Copyright © 2014 by Dylan Gangale
Dylan Gangale, Andromeda Gangale, and Tyr Gangale
Running With the Pack
24 November 2014
The Popular Music of the Space Age: CD 100 (2009)
Популярная мусыка космического веча:
CD 100 (2009 г.)
The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigor of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.
At present, the music collection of nearly 1500 tracks is organized chronologically into 100 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. Most of the music can be found online and downloaded free of charge. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.
This is music to fly to Mars by. If you listened to one hour every day, you would almost be there at the end of this collection!
CD 100
| Selection Title | Performer | Release Year | |
| 1 | Sleeping Satellite (Sam Vahedi and Swedish Egil mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 2 | Star Wars | Maynard Ferguson | 2009 |
| 3 | Lighter on the Moon | Nina Gordon | 2009 |
| 4 | Soyuz TMA-16 - Launch | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 5 | Star Trek: First Contact | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 6 | Fueling Dreams That We Are Not Alone | Poprocket feat. Jay Garrigan | 2009 |
| 7 | Космос Space | Рокерджолер Rockerjoker | 2009 |
| 8 | Sleeping Satellite (Kenneth Thomas remix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 9 | Star Trek: First Contact | unknown artist | 2009 |
| 10 | Ares 1-X - Launch | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 11 | To the Moon and Back (Kashtan Remix) | Savage Garden | 2011 |
| 12 | Космический raй Cosmic Ray | Сексуальная Лия Sexy Liya | 2009 |
| 13 | Fly Me to the Moon | Shane Cox | 2009 |
| 14 | Star Trek: Insurrection | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 15 | Космос (прелюд… и фуга d-moll И. С. Бах) Space (Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, J. S. Bach) | Скрипичный проект-Династия Treble Project - Dynasty | 2009 |
| 16 | Time of the Moon | Тату t.A.T.u. | 2009 |
| 17 | Космос Space | Тимати Timati | 2009 |
| 18 | Fly Me to the Moon | Willie Nelson | 2009 |
Epigram: On Genius
Often genius is unnoticed in its own time because it speaks to the future;
genius is as unmoved by the present as the present is insensible of genius.
genius is as unmoved by the present as the present is insensible of genius.
23 November 2014
The Rehabilitation of Bette Davis Tongilava
Copyright © 2014 by Dylan Gangale
The Kingdom of Tonga is not a very good place for dogs. They breed out of control, and Tongans wage a war of terror on them, throwing stones at them and visiting other cruelties on them. Tongans also eat dogs. Last year, when my friend Jack Daniel Fainga'a was killed and eaten, one of the perpetrators was brought to justice. After the court awarded us $2,000, a Tongan wrote:
"If you chose to love a dog in Tonga it's your problem because there's no respect for them and nice looking dogs deserve to be in an 'umu [a cooking pit]. I'm yet to find out who the judge was in this case because he needs to be able to see better than what he thought was right in the case of Jack. The fine was way too much. Jack's value was more than the biggest pig that anyone can buy in Tonga. That's a whole lot of bullshit. I will write the judge and make it known to him that that was a very unfounded valuation.
"Killing a dog to eat is no different from killing a rhino in Africa for their horns and cutting down virgin rain forest in South America to be able to feed the children and buy mosquito nets to prevent infections from malaria. You have plenty of meat in your fridge, we have none. A chance to take part in a dog hunt for bake is much appreciated for us."
The person who wrote this is standing for Parliament in the November 2014 election in Tonga.
Dylan Hunt Gangale and Jack Daniel "Siaki" Fainga'a
Naturally, dogs learn to fear and to hate humans at an early age, and they grow up to become "vicious" dogs. In turn, Tongans learn to fear and to hate dogs at an early age, and to perpetuate the cycle of violence. Every vicious dog was once a playful puppy who hoped to be loved and found hatred instead; a vicious dog is a good dog who has learned evil from humans. This is not good quality of life for either species. God intended better for both; if it is true that He did not mean for humans to know evil, this is certainly no less true of dogs.
Bette Davis Tongilava's wild-eye stare
"All the boys think she's a spy; she's got Bette Davis eyes."
Bette Davis Tongilava was probably born under the house in Fanga where I now live, probably in 2012. I think I know her mother by sight, but Lucy (in the Sky With Diamonds, named by Kalauta) Kupu is feral, although she became Jack's friend before he was eaten. Bette also grew up feral on busy Hala Taufa'ahau, living off of restaurant scraps and loaves cast away from the bakery, dodging cars to cross the road and dodging stones thrown at her out of fear or for sport. She learned to bark and lunge at people who menaced her. She lived in a war zone, and humans were the enemy. She wasn't too crazy about cats either; she often chased Rhade or me under the house or into the rafters.
Lucy Kupu
We are told that Bette's first litter was born and died under a nearby house before we moved to Fanga. After Jack's murder in April 2013, Lucy led Bette to our house, under which she gave birth to her second litter at the end of June. Rhade and I spent a lot of time with them. At eight weeks, four out of six died within two days from contaminated food that Bette had regurgitated for them. Peter and 'Ono rotted under the house, Grilka (the Toddling Targ) and Rex died in our house despite our best efforts to save them, and two survived: Jadzia Dax Tongilava and Denzel Washington Tongilava live with us to this day.
