I’ve been to Thailand last year or a scuba diving trip and was a witness of this gory fest, which is something that came out of a horror film and I must say that what I saw still lingers in my mind until this day. I gotta hand it though for the brave (crazy brave) participants of the event. Hope they have insurances though.
ANU’s Norshahril Saat weighs in on the hudud debate in Malaysia.
Thus, the arguments for and against the implementation of hudud have to move beyond demographic and temporal factors. To use these arguments will only raise the question: Is it the appropriate time for hudud laws now?
Rather, what have to be discussed are what constitutes good laws, how they are in line with the principles and values enshrined in the Quran and how they are relevant to the modern world.
Thanks for your reply. I know that you put thought and effort into it. It will take some time to give you a full response, but suffice it to say for now that the idea that the Zionists came to expel appears flawed as is the proposition that Palestinians could either refuse Jewish immigration or presiding over their own extinction. If Jews and Palestinians had accepted their mutual presence in mandatory Palestine with a degree of generosity, how many Arab villages that are no more would have been saved? How many pre-’48 kibbutzim in what became the West Bank could have survived as an integrated part of the landscape rather than as a post ’67 welter of defiant settlements in unforgiving territory?
The 11 million Jews of Europe in 1900 had a genuine need to escape from a Europe that went mad with increasing intensity from the Dreifus Affair to Hitler. The Zionists saw the handwriting on the wall, and they had every bit as much right to continue as a people in their own land. The 500,000 Palestinians in 1900 had their own culture that often was, and should not have been, disregarded by the Zionists. They too, had every right to be a people in their own land. Denying the connection to the land of one is as myopic and self centered as denying the connection to the land of the other. Perhaps they could have found a way to make their dreams jointly possible. Perhaps we ask too much of them, to make them all into 21st century anthropologists who are not only respectful but eager to learn the mores and culture of the “Other”. But are we asking too much of them, and of us, to try to make that leap now?
In the meantime, Raheem does not have time for all of this. Tell me where to send him a small contribution. His life, and his family’s life are important to me. I do not live in Israel, but that is only a quirk of fate. If I did, I hope that my life, and my family’s life would be equally important to him.
Ashoka inscribed a total of 26 major and minor rock edicts and 7 pillar edicts describing his views on dhamma and placed them all over his huge empire. On one of the minor rock edicts (quoted by Matthew Kosuta above), he greets the Order, professes deep respect for and faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Samgha, calls Lord Buddha by name, and follows this up with a list of seven Buddhist suttas, including “Advice to Rahula.”
How convenient! However, there are problems with this, which makes me think that this particular edict, at least, could have been erected by devotees of the Buddha rather than by Ashoka/Piyadassi. After all, the minor rock edicts as artifacts are nothing remarkable, certainly not particularly redounding to the Great Ashoka. Without this one edict we could not say positively that Ashoka was referring specifically to Buddhism. So why is the Buddha or his teachings never mentioned in any of the pillar edicts or the major rock edicts? Compare the medieval Christian practice of interpolating ancient manuscripts in support of a creed: the Testimonium Flavianum comes to mind.
Buddha is not a name but a title. So people would probably not have referred to him as Lord Buddha, had he been a historical person. The inscription also mentions “Advice to Rahula,” his son. In the early tradition, and this period was early, Buddha did not have a son and Rahula was added in a later tradition to lend pathos to his renunciation. Rahula means fetters or impediment. Ashoka reigned 269-232 BCE; Buddha died in the range 483-368 BCE, with Beckert favoring the latter year. So are we to believe that in about 150 years of his death this new creed had spread all over India, even among the Hindus?
Having lived in Germany for over a decade, I find it amusing that the German President (the present one?) should compare Germany’s Federalism (Bundesrepubik Deutschland) as a model for “Birma”. The “Germanic tribes” (Bayern, Sachsen, Schwaben, etc.) are nothing compared to the 135 designated ethnic tribes of Burma and the “L├дnder” (provinces) in Germany are not exactly drawn along ethnic lines (where would you put the Turks and the Poles for example lol)
Back to ASEAN: well Laos, Cambodia and Burma are more or less under Chinese coercion. Singaporeans are mainly Chinese and when push comes to shove ethnic Chinese will always “unite” unlike ASEAN. Besides, Singapore thrives from money-laundering so they have “vested interests”. In that sense, Vietnam and Philippines would have a hard time getting full support from ASEAN. Of course, China is “testing the waters” for hegemony against the US. “South China” seas is just the beginning stretch for their string-of-pearls strategy. Next step is the Bay of Bengal and China has already made inroads (gas/oil pipelines, copper mines, deep-sea ports, Chinese proxy rebel armies just like in Crimea) into Burma using their 2Y-strategy (Yuan and Y chromosomes) but Burmese don’t dare to complain openly. The Vietnamese are at least brave enough to defy Chinese expansionism. Maybe the Russians (Gerhard Schröder the ex-Kanzler is a good friend of Putin) should stand behind Vietnam if Obama is too much of a wimp, as Putin and the Chinese seem to know.
