god, i challenge you! (part 1)

^ Two ways religion can be viewed. Left - the jawdropping beauty of Chartres Cathedral, France. Right - the World Trade Center, and 3,000 human lives, destroyed by Muslim terrorists in New York City.

I don't hate religion outright. But I do question its role in the world today. I question it on the grounds of intellectual honesty and its pragmatic applications to functional life in our global society, in our diverse patchwork of culture, in how it operates on its concept of women and children, in its governance and institution of laws. The most powerful religions today, Christianity and Islam, exert a force as impressive now as it was back in the Bronze Age. And that's very frightening.

There have been and still are many good things for which I can credit religion, though that is still conditional, and I can get into detail in another post. Instead I have my serious criticisms for the role that religion - specifically religious dogma - plays in this 21st century world. I can address several of the problems topically.

Literalism breeds extremism - Members of Al Queda flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon precisely for their religious beliefs, particularly the idea of jihad. One aspect of it is that they thought that by destroying the lives of as many "infidels" as possible, they would be guaranteed a place in heaven, given 72 virgins and an infinite banquet of milk and honey and whatever else was promised them. In other words, they took the words of jihad literally, especially the third "struggle" of waging holy war (the other two struggles are the preservation of inner faith, and their duty as Muslims to uphold their society).

> Women walking through contemporary Afghanistan. Considering the reward of a heaven full of 72 virgins promised to those men who commit acts of jihad, what does it say about the role of women, the importance of women, in the Muslim world today?

To those suicide hijackers and the suicide bombers, this world means nothing. What matters is the heavenly afterlife, which their belief is supposed to promise. When such a rich and bountiful afterlife is imagined and felt to be so tenable, why not disrespect and trash this world? After all it's worthless in comparison.

Is the goal of jihad achievable in any way other than violence and death in this world? Instead of killing 3,000 people (many of which were Muslims anyway), why not a non-violent protest against "infidels" using signs and slogans, or writing essays and editorials and publishing them in major newspapers?

Besides, the original purpose of jihad was not necessarily to destroy non-believers and heretics, but as a way of expanding the state of Islam, which back at the time when the Qur'an was still warm from the oven, often necessitated the slaughter of opposing tribes and armies. Today we in this world no longer have to fight for resources and land, and major advancements in science and medicine have greatly lowered the rates of diseases and deaths in childbirth so keeping a woman perpetually pregnant to guarantee offspring isn't so necessary anymore like it was during the Bronze Age. So wouldn't it be useless to kill competing people in order to preserve one's clan, and instead opt to wage war through non-violent means, even if it's definitely nowhere near dramatic as flying planes into skyscrapers to get your point across?

Wouldn't you as a Muslim still earn your god's grace if you simply criticize non-believers with an eloquently written op-ed piece instead of an exploding vest under your clothes?

Related:
god, i challenge you! (part 2)
god, i challenge you! (part 3)

a country screwed by a catholic god

I remember when my mom and I boarded the TWA jet at the airport in Manila back in the 70s, when I was on the threshold of leaving the Philippines forever as a citizen. I was just 7 years old. After Dad had saved up enough money to send for us (and eventually send for all my siblings), Nanay and I would be the first ones in the family to finally see America. We were going to Chicago, where Dad was. He was our ticket out of that part of the world where the story in the BBC documentary above is told.

I was a kid then. Before he set out and left for America my dad was a mechanical engineer working for the city of Manila and thus earned enough money to afford a townhouse on Taal Street. He was the first one and the only one in his family to go to university and get a degree. Our house had a concrete front yard. We even had a pet monkey but he never let anyone touch him, only Nanay. I had a pet rooster. We had a dog too, but I barely remember it. We used to "summer" at my grandparents' in the jungles of Sibuyan, which was a long trip by boat from city.

