Several years ago, I was speaking with a left-wing journalist who was rather hysterical about the subject of religion — although perhaps I repeat myself. In any case, she had heard that then-President George W. Bush prayed for guidance before ordering the invasion of Iraq. She was appalled.
“Bin Laden is fighting for his God and Bush is fighting for his God!” she said. “It’s a holy war!”
As happens sometimes in this tragicomical life we live, her line of reasoning was absurd but her conclusion happened to be correct. What has been fatuously called “The War on Terror,” this ongoing struggle between Islamism and the rest of the world (including some of the Islamic world) is, in fact, a holy war: a violent argument over the nature of our Creator.
Americans right and left hate this fact. Many can barely face it. Almost no one in authority or the media ever dares mention it at all (Glenn Beck is the exception). In principle, through tradition, by law and nature, most of us are repelled by the idea of killing over religion. Freedom in these matters is our watchword. I say Jesus; you say Allah; let’s call the whole thing God.
This is not to indulge in any mealy-mouthed moral equivalence or dribble out some balderdash about how all religions are one and faith is a mountain that can be climbed from any side. Not likely. If there is a God — whether or not there is, in fact — there will be things you can say about Him that are true and things that are not true and some religions will surely contain more of the truth than others.
Still, over hard history, we have learned that there are some struggles in which the evil of the fight itself supersedes the good of any potential victory. Faith is not knowledge; we should approach the super-natural with humility in our beliefs and forbearance towards the beliefs of others. And anyway, many cherished doctrines, no matter how deep or meaningful, don’t have much immediate effect on our lives. I believe that God is three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit — but if it turns out He’s five guys named Moe, I’m not going to change my weekend plans.
So we hate the idea of fighting a holy war. But we have no choice. No matter what moral knots some self-loathing westerners tie the facts into, the truth remains, the other bastards started it and now it’s on. Doesn’t matter how tolerant you think you are. Doesn’t matter how many “Coexist” bumper stickers you own. If a man with a gun kicks your door down and starts telling you how to pray, there are only two possible outcomes: victory or surrender.
In order to secure victory in a holy war, however, you have to know what you’re fighting for. It’s not enough to kill the jihadis who want to kill us, or to dismantle the no-go Sharia enclaves being purposely created in cities throughout the west. A holy war is a violent argument about the nature of our Creator so in order to win, we have to know what Creator we’re trying to defend. This isn’t easy in a nation committed to religious liberty — a commitment that could not survive a kill-or-be-killed smackdown between your prophet and mine.
As far as I am concerned, you’re absolutely right. In fact, that was my first reaction to 9/11: “Those [expletive deleted] Muslims are fighting a [...] holy war! What is a nation of agnostics going to do about THAT?”
That’s one reason I have been trying to figure out where I hang my own hat, and it’s quite definitely not in the land of Islam. But I imagine I am not the only American making a similar inventory.
“What is a nation of agnostics going to do about THAT?”
Kill them until they quit sounds like a plan. Possibly, we should pick up the tempo?
Not all of us are agnostics. The media exaggerates the proportion of nonbelievers, because media drones have a tendency toward postmodernism, existentialism, or other flavors of nihilism themselves – a truly demonic belief system if there ever was one.
Truly, this is a battle between good and evil, and even though we may often fall short of goodness, Islam, as an ideology, is most definitely evil.
yes Tom. we should pick up the tempo. killem all and let God sortem out,
“Holy War” is a mistranslation of jihad. It actually means “righteous war”, which of course, has religious tones. The exact English translation is “crusade”. If we start using this term, it will clear away much of the fog. It is a crusade. Because it is, we are justified in replying in kind.
I disagree with nation building. I prefer to “let not one stone remain upon another”.
Mr. Malone – you hit the nail on the head. And the remarkable thing is that the LEFT accuses the right of engaging in a Crusade as if we started the whole thing. This IS a crusade and if the word was used rather than the word “terrorism” people would get it right quick, wouldn’t they. The word Crusade according to the left conjures up images of right wing Christian warriors killing innocent Muslims. What they left out is the defensive nature of the entire exercise. We are in a Crusade and we should resolve to use the word repeatedly. Notice how the left gasps in horror when it is used? They want to shut it down because they know damned well how it could change the narrative. Henceforth let us all be part of a Crusade to use the word.
The Crusades were a response to the Islamic takeover of Jerusalem and other parts of the world during the Islamic Empire’s dominance from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It isn’t necessary to apologize for a response of action against totalitarianism.
lane – i think that’s ahistorical. it was one version of totalitarianism against another. islam dominates or christianity dominates. remember the numbers of jewish communities slaughtered by crusaders on their way to jerusalem! the idea was how can one go fight the infidel abroad in jerusalem when the jewish infidels live right here in our midst, and we haven’t done anything about them. they weren’t fighting jewish totalitarianism – jews were a minority in their midst and not at war with them. the thing is, the crusades happened quite a long time ago, and unlike muslims, we’re not living permanently in the past, in a world that never changes. that was then, this is now. but there’s a reason that in the last war against islam, jews were viewed by crusaders as the enemy and this time andrew klaven’s idea is a judeo-christian battle against islam. it’s not the same thing all over again, but the same islam against a different, much more healthy christianity.
I don’t see any issue with saying the muslims are fighting a crusade. the trouble i see is if we say we are fighting a crusade back. even if we here on pjm understand we mean a religious war for liberty, religious freedom, and etc. derived from the judeo-christian understanding of God – Ok, but the muslims will only hear we are fighting to impose christianity, the left and mainstream media will start with christians are trying to turn the us into a theocracy..and etc. crusades are a troublesome term to describe the war the us and the west must fight, because while the muslims may be fighting to impose a specific religion, we are not, we are at most fighting for ideals derived from our religion. and the last crusades christians fought were as one specific religion against another, vying for control.
“Crusade” (from Latin crux, cross) is literally a war fought to defend the Cross. More precisely it is a war fought to defend Christendom, the civilization that professes Christian faith and morals. The West formally abandoned the ideal of Christendom somewhere around the Peace of Westphalia, but its cultural residue continued to sustain Western civilization until about 1968 when all hell broke loose.
Islam is the antithesis of the Cross, and jihad is not crusade. Jihad is waged for Islamic conquest, to spread Islam by force where advantageous (not merely where “necessary”), to claim booty and slaves (“what your right hand possesses”), and to bring all other peoples under subjugation.
jaafar it’s not a holy war. it’s a very unholy war brought on by a bunch of IDIOTS who are still living in the ninth century and want to drag the rest of the world down with them. this CULT called islam should be completely and totaly erradicated as the desease it is,
Bush kept us safe. God Bless Bush and his family.
All religions are human inventions.
Ultimately, this truth, trying to break through all the lies and nonsense and ignorance in its way, will triumph.
Well you said it so it must be true. Let’s throw centuries of Western Civilization down the sewer. Never mind it was built on the twin pillars of Judeo-Christian revelation and enlightenment freedom; thus saith eman “it’s all hogwash” “We are the captains of our own fate” (Tim McVeigh liked that poem “Invictus”too)
Did you go to Bloomberg’s souless memorial to 9/11 yesterday? You atheists, despite your puny numbers are as big a threat to our survival as the Hitlers in headscarves as you try to gut the soul of our nation. Voltaire was a prophet like you. He made a statement to the effect that in 50 years the Bible would no longer be read in Europe. Despite the horrors of the secular French Revolution against church and state he helped initiate; a few years after his death they were printing Bibles in the very house he died in.
