Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to us all. 


Whether you believe in Jesus or Allah or Krishna or don't believe at all - Merry Christmas to you. Of all festive out there, Christmas is, perhaps, the warmest and most cheerful. Furthermore, unlike most other religions holidays, it does not mark glorification of religion intolerance and bigotry (Hanukkah) or praising unjust and cruel God for his cunning and ostentatiously twisted desire to torture humans (Passover) or pretentious celebration of stolen holidays in a state of hunger and extreme horniness (Ramadan). Christmas celebrates something truly beautiful - coming of new life to this world. 


Christmas preparations and decorations - smell of pine trees, giggles of children in anticipation of gifts, rush of shoppers and queues to meet Santa at malls - are the best time of the year. It elevates your spirit and makes entering the most depressing time of the year - winter - a lot more pleasant.


Christmas is all about tolerance, accommodation and forgiveness (I hope, no one would spray others with pepper-spray while grabbing a turkey at a local grocery store). I notice that people get milder and much more forthcoming around Christmas, and small acts of kindness are aplenty, which turns you towards returning the favour.


Whether you believe in Jesus or someone else or don't believe at all, Christmas is part of the inseparable tradition of this land. It is not acceptable to dilute this beautiful holiday to something devoted of taste or meaning - "Happy Holidays". "What holidays?" I ask. "Whatever you celebrate" the typical response goes. Well, thank you very much for wishing me "Happy Whatever".


Screw all sensitive political correctness - Christmas is here to stay. And so, ladies and gentlemen, Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas to David Wood and Richard Dawkins, to Matt Dillahunty and Sam Harris, to Darrel Ray and Ray Comfort.


Merry Christmas

What Happens When Religion Controls State?

For those of us who believe in fairies, unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters, Gods, Jinns, devils, mermaids and other wonderful and magical things, please remember that not every unicorn is pink and not every fairy is your Godmother:

Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery' (http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-executes-woman-convicted-sorcery-132159048.html)

It is time that someone breaks the news to the kingdom that is evidently stuck in a world where things said by a 7th-century simpleton are considered to be the pinnacle of philosophy that no, Santa isn't real, stars are not missiles that are glued to the sky-dome to shoot down prying Jinns and David Copperfield is an illusionist and not a sorcerer.

Islam Misrepresentation: And here we are again

In our "culturally sensitive" society any repugnant act committed in the name of faith, whether the faith is Hindu, Judaism, Christianity or Islam, is quickly decoupled from its religious foundation and dismissed as simply the case of a mad man acting on his own and against teaching carved in religious cannons. Ignorant journalists are swift to jump on the bandwagon and perpetuate this purposeful deception by explaining to their readers that religion of the perpetrator has no bearing on perpetrator’s abominable actions. And so, the deception propagates unstoppably far and wide, in the face of facts, logic and reason, being disseminated by waves of echoing politicians, journalists and other public figures.

Rosie DiManno, a columnist from Toronto Star, reminds us yet again that there is no reason to put one's faith in mainstream media’s ability to supplement its stories even with a pinch of accurate information. Naively some of us may still assume that a columnist would do at least some basic research before putting an article together, especially when this article covers the world fastest growing and intolerant mainstream religion – Islam. The article I am referring to is “DiManno: Murder is against Qur’an, Shafia testifies” (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1099722--dimanno-murder-is-against-qur-an-shafia-testifies)

There are no expectations of Rosie knowing Quran wholeheartedly. However, it might be reasonable to assume that this lacking knowledge will prevent Rosie from putting blanket statements over the whole religion. Sadly, it did not.

I have little doubts that what we are about to discuss Rosie had absolutely no knowledge of and therefore she is not to blame for purposeful trickery of gullible Western readers. However, Rosie DiManno, as credulous and guilelessly uniformed as she is, is an integral part of a well-focused, albeit decentralized, campaign of misrepresenting Islam to the West.

First, we arrive to a blanket statement about all religions:

To be clear, there’s not a culture or religion in the world that condones murder, not in 2011, or in 2009 when this alleged crime was committed. So, nothing remarkable about Islam in that context, though the Qur’an has often been cited as expressly forbidding what the prosecution contends happened here: Honour killings to restore a family’s reputation and expunge the sins of the daughters.

