Obama Nonsense on Islam and Its Claim to Freedom of Religion

In his speech Sunday night, Obama claimed that those who use violence as a means to advance Islam are practicing a perverted form of Islam.  Since Islam is essentially a religion that obligates its believers to emulate Mohammad's life practices and Mohammad used violence and terror to advance his religion, it is nonsense to claim that people who believe they are using violence and terror to advance Islam are practicing a perverted form of Islam.  In the context of Islam, they are not radical, however radical they are as human beings.

Yes, most people who think of themselves as Muslims are not themselves violent in their practice of the religion.  Many are good people.  Nonetheless, those of us who are not practicing Islam have often observed that far too few Muslims are openly critical of those who use violence or terror to advance the religion.  Well, there is a very logical reason why Muslims do not offer such criticism as much as good people should.  They cannot criticize the present-day advocates of violence against non-Muslims without making an implied criticism of Mohammad himself for using violence and terror to spread his religion.  They must be silent.  Their silence is in some part due to fear, but it is also due to the fundamental beliefs of the religion itself.  Many of those Muslims who do not themselves use force to make others observe Islam make "charitable" contributions to organizations that advocate or actually use force for that purpose.

Contrary to Obama's claim that we owe Muslims all of the rights we usually allow people under the freedom of religion, we do not owe this religious freedom to any religion that advocates the use of force to make others practice that religion.  Freedom of religion, as with all freedom of conscience, has to have a foundation in the prohibition of the use of force against others as a means to practice the religion.   Given that prohibition of force, we can and should allow others their freedom of conscience, even as we claim the exercise of our own freedom of conscience.

Given that Islam is in essence the emulation of Mohammad, we can very reasonably ask if Mohammad were alive today, would we allow him to enter the United States?  I would not allow him in.  He is much too dangerous, too violent, and too committed to terrorism.  Neither would I allow those who followed his commands to commit violence against non-believers to enter the U.S.  In doing so, I would not be in violation of anyone's legitimate claim of freedom of religion.  I would be protecting most Americans from violence.

The Pre-Conditions for Religious Freedom Unmet by Islam

Religious freedom is a result of the individual right to freedom of conscience and thought.  Religious freedom is a subset of these broader freedoms.  Since religion usually calls on individuals to join with other individuals in activities including joint worship, it is also a result of freedom of association.  Religion commonly calls on people to act in prescribed ways, which they are allowed to do because individuals have a broad freedom of action, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the freedom to assemble, and the freedom to contribute one's time, effort, and wealth to a religious cause.

Note that freedom of religion exists in the context of broad individual rights.  These individual rights enable individuals to survive and flourish in life while preventing others from threatening them with violence and force.  Every individual has equal, sovereign individual rights based on his nature as a rational being who must use his mind and take action to sustain and maintain his life.  Man institutes government for the sole, legitimate function of protecting his and everyone else' individual rights, as properly stated in our Declaration of Independence.  When a highly limited government well-instituted, as by our Constitution, provides this protection, a very robust and choice-rich private sector results in which individuals can revel in their full individual complexity and differentiation, while cooperating for their mutual benefit with others for purposes of their choosing.  Thus men commonly live creative and productive lives in harmony and prosperity.

This understanding of the nature of man and his individual rights was unknown until the Enlightenment developed in Europe.  It mostly developed in England, Scotland, France, and the Netherlands.  These were generally Christian countries.  Christianity, as practiced for at least 1000 years prior to this, had been deeply entwined with government, actively invoking the force of governments to force the people of each country to believe in the religion, or at least to pretend to believe in it and to be constrained in their actions by its tenets.  Christianity during this period was guilty of many terrible acts of evil.  But, Christianity had a key individual at its root, Jesus Christ, who had not advocated the use of force to impose his religious ideas.  He had pointedly refused to interfere with the rule of Rome, admittedly maybe only because that would have been a pretty futile effort at the time.  The fact that Jesus Christ had not preached that Christians take control of government and use it to force people to practice his religious ideas made it feasible to reform Christianity after the Enlightenment to a sufficient degree that religious freedom became broadly possible to extend to the various forms of religions in the Enlightened countries.  The people who were brought up in this tradition came to believe that all religions should be granted freedom of religion.

Unfortunately, few people have a clear understanding of the conditions which must exist for it to be possible to have a broad freedom of religion without undermining the many individual rights that make freedom of religion possible.  It simply is not possible to offer freedom of religion to a religion which embraces the use of force to spread the religion and to subjugate those people who refuse to adopt it.