Bette Davis Tongilava and the Sixpack (second litter)
Dylan Hunt Gangale and Geharis Telemachus Rhade Fainga'a guarding the Sixpack
Jadzia Dax, Denzel Washington, and Bette Davis
Geharis Telemachus Rhade, Jadzia Dax, Denzel Washington, and Dylan Hunt
Denzel Washington and Bette Davis
Bette remained elusive while we raised Denzel and Jadzia, diving under the house when she caught humans looking at her, but when she developed an eye infection, she allowed the humans to bring her into the house for short periods to treat her eye. A few months later they cared for her again when she developed a swelling under her jaw. She saw Jadzia and Denzel enter and leave the house freely, she saw that it was a place where she would be fed, and in the course of a few months she went from eating outside the kitchen to eating just inside the kitchen door. When her third litter emerged from under the house at Christmas in 2013, Bette had no objection to the humans gathering them up to take into our bedroom, where the puppies would play on the bed for a time and then sleep. Bette whined outside the door when she wanted to feed them, and the humans would carry them out to her. After a few weeks they were quite capable of motoring around on their own. Ezri Dax Tongilava and Marie Curie Tongilava ventured into the road and were killed. Blaise Pascal Tongilava went to a family in Fasi related to the Tongilavas, and Shorty Rogers Tongilava and Rex 'Ua Tongilava live with the Fainga'a family in Longolongo.
M is for Mohe (Tongan for "sleep")
Bette's Third Litter
Over time Bette became more trusting and ventured deeper inside our house; after all, her children Jadzia and Denzel, now fully grown, came and went as they pleased; but Bette ran out of the house when she thought that a human was coming between her and the open door. In fact, they closed off her escape a few times, which made her frantic and miserable for a time, and then they would let her leave. In time Bette was as free about the house as her children were. Rhade adapted to these changes better than I did; having Bette around the House set my nerves on edge.
Bette now takes long walks around Fanga on a leash along with her children Denzel, Jadzia, and Roxanne. They are the Tongilava Pack. It has become too dangerous for them roam freely as their ancestors once did. Denzel nearly lost a leg when he was hit by a car earlier this year, and in October we had an incident with a drunken and unruly Saturday evening crowd in the field adjacent to our house. Young men threw stones, there were allegations of a child being bitten, the police arrived to restore order…. The Tongilava Pack, which for many generations had free run in Fanga in its quieter days, now languishes on chains on the veranda by day. It's not as bad as it sounds; they are together, they are safe, they are loved, and a human sits with them all day long to keep them company and to keep them watered. They look forward to long walks together, in the safety of their numbers, through the neighborhood of hostile humans and some who are friendly. When they are let into the house at twilight, Bette is the first one to run to the bedroom, as though she expects to be served bonbons in bed.
At night the four of them sleep on the bed along with my cat sister Nie Haisheng Fainga'a, and on especially cool nights I will join them as well. I will admit that I am still wary of Bette. She barks aggressively at humans whom she doesn't know well, and she may present a danger to small children. She still chases me, and I will always suspect her of having killed my brother Rhade, but I believe that it was an accident. In my view, she is, to use Khan Noonien Singh's phrase, "not quite domesticated." Her journey was filled with fear before it was enriched with tenderness, and I don't imagine that she will ever forget her lonely and unloved past in the war zone.
Haisheng dining with the third litter
We expect that Roxanne, who is now five months old, will soon go to live in Kolomotu'a with a first cousin of the King, where she will carry on the line of the Tongilava Pack. Her grandmother Lucy, who was Jack Daniel Fainga'a's White Goddess of the Night, has not been seen for several months now. We don't know what other dogs in Fanga are either the cousins or the progeny of Lucy Kupu, but we go out and walk among them every few days, we befriend them by imperceptible increments, and some of them come to visit us at Koe Fale 'Oku 'Ikai Ha Taha Ke Tolo Maka Ki Ai, The House Where No Stone Is Thrown.
The Films of Dylan Gangale: The Brat Pack
Copyright © 2014 by Dylan Gangale
Andromeda Gangale, Tyr Gangale, and Dylan Gangale
I think I dropped it somewhere around here....
The Popular Music of the Space Age: CD 99 (2009)
Популярная мусыка космического веча:
CD 99 (2009 г.)
The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigor of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.
At present, the music collection of nearly 1500 tracks is organized chronologically into 100 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. Most of the music can be found online and downloaded free of charge. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.
This is music to fly to Mars by. If you listened to one hour every day, you would almost be there at the end of this collection!
CD 99
| Selection Title | Performer | Release Year | |
| 1 | Sleeping Satellite (Robert Vadney's blamed remix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 2 | Star Trek: Locutus of Borg | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 3 | Blast Off | Higher Hands | 2009 |
| 4 | Баллада о космонавтах Ballad About the Cosmonauts | Конец фильма End of the Movie | 2009 |
| 5 | Star Trek: The Inner Light | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 6 | Космос Space | КремЛ KremL | 2009 |
| 7 | Fly Me to the Moon | Linda Chung | 2009 |
| 8 | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 9 | Soyuz TMA-15 - Docking With ISS | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 10 | Leaving For Mars (B. Rich remix 128) | Lea Luna | 2009 |
| 11 | Star Trek: Generations | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 12 | Космонавтам To the Cosmonauts | Легендарные пластилиновые ноги Legendary Plasticine Feet | 2009 |
| 13 | Fly Me to the Moon | Lisa Ono | 2009 |
| 14 | Sleeping Satellite (André Tollenaar edit) | Scribble Tunes | 2009 |
| 15 | Of Dreams and Orbit | LuIzA | 2009 |
| 16 | Star Trek: Voyager | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 17 | Ты мне веришь или нет? [к-ф Большое космическое путешествие] Do You Believe Me or Not? [Grand Space Travel] | Людмила Берлинская и Игорь Капитанников Lyudmila Berlinskaya and Igor' Kapitannikov | 2009 |
| 18 | Космонавт Cosmonaut | Манго-Манго против Dj Карась Mango-Mango vs. Dj Karas' | 2009 |
| 19 | Частушки о космонавтах Ditties About the Cosmonauts | Мария Глубокова, Оренбургский государственный русский народный хор, Ю. Григорьев и В. Kochugurov баяны Maria Glubokova, Orenburg State Russian Folk Choir, Y. Grigoriev and B. Kochugurov button accordions | 2009 |
| 20 | Star Trek | Project: Pimento | 2009 |
Simple Islam: Islam Without Hadith
As Quran predicts, the religion is divided into multiple branches [1] and each branch is under the impression that it is the true one. Each of you, the readers of this article, belongs to one of these different branches and probably very certain about the genuineness of the method practiced by your branch. Probably the Elders of your branch have taught you that only the followers of your branch--who essentially follow the Elders’ commands--will be awarded with redemption and the others will be barbecued in a dreadful fire. They will scare you about hell and tell you that worshipping the God is the way of salvation and that they are the only reference for how to worship--like God would have whispered into their ears all the details of worshipping. Probably the Elders of your branch have prepared a whole library of arguments that why you should refer only to them for every single detail of worshiping, and why the method of worshipping is so complicated, difficult, and beyond the comprehension of the general public, and only the people who have spent years in studying this complex approach and have become one of the Elders could tell how to be a servant of God.
The intention of this article is neither questioning the validity of your particular branch nor creating yet another one. The audience of this article is a muslim who loves his religion, is afraid of the fire, but is also fed up with blindly following the Elders of his branch. In this article, we explain a view of Islam which is simple enough to be understandable for all the muslims. Each muslim will be both the decider for his/her deeds and responsible for them. There is no need for Elders nor their complicated package of becoming one. It is eventually your call that whether the benefits of this Simple Islam outweigh its disadvantages or not.
In the rest, we first introduce Simple Islam, which is based on Quran and not the Hadith. We then present our arguments for adopting Simple Islam. We then explain the advantages and disadvantages of eliminating Hadith from the religious practice. The conclusion at the end is on the reader.
1. Simple Islam
Simple Islam is based on three principles: belief in God, the judgment day, and the holy Quran that is brought by Muhammad. Muslim is a person who believes in these three principles, study Quran, and use that to improve his/her understanding of an ideal human being. A muslim makes his/her life decisions in a way to get him closer to an ideal human.
2. Why Simple?
As much as Simple Islam emphasizes on Quran, it ignores Hadith. The primary reason is that Quran is the miracle of the God and its text is reliable. To believe that the book we are reading now is the same as Quran that descended on Muhammad, we do not need to trust our ancestors from whom we inherited the text: each muslim in any century can read the text and decide whether he/she finds it miraculous or not. Hadith, on the other hand, is just a collection of sentences attributed to the prophet and hence is essentially part of the history, and the reliability of the details of the history is always questionable. To trust Hadith, we have to trust the honesty of the people who carried them over the centuries and also to trust the skills of the Hadith historians, also known as religious Elders or scholars. A muslim in Simple Islam needs to read only a book (Quran) which requires a reasonable amount of time, affordable by every muslim. On the other hand, in the current branches learning Hadith and its dependent skills requires years of studying, which in practice leaves Islam in the hands of a small group called religious Elders, unreachable for the general public. The public thus has no choice but blindly following the Elders in the name of worshipping the God.
2. Advantages of Simple Islam
The main advantage of Simple Islam is its simplicity. A simple religion is less susceptible to deviation along the history, is reachable by the general public, is more difficult to be abused by the opportunist of the society to confuse the public and trick them into following their wishes in the name of worshipping the God.
Second, with ignoring Hadith, Islam gets separated from the history of Islam--or in better words the history of muslims. It then becomes possible to firmly defend Islam in the 21st century without needing to defend even a moment of history of muslims and what they did in the past: from neglecting women rights to attacking the other countries with the excuse of spreading Islam. Most of the criticisms of Islam are actually criticisms of the way of muslims in the past centuries and not of the principles of Islam.
Third, the muslims practicing Simple Islam get rid of unreasonable laws that originally come from Hadith and is later attributed to Islam using many tricks. For example, if not all, most of the Elders believe in Apostasy: killing the unfortunate person who converts from Islam. This rule has been leveraged by the Elders in the history to threaten or eliminate the free thinkers such as Avicenna. For any person of understanding, this rule sounds ridiculous since if other religions also apply the same rule then nobody could ever convert to Islam either. Nothing is more cheerful for a muslim practicing Simple Islam than the fact that this rule as well as rules similar to it are inconsistent with Quran and have roots in nothing but the unreliable, shaky sands of Hadith.
