Cremation of child of mixed couple results in violence, threats

[jbg]

The prior thread was about a contrast of two commemorations (link). This thread is also about such a contrast. Sadly, this repeats:

Hindu-Muslim Family’s Choice of Cremation Arouses Anger

(link)

Friends and family remember Shafayet Reja as an affectionate young man who stayed up late to write poetry, danced exuberantly at weddings and explored the faiths of his father and mother with an openheartedness that led him to declare on his Facebook page, “I never get tired of learning the new things that life has to offer.”

But within hours of his death on Sept. 10 after a car accident, his memory — in fact, his very body — had become the object of a tug-of-war over religious freedom and obligation. It began when his mother, who was raised Hindu, and his father, who is Muslim, decided to have his body cremated in the Hindu tradition, rather than burying him in a shroud, as Islam prescribes.

His parents, Mina and Farhad Reja, say a small group of Muslims who do not understand their approach to religion are trying to intimidate them over the most private of family choices. “This is America,” Mrs. Reja said. “This is a family decision.”

The couple say that people accosted them at their son’s funeral, that an angry crowd threatened to boycott a shopping center they own in Jackson Heights, Queens, and that on Sept. 13, two men they know threatened to bomb and burn down the building.

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

By contrast, on the same day, a packed Bat Mitzvah service, involving two families that didn't know each other, went off with good feelings and without incident.

Edited October 7, 2008 by jbg

[JB Globe]

So essentially what you're saying is white people are racists, and Christians are violent war-mongers.

Edited October 6, 2008 by JB Globe

[guyser]

Same happened with a friend of mine. Catholic vs non catholic.

Nice try, you get another at bat shortly.

[GostHacked]

By contrast, on the same day, a packed Bat Mitzvah service, involving two families that didn't know each other, went off with good feelings and without incident.

So in your scenario there are two Jewish families (I make the assumption because you are not clear on it) and comparing it to a family that is Hundi and Muslim.... yep seems fair DURRRRRRRRRR.

Your presentation is lacking, and your premise is faulty.

[jbg]

So in your scenario there are two Jewish families (I make the assumption because you are not clear on it) and comparing it to a family that is Hundi and Muslim.... yep seems fair DURRRRRRRRRR.

Your presentation is lacking, and your premise is faulty.

Maybe you have a point. I shouldn't call it a comparison. But you're all missing the message here. A family makes a private decision to cremate and all h*ll breaks loose. And who is always at the center of this senselessness?

[Peter F]

Maybe you have a point. I shouldn't call it a comparison. But you're all missing the message here. A family makes a private decision to cremate and all h*ll breaks loose. And who is always at the center of this senselessness?

I dunno. Who?

[guyser]

And who is always at the center of this senselessness?

I will play.

The Catholics.

[JB Globe]

To apply JBG-approved standards of analysis, we can conclude that Christians in general are violent bigots because of this:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/07/...an-Shooting.php

And white people in general are violent bigots because of this:

http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-lo...09642-21942230/

Because, after all, nothing proves that an entire global religion or race is bad more than trawling news sites for crimes which fit into your prejudiced worldview, and ignoring articles which contradict said worldview.

[jbg]

To apply JBG-approved standards of analysis, we can conclude that Christians in general are violent bigots because of this:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/07/...an-Shooting.php

And white people in general are violent bigots because of this:

http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-lo...09642-21942230/

Because, after all, nothing proves that an entire global religion or race is bad more than trawling news sites for crimes which fit into your prejudiced worldview, and ignoring articles which contradict said worldview.

"Man bites dog" stories prove nothing.

[JB Globe]

"Man bites dog" stories prove nothing.

I agree.

Both of the articles I posted, plus your original post prove ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

But of course, the difference is that you actually think a few news articles about separate incidents constitute "proof" of something, whereas I was posting those articles to demonstrate how ignorant and flimsy your entire worldview on Islam is.

[moderateamericain]

I agree.

Both of the articles I posted, plus your original post prove ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

But of course, the difference is that you actually think a few news articles about separate incidents constitute "proof" of something, whereas I was posting those articles to demonstrate how ignorant and flimsy your entire worldview on Islam is.

Comparing Radical Islam Vs Radical Christianity on violence levels are we?

Man JB it takes alot of sand or contorted view of society to Claim Radical Christians are more violent or even just as violent then radical Islam.

[JB Globe]

Comparing Radical Islam Vs Radical Christianity on violence levels are we?

