Timex's Journal: It's the end of the world, as we know it

...and I feel fine.

Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging at 6:10am local time (3:10am GMT, or 10:10pm Eastern Time) on December 30, 2006.

If you want, you can read what the New York Times has to say, or if you feel really bored, you can read what that bastion of righteous reporting, al-Jazeera, has to say on it. I'm sure there is enough coverage by now that you could find your favorite slant on the event.

Sadly (but not surprisingly), al-Jazeera's interpreters mis-quoted Hussein:

As guards took him to the scaffold, according to witnesses, Saddam said: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet."

The statement he is most likely to have said is "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet". God != Allah. (It's a common attempt by Muslims and the Politically Correct to equate the Judeo-Christian God with Allah. There are several reasons why it isn't possible, but I'll not get into that here, aside from just pointing it out.)

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled day.

Actually...

[Ethelred Unraed]

Whatever or whomever you may think Muslims worship, the word Allah just means "God" in Arabic. It's not a name. Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Jews also call God "Allah".

Thus al-Jazeera was perfectly correct in their translation. [wikipedia.org]

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:

[Timex]

Whatever or whomever you may think Muslims worship, the word Allah just means "God" in Arabic. It's not a name. Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Jews also call God "Allah".

Thus al-Jazeera was perfectly correct in their translation. [wikipedia.org]

Cheers,

Ethelred

Okay, then allow me to narrow my meaning down a bit: The god of Islam is NOT the Judeo-Christian God. They are two totally different entities.

From a Christian perspective, the difference is made clear with a simple example: My God had exactly one begotten Son: Jesus, the Christ, born in Nazereth. Any Muslim will tell you that Allah never had any sons. Either someone is lying, or they are different entities.

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

From a Christian perspective, the difference is made clear with a simple example: My God had exactly one begotten Son: Jesus, the Christ, born in Nazereth. Any Muslim will tell you that Allah never had any sons. Either someone is lying, or they are different entities.

Then the Jews also worship a different God, because they would answer your question in exactly the same way.

Muslims do, by the way, revere Mary [wikipedia.org] and Jesus [wikipedia.org]; they merely consider Jesus to be a prophet, rather than the Son of God. (There are

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

God is principally known by the attribte of transcendence, in the Monotheistic traditions, wheather Abrahamic or Aryan/Indo-European.

God is transendent and absolute. Indivisible, and unconcerned by the petty limitations foisted on divinity by the limitations of the finite believer.

In my own view, there are seemingly two kinds of monotheist. One of them is aware that temporality and material limitation prevent them from adequately comprehending God as God is.

The other kind of monotheist is really a "monadi

Re:

[iminplaya]

Some conceptions of God may be more or less perfectly realized. All fall short of the reality of God.

Some comprehension of quantum mechanics (of which I have none beyond the movie "What the bleep do you know?", the second version) might bring us a little closer. Hardly religious but very enlightening.

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

I'm actually with you all the way. There is no God but God, and God is per definition too mind-boggling for any individual (or group) to comprehend fully. OTOH it's more fun arguing the point on the "little m" monotheistic track, because even in that narrower frame of reference, the parent is wrong. ;-)

I too grew tired of the Protestant habit of over-rationalising everything, so I'd put myself more in the catholic-mystic side of Christianity. Having said that, I can't bring myself to be Roman Catholic bec

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Great sympathy here. :-)

That's too bad

[iminplaya]

Now we have to find another Saddam for our next war with Iran. But I'm sure there's plenty more where he came from. Or is there someone here who believes that his death makes one whit of difference? Are we going to have peace now? Until they get the guys that hired him and financed this whole charade, this will change nothing. I doubt that even one percent of the reports ever mention the "man behind the curtain". A more honest report on his death would be titled like this [slashdot.org].