Mohammed led 60 military campaigns - 3 of them were defensive

How many of Moses' and Joshua's campaigns were defensive?

Dear Mr.Hunt;
thank you for this opportunity. I am one who choose to continue ISlam because of it simplicity One God alone worship is for Him alone.
I am one who believes that the Quran is the voice of God/Allah....we study it duran Rahmadan and daily for His Light in our affairs....what made previous folk sucessful was that they memorized it. They are called Hafi for male and Hafisa or something close to it....before a student could study the sciences they had to do that. I know I was certainly lifted up so to speak when I found it around the early 70s......but anyway I pray for the dark times to still be able to see the light during these times.....my steadfastness earns more value in His sight I believe. It took me years to study Islam to this point and so one can learn only a certain concept without practice. Again many thanks and to your continued success.
Angella Ander Amatulahad(femal servant of God)

(its remarkable lack of mercy and love as it describes the nature of God,

Blashphemer! Allah is all-merciful! And I guess it's no more a stretch than calling Christian God all-loving.

2) Why, given the smorgasbord of faith choices in America, would anyone CHOOSE to practice Islam? What is the appeal?

Well the 72 virgins come to mind. And you get to keep your women down - Christianity has been neglectful in the 'keeping women pregnant and barefoot' department lately.

Seriously though, most converts do it for the classic reasons: marriage or prison, same as converts to Christianity (see Chuck Colson or Ted Bundy)

An abridgement of the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954, translated from German by Joan Stambaugh. It will be sold at Bloomsbury auctions on Thursday

... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things. With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein

Allen,

There are two web sites that I have found helpful in trying to get a grasp of what Islam is all about. Always there will be those who insist that Islam is only about violence: repressing women, and killing every non-Muslim on the planet. There are also, however, a few moderate and reflective voices out there:

At this site, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ , scroll to the bottom for Muslims Speak Out: What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions.

This site was founded by a Western former Christian who converted to Islam... http://www.islamfortoday.com/index.html

Hope this helps.

Greg

Who here thinks Randy Pausch is in hell?

*Yawn*
I don't know about who is in hell, but I do know that if Allen doesn't get back and post something soon, I am going to fall asleep. Allen, the natives are getting restless... come on, throw us a bone. lol

Yeah he takes time off, cause misleading a bunch of rubes and hicks is stressful work.

Notice I am not taking time off just because he is.

Since Allen is too lazy to even phone in one of his spectacularly inane movie reviews, I clearly have no choice but to take over his blogging duties. Are you ready? Ok here goes:

Movie review: Don't have much time these days, but I managed to lope down to the local Adult Novelty and Smoking Accessory store to purchase a couple newly released films. I have to say I wasn't disappointed. The first one I watched was about a couple of detectives investigating paranormal happenings at an all-girls college. It was called "The XXX-Files: I want to relieve." The plot was interesting and their was lots of action to hold my attention. I give this one a thumbs up.

The next film I watched was about an African American super hero who goes around helping upper middle class white ladies who find themselves in difficult situations, such as trying to change a flat tire or running out of hot water in the shower or just struggling with depression. It was called Dark Meat Knight. I give it a big (BIG!) thumbs up for its moving dramatization of the golden rule, "Do unto others.." Also for its moving dramatization of the golden shower rule. Also the cinematography was good.


I want to leave you with my favorite RLAF (real life and faith) moment of the week.

I was stuck on the Atlanta Highway this afternoon behind the biggest SUV you've ever seen. On the back there was a sticker that read "As for me and my house we shall serve the Lord" accompanied by a Bible verse and stick figure illustration of a mom, dad, and kids holding hands.

As I got up a little closer I saw the biggest SUV in the world was driven by the fattest woman in the world who was animatedly gabbing away on her cellphone while simultaneously shoving a sandwich in her mouth. She was probably farting and spitting ham juice all over the dash while she talked too. I bet her hubbie can't wait for her to get home. We serve a good God! Praise the Lord.

Next week: cellphone video of me with a woman in a nun outfit.

I feel like we should clean up the house before mom and dad get back.

Erik, I am literly just checking this as I drive down I-69 (yeah, my hometown is off of I69...now think of some jokes on that one)

I am glad to see you enjoying yourself while we were gone. Thanks for a good laugh.

jeesh, except for the fact that it wasn't... it could have been ME you saw in traffic.

I mean, I do have sort of animated phone conversations. Don't know why either. Not like they can SEE me moving my hands to show them how big it was or how fast it moved.

SEE me moving my hands to show them how big it was or how fast it moved.

Well! And I thought this was a family-friendly blog.

LMAO!!!!!! No, not THAT! tee hee hee
You crack me up. Are you interviewing for the position: "sister of a really funny guy" or something?

I have several positions currently available. Unfortunately, "sister" isn't one of them.