“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”
–Victor Hugo
Frank Zappa famously said that “There is more stupidity around than hydrogen and it has a longer shelf life.” The stupidity of those who yet insist that Islam is a religion of peace—that Islam does not create the terrorist, that terrorism is tangential from Islam proper, that Islam is not anti-Jewish—has an amazing shelf life. That these preposterous and reality-defying claims are still being made today is, as I have written many times before, indicative of the incredible lengths that some will go to exculpate a religion that is totally undeserving of such mitigation. If it can be said that Christianity was complicit in precipitating the Holocaust, it can also be said that Islam is complicit in precipitating an eerily similar anti-Jewish hatred—in the form of Islamist terrorism and anti-Israel propaganda. Anyone delving into the history of antisemitism will discover that Martin Luther was essentially a bald-faced anti-Jewish bigot. They will discover also that the Prophet Mohammed was essentially a bald-faced anti-Jewish bigot. And just as a majority of Christians continue to pose, erroneously, Luther’s anti-Jewish hatred as merely contextual, so a majority of Muslims present the Prophet Mohammed’s anti-Jewish hatred in the same exculpatory light.
I’ve always felt contempt for the taboos protecting any religion from criticism, even from excoriation. This contempt puts me in league with those atheists who are not only brave enough to defy the gods of men, but are also quite willing to prove their mettle by exposing the foolish timidity and eccentric disposition of religious quacks. Atheists are rightly offended by those religious who are not in the least discomposed by the buggering of little boys yet are, oddly enough, unhinged by the idea of women taking up the Catholic priesthood. Atheists easily perceive the contradiction in the fact that Muslims around the world are entranced into violence by mere caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed but are otherwise inured to the spectacle of the public decapitation of Christian children of Mosul at the hands of their ISIS captors. Atheists were not surprised, therefore, to discover that an online Al Jazeera poll, taken in the Arab Middle East in May 2015, found that 81% of those Muslims queried supported ISIS and their imperialistic adventures. One can understand how Christopher Hitchens, perhaps the most articulate atheist of all time, once remarked that Islam was “the most depraved” of all religions.
Amazing how our governments and media elite can obtrude abortion and same-sex marriage into the democratic tradition, but we have such difficulty accepting the reality that Islam the religion is actually the real source of terrorist and anti-Jewish violence. In a piece I wrote long ago, I referred to Islam as the “Teflon religion.” This appellation holds true today. Why are we so hesitant to profile the crimes of this religion as having a direct connection to the ruthless precedents found within the Quran? Why are we always looking for ways to deflect the blame from this religion that it so rightly deserves? I believe we have adopted this exculpatory stratagem precisely because its crimes are so many and because the religious monsters committing these crimes continue to insist they are driven to such extremes exclusively by the tenets of Islam proper. “If everyone says so, it must be true,” counsels the Yiddish proverb. Western governments and the media elites who cook up their “accommodation” policies would do well to hearken to this wisdom.
Equating Judaism and Christianity with Islam is an idea that never should have found traction in the Western world. In the Muslim world, the belief that Judaism and Christianity are obsolesced by Islam was born a religious imperative and has now become a cultural norm. Quite a contradistinction to Western pluralists and their foolish, bromidic insistence that Islam should be given equal status in a society whose cultural traditions Muslim activists never tire of calumniating and traducing. We would be much wiser—and much safer—were we to adopt the Muslim Middle Eastern standard which, in our present situation, would necessitate that Islam the religion be officially designated as a dangerous ideology solely because the behavioural tendencies of its adherents are quite extraneous to our societal norms. We must never accept that Muslim zealots shooting AK47s at cartoonists, or travelling to Syria to participate in an Islamic bloodbath, could ever become a thread in the Western democratic fabric.
Islam the religion is not applicable to the Western world; is not relevant to the Western world: This is an idea whose time has come. We have suffered enough because of this insalubrious religion. We have dodged the bullet too many times now to ever again give this jihadist leviathan the benefit of the doubt. “Time is a great teacher,” wrote Hector Berlioz, “but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” How many more innocent people (Muslims included) must die only because we have not the noetic fortitude or the moral courage to toss this idol of violence and anti-Jewish hatred into the dustbin of failed human inventions? Does it take an Iranian nuclear weapon exploding in Tel Aviv for the rest of the world to finally wake up to the reality that Islam is not a religion of peace and never will be?
Christopher Hitchens (I am still listening to you, my friend) wrote, “Past and present religious atrocities have occurred not because we are evil, but because it is a fact of nature that the human species is, biologically, only partly rational.” Hence, fools like David Cameron proclaim Islam to be “a religion of peace”—even as innocent Britons are shot dead as they lay sun-bathing on beach towels in Tunisia—and its jihadist theme is given breathing room in our midst. Atheists are laughing at us, and so are ISIS, but for entirely different reasons.
underbed cat says
Just turning on the news this morning, don’t yet know any details of what is happening at the Navy Yard in D.C..but once again the thought comes to mind how vulnerable we are when we accept the muslim brotherhoods’ version of the enemy we face, the enemy who is interwoven and sanctified safe. All the information about the doctrine, previous trials and still the mantra of diversity “trumped” the mind to reason.( Although one Trump may know… ) as many exoerts who have studied and written books to explain
When ship builders, plane manufacturers, military bases, manufacturers, schools, military , medical organizations all get passes we are in trouble. Maybe they are waking up, I can only hope.
underbed cat says
False alarms…. but lots of beards.
