Tag Archives: islam

Forbidden Christmas

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Merry Christmas everyone!

And yes, we uncouth unbelievers truly mean Merry Christmas when we say that. I find it a little bit strange that devout believers think that Atheists are merely polite but probably insincere when they wish someone a Merry Christmas, yet have no such reservation when someone of a different religion – say, a Jew or Hindu – does the same. It should be clear to anyone that

  • well-wishes come from the heart, not mind. They don’t require reason and are thus compatible with all religions.
  • it’s the the believers of a competing faith who are far much more likely to be polite rather than sincere; after all, they know you are stupid enough to believe in the wrong gods. Atheists merely suspect this.

And yet, it’s Atheists who get accused of grinchian behavior: devout believers in the USA passed a completely unnecessary bill that made it legal to say ‘Merry Christmas’. In these instances, they probably were preventive strikes (a religious version of the Bush Doctrine so to say) against the perceived threat that atheist might think about making the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ illegal in schools – as part of their alleged War on Christmas.

Of course, there are some cringeworthy actions from Atheists around Christmas time – the small-minded annual controversy some misguided Atheists start when they want to ban nativity scenes. To me these scenes are more proof of a Disneyan understanding of Christianity than anything else – most of these scenes look like something straight out of a fairytale ride in an amusement park. Let these guys have their fun, guys! We have bigger fish to fry.

But looking at the world we find that intolerant, petty religious people are on the forefront of the ‘Forbidden Christmas’ business. This year alone, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Brunei and Tajikistan have actually banned celebrating Christmas – with punishments up to five years in jail should you be caught. Their rationale: Christmas is ‘unislamic’. Wow. That’s a surprise! And it only took them a few centuries to figure that out.

But let’s be honest. It just bugs these medieval dimwitted clerics that another religion has a couple of fun days. To fundamental believers, fun is always bad. Plus, they love to be able to tell people what they must not do – that’s pretty much the raison d’être for most organized religions.

So these countries ban Christmas because it allegedly threatens their great, peaceful religion. Which is at least somewhat ironic – given the hundreds of thousands Muslims that are currently fleeing their home to infidel Europe and US, where they can live in the peace and happiness that their devout islamist brethren deny them at home.

So, as a true Atheist please believe me that I sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Splendid Solstice – wherever you are, and whatever you believe.

Take care, and peace!

Don’t pray for Paris…

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In Paris, a number of heavily armed murderers have again killed an incredible amount of unarmed, unsuspecting and peaceful individuals. As I write this, information is still scarce, but the picture is becoming clear. One of the locations of mass murder is only a stone’s throw from this year’s other horrendous attack on humanity, the bloodbath at Charlie Hebdo’s. Target of the attacks were visitors of a rock concert, and patrons of in-cafés. It’s obvious that this was not a coincidence: the murderers wanted to kill young people.

I feel that I’m not going out on a limb here when I say that with great likelihood, the attackers will turn out to be some youths professing to be faithful adherents to a medieval or bronze age belief. They will say that they committed bloodshed in the name of the religion of peace or perhaps the religion of love.

These people with their moronic belief in repulsive fantasies of paradise sucker themselves into believing that they are shunned by society not because they are antisocial losers, but that they take society’s disgust upon themselves because they fight for a higher cause: a god who obviously is so impotent that he can’t bring order to this world himself. And so they arm themselves with automatic weapons, strap on bombs to make sure they won’t survive the day, and kill indiscriminately in order to be able to screw their promised virgins.

This has to stop. A new hashtag #prayforparis is making the rounds. Hogwash. Stop praying, people. If you pray, you commit the same feeble-minded idiocy that ended with automatic weapons in a crowded concert and on the streets of Paris. Do something. Give to médecins sans frontieres. Go help at the local shelter. In Europe, support the fugitives that are currently trying to leave the war-ravaged Levant. Make this world a better place where hate preachers have no opportunity to turn dumb losers into dumb losers who kill for paradise pussy.

Don’t pray for Paris, help them!

IS Rouge

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IS stands for ‘Islamic State’. But is it really?

