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Dear David,

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You ingeniously suggest:

"To keep men on their toes, raise the urinals".

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... and who would clean up the mess ?

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Dear Banjo,

Wise poker players and urinal raisers limit their raises. That's a variant of Ockham's raiser.

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Dear David,

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You wrote:

"Islam was not originally a missionary religion. Early Islam regarded itself as a religion for the Arabs and discouraged their subject peoples from conversion. However, after a while they imitated their Christian opponents. One reason could have been that armies motivated by a righteousness could more eagerly slaughter other human beings"

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History is fairly clear at least on one point: Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was not only a religious leader, but also an aggressive warrior and political leader.

During the 62 years of his lifetime, from 570 to 632, he imposed his new monotheistic religion throughout Eastern Arabia by military conquest, quite ruthlessly in some instances.

Whereas the conversion to Islam of today's largest Islamic nation, Indonesia, appears to be something of a mystery.

According to the historians, Islam penetrated Indonesian society in a largely peaceful way. It seems that from the 14th century to the end of the 19th century there was almost no organised Muslim missionary activity.

Prior to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and animist religions were the predominant religions in the region.

The best guess seems to be that Islam was brought into Indonesia mainly by traders from India during the eleventh century, though some Muslims had already visited the country earlier in the Islamic era.

I read somewhere that "magic" is thought to have played an important role in the appeal of the new religion to the indiginous Indonesians at the time. Also, that the local royalty were among the first to be converted, creating a watershed effect throughout the country.

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Dear David,

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"Wise poker players and urinal raisers limit their raises. That's a variant of Ockham's raiser".

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Sounds pretty dangerous to me. I think I prefer Russian roulette.

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Banjo - History is fairly clear at least on one point: Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was not only a religious leader, but also an aggressive warrior and political leader.

Possibly nit-picking, but Islam can be traced much further back than Mohammad. The first 'islamic' was arguably Ishmael, the illegitimate 'wild man' son of Abraham. As a mosaic religion, the root of islam is actually Moses (of the Ten Commandments & so on). The extent of the animosity between islamics and jews is interesting considering their common origins.

Dear Banjo,

Mohammed did impose his religion on the Arabs. However early Islam was regarded as a religion only for Arabs. North Africa was not populated by Arabs. The Egyptians were Hamites and further west the inhabitants of North Africa were largely Berbers. Both peoples have had Arab culture, religion and language superimposed on them after the Arab conquest. I visited Morocco. Most Moroccans learn Arabic in their religious schools, French in their secular schools and speak Berber at home.

Chinese Muslim missionaries and traders converted some of the Indonesians to Islam. It was a number of separate kingdoms. Some such as Bali are still Hindu. Indonesia recognises five religions - Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity.

Jesus Christ was a Jew not a Christian. His followers reject his religion. As the song goes which I wrote and sang to the tune of the old jazz standard on 4zzz goes:

Six feet two,
Eyes of blue,
Jesus Christ,
He was a Jew.
Has anybody seen my lord?

Big hooked nose,
There he goes
Preaching so that
Everyone knows
Has anybody seen my lord?

Speared in the abdomen
By a Roman
Blood gushing out
Rose from the dead
So it is said.
People believe without a doubt.

Jesus died
Still a Jew
Still a Jew
So why aren't you?
Has anybody seen my lord?