Desultory Thoughts

I’m shocked by the longevity of the violent protests (the latest one [cnn.com] happening in Nigeria on Saturday that killed 16 people) that continue to occur because of a cartoon of Islamic Prophet Muhammad [wikipedia.org] published in a Danish newspaper. I can only believe that this is the cause of a few extremists and that not all Muslims believe that they should burn Christian churches and kill people.

Luckily I know a Muslim and I’m able to ask him these questions so that I don’t fall into the trap of passing judgment on an entire group of people based on the actions of a few. It would be easy to group the entire faith as nut-cases, but I have to remind myself that there are people in every religion (including my own) that take things way too far.

The problem with the Islamic faith [wikipedia.org] (when speaking of a “few” extremists) is the shear amount of people in the world that adhere to it. The numbers are huge! If only less than one percent of the Islamic population follow a radical belief, you still have millions of followers. One quarter of the world population share Islam as an ethical tradition. Muslims are the majority in 52 nations. They speak about 60 languages and come from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Our conversation was interesting and I’m glad that he’s always been willing to discuss these things with me without thinking that I’m judging him or his religion. Here is our conversation:

9:47 PM me: How\’s it goin\’ Yalin?

I have a question for you.

9:49 PM Yalin: k, I was just talking to Nate on Chat LOL

me: Take a look at this article (you may already be well aware of it) and tell me what you and others think about it. Is this another example of taking things too far? More extremism?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/02/18/cartoon.roundup/index.html

Yalin: looking…

9:50 PM me: Or maybe I just don\’t understand the gravity of depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Yalin: you\’re almost right on the money…

the issue is two fold…

9:51 PM 1 – Muslims do not even draw Muhammed (pbuh) due to the fact that it would be considered symbolism. He is extermemly highly respected such as other great prophets such as Jesus, Moses and many others

9:52 PM 2 – People that are commiting such acts have the strong Faith of Islam (very strong faith if y ask me) and are seeing this as a direct attack, but they are not educated enough to know how to handle it properly

9:53 PM me: Do Muslims adhere to the law of Moses (an eye for an eye) and maybe that\’s why they feel it is justified?

Yalin: only thing they know how to do is violence (Note: islam is the calmest, and anti-violence religion in my opinion) it\’s simply lack of education

9:55 PM not neccesarily, the Torah and the Zabuur and the Injil (Bible) came for the people of their own, but Qur\’an came as a final proof, it is not justified to kill anyone, only defense (which actually is Jihad) would be justified

meSo it\’s more a cultural thing as to why they are burning churches and stuff? It just seems so ridiculous as a Westerner that a cartoon would be causing such mayhem.

Yalin: Defending and attackingare very different

9:56 PM well, in my opinion the education of the poeple in those countries are controlled by politicions and militiant with wicked goals

thus, using this strong and pure faith of a beautiful religion as a deadly weapon

9:57 PM tangling it in people\’s minds

me: Are there people with your opinion that live there? Would you be pretty unpopular for having that opinion if you expressed it?

9:58 PM Yalin: I wouldn\’t know, I am sure there are people that read the qur\’an and understand it the way I do, but it\’s impossible to change the opinions of a brain washed bunch

9:59 PM me: Well, it happens in every religion. Thanks for giving me a direct viewpoint on these matters.

Yalin: anytime, thanks for asking

One thing I found interesting was the “(pbuh)” that he wrote after writing Muhammed’s name. I looked up the abbreviation and found out that it means “Peace Be Upon Him” and that it’s a form of respect and reverence when talking/writing about him. I also learned that it’s better to write (s.a.w.) because the former doesn’t carry as much meaning; something gets lost in translation. S.A.W means “Salla Allahu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam” which as much as I can understand means “Peace Be Upon Him” but not exactly since something is lost in translation. But then again, the site I found this clarification at [usc.edu] might just be more extremists which my friend is obviously not. I’ll ask him about that the next time we chat.

As I read blogs I get to see the good and bad of design. I’ve modified my design from a template provided by Blogger and I think it looks fine. One thing that I like on many blogs is a mini-calendar that serves as navigation tool. WordPress 2.0 [wordpress.org] has a nice calendar plugin which is something Blogger.com is definatley missing. If I hadn’t signed up with Blogger quite some time ago, I might actually consider switching to WordPress based on many available plugins.

I’m really good at procrastinating. I should be finishing up a video project that has an upcoming deadline, but instead I’m confessing that I wasted a couple of hours today trying to add a calendar feature [ecmanaut.blogspot.com] by Johan Sundstrom to my blog. I implemented it and then decided it’s not exactly what I had in mind. I didn’t back up my html (even though I was warned to do so) so I had to manually take out all the modifications and get things back to the way I had them. What a pain!

Besides finishing a video project, I should have been preparing for the lesson I have to teach in Elder’s Quorum tomorrow. The lesson is on forgiveness, a subject that I particulary need help with. There are people in my life that I should forgive, but I’ve been hanging on to it instead of letting Christ take my burden. Usually preparation for a lesson helps me grow in the area that I’m teaching about so that I’m less of a hypocrite when I teach. I’ve been fighting that on this one, just as I have for years now. For all of you readers that are religious, pray for me. I want to forgive.

I recently read a report that people are hungry for video content on the websites they visit. It’s good to see that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is still staying on the cutting edge. My brother Rich pointed out this page on the church’s site that feautures a bunch of commercials.

The demand for streaming video is pushed largely due to the increased number of high speed connections in the home that can handle the large amounts of data; the same reason that Google feels that it can make money on low-quality streaming video. They’re probably right.

Microsoft’s upcoming release of Windows Vista will also tout on-demand video as well as the ability to play the new HD DVD format. With their backing of that format, we may see the end of its competitor known as Blu-ray . It’ll be interesting to see which format will become the next betamax . One or the other will definatley “betamax” themselves right out of the High Definition DVD market, but the war is already 9 years old, believe it or not, with no clear leader at the moment.

My two children are truely gifts from heaven. We had our usual family night and we assigned our little boy Griffin to say the prayer. He’s just over 2 years old now (in the picture he’s 1 1/2 and Samantha is just over 3) and he’s always needed help in the past. Tonight was a major breakthrough when he said the entire prayer by himself. Granted, he walked all around the living room while saying it and the prayer was only half audible, even to his parents (although I’m sure his Father in Heaven understood every word), but it was very neat to see him grow up all at once like that.

Sami gave the lesson tonight. She planned it all by herself. She had visual aids (small pictures that she drew and colored herself and cut out) and she made up a story about a little girl that tried to get to heaven by climbing a ladder. In the end she explained that she couldn’t get to heaven by climbing a ladder, only by choosing the right.

Gifts from heaven, indeed!