Doubtless the majority of followers in IS are muslims. And the official ideology that IS proffers can be traced back to Islam – the same way a sausage can be traced back to a cow.

But I think that referring to IS as an islamic organization misses the point. Who cares what a murderous band of barbarians believe in? Some may be fundamental muslims, others not. What unites them are their deeds, not their beliefs. We have seen this before.

Most of the Khmer Rouge who murdered themselves through Cambodia didn’t really believe in Communism – not by a long shot. The IS is similar in many regards. In fact, IS are the Khmer Rouge of the 21st century: a brutal, genocidal, unscrupulous organization that pretends to follow higher goals while plunging a region into dread, death, and decay.

I contend that few men today have become members of the IS’s fighting force for religious reasons. The more we learn about what they do, the more we come to realize a disconcerting fact: those who join IS do so because the IS promises them three things:

  • that they will be given a weapon to prop up their ego
  • that they can rape any women and feel good about it
  • that they have the cheap excuse of being pious

To many men, this is a surprisingly simple sell: it’s easy to become someone important: hold a gun and pray to god. Then you can screw any woman you want.

That’s way more attractive than what the West can offer: work your ass off and still be poor.

Small wonder that losers from all western societies flock to the killing sands in Syria and Irak.

So is the IS really a religious state?

No.

They are an unchecked manifestation of men’s primal desires: sex and violence.

Religion merely serves as their fig leaf.

Criminal Phobia

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Ed Miliband, UK opposition leader and head honcho of the British Labour Party, stated in an interview with a muslim news service that he would outlaw Islamophobia.

We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime

This is a really bad idea.

The reasons for this are manyfold, and while I suspect that Miliband’s heart is in the right place for suggesting this, it’s disquietingly obvious that his brain isn’t:

First, a phobia is an irrational fear, i.e. a fear that has no base. For example, agoraphobia is a fear of open places. Most importantly, though, a phobia is a medical condition.

There are doubtless people who have an irrational fear of Islam, and by extension fear those who adhere to Islam: Muslims. These people are a tiny minority. They are not the people Miliband wants apprehended, because they have a true case of Islamophobia – a real phobia. They suffer from a medical condition. You can’t, or shouldn’t, really, make that a crime. If you did, you would make falling ill a crime. Imagine if the government outlawed having a cold. They could throw you in prison for sneezing.

Yeah, it’s that preposterous.

There are, on the other hand, many people who criticize many aspects of the Ideology called Islam. There are quite rational reasons to fear Islam’s Ideology – about as many rational reasons as there are to fear Christianity, Judaism or any other religion.

Some people are not only rationally afraid of what damage such an ideology could inflict on society, they experience disquiet – even apprehension – in the presence of devout practitioners of religion: muslim fundamentalists, for example. Their unease isn’t entirely baseless: criticizing Islam in the presence of islamist fundamentals can be dangerous, even lethal. The shocking images of the Charlie Hebdo massacre are still too fresh to ignore. So these aren’t the people Miliband is after either.

I submit that what labour actually wants to outlaw isn’t really Islamophobia. They want to outlaw hate-mongers who seek to make political hay or gain personal status from inciting hate. These people aren’t Islamophobes. They are the exact opposite – they love Islam, for they can only thrive in its presence.

But the problem lies much deeper: Islamophobia is an ill-defined term that entered the English language in 1997; today it is a term devoid of true meaning yet has become rife with accusation. It was coined to call out (perceived) prejudice against Muslims. As such, the term is strongly misleading: it conflates an Ideology (Islam) with people (Muslims). This has lead to serious misunderstandings, a fact that is constantly being maliciously exploited.

For example, a few months ago, on Bill Maher’s Real Time, Actor Ben Affleck verbally attacked Philosopher Sam Harris for his critique that Islam is the Mother Lode of bad ideas. Affleck interpreted the criticism as a slur on Muslims: Muslims are idiots.

