Innocence of Muslims?

The riots in the Muslim world in the past couple of weeks, besides being tragic for the damage and harm they've caused, have been a very interesting peek into social, psychological, and political study.

I do a LOT of current events reading, and I do a LOT of study usually before I end up writing any of my blog posts, in order to make sure I get the facts right. I have always believed that you cannot have a solid position on something unless you've actually taken the time to study it. If you have not studied something, then making any sort of claim about it is akin to a blind man trying to explain the colours of a rainbow. Political issues are rife with such blind "prophets" telling other people what to believe and why, but the true test of accuracy is not found in belief, but rather, in hard facts and actual truth.

Attack On US Embassy Pre-Planned

Muslims have been rioting across the globe since September 11 when a group of Muslims (evidence strongly suggests that these were mostly militia terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda) attacked the US embassy in Libya, killing 4 people and injuring dozens others. One of the people killed was the US ambassador to the region. The attack included the use of mortars and rocket propelled grenades and many witnesses and high ranking officials within and around the area have made it very clear that the bulk of the people involved in the attack were linked to terrorist groups. What's unsettling is that evidence also strongly suggests that the US government had plenty of warning in advance that this attack was coming. This entire incident was a pre-planned terrorist attack purposely intended to coincide with the September 11 date of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in the USA that killed 3000 people in September 11 2001.

I had a person respond to a previous blog post I made about this stuff telling me that the attack in Libya and the riots had nothing at all to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Sorry, that's definitely wrong. The attacks were well planned in advance and purposely carried out on September 11.

USA Today: Deadly Embassy Attacks Were Days In The Making

Days of planning and online promotion by hard-line Islamist leaders helped whip up the mobs that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that killed an ambassador and three others.

 Anderson Cooper, CNN: US Warned of Threats

Libyan officials say they warned the U.S. about the growing extremist presence three days before the U.S. Consulate attack that killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. CNN's Arwa Damon reports.

 Libyan President: No Doubt Attack Planned

Libya President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf said Sunday that 50 arrests have been made in connection with last week's "preplanned" attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

CBN News: Preplanned Attack Or Spontaneous Riot?

The president of Libya said he believes al Qaeda is responsible for the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

The USA has from the beginning officially stated that this was a random riot instigated by a film trailer that insulted Islam, however a huge bulk of evidence that has been piling up since the original attacks on September 11 have made it pretty clear that this was all planned well in advance of September 11 by terrorists. In fact, the personal journal of the US Ambassador to Libya even makes it clear that he was getting very concerned with the recent increases in threats and was asking for more security because he feared something might be coming in connection to September 11. Currently, the US government still says it believes the attacks were spontaneous but at the same time it has said that clearly this was a terrorist attack, and they're still investigating.

Not All Muslims Riot, But All The Riots ARE Muslim

Since September 11 2012 when the attack in Libya took place, Muslims all over the world have been rioting and protesting in connection to a film trailer called "Innocence of Muslims" that insults Islam. Some people out there have been saying that the riots have nothing to do with Islam, or Muslims, and that to label these rioters as such is wrong because it paints a bad (politically incorrect picture) of what's really going on.

But here's the thing. ALL of these attacks, riots, and protests, are being carried out by Muslims and they are doing it because of a video on YouTube that insulted Islam. They're not rioting because of taxes, high gas prices, not having the latest iPhone, or because Britney Spears is a new judge on the talent TV show "X Factor"... They're rioting over a movie that insulted Islam. Islam is the key, the factor, the core of this whole mess.

Is it all Islam? All Muslims? Absolutely not! Islam is the second largest religion in the world (a close second to Christianity). There are literally billions of Muslims across the globe and only a miniscule minority are the ones rioting. But it cannot be forgotten that the ONLY people rioting about all this ARE Muslims. It's all about the insult to Islam. That's the cause, the trigger, the reason. Not the religion itself, but the insult to that religion. That means that the riots are religiously motivated and the religion is Islam.

If this were just a small localized thing you could brush it off and say that it was a bunch of hyper sensitive bad apples in one area. But it's NOT just one little area. It's world wide!

Wikipedia: Protests Against "Innocence of Muslims"

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(UPDATE: I originally wrote the rough draft of this article late September 24. The Wikipedia page listing the summary information that I partly used for the following lists of riot locations and casualties has since been removed by a Muslim Wikipedia group as it obviously looked bad for them. Thankfully, I had a feeling something like this might happen, so I screen grabbed the website yesterday before this change took place.)

The Wikipedia group that has modified the article:

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islam, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Islam-related articles on Wikipedia.

