In a religion of peace, there is a belief that there is god, goddess, goddesses, gods, and ‘The One and only God’. There is no god but the God.
In a religion of peace, a god can be an idol, a wall, a tree, a picture, a moon, a cat, and even a human but a true God is classified as One who exist within time, throughout time, without time for He who exist in both the uncreated and the created realm and God exist outside of His framework which is outside of time as such He is independent of time. A presence in the past, present and future for He is the Beginning and also the End.
In a religion of peace, One who is against His will are those disbelievers classified as ‘Kafir’ or Infidels. Followers of the religion of peace are to perform the rituals diligently and those who are diligent are to be observed as such:-
A good Muslim is one who dresses the Islamic way — a person who wears a tudung or purdah, white skullcap, Arab robe, etc. A person who goes to Mekah every year to perform the umrah or haj is a good Muslim. A person who can utter verses of the Quran or quotes from the Hadith in Arabic from memory is a good Muslim. A person who organises usrahs (religious classes) in his/her home and invites friends over to listen to sermons by renowned or famous preachers/scholars is a good Muslim. A person who not only prays five times a day in the privacy of his/her home but goes to the mosque to participate in congregational prayers is a good Muslim. A person who donates to the local orphanage is a good Muslim.
And the list goes on. It is all about what you demonstrate publicly for all and sundry to witness. And the more public demonstrations you conduct the more you will be considered a pious Muslim.
A good Muslim is also one who does not participate in un-Islamic activities. And this will include not participating in Christmas parties, New Year parties, Valentine’s Day events, etc. In fact, wedding anniversaries, birthday parties, National Day celebrations, Labour Day events, etc., are also western or un-Islamic activities, although Muslims somehow do not appear to have any problems with these.
In a religion of peace, there is no such a thing as Freedom. Freedom is going against the will of the God since the day of the creation of the first Man known as Adam. ‘Thou are free to do anything but thou shall not eat from the forbidden tree of Knowledge’.
According to Genesis, freedom of choice is not allowed. In fact, the Greek word for ‘choice’ is ‘heresy’ (hairesis: αἵρεσις) — or ‘shirik’ in Islam. Heresy or shirik is a great sin for both Christianity and Islam. In days gone by, Christians and Muslims who commit heresy or shirik were put to death.
Hence according to people of the book they do not believe in freedom of choice. Freedom of choice (heresy or shirik) is a crime and is punishable by death.
So, is it logical and does it make sense to apply logic and use common sense to argue matters of religion? To do that we must first dissect the story in Genesis regarding the creation of humankind and that a God called Allah created humankind. And if that story is wrong (that the first man was Adam and the first woman was Eve and that they were created 6,000 year ago) then the entire Genesis is wrong.
Heresy and apostasy are forbidden in the Abrahamic faiths. If you read the Scriptures of the Old Testament, it is very clear that God commanded that all non-believers (infidels), heretics, apostates, etc., must be killed. You not only kill these people but the entire community plus all the animals in that community must be exterminated. We propagate freedom of choice, thought, expression, belief, association, etc. God, however, does not allow this. God has decided what we can and cannot believe, say and do. And if we violate these commands of God then we must be punished.
Another example, you have the freedom to have sex with anyone you want — but then only if it involves sex between two consenting adults. If one of the partners is consenting but is not an adult but is only 13 years old, then you do not have that freedom to have sex with him or her. That would be a crime of statutory rape.
Then again, if one or both partners are Muslims, and are not married to each other, sex between these two would be a crime under the Sharia law. And if both partners are of the same sex that, too, would be a crime — as would oral and anal sex, even between husband and wife.
Between God’s laws and manmade laws you do have freedom to have sex but then this freedom comes with many restrictions. And sex with animals is also a crime even if you happen to own that goat you are having sex with.
Can Muslims drink?, Can Muslims eat pork? Can Muslims gamble? Can Muslims have sex with someone they are not married to? Can Muslims enter into gay marriages or live with a gay partner? Can Muslims make false allegations of sexual misconduct against someone? Can Muslims leave Islam? Can Muslims eat or drink during fasting hours? Can Muslims skip the five times a day prayers for no reason whatsoever other than because they are lazy? Can Muslims steal, rob or cheat? Can Muslims run gambling dens, gaming outlets, casinos, loan sharking businesses, massage parlours, bars, discos, nightclubs, or brothels? Can Muslims reject Allah as God and Muhammad as the last Prophet of God?
The human god
In a Religion of Peace, God terrorised the human god, ie. Pharaoh and the Egyptians into submitting to Moses. And in this act of terrorism God brought down many plagues onto the Egyptians.
The Plague of Blood
The Plague of Frogs
The Plague of Gnats
The Plague of Flies
The Plague on Livestock
The Plague of Boils
The Plague of Hail
The Plague of Locusts
The Plague of Darkness
The Plague on the Firstborn
Eventually the Pharaoh and the Egyptians were terrorised into submission and they allowed Moses and his people to leave Egypt.
Then God terrorised Moses and his people with the punishment of wandering 40 years in the desert without a home. The Israelites, in turn, on God’s command, terrorised all the other communities they met along the way and launched their ethnic cleansing to exterminate all those who still insisted on praying to other Gods and who refused to accept the God of Moses.
Muslims kill because God commands it in certain situations against enemies of God and those who disobey God. Jews and Christians do not because they disobey God and are no longer good Jews or good Christians.
Exodus 12.15 says: Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.
Exodus 12.17 says: Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.
Exodus 12.16 says: Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.
Exodus 22.18 says: Do not allow a sorceress to live.
Exodus 22.19 says: Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal is to be put to death.
Exodus 22.20 says: Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed.
