Saturday, May 2, 2009

"Contemplating the Quran" OR "The house that hate built"


With all of the criticism Islam extremists are facing you might think that another diatribe about their evils isn't necessary. I contend that they haven't faced enough and that there is nothing MORE necessary in our political climate than one honest examination of Islam "extremism".

In the current political climate of religious safety from criticism it is practically impossible to protect ourselves from extremists in the world. This is because we are finding fault with all the wrong things. We look at the world trade centre bombing and say that the suicide bombers were clearly insane. We look at mothers and children who hate Jews dogmatically and say that it is a lack of education. We see women being treated as chattel and subservient as they are killed and abused for the "honour" of their families and excuse it as being cultural. We hear about hatred of the western world and determine that comes from poverty and war. What we DON'T hear about is criticism of the belief that was the impetus for those acts.
These people aren't insane, they are faithful. They aren't undereducated; they are educated with the hate in the Quran. They aren't honouring their families because of culture; they are blindly killing for Allah. They aren't victims; they are merely obedient and faithful in their belief in absolute terms of their divine mission to submit the world to Islam.

The fact is these people are no more insane, no more undereducated, no more underprivileged and no more bound by culture to do evil than we are. What they are bound to is a fundamentalist and immoral dogma that is held as unassailable by our sensibilities and our media. Well, the pass on critique stops here.

No more will we judge individuals as the problem for the edicts of a faith that drives them to evils by pain of eternal damnation. Here we will face Islam head on and discuss why some Muslims do the things that they do. If faced with the threat of eternal punishment and indoctrinated into a mindset that tells us fighting for the precepts in the Quran are the only absolute morality, who wouldn't do the terrible things that some extremists do? (Especially when you are convinced by divine revelation that these things are not terrible but, in fact, righteous)

"Wait", I can hear readers saying, "isn't Islam a religion of peace?"
The answer is no it is not. It is no more a religion of peace than is Christianity. Just as the bible orders to kill atheists, sassy children, wearers of muti-fabric clothing, people of poor attention spans in church, babies of apostates, and those who don't believe as you do, the Quran has its own set of rules for killing. The difference is that those rules are adhered to by fundamentalist with a fervour for literal dogma that is hard to find in other religions.

Still not convinced? Let's take a look at some of the mandates that the Quran instructs Muslims originate from a higher and absolute morality.

The Quran on tolerance

Disbelievers will be burned with fire.- 2:39, 2:90

We have revealed unto thee clear tokens, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them. -2:99

Slay them wherever ye find them -2:191

The strange admonishment of homosexual behaviour is that it only seems to mind when MEN do it. It is very clear in defining that it is male homosexuality that is the abomination. (26:165-6, 27:54-55, 29:28-29)
This would seem to suggest that Allah hates gays, but he thinks that lesbians are the shit. I guess he was thinking ahead when making the male dominated culture of Muslims. If men are going to rule, then they are going to need a good source of entertainment (They would also need sole dominion over the remote, but they don't seem to touch on that in the Quran OR the Haddiths. Slight oversight sorry Allah)


The list of dooms, and admonishments towards non believers (who are Christians, Jews and Atheists) is so extensive that I won't bore you with it, but you get the point. It is certainly not a tenet of Islam to tolerate the presence of those who believe differently than they do. Even in the Haddiths, Muhammad was only tolerant of Jews until they rejected his teachings, and thus begins the paving of a long road of Muslim hatred of the Jews.

So they haven't scored high marks on tolerance, but does that differentiate them from other religions when each of them thinks that they are the sole path to salvation? Maybe not, lets go on...

The Quran on maturity... (or "What is Allah, like 5??")

