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cookie time!!

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I don't really think autistic people really have some "sixth sense" when it comes to animals or "think" like animals do, contrary to what NTs might think. I think most autistic people like animals simply because of them being completely non-judgemental and loving you unconditionally.

I'm listening to The Lion King soundtrack.

The official animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.

Not too sure if this excerpt is still relevant..

Dec 17, 2014

"n light of recent events in a cafe in Australia and just moments ago,the terrible doings at like a military school in Pakistan,I'm going to say a few thing on the history of Islam and Islamic extremism

Judaism's,ethnoreligious concerns and rigorous detailed and systemic style of religious juriprudence is something which gives what some might see as an "instituitional-ish" vibe,which along with a big emphasis on the abstract like an invisible fundamentally beyond-words God made it stand out among the various ancient regional animist-ish belief systems of a lot of other Southwest Asian groups. The idea in there of your very existence giving glory to God's creation and how great is it to be a part of it,is like saying that Jewish-ness is neither an ethnicity component nor a religion but a family,is one weighty abstraction.

That concern with the abstract,can be said to have been "distilled",when a fairly different take on intentionality of what is consistent with God gives a thrust for something that'll differentiate away from Judaism when a certain Galilean commences saying within his broad message of how the intra-personal factors that go into making decisions like lifestyle and ethical ought to be done on terms in which essentially sufficing by faith and love co-responding with him alone,not so much on regulatory norms you can become closer in your relationship with the ultimate reality. The way to do it is reducible to the impulse to transform reality via a self-generated impulse towards self-forgetful altruism which is always a consistent link to the divine. He says that him being the All-Compassionate in human form is a consummation of one of the main points of Judaism,at a time when Judaism had apparently "strayed" a little,in a way.

A few centuries later, there's a man who has a different take on Jesus,not thinking he's the Almighty himself yet nethertheless a great guy. He says that he's received a message saying how he's continuing the type of belief in the vein of/which began with Abraham who kicked off Judaism origins before Moses would give it it's core guiding foundation. Again it's something which won't stray away from that which was initaited through Abraham but this time,it's in a place where polytheistic animism is prevalent among various tribes and (although there is a long history of interactions with Jews) monotheism doesn't have as an embedded a history as it did for people around in Israel. John Green did a video on the early history of Islam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpcbfxtdoI8 .

A key difference is how by definition you are not "a follower who 'submits' " (a Muslim) by saying that God would be on par with a human. To say that he could be equated with a human being is a prideful thing for humanity to say--and being "one who submits" means putting away,"*surrending*" an all too human ego and pride which is impairing you and your self-direction from being effused into accepting/submitting to the Almighty's inherent unconditional love and glory. Hence why an opposition to pride and instead "surrendering" to God's trancendence is something which has to be prsistent in a follower and a consistent opposition to an all-to human pride and the destruction,neglect and negating of God's creation which it could possibly route off to; pride is the source of shame,you see and it's a life-long *struggle* (jahid) within each person to not have it overtake their life.

I've said before how the Communion bread,God is a dialogue (with/because of Christ) and that without it he'd be a monologue. While I clearly can't speak to saying whether he is a monologue or dialogue in Islam (though it seems like something worth pondering out ,imo what with the Quran being God's word itself),I'll say this: God must've had something going on with Mohammed since among his key take-aways are this.(i) (Not unlike Christianity)You stay consist with/to God with both an impulse to transform reality via a self-generated impulse towards self-forgetful altruism (which will always help you avert pride and be a sign of lovingly giving glory to God) and (ii) (like in Judaism) there are regulatory norms which'll help you perceive and keep consistency in submitting to God's indescrible glory and being loving with other beings who are within his Creation.

This (ii) lends itself to a religious juriprudence (Sharia) which has a place of disagreement throughout the history of Islam--leading me to two points (I) a religious juridprudence which unlike Judaism wasn't bound with the ethnoreligious concerns of "who is a Jew?" as a qualifying term but (like Christianity) has an impulse within it to proselytze the belief to others regardless of ethnicity,kind of lends itself easier to an orthopraxis centralized and conducted via a kind of instituitional lieke way (which when your talking about the history of Christianity) is something analogous to how Catholicism was like for Western Europe's Middle-ages and how the idea of "seperating Church from state" didn't really become a concern until around the time from the Reformation, (unfortunately I can't speak to the impact of the "Schism" and what it meant for the sociopolitical climate Orthodoxy found itself in).

