Allah, CREATED THE UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING
عبدلله
___________________________________________
With ample evidence discovered by science, the thesis of an "infinite
universe" was tossed onto the scrap-heap of the history of scientific
ideas. Yet, more important questions were forthcoming: what existed
before the Big Bang? What force could have caused the great explosion
that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?
There is a single answer to be given to the question of what existed
before the Big Bang: God, the All-powerful and the Almighty, Who
created the earth and the heavens in great order. Many scientists, be
they believers or not, are obliged to admit this truth. Although they
may decline to admit this fact on scientific platforms, their
confessions in between the lines give them away. Renowned atheist
philosopher Anthony Flew says:
Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin
by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by
the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the
cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas
contended could not be proved philosophically; namely, that the
universe had a beginning. So long as the universe can be comfortably
thought of as being not only without end but also beginning, it
remains easy to urge that its brute existence, and whatever are found
to be its most fundamental features, should be accepted as the
explanatory ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still
correct, it certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this
position in the face of the Big Bang story. (Henry Margenau, Roy
Abraham Vargesse, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, La Salla IL: Open Court
Publishing, 1992, p. 241).
Some scientists like the British materialist physicist H. P. Lipson
confess that they have to accept the Big Bang theory whether they want
it or not:
If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms,
natural forces, and radiation, how has it come into being?… I think,
however, that we must…admit that the only acceptable explanation is
creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is
to me, but we must not reject that we do not like if the experimental
evidence supports it. (H. P. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution",
Physics Bulletin, vol. 138, 1980, p. 138).
In conclusion, science points to a single reality whether materialist
scientists like it or not. Matter and time have been created by a
Creator, Who is All-Powerful and Who created the heavens, the earth
and all that is in between: Almighty God.
It is God Who created the seven heavens and of the earth the same
number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you
might know that God has power over all things and that God encompasses
all things in His knowledge. (Surat at-Talaq: 12)
___________________________________________________
THE PERFECT DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE IS NOT BY CHANCE
____________________________________________________
Just think about the things you see from the moment you wake up in the
morning: the pillow under your head, the blanket over you, the alarm
clock that woke you up, the slippers you search for as soon as you get
out of bed, the window you open to get some fresh air, the clothes
hanging in your closet, the mirror you look into every morning, the
knife and fork you use for breakfast, the umbrella you take with you
when you leave the house, the elevator you get into, the key that
opens your car door, the traffic lights along the way, the billboards,
the pen, paper and other things on your desk at work...
Spend some time to consider, and it will no doubt occur to you that
each of these things was designed for a special purpose. No one would
say that it was a matter of chance that everything was where it should
be when you arose up in the morning. For example, who would claim that
merely by chance, your house key was cut exactly to fit the door? Or
that it ended up in your pocket by chance, in the first place? No one
would claim that the billboards along the road were put there by
chance, or that the meanings they intend came about by randomly
painted symbols.
By the same token, no one would deny that a staple—nothing other than
a specially shaped piece of wire on your desk—was bent and placed in
its dispenser in order to hold papers together. Each staple's metal
alloy, size, shape, and intended function show the evidence of
deliberate design. It was planned specifically to accommodate your
needs; and there's a particular reason why staples are so often found
in any office setting.
What about the people you see walking along the street? Or the trees
you pass by, the dog that runs out in front of you, the pigeons that
build their nests in the eaves of your house, the flowers on your
table, the sky above you? Could their existence be by chance, do you
think?
It would be nonsense to even consider this possibility! Everything
surrounding you, animate and inanimate alike, is too wonderful and
complex to be compared with man-made items or ever to be ascribed to
the operations of chance. Each is an example of a conscious creation,
requiring consummate intelligence and skill. Everyone who finds it
illogical to think that even a single staple came about by the proper
bending of a wire by chance, will see that it is even more impossible
that human beings, cats, birds, trees and the entire universe emerged
by chance.
But today, there are people who cannot see this clear reality. Or
rather they see it, but pretend not to. They claim that trees, birds,
clouds, houses, cars, you yourself, others around you—in short,
everything in the universe, animate and inanimate, is all the work of
blind chance.
These people, known as Materialist-Darwinists, maintain the
contradictory idea that chance occurrences can display supreme
intelligence; and that the sum total of millions of chance events,
occurring in sequence, can show creative power. According to
Materialist-Darwinists, chance events have greater intelligence than
every person in the world—no matter how many people have come and
gone. They claim that a genius called "chance" has shaped everyone's
brain, cognitive ability, judgment, memory, and countless other human
characteristics for hundreds of thousands of years.
Let us examine the irrationality of those who have entered the blind
alley of chance, ignoring the wondrous design that surrounds them as
well as the proofs of creation.
Chance Is Not A Deity: It Is God Who Is The Creator Of All That Exists
The theory of evolution puts forth the irrational claim that all
plants, animals and human beings are the result of blind, unconscious,
accidental events. Evolutionists believe that millions of years ago,
in the primal soup of the oceans or in pools of water, mindless atoms
with no knowledge, powers of reason came together in certain
proportions and later, by chance, formed the proteins and cells that
even today's scientists with the most advanced laboratory technology
have not been able to duplicate. They go so far as to say that these
cells, in their turn—and again by sheer chance—formed starfish, fish,
sparrows, hawks, seagulls, penguins, cats, lambs, lions, and even
human beings who possess the faculty of reason.
To demonstrate just how incredible the claims of evolutionists are,
let anyone who believes in the creative power of chance events take a
large barrel. Let them put into it however much material they believe
is required to form a living thing. For example, let them include all
the needed elements—carbon, phosphorus, calcium—as well as organic
compounds like amino acids, proteins, lipids, and carotene. Then let
them add to this mixture whatever outside influence they choose. For
example, heat or chill the barrel. Let it be struck by lightning or
apply electric current. Let them stir the mixture with whatever
advanced devices they may have. In addition, let them stand guard on
this barrel transferring this responsibility from father to son for
millions, even billions, of years. And so as to increase the chances
of success, let them control the mixing at every moment. Let them
consult with others; meet with the world's foremost biologists,
geneticists, physicists and experts on evolution. Leave them free to
produce whatever conditions they deem necessary to originate life.
Yet despite all this serious, conscious effort, they'll never be able
to produce anything like a living being in that barrel. No matter what
they do, they'll never be able to produce the living things pictured
in this book.
Let those atoms in that barrel perform any reactions they want; never
will they begin an "evolution" capable of producing brilliant
scientists
discoverers;scientists able to examine under
electron microscopes the molecules and atoms out of which they
themselves are composed; talented actors li celebrities
those who take pleasure in symmetry,
esthetics and harmonious colors; those able to design automobiles and
write books; thinkers with faculties of logic and judgment; human
beings able to retain in memory what they have learned, share
longings, feel excitement and pleasure; who are possessed with a sense
of love, mercy and compassion; who enjoy the taste of food and whose
appetite is stimulated by a cake baking in the oven; who laugh at
something funny and enjoy being with their friends; who can defend an
idea and carry on a discussion.
Bring unconscious atoms together in whatever way you prefer. Never
will they be able to bring about a single one of these living things,
or even one of their cells.
If so—if no living thing can ever be produced by human effort and the
whole pool of human knowledge—how can life be brought into being with
the aid of unconscious atoms and chance events? Any intelligent human
being of conscience can certainly understand that he—and other living
things—cannot be the result of chance events. Every intelligent,
unprejudiced person with a conscience knows that God has created all
these living things with His incomparable power.
Regrettably, a segment of the population has accepted this irrational
scenario throughout the 20th century. Professors, scientists and
teachers may ridicule the "primitive" beliefs of pagan societies,
while themselves accepting the nonsense of evolution. In this, they're
equally as benighted as those human beings who expect a wooden idol
can help them. God's Messenger, the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon
him, also reminded anyone afflicted with such blindness that the
greatest sin is associating His creatures with God:
The most severe sin is to associate partners with God, while He has
created you. (Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)
In the Qur'an (29:17), God warns those who worship idols and invent
lies about them that their power is strong enough to do anything:
Al-Ankaboot
QUOTE
And verily we sent Noah (as Our messenger) unto his folk, and he
continued with them for a thousand years save fifty years; and the
flood engulfed them, for they were wrong-doers. (14) And We rescued
him and those with him in the ship, and made of it a portent for the
peoples. (15) And Abraham! (Remember) when he said unto his folk:
Serve Allah, and keep your duty unto Him; that is better for you if ye
did but know. (16) Ye serve instead of Allah only idols, and ye only
invent a lie. Lo! those whom ye serve instead of Allah own no
provision for you. So seek your provision from Allah, and serve Him,
and give thanks unto Him, (for) unto Him ye will be brought back. (17)
But if ye deny, then nations have denied before you. The messenger is
only to convey (the message) plainly. (18) See they not how Allah
produceth creation, then reproduceth it? Lo! for Allah that is easy.
(19) Say (O Muhammad): Travel in the land and see how He originated
creation, then Allah bringeth forth the later growth. Lo! Allah is
Able to do all things. (20) He punisheth whom He will and showeth
mercy unto whom He will, and unto Him ye will be turned. (21) Ye
cannot escape (from Him) in the earth or in the sky, and beside Allah
there is for you no friend nor helper. (22) Those who disbelieve in
the revelations of Allah and in (their) Meeting with Him, such have no
hope of My mercy. For such there is a painful doom. (23) But the
answer of his folk was only that they said: "Kill him" or "Burn him."
Then Allah saved him from the Fire. Lo! herein verily are portents for
folk who believe. (24) He said: Ye have chosen only idols instead of
Allah. The love between you is only in the life of the world. Then on
the Day of Resurrection ye will deny each other and curse each other,
and your abode will be the Fire, and ye will have no helpers. (25)
--------------------
What's The Purpose of life ?
Here you will get the answer :
http://www.islamtomorrow.com/purpose.htm
or
THE COLLAPSE OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION IN 20 QUESTIONS
http://newaninvitationtothetruth.blogspot.com/
OR
Islam Guide: A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam,
Muslims, & the Quran
or
The quran miracles encyclopedia
or
((( Acquainted With Islam )))
http://aslam-ahmd.blogspot.com/
or
The Religion of Islam
or
converts
http://converts-ahmd.blogspot.com
Franz Gnaedinger
> Allah, CREATED THE UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING
> ___________________________________________
>
> With ample evidence discovered by science, the thesis of an "infinite
> universe" was tossed onto the scrap-heap of the history of scientific
> ideas. Yet, more important questions were forthcoming: what existed
> before the Big Bang? What force could have caused the great explosion
> that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?
>
> There is a single answer to be given to the question of what existed
> before the Big Bang: God, the All-powerful and the Almighty, Who
> created the earth and the heavens in great order. Many scientists, be
> they believers or not, are obliged to admit this truth. Although they
> may decline to admit this fact on scientific platforms, their
> confessions in between the lines give them away. Renowned atheist
> philosopher Anthony Flew says:
Are you Islamway? Islamway posted the same stuff. You are not
up-to-date in physics. The Big Bang is not the only solution
to Einstein's equations, very new solutions suggest a pulsating
universe, contracting and expanding and contracting again and
expanding again, never so small as to form a singularity,
no Big Bang. And, by the way, Allah was a woman, first mentioned
on a pillar of the Göbekli Tepe in southeast Anatolia, Sanliurfa
region, some eleven thousand years ago:
http://www.seshat.ch/home/gt01.GIF
http://www.seshat.ch/home/lascaux3.htm
The standing H on one of the pillars represents the ancient goddess
and fire giver PIR GID, the vertical bar of the H is an oval
representing her mouth, her speach, hieroglyph for ) or L and
)OG or LOG - produce the sound given by the arc by curving
your tongue; let the tip of the tongue slide along the roof of your
mouth, and let your tongue smack into its wet bed. ) lives on
in Hebrew El while )OG or LOG lives on in Greek logos and
in your Allah, which means: when I use my God given intelligence
to refute claims of a fanatic religion I speak as well in the sense
of Allah, who was a woman to begin with. Allah has 99 names
but nobody knows the real name. Well, the name, 11'000 years
ago, was PIR GID who had the say ) or L or )OG or LOG ...
sci.lang is not meant for religious propaganda. If you ignore
the purpose of our forum, you have to deal with me and
my intellectual capacities given to me by PIR GID alias
logos and El and Allah.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 17, 9:12 pm, عبدلله <thinker...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Allah, CREATED THE UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING
> > ___________________________________________
>
> > With ample evidence discovered by science, the thesis of an "infinite
> > universe" was tossed onto the scrap-heap of the history of scientific
> > ideas. Yet, more important questions were forthcoming: what existed
> > before the Big Bang? What force could have caused the great explosion
> > that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?
>
> > There is a single answer to be given to the question of what existed
> > before the Big Bang: God, the All-powerful and the Almighty, Who
> > created the earth and the heavens in great order. Many scientists, be
> > they believers or not, are obliged to admit this truth. Although they
> > may decline to admit this fact on scientific platforms, their
> > confessions in between the lines give them away. Renowned atheist
> > philosopher Anthony Flew says:
>
> Are you Islamway? Islamway posted the same stuff. You are not
> up-to-date in physics. The Big Bang is not the only solution
OK.
> to Einstein's equations, very new solutions suggest a pulsating
the novelty is the quantum mechanics involved, not a new solution of
Einstein's equations. at any rate, it is only a theory, somewhat
contradicting the present observations.
> universe, contracting and expanding and contracting again and
> expanding again, never so small as to form a singularity,
it's not a singularity when quantum mechanics is put in the picture,
but in the classical limit it is a singularity.
> no Big Bang. And, by the way, Allah was a woman, first mentioned
Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
> on a pillar of the Göbekli Tepe in southeast Anatolia, Sanliurfa
> region, some eleven thousand years ago:
> http://www.seshat.ch/home/gt01.GIF
> http://www.seshat.ch/home/lascaux3.htm
> The standing H on one of the pillars represents the ancient goddess
> and fire giver PIR GID, the vertical bar of the H is an oval
> representing her mouth, her speach, hieroglyph for ) or L and
> )OG or LOG - produce the sound given by the arc by curving
> your tongue; let the tip of the tongue slide along the roof of your
> mouth, and let your tongue smack into its wet bed. ) lives on
> in Hebrew El while )OG or LOG lives on in Greek logos and
> in your Allah, which means: when I use my God given intelligence
> to refute claims of a fanatic religion I speak as well in the sense
> of Allah, who was a woman to begin with. Allah has 99 names
> but nobody knows the real name. Well, the name, 11'000 years
> ago, was PIR GID who had the say ) or L or )OG or LOG ...
> sci.lang is not meant for religious propaganda. If you ignore
> the purpose of our forum, you have to deal with me and
> my intellectual capacities given to me by PIR GID alias
> logos and El and Allah.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> the novelty is the quantum mechanics involved, not a new solution of
> Einstein's equations. at any rate, it is only a theory, somewhat
> contradicting the present observations.
The Big Bang was never contested on the grounds of
quantum dynamics, but is now contested by new solutions
to Einstein's equations that now evade the weird singularities
and suggest a pulsating universe, alternately expanding and
contracting, never collapsing into a singularity. So there was
no Big Bang.
