Firdauz takes 5

Telah merasuk seorang lelaki separuh gemuk.

Dan lelaki itu menjadi gila.

Lala.

Ironinya, saya bukan seorang muslim atau seorang yang beragama untuk menulis topik ini. Tetapi saya terpanggil untuk menjawab, dan mungkin agak sedikit terlambat.

Saya ditanya (didalam blog milik seorang gadis Malaysia yang belajar di luar negara) oleh rakannya;

“So by not believing in existence of God(Allah the Almighty), how did u explain the creation of the world rite now..Or may be u have the same idea with Charles Darwin..the theory of evolution.. Trust me the theory doesnt make sense..the idea about how human evolved from ape is unrealistic.. coz nowadays ape is still ape..y dont they evolve..even Darwin cant answer for sure.. that is y Theory of creation made more sense..and the creator, Allah the Almighty..:) Renung2 kn lah.. ”

Niat beliau, mungkin untuk menyedarkan saya (yang mungkin pada pandangan beliau, sudah jauh terpesong). Dan jika benar itu niat beliau, saya rasa, ia satu niat yang baik.

Mungkin beliau berniat baik, tapi persoalannya, apa yang perlu disedarkan? Bahawa teori evolusi itu bercanggah dengan agama Islam? Bahawa teori evolusi tidak realistik?

Sejak bila pula Islam yang dibawa Muhammad menyentuh teori evolusi dan sekaligus menyangkalnya? Dan sejak bila pula teori evolusi itu salah? Mutasi genetik tidak berlaku? DNA tidak wujud? RNA cuma bayangan saintis? Virus H1N1 hari ini sama sahaja genetiknya dengan virus influenza 400 ribu tahun dahulu? Tunggu, virus H1N1 tidak wujud?

Manusia bebas dari kecacatan dan mutasi genetik kerana kita dalahirkan di syurga dan bebas dari berevolusi?

Mari ke syurga dengan menolak sains biologi?

Islam yang dibawa Muhammad, cuma menyebut penciptaan manusia dari tanah liat. Tidak diceritakan dengan terperinci bagaimana prosesnya dari tanah itu jika ada di ambil atom karbonnya, dan dibentuk kompaun organik dari atom karbon tersebut bersama atom hidrogen dan atom hidrogen dari tanah. Tidak dicerita terperinci pemprosesan penciptaan manusia.

Tidak dicerita, tidak bermaksud Islam itu bertentangan dengan sains.

Tidak percaya tuhan, tidak bermaksud sewenang-wenangnya memilih sains.

Sains bukan pilihan kedua sesudah agama. Sains atau Agama? Agama atau Sains? Pilih satu sahaja! Agama dan sains, boleh diseiringkan, tidak perlu dipilih salah satu. Boleh beragama, boleh menjadi saintis. Boleh tidak beragama, dan tidak menjadi saintis.

Boleh tidak beragama atau beragama, dan mendalami ilmu agama, dan mendalami ilmu sains.

Sains itu penemuan ilmu. Agama itu bimbingan rohani, untuk mereka yang menerimanya. Kalau ada dalam Al-Quran diceritakan kejadian manusia, disini salah satu ayatnya;

Dan di antara tanda-tanda yang membuktikan kekuasaanNya (menghidupkan kamu semula), bahawa Ia menciptakan kamu dari tanah; setelah sempurna sahaja peringkat-peringkat kejadian kamu, kamu menjadi manusia yang hidup bertebaran di muka bumi.

- Ar-Ruum 30:20 (juga diceritakan dalam surah Al-Hajj 22:5, Al-Mu’minuun 23:12, As-Sajdah 32:7, Al-Rahmaan 55:14)

Semua ayat diatas mengatakan manusia (lembaga adam) dijadikan dari tanah liat. Jika saya jadikan topik ini untuk membincangkan kenapa tiada dokongan sains dalam penciptaan manusia dari tanah liat, secara jujurnya, sudah lama saya katakan secara saintifiknya, manusia datangnya bukan dari tanah liat. Secara saintifiknya, manusia datangnya dari proses evolusi sel tunggal ke sel pelbagai. Yang ini ada sokongan sainsnya. Bukan sedikit sokongannya, dari penemuan fosil ke penemuan penempatan, tulisan, penggunaan dan alatan, tamadun dan bahasa, dan segala yang dari yang purba ke yang moden, mendokong sains dan pensejarahan manusia.

