Occasionally I will get this sort of thing in my mailbox. I have to say I remember my mother typing chain letters with carbon paper and sending them to myriads of people in the 50’s… but now with electronic communication, it’s possible to annoy millions without effort or cost.
Look at this Picture Closely
The President of Argentina received this picture and called it “junk mail”: 8 days later his son died. A man received this picture and immediately sent out copies: His surprise was winning the lottery. Alberto Martinez received this picture and gave it to his secretary to make copies but she forgot to distribute it – She lost her job and he lost his family. This picture is miraculous and sacred.”
You were chosen to receive this novena (prayer).
The moment you receive it, say :
[Insert the Lord’s Prayer here]
GOD WANTED ME TO TELL YOU, It shall be well with you this coming year.
No matter how much your enemies try this year, they will not succeed.
You have been destined to make it and you shall surely achieve all your goals this year.
For all of 2013, all your agonies will be diverted and victory and prosperity will be incoming in abundance.
Today God has confirmed the end of your sufferings, sorrows and pain because HE that sits on the throne has remembered you.
He has taken away the hardships and given you JOY. He will never let you down.
I knocked at heaven’s door this morning.
God asked me, “My child! What can I do for you?”
And I said, “Father, please protect and bless the person reading this message.”
This is a Novena from Mother Theresa that started in 1952.
It has never been broken. Within 48 hours send 20 copies (Or as many as you can – God does know if you don’t have 20 people to send it to – it’s the effort and intent that counts) to family and friends.
Do not send it back to the person who sent it to you.
This is a powerful Novena. Can only help. All prayer is powerful.
Please do not break it.
Now: I have nothing against sending out good energy, or prayer. I appreciate people who exercise their faith on my behalf. But I have serious issues with this kind of email because they’re – to be charitable – a crock of .
I’m supposed to believe that
I was “chosen” to receive this special communication (along with the countless other “unspecified recipients”)
Some stock photo taken off the Internet is miraculous and sacred
Some really bad writing can be attributed to Mother Teresa in 1952
The chain has never been broken
If I send it to 20 friends, I’ll have amazing luck
If I don’t send it on, I’m opening myself to apocalyptic consequences, loss of job, family, life, and limb. (The idea that a prayer for the blessing of people would automatically morph into a curse if not sent onwards defies logic. Oh wait, we’re talking about religion, excuse me.)
People! In the name of anything you hold sacred or worthy of respect, if you want to send good energy to your friends, great. Pray for them privately (see Matthew 6:6 if you’ve forgotten the admonition), but pleasedon’t forward hqiz like this. Above and beyond all the things I mentioned above, some of the folks in your address book will invariably be humanists or atheists, and you don’t want to send them to the hospital with intense pain caused by prolonged and forceful eye-rolling.
I saw this posted over on Facebook today, on a fan page called “Being Liberal.”
What caught my attention was the prominent picture of the Salt Lake temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I happen to be a member. There were 3,191 comments when last I checked and the debate was in large part your typical flame war between believers and anti-religionsists.
My response at the Facebook page was as follows:
“A picture of this nature is disingenuous and divisive by nature because it cannot convey even a fraction of the big picture. If, for example, you were to put the dollar value of such structures in a chart next to the dollar value of aid rendered by the organization to the disadvantaged or suffering throughout the world, and then in a third column, the dollar value of personal contributions and charitable service to society made by those who belong to your group, that might actually have some statistical value. Since such comparisons are impossible to quantify, the picture has relatively little empirical value other than to engender bitter polemics. If we were to reduce the massive expenditure down to the least common denominator, one could argue that it’s immoral to have a banana for breakfast when millions in Africa have none. One could create a similar montage of vast expenditures by secular organizations and make exactly the same point, so for me the net impact of the picture is an ill-advised and baseless attack on religion for no other reason than a personal bias.”