Forth, the Elders can no more abuse the fear of the fire to make the people follow their commands, which are sometimes hilarious. Currently there are muslims that being afraid of hell do not allow their pictures to be taken because an Elder has issued a fatwa that taking pictures is sinful. As another example, not long time ago some Elders issued a fatwa that said using Videocassette recorder device is sinful, which was later taken back quietly.
Fifth, by centering the religion upon Quran, muslims can realize the importance of rules and principles based on the emphasis on them in Quran: the fact that in Quran hundreds of verses are warning about polytheism and only one verse remotely refers to hijab, the fact that Quran many times warns about the rights of orphans and never talks about pilgrimage to tombs, and many other examples.
Sixth, currently ordinary muslims either do not regularly read Quran, or if they do they have been scared of interpreting it as the Elders consider interpreting Quran a very complicated science that only them, i.e., scholars, are authorized to do so and the rest of muslim must just take whatever interpretation that the scholars offer. Nevertheless, comprehending the words of God beside science requires a pure heart which is a rare quality in the way of Elders. By eliminating the Elders from the religious practice, each muslim can directly communicate with the God through Quran without passing the intermediary channel of the Elders.
3. Disadvantages of Simple Islam
The first criticism of Simple Islam is that it is overly simple. Simple Islam does not get into the complicated details of prayer and its attachments such as the rules about doubts in the number of performed movement during the prayer and the rules about approved body cleanness for praying. This is in sharp contrast to the current practiced Islam, where these details are the majority. In the current branches of Islam, an ideal human is described as a person who learns the details of the religious traditions as taught by the Elders and performs them exactly. However, it is not explained that how such level of details would help the person to reach redemption. In fact, this question is never raised in the first place because the Elders consider even the smallest detail of their prescribed tradition as the direct command from the God.
In Simple Islam, the only reference for the patterns of the ideal human is Quran. Quran's guidance is used to find what leads people towards the ideal human and thus redemption. The fact that Quran emphasizes for hundreds of times on establishing prayer and not on its details leads to understanding that the important thing in Quran's view is establishing prayer itself and its details are left to be implemented by the people of different eras and cultures. There is no doubt that consistency of the established prayer with the prayer of the accompanying muslims as well as its similarity to the prayer of the pioneers of perfection such as Muhammad is an adornment for the held prayer. However its details are not the key to redemption and is left to be implemented based on the requirements of the time and the place.
The approval of this method comes from Quran itself when it commands the muslims who are living at the time of Quran's descendent not to ask for the details that are not revealed because otherwise implementing such details in the same exact way becomes mandatory [2]. When people disobeyed this command and did ask for details [3,4,5,6], we witness the most boring details about inheritance, etc. The Simple Islam's understanding, which is consistent with Quran, is that the God has descended Quran for the general guidelines in the religion and the details are left to the people of each time and place to implement them based on their culture and their understanding of the world.
The other criticism to Simple Islam is that by leaving the details to individuals, there will be an opportunity for inciting self (i.e., the devil inside) to interfere. In this way, the inciting self leads the muslim to implementing details that are more convenient or are fulfilling the evil desires. In response, it is worth reminding that the inciting self has thousands of ways to get into the surface and for interference with a person's judgment it could make use of the tiniest peepholes. Opening or closing a gate does not affect the very existence of the inciting self. Even though, a muslim could express his/her understanding of a good implementation of details and share it with the peers, whose feedback can help revealing the level of interference of the inciting self.
Summary
In this article, we introduced Simple Islam which is based on Quran instead of Hadith. We showed that eliminating Hadith leads to eliminating the Elders from the religious practice and frees muslims from the serfdom of their local Elders. Many of the unreasonable rules that are hanging from the wounded body of Islam (such as Apostasy) will be automatically disappear since such irrational interpretations are stemmed either from Hadith or the not-so-much-defendable history of muslims.
Notes
Simple Islam: Islam Without Extremists
اسلام بدون روحانیت
Simple Islam: Belief vs. Trust
یمان یا اعتماد
Criticisms of Simple Islam
دلایل قرآنی منتقدین اسلام ساده
22 November 2014
The Films of Dylan Gangale: The Brat Pack
The Popular Music of the Space Age: CD 98 (2009)
Популярная мусыка космического веча:
CD 98 (2009 г.)
The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigor of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.
At present, the music collection of nearly 1500 tracks is organized chronologically into 100 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. Most of the music can be found online and downloaded free of charge. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.
This is music to fly to Mars by. If you listened to one hour every day, you would almost be there at the end of this collection!
