From: mucit@cs.rochester.edu (Bulent Murtezaoglu)
Subject: Re: A question
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Rochester
Date: 26 Jan 93 12:05:54

In article <30777@castle.ed.ac.uk> emev02@castle.ed.ac.uk (H Oral) writes:
> In article <MUCIT.93Jan24155646@slate.cs.rochester.edu> mucit@cs.rochester.edu (Bulent Murtezaoglu) writes:
[stuff deleted]
>>A disturbing number of
>>people seem to want to ban the expression of whatever set of ideas they are
>>against, and some others resort to associating disagreement with their
>>set of taboos with treachery and sacrilege.  
>
> In an earlier posting I asked you to be careful when you extract opinions
> quickly.  Because when you try to summarise a whole into a few words
> you can not do a justice in some cases.  For example when you talk about
> Islam and the values that stands with it.

I don't think I explicitly mentioned Islam in the above quote.  But let's
not bicker.

> Remember the experience of the Prophet(pbuh) 13 years in Mekka. He 
> beared patiently and reasoned with everyone in the best way.  This
> is the example for a Muslim. 

Well, there wasn't much else he could do then, was there?  From what I
remember from history, reasoning got complemented with wars when he had
an army.  Am I wrong?

> He was even stoned
> and still wished Mercy for his persecutors (refer to the incident
> of Taif).  

:) (<- "stoned" has other meanings around here)

[stuff deleted]

>>This pattern seems to prevail
>>across "party lines" as evidenced by the assertions that one needs to 
>>buy into the hard-line approach to Islam to even be considered a decent
>
> "hard-line approach"..?  In the Islamic terminology there are only:
>  -Muslim
>  -Mu'min
>  -Muhsin
>  -Muqarrab
>  -going upward
>
>  and
>  -fasiq
>  -kafir
>  -munafik
>  going downward
>
>  If I forget something please let me know.  But could you tell me
>  where the hard-liner stands, and "soft-liner stands, and moderate-liner
>  stands? :-)

I obviously wasn't using Islamic terminology.  The hard-line approach
I was referring to is stuff like "kill Rushdie", "salaam only to Muslims",
"down w/ secular government" etc.
Call it whatever you wish.  

> Since we are talking about Islam, it will be better if we could use
> its own terminology.  That way we may understand better inshallah.
> Otherwise it will be like trying to use chemical terminology to understand
> law.

I don't buy this.  You can't talk _about_ chemistry using the language
of chemistry.  All this, however, is beside the point as I wasn't
talking about Islam, but people.

[I believe some of my posting got deleted here.]

>> In other words, what characteristics of our culture are conducive 
>>to intolerance and blind faith?
>
> Lack of education!

That's too vague, and really doesn't say much as stated. Recall that 
I was referring to some postings from Ph.D. candidates in the original
text.  What kind of education do you have in mind?  I doubt one can say
"lack of education" is a characteristic of our culture.  It clearly isn't --
people try to get as much "education" as their means permit.  I suspect
what you meant was that education that can be gotten in Turkey doesn't do 
much to encourage/instill tolerance and skepticism.  Was that what you meant?

>> Remember the first word of the revelation?
>> But let not servants of Satan be your teachers, because they will misguide you.

Surely, if there's enough of an element of skepticism in one's way of thinking,
one will not hesitate to question his teachers.  Unless, that is,
well founded skepticism is seen as work of Satan.

>(Hakki, is this usage right?  if not, why?)

If this is the guy who was talking about Mark's mom before
he got into my kill file, I wonder why you think he's an authority on
word usage?  But maybe you don't.

[stuff deleted]

>>What do you think?
>
> I think you have analysed it wonderfully, however it lacks the guidance.

Thank you, I didn't mean it as an analysis though.  I thought I could see
a disturbing pattern of behaviour and and asked for opinions.  

[sig.'s deleted]

cheers,

BM
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish