Student quits high school choir over Islamic song
 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/15...est=latestnews

early reporting from fox - you have been forewarned.... but hey, it's not like you'd probably see this on the other MSM outlets.

My big thing is the double standard when it comes to religion in the schools/classroom, such as a moment for silent prayer/meditation at football games (which has been argued against by athiests). Either ban EVERYTHING or leave it alone.
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A Colorado high school student quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric "there is no other truth except Allah" made it into the repertoire.

James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing "Zikr," a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland's selection, Harper quit.



"I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. "This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet ... I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth."

But district spokesman Jeff Kirtland defended the decision to include the song.

"Choral music is often devoted to religious themes. ... This is not a case where the school is endorsing or promoting any particular religion or other non-educational agenda. The song was chosen because its rhythms and other qualities would provide an opportunity to exhibit the musical talent and skills of the group in competition, not because of its religious message or lyrics," Kirtland told FoxNews.com in an email while noting that the choir "is a voluntary, after-school activity."

"Students are not required to participate, and receive no academic credit for doing so," he said.

At an upcoming concert, the choir is scheduled to sing an Irish folk song and an Christian song titled "Prayer of the Children," in addition to the song by Rahman.

"The teacher consulted with students and asked each of them to review an online performance of the selection with their parents before making the decision to perform the piece," Kirtland said, and members who object to the religious content of musical selections aren't required to sing them.

Rahman, who has sold hundreds of millions of records and is well-known in his homeland, has said the song is not intended for a worship ceremony. He told FoxNews.com in a written statement that the song, composed for the move "Bose, the Forgotten Hero," is about "self-healing and spirituality."

"It is unfortunate that the student in Colorado misinterpreted the intention of the song," Rahman said. "I have long celebrated the commonalities of humanity and try to share and receive things in this way. While I respect his decision for opting out, this incident is an example of why we need further cultural education through music.”

The song is written in Urdu, but one verse translates to "There is no truth except Allah" and "Allah is the only eternal and immortal." Although the choir sang the original version, Wieland distributed translated lyrics.

Grand Junction High School Principal Jon Bilbo referred questions to Kirtland.

FoxNews.com's Joshua Rhett Miller contributed to this story.

On the itouch and getting ready for dinner/kids to bed/off to gym. Will try to dig and defoxify later tonight

Allah means God.

It means the Muslim god. You don't hear "Elohim" and think maybe someone is talking about Buddhism.

Sounds like the choir teacher did everything she could to allow for religious sensibilities, though. If kids were allowed to opt out of any of the religious songs, as the article states, I don't see the problem.

I also don't see the problem if James Harper wants to quit choir.

Big non-story, as far as I can tell.

The kid can go join the table of the kid that quit over Ave Maria.

And all the kids that won't say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the "One nation, under God" line.

and all the kids whose parents complain that the Physics teacher doesn't cover Moses or how the Biology teacher teaches that all life began with a gigantic maglite.

Of the millions of school kids in the United States...I really don't see the 1-10 a year whose parents hold a press conference to protest being an issue or a big deal.

Sometimes lawyers get involved and they run it through the courts but the cases that matter usually have more substance than the whiney attention whore cases such as this one.

You mean the kids that are saying it correctly instead of the kids who are scared of dirty Commies?

Like the school said, the choir sings other religious songs, so what is wrong with adding a Muslim one?

Americans need to quit complaining about the whole "there is no other truth but Allah" like as if other religions don't also think theirs is the only true religion. They all do.

Knight of Columbus halls may be closing up shop all over the country, but all their damn god plaques and statues will stick around giving the religious folks something to ignore and atheists something to complain about.

Kid has a right to quit. I don't see anyone getting butt hurt about the other religious songs, though, which they probably should be. Like Amblyopic said at the top of the thread, either ban it all or leave it alone. Personally, I'm in the 'ban it all' camp, when it comes to public education, but some of the greatest and most uplifting music, in history, was written for various religions.