CD 98
| Selection Title | Performer | Release Year | |
| 1 | Sleeping Satellite (Liam Shachar mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 2 | Imperial March (live) | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 3 | Когда Сатурн и Марс будут одинаково гореть When Saturn and Mars Will Have the Same Glow | Dj Артем КЛимоФФ Dj Artem KLimoFF | 2009 |
| 4 | To the Moon and Back (Girl Voice Remix) | DJ Rich-Art | 2009 |
| 5 | Star Trek: The Final Frontier | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 6 | Soyuz TMA-14 - Docking With ISS | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 7 | Space Harrier | Dokmatik | 2009 |
| 8 | Space Mission | Dr. Vector | 2009 |
| 9 | Star Trek | Jaysuess | 2009 |
| 10 | Юпитер Jupiter | ДЖАзовый DZhAzovyj | 2009 |
| 11 | Tranquility Base | Eric Brace | 2009 |
| 12 | Sleeping Satellite (Nat Monday mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 13 | The Moon's a Window to Heaven | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 14 | STS-125 - Grappling Hubble | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 15 | Сквозь космос Through Space | Грани Синтеза Grani Sinteza | 2009 |
| 16 | Звездная песня неба Starry Sky Song | Иля Бычков Ilya Bychkov | 2009 |
| 17 | Armstrong | John Stewart | 2009 |
21 November 2014
Simple Islam: Belief vs. Trust
"All you need is faith and trust!"
--Peter Pan, the comic character
Belief or Trust: which is the foundation of religion?
Belief and trust in the current understanding of religion are synonym terms upon which the entire religious view is built. In the current understanding of religion, there are always some notions, rules, and rituals that cannot be explained rationally and the religious person is expected to blindly swallow them with the added flavor of belief and trust. This characteristic is so much highlighted in the current understandings of religion that the critics of religion view religious people as unreasonable people who completely abandon rational thinking and blindly follow a religious package composed of concepts, rules, and rituals.
In this article, we do not want to deny the existence of the element of "acceptance without proof" in a sane religious view. Nevertheless, we think that this acceptance--which we know it as belief or faith--in religion must be limited to a few items and its extension to a large set of rules and rituals (i.e., religious package), stems from another element called trust. In this article, we explain that trust not only is not something upon which the religion is founded, but also in some cases it is indeed the very same corrupted element that religion rose to confront it.
In the rest, we define each of the terms "belief" and "trust" in the context of religion and inspect their trace in Islam, as one of the major religions of our time.
Interchangeability of the notions belief and trust in the current culture is so deep that it has even influenced the way dictionaries describe these terms:
belief: the feeling that something is good and can be trusted
trust: a strong belief in the honesty, goodness etc of someone or something:
Belief
In the core of each religious method, there is unprovable element that the religious person is expected to "believe" in it [7:75, 7:76]. This unprovable element not only is not a weak point for religion but also resembles the live spirit of the religion without which being religious degrades from a heavenly state centered around the man's free will to an earthly, dead body of predetermined reactions. If the religious principles were all provable, then the very lively religious excitement powered by the love for the God [3:31], would be replaced by a collection of spiritless, rational rules that leave humans no choice but following them [36:11].
Nevertheless, the religious people along the history usually considered "belief" or "faith" as the down side of their lifestyle and would commission an army of philosophers and scientists to invent "arguments" for rationalizing the foundations of their religious view. We can still find traces of these continuous efforts in the many existing arguments for existence of God such as the theological argument. What is interesting is that there is not much evidence these so-called arguments have "convinced" the people outside the religious circle about the correctness of the religious view. It rather seems that the actual target audience of these arguments were the people inside the religious circle to have the next generation accept the religious culture the same way it is offered to them.
This fear from unprovability grows to an extent that the religious people would not even dare to question the soundness of these so-called arguments. For example, when the great scientist and philosopher Avicenna announces that even though he believes in the judgement day, he cannot prove its existence, he is threatened with Apostasy and hence death.
In the foundation of every religious school of thought, there are two unprovable principles: existence of God and the judgment day; i.e., there is an intelligent creator behind the world that will reward/punish us based on our deeds. There is no rational proof for any of these two principles and the religious person is expected to "believe" in them and--under the influence of this belief-- to stay away from wrongdoings [10:63, 12:57] and pursue right deeds [2:82]. The belief in these two principles, however, do not demand from him/her following any particular ritual or person.
Although the two principles of the God (the creator) and the judgement day are the essential basis for any religious school of thought, different branches of religion have also other principles to answer the following questions:
The answers offered by various branches of religion to these questions are different, but they can be abstracted into the principle of "the message". The message principle is to believe in a conversation between the creator and a few of the selected creatures at some point in the past. The message in general includes: (i) a model of the relation between the creator and the creature, (ii) reminding the creature about the main purpose of creation, (iii) describing a model of an ideal creature, and (vi) samples of the correct and incorrect implementations of that model in some particular periods of time.Whether the creator has sent such message to that particular creature or not, and also how close is the text that we are reading to that sent message is not provable and the religious person based on his/her own religious beliefs decides on the relation between the present text and the original message. For example, in the religious approach of Islam, the religious person believes that one of the 14 versions of Quran is the same as the message that was descent to a person named Mohammad. Although this belief is strengthened after studying Quran and finding it not similar to any other texts on earth, similarly to the two principles of the God and the judgement day, it is not provable [3:75].
