President Obama Shows His Support
[guest post by Dana]
Last month, we were shocked at the beheading of Colleen Hufford in Oklahoma by a recent convert to Islam. The FBI determined it was not terrorist related and instead deemed it as an act of “workplace violence”. Homeland Security also claims there is “no evidence” that shows Alton Nolen was inspired by ISIS or any other terrorist group – this in spite of Nolen attempting to convert his co-workers and his increasingly violent Facebook postings wherein he began to endorse jihad, and further, hollering Islamic phrases during the brutal attack.
Last night on 60 Minutes during an interview, FBI Director Jay Comey didn’t mention workplace violence:
[Police say a man who’d tried to convert fellow employees to Islam, beheaded a woman in his workplace. He was allegedly upset about being suspended. But the FBI is investigating whether the murder was an imitation of ISIL’s beheadings.]
Scott Pelley: Some people call individuals who are radicalized “lone wolves.” Is that the biggest threat we face?
James Comey: Yeah, people who use that term, it’s not one I like because it conveys a sense of dignity I don’t think they deserve. These homegrown violent extremists are troubled souls, who are seeking meaning in some misguided way. And so they come across the propaganda and they become radicalized on their own, sort of independent study, and they’re also able to equip themselves with training again through the Internet, and then engage in jihad after emerging from their basement.
I’m reminded of Scarborough’s disgust after the “workplace violence” designation was given:
“The FBI says there was no indication that [Alton] Nolen was copying ISIS?” Scarborough said. “I’m not saying like ISIS has infiltrated us and this is going to happen. Seriously? FBI — how stupid does the FBI really think we are? Who exactly are they afraid of offending? ISIS? Moderate Muslims? Because moderate Muslims are just as scared as moderate Methodists. And as political correctness now so pervasive through our government that the FBI can’t tell Americans the truth of the beheading of a grandmother in the middle of America out of fear of offending Muslims? No, no, trust me — Muslims are offended by this creep’s actions. But if the FBI now is so weakly resorting to political correctness after the beheading on U.S. soil can they really confront the evil that America faces and the threat of copycat killers? I mean, come on.”
Further, after choosing to remain silent and not publicly condemn the beheading or the extremist ideology, President Obama sent an emissary to Oklahoma this weekend to hand-deliver a message from him to the Muslim community. This comes during the Muslim holiday Eid Ul-Adha:
“Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice,” President Barack Obama said.
No word if any message was also hand-delivered to the family of Colleen Hufford.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/6/2014 @ 5:57 pmhe’s a powerful example of a powerful dipstick, this president obama person
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:03 pm“Beading of Colleen Hufford”?
Perhaps beheading. It’s not like she went to Mardi Gras. 🙁
Justin (d83447) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:04 pmI’m not sure what you mean, Justin?
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:06 pmTypo “beading” instead of “beheading” on the first link.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:08 pmThanks. Got it.
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:11 pmBeading–is that what you put around the pockets on your jeans when you’re going to dance on “Soul Train”.
Funeral Guy (afbf7b) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:11 pmI think the president still thinks he’s very smart and is very persuasive. I think he believes that by doing anything he can think of to coddle them and appease them and publicly show respect for Islam it will keep the radicals from blowing up something really big in this country on his watch. He really does not want that to happen. But I would argue that his approach is not working.
elissa (657ad8) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:15 pmI try not to put myself with the Obama is a Muslim crowd, but I’m beginning to think maybe they’re on to something.
Funeral Guy (afbf7b) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:19 pmI think Obama’s daddy was a Muslim. I think Obama’s step-daddy was a Muslim. I think Obama spent his formative years in a Muslim country (Indonesia). I think Obama went to a madrassa while he was there. I think that all the above is true. What do you guys think?
On the other hand, we had the Shrub, in his first speech to Congress after 9/11, call Islam a “great religion”. What Scarborough said.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:32 pmnk, I say “all of the above is true”, as well. Only a fool would discount it.
felipe (40f0f0) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:37 pmThe funny part about all of Obama’s support for Islam is that, according to the Quran, he’s an apostate. Gues what the penalty is opfor apostasy in Islam?
Edoc118 (c37322) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:53 pmFuneral Guy beat me to it. I read the post before clicking on the comments, and I was thinking the exact same thing. I never was part of the “Obama is a secret Muslim” crowd. But if anyone were a secret Muslim they wouldn’t act any differently than Obama already is.
I also agree with elissa, but only to a point. I don’t think even Obama believes his Jedi mind control extends to the radicals and will prevent them from blowing things up in this country. But if they do, Obama believes his powers of persuasion will prevent people from making any connection between said explosion and Islam. The power of the teleprompter compels us to draw no connection.
Except for the racists who only think that Islam had something to do with it (besides the fatwas and Allahu Akhbars) because they can’t stand having a strong black man in the WH. And they’re beyond the pale.
