Tag Archives: Islam

Deep South problem: Ignorance, racism, or just plain stupidity?*

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Barack Obama as a Muslim: Ridiculous idiocy from the Hard Right On most days, my intake of news consists of the CNN summary on my Android phone and the day’s Cheat Sheet published by The Daily Beast. (The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet is a daily must-read in this household!)

My most significant reaction to today’s political news resulted from the following:

A survey by Public Policy Polling reveals that a majority of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi —- states with primary elections on Tuesday —- believe the president is a Muslim. Forty-five percent of Republican voters in Alabama think Obama is a Muslim, while 41 percent are “unsure.” Only 14 percent believe he is Christian. In Mississippi, belief in the president’s supposed Muslim faith is even stronger. Fifty-two percent of Republicans there think Obama is Muslim, while 36 percent are unsure and only 12 percent believe he is Christian.

Deep South perpetuates its backwoods-hick-low-I.Q. image by claiming the President to be MuslimIt couldn’t be any more obvious that this is an issue of discrimination (not to mention intellectual dishonesty)… The only question is whether this is racial discrimination or political discrimination; neither would be surprising.

I don’t recall any previous presidents being accused of being Muslim, even if the accusations DO come from a group with such a small amount of juice — a group with such limited believability.

Oh, wait — that’s because no other U.S. presidents have been black. Chalk it up to racism. Thanks, Deep South.

Deep South perpetuates a backwoods image by claiming Obama to be MuslimFervent Hard Right, religious fundamentalist Deep South voters pictured here

Not really, of course; however, by claiming such challenged beliefs (Obama’s a Muslim… Gosh, y’all!), the Deep South voters are only perpetuating their negative caricature of idiocy. Isn’t it time to move on?

MID-POST NOTE: O.K., so I’ve had a little fun here… the truth is, I used to have a set of the Dr. Bukk fake teeth featured in these three images poking fun at the Deep South — and I’ve never laughed harder! However, I hope it doesn’t detract from the message, which is:

NO ONE actually believes that President Barack Obama practices Islam! Those who say they believe such nonsense are merely parroting their peer group and displaying their eagerness to be led like a herd of sheep. The lackeys on the Hard Right continue to be taken for a long ride… Either the Republican machine has perfected the ART of SPIN (and the Republicans truly are among the best spinners on the planet) or its followers will believe whatever their leaders tell them to believe, eagerly lapping up whatever happens to be served to them. (IMHO, it’s actually a bit of both.)

Deep South perpetuates their low-IQ image by claiming the President to be MuslimThe Hard Right machine is a uniquely American contraption built upon generous banks of religious and political fundamentalism, which by default designates everyone outside their ranks as being “wrong” (or even evil).

Obviously, this “news” would be far more brow-raising and interesting if it were coming from a state with a minority of fundamentalists as opposed to a state where most people really do believe in a talking snake, a literal Satan [1], and a young earth (e.g., belief in a literal Genesis, making the earth less than 10,000 years old).

I feel sorry for people who are apparently so feeble-minded as to be swayed by the trash-talking points coming from the Hard Right. Sadly, America has more of these kind of sheepish followers who’ll believe anything they hear (as long as it agrees with their hatred) than most of us would care to admit.

But on a hopeful note, fideistic beliefs such as talking snakes, the evil Left, and man’s superiority to women will surely continue to wane, eventually sharing the fate of the now-extinct dodo…

The proper way forward is for all of us to embrace basic, universal spiritual principles.

Notes

sheep[1] Most Americans no longer believe in a literal Satan/devil… (IT’S ABOUT FREAKING TIME!! Happy happy, joy joy… Now I’m wondering if any fundies out there are thinking, AWW, I wanted Satan and Hell to be REAL!! Damn…)

The majority of American Christians do not believe that Satan is a real being or that the Holy Spirit is a living entity, the latest Barna survey found.

Nearly six out of ten Christians either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the statement that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil,” the survey found.

Forty percent strongly agreed with the statement while 19 percent of American Christians somewhat agreed.