VRWC member77 says
Sorry for the back tagging comment here, underbed but I feel a bit irritated by some of Mike’s comments.
Well Mr.Devolin I was a big Zappa fan too but the quote you site isn’t particularly witty or profound. Like you I’m also an atheist but I don’t preen myself as having an intellect that’s above anyone who has a faith, be it Christianity, Jainism or any other belief that doesn’t threaten my well being. I’m quite sure the vast majority of people on this site don’t care about the league of which you fancy yourself as being a member…..gods of men or otherwise.
Christopher Hitchens may have had the correct view regarding islam but so do a number of other present day liberals. I don’t understand what was so special about the man just because he happened to have a sane view as to what islam was all about.
You seem to be concerned about your “fellow atheists” laughing at you. I’m not one of those atheists and quite frankly I feel more strongly about the promoting of Judea-Christian values more now than any previous time in my life. Islam may be an obvious cult to the informed but it is still viewed as a religion by the uninformed masses. Do you really think you can fight a doctrine like islam with proud shouts of humanism?
Whether you like it or not a counter point religious doctrine to islam is going to be necessary in order to defeat it………….in my highly regarded and extremely humble atheistic opinion(s.o).
Lia Wissing says
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this thought. I Peter 4: 17 tells us that judgement will start in the house of the Lord. I think that’s why the RCC ‘b******** of little boys’, the Jewish rabbis who dishonour women, the large evangelistic churches’ pastors’ infidelities are all being revealed.
RonaldB says
“Just turning on the news this morning”
You want scary news?:
“The U.S. has reportedly blocked any attempts by Middle East allies to fly weapons to the Kurds fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.
High level officials from Gulf and other states have told The Telegraph that plans to persuade Obama to arm the Kurds directly have failed. The Senate voted down an amendment for the U.S. to bypass Baghdad and send weapons to the Kurdish fighters.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/02/us-reportedly-blocks-arab-allies-attempts-to-deliver-weapons-to-kurds-fighting/
All politics and culture in the Islamic Middle East is tribal. The only way to stop ISIS is with tribal enclaves or states. Iraq after Hussein will either be engulfed by the Islamic ISIS, or will split into Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurd states, which will fight to retain its own tribal autonomy. The US should probably not try to control the process, as the US has an unblemished record of blundering and destruction in the region. But, the US can at least not put obstacles in the way of the tribal regions fighting ISIS effectively.
But, amazingly (only to someone who assumes the administration and legislators have the best interests of the country in mind), the Obama administration opposed having the option of giving arms directly to the Kurds, and the Senate voted the proposal down.
This is folly of the highest order, and directly endangers the security of the United States.
pongidae rex says
Political correctness in the West has evolved into a collective social psychosis that transcends national boundaries. Western leaders are no longer able to process information that contradicts the magical thinking imposed by this dynamic. I see no way out because, just as Islam kills or banishes its ‘apostates’, so the politically correct West banishes as ‘Islamophobes’ or bigots all who cross the line into rational thought.
SaturnV says
P Rex:
“Political correctness in the West has evolved into a collective social psychosis.” I couldn’t agree more. And, I fear for our future as we use shame and ostracism (in the US) and the courts (Canada and elsewhere in the West) to control the speech and thoughts of those who are willing to speak the truth. Witness the maligning and ridiculing of Spencer and Geller, the disproportionate response to Trump’s allegedly racist comments, and the labeling of the slightest offense on college campuses as micro-aggressions. I worry that we are on a ruinous course that will only end with a total societal upheaval, and I fear that upheaval will be war.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
… the disproportionate response to Trump’s allegedly racist comments…
Notice that there is no discussion at all about whether what The Donald said was true. He’s lambasted especially for saying all the illegal immigrant Mexicans are criminals. But… isn’t that what illegal means, is it not a crime to come into the United States illegally? Much as global warming got rebranded as climate change after more than a dozen years of mild cooling, the illegal immigrants got rebranded as undocumented workers. And much earlier than when that happened, the illegal alien/undocumented workers got rebranded from native Americans to something called Hispanics, a race that does not exist in the physical world of human biology.
Branding is is of top importance. The Moslems have a solid brand here in America, one not to be sniffed at much less challenged. And they’re not even illegal aliens. Alien, maybe, but not illegal.
Betty says
alarmed some are here illegal because there coming across the Mexican border into AMERICA. SO THEY ARE AS ILLEGAL AS THE MEXICANS THAT COME THE SAME ROUTE.
Ian_A_S says
“Political correctness in the West has evolved into a collective social psychosis.” – I too was impressed by that phrase.
I can see in it the germ of a new term: ISLAMOPSYCHOTIC “the blindly dogmatic belief in spite of all evidence to the contrary that Islam is a religion of peace.”
Some famous people who, sadly, became Islamopsychotic: David Cameron (UK Prime Minister), Barack Obama (US President), …
mortimer says
Politicians like David Cameron thinks young people won’t join jihad if he LIES TO THEM about the doctrine of jihad. Hardly. They will disregard him and laugh at Cameron’s naivety.
There is no use in David Cameron lying to the world about the universal, Islamic OBLIGATION of jihad.
It’s like saying the doctrine of papal infallibility has ‘nothing to do’ with Roman Catholicism.