At the same page, I found this image:
Once again, the LDS Church is targeted. Granted, the conference center (pictured) may have cost more than $350 million to build. At the same time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an organization has donated more than $1 billion in cash and material assistance to 167 different countries in need of humanitarian aid since it started keeping track in 1985, and this is over and above the charitable efforts of its individual members. And from the pulpit pictured above is broadcast to the world on a regular basis messages of hope, of faith, of goodness, of charity, and of service, messages which inspire Church members to live lives in harmony with the teachings of the historical Jesus.
For the sake of comparison, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, built by the avowed atheist and communist Nicolae Ceauşescu, is estimated to have cost over €3 billion.
There’s a better way to spend one’s energy than tearing down organizations that do a lot of good, simply because one doesn’t happen to ascribe to the philosophy or theology upon which they are based. From a social standpoint, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with either faith or atheism – both systems are capable of tremendous human good and tremendous douchebaggery. Quiet service and the creation of positive energy trumps the public mockery of the beliefs of others any day – at least in my book.
I’D LIKE to say a word in favor of fundamentalists. They’re getting a bad rap.
The dictionary says that fundamentalism is a movement in twentieth-century Protestantism emphasizing as fundamental the literal inerrancy of the Scriptures, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, and so on. Also a movement or attitude similar to Protestant Fundamentalism.
I don’t happen to subscribe to any of those beliefs, but it’s a point of view, and some of the people I’ve encountered whose point of view it is are very nice people.
The bad rap comes from a confusion of fundamentalism and fanaticism. “Moslem fundamentalists meaning terrorists did thus and so,” the media will report. Most all, if not all, Moslems are fundamentalists-that doesn’t mean they all want to blow people up.
I hear from fundamentalists-kids and adults-in my role as an author of children’s books. I hear from bigots and fanatics too but they’re not automatically the same people.
Here’s a case that comes up from time to time: I’ll get a letter from a kid, or a class, commending me for not using profanity in books I write. Sometimes, there’s an explicit religious connection made, sometimes not. Sometimes the letter comes from a religious school.
I write back to the kid or the class, and explain that I do not, as a rule, use vulgar language in books I write for kids as a matter of choice and preference-but that I would not hesitate to use it if the story called for it. For example, if I wrote a character who cussed-I’d have him cuss. It wouldn’t bother me.
I go on to explain that it’s a good idea to be able to distinguish between polite and impolite language, and to try to respect people’s sensibilities-but that I do not believe that words have power within themselves, and by making a special case of certain words and expressions, we imbue them with a power they should not have.
I tell them that I use vulgar language around the house, and when I’m alone, I use nothing else.
Then I suggest-now get this-that maybe they’d like to show my letter to their teacher, pastor or parents, and maybe have a discussion with them, or their class, and compare their ideas on the subject with mine.
And they do it! What do you think of that? These fundamentalist kids, or their teacher, will write back to me and say that they had an interesting talk based on my letter. I don’t expect anyone changes their basic views – but they’re willing to take a look at mine,
They’re not so bad.
Of course, I’m not talking about the educator from down south who accused me of being a Satanist because I wrote a story about a werewolf-but that guy would be a pain in the posterior whatever he believed.
A friend of mine posted this essay on Facebook, and in light of the Black Friday madness taking place last night and today, I thought it well worth sharing.
As I was reading over the Gospel text for today (Luke 19:45-48, where Jesus cleanses the Temple), I was struck by a certain irony.
Just before this event, Jesus comes in sight of Jerusalem and weeps over it, since “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. . . . [Your enemies] will smash you to the ground and your children within you . . . because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” He then proceeds to enter the temple, where he finds the court of Gentiles has become a marketplace, not a place of prayer for the nations.
The temple authorities must have had a natural impulse. The court was nearly empty because, although this open expanse of over 20 acres had been reserved for the nations to come and pray to God, most of the peoples of the world neither knew or cared that it was for them. It was a vacuum, begging to be filled. There was a need to provide those who did come to the temple with pure animals for sacrifice, and the proper coins (without engraved images of humans or deities) for use in the temple. A vacuum, and the need that could fill it—the temple authorities put the two together very neatly. With only one problem. There was no room left for the original purpose, and so Jesus came along to restore this part of the world to its intended purpose.
