Amazing
I was busy doing a search on ruined cottages (as you do) and noticed these headlines Prayer refusal pupils are disciplined These pupils, all two of them, refused to pray to Allah, and were accused of being disrespectful. This makes me laugh. It is almost as bad as those people who say Hell is disrespectful. Come on! Hell is an absence of God, Heaven is being with him. If you spend your whole life telling God to F*ck off, and don't want anything to do with him, why oh why would you want to spend eternity with him? People say God is being disrespectful by sending them to Heaven. Oh, how I SO love educated arguments.
Anyway, back on topic. The education authority were called in, and it is them that disciplined them, oh HOW times have changed. Let me tell you a story.
When I was at secondary school, we, in our religious education classes, were told to make prayer mats and at the end of the class we would use them to pray to Allah. Excuse me but I found that disrespectful, firstly Allah in my book is not God (Which is why we use a different name for them both regardless of what each name means) and secondly I am not a Muslim. I prayed to God, Allah is not a pantomime character; Allah is part of Islam, which is part of a world religion. Regardless of what I think about any religion, I was quite certain it was not put there for my education classes. I sat on my table, and said to my friend, I am not doing this. Praying to Allah would be an act of disrespect, disrespect to MY beliefs and disrespect to Muslims. So, I refused. The teacher wanting to make an example of me sent me, and my friend, out of the room. I explained why I was not happy to take part, and the whole class agreed - so we lined up outside the classroom. This left the teacher with an unfortunate situation - his whole class were outside rather than inside. The education authorities were not called in. We had a 'discussion', and my friend and I were held back after class to 'explain ourselves' which we did.
The outcome? We never did RE again, we had to take extra geography or History classes. non problemos. I doubt my parents knew this even took place, let alone the head master, or even the education authorities, OR the national press!
I also remember listening to someone saying that freedom of 'religion' was going to be threatened in our country. We would no longer be able to go to church, stand up for our beliefs, have Christmas and all sorts of other things. This was some 20 years ago.... somehow it all strikes a bit to true.
Disrespect to Allah? Gee's what IS this world coming to. Religion is NOT a pantomime, these kids are probably the only TWO who DID respect Allah. Discipline the rest of the class I say.
Everything we do in this country is disrespectful to someone or something these days. What about disrespect to our own culture, our own history, our own beliefs, our own roots?
posted by MortimerBones at
10:16 PM
8 Comments:
You are absolutely right. Every one is entitled to their own particular religious view (as with any other subject). Particularly with religion, no point of view is right or wrong even though they are often contradictory. What is correct is, what is correct for the individual.
In the 15th and 16th centuries Europe generally established the rule of the state had precendence over the rule of religion. This was and still is a significant step.
Islam and particularly the more extreme versions have not made this transition and there is no differentation between State & religious rule. So religion becomes a way of life that we have lost in this country (and most of Europe).
You pays your money and you takes your choice as to whether this is a good thing or not. But the fact is that for followers of the more extreme views do not have this choice and therefore cannot understand those who are fortunate enough to have the choice.
There have been no answers for 10000 years and I doubt we will find an answer in our own lifetime.
The best we can hope for is understanding and respect for the other persons point if view, but it seems to me that in this country the rule of British law must remain prevalent over any religious dogma and no one should be forced to follow the practices of any faith which they themselves do not hold.
Regrettably extremeist of any view may well upset the the equlibrium that we enjoy at present.
I'm sure you will get many people responding to your blog here, Mort, as it is such a personal subject that people do feel very strongly about. And as usual I'm first in where angels fear to tread!!
I do not believe in any 'god', religion.
I found this in Webster's dictionary "Etymology:
Middle English religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back"
The last bit seems to fit for me, if people wish to 'believe', I have no problem with that but please do not try to convert me.
I try to do unto others as they would do unto me.
*%^£"* I just quoted a religious doctrine.
Couldn't agree more with kh, and very well and succinctly put. Think I see where you're coming from Bones. I used to have the same sort of issues (maybe) when I used to teach a human rights course. For the first nine weeks all the students were all for the doctrine of universal human rights, then in week ten we did cultural relativism, and suddenly they were all, well, if 'their' culture is in conflict with what we consider to be human rights then why should 'they' be bound by them, isn't it just western cultural imperialism etc etc. Well, there are lots of arguments against that but the one I think is relevant here is, we can only say: This is what we believe in, and if we can't stand up for what we believe in then what can we do. So although I don't share your belief, and to be honest, cannot even respect any religious belief (although of course I respect every individual's right to hold their own belief) I respect you personally very greatly for standing up for it and not being wishy washy about it.
Hello, Maffi, I didn't realise you were the guest blogger on Mortimer Bones today!
I composed a reply just now that sounded like it could have come straight from the Daily Mail, so decided to write something else.
To look at this incident from a different point of view- when do newspapers' editorial policies as to what makes "news" change what people think and believe? This story would have never got off the ground if the two pupils had refused to pray to the (Christian) God; just because it's Islam, it gains column inches, and our culture shifts further into believing that there's positive discrimination towards one particularly vocal religion (that's a generalisation, I admit); and we discuss it on fora and blogs and it becomes true- which in turn leads authorities to act even more carefully towards Islam and Muslims!
Looking at this and other incidents (one of which I was tangentially involved in, when certain cartoons were published in a certain college news"paper"...) from a wider point of view, our society today seems to be changing very rapidly because of the media, and the free discussion open on the internet.
Just some random ramblings, really.
Just a quick point.It would be interesting to ask an ex resident of Saudi Arabia, just how many Christian churches there are in that country. Over to you Maffster.
It is worthwhile rememberering that whilst many denounce religious beliefs, it IS those very beliefs and particularly Christianity that created the (reasonably)fair and open legal framework that we all enjoy & take for granted.
Would anybody disagree with the general principles of the ten Commandments ?
Bonio - your tale of school days reminded me of my RE lessons (40 years ago) when there was one Roman Catholic boy in our class. For some reason he was excused RE lessons! Parental decision, one presumes. He didn't seem particularly religeous though, and could have benefitted...
Secondly, (and I may have blogged this elsewhere already) our family enjoyed a Christmas holiday in Tunisia a couple of years ago. Wow! The locals were falling over themselves to provide a 'good, old-fashioned' Christmas for our hotel full of Brits. There was even a nativity tableau on Christmas Eve, with four of the ents team stood stock-still for hours, dressed appropriately in a stable scene in a corner of the foyer. They had goats, lambs, crib etc, and put us to shame. That's us, who are not allowed to decorate shop displays at Christmas for fear of offending....... I expect you think I read the Daily Mail! Well, I don't, but isn't that another preconception that annoys?
BW's, Johnny Essex
PS: bw's to Maffi too - I had laser repair for a DR - all's well now, you see!
Johnny - have you got a blog?
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