Locked Room Mysteries

I'm a big fan of murder mysteries as a genre.

My favorite set up for a murder mystery is the locked room.

In case you're not familiar, this is basically that the crime happens - generally it's a murder thought sometimes it's an abduction or a theft or something along those lines and it seems on the surface to be impossible.

The room is locked. There's seemingly no way for the perpetrator to get in or out, no sign of how the crime could have been committed and the criminal get away.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did this sort of a story several times in his Sherlock Holmes series. I'd say that Sherlock was my first detective, but really it was Encyclopedia Brown and then Nancy Drew. I wanted to be Nancy Drew for years, I swear. But I digress. Agatha Christie also has several stories with this (Poirot is my favorite of her characters, I never really got into Miss Marple) theme. I believe, however, that the earliest version of this trope would be by Edgar Allen Poe - Murder in the Rue Morgue.

Mmmmmmmm....Poe.

Again, I digress.

But I love mysteries and there's something extra eerie about this sort of a mystery. You know, in most fiction, that there's going to be a sensible explanation for what happened. Still, there's always the thrill in the beginning that this should be impossible, that there couldn't have been anyone else in the room, so who stabbed the Earl?

These are almost the perfect intersection for my love of mystery and my love of the creepy, supernatural end of things.

There are not nearly enough of these being written, and written well, in my personal opinion.

I've stumbled across a sub-genre of it, recently, however.

Murders on cruise ships.

So, The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. This is a new novel and it was one of those, hey, you read The Girl on the Train, you might like this. And it sounded like I would so much so that I pre-ordered it in hard-copy.

And I did. I did enjoy it. So much.

Basic premise, Lo Blacklock is a writer for a travel magazine. She's sort of middle rung in her job at the beginning of the story, but looking to make her way up the ladder to be a feature writer. She gets the opportunity of a lifetime when the lead features writer is put on bed rest due to a complicated pregnancy.

So now Lo is sent, in her place, on a week long cruise on the brand new top of the line luxury cruise ship, Aurora Borealis. This is a make or break kind of moment for her career. So, in spite of the fact that she's still reeling from a home invasion (that we experience at the beginning of the book) and a fight with her long term boyfriend that she gets on the ship anyway.

She is nervous, on edge, and afraid for her safety even as she reminds herself that being on a cruise ship is possibly the safest she could be. After all, the ship is occupied by high profile men and women and there's no way for anyone to get to her on the ocean.

Then the eponymous woman in cabin 10 (next to Lo's cabin) vanishes. Lo is certain that she heard the woman being murdered, but when security shows her the cabin it's empty. Not as if the occupant is out somewhere else, but as if it was never occupied at all. Which is what everyone else on board insists to be the case.

Security and everyone else on board try to tell Lo that she imagined things, that the stress of her assault and the break in (the robber hit her, not her boyfriend, in case that was a thought you had) combined with the fact that she already suffers from depression (which she sees therapists for and takes medication to help with) made her unreliable. But Lo knows what she saw and what she heard. She knows there was a woman in that cabin and that she's no longer on board.

Which means that a murderer is.

And she's trapped with them.

While it's not a locked room, the book has the same feel. There should be no way for the crime to have happened. There's a highly controlled environment, with a limited number of people. There's the eerie paranoia of not knowing who (if anyone) can be trusted.

There's also a great deal of gas lighting attempted, and subverted by the fact that Lo will not put up with that bull.

Book: Australia's Strangest Mysteries by John Pinkney

Amazon - $2.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited
Non-fiction - Paranormal/Disappearances/Unexplained Phenomena

"DRIVER FRANK CLEWER sparked panic in his rural hometown - when he began to leave trails of scorchmarks and flames wherever he walked. 

The Baffling Burning Man's brush with the impossible occurred in September 2005, and was chronicled by TV news crews and hundreds of witnesses. Astonished scientists at the University of New South Wales found that Frank was generating 30,000 volts of static electricity: a charge powerful enough to melt synthetic carpets. 

But somehow he survived the mysterious ''ínner fire'' without the slightest lesion on his skin - the only visible evidence of the colossal voltage he'd carried being a charred hole in the knee of his jeans. 
Many media outlets treated the Clewer case as a one-off event. But SHC [Spontaneous Human Combustion] has been inexplicably occurring for more than 2000 years,with one of the earliest recorded events dated 52 BC. 

In this unique book, bestselling author and journalist John Pinkney describes the mysterious history of the' flames from heaven'' -a phenomenon which obsessed even Charles Dickens, who described it in his novel Bleak House. 

Pinkney also presents a new selection of some of the most tantalizing cases he has investigated during a lifetime's research: 

UNEXPLAINED DISAPPEARANCES, from the enigma of the vanishing heiress to the saga of the 'jinxed' ship, which disappeared with 130 people aboard. OUTBACK RIDDLES The desert aboriginals whose astonishing song saved trhe life of a dying woman 4000 kilometres away... the uncanny invasion of Lake Eyre...the monster that guarded an abandoned potato farm...the startling UFO íncursion in Queensland's Isla Gorge. 

MYSTERIOUS DEATHS, including the fate of John Friedrich, 'the man who never was''...;the horror in Sydney's dunes...and the American divers'' diaries of death. 

EERIE PHENOMENA Strange Case of the Shining Crosses...Magazine Foretells Death of JFK...Riddle of the Tiger that Rose from its Tomb...Lost, on a Road Without Shadows. And more.

These pages offer you intriguing insights into some of our planet's most perplexing mysteries."

I fairly recently subscribed to the whole Kindle Unlimited thing. A friend accidentally signed up for their month trial and I am a lemming so I jumped on board too.

It's basically fabulous for someone like me who reads a whole lot and occasionally has trashy tastes that she's not willing to spend real money on. So, for example, there's a whole bunch of books that kind of look interesting but are only 70 some odd pages for $2.99 or some ridiculous amount of money. That's not a good deal. But you pay $9.99 a month and you can read as many books as you can read if they're on the Kindle Unlimited library and there are a bunch of them.

And thus my trashy, trashy heart rejoices.

So many ridiculous books, so little time!

Okay, there's some legitimate books on there too, don't get me wrong. I, personally, am abusing the existence of this library in order to indulge myself.

