My high school biology teacher paced around the room explaining how amazing the Miller-Urey experiment was, how it was an answer to so many of the questions that had troubled us for centuries. He ranted on and on, and then at the end of the class, he said, it all happened, with the will of God! He also used the same catch phrase whenever he was covering evolution. Darwin’s theory of natural selection was apparently supervised by God. At age 13, I had the sense to realize that this could not have been the will of God. Wasn’t he too busy watching over Adam and Eve, making sure they stayed away from the apple? I wondered why was it that I had figured it out that God had nothing to do with evolution, and my teacher insisted that the man upstairs was intelligently designing this all.
Truly, if you subscribe to the irrefutable evidence presented by physical anthropology, primatology, archeology, linguistics and genetics, proving the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species, you have to conclude, Eve did not come out of the missing rib of Adam. We have evidence that the genus Homo diverged from Australopithecines about 2 and a half million years ago in Africa. A far cry from the less than 10,000 years of age the Abrahamic religions assign to the Universe itself. Along our way, several species have become extinct, others evolved, including the half a million years ago evolution of the Archaic Homo sapiens, the forerunner of anatomically modern humans.
So we deduce, that the Abrahamic religions truly “lie” about the Adam and Eve creation, hence the stories of their roaming about the gardens of Eden must also be false. We know their explanation of the creation of universe defies all natural laws of physics and is little more than a fairy tale. One tends to ask, in the light of such blatant lies, why must one believe in the rest of the inarguable fairy tales?
Birth without conception, rising from the dead, walking on water, turning water into wine, splitting the moon, splitting the river Nile apart, truly could not have had happened. So then comes the notion, perhaps our explanation of a higher being is completely misunderstood. The stories in the scriptures are nothing short of a Hollywood movie, and the dramatic sequences are nothing that a human cannot have created. There is absolutely nothing in a holy book that warrants for an intelligent design that is worthy of someone who for example created an organism as complex as say, the human eye.
While in engineering school I actually came across professors using the Quranic verses to explain geological phenomenon like tectonic plates and geo-spatial movements mentioned in innuendos in the Quran. Doubt, was always there in my mind, when I questioned the lack of relevance to the actual theories. Truly, I could take the recipe for a Jalapeno stuffed herring and make it sound like it explained why black holes existed!
The journey from being spoon fed belief, to gulping it down at one’s own will, to refuting it and accepting the fact that there is no such thing as intelligent design, is a long and arduous one. It warrants courage and a continual quest for knowledge. It requires an open mind, and a willingness to put to test the hypothesis of all that I know was a lie. The more one learns, the more one realizes what a waste their entire life has been!
S!-Fied
The lighter side of life according to Sohail Iftikhar
Judicial, or not quite?
So they caught Qaddafi and they caught him alive. It is quite evident from the videos that they beat the crap out of the long time dictator. They beat him till he died. Question is, how extra judicial is this, how is this different from the death sentences that Rick Perry carries out once a week? Come to think of it, this just might be a bit more democratic than the executions that they carry out in Texas, Georgia and Alabama ever so diligently.
So to all those asking how he was killed let me say it, he was tried in the court of the citizens of the country and was found guilty and punished the way they saw fit.
The Journey of a 180 Miles…
The journey of a 180 miles begins with a single step, the step to go and get myself measured up so I can buy a bicycle. 
Growing up in Saudi Arabia, this is not funny, seriously…
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I was born in Saudi Arabia (KSA), and lived there until I was seventeen. The fact that we lived in a secluded compound inhabited by mostly western folks where the radical religious police didn’t reach into did make life a little less miserable, miserable life in KSA was, nonetheless. There is part joy, fried chicken called Al-Baik, tastes so good Popeye’s chicken tastes like shit. Gas priced cheaper than water. No taxes at all…and err that is about it! There is a seriously funny side to growing up in Saudi Arabia however. Several dimensions, but I start with the rain ritual.
The Rain Dance
The native Americans had a rain dance, while I am not sure how it actually went, but the concept was obviously to ask the higher power to make it rain. Not quite like the Travis Porter version. If you have any idea of world geography you would know that KSA is mostly desert, extremely hot and dry. There is little vegetation, and temperatures are agonizingly hot. Makes sense for the men to wear those white things they wear, absolutely no sense for the women to wear the black things they wear!
So every once a year, the temperature gets extremely hot, as in too hot to handle. The king at that time, feels very sorry for his disciples and decides to do something about it. Make no mistake, this is no ordinary rain dance, it is the dance that the king does, and makes it rain. Trust me, I saw it year after year. The meteorology department gave the king a heads up, he did his dance, and it rained the next day. There is actually a name for the dance, which really doesn’t look like a dance and looks more like a prayer. But the disciples were always in awe. The king is the shit, he dances and makes it rain!
