About one week ago, regular reader, if not regular commenter Larry, linked to what I think is an amazing essay by the Iranian-born American author
Amil Imani, who writes for an outfit called the
International Analyst Network. Mr. Imani has
an own website. When you check it out, you will notice a variant of the symbol I include here to the right. It's called a
Faravahar, but more about that later. Anyway, on
September 12, he posted
the article below on the IAN site. I think it's extremely to the point, since we cannot read a newspaper, watch TV or check online journals these days without
at once noticing reports of muslims blowing up people from Somalia to Xinjiang, islamic terrorist plots foiled from the Rockies over Queens to the UK, "youths" attacking the police ALL OVER EUROPE, and sharia on the rise in virtually every muslim country. I do not know how it is with you, but to me it seems that the entire islamic world is showing the same behaviour as a rabid dog. This seems to be Mr. Imani's observation too, and his essay is worth pondering:
ISLAM IS FIRE. - by Amil Imani
September 12, 2009.
The Islamic fire, fueled by immense oil income, is raging in certain regions of the world, smoldering in others, and is ready to ignite in yet other parts of the world. It is imperative for the free people of the world to abandon all illusions about Islam and put out its fire, once and for all. Multiculturalism, live and-let live, is a delusion of kind-hearted naïve people. Islam, as fractured as it is, is a non-compromising mono-culture; a cruel culture of a primitive people handed down by Muhammad some 1400 years ago.
It is true that most religions are intended to attenuate human fears. They are based on natural fears, many of which are irrational...but natural nonetheless. For example, many pagan religious practices were focused on the seasonal cycles related to the harvest. Why? Because if the harvest was poor, their entire civilization could perish, or be weakened to the point where a neighboring tribe would kill them off. While they misunderstood the scientific basis for weather, they created natural (yet irrational) religious beliefs about weather and harvest. In this sense, religions were psychologically useful and inevitable in addressing natural conditions.
But some religions establish for themselves fears of things which do not exist...which the religion itself invented in order to create and perpetuate fear, and then artificially addressed it in order to establish a political regime. The political nature of Islam transcends personal spiritualism and becomes a cult of oppression. This is fraud. This is evil. This is Islam.
Islam essentially invents the idea that Christians, Jews, and pagans are abominations and offensive to Allah, and that their very existence represents an attack upon the self-defined Islamic right to reign over the world. Allah thus enlists Muslim believers to eradicate by force those who offend him and by disbelieving, prevent his rule. True Muslim believers therefore become the enforcers, hit men and mercenaries for their god, in order to establish a global Caliphate for their parasitic clergy. Their targets are artificially constructed adversaries. Believers are instructed to fear the “great Satan.” and are told that if they do not live up to Allah’s calls to Jihad, they are themselves offensive to Allah and to their families. It’s a “you’re either for me or against me” strategy.
Contrast this with say, Christian fears. Christians too fear offending God, because they believe that God will judge their lives when their bodies die. So their fears are reduced by atoning in personal alignment with the teachings of the Bible.
So, as a political religion, Islam creates artificial fear of alien groups, and then eliminates the fear through war and coercion. Islam pleases Allah with brutality and Jihad. Islam seeks to instill a political regime to enforce its provisions. When such a political doctrine declares that “resistance is futile”, it is referring to corporeal enforcement by people.
Personal religions acknowledge natural fears, and then use light, wisdom, and the capacity for human nobility to eliminate them through a positive, spiritual exercise. Other religions encourage voluntary, personal spiritual alignment. The only “coercion” in a religion based on personal spiritualism is the conveyance of the natural idea of a soul and judgment. If you believe in these things, you change and atone, perhaps out of fear. If you do not, you accuse the evangelizer of being fraudulent...but a fraud is a demonstrable deception not an opinion, and the one who disbelieves in a personal religion cannot prove his point of view, so fraud is not in play as a driver of personal spiritualism. When a personal religion declares that “resistance is futile”, it is referring to spiritual enforcement by God.