Islam became known to man through Mohammed in 610 AD in the Arabic peninsula.  The land was very primitive with many contending tribes, some of which were polytheistic and some of which were Jewish.  When Mohammed had few followers, he formed alliances of convenience with Jewish tribes and often proclaimed his desire for peace with at least some other tribal groups.  However, as he became more and more powerful, he became much more ready to use force to suppress any peoples who did not join him as followers and believe in his teachings.  He taught that Islam required Jihad, which generally was implemented by using force to conquer other people.  He developed Islam as an integrated set of religious and political beliefs in which Islam was established by the state through the Sharia Law.  Government was to advance Islam, to suppress non-believers often to the point of killing them, to collect tribute from those who submitted but did not believe, and to conquer new lands and people.  It was also to punish any Muslim who became a non-believer with death.  Basically, the integrated religion and tyrannical government model is not compatible with individual rights.

It will not be possible to extend religious freedom to Islam until and unless it reforms itself to eliminate its political component that uses force to limit greatly many individual rights.  The integrated rights of the individual cannot be in conflict with one another.  Whenever someone proposes a conflict of rights, that person has failed to correctly identify the rights of the individual.  It is very common that people do this and then they commonly say that rights bring with them responsibilities.  Meeting those responsibilities is supposed to reduce the friction, nay the conflict, of one person's rights with those of others.  Those responsibilities commonly include obligations of service to others and out and out self-sacrifice.  This is all nonsense.  Properly identified individual rights allow men to live in harmony, not conflict.

Because those who practice Islam are required to emulate Mohammed, they are essentially required to emulate his use of force to spread and maintain its integrated religious and political system.  Some may choose to emulate his earlier stage of operations when his forces were weak and he was less aggressive.  Others will follow his later actions when his forces were strong and quite ruthless in their conquering sweep across the Arabic peninsula.  People most often acquire their religious and political beliefs from their family and the society into which they are born.  They come to see their realistic choices as limited by their culture and will mostly allow their developed beliefs to vary but little from those common in their culture.  The Muslim cultures strongly discourage a wide range of beliefs within Islam itself in given areas.  Some more substantial variations do exist among Muslims as a whole, such as those between the Sunnis and the Shiites, who often have very nasty wars with each other.  We should realize that some Muslims do try hard to be decent people despite the limitations of Islam.  While we must work and fight to maintain an Enlightenment culture that honors and preserves individual rights, we do not want to be at war with all Muslims.

It is not an abberation when an Islamist uses force to advance Islam, however.  It cannot truthfully be said that the use of force means someone is not practicing Islam.  I understand this representation to be an attempt to discredit such Islamists and to limit the number of followers of Islam with which we have to contend in violent confrontations.  However, this is an attempt to deny the truth.  Islam is not so easily reformed to separate the control of government and the use of force from the religion as was the case with Christianity.  Mohammed was not Jesus Christ.  The brutal Arabic peninsula of 610 AD was not the somewhat civilized Roman Empire of Jesus' time.  The reformation of Islam may well take hundreds of years, given that the easier case of Christianity took hundreds of years.  Violence in the name of Islam may well continue for that entire time.  That violence may be extreme or radical in our Western Civilization context, but it is manifestly not extreme or radical in the context of Islam. 

There are many non-violent Islamists and many who are nice people when we interact with them on a personal basis.  We need not be at war with everyone who believes in Islam.  But, many of the personally peaceful Muslims do believe it is their religious duty to support and contribute to those who use violence to advance their religion.  Many believe that when it becomes possible for them to make Sharia Law the law of the land, they should do so.  This would trample individual rights and with the loss of those rights, a complete loss of freedom of conscience and its subset freedom of religion will result.  Understanding what is at stake in refusing to have our own society taken over by Islam is necessary if we are to maintain our precious individual rights.

It is vital that we also understand that the use of force is a true emulation of Mohammed's acts by present day Islamists and not an abberation despite Obama's and other Progressives' adamant claims that it is.  We must not lose focus on the fact that Islam is an integrated system of religion and government, not just another religion.  Islam is not compatible with individual rights and in its present common forms does not meet the conditions of a belief system that qualifies for religious freedom.  The present common effort to grant it religious freedom undermines religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and self-ownership.  Islam is unfortunately a very tyrannical religious and political system.

Denying Islamic Terrorism and the Death of Americans in Benghazi

Obama has a long-standing inability to acknowledge Islamic terrorism and consequently has severe weaknesses in dealing with it.  That he has a wrongheaded determination to refuse to identify it was long ago made clear by the failure to designate the attack on the military recruiting station near Little Rock, Arkansas as a terrorist attack, despite the knowledge that the attacker was trained by jihadists in Somalia and claimed that he performed the attack and murders as a jihadist act.  This was followed by the designation of Major Hassan's terrible attack at Ft. Hood as an instance of workplace violence.  Obama claims that no Islamic terrorism has occurred on American soil under his watch!