Or so he has convinced himself. I’m increasingly convinced that Barack Obama is only good at convincing himself to buy his own BS. I was reading this post at Powerline concerning an unrelated topic, but part of it I consider very relevant.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/does-obama-secretly-hate-his-own-party.php
It’s been something I’ve been arguing for years, very much against the tide of public opinion. But think about it; how good of a politician would you have to be if you were in Barack Obama’s shoes in 2008? The entire leftist establishment (LHMFM, Hollywood, academia, the Democrats {but I repeat myself]) were covering for Obama. How much politicking did he have to do when you had to vote for the guy or you’re a racist. Historic first black president!
Pretty much the same thing over again in 2012. Plus war on women.
Obama didn’t even need to show up. In fact, his poll numbers improved when he didn’t show up, and instead let everyone else carry his water for him.
Now, people are tired of carrying his water because he’s an obvious failure. All he has left is his outsized faith in his tiny, underwhelming personal skill set.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:56 pmwell in W’s defense, we were much more naive back then, 13 years later, there is no excuse,
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/6/2014 @ 6:56 pmSee, this is what I’m talking about.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2014/10/07/0200000000AEN20141007002600315.html?input=www.tweeter.com
The President Miley Cyrus or his spokesweasels from the freshman dorm model UN will announce that this, like the attack on Benghazi, has nothing to do with any Obama policies. Which hasn’t failed.
Only a racist would make that connection.
Just like only a racist would make any connection between an IS terrorist attack and Islam.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:14 pmobama’s in a difficult position though Mr. 57
everyone’s all saying he’s a crappy president so he wants to prove them wrong but how can he do that when he’s a crappy president?
it’s not fair
people need to learn to accept what they can’t change
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:22 pmWell, I think there is a difference between Islam as taught by its writings and those who apply it authoritatively,
and
the millions and billions of people who call themselves “Muslim”, who have varying degrees of understanding and adherence to that belief/ideology.
I don’t think I would have called it a religion of peace. My Pakistani friends just smiled and shook their heads, “No, it’s not a religion of peace”.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:23 pmBut I think one does need to try to not alienate people who might not want to be alienated.
I don’t know, mosque by mosque, city by city, country by country, how many quiet Muslims agree with the jihadists, and how many disagree with them but do not want to say so out loud because of intimidation
and, I guess, how many may be saying something, but forget our Judeo-Christian hating press mentioning it to us.
I am sure there are, or at least were, many people who considered themselves Muslim but were grateful for US troops who were giving them back their neighborhoods.
TFG is defined by what he doesn’t do as much as by what he does. He is beneath contempt.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:24 pmThe word “Islam” means submission, fer Allah’s sake! It’s right there on the box.
Gazzer (1c79b0) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:30 pmI think Obama’s daddy was a Muslim. I think Obama’s step-daddy was a Muslim. I think Obama spent his formative years in a Muslim country (Indonesia). I think Obama went to a madrassa while he was there. I think that all the above is true. What do you guys think?
That’s a part of his lunacy. But I think it’s related mainly to, for example, the same emotions that triggered so many faculty members and students of Brandeis University to raise a ruckus when an anti-Islamic woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was chosen to be honored and speak at the school.
Observing liberals (if not ultra-liberals) wanting to coddle Ali’s foes, or ultra-reactionary factions of the Islamic world, truly is a window into the form of insanity we’re dealing with.
I’ve tried to think of a comparable version of that form of ass-backwardness among conservatives, if not ultra-conservatives, and the best I can come up with is some of them sympathizing with Vladimer Putin over Obama or perhaps other leaders of the West. But in that case there is at least a bit of sympatico ideology shaping their reaction. Or the fact that Putin espouses support for traditional cultural norms in Russia, or certainly not allowing the rainbow brigade (ie, GLBT activists) to run roughshod in Russia the way it has in Europe and the US.
By contrast, what part of the platform of Sharia Law strikes a happy-face chord among the left throughout the Western World?
Incidentally, George W Bush called Islam a “religion of peace” right after 9-11, perhaps (or hopefully) out of sheer ignorance — as is the case with far too many Americans — of just how ruthless, bloody, vengeful and despotic Islam’s founder Mohammed was.
Mark (c160ec) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:31 pmhis politics were antiWestern, associates like Wright, Khalidi Ayers, even his associates in Pakistan in the 80s
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102063493
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:49 pmThe word “Islam” means submission, fer Allah’s sake! It’s right there on the box.
Gazzer (1c79b0) — 10/6/2014 @ 7:30 pm
Right below the expiration date stamp: jan 20 2013
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:07 pmBig crook Obama
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:11 pmRICO predicate
ten to twenty years
Obama is powerless if you just turn off the display and the audio. And he is only half-powerful if you listen to him. And 60% of America is now turning him off completely. The problem is the pensioners who inhabit our federal bureaucracy. They have all been put on notice that dissent will not be tolerated. Nor will any suggestion that we aren’t on the road to utopia. This country was wealthy in 2008. The question is whether the burn rate will leave us destitute by 2016. Any odds in Vegas on Obama cancelling elections in November due to public health “concerns?”
