Malaysia and allah: Christians agree with Necro, Muslims with DS Options

[necrolyte]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8455044.stm

Mountain out of a molehill ... but on the substance of the problem, the Malaysian Christians are in the right. Allah is the Arabic word for God, and as such can be used to mean the "metaphysically absolute being" (as opposed to one particular entity from a historical tradition).

[Dakyron]

Once again, muslims overreact with violence.

Allah means God, so there should be no dispute here. Both religions refer to the same being, with the differences being in the prophet Muhammed's teachings.

Ignorance + poverty + religious disagreement = violence.

[Urquhart]

religion of peace

[ro4444]

You gotta love how necrolyte, who will condemn every individual act of violence committed in the name of Christianity on the fact of this planet, completely skips over the much more pressing and obvious argument of "Islam in its current form is inherently violent" and creates this thread based around some trivial academic subject instead.

This post has been edited by ro4444: Jan 19 2010, 12:13 AM

[gnuneo]

'Islam' has no "current form" - it has some extreme branches, in the main all deliberately created by western intelligence agencies (taliban, al qaida etc), and there is a definite sense globally that a faction in the West is following a program of destabilisation and cultural warfare against Islam (Allah alone knows WHY they could imagine such a thing!), but there is also a continuing (and strengthening) strand of liberal Islam that the vast majority of Muslims would regard themselves as being part of.

[necrolyte]

All of the big religions can act as a destructive force. Look at the barbaric attack on Catholics and Muslims by Hindu superconservatives; yet that is the same religion that produced Gandhi, Ramakrishna, and a whole tradition that largely looked on other sects and religions with respect and tolerance. A lot of this hatred gets whipped up by self-interested individuals who select the most aggressive excerpts from a religious work to sow hatred for political gain. They also tend to match up with certain paranoid tendencies within a population (the secular gay agenda for christians, christian evangelizing among low-castes for hindus, a sense of inferiority among Arab and many Muslim states).

[Shankar]

This is odd. In the Quran, Christians and Jews are 'people of the book' and therefore should be able to call god as allah.

One thing interesting to note is that Malaysia is probably the most tolerant and progressive Islamic nation. Looks like a long way to go...

[Bar-Aram]

One thing interesting to note is that Malaysia is probably the most tolerant and progressive Islamic nation. Looks like a long way to go...

Seriously, I think that's a huge myth. All I've ever seen or heard concretely about Malaysia with regards to religion has shown the opposite.


As for the subject at hand, I don't know why non-Arabic speaking christians would use the word Allah for God. Don't they have a word of their own in their language?

[Nalvaros]

Clearly its because they're secretly aiming to confuse Muslims into converting to Christianity! (Believe it or not, this appears to be the main reason why some Muslims in Malaysia are up in arms about this).

Ironically in another context, these same people might have been persuaded into thinking that this is a brilliant plot to convert Christians to Islam by confusing them with "Allah".

[Ralph Wiggum]

'Islam' has no "current form" - it has some extreme branches, in the main all deliberately created by western intelligence agencies (taliban, al qaida etc)

Yeah, because the CIA helped create Wahhab's ideology in 18th century Arabia, right?

[Shankar]

Seriously, I think that's a huge myth. All I've ever seen or heard concretely about Malaysia with regards to religion has shown the opposite.

I can't think of a single Muslim country that is entirely comfortable with minority religions. Maybe Burkina Faso or Senegal. Although Indonesia seems to be making some positive strides in the direction of tolerance. Indonesian Christians I have met are quite comfortable in that country.

[JLord]

I think the fact they even consider trying to bad a certain religion from using a particular word is a good indication of how "progressive" the place really is. Although I guess at the same time you could say they are progressive compared to some other Islamic countries. In other places we have seen a percieved insult towards Islam result in people rioting and randomly killing people who are totally unrelated to the original insult. So a ridiculous ban like this would have been civilized by comparison.

[gnuneo]

(gnuneo @ Jan 20 2010, 07:04 AM) *
'Islam' has no "current form" - it has some extreme branches, in the main all deliberately created by western intelligence agencies (taliban, al qaida etc)

Yeah, because the CIA helped create Wahhab's ideology in 18th century Arabia, right?

there are many ideologies, what seems relevant is support/funding to them.


Islam has many faults, it is fully compatible with Judaism and most Christianity in the large majority of them.

i personally am very glad to be born and live in a secular society. Especially after visiting theologies. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

[Bar-Aram]

I can't think of a single Muslim country that is entirely comfortable with minority religions. Maybe Burkina Faso or Senegal. Although Indonesia seems to be making some positive strides in the direction of tolerance. Indonesian Christians I have met are quite comfortable in that country.

I didn't mean just in the treatment of minority religions. Either way, hate to be saying good things about Syria, but they had lots of christmas programming on national tv this year and big christmas decorations were put up in parts of Damascus. Similar things in Jordan as well. (I'd add Lebanon in here as a positive example as well, except that strictly speaking Lebanon isn't a 'muslim country'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

So a ridiculous ban like this would have been civilized by comparison.

Umm, they burned several churches.

[necrolyte]

Seriously, I think that's a huge myth. All I've ever seen or heard concretely about Malaysia with regards to religion has shown the opposite.


As for the subject at hand, I don't know why non-Arabic speaking christians would use the word Allah for God. Don't they have a word of their own in their language?

Issues of Malay nationalism play a role here. It's clear that nationalism and religion tend to be an explosive mix. The myopic narcissism of nationalism interprets the "religion of the majority" in the most banal and ignorant manner as a pretext to abuse various minorities.