I found Australia's Strangest Mysteries in the manner of all true book nerds who are on an insomniac bender: recommendations. The 'so you read this book, well you might like THESE FIFTY OTHER SIMILAR BOOKS THAT ARE ALSO INSANE' feature is dangerous. Pretty sure this one started at trucker ghost stories and ended in Australia. So.

This book actually turned out to be less ridiculous than you might suppose given the subject matter and the fact that it is most likely one of the self-published variety. Don't get me wrong, I have a deep and abiding love for the fact that people can basically get published now if they want it bad enough without ever having to go through a major publishing house. After all, this is how we got The Martian and that is a glorious piece of science-fiction. However, proof reading is somehow the first thing to go when people self publish and that...that can drag the whole thing down. '

ASM (it's too long to type the whole title out, I'm lazy, sue me) doesn't suffer from the worst of the sorts of errors that come through self publishing. It's not full of typos and misspellings and weird formatting. There are a couple of things here and there, but mistakes get through big name publishers sometimes, so I'm inclined to let a reasonable number of these sorts of things slide.

The stories are interesting, if you're into the weird fringes of reality, though some are less 'weird' than others. One of the later sections is about the possibility of the Tasmanian Tiger still being alive somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Australia, and given how many new species we discover every year, I find that less weird and more a really nice possibility since it would be one less species that humans have driven to extinction.

Lake monster stories definitely fall better into the weird and wonderful category, like UFOs and highways (or other stretches or road) that appear to take people on a really extreme detour into...another dimension, maybe? Most definitely more weird.

The man who was, briefly, slight on fire and leaving flames behind him where he walked? Weird. Very weird. I'm fascinated and horrified at the thought of spontaneous human combustion, because there's no way to prevent or predict it, assuming it's a real thing and not a series of conflated events that bear nothing in common with one another except for fiery death.

My favorite stories out of this book are the mysterious disappearances, though. There's the story of a heiress who lived in squalor in the last years of her life (due to being a spendthrift in her younger years) and apparently just wandered away one day to die. Or the young adventurer back in the late 1800s who went back to get water with which to save himself and the head of the expedition and was never seen again?

I think my absolute favorite story, though, is that of the SS Waratah, a luxury cruise ship that vanished in 1909 with something like 220 people aboard. There's the plain fact that clearly, the ship sank. That is, generally, what happens when a ship vanishes at sea. The fact that they've never found the wreck or any part of it is not even that odd, given the vastness of the ocean, the fact that no one is really sure where it was when it went down, and currents, etc. Recent tragedies have driven home how difficult it can be to find anything lost in the ocean, even when you have a pretty good idea of where it crashed/sank.

The eerie part comes in with the stories of how the ship was considered jinxed from the start (stories that were told even before the ship vanished, cutting off the possibility of this just being people wanting to say that they knew something was wrong). The captain, by all accounts an experienced sailor, urging the ship line to take the ship back to dry dock, that there was something wrong with it that made it unsafe to sail for long; or the prophetic dreams of an engineer that was berthed on the ship but chose to get off and make other arrangements as soon as he could, in spite of the extra cost of the lost fare. His concerns were recorded - he urged other passengers to get off as well, but in the end he was one of the few who survived having sailed on the SS Waratah because he listened to his fears.

What could have happened that the ship was unable to send out any sort of distress signal? Why did the captain choose to keep sailing even with his fears that there was something catastrophically wrong with the ship? In the larger sense of things, why do only some people get these warning premonitions of doom and death? Or do more people get them and we just don't know about it because they never tell anyone else and fail to listen to the warning and take the knowledge of it to their deaths?

Over all, I liked the book. It never goes too in depth to any one story, but gives a detailed over view and more information for some of them. There's never really any answer to any of it, which is why I guess the book isn't called 'Australia's Most Solved Mysteries'.

There's a sequel to this one, Australia's Strangest Mysteries 2, which I'll likely pick up some time in the future. It's also on Kindle Unlimited.

I'm giving this one a 3/5 because I enjoyed it quite a bit and it gave me new fodder for my Marie Celeste-esque obsession.

Book: Under His Kilt by Melissa Blue

Category: Contemporary Romance/Erotica
Amazon

"Jocelyn Pearson is determined to spend her last month as a twenty-something doing everything she's too busy or scared to try. Her imagination runs wild and then fixates on Ian Baird. He'll be working at the Langston Museum for a short stint as a consulting curator. He's Scottish. He believes sex is fun to be had. He's the perfect choice for a fling. She only has to get him break his rule about sleeping with co-workers. Seducing a man was on her bucket list...

Ian is no one's fool and knows exactly what Jocelyn wants—him. If she didn't work for the Langston Museum, he'd be more than happy to oblige any and every fantasy she desired, but she's the curator. She's sweet, inexperienced and well liked by everyone including the museum owner and director. Ian can't risk losing such an important contact for his consulting business. Not even when everything within in him craves a taste of her.

When Jocelyn sets her sights on him, there's no way Ian can deny her. They agree their affair will end in thirty days. No emotions, no entanglements, just sex. The closer the end date looms, they start to question if it's possible to walk away. They'll either have to come to terms of what they've become or stick to their original agreement."

*cracks knuckles*

Okay, let's try this.

I'm pretty sure that I heard about this book on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, which is a fabulous website and even more fabulous podcast. Even if you don't like romance so much, they're worth a listen. They cover a huge range of topics and they're hysterical and fun.

On the surface, this seemed like it would be a book I'd enjoy a lot. Both the main characters are mature, intelligent adults who have careers and are fairly well able to drive themselves as far as where they want to be and what they want to do.

Too often in romance you get a heroine who's been sheltered, blah, blah, blah so she can be magically virginal or at least so unaware of what she likes that the hero gets to show her the true glory of All the Things with his Magic Wand.

Sometimes you might get a virginal hero, but it's less common. Unless it's m/m romance, but that's a different topic and it's still not all that common in that, according to my experience.

I went into this thinking it would be a carefree kind of hook-up story, and of course at the end they'd wind up staying together because *romance*, but it honestly turned out to be a little too carefree for me.

