An Honest Search for Truth

Good Suggestions

2012-02-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

A Remarkable Woman

2012-02-13T09:06:00.001-08:00

I don't need no stinking evidence!!

2012-02-11T09:30:00.001-08:00

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

2012-02-11T09:26:00.001-08:00

Ignorance Is NOT Bliss

2012-02-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

gnorance

God's Plan for Vultures

2012-02-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

Islam Exposed

2012-02-10T14:27:00.000-08:00

The blasphemy laws are alive and well in Saudi Arabia. Those who say that they have no part of Sharia as it comes to the West are not being honest; there is no school of Islamic jurisprudence that does not call for death for blasphemy.

Hamza Kashgari has fled the country, but was detained in Malaysia. "Saudi Hamza Kashgari faces death calls after prophet tweets," from AFP, February 10:

A Saudi internet surfer checking her twitter account at a coffee shop in Riyadh. Twitter and Facebook are controversial forms of communication in the conservative country.
A YOUNG Saudi journalist is facing calls for his execution after tweeting about the Prophet Mohammed, and the kingdom's top clerics are demanding his trial after denouncing him as an "apostate".
On the occasion of the Muslim prophet's birthday last week, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari tweeted: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you."
"I will not pray for you," he added.
The controversial tweet sparked a frenzy of responses - some 30,000, according to an online service that tracks tweets in the Arab world.
In one response, Abdullah, a lawyer, said that since Mr Kashgari was "an adult... we should accept nothing but implementing the ruling according to Islamic law" or sharia.
Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam, and is a crime punishable by death.
Mr Kashgari quickly apologised for his remarks, but the calls for his execution only multiplied....

Thanks to Carol for the video.

71 Comments

Sam Arisan | February 9, 2012 4:14 PM | Reply

I was going to make a comment but what is there to say other than saying that there will be no peace in the world as long as ISLAM is practised. Poor guy, he needs to hide for just giving his opinion. What a crazy world in the 21st century.

Ima Freeman | February 9, 2012 4:29 PM | Reply

I'm speechless............really. That there is this stupidity, ignorance, mindless subservience and vile decripitude alive and well ANYWHERE in the world in the 21st century boggles the mind. OK, not THAT speechless.........

Ima

Franklin Amman | February 9, 2012 4:32 PM | Reply

What's with this dude, crying in public while wearing on his head an Italian restaurant's tablecloth?

LOL,

As if Big Mo and his imaginary god named Harvey allah can't protect themselves.

He recovers from his distress pretty well though; says at 00:52 he can't lecture today, but shortly thereafter we see him raving and ranting like he's running for the presidency of Iran. A little joke there, SA is sunni; Iran shiitte.

traeh | February 9, 2012 4:45 PM | Reply

Islam speaks: SILENCE! Or die.

TS | February 9, 2012 4:55 PM | Reply

People with souls...artists, people who think and question etc, are not allowed in Islam. What a shame for the world, not just Muslims. sad.

TS | February 9, 2012 4:57 PM | Reply

It also shows their insecurity as he wasn't nec talking about Muhammed. Thou doth protest too much!

TS | February 9, 2012 4:59 PM | Reply

And finally, it shows they are cultish!

TS | February 9, 2012 5:01 PM | Reply

Muhammedanism indeed!

pdxnag | February 9, 2012 5:02 PM | Reply

It is like the fake reverence for NORK's Dear Leader. Some folks were reportedly punished for not crying hard enough when the prior dicktator died.

They have nothing else. They are intellectually and spiritually dead even if they may appear to be alive.

Why the old farts would choose to keep their kids chained to complete nonsense is like another wonder of the world. People with empty heads will always be among us.

j_not_a | February 9, 2012 5:16 PM | Reply

Well, slap my azz and call me Lenny - imagine that, a muzloid criticizing ol Mo. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

David Dowse | February 9, 2012 5:20 PM | Reply

Hey! Maybe this will make him have a nervous breakdown...

1.) I curse Mohammed and Allah with all my heart and soul.

2.) I spit on both of them.

3.) I burn 1 page of the Koran each day, using it to start my fires to cook my dead pig.
____________________________

There is no Allah, and there is no Mohammed. They are figments of the imagination.

Still waiting for Allah to mete out his punishment.

Waiting...

Still waiting...
________________

The Saudis can go f**k themselves.

Cole | February 9, 2012 5:29 PM | Reply

Understanding Islam and fear!!

The fear that controls it. That holds it perpetually in a stagnant place.

Under these conditions - reform - is simply hazardous to one's health.

You can almost see Muhammad's Mecca here - in this portrayal.

The guy who is being accused of apostasy - a thinker - people a country needs - would have been like the people back in Mecca - who looked at Muhammad - and really questioned whether he could truly be a Prophet - just by remaking the same religious stone [rock] they had been praying over all this time.

And the others - the emotional outpouring - like watching a Mafia movie - no one wants to offend the Don. And the arrogance - of the Imams and others - must have been like Muhammad's display of arrogance - beyond reason.

Reason that would have allowed moderation. Temperance.

If you named off just some of the things Muhammad did - many Muslims would feel embarrassed or cringe.

The fear of Muhammad's 7th century retribution - slaughter - mayhem - is still there - they are literally followers of Muhammad.

Like a meteorite hurtling through space - it just doesn't change very much. But it can do serious damage to a planet.

What do we do with a problem like Islam - that believes it should kill its followers for trying to leave it!!

Which of course demonstrates the weakness of Muhammad's ideas - they have to be talked up. We have to stick to a script - because there so little to choose from - and keep repeating it.

He must have said, one good thing in between - slaughtering his non-believing neighbors - lets get that and say it over and over. And that's an order!

People should have the absolute right to be free of this religious tyranny - if they want to be. And you know how people are - they see other people getting out without problems - and they will say this is my chance!!

May the Muslim's fear - not become our terror!! Amen.

Kinana of Khaybar | February 9, 2012 5:37 PM | Reply

Note the "reasoning" of the sheikh here: Saudi Muslims are going to be in big trouble with Allah, who might destroy them all, if they tolerate this act of blasphemy and public expression of apostasy. They are committing a crime and incurring the wrath of Allah if they allow it to go unpunished. In his view, the only way Saudi Muslims can possibly be granted security from Allah's punishment is to do their duty and punish this blasphemer/apostate.

Also, the sheikh cited 33:57, indicating that those who "annoy" the prophet Muhammad will be cursed in the world and in the hereafter, showing that he takes this as relevant to an earthly punishment of blasphemers.

descendantofacrusader | February 9, 2012 5:54 PM | Reply

I'm sure this is too simplistic for many but, how pathetically sad is this man, in my opinion, who is unknowingly worshipping Satan (Allah) and his tool Mohammed. His tears for those not caught up in the same evil, that he himself appears enslaved to, should be directed instead toward gaining the salvation he is so foolishly throwing away (John 14:26). Bigoted - xenophobic? Not at all because Christ never expected us to be unsure about what is clearly evil and unGodly - i.e. Islam!

traeh | February 9, 2012 6:22 PM | Reply

Breakdown! Muslim cleric goes through psychological crisis when someone lets leak a tiny, but burning drop of the acid of truth!

The cleric in the video is perhaps not crying just about the words of the one man in question. Perhaps there is leaking into Saudi Arabia from all over the world via the internet and other modern media a persistent and very blunt dissent to the worst cult leader in recent millennia.

Today on 77 WABC radio (a station that has Limbaugh's show every day), I was profoundly annoyed by a news report in which the announcer referred to "the Prophet Muhammad." Is WABC now a Muslim station? How 'bout a little professional distance there, 77 WABC? Instead say "Islam's prophet, Muhammad," or something like that. Or is the station too afraid to stand up for its independence as a news organization in the face of the standing Islamic death threats declared all over the world to those who don't stay sufficiently in line? I find many tenets of the Islamic religion highly offensive both literally and figuratively, and I find 77 WABC highly offensive when it speaks of "the Prophet Muhammad."

PGuud | February 9, 2012 6:28 PM | Reply

Nevertheless, the apologists, dupes, fools, tools, and Useful Idiots would like us to believe otherwise.

Take, for instance, Charlie Rose--with this gem of an interview/interviewee:http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12140

Charlie couldn't have been more pathetic; he should have just prostrated himself.

We are our own worst enemy.

Islam: where freedom ends and slavery begins.

traeh replied to comment from pdxnag | February 9, 2012 6:37 PM | Reply

Have you ever heard that recording of the Soviets applauding Stalin, where the applause goes on for like fifteen minutes, and everyone in the audience is terrified to be the first to stop applauding, because Stalin will have that person killed? Eventually, some old guy seems to have become exhausted and stopped, and if I recall correctly, he afterwards fared poorly in Stalin's tender care.

tanstaafl | February 9, 2012 6:39 PM | Reply

He is crying because he knows the walls are tumbling down. The flood will follow.

tjwork | February 9, 2012 7:11 PM | Reply

Unfortunately, he is currently in custody in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & would be sent to Saudi Arabia within a week.

In my opinion, the poem he wrote was not too bad.

He did not criticize but merely telling that he is who he is, respects him as a man that he admires & treats him as a man.

Thats a noble thing to say to a man, but sadly he has to die for a man thats already dead.

gerard | February 9, 2012 7:16 PM | Reply

1:19 and as Ibn Al-Arabi said when he was told: "We should argue atheists through intellectual debates".
He replied: "That's a cold reaction, that should be warmed up with the heat of the sword."

Yep! That's Islam right enough!

Smredneck5 | February 9, 2012 7:41 PM | Reply

May God protect him.

"Thought Crime" legislation enforced.

j_not_a | February 9, 2012 9:23 PM | Reply

Traeh, I completely agree that Stalin was truly one of the most nastiest and evil pieces of work to ever exist.(BTW Michael Coren and his show has educated me more on the issue of Stalin and the sheer depths of his depravity) than anyone or anything else).

Amongst the many of his horrible acts, surely one of the worst was his slow, methodical deliberate murdering by starvation of upwards of eight million of my ancestors (Ukranians), being starved while they were able to view with their own eyes grainhouses full to bursting of wheat grown and harvested by the Ukranians themselves) guarded by Stalins thuggish monsters - this was most likely an even worse holocaust than that of the Jews in scope and number).

