BEHIND THE VEIL OF RELIGION

Have you not heard evangelists and televangelists in the US preach that hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, fires, bombings, etc., — even 911 and AIDS — are God’s punishment for the sins that Americans commit? And most people who are victims of these disasters are not the sinners themselves but non-sinners who just happened to be living in America.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I am having a lot of fun watching the Christian apologists crawl out of their holes futilely trying to defend their religion in response to my yesterday’s article, Hudud is for animals: Happy Good Friday. The Malays would call this menegakkan benang basah (trying to erect a wet piece of cotton), quite an impossible feat to accomplish.

Another news item yesterday that attracted a hot debate was Infidels go to hell, Isma leader reminds Muslims mourning Karpal’s passing. I suspect today’s news item, Clarify reminder on use of ‘RIP’ by Muslims, former Perlis mufti urges fatwa council, is also going to attract a debate, especially the part where the ex-Perlis Mufti said:

The National Fatwa Council has been urged to clarify its statement discouraging Muslims from using the phrase “Rest in Peace” (RIP) when condoling a non-Muslim’s death.

Commenting on the council’s reminder that Muslims are not permitted to use the phrase, former Perlis mufti Associate Professor Datuk Dr Asri Zainul Abidin said the clarification was important so that the matter would be clearly understood.

He said the council’s explanation should be based on two categories: whether the deceased understood but rejected Islam outright, or whether he or she has yet to receive the call to accept the religion.

“The first is whether the deceased rejected Islam as a religion. He knew about Islam but rejected it. The perception of Islam is RIP should not be said to this person.”

“But if this person does not know what Islam is or if he is unclear because of his own perception about Islam, then we cannot say he has been punished by God.”

To summarise what the ex-Mufti said, if you reject Islam then you are an infidel and you cannot rest in peace (RIP) because you will be tortured in your grave while you wait to be resurrected when you will then be sent to the fires of hell for eternity (meaning for ever and ever). So Muslims cannot wish these people RIP because they will not be resting in peace.

This sounds very cruel and heartless, does it not? Well, it may sound cruel and heartless as far as human values are concerned. According to divine values, however, this is not cruel and heartless. This is what God has decreed. Hence to oppose God’s decrees is to oppose God Himself. And those who oppose God are kufur and would become a kafir or an infidel.

The trouble with humans is they always measure things in human values (and modern human values on top of that). God does not want you to do that. God wants you to measure things in divine values. And what may be cruel and heartless to humans does not necessarily make it cruel and heartless to God as well.

For example, God created animals (although atheists would disagree that it was God who created animals). Then God make it lawful for Judeo-Christian-Muslims to eat these animals (unless you are of a religion that prohibits this and obligates you to be a vegetarian). Is that not cruel? Would you chop of the head of a Persian cat or a French Poodle and then pop the carcass into a cooking pot? Most would shudder at this thought but have no qualms about doing the same thing to a cow, pig, goat, horse, deer, and whatnot. Some even enjoy eating rabbit stew or rabbit satay. Isn’t that a cruel and heartless thing to do to such a cuddly creature? But then God allows this, does He not?

Hence what is cruel and heartless and what is not is not for you to say. God has already decided this matter and has ruled accordingly. And who are you to forbid what God has allowed and vice versa? Are you trying to play God? Are you trying to change God’s laws? Would you not be making God angry by defying Him?

God has punished people for less than that. For example, if you read the Bible, you will discover a story of a certain person who had been ordered to have sex with his brother’s wife because his brother could not give his wife any children. This person was not too happy about the matter and just before he ejaculated he ‘withdrew’ and ‘spilled his seed on the ground’. God was so infuriated that this person had defied His instructions that He struck this person dead. And that was just for the ‘crime’ of ‘birth control’.

(I will let the ‘Bible scholars’ talk about this person and explain the incident).

The Judeo-Christian-Islamic holy books are full of stories regarding ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide. God Himself destroyed the entire world during Noah’s time. He also wiped out entire cities and told the Jews to do the same, which they did. There are many stories in the holy books of God ordering that every living thing — humans plus animals — must be exterminated for rejecting the word of God. Even innocent babies in their cradles are not to be spared.