In contrast, about 35 percent of American Christians believe Satan is real. Twenty-six percent strongly disagreed with the statement that Satan is merely symbolic and about one-tenth (9 percent) somewhat disagreed. (Source:
Most U.S. Christians don’t believe Satan, Holy Spirit exist – Christian Today)

Resources: Is the Deep South’s main problem ignorance, racism, or stupidity?

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*Afterword

Look, we really do try to refrain from insulting people, and we are not calling all Deep South residents stupid, racist, or ignorant. We respect other respectful systems of belief. However, when intellectual dishonesty rears its ugly head so prominently, we occasionally speak out. This is such a case.

Simply put, there is no way that intelligent individuals of modern America truly believe that our president is a Muslim or that he practices Islam; folks who say so are merely but blatantly toeing a ludicrous party line. Such “views” deserve no respect whatsoever — mainly because such views are not real; they only represent efforts to disparage Obama and to sling mud — that’s all. By stating such things, they only hurt themselves and negatively affect their own reputation.

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…the digital age is at least beginning to educate the masses — those desiring education, anyway — and thankfully,…

Why pick on Hard Right religious fundamentalist and fideistic beliefs?

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To discourage irrational, intolerant religious extremism…

messages from Hard Right Christian supremacistsThe usual disclaimer: Traditional, respectful, tolerant, spiritually-principled flavors of Christianity and other religions are not the subject here.

Far-right religious nationalists should keep their religion to themselves if we are to hang on to what makes our country great, preserve the tradition of pluralism, and maintain the wise vision of our Founding Fathers. Rigid fundamentalism should remain in its place if we are to remain a people of tolerance and acceptance and if we truly prize religious freedom.

politicsLast but not least, the far right dominionism that has been infecting conservative politics for years ought to remain within the churches and the communities that desire it; extremism cannot be permitted to spread, take hold, and then — God forbid — send the United States careening down a path of horror.

It would be encouraging if humanity could learn from its mistakes, take lessons from history, and avoid the costly mistakes of book covers: religious fundamentalismreligious extremism — and especially, religious statehood.

A brand-new reader recently commented and asked Search for Truth the following:

At first glance, I assumed you were against religion until I read the About page. Is there a quick, simple acid test to determine whether or not you consider a particular religion (or religious group) to be extremist, fundamentalist, fideistic, or otherwise "less than ideal" so as to meet with your discouragement?

Search for Truth answer

Clever… Good one! We believe the "golden rule" applies here: That all respectful, tolerant religions should be respected and tolerated. IMHO, one of the best litmus tests I can think of at the moment might be the simple list of basic, universal spiritual principles: The practical guidelines, rules, suggestions, and practices agreed upon by virtually all religions. (That’s rather affirming, don’t you think?)

Accordingly, we believe the central role of Christianity — and religions & spiritual paths in general — is the delivery of a positive spiritual message of compassion leading to inner peace and unity, as opposed to any type of religious message designed to induce belief in fanciful, supernatural stories, beings, or events — which, by default, can only lead to division because the supernatural stories inevitably disagree!

Finally, it seems religious fundamentalism and similarly rigid worldviews contain too many inherent conflicts with universal spiritual principles to represent truth.

I have once again digressed… Back to the story:

One fine day on the way to the Nashville flea market, politics was the subject of discussion. After briefly attempting to explain the fanatical quest of a few squeaky dominionist wheels on the far, Hard Right (e.g., those radical religious supremacists who have declared war on secular society & wish to banish separation of church and state) — whose goal is to re-assert Christian control over the nation’s political and cultural institutions — Dale said:

A Bible-based society for the United States sounds OK to me. Besides, what’s wrong with a country that lives according to basic spiritual principles?

religionNeedless to say, Dale’s uninformed agreement with Christian nationalism and dominionism came as a total & complete shocker.

The description of Dale’s comment as uninformed was accurate, not derogatory. The fact is, Dale had never given one moment’s careful thought to the idea — to what it would mean for dominionism to take hold in the U.S. Dale never even considered what it might mean to so many peaceful, hard-working non-fundamentalist U.S. citizens, for our country to merge one group’s religious ideas into our national politics, scrap our long history of religious pluralism, and ultimately allow the new breed of Hard Right dominionist to define religion and spirituality for the rest of us….

Thanks, but no thanks. (No way!)

