Said Salman Rushdie, in 2015, after the Charlie Hebdo attack, quoted at HuffPo (and at Rushdie's Wikipedia page).
From NBC New York: "Who Is Hadi Matar? NJ Man Suspected in Salman Rushdie Attack Had Shia Extremist Sympathies."
A preliminary law enforcement review of Matar's social media accounts shows he is sympathetic to Shia extremism and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps causes, a law enforcement person with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News. There are no definitive links to the IRGC but the initial assessment indicates he is sympathetic to the Iranian government group, the official says. Rushdie's 1988 novel was viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims, who saw a character as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, among other objections. Across the Muslim world, often-violent protests erupted against Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family.
At least 45 people were killed in riots over the book, including 12 people in Rushdie's hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.
The book was banned in Iran, where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.... Anti-Rushdie sentiment has lingered long after Khomeini’s decree.....
An Associated Press journalist who went to the Tehran office of the 15 Khordad Foundation, which put up the millions for the bounty on Rushdie, found it closed Friday night on the Iranian weekend....
Posts
104 comments:
Churchill was right. Islam is the most retrograde force in the world.
If the Pope was doing his job, he’d reconvert Europe. If things continue as they are, Islam will control Europe by 2100.
at least they used Mohammad's right pronouns! Imagine the violence, if they'd dead named him!
What are the knife control laws in New York?
WaPo, “ Police identified Hadi Matar, 24, of New Jersey as the suspect in the attack. They have not yet determined a motive, Maj. Eugene Staniszewski of the New York State Police said….”
One hint as to motive.
You can see it in the Malthusian religion and its various sects such as climate change and socialism.
Oh wait, the headline is different from the story.
Is anyone else disturbed that the wannabe assassin’s last name is the Spanish word for ‘to kill’?
It's a reminder of what the face of Islam remains. Yes, of course, there are millions of Muslims who are civil, kind people, who want nothing but to live in peace. But at it's core, and through it's own words, it is a religion of hate, bigotry, and intolerance for anyone outside of their dogma. It continues to show an unwillingness to enter the 21st century and to take part in the civil world. And, frankly, it remains one of the biggest obstacles to the world being allowed to be civil.
It is horribly sad that this happened to Mr. Rushdie. It is an attack on the very freedom of thought, on creativity, on the right to say things that make people think. And it seems to be a constant in Islam that one crazy old loon, wielding religious power, can still incite thousands to kill others in the name of Allah. I'll re-work an old line by Woody Allen to simply say that “If Allah came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”
At least our Southern border remains wide open.
This stinks altogether. Kind of hits personally. Radical left sister was in charge of education at Chatauqua. She once suggested inviting Bill O'Reilly to speak. End of job. My other, baby sister is a nice librarian in Highland Park Ill, site of the recent massacre. Very liberal sister, very liberal city. The library is heavily anti-racist and anti-gun infused, as is the town. No security at her library. She's been called a racist, and has been propositioned. I love her, but gotta say, this is what you built, and this is what you get.
I wish everyone in 1989 had bought a copy of The Satanic Verses, and walked everywhere with it. Every bookstore should have had thousands of copies of the book available, stacked for all to see at the entrance of their stores. Just like every newspaper should have printed the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, as a big F you to those who would have us live in fear. Instead, we get diversity blather, and "the motive is unclear," and "people are concerned about a backlash."
Does anyone remember Theo Van Gogh, murdered in Amsterdam? Just one more among many.
It was reported, apparently erroneously, the fatwa had been rescinded. It would appear that fatwas do not have an expiration date. The most recent example is the fatwa issued against the former president in 2015 by the Ayatollah Deep State.
Motive? Why would anyone do such a thing to an author with a $million+ price on his head, in addition to the honor of the thing?
If news media and "the authorities" want to be taken seriously, they need to stop acting so stupid in public. If you find a turtle on a fencepost, the odds are that someone put it there.
Charlie Hebdo could not be reached for comment. DOJ chief Garland could not be reached. He was in his burrow looking for domestic terrorists at school board meetings.
"Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms."
Well, it's definitely provocative to pull out a stupid atheist quote from Rushdie from seven years ago. Is that the most provocative thing he ever said?
Okay, I'll bite.
Among other reasons his quote is idiotic, religion is not medieval, it's way older than that, as old as humanity.
In fact religion is way older than humanity. As we all know (if we think about it), humanity did not create the earth, or the universe. Religion is the attempt to worship our creator, to respect his laws, and to learn how to be better human beings.
There are (of course) good religions and bad religions. Jesus Christ is an excellent moral teacher, without flaws. If you follow him all the way, you will give all your money to the poor and love your enemies. (These are hard truths that the vast majority of us fall short on).
None of us will earn our way to heaven.
After taking a continuing education course about the Koran, my wife said, "It's a religion about killing your enemies."
Can’t really discuss this without defining religion. Like most divisive issues either side immediately goes to the extreme to label their opponents
Islam is tightly tied to 7th century Arabic culture. Example: no translation of the Quran is considered to be a fully valid version of the original. To read the Quran one must read it in ancient Arabic.
OTOH, Christian doctrine asserts that any good translation of the Bible is considered the actual Word of God, not a mere interpretation thereof. Jesus himself is cited in the Gospels as quoting at times from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament done about 2 centuries before Jesus’ time.
