Taking a Class on the Qur'an and People Who Ask Why

Why? People are asking why I would be taking a course on the Qur’an.

First of all, I’m taking the class because it’s being offered by the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, the little do-it-yourself college being set up by the alumni and former faculty of Antioch College. Its efforts are intended to keep the unique spirit of Antioch alive. I want to be some little part of that effort because Antioch was so important to the person my wonderful daughter has become, and because Antioch’s graduates have made a real difference in our world – and I want that to continue.

So, I went through the proposed courses, and found four on Saturdays (the only day I can attend, since the campus is 70+ miles away):

A History of Jazz (A one day workshop, which I may also take, next month)
The Qur’an, Muhammed and Islam
Principles of Photography
A History of the American Civil Rights Movement (taught by a distinguished retired Antioch professor, whose brother was one of three white civil rights workers murdered in Meridian, Mississippi in 1964)

The last two classes ended up not being offered, so here I am, reading the Qur’an.

As to why this should interest me, why not? Had the class been on Zen, or the Tao, of Shinto, I would have been equally interested.

What I really find interesting is that so many people ask me why I would want to do this. The simplest explanation is that I think it's important to understand my fellow man.

First, some background:

They say that there are three subjects that, in order to avoid conflict, should never be discussed in polite company: politics, sex, and religion. I’m going to talk about the last one now, so be forewarned. Here goes:

Let me first say that I respect the right of people to hold their own beliefs, whatever they may be. I am a tolerant person. The stories of my Puritan and later, Quaker, ancestors taught me about the freedom of religion and its honored place in our American history. One ancestor signed the Flushing Remonstrance, the first North American document that prescribed religious tolerance and freedom of worship. I have a rich heritage to honor.

Let me also say that as a respecter of the rights of others to their respective religions, that I hope others would exert the same tolerance in my direction. I do not believe in the right of anyone to proselytize unless the recipient of the proselytizing has given consent.

At the age of five or six, I came to the conclusion that the bible stories I was being taught in Sunday school were really nice stories, with lessons to be learned from most of them. I did not, however, differentiate them from other stories, such as Aesop’s fables, or Grimm’s fairy tales. At the same time, I was reading a lot of mythological stories , such as the story of Pandora’s box, Beowulf, Perseus and the Gorgon, and so forth. I was enthralled with them all.

I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about in church. Why did the minister and Sunday school teacher confine themselves to just the biblical and Christian history stories (Luther, Calvin, etc.)? The other stories were valuable, too.

Eventually, all the talk of God and Jesus finally got through to me, and I understood the concept of divinity. There was something supernatural about many of these characters—as there was about the ones in the other stories. However, for some reason, the supernatural characters in the bible stories warranted worship, while the gods in the Greek and Norse tales were described as being only the amusing stories of primitive peoples.

Then there was the Catholic church in the next village. For some reason, it was located on a back street near the cemetery, out of sight. The protestant churches stood proudly on the main street. Somehow, the Catholics were something to be ashamed of. Children at school giggled when Catholic children couldn’t read the books the rest of us were reading, because they were on “the list.” Those Catholic children couldn’t even understand their minister, who they called a “priest,” because he conducted services in another language.

The Jewish family in the next village was well-liked, but their Jewishness set them somewhat apart (although, oddly enough, not as far apart as the Catholics).

I chewed on these thoughts for a long time—and still do. Why was it that our community had so many different groups: Baptists, Presbyterians, Jews, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Catholics, Dutch Reformeds, Methodists, Presbyterians? We even had a “Federated” (Presbyterians and Baptists) church and a “Union” church (Disciples of Christ and Dutch Reformed). How interesting it was that people were one or the other because their families were one or the other. Democrats and Republicans (the other local religions) didn’t necessarily have the same familial connection. Why was that?

What if you decided to be a Jew and were born a Presbyterian? Of course, no one I knew did anything like that. Catholics were what they were, and didn’t change. Protestants didn’t either.
It seemed interesting to me that an accident of birth determined one’s religious path for life. Since each denomination was convinced that their way was the right way, it was sort of unfair that the rest of the world was accidentally being led astray.

Who was right? Was anyone right? Did the Bible, or Aesop, or the Norse, or the Greeks, for that matter, have a lock on correctness? Were these the only answers? What was the question?

My conclusion was that religion is a feeble attempt to answer universal questions.
And, you may ask, what are those questions? Here is a list, by no means exhaustive:

1. Where did we come from?
2. Who/what is the creator of this universe?
3. Does this creator still exist?
4. Does this creator care about us?
5. Is this creator all powerful?
6. What can we do to appease this creator so that life here will be better?
7. What happens after we die?
8. What can we do to appease the creator so that “life” in the hereafter will be good?
9. Are we alone in the universe?
10. Are we really as insignificant in the universe as we seem to be?
11. Are we really as important in the universe as we seem to think we are?
12. Do any of these questions matter?

My cat has some questions, too:

1. When is dinner?
2. Where is it warm?
3. What is calculus?

Neither human beings nor cats can answer most of these questions. For the cat, dinner is when it’s there. There is no concept of specific times in a cat’s life. It’s warm where it’s warm. Calculus is beyond any cat’s ability to understand, and there is little point in any cat spending any time worrying about it.

