I want to know more on your movement.

What is the "core" purpose of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations?

Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote the latest ruling, has been a strong opponent of feminism in the Catholic Church

“These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words ‘Father’ and ‘Son’, which are held to be chauvinistic,” the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said. The traditional form of “Father, Son and Holy Ghost” had to be respected, it added. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the modern name for what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition, oversees Catholic doctrine.Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote the latest ruling, has been a strong opponent of feminism in the Catholic Church.

People of faith are generally peaceful peolpe but they are passionate people with strong convictions. Same nationalities or different nationalities with different faith are not the problem. Same or different people allowing those who in the NAME OF THEIR BELIEFS kill others creats the current problem. Most people understand write and wrong on a basic level and they stand up for it. But seeing wrong and allowing it to happen without stopping it is called injustice. If the nations of the world corrected their own problems people would see the desire to uphold a common approach to rite and wrong. For those nations like sudan and darfur they cannot stand up and correct itself they need the help.

While WAPO readers discuss America's religious infidelities-- The Iranian parliament is discussing a new penal code, under which citizens who convert from another religion will face execution. People wake up!

THE PRICE OF FAITHLESSNESS

Iran to Punish Apostasy with Death

Apostasy -- or the formal renunciation of religion -- is already punishable in Iran with death. But now, Iran wants to make the death penalty for apostasy part of the penal code. The European Union is concerned and has asked Iran to reconsider.

The European Union this week sent a letter to authorities in Iran expressing its concern over a proposed change to the penal code that would make apostasy punishable by death.

The EU is responding to news that the Islamic Republic is planning to subject "apostasy, heresy and witchcraft" to the Hudud -- the body of fixed punishments assigned to crimes that are considered violations of the "claims of God." Other Hadud crimes include alcohol consumption, theft, highway robbery and illegal sexual intercourse.

As the news agency Reuters reported earlier this week, the EU, which opposes the death penalty as a matter of policy, expressed "acute concern" over the proposed penal code revision.

"These articles clearly violate the Islamic Republic of Iran's commitments under the international human rights conventions," Slovenian leaders, who currently head the rotating EU presidency, wrote in a statement.

"The EU calls upon the Iranian authorities, both in government and parliament, to modify the draft penal code in order to respect the obligations."

The death penalty has already been applied to apostates in Iran -- but this was never, since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, institutionalized as a matter of legal practice.

Iran typically dismisses Western criticism of its legal system, claiming that Islamic law is fundamentally different.

The main concern seems to be arising from the Baha'i faith, which forms a religious minority in Iran but, unlike Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, is not officially recognized by the regime.

On Thursday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the Baha'i community in Germany is particularly worried about the fate of three Iranian Baha'i, who were arrested in 2006 in the southern Iranian city of Schiras for having founded a center for Baha'i children and youth. They were sentenced to four years imprisonment and are said to be in a secret service rather than normal prison.

At the beginning of February, the EU officially protested the sentence and expressed its concern about the "worsening situation for ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, in particular that of the Baha'i." The Iranian court defended its decision on the basis that the Baha'i, in promoting their faith, were spreading propaganda "against the Islamic regime."

The Baha'i faith developed out of Shia Islam in the 19th century and its followers have been subject to discrimination for generations.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,538466,00.html

Anti-arif,

There is no need for Islam 101. Flying the following banner over all university campuses will be sufficient education about Islam:

"NO ONE IS SAFE UNTIL THE KORAN IS DEFLAWED!!!"

"I would make a wonderful professor -I'd teach Islam 101 by Professor Arif. Mohammed the “prophet”101 - with cartoons!, Sharia 101 etc. Even Eboo could enroll in my class."

Universities in America have proper procedures for hiring professors to do the teaching work. They do not hire people with schizophrenia nor do they hire people who suffer from OBSESSIVE, COMPULSIVE, BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS.

Teaching in our universities is not volunteer type of profession.

"Campuses are models of democratic civil society in America" so you say but really campuses are an arena for extreme ideas to be planted into young energetic minds in a micro society of 19-26 year olds who have NONE to Extrememly little experience outside of another micro society... grade school and high school. They have learned to 'think' by example of the school system without wisdom, character, or love. So now the great arena of leaning, oops, I meant learning, the university, will attempt to teach religion and bring all religions to an understanding of one another without understanding it at all. Perhaps the religion that needs to be exposed is the worship of knowledge and it's god, self.

