No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:18)
The Jews say, “Allah's hand is chained.' May their own hands be chained! May they be cursed for what they say! By no means. His hands are both outstretched: He bestows as He will.” (Qur'an 5:64)I believe the real quote is that there are “lies, damn lies and statistics”, but I only need the first two parts of this quote. It was my intention, for my last blog, to talk about the myths about Islam. I got a little side-tracked and a bit strong but I don't apologize for telling the truth. That's why what follows may shock you as much or even more than what I blogged last time. So, are you ready? Too bad if your not ...
Let discuss the perception that Islam is responsible for the great advances in the sciences and the arts. If you haven't heard that, then, just where have you people been – under a rock? Did you sleep through your LIBERAL arts classes in high school? Oh, right, they were taught by liberals so you got the condensed and sanitized version of world history, right? You know, “communism is great and democracy is not such a good form of government” stuff. And the other side of the coin, the “everything that you were taught about American history was wrong” classes. Well, I did anyway. I remember reading one of those alternative “history” books – it happened to be the curriculum history book, you know the ones that down-play or out right deceive you about the Christian faith of the founding fathers of this nation, and the re-education camps about Lincoln, who you know was only out too free the slaves to make himself look good. Nothing was mentioned about the 50 yrs of abolitionists that changed the minds of the majority (even if it was a slim majority) of Americans in the North; all they focused on was just the one guy who died in Kansas, right? There is some truth that it may have been more self serving than we would like to idealize Lincoln as, but if I remember correctly, abolition of slavery was part of the newly created Republican party platform, not the democratic party's platform. (I didn't look that up; I'm going on my memory here)
Now, don't anyone go and get all political on me because I said some of the things I said above. I didn't say any of it for or against a political persuasion. Hopefully, you've figured that out about me by now. I said it because of the myths that we all believe about our own nation and its history, as well as the myths we'll believe about others. It is so easy to make some one believe anything you want them to believe. All you have to do is repeat it long enough, and they will begin to believe it. Its why Al Sharpton and David Duke deceive(d) so many people. Both are openly quite racist ,if you ask me (which none of you have); even though only one is perceived to be. We all believe it about Duke, that's easy, but Sharpton – he's a “civil rights” icon. So why does he unapologetically call the Jewish side of town, “hymie-town”, or “Jewing some one down”, humm? Or maybe I should have used Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, maybe that would be easier to swallow. I just remember all of the black Christian churches that got sucked in by this guy for the Million Man March, and all because of his skin color. Now before you get ready to crucify me, I know of what I speak, I got sucked in by David Duke in 1988. Hey, people change, right? Sometimes ... unfortunately, less often than we'd like. I forgot to look at his “fruit” - a real profession of faith – which wasn't in Christ! That and he was out and out lying into the cameras; saying things to deliberately pass himself off as something he wasn't. I could also mention people like Abramoff crook, and the two Republican congressman (one from Ohio and one from California) and the people they deceived! Now my point is not to offend anyone, which I may have already done, but to help us see how easily we are “sucked in.” We believe what we believe about people because we are told so often what to believe about them by so many. But as Christians, aren't we supposed to be “discerning?” Do we check the facts, and look for fruit? Do we look up sources and see if they're true? Or do you just assume that they are? And does it bother you when people don't cite their sources? It does me! Do we get our ability to discern from the newspapers and CNN? Or do we get our ability to discern by knowing the Word of God? We don't need “tea leaves”, we need Jesus; we need His promised Holy Spirit living in us, teaching us all things. Otherwise, we are just children, tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. (Eph 4:14)
So, since I talked about source material, I'm getting a lot of what follows from Robert Spencer's “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).” Oh yeah, and I'm doing a a little cross referencing on the Internet to double check Robert.
Let talk about some of the myths of Islam that we take for granted because we've been told for so long that their true, shall we? And I apologize in advance for bursting your bubbles ...
Islam likes to pride itself as well as promote itself on it scientific discoveries and the spreading of those scientific discoveries to the West (“see how nice the Muslim's are?”). But they have a lot more in common with Microsoft than Thomas Edison or George Washington Carver (who might just be the most brilliant scientist this country has ever produced!). In actuality, like Microsoft, the Islamic world has never invented anything of real value, but they like to pass themselves off as such.
