The Real Cost of Bottled Water

It makes me upset to see liberal Muslims teaming up with conservative Americans and Europeans in their journey to achieve their goals.

Actually, both sides are exploiting each other in that journey. The Muslims know that conservatives are happy to give them air-time to voice their concerns about Islam and the conservatives know that having those concerns voiced on their programs bolsters their own arguments.

But I think they are often pointing in two directions. While I will allow for the chance that some “critics of Islam” are actually concerned about the faith and wish for Islam to be followed more peacefully and want to bring Muslims back to true faith, I know that most (I would prefer to say all but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) conservative commentators are NOT aiming for that goal. They want to have every opportunity to shame and ridicule Musims and defame and disprove Islam.

They see that having someone like Irshad Manji come on would be a great help for their audience to connect the dots (since the news corporations won’t allow them to say what they want to say) and realize that Islam is violent and evil. Notice that she hasn’t really been given a chance to muse about the beauty and future of Islam, her visions of true faith or delve into the reinterpretation of Quran. No, it’s mostly her childhood fights with her father, the death threats against her, complaining that Muslims are so backward and most of them don’t agree with her and so on…

She was on Glenn Beck recently for a full hour (ugh! I had to watch…) and while it was extremely irritating to hear Beck presuming expertise about Islam and, well, everything else (as he always does), I sat through it.

Here’s my copy-paste from transcript and comments. Keep Reading …

I recently watched a lecture by a “famous” “Salafi” shaikh. I’ll not state the speaker’s name but I’m sure some of you will recognize the ideas below.

I reminded myself to listen to the lecture with an open mind — even though I was not personally impressed with him the first time I heard him speak. I still think he made a few valid points in his lecture but the rest was a bit too bothersome to not blog about. Herein I will display many of my previously unspoken opinions and make public my dissent from “orthodoxy”.

The topic of the lecture was gender-related although he didn’t really cover the topic appropriately. He stated that he has a different opinion about the approach to this topic so his lecture was a bit roundabout while he explained his approach. Keep Reading …

I’m glad Valentine’s season is over. I was getting sick of the diamond and teddy bear commercials…

I have never wanted a diamond, but I am very aware of the pressure from retailers for me to have one. The greater pressure is on men, however. Although retailers are telling me to want a diamond, they are telling men that no woman will give them a second look if they don’t buy her one (or more). As we know, men are usually clueless about how to win a woman’s heart or understand what she wants, so messages like these are especially dangerous.

We see calls to the Suze Orman show asking for advice about taking loans to buy $8,000 engagement rings and other nonsense. Would your wife not love you if you didn’t spend enough? Does the amount you pay reflect the closeness of the relationship?

These things are dangerous not only because they affect people’s financial lives but because they promote a certain type of materialism that strikes on a psychological level as a symbol of “worthiness”. One could go on and on about all the other instances of the attitude that “possessions make you somebody”: you must have a certain size house, the right car, trendy clothes, newest gadget…

We all fall into that loop somewhere and it’s probably impossible to escape it…