Even if that were true, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali (an atheist ex-muslim) states, she knows which God she “doesn’t believe in”. To her, it matters that all our cherished rights and freedoms arose from those who followed the Judeo-Christian God. The God of Abraham, that is, not Obama’s God of Jacob.
obama read psalm 46 from the christian bible
http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/psalms/46.html
He’s shameless in his pursuit of power, isn’t he?
leciat,
Bet you anything he did not understand what he was reading. Because if he did, he would not have read it for not being muslim friendly.
it’s not un-mulsim friendly either.
look, he was supposed to do a reading. someone chose this psalm as appropriate to the occasion. it says the god of jacob, and they said christians? naturally, it’s the hebrew bible, god of abraham, issac, jacob, ok. jews? same thing. muslims? jacob is considered a prophet in islam too. ok, nice and ecumenical, pass it on to obama.
muslims recognize that jacob was the father of the jews, and he’s not MORE important to islam than the judeo-christian tradition. still, muslims do acknowledge jacob as a prophet.
the real issue is the way they resolve this. they decide that jacob was a MUSLIM and the jews blasphemers. everyone was muslim – abraham, isaac, ishmael, jacob, moses, jesus – all muslims. anything in the hebrew or christian bible that contradicts islam is “corrupted”, forged and etc. that’s the gist of it.
here’s a link to their words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trNIU90VvFY
incidentally if becky (who wrote the original comment on another posting re. the god of jacob and got the discussion started) is reading – is it possible that you read that some elements in mohammed’s life are meant to evoke jacob’s life, specifically his dream of ascent to jeruslame evoking jacob’s dream of the ladders? b/c i’ve read that since, but nonetheless…there are elements in mohammed’s life that are meant to echo moses’ life too..and mulims recognize moses as a prophet (again, in their opinion he adhered to ISLAM), but i don’t think anyone would say that moses is not much more important to jews, and even christians than to muslims. they kind of incorporate all kinds of biblical figures into islam, even while minimizing their significance relative to their importance in the judeo-christian tradition
I would agree that rites and rituals are pointless, unless there is unknown physics behind them (which is possible).
Google pantheism or pandeism, both wonderfully heretical beliefs from which you could even derive a dogmatic/creator God.
“Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain.” Yes, there is a real force there. Moses performed miracles. Jesus performed miracles. They used faith. The rituals help focus that part of the mind that can harness faith.
Prayer works. People who are recovering in a hospital who have had others pray over them, regardless of faith, have a far better recovery rate… just as one example.
no they don’t…people with a positive attitude and belief that they will get better are the same …fact
Only an omnipotent observer (whether theoretical or real) can see the absolute truth. I believe my G-d is the omnipotent observer and is the embodiment (whether theoretical or real) of truth, good, and righteousness. The concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood rise from this construct, this truth. I am a Jew.
Except, depending on their veracity, the revealed religions.
If you are as smart as you think you are, then you’ll have 3 choices when the Muslim world conquers – as is consistent throught their history. 1) convert to Islam, 2) become a “dhimmi” slave and pay them tribute to live, or 3) die. Take your choice. Either way, Islam might be doing the world a short term favor by getting rid of people so smart like you, that you are dangerously stupid.
4) Buy a machine gun, build a bow & arrow, use an axt.
Oh yes and “Culturally, atheism is a disaster” is rubbish, enlightenment did not come from any religious roots. Science and enlightenment came from secularism. While secularism is NOT atheism, it does put the religious know-it-alls in their place, in churches not in government.
Your knowledge of history is minimal. What you have is at best a caricature of the true.
In fact, most of the great scientists of the Enlightenment made their discoveries precisely BECAUSE they believed in a God of order and rationality.
The atheists, on the other hand, brought us the horrors of the French Revolution.
eman, correct. All religions are human inventions…except that Christ, “..and I say thou art Rock (Cephas), and upon this Rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”, was both fully God, and fully human. It is the religion which if True.
Oops…”…which is true”
Seriously?
The Christian religion is a human invention, but at the same time it is not?
We created all the religions, morals, ethics, etc. in this world. We also invented the lie that at least some of these things came from Somebody Else.
One day, we will accept we bs’d ourselves big time..
Is that Somebody Else there anyway?
I don’t know, but I think the answer is yes.
I know something is coming to earth soon, but I fear people won’t understand what they’re looking at. Nobody will change their religion of course, however they may be confused and mislead into some very tragic ideas.
You’re right, Mr. Klavan.
Far too many in the West, even believers, have been bamboozled by PC nostrums about phobias, etc. into avoiding their own investigation into the doctrines, laws and history of Islam. And Muslims have played the current victim-race card perfectly, making our very justified mistrust of them OUR moral problem.
Islam is essentially, inherently, from the beginning and by intention, an absolutist expansionist theocracy. Islam is only real and itself in a Muslim state. And in a Muslim state, non-Muslims are, at best, second-class. Sharia is nothing but religious Jim Crow.
The only time Islam does not act that way is when A. it is held in check by stronger powers or B. it is going through a period of internal decay.
It does not matter if you know a nice Muslim family down the street. Muslims IN GROUPS is what this religion is about and when it reveals its true territorial face. Ninety percent of “the Muslim world” became that way by military conquest.
Agree COMPLETELY. Well said.
We have a tool for “separating the sheep from the goats.” It is the Hamas Covenant. If you want to know which side that person is on, ask him to read and respond to it, or just read some of the choice phrases from it.
Any Muslim who is not immediately repelled by it, who excuses it, who does not recognize it as blasphemy, a slander against Islam and Allah, is not a person of good will.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
For a more authoritative version of Islam, you can go here, to the website that includes the scholarly Muslim response to the Pope’s Regensberg address. http://www.acommonword.com/
In my opinion, the Pope served up a fat one, and the Muslim scholars hit it out of the park. Now it is up to the rest of us to take these documents and put them to good use amongst ourselves.
Scholarly Muslims recognize that their religion is Abrahamic in origin, and embrace the same foundational Commandments that we got from the Jews: Love God, and Love your neighbor. The Islamist terrorists do not love their neighbors — any of them.
The Allah of Islam is NOT the God of Abraham. Allah is the Adversary. The Moon and Star is the symbol. The Moon god of Ur, Who required child sacrifice. The star is the Morning Star, Lucifer. They are one and the same being. They tell you who they are on their flag. You have to be ignorant to not see it.
If you were trying to mainstream Satanic worship, would you act in any different fashion from the Islamists? Islam is Devil worship.
You can, if you wish, allow yourself to be suckered by the Islamist terrorists. You can choose to prejudge people, and insult them, and even declare war against your potential allies, if you wish. Or you can choose to use the tools we have been given, and peel off the people who are repelled by the ugliness of the Islamist terrorists, their philosophy and above all, their actions.
I intend to act on the theory that God will have mercy on us, by reducing both the numbers of casualties and the duration of this war, to the extent we look for, and ally with, Muslims of good will. I also intend to test their good will, by asking them to repudiate the Hamas Covenant.
Regardless of the evolution of the concept of God as taught in Islam. my understanding is that they proclaim the God of Abraham to be the one true God. They even believe tha the Jews are God’s covenant people of the Old Testament. I’ve no desire to disputre these claims from Islam, nor the origin of the concept of Allah.
Take your own example of Lucifer, the “Morning Star”. The only reason that Lucifer is mconsidered the name of the Devil in the English speaking world is because the King James Version mistakenly used Lucifer in Isaiah in an account whic hwas actually about the fall of an earthly king, not the Devil from heaven. Lucifer is actually one of the minor gods from Roman Mythology. He was the “morning star” in that mythological belief system. But, despite this origin of Lucifer being the Devil, I’m fine with such a reference, however erred its origin may be. Furthermore, I’m not bothered a bit that Jesus’ resurrection is celebrasted after the name of a pagan goddess.
While I find Klavan correct in that in order to win the war on terror, we American must retain our spiritual sense of indentity in the Judeo-Christian God, pronouncing satanism upon islam will do no good. That simply declares a modern-day Crusade upon Islam and I do not think God will be on your side if you go in that direction. Thus you will lose such a battle.
I’m all for defeating jihadists. I say kill every last one of them if needs be. I don’t even care if they claimn “santuary” in a mosque. Wherever they are, that’s a ligitimate military target. Butr this is based upon their actions; not their religious beliefs.
Valerie, I checked your link but it turns out I have read that letter before and it basically starts out acting as if the Christian doctrine of the Trinity does not exist and at the same time not so subtly lecturing to us about the singleness of God as if teaching ignorant children, purporting to quote our own Scripture at us as if they knew it better than we do. As if generations of Christian scholars just made the Trinity up out of thin air.
I have always found the letter to be extremely condescending. Our betters teaching us benighted followers of a corrupted religion. I was also struck by all of the issues that they avoided entirely. They offer a sanitized version of Islam that does not exist in this world and never has.
But if the letter has some value it is as a contribution to a discussion of differences. The Vatican agreed as much in their reply.
