HOW TO ERADICATE RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM - PEACEFULLY, EFFICIENTLY AND PERMANENTLY

 

OutSyed The Box

Saturday, August 31, 2024

HOW TO ERADICATE RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM - PEACEFULLY, EFFICIENTLY AND PERMANENTLY

HOW TO ERADICATE RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM - PEACEFULLY, EFFICIENTLY AND PERMANENTLY

• It begins with the important fact that religion is not based on any logic, evidence or scientific proof.  
• Religion is nothing more than 'What I tell you'. 
• This is Rule No. 1. 
• Keep this in mind.
  

And the most dangerous religion-killer in the entire universe are just three letters, WHY? 

• As I have said before, let the fellow talk for half an hour. 
• Then just ask him WHY?  
• After he has finished answering, ask him again WHY? 
• You keep repeating WHY and they will run away from you. 
• Because they cannot answer WHY.
  

• This simple word "WHY" is a religion killer. 
• It is the silver bullet.  

(The term "silver bullet" evokes a potent image: a single, decisive solution that vanquishes a seemingly insurmountable problem. This powerful metaphor has roots in folklore, particularly the legend of the werewolf. In countless stories, a silver bullet is the only weapon capable of slaying the mythical beast.)

Do you see why they thought up things like Sedition Acts, Blasphemy Laws, Les Majeste laws etc. To keep people like me safely locked up, away from them.

Sometime ago I got into an online conversation with some religious people from Texas (?) USA. They were Mat Sallehs.  They were trying to convince me of all their virtues. (There were NONE). I let them say what they wanted, then I posted the silver bullet  : WHY? I kept repeating this. After just a couple of days (there was a group of them, against me just one person) they were all at their wits end. They could not answer.

• Folks, you should all try this. 
• Just as an honest experiment. 
• Ask them WHY?  
• Three simple letters W..H..Y.. which can slay any werewolf.

I digress. OK back to the topic.

In his brief and really powerful book 'Power', Bertrand Russel the 20th century British philosopher and genius of logic, described both the priests (religion) and the kings (monarchy) as being sustained by the "power of tradition".  (I also read it as the "power of suggestion").

Russel pointed out that the priests (religion) and the kings (monarchy) have no real power over anything.   Some people simply hold them in awe, it is just a tradition which the ordinary people followed - without questioning WHY. But that was enough for the priests and kings to cari makan.

At least the kings used to have soldiers who could kill you if you did not pay taxes to the king. But even that was not always the case. Often the kings borrowed money and borrowed soldiers from their nobles. This is why throughout history, so many kings 'lost their heads'. 

But the priests of religion survived purely on hocus pocus. Theirs was purely the power of suggestion. 'If you do not obey me, you will suffer eternal damnation' (WHY?)

Not only could the priests NOT explain WHY but they could not provide any scientific proofs for their threats. 

• This is why religion has never had a permanent grip on the human mind. 
• What do I mean by this? 
• New religions keep popping up here and there, all the time throughout history. 
• In Egypt they used to worship crocodiles. 

And each time a new religion pops up, it will take away some market share (aka believers) from other religions. Every religion claims a monopoly over truth but no religion can claim a monopoly over the entire human race. There is no such thing.

 ll وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَٰكِن يُضِلُّ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَلَتُسْأَلُنَّ عَمَّا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ ll

which means :  (Sahih International  Surah 16:93 - 'And if Allah had willed, He could have made you [of] one religion, but He causes to stray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And you will surely be questioned about what you used to do.')

Therefore to insist on this idea called "one religion" or "one community" is just not going to be a 'happening thing'. 

And herein lies the solution how to eradicate religious extremism. 

• Just let everyone speak their minds about religion. 
• Just let them all talk.
• They will all cancel each other out. 
• Its just 'my hocus pocus versus your hocus pocus'.  
• Throw in a few WHYs here and there and the solution will be final. 
• Religious extremism will go away. 

Recall that video  I posted recently where the mufti of Perlis sort of crashed into some panel discussion and quite obviously contradicted the Panel members. It was an awkward moment. But if you can watch that video again, pay attention to the people in the audience. They all look confused. Why? Because they could see one "religious expert" disagreeing and contradicting another "religious expert".  If this keeps up, eventually the people will lose interest in all these so called 'religious experts'. The people will realise that they do not gain anything from listening to these fellows bickering among themselves.

• This is what I mean when I say let everyone speak freely.
• Its a one way street. 
• They will end up nowhere. 
• The people will get fed up with their bickering.

Before (until about early 2000s) there was only one flavour of religion that was dominant in this country. All other flavours had to take two steps back or had to operate 'underground' (like those labelled ajaran sesat etc). 

