Hi guys,
A few months ago I thought it would be a good idea to have a series, where I would read the Koran and people could then decide whether this is what they would expect what a god would write. It would also provide an excellent platform to discuss with Muslims why they believe this text has divine origins. Then I got lazy and left it, because it's a lot of work, then I picked it up again and left it. This time I'll go through with it.
Before I get stuck into my series "An Atheist reads the Koran", I want to first explain what I see as being Islam and make some general observations. Ie stuffing 6 hours into 15 minutes.
It is now 5 or 6 years ago that I came across Muslims making some claims regarding their belief. Even my boss, the CEO of one of the largest companies in the Middle East, one day told me after a meeting that the Koran contained scientific miracles. So, off I went and checked. It got me interested and so I started reading up on what they had claimed because I wanted to see this with my own eyes.
I didn't find what they had claimed, quite the opposite, but I did find that Islam is not just a religion, but a political ideology AND a worldview AND a religion. I found that the ultimate goal is to have a country, a nation, a caliphate, based on Islamic Law, the sharia, based on laws, rules and a lifestyle not based on what feeble humans want, but the wishes of their god - and of course Muhammad, their beloved idol. I also found that men are worth more than women or slaves and that the Koran prescribes some pretty barbaric punishments. Apologists claim these are merely deterrents, but if you know they are merely deterrents they no longer deter, do they?
Whenever I check up on claims made by Muslim apologists, regardless of what it's about, it always turns out to be either false or mere wishful thinking. Where, in most cases, it is not even their fault. They have been brainwashed and were indoctrinated as kids and Islam does not support critical thinking, but obedience. All it teaches is how to believe (using blind faith), obey, follow and submit. Where Islam tells them they have excellent reasons to do so and are taking rational decisions - without actually specifying what these are.
Muslims in general are extremely superstitious as every person who was assigned a special task thousands of years ago according to an old book still today has a "peace be upon him" or "on whom be peace" come as an additional surname or incantation attached. Everything they do is dependent on their god willing to allow this. Nothing is too absurd, whether it's the evil eye, magic water, genies or spells and curses. They believe that birds can carry heavy boulders and drop them on an army with elephants and all - and kill them. This is the ugly side of the texts, the constant wars, battles and atrocities.
And it's not like Islam does not offer anything positive. There's a lot of positive advice for a normal, everyday life. But then you don't really need a Koran to tell you that. Focusing on the spiritual side and leaving out the negative aspects in a reformed Koran v2.0 would be highly beneficial. As it stands, Islam is shrinking and will disappear with less and less acceptance amongst the human beings living in the 21st century. Most educated and intelligent Muslims have adopted a very relaxed attitude towards Islam and the rigorous rituals. Only fundamentalists or apologists still demand literal adherence to the Koran. They claim that anything else is a sell-out of Islamic values. Asked what exactly these values are you get a long list. But if you compare them to the real world and see what Muslims are practicing, you suddenly have a whole lot of non-Muslim Muslims out there because apologists declare anything they don't like un-Islamic, even if it is in accordance with the Islamic texts. That's how you know that Islam does not mean peace, but submission.
So what does Islam stand for? First and foremost it is the idea that there is a super-natural being, a god, which, in Arabic is allah. Because Muslims love to keep a bit of a mystery, a lot of expressions are kept in Arabic, to avoid an immediate understanding and comprehension. So you will find a lot of allah, Qur'an, sura, aya, hadith, fiqh, and many other expressions in Arabic. This Arabic is not the MSA, the Modern Standard Arabic we know today from Al Jazeera, but ancient Arabic. Like ancient Greek, ancient Arabic has not developed for over 1000 years and is thus a dead language.
The only reason anyone would want to study ancient Arabic today, is to read the Koran in its Arabic form. That's why only very few people actually know the language, even though many claim they do.
According to the Koran, the one and only god has always existed and was neither created nor born and simply exists. This deity has a number of amazing attributes, most of which are nonsensical or illogical. Like being almighty would enable this god to create an even more almighty god or something indestructible, both of which are not possible logically.
So to overcome the existing belief systems in the region, the authors of the Koran applied a "good cop" - "bad cop" approach. You can feel the inferiority complex and the pleading to please, pretty please believe me and don't be mean to Muhammad and it's a great message only to abruptly change to "and if you don't, you burn".
According to the dozens of times this is repeated in the Koran I either believe or burn. I need to follow the instructions or suffer the consequences. If I don't obey Muslims, I may be granted the right to live where I am, but need to pay for this. If not, I need to either adopt the Islamic rituals or die. Oh, no, I also have the option of leaving my country. The Koran calls this having no compulsion. Actually, adapt or die is quite a lot of this compulsion.
Whenever I question Muslim apologists about their beliefs and why they believe what they believe, the most stupid question they ask is whether I know who started the Universe or what the origin was. But it does seem that this very question has prompted the invention of gods in general as inventing a god or gods posed an explanation - even though it has never actually explained anything. Believers will never be able to explain the process or the materials used or where the material for the Universe came from, if nothing can come from nothing. But, as always, when in a pickle, apologists simply draw the get-out-of-jail-for-free-card: it's a miracle.
The Islamic god for some reason keeps Earth-time in his heavenly penthouse, which seems to indicate that they either have huge clocks synchronised with Earth-time or that the sun of our solar system sets on heaven and hell the same way as it does here on our planet even if heaven is 1,000 or 50,000 light-years away, depending on where you read.
Even though it is omni-present, ie everywhere, there is a throne, which floats above the waters, which were never created, and a house, which looks remarkably like a black cube. This abode is located directly above Mecca. On a flat Earth, this would not be a problem, but given that we live on a spinning sphere and Mecca is 70 degrees away from the North Pole, an object 1000 or 50,000 light years away would be travelling at multiple speeds of light if it remained over Mecca at all times.
According to the Koran, this creator/god created the Universe and then Earth, or the other way around in 6 or 8 days, depending on where you read and created a flat Earth, protected by a solid canopy, without cracks as this god is proud to announce, which is supported not by mountains as the old-fashioned creation myths say, but by invisible pillars.
Sun and Moon orbit along this canopy, which has little lights which serve as ornaments and can also be used as missiles to chase away the jinn, mythical beings made from fire, who are eavesdropping on what the gods have to discuss. People in those days did not know that fire is a process and not a material or that smoke and gas are very different materials.
Since god was lonely on his/her/its own, she created some angels - from light. Really? Sorry, I did not write this and people 1000 years ago where not yet equipped with our level of knowledge. But why do Muslims believe this today? Well, > 50% of all Muslims, we are talking 600 or 700 million people here, are illiterate. No education whatsoever. They take a stick and go along the writing of the Koran and mumble the same sentence to themselves they learnt at some stage - as though they were reading. They believe this is beneficial for them and gets them extra points.