> it's not a singularity when quantum mechanics is put in the picture,
> but in the classical limit it is a singularity.
Now it is no longer a singularity, also in relativity theory.
> Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
> sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
> that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
> Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
> fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
Imamway uses He and Him and His all over when speaking
of Allah. Why doesn't he speak of IT if Allah is not male?
The origin of the word is Magdalenian ) and )OG or L and
LOG for the one who has the say. Greek logos and the god
El of Canaa and Allah of the Arabs have the same origin.
If the Muslims reject logos, reasoning, they castrate Allah,
and if they reject the female component (and origin) of Allah
they make their religion infertile. Which is seen in the politics
of the Islamists who turn every fertile land into a desert.
I gave free lessons to a young Afghan refugee for almost
five years. He told me Afghanistan was a paradise, now
turned into a desert by the fanatic Arabs who have only
power in mind and sell their craving influence for religion.
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 18, 9:28 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > the novelty is the quantum mechanics involved, not a new solution of
> > Einstein's equations. at any rate, it is only a theory, somewhat
> > contradicting the present observations.
>
> The Big Bang was never contested on the grounds of
> quantum dynamics, but is now contested by new solutions
> to Einstein's equations that now evade the weird singularities
> and suggest a pulsating universe, alternately expanding and
> contracting, never collapsing into a singularity. So there was
> no Big Bang.
>
> > it's not a singularity when quantum mechanics is put in the picture,
> > but in the classical limit it is a singularity.
>
> Now it is no longer a singularity, also in relativity theory.
>
> > Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
> > sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
> > that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
> > Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
> > fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
>
> Imamway uses He and Him and His all over when speaking
> of Allah. Why doesn't he speak of IT if Allah is not male?
Because English has no pronoun for genderless animate entities, and
Arabic has no pronoun for genderless entities at all.
Franz Gnaedinger
It rains, it goes, it comes, it follows,
it peters out ... what about it?
Peter T. Daniels
> it peters out ... what about it?-
(1) The first example does not contain a pronoun, (b) what is
_animate_ about raining?, and (iii) in all the others, you obviously
have a non-animate antecedent, so how are these three relevant?
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 18, 9:28 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > the novelty is the quantum mechanics involved, not a new solution of
> > Einstein's equations. at any rate, it is only a theory, somewhat
> > contradicting the present observations.
>
> The Big Bang was never contested on the grounds of
> quantum dynamics, but is now contested by new solutions
> to Einstein's equations that now evade the weird singularities
> and suggest a pulsating universe, alternately expanding and
such a pulsating universe was proposed before on the groundsof
Einstein's equations. it gets around some of the objections to that
using quantum mechanics.
> contracting, never collapsing into a singularity. So there was
> no Big Bang.
>
> > it's not a singularity when quantum mechanics is put in the picture,
> > but in the classical limit it is a singularity.
>
> Now it is no longer a singularity, also in relativity theory.
the theory you speak of is not established and uses quantum mechanics.
also current observation is that the Universe is expanding at an
*accelerated* rate (it has to do with a constant that Einstein's
allow), so will continue to expand forever.
>
> > Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
> > sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
> > that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
> > Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
> > fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
>
> Imamway uses He and Him and His all over when speaking
> of Allah. Why doesn't he speak of IT if Allah is not male?
because there is no genderless pronoun in Arabic. grammatically the
word is masculine (and in Arab Paganism Alla:h was male), but "He did
not beget and was not begotten and there is no likeness upon
him" (from a short but fundamental verse from the Qur'an).
> The origin of the word is Magdalenian ) and )OG or L and
> LOG for the one who has the say. Greek logos and the god
> El of Canaa and Allah of the Arabs have the same origin.
the roots <`l> and <'lh> (Alla:h is from al--'ila:h) are probably
related but youhave to invoke pre-semitic triliteralization theories
to explain it. Hebrew also has 'elo(ah)h which is the proper cognate.
> If the Muslims reject logos, reasoning, they castrate Allah,
> and if they reject the female component (and origin) of Allah
that's the same for Judaism and Christianity.
> they make their religion infertile. Which is seen in the politics
that's theology.
> of the Islamists who turn every fertile land into a desert.
that is modern politics. the irrigation system institued by the
Muslims in Spain was very efficient.
> I gave free lessons to a young Afghan refugee for almost
> five years. He told me Afghanistan was a paradise, now
> turned into a desert by the fanatic Arabs who have only
> power in mind and sell their craving influence for religion.
that's just a political slogan. the islamist movement dates to the
western encouragemnet of them against the communists.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 18, 9:37 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> > On May 18, 9:28 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
> > > sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
> > > that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
> > > Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
> > > fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
>
> > Imamway uses He and Him and His all over when speaking
the poster was Imanway (Way of Faith) not Imamway (Way of an Imam)
> > of Allah. Why doesn't he speak of IT if Allah is not male?
>
> because there is no genderless pronoun in Arabic. grammatically the
and as Peter T. Daniels pointed out "It" does not apply to animate
beings.
DKleinecke
I have been avoiding gendered pronouns for God for several years now
and it can be done. But the results can sound funny. One has to
decide which strategy to follow - give God a gender or sound peculiar
once in a while. I think sounding odd is a small price to pay for
avoiding a really big sexist offense.
I don't think it would be much harder in Arabic than in English
Yusuf B Gursey
in Christianity God is clearly a Father (at the same time the Son is
God too, never could see the logic of it, but at any rate the Son is
male as well.)
BTW apparently the Elchasites (Nazorenes, a sect of Jewish-Christians)
had a Trinity of God, Jesus and Mary as the Holy Ghost ("Spirit" could
be feminine in Semitic languages), just as the Trinity described in
the Qur'an
> and it can be done. But the results can sound funny. One has to
> decide which strategy to follow - give God a gender or sound peculiar
> once in a while. I think sounding odd is a small price to pay for
> avoiding a really big sexist offense.
>
> I don't think it would be much harder in Arabic than in English
in arabic even if you avoid pronouns you cannot get around gender
agreement with adjectives. you just have to take the Qur'an's word
that God does not beget.
Yusuf B Gursey
incidentally, Islam does believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but
says Jesus was miraculously "created" not
"begotten". I think the Christian creed is that Jesus, the Son, was
begotten not created.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> such a pulsating universe was proposed before on the groundsof
> Einstein's equations. it gets around some of the objections to that
> using quantum mechanics.
And the new solutions of Einstein's equations get around
the weird singularity, so we have new arguments for
a pulsating universe.
> the theory you speak of is not established and uses quantum mechanics.
> also current observation is that the Universe is expanding at an
> *accelerated* rate (it has to do with a constant that Einstein's
> allow), so will continue to expand forever.
No, I speak of new solutions to Einstein's equation,
not of quantum mechanics. How many times must
I tell you the same? It is getting absurd. We had this
discussion several times. Your ignorance ain't the
measure of all things.
> because there is no genderless pronoun in Arabic. grammatically the
> word is masculine (and in Arab Paganism Alla:h was male), but "He did
> not beget and was not begotten and there is no likeness upon
> him" (from a short but fundamental verse from the Qur'an).
There are several shortcomings of Arabic, also four
missing letters that don't allow a modern language
that can cope with modern life.
> the roots <`l> and <'lh> (Alla:h is from al--'ila:h) are probably
> related but youhave to invoke pre-semitic triliteralization theories
> to explain it. Hebrew also has 'elo(ah)h which is the proper cognate.
El and Eloah are a good demonstration of the double
version ) and )OG or L and LOG for the one who has
the say, surviving also in Greek logos and Arabic Allah.
> that's the same for Judaism and Christianity.
And we have the same caveat in all three religions:
we are not allowed to make an image of God, says
the Bible, and there are also images in language,
even the pronouns He and Him and His, and Allah
has 99 names while nobody nows the true name,
and you are not allowed to make an image of Allah,
which, again, includes the images in language,
even the pronouns He and His and Him. I say this
owing to my logos, my intelligence given to me
by Allah who prays me to make good use of it,
which I do whenever someone publishes religious
propaganda in sci.lang.
> that's theology.
There is religion that invokes transcendence, what
we can't know, and there is perverted religion that claims
to know everything, and this ain't religion but masked
craving of power.
> that is modern politics. the irrigation system institued by the
> Muslims in Spain was very efficient.
And so were the irrigation systems of the Mesopotamians
and Egyptians. Why has all gone lost?
> that's just a political slogan. the islamist movement dates to the
> western encouragemnet of them against the communists.
My Afghan pupil is a Muslim, a fine young man, most
industrious, I gave him free lessons for nearly five years,
mathematics and geometry, mainly, and he told me
that the Saudi fundamentalists are turning the former
paradise of Afghan into a desert.
Peter T. Daniels
There is no reason to avoid gendered pronouns to refer to the
Christian god, as two of the three persons of the Trinity are
indisputably male -- the Father impregnated Mary, and the Son was
circumcised at age 8 days. The Spirit these days is conventionally
considered female because the nouns referring to the Third Person are
grammatically feminine in the relevant languages.
Peter T. Daniels
> There are several shortcomings of Arabic, also four
> missing letters that don't allow a modern language
> that can cope with modern life.
This is gonna be good. What are you talking about?
Franz Gnaedinger
فيق شامي / Rafik Schami / Rafiq Sami / Suhail Fadil says
that, and explains it at length in his novel Das Geheimnis
the Kalligraphen, The Secret of the Calligrapher, from
2008. I didn't read the book but heard a charming radio
program wherein he says that the Persians made the step
and included four letters in their alphabet, so that their
language can cope with modern life. The Arabs, he said,
should dare make the same step.
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 19, 1:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On May 19, 7:00 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> > > There are several shortcomings of Arabic, also four
> > > missing letters that don't allow a modern language
> > > that can cope with modern life.
>
> > This is gonna be good. What are you talking about?
>
> that, and explains it at length in his novel Das Geheimnis
> the Kalligraphen, The Secret of the Calligrapher, from
> 2008. I didn't read the book but heard a charming radio
> program wherein he says that the Persians made the step
> and included four letters in their alphabet, so that their
> language can cope with modern life. The Arabs, he said,
> should dare make the same step.
That's Persian propaganda.
If the Arabic language had the consonants that Persian does (p, g,
"tsch" [so that you will understand what I mean], zh), it would have
letters for them.
What do those four consonants have to do with "coping with modern
life"?
The Arabic script is extraordinarily adaptible because of the way the
characters are structured. See my article "The Protean Arabic Abjad"
in the 1997 Festschrift for Georg Krotkoff.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> That's Persian propaganda.
>
> If the Arabic language had the consonants that Persian does (p, g,
> "tsch" [so that you will understand what I mean], zh), it would have
> letters for them.
>
> What do those four consonants have to do with "coping with modern
> life"?
>
> The Arabic script is extraordinarily adaptible because of the way the
> characters are structured. See my article "The Protean Arabic Abjad"
> in the 1997 Festschrift for Georg Krotkoff.
Here you are with an excerpt of an online statement
by Rafik Schamir, a gifted story teller born in Damascus
and living in Germany, the pen name means Damascan Friend:
War of words
The Arabic language and written word have taken up a great deal of my
attention the last four years, as my new novel “Das Geheimnis des
Kalligrafen” (The Calligrapher’s Secret) testifies. Apart from love
and murder, it is about a lovely language that is threatened in
written word and in essence. Calligraphy was a hobby of mine, even
many decades after my three-year apprenticeship to an old master.
Then, as a result of my life story perhaps, the subject of language
kept coming back to me time and again. Aramaic is my mother tongue and
the language of my childhood was Arabic. Due to the fact that France
used to be the colonial power, my first foreign language was French
and due to territorial world affairs my second foreign language was
English. I have been writing in German and have felt most at home
doing so for 36 years now.
This goes to explain how I kept getting the chance to compare
languages. Studying economics and natural science also opened my eyes
to major gaps and weaknesses in the Arabic language. At some point
this became my central theme and I began to look into it much more.
Where do these weaknesses come from and why have the Arabic language
and its written form never been reformed? Around 300 million people
speak Arabic and 1.5 billion people have, to varying degrees, contact
with the written word in Arabic through Islam.
Yet during the more than twelve centuries since the final version of
the Koran was written down, no reforms have been made. This is because
fundamentalists declared the language to be holy and because no Arab
nations have separate institutions for religion and state. As long as
this is the case, would-be reformers will only get their fingers
burned. Politicians in Arab nations are backward, military dictators
who show the least desire or courage to reform anything. Their sole
interest is focused on consolidating their clan’s power, which their
wealth permits. The fact remains that, like all languages, the Arabic
language is an invention of the people. Reform needn’t even have
anything to do with the Koran but only touch on those additions and
reforms the day-to-day language necessitates.
The Arabic language is greatly lacking in modern vocabulary and modern
letters that would allow these new words to be written down. As it
doesn’t have the letters W, P, E or O, languages based on the Roman
alphabet cannot be written down properly. An Arab wanting to write the
sentence “Pablo Picasso first lived in Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre in
Paris” is going to find it tough going. It just isn’t possible today
to write an article on chemistry, maths, physics, economics, medicine,
pharmacology, geology or philosophy amongst others, without fattening
up the article with the Latin-language words in brackets. Nuances of
Spanish and Chinese and the soft consonants of the Persian language
can’t be written either.
A constant stream of Arab, clan-like dictatorships lasting for more
than half a century have not only made a backward region out of the
Arabian world but have also maimed their own people and destroyed
their own language. Any form of reasonable development or liberating
notion is anathema to them. Worse still, as if absolute dictatorship
wasn’t harmful enough, is their intimate connection with oil. The
combined result is utter cultural breakdown which is dazzlingly
glossed over.
Wretchedness carries a mobile phone, drives the most expensive
Limousine and to top it all, claims to be civilised. An Arab is
essentially more backward today than his ninth or eleventh century
ancestors.
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 19, 1:34 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > That's Persian propaganda.
>
> > If the Arabic language had the consonants that Persian does (p, g,
> > "tsch" [so that you will understand what I mean], zh), it would have
> > letters for them.
>
> > What do those four consonants have to do with "coping with modern
> > life"?
>
> > The Arabic script is extraordinarily adaptible because of the way the
> > characters are structured. See my article "The Protean Arabic Abjad"
> > in the 1997 Festschrift for Georg Krotkoff.
>
> Here you are with an excerpt of an online statement
> by Rafik Schamir, a gifted story teller born in Damascus
> and living in Germany, the pen name means Damascan Friend:
It turns out to be far more than Persian chuavinism.
It turns out that he's a bitter displaced person from the Christian
minority (in Iraq, probably) who studied "economics and natural
science" but never studied linguistics -- like so many, he thinks that
because he can speak Arabic, French, and German he's qualified to
pontificate on the nature of those three languages and on language in
general.
And he is motivated by nothing but hate for the Arabs.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 18, 9:39 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > such a pulsating universe was proposed before on the groundsof
> > Einstein's equations. it gets around some of the objections to that
> > using quantum mechanics.
>
> And the new solutions of Einstein's equations get around
> the weird singularity, so we have new arguments for
> a pulsating universe.
>
> > the theory you speak of is not established and uses quantum mechanics.
> > also current observation is that the Universe is expanding at an
> > *accelerated* rate (it has to do with a constant that Einstein's
> > allow), so will continue to expand forever.
