I got this letter from a Muslim urging me to refrain from making fun of his religion (scroll down), so I felt it necessary to respond publicly.

As regular readers know, I'm totally cool with Muslims. It's Islam I don't like. As a non-Muslim, I can't know what true Islam is---just as a non-Catholic and non-Protestant I can't know what true Christianity is. That's an internal debate that you Muslims need to be having (and are having) with yourselves.

And even though I don't consider myself a traditional Christian, I do consider myself a follower of Jesus and I've read the Bible dozens of times. So, while I'm not an expert on true 'Christianity', I do have a fairly in depth knowledge of the Old and New Testaments. I do have an opinion, then, on what the Bible says and means.

I have also read the Quran. All of it. Several times. I've also read many of the hadiths (traditions). So, I'm not an expert about true Islam, but I do believe I have enough information to have an opinion on what the Quran says and means.

So, here are my opinions about them.

Old Testament: Pretty bloody horrifying. Luckily, Judaism does not treat the Old Testament as the literal word of God. Further, as the story of the Old Testament unfolds, Jehovah seems to get a lot nicer. Good on you LORD for growing up. (If you don't think that God can handle criticism, then I'd suggest you don't know too many Jews.)

New Testament: Pretty cool, except for all the pacifism stuff. Jesus seems to clearly be a pacifist in my reading. Which is fine, as long as Christians were in the minority. But once Christians became a majority--in other words, once they controlled the state--pacifism doesn't seem all that great to me. Luckily, theology was able to take care of dangerous pacifism. Further, no theologian I know of treats the New Testament as the literal word of God. Even fundamentalists only claim that it was inspired of God--that the words are those of Paul, not God's.

Quran: Pretty frightening. Not only does it have all of the bad stuff from the Old Testament, but Islam treats the words of the Koran as the literal word of God. These are God's words, not Muhammed's (or Gabriel's). The Quran is not a collection of stories, but, as Reza Aslan says, it is the "Divine monologue."

If these are God's words, then I'm a monkey's uncle. Either I am very wrong about God being a pretty cool dude, or the God described in the Quran is not God at all. In fact, Allah, if we take him at his word (as he himself reveals it in the Quran), is an asshole. He's worse than Hitler.

So, I won't apologize for making fun of the Quran. I do not believe it is the word of God. If I'm wrong, and Allah is God, then he certainly does not deserve to be worshipped or followed. Further, I do not believe that it has any redeeming value whatsoever. I do not believe any of it. None.

Hadiths: Don't teach us much, except that Muhammed is not someone I would like to hang out with. He was a pedophile. He marries a 6 year old, but we are to believe that it's okay, because he really doesn't have sex with Aisha until she's 9. Yeah, that makes everything better. He is a genocidal maniac. He wipes out entire tribes. He's a fascist. He thinks it's cool to kill any one who gives up the faith. So, no I don't believe he was a Prophet.

There is no God named Allah and Muhammed is not a Prophet.

Incidentally, I don't believe Sidhartha actually found enlightenment under the Bodi tree. But I have a great deal of respect for the Buddha. I don't believe that Baha'u'llah was a Prophet. But I do have a great deal of respect for the content of his writings and the Baha'i faith.

Muhammed, I have no respect for. It's not so much that I reject him as a Prophet--there are a lot of people who I don't accept as a Prophet, but whom I respect--as it is that he was a sick S.O.B. who also had a lot of destructive things to say.

If you want to follow Muhammed that's your right. But it is also my right to criticize him. If you want me to refrain from criticizing him, then I'd first suggest that you take away my right to bear arms. Because, you will find that I will give up both of those rights over my cold, dead body.

If you want me to end my criticism, then you'll have to first convince me that Muhammed and the Quran are worth respect. Since I've read a lot of the hadiths, and the entire Quran, I know better.

If it makes you feel better, if your Quran actually doesn't have all the bad stuff in it, and you don't take as authoritative the stuff about Muhammed screwing a child and engaging in genocide, then I'm totaly hip to your Islam. But, then, your Islam is not traditional Islam. In that case, I'm not criticizing Islam as you know it, or the Quran as you know it, or Muhammed as you know him, but I am criticizing some other Islam, some other Quran, and some other Muhammed.

If such is the case, what is the problem?