They believe all of this. So, angels have up to 600 wings and can - even though they are made from light - appear and act as a human male and one even manages to impregnate Mary by blowing into her vagina.
This creator creates 70,000 new angels every single day, Earth-day that is, to come around and worship their creator for creating them. Why they do this when they already are in heaven is a bit beyond me.
Anyway, this god requires so much worship that there is a need for more worshippers. Apologists deny, of course, that their favourite god would require anything, but the Koran clearly says that now humans and jinn are created with only one purpose and that is to worship their creator, who will reward the worshipers with a seat in heaven and punish those who don't with eternal torture in a place he created, called hell.
This creator actually decrees that everything it creates, regardless of what it is or what it is made of should prostrate to the creator and worship her. Even the creatures in hell, even though they are in hell for not doing exactly that? So what happens if you refuse to worship when in hell? But it's ok, if god is everywhere, it must also be in hell, so they're in illustrious company.
The Koran says many times that humans are created by this creator, using varying materials, 13 in all. The process is not described, just that we start off our existence as mud or dust or whatever and then end up as some ugly liquid which is mixed with a blood clot which grows into a piece of flesh and then a skeleton is formed, around which muscles and tissue are draped, very much like the Greek medicine thought things went in those days.
The people at the time were heavily influenced by the Greeks in every aspect. Today's Muslims are somewhat jealous of this and came up with a propaganda scheme still active today, where they attribute all sorts of things from the camera to algebra to Muslims who lived 1000 years ago and who "discovered" or "invented" these things. If you check, like usual, the claims turn out to be lies.
A few decades ago they tried it again and found some corrupt non-Muslim doctors who pretended to be amazed by the sentences and words in the Koran. Instead of checking, Muslims all over the globe believed this - and became the laughing stock of non-Muslims for their incredible gullibility.
This propensity to simply obey, accept and believe is found everywhere in the followers of Islam. The creator in Islam is all-knowing. So the follower blindly accepts this and does not think, ponder or reflect over this. To a non-Muslim like me this is puzzling. The creator creates me to worship it, knowing in advance I will be an atheist and not a worshipper and creates me anyway, knowing full well I will be an atheist - and then punishes me for its own incompetence?
And it fails 4 out of 5 times? The all-knowing and almighty creator creates people with a purpose in mind and fails. Like it creates me, an atheist. It tries again a 2nd time and fails again. This will become a Hindu, horsewhipping a different god or gods. It then tries a 3rd time, failing and producing a Christian. The 4th time around a Sikh is the result. Only after 5 tries does the creator get it right and manages to create a worshiping Muslim. That is a remarkable failure rate of 80%.
But even though it tries again and again, even with being all-this and all-that, the failure rate remains spectacularly high at 80%. Only 20% of humans today are Muslims. And all this in spite of this creator knowing in advance the outcome of these pitiful attempts.
Apologists try and explain this away by claiming human free-will, but how can they do that, given that their god knows in advance what the actions and the outcome will be? Childish. Illogical. But even though the creator fails at producing Muslims, the non-Muslims get punished - for his failing.
So this creator/god creates more and more humans, then, after creating humans for 200,000 years, suddenly remembers, oh shit, I forgot the rules. Now, instead of waiting another 2000 years where it knows humans will have developed the internet and global communication capabilities, or, more efficiently and effectively hard-wiring the required information into the brain, it goes into an illiterate, barbaric area of the world, takes one guy, issues sentences to an angel who trots off and appears in a cave somewhere in a desert and can, using oral skills and physical manipulation - while being made from light - persuade this one guy to repeat the words, using an imprecise, undefined language.
This transmission, from a book their god wrote in heaven, who reads his book, line by line to an angel who tells it to a guy who tells it to his desert Bedouins who tell some scribes who write all this down as the Koran is said to be accurate, the literal word of a god. Do I really believe all this works 100%? Nope.
But again, apologists try and sway my doubts by telling me that their god and creator protects his Koran. Like he protected the previous attempts? The Torah and New Testament!? This god is all-knowing, issues commands and knows in advance they will be changed and then, when they do, gets angry with the people he created? Oh boy.
But Muslim apologists don't see this. They see only that this life, a relatively short period in comparison to eternity, is a test. They are like lab rats, mastering a maze to get a reward at the end. When they are dead.
But even here their god fails. What exactly is the test? The Koran says all humans and the jinn are created to worship their creator. Does it say how? No! Not in the Koran. How many times? No! What procedure? No! The Koran is and remains vague and ambiguous. Not a lot is detailed. Like "non-believers will burn in hell", this is repeated 105 times. But on other topics the Koran is incomplete, missing details on all the required rituals. Now what? Well, Humans to the rescue. Over several decades they came up with a strict set of rituals and a behavioural codex which were made up as sunnah, the life, sayings and actions of a man they called Muhammad, the same guy who was the Koran recipient in the cave. But these sayings are contradictory as well, contradicting each other, the Koran and even refer to passages which don't exist in today's 1924 version of the Koran.
Even though Muhammad is said in Islamic texts to plunder, loot, kill, torture, rape and enslave 100s, his benevolence towards his in-crowd and his family is what determines his image with modern apologists. How can anyone ignore the brutal and barbaric behaviour of this man who acted on behalf of his god?
None of this deters apologists. They swear allegiance to their god, pray, pay, go on pilgrimage and fast for a couple of hours during the 9th month, as commanded by their Imams. A much bigger and more challenging problem are the numerous character restrictions, don't lie, don't talk nonsense, provide evidence, don't insult, don't judge, don't hate, don't be arrogant, and so on and on. Apologists rarely adhere to these commandments. They are easily flustered and get frustrated because they have not been allowed to think and develop critical thinking skills in their lives, so their texts read like a catalogue of logical fallacies. They can't conceptualise or think using abstract ideas or logics.
They believe that everything has its place and eg that there are 3 different types of humans, each group with their own rules and rights, men, women and slaves. Maybe that's why there are 3 different levels of heaven. They exist but are not explained. On Earth, men are the bestest of the best, Muslim men being superior to everything else. In their imagination there exists this vision of them walking down a street, in a land governed by sharia, where, even if they are illiterate, completely ignorant and uneducated, the non-Muslim scientist, who ensures healthy food and clean water, will pay them a tax and yield when they approach.
When the male Muslim comes home his slaves have prepared food for him and he can choose which of his wives he would like to have sex with and in which way, without the woman being able to protest. If she does and repeatedly feels cantankerous he can beat some sense into her. A bit later he goes to the square to help stone a woman to death who had extramarital sex. While she claims she was raped and 3 men witnessed it. Sorry, not enough men. Without a fourth witness she is merely an adulteress and unwilling sperm recipient. (Carlin)
The next day he will go and fight for his god, conquer another country, oppress, plunder and colonise it, rape a few captives and then sell them on the slave market. As long as he gives a fifth to his god he is ok, he is a good Muslim and will be adequately rewarded by going to heaven once he's dead.
