Merry Christmas Mr. Mohammed
December 2011
A subject I’m always reluctant to broach when ranting about the world is religion. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly it’s a topic that is very personal to a lot of people. Secondly it doesn’t take much to offend religious people. Thirdly - and kind of related to the second point - I don’t want to be crucified, burnt at the stake or blown up by angry religious nutters. However, as it is nearly Christmas, and because Christmas is a time for giving, sharing, forgiveness and generally being happy, I thought I would give it a go.I should probably point out first that I’m in no way religious. I have about as much interest in going to church as I do in spending time with Ed Miliband. I am, therefore, able to write anything I like without risk of being prejudice against one deity or another.
Whilst I’ve always been of the opinion that people should have a right to believe in whatever they want without the risk of being persecuted by fanatical loonies, I’ve always had a problem with fanatical loonies. Obviously the Muslims are the most notorious but like all of these things it’s only a relatively small minority of their ilk who are properly mental.
The Islamic faith is, in many ways, similar to the Christian faith. Whereas Christians have the bible, Muslims have the Qur’an. Where Christians have God and his son Jesus, Muslims have Allah and the Prophet Mohamed. While Christians eat themselves to death at Christmas, Muslims starve themselves to death at Ramadan. Christians celebrate the almighty sacrificing his only son with Easter where they give each other chocolate eggs and worship bunny rabbits. Muslims celebrate Mohamed doing something similar with Eid where they give each other presents and sacrifice Billy the Goat.
So why, when there are so many similarities, is there so much killing in the name of religion? Well, the problem is that people take things too literally. I mean most of what is written in these precious books is quite vague and open to interpretation. For instance, nowhere in the Qur’an does it say alcohol is forbidden. Nowhere does it say “thou shalt blow thyself to tiny pieces on the Circle line”. Nowhere does it say that the 72 virgins promised in paradise have to be female. They are just as likely to be 72 ugly beardy men with nappies on their heads. In any case, being presented with 72 virgins doesn’t sound like my idea of paradise. Teaching 72 people how to have sex? That sounds like a lot of hard work to me.
Obviously I’m targeting the Muslim extremists here. I mean, you only need to make eye contact with them and they’ll blow themselves up and put a Jihad on your entire family. However, it’s not exclusively them.
For a short time several years ago I worked with a woman who was a devout Christian. She was, to put it mildly, an extremist. Her views were so black and white and contradictory that she actually scared me a little bit.
She once told me I was going to go to hell because of my atheism. My argument to her was that if God is supposed to be the creator of all things, presumably he created me too. So why would he create me with the ability not to believe in him and then punish me for it? That’s just stupid. I also pointed out that even if I was to be punished for being a heretic, I thought God was supposed to be all loving and all forgiving so why wouldn’t he forgive me?
This was several years ago and around about the same time as the ban on Fox hunting was introduced. I remember her being very against the ban because she claimed that Foxes were the creation of Satan and should all be exterminated from the planet. When I queried what she had against poor old Foxy, she informed me that her pet rabbit had once been killed by a Fox so all Foxes were naturally pure evil.
Again using my tremendous powers of subtlety, I pointed out that wasn’t very Christian of her because I thought she was supposed to forgive those who sinned. That was a mistake. I then tried to point out that not only was it nature and animal instinct, it is nature that was supposedly created by her beloved deity so why wasn’t she angry at him? I also pointed out that the Fox was probably just hungry and, in any case, the misdemeanour of one Fox doesn’t warrant the extermination of the entire species any more than the acts of Osama Bin Laden require the assassination of everyone with a silly beard who wears a nappy on their head.
This is the kind of stupidity and ignorance that causes war. It’s the idiots who take the deliberately vague ramblings in these precious books, form black and white opinions and get all arsy when someone disagrees with them. The basic concept of religion is quite sound – even I can see that. Having a faith in something gives some peoples lives substance and meaning. Having a set of guidelines and a moral code to follow allows for a certain amount of order which can be good for humanity. The concept of an afterlife works for people who are scared that they will become worm food when they die.
I personally think most of it is bollocks. I don’t believe in Pearly gates or virgins and I don’t believe I’m going to be reincarnated as a wombat or anything like that. I don’t even believe I’m going to become a semi-transparent blue ghost who tells someone called Luke to trust his feelings.
What I do believe in is people being allowed to think whatever they like. If Muslim women want to stick on a Durka Burka and make themselves look like a Ninja then fine. If Jews want to wear tea cosies on their heads and chop off their willies or whatever it is they do then that’s their business. If Catholic priests want to wear a dress that looks like a pair of curtains and pretend to be celibate to hide the fact they’re actually gay then good for them. If only the rest of the world could think the same way then we’d all get along. That’s all I want for Christmas. And a new DVD player.
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