For us, most of our questions are analogous to the cat’s calculus questions. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever find these answers, and it’s probably just a waste of time to try to answer them.
Astrophysicists, string theorists and particle geeks are exploring the where did we come from question, looking backward in time to the nanoseconds at the beginning of the Big Bang. Now they’re even trying to recreate some of it under the Alps in Switzerland. The closer they get to that very first nanosecond, the more the “laws” of physics don’t seem to apply. Things start to look like calculus does to my cat—incomprehensible.

Our world view has been developed by virtue of the environment in which we live. The “laws” of physics, the concepts of a “beginning” and a “creator”—these all exist because those concepts are part of our experience here in this part of the universe.

Our experience doesn’t really allow for a universe with no beginnings. We think we understand the concept of infinity, but that’s all it is—a concept. It’s difficult to comprehend a universe with no boundaries that just goes on forever. Even the physicists understand the idea only with the aid of complex mathematical constructions. What if the “laws” of mathematics break down at some point, as do the “laws” of physics?

Do we really have the ability to grasp the knowledge we seek?

I think not. To change my mind, convince me that my cat can learn calculus. We’re not ready for answers to these questions until we’ve evolved considerably further. We don’t even know the real questions yet.

Speaking of evolution, who do we think we are, anyway?

We’ve only been around a short time, 2 or 3 million years, perhaps, and already have fouled our nest. There’s no guarantee that we’re going to last much longer. Other species lasted hundreds of times longer than we’ve been here, and managed to become extinct through no fault of their own. Would a species so all-fired important in the scheme of things manage to extinct itself? To me, it sure looks like we’re on the way to accomplishing that.

Are we really certain that we’re the apex of evolution, and that planet earth’s highest achievement has been to grow the human race? Could we perhaps be only one more evolutionary step to the next species, or the next, or the next—and could we be just a very low rung on the evolutionary ladder?

It seems to me to be the height of egocentricity (anthropocentricity?) to assume that the human race is at the center of the universe. It took us a while to realize that the sun and stars don’t revolve around the earth. Eventually we may realize that we’re just another organism in an outlying district of an insignificant galaxy in the backwoods of an infinite universe—and that we’re really not all that important.

Our sole responsibility is to make our lives as comfortable as possible for one another while we’re here. The Golden Rule is a good ethical precept for us to follow. As Jerry Springer says, “Be good to one another.” The reward for good behavior will be right here and now, not later in some heaven.

If it turns out that I’m wrong, it won’t matter. I try to follow the golden rule, and do the best I can to be kind to my fellow man. If there is a heaven, I’ll probably get there. But I don’t worry about it. As Cleo Laine sings, “The least you can do is the best you can.”
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Now that I’ve laid the foundations about my (very strong) opinions, I’ll attempt to respond to the questions I've been asked about why I'm taking a class about Islam:

There is a lot of prejudice in the west about Islam. I think that may be because we don’t separate the cultural from the religious. We hear of a woman sentenced to death by stoning after she was raped and immediately, because it occurred in a Muslim country, attribute the cause of the atrocity to Islam.

Why is it that when we heard of the torture death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998 we didn’t blame Christianity?

Religion is most of the world is a part of a culture, but not all of it.

What I’ve learned about Islam, so far:

It is a continuation of the Judeo-Christian tradition. A series of prophets have been given revelations from god.

• Abraham established the idea of monotheism – one god, not many
• Moses was given the ten commandments
• Jesus taught us to love our neighbor
• Muhammed gave us the Qur’an, which tells us how to love our neighbot – a system of ethical behavior.

Islam does not believe Jesus is the son of god. They think we’re all the children of god and that god does not beget – he is way above that, and his ability to create is far and beyond mere begetting. He’s done more important things.

Islam has five “pillars:”

• There is one god, and Muhammed was his prophet
• Prayer – they tend to pray 5 times a day, but there’s not rule that you must – Muslims want to pray
• Charity – giving one-fortieth of all you possess (not just 10% of only your income)
• Observation of Ramadan
• Making a pilgrimage

The basic thing I’ve gleaned so far is that Islam permeates the lives of its adherents – being aware of god and being thankful/appreciative of his creation is something that Muslims try to be aware of all of the time.

The other basic thing that I’ve learned is that, as our professor said yesterday, god is a lot like Santa Claus. He’s “making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” The Judgement will come and the graves will open and we’ll be sent off to heaven or hell according to how we’ve lived our life.

Heaven is a place of gardens and cool streams, where Muslims will have “pure spouses.” The claptrap about the 12 virgins awaiting martyrs in heaven appears to be just that – claptrap.

Women were not enslaved by Islam. On the contrart, Muhammed’s revelations from god elevated the status of woman and put an end to the orgiastic polytheism of 7th century Arabia. Sex became restricted to marriage. Women were no longer property. Women could inherit. Divorce was possible, and women could initiate it. Motherhood was made valuable.

Obviously, I’m just beginning my exploration and there’s a lot more to learn.

Islam, like any religion, is practiced according to the interpretation of the faith by its followers. Fundamentalists are often pretty zealous (as in Orthodox Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, fundamentalist Islam). Don’t condemn the faith because of the misguided actions of some of its adherents.

More about Palin

What follows is an open letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska named Anne Kilkenny.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasor compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness.

Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
· “Hockey mom”: true for a few years

· “PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

· “NRA supporter”: absolutely true

· social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

· pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

· “Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

· “Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

· political maverick: not at all

· gutsy: absolutely!

· open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

· has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

· ”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

· fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

· pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

· pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

· pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.

· pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar.

For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

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Note: This letter has been verified on Snopes.com as being an actual letter written by Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qUVQDmLf7s