The reason: Jericho Scott is too good at pitching, with a fastball that tops about 40 miles per hour (64 kph).  Even though this is an average pitch for baseball players of that age group [1], the league claims that the hitters from the other teams just can’t keep up, and some people feel that it’s unfair.  In this case, that person happens to be one of the league’s administrators.  Jericho’s coach pointed out that Jericho had reportedly snubbed an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of the said administrator.  Jericho’s own team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.  Note that no effort was made to put Jericho into a higher league.

The league says that there are many beginners in the league, and that fast pitches may frighten or damage the self-esteem of other players.  Peter Noble, the league attorney said that “main purpose [of the league] is to promote sport.  Those two statements taken in conjunction, though are pure nonsense.  In sport, there are winners and losers, there is difference in ability, and competition gives people the ability to gauge progress.  However, people have allowed political correctness to interfere with a proper competition.  One might recall the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron, in which excellence was banned by law.  This incident is fairly reminicent of that story.

Maybe the NBA needs to make jumping too high a foul.  Or, perhaps the FA in England should start giving Peter Crouch red cards for being too tall and kicking the ball too hard, so they can keep up with the Americans.  Or, more preferably, the Youth Baseball League of New Haven can allow Jericho to play ball again.

Furthermore, as the media would have us believe, it is these three women, despite denouncing Islam at every turn, who have now been regarded as the only legitimate voice of “moderate” Islam.  Under the pretense of dialogue, they have released books such as Infidel, The Trouble with Islam Today, and The Escaped Prisoner; When God is a Monster.  Their true aims here are confrontational from the start.  Such books cannot be considered to be scholarly in the context of 1400 years of Islamic philosophical development, when they selectively quote a few out-of-context Hadiths, then skip ahead to the modern age and connect the hadith to the events of the modern world.  Furthermore, we should ask why — if Muslims and Christians are deemed unreliable sources for atheism — can an atheist such as Ali who opposes all religion unconditionally truly comment without bias on a faith which centers itself upon tawhid, the Oneness and Uniqueness of Allah?

It is in the West’s criticism of Islam, where the Left-Right paradigm is of no use to us.  I believe this is the same reason for some of the West’s hatred of China: in both cases, the “guilty” party refuses to give in to the prevailing ideas and degeneracy of the West.  China - save for the indigenous minorities who make up 8% of the population, is far from being multicultural or politically correct in the Western sense, and has a sense of pride in Chinese culture.  Islam refuses to succumb to liberalism in its native land the same way Christianity went down in Europe.  The anti-Muslim sentiments of the likes of Manji, Sultan, and Ali, even their non-’Muslim’ counterparts such as Oriana Fallaci, Christopher Hitchens, and former Marxist David Horowitz, are not based on any kind of support for Christiandom, the Sacred, or any higher ideal, but based on liberalism and humanism.  Furthermore, the Freudo-Marxist values which they wish that Muslims would replace are as foreign to Europeans as they are to the Middle East.  All this means that the leftists who criticize Islam are little more than hypocrites.  They’ve criticized Islam for being imposing and ‘barracks-like,’ yet have no problem imposing harmful bidah which would have detrimental effects on the Muslim ummah.

Has Allah (SWT) not said: “This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor towards you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion”?  Islam does not need reform, for the very purpose of reform is to make something better.  Perhaps if these so-called ‘reformers’ knew this, they would not be so opportunisitic and deceitful in denouncing the religion of 1.2 million people.

There will always be an incontrovertible struggle between the two worlds of becoming and the world of being, between the world of change and stability, and between tradition and modernity.  The sworn enemy of modernity has throughout history been the brilliant religious scholars and people who valued Tradition above all else.  The cultural struggle lies not in the fact that Islam is cruel, but that the modern world is corrupt. The clash of civilizations is a battle between decadence and order, and today, it is Islam must now step up to the front lines of this struggle, as the vanguard of Traditional ideas.

China: “Chinese government officials went through desperate measures and deliberately altered and falsefied the video of the fireworks in the opening ceremonies, misleading millions of unaware viewers across the world.”

Israel: “Israel’s computer engineers, graphic designers, and other artistic technicians were able to use advanced technology to re-create the impressive fireworks display during the Opening Ceremonies, thus allowing the world to partake in enjoying another aspect of Israeli creative ingenuity in the field of CGI technology. Dedicated experts used advanced CGI techniques to re-enhance the original footage, for a spectacular end product.”

China: “Communist Chinese officials stripped a young girl of the opportunity to sing, while forcing another to lip-sync to enhance the government’s reputation.”

