ultimately destroy ones own focus and belief ...

- If one dosent believe in God and the afterlife one could strongly argue that the ONLY logical persuit in life should be in HEDONISM. And

that "honour" "Courage" Bravery" Are terms that should not exist in a land of Secular Atheists since Self preservation should be the

Ultimate Goal.

Knowing that the creator exists

1/ Knowing the Creator exists Through your own selves

That the "fitra" (innate belief of the Creator) has been implanted in humankind and isnt it fascinating that the whole of humanity

has this "innate" belief of "God" articulated and expressed Globally

2/. The books

The revealed books and the miracles within them , example is the Qur'an and the linguistic miracle that is contained within it.

3/. The messengers

The message of all the Prophets and messengers should be a sign and a warning for those who reflect

4/. Through reflection and sincerity

Only through Humbling oneself and sincerity seeking truth and

relecting on the heavens, the creation, the creation of oneself and alternation of the night and day can one see and comprehend the sign of a creator therein.

Prof. Kolowkoski (Oxford University) statng that Reliion developed for the elite as a power tool (as Niche argument) is highly unlikely

5/. That the universe is created from nothing, The methematical impropability of this, since the propabily of the universe and order to be created from nothing and nothing creating

itself is similar to the propability that numerically would not fit on most calculators because of the zero's it contains ..