This is the difference between day and night, between good and evil. Islam believes in the rule of Islam, Caliphate to the Sunnis and Imamate to the Shi’as. Hence, to Muslims, all other forms of government represent the handiwork of the Satan and the infidels. Therefore, one and all non-Islamic systems of government must be purified by the Islamic fire.
Islam is and has always been political, in the form of Imamate, Caliphate or by proxy where Islam, through religious divines, controlled the state. Saudi Arabia, for instance, does not even have a constitution. The Quran is the constitution. The country has a king. Yet, the king is the supreme enforcer of the laws dictated by Islam.
Islam is so radical that even the term “radical” does not adequately depict its true character. The founder of Islam, Muhammad, behaved in extreme ways whenever he could. Early on, in Mecca, among his tribe of Quraish, he was ridiculed as a crazed Poet. Ordinary residents of Mecca scorned him in their habitual way of treating the mentally deranged. What did Muhammad do? He personified meekness itself. He put up with extreme indignities, did not fight back and suffered abuses.
Time was on Muhammad’s side. Before long, he attracted followers, some of whom were men of power and influence, such as Umar, Uthman and Abu Bakr. Then the pendulum swung. The long-suffering meek became the tyrannical avenger. He ordered all the idols in the idolatry of Mecca destroyed, except the one called Allah. Yet, he selected the same name for a non-corporeal deity who commissioned him as his messenger. Then Allah’s messenger, Muhammad, set out to systematically exterminate people he perceived as his tormentors and enemies—Jews of Medina, among others.
The Quran is full of black and white, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable verses. Men who didn’t convert to Islam were labeled infidels and slaughtered; their women and children were taken along with all their belongings as booty. It was either Islam’s way or the highway. This radicalism is very much in action today.
In another Islamic country, Iran, where the mullahs rule, the constitution is squarely based on the Quran. Many laws are strictly drawn from the Sharia. The mosque is the state and no other competing political ideology is permitted. But marrying religion with government is stoking fire with explosives. In free democracies, governments are accountable to the people and serve at the people’s pleasure. In Islamic theocracy, governments are accountable only to Allah and the people must serve at the pleasure of the government. And one can see the result of Islamic total or partial rule in fifty-four or so countries which rank among the highest nations of the world on every index of misery.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Iran threw off its oppressive theocratic rule and established a government “of the people”, with room for all beliefs? Iran could be a powerful nation and a peaceful one, an example for the rest of the developing world of how to thrive without Islamic politics. However, the road to freedom is perilous. Nothing as worthwhile as freedom can be purchased easily. But the cause is worth it.
While I desire freedom in Iran, I am a committed anti-Islamist and anti-communist in general. I believe communism as an expression of materialist naturalist philosophy is atheistic, representing a desire by man to dominate both nature and man. To me, it is Satan’s “denial” play...that there is no God. But Satan and his minions work in multiple theaters simultaneously. Islam is Satan’s chief “deception” play. Rather than deny God exists, it asserts that God does in fact exist, but that God does not desire men worship out of love or free will, but through rote, fear, and guilt, and through the sins of pride, envy, and chauvinism.
It is a mentality of enslavement that drives Islam...“submission” in which man subdues other men in order to establish a kingdom of oppression and hatred on earth. Atheism, materialism and Islam appear as contradictions with respect to each other, but when you peel away the veneer of their pretense, you see that their aims are the same. Fascism is fascism.
We live in a society which worships “experts” and specialists. However, our distorted society of “experts” has continually failed us. Almost nothing they have told us has turned out to be true. Thus, I am a revisionist in that I believe much of what we believe is true is utterly false. I also believe in good and evil, a notion sadly obsolete in our nihilistic time. I don’t think Satan is any more a metaphor than is God.