No, actually, what JBG is doing is comparing HIS idea of Islam as a whole to Christianity as a whole, by using the actions of extremists to generalize about the entire Muslim world.

When he posts his initial argument in posts like this he does not make distinctions between moderate Muslims and terrorists (ie - this post).

Only later on when confronted by someone that he's a anti-Islamic bigot does he say something like "I was just talking about the extremists" yet he doesn't retract or edit his initial post, so his initial argument still stands. He just makes that flippant comment as a means of getting out of being branded a bigot.

So, not only does he not know what he's talking about, he's also an intellectual coward because he doesn't stand by his arguments and will not respond directly to any criticism of them - he also is not honest about his true views on the matter.

[Rue]

The prior thread was about a contrast of two commemorations (link). This thread is also about such a contrast. Sadly, this repeats:

Hindu-Muslim Family’s Choice of Cremation Arouses Anger

(link)

Friends and family remember Shafayet Reja as an affectionate young man who stayed up late to write poetry, danced exuberantly at weddings and explored the faiths of his father and mother with an openheartedness that led him to declare on his Facebook page, “I never get tired of learning the new things that life has to offer.”

But within hours of his death on Sept. 10 after a car accident, his memory — in fact, his very body — had become the object of a tug-of-war over religious freedom and obligation. It began when his mother, who was raised Hindu, and his father, who is Muslim, decided to have his body cremated in the Hindu tradition, rather than burying him in a shroud, as Islam prescribes.

His parents, Mina and Farhad Reja, say a small group of Muslims who do not understand their approach to religion are trying to intimidate them over the most private of family choices. “This is America,” Mrs. Reja said. “This is a family decision.”

The couple say that people accosted them at their son’s funeral, that an angry crowd threatened to boycott a shopping center they own in Jackson Heights, Queens, and that on Sept. 13, two men they know threatened to bomb and burn down the building.

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

By contrast, on the same day, a packed Bat Mitzvah service, involving two families that didn't know each other, went off with good feelings and without incident.

With due respect as a Jew I now find your comments stupid and insulting to Jews leta lone Hindus and Muslims. What was your point of this story other then to incite resentment towards Muslims. Don't use my religion and faith to exploit and incite hatred. Your pitting religions against one another like some competition and acting smug and inferring Jews are more civil then Muslims proves what other then you are being hateful.

Like I said don't use my faith to try sound better then others. That is not what Jews believe or were taught to believe in and for someone who claims to be one you are acting like a hateful man trying to hide behind your religion to justify it.

You want to take pride in Judaism don't do so by insulting others or pointing out the intolerance of others all that does is prove you are exactly what you criticize others of and I am quite satisfied most posters who read your thread no you do not reflect the average Jewish person anymore then the above story reflects the average Muslim or Hindu or anyone else.

You know damn well within our religion there are many intolerant fundamentalists who have triggered violence against each other and in regards to inter-faith marriages.

[Rue]

The prior thread was about a contrast of two commemorations (link). This thread is also about such a contrast. Sadly, this repeats:

Hindu-Muslim Family’s Choice of Cremation Arouses Anger

(link)

Friends and family remember Shafayet Reja as an affectionate young man who stayed up late to write poetry, danced exuberantly at weddings and explored the faiths of his father and mother with an openheartedness that led him to declare on his Facebook page, “I never get tired of learning the new things that life has to offer.”

But within hours of his death on Sept. 10 after a car accident, his memory — in fact, his very body — had become the object of a tug-of-war over religious freedom and obligation. It began when his mother, who was raised Hindu, and his father, who is Muslim, decided to have his body cremated in the Hindu tradition, rather than burying him in a shroud, as Islam prescribes.

His parents, Mina and Farhad Reja, say a small group of Muslims who do not understand their approach to religion are trying to intimidate them over the most private of family choices. “This is America,” Mrs. Reja said. “This is a family decision.”

The couple say that people accosted them at their son’s funeral, that an angry crowd threatened to boycott a shopping center they own in Jackson Heights, Queens, and that on Sept. 13, two men they know threatened to bomb and burn down the building.

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

By contrast, on the same day, a packed Bat Mitzvah service, involving two families that didn't know each other, went off with good feelings and without incident.

With due respect as a Jew I find your comments stupid and insulting to Jews let alone Hindus and Muslims and anyone else with any intelligence, compassion or self-respect.

What was your point of this story other then to incite resentment towards Muslims?

Please don't use my religion and faith in an exercise to exploit and incite hatred against Muslims or anyone else.