And for Mark, #19, the attraction of the muslim religion to Liberals is the idea that all muslims are equals (despite the obvious pecking order in any muslim slum, let alone their treatment of women as slightly less valubable than cattle) and their fanatic resolve to eliminate all contrary opinion. The latter is a latent compulsion that fewer and fewer Liberal can resist. Obviously their utopian ideas are only put at risk because some Neanderthals question the wisdom of putting women in the trenchs, or inviting the world to come visit the U. S. by any means possible, as long as they are willing to vote for a Democrat. Or comparing Ebola deaths to bicycle accidents. Or wondering why an assistant secretary of defense would discover that setting up a hospital system in a 3rd world country is a very complex task only after arriving on scene and experiencing the chaos the Obama administration had created.
bobathome (5ccbd8) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:12 pm“The word “Islam” means submission, fer Allah’s sake!”
and assume the position
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:15 pmgo into doggie submission
Wash yer hands three times a day
always do what teh Imam say
You actually make it appear so easy along
web site (5631ca) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:22 pmwith your presentation however I to find this topic to be really something which I think I
would by no means understand. It seems too complex and very
extensive for me. I am taking a look forward to your subsequent put up, I’ll attempt to get the dangle of it!
Gettin’ the dangle… yeah… that’s teh ticket
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:34 pmthere will be no getting of the dangle
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:41 pmThe angle of the dangle is key.
Gazzer (1c79b0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:51 pmDon’t forget, TFG said in one of the books he wrote, yeah yeah, I know, that the nightly call to prayer was the most beautiful sound in the world. Also he able to recite an Arabis prayer with a perfect accent, obviously he had siad it a lot. So, apostate or Trojan horse?
Gazzer (1c79b0) — 10/6/2014 @ 8:56 pm@ MD,
It’s interesting you note this. I tend to agree. And, in light of heated argument between Bill Maher and Ben Affleck regarding this issue, I saw today that the Wonkblog has a post about how both Maher and Affleck were both wrong about Islamic fundamentalism, and this is based on a Pew Reasearch poll. (If you go to the study, the numbers are not really supportive of the “Affleck” take).
Also, on a sort of side note, Maher commented today on the kerfuffle. I know he doesn’t remotely see the hubris and irony in his statement:
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/6/2014 @ 9:14 pmApostate or Trojan horse? Umm, I’ll take “apostate who thinks he can conceal himself as a disguised Trojan horse”, please.
The appeasers have probably not even read Kipling, and they’d surely never agree:
A lesson that can be learnt too late.
htom (412a17) — 10/6/2014 @ 9:16 pmW was deferential towards the MUZZTARD uprising. But he also kicked it’s ass with a vengeance.
Gus (7cc192) — 10/6/2014 @ 9:30 pmLove or hate W, but W tried to keep us safe. Obama is a clown of epic proportions. Obama is a PHUCKING NIGHTMARE. To deny this is clownish. Obama steps on his own teeny tiny dick every single day. Obama is simply a pile of schit.
More info on the firefight between the NORK and ROK navies.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2014/10/07/51/0301000000AEN20141007002700315F.html
The last thing the ROKs want is a repeat of amateur hour when Obama’s Klown Kar Kabinet insisted on passing the buck to the UNSC to deal with the NORK attack on the Cheonan.
Getting back to the “secret Muslim” thing, one thing that always bothered me was when Obama tried to say the parts of the Bible that supported his social engineering were central to his faith and should be accepted as more important than the “obscure” parts of the Bible that condemned his social engineering.
Remember this?
Leaving aside all the other facets of idiocy contained in the above remark, that is not how a Christian would interpret scripture.
No Christian would dismiss any part of the New Testament as “obscure” (especially when it’s as clear as crystal). But it is a very Islamic way to dismiss or ignore the numerous contradictions in the Quran. As a matter of fact when a group of Christians from what is now Yemen posed some questions to Muhammad that completely stumped “the prophet” to the point where he remained silent and refused to answer, Muhammad later claimed this passage was revealed to him in response.
http://quran.com/3/7
You ever get into a debate where you couldn’t think of a good comeback until later when you’re driving home? That was Muhammad here. The Christians had read his Quran back to him, and pointed out that it actually confirmed the divinity of Christ, even though Muslims insisted Jesus was only a prophet and not divine.
That shut Muhammad up at the time. But later, when the debate was over (it wasn’t much of a debate since the Christians rendered Muhammad speechless) and his adversaries safely gone Muhammad came up with what he thought was the perfect comeback. Actually, it was pretty weak.
“Oh, yeah? Well those parts of the Quran that say Christ was divine are “obscure” (or unclear or unspecific depending on the transliteration). The clear parts that I like better are more central to my faith.”
Or, as this transliteration puts it, are the “foundation of the faith.” But the above is how Obama put it. It is a very Muslim way to gloss over a scriptural contradiction you wish would go away.
It’s not the kind of dodge you’d learn from the Jesuits. But it is the kind of dodge you’d learn in an Indonesian Madrassa.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/6/2014 @ 10:10 pm“A house divided cannot stand”.
Gay Crack Whore knows his allies and knows his enemies of his enemy. Friends? He has none.