"The-Lion", "i' thank the 'L i O N', et al!

Universities should only teach the tangible and that what we can perceive, theorize, prove and disprove. There is no proof of Allah, Angels or Jinns etc. That is all built on "faith", many people with great IQ’s have fallen pray to faith. Faith may be taught outside the universities but never in them. Faiths if deemed harmful should be banned from societies. When a father murders his own daughter based upon silly faith principles then those faiths should be scrutinized. When women think its cool to wear a tent in public then that faith should be challenged. If she's hiding her fat-ripples then its okay. Never should Universities be allowed to promote religion, especially in countries that separate themselves from Church and State.

Islam's fundamental problem is its never questioning authority. Islam's concept of education is a madrassa, we still have those in backward as well as modern countries.
Education for most Muslims is limited to the quran and hadith, no wonder Muslim countries GDP’s lag behind advanced nations.

I would make a wonderful professor -I'd teach Islam 101 by Professor Arif. Mohammed the “prophet”101 - with cartoons!, Sharia 101 etc. Even Eboo could enroll in my class.

I'd teach for a small fee, I hope some University of Florida professor sees this cover letter of mine.

Happy Friday!!!

Arif

why didn't you post my writing?

nice article and it echos my experience with the multiculture atmosphere at fsu. when i was having my first solo art show with my paintings as an undergraduate student at oglesby gallery.. it was the fellow students from korea, china and the ukraine, and russia and many many other places that took the time to to encourage a middle age student who was going through some very trying times both helthwise and from some still unexplained actions by certain faculty members toward me they they will indeed have to publicly explain one day just why they did what they actually did and yes they do have to follow rules like the rest of us and when you try to cover up things they come back bigger and the actual covering up attempts sometimes are more serious than the initial actins and here i am not talking about atheletics i'm talking about high ranking administrators.. fsu seem to be a metaphor for what is going on in the world it is a mixture of the very very good with some of the pathetic and inexcuseable and i will always say because it is part of my life story now... somme of the sorryest excuses for human beings i have have ever met were not homeless peoople drug addicts or alcholics... they worked for fsu. there are of coarse some very fine people but the university i love seems to be strugling with who they will be in the future.. wheter they want to be a department of defense prostitue for all the grant money and have the corresponding narrow minded agenda or the liberal arts college they have always been in the past. they have a super computer a high energy magnet lab and are developing a new generation of navy ships wehen you have this amount of money spent the untold truth is that is is the military footing the bill that is why we get such corrupt pitiful role model as dick cheney as graduation speakers at a libral arts college and why a person who does artwork like i do in the home town of the presidents brother are not allowed to teach classes with the other graduate students for reasons that nobody will actually address yet.. thats the good thing about being an artist i dont need tohire anyone to get my point of view out. i have and continue to pray for florida state to regain its soul....and integrity... i dont think it was athelitics that took it away... it was a fundmental distortion of principles and morals due maybe to the pursuit of money. this is the sad story of many people and many religions if we are going to fight the fasisct muslims let us fight at the same time the fascist christians, jews. hindus, and al religions in a peaceful way. war does not and has never brought peace and for bastions of intellect and inlightenment to pretend it does does no service to the actual job of educating the ignorant. fsu has the unique oprotunity and skil sets and students to more than make up for that in the future if they only get honest and quit pretending to be something they are not but please check for truth i'm just an artist who was educated at florida state and tallahasse community college

Eboo
In the Muslim culture a person’s religion is the overriding factor in his or her identity. The Sharia dictates how to treat a Muslim man, Muslim woman and non-Muslims. It further differentiates between non-Muslims. Christians and Jews,who are referred to as the People of the Book, are treated differently than Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. In the West now religion is an ever decreasing component of a person’s identity. Religion is considered a private affair between the person and his God. Maybe that is why there are not many colleges that teach comparative religions.
You mentioned the Balkans and the Middle East as regions in turmoil because of religion. Muslims simply do not like to be ruled by non-Muslims( and don't like to have their lands taken away from them either). As that Imam in Birmingham Mosque said” “We now create a state within a state until we take over“. He is saying this when they are less than 0.6% of the population. Imagine what will they say and do if they are 30% or more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlV-6-FihFg

Quran 9:29
Fight those who believe not
In God nor the Last Day,
Nor hold that forbidden
Which hath been forbidden
By God and His Apostle,
Nor acknowledge the Religion
Of Truth, (even if they are)
Of the people of the Book,
Until they pay Jizia
With willing submission,
An feel themselves subdued.

