Explainer: Nietzsche, nihilism and reasons to be cheerful Jamie Parr, Australian Catholic University German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is sometimes dismissed as a malevolent figure, obsessed with the problem of nihilism and the “death of God”. Understandably, these ideas are unsettling: … Continue reading Nietzsche’s Jihad for Questioning
Katherine O’Lone, University of Cambridge and Julian Hargreaves, University of Cambridge An estimated 84% of the global population identifies with a religion. This is over 6.5 billion people. Among thousands of world religions, Christianity is the largest, with 2.3 billion … Continue reading Bringing people of different faiths together to solve the world’s problems is a noble goal – but it’s hard to know what it achieves
Mayflower 400 Polly Ha, University of East Anglia They were enemies of the state – religious malcontents and political subversives. This left England’s most radical puritans with just two options under Tudor treason law (besides execution, of course): either shut … Continue reading Were the Pilgrims asylum seekers or subversives?
Sarah R. Olutola, Lakehead University Rapper and pop singer Nicki Minaj made headlines after her Sept. 13 tweet about her as-of-yet unidentified cousin’s friend in Trinidad, who was dumped at the altar by his wife-to-be because “the vaccine” — presumably for COVID-19 — allegedly made his testicles swell. Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister said two days later the claim was debunked after being investigated. MSNBC political commentator Joy Reid expressed concern for Minaj’s 22 million Twitter followers, arguing Minaj used her platform “to put people in the position of dying from a disease they don’t have to die from.” Speaking … Continue reading Nicki Minaj’s COVID-19 vaccine tweet about swollen testicles signals the dangers of celebrity misinformation and fandom
Soon, there will be more atheists and agnostics than Christians. Of those aged 18 to 35, three in 10 say they are not affiliated with any religion, while only half are “absolutely certain” a god exists. These are at or near the highest levels of religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the 25 years thePew Research Center has been polling on these topics. As encouraging as this data is for secular humanists, the actual numbers may be significantly higher, as columnist Tina Dupuy observes. “When it comes to self-reporting religious devotion Americans cannot be trusted. We under-estimate our calories, over-state our … Continue reading Christian Right Has Major Role in Hastening Decline of Religion in America
Religion as a Tool for Social Control Authority Tell a young child that they must not do something, and the inevitable response is ‘Why?’ In its infancy, human civilisation was no different. Rulers ascended to positions of power, and created laws for all their people to follow. But why should they be obeyed? What makes their laws better than your own? It is possible to compel compliance with the laws through law enforcement alone. Set a few harsh examples, and the people will fall in line. But all this really accomplishes is to convince the people to be more careful … Continue reading Is Religion A Tool Of Social Control?
Religion has nothing to do with the matter While Jinnah had called for not being frightened by public opinion created in the name of religion, the country he founded is in a perpetual state of fear in the face of religious agitation. Yasser Latif Hamdani March 17, 2014 The father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, speaking on September 11, 1929, said: “If we are going to allow ourselves to be influenced by public opinion that can be created in the name of religion when we know religion has nothing to do with the matter, we must have the courage … Continue reading Religion is manipulated and used by politicians to control – nothing else
Originally posted on Paul Salahuddin Armstrong:
By Paul Salahuddin Armstrong As Muslims approach Eid al Adha, we are reminded of the life of a great man, prophet, patriarch and friend of God. We are of course talking about the prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, the father of monotheistic faith, later to evolve into Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I was inspired to write, after reading through an interesting article I recieved about Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, on Chabad.org, about the nature of Abraham’s religion, from a Jewish perspective. One thing that immediately struck me, was how similar this… Continue reading A Jewish view of Abraham, compared with that of Islam.
Source: paulsarmstrong.com Continue reading Quranic Insights into London 2012
By Paul Salahuddin Armstrong
Co-Director, AOBM
“A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city.
But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero, from a speech to the Roman Senate.
Today there are some within the Muslim community (ummat ul momineen), who blame all our problems on others; be it America or Israel, consumerism or globalisation, communism or capitalism etc. While all this time, we’re not facing up to the fact that many of the problems our community faces, are self-inflicted! There are some calling for jihad, yet they neglect the real jihad – jihad means struggle or striving, although there are some who only interpret it as warfare!
Mohammed Abbasi 