Since the Christian scriptures can be translated into any language and be considered a fully valid version of the original, the implication is that Christianity is adaptable into any human culture – in stark contrast to Islam.
I conclude (and many others have also) that a Protestant Reformation event cannot take place in Islam as it stands now.
Freud wrote about the future of an illusion. The illusion he wrote about has lasted longer than Freudian analysis. Of all the higher powers, God seems to have the most endurance. That's His superpower. People want to believe in Him.....Even if they don't believe in God, they believe in a higher power. They might claim belief in The Temple of Reason, nihilism, Marxism or whatever, but it's a higher power. This higher power, whatever it is, explains and justifies their lives and they can be quite fervent and murderous in its belief and advocacy.....I don't think the proper moral in the Rushdie or Charley Hebdo examples is that religion is bad. What is bad is self righteousness wedded with rage. What we have to do is eliminate all those self righteous pricks. MAGA enthusiasts, Bible camp fanatics, gun nuts. Lock them up. Then we can live in peace and prosperity and there will be no more of these troubling incidents.
My belief, as a follower of Christ, is that it's dangerous to follow other prophets. Anybody who prays to God and asks for knowledge will be given knowledge. But we have to remember -- Jesus specifically warns us about this -- Satan exists. Bad actors in the afterlife exist.
What this means is that any time you pray, God will answer. But you also have to be on guard that the message you get is a bad one, from a bad actor.
If you want to hear my "rational" reason for saying that Satan exists (aside from Jesus saying he exists, and hell exists), it's this:
God gives us all free will. It's why we had Hitler and Mao and murderers and rapists. We all have been given free will.
It makes no sense to me that God would strip us of our free will in the afterlife.
What that means, if you follow the logic chain, there are bad actors like Satan in the afterlife. God allows them to exist because God believes in free will.
This also means, if you are religious and praying for knowledge, that you have to be on guard from getting any kind of bad response to your prayer. And you need to use your mind and intellect to discern between the two.
Jesus, famously, fasted for 40 days to strengthen his prayers, so the lines of communication between him and God were open and he would do no wrong.
Have you ever tried to fast? Try it sometime.
After Jesus fasted for 40 days -- and the Bible doesn't say why he was fasting, that's my interpretation for why he was doing it -- you know who showed up?
Satan.
So be on guard when you pray and ask God for knowledge.
"'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.'"
I don't mean to quibble with a brave man, but religion is a euphemism here. He means Islam. No one "fears" Christianity or Buddhism. Some people fear Hinduism, and have reason to--Muslims in India, mostly.
Disrespecting religion does not immunize against unreason.
I bet there are a number of currently popular, unreasonable ideas Rushdie wouldn't dare disrespect, at least not publicly.
Religion is a behavioral protocol, recorded by God, gods and goddesses, mortal gods and goddesses, or experts as a moral philosophy in a universal frame, its relativistic sibling ethics, and its politically consensual cousin law. The most oppressive regimes have been authoritarian or left-wing ideological. The worst violations of human and civil rights have been committed by secular regimes for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes, including: slavery, diversity [dogma], redistributive change, retributive change, and human rites.
You can see it in the Malthusian religion and its various sects such as climate change and socialism.
The Pro-Choice (i.e. selective, opportunistic, politically congruent) ethical (i.e. relativistic) religion of the Progressive (i.e. [unqualified] monotonic) Cult, from Mussolini to Hitler to Stalin to Mao above all, and other religious rites (e.g. planned parenthood, planned parent/hood, planned populationhood) in progress.
"Churchill was right. Islam is the most retrograde force in the world.
"If the Pope was doing his job, he’d reconvert Europe."
So, after condemning religious fanatics, you recommend the Catholic Church resurrect the Crusades, which previously killed millions in Western Europe. Brilliant. You're apparently just a fanatic of a different creed.
"If things continue as they are, Islam will control Europe by 2100."
If things continue as they are, Europe (and the rest of the world) will be too devastated by global climate change to fight a new religious crusade.
Actually, as I typed the above, I changed my mind. It struck me that virulent religious fanaticism and violent wars are often spurred by external conditions in the world that radically upturn the prevailing norms of existence, (e.g., loss of access to and competition over scarce essential resources, etc.). So...as GCC progresses, we can be sure we will have violent wars, spurred by the turmoil in the physical world, competition over vanishing resources for billions of people, which will generate and amplify new factions and fanatics of religious and secular natures. (The Cold War of the last century, created by the US, is a form of religious war, and it has had its many casualties over the decades.)
The Constitution is a self-executing suicide pact. You just have to know where the controls are, and have the wrong culture/society.
I'll use Moses as another example of prayer and revelation.
In the Bible it says this...
You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)
Now, unlike a secular atheist, I do not think Moses was just simply making up laws. I think he was praying on it, hard, and wanted revelations from God.
If you want to be harsh (and stupid), you would make it a crime for anybody to charge interest. You would lock all the bankers up.
That's what they do in Islamic countries, where you are not allowed to charge interest. They also do that in Communist countries ruled by atheists. Bankers are evil, no charging of interest, lock them all up.
And those countries are impoverished. Everybody is poor, except for a few. Nobody can get a mortgage and buy a house.
If you want to be logical about this, locking up people in cages is a sin, too. Using force and violence to enforce laws can easily swerve into awful, sinful, Satanic behavior. So if you want to use force and violence to follow God, yes, you could be wrong and do awful things (and serve Satan). So if you're locking up people for charging interest, you might want to pray on that first.
