Why "Je suis Ankara" is not "Je suis Paris"

Update (23 Mar 2016): 

After a lot of feedback from people about this post, I realized that I owe the reader an update and an explanation. Namely, I am adamently opposed to any form of violence. I sympathize and support the peace loving citizens of Turkey and any other country for that matter in their struggle against terror, whether its coming from terrorists or (in the case of Turkey) their current government. That being said, I want to emphasize that the this post examines WHY "Je suis Ankara" did not make the same buzz as "Je suis Paris" according to my personal opinion. Apologies to anyone who took this text out of context by suggesting that I hold a grudge against the Turkish people. So, without further ado:

I started writing this article last night (21st March) and since I was too tired to finish it, I left it for today. Upon waking up today, I saw the terrible news about the Brussels airport bombing, which made me angry beyond words and also reinforced my resolve to give my insight of a particularly annoying statement that has been circulating around social media.

Namely, in the wake of the terror bombings in Ankara and Istanbul after that, there has been a growing number of social media posts on social media, as well as questions directed at me from people close to me. These questions and posts are of the flavour:

"You were 'je suis Paris' will you also be 'je suis Ankara' ?"

In other words, will we see the same amount of sympathy and media coverage for Ankara as we did for the terrorized cities in EU?

I do understand that the reason for this line of posts and questionning, is evidently the fact that hype created on social and other media for the bombings in Turkey was considerably lower that that of the Paris attacks. This is a fact! What I do not understand (well actually I do and will share it) is why most of the more informed population are persisting to neglect that they know exactly why this is occuring - and using the ignorance of the less informed as messengers (via shares and retweets) to parade a political statement that has nothing to do with the actual cause of the apparent downplaying of the tragedies in Turkey.

Let me start by saying that regular European media like TV and papers, did actually fully cover the events in Turkey as they unfolded. In fact, before today, Istanbul was still amongst headlines in most cases. So, what happened with the social media, governed by ordinary people?

I will start by telling you a short story about a childhood experience of mine.

The Guy With The Crackers

I was about 15 or 16 years old in my second year of high school. My grandfather had just passed away, so there was a lot of commotion at my parents place. I had to get out for some air. 

Outside were these four kids, about 15 years old, one of which had a bunch of short fuse crackers in his hand. Short fuse crackers are small gunpoweder filled devices used to make a small bang as in to scare people. 

This guy was picking on a bunch of other kids (couple of years younger than him) resting with their bikes. He would light one and toss it towards them. When they blew they would startle the kids on their bikes. He threw at them about 4 crackers. The kids on the bikes were constantly ignoring him because they were afraid to get into a conflict since the cracker guy and his friends were obviously bullies. 

At one point, he lights a fifth cracker. This time something bad happened. The cracker happened to have a defective fuse which caused it to explode in his hand just as he lit it. The combustion was enough to rip open the pointer and middle fingers of his right hand! He was in agony for about a minute, until the guy from the shop nereby came out with some hand paper wrapped his fingers after which the three friends escorted their cracker kid friend away in pain.  

I was feeling sorry for the kids on their bikes, up to that point. But for the cracker kid, I was more shocked than I was sorry for. I was afraid for him but can't say that I actually felt any sympathy. 

The End.

The moral of the story here is: if you play with fire, you will get burnt. However, the point I want to make here actually, is the fact that Turkey, governed by an autocratic borderline-extremist dictator Erdogan, is playing with fire. Erdogan is playing with fire in Turkey's name, by his indirect support for ISIS. 

This indirect support comes in the form of his perpetual agression against the Kurdish people, one of the main enemies of ISIS, as well as his evident dislike of Israel, the reasons for which point directly to his support for turning the state of Turkey into an islamic state - hence radicalization.

Fortunately, just as the liberal citizens of Turkey are aware of this, so is the population outside of Turkey and EU in particular. So, when one utters the words "Je suis X", one is actually wanting to identify not only with the victims and the people of X, but with the ideals and freedoms that X stands for. 

In the case of Paris, these ideals are the well known: liberte egalite fraternite. These are ideals which resonate positively to the human mindset. However, in the case of Ankara, given its current  borderline radical political agenda and the recent civil unrests there,  it is more than obvious that supporting such an agenda means supporting the infringement of basic human rights to say the least.

This is why social media did not pick on "Je suis Ankara" with the same pace and hype as it did for Paris or Eu in general for that matter.

