It's religion gone mad

HOW DOES one discuss the state of the Islamic faith, the Middle East, terrorism and the world without upsetting people? Frankly, it's almost impossible.

I'm not talking here of a fear of abuse and attack or of being accused of political incorrectness. I couldn't give a fig about that. No, I mean the need to hold on to common courtesy and avoiding making generalizations that could hurt good people.

Here are some recent examples, in that I have so little room to discuss this issue in full.

We used to be told by pop stars and other philosophers that "the Russians love their children too." It was self-evident then that all people loved their young. Now I'm not so sure. Do the Palestinians, for example, love their children too?

But I have to be candid: many of them don't. We can't just rely on tired old relativism when we look at all this. Nobody who loves his or her child will send that little being out as a suicide bomber. Nobody who loves their children will line them up in front of tanks.

The natural instinct of a loving parent is to hide the children. Armed struggle and resistance I can understand, even if I do not approve. This, though, is something different. I've seen it myself. Mothers screaming for their tiny offspring to come out of the house, stand in front of Israeli patrols and throw stones at soldiers.

I take here no position on the causes of Israelis or Palestinians, but I do on the moral substance of a parent who would send children to fight the battles of adults.

Do not, please, tell me they have no option. There are legions of young Palestinian men willing to kill Israelis. It's just that children can sometimes be undetected. And are easily convinced of the delights of paradise in the world to come when, I quote, "Zionist skulls, blood and limbs fly against the walls."

British Muslim fundamentalists planned terror attacks and arrests were made in Ilford, England, my hometown. Boring Ilford may be, but nobody is oppressed there! Muslims who grew up with British democracy, free British health care, free British education and British tolerance have no reason to kill anyone, let alone those who gave them such privilege.

Remember, these people came to Britain, as they did to Canada, the United States and the rest of the free, Christian-based world to escape Islamic states and their harshness.

It is the pluralistic openness and decency of Europe and North America that has allowed so many Muslim immigrants. How ironic that a minority of those people hate that very pluralism and decency and want to slaughter women and children in the name of their god and their cause.

I opposed the war in Iraq, but I cannot remain silent when people kill contract workers, then disembowel and hang them from wires in the street. While children dance.

And, no, these murderers are not refugees from pain but the favoured sons of Saddam. Their fight is to restore fascism, not liberate their nation. Even if it was, nothing justifies such sadism.

German bomber pilots, their planes shot down, would parachute into London after destroying entire towns and killing thousands of people. Almost without exception they were treated properly, as prisoners of war.

It's not about colonization, globalization, Zionism, American dominance or any other cliches. The Muslims themselves are colonizers, having pushed most Christians out of the Middle and near East, once the cradle of the Christian world.

The Ottoman Turks, Muslims all, colonized the region for centuries. Arabs colonized Persians, Assyrians, Kurds and others. The Saudis, sponsors of so much terror, are nobody's victims. They are wealthy beyond belief, and deprive women and minorities of most basic civil rights.

This is something deeper, darker, than an imagined fight against a foreign foe. There is a virus at work. For the sake of the good, law-abiding Muslims of the world -- the majority -- we cannot pretend any longer it's about anything other than what it is: a religion gone mad and gone bad.

Islam is paganistic idol worship. Their "Allah" was one of many gods, one of three moon gods, in the pre-Islamic pantheon of the Arabs. Muhammad chose him and smashed all the others

...thereby making Islam a monotheistic religion.

Unless you define "pagan" as non-Christian, or non-Christian non-Jewish, then Islam is not paganistic. The convention of dictionaries appears to be to define "pagan" as not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

As a side note, it is interesting that Christianity has had its brush with polytheism. Arius considered the notion of an eternal Christ as polytheistic and thus blasphemous. He insisted that one god created everything including the Christ. The notion of polytheism wasn't acceptable to any major Christian sect, but the solution the trinitarians were to dictate was to accept the paradox that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were the same despite the fact that they have different names and behave as though they are different in scripture.

With that logic, a pagan could issue a proclaimation that all the gods are really of the same substance, and in one fell swoop launch a monotheistic religion, without "killing off" any gods. The question is, could you still call him a pagan?

Islam is not a religion. It is a death cult.

Mohamed was at best a schizophrenic ( if you are a secularist), at worst he was seduced by Satan.

Islam is crafted from the twisting of Judaism, Christianity and tribalism. Just about every Mosque is built on the holy site of another's religion. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is built on the site of Solomon's Temple. Mohammed never visited. He had a dream about the place and it was enough for the Moslems to claim it.

The place where the Holy of Holy's sat in the temple is denied to Jews and Christians.

The Christian church of Saint Sophia in Istanbul is now a Mosque.

By their fruits you will know them. Moslems claim they have the closest relationship with God but:

1) It is the only modern social structure that still embraces slavery.
2) It uplifts no one, It does not contribute to a peaceful society in any locality or in the world at large.
3) Females and children are treated as no more than chattel
4) Practices human sacrifice in detonating children.
5) Most religions have as a central tennant the equality of all mankind , and that humanity can be bettered by the work of good men. Islam recognized no equality, It seeks not to better but to shakle everyone. There is no freedom of thought, no freedom of expression.