Obama's inability to recognize and deal with the reality is a result both of Progressive Elitist political correctness and his own upbringing as a Muslim.  Obama clearly has a strong allegiance to that faith, though his viewpoint is a hybrid of Islam and many western influences, so let me make it clear that I am not saying that he is essentially and at his core a believer in Islam.  There is, however, much about Islam that he does admire and even seems to long for.  I do not share his admiration or his longing, either for Islam or for Progressive Elitism.

Obama refuses to see that violence as a means to spread Islam and to cower those who are unbelievers is central to Islam.  Muhammad made it a central policy of Islam as soon as he and his followers were powerful enough to overcome those around him in the primitive Saudi pennisula of the 7th Century.  Before that time of strength, he often spoke of peaceful coexistence, but that was clearly just a strategy to bide his time until he was strong enough to take what he wanted by force.  Islam is perhaps the religion most compatible with a vision of strong and relatively unlimited government.  One can well imagine how this religious viewpoint meshes with Obama's Progressive Elitism to make him a largely lawless President by the standards of American law and our American Principle of legitimate government limited to the protection of our equal, sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, property, the ownership of our own minds, bodies, and labor, and to the pursuit of our personal happiness.

Despite months of general chaos followed by months of mounting attacks focused on western groups in Benghazi, the Obama administration so badly wanted to pretend that his policies in this Muslim area were a success, that only we Americans officially ignored the reality on the ground.  Other western groups pulled out, including the British after an attack upon their ambassador in Benghazi.  The commander of an American security force asked for reinforcements and was denied them.  The Ambassador to Libya repeatedly noted the lack of sufficient security forces.  The Obama State Department then actually pulled out a large part of the American security force and left the Embassy and Consulate staffs much weaker yet.  A couple of attempts to bomb the Benghazi American Consulate were ignored.  The Ambassador was nearly frantic in his pleas for more security, yet bravely determined to complete his mission, which was apparently largely to get the many weapons left by the fall of Gaddafi under responsible control.

The attack on the American Consulate began about 9:40 PM and fighting continued either there or in a CIA Annex about 1 mile away until at least 4 AM.  [Update 3 Nov:  It is now known they were under attack until 5:26 AM.]  Throughout this time, Americans under attack or nearby were in communication with Washington.  A drone was quickly dispatched to fly overhead and watch the fighting.  The Obama administration will not say whether the drone and its replacement were armed or not.  [Update: The drone was unarmed and arrived at 11:11 PM.]  After a long period in which Obama would say nothing about what he knew, he now claims that he pledged whatever assistance was needed for the defense of the Americans under fire.  Only a small security group at the Embassy at Tripoli was flown into the Benghazi airport and they were kept waiting for Libyan transportation for 45 minutes after arrival.  [Update:  The flight was 45 minutes long.  They arrived at the airport in Benghazi at 11:15 PM and cannot leave the airport there until 4:30 AM.]  A major security force in Sicily, Italy that could have been brought in was never moved in.  They perhaps might not have been able to arrive fast enough to save the American Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith who died at the Consulate, but they surely could have been brought in to eliminate the mortar that killed Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at 4 AM.  [Update:  The time of their death was incorrectly reported.  The mortar attack did not begin until 5:15 AM.  The first two mortars missed the target and the next three hit the roof, killing Woods and Doherty.  The attack was over by 5:26 AM.]  They had previously marked the mortar with laser only needed a gunship, aircraft, or maybe an armed drone to take it out.  [This was also an error of earlier reports.  They had marked some groups of attackers earlier, but had not marked the mortar.  Libyan relief forces finally arrived at 6:00 AM.]

Their requests for support were denied, yet CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood claims no requests were denied.  Then Secretary of Defense Leon Panneta told us that the situation on the ground in Benghazi was too unknown to send in help!  Yet, Obama claims to have pledged whatever help was needed.  Indeed.  What were the caveats he attached to that pledge which he is not telling us?  It is clear that neither he nor Panneta nor Clinton will tell us how he pretended to provide the support which he did not provide until after the 6 November election.

The initial Obama plan to cover up his ignoring the security needs of the Ambassador and his American staff in Libya so that he could pass Libya off as a success of his policies and keep evidence of a resurgence of al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations out of the news was to pretend that a spontaneous street protest against a video made in American which was unfavorable to Muhammad was the cause of an attack, which the administration could not have had any warning about.  There was no such demonstration and Washington knew before midnight that an al Qaeda affiliated organization had launched a coordinated and powerful attack against our Consulate and Annex.  The story about the street demonstration and the video protest was entirely a cover-up and an effort to mislead the American People prior to the election.  Obama long kept it hidden that he had even been informed about the attack and had issued some kind of order to have security forces provided for the protection of our Americans at the Consulate and Annex in Benghazi.  We would all like to read that supposed order.