Jesus -- who is right on everything -- read Moses and his laws like this...
Love your neighbor. Don't charge them interest. Don't ask for the money back. Just give it them.
So don't tell me Jesus was irrational.
And yet Obama and now Biden want to arm Iran who shouts KILL AMERICANS every chance they can. THIS is what they think of us....
"What are the knife control laws in New York?"
A not-witty "witticism" offered by people who think it is, ignoring the essential difference in the nature of knives and firearms as weapons of multi- or mass-deaths.
What is bad is self righteousness wedded with rage. What we have to do is eliminate all those self righteous pricks. MAGA enthusiasts, Bible camp fanatics, gun nuts. Lock them up. Then we can live in peace and prosperity and there will be no more of these troubling incidents.
Let's start with the violent BLM who stole millions from their donors to buy themselves mansions, and the violent Antifa who are the military arm of the Progressive party along with the violent FBI infiltrators who are setting up American citizens. Looks like YOU are the nut William. Open your eyes.
I remember the Charlie Hebdo attack very well.
The Althouse leftes/dems were all extremely angry at American Christian conservatives.
Just like on 9-11.
That lesson could not have been lost on the islamic supremacists: the more violent the islamic supremacists become, the more their allies the dems/left become at western Christians.
The dems/left ARE radical islam's Force Multipliers.
"Respect for religion" would be part of respect for people, wouldn't it? You can criticize and to some extent lampoon, but wouldn't savage abuse be frowned upon today? We don't put people in prison or kill them for it, but a case could be made that even we Westerners frown upon, or should frown upon given our current values, abuse that is too vulgar.
One can idolize or idealize Voltaire and Diderot. They were followed by more scurrilous and disreputable debunkers and the results are well-known. Rushdie clashed with a revival of early Islam. He also brought mid-20th century Western irreverence into a very different 21st century West.
One of the great reforms of the Catholic Church was worked by St. Ignatius Loyola. The Jesuits combine faith and reason. Nothing like that in Islam.
Christians aren’t opposed to interest charged on money. Just unreasonable interest as defined in usury laws; that is until South Dakota got into the credit card business.
Islam, like most religions, looks down on other religions - explicitly so regarding anything other than Christianity and Judaism. And even toward the latter two any respect is suspect given that whole tax that adherents of those faiths were required to pay in order to avoid being forcibly converted or killed.
Jesus on the merits of charging interest: [quoting…]
Parable of the Talents
It is like a man going abroad, who called his servants and entrusted his capital to them; to one he gave five bags* of gold, to another two, to another one, each according to his ability. Then he left the country. The man who had the five bags went at once and employed them in business, and made a profit of five bags; and the man who had the two bags made two. But the man who had been given one bag of gold went off and dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money.
A long time afterwards their master returned, and proceeded to settle accounts with them. The man who had been given the five bags of gold came and produced the five he had made: “Master,” he said, “you left five bags with me; look, I have made five more.” [Note: 100% profit!]
“Well done, good and faithful servant!” said the master. “You have proved trustworthy in a small matter; I will now put you in charge of something big. Come and share your master's joy.”
The man with the two bags then came and said, “Master, you left two bags with me; look, I have made two more.” [Another 100% profit!]
“Well done, good and faithful servant!” said the master. “You have proved trustworthy in a small matter; I will now put you in charge of something big. Come and share your master's joy.”
Then the man who had been given one bag came and said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man: you reap where you have not sown, you gather where you have not scattered [anybody heard a better definition of capitalist?]; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your gold in the ground. Here it is — you have what belongs to you.”
“You worthless, lazy servant!” said the master. “You knew, did you, that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered? Then you ought to have put my money on deposit, and on my return I should have got it back with interest.
“Take the bag of gold from him, and give it to the one with the ten bags. [!] For everyone who has will be given more, till he has enough and to spare; and everyone who has nothing will forfeit even what he has. As for the useless servant, throw him out into the dark, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth!”
[/unQuote]
It certainly doesn't appear here that Jesus had any objection — in principle — to the making of substantial interest (or “usury,” as the King James Version puts it) — that is: 100% interest in this case over some period of time — off the principal of a loan.
Note that — though the version employed here (the 1989 Revised edition of the 1970’s New English Bible translation, renamed the Revised English Bible) speaks of the servants' capitalization in terms of “bags” of gold — but in actuality each “Talent” (a Babylonian base-60 unit of measure) so-called in antiquity meant some 60 pounds of the valuable glittering metal — which is to say, a very considerable fortune. (More than US$1 million per Talent at modern prices for such a weight in gold.)
____
(Matthew 25:14-30, Oxford Study Bible (Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha), Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 1297)
Got to close the knife show loopholes. Republicans have been stubbornly blocking knife show loophole legislation for years.
Cook:
I never said a thing about the Crusades. Stop being ignorant.
"I conclude (and many others have also) that a Protestant Reformation event cannot take place in Islam as it stands now."
I can't believe people talk about a "Reformation" of Islam unironically. The Protestant Reformation would not have happened without Islam. It is the Islamification of Christianity. Its purpose, as with Islam, was to deny that Christ founded a Church as His Body on earth, and instead posit that God gave us a Book that must be strictly adhered to. This is what causes fundamentalism in both religions. So no, Islam is not going to have a "Reformation". It IS the Reformation!
