Editorials

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3225695/

This is unbelievable.

WILLIAM BOYKIN is the general who has recently been appointed to a senior Defense Department post. Over the last two years the general has given dozens of addresses to evangelical Christian groups in which, describing his battle with a Somali (Muslim) warlord, he has said: “I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” He has also repeatedly explained that America’s enemy was “a spiritual enemy ... called Satan.” The enemy will only be defeated, he added, “if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” A few more of these and Osama bin Laden won’t need to make videos anymore. He can just put together the greatest hits of Boykin, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and they will make his point nicely—that Americans see all Muslims as enemies. Oh, and here is a quick refresher course for the Pentagon intelligence chiefs: Islam was founded, in part, as a reaction against idol worship and rigorously prohibits any graven images. When have you seen a statue of Muhammad?

I simply cannot take it anymore. Religion is bs. I have friends who are Christian, friends who are Hindu, friends who are Muslim, friends who are Buddhist, and friends who are atheist. I have friends who are "spiritual" and friends who are agnostic. What is it that we all have in common? We are all human beings.

Christianity claims to be absolute truth. So does Islam. Which one is right? Prove it. Both of you, prove it, right now and do it without bombing each other. Do it in a debate. Prove that your religion is correct and everyone else's is wrong. Prove it without retreating to your presuppositional frameworks of thousands of years of tradition. Prove it empirically. You only accept proof of other things through empiricism, so I will simply not let you get off with telling me that some inner feeling tells you that what you believe to be true can in anyway attest to a literal truth of historical events that are said to undegird your faith. That's not how your computer keyboard works. That's not how your automobile works. That's not how your television works. That's certainly not how your weapons work. It's not how you got to this website, and it's not how the universe operates. The universe operates independent of your belief system and your belief system does nothing to conform the universe to you. It never has and it never will. It's probably one of the reasons your groups have so much trouble conforming themselves to the universe.

If I told either this General Boykin or the Somali Warlord that my God had told me that there were enemies around the corner, the very first thing either of them is going to ask me is to prove it. How do I prove it? I demonstrate that it's true objectively. I show it to be true! It's that simple. I pass him the binoculars.

Feelings are subjective, while historical truth is simply not. Either Allah revealed the Koran to Mohammed or he did not. Either Jesus Christ physically and literally rose from the dead in space-time history as literalist fundamentalist Christians believe, or he did not. These groups can skirt around the issue all they want, but both of them operate using a double-standard that says, "I will believe in the writings of people who did not operate by a modern scientific paradigm, but only so far as doing so justifies my personal and national agenda. While doing so, I will operate machinery and weaponry that has been constructed using said scientific paradigm. I will trust the accuracy of such devices since I know not from my inner belief, but from empirical evidence that such devices should function properly. Now, in operating my war machines, I will at the same time believe that my enemies are infidels and heathens because they believe in a religion that is twisted, based upon blood sacrifice and the testimony of people from thousands of years ago." Wow, that statement can apply to both Christians and Muslims. How about that? They both are based upon blood sacrifice and the writings of people from thousands of years ago.

I am sick and tired of seeing people in the religious right use Christian rhetoric as a defense for war and I am sick and tired of seeing Muslim terrorists dupe believers into fighting to their deaths so they can amass power and money. Osama Bin Laden, you use your peoples' religion to play into your hands even more than our country's leader uses his. What I want to see is Bin Laden and Bush to prove to me right now that Christ and Allah are both active and alive in the universe. According to each, the other is wrong. According to me, they're both wrong. Neither Allah nor Christ is alive. They're both figments of the imagination.

There are some things we cannot explain in this universe, but resorting to feelings and blood sacrificial religions of thousands of years ago does not do anything to help. If you think it does, prove it. Show me how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have substantially improved the mental outlook of humanity with their doctrines of blood sacrifice. What is so much different in Christianity about the blood of one man shed for all time than the blood of animals sacrificied still to this day in Islam?

When I say prove this, I mean prove it the same way that you would ask me to prove that I can jump off a building, sprout wings and fly. Hard evidence. I don't want to hear anything about Christian blood atonement theology or Islamic tradition. I want empirical evidence the sort of which you yourself would require to confirm that your bank account has been updated when someone writes you a check.

Now, in order for one of you to prove to the other that his view is false, you must adopt a modern standard of evidence upon which to base your investigations. I'm not thinking either of you is going to be able to do that successfully. Why? Because neither of your religions is founded upon empiricism. They are founded upon myths and the feelings of others. It's that simple. There is simply no way to prove that Christ or Allah exists and is directing or supportive of either party's war campaign. The only rational, logical thing we can do is to conclude that neither of them exist except in our heads and in our populaces that seek something to bind themselves together.

General Boykin believes his God is bigger than another's God, but how does Boykin determine this? Does he speak directly to his God? Does Boykin believe that Allah did not reveal the Koran to Mohammed and therefore Muslims and fundamentalist fanatic Muslims are in the wrong when they claim to be doing Allah's will? I want to see Boykin's postcards from Christ and I want to see the Muslim warlord's emails from Allah.

When either of you can prove empirically to the world that Christ or Allah is present in the universe, I'll be right here ready to worship and bow down. Until that day, stop playing games with the gods. Why don't you grow up and start acting like human beings and stop blaming problems on each other's gods. After all, you don't even believe the other guy's god exists.

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