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General => General Board => Topic started by: mlbash on May 27, 2006, 05:36:31 PM

Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: mlbash on May 27, 2006, 05:36:31 PM






www.mpac-ng.org

12th Rabil 'Thanni, 1427 A.H.




Ahmadinejad's Letter to Bush

Iran's foreign ministry on Tuesday said it was waiting for a response from US President George W. Bush to a surprise letter sent by the Islamic republic's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here is the text of the letter, obtained by AFP.



Mr. George Bush,

President of the United States of America

For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena- which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,

Feel obliged to respect human rights,

Present liberalism as a civilization model,

Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,

Make "War and Terror" his slogan,

And finally,

Work towards the establishment of a unified international community- a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern,

But at the same time,

Have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied , around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women- as occupation troops- put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with. Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.

Mr. President,

You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness? There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.

European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values. Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them. Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.

Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.

I tell them to study the history of World War I and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?

Mr. President,

I am sure you know how -- and at what cost -- Israel was established:

- Many thousands were killed in the process.

- Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.

- Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.

This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now. A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique- or at the very least extremely rare- in recent memory. Another big question asked by the people is "why is this regime being supported?" Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH) or Moses (PBUH) or liberal values? Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands -- inside and outside Palestine -- whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?

The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent (observers) have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognize the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government. If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also saying "why are all UNSC (UN Security Council) resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?"

Mr. President,

As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies. It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well. Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R and D one of the basic rights of nations?

You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed. Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.

Mr. President,

Don't Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, Why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?

The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don't they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth -- including minerals -- is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others? Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?

The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d'etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-a-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country's progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.

Mr. President,

September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies. All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems- and even hunts its opponents abroad. September Eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services- or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?

All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbors of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9/11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people- who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks- some Western media only intensified the climates of fear and insecurity- some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?

American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?

Some believe that the hype paved the way- and was the justification- for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media. In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly- for the public to finally believe- and the ground set for an attack on Iraq. Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate? Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?

Mr. President,

In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them. The question here is "what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?" As your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist- to a larger or lesser extent- in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign- paid from the public treasury- be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles? What has been said are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention- which I am hoping you will agree to some of it- is:

Those in power have a specific time in office and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures. The people will scrutinize our presidencies. Did we (manage) to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice or just supported (special) interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, ma de a few people rich and powerful- thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs? Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats? Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it? Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors? Did our administrations set out to promote rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns, Intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights? And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office- to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets- or not?

Mr. President,

How much longer can the world tolerate this situation? Where will this trend lead the world to? How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers? How much longer will the specter of insecurity- raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction- hunt the people of the world? How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people's houses destroyed over their heads? Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue? If the billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states, and distinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts, (where) would the world be today? Would not your government and people be justifiably proud? Would not your administration's political and economic standing have been stronger? And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American government?

Mr. President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.



 
If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (PBUH) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ (PBUH) will be present? Will they even accept us? My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Moslems and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses (PBUH). All divine religions share and respect one word and that is "monotheism" or belief in a single God and no other in the world.

The Holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on all followers of divine religions and says: (3.64) Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught with Him and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah; but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran)

Mr. President,

According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets. "To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases." "The Lo rd which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds." "The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court" "Planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins" "He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors" "He is the Compassionate, the Merciful" "He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness" "He is witness to the actions of His servants" "He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast" "Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds" "A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants" and "A good end and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear H is majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves." We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.

We also believe that Jesus Christ (PBUH) was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus (PBUH) has been quoted in Koran as well: (19.36) And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serve Him; this is the right path.

Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers. The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans. We again read in the Holy Book: "The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purify them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious."

All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well. Divine prophets have promised: The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards (Heaven) and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by our actions. All prophets speak of peace and tranquility for man- based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity. Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheis m, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world- that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets- and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice? Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected? Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?

Mr. President,

History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted the fate of men to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices. Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a high er power at work and all events are determined by Him.

Can one deny the signs of change in the world today? Is the situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace.

The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the world feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies. The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries. The people are disgusted with increasing corruption. The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because the ir rights are not advocated by these organizations. Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems. We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point -- that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: "Do you not want to join them?"

Mr. President,

Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.

Vasalam Ala Man Ataba'al hoda

Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran








Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: HUSNAA on May 29, 2006, 04:30:00 PM
The letter was ill timed and unnecessary given the sort of man that Ahmadenejad is dealing with. Besides there were some deliberate kurakurai in it. He continues to deny that the holocaust ever happened. I think it is a bit naive of him to do that. Acknowledge the holocaust, but state that it in no way justifies the atrocities committed on the Palestianians then or today and it in no way justifies depriving Palestianians of their rightful heritage, Jerusalem.
I firmly believe that the promised land of the Jews even back then in the time of Moses was really America not Canaan or Palestine. The Jews gave up their right to Palestine when they deliberately disobeyed God's Commands to enter it and wrestle it from the then inhabitants during the time of Prophet Moses and God cursed them and sent them wondering ever since.
I say America is the promised land of the Jews because no where else in the world (even in Israel) are they more successful. In America, they own everything that is worth owning in this world and that is why American presidents will forever be pro Zionist and pro Israel because the American Jews are the real masters of America, not Bush or any other pretender.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on May 31, 2006, 02:14:53 AM
Quote from: "HUSNAA"
I firmly believe that the promised land of the Jews even back then in the time of Moses was really America not Canaan or Palestine. The Jews gave up their right to Palestine when they deliberately disobeyed God's Commands to enter it and wrestle it from the then inhabitants during the time of Prophet Moses and God cursed them and sent them wondering ever since.
:shock:  :shock:  :shock:  Eh? Where did you get these ideas from? Is this what the Quran says?

Quote
I say America is the promised land of the Jews because no where else in the world (even in Israel) are they more successful. In America, they own everything that is worth owning in this world and that is why American presidents will forever be pro Zionist and pro Israel because the American Jews are the real masters of America, not Bush or any other pretender.
This logic doesn't really make sense, you know. The Jewish lobby while very powerful certainly does not control everything 'worth owning' in the US; neither are they its masters; that just isn't true. Just because someone is successful at something doesn't mean that it is God-sanctioned. After all America is the present world superpower and some of us will say they have been successful in inflicting many injuries on the Muslim world, but I'm sure you won't conclude that God supports their actions. You don't think the Jews have been more successful in Israel? It is a strong nation on almost all fronts and has been successful in beating back Arab aggression for the better part of 50 years!

I strongly oppose the whole Iraq debacle and I have done so from the very beginning (check the older threads). However Ahmadenejad really bothers me in equal measure. No statesman that wants to be taken seriously will engage in Holocaust denial. It's not just a matter of naivety; its a matter of brazen deception and hypocrisy. While he's on his high horse I hope he's also tackling with equal gusto Iran's own poor human rights record.  :!:
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: HUSNAA on May 31, 2006, 09:05:01 AM
About the Jewish promised land, this is what the Qur'an says about it

20  And (remember) when Moses said unto his people: O my people! Remember Allah's favour unto you, how He placed among you prophets, and He made you kings, and gave you that (which) He gave not to any (other) of (His) creatures.  

21  O my people! Go into the holy land which Allah hath ordained for you. Turn not in flight, for surely ye turn back as losers:  

22  They said: O Moses! Lo! a giant people (dwell) therein and lo! we go not in till they go forth from thence. When they go forth from thence, then we will enter (not till then).  

23  Then out spake two of those who feared (their Lord, men) unto whom Allah had been gracious: Enter in upon them by the gate, for if ye enter by it, lo! ye will be victorious. So put your trust (in Allah) if ye are indeed believers.  

24 They said: O Moses! We will never enter (the land) while they are in it. So go thou and thy Lord and fight! We will sit here.  

25 He said: My Lord! I have control of none but myself and my brother, so distinguish between us and the wrong-doing folk.  

26 (Their Lord) said: For this the land will surely be forbidden them for forty years that they will wander in the earth, bewildered. So grieve not over the wrongdoing folk.  (Suratul Ma'ida verses 20 to 26).


The verses are clear enough and there is no need for me to go into any deeper explanations except to state one point concerning  the 40yrs that Jews were to wander in the wilderness. I only want to state that as time is a relative phenomenon, a year in the eyes of mankind is like less than a second with God. So forty yrs doesnt necessarily have to mean our earthly forty yrs. Just like the day of Ressurection will be like fifty thousand yrs in human reckoning (or more).
I'd like to reiterate that Jews own everything that is worth owning in America and not only America, other parts of the world. I will talk on that later but I want to get my facts together first.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on May 31, 2006, 01:59:15 PM
Thanks for the Quranic verses HUSNAA; that was very thoughtful of you. It certainly fits in well with what the Jewish Scriptures say. However I fail to see how you derived such a fantastic conclusion from those verses. Yes God is timeless but that doesn't exactly support what you are saying. Can you please post other verses from the Quran that show that God made the Jews wander for several centuries to this day?? From the Jewish Scriptures it is crystal clear that God meant 40 literal years.
About today's Jews, again I repeat that as long as you are talking about 'straight facts', Jews do not own everything 'worth owning'. That is myth, not fact. In any case, that really isn't and should not become the point of this thread, which is about Ahmadenejad's letter. To me, it reads like a lot of high-handed nonsense. Why do we always pay attention to these types??
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Ete on May 31, 2006, 04:40:23 PM
"So forty yrs doesnt necessarily have to mean our earthly forty yrs. Just like the day of Ressurection will be like fifty thousand yrs in human reckoning (or more). " -Husnaa

But in the case of the resurrection, no specific time line was given.  Christ or God never said specifically, that the resurrection will be in 40, 50, or 60 years, so no one knows for sure when the resurrection will take place. And to offer a point of correction here, the idea that 40 years in the eyes of God maybe a considered a second is used incorrectly in this context.
If you quote the entire text where that statement was made, you'll see that it is two ended. It goes something like this, .....1,000 years in the eye of the lord is like a day, WHILE A DAY IS LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS. This supposedly is why the resurrection is delayed so that there is ample time for people to set straight their ways so as to avoid excuses.

Now, in the case of the wandering Jews in the wilderness, 40 years is clearly 40 years, and that appears to be clear enough.

What I do not understand is how anyone can read the passages you posted up there and conclude with that, that Isreal has no right to occupy the land it currently occupies, but that rather America is the promised land. How does anyone arrive at such a conclusion when history is so obvious.  Jerusalem of three thousand years ago still stands where it has always stood. Difference being that it had been occupied by several different powers at different points in history.  Palestinians continue to make claims, but historically what exactly is their claim to the land?

What I see is Israel occupying a land it once owned as its ancestral land, and its Arab neighbors wanting to deny them that right, but remain unsuccessful.  The more reasonble Arab countries like Jordan and even Egypt  recognized the futility in sustaining a campaign of hate and aggression against Israel, and subsequently backed out of it.

As for Iranian President, I am not sure he is a man to be taken seriously. Rafsanjani before him was more of a reformer and a pragmatist.
I believe as some Iranians do that Ahmadinejad is unable to deliver on his campaign promises to revamp the ailing economy and end corruption. As such, he hides his failures in these redundant anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Any leader of substance will focus more of his attention on his domestic responsibilities.

Let me also say here, if the quotes of Husnaa above are from the Koran, it does indicate that Allah seemed to have some kind of relationship with these people (Jews) I mean, acording to the Koran, He freely offered them Land that other people owned and occupied. Even when the Jews expressed reluctance to take the Land by force, Allah seemed offended by their lack of desire or courage.  I am sure evidence of that special relationship between Allah and the Jews exists in several other portions of the Koran. Shouldn't the Arabs/ Muslims caution themselves to a degree in their fight against Israel? The showdown that Ahmadinejad is looking for may backfire on him.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: HUSNAA on June 01, 2006, 04:20:07 PM
Hmm. I would like to point out that I am looking at this subject of jews and the promised land from an Islamic perspective. So I doubt we will arrive at an agreement between us. One of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam, is that we have different perceptions of God's Attributes and even His Omnipotent Capabilities. So enough on this subject. Suffice it to say that muslims reading this thread will comprehend me more than you and even Lionger have done Ete, since they would have a better knowledge of the Qur'an than either you or Lionger. I also appreciate the fact that you are looking at it from the point of view of the Bible.  
Now in order that the thread is not closed down by his excellency the admin, I think it is best we keep off the subject in this thread. I hope to open a thread on this interesting topic on the Islamic forum where in sha Allah Admin will not close it down.
You are absolutely correct on one point. There was (is) a very special relationship between Jews and Allah. If you notice (and this is also a point in the bible) they were chosen and honored by God over all other races.  Most of the known prophets were descended from the Jewish race Prophet Yakub (Jacob), Ishaq (Isaac), Yusuf, (Joseph),  Musa (Moses), Haroon (Aaron), Isa (Jesus), Zakariyah (Zachariah), Yahya (John), Iliyas (Elijah) Ayub (Job) Dawud, (David) Sulaiman (Solomon) to name some of them.  However the Jewish ppl proved to be headstrong and disloyal to God, killing some of their prophets (e.g. beheading of John to pacify Salome(?)) and also bending the Laws of the Torah to suit their whims, accepting some  parts and rejecting other parts and still inventing some parts. That is why God's Anger descended especially on the Jews.
In any case, the promised land wasn't virgin land, it was already occupied so it didnt really belong to the Jews. It would have if they had obeyed the Commands of God and taken the land. So if God refused them the land, how can they ever lay claim to it then?   As I said before, I am looking at this from an Islamic perspective, and therefore expect to hear some dissenting voices.
As for Ahmadinejad, I think Iran has a right to nuclear energy. The problem with the West or Bush is that Islam and muslims are synonymous with terrorism in their eyes and the West has succeeded in implanting this propaganda in the psyche of the world's non muslims so that muslims are looked upon with fear and loathing.
Iran has been saying it will use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why not take the statement at face value? Besides who is to say that in the future there wont be a 'mad' American president who will happily 'press the button'? It has happened before with Hiroshima. The more often Americans vote for ultra right conservatives, the closer they come to this goal of having a nuclear trigger happy president!

PS You mistook my point about the ressurection, and again you are looking at it from the Bible's and I from the Quranic perspective. Although the knowledge of the Day of Reckoning is only with God, the signs of it are all around us. The Prophet Salaam (Mohammad SAW)  thoroughly covered the subject in his sermons.  The statement I made about the day of ressurection being like fifty thousand yrs is a statement in the Qur'an. It was not made by me. What it means is that humans will stand before the Creator to be judged and the length of the day for us mortals will be equivalent to 50,000 yrs. I am not referring to earthly time left before the day of resurrection.

PPS this phenomenon of the relativity of time is neither allegorical nor is it supernatural. It is a physical thing.  For example one day on earth is approximately equal to 59 days on the planet Mercury and 243 days on planet Venus and 1 yr on earth is equivalent to 248 and a half years on Pluto. There is nothing religiously fantastic about time. After all time is defined in our planetary system by the rotations of the planets round the sun and on their own axes and also the orbital paths they follow.  How about the rest of the universe? What are the factors by which time is measured outside our own galaxy and outside our own means of measuring time?
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on June 02, 2006, 10:04:32 PM
Quote from: "HUSNAA"Hmm. I would like to point out that I am looking at this subject of jews and the promised land from an Islamic perspective. So I doubt we will arrive at an agreement between us. One of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam, is that we have different perceptions of God's Attributes and even His Omnipotent Capabilities. So enough on this subject. Suffice it to say that muslims reading this thread will comprehend me more than you and even Lionger have done Ete, since they would have a better knowledge of the Qur'an than either you or Lionger. I also appreciate the fact that you are looking at it from the point of view of the Bible.  
Understood. I certainly do not know much about the Quran; which is why I discuss with muslims based on their own interpretation.  As such I asked you if the Quran supports your view. However, the verses you have posted do not support your conclusion that the Jews were meant to wander (in the desert, mind you) for more than the literal 40 years. If anything they are a very, very short summary of what is contained in the Jewish Scriptures in much more detail.

Quote
You are absolutely correct on one point. There was (is) a very special relationship between Jews and Allah. If you notice (and this is also a point in the bible) they were chosen and honored by God over all other races.  Most of the known prophets were descended from the Jewish race Prophet Yakub (Jacob), Ishaq (Isaac), Yusuf, (Joseph),  Musa (Moses), Haroon (Aaron), Isa (Jesus), Zakariyah (Zachariah), Yahya (John), Iliyas (Elijah) Ayub (Job) Dawud, (David) Sulaiman (Solomon) to name some of them.  However the Jewish ppl proved to be headstrong and disloyal to God, killing some of their prophets (e.g. beheading of John to pacify Salome(?)) and also bending the Laws of the Torah to suit their whims, accepting some parts and rejecting other parts and still inventing some parts. That is why God's Anger descended especially on the Jews.
Agreed.
Quote
In any case, the promised land wasn't virgin land, it was already occupied so it didnt really belong to the Jews. It would have if they had obeyed the Commands of God and taken the land. So if God refused them the land, how can they ever lay claim to it then?   As I said before, I am looking at this from an Islamic perspective, and therefore expect to hear some dissenting voices.
Like I said before God made them wander in the desert for a period of 40 years as the Jewish Scriptures record. Infact, the Jewish scriptures tell us that God's intent was that the entire disobedient generation died, except two men: Joshua and Caleb, who had been willing to take the land. Afterwards they entered the promised land and remained there until the scattering by the Babylonians and later the Romans as secular history records. God did not 'refuse them the land' for an eternity or for several centuries based on their refusal to take the land then. While I agree that my take is based on the Old Testament in the Bible, I don't think you have proved that your view is from an Islamic perspective, apart from simply stating that it is. In the verses you provided, there is nothing there to prove your point of view that the period of 40 years is not literal. To put it simply, can you provide a verse from the Quran that shows this?Or a verse that shows that God entirely refused the Jews that particular land? Yes the land was already occupied by then, but according to the Bible God said that He would remove the previous occupants because of their sin. Even if the 40 yr period is not literal, it is clearly a definite period of time, so who's to say that God has not given palestine back to Israel in our recent history? As it is, I see absolutely no reason why your view is any more Islamic than mine is.

