The Foundation for Pluralism
Studies in Religious Pluralism & Pluralistic Governance
WORKSHOPS - LECTURES - SEMINARS - CONFERENCES
email:
info@FoundationForPluralism.com
Updates,
Please click here for the most current articles
The Irony of
Intolerance
This is where germs of the conflicts can take root. The
belief that my way is the only way, the right way,
imbues arrogance in one’s self and causes one to believe
that other’s way is inferior, incomplete, deficit and
not really the right way. It would make me to look at
the other in a condescending way “man you are behind,
you need to come up” as if my belief is on par and every
one else’s’ is under par, thus not as valuable as my
own.
American Muslims and His Holiness Pope Benedict
I can understand the reluctance of Muslims to meet His
holiness Pope Benedict. It is based on three mis-spokes
within the last year. His words were not mitigators but
provocateur of conflicts and Muslims were not clear
about his intentions, they did not want to invite
themselves unless they were invited.
Illusions of an Islamic State
A majority of Muslims, like the majority of any group do
not prefer a religious government. 75% of Muslims live
in democracy, once given a clear choice that people can
understand, a majority of any people would prefer
democracy.
A religious passenger was asked to get off the plane
I hope you pass the test and see if your are prejudiced
or not. You have to ask yourselves as you read through
it, if you honest with yourselves. Enjoy it
Jesus,
everywhich way
I have expressed time and again the injustice done to
the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians have bottled
up his teachings by exclusively owning them, just as
Muslims have done with Muhammad or Hindus with Krishna
and similar stories go with the believers of different
faiths.It may not be wise to classify or claim the
teachings of Jesus as Christian; they are indeed for
every human.
Are these
laws wrong? Shall we scrap them?
Are these laws designed for general good of the society?
Are these laws imposed by a few on the others?
1. You cannot vote until you are 18 or 21
2. You cannot drive over 20 at School Zones
3. You cannot smoke in the public places
4. You cannot burn the flag of the United States
7. You cannot drink and drive
Christ
Consciousness
I believe religions do not claim exclusivity per-se; it
is the interpreter and the political man in us that
claims exclusivity. I have seen the arrogance of humans
ascribed to religion – my faith is the true faith,
oldest faith, open faith, non-dogmatic faith and other
adjectives. Isn’t that sheer arrogance? Isn’t that the
reason for conflict? Wasn’t one of the chief purposes of
religion was to bring humility and humbleness to us? I
believe spirituality and arrogance are inversely
proportional to each other.
33 Tips
to Personal Jihad
This piece is everything I have written in the last five
years, indeed, I must thank the writer for summarizing
it so well. This is who a Muslim is, and this is what
makes one a Muslim! I have expressed similar sentiments
over the years on the World Muslim Congress forum.
I ask you, the reader to recognize articles like this
and rate them. Highest rating would be Alhamdu Lillah.
Saudi
Arabia enters interfaith Dialogue
In
2005, a Saudi Minister visited Dallas and I was asked to
organized an interfaith dialogue. Being a pluralist I
resisted the idea of inviting the members of the
Abrahamic faiths, but agreed, as they agreed, that this
is the first step in their learning process to go from
known to unknown. We had 20 members comprising these
three faiths at the Crescent in uptown Dallas, I still
chose to represent all other faiths that were missing.
My commitment has been and will continue to to defend
the divinity of each beautiful faith. No one can get
away from me criticizing any religion. The meeting
was productive and it was a new experience to the
man.
The Islamic State
Main stream Muslims
do want democracy, and a nation where justice prevails.
They do not want the kind of Khilafat that is projected
by the Neocons “they are here to dominate and subjugate
others.” Absolute baloney! No significant group of
Muslims wants that. However, they do wish a Pope like
figure who can make small petty decisions and give
relief to apostates, rape victims, divorce and other
issues, but it ain’t going to happen.
Fitna
documentary, Geert Wilders, Muslims and the Qur'aan.
Those 14 verses have not only been misquoted for
millennia, but were mis-translated with the intent of
maligning Islam in the middle ages to protect the
European kings and their kingdoms. I have placed the
correct translations for him to take a look and
seriously think about becoming a peace maker and not a
provocateur.
