I’ve heard various discussions about science and atheism being “forms of religion” or “another religion” in contrast to the traditional religions of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, etc. Why? Because both are “faith based.” Science is a belief system where all of reality, past, present, and future, is based on the belief that science and human reason hold all the answers worth knowing. This belief is so strong as to be held in a religious sense, denying any evidence to the contrary. In other words, science and reason become “faith based”. This may sound circular, and perhaps it is. After all, by definition, if one believes in reason, nothing is reasonable outside of it.
Recently, I heard a discussion by a former pastor, now an atheist. He claims atheism is not a form of religion. Atheism is based on pure “reason.” Therefore, he reasons science and reason are beyond a religion – above, superior to, and exclusive from religion. He apparently rejects the concept of “faith” altogether. He will deny he has faith in science or reason. Science and reason just are. They don’t require faith. Faith would pollute, distort, and destroy them both.
Religious people rely a great deal on science and reason as well. In fact, intelligent religious people have learned to integrate science, reason, and their religious faith. I have “reasoned” that people who deny “faith” are narrow, self-deceived, and eliminate a majority of potential answers to the mysteries that permeate human existence and purpose.
Atheists live in a world that only science has revealed. Their world is unstable, unpredictable and incomplete because science, its theories and facts, are unstable, unpredictable and incomplete. Scientific “facts” are constantly changing with each new scientific peer group affirmation. Who were the “scientists” of 2,000 years ago? Astrologists. Predictors. How long has “modern science” been in existence? Depending on who you believe to be the “father of modern science”, Galileo, or Robert Hook, today’s version of science began in the mid-1600’s. Science itself is a form of reason in a state of flux. What might science and reason reveal a thousand years from now? Something very different from what we have now is a certainty. What does that say about the accuracy and reliability of science today? It is less consistent and predictable than most world religions!
It’s amusing to see the atheist deny God, make science and reason their God, and then deny that they make science and reason their God. They deny God. They deny faith. They apparently live only in the present and reconstruct the past and guess the future based on as much faith as the most devout theist. Yet their “scientific methods” have been around for less than 400 years. Sounds like a severe case of Napoleon complex and presumptive superiority to me.
And on the topic of reason, which is the atheist’s number one value (aka “God” if they believed in one.) A reasonable person would have trouble believing reality, past, present, and future, can or should be based only on science, knowing that science is so relatively new, so changeable, and so utterly incomplete. It seems to me, being a reasonable person, that there is much more reality all around us than what science has revealed. Reason goes further. Reason has created religion. Reason has created faith. Reason leads to the belief in a distant past that science will never figure out and in a distant future science refuses to imagine. I’ll go yet further. It is reasonable that there are forces that communicate in subtle ways with humans. We don’t know the exact nature of these forces, they could be genetic, airborne, radio-frequency, or an undiscovered sixth sense. In the meantime, we call the force “spiritual.” We call the messages “revelation.”
The realities of life are tenuous and incomplete with only science as the revelator of all truth. The realities of life are richer, whole and hopeful when completed with faith that only God can create.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Bush is consistent on border insecurity.
This is the situation. A bunch of Kurdish folk in the northern portions of Iraq have it in their heads that the southern part of Turkey belongs to them. So they begin infiltrating southern Turkey and act somewhat like the Sunni and Shia do...they blow up things and people inside Turkey (after all, they are all Muslim).
Silly Turkey. They get the idea in their heads that they need to put a stop to the terrorist violence from the Kurds. The only reasonable way they see of defending their southern border is to eliminate the offending Kurds at their source: inside Iraq. So Turkey announces their plan to defend their border.
True to form, "defend no border Bush" comes trotting out and cries out "No, wait! Don't defend your border! Give us some time. We'll work things out!" Bush has taken seven years in this country to work out our border problems - I hope Turkey realizes where that has gotten us. Can you imagine 12 million Kurds in southern Turkey?
What hypocisy. What a double standard. We can invade Iraq from upteen thousand miles away and it is self defense. Turkey proposes to take some troops 2 miles into Iraq to defend themselves from ongoing murder and mayhem, and it's called interference.
This irony was enough to cause me to write to the Turkey Embassy in Washington DC and cheering them on to do whatever it takes to defend their border from terrorists. I wish we would do the same in our nation!
