The Vietnamese Napalm girl
 

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/in...am_Napalm_Girl

Interesting life story.

She has started a foundation.

http://www.kimfoundation.com/modules...file=intro.htm

She met one of the American pilots who bombed her, and forgave him.

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/im...ietnamGirl.jpg

what a great soul !

I dont think i would forgive the Iraqi pilots who have cruelly bombarded us.

Does Islam say that it is important to forgive?

Read the story more carefully, as Plummer either "ordered" or "relayed" the bombing orders on Trang Bang.

It was a South Vietnamese pilot who conducted the bombing.

Forgiveness is not as deep in Islam.

Reading the Qu-ran, one senses a deep sense of loss, because love and compassion are not at Islam's core. Now I imagine Mindful will try to argue otherwise, but in reading the Qu-ran, one does not feel peace or love, but tension.

Forgiveness in Islam is very, very conditional. If one is not a disbeliever, if one hasn't caused other to disbelieve, and so on ....

It is no wonder Muslims have trouble forgiving as their religion doesn't seem to encourage it.

There is no real redemption or day of Atonement where one tries to reconcile with God. That is the emptiness I feel when studying Islam, no love.

Here is a discussion which makes it sound very ritualistic and unreasonable to expect forgiveness:

Yes ,extraordinary important and it urges us to achive the capability to overcome our internal desire to revenge ..thats why islam says that ,the challenge with the enemy inside is not slightly comparable with fighting the enemy outside ..

needs to confess, its quite difficult to be a ture muslim,but yet agian its worth what you obtain.

Mindful, aren't there some escape clauses in the Koran. For example, if the person who offends you is a jew, you don't need to forgive.

My friend who is an Indian Muslim really HATES the mullahs in the middle east, from what I can tell. It's like how Mormons feel when they are compared to Warren Jeffs.

Unfortunately in the ME there are many millions of Warren Jeffs.

Unfortunately for Iran, their country may soon become a sea of glass.

well...reading Quran and embracing the true meaning are totally different storeis . but seeing your passion toward forgiveness and love ,arouses a question here " would you pardon Bin Ladan"? or better to say "are you allowed to pardon Bin Ladan?"

It depends on the realm.

He would need to face legal justice, and that would not result in happiness for him. Compassion and charity do not mean a person who breaks a law, necessarily escapes the governmental punishment. But it is not my place to implement that punishment. That must be done either according to the rules of war or post-war regulations. Fortunately, I am not involved in that.

However, am I as a Christian allowed to harbor resentment toward him? No. Even he must be forgiven by a believer. Am I or other Christians perfect in achieving this? Not by a long shot. Of the people I harbor, improper resentments toward, he's not high on the list, though I do not think highly of his actions. I do not walk around hating him, as I have better things to do.

Again a model Christian will have already forgiven him in his heart. Judge good Mormons and Christians by this standard, not by the less the good example I may set.

Its quite a general question ..i have no idea what your friend is probably uspet of ..but from what i have been witnessed all my life ..we are always encouraged to treat others with respect and dignity .
since we believe any human being deserves to recieve that and it makes no difference if you are muslim , jew, christian or atheist ..etc. i have some jews friends ,and befor i hear from you , i had NO idea jews are famous for some sort of jokes.. you might not believe it ..but its truly ture.

forgiveness in is an inevitable part of practicing to be a muslim which indeed requires huge effort.

Ofcourse ,its perfect to forgive ,as we are always in mad hope to be forgiven by God..but let me see if i got your statements precisely ..

you are saying "Bin Ladan" or any one else who has done such a crime and a true believer 's forgiveness isnot probably going to make him change his intention/attitude/belief ..is still deserved to recieve pardon?

or you are saying that a true believer ,is supposed to bestow forgiveness just becuase he is God's mirror on earth??

i honestly would like to judge mormons and christians by the offering standards as i hope you would care to do the same.

At this point, I don't understand your language.

"Bestow a pardon". This language is not religious, but legalistic in our idiom. Thus, I'm uncertain as to your message.

And because your world operates differently than ours, it is difficult for you to understand the distinctions. Religious authority has no legal authority.

President Bush can bestow a pardon, but our church leaders cannot.

As I understand the ayatollah system in your country, religious and legal authority are one and the same. Thus it must be difficult to distinguish between man's law and the law of religion.

Thus, the land can impose its punishment and the religious people judge a man NOT in their hearts.

