stoning to death for adulterer, anyone?

I just stumbled upon this and this and  this .

I…..simply cannot say anything. It’s not that I promote adultery but…..I am at lost of words.

Why…..do we go back to the medieval age? I am not Acehnese but I respect their culture and their way of life but stoning adulterers to death is not acceptable at all.

Which one is more important? Moral or life, the right to live, the right to improve the self, the right to choices. What has happened to them, people?

I am no moralist. I am not religious. I only pray five times a day without performing any additional prayers to get more reward. I just fast during Ramadhan. I even never  give alms to any beggars begging their way to me. I have no sympathy at all.

But to impose such a cruel death to human being is …i hardly able to digest it.

This corporal punishment, does it make everything better, holier?

where is justice? where is commonsense? where is benevolence? Compassion, where art thou? humanity, are you there?

So, what will happened to me supposed when my cousin tried to rape, he did i

God, do you really there? Have you died?

I say no to coersive means to the implementation of religious pratices

here we go again. another debate on the implementation of religious practices.

and since i’ve got my electricity back and of course the internet, i will do some revenge blogging ( i mean i will blog everything i wanted to blog about but could not do so due to the past few days blackout).

so, i was doing my task as the committee for welcoming new students at my uni. i noticed that all of the girl freshie were hijabbed ( i mean all of them were wearing head scarf). at first, i thought there was nothing so unusual about that scene. but hei….., i knew that not all of the girl were hijabbed when they first registered to our department.

so we had this dialog:

ms delvi: you are not jilbab wearing girl, rite?

the girl: yes ms

ms delvi: so why  are you  wearing one today?

the girl: that’s the rule in this new students orientation program ms.

ms delvi: eh, first heard that such rule exists. who said so? who decided on it? on what background? why? how come?

that girl looked so terrified with my question bombardment. her eyes showed disbeliefs to what she just heard. i, part of the system that required her to cover her head that day questioned the same rule that made her appear covered up from hair to heel in that very hot day.

she must think i m crazy as what my cousin thought about me on my strong opposition to the various sharia by laws we have here in west sumatra.

my minor boss must also think that i am crazy since i shunned him instantly when he told me that he was eager to wait for the government to implement the same sharia law they have in malaysia regarding the caning of the part-time model for taking beer in public.

“are you nut?”, i grinned to him. “religion is a matter of faith of which synonym is choice”.

“it’s ok for us mere mortal to preach to other people but to force them to believe in what you believe in or practice what you practice is a crime. you know coercive means to the implementation of religious practices is never in fashion. this coercive means will only bastardize the sanctity of the religion. it only shows that religions have failed to make people believe in them and adhere to their rules. total failure. if things go on this way, we need no more religions and even god will die since god’s place has been taken over by religious mortal lords. god will extinct or may be god is never there! “

“religion is a matter of choice u know. that is what it is called by faith not force”

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i know he must think that i have been completely out of my mind. he looked deeply to my eyes hoping i would retract what i just spewed forth. i stared back at him and coolly announced this:

god’s dead. what we have now are mortals with godly authority.

oh my god now i realized that i have driven him crazy.

being on the other side

m not dead ok! neither m i kidnapped by slimy green aliens from mars. nor am i jailed for  (i don’t know why a good girl like me should be jailed?). nor m i trapped in a nuptial ceremony secretly arranged by my mother.

i m just busy running around padang-bukittingi for the past few weeks to check on my ailing tooth. i was down with sakit gigi. it was pretty bad so i needed to spend a week back home in bukittinggi so my mother could attend to my constant whimpering and administer her favorite aphrodisiac  obat kampung (the yolk of the duck egg, honey, salt, hot rice milk, and a sprinkle of lemon juice: “have a glass of it then you will be able to satisfy your four wives”, that’s what a traveling medicine man told the crowd in my market) to me.  i didn’t know whether my ibu agreed with the tukang obat but when someone got  sick in my family, my ibu would prepare a glass of that potion. and there are two weeks to go before my UI (Universitas Indonesia) grad dentist tell me to stop visiting her clinic in a serene cluster of housings near the  road heading to Payakumbuh.

meanwhile, for the past few weeks i was also busy “being on the other side”.

i went to a church . supposed my kampung  ustad  knew this  he  would have his disciple hang me to death and screamed to my death body: “impostor! apostate! murtad” (its hyperbole ok) but i felt good. i m no stupid to just take it whatever people i just knew told me.

