Orson Scott Card and Islam

Earlier, I posted my fondness for Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Well, since then I have devoured the sequels and companion novels, enjoying all of them and wishing for more.

In Shadow of the Giant, Card makes a fine point about radical Islam. He says that Islam cannot be a legitimate religion until it recognizes peoples' rights to disbelieve and until it allows lapsed Muslims (i.e. people who leave Islam) to go freely and without harm. Until then, it is a tyranny. In a nutshell, he suggests that Islam ought to embrace the idea of separation of Church and State--that a religious offense is not punishable by violence (i.e. intimidation, fines, incarceration, torture, execution).

I can already hear the critics say that Islam already does this, that it is a religion of peace; but come on, who's kidding whom?

Show me the Islamic state with a good record on human rights in general, and the rights of religious minorities specifically.

Read some history. Islam spread via the sword, and it stays because of the sword.

Of course there are many Muslims who disagree and say that their brethren who so speak and behave are in a minority, but what they really mean is that such people are in a minority in the West. Where they are not in the minority, they rule with an iron fist. Look at the fatwah against Salman Rushdie.

By the way, just in case any half-wit reads this and figures that I'm saying something ridiculous like, "All Muslims are terrorists," re-read what I said, for I said no such thing. What I said is that presently, Islam--as it pours from the Middle East as it has for over a millenium--is aggressive, expansionistic, and imperialistic. Many nations have been this way in the past and changed. As Card points out, Islam is perfectly capable of changing too. Doing so will not dilute its theology, but will instead make it a rational religion that seeks members because they believe, not because they are frightened.

Now a truly astute critic will say that Christianity has just as much blood on its hands as Islam, and such a critic is probably (though I really mean absolutely) right.

However, Christianity long ago rejected the notion that men and women could (and should) be forced into the religion. Historically, Christianity must answer for much (e.g. the inquisition and the witch hunts in Europe and the American colonies).

Such an astute critic ought to see that the problem for both religions centers on the issue of Church and State. In the inquisition and the witch hunts, the coercive powers of the State were put to use for "religious" purposes. Only once predominantly Christian nations began to draw the line between crimes against God and crimes against society (i.e. harming the life, liberty, or property of others), did Christianity once again became a peaceful religion.

Yes, Christianity has blood on its hands, but it has long since coagulated. The blood on Islam's hands is still fresh.

Rushdie

It's one thing to think that Salmon Rusdie is a heretic, even an infadel. It's another thing to proclaim upon him a death sentence because he dared to write a novel. It's still another thing to threaten the British people with violence because they recently knighted him.

The reaction to Rushdie's knighthood shows how sick his opponents are. They believe neither in freedom nor in a good God. They are--ironically--idolitrists, in their worship of Mohammad.

True Freedom of Speech

A professor at Emmanuel College in Boston has been fired for simulating the VA Tech shooting. He claims that the University is stifling free speech.

I do not know enough about the professor's demonstration to say whether or not the professor's dismissal was proper. However, I do know enough about the first amendment to say that Emmanuel College did not violate the professor's right to freedom of speech.

Read the damn amendment. It's first words are "Congress shall pass no law respecting . . . freedom of speech." It doesn't say that you can say whatever you want and your employers, neighbors, and peers have to like it. The first amendment was not intended to protect people from ostracism. It was not intended to protect jobs. The first amendment was intended to prevent the government from using its coercive powers against citizens who speak there minds.

An example of this might be the fact that I think that George W. Bush's government is more fascist than Republican (and by Republican, I mean classical Republican, as described first by Aristotle but carried into existence by the American Revolution (see Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution for some insight. However, be careful. Wood, for all his obvious intelligence and scholarship, simply neglects the conservative elements of the War for Independence--and these were pretty major, as they were the agendas of Washington, Hancock, and later Hamilton).

Should I be arrested and charged with a crime for calling George W. Bush a fascist, then my right to free speech has been violated.

However, if I work in an office, and my boss--the owner, who has invested his entire fortune in the business enterprise at which I am employed--takes offense (presumably because he is a Bush man), and he fires me for my comments: my rights have not been violated.

I do not have a right to my job. My job belongs to the owner (or owners) of the company. If I upset them, it is there right to release me. Hell, they can fire me because I prefer to wear socks with sandals on weekends. The job belongs to the company, not me.

I am a free man, and I should be free to say what I want, but that doesn't mean that there are no social or economic consequences to what I say. If I own a convenience store, but I also am an active anti-Semite, then I cannot complain at the loss of business once my anti-Semitism has been revealed. Certainly Jews would not patronize my business. Others might avoid my goods simply because they are disgusted by my opinions. All of this can happen, and my freedom of speech has not been violated. I am still a free man, free to say what I want.

