We constantly refer to a Supreme Being as "GOD" or "FATHER" or "JEHOVAH" or "ALMIGHTY" or "LORD" or "THE CREATOR" or "ELOHIM" or "YAHWEH" but we can't call God "Allah" anymore! No sir!
We get this note from Malaysia:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Roman Catholic newspaper cleared its first legal hurdle Monday in its fight against a Malaysian government ban on Christians using the word “Allah” as a synonym for “God.”The Herald also wants a court declaration that “Allah” is not for exclusive use by Muslims.
The Herald is seeking to reverse a government order that prohibits the paper from using the word “Allah” in its Malay-language section.
The government says the word refers only to the Muslim God and its use by Christians might confuse Muslims.
It has threatened to revoke the paper’s publishing license if it defies the order.
“The court agreed that the church’s application is not frivolous nor vexatious nor an abuse of process. It deserves to be heard,” said Derek Fernandez, a lawyer for the newspaper.
The court will set a trial date later, Fernandez told reporters.
The Herald — which publishes in the English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil languages — insists that “Allah” is an Arabic word that predates Islam and has been used for centuries to mean “God” in Malay.
The case is an example of Malaysian religious minorities’ increasing complaints that their rights have been undermined by government efforts to bolster the status of Islam, Malaysia’s official religion.
(Ethnic Malays, virtually all of them Muslims, make up nearly 60 percent of Malaysia’s 27 million people. The main minorities are ethnic Chinese and Indians, and most of them are Buddhists, Christians and Hindus.)
Dissatisfaction with court rulings over Muslims’ legal right to leave Islam — along with other religious issues like state authorities’ demolition of Hindu temples, contributed to the ruling government coalition’s poor performance in March elections — when it lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament.
In a separate case in Malaysia, the Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also filed a lawsuit in an effort to be allowed to use “Allah” after officials last year banned the import of books containing the word.
Hearings in that case were still in the preliminary stages but I gues that it all boils down to the fact that Islam is trying to seperate itself from other mainstream religions and thereby drive a wedge between them.
To announce that your God cannot be refered to by none muslims suggests that Islam is either superior or that other religions are inferior and not worthy of consideration.
A very dangerous mind-set, no matter how you look at it!
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com
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