How I Lost Faith In Allah : Christians, Sorry for bombing your infidel asses lol

There is a long draft post in my blog archive called simply 'God', whenever I had some ideas about the subject I'd go and scribble a bit there, it has been there probably since the very beginning, today I decided to go and have a look at it, it is kinda funny and makes no sense, starting with yours truly cluelessly defending the wonderful spiritual fulfillment of God, and then slowly descending into a black rage against all that is holy.

*****

I'm sure that by now that you all know the long and short of exodus of Iraqi Christians, so I'll skip the details, what I am going to focus upon is how religion (and not political religion) is the first enemy of Iraq, and I will draw an example straight from the Iraqi blogosphere: during the massacre, the typically nice Marshmallow26 publishes an honest, hateful, agonized post, it is worth noting several important things about this post, which help us understand the view of many a mainstream Christian:

1. Marshmallow's post is a condemnation of all Muslims. Although she calmed down afterward and started saying that she only wants the cute pokemon-y peaceful Muslims to condemn the zombie Muslims, Marshmallow26 has previously complained about mainstream Muslim harassment of the Christians in Mosul, and one time, when I teased her by impersonating an angry anti-Christian fundie, she didn't get the joke and actually thought I was being serious. All this seems to suggest that deep in her mind, the problem is not new, and can be logically connected to the attitude of the Muslim population at large. This untrusting view is something I have mostly noticed in Christians who are not from Baghdad, in my opinion, the only satisifying explanation to this is demographics: Baghdad's Muslims are not anymore tolerant, but Mosul's Christians are more visible and louder, which would incur the displeasure of Muslims more easily. The configuration of religious hostility in the world is largely determined by the size of religious communities and their visible manifestation in any given religion (in Baghdad, although Christians were threatened and pushed out of their homes, their plight took a backseat to the larger Sunni-Shia war). When some Jihadwatch regulars posted extremely anti-Muslim commentary, Marhsmallow did not engage them in any debate whatsoever, which seems to suggest to me that she is in agreement with at least some of their points.
2. A very strong sense of hostile religious identity. When you get to the bottom of it, Muslims are our enemies. But Marhsmallow has to love her enemies because Jesus tells her so. Then she says that she'd die for Jesus and would not give in to the 'corruptors'.
3. Repeated stressing of the claim to the registered trademark 'Original Iraqi' label applied to Christians, as opposed to the Muslims, who are implicitly accused of being 'occupiers' and 'corruptors'. Ho ho, join the Saffavid-Seljuki origin debate, too bad you're only 3%, no muscle, and as I said, it's all about how much you number.
****
In the comments section, we get to witness the usual apology circus by Muslims,something like 'oh, you got it all wrong, Islam has nothing to do with all this, we're peaceful lol', when A&EIraqi smartly tries to show the error in Marhsmallow's emotional generalization of Muslims with his own generalization of the US Army as a Christian army, Marshmallow misses this point and suddenly adopts a rational mode of thinking.
This illogical adherence to one's specific religion is one of the reasons why I stopped believing in the beauty of God. When my three friends were killed, we had a prayer for them at the university mosques, and then we took their mock coffins and put them side by side at the entrance of the hall, each coffin had a small photo of the person who is supposed to be in it, and I took a long look at the faces, shifting my eyes from one to the other, I could detect no difference whatosever between any one of them, all were very pleasant, polite early-20s Iraqi guys who had been raised each according to his family's religion, yet according to all the three religions these people subscribed to (Sunni, Shia, Christian), only one of them will go to heaven, based of course on what religion will turn out to be the one God really favors. I did not realize it then, but that was the moment when I first started suspecting the idiocy of religion, those people had no hand in choosing their religion, they simply inherited it from their fathers, and they would have a hard time accepting any other faith than theirs, because all religions carry errors and mistakes that cannot be overruled by logic without any significant suspension of disbelief, and what sort of fair justice would be to send two of them to your hell just because they didn't get lucky to follow your chosen creed? and even if they got your moody 'makrama' and got all to heaven because you didn't leave them room to think it through and killed them before they even had the chance to even see a little bit further than their B.Sc. certificate, what about the untold millions of people who simply inherit the religion of their fathers? the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Taoists? Why would they go to hell? Because they didn't think? and what is the chance, once we start to get in logical intra-faith discussions, how many people do you sincerely expect to be convert from their father's faith? very few, people of religion are programmed to tweak every argument in favor of their own religion, they would simply stand against all common sense when criticizing their own religion, but proceed to become philosophers on the spot when it comes to bashing the shit out of the other religions, for really, why would you expect Christians to see the stupidity in beliving that in order to save man, God decided the only way is to enter a woman's vagina and have a son, or for Muslims to be actually convinced that it's somewhat ok for their prophet to have 13 mostly cute chicks (including a preschooler) when Islam only allows four or that their religion spread by conquest, or for Shia to see that the continous abandonment of their Imams by God at times of trouble is something that is in direct contradiction of the supposed relationship between God and his apostles in the Quran, whereby God directly intervenes to prevent the almost imminent death of Jesus. They will simply find workarounds in their books, they would confuse you with highly useless mumbo-jumbo الأحوط وجوبا etc in order to sound knowledgabe, and they would eventually sastify themselves with their answers, in reality, the more you begin to examine religion, and how you would easily find that no system is really perfect, the more angry and confused you become at the major scam God (if any) is pulling on us here. To quote Phillip K Dick on the way religion tries to be grand when it solves absolutely nothing:

