Andrew Hagen

The Religion of Peace now takes a stand against Valentine’s Day in India. (*)

Merry Christmas! On this day, the celebration of the day of birth, approximately 2,005 years ago, of a child. It surely would seem strange to those present the night that child was born that all these years later, it would become terribly important to expend great quantities of energy and vigor, having recorded memory of the birth at all at such a future date, to pointedly not celebrate the birth, and to encourage others to not celebrate it either, or to spread warm greetings associated with such celebrations. Yet, today it has become critical for all right-thinking and good people to go out of their way to not in public take up the traditions of their ancestors, but instead to shake off the antique and antiquated custom of Yuletide greetings, and greet in public at this time of year without any specific or overriding reference to the birth of that child, but to reference any and all sundry tradition of other lineage.

It is the soi dissant “Pagans” who claim today that many years, long before the birth of that child, in the midst of the cold cruel winters, many cultures would gather around fires on a particular day in the wilderness, or perhaps in their caves, and generally engage in unusually civilized, cordial relations, and a sharing of gifts, and a sharing of warm non-sectarian hellos and warm wishes amid soft lighting. There was no inspiration for this holiday. It just kind of occurred to those ancient people, who were one with the tree. They got together one day and said, hey, let’s have a day when we set aside all of our difficulties in being uncivilized persons living perhaps in primitive huts under despots. In the contemporary Pagan fevered imagination, Christmas was only a diabolical attempt to subvert their tradition. They then intensely denounce the crass materialism and the phony kindnesses and all of the other horrible things associated with this day of infamy we call Christmas. The tree god would just give us firewood, and that’s all we should want. As we have regrettably seen, though, we are forced to admit that, yes, Christianity did in fact come up with the concept of the “Midwinter Holiday.” (*) “Saturnalia” was indeed but a pagan reaction to the Christian holiday.

Of course, gift-giving is a travesty. While it may be arguably true that the Christians can claim that their “God” gave the world as his gift to human beings, and then, after the human beings acted as they tend to and corrupted and befouled this “Creation” by acting like a pack of surly chimpanzees at riot in the Louvre, this “God” gave another gift, his “beloved son,” to be sacrificed to pay for the mayhem and ruination wreaked by those ungrateful humans, so that humans would not “die,” but could cheat Death (a process which, technically, is unthinkable) all thanks to that second gift, it nevertheless is still the case that humans are utterly presumptuous to give each other gifts in mockery of those idiotic three “Wise Men” and their pathetic frankincense, gold, and myrrh, given as gifts to the Creator’s infant son on that cold night in backwards Bethlehem.

Fortunately, there have been many that claimed that this “Jesus” was just a man, and not technically speaking “the Son of God.” Arianus lost that debate in the fourth century and the “Trinity” was established as the hateful dogma of the Christian church. Soon the horrifying spectacle began wherein nearly every corner of the world has heard the mean-spirited and intolerant and, yea verily, fascist message of Christianity, and untold billions have converted to this sick, wicked cult, consigning them to repressed desires and unrealized fantasies in exchange for an illusion of brotherhood and a wasteland of belief in the Lord.

Then Mohammed was born, exposed to a little Christian and Jewish teaching, and at an opportune moment later in life managed to rewrite the Bible as a mostly false document as seen by his perfect and unjaded eyes. Of course, only Mohammed was the true prophet. It was the others that were the fakes, or the “less than perfects.” While it may be that those fakers did successfully predict the future, as Jeremiah foretold the fall of Judah, and that Mohammed never actually was so bold as to bother predicting any future event, nevertheless, Mohammed was undoubtedly the only prophet worth talking about. And Mohammed said Jesus was just a man, and so we know that must be true. With good reason, Mohammed married a nine-year old girl, preached polygamy, waged holy war or jihad (Jew Hate) upon his neighbors, encouraged lying for self advantage such as may be necessary when one might verbally misstate one’s core beliefs to avoid persecution, and successfully started a new religion that in many ways was a brutally reverse reflection of the Christian “God loves you” church. Where Christians had drawings of a cross, Muslims were not allowed to have any drawing or picture of a real thing, the better to not think too heavily on reality.