An open letter to Sony

I am writing this both as a letter of complaint but also a clarification for Sony. Being a world renound company, it is only fair that they be informed of their mistakes.

What prompted this letter?

A couple of days ago my 7 year old son (quite an avid gamer) decided that he would like to transfer his Minecraft experience to our new Playstation 4 console. Having been good at school, like any good parent, I decided I would purchase an electronic version of the game for him. Unfortunately, coming from an economically unstable, institutionally corrupt country with the worst human development index on the European continent - Macedonia (known to a few as FYROM), it was not possible for me to sreate a PSN account. Like its other competing consoles, Sony (i thought) had opted to leave out all the coutries which are a testament to governmental and juditional failure like mine!

A simple inquery in a Sony forum yielded the following response: "The reason for your country not having a PSN store is because of your government and legal regulations!" . Fair enough, its true that we suck in that aspect and a lot more!

So, without futher adue, not being able to find Macedonia on the list, I proceeded to the next best thing. Choosing the Netherlands as my country since I have my brother living there with a permanent address. It was during the scrolling to the Netherlands that I found the need to write this letter! Namely, I came accross coutries like: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

This for me was very surprising. It got me thinking whether Sony has done their research on country regulations properly or not. I could not come to ANY logical reason as to why this is so. Hence this letter.

The actual letter/email

Dear Sony,

I am a Macedonian disgruntled owner of a brand new Sony Playstation 4. Although I completely agree with your policy of encouraging development of corrupt countries by barring them from the PSN Store, I cannot for the life of me understand your criteria for determining which countries qualify and which not for PSN Store.

Namely, being in Macedonia (territorially in Europe), I was informed (via Sony PSN forums) that "It is not in fact Sony's fault that Macodnonia doesn't have a PSN capability, but rather my coutries government and legal regulations are not in accordance to Sony policy!"

Well, I would like to clarify some facts for you! Namely, although we do have quite a bit to go to reach the standerd of say the Netherlands, AND the country is run by a family of totalitarian sociopaths, here is a list of laws that we DONT apply to our citizens:

1. Women which have been victims of rape will NOT receive 90 lashes in public for "being alone with a man who is not a relative"  - As they do in Saudi Arabia, which has access to the PSN store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatif_rape_case) 
2. We DO NOT flog our citizens for alcohol consumption or having "illicit" sex without authorization or for sharing private space with the opposite sex! - As they do in Qatar, which has access to the PSN store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Qatar#Capital_punishment)
3. We have NO LAWS which could land you in jail (or worse) for indecent clothing!!!! - As they do in United Arab Emirates, which has access to the PSN store (http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/uae-laws-you-must-know-to-stay-out-of-trouble-2012-02-28-1.445519) 
4. We do not (can not) sustain 7% of the US economy with laundered cash  - As does UAE and Qatar.

In fact besides the political/government corruptions (also present in the nations mentioned above), I can safely say that our basic human rights (UNLIKE  in the above mentioned nations) are quite safe and protected constitutionally.

I wasn't sure that you guys at Sony are aware of this so I decided to give you some insight to this freely available information! 

Finally, I would like to add one more thing Since I assume, being a world class company you also conform by world class ethics, being a Sony customer, and as such, being always right (as a customer), I would like to suggest that having official Sony stores in Macedonia, it is also fitting that you make available the Sony PSN store as well. 

Also I would appretiate any feedback on this.

Best regards,

Taner Selim

A Sony customer 

Making web sites is not programming!

I know a lot of people who claim they can make web sites. Not all software is good software. Learn your basics!

ENGINEERING = SIMPLE SOLUTIONS WITH MINIMAL COMPLEXITY

A substantial number of software engineering problems posed in the past 20 years have been optimally solved using the simplest solutions (with minimal complexity). De-allocation of unused pointers in code, for instance, is one of the main issues in code optimization. This procedure has provoked many newer generation programming languages in their attempt to automatize it. All these issues were (and still are) very important factors to consider in most types of software application development. However, there is one branch of software engineering that compromises the principle of simple solutions.

ENTER WEB DEVELOPMENT!

Together with mobile development, web application development is one of the newer branches of informatics. But web application development has gone a long way since those static Internet HTML pages, which used to be the epitomy of a web site. Today, most web applications run faster, more reliably and are more practical to use than their desktop counterparts. Furthermore, a web site (not to be confused with a web application) is advertised as being one of the easiest software to build, thanks to all the fancy new automation out there on the web, which can assist literally anyone, in starting a new Internet presence. This is precisely where all the problems begin!

