Islam in a nutshell, talk at Unity Church of Arlington

The Unity Church of Arlington has begun a series on teaching world religions and I was pleased to present “Islam in a nutshell”. The program was to be for an hour, and we ended spending 2+ hours, the discussion were quite intense and intellectual.

This group has made a decision to learn about different faiths, and that is the right thing to do. If we want a society where no one has live in fears of the others, then we have to get to know and learn about each other. Familiarity takes the fear and phobias out of you, doesn’t it?

I speak on pluralism/ interfaith, Islam, politics, India, cohesive societies, peace and justice. But when I speak about Islam, I make an effort to present a copy of the Qur’aan translation that is nearly right. In the picture, Janet Ellis is receiving the translation of Quran by Muhammad Asad, the most popular translation today and one of the best translations. I also recommend the reformist Qur’aan translation by my friend Edip Yuskel. 

God willing if I accomplish my current mission of taking America Together Foundation in to every town in America, my last wish is to compile a translation of Quran from a pluralistic point of view that every religious person can relate with. I have begun the work and if God gives me the life to finish it, it will take a decade or more to finish it. 

This is what I wrote on the first blank page, “Quran is a book of guidance, and it can be compared to nuclear power; in the right hands it is a blessing and beneficial to humanity and in the wrong hands it is destructive. Quran and Nuclear power in itself or not good or bad, it is the greed, insecurity and falsity in individuals that determines what they make of Quran or any holy book.” A majority of people get their religion right while a few don’t, those who don’t make their religion look bad, again it is not the religion, it is the individual. 

Please remember God loves every one of his creation without reserve, and that love is reflected in the guidance in every holy book. God has not signed a deal with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Christians or others behind our back, if he did, who wants a God like that? It is not God; it is our selfishness that makes him a villain or the Hero. 

There are 25 translations on the market and two of them are wrong – they have messed with 60 verses. Thank God, no one has messed with the Arabic Version of Qur’aan and it gives me peace. About three are great translations, and about 15 others are OK, but two of them are bad. The Original mistranslationwas done by the European Kings to paint Islam in bad light – and all the ill-talkers of Islam in the nation like Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and their likes have their foundation in the wrong one. While the other was done by a Muslim for political reason… and it appears they have made corrections to the Muslim translation in the year 2011. Thank God, but there are millions of copies out there in the hands of the people. 

Finding the truth is one’s own responsibility. Karen Armstrong says, if you read a sentence in a holy book and it does not sound right, keep reading several sentences before and after, many time until it makes sense.

 Some of the anti-Islam feelings are caused by a mistranslation of the Qur’aan. Steve Blow of Dallas Morning News wrote, (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/steve-blow/20100919-In-defense-of-Islam-pursuing-9397.ece )

[“Ghouse said he can understand fear and criticism of Islam because he went through a time of similar feelings. As a teen, he was troubled by passages of the Quran. He called himself an atheist for a while.

But he said deeper study led him to realize the Quran had been purposely mistranslated down through history. In the middle Ages, European leaders commissioned a hostile Quran translation to foster warfare against Muslim invaders.

Later, Muslim leaders produced another translation to inflame Muslims against Christians and Jews. "It was all for politics," he said. Ghouse said he hopes to present Jeffress with a modern, faithful translation and challenge him to find evil verses.

"If he can, I will convert. I will join his church," Ghouse said. "If he can't, I will call on him to retract his statements and become a peacemaker.”]

Years ago, I conducted 13 workshop series sharing the wisdom and essence of each tradition including Atheism to Zoroastrianism and every one in between and have done 500+ hours of Radio talk show on the same group of religions and I was pleased to share about Islam at this congregation.

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MikeGhouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. Mike is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he writes weekly at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post, The Smirking Chimp and several other periodicals. His daily blog is www.TheGhousediary.com

Mullah Santorum and women

I am writing and collecting pieces written on Mullah Santorum, Darwinian Ron Paul and Flip Flop Gingrich and not sure Romney. Of course that does not make Obama any better.  As Americans, what we have to see is the one who is least dangerous to social cohesion of America, if we are together, we can solve problems, but if we are divided, our energies are spent on fighting the issues with no end.