Tequila Not Taqiyya says
“Politicians like David Cameron thinks young people won’t join jihad if he LIES TO THEM about the doctrine of jihad.”
Great point. Who are they going to believe, the kufir Cameron or the mountains and mountains of info given to them on a regular basis by their local Imam?
Like you said, they will just laugh at him and feel superior as they are taught to do by their supremacist ideology, smug in their knowledge that they are tricking people.
wakeup333 says
Robert didn’t write this! Read the byline. MICHAEL DEVOLIN wrote it!
Angemon says
This article id by Michael Devolin, not Robert Spencer.
saturnine says
This article was not written by Robert.
underbed cat says
i agree it is a collective psychosis based on misinformation by sanctioned deceivers, and I am nervous each and every time I speak out since “authorities” with power may be only temporarily restricted due to free speech. But when France pulls a move to remove imams, once they get it..I hope it will become common knowledge. Although, the population numbers will give any country pause for concern due to the doctrine it has to start somewhere. It may be similar to removing glue.
sinantara says
@ponginide, yes, that is what I think. PC is a heresy and the heretics are fanatical religious about it. PC is the cult of the other.To Jesus the other were fallen women, humane Roman officers, Samaritans… To the medieval crowd, the poor–in the sixties, blacks. Presently Muslims. PC heretics are radicals Christians who don’l know that they are Christians–orgastiastic in loving their enemies, turning the other cheek and translating humbleness in humiliating oneself like a dog rolling over and licking the feet of the master since its instincts say that the alpha will not bite when licked. Christ was humble but not weak, he told the Pharisees off, calling them vipers, and drove the traders out of his fathers house. And he accepted his fate with dignity and courage. PC people have not such qualities, that is why victimhood has become morality and whining about being victimized is now heroic. But they are dogmatic about what victimhood is. It is in their understanding being victimized not like having your church set on fire or having your daughter kidnapped or being beaten up for wearing a cross, victimhood is membership of a group that is officially ordained as being “victim”. Likewise the victimizer. And since the victim is the Other, the victimizer is necessarily Not the Other but the Self. And since in PC there is no individuality but collective identity instead (imagine, affirmative action would be pointless if we would talk about individual responsibility), the Self becomes white Western Christian, which then is unselved (I am white, sorry about that (white people are now trying to pass for black) but I am not western since I hate the west like you do and I am not a Christian since Christians are guilty (happen to be able to feel guilt). In the end dogma states that loving your enemy is accommodating your enemy to the point that if your enemy wants you dead, you will provide him (or her) with the means to kill you. And if the enemy to rape your daughter he is entitled to you and should be protected from racist interference. So radical Muslims and radical PC people are a perfect match, sadists need masochists.
Linde Barrera says
To Sinantara- Hi. I don’t recognize your moniker, so maybe you are new here? Welcome. I have to disagree with your conclusion about “loving your enemies to the point where if they want you dead, you just allow them to kill you”. That sounds like a fascist, neo- Nazi interpretation of Christianity to me. As a Christian, I am to “put on the whole armor of God.” And also, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.” So when Jesus said “Turn the other cheek”, to me that means look the other way if someone hurts you or insults you, and don’t try to get back at him/her. But each Christian must decide individually to take up arms in self-defense, and there is nothing that says we can’t. I leave you with this thought: “Do not let any religion spoil your personal faith in God.”
Betty says
what church do you go to?
Linde Barrera says
To Betty- I am a member of The United Church of Christ, which has its roots in Congregationalism from the Pilgrims, the ones who landed in Massachusetts. (Not the same as Puritans.)
sinantara says
to Linda, hi, not new but not a regular. I was not interpreting Christianity but trying to understand the Christian heresy called political correctness. And every religion has a problem with text and context. When the Seleucid army fighting the Maccabees decided to just wait for Sabbath and then have raids, the pious guerrillas just surrendered, until their rabbi’s gave them formal permit to defend themselves on Sabbath. The PC people are a little bit like these pious Jews in their cult of “The Other”.
Linde Barrera says
To Sinantara- Thank you for answering me, and giving an interesting answer. Interpretation of anything can cause trouble and problems, but it is a necessity.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
If it can be said that Christianity was complicit in precipitating the Holocaust, it can also be said that Islam is complicit in precipitating an eerily similar anti-Jewish hatred…
One of the aces in the hole Moslems have is their antisemitism. For them it isn’t just a widespread and popular sentiment, it’s a command from their god. When the Moslems launch a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv, look for two major thrusts from the news entertainers: 1) an analysis of what the Jews did to deserve it, and 2) an analysis of what the tragedy means for non-Jews, including Moslems who are in the non-Jew boat right alongside us Infidels.
There will be lengthy segments done on the occupation of Palestine by the Jews, and vigorous debate on agree-to-disagree parties about whether that was Apartheid or Jim Crow in flavor and nuance.
PRCS says
“look for two major thrusts from the news entertainers”
From SaturnV’s post above, item 1 was the first thing that came to my mind.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Yes, but I would describe the collective psychosis of which he spoke as a fictive reality, in other words the collective acceptance of untruths as true, the believers driven to acceptance of this or that falsehood as gospel by a variety of things ranging from information delivery (elision, repetition, framing, etc.) and resonance (hipness, coolness, shaming, ruination of personal reputation, ruination of one’s career, etc.).