Perhaps it is strange that it is so currently controversial among Christians to celebrate the birth of a child who grew up to be a man who never hurt anyone, stood against a blood-soaked and evil Empire, called for humans to treat one another well, and was executed for refusing to back down on his statements.

What is not strange is that in the subsequent millennia after a man lived and walked the Earth, his message may have been appropriated and misused many times, and that historical events and trends may have resulted in certain difficulties in applying and interpreting his two universal messages of: love no god but God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Pacificism was no longer necessary for Christians after the Roman Empire converted to the religion, but still was considered by Christians to be a good idea. Yet, in this world an absolute refusal to carry and use arms does not work as a political philosophy, for others will take arms against you regardless of your beliefs. And so a real question existed as to whether Christians could successfully defend themselves from aggressors. Charles Martel turned back the Moors at the Battle of Tours in 754, and the question was for the time satisfied.

The Renaissance and the Reformation paved the path in Europe to capitalism, and the old rule against usury was abandoned by Christians in favor of the greater good that capital formation could and did deliver. With trade and intercourse with the many peoples around the world growing in the “Age of Discovery,” it was natural that a more balanced, more relativist, and less unitary morality came to the fore in Christian culture. The moneychangers were not invited back into the temple, but the laborers were too often denied their daily bread, while the minimal sacrifices of a few were in the style of the Gilded Age rewarded disproportionately to work and risk. Many other issues have confronted and continue to confront Christians. The world is beset by problems, but is also ripe with possibilities for good.

We do not choose the world in which we live, but we are given it by our ancestors. It is they who choose, unwittingly, our circumstances, but it is we who choose how to address them. And so we find ourselves in a world on the cusp of great things, including the colonization of space, and also at the cusp of great horrors, including nuclear war and a total absconding of stewardship of the Earth’s environment.

And so let us take a day or two and put aside our differences, give some gifts, and celebrate what is best in this Creation, and be thankful for what has been done in the past on our behalf, and prepare ourselves to live worthy and ennobling lives that bring credit to the high expectations of us held by Jesus the Christ, upon which basis his sacrifice was so freely given.

The Islamic holy month, Ramadan, begins on October 5th this year and lasts about a month, depending on the phases of the moon. (*)

Numerous terrorist attacks have previously occurred during the month of Ramadan.

The argument continues over the Crusades, terrorism, Christendom, and Islam.

In his New York Times review of Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades, Hugh Kennedy writes: (*)

Christopher Tyerman’s book [. . . ] has no time for bogus links between crusaders and modern Muslim jihadists: ‘’The idea that the modern political conflicts in the Near East or elsewhere derive from the legacy of the Crusades or are being conducted as neo-crusades . . . is deceitful'’ and ‘’there is nothing old-fashioned, still less ‘medieval,’ about the techniques, recruitment or ideology of Al Qaeda. The devious polemical association between ‘crusaders’ and ‘Jews’ is historical nonsense.'’

This vigorous argument is an important corrective for anyone who would argue for the long-term inevitability of conflict between Christianity and Islam. Tyerman is especially good on the preaching of the Crusades, and the showmanship and manipulation often used by propagandists. Both he and [another author] discuss at length how a religion so obviously pacifist as early Christianity could be distorted into a justification for aggression and mayhem.

Hugh Kennedy vastly overstates the import of that “corrective.”

My argument on the inevitability of conflict between Christendom and Islam (the civilization) concerns the irreconcilable doctrines of Christianity and Islam (the religion). (†) Of course Tyerman’s vigorous argument as summarized by Kennedy does not correct my argument, and therefore it is not a corrective to “anyone” who would argue the inevitability of the conflict.

Islam is a vastly different faith from both Christianity and Judaism. A small illustration of this is a recent report that a famed Arab astrologer, Hassan al-Sharibi, has predicted that President Bush will be assassinated in 2005. (*)

There are many good reasons to protect the President, among them being his position and the fact his father was nearly assassinated in Kuwait a decade ago. No soothsayer need be relied upon to know the danger.

In Christianity and Judaism, soothsaying is not allowed. In Islam, it is just part of daily life. For those who would defend the unity of all faiths, an explanation for such a major difference as this must be found.