"I've been researching solemn theological matters for five years now, much of the Wisdom of the World has passed from the printed page and into my brain, there to be processed and secreted out in the form of more words: words in, words out, and a brain in the middle wearily trying to determine the meaning of it all. The other night I started an article on Indian Philosophy in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the time was 4 AM ; I was exhausted, and there, at the heart of this solemn article, was this: "The Buddhist idealists used various arguments to show that perceptions does not yield knowledge of external objects distinct from the percipient...The external world supposedly consists of a number of different objects, but they can be known as different only because there are different sorts of experiences 'of' them. Yet if the experiences are thus distinguishble, there is no need to hold the superfluous hypothesis of external objects..."
That night I went to bed laughing, I laughed for an hour, I am still laughing, Push philosophy and religion to their ultimate and what do you wind up with? Nothing. Nothing exists. As I said earlier, there is only one way out: seeing it all as ultimately funny."

This would be all fine and dandy if it was pigeonholed in some unimportant category in the life of the general population, but it's effectively killing Iraq, the idea of Iraq as a nation-state where citizens are equal, because religion, all religion, is preferential of a certain group of others, and when you strongly advocate those identities, the others would certainly feel more attached ot theirs, and this is why Iraq, as a nation-state was always ruled by a dictator, those people will never find a way to really accept each other, because the problem is directly in their religion. Religion divides us and makes us hate each other, they all pretend it's all good when they're on public, and this is something that has puzzled me all the time when I see any public gathering, if everybody is so good and caring for Iraq, then who the fuck is doing all this unprecedented killing? Who? it doesn't take a lot to figure out who, just let them go back to their privacy and see them exposed as they really are.
So these Christians, Sunnis, Shia, would fight between themselves all the time, each strongly faithful to their own religion, for why is Marhsmallow's dedication to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ any less brainwashed than any of our own typical Jihadi sympathies? In one way or another, they will keep quarreling between each other, no one will really prevail except through suppression, or separation, and so dies our country, Iraq, irredeemably. Like Phillip K Dick, Seeing it all as funny is indeed the only way out, and this is why I'm going to book a front-seat with some popcorn with extra butter and laugh out as hard as I can at the Death of Iraq, from now on, fuck hope, I'm going to adopt Benjamin, the sarcastic donkey in Animal Farm, as my role model.