What a bunch of pussy cats. It's not "religion" they are scared of.
Nobody is scared of violence by Presbyterians or jews or Hindus or any of the thousands of other religions and sects.
There is only one religion that people fear. But we can't say it's name.
Let's call a spade a spade and name the religion we are scared of.
Note:I'm not scared of most of the billions of practioners. I am a bit nervous about 100,000 or so of them. Maybe a million. In any event a very small percentage
John LGBTQBNY Henry
>"Religion, a medieval form of unreason,"
Saint Croix said...
Among other reasons his quote is idiotic, religion is not medieval, it's way older than that, as old as humanity.<
Your comment would be cogent if in Rushdie's statement "medieval" modified "religion." But of course it doesn't do that; it modifies "form of unreason" - a medieval form of unreason. Thus making his statement not in the least idiotic, but quite validly arguable. Many thinking people don't consider the "reasoning" of the Middle Ages to quite be the zenith of reason, you know, given that it was largely lacking in the necessary empirical evidence to prove reality. YMMV, and that's fine but it won't broadly impress if it is, as it appears, based simply on your religious beliefs.
By the way, as with Charlie Hebdo, just because radical Islamists are trying to kill you, it doesn't make your literature worthy of uncritical examination. Charlie Hebdo the magazine was pure garbage. And certainly with Rushdie, while I don't think he's a bad writer, if it wasn't for the fatwa, nobody would be reading his books or know who he was. He's garnered awards and plaudits mostly because he's a sort of living martyr figure, not because his books are necessarily great literary works.
Has anyone here ever read Satanic verses? Anything else by Rushdie?
Is he worth reading? I've not ever read anything by him, just never seemed interesting.
I just downloaded the sample of Satanic Verses to see what the fuss is about. $4.99 to buy kindle via the portal.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
As to whether Islam is a "medieval" religion, the following supports the statement.
"Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE." "According to the traditional account,[4][8] the Islamic prophet Muhammad began receiving what Muslims consider to be divine revelations in 610 CE, calling for submission to the one God, the expectation of the imminent Last Judgement, and caring for the poor and needy."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam
"As per its name, the medieval era spans the middle portion of the two millennia since Christ, neatly bisecting the intervening two thousand years and spanning approximately 500 to 1500 AD."
https://www.historyhit.com/when-was-the-medieval-period-and-how-long-did-it-last/
So, I don't think anyone can be condemned for calling it a medieval religion. YMMV.
"The future must not belong to those who would slander the Prophet Mohammad". Barack Obama. And by slander he meant to tell the truth or draw a picture.
A religion so tenuous that it must fear being destroyed by that satire of non-believers. Or is the real risk that believers will be caused to stop and think?
In a manner, all the childish artists and entertainers who abuse Christian iconography to startle in their grasping for notoriety are perhaps owed thanks for keeping Christianity robust and resilient. The most vocal atheists claim to not believe in God, but seem to fear that God may believe in them, in the same manner petulant adult children deny parents who still care for them.
I suspect that quietly many Muslims have a mature belief, but like Modern Progressivism, Islam's institutions are being driven by the faith immature and unsure. Any question or dissent brings them the risk of collapse.
Rushdie has lost an eye and is unable to speak right now.
Lord, look after this man. Let it not crush his spirit. Chase the demons away. Let him know your love.
If things continue as they are, Europe (and the rest of the world) will be too devastated by global climate change to fight a new religious crusade.
There's the new religion and it will kill far more people than the Catholic Church ever dreamed of.
So, after condemning religious fanatics, you recommend the Catholic Church resurrect the Crusades, which previously killed millions in Western Europe. Brilliant. You're apparently just a fanatic of a different creed.
The Crusades were a defensive reaction to the Islamic conquests of the Middle East and the Holy lands. Egypt used to be the most populous Christain nation in the world. Islam has been at war with the non-Islamic world literally since its inception. it is Islam that has continuously invaded Europe in an attempt to eliminate Christianity. You cannot co-exist with those who refuse to co-exist with you.
what I came away from Midnights Children, is Rushdie has a certain contempt for indian culture and history, the protagonist seems to think the three wars to defend against Pakistan, were an inconvenience against him, he took all the fashionable left poses, for the Sandinistas, against Maggie Magpie as his caricature of Thatcher, then he faced a force of unchallengeable belief, which is Political Islam, initially the whole thing was about Shia remnant, it's not a coincidence this happens during Muharram, but by the time of Shalimar the Clown, he recognized the Sunni militant influence,
Islam will never have a Reformation because Islam has no Papacy.
All sophisticated (YMMV) thinkers will have their ideas twisted and bastardized by those that follow--why single out secular ones?
Of course, it doesn't take much with Islam, which is itself twisted and bastardized. It's largely about splitting loot equitably, as befits the ramblings of a dune-loony camel rustling varmint like Muhammed.
Taking comments about Iran and nukes at face value, how long before the Zionists and the Mullahs drag the rest of the world to perdition on account of their fantasies and hallucinations?
With the willing participation of our own totes secular and atheistic gummint of course.
