Boaz, Coach and the fellowship:

I was reading this interesting article by an Israeli regarding the 1969 fire.

"In the morning of August 21, 1969, a fire at Masjid al-Aqsa, the al-Aqsa Mosque opposite the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, gutted the southeastern wing of the mosque. By the following day, it become apparent that a non-Jewish tourist from Australia was responsible for the blaze. On August 23, Dennis Michael Rohan was arrested for arson, suspected of starting the fire. Rohan was an Australian Protestant follower of an evangelical sect known as the Church of God. By his own admission, Rohan hoped to hasten the coming of the Messiah by burning down the al-Aqsa Mosque. Rohan told the court that he acted as "the Lord's emissary" on divine instructions, in accordance with the Book of Zechariah, and that he had tried to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque in order to rebuild the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. He was hospitalized in a mental institution, found to be insane and was later deported from Israel."

So do you guys subscribe to the fruitloops fellowship?

Oliver,

Very good question..Coach is good at only casting stones at others.

BOAZ-David,

It is NOT a very fine line between "the sacrament of indulgence" (as you so erroneously put it) being a sacrament and being closely linked with one. You have no idea of what a sacrament is so do not use the word. You're trying to squirm your way out of making a huge blunder.

The desperation is obvious in Irfan's article. His cheap insults to those who post here with the 'wrong view', i.e, against his, reflect this desperation further.

I can end that Irfan, all you have to do is answer a few simple questions - I know you won't because you actually can't, if you want to remain a Muslim that is.

To liken the two leaders situations is deceiving, immoral. How are they similar? You yourself know that the standards westerners hold themselves to regarding figures in public office are unrivaled anywhere on the planet.

You know that if Pell said anything even remotely like the vile, homophobic misoginistic racist that is the LEADER of the Islamic community (still haven't seen any protests to have him removed by the way, or boycotts of his hate mosque. I hope you don't still go there Irfan, you probably never did anyway. Yes, I know about how mosques, even in Australia, are bitterly divided along ethnic lines - best put by youth leader Fadhi Rahman, who stated in an interview with ABC's Religion Report that a "Pakistani wouldn't be welcome at Lakemba mosque, as it's a Lebanese mosque. Only if he was an Imam would he be welcomed" which sounds strange coming from someone who apparently is opposed to racism.

This is how bad the discourse has become though, so unreal. We've seen vile rednecks proclaiming racism for merely commenting about their insane redneckism!

We see Muslims vomiting up nonsense about backlashes even though after terrorist attacks the media reports only on churches that have been attacked, usually burnt, occassionally shot at, always with harrassing calls by self-proclaimed Islamists beforehand.

The bulk of the Islamic community support Hilali, we saw this with the rally organised to support him, and how there are no boycotts of the Lakemba mosque, where his, and others, hateful xenophobia is preached to willing ears - a largely bigoted audience...

...We see it in never ending polls about how most Muslims want to live under the literally, evil laws that make up Sharia.

The Irfan's can't stand the Hirsi Ali's because she questions the fundamental beliefs of Muslims, how they are against democracy, the utter barbarity of child brides (and I've heard Muslims comment about paedophilia in the church! Muslims have sanctioned it!)
If Irfan was truly moderate he wouldn't be against this questioning, he'd be standing right next to her.

No matter how much you try to cover up discussions about how women are slaves in Islam, how Islam is nothing more than Arab imperialism -have to take an Arabic name upon becoming Muslim, have to bow to Arabia five times a day, and have to pray in Arabic, recite some Koranic passages in Arabic, and other backward aspects of Islam.

The prophet's life will continue to be examined, his actions of murder, paedophilia, robbery, will continue to be looked at by those brave enough to do so.

Everything you need to know about Muslims is revealed in the fact that even here in Australia, where Muslims make up less than 1%, one's life would be in danger if they spoke on such issues.

NEVER WITH ANY OTHER GROUP HAS THIS BEEN THE CASE. Muslims are so afraid to debate they resort to violence. But the worst part is that those like Irfan, which aren't radical, are so desperate to hold onto their values they join the herd, even though they know the values are wrong - shown by default of them moving to liberal western democracies built on yes, the JUDEO-CHRISTIAN values.

Muslim values have no part of a civilised country, and unless drastically reformed, can't.

I've noticed Irfan's writings here and wonder what his true stance is.

Can you tell us Irfan as it's rather confused. You sound angry and aggressive most of the time yet seem to claim religion as part of your life. How does that fit with what you write Irfan? Seriously, I'm asking.

I'm amazed though at some of your statements in this item. Firstly you claim that there are "media assaults on religious communities". Is it not appropriate that the media does focus on an area where zealots, fanatics and "nutters" accumulate?

Let's mention the Catholic church and their penchant for harbouring paedophiles. Anyone heard of the Spanish Inqusition? These are the methods used by these religions. Secrecy, torture, bullying and child sexual assaults. Now that's a real assault Irfan.

I'm also a believer in my own spiritual place in life but I don't feel the need to "assault" any group.

Over the last 2000 years all people have been continually bombarded by promises of heaven, enlightenment, nirvana, and all the rest of the promises. 2000 years of that assault Irfan. With no delivery at all. None.

It's time these religions were "assaulted" if you like to determine who is actually serious about their beliefs. When these religious groups start acting according to their preaching we might start listening. Until then....they are simply political groups. Nothing more.

Irfan wrote:

>>Religion and state separated after the Prophet Muhammad's passing.>>

Well that explains a lot. Now I understand why Europe became a stagnant theocratic excrement hole while the democratic Ottoman Empire went on to develop a scientific culture.

It is thanks to the work of the great Muslim scholars Nasir bin Koppernigk and Yahya bin Kepler that we learned that the Earth was a planet that moved around the sun in an ellipse. They overthrew the old geocentric cosmology. Their work was based on the observations of Taqi Al-Din whose observatory was not destroyed by Janissaries on order of the Mufti in the 1570s. In fact in the democratic free-thinking Ottoman Empire there was no such thing as Janissaries.

Of course they were helped by the Muslim scientist Galal bin Galilei who founded the science of physics and invented the astronomical telescope.

Your namesake, the aptly named Irfan bin Newton, built on the work of the great bin Galilei in giving us a rigorous theory of dynamics and a theory of gravity that lasted until Ali bin Einstein came up with general relativity.

Obviously only in a free thinking society where religion and state were separated could a great thinker like Khaled bin Darwin publish his Origin of the Species.

Now we understand why the Ottoman Empire was able to defeat the kafir Europeans, conquer North and South America and build the International Space Station in which they kindly allow a few kafirs to participate.

Now we truly understand why so many Arabs win science Nobels while hardly any Jews do. One of the most recent is the great Anwar Bin Fire whose discovery of RNA interference looks like giving rise to a whole new class of therapeutics. He works in the North American part of Dar-ul-Islam.

See:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2006/

He shared the prize with Khaled bin Mello.

BTW Irfan I have a collection of bridges for sale. The collection includes the Brooklyn Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge and Melbourne's Westgate & Bolte bridges. $20 million gets you the lot.

Interested?