Where he will have as many sex companions as he wishes. They will be virgins which have had sex with millions of other men, but are restored and fitted with a hymen, fake virgins. The good Muslim will sip on his wine, eat grapes and cheerfully watch how the non-Muslims are tortured in hell.
The message for Muslims is, all they have to do is follow some basic rules and this heaven will be for them to enjoy. Ignore the rules and you burn.
So in the eyes of the people 1000 years ago they had the divine incentive plus the rules and regulations on how to proceed, the Koran and the sunnah, a package deal. It's only today that more and more people realise the inconsistencies between the Koran and the other texts where we find contradictions between the rules and the Koran and the rules themselves. We see the nonsensical nature of these rules. A total mess. But still apologists today are trying to wriggle the sunnah in there as a semi divine text, enabling them to come up with just about any rule they want.
Ask any fundamentalist Muslim whether they agree that Islam is all about peace and all you get is confirmation. And then they will ship off to Syria to fight and kill. Other Muslims.
Ask any fundamentalist Muslim whether they condemn Muslims stoning a woman to death, you will be amazed at how many will try and rationalise this and find excuses for this barbaric practice. They defend this, claiming it to be a divine decree and the wish of their god. How rational or even sensible are those wishes? Do they even dare to ask these questions?
A quick example: we've just had Ramadan, a month declared holy, which was there to increase the bond between you and your god. Well, actually this was copied from the Jews, as was almost everything else. It was supposed to be a holy month, without fighting and warfare. But during Ramadan we saw the same killing and enslaving we see all the time. But - to continue on a more non-violent note - Ramadan was all about fasting during the day, between sunrise and sunset, starting with the sighting of the crescent moon, the beginning of the month. But what if you are 10,000 kms North-West of Riyadh or Mecca, in Canada? You will see the moon at a different time and the sun will not set for 3 months. Do you fast for 3 months solid?
This shows very clearly that humans came up with all these rules and rituals, based on ancient superstitions valid in a small area on this planet. Today, we have technology, based on science, not Islam, which can tell a Muslim how and when to fast in Canada, but 500 years ago? What if 1000 years into the future we colonise another planet? You can't see our moon from there and maybe the times, the hours and minutes, which are man-made, will be different from Earth. Then what?
What does fasting mean on the ISS? How do you pray 5 times between sunrise and sunset if you have one every 90 minutes?
This shows immediately that these can't be universal rules and regulations and are obviously man-made.
And there are so many of them that it is difficult to understand why not more people reject the notion of divine origins of these texts. It does not help that Muslims assign human attributes to an object, a book. Noble or glorious are human attributes, nonsensical in connection with a non-human. The same way as I can't insult the Koran or Muhammad as an insult always requires the insulted person to feel insulted. So saying I have insulted Jupiter or Hercules is not exactly useful.
Instead of going on and on here, I will structure the next part showing problem areas and general inconsistencies and then go through the Koran and show all the crazy parts, which alternate between repulsive and hilarious, between nonsensical and outright crazy.
So let me go and get out my notes, some of which are 4 years old and then organise them into separate examples which can easily be explained bit by bit.
Thanks for your time.
10 August 2014
07 August 2014
God meets Christopher Hitchens
I’m sure
you remember the guy who used to write books and articles, essays and
critiques, drank like a fish and smoked pretty much whenever he wanted. Who
loved life - and his family. Who never ran away from a debate and who managed
to instill fear into theists and pride into atheists.
I am, of
course, talking about Christopher Hitchens.
He died from
cancer end of 2011, yes, it’s that long ago already. He died as a non-believer,
a kafir, an infidel, an atheist. He did not believe there was sufficient reason
to believe that gods existed and even if they did, he did not need or want one,
especially if it was the Abrahamic god. He despised the holier than thou
community and their feeble excuses for their gods.
He
respected those who were able to articulate their beliefs even if he did not
agree with them, and detested those who simply lied or treated human dignity
with contempt.
When he
died, he did so as a proud man, a human being who had influenced millions and
helped to shape the self-confidence of atheists on this planet and had injected
energy into those who resist the fundamentalist religiosity we see so often today.
He managed to sway religious people all over the planet with his dry wit and
logical train of thought. He put doubt into many and received countless letters
of gratitude from those who had realized there was no evidence for the
existence of any god. That’s how good Christopher Hitchens was at convincing
people using just his brain and words.
When
Christopher Hitchens died, he went straight to hell. He did not pass go or spend
time in a holding area while his fate was discussed or his deeds evaluated.
The Hitch
caused so much damage to the reputation of gods that he would immediately be
cast into the hottest pit in hell, where he was destined to burn and re-burn
and then burn some more for eternity and good measure.
The devil
had heard of the arrival of this illustrious guest and went to see what all the
fuss was about. They chatted and then chatted some more the next day. Heaven and hell keep day and night periods
just for convenience, you must know.
This debating
carried on for some time and after a year, the devil took some sort of basic
pity on the poor, wretched creature and he started lightening the load a bit,
seeing that it was for eternity anyway.
A year
after that, the devil was feeling a slight bit sorry for our poor Christopher
Hitchens and he organized him some smokes. I
am taking some liberties here as I maintain that people get their full bodies
back. Burning a guy who died in a horrible train crash when he lost all limbs
without legs and arms would only be half the pleasure so they are replaced as
are the original body parts which were donated and transplanted or replaced by
artificial ones. If you die in an explosion from dynamite strapped to your body
and only a few cells are all that remains there is no fun just roasting these
few cells. So these cells are refilled with the complete body. And then shipped
off to heaven – they don’t go to hell, what was I thinkin?
So another
year and many debates later, the Hitch has managed to get the devil feel
outright sorry for him and so the devil built him a bar, where he can sit and
smoke while he chats to some really interesting people, swirling the whiskey in
his glass. It’s not yet Johnnie Walker Black Label, but they are getting there.
Now god
hears about this. Bad news travels fast. God throws a temper tantrum and thinks
to himself, “what? This guy has caused me so much grief. I have lost millions
of paying members and now he’s sitting in a warm place, smoking and sipping on whiskey
at a bar, debating people?”
He decides
to visit hell and tell the devil he’s not doing his job properly. Give him a
warning.
So, off he
goes and descends into hell.
Here, I have a bit of a logical problem. God is
supposed to be everywhere, omni-present. But there’s a throne, in Islam there’s
even a house and the throne is above the waters, so there are some
contradictory elements here, so anyway, logically, god, being omni-present and
all, should be in hell anyway and all the time.
