The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Yea, signifier-less fanatic is fine according to your logic.
Hopefully, in the future we won't see you using the baseless
term, "Hindu Fanatic".


My view is though totally opposite, I think anyone
can be any kind of fanatic. A person who takes
something (thing for which we need a signifier) on the extreme separates him from the crowd.

A person could be a religious, ethnic,
linguistic, cultural, a particular kind of wine or art(etc)
fanatic.

"Normal people can then see cultural, ethnic and religious differences as something that makes life more interesting, and "celebrate diversity" as they say in the US."

Yes, but that's confusing "accepting diversity" with
acceptance of intolerance and bigotry of a fanatic. Two
separate things, imo.

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Then, there would be no such thing as "Hindu Fanatic". It
could be a marathi fanatic or a bhayya fanatic or a tamil
fanatic anything but Hindu(which references to a religion).
Is that a logical extension to this:

"no, it is not hinduism. I think it is simply stupid to assume that a religion (any religion) forces men to do criminal acts."

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation this is very interesting:
from #958:
"(I put this in quotes because I refuse to consider murderers and looters (like ghazni) or murderers and kingdom seekers (like babur) and plain lunatics (like aurgangzeb) to be muslims."


So, by extending this logic, would the destroyers of
Babri Masjid be called "Hindu Fanatics"?

If the answer is yes, then does that mean that
Hinduism, in your opinion, is unlike Islam inherently
intolerant ideology that prescribes destruction of
other people's religious sites.

If the answer is no, then does it mean they are
generic fanatics and there can never be, by definition,
such a thing as "Hindu Fanatic"?

Please enlighten.

The \'One God\' Religions of Revelation Publius, Eklavya, Pinku:
One way of looking at the fundamental difference between Semitic Religions and Hindu tradition is the concept of the "logos", Word (John 1:1). Ratzinger defines it as the Divine Word taking precedence over man's thought. Word comes first, man is the receiver, man with his limited comprehension tries to hold on to that Word and submits his intellect into pondering over the meaning of that Word.

So, if you reverse the equation, i.e., man's thinking expressing his understanding in his words (God's Word is absent), it becomes a philosophy of some kind.

Here is Ratzinger:
One could say epigrammatically that faith does in fact come from "hearing", not - like philosophy - from "reflection". Its nature lies in the fact that it is not the thinking-out of something which can be thought out and which at the end of the process is then at my disposal as the result of my thought. On the contrary, it is characteristic of faith that it comes from hearing, that it is the reception of something that I have not thought out, so that in the last analysis thinking in the context of faith is always a thinking-over of something previously heard and received.

Pakistan: The War of Drones I partly agree with you. But that role-playing is good, cos the other side gives you a very raw, un-taqayyafied view of things right from their comfort zone. So it does have a purpose. Hope it makes sense.

Pakistan: The War of Drones ajeya:
Eklavya is putting the instance of converting to faith before making the value-judgment on the very same thing. He has a role to play here for lunatics like zeemax so he won't give you a straight-up, a-priori judgment on conversion to faith from the perspective of someone NOT already converted. It's always faith and after you convert to faith, the POV is now altered 180 degrees so yes, it's beneficial. (AlephNull is absolutely right.)

The Naval War College Bomb Blasts hamidm2: you're being too smart by half. so indian army should keep killing poor kids of a lohar, mochi, qasai, dhobi and middle-class bhayya kids who ended up being brainwashed by Jamiat-e-Tulba and got sent to Muridke, Khost and then to the gates of paradise, Srinagar. Do you cantonment guys ever own up to anything?

The Naval War College Bomb Blasts stuka:
Pakistan Army masterminded both kind of jihads and their surrogates enlisted students from all over the country. I know guys from Karachi University who went to Afghanistan for training and then went to LOC to wage jihad. These pakistani uncles including hamidm2 deserve to get first-hand experience of this wonderfully explosive power of Faith. They'd been cheer-leading it all a long.

Pervez Musharraf and India Pakistan Rapproachment "I think that these conditions have never existed in Pakistan since mid-fifties in the previous century and one cannot blame Musharraf for destroying institutions which were not there to start with."