Jocelyn and Ian get together almost from page one. The whole 'conflict' over Ian's rule about not sleeping with co-workers is more of a tiny speed bump than anything else. After all, he's a grown man who is almost literally helpless when faced with a woman who wants to do the do with him. Because he's so hot that never happens, or something. IDK. I wanted more plot.

The book is basically sex interrupted with random bits of life that don't really do anything.

They work at the museum together, but it's brief scenes and then back to one or the other of their apartments to work through Jocelyn's 'bucket list' which is just a list of pretty tame things she wants to do to/with Ian.

It's decently written, and I don't regret taking the time to read the book. I can't say 'buy' because it's free on Amazon. But it also wasn't very satisfying. I skimmed over the sex scenes after the first couple because they weren't all that interesting and not really what I was there for anyway. And since there wasn't much actual growth or discussion between the characters there wasn't actually a whole lot to the book. For me, anyway. It seemed very much like they both went from 'this is totally casual' to 'I want this person for forever' in the span of two or three pages. Character change without showing the development is not really the way to go.

I should say that it's also entirely possible that I became dis-enchanted with the characters really quickly and didn't give them much of a chance. Fairly early on in the book Ian talks about having taken his dog Sadie (whom he describes as the love of his life) to the shelter when he started this job that has him traveling a lot. And, I know that this is a fictional dog, and I know that these are fictional people, but that pissed me off.

I have a thing about animals, okay? Are you honestly telling me that he couldn't have found *someone* to take the dog? This is a fictional world, people, it would have cost the author nothing to say that he gave the dog to a friend. Nothing.

And then Jocelyn decided to randomly get a puppy, because Ian had had Sadie and abandoned her and Jocelyn had never had a pet before and this is not the right reason to get a dog, okay? This is selfish and childish and stupid and I have a problem with this, clearly.

Soooooo....I might not be the most neutral party when judging these two. Admittedly, this is probably a silly thing to get stuck on, but here we are.

Not a bad book, but not a good one either. There's at least four more books in this series, apparently, Under the Kilt. I won't be buying them, but they seem to have a fairly consistent 4 - 4.5 star review on Amazon and Goodreads, so other people enjoy them. Possibly the sex scenes are what the people are after, I don't know. I wasn't impressed, but to be perfectly honest I've read a lot of sex scenes in my long, long reader lifespan.

Rating: 2/5

If You Feel Judged, That Would Be Me

I want to start doing book reviews on here again, only, you know, better this time. But I'm always torn between not saying enough about the book and possibly saying too much.

Maybe this time I'll be able to strike a balance. We'll see.

In the mean time, I'm working late tonight - the guy who usually works weekends is in Cuba visiting his family with his son - and listening to my podcasts. The one I'm listening to right now is Real Ghost Stories Online.

Basically, people call or write in to this podcast which is run by a husband and wife and tell their 'haunting' story. I use the quotes because sometimes I'm certain that these people are definitely making a mountain out of a molehill or are misinterpreting what is happening around them. They believe, so they believe that everything is a ghost or a demon or what have you. Which is just ridiculous, and I say that as someone who really does believe in ghosts.

Also, the people calling in clearly do not practice what they're going to say before they say it. Which they really should because my God, so many of them ramble and go on tangents and I would really like them to stop that. This is not, most of the time, a live call-in show. The calls are recorded and then played later, or the emails are read out loud by the husband half of the hosting team.

Anyway. For an example of people who are interpreting something wrongly (in my opinion), there was a woman who called into the show a couple of episodes back from what I'm listening to now. Her grandparents were apparently murdered and it was gruesome and horrible. After the murders, she started having nightmares about a 'woman' showing up in her room at night with her grandfather's head, demanding that she look at it. She wouldn't, and the woman would eventually go away in the nightmare.

The hosts validated her belief that it was some sort of spirit visiting her but reassured her that it was probably just a 'predator' ghost and not a demon.

Or maybe she's just dealing with a really traumatic experience via her subconscious. But that's not even brought up. Maybe I shouldn't blame them, I mean the show is supposed to be about ghosts, right? But if you believe everything that's thrown at you, there's no...standard, I guess. I think, if something has an alternate, realistic explanation then that's the explanation. It's only once you hit the wall of normal explanations that you can go to the supernatural.

I believe I've seen ghosts. But I also admit to myself and everyone else that there is a good chance that there are other explanations for what I saw or what happened. I don't go around declaring every bump in the night or speck of dust a ghost.

Because I'm a reasonable human being, okay?

ALSO, it seems like every other caller/writer on this story is an 'empath'.

That's not a real thing.

That's not a real thing the way Hannibal uses it, though I'll allow it since it's a *fictional* show about the love between two *very* strange, lonely men.

That's not a real thing the way they mean it.

Ah, Inigo Montoya. You feel my pain.

People can be empathetic. They can feel *empathy* for other people. But you do not literally experience other peoples' emotions as if they are your own. It's...it doesn't work that way.

It's not a real thing.

Then again, psychics. *throws confetti in the air* I don't believe in them either. So maybe my chakras are blocked or something.

Okay, that was a little sarcastic.

Still true.

Unrelated, I love how I already had tags for every random thing in this post.

I'm consistent.

Additionally unrelated. I never get rid of anything that might still be useful. So I still have my scarves and snoods and such. I've discovered that snoods are fabulous for doing yard work since I've grown my hair out. It's long enough that even putting it up in a pony tail doesn't get it off of my neck and it's too thick to do that doubled up thing that some girls do. All that ever manages is to make me cut the hair tie out later so I don't rip off my scalp.

Score one for the snood.

My Brain Twin and I Share the Crown for Queen of Procrastinators

And to be perfectly honest I am the evil twin.

Without a doubt.

I could show you evidence but then I'd have to move out of the country and change my name. ;)

Clearly I am just a *tad* behind on the Gospel of John posts and I also have a couple of comments on the GoJ posts I've already made to reply to. But it's been a super crazy month. We've had people at work go on vacation which is good for them and good for my bank account but has me working either really early hours or really late hours and leaves very little time for blogging.

We also upgraded the system we use to produce our classified section (I work at a newspaper in case anyone missed that factoid) by a whole lot. It's beautiful. I may compose odes to the new system.

