The LA Times has been reading the journal of Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez. They found the predictable.
On Abdulazeez’s blog, there were a number of entries dealing with Islam and jihad.
“Every one of them [the Companions of the Prophet Mohammad] fought Jihad for the sake of Allah,” reads one recent post. “Every one of them had to make sacrifices in their lives and some even left all their wealth to make hijrah to Medina.”
Says another recent post: “This life we are living is nothing more than a test of our faith and patience. It was designed to separate the inhabitants of Paradise from the inhabitants of Hellfire, and to rank amongst them the best of the best and worst of the worst. Don’t let the society we live in deviate you from the task at hand.”
That’s the kind of thinking that makes religion so lethal – that idea that “this life we are living is nothing more than” some test or practical joke or punishment by a magical unavailable god, and that it’s the job of believers to help that god “rank” people and sort the good from the bad – and destroy the bad. That’s probably the single worst idea humans have come up with.
“Brothers and sisters don’t be fooled by your desires, this life is short and bitter and the opportunity to submit to allah may pass you by,” another post notes.
Bad. Bad idea. Bad thought.
While our rightwing will easily see these writings as identifying a huge problem, the common, close relationship of religion and violence against others (the “other”), they won’t see what’s glaringly obvious: The close similarities between this writing and the writing and speech of many rightwing Christians, even prominent pastors and politicians.
Yep. It’s a problem with this kind of religious dogma in general, not just the Islamist variety.
That’s really the problem (or a big problem) with the sorts of religionists that have a view of an afterlife: they hate being alive in this plane of existence. Everything they do is intended to escape it and they can’t believe that others would actually enjoy being alive; any enjoyment of this existence is just badwrong and should be punished.
Afterlifism is a lie; anyone who’s ever experienced their body flinching automatically away from danger knows there’s no better place we magically go to when we die. They’re just in denial about it because they’ve had their hopes hijacked by lies.
Well, it’s nice to think about and can be a comfort to many people, but when it makes you reject being alive as a good thing… that’s terrible.
I know it has been said more eloquently by others, but I cannot help but support the “Some Arsehole Initiative” when it comes to mass-murderers.