God never forbade slavery. God considers slaves your property, to do with them as you please, even beat them and have sex with them. You can even sell your children or siblings into slavery if you want to. That is allowed according to what the Judeo-Christian-Islamic holy books tell us.

Theists or religionists, especially those of the Abrahamic faith or Semitic religions, try to erect a veil over their religion so that they can hide the cruel and violent parts of their religion behind this veil and show only the good parts. This, of course, is an effort to sanitise their religion as a sort of marketing ploy and present only the positive aspects of their religion. This is dishonest and not sincere, especially those Christians who say that God told us to hate the sin but love the sinner.

God never said such a thing. In fact, if 10% of those in your community are gay, God will exterminate the entire community, the animals included, so that the 90% ‘straights’ die alongside the 10% gays. God does not love the sinner. God hates the sinner, even the 90% who did not sin but just unfortunately happened to be living in that community.

Have you not heard evangelists and televangelists in the US preach that hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, fires, bombings, etc., — even 911 and AIDS — are God’s punishment for the sins that Americans commit? And most people who are victims of these disasters are not the sinners themselves but non-sinners who just happened to be living in America.

At least evangelists and televangelists are honest. And for preaching such things these people raise hundreds of million a year, all tax-free, mind you. In 2010, one televangelist earned about US$97 million, US$3 million short of US$100 million. Guess who this was!

Christians are not honest and sincere. At least Jews and Muslims are. They never hide the fact that they hate infidels and sinners. Islam says you must physically oppose the sinners. This means kill them. If you do not have the physical strength or power to kill them then you must speak out against them. If you fear speaking out against them because these sinners are too powerful then you must hate them in your heart. Nevertheless, those who only dare hate them in their hearts are people of a very weak faith, says Islam. This is the type of honesty that Christians do not possess. Christians will say that God asked us to love the sinner.

Those 19 Muslims who flew those planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon are not extremists or misguided Muslims. They are ‘true’ Muslims. They just did what their religion taught them. Hence they are good Muslims and that is why many Muslims cheered and danced on the streets all over the world when the Twin Towers came down.

The Muslim apologists, just like their Christian apologist brethren, said that this is wrong. These Muslims are misguided, they argue. These Muslims do not understand the real Islam, they assure us. They are doing what Islam forbids them from doing, they insist.

On the contrary, these people are doing exactly what Islam taught them to do. They launched a jihadagainst the infidels who invaded Muslim lands. This is called a crusade. And is not crusading also part of Jewish and Christianity teachings? And if you deny this then you are lying, or you do not know your own religion, or you are living in denial.

One fallacy that the Christians perpetuate is that this is ‘old’ Christianity. ‘New’ Christianity is no longer like that. They try to sanitise Christianity by arguing that Jesus came to change all this. This demonstrates the ignorance of most Christians who do not know their own religion.

Of course you will say this. You have been indoctrinated with this so you believe this. It is just a PR exercise to give Christianity a modern, non-violent image. This is how they market Christianity. If the church says that Christians must kill all those who do not accept Christ how many people will become or remain Christians?

If Jews, Christians and Muslims want to be true to their religion then admit that your religion is not a religion of peace but a religion of war. God hates those who reject Him. And these people must be put to death, or at the very least conquered and forced to submit to God.

And that is why Islam is about submission. Islam does not convert you through love. Islam is convert or die. And if you are a Jew or Christian then you will be spared death if you pay a tax as a non-Muslim member of a Muslim community. Your money can save you if you are a Jew and Christian but pagans must convert or die.

And this is what the Wahhabis did when they conquered the Arabian Peninsula. They spared the Jews and Christians but killed all the others, even those who professed Islam but not the Wahhabi branch of Islam, who were considered heretics.

Incidentally, I met quite a number of Filipino workers in Medina. I asked them how they managed to get a work permit since they are Christians and they told me they had to convert to Islam to get their work permits. When I asked them whether they would revert to Christianity once their contracts expire and they return to the Philippines, they smiled and said, “Maybe.”

And people love quoting that verse from the Qur’an that says there is no compulsion in religion. Maybe not if you do not need a work permit.