A while back, quite a few years ago back in fact, I wrote about how the liberal Islamic cleric Taj Hargey was correct in stating that Islamic conservatives were pushing a more strict than necessary version of Halal food in order to gain influence over British Muslims. In that article Mr Hargey stated that nothing apart from pork and alcohol is forbidden in Islam and that it’s perfectly acceptable religiously for Muslims to eat chicken or lamb or beef that has not been specifically slaughtered in a Halal manner. He said that all that was necessary for a permitted meat to be Halal was for the believer to recite a specific Islamic prayer before eating. Also in this article I pointed out that this was a major difference between Islam and Judaism as in Judaism a meat animal must be slaughtered by the permitted schecita method to be considered as Kosher. In Judaism it takes more than a prayer said before eating to make a food Kosher, if you don’t believe me go and have a look at the multitude of religious laws in Judaism that exist regarding fruit and wine for example.
But enough of Mr Hargey’s previous comments about food and my commentary on them. Mr Hargey was back in the news a few weeks ago regarding the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. Following the Taliban’s takeover a high profile and religiously conservative Muslim made a comment on a BBC programme that the Taliban’s takeover would be welcomed by the majority of Britain’s Muslims. This comment made Mr Hargey angry and in an Daily Mail article he explained why.
The Daily Mail said:
Every Muslim in Britain is celebrating the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That’s what Khola Hasan of the Islamic Sharia Council suggested on BBC Radio 4 at the weekend.
Even as she was speaking, thousands of Afghans were trying to escape the country. People were being trampled to death in the stampede for places on flights out of Kabul airport.
For Ms Hasan to proclaim that Muslims in the UK are united in welcoming this seizure of power by religious zealots, and the resulting chaos, is both obscene and an affront to the British Muslim community. It is insulting, a travesty and a sign of just how pitifully ignorant she is.
But for the BBC to give her a platform to air her doctrinal falsehoods, without then demolishing them with the real facts, is unforgivable.
Mr Hargey is in my view correct. Khola Hasan only really represents her group and religiously conservative Muslims. She doesn’t represent secular or semi secular Muslims or those Muslims who have personally decided to set aside and ignore those parts of the Quran and the Hadith that are problematic in the modern world. In fact I’d say that the sort of Islam that has taken hold in Afghanistan is the sort that would threaten the lives and well being of British Muslims were that sort of Islam to be imposed here in Britain.
Mr Hargey is also correct to be scathing about the BBC. They have platformed an unrepresentative religious zealot and treated her as if she represented the entirety of Britain’s Muslim population. If the BBC were to have someone like Hasan on then she should have been balanced with someone more moderate and should have been challenged much more than Mr Hargey said that she was. This is I admit a pretty disgusting piece of behaviour from the BBC and will no doubt increase the calls for this organisation to be either reformed or subjected to the fires of market forces. There are many people in Britain who have had enough of the BBC’s political bias and this incident is yet another example of the BBC being biased and unrepresentative.
Let me introduce you to a concept for which you and Targey seem to have scant respect. That is the concept of truth. That is the whole truth. Not just part of the truth as in the quote from Targey.
A claim which does not reveal the whole truth is little better than a lie, if not actually a lie.
Targey does not reveal the truth that all muslims follow a doctrine in which they are superior, and in which those other humans who do not belong to their group are inferior, some muslims even claiming that non-muslims are more animal than human. This superiority reaches its climax (according to koranic doctrine) in the fictional after-life in which muslims go to “paradise” and non-muslims will be punished for eternity by an all powerful god “allah”. allah is totally lacking in compassion in the afterlife for those who refuse to bow down to him, a characteristic which allah shares with Jahweh the god of the jews, and the god of christianity (a jewish – semitic – sect which, though maybe unwittingly, has exposed the true evil nature of the god of the jews).
Here is a key basic truth that Targey fails to reveal.
The Taliban draw their primary inspiration from the same shit texts as the jews (the old testament), the christians (the new testament and the old testament) and the “innocent” muslims (the koran, the new testament, and the old testament).