Not to any way diminish what the Jews suffered, but where are the museums of rememberence of the Ukranian slaughter or the anniversaries, where are their claims for recompense and recognition? There aren't any because instead of letting themselves be whining victims they gathered themselves back up and got on with their lives, contributing vastly to Canadian society by making western Canada a breadbasket to the world which it continues to be to this day. In my immediate family alone, upwards of 200, not one has a criminal record or has ever collected welfare, in fact nearly all own substantial tracts of property, homes and own many various businesses).

No, we Ukranians, who by their own Canadian government, had their lands and properties confiscated, families torn apart and were thrown in jail during WW1 because (my) idiotic Canadian government believed in their deluded minds that just because Ukranians were somehow like Russians, that they were in cahoots with the Russians and were being subvertive) also the Canadian government has never apologized to the Ukranian Canadian people or offered compensation for seized properties and/or punitive damages.

Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent of sorts, but many people are unaware of this shameful part of history (of the world and of the Canadian government during WW1). My thanks again to the stellar Michael Coren (who is half Jewish/half British) for his persistent championing of the Ukranian Canadians cause, and since the subject of Stalin came up, I thought this subject was appropriate to expound upon at this moment.

There is no reason to believe that another Stalin or Stalins are among us and plotting to impose their insane izlamonazi worldviews on the rest of us (Stalins ideological brothers the izlamonazis) who if given half the chance would inflict even more suffering on the world than their predecessor.

Good night to all and to those who have read these thoughts.

Buraq | February 9, 2012 10:21 PM | Reply

Thank God for the Internet and the transparency it offers! This allahgator with his crocodile tears could easily have spoken this nonsense and we'd have been none the wiser.
Now, millions can see that Islam is a narrow, vindictive, murdering so-called religion that amounts to anything but peace - unless, by peace, you mean an enforced silence, no questions asked, just mute obedience.

Clown! (Notice the tears were dry. No handkerchief needed.)

pdxnag replied to comment from traeh | February 9, 2012 10:46 PM | Reply

From a year 2000 piece -- "DON'T BE THE FIRST ONE TO STOP CLAPPING"

Search too on "The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life " than on * * *

Insistence on enforcement of apostasy laws must be the pinnacle of something? (Loonacy and self-doubt? Stuck in a historical rut?)

No Fear | February 9, 2012 11:13 PM | Reply

Criticising the leader of the totalitarian cult of Islam is the same as criticising a totalitarian leader such as Stalin or Hitler.

champ | February 9, 2012 11:18 PM | Reply

he deserves an oscar for the worst boo-hoo performance I've ever witnessed ...

No Fear | February 9, 2012 11:29 PM | Reply

If I made a video like that and showed it to my colleagues they would commit me to a mental hospital. If you believe such garbage as the Quran then expect mental illness to follow.

BrenK | February 10, 2012 12:07 AM | Reply

Just in case anybody wants to know what happened to him... He got arrested in Malaysia.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysia-arrests-saudi-blogger-over-prophet-mohammad-tweets/

Cyril | February 10, 2012 12:10 AM | Reply

Was he crying or is it tears of joy!!

Counterjihad2012 | February 10, 2012 1:00 AM | Reply

The inventor & owner of Facebook is a Jew, Mr. Zuckerberg

The word of the sadist allah:

‎5:73 “They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity:
for there is no god except One God.
If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy),
verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers
among them.”

Counterjihad2012 | February 10, 2012 1:10 AM | Reply

Another word of the coward sadist allah:

4:89 "(apostates) SLAY THEM wherever ye find them"

D | February 10, 2012 2:40 AM | Reply

This could be a scene from the United States or any other western country 20 years from now if Hitlary Clinton & her Muslim buddies are able to pass the no criticise Islam law (blaspheny) that they are desperate to pass.

groucho | February 10, 2012 3:50 AM | Reply

The sooner we stop buying their blood oil the better. i want ethical oil. unfortunately with their oil comes a cancer,a cancer comes. and what's with the crying? tell him to "go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut" Kurt Vonnegut jr.

guide inside replied to comment from descendantofacrusader | February 10, 2012 3:55 AM | Reply

How pathetically sad, indeed! In John 10:10 Jesus says "The thief (Satan, Mo, Allah) comes ONLY in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, have it in abundance to the full, until it overflows!

I have come to believe that Islam is the tool that Father God is using today to convict the west of their sins and to return to Him just as He had done before when He caused the Assyrians and the Babylonians to attack Israel. We are called the New Jerusalem, aren't we.

The new runaway best seller "The Harbinger" lists the nine harbingers about 911 written by Messianic Rabbi Jonathon Cahn. The USA is still the nation founded on the Bible and HE wants us back!

Steffen Larsen | February 10, 2012 3:56 AM | Reply

Poor man ...poor man ...

Clearly what we are seeing here is an old man who at long last has bothered to read some of the central tenets of the socio-religio-political movement that goes by the name of "Submission", and it obviously is a complete contrast to everything he has believed until now.

It therefore comes as no surprise that he is truck to the deepest core of his inner self. I feel terribly sorry for him.

guide inside replied to comment from descendantofacrusader | February 10, 2012 3:57 AM | Reply

The new runaway best seller "The Harbinger" lists the nine harbingers about 911 written by Messianic Rabbi Jonathon Cahn. The USA is still the nation founded on the Bible and HE wants us back!

Guy Macher | February 10, 2012 4:57 AM | Reply

Takiya tears.

If you can't criticize a lying looting rapist murderer who can you criticize?

This is just another reason why we must eradicate Islam from the civilized world.

Daniel replied to comment from guide inside | February 10, 2012 5:03 AM | Reply

"I have come to believe that Islam is the tool that Father God is using today to convict the west of their sins and to return to Him"

That's funny because if you go on Muslim forums they are saying the same thing, they think that Allah is using the west to punish them for not being religious enough, and if only they return to practicing the authentic Sharia Allah will raise them up and make them powerful.

James Smith | February 10, 2012 5:13 AM | Reply

This is why the term "Islamic Scholar" is an oxymoron.

Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 5:30 AM | Reply

Good afternoon,

The people of the West really have nothing to be proud about anymore, nothing is sacred, nothing is beyond respect, it is no wonder that your children no longer have respect for you, your women spit on you as you are no longer the person who wears (your) pants in the house.

Where ever you look, it is loutish behavior, drunkenness, disrespecting your self and critically everyone else, have you really no lajaa left.

We love our prophet, and really if you can't accept that then just keep it in your little minds, no need to say out loud.

I believe you really lost it when you thought of creating an "equal" society and give a vote to your woman, LAMO, it will eventually bring your society.

Marry them young, and keep yourself respect, and leave our prophet alone.

Dee Walid

D | February 10, 2012 5:48 AM | Reply

We understand Dee, you love your mass murdering pedophile false prophet Muhammad, who married Aisha when he was 54 & she was 9, and women are nothing but third class citizens who aren't even capable of driving a car & should be raped whenever Muslim men want, we understand all too well.

Steffen Larsen | February 10, 2012 5:56 AM | Reply

I appreciate it when someone like "Dee Walid" drops in to confirm everything this blog is up against.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Dee is only pretending to be this bigoted. We can never be sure that Dee is not operating under a false flag and deliberately attempting to make Muslims look bad.

Dee Walid replied to comment from D | February 10, 2012 6:03 AM | Reply

Good Afternoon D,

No you don't understand at all, I would never advocate the rape of women, never!!!!....but you people keep talking about it all the time; you are obsessed with it.

As for Aisha, it was a holy matrimony, not a rape, I wasn't there and neither were you to see if she was nine. She did bear him a child, these are the unknown fruits of the prophet (PBUH); who can understand the will and power of Almighty Allah (SWT) not me but certainly not you.

Note this was unlike his his jewish wife, who poisoned him, but then these are the difference in standards of a muslima and women of all other faiths.

Dee Walid

D replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 6:45 AM | Reply

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Ah yes Dee, the poisoning of Muhammad by the Jewish woman to test if he was really a prophet or not, he failed that test rather badly didn't he. Historical facts about Muhammad are that he beheaded 800 of his captives & took their women & property as bounty, & that he married Aisha when he was 54 & she was a child. By definition he was a mass murdering pedophile. Let's face it Dee, he was the false prophet Jesus warned about. Islam is based on a crazy (I hear voices in my head) desert rapist & bandit, you Muslims are backing the wrong horse in the race I am afraid.

Charles Griffith | February 10, 2012 7:15 AM | Reply

We Americans cannot do anything for these hapless Muslims on their home turf or in Muslim dominated countries. They aren't going to change that Sharia-blinkered-view inside those already lost countries.

Europe and England....wake up. You're on the Verge right this hour.

We Americans must concentrate our efforts right now, right here at home in combating those Islamist amongst us as they are gradually establishing a Muslim/Islamist foothold right under our noses. They're very good at infiltrating and using our freedoms against us.

We Americans need to wake up to the hypocrisy of "moderate" Islam here in America.

We Americans must wake up and face that we are indeed in a long-term existential war against encroaching Islam....no less.

For those readers here who aren't familiar with the term - "Fifth Column", I urge you to Google that most approprate and timely term.

LemonLime | February 10, 2012 7:38 AM | Reply

But most Muslims (perhaps even a "vast majority") aren't this way about blasphemy deserving death; so there's not that much of a problem.

David Dowse replied to comment from LemonLime | February 10, 2012 7:57 AM |Reply

LL:

"But most Muslims (perhaps even a "vast majority") aren't this way about blasphemy deserving death; so there's not that much of a problem."
______________________

I hope you just forgot the sarc tags, because if you didn't, you are seriously mistaken.

I'm fairly certain that most nominal "Nazis" were, until the rise of Hitler, every-day Germans, and had no intention of wiping the Jews out. Yet those Jews were wiped out in the name of Nazism.
________________________________

The same goes for Islam and blasphemy. The ideology demands death for apostacy and blasphemy, much as Hitler demanded subservience to his madness. It matters little if only "a tiny minority" of Islamists are in favor of a death penalty.

duh_swami replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 8:02 AM |Reply

We love our prophet, and really if you can't accept that then just keep it in your little minds, no need to say out loud.

You cannot love Allah and the 'Prophet' both...To do that, you must split your love up, weakening what you give to Allah in order to give some to Mahound...If you split it equally between them, you are guilty of shirk...