Best laid plans and all that. Seeing only one side of the equation can’t be right however powerful the players are or how compelling the evidence is. There are always two sides to these things. If you forget the popular struggle mainly under its own steam and many good grassroots leaders across the board, you’re bound to end up no more than a doomsayer.
There is non anymore. It is all a love parade anyhow, all around the world, a initiation into the age and the sound of the machine: Techno!
Where Chakravartin Kings had to ensure that waters and sperm everlessly flew, the symbol of water, sparsely dispersed by Brahmins from a wagon onto the bystanders on Bangkok roads, as Frazer vividly describes, is nowadays being displaced by the rule of the pump-gun and teenage sexual, a tribal techno rage and rave, emulated by the power of the machine.
That’s dance and make love to the sound of the music of the Universal machine, our new Global Chakravartin.
Just one cultural example, among many which could be cited, of why Isaarn does not consider itself part of Thailand :www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4-JfaOy9x8
Norman states: “there is, then, no doubt that Ashoka was a Buddhist layman…” (p.150 and see Thapar 2014, 3rd edition p.3). There is pretty much unanimous consent that Ashoka was a Buddhist based on his own inscriptions, and not the later Buddhist texts. From calling himself an upasaka, his going to the sangha, his recommending certain Buddhist texts, his visit to the Bodhi tree in Gaya and his Buddhist pilgrimages to the other main sights including installing pillars, Ashoka consistently shows his adherence to Buddhism, a commitment that does not appear in his more generalized support for other sects.
To quote from Thapar (p.389) translating (Dhammika translates similarly, as does Norman) Minor Rock Inscription Bhabra (Bairat):
“The King of Magadha, Piyadassi, greets the Order and wished it prosperity and freedom from care. You know Sirs, how deep is my respect for and faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Samgha. Sirs, whatever was spoken by the Lord Buddha was well spoken. And Sirs, allow me to tell you what I believe contributes to the long survival of the Buddhist Dhamma [‘Buddhist’ is not in the original] These sermons on Dhamma, Sirs — …”
What follows in the inscription is a list of seven Buddhist suttas recommended for study. Other inscriptions show a similar commitment to Buddhism, none show anything similar to other religions.
Was Ashoka’s dhamma Buddhist dhamma? Unless more information is discovered this will remain a controversy as scholars disagree. I think, along with others, that Ashoka ruled a pluralistic society and he is trying to establish a code of ethics for his empire and that code is decidedly not Brahmanist, hardly Ajivaka, and approaching Jain ethics because Jain ethics in some instances approaches Buddhist ethics anyway. For the same reasons Ashoka can be identified as a Buddhist, so can his dhamma. Generic his ethics is, but Ashoka speaks like someone drawing his universal dhamma from his own Buddhist ethics.
Finally, Buddhism throughout history has been expressed (as well as taught and spread) by devotionalism, moralistic tales such as Jatakas, and such, not just by invoking the four noble truths etc. The Tipitaka is filled with suttas where the Buddha never specifically mentions 4NTs, paticcasamupadda etc (though one can argue that they are always implicitly there), but at the end of the sutta people become followers of the Buddha, dhamma and sangha. What is the content of the Dhammapada? Thus expressing Buddhism, as I think Ashokan dhamma does, is hardly contingent on explicit expressions of core philosophical Buddhist concepts.
See:
Allen, Charles. Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor
Dhammika, Venerable S. The Edicts of King Ashoka
Norman, K.R. A Philological Approach to Buddhism
Thapar, Romila. Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
And several more, including the Tipitaka and the Ashokan Inscriptions.
