One great analogy I recently heard from an eminent Pakistani intellectual(one of the handful who make sense):

"Just like the feet of women were tightly bound with cloth at an early age because small feet were considered desirable in medieval China, the brain of the Muslim has been bound with dogma from an early age. By the time a Muslim man grows up, he is incapable of thinking for himself, because his brain has been crushed and unable to grow because that is what is desirable in Islam. If you put a powerful giant in a small enough cage for ten years, even he would come out hunchbacked and deformed and nonthreatening."

"Nonthreatening" being the key word here.

They say that Muslims used to rule the world, which is the biggest lie ever told. Certain powerful individuals ruled the world in the name of Islam. They plundered, raped, killed and conquered in the name of Islam, but the power and wealth and prosperity was only in their hands and their families'. The average Muslim has always been, and still is, an ignorant, poor savage who can be easily commanded into believing anything and then giving up his life for it. The average Muslim has always been cannon fodder in the power games of the ruling class.

They talk about how today's Islamists have "distorted" their "peaceful" religion, but history can prove that this culture of violence, plundering and conquest was started by Muhammad himself. Islam has always been violent. Islam has always been contemptuous of women. Islam has always been ignorant. Islam, unlike Christianity, is still waiting for its Renaissance.

I am a poet, my love. My very existence is a struggle with the thorns beneath the roses. My sadness is but a symptom of the underlying disease of being alive in this world. Rejection, Loneliness and Unrequited Love are my eternal companions. I walk on the road to oblivion and eternal darkness is my very destiny, and all you see is the sadness?

My response to the famous "Atheist Professor With No Brain" story...

here is the link to the essay for which this post is a response: http://www.preparingforeternity.com/sciencefaith.htm

Kunle would probably never speak to me again. Sorry man, but its ridiculous that you would post that on your wall.

No way that was Einstein man, stop making historical claims without quoting your sources. Its very misleading.

This is so ridiculous it's embarrassing. No professor of philosophy would be tricked by a stupid word game like this.

I don't know who that professor was, and I don't even have a college degree, but even I can see the stupidity of that argument.

That story was obviously written by someone who never attended school:

1. "Cold" and "Darkness" are just terms of language and how our senses(sight, touch) work. Scientists use terms like "temperature" and "luminosity" which are perfectly understood by even high-school students. If that guy was a college student he wouldn't even ask such questions!

2. Electromagnetism(the theory that explains electricity and magnetism are two facets of the same force) has withstood innumerable tests. The electromagnetic behavior of elementary particles is very well understood today, even one of the best understood fields in physics. Everyone has seen electricity(lightning) and magnetism(pattern made by iron fillings when placed over a bar-magnet). There is no faith involved here.

3. Evolution by natural selection is a theory that has been proven again and again through hundreds of years since its inception. It is a process that takes place over generations upon generations, the entire fields of genetics and paleontology depend upon this theory. To ignore the hundreds of years of research and the mountain of evidence in favor of evolution is just plain ignorant. Explaining why and how it works in detail would take me several pages. We did not evolve from monkeys! We had a common ancestor millions of years ago, and monkeys and humans evolved simultaneously. We are still evolving.

4. Even now, if evolution was somehow proven to be incorrect(which is extremely unlikely) and a new theory seems more plausible, biologists will immediately discard it and start using the new theory. Science works on observation. So far all observations of the natural world agree with evolution by natural selection, and NONE of the observations agree with the "God" hypothesis. The very fact that you have a useless appendix inside your belly is proof of evolution and how it is still going on. A world that was created by a god would be very different from our world, eg. we create robots that are fully functional, without any useless parts.

5. Why would anyone want to feel, touch or worst of all "smell" someone's brain? Just get an MRI-scan done and check your own brain out! These are just emotional arguments without any logic. As a fellow filmmaker, I am surprised you could not see through such a simple soap-opera like farce. Moreover, actually asking people to post it on their walls too is ridiculous!


Again, sorry dude, but this time you challenged my "beliefs" and we all have to fight for what we believe in, don't we? ;)



"Faith means the will to avoid knowing what is true."

---Friedrich Nietzsche

Say yes to sanity and no to god. Read a fucking science-book. Peace.

OCCUPY F3! A note to all Alumni and Mentors...

Timm Doolen teaching directing ... what an appalling situation! So I myself might be able to teach there in a couple of years :)

Richard Hearsey and Mark Gary were like the two balls of the school. The penis had already been severed with Keith Sensing and Jeff Bacon leaving. Anything that remains is just pubic hair.

I can't imagine graduations and T.V. production without Richard. Can't imagine not running into Mark Gary in the lobby and having a random laugh. What will Producing 101 be without "Burden Of Dreams"and "Extras"?, or Directing 301 without discussions on "Antichrist" and "Hubad"? Who will support the students? Who will make them feel at home and comfortable as an artist in the midst of sheer mediocrity and a Stalinist environment, not to mention the usual pressure of deadlines, shoot-week and term-ends?

Mark Gary inspired me as a writer/director to explore the human condition. To explore the extraordinary cracks in ordinary relationships and to discover what makes people tick. The pursuit of truth is the essence of independent filmmaking and Mark made me dig deep by asking tough questions and testing my resolve. Richard, on the other hand, taught me how to apply myself practically so that I don't burn out or become insane while balancing my creativity with professionalism as an artist working in the industry. These are invaluable lessons for a budding filmmaker, and the new batch of students will miss all this so that Bigfoot can save some extra dollars to make another Deep Gold(there is a HUGE difference between a disaster movie and a disaster at the box office, which they don't seem to understand).

Great mentors have come and gone, but IAFT will not be the same without Alex Murphy's early morning antics, Richard Hearsey's stand-up props(para-ducks, foot-lights, alphabet-grenade,shiny pink suit, etc.) and Mark Gary's snoring at screenings.The stalwarts of the institution. Moreover, they are just nice people to hangout with and have a laugh over some drinks, exactly what a nervous young international student needs when feeling suddenly out of place in an alien environment.

Our equipment, mentors and teaching standards used to be world-class. Our student films could compete with the best film-schools in the world. I am a proud alumni and I had the best year of my life in IAFT, thanks to the awesome people there. Most of them have left or were forced to leave. It is a very different and far inferior film school than the one I studied at - inferior because it has lost its balls.

Just my two cents. Peace and love.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by me
is only your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky
of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope
or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder
that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

-- e e cummings

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                             --Elizabeth Bishop

Note Autobiographical

Kashmir was damp
With the damp of dreams
Autumn's funeral
With a coffin of leaves
I asked Grandma,
"Is God a Muslim?"

No one taught me the Koran
My father mouthed Freud and Marx
Something about recognizing necessity
Mother had long since discarded the veil

Grandma read me the tale of Job
"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away

Then God came:
A poor eyesight, a silver beard,
Ninety years old
My Grandfather

I worshiped him
Proud and gentle
But he crumpled
Like a maple leaf

Dust unto dust is his will.

Then our servant lost his shoes at the mosque
I had nothing left to ask.



My voice cracked on Ghalib
As dreams of God crumbled for me

Our servant, his shoes stolen at the mosque,
Turned deaf to the muezzin's call

The calligraphed dome gave way to the sky
Autumn caved into me with its script of flames
And ignited my dry garbage of God

I varnished my face with the sun,
My tongue forgot the texture of prayer.

--Agha Shahid Ali