Quote
As for Ahmadinejad, I think Iran has a right to nuclear energy. The problem with the West or Bush is that Islam and muslims are synonymous with terrorism in their eyes and the West has succeeded in implanting this propaganda in the psyche of the world's non muslims so that muslims are looked upon with fear and loathing.
Iran has been saying it will use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why not take the statement at face value? Besides who is to say that in the future there wont be a 'mad' American president who will happily 'press the button'? It has happened before with Hiroshima. The more often Americans vote for ultra right conservatives, the closer they come to this goal of having a nuclear trigger happy president!
:) Wow HUSNAA I think you should perhaps give the U.S. as much benefit of doubt as you give Iran. Of course Iran has a right to nuclear energy, but you know that's not the point of discussion. It's the capacity to build nuclear weapons that the Western powers hope to eliminate. So why not take the West's intentions at face value  :) ? Personally I'm tired of the hypocritical antics of the 'big five' in this regard, but I'm also not comfortable with the idea of a nuke-capable country whose leader talks of another country being wiped off the map. So you think the Hiroshima bombing in 1945 was the result of a 'mad American president pressing the button'? My brother, you are so thoroughly wrong here. This is an absurd and unfair simplification. Based on the history of the war in the pacificJapanese imperial power at the time, it is quite obvious that a huge loss of life on the mainland was inevitable in any case. Their kamikaze-style fighting would have ensured a huge loss of life on both sides if America took the other option; i.e. a land invasion.
The West probably shares a bit of the blame for the 'muslims=terrorist' stereotype, but frankly too many professing muslims all over the world have not helped matters with their words or actions. That includes some of us on this forum!
Quote
PPS this phenomenon of the relativity of time is neither allegorical nor is it supernatural. It is a physical thing.  For example one day on earth is approximately equal to 59 days on the planet Mercury and 243 days on planet Venus and 1 yr on earth is equivalent to 248 and a half years on Pluto. There is nothing religiously fantastic about time. After all time is defined in our planetary system by the rotations of the planets round the sun and on their own axes and also the orbital paths they follow.  How about the rest of the universe? What are the factors by which time is measured outside our own galaxy and outside our own means of measuring time?
This is really besides the point and makes little logical sense contextually. Are you trying to say that all of a sudden God was talking about  40 Venus maybe Pluto years or maybe a measurement from another galaxy to people who would only have understood earth years? Such reasoning makes God out to be a deceiver, for surely he knew that the Israelites then would have no understanding of the solar system. Again I ask, is there any verse in the Quran that says that this 40-year period in the desert is not literal? Imagine how confusing things could become if the relative time concept every time the Quran makes reference to a time period. No, there's nothing religiously fantastic about the mechanics of the solar system, but your conclusion still sounds fantastic to me!
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 04, 2006, 11:34:21 AM
Interesting discussion indeed!

I will like to comment on the first submission of Husna and lionger concerning  the naivity or otherwise of the position taken by the Iranian president on the Holocaust. I will like to emphatically state that the Iranian president is not the first statesman or intellectual who engage in holocaust denial in the annals of history. And when looked at from the point of view of history, social anthropology and empherical idealism otherwise known as the study of history in the context of consprational theories, we will hardly deny the ample evidence substantiating the claims of the Iranian president. Bush and other Western intellectuals and statesmen know that quite well and it is the reason why they take him serious. For example if all the influence Marxism has registered across the globe within the preceding century, both as a political and economic theory, would in the final analysis be discovered to be a huge academic and social fraud financed and supported by a selected few ideologues from the capitalist West in the hope of achieving world dominion, what will stop the possibility of having something like the holocaust to mean just the the same thing both in purpose and practice?

Those among us who have a very intimate familiarity with the history of the Jews as is obtained from the Bible and other secular materials, the origin of the Sephardim Jews, the later incoporation of Eastern Jews known as the Ashkenazi Jews into the world synagogue. How they produced personalities like Cham Weizmann who admitted that their laws  and guiding principles in the Talmud teache belief in "literal efficacy of cursing" will find no qualms questioning the postulations of the Iranian president that these people may have exageratted the situation in Germany then, to favour their political cause as aptly expressed in the writings of Doulas Reeds: Disgrace Abounding, Insanity Fair, and The Controversy  Of Zion.. There are other scholars like Arthur Koestler who wrote The Thirteenth Tribe, Nester H. Webster and many others who believe with strong postulations that the Holocaust was more of a media hype that aimed at achieving a goal of creating the state of Israel which will serve as the final bus stop as the world centre for the service of The Great Architect of the Universe, a god, the modern Jews have learnt to worship since the days of their mingling with Egyptian cults before Moses liberated them. Later they continued their practice by creating the golden calf in an attempt to re-affirm their loyalty to the old and overpowering faith.

Also according to Islam, Qur'an, Bible or any source from secular history, there is nothing like a promised land for the Jews. But rather we will find  in the old testament, Genesis in particular, a shady claim that the land was given to the seed of  Abraham and if that is is anything to go by then the Jews alone will not lay claims on it. Other Arabs can claim it also. Myself also dark as I am can claim it since I have Fulani blood in me and Fulani are said to be the causins to the Jews thru' Jocob's brother Esau.  

Another thing is, the Iranian president never said Israel should be wiped off the map as Lionger allude to, but rather he said since in the present  world Atlas there is nothing like Israel then, it should be wiped off from the face of the earth. That by no means signifies that anybody should be killed but rather it calls for reversal of the agrement that led to the creation of the Israeli state. Simple.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Ete on June 04, 2006, 07:43:41 PM
The funny thing is that even the Germans do not deny the Holocaust.
Recorded documentaries, pictures, tapes, eye witness accounts from the Allied forces that first entered the nazi death camps, to survivors, all the way to captured German SS officers do not deny the genocide that took place, just 50 years ago. I find it somewhat strange that any rational person would even attempt to deny this clear fact.

One question, and this may be deemed offensive to many here. If the holocaust which happened just 50 years ago, and with ample evidence all over Germany and other parts of Europe is false despite survivor accounts, despite the gory pictures, despite implicating documents, despite live recordings of bodies, survivor accounts, etc, if all that is a myth, what make the existence 1500 years ago of say, the prophet of allah real? I mean let's face it, no one ever saw him. There are no pictures or portraits of him anywhere on earth. Archeaologists have not discovered anywhere in Arabia to support the claim of his existence 1500 years ago. We also know how skilled these Arabs are at fabricating falsehood and myths for their several agendas. I'm sure we can see a strong indication here that the prophet and all the claims associated with him is quite possibly a myth.

Now, which is of these two history changing event is more believable? Some unsubstantiated account about a prophet that existed 1500 years ago? No proof whatsoever about if this man even existed in the first place, or documented accounts of a travesty that occured between 1939 and 1945?
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Dave_McEwan_Hill on June 05, 2006, 12:08:22 AM
David Irvin, a prominent historian who wrote books denying the Holocaust has just been sentenced to several years in jail in Germay for his lies.

We should be very careful of believing anything the Americans say that the President of Iran has said. The US is distorting everything he says to make a case for invading Iran (for it's oil).
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 05, 2006, 05:57:27 PM
It is interesting that Mr. David would caution us on what America says about the Iranian president. If it is true that an America will create so much hype about Ahmaddenijad in order to hang him, wont it have been easier for so much hype and heaps of documents be created over time to have exxagerated the events of 1933-45 in order to favour some vested interests?

And if Germany would support the truth of Holocaust by having PROMINENT historians like David Irvin jailed, not disproving the ample evidence he has to support his claim, then Germany should know that it is wrong by its action. Reason, not force, is the tool to be used to kill a revolution or an idea.

Also while I can list about 10 or more prominent scholars worldwide who denied, using reasoned logic, the tendencies claimed in the account of the Holocaust, I dare any reader to come up with a single supposed or actual evidence used by any prominent scholar to deny  the existence of Prophet of Islam.

Finally, I will want all to ponder over the reason why the following quotes from Deutronomy, one of the books of the TORAH, that expatiated on the laws and beliefs of the Jews, the choosen people, is not being popularised.
Really if Jews would take hatred against other races to be part and parcel of their religion why wouldn't others hate them back with equal measure?
This re-echoes nothing but the truth of the claims by some honest Jews that,  'After all, the Nuremberg laws are only the translation into German of our own Mosaic laws, with their ban on intermarriage with Gentiles'?

"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Dave_McEwan_Hill on June 05, 2006, 11:02:39 PM
I'm afraid Waziri's views about doubts about the reality of the Holocaust are complete rubbish and he diminishes himself by publishing them.

I have consistently since I joined this forum attacked the evil that America does. They are the greatest evil in the world today. But it's nothing to do with religion. It is all to do with controlling the whole world and grabbing all of the world's oil.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 07, 2006, 09:18:59 AM
Well, Mr. David, you may call me or my views by whatever name you want. I believe the average reader of will be able to see thru' the reality of my working with proofs and complete reference materials.

I am still my old self, reasoned logic and facts are my food. When you cannot match, you don't yap. :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: mlbash on June 09, 2006, 09:51:09 PM
Quote from: "Dave_McEwan_Hill"David Irvin, a prominent historian who wrote books denying the Holocaust has just been sentenced to several years in jail in Germay for his lies.

We should be very careful of believing anything the Americans say that the President of Iran has said. The US is distorting everything he says to make a case for invading Iran (for it's oil).

that's what i call an absolute objective mind mr. Dave. is nice to hear from you again. :)
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on July 14, 2006, 08:54:09 PM
Thanks to Waziri's persistence I've realised that no adequate response was given to his latest dip into the Old Testament, so I will try to do so now. I will first look into the 'shady' claims of a promised land for the Jews in the book of Genesis, as you Waziri has dubbed them.  It's claims like this that makes me wonder how some of you read the Bible. There is absolutely nothing shady about Genesis' take on the promised land, which is the very least that I could say about your contribution to this thread.

What does Genesis say about the promised land? Well it started with God calling a man called Abram:

Genesis 12:1-6
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
  "I will make you into a great nation
   and I will bless you;
   I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.
   I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
   and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you."
 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan , and they arrived there.
 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring(seed) I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.


God promised Abram the land of Canaan, which today is the site of contention b/w Israel and the Palestinians, for the most part.
 After a while, Lot parted ways with Abram and went east, and God repeated His promise to Abram again:

Genesis 13:14-18
The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring(seed) forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you."
 So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.


In Chapter 15, God promises Abram a son (he had none at this point) and in fact tells him what will happen to his descendants who will inherit this promise:

Genesis 15:12-20
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river(Wadi) of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."


Notice that God prophecied that Abram's heirs would be enslaved in a foreign country (Egypt) for four hundred years. Remember also God's comments concerning the Amorites' sin as a hint to why they were going to be kicked off the land later. God wasn't just doing Israel a favor and injustice to everyone else! Keep this point in mind, for we will come back to it later when we look at Deuteronomy.
 When Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him again, repeated the promises and changed his name to Abraham.

Genesis 17:1-8
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."


God also added that his son from Sarah, Isaac, would be the heir of Abraham's covenant with God and the promises. Ismael had already been born and was thirteen at the time:

Genesis 17:19-21
Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.

God repeats the promises again to Abraham in Chapter 22 after he passed the test concerning his son Isaac:

Genesis 22:15-18
The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring (seed) all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

God confirmed the promises to Isaac himself twice in chapter 26, as Abraham's heir:

Genesis 26:1-6
Now there was a famine in the land?besides the earlier famine of Abraham's time?and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring(seed) all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws." So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

Genesis 26:23,24
23 From there he went up to Beersheba. That night the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham."

God also confirmed the covenant with Isaac's son and heir, Jacob, when he fled from home to avoid the wrath of his brother Esau:

Genesis 28:10-15
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

More than twenty years later, when Jacob returned to Canaan with his wives and children, God reconfirmed the promises and gave him a new name, Israel, the name of the nation that would come out of him:

Genesis 35:9-12
After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him. God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel. So he named him Israel.
And God said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you."


I think all this is enough to prove that promised land for Israel in Genesis can hardly be described as a shady concept. Waziri and the Fulanis cannot lay any claim to the promise through Esau, for it is clear that Esau did not inherit this promise; Jacob did. In fact Genesis 36 tells us that Esau and his descendants moved away from Jacob and settled in the hill country of Seir and the surrounding area. Waziri you ought to have known this at least from Deuteronomy 2 (which I assume you read, since you quoted from it in your 'passage' ;) ), because in that chapter God led the Israelites through Seir but warned them not to make war with its inhabitants as Seir was given to Esau as his inheritance.

This brings us nicely to the subject of your Deuteronomy 'passage', which I will look into in my next post. But before we go there I would like to bring attention to the phrases I highligted in red; one of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: that through them and their offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed. That, my friend, is the key point to remember, as long as we're discussing strict Scriptural interpretation. The reason I say that is because it answers the question, 'why?' Why did God choose these three men and bless them and their descendants? So that the rest of the world would be blessed through them.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on July 25, 2006, 12:41:30 PM
Onto Deuteronomy:

In recent times Waziri your immediate reaction to the Israel issue has been to pinpoint the Jewish religion as the source of Israel's current 'belligerence', due to the sanctioning of racial hatred and violence in their Scriptures as you see it. You then quoted the book of Deuteronomy to prove your theory. Now when anyone makes such a serious charge as you have done, it is expected that he follows through with very careful, properly referenced scriptural analysis. My brother, this is exactly what you did not do. As I have said before, this 'passage' of Deuteronomy you presented here is not a passage in the true sense of the word. This is an amalgam of several verses scattered across the book. You smacked together several verses to form a 'passage' and in the process sacrificed background and  contextual respect of each verse. This is very wrong. Deuteronomy is a fairly large book that contains things that are quite harsh by our conventional sensibilities; all the more reason why we must take pay extra attention to background and context.

Firstly, let's establish the fact that your 'passage' from Deuteronomy is actually a collection of verses from Deuteronomy. I'll do this by properly referencing the verses you used and putting them on separate lines. At least you helped by putting ellipses, but what good is that when in some cases there are several chapters between verses? My annotations are in red, in this format: [Chapter # : Verse #].

Quote
[Chapter 2:Verse 2]And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . .
[2:25]This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . .
[4:15] And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . .
[4:37,38]And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . .
[7:2,3]And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . .
[7:5] ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . .
[7:6]For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . .
[7:16]And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . .
[7:23,24]But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . .
[11:24] Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . .
[20:16]Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . .
[28:12]thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . .
[12:2]Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . .
KJV translation

When presented this way, the concern for contextual analysis of each verse and chapter becomes more apparent. This really is what you should have done Waziri. You quoted sixteen verses from seven chapters but did not reference it as such. By lumping it into one paragraph you effectively created your own version of Deuteronomy; a work of fiction that obviously serves your purpose much better. Its easy to see racial hatred and prejudice in the commands of total destruction of certain peoples, abstinence from inter-racial marriage, the promises of territorial expansion and prosperity. All this without explanation and without context.

1. What land was Israel to conquer/inherit? What nation(s) were to be removed?

The Israelites were not given license to consume all that was before them. Waziri you quoted from Chapter 2, did you read the whole chapter? If you did you would have realised that three times God told Moses and Israel not to tamper with certain territories they were passing through(all my quotations are from the NIV):

Verses 2-6
Then the LORD said to me, "You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north. Give the people these orders: 'You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.  Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.' "

Verse 9
Then the LORD said to me, "Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession."

Verses 17-19
...the LORD said to me, "Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar. When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.

Note that at the same time God said that Ammon was off-limits, he also said to take the land possessed by Sihon and the Amorites:

Verses 24,25
Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you."

There's the second verse you quoted Waziri; verse 25. God said that he would put the fear of them in all the nations, right after telling them  not to touch certain lands. Even so, Moses clearly did not take God's command concerning Sihon as a licence for an unprovoked attack. As Deuteronomy 2 and Numbers 21 show, Moses sent a message of peace to Sihon asking to pass through his land. Sihon refused, came out with his entire army and was subsequently destroyed.

So what land was Israel to inherit and settle in at this point? In the Torah it was largely referred to as the 'land of Canaan' or the land of the Amorites (both terms were used interchangeably), west of the Jordan, and flanked by the Mediterranean Sea, the desert and Lebanon. It also included some portions east of the Jordan. God himself defined the borders of this territory in Numbers 34:1-14:

The LORD said to Moses,"Command the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance will have these boundaries:
" 'Your southern side will include some of the Desert of Zin along the border of Edom. On the east, your southern boundary will start from the end of the Salt Sea (Dead Sea), cross south of Scorpion(Akrabbim) Pass, continue on to Zin and go south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it will go to Hazar Addar and over to Azmon, where it will turn, join the Wadi of Egypt and end at the Sea (Mediterranean).
" 'Your western boundary will be the coast of the Great Sea (Mediterranean). This will be your boundary on the west.
" 'For your northern boundary, run a line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor and from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath. Then the boundary will go to Zedad, continue to Ziphron and end at Hazar Enan. This will be your boundary on the north.
" 'For your eastern boundary, run a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham. The boundary will go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain and continue along the slopes east of the Sea of Kinnereth. Then the boundary will go down along the Jordan and end at the Salt Sea.
" 'This will be your land, with its boundaries on every side.' "
Moses commanded the Israelites: "Assign this land by lot as an inheritance. The LORD has ordered that it be given to the nine and a half tribes, because the families of the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance. These two and a half tribes have received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan of Jericho, toward the sunrise."


The land east of the Jordan that was assigned to a few tribes was that which belonged to Sihon's Amorite kingdom and Og's Bashan kingdom (which was also taken in Deuteronomy 2). Note that practically all of Deuteronomy occurs here on the eastern banks of the Jordan. Here's some maps that shows the territory Israel inherited and settled in.
http://www.biblemaps.com/onlinemaps/12tribes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Early-Historical-Israel-Dan-Beersheba-Judea.png

Who were the peoples that possessed these lands at the time, that were to be driven out/destroyed? There were seven nations - and they are mentioned specifically several times in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy. Waziri you quoted quite extensively from Deuteronomy 7; but it begs the question, who do the words  'them' and 'their' refer to? Anyone Israel can get their hands on? Certainly not Edom, Moab or Ammon - we've already seen that their lands are off limits. The very first verse of Deuteronomy 7 tells us:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you..

Now these are the peoples that were to be completely destroyed, and their lands settled. These are the nations that Israel is forbidden from engaging in treaties or marriage relations, and whose idols they were to destroy. These seven peoples are the subject of these verses you quoted: 7:2-3, 7:5, 7:16, 7:23-24, 12:2.

Now what about 11:24, which seems to promise that every place where Israel sets its foot would be theirs? Well obviously this verse should be put in context of the chapter it came from. Chapter 11 is an exhortation from Moses to Israel to remember God and his commandments when they  settle in the land. Obedience to God will result in prosperity and even expansion of territorial control, while disobedience will result in destruction and ejection from the land. Let's read verses 22-25:

If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow-to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways and to hold fast to him- then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea (Mediterranean). No man will be able to stand against you. The LORD your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.