Fictive realities come in bubbles that are independent but interlocked. Bubbles are bigger or smaller by individual, and relationship between them also vary by individual. But they exist, false facts are widely believed all around us. A fictive reality is an untruth so widely believed and so enforced as true that it may as well be true, even though it’s not, even though it’s a fake fact.
For example, almost everybody believes the globe’s biosphere is warming. Another example most people believe that socialism works, and the forced transfer of assets in no way harms freedom. Perhaps worst of all, most everybody believe believes that Islam per se is ok, but for some reason is more prone to hijacking and perversion in these times than other belief systems.
Once a sufficient belief base is propagated, the bubble reinforces itself in the mind of the information consumer with them in his head.
Ian_A_S says
Pig Farmer, the problem with packaging together anti-Islamic arguments with specifically right-wing positions like ‘warmism’ and arguments for Hobbesian ultra-capitalism is that it pushes anti-Islam into a far-right pigeonhole. In the global struggle against Islam, this is very damaging. That is because it makes it too easy for the average college student to write-off anti-Islam sentiment as yet another crackpot right-wing obsession.
I am a total opponent of the world’s most obscene religion, but at the same time, being a scientist, I don’t go along with elevating talk-show drivel to be on par with evidence-based science. So of course I just roll my eyes at climate denialists, as I would at anyone who talks loudly but can’t spell properly or add numbers together. Anti-Islamic arguments on the other hand are evidence-based and rational – they should not be mixed up with low-brow dross.
And, since I don’t live in the USA, I make little sense of Tea-party rhetoric that says it is bad to help others through redistributive mechanisms (what Americans seem to think is “socialism”). My country, as are all advanced societies other than the U.S., is based on a mix of social and economic mechanisms including taxing for welfare. We aren’t Russia, we are the West. Again, I groan when anti-Muslim activism is hijacked by Tea-party agendas and turned into a laughing stock.
Packaging anti-Islamic arguments together with the hard right’s eccentric theories about science and economics only spells doom for urgently-required universal opinion shift against the world’s trashiest religion. Better to concentrate on the issue and work with people across the political spectrum. Anti-Islam has to become mainstream. Please don’t push anti-Islam activism into the right-wing corner.
Linde Barrera says
To Ian_A_S- I really appreciate your eloquent comment to Alarmed Pig Farmer about the idea of combining Anti- Islam criticism with right-wing criticism of other issues. I agree. In another part of your post you stated you were a scientist and mentioned climate change. I am a retired NYC public school teacher and spent many years teaching science to kindergarten through fifth grades. I gave a yearly $50 contribution to The Union of Concerned Scientists out of Cambridge, MA. In return, they sent me bulletins and a magazine. This group claimed climate change was real, and not a hoax, and said that powerful interests wanted to deny climate change. One of the commenters here, (I think Wellington, but not 100% certain,) referred me to a website that said climate change was not a reality. So how does a layman get to “The Truth”? Thank you in advance for answering my question objectively.
Ian_A_S says
Linde, I am not sure if my answer will satisfy you, but it is this: I have trust in science above any other system of thinking, because it is evidence- and logic-based, and even if it goes up a wrong path (a paradigm) it is ultimately self-correcting. Science as a system of thought and practice is a triumph over the darkness that clouds the human mind – the darkness we see that brings us to this forum.
I do not know the ins and outs of climate science – it is a lifetime’s work to understand the intricacies and debates of one’s own scientific field. But I trust that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are motivated by the same goal that almost all scientists have (I suppose there are a few rogues, I can’t say ‘all’) – which is to find the truth about how the world works. I trust them, because they are the carriers of Enlightenment thinking. The Enlightenment – also called the Age of Reason –
being (with your background, Linde, you will know, but just for others) began in the 18th century in Western Europe and was the birth of scientific thought. It is essentially why Western civilization became more magnificent than any other period of human history before it, and still continues to triumph technologically.
My concern with climate science becoming a political issue rather than being left to science is that it is a low-brow challenge to scientific reason. It is a form of post-modernism, where proponents of climate denial suppose science to be just one more school of opinion, and do not understand its special status in human thought. They have succumbed to relativist thinking, that the practice of science has no more intrinsic value than reading tarot cards, that both are equally valid. And that a an opinionated but not particularly well-educated radio shock-jock’s mere assertions have as much weight on scientific issues as do scientists. This corrosion of thinking, this crumbling of the Enlightenment at the hands of the intellectual proletariat, is a fundamental threat to Western civilization. Unfortunately, it is the political right who are responsible for this, who are pushing this post-modern relativist argument and devaluing science.
On this forum, most people talk about the Left’s post-modern intellectual shortfall, which is the Left’s relativist argument that all religions and thought systems have equal value, and so Islam is as legitimate as any other system. The Left has had an honourable history of intellectual thought (I read widely, I have a free mind and am not a partisan thinker, so I am happy to say that – just think George Orwell), but the rot began as post-modernism swept through the academy in the 1960s bringing relativist arguments to the fore, deconstructing Western thinking and leading to Said’s ‘Orientalism’ thesis. From there on, the Left has been incapable of seeing Islam as it is.
But as I say, the Right of politics cannot gloat over the Left’s intellectual knockout, because the right is itself losing its reasoning powers by denigrating science. So basically, both sides of political thought in the West have been fatally dazzled and confused by different strains of post-modernist relativist thinking, the civilization is weakened to its core, and, sensing the end, the barbarian hoards from the East are streaming in through the gates. After 300 years of glory, we are regressing back into the pre-Enlightenment darkness.