What happens after the rain is a completely different story. Since it only rains once a year, after the rain dance, the Saudis decided that there was no real need to have a drainage system on the roads, essentially Jeddah turns into Venice, and all the cars make a failed attempt to look like Gondolas. Not quite the romantic scene that you would see in Italy…
The Sword Dance…Grind, KSA style
So the Saudis have a habit of getting together in groups, all carrying shiny swords, and raising them up and down while they chant some sort of weird shit. It is supposed to be a group thing. Only men do this however. The women do something else, but no one really knows what that is. Now I would be absolutely fine with them getting together in a group and lifting their swords up and down, chanting whatever it is they are chanting in their language, only, they televise that shit. Trust me, its like MTV grind, only there are no hot chics, just ugly Saudis, and the music is a sound that will make you wish you were deaf.
What you see below is real master piece however. It is none other than the W Bush, doing the Saudi Grind!
The Mutawwa factor
Ok so check this out, you are walking through a mall, shopping, minding your own business, all of a sudden, you hear a loud singing sound, scares the living day lights out of you, everyone starts running around, people start shutting their shops down, and they start doing the Muslim stand sit bend bow ritual. If you are not part of the gang that is doing the bang, odds are, there will be a bunch of funny looking characters called Mutawwas, accompanied by the police forcing people into doing the gang bang.
One particular instance that I can never forget is…so the whole loud singing starts, people go crazy running, get together to do the gang bang, funny looking guy comes around screaming the top of his voice. The innocent little boy that I was, I joined the ranks, from the corner of my eye, I see a Chinese looking guy walking. The funny man with the police guy ran to him and went blah blah blah, Chinese guy says, I am not Muslim, funny looking guy pulls out a baton and hits the Chinese guy on the ass, points towards the gang bang gang, Chinese guy joins the gang and does the whole bang. And seriously, this is not funny, it is fucking sad!
Off with his head!
So, every Friday, outside the two main gang bang ritual mosques in Makkah and Medina, they have a head chopping ritual. Yes, this is 2011, and they chop the head, or hand off of a human, in public, because they were found guilty of a crime. Of course the public gathers to watch the show, look in amazement, not a soul protests, not a soul dares to call this barbaric, for….wait for it…this is the word of the g man. Occasionally, they will also have the public stoning to deaths, you know, throw stones at a human, because they had premarital sex! All in the name of religion, all legal, all tolerated.
Fuck what you can
Well, since a human muff is the toughest thing to find in KSA, Saudi men will pretty much fuck everything else. Most Saudi families source housemaids from Far Eastern countries, predominantly from Indonesia. Stories of raping these women are more than common, they are actually taken for granted. After all, from a religious standpoint, the g man has no issues with it. Stories of killing of Indonesian maids who were convicted of adultery because they tried to get help and get away from the daily sex slavery are common. A Srilankan maid was tied up, and nails were hammered in her head because she wanted vacation time!
Now, their counterparts, the Saudi women, do take a particular liking to the Indonesian drivers. Well, they get that, since they do not get to drive themselves, they just let the drivers ride them.
The Black Marker on Magazines
Life in KSA is heavily censored. Every foreign magazine that is imported, actually goes through a censoring process. The censoring process involves a funny looking Saudi, which can be any Saudi as they all look funny, with a black marker in his hand. Funny looking Saudi used the marker to actually cover out legs, arms or any other part of a woman’s body printed in the magazine. You have to feel for the Saudi men, they will not even be given the luxury of a magazine to look at and jerk off. This oil rich state, is so much sexually starved, that child abuse is what they eventually resort to.
Saudi Men – their discussion topic of choice
When a bunch of guys get together in the civilized world, they have some cold ones, talk about the game, their time shares, girl problems, chat up the bar tender, hit on the waitress, you know the usual stuff. Bunch of Saudi men get together and guess what they talk about…planning their third or fourth marriage! That is right, imagine the whole country is a bunch of polygamists, and we said the Mormons were a bunch of morons.
So a typical planning exercise starts identifying the hunting ground. You see, the first wife typically is of a Saudi origin, Egyptians are common seconds. Moroccans or Tunisians are preferred thirds, Lebanese and Syrians work well too. Once a hunting ground has been identified, vacation period starts.
The funny looking Saudi with a couple of friends travels to the grounds, and contacts these match makers that exist in all the above listed countries. These match makers are also sort of head hunters as the women in those countries will give up all freedom for the captivity and the gold and the opportunity to ride her Bangladeshi driver!