Charles Johnson of LGF unearths a disreputable attempt to censor a book critical of Islam. (*)

Craig Winn wrote Prophet of Doom, available online. (†) It is also at Amazon. (‡)

A petition demands that Winn’s book be removed from “all bookstores” because it criticizes Islam. (§)

A counter-petition exists, citing the First Amendment. (**) Yet, the First Amendment only applies in the USA. The freedom of expression is a worldwide human right held by everyone, including individual Muslims.

The best way to fight censorship is to draw attention to the would-be censor, and to increase circulation of the target text.

It is critical to fight censorship. In response to the petition calling for censorship, here is a quotation from Prophet of Doom web site. (††)

Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur’an -not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it’s “God’s Book,” and that it’s written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam’s interests.

If Muslims were to shed their yoke of ignorance, they would discover that the real reason those who indoctrinate them, control them, suppress them, fleece them, and abuse them want them deceived is that the actual message contained in Allah’s Book is horrendous. It is more intolerant, racist, punitive, and violent than Hitler’s Mein Kampf. There are one hundred vicious verses for every nice one. The book inspires infinitely more terror than peace.

They would also discover that the Qur’an is poorly written. There are countless meaningless words, foreign words, and missing words which is why translations differ so significantly-everyone is guessing as to what Muhammad thought Allah was trying to say. This is why Gerd Puin, the world’s leading specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Qur’anic paleography, studying the oldest manuscripts, speaks with disdain about the willingness of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to accept Islamic dogma. He says: “The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you just look at it, you will see that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’an is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxietyregarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid.”

By reading the Qur’an in a language they actually understand, Muslims would find that there is no semblance of order in the central book of Islam either. The Qur’an is a jumbled mess without context, chronology, or rational transitions. It is only by rearranging the Qur’an in the order it was revealed and infusing it with the context of the chronological Hadith narratives, that the book begins to make sense. But by so doing, it becomes obvious that the Qur’an was simply a reflection of Muhammad’s demented character and of his misplaced ambition. The more you know, the more you will come to despise the fraud Muhammad perpetrated on his fellow Arabs and they on human kind. To know the Qur’an is to reject Islam.

Supporters of Islam who do not agree with such critiques should make reasoned arguments against them.

Michael Reilly notes that in the third debate Kerry said at one point that his faith does not guide his politics, and at another criticized faith without works. (*)

(The linked article takes a pro-life stand. I am pro-choice on the grounds that a mother’s right to choose is high in importance.)

18 October 2004. Updated for clarity.

In the third debate, Bush said:

If you’re a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you’re equally an American. That’s the great thing about America, is the right to worship the way you see fit.…

In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty.

(*) There’s nothing controversial in that excerpt.

On the other hand, Kerry said:

Everything is a gift from the Almighty. And as I measure the words of the Bible — and we all do; different people measure different things — the Koran, the Torah, or, you know, Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day had their own special sense of connectedness to a higher being.

This statement is totally at odds with Christian teaching that one can only come to know God through Jesus.

Furthermore, in Christian teaching, everything is not from God. Sin, for example, does not originate in God.

Kerry would be the first American President with this New Age religious sensibility.

Commenting on the horrific massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia, Airborne Combat Engineer says “Terrorists have ‘jumped the shark’ in Russia.” (*)

(Background on “jumping the shark.” (†))

No, terrorists jumped the shark a long time ago. The way to defeat terrorists is to kill them. That’s the only way.

The real question is: Has Islam jumped the shark?

I am sick and tired of hearing Muslims whine and complain about how Islam is denigrated and “rights” are violated. A Muslim has no more (and no fewer) rights than any other human being. The real enemies of Islam are radical Muslims.

When are moderate Muslims going to declare jihad against those Muslims who are driving Islam over the cliff?

There is not a limitless supply of tolerance. Islam needs to either clean house or face the consequences.

Those consequences are highly negative. Islam, as a civilization, culture, and religion, is in the process of cracking up. Unless a new direction is found, Islam will die. The only question then is how many innocent people will it take down with it. Do not forget that Iran is building nuclear weapons.

I fervently hope that Islam itself does not become one big, civilizational suicide bomb. Unfortunately, that ugly outcome does appear to be a distinct possibility at this stage.

