Wet Rainy Yuck - But at least it is warm
Went to the movies last night and saw "The Day after Tomorrow"
Great movie 4 Stars - Good Cast Etc.. Reminded me of Kansas and Oklahoma
for some reason. Could have been the snow and Ice. Was expecting it
to be cold when we left the theater but it was still a nice warm balmy
Corpus Christi night for which I was grateful.
I don't really worry about things like dramatic climate shifts any more than I
worry about terrorists. I know it can happen and I do my share to help the environment.
I am a big fan organic food and prefer to live without chemicals. Even have a job that does not require commuting by me or the hubby. I don't own and SUV and seldom travel anywhere without a car full of people at least when I am traveling any distance. But the truth of the matter is that I am a big believer that when my time comes, it comes, and it just isn't worth worrying about.
That is part of the reason I don't understand everybody willing to give up so many rights because of terrorists. I am not willing to give up anything And I will never believe something is true just because the government says so. that's just stupid.
I am a big fan of America but not a big fan of government especially not the government
we have today. Even though we have no one to blame but ourselves. Iraq war aside there are many many things wrong with our world today. We have become great believers in laws for the sake of having them. Doesn't matter if they are just. Doesn't matter if the punishment is appropriate for the crime if its against the law well it just is.
And even if it is a stupid law people still belly up to the bar and practice it.
Some of the laws I think are stupid are: The drugs laws: Okay not all of them
I think if you are caught driving drunk or stoned they can just shoot you since you are placing other people in Jeopardy. But if you are sitting at home smoking a joint I don't really care. I certainly don't think I should pay for you to be in jail over it. Or your children's foster care or your wife's welfare because you smoked a joint and got caught.
Laws today seem to be formed to help police and government organizations make money. And besides catching drug users is easy, catching real criminals is much more difficult. When I was young I never knew anybody that had been in jail - Now the odds are about 1 in 6 that if you live in America you will be in jail at some point. This is just wrong. And it is costing us a fortune. Not to mention that it means nothing. Being in jail used to be a social stigma but when the people who have been there out number those who haven't it is tough to care.
I will grant that drugs are bad for you but then so are cigarettes and alcohol.
And while I have met many mean drunks I have never known a mean pot head. I suppose
it is possible but not real likely unless you get in the way of the brownies.
Police enforcement has an incentive to bust drug users they get to take their money,
their homes and they don't even have to prove you were breaking the law. Cops in LA and Phoenix are driving Corvettes and cameros. I don't think this is right. If they are going to continue the drug war they need to take the financial incentive away from the police. If they are going to confiscate money and property then all funds and property confiscated should be used directly towards health care and health care only. Rehab hospitals have waiting lists because they lack facilities and money. This is just wrong.
And then the police whine about being shot at. If I were the police I would worry about that to. I would love to see the statistics from 30 years ago before the drug war and the three strikes laws and other draconian do nothing measures. It seems to me that people no longer have an incentive not to shoot cops if they are doing something wrong. Lets face it if you are going to jail for the rest of your life even if you don't shoot the cop then then you have an incentive to shoot them and stay out of jail. Zero tolerance = Zero Intelligence.
Remember our founding fathers stated "It is better if every guilty man go free than one innocent man go to jail" Or my personal favorite God and old age get everybody in the end. Todays motto seems to be arrest everyone that can't be brainwashed. As long as it is a law it doesn't matter if it makes sense people should just get in law and follow the government blindly. Now I admit I live a pretty boring life and the one speeding ticket is the big thing on my record, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. I am a defense lawyer's dream because I believe in Jury Nullification. (For those you who don't know what this is read your constitution, (It basically means that you the jury have the right to decide whatever you want. It doesn't matter what the judge says or the law, if you think the law is bad find the person inncoent.) If enough people would practice this the laws might change.) Or at least there would be more justice involved in our court system. If you really want out of jury duty ask the judge if this is correct while you are being questioned. They hate it when you bring it up.
I also don't like the government invading personal lives. I don't care who someone sleeps with or who they marry. I would prefer contractual joining to the state having any say in the matter.