>
> No, I speak of new solutions to Einstein's equation,
> not of quantum mechanics. How many times must
you got it wrong.
> I tell you the same? It is getting absurd. We had this
> discussion several times. Your ignorance ain't the
> measure of all things.
>
> > because there is no genderless pronoun in Arabic. grammatically the
> > word is masculine (and in Arab Paganism Alla:h was male), but "He did
> > not beget and was not begotten and there is no likeness upon
> > him" (from a short but fundamental verse from the Qur'an).
>
> There are several shortcomings of Arabic, also four
> missing letters that don't allow a modern language
> that can cope with modern life.
there are no missing lettrs in Arabic, it just that Arabic lacks those
phonemes, but has phonemes that are not found in other languages. and
BTW special diacritics have been invented when representing Western
sounds like p and v .
>
> > the roots <`l> and <'lh> (Alla:h is from al--'ila:h) are probably
> > related but youhave to invoke pre-semitic triliteralization theories
> > to explain it. Hebrew also has 'elo(ah)h which is the proper cognate.
>
> El and Eloah are a good demonstration of the double
> version ) and )OG or L and LOG for the one who has
> the say, surviving also in Greek logos and Arabic Allah.
>
> > that's the same for Judaism and Christianity.
>
> And we have the same caveat in all three religions:
> we are not allowed to make an image of God, says
> the Bible, and there are also images in language,
> even the pronouns He and Him and His, and Allah
> has 99 names while nobody nows the true name,
> and you are not allowed to make an image of Allah,
> which, again, includes the images in language,
> even the pronouns He and His and Him. I say this
> owing to my logos, my intelligence given to me
> by Allah who prays me to make good use of it,
> which I do whenever someone publishes religious
> propaganda in sci.lang.
>
> > that's theology.
>
> There is religion that invokes transcendence, what
> we can't know, and there is perverted religion that claims
> to know everything, and this ain't religion but masked
> craving of power.
I don't advocate any particular religion.
>
> > that is modern politics. the irrigation system institued by the
> > Muslims in Spain was very efficient.
>
> And so were the irrigation systems of the Mesopotamians
> and Egyptians. Why has all gone lost?
>
> > that's just a political slogan. the islamist movement dates to the
> > western encouragemnet of them against the communists.
>
> My Afghan pupil is a Muslim, a fine young man, most
> industrious, I gave him free lessons for nearly five years,
> mathematics and geometry, mainly, and he told me
> that the Saudi fundamentalists are turning the former
> paradise of Afghan into a desert.
I take that with a grain of salt, even though I don;t like them.
Yusuf B Gursey
arabic has the phoneme /W/ (semivowel) but not the fricative /V/
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
Knippen!!!!
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Ruud Harmsen
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 19, 7:00 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 18, 9:39 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
> > > such a pulsating universe was proposed before on the groundsof
> > > Einstein's equations. it gets around some of the objections to that
> > > using quantum mechanics.
>
> > And the new solutions of Einstein's equations get around
> > the weird singularity, so we have new arguments for
> > a pulsating universe.
>
> > > the theory you speak of is not established and uses quantum mechanics.
> > > also current observation is that the Universe is expanding at an
> > > *accelerated* rate (it has to do with a constant that Einstein's
> > > allow), so will continue to expand forever.
>
> > No, I speak of new solutions to Einstein's equation,
> > not of quantum mechanics. How many times must
>
> you got it wrong.
>
> > I tell you the same? It is getting absurd. We had this
> > discussion several times. Your ignorance ain't the
> > measure of all things.
I checked with a specialist in Cosmology (even though I wrote a paper
on General Relativity myself), I read the paper you were talking
about. the pulsating universe model is not new to General Relativity.
the new work involves quatum mechanics to get around some of the
objections to it, but it goes against the current state of observation
that the universe will expand forever at an accelerated rate. if my
research, and the general consensus of cosmologists concerning the
future of the universe, which is as close to a "fact" that we can get
to in science, were different I would be happry to agree woth you. but
expert opinion and my reading of the papers involved trump what you
hear from popularized hearsay journalism.
Yusuf B Gursey
how about climactic changes? there is nothing in the Islamic religion
that prevents good irrrigation systems, and Arabs have been known to
make them.
Yusuf B Gursey
Yusuf B Gursey
just found it. thanks.
Ruud Harmsen
<y...@theworld.com>: in sci.lang:
>> Knippen!!!!
>
>meaning?
Snip. Trim.
I objected to quoting something like 150 lines of text just to add a
single line of comment. May be just me. Many people here seem to find
this normal behaviour. PTD did it too, just before you.
http://rudhar.com/sfreview/plyafter.htm
>> Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
Ah, the wonders of Google Groups. So you don't even see what you are
quoting.
Yusuf B Gursey
the book goes under the title:
Humanism, culture, and language in the Near East :
studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff
edited by Asma Afsaruddin and A.H. Mathias Zahniser.
Published: Winona Lake, Ind. : Eisenbrauns, 1997.
see p. 369-
Peter T. Daniels
I don't know quite what he means by "gone lost," but a popular
explanation for the decline of Mesopotamian civilization before the
turn of the era is salinization of the agricultural lands caused by
irrigation practices. (Don't ask me for details, but there are
conferences on the topic.)
Yusuf B Gursey
interesting. thanks.
DKleinecke
I am not a Trinitarian. Giving God a gender - either gender - is a
theological error and making God male is a sexist error. You know all
this - why must I remind you?
Yusuf B Gursey
I don't think there is such a thing as a "theological error" in the
objective sense of the word, as God is not part of empirical
existance. we can't set up an experiment to test if God does or does
not have a certain characteristic. you can only say it's a theological
error in your point of view.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> It turns out to be far more than Persian chuavinism.
>
> It turns out that he's a bitter displaced person from the Christian
> minority (in Iraq, probably) who studied "economics and natural
> science" but never studied linguistics -- like so many, he thinks that
> because he can speak Arabic, French, and German he's qualified to
> pontificate on the nature of those three languages and on language in
> general.
>
> And he is motivated by nothing but hate for the Arabs.
You are a fool. Here is the complete online article
by Rafik Schami:
Mediating between cultures
Europe is historically, culturally and politically interwoven with
neighbouring regions and thus perfectly poised to occupy the role of
mediator. Here, the thoughts of Rafik Schami, an author born where
Palestinians, Kurds, Circassians, Afghans, Greeks, Yugoslavs and
Lebanese all lived cheek by jowl. He himself became a mediator between
two worlds.
Rafik Scharmi
Why do I write what I write and why do I write as I do? Perhaps
because I am a mediator between worlds. What is understood by “between
worlds” is the position you find yourself in when flying from
continent to continent, conference to conference and culture to
culture. As I am actually more a ground creature myself, who never
flies, my raison d’être is similar to that of a link connecting the
parts that make up the whole even if these are quite different from
each other; just as an eye or ear is. One could also just as easily
describe such a link as a bridge that connects the opposing banks of a
river by touching both sides and belonging to neither one of them.
Belonging to different worlds hasn’t required any effort on my part,
going by my life story, it’s simply in the stars. I was born as a
Roman Catholic. My parents were from the Aramaic mountain village of
Malula, 60 kilometres north of Damascus and three hours’ walk from
Lebanon. The French had drawn the borders up willy-nilly during the
1920s so that an aunt on my mother’s side and uncle on my father’s
side became Lebanese while we remained Syrians. At the end of the lane
I was born in was the very part of the city walls where the apostle
Paul, alias Saul, made his escape. A chapel stands there today, as
unadorned and indestructible as was Paul’s language.
Had I been born to a woman just seven metres away from my parents’
place, I would have been a Jewish kid because our house bordered the
houses in the Jewish lane to the west. Had I on the other hand been
born to a woman 14 metres away, I would have been Armenian through and
through as a small community of Armenians, who were given refuge in
Damascus after the terrible massacre of 1915/16, lived in our lane. If
I’d been born to another woman some twelve metres away from our house,
then I’d have been Druze; fourteen metres to the south and I’d have
been Roman Orthodox.
If yet another woman twenty-four metres away from our house had been
my mother then I’d have belonged to the Sunni Muslim majority. Chance
would have it however that I was to be child of the very woman who is
actually my mother. I have tried to be brief as the list of ethnic
groups in our neighbourhood and whose son I might have been is
considerably longer. Palestinians, Kurds, Circassians, Afghans,
Greeks, Yugoslavs and Lebanese all lived cheek by jowl and all had
different religions.
Understanding both sides
It is each and every detail of my life in Syria and later too in
Germany that lets me understand both sides. Just the little, obscure
detail that I belong to the Aramaic minority along with the modest
fact that Aramaic is, on the family tree so to speak, a kind of ‘aunt’
to Hebrew and Arabic, might throw some light on why it has always been
paramount in my opinion to reconcile both groups of people – Jews and
Arabs, Palestinians and Israelis.
And now to the term “mediator.” Whatever else the word may mean, one
usually associates the term with any activity that, according to the
dictionary, “reaches agreement between two opponents: contributes
‘something’ to bring about armistice between two warring factions.”
Geography is much less the issue than coming to realise that
aggressive acts, like war, never solve problems but bring about new
ones. This century-old conflict has certainly been weighing heavily on
my heart and is felt in the pit of my stomach. Yet every war, the
Falklands included, makes me sad and angry about the primitive state
of humanity. This war between Jews and Arabs with it’s global
repercussions is one of the most dangerous of modern times. Left on
their own, these two groups of people can no longer remove themselves
from the vicious circle they’ve gotten themselves into. External help
is required. Help only bears fruit however when a bridge of mediation
spans the two shores. The helper must stick to the bridge and not
leave it since stepping onto this or that side will only blind them to
the other and thus, consciously or unconsciously, give war instead a
helping hand.
Peace between two groups of people cannot be parcelled out here or
there but must be given to both in equal portions. It won’t suddenly
come into being with a sensational flourish but must be hammered out,
tenaciously. Setbacks can crop up any time along the way. So many
complications are involved that it would be a grave mistake to leave
such an issue as peace in the hands of the Americans whose foreign
policy has long struck fear into hearts the world over. I see a great
opportunity for Europe here. Europe is a direct neighbour and has
already proven to be a level-headed mediator in Eastern Europe.
Occupational hazards
It is worth actively standing up for the legitimate objective of peace
and for the absolute right of all groups in the Middle East to a
peaceful life, as the future of our own children and the future of
Europe will be tied in with this peace too. What I am interested in
though, as an occupational hazard, is a different kind of war, the war
of words. This kind of war is waged by fanatics. While the ideology
they spout sometimes borders on the ridiculous, you hardly feel like
laughing when you consider the consequences.
Arab fundamentalists claim in all seriousness that God only
understands Arabic. Not that it’s their idea. They copied it from
repressed, simple-minded Jews who once claimed that Yahweh, similarly
simple-minded, only understood Hebrew.
Now, one could feel sorry for both groups of people, Jews and Arabs,
and forgive them such proclamations. Both are like my own people, the
Aramaic: ancient. Our triumphs burst from legends and fill tales while
our defeats are alas true stories.
And what of our Catholic fundamentalists, what do they do? They want
to address God in Latin again.
Well, my own ancestors, the Christian Aramaic were among the very
first Christians and they remain Christian up to today after almost
two thousand years. I feel somewhat their ambassador and observer here
in Europe. Since arriving in Europe, Jesus’ teachings have been put
through some strange and at times macabre transformations.
Instead of perhaps tackling more pressing problems, the Vatican fires
up the old debate about the Latin Mass and joins the ranks of
aforementioned Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists. As if God only
understood Latin. I can partly understand what the Pope is saying
without being understanding. As a ruler, he must maintain his power.
He wishes to discipline and lead his herd. And yet I still don’t
understand how German authors today can be so ultra reactionary as to
loudly declare that God should once again be addressed in Latin. God
not only understands the 6,000 and more languages of the earth but he
understands the gurgling of babies, the tongues of animals, the
whispers of water and songs of the wind.
It doesn’t really matter if they be Jewish, Muslim or Christian; all
fundamentalists insult God when they make him out to be simple-minded.
Strangely enough, if God did only speak and understand one language he
would end up a warrior. Which of course He isn’t; that is what those
fanatics who abuse His Name in the killing of others are. Not that I
should advise the Pope at all on this matter; perhaps he or his
followers will understand after the number of Catholics has declined
even more radically. I should however advise German authors who take
God to be Latin-speaking to leave God in peace. They should write
their own novels and essays in Latin. I would be all for it. The
German language I love so much would be spared a rather big yawn.
War of words
Poems for prison
Dictatorship wages a war of words against its own people and against
its own language. The dearth of freedom destroys and occupies whole
areas of language and cordons others off by declaring them forbidden
zones. It isn’t so unusual for a poem to cause brutal imprisonment.
This is dictatorship’s way of maiming language. What springs to my
mind here is the image of a prisoner having been kept on a distant
island in absolute isolation who suddenly finds him or herself in the
middle of a modern metropolis. There is no other way to describe how
the Arabic language faces today’s issues. Yet thoughts themselves are
made up of words. Arab thinking hasn’t been spared the awful
devastation the language has suffered.
It comes to me as no surprise that the number of patents registered
for around 300 million Arab people is around zero. The number of books
printed annually in all of Arabia per one million Arabs is 35.
Moreover, a good number of them are religious books. This is a
cultural catastrophe. (Compare: the number of books printed annually,
per one million citizens in Germany, is 700.) In censoring and
remaining hostile to the very nature of the book, the authorities are
not only harming upcoming generations, who are turning into modern-day
illiterates more and more each day, but they harm too the position of
the Arabic language in the world.
It is only a matter of time before non-Arab nations follow the example
of Atatürk and break away from the Arabic alphabet as he did in 1928.
Atatürk managed to abolish Arabian type in the Turkish language and
replace it with Roman type in the shortest time.
That Arabic is a world language isn’t a constant of nature but depends
on how the Arabic language is spread. Considering the speed of things
today, one decade of our time equals a century of earlier eras. If the
Arabic language keeps on lagging behind the times then the gap between
the standard demanded of a world language and the standard it actually
has will keep on widening even further. Only when the language frees
itself from the clutches of dictatorship and the fist of
fundamentalism will it enjoy a well-earned place of honour among the
languages of the world.
Laughing away the hurt
In an essay called “Lachen aus der Wunde” (Shrugging off hurt with
laughter), I refer to the satire of an Arabian writer. I discovered
around the age of 15 or 16 that, as a passionate listener and budding
storyteller, laughter can be a sophisticated way of smuggling
something. You can sometimes hide more in a short joke than serious
writers do in thick volumes. I have tried it out myself and figured
that what works for me is something between cheerfulness and sadness,
severity and tenderness, lies and truth. And also, somewhere between
east and west.
I was struck dumb with amazement when I first arrived in the Germany,
and needed a while before I could rediscover writing again. I learned
German relatively quickly. You could not that say I have a great
command the language; I simply love it. While I was still in awe of
the modernity of society around me, I quickly came to understand that
cheerful and exciting literature wasn’t being taken seriously while,
without question, a grumpy writer would always be taken seriously.
This is one of German literature’s greatest foibles today and is
partly the reason why the opinion of German literature has diminished
in world rankings.