Abu_Lahab replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 8:28 AM |Reply

Dee Walid: The people of the West really have nothing to be proud about anymore....

And yet we still have far more to be proud of than any islamic nation will ever have.

Have you noticed the correlation between islamic infestation and a decline in Western society? What an amazing coincidence....

In this case correlation IS causation. Please leave.

miriam rove replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 8:54 AM |Reply

Dee: i usially do not respond to trolls. But let's assume you are for real.

as you may know I was raised a muslim and I know quite a bit about Islam as I was forced to practice it.

as you know Islam is known to be the religion of peace and you also know that muslims cry at the drop of hat like this guy is on this video. However let me tell you my contribition to Islam when I was a teenager. there two most holly holidays in shia Islam which occure in the month of Muharm. they are clled Ashoora and Tasooa.
Ashura is the day the third Imam hussain was killed. my dad used to take me for this happy event!!!!
they would turn they lights off and all the men would be crying over a DB who was killed 1400 years ago. in alll those moment people would be spraying a scent that was made from roses. as soon as the lights went out I would pull out my fountain penn and spray the people. when the lights came back on.. I am sure you can figured the rest of it. However since Islam allows lies, I have to be honest with you and once I got caught and my dad beat the living S out of me!!!
M

janaki replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 9:00 AM | Reply

"As for Aisha, it was a holy matrimony, not a rape, I wasn't there and neither were you to see if she was nine. "

But she (Ayesha) was there. She told that she was 9 ( read the sahih hadiths). And if you are okay with a 53 year old man having sex with a 9 year old, you are truly lost.

"She did bear him a child, these are the unknown fruits of the prophet (PBUH); "

Ayesha did not have children. (One wonders if the year old body was rendered unable to after early sex)

"Note this was unlike his his jewish wife, who poisoned him, but then these are the difference in standards of a muslima and women of all other faiths."

Which jewish wife of his poisoned him? Can you tell us?

I would bet you have neither read the quran or the hadiths.

Charleston45 replied to comment from Franklin Amman | February 10, 2012 9:16 AM | Reply

I am in tears too over your Italian tablecloth remark !!! can't stop laughing !

zonie kafir | February 10, 2012 10:00 AM | Reply

Note this was unlike his his jewish wife, who poisoned him, but then these are the difference in standards of a muslima and women of all other faiths.

Dee Walid...

Dee Walid is a phoney.

Sunis say a Jewish woman, not his wife, poisoned him at Khaybar.

Shia say he was poisoned by Aisha and Hafsa conspiring with their fathers Abu Bakr and Omar.

Nobody says he was poisoned by a Jewish wife.

Sorry Dee. As nabific as I, nabi ZK (pbum), am, I, nabi ZK (pbum), could not let that one slip by. It's just like when "naseem" derided Christians for believing that Mary was a virgin. Since mohametans also believe that "naseem" outed "herself" as a phoney. Dee. You have been hoisted by your own petards.

nabi ZK (pbum)

traeh replied to comment from LemonLime | February 10, 2012 10:05 AM | Reply

LemonLime,

Here are just a few of many, many news stories about violence and persecution against ex-Muslims (hat tip:http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/012-apostasy.htm)

Imam in Sweden calls for death to those leaving Islam

New Ground Zero Imam says those who leave Islam should be jailed

Indian Muslim Leaving Islam is murdered

Pakistani Schoolteacher shot dead after leaving Islam

Apostate Pastor Blinded with Acid in Uganda

Children Murdered to Punish Nigerian Ex-Muslim

Iranian Apostate from Islam Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison

Iran Orders Ex-Muslim Pastors to Serve Prison Sentences

Kenyan Ex-Muslim Stripped and Beaten with Iron Rods

Somali Ex-Muslim Tied Up and Stomped On

Five Afghan Apostates from Islam Martyred...

Apostates from Islam in Kashmir Detained and Beaten

Ex-Muslim Survives Brutal Stabbing in "Moderate" Morocco

Apostasy: Iran to Enforce Death Penalty Worldwide?...
Apostates Suffer Religious Persecution in Britain...
UK Clerics Refuse to Denounce Killing Apostates...

Somali Christian Casually Executed for Apostasy...

Dutch Muslims Assault Apostate...
Non-Muslims Horrified by Details of Apostate Family's Murder...
Apostate and Christian Father of 7 Shot Dead in Ethiopia...
Islamists Post 'Hit List' of Apostates...

Malaysia Officially Bars Muslims from Leaving Islam...
Young Christian Murdered after Leaving Islam...
Apostate from Islam: Woman's Fingernails Torn Out by Family...
Apostate from Islam Spat on in the UK, Threatened with Death...
Poll: 4 in 5 Pakistanis Support Stoning Adulterers, Apostates from Islam...
Iraqi Mujahideen Post Video of 'Apostate' Beheading...
Harvard Muslim Chaplain Defends Killing Apostates from Islam...
Executed Somali Christian was Accused of Apostasy from Islam...
Man Under House Arrest over Son's Leaving Islam...
(Canada) Mother Threatens to Kill Son for Leaving Islam...

traeh | February 10, 2012 10:07 AM | Reply

In Sahih al-Bukhari, the most canonical hadith collection, Muhammad said,

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him."

Various other canonical hadiths attest that Muhammad called for death to those who leave Islam. That's why even today all the schools of Islamic law prescribe death for apostasy from Islam.

traeh | February 10, 2012 10:11 AM | Reply

LemonLime,

A December 2010 survey conducted by the Pew Research Centerfound relatively widespread popular support for death penalty as a punishment for apostasy from Islam: in Egypt (84% of respondents in favor of death penalty), Jordan (86% in favor), Indonesia (30% in favor), Pakistan (76% favor) and Nigeria (51% in favor).

So there is no shortage of Muslims out there willing to kill or have others kill for Islam.

traeh | February 10, 2012 10:15 AM | Reply

Canonical hadiths say Muhammad (in his fifties) consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was nine (lunar) years old.

A lunar year is about 355 days long, which means that Aisha may have been several months short of her ninth birthday.

Some examples from Bukhari, the most canonical hadith collection:

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64:

Narrated 'Aisha:

that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
-------------------------------------------------

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 65:

Narrated 'Aisha:

that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that 'Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death)."

-------------------------------------------------

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88:
Narrated 'Ursa:

The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

-------------------------------------------------

Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 58, Number 236:
Narrated Hisham's father:

Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.

LemonLime replied to comment from David Dowse | February 10, 2012 10:18 AM |Reply

"It matters little if only "a tiny minority" of Islamists are in favor of a death penalty."

I think it matters a lot how many Muslims support that, or don't. If you had a company of 500 people, and only 5 people supported going postal and killing fellow employees one day with guns, wouldn't that be a hell of a lot better than if 400 out of 500 of them supported that?

I mean, why do I even have to ask this question?

LemonLime replied to comment from traeh | February 10, 2012 10:25 AM | Reply

traeh,

I don't deny those poll results. It just makes it strange to juxtapose the facts about Muslims which those polls indicate, with statements by Robert Spencer like:

"The fact is, that human nature is everywhere the same. And a parent to kill a child is not a natural impulse -- it goes against every natural impulse. And so, the vast majority of Muslim parents are exactly like the vast majority of any other parents."

So if "human nature is everywhere the same", and this uniform human nature makes the "vast majority" of Muslim parents oh so decent to their children even when their children misbehave against Islam, why are over 80% of Muslim humans in Egypt (to take one example out of the many you cited) avidly supporting the enormity of killing people over "blasphemy"?

Something doesn't compute. As Judge Judy is fond of saying, "When something doesn't make sense, it's not true". And since those poll results are true, that's not what doesn't make sense.

Stash replied to comment from LemonLime | February 10, 2012 10:54 AM | Reply

People normally won't kill their own children even if they are members of a society that gives them the right to do so...killing someone they don't know who has insulted a belief they have followed their entire life is a different matter.

duh_swami replied to comment from Stash | February 10, 2012 11:49 AM | Reply

People normally won't kill their own children even if they are members of a society that gives them the right to do so...

Not normally, but Islam is not normal...Permission to kill your children is the enabler of honor killings...Not normal for the rest of the world, but common with Islam...Islam is not a society, it is a hostile hegemonic political system hiding behind religion...

Abu_Lahab replied to comment from LemonLime | February 10, 2012 12:02 PM |Reply

LemonLime: As Judge Judy is fond of saying, "When something doesn't make sense, it's not true".

I'd suggest that when something doesn't make sense it means you may just notunderstand it, it doesn't change the veracity of the information.

Judge Judy? FFS! [rolls_eyes]

A quote from Socrates, yes, but Judge Judy? Come on!

Buraq replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 12:12 PM | Reply

In your smug, self-righteous way, you wrote:
We love our prophet, and really if you can't accept that then just keep it in your little minds, no need to say out loud.

So, you love your prophet, so what? Your prophet, not ours. And why can't we, or anyone, say what we like about your prophet? It's called 'freedom of speech'. If you're offended, so what?
We are offended by Islam's claim that Christianity and all other religions are inferior, for one reason or another; but we don't fly planes loaded with innocent passengers into buildings in Mecca to express our feelings of being offended by Islam.

You're a clown!

exsgtbrown replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 12:49 PM |Reply

"We love our prophet, and really if you can't accept that then just keep it in your little minds, no need to say out loud."

The report was about a Muslim tweeting about his prophet..

champ | February 10, 2012 12:49 PM | Reply

Dee Walid wrote:

"...his jewish wife, who poisoned him," ...

That Jewish woman is to be commended for stopping such an evil madman, muhammad, from committing more heinous crimes against humanity; and I imagine that she was kicking herself for not killing him sooner. She deserves much applause!

champ | February 10, 2012 12:59 PM | Reply

This headline bears witness to just how evil and corrupt islam & company truly are--just as Dee's comments bear witness to this fact as well.

tellurye | February 10, 2012 1:28 PM | Reply

A peaceful Muslim? Calling for someone's death (fatwa)?

NAH! Come on, Robert. You are making that up (insert sarcasm here)!

CAIR mentions nothing of incidents like these. Yet, a Muslim who unknowingly bought a decoy bomb wanting to blow up innocents - CAIR is all over that claiming entrapment.

