Friday, May 10, 2013

Who Does He Sound Like?

The Christian Right likes to suggest that atheists are secretly Muslims. Some Muslims, on the other hand, like to claim that no real Muslim could be a terrorist.

But when you listen to the guy recently charged in planning an attack on VIA trains here in Canada, Chiheb Esseghaier, who does he sound like?

“First of all, my comment is the following because all of those conclusions was taken out based on Criminal Code,” he said.

“All of us we know that this Criminal Code is not holy book, it’s just written by set of creations and the creations – they’re not perfect because only the Creator is perfect so if we are basing our judgment … we cannot rely on the conclusions taken out from these judgments.”

That sounds like it could have come directly out of the mouth of a Christian reconstructionist, doesn't it?

4 comments:

Romuelo said...

"The Christian Right likes to suggest that atheists are secretly Muslims."

A couple of crazies (actually, only one out of the two quoted in your link) make this suggestion and all of a sudden it's the Christian Right? The argument is, most of the time at least, not that the atheists are secretly Muslims, but that atheists are either A) afraid to antagonize Muslims and B) not so concerned that the Muslims ideology will take over America (as opposed to the more possible Christian-ideology takeover). I'm not saying I fully agree with this argument, but I believe that that's what it is.

Diogenes said...

No, that's not the argument. Shall it is right-- they blame evolution or atheism for causing Islam or Muslim crimes. Not tolerating, causing. Just 3 days ago Ellis Washington in WND blamed "evolution atheism" for "the rise of Islam", the Christian crusades, paganism, slavery, World War I and II, etc.

In the past Washington blamed Darwin for the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Romuelo said...

OK, Diogenes, let's say you're right. Could you kindly explain how what you said is the same as "...likes to suggest that atheists are secretly Muslims"?

Diogenes said...

You make a valid point; Shallit said they fundamentalists say: atheists are closet Muslims; whereas my point was: fundamentalists say: atheism is to blame for Islam. Admittedly, these seem to be different points.

However, in the fundamentalist mind, they're the same idea. The main thing for fundamentalists is that evil is unitary-- there's really only one kind of evil, which is subdivided into a taxonomy of sub-evils, a nested hierarchy to be technical. Whatever a fundamentalist considers the bigger evil will be put higher up in the taxonomy.

ALL evils must be arranged this way. Since atheism and Islam are both evil, to fundamentalists this raises only three possibilities:

1. Islam is a subset of atheism [a popular idea with fundamentalists]

2. Atheism is a subset of Islam

3. Atheism and Islam are "siblings", both produced by the same cause, a more fundamental evil.

I have seen countless examples of this.

Consider, for example that the Traditional Values Coalition, headed by Louis Sheldon, uses the C Street house owned by the Family [the cult that runs the Presidential Prayer Breakfast once a year]. The TVC uses “faith-based diplomacy” to fight what they call the “Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition.” [See The Family by Jeff Sharlet, p. 259]

What does that mean? I don't know, you tell me.

“No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims” [Trinidad and Tobago, CARM [2006-Oct-01] Cited at FSTDT.com]

Consider the following tweet from GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, issued during the Obama administration:

"I have two grandchildren… I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” -- [cited on “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, March 29, 2011]

How can an atheist country be dominated by Islamists? I don't know.

Here is Charlie Fuqua, a GOP candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives:

"There is a strange alliance between the liberal left and the Muslim religion. It may be that since both are the enemies of Christianity, that they both believe that, my enemy's enemy is my friend. However there are several similarities between the two. Both are antichrist in that they both deny that Jesus is God in the flesh of man, and the savior of mankind. They both also hold that their cause should take over the entire world through violent, bloody, revolution." [“Charlie Fuqua, Arkansas Legislative Candidate, Endorses Death Penalty For Rebellious Children In Book.” John Celock, The Huffington Post. 10/08/2012.]

I'll copy more when I get a chance. You can figure it out.