This is simply not true. There are plenty of violent cultures and cultish faiths in the world that condone murder, even if they may have some basic criteria around situations where it is permissible. Aleph, formerly known as Aum Shinrikyo, is still going strong. Actually, we don’t even need to go that far and look much closer to home to find that many mainstream religions do condone murder in special cases.

Second, “Nothing remarkable about Islam in that context” ties nicely with “The Qur’an doesn’t permit murder” that can be found later in the article. Well, yes, it is, dear Rosie, even if you are not aware of it. Unlike many other modern faiths, Islam explicitly directs its followers to kill:

Quran 004.089: seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;-

Quran 004.076: Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject Faith Fight in the cause of Evil: So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan.

Quran 009.029: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day

At this point we can go into a prolonged and misguided discussion about the full context, including historical context and universal applicability, of these and 10s other analogous verses. But we wouldn’t, even though putting these murder-inciting messages in the historical context will go against that “religion of peace” argument we so ubiquitously hear about. What we can all agree upon that these verses say a lot about “them”, but not much about “family” or “daughters”.

This is what Quran has to say about female relatives:

Quran 004.015 If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some way.

Confine them until they die, if you suspect them of lewdness, says Quran. There is no definition of lewdness in Islam and therefore everyone is free to apply their own classification of lewdness to judge their female relatives.

004.034: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them; but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means: For Allah is Most High, great.

Men protect and maintain women. Women must obey men. Men control women’s faith and should beat them at a sign of disobedience.

Now, we should dwell away from Quran and into the Hadith territory to examine examples that Muhammad set forth for dealing with women. It wouldn’t be pretty. Muhammad is documented ordering stoning of numerous women for adultery without trial, Muhammad tells us that he would cut his own daughter’s hands off for stealing as little as three Dirhams and finally, Muhammad tells us that love for Allah should eclipse love for one’s parents and children. Put it together and you have a potent “Iron Chef”-quality recipe for honour killings: follow the way of Allah, even if it means killing or mutilating your own children; punish lewdness with confinement until death and use stoning to death for alleged sex outside marriage.

We must remember that Islam puts following Allah’s law above human life or wellbeing. Islam puts men above women and makes them responsible for maintaining women’s behaviour within the limits prescribed by Islam. And Islam prescribes death for deviating from many of its absurdly self-contradicting, incomplete, vague and perplexing laws. You don’t have to be a Sharia scholar to understand that according to Islam, naughty daughters might be justly punished with death by their pious parents. No matter how much we want to see Shafia acting in madness against teaching of Islam, the simple fact is it was indeed Islam that had influenced and guided Shafia's actions.

Answering David Wood: Super-Christian to the Rescue

Barely a week passes by without David “The Blazing Crusader” Wood unleashing a rich show of pious zealotry onto the masses, which time after time serves us as a duly reminder of the control that God virus exercises over even what appears to be fairly bright minds of our society.

In that respect, I cannot praise enough the work of Darrel W. Ray who established the half-humorous, half-legit links between behavioral changes of a brain infected with religion and sudden triggers that invoke a complete shut-down of the parts of host's brain that are responsible for analysis of incoming information. I strongly recommend you going through all parts of Darrel’s video collection, which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Ug-o9rxWo.

This time around, David releases a video commentary about the recent media frenzy surrounding Tim Tebow and his preposterous and assiduously persistent parading of the beliefs he developed as a sad result of a botched homeschooling job. Since “Christianity under attack” is amongst the most emphatic triggers that cause a complete seizure of rational thinking, David empties his baggage of pre-processed thought devoid of any nutritional value in the form of the article titled “What If Tim Tebow Were Muslim?” (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/12/what-if-tim-tebow-were-muslim.html). And what can be better than to source original ideas from Fox News – an outfit that would give Hitler an uncensored prime-time daily show on the condition that he would incite anti-gay sentiment and close his show with “In Christ we trust, brothers and sisters”.

This is not a story about religious discrimination. I do not recall either Fox News or David vigorously rushing to the defence of the Iranian women’s soccer team that was disqualified from participating in 2012 Olympics due to their insistence on open display of their religious beliefs.  And why would they? After all, the women intended to march around endorsing a false faith. It is quite obvious that such abominable practice should be banned completely. It would be absurd to allow athletes to showcase their personal beliefs on the field, such as fanatic love of a particular brand of beer or adherence to the “Star Wars” rites and rituals. And I can bet a small fortune that deep down inside (or, most likely, openly) Fox News anchors and David Wood himself would roll on the floor in laughter if Tim Tebow were to greet an imaginary Captain Picard with a two-finger salute before and after each run. And so they should, because strong irrational views, especially when they are capable of defining person's behaviour, are not something to support, promulgate or marvel at. However, both David and Fox News feel perfectly fine with someone gesturing to invoke help of their imaginary Christian God.