At the heart of these morally bankrupt texts is a cartoon character, known variously as jahweh, god or allah, who is guilty of crimes against humanity, with a rapsheet that makes the most hardened human criminal look like the apocryphal innocent choir boy.
Here are yet more of the truths that Targey does not reveal about islam which are contained (or implied) within the koran.
Morality:
islamic morality (see also below) is superior to non-islamic morality. This well suited the original muslim barbarians as they could claim that they were bringing “progress” to societies (which now includes the West) while at the same time conquering and exploiting them and their peoples, while giving nothing in return. A belief still propagated by muslims.
This is a morality which Targey as a muslim will fully support.
Slavery:
Slavery is condoned within islam. Not surprisingly, as mohammed, the fictional character who was supposed to be its prophet, was himself a slave owner and slave trader.
Slavery has not been rescinded by allah since the time the koran was created.
Apostasy:
Those who leave islam can be executed.
Blasphemy:
Anyone who exposes the truth about islam, or opposes the muslims in their plans for world domination, can be executed.
Misogyny:
Women are fundamentally inferior to men, and muslim women must obey muslim men without question. Of course non-muslim women/girls are beneath contempt. (See Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, etc.)
Totalitarianism:
allah will help muslims to conquer the world, and the world will submit to islam. This means that the whole world will have to submit to muslims with the primitive social doctrines created by murderous bandit tribes living in the Middle East 1000-4000 years ago.
Paedophilia:
Having reached (supposed) sexual maturity, young girls may be raped by men much older than them, mohammed being a prime example. (see also Misogyny above)
Of course, it would be unfair of me to solely single out Targey and his abhorrent muslim beliefs. The same backward doctrines are reflected to a greater or lesser extent in judaism, of which you are a representative, and christianity of which the pope is a representative.
Far from being a force for good in today’s world, the semitic doctrines, in all their forms, are holding back humanity. They must be exposed and then thrown into the dustbin of history, like those other anti-human doctrines including Nazism and Socialism, Wokeism, anti-white Racism.
This may even help followers of the semitic doctrine out of the quagmire which they inhabit, though I very much doubt that they will let go of a doctrine, however untrue, which holds that they have a special status, extremely advantageous to themselves, while putting down people who do not belong to their group.
Finally, for now, I leave you with this quote.
“Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important.” – Thomas Sowell
[Thanks to @supportourlefty for bringing this quote to my attention]
You make some very interesting points here. Not all of which I agree with. There is, no doubt, a significant degree of supremacism in Islam. However at various time and in various religions, some of which are not monotheist, supremacism has existed. There has been Christian supremacism in Britain, the form of government that the Maccabees set up in ancient Israel was a form of Jewish supremacism as it was implacably opposed to the ideas of the Hellenists, who were during the time of the Maccabees less than favoured. Then there is the supremacism that occurs in non Monotheistic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism both of which have had or have current aspects of supremacism.
Whilst Islam did indeed heavily borrow from both the Tanakh and the Christian Testament it created something radically different from them.
Islam also incorporated and included Pagan ideas and Pagan practises from pre-Islamic Arabia. It’s unfair in my view to say that the entirety of Islam is based on the Tanakh and the Christian Testament as there’s much more than that in Islam.
There is as I see it a massive difference between the two religions that I refer to as Abrahamic which are Christianity and Judaism and Islam which in my view is only partly Abrahamic owing to the significant influence of pre-Islamic Arabian Paganism. That difference is in how texts are interpreted. Christianity and Judaism have often reinterpreted texts in the light of later knowledge, Islam on the other hand is much more static, interpretations made over a thousand years ago still hold such as the failure to abolish slavery. Christianity and Judaism have by contrast mostly changed their views on this issue and now abhor slavery. Neither Christians nor Jews want to see the stoning of adulteresses brought back but this is still a thing in some Islamic societies.
Interpretation of texts is key. It was partly the reinterpretation of texts in the Bible that helped to bring about the Enlightenment but these texts have also helped to create the lunatic Christian pastors who promote the Q Anon cult. The ‘shit texts’ as you call them do not always or automatically created a shit ending. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.