The promise that 'every place you put your foot on will be yours' is put in context here by two things: first, this will only occur as a reward for obedience in following God. Second, the borders of their expanded territory is immediately defined. Note that this is pretty much the same borders promised to Abraham in Genesis 15. In fact, Moses himself is given the same borders in the first chapter of Deteronomy. Essentially what is being said here is that Israel would expand into a mini-empire of sorts with border states subject to them - if they presisted in obedience to God. This actually did happen during the reigns of King David and his son Solomon (click link to see maps).
http://www.biblemaps.com/onlinemaps/UnitedKingdom.html
http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/solkingd.htm

28:12, the verse about Israel lending and not borrowing, also belongs here as well. Similarly to Chapter 11, Chapter 28 is wholly devoted to an extensive description of the blessings for obedience to God and curses/punishment for disobedience. You quoted one of the blessings. Btw, what do you make of the curses for disobedience section? Did you notice that it was much longer than the blessings section? And doesn't it also seem to describe ancient Israel's history much more accurately?


2. Why did God command the complete destruction of certain peoples? Why was Israel inheriting their land? Why the ban on intermarriage? Why, why, why???
I think it helps when reading the Bible to ask ourselves the question 'why'. If not, we could miss out on much meaning and significance, and will fail to understand much. This is especially important with the Torah/Old Testament. There's a lot of very gory here which I personally don't enjoy reading, and can understand why you object to them Waziri. But it helps to understand the context of these things. You can't just browse through a couple of verses ordering the total obliteration of certain peoples, intermarriage bans, designation of one race as 'chosen', etc. and say 'o well, the religion is racist, cased closed' - incomplete reseach. Is religion just empty, brainless submission?? Why were these orders given? What is the motive behind them, what is the purpose?? These are questions begging answers. And they're right there in the same Book of Deuteronomy.

Why the command of complete extermination of certain nations? And why does Israel get to inherit their land? Deuteronomy 9:4-6.

After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

The Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites etc. were all going to be booted out because of their 'wickedness', i.e. their sin. God made this point clear to Abraham in Genesis 15 and he made it clear to Israel several times. Both the Bible and and secular historical records show that the peoples that inhabited these regions at the time had degenerated to a most barbaric, violent and uncivilized state. Even their religious rituals were filled with gross sexual perversion and child/human sacrifice. Many of the commands in the Torah, especially the laws regarding sexual practices in Leviticus 18&20 were simply God's rejection of Canaanite/Amorite culture. As such, part of God's reason for odering the complete destruction of those seven nations was to ensure that Israel did not also adopt their practices and thus end up like them. If we put your 20:16 verse in context w ecan see this clearly:
Deut. 20:16-18
However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.

Now fast-forward to the time after Joshua, when Israel had settled in the land of Canaan:

Judges 3:5-8
The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim (Northwest Mesopotamia),  to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years.

God warned the Israelites that they too would be ejected if they behaved like the previous tenants - which is exactly what happened.

Israel did not inherit the land because they were righteous; they quite simply weren't. Moses, the speaker in Deuteronomy 9, would know this firsthand. Of all the tens of thousands that originally came out of Egypt, only two entered the land promised to them. The rest died in the desert as punishment for disobedience. They were real sufferheads  :P . Israel did not deserve to get the land. They only got it as a result of God's promise to their 'patriachs' (forefathers), Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which has already been looked into in my previous post. Remember again that this promise was not just about the establishment of a strong Israel, but that through them all nations would be blessed. As long as we're discussing scripture interpretation, you can't lose sight of this fact. It answers the question 'why'.

Now why the ban on intermarriage? Deuteronomy 7:3-4.

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

Waziri, you quoted from verse 3 which  records the ban on intermarriage, but yet again failed to give mention to the next verse which puts the command in its proper context. This is no xenophobic concern for Israel's racial purity; or proof of Israel's race being 'better' or superior. God's main concern is religious purity; that inter-marriage with the Canaanite peoples would result in adoption of the latter's cultural mores. Once again this is exactly what happened time and time again in Israel's history right from the period after Joshua (Moses' successor) to the time of the exiles in Babylon and Assyria.

Outside of these religious concerns this command was hardly universal. Moses himself was married to a Cushite woman, and when his older siblings Miriam and Aaron got on his back for it, God rebuked them severely (Numbers 12)!  David's ancestral line included two non-Israelite women: Rahab, a Canaanite survivor of Joshua's destruction of Jericho; and Ruth, a Moabite immigrant, who has a whole book named after her in the Tanakh. With these women one thing is common: they obviously converted to the Jewish religion. As long as that was the case, it was fine. The law on intermarriage was meant to protect the faith, not the racial make-up per se.

With this I hope that we can put into context all the verses you quoted Waziri. The commands of complete extermination was restricted to certain nations and the purpose was judgement for sin and protection of Israel from their corrupting influences. Even Israel's territorial expansion was cleary controlled by God strictly and dependent on their continuing obedience to him. Wanton violence against other races was not sanctioned in Tanakh, short and simple.

One last thing I want to mention is the laws concerning the treatment of non-Israelite aliens living among them:

Exodus 22:21
"Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.
Exodus 23:9
"Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.
Leviticus 19:33,34
" 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 24:17
Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice
Deuteronomy 23:7
Do not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as an alien in his country.
Deuteronomy 27:19
"Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow..."

I think the words speak for themselves. Native-born Israelites did have some advantages over aliens though. But in any case, racial hatred quite simply is not justified in the book of Deuteronomy or in any book in the Tanakh. Waziri, this is a very wrong and unfair charge. I am willing to concede, however, that overtime the Israelites did become guilty of despising other races, as is very evident in the New Testament of the Bible. At the very least they made the same mistake you made here in misunderstanding their scriptures; not realising that their designation as the 'beloved' of God was through no merit of theirs, but for the blessing of all nations through them.

I await your reply. God bless,
lionger
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Ete on July 25, 2006, 03:04:03 PM
Waziri does your deliberate distortion of Bible passages to serve your purpose not constitute gross intellectual dishobesty? You are the one who claimed initially that Lionger and I insulted your collective intelligence, etc etc.  By the way, we did not. We presented an argument that you rejected. What you did with lumping up several verses in Deutronomy and presenting it as an original stand alone chapter is quite mischievous.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: mlbash on July 30, 2006, 05:00:25 PM
Quote from: "Ete"Waziri does your deliberate distortion of Bible passages to serve your purpose not constitute gross intellectual dishobesty? You are the one who claimed initially that Lionger and I insulted your collective intelligence, etc etc.  By the way, we did not. We presented an argument that you rejected. What you did with lumping up several verses in Deutronomy and presenting it as an original stand alone chapter is quite mischievous.

you should have use more softer words mr ete. :)
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on October 15, 2006, 03:17:05 PM
Salam,

Readers, I am sorry for resurrecting all the relevant threads again to post my earlier response to the first part of the claims lionger and co are puting in relation to the promised land, who also accused me of misreading and misquoting "their" holy scripts in order to serve my purpose of expressing hate against them. Pls I do this for no reason than the following:

1.    To establish within us and them that they have seen our thread and did not respond to what I said because they agreed with our points as such will not bother us again when we make points similar to these in future. It is a settled issue.

2.    That in truth it is not only them that hold the present Bible very dear for it is as dear to us as they believe it is dear to them. That they should never accuse us again of mutiliating the Bible. Yes, we maybe wrong in some of our assertions but they have no right to claim better right of ownership of the scripts than us. Here is it:

QuoteHaving driven my points in the other thread started by my sister Husna, I will discuss, here, the falsity of the oft repeated claim, that there was an accord between God and the Jews which gave them Palestine permanently and for life, as promised. I will draw from the Biblical sources  through to Qur?an and side by side the insurmountable evidence of history which will portray in grim light that the activities of the Jews in the Middle East is a breach of human dignity, an exercise in avarice and an eccentricity of the highest magnitude in the sight of God. In doing that we will certainly find the following verse giving the true test of what prophesy is, most instrumental. It reads:


And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Holy Bible (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Building in the submission of lionger in defense of the fraudulent accord we read in the same Bible how Abraham, the so-called, receiver of the promise, died in a land he bought for himself.

And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave....
The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

Holy Bible (Genesis 25:9-10)

How possible is it then that he was given a land when he had buy one for his own grave? This is especially true when we see how another verse from the scripture confirmed it this way:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off..

Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13)

Nothing is most explicit than the account given by Luke in the Acts of the apostles as follows:

And God said unto him (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land (Palestine) in which ye now dwell. And he (God) gave him (Abraham) no inheritance in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT UPON; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him.....
Holy Bible (Acts 7:3-5)

No wonder Jesus Christ (AS), the Messiah, liberator of the Jews has never mentioned anything, with emphasis, like the promised land given to the Jews anywhere. But rather he found comfort in telling them the stark truth that the spiritual leadership of Mankind has been taken away from them permanently with his coming, only to be given to another? in his own word:

Therefore I say unto you (Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (Jews), and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

(HOLY BIBLE) Matthew 21: 45

Earlier on Moses(AS) foretold them in this manner as seen in the following verses from our dear Deuteronomy:

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 9: 24

For I knew thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 51:27

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21

THE QUR?AN

Having found no any substantial answer as to where the issue for the Promised Land came from in the Bible, only some good references that suggested the whole idea to mean a lie against God, we will turn to the Qur?an, perchance our Jewish brethren can have some legitimate claim in the LAST TESTAMENT of God. Here we find the verses as referred to here, aptly, by my sister Husna. Let?s re-read them together:


20 And (remember) when Moses said unto his people: O my people! Remember Allah's favour unto you, how He placed among you prophets, and He made you kings, and gave you that (which) He gave not to any (other) of (His) creatures.

21 O my people! Go into the holy land which Allah hath ordained for you. Turn not in flight, for surely ye turn back as losers:

22 They said: O Moses! Lo! a giant people (dwell) therein and lo! we go not in till they go forth from thence. When they go forth from thence, then we will enter (not till then).

23 Then out spake two of those who feared (their Lord, men) unto whom Allah had been gracious: Enter in upon them by the gate, for if ye enter by it, lo! ye will be victorious. So put your trust (in Allah) if ye are indeed believers.

24 They said: O Moses! We will never enter (the land) while they are in it. So go thou and thy Lord and fight! We will sit here.

25 He said: My Lord! I have control of none but myself and my brother, so distinguish between us and the wrong-doing folk.

26 (Their Lord) said: For this the land will surely be forbidden them for forty years that they will wander in the earth, bewildered. So grieve not over the wrongdoing folk. (Suratul Ma'ida verses 20 to 26).


Actually, there is no any point in the Qur?an where a contradictory claim, as is above is made, in relation to the story of the Jews and how they lost in the sight of God. As such we can easily conclude that the issue of the Promised Land found much substance only in the Qur?an. But then the truth of the matter as is consistent with every standard Qur?anic exegete, the Jews where given that land in their position then as the chosen people to lead Mankind in all their spiritual journeys in the universe. But as the time went, they proved arrogant and stiff-necked as seen in the accounts given above from the pages of Deuteronomy, by Moses, and Matthews by Jesus. So Allah said in the Qur?an:

O! CHILDREN OF ISRAEL! CALL TO MIND THE SPECIAL FAVOUR WHICH I BESTOWED UPON YOU, AND FULFIL YOUR COVENANT WITH ME AS I FULLFILL MY COVENANT WITH YOU AND FEAR NONE BUT ME.

Holy Qur?an (2:40)

That is to say they have not lived upto the expectations of God in their covenant with Him as such cannot continue to claim their status in His sight as the chosen people.

HISTORICAL REALITIES

From the point of view of history, Jews have never been known to have evolved as Jews, anytime prior to the time they stayed in the ancient Egypt, beginning at the time Joseph (AS) brought all the members of the family there to stay after he ascended a level, in the leadership of the ancient Egypt. Later the whole family was enslaved under the tyrannical administrations of the native Egyptians. Moses came to rescue them with the instructions that they should go and settle newly, in a Promised Land, from which they will give the desired spiritual leadership to mankind. They proved stiff-necked and rebellious until God changed them with the Arabs as the carriers of his message and the spiritual leaders of mankind in Islam under the leadership of Muhammad. But one truth remains like a hanging myth over the reality of human existence. The Jews under Talmudic prompting have never adjusted to the truth that they are no longer the favorites in the sight of God, as such; they attempted to kill Jesus and spent so many resources in bringing down the Prophet of Islam and his message. Palestine as a land that is chosen by God to be the heart of the earth with a great amount of spiritual goodwill was claimed and continued to be claimed by them.

It is a reality of history that since time immemorial, the ideology or nation that controlled the region has always been the nation that led the world in all other spheres of life. Think of Ottaman Empire, France and Britain. They were all world powers only when they were in control of the region, the moment they lost it, the moment their leadership slipped to the new occupiers of the place and Jews since they wanted to continue to lead mankind under a very false claim they kept the grudge touting the idea that its theirs hook or crook. But the truth of the matter lies in the words of Leopold Weiss another Jew, who converted to Islam around 1922 and having seen the evil machinations of the Talmudist in their plans to assume control of the region concluded about the ownership of the place, thus:

?It belongs to all those who mentally approach it with a humility born of faith in the one God, and particularly to those who, in the words of the Qur?an: ?Believe in all His messengers making no distinction between any of them.?

I remain most grateful, until I come with my analysis of Jewish worldview in the light of those laws of hate enumerated in the Deuteronomy. Thanks once again.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on October 19, 2006, 05:55:55 AM
 Click here for my response to your arguments  (http://www.hausafulani.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2479)

QuoteReaders, I am sorry for resurrecting all the relevant threads again to post my earlier response to the first part of the claims lionger and co are puting in relation to the promised land, who also accused me of misreading and misquoting "their" holy scripts in order to serve my purpose of expressing hate against them. Pls I do this for no reason than the following:

1. To establish within us and them that they have seen our thread and did not respond to what I said because they agreed with our points as such will not bother us again when we make points similar to these in future. It is a settled issue.

2. That in truth it is not only them that hold the present Bible very dear for it is as dear to us as they believe it is dear to them. That they should never accuse us again of mutiliating the Bible. Yes, we maybe wrong in some of our assertions but they have no right to claim better right of ownership of the scripts than us.

Waziri, you've made some rather objectionable and wild statements in this post, but my response is simple: please try to quote Bible verses in their proper context. It really is not that difficult. Haven't you noticed that I always say the same thing in response to your quotations? Out of context, out of context, out of context, out of context!  This is not good scholarship. Here's a suggestion: before you present another Bible verse that meets your fancy on this forum, read the entire chapter surrounding that verse, maybe two chapters. Be sure that you've grasped the context and background of that verse and then go ahead. If you don't, then rest assured that I will once again do your homework for you. If indeed the Bible is dear to you as you claim (which frankly is double-talk since you called it a fraudulent accord previously) then it is not too hard a thing to pay attention to context. From the tragic phantom Deuteronomy passage to this post, contextual respect has been constantly bypassed.  I'm not sure that I'd have enough time for more debate in this in the near future, but I strongly encourage you to read that whole chapter of Hebrews 11 again carefully. As I said before, if you quote the Quran in the same manner that's you've quoted the Bible often then one has to wonder if even that analysis can be trusted :( .
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on October 20, 2006, 09:31:24 AM
lionger,

You can provide the context if u so so desire. But one thing is you cannot deny the thorough knowledge of what I am doing. You know quite all right that I couldn't have gotten those verses without having laboured thru the scriptures! When you cannot do that you give me the ground in this. You are already looking so much on the defensive and am afraid it is not a very helthy thing for u.

Thanks once again.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: alhaji_aminu on October 20, 2006, 02:48:05 PM
Salam all.

I hate to bear off topic but I think the point I will be making is an important one- at least I think it is important. Mr Ahmedinejad is, by all accounts, a holocaust denier. He is a rable rousing populist determined, so say by 'divine' inspiration, to go full steam with a Nuclear WEAPONS program which will- undoubtedly but GOD forbid, lead to confrontation with either the USA or Israel.

I sincerely wish the proud Iranian people the best of luck.

My point here, which is also a question is, isn't denying the holocaust a mockery of tragedy and shouldn't Mr Ahmedinejad  by mindful of his comments in this regard?

regards!!!
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on October 20, 2006, 05:02:22 PM
LOL Waziri,

So I'm being defensive now eh  :lol:  ? Perhaps you should read what I was responding to. You still don't get it. You said I should provide context 'if I so desire' - well I so desire, and I have done so, and so should you! Surely we both desire to do the same, or do we want to mislead others? Come now, context is everything, no matter the material. If we won't pay attention to it, then its almost better that we don't read.

Yes, 'labouring through the scriptures' is good, but the objective is to achieve the correct result. Back in the day when we took those 'reading and comprehension' tests in primary/secondary school, we got marks for getting the correct answer, not for showing that we had read the relevant text. Weren't the Pharisees of Jesus' time experts in the Scriptures? Did that stop Jesus for rebuking them severely? And the Rabbinic scholars that in your opinion have spawned offensive and racist laws and ideas, have they not laboured through their Scriptures as well? So then, it doesn't matter whether we have read, but what the result is. Therefore we must be careful in how we 'labour'! I don't know how any one can read Hebrews 11:13 and conclude that God's promise to Abraham failed and was a false prophecy and a lie, when verses 14, 15, 16 and indeed the rest of that chapter states that God will keep his promise! Context, context, context! Anyways, I am once again growing rather weary of this debate, and in the absence of anything new to say, I bid you a good day and happy sallah.

lionger
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on October 20, 2006, 05:51:21 PM
Quote from: "alhaji_aminu"Salam all.

I hate to bear off topic but I think the point I will be making is an important one- at least I think it is important. Mr Ahmedinejad is, by all accounts, a holocaust denier. He is a rable rousing populist determined, so say by 'divine' inspiration, to go full steam with a Nuclear WEAPONS program which will- undoubtedly but GOD forbid, lead to confrontation with either the USA or Israel.

I sincerely wish the proud Iranian people the best of luck.

My point here, which is also a question is, isn't denying the holocaust a mockery of tragedy and shouldn't Mr Ahmedinejad  by mindful of his comments in this regard?

regards!!!

alhaji aminu how bodi,

Actually your post is very relevant, since this thread was about Ahmadinejad until Waziri decided that we must 'labour through the  Scriptures' :D. I agree with pretty much all you have said. Your pertinent question should also be directed at our resident intellectual Waziri, who also believes that Holocaust denial is 'reasoned logic' and would rather have us discuss how the Jewish Torah incites racial hatred and violence. I certainly could not disagree more.
Title: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on October 25, 2006, 04:08:38 PM
QuoteYour pertinent question should also be directed at our resident intellectual Waziri, who also believes that Holocaust denial is 'reasoned logic' and would rather have us discuss how the Jewish Torah incites racial hatred and violence. I certainly could not disagree more.