Trust
As we explained in the previous section, "belief" (or "faith") means accepting the existence of the creator and the judgement day without any proof. The belief calls the religious person to stay away from evil [10:63,12:57] and to endeavor for good deeds [2:82]. Nevertheless it does not specify which deed exactly is good and which is evil. The practical question in the daily life is that what "concrete" deeds are the implementation of "abstract" notions of good and evil in each separate situation. In this article, we are not giving an answer to this difficult question. The author's position is that there is no unique answer to this question; sometimes harmony with the symphony of creation leads human to finding the right way, as the very same approach had led many of the prophets to separate their path from the wrong going of their people. Sometimes following the already guided ones helps understanding the correct path, as many people living at the time of the prophet were benefiting from companionship of the prophet [3:31, 20:90]. And sometimes reading the previously revealed messages and trying to comprehend the model of the ideal being explained in them can be helpful [2:2, 39:17, 39:18].Instead of giving a vague and perhaps incomplete answer to this difficult question, in this section we analyze the answers that the religious people have adopted and show how these answers have led to the inception of the notion of trust in religious schools of thought.
A) The divine connection
One possible answer that many of religious branches have adopted is that telling right from wrong can be achieved via a divine, non-verbal connection with the creator. In this view, the divine person due to purity of his/her heart and its proximity to the source of truth can feel the evil nature of the wrong deeds and stay away from them. The main problem is that even though an ordinary religious person cannot reject the possibility of such a connection, he/she knows well that in practice he/she is far from such level of divine connection and pretending to that would be nothing more than a deception. What eventually will emerge in such a religious society is a majority of non-divine, ordinary people who are seeking the right path and a minority of divine people who "claim" having reached to such level of divinity that they can feel the right path. What facilitates the transaction between these two groups is an element called "trust": the majority of ordinary religious people can trust the divinity as well as the honesty of the minority group of divine people--to which we refer to as the Elders--and ask them about the correctness of their deeds. Among the groups that have implemented some version of this approach, we can name Catholicism, which is built upon trusting the honesty and divinity of the church.
B) Sample-mining
Recall that in the message principle the religious person believes in samples of incarnation of good and bad deeds in the past cherry picked by the creator and included in the revealed message. Believing the authenticity of these samples can guide the religious person to a better understanding of the difference between good and bad in his own time and life conditions. This guidance however due to the samples being few is limited to some general hints and hence does not satisfy the desire of the ordinary religious person of having a convenient religious practice that tells the exact commands of what to do and what not to do [38:6]. The first step in the religious view based on sample-mining is increasing the number of samples. For example, the Judaism gathers samples of the history of its nation in some thick books and keep them beside the original message, Torah. In Islam also a large volume of the historical stories of the conversations between the prophet and the people around him are gathered and maintained under the name Hadith. Depends on the branch, some also expand the Hadith collection with samples of stories from the prophet's companions or his family.
The gathered samples can then be turned into religious rules. For example, if there is a sample implying that over a thousand years ago the companions of the prophet were avoiding a particular type of food, this sample could turn into a general religious rule that considers this type of food evil. The obvious problem of this approach is that the process of making general rules from samples is not well founded. That aside, the second problem, which is the subject of this article, is that no matter how many of such samples we gather, they cannot cover the infinite number of situations that religious people face in different times and places. As an extreme example, although the evilness of the unforgivable act of murdering a child is clear to everybody, in some special cases it was considered the deed that has pleased the God. One-to-one mapping of the infinite situations that a religious person could be located in to a bounded set of religious rules is an unachievable dream.
The employed solution is creating new propositions by combining two or more of the original rules, which doubles the complexity of the religious practice to the extent that applying such a complex practice becomes impossible for ordinary religious people. At this point, "trust" enters the culture of this religious school of thought: here trust means accepting the honesty and expertise of a small group of the religious community for knowing the implementation of good and evil in the daily life. In this approach, a small group--to which we refer as the Elders--devote their life to data mining in the previous rules and samples, i.e., sample-mining; the ordinary religious people try to cast their particular situations in the form of questions and ask them from the religious Elders; the Elder look into repository of samples as well as previously generated rules and generate a new one: do this or do not do that. The ordinary religious person needs to trust the expertise and honesty of the Elder to be able to execute the issued order in the name of the God.
C) Religion + Trust
The primary problem of adding the element of trust to the religious culture is that the follower is not equipped with any tool with which he can verify the correctness of the rules produced by the Elders. If a rule does not conform with rationale the religious person cannot simply reject it since he/she is told that the God's commands are not supposed to justified. An ideal religious person is pictured as the one who executes the God's commands with no questions asked. Thus, if a rule produced by an Elder does not conform with what his/her heart tells him/her, rationale, the message, or the spirit of the religion, the religious person cannot tell whether the rule being unnatural comes from the Elder's mistake in producing it or from the flawed understanding of the religious person of his/her own nature. The only choice of the religious person is to trust, either the expertise and honesty of the Elder or his/her divinity.
For a religious person born inside the religious culture that is mixed with trust, is difficult admitting the un-religious nature of trust as it constitutes the majority of the content of the religion he/she has practiced. For example, as much as religious people outside the Catholic circle view trusting the church as an awkward attachment to the original Christianity, the followers of Catholicism view it as the absolute view for salvation.