Israel: “Israeli organizers decided to allow a more creative and artistic interpretation of last night’s singing of ‘Hava Nagila’. In a last minute decision, a compromise was reached by the Olympic Organizing Committee, which allowed Deborah Goldstein to stand in for the voice of Ilana Silverberg. Many news agencies around the world are praising this change, as it allowed both girls to be recognized for their immense talent.”

China: “Children were forced to dress in native minority costumes to legitimize China’s brutal repression in Tibet”

Israel: “Israel made further steps toward promoting world peace by featuring Orthodox Christians and Muslims in their opening performance. Actor Henry Rosenthal, who portrayed a Palestinian said, ‘This is a great opportunity to tell the world that there are no human rights problems in Israel.’ Commentators noted that authentic Orthodox Christians and Muslims could not be secured for the performance due to concerns over terrorism.

China: “Stands were filled with fake spectators because of the effectiveness of human rights activists to boycott the Games”

Israel: “The Bureau of Sports and Recreation, which helped the Israeli Government organize the Olympic Games, generously donated thousands of tickets to local Israeli Jews, including the children of Holocaust survivors, to allow them to come and glimpse a portion of one of the world’s greatest sporting events. Original ticket holders, unfortunately, could not attend because of the threat of Islamic terrorism, which the Israeli government is attempting to deal with.”

China: “China brutally cracked down on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen square just hours before the Olympic Games, and threw out native Chinese activists in an effort to suppress dissent.”

Israel: “Israeli security forces peacefully removed potential terrorists waving Palestinian flags from the Olympic Complex. Also, because of security concerns, some anti-Israeli reactionary elements, including the so-called “Palestinians” were evacuated and strategically re-deployed to England and the United States for the duration of the games.  This move was made for their own safety.  Free speech will still be allowed, in designated “Public security zones” during the games, however, as long as it conforms with Israeli Law.

China: “Chinese government officials forged passports and issued them to underage children to illicitly gain more gold medals in the Olympic Games”

Israel: “Israel’s top sporting agency, in conjunction with the Israeli government, recently provided clear, updated, and unmistakable evidence that their gymnasts are not underaged.  Uriel Pollack, a representative of the sporting agency in Israel urged viewers of the Olympics that this was not an issue.  Abraham Foxman has also supported the Israel gymnasts, saying that further questioning of the Israeli competitor’s ages would constitute anti-semitism.”

Ethnic conflict in the region goes back to the days of the Soviet Union, where the ad-hoc Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1918.  Despite the existence of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, an enclave of ethnic Ossetians within the GSSR, tensions continued to rise.  South Ossetians increasingly felt sympathetic with their counterparts in North Ossetia, but the South Ossetians were not able to secede from Georgia after Georgia gained independence.  In November of 2006, South Ossetians voted in a referendum regarding the region’s independence from the Republic of Georgia.  An overwhelming majority of the region’s 70,000 people voted in favor of independence.  Many Ossetians took Russian citizenship as Georgia refused to recognize the referendum.

The American media, however, conveniently omits historical data.  Perhaps even more shocking, they also omitted stories of Georgian troops who destroyed Tskhinvali, a city of 100,000, killing over 2,000 Russian citizens.  In general, the American media has been overwhelmingly and unquestioningly pro-Georgian, not even questioning the Georgian government’s censorship of “pro-Russian” sources.  At a time when the same media coverage criticizes China over lack of media transparency, they hypocritcally defend Georgian media censorship.  When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 severely damageing Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displacing approximately one million Lebanese, the media cited this as an internal affair of Israel, and claimed the act was in self-defense, and perhaps rightly so, as the Lebanese were said to have fired the first shots.  When comparing these two incidents, the hypocrisy comes through even with the media’s attempts to portray the Georgians as the victims.

The media was very sympathetic to the secessionists in the Serbian region of Kosovo, and currently displays deep affections for the Tibetan secessionist movement in China.  While this is a legitimate concern, one can easily apply the same logic to the case of Ossetia and their sympathies for Russia.  But, Ossetia, a tiny region in the Caucasus, virtually unknown in the English-speaking world until very recently, does not have the same appeal as does Kosovo or Tibet.  People may remember that the left-wing Clinton regime, in their loathing of Serbia, not only bombed the country, but devoted much airtime to vilify Slobodan Milošević.  That hate and false sense of sympathy towards Kosovo lingered until the time when the US recognized Kosovo’s independence.  Meanwhile, Tibet, as I alluded to before, is predominantly a non-Christian nation with “dark-skinned indegenous people” fighting a “light-skinned” super power.  The Ossetians have none of this.

