Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The 100th name of God!

I am happy to be able to say I told you so.

In an earlier post Road to hell I had lightly tapped the wrist of Steve Oh for his letter proclaiming Nurul Izzah's statement on 'freedom of religion' as a 'watershed' idea for nation, but which I had suspected was driven by his personal agenda.


better Nurul's photo than Steve Oh's wakakaka

Anyone's personal agenda is okay by me, provided it doesn't adversely affect the public or yours truly, because everyone has an agenda of his/her own.

But I chided Steve Oh because he exploited Nurul Izzah's rather daring or impetuous statement, from which she has since belakang pusing (turned around 180 degrees), to present his rather bizarre views.

I'm being euphemistically polite here in describing his views as 'bizarre'.

He went beyond (in fact, never was in) context with regards to Nurul's original statement, a 'bizarre' philosophical excursion that had probably worsened Nurul's predicament.

S. Thayaparan, one of the more erudite Malaysiakini columnists wrote in his article Welcome to Malaysia's religious jungle (lovely appropriate title, but Thayaparan's write-up has not been very complimentary of Chinese or, we hope, just BN's Chinese cronies), that:

Steve Oh's Malaysiakini letter, (which for some reason warranted a visit by the state's security apparatus) in support of Nurul, is loaded with the usual Christian hypocrisy that the calcification of the Malay mind happened in an Umno vacuum.

... which confirms my point about Steve Oh in my earlier post Road to hell, wakakaka.


Christian hypocrisy

However, I have some doubts about one of Thayaparan's assertions, namely the paragraph which states:

The whole Christian issue is merely the natural consequence of growing section of the mainly Chinese community falling under the sway of a worldwide capitalist/Judeo-Christian revivalist movement, which is leading the way in demanding equal religious rights (which is their constitutional right) after years of Umno corrupting every institution that was supposed to safeguard those rights.

Now I am not saying he is wrong - I really don't know - but from my reading and observations, I opine that his opening sentence in the above paragraph should rather be: '... The whole Christian issue is merely the natural consequence of growing section of the mainly Indian community (including Anglo-Indian) falling under the sway of a worldwide capitalist/Judeo-Christian revivalist movement ...'.

I had sparred with a few (Malaysian) Indian Christians over Israel, where I found them unusually loyal to the Jewish State, making frequent references to the Bible as so-called 'proof' that God has given the land to the Israelis.



Then, I recall our dear Father Lawrence Andrew, the bloke who insisted rather stubbornly on using the 'Allah' word.

I offended my blogging mateys, staunch Catholics Lucia Lai and D'Cruz, as well as other Catholics, when I published not only three posts on the use of the 'Allah' word, but also wrote a letter to Malaysiakini expressing my concerns with the Catholic Church (in the person of Father Lawrence Andrew) being obdurately insistent in using the word 'Allah' (instead of 'Tuhan' or other words with strong Judeo-Christian pedigree) in the Malay edition of the Catholic Herald.



Okay, I have to admit I was a wee annoyed with Father Lawrence's intransigent obduracy when I wrote in my post:


It seems that Father Andrew is dead set on using ‘Allah’ to refer to the Christian God, regardless of the superior pedigree (in the Christian context) of God’s other names as revealed in the Bible.

... and I followed that up by asking Father Lawrence (in my post too):

“What is really your goal in obdurately pursuing the use of the word ‘Allah’ to refer to the Christian God in a Malay-language newsletter and Bible when so many other names of your Christian God, with even better biblical pedigree, remain available?”



My three posts on the 'Allah' word issue were:


(a) Allah, Elohim or Yahweh?

The above post was originally sent to the Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) for acceptance as a CPI article (I had previously written a few pieces for it) but alas, was rejected by its director Dr Lim Teck Ghee who did not provide any reason for his rejection - could it be that he was stunned by a non-Muslim Chinese speaking out against the Catholic Church, and by default, in favour of the Muslims.

Well, it was his prerogative. So I then sent it to Malaysiakini as a letter, where it was published, wakakaka.

(b) Catholic Herald and the 3rd Pandora Box in which I brought out (then) Malaysiakini columnist Helen Ang's sarcasm on the Catholic Church insistence in using the 'Allah' word, as follows:


In today’s Malaysiakini column, sweetie Helen Ang wrote in her new article of Malaysia being not quite secular.

