Iraqi Orphans Chained to Beds

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

So you're catching up with Godless Red China. Congratulations.

Stop knocking my China.

As you know, China means "Middle Kingdom", and all the world shall worship her again. Just you wait.

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Stop knocking my China.

As you know, China means "Middle Kingdom", and all the world shall worship her again. Just you wait.

After they beat down the world with an army of 20 million surplus males.

I always ask my chinese coworkers what the extra males are going to do when they reach maturity, and the inevitable answer is that they will marry Japanese women.

[Mindfulcoug]

agnostic shia ?? i am sure you meant non observant .right?

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by mindfulcoug

agnostic shia ?? i am sure you meant non observant .right?

You're saying that there are no Shia in Iran that don't care whether God exists?

Agnostic=don't care whether God exists, or aren't particularly worried about it either way.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by mindfulcoug

agnostic shia ?? i am sure you meant non observant .right?

No, most of my Iranian clients are agnostic Shia. They are ambivalent about God, and really don't accept Mohammed as God's prophet, they do not wish to head to Mecca, they do not pay to charity, do not pray five times a day and just ignore Islam.

Some have even married Jewish and Christian women.

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

No, most of my Iranian clients are agnostic Shia. They are ambivalent about God, and really don't accept Mohammed as God's prophet, they do not wish to head to Mecca, they do not pay to charity, do not pray five times a day and just ignore Islam.

Some have even married Jewish and Christian women.

so why bothering to call them shia muslim then? do they benefit of being a shia muslim ?? i wonder though

[Archaea]

[quote=mindfulcoug;92068]

Originally Posted by Archaea

No, most of my Iranian clients are agnostic Shia. They are ambivalent about God, and really don't accept Mohammed as God's prophet, they do not wish to head to Mecca, they do not pay to charity, do not pray five times a day and just ignore Islam.

Some have even married Jewish and Christian women.[/QUOTEs

so why bothering to call them shia muslim then? do they benefit of being a shia muslim ?? i wonder though

There are nonreligious reasons to remain attached to the culture which gave birth to them. Religion is not just religious belief, not just theology, but in large part it is culture, full of traditions, liturgy and other wonderful comforts we use to insulate ourselves from the world.

This is in large part what European Christianity is, and in some part Judaism. Mormonism is an odd duck in that its agnostics are rare.

To the average westerner, a Shia is one who bloodies himself on his trip to Iraq, and then sadly engages in roadside bombings. That is all one sees of the Shia.

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

There are nonreligious reasons to remain attached to the culture which gave birth to them. Religion is not just religious belief, not just theology, but in large part it is culture, full of traditions, liturgy and other wonderful comforts we use to insulate ourselves from the world.

This is in large part what European Christianity is, and in some part Judaism. Mormonism is an odd duck in that its agnostics are rare.

To the average westerner, a Shia is one who bloodies himself on his trip to Iraq, and then sadly engages in roadside bombings. That is all one sees of the Shia.

well..thats why we are here talking and letting eachother know what we really believe and making a huge separation between those stupid bombers and the rest of muslims including iranian shia.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by mindfulcoug

well..thats why we are here talking and letting eachother know what we really believe and making a huge separation between those stupid bombers and the rest of muslims including iranian shia.

The pilgrammage to Rammallah is one of the oddities of Shia. It reminds me of the weird form of asceticism the Catholics inherited via the Greeks. I suppose Islam inherited this tradition through the Greeks as well.

It is also somewhat reminiscent of a Hindu's coming of age ritual of piercing the skin under hypnosis without the dropping of blood, except an ascetic Catholic or devout Shia actually sheds their own blood.

[Mindfulcoug]

you mentioned about the nonreligious reasons to remain attached to the culture ...
i am hardly struggling to realise what would really remian of being a shia and yet not believing in god culturally? you probably meant iranian cultural right? if the answer is yes..i am sure they could enjoy being iranian without being called shia .