This is the kind of misunderstanding that results from conflating things that must be kept separate. It has also resulted in a strange imbalance: If someone openly said The Torah is the Mother Lode of bad ideas, nobody would think them to be an anti-semitic, merely overly critical of some scripture. Do the same with the Quran, and many people label you an Islamophobe.

Because of this, the term Islamophobia is now actively, and intentionally, used to stifle criticism of Islam. Such criticism is interpreted as an attack on muslims. It’s as if a doctor who said “sugar is bad for your health” was understood as saying “people who eat sugar are bad”.

Making Islamophobia a hate crime in this context would be like making Blasphemy a criminal offense: say God Damned and get thrown into jail for committing a hate crime.

So the issue runs deeper than mere semantics. What we must do is disentangle ideology from believers, concepts from people. It’s not Islamophobia that should be labelled a hate crime. Discriminating against Muslims should be. And the word for that is anti-muslimism, the muslim pendant to anti-semitism. Both should be a criminal offense.

How do we determine anti-muslimism? If your actions are directed exclusively against Muslims (people) simply because they are Muslims, you are guilty of anti-muslimism. If you are critical of Islam (ideology), you are not – even if people don’t like, or feel offended by, your opinion. Ridiculing an ideology is not an attack on its adherents, no matter how offended they may feel.

The problem with this approach: too many people have problem grasping that last part. See Ben Affleck.

Word!

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Deeply religious Christians claim that the Bible is the perfect, unerring and true word of their god. Devout Muslims state the same about their sacred texts. Their God, of course, is omnipotent, benevolent, and omniscient. However, said deeply religious people never see the contradiction of their assertions with reality that become glaringly obvious in discussions. When quoting their own holy text to such a believer, atheists often hear something like this:

  • “You took that quote out of context” (a Christian favorite, and corollary to “you need to read the whole bible to understand it”.)
  • “That [the quote] only makes sense in its original language” (a Muslim favorite)

What they seemingly don’t understand is that you should never use these arguments if you think that your sacred texts are the true word of god because of a simple fact:

An omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent being’s true, perfect and unerring word would be impossible to misunderstand.

Also, such a word would not, at least in theory, require any means of interpretation – everyone would instantly recognize and understand its message. The direct, true word of a supreme being transcends traditional communication and coalesces in our thoughts with its full meaning perfectly intact, impossible to misunderstand or misrepresent. An omnipotent being would get its message across.

Now, since not everyone agrees on the same interpretation, let alone same sacred text, something must be wrong. A truly sacred text would not allow a belief to fracture into denominations, nor would it allow factions to go to war over the correct interpretation (orthodox vs protestant vs catholic Christians or Sunni vs Shia Muslims): there would only be one interpretation. Such a text would unite and convince instantly. It would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind.

Supposing, of course, that this god is truly benevolent. It’s entirely possible that a malevolent God seeds many convincing yet contradictory, deliberately imperfect holy texts throughout the world to spread the mayhem, distraught and death we see today.

But if we assume that god is benevolent, and not a prankster, any true word of his or her would pass a very simple litmus test – it must be universally understood.

So here’s an easy test that you can apply to something allegedly holy: if that text required any kind of translation, it’s not His true word.

Pagan vs. Heathen

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A few weeks ago, in an aside, I used both terms pagan and heathen in the same sentence, prompting my father to ask me what the difference is. Truth be told, when I was writing, I simply used both words because I liked the rhythm, while being dimly aware that I was probably using two terms that essentially were synonyms.

So what is the difference between a pagan and a heathen? It turns out that the answer is not simple at all.

Historically, both terms were used by people who believed in the Bible God to describe people who didn’t subscribe to the Judeo-Christian belief – but with subtle differences. Both were derogatory terms. Pagan was used to identify an idol worshipper of Hellenistic origin (Zeus, Jupiter, Athene, etc.). The term Heathen, on the other hand, referred to the untamed wild northern people – living on the Heath – who worshipped Asgardian gods (Odin, Thor, etc.).