I am kinda in the ban it all camp, but I don't see the point when it comes to art/literature. Yeah, praying and science it makes sense to be seperate... History, literature, and art; it's most of what is out there. We should learn about it, perform the great music/theater, read the great books, and so forth...

If youre speaking Hebrew you might use elohim to refer to any god or gods, pagan or not. If youre speaking Arabic, 'Allah' means God with a capital G, the one god, and according to the Koran theres only one god and hes same god as the god of the Jews and Christians. In fact Arabic speaking jews and Christians call god 'Allah'.

Yet somehow, when speaking English, Jews worship God, Christians worship Christ, and Muslims still worship Allah. I understand that Mohammed ripped off the Jews and the Christians, right down to claiming the angel Gabriel as his primary messenger. Doesn't mean they are the same gods. The Jewish god has yet to send a messiah, and pretty much only cares about ethnic Jews. The Christian god sent "himself" as a messiah 2000 years ago. The Muslim god has no need for messiahs, I guess Mohammed was blessing enough.

People like to say "they are the same God" or "Muslims worship the same God as 'we' do" as a means of defusing enmity among the three religions. But doing so ignores the reasons for that enmity. They are separate religions, separate stories with markedly different "endings," and separate gods.

That said, the song was in Urdu. It was a reference to the Muslim god. And I still don't care that James Harper wants to quit choir over it. Join a church choir if it means that much to you, Jimbo.

Unfortunately for you, the story of this God all originates from the same place, therefore educational wise, it is the same God.
It would be like another religion using Zeus. Same entity, just confused about how the story progressed. It's not even a different timeline. Same timelines, some people just kept building onto the story.

I like how you said the Christians got ripped off by the Muslims, but you go on to make excuses for the Christians ripping off the Jews. LOLz, bias ftl.

I know where to put my money

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/imag...5616610-36.jpg

Messiahs? No. Prophets? Yes.

Christians and Jews are referred to as "People of the Book." The Old Testament seems to be universal, to religions born in that area.

I see that some devout Norse god worshiper finally realized that the picture is of Thor, not Odin, and fixed the caption :lol:

You seem to think I have a vested interest in any of those three. I don't. I do think Mohammed ripped off his story from existing religions in the same way that I think Joseph Smith, a Christian, ripped off his story from existing religions. I don't know that there is a single person to whom you can track the "rip off" of the Jews that created Christianity; in my mind the very existence of a man named Jesus of Nazareth has been called into question. At any rate, the first Christians were Jews, so they kind of ripped themselves off. There are convincing arguments made that the Jews ripped off their religion from the Babylonians, but no one in this thread was making the claim that Adad and Yahweh are the same god.

They are not the same timelines. In the Jewish timeline, their god never came to earth as a mortal. In the Christian timeline he did, then he pretty much wanked off for the next two millenia. In the Muslim timeline, their god never came to earth as a mortal, but did reveal himself and his "new" intentions for mankind to a polygamist pedophile a little over a thousand years ago. Those three entities have completely different stories after the BC/AD changeover.

If there were two stories of Zeus, where one ended with him taking the form of a human and eating the ass out of a goat, and the other he stays on Olympus and eats pretzels, I would say those stories describe two different gods. Otherwise how do you define the entity itself?

When did I make excuses for Christians and their religion?

The timeline is the same. There really is no new additions to the Jewish religion since before Jesus. Jesus built onto the story of the Jewish religion. Same with christianity and muslims. The christian story was pretty much settled when Mohammed made up his shit and used that timeline to make his. Pretty much all religions have borrowed shit from each other.

You and I have different definitions of "same" and "different."


...






Or, do we? :skep:

If I ever decide to take religion seriously and get all indoctrinated...I'm so going to chart up motherfucking threads like this.

diagrams yo
iz whats fer breakfast

I'm not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination. If my kid came to me whining about having to sing something about Allah, I'd tell him to STFU and sing the damn song.