I expect the State Department and the administration had been unhappy with Ambassador Stevens as the nagging messenger that all was not well in Libya and that American security there for the Benghazi Consulate and for the Tripoli Embassy was inadequate.  I would not be surprised given the childish nature of the Obama administration that they wanted to shoot the messenger themselves.  In that light, these childish bureaucrats and politicians may well have made the decision not only to deny the Ambassador more security forces when he had earlier requested them, but to also remove a large part of the force he had had there.

As for the Panetta excuse that the situation was too unknown to send in the highly trained Special Operations forces, that excuse makes sense when you have time available.  If the Ambassador had been captured and was being held for ransom, or some such case, taking more time to understand all you could about the forces holding him and the lay of the land might well make sense.  This however was an active firefight.  Time was not available.  A force had invaded the United States of America by overrunning our Consulate.  They had killed Americans or were clearly trying to, depending upon which moment for decision we are talking about.  The fact that the fighting lasted 6:20 [7:46] hours, says that the forces arrayed against us were not insurmountable.  A gunship alone would have made all the difference.  The two Special Operations Forces that could have been brought in would have made a world of difference.

Obama believes that America should basically turn the other cheek to Islamic terrorists.  Muslims have a huge disdain for such weakness.  They have a macho culture, altough it is a weak macho culture when actually challenged by determined and rational Americans.  The way to control their violent impulses against Americans is to embarrass them when they make their weak pretenses of being manly men with violence.  The few Americans present in Benghazi fought bravely and several died as real men would.  Their President did not prove a worthy Commander-in-Chief however.  Obama was a shrinking violet who let these brave Americans down.  He will do all he can to delay that investigation into what happened that he promised when he seemed not to even know what part he had played in our ineffectual response to this terrorist attack on the United States of America.  We need a firmer man in the position of Commander-in-Chief.  We need someone who can see things as they are, rather than as he wishes they were.

Obama: The American Government Respects All Religions

In his United Nations speech a few days ago, Obama said that the American government respected all religions.  Apparently, Obama has had a team of moral, theological, and epistemological experts evaluating the many religions in the world and they have decided that all of these religions are worthy of respect.  Or has he had this evaluation made?  Perhaps the only evaluation made was his own.  If he has had it made, under what power granted to the government under the Constitution did he have this evaluation made?

Was this issue put before the American people for a vote?  NO.  But if it had been put up for a vote and the majority had confirmed that it was their opinion that every religion was worthy of respect, what could be the result?  Government decrees that therefore every American shall respect every religion will surely not result in every American actually respecting every religion.  The only acts the government might take to enforce such a decree would be to suppress our freedoms of speech and press as protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution and to ignore all murders and other acts of violence or threats of violence issued in the name of a religion by whoever claimed religious freedom protection.

Obama's statement is nonsense, of course.  First, it is not at all true that every religion is worthy of respect.  I would argue that none are actually worthy of respect.  Many others believe their own is worthy of respect, but none or few others are.  Even very generous individuals toward the claims of the benefits of religion are likely to see some religions, which can be very inimical to living humans on Earth, as unworthy of respect.  In my own opinion, Islam is one religion with particularly few redeeming qualities and there are still worse religions out there.

No, the American government does not respect all religions.  What it does do is allow individual freedom of conscience, to include religious freedom.  To allow individuals their freedoms and their right to exercise the judgments of their own mind and conscience is not to actually approve of or respect their judgments.

It is critical to understand this.  If we do not understand it, then when we judge someone else' judgment to be bad, we have a tendency to want to interfere with their freedom to act on their judgment.  For instance, Mayor Bloomberg does not approve of super-sized soda drinks and wants them outlawed.  By right, he is free to be of the opinion that super-sized sodas are bad, but what he does not have the right to do is to outlaw them.  While the super-sized soda issue is obvious to many Americans, we do as a democratic mass of voters have a tendency toward outlawing many actions we do not like, simply because we would not do them personally or because we are ashamed that we do them.  Sometimes we outlaw acts which if done by most people might cause some problems, but which are actually done by few and cause no real problems at all.  For instance, it would harm the Republic if everyone became a physicist and therefore no one became a farmer.  Strangely, we never worry that everyone will become a physicist, but we do apparently worry that everyone will become gay.

Laws and the actions of government generally need to be based upon sound principles of governance, not just any conforming interests of a large bloc of voters.  The one legitimate function of government, as rightly stated in our Declaration of Independence, is the protection of individual rights.  When the American government announces that it respects all religions, it is violating the rights of Americans to decide for themselves what they think of religions.  There is no way in which the pronouncement that the American government respects all religions is a requirement of its protection of individual religious freedom.  Indeed, it is actually a violation of our religious freedom, which includes our being personally free to accept or reject whatever religious notions we want.  Our government should have no opinion of the various religions, except insofar as it must to protect the right-based freedoms of individuals.