Al Pacino is an angry, charming bastard in most of his films, but look at his interview with the Actors Studio and what you'll see is a humble, pathetic nice man. I'm like that. if you meet me in real life, you might find me as a nice and pleasant man, and I don't want to be like Pacino, this is why this blog is called 'Catharsis', because I still don't really know how to become an angry asshole in reality. But, hey, I'm trying, because I can no longer contain this bubbling anger any longer, I cannot wait for the moment when I can live somewhere where I can say, freely and openly, how much I hate Him for being so distant, so unclear, so unrealistic, so dismissing of our intelligence.

P.S. As an example of Baghdadi Christianity, my Christian friend from Baghdad is pretty sure the Kurds did it, to carry the 'plot of the Jews', he solemnly advised me to read "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Another example of how stupidity is spurred by all religions (to be fair, not just religion, but religion has the way of convincing you that other creeds are wrong, evil and bent on mischief ولن ترضى عنك اليهود و لا النصارى حتى تتبع ملتهم), my Catholic Assyrian Christian friend seemed pretty upset about the growth of Evangelicals in Iraq too, who seem to heavily supported by some 'sources'.
----------------
We laugh, but inept is our laughter,

We should weep, and weep sore,

Who are shattered like glass and thereafter

Remolded no more.

Abu al-Alaa al-Ma'ari

في اللاذقية ضجةٌ ما بين أحمد والمسيح
هذا بناقوس يدق وذا بمئـذنة يصيح
كل يعظّم ديـنه ياليت شعري ما الصحيح
دين وكفر وأنباء تقص وفرقان وتوراة وإنجيل
في كل جيل أباطيل ، يدان بها فهل تفرد يوما بالهدى جيل
ضحكنا و كان الضحك منا سفاهة و حق لسكان البرية ان يبكوا
يحطِّمنا ريب الزمان كأننا -- زجاج ولكن لا يُعاد لنا سَبْك
نَزول كما زال أجدادنا ويبقى الزمان على ما ترى (المعري)

Now playing: فريق الكندي - تقسيم قانون - لقد فتنتني إفرنجية - لا صبر لي

R.I.P. BlogIraq

In general, back-and-forth intra-blog discussions don't end up with a positive outcome, they are filled with long arguments that are hard to follow, and both sides will stubbornly stick to their side no matter what, however, for the benefit of the general population I would respond to Iraqi Bloggers Central's recent post, which was in itself a response to my earlier mockery of their supposedly all-encompassing knowledge of Muslim culture.

Mister Ghost, in a swashbuckling-ly glorious representation of American values of freedom and glory against the deep darkness of Islamic bigotry, starts with a big slice of bigotry hismelf: "I would like to defend myself against a couple of points by the deep-thinking but Iraqi-flawed Abbas." As if being "Iraqi" in itself is a disadvantage to the logical circuits of one's mental processes.

He still doesn't get my point, my post wasn't really an objection towards Quran-burning or whatever Rotten Gods is doing, even though regular Muslims might find it appalling, just as regular Christians would find Bible burning the same, I was only mocking his smug all-knowing attitude towards Arab-Muslim culture, which he clearly finds of no particular use to mankind.

Then, he condescendingly outlines White Man's superiority over mainstream sandniggers Iraqis, including:

a) That all Iraqis were cowardly cogs inside the Baathist Caliphate. Mister Ghost, who has lived all his easy, comfortable life somewhere so removed from pain and suffering, has no real understanding of those concepts at all, he has no ability to understand that human beings might act differently in other environments, I wonder what Mister Ghost would have done if he was born and raised in as a German in Hitler-era Germany, or a Russian in Stalin's Russia, or an Iraqi in Baathist Iraq, the latter was nothing like present-day Iran, or Jordan, or Egypt (where people are actually trying to act up, btw), a country where you, your father, your entire family would be executed for the simplest joke. I don't think Mister Ghost would have acted anyway different, he would still rather live and make ends meet.