The New Testament explicitly says that the God of Jesus is the same God of Abraham. The Koran says the same thing, thats my point. Whether or not people decide that they want their own custom god that isnt associated with those other people, whoever they may be, is irrelevant to the historical facts.

And my point is that the song was referring to the Muslim god. Which, today, is a different god than that of the Jews and the Christians, whose gods are also different from each other.

Same God. Different style of worship. They even share some of the same books, as I stated previously. Facts don't change.

x2

IIRC isn't Jesus supposed to be a type of prophet in Mohammed's eyes?


But anyways, like I said, my thing is differance in the way it's applied. I don't see the ACLU crying fowl over this because theyr'e pushing "god" and religion on people.

It's been a while but if I recall correctly from my readings he's a prophet and, more importantly, the prophet who returns at the end of things.

If they were the same god, the different styles of worship would describe denominations. They are different religions, at least according to those who practice them.

At this point it's a semantic argument, I think. I understand the three share holy books, some dogmas, and a lot of history (both verified and dogmatic). But they are different gods in my book, by my definition of what makes a thing "different" from another thing. To a Christian, worship of the Muslim god is idolatry, and if it goes without a belief in Christ as the savior (a god) it's a path to hell. To a Muslim, belief in Christ as a god is idolatry, and denial of Mohammed as the prophet is some sort of sin. A Jew would also consider worship of Christ as idolatry.*


* These are, of course, the "by-the-book" dogmatic views, as I understand them. I get that some Christians don't believe in hell, some Jews eat shellfish, and some Muslims have probably never even heard of Gabriel.

Soooo, possible fallout for the kid? Think this will hurt him academically? hurt his applications to colleges? This sort of falls into the lack of respect for others category the 3way I see it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now I'm supposed to answer not only whether they are three different deities, but whether those three could fornicate?

Although, if they are the same god, the implications are mind-boggling...

Sorry, but if a Christian considers worship of the "Muslim God" to be idolatry, then said Christian needs to look that word up. In fact Islam has even less symbology attached than do the majority of Christian denominations.

Most religions, that are based in the Old Testament stories, believe that everyone who doesn't follow their personal flavour is going straight to hell. At least one even believes that not all of THEM are going to heaven, because they have a set number who will get in. As far as I'm concerned any of their new converts are fools, because all the tickets for the cruise ship have already been sold.

Islam admits that Jews and Christians follow the same God, but says that they got it wrong. They're all based on the same foundation books. It's not semantics, it's bloody fact, that they all follow the same God. Those who fail to admit this are simply trying to set themselves further apart from what is different because of zenophobia, or simple bigotry. The simple truth is that they can't agree on what secret handshake gets you into the lodge house, but they all have the same address to it.

the father, the father, the father and the holy shit ghost?

wow... mindfuck - right there...

Man, this is the real problem.... No one really studies religion anymore. Yahweh, Allah and God are the same person. There is no question. Both are off-shoots of the Israelite mono-theistic religion. Which in turn has been theorized as a modification of an older middle eastern religion that can be traced back to Mesopotamia or the "cradle of civilization". Moreover, Jesus never started a "religion", he preached a slightly different, "reformed" version of Judaism but he still considered himself a Jew. His followers actually started "Christianity" and Rome took the ball and ran away with it. Some of you would argue that Catholics and Lutherans have a different God. Oh and btw basically all religions are "rip offs" of each other. There are elements of the older "pagan" religions in Judaism and a great deal of Catholic rituals were "borrowed" from "pagan" religions to better assimilate them. Even the original Roman religion was little more than a direct "rip off" of older Greek beliefs.

You guys are talking as if Yahweh, Allah, or whatever else actually exists and defining this one god in historical context. In my mind he or they don't exist, so I define them by how their believers perceive them. Some of those believers perceive that certain events happened, other believers say different events happened. Unless there is one deity simultaneously doing certain things but not doing them, the believers are defining and worshipping different gods.