Finally, the wedding takes place abroad, the wife comes back with the funny looking Saudi, into her new home. It is very traditional and acceptable for all the wives to sit together and discuss what they got the night before. Bit like the American guy and his wives, you know, the one on the reality TV show. I guess there is a funny Saudi in every mormon!
Football
Ok, fact is KSA has invested most of its oil money trying to create a football league that matches the EPL. Fact is, they are the best team in the middle east. That sort of tells you how much the rest of the Arabs suck at football. But they love the sport, are crazy about it, and, have no clue about it. The goal keepers wear pajamas, and all players are under 6 foot tall. Most players will dive at will, and do the utmost ugliest job of it.
It has been reportedly told by several sources that FIFA has requested the funny looking Saudis to stop diving in the field or their membership will be cancelled. Funny looking Saudis in return gave bag full of money to FIFA.
Women as drivers
Now most of the world knows that women cannot drive in KSA. No one quite knows the rationale behind it, but of late there has been increasing and mounting pressure on the government to allow the women to drive. So while voting remains a far cry, women in KSA are not really expected to show their face in public without a male accompanying them, a male that is a direct relative, cousin don’t count. Well they kind of marry the cousins as well.
Segregated Learning
I have heard that lately they have come up with a university in KSA that is not segregated. But hitherto, all learning is segregated. Again, it is in the name of not letting men and women come in contact.
That shit ain’t right!
Willie Nelson did a cover of this song called Ain’t Going Down on Brokeback Mountain. In the chorus of the song, he repeatedly declares that shit to be not right. Well at the stroke of midnight last night, that shit is right in New York, the sixth state to declare that shit to be right. The sixth state that rejects discrimination based on the sexuality of a person and accepts their vows for the love that they feel for their better half, making them a couple. That shit makes sense and I, am totally cool with that, and tolerate it just fine. It supposedly depends on who and what defines right and wrong. Assuming the definition of right and wrong is provided by the g man, well, he is just as much real as the monster under the bed and Santa Claus. So the gifts under the tree were not put there by a fat man who came down the chimney, and the definition of family is not made by the g man either. That definition is clearly set by, for whom the bell tolls, and the bell is not in the church, it is in your pants. My tolerance limits however, just might be tested when a society stands up and accepts Ménage a trois as a family and lets all three of them to stand at an altar and say their vows.
Picture a guy standing at the altar, and another guy walks the chic down the aisle. The pastor looks on, the scary church music plays something that sounds like the phantom of the opera, some in crowd have tears in their eyes, others are looking around for a prey so they can make their bell toll. Slowly, the chic makes her way to the altar, steps up, the priest looks at her and smiles. Instead of giving her away, the guy accompanying her, steps up and stands on the altar. All three of them face the priest. The pastor looks into their eyes, all six of them. Dearly beloved, he says in a loud voice, we are gathered here today to celebrate the wedding of Alexander Barabing, Michael Kabuska and Katherine Stevens. This is a sacred right, an ancient right. As Katherine, Michael and Alexander prepare to join their lives, it is important to understand that everyone present has played a part in shaping their lives. And, will continue to play a vital role in their continuing future. And thus, we are here not only to witness their vows to each other, but to bestow upon them our blessing. And, now the trio will read their vows.
Thus starts a series of utterances where all three express their love and gratitude for each other. Katherine, while standing in between Alex and Mike, says while shifting her head from side to side, you once asked me how much I loved you. I should have pointed to the skies, or the sea, or some endless and immeasurable thing. All I had were words, and they were incapable of reflecting forms that had no end. Today I answer you with a deed that expresses not only what I think, but also who I am. I, Katherine, offer you, Alex, and, you, Michael, my life as your wife, and your husband. I will never forsake you; I will spend all the days to come by your side. Let us spend our lives together leaving behind limited words. Join me instead in sharing our immeasurable love!
Right then, so that sort of stretches the Christian definition of family a wee bit too far. In the words of Willie Nelson, that shit ain’t right, or is it?
Just to give credit where it is due, Willie Nelson rocks and the proof is this:
The troops are heading home!
That is absolutely wonderful news! So now, less of high school drop outs and drug dealers and cracks whores will have access to nations attacked for no good reason and tortured in the name of national security and preemptive strike. No WMD were found in Iraq, and OBL was not in Afghanistan. Less of our tax dollars will be spent in the name of American solidarity and superiority and more so, for social security and Medicaid! Nice! Well social security and Medicaid are not killing, abusing and or sexually molesting, innocent souls. That has to be better!
