"After 9/11: Literature, Arts, and Ethics in the Age of Terror" is a team-taught, interdisciplinary course run by Paul Lauritzen and Philip Metres at John Carroll University, at the 10th anniversary year of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
I absolutely love this video. As a matter of fact today on a news article's comments section on a website (had to do with Iran, and just an FYI that Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian) where I commented,many people started attacking me verbally saying things such as, "Muslims blow themselves up in the name of their God", which totally shocked me. I had never seen, read, heard something so simply sad in my entire life. The ironic part was that the writer's profile photo was a photo of a cross with Jesus on it and they did not understand that we do as a matter of fact worship the same God only name him differently. I just think it is important for many people to understand the drawline between Muslims in general and extremeists who do exist in all religious groups. There are controversial writings in the Bible, in the Torah and the Quran, but at the same time it is also essential to note that these books all have so much in common. There really is no extreme difference. They all call for believing in one God, and it just happens to be that a direct translation of "one God" in Arabic, is Allah. I really do find it very important for each and every one of us to acknowledge that no matter what we all practice, how we practice it, we still are all the same. We should not judge a whole religious/ethnic group based on a small number of people who happen to interpret the Quran so directly and radically, and I do find this video to be the very small yet important proof of that.
I believe Islam is truly misunderstood. All religions went through a point in their life where people looked at that religion as something bad. When that time blew over and the people that were attacking those religions lost the battle against them, people of modern times see how wrong other people were to attack a religion because of their beliefs and misunderstandings. While doing some research, I found an interesting website that clearly states that all religions should be looked at evenly. Just because you have different beliefs does not make you argument for your way of life correct. Religions can never fully be proven right or wrong. It is a belief that one holds close to heart. There are always those extreme people in every religion that push their religion so much that is scary. And you don’t see people saying look at what they did and that they were such and such religions o that must make them all bad. You can’t judge an entire population based on a few bad people. If you are one of those people that do judge based on the few, you are a very small minded person. Everyone is truly different and never alike. There will always be different views on the world. “Well folks—Christians and Jews—the overwhelming majority of the people in the United States, you need to relax about Islam. Muslims are family. They are your kindred through your shared progenitor, Abraham”. (http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9481/pub_detail.asp) This website proved and reminded me that we all come from the same family tree according to all religions. Even though some of the things in this website can be seen as very interesting view points, it all makes sense. Well for me it does after reading some of the other people’s comments that cleared some of the issues I had with understanding parts.
I absolutely agree with Chad on this one. I think that if we begin or continue to address this is as some sort of an issue with Islam then it could become very problematic. As with most religions and just about everything else in life, if something is taken to a very literal or extreme level one begins to run the risk of trouble. More often than not, when one person in a group causes trouble, the entire group often feels the repercussions rather than only the one individual who caused the initial problem. In my opinion this is what is going on in regards to the religion of Islam. Of course not everyone is responsible for the negative behavior towards the religion, but those that are exuding such near sightedness need to understand that not everyone follows the same beliefs as the radical sects of the Islamic faith. To make the assumption that all followers of the Islamic faith practice to the same degree would be a judgment error on the part of us. This video posted above is the perfect example of the types of people that are practicing Islam who do not believe in the radical aspect of the religion.
Thanks, all, for your thoughts; unfortunately, too few of us have had encounters with Islam, so we are often subject to the negative representations that our media often proffer.
I absolutely love this video. As a matter of fact today on a news article's comments section on a website (had to do with Iran, and just an FYI that Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian) where I commented,many people started attacking me verbally saying things such as, "Muslims blow themselves up in the name of their God", which totally shocked me. I had never seen, read, heard something so simply sad in my entire life. The ironic part was that the writer's profile photo was a photo of a cross with Jesus on it and they did not understand that we do as a matter of fact worship the same God only name him differently.
ReplyDeleteI just think it is important for many people to understand the drawline between Muslims in general and extremeists who do exist in all religious groups. There are controversial writings in the Bible, in the Torah and the Quran, but at the same time it is also essential to note that these books all have so much in common. There really is no extreme difference. They all call for believing in one God, and it just happens to be that a direct translation of "one God" in Arabic, is Allah.
I really do find it very important for each and every one of us to acknowledge that no matter what we all practice, how we practice it, we still are all the same. We should not judge a whole religious/ethnic group based on a small number of people who happen to interpret the Quran so directly and radically, and I do find this video to be the very small yet important proof of that.
I believe Islam is truly misunderstood. All religions went through a point in their life where people looked at that religion as something bad. When that time blew over and the people that were attacking those religions lost the battle against them, people of modern times see how wrong other people were to attack a religion because of their beliefs and misunderstandings. While doing some research, I found an interesting website that clearly states that all religions should be looked at evenly. Just because you have different beliefs does not make you argument for your way of life correct. Religions can never fully be proven right or wrong. It is a belief that one holds close to heart. There are always those extreme people in every religion that push their religion so much that is scary. And you don’t see people saying look at what they did and that they were such and such religions o that must make them all bad. You can’t judge an entire population based on a few bad people. If you are one of those people that do judge based on the few, you are a very small minded person. Everyone is truly different and never alike. There will always be different views on the world. “Well folks—Christians and Jews—the overwhelming majority of the people in the United States, you need to relax about Islam. Muslims are family. They are your kindred through your shared progenitor, Abraham”. (http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9481/pub_detail.asp) This website proved and reminded me that we all come from the same family tree according to all religions. Even though some of the things in this website can be seen as very interesting view points, it all makes sense. Well for me it does after reading some of the other people’s comments that cleared some of the issues I had with understanding parts.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Chad on this one. I think that if we begin or continue to address this is as some sort of an issue with Islam then it could become very problematic. As with most religions and just about everything else in life, if something is taken to a very literal or extreme level one begins to run the risk of trouble. More often than not, when one person in a group causes trouble, the entire group often feels the repercussions rather than only the one individual who caused the initial problem. In my opinion this is what is going on in regards to the religion of Islam. Of course not everyone is responsible for the negative behavior towards the religion, but those that are exuding such near sightedness need to understand that not everyone follows the same beliefs as the radical sects of the Islamic faith. To make the assumption that all followers of the Islamic faith practice to the same degree would be a judgment error on the part of us. This video posted above is the perfect example of the types of people that are practicing Islam who do not believe in the radical aspect of the religion.
ReplyDeleteThanks, all, for your thoughts; unfortunately, too few of us have had encounters with Islam, so we are often subject to the negative representations that our media often proffer.
ReplyDelete