Casting the first stone

Apropos "Quran and sex slaves", http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/06/quran-and-sex-slaves.html

Given that Muslims call Christians and Jews people of the Book. shouldn’t Muslims also heed the the words of Jesus?  Especially when it comes to punishing others: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” - John: 8:7

This would apply equally to ISIS punishing others for their beliefs and punishing ISIS for its adultery.

Too bad ISIS and its ilk won’t “go and sin no more”.

Quran and sex slaves

Isn’t it adultery when ISIS, Boko Haram, and others take sex slaves?  I think they must have cut passages dealing with adultery out of their Qurans.  But that is the way of "true believers" of any kind: their way is the only way, even if their texts say otherwise.

“The adulteress and the adulterer-whip each one of them a hundred lashes, and let no pity towards them overcome you regarding God's Law, if you believe in God and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their punishment.”  Quran: 24:2 (The Light: an-Nur)

Excerpt From: Talal Itani. “Quran In English. Modern English Translation. Clear and Easy to Understand.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/lvcp2.l

Also see "ISIS Committed Genocide Against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, Panel Says"
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html

Do you reflect your god or does your god reflect you?

George Washington and others have stated that we cannot have morality without religion.  On the other hand, how often do we have religion without morality?

Too many people who proclaim adherence to one religion or another have no morality; that is, they think it is perfectly all right to kill those who do not believe as they do: from the Inquisition to ISIS.  And the lack of morality seems to be worse the more these people claim they have the “true religion”!  Morality is basically do unto other as you would have them do to you.

I just read in Sharon Shinn’s “Dark Moon Defender” the following:

“The goddess abhors mystics.  The goddess demands of her faithful followers that they eradicate magic from the land.”

“Any goddess who demands wicked behavior is wicked herself.  Why would you choose to serve a deity like that?”

Shinn’s book was published in 2006.  I wonder if she had any particular groups in mind that want to kill those who don’t believe as they do.

Insecure believers and non-believers

"Insecure believers sometimes cling to a rigid and simplistic faith."
- David Brooks, "The Subtle Sensations of Faith", New York Times, 2014-12-23

The insecure believers make the headlines or the history books.  Think of all the "Islamists" who want to kill anyone who does not believe as they do.  Think of the Ku Klux Klan, the Protestants and Catholic gunmen of Northern Ireland, the Communists of North Korea, and many more "true believers".

We also have so-called non-believers who have to attack those who claim to believe.

Maybe I'm being a hypocrite here because I have questioned the texts that many base their beliefs on.  However, it is only the texts I question, not the belief in something greater than oneself.  But I have no problem with people who believe in something I don't believe in.  My problem is with those who want to "prove" that they are right because of something somebody long ago wrote as "fact".

For example, did Adam and Eve really exist?  Or are they metaphor for our hubris that we "know better than God"?

What we really should consider is "moral truth" over "mythical truth".  For example, was God really tempted by Satan to severely test Job, or is the Book of Job an exploration of why bad things happen to good people?

Criminals hiding behind religion

An obscure gang of hoodlums has made world headlines by kidnapping over 300 girls, often by raiding schools.  Boko Haram claims to be following Islam, but are they really?  Most Muslims condemn these actions as against their understanding of Islam as a religion of peace.  The violence perpetrated by Boko Haram is so perverse that even Al Quaeda has distanced itself from them.

“Boko Haram” loosely means “western education is sinful”.  Boko Haram, like many other groups with a rigid agenda, is full of contradictions.  First, if western education is sinful, why are they using weapons, trucks, cars, motorcycles, and now video cameras?  These are all products of western education.  Second, they use obscure passages of sacred texts and completely miss the larger message, that of all major religions, be kind to others.  Kidnapping and massacres are not being kind to others.

Boko Haram doesn’t want girls to be educated, but it conveniently ignores all the Muslim countries with a large percentage of educated women, even countries with a conservative Islam.

Benazir Bhutto was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Afghanistan, where the Taliban keeps trying to overthrow the government because it is not “Islamic” enough, reserves 20 percent of the seats in Parliament for women.

Iran, with its hodgepodge of secular and religious rule, a few years ago had more women in its universities than men.  It also had a hodgepodge of rules varying from university to university including gender-specific restrictions.  Women can’t take computer science and men can’t take Persian/Arabic language!

Unfortunately, hate of others is not limited to Islam.

"Muslims killed my baby!  I want to kill Muslims!”  This was said by a character in the film “Ghandi” with Ben Kingsley.  How could each and every Muslim be responsible for these stupid killings?

Muslims were killed in Guwahati, Assam, India, in sectarian violence.  Sunnis kill Shia, Shia kill Sunnis.  Boko Haram blows up mosques because their leaders don’t follow its dictates.

Ahab and his Canaanite wife, Jezebel, killed the priests of Jehovah.  Then Elijah killed the priests of Ba’al.

Crusade after Crusade marched, with the blessings or incitements by Popes,  to the Holy Land to rescue it from Muslims.

Torquemada,  Grand Inquisitor of Spain, had many tortured to get them to recant heresy.  He was a “moderate”; he “moderated” the use of torture of previous inquisitions.

Jean Calvin brought charges of heresy against Michael Servetus; he suggested Servetus be beheaded.  The government of Geneva decided he should be burnt at the stake.

The Ku Klux Klan, with crosses on their robes, killed blacks for the slightest suspicion of unapproved conduct, and it killed whites who opposed their actions.

In Northern Ireland Catholics killed Protestants and Protestants killed Catholics.  And sometimes they killed their “own” because the latter wanted reconciliation and peace.

Qasim Rashid wrote “What Prophet Muhammad would say to Boko Haram”, Fox News, May 8, 2014.  It is a good exposition of the importance of learning in Islam.  He quotes Muhammad, “Seek knowledge even if you must travel to China” and “The search of knowledge is an obligation laid upon every Muslim.”  Rashid writes, “Fatimah was a Muslim, an African, a female, and literally changed world history through education. Her revolutionary University of al-Qarawiyyin [founded 859] is now the world’s oldest university.”

The comments were a predictable mix of bad taste and prejudice.  A reader “muhammad” summed it up with “I don’t see any difference between Boko Haram and many commenters in this forum.”  The response to his post proved his point.

The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, claims he communicates with God.  How many times have we heard a similar claim by those who hate others?

If God is so powerful, why does He use so many different intermediaries to make His will known?  Few of these intermediaries even agree on what God revealed to them.  Too many of these “intermediaries” have their own agendas.  If I were to believe all that God said directly to these “intermediaries”, I could only conclude that God was schizophrenic.  I doubt that, whatever God is.

I think it is more that certain people are telling God what He should believe and then forcing other people to believe as they do.

Elijah was in a power struggle with Ahab and Jezebel.  Supposedly he challenged the priest of Ba’al to a sacrifice contest.  Would Ba’al ignite the offering of his priests or would Jehovah ignite the offering of Elijah?  Poof!  Jehovah ignited Elijah’s water-soaked offering.  Then Elijah had the people chase down and kill the priests of Ba’al.  Why did Elijah do that?  Did Jehovah use up his bolts of lightning?  Wouldn’t He have an infinite supply of lightning to zap each and every one of these non-believers?

Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church claimed that “God hates fags”.  Hm!  If God hates fags so much, shouldn’t He just boom it out for all to hear?

We can say one thing with certainty about those who claim to speak for God.  They are all fallible beings and probably misunderstood what God told them.