What is impossible is the dream of the terrorists: Islamic world domination. What they are fighting for cannot ever occur. Islam is not strong enough to conquer the world. Terrorists attack anyway. The result is a setback for the human race, and disastrous for the innocent victims, like those little schoolchildren who were shot in the back by Muslim terrorists.

To describe the nature of the Global War on Terrorism, we must begin with religion.

Judaism is not generally accepting of Christianity as a faith that either takes the place of Judaism or legitimately worships the same God as Judaism. Yet, nowhere in the core teachings of Judaism is the Trinity rejected. The Trinity is the Christian description of God. Christians say God is unitary but has three distinct aspects: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, since Judaism is worship in accordance with the Word of God, and the Gospel of John states that Jesus is the Word, a Christian case can be made that righteous Jews honor the Word. Most Christians accept that righteous Jews are worshipping the same God as them. Many Christians believe that Judaism is a righteous religion and that the Covenant between God and Abraham endures, even though they do not demand that Jews recognize Christianity as the legitimate religion of God.

On the other hand, the core Islamic teaching—the Koran—makes specific and unmistakable the Islamic rejection of the Trinity. That is, Muslims reject the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit both. Donald Sensing finds that there are several other important differences between Islam and Christianity. (*) Notably, while Christianity fosters a personal relationship between the believer and God, Islam does not foster such a thing. Ultimately, due to the Muslim rejection of the Trinity, Islam and Christianity can never be reconciled.

The irreconcilability of Christianity and Islam originates at even deeper levels, though. The prophet of Islam, Mohammed, made little in the way of what Christians recognize as prophecies, from God or otherwise. Neither was Mohammed accompanied by signs, portents or miracles, and so there is no verification of Mohammed’s commission as an apostle as there was for Jesus Christ, the disciples, and Paul. In fact, Islam teaches that the Bible is very corrupt, and can only be properly interpreted from the perspective of the Koran. To Christians, Mohammed appears as a false prophet who rejects the Bible and attempts to substitute his own teachings. Due to these doctrinal differences, the Christian and Islamic faiths can never come together. One or neither is right, not both.

Judaism and Islam are different. Jews and Muslims lived together in peace for hundreds of years, so long as the Jews lived as subservient citizens, or dhimmis. Muslim doctrine requires the acceptance of subdued or conquered Jews (and subdued or conquered Christians, for that matter). In the past, this was a relatively good deal for Jews because Jews at that time were often unfortunately not welcomed in Christian communities. Since the rebirth of the State of Israel, however, the Muslim concept of the ummah has been invoked. Israel is said to be on “Muslim land.” To force Jews to once again bend the knee to Muslims as dhimmis, radical Muslims have undertaken jihad or holy war. This is why radical Muslims are engaged in what we in the West call Jew-hatred, and indeed in general a systematic campaign of murdering Jews, young and old alike. Their goal is to destroy the State of Israel and force Jews to become their slaves, or dhimmis. Therefore, so long as the State of Israel exists and Jews have freedom, Judaism and Islam cannot be reconciled, either.

According to Judaism, neither Christianity nor Islam is equal in righteousness to it.

According to Christianity, Judaism may be equally as righteous as Christianity, but Islam is not at all a righteous religion. (Some Christians disagree that Judaism is righteous.)

According to Islam, neither Judaism nor Christianity is as righteous as Islam, but both have a minimal degree of righteousness. Muslim doctrine considers Jews and Christians as worthy of respect only if they completely submit themselves to Muslims as conquered people.

Within all faiths are syncretists who attempt to blend all religion into one. These people willfully ignore major doctrinal differences in order to reach their conclusions.

A deep split haunts Islam today. Radical Muslims want to wage holy war against the non-Muslim world and at the same time come to dominate the Muslim world. Modern Muslims want to practice their faith without being forced to engage in holy war as dictated by the radical Muslims, or to live under the iron fist of either dictators or radicals. Westerners ought never forget that most Muslims want freedom, not a campaign of global jihad.