I was torn whether to title this blog The "Leave No Terrorist Behind" Policy or "The Only Good Border is an Open Border."
Silly Turkey. They get the idea in their heads that they need to put a stop to the terrorist violence from the Kurds. The only reasonable way they see of defending their southern border is to eliminate the offending Kurds at their source: inside Iraq. So Turkey announces their plan to defend their border.
True to form, "defend no border Bush" comes trotting out and cries out "No, wait! Don't defend your border! Give us some time. We'll work things out!" Bush has taken seven years in this country to work out our border problems - I hope Turkey realizes where that has gotten us. Can you imagine 12 million Kurds in southern Turkey?
What hypocisy. What a double standard. We can invade Iraq from upteen thousand miles away and it is self defense. Turkey proposes to take some troops 2 miles into Iraq to defend themselves from ongoing murder and mayhem, and it's called interference.
This irony was enough to cause me to write to the Turkey Embassy in Washington DC and cheering them on to do whatever it takes to defend their border from terrorists. I wish we would do the same in our nation!
I was torn whether to title this blog The "Leave No Terrorist Behind" Policy or "The Only Good Border is an Open Border."
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Bush Ignorance and Islamic Deception
Following are two examples of propaganda about Islam: The first is misconception out of ignorance; the second is misdirection out of a desire to deceive. Both are dangerous.
First, the misconception – quoting what President Bush believes about Islam (the entire referenced article is here):
"Well, first of all, I believe in an Almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That's what I believe. I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren't religious people, whether they be a Christian who does that – we had a person blow up our – blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City who professed to be a Christian, but that's not a Christian act to kill innocent people.
"And I just simply don't subscribe to the idea that murdering innocent men, women and children – particularly Muslim men, women and children in the Middle East – is an act of somebody who is a religious person.
Among the several serious problems I have with President Bush are these: First, his statement above reveals his ignorance of Islam, calling it “a religion of peace”. The facts speak otherwise, which he chooses to ignore. He embraces the deception (takiyya) as illustrated in the second example, following. For some inexplicable reason, he chooses to ignore these facts:
1) The hundreds of terrorist acts conducted monthly around the world by people calling themselves Muslim (see previous post).
2) Islamic doctrine of violence against the infidel (non-Muslims) based squarely on the content of the Koran. The so-called Islamic radicals (Islamists) properly interpret, teach and promote what the Koran teaches and what has historically been practiced.
3) The relative silence, the lack of outrage of so-called “moderate” Muslims against the teachings of their violent, hateful, intolerant brethren.
Bush is a useful idiot in regard to Islam. With regard to Christianity, he is willing to slander his professed faith by comparing one violent act of a so-called Christian with the continuing, almost countless, violent acts of Muslims around the world. This kind of ignorant spouting by our President should not be tolerated – he is a danger to our nation.
Mr. President is apparently ignorant of the basic doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam. He is superimposing his peaceful, loving, tolerant Christian understanding of religion on a religion whose pure doctrine promotes violence, hate, and intolerance. Oh how I wish he would read Robert Spencer’s book, “Religion of Peace: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.” or Gregory Davis’ book “Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World.”
Ok. Enough about our President. Now for our second example: Misdirection. This one is from a blog new to me called Muslims Against Sharia. “L.A.” from that blog site posted the following response to my previous post. He first highlighted this quote from another person who has observed a problem with Islam…
"Gradually--painfully gradually--people are beginning to see that Islam is the enemy. Period."
This is L.A.’s response…
The above quote is one of the milder examples of how many Westerners view Islam these days. This quote is a part of the comment to the article titled "Why We Cannot Rely on Moderate Muslims." posted on the Gates of Vienna blog. The article talks about radical Muslims in the West claiming to be moderates. It also brings up very interesting points. "[T]he government and media are avid to find moderate Muslims -- and as their desperation has increased, their standards have lowered.", "The situation is complicated by many factors, including, taqiyya and kitman", and "How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims when deception of non-Muslims is so widespread, and lying to infidels is an accepted and established way of hiding Islamic goals? The answer, with all its difficult implications, is: We can't."