The name Ashoka never appears in inscriptions: he always called himself Piyadassi, Beloved of the Gods. However, there were legends of a King Ashoka, passed down in the Ashoka Avadhana, and in the Ceylon/Lanka chronicles Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, and elsewhere. It was Prinsep who, with help from a British colonial administrator in Ceylon with some knowledge of the chronicles, who made the connection and claimed that Piyadassi and Ashoka were one and the same. However, both Ceylon chronicles are late and anything they have to say about Ashoka would be legend handed down orally.
And was Ashoka really a “Buddhist?” He never says so in his inscriptions, never mentions Buddha, never mentions the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path. Buddhists claim him as their own because he is so exemplary and his inscriptions use the word “dhamma” repeatedly; but this word was also used by the Brahmins and had been for centuries prior. Piyadassi does claim to have sent missionaries, but to the west, as far as Greece. After all, Alexander the Great was still almost in living memory. If Thais have been guilty of myth-making for nationalism’s sake, and they have and I by no means condone it, we have learned from good role models.
If you are referring to the trumped-up murder charges(?) against Abhisit, maybe they are on the slow track because they will be laughed out of court if they ever get there, but meanwhile they serve their purpose in helping to demonize Thaksin’s opponents.
But this time it is an end game for all. There is unlikely to be any survivors, let alone winners (winners will ALWAYS be the planners- international business community who control every thing -banks, monetary system,governments, communication lines, media and academic institutions) even though “Americans are the BEST” “Sorts is very kind” crowd -including young, privileged, restless and stupid men in monks’ robes attending Leadership Indoctrination Courses and feminists’ revolution nuns- is feeling so smug at the moment.
Enjoy the display! Perhaps an inspiration for a future PS4 game for the game station?
This article fails because it misses the Muslim starting point for their understanding of Christology. It’s useless to try and dialogue with Muslims about Jesus’ divine status by quoting from the New Testament. Instead, the author and everyone else, should confront Muslims with their extraordinary claims that, at some time in history, Jews and Christians gathered together every existing copy of the Old and the New testaments and destroyed them, because they agreed with the Koran and it’s claims about Jesus. Then, having destroyed these texts with agreed with Islam, they re-wrote them with so called’ false claims’ about Jesus. Thus, according to Islam, the Jewish Old testament and the Christian Bible are later, re-written and completely false accounts of the biblical narrative.
This is the point to take up with Muslims. Pin point them on this extraordinary – and unreasonable claim – and make them explain – how all this occurred. Of course, they can’t answer. They will just respond, “It is true because it is in the Koran.”
The Koran re-wrote Jesus to conveniently fit in with Islamic claims. As much else has been re-written to fit in with Muslim beliefs.
Christians need to make themselves familiar with Islamic claims. For instance – that Moses was Jesus uncle!!!! That at the end of time, the (Muslim) Jesus will return and destroy Christianity and all Christians who have not converted to Islam. That the devil resides in a person’s nose!
Muslims need to be consistently confronted with the unreasonableness of Islam. But of course that’s the last thing they want to discover. Because if they see how unreasonable Islam is – they discover it has no reason to exist. Because it is based on a mish-mash of misunderstood and incomplete ( and sometimes heretical) distortions of Jewish and Christian biblical texts.
The founders of Islam did not come in contact with ‘orthodox’ Christians – just Arians and Gnostics. Hence their distorted view of Christianity. But of course, they will not – they cannot – acknowledge this. But Christians must.
Some time ago I taught English in Thailand. On our way to work, from Don Meaung area where I lived, we every day crossed Khlong Aksa. It does not surprise me that there are such huge Red Shirt demonstrations from this area, nor that they are close to one of the Vijaralongkorn palaces. His Royal Highness is highly revered in this area – including not only vast numbers of military, but even more vast numbers of pro-Vijaralongkorn street thugs now no doubt itching to settle scores with the PDRC : http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/409107/reds-renew-civil-war-warning
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Thailand’s gory veggie fest
I’ve been to Thailand last year or a scuba diving trip and was a witness of this gory fest, which is something that came out of a horror film and I must say that what I saw still lingers in my mind until this day. I gotta hand it though for the brave (crazy brave) participants of the event. Hope they have insurances though.
What about Hudud in Malaysia?
ANU’s Norshahril Saat weighs in on the hudud debate in Malaysia.
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/modern-laws-can-be-religious-too
Undoing Yudhoyono’s Sectarian Legacy
What ? Persecution of minority Islamic sects in Indonesia ? Can’t be true. Must be a FOREIGN
conspiracy to defame Indonesia.