What then does constitute a case in which the American government must form an opinion about a religion?  When people acting upon a religious idea initiate the use of force upon others and prevent others from exercising their sovereign individual rights, then legitimate government has to step in and provide the protection of individual rights which it is its function to do.  The only protected religious beliefs are those which do not result in followers using force to violate the rights of others.  Freedom of conscience is a most fundamental and critical right.  Government should take action against a religious group or a religion only when their violations of the rights of others are well-demonstrated and clearly cause substantial harm.  Yet, there are cases when government in proper fulfillment of its function must act against a religion or some subset of its adherents.

One major religion in recent times has had many believers who assert a right in the name of Allah to use force to strip non-believers of many of their individual rights.  I do not believe that every or even most believers in Islam should be treated as violators of the rights of others, but it is very clear that numerous believers in Islam are such rights violators.  Some are strong proponents even of death to non-believers.

This is a fact which the American government must recognize if it is to fulfill its legitimate function as the protector of the individual rights of Americans.  While it is not the case that the American government should disrespect Islam, it is the case that it should disrespect those branches of Islam and those groups within it who advocate the use of force to restrict and violate the rights of non-believers.  It is interesting that the non-believers whose rights are most commonly violated are people who themselves believe they are believers in Islam.  There are branches of Islam which are not worthy of respect from this limited perspective of legitimate government.

So, in summary, the American government does not have the power to make a judgment that all religions are worthy of respect.  The judgment that all religions are worthy of respect is itself ludicrous.  If it made such a judgment, it would not be able to carry out its legitimate function of protecting the rights of Americans.  In fact, it would be violating the very freedom of conscience, of which religious freedom is a subset, which it must protect.  Such a judgment belongs only to individuals, not to our government.  But, as usually is the case, Obama believes we must all have a collective judgment and that judgment will be rendered by big government, preferably with the Great Socialist Leader making the call.

It is apparently not a long-standing principle of the Democrat Party that all religions are respected.  Under the previous Democrat President, Bill Clinton, many Americans believed that the religious freedom of the Branch Davidians was violated.  I wonder what Obama had to say about that back then or whether he is now prepared to criticize Bill Clinton for the massacre at Waco.  Or, we might examine Obama's claim in light of his lack of respect for normal religious freedom when a Catholic-owned company or institution other than a church deems it a violation of their beliefs when they are forced to provide health insurance to employees that covers the cost of birth control or abortions.  Apparently, Obama just thinks it sounds rhetorically good to be claiming to respect all religions.

Saudi Arabia Sentences Lebanese TV Host to Death for Sorcery

A Lebanese television host, Ali Hussein Sibat, was recognized by Saudi religious police making a pilgrimage to Mecca.  He was charged with sorcery because on his show he made predictions about the future of people who called in.  He has now been sentenced to death.

Saudi Arabia is a center for Islamic extremism and runs a system of religious schools both in Saudi Arabia and in many other countries around the world based on the Wahhabi reform of Islam.  This, like many reforms, is in fact a reversion to primitiveness and violence.  Many of the terrorist attackers on 11 September 2001 came from this perverted religious belief.  The idea of killing people for sorcery is one straight out of a human era of the utmost superstition and ignorance.

Tracinski - Why Women Matter - Women's Rights as a Measure of Civilization

Robert Tracinski puts out a very good e-mail subscription service in which he points out and comments on most of the key issues of our times, with many useful links to news articles and commentaries. It is called TIA Daily and is very reasonably priced. In addition, he offers a free 30-day trial, which I encourage you to take him up on.

Today's issue of TIA Daily was shorter than most and limited to one topic, a Feature Article called Why Women Matter - Women's Rights as a Measure of Civilization. It is an excellent essay and one with which I am in full agreement.

He begins by pointing at the recent public flogging of a Pakistani girl by a Taliban thug. He notes that the left and, in particular, feminists are not the foremost protesters against such evils practiced in Muslim societies because of their "deeper commitment to 'multicultural' subjectivism." The political conservatives, while lacking proper concern for other of women's rights, are better defenders of women with respect to the violent use of force by peoples of other cultures.

He points out that women are the physically weaker sex and hence the manner in which a society treats women is "a revealing measure of that society's attitude toward physical force." He goes on to say:

In a society where might makes right, where the rule of brute force has been thoroughly unleashed, women are always the first victims. Even the poorest and meanest man, the guy on the lowest rung who is oppressed by others above him who are bigger and stronger—even he can find one person he is still able to dominate and oppress: a woman, whether it is his mother, his wife, or his daughter. And he will oppress her—if the oppression of others by force is the accepted norm of the society he lives in. For examples, look to the Muslim world with its "honor" killings, arranged marriages, sexual segregation, and special restrictions on the travel and attire of women.

