The fallen angel

 

What’s wrong with Satan? Satan is the angel with cojones to stand up against a totalitarian dictatorship. Metamorphosed as “el Tio” (the Uncle), he is the protector of the miners of Potosi, one of the most oppressed people in the world. You rarely hear of crimes committed by Satanists, and when you do, it’s mainly propaganda from other religious sects. No Satanist is out there, blowing himself up in the name of the Angel of Light like others do in the name of Islam or Buddhism. No Satanist is fostering rabid nationalism like Orthodox patriarchs. No Satanist is hindering science and the sexual well being of Africans like the Catholic Church. No Satanist is building illegal settlements on the West Bank because he was told to do so by his Master. No Satanist is starting wars in Mesopotamia guided by Baalzebub. So please, a bit of sympathy for an unfairly smeared angel.

The law of the land

Inayat Bunglawala wrote an article on Cif supporting “the work shari’ah councils do” in Britain. His main argument to defend that jump back to the seventh century was that… 

The supremacy of English law has always been acknowledged by Beth Din courts that have existed and operated for decades in the UK. Never has the authority of English law been questioned in relation to the arbitration offered by the Jewish courts

If English law is what calls the tune, why do you need parallel courts (Beth Din or Shari’ah councils), then? Equal justice under law. That’s the principle upon which society has escaped from feudalism. In my view, the decisions of any of such courts have as much legal value as my Monopoly currency.

The portable Indian

 

I’ve just commented on a Cif article by Janet Soskice. She’s the reader in philosophical theology at the University of Cambridge and was talking about how she found God in the shower (I’m not kidding). As it is usual with those threads, it hit the hundred comments very quickly and, as it always happens, most of them were just tripe. There was one, however, that caught my attention, even though I’m still not sure whether it was for its being either yet another example of our contempt for Asian people or a sign of Western gullibility. A (I presume) girl whose monicker was bruceybaby wrote,

As Osho says: “In the Western tradition there’s the known and the unknown. One day the unknown will become known. In the Eastern tradition, there’s the known, the unknown and the unknowable”

What can I say? Osho was talking through his back side. It’s not as if skepticism and rationality are all Western and mysticism and credulity Eastern. In fact both exist everywhere, and more than anywhere else, in India. Osho knew that most Western “seekers” didn’t know that and had a romanticised idea about India’s spirituality… and he was bright enough to squeeze them a good buck.

There’s the known, there’s the unknown, and there’s the urge to know what is yet unknown. Pre-assuming the unknowable for any mysterious reason is just surrendering curiosity. It’s intellectually stultifying and I refuse to do that. I’m glad Eve decided to let herself be tempted to know by the serpent….