D) Religion # Trust
We can consider trust as the first mistake in the history of religion when Adam trusted the oath of Satan [7:21] and ate from the fruits of the forbidden tree. Ever since the same element of trust has been merging into the religious cultures, with new names and under new covers. By reviewing the history of the current religious branches one can vividly observe the depth of the damage inflicted on religion after getting mixed with the poisonous element of trust. To keep the abstract notions explained in this article far away from the disagreements about historical events, we leave the review of the relevant history to the reader. We just advise the reader to investigate the damages inflicted by trust in a religious culture other than that of the reader's, so that prejudice of his/her own religious culture would not prevent him/her from free thinking. Instead in this section, using the verses from Quran we show that trust is one of the monsters that religion had risen against. However, trust in our era instead of standing against religion in a face-to-face combat, has merged into its soul and has become part of its identity.
In the rest, by emphasizing on verses from Quran, we explain the author's understanding of the correct religious view in Quran and show that how Quran refers to the dark notion of trust--which has become a holy word in the current religious culture--and describe it as the root of some deviations in religion.
In Quran's view, people who love the creator will reach the ideal destiny [3:31].
Say, [O Muhammad], "If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful." (31)
And the ones whose heart are not completely devoted to the God will end up in the incorrect path of following a special group of people, whom we can translate as the Elders [33:67].
And [yet], among the people are those who take other than Allah as equals [to Him]. They love them as they [should] love Allah. But those who believe are stronger in love for Allah. And if only they who have wronged would consider [that] when they see the punishment, [they will be certain] that all power belongs to Allah and that Allah is severe in punishment. (165)
And they will say, "Our Lord, indeed we obeyed our masters and our dignitaries, and they led us astray from the [right] way. (67)
Following the Elders will led people to apply the deviated religious culture of their local community.
And when it is said to them, "Follow what Allah has revealed," they say, "Rather, we will follow that which we found our fathers doing." Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided? (170)
And when it is said to them, "Follow what Allah has revealed," they say, "Rather, we will follow that upon which we found our fathers." Even if Satan was inviting them to the punishment of the Blaze? (21)
In fact along the history of religion the Elders have been a primary obstacle for proper reception of the message by ordinary people. Quran mentions some samples [38:6, 7:75, 7:90] that the Elders resist the message of the God and invite their followers to follow the incorrect religious culture of their community.
And the eminent among them went forth, [saying], "Continue, and be patient over [the defense of] your gods. Indeed, this is a thing intended. (6)
The leading men of his people who were bent on denying the truth, said, "If you follow Shu'ayb, you will certainly be the losers." (90)
Said the eminent ones who were arrogant among his people to those who were oppressed - to those who believed among them, "Do you [actually] know that Salih is sent from his Lord?" They said, "Indeed we, in that with which he was sent, are believers." (75) Said those who were arrogant, "Indeed we, in that which you have believed, are disbelievers." (76)
In several occasions [2:166, 34:31, 14:21] Quran foretells events in the judgement day that the misled followers will hold the Elders responsible for them having lost the right path.
When they face their punishment, those who have been followed will disown their followers, and all their ties shall be cut asunder, (166) those who followed will say, "If we could only return to the world, we would disown them as they have disowned us." God will thus show them their actions as a cause of bitter regret and remorse. They shall never emerge from the Fire. (167)
Those who deny the truth say, "We shall believe neither in this scripture nor in [any] that [came] before it." Could you but see when the wrongdoers will be made to stand before their Lord, casting blame on one another! Those who had been weak will say to the arrogant ones, "Had it not been for you, we should certainly have been believers!" (31) The haughty ones will then reply to the weak ones, "Did we keep you away from the guidance when it came to you? Indeed not. You yourselves were the guilty ones." (32) Those deemed weak will say to those deemed great, "No, it was your scheming night and day when you commanded us to reject God and assign equals to Him." But they will show their remorse when they see the punishment. We will put iron collars round the necks of those who had been bent on denying the truth. They will be requited only in proportion to their misdeeds. (33)
They shall all appear before God and the weak will say to those who behaved proudly, "We were your followers. Can you protect us from God's punishment?" They will reply, "Had God given us guidance, we would have guided you. It is all the same whether we are patient or impatient; there is no escape for us." (21)
There are examples in Quran that shows that the misled followers were among the believers who were in fact religious, but trusting the Elders led them to an invalid religion [38:6, 34:31, 31:21].
And the eminent among them went forth, [saying], "Continue, and be patient over [the defense of] your gods. Indeed, this is a thing intended. (6)
… Those who had been weak will say to the arrogant ones, "Had it not been for you, we should certainly have been believers!" (31) ... (32) Those deemed weak will say to those deemed great, "No, it was your scheming night and day when you commanded us to reject God and assign equals to Him."
But they will show their remorse when they see the punishment. We will put iron collars round the necks of those who had been bent on denying the truth. They will be requited only in proportion to their misdeeds. (33)
When they are told to follow the [Revelations] that God has sent down, they say, "No, we shall follow the ways that we found our fathers [following]." Yes! Even though Satan is inviting them to the punishment of the burning Fire? (21)
Thus the Elders who were blocking the guidance from reaching people were not from outside the religious community--as mistakenly assumed. Quite the opposite, the Elders were actually the pioneers of the religious culture--which was deviated from the original, correct religion--to the extent that they produce direct rules for their followers stating that what the God wants them to do (this is a thing intended. (6)) and what not to do.
