Muslim, Islam, Terrorists: Get the facts straght

Today's political environment coupled with recent terrorist events leads to polarization, people going as far as they can to the opposite ends of the football field; black and white calls.  In fact it is thought by some that that is EXACTLY what ISIL wanted with the Paris incident: To cause an all out war. How is that, you ask, don't we already have a war?  Well, I do see the Paris incident causing people in our country - even people of my faith who are supposed to be more thoughtful than all the - to hate ALL muslims.  (Note: They say they hate Islam. They don't know the difference.) I saw, today, an image that a Jewish person of my faith created, the raised middle finger against a mosque background.

We need some facts here.

What I am not prepared to give is an intelligent discussions of the many, many factions and differences between Muslims who practice Islam.  I will say that we have become closely acquainted with members of a sect who absolutely and unconditionally preach and practice peace and would not hurt a fly, so to speak. And we have had other friends who aren't of that sect but who eschew violence completely.

That said, I offer the following, from my own knowledge and gleaned from various thoughtful writings where my words are not forthcoming or sufficient.

Let's get going.

Islam refers only to the religion or acts done in the name of that religion, never a person who practices that religion. Islamic community and Islamic art are correct, Islamic man is not.
The word Islam is also used when talking about the religion as a noun unto itself. For instance: ‘Islam is based on the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed that have been written down in the Quran.’

Muslim identifies persons of the Islamic faith but not the faith itself.
 For instance, ‘Remember the Muslim man who works at the bank?
The word Muslim means “one who submits to Allah” which is their word for God, as they perceive Him based on what parts of the Koran they choose to emphasize - much as many of us do with the Bible.

Read more: http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-islam-and-muslim

intellectual dialogue and discourse comes in to play. Islamic teaching specifically forbids honor killing, forbids any worldly punishment for apostasy or blasphemy, and forbids terrorism. Therefore, should a Muslim engage in those acts and claim to follow Islam–shouldn’t the logical question be to see if the Muslim committing those acts can back it up with Islamic teaching?

If he can, let him try. If he cannot, and indeed such extremists cannot, then why give that Muslim any credence in his representation of Islam? How can Islam suddenly be called violent–despite specifically condemning those violent acts–if some violent imbecile disregards clear Islamic injunction and commits those violent acts? Meanwhile, the same anti-Islam critics pretend to ignore 1000+ Muslims who protect a synagogue from attack in exact accordance to the Quran’s specific command to protect synagogues from attack.

Ironically, the anti-Islam critics who say ISIS is scholarly themselves have little to no training on Islamic scholarship, so how they’re able to recognize whether ISIS is consulting authentic Islamic sources is incredulous.

More significantly, however, we know that ISIS gains the bulk of their ideology not from the Quran or Sunnah, but from ignorant terrorist organizations like Jamaat-e-Islaami–founded by Mullah Abul a’la Maududi, the father of modern terrorism. Maududi likewise had zero training on Islam or Islamic jurisprudence, no post high school education, and no education on Islamic history and Arabic, yet his work dominates ISIS ideology. ISIS is literally the blind leading the blind, and blinded by their own egos, anti-Islam critics refuse to see these facts.

This is one of the difficulties with critics of Islam. When a terrorist commits an act of terror, virtually zero academic research or insight goes into how such a terrorist justified his claim from Islamic jurisprudence. A random verse excerpt is cited and suddenly every critic is a scholar.

So in short, the No True Scotsman Fallacy doesn’t apply when condemning ISIS, first because we are discussing what Islam teaches, not what Muslims do or believe. Many Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, or Methodists do not do as their faith, or the Bible, teaches, and historically many have gone off half-cocked into violence and compulsion.

Fear can lead to irrational acts. We must beware of imagining that all Muslims are our enemies, of seeing Islam itself as the threat. It is all too easy to see evidence of calls for violence in the Quran. And even here on Patheos, an atheist has outlined the arguments that Islam itself is a violent faith.  But this path is one fraught with danger. We must recognize that the vast majority of Muslims reject this terrorist ideology. Attacking their faith itself is not the answer. In fact it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we proclaim that Islam is inherently violent, and that all Muslims are potential terrorists, we risk radicalizing many more angry young Muslims who could yet be saved from the manipulative terrorist recruiters.