Wonderful. So, there is an entity whose survival depends on:
1 - keeping the stranglehold on 'a' people by brute force,
2 - superimposing a militarist posture on 'a' society
3 - keeping the conflict with india low/high intensity going

... and this entity's head Musharraf/guy'X' is to be expected to respond in a self-destructive manner by signing on to a definitive pak/india resolution of the so-called "conflicts"?

DM: Did you support Indira Gandhi's "emergency" or came up with explanations for it?

Bullhe Shah and His Veil of “Meem” akcheema sahib:
zeemax is a piece of Allah Mian's brilliant work. According to his religion a marriage of 6 year old with a 53 year old man is a-okay and first cousin marriages are fine as long as it's coming from Allah's surrogates. I would suggest don't waste your time with this troll. He'd had this argument before over here. http://www.chowk.com/interacts/11810/1/0/144

The trick here is that axioms on which any moral/ethical framework is devised has to come from a religious source/scripture otherwise axioms can't be acknowledged as such (according to zeemax) and the person putting forth a moral framework is a hypocrite. I'm sure it gets zeemax some thrills. (By the way, this guy is a Munafique-in-denial, the kind who literally believes in their own BS.)

Bullhe Shah and His Veil of “Meem” Eklavya:
The assertion you make, if I phrase it correctly:

Calling oneself a muslim and retaining the right to directly criticize the articles of faith(see below) are not possible simultaneously.

Articles of Faith:

Allah Mian,
His Oneness,
His Fallibility,
Mohammad's as the Sacred Person.


But there is a self-referentiality involved in this because of "Calling oneself a Muslim". Therefore, the argument short-circuits itself because the guy who retains the right to define himself a Muslim hence putting his understanding of the faith can also in the same breath limit the definition of his faith in such a way that it makes it possible for him to brand Mohammad in the vilest of terms (for example) and still see this as not infrgining on his faith.

I think we go over this before, so now that guy in question ad you have to bring an external source to arbitrate on the articles of Faith which means Eklavya has to put the guy in corner and have a debate on scriptures.

But akcheema sahib might not be interested in this. All he (as i figure) might be interested in is only the social aspect of having the space to get the critique going and mullah vigilantism and Allah Mian ki Lathi be eliminated for some reasons dear to him.

Pakistan Elections 2008 - An analysis #291:"and we dont make national leaders out of criminals like modi and advani"

err.. remember General Tikka Khan? He was appointed as the Governor of Punjab in late 80s.

A History of the Pakistan Army by Brian Cloughley Amin Saheb #43 is an excellent snapshot.

"I came to the following conclusion about the Paki Army in October 2001 "

I am surprised why till October, 2001? Did you not get sobered up when you read about their war crimes in 1971?

Afghanistan - A Strategic Analysis Amin Saheb: Excellent strategic analysis. I don't know much about waziristan fighting so I just have this thought bugging me. What if Americans want to keep the waziris engaged on a low-intensity level and keep the operations at a steady state for a longer term? This way all sides get what they want, let's see:

1 - Pentagon will have the budget, building contracts and something to do in the War on Terra' and al-Qaeda won't have a freehand in planning strikes on Western cities like they did pre-9/11 under Mulla Umer.

2 - US politicians can sell this War on Terra' so it's good for political point scoring. strong on National Security blah blah

3 - Pakistan Army gets the cash to run the "operations in the tribal areas" and gets to keep the paki real-estate firmly under its boots.

4 - Tribals get plenty opportunity to uphold the traditions of their barbaric forefathers by fighting the infidels in the name of honor/justice/peace/jihad/rightful cause/etc. and populating the Waiziristan section of Paradise etc. etc.

Everyone is happy.

The Dirty Tricks Brigade Tries to Spoil a Party HP:
yea. be careful with using that f word next time.

The Dirty Tricks Brigade Tries to Spoil a Party HP:
you can wiggle out from your Operation Searchlight implying hideous metaphor for Qasbah Colony. Tell rf786, you were being cute by dropping a The Clash reference.