Let’s leave
that and pretend any of this makes sense. So god packs his overnight case, the
toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, condoms, well you never know, you know, Maria
was quite a dish and look what happened there, so he makes sure to get it
right. Shaver, shaving cream, erm does
god prefer wet or electric? some
deodorant, nail clippers, a comb and a change of underwear – and off he goes.
I don’t actually know how a god travels. With
reindeer? Unicorns? Several Buraqs?
If an angel takes a day, how long does a god take
to get from the heavenly penthouse on the 7th floor all the way to
hell? So many questions….
Let’s just
say he arrives, settles in, freshens up a bit and then talks to the devil. But
the devil tells him to go lump it and see for himself how far he can get. So, god
decides to go and talk to Christopher Hitchens himself to see if he can’t talk
some sense into him. He goes up to the bar, grabs a chair and sits down to talk
to the Hitch.
So they
talk and talk and talk.
To this
day, god has not been seen by anyone in heaven because he is still in hell. He
is now an atheist.
03 July 2014
Islam is Shrinking
Islam is shrinking
Sources
Reality
At
first glance, The Journey to Certainty (Rehlat al-Yaqeen), a show presented by
the Islamic preacher Moez Masoud, comes across as a sequel to Science and Faith
(al-Ilm wal Iman), the famous show that was presented in the past by physician
and writer Mustafa Mahmoud on Egyptian television.
(Disintegrating, collapsing, crumbling, in trouble, dying,
disappearing, The Fall of Islam)
The Claim
Muslims all over the world have most probably heard the
slogan, the fantastic claim: “Islam is the fastest growing religion”.
The problem is that neither is Islam just a religion but
rather a political ideology nor is it growing. Quite the opposite is the case,
I’m afraid; Islam is in trouble and dying. Fast. The claim is sheer propaganda.
Now why would I say such a thing when it is so obviously
wrong?
Well, as I usually do, let me look at the claim, analyse it
and then try to match it with reality. So I will look at the sources which
would indicate a growth of Islam and then investigate why the opposite could be
true and then demonstrate why either one is more likely and present a
conclusion.
Like this, everyone can make their own informed decision and
decide for themselves whether they prefer emotion based comfort or hard facts.
Using Google and entering “fastest growing religion” we get claims
that Mormonism, Paganism, Jehovah’s, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology and all
sorts of belief systems and ideoligies are all making the same claim: we are
growing. By far the most hits are by Islamic sites, claiming that all others
are wrong and Islam is the ideology which is attracting the most followers.
Given that atheists or rather non-believers or “no religion”, the “nons”, are
providing verifiable data which documents this growing segment, the above
claims must be wrong, as not all groups,
believers and “nons” alike, can all grow at the same time.
So what numbers can we trust and where do they come from?
These tables show that Christianity, as a whole, is still
pulling in believers.
This site, fastestgrowingreligion.com focusses on exactly
this topic and provides sources, something you don’t normally get from the
proprietary religious pages. They get their material from “The World Christian
Encyclopedia” and the “CIA World Factbook”.
They see Islam behind Christianity and the “nons”. Islam
sites say the opposite. Looking at the Muslim favourite, Wikipedia, we see that
Islam is “the fastest-growing religion in the world”.
Why is that? As always with Wikipedia, the footnotes are the
more interesting area. On what do the authors on Wikipedia base their
conclusion?
These seem to change on a monthly basis. Last time, it was a
press agency, now the publication “The List”, which I have shown in a different
video Muslims love misquoting, then you have PBS, the broadcast company and
finally, a report taken from US News in 2008, several years ago.
Before following the link to the dedicated growth page,
let’s go to the referenced pages. The essay I found there last time around said
“Islam is the youngest, the fastest growing, and in many ways the least
complicated of the world's great monotheistic faiths” and a summary of Islam,
painted in glowing colours. The source? None. It’s a personal opinion. The
people writing the Wikipedia article cheat. They provide links masked as
sources which lead to propaganda articles. Everyone who has looked at Islam for
more than a week knows it is neither the youngest nor the least complicated
belief system. Maybe that is why they removed it and looked for different
justifications.
The PBS “source” from 2007 also ends up in a propaganda
article in a paper called Foreign Policy by a QASSEM ZEIN, not a source with
data.
The Foreign Policy List from 2007 is not always accessible
because they want you to pay to read why Islam is growing. Hardly an accessible
source.
The attempt at reaching the press agency results in a 404
not found error. That’s how sloppy these people work. I eventually got hold of
it and found just a propaganda article, without any data sources or precise
figures.
But, don’t worry, it gets worse. Much worse.
If you now click on the link for the “fastest-growing major
religion in the world” you end up on an Islamic propaganda page. What has
magically appeared there, within a few days is the addition “percentage-wise”
and if you want to get the sources for their claims, you will be provided by an
entry in the 2003 Guinness Book of Records, a page on Foreign Policy which is
not accessible and the well-known academic source, CNN. But here again, when I
rechecked, one of the sources had changed.
It is now the same source – or non-source I should say –
that we had on the previous page.
How stupid do Muslims think the rest of the world is? How
stupid do they think their own fellow Muslims are? The 2003 Guinness Book of
Records?
Going a bit further down it gets hilarious.
Here it cites the BBC as a source, again the 2003 Guinness
Book of Records and the Pew Forum. The funny thing is: guess what the source is
for the Guinness Book of Records? Yep, the Pew Forum.
The added source is a 2013 paper by Johnson and Grim. The
referenced page 10 is quite a busy page, with loads of numbers.
It covers 100 years of religion and shows very clearly, if
anything, that in the last 100 years the biggest growth was for agnostics and
atheists. What I don’t understand is that if a person is not sure a god exists,
the agnostic, this means they don’t believe they exist and are thus atheists.
But whatever.
Muslims, according to this table, number 1.5bn in 2010 and
have grown 1.8% a year between 2000 and 2010, closely followed by Daoists with
1,7%. What I don’t see here is the data explanation, the source and methodology
applied to arrive at these figures.
So, let’s take a look at the only solid source they cite,
the Pew Forum, which, funny enough is less prominent than the last times I
looked at these pages.
On the page they openly admit
“Statistical data on conversion to and from Islam are
scarce. What little information is available suggests that there is no
substantial net gain or loss in the number of Muslims through conversion
globally; the number of people who become Muslims through conversion seems to
be roughly equal to the number of Muslims who leave the faith. As a result,
this report does not include any estimated future rate of conversions as a
direct factor in the projections of Muslim population growth.”
Looking at the methodology employed we find that they
outsource the data gathering and processing.