There are those who would wish to turn this into a war against Islam. We must not allow that, any more than we should give any credence to those who blame every religion. Secular atheists would like nothing better than to use events like this as an excuse to clamp down on every faith, and claim that religion has no place in a modern world. We must demonstrate that people of faith are in general part of the solution not part of the problem.

At the same time we must recognize that at the moment it is almost uniquely in the seedbeds of Islam that terrorism is arising.  We do not read often of Christian terrorists. [Maybe not "often", but we have specific history of terrorism from "Christians" in the 20th century, and Christians do suffer violence and abuse from athiests week in, week out.] We must remember this is a war of ideas, not just of guns and bombs.

Moderate Islamic voices must be welcomed, and given voice. The propaganda of groups like ISIS should be taken down from the Internet and eradicated, not played on national TV.  Those Imans who openly promote terrorism must be silenced. Surely freedom of speech does not include freedom to inspire murder.

We must also show that we are friends with any Muslim or  Muslim group that disavows terrorism. Muslims today across the West today wake up fearing hate crimes, fear rejection, fear being watched suspiciously as they go about their daily business.

From an Honest Gay Mormon - NOT ME

It's from an honest and intelligent man.

He posted it on FaceBook, but I will not identify him.

Just know that it is not me.

*************************************************************

I'm gay, I'm Mormon, and I fully agree with the Church's policy decision. Let me explain why. The Church has ALWAYS been very open and firm with its position on marriage and family. Thus, it makes sense to me. Family history and eternal families can't be accomplished within the frame of a same-sex marriage. Neither can other important, essential ordinances of the gospel. Essentially, the Church is enforcing this because they are adhering to the Plan of Salvation. 

It's not that people are being hated, marginalized, discriminated against, trespassed against, or anything like that. God is standing perfect and tall, as He always has, does, and always will. He doesn't bend to the perceptions and wishes of man, regardless of pain it may cause. 

Heavenly Father would rather see me as a gay Mormon man, living every principle of the gospel in pain, than see me content in following after a life of unrighteousness and/or rebellion.

 Heavenly Father guides us in paths of potential, not of stagnant mediocrity. Love encourages progress and eventually perfection, in the eternities.

That's all I have to say.

Nurturing personal growth

 Indeed. There is a lot to say for those who persevered in spite of negative statements. I was told by a Commander in the USN that while he appreciated what I was writing for the ship, I shouldn't be a writer. I later went on to earning as a tech writer over 30 years, enjoying, and I still enjoy writing and working with information..

We all need affirmative strokes about our abilities, about those things that are deepest in ourselves, as persons who can think, create, do.... as spouses.... and doggonit even husbands. That comprises something that is so lacking in our great American cowboy hero mentality which focuses on self as the hero or heroine: "I am the ___". I was just visiting with an insightful person yesterday who related that if a person is told what to do on every little thing, they won't grow as strong in an eternal sense. That's why the expression" Teach them correct principles, let them manage themselves" and like expressions are such a great principle in itself. Having confidence in the thinking or artistic, creative ability of others, like this starting message says.

I talked with Robert Dotson, who was then a gospel doctrine teacher and CEO of T-Mobile (you read that right) about what I got out of Covey's Eighth Habit and the values Dotson was striving for in his company. About helping each other become the best person we can, and in so doing, we are becoming better. Eternal progression, becoming more like ..... He gave a resounding "YES"

A voice that waters the eys

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/a-voice-that-waters-the-eyes-a-message-for-the-ages

When I die,
something of mine, something of mine
will die in you, will die in you.

When you die,
something of yours, something of yours in me
will die with you, will die with you.

Because all of us, yes all of us
are all one living human fabric
leaves us
leaves us
something dies in us –
and something, stays with him

If we’ll know, how to comfort, how to comfort
the hostility,
if only we’d know.

If we’ll know, how to quiet our rage
(if we’d know how to quiet)
upon the fury of our humiliation, to say sorry.
If we’d know how to start from the beginning.

Because all of us…

Learn How a Person Thinks by Looking at the Short Words He Uses

The authors of the report by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin note that certain types of function words are known to say different things about a person. They note that "high rates of pronoun use have been associated with greater focus on one's self or on one's social world, auxiliary verb use has been associated with a narrative language style, article use has been associated with concrete and formal writing, and preposition and conjunction use has been associated with cognitive complexity."

