Mohammedans and Islamophobes

Muhammad pulling his chest open in William Blake's illustration of Dante's Inferno

When I was in school I learned that Muslims took great offence at being referred to as “Mohammedans.” They took offence because they do not worship Mohammed, they worship Allah. Mohammed was the prophet of Allah, the One God. The killings and attempted killings of cartoonists who depicted Mohammed make me wonder if that attitude has changed, or if there is something else going on. As I understand it, those who want to kill cartoonists for drawing disrespectful images of Mohammed wish to prevent or punish blasphemy.

Pamela Geller and her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, made it clear that some Muslims are willing to kill and die to defend the honor of their prophet. I am struggling to understand this, because I have read arguments by Muslims against Christianity to the effect that Christians worship a man instead of God. They say that Christians worship Jesus as an idol. If a Muslim is willing to kill and die because he considers offensive cartoons blasphemous, then they also worship a man instead of God.They have turned Mohammed from a prophet to an idol, just as they say that Christians have turned Jesus of Nazareth into an idol.

I suspect that the young men who lost their lives in Texas, as well as the men who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attacks, were manipulated by leaders who cynically use religion to advance a political agenda. Religions have a long history of being abused for political or financial gain. I suspect that the men who died in Garland knew little more about Islam than the people we label as “Islamophobes.” One thing that leads me to believe this is a quote by the Prophet Mohammed that I heard on the network news shortly after 9/11: “The most excellent jihad (struggle) is that for the conquest of self.” This sounds like a cousin of something Jesus said: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” Matthew 7:5, (KJV) Another thing that leads me to this conclusion is conversations I have had with Muslims. They seemed like decent and reasonable people to me.

I have two requests:

Mohammedans - Please ask yourselves if you really want to prevent or punish blasphemy. The Jews of ancient Judea accused Jesus of blasphemy, which only helped to empower Christianity as a religion. Yes, the Christian church has a history just as bloody as Islam. This is why so many people now call themselves atheists.

Islamophobes - I don’t want to live under Sharia law either. My disagreement with you is over methodology more than philosophy or ideology. The two men who died in Garland thought they were going to Glory. They will probably inspire others to do the same. The cartoon contest helped to bring to light how determined some Muslims are to squelch freedom of expression, but it will lead to more violence and make some Muslims more determined to impose Sharia law upon us. Please consider some advice from the Old Testament: “ If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.” Proverbs, 25: 21-22, (KJV) Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated that this can actually work.

The Islamicists in our country may not need bread and water, but they need help to overcome brainwashing. Only kindness can do that.

Doctrine is Blasphemy

When I was a child I asked my parents questions about religion.  My father told me that he was an agnostic.  He told me that he regarded much of religion as silly, and that no one could prove that a God exists.  He also told me that he believed that it was equally silly and arrogant to assume that there is no God.  No one can prove that, either.  My mother did not speak much about her beliefs, but sent me to summer Bible school and took me to church sometimes.

I took an interest in history as I grew up.  I saw that religion may have been based on good intentions, but caused more problems than it solved.  The Crusades and The Inquisition galled me.  Those are merely two examples of people torturing and killing in the name of a person who preached about love and forgiveness and preached against idolatry.  The more I learn about Islam, the more I suspect that the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed have been corrupted by the greedy and those who need an excuse to commit violence.  Outside of books, some of the most angry and obnoxious people I have known have been fervently religious.  Some of the most bighearted people I have known have been criminal or foulmouthed.  Many atheists I have known have clearer ideas about morality and compassion than many people who consider themselves religious.

These experiences, along with some things I read, helped me understand that religion and faith are two different things.  The fact that Roman historians explained the darkness that accompanied the Crucifixion as natural phenomena made me suspect that this darkness actually occurred.  This does not by itself prove that the Resurrection also occurred, but I learned that many historians regard the Gospels as historical documents.  I had assumed that someone just made them up.  Jesus taught us the difference between faith and religion:

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”  He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me

In vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”  Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!  For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’  But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban (that is, an offering to God) – then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on.  And you do many things like this.”  (Mark 7: 5-13, NRSV)

We “do many things like this” to this day.  The actions of the Westboro Baptist Church are the easiest examples to cite.  Here is an organization that wants to remind us that our sexual practices as a nation violate the will of God while they violate the Second Greatest Commandment.  I wonder if the Pope also noticed that many atheists have a better understanding of the teachings of Christ than many religious folk.  My father is one person I know who does not call himself a Christian, but lives more of a Christian life than many Christians.  I can think of others.

Enough things have happened in my life to convince me that there is a God and that He is looking out for me.  There have been too many coincidences.  I used to believe that it did not matter which church or even which religion I followed.  They were all different cultural expressions of the same universal love and morality with which we are all born.  I now see that many people who propagate religions have their own agenda and will lead us astray if we let them.  The love of money also corrupts our inborn inclination to love each other.  That is why Jesus went to the cross.  His Crucifixion and Resurrection gave us something on which to focus.  They are reminders of a loving God and that we can overcome death through love.  Remembering this sacrifice and victory makes it more difficult to be led astray.

All of this is a longwinded explanation of why I consider myself a Christian Deist.  I am a Deist in that I would be an agnostic because I do not know and cannot prove that there is a God, but I feel him.  I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ is The Word Made Flesh.  He helped me understand the difference between faith and superstition and that we do not have to be victims of religion as a racket.