Linde Barrera says
To IAN_A_S- Thank you, thank you, thank you for the awesome post you sent me about climate science/left wing/right wing ideologies. I’ll be honest, I never heard of Said and Orientalism, but I understood every sentence of your post. And I will not be intimidated by Islam, nor by its grotesque supporters. Again, thank you for taking your time to give me the down-low.
Ian_A_S says
Thanks Linde, your compliment certainly helps me feel at ease, posting here in this forum for the first time, as I am (but I’ve been reading here for about a year now). I doubt that many ‘Lefties’ come here, no doubt imagining a bunch of drooling illiterates angrily shouting fascist slogans. Instead there is a wealth of well-written articles and thoughtful commentary. We have here a group of normal global citizens who are rightly concerned about the greatest totalitarian threat of our time. Let’s hope we can all sharpen our argumentative wit here, for when we go out and confront the tides of ignorance. We must be brave against the intimidation raining down upon us, and our point of view with regard to the Islamic menace must prevail. This site, this one right here, is a key resource in our battle of ideas.
Linde Barrera says
To IAN_A_S- I just read your most recent post to me, and thank you. I came to this website in Oct. or Nov. 2014 to learn more about Islam and ISIS because what the reporters were broadcasting wasn’t meshing with the events and facts of the atrocities. I also felt my US government was very secretive about certain issues such as the large numbers of Muslims immigrating to the US, but not taking in any Christians from Syria and Iraq, and the talk of the Iran nuke deal, etc. I have learned so much, and what I have learned is not even 10% of what some of the commenters here know. But it is a start! I look forward to reading more from you.
Ian_A_S says
Agree, Linde, I too came here because the mainstream media in Australia seemed to be self-censoring and not telling the full story. Also, varous left-wing commentators and young ladies wearing head-bags would appear on TV and denounce ‘islamophobia’ and ‘racism’, both of which are ad-hominem attacks, so I smelled a rat – “these people have no good arguments, that’s why they resort to personal intimidation to shut down discussion”, I thought. I had gone along with the “moderate Islam is ok” argument for years, but it was only after hearing Geert Wilders on TV (a very unusual event in Australia, where he is banned) arguing that “Islam is not a religion, it is an ideology”, and “there is only one Islam, there is no moderate Islam”, and then coming to JW here that I began to realise the hair-raising hatred and violence (aimed at ordinary people like me and my family) of the koran and other moslem texts, and the system of worldwide totalitarian control that is the stated aim of Islam. One wonderful thing about the USA is its commitment to free speech. A site like this in Europe or Australia may well have been shut down by now as a “hate speech crime” (read “thought crime”).
Linde Barrera says
To IAN_A_S- Wow is all I can say to your latest post and the idea of “thought crime” in Australia. Seems like “the powers that be” really want a bunch of human robots. Let’s not allow that. I look forward to your next post, and may God bless you and yours. Good- bye from Brooklyn, NY.
Alan Fontana says
Frank Zappa also said, “It can’t happen here,” mimicking the middle class suburbanite dismissal of the world’s ills – never more naive and tragic than today.
Tequila Not Taqiyya says
Great piece Robert! You are truly one of my heroes along with Christopher Hitchens.
In analyzing closely the statements by Cameron who continues to repeat the garbage-line “Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam”, it has slowly dawned on me what might be going on in his brain. He REALLY has convinced himself that there are 2 different Islams. He has done this out of convenience and wishful-thinking on order to skirt the responsibility of facing the hard questions of what to do with a large enemy infiltration into our society.
But reality has a way of disabusing one of their fantasies. But he still can’t bring himself to believe truth, that ISIS is using the one and only Islamic doctrine, exactly as written.
He has to convince himself that they are using a different doctrine, because he has done so much to facilitate the spread of Islam in Briton that if all the Muslims are using the same doctrine (as the are) then he is a traitor to Briton and the west. It is my prediction that history will indeed see him that way.
We need heroes like Churchill who are not afraid to take on the ugly realities, not cowards who run for office just to bolster their ego and enrich themselves and who have no intention of protecting our society from suicidal maniacs motivated by the most perverse ideology ever invented by the human mind.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
You are truly one of my heroes along with Christopher Hitchens.
Well, if you are indeed a globo-socialist, TNT, be advised of two things:
1) Socialism doesn’t work. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, they always run out of other people’s money. Greece. Puerto Rico. The USSR. Communist China. Illinois. That truth finally got through Hitchens’ thick skull before his premature death. A great writer with mistaken content was Chris.
2) The globo-socialist community, and it’s a large and powerful one what with its control over central bank capital and most of the world’s healthcare and education, has a longstanding and unwavering alliance with Moslems. Above all, both belief systems treasure central control governance and victimhood.
It is unpleasant to see Spencer’s good name dragged down into the mud with Hitchens’.
Tequila Not Taqiyya says
I may be getting it wrong, but I get the impression from the article that Robert is a fan of Christopher Hitchens’ work in exposing the dangers of Jihad as he quoted him as an authority at least 2 times and called him “his friend”.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Many people of all stripes admired Hitchens and bemoaned his passing. The man was a great writer, not only in that he could turn a phrase but that he was able to integrate apparently disparate things into a cohesive and causal whole. I read him for years. But I could never get over his socialism, which has always been so damaging to freedom. In his later years, long after I quit reading him, he came to recognize what Moslems are about, and to no one’s surprise had the gonads to write about it. Hitchens never lacked courage, and by all accounts on a personal level he was a great guy, an old school intellectual with a life.