BlueRaven | February 10, 2012 1:29 PM | Reply

Crying monkey: observe that change in him between 1:17 and 1:18-in one second flat.

Dee Walid - take another look at the video. The guy is faking it. If you really love Mo, why do you have to kill someone who doesn't? If you believe he/she will be punished till eternity after death by the mighty Alla, then where is the problem? Why do the Muslims want to kill him? Don't you trust your alla? If you love "him", why don't you trust "him" to punish this individual? The people I love, I trust. I trust almighty that I believe. I don't believe there is a punishment waiting for me if I say I don't love "the almighty".

I hope you can understand that you people don't love anything - Alla, Mo, people, animals, plants. You guys throw up some childish tantrums in pretence. You, Mo and his followers are fake. You don't love anyone because Mo never let you to trust anyone hence you'll never learn to love. Mo protected Alla from you (Muslims) - You can't talk to alla like he could. Can't you figure that act was obviously fake - just like that clown monkey in the video?

champ | February 10, 2012 1:29 PM | Reply

Dee wrote:

"The people of the West really have nothing to be proud about anymore," ...

What with a muslim in the White House, sharia-creep, CAIR & company, and anything islamic being propagated by muslims and/or muslim apologists, then I would have to agree with that particular phrase regarding my beloved America ...

Nobama 2012! ..and lets stop muslim immigration stat; and were it only possible then I would insist that all muslims be sent back to the mothership where they can enjoy hell on earth to their hearts content, and leave freedom loving American's alone. Hey I can dream, can't I?

As to the remainder of the West--it is a whole lot better off without ANY islamic influence. None. Zilch. Nada. Wake up West and take a stand against islam & company.

BlueRaven | February 10, 2012 1:52 PM | Reply

Dee Walid - If Mo was so great, why he couldn't stop a weak Jewish lady (God bless her soul) poising him (great job!)? Why can't you conclude Mo wasn't a prophet but a biggest con artist of all time - because he has about just over a billion followers 1400 years?

As you said, neither we nor you were around at the time, so what makes you sure that Mo was ever around?

Correct me if I am wrong, Mo was illiterate wasn't he? There was a bunch of different people wrote the Quran, about 400 years after his death. You've heard about the Chinese whisper, right? Don't you think it will be impossible to write something accurate even one day after an event in the year 600 when the education System virtually didn't exist? What is the likelihood that Quran is totally thought of by the people themselves who written it?

David Dowse replied to comment from Dee Walid | February 10, 2012 2:15 PM |Reply

Dee Walid wrote:

"...but then these are the difference in standards of a muslima and women of all other faiths."
_____________________________________

I'm gonna' tell you something right now, you muslimah wench!

My dear Mother was a Catholic, and as close to a saint as I will ever hope to encounter. Don't you dare lump my Mother into your sick estimation of women of "all other faiths"!

You like your "standards"? Fine. Keep 'em to yourself and don't pretend to pass Mohammedist judgement on all the women of the world who don't fit into your sicko version of morals.

You're disgusting to me - I've read every word you've written on this site since you showed up a few days ago, and I'm embarrased to admit that I already harbor a great deal of animosity toward you.

No Child's Behind Left

2012-02-08T19:57:00.001-08:00

Definition of Faith

2012-02-07T08:28:00.001-08:00

The difference between faith and insanity is that faith isthe ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with theevidence, whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion thatis incompatible with the evidence.

Your God is My God by Mitt Romney

2012-02-03T09:41:00.000-08:00

Your God is My God

What Mitt Romney Could Say to Win the Republican Nomination.

Governor Mitt Romney has yet to persuade the religiousconservatives in his party that he is fit to be President of the United States.However, he could probably appease the Republican base and secure his party’snomination if he made the following remarks prior to the South CarolinaPrimary:

My fellow Republicans,

I would like to address your lingering concerns about mycandidacy. Some of you have expressed doubts about my commitment to a varietyof social causes—and some have even questioned my religious faith. Tonight, Iwill speak from the heart about the values that unite us.

First, on the subject of gay rights, let me make my positionperfectly clear: I am as sickened by homosexuality as any man or woman in thiscountry. It is true that I wrote a letter in 1994 where I said that “we mustmake equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” and for this I havebeen mocked and pilloried, especially by Evangelicals. But ask yourselves, whatdid I mean by “equality”? I meant that all men and women must be given an equalchance to live a righteous life.

Yes, I once reached out to the Log Cabin Republicans—thegays in our party. Many people don’t know that there are gay Republicans, butit is true. Anyway, in a letter to this strange group, I pledged to do more forgay rights than Senator Edward Kennedy ever would.

Well, Senator Kennedy is now deceased—so I don’t have to domuch to best him and keep my promise. But, more to the point, ask yourselves,what did I mean by “rights”? I meant that every man and woman has a right todiscover the love of Jesus Christ and win life eternal. What else could I havemeant? Seriously. What could be more important than eternal life? Jesus thoughtwe all had a right to it. And I agree with him. And I think we should amend ourConstitution to safeguard this right for everyone by protecting the sanctity ofmarriage.

I don’t have to tell you what is at stake. If gays areallowed to marry, it will debase the institution for the rest of us and perhapsloosen its bonds. Liberals scoff at this. They wonder how my feelings for mywife Ann could be diminished by the knowledge that a gay couple somewhere justgot married. What an odd question.

On abortion—some say I have changed my views. It is truethat I once described myself as “pro-choice.” But again, ask yourselves, whatdid I mean? I meant that every woman should be free to make the right choice.What is the right choice? To have as many children as God bestows. I oncevisited the great nation of Nigeria and a met woman who was blessed to have had24 children—fully two-thirds of which survived beyond the age of five. Thepower of God is beyond our understanding. And this woman’s faith was a sight tobehold.

Finally, I would like to address the scandalous assertion,once leveled by the Texas Pastor, Robert Jeffress, that my church—the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—is “a cult.” In fairness, he almost got thatright—the LDS Church is a culture. A culture of faith and goodness andreverence for God Almighty. Scientology is a cult—this so-called religion wasjust made up out of whole cloth by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.But the teachings of my Church derive directly from the prophetic experience ofits founder, Joseph Smith Jr., who by the aid of sacred seer stones, the Urimand Thummim, was able to decipher the final revelations of God which werewritten in reformed Egyptian upon a set golden plates revealed to him by theangel Moroni. Many of you are probably unfamiliar with this history—and some ofyou may even doubt its truth.

I am now speaking to the base of our party, to the 60percent who believe that God created this fine universe, and humanity in itspresent form, at some point in the last 10,000 years. Let me make one thing absolutely clear toyou: I believe what you believe. Your God is my God. I believe that JesusChrist was the Messiah and the Son of God, crucified for our sins, andresurrected for our salvation. And I believe that He will return to earth tojudge the living and the dead.

But my Church offers a further revelation: We believe thatwhen Jesus Christ returns to earth, He will return, not to Jerusalem, or toBaghdad, but to this great nation—and His first stop will be Jackson County,Missouri. The LDS Church teaches that the Garden of Eden itself was inMissouri! Friends, it is a marvelous vision. Some Christians profess not tolike this teaching. But I ask you, where would you rather the Garden of Edenbe, in the great state of Missouri or in some hellhole in the Middle East?

In conclusion, I want to assure you all, lest there be anydoubt, that I share your vision for this country and for the future of ourworld. Some say that we should focus on things like energy security, wealthinequality, epidemic disease, global climate change, nuclear proliferation,genocide, and other complex problems for which scientific knowledge, rationaldiscussion, and secular politics are the best remedy. But you and I know thatthe problem we face is deeper and simpler and far more challenging. Since timeimmemorial humanity has been misled by Satan, the Father of Lies.

I trust we understand one another better now. And I hope youknow how honored I will be to represent our party in the coming Presidentialelection.

God bless this great land, the United States of America.

The above essay was by Sam Harris, author of “The End ofFaith”, “Letter to a Christian Nation”, and other perfectly reasonable books.It illustrates just how delusional Romney and other politicians, both Democratand Republican, are.

A Post Title Escapes Me

2012-02-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

Why Believers Can Never See the Light

2012-02-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

The following is by Sam Harris. He explains why no amount of reason, logic, evidence and rationality is likely to change the mind of a believer. Its worth a read.

Sam Harris

February 3rd, 2012

"It seems to me that many nonbelievers have forgotten—or never knew—what it is like to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality. We are open to good evidence and sound argument as a matter of principle, and are generally willing to follow wherever they may lead. Certain of us have made careers out of bemoaning the failure of religious people to adopt this same attitude.

However, I recently stumbled upon an example of secular intransigence that may give readers a sense of how religious people feel when their beliefs are criticized. It’s not a perfect analogy, as you will see, but the rigorous research I’ve conducted at dinner parties suggests that it is worth thinking about. We can call the phenomenon “the fireplace delusion.”

On a cold night, most people consider a well-tended fire to be one of the more wholesome pleasures that humanity has produced. A fire, burning safely within the confines of a fireplace or a woodstove, is a visible and tangible source of comfort to us. We love everything about it: the warmth, the beauty of its flames, and—unless one is allergic to smoke—the smell that it imparts to the surrounding air.

I am sorry to say that if you feel this way about a wood fire, you are not only wrong but dangerously misguided. I mean to seriously convince you of this—so you can consider it in part a public service announcement—but please keep in mind that I am drawing an analogy. I want you to be sensitive to how you feel, and to notice the resistance you begin to muster as you consider what I have to say.

Because wood is among the most natural substances on earth, and its use as a fuel is universal, most people imagine that burning wood must be a perfectly benign thing to do. Breathing winter air scented by wood smoke seems utterly unlike puffing on a cigarette or inhaling the exhaust from a passing truck. But this is an illusion.

Here is what we know from a scientific point of view: There is no amount of wood smoke that is good to breathe. It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse. (One study found it to be 30 times more potent a carcinogen.) The smoke from an ordinary wood fire contains hundreds of compounds known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and irritating to the respiratory system. Most of the particles generated by burning wood are smaller than one micron—a size believed to be most damaging to our lungs. In fact, these particles are so fine that they can evade our mucociliary defenses and travel directly into the bloodstream, posing a risk to the heart. Particles this size also resist gravitational settling, remaining airborne for weeks at a time.