Realising this made it no easier for me in the beginning though. I was
in a tricky situation. Of course while you are writing you wonder how
your literature will be received. One is always asked whether one
thinks of the reader while writing. The answer is “no,” in the sense
that I’m not writing for anyone in particular; not for critics in the
literary world and not for a particular or group of people either. On
the other hand, I would be lying if I said yes, I was writing but no,
it didn’t interest me whether my book was read or not. What’s to be
done?
So that I won’t be held up as a hero, let me share something about how
I made the most important decision in my writing career. Exile isn’t
just tough, gives you courage too. Exile opens not just doors but
wounds. Exile requires loads of work but offers with both hands
equally. In other words, I would never have become the author I am
today had I not come to Germany. Here, I could enjoy freedom and
democracy; they still fascinate me today. Here I was, all at once,
free of the grip of my clan, as well as from the blackmailing of
aunts, uncles and godparents, 16 secret services, an army of state
bureaucrats, various prisons and of material need. Here, the
expression “Seven in one blow” can be applied with typical German
understatement. I still had to pay the price of my liberation though
and it wasn’t cheap. I wouldn’t be allowed to enter the loveliest city
in the world any more, not even to bury my mother. What else was left
to fear?
Novels without stories
Encouraged by the courage of exile I decided to write in German. I
also decided to write not as if I lived in Germany or as if I knew
that the duller one writes, the better chances one has of being taken
seriously in the literary world. That has all changed now; it has
become fashionable to call yourself a storyteller and critics now
appreciate reading something exciting too. Back in the 1980s, when I
was just starting out on my literary journey, some authors won praise
from the critics because, in all seriousness, they’d managed to write
whole novels without actually telling any sort of story.
So I wrote fairytales, stories, satire and novels. I was greeted
initially by an impenetrable wall of silence. Walls always have cracks
somewhere if one can only discover them to bring down the wall. In my
case, the solution presented itself thus: walls of silence are brought
down with sound. The solution in the legend of Jericho was an oriental
one. I didn’t have the notes of the biblical music on me to bring down
the walls. I did however discover that Germans are good listeners if
someone has a story to tell. So I began to travel the country and tell
my stories. Being the good taxpayer I have kept a record of all my
storytelling evenings; by the time I got to number 1200 however, I
lost count. That was in 1992.
I don’t travel so much these days; I only visit one hundred towns per
novel. Back in the beginning I had five listeners per storytelling,
whereby one naturally wonders – after a seven-hour drive in a VW
Beetle from Heidelberg to Hannover – if it was truly worth it. Yet I
delighted the few people present with my stories just as if I had
intended turning them into ambassadors of a new literature. And the
best ambassadors they did become. Even after 30 years, I might still
find three generations of one family at my readings.
Two convictions energised me then and still do today. Firstly that
without readers or listeners, literature just isn’t literature. An
audience gives the storyteller their most worthy possession: time.
Since this can’t ever be replaced I try to make the loss as
imperceptible as possible.
Secondly, the incredible pleasure of turning adults into attentive
children again through storytelling also energises me. To experience
such happiness first-hand warms one’s heart and leaves me at a loss
for words except perhaps to say that it tastes somewhat like ice-
cream, luxury chocolates or pistachios! Yet whoever wishes to achieve
something in my line of work must have the patience of a camel, the
bravery of a lioness and the deep breath of a blue whale. I’ve
overheard pejorative comments which accompany success. They range from
more harmless ones such as “storyteller uncle” because I take children
seriously to “women’s darling” because as men are brought up all rough-
edged, 70 percent of today’s readers are women. All classified as
harmless jibes.
The ruse of false bottoms
It becomes more life-threatening when you are called a “traitor,”
particularly when it comes from the Arab world and from people who
don’t read and don’t understand criticism. Yet frankly, I have never
cared about what others said or didn’t say. I could look back with the
tremendous satisfaction at having cleared such hurdles with the help
of my audience.
Someone who I, and my literature, have been very good friends with for
many years once told me that she always looks upon my stories as
Trojan horses. I felt caught out. She’d seen through me. No wonder.
She gets through more books in a year than probably anyone. She makes
books what they are.
Another friend of mine, a writer and painter, said after reading my
novel “The Dark Side of Love,” that “if just one Syrian general reads
this novel, you won’t get amnesty but life imprisonment.” She was
referring to the many attempts, which have so far been in vain, of
friends of mine to get me amnesty to visit Syria. Since my mother’s
death, I no longer want an amnesty. This particular colleague knows my
books really well; she is the first person to read all my work. She’s
my wife.
Yet I still managed to believe that both women had only worked out the
ruse of the false bottom because both of them are clever and well-
read. I was soon to find out however that people less clever, people
who are hardly the reading type and who are influential enemies had
seen through me. Upon which they declared irreconcilable war on me.
No author enjoys quite as much hostility on the part of dictatorships
and their court poets as I do. Didn’t the Nazis show sharper
perception towards books than the humanists? And didn’t they
barbarically burn books that were ridiculed in humanistic circles?
After a time I came to the understanding that words just aren’t
suitable for building Trojan horses. It may be that for a time they
are as transparent as glass and masters of disguise when aided and
abetted by laughter’s little tricks. Yet sooner or later anyone can
discover the message of literature. If after repeated and careful
reading, a story reveals no secrets then it has none to reveal.
My latest novel is not political. It is entitled “Das Geheimnis des
Kalligrafen” (The Calligrapher’s Secret) and takes place between 1954
and 1958. It is really only about the love of a calligrapher and of
the secret that will be his ruin. I specifically chose the only
lengthy phase of democracy in my country out of the wish, for once, to
write a novel free of politics. The longest period of freedom that my
country has had lasted from spring 1954 until the union with Egypt in
February 1958. It was a time of parliamentary democracy, several
political parties and newspapers. Not one single person sat in prison
because of their opinion. It was a wonderful time.
Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946 and has lived in Germany
since 1971. He is one of the most successful German-language authors
today. His books have been translated into 22 languages.
This article was translated from German by Lee Schäfer for the Culture
Report, Edition III “Europe Reads – Literature in Europe.”
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 19, 7:17 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > It turns out to be far more than Persian chuavinism.
>
> > It turns out that he's a bitter displaced person from the Christian
> > minority (in Iraq, probably) who studied "economics and natural
> > science" but never studied linguistics -- like so many, he thinks that
> > because he can speak Arabic, French, and German he's qualified to
> > pontificate on the nature of those three languages and on language in
> > general.
>
> > And he is motivated by nothing but hate for the Arabs.
>
> You are a fool. Here is the complete online article
the URL?
that still does not make him an expert on langusitics and he obviously
has prejudices against Arabs, else he wouldn't be making such foolish
statements. English has no symbol for `ayn, Ha and many other phonemes
of Arabic, because they are not part of the English language.
similarly Arabic does not have symbols for phonemes in European
languages because they don't have those phonemes. that being said,
when foreign words are written, sometimes extra dots are added to the
existing letters. they just don't happen to be part of the standard
orthography because those phonemes and words tha contain them are not
part of the standard language.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I don't know quite what he means by "gone lost," but a popular
> explanation for the decline of Mesopotamian civilization before the
> turn of the era is salinization of the agricultural lands caused by
> irrigation practices. (Don't ask me for details, but there are
> conferences on the topic.)
True for southern Mesopotamia, but not for Marib
and the Nabateans along the eastern shore of the
Red Sea. The admirable dam of Marib, over six-hundred
meters long, combined with an amazingly clever irrigation
system, was destroyed by the Persians in the seventh
century AD, and never restored by the Muslims who
then took over. Marib, under the legendary Bilqis,
Queen of Saba, the equal of wise Solomon, had 30,000
inhabitants, a city in the middle of the desert. For comparison:
Rome of the Renaissance had 40,000 inhabitants. The
Nabataeans built and entertained many small dams in
the wadis along the eastern shore of the Red Sea and
thus held back the rain. Maintaining irrigation systems
requires a lot of patient work, mostly done by women.
In the Bible, this work is associated with Eve; in Yemen
with Bilqis. We all know how women are treated under Islam.
No wonder everything goes down the drain in Arabic countries.
In Jordania, 70 (seventy) percent of the water evaporates
unused. While the Israelis are planting trees in the Sinai,
using clever techniques, fixing dunes with wire, and making
small pits wherein they plant trees. The Israelis also
invented the drop irrigation, a technique adopted by the
Chilenes who are yielding fabulous harvests, melons and
everything. Why can't the Arabs do the same? Because
they suppress women whose help is required for such projects.
Reforesting works when women are involved, for example
in India and Africa. Why not in the Islamic world? because
women are suppressed in the name of Allah He His Him,
symbol of absolute male power. 'Islam' means submission,
but is the contrary, the claim on absolute power, and as
they can't exert absolute power over us, they exert it over
their women.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 19, 11:25 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I don't know quite what he means by "gone lost," but a popular
> > explanation for the decline of Mesopotamian civilization before the
> > turn of the era is salinization of the agricultural lands caused by
> > irrigation practices. (Don't ask me for details, but there are
> > conferences on the topic.)
>
> True for southern Mesopotamia, but not for Marib
> and the Nabateans along the eastern shore of the
the Nabataeans were Arab, and had a wonderful irrigation system.
> Red Sea. The admirable dam of Marib, over six-hundred
> meters long, combined with an amazingly clever irrigation
> system, was destroyed by the Persians in the seventh
the dam burst, it was not deliberately destroyed. see below for the
reasons.
> century AD, and never restored by the Muslims who
> then took over. Marib, under the legendary Bilqis,
> Queen of Saba, the equal of wise Solomon, had 30,000
Bilqis / the Queen of Sheba, is legendary, unless we accept an
unidentified feamle bust found in a pagan religious sanctuary. but in
the Middle Ages, Yemen had real muslim queens!
> inhabitants, a city in the middle of the desert. For comparison:
> Rome of the Renaissance had 40,000 inhabitants. The
> Nabataeans built and entertained many small dams in
> the wadis along the eastern shore of the Red Sea and
> thus held back the rain. Maintaining irrigation systems
> requires a lot of patient work, mostly done by women.
believe me, women in rural areas in Islamic countries do indeed do a
lot of work.
> In the Bible, this work is associated with Eve; in Yemen
> with Bilqis. We all know how women are treated under Islam.
after towards the end of the 3rd cent. CE Yemen was contolled by the
Himyarites, who spoke a divegent dialect of Arabic. then power passed
to the Ethiopians. then to the Persians, under which (early 7th cent
CE) the social fabric of Yemen deteriorated. the dam burst and nothing
was put in its place, because of the lack of a political fabric. by
the time Islam came there was no more dam to be rebuilt. the bursting
of the dam is mentioned in the Qur'an, using a Sabaic word, as a
punishment of God.
Enc. of Islam II "Marib" explains why the dam could not be rebuilt:
<<
Considering that, after a dam-burst, the sediments deposited by the
floods had to be cleared away each time until the original level of
the wadi was reached, it follows that each rebuilding of the dam
became more difficult. Since the level of the oasis meanwhile had
risen further, the dam had to be built higher each time. The mud which
was carried along with the floods, and which raised the fields and was
precipitated on to the dam and the storage basins, must have played an
essential role in the dam construction being completely abandoned in
the end.
Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0
© 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherland
>>
> No wonder everything goes down the drain in Arabic countries.
> In Jordania, 70 (seventy) percent of the water evaporates
it's Jordan, not Jordania.
> unused. While the Israelis are planting trees in the Sinai,
the Israelis no longer control the Sinai.
> using clever techniques, fixing dunes with wire, and making
> small pits wherein they plant trees. The Israelis also
> invented the drop irrigation, a technique adopted by the
> Chilenes who are yielding fabulous harvests, melons and
> everything. Why can't the Arabs do the same? Because
nowadays, the Israelis and Chileans have close ties to Europe and the
US, and thus to modern technology.
iit is now fashionable for Islamophobia, yet it was the Western Powers
and Israel that encouraged the most backward Islamic movements against
communism and nationalism.
> they suppress women whose help is required for such projects.
> Reforesting works when women are involved, for example
> in India and Africa. Why not in the Islamic world? because
> women are suppressed in the name of Allah He His Him,
see above, in rural areas women work a lot. and God does not have
biological sex in Islam as it does in Christianity. it is Judaism and
Christianity that call God "our Father", not Islam.
> symbol of absolute male power. 'Islam' means submission,
I just said that God does not have biological sex in Islam.
> but is the contrary, the claim on absolute power, and as
> they can't exert absolute power over us, they exert it over
> their women.
Islam in its heyday in the Middle Ages gave women rights that they did
not have in Christendom, such as the right ot own property. Islam also
stopped the practice aganst female infanticide (that it did occur is
attested epigrpahically). Ortodox Judaism does not give good status to
women either. they have to shave their heads even for their
husbandsand are considered unclean, since they may be mensturating.
I think all religion is bad, but I do argue against singling out one
particular religion over another, especially based on caricature and
prejudice.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On May 19, 7:17 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > It turns out to be far more than Persian chuavinism.
>
> > It turns out that he's a bitter displaced person from the Christian
> > minority (in Iraq, probably) who studied "economics and natural
> > science" but never studied linguistics -- like so many, he thinks that
> > because he can speak Arabic, French, and German he's qualified to
> > pontificate on the nature of those three languages and on language in
> > general.
>
> > And he is motivated by nothing but hate for the Arabs.
>
> You are a fool. Here is the complete online article
> by Rafik Schami:
>
Just quoting more of him doesn't help. He may be a fine fellow and an
excellent writer, but his ideas about language are nonsense. What is
"modern" about certain letters that Arabic doesn't have? Contrary to
his suggestion, the lack of these letters (or these sounds) is no
obstacle to importing words from other languages. If Rafik Schami does
not like the way these words are pronounced by Arabs, that is a
problem for him, not for the Arabs. He's entitled to his negative view
of various aspects of modern Arab culture and politics, but blaming it
on their writing system is just silly.
He (and you) might well consider the Japanese, who are highly
literate, democratic, technologically advanced, and the rest of it.
They have helped themselves to thousands of useful or amusing words
from English (and elsewhere) over the last couple of centuries, but
all without major changes to either the phonology of their language or
their notoriously complicated writing system.
Ross Clark
Panu
> I didn't read the book
You never do.
Ruud Harmsen
<benl...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>Just quoting more of him doesn't help. He may be a fine fellow and an
>excellent writer, but his ideas about language are nonsense. What is
>"modern" about certain letters that Arabic doesn't have? Contrary to
>his suggestion, the lack of these letters (or these sounds) is no
>obstacle to importing words from other languages.
True. In the well known dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic, by Hans
Wehr and adapted for English by J Milton Cowan (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Modern_Written_Arabic)
there are quite a few foreign words, from English, French, Persian,
Turkish, etc. etc. There are issues of transcription, pronunciation
and grammatical embedding, of course, but that is nothing special, it
always happens when words are borrowed from one language to another.
The sound systems never fit, the spelling traditions never quite fit
either -- whether the script is different or the same, it's never easy
-- so practical solutions have to be found, and are!
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 19, 4:08 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On May 18, 10:34 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On May 18, 6:49 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > Imamway uses He and Him and His all over when speaking
> > > > > of Allah. Why doesn't he speak of IT if Allah is not male?
