koran 3

Perhaps I am being unfair.

The Koran like the Jesus message is of its time. Where Jesus chose pacifism in face of ruthless Roman oppression, Mohammad chose war against opposition. I prefer the former.

The previous selection presents a religious book as a manifesto for religious war. Not persuasion but eradication. Forget preaching and logic. Kill!

At the beginning it offers the view that once non-believers have fulfilled their use, they can be killed. How charming! Unbelievers are less than believers. You can, if you choose, lie to them with impunity. How nasty and small minded.

Why should any God be nasty and amall minded? Where are the ethics here? Religious people constantly tell me, much to my annoyance, that ethics come from religion. Hardly!

Surely a superbeing (God) does not need to employ human armies to command puny humans? What if the pagans were civilised, tolerant and kindly? Are they to be therefore compared to religious obsessed murderers?

koran

I read the Koran many years ago and it had no effect on me. I decided to read it again, turning immediately to this page:

Repentance:

A declaration of immunity from God and His apostle to the idolaters with whom you have made agreements:

For four months you shall go unmolested in the land. But know that you shall not go unmolested in the land. But know that you shall not escape God's judgement, and that God will humble the unbelievers.

-------

God and his Apostle are under no obligation to the idolaters. If you repent, it shall be well with you; but if you pay no heed, know that you shall not be immune from God's judgement.

Proclaim a woeful punishment to the unbelievers, except to those idolaters who have honoured their treaties with you in every detail and aided none against you. With these in faith, until their treaties have run their term-----

When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. if they repent and take to and render alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.

While this is clearly of a time and place, the early days of Islam against the 'pagans', it is still abominable stuff for a religious book. Later:

Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of God, with your wealth and persons.

And so it goes on: kill and kill. This has no place in a religious tome. 

Priests of Chilon Castle

Priests of Chilon Castle-Narrative poem-sadism, violence, war.

Issuu publishing site.

http://issuu.com/stanleywilkin/docs/the_dark_priests_of_chilon_castle.d

Author: Stanley Wilkin

Poem-Joseph

Why do we dislike those with different thoughts
as if they were less than us,
or threaten us, or strive to confuse us
by being themselves?

Moslem attitudes to sex

Re. my conversation with the Moslem Headteacher,


I am developing this school into an academy but my concern at present is what will happen if the headteacher takes control. He is clearly very religious and refused to shake the hands of one of my female friends. What if he attempts to impose his extreme behaviour on students, whether Moslem or otherwise? The school will not last long.

This fear of contact seems embedded in Moslem belief systems and seems based upon a fear of sex. This came across strongly in a recent TV programme on Mosques where any contact with the opposite sex was felt to lead to uncontrolled sexual activity, orgies or whatever. Women must be kept from men in case daughters disgrace parents, wives leave husbands, debauchery ensues.

Of course, this is actually an obsession with sex. Cover up all the body in case the world goes out of control.

Stephen Francis

Cat and Mouse

Full of promise

Full of hope

He sat there and watched

As his world crashed around him.

His teachers were sure he would be someone great

An example for all to see

Yet how can that be

When the cat comes to play?

The mouse runs,

The cat laughs, turns its attentions

To the wide eyed boy shaking in the corner.

It bears its fangs

Snarling with unabated glee

Its favourite prey there for the taking.

It laughs

He cries.

It approaches, claws gleaming in the lamplight.

The mouse returns

Something in its hands.

The cat doesn’t see the harbinger of its doom

Too enthralled by its quivering victim

Too sure of the mouse’s fear.

A bang.

The cat falls

And so too does his innocence.

Dupois

How dark it is
How dark.

His eyes shone in the half-light
How dark it is.

cold

and coldness comes like an unwelcome guest,
pillaging remorselessly.

the sun has shrunk into a clod of earth,
reflecting nothing.

padded out in heavy clothes,
I venture out into the confined day.