Quit my Master's

I decided after 5 yrs of struggle to quite my MA degree back in 2014.  A combination of theological differences and money troubles caused me to feel uncomfortable in this, so now I have a huge debt to show for it.

I've started my master's

I'm out of town doing my MA program in Biblical Studies. This will help with applications to Islam and the historical-critical method. Too many scholars don't have this background, so their scholarship is lacking in advanced methodology.

Sorry it's been so long. I really didn't know what to put on here.

Karl Marx and Communism

I did a presentation on Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto last week for a class. For the research I discovered that he wrote it for the Communist League in Belgium (partly because he got kicked out of Germany and France for his hard stance) in 1848. The League was disbanded in 1851, leaving Marx to the dustbin of obscurity for a time. Its popularity did not take off until the 1880s and then there were the revolutions in the 1917 in Russia, the Near East in the 1920s, 1949 in China, and the 1960s on US campi. This was all very interesting.

Communism at its core is anti-imperialist and anti-class. But those who joined the revolution joined another form of imperialism: that of Communism. The Egyptian Communists hoped that the Red and Sickle flag would soon fly over Cairo and replace the flag that was already there. Communism's Empire would spread over much of the world. This is a very scary thought.

But I wish to bring to attention what this means for Canada. Because we have this sense of guilt (imagined more than real), our government chooses not to impose Canadian "values" on its immigrants and even native born. This means that no one is really required to learn English (French is another matter), get jobs, integrate into society, or follow the law. This led to a severe case of "welfare state"-ism and low-grade morals.

It is not appreciative when one lives in such a loose country. I hope someday it will get better.

Cartoons and why Canadian presses are against us

We ex-Muslims are not for murder but education. I just listened to a radio interview which was recorded earlier today and posted on this blog to a magazine that I subscribe to. It's about the cartoon debate that is going on today.

The comments by Rémi and kazemi are of note because they point out the obvious in the debate in the comments section itself. An Islamic country could never allow the kind of debate that goes on on a daily basis here in Canada and the USA. I can only say that I am with them.

If you would like to see the pictures, they are available on Jihad Watch and Faith Freedom International at the top of the page.

Gospel imagery in Islamic literature.

I have been delving into the Sira by Ibn Ishaq (Is-haq), later edited and cleaned by Ibn Hisham. This was spurned by reading chapter 1 of John Wansbrough's Sectarian Milieu and he said in there that there were certain topoi or literary stock-stories that the incident of the dispute between the Jews and Muhammad in Medina. As I read the Sira, I was struck by the similarities that I had read before in one of the Gospels. That is the Gospel of John, in verse 8. We see there the story of a confrontation between the Jews and Jesus. Jesus says that he was before Abraham and that Abraham was not a Jew. To this the Jews respond that he was, and that they are of his seed. The argument continues and the ending is not important. What is important is that in A. Guillame's translation of the Sira on pages 247-70, plays the same story, with the addition that Christians say Abraham was a Christian.

This represents a very stock-filled story that cannot have happened. This means that it cannot have happened because of the close similarities in the texts, and that it is so familiar to readers of the New Testament, that we cannot ignore that he must have had the Gospel in front of him.

More to come.

Armenian Genocide: not that bad.

I learned in my Ottoman history course, that the Armenian genocide wasn't a genocide, and that they in reality started it first. As such, they got their just reward. I consulted Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch, and he recommended Dadrian's books and Balakhian's book on the American response to it. Balakhian is a healthy dose of reality and should be read by all. You can easily find it on the shelf, as opposed to other more needy books. I have found it most interesting, and fact filled. We learn that the army and navy of the Ottomans was dismantled because Abdul Hamit II thought that the soldiers would use the weapons on him, so they were ill prepared for anything, which is why they had to ask for German help in WWI. This unprotective army contributed to the uprisings and desire to get rid of an incompetent (or even impotent) caliphate, through the means of the Young Turk movement. This was headed in part by Mustafa Kemal, later called Ataturk, but he was no hero.

Be sure and read these books, as they are an effective counter measure against negationism. Also, Balakhian's book has a concluding chapter which details when and how it was denied. Even Bernard Lewis denies it.

2 bad books.

I have to read 2 books for these first 3 weeks, and they are terrible. One is on the Snake handlers of the Appalchian mountains in the Southeastern USA, and the other is about Vodou (Voodoo) priestess in New York city (Brooklyn). These are, respectively:

Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Brown, Karen McCarthy. Universtiy of California Press, 2001.

Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalchia. Covington, Dennis. Penguin, 1995.

Mama Lola is very boring, and right in the Introduction, Ms. Brown says that she made up a lot of the stuff in the chapters. The books is half a family history and half a story of the voodoo gods that Mama Lola encounters in her job as a healer. It's praised as a postmodern, feminist book, but she is an anthropologist and the book doesn't appear to be worth the printing. I wouldn't recommend it.

The snakes is slightly better, as it starts off covering a trial about Glenn Summerford and his attempted murder of his wife with the churches snakes. It is fast paced and exciting, as the author is a journalist, who knows how to make a juicy story. However, it is still not worth wasting your money on.

More hidden cams from Iran.

There are 2 new cams at bia2: #19 & #20. Go and see. There's some leg shots, and road shots. Very good, shows us reality in Iran.

4 more days!

I have 4 more days of school left, and then I will be free to write for this blog a few more posts as well as work on the book that I'm writing. Please, readers, do not lose heart, as I am extremely busy working on essays for school, as well as translation. I have not forgotten you.

In the meantime, there are some new "hidden cams" at bia2, so I hope you'll get there.

And, I just bought earlier this week, Giles Milton's White Gold, which is proving to be a most excellent read. After I'm done that, I will post a review and some excerpts.

Wisdom

I have just recovered today from my dental surgery. I got my wisdom teeth extracted. How fun, I've been dizzy and woosy. But in a few weeks all will be back to normal.

I'm sorry to my readers for the hiatus. I have been busy in school, with many essays. And it is my last year, so I hope to do good. Thanks for waiting.