I hope you enjoy reading the prologue of my soon-to-be-released book, The Scrolls of Tora Bora.
Monday 18 June 2007
Saturday 2 June 2007
Ockham’s Islam
In the movie The Matrix, Morpheus asks and answers the question: what is real? In response to himself, he muses (I’m paraphrasing) that whatever electro-chemical signal your brain interprets as being real, is real. So, then, what is Islam?
In my estimation, there are two possible answers to this question.
First, perhaps Muhammad actually was visited by a being of light who did reveal what became the Qur’an. If this is so, then the Satanic Verses provide the clearest evidence of who and what that being of light may have been. Amazing how Islamic clerics decided the Satanic Verses needed to be expunged from the text of the immutable word of God. Certainly they know better than Allah what should be in the Book.
Don’t know what the Satanic Verses are? Simply put, these are verses that have been edited out of the Qur’anic text. They deal with an episode during which the angel Gabriel gives his seal of approval on Muhammad accepting some popular Goddesses in Medina. During a later visitation, Gabriel tells Muhammad that he was deceived during that revelation, that it had not been he, Gabriel, but Satan that had given him that approval. The goddesses were out of favor in Allah’s monotheism.
Easy to see how those verses could be somewhat confusing to the rabble… er, true believers. The point is that if Satan could have fooled Muhammad once, then perhaps all of his visitations were Satanic. That notion sure would have my vote. Considering the total lack of any structure and the conflicting instructions contained within the Qur’an, I would have to say that it simply could not have been the work of a supreme being.
I’m also a little confused as to how a supposedly monotheistic god with no partners could keep referring to himself in the plural, such as, “We” did this, and “We” did that, and “We” blah, blah, blah. Just a small point of contention.
OK, so the first possibility is that Muhammad was actually visited by Satan. It would explain a lot.
The second possibility is that Muhammad made the whole damn thing up. No matter how warped, twisted and demented he may have been, he was no dummy. His first wife’s cousin was a biblical scholar and was in fact the first person tell Muhammad that the small bump on his back was the ultimate sign that he was indeed the next prophet as foretold in the New Testament… uh, somewhere, I guess.
Back in 6th century polytheistic nomad-land, even the unwashed had probably heard of the very popular and prevalent angel, Gabriel. Having conversations with Gabriel would have given Muhammad instant credibility among the heathen, the Jews and the Christians. Smart move – he wasn’t having conversations with God, just an angel. No requirement for performing miracles. Nice! Expectations are lowered.
The total lack of any structure and the conflicting instructions contained within the Qur’an are now easily explained by the fact that it was produced by an illiterate fraud.
To steal a scene from one of my favorite movies, Ockham’s razor states that all things being equal (a stretch, I know), the simplest solution tends to be the right one. So, what is simpler: Satanic visitation or maniacal manifestation? Let’s see, power hungry, homicidal maniac creates crap out of whole cloth, or Demon deludes the masses into believing evil is good. OK, so it’s a toss-up.
You decide.
Demi Kaeffer
In my estimation, there are two possible answers to this question.
First, perhaps Muhammad actually was visited by a being of light who did reveal what became the Qur’an. If this is so, then the Satanic Verses provide the clearest evidence of who and what that being of light may have been. Amazing how Islamic clerics decided the Satanic Verses needed to be expunged from the text of the immutable word of God. Certainly they know better than Allah what should be in the Book.
Don’t know what the Satanic Verses are? Simply put, these are verses that have been edited out of the Qur’anic text. They deal with an episode during which the angel Gabriel gives his seal of approval on Muhammad accepting some popular Goddesses in Medina. During a later visitation, Gabriel tells Muhammad that he was deceived during that revelation, that it had not been he, Gabriel, but Satan that had given him that approval. The goddesses were out of favor in Allah’s monotheism.
Easy to see how those verses could be somewhat confusing to the rabble… er, true believers. The point is that if Satan could have fooled Muhammad once, then perhaps all of his visitations were Satanic. That notion sure would have my vote. Considering the total lack of any structure and the conflicting instructions contained within the Qur’an, I would have to say that it simply could not have been the work of a supreme being.
I’m also a little confused as to how a supposedly monotheistic god with no partners could keep referring to himself in the plural, such as, “We” did this, and “We” did that, and “We” blah, blah, blah. Just a small point of contention.
OK, so the first possibility is that Muhammad was actually visited by Satan. It would explain a lot.
The second possibility is that Muhammad made the whole damn thing up. No matter how warped, twisted and demented he may have been, he was no dummy. His first wife’s cousin was a biblical scholar and was in fact the first person tell Muhammad that the small bump on his back was the ultimate sign that he was indeed the next prophet as foretold in the New Testament… uh, somewhere, I guess.
Back in 6th century polytheistic nomad-land, even the unwashed had probably heard of the very popular and prevalent angel, Gabriel. Having conversations with Gabriel would have given Muhammad instant credibility among the heathen, the Jews and the Christians. Smart move – he wasn’t having conversations with God, just an angel. No requirement for performing miracles. Nice! Expectations are lowered.
The total lack of any structure and the conflicting instructions contained within the Qur’an are now easily explained by the fact that it was produced by an illiterate fraud.
To steal a scene from one of my favorite movies, Ockham’s razor states that all things being equal (a stretch, I know), the simplest solution tends to be the right one. So, what is simpler: Satanic visitation or maniacal manifestation? Let’s see, power hungry, homicidal maniac creates crap out of whole cloth, or Demon deludes the masses into believing evil is good. OK, so it’s a toss-up.
You decide.
Demi Kaeffer
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