Animals were given horns to fight it out with the idea that the other must be decimated, whereas humans were given a tongue – to dialogue and find solutions. We have to use what is natural to us – to talk and find solutions. 

Some of the right wingers want to regress to be animals, because they believe removing, bombing or annihilating the other brings solutions.  

Well here is the collection on Santorum:. . .

Maureen Dowd, piece Ricks Religious Fanaticism
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/opinion/dowd-ricks-religious-fanaticism.html?_r=1&smid=FB-nytimes&WT.mc_id=OP-E-FB-SM-LIN-RRF-022212-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click
. . .

Racist Santorum Calls For Ending Public Education, Prenatal Testing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/19/santorum-phony-theology_n_1287475.html?ref=mostpopular

. . .
“I’ve been playing this little game with my friends. It’s called ‘Guess which seven states Santorum can win,’” said veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, who thinks Santorum’s stances against abortion, contraception and stem cell research make him a no-sale to women voters in all parties. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73234.html#ixzz1nHL87HFz
. . . .

I will be posting a few more here before he gets the boot.

Valentine's Day, the universal phenomenon

From an exclusive meaningful rendezvous between two lovers, the Valentine's Day will morph into an all inclusive romantic day. It will become a universal affection day within a decade.  Love has no bounds; it is between two people in love, husband and wife, mother and son, father daughter, brother sister, brothers, sisters, friends, uncles, aunties, Grand Pa and Grand Ma and any one you care about.

HUFFINGTON POST: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/valetines-day-universal_b_1275148.html

. . . . . . 

Happy Valentine's Day.  

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Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. A writer, thinker and a speaker and is available to speak on pluralism, politics, Islam, peace, cohesive societies and a variety of topics. Check out 4 websites and 27 Blogs indexed at www.MikeGhouse.net. Current articles at www.TheGhousediary.com

My Sermon at Red River Unitarian Universalist Church

11:30 AM Sunday, February 5, 2012

Dennison, Texas

Welcome to my world, the world of Pluralism.

It was a pleasure driving  to Dennison, Texas to give a talk on Pluralism. In the Unitarian Universalist Church language they call it a sermon.

Marla Loturco, president of the Church was an incredible person; she is committed to building a community of Universalists around that Church.

 If you are wondering what this Church is about,  “It is a religion that celebrates  diversity of belief and is guided by seven principles. Our congregations are places where we gather to nurture our spirits and put our faith into action through social justice work in our communities and the wider world.”

As a pluralist, Universalism is natural to me and I define Pluralism in the context of Religion as, learning to respect every which way one worships the creator.   Here you are on your own terms, with your own belief with a community of people who honor it.  In the weekly writings at Dallas Morning News, several of us wrote the decline in Church membership is attributable to the fire and brimstone sermons. When you visit the place of worship, it is a sanctuary of peace and you would want to find tranquility there and not the arrogance that yours is the best religion. Indeed, spirituality and arrogance are inversely proportional to each other.

There is an amazing quiz at Beliefnet; there are about twenty five questions with four possible answers for each. If you said, you believe in a universal God, you get a point each for 27 different religions it lists; as you keep answering your profile keeps building. Here is my score, consistently for over six years.  This shows how close you are with the essence of each faith.  I should have scored 100 in Islam as well, and I will if the questions were about the spiritual aspect of Islam. My low score is due to my responses on the physical manifestations of religion like Hijab, Prayers, fasting etc.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%) 2. Liberal Quakers (93%) 3. Mahayana Buddhism (89%) 4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (88%) 5. Neo-Pagan (85%) 6. Islam (84%) 7. Reform Judaism (78%) 8. Bahá'í Faith (76%) 9. Sikhism (68%) 10. Hinduism (68%) and 26. Roman Catholic (25%) 27. Jehovah's Witness (22%)

Unitarian Universalist is fairly close to being a pluralist tradition. By the way you can be a Pluralist and a Jew, Hindu, Muslim or a Christian. Pluralism is not a religion; it is merely an attitude of respecting the otherness of other and accepting the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us. If we can really do this, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

My talk revolved around essence of greetings, creation of life and matter, pluralism and diversity, and the love of creator for his creation, birth of religions, what is that God wants?  What does it take to build cohesive societies? 