However, the main interest for the media and American government more than likely likes in Russia’s business partnership with Iran, which Israel sees as a threat.

If the truth could be told, Russia deployed troops into South Ossetia, an autonomous territory populated with Russians.  It is the Georgians who have gone on the offensive against Russia, and Russia which is protecting their own citizens, as an eyewitness interviewed on American news reported (before being cut off by the host).  This is not a conflict between Georgia and Russia, but rather between Ossetians and Georgians.  The Georgians are not victims, nor are the Russians the aggressors.

This entry used information from: A Free Press? Not This Time

Lexical Problems:

Since Japan, Korea, and Vietnam were all influenced linguistically by China, a common error among Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese students is to use coinages derived from Chinese, but which are not strictly Chinese. For example, Japanese students refer to the subway (metro, underground) as 地下鐵 (dìxiàtiě) which is the Chinese reading of Japanese Kanji meaning (chikatetsu) “subway”. While its meaning is parsable, it’s not very well understood. A better term to use would be 捷運 (jiéyùn). Japanese speakers may sometimes use incorrect measure words. While Chinese also uses measure words, they are often different in Japanese. Thus, “a sheet of paper” is rendered by Japanese as 一枚紙 (yī méi zhǐ) instead of 一張紙 (yī zhāng zhǐ). Some Vietnamese tend to reverse the order of words, as modifiers in Vietnamese often come after the noun. Thus, a Vietnamese speaker might call a flower vase 瓶花 (píng huā) instead of 花瓶. Speakers of Western languages don’t have the advantage of cognates in their native languages and will sometimes use the wrong word entirely; this is usually because of a lack of understanding of certain connotations and cotexts. For example: 這是我同志。我們工一起。他也跟我同方。(Zhè shì wǒ tóngzhì. Wǒmen gōng zài yīqǐ. Tā yě gēn wǒ tóngfáng.) This sentence actually contains a grammatical error, but that will be discussed later. Tóngzhì means “partner” or “comrade”; here the speaker is referring to a business partner, but colloquially the word can refer to a person with which one has homosexual relations. That notion is reinforced, although unintentionally by tóngfáng. The speaker wants to say, “He is also my roommate,” but tóngfáng implies the sharing of a bed.

Grammatical Problems:

Grammatical errors seemed to be the strongest among speakers of Indo-European languages, who are unaccustomed to the idiomatic use of certain phrases, or the fact that certain words function a bit differently in Chinese, for example, being able to be used as both a verb and a noun depending on context. Wǒmen gōng zài yīqǐ follows the correct English pattern S+V, with the verb clause containing the modifier “together”. However, Chinese word order is different; the correct way to pronounce it would be placing the modifier before the verb to say 我們一起工作. Prepositions also appear in the wrong place, for example 我去公園,明天, corresponding to the word-order “I shall go to the park tomorrow”, where the correct order would be 我明天去公園.

 Despite the threats of protests and a boycott, the Olympic stadium, dubbed the ‘Bird’s Nest’ for its unique appearance, was filled to capacity.

The mislabeling of this event as terrorism is based on on the idea that terrorism consists of simply using violence or intimidation against the government or civilian population in order to make a poltical statement.  The act of carrying a gun and shooting people is considered to be violent by American law, and it is clear that he had his own political beliefs.  However, this in itself is a very broad definition.  For example, “intimidation” could possibly be extended in the future to include mere verbal assault against someone with differing political beliefs.  This definition might also be applied to the mobs, who during the Olympic Torch relay in Paris, assaulted the wheelchair-bound athelete in an effort to “intimidate” the world community into cancelling the Olympic Games.  Of course, this latter incident is conveniently glossed over by such liberal fundamentalists.  By extending the definition to include anything, the liberal fundamentalists are seeking to label any action perpetrated by those they do not agree with as a terrorist action.

This incident neither should be viewed as a instance of religious victimization.  Unitarian Universalism is a cult, comparable to the Baha’i cult, which has already been discussed in a previous entry.  The specifics of Unitarian Universlalism will be discussed in another entry.

1. Al-Ilm, or knowledge. — This is to say that one must understand what is meant by the shahada. The first word of shahada, Ašhadu literally means to testify; and one must therefore understand that they are testifying that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad (SAW) is his messenger. This can be compared to testifying in a court of law: if you testify before a judge to something that someone else has said without knowing its meaning, just repeating what they said, it cannot be considered as valid evidence.