Dokongan sains, adalah fakta yang boleh di uji dan diramal keputusannya. Boleh di ambil tulang ikan atau dinosaur atau primat di musium atau di dalam almari — jika ada –, dan diperiksa tarikh karbonnya dan di ulang prosesnya. Terus dan terang. Dokongan mereka yang beragama Islam, adalah iman. Duduknya di dalam rohani, amalannya, masih terus dan terang. Keputusannya, sukar diramal. Mungkin terus masuk ke syurga, mungkin disiksa dahulu di neraka.

Secara jujurnya, berterus terang saya katakan saya tidak beriman. Saya menolak kejadian manusia dari tanah liat. Saya menolak ajaran Islam yang dibawa Muhammad. Dalam Islam, setalah saya mati, saya terus ke neraka. Terus dan terang. Senang diramal. Dan disini bezanya;

Mereka yang beriman, percaya tanpa ada ragu sedikit pun, bahawa Allah itu maha pencipta dan maha mengetahui. Ia tahu apa yang tidak diketahui. Ia tahu bagimana untuk menjadikan manusia dari tanah liat, tanpa perlunya dokongan sains, ia mencipta tanpa perlu mengikut hukum fizik atau biologi atau kimia.

Allah tahu — apa yang Firdauz tidak tahu. Allah tahu, matinya saya nanti, di letak dimana. Letak dalam almari — jika ada –, bakar sampai berapi-api dalam neraka, letak dalam musium depan syurga, Allah tahu, menurut Islam, apa yang saya tidak tahu.

Tidak salah untuk beriman dan menerima sains biologi, evolusi terutamanya. Untuk mereka yang benar-benar beriman, tahu bahawa Islam tidak bercanggah dengan sains mahupun evolusi kerana Allah itu maha mengetahui. Di sini peluang untuk belajar sains tanpa perlu menolak Islam.

Jadi teorinya — setelah panjang bercerita — manusia datangnya dari beruk besar yang jalannya bongkok? Bukan dari tanah liat?

Mencabar, memang benar mencabar iman, bukan? Menolak sains biologi lebih mudah, bukan?

Believe what you want. But if you’re a true muslim, so what if you don’t have any scientific evidence to support the Quranic claims? To please an agnostic and a cynic like me? Don’t.

Anwar said, “Can I f— you?”

Mohd Saiful rejected.

Anwar then responded in an angry tone, “What?” and immediately directed him to go to the master bedroom.

Mohd Saiful went to the room. Shortly after, Anwar entered the room and went straight to the edge to close the curtain there.

Anwar went on to switch off the lights.

He then asked Mohd Saiful to clean up in the washroom.

Mohd Saiful removed his clothes, cleaned his body but did not have a shower. He took a towel from the washroom and used it. He hung his clothes on the knob of the closet, getting ready to, i dunno what?

Anwar stood at the edge of the bed.

(Come to papa?)

“He was clad in a towel and directed me to go to him and then hugged me while we were standing,” Mohd Saiful said.

Awwww…. they huged. So cute!

*source – The Star

Life was, so much easier, and so much merrier before she came too close to my screen.

Life was — like any drama queen would tell — depressing and not worth living when she found out about it.

“Why are you…reading about painting nails one?” asked Fresh whose Chinese name literally meant fresh. Her face looked puzzled.

“Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhaha..” I laughed, i just had to. I wanted to kill myself didn’t i? Ofttimes, i’m confused between being suicidal and highly amused. My life was — before she found it about it — cloaked in melodrama and insanity. My life is, after she found out about it, still pretty much melodramatic and insane. Look at the way i write. Look at yourself. The eyeballs that follow each line and the lips that whisper every word i write, amuses me. “I want to know how they did it! I painted my nail but why not even one ah. How, how.”

I had painted my fingernail purple. And like every effeminate man would tell, it’s pretty. Prettier than yours.

(and like a girl, you’ll be jealous of it)

(losers!)

(sissy!)

Remember when we were friends and you were stupid and i was obviously charming and gave you pink flowers and told you to return them back?

Those were the happiest days, weren’t they?

Now you went Japan and all around the world and got handsome boyfriend already very action ah. Message also dowan reply.

How you been, silly girl.

Sometimes, stupid friends of yours are less stupid than mine when mine constantly leave me to go to Klang to eat my favourite dish and then beyond extreme stupidity, i suspect, they laugh happily with white teeth and bunny teeth at least one of them at the matters because i don’t get to join them.

Stupid friends of mine. What did i do in my previous life to still have them as friends? Was i Adolf Hitler or am i the reincarnation of Britney Spears? Poor girl is still alive isn’t she. Too bad i don’t care.

And among the stupid friends of mine, i picked my favourite and text her a message. Her name could have been Vernice Mashi Moro if she were a fat Korean rabbit but then again, everything i write is just a crazy stream of insanity that sometimes, doesn’t really belong in a sentence.