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Here I get to the parts related to extremism

There is a difference between Abrahamic monotheistic religion meaning "submission" in classical Arabic,Islam and Islamism where it is thought that the religion of Islam should be used and follow for socio-political ideology.This is different from following the theological body and worshipping practices of Islam, though. John Green did vid on this as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka8csjsmX6I and clearly not everyone is jiving with doing secular government the way Turkey did b/c of Ataturk's reforms after the Ottoman empire collapsed.
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I personally see analogues between how in "the modern Christian scene" there is Second Great Awakening descended Evangelicalism trying to get involved in American politics and in "the modern Islamic scene" there is extremism tangentially related to the Salafist movement/Wahhabism. Unfortunately the latteractually has a grip on the geopolitics the country with the longest history of Islam (Saudi A[rabia — 7-1-2018 typo correction] and has actually pulled off mustering militaristic sentiments and action

For what it's worth guys feel free to consider looking up consider the following:

-From the early development of Christianity outside of it's non-European origins, it picked up some things from Hellenic philosophy,not excluding ancient Greek logic. Possibly even more then Judaism,choose to adopt on.

-Throughout the centuries but notably after the Reformation and esp.among emergent groups after the first two "Great Awakenings" there have been theological movements espousing continual distancing from Greek philosophy.

There one's justification that "it's from pagan persons" but in using such a kind of write-off,there goes the Greek style reasoning which is a highly important epistemic asset both when it comes to not making fuzzy speculation about teleology and metaphysics and for interpretating the New Testament.

-In Islam even before Aristotle caught on within the religion there already was a discourse methodolgy (Ilm al-Kalam) .

-Aristotle and other Hellenistic stuff got more popular the Mu'tazila (a school of reason based theology) founded in 748 AD in Basra,Iraq and "rolled with Greek rationalism" which resonated with later logicians like Al-Kindi, Avicenna and Averroes

-In response to Mu'tazila arose the Ashʿari school which wasn't as much for rationalism and strided towards "calling the shots" for being the orthodoxy within Islam when it comes to interpretating the Quran,hadiths and education in general.

*Note how there was division when it came to how much Greek reasoning there was going to be adopted. This isn't even going into how it's a fair guess on whether Indian style logic and reasoning was adopted more in regions around South Asia*.

Personally the tensions between the Mu'tazila and Ashʿari schools is to me kinda analogous to how in the history of Christianity there were tensions between Catholicism's Scholasticism butting heads with Calvinism from Protestantism.

Even if it wasn't as much for having reasoning in it's foundation (something I'm sure resonates with Protestants when they get there heat on their theology for how much Greek logic was ditched),Ash'ari still emphasizes Islamic faith being based on a usage of the mind.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehellenization#In_Islam

According to Robert Reilly, the primary cause of the dehellenization of Islam was the rise of the Ash'arite sect and decline of the Mu'tazila sect in the ninth and tenth centuries.The Mu’tazalites adopted the belief that man must be free because without freedom, he would be unable to know God’s justice. Consequently, man was free and obligated to interpret sacred texts in the context of his time. Proposing that the Qur'an was created implies that it is subject to reason- an idea that is in direct opposition to the orthodox belief that the Qur'an is eternal.

The Mu’tazalites evidenced the first Greek-inspired Islamic school of thought, championing the idea of reason and rational morality.The Ash'arites were a group who evolved for the distinct purpose of countering the Mu’tazalites. The Ash'arites opposed the Mu’tazalites on several levels. They argued that the Qur'an was coeternal with Allah, rendering it unalterable and un-interpretable by man. Where the Mu’tazalites held that God was reasonably required to reward and punish as he had promised, the Ash'arites argued that God is not required to do anything as doing so limits him. They advocate that any apparent inconsistencies in the Qur'an must not be questioned. In contrast, the Mu’tazalites believed that analyzing these inconsistencies is in accordance with man’s necessity to reason: since God is not intuitive or physical, we must reason to his existence.

Under the reign of Caliph Ja’afar al-Mutawakkil between 847 and 861, adopting the doctrine of the Mu’tazalites became a crime which was punished by death. Most of their works were destroyed and bookstores were told not to trade any Mu’tazalite works. By the 12th century, Mu’tazalite influence had been almost entirely eradicated from Islamic society. This suppression of rationalist thought and elevation of orthodoxy marked the prominent dehellenization of Islam.


Ash'ari is the current school of thought which is popular in places following Sunni Islam which does not include Oman,Iran,Azerbaijan and a fair part of Iraq.