Is Pope Benedict a peace maker or a Provacateur
Did Pope's conversion event on Easter, mitigate or
aggravate the conflict? With all due respect to his
holiness, his words have not been that of a peace maker.
There have been three incidents where his non-action or
silence would have been better. The revival of comments
made by the Emperor Constantine he delivered in Germany
irritated his counterparts in Muslim world, then
revising the prayer that was not kosher and now this.
What was the need to make the conversion on Easter?
Provoke?
Doomed
War on terra
I believe Bush and McCain will be failures on the war on
terra, they are conditioned to believe in one thing;
bomb, massacre and destroy and they surround themselves
with similar mentality. That puts us in peril in return,
and that policy will continue to multiply our enemies.
Obama, on the other hand will become the gutsiest of all
our presidents - he will face the bad guys and get them
to understand that we have the capacity to wipe them
out, but we are not going to do that, we are not
tyrants, we will work out solutions so all of us can
co-exists. Obama will do the right thing - he has truly
understood the teachings of Jesus, where as the others
have not.
Festivals of
April 2008 |
Glossary of
Festivals
We are pleased to provide
the Festivals calendar for the month of April 2008. If
your festival is not included, please send us the
details, we will include it.
Pope
Baptizes a Muslim on Easter- March 23, 2008
Alhamdu Lillahi, praise the lord, (الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ 1:2) he knows and he is aware of every
thing we do. He is the Malik-i-Yom-iddin, (مَـالِكِ
يَوْمِ الدِّينِ 1:4) master of the day of the judgment.
Muslims have several choices and need to evaluate the
consequence of each choice.
A
Catholic Church is Saudi Arabia- March 19. 2008
I have lost track of a Saudi minister who had asked me
to put together an interfaith meeting with about 20
people, comprising Jews, Christians and Muslims. I
fought with him to include all faiths, but finally
agreed to work in stages, from familiar to unfamiliar
ones. It was some where around 2005. I am pleased to see
at least a dialogue is emerging between Vatican and
Saudi's. Neighboring Dubai has just opened up a mega
church this month.
Harvard University and Muslim Students - March 21, 2008
Most of the conflicts stem from a fear of loss, or the
fear that some one is taking advantage of the situation.
In this case, a few at Harvard University feel that
Muslims students are having privileges like the
exclusive time given to Muslim women at gym, or the
Adhan, a prayer call. If these other students ask for
similar privileges and are denied, they have every right
to complaint, otherwise, the fear is baseless.
Is
Happiness pre-ordained? - March 22, 2008
It is consoling to the soul who is down and under "oh,
it was to be this way" and kind of accept the happenings
of life. It mitigates the suffering. As everything in
nature is planned - the DNA research is indicating that
the eyes, hair color, hair and a lot of elements of
physical body are programmed in the genes. Is what we do
and what we think is pre-planned as well? We can argue
both ways depending on the state of mind we are in.
Personally I believe we have the freedom to determine
where we go, what we do, if we do not put the required
effort, we may default to the position we are in.
Lahore, Pakistan Celebrates 4 Festivals - March 21, 2008
Happy Eid Milaad, Good friday, Easter, Holi and Navoroz.
It is such a delight to see this happening in Pakistan,
of course, they would say, it is nothing new. But good
news like this is usually not covered by the media. Mike
Ghouse
The Science
of Religion - March 19, 2008
BY THE standards of European scientific collaboration,
€2m ($3.1m) is not a huge sum. But it might be the start
of something that will challenge human perceptions of
reality at least as much as the billions being spent by
the European particle-physics laboratory (CERN) at
Geneva. The first task of CERN's new machine, the Large
Hadron Collider, which is due to open later this year,
will be to search for the Higgs boson—an object that has
been dubbed, with a certain amount of hyperbole, the God
particle. The €2m, by contrast, will be spent on the
search for God Himself—or, rather, for the biological
reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and
religion in general.
Atheist
Delusion:
Humans have always wondered about God, its existence and
its appearance. We go through the phase of being a
disbeliever, particularly when we cannot understand the
injustices to us and to the world around us. Many of us
have had the delusions about God as presented one time
or the other.