One thing we have learned over the past 3+ decades is that radical Muslims from both the Shiite and Sunni sects tend to be very patient with their grudges against people in the West and the West in general. The 9/11 terrorists were in the US for several years training for al- Qaeda’s plan to carry out the plan that they did on 9/11. Hell, people forget about the misfired al-Qaeda Twin Tower bombing in 1993 that had been set in motion several years before that and then led to another and successful attempt to bring down the towers on 9/11 eight years later. The ayatollah’s fatwa was issued in 1989 on Rushdie. Most millennials and Gen-Z’ers in the US know nothing about Rushdie and the fatwa with cash bounty on his head by Iran as they were either very young or not yet born. This, along with the left’s burying of this historical fatwa by repeating the lie of Islam being the “religion of peace”, is probably due to the the left’s obsession with “diversity and inclusion” in America and their bigotry against Christianity. This Muslim attacker was born almost a decade in the US after the fatwa was issued but I am guessing he was educated about Rushdie’s heresy / apostasy against Islam, either at home or at his mosque.
It is pathetic that Rushdie, an acclaimed public intellectual, would pose religion as somehow inimical to reason, a charge that has been debunked time and time again.
And a call for Europe to return to its Christian roots is not a call for Crusades, but Cook is known more for his abstract advocacy for reason than his execution of it.
Finally, Gahrie is correct; however predictably imperfect, the Crusades were fundamentally defensive in nature.
Speaking of Reformations, Lukacs quotes Burkhardt: Calvinism is the reformation of people who didn't like Germans. And as AJP Taylor put it, Luther was more pissed off that pious Germans were paying money to build palaces for corrupt Italians than he was about theology.
(But Taylor was a skeptic and a cynic.)
The Crusades, BTW, were much more than just western European Christians vs Islam. Before long, the same energies were focused on the pagans in what are now Poland and the Baltic states. The "drang nach Osten" that nobody talks about any more was a description of a centuries long process of Germanization and Christianization from medieval times onward.
Someone mentioned Egypt, where the population is still something like 10% Coptic Christians who are barely second-class dhimmis. The impending food crises will hit Egypt early I think.
At any rate, a religion or faith that reacts violently to even savage and unfair dissing--which Rushdie is not guilty of--is not one that the rest of the world need pamper.
yes the cult of Gaia, whose high priest is Klaus Schwab is much more dangerous, it is leading to rolling brownouts in Europe, and soon famine,
the Salafi current and the Protestant reformation stem from different sources, the first was the collapse of the Abbasid kingdom, with Genghis Khan, so an external threat, whereas Luther was more about the corruption, most directly in the form of the Borgia popes, Luther was much
concerned about that point, although he had some reservations about Islam,
the Bible codifies the Old Testament and the New as the fulfillment of the former, it has ben the basis for Western Society for 2000 years,
Well, if you are talking about those made up stories from a nobody Arab who made up the stories out of a not-very-smart corruption of what he heard from Christian and Jewish traders in order to justify his own desire for plunder, rape and conquest, and that others wanting to plunder, rape and conquest adopted for their own purposes, well, yes, that is a medieval form of unreason.
Rushdie is tainted by the very Muslimism that he mocks by thinking that Islam is a real religion and thus all religions are a farce like Islam is.
Martin Lings, an English convert to Islam, wrote Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. It is a fine biography. There is a scene in it early on when Muhammad learns of another poet who has composed verses mocking him (Muhammad), and so he sends his agents out and they kill the other poet. From the start, the Prophet did not allow people to mock him or the religion he was founding.
"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam" Obama, 2012.
Yes, that is taken out of context, and you can google the whole thing. But people think in terms of sound bites, tweets, and bumper stickers. I lost a little respect and hope for the US when Obama made that remark. And I respected Denmark for having the courage to support the cartoonist and free speech. I guess Matar believed that Obama was right, and Rushdie must be destroyed.
"Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."
There is no person and no idea that is above criticism. None.
And to be to the dense among us, that includes you Muzzies and your Islam. Islam's stupidity is only exceeded by its cruelty.
The Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the fascists, the Marxists all have had a go at Mesopotamia. The most starkly murderous of all that area's conquerors was the Mongols. They killed every living soul they could find in Baghdad. Given the technology of the time, the Mongols were quite adept at genocide.... They did not kill everyone to serve some ideological or religious end. They did it simply to show other cities and peoples in the area that their best bet was to pay tribute to the Mongols....Humanity does not need religious or ideological justification for its murders. Self interest alone will also serve.....On the plus side for Mongol tactics, the religious elders of Damascus discussed the subject thoroughly and decided that there were no objections in the Koran for a believer in paying tribute to a non-believer. On the minus side, the Mongols never created a thousand year empire.
ibn tammiyah, al hurrani was a no 1 exponent of salafism till mohammed wahhab eclipsed him 500 years later, and the sacking of baghdad was paramount in his thinking,
I wouldn't fool with a faith, where the adherents believe onto Death, Rushdie with the adopted englishmen's mien, sought to do a Python type satire, and failed badly,
No matter how many degrees of separation it takes, Trump will be mentioned.
It certainly doesn't appear here that Jesus had any objection — in principle — to the making of substantial interest
He certainly wouldn't point guns at bankers and lock them up!
Consider two people who are loaning out money.
Human #1: "I loaned you $10 and you need to pay me back $10 now!"
Human #2: "I loaned you $10 and you need to pay me back $11 now!"
It's kind of insane to think the first human is a wonderful and righteous dude, while the second human has to be locked up.