Until the Wahabi / Salafi appeared in some numbers in Malaysia. The Wahabi / Salafi have been around from much earlier but it was only quite recently that they have become more prominent. And aggressive. They have a different way of looking at the religion.

I dont agree with the wahabi / salafi either but I really like to listen to different viewpoints. I think everyone should be allowed to say what they want to say. 

• My view is let them all talk and let them say what they want. 
• But make sure the people listen to all their different viewpoints. 
• The people will really get fed up.
  
• I hope some of you readers will get an idea to host regular video podcasts  (through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc) featuring debates by  wahhabi / salafi, other traditionalists plus other flavours of religion sitting in the same panel.
  
• Let them debate freely with each other.
  
• Only one rule should apply : They must always  observe proper decorum and ikut cara intellectual dan akademik.
• No shouting at the top of the lungs or being rude.

In no time the people will get fed up with their contradicting and confusing arguments.

Here is the Terminator asking WHY?

Nato’s Stoltenberg defends Ukraine’s advance into Russia as legitimate self-defence

Nato’s Stoltenberg defends Ukraine’s advance into Russia as legitimate self-defence

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to the Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg before the first plenary session at the European Political Community meeting at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Britain, Thursday, July 18, 2024. — Kin Cheung/Pool/AFP pic

Saturday, 31 Aug 2024 4:11 PM MYT


BERLIN, Aug 31 — Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate and covered by Kyiv’s right to self-defence, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag in his first reaction to the advance into Russian territory.

“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Stoltenberg told the paper, adding that Nato had not been informed about Ukraine’s plans beforehand and did not play a role in them.


The Nato chief said Ukraine was running a risk with the advance onto Russian territory but that it was up to Kyiv how to conduct its military campaign.

“(Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy has made clear that the operation aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks from across the border,” he said.


“Like all military operations, this comes with risks. But it is Ukraine’s decision how to defend itself.”


Kyiv launched a major cross-border incursion into the Kursk region on August 6, while Moscow’s troops keep pressing towards the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

The incursion was also discussed at a meeting of the Nato-Ukraine-Council on Wednesday that was requested by Kyiv amid Moscow’s biggest wave of air attacks on its neighbour.

The council, grouping members of the Western military alliance and Ukraine, was established last year to enable closer coordination between the alliance and Kyiv.

Russia has called the Kursk operation a “major provocation” and said it would retaliate. — Reuters

Why has Malaysia ceded land to Thailand along the Malaysian-Thai border?

Murray Hunter


Why has Malaysia ceded land to Thailand along the Malaysian-Thai border?


Aug 31, 2024

My bike resting on the Kedah-Thai border marker near Danok.


The Malaysian-Thai border fence between Bukit Kayu Hitam and Padang Besar has been built approximately 2-6 metres away from the Thai-Malaysia border markers. This 30 kilometre stretch of border fencing cedes off somewhere between 6 and 12 Ha of land to Thailand.

The Malaysian Department of Survey and Mapping (JUPM) inspected the area around 2021. Since then, there have been no changes to the demarcations or fencing.

The border fence was built between 1995 and 1996 when Shahidan Kasim was the Menteri Besar of Perlis and Mahathir Mohamed was prime minister. Both men have personally inspected this fence.

This possible Malaysian land is either empty or used for market gardening on the Thai side. There are also some makeshift Thai temples along the fence.

In prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in his Merdeka Day speech described the mishandling of the Batu Puteh issue as a form of betrayal to the nation. The land along the Malaysia-Thai border is larger than Pulau Batu Putih, or Pedra Branca, as the Singaporeans call it.

The area in question along the border above.


Perhaps its now time to resurvey the Thai-Malaysian border between Bukit Kayu Hitam and Padang Besar.

"My Lai" in Iraq (2005)

Volume 29, Number 248 — Thursday, August 29, 2024


Photos of 2005 Haditha Massacre in Iraq Finally Published


Photos of the mass killing by U.S. Marines have been kept hidden for decades, making the atrocity relatively unknown. Now The New Yorker has released 10 of them.

A U.S. Marine inspecting a roadside near Haditha, Iraq, where five unarmed civilians were killed on Nov. 19, 2005. (Naval Criminal Investigative Service via the Washington Post, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams


After years of working with Iraqis whose relatives were killed by U.S. Marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, American journalists finally obtained and released photos showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage — whose perpetrators never spent a day behind bars.

This week, The New Yorker published 10 of the massacre photos — part of a collaboration with the “In the Dark” podcast that joined the magazine last year.