God has not signed a deal with any one behind my back or your back, so no one has any special privileges unless he or she does a lot of good to fellow beings, if he does that, who needs a God like that? It is what you have done in keeping harmony and cohesiveness of the creation.

Diversity is incredible, just look around, everything is unique, no two things are alike. Each one of the 7 billion of us has our own thumb print, eye print, our own DNA combination, our own taste bud and I hope one day , we will build our own religion bud, so it does not bother us what any one believes, as long as that belief remains contained to the individual.  What difference does it make if you believe in one, many or no God, the difference comes when you push your belief onto others without giving them the same chance to push theirs on to you.

Each one of us cultivates our own rituals, from the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep – everything you do is ritual, methodical and sequential. There is nothing on the earth you can do with without a system.  Rituals are pathways and milestone that tell us where we are on our own trajectory, whether it is driving to work or going for dinner.

What does God want? He wants us to preserve the harmony he has created in this World Wide Web; it frees one from worries and apprehensions….

I consider myself an expert in Pluralism, not because anything special, but simply because of the amount of time, thinking and writing I have invested in it for nearly two decades. I am a natural pluralist most of the time, not 100% of the time though, and I am sincerely working on it.

The Question answer session always turns out to be mirroring each others. My first question came from a gentleman who is a farmer and is experimenting with nature. He asked (answered too) about religion and spirituality. My response was, “sir, I don’t want to accuse you of plagiarizing my writings, because you have not read it, and you are reflecting my writings.” Indeed spirituality is similar no matter who expresses it; whether a farmer in Dennison, a guy likes me in Dallas, a Maya in Amazon or a Zulu in Swaziland. It is a joy indeed to see the depth of spirituality among the Unitarian Universalists, other gentleman brought his teen daughter to the church and I was wondering, how nice to have a young person grow up with an open mindedness that is incomparable. 

I cannot forget to share this little bitsy scary moment I experienced; Marla took me around this fabulous historical building from 1920’s that used to be a funeral home. She pointed different rooms where different things were stored and displayed, for a moment, I was not sure, if I wanted to see, then I questioned myself for the nonsensical thought.  After the tour we came back to the sanctuary and about to check the PA system…. Although I do not believe in ghosts and witches, I froze; and was completely taken back for a second. I guess instinctively Marla saw my pale face and quickly added it’s the PA system. OMG came out of my mouth.

I took a few pictures of Dennison, Texas about 70 miles North of Dallas. Nice town! However, the town was named for one George Denison, whose family did not spell their name in the usual way (with two “n”’s).
 

About Mike

Mike has spoken at international forums including the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia; the Middle East Peace Initiative in Jerusalem; and the International Leadership Conference in Hawaii, Chicago and Washington.

He is a member of the Texas Faith panel at The Dallas Morning News and writes about issues facing the nation every week. He writes for the Huffington Post regularly, and occasionally for the Washington Post and other daily newspapers and magazines around the world.

In 2011 Mike published over 300 articles on a variety of subjects. Two of his books are poised to be released this year on Pluralism and Islam in America. Mike is also a frequent guest on Fox News, “The Hannity Show”, and on nationally syndicated radio shows along with Dallas TV, print and radio networks, and occasional interviews on NPR.

He is a speaker, thinker and a writer and is available to speak at your place of work, worship, home, conference, college or seminar. His information is available at www.MikeGhouse.net