So where does this leave us politically? First, Christian and Jew must band together and stand firm against the onslaught of radical Islam. Secondly, Christian and Jew must put aside religious doctrinal differences and band together with the modern Muslim (sometimes called the moderate or liberal or secular Muslim.) Even as this is done, both Christian and Jew must be wary of any Muslim attempts at either taqiyah, dissembling (lying) to advance Islam, or non-reciprocal proselytization opportunities. The (Arabic) word for the proselytization of Islam is dawa. The trouble arises in that while Muslims freely proselytize in Christian countries, when Christians attempt to proselytize in predominantly Muslim countries, or in divided countries like Nigeria or the Sudan, Christians are often butchered. Whenever Christians do not bend the knee to Muslims and behave as conquered servants to Muslims, like the Christian Hannah Ashrawi does for the Arab Palestinian terrorists, radical Muslims call for jihad to force the Christians into dhimmitude. Both Christians and Jews need to understand that the radical Muslim tolerance of their existence is predicated on their eventual surrender to oppression. As for atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus and pagans, they ought to know that radical Muslims would kill them on the spot, regardless of their willingness to surrender.

Under their first commandment, Christians are not allowed to disavow God, and thus neither are they allowed to disavow Christ. Thus, Christians who were sent to the gladiator pits in the days of pagan Rome could not have kept their faith and yet escaped execution by disavowing Christ. They had to choose to live as a pagan or die as a Christian. If under radical jihad a Christian is ordered to either disavow Christ or be murdered, a Christian remains under the commandment to not disavow Christ. Many Christians have recently been martyred in Africa in this very situation.

Muslims are allowed to disavow their religion in the interest of their lives. This often falls under taqiyah, although taqiyah is usually seen as a part only of Shia jurisprudence, and not part of Sunni jurisprudence. Most Muslims are Sunnis. Any Muslim can temporarily disavow his faith to escape persecution. As a result, there is the problem of the “stealth Muslim” or “secret Muslim.” An example of a stealth Muslim who is sometimes identified as a Muslim is the American writer Stephen Schwartz. His Muslim name is Suleyman Ahmad al-Kosovi.

Stealth Muslims are people who pretend to not be Muslim in order to gain some access or trust among non-Muslims, and then abuse that access or trust in some way to benefit Islam. This is something that non-Muslims can address effectively so long as they know that the problem exists. Usually, one can figure out who someone is if you think about it. Unfortunately, most Christians and Jews today have never even heard of the concept of the stealth Muslim.

This has practical impact in the area of loyalty tests. If a radical stealth Muslim were asked to swear loyalty to the Constitution, for example, he could swear to Allah loyalty to the Constitution even while remaining secretly dedicated to fighting the Constitution and all the while remaining a Muslim in good standing. (I’m sure that there is a division within Islamic jurisprudence on this matter, but from the perspective of Christians the division’s practical impact is impossible to discern.) Therefore, the loyalty tests and oaths that have become a fixture within Christendom over the course of millenia are revealed to have a severe limitation in the contemporary context of multiculturalism.

The Global War on Terrorism could easily slip into a war of civilizations, pitting Christian and Jew against Muslim. While this would be a preferable option to letting radical Islam dominate the globe, it is not the option we most prefer.

The optimal situation is for Jews, Christians, and the non-radical, moderate, liberal, or moderate Muslims—in addition to all others from atheists to Buddhists to Hindus—to resist and repel radical Islam and the jihad campaign. We call this the Global War on Terrorism.

A keystone of this campaign is to not respect multiculturalism, because that is nothing more than anarchy, and anarchy breeds war. The first step against multiculturalism is a halt in immigration to the West from Muslim countries, just as Muslim countries do not allow Westerners to emigrate there. This reciprocal halt is needed for social stability in Western countries. The repugnance Muslims have to the sound of bells and the presence of crosses, and the towering, intruding nature of their spires and the penetrating, amplified call of the mosque to prayer five times a day, all remain in deep conflict with cultural Christendom. In order to avoid needless neighborhood disputes that are likely to grow into full-fledged battles, it is better for Muslims to not be welcomed into predominantly Christian countries. A reciprocal choice has already been made by Muslims, who do not allow immigrant Christians into countries they dominate. While large numbers of immigrants leads to social instability, a number of missionaries who travel freely would not cause any social breakdown.