Appendix I: Glossary
To avoid confusion, we redefine the terms that are used in this article.
Message: the content of the communication of the creator with a chosen creature in the past. The message was indented to be heard by people in future to be their guide. As far as people in the current century are concerned, the creature who has received the message is not alive anymore and thus there is no way to receive the message directly from him. The message could have been preserved in the written form by ordinary people subject to mistake. Among the revealed messages that are currently available in the written form, all but Quran are scientifically proven to have changed from the original version. The absolute majority of historians believe in the same version of Quran--the differences are at the level of vowels. Quran claims that it is a miraculous book and people can verify this claim by trying to being a chapter like Quran's. The belief that Quran as the book that we read is the same as the message that was revealed long time ago, thus, does not require trusting the intermediary individuals along the history.
Messenger: the chosen person that the message is revealed to him in the oral form and he repeat what he has heard to people around him. The is no alive messenger at our time.
The Elders: the ordinary people that at the time that the messengers are absent take the control of religion and define themselves as the necessary hub for understanding religion. The way the elders make their position legitimate is either by claiming a divine spirit or by attaching a complex literature to the religion (such as Hadith) and claiming mastership in that literature (such as scholars).
Criticisms of Simple Islam
The Films of Dylan Gangale: So Outrageous!
The Popular Music of the Space Age: CD 97 (2009)
Популярная мусыка космического веча:
CD 97 (2009 г.)
The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigor of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.
At present, the music collection of nearly 1500 tracks is organized chronologically into 100 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. Most of the music can be found online and downloaded free of charge. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.
This is music to fly to Mars by. If you listened to one hour every day, you would almost be there at the end of this collection!
CD 97
| Selection Title | Performer | Release Year | |
| 1 | Sleeping Satellite (club mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 2 | Star Trek: The Original Series (live) | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 3 | Космическая река The Space River | неизвестный исполнитель unknown artist | 2009 |
| 4 | Outer Space | Ace Frehley | 2009 |
| 5 | Sleeping Satellite (downtempo club mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 6 | Two Thousand One: A Space Odyssey (live) | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 7 | Lunar Mansions | Alps | 2009 |
| 8 | STS-119 - Hatch Open Ceremony | Mission Audio | 2009 |
| 9 | Star Trek: The Motion Picture | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 10 | Космический сон Space Dream | Андрей Филиппов Andrej Filippov | 2009 |
| 11 | Галактика Galaxy | Баинтермикс Baintermix | 2009 |
| 12 | Sleeping Satellite (uptempo club mix) | Jan Johnston | 2009 |
| 13 | Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan | Marcos Kleine Project | 2009 |
| 14 | Saturn in the Summertime | Barry Adamson | 2009 |
| 15 | Космос, приём! Space, Welcome! | Борис Апрел Boris Aprel | 2009 |
| 16 | Юпитер Jupiter | Дети Индиго Indigo Children | 2009 |
20 November 2014
Gangale Studios Publicity Photos: Dylan Gangale
The Popular Music of the Space Age: CD 96 (2008)
Популярная мусыка космического веча:
CD 96 (2008 г.)
The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigor of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.
At present, the music collection of nearly 1500 tracks is organized chronologically into 100 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. Most of the music can be found online and downloaded free of charge. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.
This is music to fly to Mars by. If you listened to one hour every day, you would almost be there at the end of this collection!
CD 96
| Selection Title | Performer | Release Year | |
| 1 | Sleeping Satellite (Virusproject's remix) | KLC Aurora feat. Michelle, Junior Caldera | 2008 |
| 2 | Дорога в космос The Road to Space | Станция Мир Station Mir | 2008 |
| 3 | To the Moon and Back (dj lazareff remix) | Savage Garden | 2008 |
| 4 | Glory of the Space | Space Garden | 2008 |
| 5 | She'll Launch | Phenomenauts | 2008 |
| 6 | Soyuz TMA-13 - Launch | Mission Audio | 2008 |
| 7 | Soyuz TMA-13 - Docking to ISS | Mission Audio | 2008 |
| 8 | Lunar Park | Superterz | 2008 |
| 9 | Марсианские глаза Martian Eyes | Тату t.A.T.u. | 2008 |
| 10 | Outer Space | T.I.P | 2008 |
| 11 | Martian's Odyssey | Turin | 2008 |
| 12 | Космонавт Хабибуллин Cosmonaut Khabibullin | TXCK | 2008 |
| 13 | Cannibals in Space | Universe in a Bottle | 2008 |
| 14 | STS-126 - EVA 3 | Mission Audio | 2008 |
| 15 | Космический союз Space Union | V. D. Kovalev | 2008 |
| 16 | Байконур Bajkonur | Виктор Анакиненко, Владимир Куклин, Игорь Офицеров, Ян Кальский, Игорь Новиков Viktor Anakinenko, Vladimir Kuklin, Igor' Ofitserov, Yan Kal'skij, Igor' Novikov | 2008 |
| 17 | На Марсе будут яблони цвести On Mars There Will Be Apple Blossoms | Ялия началова Yuliya Nachalova | 2008 |
| 18 | Трава у дома (pan psychic remix) The Grass at Home | Земляане Earthmen | 2008 |
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