Well at least you have taken us this far by attempting a mockery of my person which betrays an apathy on your part. Rather than try to continue to refute my claims you now turn to villifying my person, which has gone alongway to convince me as to how lowly I have degraded myself by agreeing to discuss this issue with you.

And if you could be bold enuff to claim what is in your quotes below, what can stop me from claiming the same about your positions? Concerning the contextual meaning of those verses, I thing I am now convinced that you are not necessarily knowlegeable in this regard and as such will sudedenly look for an alternative measure.

QuoteYes, 'labouring through the scriptures' is good, but the objective is to achieve the correct result. Back in the day when we took those 'reading and comprehension' tests in primary/secondary school, we got marks for getting the correct answer, not for showing that we had read the relevant text. Weren't the Pharisees of Jesus' time experts in the Scriptures? Did that stop Jesus for rebuking them severely? And the Rabbinic scholars that in your opinion have spawned offensive and racist laws and ideas, have they not laboured through their Scriptures as well? So then, it doesn't matter whether we have read, but what the result is. Therefore we must be careful in how we 'labour'! I don't know how any one can read Hebrews 11:13 and conclude that God's promise to Abraham failed and was a false prophecy and a lie, when verses 14, 15, 16 and indeed the rest of that chapter states that God will keep his promise! Context, context, context! Anyways, I am once again growing rather weary of this debate, and in the absence of anything new to say, I bid you a good day and happy sallah.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on February 19, 2008, 07:53:00 PM
After taking the time to re-quaint myself with this whirlwind joust between Waziri and Lionger on this and other threads, I have one question to make. First of all, let's deal with the Bible. Waziri, what are your methods of Bible interpretation? For the life of me I cannot make sense of them. Lionger, for his part, is not an expert (frankly neither am I) and could have done with a bit more dispassion in some of his later posts. However he dealt honestly enough with the material in front of him, IMHO. He certainly did a thorough job with the Deuteronomy passage, which along with your interpretation of Hebrews 11:13, probably represents your most glaring errors here. I find it extremely hard to see how a proper and contextual reading of the Bible can support any of your claims.

I normally suspect some degree of plagiarism when I see these sort of repeated contextual errors. However I am convinced of better things concerning you, because you clearly do not belong to that class of unintelligent anti-religion rabble-rousers that pervade many internet forums I frequent. That said, I've noticed that you did not come to terms solidly with any of Lionger's rejoinders. Perhaps you would be willing to do that now?
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on February 20, 2008, 10:53:28 AM
Quote from: Cekenah on February 19, 2008, 07:53:00 PM
After taking the time to re-quaint myself with this whirlwind joust between Waziri and Lionger on this and other threads, I have one question to make. First of all, let's deal with the Bible. Waziri, what are your methods of Bible interpretation?

First of all, if you are interested in sincere discussion, I'll advice that you avoid  simplifying our exchanges in derogatory expressions like " whirlwind joust" as in your quotes above except if you want others to describe your take here as part of the joust. As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself both New and Old Testament

In the case of the Qur'an, apart from the above mentioned sources I also use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Qur'an,
2.  The Qur'an itself
3.  The Hadith(preserved saying of the holy Prophet)

And unfortunately this is what I think Lionger has failed to do all thru' cos he always plucks verses from the Bible and claims they must be exactly as he excavated them.

QuoteFor the life of me I cannot make sense of them.

I hope you can now or at least ask more revealing questions!

QuoteI find it extremely hard to see how a proper and contextual reading of the Bible can support any of your claims.

How? This kind of conclusion needs to be supported with some degree of evidence both textual and interpretative.
Quote
I normally suspect some degree of plagiarism when I see these sort of repeated contextual errors.

What repeated contextual errors? Remember you did not highlight any as much as you did not site any reference of plagiarism. Are you sure you are ready for a serious discussion or is it simply to fiddle out suspicion of plagiarism on my part? After all this is not in any way an art work but rather more of academic work that needs to be making reference to other scholars. Or is copying from the Bible amounts to plagiarism?

QuoteHowever I am convinced of better things concerning you, because you clearly do not belong to that class of unintelligent anti-religion rabble-rousers that pervade many internet forums I frequent. That said, I've noticed that you did not come to terms solidly with any of Lionger's rejoinders. Perhaps you would be willing to do that now?

Well, I expressed my opinion of Lionger in my last post here, before this one, as much as my understanding of his scholarship, in this one, which I said, does not take into account history and context of the issues under discourse as I outlined my methodology above. But if you look carefully you will see that the discussion continued in different threads in which Lionger continued to want to just win his way without necessarily searching for points of agreement and sometimes at the price of getting at my person which shows frustration on his part.

But then if you are interested in a more serious discussion you can refer me to exactly and specifically what you believe I did not address in the discussion so that we can start afresh, with your own dispassionate clues and independent of the referral to what I have always believed to be a very insufficient and all encompassing argument.

Again I hope your reference above,  " because you clearly do not belong to that class of unintelligent anti-religion rabble-rousers that pervade many internet forums I frequent." is not intent at describing Muslims but rather the many lot of commentators that may belong to different regions, continents and belief system. 
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on February 22, 2008, 12:05:57 AM
QuoteAs for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1. The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2. The Bible itself,
3. Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1. The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2. The Bible itself both New and Old Testament
While these are more than acceptable interpretative methods, I do not see enough evidence of their application in any of your work; either in the Deuteronomy passage or in the article on the promised land.

Let's start with the Deuteronomy passage, which falls under the Old Testament (OT). All you did with this passage was to impose your own interpretation on it. You made absolutely no reference to the historical context of those commands, nor did you attempt to demonstrate exactly how the Jews (then and now) understood and applied them - either through the Bible or the Talmud. A few times you stated that the Talmud supports your view, but that is not substantive enough. Where is the substantive evidence?

The problems with your second treatise on the promised land are less severe. This time textual criticism is insufficient, rather than non-existent. When all the evidence is considered, it becomes plain that the New Testament (NT) does not interpret the OT promises of Abraham in the manner that you depict. Firstly, Hebrews 11:16, 39-40 - which exist in the immediate context of verse 13 - thoroughy refutes the idea that God promise to Abraham failed. As it says,

16...they [Abraham and others] were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them...39These[Abraham et al]  were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

In other words, the promise to Abraham of his own posession of the land is not a failed prophecy but rather one that is to be fulfilled in the future - and this for the benefit of the church.

Secondly, your presentation of Moses' prophecies in Deuteronomy and Jesus' comments in Matthew 21 ignores the rest of Scriptural witness and thus paints an incomplete picture of Israel's position in the Bible. Neither the OT nor the NT supports the notion that Israel has been permanently sidelined, and that for another specific ethnicity like the Arabs. In addition to what has already been said, let's pick on one of your Deuteronomy verses:

QuoteThey have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21
In Romans 10:19, the apostle Paul also quotes this verse from Deuteronomy to show that Moses foresaw Israel's fall from divine favor as one that could not be excused by ignorance:
19Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,
"I will make you envious by those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding."

However in Romans 11, Paul emphatically rejects the notion that Israel would suffer permanent rejection. In verse 1 he says:
Did God reject his people? By no means!
And again in verse 11 he says:
11Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.
When Paul mentions Gentiles, he refers to the rest of the world, not specifically the Arabs or any other ethnic group. This becomes more evident in verse 12:
12But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!
Paul also confirms that Israel will not remain in disobedience (to the gospel of Christ, mind you) but will one day come to 'fullness'.In verse 16 Paul also adds that Israel's spiritual restoration will result in 'life from the dead' - i.e. the ressurection, and with it the beginning of God's final judgement on mankind and the installation of God's new and perfect world.
I trust that the above are more specific points for you to tackle!

QuoteWhat repeated contextual errors? Remember you did not highlight any as much as you did not site any reference of plagiarism. Are you sure you are ready for a serious discussion or is it simply to fiddle out suspicion of plagiarism on my part? After all this is not in any way an art work but rather more of academic work that needs to be making reference to other scholars. Or is copying from the Bible amounts to plagiarism?
Firstly, nearly all your interepretations of Bible verses suffer from unaccounted context to varying degrees. I have already highlighted what I consider to be the worst offenders: the Deuteronomy passage and Hebrews 11:13. Lionger already went through the pains to demonstrate this clearly and you did not exactly deny his criticism in this regard (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2373.msg26204#msg26204).

Secondly - and this is a bit of a side remark: I am not quite a novice to these kinds of discussions; be it with Muslims, atheists or other Christians. In previous years I wasted a lot of time debating people who did nothing but quote verses out of context. When I refuted their submissions, they'd respond with another set of verses, also out of context. Worse, they often preferred ad hominem tactics to defending their own exegesis. In time I realized that most of these people were not presenting the results of their own study but plagiarising jaundiced sources on the web. I see little point in engaging such people; so you may be sure that I would not be posting here if I detected conclusive evidence of such things in your posts.
QuoteBut then if you are interested in a more serious discussion you can refer me to exactly and specifically what you believe I did not address in the discussion so that we can start afresh, with your own dispassionate clues and independent of the referral to what I have always believed to be a very insufficient and all encompassing argument.
Your eagerness in dismissing Lionger's rebuttals without substantially refuting his position is rather curious IHMO. I have made a few detailed arguments that are 'independent' of his writings which you may consider; however I have neither the time nor the desire to re-invent the wheel altogether. I certainly trust that you will not summarily dismiss my posts and I'm sure you would not want me doing that with you either.

QuoteAgain I hope your reference above,  " because you clearly do not belong to that class of unintelligent anti-religion rabble-rousers that pervade many internet forums I frequent." is not intent at describing Muslims but rather the many lot of commentators that may belong to different regions, continents and belief system. 
By all means! After all, a Muslim can't be anti-religion, can he? ;D
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on February 22, 2008, 12:01:14 PM
Quote from: Cekenah on February 22, 2008, 12:05:57 AM

While these are more than acceptable interpretative methods, I do not see enough evidence of their application in any of your work; either in the Deuteronomy passage or in the article on the promised land.

Let's start with the Deuteronomy passage, which falls under the Old Testament (OT). All you did with this passage was to impose your own interpretation on it. You made absolutely no reference to the historical context of those commands, nor did you attempt to demonstrate exactly how the Jews (then and now) understood and applied them - either through the Bible or the Talmud. A few times you stated that the Talmud supports your view, but that is not substantive enough. Where is the substantive evidence?

I am sure if you read thru the other threads in which the discussion continued you would have seen first how I struggled hard with Lionger to just agree with me that the present Bible should be interpreted with history alongside the texts of Torah and the Talmud or Midnash for he was asking me to prove my case just using Bible alone. This is a link to one of the threads I am referring to:
http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.0

I am sure then as you will see in the link, had he agreed with me on my interpretative methods, the discussion would have ended in good time. But I pray we do that with you. You know there is always Jesus of History as different from Jesus of the Bible, Moses of History and Moses of the Bible, and  the Prophets of History and Prophets of the Bible.

If you agree with me on this we are certain to have a clean discussion as I'll be glad to address all the grey areas, God willing as you will be here to keep pointing at them. 

QuoteFirstly, nearly all your interepretations of Bible verses suffer from unaccounted context to varying degrees. I have already highlighted what I consider to be the worst offenders: the Deuteronomy passage and Hebrews 11:13. Lionger already went through the pains to demonstrate this clearly and you did not exactly deny his criticism in this regard (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2373.msg26204#msg26204).

You see, I am only hoping we are not threading the same path as you keep saying Lionger clearly demonstrated that I was wrong when in actuality what he did was only to go to the Bible and extract the long verses without making reference to history or other texts by the Jews even as he refused to agree with me that doing that should be the best way at getting at the truth.

QuoteSecondly - and this is a bit of a side remark: I am not quite a novice to these kinds of discussions; be it with Muslims, atheists or other Christians. In previous years I wasted a lot of time debating people who did nothing but quote verses out of context. When I refuted their submissions, they'd respond with another set of verses, also out of context. Worse, they often preferred ad hominem tactics to defending their own exegesis. In time I realized that most of these people were not presenting the results of their own study but plagiarising jaundiced sources on the web. I see little point in engaging such people; so you may be sure that I would not be posting here if I detected conclusive evidence of such things in your posts.

But unfortunately the quoting of verses of of context means also quoting them without reference to history, events, and circumstances regarding those verses which I struggled with Lionger to agree with me on but he refused and unfortunately you are here agreeing with me on that but going ahead to praise Lionger on what he did. Are we operation at the same wavelength? Should then I start preparing to pack out of the debate or should I wait for you to decide that I am not the one doing it the right way or Lionger's way which you appreciate most?


QuoteYour eagerness in dismissing Lionger's rebuttals without substantially refuting his position is rather curious IHMO. I have made a few detailed arguments that are 'independent' of his writings which you may consider; however I have neither the time nor the desire to re-invent the wheel altogether. I certainly trust that you will not summarily dismiss my posts and I'm sure you would not want me doing that with you either.

Yes, I dismissed his rebuttals for the lack of sufficient proof on his part on the understanding of the contextual meaning of certain occurances which I struggled with him to see as you will witness in the thread I referred you to. And sincerely I will not find it difficult to opt out of this debate if I see you threading his path.

Quote
By all means! After all, a Muslim can't be anti-religion, can he? ;D

Yes actually, there are Muslims who are anti - religion, remember Muslim is a label and a tag but the religion is Islam. So we can have those calling themselves Muslims who are not Islamic in anyway!
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on April 08, 2008, 12:29:12 AM
Hello,
I'm back after a while, but it seems like this thread took the vacation with me. At the least, I'm surprised that you didn't take on my commentary from the book of Romans. How about that? I have other comments to make in response to your post but that will come another time. Cheers.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: GoodFella on April 08, 2008, 11:49:46 AM
welcome back. I had also never noose my nose into this thread before.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on April 09, 2008, 02:49:49 AM
Here we go again...

JJC Cekenah, abi you be my houseboy or wetin? Who authorised you to defend me on this thread? I'll show you proper dispassion... ;D ;D.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your time here, even as the days of my proactive participation in this forum seem increasingly numbered. But since you are determined to take on my mantle in this thread, I will chip in with some details that you'd probably like to know; things that I wished I had known back then.

Before now, I wouldn't have thought that there was a point in adding further to this thread, esp. since I became persona non grata to Waziri as a result of it. The renewed discussion already looks doomed; you guys are firing half-warning signals at each other without getting anywhere. With all due respect to my estranged friend, he has not satisfactorily answered your questions about his analytical methods with the Bible, and you obviously are not satisfied with his answer either. I'm not surprised, because I've also found it hard to reconcile his posts with his supposed analytical methods. It doesn't make sense to me either.

Let's take the Old Testament for starters. Waziri includes the Talmud and other rabbinic literature as past of his OT interpretative methods, and accuses me of trying to railroad him into sticking purely with the Bible earlier  in this thread (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.0). If you actually read that thread, you'll be surprised to find out that, on the contrary, I emphatically pointed out the complete absence of substantive Talmud backing in Waziri's defense of his Deuteronomy passage (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.msg25200#msg25200), and I asked him twice on that thread to provide those details, which he promised to do:

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.msg25200#msg25200
Quote
QuoteIt is possible by now you have gotten the gist and why I find problem with your submissions. It makes my job easier actually. Now I can write my article having you in mind also. I will give the interpretations of the verses I quoted from Deutronomy in the light of Talmudic Judaism as they are. In that I am sure you will find alot to learn either.

I remain most grateful and I am sure you have seen the reason why you should not have been frantic and confrontational from the on-set. This goes to ETE also, knowledge is a reality, so also ignorance.

Yes Waziri the bolded part is exactly what you need to do, since you've made it obvious that you're criticising the Talmudic interpretation of the Torah, and not the Torah itself. I really would like to see the Talmudic text that generated or inspired your otherwise non-existent passage of Deuteronomy - since it does not exist as such in the Torah. Is there any rabbinic literature that actually contains and presents your passage, or something similar to it? This is all you need to do to 'win' this argument  :D .

As you can see, I said then that this was all that was needed for the discussion to make progress, or for him to 'win' the argument. However, Waziri returned with yet another set of Bible verses (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.msg26134#msg26134), and dsimissed my subsequent response in much the same manner that he did with my earlier rejoinder to the 'phantom' Deuteronomy passage - without substantially contesting them.

Indeed your question about Waziri's analytical methods with the Bible is a good one. Until it is properly dealt with, this discussion is bound to revolve in circles, if it goes anywhere at all. To this end, I once again enter this discussion. Stay tuned...
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on April 09, 2008, 02:49:00 PM
Back in February last year I perused through a booklet titled 'Arabs and Israel: Conflict or Conciliation?', written by the famous Muslim scholar Ahmed Deedat. In Chapter 3, in a section titled 'The True Test of Prophecy', Deedat makes an argument against the authenticity of the Biblical claims of a Jewish promised land in Palestine that rang loud bells in my head.

http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/aaicoc/27.html
Quote...I (Deedat) said, "God gives us in the Torah a test with which we can ascertain whether a prophecy attributed to Him is actually His Word or not. He says:

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
Holy Bible (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

I asked him, "Is this a valid test?" To which he replied, "Yes!" I said, "Then let us apply it to the prophecy!" The Torah says that on the death of Abraham -

And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave.... The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
Holy Bible (Genesis 25:9-10)

And further, the Bible testifies about God's unfulfilled "Promises to the patriarch Abraham and the elders of Israel in these words

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off..  
Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13)

And can anything be more explicit than these statements from the Holy Writ?
And God said unto him (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land (Palestine) in which ye now dwell. And he (God) gave him (Abraham) no inheritance in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT UPON; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him.....  Holy Bible (Acts 7:3-5) [/color]

Compare this passage to the first half of Waziri's post on the thread 'Concerning the claim of a Promised Land for the Jews':

Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 29, 2006, 03:16:39 PM.. we will certainly find the following verse giving the true test of what prophesy is, most instrumental. It reads:

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Holy Bible (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Building in the submission of lionger in defense of the fraudulent accord we read in the same Bible how Abraham, the so-called, receiver of the promise, died in a land he bought for himself.

And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave....
The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

Holy Bible (Genesis 25:9-10)

How possible is it then that he was given a land when he had buy one for his own grave? This is especially true when we see how another verse from the scripture confirmed it this way:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off..  

Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13)

Nothing is most explicit than the account given by Luke in the Acts of the apostles as follows:

And God said unto him (Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land (Palestine) in which ye now dwell. And he (God) gave him (Abraham) no inheritance in it, NO, NOT SO MUCH AS TO SET HIS FOOT UPON; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him.....
Holy Bible (Acts 7:3-5)

I've used color codings to pinpoint very carefully the striking similarities between Deedat's work and Waziri's. The same verses are used, in the same version (the KJV), and with the same reference style , i.e. Holy Bible (Hebrews 11:13) . Deedat and Waziri highlighted the same phrases and added the same annotations (bracketed terms; they don't exist in the KJV text) to Acts 7:3-5. Moreover, the verses are listed in the same order: Deuteronomy 18:21-22-> Genesis 25:9-10 -> Hebrews 11:13 -> Acts7:3-5. The end result is that apart from the commentary that precedes each verse, everything else is identical, word for word, letter for letter.

The other four Bible verses Waziri used in his post can be found in Chapter 1 of another Deedat publication titled "Muhammed, the natural successor to Christ".

http://jamaat.net/muh-christ/Muh-Christ1.html
QuoteGod chooses His Messengers and God chooses His People, In the realm of the Spirit no nation was as favoured as the Jews and yet Moses (pbuh) is made to bewail against his own people -

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 9: 24

In this last will and testament of Moses (pbuh) the Israelites frustrate their "meek and gentle" Messenger who is forced to rail against their continual stubborn resistance and arrogant attitudes to God's guidance -

For I knew thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 51:27

Alas how true! I am not going to philosophise on God's choice. But in the very next chapter the fire of God's anger is kindled to a blaze and He decries the Jews -

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.[/b](HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21
...
...
...

The foregoing is the exact fulfilment of Jesus Christ's (pbuh), (the last of the great Jewish prophets) own prediction of the displacement of the Jewish race in the spiritual guidance of man. In the words of the Master himself -

Therefore I say unto you (Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (Jews), and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
(HOLY BIBLE) Matthew 21: 45


Here's what Waziri said:
Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 29, 2006, 03:16:39 PMNo wonder Jesus Christ (AS), the Messiah, liberator of the Jews has never mentioned anything, with emphasis, like the promised land given to the Jews anywhere. But rather he found comfort in telling them the stark truth that the spiritual leadership of Mankind has been taken away from them permanently with his coming, only to be given to another... in his own word:

Therefore I say unto you (Jews), The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you (Jews), and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.  

(HOLY BIBLE) Matthew 21: 45

Earlier on Moses(AS) foretold them in this manner as seen in the following verses from our dear Deuteronomy:

Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.  

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 9: 24

For I knew thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?  
(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 51:27

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a Foolish Nation.  

(HOLY BIBLE) Deutronomy 32:21

Once again the similarities are obvious: Same verses from the same Bible version, same annotations , same reference style, same emphasized phrases. Only this time, the verses are not quite in the same order; Waziri puts the Matthew verse first. Now notice that I highlighted 'Deutronomy 51:27'  in red. As I said when I first responded to Waziri's post, this is an erroneous citation. That verse is in Chapter 31, not 51. In fact there is no Deuteronomy 51 in the Bible; Deuteronomy has 34 chapters. Moreover, 'Deuteronomy' is constantly mis-spelt 'Deutronomy'. All these errors can also be found in Deedat's book, as shown. On his part, they were most likely copyist/typist errors, but the probability of all those errors appearing identically in Waziri's post is very minute indeed. Thus this is concrete evidence that Waziri got these Bible verses directly from Deedat's booklets, or from a source that copied Deedat - rather than the Bible itself. The erroneous Deuteronomy 51 citation also suggests that Waziri did not look up Deedat's verses in the Bible to check for accurate transmission of content, at least. As such, Waziri's interpretation of the Bible in this article was simply a rehash of Deedat's writings, with little  intellectual input from Waziri himself.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on April 09, 2008, 03:24:39 PM
More evidence of Waziri's reliance on Deedat:
Many of the quotes of other writers and scholars that Waziri mentioned in the build-up to his feature article and in the article itself also came up in Deedat's book on Arabs and Israel:

Alice F. Smith comment

Waziri:
Quote from: _Waziri_ on July 21, 2006, 01:07:30 PMBefore I depart I will leave you with what an American Christian lady, Alice F. Smith, said about the Palestian question way back 1989 in the February 20, edition of time magazine, 1989. Hear her describing the Israelites:

What manner of man would retaliate against a stone throwing child by shooting him in the back as  he ran away? What manner of government would retaliate by fining already poverty striken parents $1,000, demolishing their home, and confiscating heir meager possessions? What manner of people are these arrogant settlers who think they have a God-given right to commit such atrocities and still cry for more? What manner of people are we , that we permit our government to give away billions of the American taxpayers' dolloars to Israel every year, enabling it to continue to subjugate the Palestinians?
Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 15, 2006, 11:19:49 AMBefore I do that I will want to remind us first of what an American Christian lady, Alice F. Smith, said about the Palestian question way back 1989 in the February 20, edition of time magazine, 1989. This is how she described Jews and their religion:
What manner of people are these arrogant settlers who think they have a God-given right to commit such atrocities and still cry for more?

Deedat includes a picture of this excerpt from Time magazine in his Arabs and Israel booklet:
http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/books/aaicoc/43.html
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc3.html (the first picture on this page)
(http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc-time.JPG)

Leopold Weiss quote

Waziri:
Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 29, 2006, 03:16:39 PMBut the truth of the matter lies in the words of Leopold Weiss another Jew, who converted to Islam around 1922 and having seen the evil machinations of the Talmudist in their plans to assume control of the region concluded about the ownership of the place, thus:

"It belongs to all those who mentally approach it with a humility born of faith in the one God, and particularly to those who, in the words of the Qur'an: "Believe in all His messengers making no distinction between any of them."

Deedat also concludes his Arabs and Israel booklet with the same quotation from Leopold Weiss:

http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/books/aaicoc/78.html
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc5.html

QuotePalestine is there for the taking for those who with faith and humility fulfil their Covenant with God. In the words of Leopold Weiss:-

IT BELONGS TO ALL WHO MENTALLY APPROACH IT WITH A HUMILITY BORN OF FAITH IN THE ONE GOD, AND PARTICULARLY TO THOSE WHO, IN THE WORDS OF THE QUR'AN: "BELIEVE IN ALL HIS MESSENGERS MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANY OF THEM."


The conclusions are obvious: Waziri's article about the promised land concept in the Bible was derived wholesale from Deedat's books, and not the result of Waziri's own Bible research.

This leaves us with the 'phantom' Deuteronomy passage that started the whole discussion. I call this passage 'phantom' because it is actually a collection of verses scattered all over the book. I did a google search on the passage and found it in a rather unsurprising source: in the Appendix of Holocaust denier and alleged anti-Semite Douglas Reed's The Controversy of Zion:

http://knud.eriksen.adr.dk/Controversybook/Appendix.htm
Quote"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."
Deuteronomy.


Compare with Waziri's Deuteronomy passage on this thread:
Quote from: _Waziri_ on June 05, 2006, 05:57:27 PM
"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.


Everything is exact, word for word, letter for letter.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on April 09, 2008, 03:54:23 PM
So it turns out that your intuitions about plagiarism were spot on, Cekenah. This probably explains why Waziri hardly made any attempt to rebutt my rejoinders to his posts. They were never his arguments in the first place, and he did not do enough legwork to make them his in any real sense.

These facts also bring into sharp focus Waziri's grand assessment of his Bible knowledge - and my lack thereof. Of course its perfectly acceptable to use the work of other scholars in an 'intellectual discourse'. However, it becomes problematic when we fail to acknowledge those scholars, or even worse, deliberately misrepresent our research methods and sources. This is especially true if we present ourselves as scholars/expert thinkers, as Waziri was disposed to doing. He had ample opportunity to acknowledge Douglas Reed and Ahmed Deedat as his sources, and he should have done so from teh beginning. One would have thought that in the wake of what he considered my 'strong worded opposition' to his Deuteronomy passage, that he would simply have referred me to Reed as the true source. But instead of doing the simple, fortright thing, Waziri resorted to beating his intellectual chest and petulent comments like this:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 15, 2006, 11:19:49 AM...I expect people like lionger and Ete to admit on theit shortcomings in issues of knowledge even if it concerns the faith which they profess...at any rate, I really do not think Lionger and Ete, can claim intimate familiarity with the divisions of the Holy Bible as described above not to talk of being able to reason thru' my arguments, and that informed my frustrations.

And after I responded to his rehash of Deedat's writings on the Jews and the promised land concept in the Bible, he said:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on October 20, 2006, 09:23:33 AMBut one thing is you cannot deny me the thorough knowledge of what I am doing. You know quite all right that I couldn't have gotten those verses without having laboured thru the scriptures!

Quote from: _Waziri_ on October 25, 2006, 04:08:38 PMConcerning the contextual meaning of those verses, I thing I am now convinced that you are not necessarily knowlegeable in this regard and as such will sudedenly look for an alternative measure.

First of all, Waziri ought to know quite well that plagiarising Ahmed Deedat and Douglas Reed does not, cannot and will never qualify as 'labouring throught the Scriptures,' or as proof of 'intimate familiarity with the Bible,' or as the sort of water-tight analytical methods that he presented in his first response to you:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on February 20, 2008, 10:53:28 AM
As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself both New and Old Testament

In the case of the Qur'an, apart from the above mentioned sources I also use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Qur'an,
2.  The Qur'an itself
3.  The Hadith(preserved saying of the holy Prophet)

And unfortunately this is what I think Lionger has failed to do all thru' cos he always plucks verses from the Bible and claims they must be exactly as he excavated them. 

Moreover, just as it would be disingenous for me to plagiarise anti-Islamic sources on the Internet while mocking Muslims on this forum for not understanding their own Quran, it cannot be right for Waziri to do the same thing with the Bible. The amazing irony of it all is that he previously declared that my self-acknowledged deficient knowledge of Talmud made me inferior to him in this discussion - despite the fact that he himself never quoted substantially from the Talmud. Perhaps I should have declared my own 'intimate familiarity' with the Talmud and supported it with a copy-and-paste hack job from web sources. Would that have been better?

I hope this helps you Cekenah. I have responded to this thread to keep you from what would have been a wild goose chase by your own standards.  Hopefully my case is detailed enough to show that I'm not just throwing wild accusations. Waziri's persistent refusal to offer the kind of sincerity that he required from me - and now from you - by being forthright about his methods is quite disappointing. As you noted on another thread, he is one of the intelligent forumners here. This thread and all the related ones probably depicts him in his worst form. Anyways, over to you!


lionger.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on April 09, 2008, 05:54:21 PM
Lionger,

Here you are again, for the many years we've been  in this forum, could you remember how many times I made reference to Ahmed Deadat's works? Could you remember me saying I would rely on his works in some of my expositions? Where you here when I offered the forumnites the gift of the book, The Controversy of Zion and others? Could you remember how many times I made reference to the book here and the author?

Whatever the case may be your charges of plagiarism against me can hold water only if you can quote where I claim the expression of any author as mine.

But it is entirely different if I used the references Deedat used to form his arguments, what will matter most is the strength of the argument. Since no phrase from him I copied.  I always take my time to check what I read from others on the sources they site.

Remember, having read thru Deedat works or used his style does not negate my claims of knowledge and expertise in these fields. Because it is not only Deedat's works I do read as I even once offered the gifts of other books I read here on Board. Deedat's are what we read during our our early teens.

Yours now have only confirmed my convictions and claims that you people have not been the reading type as I can remember vividly that you atleast, did not make any effort to get those books and read them.

Thanks to God now you are bracing up to the challenges and are making efforts to search and verify some of my claims and arguments. Mark you it is not on everything I agree with Deedat but of those I agree after simple verification I could use as valid arguments. The burden of proof then lies on he who listens to argue otherwise.

Right from the onset this debate did not hold with you efficiently because I expressed my doubts about your mastery of the arguments and I found your knowledge base simply narrow and myopic.

For example, have you ever seen The Talmud? Have you ever read through it? I had wanted you to admit so that we can rub shoulders in this discussion earlier but you couldn't and as such I coudnt find you worthy or able to really do this with me.

I this thread, http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.0 , on, August 18, 2006  in particular, #6 Post, I said:

"I noticed also how you admitted of not knowing much about Talmud and Midnash. That in essence says how much you do not know about Judaism and its laws of nationalism. This is why I think you are only fit to ask question here not argue. I believe I can remain rest assured in my comfortable superiority on this subject matter. For I have perseverently laboured thru the Bible, the Qur'an and the Rabbinic Tradition which forms the bedrock of Jewish religion,  for over ten years now.

That is why I say from the onset that I am not debating this with you but rather writing something which I believe will prove beneficial to all.

Concerning the Tanakh, or the Old Testament and its place in Jewish religion hear what a modern encyclopaedia said:

"Although all forms of Judaism have been rooted in the Hebrew Bible (referred to by Jews as the Tanach, an acronym for its three sections: Torah, the Pentateuch; Nebiim, the prophetic literature; and Ketubim, the other writings), it would be an error to think of Judaism as simply the ?religion of the Old Testament.? Contemporary Judaism is ultimately derived from the rabbinic movement of the first centuries of the Christian era in Palestine and Babylonia and is therefore called rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi, in Aramaic and Hebrew, means ?my teacher.? The rabbis, Jewish sages adept in studying the Scriptures and their own traditions, maintained that God had revealed to Moses on Sinai a twofold Torah. In addition to the written Torah (Scripture), God revealed an oral Torah, faithfully transmitted by word of mouth in an unbroken chain from master to disciple, and preserved now among the rabbis themselves."

Microsoft ? Encarta ? 2006. ? 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

But still I am looking forward to seeing you doing anything you like to form an argument, even if it is plagiarism on anything under the sun and I will come up to challenge that if I deem it desired with anything I know but my insistence is always to accompany your take with reasonable take which is originally yours that we may be able to take the discussion forward, prove ourselves or those we "copy" from wrong. As for me what follows is my method as I  told Cekenah:

"As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .

These I must say are the agreed points of convergence among all serious scholars in the field both religious and not so.

In the case of New Testament, I am forced to use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself both New and Old Testament

In the case of the Qur'an, apart from the above mentioned sources I also use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Qur'an,
2.  The Qur'an itself
3.  The Hadith(preserved saying of the holy Prophet)"

Or do you want to prove to the world everything of it above was copied from Deedat or any other? Or are you willing to fit in the same in your kind of interpretations that we may have a comprehensive duel?

Whatever you take this to be, let you know that I have always known what I am doing with everything I write here as much I have laboured thru the scriptures  to understand it and give my own judgement on it but where my opinion rhymes with the opinion of any other scholar I agree or even use their arguments or references, after verifying them and I have always not hidden what I do. Only if you don't come across me on that. That crowns your shortcomings here.

But I am glad you now understand the value of verifying things. I am only hoping you are not only googling the net to find them but rather you are taking time to read them thoroughly. If you don't so know that there lies the difference between myself and you.

This is a discussion that held some two years back and yet you admitted of not knowing this until now. Is it my fault or yours? Do you think I am dumb to assume nobody could get to read Deedat's works here that I used his referencing style and some of his valid arguments?

No Lionger, I am not at my worst here but rather you are after reaching where I was two  years back. Thank God you've admitted.

If you are interested at knowing where I am or was at my worst, you will need to make consultations and settlements, in that you may be lucky to get there after parting with some fat dollars!

Cheers and less emotions please.

Waziri

Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on April 10, 2008, 11:32:55 AM
Salam,

Still on the issues regarding my references here is a link to a topic where I offered some books to the forumnites as I was glad then that many agreed and gave me their email which I forwarded the books to. This ofcourse was with the hope that after reading those books we will all come back here and debate the content. Agree with or not agree with the authors.


Suprisingly while lionger was with us in the forums then he never cared to get those books from us and read them even when many forumnites did as is evident with replies that followed my offer in the thread, My Other Gift to K-Onliners, specifically on June 15, 2004, yes, about FOUR YEARS ago:

Quote

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0

Salam all,

Friends and well wishers, it is only  fair of us  at this moment to take a little breath and refresh our minds with some factual evidence that could be gathered from the debris of history.

My gift to you this morning comes in a form of two electronic books titled: The Controversy Of Zion, by Douglas Reed and The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler.

.................................

My beloved brothers, I am sure these two books will immensely help your minds in comprehending the many complex things we say here about secularism,  materialism, irreligion  and above all, the demagoguery that is guising today as  the only truth about the world politics.



So actually I write whatever I write here with the understanding that my co-travellers, other forumnites know my focus, it is lionger's shortcomings to claim he did not know the reference point of our arguments until now. My bad!! I said it the first time we were staging the argument:


QuoteThat is why I say from the onset that I am not debating this with you but rather writing something which I believe will prove beneficial to all.

The truth of the matter is we do not copy phrases from those authors to say they are ours but rather we check and verify their references that we may comfortably use them where agreable. So what is the problem again? Ahmed Deedat is known to these forumnites as the mentor of many among us in comparative religious studies so it is nothing new, it is even laughable to claim that one does not know this until now. You can not have this cheaply.

Having said that I think it is right, since those in the opposition have agreed to read and verify our sources, to jump into the heart of the matter and discuss the Deutronomy's exact summary that we may understand clearly why it has to assume the interpretation we give it, in the light of the Talmud, history and the book itself. This is the mark of true scholarship which is lacking in the spirit of those who think they can quote the Bible anyhow to defend it without resorting to the versatile rule of logic.

Do you agree or not? Had you it wouldn't have taken un two years to finish this, one single post would have done it. Actually it has always very much laughable to see you pushing thru the Bible just like that to support your positions. That was why I never took you serious.

These are the rules:

 
Quote"As for my interpretative methods, I say, for Old Testament, I use;

1.  The contextual history of events and issues referred to in the Bible,
2.  The Bible itself,
3.  Other books used by the Jews like Talmud and Midrash which are believed to carry the interpretations of the Bible .


What is the book, its content and how did it come to viewing in the light of history?
What the book says about itself?
Then other books used to interprete it.

Will go now and attend to something important, will come back and drop the final argument that I should have dropped years back save the uncomplying attitude of the discussants, but I will do that now soonest,  and in simple and short post which will rest the issue completely and leave you all in the wild search for references that you could have known years ago if you really knew how to read voraciously and argue comprehensively.

Waziri
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on April 10, 2008, 10:51:29 PM
Oh dear, rivetting stuff!!