Myth: the Muslim world invented the mathematical value of zero as well as Algebra and the Arabic numbering system. Now you might be laughing at me right now, but the zero was actually one of the things that helped propel the field of mathematics. For some strange reason the Greeks never realized they needed nothing! We've always been told that we get our Arabic numbering system from the Muslims, right? The problem is that the Islamic world did not discover the zero, the Hindus did. All the Muslims did was introduce it to the West. And there was a pioneering Arab mathematician (ca 850 AD), whose work introduced Europe to the power of Algebra, but Algebra had been invented centuries before. I believe that stealing and passing something off as you own work is called plagiarism. Oh, and by the way, our Arabic numbering system (0, 1 2, 3, 4, etc., instead of I, II III, IV, insanity) was originally taken from India as well. They didn't invent that either.
Myth: Islam was the foundation of modern medical advances. Sorry but this is a myth of the highest order. It is true that Muslims established the first pharmacies and set standards for knowledge and competency for doctors and pharmacists. But it was the evil Europeans (Andreas Vesalius to be exact) that did that by publishing the first accurate descriptions of human anatomy – in 1543. Why, you ask? Why, because dissection of the human body was forbidden in Islam, but not in the West (although to be fair, Christianity in the middle ages had a lot of issues with a lot of sciences during that time and into the beginning of the enlightenment era). Well, you say, Muslims established the first hospitals! The first one was, in fact, in Bagdad. But did you know that the first medical treatise was written by a Christian priest, and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683 AD? Or that it was a Christian who built the first hospital? Or that it was Christians that founded the first medical school? Me either.
Its also a myth that it was the Muslims who preserved the philosophical works of Aristotle and Plato to name only a few. It was a Christian who translated Aristotle into Sriac in ca 873 AD, and his son that translated them into Arabic. Muslims are usually credited with re-introducing the West to the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato, but that isn't really the way it happened. It was the conquest of Constantinople that caused Greeks to flee into Europe and its universities. They brought the philosophical works with them.
But what about music and art? Well, yes, there has been some impressive music and art in some Islamic countries, but that was more in spite of Islam, than because of it. Did you know that Mohamed forbid musical instruments? Neither did I. But according to Islamic apologist 'Umdat al-Salik (i.e., ancient dead guy), Mohamed said, “On the day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead in the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress. Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.” Now I know that none of you have ever heard of this guy, but I'll bet you've heard of Ayatollah Khomeini, and he said this: “Music corrupts the mind of our youth. There is no difference between music and opium. ... Music is treason to our nation and to our youth. ... And art? Islam's prohibition of representational art is even more absolute. Mohamed said: 'Angels do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or some images (or pictures, etc) of living creatures.'” So that's why they didn't like the cartoons ... and your little dog too! That's why there has never been an Islamic Mozart, or Beethoven, or Michelangelo.
As Robert Spencer pointed out, no culture has ever existed in a vacuum, every culture has borrowed from others and there is no shame in that. The Roman culture that succeeded the Greeks incorporated most of Greek science and philosophy into its own, as well as its gods. And to some degree, Islam benefited from the cultures it assimilated (I'm sorry, but I have this unnatural desire to quote the Borg - “resistance is futile; you will be assimilated!”), but he also posed a question:
But when they had taken what they wanted from Byzantium and Persia and sufficient numbers of Jews and Christians had been converted to Islam or thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual stagnation from which it has not yet emerged. Even more nagging is the questions why, if Islam really did reach such a high level of cultural attainment, it went into such a precipitous and lingering decline.He postulates that unlike Islamic countries, “... Europe had a longstanding intellectual tradition that made such innovations possible.” Europe made use of Muslim works which they themselves largely ignored. Muslim commentators on Aristotle were studied since the 12th century in Europe, but mostly ignored in the Islamic world. Much of what they did, and still do today, is limited to studying and memorizing the Qur'an. And that is the primary source for the rejection of science and art in the Islamic world, the Qur'an. You see, Jews and Christians know that God is good, and that His goodness is consistent. Which means that universe He created has purpose and He created laws that govern it. This makes scientific investigation and discovery both possible and worthwhile. Thomas Aquinas explained it this way:
Since the principles of certain sciences – of logic, geometry, and arithmetic, for instance – are derived exclusively from the formal principles of things, upon which their essence depends, it follows that God cannot make the contraries of these principles; He cannot make the genus not to be predictable of the species, not lines drawn from circle's center to its circumferences not be equal, nor the three angles of a rectilinear triangle not to be equal to two right angles.You need a little deciphering? When two dogs mate, they produce – drum roll please – a dog! Not a horse, or a rabbit, but a dog. Somebody wake up the evolutionist over there! Concerning logic, He cannot make a rock (no pun intended) so big that He cannot lift it. God cannot violate absolute laws of equality, unless a higher law supersedes it. So, 2+2 will always equal 4, and God cannot change that nor violate that law. Now if we could just get the public schools to agree to that, everyone would be mostly happy with them. Just 'cause little Johnny thinks its 5, doesn't mean it is, and its OK for little johnny to be wrong; he'll get over it!