Here's the original Screen Capture, before the information was removed (September 24). The webpage was saved in an internet archive format. I made a screenshot of that saved page this morning so I could post it here for you all to see. The summary box on the right hand side has since been removed.

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The above link to a Wikipedia page has been tracking the incidents around the world. It does not list all of them, but it's a good place to start so you can see just how widespread and violent this whole explosion has been.

These are the places where violent protests and full fledged riots of Muslims have broken out since September 11.

Libya
Yemen
Tunisia
Sudan
Egypt
India
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Lebanon
Israel

France
Germany
Belgium
United Kingdom
Denmark
Greece
Australia

And the list continues to grow every few days.

79 deaths, 687 injuries, and thousands of arrests.

Folks, this is NO minor incident. This is a global crises. A world wide violent uprising and it's been going strong for two weeks. Greece was just added to the list a couple of days ago. The US has closed its embassies in many Muslim countries to try and protect its citizens that are working there.

In most places these violent attacks have been small, consisting of fifty to a few hundred rioters. People have been injured, killed, and have destroyed buildings and cars. The harm and damage has been substantial, far worse than other riots in recent years that have taken place in western countries over the economy (as in Europe) or the riot in Vancouver Canada because the Vancouver Canucks hockey team lost against the Boston Bruins in the NHL hockey playoffs a couple years ago. This is much bigger and much uglier because people are being killed and it's happening all over the world at the same time.

This does NOT represent all of Islam, not by a long shot. But it DOES represent SOME of the people that follow it as their religion and belief system. The whole upheaval is because of an insult to Islam, and these are Muslim people (Muslim people only) committing the mass violence and crimes on behalf of their religion. There is NO getting around that fact. That this has happened in so many countries and so many cities should be a wake up call to anyone that thinks "Islam is the religion of peace". It's got a nasty violent underbelly that though a minority, still packs a heck of a bloody punch (or sword), and it's global.

Secularism Saves, Religion Destroys?

There's a common falsehood that is popular among many atheists and secular speakers out there that secularism is the answer to a harmonious civilization whereas religion inevitably leads to extremism, holy wars, murder and oppression (even hatred) in the name of god and kingdom. Such thinking is entirely inaccurate, as are other beliefs that tend to go along with such an idea.

Secularism is by no means any better than mainstream (or otherwise) religious or spiritual belief systems that exist throughout the world. Somehow these atheists and secularists have gotten it in their heads that secularism and atheism are NOT belief systems akin or comparable to religion. This is absurd because secularism and atheism are very much belief systems that shape an individual's life and viewpoint of the universe, the world, mankind, and the individual within it all. So to pretend that there's a gross difference between secularism and religion is to wear very thick blinders. Both are philosophical ideologies at their core and how they effect a person stems directly from that foundation. Secularism is humanism, a "religion" based on the idea that naturalism is all there is and mankind is an accident of nature and little more than a highly evolved animal. Secularism also wishes to eliminate religion from places of education, public discussion, government (and other authority), even entertainment. For a group that loves to preach about tolerance and diversity, they are actually quite intolerant to ideas that do not jive with their own.

Much is said these days in secular circles about religious extremism. The biggest culprit of religiously motivated or inspired terrorism is found within certain sects of Islam, and this has been true for more than two decades now. However non-religious (or vaguely spiritual) people see this and pin the terrorist (or ticking time bomb) on ALL organized religion. They'll point to historic tragedies such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, both taking place during cultures heavily dominated and invested in either Roman Catholic Christianity or Islam. Clearly religion and belief in god is a great inspiration of horror and evil in the world, right? And so non-religion, such as secular atheism or humanism, must then be the salvation of mankind and the end of human on human violence!... Such a belief or statement could not be more wrong.

The problem of extremism or ideologically motivated violence is by no means restricted to religion. It broaches all kinds of belief systems, all stripes of political bents and ALL viewpoints. Christians can easily understand this because we understand that the broken human condition that causes all of this is sin, which permeates and infects EVERYONE no matter who they are. Sin is like a poison. Left unchecked, it is catastrophically destructive and cruel. Secularism and atheism do not even believe in the existence of sin, believing that morality is in large part a social construct and little else. So who is better prepared to address the corrupted human soul? The ones who reject the existence of both soul and sin, or the ones that know it for what it is?

Is secularism the answer to moderating and regulating religion to prevent catastrophic violence between human beings? No. At best it's no better than religion in this matter. However, it might actually be even worse, because it holds no solid moral foundation or absolute truth. The atheist likes to point to tragedies in history connected (loosely or closely) to religion, things like the Crusades and Inquisition. In the secularist mindset, theocracy (government and power held by organized religion) is inherently corrupt or easily corrupted, mere steps from extremist evil. Yes, those particular horrors of history were awful, but religion is by no means the only factor for such occurrences. Neither is theocracies, or political conservatism. Most wars are not religiously inspired or motivated, merely using religion as an excuse for the real reasons for the war, such as greed and power.