Similarly, if I own a company, I should be able to refuse or terminate the employment of anyone who spouts what I consider to be filth. It's my company. If you want to say whatever you want, then be prepared to live alone. If my wife asks, "Does this make me look fat?" and I say, "Well, yeah, kinda." I cannot appeal to my freedom of speech. I'm in the doghouse, but I'm not in jail. That's the point. The government should not be able to punish people for their beliefs. As for the general population, you are free to embrace or condemn whomever or whatever you want. But be careful, and pay attention to what your boss thinks.

Islam=Peace?

If Islam is a religion of peace, then why don't so-called mainstream muslims decry the violence of its supposedly mistaken breathren?

If Islam is a religion of peace, why do all Islamic states act so abhorrently?

Why is there no decent Islamic state in the world?

Help me out, for I don't see this happening.

Holy Shi'ite, Batman!

Click here for an article regarding a car dealership's ad. The following is a brief reply, of sorts.

So there's no uproar when a mufti (i.e. Islamic scholar) issues a fatwa to kill a man for writing a novel (remember Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 death sentence on Salman Rushdie?). The Council on American-Islamic Relations made no campaign against Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa to declare war on the United States). These things are apparently OK.

However, should an Ohio based Mitsubishi car dealership declare "jihad on the US auto market" and distribute toy swords to kids, that's going too far.

So, to all of you culturally insensitive infidels, please note: Issuing a fatwa for jihad that encourages mass murder and giving real swords (or AK-47s or Rocket Propelled Grenades) for the business of killing is OK. Issuing a fatwa for jihad that encourages people to buy your cars instead of another's and giving rubber swords to little tykes is bad.

How outraged would the imams be if there was Russ Milne's Krystalnacht Extravaganza (kids get free swastika arm bands and foam stones).

Seriously, the ad is in poor taste, and I bet that it will be a miserable failure if it happens. Instead, people are trying to stop it and giving the dealership free advertising. Let them be idiotic, and don't buy a Mitsubishi from them. It's time to stop bitching about every little thing that's offensive to Islam. Christianity is mocked far worse on a daily basis, but Christians in this country have an amazing--and apparently rare--ability to shrug it off. It's called turning the other cheek, which is something that some guy said somewhere.

A Hand in the Fire

Gee wiz, I guess that the Pope was wrong...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1875811,00.html

From the above source:

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organisation of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a web forum saying the pontiff and the west were "doomed". The message, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified, said: "We shall continue our holy war and never stop until God enables us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism when God's rule is established governing all people and nations." (My emphasis)


And yet another
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/18/africa/ME_GEN_Muslims_Pope.php

"If the stupid pig is prancing with his blasphemies in his house . . . then let him wait for the day coming soon when the armies of the religion of right knock on the walls of Rome."

From the same article:

"Those who take benefit from Pope's comment and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted of attack and protest."

And one more reasonable comment:

"His comments really hurt Muslims all over the world," Umar Nawawi of the radical Islamic Defenders' Front said Monday in Jakarta. "We should remind him not to say such things which can only fuel a holy war."

This latter comment is at least not violent in nature, but it assumes that violence is the answer to what Pope Benedict said ("...can only fuel a holy war.")

It doesn't have to fuel a holy war. Muslims can ignore what the Pope said, just as I can ignore what they say. Why does a fatwa have to be issued everytime a public person publicly disagrees? This doesn't seem very adab (or dare I say kosher?). Isn't it time for sensible people (including all true mujtahidun) to stand up to these fajarah and their lagwh? Surely the wise ones must know that this is not the way to taqwa.

If reason doesn't prevail, then perhaps Pope Benedict needs to read one of Urban II's famous addresses. Deus vult. Jus ad bellum est. Deo vindice.

Pax vobiscum

Stop the Violins!

Christian Churches in Gaza and the West Bank have been shot at and firebombed, and the Vatican has been threatened specifically due to a recent speech in which the Pope indirectly (he quoted a Byzantine emperor from the 1300's) criticized Islam's policy of spreading the faith by the sword.

What a way to prove how wrong the Pope was and that Islam is innately peaceful. I surely hope that mainstream (i.e. peaceful) Muslims will speak out as critically against their impious brethren as they have against the Pope.

A high-ranking Turkish official stated that the Pope's earlier comments place him in the same category as Hitler. I don't recall any Pope in centuries advocating genocide or the physical destruction of rival faiths. On the other hand, I can think of what Al Quaida and the Taliban stood for...

Pope

The Pope must not apologize, but his critics could sure use a serving of humble pie. I just hope that the old man keeps dishing it.