But in the Islamic world, allah is absolutely free, which means that He does not create laws that He must operate within, because that would violate his freedom. Because of this, allah effectively killed science in the Islamic world. There is little point in studying nature, if it has no laws.
In my last blog I mentioned Christopher Columbus and the significance of 1492. How many of you remember why old Chris was sailing across the ocean blue? To find a new trade route to the east indies, right? Good! Now for the hard question? Why did Chris need a new trade route? Yes, they forgot to teach you that in the public schools, didn't they? I'll give you a hint: Constantinople fell in what year? Yes, I see that hand in the back. What was that again? 1453? Excellent! You've been paying attention after all! And just who overthrew Constantinople? Why, the Muslims did, specifically, the Ottoman Empire. Well done! And please remember, good old Chris wasn't the first to sail west, he was just the one that succeeded. So, closing the eastern route of trade spurned innovation and discovery. The Americas were discovered, and the earth was no longer flat (you do know that there are people that still believe the earth is flat, right?).
And it could be argued that Islam's lust for land and forced conversions created the enlightenment. All those Greeks fleeing the advancing Islamic armies, brought sciences to Europe, which spurred investigation and advances in art and music as well. But I'm not ready to give the Muslims all of the credit just yet ...
So, although Islam claims great advances in the sciences and the arts, in actuality, they have very little to show for it. What they show us today, is unceasing violent in the name of their so-called god. And we suck up to the lie that Islam is a “religion of peace” instead of the reality of what it is, and what it is about – total conformity to a set of man-made laws, in the name of a non-existent god. To be at peace with Islam means that we will need to sacrifice the arts and the sciences. Now, truthfully, I'm OK with putting a halt to public funding of such masterpieces as “The Piss christ” we all paid for years ago. I wonder if the so-called artist has the testicles to create a “piss Mohamed?” What do you think? Yeah, me either. But by the same token, it should be legal for this particular artist to create his so-called masterpieces. That's what a free society is, and allows. And that free society came from a Christian belief foundation, and a Christian invented form of government that is the single most unique style of government on the face of the planet, even with its faults and its perversions. People flock to this country. Why is that? Very few of the people that came to this country – the Europeans, or those that were forced – the Africans – ever left. Incidentally, that was the purpose of the country of Liberia, and why it exists today. So many people, try so very hard to find so much wrong with this country. I only have one question for them all: “Why are you still here?” We are not perfect, and I don't mean to trivialize some of our short-comings, but if Muslims find the West so offensive, then why on earth do they come here to go to school, and why do they stay? Why do they seek to kill us when we have no intention of living in their god-forsaken countries? If they don't like our music, why do you have a radio or TV? If we are so bad, why do they come here?
Its because our very existence is a threat to everything they teach their children. Mohamed said we were evil, so we must be converted or killed or subjugated to save their culture from our influence. Its as simple as that. Islam is stuck in a 7th century mentality, that isn't going to change as long as Mohamed is their prophet. And if you reject religion, then you only have two possible outcomes – dead or conversion.
It is way past the time for us to stop believing the lies about the religion of Islam. People have done some good in the world, in the name of Islam, but there here lately, its been shouwing its true foundation – violence and hatred of others. It really depends on who's slave you want to be – a slave to Christ or a slave to sin ... or a slave to Islam.
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