The podcast’s reporting team had filed its public records request four years ago, then sued the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Central Command over their failure to hand over the images. “In the Dark” host Madeleine Baran also traveled with a colleague to Iraq’s remote Anbar Province to meet relatives of some of the 24 Iraqi civilians — who ranged in age from 1 to 76— slaughtered by U.S. troops.

Baran explained that she sought the relatives’ help partly because “we anticipated that the government would claim that the release of the photos would harm the surviving family members of the dead,” as “military prosecutors had already made this argument after the trial of the final accused Marine.”

The bodies of five Iraqi civilians murdered by U.S. Marines in the Haditha, Iraq, massacre. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran on Aug. 27, 2024. “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)


Khalid Salman Raseef, an attorney who lost 15 members of his family in the massacre, told Baran that “I believe this is our duty to tell the truth.”

The graphic photos show dead Iraqi men, women, and children, many of them shot in the head at close range. One 5-year-old girl, Zainab Younis Salim, is shown with the number 11 written on her back in red marker by a U.S. Marine who wanted to differentiate the victims in photos.

Bodies of Jaheed Abdul Hameed Hassan, 43; Asmaa Salman Raseef, 32, and her son Abdullah, 4, murdered by the United States Marine Corps. A military medical examiner concluded that Jaheed was either standing against the wall or lying down when he was shot and killed. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran, Aug. 27, 2024, “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)


On Nov. 19, 2005, a convoy of Humvees carrying Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marine Division was traveling through Haditha when a roadside bomb believed to have been placed by Iraqis resisting the U.S. invasion killed Miguel Terrazas, a popular lance corporal, and wounded two other Marines.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich in undated photo. (U.S. Navy, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)


In retaliation, Marines forced a nearby taxicab to stop and ordered the driver and his four student passengers out of the vehicle. Sgt. Frank Wuterich then executed the five men in cold blood. Another Marine then desecrated their bodies, including by urinating on them.

Wuterich then ordered his men to “shoot first and ask questions later,” and they went house to house killing everyone they saw. They killed seven people in the Walid family home, including a toddler and an elderly couple.

“I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny,” Iman Walid, a survivor who was 8 years old when her family was slain, told Time in 2006.

Next, the Marines killed eight people in the Salim family home, six of them children. Finally, the troops executed four brothers in a closet in the Ahmad family home.

Greg J Stoker

@gregjstoker

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Photos from the Marine Corp's 2005 Haditha Massacre in Iraq were just acquired under the Freedom of Information Act. This is big. US interventionism must end now.

4:49 PM · Aug 28, 2024

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The Marines subsequently conspired to cover up what a military probe would deem a case of “collateral damage.” The military initially claimed that 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the same explosion that took Terrazas’ life. However, a local doctor who examined the victims’ bodies said they “were shot in the chest and head from close range.”

The body of 4-year-old Zainab Younis Salim after the U.S. Marine Corps shot her in the head in the Haditha massacre. Her body has been marked with the number 11 in red sharpie, to distinguish the dead bodies in the photos. (U.S. Marine Corps, via Madeleine Baran, Aug. 27, 2024, “The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See,” The New Yorker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)


Eight Marines were eventually charged in connection with the massacre. Six defendants were found not guilty and one had their case dismissed. Initially charged with murder, Wuterich pleaded guilty and was convicted of dereliction of duty. He was punished with a reduction in rank and was later honorably discharged from service.

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis — who earned his “Mad Dog” moniker during one of the atrocity-laden battles for the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 — intervened on behalf of the Haditha defendants and personally dismissed charges against one of them.

Later, while serving as former President Donald Trump’s defense secretary, Mattis oversaw an escalation in what he called the U.S. war of “annihilation” against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The general warned that “civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation,” and thousands of men, women, and children were subsequently slaughtered as cities including Mosul and Raqqa were leveled.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis speaks during a town hall at U.S. Northern Command headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., Nov. 16, 2017. (DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)


The Haditha massacre was part of countless U.S. war crimes and atrocities committed during the ongoing so-called War on Terror, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in at least half a dozen countries since 2001. One of the reasons why the Haditha massacre is relatively unknown compared with the torture and killings at the U.S. military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq is that photos of the former crime have been kept hidden for decades.

“The impact of an alleged war crime is often directly related to the horror of the images that end up in the hands of the public,” Baran wrote in the New Yorker article. She noted that Gen. Michael Hagee, who commanded the Marines at the time of the Haditha massacre, later boasted how “proud” he was about keeping photos of the killings secret.

“This,” journalist Murtaza Hussain reminded the world on Tuesday, “is what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq.”



Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

This article is from Common Dreams.