Christopher Hitchens, R.I.P.
Tequila Not Taqiyya says
I guess you didn’t read it. Instead you heard CH’s name decided to go off an an anti socialist tirade on an anti-jihad blog.
JIMJFOX says
Well said, TNT.
Ugly abuse from someone who’d be cut to pieces in any discussion with Hitchens…
“The globo-socialist community, and it’s a large and powerful one what with its control over central bank capital and most of the world’s healthcare and education, has a longstanding and unwavering alliance with Moslems. Above all, both belief systems treasure central control governance and victimhood.”
APF- you perfectly describe *Obama’s administration!
[*”If the winds of change blow in an ugly direction, I will stand with the MUSLIMS”]
Kepha says
I’m with you, APF. About Hitchens, and his brother Peter (who is a Christian), I have come to the mind that “atheism” only has reference to the God or gods off the society in which the so-called “atheism” arises. Hence, to Graeco-Roman culture, Christians were “atheists”, even though Christianity brought the worship of the Creator/Redeemer God to Europe and beyond; Siddharta Gautama and Mahavira criticized the gods of Hinduism and are hence called “atheists” by historians of religion, yet both ended up as idols before whom human beings prostate themselves. Look at popularizers of materialistic anti-Christianism, and you see guys like Carl Sagan worshiping a god they call “Cosmos”; or the dialectical materialists worshiping a goddess they call “historical necessity”. In America, we have a liberty to licentiousness being deified.
Both the Hitchens brothers started out as Trotskyists; but Peter went farther in his growing out of the follies and intellectual crimes of the 20th century. Yes, Christopher ultimately came to see the folly of the socialist vision, but he retained materialist presuppositions to his dying day.
As for Devolin’s comments on anti-Semitism and the Christian role in propagating it, I’ll observe that any belief that has strong truth claims will speak against–even to the point of wrongheaded calumny– against those with whom it disagrees. For example, take a look at some of the Tang Dynasty’s polemics of Daoists, Buddhists, and Confucianists against each other before you accept that Eastern religions are “tolerant”. But I cannot help but note that in Islam, this hostility to unbelief transforms into license for theft, rape, and murder.
And I will not let the comment on Christianity being “complicit” in the holocaust go. The Christianization of the Shoah is one more example of the moral irresponsibility of socialist and materialist thinking: early in the 20th century, they crow about how “science has routed obscurantism”, yet somehow, a heavily secualrized Europe suddenly turns pious again in order to exterminate the Jews. Never mind the Dutch Doleantie and French Reformed who hid their Jewish neighbors; never mind the Lutherans in occupied Norway and Denmark who felt no qualms about disobeying Nazi orders; never mind the Greek patriarch Damaskinos under house arrest for protesting the rounding up of Greek Jews; never mind that professing Christians are common among the Righteous Among the Nations commemorated at Yad Vashem. Yes, the German Protestant church owned up to its complicity in the holocaust after WWII (which I hope was a true act of repentence)–perhaps allowing the universities, legal profession, and a host of other associations in German society to excuse themselves.
And if you raise Martin Luther as a loud-mouthed bigot, I’ll still not that for Luther, conversion solved any Jewish question there might have been. He held no limpieza de sangre doctrine such as was held by the Roman Catholic Iberian Inquisitors before him or by the anti-Christian National Socialists who appealed to his anti-Jewish writings. And before the secular liberals pat their own chests, the French philosophes also had some unpleasant things to say about Jewish exclusivity, too. That is, a lot of water went under the bridge between Luther and Hitler.
Liam1304 says
Wonderful answer Cepha.
We could also go back to what the Bible says in regard to Jews and compare it to what the Qur’an says concerning Jews. I think most readers here are well aware of the kind of race and religiously based hatred in the Qur’an and Sunnah. But as one of those dreadful “fundamentalist” Christians I feel the need to highlight the great (and authoritative) Apostle Paul’s attitude to the Jews.
Romans 9.2-5
“…I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises,…”
So this is the view of we small-minded vile Biblical Literalists. Just because all the Church at all times hasn’t been consistent with the view of Paul doesn’t remove this from our authoritative texts. Just as all Muslim men don’t beat their wives doesn’t remove the verse encouraging wife beating from the Qur’an.
Our author then states:~
“Atheists are rightly offended by those religious who are not in the least discomposed by the buggering of little boys yet are, oddly enough, unhinged by the idea of women taking up the Catholic priesthood. ”
I’m not a Roman Catholic so I don’t have their issues with women in the Priesthood. But, once again, surely our friend misses the point that there is no teaching of the Bible – and no teaching of the Church extrapolated from the Bible – that promotes, encourages or even in any way pardons such behaviour.
The author may conflate demonstrably evil behaviour with silent acquiesence by some compromised people in authority but he may not conflate it with the formal beliefs and teachings of the Church – any Church. Point me to the Christian “hadith” in the Church belief structures that authorise such behaviour. Of course there are none. But there are bad men, which, unfortunately, is to be expected (and guarded against).