This is a complete contrast to the kind of society in which force is subordinated to morality. A society in which a woman can do whatever she wants without fear is a society in which the physically weak can rely on being protected from the physically strong. In fact, in a civilized society the physically weak feel safe because of the physically strong. The mark of such a society is a sense of chivalry—the idea that a man's superior physical strength is properly used to protect rather than to dominate, to serve the cause of justice and freedom rather than to assert arbitrary power over others.

He goes on to discuss some of Islam's foundational affinities for using force and violence and I will not discuss that here, since it is not for me to put him into such danger as that might engender. But he goes on to say:

This is the broader significance of the new Taliban video: it demonstrates the central failure of Islamism, revealed clearly even to those in the Muslim world. The Islamic theocrats offer their supporters one central promise: to establish the rule of virtue on earth. But they always provide the exact opposite: the rule of brute force and the doctrine of "might makes right." Their code actually banishes morality from public life, subordinating it to force. The routine brutalization of women and girls under the rule of Islam is a constant and vivid reminder of this fact.

I have always maintained that the reason men evolved to be stronger physically than women was because it was an essential part of their function to protect women and children and to provide for them using those abilities dependent upon strength, such as were once required of hunters. When a man fails to use his strengths to protect women and children, then he is unmanly and an abomination. Such a man is useless.

Great civilizations put fewer demands upon a man's physical strength and make women less dependent upon men specifically because the use of force between people is set aside and rational, voluntary trade of values takes over. In such a civilization, men, women, and children all thrive in harmony. In such a society, the values women can offer in such trades are understood to be of great value and women are treated with great respect. Unfortunately, some societies maintain the use and threatened use of force as primary in the relationships of men and women and in these societies there is no such harmony of interests.

Religion Demands Unearned Respect

On 18 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution, with strong advice to its members, that condemns "defamation of religion." You can read that resolution here. The United States, more than half of the European countries, India, and Japan opposed it. The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference pushed strongly for it and was backed by Belarus and Venezuela. It passed with an 83-53 vote, with many abstentions.

The resolution frequently conflates racial and ethnic discrimination with religious discrimination. It implies that any unfavorable evaluation of a particular religion and its beliefs is intolerance. It deplores "the negative projection of certain religions in the media ...., particularly Muslim minorities following the events of 11 September 2001, ...."

It says "that defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity leading to the illicit restriction of the freedom of religion of their adherents and incitement to religious hatred and violence,"

It stresses "the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general,"

It reaffirms that "discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes a violation of human rights and a disavowal of the priniples of the Charter of the United Nations,"

It states that "education should contribute in a meaningful way to promoting tolerance and the elimination of discrimination based on religion or belief,"

It then launches into a list of 24 numbered paragraphs. Some say:

2. Expresses deep concern at the negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief still evident in the world;

5. Notes with deep concern the intensification of the overall compaign of defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, including the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001;

7. Expresses deep concern in this respect that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism; [This is the third time Muslims and/or Islam is specifically noted, while no other religion is specifically noted.]

8. Reiterates the commitment of all States to ..... respect for all religions, religious values, beliefs or cultures and [to] prevent the defamation of religions;

9. Deplores the use of the print, audio-visual and electronic media, including the Internet, and any other means to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination against any religion, as well as targeting of religious symbols [Muhammad with a bomb in his turban!];

10. Emphasizes that, as stipulated in international human rights law, everyone has the right to hold opinions without interference, and has the right to freedom of expression, the exercise of which carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for the respect of rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals;

16. Urges all States .... to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs and the understanding of their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance;

18. Underscores the need to combat defamation of religions .... through education for all, ..., including access to free primary education for all children, both girls and boys, [No mention of those Islamic areas where schools for girls are bombed by Islamic enforcers.]

19. Calls upon all States ..... to ensure that religious places, sites, shrines and symbols are fully respected and protected, ....;

21. Affirms that the Human Rights Council shall promote universal respect for all religious and cultural values and address instances of intolerance, discrimination and incitement to hatred ....;

Now, I do not believe governments should discriminate against religious beliefs as such. They can and must discriminate against one kind of action, the initiated use of force. So, if a person holds a belief, religious in nature or not, that he is allowed to use force to keep others from exercising their right to freedom of speech, to freedom of conscience, and to freedom of the press and he acts upon that belief to use force to prevent others from their equal rights, then government must protect its citizens from this initiated use of force. To do this, government may reasonably watch with special diligence those persons whose religious or other beliefs state that they may use initiated force to attain their ends. To do anything else would be irrational. Government should not assume, however, that someone holding to a tradition of belief will necessarily choose to act to initiate the use of force, even though that belief may allow and even encourage it. But, Government can watch and be prepared to pounce if such a person's actions reasonably signal an intent to act upon the violent belief.