Exodus 22.22-24 says: Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.
Exodus 22.28 says: Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.
Those are just some of the laws but in the end it is all about if you do this or you do that you must be punished and in most cases the punishment is death.
Divine Intervention
A religion of peace believes in divine intervention as such God will cause tragedy or bad thing to happen and most probably this is because to punish you for the crimes or sins someone else committed. It may sound cruel but then God has a right to be cruel since God is God and the holy books is full of cruel things that God has done over more than 3,000 years. Did not God created Hitler so that he could later kill six millions Jews, God’s chosen people, who prayed every day non-stop to be saved but which God turned a deaf ear and ignored.
If that is what God does to His chosen people then I am better off not being one of God’s chosen people. And Hitler also caused 80 million deaths when he started WWII, all because God decided to create him and allowed him to be born.
But then that is just divine intervention and as the story goes…
The Great Flood
God decided He had made a mistake by creating humankind and He was greatly troubled by this so He decided to repent and wipe out humankind except for one family, Noah’s family.
Noah, who died at age 950 (Genesis 9:29), was over 500 years old when God ordered him to build an ark. The length of the ark was 300 cubits, the width was 50 cubits, and the height was 30 cubits. It was to be of three levels with a door at the side and with one window (Genesis 6:14-17).
So the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high (like the picture above).
Then Noah was ordered to load the ark with his entire family plus seven of each clean animal and two of each unclean animal. The estimated number of each species of living things on earth are 6.5 million living on land and 2.2 million living in the water. Hence this would come to an estimated total of about 20 million living things altogether.
Noah was then ordered to load fresh food and fresh water to keep these 20 million or so living things alive over the one year that they will all be living in the ark. The Bible tells us that it rained for 40 days, the water remained for another 150 days, and it took another 150 days for the water to recede, a total of 340 days or almost a year.
All these 20 million humans and other living things remained trapped in this fully enclosed ark, except for just one window, for an entire year with only one window for ventilation.
The Qur’an does not offer us the details like the Bible does but the Qur’an more or less, in not so many words, confirms that the incident did happen.
Genesis 6
6. And the Lord repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart.
7. And the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for I repent that I have made them.”
Genesis 7
1. And the Lord said unto Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.
2. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”
5. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.
6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9. There went in two by two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female as God had commanded Noah.
10. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, that same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark—
14. They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two by two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life.
16. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.
17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth.
18. And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.
20. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered.
21. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was on the dry land, died.
23. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
The Afterlife
In a religion of Peace there is a belief in the AfterLife. A perfect life in Heaven upon Death. But to be there everyone does have a price to pay. The Good or true believer are rewarded Heaven whereby the Bad or disbeliever are punished into Hell thru eternity.
“Everyone has a price. The only thing is whether we can afford to pay that price.” But then when we say price this does not always mean money. The price could be something else altogether and nothing at all to do with money.
If your country was under attack and the danger of you and/or your family getting killed in the crossfire is very real, would you still stay for patriotic reasons or would you seek the safety of another country if given the chance?
Hence you have ‘betrayed’ your country. Your betrayal is in deserting your country. Hence you, too, have a price. And your price is your life and that of your family. Why should you stay and die even if just to demonstrate patriotism? So you sold out just for the price of staying alive.
You send your children overseas to study and advice them to stay in that country after they graduate if they can and not come back to serve their country of origins.
You are prepared to abandon your country just so that you can have a better life. You are not prepared to pay the price of coming home to serve your country when you are better off somewhere else. So you, too, have your price and your price is a better future.
Everyone has a price. It could be money and wealth, it could be the safety and security of you and your family, or it could be a good career and better future, anything. But whatever you do and whatever you decide has to be about this price that you seek.
To some the price is power. They would even spend large sums of money to seek and retain power. And if they have to do the right thing but lose power, they would rather do the wrong thing and stay in power. And that is why many politicians would compromise their principles and ideals to ensure they do not lose power.
Would you sell everything you own and donate all your money to the cause? Are you prepared to go broke and live in a welfare home just so that the cause can succeed? That is definitely a price you will not pay. You are prepared to support the cause as long as it does not inconvenience you and bring suffering to you and your family. Hence, your price for supporting the cause is that you and your family must not end up as penniless refugees, or worse, in jail.
Even religionists have a price. Their price is heaven and to avoid punishment in the Afterlife. If there is no difference between being good and being bad, and we all go to the same place after we die, or nothing happens after we die, how many good people would remain good when nothing can be achieved by being good? However, how many are prepared to die for God’s cause? How many would choose death rather that give up the cause? How many would sacrifice all their wealth and comfort for the sake of the cause and live the life of a homeless, penniless bum? How many are prepared to see their family suffer for the sake of the cause?
Even if you were told that if you give up this world and devote your entire life to God’s cause you will not suffer because God will repay you with an even better life in the Afterlife, that is not enough an assurance for you. You will serve God’s cause but only as far as you are not inconvenienced in any way. Once you or your family need to face difficulties you will draw the line.
So, in that sense you do not really believe in God. You do not really believe in God to the extent that you have faith that God will look after you and if you have to suffer in this world because of the cause you will still not lose out because God will repay you for all this suffering in the next life.
Sacrificing and suffering for the cause is the real test of your faith in and your loyalty to God. Your reluctance to sacrifice and suffer means you lack faith and loyalty. You will serve the cause only as long as there is no loss to you. Once a loss is involved you will back off from serving the cause.
And that is what most who believe in God would do. Hence while they believe in God (meaning in the existence of God) they still do not believe in God (meaning putting their faith and trust in and their loyalty to God).
And you dare say you do not have a price? Everyone has a price. It is just that you live in denial and think that you do not.