They use standard lists and then massage the data. This
means weighting the numbers according to an algorithm they have developed to
curb too much spread and allow for trend-lines and error margins. These are
further complemented by estimates, guesses, interpolation and outside
demographics until you arrive at a data spread which can be cross-checked
against number of mosques and self-reported numbers. They admit to this and
this is nothing new. But it is not accurate, especially when you have such
small numbers to start off with, like the Muslims in the US make up a whopping
0.6%. How do you count the number of Muslims in Yemen or Indonesia? You can’t.
So you estimate. The numbers they receive from individual mosques also
represent what the Imam thinks - and would like to see. So the error bars here
are huge.
I know what huge effort it is to provide a single version of
the truth within a large company and what is required from keeping individual
divisions from slanting data to their own agenda. I see the tell-tale signs of
huge discrepancies between reporting entities when it comes to something easy
like the basic number of Muslims.
As much as the Pew Forum makes their methodology look
accurate and reliable, the underlying, necessary assumptions bely that
accuracy. Religion is not easily quantifiable. The person calling you will not
check whether you are in front of the TV, the BBQ or the mosque. Numbers from
Muslim majority countries are vague guesses.
Religion Census Membership Studies looks at Congregations,
Members, adherents and attendance.
They rely on self-reporting data and estimates. Guessing. Some
groups, such as the Mormons, count every visit or enquiry as an adherent to
Mormonism, which inflates the numbers. The same goes for Scientology, where the
numbers are artificially inflated using dubious practices which have =been
documented in the recent past. People leaving any group are not deducted,
accounting for the reported ever growing numbers. Dishonest but leaves the
followers with the feeling they are part of a large group.
This leaves a funny aftertaste and is reason enough to seriously
doubt these claims. But, and this is a big but, I have to acknowledge, all I am
doing is doubting the claims. I am unable to disprove them, because I have the
same problem the people making these statistics have: lack of reliable data. I
can only show that the claims don’t make sense and that the data is unreliable
and based on hunches and guesses. This would mean the deductions are based on
emotions, not facts, the principle of the poisoned tree which can’t produce
healthy fruit.
But now what about the opposite? What indications are there
that Islam is not growing, but actually shrinking?
Well, there are different factors here, ranging from the
least reliable, personal observation where I notice the decline and bump into
ex-Muslims much more frequently as time goes by, to reliable self-confessed
apostates, who admit they have been more atheists than Muslims, just going
through the motions. Then you have the converts which – of course – are warmly
greeted by Christian churches who are also witnessing a reduction of numbers-
and – more importantly – a sharp decline of what drives them most: money.
The non-believers are offering the least, namely nothing
except freedom and a productive mind and are the group growing exponentially.
Converts don’t last.
Muslim Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus says that 75% of new Muslim
Converts in the US leave Islam within a few years!
People’s priorities shift from survival to self-expression
values as their sense of
individual agency increases
People’s priorities shift from traditional to secular-rational
values as their sense of existential security increases
The largest increase in individual agency occurs with the
transition from industrial to knowledge societies.
The strongest emphasis on traditional values and survival
values is found in the Islamic societies of the Middle East
But, and maybe I shouldn’t have kept the worst until last,
the #1 lie is that Islam is growing due to the high birth-rates. Well, this
bubble was also burst when new data appeared, which indicated that birth rates in
the less developed Muslim majority countries have dropped dramatically.
The Arafat statement with Islamic wombs being the strongest
weapon of Islam, is proving to be just another dream - and a failure.
So that is where we stand. Muslim propaganda claiming a
growth that can’t be substantiated and which is based on shaky ground and the
clear indications of the opposite, a decline of people who are prepared to stop
thinking and ignore the facts presented on the internet.
Primitive apologist groups still try and buy back believers
with huge investments and efforts and are failing. Too many people now
understand that a group like iERA or LDM or whatever dawah group you pick,
people see that they
1.
Don’t understand the world around them and fabricate
a creator/designer/god
2.
Don’t understand science, the principles, the
processes
3.
No clue what an atheist is – even though I
patiently explained it many times
4.
Dishonest censorship
5.
Fabricate illogical and juvenile arguments
Apologists are realizing they don’t have anything convincing
and even a Dr. Craig, who has spawned many Islamic clones is now shaking when
delivering his nonsensical drivel and was sent into retirement by Dr. Carroll
who completely annihilated all arguments or points Dr. Craig had.
Muslim apologists are standing with their arms raised in
despair and are starting to acknowledge
Throwing out more nets like on a dawah-day is futile as the
claims have too many and too big holes. People can’t associate with Muslims who
are unable to condemn stoning or slavery if committed by fellow Muslims.
More and more Arab atheists are raising their voices, no
longer intimidated by their masters and shouting out the message: Islam is
dying.
Thanks for your time.
NOTES:
I reduced the video by about 50% due to too much information
being available.
I was swamped with evidence, but it’s stupid to try and
bring all that in a single YouTube video.
I left out all the blogs and a huge number of forums where
people are talking about being an atheist in a Muslim majority country,
especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“There is widespread popular disgust with religious people
and even bearded people. There is also a rise in the demand for secular and
communist books by young people. And it is noteworthy that peasants in my village
all categorically agree to not vote for any bearded man or any religious
man, and say that their roles should be confined to the mosques… And an
Internet site for Arab atheists announced that some 347 Egyptians have joined
the group in one week only of last month.”
The Golden Era of Arab Atheism?
by As'ad AbuKhalil posted on June 11, 2013 02:14PM GMT
It is unlikely that Western media will take note, but there
seems to be a rejuvenation of Arab atheism. Western media never take note of
Arab intellectual trends, especially if they deviate from the classical
conventional assumptions about the Theologocentric (as Maxime Rodinson called
it in his La Fascination de l’Islam) impulses of all Arabs and all Muslims.
Secular trends in the Arab world have been long ignored in
Western media and even scholarship. Furthermore, Saudi and Qatari media, which
dominate the bulk of pan-Arab media, will certainly suppress such news, but
there is a new phenomenon. Arab atheist groups are spreading on the Internet
and Facebook groups dedicated to Arab atheists are increasing in popularity.
And the Egyptian newspaper al-Wafd even took note and published an article
about “the secret world” of atheists. There are reasons for this phenomenon.
To be sure, Arab atheism is not new: There is a long history
of free-thinking in Arab countries throughout Islamic history. Long before the
appearance in the late 1990s of Sarah Stroumsa’s fine book, Freethinkers of
Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rawandi, Abu Bakr al-Razi and their Impact on Islamic
Thought, Arabs and Muslims were curious to learn about the history of atheists
and free-thinkers in Islamic history.
Egyptian TV: Darwin, Nietzsche, and a Certain God, trying to
break the momentum.