So 33,000 of the hicks, jiggaboos and crack whores will be heading home, which essentially means an addition to the jobless claims, more drug dealers on the streets, and more Nazis in Alabama! Especially considering these people can essentially do nothing else but kill innocent people for no effective reason but to scare them into submission. That sort of makes them terrorists, which is such a definitive term. What exactly is a terrorist? One that enters a nation, a nation that is sovereign, kills nationals of that nation, rapes and murders them, and terrorizes them! Right then, the terrorists are heading home, that is a step in the right direction!
No more, shall we have the Afghans, Iraqis et al being tortured by an alien nation, in the name of a preemptive strike. No more shall an American life, be considered worthy, and a Pakistani or Afghan life considered less so than the pet that lives in an American house…well, not quite, perhaps not in the foreseeable future. American dogs will continue to be worth more than Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghani humans! And if we have a problem with that, well, then we gulp that shit up, just like gay marriage, gun control, spending…only this issue…actually kills people, 450,000 of them, since Bush junior decided America wants to kick ass…so bring the troops back, and stop terrorizing people, they have a right to live, let them live!
Fate and Faith
My parents were big believers in fate, they always told me, the big g had a plan for me, and that eventually, no matter what I did, I would come around to what he had planned for me.
There have been decisions in my life. Decisions that I have solely taken, on my own accord. Decisions that will define the way my life will end up. Most likely, a lonely soul, on a death bed, by myself, as my life flashes by me, yearning for another chance, not knowing the uncertainty that follows, I don’t want to go away, and I know now, as I knew ten years ago that I will go away. That is fate, everything else, is a decision, either favorable or not so favorable, either one defines a path, neither one right or wrong!
I was born into a Muslim family. My parents were staunch practicing Muslims. My mother still is completely a believer. She thinks that the big g is watching over us all. And so, from my earliest recollections, if you wanted a toy, you asked the big g, and the big g sometimes gave it to you, and at times didn’t , which meant he had a better plan for you. I can tell you one thing for sure, even at age ten that sounded like bull crap to me. And at age 37 it sounds a bit like, well, it sounds like bull crap. People around me, starting from my parents believed in this shit. And if you have been a ten year old, and I know you have been one, what your parents say is pretty much biblical…pun intended. So their word, is sort of cast in stone. Biblical! Denying it means eating spinach dinners, accepting it, of course, gets you deep fried chicken. So I accepted it. I, and everyone else on god’s earth, for their own personal and socio-economic reasons.
For the sake of clarity, it was not until I turned 30 that I realized that there was no such thing as god, and the books were fake, and everything that I was ever told was a lie. That did include most of the stories of the founding of our nation. How the forefathers sacrificed their lives for the cause. At 30, I wondered why these people still believe in this stuff. Do they not know, what is not good for the goose, can absolutely not be good for the gander! My forefathers would not sacrifice a single penny of their own, if they did not foresee a dime or a dollar coming out of the investment. Its human nature, and if you deviate from it, you will hurt yourself. That is the course of nature, the only real supernatural force that exists. The only voice you want to listen to, is the one in your heart, and Jesus and Mohammed have not a clue what that voice says. The aboriginal people found around the world, including Africa, all had morals, higher than the clergy that enslaved them.
So faith then is, either believing in an imaginary being, who is mightier that all, but serves no purpose other than to kill a curiosity. If you cannot live with the confession that you don’t know what created the universe, that you must succumb to believe in the being that created the universe in seven days, working on Sundays means death, and a woman needs to cover her face lest she wants to be stoned to death. Or faith is listening to your heart and knowing what is right for you, those around you include flora and fauna. Sounds a wee bit more intelligent that the Bible and Quran, doesn’t it, probably because, it is. I might perhaps make a better prophet…
Fate on the other hand is the path that your life takes, based on the decisions that you take based partly upon your own conscience and part on your faith. The question that one must ask is, are you going to live your life for a hereafter? One that in probability does not exist! Or are you going to live your life for the benefit of universe? The earth that you walk upon, the people you live amongst, the flowers you smell upon, and the fruits you feed upon. If there is a big g, and he has a problem with someone who exists solely to benefit the universe that she exists in, well that big g can go fuck themselves…that’s HIS fate!
The Fall
A shift of the hand and the glass tumbles. The water inside sways, gathers momentum, adds to the force exerted by the hand to exaggerate the tumble of the glass. The glass leans forth, standing by merely the edge of the bottom, the water reaching out to almost feel the outside world. Surface tension fights a battle with the water to keep it inside the glass. Alas, this is one war, this particular force of physics will lose, the gravity and the momentum overpower the surface tension and the first drop escapes the glass, flying to his freedom. He reaches out to the open world, feels the free fall drop to the floor. He looks back and sees more of his kind reaching out. Joy coupled with curiosity fill his emotions.