The writer of the heartfelt letter below was merely attempting to explain to Dale why it is not acceptable for the United States to adopt such rigid, divisive, controversial, intolerant views.

My dear fundamentalist friend,

inner peaceIt’s quite simple to point out exactly why we wholeheartedly discourage the beliefs (without condemning the believers) of extreme Hard Right religious fundamentalism and religious fideism. (Fideists are those who believe that science, philosophy, reason, and logic are enemies of religious faith, essentially claiming irrationality as a benefit!)

There are thousands of distinct, varying flavors of Christianity covering virtually every possible combination of religious and/or spiritual belief. Many Christians are labeled by the more conservative and devout as being liberal or moderate Christians, a large portion of whom cringe right along with Buddhists, New Thought adherents, the spiritual-but-not-religious, Perennial Philosophers, agnostics, and so on when they hear the extremist, divisive teachings of Hard Right Christian fundamentalism.

unity As hard-core supporters of religious freedom and pluralism, we believe it’s perfectly acceptable to hold virtually any religious beliefs one can imaginable –- as long as those religious beliefs and practices do not adversely affect the rest of us, just as I may freely practice and believe as I choose, as long as I do not trample upon the rights or the peace of others.

Unfortunately, that’s where modern, Hard Right Christian fundamentalism consistently crosses the line from peaceful to intrusive — or worse.

Perspective is everything: Revealed religions
There are a handful of "revealed religions"; the most popular are Christianity and Islam.

political debate related posterAccording to one of the fastest growing "revealed religions" in the world, those who believe Jesus was divine — and those who fail to follow the admonishments of the most recent prophet of God, Mohammad — are destined for eternal hellfire. (Of course, the religion is Islam.)

The Koran contains an approximately equal amount of "proof" or evidence that Muhammad is God’s true prophet as the Bible does to support Jesus as God’s literal son.

The following statement probably applies to those who:

  1. Practice and believe the same religion they were raised to believe as they grew from child to tween to teen to adult, AND
  2. Have not deeply contemplated or studied alternate worldviews, religions, or spiritual paths

In all likelihood, the most significant determinants as to which of these two popular "revealed" religions (Christianity & Islam) a given individual believes and follows are:

  1. Where one was born, and
  2. How one was raised

knowledge from reading free books onlineThat’s the bulk of it, for the non-curious types who studied only one religion. (Admittedly, we fail to grasp that mindset.)

If you are a Christian fundamentalist in the United States who has never seriously explored any religion or spiritual path apart from Christianity — the religion of your upbringing — then it’s rather clear that, had you been born in the Middle East, you would be a fundamentalist Muslim.

The reverse holds true for fundamentalist followers of Islam. (If you are a Muslim born and raised in Afghanistan who has never examined any other path, and you had instead been born in the United States to a Christian family, it’s virtually certain you’d be a Christian.)

x-ray of homer simpson's brain - knowledge from reading free books onlineRemaining true to the beliefs one was raised to embrace certainly does not make a person defective or dumb; in fact, it demonstrates some positive qualities — such as loyalty and perseverance.

Simply put, we as individuals have widely varying traits. What is right for one may not be right for another. Circumstances that cause intense curiosity in some of us might not even warrant a second glance — much less, closer investigation — by others. And this is a crucial point when it comes to the HOWs and the WHYs of our religious choices.

If you aren’t naturally prone to exploring underlying causes, applying critical thought, or exercising a reasonable degree of skepticism, then it may be completely natural for you to remain devoted to the beliefs of your culture, your peer group, your family, and your friends. Again, I stress that this is acceptable… for those "built" that way.

For others — this blogger, for instance — the failure to deeply explore world religion and spirituality is almost unthinkable.

Resources: Why pick on Hard Right fundamentalist and fideist religious beliefs?

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(Objectively speaking, there’s rather little hard evidence on either side).

Obviously, there’s no need to get our approval for a set of religious views!

Who or what is Gurdjieff?

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As I was scanning a list of Nashville-area spiritual Meetup groups, I ran across an unfamiliar term: Gurdjieff. Because Gurdjieff is apparently something relating to the subject of spirituality, I was a little surprised I had not heard of Gurdjieff before. (I still have no idea how to pronounce it.) As usual, Wikipedia came to the rescue.

