In Lieu of Eid Greetings

My email to friends and two representative-selected responses from them ~t


we live in interesting times
where people merrily kill
in His name, His followers
and we are hard pressed
to explain to our children
and to our shrinking circle
of friends and well wishers
that we abhor violence and
follow the religion of peace

is celebration justified
or refrain and contemplation
should be our guide on this eid?

with prayers of safety for you
and your extended family


I

I beg to differ with you that we live in interesting time.........people have always killed each other in all times, all races, all religions - the enemy is us. We need to re-think whether we are truly the best creation God could have come up with.........this cannot be his best......if we are his best, that's almost insulting to Him........maybe the best is at some other planet.........or we will evolve to something better than the current human race (more likely). As Nietzsche proclaim his concept of Ubermensch in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the protagonists states that the man is something which ought to be overcome. As he wrote, "All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman (the Ubermensch): a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment…" As for contemplation, that - along with unhappiness - is the fate of intellectuals. [JB]


II

this was very touching, more so because it hits all raw nerves, I was thinking that during ramadan, because for the first time in years even ramadan didn't feel right, it felt like it was just a ritual kept without hearts or minds being in it, people abstain from food only and miss all the meanings behind it, they are ill tempered on the street and all manners are lost till the sun goes down, that's not ramadan and then for iftar, it's a feast every single day, instead of doing a bit of contemplation and not even austerity but at least a bit of adherence to the spirit of ramadan, but no, it's all just a big charade, our poor religion has been reduced by it's followers to meaningless signs of piety like a scarf worn on the outside or a big zabiba on the forehead to show one bends his knees so many times a day, whereas the meaning went missing and it is just a bloody show off. [YA]