There are more negative posts on this blog about Islam than there are about other religions and for this I make no apologies. I dislike all faiths but do have a bias of dislike towards that particular one. At the same time, Islam, unlike most other religions, does not keep itself to itself. It is right “out there” everyday, being pushed into my face like a custard pie every time I turn around. Unlike most of the other major religions, it is not benign and in recent times many of its members have been responsible for more slaughter and mayhem than any other religion. Being a Muslim doesn’t make one a terrorist but these days it’s highly probable that any given terrorist is a Muslim.
In an interesting article published in The Times yesterday author Sebastian Faulks says that “The Koran has no ethical dimension”. He also states that the Koran “is a depressing book… It is very one-dimensional and unlike the Christian New Testament, it has no plan for life.” Faulks had to read the Koran as part of the research he was doing on one of the characters in his latest book. He says:
“Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love your neighbour; love your enemy; the meek shall inherit the earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, ‘If you don’t believe in God you will burn for ever’.”
By criticising the Koran, Sebastian Faulks has joined the ranks of blasphemers (like me) who, if hard-line Muslims had their way, would be punished with death for what they have said. Thank God we don’t live in a Muslim country.
By the way, just for the record, I don’t believe there is any such thing as “Islamaphobia”. As Pat Condell has so eloquently said:
“Just because somebody offends you with their opinion it doesn’t give you the right to saddle them with a clinical condition. There is no such thing as Islamophobia. It simply doesn’t exist and most people now realise just what a cynical manipulative lie that word really is. Suspicion of or dislike of Islam is not a phobia. It’s an honest, healthy reaction to the evidence that’s been provided.”
“These words are being used quite shamelessly to try and engineer an artificial sense of guilt in western society, to redefine our values as prejudices and to silence legitimate opinion and the free exchange of ideas that have made us what we are.”
See:
“Sebastian Faulks: Koran has ‘no ethics’”
(The Times 23.08.09)
Pat Condell – “Apologists for Evil” (Video & Transcript)
Filed under: Islam, books, Koran, Sebastian Faulks
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