Once they have exited your chimney, the toxic gases (e.g. benzene) and particles that make up smoke freely pass back into your home and into the homes of others. (Research shows that nearly 70 percent of chimney smoke reenters nearby buildings.) Children who live in homes with active fireplaces or woodstoves, or in areas where wood burning is common, suffer a higher incidence of asthma, cough, bronchitis, nocturnal awakening, and compromised lung function. Among adults, wood burning is associated with more-frequent emergency room visits and hospital admissions for respiratory illness, along with increased mortality from heart attacks. The inhalation of wood smoke, even at relatively low levels, alters pulmonary immune function, leading to a greater susceptibility to colds, flus, and other respiratory infections. All these effects are borne disproportionately by children and the elderly.

The unhappy truth about burning wood has been scientifically established to a moral certainty: That nice, cozy fire in your fireplace is bad for you. It is bad for your children. It is bad for your neighbors and their children. Burning wood is also completely unnecessary, because in the developed world we invariably have better and cleaner alternatives for heating our homes. If you are burning wood in the United States, Europe, Australia, or any other developed nation, you are most likely doing so recreationally—and the persistence of this habit is a major source of air pollution in cities throughout the world. In fact, wood smoke often contributes more harmful particulates to urban air than any other source.

In the developing world, the burning of solid fuel in the home is a genuine scourge, second only to poor sanitation as an environmental health risk. In 2000, the World Health Organization estimated that it caused nearly 2 million premature deaths each year—considerably more than were caused by traffic accidents.

I suspect that many of you have already begun to marshal counterarguments of a sort that will be familiar to anyone who has debated the validity and usefulness of religion. Here is one: Human beings have warmed themselves around fires for tens of thousands of years, and this practice was instrumental in our survival as a species. Without fire there would be no material culture. Nothing is more natural to us than burning wood to stay warm.

True enough. But many other things are just as natural—such as dying at the ripe old age of thirty. Dying in childbirth is eminently natural, as is premature death from scores of diseases that are now preventable. Getting eaten by a lion or a bear is also your birthright—or would be, but for the protective artifice of civilization—and becoming a meal for a larger carnivore would connect you to the deep history of our species as surely as the pleasures of the hearth ever could. For nearly two centuries the divide between what is natural—and all the needless misery that entails—and what is good has been growing. Breathing the fumes issuing from your neighbor’s chimney, or from your own, now falls on the wrong side of that divide.

The case against burning wood is every bit as clear as the case against smoking cigarettes. Indeed, it is even clearer, because when you light a fire, you needlessly poison the air that everyone around you for miles must breathe. Even if you reject every intrusion of the “nanny state,” you should agree that the recreational burning of wood is unethical and should be illegal, especially in urban areas. By lighting a fire, you are creating pollution that you cannot dispose. It might be the clearest day of the year, but burn a sufficient quantity of wood and the air in the vicinity of your home will resemble a bad day in Beijing. Your neighbors should not have to pay the cost of this archaic behavior of yours. And there is no way they can transfer this cost to you in a way that would preserve their interests. Therefore, even libertarians should be willing to pass a law prohibiting the recreational burning of wood in favor of cleaner alternatives (like gas).

I have discovered that when I make this case, even to highly intelligent and health-conscious men and women, a psychological truth quickly becomes as visible as a pair of clenched fists: They do not want to believe any of it. Most people I meet want to live in a world in which wood smoke is harmless. Indeed, they seem committed to living in such a world, regardless of the facts. To try to convince them that burning wood is harmful—and has always been so—is somehow offensive. The ritual of burning wood is simply too comforting and too familiar to be reconsidered, its consolation so ancient and ubiquitous that it has to be benign. The alternative—burning gas over fake logs—seems a sacrilege.

And yet, the reality of our situation is scientifically unambiguous: If you care about your family’s health and that of your neighbors, the sight of a glowing hearth should be about as comforting as the sight of a diesel engine idling in your living room. It is time to break the spell and burn gas—or burn nothing at all.

Of course, if you are anything like my friends, you will refuse to believe this. And that should give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion."

Men From Mars

2012-02-02T19:24:00.001-08:00

Yes No Wait

2012-02-01T07:16:00.001-08:00

How Much For The Hat?

2012-01-29T18:51:00.001-08:00

Just Sayin'

2012-01-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

Remember?

2012-01-26T08:42:00.001-08:00

Islam Religion of Peace? B.S.!!

2012-01-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

TheReligionofPeace.com

	Ten Obvious Reasons Why Islam is NOT a Religion of Peace

#1	18,000 deadly terror attacks committed explicitly in the name of Islamin just the last ten years. (Other religions combined for perhaps a dozen or so).
#2	Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had people killed for insulting him or for criticizing his religion. This included women. Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad.
#3	Muhammad said in many places that he has been "ordered by Allah to fight men until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger." In the last nine years of his life, he ordered no less than 65 military campaigns to do exactly that. Muhammad inspired his men to war with the basest of motives, using captured loot, sex and a gluttonous paradise as incentives. Hebeheaded captives, enslaved children and raped women captured in battle. Again, Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad.
#4	After Muhammad died, the people who lived with him and knew his religion best immediately fell into war with each other. Fatima, Muhammad's favorite daughter, survived the early years among the unbelievers at Mecca safe and sound, yet died of stress from the persecution of fellow Muslims only six months after her father died. She even miscarried Muhammad's grandchild after having her ribs broken by the man who became the second caliph. Fatima's husband Ali, who was the second convert to Islam and was raised like a son to Muhammad, fought a civil war against an army raised by Aisha, Muhammad's favorite wife - and one whom he had said was a "perfect woman." 10,000 Muslims were killed in a single battle waged less than 25 years after Muhammad's death. Three of the first four Muslim rulers (caliphs) were murdered. All of them were among Muhammad's closest companions. The third caliph was killed by allies of the son of the first (who was murdered by the fifth caliph a few years later, then wrapped in the skin of a dead donkey and burned). The fourth caliph (Ali) was stabbed to death after a bitter dispute with the fifth. The fifth caliph went on to poison one of Muhammad's two favorite grandsons. The other grandson was later beheaded by the sixth caliph. The infighting and power struggles between Muhammad's family members, closest companions and their children only intensified with time. Within 50 short years of Muhammad's death, even the Kaaba, which had stood for centuries under pagan religion, lay in ruins from internal Muslim war... And that's just the fate of those within the house of Islam!
#5	Muhammad directed Muslims to wage war on other religions and bring them under submission to Islam. Within the first few decades following his death, his Arabian companions invaded and conquered Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian lands.A mere 25 years after Muhammad's death, Muslim armies had captured land and people within the borders of over 28 modern countries outside of Saudi Arabia.
#6	Muslims continued their Jihad against other religions for 1400 years, checked only by the ability of non-Muslims to defend themselves. To this day, not a week goes by that Islamic fundamentalists do not attempt to kill Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists explicitly in the name of Allah. None of these other religions are at war with each other.
#7	Islam is the only religion that has to retain its membership by threatening to kill anyone who leaves. This is according to theexample set by Muhammad.
#8	Islam teaches that non-Muslims are less than fully human. Muhammad said that Muslims can be put to death for murder, but that a Muslim could never be put to death for killing a non-Muslim.
#9	The Qur'an never once speaks of Allah's love for non-Muslims, but it speaks of Allah's cruelty toward and hatred of non-Muslims more than 500 times.
#10	"Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" (The last words from the cockpit of Flight 93)

How Much For the Throne?

2012-01-23T07:40:00.001-08:00

Are You Saved?

2012-01-22T18:52:00.001-08:00

Thank You Hay Soos

2012-01-22T15:32:00.001-08:00

Watch Out For Those Contradictions

2012-01-21T12:35:00.001-08:00

I Coulda' Been a Contender

2012-01-21T10:57:00.000-08:00

My first memorable experience with religion came when I was 8 years old. We lived on a 160 acre farm in southeast Missouri, about 3 miles from a small rural Baptist church. It was 1943. WW-2 was raging in Europe and across the Pacific. On Sundays, my parents and I would load into Dad’s old 36 Ford and Dad would skillfully maneuver the car through deep sandy ruts until reaching the church where he would park among the dozen or so cars that had already arrived. Last in first out seemed to work well for him. Sometimes he would join my mother for the sermon; more often not. There would always be four or five others who preferred to stay outside where they could smoke hand rolled cigarettes made with Prince Albert tobacco and talk about the war and dry weather and FDR. On balmy summer nights a lone 40 watt bulb burning over the front door entrance attracted swarms of moths and other insects. Their guiding instincts, perhaps programmed into their DNA millions of years ago to follow a certain night star, failed them on Sunday nights at Silent Hill Baptist church when the preacher, Brother Phillips, flipped on the entrance light. Mistaking the 40 watt bulb for a star perhaps trillions of miles away they were forced to make tighter and tighter turns around the bulb falsely believed to be their navigational aid , until exhausted they collapsed on the church steps below. Unable to sustain flight, they fluttered helplessly on the steps below the light, spinning in tight circles until their life force was drained away, a casualty of Thomas Edison, the brilliant atheist and Brother Phillips the ignorant believer.

I can still recall Brother Phillips with a remarkable degree of clarity. He was a large man, always wore rather plain clothes common among the congregation. If he owned a coat and tie I never saw him wearing either. On hot summer nights it would take him less than ten minutes into the sermon to hit his stride. As he warmed to the message, (quite literally since there was no air conditioning) his voice would become louder and louder, the bible in his outstretched hand held higher. Occasionally he would pound the lectern with such force that an old lady who always sat in the third pew at the end would literally jump as if someone had suddenly goosed her. I was fascinated by the fact that I could always anticipate the fist banging and she never could. It always took her by surprise.

Preacher Phillips lamentations over the lost would inevitably bring forth a stream of tears, and then from his back pocket would come the handkerchief which he used to blow his nose, producing a sound that rivaled the best trumpeter at the walls of Jericho. Back in his pocket it would go until the sweat from his forehead threatened his eyesight¼.then back out it would come to wipe the brow¼the same cloth he had just used to collect whatever issued from his nostrils only moments before. This would continue for the entire service; weeping and shouting, wiping and blowing, until the handkerchief became soaking wet.