In filling the court, the authorities had shown that they did not know “what makes for peace,” which is leaving room, being empty for God. They soon would show they did not “recognize the time of their visitation,” by killing God’s messenger, his own Son. Even though God had “pitched his tent” in their midst for a thousand years, from the time of David and Solomon, they still had not learned enough to know God or God’s peace.
However, lest we jeer at such foolishness, let us note this irony. Christmas commemorates our own hour of God’s visitation, not one thousand years ago now, but nearly two thousand. Decades ago it was taken over by the marketplace. Now it seems as if Thanksgiving is likewise vanishing under our worship of buying and selling to serve the almighty Dollar. Thanksgiving was begun as a day of peace and prayer to give thanks to God, an empty expanse that the merchants could not resist filling, with turkey for the feast, with football to entertain us, and with deals to entice us into the stores and malls. The temple authorities filled one court with their marketplace. It seems to me that we are very near to filling two holidays with our marketplace.
If the temple authorities were fools, does this mean that we are at least twice the fools?
I was recently introduced to a most wonderful blog, Zen Pencils: Beautifully illustrated quotes from great minds. The author/artist is Gavin Aung Than, a freelance artist living in Melbourne, Australia. A huge shout-out to Gavin for creating something of such lasting positive energy. In many ways, Gavin’s artwork and world view reminds me of the work of Winston Rowntree (a pseudonym! I wish I knew who he really is) who does Subnormality! Rowntree’s work is decidedly more offbeat, but also encourages readers to examine and explore and question the world we live in, and make the most of themselves in spite of the challenges life can offer.
I can’t honestly say how I found Zen Pencils – it could have been a Stumble, or a recommendation from a friend on Facebook, or via email. However it happened, I’m grateful. The post I found first is “Books are Awesome,” a quote by Carl Sagan. Reading the notes led me to another Sagan quote, reflected in the title of this post.
Click the thumbnail to be taken to the original page, which contains the full quote.
Now, I happen to really, really, really love Carl Sagan, in much the same way as I really, really, really love Isaac Asimov. Both were staunch and lifelong humanists, each striving for and encouraging others to grow, to develop, to improve, and to raise the human condition. (For what it’s worth, I have long suspected that the good Dr. Asimov was a closet believer in something greater than man – or at the very least, in the hope that Man could evolve into something far greater than he now is; all you have to do is read his short story, “The Last Question” for a glimpse of that longing.) Whether I’m right or wrong about that, he remained dedicated to humanist principles all his life.
Here’s another bit of Sagan-lore that I love to revisit on occasion, because it just makes me feel so good (along with all the other Symphony of Science videos):
Sagan is undeniably one of the greatest ambassadors of pure science that humanity has ever seen.
Which puts me in a quandary.
Because I’m “a believer.”
Humanists and the religious have been heaving word bombs and vitriol at each other for as far back as human written records go, and I’m here to say publicly, in words that will end up in the cloud forever until the heat death of the universe, that it’s a crying shame, and unworthy of the principles that both espouse. There is room in this great big, vast, endless, amazing, astonishing, wondrous, and (dare I say it) miraculous universe, for science and belief – and have very little left over (the Germans say “nichts übrig”) for people whose sole purpose in life seems to be depriving others of their basic human dignity.
Whether it’s a Nobel prize-winning scientist, ensconced in his well-papered office in the genetics department of a major Ivy League university who bitterly mocks and de-humanizes people of faith, or a Bible-thumping head of a $300-billion-dollar megachurch who foams from the pulpit to televisions worldwide that the Second Coming is nigh because of the wicked unbelievers of the world, or just you and me, neighbors, being dicks to one another, there’s no room in my world for this kind of negative energy.
I’m not about to attempt apologetics for all religion everywhere; the history books and modern news reports are full of horrors perpetrated by one group of humans on another because of a difference of belief, be it big or small – a syndrome superbly enough mocked by Jonathan Swift in his analogy of the “big-endians” vs. “little endians” that a simple reference to Gulliver’s Travels will suffice. It is enough for me to say that any person of faith who seeks to make another human being less, for any reason, both misunderstands and defiles the tenets and commandments of whatever god they claim to worship.