You know damn well within Jewish religion and society there are many intolerant fundamentalists who have triggered violence against each other within the Jewish faith and outside it - all religions have their intoelrant fundamentalists who do such things and in our jewish faith please don't you dare tell me there isn't intolerance displayed towards inter-faith marriages and other religions and sects.

Your tossing in the Bar Mitzvah ritual which clearly was not inter-faith in an effort to suggest it shows Jews are tolerant happy people makes me want to puke as a Jew and ask are you even jewish or are you deliberately doing this to antagonize people to think other Jews are as intolerant as you and we go around exploiting other peoples' conflicts to suggest we are better then them?

All religions have intolerant people and all religions have disputes as to inter-faith unions that trigger off violence and other conflicts.

Don't use my religion as some cheap aside to justify your inciting of intolerance towards others.

No do not use my religion to insult others!

A Jew is taught to show their pride not by insulting others but by being humble and modest and not bringing credit to themselves for doing the right thing but simply showing people respect-to be respected we need to show respect -that is what we are taught-in fact we are taught if we do the right thing to be silent and never try use it for personal or collective credit or try make ourselves seem better then others- one's soul can not be defined by putting down another soul's values-what you do is a repudiation of the most basic and Jewish laws-by inciting intolerance towards non Jews you do everything we have been taught is morally wrong.

For someone who claims to be a Jew you keep violating this basic rule of ethics we are to follow.

The above incident was unfortunate and an example of humans being intolerant because of their rigid fundamentalist views. Your thread evidences the exact same thing.

However I am confident the vast majority of readers know you do not speak for Jews just as the above incident does not speak for Muslims or Hindus or anyone else.

I told you-no good comes from trying to exploit the suffering and misery of others to make yourself appear better. If you insist on doing that and use my faith as some cheap aside to enable this exercise I will condemn you with all my might because that is what we Jews have been taught to do-confront people like you and say stop it, stop the hatred its wrong.

If people conflict do not take pleasure in it. Your duty is to try help them find ways to reconcile peacefully not fan the flames.

To take misery and conflict and exploit it for political gain which is what you are doing is just nasty.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Rue

[Argus]

No, actually, what JBG is doing is comparing HIS idea of Islam as a whole to Christianity as a whole, by using the actions of extremists to generalize about the entire Muslim world.

This is fairly easy to do given the zeal with which Muslims in general embrace their religion and it's tenets.

I mean, generally speaking, if you take a very religious Canadian Christian and compare his or her degree of religious dedication to your average Muslim you'll find the Muslim to be more "observant" than the Christian. So if you start out that the median of religious observance among Muslims is closer to what you might call the extreme or most dedicated segment of our society, you begin to realize how much more open to extremism that religion would be.

I mean, the Christians who go to the likes of Pat Robertson's university would probably be on the "moderate" side of the Muslim world, given how tolerant and accepting of different opinions they are compared to most Muslims.

Christian religious fundamentalist: homosexuality is sinful and gays should not marry.

Muslim mainstream: Homosexuality is sinful and anyone who is a homosexual should be killed.

Christian religious fundamentalist: Women should remain chaste until marriage.

Muslim mainstream: Women who hold hands with men who are not their relative are evil, wicked, sluts and of no value to society and a disgrace to their families.

Certainly there's a degree of overlap, but overall, the fanaticism of Muslims far outdoes just about anything from the Christian West.

[Argus]

You know damn well within Jewish religion and society there are many intolerant fundamentalists who have triggered violence against each other within the Jewish faith and outside it - all religions have their intoelrant fundamentalists who do such things and in our jewish faith please don't you dare tell me there isn't intolerance displayed towards inter-faith marriages and other religions and sects.

Judaism, like other religions, is influenced by the culture of the people who believe in it. In the West, Christianity and Judaism are considerably more moderate, in general, than other countries. Judaism in Israel, for example, tends to be far more severe and this is the land of fundamentalists (by our standards), though Israeli society remains very secular in a way no Muslim state would tolerate. Islam is a product of the middle east. Virtually everyone in North American who is a Muslim is an immigrant from other lands, generally from the middle east or the Indian subcontinent. Western values have not had as long a time to moderate the severe and intollerent aspects of Islam here. So I think it quite fair to point out that by contrast to our more Western influenced faiths, Islam is FAR more immoderate and severe, and much more given to violence because of that.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Argus

[jbg]

You know damn well within our religion there are many intolerant fundamentalists who have triggered violence against each other and in regards to inter-faith marriages.