Freedom of religion was really intended to be about freedom of conscience and it was intended that one could act upon one's beliefs, with one very important proviso. Everyone has this same right, but it would clearly be impossible for any individual to exercise his right to freedom of conscience and to use his belief system to guide his actions, if anyone had the right to impose his beliefs upon others by using force. People of different religious belief have often come into conflict with one another, even when those differences were relatively minor. After centuries of such conflicts among Christians in Europe, the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment came in many cases to recognize a very practical need for freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. But, they also came to understand that the individual had to be allowed to think for himself and to choose his values. These chosen values were required to help guide actions he would take in living his life. But, everyone had this same need by virtue of being human, so this right to freedom of conscience was universal. In America, we developed our Constitution and Bill of Rights in recognition of this fact.

No one, and no religion, has the right to impose its values and beliefs upon others. Many religions have tried to do this historically, as have other belief systems such as socialism (whether fascist or communist) and environmentalism. No one is obliged to give those belief systems respect, though they commonly demand it. No one is required to be silent when they see reason to criticize those belief systems, though religions, socialism, and environmentalists have often tried to silence them. We are only required not to initiate the use of force.

Though Christians did often use force to advance their religion, that religion is fortunate in that Jesus was not a proponent of using force to spread his beliefs. He did not gather armies and attack nearby peoples and impose Christianity upon them. Islam, on the other hand, is the religion made up by Mohammed, who did lead armies to attack non-believers and did advocate either killing non-believers or treating them as second-class citizens in Islamic countries. He also believed that anyone accepting the religion of Islam should be killed if he changed his mind later. This unfortunate tradition of belief in the use of force as a means to spread their religion has caused disproportionate numbers of Muslims to adopt the use of terrorist tactics in our present times. Of course, there are some people of other religions who have also resorted to terrorism, but most of the present-day God-worshiping religions have fewer terrorists operating in the name of their religion.

There are several references in the U. N. resolution requiring respect to the symbols of a religion. These are clearly intended to require countries to abridge the right of the people to publish cartoons critical of Islam. This is an overt attack upon freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.

It was ironic that the paragraph requiring States to provide education for both girls and boys, did not mention the fact that in those countries practicing Islam, the education of women is least valued and sometimes prevented entirely by violence in the name of the religion. Of course, this provision also stated that it was the responsibility of the state to provide education, which is wrong. Other provisions also made it clear that the state was to use education to squelch any rational discussion of the merits of various beliefs and value systems, particularly if they claimed to be of a religious nature. The State was to demand respect for all religious beliefs and values.

Frankly, all religions are made up by man. This is particularly obvious in the case of Scientology, Mormonism, and Islam, since they have roots in the recent past. In stating this fact, I am making it clear that I do not respect any religion. Furthermore, none of the religions offer an adequate and rational philosophy for living a human life on this earth. Clearly, I am defaming all religions. Clearly, I am defaming Islam more than most. All religions are false beliefs and harmful to mankind. Of course, people should be free to practice a false religion, provided they do not use force against others while doing so.

So, according to the United Nations, it is the responsibility of the United States government to force me to take sensitivity training and to force me to stop writing of these matters on this blog. It even seems clear that the U.N. is saying that I am inciting hatred and violence against all religions, especially Islam. I would deny this and say that I am simply rejecting the idea that Islam has the right to force me to respect it or to adopt its beliefs as my own. If Islam were to be amended to renounce the use of force, then I would oppose it only because it is false. At this time, I must oppose it because its principle tenets include the claim that it is proper and a duty of Muslims to use force to spread the religion. Of course, I also oppose any other system of beliefs and values which allows for the initiated use of force. This will include any effort by the U.S. government to make me respect religions or any effort by the U.N. to make me do so.

Contrary to the U.N.'s assertion, the only responsibility I have before rational law in the excution of my freedoms is that I do not initiate the use of force against others. I do not have a responsibility not to hurt the feelings of the religious. If I do so, this is not a valid reason to restrict my freedom of conscience, of speech, or of the press. That government which would do so would be a tyranny.

God is Man-Made

When people start talking about God, I sometimes ask them what they know about God. The answers I get most commonly are 1) "God is personal to me and I will not tell you who God is." and 2) God is good, powerful, the creator of the universe, all-knowing, and omnipresent. The first tells me nothing. The second leads to myriad questions, none of which the God-believer is prepared to answer. So, having a conversation about God with a believer is extremely difficult for one who is accustomed to the precision and the reality of science. God is not nearly as substantial as a fog. God is not as substantial as a field theory, since that can readily be known by observations of reality. No, God is a vanishing act. God is unknowable. Over and over, I am told that one simply has to choose to believe.

