Mindless conclusions
My dad's friend [and mine too], Murtuza bhai, asked me to copy the e-book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie on a CD and give it to him. So today I did that and I went over to his place to give it to him.
I was in their living room, having coffee with him, his dad and his brother when we started talking about the book. I was telling them about how some Muslims subscribe to the theory that Satan, masquerading as God, revealed some verses to Muhammad and they made it to the Qur'an.
Murtuza bhai's dad immediately rejected this idea [he's a pretty pious Muslim] and accused Salman Rushdie of being possessed by Satan. Murtuza bhai himself mused that some people worship Satan. I agreed and pointed out that there's a Church of Satan in the US [dear God, their symbol has five Hebrew letters on it :-/].
Murtuza bhai remarked that there was such a church in New Orleans, where the hurricane Katrina struck.
I don't understand why educated people still continue to try to find a connection between meteorology and religion. Katrina destroyed New Orleans because that's just how strong she was. Not because God was carrying out a mass-punishment operation because the city harbored Satan-worshipers and gay people [as if that's reason to punish anyone]. It's a disgusting picture that these accusations paint, and God is made to look the ugliest in that picture because they imply that God is some mindless, blood-thirsty and unjust bastard who can't distinguish between Satanists and good Christians/Jews/Muslims.
Was the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka [high concentration of Buddhists], South India [secular], Indonesia [Muslim] and Thailand [Buddhist] a punishment of God too? What was their fault? The earthquake in Pakistan, an Islamic country? The earthquake in Bam, Iran [the most Islamic country there is!]?
This point might require some brain-power to be understood: The cause of natural disasters is not religion, sexuality or any "crime". It's things like plate tectonics, heavy rain, weak dams, molten rock inside the Earth and powerful winds that destroy your homes and families.
I was in their living room, having coffee with him, his dad and his brother when we started talking about the book. I was telling them about how some Muslims subscribe to the theory that Satan, masquerading as God, revealed some verses to Muhammad and they made it to the Qur'an.
Murtuza bhai's dad immediately rejected this idea [he's a pretty pious Muslim] and accused Salman Rushdie of being possessed by Satan. Murtuza bhai himself mused that some people worship Satan. I agreed and pointed out that there's a Church of Satan in the US [dear God, their symbol has five Hebrew letters on it :-/].
Murtuza bhai remarked that there was such a church in New Orleans, where the hurricane Katrina struck.
I don't understand why educated people still continue to try to find a connection between meteorology and religion. Katrina destroyed New Orleans because that's just how strong she was. Not because God was carrying out a mass-punishment operation because the city harbored Satan-worshipers and gay people [as if that's reason to punish anyone]. It's a disgusting picture that these accusations paint, and God is made to look the ugliest in that picture because they imply that God is some mindless, blood-thirsty and unjust bastard who can't distinguish between Satanists and good Christians/Jews/Muslims.
Was the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka [high concentration of Buddhists], South India [secular], Indonesia [Muslim] and Thailand [Buddhist] a punishment of God too? What was their fault? The earthquake in Pakistan, an Islamic country? The earthquake in Bam, Iran [the most Islamic country there is!]?
This point might require some brain-power to be understood: The cause of natural disasters is not religion, sexuality or any "crime". It's things like plate tectonics, heavy rain, weak dams, molten rock inside the Earth and powerful winds that destroy your homes and families.