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Winston
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Danmark
Mar 1999
time: 06:19
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Very funny.
Now imagine if someone dared to put a similar label on the Koran/Quran/Qoran, they'd be "racists" out to persecute Muslims worldwide wouldn't they?
BBC article
quote:
Riots over US Koran 'desecration'
At least four people have been killed and many injured after police opened fire to break up an anti-US protest in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.
Hundreds of students rioted in the city of Jalalabad over reports that the Koran was desecrated at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
President Hamid Karzai has said the violence showed the inability of Afghan authorities to handle such protests.
The US authorities have said they are investigating the allegations.
"Obviously the destruction of any kind of holy book... is something that is reprehensible and not in keeping with US policies and practices," state department spokesman Tom Casey said.
President Karzai, who is in Brussels, told Nato that his country would need international assistance "for many, many years to come".
Buildings burned down
Afghan National Army soldiers, supported by US units, are out on the streets of Jalalabad to try and control the situation.
-Police opened fire in the air to control the mob, and some people were injured (Abdul Rehman, Jalalabad police chief)
Protests also spread to the south-eastern city of Khost, where hundreds of students took to the streets.
In Jalalabad, buildings belonging to the United Nations are reported to have been attacked and the offices of two international aid groups are said to have been destroyed.
Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Rustam Shah Mohmand, told the BBC the Pakistani consul's house had also been burned down and two cars torched.
One international aid worker in Jalalabad told the BBC that he could see smoke rising from points across the city.
He said there were groups of people running along the streets, reportedly looking for foreigners and anyone working for non-governmental organisations.
The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says the violence comes after several months of mounting concern among foreign aid workers in Afghanistan over their security.
All UN and other foreign aid workers in the city have been told to move to safe areas.
The protesters chanted "Death to America" and smashed car windows and damaged shops.
"Police opened fire in the air to control the mob, and some people were injured," Jalalabad police chief, Abdul Rehman, told the AFP news agency.
Jalalabad is 130km (80 miles) east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, close to the Pakistani border.
Reports of abuse
The unrest follows a report in the American magazine, Newsweek, that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had placed copies of the Koran on toilets in order to put pressure on Muslim prisoners.
Former Guantanamo inmates told the BBC Urdu service earlier this month that some Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their interrogators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards at the camp.
On Sunday, the Pakistani government said it was "deeply dismayed" over the reports about the Koran.
Islamist parties there have called for a nationwide strike on Friday.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are close allies of the US in its war against terror.
Insulting the Koran or Islam's Prophet Mohammed is regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The US is holding about 520 inmates at Guantanamo Bay, many of them al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan following the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US and subsequent US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2005/05/11 10:52:55 GMT
© BBC MMV |
If someone had flushed the Bible down the toilet, I have a feeling some of those people with all the right opinions wouldn't exactly call it "abuse". They'd immediately spot the entertainment value of it, and pick it up as their new summer sport.
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Vesayen
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The overwhelming majority of Jews reconcile all science, including evolution, with religion.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:19
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heres a more succint Reform view:
"Parashat B’reishit, Genesis 1:1-6:8
The Torah: A Modern Commentary pp. 18–53
IS IT TRUE? NOT YET
Richard Jacobs
Our biblical story of creation is stirring, and poetic, but is it true? If we want to know about the creation of the universe, we are not likely to open the Hebrew Bible; instead , we would probably look to science. In plain language, the scientific versions are factual; the biblical account is not.
In 1925, John Thomas Scopes was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in Dayton, Tennessee. William Jennings Bryan led the attack, claiming that the Bible was the true Teaching about the creation.
A couple of years ago, a neighborhood science teacher asked if I believed that the Genesis account of creation was true? I answered, yes. Great, he said. Would I like to speak to his class about my understanding of creation? This modern-day John Scopes thought he was inviting a modern-day William Jennings Bryan to reenact the classic duel.
However, I told the class that while I believed the Genesis account of creation to be true, I also believed the scientific theory of evolution to be true. My response was greeted by puzzlement on the part of twenty-five eighth graders and disappointment on the part of their teacher. I went on to explain that science is one of humanity's great truth traditions, and religion is another. The two have threatened each other since well before the theories of Charles Darwin were formulated. But they needn't be engaged in such a heated rivalry because their goals are so different.
Science can help us understand how the world was created, but it can't tell us why it was created. And religion has no business telling us how the world was created, but we desperately need it to help us understand why we're here.
Genesis doesn't discuss the survival of the fittest, but, as you well know, the Darwin's scientific creation story does. That story's operative principle of the survival of the fittest became known as Social Darwinism, which taught that only the truly gifted deserve to survive. It is unfortunate that this teaching has become an axiom of modern life.
In contrast, our Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity.
The opening of Genesis tells about the creation by God of a universe of harmony, balance, and beauty, formed from soupy chaos, tohu vavohu. It is the most profound story we know, and it reminds us why we are here. It sets forth our work, and our challenge. But is the story true?
Regretfully I must admit that the story is not true, or at least not yet. When will it be true? When we accept our responsibility as God's partners in creating the world described in Genesis.
In that book, we read 469 measured words about God's creation of a harmonious, ordered, and interdependent universe. Can those words literally remake our world? Can any words have that much power?
In only 272 words, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address broadened the scope of the Civil War by stating the larger philosophical declaration that "all men are created equal." Not everyone-Northerner or Southerner, black or white-believed that "proposition" to be true.
Speaking for only three minutes that day, Mr. Lincoln "revolutionized" the revolution, giving people a new way to view the past that would change their future irrevocably.
So what makes us think that our quaint, poetic creation story is untrue? Only our lack of imagination and commitment.
Richard Jacobs is senior rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple, Scarsdale, New York"
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:19
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quote:
[SIZE=1] Originally posted by lord of the mark
Genesis doesn't discuss the survival of the fittest, but, as you well know, the Darwin's scientific creation story does. That story's operative principle of the survival of the fittest became known as Social Darwinism, which taught that only the truly gifted deserve to survive. It is unfortunate that this teaching has become an axiom of modern life. |
The good rabbi is incorrect: Darwinism and Social Darwinism are not related, except the peopel who already had racist opinions coopted the term from Darwin to give their ideals some sort of scientific merit. Nothing in Darwinism teaches that anything "deserves" to survive or perish.
quote:
In contrast, our Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity.
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Nothing about Darwinism is in conflict to this. Darwin himself explained in his works (and others after have also written on it) that altruism and compassion for the less fortunate are completely compatible with Darwinian scientific theory.
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Riesstiu IV
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That label is a good idea but I would go even further. If I ran America I would immediately declare myself god Emperor and disband congress. All religions except for emperor worship would be banned.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The good rabbi is incorrect: Darwinism and Social Darwinism are not related, except the peopel who already had racist opinions coopted the term from Darwin to give their ideals some sort of scientific merit. Nothing in Darwinism teaches that anything "deserves" to survive or perish.
Nothing about Darwinism is in conflict to this. Darwin himself explained in his works (and others after have also written on it) that altruism and compassion for the less fortunate are completely compatible with Darwinian scientific theory. |
He also, according to some, was a deist, who beleived in God, though not in Christianity or the bible. This is disputed though, IIUC, and depends on interpretation of certain remarks.
As for Social Darwinism not being true Darwinism, many of the key advocates of Darwinism were Social Darwinists. Did they adopt Darwin to a preexisting racism, and in so doing distort Darwinism? Perhaps, but then I would say that some Christians did (and do) the same to the bible - they insert an ideology into it thats in fact alien to it as it was followed in its original culture. If Social Darwinists shouldnt own Darwin, why should Fundies own the Bible?
BTW the rabbi doesnt say that Darwin advocated Social Darwinism, but that survival of the fittest was CALLED social Darwinism - this was certainly true, when "fittest" was read with the positive connotations that word has in English.
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
He also, according to some, was a deist, who beleived in God, though not in Christianity or the bible. This is disputed though, IIUC, and depends on interpretation of certain remarks. |
"I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic."
http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/cd_relig.htm
Not that his particular belief is relevant...
quote:
As for Social Darwinism not being true Darwinism, many of the key advocates of Darwinism were Social Darwinists. Did they adopt Darwin to a preexisting racism, and in so doing distort Darwinism? Perhaps, but then I would say that some Christians did (and do) the same to the bible - they insert an ideology into it thats in fact alien to it as it was followed in its original culture. If Social Darwinists shouldnt own Darwin, why should Fundies own the Bible? |
No one is saying the Fundies own the Bible, but the fact is they are the ones using it as a weapon against others in the culture wars. This is--as stated--just a humorous bit of satire on their little hypocrisy over books that teach evolution. You must acknowledge that, at least within the U.S., fundamentalists are the most vocal and politically powerful religious group.
quote:
BTW the rabbi doesnt say that Darwin advocated Social Darwinism, but that survival of the fittest was CALLED social Darwinism - this was certainly true, when "fittest" was read with the positive connotations that word has in English. |
He should be more careful in his wording, if that is his intent, as any person reading this passage without a background in it would undoubtedly make the connection that Darwinism is somehow in agreement with Social Darwinism. The paragraph about Genesis I quoted serves to compound this interpretation. What's more, "survival of the fittest" is no longer used much in science, as the phrase leads to such inaccurate contortions and is not the most apt description.
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