And then there are the sex offender laws. DO you know if you are caught peeing in public you in some states you will then have to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life. Like this helps anyone. I don't want to know who the people peeing on the sidewalk are. I don't even want to know which men are sleeping with 15 year olds, I don't care. 15 year old girl and boys are quite capable of deciding whjo they are going to sleep with. Registered sex offender laws and pedophile laws should concentrate on who hurt children and abuses very young children say under 10. A hundred years a go we were marrying off our 12 year olds and many of you out there probably have grand parents that were married at 14 or at 12 and having children by 14. The worst of the punishments should be reserved for those people who kill our children rather than an across the bored no matter what law. It may be horrible to have your child molested but having them killed because the laws have become draconian is worse. Average Time to die now in child molestation cases is 4 hours. In times before the crazy laws were introduced they generally left them somewhere still alive. Sex is just not worth dying over particularly when the person dying is your child. These types of laws are a last ditch effort to protect an innocence that doesn't exist.
This was an unfinished draft originally written on 6/25/04 - publishing it now to gt it out of the drafts folder - strangely enough I think I still agree with mostof it
posted by Brandy at 8/24/2005 08:49:00 AM
1 Comments:
Concept of God in Islam
WAMY Series: On Islam No.9.
Introduction
God's Attributes
The Oneness of God
The Believer's Attitude
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Introduction
It is a known fact that every language has one or more terms that are used in reference to God and sometimes to lesser deities. This is not the case with Allah. Allah is the personal name of the One true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural or gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word "god," which can be made plural, as in "gods," or made feminine, as in "goddess." It is interesting to notice that Allah is the personal name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic.
The One true God is a reflection of the unique concept that Islam associates with God. To a Muslim, Allah is the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing, and nothing is comparable to Him. The Prophet Muhammad was asked by his contemporaries about Allah; the answer came directly from God Himself in the form of a short chapter of the Qur'an, which is considered to be the essence of the unity or the motto of monotheism. This is chapter 112, which reads:“ In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Say (O Muhammad), He is God, the One God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone”.
Some non-Muslims allege that God in Islam is a stern and cruel God who demands to be obeyed fully and is not loving and kind. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this allegation. It is enough to know that, with the exception of one, each of the 114 chapters of the Qur'an begins with the verse " In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate". In one of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), we are told that “ God is more loving and kind than a mother to her dear child”.
On the other hand, God is also Just. Hence, evildoers and sinners must have their share of punishment, and the virtuous must have God's bounties and favors. Actually, God's attribute of Mercy has full manifestation in His attribute of Justice. People suffering throughout their lives for His sake should not receive similar treatment from their Lord as people who oppress and exploit others their whole lives. Expecting similar treatment for them would amount to negating the very belief in the accountability of man in the Hereafter and thereby negate all the incentives for a moral and virtuous life in this world. The following Qur'anic verses are very clear and straightforward in this respect.
Verily, for the Righteous are gardens of Delight, in the Presence of their Lord. Shall We then treat the people of Faith like the people of Sin? What is the matter with you? How judge you?
Islam rejects characterizing God in any human form or depicting Him as favoring certain individuals or nations on the basis of wealth, power or race. He created the human-beings as equals. They may distinguish themselves and get His favor through virtue and piety only.
The concepts that God rested on the seventh day of creation, that God wrestled with one of His soldiers, that God is an envious plotter against mankind, and that God is incarnate in any human being are considered blasphemy from the Islamic point of view.
The unique usage of Allah as a personal name of God is a reflection of Islam's emphasis on the purity of the belief in God that is the essence of the message of all God's messengers. Because of this, Islam considers associating any deity or personality with God as a deadly sin that God will never forgive, despite the fact that He may forgive all other sins.
The Creator must be of a different nature from the things created because if He is of the same nature as they are, He will be temporal and will therefore need a maker. It follows that nothing is like Him. If the maker is not temporal, then he must be eternal. But if he is eternal, he cannot be caused, and if nothing caused Him to come into existence, nothing outside Him causes Him to continue to exist, which means that he must be self-sufficient. And if He does not depend on anything for the continuance of His own existence, then this existence can have no end. The Creator is therefore eternal and everlasting: "He is the First and the Last".
He is Self-sufficient or Self-subsistent, or, to use a Qur'anic term, Al-Qayyum The Creator does not create only in the sense of bringing things into being, He. also preserves them and takes them out of existence and is the ultimate cause of whatever happens to them.