His lord surveys only slaves.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 10/7/2014 @ 1:58 amwords he is using:
http://weaselzippers.us/201810-no-joke-boston-imam-apologizes-to-al-qaeda-and-isis-for-demonizing-them/
his was the moderate mosque the T Dawgs were thrown out of
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:28 amWhy is anyone surprised at who Commandante Zero believes are his friends, his allies, his compadres, his toadies and who he believes are his enemies? How many more examples are needed to learn who he loves and who he hates?
ErisGuy (76f8a7) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:36 amI’ve been saying since before the 2008 election that Tiger Beat only wanted to become President of his enemies so he could help his anti-American friends.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 7:44 amSteve57 (b50fab) — 10/6/2014 @ 10:10 pm
It’s not the kind of dodge you’d learn from the Jesuits. But it is the kind of dodge you’d learn in an Indonesian Madrassa.
He only got a little bit of religious schooling (he had to be either a Christian or a Moslem apparently, and his mother and his stepfather picked Moslem) in a regular school, not a madrassa.
This was maybe years before Salafi funding was coming in. He probably didn’t learn anything that complicated, as that some passages in the Koran count and others do not.
The ida of ognoring Biblical text does not come from anything Islamic – it’s standard 19th century and laater liberal Christianity
That is: “the Bible is not meant to be taken literally”
And what Obama talkied about was obscure vs not obscure. It probably comes from secularists, not moslems. The phrase he used ina recent speech // “any God” // is not an Islamic phrase.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 11:46 amRe: beheading done by Alton Nolan in Oklahoma:
Well, it was provoked, or its timing wss provoked, by the fact he’d been making racist remarks. One woman complained and he was suspended (not fired)
And then almost immedoately he went back and attacked people.
That’s the very definition of workplace violence.
The first person attacked was someone he encountered, but the second person attacked, whom he did not succeed in killing, was the very person who had lodged a complaint against him.
The epitome of workplace violence.
And the complaint had been about his recial remarks about white people, and nothing about Islam.
He was of course copying ISIS, or Saudi Arabia, and had lately been interested in beheadings. It basically was workplace violence, given an Islamic twist.
Which may have been a good thing, not a bad thing, because he could have killed many more people with a gun.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 11:48 amEarth to Sammy; madrassa is the Arabic word for school. So he attended a madrassa.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:39 pmInterpreting the Bible phenomenologically as opposed to literally is neither “liberal” or “conservative.”
But don’t twist facts; that isn’t what I pointed out. Dismissing entire passages as “obscure” and therefore “not central” to one’s Christian faith is simply not Christian. Here we’re not talking about a matter of interpretation of part of the text. Here we are talking about Obama simply excluding parts of the text of the Bible from consideration.
That isn’t Christian. That’s Muslim.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:44 pmhttp://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/10/07/huge-increase-in-voter-registrations-in-ferguson-apparently-never-happened/
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:44 pmI believe it was a Muslim parochial school — a madrassa. But his whole “biography” is a construct by Ayers and later Axelrod. Maybe mommy gave him dog meat and promised him tiger and maybe Ayers thought that would sell more books. Maybe step-daddy, a Muslim to whom dog is as unclean as pig, allowed it and maybe it’s all smoke and mirrors like Obama himself.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:46 pmSteve, my biggest beef with Northern European Christianity is that it has blurred, if not outright erased, the distinction between clergy and laity. Unordained laymen think because they can read the Gospel they can teach it. And I include both Obama and Phil Robertson in that, and I have to watch that temptation in myself lately. So you have these jackleg interpretations of Scripture from every direction, when they should be coming from your church and from your priest, and religious tolerance says that they’re open to debate. Well, the hell with that, my beliefs are not open to debate unless you tell me from which Greek diocese the bishop who ordained you came from.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:57 pmnk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:46 pm
I believe it was a Muslim parochial school — a madrassa.
It was something like “released time” except that it was part of the school curriciulum, and it was only in one of the two elementary schools he attended in Indonesia.
But his whole “biography” is a construct by Ayers and later Axelrod.
Lots of lies there. He says his father left his mother when he was 2 years old. Actually his mother left his fatehr when he was about 1 or 2 months old and went to Seattle to get away from him. she only came back to Hawaii and her parents after he left. (apparently he hit her)
Maybe mommy gave him dog meat and promised him tiger and maybe Ayers thought that would sell more books.
That detail probably came from Obama and probably is true and probably only happened one time – and it probably was his mother, not his step-father who gave it to him when she took him to vissit some people who ate it.
Maybe step-daddy, a Muslim to whom dog is as unclean as pig, allowed it and maybe it’s all smoke and mirrors like Obama himself.
Nah – she took him on a visit to some people from another culture. There are some people who eat or ate dog meat on special occasions.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:09 pmWell, nk, some problems that the blur of laity and clergy was meant to erase are at least two (my laity thinking here, not even from any protestant clergy):
1) letting the clergy become untrue to Scripture and the laity would not know it
2) reminding the average layperson that the work of the Church is not done only by “professionals”
I think that anyone, clergy or laity, who says that not only did Paul not mean what he said in Romans, but that Romans is an obscure part of the Bible and not central, well, if a member of the clergy said that a congregant, IMO, would be wise to get up and walk out.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:14 pmBut I definitely agree that reading the Bible should first qualify someone to ask intelligent questions and evaluate the answer to “see if these things are so” as the “noble-minded Bereans” did in Acts.