Interview with a Palestinian refugee in Thailand
Thanks for your reply. I know that you put thought and effort into it. It will take some time to give you a full response, but suffice it to say for now that the idea that the Zionists came to expel appears flawed as is the proposition that Palestinians could either refuse Jewish immigration or presiding over their own extinction. If Jews and Palestinians had accepted their mutual presence in mandatory Palestine with a degree of generosity, how many Arab villages that are no more would have been saved? How many pre-’48 kibbutzim in what became the West Bank could have survived as an integrated part of the landscape rather than as a post ’67 welter of defiant settlements in unforgiving territory?
The 11 million Jews of Europe in 1900 had a genuine need to escape from a Europe that went mad with increasing intensity from the Dreifus Affair to Hitler. The Zionists saw the handwriting on the wall, and they had every bit as much right to continue as a people in their own land. The 500,000 Palestinians in 1900 had their own culture that often was, and should not have been, disregarded by the Zionists. They too, had every right to be a people in their own land. Denying the connection to the land of one is as myopic and self centered as denying the connection to the land of the other. Perhaps they could have found a way to make their dreams jointly possible. Perhaps we ask too much of them, to make them all into 21st century anthropologists who are not only respectful but eager to learn the mores and culture of the “Other”. But are we asking too much of them, and of us, to try to make that leap now?
In the meantime, Raheem does not have time for all of this. Tell me where to send him a small contribution. His life, and his family’s life are important to me. I do not live in Israel, but that is only a quirk of fate. If I did, I hope that my life, and my family’s life would be equally important to him.
Cambodia is not a province of Thailand
Ashoka inscribed a total of 26 major and minor rock edicts and 7 pillar edicts describing his views on dhamma and placed them all over his huge empire. On one of the minor rock edicts (quoted by Matthew Kosuta above), he greets the Order, professes deep respect for and faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Samgha, calls Lord Buddha by name, and follows this up with a list of seven Buddhist suttas, including “Advice to Rahula.”
How convenient! However, there are problems with this, which makes me think that this particular edict, at least, could have been erected by devotees of the Buddha rather than by Ashoka/Piyadassi. After all, the minor rock edicts as artifacts are nothing remarkable, certainly not particularly redounding to the Great Ashoka. Without this one edict we could not say positively that Ashoka was referring specifically to Buddhism. So why is the Buddha or his teachings never mentioned in any of the pillar edicts or the major rock edicts? Compare the medieval Christian practice of interpolating ancient manuscripts in support of a creed: the Testimonium Flavianum comes to mind.
Buddha is not a name but a title. So people would probably not have referred to him as Lord Buddha, had he been a historical person. The inscription also mentions “Advice to Rahula,” his son. In the early tradition, and this period was early, Buddha did not have a son and Rahula was added in a later tradition to lend pathos to his renunciation. Rahula means fetters or impediment. Ashoka reigned 269-232 BCE; Buddha died in the range 483-368 BCE, with Beckert favoring the latter year. So are we to believe that in about 150 years of his death this new creed had spread all over India, even among the Hindus?
Myanmar’s ASEAN challenges
Having lived in Germany for over a decade, I find it amusing that the German President (the present one?) should compare Germany’s Federalism (Bundesrepubik Deutschland) as a model for “Birma”. The “Germanic tribes” (Bayern, Sachsen, Schwaben, etc.) are nothing compared to the 135 designated ethnic tribes of Burma and the “L├дnder” (provinces) in Germany are not exactly drawn along ethnic lines (where would you put the Turks and the Poles for example lol)
Back to ASEAN: well Laos, Cambodia and Burma are more or less under Chinese coercion. Singaporeans are mainly Chinese and when push comes to shove ethnic Chinese will always “unite” unlike ASEAN. Besides, Singapore thrives from money-laundering so they have “vested interests”. In that sense, Vietnam and Philippines would have a hard time getting full support from ASEAN. Of course, China is “testing the waters” for hegemony against the US. “South China” seas is just the beginning stretch for their string-of-pearls strategy. Next step is the Bay of Bengal and China has already made inroads (gas/oil pipelines, copper mines, deep-sea ports, Chinese proxy rebel armies just like in Crimea) into Burma using their 2Y-strategy (Yuan and Y chromosomes) but Burmese don’t dare to complain openly. The Vietnamese are at least brave enough to defy Chinese expansionism. Maybe the Russians (Gerhard Schröder the ex-Kanzler is a good friend of Putin) should stand behind Vietnam if Obama is too much of a wimp, as Putin and the Chinese seem to know.