Old papa Lionger  ;D, I have read and digested you submissions. Welcome back. Please stick around for a while for a bit if you can, for I'd rather not fully 'take over' from you. I would also recommend, as Waziri has done, that we all make our arguments as stolidly as possible. Your recent submissions have been fairly stolid; keep to that tradition. Otherwise this discussion will go to the dogs once again. This was your major failing before - to me anyways.

Waziri,
This matter of declaring one's sources from the onset- and no less when in the face of stiff opposition - is a no-brainer for the serious academic. I've read the link you posted:
http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0
I checked the dates for the time period of that discussion and this one. The thread you posted was started in June of 2004, and the discussion on the thread ended in July. However, this thread and all the adjacent ones started in the summer of 2006. In essence, you're saying that you declared your sources two years before the fact! Not nearly enough! I don't think it is fair to assume that anyone ought to have made the connection between that thread and this one. Besides, wouldn't that have been the imposition of an unfair pretext on Lionger's part - to have assumed without any statement from you that you were rehashing the work of your mentors?

I am aware of Ahmed Deedat, and unlike most Muslims I do not hold his scholarship in high regard. The Hebrews 11:13 faux pas is a case in point. Frankly I thought he was yesterday's man as far as comparative religion was concerned. Douglas Reed on the other hand belongs to the fringe of literary scholarship and most experts do not seem to bother much with anything he wrote after Insanity Fair. Having read briefly some parts of Controversy of Zion, I can see why. I have much more to say, but time will not permit.
Cheers!
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: lionger on April 11, 2008, 02:29:14 PM
Oga Waziri,

How bodi. Since you are now responding directly to me, I will return the favor.

Quote from: _Waziri_ on April 09, 2008, 05:54:21 PM
Lionger,

Here you are again, for the many years we've been  in this forum, could you remember how many times I made reference to Ahmed Deadat's works? Could you remember me saying I would rely on his works in some of my expositions? Where you here when I offered the forumnites the gift of the book, The Controversy of Zion and others? Could you remember how many times I made reference to the book here and the author?

Actually you never mentioned Ahmed Deedat in connection with this duscussion until now. I personally remember you mentioning his name on this forum just once! I just did a search on this forum. Prior to your posts yesterday there are only two other instances when you mentioned Deedat on this forum. Here's the first:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on October 13, 2004, 12:52:52 PM
Nigeria denied Ahmed Deedat entry into it's territory... before we say the Authorities have the rights to do that even when allowing other foreigners to come in we have to look at the reason they give first.

The second - and this one I remembered, since I took part in this discussion:
Quote from: _Waziri_ on December 17, 2004, 12:32:07 PM
Thus a Muslim reading Bible can only produce people like Ahmed Deedat since as he goes differ he sees more a Muslim Jesus, not a founder of a new religion.

If you can find other instances I'd like to see it. As for Douglas Reed, I also did an forum search on his name and on the Controversy of Zion. You only mentioned them twice: on this thread and on the thread from 2004. About that thread - I vaguely remember it. If I ever got to that thread, it was probably months after the discussion ended. In the first place, I can hardly be blamed for not taking an opportunity that I might not even have been aware of. Secondly, we are all busy men here. It would be silly of you to conclude that I am 'not the reading type' simply because I did not inquire about those books. Obviously you do not know me in real life!

All this, however, is besides the point. As I said before, if we want to considered as scholars, then we must be ready to stand the acid test of true scholarship. A reasonable scholar never fails to lay out his references in proper order, it is that simple. That is his responsibility, not the readers'. It is plain madness to suggest otherwise. Where would the world of research be today if that was the norm? I've worked in the university setting, and if I submitted a paper to my professors that was devoid of references, it would end up in the garbage bin!

Quote from: _Waziri_ on April 09, 2008, 05:54:21 PMWhatever the case may be your charges of plagiarism against me can hold water only if you can quote where I claim the expression of any author as mine.

Here's Webster's definition of plagiarism:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarizing
Quoteto steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
Coincidental referrals two years apart from and devoid of actual connection to your work does not count as due credit to the source. Period.

Quote from: _Waziri_ on April 09, 2008, 05:54:21 PMFor example, have you ever seen The Talmud? Have you ever read through it? I had wanted you to admit so that we can rub shoulders in this discussion earlier but you couldn't and as such I coudnt find you worthy or able to really do this with me.

This again? One: This is quite redundant, since I already said clearly that I am not well versed in the Talmud. Two: what really is the point of boasting in your superior knowledge of the Talmud, when you are yet to bring it to bear on this discussion? I asked for it two years ago and I'm still asking now. Where is the Talmudic backing for your post? Until you supply those details, this topic will remain a red herring.

Quote from: _Waziri_ on April 09, 2008, 05:54:21 PMThis is a discussion that held some two years back and yet you admitted of not knowing this until now. Is it my fault or yours? Do you think I am dumb to assume nobody could get to read Deedat's works here that I used his referencing style and some of his valid arguments?

No Lionger, I am not at my worst here but rather you are after reaching where I was two years back. Thank God you've admitted.

Waziri, read my posts carefully. I discovered the connection between your posts and Deedat in early February last year. And it was specifically of this that I alluded to when I said to Myself around that time:
Quote from: lionger on February 05, 2007, 07:48:12 PMThis is a bit of an aside, but I think it is high time Muslims started reading the Bible for themselves and not solely through the eyes of supposed Muslim Bible 'scholars' such as the above. Read their work if you like, but also read the Bible for yourself and see if what they say is true. Too many people do just the former and swallow their arguments hook, line and sinker, without doing adequate original research themselves. I have noticed that Barde and Waziri have been obviously guilty of this error, in my discussions with them.
I had no reason to mention your name then until I read Arabs and Israel. I did not bring it up with you on this thread then because you decided to ignore my posts. Even now, I entered this thread to respond to Cekenah directly. I have only responded  to you when I realised that you would return the favor.

I am not by no means ignorant of Deedat. On the contrary, I have read many of his booklets - though I definitely missed out on Arabs and Israel. I am also well aware of the large following he has among muslims. Deedat's works unforutnately are pure disingenuity in my opinion, and I think I have said this before. It is a shame to observe that many Muslims think taht Deedat's booklets are a proper substitute for their own reading of the Bible, and count themselves more knowledgeable than Christians on that basis. Anyone who knows his Bible well will not be swayed. I have already combated his doctrine in the person of Barde and other forumners, and finally your posts. Earlier you said that the burden of proof is on me to debunk Deedat's argument - well, I did so ages ago. The burden of proof has long been yours, but you are yet to oblige. If Deedat's Hebrews 11:13 exegesis can be defended, then I should have seen it by now.  Frankly there isn't any defense for it!

I will remind you of my 'reading and comprehension' analogy a while back. While it may have offended you, that was not the objective. All this talk about scholarship is necessary, but has the danger of clouding issues and making the subject seem more complicated than it really is. I don't know how you guys study your Quran (though I sometimes get the feeling that many of you on this forum read it solely through the eyes of certain scholars); however, the Bible as a book that purports to carry God's message is meant to be read and understood by all people, lay-men and erudite alike. There was once a time when the Bible could only be read by the educated elite who then taught the people; this era is also co-incident with the Crusades and the the Inquisition. Today, many translations and versions of the Bible exist to keep its message accessible to a changing world (unfortunately many Muslims including yourself ignorantly use this as a pretext for attacking the Bible's authenticity). As such we do not need to be at the whim and mercy of scholarly agenda to understand the Bible as was the case before - we can read the Bible ourselves and see if their message is true.

I have already said that your error is not simply in your reliance on Deedat or Reed. It is the fact that you did not properly check up their presentation of Bible verses, and subsequently included errors that should have been immediately obvious - for example, the Deuteronomy 51 citation. I didn't even have to open my Bible to know that this was a mistake. Obviously you believe that copying their Bible verses was as good as copying from the Bible - wrong! You will never find Deuteronomy 51 in the Bible! Ahmed Deedat could well have made up a Bible verse and you would have swallowed that! Never mind the issues of misplaced context that you have not yet rectified.

From my reading of Douglas Reed's book, I gather that he holds to the 'documentary hypothesis' theory on the origin of the Torah and Deuteronomy. (Ironically, this is probably the only theory in that book that most scholars today will find value in). However, this theory is completely incompatible with the NT, which states emphatically everywhere that Moses actually wrote those books. For the Bible-believing Christian, that alone is enough.

Finally, this continuing talk from you about the efficacy of your arguments and my supposed inferiority remains pointless as long as my rejoinders stand unchallenged. Moreover, it is also possible to show even by your own admission that I am right to deem Deedat and Douglas Reed's work as fatally flawed due to lack of proper contextual appraisal of the Bible verses they used. Do you remember the Nigeriaworld thread you posted here last year?

Quote from: _Waziri_ on February 07, 2007, 03:04:19 PM
Assalamu Alaikum,

Fellow forumnites, I was away for sometime in another forum debating other issues with some good and not-so-good commentators. I dig you may want have a feel of what we have been doing even though it may take y take a good chunk out of your time. But then in as much as we have to educate others about things we believe we know, we too have to learn to read. So please here is the link to the debate among others. I even got myself a wifey :o ::) on the process!! The "sabbatical" was a pleasant xperience!!!!

http://nigeriaworld.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=3512

Thanx once again!!!

Waziri

On that Nigeriaworld thread, Ochi Dabari posted a copy-and-paste hack job of verses from the Quran to depict it as a violent book. As Ammar, you countered cleverly by posting the Deuteronomy passage and argued that it discredited the Christian faith as well as Ochi's verses discredited the Quran. Now this what you had to say afterwards about the actual reliability of both your passage and his:

http://nigeriaworld.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=24694#24694
QuoteBut that is not the essence of my earlier quotes from the Bible. It was only to show that in as much as we can find references to violence and killings in Qur'an and Bible. That should not mean that those faiths certainly commanded its followers to kill others indiscriminately. And in as much as we can give excuses or interpretation for the existence of them in the Bible we could find some excuses for them in the Qur'an. It is and has never been a oneway thing.

So it goes as Olumoko tried showing that my quotes from the Bible were only restricted to some time in the past and under certain condition so also we must understand that those verses from the Qur'an are also revealed to counter some unique times and conditions in Muslims life, history and traditions.

A close look at all the verses quoted by Ochi and pasted here, will show how some of them started with conjuctions like "And", "Then" and "As". Which means other things or conditions have earlier been laid before those things were said. Also it is clear to every scholar of reason and logic that no one sentence or more sentences picked randomly from a written book, even if it were a novel, could tell the complete story if the process of picking those sentences ignored and disregarded every other thing written in the book. Unfortunately that was what Ochi did. And when I complained he followed by calling me names like 'idiot' and 'stupid', thinking that that is what he needs to cower me down and win the day. In his overt frustration, he glowingly shows tendencies of violence and terrorism right before our eyes, in a larger scale than the claimed 'violent' Ammar. Well, next time when he wants to quote and prove those verses, he may have to quote the whole chapter in order for readers to be able to judge it by its context rather than rely on a flawed scholarship that rests with cut and paste, which is denied in every civilised arena of Intellectual Karate.

And this is how things are with regards to your arguments her until you prove otherwise. Until then,

Peace,
lionger
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: mlbash on April 11, 2008, 05:32:40 PM

wow. this posts are really too exaustive! sometimes i couldn't even go through it completely. isn't there anyway of summarizing the points?
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on April 14, 2008, 10:24:58 AM
Quote from: Cekenah on April 10, 2008, 10:51:29 PM
Waziri,
This matter of declaring one's sources from the onset- and no less when in the face of stiff opposition - is a no-brainer for the serious academic. I've read the link you posted:
http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0

Cekenah,

That is an interesting observation but as you know quite alright one who is interested in plagiarising the works of others wouldn't be careless and generous enough to dash out to the public the works he is plagiarising from. That is the point. Unless if you want to thread the extereme, you can easily see thru the fact that this is an internet forum and in spite of our making appeal to having passed thru rigorous academic exercise before reaching the much of our conclusions as we say here, we also do not strictly hold to the tradition of writing academic papers in our expositions here as you guys may want to insist now for the sake of winning an argument. The papers I write with the flair of academics are always seen to be exaustively referenced. So many of them are refered to here. Afterall I still insist that I did not copy anybody's work but I have used their references when found valid by my estimation.

The truth of the matter is I have always shared my sources here including those from Ahmed Deedat, if lionger cannot find those posts in which I made such clear references he may want to consult the Administration of this site for I know how we moved from first K-online to Hausa Fulani and now back to K-online.

As regards Ahmed Deedat's scholarship it is a matter of opinion if you feel he is not good enough. As I have stated earlier I often disagree with him on certain issues but where I find him irresistible I subscribe to his opinions or improve on them. Concerning Douglass Reeds I wait your reservations to be unveiled afterall what we  think about anything is subject to argument that can be logically substanciated or not.

Again, it is good that you admonish lionger against the excessive use of emotions. This discussion in the past saw alot from him that at a moment I decided not engage him but rather frustrate and provoke him again and again to serious injury. The result is he is now not convinced as much as you that  he has thoroughly won the take that you are all now back at the topic after two years to take a bite at me or atleast expose and show to the world that I am not what I claim to be. ::) ;D

I assure this  will not be a success too as it has not been in the past for  as I said earlier a person intent at plagiaring the works of others will not in anyway go about declaring his dicipleship to those he is copying from or dashing to the public the works he is using, I have stated clearly why I gave out those books in the thread you said you read:

QuoteMy beloved brothers, I am sure these two books will immensely help your minds in comprehending the many complex things we say here about secularism,  materialism, irreligion  and above all, the demagoguery that is guising today as  the only truth about the world politics.

Yes, I couldn't have been that foolish.

I will certainly discuss with you since you brought it back and in case I notice you are getting emotional, the cleverness and intelligence you ascribe to me will come forward and spite you negatively in a manner that will bring you back here after two years seeking for another round of vengeance.

For now, I am still searching my archive for the post I intended doing, here two years back that summed up my argument, I held back only when I saw the chantings of lionger on the emotional beats. 

But  the truth is I am not going to lose anything if I don't contribute to this debate anymore. You keep it cool we have a peaceful and rewarding exchange but you get rash I take a way my throne and leave you back in the abyss after another round of injury infliction execise. For I have so many Nigerian non-Muslims websites I can go and enjoy more serious self importance.

Already lionger is making my points clear by referencing  my posts at Nigeriaworld.com where I used the same summary of Deutronomy to drive home a point even though not in the light I used them here. Yes, then I was talking about Bible to Christians and there own interpretations of it. But here I am talking about Bible in the light of Jewish belief while maintaining that Christian interpretation of the Bible is not necessarily synonymous with Jewish interpretations of it.

So I noticed since two years back that lionger came to this thread  to dispute my interpretations of Deutronomy while sticking to Christian interpretation of it and it was why I didn't care to reply his detailed exposition since he was obviously talking about what I was not in the least talking about. So also  your take Cekenah, had you in the most made any effort to appeal to Jewish authorities in making my claims about Jewish world view here, you would have had the best of discussions as I would have agreed you can offer something for me to learn. But emotions and misconceptions will only serve to produce the kind of frustration lionger suffered from here that made him to continuosly worry about this exchange that he has to follow thru internet months away from the debate searching for what I read ten years ago to form my arguments against him which then and now he still doesn't feel successfully triumphant about.

Yes, there are ways we can quote Qur'an out of context to explain Muslims belief and Muslims will find it just and fair. So also there are ways to qute Christian Bible out of context and Christians will believe you've done justice to them as much as you would quote Jewish Bible out of context and summarise an aspect of their belief which will exactly show what they truly are.

Waziri
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on April 17, 2008, 11:44:29 AM
Since I cannot find the post I intended making in this thread 2 years ago let me make my response based on the later premise given to this discourse by lionger.

Contrary to what he thinks, I intend to show now:

1. That one can make up a summary of Christian message from different quotes or sections from the New Testament without appealing to  context and still make a very good sense of the message acceptable to Christians just as one can can quote verses out of context and misrepresent the meaning of Christianity.


2.
I'll also clearly show that while the summary of the verses I used from Deuteronomy depict Jewish conviction against the Gentiles since the Old Testament generally is interpreted by the Jews in a very different light from Christians, hence he shouldn't have been here disputing my claims about them from the onset since he did not show any sign of having known what the Jews do with their scriptures. Again my usage of the same quotes @ Nigeriaworld.com and the comments that followed from me were only there seeking a Christian way not a Jewish way.

In the first case the following summary from the Bible gives a very fair exposition of the message of Jesus which though out of context, can hardly be disputed by any good Christian:

THE NEW TESTAMENT

"Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. . . I am not come to destroy" (the law or the prophets) "but to fulfil . . . Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. . . He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes . . . Lay not up for yourselves treasure on earth . . . what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. . . this is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. . . One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. . . Let brotherly love continue . . . Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased . . . Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees . . . ye are the children of them which killed the prophets . . . This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations . . . Forgive them, for they know not what they do . . . God that made the world and all things herein . . . and hath made of one blood all nations of men . . . be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it . . . What then? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also . . . for the promise, that he should be of the world, was not to Abraham, and to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith . . . One God and father of all who is above, all . . . let brotherly love continue . . . For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction . . ."

The Gospels, Acts and Epistles.


These are far contrary to what can be cut and and pasted as the following which is a very false representation of Christ and Christianity since they are out of context:

Luke 14;26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life as he cannot be my disciple"

Mathew 10:34
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword".

Luke 12:51
"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division"


This is also applicable to Islam or Qur'an while a single verse quoted out of context can depict the message in its truest form others can be quoted out of context to depict the message in a very false form.

In this I maintain that the summary of the Deuteronomy I gave here is an exact replica of Jewish law of nationalism which they cling to till this day and to support my claims I will need to show that the interpretation of the Bible according to Christians is entirely different from that according to Jews.

In the quotes from the New Testament I gave above are clear words of indictment used by Jesus against the Pharisees and Scribes the custodians of the Jewish law as having altered the law and this suffices to say the Old Testament we hold today which came from those Pharisees and Scribes "unedited" is exactly the law which Christ said has been altered by the Jewish priests. Hence the priests do not see or read or interpret the Old Testament as the Christians do. In fact where there are promises of the coming of the Messiah in it according to Christians, according to Jews the book only predicted the coming of an impostor in the person of Jesus as seen in the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. Muslim know the tradition of Balaam as Bil'am Ibn Ba'ura.

