Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Relating Terrorism to Religion – Is It Justified!?

In this informative article, Knowledge Unrestricted attempts to find the true answer to the question posed in the title.

Introduction

It is an established fact that no faith or religion preaches, promotes, teaches or propagates terrorism of any kind and in any form. Similarly, no faith or religion permits, allows or condones terrorism of any kind in any form. In that case, the question which immediately comes to mind is; why some individuals or groups relate terrorism to religion! Is it justified relating terrorism to religion? Read the following lines to get a detailed answer.

What Terrorism Actually Is

First, let’s take a look at the terms “Terrorism” and “Terrorist” in a totally impartial manner.

"Terrorist is a handy word of abuse for your enemies. As such it is often loosely used or misused.” (Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1555265.stm)

“There is no single, universally accepted definition of terrorism. It is defined by the Code of Federal Regulations as “The unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” (Source: 28 C.F.R. Section 0.85)

“Britain's Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as an act or threat "designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public''; and which involves (a) involves serious violence against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person's life, creating a serious risk to public health and safety, or is designed to seriously interfere with or disrupt an electronic system.”

(Source: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2006/07/06/70087.htm)

Argument

So much for the definition of the word!

Coming back to our main topic, the term “Religious Terrorism” is a misnomer and a misconception. It is being wrongly used to identify some terrorists who just happen to belong to a certain faith or religion. For example, if a white person commits robbery, we cannot cal it white robbery or if a black person steals cars, it is not justified to call it black auto theft. Similarly, if the most number of crimes are committed by people of a particular nationality, we simply cannot name it after that country for instance; “American Crime” because the crime rate is highest in America or “British Criminals” for that matter. Criminals or terrorists cannot be attached to any particular faith, religion, nationality or race. A criminal is a criminal and a terrorist is a terrorist and that’s it.

Upon meticulous study of various major religions, it has been established that no religion favours or encourages killing of innocent people and any kind of violence as the first and last resort. In actual fact, it is the individuals or groups who commit heinous crimes against humanity by using (read misusing) religion as a scapegoat. The name of religion is wrongly used to achieve personal, political, financial and other types of usually illegal objectives. No faith or religion allows murder or killing of humans for any reason unless it is justified by the law and carried out by proper authorities such as the government or state and that too on highly justified and legal grounds. Having said that, many countries have even legislated to ban capital punishment from being carried out.

At this point, we will take murder and killing as it is part and parcel of terrorism and ascertain what the major religions of the world have to say about murder and killing especially when the victims are innocent people. Below is how various faiths and religions of the world view the act of murder.

Murder According to Religion

Judaism


The Ten Commandments, for example, prohibit murder, adultery, theft, lies and coveting.

Christianity

There is no place for murder in Christianity and the Bible prohibits from murdering humans.

Islam

In the teachings of Islam, it is said that if a person kills one innocent human being, it is equal to killing the whole of humanity.

Other faiths and religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism also prohibit murder of humans and even killing of animals without any just cause.

In addition to that, there is also this tendency to justify criminal activities and atrocious acts of violence by posing as victims of others’ terrorism. The only thing to say here is that one wrong cannot be undone by another wrong. One must stick to the law of the land wherever he/she happens to be in order to receive justice and even if justice is not properly served in this world, we can always make the most of it in the afterlife.

Findings

The notion strongly seems to be correct that people, who commit atrocious acts of terrorism by their actions, are in reality disobeying the true teachings and core principles of the faith or religion which they claim to follow. Religion is a sensitive subject and should be seen in line with their own rules and not by the evil deeds of a minor group manipulating the name of the religion as an excuse for their actions.

Conclusion

If we take an unbiased look at what is stated above, it will ultimately prove that whoever commits acts of terrorism and kills innocent human beings in the name of The Creator or any religion, is actually not following the teachings of any religion but in fact violating them. The actual reasons for acts of terrorism whether committed by individuals or groups as non-state actors, or certain government administrations themselves are quite far from being religious. These reasons may vary from political to ideological, and personal to financial for that matter.