I wrote, not to a fat Korean rabbit but close, i wrote, “you guys go BKT ah?”

“Yes, jam here.”

“Tapau for me can ah? One set can?”

Of course she said yes. After all, i’m the cleverest among them and i had decided after a big bowl of the very delicious Bak Kut Teh, that i don’t really mind if my friends are stupid.

After all, it’s too cliche to end a story with an after all.

(didn’t i tell you everything i write is just a stream of insanity)

Music by Amanda Palmer. Short story by Neil Gaiman.

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Like you, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard Amanda Palmer had been killed.

Like you, I know no more than that. Killed, yes. But by whom and how none of us ever knew. There was nothing ever said about it on the television or the radio. But we knew, we knew.

Rumors multiplied. I met a Hell’s Angel in a bar in Encino who swore blind that he knew a man who claimed to have crushed in Amanda’s skull with lead piping, on behalf of a crazed ex-boyfriend.

It became a national obsession. “Who killed Amanda Palmer?” bubble gum cards were traded and traded again in school yards across America. I still own two of them: one shows Amanda’s bullet-riddled corpse dangling from a wall; the other shows her body washed up on the shore of an unidentified lake, her face blue and puffy from the water, the claws of some crustacean pushing out from between her purple lips.

I remember the candlelight vigils, and the shrines, dozens of them, in cities all over the world, spontaneous demonstrations from peole who no longer had an Amanda Palmer. They lit candles, and left behind telephones, scalpels, exotic items of underwear, plastic figurines, children’s picture books, antlers, love.

“She went as she would have wanted to go.” That was what an Amanda Palmer impersonator told me in a pub off Carnaby Street. Much later that night, voice slurred by alcohol, the man confided in me that he was certain that the real Amanda Palmer had been “abducted by beings from a higher vibrational plane”, and that the pictures of Amanda’s death were not fakes, pasted-up and air-brushed in some back-alley photogaphic studio, but actual photographs of the deaths of “sister-selves”, creatures grown from Amanda Palmer’s own protoplasm.

Very young children made up songs about the different ways Amanda died, killing her happily at the end of every verse, too young to understand the horror. Maybe it really was how she would have wanted to go.

If you see Amanda Palmer on the street, kill her, said the graffiti under the bridge in Boston. And beneath that somebody else wrote, That way she’ll live for ever.

- Neil Gaiman

you may stop praying now. Yes, i’ve found god (or a shawl to wear as headscarf)

An old joke i used to tell :

“Dulu, memang dia tu pondan. Tapi sekarang dah insaf. Dah tak nak jadi pondan lagi, dah pakai tudung, tutup aurat. Alhamdulillah.”

(It’s a joke about a transwoman who had finally become a good muslim and decided to wear something he shouldn’t be wearing at all, a hijab)

*picture stolen from tim’s tweet

A huge girl, — a really huge girl –, whose name could have been Michelle, or Mishuyumi, or quite possibly could have been Toro-Toro Gonoki-Gonoki Michelle, came from behind and rocked my chair with — quite possibly — her giant hands.

“What’s wrong with you?” i asked.

“Nothing, just .. headache.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure? Nothing else? Obesity… maybe?”

But people, even giant people, they love me for who i am.

(and i don’t mind loving them back for who they are. sumo wrestlers or whoever.)

“But,” i told to my pants, “i’ve worn you until you’re old and battered and you’re still so soft and comfy to walk with and to sit on and more than 7 years old, and i’m still nervous and shy — what do i wear with you today?”

I picked a pair of briefs, — the color of soil and clay — and put it down and i picked a pair of chequered boxers, and i, put it on.

I love you, with all my heart i do, but i’m scared, like a boy i am, i’m scared, of the frayed edges that tell me your age and you’ve never spoken a merry word to me.

We talked and we laughed together, though you’re always quiet i love you, with no less than an anxious heart, i do.

“So,” i told myself, “when are you going to quit your job and open up a restaurant, and write a song and a book and dance, dance, dance?”

I’ll be 30 and forever this year. I haven’t lived up to my dreams yet. I haven’t found the answer to what i am and what they all are. I haven’t written a letter to the government — tell them jokes so they can laugh loud and happily, like how i laugh very loud and happily at them, almost daily. I haven’t been to jail, or been locked up fighting for something that belongs only to me.

Personal liberty. Have i fought for you my dear?

Have i really fought for you, my dear?

Ahhh… just one of these days, i’d like to become who i really am.

Then i’ll write a song, and i’ll dance like how i had when i was a lot younger.