It's only been recently that Ash'arism has been rejected by Salafi extremists b/c of refusing the idea of depending on the mind as a basic way for understanding the Quran.

I leave it to anyone reading to "fill in the gaps" on how Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's family of descendents the (the Al ash-Sheikh) has been backed by the house of Saud since the 1800's mixes with ideologies like "Pan-Arabism" which obviously is viewed differently in Malaysia,Indonesia and Persian influenced areas. I know that I have not gone into the Usuli theory of velayat-e faqih which has been used to back up Iranian theocracy.

There's a bit about how 1[9th — typo correction: 7-1-2018 ] century Islam (and continental Asia for that matter) was receptive to the idea of Western liberal democracy and imperialism in this John Green video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxmWfbXS4Pw .
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One take-away here is how by looking at history,one can see how the diminishment of the epistemic importance of reasoning (in this case Hellenic reasoning which is something Western society,Judeo-Christian or secular can certainly find resonance with) left a void where things could get unsuitably reductionist which extremists have used for motorizing into action.

Frankly,I think that even if your a lay person understanding and getting a grip on your spirituality in a systemic way can go a long way for making you not unwittingly find yourself in extremism.

As usual, when it comes to philosophy, "your mileage may vary" as to whether this was an influence or means anything to lay-ppl,past or present, including current day moderate lay-followers who became extremists. A little context can go a long way. A little time to get a little context on the developmental history of something can go a long way as well.

I think that by the time this current phase of extremism is through aside from how Islam is going go through a major self-evalution of what it's instituitional presence can be and means,on account of extremism taking that aspect to terrible places.

As well,when it comes to it's future Islamic theology my speculation is (i) it'll be up to readopting some kind of rationalism deeply into it's hermeneutics (ii) the disillusionment among lay-followers of having lived through and put up with extremism and it's manifestions might mean that some "quasi-revisionist" theology like how with Judaism,Holocaust theology came about b/c of WWII and mid-last century Christian existentalism became a thing with guys like Paul Tilich,John Macquarrie,Karl Barth etc even ~150 after Søren Kierkegaard is said to have "thematically founded" it.

This old-ish Bigthink video by Reza Aslan is reassuring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxPDSbOMsGY
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1-10-15
Maybe it's nitpicking but I personally would've liked it if Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi had a religious *reformation* to modernize the faith instead of have picked the word 'revolution'

http://news.yahoo.com/violence-fuels-de ... 04524.html

I noticed the lack of mention of Boko Haram and I hope no one forgets how the Mu'tazila school of thought can helps things. Hoping that maybe one day via a commonly endorsed contextualist exigency even to Mohammed who was speaking the words of God,stuff could change enough that extremism will be known to have been from turbulent episode of the past which came out of literalism and the frustrations of post-colonialism and getting your shtick together as a nation-states and cultures who are pressured to get itself up to gear without whatever is 'modern' in a world which has issues on a broader scale with ceding Eurocentricism and notions of superiority for equity and the polyphonic melodies of the voices of ppl from all over the world."

Hoo boy, I think my brain is going to explode.

Things that were banned from school when I was a kid:

Chewing gum (because kids stuck it on everything instead of putting it in the garbage where it belonged)

White-Out (because kids covered everything *but* their own mistakes with it)

Smoking (because obvious)

Things that are banned from today's schools:

Pokemon

Tamogotchi

Toy guns

Dungeons and Dragons

Harry Potter

Fidget spinners

Animal Jam

Emojis

Shoes that you didn't buy from the school (seriously)

Handshakes

Kissing, hugging, or even touching a romantic interest.

Hoodies

Fun

I'm already thinking about Halloween, and wishing I'd have something Halloween-ey to do, but probably what I'll end up doing is spending the night alone in my room, just like every Halloween since I became old enough that I felt awkward going out trick-or-treating I might see if I can finish the costume I was working on for fun last year but never got done in time for this year, but I'd have no reason to wear it (probably too scary/gory for little kids, so even if I could overcome my social anxiety enough to hand out candy, it would probably be a no-go).

Honestly, I'm not even sure what people my age do dress up for - I just know that they do. Is it just for parties, or is there some other reason?

Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur...

Even though I'm in debt from lack of impulse control due to meds, I am still going through a catalogue tearing out pages of things I want to buy for myself or as presents for others. I will put this on a six months no payments no interest plan, not caring that in six months I will have to actually pay for it. Silly brain.

Purr, purr, purr, purr....

Kuraudo, never knew you were such a dirty talker