Moderation speaks…

JAKARTA, Indonesia — From Pakistan to Gaza and Lebanon, militant Islamic movements have gained ground rapidly in recent years, fanning Western fears of a consolidation of radical Muslim governments. But here in the world’s most populous Muslim nation just the opposite is happening, with Islamic parties suffering a steep drop in popular support.

Altogether, the major Islamic parties suffered a drop in support from 38 percent in 2004 to less than 26 percent this year, according to the Indonesian Survey Institute

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: April 24, 2009   NYT  full article HERE

Logos

“The power of language to reconcile is as great as its power to kill”

Roger Cohen, NYT columnist.

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The Starfish Equation

"An old man walking along the beach at dawn sees a young man picking up the star fish and throwing them out to sea. "Why are you doing that?" The old man inquired. The young man explained that the starfish had been stranded on the beech by a receding tide. And would soon die in the daytime sun. "But the beach goes on for miles," the old man said. "And there's so many! How can your effort make any difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and without hesitating threw it to safety in the sea. He looked up at the old man, smiled and said, "It will make a difference to that one."

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A story told by Sen Edward Kennedy and re-told by Pres.Barack Obama.

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the blog is mightier than the………………

You can read more HERE  in a article by Mark Penn (Wall Street Journal)

Did everyone think blogging was a ‘passing phase’, or just a hobby?

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Islamic decay,Holocaust,tolerance

“The creative output of the twenty or thirty million Muslims of the Abbasid era [750-1258] dwarfs the output of the nearly one-and-a-half billion Muslims of the modern era.” Per head, the income of the wealthiest Muslim country (the United Arab Emirates) is 200 times that of the poorest (Somalia)”

Ali Allawi’s new book is ‘

an “attempt to understand the factors behind the decay of the spirit of Islam”

read more HERE

Let us also remember that today is HOLOCAUST Remembrance Day….lest we forget.

and just in case some readers object (?!?) to these two items being in the same posting, just check out what religious co-operation,tolerance and understanding really is about:

“Sweden has a law, in force since 2001, covering the practice of circumcision on boys up to 18-years-old. The procedure should normally be conducted with pain relievers by a doctor, nurse or private person holding a special licence from the health and welfare board.
Stockholm County Council does not currently offer the operation within the public healthcare system and parents are referred to private clinics where demand is high, reports Dagens Nyheter.
The newspaper reports that since the man lost his licence there are no longer any people within the Muslim community who are licensed to carry out the practice.
Many Muslims therefore approach Jewish practitioners to circumcise their male offspring.”

progressive momentum

“We must learn from history. But we can't be trapped by it."

Pres. Barack Obama

elastic band philosophy

The End of Philosophy

 

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: April 6, 2009

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

David Brooks

One problem with this kind of approach to morality, as Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

Full article HERE

An interesting article for those who feel their 'intellect' rules their life and 'judgement making processes'

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There is nothing HID; that shall not be known

Luke 12.2

The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured.

The Rev. Gerald M. C. Fitzgerald, founder of the order, Servants of the Paraclete, delivered the same advice in person to Vatican officials in Rome in 1962 and to Pope Paul VI a year later, according to the letters, which were unsealed by a judge in the course of litigation against the church.

The documents contradict the most consistent defense given by bishops about the sexual abuse scandal: that they were unaware until recently that offenders could not be rehabilitated and returned ‘ to the ministry.

full article here

So there we have it! ‘Big tobacco’ said smoking was not harmful to health.

’Big religion said ……..’ehem, we didn’t know*

Ah well, business is business, huh?

I wonder if there are any millstone manufacturers out there willing to talk discounts? Oh, stupid of me, in the supply/demand equation you don’t discount when demand is high do you?

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‘Broken hearts do mend’

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read more here

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sow the seeds.....

A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.

Leo F. Buscaglia

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Transcending tragedy

The jet crashed into Dong Yun Yoon's house, killing his wife, his two young children and his mother-in-law. An unoccupied house was also destroyed.

Days after the incident, Yoon said he did not blame the pilot.

"Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident," Yoon said. "I don't blame him. I don't have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could".

