Don’t Blame Zakir Naik, Blame Religion

Malaysians are living in denial. If you want tolerance, love and peace then become an atheist. You cannot become a religionist or theist (especially of the Abrahamic faiths) and preach tolerance, love and peace. Tolerance, love and peace are not in God’s playbook. Submit or die is. That is what religion is all about.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Most people, Christians and Muslims included, do not understand that what Dr Zakir Naik preaches is correct and there is nothing wrong in what he says. Of course, I am saying this in the context of what religion teaches and asks their proponents to do.

Christians says Christianity is a religion of love while Muslims says Islam is a religion of peace. In this sense the Jews are more honest than the Christians and Muslims. The Abrahamic faiths, which includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are religions of war.

Zakir Naik was just preaching the true teachings of the Abrahamic faiths

Jesus was at war with Jews who had distorted their faith. Jesus claimed he had come not to change the religion but to enforce it. And Jesus was said to have mengamuk in the temple. Jesus’ resistance to the ‘new order’ and his effort to restore the ‘old order’ got him into trouble with the Jewish authorities who then went to meet the Romans to demand that they act against him.

Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God here on earth, no different from Darul Allah or a theological state. Jesus did not preach democracy, human rights of civil liberties, which had already existed by then.

The Old Testament tells us about how God punished those who did not follow the Sharia laws. God wiped out the entire world except Noah and his family in a great flood. God wiped out those from the Semburit community who partook in sodomy (that’s how the word sodomy came about, from the city of Sodom). God wiped out Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Then God instructed Moses to roam around in the desert and wipe out every living soul that refuses to follow God’s rules and laws.

1,700 years ago many Christians raw away to the Arabian Peninsula to avoid being killed

1,700 years ago, all Christians and non-Christians who refused to follow the ‘New Christianity’ of Constantine were massacred. The Christians embarked on ethnic cleansing to install the ‘New Order’ and many who refused to convert to the New Christianity and wanted to avoid death ran off to safe places such as to what we now call the Arabian Peninsula.

Prophet Muhammad was exposed to the Coptic form of Christianity and Judaism in Mekah and Syria. That was before he became a Muslim. In fact, his wife’s cousin was a Coptic priest.

After Muhammad’s death, Islam expanded and eventually reached India, Spain, Austria, etc. Around 1,000 years ago the Christians decided to fight back and the first of a series of Crusades were launched. Officially, Christianity and Islam were at war, as was Christianity and Judaism.

(Jews faces persecution and expulsion all over Christendom for more than 1,000 years right up to the Second World War. Those not expelled had to pay a special tax and live in Jewish areas or ghettos only).

The three sister religions that have been at war with one another for more than 1,000 years

In short, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not only all religions of the same Abrahamic faiths, but for 2,000 years have been competing with each other (Islam entered the ‘competition’ 600 years later). They compete to gain converts and they need to condemn each other in winning the propaganda war.

The Bible tells us about God condemning idol worshipping and Islam relates the story of Muhammad entering Mekah and destroying the 365 or so idols in the Kaaba (and Muslims are ordered to follow the Prophet’s sunnah or example). Hence Hinduism is despised by Jews, Christians and Muslims, plus those statues of Buddha as well (both Christianity and Islam call them infidels).

What Dr Zakir Naik is preaching is what for 2,000 years Judaism and Christianity preaches. Then along came Islam 600 years later and preached the same thing. There is nothing wrong in what Zakir Naik preaches. It is not Zakir Naik who condemns Hinduism. It is God who does (at least this is what Jews, Christians and Muslims believe).

Zakir Naik is just being a good Muslim. The problem is people do not wish to see religion (or the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) for what it really is. They con themselves into believing that the Abrahamic faiths are religions of tolerance, love and peace.

The Holy Books of the Abrahamic faiths is not about tolerance, love and peace but about a jealous God that does not tolerate competitors

Nonsense. That is not what the Holy Books of the Jews, Christians and Muslims say. The Abrahamic faiths are religions of war. The Abrahamic God is a jealous God who does not tolerate other Gods. You follow Jesus you go to heaven, say the Christians, all others burn in hell. You follow Muhammad you go to heaven, say the Muslims, all others burn in hell.

Malaysians are living in denial. If you want tolerance, love and peace then become an atheist. You cannot become a religionist or theist (especially of the Abrahamic faiths) and preach tolerance, love and peace. Tolerance, love and peace are not in God’s playbook. Submit or die is. That is what religion is all about.