2. Al-Yaqin, or certainty — When a scholar or scientist begins his study, he continues to refine what he knows until he uncovers facts which can’t be denied. Once we have knowledge, we should perfect this knowledge. Certainty is perfected knowledge which negates doubt, and here it is to be sure of the truth of shahada. The Quran says,إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَرْتَابُوا وَجَاهَدُوابِأَمْوَالِهِمْ وَأَنفُسِهِمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أُوْلَئِكَ هُمُالصَّادِقُونَ, which means: “[Know that true] believers are only those who have attained to faith in God and His Apostle and have left all doubt behind, and who strive hard in God’s cause with their possessions and their lives: it is they, they who are true to their word!” (49.15) Abolishing doubt therefore increases faith and belief in Allah.

3. Al-ikhlaas, or sincerity — In today’s society, people constantly want to distinguish themselves from the rest. Some can successfully pursue fame and fortune, but others are not as lucky. Ordinary people might try to stand out from the crowd by the way they dress, the music they listen to, or even the religion they claim they believe in. When I studied Buddhism, I often attended lectures at a monastery. I happened on one occasion to ask another attendee who sat behind me, “Why did you become a Buddhist?”. His reponse: “Because I couldn’t stand Christianity and how strict it was”.

Can we convert to Islam because we want to make some kind of “fashion statement”? No. When we declare faith in Allah (swt), we do it for the sake of Allah (swt). We must not do it because we are running away from our former religions, or solely because we seek a Muslim’s hand in marriage and are attempting to please his or her family, and certainly not for superficial reasons of wanting to be an “individual”. Ikhlass helps us remain true to the purpose of Islaam, submitting to Allah (swt), and not to ourselves, and therefore negates shirk.

4. As-sidq, or truthfulness — Once we know something and are certain of it, we can say it truthfully. This means that when we say the shahada, we say it honestly. Going back to what I said in the beginning of this post, many people in the West assume that taking the shahada in jest makes one a Muslim. This is a direct refutation of that idea. Furthermore, the Quran says: يُخَادِعُونَ اللّهَ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَمَا يَخْدَعُونَ إِلاَّ أَنفُسَهُم وَمَا يَشْعُرُونوَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ آمَنَّا بِاللّهِ وَبِالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَمَا هُم بِمُؤْمِنِينَ, which means: “And there are people who say, ‘We do believe in God and the Last Day,’ the while they do not [really]. believe. They would deceive God and those who have attained to faith-the while they deceive none but themselves, and perceive it not.” (2.8-9) Allah (SWT) cannot be fooled: those who claim to be Muslims and have taken the Shahada under false pretenses will be punished on the Last Day.

5. Aq-qabul, or acceptance -– A good scientist accepts the results of his experimentation, even if he previously had different thoughts on the matter. When one recognizes the implication of the Shahada as truth, then he must accept it, else he is an atheist. This also prepares us to accept the full truth of the Noble Qur’an as the inerrant and perfected word of Allah transmitted through his Messenger.

6. Al-inqiyad or compliance –- This is the manifestation of acceptance. We must be prepared upon reciting shahada, to carry out all the obligations of the Qur’an and submit to Allah (swt) as Muslims. This is shown in our daily actions, such as prayer, making hajj, and the like.

You may have heard Protestants say that salvation shall be attained by faith alone. This misconception has also spread somewhat into Islam. However, if we transgress Allah (swt) purposely while knowing this is non-compliance. This is not to say that we will be perfect, either. Everybody makes mistakes, but as long as we repent, we aren’t violating the precept of Shahada, for the Quran says: وَأَنِيبُوا إِلَى رَبِّكُمْ وَأَسْلِمُوا لَهُ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَكُمُ الْعَذَابُ ثُمَّ لَا تُنصَرُونَ which means “Turn unto Him repentant, and surrender unto Him” (39.54).

7. Al-mahabbah, or love – This means that we are satisfied with the conditions of the shahada,love its implications of making us true Muslims. It means our actions will be guided by the love of Allah and by love of fellow Muslims.

This is some excellent advice which Catholics need to listen to.  As I have addressed before, we live in a time when people are socialized towards making the so-called means of production ends in themself, perpetuating the need to continually make money to become “distinguished” in society.  In such a society, people are always occupied with petty matters and have little time to devote to spiritual affairs.  Thus, they are unhappy and dissatisfied with the quality of life.  Even when one does manage to break free from the dominant materialist mentality and build a higher course, the world today is such that one is required to advance within the maze of materialism before one can actually exit it. 