Simultaneously throughout the world, all proselytizing faiths, including Christianity and Islam, must be free to peacefully proselytize everyone, including each other’s believers. This last part becomes exceptionally tricky, but so long as the proselytization is truly peaceful and not backed by intimidation, economic coercion or bribery, or any kind of subterfuge, the situation should be agreeable to all. Ideally, we would all put away our weapons and just try to peacefully convince one another of our views. Unfortunately, radical Muslims are disinterested in any kind of peace deal. For them, it seems to be either victory or death. We free people of the world of all faiths must resolutely face this terrible choice the radical Muslims are making, unite together, and prepare to defend ourselves. We must remain alert and on guard.

Many Christians have called for Christianity to restrain itself against proselytizing Jews. While that may be a very good idea indeed, it should remain a theological determination and not one subject to political or legal arrangements. For otherwise it would conflict with the new rubric of universal peaceful exercise of religion and proselytization that we freedom-loving peoples of the world mean to enforce as our victory condition in this Global War on Terrorism.

Writing a book review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Don Lattin makes two shockingly inconsistent statements.

Noting a particularly cruel example of tyranny carried out by Christians who were in 415 AD newly running the Roman Empire, having displaced the paganistic practices and emperor worship that came before, Lattin writes: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

By the end of the review, Lattin writes:

Paganism, with its worship of a variety of gods and goddesses, tends by its very nature to be more tolerant of other faiths than monotheistic religion.

(*) Before Lattin said that Christians and pagans are morally equivalent. Later he says that monotheists (Christians) are more intolerant. Ergo, Christians are worse.

Of course, Lattin fails to mention the crucifixions, the gladiator matches, the maulings by wild animals, and the other punishments inflicted under the pagan rule of Rome on Christians. Apparently, paganism is capable of much intolerance as well.

Let us also pause for a moment to consider the human sacrifices, the child sacrifices, the cannibalism, the mass murder, and all the other memorable deeds done by pagans. It’s not just a bunch of people singing songs and burning incense while “skyclad” out in the woodlands.

A proper comparison of religions would compare doctrines. The errors and failures of believers should be a factor, but not the only factor under consideration.

Update: 25 March 2004. Kalblog links. (†) He makes good points.

The notion is false that early Christians appropriated an existing pagan holiday celebrated in December in order to invent Christmas, evidence indicates. The web log Disturber of the Peace and a Touchstone magazine article concur that the reverse is true. The December pagan holiday began as a way to appropriate the already existing, already popular Christian holiday in celebration of Jesus’s birth, that is, Christmas. (*) (†) In other words, Christmas does not have pagan roots.

In the moral and religious debate over gay marriage, many gay marriage proponents frequently say that in the Gospels, Jesus never condemned what the Bible calls sodomy, or sexual relations between members of the same sex. Jesus is thus said to not oppose gay marriage, and thus neither should Christianity.

Of course, Jesus did not say anything in the Gospels about incest or bestiality, either. Yet, we accept that such things are in opposition to the teachings of Jesus and to Christianity.

In the Gospels of Matthew and John, Jesus participates in a wedding celebration and speaks about marriage and divorce. (*) (†) You can make out of that what you will.

It would be a fallacy to say that the absence of evidence ought to be taken as good evidence. The fact that the Gospels record little of what Jesus said about marriage does not by itself make a convincing case for gay marriage, regardless of whether you are Christian.

Gay marriage advocates should make sound arguments, and not rely on fallacies.

Update: 24 March 2004. I should have also mentioned Romans 1:24–27, one the clearest New Testament prohibitions of sodomy. See also Donald Sensing’s post about the interpretation of Jesus’s silence on the subject. (‡) Sensing says that since there was no disagreement among the Jews about the propriety of the law prohibiting sodomy at the time Jesus lived, Jesus would naturally not have preached on the subject.

Christopher Hitchens has famously polemicized against the beloved saint of Calcultta. (*) (†) Now Aroup Chatterjee gives Mother Teresa her Final Verdict: her image was only a fairy tale. (‡)

If Mother Teresa is worthy of her reputation, she should be able to withstand scrutiny.