Sagan once wrote, “How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?’ Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” Sagan was so close to his own epiphany when he said that, but it seems that he lacked whatever spark was required to take that last step and posit the existence of a God great enough to create the wondrous universe that he described, simply because there was no empirical, measurable evidence of such a creator. What he was left with was wonder and admiration for the unfathomable complexity of the space we live in, and admirable philosophies such as the one found in the Zen Pencils episode that entitles this post.
For me, there is evidence enough. To paraphrase a scripture that I value, all things denote there is a God; the earth, and everything on it, its motion, and also all the planets which move in their regular form, demonstrate that there is a Supreme Creator. Even positing, for the sake of argument, hydrogen atoms evolved to consciousness, there is no compelling evidence to explain the awesome regularity and mathematical perfection we see in nature or in music; no scientific reason to explain why I can remember the amazing Yorkshire puddings my wife made for me last week, or that the slope of a line is defined by the relationship y = mx + b, or that I have a class to teach this morning at 1:40 AM. In my mind, if creation were an accident, our world would be as random and unpredictable as one of Bill Watterson’s offbeat Sunday Calvin and Hobbes strips.
But see, that’s just me. I resonate with the idea that I’m more than a collection of vibrating strings that came together to be me for 80 years or so; I take comfort in looking at the wonders of the universe that we’re just beginning to understand, and having someone to thank for it; and I especially take joy in knowing that I should hang on to my fork, because there’s something better yet to come.
If belief and humanism are to coexist, each must observe certain boundaries. I support the free exercise of religious faith, but not the imposition of one group’s beliefs on others; I support a secular government and public education system which teaches only empirical truths, but one which does not go out of its way to teach that people who do believe in something more than pure science are gibbering idiots. Private schools can teach what they want – that’s their privilege, and that’s why they are private – but I would encourage them to adhere to the same principles of universal human dignity.
Years and years ago, scientists began dreaming of a mind-boggling system that would deliver Curiosity to the surface of Mars. If they had not had the dream, that amazing little beast would not now be puttering around the surface of our solar neighbor, zapping rocks with its lasers and finding evidence of surface water.
It is our dreams that drive our reality. I dream of a world that works for everyone, no exceptions, and that’s what I am working for. The thoughts of Sagan and others like him go into the pot and become part of the energy that is driving me forward.
At one time an actual product (tongue-in-cheek, of course). I have one of these in my files.
From Wikipedia. There are people who will happily exclude their neighbors from heaven (as if they had the authority to do so) for believing in the wrong flavor of millennial doctrine – and these are all mainstream, evangelical faiths.
Mormons couldn’t possibly be Christians – they think God has a body and still talks to people.
“Don’t be a Dick”
A good way to observe your religious holidays – courtesy of Stan Lynde
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”
A post on George Takei’s Facebook feed displayed this photo of Earth and two other planets seen from the surface of Mars, purportedly taken from one of the rovers up there.
The one on Takei’s feed had an arrow pointing to the lower dot which said, “You are here.”
It’s a pretty picture, but my BS bells went off because there’s just something “off” about the photo, specifically those clouds and the fact that the three dots are the only things visible in the sky.
By the time I saw this, the post had gathered over 2,000 comments, and a brief perusal led me to this post over at Discover, which explains that the image is a computer-generated “planetarium” scene, as witnessed by the little “NE” in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
Sweetly enough, the article also posted this picture…
… which is a real picture, “the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004).” Found at NASA’s Flickr Feed, where you can read more information about the shot.
The tiny speck put me immediately in mind of the now-iconic photo of Earth taken by Voyager 1 as it was leaving the earth.
Astronomer Carl Sagan had requested NASA to point Voyager’s cameras back toward home, and this was the resulting image.
In his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, astronomer Carl Sagan related his thoughts on a deeper meaning of the photograph:
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi
This quote, and much additional information about the photo and how it was taken, was found at Wikipedia. I had seen the picture and read the quote before, but it never ceases to move me.