The Pope’s words ring true that spirituality is on the decline, but he was also correct about the fact that people seek false freedoms.  In a secular society, many people use the word “freedom” to connote the right to do as one pleases at any time.  It is used as a justification by liberal fundamentalists for hatred of religion and love of sin.  For example, for some time now, the media in America has been most vociferous in decrying the so-called “lack of freedom” in Islamic nations.  Forty years ago, the same liberal fundamentalists had already launched a brutal and effective attack on Christianity in much the same manner, also in the name of “freedom”.  Therefore, we can see that a secular notion of freedom is not always beneficial for religion.

In the Bible, Paul wrote to the Galatians regarding the idea of freedom.  He was much concerned with the way that man viewed freedom.  This is clear in Galatians 5.13 where he writes, “do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh”.  This is an exhortation for them not to follow worldy, secular freedoms, but to seek freedom of the spirit.

What, then is freedom of the spirit?  To be consise, freedom of the spirit is obedience and submission to the law and will of God, which later was revealed to Muhammad (SWT) as Islam.  True freedom is not the freedom to act on base carnal impulses, but rather the will to power of overcoming those.  This is the same power against the force of flux and degeneration into confusion and lawlessness, recognized by the Buddhists as the “Eightfold Path” through prajna, sila, and samadhi.  In other words, the freedom to which Pope Benedict referred is that which gives us the ability to rectify our lives.

This reason for this is very simple, and we need only begin by consider the meaning of the word ‘religion’.  It was St. Augustine who stated that religion derives from the root ligare, with the prefix re-.  The meaning of religion is to thus “connect again”.  In Chinese, there exists a similar meaning for the word 宗教.  The first character, zong (宗), has the connotation of “ancestor”, while 教 means “teaching”.  Thus the purpose of religion as the ancestral teaching aims to reconnect mankind.  Exoteric religion reconnects mankind through a common bond of ethical precepts, while esoteric religion attempts to reconnect mankind with the unchanging divine, just as the spokes of a wheel connect the outer hub to the center.  It can clearly be seen that it is in the past that religion is rooted, and is therefore not concerned with a world of flux and becoming, but with the world of being and stability.  Evidence of this is found across multiple traditions.  For example, the Christians say “They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:12).  Even Buddhism views the entire world of Samsara as in a constant state of change, and thus, the entire Dharma of the Buddhists is to transcend such change. 

I think we can look to the condition of the modern Protestant church in America to see what has happened in the name of modernizing religion.  In my travels, I have seen churches which are more like movie theatres than places of worship, heard “praise songs” which only appealed to emotions and had little liturgical value, and listened to ”youth sermons” dedicated to appealing to the lowest common denominator.  Likewise, I have seen Buddhism in the West become nothing more than a platform for social activism.  If the other religions are to follow this current course, what shall become of them?

In the Qur’an, Allah says:

“I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion” (Sura al-Maidah 5: 3)

“Say, O people of the Book exceed not the bounds in your religion, trespassing beyond the truth. Nor follow the vain desires of people who went astray in times gone by, who mislead many and strayed from the even way. Curses were pronounced on those among the children of Israel who were disbelievers, by the tongue of David and of Jesus son of Mary, because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses.” (Al-Maidah 5:77-78)

When people change or revise religion, this is called bidah (بدعة).  Who, then, decides what is right and what is wrong?  In our world today, there are certainly some unscrupulous people who use devious methods to achieve their own political or economic ends.  This has already been seen when people have created cults such as Scientology, Falun Gong, the People’s Temple, and countless others.  Suppose one group wants to promote communism, and another capitalism.  When they alter the religion in service of worldly ideologies, this is the cause of much misery and conflict.  However, we should note that Bidah in matters of science are different from those in matters of faith.  For example, there have been scientific advancements which are helpful to mankind, which are not considered haram.  This is also why Islaam can be practiced by so many cultures from the time when Muhammad (SWT) until the present day without contradicting the faith.  Religion does not to be revised in order to fit the present day, but rather the faithful shall exercise restraint and not fall into temptation and sin.  It is for this reason, revisionism or bidah has been forbidden.

This tells of the danger of bidah.  All the divinely-revealed religions have been perfected by the Creator himself, and then transmitted through the Holy Prophets for the benefit of all mankind.  By creating new religions, we indeed trespass beyond the truth.  I am not denying that Baha’i has some social objectives which many people find to be attractive.  Yet, these are only social objectives: another commentator makes a point that noble thoughts and well-wishing do not constitute prophethood, and this is a correct notion.  In religion, we need to think of how best we can keep the Tradition alive in this decadent modern age.