OK, so if I must simply choose to believe and then I have religion, why should I not choose to believe that the fate of the universe and the human race is determined by three gnomes living in a cave on the dark side of the moon. I could exercise my creative urges by thinking up a religion of my own creation. I could emulate Moses, Paul of Tarsus, Mohammad, and Joseph Smith Jr., except I could readily invent a much better religion, one which held human life in much higher regard than do the religions of the past. However, my arbitrary belief in the three gnomes would already undermine what man needs most to live his life well. What he most needs is a respect for reality, for the power of his own mind to know reality, and for his ability to live his life better because he understands reality and the requirements of the well-lived life. Rather than consign his fate to the three gnomes, it is critical that he assume the responsibility for knowing reality and for managing his own life. If man truly wishes to achieve his happiness, then he must assume these personal responsibilities.

This man has no need for a vanishing God. He understands that if God comes into existence only to the extent that he arbitrary chooses to believe in God, then God is man-made. In effect, man is God. Man has the means to know reality and man's good is the Good. For something to be good, it must be good for that being who can act to gain or to keep that good. Something can be good for a man. It is not at all clear that anything is good for a God, given the usual vague ways in which God is defined or left as a very vacuous concept. But, if we believe that God is Good, then perhaps we should see what is good for man and call that God. Then, if we can determine what is good for a man, we could come to know what his God should be. But, it is really better if we simply cut off all of this God and religion tradition and start with a cleaner and clearer way of thinking about ethics and what is good for man. These issues are complex enough without all of this prehistoric and ancient baggage. Indeed, the contents of that baggage are a disorganized, contradictory, and irrational mess. Modern man should be better able to think out the issues of ethics and value better than a bunch of ignorant ancients or medieval flim-flam artists.

The god that most people believe in now is not really a universal God. No, he is a local God. There are the gods of the Hindus, the God of the Christians, the God of the Jews, the God of Islam, the God of the Mormons, etc. Most believers, who have chosen to believe in God, have somehow chosen that God who was believed in by their parents or who is believed in by most of the people in their local community. Is it not a wonder that God who is omni-present, all-knowing, all-powerful, and the creator of the universe, is of such a different character in Arabia, India, Israel, and North America? God is apparently not very universal! But, as a man-made idea, this makes sense. Those who choose to believe, choose to belong to the local club. Why choose to be an outcast in one's home town? So, there is very little tendency to stray from the local dogma. Of course, a few hundred years ago, any straying was likely to result in one's death as a heretic in Christian regions. Today, any straying in the Islamic regions is still cause for one's execution. The clubs have not always been voluntary.

This fact that the clubs are local and have often not been kind to dissenters, makes it very reasonable to wonder if they are filled with cultists. In fact, the arbitrary nature of the belief and the fact that the beliefs have little regard for reality, makes it clear that the world's many religions are of the nature of cults. I do not think I will choose to add to these cults by adding one which believes in the three gnomes living in a cave on the dark side of the moon. I am just not enough motivated by a desire to exercise power over those who might join my cult.

There is a reason little publicized that I have heard from a number of men for being a Christian in the United States. It turns out that many men do not in fact believe in God or in Christianity. They simply find it convenient to pretend to believe. One of the reasons they regard as the most compelling for this pretense is that they think that they will be cut off from most women if they do not pretend to believe. It is usually not that they would not be able to win election to be President of the United States, no, it is that few women would ever choose to love them. I have heard this over and over again from intelligent men. They are right. Very many women will not love a man who has not made the arbitrary leap of faith to believe in the Christian version of God in these United States. You can be the best man possible and they will refuse you their love.

How odd that the religions, which are so commonly more supportive of men than women in their traditional beliefs, enjoy as their strongest advocates the loyalty of the vast majority of women in their local regions of practice? Modern Christianity has been under the primary influence of women so long now, that it has evolved into a rather feminized belief system. For instance, the Christians are now reluctant to believe in the existence of bullies, who must be opposed with force. Peace is a primary value, for which all freedoms can be traded. The Christians more and more believe that one must provide care for everyone through the medium of government. This is the maternal instinct writ large on the national scale. So, we have the Nanny State, more and more supported by Christians and women. More and more, the churches wish to be non-confrontational, which is always popular with women, who as they have taken over the public education system, have also made that a primary concern in the dogmas of public education. There is the commitment to not hurting anyone's feelings, which has materialized as political correctness restrictions on free speech, and widely practiced in the Christian churches and the public education system. The belief that everyone means to be nice, that no conflict can be allowed to occur, that peace is achieved when one party refuses to fight, that everyone's feelings are to be respected, except one's own feelings, and everyone must be mothered as an adolescent is becoming the rule wherever women rule. More and more they rule the churches and public education, making it difficult for a masculine, reality-first man to find a home in either.