***

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(I composed this piece of instrumental 6 years ago, when i was 24. I have sworn to never write anything as sad and as gloomy as this, and i didn’t. )

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(About less than a year later, i recomposed the song — took out the elements of sadness and it had become a psychedelic experience, not that i wanted it to, but things came and arranged themselves the way i usually wouldn’t.)

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(This one, is actually one of my favourites. I composed this in the year when i was still able to dream, and courageously, i would eventually fight for everything i believed in. And then, i sold this instrumental to a local independent artist)

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(This is how it sounds with the vocals after i sold the 3rd track to a local independent artist. His name is Emcee David. The title of this song is Home)

***

Perhaps today or tomorrow, or the day after that, i’ll remember again how it’s like, to write, to dance, to write and to dance.

“Come shorty,” told Karen Mayer, the girl i probably hated the most, “come take picture.”

Karen Mayer, Christy, another loser whose name was forgettable and I were talking about a few other losers whose names were beyond forgettable when we came to discuss about the people and judging their characters.

“So,” i asked, “Christy, what kind of a person Karen is?”

“I don’t know. I probably need some time to think about.”

“Perhaps, i asked you wrongly. So Christy, what kind of an elephant Karen is?”

Not a mythical one. Recommended for those who don’t believe in God, this giant is genuine.

In the year when the silly Malaysians still had not tried to burn down churches for fun, I had learnt from a very prestigious school on how to hammer poetry onto a piece of metal.

It sings;

“Anis *** Bontot Gemuk.”

Oh, so poetic.

P/s : I couldn’t think of anything more poetic than that! At that moment, Anis Yulianna’s butt seemed like a delicious muse to me. At this moment, it still is. Nyum Nyum. Bontot gemuk. Mmmmmmmmm. =P

“Choose 3 flavours,” told a friend.

“Errmmm… this one beef pepperoni. Looks tasty. Errmmm.. another one yeah, ermm.. Aloha Chicken looks not bad.”

“Can choose 3, choose another one la,” he told.

“I don’t want Flaming Tuna, too spicy. But i don’t mind Tuna Temptation though. Do you eat tuna?”

“No, i don’t eat tuna.”

“Why, are you trying to save the dolphins?”

“Nah, i just don’t like tuna.”

I like dolphins, if it is not too spicy.

over what happened in Malaysia recently.

(and i’m still not that well. but my fever is on and off. and right now it is off. so i better say this one quick before my fever comes back again).

You guys know about the recent issue about using the word ‘Allah’ and burning the churches? You know what i told to my girlfriend. (my girlfriend was furious about it, but i was, a bit cynical).

I told her, “Well, what do you expect? We’re from the third world. We act like people from the third world.”

Of course she did not fully agree with me but that’s not a problem because my point is, don’t you guys agree the people in Malaysia, doesn’t matter from which ethic background, need some education in humanity at least?

And further, Malaysians need to be thought to understand the differences of beliefs, and the importance to respect each one, and if i have a kid, i’ll challenge his mind and make him think and question everything including my lack of belief in any religion. I want my kid to be able to think critically.

You see, I always criticize religions and God, and always, openly. And if i’m honest enough, then i must admit that i’ve poked fun at religions and God/Gods more than 300 times in my whole life. That much.

But, have i ever sent any message of hate?

Have i told anyone to hate a certain someone?

Have i told you to hate a certain religion?

I poked fun. Yes, but that’s that.

The fact is, my whole family are muslims and my girlfriend too. They will never turn into an agnostic like i am and i’ll never turn into a muslim like they are. We understand that. We respect everybody’s choices. And it works.

And it’s not easy for it to work. What i committed, in Islam, is called Kufur. It’s the biggest sin, and the most offensive, it’s punishable by death, according to some Islamic law based on the Sunnah (sayings and doings of Muhammad’s).

But in the end, it all comes back to live this life as a human being. Our beliefs might conflict, but i want to see my mother go to Mecca again. She believes in Allah, i don’t, so what? My girlfriend believes in Allah, i want to see her to perform hajj in Mecca too, i do not wish to be a muslim, i rejected Muhammad and Allah. So what?

So what if i don’t believe in what you do, we can’t love each other? Ridiculous!

And if you’re wondering, the word Allah existed long before Islam arrived in Mecca. Allah means god in Arabic.

In the years before Islam, Allah has been referred to as one of the many deities in pagan gods.

The very evidence?

Muhammad bin Abdullah. The Islamic prophet, Muhammad’s father was named Abdullah, a name constructed by two words, Abdul and Allah. If translated into English, Abdullah means, “The Servant of God.”

So yeah. The word Allah existed long before Muhammad was born. And Allah was once, a pagan god in Mecca.

Muhammad bin Abdul Allah. It’s funny to know that some Muslims never noticed that and claimed its exclusivity.