As for Hargey, I’m acutely aware that there is a big difference between ideology and individual. Just because someone is nominally attached to an ideology doesn’t mean that they automatically follow every aspect of it. I have time for Hargey because he is trying to build a form of Islam that is compatible with later knowledge and has proposed some controversial things that not every Muslim would like but might make Islam better, such as lowering the emphasis on the Hadith where much of the piss poor behaviour of Mohammed is recorded and lauded.
I’m aware that Hargey’s views are currently a minority view in Islam, but then so was in Judaism the idea that a woman could become a Rabbi. At first the concept and practise of female Rabbonim was confined to the Reform and Liberal movements in the UK, but now even some Orthodox movements are if not accepting women Rabbonim, creating a space for religiously learned women. Will there be a female Orthodox Rabbi in the UK, not at present but maybe in thirty years or so? Maybe Hargey’s ideas such as creating mosques that are inclusive for the heterodox and sidelining the actions of the Mohammed character may not be flyers in today’s world, but who knows what might occur in the future?
As for the anti human ideologies of National Socialism and Communism, they didn’t spring from any religious source although they had pseudo religious aspects to them, especially Nazism, they came from ideologies that explicitly rejected any concept of any divinity other than the state existing.
There have I admit been countless atrocities carried out in the name of religion but the industrialised mass murder of millions that characterised both Nazism and Communism were carried out in the name of ideologies that were not religious in nature.
There has got to be in my view a way out of the world’s ‘Islam Problem’ but as someone who believes in the concept of ‘Never Again’ that came about after the Shoah I believe that the only long lasting and humane way through this problem is by Islamic reform. Other paths out of this problem are very dark paths that I do not wish to go down or see my society go down.
The doctrine of christianity is, and always has been, inherently supremacist even if that supremacy has not always been overtly expressed. christian doctrine holds that only christians will be favoured by their christian god. Non-christians (I guess that includes the jews?) are rejected by god to a very uncertain fate. And that god has made very clear that he will have his revenge on those who reject him. As the sadistic bastard is omnipotent, there is no limit to the type, level or duration of the pain he can inflict on those humans.
You may even have cured poverty and disease, and sacrificed your life for other humans. But if you haven’t massaged the ego of this inadequately pathetic (or should that be pathetically inadequate?) character called god then you will be rejected by him.
To make that explicit, you may be rejected by the christian god solely because of what you believe.
And the christians claim that that the christian god is the same as the god of the jews, so he (the god of the jews) is the god doing the rejecting. Even though it seems that (non-christian) jews will not be accepted by this god!
But then the earliest christians (allegedly jews) who came up with this doctrine were, as seen here, not the sharpest tools in the box.
I think that there was definitely a religious element to Nazism. Their persecution of Jews had very deep roots in both the Catholic and Protestant churches. The Nazis had ‘Gott mit uns’ embossed on their belt buckles. When it comes to the Communists it is more about believing in something in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. Not like religion at all then.
From what I’ve read it is more that the Nazis co-opted religion and religious groups for their own political ends rather than being based directly on religion itself. However as you say the Nazis exploited the Jew hate that was already there in some churches. The Uni-Testicled Austrian himself was as I understand it ambivalent about Christianity but used it to his own ends when he could. Himmler was a neo-Pagan and that is the spiritual path that drove him. Not all the churches in Germany lined up with the Nazis, some like Archbishop Galen openly defied them over the Aktion T4 killings and spoke out against them and I believe that some of the members of the anti Nazi resistance groups were from a Lutheran background.
As for the Communists they were hostile to all religions and not only persecuted the members of the Russian Orthodox Church but also went out of their way to break up Jewish families and Jewish religious observance.
Both of these paths had at their heart and had as their primary motivation not the Divine as the source of worship but the State.
The Germans of the 1930s had been indoctrinated with the supremacist (though irrational) doctrines of judeao-christianity over hundreds of years. So when Hitler came along with his supremacist doctrines, the Germans were primed and ready to go along with another irrational supremacist doctrine.