Myanmar’s unreliable narrators
Ohn
Best laid plans and all that. Seeing only one side of the equation can’t be right however powerful the players are or how compelling the evidence is. There are always two sides to these things. If you forget the popular struggle mainly under its own steam and many good grassroots leaders across the board, you’re bound to end up no more than a doomsayer.
There’s everything to play for.
Partitioned love in the dirty lake
Water-festival ! ?
There is non anymore. It is all a love parade anyhow, all around the world, a initiation into the age and the sound of the machine: Techno!
Where Chakravartin Kings had to ensure that waters and sperm everlessly flew, the symbol of water, sparsely dispersed by Brahmins from a wagon onto the bystanders on Bangkok roads, as Frazer vividly describes, is nowadays being displaced by the rule of the pump-gun and teenage sexual, a tribal techno rage and rave, emulated by the power of the machine.
That’s dance and make love to the sound of the music of the Universal machine, our new Global Chakravartin.
A coup by any other name…
Just one cultural example, among many which could be cited, of why Isaarn does not consider itself part of Thailand :www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4-JfaOy9x8
A coup by any other name…
I’m expecting a pro-Vajiralongkorn coup soon, perhaps as early as the end of this week. Just take a look at this : http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/409233/top-brass-not-keen-on-sect-7-option-source
Cambodia is not a province of Thailand
Norman states: “there is, then, no doubt that Ashoka was a Buddhist layman…” (p.150 and see Thapar 2014, 3rd edition p.3). There is pretty much unanimous consent that Ashoka was a Buddhist based on his own inscriptions, and not the later Buddhist texts. From calling himself an upasaka, his going to the sangha, his recommending certain Buddhist texts, his visit to the Bodhi tree in Gaya and his Buddhist pilgrimages to the other main sights including installing pillars, Ashoka consistently shows his adherence to Buddhism, a commitment that does not appear in his more generalized support for other sects.
To quote from Thapar (p.389) translating (Dhammika translates similarly, as does Norman) Minor Rock Inscription Bhabra (Bairat):
“The King of Magadha, Piyadassi, greets the Order and wished it prosperity and freedom from care. You know Sirs, how deep is my respect for and faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Samgha. Sirs, whatever was spoken by the Lord Buddha was well spoken. And Sirs, allow me to tell you what I believe contributes to the long survival of the Buddhist Dhamma [‘Buddhist’ is not in the original] These sermons on Dhamma, Sirs — …”
What follows in the inscription is a list of seven Buddhist suttas recommended for study. Other inscriptions show a similar commitment to Buddhism, none show anything similar to other religions.
Was Ashoka’s dhamma Buddhist dhamma? Unless more information is discovered this will remain a controversy as scholars disagree. I think, along with others, that Ashoka ruled a pluralistic society and he is trying to establish a code of ethics for his empire and that code is decidedly not Brahmanist, hardly Ajivaka, and approaching Jain ethics because Jain ethics in some instances approaches Buddhist ethics anyway. For the same reasons Ashoka can be identified as a Buddhist, so can his dhamma. Generic his ethics is, but Ashoka speaks like someone drawing his universal dhamma from his own Buddhist ethics.
Finally, Buddhism throughout history has been expressed (as well as taught and spread) by devotionalism, moralistic tales such as Jatakas, and such, not just by invoking the four noble truths etc. The Tipitaka is filled with suttas where the Buddha never specifically mentions 4NTs, paticcasamupadda etc (though one can argue that they are always implicitly there), but at the end of the sutta people become followers of the Buddha, dhamma and sangha. What is the content of the Dhammapada? Thus expressing Buddhism, as I think Ashokan dhamma does, is hardly contingent on explicit expressions of core philosophical Buddhist concepts.
See:
Allen, Charles. Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor
Dhammika, Venerable S. The Edicts of King Ashoka
Norman, K.R. A Philological Approach to Buddhism
Thapar, Romila. Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
And several more, including the Tipitaka and the Ashokan Inscriptions.
A coup by any other name…
“A person with a “Warrant of Arrest” issued against him / her, shall not be walking freely, occupying public spaces and …..”
Please explain the above.. I can’t get my head around that one.
Fun with flowcharts: the China-US Conspiracy Scheme
We’re gonna need a bigger flowchart.