My response is below. UPDATE: Here is Bluto's response. Here is Howie's response. My comments are inserted.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford, Howie and other members or creators of the My Pet Jawa website

I know that you have freedom of expression over the internet but on viewing your page regarding the Quran, I was extremely dismayed at the offensive material. All of you are intelligent people [you obviously don't know us very well], but yet you can place something so terrible on the internet. You must know that there are 1.2 billion Muslim's on earth [duh, no I didn't know that. Just kidding....but, how is that relevant?? Is that a) a threat b) it's wrong to offend people, but only when there are a lot of them?]. We have terrorism that occurs because of some(a small percentage of extreme so-called Muslim's) whose actions clearly contradict the Quran. [Since they quote the Quran while they commit acts of terrorism, how is it that they are contradicting it? Or, do you just want to pretend that the stuff in the Quran that is pretty genocidal, doesn't exist? Just because YOU don't interpret those versus that way, does not mean that others cannot. How do I know that YOUR version of Islam is correct, and not that of Qutb? Don't the hadiths show Muhammed using violence to expand the Ummah? I don't know who is right, but I do know that the Quran certainly can be interpretted violently]

By firstly, performing such acts on the Word of GOD, the Holy Quran, your website has offended all good Muslims [I don't care]. The people who are terrorists(so-called Muslims) do not care because they will say, "See I told you So". [so what?] "There are such low people on this earth who will stoop to anything to disrespect Islam." [I guess no one can criticize Islam? That you are the one religion in the world exempted from it?]

We Muslim's consider all 3 scripture's the Old Testament(Taurat), the New Testament(Gospel of Christ) and the Last Testament (Quran) to be the word of GOD [Liar. You know this is not the case. Islam rejects the Old and New Testament as 'corrupted', therefore a new Revelation was needed. Either you are not a Muslim, or you know nothing about the New and Old Testament. Or you are practicing Taqiya--lying.] Now by discrediting and disrespecting the Quran you must think that you will change Muslims to think to your points of view. [No, I don't. I just want to speak what I see as the truth--let the chips fall where they may] However, for good Muslim's who consider the Quran to be the Word of GOD and read the Holy Quran daily, work 8 hours or more daily, family men, students, good hearted citizens of countries, our feelings get extremely hurt. [Sorry that I hurt your feelings. Really. Just kidding.] We feel disgusted and frustrated at your lame [give me more credit than that!] attempt to totally discredit the Word of GOD without understanding the material in the Quran. [Gee, I guess YOU understand the Quran, while the rest of Muslims in the world that take the injunction against conversions from Islam as literally binding, are wrong]

Can we & will we Muslim's respond but doing the same as your website did to the Old and New Testaments. No. [Uh, since the Quran says that Jesus was not crucified--something which seems essential to the New Testament story--how does the Quran NOT do exactly that? The Quran calls believers in the Trinity 'infidels'. I don't believe in it, but I don't believe that those who do believe in it are the same as unbelievers. And the Hadiths--as interpretted in all sharia schools--prohibit Christians from fulfilling the 'Great Commission'. I may piss on the Koran, but I find that much less offensive than prohibiting Muslims from leaving Islam. Yeah, I may be childishly offensive--but your religion, as interpretted by your fellow believers--is fascist.] We would abhor suchg an act because we believe that the current versions of those 2 books hold parts of the word of GOD and the original scriptures did hold the entire word of GOD [Ah, so you admit that the Old and New Testament aren't really the word of God. Big of you]. It would be a sin for a Muslim to act that way [Except that transferring a Bible to a Muslim is forbidden. So, you won't burn the Bible, but you will ban it? Nice.]

The Holy Shrine in Samarra is a good example of Terrorism. [Indeed] Did Muslim's perform this terrorist act against themselves? [] Ask your self the question? [Wait for it] Can we call people who destroy the House of GOD, Muslims? [Wait for it ] No these people are so low that they call themselves Muslims but in the truth anyone who does what they did to any house of GOD cannot be called Muslims. [Ahhhhhh. Maybe it was the J-O-Os who really did it? ]

Finally, I would like to speak to your humanity, and I am sure everyone of you are humans or have an ounce of humanity within you [An ounce? Possibly]. Be human and let us all work together to eradicate terrorism. [Definitely, good show. Right proper of you] By defaming the word of GOD, against all Muslim, is totally unfair and inhuman. [Non-sequitor. Stupid. Silly. What I'm trying to do is apply the same rules to humanity, equally. When the Quran goes against these rules, then I feel the Quran is open to criticisms. ] Please remove the page about the Quran from your website and let us all work together to understand each others problems and resolve this matter in a fair way.

[No. Screw you and the high-horse you rode in on. Work together with me to eradicate terrorism or don't. But if you can't accept my help in fighting it without also accepting that I don't believe in your Prophet or Quran, then sorry. You are a child. Grow up.]

I pray to GOD that you listen to me
Hajji Mohsin

Posted by: Rusty at 11:09 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
Post contains 1446 words, total size 12 kb.