The Pope had the exact same intention with his Regensburg address. To ask tough questions and to get at substantive answers. He did not quote the offending passage as if its sentiments exactly echoed his own. He was making a point about not pussy footing around the real issues. If we insist on pretending like there are no real or substantive differences or if we continue to act as if we don’t really believe what we say we believe, we will never get at the truth of anything. Christians must start from the same place as Muslims do, from a sincere belief that our religion is the best hope of all mankind and that it is in the best interests of everyone that we act accordingly. This is the only way to truly represent any religion in any discussion.
So no, the Pope was not all wrong, and the Muslim were not some kind of pure and holy example for him. I say the score is more like a tie for those of us who don’t see in black and white and aren’t biased against the West.
In Umberto Eco’s wonderful novel Foucault’s Pendulum, he uses Causaubon’s girlfriend Lia to explain everything to the reader. In a brief passage about a bomb being planted on a train, Lia says the terrorist is seeking God. The writers coming to the vanity press are seeking God. The people seeking the coded message(the Maguffin in the book)are seeking God. Causaubon, in all his flailings, is seeking God. Lia, IIRC, puts her hand on her belly containing her unborn child. She knows where God can be found.
Unfortunately, Lia and Eco are in the minority.
I think the “Islamism v. Every other religion on the planet” stand-off is more about power than it is about the nature of God or Allah.
When the Saudis established their monarchy in the 1920′s there was an agreement forged with the Salafists, we’ll administer the place, you take care of the religious stuff. These kinds of agreements are the essence of power arrangements.
Upon their reading of the Koran, modern Islamists in the style of bin laden and zawahiri have decided that a good and faithful Muslim must live under Allah’s imperative to kill or, alternatively, to enslave and require jizya from anyone who is not a Believer, anyone who chooses dhimmitude over conversion to Islam.
I find this absurd. I like to imagine Allah finds it absurd, as well
Rather than the nature of God or a holy war, I would frame the argument between Islamism and Most Everything Else as totalitarianism versus liberty. I’ll also go with the version of a Creator who establishes human freedom as an inalienable right, freedom not conferred by government, government existing solely to guard human freedom.
(I’d frame the argument between modern Progressivism and the Constitutional Republic the same way, one of power & control versus liberty)
It really doesn’t matter what you think – it matters what “they” think. They have said (and I believe them) that it’s a holy war. They believe in the violent spread of islam and that anyone who doesn’t convert must die or be a slave. I take them at their word.
During the Crusades (the last time this discussion came up) we (westerners) at least had the courage of our convictions. Now we believe in nothing and will probably lose this time around.
Reading the sundry fatwas, listening to the real time diatribes of radical clerics in mosques from Indonesia to London to New York, I’ve become convinced that the jihadist agenda is more about secular power than it is about conflicting versions of God and Allah.
Calling it a Holy War, however, gets the folks riled up in service to those power seeking religious leaders, as when a firestorm was intentionally created in the Middle and Far East over the Danish cartoons and as lesser firestorms are ignited every day on the streets of London and Paris.
To ExCath, the Koran was written down some 150 to 200 years after Mohammed’s death. He neither read nor wrote.
A lot can happen in terms of human input in a century or so.
I’d like to think Allah was wise enough to know that many of the Sura, in particular the later ones Mohammed “received” from the Angel Gabriel in Medina, were about a 7th century marauder making rules to keep his various households and war booty in tact. Allah might more readily approve the earlier Sura from Mecca which were less bellicose and more “spiritual” in nature.
My comment was made in a light spirit that no true God would order the slaughter of billions of his own creations just because they didn’t follow the dictates of Islam.
I don’t pretend to channel radical Islamists. I just look at them and the manipulative way they use this religion called Islam and I know they’re seeking something that is not faith and is not justice.
And it has nothing to do with anything holy.
Of course it’s about power and control, but using the religious motif forces all Muslims to adhere to the “struggle”.
They are too damn scared to be judged apostates.
One does not need to use the word religion in this conflict as ideology would have done much better to not frighten off those secular and atheistic “believers” with commandments to not murder nor steal.
Allah cannot find absurd what his own book demands. Wishful thinking on your part.
Islam is the one-world government of the Anti-Christ. The rise of Islam (one world government) is foretold in the Bible. The Muslim Messiah (Mahdi) is the Christian Anti-Christ.
Not exactly the most popular viewpoint, but then again, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Yes – Revelations speaks of the one-world government and a one-world religion. It will be against the law to have any other religion that the one. Only islam is that totalitarian.
Oh – and pretty much the only sentence for any infraction is beheading.
I’m on the Right, occasionally leaning Third Way, and I have no problem admitting that this is a religious war.
As for the players in this drama:
The Secularist Left is in that situation described in the Chestertonian maxim: “There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.” Since the Left is now heading into demographic oblivion (which accounts for much of the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth you hear from them these days) we can leave them to one side. In twenty years, they just won’t matter much, and they really can’t be bothered to “matter” anyway. Since 9-11, we have seen an emerging strain of thought on the Left that recognizes democracy is, no matter how they try to word it, untenable without religion, specifically without Christianity, and yet it is intolerable to the Left to accept Christianity. It would, for one thing, require that these self-described Brights admit they were wrong, and badly so. That would puncture their main source of self-worth. Thus, rather than reexamine their hostility to religious beliefs, they seem content to turn liberal democracy into some kind of suicide pact, and in some of the more pathetic cases, are happy to hand even the rusty, broken sword of The Enlightenment over to Al-Qaeda and the like rather than allow that Christianity might have been on to something all along.
The really interesting and important argument is between those who insist that that Islam is more or less of a piece with the Monotheistic religions (usually spoken of as The Abrahamic Tradition or Religions) and is therefore ultimately amenable to liberal Republican Democracy, and those think this is nonsense. I’m more or less with the latter, though I will listen to arguments from both sides. Complicating the situation are the many American Muslims who seem to have assimilated pretty well, and the fact that all people exhibit varying degrees of commitment to whatever god they worship.
The argument “against” has to do with Imitatio Dei, or The Imitation of (one’s) God. In Islam, Allah is, let us say, “too omnipotent” setting in motion the very spin of every atom. Whatever is, therefore, is His Will. And yet we observe that the world is cruel and capricious which leads to the sort of fatalism, cruelty and backwardness one sees in many majority Muslim countries. I get along with you, or cut off your head, whatever happens, it was The Will of Allah. In Judaism and later in Christianity, God has a kind of qualified onmipotence. Though there is, in the abstract, nothing He couldn’t do if He wished, He is nonetheless bound by His Nature, His Own Lovingkindness and Righteousness, to certain courses of action. Though He is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, He hears the cry of unjustly persecuted, the widow and the orphan. He Himself suffers with the least of His creations, and, according to Christianity, did so in a completely literal fashion, by becoming a man despised and rejected by the very ones he came to save. As you do things for the weakest of these my brothers, you do them unto me.
The more you believe in your god, the more you will imitated him; therefore, what you believe about him will matter greatly. This may be oversimplifying it a bit, but that’s the argument as I understand it.
Dear Langenbahn, Good comments. I agree with the gist of your thoughts but would like to make a few points. “In Judaism and later in Christianity, God has a kind of qualified omnipotence”. God made men in His image with free will. I wouldn’t call that qualifying His omnipotence. You do say that in the abstract God can do anything, but He can’t act in contradiction to His Nature which is All Good and All Loving. Agree totally. Free will in Man is what makes life challenging, mysterious, and unexplainable by the atheist. I just don’t like the phrase “qualified omnipotence. Additionally, I really found this interesting: “Since 9-11, we have seen an emerging strain of thought on the Left that recognizes democracy is, no matter how they try to word it, untenable without religion, specifically without Christianity, and yet it is intolerable to the Left to accept Christianity.” Please add to this comment. I would love to read books or articles on this subject. Many Thanks, don obrien
For that, try this book review:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1129/Death%20of%20Sat.htm
And you might aquaint yourself with the oeuvre of the newly-minted PJM contributor Spengler. He’s the go to guy for the “against” side of the “Islam is compatible with democracy” discussion.
