We’ve been hearing a great deal about the need for an Islamic ‘reform’ – i.e. that Islam knocks it off with bigotry towards infidels, war and murder, rape, and all the rest of it. The trouble is that these ideas are so central to Islamic theology, that that reform doesn’t look likely.
Now here’s my question from the point of view of us atheists, what difference does it make whether Islam reforms or disappears? More broadly, what difference does it make from the point of view of us infidels? In fact, wouldn’t mass apostasy be a better thing than ‘reform’?
Now you might say that this is a pipe-dream, that Islam’s faith is too strong and fanaticism is too strong. I would challenge you to rethink that. Islamic apostasy is one of the great untold stories of our time, and Muslims themselves are noticing. Yusuf al-Qaradawi has admitted that if Islam did not murder apostates, the entire religion would not exist. Here’s his ruling.
How many have left Islam in recent years? Hundreds? Thousands? Try millions. In Africa alone, six million leave Islam a year, according to Shaykh Ahmed Katani.
Hatred and violence do not make for a good system. They feel good at first, but they end up driving people away. In Iraq many people have left Islam, and these include people who once supported 9/11.
“I used to love Osama bin Laden,” proclaimed a 24-year-old Iraqi college student. She was referring to how she felt before the war took hold in her native Baghdad. The Sept. 11, 2001, strike at American supremacy was satisfying, and the deaths abstract.
Now, the student recites the familiar complaints: Her college has segregated the security checks; guards told her to stop wearing a revealing skirt; she covers her head for safety.
“Now I hate Islam,” she said, sitting in her family’s unadorned living room in central Baghdad.
Yes, it’s rather different when the lash is on your own skin, right?
ISIS may be responsible for more atheism than Richard Dawkins, at least in the Islamic world.
In late June, a self-proclaimed Arab atheist female from Mecca tweeted (in Arabic): “ISIS (Islamic State): Peace be upon them, they did in one year what atheists couldn’t in a million years.”
Isn’t that interesting?
Now imagine what it would be like if these voices were better heard, if they were all over the media, if people were speaking rationally about Islam, and just telling the truth – all over our world encompassing media?
How long would Islam remain in existence?
Islam projects a terrible strength, but it is a hollow strength. The frenzy that we see every day is driven by a knowledge that its time is up. The only question is: will it take us down with it?