George Gurdjieff, spiritual teacherGeorge Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to middle 20th century. He taught that most of us spend our lives in what amounts to hypnosis: a state of waking sleep. Gurdjieff developed a transcendental discipline he called The Work (as in doing "work on oneself") or The System – a set of steps to help people grow beyond their typical waking sleep to a higher state of consciousness and achieve their full potential. Since Gurdjieff’s methods differ from those of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi, the practice has also been known as The Fourth Way. It has also been described as "esoteric Christianity."

Esoteric Christianity refers to a group of spiritual practitioners who view Christianity as a mystery religion. Esoteric Christians follow certain Gnostic-style, secret, esoteric doctrines. Esoteric Christian beliefs are generally hidden from the public, with most of the knowledge being limited to a narrow band of initiates: the enlightened ones (properly educated people). Esoteric Christianity is occult (meaning "hidden") study — what adherents consider to be the "inner teachings" of early Christianity. This Christian esotericism was initially associated with the Essenes (a sect of Second Temple Judaism that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE) and later with the Rosicrucians.

Are we recommending that readers dabble in Gurdjieff, or take up The Fourth Way? No, we aren’t. While George Gurdjieff’s teachings are dead-on in many respects – including the fact that most of humanity merely goes through the motions as if hypnotized, rather than being spiritually connected and genuinely living life – the teachings take a fall, stumbling over the same root most organized fundamentalist religions do: asserting that various supernatural or paranormal events represent fact. (Isn’t this where literalist, fundamentalist religions always start to get flaky? We think so…)

The influence of the Moon upon everything living manifests itself in all that happens on Earth. Man can not tear himself free from the Moon. All his movements and consequently all his actions are controlled by the Moon. The mechanical part of our life is subject to the Moon.
(Source: In Search of the Miraculous, by P.D. Ouspensky [Amazon])

Fakir (also faqir, faqr)

A fakir is essentially a Muslim monk – an ascetic who follows Islam, the teachings of the prophet Mohammad. I first heard the spiritual term fakir in an animated show, of all places – in the fifth segment of the excellent movie Batman: Gotham Knight. In "Working through Pain," we learn what happens when the superhero needs saving. Bruce Wayne travels to the East for rigorous spiritual training and/or enlightenment to better enable him to cope with the stress and pain that inevitably accompanies life as a superhero.

Fakir clip: Working Through Pain

Source: YouTube

Although Bruce Wayne was refused by the teachers from whom he first desired to learn these ancient Eastern spiritual practices, a woman -– a female fakir despised by the men for doing more than a woman "should" -– took him on as a serious student. (I wanted to include a similar YouTube video featuring "Working Through Pain" to the tune of Hurt, a classic Johnny Cash song; however, its author — who apparently approves of using copyrighted movies and songs — has disabled the video’s embedding feature. Go figure!)

Sidetracked again: Gotham Knight rocks

Batman: Gotham Knight (a 2008 animated film) is a splendid movie for some tastes which includes six separate stories, each in a different animation style (anime, actually). Perhaps the best episode – and certainly the most spiritually relevant portion – is "Working Through Pain" in which Wayne becomes a student of a fakir named Cassandra. Bruce’s main goal is to learn how to control pain; Cassandra and the fakirs teach that any pain can be controlled with the application of spiritual power. "Control your internal pain to overcome your external pain." (Adapted from Dream Design, Deploy)

Misguided on usage of occult?

When I hear the word occult, I tend to think of — or even synonymize it with — supernatural or paranormal. While that is basically correct for the term occult when as a noun (as in the occult), it’s not exactly the same for occult when used as an adjective. The latter seems to emphasize the hidden, secret, or mysterious qualities than any supernatural, magic, or paranormal aspects…

Notes

[1] Since its 1949 release, In Search of the Miraculous has been hailed as the most significant, accurate, and valuable documentation of Gurdjieff’s thoughts and worldview. To some disciples of Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky was an incomplete mystic; other followers consider Gurdjieff and Ouspensky to be co-gurus.

Resources: Gurdjieff

Resources – Batman: Gotham Knight

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Featuring the usual sidetracks & digressions

This post was started on Saturday, February 04, 2012.