Is
death the end?
Death is not the end of life of the invisible soul that
is us, life continues. What happens to the injustices?
What happens to the good done to others in excess of
one's share of good? The Buddhists believe that the
essence of soul moves on an eternal trajectory, the
Hindus believe that the soul continues its journey
through different life forms and the Abrahamic faiths
lay it out, that there is a life after death and every
one will be accounted for the good, bad and ugly one has
done.
Was Jesus a
Buddhists?
Buddhists and Christians have sometimes, in a search for
common ground, pointed out some intriguing parallels
between the "life stories" of Jesus of Nazareth, the
Christ, and Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Jesus'
mother Mary was visited by a divine being, Gabriel, who
told her how she, a virgin, would conceive and give
birth to the divine Son of God
Muslim
Jewish Relationship:
Muslim leaders from around the world will issue a
statement to the world's Jewish Community in "a call for
positive and constructive action that aims to improve
Muslim - Jewish relations."
Terrorism is anti-Islamic, declares Islamic conference
of 10,000 Clerics
I am pleased to see this
statement aka Fatwa by one of the World's largest
Islamic learning centers. It is good to see the
establishment take action. I welcome this
wholeheartedly. Bush's war on terrorism is a dismal
failure because it does not target the individual
criminals who can be reached, accessed and punished.
Instead he blames the religion, which is intangible,
meaning cannot punish the religion, as it is not a
target, or gives birth to terrorists.
AMERICA
BRAGGING - A golden page in history of America.
It is time to start bragging
about America again. Let the world know that we are one
of the greatest nations when it comes to honoring and
respecting the God given uniqueness of each one of the
303,171,404
Americans.
We have made incredible
progress in civility and plurality in a very short
period of time.
International women's day - Gender Equality Now:
Justice is the basis for peace, be it between spouses,
family members, business partners, stockholders and
consumers, president and the public, minorities and
majorities, communities, nations or the globe. Whenever
one takes advantage of the other, the balance is lost
and the unit is crippled. In personal relationships, the
disadvantaged ones are waiting for the moment to get
even or get justice. It is the hope that keeps the life
moving forward.
Yes, we can bring
peace to Gaza:
Israel owes peace and security to her citizens and it is
directly dependent on the security and peace needs of the
Palestinians. You cannot live in peace, when your neighbor's
aren't. Finding a balance is the most difficult thing to do and
both the nations are trying and failing. No wonder the phrase
"love thy neighbor" plays such a crucial role in every society.
Pluralism Prayers in
Carrollton City Hall -
Hon.
Becky Miller, Mayor of City of Carrollton introduced
Mike Ghouse to do deliver the invocation at the
Carrollton City council - 7:00 PM, Tuesday, March 4,
2008.
Barack Obama,
Shepherd of our Nation
-
This
is the first time in our nation's history; some one is
speaking the needs, wants and voices of a majority of
the people. He is neither a right winger extremist, nor
a leftist but a moderate right down the middle embracing
and bringing every American together to participate and
contribute towards the success, safety and security of
America. (information about Rally on Sunday, March 4,
2008 between 4 and 7 Pm is included)
Obama
Party in Carrollton -
For the first time in our history, we have a candidate
who is representing you, me and every American; he is an
all inclusive pluralistic candidate. He has not fallen
trap to any exclusive ideas and as such, as a
Republican, I am going for Obama, if you wish to join,
please do so.
Islam
and Pluralism-
The
following article is drenched with Islam, however, if
you substitute
the
world Islam with the words like Atheist, Aztec, Bahai,
Buddhist, Christian, Falun Dafa, Hindu, Hopi, Jain,
Jewish, Oloriya, Sikh, Shinto, Tao, Wicca or
Zoroastrians, it will still holds good with a few
exceptions.
Petition to save Fawza
Falih -
Mike Mohamed
Ghouse, President of the World Muslim Congress was
disturbed that such a trivial item has consumed
international attention. "It should not have even taken
up the judicial time. Fawza Falih is a human being like
every one else and does not possess any such
super-natural powers to affect the lives of other human
beings, let alone cause one to be impotent. As Muslims,
we be
