Nine Eleven
Today was a strange day for me. Like the rest of the country, I spent considerable time pondering the event that changed the world five years ago. My first thought was that I can honestly say that five years ago, Allah changed my life. Until September 11th, 2001, I thought little of this god, though I knew of his animosity toward Christians. Five years ago, I became afraid of the influence of his followers on our culture. We had been sleeping, and the death of nearly 3000 of our fellow citizens slapped us awake.
Unfortunately, we turned over and pulled the covers up–a typical Monday morning response. I’ve watched the world seem to spin out of control these last five years. Five years ago, I was ready to flatten the middle east and turn the place into glass. I came to understand later that people are people and not all of them are evil just because they live there.
Yet, it breaks my heart to see them chant their hatred, swear genocide on our allies, and mock our efforts to stop them. The United Nations embraces Islam in spite of its broadcast intent to wipe out all Jews. How long ago did the UN send forces into Yugoslavia to stop genocide? Who were the victims? I could have it wrong, but it seems that the victims were Muslims. Apparently what’s good for the Jews is not good for the Muslims.
We apparently still don’t get it. I watched a little of The Path to 9/11 last night. I watched as the Pakistani women wore bright red scarves over their heads, showing full face and made beautiful with make-up. These are not the black-robed women who must fear death if they brush too close to a man, while cramming spaghetti behind a veil. The latter is reality. The former is, well, sure, it’s Hollywood. But must we be so ignorant? Islam is not about women’s rights. Islam has one law, and men administer it.
The villains were made out to be madmen who had no real grasp on Islam. Is this the truth? Well, I suppose I can’t speak to that. But, from what I’ve seen on the news, fairly well dressed and normal looking men can chant “Death to America” as easily as madmen. Why must we see this as a fringe faction? Why do we put up with this crap?
When I was in college, I had to listen to a series of tapes on the virtues of Islam. (I was performing a QA function for the library.) At any rate, I listened as the speaker devoted an inordinate amount of time talking about how Christianity will fall to Islam. I wonder about a “religion” that has as its main focus, the elimination of the rest of society. It’s not about religion really, it’s about hate. And hate is the thing we have been trying to eliminate from our culture. Yet, Islam is revered as a religion of peace while we are told that Christianity is intolerant.
WTF?
Maybe we haven’t forgotten the act that was committed five years ago today. But, I think we have forgotten who did it. I think we have forgotten our freedoms. As I watched my wife remove her shoes and step into a sound-proof lobby, I wondered, am I really safer? If so, why am I so afraid?
I can’t kiss my wife as she steps onto a plane. We touch hands through bullet-proof glass like a couple of prisoners. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. This is the work of Allah.
After delivering a passionate speculation about the nature of God and physics in college, I was chided by one of my classmates. “I thought we killed God,” he said. To those who believe so, I encourage you to look back on the last five years. If we’ve killed god, I think we might have missed one. Because he killed 3000 of our countrymen not too long ago. I guess we’d better look a little harder. Obversely, perhaps we killed ours but theirs is still alive and we now have nothing with which to fight back. That’s disheartening.
Allah enslaves his people and demands death from those who will not convert. I remember, as a kid, watching movies where people like that were considered the bad guy. Now we say he’s the author of a religion of peace and the guys going in to free the people are the villains. How could we have been so wrong back then? And, if I may indulge in a bit of sarcasm, I have to wonder… If Islam is a religion of peace, I guess that’s why it’s been so peaceful over there in Arab land for so long.
Well, I’ve rambled long enough. Todd will probably revoke my access after this. It’s pretty much a rambling tirade. I’m sleepy, angry, fearful, dopey and docked. But that’s the beauty of a blog. I don’t have to care to much that it’s perfect. Right?
I hope you get the spirit of what I’m trying to say here. Wake up! The world is nuts. Let’s fix it before it’s too late.
I’ll probably delete this tomorrow.
Good post. No shame in speaking the truth. Tolerance is not a virtue, it is covering the truth with a lie and calling it wisdom. Better to be honest – Islam is broken, and in need of mending. We need to protect ourselves from those who seek to harm us. When we cannot reason, bargain, or deal from a mutual understanding of the basic desires of society – then we must be prepared for total war.