Islam is theocracy, the rule of the clerics. The authoritarianism runs from the top to the bottom in a strict hierarchy with Allah at the top, to his Prophet, to the Caliphs or the Imams, to the lesser men of cloth along the chain of command. No one is allowed to contest or dispute the word and actions of the authorities. Islam and democracy, therefore, are inherently irreconcilable. In some Islamic circles Muslims speak of Islamic Democracy—an oxymoron.
Jihadists are the army of Allah. The use of violence as an instrument of policy has been and continues to be central to Islam. Muslims war under the firmly-believed and widely-cherished set of ideas that are rabidly militaristic. No matter which side is killed, Islam is the victor, “You kill them, you go to paradise; you get killed, you go to paradise,” are two examples of exhortation to jihadism and war.
To cut to the chase, we need to eliminate some disinformation and myths about the “war on terror”:
1. We are not fighting terrorism. We are engaging in an ideological battle between freedom, conservatism, democracy, individual rights, capitalism, “Christian” ethics and Islamofascism, communism-socialism, theocracy, and tyranny. There are also internationalist, dictatorial, globalist forces that seek to use the conflict to create an international government and a unification of all religions by the destruction of nationalism, patriotism, individual rights and sectarianism.
2. It is not “fanatical”, “radical”, or “extreme” Islam that we are fighting, but normal, orthodox, canonical, typical, accepted, traditional Islam, straight from the mouth of the Muhammad. Islam is violent in direct proportion to its mission and scripture. The so-called fanatics are only upholding the truth of their principles. There are those who do not openly engage in terrorism or warfare, but are in support of it, or are working in other ways to spread Islam by force or fraud.
3. Islam is evil, by any accepted definition of that word, and must be seen as such by all rational non-Islamists. There is no such thing as “peace” in Islam except the peace that comes after a successful war against infidels.
4. Islam can work by brute force and by the lengths to which the believers will go to perpetuate it. Its theology and practices make it inherently evil and dangerous to all of mankind. It has already spread and infected the world like a cancer. How do you nuke it out of existence? You can’t...in fact, they will nuke us first, and I guarantee it. When this happens, all hell will break loose, and most freedoms will be up in smoke. Ask yourself how the Palestinian problem can ever get resolved. There are only two ways: either they are gone from the land of Israel or converted from Islam. Otherwise, the war will never end. The Israeli-Palestinian war is not about the land, it never has been. It is about the eradication of the Jews; right to the last one of them because Muhammad had prescribed it and is eternal.
We must begin to declare Islam evil, not from a sectarian perspective, but from a universal, humanist one. Every encroachment of Islam as a religion must be rejected, harassed and discouraged by all people everywhere. Any leftist attempts to give aid and comfort to this religion of hate must be denounced and frustrated at every turn. Otherwise, get used to your radioactive suit and your fallout shelter, a standard of living—and a level of freedom of 1/10th what of you have today.
Warning to free men and women: remain a spectator at your own peril. It is imperative that you take a stand and do your part at denouncing the fraud of Islam and do all you can to prevent the Islamic fire from devouring our civilized democratic system."
For me personally, this is the most powerful essay I have read this year so far. I... think I agree with it, yet I would counsel that the West continues to try to implement some form of democracy in muslim countries, hoping that if we manage to get them to settle their conflicts without them caving each other's heads in, their economies may get better, their standard of living will enhance, and young muslims may be less inclined to blow themselves up because the mad mullahs demand it.
This may of course very well be a stretch, but it is actually the only alternative to a full blown war between islam and the rest of the world, a conflict that has the potential to dwarf the casualties suffered in both world wars. Many rational people may sense the intrinsic value of Mr. Imani's conclusions, but where is the world leader who would have the guts to say out loud what is written above and demand that the
ummah come clear with its intentions?
