Category Archives: Religion

Time for Muslim Americans to “Show Us the Money!”

Time for Muslim Americans to “Show Us the Money!”

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—December 7, 2015

So, Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan yesterday marched in protest against ISIS, proclaiming the terrorist organization to be anti-Islam, and insisting that Islam is a religion of peace, justice and tolerance. It’s been on the CNN Headline News feed all morning, along with reports on last night’s “nothing new here, folks” address to the nation by President Obama.

Not sure why the Dearborn protestors are getting so much air play, given that only about 100 Muslims participated in the demonstration and march. If CNN were to add context to the story, say by showing how thoroughly underwhelming this protest truly was, then it might make sense. But no, CNN apparently believes that 100 demonstrators prove that American Muslims are obviously united in their opposition to ISIS and love for their adopted American country.

But are they?

With the largest proportion of Arab Americans of any U.S. city, Dearborn is referred to as the Islamic capital of America, and roughly 50 percent of the population identifies as Muslim. So, out of about 45,000 Muslim residents, less than three-tenths of a percent came out to show their support for America and opposition to ISIS.

Now this lack of Muslim support for the demonstration does not mean that the Muslims of Dearborn actually support ISIS, nor am I going to repeat the hyperbole of the right-wing press which claims that Dearborn is under Sharia Law, among numerous other alleged Islamic transgressions.

But I do believe that this underwhelming demonstration indicates a major disconnect between American Muslims and the rest of the country.

With every terrorist attack or ISIS atrocity, American Imams proclaim to the press that American Muslims do not support ISIS or terrorism, and that Islam is the religion of peace, tolerance and all things wonderful.

Allahu Akbar, baby! 

Other than that, though, Muslim Americans just don’t seem to be all that demonstrative about either their love for America nor their opposition to terrorism and ISIS.

And now that ISIS seems to be ramping up its war against America, isn’t it time for Muslim Americans to demonstrate where their allegiance lies? I applaud the 90 or so Muslims who demonstrated in Dearborn yesterday, but where were the rest of Dearborn’s Muslims?

A few years ago they came out by the thousands to protest the movie dearborn_local_muslim_protest“Innocence of Muslims,” a protest in which they demanded enactment of blasphemy laws that would make it illegal to criticize Islam and the prophet Muhammad.

Guess Dearborn’s Muslims are far more interested in curtailing the First Amendment than in showing their opposition to terrorism and ISIS.

If Muslim Americans truly believe Islam to be the religion of peace, tolerance, etc., and truly love their adopted land, well then, as Jerry Maguire says, “Show me the money!”

Please Add Me to the Hit List!

Please Add Me to the Hit List!

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–Sept. 29, 2015

Dear Bangladeshi Islamic Extremists (members of Ansarullah Bangla Team and Ansar al Islam Bangladesh): 

I understand that you have expanded your hit list of bloggers to be killed due to their written commentary that you believe to be offensive to Islam. So far this year you have successfully butchered four Bangladeshi bloggers for their writing, and have now expanded your hit list to call for any and all true-faith Muslims to assassinate nine bloggers living in Europe and North America. 

Please add me to this list. While I do not wish to insult your faith or reverence for Allah, Muhammad and Islam in general, I question and take issue with your interpretation of your holy book, the Quran. I believe that any man should be able to question and debate your interpretation without repercussion. I also do not believe that Allah would sanction your killing of other Muslims, or anybody, for that matter, for challenging your interpretation. Nor do I believe that Allah would sanction the killing of anyone for drawing a cartoon of Muhammad or otherwise insulting Islam.

Allah is supposed to be God, for Christ’s sake, and there’s no way his proverbial skin could be that thin. If Allah truly has an issue with people questioning his Godliness, making jokes about Muhammad, or portraying him as a cartoon figure, I am positive that he can deal with the  miscreants in his own Godlike fashion.   

So, in protest of your blatant killing for the sake of religious censorship, I want you to look at this photo. That guy whoseth-4 12.17.01 PM head is in the toilet, I believe that to be Muhammad. Therefore I am obviously guilty of blasphemy and of offending Allah–peace be upon him–and therefore should be hacked to bits.

Come and get me.

Sincerely,

M.J. Moye

Muslims tend to take great offense at those who criticize Islam, question their interpretation of the Quran, or draw images of Muhammad. Many take their self-righteous sense of being offended so severely that they believe killing people who commit these offenses is justified. And while the majority of Muslims do not actively support such action, does not their noticeable lack of opposition to the practice mark them as silent accomplices?