By: Mohammed Kheir
Published Wednesday, August 1, 2012
A new show on Egyptian television hosted by young preacher
Moez Masoud takes a more sophisticated stab at atheism, hoping to draw doubters
back to their faith.
Moez Masoud speaks during a conference.
At
first glance, The Journey to Certainty (Rehlat al-Yaqeen), a show presented by
the Islamic preacher Moez Masoud, comes across as a sequel to Science and Faith
(al-Ilm wal Iman), the famous show that was presented in the past by physician
and writer Mustafa Mahmoud on Egyptian television.
Back in the eighties, Science and Faith was one of most
viewed television shows in Egypt. The premise of this famous television program
was the reconciliation of science and religion, or more precisely, using
science to reinforce “religious certainty.”
Similarly, this premise serves as the basis for the young
preacher’s new show.
The young preacher is more interested in the issue of “religious
certainty,” or the existence of God, and debates the ideas of what he dubs “the
prominent atheists.”
Even the show’s title sequence resembles that of Science and
Faith, with scenes from nature and of living creatures moving in succession
over serene and suggestive background music.
Nonetheless, the new program has added more “scientific”
shots, including some of planes taking off, different kinds of medical pills
and tablets, and people crossing streets in modern-looking cities.
Yet The Journey to Certainty soon diverges from the common
ground with Science and Faith, breaking away from the old show in the first few
episodes. Masoud’s program does not address science in general, or the various
kinds of experiments conducted by scientists.
The young preacher is more interested in the issue of
“religious certainty,” or the existence of God, and debates the ideas of what
he dubs “the prominent atheists,” such as the German philosopher Nietzsche,
Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins.
Of course, The Journey to Certainty debates their ideas in
order to rebut them. This approach is in fact no different than the one found
in the practice of responding to suspicions about Islam, which is popular on
religious websites.
A new study by demographers Charles Westoff and Tomas Frejka
challenges this common perception and suggests that the fertility gap between
Muslims and non-Muslims is shrinking.
Because many European countries do not ask a person's religion on
official forms or in censuses, it has been difficult to obtain accurate
estimates of the number or childbearing rates of Muslims. Nevertheless, it
seems clear that Muslims are far from achieving majority status. Muslims make
up less than 5 percent of the population in most European countries. France has
the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. An estimated 4 million to 6
million Muslims make up between 6 percent and 10 percent of the French
population.
West Germany recruited a large number of
workers from Turkey beginning in the 1960s, giving Germany one of Western
Europe's largest Muslim populations. In 1970, Turkish women living in West
Germany had more than two more children than German women. By 1996, the
difference between these two groups had fallen to one child.
Recent trends in the Netherlands tell a
similar story (see figure). The fertility gap between native-born women and
women born in predominantly Muslim Morocco and Turkey narrowed considerably
between 1990 and 2005.
Fertility
Decline in the Netherlands Among Women Born in the Netherlands, Morocco,
and Turkey, 1990 to 2005
Source: Statistics Netherlands, 2006, as cited in C.F. Westoff and T. Frejka, Population
and Development Review 33, no. 4 (2007): table 3.
Fertility levels in the countries of origin for Muslim
immigrants are reflected in different fertility rates among Muslim groups in
Europe, as immigrants often arrive with the norms of their home countries. In
Norway, the TFRs varied substantially depending on where women were born. Among
immigrant women living in Norway, Somali women had a TFR of 5.2 in 1997-1998,
compared with 4.8 for Iraqis, 3.1 for Turks, and 1.9 for Iranians. Native
Norwegian women had 1.8 children on average during the period.
But fertility has been falling in many Muslim countries in
the Middle East and Africa, which may help explain why younger Muslim women
have lower fertility than older women. In Turkey, the TFR dropped from 3.3 in
the 1985 to 1990 period to about 2.2 in 2003. Over the same span of years, the
TFR fell from 4.5 to 2.5 in Morocco, and from 5.6 to 2.1 in Iran, according to
UN estimates.
Westoff and Frejka also explored how religiousness may be
linked to higher fertility. Women who report firm adherence to their religious
beliefs and practices tend to have higher fertility than less religious women,
whether Christian or Muslim. But religiousness does not always mean higher
fertility. As the authors point out, Islam does not prohibit family planning, so
women can have small families and follow their Islamic faith. The dramatic
decline in Iran's fertility provides a recent example of how strict Islamic
practices can coexist with widespread use of family planning.
Charles F. Westoff and Tomas Frejka, "Religiousness and
Fertility Among European Muslims," Population and Development Review 33,
no. 4 (2007): 785-809.
Wikipedia claims
But what exactly are the 5, the 6 and the 7?
References. References the author thinks substantiates the
claim.
5 = "Fast-growing Islam winning converts in Western
world". CNN. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
6 = Staff (May 2007). "The List: The World’s
Fastest-Growing Religions". Foreign Policy (Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace).
7 = Guinness World Records 2003. Guinness World Records.
2003. p. 142.
So, let’s see. It seems the usual hatred for the media can
be suspended when it says something nice. What we have is a TV-Channel, a CNN Egypt
correspondent, who is covering the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, and
simply claims that Islam is growing. Why? What is the underlying data? Well,
they are winning converts and many mosques were built in the US in the last 12
years. Well done, good to know. But what if the Muslims in the US didn’t have
so many mosques and are now catching up, creating a boom in mosque building. Is
this a serious indicator? Hardly. How many converts? No clue. Haw many mosques?
No clue. What is the value of this reference in the Wikipedia article? No clue.
“While various Muslim sources claim that Islam is the
fastest growing religion in Russia and that ethnic Russians are converting to
Islam in large numbers, Roman Silantyev, the executive secretary of the
Interreligious Council of Russia denounces this as a myth.”
This article was on Wikipedia under Islam in Russia.
It was replaced by Muslim propaganda.
Maybe the next one is based on hard facts and not some arbitrary
output of irrelevant words.
It’s the Foreign Policy. The what? A blog on US foreign
policy. OK, not quite a blog, but a serious group of people bringing out
serious stuff, especially since it was bought by the Washington Post company. I
would count this as a serious source. But now, what are they like when it does
NOT cover politics, but religions. Well, they estimate, just like anyone else.
This was done in 2007, 7 years ago, when less data was available. Their data
and the subsequent estimates is based on birthrates, where they assume a child
will be the same religion as is prevalent in the region.
It’s an assumption, but an outdated one. Today we know that
society shapes young people and non-religious influences are strong. Too strong
for many.
Now for the 3rd one, a real database for once?
No. The Guinness Book of Records. A fun book, but hardly a serious source.
Muslims are getting desperate it seems.