AUTOMATION IS NOT ALWAYS A BETTER SOLUTION

Namely, anybody with the ability to type www.godaddy.com on their browser for example, is a potential web developer (by using their built in automatic script and page generators). The result of this is a sea of boring, monotonic badly engineered templated web sites popping up on the web.

An even bigger problem is when these sites start offering services that require the user to enter credit card details. These abominations of software coding are deemed development detrimental to the reputation of software engineering in general. First, because of the quality of the “build”, secondly because of the authors (usually without any formal knowledge in it, or software engineering) bragging about how easy it is to create a web application. Hence, anyone can make web sites (sometimes erroneously used interchangeably with web application) !?

CODING IS A PRECISE SCIENCE

You want to write a web application or put up a web site? Cool. Ask a developer to help you write the code and a designer to make it appealing to look at. Or here’s another novel idea: don’t! Nobody needs to see more of whatever temporal hogwash you think qualifies as being a subject of artistic expression. For the love of humanity, it is a precise science, which requires meticulous planning and, in most cases, a team!

HOW TO CREATE A WEBSITE OR WEB APPLICATION

Now for a proposed solution. It is my belief that web applications lack a precise formal definition of three things required to create a website or web application (even the simplest one):

• Planning and design
• Coding and
• Content

Planning and design is the responsibility of the designer. Namely, the person with a keen eye for geometry and color, who should know beforehand what the basic topic and target audience of the website is. The graphic designer comes up with the look and feel of the product and will essentially use tools like Gimp or Photoshop for the graphics, as well as HTML and CSS for the structure, element positioning and cross browser/device compatibility.

Coding falls under the responsibility of the developer. This includes anything where a variable must be declared for instance, backend server side coding, JavaScript, database interoperability and even CSS.

Finally content. That’s all you, the guy or gal wanting to have a web site on the Internet! If you happened to be the same person as the coder or the designer then yes, you can merge into one of the previously mentioned category of responsibilities. Indeed, since you are the person with the idea, you do by all means have a say in how every part of the site looks or feels like, but ultimately when in doubt ask for a new design or a new implementation. If at first, second, or third, this does not work… change your designer or developer!

In any case, just acknowledging distinction above will help in multiple spheres. Firstly, the final product will actually be eye-worthy and internet-worthy (at least in terms on design and implementation). Secondly, web sites and applications like these are much easier to maintain in the long run and can easily be readjusted to comply with new standards in software engineering as needed. Finally, it will bring web application development back to where it belongs in terms of reputation and credibility: web development is engineering, to be more precise software engineering.

How to help children in Gaza

Doing good isn't always easy! Even if the intention is there!

This is a post about a very controversial topic for which I read a lot of online articles, most of which are more full of propaganda, rather than compassion towards the true victims - children and the innocent. I decided to post some guidelines which may be useful.

• .: DONATE MONEY through UNRWA or some other ligitimate humanitarian agency!

Donations are about the ONLY thing that help people. You also have agiencies which help you track the flow of your donations. Donating money directly helps provide food, water, emergency health kits, household kits etc to the families of these children. This is the best thing that anyone can do! It is also how I chose to help these children. If you cannot donate money but can find a way to donate clothing and such, i guess it would be a second best.

• .: STOP insulting peoples intelligence with your stupid prayers.

Prayer is not only inneffective and a waste of your time, it is also INSULTING to the real heroes that actually HELP by putting their money where their mouth is! If you really insist on praying, at least try to show a little respect by NOT posting and advertizing it around social media. If your god hasn't done anything until now, it says a lot about what you are worshipping! Here is an idea: once a month try donating $25 (or whatever your wallet can handle). It will actually make YOU feel better, it might put a smile on a childs face AND it will actually put you on that list of people/heroes who have REALLY done something to help.

• .: If you are Israeli - condemn and appeal to have Netanyahu and his likes removed from office

I believe that as long as Netanyahu is in power the palestinian issue can never be solved. The first steps should include removing the radicalized political factors which are contributing to this tragedy. Also people like Ayelet Shaked should not be given a voice in the Israeli Knesset. These kind of people pervert any hope for an idea of prosperity, as well as any hope of peaceful resolution in the first place.