The interest payment is simply an understanding of the time/value of money. If you don't get the time/value of money, human #2 might seem like a bad person to you. But if you get the time/value of money, then both human #1 and human #2 seem very similar. They are two people who want their money back. Not bad people. Just ordinary selfish human beings who want their money back.
Jesus blew everybody's mind by taking the revelation that Moses got from God and taking it further.
Do not worship money.
Love your neighbor.
Give him that $10 and don't worry about it.
And that human, call him Human #3, is a better person than Human #1 and Human #2.
And this is how humanity improves, through following the moral teachings of the Jews and the Christians whose stories are recounted in the Bible.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
Matthew 5:17
Imagine a world where all your debts are forgiven.
In the U.S. we have this thing call bankruptcy.
Where all your debts are forgiven.
People around the world say this is crazy. You can't forgive debts!
And yet, we forgive debts. And our society thrives and prospers.
"Has anyone here ever read Satanic verses? Anything else by Rushdie?
Is he worth reading? I've not ever read anything by him, just never seemed interesting."
He has a book of short stories, East West, that I really liked. The Moor's Last Sigh was great. The Satanic Verses probably would have been better if I had known more about Islamic history. Likewise Midnight's Children would have been better if I had known more about Indian history. His other books are ok.
If this Muslim attach on Salman Rushdie doesn't prove Christianity wrong, nothing does.
"This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam...”
What mutation? Does anyone seriously believe that Mohammad would have disapproved of this?
Anyone else see the correlation between Salman Rushie being silenced and conservatives being silenced on Twitter and Facebook?
"Substack writer Alex Berenson shared internal communications from Twitter that revealed the White House inquired about why his account had not been banned, according to findings from his lawsuit with the tech giant...... After previously hinting that the Biden administration may have played a role in his deplatforming from Twitter, Berenson published screenshots of an April 2021 exchange between Twitter employees regarding a meeting it had with White House officials. "
https://www.foxnews.com/media/white-house-asked-twitter-why-alex-berenson-wasnt-banned-from-platform-lawsuit-reveals
I enjoyed Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", a novel about the Partition of India and Pakistan, countries I spent a year in when I was much younger.
But "The Satanic Verses" left me cold.
Re: the Partition. A Hindu Indian elite, a computer industry executive, recounted to me the great fear his family had experienced when Gandhi was assassinated, and their relief when the killer turned out to be a fellow Hindu.
Had he been a Muslim, they expected India would descend into a civil war that would kill tens of millions before exhausting itself and their new nation.
As it was, Partition probably led to the death of a million people.
"Rushdie is tainted by the very Muslimism that he mocks by thinking that Islam is a real religion and thus all religions are a farce like Islam is."
Of course Islam is a "real" religion--how is it not?--and yes, all religions are a farce in the face of logic and our continuing study of the world and the universe.
Muslims who like money have created artful dodges around the rules, just like rich Americans have. Modern banking is opaque enough that with the right labels interest will be paid--it's just called a fee or some other anodyne term.
Interest is rent on money, and Muslims have no problem with the concept of rent.
All the major world religions are unique, and push the definition of "religion" to extremes, so the idea that Islam isn't a "real" religion doesn't really work. It's a mixture of monotheism with Middle Eastern theocratic traditions.
It would make you angrier, he essentially tried to graft magical realism to indian culture
@Robert Cook: If things continue as they are, Europe (and the rest of the world) will be too devastated by global climate change to fight a new religious crusade.
Read Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters. It will stop you typing thoroughgoing fundamentalist nonsense such as that.
Has anyone here ever read Satanic verses? Anything else by Rushdie?
I've read Satanic Verses and Midnight's Children. He is an astonishingly talented writer.
ignoring the essential difference in the nature of knives and firearms as weapons of multi- or mass-deaths.
Like the UK, that after banning firearms then banned knives and sharp edges such as scissors and sewing needles. Nobody here is buying your slow creep on rolling back human rights.
Isn't Salman Rushdie a first-class prophet of what his own side was going to do when - secularism become anti-rationalist rationalism? Though he hid his secret knowledge behind talk of the Koran, was he not really talking about European/American PoMo secularism as we see it about us now? The basic idea in the Satanic Verses is that a person who is copying or editing the Koran starts making little slight changes in the sacred words and proceeds on till some verses have had their entire meaning altered and are "Satanic." No one notices. (They would notice because many in Islam memorize the book but anyhow you can see the mocking intention.) But I go beyond the open words text to the secret text. What interests me is the idea that there are people who slowly alter "sacred" texts until the meaning is the opposite of what was said. Isn't it true that these days there's a lot of people going about altering texts - altering regulations so that ultimately, after a long slow process, they have come require the direct opposite of what was originally intended? altering interpretations of the US Bill of Rights until free speech becomes violence and is banned? altering biology texts until the definition of a man includes a person with either a penis or a womb; altering curriculums until judging by skin color is virtue? etc. Seems to me there's plenty of "Satanic verses" embedded in our culture and being taught in our universities as the original text or meaning.
We might ask why does a man risk his life, the only moments he in his own estimation, has, to warn others. Is he, after all, in the grip of a conscience formed by medieval unreason rather than by the latest in anti-rationalist rationalist thinking? What will they say say Heaven's gate? and what will Rushdie say back?
