Laurie... please refer to Justins accurate understanding of my rather sympathetic and benign purpose. He wistfully longs for the ‘good old days’ of the village. We also do. But his and ours may not be compatable.

I was simply showing that the piccy Bashir was painting, while beautiful, is not the wider picture of real life.

FYI, there was a little girl in Malaysia, met her when she was just 10. Was brought to our recording studio by others from her tribe (Kadazan) and they told me this kid can sing reallllly well! I looked at her. Dressed in rags, dirty face, no shoes, straggly hair, and thought “yeah, sure”...but gave her a go. By the time she had finished a few bars there was hardly a dry eye in the studio (and their were lots of eyes). We invested a lotttt of time and effort in developing her naturally angelic voice. People were moved wherever they heard her in Malaysia. We took her on tour. On the last time prior to us returning back to Australia, my wife and I were at a central village, and she was quite upset that we were going, she insisted to her parents on sleeping beside us. She was like a second daughter. Later, she came to Australia, to Sydney Uni, (she is a very bright girl) after being fast-tracked by the Malaysian government. She spoke of vigorous involvement in Student Christian actiivities. Went back to Sabah, and guess what ? married a Muslim !

To say I was shocked and saddened would be an understatement of the century. But to suggest I have anything but enduring love and affection for her and lift her before the Lord in prayer would be to totally misunderstand what it means to have a relationship with Christ, as you appear to do.

Do you remember the story Jesus told of the lost sheep ? The shepherd lovingly searched everywhere for it.

F.H. Not trying to mislead, just making a point about how such an idylic picture is not the full story. Thanx for the reminder though.

Bashir Goth - thank you for creating a thing of beauty, which, for a little while transported me above all the dross and drivel which passes for debate by the usual culprits on OLO.

I am sure with your poetic talents that you will be able to pass on something of the spirit of your celebrations to your son. And hopefully he will pass on these sentiments to his children.

Fundamentalism of all religious persuasions will eventually burn it self - dogma by its nature is self-destructive.

Peace to all.

Meredith,

I am not saying fatwa is a publicity stunt I am saying the weight and emphasis of the word fatwa is the stunt.

Fatwa, as seen by muslims is an opinion by a mere mortal that is not relevant to faith.
It is not a ‘must carry out papal creed’. There are lots of fatwas to ban smoking and yet 3 or 4 of every 5 Muslims do smoke.

Do you see the difference?

Next posting on my blog will be related to that:

www.musliminsight.blogspot.com

Scout,

“Fundamentalism of all religious persuasions will eventually burn it self - dogma by its nature is self-destructive”

Agree,

Utopia always missed an important part: the hate island.
It is surrounded by sharks and visas are only granted to war mongers and promoters of hate (there is probably a million or so in the world). Unlike Tom Hanks movie, there are no trees or fresh water but one bottle of water and a loaf of bread. No post office and all mail coming from Hate Island must be stamped with RTS.

Good post F-H.

Every time any Muslim asks an Imam or Shaykh a question they give a "fatwa". It is just an Islamic legal opinion, generally non-binding in nature - especially in the Western context.

I remember seeing the interview with the Nigerian christian woman wrote the article about Muhammad there, that eventually led to riots. She too was talking about having a "fatwa" against her. Afterwards, there was a live chat online at the website and I joined in.

I asked her "How do you feel knowing that many of the Muslim scholars in Nigeria actually gave Fatwa saying that you shoud not be killed?" That "Specifically that they gave 'fatwa' to disregard the crazed rantings of extremist lunatics there calling for your death, and protecting your rights."

She, of course, didn't reply to my questions and instead carried on with all the self-congratulatory stuff there.

FH

I commented:

“I think islamists need to rethink their approach, by understanding and curtailing to freedom of religion for a start. It can be “troublesome” to say the least to leave islam, many muslims don’t for this reason, for the islamic councils to create an apostasy protection org would be a good beginning.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali ex-Muslim and critic of Islam, labelled an apostate by the assasinated film director Theo van Gogh with whom she colloborated in making the film Submission
Salman Rushdie Accused of being an apostate of Islam by Ruhollah Khomeini due to the publication of his book The Satanic Verses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#Islam
The Muslim/s who helped with the recent terror raids should be able to be commended, as just being vocal is useless from spokespeople of a religion whom is terrifying the westeen world.”
Posted by meredith, Saturday, 19 November 2005 3:41:04 PM
You resonded:

"I have no comments on 'fatwa fame writers' like Rushdie, Manji and others. The fatwa is usually a markting tool to boost their sale. they are all alive and well with 20 y.o. fatwas."
Posted by Fellow_Human, Saturday, 19 November 2005 4:27:44 PM
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3844

Yes. I know what pointing you are FH and it's garbage. Stop mincing words will you. We both know it’s evasive to take the conversation from murdered or threatened apostates to “smoking cigarettes”.
The difference between smoking and death threats/dead people is vast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28film_director%29

Then again be yourself, its educational for Australians to see a “moderate” in action

What a beautiful, evocative piece of prose! I recommend people following the link to read the whole piece. Life has changed for all of us in the last forty years, but none so much as those living traditional lives now being swamped by globalisation, war, politics and famine. (Excuse four cliches in one breath)