Our author is too keen to tar all religions with the same brush and rushes to glaring logical and factual errors.
mortimer says
Just last week, David Cameron made TWO stupid statements one after the other ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ and ‘nothing to do with Islam’. This was just after ISIS declared Ramadan ‘the month of jihad’.
Stupid! Stupid!
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Remember that when the reality thing got to the point that it was making ex-PM Tony look bad, he took to running around London clutching a Holy Ko-Ran, as if to say he was knowledgeable on the Islam and those who dared criticize him on Moslems were ignorant. A neat trick, that, turnspeak without even having to open his mouth, and the guy almost never shut up. Tony was before his time, nowadays he’d be diagnosed as having a severe case of Barack Disease. But the book move was a very good one, Gary Cooper-like in its terseness, a good move because almost nobody reads books anymore.
Shmooviyet says
The inanity of DC’s immediate response to murders of his fellow Englishmen is indeed amazing.
I cannot fathom his reaction; admittedly I don’t know much about the guy. Is it pure PC, or plain selfish fear for his position?
“Well. that line seemed to work for GB post 9/11…” Alot’s happened in fourteen years, Mr. PM!
He cannot truly, deep down believe that the majority is buying his nonsense!?
Perhaps I’m ignorant– but if someone gets it, please offer an answer.
Linde Barrera says
To Michael Devolin- Thank you for an excellent, truthful article. While I cannot condone the anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, this theologian did make an important distinction for Christianity: the grace of God is freely given in the sacrifice of God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. Loving, kind human works and deeds, (which are good, important and necessary to our survival), when compared to God’s righteousness, “is as filthy rags”.
mortimer says
Egyptian Al-Azhar Cleric Muhammad Zaki: Ramadhan said that Ramadan Is the Month of Jihad, Not of Sleep!
“The month of Ramadan, the month of fasting, has a special status as the month of religious spirituality and devotion. However, in Muslim tradition it is also perceived as a MONTH OF JIHAD and MARTYRDOM, a month in which Allah grants MILITARY VICTORIES to His believers. It was during Ramadan that Muslims triumphed in many of their battles, among them…”
http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4979.htm
Kepha says
Perhaps the politicians try to whitewash Islam to mask their own deeply anti-Theistic prejudices. If they attack Islam to strongly, maybe it will wake up the Christians to the fact that they are being slowly boiled alive.
miriamrove says
I am an atheist. I can tell you first hand a lot of them(us) have double standards when it comes to the three major religions, I should say 2 but…. They have no problem bashing Jesus, Moses, Christianity etc…. But when it comes to Islam, they have no balls to call Islam what it is. A savage doctrine and ideological blood thirsty, back wards, misogynistic, Jew hating, gay hating, fun hating, democracy hating, women hating, child raping, sodomizing 9 year old girls, etc… I think I summed it all up!! Please feel free to add anything that I may have missed! m
Draki says
I agree with you Mr. Devolin, but many liberals and the majority of America are unconcerned about Islam. Please keep up the good work. They’ll need to feel more misery or the liberal media will have be as critical of islam as it is of Christianity.
voegelinian says
” If it can be said that Christianity was complicit in precipitating the Holocaust, it can also be said that Islam is complicit in precipitating an eerily similar anti-Jewish hatred…” — Mchael Devolin
No; the first statement is grossly simplistic and grievously incomplete (e.g., just to pick two giant facts from a hat: Hitler despised Christianity and admired Islam; and the Christian West spent its blood, sweat, tears, capital, and lives fighting to put down the Axis powers). The comparison Devolin is drawing between the two thus handicaps our ability to roundly condemn Muslims for their Islam, by virtue of an unwitting Ego Quoque sleight-of-hand.
The Devolin is in the details.
Angemon says
You know, for someone who routinely makes long-winded speculations based on alleged implications based on one or two words, you’re acting way out of character by pretending that “can” means “has, it’s the official narrative and it is not to be questioned in any way or fashion”…
Let’s try that again:
“If it can be said (not in the sense whether it’s true or not, but in the sense that it is allowed to be said in public discourse) that Christianity was complicit in precipitating the Holocaust, it can also be said (meaning that no one should be attacked, or coerced into silence, for stating something for which there’s a whole mountain of evidence for including, but not limited to, islamic scriptures) that Islam is complicit in precipitating an eerily similar anti-Jewish hatred”
Or course, I’m not surprised with you making yet another attack in ill faith against a JW author, and I doubt I’m the only regulars thinking that way, given your track record on that particular regard…
miriamrove says
I love the way you articulate things! I often have a hard time following his posts and yes you are correct he does do attacking. m
Western Canadian says
A failure to have a hard time following his posts, is a sure indication of a stable and intelligent mind. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Western Canadian says
Blew the phrasing there…. It should be:
‘a sure indication of an unstable and befuddled mind! You fail to meet that criteria. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
Western Canadian says
I’m not sure if I made that any clearer….. double negative?? Okay, need more sleep.
I have trouble following his posts as well…… convoluted run on sentences are fun, if rather hard to understand…
duh_swami says
Gabriel generated kajillions of words, religion in general, more than that…They are everywhere…But at the bottom of that verbal barrel are two valid ideas…Islam is an evil ideology, and it’s not wise to trust anyone who believes Allah is God…
Soso says
Finally muslims condemning ISIS aka Khawarij actions….
http://m.clarionproject.org/news/orange-new-black
epistemology says
Agreed and I think we all have got to get together and fight against this perverse ideology that poses as a religion. This guy is an atheist but he doesn’t fall into the trap of cultural relativism. All religions are shit and Islam isn’t worse than any other. He sees the difference. He realises that Islam is absolutely evil and intrinsically anti-Semitic. I’ve only got one issue here. He keeps quoting Christopher Hitchens who was a close friend of Edward Said, a terrible anti-Semite.