On one occasion he had evidently had some disagreement with the membership. The details are lost since things of that nature held no interest for an 8 year old boy. But I do remember Brother Phillips bringing up the matter from the pulpit one night and pretty much laying down the law on how the matter would be decided (his way) and backing his argument with the bellicose statement that he could whip any man in the house. It’s likely the word “skeptic” was not yet in my vocabulary at the age of eight, however I’m equally certain that Brother Phillips did me a tremendous favor by planting the seed which eventually allowed me to loose the shackles of religion and adopt a philosophy of free thought, unimpeded by religious dogma.

The Cloverine Epiphany

The second experience with religion followed closely on the heels of the first. Since it didn’t involve a church directly, the lesson learned was somewhat oblique. Nevertheless it provided an understanding of not only how religion works its magic but how men can work religion.

1943-44 were tough years for farmers. FDR had imposed price controls on all farm products to prevent price gouging during wartime. Due to the war effort, everything was in short supply, including money. As an eight year old with no concept of market research I decided to become an entrepreneur. The idea came from an ad in a weekly paper we received, aptly called Cappers Weekly. The business plan described therein proposed to provide each applicant with a dozen round tins of Cloverine salve, delivered in a cardboard tube about a foot long at a cost of three dollars. The firm offered to forgo upfront payment, allowing 4 weeks to settle the account. The suggested retail price was 50 cents per tin which would yield a 100 percent profit. Inside the carton, curled around the tins of salve were twelve 8 X 10 color pictures (suitable for framing). Six of them were standard Currier and Ives scenes¼.cattle resting in lush green pastures next to a meandering stream¼. a snowy winter scene of a horse drawn sleigh in a lane with a red barn and warm cheery farmhouse in the background, smoke curling lazily from a fireplace chimney ¼.that sort of thing. The other six were pictures of Jesus, standing on a grassy knoll, holding a staff with a crook on the end, the familiar gold circle over his head and the obligatory sheep lying serenely at his feet. The pictures, one for each tin of salve, were included as an incentive to purchase the product.

On one particularly discouraging day, having walked for miles through the country with little (read nothing) to show for the effort, my knock on the door was met by a rather elderly woman. I would like to report that she met me with a smile and invited me in for a piece of freshly made apple pie and a cold glass of fresh milk. But alas, that would be the Courier and Ives rendition. The fact is her face reflected a rather stern and hopeless condition as she greeted me with, “What do you want”?

Undeterred by imminent signs of another failed sales attempt, I nevertheless launched heartily into my sales pitch. I explained the product which was guaranteed to relieve cuts and burns, heal sores, sooth aching feet and backs, cure athletes foot, kill chiggers and alleviate the pain of arthritis. Further I explained that normally the product sold for one dollar but since I was up against a deadline before school started, it was marked down to fifty cents.

Not interested.

As she turned to shut the door, I pulled one of the Currier and Ives scenes from the tube and mentioned the picture (suitable for framing) was included with the product, free of charge.

Still not interested.

Then, with a remarkable flash of intuition, I whipped out a picture of Jesus. One look at her face confirmed the sale. Like a trapped animal, her cheerless eyes darted from Jesus to the tin of salve and back to Jesus. In the deepest part of her soul she knew that rejection of the picture would be tantamount to the rejection of Jesus. At her age that was a chance she couldn’t afford to take. Leaving the door open, she turned without a word and disappeared into the house. She returned shortly, clutching two quarters. The exchange was made¼.. one tin of Cloverine salve, an 8 X 10 color print of Jesus (suitable for framing) and her eternal salvation, all for two small pieces of silver. That was when the Cloverine Epiphany hit me like a ton of bricks. I could be rich. I would save my money and buy a bicycle and quadruple the sales area. There must be hundreds of old people just like her within a 20 mile radius of our farm.

Thank you JA-HEE-SUS! I could hardly wait to get home and explain my plan to lift the family out of poverty. It took my mother, approximately 15 seconds to disabuse me of the scheme. Even though she only had an eighth grade education, there was never any doubt in her mind where true north lay. After experiencing such an exhilarating high, the disappointment was difficult to swallow.

Even today, I occasionally think about that hot August day in 1944. I reflect on what could have been if my mother would have underwritten my deal with Jesus. Looking back, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind I could have been just as good as Pat Roberson, Jimmy Swaggert, Robert Schuller, with his Crystal Palace, Joyce Meyers, Jerry Falwell and all the rest with their private jets and huge mansions. I’m reminded of the famous line uttered by Marlon Brando in the movie, “On the Waterfront”. “I coulda’ been a contender. I coulda’ been somebody!

The largest percentage of donations given to these modern day television rogues come from those who can least afford it. Studies have shown that most of the cash is given by lonely single or widowed women in the 50 to 70 year age group. These TV tyrants thrive off old ladies just like the one I met at that farmhouse back in 1944. For years I told the story with amusement. Now I have come to realize what a depressing story it is. There is really nothing funny about it at all. Sadly, the story is repeated millions of times each week as a vast market of willing customers dutifully enclose a portion of their social security checks in exchange for the promise of everlasting life.

More From Paula Kirby

2012-01-19T10:30:00.001-08:00

Religion: the ultimate tyranny

In light of the continuing political uprising throughout the Middle East, American leaders are reported to be recalculating their approach to the Muslim world.
Politico's Ben Smith wrote this week that the Obama administration "clearly sees an opportunity," signaling "that they're hoping the changes in Tunisia and Egypt spread, and that they're going to align themselves far more clearly with the young, relatively secular masses" in countries like Iran, Algeria and Lebanon.
Is this a new moment for American relations with Muslim countries? Is freedom a religious or secular idea?

Is freedom a religious idea? As John McEnroe would have said, "You cannot be serious."

If you value freedom, you should flee from religion as the antelope flees the lion. Religion is the very antithesis of freedom, insisting on our complete subjugation to the unachievable demands of an invisible but supremely powerful overlord. Think of Islam, whose very name means 'submission'! Think of Christianity, which claims it is disobedience that brought original sin into the world, with all that entails in terms of suffering and injustice and even earthquakes and tsunamis. Imagine! To claim that human obedience is so imperative that the purposes of an omnipotent deity and the very fabric of the planet, if not the whole universe, depend upon it and can be catastrophically disrupted at the first whiff of rebellion - and then to claim that such a religion is the source of human freedom!

The Abrahamic god even enthusiastically endorses the vilest of all negations of freedom: slavery. In Leviticus 25, there is a direct quote from this supposedly perfect deity, specifically permitting the Israelites to take and keep slaves, the only proviso being that they must be from the neighboring tribes and not from their own people. Straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, and hardly a shining example of freedom as a religious ideal.

Religion delights in petty rules and the exercise of power over its followers. What theistic religion does not attempt to curtail believers' freedom with nonsensical decrees about foods that may or may not be eaten, fibers that may or may not be worn, days on which they may or may not work, coverings that must or must not be worn on their heads, books that must or must not be read, images that may or may not be created, words that may or may not be spoken, ideas they may or may not explore, actions they may or may not perform, rituals - whether physical or symbolic - they must perform in order to cleanse themselves of impurities of religion's own invention?

There is no aspect of our lives, no matter how intimate, which religion does not unblushingly insist on its right to control. Whom we may love, whom we may desire, with whom we may physically express those feelings: in such restrictions on our freedom religion is at its most insistent and intrusive. But it does not stop even here, for religion does not limit its control to our deeds or even words: no, the invisible Thought Police of religion do not scruple to pursue us even into the innermost recesses of our minds and there to stand ready to condemn us for our very thoughts. Not even the most heinous ruler or most brutal slave-owner ever achieved such extremes of tyranny; yet religion grants us no privacy, nowhere to hide, no freedom to entertain even a fleeting thought without its being immediately known to - and judged by - a cosmic dictator. Religion is the ultimate slavery: it is the slavery of the mind, slavery to the fear of divine judgment and damnation. The devilish irony consists in the fact that 'divine judgment' and 'damnation' are themselves the inventions of religion: religion creates and exquisitely perfects the fear, then cynically declares itself the sole and indispensable liberator from it.

And yet we are invited to credit religion as the source of true freedom? It is a laughable claim, a disgraceful claim, a claim that makes a mockery of language as well as of truth and of human dignity. As such it is on a par with other religious claims, such as those that define perfect forgiveness as something dependent on the barbaric sacrifice-by-crucifixion of an innocent man, perfect justice as consisting in the innocent being tortured to death so the guilty can be let off scot-free, and perfect love as something that would damn us to hell for all eternity if we refuse to accept such grotesque monstrosities as evidence of a perfect and loving god.

True freedom requires us to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of religion as well as from the tyranny of brutal earthly regimes. True freedom involves the freedom to think, to explore, to grow; the freedom to pursue knowledge and learning, wherever they lead; the freedom to be different, not to conform; freedom from bigotry; freedom from ignorance; freedom to love and to express that love as we choose; freedom to be ourselves, to accept ourselves, warts and all, and to accept others on the same terms; freedom to choose our own meaning and purpose in life, and to make our own decisions on the basis of those free choices; freedom to make mistakes; freedom to change our mind; freedom from fear, especially from phoney fears invented by those whose only aim is to control us in word, thought and deed.

Religion claims to set its followers free, while all the time holding them in thrall and insisting they kiss the hand of their jailer. There can be no true freedom so long as religion still keeps the human mind in shackles.

Evolution vs Creationism

2012-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

Paula Kirby wrote this response to Governor Perry for On Faith, the Washington Post’s forum for news and opinion on religion and politics.

I have recently written on the same subject but I post it because she is so much more articulate. The emphasis is mine.

Evolution Threatens Christianity

Q: Rick Perry, at a campaign event this week, told a boy that evolution is 'just a theory' with 'gaps' and that in Texas they teach “both creationism and evolution.” According to a 2009 Gallup study, only 38 percent of Americans say they believe in evolution. If a majority of Americans are skeptical or unsure about evolution, should schools teach it as a mere “theory”? Why is evolution so threatening to religion?

So-called “reality TV” has done the world a grave disservice. I don't just mean because the vast majority of such programs are mind-numbingly tedious, but because they have given people the idea that reality is something that can be decided by popular vote. In a “reality TV” show, the winner is decided through a popularity contest: the person who gets the most votes from viewers emerges triumphant. Anything less like reality it would be hard to imagine - when it comes to facts about the world, at least.