The Talmud which is seen as the first authoritative religious book of Judaism above the Bible,  says about Jesus:

She who was the descendant of princes and governors [The Virgin Mary] played the harlot with a carpenter. Sanhedrin:106a
   
Balaam [Jesus] fornicated with his jackass. Sanhedrin: 105a-b

[Jesus] was lowered into a pit of dung up to his armpits. Then a hard cloth was placed within a soft one, wound round his neck, and the two ends pulled in opposite directions until he was dead. Sanhedrin: 52b5

Jewish priests raised Balaam [Jesus] from the dead and punished him in boiling hot semen.(57a Gittin)4

For those doubting, this article written by a rare academic and specialist on Judaism, published in Publisher's Weekly, discussed a recent book titled Jesus in the Talmud: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6411679.html

Of course that was to show how Jews differ in no measure on how they view the scriptures from the Christians and about the Gentiles the Talmud is very clear in its commandments, first we should know that Jews or their faith as against what Jesus preached is one of inheritance only and as such one cannot be faithful or of God if one is not born a Jew :

If a heathen (gentile) hits a Jew, the gentile must be killed: Sanhedrin 58b

A Jew need not pay a gentile ("Cuthean") the wages owed him for work. Sanhedrin 57a


Also

When a Jew murders a gentile ("Cuthean"), there will be no death penalty. What a Jew steals from a gentile he may keep.



"If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a Canaanite there is no liability; but if an ox of a Canaanite gores an ox of an Israelite...the payment is to be in full." Baba Kamma 37b


Also:

"The gentiles are outside the protection of the law and God has "exposed their money to Israel.""

If a Jew finds an object lost by a gentile ("heathen") it does not have to be returned.  Sanhedrin 76a, also  Baba Kamma 113b.


and:

"Jews may use lies  to circumvent a Gentile".



"God will not spare a Jew who "marries his daughter to an old man or takes a wife for his infant son or returns a lost article to a Cuthean..." " Baba Mezia 24a


All gentile children are animals. Yebamoth 98a.

Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth. Abodah Zarah 36b.

Gentiles prefer sex with cows. Abodah Zarah 22a-22b


Now with all this and many studies carried out about the faith of Jews and their laws as seen from their religious books it becomes fair to use the summary from Deuteronomy to explain their faith adequately as this:


"And the Lord spake unto me, saying. . . This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it . . . And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. . . to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance . . . And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them. . . ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images. . . For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth . . . And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed . . . He shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven, there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them . . . Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. . . even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be . . . Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save nothing alive that breatheth . . . thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow . . . Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods. . ."

Deuteronomy.


This without recourse to the context lionger or Cekenah will want to us to since theirs is only an explanation that comes from the understanding of Christian theology only. It is also here we can conveniently say the claims of lionger that Bible is simple and can be just taken and read to be understood is not very true since the true owners of the Old Testament, the Jews, who Jesus believed altered the laws, do not think it is so. They believe one needs something like a Talmud and the difference between me and lionger is in the fact that I took my time to visit the Talmud but he took his time only to oppose me emotionally.

As I said earlier, there are lots of authorities and books about this subject and if lionger and Cekenah wish to insist I misrepresented their  Bible in this light as they have been saying, let them appeal to those authorities and Jewish scripts to prove me wrong not detailed exposition from the Bible which will mean  nothing since ours here has never been Christian interpretations but rather Jewish.

Waziri
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on May 15, 2008, 07:50:01 PM
Waziri,

Sorry for the long lay-off!

Firstly, I must also add, that the latter paragraphs of your response to me (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2373.msg40176#msg40176) are quite funny. Ironically, your repeated warnings made you sound quite emotional yourself. This is the third time you have threatened to abandon this discussion with me. Then there's this business about 'injury infliction exercise', 'round of vengeance', warnings of induced 'frustration', or your hypothetical 'throne' and my 'abyss' - what's all this? Rest assured: I am all for a contest of ideas, not a contest of egos. Unless you were actually trying to be funny, none of this resonates with me. My business remains as it was from the beginning - to get to the bottom of your intellectual process as expressed on this and the adjunct threads.

Secondly, your commission of plagiarism in this discussion is undisputable. Now, it might be marginally better to present this thread (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=1452.0) as proof that you did not intend to plagiarise Deedat and Reed, as you seem to be doing now. This approach nevertheless is not convincing for reasons I have already stated. Yes, this is merely an Internet forum and one can be forgiven for not sticking strictly to academic disciplines. However, two things strike me as obvious here:

1. Why didn't you appeal to your sources when others criticized your arguments? When Lionger charged you for repeatedly dragging Bible verses out of context, shouldn't you have deferred to Reed and Deedat as your higher authorities? Instead, you dug in your heels and took retrogressive steps like starting this thread (http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2440.msg24799#msg24799). You postured as someone presenting his direct and expert findings from the Bible and this was entirely misleading. 

2. I asked you plainly when I entered this thread to lay out the analytical processes behind your arguments. I also expressed my initial concerns about plagiarism, but you responded by questioning my motives. Would it not have been better to reveal your sources? Your ommission of those important details is a major failure and has exposed you to criticism and reproach then and now.

The worst part of this matter for me does not come directly from Lionger's recent posts but from my own findings. At some point during the initial exchanges you said:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 18, 2006, 10:27:25 AM
With regards to the Jews, I am yet to say the worst Jesus(AS) said about them. Hear him: You wicked and adulterous generation!(Matthew, 16:4), You brood of snakes! (Luke 3:7). Ealier on Moses in Deutronomy and Exodus said, that is if he really wrote those books, You Jews, you vagobonds; you rebellios people!(Deut. 9:7), You stiffednecked people!(Exodus, 33:5).

As was pointed out then, you erred in crediting Jesus with Luke 3:7 and Moses with Exodus 33:5. (The speakers in those verses were actually John the Baptist and God, respectively.) However when objections were raised, you defended your quotations by saying:

Quote from: _Waziri_ on August 23, 2006, 04:38:01 PM
If I should leave you without reference to an edition of Bible you may spend your life without finding the exact copy of the one I use to give me those quotes as they are. There are many diffrent versions of Bible. Some use milder words to prove a point while others, especially the older versions, use harsher words. One wonders at certain point as to which one is really correct in expressing the mood of God as He revealed the scriptures. It is not my fault Ete.

However, the fact is that your quotations actually came directly from Deedat's book, and not from any 'questionable' Bible version:

http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/aicc4.html
QuoteListen to God Almighty: how He pleads with Jews in His Last and Final Revelation to mankind:
O CHILDREN OF ISRAEL! CALL TO MIND THE (SPECIAL) FAVOUR WHICH I BESTOWED UPON YOU, AND FULFIL YOUR COVENANT WITH ME AS I FULFIL MY COVENANT WITH YOU, AND FEAR NONE BUT ME. (Holy Qur'an 2:40)

This explains the thousand years of good relationship which existed between the Muslims and the Jews. How respectfully you are being addressed! Not as
'YOU JEWS; YOU VAGABONDS; YOU REBELLIOUS PEOPLE! (Deut. 9:7)
'YOU STIFF-NECKED PEOPLE! (Exodus 33:5)
YOU WICKED AND ADULTEROUS GENERATION! (Matthew 16:4 )
YOU BROOD OF SNAKES!' (Luke 3:7)
These are the outpourings of your own Jewish Prophets, in your own Holy Scriptures.

It is easy to see the genesis of your errors, and it is Deedat. He did not specifically identify the speakers in his quotations, but referred to them collectively as 'Jewish prophets', so you probably presumed further that it must have been Jesus and Moses. Of course this error would have been avoided if you had actually looked up these verses in the Bible. You claimed then and now that you did so, but the evidence suggests otherwise. First of all, I don't see why you claimed to have gotten those Bible verses from a Bible version, when they came directly from Deedat. Do you even know what Bible version Deedat used? Worse, when confronted with your errors, you tried to deflect blame towards the Bible and questioned its authenticity. You will do well to explain why you saw fit to make such comments.  In view of all this, I cannot view your submissions up to this point any more favorably than I did at the beginning.

Deedat's argument in itself also has gaping rhetorical flaws. Since you considered it irresistible, consider the following points. In the excerpt above he obviously speaks to Jewish/Judaist readers. Why then does he present New Testament quotations as evidence from the Holy Scriptures of Jews? Judaists do not regard Jesus or John as prophets, and they clearly do not recognize the New Testament. In addition, Deedat's general thrust that the Quran addresses the Jews in kinder terms than the Bible is frivolous. One could easily bring out many Bible passages that speak glowingly of the Jews - infact, Deedat subsequently quotes one of them in Exodus 19:5 (see link). Not to mention his well-established penchant for dragging verses out of context at his own whim. Waziri, you shortchanged yourself by failing to exercise due diligence with the Bible expositions of Ahmed Deedat that you reproduced here.

Hopefully this should put these issue to rest. Now, I can move on to your new submissions.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Cekenah on May 15, 2008, 08:23:37 PM
Your new submissions are interesting and surprising at the same time.

QuoteThat one can make up a summary of Christian message from different quotes or sections from the New Testament without appealing to context and still make a very good sense of the message acceptable to Christians just as one can can quote verses out of context and misrepresent the meaning of Christianity...
This is also applicable to Islam or Qur'an while a single verse quoted out of context can depict the message in its truest form others can be quoted out of context to depict the message in a very false form.

You've got this 'out of context' concept mixed up. What makes a quotation 'out of context' or not is the intended purpose/objective of the person making the quotation. If the quoter's objective is supported by the original context of the quotation used, then the quotation is 'in context'. Otherwise, the quotation is 'out of context', and the quoter's argument becomes a 'pretext'. As the saying goes, "Text without context is pretext."

Therefore, it is possible to quote your New Testament (NT) passage AND your other verses (and even the Deuteronomy passage to some extent) both in context AND out of context. Therefore, a quotation that is out of context loses its original meaning and is an invalid form of persuasion. Let's consider seriously those verses that paint a 'false' version of Christianity in your estimation:

QuoteLuke 14;26
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life as he cannot be my disciple"

Mathew 10:34
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword".

Luke 12:51
"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division"

Now, if I quoted these verses to prove that hatred of one's family is a Christian virtue, or that Jesus was a warmonger and not a peacemaker - as might seem apparent at first - then I would be quoting Jesus 'out of context'. On the other hand, if I quoted these verses to show that Jesus warned his disciples of the high personal cost of following him; namely, that it could mean fractured relationships with and even persecution from family members and friends who reject Jesus, and even the loss on one's life on Jesus' account - then I would be quoting these verses in context. I leave the examination of context to your personal study, but if you so oblige, you will realise that Jesus' main point was that those who follow him must be willing to risk absolutely everything for his sake in a hostile world.

Otherwise, on what basis does one conclude, as you have done, that the New Testament passage presents an accurate picture of Christianity, and the other verses do not? To answer this question objectively, one must resort to standard exegetical practices, of which the first step is to examine textual and historical context. Simply presentin

QuoteIn the quotes from the New Testament I gave above are clear words of indictment used by Jesus against the Pharisees and Scribes the custodians of the Jewish law as having altered the law and this suffices to say the Old Testament we hold today which came from those Pharisees and Scribes "unedited" is exactly the law which Christ said has been altered by the Jewish priests. Hence the priests do not see or read or interpret the Old Testament as the Christians do.

Here I have a major point of contention. The NT does not record that Jesus ever charged the Pharisees with malicious alteration or edition of the Torah. Contrary to your suggestion, your NT passage does not contain any evidence that Jesus made such a criticism. I assume that you were referring specifically to this quote from the passage:
QuoteWoe unto you, scribes and Pharisees . . . ye are the children of them which killed the prophets...
This quote is part of Jesus' extensive denouncement of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23. Read that chapter, and you will find that Jesus does not include corruption of the Old Testament (OT) scripture among the Pharisees' many sins. If you can cite a specific verse in the NT that supplies such evidence, then please oblige. Christians certainly do not consider the OT to be corrupted and that is why it is part of the Christian Bible.

Now about the Talmud: Firstly, I must ask: what is the direct source of your Talmud quotations? I ask this question because I have seen some these quotations years before - the Balaam references especially. When I tried to trace their sources then, I discovered that these quotes were popular and only available word-for word in ultra-racist and anti-Jewish enclaves such as neo-Nazi and white supremacist forums. As such, I hope that a credible 'Jewish authority' stands behind yor work here.

Secondly and much more importantly - you made an unexplainable leap of logic here:
QuoteNow with all this (quotes from the Talmud)and many studies carried out about the faith of Jews and their laws as seen from their religious books it becomes fair to use the summary from Deuteronomy to explain their faith adequately as this (the Deuteronomy passage):
If we accept your presentation of the Talmud as accurate, then our first logical conclusion is that the Talmud itself incites racial bias and aggression. Unless you can establish a connection between the Talmud quotations and the verses of the Deuteronomy passage, it is not sensible to extend similar conclusions to the book of Deuteronomy. Are any of your Talmud verses commentaries on the verses of the Deuteronomy passage? If so, then kindly demonstrate. Otherwise, the Deuteronomy passage should never have been brought up in the first place.

This brings up a final question. If you consider the Talmud to be the premier authority in Judaism, then doesn't it make better sense to rely strictly on Talmud evidence from the start, rather than just the 'secondary' Torah?


Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on May 23, 2008, 12:15:17 PM
Well, I usually aptly respond to your takes here save my circumstances this time around that delayed it to a week.

Of course I have threatened to abandon you in this discourse severely cos of the tendencies I notice you share with Lionger that manifested and exposed your intention  - in my fair assumption - in the very 1st post you made that renewed this exchange. Here you said:

QuoteOne of the apparently outstanding members of this forum espoused Holocaust denial theories and also claimed that Israel's alleged racist and violent basis could be found in their Torah, which he supported with a most bizarre example of scriptural hermeneutics. I'd like to find those threads, for I had wished to quizz him on his research and interpretative methods.

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=511b4bc8d704b1942ea249a8707b1cea&topic=3632.15

I do not really think a sincere quest of knowledge can be reduced to a quizzing which is simply a test of ones ability. This to me made you sound more like Lionger and his ill informed scholarship that  is bent on getting itself  on the top only. So I chose to mete you with the same treatment. Nevertheless, I keep coming back to reply you at least on certain notes that silently appeal to my conscience with a tickle of hope you may not be like Lionger. Whatever the case maybe, time will tell as this continues I will arrive at a clear template of judgment. Then I'll do what I want to do conveniently.   

I have noticed your contention with the issue of plagiarism which I have constantly said did not make for full meaning to me for the reasons I expressed. But if they mean this much to you let you carry them forward.

But when you question my interpretations of the Bible or Deedat's bear in mind that it is you who are intellectually challenged with these like Lionger not myself or Deedat.

The truth of the matter is, according to Christianity or its scholars of Bible, there is no difference between what Jesus, Paul, John or Mark or Matthew said. They are all of equal theological value in the eyes of any Christian. What is in the New Testament got the express approval of Jesus the Christ even if  it were written by John the Baptist or Paul. It is all word of God. And if John or Luke said something about the Jews rest assured it is the opinion of Jesus about them since he was only relating the Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and God who can be Jesus according to some.

So why the concern that it was said to have been from Jesus? He sure must have approved it so he is also responsible. Unless if you think otherwise. Then we will begin to separate the areas of disagreement between Jesus and his disciples, then we will conclude that what John said about the Jews was not true, he lied or fabricated or erred. We will also start to  look for where other Bible writers erred.

This is where I think Deedat surpassed you in his scholarship and myself, his disciple.  ;)::) :D ::). At least we are able to know how Christians interpret their own scriptures.

So also Moses who was said to have written Exodus, he must have agreed and approved what God said about his people for him to have recorded it. No be so?

Yes, I answered Lionger the way I did because of the way the discussion was going and of course to show him how irrelevant it was for him to be asking about versions used. It is escapist of him to have done that.

This rested.

You thought it good to lecture me on what context means because of the verses  I quoted in my subsequent submission to show that when used disregarding contexts will give a very false representation of Christianity. But you only succeeded in affirming what I said with your  explanations that supposed to show I erred to your surprise.

What is the problem? Is it that you feel you just have to disagree with me? Or do you want me to believe you are not sincerely seeking for a fair dialogue contrary to your claims? 

Any fair reader of that post will see that I meant relativity in some verses and absoluteness of some others disregarding the environment or situation. Just as you admitted that the verses of violence cannot be used to paint Christianity in all absoluteness.

But the other quotes I used that gave the summary of Christian faith can be used to paint Christianity in all absoluteness and if you have problem with that let me hear what you believe is wrong in them before you start asking for any authority behind it. After all it is not always you need an authority to use your conscience. Let me hear what your conscience say about them.

Or are you only interested in disagreeing as it seems with the the issue of context in the other violent verses?

Also you claim that Jesus did not charge the Pharisees and the Scribes for altering the law as received by Moses! OK. All the disagreement that Jesus had with these Pharisees and Scribes were just to show they preserved the law and practiced it the way it was? Was that why they wanted him killed?

Why would Jesus want to say "Woe unto scribes", the writers charged with the coding or preservation of the law, if he didn't think they altered it and gave the masses the adulterated version? Or is the Talmud which is necessary for understanding the Torah according to Jewish tradition not an alteration? That is assuming the Torah we have today is the exact copy of what was obtained during times before Jesus?

Also you said:

QuoteNow about the Talmud: Firstly, I must ask: what is the direct source of your Talmud quotations? I ask this question because I have seen some these quotations years before - the Balaam references especially. When I tried to trace their sources then, I discovered that these quotes were popular and only available word-for word in ultra-racist and anti-Jewish enclaves such as neo-Nazi and white supremacist forums. As such, I hope that a credible 'Jewish authority' stands behind yor work here.

Yes you must have also seen Biblical quotations from Muslim or other Nazi websites, but does that makes them to be from sources other than the Bible or Qur'an. Why won't you get the Talmud yourself and read to find those quotes? Balaam is known even in Muslim literature as I said before. Concerning credible Jewish authorities you want Cekenah, I am sure if you had known or conversed with any sincere one you wouldn't be here disputing what I am saying here about their books. Any way did you read the link I provided about the new book authored about Jesus in The Talmud? What was the response of the Jews in the comments that followed the article. Did they not concur with the facts of who Jesus really is in the Talmud?

You can go ahead and google search any verse or quote I use here from the Bible, the Torah, Qur'an or Talmud and others. You will certainly find them used in many different ideological websites but that will not make them any less authentic from the source. It is only left for you to use your analytical faculties to see the justification of their usage or not.

You also said:

QuoteIf we accept your presentation of the Talmud as accurate, then our first logical conclusion is that the Talmud itself incites racial bias and aggression. Unless you can establish a connection between the Talmud quotations and the verses of the Deuteronomy passage, it is not sensible to extend similar conclusions to the book of Deuteronomy. Are any of your Talmud verses commentaries on the verses of the Deuteronomy passage? If so, then kindly demonstrate. Otherwise, the Deuteronomy passage should never have been brought up in the first place.