This story is really about “double standards” that David continues to bring up. I cannot agree more with David. There is no shortage of “double standards” in the US. At times, it does feel like America is a Middle-East county where all “Islam” and “Muhammad” banners and monikers were suddenly replaced with “Christianity” and “Jesus”. The bigotry and zealotry to promote the “one and true” religion is as strong and all-powerful. The offence many take at the slightest sign of blasphemy or religious disrespect, the force of outrage of infuriated pious crowds and the media coverage given to such cases can easily rival similar scenes seen in Pakistan and all over the Middle-East lately.

Things would be different if Tebow were a Muslim. That’s right, David, they would be. Hordes of Christians would cry foul over the “erosion” of faith pillars upon which this country rests. Fox News will strategically cut our scenes from the life broadcasts. Unfurling of praying rugs before the game on the filed will be banned and Tim will be given a small room away from the public eyes to finish off his rituals inconspicuously and privately. However, when he carries a cross to the field, all spotlights are on him to promote Christianity.

Yes, there are “double standards” of which David complains. Everyone must accept the right of pious Christians to market, display and spread their views. Any limitation to the coercive propagation of Christian beliefs causes tempestuous outcries and extensive lobbying to squash perpetrators and silence their feeble voices. However, no other faith or belief is permitted to display its symbols (aside from Judaism, perhaps) as openly and as forcefully as Christianity does. As unfortunate as it is, David and Co. holds the long-end of the stick in the “double standards” game, while complaining about not having enough leverage over imposing his views onto the rest of us.

Just Let the Righteous to Seize Power

It serves us as yet another reminder of what faith we should expect should the pious of any denomination seize power:

Ky church overturns ban on interracial couples:
An eastern Kentucky church under a firestorm of criticism since members voted to bar mixed-race couples from joining the congregation overturned that decision Sunday, saying it welcomes all believers.

Full story can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/ky-church-overturns-ban-interracial-couples-232509734.html

Saudi report: Women driving spurs premarital sex

Today is yet another reminder to never underestimate the ability of truly Islamic countries to do and say something really stupid. This time it came in the form of a report given to a high-level advisory group in Saudi Arabia, suggesting that "Women driving spurs premarital sex" (http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-report-women-driving-spurs-premarital-sex-162028628.html)

The topics of sex in religion in general never ceases to surprise me. God appears to be much pre-occupied with his subjects' sex life, more so than with anything else (second only to his jealousy towards people worshipping  other deities, which is always a bigger "no-no" than sex). God wants to control who people have sex with, sometimes how and when. In the sex department, God typically show little interest prohibiting acts that are unimportant to him, like rapes or child molestation or women coerced into sexual relationship. However, God vigilantly watches you to make sure you whispered that magical sentence that somehow makes the act of intercourse legal to you. In case you had sex without or even before uttering the magical spell that legitimises the act, all-loving God will punish you with Hell fire for forgetfulness.

Fortunately, the West has long shaken off the idiocy of this notion. We moved away from laws written by stone-age misogynistic simpletons that are somehow undergone a metamorphosis into the Word of God over the years with all consequent terrors that it brought down to its countless victims. Unless we elect a God-fearing imbecile like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann or some other worthy follower of Pat "Gays Cause Hurricanes" Robertson to occupy the White  House, we shouldn't fear sliding back to the stone-age absurdity. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has never left it and therefore should not fear going back.

Let's review the "Dos" and "Don'ts" of Islamic views on sex:

It is OK:

• To be a prostitute and use services of a prostitute
• To engage in spousal rape
• To rape 
• To molest children
• To participate in orgies

However, please remember that the following is strictly prohibited and punishable by stoning to death:

• Consensual sex between two adults

Judgement Day: The Great Plan of Allah

Islam, just like any other religion, makes God's intent for humankind very obscure at times. However, with some effort it is possible to dissect scriptures and understand the underlying notion, no matter how wishy-washy were the narrations made up by each 'prophet'. Today, I'd like to focus on the origin of sin and specifically the origin of sin in Islam.

