Snowflake What a boring immature nursery rhyme

Do Intercessory Prayers Work? completely agree with this article. the lord works in mysterious ways that we cannot predict or ever comprehend.

we try to manage the world and our lives with prayers sometimes overlooking what practical measures we can take. pakistan is a disaster zone created by people's ignorance and lack of education. but their they either blame evil forces at work or that it is 'Allah's marzi' never do they think that god gave them a brain with which to solve and overcome obstancles. sorry for what seem like an angry and condescending tone, but i am furious with people's lazy mental attitude in pakistan, especially those who have had the privelge of education but still hang on to explain the world in terms of bad nazar and duas.

i have witnessed it with my own eyes. 3 examples i can cite that ocurred in so-called 'educated' circles: hiring a rickety old car full of people for a 2 hour journey over dirt tracks and broken roads. a vehicle on its last legs that breaks down within half an hour of its journery. who is blamed? of course its the evil eye, and when we got home the house was infused with the smoky burning cinders to get rid of evil demons that may have caused us the ill omen. not once was ill judgement or a bad choice on the part of driver raised as a possible reason for not being able to reach our destination. same thing happened when my baby fell ill due to poor hygiene around the house. duas were read, potions were given, but my pleading at improving hygiene was ignored. another gob-smacking accident just waiting to happen was when at an awards ceremony in lahore a so called 'red carpet' which was rolled up the stairs on to the stage kept slipping down when people tried to tread the stairs. no one saw it as a hazard or that it needed to be pinned down. i wamted to pull the carpet away rather than see people keep trippping up on it and looking foolish. but the presence of the carpet scrap which happened to be red, made the organisers feel that they had added a bit of glamour to the event. to me, arriving from the uk, it looked lazy sloppy and dangerous.

My Dudley! really hilarious, it would be great if you could get some stories published. just have a suspicion you`re not from lahore, as your english language style sounds sounds too karachiite?

Preventing More Lal Masjids here Here Farzana - a new and refreshing take on the events

Why Am I An Agnostic Muslim? well done mr butt for being so candid and honest in your experiences. it`s a shame that muslims cannot be tolerant in this day and age and debate intellectually rather than using threatening language. no wonder our muslims poets and intellectuals hark back to the andalusian golden age when muslims, christians and jews lived alongside one another, and there was tolerance aswell and progressive thinking, but not this dangerous and penchant fanaticism that sub-contintental muslims are so good at - probably to make up for any short-comings they may feel they have because they don`t actually understand the text they are reading!

Preventing More Lal Masjids mr hoodhboy - i very much appreciate your insightful analysis. the main problem i perceive with pakistani society (speaking as a member of the pakistani diaspora in the uk) is that people have too much time on their hands are always meddling in other people`s affairs. instead of concerting their efforts towards progress and hard work they look elsewhere and want to bring religion into absolutely every debate. success is possible in pakistan but it requires risk taking and hard sweat - the afghan refugees can vouch for that. instead pakistanis (the majority of them are stuck in fantasy land of bollywood movies and and ritual prayers to get them to janat, intermixed with that is getting a distant uncle to get u a promotion and finding a religious fault with your neighbours or just finding fault - that includes the men!) why cant pakistanis just live and let live and stop thinking they are the custodians of Islam for all humanity. my heart felt prayers are for pakistani society to mature and take itself (each and every one) seriously and be responsible for oneself first so that it can work towards building a strong civic society in every sense of the word. pakistanis are too obsessed with morality and want to police human thought, they fail to see the punishments they distribute are themselves crimes and are damaging the fabric of pakistani society. there are more mature and humane ways to go about improving pakistani society holistically, but because some people need the crutch of islam to justify everything, the holistic approach is probably not going to be embraced because some people just cant think outside the box; and that is mentally damaging for the nation at large.