• .: If you are Arab - condemn Hamas for being cunts and Egypt for keeping their eyes shut to the situation

There are Arab countries that can really make a big difference. Amongst them is Egypt, who can fascilitate the evacuation of the children (and vulnerables) from the Gaza strip. The PA and other influential arab nations should raise their voices and make themselves heard against Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization by definition. It indiscriminately and continuously does all it can to hurt as many people as it can in ANY way that it can! No respect towards uman life whatsoever.

• .: STOP trying to take advantage of a childs misfurtune and pain

Some individuals on social media are simply dispicable! Trying to use the Gaza conflict as a "tool" to impose their preferences of a poliltical agenda!! That is a horrible thing to do. You know who you are and I hope you get used for target practice!

My disclaimer

There are a lot of other points that can be made regarding the situation in Gaza, but owing to my limited time I have decided to perhaps address them at a later time. Here I have tried to be very brief in illustrating what you can ACTUALLY do to help the children in Gaza. I have read through dozemns of social media posts online regarding this issue and unfortunately most of them are way too biased for my taste. This was my inspiration for writing this post.

I still believe that israelis and arabs can coexist peacefully. I still believe everyone has the right to live a life of their choosing in freedom.

FFS Samsung - Why Do You Hate Me?

An artice on why Samsung is a steaming pile of shit

Im not sure it's the Android OS or Google that has made Samsung suck or the other way around. But in any case I just finished submitting about 6 terrible ratings for my Samsung Galaxy S4 in different sites. If i missed any feel free to write to me!

If there is something that I hate more than bad customer support, it is the idea of customer support telling you how and what to do with the device that you own and have paid for with your hard earned cash. But wait! isn't that what customer support is supposed to be there for? Well, not if they make the choices for me WITHOUT giving me the oportunity to say "...naaah, thanx ill just go ahead and continue whatever i was doing...". Enter Samsung...

A huge international conglomerate company, so successful and loving the smell of their own farts that their headquarters are based in a town called Samsung Town in Seoul! Unfortunately, that swellheaded, smug feeling of Samsung's self importance has gotten so far up their ass holes, that they have not only stopped giving any fucks what-so-ever towards their loyal customers but also trying to force them into other shitty products they believe is likely to make them even more money!

A couple of days ago, I had to factory reset my Samsung Galaxy S4 (considered as one of the best top tier Android phones on the market) because it abrruptly switched to "uselessly slow mode" after an OS version upgrade. That started my frustrations with this entire line of android devices. After the facory reset one more thing remained. I wanted to remove all the preinstalled crapware that some butthole of a person at Samsung (with an obscure profession like sales or marketing 'expert') randomly decided I may need. Here are their names with a brief description

1. Flipboard: Your News Magazine - basically a random collection of pictures of boobs with an obscure title like "What is Kim Kardashian up to?". I mean who the fuck even cares what she is up to ?!
2. ANT Radio Service and ANT Plugins - A program that wants me to pay for shitty music I dont listen to!
3. Beaming Service for Beep'nGo - With a name like that, unless its a Star Trek teleportation device...i don't care!
4. Blurb checkout - ...because fuck you!
5. ChatON and ChatON Voice&Video - poor man's Skype
6. Samsung Link - An app that assumes the entire galaxy uses Samsung devices
7. Samsung Print Service - NO. I have a PC for printing

...
These are all apps knocked up into your Galaxy S4's phone memory, that you can't simply uninstall without telekinetic abilities to controll electronic devices or hacking the fuck out of your phone's operating system. Something which I can't do or don't give a hoot about trying respectively!

So why does a company like Samsung, which relies on customer satisfaction and brand recognition treat its loyal fans to these restrictive policies?

I could only come to one conclusion: Samsung is a crabby old cunt that would love nothing more that to see you and your loved ones suffer. It simply DOESN'T CARE. As a result, I am taking action. My next phone will be an iPhone! At least those guys advertise the fact that they butt-fuck you so you can pre-emtively ready yourself to start liking it! Plus it won't need a factory reset every Tuesday if its a rainy day!

My Thoughts on Religion

Religion is a psycological cancer. Here is why...

Before any further confusion, lets get one thing straight. I am an atheist. In fact I would more consider myself as an ANTItheist since I solidly believe that religion is not only worthless but also harmful to humanity. Therefore the less religious influence the better for all of us as a species. Most of the time (due to ignorance, or simply a bad text) articles like this have apsolutely no influence. But there exists a minute chance that it may trigger a gram of doubt in a religious mind. Just the thought of this makes it worthwhile to write.

