From: seyyed@wuee1.wustl.edu (Seyyed Mahdavian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: javAd Agha is angry again!
Date: 29 Sep 92 14:20:52 GMT
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis Mo.

In article <28600017@hplred.HP.COM> moussavi@hplred.HP.COM (Farshid Moussavi) writes:

>How do you know so much about other people?

Qur'an talks a lot about your kind:"Sommon, bokmon, omyon, wa hom la ya'ghelun"
I look at your behaviour and reasoning and compare to Qur'an. That's how I
know.

>Hasn't Islam taught you anything about being humble?

Islam has taught me to be humble with those who are humble and be hard
with those who oppress. It simply doesn't make sense to be humble with
an arrogant guy or with an oppressor.

>are all 'bandeh' or servants to God, 

You spoke the truth here.

>                                     that doesn't make us God to non-Muslims, 
>giving ourselves the power to pass judgement on them so easily.

Not so easily.

>There you go again, drawing conclusions...
>I never condemened the entire country of England.  I just said that a law
>which protects only one religious institution from insults and not others
>is dumb.  So, I expressed my disagreement with only ONE law.  At least I am 
>allowed to express this in England.

You see, I am not drawing conclusions "so easily". Your problem is that you
don't think enough about the meaning of your statements. Yes, obviously
you didn't say:"I hereby condemn all people in England, period." but you
didn't think that a law is not passed "just like this". Several intellectual
members of the parliament have voted to it! And I see no demonstrations in
the streets of London against that law, so it is consistent with the opinion
of a vast majority of English people.

>>   and you call their law "a dumb law" (I would say you have insulted all
>>   british citizens), and you have no reference except your humble opinion.
>
>Oh, great, now you "would say that I have insulted all british citizens".
>I'll leave that for the British citizens to decide, and I trust that even
>if they agree with you, they won't kill me.

Go write "a book" against Christianity in England if you dare.

>>2) You implicitely accept that insulting the religious believes of more than
>>   1 billion people needs some kind of punishment, but it shouldn't be death.
>
>No, I never accepted such a thing. I don't subscribe to such medieval teachings.

Then I must say that you have a very poor logic. By answering my questions
in my previous article, you accepted that punishment is not just for
"physical harming" and sometimes is necessary for someone who "talks"
or "writes" or "refuses to do go to war". Later, you accepted that a racist
guy who insults a nation, must be punished. Indeed, if I publish "a book"
writing racist arguments in it, I will be prosecuted in the US. (Or maybe
you want to say that this is another dumb law?!)

>>   Well, it's just that we have our own law. We don't have to follow the
>>   law that you suggest. If I kill a lamb, say for "eyde ghorban" in public
>>   in the streets of London, according to our law, I have not done anything
>>   wrong, but according to English law, I will be prosecuted. On the other
>>   hand, they don't have any punishment for adultery or homosexuality, while
>>   we do. We respect their law in that we do not do anything against it (this is
>>   an implicit agreement while we are seeking VISA), we expect them to
>>   respect our law too. 
>
>Even in their own land?
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Did you know that Iran recently had to pay millions of dollars fine, because
some people republished copyrighted american books without the consent of
the original publisher ON THEIR OWN LAND IRAN, even though Iran never signed
the copyright law agreement. Don't need to answer, I know, It's just another
"dumb law".

>Verbally attacking someone is hardly a crime punishable by death.
                    ^^^^^^^
Agreed. It is not even worth answering.

>Goebbels and Himmler would have loved you.  Actually, Pinochet in Chile is
>a little on the defensive, and maybe you could still help him...

Thanks for offering me a job. But no, thanks!

>The confusion is yours, because I said people have EQUAL RIGHTS.

Well, I didn't read carefully your article, but I doubt you "wrote" that.
Maybe you "meant" that. However this is true and I agree 99%  :-)
The 1% being: "If they don't abuse their rights".

>Agha Javad

Seyyed.

p.s. : I would like to remind you that because of the "book" that Rushdie
       "wrote", several innocent people got killed in Pakistan!
p.p.s.: Please excuse me if I don't answer your articles anymore, my
        advisor will "kill" me if I don't finish my job on time.