This brings up a final question. If you consider the Talmud to be the premier authority in Judaism, then doesn't it make better sense to rely strictly on Talmud evidence from the start, rather than just the 'secondary' Torah?

This part was answered years back before you joined this discussion, it has also been repeated again and again after your joining look again:

QuoteI this thread, http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=2459.0 , on, August 18, 2006  in particular, #6 Post, I said to Lionger:

"I noticed also how you admitted of not knowing much about Talmud and Midnash. That in essence says how much you do not know about Judaism and its laws of nationalism. This is why I think you are only fit to ask question here not argue. I believe I can remain rest assured in my comfortable superiority on this subject matter. For I have perseverently laboured thru the Bible, the Qur'an and the Rabbinic Tradition which forms the bedrock of Jewish religion,  for over ten years now.

That is why I say from the onset that I am not debating this with you but rather writing something which I believe will prove beneficial to all.

Concerning the Tanakh, or the Old Testament and its place in Jewish religion hear what a modern encyclopaedia said:

"Although all forms of Judaism have been rooted in the Hebrew Bible (referred to by Jews as the Tanach, an acronym for its three sections: Torah, the Pentateuch; Nebiim, the prophetic literature; and Ketubim, the other writings), it would be an error to think of Judaism as simply the ?religion of the Old Testament.? Contemporary Judaism is ultimately derived from the rabbinic movement of the first centuries of the Christian era in Palestine and Babylonia and is therefore called rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi, in Aramaic and Hebrew, means ?my teacher.? The rabbis, Jewish sages adept in studying the Scriptures and their own traditions, maintained that God had revealed to Moses on Sinai a twofold Torah. In addition to the written Torah (Scripture), God revealed an oral Torah, faithfully transmitted by word of mouth in an unbroken chain from master to disciple, and preserved now among the rabbis themselves."

Microsoft ? Encarta ? 2006. ? 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

So you could see why according to Judaism, understanding the Torah requires the Talmud not as contradiction but rather as an elaborate commentary as such I do not think I am wrong in anyway to have used them before using the Talmud now after all I took the pains to show Lionger with quotes above that the verses in Deuteronomy alone did not inform my conclusion. I also consulted other materials.

Waziri


Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Jack Fulcher on June 10, 2008, 07:05:24 AM
You know, this was a very interesting thread when it started, but it degenerated quickly into another forum for Mr. Waziri to show off what he learned in college once again.  This is what was happening in 2003 when I was on this board before.  He has primarily two agendas:  Show his knowledge of scripture, and defend holocaust deniers.  Quite frankly it's exhausting because his English is so confusing (at least it is to me).  I kind of like it when he DOES plagiarize other writings, because at least I understand what's written there.  Cheap shot, I know, but he writes pages in order to distract us from the point, and poor Lionger goes out of his way to be polite and respond to Mr. Waziri's scriptural points.  However, the letter from Ahmadinejad's writers is remarkable for these reasons:

1.  He continues to deny the holocaust.  This guy's nuts.  Eisenhower and the British made sure that the death camps were well photographed because they new that people like Ahmadinejad would come along and say "oh, come on, they weren't all that bad, were they?"  I even watched some stupid show from Iranian Television where the guy said that all those jews (and gypsies and Russians and homosexuals and communists) died from typhus, not by being shot and gassed.  (I saw this on MEMRITV.org, which is a great site showing what the Iranians and Saudis and Palestinians are being shown on their government controlled televisions)  The problem is that the Germans documented everything down to a gnat's eyebrow, and they didn't document all these typhus deaths.  There are thousands of witnesses to the gassing and shootings and hangings.  This isn't something you can just get a whole lot of people to get together and keep to one lie - a 10,000 person conspiracy just doesn't happen.

2.  Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that Israel will be wiped off the map - not just here but in speeches since then.  Just use Google to find these speeches, or use Youtube to see them live.  Shame on you, Dave, for suggesting that Bush is lying about what this little Hitler is saying.  Your irrational hatred for America causes you to take some silly positions.  Maybe you're just jealous you don't live in the workers' paradise of San Francisco and have to hang out with all those drunks in Scotland (just kidding, of course, but if you're going to call someone's country "evil" you'll have to be able to take a couple of punches).

3.  This is why he wants nuclear energy.  Why doesn't he just get the Iranians to learn how to refine oil?  They're surrounded by clean crude.  No, he wants the bomb and wants to use it.  First Saddam tried to be the new Saladin, and now little Moumood thinks he can go down in history as the Persian hero.  This is why he needs to be stopped, and the Europeans need his oil and won't do anything to tick him off.  So guess who is nominated to stand up to him?  Come to think of it, the Europeans have a habit of not standing up to tyrants.....

4.  The little creep also suggests that 9/11 was an "inside job."  What nonsense.  Even bin-Laden (remember him?) admits that his thugs did the deed.  Conspiracy theories come up after every major event for some reason.  "Experts" come out of the woodwork to say that something just couldn't have worked the way people are saying.  I'm an expert.  I testify in court all the time.  Believe me, experts can see the same evidence and come up with many different explanations.  However, minority positions are just that, and that's what we need to recognize - they're on the fringe.

5.  However, the silliest thing I've read here didn't come from little Hitler (easier to spell than Ahmadinejad) or from Mr. Waziri.  It was from our dearest friend Husnaa, who said the jews owned "everything worth owning" in the US.  And that they run the country.  Good grief!  I know who owns stuff around my country, and for the most part it's the Christian Protestants (like Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians) and the Catholics.  I've seen these statistics before (because this was a legitimate issue once - about 70 or 80 years ago in the 1920s!), and the jews constitute about 2% of the poplulation and own maybe 12-15% of the wealth and capital stock.  They don't own the media, they don't own the universities, and they certainly don't run the government.  It is true that their political organizations wield a lot of power, but that's because they vote in large blocs, occasionally enough to influence the outcome of some local elections here and there.  But they're not as powerful as, for instance, the National Rifle Association which Dave will tell you is responsible for making sure Americans can buy and keep guns.  They also vote in blocs.  Muslims are trying to do this through their Council on Arab American Relations (funded largely by Saudi Arabia), but they have a lot of work to do if they want to match the jews.  The jews came here, worked hard, studied and became doctors and lawyers, and as a result they own more than the 2% population they represent.

6.  And one more thing to wrap up.  You know I love you dearly, Husnaa, but how did you get the idea that America is the promised land?  The people who wrote the Bible, Qur'an, and the Talmud didn't know that the Earth was round - that is why they don't reveal this in these scriptures.  But if America was the promised land, why didn't God or Allah say their promised land was on the other side of the world?  Certainly God knew that the world is round, didn't he?

It's late here and the wife wants to go to bed, so good night.  I hope your day is productive and satisfying.  Jack
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 10, 2008, 11:18:24 AM
Quote from: Jack Fulcher on June 10, 2008, 07:05:24 AM
You know, this was a very interesting thread when it started, but it degenerated quickly into another forum for Mr. Waziri to show off what he learned in college once again.  This is what was happening in 2003 when I was on this board before.  He has primarily two agendas:  Show his knowledge of scripture, and defend holocaust deniers.  Quite frankly it's exhausting because his English is so confusing (at least it is to me).  I kind of like it when he DOES plagiarize other writings, because at least I understand what's written there.  Cheap shot, I know, but he writes pages in order to distract us from the point, and poor Lionger goes out of his way to be polite and respond to Mr. Waziri's scriptural points. 

Hello  Mr Fulcher,

At least you should know I have been wondering why you did not steal your way into this thread in order to get at me as is usual. Remember our encounter in 2003 here started when you ascribed a quote to me banking on the possibility that others may not go back and check what you said I said. But I have since forgiven you since you had  apologized when I apparently exposed your mischief.

Now you are back on a different horse to pinch on my flesh again. Ride on and good luck but I only wish your were able to say all these you are saying now, then,  instead of the much you took the pains to respond to what you are now referring as confusing English.  Then you used to say my posts were sometime excellent or intelligent! Or what happened to your intellectual development since five years back?

Waziri
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: HUSNAA on June 10, 2008, 11:25:48 AM
Jack that was a riveting riveting post!!  ;D ;D ;D ;D keep it up!!
Wish I had time to delve into a reply, but tell u what, I'll do exactly what u did. I'll take a rain check on it and  let it simmer till i have time... ;D ;D
PS Waziri, Jack's just trying to take my advice of letting loose a few punches, but its still a bit awkward somehow, but an enjoyable read nevertheless he's not over doing it, he's not underdoing it, but he still aint doing it like KING (thank God!, like most of what he wrote is tongue in cheek.......
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 10, 2008, 12:03:34 PM
Quote from: HUSNAA on June 10, 2008, 11:25:48 AM

PS Waziri, Jack's just trying to take my advice of letting loose a few punches, but its still a bit awkward somehow, but an enjoyable read nevertheless he's not over doing it, he's not underdoing it, but he still aint doing it like KING (thank God!, like most of what he wrote is tongue in cheek.......

Husnaa, I am referring to the part he directed at me as in what I quoted from him, BTW Mr. Fulcher has been with us since 2003 here and we have debated a lot and as such I find it strange that he is threading this path now and only now. All what we did and his fabricating statements to attribute to me are reserved here.

I know him among the believers in the art of war which stipulates that once you can kill the leader in whatever way - even against the rule of war -the followers will be the re to follow. This is all about what is happening here hence the extreme mischief.

These are the threads we took to lengthy discussions, at least if I had taken him to be  like Ete, Lionger or King I wouldn't have followed him along:

The first encounter

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=154.0

The second encounter

http://kanoonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=125.0

The debates were so popular then that someone serialized them in one of our dailies here in Nigeria


Waziri
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 10, 2008, 02:02:13 PM
And I always wonder why some of these alien posters do always want to tell one that he is intelligent, he made an excellent post and what have you. They like sitting on their high chairs judging people, dashing compliments as if anybody needs them for their good feelings.

This inform the way I treat some of the here too. In spite of all odd Mr. Fulcher has established a reputation of speaking to people from this sort high heels.

I do not think he has taken to your advice Husnaa for we've struggled with him like that since he made his first post here. He believes his America to be better than anywhere so also his people as compared to others.


Waziri 
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: Jack Fulcher on June 13, 2008, 12:54:02 AM
Mr. Waziri is right - I started posting here in 2003 when some people convicted poor Amina Lawal of adultry and they were going to KILL this woman for that, leaving her young child motherless.  All she wanted was for the man to take responsibility for the child, just as they are required to do in my country, but under Shari'ah law apparently that's not required as long as he denies that he's the father and she doesn't have the required four muslim men who can witness for her.  Good grief!!  So he was going to get away, and they were going to stone her to death.  Are we living in the ninth century?

I found this board and started to post some pretty indignant questions about this.  Some suggested strongly that I mind my own business.  I even got a private email from the Admin guy saying that I need to watch what I say or I might be banned.  Apparently free speech is not an important goal, at least to the Admin people.  Some, like this guy Al-Hamza, thought my ideas should be deleted and he said to just leave them alone, ending his posts with "jihad! jihad! jihad!"  Others, like Mr. Waziri, was patient and tried to explain how different muslim thought is from Western thought, and how the technicalities of Shari'ah law limits what the people can do.

One of the more interesting exchanges with Mr. Waziri was on the question of "how can that guy get away with fathering a child by just saying he didn't do it?"  I said that in the West we use forensic science like DNA testing to determine who the father is, and once a "paternity test" establishes paternity, the father must pay the mother child support as determined by the court.  Mr. Waziri explained that Shari'ah doesn't allow for forensic evidence, that it's all based on eyewitness testimony.  How is that possible?  Is that true even in more modern countries like Pakistan, Iran, or Indonesia?  It varies, apparently, but my position is such a system is biased strongly against the woman - what four men can witness such an act as adultry (or rape)?  Mr. Waziri was so nice as to write an article and publish it as an answer to my question - I found this article once when I (humbly) Googled my name.

So Mr. Waziri and I go way back.  I dropped out of circulation, Mr. Waziri, not because I was fed up or anything, but because I got sent to Mexico City to open a branch office for my company for a couple of years.  My job just sucked my brain out through my ears and for several years I really haven't done much except it and playing bridge with my dear wife.  By the way, we ran into a couple of good bridge players from Lagos - Bart Starink and Marek Poproch.  Ever heard of them?  They play at the Bonny Bridge Club, so if you play bridge and find yourself in Lagos, look them up and say Lisa and I say hi.

Bridge is a great game, but it's a real time sucker if you play in tournaments.  It make you wish you were smarter.

I like to tease Mr. Waziri about unimportant things.  For instance his writing.  Here's the funniest thing I found in his recent post in this thread:

"Now you are back on a different horse to pinch on my flesh again. Ride on and good luck but I only wish your were able to say all these you are saying now, then,  instead of the much you took the pains to respond to what you are now referring as confusing English."

I'm sorry to use this quote, but it was so funny I couldn't resist it.  I guess you're saying I shouldn't have complimented you on your writing in 2003, but, believe it or not Mr. Waziri, I was sincere.  You have a lot of knowledge but have a hard time expressing it.  I learned a lot from you about Islam and the Shari'ah, something I knew nothing about when I barged into this forum back then.  And I must admit your English is a million times better than my Hausa.  But I strongly disagree with your holocaust denial tendencies, and your strong resistance to modernity.  There is no good reason to oppress women with such a biased system, unless you're a man who wants to get away with shenanigans. (I like that word - hope I spelled it right)  You even have quoted David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, in order to support your position on the holocaust - the Klan would have all the black people in the world removed if it could.  I just want to try to show you that the lessons of the Enlightenment are ones all should adopt in order to make their lives more productive and rational.  If you read Arabnews.com regularly as I do, one recurring issue is that the Saudi youth don't like to work.  This is because the Saudis hire foreign people to do everything for them, even extract the oil out of their sand.  This is bad for the kids - they need to see their parents work hard every day, as they do in the West.  They need to learn to be problem solvers, and they need to be able to exchange their ideas freely and without fear from the government.  I know this is a cultural change, but think what's going to happen to Saudi Arabia when we figure out how to create energy without oil - it's really only a matter of time before we figure this one out.  Poor SA will not have any of its own work force that can support an economy.  All of the billions they're getting now won't be supporting an economy with machines and thinkers as you have in the West.  Israel will have a larger and more vibrant economy that SA, and it doesn't have to be that way.  Is Nigeria going to suffer the same fate?  If you don't develop a culture of hard work and investment now, all of that oil you're allowing Western companies to extract and pay you for will have been wasted. 

This position is why Mr. Waziri says I think that America is better than any other country.  I may not think it's necessarily better, but I do know that it's much more productive than most others (the Japanese and the Germans seem to work pretty hard, too, so their economies are gigantic).  I do know that people are knocking down the doors to get in and live here.  I do know that Kay (my colleague from Lagos who does utility auditing) is not going back to Nigeria, and neither are his sons.  That's a shame and a big loss.  I know that we're clumsy and loud and we're not very diplomatic, and this gives us a bad reputation; however, the world depends on our production, machines, and ideas to solve some of their problems, and as a result they hate us and say we're making them victims.  But that's what happens to all successful cultures and peoples.  Doesn't this happen in Africa sometimes?

I also don't really think many people hate us.  Maybe the middle class in some countries who can't move here, like Dave.  Certainly the ruling classes in many countries like to use us to blame for their own bad decisions.  And Israel (those darn Zionists cause all the trouble).  But at the end of the day, it's right to get your children inoculated against disease and it's right to kill those mosquitoes to get rid of malaria; and if your leaders say not to do this, that it's a Zionist or American plot to cause genocide or steal your land, you need to say "no" to them and to insist that you and your neighbors do the right thing.

Whew, I write a lot when I get going, don't I?  I'm sorry.  And it's good to hear from you, Mr. Waziri.  And what does the remarkable Husnaa think about my position regarding forensic science and the oppression of women under the Shari'ah?  And please be patient with me.  Have a good Friday, folks.  Jack
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: King on June 13, 2008, 04:17:40 AM
And Husnna, I am not sure why I had to be dragged into this exchange. I wasn't aware that my postings troubled many of you that much. How sad!!! True, Jack Sparro (fulcher) is quite the gentleman, but me, I am feisty and cut through all the crap to deliver my opinion. I will say I am with Jack on this one though. Sure, I ruffle feathers and all, but goodness, I am not demented enough to deny the holocaust when even the accused Germans admit and accept responsibility. This is why I am baffled by some of the lengthy yet pointless essays on this site. Even when facts are so obvious to the point of slapping one in the face, some dubious 'geniuses' attempt to spin falsehoods in the hope that they become truths.
Anyway, I'll let you all continue with this circus. Have a good evening.
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: HUSNAA on June 13, 2008, 12:39:34 PM
Lol Jack the 'remarkable husnaa' is incommunicado and will be for a few weeks to come. I've read yr interesting post and itching to write something, but not a good idea cos its almost suicidal to deviate from my course at the present moment

King king king!! I salute ooooo ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
have a good evening also...
PS stop sounding high and mighty.. I'm in a relatively good mood at the mo.. so i can afford to overlook the 'circus'. At any rate u do have a merry go round with the 'circus' otherwise u wouldnt bother with it...
Title: Re: Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush
Post by: _Waziri_ on June 16, 2008, 10:32:46 AM
Quote from: Jack Fulcher on June 13, 2008, 12:54:02 AM

I'm sorry to use this quote, but it was so funny I couldn't resist it.  I guess you're saying I shouldn't have complimented you on your writing in 2003, but, believe it or not Mr. Waziri, I was sincere.  You have a lot of knowledge but have a hard time expressing it.

Well, Mr. Fulcher,

In civilised worlds we don't find reasons to xpress our scorn on people who write in our language no matter how bad we feel they do. But still I'll wish you well in that. You know you are a civilised American and you do nothing wrong. But if you feel I had wanted all along to earn your praise in anyway by what I have been writing here, be content to know it has never been so.

I have seen you struggling to gain my attention since you came back. Know that I have never cared about what you've been doing in the years you absented yourself from this forum.

The issues you said we discussed earlier are carefully preserved here so it is not on you to tell people what I said then. I have never trusted you to report my wordings to others because you have a reputation of doctoring them. You will do well by giving others the reference where they can find my opinions.

Again, I believe I have discussed the subject matter you are bringing back thoroughly in a way that I don't have anything to add now so please do not take it personal if I am unable to respond to you in full measure.

Thanks

Waziri