Confession: I can’t do higher math.[1] I always wanted to be a doctor, but calculus put a rapid end to that dream, because you need calculus for the pre-med Chemistry degree and screw whole bunches of that, with apologies and honor and homage to my freshman chem teacher, Dr. Alex T. Rowland of Gettysburg College, a good man and a fine professor. But I’ve always loved science, and have stood in awe of the glory and majesty and miracle of the universe from its largest expanses to its smallest bits and pieces. I think I owe that love of science to the hours and hours my mother spent allowing me to roam the halls of the Hayden[2] Planetarium and the Museum of Natural History.
Publicity shots for “Pepper Young’s Wife”, TV-Radio Mirror, March 1957
I loved that rocket – it was in a darkened room, and each section was illuminated by a different color. The fuel chamber had a deep, red glow and I could stare at it for hours. This was one of my favorite books. Alas, my inability to comprehend the fine points of differentiation meant that I had to spend my life as a linguist and not as a scientist, but the love of understanding our world, from the quantum to the cosmic scale, never left me. All I can do is peep through the keyhole to where the big boys and girls are playing, and hope to understand as much as I can from there.
Years ago I happened across a copy of Powers of Ten, a companion volume to two films of the same name which were based on the book Cosmic View (1957) by Dutch educator Kees Boeke.
Later, this map of the known universe from National Geographic served to pretty much bork my mind out completely.
Trouble is, it doesn’t stop there.
I posted the above map earlier, along with a photo of Hubbles ultra-deep field image, and just recently came across this mind-bending video done by the folks at NASA/ESA:
The animations were based on the red-shift values of the various galaxies captured in the image. The thing is, that is by no means all of it – it’s only the part we were able to capture with our rather primitive (albeit wonderful) instruments.
So what is our place in the universe? Scientists will be grappling with that question for as long as man continues to be relevant. The president of my church, Thomas S. Monson, said in 2001, ” I acknowledge that I do not understand the processes of creation, but I accept the fact of it.” Taken in the context of the rest of his quotation, this has been interpreted by some to mean that we should reject science in favor of faith. I do not see it that way. The miracle of creation, in all its massive and miniscule glory, is before me, and I must accept the fact of it. But another fact remains: for all we know, we know virtually nothing. As tiny as the pale blue dot is in the immeasurably vast universe, so is all our scientific knowledge in the face of all there is to be known. I believe firmly that we do have a purpose and a place in all the vastness, and that purpose is to raise the human condition, to make life better in all possible ways for ourselves and for all whom we encounter. This is sufficient for me. In the words of Hillel, “the rest is commentary.”
And all this because of a single “fake” picture posted on George Takei’s Facebook feed. Thanks, George.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
1Just because I can’t do math doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.
A mathematical friend of mine assures me that this equation evaluates to ⅓. I couldn’t say for the two crore question, but I’ll never forget how to write it. See, it’s a limerick, and limericks I can remember. All of them. Darnit.
“Integral zee squared dee zee
From one to the cube root of three
Times the cosine
Of three π over nine
Equals log of the cube root of e.”
[2]With thanks for the correction to Haydn Rawlinson, who apparently knows not only how his own name is spelled but also the Planetarium’s.
On September 10th, I posted An Open Letter to Jihadistan. This was addressed to the violent Islamic extremists of the world, rather than to the approximately 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today. Today I share my thoughts with the rest of you.
America is not waging a war against Islam. If you believe that, you are being lied to by people who are perverting your religion for their political purposes.
America is not responsible for, nor does it support the maker of “The Innocence of Muslims.” This repugnant movie was made by a bigoted sub-human who does not represent the feelings of the vast majority of Americans.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanon today urged the Lebanse to increase their protests, saying “The ones who should be held accountable and boycotted are those who support and protect the producers, namely the US administration.” The US administration does not support the producers of this film, nor does it agree with its message. Nasrallah and other sheikhs and imams around the world calling for protests and violence against the US and the west, are speaking out of ignorance, and in so doing they are twisting the religion of peace into something that is not found anywhere in the Qur’an.