b) "Would anyone disagree that Iraqis have deeply-ingrained prejudices? LOL" That statement alone made me wonder about how old Mister Ghost actually is. How different are Iraqis from Germans, Americans, Russians, South Africans, Chinese, Tibetans in terms of having prejudices? He pontificates further:


c) Iraqis are expelling Christians. Funny, what does "Iraqis" here mean? it's as if not a single Muslim is being killed or deported in Iraq. What is the difference between Muslim expulsion death and Christian expulsion? Apparently, in the eyes of Mister Ghost, only Christian expulsion is worthy of attention.

d) That we are calling Christians "collaborators" and are expelling just like we did to the "Jews", here, Mister Ghost falls in several problems: first, I have never heard one Iraqi calling a Christian a "collaborator", actually, before I came to Amman, my pretty religious family's neighbor was an Iraqi Priest with his family, my mother (who wears a jubba) sent them a cake on Christmas and my brother and sister frequently played with their children, they got along with them much better than our current Iraqi Muslim neighbors, how is that for being flawed with terrible prejudices?
Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that Iraqi Jews were pretty much living quite the same as everyone else in Iraq until the state of Israel was born, i.e. the expulsion had a logical reason - not to mention that Jews were treated better in the Muslim Caliphate than they were in Medieval Europe, also, many Iraqi Jews actually wish to go back to Baghdad, which they miss as their true home, I would cite the Jewish author Samir Naqqash as an example. I also advise you to read some of British-Iraqi Jewish author Elie Kedourie's work.


I have called Layla Anwar a bigot previously, I apologize terribly, if she is a bigot, then at least she is direct and honest about it, and like I said about the whole Wafa Sultan thing : bigots balance each other out.
Personally, I don't tolerate bigots, so, and while I have previously issued a fatwa against their blog, it was slightly in jest, as of today, I ban all members (although Rhuslancia wasn't really bad, but I'm sorry) from commenting at my flawed, prejudiced, cowardly blog.

Christians in Iraq

the Chaldean Archbishop is found dead. I don't understand what would al-Qaeda gain from attacking Christians, a politically marginalized minority that is even not very united itself ; it seems their only plan is to cause strife between communities and piss everybody off ; the Wikipedia page does mention that the Archbishop was a bit vocal about announcing his objection to the growing fundamentalism of the country, which might have caused this tragic incident. Regardless, this is not the first Christian figure killed in Mosul, Theocracy is bad, bad, bad for you.
The Christian community in Iraq is divided between two ethnicities: Chaldean and Assyrians, within Iraq's new reality, the two has been lumped together as Chaldo-Assyrian by Jalal Talabani, but it doesn't seem they have much in common aside from religion, I had a Chlaldean friend who was vehemently opposed to this categorization, and he told me that they consider Assyrians "dirty." I was actually quite surprised since most of the Christians I know looked really open-minded and secular. Most of my other Christian friends are Assyrian, including my friend Ninos who was kille d in 2006 and in general, most of the Christians I've met favor Saddam Hussein, in their eyes, all that matters is that he was a secular who cracked down on all forms of theocracy, their natural oppressor. It seems to me that this sentiment was born out of long periods of tensions under Ottoman rule, I also think that the Christians of Syria [mostly Assyrians] also support al-Assad's minority pesudo-Shia Alawite secular dictatorship for the same reason.
Since we're talking about Christians in Iraq, look at this report about the Jesus-Camp missionary maniacs in Iraq, I've never heard of such a thing before in Iraq, I guess they didn't succeed much.
*To support my argument that there's a sizable Christian support for Saddam, Here's an Iraqi poetry set to music by famous Iraqi Christian composer Ra'id George, it's made by a Christian Group calling itself Suqoor Talkif (Hawks of Talkif - Talkif is a majority-Christian area in Ninewa) in which they insult Hakim, Muqtada and Sistani. (offensive), even though most of the tensions Christians in Iraq have is between them and Sunni Muslims, many Christians I know (incl. this song) doesn't seem to view the Shia theocracy as anything better, my Chaldean friend used to tell me how his father was insulted as a 'najis' [unclean] in Amara, a southern province.
*Here's an Iraqi Shia Rap Group's response to this song. [extremely crass and offensive]
*YouTube Tribute to the Archbishop.
*The usually friendly Iraqi Christian blogger Marshmallow26 reacts in a great post angrily to the murder, this post is a good example of how old religious tensions corrupts the friendship and harmony of co-existence. Amazing, she proves two of my above-mentioned points : she lets out her frustration about ugly Muslim-Christian tensions in Mosul and her respect for Saddam Hussein (both I wrote about above), this post is a great example of how people are left wondering which is real: the hostility, or the friendship? This is why religious rule is bad anywhere on this Earth ; it highlights hostilities and sooner or later this is what you get, the only way forward is to kill organized religion once and for all.
****
In other news, my blog has been counted #3 on a Channel4 article: 10 Iraqi Blogs You Should Read, after Zeyad and Iraqi Blog Count, the latter I co-edit.