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
The rule of Law is proven! One for the rich & another for the poor in Thailand.
Now the law is in peoples’ hand.
Bloody Thailand from now!
Cambodia is not a province of Thailand
The name Ashoka never appears in inscriptions: he always called himself Piyadassi, Beloved of the Gods. However, there were legends of a King Ashoka, passed down in the Ashoka Avadhana, and in the Ceylon/Lanka chronicles Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, and elsewhere. It was Prinsep who, with help from a British colonial administrator in Ceylon with some knowledge of the chronicles, who made the connection and claimed that Piyadassi and Ashoka were one and the same. However, both Ceylon chronicles are late and anything they have to say about Ashoka would be legend handed down orally.
And was Ashoka really a “Buddhist?” He never says so in his inscriptions, never mentions Buddha, never mentions the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path. Buddhists claim him as their own because he is so exemplary and his inscriptions use the word “dhamma” repeatedly; but this word was also used by the Brahmins and had been for centuries prior. Piyadassi does claim to have sent missionaries, but to the west, as far as Greece. After all, Alexander the Great was still almost in living memory. If Thais have been guilty of myth-making for nationalism’s sake, and they have and I by no means condone it, we have learned from good role models.
A coup by any other name…
If you are referring to the trumped-up murder charges(?) against Abhisit, maybe they are on the slow track because they will be laughed out of court if they ever get there, but meanwhile they serve their purpose in helping to demonize Thaksin’s opponents.
Myanmar’s unreliable narrators
True, true.
But this time it is an end game for all. There is unlikely to be any survivors, let alone winners (winners will ALWAYS be the planners- international business community who control every thing -banks, monetary system,governments, communication lines, media and academic institutions) even though “Americans are the BEST” “Sorts is very kind” crowd -including young, privileged, restless and stupid men in monks’ robes attending Leadership Indoctrination Courses and feminists’ revolution nuns- is feeling so smug at the moment.
Enjoy the display! Perhaps an inspiration for a future PS4 game for the game station?
A coup by any other name…
hrk says
My conclusion is that as little as one can trust the military as agent for democracy one can trust royalists.
Well no one living in Thailand can argue with that.
A response to UiTM’s seminar presenters
This article fails because it misses the Muslim starting point for their understanding of Christology. It’s useless to try and dialogue with Muslims about Jesus’ divine status by quoting from the New Testament. Instead, the author and everyone else, should confront Muslims with their extraordinary claims that, at some time in history, Jews and Christians gathered together every existing copy of the Old and the New testaments and destroyed them, because they agreed with the Koran and it’s claims about Jesus. Then, having destroyed these texts with agreed with Islam, they re-wrote them with so called’ false claims’ about Jesus. Thus, according to Islam, the Jewish Old testament and the Christian Bible are later, re-written and completely false accounts of the biblical narrative.
This is the point to take up with Muslims. Pin point them on this extraordinary – and unreasonable claim – and make them explain – how all this occurred. Of course, they can’t answer. They will just respond, “It is true because it is in the Koran.”
The Koran re-wrote Jesus to conveniently fit in with Islamic claims. As much else has been re-written to fit in with Muslim beliefs.
Christians need to make themselves familiar with Islamic claims. For instance – that Moses was Jesus uncle!!!! That at the end of time, the (Muslim) Jesus will return and destroy Christianity and all Christians who have not converted to Islam. That the devil resides in a person’s nose!
Muslims need to be consistently confronted with the unreasonableness of Islam. But of course that’s the last thing they want to discover. Because if they see how unreasonable Islam is – they discover it has no reason to exist. Because it is based on a mish-mash of misunderstood and incomplete ( and sometimes heretical) distortions of Jewish and Christian biblical texts.
The founders of Islam did not come in contact with ‘orthodox’ Christians – just Arians and Gnostics. Hence their distorted view of Christianity. But of course, they will not – they cannot – acknowledge this. But Christians must.
A coup by any other name…
Some time ago I taught English in Thailand. On our way to work, from Don Meaung area where I lived, we every day crossed Khlong Aksa. It does not surprise me that there are such huge Red Shirt demonstrations from this area, nor that they are close to one of the Vijaralongkorn palaces. His Royal Highness is highly revered in this area – including not only vast numbers of military, but even more vast numbers of pro-Vijaralongkorn street thugs now no doubt itching to settle scores with the PDRC : http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/409107/reds-renew-civil-war-warning