Perhaps it is because our own way of life is so good that we cannot see true evil any longer. It may be that we have made too much of post-modern thought, i.e. that there are no absolutes and thus all things are bad in their own ways.
But life is better than death, freedom than slavery, peace better than hate, and equality better than subjugation. Islam is on the wrong side of all of those. They refuse to understand, and to them ignorance is strength.
I hope for change, but from where I don’t know. Islam is poison. It will not abide that which is good, so that which is good cannot abide Islam and survive. Not when Islam has a billion bodies and the means to destroy or to colonize. I hope they will just get infected by our culture and obsess over the latest toys, music, movies, appliances, cars, and all the rest. But to do that they need to create things worthy of trade. That isn’t happening and it is a terrible curse on the world that so many of these places of hate have the one commodity which matters most in this world – oil.
This is not depressing, it is only sobering. Giving in to despair is feeding the crocodile hoping it eats you last. Who knows what the future will bring? It may just get better. Don’t give up, or let this trouble you more than it should.
I thought little of this god, though I knew of his animosity toward Christians.
Odd statement…have you ever read the Koran? This is the guiding book of Islamic Tradition as the Bible is to Christianity. No where in the Koran is there a statement that even comes close to being negative to Christianity. Far from it, the Koran requires the belief that Jesus and Moses are great prophets – which interestingly enough were exactly the same beliefs that early Christians held until the Council of Nice (circa the 4th Century AD) created the Nicean Creed which changed the status of Jesus from simply a divine (perfect?) human to part of the Trinity.
Just food for thought. You would be surprized how similar Islmaic Tradition and early Christian Tradition is.
It is not the Islamic Faith that has created the post 9/11 world as much as individuals.
It was not fundamental democracy or conservative christianity that did the Oklahoma City bombings…but individuals.
Why do I love a good post?
Because it leaves me absolutely nothing to add. (Stay away from that Delete button.)
Good post Chris.
Koran quotes:
[5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.
[9.30] And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!
[49.15] The believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Apostle then they doubt not and struggle hard with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah; they are the truthful ones.
[2.191] And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.
[47.4] So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make (them) prisoners, and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom (themselves) until the war terminates. That (shall be so); and if Allah had pleased He would certainly have exacted what is due from them, but that He may try some of you by means of others; and (as for) those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish.
Just a portion of what is in there. And it isn’t just the Koran. You also have to look at the Hadith and Sunna, which are supplements to the core Koranic sources. These are considered to be quite important to contextualize Koran verses, and are seldom quoted in public by Islamic apologists.
For example:
Volume 1, Book 8, Number 427:
Narrated ‘Aisha and ‘Abdullah bin ‘Abbas:
When the last moment of the life of Allah’s Apostle came he started putting his ‘Khamisa’ on his face and when he felt hot and short of breath he took it off his face and said, “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their Prophets.” The Prophet was warning (Muslims) of what those had done.
Book 041, Number 6981:
Ibn ‘Umar reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them until even a stone would say: Come here, Muslim, there is a Jew (hiding himself behind me) ; kill him.
Book 041, Number 6985:
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
I would encourage everyone to read both the Koran and spend some time with the Haddiths. While one may argue that these sources may not INTEND to incite hatred, I have little doubt that many of those who shape Islam today are using them to set an entire people against those who aren’t Muslim.
Hmm…I’ll have to dig out my copy of the Koran again. I’ve read significant parts of it (but not all of it) and would be intereted in reviewing the passages you’ve cited. A secondary point is to recall the the word Allah means God. Allahl, Yaweh, and God (etc.) are one and the same – it is only a matter of translation that gives us two different words. I find people often treat these contextual referances as seperate entities.
I’m completely open to the idea of context. I’m used to people pulling ME out of context, and I don’t like that. So I don’t want to do it to others.
When reading these passages, many are professed as the words of Allah. Some might be the words of mortals. But either way, my earlier point remains. The original intent of the Koran and Haddith might be lost – hijacked by a clergy that seeks elevation of Islam in a wave of blood. There is little doubt that medieval Christianity had the same problem with the Bible being contorted into a tool of persecution and bloodshed for the political gain of Monarchs and the Church. Christianity of the era was a problem.
