What we need is more trust, not more faith

For all who think I'm too politically correct, here we go.

Let's look a bit closer at the story surrounding the recent conviction of two Muslim men for the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby on 22 May last year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25450555



Michael Adelbolajo and Michael Adebowale, whom I refer to here as the "Michael A duo" are, in my humble opinion, guilty of nothing more than reading the Koran, believing it word for word, and doing precisely what it says to do. The fact that that is so horrifying, is telling.

I find it strange that Muslims so easily criticise the Michael A. duo, as they are only following what the Koran tells them to do. Labelling them as Radicals or Extremists only shows just how much indoctrination goes on in the Muslim faith. I don't think reading a book, as it is presented, and carrying out its instructions with the help of teachers who were not pariahs, but with many connections to other officials in the faith, counts as being "radical" or extremist". It is those who cherry-pick what they want to follow and what they want to ignore, who are deviating from the default path.

To suggest that the non-radical position is one which takes interpretation, self-examination and theologising to reach - whilst the radical position just comes from reading the book "as is", is absurd. Interpretation should be what one would do to reach a radical position, not a moderate one. This is how the infrastructure of religious instruction, institution and theologians justify their own existence - their interpretation is needed to reach a moderate position. What they do not tell you is that it is their own intransigence, internal division and blind obedience to tradition over pragmatism, that is holding back Islam.

The fact that a book can be interpreted by some as the code of the "religion of peace" and by another as an instruction manual for how to dismember all of Allah's foes, tells me one thing: the book could do with a translation in the margins. Not only to clarify what is meant by each verse, but what is literal and what is allegory, and most importantly what actual interpretation to take. Only this never happens, because NOT ENOUGH MUSLIMS CAN AGREE ON WHAT THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION IS. What's more, even if they could agree, I doubt the will to actually publish a new version would be strong enough to do it. However, this is not just a Muslim problem - Christianity is saddled by the same devotion to tradition around the Bible.

And yet the media are, as always, pandering to religion. It's only because of extremism and radicalism that this sort of thing happens, according to those who are politically correct about religion. They seem to ignore the fact that there is a Holy book flying around that not only suggests or condones such acts, but actually requires them. The Muslim Council of Britain said, I shit you not, that the attack "has no basis in Islam".

Ahem. Let me quote for you, Koran 2: 190-193: "Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out from the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. If they attack you, put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded..."

And, "Fighting is obligatory for you" Koran 2: 216

Also..."Those that deny our revelation, we will burn in fire. No sooner will their skins be consumed than we shall give them other skins, so that they may truly taste the scourge. God is mighty and wise" Koran 4: 55-56

To mention but a few. Unless the above passages are redacted (yeah, right), the Council's statements ring false.

Using such warmongering language, it's pretty easy to work the whole Iraq and Afghanistan invasions into a "justified" narrative of revenge where retribution is needed. (I'm not saying that Western governments don't need to answer for the death and destruction they've caused in the Middle East. Bush, Blair etc. behaved incredibly irresponsibly, to be sure).
And then we get stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egjo70WM4Oc

At a peace conference no less!

The verdict given by the Judge in this case, is in my view, a clear message that the British judiciary views what the Koran says as abhorrent. It says that it is not possible to live freely in Britain and literally believe what the Koran espouses. Whilst they should be praised for finally coming to this realisation, the judiciary have in one sense opened a philosophical can of worms that should give every devout Muslim pause.

The Michael A duo had faith that were doing Allah's will. Think on that. I say again, all they have done is what the Koran says. They believe they have done a good thing - a GOOD thing- and will be rewarded for it in heaven. Religion is the most devious of ways to get people to commit the most atrocious acts. It has been shown as the most effective way to circumvent someone's natural boundaries of compassion and do the unspeakable. It is unfalsifiable - as it never needs to be demonstrated, and can't be demonstrated to be false - and so, its faithful followers will never know if they are wrong. The only real way to live with that is of course, is to never be wrong, and yet the existence of more than one monotheistic religion means that at least all but one religion is wrong.

And yet the answer is NOT Christianity, or right-wing cries for deportations or segregation. Such parochialism is divisive and does nothing to solve the main problem.

We just don't need faith. Faith is irrational, it is belief without evidence, or worse, belief in spite of much evidence to the contrary. Instead, we should put trust in humanity. Humanity has a proven track record of getting through crises, a much better record than any God. Gods come and go - or at least they did when they weren't inherently unfalsifiable -as the huge list of dead gods including the likes of Thor and Ra bears testament to. Humanity on the other had has come back from the brink of utter destruction before. The eruption of the Lake Toba super-volcano in Sumatra about 70.000 years ago, is thought to be the largest volcanic eruption in 25 million years, and may have almost wiped out the entire population of homo-sapiens around at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba



In conclusion, I would like to suggest that all religions need to be exposed to secularism, to help moderate themselves. It's been at the forefront of turning Christianity from "the Inquisition" to "Tea with the Vicar". Let's trust ourselves to work together and find a way out of this intellectual black hole that we've been sucked into.