I mean it's really bad when the representative for Brainworks (the system we use) didn't believe that we weren't using a third party program between Brainworks and our Quark because the version we had was so old he didn't recognize the interface.

*faceplants into desk for a million years*

We also upgraded Quark. From Quark 4 to Quark 9.

I know we can all count and see how many versions there were between those two things.

We were working on Ancient Mac's.

ANCIENT.

Basically this:

Only we couldn't get on the internet anymore. Or access some of our (rather necessary) servers. Because ANCIENT.

We have been promised the opportunity to Office Space one of these bastards.

For anyone unfamiliar with Office Space (watch it it is hilarious....) here's what I mean. There is some mild (in my opinion) swearing for those who are sensitive to that or, you know, have kids.





Please do not underestimate how badly we want to do that.

ANYWAY.

With the two weeks it took to do the upgrade, install and training and vacations (none of them mine), I've just not had the energy or the time to blog.

And then I spent the last week not sleeping well due to nightmares. It's funny how you can think that you're completely over something and then your subconscious just laughs at you.

So I've just been taking care of myself.

Which mostly means lots of reading (let me tell you about the Stormlight Archive series one day. Mostly it will be a lot of squeeing and shaking you until you buy the books) and watching the Lord of the Rings in my free time. Basically I watched both Hobbit movies (currently released) and all three of the Lord of the Rings movies (extended edition on all where possible) in two days.

Gotta love three day weekends.

Which might explain why, when I performed a minor household repair with no input or assistance I did this:

Let's all just ignore how things actually turned out for Boromir and Gondor, okay?

Yes. Excellent.

So, in conclusion, I know I suck but I've accepted this fact. At least in this case I sucked for reasons of personal sanity maintenance.

I plan, inshallah, to start the posts up again this weekend and just do one post a week. I think it's a schedule with less pressure (all personally given) that I can keep up.

John 5

And we're back!

Again, sorry for the delay.

Life. It is not always conducive to the things we want to do.

Also, crap, it is 12:30 in the morning. Again.

I should offer that that last post, when I said I was going to bed? Turns out I was wrong. The book came out at 12:30 that morning. So when I checked Hawkeye, out of habit, there it was. And what is any good addict to do but start reading? I finished at about 1 am yesterday morning.

I am sleep deprived and super caffeinated. Clearly I make bad life choices on occasion.

This is what adult hood looks like.

Knowing something is a bad idea and doing it anyway. Because you can.

Possibly I am not the best adult. :D

Right. Actual content of post!

Chapter 5 opens with another well known story, that of the paralytic at the pool.

5 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. ³ In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. ⁴ For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. ⁵ Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.

I should say that I find the details of this man's case slightly odd. We don't know how old he is, but we know that he is at least 38 - since he could have had the infirmity since childhood. The average life expectancy for a man in that time was about (I believe) the late thirties, early forties. So this man is either at the twilight of his life or he has greatly exceeded expectations in spite of his infirmity. 

This implies, to me at least, that he had people to help take care of him. Family or friends, someone. He did not live alone in this condition his entire life.

 

  ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

⁷ The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

And yet here he is, so close to the possibility of healing but alone. With no one to help him into the pool. How did this happen? How did it come to pass that someone who was obviously assisted and looked after for a large portion of his life comes to be so close to healing and abandoned?

If he is extremely old, perhaps he outlived everyone? Or perhaps he was a bad person and he drove away any family that would have been there to help him?

⁸ Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” ⁹ And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
And that day was the Sabbath. 

Here is another miracle, whether by Jesus' power or God's (with Jesus relaying the message?) Only this one seems to be with purpose different from the first two discussed in John.

I'm not entirely certain why Jesus decided to turn the water into wine, except perhaps that his mother asked him and maybe he was just having a good time at the wedding or the groom was a friend of him. 

The officers son who was healed was done due to the faith of the father, I believe. 

But this man, the paralytic, so far as we can see, makes no plea nor declaration of faith prior to Jesus declaring him healed. Certainly the man desired healing or he wouldn't be at the pool, but Jesus seems to decide to heal him almost at random.

Though if we follow the tack that Jesus has extra knowledge (things we should not know through ordinary means) then the choice of this man could have been extremely deliberate. If you are going to attract the attention of the powers that be, without seeming to *want* to attract their attention, how better than to heal a man who will immediately run to the temple after his healing?

We assume, from the fact that this man went to the temple after being healed that he is either a very religious man from the start or that he went there, perhaps to be declared clean? We're not given the exact nature of his illness, but perhaps it was something that also made him ritually impure and therefore unable to take part in the worship at the temple?

¹⁴ Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” ¹⁵ The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

This is problematic for me. Verse 14 seems to be saying that the man's illness, his infirmity, was caused by his sin. But this doesn't bear out in real life at all. Plenty of truly terrible people are walking around this earth without having to bear the physical wounds of their sins. And good, innocent people suffer illness and bad fortune in life all the time. 

If sin = physical illness, shouldn't we see some real life correlation? Or is this just a kind of wishful thinking, that a persons villainy should be evident in their body, an easy way to tell.

¹⁶ For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

I...can entirely see the Jewish priests and others being upset at the Law being broken, but I have a hard time imagining that *this* is the reason they sought to kill Jesus. Far more likely the rebellion that he was fomenting, with the turning over of the money changers' tables and such was the problem. Rome was not exactly known for their kind and loving method of enforcing the peace. 

Though the next verse says that they were extra incensed because Jesus here claimed that God was his father, I'm not seeing it. Perhaps there is something in the original wording used that makes it clear he was referring to God and not to an actual human father? 

¹⁸ Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

It does not, either, follow that claiming God as his father would make Jesus equal with God. This was a time of gods and demi-gods after all. Certainly the Jewish people had become monotheistic over time, but they were surrounded by polytheistic cultures. Someone claiming to be a son of god (or God) was hardly an unknown quantity. There remains, also, the fact that many people throughout the Bible are referred to as the 'son' of God. These men were not claiming divinity, or at least they were never treated as such. 

 ¹⁹ Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.