I remember my middle older sister B taking me to the markets in metro Manila to go shopping with her. Where we lived there were regular floods during the rainy season, and often times the garbage from the nearby dump would float by. There was nothing we could about it but stand on the furniture and wait til the water went down.

But thanks to Dad and his university degree we were better off than many, many other families in all of the Philippines. Those unfortunates were poverty stricken their entire lives. Even then they always relied on God for comfort, at least some tiny amount of buffer between what little scraps of happiness they could find and the decrepit infestation of a corrupt government, severely scant social programs, and lack of substantial education because of the perpetually poor economy.

That was back in the 70s.

> A typical squatter's neighbourhood in Manila today.

We went back in 2001 to celebrate our parents' 50th wedding anniversary. The party was at the luxurious Shangrila Hotel in Makati City. As we drove through Manila on our outings I stared out the window of the car, at many of the people, at the little kids wearing dirty clothes and sometimes running the streets barefoot. I knew there were so many mothers with five, six, nine, ten or more kids because they were never taught family planning and were never given free condoms or other kinds of contraceptives.

So all these poverty stricken Filipinos continue to breed like rabbits. And yet they also continue to go to church and pray. And the priests in their robes and their authority continue to tell them that using contraceptives is going against God. And I have to wonder, if God is supposed to be good and kind and loving, why hasn't He done anything to help these people? They've done nothing wrong. In fact, they pray to Him regularly. The mothers struggle every single day to try to feed her kids, even going hungry herself so that they can have more to eat.

A lot can happen between the 70s, when I left that world for good, and 2001 when I returned for a visit. And a lot did happen, to me, for me, around me. Good things happened for my family, in large part because we were in a place where it was possible.

It's now 2010. It's been decades since I left the Philippines. Once in a while I catch news of goings on there - an election, extremist activity from Muslim terrorists, a recent massacre by a desperate man who lost his job and picked up a gun. But other than those nothing has really changed in that country that I used to know as home.

From 1972 to 2010. Nothing has changed in the Philippines. Nothing. Even if I wanted to go back there to live, what would I go back to that praying to a Catholic God could offer?

Related:
audio blog: city of garbage | a space alien

what if islam, christianity, & other faiths had to compete in the marketplace?

^ Excerpt from Ali's talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

Though I've read - and very highly recommend - Infidel, I have yet to read Nomad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's latest offering of enlightenment on the experience and truth of being born in a society where the practice of total, unquestioned submission to a draconian god whose demands, often steeped in violence, is not only expected but uncompromisingly enforced.

Her writing touches on her own personal experiences, including being subjected to female genital mutilation when she was a young girl. In her recent article for The Daily Beast titled "Why Are American Doctors Mutilating Girls?", she attacks The American Academy of Pediatrics for proposing a "humane" version of female circumcision, called "nicking" (pin pricking the clitoris as a symbolic ceremony in lieu of actual circumcision), thereby helping to perpetuate this cruel practice in the name of cultural relativism. Soon after she and others publicly criticized them the AAP withdrew the proposal.

One of the ideas that Ayaan brought up during her talk at the Commonwealth Club proposes that the world's religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, compete in a marketplace. The idea came to her from an dinner conversation she had with a Catholic priest acquaintance while in Rome.

Watching this hour long talk, I thought this was definitely the funniest of them all so far. With a sense of humour Ayaan exhibits an intellectual brilliance amalgamated - and fiercely fortified - by her own personal experiences of agony and triumph. She understands what many of us in the world go through because she herself has gone through it, and survived.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone we should all strive to be like, and certainly what I personally try to be like. She is an anomaly in the world of cold detached intellectualism, ivory tower politicizing, and insensitive Philistine opining. Many of those highly intelligent people in such a world too often exist and proselytize in insularity. Ayaan does not.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali experiences, therefore she thinks.

^ Got an hour and ten minutes and a sandwich? Then this is very much
worth your time - the full length talk at the Commonwealth Club.

Related topics:
politically illiterate, i