Thus Islam today. One can argue about what true Islam should be. I think it is a good argument to have. When I decry the corrosive nature of Islam, I am speaking about Islam as it is practiced today in large sections of the world. I don’t think that Muslims are beyond secular redemption (remember, I’m a secularist, so the status of their souls don’t factor into this for me – redemption is lower case). I think Islam needs to be torn down, reformed, rebuilt, and reconciled with the modern world.
Fortunately for all of us, Christianity went through this process a long time ago. Islam has yet to go there.
The Koran might really be full of peace and love, but it isn’t being taught that way in most of the world today.
Thanks for your kind comments about my post. Because of your encouragement, I’ll leave it up. It has probably already been put in my “file” anyway. Now I’ll be one of the first wave up against the wall when it all falls apart.
I’m concerned about the implication that the Council of Nice was some sort of creative writing session where the church made up new rules about Christianity. Oh, I know it doesn’t say that, but I think the implication is that they somehow decided that it wasn’t working so they needed to change something. If a group cannot examine its faith and make changes based on a new understanding of the “sacred texts” or based on the discovery of new information, what do we have but unsubstantiated dogma? I am suspicious of religions that disallow investigation and stand only on mantra.
Regardless of how different or alike Christianity and Islam were, it comes down to the behavior of the majority of these people today. Christians aren’t burning embassies. Christians aren’t chanting Death to anybody. Christians are dancing in the streets when buildings collapse in Oklahoma or anywhere else.
The behavior of Christians did not invoke the creation of the Homeland (in)Security Act.
“I’m concerned about the implication that the Council of Nice was some sort of creative writing session where the church made up new rules about Christianity.”
How familiar are you with the Council of Nice? You might be surprized at how the Creed and the New Testemant evolved. The readers digest version: King Charlemaign of France around 360AD defeated the last of the “pagan” Roman Emperors (Maximillious?)and established the Christian (Holy) Roman Empire. Wanting to spread the word of Christianity through the empire – he needed to codify what was a very regional and disjunct faith; each community having their own stories, letters, and pieces of the big picture. Remember, this is pre-New Testament. Charlamaign gathered the leading Bishops of the day in Nice, Italy and formed the Council of Trent with the intention of codifying a Creed for the faith (which at up till then hadn’t existed) and codifying all the letters and writings (focusing on the apostles of course) that had been copied through the centuries (this is now 300+ years after the original apostles – think 1700′s compared to today). It turned out that the various Bishops had very differing opinions on what the core belief was. Somethings were simply voted on – majority rule! – often politically motivated and not always theologically supported. A significant portion of the Bishopric felt (at that time) that Christ was not God, but rather a divine human. This particular belief was voted down. The end result was the Nicean Creed “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth….” Only now, close to 400 years after Christ, did the church formally exist and a Credo of belief formed. All by democratic vote. Theoligically scary if you ask me.
The formation of the new testament is even scarier – it happened at the same time. But I’ll leave that for now as I’ve eaten up enough space – but one interesting point is that a lot of texts/letters were left out because they didn’t fit the chronological format the Bishops wanted to use!
“The behavior of Christians did not invoke the creation of the Homeland (in)Security Act.”
Not directly, but the actions of McVay (spelling?) et al in Oklahoma were also considered when the HSA went into effect. We realized that terrorism could strike from within and many aspects of the Act are not only limited to specifically foreign terrorist acts, but also internal terrorism. So, in essence, the behaviour of Christians did indeed influence the HSA.
Chris
I’m not taking sides on the Nicean Creed and the purity of the Church here, but I’m confused about McVeigh. My understanding is that OKC had next to nothing to do with Christianity.
Link here: http://www.rickross.com/reference/mcveigh/mcveigh6.html
Is there something I’m missing?
Although that article doesn’t adddress it, I recall that one of the aspects that was reported on McVeigh early on was that he was a Christian (although I don’t know what denomination or whether he was an active church goer). My point is that even in a Christian community or dominated culture (as the US is) these types of terrorist activities do happen and HSA was not just because of individuals inside any specific religion/culture.
Chris
OK, I get what you are saying. Fanaticism in any theology is bad, particularly when the fanatic feels compelled to hack off heads.
I feel like I need to re-state something for those that might not know me. For me, this isn’t a ‘Christians are right and Islam is wrong’ battle. From a great movie: “I am presently unaffiliated” (or something like that).