She said: Last week, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang called on the government to amend the first precept of the Rukunegara to 'Belief in Allah'. All those who insisted on the Catholic Herald's 'right' to 'Allah' should now warmly welcome Hadi's proposal made in Parliament when debating the motion of thanks on the Agong's speech. After all, these people had so enthusiastically embraced the idea that "your Allah is my Allah too".


My post continued:

Even Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, states the first of its Pancasila (national ideology) as 'KeTuhanan Yang Maha Esa', thus without mentioning 'Allah'. Our Rukunnegara was just a modified copy of the Pancasila.

Now, Pak Haji Hadi Awang wants to better Indonesia in this department. He has effectively raised the ante for UMNO to follow.

But sweetie Helen warned that Pak Haji Hadi Awang’s 'Allah' is not quite the ‘Allah’ that Father Lawrence Andrew and the Catholic Church have in mind. Read her article to find out more.

So be prepared for onward escalation of this issue if/when UMNO succumbs to the temptation to outflank PAS on this one, in similar fashion to what Dr Mahathir once thought was an excellent idea.

And we can only have Father Lawrence and the Catholic Herald mob to thank for the probable opening of the 3rd Pandora Box, which will be both an extension and an advance model of the 1st Pandora Box.


This was 2.5 years ago, in April 2010, when we were reminded of Pak Haji Hadi Awang's mindset.

'Reminded'? ... because even earlier in 2004, just leading up to GE-11, PAS was riding on the hem of Dr Wan Azizan's popularity, to an extent they hijacked her/KeADILan campaign as PAS' own.

Mistakenly believing the support for Dr WAn was for them, they went feral as they have done today, bearing their fangs (or rather, their scorpion sting in the tail). Unfortunately for them, they moved too early and frightened the hell out of the non-Muslims who voted heavily for AAB.



PAS has this weakness to revert to its true intolerant nature when they think they're riding high - 'tis the nature of the (scorpion) beast.

(c) Some biblical names of God

I thought I'd be a good Samaritan and help Father Lawrence Andrew select an alternative name with better Judeo-Christian pedigree for his Catholic God instead of 'Allah'. But I suspected by then I was so unpopular with the Catholics that they must have prayed for me to be barred from entering the Pearly Gates when my Time arrives, wakakaka.


At some stage during the brouhaha about copyrights issue on Allah's name, the silliness of the squabble deteriorated to one Muslim suggesting that if the Christians insisted on using the word 'Allah' instead of just Tuhan or any other Biblical names like Elohim, Adonai-Jehovah, El-Olam, Elyon, Yahweh, etc, then they still could, provided they spelt the word as 'Alah' with only one 'L' letter, wakakaka.



I was so tickled by the quarrel over God's name that I cheekily penned a poem Magic of the 100th name of God on the silly controversy and sent it to Malaysiakini. It was published and I am now reproducing same below:




Once
I had a hundred names
with only 99 known.
Trust Isis and her wiles,
yes, a woman
and a lovely one too,
to pry the 100th out of me.
Devious!


Isis

Amazed!
I now have a new one but
minus an 'L' as if that
would mean someone else,
like Odin, Manitou, Zeus,
rather than ole me, you
know who, don't you?
Moi


Isis

Hey
I call out to them, they
in the red and blue corners.
The names' the same, it's all mine
of course, whose did you think?
Butt out, sneered one;
Yes, the other concurred;
Scat!


Isis

Huh?
But they're all mine, those
names you're fighting over.
So what, did you patent them
like mapped gerome of langsat
and petai for exclusive use?
No? Then, buzz off!
Goodbye


Isis

But
Why fight over my names
when I am the same Bloke
for all of you guys and gals?
Hellooooo, didn't we say
to butt out of our turf wars,
on exclusive use of THE name.
Understand?


Isis

Isis!
Only she knew my 100th name
that bestows the most powerful
magic on those who know.
She was privy to my secret (100th)
name called Compassion, sometimes
known as, would you believe,
Love!

It's a pity we Malaysians, whether Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc, just can't keep religion out of our politics.

13 comments:

  1. "worldwide capitalist/Judeo-Christian revivalist movement"

    what the hell is that? and u cited an idiot article as confirmation to your point?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hua yong,
    It's his blog. You can't stop him from being stupid! Coem to think of it, he should join jon stewart being a comedian. Good money

    ReplyDelete
  3. and what do you think of visitors/ commentators who come to read posts of a blogger they accused of being stupid ... wakakaka

    ReplyDelete
  4. Visitors can't call the blog owner stupid...that's obviously rude.

