Friday Frivolity: Convent Cooking
Month: June 2016
Quick Apology: Circumcision and Abortion?
During my blogging hiatus, one of my friends posted the following meme:
When I first saw this meme I sat there for a few minutes trying to work out what argument it was actually making. It’s trying to point out what it perceives as an inconsistency, but what solution is being implied here? Is the meme-maker saying that circumcision shouldn’t happen because of potential pain experienced by the baby? Or is the argument being made that babies should be aborted, regardless of whether or not they suffer pain during the process?
Of course, a false equivalency is being made here. The number of babies who die because of circumcision is somewhat lower than those who die from abortion and, while some advantages to being circumcised may be argued, the unborn typically don’t report too many health benefits following the abortion procedure…
Wise Words on Wednesday: In need of inspiration
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
– Jack London
Response to the Orlando Shooting
By now it’s virtually impossible to not have heard about the shooting in Orlando, the worst mass shooting in US history*. Omar Mateen, a pro-ISIS Muslim, entered a gay nightclub where he killed 49 and injured many others.
I am planning on doing several posts on the subject of Islam later this year, but given this recent tragedy, I think it is more useful for me to post an email which was sent out by a local mosque here in Seattle:
Asslamu Alaykum / Peace be Upon You All,
The dust has barely settled on Muhammad Ali’s grave. It has hardly been a day since the whole world was heaping praise on one of the greatest Americans of our time. It was only a short time when the noble example of one Muslim united the whole America. And now, we have this. A young pro-ISIS Muslim walks into a club in Orlando and murders over 50 people claiming to do so in the name of Islam. This is a tragedy of untold proportion.
MAPS stands with all of our fellow Americans, including the many Muslim organizations and mosques across the country, to express its deepest sadness and condemnation of the horrific massacre and senseless act of mass murder perpetrated against innocent civilians in Orlando, Florida. This wanton act of violence shocks the human conscience and causes us deep pain and consternation. Our hearts are with the victims of this terrible tragedy and we pray for a quick recovery for those injured. We need to understand that an assault on the rights on any minority group, including the LGBT group, is an assault on the rights of any other minority group, including Muslims. LGBT groups have been at the forefront of fighting bigotry and intolerance and have long stood with the Muslim community in opposing discrimination and prejudice. We express our deepest feelings of sympathy to the friends and families of the victims of this massacre.
I have repeatedly said that groups like ISIS and those who are influenced by them “are not us and we are not them. Their interpretation of Islam is twisted and wrong no matter how much they justify it.” And borrowing from an eminent fourteenth century Islamic scholar and jurist, “thus, any ruling that replaces justice with injustice, mercy with cruelty, common good with intolerance, or wisdom with ignorance, is a ruling that does not belong to Islam.” I have repeated this statement time and again in my addresses and emails to the community. Let me make it clear once more in unequivocal terms: the ideology of groups like ISIS is ignorant, wrong, destructive, twisted, sinful, murderous and has absolutely no place whatsoever in Islam! Our position on this is unconditional, categorical and absolute!
We pray for the day when love overpowers hatred and when each human life is valued and protected. We pray for a day when the world will be rid of terror and groups like ISIS. And we pray for a day when people think of Islam they think of the example of Muhammad Ali.
Here is what you can do:
1. Donate blood: CAIR-FL has asked the Muslim community to take part in a blood donation drive [link]
2. Familiarize yourself: SoundVision has issued certain talking points and thinking points [link]
3. Attend the vigil in Seattle tonight in solidarity with the victims [link]
Ameen
Mahmood Khadeer
MAPS President
Feast of Elijah
(In the Byzantine Church, it’s common to bless modes of transport on the Feast of Elijah)
Music Monday: Be Thou My Vision
Today’s post is a bit late, sorry, I’m still not really back on top of things yet. Anyway, here’s “Be thou my vision” from Audrey Assad’s recent Inheritance album:
Be Thou my vision, oh Lord of my heart
Nought be all else to me, save that Thy art
Thou my best thought in the day and the night
Waking or sleeping, Thou presence my light
Be Thou my wisdom, be Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord
Thou my great Father and I Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one
Riches I need not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine inheritance through all of my days
Thou and Thou only though first in my heart
High king of heaven my treasure Thou art
Oh high king of heaven, when battle is done
Grant heaven’s joy to me, bright heaven sun
Christ of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, though ruler of all
Outcasts
Well, this is cool… I just watched the trailer below of a new movie called Outcasts. The documentation focusses on one of my favourite religious orders, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal: