Pwned! Again??

Church torching? Immediately after hacked website?

I'm still speechless until this moment. So, I'll just be quoting news articles here.

ADD: Those who wish to donate for Metro Tabernacle Church, check out this site.

Latest news as I write this post:

A fourth Klang Valley church, this time in Kampung Subang, was reportedly attacked with Molotov cocktail which failed to explode while police have dismissed reports that cars with Christian symbols having their windscreens smashed in the Bangsar suburb today, hours after arson attacks on three churches. (Source here)

More details from TheStar here.

Twitter responses:

(1)  Umno Youth head Khairy Jamaluddin tweeted "Despicable & cowardly. This is not my Malaysia.", then later on, "Just visited Metro Tabernacle church in Melawati. Am lost for words."

(2)  Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir tweeted "All Muslims shd condemn the torching of the church last nite. It is unIslamic to destroy ANY house of worship.", then, "At the church. I wanna cry. It's heartbreaking!". Wonderfully, she also retweeted this Bible verse: "RT @meeshly: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34)".

(3)  Tweet from @fahmi_fadzil: DrDzul: "PAS condemns the attack unequivocally. Statement out on Harakah soon."

(4)  Our dear Prime Minister himself tweeted "I condemn the church bombings. An investigation has been launched and those responsible will be brought to justice. http://bit.ly/7KuTPd"


Other responses:

(5)  Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim described the attacks as heinous and said such actions were against the teachings of Islam.

“Islam teaches its followers to respect the places of worship of other religions. I urge all parties to remain calm. I have full faith that Malaysians will be able to resolve the matter without any conflict”

(6)  Wan Azizah urges Malaysians to unite after church attacks. Read here.

(7)  Pak Lah condemns church attacks. Read here.

(8)  MCA condemns attacks on churches. Read here.

(9)  "Pemuda Barisan Nasional (BN) mengecam sekeras-kerasnya tindakan membakar Gereja Metro Tabernacle di Desa Melawati, Kuala Lumpur tengah malam semalam." Read here.

(10) MPF Statement On Church Torchings: "The cowardly and utterly senseless act of a group of misguided, chauvinistic bigots in torching at least three churches in the Klang Valley this morning must be condemned in no uncertain terms by all peace loving Malaysians."  Read full article here.

(11) Christian Federation Malaysia (CFM) strongly condemns fire-bombing of Churches. Read here.

(12) More politicians responses here.

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And I'll end here with two great posts from:
1) Art Harun
2) Marina Mahathir
Please click and read. Thanks.

Myself? I'm still speechless and still learning.
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Pwned!

* click for larger view *

wooaW!

Some people are really harder than hard rocks.

For those of you who missed it... The official Malaysian Judiciary website,

http://www.mahkamah.gov.my/, was HACKED a few hours ago, if not mistaken, around 9pm. The home page was replaced with what shown above. Take a look for yourself. The page lasted for about 3 hours, till 12.30 midnight.

The "Allah" issue has already been nicely and peacefully discussed and reasoned, yet there will always be people who are outdated.

ADD: Read TheStar news here.

Nomenclature

So, regarding the matter on the usage of the word "Allah", I'll just link you to two great views I happened to come upon. Just two opinions and it covers most of what you may ever wanted to argue about, in regards to this issue.

1)  From a Muslim's perspective, our dear Marina Mahathir takes the example of  "Prophet Muhammad’s Promise to Christians" to show how easily people get confused with the word. The article also pointes out how are Muslims to relate with Christians.

Now, when that delegation from St Catherine's monastery came to meet with Prophet Mohamad (pbuh), I suppose it's fair to assume that they spoke Arabic to one another. And when they were conversing, surely the word 'God' must have come up. As in "May God Be With You" and such like. What word did the Prophet (pbuh) use for 'God' I wonder? And what did the St Catherinians use in return? For monotheists like them, was there a 'your God' and 'my God' type of situation, or did they understand that they were both talking about the same One?

While some idiots are mourning over the 'loss' of the word 'Allah' and therefore basically telling the world that they are people easily confused by nomenclature, and others are predicting riots over  what is basically a 'copyright' issue, let me define what I think a confident Muslim should be:

Please read the full article here.

* Commercial break... refresh your eyes *

2)  From a Christian's perspective, Dr Ng Kam Weng discusses the significance of the word "Allah" in Christianity, backed with some doctrinal references. He focuses more on the 'technical' details.

One major demand from the Malay protestors is that Christians stop using the word Allah on grounds that Christians can find a simple alternative, that is, simply substitute the word Allah with the word Tuhan. Unfortunately, this demand only betrays the ignorance of the protestors. I would have thought that any Malay would know that the meaning of the words Allah (God) and Tuhan (Lord, Rabb) are not the same. How can they suggest that Christians simply use the word Tuhan to substitute the word Allah? To express the issue linguistically, Allah and Tuhan have different senses even though they have the same reference.

Both the terms Allah and Tuhan are used in the Malay Bible. Following the precedent set by Arab Christians, Allah is used to translate el/elohim and Tuhan(or TUHAN in caps) is used to translate Yahweh (YHWH). The two words are sometimes paired together as Yahweh-Elohim in 372 places in the Old Testament (14 times in Genesis 2-3; 4 times in Exodus;8 times in Joshua; 7 times in 2 Samuel; 22 times in Chronicles; 12 times in Psalms; 32 times in Isaiah; 16 times in Jeremiah and 210 times in Ezekiel etc.).

More importantly, the word Tuhan is also applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Thus we read of the LORD Jesus as Tuhan Yesus (The word LORD was used to translate the word kurios 8400 times in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. It refers to human beings in only 400 times and refers to God 8000 times. Of these 8000 times, 6700 are substitute for the word YHWH). The transference of the title kurios LORD/YHWH to Jesus Christ is testimony to the belief in the deity of Christ right at the beginning of Christianity.

Please read the full article here.


So, what can I say? In the end, it's all about politics, and people fall for it.


ADD: Another interesting read, from a Sabahan. Please read. It'll widen your mind.
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