Terrorists use the human tendency of falling for anything that is “Hot” in a particular society. This means that if “Women’s Rights” is a hot issue in one country, the terrorists will capitalize on that and in case religion is strictly followed and a sensitive matter in a particular society, then it is religion that is going to be used or should I say, exploited to commit heinous acts of terrorism for personal, social, political, ideological or financial gains.

Owing to the effect of religion on people and society and the sensitivity involved in the subject, religion simply becomes the easiest tool for terrorists to use for justifying their acts and achieving their ulterior motives. In fact, a true believer and follower of any particular religion would not resort to violence and murder or any kind of wrongdoing in the name of religion at any cost and under any circumstances.

Hence it is proved that in reality, there is no such thing as “Religious Terrorism” but rather a misnomer and misconception. Terrorism is just terrorism. It is a heinous crime and an evil act. The fact that some particular terrorists are followers of a certain religion does not mean that religion promotes terrorism. As a matter of fact, religion is only exploited by certain individuals, groups or even government administrations in order to accomplish their evil objectives. It is not the right thing to attribute terrorism to any specific group, nation or religion. For that reason, relating terrorism to religion is by no means justified.

References

http://www.vipis.org/isThereReligiousTerrorism.pdf

http://www.eurasiareview.com/201007094743/studying-relationship-between-terrorism-and-religion.html

http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-11.htm

http://www.answering-christianity.com/laws_of_murder.htm

http://www.mohammad-pbuh.com/3/terrorism.htm

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=Exodus+20%3A13

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=Revelation+21%3A7-8,

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=James+2%3A8-11)

http://www.unification.net/ws/theme060.htm

http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/420,2271681/What-does-Judaism-say-about-human-rights.html,

http://www.torah.org/learning/ravfrand/5762/yisro.html,

http://www.jewfaq.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?Keywords=murder

http://www.terrorism-research.com/

http://www.nationmaster.com/article/Crime-Rates-Around-the-World

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-reported-crime-rates.html

http://www.helium.com/items/843325-does-religion-have-anything-to-do-with-terrorism

http://www.helium.com/items/768699-does-religion-have-anything-to-do-with-terrorism

http://www.helium.com/items/436292-does-religion-have-anything-to-do-with-terrorism

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-reported-crime-rates.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes

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P.S. This article has been written on the basis of extensive research and also contains some personal views of the author. Any disagreement, comments or questions will be more than welcome.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Some Interesting Facts About Turbine Remote Control Helicopters!

This article contains some intricate and quite interesting facts about the nitty-gritty of a turbine remote control helicopter which I believe would help learners a great deal. Flying a remote control helicopter has now become more than just a hobby or high tech pastime. Moving forward from flying an electric remote control helicopter, you would certainly want to step up into the world of higher power and better flying competence. This is about time you knew something more about what is inside turbine RC helicopters.

A typical turbine remote control helicopter weighs around and about 12 to 16 kilograms or 25 to 35 pounds. Unlike an electric RC helicopter which uses electric batteries as its power source, a turbine remote control helicopter or turbine RC helicopter uses a turbine or jet engine in order to turn the rotor blades. Now that sounds electrifying doesn’t it! As a matter of fact, it is far more electrifying than having a RC helicopter that runs on an electric motor. So how do these turbine or jet engines operate especially in turbine remote control helicopters? Well, you definitely need to read on to get to the answer!

Simple Definition Of Turbine Or Jet Engine

In plain and simple words, a turbine or jet engine takes air in through the front which is then condensed or compressed in the compression chamber and burnt with fuel in the combustion chamber where it is turned into thrust which produces the required driving force. The fuel used in jet engines might be butane or propane gas as primary fuel and jet fuel, kerosene etc as secondary fuel. as the secondary fuel. The jet engine remains in a spinning motion during all this process pushing extremely hot air and fuel residue through the exhaust at the tail end.

The general perception of a turbine or jet engine is that it produces thrust for propulsion or forward motion only and therefore cannot turn the rotor blades of a helicopter for that matter. Now here is the twist in the story because there is a slightly different type of jet engine for helicopters which is called the turbo-shaft jet engine. A turbo-shaft jet engine derives power from the engine thrust and converts it into motorized power which is used to spin the rotors of a helicopter.