Why, if the Son is equally as divine and a part of the Godhead, does the Father need to show him anything? I would never argue that Jesus, incarnate, has access to the divine omniscience, but it remains that if he was truly equal in substance and being with the Father then he would know what the Father knows. And if you are a part of an omniscient being, can you actually set aside your own power? Once Jesus (assuming divinity and incarnation) became a man, did he cease to be God in some way? He limited himself in ways that God certainly never is.

²¹ For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. ²² For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Does any of this read to anyone else like a father passing on a mantle or a responsibility to their son?  If the Son is part of God which is the Father (as the unbegotten, uncreated 'part' of God) how are these jobs differentiated? How does the Trinity keep one part of itself out of the judging, etc.?

 ²⁶ For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, ²⁷ and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.

Again, if the Trinity is equal, how can one part grant the other part life or power? It seems that there is a very fine line between Triunity and being three separate entities. If one, the Father, has the ultimate control over what the other two are capable of doing, then they cannot be equal in any sense.

²⁸ Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice ²⁹ and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. 

Does this not sound as though works are important in the deciding of the destination of a persons soul? That there are things that one can do, laws that one can follow, that enable you to enter heaven?

  ³⁰ I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

If Jesus is God, it would seem from verse like this that he is a lesser one, wouldn't it? That he cannot claim the equal power of his other thirds? That the Father is a superior being in some way? 

³⁷ And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. 

While it is true that none have seen God's form (I would question that He even had one, being a transcendent being) several people in the Old Testament are reported to have spoken to God in person, as it were. 

   ³⁸ But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. ³⁹ You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. ⁴⁰ But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

Again, prophecy. I am not a big fan of prophecy in general, to be perfectly honest. Prophecies are things that are never clear prior to an event, but seem to become clear when big events happen. We've seen this happen with the 9/11 attacks. People were suddenly shouting at anyone who would listen that the attacks had been predicated by Nostradamus and every other prophetic medium since time immemorial. 

You can see almost anything in prophecy if you're willing to believe in it.

I would also point out that they searched the scriptures because the scriptures were given to them as a guide to God's good graces and eternal life. We know that some prophecies referenced in the New Testament as pointing to Christ have been fulfilled by force, as it were. The New Testament authors wrote pieces of the gospels to match Old Testament prophecy of the messiah in order to make Christ the messiah.

Fangirling is hard work but at least it's distracting

I apologise for the delay in posts of actual content.

We had to put one of our dogs down on Saturday so that kind of killed the mood for thinking about anything except for why pets can't be immortal.

I am a grown woman. I have had to put multiple pets down due to illness and old age. I have had pets just not wake up one day because of old age. I have had...well the rooster wasn't really a pet but I liked him...animals eaten by other animals.

I still don't see why they can't just be freaking immortal so I don't have to do this.

Alternatively, why we can put animals out of their suffering but it's immoral to allow terminally ill people the choice.

Additionally, I hope deeply that animals are exempt from the zombie apocalypse. Because if not, there's a small army buried in the back of the property and I am screwed.

And now I am going to go get a couple of hours (or maybe an hour, I keep typing) sleep before I attempt to read an 850 page novel in one day.

Because reasons, that's why.

Regular posting will resume after I have collapsed from this feat of insanity and woken up again two days from now.

The Library Mid-2014

Heather mentioned that she wanted to see pics of the library so, after a neatening up, here they are.

First, a shelfie.

Heather insists that the person isn't supposed to be in the pic, but I disagree. So there I am, next to one of my favorite shelves.

You'll notice that a hard copy of Skin Game (the newest book in the Dresden Feels Files series) is missing. This is because I'm waiting for my drug book drug dealer to ship a special copy of it to me. But we're holding off to see if she has something else super special for my collection. :D So I'm pretending to be patient.

Can you see the patience in my face? Yeah.

I thought I'd try two pics for the Wall of Books to give people a better chance to see what's actually on the shelves.

And part two.

Manga...manga everywhere! Also the books under the tv are destined for Goodwill. There's some dvd's in there too. I'm purging the dvd collection. This involves watching a lot of really bad movies.

DVDs I am keeping. Mine. ALL MINE.

A mix of DVDs I will keep and ones I haven't watched yet. So many movies.

Also, 'alphabetical' is a loose term when applied here. I group things how I want them. Like all the Lord of the Rings movies are with The Hobbit movies. Because reasons. Yes, I do own at least two copies of all of the LotR movies. Again, reasons.

COMICS! so many comics...and a little Darth Vader.

Manga in the corner by the bed. Always a hard shelf to get a pic of.

Manga...

Movies! Again, 'alphabetical'. All the MCU movies are together over here because Marvel Cinematic Universe. Otherwise they're all spread out and that's annoying. I know. I'm a special soul.

Bet you can't guess what these are!

Most of the 'Star-' fandoms represented right here. Also the good parts of Supernatural. Though the season finale this year gave me hope.

Torchwood. Let me tell you about Torchwood one day. When you have time to listen to me cursing the writers for Children of Earth. And some X-Men stuff. Which I mostly just watch for the Erik/Charles of it all. And Wolverine. Everyone loves Wolverine.

And the last of the shelves! Manga and the three video games I own! But look at that empty space there at the end of the shelf! I could buy more books!

Bonus: The books I am currently reading. It doesn't show up well on Hawkeye's screen thanks to the glare, but I'm reading 'Death By Black Hole' by Neil deGrasse Tyson. And a prize of your choice to anyone who can correctly guess what movie I'm watching. >:D

Also, to anyone who came here for serious posts and such, sorry! Yesterday was my birthday (I am an old, old woman now) and today I spent cleaning and enjoying my last vacation day. I promise to return to posts about the Gospel of John tomorrow, and to answer the comments I have. But I am tired tonight.

SO OLD. SO. OLD.

Mahwidge...

I'm about to finish God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage by Bishop Gene Robinson (Episcopal, of course).

I intend to do a post about it, because it is interesting, but first I wanted to get you guys' thoughts on what exactly marriage is. Get as detailed as you like: what is marriage? Who does what in a marriage ceremony? (Not like who stands where, but what is the role of the pastor/priest/imam/officiant, the family/friends, the individuals getting married, like that.) At what point are the couple married? Secularly? Religiously? What's the point of marriage? Stuff like that.