>
> > > > Because English has no pronoun for genderless animate entities, and
> > > > Arabic has no pronoun for genderless entities at all.
>
> > > I have been avoiding gendered pronouns for God for several years now
> > > and it can be done. But the results can sound funny. One has to
> > > decide which strategy to follow - give God a gender or sound peculiar
> > > once in a while. I think sounding odd is a small price to pay for
> > > avoiding a really big sexist offense.
>
> > > I don't think it would be much harder in Arabic than in English-
>
> > There is no reason to avoid gendered pronouns to refer to the
> > Christian god, as two of the three persons of the Trinity are
> > indisputably male -- the Father impregnated Mary, and the Son was
> > circumcised at age 8 days. The Spirit these days is conventionally
> > considered female because the nouns referring to the Third Person are
> > grammatically feminine in the relevant languages.
>
> I am not a Trinitarian. Giving God a gender - either gender - is a
> theological error and making God male is a sexist error. You know all
> this - why must I remind you?-
What _you_ are is irrelevant. You referred specifically to "the
Christian god."
In the 1980s one could hear "Creator, Redeemer, Holy Sustainer" in
place of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." That does not change the
facts of begetting and circumcising.
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 19, 7:17 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > It turns out to be far more than Persian chuavinism.
>
> > It turns out that he's a bitter displaced person from the Christian
> > minority (in Iraq, probably) who studied "economics and natural
> > science" but never studied linguistics -- like so many, he thinks that
> > because he can speak Arabic, French, and German he's qualified to
> > pontificate on the nature of those three languages and on language in
> > general.
>
> > And he is motivated by nothing but hate for the Arabs.
>
> You are a fool. Here is the complete online article
> by Rafik Schami:
I'm not interested in him or in his views. If what you posted was not
representative of what he had to say, then it's _very_ interesting
that you edited him in such a way as to make him appear as he did.
Peter T. Daniels
> Thu, 20 May 2010 00:42:28 -0700 (PDT): "benli...@ihug.co.nz"
> <benli...@ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
> >Just quoting more of him doesn't help. He may be a fine fellow and an
> >excellent writer, but his ideas about language are nonsense. What is
> >"modern" about certain letters that Arabic doesn't have? Contrary to
> >his suggestion, the lack of these letters (or these sounds) is no
> >obstacle to importing words from other languages.
>
> True. In the well known dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic, by Hans
> Wehr and adapted for English by J Milton Cowan
Good! You didn't put a period after the "J"! The "J" stood for nothing
at all; it's now it appears on his birth certificate. I think it was
Hockett who wrote his obituary in _Language_ and pointed out that he
was known as "J No Period Milton Cowan."
I asked him once if he could offer an Arabic class (at Cornell, before
the death of Colonel Netanyahu -- brother of Bibi -- on the July 4,
1976, raid on Entebbe brougth donations pouring in to Cornell, where
his father was Professor of Semitics, that made it possible to start a
Department of Near Eastern Studies), and he said he didn't know
Arabic, he just translated the dictionary.
I didn't know quite what to make of that.
> (seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Modern_Written_Arabic)
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 19, 11:25 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I don't know quite what he means by "gone lost," but a popular
> > explanation for the decline of Mesopotamian civilization before the
> > turn of the era is salinization of the agricultural lands caused by
> > irrigation practices. (Don't ask me for details, but there are
> > conferences on the topic.)
>
> True for southern Mesopotamia, but not for Marib
> and the Nabateans along the eastern shore of the
> Red Sea. The admirable dam of Marib, over six-hundred
> meters long, combined with an amazingly clever irrigation
> system, was destroyed by the Persians in the seventh
> century AD, and never restored by the Muslims who
> then took over. Marib, under the legendary Bilqis,
> Queen of Saba,
What do Nabataeans have to do with Saba?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> the dam burst, it was not deliberately destroyed. see below for the
> reasons.
It burst as a consequence of the Persian invasion.
Ueli Brunner of Dietikon near Zurich in Switzerland
wrote his doctoral dissertation about this dam.
I rely on him.
> Bilqis / the Queen of Sheba, is legendary, unless we accept an
> unidentified feamle bust found in a pagan religious sanctuary. but in
> the Middle Ages, Yemen had real muslim queens!
It says a lot that the dam is associated with Bilqis, even
if she was a legendary figure - Bilqis, or the Queen of Sheba,
testifies to the female role in irrigation, as Eve in the Bible
and on Mesopotamian clay tablets.
> believe me, women in rural areas in Islamic countries do indeed do a
> lot of work.
Okay, tell me a woman in Islam who directs a bank
and lends money to women undertakers, as in
reforesting and other projects in India.
> after towards the end of the 3rd cent. CE Yemen was contolled by the
> Himyarites, who spoke a divegent dialect of Arabic. then power passed
> to the Ethiopians. then to the Persians, under which (early 7th cent
> CE) the social fabric of Yemen deteriorated. the dam burst and nothing
> was put in its place, because of the lack of a political fabric. by
> the time Islam came there was no more dam to be rebuilt. the bursting
> of the dam is mentioned in the Qur'an, using a Sabaic word, as a
> punishment of God.
Yeah, the dern Islamic fatalism. Exclude women, and lament
about God's punishment.
> Enc. of Islam II "Marib" explains why the dam could not be rebuilt:
>
> <<
>
> Considering that, after a dam-burst, the sediments deposited by the
> floods had to be cleared away each time until the original level of
> the wadi was reached, it follows that each rebuilding of the dam
> became more difficult. Since the level of the oasis meanwhile had
> risen further, the dam had to be built higher each time. The mud which
> was carried along with the floods, and which raised the fields and was
> precipitated on to the dam and the storage basins, must have played an
> essential role in the dam construction being completely abandoned in
> the end.
>
> Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0
> © 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherland
>
Ueli Brunner speaks of attempts to rebuild the dam.
Of course of curse of coarse Muslims can't do that.
A Swiss (Christian) must make the begin.
> it's Jordan, not Jordania.
>
> the Israelis no longer control the Sinai.
Sorry, I meant the Negev, or Negeb.
> nowadays, the Israelis and Chileans have close ties to Europe and the
> US, and thus to modern technology.
You don't need modern technology for the drop irrigation system,
just hoses with tiny holes, very very lowtech.
> iit is now fashionable for Islamophobia, yet it was the Western Powers
> and Israel that encouraged the most backward Islamic movements against
> communism and nationalism.
That was a horrible mistake, and is not my policy. I give
free lessons to several Muslims, for years now, they are
fine young people. I am not against Islam, but decidedly
against Islamism. As I am decidedly against Christian
phoondamentalism (have to write the word in this form,
or else I might not get through) since about 46 years now.
If someone posts religious propaganda to sci.lang, I respond.
> see above, in rural areas women work a lot. and God does not have
> biological sex in Islam as it does in Christianity. it is Judaism and
> Christianity that call God "our Father", not Islam.
Imanway used He His Him all over, I used to snip his messages,
leaving only the very long list of He Him His etc. Of course I also
say the Crhistian and Jewish God is not a man. We are not
allowed to make an image of God. Calling God father, and
speaking of Him, is making an image of God.
> I just said that God does not have biological sex in Islam.
Male gender, male power.
> Islam in its heyday in the Middle Ages gave women rights that they did
> not have in Christendom, such as the right ot own property. Islam also
> stopped the practice aganst female infanticide (that it did occur is
> attested epigrpahically). Ortodox Judaism does not give good status to
> women either. they have to shave their heads even for their
> husbandsand are considered unclean, since they may be mensturating.
And where have the good sides of Islam gone?
> I think all religion is bad, but I do argue against singling out one
> particular religion over another, especially based on caricature and
> prejudice.
I don't single out Islam, I respond to Islamic propaganda in sci.lang.
Religion, I find, is good on the side of the oppressed, for example
liberation theology in South America, and doubtful on the side of
those who exert power. True religion is an antidote against
absolutism, a refuge of transcendence, pointing out that we know
very little, and that there is much we don't know. Yet fanatics of
any religion are damn sure to know everything, what is good and
what is bad, what is right and what is wrong - the very contrary
of transcendence, and therefore no religion, but simple craving of
power.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Just quoting more of him doesn't help. He may be a fine fellow and an
> excellent writer, but his ideas about language are nonsense. What is
> "modern" about certain letters that Arabic doesn't have? Contrary to
> his suggestion, the lack of these letters (or these sounds) is no
> obstacle to importing words from other languages. If Rafik Schami does
> not like the way these words are pronounced by Arabs, that is a
> problem for him, not for the Arabs. He's entitled to his negative view
> of various aspects of modern Arab culture and politics, but blaming it
> on their writing system is just silly.
>
> He (and you) might well consider the Japanese, who are highly
> literate, democratic, technologically advanced, and the rest of it.
> They have helped themselves to thousands of useful or amusing words
> from English (and elsewhere) over the last couple of centuries, but
> all without major changes to either the phonology of their language or
> their notoriously complicated writing system.
The writing system is just one aspect, and as novelist
he is well entitled to focus on this aspect in his book
Calligrapher's Secret (English translation announced
for the coming November).
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> What do Nabataeans have to do with Saba?
Why do you snip my message instead of reading it,
and then ask me a question I answered in the snipped
part? Really, you are a fool, as I said. Marib in Yemen,
associated with the legendary Queen of Sheba, Bilqis
(a German archeologist is rather confident that she
located her palace, time will tell), and the Nabataens
are two examples of the ingenious Arab mind before
the advent of Islam, the most stupid religion in the world
according to Nobel Prize winner Naipul. The dwellers
of Marib with an over six-hundred meters long dam,
the Nabateans with cataracts of tiny dams in wadis
along the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Since the middle
of the 1990s I propose that mixed teams of young
Israelis and Palaestinians and Jordanians and Saudis
and Yemenites etc., young men and women, engage in
the project of reviving the ancient pre-islamic art of building
dams with modern materials. Meanwhile I have even
more reason to suggest my project, as I can rely on the
Goebekli Tepe, origin of the Greeks and Jews and
Arabs and Persians and Indians: the reliefs of the
Göbekli Tepe, 11'600 years old, show a great abundance
of snakes that symbolize water, ascending snakes prayers
and the smoke of sacrificial fires imploring rain, and the
descending snakes falling rain rewarding the prayers and
sacrificial fires. The Sanli-Urfa region (Splendid Urfa)
was on the margin of the fertile crescent, already then
menaced by droughts, today a moonlike region. The
reliefs and certain tablets from nearby inform me that
the people of the Göbekli Tepe overcame the problem
by cooperation. The very begin of the Neolithic culture
in Asia Minor stood under the sign of water, missing water,
and missing water is the challenge for this region in our
time, the Early Concrete Age. People should find together,
for doing something reasonable, led by the Israelis who
are the only ones in the region who achieve something.
All other good people from Arab countries left them for
Europe and America - all who could flee, that is.
Ruud Harmsen
>>>his suggestion, the lack of these letters (or these sounds) is no
>>>obstacle to importing words from other languages.
>Ruud Harmsen:
>>True. In the well known dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic, by Hans
>>Wehr and adapted for English by J Milton Cowan
Thu, 20 May 2010 03:54:23 -0700 (PDT): Peter T. Daniels:
>Good! You didn't put a period after the "J"! The "J" stood for nothing
>at all; it's now it appears on his birth certificate. I think it was
>Hockett who wrote his obituary in _Language_ and pointed out that he
>was known as "J No Period Milton Cowan."
Yes. I know because I researched it (well, researched it? It's in
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Milton_Cowan ) while writing
this (in Dutch only, no other languages available):
http://rudhar.com/lingtics/meisjong/nl.htm
Ruud Harmsen
>was known as "J No Period Milton Cowan."
>
>I asked him once if he could offer an Arabic class (at Cornell, before
>the death of Colonel Netanyahu -- brother of Bibi -- on the July 4,
>1976, raid on Entebbe brougth donations pouring in to Cornell, where
>his father was Professor of Semitics, that made it possible to start a
>Department of Near Eastern Studies), and he said he didn't know
>Arabic, he just translated the dictionary.
>
>I didn't know quite what to make of that.
That's fascinating, because everybody seems to agree the
Arabic-English Hans Wehr dictionary is of good quality. Nobody AFAIK
ever recommended consulting Arabic-German as well because it might be
more direct.
In general, a secondary translation always goes with some loss of
quality. I was asked to do English-Dutch translation sometimes when I
also found a German original, and although the English translations
weren't bad at all, directly going from German to Dutch worked better.
Now this is special of course, in that German and Dutch are closer to
each other than they both are to English. But I think there is also a
general rule that translating directly from the original language is
preferrable.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 20, 9:01 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > the dam burst, it was not deliberately destroyed. see below for the
> > reasons.
>
> It burst as a consequence of the Persian invasion.
you mean the Persians deliberately destroyed it? at any rate they were
neither Muslim nor Arab.
> Ueli Brunner of Dietikon near Zurich in Switzerland
> wrote his doctoral dissertation about this dam.
> I rely on him.
>
> > Bilqis / the Queen of Sheba, is legendary, unless we accept an
> > unidentified feamle bust found in a pagan religious sanctuary. but in
> > the Middle Ages, Yemen had real muslim queens!
>
> It says a lot that the dam is associated with Bilqis, even
> if she was a legendary figure - Bilqis, or the Queen of Sheba,
how can it have a lot do with a legend. the principle deities in
ancient Yemen were all male. 'ilmaqah and 'il (who had daughters and
sons). so was raHmna:na:n of the jewish and christian or vaguely
monotheitsic period
> testifies to the female role in irrigation, as Eve in the Bible
> and on Mesopotamian clay tablets.
>
Eve has nothing to do with irrigation.
> > believe me, women in rural areas in Islamic countries do indeed do a
> > lot of work.
>
> Okay, tell me a woman in Islam who directs a bank
> and lends money to women undertakers, as in
> reforesting and other projects in India.
>
I don't know of the banking bussiness, but women do work in it.
> > after towards the end of the 3rd cent. CE Yemen was contolled by the
> > Himyarites, who spoke a divegent dialect of Arabic. then power passed
> > to the Ethiopians. then to the Persians, under which (early 7th cent
> > CE) the social fabric of Yemen deteriorated. the dam burst and nothing
> > was put in its place, because of the lack of a political fabric. by
> > the time Islam came there was no more dam to be rebuilt. the bursting
> > of the dam is mentioned in the Qur'an, using a Sabaic word, as a
> > punishment of God.
>
> Yeah, the dern Islamic fatalism. Exclude women, and lament
> about God's punishment.
>
>
the dam has nothing to do with women, and middel eastern women in
rural areas work in all aspects of agricultural life, including
irrigation.
>
>
>
> > Enc. of Islam II "Marib" explains why the dam could not be rebuilt:
>
> > <<
>
> > Considering that, after a dam-burst, the sediments deposited by the
> > floods had to be cleared away each time until the original level of
> > the wadi was reached, it follows that each rebuilding of the dam
> > became more difficult. Since the level of the oasis meanwhile had
> > risen further, the dam had to be built higher each time. The mud which
> > was carried along with the floods, and which raised the fields and was
> > precipitated on to the dam and the storage basins, must have played an
> > essential role in the dam construction being completely abandoned in
> > the end.