    However, any blogger who writes something on-line is opening up his thoughts and writings to reader scrutiny. If you can't stand the feedback, don't write, or turn off your comments section. Censoring the comments section to a bunch of like-minded groupies is an intellectually bankrupt exercise (Not that I'm accusing this blog of that).

    Having said that, I add

    "worldwide capitalist/Judeo-Christian revivalist movement" is probably one of the dumbest statements I've read in a long time...

    About the same level as Solar-powered Bible conspiracy theorists...


    (Note: not the same as calling the blogger stupid)


    ReplyDelete
  5. Takbir,
    Well It's meant to provoke him & it happens. You must understand that ktemoc doesn't believe in god. Okay, he may have been an agnostic. Such people tend to have very high regards themselves.
    Frankly, wow telling others not to speak BS all the time. Perhaps he should reflect on his own advice.
    Meanwhile there are many issues we should be talking about

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aiya....you know, i know, enough laa. These people will accuse anyone, including their own wives/girlfriends/colleagues, even their own pet dogs/cats, STUPID if those so accused do not subscribe to their way of thinking or subscribe to their believes ( their Bush-ism rearing its head ).

    The only reason why wild horses could'nt drag them away from this site is because they are belabouring under their 'missionary' zeal to prevent, in their besotted minds, the young 'innocents' from straying into the 'wrong' camp, led by 'stupid, traitorous' pied pipers the likes of KTemoc, hehe.

    These people NEVER give up, very similar to those f* christians whom i have, on several occasions (to my great misfortune), got trapped for the whole duration of wedding dinner functions when one found oneself seated next to these benighted f* christians. Their eyes will light up with that scary look when they finally got round to the fact that an aethist was among them (or 'free thinker' as they politely opined).....and then the torture for the rest of the evening begins....doing their most boring utmost to convert this stubborn aethist to love their god jesus christ. I usually got my sweet revenge at the end of the dinner with this parting shot : gleefully urging them to visit good old Georgie Carlin on his very popular topic : "RELIGION IS BULLSHIT", hehe


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RT6rL2UroE

    ReplyDelete
  7. To me Atheism is another form of faith - a denial of the existence of God or other forms of the Divine.
    I call Atheism a faith because there is plenty in this world which has not been explainable on a logical, scientific basis or purely as random events. They do not constitute logical proof of the Divine, that's why religious beliefs are called Faith.
    But neither are there proof the Divine does NOT exist.

    I respect the Atheists faith, just as I respect other faiths.

    What I detest is the way some Atheist put on such airs of superiority as if those who hold some form of Religious faith are of inferior mental capacity.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Firstly, on the phrase "worldwide capitalist/Judeo-Christian revivalist movement" I quoted S Thayaparan, the MKINI columnist. I quite respect this former Naval Commander from the way he writes and presents his views, though I may not agree with all of them.

    Thus I am more inclined to take his words as solid on good faith. If any of you disagree with that/his statement I welcome your views/points on that, wakakaka.

    Secondly I frequently get advice from blokes like Looes74 that "there are many issues we should be talking about".

    Now, it may well be so but which one to choose, must surely be the prerogative of the blogger.

    Solution to what you reckon has been the blogger's wrong choice of topic? Start your own blog and blog to your heart's desire, which is what I have done, wakakaka.

    ReplyDelete
  9. THe world is filled with people with various and differing opinions. Even KT's sweetie Helen Ang have some outlandish lines of reasoning in her blog.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ktemoc is not blogging to his heart's content.
    He is swaying like a hula hula girl to catch stupid fish for BN.
    Great to see so many are dedicated to expose him.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Again the mantra is......

    This is his blog.....He can do whatever he likes

    Frankly, O reiley also got good points too even though.....you know

    kaytee.....continue in your small little world

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ktemoc "It's a pity we Malaysians, whether Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc, just can't keep religion out of our politics."

    Well Kaytee, that is because organised religion has always been about Politics not Spirituality ....not that you didn't know eh? That poem is explicitly saying so no? Who is Horus? :-)

    Shalom Aleichem

    ReplyDelete
  13. Horus predated Jesus by several thousands of years

    ReplyDelete