A couple of things, one of which is Book: Standing Alone in Mecca - Asra Q. Nomani (there's kind of sort of a theme...)

I kind of hate writing book reviews because I have a real problem walking the line between not telling people enough about the book and telling them too much. Also I tend to just talk about whatever comes to mind about the book, rather than doing it in some sort of actually helpful manner. You have been warned.

Also, I've been trying to write this post for a couple of days. The universe does not want this post written apparently.

AS A RANDOM (or maybe not so random) ASIDE:

I am thoroughly convinced that there is some sort of magical/mystical download that happens into the brains of women who convert to Islam and become hijabis. It's the only explanation for how they can all do it and make it look natural and perfect and I can't, no matter how many tutorials I watch. (Heather denies this, but I suspect that she's been sworn to secrecy vis a vis this process)

Lemme show you a thing:

This is the face of a woman who really wants her hijab to look good but knows that it doesn't. It is also the face of a woman whose one eye is red and swollen because Allergies and Florida, not because she has some horrible disease.

Admittedly I didn't bother pining it or anything, but still. This is a symptom of my disease. I love hijab, but it doesn't love me.

Also, glasses! Because my allergies are so bad right now that I can't wear my contacts. People tell me I look cute, but I think they're lying because they can see the seething hate behind my eyes.

Basically, I think I look like Bruce Banner when I wear glasses.

Which is fine, you know, if you're a guy. Which I am not.

GLASSES!!!! *shakes fist at sky*

Moving. On.

I picked up this book about four years ago and I'm sure there were a couple of reasons that I chose it, but mainly I recall picking it up because it was a description of someone going on Hajj. Why, you may ask? Because I REALLY would like to go to Mecca. Really a lot.

I will not, because non-Muslims aren't allowed, and I respect that even as I wish it wasn't so. Thusly, I have resigned myself to not ever going to see Mecca and have determined to get my fix vicariously. (As much as I ever resign myself to anything, which is not a whole lot, to be honest.) Still, you know, if they changed that rule (I know this won't happen) I would be there in a hot minute (assuming I could afford it) in spite of the fact that I hate crowds (it's very crowded) and dirt (from what everyone says there is a trash problem) and hotels and travel and....still. Mecca was the reason I picked this book up.

It is about Mecca, and the hajj, to a certain degree. But it's more about how the authors' experience in Mecca changed her and what she did with that change when she returned home. I should say that I've read nothing else by this author and while I'm aware that she's something of a polarizing figure in the American Muslim community I'm not up on any or all of the precise issues surrounding her. All I can talk about here is this particular book and my impressions from it.

Ms. Nomani was a newspaper reporter and it shows in the style of the book. The chapters are broken into sections that resemble newspaper articles more than anything else. They're concise episodes within the larger framework of the book and that makes it an easy book to pick up and read a bit, then set down and come back to later or to read through in longer chunks when you have the time.

I enjoyed the descriptions of Hajj, but I have to admit to being oddly dismayed to be told that the mosque has grown to include the path that Hagar took between Safa and Marwah. Why dismayed? Good question. I'm not entirely sure why this bothers me. Maybe it's because I, in my remove from the emotions of the event, am looking at it and thinking that they've sanitized this remembrance somehow. Does it take away from the impact of what they're doing for the people performing hajj? Probably not, or at least I hope not.

I was also maybe a little more than a bit freaked out by the crushing crowds that are described once or twice. Especially with the author having brought her infant son with her. I'm not claustrophobic, generally, but I think that would have been too much for me. Of course I also should like to think that I wouldn't bring an infant to a place like Mecca with all the possible diseases (not like ewwwwwwwwww *foreign* people, but whenever you travel there are strains of bacteria that you can encounter that are not native to your system, thus they hit you harder than the ones you're used to and with a baby...well. It's not the choice I would have made is all.) and the knowledge that people have died on Hajj due to fires and being crushed by the crowds (some people died during the Stoning of the Pillars on Ms. Nomani's Hajj).

Some of the depictions of Mecca itself made me sad, mostly the commercialization of the place with KFC's and other fast food type restaurants seemingly all over the place. I understand that it is a city and that there are millions of pilgrims, but in my head it's a holy city. KFC seems so out of place.

The question of the disconnect between the mixing of the genders at Mecca and the strict lines that can be encountered in other mosques all over the world stuck out to me too. Why is it okay for women and men to pray side my side in Mecca and not elsewhere?

I have to admit that I kept being surprised by how many things Ms. Nomani didn't seem to know about her own religion until she started looking into it due to the murder of her friend Daniel Pearl and the conception/birth of her son out of wedlock (and being abandoned by her son's father). It seems odd to me, but then I remember how many born Christians believe that the Bible was written in English originally.

My biggest problem, I guess, comes when Ms. Nomani returns home. She has, up until this point, not been involved in the local Muslim community. Due, it seems, to it not being a particularly inviting one to women. But I have to wonder if part of her perception, as a child, of it being uninviting is her mothers' aversion to the mosque. Her mother and father came from India and her mother came from a (according to the authors' book) very traditional area and family. She was never allowed or invited to participate in the community life of the mosque and never felt welcome. So I do wonder if that attitude trickled down to her daughter to a certain degree.

Ms. Nomani, on her return, goes to her local mosque and finds it wanting. Rather than become a part of the community and try and change things from the inside, she seems to appear and immediately begin demanding that things change and change right away to her way.

She refuses to use the women's section of the mosque but rather settles in the back of the men's section, refusing to leave when asked, ordered or threatened. While I can appreciate the point that there is no real reason for the women to be forced to pray in a room that leaves them feeling disconnected from the community, a room that is not equal in cleanliness or access, this felt so harsh to me, coming from someone who is basically a new comer to the community she is demanding change.

I was especially struck when Ms. Nomani describes a young woman who comes to the mosque to convert. She is not permitted to convert in the nice men's (main) hall, in front of the whole community, or even to have a microphone in the women's section so that the community can hear her take her shahadah. Instead she converts with only the other women present, and according to Ms. Nomani, laments that "This isn't the Islam I was promised." as she leaves. And I can relate, not to the specific circumstance, but to finding a religion not as promised.

I think we can all relate to that, to one degree or another.

