2 Aug 2007
Mark Westphal
Mr. Dalrymple:
What is Islam based on?
Mohammed went into "trances" and fits (like epileptic fits) when he was given the "word of God" and would shout out what he was told. These would be written down by his followers. This is the makeup of the Koran.
When Mohammed was just walking and talking and acting like "normal", his words and deeds were written down by his followers and this went into the Hadith. Now, acting "normal" for Mohammed was taking 12+ wives (including a 6 year old), taking slaves (including sex slaves), executing infidels, conducting raids for treasure, etc.
Now, this is where it gets complicated.
A large part of the words he spoke in trances were "taken back" by Mohammed. He determined them to be the work of the devil (thus they are called the "Satanic Verses" and these are the same verses that Mr. Salman Rushdie got in trouble for writing about).
Now, how Mohammed determined which verses were from God and which were from Satan I do not know.
Also, there were literally dozens of widely different versions of the Koran and Hadith floating around for several hundred years after Mohammed death until a Fatwah was decreed to destroy all but one version. Now, even Mohammed could not remember what he was told by God and forgot it (those are his words as written in the Hadith) so I do not know how the powers in charge decided which was the correct version.
Also according to the Hadith, Mohammed turned people into monkeys, you can determine a child's sex depending on whether the male or female has an orgasm first (that advice came directly from the Angel Gabriel), dogs and cats are evil and should be killed, that the devil lives in your nose at night (and how to get rid of him in the morning), chess is forbidden, muslims have one intestine while infidels have seven, don’t pray looking up or your eyes will be snatched away, that one wing of a fly is poison but the other is the cure, that drinking camel urine is good for you and I could go on.
And that Mohammed himself didn't even know if he was going to heaven. If even Mohammed doesn't know, what chance does the average muslim have?
And for some non-PC info, Mohammed was described as a white man.
Now, if you can bear it, to compare to the Gospels of New Testament.
Jesus was someone who lived a very humble life and was killed for basically saying he was a King and Son of God (blasphemy) by the powers in charge (Roman and Jewish). The government wanted Jesus destroyed and wanted his growing movement destroyed (as it threatened their power). If, after 3 days, the followers of Jesus proclaimed he has risen from the dead, (just as he predicted), and is truly our Savior, the High Officials would have wanted to destroy such a "myth." They could have easily done this by producing the dead body of Jesus and saying "Your Messiah is still dead and so is your movement" or producing many eye witnesses of the dead Jesus. But they couldn't.
The letters that make up the New Testament were written by the eye witnesses of the events of Jesus. They were written in just one generation when many other eye witnesses were still alive. They were written without collusion from other Apostles. Even if any of the Apostles wanted to "add" to the "myth" of Jesus, they would have done so in a very disjointed and easily detectable fashion. Yet, the main Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that describe the life of Jesus are amazingly in harmony with one another and the small differences are consistent with what we would see today if four people witnessed a major event and wrote about the event apart from each other. The Gospels can be traced back to their sources and are basically unchanged from their originals.
The Bible is the most investigated historical document in the history of the world. It has been investigated by scientists, philosophers and archeologists using technology undreamed of when the Bible was written. It is been desperately tried to be "disproved" for over 2000 years, yet, the Bible still stands as the truth.
The stories of Jesus still make sense to us today. It may be because they are true, it may be because they are based in love or it may be because they were written to tell the people of the Word of God.
Regards,
Mark Westphal
2 Aug 2007
Maxnnr
"Between dhimmitude and death, who would not choose dhimmitude? "
I choose to fight to the death (preferably their death) and being an armed American I have the choice.
2 Aug 2007
Larry Uloth
Mr. Dalyrumple...your essay was interesting. I find the comments by Mr. Westphal more to the truth of the matter. I believe firmly that the Koran was the natterings of an on again off again mentally retardent person. That the angel Gabriel was much more likely Satan or his minions.
What was produced was not a religious text but an ideaology of evil. If anything islam is a convienient "religion" its ability to become anything the current sayer wants is unbelieveable.
I hope beyond a prayer that western and eastren civilization soon awakens to recognize islams inherent evil and takes the steps needed to expunge it from the world. The world , for environmental reasons, could use the loss of its 1.5 billion mental cases.
3 Aug 2007
alfred
Yes, Mr. Dalrymple, the Muslim mythology is diverse. It is also perverse, and increasingly so, in relation to the political and social values of the Enlightenment. It is a regression to the "secure" place in the universe of denizens of the Dark Ages.
While the diversity is tolerable, the perversity is not. Muslims have a choice: join the modern world or be rejected by it.
That said, the aspects of modernity the Muslim finds objectionable--the lack of modesty, the moral lassitude and decay, the insufferable "individualism" that has taken hold in Western society in the last 40-50 years, and which you have described so compellingly in your writings--these retardant socially destructive traits are also objectionable to those of common sense and proportionate decent respect for the permanent, time-tested virtues and values.
So it would seem that if adherents to the Muslim mythology wish for they and their universal centrality to endure, they might best adjure their infidel hatred and join the league of decency in the struggle to maintain moral balance in the face of the disintegrating features of decadent modernity.
But of course they will not. For perversity, radicalism, hatred for the "other," once uncaged, knows no satiety. It is, and always has been, the underlying instinctive activator of all religious belief, utopian secular idealism, and "blessed god-talker" progenitors of such notions.
Christian true believers say that the Christ figure is the exception. And that Christianity is the exception thereupon. That would be true, if human nature were Christ-like, instead of immutably corruptible, historically corrupt, and perennially unredeemable in perpetuity.
Thus the absolute requirements of common sense, rationalism, proportionality, and common decency, about which you have written so eloquently, in lamentation of their absence, and which much of the Muslim world, in its pervesity, rejects.
6 Aug 2007
James
"The Bible is the most investigated historical document in the history of the world. It has been investigated by scientists, philosophers and archeologists using technology undreamed of when the Bible was written. It is been desperately tried to be "disproved" for over 2000 years, yet, the Bible still stands as the truth."
Which desribes the same processes you condemn The Koran occurring with The Bible. Someone might help me here but isn't the belief that allknowledge can be found in ancient books the philosophy known as scholasticism.....which was the main cause of the dark ages! This pathetic clinging to anachronistic belief systems is absolutely toxic to managing our destiny on this planet
9 Aug 2007
Stephen Rittenberg
Islam is a utopian ideology built upon a childhood problem: the difference between the sexes. Male castration anxiety is triggered by the small boy's awareness that there are penis-less creatures, and that could happen to him. Islam's solution: control the dangerous females. Islam's inordinate hatred of homosexuality--stone them to death-- is evidence of the temptation to turn away from women and make sexual partners of men. Islam is best understood as a product of male sexual pathology, an effort to create a perfect world in which sex will be free of danger and anxiety. It is the very libidinous, sexual freedom of the West which will eventually destroy Islam--or be destroyed by it.
27 Aug 2007
ZZMike
While I support Mr Westphal's argument, we should recognize that the New Testament was written during the years 50 to about 100 - not exactly in the same generation. Paul, for instance - the best-known apostle - never saw Jesus, except on the road to Damascus.
None of which changes the main argument. The Bible has an Old and a New Testament; the Koran is one continuous book. The New Testament teaches love and inclusiveness ("Who is my brother?"); the Koran teaches the division between dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb - "us" and "them", and the word for "them" in this case - "Harb" - means "war".
