First hour: Retired NASA engineer T. Mark Hightower—one of the contributors to RD Steele’s 9/11 Memos to Trump—returns to discuss his journey from Christian Zionist fundamentalism to Christian Universalism. Mark writes:
“Here are four significant blog posts of mine on touching on religious and spiritual matters in reverse chronological order.
Can Islam solve America’s race problem? Ibrahim Soudy thinks it’s the only thing that could.
2nd hour: 9/11-truth-supporting Ibrahim Soudy, a Ph.D. structural engineer with a long list of qualifications and licenses, continues the conversation about religion and society. Ibrahim agrees with me (and others) that materialist secular humanism has become the dominant religion of today’s Western elites, who are waging a religious war against Islam and other traditional faiths. (Zionism and its sacred holocaust narrative are obviously a dominant strain of this toxic false religion.)
Was 9/11 orchestrated as a “foundational sacrificial event” by such religion and mythology experts as Philip Zelikow? Is the prophetic tradition always a kind of “sacred subversion” that aims at bringing down corrupt oligarchies? Will American Muslims, heirs to the latest and best-preserved prophetic tradition, live up to that heritage and challenge the Machievellian pharaohs who misrule the West? Or are most American Muslims drifting away from real Islam towards a neutered “American Islam” concocted by the Rand Corporation?
These are just a few of the questions considered in this broadcast.
2 Thoughts to “T. Mark Hightower and Ibrahim Soudy: Is religion the problem or the solution?”
“Or are most American Muslims drifting away from real Islam towards a neutered “American Islam” concocted by the Rand Corporation?”.
That’s about right, but it’s not news.
A few minutes ago, as I am loitering in this McD, a muslim female covering her head (because “she is O so holy”) came in, wearing a traffic officer uniform. Her pant was so tight and revealing, it does not leave anything to the imagination (not that it was attractive whatsoever). Her job is to pile up more weight on people’s back, by giving tickets to the working class people trying to scrap a meagre living here and there. She is shamelessly putting herself at the service of the ruling class to pile up more financial burden on the already struggling folks. She is on foot, her waist belt packed with gadgets that makes giving a ticket to a struggling guy delivering merchandise to a business, only a few seconds affair (and on to the next).
A regular parking ticket here is $115. I wonder how many 1000’s of $$ she manages to snatch from people during a shift and give to her satan-worshiping masters ?.
ego
[ee-goh, eg-oh]
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural e·gos.
1) the I or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
2) Psychoanalysis. the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.
3) egotism; conceit; self-importance:
Ok, #3 might be classified as the bad one: egoTISM.
How about “self-esteemISM”? Would that be bad too? Well, yes -unhealthy, at least!~ That would be an obsession with one’s self-esteem which would amount to neurosis.
#1 and 2 simply indicate an AWARENESS of difference between self and the rest of the world.
Well, that’s EXACTLY what a person needs in order to have a good healthy self-esteem.
It doesn’t mean that the person who is aware of his own differences from others is haughty or arrogant; it simply means that he’s AWARE of his own differences.
And if he’s aware of his own differences, he must -of necessity- be aware of OTHERS’ differences too … or he couldn’t differentiate himself from any of the others … right?
So, a good or “healthy” ego simply means KNOWING one’s self.
And I can see no problem with that.
For instance, I might get infuriated by your inability to understand global warming as I do … but … when I consider all things, I realize from my EGO that you aren’t me and that you and I haven’t had the same life experiences and/or understanding of how the world works.
Just having that realization calms my nerves because now I can empathize with your position whereas, without an EGO I would be absolutely intolerant of your position.
Does that make sense to you?
V.
*
Dear V.,
Yes, this makes sense.
The word nafs in the Qur’an sometimes has the positive or neutral connotation you’re talking about and can be translated as “self” or “soul”; other times it’s the nafs al-amara bi-su’, the “ego that commands evil” or “evil-commanding ego.” That would correspond with definition #3.
Islam recommends taming the ego (keeping it #1 rather than #3) while Sufism aims at annihilating the ego in service to closeness to God. Drunken Sufis visibly remain in an egoless state while the sober Sufis outwardly appear to have a normally functioning self-other distinction (but inwardly remain ego-annihilated).
Best
Kevin
“Or are most American Muslims drifting away from real Islam towards a neutered “American Islam” concocted by the Rand Corporation?”.
That’s about right, but it’s not news.
A few minutes ago, as I am loitering in this McD, a muslim female covering her head (because “she is O so holy”) came in, wearing a traffic officer uniform. Her pant was so tight and revealing, it does not leave anything to the imagination (not that it was attractive whatsoever). Her job is to pile up more weight on people’s back, by giving tickets to the working class people trying to scrap a meagre living here and there. She is shamelessly putting herself at the service of the ruling class to pile up more financial burden on the already struggling folks. She is on foot, her waist belt packed with gadgets that makes giving a ticket to a struggling guy delivering merchandise to a business, only a few seconds affair (and on to the next).
A regular parking ticket here is $115. I wonder how many 1000’s of $$ she manages to snatch from people during a shift and give to her satan-worshiping masters ?.
Hi Kevin,
Interesting show and/but I’d like to add some food for thought.
This idea of EGO being something evil or bad … where did it come FROM?
In my observation EGO is a perfectly good thing and absolutely necessary for the maintenance of proper self esteem.
Here’s the definition of EGO as given by
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ego
ego
[ee-goh, eg-oh]
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural e·gos.
1) the I or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
2) Psychoanalysis. the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.
3) egotism; conceit; self-importance:
Ok, #3 might be classified as the bad one: egoTISM.
How about “self-esteemISM”? Would that be bad too? Well, yes -unhealthy, at least!~ That would be an obsession with one’s self-esteem which would amount to neurosis.
#1 and 2 simply indicate an AWARENESS of difference between self and the rest of the world.
Well, that’s EXACTLY what a person needs in order to have a good healthy self-esteem.
It doesn’t mean that the person who is aware of his own differences from others is haughty or arrogant; it simply means that he’s AWARE of his own differences.
And if he’s aware of his own differences, he must -of necessity- be aware of OTHERS’ differences too … or he couldn’t differentiate himself from any of the others … right?
So, a good or “healthy” ego simply means KNOWING one’s self.
And I can see no problem with that.
For instance, I might get infuriated by your inability to understand global warming as I do … but … when I consider all things, I realize from my EGO that you aren’t me and that you and I haven’t had the same life experiences and/or understanding of how the world works.
Just having that realization calms my nerves because now I can empathize with your position whereas, without an EGO I would be absolutely intolerant of your position.
Does that make sense to you?
V.
*
Dear V.,
Yes, this makes sense.
The word nafs in the Qur’an sometimes has the positive or neutral connotation you’re talking about and can be translated as “self” or “soul”; other times it’s the nafs al-amara bi-su’, the “ego that commands evil” or “evil-commanding ego.” That would correspond with definition #3.
Islam recommends taming the ego (keeping it #1 rather than #3) while Sufism aims at annihilating the ego in service to closeness to God. Drunken Sufis visibly remain in an egoless state while the sober Sufis outwardly appear to have a normally functioning self-other distinction (but inwardly remain ego-annihilated).
Best
Kevin