What is the Koran?

The Koran is an odd piece of literature, most people would quite happily dismiss the Bible as a bunch of fairy stories, whilst never daring to the same to Islams ‘miracle’!

The following is an interesting article written in 1999

‘Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam’s first two centuries — they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What’s more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God.’

‘By the standards of contemporary biblical scholarship, most of the questions being posed by scholars like Puin and Rippin are rather modest; outside an Islamic context, proposing that the Koran has a history and suggesting that it can be interpreted metaphorically are not radical steps. But the Islamic context — and Muslim sensibilities — cannot be ignored. “To historicize the Koran would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of the Muslim community,” says R. Stephen Humphreys, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence. And ideally — though obviously not always in reality — Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless.”

The orthodox Muslim view of the Koran as self-evidently the Word of God, perfect and inimitable in message, language, style, and form, is strikingly similar to the fundamentalist Christian notion of the Bible’s “inerrancy” and “verbal inspiration” that is still common in many places today. The notion was given classic expression only a little more than a century ago by the biblical scholar John William Burgon.

The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it, every Chapter of it, every Verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it … every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High!

Not all the Christians think this way about the Bible, however, and in fact, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1981) points out, “the closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Kur’an in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ.” If Christ is the Word of God made flesh, the Koran is the Word of God made text, and questioning its sanctity or authority is thus considered an outright attack on Islam — as Salman Rushdie knows all too well.’
Read the rest here

Pointless Monarchy?

This is something I have been meditating on for quite a while,what is the point of a consitutional monarch?

If they are a ‘consitutional monarch’, what good can they do?

I know the arguments in favour, they deny the symbolic pinnacle of power and patronage to a politician, yes, but the reality is that the Prime Minister holds all that power and wields it eagerly.

There is the connection with the past, the sense of timelessness, yes, but, it looks more pathetic and tenuous to me all the time.

If by consitutional one means there are laws, traditions and balances to the power of a monarch, then I would agree that all Christian monarchs have been ‘consitiutional monarchs’, if on the other hand one means a powerless symbol, then I would have to say I would rather not be involved.

A monarch is a symbol, but they must always be more than that, if that is all they are, then we may as well have a president. Not that I’m saying we should get rid of monarchies, only that our monarchs need to rule as well as reign!

The idea that it is wrong to have a hereditary head of state because they are hereditary, is a shallow argument! I could say it is wrong to have lots of stupid and uninformed people chosing the head of state, I could say it is wrong that an assembly of 27 men can decide who is the new European Emperor! Hereditary leaders are not that uncommon in the history of men, and they are far from ‘wrong’ or ’stupid’ as many meritorcrats would have us believe.

The fact that they tell us, teach us and brainwash us through the media every day of our lives, should tell us that they are probably wrong. Why do business men and politicians constantly go on about ‘equality’, ‘meriticracy’ and ‘democracy’? Because they control the system, they control who stands in elections, they control who chooses those who stand in the elections, they control the voting systems and who counts the votes and how they count the votes, they control which parties are allowed to exist, they control the media which portrays the contest as something other than irrelevant and they control the money.

A hereditary king who had the power to rule could be a liability to their power, a hereditary king would not have to owe anyone anything for getting into his position, he could decide to oppose certain money-making schemes, he could upset the way things were and if his people backed him, he could be more powerful then all the money men together. A real king, with real power is something they will not tolerate, that is why I want a real king with real power, not some powerless ‘consitutional monarch’!

The comment bellow was left on a Telegraph story about the Duke of Windsor’s apparent desire to return to his position after the war.

‘The present ‘monarch’ has singularly failed to protect the sovereignty of the British people against corrupt government. Some observers would conclude it has been by her deliberate choice.

She has done this since at least 1973, treaty-by-treaty. We are actually part of an end-game now, not some radical transformation.

There is no other single individual who has had better advice, nor greater responsibility. It has been her signature, and hers alone, which has ultimately denied us our nation. She knew, when she gave assent to the Treaty of Rome, what the ultimate outcome would be, because she was advised on the constitutional consequences. Now we have the ridiculous position that she is presently sovereign of thirty-odd nations, but not the one she lives in.

Given there have been so many European treaties since our accession to Rome, one must conclude that her culpability goes way beyond mere accident. In fact she is the only common factor in all of them, and ought by now to be a world expert on constitutional law, especially with respect to the EU!