>
> > Extract from the Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0
> > © 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherland
>
> Ueli Brunner speaks of attempts to rebuild the dam.
> Of course of curse of coarse Muslims can't do that.
> A Swiss (Christian) must make the begin.
the arabs were well known for their irrigation systems. the reasons
the dam could not be rebuilt have been given.
>
> > it's Jordan, not Jordania.
>
> > the Israelis no longer control the Sinai.
>
> Sorry, I meant the Negev, or Negeb.
>
> > nowadays, the Israelis and Chileans have close ties to Europe and the
> > US, and thus to modern technology.
>
> You don't need modern technology for the drop irrigation system,
> just hoses with tiny holes, very very lowtech.
>
the jewish settlers made great efforts in the Negev, as there were few
jewish settlements and the area was to be awarded to the arabs. in
order not to make this happen, they made every effort to impress the
UN representatives. and they did use modern technology.
> > iit is now fashionable for Islamophobia, yet it was the Western Powers
> > and Israel that encouraged the most backward Islamic movements against
> > communism and nationalism.
>
> That was a horrible mistake, and is not my policy. I give
it's the ilk like you who supported the reactionary islamist movements
before the 1990's
> free lessons to several Muslims, for years now, they are
this sounds like the notoious "my best friends are jewish" argument.
> fine young people. I am not against Islam, but decidedly
> against Islamism. As I am decidedly against Christian
> phoondamentalism (have to write the word in this form,
you can't write "fundamentalism"
> or else I might not get through) since about 46 years now.
> If someone posts religious propaganda to sci.lang, I respond.
you respond with the rubbsh of your own. your bogus science, your
bogus history and, as always, your bogus linguistics. you end up only
prolonging the thread.
>
> > see above, in rural areas women work a lot. and God does not have
> > biological sex in Islam as it does in Christianity. it is Judaism and
> > Christianity that call God "our Father", not Islam.
>
> Imanway used He His Him all over, I used to snip his messages,
the use of the masculine pronoun was explained to you.
> leaving only the very long list of He Him His etc. Of course I also
> say the Crhistian and Jewish God is not a man. We are not
> allowed to make an image of God. Calling God father, and
> speaking of Him, is making an image of God.
>
> > I just said that God does not have biological sex in Islam.
>
> Male gender, male power.
that is not unique to Arabic or Islam. due to the morhological rules
of Arabic the word "Allah" has to have the masculine gender. but he
has no biological sex.
>
> > Islam in its heyday in the Middle Ages gave women rights that they did
> > not have in Christendom, such as the right ot own property. Islam also
> > stopped the practice aganst female infanticide (that it did occur is
> > attested epigrpahically). Ortodox Judaism does not give good status to
> > women either. they have to shave their heads even for their
> > husbandsand are considered unclean, since they may be mensturating.
>
> And where have the good sides of Islam gone?
Islam declined because of the European discovery of the New World.
>
> > I think all religion is bad, but I do argue against singling out one
> > particular religion over another, especially based on caricature and
> > prejudice.
>
> I don't single out Islam, I respond to Islamic propaganda in sci.lang.
> Religion, I find, is good on the side of the oppressed, for example
> liberation theology in South America, and doubtful on the side of
> those who exert power. True religion is an antidote against
> absolutism, a refuge of transcendence, pointing out that we know
the trascendence of God is very fundamental to Islam.
> very little, and that there is much we don't know. Yet fanatics of
> any religion are damn sure to know everything, what is good and
> what is bad, what is right and what is wrong - the very contrary
> of transcendence, and therefore no religion, but simple craving of
> power.
you are a bigot in your own right.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 20, 12:58 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > What do Nabataeans have to do with Saba?
>
> Why do you snip my message instead of reading it,
> and then ask me a question I answered in the snipped
> part? Really, you are a fool, as I said. Marib in Yemen,
> associated with the legendary Queen of Sheba, Bilqis
the dam was not associated with the queen of sheba.
> (a German archeologist is rather confident that she
> located her palace, time will tell), and the Nabataens
their chief deity, Dhu Shara, was male
> are two examples of the ingenious Arab mind before
the muslim arabs were also known for their irrigation systems,
> the advent of Islam, the most stupid religion in the world
> according to Nobel Prize winner Naipul. The dwellers
> of Marib with an over six-hundred meters long dam,
> the Nabateans with cataracts of tiny dams in wadis
> along the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Since the middle
> of the 1990s I propose that mixed teams of young
> Israelis and Palaestinians and Jordanians and Saudis
> and Yemenites etc., young men and women, engage in
> the project of reviving the ancient pre-islamic art of building
> dams with modern materials. Meanwhile I have even
there is a lot of dam building where there are rivers, by Turks,
Syrians and Iraqis.
> more reason to suggest my project, as I can rely on the
> Goebekli Tepe, origin of the Greeks and Jews and
> Arabs and Persians and Indians: the reliefs of the
> Göbekli Tepe, 11'600 years old, show a great abundance
> of snakes that symbolize water, ascending snakes prayers
> and the smoke of sacrificial fires imploring rain, and the
> descending snakes falling rain rewarding the prayers and
> sacrificial fires. The Sanli-Urfa region (Splendid Urfa)
> was on the margin of the fertile crescent, already then
> menaced by droughts, today a moonlike region. The
> reliefs and certain tablets from nearby inform me that
> the people of the Göbekli Tepe overcame the problem
> by cooperation. The very begin of the Neolithic culture
> in Asia Minor stood under the sign of water, missing water,
> and missing water is the challenge for this region in our
> time, the Early Concrete Age. People should find together,
> for doing something reasonable, led by the Israelis who
> are the only ones in the region who achieve something.
that's a debateable political question.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
But I am telling you it is _not_ an "aspect" in the sense that he is
suggesting, i.e. a causal factor in the various things he deplores. As
a novelist Rafik Schami is entitled to write any nonsense he wants. If
he just doesn't like the Arabic alphabet, he should say so clearly and
we can take it or leave it. But he is claiming (and you are posting
him to sci.lang making this claim) that the alphabet is somehow
preventing them from "modernizing" their language and culture. And
this is just not so.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 20, 12:58 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > What do Nabataeans have to do with Saba?
>
> Why do you snip my message instead of reading it,
> and then ask me a question I answered in the snipped
> part? Really, you are a fool, as I said. Marib in Yemen,
Yeah, I was pretty sure Marib is in Yemen, but since you were so
insistent on the Nabataeans, I asked why.
There were no Nabataeans in or near Yemen.
> associated with the legendary Queen of Sheba, Bilqis
> (a German archeologist is rather confident that she
> located her palace, time will tell), and the Nabataens
> are two examples of the ingenious Arab mind before
> the advent of Islam, the most stupid religion in the world
So, if Germany does something stupid, it's ok to say Switzerland did
it?
> according to Nobel Prize winner Naipul. The dwellers
> of Marib with an over six-hundred meters long dam,
> the Nabateans with cataracts of tiny dams in wadis
> along the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Since the middle
Nowhere near Yemen.
DKleinecke
I described my personal practices because it seemed relevant at the
time. I did not even suggest that anyone else should. What I am is
the key fact in all this. if some one wants to follow my lead - let
them feel free. If not - it does not matter to me.
Franz Gnaedinger
Snipping the endless repetitions. I asked you clearly
to tell me of an Arab woman leading a bank for
women entrepreneurs. No answer, because women
can't undertake anything on their own in Arabic
countries. Why am I a bigot? I say the same about
every religion. Religion, to me, is precious because
of their idea of transcendence, we can't know everything,
the more we know the more we don't know, while those
who pervert religion claim to know everything, what is
right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad,
and then religion dissolves, and becomes politics,
a craving of power. I am speaking in the name of the
many many reasonable Muslims in Switzerland who
don't dare raise their voice. And in the name of the
Arab genius of old, also in my linguistic, archaeologic
and math-historical work, for example I rediscovered
the first systematic method of calculating the circle
and the number we call pi, it was done almost
two and a half millennia before Archimedes, by
Egyptian mathematicians. The Arabic countries
have a great legacy, but don't live up to it nowadays,
and blame us for their shortcomings. I revive their
ancient achievements, for the price of being excluded
from publishing, and take a right to say what I think,
to speak my mind.
Franz Gnaedinger
wrote:
Rafik Schami says the Persians made the necessary step
and introduced the four letters in their alphabet, while
the Arabs didn't.
Yusuf B Gursey
because Persian has the extra phonemes that Arabic doesn't have.
Arabic has phonemes that Persian and other IE doesn't have. English
has no symbol for `ayn for example. but when transcribing an Arabic
word, sometimes ad hoc unofficial symbols are added. like <` >.
similarly Modern Arabic does use the Persian symbol for <p> when the
occasion to transcibe an non-Arabic proper name or unassimilated
foreign word arises. and it uses a special symbol for [v] on occasion
too. so Arabic does take that additional step, if need be.
Panu
> There are several shortcomings of Arabic, also four
> missing letters that don't allow a modern language
> that can cope with modern life.
This is of course racist hogwash. We don't have Q or C in Finnish, but
we copy with modern life just fine.
>
>
> which I do whenever someone publishes religious
> propaganda in sci.lang.
Our Father who are in heaven!
May your name be sacred.
May your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have trespassed
against us.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the realm, the power and the honour for all eternity.
Amen.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 20, 5:33 pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
> Snipping the endless repetitions. I asked you clearly
> to tell me of an Arab woman leading a bank for
> women entrepreneurs. No answer, because women
I don't know of such a woman or bank in the US.
> can't undertake anything on their own in Arabic
that's flatly untrue. Arab women do participate in all walks of life,
it is only in backward countries like Saudi Arabia propped up by the
western powers that you could make a case.
> countries. Why am I a bigot? I say the same about
> every religion. Religion, to me, is precious because
it's not precious to me.
> of their idea of transcendence, we can't know everything,
> the more we know the more we don't know, while those
> who pervert religion claim to know everything, what is
> right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad,
> and then religion dissolves, and becomes politics,
> a craving of power. I am speaking in the name of the
> many many reasonable Muslims in Switzerland who
> don't dare raise their voice. And in the name of the
> Arab genius of old, also in my linguistic, archaeologic
> and math-historical work, for example I rediscovered
> the first systematic method of calculating the circle
> and the number we call pi, it was done almost
> two and a half millennia before Archimedes, by
> Egyptian mathematicians. The Arabic countries
> have a great legacy, but don't live up to it nowadays,
> and blame us for their shortcomings. I revive their
partly because it is true. the US has propped up every reactionary
Arab regime.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Yeah, I was pretty sure Marib is in Yemen, but since you were so
> insistent on the Nabataeans, I asked why.
>
> There were no Nabataeans in or near Yemen.
Really, you are a fool. I don't speak about Yemen,
I speak about ancient dams and irrigation systems,
and mentioned the two opposite ones, Marib with
an over six hundred meters long dam, and the small
dams in the wadis along the eastern shore of the
Red Sea built and maintained by the Nabataeans.
The dam of Marib is linked to the legendary Queen
of Sheba, Bilqis, who met Solomon, symbol of
Jewish wisdom, the story told in the Bible includes
a glass of water, symbol of retaining water,
Solomon succeeded in tricking the queen,
which means that he was as good or even better
in handling the waterworks than the people of
Marib, Marib being the obvious standard in
building dams; if you can compete with Marib,
then you are someone. The episode praises
wise Solomon, but actually Bilqis. You have to
understand the intentions of story telling in ancient
writings. The Bible is full of stories involving water,
also the begin of the Genesis, where we have
a snake near chapter 1, descendant of the snake
meaning water on the Göbekli Tepe, Eve reminding
of the women who founded agriculture in the region
of the Göbekli Tepe, 10,000 or 11,000 or even
12,000 years ago, and then planted palms in southern
Mesopotamia, where Adam and Eve are seen on two
clay tablets, in both cases accompanied by a huge
snake that forms a waving stairway to the sky,
drinking water from a cloud, as it were, praying for
rain. In one case Adam and Eve flank a stylized
palm tree, so the apple in the story of Adam and Eve
was a date; date palms require plenty of water,
and linking Eve to the snake, as the Bible does,
means that women not only founded agriculture
(with the help of men, of course) but also initiated
the planting and cultivating of dates, highly water
intensive, and demanding a lot of work, so we have
Eve in the Bible and on Mesopotamian clay tablets,
and Bilqis of Marib again in the Bible. Women clearly
were connected to watering systems. Also in Egypt,
where the taming of the "angry river Nile" (Rushdi Said)
was the greatest achievement, greater than all pyramids
together, and own to the era of the goddess, from
around 7,500 to 3,200 BC, when the predynastic kings
took over, having intruded the Nile Valley via the wadi
Hammamat and settling in Abydos. I can't repeat all
my work time and again, in every message of mine.
> Nowhere near Yemen.
You are a fool; far away from Yemen or in Yemen,
where you are there is always a fool, and if you
were alone somewhere in a desert.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> that's flatly untrue. Arab women do participate in all walks of life,
> it is only in backward countries like Saudi Arabia propped up by the
> western powers that you could make a case.
Again no name of a woman who is leading a bank
in an Arabic country. I don't know the banking system
of the USA, but here in Switzerland we have a woman
who is leading a bank. But I meant reforesting and
other environmental projects led in India and Africa,
where the money is given to women, for they are
reliable, while if the money is given to men they buy
arms. Those projects are successful, they work fine,
very fine in India and Africa, but I never heard of
such a project in an Arabic country. Tell me if I am
wrong. Calling me a bigot is no way of sneaking
away from my question. I will insist.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
And what made this innovation "necessary"? Hint: It was not
"modernization". It was the fact that Persian is a completely
different language, unrelated to Arabic. Persian has some sounds which
Arabic does not have; thus it was a good idea (even "necessary") to
add some letters to the Persian alphabet to represent these sounds. If
you understand this, then you will understand how ridiculous it is to
suggest that the _Arabic_ alphabet would be improved, or "modernized",
by adding four letters for sounds _which do not exist in Arabic_.
Ross Clark
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> And what made this innovation "necessary"? Hint: It was not
> "modernization". It was the fact that Persian is a completely
> different language, unrelated to Arabic. Persian has some sounds which
> Arabic does not have; thus it was a good idea (even "necessary") to
> add some letters to the Persian alphabet to represent these sounds. If
> you understand this, then you will understand how ridiculous it is to
> suggest that the _Arabic_ alphabet would be improved, or "modernized",
> by adding four letters for sounds _which do not exist in Arabic_.
I trust a native speaker of Aramaic more than you.
Read his novel Calligrapher's Secret, English
translation announced for Novermber 2010,
and discuss with him.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 21, 9:03 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > And what made this innovation "necessary"? Hint: It was not
> > "modernization". It was the fact that Persian is a completely
> > different language, unrelated to Arabic. Persian has some sounds which
> > Arabic does not have; thus it was a good idea (even "necessary") to
> > add some letters to the Persian alphabet to represent these sounds. If
> > you understand this, then you will understand how ridiculous it is to
> > suggest that the _Arabic_ alphabet would be improved, or "modernized",
> > by adding four letters for sounds _which do not exist in Arabic_.
>
> I trust a native speaker of Aramaic more than you.
