Fanatic True Believer:
The Worse Kind Of Enemy
Ken Whitley
From: "Ken Whitley"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 14, 2001 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: PAM Urges Response To Calls for Prayer
[In a September 13 dispatch, Cliff Walker had written]: Instead, I think many Americans will follow the lead of Europeans after World War II and jettison our love affair with the idea of a personal, rescuing deity. Particularly vulnerable in the wake of Tuesday's destruction is the idea that a tribal god, Christ, is outraged by the acts of the followers of the competing tribe's god, Allah. The call to prayer signals, to me, the precursor to the call to war, wherein the devoted followers of Christ will avenge Him of the deeds of the followers of Allah. After all, it was the followers of Allah who started this whole thing by avenging their god of the despicable treatment of His followers at the hands of the Americans, who are, in their eyes, the followers of Allah's rival Christ. |
Cliff,
The Muslims believe that Christ was just a prophet of their same god, Allah, but Christ came prior to Muhammad the last of Allah's prophets. So as you might see from that Allah and the Christian God are one and the same. Many religious sites are both Muslim and Christian holy places because Muslim's believe Christ existed but was later overshadowed by their prophet Muhammad. If people believe in only Jesus then the Muslim's call them "Infidels" because they do not believe in Muhammad as the last prophet.
Muhammad was an illiterate [merchant who] traveled far and wide with his band of Bedouin tribal members. He eventually crossed paths with Christianity and listened carefully to what was preached. He decided his desert people needed such a religion so he started preaching his own twisted version of Christianity, with heaven having lots of water, to Arabian folk in the desert a heavenly thought, but his preaching later became known as the Muslim belief. Muhammad died and no one wrote about him until decades later, similar to the Jesus' life record.
I've heard that fundamentalist Muslim followers can use any method of pushing their religion on others without fear of Allah's punishment. This means they could if they so choose, kill, to convert other folk to their religion forcibly. In fact any means of furthering their fundamentalist Muslim belief is considered just great by Allah. So in the terrorist view what they did to the WTC, the commercial planes, and the Pentagon pleased Allah and they would immediately go to paradise at dying.
This breed of man is what we now most assuredly must face. Fanatic, True Believer types or the worse kind of enemy because they never doubt their most worthy of causes, not even during their awful killing of others or their own death processes.
Regards,
ken whitley
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Ken Whitley"
Subject: Re: PAM Urges Response To Calls for Prayer
Date: September 14, 2001 5:31 PM
I am still thinking that our culture will be getting a sustained face-full of fundamentalism. I suspect that many of us will see it for what it is and will abandon it for milder expressions of faith. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are not on good terms with anybody right now. Fundamentalism will be shown precisely for what it is, and many will recognize it in themselves and in those around them.
It is the recognition of a tendency within myself that most surely will prompt me to change myself, and I doubt too many people are very different from me in this respect. This is one of the reasons I post some of the less-enlightening letters from our Fundamentalistic fellows: perhaps some of us will see these tendencies in themselves. Gaud nose that I've noticed lots of these tendencies in myself just from responding to and posting these letters from Fundamentalists. My earlier approach to atheism was somewhat fundamentalistic but just exposing myself to this tendency in others has showm me a lot about myself and this insight has changed me significantly.
Anyway, I would hope that we can at least hope amidst all this trouble!
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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