Later (around 1000 AD, after Christianity had become more entrenched in Europe and belief in Hellenistic and Asgardian gods became rare), these terms became less distinct. From inside Christianity, everyone who wasn’t a Christian was referred to as a heathen, including Muslims (who are a subset of the Abrahamic faith), and Atheists (rare as they were), but excluding Jews. So after the crusades, the words heathen and pagan became true synonyms.

Of course, it is important to note that both terms require a frame of reference: the word heathen or pagan loses meaning outside the Christian sphere. Islam, for example, does not make the distinction: for both words, the Arabic translation is الوثني, i.e. a primitive unbeliever (yet Islam itself makes the distinction between Unbelievers and People of the Book (أهل الكتاب): Jews, Sabians and Christians).

Today, of course, it’s even more complex. New Age Bimbos have rediscovered belief in supernatural BS, and have honestly started to refer to themselves as Pagan or Heathen. The fact that they refer to themselves as a non-christian rather than what they actually believe in tells us everything we need to know about the level of intelligence involved in these believers.

And then of course there is my favorite meaning: nowadays, when someone jokingly refers to herself as a heathen or pagan, she usually means to say that she has some residual belief, but not as much as her family would like her to have. This believer usually sees the inside of a church either as a tourist attraction, or on Christmas and Easter.

Which reminds me: Happy Easter, to all you heathens and idol worshipers! And to all the Christians who went on a hunt for quintessential pagan idol: the Easter Egg.

Muslim Creationism

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A few days ago, I found a book in my mail box. It was made from glossy, high-quality paper, some 300 pages thick and titled The Evolution Deceit. Since it’s no secret that I have disdain for pseudo-science, especially when it serves to spread religion, I thought a friend was poking fun at me, giving me a fake book, or a well-made satire. After all, even at a cursory glance, it hits all the wide-eyed creationist highlights and the introduction reads like something straight from The Onion.

[…] the theory of evolution constitutes the underpinning of a deceptive philosophy that has held sway over a large number of people: Materialism.

Now, that is high satire. I mean, come on – claiming that a natural order can become an ideology is funny. I wish I had thought of that.

However, I quickly found out that not only is the book real, it also represents a tragically inept attempt at spreading religion:

  • First, the book is peddling Creationism. Here in Switzerland, levels of education are high, and only a few stubborn half-wits believe in the literacy of ‘God created Adam from clay, and Eve from a rib’. The potential audience for this kind of book, the occasional US ex-pat aside, is minuscle.
  • Then, as I was stunned to discover, the book is selling Islamic Creationism. This is astonishing for the simple fact that unlike Christianity, Islam never had a problem with evolution. So this book first creates a problem where none exists, and then tries to sell Islam by solving a non-existing issue. And if this wasn’t enough, Switzerland is a predominantly Christian country, with very little sympathy for Islam. So if you do find someone stupid enough to believe in creationism, they’d already be a Christian.

If you want to sell that kind of crazy here, I don’t think that you could pick a worse combination than Islam and Creationism – even if you wanted to.

The book itself is pretty much what you’d expect from someone foolish enough to try and use ‘science’ to disprove Evolution: misrepresentation (‘Darwin claimed in Origin of Species that Whales evolved from Bears’), misattributions, false assumptions, misdirection, really bad math (these Creationists sure love miscalculating probability), outright slander (my favorite: ‘Darwin is responsible for Hitler, Nazis and Communism’), allegations of conspiracy against ‘alternative’ science, and of course mountains of suggestive evidence that has been taken out of context. It doesn’t help that the author is also a conspiracy theorist and – this is a first – has both denied and affirmed the Holocaust.

But why am I writing about a deranged, scientifically illiterate or dishonest author who is prepared to lie in order to sell his religion? After all, there are tons of those, and nothing of what he writes is original nor noteworthy.

It’s not so much the fact that yet another scientific ignoramus is sacrificing his integrity on the altar of his imaginary master. It’s this: the book has enormous production values: high quality paper, lots of good photos and illustrations, impeccable layout, and well translated. The production values are higher than most school books I’ve seen recently, and it is distributed for free (I was wrong – no friend dropped off that book; everyone on my block got one as unsolicited mail).