Re: Qualified Omnipotence. Perhaps if I amend it to say a “self-qualified” Omnipotence? God, who would have to be theoretically invincible, seems to act as if, in a favorite phrase of mine, Invincibility is overrated. In fact, a la Phil 2:7, He deliberately makes Himself vulnerable in various ways, culminating in the Incarnation. Allah seems to be like The Fonz from Happy Days: No one touches The Fonz! Almost like the Nietzschean superman. He has no weaknesses, he can’t be touched by the suffering of his creatures. IOW, he’s “too Omnipotent.” It can be a very pious mistake to make, first made, I think, in the Book of Job, but a mistake, not the least because it vitiates freewill.
Chesterton, who said so much so well, puts it like this in Orthodoxy: “Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.” (CH VIII – The Romance of Orthodoxy)
Likewise C.S. Lewis who says something to the effect that we worship God because He is good, not because He is all-powerful. If we worshipped Him because of omnipotence, an omnipotent fiend would do just as well. There are different kind of omnipotence. Ask for too much of it, a you may lose too many precious things.
Very good
Curious why my comment got deleted. I guess challenging Atheist thought is not acceptable in these parts. Whatever.
oops thought I got deleted….
“Bin Laden is fighting for his God and Bush is fighting for his God!” she said. “It’s a holy war!”
Well, Napoleon once said that, “God is on the side with the heavier artillery.”
In Cornelius Ryan’s epic masterpiece “The Longest Day,” both a German officer and an American officer both said, “I sometimes wonder who’s side God is on.”
God is on the side of free men and women that refuse to live under the thumb of dictators and tyrants, crazed religious zealots (like the mullahs in Iran) or monarchs. We are free not because we say so, but because we can back up our words with strength. So who’s side is God on? Our side, of course. But I wouldn’t mind backing up that statement with 15 carrier battle groups, too.
If I had to quote a movie about God and war, it would be “Full Metal Jacket.” As Gunny Hartman said about God, “He plays his games. We play ours.”
That’s makes about as much sense as anything else that’s been said here. I’m glad some of you see a grand pattern involving our Creator. All I see is chaos.
You see chaos, because you do not understand human nature. The Bible is written
with a complete understanding of human nature.
Here is an example. Most men will not change until they hit rock-bottom. Some will not change even then. Read that aloud, then read Revelations. The godly shall be taken up in the Rapture. The evil will dominate the Earth for seven years. Those in between shall suffer. They shall either choose to partake in the evil doings, or they shall choose good, withdraw, and suffer mightily. (They will change or not.) The evil will destroy each other, because in the end, evil consumes itself, for evil is really about destruction.
I once heard Glen Beck address the issue about whose side God is on. The answer is so obvious we wonder why we even have to ask. It is not up to us to try to get God on our side. It is up to us to be on GOD’S side. He has given us a Book that tells us how to do that.
Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
You said: “He has given us a Book that tells us how to do that.” Very true… it’s interesting to note from the Word that in the past the LORD has used evil nations to judge other nations for their evil / sins. And the course, “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” notes that the LORD has also brought persecution of His people to get them to take the gospel into all the world. Perhaps since we haven’t gone to Muslim nations in great numbers, the LORD is bringing them to us…. so that we share the Good News of Jesus. Perhaps He’s doing both… judging us and giving us a burden to share the Good News.
Banned I guess, Oh well I’ll take my disturbing Christian views elsewhere.
My apologies for sniveling
Um… I can see your comment about atheism, and your wondering about where your post was. They moderate comments, I think, so it takes a bit for them to appear.
It is about religion, but the author makes it a more lofty argument than it should be on the Muslim side of the coin. The Jihadists seethe with fury that the mosques that some of their fellow religionists are planting in our cities are being used by immigrants here and not by the native population. We’re supposed to be clamoring to these things—build it and they will come, but we aren’t doing that. In fact, the more Muslims are exposed to the West and Westerners the more unsettling is their realization that we don’t think much of Islam. Most of us aren’t even curious about it. Some of their imams might think they are pulling something on the infidels by recruiting some prison convicts and the occasional white trash type. But for the most part it is a humiliating experience to live in a country where Islam, the be-all and end-all of these people, is being dissed so savagely by our indifference. Somewhere deep inside the Jihadies it must be starting to dawn on them that one particular country in the West won’t be a pushover for infiltration and the fight indeed is on. Unless these people have a much bigger taste for dying than for killing they should reconsider if Islam is even worth it.
They DO have a taste for dying. As I heard it it said by one of our fine warriors…”They want to kill us and die for their God. We’re meeting them half way”. Well put.
Robert R. Reilly in ‘The Closing of the Muslim Mind’ explains how 12Th century philosopher, al-Ghazali deconstructed the ‘G D’ of Abraham, a ‘G D’ of Justice and Reason and constructed the Muslim ‘G D’ as one of Will and Power. The implications of his arguments plague us to this day.
with all respect for al-Ghazali and Robert Reilly, the point is already made in the Koran where the whole chapter is dedicated to arguing that “God’s hands are not tied”. Judeo-Christian god is one of reason, and, apart from fierceness and punishments, one of eventual benevolence and grace. You can’t build a good cult this way, so M. argued, ahem, I mean had revealed to him, that Allah’s will is absolutely not qualified by benevolence and reason and requires blind and absolute submission.
Thus Jews could move away from stoning and other Deuteronomy nastiness, reasoning their way from benevolence and grace of their God. M. had to frame that as blasphemy, and eliminate reason and free discourse from the cult so that military and political expansion of the cult for the benfit of ulema could proceed indefinitely.
That is the essence of the conflict.
you know,the stoning was always symbolic, right? if someone was executed, the courts would throw a stone on the dead body. there’s no evidence of anyone ever interpreting stoning in judaism otherwise. i realize that in the christian bible, it sounds like people would just round up a suspected adulter and stone her to death and whatnot, blasphemers, like a scene out of Shirley Jackson’s “the lottery,” but these scenes were recorded long after jesus’ death by people already far removed from judaism. there was no such stoning done in jesus’ lifetime, and as stated, no record of anything else ever being done in judaism. the main mechanism for dealing with criminals of any sort in jesus’ time was anyway the prison system, it being almost impossible to meet the standard of evidence for formal court punishment, especially execution of any sort.
It wasn’t *always* symbolic. If the convict didn’t die from the execution, they followed with stoning. Otherwise, it was symbolic.
Re: Langenbahn – great comment.
There are a few people who have come to conclusion, with some reluctance, that Christianity is necessary for the civilization that I want to be part of. After years of thought I’m forced to defend Christianity and more specifically Catholicism even though I consider myself to be a free man with my own personal understanding (or lack thereof) of God.
Re: Islam – I think that some strands of Islam are compatible with the civilization I want to see survive (Sufis almost certainly). I find it curious that there are quite a large number of splinter sects in Islam (Druze, Alawite, etc.). I think that is a hopeful element to the problem we face today.
The Sufis are the smallest minority in Islam, and by quite a lot IIRC.
This article is just a bunch of religious babble from someone who appears not to have “thought through his own thoughts”.
I may not be a religious man, now do I subscribe to the belief that God exists. It’s a holy war when considered in such a light i.e. the enemy is fighting for the sake of their belief in God. But this isn’t a holy war in the sense that the Crusades were…we are not fighting over the holy land. It is a fight for survival. On one side, there is a collection of religious fundamentalists who seek to ‘purify’ the world and bring it under one rule. That one rule is the iron/sand fist of Sharia totalitarianism. The other side is a mixture of practically every religion, philosophy, and sect of humanity.
The reason it seems to be a holy war is the nature of the enemy: the belief that they are fighting for God and that they wish to create a world wherein ‘His’ law is THE law. But the other side…the side on which we all find ourselves…are not so committed to creating God’s law. We are committed to defending certain philosophical ideals. Perhaps these ideals are God given, or perhaps there is no God. Either way, we know them to be worth protecting and worth fighting for. It is in this sense that the holy war is created; two sides fighting for ideals to which they are committed religiously.
The modern Enlightenment was born of The Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453). At the beginning of the Hundred Years War, both sides confidently expected that God would give them victory. All believed back then that …
And yet, by the end of the Hundred Years War, with Europe impoverished, its cities in ruins, with millions dead and deadly epidemics widespread, God had made it abundantly clear that He simply didn’t care much care, either way, regarding the relative merits of the two sides.