Despite the memories of the terrible events of 9/11 being still fresh in the minds of Americans, our land continues to be a haven for people of the Muslim faith, with over 2,000 mosques and countless masjids. Like you, we have our bigots and our sociopaths – but these do not now, nor have they ever represented us.
We believe that freedom trumps tyranny. If you wish to live in an Islamic republic, then live in an Islamic republic. If you wish to abide by shari’a, abide by shari’a. But let these be a republic and a law where the people are allowed to determine what that means, rather than living in fear that a different opinion or a different lifestyle will bring injury or death to them and their families.
I exhort you to stand down from these protests, this outrage, this violence which has nothing to do with America but rather the political aspirations of a few deluded men. Put your energy into building up your societies and improving the lives of your fellow citizens, and I pledge to you that I will do the same. The vast majority of my countrymen desire only the same things you do – the freedom to establish your lives and provide for your families in safety, and without fear. Things will not be perfect, and mistakes will be made, but none of us should allow the frailties of men to stand in the way of peace and progress.
I leave you with a quote that has been attributed to Marcus Aurelius, but whose origin is unsure. Nevertheless it speaks to me, and speaks the words of my heart.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
May we desire peace, and pursue it; may we sow kindness, and reap prosperity.
Today, Reuters reported that the Taliban in Afghanistan is after Prince Harry, hoping to make political hay out of a high-profile target. The article states in part,
“(Reuters) – The Afghan Taliban said on Monday they were doing everything in their power to try to kidnap or kill Britain’s Prince Harry, who arrived in Afghanistan last week to fly attack helicopters. Queen Elizabeth’s grandson is in Afghanistan on a four-month tour, based in Camp Bastion in the volatile Helmand province, where he will be on the front line in the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents. ‘We are using all our strength to get rid of him, either by killing or kidnapping,’ Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.”
Mr. Muhajid, you understand nothing of Islam. You understand nothing of jihad, which is personal struggle to make yourself more like the Allah you claim to worship, but whom you understand not at all. Tom Clancy said it far better than I ever could:
“Islam is not the enemy of our country or any other. Just as my family was once attacked by people calling themselves Catholics, so these people have twisted and defiled their own religious faith in the name of worldly power, and then hidden behind it like the cowards they are. What God thinks of that, I cannot say. I know that Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, teaches us about a God of love and mercy–and justice.”
Tom Clancy, Executive Orders
No one is fighting a war against Islam, except withing the confines of your own uneducated and deluded minds. You are wrong about the world, wrong about freedom, wrong about personal liberty, and wrong about your own faith.
If Allah exists in any form at all, he is not one of the Old Gods. He does not demand blood and sacrifice, or the suppression of other human beings – women, gays, Baha’is, Jews, or any other of his creations; he does not demand that unbelievers be subject to the Dhimmi tax, or beaten for your pleasure, or executed at your whim. Your guns do not make your right; your misguided mullahs and imams do not make you right; the destruction of priceless cultural treasures at the fatwa of one insane man do not make you right. You are wrong, and all the bullying thuggery in the world will not change that. You will no doubt consider this blasphemy and worthy of death, but I do not excuse my words. I am not a Muslim, but I tell you plainly that I understand your Allah far better than you ever will.
Humanity will survive your onslaught. Shari’a will not prevail. As our race gropes toward the stars, backward-thinking mobsters like yourself and those who follow you will fade into obscurity and irrelevance. The only hope you have for survival is to lay down your weapons of war and join those who seek to live in peace with their neighbors, who seek to build a better world for all people. Do this, and you will live. Do it not, and you and each of you relegate yourselves to the dustbin of history.
No, I don’t think anyone wants the Shah and his Savak back, but there has to be a happy medium. People have the right to vote for the kind of government they want, but I have a fundamental issue with Islamic republics – they fact that they remove the concept of free will. How about a republic where people are free to practice Islam if they want to, and something else (or nothing) if they don’t?
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Playing in the World Game 