The Passion of Hussein

"I have many scores with the enemy
Not only one, is that which I desire
Your back, your little finger, your liver
your grey hairs which in blood had been soaked
Your chest, your thirsty heart
Your body, My master, that which was crucified
Before you there was not a tragedy
a slaughter from the back to the back
and a head sheathed up on the spear
From a land to another
your head, O the willful, goes round and round"
- Bassim al-Karbali'e, lamenting Imam Hussein' death in Bil Taff Lu Chinit Mawjood

I have been avoiding this post for almost a year now, for fear of meddling into a big sectarian mess that shuold be treaded carefully to say the least. However, my recent re-viewing of South Park's infamous The Passion of The Jew episode convinced me of its importance.

When I first watched The Passion of The Christ back when it was just released, like many others, I was in complete awe of the film. Deeply moved, and compounded by explicit hatred at the jews. At the time, like any good-loving Muslim, I didn't give any extra thought into the innate, inherent evil of anything Jewish.
I watched the film again about a month ago, and found that there is little more in the film that actually makes it something above a simple 'snuff film', the only significane it served is the fact that the man being killed, unlike millions others killed in a similar fashion, is the principle focus of a major world religion. The Passion itself is a medieval performance piece whose only purpose is to incite anti-semitism. Discussions into the film's possible and unintended (or intended) inciting of similar sentiments have been dead and done, but the myriad similarity between the centrality of the crucification and the Shiite's Flagellation processions is what forced me to criticise it here.

For a year, I have been pondering over and over about what Shi'ism is about. In Sunni Islam, the history of the Arab/Islamic Nation is basically: everybody lived happily ever after until very recently, the bulk of wars between people deemed companions to the prophet are often ignored or passed in silence. This amazing discovery forced me to read and re-examine my beliefs, and since then it has been an endless fascination for me to read about the history and origins of the endless Sunni-Shiite conflict.

The first thing that struck me odd in Shiism is that, while it tries hard to claim that its ideology is derived from reason and logic, it's present spiritual force is exactly the same force that grips you when you see the Messiah being whipped by Roman Soldiers until his ribs poke out, unreasoning raw sympathy for another human being compounded a million times by the perceived saintly stature of the man in your consciousness, a force so emotionally terrible that strips you of any thinking, so strong that your heart eventually convince yourself it must be true, the problem with such gushing sensations is that the heart is often an unreliable conductor To quote the late leader of Badr/SCIRI (now SIIC) Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim: "Shiism was kept alive in two things and two things only: the focus on the plight of Hussein and his mother, Fatima al-Zahraa."
There is no better example of this logic-less method of persuasion that the story of Fatima al-Zahraa's Rib, supposedly, before the death of the prophet, he appointed his cousin, Ali, as his successor, but the first caliph was Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, when Ali refused to extend allegiance, Omar ibn al-Khataab, one of the most important companions in Sunni Islam, went to his house and started shouting and threatening to burn it even though Fatima, Ali's wife and Prophet Mohammed's only daughter, is inside, eventually, Omar (sometimes not him, but a minor slaved called Qunfudh) crushed Fatima using the door of the house, that her rib was broken, and she was forced into a miscarriage of the third child Muhsin, before dying six months later, in a notorious day Shiites uphold as 'Zahraa's Martyrdom' Amazingly, Imam Ali, easily the most self-righterous, strongest and most courageous figure in Islam, did absolutely nothing for the death of his wife and child. and went to 'grudgingly' accept the caliphate of Abu Bakr and Omar, even advising the latter on certain matters, for fear over the unity of Islam!!!! This is the same Ali whose self-imposed puritanical approach to life and refusal to compromise on anything led him, knownigly, to his defeat by the more wily and persuasive Muawiya. In fact, first act on the first day of his caliphate some 30 years later was chasing Ubaidullah bin Omar, who killed a Persian without any charges after the second caliph was killed, such is his stubborn adherence to the principles, that it is seems ridiculous, even hugely insulting to his character, that he would contend with 'accepting the unity of Islam' when such grave sins were committed not only under the tent of Islam, but to his personal family and wife.