If the Germans had earlier realised the flaws in judeao-christianity and rejected it, Hitler would never have risen to power,
judeao-christianity is to blame for nazism.
Christianity, the majority religion in Germany of the 1930s, is inherently anti-semitic as jews do not follow christ and will therefore be rejected by the christian god,
But then, to be fair, there is little evidence that jews have much respect for christian beliefs, or any other belief systems, being as the jews are the chosen people.
Agree with you that Christian Jew hatred was a part of German culture in the thirties just as it was elsewhere. However many Christian groups have reappraised things like the ‘blood verse’ that gave life and vigor to Christian anti-Semitism and have either put it into historical context or basically abandoned it.
The existence of groups like the Council of Christians and Jews which brings representatives of these two religions together suggests that mutual respect is possible. As for the issue of ‘the Chosen People’, there does exist some aspect of this as the Eternal One chose the people Israel to rescue from Egyptian bondage as on the whole they never gave up their names, their language or engaged in some of the cultural practises of their Egyptian captors. However there’s also another way to look at this and to see the Jews as ‘the Choosing People’ as the ancient Israelites were presented with a choice to follow the precepts of G-d or refuse and go their own way. Good article on this issue here https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/covenant-and-chosenness/ Some say that the Eternal One offered the Torah to a multitude of different peoples but all refused on the grounds that they didn’t like one or more of the commandments, there for the Jews were the last to be offered the commandments and didn’t refuse but accepted them.
You say:
**Agree with you that Christian Jew hatred was a part of German culture in the thirties just as it was elsewhere. However many Christian groups have reappraised things like the ‘blood verse’ that gave life and vigor to Christian anti-Semitism and have either put it into historical context or basically abandoned it.**
I say:
You are ignorant of the fundamental truth of the christian doctrine. The “blood verse” or giving it up does not change that truth. That truth of christianity is not a truth dreamed up by some deluded christian. It is the truth, as revealed by christ, who is the embodiment of truth (he claims), who is the son of god (he claims), who equates himself with the god the father (he claims). The truth is (he claims) that only those who follow christ (christians!) will be favoured by god. Non-christians such as jews will not be so favoured because the jews (and on this point at least, I think we would both agree) jews are not christians.
Christians have NOT abandoned this claim. It is fundamental to christianity.
You say:
**The existence of groups like the Council of Christians and Jews which brings representatives of these two religions together suggests that mutual respect is possible. **
I say:
This is irrelevant. The fundamental belief from christianity is that jews will NOT benefit from god’s favour. This fundamentally divides jews from christians. There can be no genuine mutual respect when the fundamental dogma of christianity says jews are going to be rejected by god. The existence of this group is evidence of more incoherent thinking/behaviour from jews/christians.
And in any case, I see any cooperation between jews and christians, each group following their individual versions of the semitic doctrines, as increasing the threat to human progress.
You say:
**As for the issue of ‘the Chosen People’, [……]**
I say:
This is speculation on delusion on fantasy, all tied up with a pretty pink ribbon of nonsense.
Every time I see rubbish like this I gain more data with which to demolish the sham that is the alleged adoption of god’s commandments uniquely by the jews.
Here is just one of those.
The god of the jews is allegedly omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient, etc. Indeed the powers he has are beyond our comprehension.
So, if the “Eternal One” was omniscient he would have known for all eternity, that the jews would accept worshipping a homicidal maniac like him, and equally he would have known that the other groups would not have. So why would he waste time offering the “Torah” (whatever that means) to non-jews? Or could it be that he just likes taking the piss out of non-jews?
Also, is this not a case of god treating jews and non-jews differently? This is what you said, in some of your other incoherent statements, did not happen. Though there are more examples of god treating jews and non-jews differently.
PS It might not be easy to explain precisely what “offering the Torah” means, but it would help me if you could try. And also, a little hint as to which commandments non-jewish groups would not have accepted, and if possible why you think non-jewish groups would not have accepted them. Thanks.