When one examines the bulk of Christian and Islamic history and writings, both are peppered with a sufficient number of examples to cast them in a bad light. Both had plenty of experience in killing the other, or sections of their holy books that can literally be interpreted in appalling ways.
The difference, to me as an observer, is how Christianity overcame this past and truly is a peaceful faith. While you have the abortion slaying outliers, I rarely see mass celebrations at the local church when that happens. I usually see a great many church figures condemning the murders. The fringe is truly a fringe in these cases.
Now when I look at Islam, I am seeing quite a different picture. If you stack up the Allah inspired murders, it makes one pause. Why do so many self-identified Muslims take the path of civilian slaughter, or even killing other Muslims in a Shia-Sunni feud? And why do these killers always seem to cite a Holy Duty and expect Allah to reward them for their deeds?
Certainly a misreading of the Bible could send one off to kill an abortion doctor, but that isn’t happening very often.
In the Islamic world, murder seems to be a sacrament for a very large collection of individuals. If the fanatical outlier is as rare as the term ‘outlier’ suggests, why do they seem to replenish their numbers so quickly after many of them are killed?
One could argue the production of fanatics is driven more by war than faith. If they were not constantly obsessed with fighting the West, would we be having these problems? Is the fanaticism in faith co-mingled with a fanaticism in regionalism? That’s a fair topic of debate, and I’m unsure of the answer.
However, it seems to me that regionalism is certainly being exacerbated by theological pressures. Middle Eastern Muslims self-identify as Muslim first, all other labels come a distant second. A Jordanian Muslim and a Syrian Muslim (assuming they are both Shia or Sunni) are going to be ‘brothers’ in a larger sense that you would ever see in a Christian American and a Christian Canadian. To a Muslim ‘fanatic’, anyone outside of the Muslim world (again, assuming the Shia/Sunni thing is in play), is not only an outsider, but a threat – as preached today from a great many Mosques in the region every Friday.
While individuals wage war against the West, I’m still forced to question how their numbers grow, and why the average Muslim takes to the street and celebrates horrible things. Why does a taxi-driver in Indonesia have a picture of Bin Laden on his dashboard and praise him as a great man? There is a peculiar perception of ‘great’ in the Islamic World.
I understand why people don’t like to generalize an entire people. I don’t really like it either. But just because it is distasteful to us, the possibility of a truthful generalization remains. Is every Muslim on the hair-trigger of murder? Of course not. Have most (50%+1) Muslims in the Middle East been infected by a virulent, hateful vision of Islam (that might not be in line with what Mohammad intended)?
I have to say ‘maybe’. If the answer is ‘no’, then why does it seem to be the case? Am I a hateful bigot? Some would say yes, and that saddens me. Prior to 1991, I thought Israel was a nest of evil and the Palestinian people were the ultimate victims. I thought Islam was indeed a fascinating faith and I wanted to learn about it. I had no animosity for anyone in the region (except for the whole Khomeini-US Embassy thing).
Education and inquiry brought me to this point. This is why I am so convinced of the problems in our future. Their own words have brought me here.
Anyway, I’m rambling into a Long Post, and this is just a comment. Thanks for the debate. I think this might be the longest comment string on the blog without invective or invoking Godwin’s Law.
If I say nothing, I let everyone assume concession on my part. So, rather than let you assume it, I will admit it.
(Now that this post has drifted off the radar, it should be safe to do so.)
I know very little about the Council of Nice. What Chris Garrett has posted seems to be a very plausible suggestion that Christianity is more of a political organization created by man than it is a divine organization created by God.
I have to agree that that is theologically scary.
Now, emotionally, I am in a quandary. Chris has suggested that something which I know to be true, isn’t. It is as if we are sitting at a table and you suddenly present me with some information that plausibly denies the table’s existence.
In this case, you don’t see the table. I do. You might think I’m crazy because I see it. And, by the same token, I would think you were just as crazy because you don’t. {The final novel in the Chronicles of Narnia has a situation similar to this.}
So, now, I’m inclined to get some background knowledge around a statement that says the table doesn’t exist. That seems like lunacy.
Yet, if I don’t get some background information in order to set the historical tone and how this council truly impacts the structure of the church, the idea will eat at me. I might one day seriously question the existence of the table. And, that’s just nuts.
I’m beside myself.