Time Immortal

More absurdity from the wacky world of Islam. Let’s review.

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Call by Muslims for the rest of us to do something nonsensical? Check!

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

Useless reiteration, by the reporting media outlet, of a fact that we already know and have heard ad nauseum? Check!

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

Bogus facts and outright lies? Check!

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Victim card played? Check!

The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.

Reporting media outlet treats as credible a stance toward Muslim Scripture that would be derided in same media outlet were the subject some attempt at concordance between Christian Scripture and science? Check!

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

Unusual reasonableness on the part of the reporting media outlet in an effort to allow for the possibility that faith and science can be reconciled? Check!

I am going to have to remember that last sentence, though — despite my facetiousness, there is a goodly deal of truth to the statement. In conceding that, I am not saying that there is necessarily a conflict between spiritual and empirical truths — a truth and another truth cannot contradict each other, after all — but certainly the above is not a stance I am used to seeing in the media, which tends (at least where Christianity is concerned) to stoke the flames of the fallacious notion that a dichotomy exists between science and Religion.

It’s the last country on Earth that bans churches within its borders.

The Vatican is in negotiations with Saudi Arabia to open the first Catholic church in the kingdom.

Archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, the papal envoy to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates said talks had started a few weeks ago, in the wake of King Abdullah’s visit to [Pope Benedict XVI] last November.

Currently, all Saudi citizens are required by law to be Muslim, and the Mutaween, or religious police, strictly prohibits the public practice of non-Muslim religions.

The last Christian priest was expelled from the kingdom in 1985.

However, the Vatican?s relationship with the Muslim world is improving rapidly, and Qatar opened its first Catholic church on Sunday.

Mgr El-Hachem said a church in Saudi Arabia would be an important sign of ‘reciprocity’ between the faiths.

I find I cannot help but be a bit pessmistic about the prospects of these talks amounting to anything — the Saudi (Wahabbist) strain of Islam is perhaps the most bigoted and narrow-minded of all the various iterations of the religion of the false prophet that can be found in the world. Still, it would be an incredible thing to be able to return the light of the Lord to the darkness of the country that contains within it both Mecca and Medina. Pray for this event to transpire, O Reader, and call upon the intercession of every saint.