‘Blind Faith’ is the title of an essay written by ‘The Londoner’ a psuedonyminous author and is the first of two articles by this writer that this blog will be featuring today, ‘Blind Faith’ examines the nature of faith and the impossibility of science providing proof of the existence of any deity. This essay also delves into and sharply criticises the double standard that exists with regards to religion in the West today.
In the current situation our governments have ceased to take the view that all religions should be subject to equal criticism by either non believers or reformers and instead protect one religion and one religion only, that of Islam. As the author states the musical the Book Of Mormon mocks the Mormons but it is highly unlikely that any Mormon will attempt to blow up any theatre that is putting this show on. Like the author I also believe that such a tolerant situation would not be the case if there was a musical made of the ‘Life of Mohammed’. This is a truly excellent read from an author I’m delighted to discover.
Blind Faith
This is what lies at the heart of every religion – blind faith. The reason? There’s no proof for any of it. Superstitious stories written in superstitious times. Not even written but orally communicated and usually badly jotted down by a half-literate villager with a poor grasp of language, nuance and meaning. Scratched down on parchment that decayed, rotted, was lost or buried over the years. Jesus left no writings, nor did Muhammad. Neither person got to decide what texts would be included in their canon, and the evidence for whether any of the two men existed is sketchy at best. There are Roman and Jewish references to Jesus, but they’re written many years after the fact and simply talk about a rabble-rouser who was stirring up trouble (although one of the texts was doctored in order to make Jesus seem like he was the Messiah). For Muhammad, a figure who comes along much later, there’s even less evidence and the literary construction of the quran is nothing more than an intertextual theft of Judaic/Christian characters, locations, events and themes all rearranged to suit Islam’s agenda. For this staggering lack of originality, I dismiss Islam as nothing more than a heavy-handed intellectual property theft. I understand that the Genesis creation myth borrows heavily from the Babylonian creation myth called The Enuma Elish, and that in order to establish a new religion Christians looked back to the Old Testament prophecies and MADE them apply to Jesus’ life and death (the sacrificial lamb). Jesus (as John Dominic Crossan wonderfully observes) is not ‘history remembered’ in the way we can remember, know and correctly write about a recent historical figure such as a Thatcher or a Hitler, for example. Jesus is ‘prophesy historicized’ – meaning that people imposed the state of being the Messiah onto an innocent man.
Every academic and honest religious expert on planet earth will tell you there is no proof for any of these religious leaders having existed. As a result of all of this blind believing we now have groups of people who are considered to be ‘races’ and who are accorded special social status and rights. This isn’t a world I want to live in. I want to deal with facts, science, biology, medicine, astronomy, etc. The Christian notion of a God has been pushed further and further from people’s minds as space probes have now traversed our galaxy and no sign of Heaven has been found. What impact has this had on people’s ‘blind faith’? It’s simply caused them to move the goalposts. How do we find God? Where is He if not sitting on a cloud up in the sky judging us all on who we’re having sex with and keeping a very long notebook of all our doings? Believers will now look for God in action, in history, revelation, good deeds, all around us (as you’re being raped or knifed), or as a part of us in union. We are all aspects of the divine some people will claim. And yet there’s still no proof. No phone number, no address, not even a photograph. God has been missing in action since long before Nietzsche declared Him dead.
And where do we find ourselves today in a supposedly enlightened Western land? Strait-jacketed by laws that protect people who believe in invisible beings. Teach your dog to do a Hitler salute whenever you mention the Jews and you’ll find yourself in a courtroom, regardless that you put a disclaimer on your youtube video saying it was purely for entertainment purposes. Put bacon through the letterbox of a mosque and it’s considered to be an ‘attack’. Bacon has now become a weapon in the West because of Islam’s superstitious nonsense and theft of Judaic laws. An empty mosque in Camden, Central London, was given overnight protection by a police force whose budget is so tightly stretched that they’ve put out a statement saying they’ll no longer be investigating minor shoplifting offenses and who can’t afford CCTV in certain areas, having to rely on local shops’ cameras instead. But don’t dare put bacon next to a mosque.