Simple Definition Of Turbine Or Jet Engine For Helicopters

All helicopters powered by turbine or jet engines whether they are real or remote controlled models, use turbo-shaft jet engines which produce thrust not for propulsion or forward movement but to provide the required power to their rotor blades. The thrust or power produced by a turbine or jet engine is conveyed from the engine shaft to the rotor using a transmission gear box. The transmission gear box controls the extremely high speed of the turbine and trims it down into a lower speed that is required for a helicopter rotor. The engine speed can be simply defined as revolutions per minute or RPM as it is generally referred to. The gear box controls the thousands and thousands of RPM and reduces them into a few hundred RPM as required by a helicopter rotor. The tail rotor is also powered by the same principle using the transmission gear box.

Apart from the transmission gearbox, there is another component called the ECM (Engine Control Module) or ECU (Engine Control Unit) that controls the vital functions of the turbine or jet engine such as;

Jet Engine Start Up Function

Fuel Intake to the Jet Engine

Engine Throttle Command or Speed Control (Especially in the case of turbine remote control helicopter)

Turbine Turning Speed or RPM as most commonly referred to

Battery Voltage of the Fuel Pump

EGT or Exhaust Gas Temperature

Jet Engine Run Time

A more specific and somewhat detailed definition of an ECU for a turbine remote control helicopter engine is given below.

The ECU is a computer of sorts which performs several highly crucial tasks for a jet engine to work smoothly.

1. The first function that an ECU performs is a temperature check of the engine right at the time of start up.

2. It starts the electric motor (used to start the engine) bringing it to a steady speed of approximately 25,000 RPM constantly checking the mounting engine temperature.

3. It continuously checks the RPM and upon reaching the desired speed, turns on the primary fuel valves.

4. It turns the electric motor off once the engine starts running independently.

5. Upon reaching the desired level of high temperature, the ECU switches the fuel pump on and starts supplying the secondary fuel and shuts off primary fuel supply.

6. It adjusts the output voltage of the fuel pump in order to maintain a steady engine speed of something like 50,000 RPM.

If all remains smooth and steady, it is time for a lift off guys!

I believe that the information provided in this article will be of good help to aspiring RC helicopter flyers. Enjoy the thrill and excitement of flying your turbine remote control helicopter and make the most of it.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Worst Floods In Recent History Hit Pakistan!

A colossal humanitarian crisis.

A catastrophe of great proportions.

A tragic state of events that have been haunting a south Asia country, Pakistan.

Over 3.5 million innocent children are facing the risk of water borne diseases in the flood hit areas of Pakistan.

Pakistan's UN envoy in Geneva said on Tuesday that reconstruction in northern areas alone could cost $US2.5 billion ($A2.78 billion), after floods stretching to the south ravaged an area "the size of England."

A couple of senior officials from the United Nations on Tuesday warned of a human catastrophe in Pakistan following its devastating floods and urged the Pakistani government and the international community to speed up and increase their humanitarian efforts.

In grief-stricken Pakistan, where relentless flooding has destroyed houses, taken lives and ruined entire villages for more than two weeks, water is both villain and savior.

According to CNN, about one-fifth of the country is submerged under murky water from torrential monsoon rains. Children and adults wade in the filthy waters, pleading for help.

The only recourses from the threat of waterborne illnesses are clean water and medical care -- but both are in short supply.

Polluted floodwater, officials fear, could lead to deadly diseases such as typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis and cholera -- especially among children.

UN aid agencies have said hundreds of thousands of people affected by the floods in Pakistan have yet to receive aid, adding that the relief operation remains underfunded.

Officials say the humanitarian situation there remains one of the most serious they have ever experienced.

Six million people are in need of immediate assistance, they said.Extra emergency aid funds have been pledged to help more than 20 million people affected by the disaster.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

What Albert Einstein Once Said!

Albert Einstein does not need to be introduced to anyone in the world. Today I am quoting what he once said only in order to make people remember what he did and what he achieved.

"If my theory of relativity is proved correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."

--- Albert Einstein