GENERAL BARACK OBAMA, WHERE ARE YOU???
Syria Border Town, Kobani, Falling to ISIS, Leader of Turkey Says
Of course there is Turkey. Shells have come across the border. A massacre is feared.
Aso, it turns out Turkey freed 180 jihadists and tutned them over to ISIS in return for its diplomats. This included two Britons.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:18 pmwe could take a page, from our Moslem Brethren, who perhaps take their faith too literally
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:24 pmThe illiterate Muslims, in the Taliban, are one example. They cite a Koran they do not know how to read.
But I’m thinking that the laity lives in the world, and gets tossed about by its winds and waves, but the Church is supposed to be built on a rock. The Episcopalians have divorced, gay archbishops for crying out loud. The Puritans thought they should live like their ministers. That’s not how I see the respective standards for clergy and laity. They cannot be the same for they don’t live under the same demands.
A small thing, but maybe illustrative. My priest told me that he was not permitted to swear under oath in court. But he never told us that we were not.
A couple of days ago I talked about the Greeks and proselytizing, but the church doors being open to catechumens if not all the way. It reflects a thinking that religion should be taught by professionals, in an established procedure, in a professional setting. You would want a neurosurgeon in a hospital for a brain operation, would you not? Why not the same thing when the operation is on your soul? And now I am probably overstepping the bounds of lay preaching. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:57 pmIt was something like “released time” except that it was part of the school curriciulum, and it was only in one of the two elementary schools he attended in Indonesia.
Sammy, until age eleven I went to school in a country where atheism was illegal and we had to take Christian, Jewish, or Muslim catechism, as part of our school curriculum. So I know how those things work.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:02 pmyes, whereas Papandreou jr, let everything go to pot, so to speak,
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:20 pm50. nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 3:57 pm
The illiterate Muslims, in the Taliban, are one example. They cite a Koran they do not know how to read.
Or if they can read it, they don’t understand it, since it is in Arabic (and one principle of Islam is not to translate the Koran)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:29 pmKing Abdullah: We will eradicate terrorism, religious extremism
Open Letter to al-Baghdadi by 120 Muslim scholars, including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, the dean of Sharia and Law at al-Azhar University, director of the Fiqh Council in the US, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (English version)
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:34 pmnk, the Episcopalian example is a good one for my point. I know someone whose Episcopal congregation a number of years ago refused to allow the visiting bishop to take communion because of some of the liberal stances she took that the congregation and its elders disapproved of. The priest/pastor was out of town that weekend (maybe the bishop was there to fill in, I don’t know), so he had nothing to do with it.
Some things, within the traditions I’m familiar with, like the swearing oaths would be more of a matter of individual conscience, though I think some Mennonites and other Anabaptists would refuse to swear an oath. They put an emphasis that allegiance to the Kingdom of God far outweighs any allegiance to an earthly government (lots of trouble over that one back in the day when European countries were big into enforcing a state church of one type or another).
If I had head trauma I would prefer to be seen by the best neurosurgeon within a 6 hour flight, but, if my choice is nothing and die from a subdural hematoma or a paramedic using a Black and Decker drill, I’ll take the latter.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:39 pmI would see it as more with getting help with your homework. If you are an average 6th grader, you can get help from a smart 6th grader, even more from someone in 7th grade who is good at school, but that does not take the place of a teacher.
I would be more confident, in that letter, if they had textual sourcing, good luck with that,
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:43 pmIn one way one could say that the Apostles were well trained, having been in internship with Jesus for 3 years, but until Paul came along, I don’t know if any of them had any religious training, they were fishermen and tax collectors and such. (Yes, I know some among us dispute whether Paul could have actually had religious training with some of the things he wrote and “said”.)
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 4:43 pmWell, who converted Paul and taught him the Word if not the Apostles? And who wrote two of the Gospels? Let’s say Paul was a more skilled communicator (that St. Peter has been accused by some of not being).
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:11 pmI’m so over Paul I can’t even tell you
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:26 pmSteve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 2:39 pm
Earth to Sammy; madrassa is the Arabic word for school. So he attended a madrassa.
A madrassa is a school that teaches only (or principally) Islamic religious studies.
Shul is derived from a word meaning school, but it doesn’t mean a school – it means a synagogue.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:29 pmPaul was converted, as you remember, by a vision of Jesus directly, with a little follow up by someone named Ananias who I believe was otherwise unknown.
Then he spent a lot of time by himself, actually, thinking it all through based on what he knew of the Scriptures and in prayer. When he finally met the other apostles, it was more to “compare notes” than be taught by them.