Does this make any sense? It might not to me, if I lived where you reside.

actually i was wondering about your personal opinion ,as some one who would write the law as a MAN..since there are always some men who develop the law and as a human being they are surrounded by thier personal beliefs whether religious or non religious ... and there is no way to prove that those men would totally disregard thier beliefs in writing law.

as side note ..many claim ..president Bush middle east policy ,and particularly iraq war is a preface of what he envisions as his religious beliefs.

turning to the topic ..islam has tremendous teachings which endorse remittal and remission in day to day lives. we have quite alot anecdotal evidences of how forgiving muslims are when it comes to the personal conflicts/attack ...like in murder case ..the parents of the murdered would pardon the murderer ( engaged in a street fight or so ) in terms of divine forgiveness in a hope to recieve mercy from Allah, as we are promised to.

and there arenot even rare ,they just dont catch your cameras for some reasons!!!!!????

the law in our theocracy is quite compatible with the intenational law with the exception of that we define man as a part of a whole ..so in order to have an accurate law we would have to consider 1) the man 2) the universe 3) the relation of these two .

so becuase we believe that God ,the creator has the entire knowledge of all three parts,(while the human possess almost no knowlege in these realms) we cannot neglect his role in the law which governs on human.

yes ,your words do make sense to me..what actually doesnt make sense to me ,is what a human being is relying on to write the law ,to forgive or not forgive ,to punish or not to punish . if its not his belief ,so what is it ?? and if there is literally something which influence people 's decision making centres, so why 'shouldnot it be God ?

I did not understand your post.

In our society, it is easy to disconnect sections, belief from society. We can write laws independent of our laws.

If I were to write a law, I would do so independent of my personal religious beliefs, and do mix the two.

pardon? do mix what ??

i think i need to learn from you ,how you could neglect your beliefs (something you believe its true )..and with ignoring your beliefs ,what might have been replaced ? knowledge?? knowledge for what ? for learning the truth ? but you already knew the truth via your belief.
you might argue that you arenot sure about the truth you are believing in though.

in an attempt to free the hijacked thread here comes a very authentic story of prophet mohammad's (PBUH) life ,who is supposed to be followed by muslims.

This story is about the early days of his prophetic mission in Mecca, where he was disliked by some people mostly idolaters ,who were trying to make him awfully embarrassed and miserable to leave his mission.

there was a man who would put lots of trash on prophet's way and hide in a place keep waiting to catch him up ,then throw garbage out to him almost everyday...to the point that prophet would have to take time to get clean or back home to change.

but once prophet noticed that the guy was missing for two or three days.. so he got to ask around to learn about the guy ..then he came to know that he was ill , resting at home..

prophet mohammad asked about where he lived ...then he made his way to the guy's house ... when he arrived ,the guy was speechless ,totally frightened, couldnot find the reason why prophet would want to come to visite him..then prophet smiled at him ..prayed for him to get well and left.

When one writes laws, one does it in relationship to laws already existing, and does not look to one's beliefs.

One then looks to the scenarios creating the need for new law, and takes what the legislative intent is.

For the most part, most law has NOTHING to do with truth. It is independent of truth.

A law regulating speed is not about truth. Engineers have studies which dictate safe speeds for certain types of routes. No truth here, just empirical observation.

Man's Law and truth are often not related.

How about the very first men who wrote the laws...what were thier motivation to provide the accurate law ? and to which pre-existed law ,they might have been attached ?

You mentioned about speeding on the road ...good example..why a driver needs to mind his safty ?? or care about others safty and comfort ??
to live more and better? to do what?? to degenerate and become part of the soil after 100 years?? or to be healthy safe person to find out his way toward the truth ??

basically whats the main reason for empirical approaches ??

if in a society, where every individual is supposed to seek for the truth ,how come the laws (which is produced and enforced to manage individula's lives) would have nothing to do with the truth?

as you portray your law system..it seems there is NO place for justice and moral values ,becuase they both acquire thier meaning under the light of the truth.

You are now turning the debate to the origin of laws, not their current constructions. That is not the same.

In our country, there is a clear separation between religion and government. Occasionally a religiously minded group may express itself politically, but that is not the norm. That doesn't mean there is no intersection, but it is minimal.

People may advocate for laws based on personal beliefs, but our society by and large does not legislate to comply with religious beliefs.

Speeding and traffic laws are enabling constraints, meaning they are invoked so that people can orderly travel along the roads to enable the motorists. They are constraining because they limit the drivers' options, but enabling because without them chaos would result.