I also want to clarify that my entire optinion about religion being humanities greatest lie, is a result of my own accumulated life experience, reading through materials on faith, which were to me ambiguous as well as trying to shed light on simple questions like, if faith is supposed to be good, then why is there so much suffering as a result of it ? Questions like these beg a very open minded and careful study into how exactly is it that faith manifests itself and in turn affects our judgement. There are tons of very very good non biased studies about this on the internet. Having looked at a lot of it I decided to contribute my thought as well.

It all begins as a mistep in childhood, which is a direct result of our parents, society or both. The very idea of faith in religious context carries the intrinsic notion of yielding to human authority. To allow the anomylous class of supernatural entities into our belief system we have to accept another humans hearsay as reality. With the proposed entities inaccessible to our senses, there is no other way to approach the issue. Of course if they were accessible to our senses they would by definition no longer be a matter of faith to believe they existed.

Some people still point to 'holy' books as evidence, which is something similar to me saying for instance:

"dragons that breathe fire really do exist, cuz i just played with one on DOTA (a game i play quite a bit)".

Now let's analyze that statement for a second. What exactly am i doing there?

I am proposing the existence of a impossibly non-aerodynamic, fire breathing tyrannosaurus rex, without the ability to submit any form of evidence. This type of statement would automatically without any real scrutiny fall under category "jokes" or "he is batshit crazy", depending on how much I would insist on its truth or the look on my face when I make the statement.

Now let's assume I read that same proposition from a very old book, written by someone who actually existed and claimed to have seen these events, which by the way also propose probable things like:

"...and in the world where dragons live it rains a lot!"

would that qualify as more probable? No, it wouldn't. Hence, books describing supernatural events, creatures and processes for which there is again no evidence amounts to the same thing - hearsay (or popularly referred to in my community as REKLA KAZALA).

Hearsay - is information received from other people that cannot be substantiated. This is also one of the reasons why hearsay is not admissable as evidence in any legal court. since people can:

• Misremember
• Unwittingly repeat lies they have been told or
• Deliberately lie for any/all of the following reasons:
• To blend into the situation
• Out of malice
• To protect themselves or others

But, what is most important is that people give conflicting accounts. As adults, we know that these flaws make hearsay an apsolutely unworkable basis for the determination of truth or reality.

But many people choose to disregard all this awareness, eventhough every single problem I just mentioned is apparent in religious context. Especially the problem with conflicting accounts. Conflicts not only between religions but also within the same religion.

Why do people disregard awareness when religious statements are in question (even the most improbable ones)? The answer is:

Indoctrination!

Its no coincidence that religious indoctrination tends to take place in childhood. It is a fragile time in our lifes, where not only our critical faculties are not yet developed, but also egocentricity in children is at a maximum.

The honorable thing to do would be to respect your childs amazing brain by giving it FACTS. If you're going to teach your child about religion, teach it about all religions without bias. Preserve all the inconsistencies without excuse or rationalization. Don't go cherry-picking the more socially acceptable parts and leave out the barbaric, inhumane and appalling passages.

Make it clear that these are beliefs, NOT facts!

Irrational internal conflics are actually the basis of religions. This is a topic which I am writing about for one of my next blogs.

Truth of the matter is that religion teaches beliefs as fact. We tend to transfer (knowingly or unknowingly) this knowledge to our children also as fact! Inconsistencies are denied, awkward questions are discouraged and other religions are dismissed or even demonized. To justify our weaknesses, we will try convincing any sceptic or even ourselves that 'my child is free to think whatever he/she likes', while at the same time accepting as apsolute truth conflicting religious scripture.

This form of psychologic manipulation is called doublethink.

Doublethink in effect shuts down a childs ability for congitive dissonance - where conflictivg ideas should naturally arouse conscious tension - and force critical thinking. In effect, you are incapacitating the cilds ability to excel at what we humans are best at - critical thinking!

Later in life, children like this will have a very hard time recovering from the systematic abuse of their fragile minds in early life. As adults, this abuse continues in the form of preachers. Of course when it comes to dogma their strategies are limited. Dogma relies on authority. So a normal adult to adult exchange of ideas is out of the question. This is why preachers talk to adults like school children (usually from a higher point like stage or altar). The trouble preachers have with adults is that is that in order to get compliance, the targeted adults must accept them as a legitimate AUTHORITY for superstitious ideas, this is where the brainwashing from childhood comes into play!