The symbol I included above, like I said a
Faravahar, is one of the best known, if not the best known
Zoroastrian symbols. It depicts the ancient Zoroastrian "God"
Ahura Mazda. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to find it on Mr. Imani's site, for it shows that this man valours his ancient Persian belief system Zoroastrianism. It seems that today, this religion is all but forgotten, having worldwide possibly some 200,000 followers left. But its importance cannot be underestimated, since it is actually the first monotheistic religion in recorded history... and some say it is actually a forerunner of the abrahamaic religions, alas including islam. Indeed, it introduced the concepts of an All-Powerful Force of the good, said
Ahura Mazda, the "uncreated Creator", saints (the
Yazatas), the eternal conflict between good (
asha) and bad (
druj), a holy book (the
Avesta), the prospect of a reward in the afterlife after having lived as a decent person and a punishment in case of the opposite, a Satan figure (
Angra Mainyu), the ultimate battle between good and evil in which good will prevail, and even a messiah figure (the
Saoshyant).
Being a christian myself and fairly comfortable with it, I can testify that my faith has, throughout my life, been an essential guidance tool not only in moral questions, but actually in virtually every other aspect of my life. Whenever in need or in a dire situation - and there have been quite a lot - prayer and introspection, preferably in a church but also wherever the occasion presented itself, have served to calm nerves, take heart and face the challenge
du jour. My knowledge of the Bible, while not scanty, enables me by no means to come up with the right verse for the right situation and identify it too - but like many a Christian I have found out that in its essence, everything can be led back to the Ten Commandments. And like many Christians have found out too, Christianity teaches you to realize your own fallibility (of which I am painfully aware myself) and to regard the awesome Creation with fitting humility, something atheists will need cosmology for before reaching the same conclusion (of course, Christianity and cosmology need not exclude each other, quite the contrary).
Be all that as it may, I don't feel the need to go around proselytizing. People are free to choose for themselves the belief system that best fits them and makes them comfortable in coping with the eventual
memento mori reality. Of course, our children are brought up in the Christian belief because of my conviction that what was good for me, will be good for them. But at some point, when we let them free, they will have to decide for themselves.
That having been said, I cannot feel but the truest sympathy for people like Mr. Imani, who seem to have found the same comfort with their ancient and worthy Zoroastrian belief as I have with Christianity. Like Christianity, Zoroastrianism is a belief system that instills in its adherents a love for the good and justice. There is actually little doubt in my mind that the high quality of Iranian culture can be attributed to Zoroastrianist influences, something that transpires in Iranian society to this day, despite the fact that islam, like everywhere else where it appeared,
destroyed the ancient Persian culture and led to the forced conversion of Persians. This may be a stretch, but I would even wager that the undeniably greater technological prowess of Iranians vis-à-vis their arab counterparts can be attributed at least partly to the Zoroastrianist mindset, active in Iranian society to this day.
MFBB.
The record speaks for itself: In February 2008, President George W. Bush cut a deal with congressional Democrats to pass a $152 billion Keynesian stimulus bill based on countering the recession with increased deficits. The centerpiece was a tax rebate of up to $600 per person, which had no significant effect on economic incentives, as reductions in tax rates do.
Tara and John Creamer met at college, where he was captain of the football team, and she never missed a game. "Her life, in her eyes, was perfect," said her sister, Liz Waldo. "She had a tremendous life in her short 30 years. Her smile was radiant. It was her most beautiful feature."
Very quick post. It's the 500th anniversary of John Calvin, a protestant reformer second only to Martin Luther. He was born Jean Cauvin in 1509 in Noyon, in Picardy in northern France. No time to elaborate, but the basic tenet of Calvin’s theology, aptly called Calvinism, is that God created human beings for "personal" fellowship. This led Calvin to conclude that all wisdom comes from knowledge of God and of ourselves, so that in knowing God, we know ourselves and vice versa. Calvin also stressed that what we know about God is strictly limited to what He explicitly revealed, so our chief preoccupation should not to be to waste time on theological speculation, but rather try moral edification.
"... Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.