When I asked a very devout Shiite friend of mine from Najaf about Ali's actions, his simple explanation was that 'it was told to Ali that he have to act this way by the Prophet', an even more puzzling mystical solution, as the prophet could have easily dispensed of his two companions, both of which belonging to minor tribes who pose no real threat to him, when he was alive.

Unfortuantely, this illogical story is a foundation for the Shiite faith ; A neutral person, with no previous knoweldge of Ali and Omar, would have trouble not being affected by the yearly wealth of poems and latmiyas, set to heart-piercing melodies, telling in horrible detail the wounds and injuries suffering the saintly lady by the 'oppressors and criminals'. If Laughing is infections, then crying is terminal. Even though Abu Bakr and Omar had differences with Fatima, their latter actions when they assumed the caliphate were unlike those of the following tyrannical kings such as Muawiya or Yazid, or even those like Omar's successor Uthman ; they remained as poor as they were before ruling, their clothes and food remained as rough as the Prophet (and Ali's), and their actions were in the interest of the Islamic State overall. Some Shiite scholars like Mohammed Fadhulallah, Hezbollah's spiritual leader, tried to negate this story, but he was ruthlessly and harshly denounced by both the common and the other Ayatollahs such as Iraq's Ali Sistani, quoting: 'The tragedy of Zahraa is essential to our sect, and without it, our sect would become quite simply the same as the other sect.' This is correct, because to Shiism the whole idea is of a single , continous tapestry of suffering and pain since the death of the Prophet Mohammed until today, and to break a crucial pillar of that fragment would ultimately lead to the downfall of the whole sect.

That is not to say that Shiism is devoid of any positive principles, like the countless other revolutions throughout history, such as communism and pan-Arab nationalism, Shiism started with a noble true cause that throughout history was shortened to nothing more than rituals and beliefs which are recognized as more important than its true spirit, the spirit of revolution against the rulers who descended into wordly pleasures and mixed religious rule with that of a king. Open any Shiite website and you would find the larger section of the site dedicated to the Shiite Opus Dei-like hymns of flagellation, wailing over the ethereal Battle of Kerbala and all the time asking for the venegance and revenge, which easily replaced the spirit of corrective revolution as the driving force of inspiration for the creed, thankfully, that revenge is postponed until the day when Imam Mahdi (GHA) will rise up, and whose first act shall be to to resurrect Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman, Aisha, Muawiya, Yazid, Harun, and probably Saddam, to punish them for the deaths of Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Hussein, Musa al-Kazim, Ali al-Ridha and other reverred figures. Imam Mahdi serves as the simple opium found in the cultures of many oppressed folks by which their little dreams of getting a shot at the oppression of state comes true and accomplishes what they failed to do. It is actually that story which led me to drop my belief in both the Sunni and Shiite versions of the Mahdi, the only form of Mahdi I believe in now is the Second Coming of Christ, which exists in Islam as well.