It is helpful to refer to Quran - the book that makes the things clear (because it was revealed by Allah himself, of course) - to see what Allah has to say about people's sinful nature. Surah #15 known as 'Al-Hijr' certainly makes things clear (starting verse is 15:28):


28 Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create man, from sounding clay from mud moulded into shape;
29 "When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto him."
30 So the angels prostrated themselves, all of them together:
31 Not so Iblis: he refused to be among those who prostrated themselves.
32 ((Allah)) said: "O Iblis! what is your reason for not being among those who prostrated themselves?"
33 (Iblis) said: "I am not one to prostrate myself to man, whom Thou didst create from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape."
34 ((Allah)) said: "Then get thee out from here; for thou art rejected, accursed.
35 "And the curse shall be on thee till the day of Judgment."
36 (Iblis) said: "O my Lord! give me then respite till the Day the (dead) are raised."
37 ((Allah)) said: "Respite is granted thee
38 "Till the Day of the Time appointed."
39 (Iblis) said: "O my Lord! because Thou hast put me in the wrong, I will make (wrong) fair-seeming to them on the earth, and I will put them all in the wrong,
40 "Except Thy servants among them, sincere and purified (by Thy Grace)."
41 ((Allah)) said: "This (way of My sincere servants) is indeed a way that leads straight to Me.
42 "For over My servants no authority shalt thou have, except such as put themselves in the wrong and follow thee."
43 And verily, Hell is the promised abode for them all!

This entire squabble between Allah and Iblis (a.k.a. Devil) takes place before the first man is created. Allah joyfully announces his decision to create a man to the angels and tells them to prostrate themselves. Iblis resents and tells Allah to shove it. Then goes the exchange of harsh words between Allah and Iblis that even your average 7-year-old will frown upon as something much too juvenile.

"Prostrate yourselves" says Allah to angels, "I am about to create a man". "Screw you" responds Iblis, "I am not doing that crap." "Then pack your stuff and get out from here" retorts Allah. "Come on" says Iblis "I don't want to." "Well, then stay" goes Allah, "But do something useful, like screwing around with my creation."

First, this entire conversation occurs before the man is created. Yet, Allah already knows that his creations will sin aplenty and for their sins will be judged on the pre-scheduled Day of Judgement (Quran 15:35). Allah is designing an upfront sinful mankind and plans to judge it afterwards.

Second, Iblis doesn't ask for any explanation about the Day of Judgement of which he presumably is hearing about for the first time, as Allah just made his first announcement about his decision to create a man. Moreover, Iblis seem to know quite a bit about the Day of Judgement - he knows that the dead will be raised (15:36) - something that Allah hasn't mentioned yet. It may indicate that Allah and his angels have gone through at least one cycle of creation-observing-extermination of mankind-judgement-punishment before Adam was raised. Or, it may signal angels' confidence in Allah's ability to create something well - they know upfront that Allah will screw up and his creation will not meet his own expectations of righteousness.

Third, Iblis and Allah sign a pact - Allah lets Iblis stick around, but Iblis will have to repay the favour by corrupting people that will soon to be created on Earth (with the exception for undefined servants). Allah in the meantime, will prepare Hell for those who Iblis will put in the wrong on the assignment from Allah.

This answer the question of why we sin. Allah himself through his holy Quran explains that it was him who created you sinful and it was him who task Iblis with putting you in the wrong in case you wouldn't sin enough by yourself because Allah need to get more bodies to increase utilization of his invention - Hell.

David Wood: The Messiah Strikes Back

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Since I started paying closer attention to David Wood's work and his faith-based blog at http://www.answeringmuslims.com, I have discovered a perennial source of inspirations for writing. Don't be surprised to see quite a few posts dedicated to commentary on David's videos, posts and analysis in the future.

In this message, I am going back to his "Islam's Secret Santa" video (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/11/islams-secret-santa.html) and put my remarks down on some of the comments I found worth mentioning.

First, I did find bashing of a person named "Leo" by righteous Christians to be quite amusing. Leo provided an argument that closely aligns with my own view that in many respects the Christian and Islamic ideologies are not much different. They may phrase things differently, they may put different-coloured icing on the cake, but the substance and the message of both faiths is nonetheless indistinguishable.