As he free falls through the air the ground gets nearer, he feels the smell of the ceramics, the fabrics, the animals and the insects. The water drop absorbs all these new feelings, his senses relish the opportunity to feel all that he could not have fathomed while in the confines of the glass. The free fall gives him an almost spherical shape, he is completely self-contained. His own tension is defining who he is. In the glass, he was to take the shape of the glass, or the jug before. No more is he dependent on a vessel to define what he is to look like and how he is to behave.
The air flirts with him while he falls, tickles his surface, pokes into his body, trying to create an edge. Dust particles in the air stick to him, trying to cling on to him. These new friends of a new kind bring new meaning to his life. All that time, trapped in the glass, with the rest of the drops, not knowing where he ended and the other drop started, if only he had escaped earlier!
While these thoughts engulf his mind, with a smirk on his face, he glares at the air, the dust. They smile at him, you do know what is about to happen, the dust says. What? He asks inquisitively, well you are going to eventually fall, either evaporate and be never heard of or, mopped off! What! Me, mopped off, you must be crazy, you are just jealous because I can have a shape of my own, I can free fall, and you have to cling on to me to fall! And you, Air, with all your might, you can’t break my shape! Your jealousy means little to me, it is not wise for one to be proud when they can not have it their way, says the drop. The wind smiles, and continues to poke into his surface, the dust continues to cling on, in unison they say, you are not the first drop that thought a free fall was the best thing that happened to them, look down below, what do you see? Nothing, I see nothing, he retorts. My free fall is to last forever, and there is nothing in the world that can….A massive jolt shakes him, breaking him into pieces, mixing him with other drops.
Where am I? You are on the floor, replies another drop. What am I doing here? I don’t know, I have been here for a while, I don’t know how long, and I don’t know how long I will be here. I feel weak, parts of my body are evaporating. Just a little distance away, I heard all the water was mopped away a while ago! They were right, I was wrong, alas, it is too late, could I have succumbed to the wind to lift me up, could I have put my weight on the dust to remain in the air, could I have dived in the glass to stay in the glass. While pondering on these thoughts, he hears a loud blasting sound. Shredded pieces of the fallen glass fly into him, through him. A flood of drops flushes through, carrying him with it. He tries to regain his previous spherical position, but no matter what he does, he cannot regain what he had felt. Neither can he control the flow of where the flood is taking him. Come to think of it, even when he was free falling, and he thought he was in control, he had no control on where he was heading to. The writing is on the wall, the smells of the ceramics, fabrics and the insects remain within him. The dust and the air were right, it is going to be either the mop or he will vanish into thin air. There is nothing more to do, but wait, the fall is complete…
The Denial and the lack of civilization!
Now I have talked vehemently about supporting free speech while talking about the Everybody Draw Muhammad day, and being tolerant to burning of the Quran. The critique that I have received is the Holocaust Denial Laws. I must admit, it is a very valid critique, and one that makes the so called supporters of free speech, well, definitive bigots.
I would like to present in this post the critique, its back ground and the impact it should have on our behavior. The denial really is saying out aloud that the number of Jewish people culled during episodes leading into and while the WWII are over stated. One Ernst Zundel is spending 5 years in a German prison for saying that! And the list is rather long, but Ernst has by far been dealt the worst hand.
In 2001, during the German presidency of the European Union the European Union’s Executive Commission proposed a union wide anti-racism xenophobia law which included the holocaust denial. Fortunately, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries blocked the motion for want of freedom of expression. Individual countries however, continue to exercise denial persecution under various legal areas ranging from Public Incitement to Denial of Crimes against Humanity and Genocide. So while denial is actually legal in Spain as of November 7, 2007, since March 13, 2002 it is an offence punishable with imprisonment from 6 months to five years in Romania. Austria, Germany and France perhaps lead the pack of their strictness on anti-denial laws. I am not even going to consider Israel’s stance on the law for obvious reasons. Israel however was the first country to pass an anti-denial law back in 1986.
While denying a genocide and Public Incitement are deemed to be separate legal areas, they are closely linked as either one, might lead to the other. Public Incitement is also defamation of articles or people considered respectable to certain classes. Albeit mocking Muhammad Pbuh, or burning the book. One can’t help but wonder why would the protestors who consistently hit the streets around the world, do not make use of the law and file complaints against Van Gogh’s of this world, instead of murdering them? Lack of civilization perhaps…