My study of Shiism also changed my view of the Umayyid and Abbasid rulers, for it is apparent as the sun that Muawiya bin Abu Sufayan and his son Yazid have played a great deal in the dissolution of the puritanical principles of religion, perhaps they were only instruments for the unavoidable current of human nature, which abandoned Ali's tight adherence to religion and sought a freer, more joyous interpretation of life, nevertheless, it clarified my vision and opened up my mind as the history of our nation, and i have to thank Shiism for that.
The following passage in the book Sultan's Preachers, by the secular Shiite Ali al-Wardi, helped me in a great way formulate the ideas I expressed above:

ALI AL-WARDI's VIEWS OF SHIISM:
We have said earlier that the Saffavids have tamed the prinicples of Shiism, reducing it into a 'slumbering revolution', a dormant volcano with only a few smokes signifiying its earlier destructive capabilites. Shiism still has in its folds innate residues of its old revolutionary spirit, extensions whose original function was exhausted and has since then functioned in a harmful, not useful manner. An objective examiner of Shiism will find mysterious social activities which deserves amazement and further observation. Rituals which would stun some of its origins, bringing others to revile in disgust at its myths and exaggerations. Nevertheless, we cannot purposefully explain those mysterious patterns but as artifacts of the past centuries where Shiism was the brinstorm of revolution in the Islamic world.
Those artifacts could be summed down in such:

1. The Imamate: Shiites today look upon their old Imams, the descendants of Ali, in a strong holy fashion, considering them infallible, and bringing them to a level above humanity, as well as seeking their tombs for intercession in every plight. The principle behind the act of glorifying Imams used to be revolutionary, an indirect criticism of the decadence of the Muslim rulers, in a fashion simliar to Plato and Farabi's Utopian society solutions.
2. The Mahdi : This belief is the principle upon which many revolutions were based, socially speaking, the Mahdi is a rebel, many rebels in the past were named Mahdi even though they themsleves did not claim to be so. Researchers were puzzled over the origin of the term in Islam, but it is clear that al-Mahdi is an arabization of Torah's Messiah, the heroic savior of divine guidance. Anyone reading Ezekiel will find a curious resemblance between the chapter and Shiism's Mahdi.Simply put, the dreams of the oppressed is the same everywhere, everytime. As the oppressed who cannot avenge his prosecution seeks a dream-like future prophecy, and builds towering castles of hope. Sociologists found that the oppressed society often tends to create myths to fight its unjust rulers, those myths are called 'Social myths'.
Thus, we can say that modern-day Shiism lost the social concepts of the Mahdi and retained the mythical shell of ideological dictum.
3. The third is Dissimuilation (taqqiya), a social pattern that accompanies revolution when it begins, old Shiites sought taqqiya to be free from the state's chase. Today, Taqqiya lost that revolutionary status and become embedded in the new religious, political and social system that the Shiites follow, a mere relic from older times.
4. The fourth is the what is today termed 'Hussein's Cememoration', which was in its earlier form a slogan for anti-state propaganda, eventually developing with the passage of time into meaningless rituals. Shiites of yore would gather in the cellars to cememorate the huge injustice on Hussein, implicity discussing state oppression on various fields, in a move simliar to today's underground rebellion movements. Today, Shiites forgot the principles for which Hussein revolted, and they would even engage against those prinicples just the same, as long as they cry and mourn him, as if this was the final intended destination. Today, Shiites visit Hussein's grave by the thousands each year, and then return like they went, doing nothing but screaming and yelling. Today, they are dormant rebels drugged by their own authority, turning the swords they fought the authority with into chains and spears.


BOTTOM LINE:

Mel Gibson:	You can't say my movie sucked, or else you're saying Christianity sucked!
Stan:	No, dude, if you wanna be Christian, that's cool, but, you should follow what Jesus taught instead of how he got killed. Focusing on how he got killed is what people did in the Dark Ages and it ends up with really bad results.
Jack:	You know, he's right, Elise. We shouldn't focus our faith on the torture and execution of Christ.
Shlomo:	Yeah. Lots of people got crucified in those times. We shouldn't rely on violence to inspire faith.
Cartman:	Aw, aw, no, come on, people, we're so close to completing my final solution!