But that's where the Gates of Vienna is wrong. The main problem is that the term 'Moderate Muslim' is poorly defined. There is a clear distinction between a 'Moderate Muslim' and an 'Islamist' and the distinction is in the ultimate goal. An Islamist believes in Islamic Supremacy. Islamist terrorists and their supporters want to achieve it by waging Jihad. Non-violent Islamists want to achieve it by peaceful and democratic means. The means are different, but the goals are the same: Islamic World Domination. Moderate Muslims do not believe in Islamic Supremacy. For someone not very familiar with the subject, the distinction may be subtle. But in reality, it is the most important, because everything that Democracies hold dear is based on this distinction. This is the Koran vs. the Constitution, Islamic State vs. Secular State, and ultimately, Dhimmitude (Subjugation to Islam) vs. Freedom. I cannot stress enough how important this distinction is!
Now, comes an uneasy task of weeding out false moderates. Hopefully, with a clear definition of a 'Moderate Muslim' that task could be a lot easier. Coming back to the title of this post. Muslim community as a whole is not the enemy. Part of it is. A large part. But not all of it. The next time you ask yourself a question "How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims?" don't trust their assurances; look at their record. No matter how well false-moderate Muslims such as CAIR or MPAC polished their facades, they have a record. Whether it is their support of terrorism or advocating Islamic supremacy, any Islamist group or figure who's been around long enough, at one time or another has shown its/his/her true face. Just because some government official or some talking head declares someone to be a moderate Muslim, it doesn't make it so. There are several counter-terrorism and Islam experts who keep track of Islamists. Most of these experts happen to be non-Muslim, but there is also a list of moderate Muslims who could be used as trusted sources for these inquiries. The list of those prominent Muslims is posted at the upper right corner of our blog. So now, my non-Muslim friends, when you have the tools to identify REAL moderate Muslims, you can no longer use your ignorance as an excuse to declare that Islam is the enemy. [bold added for emphasis.]
L.A.
As much as I would like to believe L.A. and what he represents, I can’t help but suspect the above statement may be a perfect example of misdirection, an application of the Islamic “Taqiyya” which is the Islamic practice of deceitfully concealing their faith or beliefs during periods of persecution.
The question remains, my Muslim friends, do we really have the tools to identify REAL moderate Muslims?
A question that non-ignorant, but alarmed Islamic scholars would pose: How can the REAL moderate Muslims remain Muslim when Islamic doctrine supports the Jihadists, the Islamists, both today and throughout most of Islamic history? Are REAL moderate Muslims equivalent to so-called “nominal Christians” who may attend church and call themselves "Christian" but really couldn’t care less about what their relgion teaches? Are REAL moderate Muslims "nominal" Muslims?
Until I get a believable answer to this Islamic doctrine question, my “crap detector” will continue to sound the alarm.
I do have to admit, their blog site is worth a look. There is some interesting, even humorous stuff on there.
First, the misconception – quoting what President Bush believes about Islam (the entire referenced article is here):
"Well, first of all, I believe in an Almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That's what I believe. I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren't religious people, whether they be a Christian who does that – we had a person blow up our – blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City who professed to be a Christian, but that's not a Christian act to kill innocent people.
"And I just simply don't subscribe to the idea that murdering innocent men, women and children – particularly Muslim men, women and children in the Middle East – is an act of somebody who is a religious person.
Among the several serious problems I have with President Bush are these: First, his statement above reveals his ignorance of Islam, calling it “a religion of peace”. The facts speak otherwise, which he chooses to ignore. He embraces the deception (takiyya) as illustrated in the second example, following. For some inexplicable reason, he chooses to ignore these facts:
1) The hundreds of terrorist acts conducted monthly around the world by people calling themselves Muslim (see previous post).
2) Islamic doctrine of violence against the infidel (non-Muslims) based squarely on the content of the Koran. The so-called Islamic radicals (Islamists) properly interpret, teach and promote what the Koran teaches and what has historically been practiced.
3) The relative silence, the lack of outrage of so-called “moderate” Muslims against the teachings of their violent, hateful, intolerant brethren.
Bush is a useful idiot in regard to Islam. With regard to Christianity, he is willing to slander his professed faith by comparing one violent act of a so-called Christian with the continuing, almost countless, violent acts of Muslims around the world. This kind of ignorant spouting by our President should not be tolerated – he is a danger to our nation.