Folks began to think for themselves … and so the Enlightenment was born. The Enlightenment that appreciates that folks who advocate modern holy wars, are standing on ground that God himself has disdained to stand upon.
Oh and by the way … the quote is not from the Dark Ages of the Hundred years War, but rather is modern: it’s verbatim from Andrew Klavan’s just-released children’s book The Final Hour.
And its advocacy of that murderous Dark Age ideology is why I regard Mr. Klavan’s essay as ranking among the most toxic ever to appear on PJM/Tatler.
—————————
Hundred Years’ War
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War
Excuse me, Physicist. All opinions are welcome here, but this is total foul play! The quote from my book comes from the mouth of the book’s most evil villain. Three frowny faces back at you for distorting the book’s ideas by taking the quote out of context.
Andrew, thanks for the clarification. The tactic is not unexpected from people of that ilk.
Mr. Klavan, I stand corrected, and I apologize for for my error.
And yet, a great lesson of history is that whenever whosoever adopts the methods and language of our enemies, inescapably becomes like unto that enamy.
America’s most experienced, and most senior, military leaders are gravely and rightly concerned regarding this threat.
All who know what the name “Krulak” means to US Marines, will take this video seriously.
——————————–
Stronger and Safer without Torture
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of0BW7i64Cc
Fair enough. Thanks. On with the argument!
You mean the Renaissance, don’t you? What is generally referred to as the Enlightenment began in the mid-18th century with Rousseau and others. They argued that men didn’t necessarily need God, was naturally good, but corrupted by society – unlike Renaissance men who maintained that faith, aided by reason, was necessary to attain the Good. Erasmus would have been the go-to guy in the Renaissance. But I wouldn’t trust wikipedia on religion or anything pertaining to western culture. The editors are biased and deeply oikophobic.
Andrew Klavan should stick to comedy, because this is hogwash. It amounts to an assertion that we can counter insanity only by being insane ourselves.
Yeah, that’s what the Left does not—cannot–get through its thick skull: Islamic terrorism is a war of religious conquest. Because most of then are, themselves, not members of an established religion—although Liberalism is a religion in itself, a form of Gnosticism–they cannot conceive of religion as motivation.
Unfortunately, they see everything through the Marxist prism of “social justice.” Therefore, any problem mankind encounters can only be solved economically. But remember, you Liberal-Leftist jackasses, you’re just as in thrall to your ‘religion’ as any of us are. You are not as enlightened as you believe you are. You are blind.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a sickle.
It is not possible for finite human minds to grasp the infinite, whatever its completeness might involve. It’s sometimes possible to infer items of knowledge about it. But however far we progress in amassing knowledge, the infinite will still be out there, and it will remain larger than we can grasp, for we will remain finite.
Questions about God are questions about the infinite. Propositions about God are propositions about the infinite. Therefore, they will remain open to dispute for as long as we choose to entertain them. No item of insight or revelation should be taken as absolutely trustworthy, absolutely beyond all doubt.
But there is this about God, and about religion: they’re powerful motivators. The jihadists who seek to convert, subjugate, or slaughter us are driven by their faith; nothing else could persuade a man to accept certain, gory death purely for the sake of inflicting death on innocent unknown others. Their faith, as vile and inhuman as it is, is their source of strength.
We’re embarrassed to speak of faith in this age. I don’t know why; the objections to faith made by such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris strike me as laughable pseudo-sophistication with a big helping of arrogance on the side. Their superciliousness toward those who differ does them no credit. But they and their fellow-thinkers have somehow managed to make many persons reluctant to speak of their faiths.
Yet every day, every last man alive acts from faith. He may act from faith in the rightness of his core principles. He may act from faith in the fidelity of his spouse or the trustworthiness of his friends. And he definitely acts from faith whenever he walks across an unknown surface, trusting it not to collapse beneath him.
Faith is only belief without proof.
I cannot prove there’s a God. I cannot prove the correctness of my Christian faith. But I also cannot disprove these things, and I have my own reasons for believing them. They are wholesome and life-affirming; they command only that we thank God for His gifts and do no harm to the innocent; no more than that. And they have energized and sustained me through personal storms a faithless version of me would not have been able to weather. I know that from personal experience.
Colonel Kratman may have given us the ultimate explanation for why, despite our unprecedented wealth and military might, we’ve been unable to expunge the jihadist threat. He has faith in his cause, so much so that he’s willing to die for it. Perhaps our own faith, whether in having God on our side or in the abstract, unprovable principles of right and wrong that even our atheists claim to uphold, isn’t strong enough to match that of our enemy. Perhaps that’s where all our weaknesses originate.
Nice column, thank you.
I think you are right and I think you are wrong: wrong, because islam is not a religion but a military-political imperialism masked as a religion.
But it is true that the muslims ignore that God is Infinite Love.
Therefore they can only hate all the other religions in which the truth of God as Infinite Love is at the center of the spiritual life and of the daily life.
Therefore it is a religious war. As you said, they started it.
We will win it.
Andrew,
Your essay reminds me a little of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address. I am sure you have read it, but for those who have not I think they would find it very interesting: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html
His quotation of the Byzantine emperor on Islamic holy war caused quite a reaction, but I think what he has to say about contemporary Europe is at least as important.
Regards,
Matt
We got a visit from the JWs (Jehovah’s Witnesses) this weekend and the nice lady informed me that the game is up, finito, no mas, say your prayers etc al
Now the wife and I are Catholic and our reaction to 9/11 was just that: it’s holy war. And the cause is not just religion but the losers of the 20th century
seek the demise of the winners (us).
It may be worth discussing, further, if our Gods are in this fight with us or not? I’m convinced of it and believe that my God is invincible. This does not mean we ain’t gonna get hammered in the process…….
All you really need to know is the God the jihadists are bringing is effectively a god of war. If you’re God isn’t their god of war, or isn’t even a god at all, you’d better be prepared to defend yourself or submit.
We don’t have much room left in the world for a practicing god of war.
The book of Daniel says the Antichrist will worship the God of forces.
How many folks recognize the painting as Dore’s Richard and Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf?
Yah know, a painting that celebrates Christian military conquests in the Holy Land *does* kind of convey the message “With the help of God, Christians are willing and able to kill their way to victory!”
Uhhh … not everyone thinks American conservatism should push that message.
——————————-
Battle of Arsuf
URL: http://pajamasmedia.com/andrewklavan/2011/09/12/the-war-on-terror-is-all-about-god/#respond
A Pope telling men to murder in the name of Christ is not Christian. It is Catholic, or Universal Church teachings of men. Not the teaching of G-d the Father in Christ’s name.
Wrong again. The Christian crusades were an attempt to take back and restore the holy land to Christianity. The middle east was Christian before the muslim conquest.
I find it quite interesting and yet disheartening that those who seek to disparage Christianity love to quote from crusade times when Bibles were few and people for the most part were illiterate. Glossed over in their fiery darts is the fact that many so-called church leaders were corrupt, and used the faithful’s ignorance as a means to power. It was illegal(according to church doctrine at the time) to translate the scriptures into the native tongues in simple language in order to preserve the elite’s status-quo of ung-dly power over G-d’s people.
It was the faith and courage of folks like William Tyndale, who braved being burned at the stake in order to bring the good news in words they could understand to his people he had a vast G-dly love for. His reasoning was to let the word itself dispel the lies spoken in Christ’s name by those who knew better.
I tend to agree with Mr. Tyndale. The words of the prophets do a better job of revealing the living G-d than any attempt my feeble mind can even attempt. I do thank G-d that he has blessed me with many copies and translations of these inspired words so I can see for myself what the true character of G-d is, sealed with the blood of much better men than myself.
So go ahead, ridicule that which you have chosen to be willfully ignorant. It IS your G-d given right after all. But one thing is for sure. At the end of the day, you are no longer in a position where you can blame G-d or his Church for your ignorance and lack of faith!
do you not see a difference between your analysis – that the crusades were a period in which christian teachings were corrupted and not consistent with christian ideals – and attempts to say, hey, there was no problem there, the crusades were a battle for freedom against totalitarianism?
the message of the judeo-christian tradition is that man can be redeemed, not that man will never sin…
Far and away the most profound words I’m likely to read for quite some time.