Who wrote the Gospels? I believe one Gospel a tax collector, one Gospel a Greek physician, both with education but not religious, a young man who once deserted Paul but was later a faithful helper, and an old fisherman.
feets, Paul would wish that you were as he was, but without the chains.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:42 pmYeah, in Yiddish, which was from the German, which was from the Greek. You actually made me look to see if it was a Hebrew cognate. Synagogue is also a Greek word. What is the Hebrew word for synagogue?
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:45 pmyou can’t know that for sure
happyfeet (a785d5) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:47 pmWell, ok, I won’t argue. I meant that both Matthew and John were Disciples. And, yes, Paul’s vision (there’s room for a pun there) was pivotal, but I have no reason to doubt that he had already heard what the people he was persecuting were preaching, and I think you said that too.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:52 pmNever mind. Beit k’nesset. Should have guessed.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:55 pmI’m not trying to argue either, but if you want to we could perhaps arrange a group visit to the Argument Clinic.
I think we agree that it is a serious thing to undertake to explain the Scriptures, and it should be done with trepidation even when one has training. Some traditions realize that people can be educated and hold official positions and be all wrong, so the average follower of Jesus would do well to know enough to know when he/she is being told something that isn’t valid, even if it is a priest or other professional. From you giving the Episcopalian example, you understand this point as well.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/7/2014 @ 6:04 pmSammy, in Arabic any place of learning is called a madrassa. Whether or not it is associated with a Mosque. Just because Shul is used idiomatically one way in Hebrew does not mean madrassa is used idiomatically the same way in Arabic.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:14 pmPerhaps they do know how to read. But Sammy hits around the nail; they don’t know how to read Arabic. Nor do they know what they’re saying when they cite the Quran. Taliban means of course “students” (talib is singular). And they were students in Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war.
Pakistani madrassas are noted for there excellence in teaching the Quran. But they teach it phonetically. The students have no clue what the sounds they are making mean. They just learn to make the sounds. Apparently Arabic speakers understand what these people are saying even though the people making the noises from memory don’t.
Sammy is wrong; you can transliterate the Quran; it’s just that the transliteration is considered to convey the meaning of the Quran and not the Quran itself. Such transliterations often have titles such as “The Message of the Quran” or “The Meaning of the Quran” and are suitable for religious instruction but not prayer as Allah only understands Arabic so if you pray to him in any other language he has no idea what you’re saying. Many Pakistani madrassa students hope one day to find a transliteration of the Quran into Urdu or Pashto or even English so they can find what the h3ll they’ve been saying all their lives.
It’s all part of the supremacist strain within Islam that makes it so laughable when Obamateurs like Prom Queen or Cameron bloviate that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. ISIS is pure, triple distilled Islam.
Muslims are commanded by their religion to make Islam “uppermost” of all religions in the world. And within Islam, Arabs are the “uppermost” of all the believers. The Quran is inscribed on a tablet in heaven since before creation in Arabic because it’s the most “noble” language of the most “noble” people.
It’s a gang code more than a religion, which is why it’s so popular in prison.
Be that as I may, the point I was making about Obama pronouncing Romans “obscure” is a very Islamic way of approaching scripture. When a passage is inconvenient, simply ignore it. This is not, as Sammy attempted to construe it, a matter of a difference of interpretation. Obama was declaring Romans obscure in order to dismiss it as irrelevant to his faith. He wasn’t interpreting the passage differently; he was declaring it unworthy of interpretation at all.
He was applying the Muslim doctrine of abrogation.
http://quran.com/2/106
“Forget about that obscure passage in Romans,” he was saying, “the Sermon on the Mount is better.”
This doctrine has no place in Christian scholarship.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:46 pm62. nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:45 pm
Beis HaKeneses. Or, if you use the Separdic or modern Hebrew (Israeli) pronunciation, which does not distinguish between a Tuf and Suf – spelled Tuv – Beit Hakenesset.
(The first S in K’nesses a Samech and doesn’t change to a T in modern Hebrew)
This literally means House of Assembly.
This could also be, as a compromise, and possibly at one time more accurate:
Beith – no nobody does that – HaKenesseth.
The Knesset in Israel is based on the same word.
The word synagogue is a Greek word, as is Sanhedrin.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 5:55 pm Beit k’nesset. Should have guessed.
Word for word translation of synagogue. There also used to be a place called Beis Hamidrash – a place where they did darshening – searching, investigation – that is studying. That could be or had been at one time something more – more than a mere place of assembling (for prayer.)
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:14 pm67. Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:14 pm
Sammy, in Arabic any place of learning is called a madrassa. Whether or not it is associated with a Mosque.
But they don’t speak Arabic in Indonesia, but rather a Polynesian language.
Just because Shul is used idiomatically one way in Hebrew does not mean madrassa is used idiomatically the same way in Arabic.
Shul is a Yiddish word pretty much adopted into informal English. And, as I said, they don’t speak Arabic in Indonesia.
And also the question is, what does madrassa mean in English?
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:17 pmSteve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 8:46 pm
But Sammy hits around the nail; they don’t know how to read Arabic.