Secularism and atheism have a human death count in the multiple hundreds of millions in just the last 100 years alone. The crusades and inquisitions were centuries ago and killed far fewer people on the whole. The inquisitions for instance may have killed a few thousand in all. Secular communism, however, is a very modern social and governmental construct, and it's slaughtered hundreds of millions in far shorter a time period than all religions combined for all of history. Stalin and communist Russia, communist China, and Germany's Hitler and the Nazis in World War 2 were all heavily influenced and inspired by humanism, secularism and naturalistic Darwinism (evolution). In this way you could almost say that communism is the secular version of a theocracy. Germany was the breadbasket of Darwinist thought and evolution inspired eugenics were the heart and soul of much of the Nazi mentality. They rounded up Jews, people of colour, and the physically and mentally disabled for death because they were considered inferior humans, a detriment to the betterment of more highly evolved mankind. These people were relegated to a sub-human status, and murdered and brutalized because of it. Communist Russia and China killed hundreds of millions in the name of preserving their government control and destroying all opposition and alternate belief systems, especially against Christianity. These were and are heavily atheistic and secular driven belief systems and mentalities that dominate in these large scale modern death camps. Secularism and atheism is in no way harmony and innocence. It's hands are as bloody or worse than mankind's biggest and longest lasting religions, and it's happening today right along side Islamic terrorism. The only difference is that it's institutionalized and government sanctioned. The only difference is that all this genocide is done in the name of man and at the cost and eradication of freedom (freedom that Christianity has been a strong supporter and creator of the world over).


The Real Problem

The problem is not religion, or even politics. The problem is mankind's heart in general. The problem is our eagerness and easily corruptible fallen sinful nature. Secularism and atheism don't even have a "higher power" to answer to or provide them direction, instruction, correction or meaning. To them, we're evolved animals, a cosmic accident of chemistry and physics.

True Christianity is based upon salvation, mercy, love, repentance, and compassion. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross when the Jews wanted him to rise up and become a holy warrior king and save them from the Romans. He refused. He came to save our lost souls, to show us a better way, to lead us back to God through love and mercy. The value of a human life and compassionate love are two monumental core tenets in Christianity. Yes, Christians or people who have claimed to be Christian or do things in the name of God have done terrible things in the past and even the present. But so have secularists, humanists, atheists and Darwinists. Examples of this are the Columbine school shooting in the USA (the two young men considered themselves to be cleansing society of religion and being an instrument of natural selection, one even wore a shirt that said exactly that as he shot his fellow classmates dead) and the murder spree a couple years ago in Norway where an avowed evolutionist shot dead 100 teenagers and government workers in the name of attacking Islam and the tolerance of it. The problem is NOT religion. The problem is strong over the top ideology combined with a lack of loving merciful compassion and the heartfelt knowledge that every life is exquisitely valuable.

Secularism is not salvation for the ills of society. It could be better described as oblivious unintended suicide. To eliminate the God given value of human life, of the soul, and to reduce us all to cosmic accidents and lucky-to-have evolved and survived animals in an entirely cold and callous universe is to beg for the de-humanization of all mankind. Human history both ancient and modern paints us a large scale picture of the evil and cruelty that mankind is capable of. Atheism and humanist secularism are at best no better than religions when it comes to these large scale sins. It's because the problem is not religion, or God, or faith, holy scripture, or even politics. The problem is mankind's ability to twist and warp any and all ideologies and philosophies into dark and destructive tendencies for fortune, fame and power. The problem is sin, something we are all guilty of to one extent or another.

Thankfully there's a means of redemption, forgiveness and salvation found through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all His and He loves each and every one of us. That's a heck of a lot more positive and inspiring than, "We're stuff that stars burped out and that chemistry and physics accidentally patched together into complex animals." In Christianity there's a true possible solution. There's an understanding of the existence and potential of evil and wrong in all of us. Compassion, love, and deeply valuing all human life is the only cure. Those principles go hand in hand with salvation through Jesus Christ.


UPDATE

Added links to a few articles giving more detail and information on the topic.

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy  (EvolutionNews, Darwinism's influence taboo to discuss)

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin’s Tree of Death  (http://blog.beliefnet.com)

James J. Lee, Hostage-taker and Darwinist  (EvolutionNews, Discovery Channel shooting in Maryland, plus a summary of other similar incidents)

From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany  (Amazon.com)