*looks over 'review'*

I told you I was bad at this.

Anyway. Generally, I enjoyed the book. I'm not sure that I would like Ms. Nomani in person, but I found her writing to be easy to digest, informative, and it certainly kept my interest. Not so useful as an introduction to Islam (I have no impression that it was meant to be), it's definitely a memoir that gives you one point of view on the religion.

ARQ Project: Surah Yousuf

So...yeah. Life happens. I had very good intentions for getting back to blogging but then Some People Who Will Remain Nameless decided to send me two large projects to do at work that *had* to be done the next day. When, normally, such projects would take several days to do.

And then my poor Baby dog got an eye infection that just won't go away, so he's on stronger antibiotics that have to be put into his eye every three hours. Guess who's waking up every three hours to squirt stuff into his eye? *raises hand* It's like the feedings that I've missed out on wisely managed to avoid by not having children have caught up to me!

*le sigh* But I digress. It's Friday and I have a lovely salmon pinwheel cooking and so we're going to try and be productive here.

*cracks knuckles*

Right. Joseph. Not Joseph, husband of Mary and step-father of Jesus, but Joseph of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Coat of Many Colors fame. You know, Old Testament Joseph.

This coat. Man...this *coat*. It's like a rainbow threw up on fabric. I hope, sincerely and deeply, that this is not an accurate representation of what Joseph's coat looked like. Or maybe it's like that sweater that your grandma buys you with the googly eyed turkey's on it and you have to say that you love it, but really you're hoping to be mauled by a random wild chinchilla so you can 'mourn' the sweater.

12:3 - We do relate unto thee the most beautiful of stories, in that We reveal to thee this (portion of the) Qur'an: before this, thou too was among those who knew it not.

I don't know why, but I find it odd that Mohammed would never have heard of the story of Joseph before. There were Jews and Christians in the area, he was a trader by...trade. Maybe he didn't know the details by heart, but surely someone would have mentioned Joseph before. Or maybe I'm just relating too much of my knowledge backwards?

Before we get going, maybe we should refamiliarize ourselves with the story of Joseph in the Bible, it's a long section, so I'm just linking to it here: Genesis 37-46.

12:4-6 - Behold! Joseph said to his father: "O my father! I did see eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them prostrate themselves to me!" Said (the father): "My (dear) little son! relate not thy vision to thy brothers, lest they concoct a plot against thee: for Satan is to man an avowed enemy! "Thus will thy Lord choose thee and teach thee the interpretation of stories (and events) and perfect His favour to thee and to the posterity of Jacob - even as He perfected it to thy fathers Abraham and Isaac aforetime! for Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom."

The Qur'anic version of events differs from the Biblical narrative in that Joseph doesn't relate his dream to his brothers, but rather to Jacob, who warns him that all of his brothers are evil little jerks. It makes more sense, to me, for a younger brother to brag to his older brothers about these dreams and for this to be some kind of last straw for the older brothers. After all, they know that their father prefers Joseph over them. He gave him that nifty coat after all. (Also, Joseph was the son of the wife he loved, rather than the wife he got tricked into...) And you would think that if Jacob knew that his other sons were...ah...murderously jealous (given that they'd shown a talent for violence in the past especially) that he'd have been more careful about letting Joseph go out with them. Poor parenting? Perhaps.

I find something odd in the next couple lines.

12:8 - They said: "Truly Joseph and his brother are loved more by our father than we: But we are a goodly body! really our father is obviously wandering (in his mind)!

We have the brothers speaking amongst themselves, clearly.

12:9 - "Slay ye Joseph or cast him out to some (unknown) land, that so the favour of your father may be given to you alone: (there will be time enough) for you to be righteous after that!"

They go from speaking in the plural (our, we, our) to speaking to the singular (ye, your, you, you). Have they chosen one brother, perhaps angrier or more wounded than the others and started to pick at his emotions to drive him to kill Joseph so that they can claim clean hands? '*He* did it, not *us*!'

12:12 - "Send him with us tomorrow to enjoy himself and play, and we shall take every care of him."

This verse highlights a question I have, which is how old is Joseph supposed to be in the Qur'an here? He's 17 according to the Bible, which is old enough to be married and a father at this point in that culture. Past old enough, really. I get the impression from the Qur'an that he's much younger, but that could just be word choice here and how afraid Jacob (who, fearing his other sons murderous jealousy, should really not even be thinking about letting them borrow Joseph for any reason at all) is of letting him out of his sight.

12:19 - Then there came a caravan of travellers: they sent their water-carrier (for water), and he let down his bucket (into the well)...He said: "Ah there! Good news! Here is a (fine) young man!" So they concealed him as a treasure! But Allah knoweth well all that they do!

I find the lack of surprise from the travellers here amusing. They just pull up a young man out of a well and are like...'Hey! Another one! And this one's handsome! Woowoo!'

There's also a difference between the Qur'anic version and the Biblical one here. In the Qur'an Joseph seems to be found by accident - these travellers just happen by. In the Bible he's sold by his own brothers.

12:21 - The man in Egypt who bought him, said to his wife: "Make his stay (among us) honourable: may be he will bring us much good, or we shall adopt him as a son." Thus did We establish Joseph in the land, that We might teach him the interpretation of stories (and events). And Allah hath full power and control over His affairs; but most among mankind know it not.

I find this to be a little too out of the norm for human behavior for it to be entirely believable for me. A man buys a slave and says 'Hey! Maybe we'll adopt him as a son later! So place nice.' I know the story of Zayd and Mohammed, so perhaps this is meant to be an echo of that? Or a justification of the behavior? I can't imagine that it was common to free and adopt slaves in Mohammed's time either. But even if it were the case, Zayd and Mohammed had a long standing relationship whereas, at least from what we see here, Potiphar (to give him his Biblical name) buys Joseph and immediately decides that maybe he'll adopt him later.

12:26-27 - He said: "It was she that sought to seduce me - from my (true) self." And one of her household saw (this) and bore witness, (thus):- "If it be that his shirt is rent from the front, then is her tale true, and he is a liar! "But if it be that his shirt is torn from the back, then is she the liar, and he is telling the truth!"

