Holier than Thou: Outcast for Promoting Science

You might remember Ken from the infamous “Creationism Museum” in KY, you know the one where they imply that all black people are cursed.

Within some extreme fundamentalist sects of Islam there’s a doctrine known as “Takfirism”  – it’s most often used by terrorists like Ayman Al Zawhari, or by fundamentalist schools to justify killing other muslims through declaring them apostate. To boil it down to simple terms, on one pretext or another (your beard was trimmed to you played a music CD, etc, ) a person is declared Takfir and branded as apostate, and for the more extreme fundamentalists apostates are subject to death as punishment. To put it in simplest terms you are declared a heretic by someone who claims to be holier than you in your own faith.

For real Takfir most real scholars believe that the person who becomes Takfir must make a declaration of such or an open denial of some major component of their faith, you become Takfir through your own declaration or decision, not the declaration or or decision of another.

What’s this got to do with you and I?

In an earlier article I pointed out how Fox is either a sucker for the most fundamentalist views in Christianity, or they are are actively promoting those over mainstream Christian views, take your pick. In the US these fundamentalists use a similar “holier than thou” stance to brand anyone who doesn’t promote exact, literal, biblical inerrancy as a heretic and to cast them out. (Note that none of these  extremist Christians are so wrapped up in their own rhetoric that they think killing due to this is justified as some off flavor Salafi and Wahhabists in Islam do.)

Here’s another example as a followup to my earlier post, to demonstrate how intolerant these fringes really are and how ABC news is also a sucker for the extremists just like Fox:

In this segment they bring in notable Answers in Genesis whack ball Ken Ham try to refute the guy. You might remember Ken from the infamous “Creationism Museum” in KY, you know the one where they imply that all black people are cursed.

On Heading Off to Hate Church

from the Churches that pray for our President’s death to those that hate Islam and want to hurry a Civilizational apocalyptic war with all of Islam, to those that hate gays, to those fed by foreign lobbies with arcane goals, these hate churches are on the rise.

It’s not a secret that hate churches are on the rise in the US, the prototypical one being the Phelps clan; Westboro Baptist tends to castigate Homosexuals and other religions, such as Judaism.

The Phelps hate church is really just the tip of the iceberg however, and a convenient focus for media and others who would define hate churches – those who would point at the Westboro Baptist Church and say “See? We’re not as bad as them…”

However the reality belies that argument — from the Churches that pray for our President’s death to those that hate Islam and want to hurry a Civilizational apocalyptic war with all of Islam, to those that hate gays, to those fed by foreign lobbies with arcane goals, these hate churches are on the rise.

The two themes you find constant among these groups are hate for other religions (Judaism, Islam, etc.) and hate for Gays. Occasionally you will find racial prejudice fed as well, but that’s inconstant.

So why does religion sometimes foster hate? More importantly: why does a minority of church goers in the US pick a church that extolls hate? This is something I will be discussing and speculating upon over the next few weeks, since most people who are religious cannot begin to fathom where these fringers are coming from.

In the Baylor study, college students recruited from introductory psychology classes were primed with either religious-word letter strings like “Bible,” “faith,” “Christ” and “church” or neutral words like “shirt,” “butter,” “switch” and “hammer.” Researchers found that religiously primed students demonstrated “a slight but significant” increase in racial prejudice.

Previous studies show a complex relationship between religiosity and racial prejudice. Some dimensions of religion have been shown to increase levels of prejudice, while others reduce it. Those studies all rely on self-reporting, however, and are therefore skewed by the phenomenon of “social desirability,” meaning that some people report more positive racial attitudes than they actually hold.

The Baylor study is thought to be the first to test whether exposure to religious concepts may contribute to racial prejudice.

UK Muslim Extremist Exposed on Facebook

Asghar Bukhari, a regular speaker for Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK appears frequently on television as a “moderate” muslim in interviews. This week he got caught out in a rant on facebook

UK Muslim Extremist Exposed on Facebook

Asghar Bukhari, a regular speaker for Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK appears frequently on television as a “moderate” muslim in interviews. This week he got caught out in a rant on facebook, and Damian Thompson of the Telegraph has confirmed with Bukhari himself that he stands by the statement :

“Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are ‘Mujahadeen’ and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights and dies against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise … There is no greater oppressor on this earth than the Zionists, who murder little children for sport.”

This is the pitfall with many of the political action groups posing as Moderates: first that many are not moderate at all – witness CAIR in America, and second that the media pimps their swill. Where can real moderate muslims go to be heard when media only courts the worst? You have to wonder if it’s a ratings thing – real moderates are too boring or something?

Or perhaps it’s because sometimes when moderates step forward they are stigmatized and threatened, at times by the very groups that the Beeb and others interview as “moderates”. PDF Link, Center for Social Cohesion.

Meanwhile Pastor Rick Warren is cozying up to MPAC-US, and the official MPAC site continues with the non-denial and excuses for encouraging Terror Groups, calling it Islamophobia to disagree:

**warning: Link to Islamist site.

Another Grim Jihadi Milestone

In another grim Islamist Terror group milestone, 902 muslims were killed in April, and another 1208 were maimed and injured. Indeed, since these numbers are compiled from news reports, some of the injured could have slipped into the death column after the news was reported, and many likely did.

Milestones -- the philosophy of the Muslim BrotherhoodIn another grim Islamist Terror group milestone, 902 muslims were killed in April, and another 1208 were maimed and injured. Indeed, since these numbers are compiled from news reports, some of the injured could have slipped into the death column after the news was reported, and many likely did.

The Islamists kidnapped and tortured some of these muslims, and the reports come from the following places:

Pakistan, Algeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, The West Bank, Sudan, Lebanon, and the Kashmir. I’ve excluded incidents where non-muslims were killed, but the number of those deaths is less than a tenth of the number of muslims killed, tortured, and maimed.

Muslims at some point have to ask: if the terrorists are for the Umma, why are they killing so many of them? However that’s almost as silly as asking why a “holy warrior” would wear a mask… It’s evident that they seek temporal power, control, and wealth in the countries they are in, Islamism is good cover for their brutality since it is then supported by even some moderate muslims. After all how can moderates argue with Qutb and the Koran?

Compiled from reports at the Religion of Peace, The Daily Times, AP, and Reuters.

Above you see the book that extends the philosophy which drives many Islamist groups seeking temporal power: Milestones, by Sayid Qutb.