In the real world, facts are stubborn beasts. They are supremely unmoved by whether we like them or not. We may sternly disapprove of the idea that stepping off the window ledge of an apartment on the 14th floor will result in our death; we may go further, and resolutely contradict all claims to that effect, clinging religiously to our belief that such activity is nothing more than an enjoyable and exhilarating way to spend an afternoon; but neither our disapproval nor our disbelief will make the slightest difference to the real-world splat.

And it is the same with evolution. Evolution is a simple fact. We can choose to remain ignorant of it, we can stick our fingers in our ears and refuse to think about it, we can even rail against it and shout and scream that it is not allowed to be true. But facts are facts, and will not go away just because we don't like them. We don't get to vote for our preferred method of having come into existence as a species, any more than we can choose to have been delivered by stork rather than conceived and born in the usual way.

The primary role of the school is pretty straightforward: it is to educate. It is to give young people the opportunity to learn as much as possible about the world, on the basis of the very best knowledge we have. Education is about overcoming ignorance - so the idea of allowing ignorance to set the school curriculum and to perpetuate itself by continuing to teach generation after generation information that for the last 150 years we have known to be false, is a shameful betrayal: a betrayal of young people, who put their trust in us and who deserve better; and a betrayal of the very concept of education itself.

Remember that 'ignorance' is not an insult, but merely a term for 'lack of knowledge'. Many of the people who protest so vociferously against the teaching of evolution do not understand how overwhelmingly strong the evidence for it is; and many of those who proclaim “But it's only a theory” do not understand that the scientific and everyday usages of the word 'theory' are very different. In everyday English, 'theory' can mean something vague, a hunch, a guess. In scientific English, it is almost as far from that meaning as it's possible to get: in science, a theory is the best explanation for a set of facts. It carries real weight: in science, nothing can be called a 'theory' until it is very well established indeed. Science has its own term for what, in a non-scientific context, the rest of us might call a 'theory': the scientific term for a suggestion, a best guess, something that seems plausible but has not yet been shown to be reliably true, is 'hypothesis'. You will never, ever hear a scientist talk about 'the hypothesis of evolution', for the simple reason that evolution is long past that stage. Evolution is a theory in the scientific sense of the word - tested, researched, explored and supported by masses and masses of evidence. There may still be specific details that are not entirely agreed upon; but the fact of evolution itself is not disputed by any reputable scientist. (If you are in any doubt about the evidence for evolution, I highly recommend The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins or Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne , because both authors have explained comprehensively, beautifully and very accessibly just why we can be so sure that evolution really is a fact.)

To deprive children of this knowledge, or to water it down so as to pretend that it's just a wild guess, is to deliberately deprive them of one of the most powerful and illuminating pieces of knowledge that humans have ever acquired. It is to deliberately keep them from what we know to be the truth. It is to conceal from them their true identity, and all meaningful knowledge of their roots. To suggest that creationism is in any way a rival 'theory' is to confuse reality with myth. Creationism is to evolution what Santa Claus is to frazzled parents frantically buying and wrapping presents for their children at Christmas. There comes a point in our childhood when we must let go of the fantasy of Santa Claus; and there comes a point in our civilization when we must let go of the fantasy of creationism too.

Evolution is science, and should be taught in science classes. Creationism -- let us be very clear about this --is a purely religious doctrine, with no scientific underpinning whatsoever. Indeed, all the evidence points very strongly to its being false. It therefore has no place in a science lesson. Science proceeds on the basis of evidence, religion on the basis of faith, and any teacher who tries to teach faith-based dogma in a science class is clearly demonstrating her unsuitability for the role.

But of course evolution poses a problem for Christianity. That's not to say it poses a problem for all Christians, since many Christians happily accept evolution: they see Genesis 1 as merely a metaphor, and declare that if God chose to create us using evolution, that's fine by them. I used to be this kind of Christian myself; but I must confess that my blitheness was only possible because I had only the vaguest possible idea of how evolution works and certainly didn't know enough about it to realize that unguided-ness is central to it. While I welcome anyone who recognizes that the evidence for evolution is such that it cannot sensibly be denied, to attempt to co-opt evolution as part of a divine plan simply does not work, and suggests a highly superficial understanding of the subject.

Not only does evolution not need to be guided in any way, but any conscious, sentient guide would have to be a monster of the most sadistic type: for evolution is not pretty, is not gentle, is not kind, is not compassionate, is not loving. Evolution is blind, and brutal, and callous. It is not an aspiration or a blueprint to live up to (we have to create those for ourselves): it is simply what happens, the blind, inexorable forces of nature at work.

An omnipotent deity who chose evolution by natural selection as the means by which to bring about the array of living creatures that populate the Earth today would be many things - but loving would not be one of them.

Nor perfect.

Nor compassionate.

Nor merciful.

Evolution produces some wondrously beautiful results; but it happens at the cost of unimaginable suffering on the part of countless billions of individuals and, indeed, whole species, 99 percent of which have so far become extinct. It is irreconcilable with a god of love.

Evolution poses a further threat to Christianity, though, a threat that goes to the very heart of Christian teaching. Evolution means that the creation accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis are wrong. That's not how humans came into being, nor the cattle, nor the creeping things, nor the beasts of the earth, nor the fowl of the air. Evolution could not have produced a single mother and father of all future humans, so there was no Adam and no Eve. No Adam and Eve: no fall. No fall: no need for redemption. No need for redemption: no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer: no need for the crucifixion or the resurrection, and no need to believe in that redeemer in order to gain eternal life. And not the slightest reason to believe in eternal life in the first place.

Christianity is like a big, chunky sweater. It may feel cozy, it may keep you warm, but just let one stitch be dropped and the whole thing unravels before your very eyes. Evolution is that stitch. Evolution destroys the loving creator on which the whole of Christianity depends. I can quite understand why the evangelicals throw up their hands in horror at the very idea of it and will do everything in their power to suppress it. But they can throw up their hands all they like: it won't make any difference to the reality. All that will be achieved by their determined efforts to keep young people misinformed about it is that another generation of Americans will be condemned to ignorance, unable to understand the world around them properly, and at a real disadvantage when having to deal and compete with their peers from more enlightened countries.

Willful ignorance is a choice; evolution is not.

The Minds of Children

2012-01-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

Abusing the minds of children before they have attained the capacity for critical thinking should be as much of a crime as sexually abusing their bodies. Remember, nearly 1.5 billion believe Islam is the true religion because they were taught that as children.

Nothing Fails Like Prayer

2012-01-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

Ph.D. Man of Letters

2012-01-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

Why Christians Are Not Stupid

2012-01-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

This is a great piece by a student at the University of Missouri. His name is Dave Buscato and his website is: http://www.DaveMuscato.com

I think there is something very important here that it’s about time we look at in detail: the difference between ignorance and stupidity.

Ignorance and ignore come from the same etymological root, the Latin present participleignorans, from the verb ignorare, which means ”not to know, to be unacquainted; mistake, misunderstand; take no notice of, pay no attention to,” etc. It ultimately comes from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge,” with an opposing prefix.

In modern English, the word “ignorant” simply means “unaware” or “uninformed” (source).

Stupid, on the other hand, comes from the Latin stupere, a verb meaning to be benumbed, astonished, or stupefied. In modern English, it means “slow of mind” or “lacking intelligence or reasoning power” (source).

These are very different things. All children, by definition, are ignorant. Clearly, not all children are stupid: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Isaac Newton, Voltaire, Johann von Goethe, and Marilyn vos Savant were all children once, too.

Why do Christians (and Muslims, and people of all religious stripes) become so offended by the mere mention of the word “atheist”? Why do religious people act like we are slapping them in the face, just for existing?

I have a few hypotheses. The first one comes from Greta Christina, who framed it brilliantly in a talk this past summer about the worthwhileness of debating religion. In her words, “We see religion as an idea, as a hypothesis. They see it as an identity.” That Jesus is the son of God, to Christians, is not simply one hypothesis of many about who Jesus was. It’s not a belief for Christians; it’s who they are. They don’t say, “I believe Christianity”; they say, “I am a Christian.” When they hear us say, “I am an atheist,” they don’t hear, “I disagree about who you think Jesus was,” which is what we think we’re saying. They hear, “Your life is a lie.”

Think of it this way. Say that you’re a guy, and you’re seeing a woman. Say that she tells you she’s pregnant. You talk about it & decide to keep the baby, and one day, when the little tyke is 7 years old, you find out that you’re actually not the biological father. Say that you find this out because another guy appears on the scene and says to you, “Hey, that kid you think is yours? He’s actually mine. You’re not his dad; I am. Get a paternity test if you don’t believe me.” How might you feel about this?

After getting over the initial shock, and confirming his claim with a paternity test, you might think a bit more about his statement: “You’re not his dad; I am.” Is that really true?

Well, it depends on how you define “dad.” After all, what does it mean to be a dad? If you were there through the pregnancy, if you were there at his birth, if you helped decide what to name him, if one of the kid’s first words was “Dada” referring to you, if you threw him 7 wonderful birthday parties, if you were the one who taught him how to read, if you were the one who taught him how to play Scrabble, took him on vacations, if you were the one who read him bed-time stories, changed his diapers, took him to his first day of school, etc, well, yeah, I think it’s fair to say that you are his dad.

The feeling you’d get if someone said, “You’re not his dad” is the same feeling Christians get when we say, “Jesus was not really a god.” Just because it turns out someone else provided the sperm doesn’t make you no longer a dad to your son. And just because Jesus wasn’t really a god doesn’t make someone no longer a Christian. It’s an identity. Telling a Christian that Christianity isn’t true is like telling the dad of a 7-year-old that he’s not really a parent. It might in fact be “technically” true, but it’s not something in which you can examine the evidence and accept as simply as, “Oh, okay. Guess I was wrong, then.”

When I believed Christianity was true, Jesus was very real to me. I prayed to him, I loved him, and I [thought that I] felt his love for me back. I understand now that I was deluded and that these feelings were all in my head, and that I was talking to thin air when I prayed. But at the time, before I was ready to hear it, if you had told me that Jesus died a long time ago and couldn’t hear me, I would have felt that you were calling me a fraud, not that I was simply mistaken. And nobody likes to be called a fraud, even though that’s not actually what we’re saying.