first impression, in terms of public speaking, any ustad in my kampung is no match for this pastor. their rhetoric ability is no where near him. moreover, this pastor was able to present himself as one of the masses.  i mean he did not pose as a holy man  preaching words sanctioned by god. he was there just to share what he had read from the bible and invited the rest to think about the truth contained in those biblical lines. i remember he was reading the section on caleb who demanded joshua to hand him a mountain. in short, it was about spirit and courage. “if the 85 old year calib wanted to fulfill his responsibility why can’t you my young friends (most of his listeners were my student age and i went there with my student),” he roared to his youthful crowd.

interestingly, he also talked about the young suicide bomber who exploded himself in JW Marriott last month. i was eagerly waiting for words like these: ” look at that muslim. they are extremist, they kill people. they are apostate.  it is our heavenly duty to exterminate them all. it is written in the Bible!”. however, what i heard really surprised me. the pastor said,” look at that young soul who was so brave to do that duty. he did it because he was brave. if he was not brave he would not be able to pull the trigger. he was right because he was brave. we should laud him for his bravado. I encourage you, my young friend, to be  brave as well like that young suicide bomber. but my young friends be brave to save lives not to destroy live. that young bomber was right but he was wrong because he communicate with wrong persons. so, my young friends, you must communicate with the right thing, the right person, be brave to save lives not to destroy lives”.

i believe he didn’t aware about the presence of a muslim in his church. i was not in  my ms delvi regalia that evening. i appeared just like my students. at the age of 27 i still can pass a senior high school student u know. to be honest, it surprised me that he did not blame the religion, in this case, my faith for the bombing. yet, he pointed to the nose of crooked personalities who had misused the faith to suit their  equally devilish interest.

frankly speaking, he gained my respect immediately. his words sent me to deep thinking: it would be wonderful if my kampung ustad stop preaching about killing orang orang kafir, the apostates. i believe this world will be a better place without those bloody speeches.

(well, m not saying my faith is a religion of violence. it’s far from it. but i know some people who only posses a skewed understanding of the religion confidently preach to the masses to promote violence to people “on the other side” using adultered interpretation of the holy scripture).

new sin: facebook-ing

i have lost my faith in ustadz (male preacher)  and ustadzah (female preacher) long time ago, especially when they told me that the majority of hell’s population is woman.

now, they say this and as you can predict i only can cring with pain. you know the look of someone down with toothache.

Indonesian clerics want rules for Facebook

Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behavior in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex.

Around 700 clerics, or imams, gathered in the world’s most populous Muslim nation on Thursday were considering guidelines forbidding their followers from going online to flirt or engage in practices they believe could encourage extramarital affairs.

Facebook says Indonesia, a nation of 235 million, was its fastest-growing country in Southeast Asia in 2008, with a 645 percent increase to 831,000 users – outpacing China and India. And with less than 0.5 percent of Indonesia’s citizens wired, there is a huge potential for growth.

“The clerics think it is necessary to set an edict on virtual networking, because this online relationship could lead to lust, which is forbidden in Islam,” said Nabil Haroen, a spokesman for the Lirboyo Islamic boarding school, which is hosting the event.

Though followers could still be members of the networking site, guidelines dealing with surfing the Web and Islamic values are urgently needed, he said.

Facebook officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ninety percent of Indonesians are Muslim, though most practice a moderate form of the faith.

An edict by the clerics would not have any legal weight. But it could be endorsed by the influential Indonesian Ulema Council, which recently issued rulings against smoking and yoga. Most devout Muslims adhere to the council’s rulings because ignoring a fatwa, or religious decree, is considered a sin.

Amidan, who heads the Ulema Council, said the growing number of Facebook users in Indonesia was a controversial subject among Muslim leaders and that he favored a ban because of possible sexual content.

“People using Facebook can be driven to engage in distasteful, pornographic chatting,” said Amidan, who was monitoring the two-day conference in the town of Kediri, in eastern Java.

Many clerics are concerned that “inappropriate content” on Facebook could be accessed by children, said Amidan, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name.

Facebook is the top ranked site in Indonesia, ahead of search engines Yahoo and Google, according Alexa.com, which tracks Internet traffic. Nearly 4 percent of all Facebook visitors are from Indonesia, making it the largest source of visitors after the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Ital

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look mister religious, religion will really lose its credibility if you keep thinking in this manner.

what i know  is  my religion, islam, is not a religion of simple-minded dunces. it is compatible to changes, modernization and  rationalization. that’s the reason why this faith is called as RAHMATAN LIL ALAMIN (a faith which is a bless for the world) mind you.

god, hope i will never hear some more stupidities related to religion in the future.