They might possibly teach them. It’s a phonetic language, although it is a terrible scribble – so much so that 4 letters look exactly the same and need dots to distinguish them. I don’t think they were using those dots in the time of Mohammed. Mohammed may very well have known how to write, but his handwriting surely was atrocious.
These madrassas in Pakistan really really concentrate on boys memorizing the Koran, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t teach them how to read it first.
Nor do they know what they’re saying when they cite the Quran.
Which is the real point. It’s nothing but something like a song ina foreign language.
Taliban means of course “students” (talib is singular). And they were students in Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war.
No, I think they came later. The war was over by 1989.
Pakistani madrassas are noted for there excellence in teaching the Quran. But they teach it phonetically. The students have no clue what the sounds they are making mean. They just learn to make the sounds. Apparently Arabic speakers understand what these people are saying even though the people making the noises from memory don’t.
It’s probably recited in a sing-song way, which separates the words.
Sammy is wrong; you can transliterate the Quran; it’s just that the transliteration is considered to convey the meaning of the Quran and not the Quran itself. Such transliterations
I think you mean translation.
To be in good standing I think a Moslem must at least have the Arabic in the same book.
often have titles such as “The Message of the Quran” or “The Meaning of the Quran” and are suitable for religious instruction
Saying “the message of the Koran” is a loophole to get against the virtual prohibition of translation,
but not prayer as Allah only understands Arabic so if you pray to him in any other language he has no idea what you’re saying.
That’s probably not what they think. It would more be – it is not the same thing as the officially sanctioned prayer.
Some of these things are based on Jewish principles but carry them a little bit further.
Many Pakistani madrassa students hope one day to find a transliteration of the Quran into Urdu or Pashto or even English so they can find what the h3ll they’ve been saying all their lives.
That would be an indication that translation is not approved.
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:29 pmThanks, Sammy.
I didn’t know that about Sanhedrin. It is modified from synedrion. Congress, I suppose. Convention, too.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:38 pmIt’s all part of the supremacist strain within Islam that makes it so laughable when Obamateurs like Prom Queen or Cameron bloviate that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. ISIS is pure, triple distilled Islam.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said on 60 Minutes he doesn’t like the word heresdy but you could call it an Islamic heresy. Now 120 Islamic scholars have come out against what it seems to believe in. Maybe they did it to satisfy President Barack Obama, but they did it.
It’s a gang code more than a religion, which is why it’s so popular in prison.
It works as a gang in prisons.
Be that as I may, the Obama was declaring Romans obscure in order to dismiss it as irrelevant to his faith. He wasn’t interpreting the passage differently; he was declaring it unworthy of interpretation at all.
That’s right, but I don’t think this idea of ignoring some Scripture derives from Islam. It;s more like discarding some scripture anyway.
He was applying the Muslim doctrine of abrogation.
“Forget about that obscure passage in Romans,” he was saying, “the Sermon on the Mount is better.”
This doctrine has no place in Christian scholarship.
Well they do take that approach to the Hebrew Bible, don’t they?
Sammy Finkelman (067111) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:40 pmWell, no, “La ilahu il Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah” is transliterated into English letters, not translated. Steve used the right word.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:41 pmRefer back to my comment #68 regarding the supremacist elements within Islam, particularly the Arab supremacist element.
They don’t speak Arabic in neighboring Malaysia, either (where they speak Malay which is closely related to Bahasa Indonesia, and indeed is a dialect spoken in the archipelago). So why is the Malaysian PM named Dato’ Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak? Why do American Muslim converts adopt Muslim names like Kareem Abdul Jabbar or Muhammad Ali?
There are some 3,000 loan words (and counting) in the Indonesian language that come from the Arabic. And although Arabic speakers are few and far between in Indonesia it is still a Muslim country (the largest by population in the world) and Arabic is “Allah’s language.” Being able to speak Arabic is considered a great achievement, and Arabic speakers are held in high esteem.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:41 pmMadrassa simply means school in English, Sammy. Any school.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:43 pmIt indicates no such thing. You can find transliterations (not translation; look the word up) of the Quran approved for religious instruction by the highest authorities in Islam such as the clerics at Al Azhar university.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:49 pmGreece is officially known as the Hellenic Republic. How would that look if it were not transliterated, nk?
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 9:51 pmO/T, but remember how John Kerry described the administration’s planned response to Assad crossing Obama’s red lines drawn in sand and gassing his own people?
Clearly the Obama administration is bringing this philosophy to bear on ISIS, as the Obama administration conducts unbelievably small air operations against the Islamic extremists. Subtle, nuanced air strikes, completely unnoticeable unless you are a cultured sophisticate like Obama, Kerry, and the rest of the Ivy League Model UN All-Stars who make up the freshman dorm administration.
The fact that ISIS hasn’t noticed as it continues conquer territory as if completely unimpeded in the region, now on the verge of taking the Kurdish town of Kobani, just shows that these brutes never really belonged at a top tier North Eastern liberal arts school. They just can’t appreciate the finer things in life. Like California cuisine, the subtle blend of fruitiness with just a hint of the oaken barrel in a fine Chilean sauvignon blanc, or the elegance of Barack Obama’s barely-there, virtually ethereal precision strikes on its own forces.