I understand that the myths differ only slightly, and that from a secular historian's point of view all these people are worshipping one character with a slightly different history and prophesized future. What I'm saying is that there are some people who believe Yahweh came to earth as a man, others who believe he has not done that but will, and others who believe something totally different. To those people who believe, as they exist today they are different gods (despite the fact that they have at times been referred to by the same names). Unless a deity actually exists, how do you define a deity except in the terms of its believers?

so by your logic, if 3 people look at a tree, their "perception" defines it... It's the same tree no matter what it's called. :idk:

Anyway, the Israelites had a God and they all worshiped him. Christianity is an off shoot of Judaism. Islam is the culmination of all Middle Eastern monotheistic religions including Judaism and Christianity.

If it's an imaginary tree in the first place, then yeah.

Except that they all read about the imaginary tree, in the same book.

Which book?

Was the Old Testament the original manuscript for the big 3 or was there something else that predated it?

I believe that the oldest written documents, that pertain to this discussion, are the Dead Sea Scrolls. Their existence would point to other, older works and probably oral history, in the region. Who knows? The whole thing might devolve unto Zoroastrianism and the worship of Ahura Mazda, in Iran, but it's clear that the three stated religions hold the Old Testament in high regard.

*EDIT* In case you're wondering, what I'm saying is that it all pretty much starts with the old Torah.

Gotcha.

I was thinking that the Koran was as old or older than the bible.

See edit.

The Koran starts around 600AD (CE, whatever the current vogue is).

The New Testament, by definition, can't really start until around year zero.

The Torah has its origins back almost three thousand years, at the least.

Yep, it was an oral history of sorts that was recited in the tents and around campfires. It is the basis for all modern mono-theistic religions. There is some evidence of an older middle eastern one god religion that predates the worship of Yahweh and it even sports a flood story and a very similar creation story... The name of it eludes me though.:idk:

It's in "The Gilgamesh". I just pulled out my copy, to confirm it.

Many religions have a flood myth though.

True.... One theory is that the "first" religion was started at the mouth of the Tigress and Euphrates river which periodically flooded. :idk: It's either that or there really was an almost world wide flood....:lol:

Think about what would happen, at the end of an ice age. Given the screwed up calendaring system they obviously used in The Bible, 40 days and 40 nights could be a few thousand years.

Hmmmm..... not a lot of "ice age" going on in the Middle East...:wink:

If you ever wonder what happened EXACTLY during the ice age and afterwards....:wink:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/arti...during-ice-age

All anyone pays attention to is that women are "forced" to do or not do things. Oh, and it's different then MY religeon so it must be wrong.

It's the dont you tell me what to do mentality of today. Don't try to muddle things up with logic.

Yea I just am amazed at the absolute lack of knowledge on religion being displayed.... When a Muslim calls out to "God" he is calling out to the same God Moses prayed to and the Pope prays to. Even the principles are similar...in fact, some of the most radical principles of Islam were also practiced by ancient Jews and even some factions of Christianity. What's funny to me is that basically, the "reformers" were people that a. didn't like all the rules and b. wanted it to be easier to get into heaven.:lol:

No, not a lot of ice in the Middle East. I was talking about water. The Tigris and Euphrates, and Nile valleys under a hundred feet of water, to be specific ;)

hmmm... so during the Ice Age there was less water in the Middle East? Bear with me, We are not in an Ice Age now so by your logic, shouldn't the middle East be flooded? I mean, where did all that water go? I'm sure that you have a point to an extent but I think that the overall amount of water in all forms was the same or similarly spread out around the world. Otherwise, during the Ice Age the Middle East would have been even drier... In fact, the theory is that because it was cooler, the region was actually wetter and more fertile than it is today.:idk:

BTw I was teasing about your theory but since there wasn't any ice, there would be no run off either. No run off, no flood. Higher temps, less rain.:idk:

Wetter, more fertile, and larger because of all the water trapped in glaciers. Then, when the glaciers melted, the water level rose to current levels. You know; like the Global Warming guys are talking about now. Think globally ;)