The second hypothesis is that most religious people simply do not know what the word “atheist” means. An atheist is someone who lacks faith that gods exist. That’s it. It doesn’t mean we hate your god; it doesn’t mean we think your god is a meanie poo-poo head, and it doesn’t mean that we are selfish and so in love with sinning that we have decided to disobey your god. We simply don’t believe your god is real. We feel exactly the same way about your god as you feel about unicorns and fairies. Sure, there are lots of old stories and legends about unicorns and fairies, and there are some people out there today who are kooky enough to believe they’re actually real. There are some people who actually claim to have seen or even interacted with them. Little kids tend to like these stories because they’re cute and fantastic… they’re fun. But we adults know better; we know that no one has really ever seen one, even if they wholeheartedly believe they have, and we know that if they really existed, someone probably would have documented it by now. We don’t deny that they couldexist, but that’s not a good-enough reason to believe that they do exist.

There is a third word that I’d like to address in this post. That word is “irrational.” While atheists do not think that religious people are “dumb” nor “crazy,” we DO think they are irrational. Now, I want to be very clear in what I mean by that, because I can understand how it might sound insulting if you don’t take it the right way.

I want to say firstly that everyone is irrational in one way or another. We cannot avoid it; it’s just the way our brains work. I am deluded, and so are you, regardless of whether you believe gods exist or not. Our brains are irrationality factories. Irrationality is simply ”lack of accordance with reason” (source). Some of us have fewer irrational beliefs than others, and when we use critical thinking correctly, we can help identify our unreasonable beliefs, and by acting upon these discoveries logically, we can minimize them in our thinking. But we all make mistakes in our thinking; it’s just part of being human. Our irrationality increases when we are in states of heightened emotion, which is why it’s so important to remain calm during debates and during emergencies. We literally think better when we take a deep breath and approach a problem without letting our emotions take over. (Taking a deep breath increases your oxygen saturation, the percentage of hemoglobin binding sites in the bloodstream occupied by oxygen. When our bloodstream has plenty of oxygen, our brains literally function better.)

As I wrote in my article yesterday, it is unreasonable to believe in miracles. By definition, a miracle is the least likely way something can occur. To borrow from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Say you’re considering the miracle claim that Mary conceived without having sex. Is it impossible that she was lying? Is it impossible that she never claimed to be a virgin, and that part of the legend was added later? (Remember, neither our earliest New Testament writer, Paul, nor our earliest Gospel writer, Mark, mention a virgin birth at all). Is it impossible that she was drugged and sexually assaulted without her knowledge? Seeing as we cannot eliminate any of these three alternate explanations as impossible, it would be unreasonable and improper to rule them (and literally all other possible natural explanations) out and conclude that something miraculous – by definition, the least likely possible explanation – occurred. Believing something unreasonable is the very definition of irrationality.

So, why is it bad to be irrational? Well, often, it’s not really that bad. Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all. Say that you have an irrational belief (unwarranted based on available evidence) that you have an above-average ability to get along with companion animals, when in fact, you ability is about average. This is called illusory superiority. That’s probably not a belief that’s going to have any real effect on your life. But there are lots of irrational beliefs that people have which do have real effects on their lives. For example, what if you have an illusion of superiority about your driving ability? In one study, 93% of respondents said they had above-average driving ability (in reality, approximately 50% of people have above-average ability, and approximately 50% of people have below-average ability). This false belief could actually get you into lethal trouble, if, say, you decide to go drive to the grocery store during an ice storm, despite warnings on the news to avoid driving except in case of emergencies.

There are many other situations where it’s bad to be irrational. For example, the US government recently funded a $666,000 study through the National Institues of Health to see if prayer can help AIDS patients under controlled conditions. (It doesn’t). According toGiveWell, for less than $1,000, you can save someone’s life in a third-world country. Because of opportunity cost, that means that approximately 670 people are dead because we thought it was more important to to see if prayer has a statistically-significant effect on AIDS patients’ health (again, it doesn’t).

Let me say that again: About 670 people are dead, because we wanted to see if talking to yourself has magic powers.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s important to test ideas that show some promise, even if they seem wacky. That’s how scientific progress is made. It’s important to test wacky ideasrepeatedly, if they show some promise, for the same reason. And prayer does show promise. Maybe people throughout history and today, billions of them, believe that prayer works. If it did absolutely nothing, we probably would have figured that out by now. Prayer does not do absolutely nothing. It actually does a lot: It can lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, improve morale, and several other pretty cool things. One thing to note: We’re talking aboutmeditative prayer, not intercessory prayer (prayer on behalf of someone else), and these effects are for the person doing the praying. Intercessory prayer, under proper testing conditions, does nothing to help the patient (that is, when they don’t know if they’re in the control group, or if they’re actually being prayed for). Do we really need yet another study establishing this?

Yes.

Why?

Because educated, trained professionals still believe it.

But we are making progress. Two years ago, a pilot who prayed as his plane was crashing (instead of following emergency protocol), killing 16 people, got 10 years in jail in Italy. Three months ago, a nurse in the United Kingdom lost her license and was fired for praying to Jesus (instead of following emergency protocol) when a baby in her care suffered a heart attack. Apparently, the nurse begged for Jesus to help the baby 20 times before the mother told her to “shut up.”

Science is a slow, steady process. We are getting there. As advocates of critical thinking, our goal is conquering ignorance. Studies like this help us demonstrate to people that they are wrong. And although it’s frustrating, time-consuming, and costly, when the data is solid, and when we show these results to people who disagree, we’re creating cognitive dissonance. And we know from our own experience that cognitive dissonance is like a game of Jenga.

Piece by piece, science pulls out falsehoods, and you can ignore it, dig in your heels, pretend it’s not happening, make excuses, blame someone else, get angry, call it unfair, or accuse science of taking the magic away, but sooner or later, the laws of physics win, and the tower of delusion comes crashing down. Reality does not care what you wish to believe; reality only cares what is.

The best thing about ignorance is that it’s something we can help fix. Don’t write off religious people simply because they haven’t accepted the reality of what we can and can not know. Don’t assume that they know the history of their own books, or the way probability and logic and induction work. Take your time, explain, help. Direct them to resources (see all the links below for some good starting places). You are not going to change anyone’s mind in a single conversation, but as Greta Christina said, it is worth debating religion, because every time you do, it’s one more block in the Jenga tower of delusion. Think about your own de-conversion, if you used to be religious.

There’s an old saying, that overnight success usually takes about 10 years. If someone has been religious for a long time, remember the story about the guy who found out he wasn’t really his son’s “dad.” It might not be that foundation-shaking 2 months into the pregnancy, but if someone has been a dad (a Christian, a Muslim, etc) for 15 years, it’s not going to unravel after hearing one simple fact, or listening to one specific argument. Be patient, follow up, offer links, offer books, offer videos. The information is there; they just need to know what and where it is, and take time to absorb it.

It took me an entire year to come to grips with my atheism, and now, just two years later, I’m vice president of my campus atheist group. If you’d have talked to me four years ago, when I was a worship musician, I would have said, “I’ll pray for you.” I was not stupid; I just didn’t know better. But I was not a lost cause, and neither are millions of other future atheists out there. Stay positive, and stay confident! The facts are on your side.

Until next time,

Dave

mail@davemuscato.com

(573) 424-0420 cell/text

Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.

Why We Believe

2012-01-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

The argument is often made that we have the right to believe whatever we want. I reject that argument. Why? Because we act on our beliefs. There can be no stronger proof of that statement than the terror wreaked on the USA on 9-11.

Can anyone in their wildest imagination believe that a conspiracy led by atheists could have brought about that kind of death, destruction and financial ruin on another country or people? Remember, those 19 hi-jackers were not common everyday thugs. They were well educated and financially secure. Their young malleable minds were polluted with rigid false beliefs before they had developed enough to be able to reason and think critically and they acted on those beliefs.

But the truth is, having a right to believe is far different than having a reason to believe. Our beliefs should be anchored in evidence, not what some preacher, “youth minister” or Imam tells us. Children are indoctrinated into religion before they even have the reasoning skills to understand that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are make believe characters. This is a heartbreaking tragedy.

Most children whose minds are contaminated by religion are unable to leave their faith when they become adults. Those who have the intelligence to see the absurdity of what adults have told them are still constrained from admitting their disbelief because they know they will be ostracized by their community and their own families. This is more than some can bear. They had rather live a lie and become a hypocrite than face the prospect of rejection.

I do not live with this fear. The most important thing in my life is truth and I refuse to sacrifice truth on the alter of delusion. One of the greatest disappointments in my later years is coming to the realization that with the exception of a few thoughtful individuals, my family are victims of irrational, illogical and unfounded beliefs.

Sadly they cling to these beliefs for three reasons; fear, ignorance and intellectual laziness.

As of this writing it looks as though Willard Romney will be the Republican choice to run against President Obama. Here is what Romney told a group of Baptist leaders on December 6th, 2007 when he was campaigning for President and trying to reassure them about his religion:

"There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers - I will be true to them and to my beliefs.”

No better confirmation of the point I just made about the indoctrination of children can be found than in that statement. Romney actually believes what his forefathers believed...that his religion's founder was a prophet who, at the direction of an angel named Moroni, dug up a golden text written in a "lost" language that could only be "revealed" by Joseph Smith by peering through some magic reading stones. He believes that because he was taught to believe that by adults when he was a child, who in turn were taught to believe it by adults when they were children. Now read what Robert Ingersoll had to say about the faith of our fathers some 100 years earlier.

“If we are in any way bound by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought now to be believers in that first religion. In other words, we would all be barbarians. You cannot show respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors. If you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew. To sacrifice your manhood upon the grave of your father is an honor to neither. Why should a son who has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his mother? Is not such a course dishonorable to both?”

As I have written before, even if one of the religions were true, then at least two-thirds of the world's population is being taught lies. If you hold the protestant religious belief, and take the teaching of Jesus to be true, then you have no choice but to believe that 4.7 billion alive on our planet today, hold false beliefs and are doomed to suffer unimaginable torment for all eternity. Can anything be more reprehensible?

It’s about time those of us who value reason challenge all the candidates about their religion, and this includes President Obama. It’s high time we dropped our delusions and begin to focus on the real problems in the world. Our very survival depends on it.

Richard Dawkins

2012-01-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQlmKuBVHA&feature=share

Truth is what matters. That is why I named my blog "An Honest Search For Truth."

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