But except for a few like the JDL we generally don't threaten to burn or destroy others' property or kill people.

[jbg]

So I think it quite fair to point out that by contrast to our more Western influenced faiths, Islam is FAR more immoderate and severe, and much more given to violence because of that.

Besides Israel and mostly Christian countries, can you find me countries that are both open to immigration and religiously tolerant?

[jdobbin]

This post is a cross post right down to the exact wording and font to what is posted here:

http://www.jihadchat.com/index.php?showtopic=16192

The rules are clear. No one else does it and the rules have been clearly explained and yet you feel they don't apply to you.

I read numerous forums even if I don't contribute to them. I know of several posters on this forum who post elsewhere and they never use the same post. They manage to stay original and avoid laziness and abide by rules that many forums have to stop cutting and pasting in whole across dozens of places.

Stop playing the victim when it is pointed out to you what you are doing. Stop thinking that you are being singled out. If I found other posters here doing the same thing, I'd ask them to refrain from doing it. And as I said, I read across many different forums and see many of the people here posting elsewhere. They don't copy and paste their own work.

I ignore your posts and don't read them but when I see the same headers time and time again in many places, it surprises me to see and I ask myself "Is he doing it again?" Once again, it is obvious that you are.

So, try to be original. Try to abide by the rules. Don't act the victim and stop thinking you are getting away with something.

[bush_cheney2004]

I ignore your posts and don't read them but when I see the same headers time and time again in many places, it surprises me to see and I ask myself "Is he doing it again?" Once again, it is obvious that you are.

Then how would you know.....or convict on multiple counts?

So, try to be original. Try to abide by the rules. Don't act the victim and stop thinking you are getting away with something.

Are you also a self appointed moderator? Shall we witch hunt your posts for rules violations as well?

[jbg]

Are you also a self appointed moderator? Shall we witch hunt your posts for rules violations as well?

Thanks.

This is getting ridiculous. JihadChat has maybe 20 or so regular posters (the 40th most active poster has about 200 posts in 18 months), and I don't know if any are Canadian. This person, jdobbin, who I once called a friend, appears to make an occupation of scouring google with snippets of my posts, seeking to find "cross-posting". In the future, I'll compose a paragraph or two in Pig Latin.

Or perhaps Jdobbin will find his way back home to the civil discourse I know he is capable of. I know that I upset him by once calling him out on omitting a certain poll result when, in fact, he had already corrected the error. A mistake. No doubt about it. It's time to accept an apology and move on. This is getting really really juvenile.

Edited October 19, 2008 by jbg

[jbg]

In any event, to avoid hurt feelings, I edited the post (link). However, it appears that others have a similar penchant for cross-posting, and are not always consistant (link).

Edited October 19, 2008 by jbg

[Black Dog]

In any event, to avoid hurt feelings, I edited the post (link).

You mean "in order to cease being in violation of the forum rules which I had previously agreed to abide by as a condition of my continued presence here"?

[Rue]

But except for a few like the JDL we generally don't threaten to burn or destroy others' property or kill people.

What if that was true. How does that justify your using Judaism in a manner to suggest we are superior or morally better then others? That is what you are doing and it violates one of the most basic and fundamental precepts of Judaism that we do not use our faith to insult or put down others or suggest we are morally superior or better then others.

That is what you are doing and just did again and it is why I so strongly object to your continued decision to use Judaism in such a manner.

More to the point when you insult others as you are doing, you give them the pretext and motive to repeat the exercise to you.

I could easily be an angry Palestinian responding to you with anger stating I have been the victim of violence by Jewish settlers on the West Bank.

How do your comments to anything but incite such resposnes or responses from anti-semites looking to someone like you so they can spit back venom that we Jews think we are superior to others.

You play into the very anti-semitic stereotype I loath. You play into the hate mongering I loath in all humans for any reason.

I have already said what I had to say. I can't stop you from using your religion to engage in these exercises to suggest you are superior to others I can only speak against it.

Argus I can be the first to enter into an educated discussion as to fundamentalist Islam and how it incites intolerance and violence but I would not do so in a way that stereotypes all Muslims.

I can't stand this kind of thread where we point fingers at people and point out they are savages. Where I sit everyone looks like an ape playing with themself in a cage at the zoo.

[jbg]

I can't stand this kind of thread where we point fingers at people and point out they are savages. Where I sit everyone looks like an ape playing with themself in a cage at the zoo.

You may have a point here. I will consider it.