What of the murder of innocent writers and cartoonists? Is that not the far greater offense? Sure the Western world expresses a brief surge of outrage every time writers and cartoonists are killed, but the media is generally loath to reprint or discuss the subject matter that led to the killing. Oh, we don’t want to offend the Muslim community, is the usual excuse.

Worse than that, though, is when the Western media is cowed by Islamic threats and self-censors material that may be deemed offensive to Islam. Remember Episodes 200 and 201 of South Park? Broadcast in 2010, it featured a character in a bear costume named Muhammad. A radical Muslim group sent South Park producers and broadcasters a photo of the nearly decapitated anti-Muslim Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with a warning that they would meet a similar fate. Muhammad was quickly censored out of the episodes.

Pussies!

In response a woman named Molly Norris organized an “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” in support of free speech. The effort drew tremendous support, but also drew significant opposition from both Muslims and those of the political correct persuasion who felt the effort was a needless affront to the Muslim community. Meanwhile Ms. Norris was put on an Islamic hit list, and her name was later added to the same hit list that targeted Charlie Hebdo in Paris. She remains in hiding to this day.

Unreal!  

This is America, where freedom of speech is supposed to be sacrosanct. We’re going to let ourselves be bullied into limiting this freedom? We’re going to cave for the sake of Muslim sensibilities, the same sensibilities that believe murder for religious ideals is perfectly OK?

Screw that!

As I said in my letter to the hit-list Muslims, I do not wish to insult their religion. However, if they are going to target innocent writers and cartoonists and mark them for death for offending Islam, then I will join with those same writers and cartoonists. Plain and simply, religious beliefs that invoke murder or other egregious actions do not trump freedom of thought and speech.

And just to make clear that this blog and blogger are not specifically anti-Islam, the above letter would be proffered to any radical Christian groups that target people for insulting Jesus Christ and Christianity. But to my knowledge there aren’t any.

However, if there are any Radical Christians out there advocating death for those who insult Jesus, well, see that photo near the top of the page…that guy getting a swirly is Jesus.

Come and get me!

So, dear reader, what do you think? Are you willing to add your name to the list? Hash it out!

—Originally published Sept. 28, 2015 by Hash It Out!

What is the Appeal of the Islamic State?

What is the Appeal of the Islamic State?

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–June 29, 2015

And a big “Happy Anniversary” goes out today to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as one year ago today he and his righteous followers put the world back on the path towards salvation.yosemite-sam

Say what? And Abu who?

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the self-proclaimed Grand Poobah of all Muslims, who was declared caliph of the Islamic State’s conquered territory on June 29, 2014. This new caliphate represents the eighth or ninth one in Islamic history depending upon your views regarding the legitimacy of the caliphate of the 400-or-so-year Ottoman Empire. But whether one believes that the last caliphate ended in 1924 or sometime in the 1500s, the emergence of this new caliphate is groundbreaking and its one year anniversary must be reason to party like its 1999….

Or not.

More likely the Islamic State is celebrating the anniversary with an increase in its usual day-to-day activities that it conducts to revere Muhammad and Allah. You know, beheading apostates and foreign infidels, shooting prisoners of war, burning spies, stoning adulterers, enslaving women and children, and just generally making sure no one has any fun at all.

“Allah Akbar,” Baby!

What’s the deal with this Islamic State? Three years ago no one had even heard of this group, and its abbreviated initials seem to constantly change, as Islamic State as been referred to as ISIS, ISIL, ISI and, most recently, just IS. Three years ago Al Qaeda and the Taliban were the baddest-ass Muslims in the land, but now Islamic State makes those groups look like two lost-in-the-woods Boy Scout troops.

In three short years, IS grew from a barely recognized rag-tag militia fighting against the Syrian government into one of the most powerful guerrilla armies in the middle east. An army and a self-proclaimed Islamic government that had captured large sections of Syria and Iraq, and inspired terrorists acts around the world. A movement that is also drawing large numbers of recruits from around the world, both those wanting to fight from within the caliphate and those seeking martyrdom abroad.

What is the appeal? Why are Muslim youth around the world flocking to the IS cause?

Al Qaeda offered its recruits 97 virgins in the after-life, but IS doesn’t even mention virgins in its propaganda. There is mention of the possibility of slave girls in this life to worthy Islamic State fighters. But are Islamic boys that hard up that they’ll give up everything for a remote chance at bedding an infidel slave woman?