Michael McNeil, I can only respond with Good Grief!
A parable is a narrative told to make a point. Jesus use of interest as part of this story is no more supportive* of its use in real life, than His use of an unjust judge in another parable means that He doesn't actually care about justice.
----------------------------------
*Nor, of course, does its use here say anything *against* interest, either.
No discussion of life, the universe and everything can be complete without a seinfeld clip
https://youtu.be/Ph_i1BFUTbs
Salmon, cosimo and Jerry at the gymn
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Speaking of India, I've long been a fan of kipling's Kim and have read it many times, most recently a couple months ago trying to get 13yo grandson to read it on summer vacation.
I had not known there was a sequel until kindle recommended them.
The Imperial Agent and The Last Victory by timeri mirari are pretty good.
They take up where Kim left off but Kim realizes that he is Indian, not English. He joins the fight for independence and against col Creighton.
Where Kim was told from the point of view of the colonizers these books are from the pov of the colonized.
Both are excellent companions to Kim.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I couldn't connect with Midnight's Children. Everything just left me cold. Yes, this happened, and that happened, and everybody had a superpower, like in a Marvel movie. I couldn't get into it.
A later novel -- was it Fury? -- just seemed to be a long rant about life in America (New York City) as opposed to Britain (London). Did you notice that Americans tend to pronounce words and names that end in "ell" French-style, with the accent on the last syllable. I have. But I wouldn't think that observation was necessarily something I'd bring up (more than once) in a novel.
Maybe I will give Rushdie another try sometime, if I ever get back into reading novels. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, I thought was excellent -- what Dickens would have written if he were an Indian living today.
While some people are still questioning the motive (as if you really have to guess), Rep. Jayapal drew comparisons to Trump supporters upset over the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Seriously. She's blaming Trump for creating an atmosphere to where a jihadi punk stabbed Rushdie.
And you didn't think Seattle could elect a bigger jackass than Jim McDermott
I preferred "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"
I cannot with any degree of certainty what the one true religion is. But IMHO, the best and most successful nations and cultures are based in some form of Christianity. Looking around the world, that’s actually kind of hard to argue with. People around the world flee to Western Christian based countries, not any other.
I have a few rules for determining if a religion is false.
Rule 1: Does the religion practice actual human or animal sacrifice? A yes makes it false. As in every single religion in North and South America before the Europeans arrived. As well as Norse paganism.
Rule 2: Does the religion allow cannibalism? A yes makes the religion false. And there goes most Polynesian religions and many nativist African religions.
Rule 3: Does the religion require you to kill non-believers? Hmm, AFAIK, only one modern religion fits Rule 3- islam.
Scientology is also a false religion. Not sure of a rule I could make to cover it, but as fen of long standing, I know enough about it’s founding to know it’s false. German courts, BTW, agree with me on that. The same is true of Pastafarianism, though I don’t know if German courts have ruled on that.
Yes, many countries with freedom of religion nonetheless determine what actually is a religion. According to our courts the first amendment prohibits the USA from doing so.
Ive been making my way through far pavillions that covers similar ground to kim, m m kaye doesnt overdo her perspective considering her background
I once got in a 3:00 a.m. conversation at a Harris Teeter. I'm paying for my groceries, it's Christmas time, and I said Merry Christmas to the guy on the register. Or maybe I asked him if he had seen the Christmas lights on so-and-so street. (In Charlotte we have this one neighborhood where all the houses put out amazing lights. People drive over just to look at it).
Anyway, turns out this guy is an atheist. Not a mellow atheist like Althouse. He hates Christmas and he kind of ranted for a bit, about how stupid it was. (I remember thinking, "This is probably why Harris Teeter has him on the night shift")
I was nice. Didn't get mad. I said, "You have kids? Your kids would love all the lights." And he had kids but he was still mad about Christmas. And he asked me how I could believe in God, we can't see him. And I said, "well, we don't see love, either. But it exists. It's there. You believe in love, right?"
It was a strange conversation because I literally said all the right things at the right moment. Almost never happens for me. Anyway, I'm walking my groceries out of the Harris Teeter, and he's following me to the door because he wants to talk about God some more.
Maybe I planted a seed? Hope so.
Gospace. Didn't Judaism include animal sacrifice?
And RC human sacrifice/eating and drinking?
Killing non-believers? Pretty widespread.
Readering,
I assume by RC you mean Roman Catholic?
Why do you put "human sacrifice" next to "eating and drinking"? Do you think we're cannibals?
Are you confused as to the eating of Christ's body and blood?
I confess I've never met this level of ignorance before. Maybe you could give us a couple more sentences? And why do you limit Christianity to RC? Or is this RC cola that we are drinking? Start over.
Of course people have been murdered in the name of Christ.
Sometimes followers of Christ are murdered in the name of Christ.
One of the most amazing movies I have ever seen is called The Passion of Joan of Arc.
It's the finest silent movie ever made by anyone. (Even better than Buster or Chaplin).
It's holy and amazing. (And unlike any movie you ever seen). Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Dreyer's movie, wow. It's so powerful. Anyone who likes art, or law, or religion, should see this movie.
Ritual cannibalism =/= cannibalism.
It's interesting that in the rubble of the atheistic Soviet evil empire, the large wars have been between and among Christian (or 'Christian' if you prefer) combatants. Armor of righteousness redux.