David rides in to smite the heads of atheists by frivolously generalizing them as "Leo or his friends", "Leo and Co." and dismissing them as intellectually "sloppy". He brings up a flaming argument and puts it in the heart of that unholy atheistic beast by providing a vacuous analogy. Let's dive right into it.

"I'm not sure Leo or his friends will be able to understand something as simple as an analogy, but we'll find out.

Before my children were even born, I knew they would eventually sin. Does this mean that I wanted them to sin? No, I didn't. I wanted them to do the right thing. Would I have destroyed them for always doing the right thing? Not at all. Instead, I would have been overjoyed. But I still knew that they would do wrong, and when they do wrong, I'll always be there to help them turn things around."

Congratulations to David on winning the "'false analogy' fallacy of the day" contest.

First, David compares God' advance knowledge of humankind sins to David's personal expectations of the eventuality of his children committing sins.

In David's case, he cannot create his children in a way he want them to be. He has no control over the human nature. As much as he doesn't want them to sin, David cannot change their predispositions because he exercises no influence over their design - they are born with certain natural behavioural traits and instincts regardless of David's personal beliefs and "wants".

Judeo-Christian-Muslim God created humans from ground up, or so the faithful say. God can control every aspect of how humans would act. He can control what they will do and how they will go about doing it. He can control their temptations, their urges, their natural reactions and so on. He designs them and he gives them everything they are. So, no, God's expectations of his creation does equate to David's expectations of his children. This analogy is false.

Then, Davie builds on this false premise to expand his idea to saying that "Christian God then takes steps to make us holy again". That makes sense: God  wants us to be holy, so he creates us un-holy, so that he can take steps to make us holy again. Dig the hole just so you can fill it.

Second, the argument goes back to my point that was banned from David's 'discussion' blog.

Muhammad states: If you were not to commit sins, Allah would have swept you out of existence and would have replaced you by another people who have committed sin, and then asked forgiveness from Allah, and He would have granted them pardon.

Forget the daftness of "would have swept you out of existence". Let's concentrate on the basic reason for  God, according to Muhammad, to take such an absurd move: he wants you to commit sins so that you will have to ask for forgiveness, which would give Allah an opportunity to show his grace by pardoning your sins. 

This is precisely what the key message of Christianity is. God created you sinful so that you spend your entire life committing sins (you attempt not to, but by your design and by the way the rules are defined before you, sinning is unavoidable). And, at the end, God will show you his grace by forgiving you, as long as you keep asking for forgiveness and cringe before him. This is exactly the message of the Hadith 6621, minus the "would have swept you out of existence" part.

Over the years, countless Christians understood the absurdity of this idea. Hence the notion born out of their cognitive dissonance - the notion of "free will". However, "free will" is a feeble excuse that doesn't hold any legitimacy - God intrudes on "free will" constantly and besides, he could have effortlessly design humans in a way that they would not sin without limiting their "free will". Any thinking mortal human can come up with a design solution for every flaw of the human character without putting people in a straight-jacket devoted of "free will". I am sure that an all-wise and omnipotent deity could have done it too.

And then David drops a bomb: in a burning desire of promoting himself as an open-minded thinker, David says:

Leo, I don't think you could upset me if you tried. This is a debate site. People (whether atheists, Muslims, or Christians) generally have thick skin. So everyone has thick skin and feels free to respond without holding back

Following the glorious Jedeo-Christian-Muslim tradition set by Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Muhammad and countless others, David says something opposite of being true.

From the initial David's reaction, he is quite irritated by Leo's statement. He comes across un-Christinaly rude.

Then, David says "This is a debate site". Really, David? A debate site would allow all comments on the subject to stay. Instead, David and Co. selectively chooses statements that help bolster David's claims while silencing criticism, as if there is no valid argument to counter David's claims. David allows bashing of anything and everything non-Christian, but it is that the counter arguments that are not welcome, especially if they make sense. However, if they don't make sense, David is glad to post them for his congregation to bash and taunt and feel good about themselves.

There is a world for describing the state of pretending to have virtues, moral beliefs and principles, while practising the opposite. Perhaps, David hasn't heard it before in this context, but this word is hypocrisy. It would be great if David could enrich his vocabulary by learning its meaning.