I could go on writing about this forever. Actually i sort of feel tempted to, but i would like to leave some for other blogs too. My general point was to introduce to you why I have such an utter hate for religion! It is simply poison, and begins from childhood.

Having lived most of my life in Macedonia, I am still happily surprised that I turned out differently from the majority. In fact, it's a very simple way of looking at it. NOTHING NEEDS TO BE WORSHIPPED - thats my motivational thought! Worshipping is basically fulfilling a need which DOESNT EXIST!

We are good because we want to be! We can be even better if we want to be. We don't need gods or any other forms of deception for that.

Thats all for now! I promise there will be more on religion!

Eid Ul Adha : The unabridged story of a dream

A short biblical story of a man who was commanded by god in his dreams

It is that time of the year, when about 30% of the population in my country is in full joy, celebration and forgiveness. Most of the streets in northern part of Skopje, soaked with the blood of hoofed 4 legged animals, are filled with men walking side by side with their sons, going house to house in celebration. I have always wondered why instead of sacrificing animals in public display, one cannot just simply buy meat? Hence, this conscious tension led me to do a little research into the story of how Eid Ul Adha (or as it is known here as Bajram) came to be.

Please be warned however! Although I have numbed down the violence in the story to the best possible effect as to not lose context, I would still rate it as PG 18. Anyway, it all started out 4-5 millennia ago (before man invented todays modern religions) in a place called Canaan (somewhere in modern-day Israel).

A self-declared religious guy called Abraham (originally Abram in Hebrew or Ibrahim in Arabic), after a full days work in the desert decided to call it a night. Although he had a mild headache from all the desert sun reflecting off his head, little did he (or anyone for that matter back then) know that overexposure to the high heat and UV factor of the sun could mess up cognitive abilities. Nonetheless, he crept under the sheets with one of his wives and fell fast asleep.

All of a sudden, in his sleep, the man heard a voice calling out to him: 'Abraham!'. Lowe and behold, it was god himself speaking to Abraham in his dreams.

'What the....', thought Abraham.

'Here am I' said god sounding like Yoda from Star Wars. 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell you.' (Genesis 22:1-2, R.S.V.)

Abraham was confused at first since his only son for 13 years was called Ismael! But since god works in mysterious ways ( I mean wtf he can beam thoughts into the guys head whilest he's asleep)

But being a deeply obedient believer and loving of his god, he decided to obey the request, beamed into his head through his dream. So, he got up and went to his friends to explain what god had commanded him to do. Curiously enough Abraham's friends didn't have any objections as to what he was about to do. In fact they supported his exemplary devotion to the god which spoke to him in his dream. However, he had one more person to convince. His 13 year old son Ismael, who was chosen by god to take one for the team! I mean, he couldn't just drag the kid to a mountain and cut open his throat just like that. He had to at least explain to him why first!

Abraham immediately went to Ismael and explained to him his dream about slaughtering him. Surprisingly enough Ismael was thrilled at this idea. In fact, he was so cock-a-hoop about it that he couldn't wait for his dad to get on with it!!! So, off they went, blissfully rejoicing at the fact that they will be carrying out the good gods will.

At the sacrificial stone, Abraham pulled out his knife (which he had prepared earlier for the solemn occasion), whilst his Ismael made himself comfortable on the slab of stone. In no time at all, Abraham was cheerfully at his son's throat, eyes closed, cutting like there's no tomorrow! At that point, he opened his eyes to check on his progress and to his dismay, he witnessed the most unbelievable thing! God had pulled a Houdini on Abraham. He had replaced his son Ismael with a lamb! The good god's intentions had only been to test Abraham's faith in him. Indeed, Abraham passed the test with flying colors. Ismael was kind of relieved to hear this. And so, both father and son

They lived happily ever after (the old fart lived to be over 170 years old apparently).

The End!

Moral of the story:

I am not really sure about this one, but apparently this is story is why the celebrations on Eid Ul Adha are about. Of course since several millennia passed from that time, there have been a little additions and instructions appended to it, as to what to do with the meat of the poor creature being slaughtered etc. But nevertheless that is the story in a nutshell.

Millions of people follow this demented ritual every year in the name of a god who somehow feels pleased every time a hoofed 4 legged animal gets decapitated.

I hope this has been an interesting and informative read.

Until next time!