Robert Morey examines Buddhism from a Christian perspective. (*) Interestingly, “the Buddha” himself was born, lived, and died a Hindu. He never saw himself as breaking away from Hinduism. His followers broke away after his death. To this day, Buddhism is dedicated to irrationality and mysticism.

The vile would-be theocrat Dalai Lama and the myth of a utopian Tibet are exposed by Michael Parenti. (†) Interestingly, the Dalai Lama describes himself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist. He would transform Tibetans into his serfs. (‡) Yet, that isn’t to say that the People’s Republic of China is much better.

Andrew Stuttaford notes that Gerald Gardner, an Englishman, invented Wicca—a paganistic religion—in the 1940s and 1950s. (*) Indeed, it appears that the claims of Wiccans that “the Craft” dates to ancient times are wildly, if not wickedly, off the mark. (†)

In English-speaking countries, one can find copies of the Koran, the holy book of Islam, in bookstores. The trouble is to find an English translation of the Koran that is accurate. According to Islamic teachings, the Koran was transmitted to Mohammed in Arabic, and no translation of the Koran can be true to that original Arabic. In any case, most English translations of the Koran leave out parts that English speakers would find controversial. (*) Passages that call for physical violence are changed to more peaceful words, for example.

This is regrettable. Those studying Christianity or Judaism are free to debate those passages of the Bible that call for violence and what might even be called brutality. Those studying Islam should be apprised of whatever it is that the Koran says or hints at. The study of any religion should be energized by the spirit of free inquiry.

There is a great lack of understanding of the basics of Islam the religion here in the United States. Here is an excellent summary from another site.

Islam was started by the prophet Muhammed in the 7th century. Muslims believe that all previous prophets in other world religions were actually Muslims but that their message has been corrupted. These other prophets are considered to have been sent to a single. . . group, such as Jesus being a prophet to the Jews and his message applying only to the Jews. Muhammed[,] on the other hand, is the “seal of the prophets”, that is, the final prophet who was sent for all people.

Beliefs about God:

• God is transcendent and unknowable by man.
• Tawhid- God is one (not a trinity).
• God does what he wills but is not thought of as holy.
• God can change his mind and give commands that abrogate previous commands.

Man:

• Man is inherently good and is born a Muslim. The people around him teach him to be a Christian, Hindu etc.
• Man needs to recognize God and submit to him by obeying his laws, including the five pillars of Islam: belief, prayer, zakat (tithe), fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca.

Heaven/Paradise:

• God will judge each persons actions and if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, God may have mercy on them and let them enter Paradise, but a Muslim can never be sure.
• Those who go to Paradise still have a physical body and enjoy sensual activities. . . .

Revelation:

• God revealed truth to the prophets who were sinless. People refused to follow the prophets and corrupted their words (thus even though the Qur’an refers to the Bible, they consider the current state of the Bible to be corrupted).
• Final revelation came through Muhammed who received the words of the Qur’an from God and recited them for others to write down. The actual words are written in heaven, in Arabic[,] which is the language of God. Translation of the Qur’an (called Interpretations) are not considered to be real scripture, thus many Muslims memorize parts of the Qur’an in Arabic to recite as prayers regardless of whether or not they know Arabic.

(*) That’s a good list. Two more important concepts to know about Islam are jihad (”holy war”) (†) and taqiyah. (‡)

English does not have separate words for Islamic culture and Islamic religion. Thus, Islam stands for both. This ambiguity is a frequent source of confusion. The confusion is aggravated by Islam’s typical unity of religion and government.

In debates and discussions here in America, it is frequently said that the word Islam means “peace.” It does not. Islam is the Arabic word for “submission.” The Arabic word for “peace” is usually transliterated as salam or salaam. In Arabic, as in English, these are two distinct words. (*)

Sometimes Muslims and others call Islam a “religion of peace.” To the extent this may be a viable argument, it is so only in the sense that Islam is a peaceful religion, not that Islam “means peace.”

Obviously, if one completely submits to another, one will have peace, either through death or slavery. Neither is the usual meaning of “peace,” however.

Update: 3 December 2003. Allah Pundit links. (†)

In the Atlantic, Bernard Lewis comes through again, now exploring both the differences and similarities between Christianity and Islam. (*)