So ... it's final? {aka After the Fatwa!}
posted by Zakintosh at 10/30/2007 06:26:00 AM
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
About Me
- Name: Zakintosh
- Location: Karachi, Pakistan
They laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at them because they are all the same.
recommended links
- Wanna Indulge?
- School Horror Stories
- The Second Floor
- Meanderings
- In The Line of Wire
- Silsila-e-Mah-o-Saal
- Cherry, we miss you
- Tarun's Baby
- Tehelka Special
-
- 3QD
- Blogging the Bible
- Beat the Blogbans
- YaGooHoogle!
- DogPile
- Literary Treasure-Chest
- Change This
- Understanding Evolution
- Centre for Science Education
- And Darkness was upon the Face of the Earth
words of wisdom
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Bertrand Russell
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Noam Chomsky
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein
Each century seems to take on a particular character as we view it in retrospect. How will the 20th Century be remembered? My guess is that this dramatic span of 100 years will ultimately be marked not by computers or the Internet, but by the drive toward individual freedom, the breaking of human barriers of prejudice, and the opening of society to include all people.
John S. Spong
DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Max Ehrmann
3 Comments:
i didn’t get the title of this post, but the rising incidence of beheading is a truly frightening development (i wouldn’t have thought i could be further terrified by incidents of violence motivated by quasi-religious -- or any other sort of -- zeal!)
islamic scholars (or at least those better read than myself) can expound on the development of beheading in muslim history. the scary thing for me is the way in which bombastic religiose [sic] groups keep upping the ante in the striking-fear-through-the-hearts-of-men stakes. as if they have think tanks working on cutting-edge (if you’ll pardon the utterly tasteless, though unintended, pun) terror theories. conspiracy theorists might even say it seems like experts from humanitarian organisations like the kgb or mossad (renowned for their fear-inspiring techniques) have been training the *so-called* jihadis in these ways.
to my mind, the prospect of death by beaheading is so much more terrifying than, say, shooting, or poisoning, or even, dare i say, bomb-blasting. and that’s not just from having watched a few of the (film and tv) episodes of “the highlander” series.
that the people running the *so-called* jihadi groups have little to do with wanting to spread islam has been proven by their methodologies. they are just another example of mankind’s intrinsic animalistic and barbaric tendencies (something that religious and humanitarian theories have attempted, with some success, to curb throughout history), and reinforce my belief that human instincts have not fundamentally changed in thousands of years.
what scares me even more is that the world is becoming polarised into those who use violence (seemingly) motivated by religious or cultural zeal on the one hand, and those who use violence (seemingly) motivated by a desire to combat the first group on the other. or as the stealer’s wheel song goes, “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here i am stuck in the middle with you.” (try getting michael madsen’s brilliantly manic two-step from reservoir dogs out of your head.)
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btw, the lady in the picture looks like someone out of a spiderman comic.
30 October, 2007 11:24
good graphics...simply conveyed the point...
30 October, 2007 14:11
I thought it was going to be the "last man standing", reference to the short story in Nature 434, 420 (17 March 2005).
But a lady might as well be, you do have a point.
30 October, 2007 23:53
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