An Islamic centre in Kilburn recently hosted a hate preacher who has a youtube video in which he advises Muslims on the best 5 ways to kill gays. There were three Islamic organizations involved in inviting the man and hosting him. I emailed all three, including the centre at which he’d be speaking and I got no reply. There were no police that I read of in attendance at this man’s talk to safeguard gays against hate speech. What was his lecture about? Did he further elaborate on how best to kill gays, and meanwhile the owner of a cute little pug who lifts his paw up whenever he hears ‘Jew’ is being dragged through the legal system for a youtube prank he played on his girlfriend to annoy her. The police are currently too busy targeting any perceived ‘far-right’ groups who may not be very fond of gays, making arrests to show us all that they’re serious about fighting homophobia while allowing anti-gay events attended by hundreds of Muslims in a public establishment within a British community to take place.
What are the limits of comedy? Taking the piss out of Catholicism is fine. We’ve had Rowan Atkinson playing a priest, Father Ted expressing priests as being idiotic and hapless, Dawn French in a terrible series about a female minister. We have comedians regularly getting a few cheap laughs by saying all priests are paedos, or some other kind of joke that is equally as lazy. When 9/11 happened and the planes crashed into the twin towers, afterwards, Frankie Boyle was joking about the men who had jumped from the windows to escape the flames as their only option and hope of survival. He gave them marks out of ten as you would for their diving skills as though they were competing at the Olympics. Why isn’t this a punishable offense? Perhaps if any agencies had sought out the religious beliefs of the person being joked about Mr. Boyle would have been looking at a jail sentence. It seems anyone can be ridiculed except for the religious types who can’t back up their beliefs with anything other than a book with multiple authors and whose authenticity is dubious at best and written in a time long before science and reason kicked in.
Religions exist to create communities of faith, much like gyms exist to create communities of people who want healthier and stronger bodies. People are free to read whatever material they like, and it’s my hopes that no matter what ‘holy book’ they read they do it for inspiration and take the best parts from them – love your neighbour, love yourself, help the needy, etc. That’s as much influence as religion should have in a person’s life. No special status because you believe in this or that sky-God (my worship of Jack from the beanstalk is equally as relevant and redundant but it awards me no special status except perhaps that of madness). All religions must be criticized and all religions must be free to be mocked by whoever chooses to do so. No one is above a piss-take. The musical, The Book of Mormons, is a classic example of tolerance and hypocrisy (as is the Life of Brian, the movie, although it was banned in a few countries upon release). It shows the tolerance of the Mormon community and the hypocrisy of the West that we will pick on the easiest target. The Book of Mormons will continue its West End theatre run and continue winning awards for excellence for as long as the tickets continue to sell. You can rest assured no Mormon will try to blow up the building or kill any of the cast and crew.
You could not say the same about anything to do with Islam. There has already been the killing of a movie-maker in 2004 (Theo Van Gogh) who made a documentary that was critical of Islam and called Submission. Another movie (Honour-diaries) documenting the plight of women under Islamic law in the Middle East (child brides, forced marriages, FGM, spousal abuse, honour-killings) was banned from being shown on a number of American campuses because it would be ‘offensive’ to Muslims. I could go on. The Charlie Hebdo massacre and the critics of Islam who are in hiding or living with 24-hour protection for doing nothing more than drawing a cartoon, removing a hijab, refusing a marriage or criticizing Islam (forbidden by Muhammad).
Recently, a movie about the cover-up of paedophiles within the Catholic church entitled ‘Spotlight’ was tipped for an Oscar win as well as winning hundreds of other awards and accolades. But we still can’t talk about Islam’s problem with paedophilia without fear of violent reprisal from the religion of peace. We can’t show any movies that highlight the plight of women under the brutal sharia law. We can’t make movies showing gays and adulterers being stoned, even though it would make for compelling but disturbing viewing. For some bizarre reason the world is supposed to turn a blind eye and ear to the most backwards and barbaric ideology on the planet – Islam. Don’t you dare try criticizing it.
