Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Qur'an 20180117

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

11.  The Arabs who lagged behind will say to you, "We were engaged in our flocks and herds and our families: ask forgiveness for us."  They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts.  Say, "Who then has any power at all on your behalf with Allah, if God's Will is to give you some loss, or to give you some profit?"  But Allah is Well-Acquainted with all that you do.

The Victory 48:11
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Here's an ethical question for you

I was at the night market last night, and I saw this woman selling huge clams.  I'm sure I showed you these clams before, because I had bought them before.  Well I bought another 3 kilos last night, it was only RM10.  Now if you look at the shells, you will see concentric lines and these lines are supposed to be able for one to tell the age of the clam.  Each concentric line being one year, as far as I understand.

This clam is about 200 years old!
This one is at least 250 years old.
This is one of the smaller clams, and is at least 100 years old.
Now I have no idea where they fished these clams out, but clams don't move around that much.  For a clam to live to over 250 years old, it must have been undisturbed for that long.  But humans have been fishing these waters for longer than that, and there were so many of these clams being sold, I am assuming they found a plentiful supply here in these shallow sea waters, in this small state smaller than Rhode Island.  Which is a ridiculous thought actually, due to ridiculous odds.  These clams should only have 30 lines at the most, and be the size of a quarter.  Perhaps these clams do average 250 years before being caught.  Perhaps each concentric line represent only one month of life instead of a year.  These are the tropics after all, and filled with life all year round.  Do I tell her these clams are 250 years old?  Do I tell her to put the clams back?  Well, I ate the ones I bought.  They were filling, delicious, and generated a lot of broth.  But should I buy them if I see them up for sale again?  I'm at odds with myself.  I don't know what to do.