I don't find this argument as compelling as Potiphar appears to, to be honest. A shirt can be torn in a great number of ways and certainly some of them can indicate direction of force, etc.

Also, I'm not sold on the verses that follow where the women of Egypt are giving Potiphar's wife a hard time because she's trying to seduce a pretty slave boy. That would have been common. Slaves had a lot of uses.

12:100 - And he raised his parents high on the throne (of dignity), and they fell down in prostration, (all) before him. He said: "O my father! this is the fulfilment of my vision of old! Allah hath made it come true! He was indeed good to me when He took me out of prison and brought you (all here) out of the desert, (even) after Satan had sown enmity between me and my brothers. Verily my Lord understandeth best the mysteries of all that He planneth to do, for verily He is full of knowledge and wisdom.

Joseph's mother is dead. So how did he raise his parents high? Or is this supposed to be a metaphor? Or perhaps it counts the mothers of his brothers as his 'mother' in some sense? 

I think this is one of the most complete stories that we get in the Qur'an. 

Any thoughts on this chapter? Anything that I overlooked or missed?

ARQ Project: al-Anfaal & Baraah

I'm behind and these are short, note wise, so I'm going to combine two surah's into one post. :)

First, surah 8 al-Anfaal or Spoils of War:

41. And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who hath need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if ye believe in Allah and that which We revealed unto Our slave on the Day of Discrimination, the day when the two armies met. And Allah is Able to do all things.

I don't know why I find this verse interesting, I just do. Whatever a warrior captures in battle, he's to give a fifth of it up to God, the messenger, and people in need.  And it doesn't seem, to me, that a fifth of an individuals' booty is an exorbitant amount. I know some people have this vision of Mohammed as a greedy, power hungry man and I just don't see it. If he was really all about the money, there was an opportunity here to demand a much larger portion of the booty for 'god' and the orphans, which of course Mohammed would be the executor of. It happens in modern times, in different 'Christian' missions or programs.

43. When Allah showed them unto thee (O Muhammad) in thy dream as few in number, and if He had shown them to thee as many, ye (Muslims) would have faltered and would have quarrelled over the affair. But Allah saved (you). Lo! He knoweth what is in the breasts (of men).

Okay, so this verse is laid out as though God lied to Mohammed in order to get him into this battle. He showed Mohammed, in a dream, the army arrayed against him so that Mohammed would pass this information on to the Muslims following him. But God showed him a much smaller force than was actually there. This falls into the same category as the assertion that God tricked everyone at the Crucifixion into believing that they had crucified Jesus by putting Jesus' face on another man. It does not sit well with me that God lies. People can make their own choices, fine, and they can choose rightly or wrongly but for God to deliberately mislead people just...doesn't work with my concept of God as an ultimate Good.

53. That is because Allah never changeth the grace He hath bestowed on any people until they first change that which is in their hearts, and (that is) because Allah is Hearer, Knower.

I read this as something like a 'God helps those who help themselves' saying. I know so many people who sit around and do nothing in the face of all the tragedy around them, all of the shortages and deaths that could be prevented (and I know plenty who do something about these things too), saying that God will take care of it. That this suffering is God's will and that there's a purpose to it. Which is just bullshit. I don't believe that God's got his fingers in everything that happens. The earth is kind of like a preserve, or an ant colony. God set things up, got the ball rolling, and then stepped back to watch for the most part. Because if God was intervening in every little thing then we wouldn't really have 'free' will, would we?

And now surah 9, Baraah or Repentance.

30. And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!

And again, this is a misunderstanding of what is meant by the use of the term 'son of'. It's not used in a biological sense. Christian's don't believe that God came down like Zeus or any of the old gods and physically impregnated anyone, and neither did the Jews. There are actually two different meanings being used here and neither of them is the one that the Qur'an seems to think is being used. 

31. They have taken as lords beside Allah their rabbis and their monks and the Messiah son of Mary, when they were bidden to worship only One Allah. There is no Allah save Him. Be He Glorified from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him)!

*sigh* No. No one worships monks or priests or Mary or anyone else. There is a distinct difference between the worship directed at God and the honor given to Saints. 

34. O ye who believe! Lo! many of the (Jewish) rabbis and the (Christian) monks devour the wealth of mankind wantonly and debar (men) from the way of Allah. They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah, unto them give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom,

People suck. Even people who have supposedly given their lives to God can suck. We have free will, we can make these choices. That doesn't mean that you should discredit an entire group based on the fact that some of them aren't trustworthy. It just means that you should be careful who you trust. Don't follow blindly, don't just hand over your money for some project you know nothing about.

80. Ask forgiveness for them (O Muhammad), or ask not forgiveness for them; though thou ask forgiveness for them seventy times Allah will not forgive them. That is because they disbelieved in Allah and His messenger, and Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.

I can't help but think of these verses from Matthew:  ²¹ Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.³ “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴ When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. ²⁵ But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. ²⁶ So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ ²⁷ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ ³⁰ But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. ³¹ So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. ³² Then summoning him, his lord *said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. ³⁵ My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

In the ayah from the Qur'an it feels like God is saying, 'It doesn't matter. I'm done with you.' and turning away because these people have made mistakes. I realize that it is saying that *Mohammed's* prayers for forgiveness for other people will make no difference to their fate and I assume that the implication carries through that if these people who have sinned repent and pray for their own forgiveness that they will be granted it if they are sincere. But it just feels less hopeful to me somehow than the passage from Matthew.  I think it's clear, Biblically, that there is no *earning* of salvation or forgiveness. God forgives because God loves. It seems, to me, to be less clear in the Qur'an. 

Is that how it seems to the rest of you? 

Especially in light of these ayah further down:

102. And (there are) others who have acknowledged their faults. They mixed a righteous action with another that was bad. It may be that Allah will relent toward them. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 103. Take alms of their wealth, wherewith thou mayst purify them and mayst make them grow, and pray for them. Lo! thy prayer is an assuagement for them. Allah is Hearer, Knower.

It reads as if the people are having to pay for Mohammed to perform some sort of purification on them (even though we are told above that Mohammed's prayers for people to be forgiven make no difference). I know that, in the past, such things have happened in other traditions. They were wrong in those traditions and wrong in general.