In comparing the merits of the various world religions, Islam is the only one that has no variation of the golden rule (treat others as you would be treated)in it’s teachings. Islams version is submit or die. Whether you call it a religion or a political social system masked as a religion has no bearing on the message of the various (including atheism/liberalism) systems. Treat others as you would be treated vs submit or die.
We may not be at war with islam, but islam is at war with us. And until we define the fight for what it is, a war against islam vs a war on terror we can’t win. Had we called WWII as the war on blitzkrieg, we may still be fighting, or be living under an oppressive fascist government with no where near the wealth that has been created over the past 50 years.
Damn,,, I want to engage in hate speech so badly. Muslims are kinda on my shitlist these days.
I don’t understand how there can be, “a violent argument over the nature of our Creator” when:
1) The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the creator and sustainer of all mankind
2) Allah is not the creator and sustainer of all mankind, but rather a counterfeit of the divine that creates nothing. “Allahu Akbar” (spelling) means and implies “our god is great(er) than yours”, therefore we are talking about two different deities not different interpretations of the same one. Therein lies the deception.
And yet, the victory led to nothing more ultimately than to open Jerusalem to Christian Pilgrimages, not to retake it from the Muslims, who held it.
Interesting no?
Hardly a military conquest, by anyone’s definition.
Physicist,
The European Enlightenment did not follow the Hundred Years War between England and France. The Enlightenment followed the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648. It was a general struggle between Catholics and Protestants in Central & Western Europe. It ended with the Treaty of Westphalia when all of the nations agreed that each nation was sovereign and had the right to choose its own version of Christianity.
This was a major victory for religious liberty. It directly contradicted the Roman Catholic doctrine that the Church had the right to organize military Crusades against any nation or region that deviated from Catholic orthodoxy.
Sir, your history is correct … and much more history could be cited to the same effect … namely, that after thousands of years of bloody religious wars, a few thoughtful folks began to appreciate that perhaps God didn’t much care which side won those bloody wars. Among these freethinkers were numbered … the majority of America’s Founders.
Unsurprisingly, organized religions of every variety immediately united … against those freethinking folks!
“…a few thoughtful folks began to appreciate that perhaps God didn’t much care which side won those bloody wars. Among these freethinkers were numbered … the majority of America’s Founders.”
Yeah, right…
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…”
A physicist?
A nitwit is more like it.
I do not agree the war on terror is an arguement on the nature of G-d. The war on terror is Islam vs those not of Islam.
Allah in Arabic means the god. Allah Akbar in Arabic means the god is greatest of all other gods at the Kaaba. Allah, or the god, has nothing to do with the G-d that created us.
The first step in winning a war is naming the enemy. I have named the enemy for you.
BZO, or Die!
Lord, I tire of Christians lumping all atheists together. Please call “them” leftist atheists, or commie atheists, or something to distinguish between those with collectivist moral foundation and those few of us who treasure the Enlightenment, honor the military, and love our Christian neighbors.
If you’re referring to my comment, the only atheists I have issue with are those who sneeringly dismiss the contributions of Christianity to our nation’s heritage and ignorantly draw moral equivilance between Islam and Christianity.
You’re free to not believe in whatever you want to.
Myno:
It’s hard on mere philosophical atheists these days. Atheism as a cause has been taken up by the hard left for its political purposes. Atheism is now, for all intents and purposes, synonymous with radical Marxism.
I say this as an ex-philosophical atheist.
Christians have the same problem: they have been vilified to the point that they are mostly mis-identified with evangelical Protestants. Nothing could be further from the truth. It happens.
9/11 Allies and Abusers
Now that the dusty rhetoric has cleared from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and Shanksville following the politicians’ commemorative politicking at those sites, following the families of relatives of the 2,977 victims of 9/11/2001 publicly and privately expressing their grief in expectations of to closing memories that defy closure, the rats are leaving their ratholes.
To be sure, not every nation ignored 9/11.
Parts of the world paid solemn tribute to America’s incalculable losses on that day and shared our anguish on the tenth anniversary of the darkest day in American history. One of the most stirring expressions of solidarity occurred in Paris where two forty-foot replicas of the Twin Towers were erected in the shadow of the Eifel Tower displaying in two languages France’s national sentiment, “The French Will Never Forget.”
However, far from everyone abroad and at home expressed that emotion. The vermin emerged.
In London, instead of joining hands with Americans on solemn occasions dedicating memorials to the dead of September 11th, 2001 Muslims in London chose to emulate their fellow Islamists who hatefully exulted in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington ten years ago by spreading more hatred, compliments of Islam.
Members of the “religion of peace” set fire to an American flag outside the American embassy and disrupted a moment of silence declared in observation of that moment when Muslims crashed a Boeing 767 into the North Tower of the WTC.
Not content with Britain’s indulgences for sharia nor with British tolerance for the presence of a people on their soil dedicated to eradicating all remnants of English and Western tradition and law, Islamic crazies chanted “US Terrorists!” and carried signs condemning America and criticizing the Crusades.
One jihadist summarized all feigned Muslim grievances by declaring, “You [Americans?] will always face suffering, you [Western imperialists?] will always face humiliation, unless you [all nations not interested in a worldwide Islamic caliphate?] withdraw your troops from Muslim lands.”
Left unmentioned is any reference to September 11th, to Islam’s bloody history, or to the fact the Crusades ended in 1291 A.D. even if Muslim vengeance lingers on and most malcontented Muslim nations are still mired in the thirteenth century.
The grandson of Jewish immigrants to America, Paul Krugman, is another malcontent. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5429.)
Berlet98 there is a very simple solution to the muslem-islam problem.KILLEM ALL AND LET GOD SORTEM OUT. COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY RID THE EARTH OF THEM ALL,
I must disagree with this:
“[T]hrough tradition, by law and nature, most of us are repelled by the idea of killing over religion.”
surely you jest. religion is the number-one cause of wars and always has been throughout history. in fact, I submit that religion is one of the things we believe IS killing (and dying) for.
even tho I don’t agree with his atheistic conclusiona, Christopher Hitchens’ book “God is Not Great” gives a pretty good summary of the history of war and religion.
D’OH! that should read:
in fact, I submit that religion is one of the things we believe IS WORTH killing (and dying) for.
There is no radical islam. Only islam, such was stated by imams over the whole of the world, where this anti religion is practiced. Love Your neighbor as yourself is conflated with smite them upon their neck where you find them, is a losing argument as far as i am concerned. I will fight this anti religion to my death or theirs. preferably theirs. Thank You.
For what its worth we had a minutes silence and a prayer in my Anglican Church in East Sussex (50 miles south of London.)I imagine that was the norm in Britain rather than burning flags etc. In this town the most prominent muslim is the owner of the corner shop. Came over from Uganda as a boy when his family was kicked out by Idi Amin. Now owns several small convenience stores and sends his children to expensive private schools. Makes a large profit by adding 30- 50% to supermarket prices for people who can’t be bothered to walk a mile to go shopping. They don’t need to as if you haven’t earned your money you don’t value it. Seems like a good business plan to me.
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
George Washington
Look at the ho horrible massacres Christianity and Islam have committed and at the messianic idiocy of Judaism in Israel .
HEAR HEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any relation to the Goldfeld-Katzes who assisted Dr. Megele at the Birkeneau concentration camps ?
“messianic idiocy of Judaism in Israel” Excuse me, but what planet are you living on ??
What are you talking about? From where I’m sitting here in Haifa, Israel, it is clear that we Israelis are living productive worthy lives, filled with purpose and meaning.
Yeshayahu Goldfeld you are probably just an ugly Troll, but I couldn’t let that pass.
All visions of god are man-made. So the conflict can still be analyzed in the classical economic sense of a competition for resources.
Regardless of moral notions about slavery, and Islam’s continued support of it (tied inextricably to the notion of Islamic supremacy), it can be viewed as an amoral feature of a given economy — such as in Saudi Arabia. The rationalizations are more malleable than economic realities.
Jealously over the superior wealth of another is universal. It is partially suppressed by a perception that the economic playing field is fair and that the relative positions of parties can change tomorrow. Hopefully any reversal is by making a better iMouseTrap, rather than by terror, capture and enslavement. Economic freedom and individual liberty, indisputably, achieves the greatest aggregate good — as compared to slavery, as an economic model. The Muslims will thus forever be jealous, and enraged, and vandalize stuff. Islam is, economically speaking, dysfunctional.