Aramaic is not Arabic. Aramaic does have the sounds [p] and [v], for
example.
> Read his novel Calligrapher's Secret, English
and it just a "novel"
Yusuf B Gursey
there are organizations headed by women for the specific purpose of
helping women. they came and gave talks here. I don't know much about
Arab banks, but I don't know of any such bank in the US either. and
men do head many environmental projects. you are stereotyping men.
Ralph Nader is an Arab by origin, and speaks Arabic and he is
certainly an environmentalist. go rant all you wish, for I write what
I know. in the middle east there are more women scientists for
example.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On May 21, 9:03 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > And what made this innovation "necessary"? Hint: It was not
> > "modernization". It was the fact that Persian is a completely
> > different language, unrelated to Arabic. Persian has some sounds which
> > Arabic does not have; thus it was a good idea (even "necessary") to
> > add some letters to the Persian alphabet to represent these sounds. If
> > you understand this, then you will understand how ridiculous it is to
> > suggest that the _Arabic_ alphabet would be improved, or "modernized",
> > by adding four letters for sounds _which do not exist in Arabic_.
>
> I trust a native speaker of Aramaic more than you.
Alas, Franz, being a native speaker of any language gives no immunity
against having erroneous ideas about language in general. But I take
this to be an admission on your part that you yourself cannot explain
how benefits would accrue to Arabs by adding these four letters. But
you are willing to assume that there must be some secret explanation,
known only to people who happen to speak a language from the same
region?
> Read his novel Calligrapher's Secret, English
> translation announced for Novermber 2010,
> and discuss with him.
I have read enough here to show me that he is confused. (And he is not
alone.) How would reading a novel change things? Anyhow, arguing with
every novelist who has dodgy ideas about language would be more than a
full time career. If he were right here now, I would put the same
question to him as I have to you.
Ross Clark
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> there are organizations headed by women for the specific purpose of
> helping women. they came and gave talks here. I don't know much about
> Arab banks, but I don't know of any such bank in the US either. and
> men do head many environmental projects. you are stereotyping men.
> Ralph Nader is an Arab by origin, and speaks Arabic and he is
> certainly an environmentalist. go rant all you wish, for I write what
> I know. in the middle east there are more women scientists for
> example.
Fine example, Ralph Nader heaved Double-You
into the White House. Allah made a fine jest.
Allah is responsible for all that happens in the
world, so Allah sent the Arab Ralph Nader to
America and let his vanity run free so that he
candidated for presidency, knowing damn well
that he hasn't the slightest chance but can ruin
Al Gore's hopes, and so it happened, Doble-You
made it, fulfilling Allah's will that someone should
take it up with them Arabs that betray the Arab
genius of old and must therefore be punished
by someone of Double-You's caliber, and the
sheer cleverness of this scheme proves that
Allah is ... Jewish.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I have read enough here to show me that he is confused. (And he is not
> alone.) How would reading a novel change things? Anyhow, arguing with
> every novelist who has dodgy ideas about language would be more than a
> full time career. If he were right here now, I would put the same
> question to him as I have to you.
Having just proved that Allah is Jewish, I can deal
with you. Apparently you underestimate literature.
Well then, here is an early play by Edward de Vere
alias William Shakespeare, the Comedy of Erros,
a comedy, as the title says, yet speaking about
a serious topic, namely the relation of religion
and science that is still actual today, for example
the lines spoken by Antipholus of Syracuse,
appealing as they are if you read the play just
for amusement, are a fine statement about science,
on a par with Richard P. Feynman's statement
that if we lose contact with the guiding walls
and don't know anymore where we are in a scientific
field, then we are just right (my wording, he says it
much more elegantly).
Comedy of Errors
Conspicuous in the Comedy of Errors are the many
names beginning on A, Adriana and Aemilia of Ephesus,
Aegeon of Syracuse, Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus
of Syracuse, Aemilia as Abbess, and Angelo. Ancient
Ephesus was the city of the powerful goddess Artemis,
her Roman equivalent being Diana, encoded in Adriana
Ardiana ArDiana Artemis/Diana, while her kitchen wench,
round as a globe, all countries on her body, evokes Gaia,
earth personified, another mighty goddess. Ephesus also
was the place where Paulus formulated and established
Christendom, symbolized in Aemilia as Abbess, and in
Angelo, a name meaning angel. Syracuse is the town
of Archimedes, a great mathematician and engineer
of antiquity, on whose work Renaissance thrived. So we
have Artemis and Christendom, Archimedes and the
Renaissance; a huge body of ancient religion that also
invoked animals as deities, and on top of it Christendom,
and another huge body of ancient science and technology,
and on top of it Renaissance -- both double-bodies
captured in the symbol of the centaur, alluded to by the
hostel Centaur, and by the Antipholuses, Pholus having
been the centaur who guarded the sacred wine in a cave,
but, unluckily, handed it over to Hercules and thus brought
doom over all centaurs. The Anti- in the name Antipholus
means that both religion (Antipholus of Ephesus) and
science (Antipholus of Syracuse) wisely keep their
live-giving secret, their sacred wine, as it were, symbol
of inspiration, but the Anti- also marks the antagonism
of religion and science. Antipholus of Ephesus is excluded
from his home, ends in Tartar, deepest hell of the Greeks,
and is pinched by an exorcist, whereas Antipholus of
Syracuse survives a shipwreck, and then has a lot of luck,
owing to his open mind, engages in a witty dialogue with
his Dromio instead of beating him, as his brother does,
and tells us toward the end of Act 2 Scene 2 that science
has to go through phases of great uncertainty and is
basically an adventure (also a dangerous one, as the
shipwreck proves)
Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
Sleeping or waking? mad or well advised?
Known unto these, and to myself disguised!
I'll say as they say, and persever so,
And in this mist at all adventures go.
He falls in love with Luciana, the rational and rationalizing
sister of Adriana, her name containing Latin lux 'light',
anticipating the age of enlightment, but also the ambigous
moral of Protestantism. The early play would have been
written in 1574 or 75, while the litigating heirs of France
are own to an update of the play from perhaps 1593 or 94.
Peter T. Daniels
Where'd you get that bizarre rendition of the Lord's Prayer? It mashes
together elements of at least three standard versions and combines
several registers of diction.
Peter T. Daniels
There's a really awful novel called *A B C*, by David Plante
(Pantheon, 2007), which turns (I kid you not) on the identification of
a scrap of writing as Sanskrit and on the history of the Ugaritic
"alphabet." Presumably the author, like the main character, came
across a copy of Fevrier's *Histoire de l'alphabet* (2nd ed., 1959) in
a usedbook store in Maine for $10 (I wish! the 2nd ed., which
apparently is much scarcer than the 1st, started the last time I
looked around $50 on AbeBooks) but didn't bother reading the relevant
pages, since it answers the questions that provide the character's
existential angst.
You might ask Franz whether he's ever tried to learn a language
written with any script other than the one he grew up with.
Note that when he identified Nabataeans with Sabaeans, he failed to
respond to the question as to whether when Germany does something
stupid, it's ok to blame Switzerland.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
I suppose that if I admit that I cannot see how the foregoing passage
of Shakespeare-babble either "deals with me" or answers the question I
put, I would simply be admitting how much lower a mental plane I
function on than yourself?
If The Calligrapher's Secret gives me "answers" like the above, I will
be worse off than when I started.
Fine, let it be so, the brief window in which I thought rational
discussion with you was possible has now closed. A la prochaine.
Ross Clark
johnk
.
>
> I suppose that if I admit that I cannot see how the foregoing passage
> of Shakespeare-babble either "deals with me" or answers the question I
> put, I would simply be admitting how much lower a mental plane I
> function on than yourself?
> If The Calligrapher's Secret gives me "answers" like the above, I will
> be worse off than when I started.
> Fine, let it be so, the brief window in which I thought rational
> discussion with you was possible has now closed. A la prochaine.
>
> Ross Clark
There isn't much point in attempting rational discussion with Franz.
He is so convinced that whatever pops in his head is the truth that he
can't even see the SIMPLE explanation for why Arabic script doesn't
have symbols for all speech sounds.....let alone that this has nothing
to do with being 'modern'.
It's quite sad really.
John K
johnk
>
> You are a fool; far away from Yemen or in Yemen,
> where you are there is always a fool, and if you
> were alone somewhere in a desert.
You are a worthless ass. Yusuf is a thoughtful, intelligent poster
here on sci.lang. An uninformed boob like you has no right to make
remarks like that to him.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 21, 1:33 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You are a fool; far away from Yemen or in Yemen,
> > where you are there is always a fool, and if you
> > were alone somewhere in a desert.
>
> You are a worthless ass. Yusuf is a thoughtful, intelligent poster
worse, he was making that remark to Peter T. Daniels, who is a
professional linguist.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>You might ask Franz whether he's ever tried to learn a language
>written with any script other than the one he grew up with.
That's not necessary. I can read (i.e., slowly spell out) Russian,
Greek and Arabic script, but my (passive!) vocabulary in each is
restricted to maybe 20 or 30 words, so for practical purposes I don't
know these languages at all.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> There's a really awful novel called *A B C*, by David Plante
> (Pantheon, 2007), which turns (I kid you not) on the identification of
> a scrap of writing as Sanskrit and on the history of the Ugaritic
> "alphabet." Presumably the author, like the main character, came
> across a copy of Fevrier's *Histoire de l'alphabet* (2nd ed., 1959) in
> a usedbook store in Maine for $10 (I wish! the 2nd ed., which
> apparently is much scarcer than the 1st, started the last time I
> looked around $50 on AbeBooks) but didn't bother reading the relevant
> pages, since it answers the questions that provide the character's
> existential angst.
>
> You might ask Franz whether he's ever tried to learn a language
> written with any script other than the one he grew up with.
Ancient Greek, of course, and visual language
in art, Marcel Duchamp's language of symbols
(deciphered by me), Renaissance art, cave art,
Göbekli Tepe.
> Note that when he identified Nabataeans with Sabaeans, he failed to
> respond to the question as to whether when Germany does something
> stupid, it's ok to blame Switzerland.
Did I identify the Nabataeans with Sabaeans?
No, I spoke of the two opposite ends of old Arabic
irrigation systems, the over six hundred meters long
dam at Marib, connected with Bilqis, the legendary
Queen of Sheba or Saba, and of the succession
of small dams in wadis along the eastern shore
of the Red Sea built and maintained by the
Nabataeans. Ross, how about learning to read?
Or do you want to become a fool in the wake
of Peter T. Daniels?
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Since you are apparently having trouble telling us apart, I'm not sure
that can be averted.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I suppose that if I admit that I cannot see how the foregoing passage
> of Shakespeare-babble either "deals with me" or answers the question I
> put, I would simply be admitting how much lower a mental plane I
> function on than yourself?
> If The Calligrapher's Secret gives me "answers" like the above, I will
> be worse off than when I started.
> Fine, let it be so, the brief window in which I thought rational
> discussion with you was possible has now closed. A la prochaine.
Read the book Calligrapher's Secret, English translation
announced for November 2010. Or do you suggest that
you can judge the book without knowing it? in the wake
of our notorious fool Peter T. Daniels who claims that
he can judge the book by Derk Ohlenroth without having
much as laid eyes on it, for years on end, finding each
and every silly excuse for not reading the book, although
I told him the lending number of the Public Library NY
and offered to guide him to the library, and hoo, moreover,
tries to persuade me and yoo and everybody that the
Göbekli Tepe is irrelevant, which he says on the basis
of not informing himself about the Göbekli Tepe.
And now I see that my second longtime online stalker
is hounding me again, Panu Petteri Höglund alias
John Bulkington alias craoibhin66 alias he himself
as his own good friend Sean Connor soconn1 alias
he himself as John Hobart Kyle jhobartkyle johnk
alias he himself as his own bride Annina Kaartinen
alias a Rumanian professor who claims to have
discovered the origin of language alias he himself
as his own bride Maria Kupari alias esperanto doctoro
aka Ali Ass.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On May 21, 1:36 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I suppose that if I admit that I cannot see how the foregoing passage
> > of Shakespeare-babble either "deals with me" or answers the question I
> > put, I would simply be admitting how much lower a mental plane I
> > function on than yourself?
> > If The Calligrapher's Secret gives me "answers" like the above, I will
> > be worse off than when I started.
> > Fine, let it be so, the brief window in which I thought rational
> > discussion with you was possible has now closed. A la prochaine.
>
> Read the book Calligrapher's Secret, English translation
> announced for November 2010. Or do you suggest that
> you can judge the book without knowing it?
No, it's just that you have given me no good reason to read it. It may
be a good novel, but hundreds of good novels are published every year,
and I hardly ever read any of them.
If there were a real explanation therein of Rafik Schami's views about
the Arabic alphabet, I'm sure you would be able to point me to the
page number (we do have the German version in our library here), or
even translate or summarize it. Since you haven't done this, you will
probably be expecting me to derive an "explanation" about Schami's
linguistic ideas from the entire book, the way you derive messages
about science or politics from Shakespeare's plays. I think the
likelihood of me deriving such an explanation is about the same as me
deriving the messages you derive from the palaeolithic cave paintings.
And I think you know this.
So in other words, "Read the novel six months from now" is just a way
of evading your own inability to explain or defend what Schami says,
and your own emotional distress that a writer you like could be quite
wrong about something like this.
Ross Clark
Panu
It is my own translation of the Finnish version I am familiar with.
What did you expect? That I would be familiar with the standard
English one? I don't even have an English Bible here.
Peter T. Daniels
> Fri, 21 May 2010 04:17:04 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >You might ask Franz whether he's ever tried to learn a language
> >written with any script other than the one he grew up with.
>
> That's not necessary. I can read (i.e., slowly spell out) Russian,
> Greek and Arabic script, but my (passive!) vocabulary in each is
> restricted to maybe 20 or 30 words, so for practical purposes I don't
> know these languages at all.
How on earth is that relevant to Franz's inability to comprehend the
nature of (quasi-)alphabetic scripts?
Franz Gnaedinger
wrote:
>
> No, it's just that you have given me no good reason to read it. It may
> be a good novel, but hundreds of good novels are published every year,
> and I hardly ever read any of them.
Peter T(he Fool) Daniels says the same, there is
no good reason for him to read the book by Derk
Ohlenroth and to inform himself about the Göbekli
Tepe. If you are interested in the question I spoke
of, relying on Rafik Schami, you have a good reason
to read the book, and if you have no interest in this
question, why then are you discussing here with me?
I told everybody that I did not read the book, just
heard a charming long interview with Rafik Schami,
so I can't give you more information. Because I did
not read the book. But you can read it if you want.
> If there were a real explanation therein of Rafik Schami's views about
> the Arabic alphabet, I'm sure you would be able to point me to the
> page number (we do have the German version in our library here), or
> even translate or summarize it. Since you haven't done this, you will
> probably be expecting me to derive an "explanation" about Schami's
> linguistic ideas from the entire book, the way you derive messages
> about science or politics from Shakespeare's plays. I think the
> likelihood of me deriving such an explanation is about the same as me
> deriving the messages you derive from the palaeolithic cave paintings.
> And I think you know this.
I can't give you the page number because I did
n o t read the book, as I said in a previous message.