Mr. President is apparently ignorant of the basic doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam. He is superimposing his peaceful, loving, tolerant Christian understanding of religion on a religion whose pure doctrine promotes violence, hate, and intolerance. Oh how I wish he would read Robert Spencer’s book, “Religion of Peace: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.” or Gregory Davis’ book “Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World.”
Ok. Enough about our President. Now for our second example: Misdirection. This one is from a blog new to me called Muslims Against Sharia. “L.A.” from that blog site posted the following response to my previous post. He first highlighted this quote from another person who has observed a problem with Islam…
"Gradually--painfully gradually--people are beginning to see that Islam is the enemy. Period."
This is L.A.’s response…
The above quote is one of the milder examples of how many Westerners view Islam these days. This quote is a part of the comment to the article titled "Why We Cannot Rely on Moderate Muslims." posted on the Gates of Vienna blog. The article talks about radical Muslims in the West claiming to be moderates. It also brings up very interesting points. "[T]he government and media are avid to find moderate Muslims -- and as their desperation has increased, their standards have lowered.", "The situation is complicated by many factors, including, taqiyya and kitman", and "How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims when deception of non-Muslims is so widespread, and lying to infidels is an accepted and established way of hiding Islamic goals? The answer, with all its difficult implications, is: We can't."
But that's where the Gates of Vienna is wrong. The main problem is that the term 'Moderate Muslim' is poorly defined. There is a clear distinction between a 'Moderate Muslim' and an 'Islamist' and the distinction is in the ultimate goal. An Islamist believes in Islamic Supremacy. Islamist terrorists and their supporters want to achieve it by waging Jihad. Non-violent Islamists want to achieve it by peaceful and democratic means. The means are different, but the goals are the same: Islamic World Domination. Moderate Muslims do not believe in Islamic Supremacy. For someone not very familiar with the subject, the distinction may be subtle. But in reality, it is the most important, because everything that Democracies hold dear is based on this distinction. This is the Koran vs. the Constitution, Islamic State vs. Secular State, and ultimately, Dhimmitude (Subjugation to Islam) vs. Freedom. I cannot stress enough how important this distinction is!
Now, comes an uneasy task of weeding out false moderates. Hopefully, with a clear definition of a 'Moderate Muslim' that task could be a lot easier. Coming back to the title of this post. Muslim community as a whole is not the enemy. Part of it is. A large part. But not all of it. The next time you ask yourself a question "How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims?" don't trust their assurances; look at their record. No matter how well false-moderate Muslims such as CAIR or MPAC polished their facades, they have a record. Whether it is their support of terrorism or advocating Islamic supremacy, any Islamist group or figure who's been around long enough, at one time or another has shown its/his/her true face. Just because some government official or some talking head declares someone to be a moderate Muslim, it doesn't make it so. There are several counter-terrorism and Islam experts who keep track of Islamists. Most of these experts happen to be non-Muslim, but there is also a list of moderate Muslims who could be used as trusted sources for these inquiries. The list of those prominent Muslims is posted at the upper right corner of our blog. So now, my non-Muslim friends, when you have the tools to identify REAL moderate Muslims, you can no longer use your ignorance as an excuse to declare that Islam is the enemy. [bold added for emphasis.]
L.A.
As much as I would like to believe L.A. and what he represents, I can’t help but suspect the above statement may be a perfect example of misdirection, an application of the Islamic “Taqiyya” which is the Islamic practice of deceitfully concealing their faith or beliefs during periods of persecution.
The question remains, my Muslim friends, do we really have the tools to identify REAL moderate Muslims?
A question that non-ignorant, but alarmed Islamic scholars would pose: How can the REAL moderate Muslims remain Muslim when Islamic doctrine supports the Jihadists, the Islamists, both today and throughout most of Islamic history? Are REAL moderate Muslims equivalent to so-called “nominal Christians” who may attend church and call themselves "Christian" but really couldn’t care less about what their relgion teaches? Are REAL moderate Muslims "nominal" Muslims?
Until I get a believable answer to this Islamic doctrine question, my “crap detector” will continue to sound the alarm.
I do have to admit, their blog site is worth a look. There is some interesting, even humorous stuff on there.
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