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I have a ghost

Yeah… he scares my mom and my kids, and my sister. Tries to scare me, lol, but it doesn’t work. Some things he has done:

He will walk by so you see him for a second, going from a room to the bathroom, sitting on a bed, walking in front of the tv.

In my kids’ room, my son and mom were playing video games, and he pushed the toybox back a few inches, scaring the crap out of them.

He makes noises, that seem to come from every room at the same time. Can’t blame that one on the neighbors!

In the bath one day, the bodywash bottle started to shake back and forth (almost falling over) as if someone thumped it. Also, random things will fall or make noises in the bathroom while no one is in there.

There will be noises that only two or three people at a time will hear.

Random things will fall from the refridgerator, or the TV, or other places…

To me, it isn’t scary… even my kids sometimes think it’s funny! But there are times when someone gets really scared from something that’s happened. I guess I can laugh cuz I don’t sleep at night anyway, and get to hear the things that have happened sometimes when I get home from work

Read more and post discussion or debate:  I have a ghost

Also see:  Scarey Jinn Stories

Voting for Ralph Nader?

Is anyone planning on or thinking about voting for Nader? I can’t say the idea hasn’t floated in my head.

I’m a registered Democrat and I voted for Obama in the primaries but I don’t know–I’m just not enthusiastic about him anymore. I can’t say that there aren’t any differences between him and McCain but I just don’t know how different he is from other Democrats and frankly, I don’t find the Democrats all too appealing anymore. Yet I feel I would be wasting my vote to vote for Nader. I dunno. What do you all think?

Read more and post discussion or debate:  Voting for Ralph Nader?

Poverty in America

A thread to discuss Poverty in America…why we do we have poverty if we are the wealthiest nation in the world? (Or are we not really that wealthy…)How do you define poverty in a developed nation (vs. a third world nation)? What attitudes are prevalent in our nation toward those who are poor? What do we do for the poor? What do you think about our welfare system and welfare reform that targeted the poor? How much of poverty is a symptom of the economic sytem and how much is the fault of the one who is poor? What about generational poverty? What about faith based initiatives to aid the poor? What does your individual belief system teach you about the poor? Do you have any ideas about how to truly help the poor besides simply giving money? Are they all just lazy, stupid or drug addicted?

Pick a point and discuss…

Read more and post discussion or debate:  Poverty in America

The Wahhabisation of Pakistan

Extremist ideology, as we have learned in the last 8 years, is just as prone to attract highly-educated members of the professional class as unemployed, frustrated youth. We have to delve deeper into Pakistan’s recent past if we are to understand the crisis it faces at the present. Sub-continental history is dotted with intermittent mass movement of people – usually triggered by famine, war or worse – replete with attendant tales of distress and misery. In my reckoning, the early 1970s saw the another key migration that has so far received little analysis. It involved vast numbers of men from the rural and semi-urban parts of Pakistan moving to the emerging oil-based oligarchies in the Gulf.

Just as significant was the religiosity that came back with the workers. Historically speaking, the Wahhabi reading of Islam had found little purchase on the subcontinent. Mainly because Wahhabi ideology is at odds with practices in Pakistani culture, which cherished its sufi saints. However, this migration allowed a vast population to unlearn their “decadent” and “deviant” practices from the “pure practitioners” in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the Emirates.

In the southern valleys and northern mountains dupattas were replaced with burkas and sufi shrines with madrasas. This cultural turn dovetailed with Zia ul-Haq’s policies of Sunnification and the selling of jihad as a necessary commodity to the Pakistani people.

Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir became the de-facto topics at every Friday sermon from Doha and Riyadh to Dera Ghazi Khan and Rawalpindi. However, this Wahhabisation, which included a stricter, more literal interpretation of Qur’an, the demonisation of non-believers, antisemitic rhetoric, racism, the desire to “fund” jihads and so on, was never a straightforward process of important. Its progress was gradual and organic in a way that slowly de-legitimised established practices while distorting others: the spiritual guide was transformed into one who cast, or fought, black magic.

It is hard to find a household, a conversation, in current day Pakistan that is free of such concerns. The practitioners combine the zeal of the Wahhabi imam with the bank-teller’s command of charges due: $10 for the destruction of a marriage, $20 for an incantation for a ruined libido. All wrapped in literal reading of Qur’anic text.

Read more and post discussion or debate: The Wahhabisation of Pakistan

Status of Dhimmi in Islam

414. When the Prophet Mohammed settled down in Medina, he found there complete anarchy, the region having never known before either a State or a king to unite the tribes torn by internecine feuds. In just a few weeks, he succeeded in rallying all the inhabitants of the region into order. He constituted a city state, in which Muslims, Jews, pagan Arabs and also probably a small number of Christians, all entered into a statal organism by means of a social contract.

415. The constitutional law of this first ‘Muslim’ State – which was the confederacy as a sequence of the multiplicity of the population groups – has come down to us in toto, and we read therein not only in clause 25: “to Muslims their religion, and to Jews their religion,” or, “that there would be benevolence and justice,” but even the unexpected passage in the same clause 25: “the Jews . . . are a community (in alliance) with – according Ibn Hisham and in the version of Abu-’Ubaid, a community (forming part) of - the believers (i.e., Muslims).”

416. The very fact that, at the time of the constitution of this city-state, the autonomous Jewish villages acceded of their free will to the confederal State, and recognized Muhammad as their supreme political head, implies in our opinion that the non-Muslim subjects possessed the right of votes in the election of the head of the Muslim State, at least in so far as the political life of the country was concerned.

Read more and post discussion or debate: Status of Dhimmi in Islam

Special Cage Debates

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The Cage

For anyone with Cage rage that loves to debate controversial and other very hot topics, we have opened up a new forum section called, “The Cage”. This section is an intellectual debate arena, not for the faint of heart.

Of course, as usual on our forum everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in.

“The Cage” is a protected forum, whose topics are only for forum members to view, post topics and reply to.

If you are not already a member of the Islamfactor forum, you are missing out! Come, make some friends and discuss your issues on our forum!

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Sexual Relationships

As you know, Islam strictly regulates sexual relationships and channels them into the insitution of marriage only. According to Islam, a vow of celebacy and promiscuity are both forbidden. A healthy sexual relationship between husband and wife are sanctioned and strongly encouraged.

In Islam we are not to discuss our private relationships with other people. It is strictly between husband and wife. However, we can discuss what makes a healthy relationship between husband and wife on an independent level as long as it is with the intent on educating and encouraging healthy relationships and not intended to be lude.

Also, many westerners(or non-muslims) seem to think that Muslims are sexually repressed and only are concerned with the husbands self gratification. This is could not be further from the truth.

The fact is that Muslims are human beings with needs, male and female. However, we channel our desires, our into our marital relationships.

Read more and post discussion or debate:  Sexual Relationships