“ God is the Creator of everything. He is the guardian over everything. Unto Him belong the keys of the heavens and the earth” (39:62-63).
“ No creature is there crawling on the earth, but its provision rests on God. He knows its lodging place and its repository” (11:16).
God's Attributes
If the Creator is Eternal and Everlasting, then His attributes must also be eternal and everlasting. He should not lose any of His attributes nor acquire new ones. If this is so, then his attributes are absolute. Can there be more than one Creator with such absolute attributes? Can there be, for example, two absolutely powerful Creators? A moment's thought shows that this is not feasible.
The Qur'an summarizes this argument in the following verses:“ God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any god with Him: for then each god would have taken of that which he created and some of them would have risen up over others” (23:91).
“ And why, were there gods in earth and heaven other than God, they (heaven and earth) would surely go to ruin” (21:22).
The Oneness of God
The Qur'an reminds us of the falsity of all alleged gods. To the worshippers of man-made objects it asks:“ Do you worship what you have carved yourself” (37:95). “ Or have you taken unto yourself others beside Him to be your protectors, even such as have no power either for good or for harm to themselves” (13:16).
To the worshippers of heavenly bodies it cites the story of Abraham:“ When night outspread over him, he saw a star and said: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: I love not the setters. When he saw the moon rising, he said: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be of the people gone astray. When he saw the sun rising, he said: This is my Lord; this is greater. But when it set, he said: O my people, surely I quit that which you associate, I have turned my face to Him who originated the heavens and the earth; a man of pure faith, I am not one of the idolators” (6:76-79).
The Believer's Attitude
In order to be a Muslim, that is, to surrender oneself to God, it is necessary to believe in the oneness of God, in the sense of His being the only Creator, Preserver, Nourisher, etc. But this belief, later called Tawhid Ar-Rububiyyah, is not enough. Many of the idolators knew and believed that only the Supreme God could do all this. But this was not enough to make them Muslims. To tawhid ar-rububiyyah, one must add tawhid al-'uluhiyyah. That is, one acknowledges the fact that it is God alone who deserves to be worshipped, and thus abstains from worshipping any other thing or being.
Having achieved this knowledge of the one true God, man should constantly have faith in Him, and should allow nothing to induce him to deny truth.
When faith enters a person's heart, it causes certain mental states that result in certain actions. Taken together, these mental states and actions are the proof for the true faith. The Prophet said:“ Faith is that which resides firmly in the heart and which is proved by deeds”.
Foremost among those mental stated is the feeling of gratitude towards God, which could be said to be the essence of ibada (worship).
The feeling of gratitude is so important that a non-believer is called 'kafir', which means 'one who denies a truth' and also 'one who is ungrateful'.
A believer loves, and is grateful to God for the bounties He bestowed upon him, but being aware of the fact that his good deeds, whether mental or physical, are far from being commensurate with Divine favors, he is always anxious lest God should punish him, here or in the Hereafter. He, therefore, fears Him, surrenders himself to Him and serves Him with great humility. One cannot be in such a mental state without being almost all the time mindful of God. Remembering God is thus the life force of faith, without which it fades and withers away.
The Qur'an tries to promote this feeling of gratitude by repeating the attributes of God very frequently. We find most of these attributes mentioned together in the following verses of the Qur'an:“ He is God; there is no god but He. He is the Knower of the unseen and the visible; He is the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate. He is God; there is no god but He. He is the King, the All-Holy, the All-Peace, the Guardian of the Faith, the All-Preserver, the All-Mighty, the All-Compeller, the All-Sublime. Glory be to God, above that they associate! He is God, the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper. To Him belong the Names Most Beautiful. All that is in the heavens and the earth magnifies Him; He is the Almighty, the All-Wise” (59:22-24).
“ There is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows what lies before them, and what is after them, and they comprehend not anything of His knowledge save such as He wills. His throne comprises the heavens and earth. The preserving of them oppresses Him not; He is the All-High, the All-Glorious” (2:255).
People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion, and say not as to God but the truth.
“ The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not "Three". Refrain; better it is for you. God is only one God. Glory be to Him -- (He is) above having a son” (4:171).
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