> So in other words, "Read the novel six months from now" is just a way
> of evading your own inability to explain or defend what Schami says,
> and your own emotional distress that a writer you like could be quite
> wrong about something like this.
I did not read the book, and I wont buy and read
and review it for you online, for my many many
reviews of Derk Ohlenroth's book in sci.lang
were all ignored, then I was asked again the same
question as before, and I had to write new reviews,
which of curse were also ignored, and then I was
asked the same question again, usually by Peter
T(he Fool) Daniels, etceterapepe.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On May 22, 11:03 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > No, it's just that you have given me no good reason to read it. It may
> > be a good novel, but hundreds of good novels are published every year,
> > and I hardly ever read any of them.
>
> Peter T(he Fool) Daniels says the same, there is
> no good reason for him to read the book by Derk
> Ohlenroth and to inform himself about the Göbekli
> Tepe. If you are interested in the question I spoke
> of, relying on Rafik Schami, you have a good reason
> to read the book,
I am interested in the question to the extent of trying to explain to
you why Schami's ideas about the Arabic alphabet are mistaken. You
yourself do not seem to understand this. You have evidently not
learned anything from Schami's novel that enables you to explain or
defend his ideas. Why do you think I would?
and if you have no interest in this
> question, why then are you discussing here with me?
> I told everybody that I did not read the book, just
> heard a charming long interview with Rafik Schami,
> so I can't give you more information. Because I did
> not read the book. But you can read it if you want.
So you have not even read the book??? Yet you tell me I must read it
in order to find a full explanation of Schami's ideas about the Arabic
alphabet?! You are even less to be taken seriously than I thought.
Ross Clark
johnk
>
> Read the book Calligrapher's Secret,
Try reading an elementary linguistics textbook first, Franzi.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
Does everything I write have to be relevant?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I am interested in the question to the extent of trying to explain to
> you why Schami's ideas about the Arabic alphabet are mistaken. You
> yourself do not seem to understand this. You have evidently not
> learned anything from Schami's novel that enables you to explain or
> defend his ideas. Why do you think I would?
I pick up new ideas from everywhere and then look out
for a paper or a book, and sometimes I wait for years
till it happens that I lay eyes on it, and often in a moment
when I just need it. So I picked up another idea from
a radio program, the four missing letters in the Arab
alphabet, posted it here, saying that I didn't read the book,
right from the begin, but those among you who are interested
in this question may read it, Peter T. Daniels in German,
the others may wait for the English translation that is
announced for November 2010. I waited for so many papers
and books to appear, why can't you wait for one too?
> So you have not even read the book??? Yet you tell me I must read it
> in order to find a full explanation of Schami's ideas about the Arabic
> alphabet?! You are even less to be taken seriously than I thought.
As I told you all right from the begin, I heard Rafik Schami
in a long and charming interview on the Radio, and listened
also to the replay of the program, so I heard it twice, one
full hour, and again one full hour; listening to something
for a second time is a test for me, it happens that I find
an idea or a program fascinating upon the first time,
but rather shallow the second time, not so Rafik Schami
speaking about his book Calligrapher's Secret, which
tells a lot of stories from Damascus, where he was born
and raised, blended with a mystery story, and excourses
on calligraphy, a topic not much people are interested in,
but the blend works, and so he can reach plenty of people,
a trick also Edward de Vere alias William Shakespeare
made use of, wrapping serious questions in comedies.
Wait till November, buy the book, and enjoy; perhaps
you may even learn something.
Peter T. Daniels
I have never inquired about the content of Ohlenroth's book or any
other treatment of the Phaistos Disk.
Peter T. Daniels
> On May 22, 2:19 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I am interested in the question to the extent of trying to explain to
> > you why Schami's ideas about the Arabic alphabet are mistaken. You
> > yourself do not seem to understand this. You have evidently not
> > learned anything from Schami's novel that enables you to explain or
> > defend his ideas. Why do you think I would?
>
> I pick up new ideas from everywhere and then look out
> for a paper or a book, and sometimes I wait for years
> till it happens that I lay eyes on it, and often in a moment
> when I just need it. So I picked up another idea from
> a radio program, the four missing letters in the Arab
> alphabet, posted it here, saying that I didn't read the book,
There are no letters "missing" from the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic
alphabet has exactly as many letters as the Arabic language has
consonants.
> right from the begin, but those among you who are interested
> in this question may read it, Peter T. Daniels in German,
> the others may wait for the English translation that is
> announced for November 2010. I waited for so many papers
> and books to appear, why can't you wait for one too?
>
> > So you have not even read the book??? Yet you tell me I must read it
> > in order to find a full explanation of Schami's ideas about the Arabic
> > alphabet?! You are even less to be taken seriously than I thought.
>
> As I told you all right from the begin, I heard Rafik Schami
> in a long and charming interview on the Radio, and listened
> also to the replay of the program, so I heard it twice, one
> full hour, and again one full hour; listening to something
> for a second time is a test for me, it happens that I find
> an idea or a program fascinating upon the first time,
> but rather shallow the second time, not so Rafik Schami
> speaking about his book Calligrapher's Secret, which
> tells a lot of stories from Damascus, where he was born
> and raised, blended with a mystery story, and excourses
> on calligraphy, a topic not much people are interested in,
> but the blend works, and so he can reach plenty of people,
Yet you insisted several times that it's a very good novel.
Peter T. Daniels
> Sat, 22 May 2010 04:18:57 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >On May 22, 2:49 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.com> wrote:
> >> Fri, 21 May 2010 04:17:04 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gramma...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> >You might ask Franz whether he's ever tried to learn a language
> >> >written with any script other than the one he grew up with.
>
> >> That's not necessary. I can read (i.e., slowly spell out) Russian,
> >> Greek and Arabic script, but my (passive!) vocabulary in each is
> >> restricted to maybe 20 or 30 words, so for practical purposes I don't
> >> know these languages at all.
>
> >How on earth is that relevant to Franz's inability to comprehend the
> >nature of (quasi-)alphabetic scripts?
>
> Does everything I write have to be relevant?
It should have _some_ connection to the message you attach it to.
If you simply wanted to make that little autobiographical observation,
you could have started a new thread.
Adam Funk
Of course not.
--
hmmmm: sounds like the same DLL hell problem my cousin had. try
deleting all DLLs in your Windows/system32 directory and see what
happens. (Bryce Utting)
Panu
It is nice to see that in addition to all his other unsavoury
qualities, Franz manages even to be anti-Arab and anti-Semitic
simultaneously. I knew already that Franz was a bad and worthless
piece of unnamed material in many ways and on many levels, but I am
frankly impressed that he should be able to be even worse than I
thought.
Panu
> On May 18, 3:28 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 18, 2:24 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> > > On May 17, 9:12 pm, عبدلله <thinker...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Allah, CREATED THE UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING
> > > > ___________________________________________
>
> > > > With ample evidence discovered by science, the thesis of an "infinite
> > > > universe" was tossed onto the scrap-heap of the history of scientific
> > > > ideas. Yet, more important questions were forthcoming: what existed
> > > > before the Big Bang? What force could have caused the great explosion
> > > > that resulted in a universe that did not exist before?
>
> > > > There is a single answer to be given to the question of what existed
> > > > before the Big Bang: God, the All-powerful and the Almighty, Who
> > > > created the earth and the heavens in great order. Many scientists, be
> > > > they believers or not, are obliged to admit this truth. Although they
> > > > may decline to admit this fact on scientific platforms, their
> > > > confessions in between the lines give them away. Renowned atheist
> > > > philosopher Anthony Flew says:
>
> > > Are you Islamway? Islamway posted the same stuff. You are not
> > > up-to-date in physics. The Big Bang is not the only solution
>
> > OK.
>
> > > to Einstein's equations, very new solutions suggest a pulsating
>
> > the novelty is the quantum mechanics involved, not a new solution of
> > Einstein's equations. at any rate, it is only a theory, somewhat
> > contradicting the present observations.
>
> > > universe, contracting and expanding and contracting again and
> > > expanding again, never so small as to form a singularity,
>
> > it's not a singularity when quantum mechanics is put in the picture,
> > but in the classical limit it is a singularity.
>
> > > no Big Bang. And, by the way, Allah was a woman, first mentioned
>
> > Arab paganism considered Allah a male deity, who had daughters and
> > sons. but the Qur'an does reject him "begetting", so has no sex in
> > that sense of the word in Islam (no Muslim would call God "Our
> > Father", in spite of Hollywood putting it in the mouth of the
> > fictional version of Ibn Fadlan in "the 13th Warrior")
>
> incidentally, Islam does believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but
> says Jesus was miraculously "created" not
> "begotten". I think the Christian creed is that Jesus, the Son, was
> begotten not created.
Yes, that's part of the Nicene creed (Nicene as in Nicaea, the place
you will recognize as Iznik) - the creed agreed upon by the council of
the church leaders who convened there in 325. In Latin, the relevant
part is "natus non creatus". The Finnish version of that creed, which
I obviously am most familiar with, says "syntynyt, ei luotu", where
"syntynyt" is the active past participle of "syntyä", be born, come
about, originate.
Peter T. Daniels
> about, originate.-
Could you possibly be referring to "genitum non factum"?
It seems you don't know your Christian texts in Latin _or_ English.
Of, for that matter, classical music. Haydn alone composed nearly 20
Masses, including what the good Lutheran J. S. Bach called the
Symbolum Nicenum when he set the Latin Mass for reasons unknown at the
end of his life.
Panu
> On May 22, 4:27 pm, Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 19, 7:28 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
> > > incidentally, Islam does believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but
> > > says Jesus was miraculously "created" not
> > > "begotten". I think the Christian creed is that Jesus, the Son, was
> > > begotten not created.
>
> > Yes, that's part of the Nicene creed (Nicene as in Nicaea, the place
> > you will recognize as Iznik) - the creed agreed upon by the council of
> > the church leaders who convened there in 325. In Latin, the relevant
> > part is "natus non creatus". The Finnish version of that creed, which
> > I obviously am most familiar with, says "syntynyt, ei luotu", where
> > "syntynyt" is the active past participle of "syntyä", be born, come
> > about, originate.-
>
> Could you possibly be referring to "genitum non factum"?
Yes. My reference comes from my high school textbook, and it is quite
possible it is not a particularly good reference.
>
> It seems you don't know your Christian texts in Latin _or_ English.
Why should I? My Latin is not particularly good - I learnt it back in
the nineties and never had very much use for it. And as regards
knowing my Christian texts in English, I would like to point out to
you that I have lived practically all my life in Finland. My prolonged
stays in foreign countries have been in Poland and in Ireland. Of
those two, only Ireland is an Anglophone country, but as it is
predominantly Catholic, I would, as a Protestant, have felt unwelcome
at a Mass in Ireland. So, you can rest assured that I have never
attended any kind of liturgy in English.
The snippets from King James's Bible I come across often sound
unintelligible to me, and I can't relate them in any way to the Bible
I am familiar with. Actually, once I found myself in a very
uncomfortable fix, because an Anglophone acquaintance of a rather
fundamentalist bent - an entirely decent and likeable fellow, by the
way - asked me to provide him with the Finnish version of a favorite
passage in KJB. It turned out that it had been translated with the
exactly opposite meaning (opposite as in black versus white, you know)
in our present official Finnish translation. In order to avoid
embarrassment on either side, I then proceeded to translate the
passage from KJB English into Finnish.
Indeed, you English-speakers should give up your infidel and diabolic
language, infested with the Devil's falsehood as it obviously is, and
convert to our language, the real vintage tongue of God. "Tulkaa pois
heidän joukostaan älkääkä saastaiseen koskeko", as we say - turn your
backs to their crowd and don't touch what is filthy.
Peter T. Daniels
Then why did you simply _invent_ two words of Latin, and moreover put
them in the wrong case? Your high school textbook obviously did not
give you the text of the Nicene Creed; perhaps you looked in the
glossary.
The Church of Ireland is, of course, part of the Anglican Communion,
and until fairly recently only Protestants could attend Trinity
College Dublin. University College Dublin was invented for the
Catholics.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On May 21, 9:29 am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > there are organizations headed by women for the specific purpose of
> > helping women. they came and gave talks here. I don't know much about
> > Arab banks, but I don't know of any such bank in the US either. and
> > men do head many environmental projects. you are stereotyping men.
> > Ralph Nader is an Arab by origin, and speaks Arabic and he is
> > certainly an environmentalist. go rant all you wish, for I write what
> > I know. in the middle east there are more women scientists for
> > example.
>
> Fine example, Ralph Nader heaved Double-You
> into the White House. Allah made a fine jest.
> Allah is responsible for all that happens in the
> world, so Allah sent the Arab Ralph Nader to
> America and let his vanity run free so that he
> candidated for presidency, knowing damn well
> that he hasn't the slightest chance but can ruin
> Al Gore's hopes, and so it happened, Doble-You
> made it, fulfilling Allah's will that someone should
> take it up with them Arabs that betray the Arab
> genius of old and must therefore be punished
> by someone of Double-You's caliber, and the
> sheer cleverness of this scheme proves that
> Allah is ... Jewish.
muslims don't deny that they worship the God as jews and christians or
anyone else with claims to monotheism
Yusuf B Gursey
yeah, I missed that part.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> muslims don't deny that they worship the God as jews and christians or
> anyone else with claims to monotheism
But in Indonesia Muslims burn down churches because
the Christians use 'Allah' for 'God', which was allowed to
them by the court. So much for the tolerance Muslims ask
from us in the west. Do you know why the anti-minarett
initiative was accepted by the voters in Switzerland?
because many Muslims are fed up with the fanatics
and wanted to make a statement, usually they don't
dare raise their voice, but here they could make that
statement anonymously, really anonymously, I mean.
A friend of mine, director of a Swiss Institute for
Cooperation in an Islamic country overheard Muslims
in a train saying that, and freely confessing to having
voted against minaretts themselves. And then a Turkish
woman, professor of economy in the USA, muslima
herself, said also she would have voted against minaretts,
in order to make a statement against the stupid radicals
who blow up and burn down everything, utterly unable
of doing something constructive, misled by their craving
of power, abusing and perverting religion.
Ruud Harmsen
>> right from the begin,
-ning.
Panu
My high school textbook gave me exactly these word in Latin: "natus
non creatus", and glossed them as "syntynyt, ei luotu", in a chapter
about, among other things, Arianism, and it pointed out, with these
words: "Areiolaisskisman muistoksi katolisen kirkon liturgiassa
lauletaan yhä 'syntynyt, ei luotu' (_natus non creatus_)" ("As a
reminder of the Arian schism, they still sing in the Catholic liturgy
'born, not created' [_natus non creatus_])". Now, I had heard the
words "syntynyt, ei luotu" of the Nicene Creed so many times, that I
obviously believed that the original was as told in my textbook.
>
> The Church of Ireland is, of course, part of the Anglican Communion,
> and until fairly recently only Protestants could attend Trinity
> College Dublin. University College Dublin was invented for the
> Catholics.
I know, but I wasn't in Dublin. I was in Galway. I have been in Dublin
only as a tourist. As regards Anglicanism, I am even less familiar
with it than with Catholicism. We are Lutherans in Finland. The only
Anglican church I know of in this country, is in Helsinki, ironically
almost next door to the Irish embassy.