They must really see the state of their belief, an ideology
rather than a religion, as a high risk situation. They are putting out the most
remarkable nonsense, ranging from non-existent scientific miracles via
non-existent literary miracles in their Koran all the way to non-existent
morality claims in their texts. The final, desperate and futile attempt, is a stab
at making Muslims living 1000 years ago seem as though they were significant
contributors towards scientific development.
So what is the last reference saying about the growth of
numbers of people believing in the Islamic god? I only found an Islamic site
and could not access the book itself.
“In the period 1990-2000, approximately 12.5 million more
people converted to Islam than to Christianity” (Guinness World Records 2003,
pg 102)"
That’s all. Not more than that. A number. No region, no
explanation, no criteria, no basis.
Christianity, as we all know, has never lost more members
than in the last decade. What if they lost 15 million and Islam gained 12.5
million more than Christianity? We then have -15 + 12.5 is a net loss of 2.5
million. You can’t make this up.
US Christians
they mostly left organized religion entirely and became
secularists, or "spiritual but not religious" or simply unaffiliated.
Since World War II, this same process had been observed in other countries,
like the U.K., other European countries, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
When I looked at a Pew report, Pew
Forum on Religion & Public Life, I found they make their findings and
reports look respectable. They provide the questions, who was asked what
question, the demographics and their sources, everything noted meticulously and
accurately – but – garbage in, garbage out can’t be beaten. If you ask A US
citizen whether they pray, it is considered a virtue, so more will say yes,
they pray. What if prayer was considered a vice? What if the question was along
the lines of: do you pray to Neptune? I predict the result would be different.
So Pew reports are based on speculation, estimates, calculations, assumptions
and guesswork.
Religion is not scientifically
quantifiable, so leave it.
In the US, American Religious
Identification Survey, ARIS, gave Non-Religious groups the largest gain in
terms of absolute numbers
But then, so is UFOlogy
Saudi Abdullah al-Qasemi: “The occupation of our brains by
gods is the worst form of occupation”
Kuwaiti scholar Ahmed al-Baghdadi: “Is there no end to this
backwardness?” And the “I do not want my son to learn from ignoramuses who
teach him to disrespect women and non-Muslims” he continued.
Although accurate figures on the number of atheists in the
Gulf are nearly impossible to come by, a 2012 poll by WIN-Gallup International
titled “Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism” published a surprising number
of self-professed Saudi atheists. The researchers found that up to 5% of the
Saudi respondents declared themselves to be atheist, a figure comparable to the
United States and parts of Europe.
Going to the main page on Islam on Wikipedia, I see the same
claim repeated. Looking at the sources I see the same as I’ve already dismissed
as irrelevant, this one is much the same, where USNews provides an overview
showing what Islam is and makes a claim without data or evidence. So the
sources Muslims provide are not sources but mere articles to fool the Wikipedia
administrators that they are following the guidelines and are providing
footnotes with links. Nobody ever checks them.
I’ve shown before to what horrific and unbelievable extent
Wikipedia is abused by Muslims as a propaganda vehicle and nobody can stop
them, due to their numbers and unlimited funding, where some Muslims spend 12
hours a day on Wikipedia, falsifying entries on Islam.
There is hope that modern Muslims will either dump their
antiquated beliefs and remain cultural Muslims or become NewAgeMuslims, where
hate and intolerance have been replaced with compassion and humanist support.
What if I search for the opposite? Entering “leaving Islam”
results in millions of pages all dedicated to helping Muslims who are in doubt
or have abandoned their faith in handling their void and dealing with the loss
of their spiritual crutch and the daily rituals.
It demonstrates that Muslims are leaving Islam – even though
it is forbidden and carries the death penalty in some regions. Denouncing Islam
is also illegal and in a country like Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by
death. Countless bloggers or simply people who doubted the existence of gods
are in jails and have been executed, which means that being a non-Muslim in
some regions is virtually impossible.
Due to the harsh punishments for Muslims criticising their
ideology I suspect there are far more atheist Muslims than we know of. These
are people who pretend they are still Muslims and go with the flow to not
attract attention, but are inwardly anything convinced that the rituals they
are mechanically performing, like throwing pebbles at a rock, pretending they
are stoning the devil, really impact their bonus points with one of the gods.
Islam
is shrinking and believers are leaving by the millions.
Sources:
Muslim statistics
Fastest Growing Christianity
Pew Forum
Dr Ilyas Ba-Yunus is the Emeritus Professor of Sociology in
the State University of New York at Cortland, and has been involved in
estimating the number of Muslims in the United States and says that 75% of new
Muslim Converts in the US leave Islam within a few years!.
Personal Values
More and more atheists in Muslim majority countries
Intellectual Muslim blog
Iran Muslims not attending mosques
Muslims need to reflect why so many millions of us are leaving
Islam
Millions Are Leaving Islam Every Year
In Africa Alone Everyday
ISLAM FORBIDS MUSLIMS FROM LEAVING ISLAM, YET MORE AND MORE
MUSLIMS HAVE LEFT ISLAM
Muslims Leaving Islam in Droves
WHY millions are leaving ISLAM
2 Million People In Indonesia Leave Islam For Christianity
Every Year
2,000,000 people left Islam Vs 2,000-5000 people embrace
Islam
2 million ethnic Muslims in Russia leave islam:
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=513
in every year 6 million African muslims convert to Christianity or Atheisam .
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=513
in every year 6 million African muslims convert to Christianity or Atheisam .
http://www.aljazeera.net/programs/shareea/articles/2000/12/12-12-6.htm
For English Translation : http://www.formermuslims.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=972
For English Translation : http://www.formermuslims.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=972
Muslim Preachers, Dawa Missionaries, Islamic Scholars,
Mullahs, Imams Leave Islam and Enter Christianity.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17499
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17499
50,000 Iranian Muslims have embraced Christianity in Iran
in last 2 years
http://www.iam-online.net/Press_release_PDFs/IAMTVrelease_FINAL.doc%20(Read-Only).pdf
http://www.iam-online.net/Press_release_PDFs/IAMTVrelease_FINAL.doc%20(Read-Only).pdf
250,000 Muslims left Islam in Malaysia,100000 became
christians
http://www.harakahdaily.net/v06/index.php?optionfiltered=com_content&task=view%20&id=791&Itemid=28
For English : http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=356823#356823
http://www.harakahdaily.net/v06/index.php?optionfiltered=com_content&task=view%20&id=791&Itemid=28
For English : http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=356823#356823
10,000 Frech Muslims converted to Christianity in last
years,
http://alonzo-95.skyblog.com/
For English : http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=251560#251560
http://alonzo-95.skyblog.com/
For English : http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=251560#251560
Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims leave Islam and Convert to
Christianity !
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/010/12.26.html
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/010/12.26.html
Thousands of Bangladeshi, North African, Kashmiri, Indian
Muslims, Central Asian Muslims Leave Islam and Embrace Christ.
http://www.youtharise.com/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=994
http://www.youtharise.com/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=994
Some 35,000 Turks converted from Islam to Christianity
last year
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/139/story_13903_1.html
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/139/story_13903_1.html
Kyrgyzstan : 100,000 Muslims have converted to
Christianity in 3 Years !
http://www.persecution.org/newsite/countrynewssumm.php?country=Kyrgyzstan&PHPSESSID=df81b650d93475f5d699815c7f7da5ad#
http://www.persecution.org/newsite/countrynewssumm.php?country=Kyrgyzstan&PHPSESSID=df81b650d93475f5d699815c7f7da5ad#
Indonesia :
"According to A.T. Willis and others between 2 or 3 million Muslims converted to Christianity after the massacres of the communists in Indonesia, in 1965"
http://www.secularislam.org/humanrights/compatible.htm
"Catholic officials stated that approximately 10,000 Muslims convert to Catholicism each year. "
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/23829.htm
"According to A.T. Willis and others between 2 or 3 million Muslims converted to Christianity after the massacres of the communists in Indonesia, in 1965"
http://www.secularislam.org/humanrights/compatible.htm
"Catholic officials stated that approximately 10,000 Muslims convert to Catholicism each year. "
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/23829.htm
The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International
Religious Demography
First Edition. Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.
10 myths
Muslim Scholar Leaves Islam
Pew Forum
"Statistical data on conversion to and from Islam are
scarce. What little information is available suggests that there is no
substantial net gain or loss in the number of Muslims through conversion
globally; the number of people who become Muslims through conversion seems
roughly equal to the number of Muslims who leave the faith. As a result, this
report does not include any estimated future rate of conversions as a direct
factor in the projections of Muslim population growth."[66] The growth of Islam
from 2010 to 2020 has been estimated at 1.70%[63] due to high birthrates in
Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
15 March 2014
Interview with a god
We have all
heard the claims:
Gods are
the creators of the Universe we know. And the creators of the Universe we don’t
know. Yet.
After all, it
must take a god to do that, right?
OK, so,
let’s assume one of the gods is a creator and created the Universe. Let’s
assume the various books are right and, as told in the Koran, the Islamic god
won the heavenly competition and is “The Best of the Creators”.
So let’s
examine this and play out the scenario what happened before that.
Interviewer:
Hello, take a seat. I hope you had a pleasant trip. How do I address you? You
write in your CV you don’t have a name, but your function is creator/god, is
that correct?
God: That
is correct. Just call me god. I am also used to being called lord or master.
Interviewer:
Fine, whatever. You are being interviewed because you applied as creator.
God: Yes,
indeed, thank you for inviting me over. Where can I help?
Interviewer:
We need a creator, who can create a universe for us. Are you up to that?
God: Yes, I
think I can do that.
Interviewer:
Excellent! You sent us a CV which left us a bit puzzled, so would you mind
answering a few questions on your key capabilities?
God: No, not
at all. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Interviewer:
Well, it says here your key skills are benevolence, power, wisdom, knowledge,
mercy and eternal. You are also immutable, just, transcendent and good.
God: That
is correct.
Interviewer:
So how exactly does that provide the qualification to create a universe?
God: Because
I am omnipotent, I am able to do what I want. I am also omniscient, so I know
what will happen in advance if I do what I want. I am also omnipresent, so I
can be everywhere at the same time doing what I want.
Interviewer:
That sounds good. But then, since we have a small problem with our supplier and
nothing comes from nothing, could you create a universe from basically nothing?
God: Yes.
Interviewer:
Great, that would help. But can you elaborate a bit on how can you create
something from nothing if nothing comes from nothing, as everyone knows?
God: I can
do what I want, so this is a miracle.
Interviewer:
So you can also create a round square?
God: A
what?
Interviewer:
A round square.
God: But
that’s impossible by definition.
Interviewer:
So is creating something from nothing. But you said you could do that.
God: Yes.
Interviewer:
Ok, let’s leave that. So you say you can do everything and know everything. Can
you tell us how you would create our universe?
God: No,
because I am invisible and transcendent, not contingent and immensely powerful.
Also, I need a miracle to do that and since I am beyond your human comprehension
and logics, you will not comprehend the process - which I will need to keep a
secret, by the way.
Interviewer:
So if we don’t know what you will do and how you will do it and using what
materials, have you created something previously?
God: In
fact, just recently I created 2 places. They are called heaven and hell. I am
very proud of them.
Interviewer:
Splendid. Where are they so we can take a look and evaluate your capability to
create?
God: You
can’t really evaluate them, but you will know one of them - after you die.
Interviewer:
Which one?
God: That basically
depends on your behavior, your gullibility, your adherence to worshiping
rituals and propensity to follow nonsensical rules.
Interviewer:
If it depends on me, why can’t you tell me - if you are really omniscient and
know everything in advance - which one it will be?
God: Because
I have given you the option of doing what is right and what is wrong. If you do
what is right, you will be rewarded in the place I created called heaven and if
you do what is wrong you will be punished in the other one, called hell.
Interviewer:
But do I decide what is right because it is right or is something right because
you declare it being right?
God: You
are free to decide.
Interviewer:
But if I get it wrong I get punished?
God: Yes,
of course, isn’t that just?
Interviewer:
What about the merciful you mentioned earlier?
God: Oh
yes, I am extremely merciful. If you repent I can be good with you over almost
anything.
Interviewer:
But if you are just a teeny-tiny bit merciful, why did you even create the
place called hell, if a little mercy will reduce any punishment, no matter how
just, reducing the maximum punishment in hell, making hell superfluous?
God: I am
all-merciful, but not with everything. It depends on the humans I will create
in the Universe I will create, which I already know I will do.
Interviewer:
But you don’t even know whether I will go to heaven or hell, which you should
know if you really are omniscient and would be heaven by default if you were
merciful. So you don’t seem to know very much at all, you are sloppy when it
comes to logics, then you say you created places nobody can evaluate and check
and you can’t do what you said you could do. I’m starting to lose trust in your
abilities. How do I know that anything you say is true?
God: You
can trust me, because I am god, the truthful one and only.
Interviewer:
And how do I know this is true and that you are not the opposite?
God: Your
lack of faith is disturbing.
Interviewer:
I can’t build a universe on faith. I need someone with a little energy and a
few particles, the laws of nature will take care of the rest. All I need is the
first input, someone who will explode.
You don’t
seem to have what it takes, so, thank you for coming here and we wish you the
best of luck in your career.
God: It was
my pleasure. Good bye.
But rest
assured, I will follow the development of your universe and slip in through a
back door and claim it was me all along. I’ll get you, one way or the other hahahaha
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