We can fight against slavery — without any reference to god, if for no other reason than to resist becoming someone’s slave.
A direct quote from my Green Beret son who returned from Afghanistan in August: “We are doing God’s work.”.
I’m offering a prayer of thanks, that he returned home safely. I hope you don’t mind that it’s the St Michael Prayer.
See the sign these Muslims (living on the public dole, as many do) were holding in London yesterday as they were burning an American flag on 911.
“Islam will dominate the world”
Today in Iraq, “Sunnis stop a bus, order about twenty Shiite pilgrims off, then machine-gun them to death.”
Sunni Al Zarqawi regularly slaughtered Shiites in Iraq before his own demise.
Many, if not most, victims of jihad in various places throughout the world have themselves been Muslims. The Islamist crowd in the southern Philippines regularly slaughtered members of their own faith, like farmers who were simply in the way.
Is Muslim on Muslim slaughter a holy war as well ?
Or is it just slaughter.
Enough with the “coexist” stickers already!
It is laughable to think God is commanding you to kill another human being, and then referencing the Bible in the same sentence…have you not read the Bible..??
If you wish to kill another human being, by all means, go right ahead. All things are judged in the end.
But please don’t Quote the Bible or use as a reference point to justify murder and retribution. That might work with the ignorant masses, but for anyone that has actually read the Bible it doesn’t wash, and is hypocrisy at its worst.
Yup, I think alex pretty well nailed it.
My God told me to love my enemies and to turn the other cheek instead of fighting back.
I’m just too weak to do it, that’s all.
yep. Dave mine told me to turn the other cheek too. and I do my damnedest to turn it. all the way around to the other side of their head, so you see I do obey my God,
I hear what you’re saying. In the unlikely event I encounter a Muslim terrorist, they’re not going to be able to turn their cheek…’cause I’m going to blow said terrorist’s head clean off.
I don’t think that’s what God wants, if I understand the Bible correctly…but, that’s what’s going to happen just the same.
yeah, I always proffer the wrong kind of cheek.
Well, if you’re going to do that, Jeanette, I won’t strike either cheek, I’ll just stand back and enjoy the view.
Trying to convince christians and jews that their religion requires them to let barbarians slaughter their wives and children is childish . Adults can understand the difference between murder (which the 10 commandments prohibit) and killing in either personal or communal self-defence (such as war) . Neither Judaism or Christianity have difficulties with self-defence or with just wars .
Huge slave trader, founder of Islam, Mohammad, murdered/beheaded hundreds of Jewish men because of the Jews’ love for, and allegiance to the One God of the Universe, the Creator. The Jews refused to follow another god and the new religion of Mohammad. The Jews’ wives and children were seized for slaves to lives of living hell.
When Mohammad was in his fifties, he married a 7 year old child. Mohammad is considered the perfect man and role model by Muslims who follow their religion. Murder and slavery have followed his example for 1,400 years. Jihad is an obligation in the Koran. We cannot lose the war waged against every non-Muslim!
Hundreds of thousands of Black South Sudanese Christian women and children have been taken for slaves by Sudan’s Arab Muslims.
Jihad Slavery in Sudan, with Dr Charles Jacobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP4Fcx7AE_o
May every slave be free one day!
“It’s not enough to kill the jihadis who want to kill us…”
That’s a good place to start, though.
Don’t kid yourself that your doing God’s work if you hate and kill your enemies, though.
Excellent article Andrew – thank you for standing by your principles. Too many cower in the name of political correctness.
Many of us “get it” and stand with you. Ignore the detractors – they live in an ignorance of their own choosing.
Islam’s war is against the Holy One.
At the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel, Muslims have vandalized, and massively destroyed precious and unique Temple remains that can never be replaced.
Jewish Joseph is the greatly beloved Bible hero of Jews and Christians all over the world. A wonderful role model of the highest ethics, morals, love, kindness, mercy and forgiveness. At Joseph’s Tomb in Biblical Shechem, in their war against G-D, Muslims regularly shot at, and lobbed firebombs and Molotov cocktails on the Tomb. Violent Muslim mobs attacked the Tomb with pickaxes, destroyed prayer books, set the Tomb on fire and killed and wounded IDF soldiers who guarded the sacred site.
In the filthy Islamic Invasion of Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, Judea, Muslims tore up Bibles for toilet paper.
No, Andrew Klavan. Thoughtful and well written, but the war on terror is not all about God.
The war on terror is about one thing and one thing alone. It is about one of the most beautiful gifts that God has ever given to us human beings. It is all about that amazing, self-evident and unalienable right which no person, faith or government should be able to take away… from anyone. It is about… liberty.
And that unalienable right is and remains only a right… as long as your idea of freedom does not infringe upon another person’s freedom.
But with Radical Islam, there is no way around it. Because when it is all about “submission”… it is no longer a religion, but a state of dictatorship, slavery and repression. And that is against everything we stand for.
And here in America, when we are offered different degrees of leftism… it simply becomes how much freedom we are willing to give up – for whatever reason.
And that’s why we must fight to elect a conservative president… one who will call evil what it is, and defend liberty for what it is.
November, 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTexPl4BPI8&feature=related
There is nothing like the subject of religion to bring the crazies out of the woodwork in vast numbers to comment and rant. There are all sorts of reasons over which people fight wars, including religion. The latter, and particularly in the case of Islam, is more dangerous because they don’t value life. Their lives are so rotten they look forward to becoming martyrs with all attendant lunacies of virginal rewards in heaven. All we can do is help them achieve this goal by killing them. But I have a dream which is not impossible. I dream of liberating a billion Muslims from the lunatic religion which enslaves them, which has brought them fourteen centuries of poverty and backwardness. No, the dream does not replace it with yet another faith but with intelligence and reason and an appreciation of the glory of having ethics. And once that has been accomplished, perhaps we can liberate the rest of the world from faith and belief, the lowest forms of thinking.
We already tried that in the 20th century, Andy. It didn’t work out very well.
Hey, he didn’t say it was a GOOD dream, he just said it wasn’t impossible. But it sounds like a nightmare to me, because institutionalized atheism and Islam have at least one thing in common: the ideas suck so much that most people have to be forced into going along with them.
I left this comment on a Jihad Watch item on Obama’s 9/11 psalm reading:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/09/obama-reads-biblical-passage-at-911-ceremonies-implying-that-911-was-an-act-of-god.html
Ld Back wrote: “But, your suggestion that 911 was not an act of God, I disagree. I do not think it was a judgment or punishment by God, I do believe that God is absolutely sovereign and has control of all things, even 911.”
Will someone else here note the utter irrationality of this statement? If God had control over 9/11, what was the nature of his “control,” if it was not a judgment or punishment? A whim? A tantrum? A prank? Or are we not supposed to know God’s purposes, and that his actions or non-actions are beyond human ken? That’s the usual retort of Christians when they’re faced with the blatant contradictions of their “faith.” Muslims are just as bad. They’ll say Allah punished us. God? Have there been any reports of God sending a message to the world, “Whoops. Sorry about that. I had a date with the Tooth Fairy and completely forgot.” And that person isn’t alone in asserting the appropriateness of Obama’s choice of words.
Or are most other readers of JW dyed-in-the-wool Christians? Even Spencer here asks rhetorical questions about what Obama meant, noting however that “The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are…Islamic jihadists. So why did Barack Obama pick this psalm out of 150 psalms, and out of innumerable appropriate Biblical passages, to read at the 9/11 ceremonies?”
No passages from the Bible would have been appropriate to the occasion. Frankly, I think Obama’s choice of Psalm 46 was his rubbing our noses in the dirt. He may as well have quoted from the Koran. I notice that no Muslims have scored him on the passage. They get it. I got it. But perhaps the passage Obama used was appropriate to the occasion. We haven’t defeated the enemy, which is Islam, because our government is afraid to speak the “I” word. And look at the mess the new “WTC” is. It’s not the WTC, it’s “Memorial Plaza.” It’s desolation, all right. Grief institutionalized with two “footprint” pools that are fantastically expense to operate and a museum/mausoleum. Death-worship gussied up in a party dress. Why don’t the “planners” just add carnival rides?