Maybe…. What with most Muslim woman out of sight due to burkas and hijabs, and Muslim women definitely out-of-touch until marriage, well, can you say “sexual tension?” And nothing like a good fight to alleviate some of that tension.  Shooting prisoners, lopping off heads and the like probably provides the equivalence in tension release. And if done well it could lead to that infidel slave girl.

What else can be considered appealing about the Islamic State? How can Muslims, youth or otherwise, find it appealing on a religious or intellectual basis?

On a religious basis Islamic State only allows an extremely narrow interpretation of Islam, and failure to abide by this Flag_of_the_Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levantinterpretation marks one as an apostate subject to death. In fact, most of IS’s victims thus far in its short history have been other Muslim’s who follow the wrong interpretation of Islam. In fact, if you’re a Shi’ite Muslim, you might want to think twice before heading off to the the Holy Caliphate, as Islamic State doesn’t take kindly to those of the Shia Muslim faith.

On an intellectual basis, well, you’d better be prepared to devote all energies to Allah, because intellectually that’s all that matters in life.

Sounds like fun, eh?

Allah Akbar! 

–Originally published in Hash It Out! on June 29, 2015

The Gods Must be Angry With Us…Again!

The Gods Must be Angry With Us…Again!

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—June 11, 2015

Why must the Gods always be so angry with us?

Case in point, Gods in Malaysia were apparently angered by a group of western tourists who stripped naked for a photo session on top of Mount Kinabalu late last month. The tourists’ antics evidently angered the mountain’s sacred ancestral spirits, who in response, cast down an earthquake on the area that killed 16 people (OK, so while not technically “Gods,” any spirit that can invoke a God-like cataclysm is pretty much a God in our book).

Four of the tourists have been arrested by Malaysian authorities, who are reportedly on the hunt for six others (no word yet on whether international arrest warrants have been issued). Pending charges center on public indecency, though local citizens and politicians have been calling for charges that could lead to much more severe penalties, with some of the locals requesting the tourists’ heads.

As is generally the case with all-powerful Gods, the mountain’s sacred spirits remain mute on the issue, and are letting theirAngryGod_answer_1_xlarge actions speak for themselves.

And what of Allah (“In sa Allah!”)?

He seems to have kept his anger in relative check for five centuries, but then started getting all pissed off about 50 years ago, sparked in large part by those Jewish folks who had the audacity to call his sacred land theirs. That ire soon expanded to include those who had the nerve support the Jews, and more recently to his own people, who tick him off for a broad range of reasons–Idolatry, blasphemy, apostasy, adultery, listening to western music, looking at women, shaving, flying kites, to name a few. Most recently, Allah has been casting his holy anger on those foolhardy artists who dare attempt to create his holy likeness.

Allah’s not like most Gods, though, as he does not utilize his power over the elements to inveigh his wrath. Instead he invokes his holy ire through the righteous actions of his most devoted followers. And why not? They can certainly be just as effective as a natural disaster, and they’re becoming so media savvy that the depth of Allah’s anger can truly be conveyed to the masses in color and in almost-real-time.

Jesus (“Praise the Lord!”), while relatively quiet these past few centuries, certainly had his moments.

He seems to be an equal-opportunity wrath dispenser, utilizing both the natural elements and his flock to carry out his righteous anger. Everything from the great plague to any number of earthquakes, tempests, volcanoes and other natural disasters have been attributed to his rage, though in recent centuries less and less so. His people have also been quite effective at holy wrath dispensary. Just ask the ancestors of Muslims, North and South American Indians, Africans and any number of the world’s people who have been slaughtered by Christians in the name of Christ.

How about Jeusus’ Dad (also considered to be the young version of the Hebrew God, Yehova, God of Israel, though not father of Christ)–Wrathful?

You betcha! Can you say “Great Flood” or “Sodom” and “Gomorrah?” Heck, the Old Testament is full of natural cataclysms called down upon us for one reason or another.

Roman Gods? Greek Gods? Egyptian Gods?

Sadists!

And they didn’t even have to be angry…. Perhaps they just liked to practice.

Hellfire and brimstone, what Gods don’t get angry with us?

OK so Buddah tends to be fairly benign, and some of the Hindu Gods don’t seem to have anger issues.

But we’d wager that they all have their moments, too.

Bottom line is that we’d love to see what the Gods might do should they ever be happy with us. But we’re not going to hold our breath….

–Originally published by Hash It Out! on June 11, 2015