Allah mocks the unbelievers 2:15

Those in the fire will be taunted by those in the Garden 7:44

Wretched is the likeness of folk who deny the revelations of Allah. 62:5

There will come a day when Allah will refuse all prayers and help no one. 2:48

Seriously?!? In this we see that Allah might actually be a celestial 5 year old, mocking and taunting those people who do not offer him validation. Very difficult to take a god seriously who looks down on people who don't worship him and instead of offering wisdom to convert or elucidate them, he only offers comments like "You're UGLY!" (62:5) or "You're STUPID!!" (2:15), or "Hot enough for ya, IN HELL?" (7:44) and my personal favourite "you want help? NOPE! Too late, hahaha" (2:48). All of this is aside from the childish and ubiquitous "Oh, that is a very interesting and opposing opinion you have there. (to followers) -KILL HIM!!! OR you can hold off on killing him and I will torture him later in hell (while I mock him), your choice."
Where are his parents anyway? I remember having to teach my 4 year old not to talk to people like that but I guess when you are a Deity there is no need for politeness of maturity (as you kill or order killed everyone who doesn't agree).
After we look at his views of women too we might say that his hatred comes from a bit of an Oedipus Complex, but I digress.

Which brings us to;

The Quran on women...

Menstruation is a sickness (2:222)

Women have rights that are similar to men, but men are "a degree above them." (2:228)


Males are to inherit twice that of females. (4:11)


You may not forcibly inherit women, unless they flagrantly lewd. (4:19)
(you can rape women if they are lewd??? SO, this means that you can be even lewder, more base and violent if they are a bit crass. Is this why the large immigration to Britain and America? Large groups of women who are crass because they are not Islamic, and therefor available for Allah given happy fun time? )

You don't have to be modest around your wives or your slave girls "that your right hand possess." (23:6) (note the acceptance of slaves)

Women are feeble and are unable to devise a plan. (4:98)


Men are in charge of women, because Allah made men to be better than women (4:34)


Lot offers his daughters to a mob of angel rapers. (15:71)-Meh they are property anyway.

Allah's rules for divorcing wives that have not yet reached puberty. (65:4) (note that Allah doesn't mind marrying girls younger than 12)

Finally and most important- As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them (4:34)




Misogyny is the second most pervasive attitude in Islam (after violence and Anti Semitism) and it is what keeps Muslim women from understanding their own oppression. Apostasy is punishable by death, and Allah commands that they be subservient. They are brainwashed into accepting their own oppression and servitude. It is a sad, sad state that speaks against the strength of Muslim men who believe it. Only a weak, insecure and sad man feels the need to be master of a woman and only a weak and immoral man would lay a hand on a woman, especially one he is supposed to love.

To me this is the most telling attitude amongst Muslims. It speaks for itself. Muslim men can't abide "their" women dressing as they wish, because chaos would ensue from poor weak minded men giving into a biological and divine imperative to rape them. (4:19)

I know that this is going long, but there is SO much to talk about. One more?

The Quran on Anti-Semitic hate

Jews are the greediest of all humankind. They'd like to live 1000 years. But they are going to hell. (2:96)

For the wrongdoing Jews, Allah has prepared a painful doom. (4:160-1)

Allah will punish the disbelieving Jews until the Day of Resurrection. (7:167)

Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to the rich and greedy Christian monks and Jewish rabbis. (9:34)

These sentiments are augmented by the Haddiths when they reject Muhammad's teachings and the anti-semitic sentiment continues unabated even today in countries all over the world. In its search for dominion over the minds of the world, Islam stands alone as the religion who seeks to take away our freedoms and our ability to speak and believe as we choose. 60 nations currently have given into the UNs weak Anti blasphemy resolution (although 56 of them are from the Islamic council). This is a clear and present danger to our freedoms and our wellbeing if we can't criticise the root evil of some of the most terrible issues of our times. That being unreasoning faith in an evil and immoral book.

In my readings of the Quran I have discovered only this. Allah is a weak, Oedipus complex suffering, childish, insecure, intolerant, anti-semitic, violent and unforgiving deity and we would do best to recognize that when making excuses for those who do harm in society. Lets recognize the real reason that there is Islamic terror and violence in the world. It is not the poverty, it is not the level of education, it is not the culture (although the culture is driven by the religion) it is the strident and unquestionable faith in a book that holds no wisdom for any save themselves. For all others there is death, doom and hellfire. For those who fight and die for Islam, there are rewards in the afterlife of wide eyed women and honour for the families left behind. (Remember the women who die in service of the Quran? They must get wide eyed women too, as we know what Allah thinks about lesbians.)

I will leave you by borrowing a sentiment from Richard Dawkins. When examining the evils of the world, lets place the blame where it belongs, and "lets not forget the elephant in the room, and elephant called religion" or in this case, Islam.


Peace