Heathens!
I believe Obama should adopt the same tactic with the Islamic state r.e. the success of his plan to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS that he’s taking with the American people r.e. the success of his economic recovery. Berate their intelligence.
It’s all a roaring success, he should tell them, but you idiots are just too stupid to notice. Any moron could drop tons of bombs on ISIS from waves upon wave of B-52s and bomb them back to the stone age (where they’d feel right at home) in a matter of weeks. You know, the kind of morons John Kerry said would get stuck in Iraq in the first place because they couldn’t get accepted by Harvard or Yale…
http://patdollard.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/John-Kerry-Help-us-we-are-stuck-in-IRAQ.jpg
(The kind of morons who would unartfully destroy ISIS with overwhelming force in days if not weeks, thus losing style points among the cognoscenti)
Ahh, but non ami, Barack Obama and John Kerry are not your run of the mill morons! They are morons who’ve been to America’s best schools; artistes. They have turned what would be three to six weeks work, tops, for the great unwashed such as yours truly, and turned it into what Panetta recently announced would be a thirty year war against ISIS (not a thirty year war against radical Islam, but a thirty year war against one rag tag group of radical Islamists, which means we must carefully ration the killing of these people over time or we might run out of them with 29 years left on the clock as relatively speaking there aren’t a lot of them to start with).
So we are clearly not taking an axe to ISIS in some mad rush to destroy them all at once. Any untutored clod could do that (think Sarah Palin). No, we are slowly whittling away at ISIS with a cheese grater one artistic paper-thin layer at a time. Each potential scraping is evaluated at length, slowly, meticulously, then the most microscopic filing is made. Followed by a week of rest at Martha’s Vineyard or perhaps windsurfing or yachting at Cape Cod. Then back to the salt mines! Again, the slow, painstaking analysis of the next tasteful abrasion begins. Then once Obama’s crack team of fiction writers, van drivers, Chicago slum lords, and sorority rush specialists decide where it will be least noticeable the paring away of the barest little curly-cue shaped peel from the the epidermis of ISIS begins afresh. Then, we rest again.
It is a war by and for connoisseurs, community organizers, and Nobel Peace Prize laureates. It’s really a damned shame it has to be against ISIS, who just can’t appreciate the delicate intricacies of the campaign Tiger Beat is waging against them.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/7/2014 @ 10:49 pmAww sweet bejeebus. When I wrote #79 last night I had no idea just how “unbelievably small, limited” and nuanced our bombing campaign against ISIS really was.
Or in other words, I knew it was a stupid waste of time. But I didn’t know how stupidly President Justin Bieber and Secretary of State Seattle Slew were wasting everyone’s time. Then today I read this at Ace:
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=352334
I can hardly wait for the lecture. As recruits flock to ISIS because of their latest victory over the Great Satan, which the Freshman Dorm administration is already trying to deny is any big deal anyway, the former spokes airhead for the Oberlin College Indigenous People’s Day Dance decorating committee will be telling us all how wonderfully everything is going according to plan.
“[B]y the time they (the Obama administration) are ready to turn their attention to Syria, some of the” five thousand members total Prom Queen is planning to arm, train and equip as his “Syrian opposition will be trained enough to tackle ISIS” whose ranks will have swelled from five times Obama’s Syrian opposition’s planned end strength to more like ten times its size as the Islamic State proceeds from victory to victory. Which the spokesweasels will insist each time are no big deal.
The question isn’t what are these people smoking. What aren’t they smoking? “[I]n earnest.”
Can’t you just sense the delicate nuance of it all?
Steve57 (e409e4) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:05 pm-You have the former sec of defense saying that the one is like a college professor who thinks but doesn’t know how to get anything done and is always pushing back against his military advisors,
and that he knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning
-you have the head of southern command talking about “Katy bar the door” when Ebola hits Central America
– And you have the head of the joint chiefs not being too enthusiastic about what we’re doing against ISIS
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/the-dempsey-diagnosis.php
2 senior active military not content to be quiet
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/8/2014 @ 7:16 pmI read that post about Dempsey at Powerline, and yes he does look like a man resigned to defeat.
But then, that was always the goal. Obama doesn’t believe in winning wars. The “citizen of the world” President most especially doesn’t believe in this country winning wars, because we have a bad habit in his blinkered leftist view of indiscriminately waging wars of imperialism and colonialism. If we win wars we’d only be encouraged to do more of the same. We must be brought to heel.
The goal here, as outlined in #79 by John Kerry (when discussing Syria a couple of years back) was to do next to nothing when doing nothing was really the administration’s preferred COA. But domestic political considerations dictated otherwise. So to fool the electorate, Obama decided to do the next best thing to doing nothing. To appear to do something while losing slowly enough to push the issue out of people’s minds until after the mid-term election.
And to then insult everyone by insisting we’re all either too stupid to figure out how wonderfully Obama’s campaign against ISIS is going, or too racist to give him credit for his miraculous success.
Steve57 (e409e4) — 10/8/2014 @ 8:05 pm