Linde Barrera says
To epistemology- Of course you are entitled to say “All religions are sh*t and Islam isn’t worse than any other” because I believe in freedom of speech. But, I think you are a provacateur! I consider Christianity to be way better than Islam, but I am a Christian. You object to anyone who is anti-semetic, and that’s because you are Jewish. So it is hard to be objective when it comes to religion, any religion. And I bet atheists would agree with me! Peace to you.
Western Canadian says
Hello Linda, trust you are doing well and enjoying the summer.
I think, though I may be in error, that epist was using the weird notion of all religions being the same, islam not worse than any other, as being an example of the cultural relativism that Hitchens avoided. His phrasing is a little….. odd.
Linde Barrera says
To Western Canadian- Thank you for the tip on epistemology’s post. I am enjoying my summer, thank you, and am planning a few short trips before autumn begins. I picture you with the moniker “Western Canadian” living near the rugged Yukon, a very wild location for an urban girl like me! Take care.
JIMJFOX says
“Islam isn’t worse than any other”
You have absolutely no clue, do you?
R Cole says
The whole thing with Islam has become political – sometimes you think what’s next – Koran lessons at the White House or Downing Street – the official state version of Islam explained!
We are trying to create from a long established faith – a religion we like or that we approve of – but that is entirely apart from the reality.
Lock Step
The whip used is under the guise of ‘anti-racism’ – you.. are… going… to.. say.. Islam… means.. peace.. !! To…say.. anything… else… is… hateful… and… racism…!!
Carrying the sword of Islam is the new Right ~ The Left!!
::
And Halal for All!!
But look at the accommodation made for Islam – it was done almost as reward for not being terrorists – in doing so offers Muslims the Islamic state they crave [which if they hadn’t been able to organize in 1400 years – is a red flag in itself] – which is ironically the exact same goal as the terrorists.
In the US – it is said if we don’t give Muslims this or the other – then they will attack our troops and personnel abroad – but in Europe – politicians were openly saying if we don’t allow Muslims this or that – then Europeans will be attacked in their own countries [read; that these politicians were elected to run and not the terrorists].
With Islam it’s always a deal. That is laced with threat.
::
Appeaser
Cameron is the guy holding – the peace in our time – sign. He’s not the man!! He doesn’t have ~ it.
To be bothered by one leader or another ~ is almost irrelevant – because this Islamic emergence has its own life.
And it is happening whether we believe it or not!!
::
And it is true – everything that is happening today is about ideas and time.
Islam’s belief in itself – is unmatched. It’s one big boast. Listen to them brag. Fastest growing [read: death if you leave], has all the world’s knowledge [read: plundered from a fallen Greco-Roman Empire – like Roman mosque arches/ domes and church steeples turn minaret.] …
But because for Muslims supremacy in Islam was assumed – they neglected to notice what was going on outside of their realm – these Christians /non-Muslims of the outside world – were not the mercilessly subjugated Christians of their own nations – whose status reinforced their world view of Islam’s superiority.
While the Islamic world slept – these outsiders had developed and were living by a whole new set of ideas. [We borrowed but we got the best from the ancient world – we got the Charter of Man – we got the Greek democracy – and with this we can’t easily be dictated to.]
More specially for Muslims and Islam is we don’t need or want their ideas. And this is where the trouble lies. Like – Muslims claim Islam has the answer for ‘everything’ – so even by saying ~ in the west, you are free to believe that — we are rejecting Islam’s ideas.
A clash was inevitable. [It makes a broad-reaching claim on everything.]
Bragging often masks insecurity – because there is no Islamic structure that can fully guard against – the advance of the western idea.
Muslims were never able to control Europe for a reason. Now ~ was not meant to be Islam’s time!
jayell says
“The stupidity of those who yet insist that Islam is a religion of peace….” Surely, “The stupidity of those who yet insist that Islam is a RELIGION at all! It’s a proto-nazi, pseudo-theocratic, anti-democratic, dictatorial political ideology. Its ‘religious’ front is a sham facade cynically concocted by its amoral, illiterate criminal founder as transparent con-trick to dupe and then control the superstititious or/and unbalanced and uneducated idiots at the time in his part of the world. Which explains the appeal of Islam to those ‘with a problem’ or who are, shall we say, ‘intellectually challenged’. And its dismal track record shows it to be a passport to nowhere.
Uncle Vladdi says
Libertine “liberals” don’t seem to realize – or care – that expressing one’s fact-free opinions AS facts, is in fact to commit public FRAUD – it’s lying, and lying is the most basic form of theft: it’s the (at leas,t attempted) theft of the Truth. And all crimes are forms of theft, which is why lying (“fraud”) is a crime.
They seem to assume that, as long as they don’t check the facts, they are entitled to keep on expressing their opinions as facts. But this willfully self-blinded criminal negligence is also a crime, and it’s high time someone started prosecuting them for it, as it enables them to act as willing accessories enabling all of islam’s muslims’ other crimes.