It is an adherence to a set of memorized rituals controling daily life. You have the prayer for crossing the bathroom threshold, what hand you can wipe with, the sequence and order that the body has to be washed in, the animals that are acceptable sexual partners. There is no individual responsibility for actions in the Moslem world because there are no real decisions anyone is allowed to make for themselves.

6) The fruits of islam are Homocide bombings, Honor killings, rape of non participants for civil offences, mutilations of females and children, slavery, poverty, bestiality and feudalism.

It is the product of a peurile psychotic mind and it produces psychotic peurile behavior.

Sticking a rock up your nose on a consistent basis can become a religion to an individual with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Religion is more than an organized system of beliefs. Islam is definitely that but it is more consistent with a cult behavior than with the wider definition of religion.

Religions developed as an intrinsic need in humans. It is born of the existential angst of existing as sentient creatures beings aware of their own mortality.

Historically religion helped individuals create order out of disorder by invoking the fates, the animus spirits or gods to bestow favors in terms of a human outcome. In early human history animal and human sacrifice and sex rituals were common.

Judiasm changed all this. With Judiasm an individual and a society was called to have a personal relationship with God.
Individuals were called to the relationship with God and to honor their obligations to others. Despite being a patriarchal society, Women and childrens status was elevated. Children were not something to be sacrificed to a tribal diety ( Molech). Fathers had obligations to wife and children.

With the codification of the 10 commandments certain behaviors were condemned in application to all peoples, not just the chosen people. Even in Judiasm which practiced a form of slavery required that they be released after 7 years of service. It was more a form of indentured service.

Even religions such as Confucianism, Budhism, Hinduism, Christianity there is the recognition that people own themselves. People have obligations not just to themselves, To God ,but to others as well. The Religions extort people to right behavior inside the group but outside the group as well. Societies advance when individuals advance.

All of these groups have had failings through the years but the central theme of the religion have always eventually corrected the excesses of society at large.

Islam as a religion is a throw back to pre Jewish paganism.
Islam is a cult where there are the religion police that ferret you out to beat you if you do not show up at the mosque at the right time. This is a cult brainwashing technique.

Islam is a cult where it is acceptable to inflict punishment on an innocent rather than the committer of an offence. There are a multitude of examples of gang rape of a sister for the offences of the brother. This is a cult brainwashing technique.

Islam is obcessed with the minutae of daily life. Bathroom behavior, food behavior,and sexual behavior .
The precepts of Islam that regard right behavior only applies to other Muslims, but it is totally acceptable to defraud, rape, murder, decieve anyone perceived as the other.

There is no universality in it, there is no absolute truth in it, there is no uplifting in it.

The goal of Islam is to hold everyone mired in a fixed position in society. There is no individual responsibility because there is no recognigition that the choices you make drive the outcome of your life. Islam allows no independent thought therefore there is never any renewal in the area. What is the last contribution to the world at large from the Islamic Middle east?

The only thing Islam contributes is new ways to be depraved, to kill mercilessly, to inflict as much harm as possible on innocents.

All the woes in the Islamic world are caused by an outside source. The poverty is a result of the Jews stealing Palestinian land, or the US sucking up all the oxygen. It is not the result of no private property, an educational system of madrassas that teach the Koran, hate and nothing else. A political system of corrupt sheiks and sand grubbing peasants. Hate , slander and blood libel are preached from the Mosques.

Islam exists to kill, subjugate, enslave, and pull the world back into a Feudal cesspool. All the world with the exception of Islam has regected the idea that you can own another human.

Islam has rejected the basic tennent of Western thought that all men are created equal. The very thought is an anethma and the thinker is worthy of murder.

The Religions of the world that believe in life after this physical life ends do not see it as a continuation of this life. You do not carry your physical body along.

The Islamists see heaven an a peurile view as a place of reckless hedonism where the pleasures of the flesh can be continued ad infinitum. The reward for slaughtering innocent Jews is 72 virgins. You cannot drink in this world but the next holds rivers of alcohol.

Cults indoctinate, cults punish for any deviation from the indoctrination. Cults severely restrict access to any information out of accepted doctrine. Cults excessively control the fundamentals of behavior.

Religions on the other hand require an expansion of the believer. You are human but you are also spiritual. You are connected and responsible to God, yourself and humanity.

My humble opinion.

A thoughtful response to be sure, but you seem to be trying to adopt words like "religion" and "cult" as your own, to be used as value statements regarding what you like or don't like. Islam may not be a good religion, but it meets all criteria (like faith and ardor) for a religion. It is recognized by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as a religion. Those restrictions you list in order for something to qualify for the label religion are new to me.

Likewise, cults are usually religions. Cults need not have all the negative characteristics you described. Any unorthodox religion or religious sect could appropriately be labelled a cult. They don't all whip their members into submission.

It just seems to be some folks are taking rather narrow and overly judgemental views of broad notions such as religion, paganism, and cult. The words describe plenty of folks over the centuries who didn't blow themselves up in crowded cafes.

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