The Russian Orthodox church of course is going to support Moscow regardless; the Ukes are part Orthodox and part Uniate Catholic so less able to exploit piety to the same extent, I think.
The music is kind of awful in this trailer. The Criterion version is way better. (There was no music in the original film so musicians feel free to score the movie in a multitude of ways, many of them horrible).
Also, cool fact, The Passion of Joan of Arc was lost for decades. And a pristine copy of the movie was found (in a storage closet in a mental hospital in Norway) in 1981.
I suspect heavenly intervention, but that's just me.
The 'Passion' offers the finest lead performance and best faces ever put on film.
There I said it.
rcocean said...
If this Muslim attach on Salman Rushdie doesn't prove Christianity wrong, nothing does.
********************
????????????????
Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins says he would welcome the Bible being taught in UK schools---not for asserting that Jesus is the Son of God, but because it offers very sound moral teachings.
On the basis that any book recommendation by Narciso is worth a look, I just downloaded the sample of Far Pavillions. He's not steered me wrong so far.
Thanks, Narciso. It may be a while before I get to it but I will read the sample eventually. Currently reading "Behind Every Blade of Grass" by Ira Tabinkin. China helps BLM sabotage the grid on election day, China invades the US at President Harris' invitation, some Americans fight back. I've blown through the 1st 4 volumes since last Sunday.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins says he would welcome the Bible being taught in UK schools---not for asserting that Jesus is the Son of God, but because it offers very sound moral teachings.
Wow!
I'm a Christian (or, more accurately, I profess Christianity). I regard my faith as peaceful. But, then, there's the Thirty Years War. There's the centuries of persecution of the Jews. There's the Christian treatment of Native Americans. I won't go on. You get the idea.
No, we can't excuse the Islamic fanatacism that led to the attack on Rushdie or the Charlie Hebdo staff or the attacks on the World Trade Center. But attacking Islam isn't likely to be particularly helpful in reducing such behavior. What would work?
John Henry,
Where are you seeing Narciso's book recommendations? In a cafe thread? (True confession: I never look at those.)
And I'll second the recommendation of Far Pavilions.
"I have a few rules for determining if a religion is false.
"Rule 1: Does the religion practice actual human or animal sacrifice? A yes makes it false. As in every single religion in North and South America before the Europeans arrived. As well as Norse paganism.
"Rule 2: Does the religion allow cannibalism? A yes makes the religion false. And there goes most Polynesian religions and many nativist African religions.
"Rule 3: Does the religion require you to kill non-believers? Hmm, AFAIK, only one modern religion fits Rule 3- islam."
Where did you come by these "Rules for Determining Falsity of a Religion?" These may be your criteria you use to label religions "true" or "false" by your reckoning, but your reckoning has no valid application beyond yourself.
Kirk,
Narciso doesn't recommend that many books, maybe a few times a year. Usually in a brief comment like the one where he mentioned Far Pavillions.
Usually in regular threads since I seldom read Cafe threads either.
I've read half a dozen or so books and series on his recommendations and liked all of them. Several, like The Pilgrim, have really blown me away.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
But attacking Islam isn't likely to be particularly helpful in reducing such behavior. What would work?
Christ was peaceful. Famous for being peaceful and killing no one.
But it's a mistake to think that he was silent about sins, or atrocities, or liars.
He (often) mocked people. He and John the Baptist (his cousin) were famous for mocking their opponents, and calling them names. Snakes. Dogs. Hypocrites! (A favorite insult from Christ).
You have to confront evil in this world, if you are to follow Christ.
It might get you in trouble. But that's what he did. And what he calls on us to do.
Confront evil, non-violently. And warn people about Satan.
I think as Christians we should not attack anyone who seeks communication with God. We should remind people that Satan exists, and that killing is a sin, and that Christ killed no one.
Muslims revere Jesus because they think he was a prophet.
Read up on Jesus, go to a Bible study, pray on it, ask God for help, and have gentle conversations with people.
You can start by asking people what they think of Jesus? That gives you a good idea where they are spiritually. If they like Jesus or respect Jesus, bless them and move on.
Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins says he would welcome the Bible being taught in UK schools---not for asserting that Jesus is the Son of God, but because it offers very sound moral teachings.
Do you have a cite for this? I'm seeing the opposite.
Dawkins wants the Bible in schools so the teachers can teach against it.
"It is not a moral book and young people need to learn that important fact because they are very frequently told the opposite".
Yeah, he wants schools to indoctrinate young children that Christianity is bad.
Amazing to me that an allegedly logical thinker thinks Jesus is immoral.
I doubt very much that Dawkins has ever been to a Bible study.
You can't read the Bible on your own.
(Well, you can, people do it).
But Jesus specifically says that you need two or more. You need a Bible study (a seminar), not just by yourself.
He was talking before the Bible existed. But I'm a firm believer that joining a Bible study is necessary, if you want to understand what is going on.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Readering: "And RC human sacrifice/eating and drinking?"
What readering has done here, and its completely in accord with islamic supremacist teaching claims that Catholics are cannibals because of the Eucharest.
As has been noted elsewhere, a full alliance exists between western leftists and islamic supremacists who are united in their goal of western cuvilization.
Readering is simply demonstrating his/her/xer's joyful participation in this alliance...as he/she/xe must to remain a member in good standing with the lefty/islamic supremacist hivemind.
Post a Comment