It is deeply ironic, therefore, to read ‘royalists’ banging-on thoughtlessly about what great service she has done for the country in her reign. In reality, she has protected her family from the worst ravages of republicanism, in a Faustian contract that cannot last, and little else. The dynasty remains fabulously wealthy though, and even were her descendants to be exiled or deposed (as is likely, for the EU brooks no competition!), they will be well provided for.

For us, however, her once-loyal subjects, there is subsumation into a Fascist and totalitarian state, that will demonstrably stop at nothing to control all aspects of our lives. Our queen had OUR sovereignty in her protection, for her lifetime, for that was the contract between monarch and people, to which she agreed at the Abbey.

She gave it away so readily, to our certain enemies, as if it was a thing of no worth at all. It might have been a mistake, but, in all the years since, we have no hint she believes that, nor cares a whit.

Some would say it was the action of a ‘constitutional’ monarch, but to others, myself included, the right word begins with “T”, and has strong associations with Tyburn.

I no longer care who lives in Buck House. I do care however that my children are growing up in a police state, where their own country is no longer theirs and their ancient freedoms are taken from them.’

Although I am not a ‘republican’ in the Irish nationalist meaning of the word, I can still understand the commenters frustration with his Queen, for all the talking, she has not stood up for her country, and perhaps she can’t, but as some other commenters put it, what is the point if she is only window dressing? Why not go the whole hog and have some drab appointed politician or an elected politician? Why does the Queen not decide, no, I will not go along with this, I would rather lose my throne, which has now become something behind which the most repulsive radicals hide their evil deeds and expose them for what they are?

Is it not better to go out in a blaze of glory, rather than being stained with the same treason that is being committed against her people, by her politicians? Is it not better to be remebered for taking a stand and perhaps in the long term ensuring the survival of her house?

It is strange, but if there is upheaval in the years to come, Britain may end up a republic, not because they hate the idea of a monarch, but because the present queen was too good at being a ‘constitutional monarch’.

Sometimes one needs to take a risk, sometimes it is good to remain quiet, This is not the time to be quiet, if Queen Elizabeth II wants her house to continue, now may be the time to abdicate and allow someone who is not affraid to make his oppinions known, to succeed her to the crown, The Prince Charles!

Jesus in China

It is a strange thing that the nation that many people are holding up as an example of ‘how to do it’ is also a nation that seems increasingly to turn to the true faith. I know many leftists are giddy at the thought of America failing as a power and part of that desire to see America fail is the thought that Christians would no longer running the world, as many leftists believe. In fact a superpower China may end up being more Christian then America ever was.

I have met Chinese Christians, I had the privilege of leading one Chinese man to Christ, they are fervent in their faith, even if that faith is somewhat shallow. I believe it takes many generations to completely imbibe the blessings of Christian life.

This story I think, tells the story of something truly wonderful!

The neverending referendum!

The ongoing, never-ending referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is thankfully over, but the ratification just goes on and on, and normally sensible people seem to think that by opposing this ‘treaty’, they can prevent the European Union from becoming the freakish, bloated tyrannical bureaucracy it was always meant to be.

The EU will not budge, it will not make any permanent concession, it will trick you into thinking it has made a concession, but ten or fifteen years later that concession will be taken back and more in some subsequent ‘treaty’, they will not be put off, they will not be denied.

For all of those people who moan about the Lisbon Treaty, I have some small advice, stop! Who cares? You know as well as I do that it matters not a bit what we think, it does not matter what our concerns are, we are irrelevant to them, the bureaucracy that sits in Brussels fantasising about some ridiculous utopia in Europe where all is peace and tolerance, diversity and understanding. They are living in a dream world!

The only thing we can do now is to resist what is happening, we can do this by refusing to vote, we can deligitimise their power by not voting, they cant possibly claim to be representing the ‘people’, when only a dozen people have bothered to vote at all, can they? We can immigrate to places where we can be freer, we can not pay our taxes, or work cash in hand, we can refuse to follow their petty laws, download as many films and as much music as possible, they dont like that, all this can be done now, by everyone in the EU.

We must begin a resistance to the illegitimate tyrannical farce that is the EU, we can stop voting, we can stop paying taxes, disobey their silly laws, and eventually if many of us continue to do this, they will lose their power.

The Lisbon Treaty is as good as passed, there is no longer anything we can do to stop it, their never was anything we could do, because democracy is a lie, we do not and can not change things through the system, the system must be smashed before we can change anything!