That is, function words allow us to assess how people are thinking more than what they are thinking about."

Using articles and prepositions were both correlated to higher grades. But using lots of auxiliary verbs, impersonal pronouns, personal pronouns, adverbs and negations were negatively correlated.

“Admissions offices are looking for people who exhibit intellectual maturity, for students who are able to go beyond the immediate personal narrative,” David Beaver, one of the study's coauthors, told USA Today. “When I was very young, my great aunt was fond of saying that when washing, clean the back of your hands, and the fronts will take care of themselves. Likewise, students should not worry about function words. If you focus on expressing interesting ideas, the function words will take care of themselves."
But it all may be for naught, if Mitchell Stevens is right. Stevens spent 18 months embedded in the admissions office of a prominent liberal arts college. His conclusion? Essays almost never have any impact on admissions.

Read more at http://national.deseretnews.com/article/3554/You-can-learn-more-about-how-a-person-thinks-by-looking-at-this.html#m6kpG1AUZaSF1Qdl.99

Learning, getting a break, and thinking about it

Finns are dead serious about recess. Not only are the breaks required, but kids are required to go outside in all kinds of weather. Even in the deep Finnish winter, Walker said, unless the thermometer dips to an unholy level, elementary student kids are required to bundle up and go out. Administrators lock the doors to keep them out.

The breaks are short, of course. In the winter, by the time the kids get coats on and out the door, they may only have 10 minutes outside. “This isn’t deep play,” Walker said. The goal is to simply clear the mind and wiggle the limbs long enough to renew focus.

Read more at http://national.deseretnews.com/article/2100/Why-has-US-academic-success-dropped-The-answer-may-be-on-the-playground.html#2kyKMH03DCHRZS0A.99

There is another article somewhere about the fact that after we have gone through an intensive learning (like an hour or two, or maybe even less) we will retain better if we have silence for a while rather than running right out to something else.

I can even see that pause being valuable between meaningful sentences or paragraphs of information told by an instructor or speaker.

Device and Personal Info Security

About lost phones, stolen phones, personal identity, minimizing damage.

This entry will need to be cleaned up and I will never make it perfect, business or technology wise.
It's just info people should know.

here are two apps you should put on your phone, and you would be in better shape. Both free. "Where's My Droid", and "Lookout Security and Antivirus". There is no reason on earth not to do so. You can immediately track it on your computer, get it to take picture of its environment (front or back), scream bloody murder, cut its service without needing customer service. 

Finally y'all need to know that the big four have collaborated on a stolen phone database; registering the EMEI, so if someone tries to activate it on another service, it is flagged to carrier it is being activated on that it was stolen. Your records with your carrier will have the EMEI, but it's a good idea for you to personally record it. No other phone on earth has that EMEI.

I don't quite have all the detail on that database, but I watched the traffic about its implementation two or three years ago; I worked for one of the big four in documentation.,

Go down to the section titled "Theft Protection" on the following page, and read the detail on Lookout. It works! A guy picked up my phone and disappeared into a medical clinic, and I had it scream at him

.https://www.lookout.com/android

About the stolen phone EMEI database, just put the following into google search: "imei stolen phone database" And you get lots of pages all good. You should ensure that Verizon put it into that database.

You need that EMEI and the app, in case it is NOT a good Samaritan. Actually, by putting info that is close to "personal identifiable" on something that might get stolen is getting closer to identity theft. In the reverse method, if you dial up the phone number of the cell phone, and an honest person has it, you are in good shape.

I am very likely to be able to find out who you are and where you live if I have your phone number. Your email may help also. The more they can bring together - facebook too - can be a good start towards starting an account in your name, etc. It does happen.

A lookout" feature I didn't mention is that it will notify you with where it thinks it is just before the battery goes dead.

Find my Phone, as phil bartram said, is a good finder. Seems to be dozens of apps to do vertually the same thing. In fact, Google seems to have built that directly into their system; 

I google-searched "Find My Phone", it asked for my Google login, and within seconds, it mapped to my house. I don't know the full range of features that various of the apps have. I do know that Lookout has a good range of features. 

I just think that the cell phone sellers should make awareness of those things as fore-front as info on how to install the battery, or something that basic.