I said it before and I’ll say it again: This “war” is not boiling down to reason vs. mysticism — the Islamic brand — but of mysticism vs. mysticism. My God is greater than yours, and my devils are grungy goblins. My faith is purer than yours.
We’re doomed if this is characterized as a religious war.
Will someone else here note the utter irrationality of this statement?
Yes.
Our forebears understood the nature of Islam far better than we do, and didn’t conceal themselves in politically correct gobbleygook.
From “Unsigned essays dealing with the Russo-Turkish War, and on Greece”. (John Quincy Adams)
In the seventh century of the Christian era a wandering Arab, of the
lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent
genius with the preternatural energy of a fanatic and the fraudulent
spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven,
and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the
earth. Adopting, from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the
doctrine of one omnipotent God, he connected indissolubly with it the
audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle.
Adopting, from the new revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of
immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by
adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the
gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human
felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex,
and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and
exterminating war as a part of his religion against all the rest of
mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust; to exalt the
brutal over the spiritual part of human nature….While the merciless
and dissolute are encouraged to furnish motives to human action, there
never can be peace on earth and good will toward men. The hand of
Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.
God, because He loves us and wants us to love Him back, gives us all free will. He loves you, me, Andrew K, a physicist, Christopher Hitchens, and Muqtada al-Sadr more than we can imagine. God doesn’t always intervene to stop us from committing sin because then we wouldn’t have free will. But He does intervene and protect us: remember that the four planes involved in 9-11 were oddly empty, that the Pentagon plane crashed into the almost-empty wing that was under renovation (my husband would have been in one of those offices but for the renovations).
Why were some spared and some not? I think Todd Beamer et al had a role to play, and of course what God wants most is that we spend eternity with Him, whether we live on earth for ten minutes or a hundred and three years.
Do you mean to ask: Was this a warning? Did God withdraw His protection that day? (Because to be honest, this country hasn’t had nearly the difficulties that most other countries have…). No one knows for sure, but I think it’s worth engaging in some thoughtful discernment about that.
It’s not about religion, it never is – it’s about power and who gets to lord it over whom. It’s just the way we are: the only way we know how to measure our worth, whether as an individual or as a nation, is by comparing ourselves to others.Surpise, surprise, our side ends up smelling of roses every time. Strange though, isn’t it, that their comparison of themselves to us leaves them on the receiving end of the good smells?
I’m much more interested to know about the economics of this War on Terror. I know who’s paying for our side, of course (that would you and me, as tax payers), but where does the money come from for them to last as long as they have? Shouldn’t they be broke by now? I’d follow the money, but there’s so much useless discussion about whose God is godlier, that, if the real world has laid out that trail somewhere, I haven’t managed to find it.
…but where does the money come from for them to last as long as they have?
Much Saudi financing, from the sector of that vast monarchy that supports the jihad. (we the purchasers of middle eastern oil, ironically enough, finance jihad) Syria. Iranians have provided IED’s and EFP’s to kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and for attacks in Pakistan.
A lot of fundraising from supporting Muslim groups all over the world, including the United States where CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America and others are very active in that regard.
I’ve wondered about the seemingly unlimited supply of explosives and arms. In the worldwide arms trade these days, apparently anyone will sell to anyone else if they can make the deal.
Yes, but also no. The Islamists are definitely fighting a Holy War. On the other hand,”If a man with a gun kicks your door down and starts telling you how to pray” you don’t really need to know anything about his God, or your own, in order to respond – you only need to know that he kicked down your door. As Napoleon supposedly said (in a completely different context), “I have no other reason, that one suffices”.
God Jehovah created the universe and all things in it. I’slam, on the other hand is sheer invention–diametrically opposed to the truth, the way and the life. Confusion is an ill which springs from satan and is adopted by double
minded delusionals. If delusional, and mis-led, i’slamics laid down weapons
peace would ensue! But, if we laid down our weapons we would cease to exist
as a nation, civilization or free people! Mohammad figured this out when he
invented i’slamic supremacism….. Yes, we are emmeshed in a “Holy” war; as
i’slamics are involved in a satanic based jihad based on dishonest invention
Our esteemed Mr. Goldman has written a great deal on the subject, in other places to good effect, given the times.
God is ineffable, but our cultures all have ideas, some based on experience of His reality and some at a remove. Judaism and Christianity see God as loving father with whom we can establish a proper relationship of love for Him and His own creation.
Islam, see Allah (same meaning) as an oriental despot as pointed out by Spengler I. Islam’s concept is rooted in the occasionalism of Ghazali which argues that Allah is directly involved in everything all the time and can do as He pleases and does, so He is basically irrational and unjust and one’s only recourse to bend oneself to His whimsical will.
Westerners get very confused about Islamic intellectual history, which was the product of philosophers and their student who fled the West when Justinian shut the academies. Their deal was to convert then think as they please.
Ghazali’s views prevailed when he condemned philosophers such as Averroes We remember them, Islam does not. The second issue of that time was prohibition against any addition to the traditional teaching holding them perfect as is.
Thus we are faced with a totalitarian intolerant faith. Fortunately thinking is ossified and new solutions are anathema. Unfortunately time idolatrous religions are all nasty with the backward looking (National Socialism) can be just as nasty as the future driven (Communism).
If Islam looks peaceful it is only because the culture is unable to galvanize its population. We have no reason to fear what they might do simply because they have done all they can, which embarrassingly small, hence all the conspiracy theories.
For Islam kindness is weakness forbearance is cowardice, and we should disabuse them of that.
How everyone get duped by Bloomberg. Meet the 9/11/11 “Clergy”:
http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-new-york-disaster-interfaith-html
Klavan is a novelist and he is selling books for profit, nothing more, nothing less. His post here, with its prominent advertisement for his books, would seem to be just part of a marketing plan. Really, this is fantastic, a novelist exhorting people to engage in a holy war! And where will Mr. Klavan be during that war? Laughing all the way to the bank with the profits of his book sales.
I find Klavans marketing less disturbing than his abandonment of Judaism. Everyone is of course entitled to resolve such issues for themselves and Mr. Klavan is entitled to his own choice.
I think it fair to mention this as Mr. Klavan himself mentions his belief as G-d as 3 which of course is antithetical to Judaism. , as if he still must prove how thoroughly Christian he has become.
Here’s our answer, at The Atheist Conservative, to Andrew Klavan (whom we much appreciate):
http://www.theatheistconservative.com/2011/09/13/little-grey-cells-versus-the-cross-and-the-crescent/
Thanks..ya, its just where we’re at! It will become impossible not to decide and I think you nailed this.. we have to know what we’re fighting for as well as our God..to know His ways!
I feel strongly we will be brought through a sieve and tested for this because I’ve found so many people who think they can just keep avoiding it. I mean an unwillingness to have any dialog. Its coming- this 7th century beast isn’t messing around! What words did Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh utter before he was stabbed and shot? “can’t we talk this over”
What a crock. Atheists are the only ones not apologizing for Islam. Our pastor-in-chief George Bush couldn’t stop apologizing for the religion of death or refrain from appeasing it. In fact, to be a member of the People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians, or even just a run-of-the-mill voodoo shaman, you must first be a Christian. Christianity is a gateway drug that persuades you to surrender reason so that you will then accept any nonsense, including that Islam is a religion.
You refer to Islam as a religion (“…of death”) and two sentences later call anyone nonsensical who considers it a religion. Therefore you yourself are nonsensical. QED.
In islam, muhammed even murdered allah.
In islam allah do not speak.
In islam, allah have no spirit.
So.
In islam, allah is dead.
By who?
By muhammed himself.
Just outside islam, God can exists and be source of life.
So you’re saying that they’re fighting for a God whom stands for theocracy (at least, that’s what *they* believe about God) and we are fighting for a God who stands for the freedom to choose Him and worship Him as we please?
I suppose if you insist on framing the argument in theistic terms, then I can accept that. Personally, I don’t think you have to believe in God or be religious in order to believe in the right of your fellow man to freedom of worship, you just have to believe in his right to think as he pleases. You called American patriotism “loyalty to liberty”… well, loyalty to liberty is practically my theology, even if I do believe in it for rational and not theistic reasons.