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Limitation of questioning ! who would like to accept such a belief or religion !! as someone who believes that the covenant continued through Muhammad as the prophet of Allah and the twelve imams after him, as it was promised in the Bible already, I would never accept such a limitation.

The jurists believe, based on the hadithes, it is better that men have some covering during sex. This is a preference not a must. You can refer to your marja.

Is it really so hard to perceive that Rasulullah is submitted to the will of Allah the same as the twelve imams after him ?

Scaling, describing, comparing is one of the important tools of humanity for discovering the truths. The same humanity understands Allah through his signs and manifestations. One of the greatest signs and manifestations is the existence of caliph of Allah on the earth. Caliph of Allah does not invite people towards himself, he invites them towards Allah and he is himself the great sign of Allah in the universe so that people perceive the greatness of Allah through him when they say "Allah is greater". Caliph of Allah is like Kaba, people themselves gather around Kaba for dignifying and worshiping and obeying Allah, Kaba does not force them to do so.

The problem is that you consider it an absolute power, an absolute knowledge, an absolute infallibility. These are all shirk akbar. There have been always a minority of Ghali Shias who believed in an absolute power, knowledge or infallibility. In fact the mainstream Shias consider great power, knowledge, infallibility for Rasulullah and then the twelve imams after him, not an absolute power, knowledge or infallibility. There is a big difference. No Shia says that there is no difference between Rasulullah and Allah ! except the ghali mushrik ones. What you say is a shallow and superficial perspective about the beliefs of Shias. If someone has a deep and unbiased knowledge about the Shia literature, he knows that your viewpoint is unrealistic and a bit naive. but you shall not, unless Allah wills, the Lord of all the Worlds. (81:29) Only the will of Allah is absolute and all other wills even the will of the greatest prophet, Rasulullah, and his greatest successors, the twelve imams, are based on the will of Allah.

You say it is shirk because you do not get the purpose. Yes if one says that Rasulullah is the hand of Allah, or eye of Allah, this can be shirk, depends on the meaning. There is a famous hadith in the books of Sunnies that Shias also agree with. I do not know how they ignore this hadith ! We should not simply condemn people to shirk akbar without investigating what they truly mean. "My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. "When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. "Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. I do not hesitate about anything as much as I hesitate about [seizing] the soul of My faithful servant: he hates death and I hate hurting him." It is narrated by al-Bukhari.

Yes exactly. This is very minimal that laymen Shias do tawassul to them only for the worldly things.

We do not have to consider whatever we do not understand it as shirky. Exactly this is the point. Before calling this or that shirky we should ask about the reasons !? It has nothing to do with shirk ! So we should improve our knowledge about religion to understand well what is shirk and what is not. If you consider such things shirk, then Quran and hadithes are full of shirk !!

1- Shias believe that Rasulullah and the imams get aware of the people and specially their followers. There are many Sahih hadithes in Kafi and elsewhere. That the deeds are presented to Rasulullah and the imams, of course whatever Allah wills and permits. Even Sunnies have hadithes about that deeds are presented to Rasulullah. Sometimes this may be called that the caliph of Allah is the eye of Allah or the hand of Allah or the ear of Allah of course not literally. This means that some of the names of Allah manifests in the caliph of Allah. This is a little complicated issue. If caliph of Allah does not manage things, then he is caliph for what !? If the caliph of Allah and his Hujjat does not exist, worlds will be ruined. This is not just the belief of Shias. Alusi the Sunni Salafi scholar declares this explicitly in his famous book Ruhul Ma'ani. These are scientific issues. You should not expect the illiterate and backwarded extremists to understand such things easily. 2- Writing letters and dropping them into the water like rivers or wells is one of the methods that Shias have in their hadithes. This does not mean that Mahdi finds the letters and reads them literally ! 3- Some people say Ibn Saba does not exist, some others say his characteristic is exaggerated. In fact according to the book of Shias, Ali wanted Ibn Saba and some of his followers to repent they did not and Ali himself executed Ibn Saba and some of his followers. I would be glad to hear questions if you have any, this would help me to learn more and deeper. You should not fear watching those movies, there is nothing to fear as long as we are after discovering the truths, whatever they are and however they are.

Even if burning alive is really considered as one of the punishments for example for homosexual intercourse, if I were a judge I would never dare to do so ! because as I said Ali ibn abi Talib did not burn the wrongdoers alive or at least there are one or two vague hadithes about this. Most of hadithes show that they burnt the dead bodies not the alive bodies. Or Ali executed by gas not fire itself. Anyhow we are not infallible and we are just trying to discover the truths among so many hadithes. Burning alive is not mentioned as a form of execution for the sodomy in the Islamic punishment law of Iran, only execution is mentioned, which shows the form of execution is not important so there is no need that one insists on burning people alive while jurists themselves are in doubt about it. We should wait that Imam Mahdi himself returns and clarifies this vague points of history and fiqh. Allah knows the best.

Well, to tell the truth most of what I have heard and read from the authentic hadithes in the books of Shias and the view of Shia jurists is that in some occasions Ali ibn abi Talib burnt the dead bodies after execution. For example : there is a Sahih hadith in the book Kafi that at the time of second caliph a gay person was arrested because of homosexual intercourse. Umar asked the elites what to do with him, Ali proposed to execute him by beheading and then burning his dead body. Also Ali executed the followers of Abdullah ibn Sabah by gas (produced by fire), not fire itself. Also he executed the certain forms of apostates by burning their dead bodies after beheading. There is a hadith that the gay person himself confessed several times to Ali ibn abi Talib and begged for the punishment. Ali proposed several forms of death that one of them was burning. The gay person himself chose burning but then he repented and Ali also let him go. Anyhow one can not deduce from the manner of Ali ibn abi Talib and Ahlul bait that they burnt the wrongdoers alive, according to the view of Shia jurists there is no authentic and reliable evidence to show that Ahlul Bait burnt the wrongdoers alive. So some of Shias do not consider burning alive as an allowable punishment and those Shias who believe it is allowed, they also believe that it can be changed with other forms of executions and I feel they prefer never burn the wrongdoers alive just because of one or two vague hadith !

In fact Press-TV is not established for self-criticism. The mission of Press-TV is not so. What would be the point that they establish a purely English media to criticize themselves while most of Iranians do not speak English ! If they want to criticize themselves, they use their internal Persian media for their internal issues. For sure Iran has many shortcomings and no one claims that it is perfect and for sure Press-TV itself has shortcomings. The mission of Press-TV is to highlight the other side of the story. So you are free to listen, watch, compare and think so that you can have a realistic perspective about the truth.

In the view of Arabs being old itself on it's own was a value. The tribal values of Arab nation. While in the view of Islam ........ Those who captured and occupied Fadak and refused and rejected Ali and Fatima can not be honest.

Salam Ibadi is not a Shia sect, is it !