Fundamentalist Islam, salafism: Sounds too familiar

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salafism, radical religious fundamentalism

As I was reading an article at ForeignPolicy.com about religious terrorism in Russia, I ran across a religious term I did not know: salafism. I looked it up:

Salafism, Salafi movement (noun) : a militant group of extremist Sunnis who believe themselves the only correct interpreters of the Koran and consider moderate Muslims to be infidels; seek to convert all Muslims and to insure that its own fundamentalist version of Islam will dominate the world

salafism, radical religious fundamentalism

Does the above definition sound familiar? It certainly should! It reveals yet another blight of radical religious fundamentalism upon the world. Replace a few terms (e.g., Koran with Bible, etc.), and it sounds eerily like some of the radical Religious Right people here in the U.S. who have basically declared war on secularism and are now organizing to remove the separation of church and state. (Is this a real danger? Yes, it really is. Why this should concern you, regardless of your religious beliefs.)

It’s really ironic: Freedom-loving Americans shouldn’t worry about Salafism or Sharia law; in reality, fundamentalist Christian fanatics are the ones using our government to restrict individual liberties and personal freedoms, enthusiastically lobbying for a Bible-based America. Now that’s scary.
Stop worrying about Shariah. Christian fanatics are the ones using the government to restrict individual liberty.

Here are but a scant few examples of how religious fundamentalism (primarily fideistic, far-right Christian fundamentalism — not the more reasonable Christians) is infecting politics today:

  • Tea Party leader Ron Miller says that African Americans cannot be Christian if they support Obama. I am going to go out on a limb (not really) and predict that Miller is someone who says he believes Obama is a Muslim (actually nothing more than a hyper-partisan talking point). This ridiculous sentiment is dangerously close to what this guy believes.
  • Some religious fundamentalists seem to be transforming entertaining, conservative talk radio into radical hate radio. There’s nothing wrong with conservative views or talk radio; I listen to it occasionally. However, when it turns against the principles taught by “its own religion,” devolves into hateful, vicious diatribes, and even begins to depict the views of non-fundamentalists (such as Thomas Jefferson) as evil, there’s a big problem. Sadly, this seems to be happening with greater frequency.
  • Chuck Pierce says God used the massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami to topple a “stronghold of spiritism.” Could Chuck’s warped sense have anything to do with the fact that Japan is not a stronghold of Christian fundamentalists?
  • Jerry Boykin, a self-described prophet who is worried that President Obama might just be a treasonous Muslim and who roots his activism in dreams and visions about the imminent destruction of America, says, “Everywhere I go,” people ask “‘when do we take up arms’” against Obama. Hmm…you’ve really got to wonder about these people.
  • Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley says that only Christians are his brothers and sisters. Is that compassionate Christianity — at all? Do you think Jesus or any other enlightened spiritual teacher would ever say such a thing? How sad and closed-minded…
  • At an event called Awakening 2011, GOP political leaders announced their solidarity with religious right activists. Cindy Jacobs declared that “the Bible is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Huh? What is supposed to happen to the separation of church and state?!? We can only hope people like this never get any real power. No… we can and should do more than just hope they go away. Remaining silent and taking our freedoms for granted may not be the best ideas in the face of the religious fundamentalist pandemic that could be taking root here in the U.S.

salafism, radical religious fundamentalism

With more than 30 mosques for a population of no more than 8,000 people, Gubden is probably the most religious place in Russia. It is also one of the most violent. An estimated 70 percent of the population here practice Salafism, the brand of conservative Islam that is associated with the insurgents. And a steady flow of these orthodox believers have joined the fight to carve out an Islamic caliphate through bloodshed — bloodshed reciprocated by security forces attempting to stamp them out.

Is any brand of fundamentalism good for the world? Not that I know of. How could it be? How could the belief, “Our group and only our group is right, and all the other groups are wrong” be a positive or even remotely helpful worldview? Let’s hope that all brands and flavors of fundamentalism will eventually give way to reason, compassion, and tolerance.

I encourage anyone and everyone who will listen: please do what you can to promote the ideas of syncretism, pluralism, religious tolerance, and religious freedom! It is becoming increasingly important that the virtues of truth and tolerance be actively appreciated and promoted by all who will.

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