Those last three lines were used by Muslims throughout the past fourteen centuries to discriminate against non-Muslims with the explicit intent to humiliate them i.e. force them to convert.
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-kills-pact-of-umar.htm
With such a worldview it should not be surprising why a Muslim would not be willing to be supervised by a non-Muslim let alone be ruled by him.

Hey Courtney James Hastings (Jacob the spammer)-

We are scrolling through your posts as fast as we can. I thought you were a doctoral candidate at Berkeley. Please. Get creative somewhere else.

http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/knrgrp/group.html

Eboo, Eboo, Eboo,

It is first and foremost about the flaws in religion. Review those first and there will be no need for diversity since the foundations of all religions will simply disappear into the stench of centuries of myth, embellishments and lies.

A good start to educate the masses about the specific Islamic flaws is to have the following banner flying on the Florida State campus:

"NO ONE IS SAFE UNTIL THE KORAN IS DEFLAWED!!!"

Eboo Patel,

Before instituting a program on "religious diversity" that will undoubtedly focus on religious believers and exclude serious study of nonbelievers, Florida State should establish a mandatory seminar on Ethan Allen, a Founding Father of Vermont and a writer on religion.

Here's my today's post to Claire Hoffman's On Faith essay:

**********

Posted on February 28, 2008 13:21

Norrie Hoyt:
My state of Vermont is first or second in the Union in the percentage of its population which is unaffiliated with any religion (Thanks be to God!).

In this we are following our Founding Father, Ethan Allen, who said:

[1] "While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith."

[2] "In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."

[3] "I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."

[4] " ...The doctrine of the Trinity is destitute of foundation, and tends manifestly to superstition and idolatry."

[5] "That Jesus Christ was not a god is evident from his own words, where, speaking on the day of judgement, he says 'Of that day and hour, knoweth no man, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son.' This is giving up all pretension to divinity, acknowledging in the most explicit manner that he did not know all things.

Opinions on our native hero have varied:

*** "There is an original something in him that commands admiration; and his long captivity and sufferings have only served to increase if possible, his enthusiastic zeal. He appears very desirous of rendering his services to the States, and of being employed; and at the same time he does not discover any ambition for high rank."

-George Washington, in a letter to the Continental Congress (May 1778)

*** "General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day."

-Reverend Doctor Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College [[George Bush's Alma Mater], on learning of the death of Allen. Diary entry (12 February 1789)

*** "Passed by Ethan Allyn's grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror."

-Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont on 25 May 1789.

I imagine that some religious readers of On Faith will be inclined to tangle with General Allen.

I'd advise against it. He was a formidable figure.

See: http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=b2ea2e0e-8422-47f9-ad20-29182b6e03bc

"but what struck me about my trip to Florida State was how prepared senior members of the faculty and administration were to organize a holistic approach to engaging religious diversity on campus, and leading a movement to do this across the field of higher education."

Public University is going to engage religious diversity? Is that a prelude to prayer rooms for muslims, feet-washing basins funded by the taxpayers, halal food in the cafeteria, Burhka and niqab wearing zombies in the classrooms? Some one needs to tell the Florida citizens where their money is being spent. Every dollar spent on promoting or preventing any religion, including interfaith dialog, by the University should be taken away from the University's budget.

Eboo, read some of Thomas Jefferson to understand America and Americans. You flail to find an identity and American identity is not religious but it subsumes religion as part of it:
*********************************

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

What is it men cannot be made to believe!

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

*****************************

Religion is between a man and his God and is not what Islam claims that it is a complete way of life that cannot be implemented fully without the society being made subservient to the Law of Allah.

In Academia, religion belongs in philosphy, logic, science, rhetoric, Literature, etc. and not as a special field in its own right. That is not what is the purpose of a "public" education. Private Universities with private money is another matter. Public money should not be used to bring the private affair between Man and his God into the public domain.