I find it unsettling that someone would spend this amount of money to produce and distribute a book dedicated to undermining knowledge, reason and science. This book undeniably looks and reads better than most academic books I read at university. I’m worried what it could do to a poor community where real science books are difficult to come by and where people have little means to discern science from hateful claptrap.

This book wasn’t written to educate, to better this world and humanity. It’s been written, produced and distributed to prey on unsuspecting people; to infect minds with a divisive, dangerous ideology, disguised as science.

It serves as yet another unwelcome reminder of the fact that there is no evil that fundamental Christians do that Islamists won’t imitate.

Funky old Medina

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Fundamental religion and science don’t mix well, as anyone who has listened to Ken ‘Creationist Museum’ Ham can attest. Now news reports reach us now from the holy city of Medina where cleric Sheik Bandar al-Khaibari ‘proved’ to an astonished audience that the earth doesn’t rotate at all.
Galileo Galilei, who, incidentally, was born on the exact same day a couple of hundred years ago, could have emphasized – he has had his share of trouble with religious scientific ignoramuses (he was sentenced to life long imprisonment for discovering the fact that the earth rotates by christian fundamentalists).

It seems the Sheik is very religious – meaning his grasp on reality is tenuous at best. Reportedly, he is also doubting the moon landings, putting him not only with the religious idiots, but squarely with the conspiracy nuts.

Maybe he’s also Ken Ham’s long-lost brother?

Clueless

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They simply don’t get it. Barely four weeks after Islamist gunmen stormed the offices of French satirical ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and murdered twelve unarmed artists in the name of Mohammed, Muslims in London have nothing better to do than to take to the streets and protest against Hebdo’s depictions of their religious idol. I find this deeply disturbing for a number of reasons

  • No matter how much they profess to distance themselves from the murders, their protest lends some legitimacy to the terrible, murderous deed of Islamists. They complain about what the artists got killed for: freedom of expression – and at the same time insist they feel offended?
  • Somehow these Muslims seem to have completely overlooked the fact that the mass publication of Hebdo’s drawings are a direct reaction to the barbaric deed done in the name of Islam. They are not doing their religion a favor by openly showing a complete lack of appreciation for how societies respond to evil.
  • Some of these people held up signs saying we love Prophet Muhammad more than our lives. Don’t these Muslims understand that statements like these merely serve to underline just how ethically underdeveloped they are? Valuing human life beneath that of an ideology is always a sign that something is wrong with that ideology.
  • These people feel offended by drawings – that’s OK. But somehow, they also feel that being offended entitles them to something. Their protest shows a remarkable lack of understanding what constitutes freedom. If something written offends you, don’t read it! That is the extend of your freedom. If you want someone else to do something based on your religion: get stuffed. You have no right to impose your beliefs on others. Deal with it.
  • Bonus: the child holding up a sign Insult my mum and I will punch you – Pope Francis. Bravo, Francis! You really did the world a favor when Islamist hardliners quote you to justify their actions.

Most disturbing of all: these people complain that their religion is not getting the respect it allegedly deserves – shortly after followers of that religion just demonstrated their disrespect for life, and after the protesters themselves expressed a remarkable lack of respect for the sanctity of life by telling us that they ‘love Prophet Muhammad more than their lives’. Respect isn’t owed, people – it has to be earned. Otherwise, Nazis would demand the same respect for their disgusting ideology.

Islam must earn respect. So far, however, all these protesters have shown is a complete lack of understanding what ethics are, and that their ideology definitely does not deserve respect.

Shadow Sharia

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People have opined that shadow laws that run parallel to normal jurisdiction like Sharia are bad. I agree – it must be one law for all. Introducing a competing law for one part of the population is an incredibly stupid idea. Judging a person by two different set of rules undermines everyone’s belief in justice: if the same deed results in more than one possible sanctions, something is wrong with your system. If everything results in the same, they are the same system, and no second set of laws is required.

What bugs me most, though, is that the most vocal proponents of shadow sharia law are really advocating something else: They want one law for believers, one for infidels, and none for themselves.