Our law is not about truth but about relative order and protection of the public. There is a place for truth in the lives of each individual. We do not believe governmental discourse is the place for discussion of eternal truth. Governmental discourse is about power and money.

I asked about the original law ,since you pointed out that your law makers mostly rely on the pre-existing law ,so i would like to have your answer about how the very first law makers approaches worked out?

however at each epoch ,there would be some completely new issues to deal with by law makers.

with referring to your description about the secular government ..i think it might be fair to reach out to this conclusion that , "you wouldnot mind to have some faithless/unprincipled law makers and unscrupulous law executors who would oftenly lie to people and mess up with thier lives, as long as they bring you money and power ".

Thanks for guiding me welcome the concept.

[quote=mindfulcoug;
with referring to your description about the secular government ..i think it might be fair to reach out to this conclusion that , "you wouldnot mind to have some faithless/unprincipled law makers and unscrupulous law executors who would oftenly lie to people and mess up with thier lives, as long as they bring you money and power ".

Thanks for guiding me welcome the concept.[/quote]

You really haven't understood me, and I don't know how to bridge the gap.

You assume a person without faith is necessarily dishonest. That is not true. There are other models of honesty.

If I wish to work with FFTs, I don't have to go back to the initial concepts of Newtonian or Leibniz's concepts of calculus.

Even in your government, your politics are about money and power, you fail to recognize this.

No, current legislatures do not look at origins only look at the current moment.

It is naive to believe any political movement is about anything other than power and money, any where that man exists.

I amnot saying that shaky religious person is necessarily dishonest ,i am just saying that in your sort of government, you wouldnot mind having those shady peopel as decision making.. ( this is going to fill the gap quite well.)

of course our government is into providing money and power and injecting them to the society ..but it is also at the same time would strengthen people's spiritual ability ,becuase we believe its people right to have a healthy/honest governers/law makers who would serve people with thier healthy minds and souls .

I believe that any person who seeks power of government will necessarily be of questionable character, in our government or in your government. Power seekers have in and of themselves flaws in their character. Your response has shown you do NOT understand my words.

There is no proof being an ayatollah makes one a good person. We believe NOT that a person's character is important in a public office, but that a person's skill in making laws be good. That is a difficult distinction for you to understand.

There are good people who do not know how to make good laws. And there are bad people who know how to make good laws.

Just like there are good people who do not know how to make a good car, but bad people who know how to make a good car.

Completely correct ....while there is no need to put a lot of energy to understand this simple/obvious image ,but on the othere hand ..there is a very sharp line between those who are being in a questionable positions and care about providing honest answers with those who are being in questionable postions and would not mind providing dishonest answers...you are saying that non-religious/shady person might provide honest answers and i am saying that i would prefer to have the answer given by true beleivers. i suppose this is where we probably have some issues with ,otherwise we are quite close.

being an ayatollah doesnt automatically make you an angel ..i agree ..but in islamic theocracy we are greatly endeavoring to provide and educate individulas who are good at thier *faith*AND thier *profession* ,BOTH.

this is our slogan "motekhases va moteahed" (in case you might like to know the farsi expression) from the very first days after islamic revolution which means our country will welcome to honest professionals who are honored to supply the islamic society with the best intention and knowledge.

Why do you equate a nonreligious person with a person who is shady or dishonest?

That is offensive in my mind. I've known many religious persons who are bad people and known many nonreligious people who are good people. Those terms are NOT synonymous.

of course they arenot synonymous ..i wonder what made you think they are. something wrong with my post or with your understanding ???

for the sake of bright conversation i am going to explain here why you should not jump to this offensive upshot ...

since in islam we basically dont have such prospective toward human in this specific case..we believe that being a moral person almost has nothing to do with being religious ..Thanks to wise ,loving God," man " has been equipped with such instruments that truly convey him toward goods and prevent him from evil . so you can be an atheist and still care about moral.. no inconsistency whatsoever!

but accepting a religion is a further step of being moral methinks...thats why in islam we wouldnot aknowledge such a thing as "dishonest believer" plainly becuase with practicing a true religion , an (already) moral person is going to profit the religion in discovering new realms in the perfection path ahead.

thereupon if we are witnessed of a devotee who is deshonest and knavish
there will be serious concern/issue with his belief system or his religion ,that wouldnot allow us to include him in the same category as his religious peers ,any more.
unless he adjusts his deeds to what he has been attached .