Full story HERE

Sometimes the loving ability of the human spirit to overcome even the harshest tragedies,or show compassion when you are the one that is really suffering, sometimes.......it is a statement of the highest manifestation of lovingness

Morals: the one thing markets don't make

No amount of regulation will restore our sense of honour and shame. Economics needs ethics

Markets need morals, and morals are not made by markets.

They are made by schools, the media, custom, tradition, religious leaders, moral role models and the influence of people. But when religion loses its voice and the media worship success, when right and wrong become relativised and morality is condemned as “judgmental”, when people lose all sense of honour and shame and there is nothing they won't do if they can get away with it, no regulation will save us. People will outwit the regulators, as they did by the securitisation of risk so no one knew who owed what to whom.

The big question is: how do we learn to be moral again? Markets were made to serve us; we were not made to serve markets. Economics needs ethics. Markets do not survive by market forces alone. They depend on respect for the people affected by our decisions. Lose that and we lose not just money and jobs but something more significant still: freedom, trust and decency, the things that have a value, not a price.

FULL Timesonline article

Sir Jonathan Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

50 years - and still no condemnation

Happy Holi - colourful smiles

Holi - the Indian Hindu festival of colour

The power of self

"One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don't invest any energy in them, because I know who I am."

Michelle Obama

(seen here serving in a food kitchen for the homeless,courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com)

Sun worship.......?

In 2002, the sun gave to the earth more energy in one hour than the world used in one year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy

This,apparently, is the statistic (much quoted at this time) that highlights another aspect of One-ness.  As the 'one-ness reality' keeps demonstrating, it's all around us all the time. We are always and in all ways surrounded by unconditional lovingness that is expressed within this 'process of the pathway reality' in thoroughly practical terms.

As we begin to fully understand/grasp this, so we 'fall in love' with the lovingness and realise that it's not what we have that matters (or is matter?), it is how we utilise what we have that articulates who we are at any moment in existing.

gg

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Dancing, Loving, Islam

"Islam came to this part of the world (Pakistan)through Sufism," says Ayeda Naqvi, a teacher of Islamic mysticism who's taking part in the chanting.

"It was Sufis who came and spread the religious message of love and harmony and beauty, there were no swords, it was very different from the sharp edged Islam of the Middle East.

"And you can't separate it from our culture, it's in our music, it's in our folklore, it's in our architecture. We are a Sufi country, and yet there's a struggle in Pakistan right now for the soul of Islam."

Sufism is a mixture of music, chanting and meditation

That struggle is between Sufism and hard-line Wahabism, the religion of the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

"Wahabism is a tribal form of Islam coming from the desert sands of Saudi Arabia," he says. "This may be very attractive to the tribes in the frontier, but it will never find resonance in the established societies of Pakistan." Full article can be found HERE.

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del.icio.us Tags: Sufi,Wahabi,Taleban,Islam

Gardening is a generally peaceful and 'soul-refreshing' activity. Indeed,recent reports indicate clearly beneficial aspects through 'contact with nature activities'. It's so specialised today that you can be 95% certain of the description.quality,and attributes of the seeds available to plant. Clearly, what you sow is what you reap!

It seems also to be the case with religions,though most would prefer that we ignored the 'original seed bank' from which their own religion,sect,group,sprouted

An interesting development this week in the Swat area of Pakistan, insurgency and jihadist terrorist action over many years has now delivered what the terrorists say they were fighting for : the institution of Islamic Sharia Law. Huh? You kill,maim,behead,throw acid at schoolgirls,burn schools, bomb....and this so you can have a rule of Sharia law? From these seeds shall grow....what??

Over the weekend I watched another interesting scenario, the film 'September Dawn' is the account of the massacre of 120 men,women and children on a wagon train travelling through Utah to California . Nothing new in that - until you go HERE - or watch the film and find that it was the Mormons who carried out the massacre of inncocent men women and children

Watching the film 'The Mission' does not exactly inspire one with trust in the Roman Catholic/Christian church.

Indeed one can go back through all of history and find that religions have been used continuously to justify actions that were,and are,far from any reasonable,normal,healthy,adult (or perhaps better,childlike), compassionate or loving concepts of God.

Well it is said,' by their fruits you will know them'.