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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Tuesday, August 6, 2002
02:39 - A Religion of Peace
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/02/0802/080102.html#080702

(top) link

Children are savage little things. The jungle is in them, and the wilderness. Occasionally, one will come along in whom the jungle boils and screams, and with that one comes chaos. And with children, chaos is a thing of stones and blood.
Preacher, of course-- Allfather D'Aronique sadistically recalling to Starr the events of his own tormented childhood.

It's all I could think about while reading today's Bleat.

I saw the link to the message-board that Lileks is talking about, referred to in his usual emotionless and bewilderingly matter-of-fact way by Tal G. But I had an idea of what I might find there, and since I had no wish to spend the remainder of my workday fuming and seething, I didn't go and read it. It seems I made a good call, if only for the sake of my sanity. Lileks has taken the bullet of reading this stuff so we don't have to-- but we'd all better read it just the same, so we know what kind of primal savagery we're dealing with.

The thread is full of charming stuff; they talk about the joys of knifing Jews, and discuss the merits of a particular decapitate-the-infidel tape - who knew it was such a genre? It almost seems as if these guys trade decapitation tapes like l33t hackers swap warez...

There’s more. It’s lovely. Sample message topics: “Do Jews Drink Human Blood?” “Holocoust Never Happened!”

I’d have no interest in this website whatsoever were it not for three things:

1. When there’s a subculture out there ranking the best jihadi decapitation video, you’d best pay attention.

2. When a message board devoted to guidance for Islamic youth doesn’t delete the posts about stabbing Jews, you’d best pay attention.

3. This thread. As far as I can tell, the debate seems to be whether it’s a brother’s job to kill his sexually active sister, or the religious authority’s job.

It's a Bleat, so that means go read the whole thing.

What I find so sick and disheartening about all this is Islam is being treated by these kids as a carte blanche license for them to express-- not just without guilt, but with righteousness-- the kinds of savage and barbaric feelings of bloodlust that the rest of the world learned to rise above and leave behind many hundreds of years ago. These days, kids who want to work out their chainsaw-wielding aggressions go out and buy whatever hyper-violent video game has just hit the market, and they learn to separate such impulses from reality and the rules we live by in a healthy and self-determined way. But when there's an excuse like Islam for kids to latch onto-- one where the Law of Life flat-out encourages them to think in terms of hating infidels and killing Jews-- they're going to throw themselves into it headlong and lick up every drop of vitriol that it offers. And those are the foundational values that will inform these kids throughout the rest of their adult lives.

It's really small wonder where people like John Lindh come from-- the picture that militant Islam paints for bellicose, testosterone-pumped teenage boys is irresistible. It's like painting a naked woman on a big piece of butcher paper and then setting it up at the edge of a cliff; they're going to walk right through, drooling all the way. The evidence is right in front of us-- on this message board, and on the Ar-Rahman list I still seem to be on (where the latest discourse is from Muslim Americans pleading the others on the list to understand that the "vast majority" of Americans hate Bush and his policies, support the Palestinian cause and despise Israel, and will come to see the light of Islam if only the world gives us a chance).

As much as it might pain the students at clearguidance.com, American churches don’t give two figs for the subject of Islam one way or the other. It’s just not on their radar. There are no pained debates in church basements about how to act towards Muslim friends, or what to do when your friend’s sister comes over with a headscarf. As much as some would like to portray mainstream American religious belief as a Dangerous Ravening Force bent on establishing an Ashcroftian theocracy, most churches look inward. A dear friend of mine is part of a church-group mission to help the Truly Farked - she’s mentoring a down-and-out drug addict, helping her get on her feet. Is that addict a Christian? No idea. Doesn’t come up. Does my friend praise Jeeeeeesus every time she drops off meals or blankets for the addict? Irrelevant. The act is what matters. It’s the gift, not the wrapping.

Yes, yes, of course, I understand-- it's two entirely different ways of thinking. In the one world, religion is something you do as part of your normal day-to-day life; whereas in the other, day-to-day life is something you do as subordinate to religion, which defines all of existence. As part of a tradition in which I'm raised to consider the former to be far more natural, I can't properly understand the context or the motivation behind the latter.

But Tal G. never once has mused upon knifing a Palestinian baby. And he freely linked to the message board full of Muslim youths discussing doing exactly that to Jewish babies, and with hardly a comment by way of preamble or reaction.

I don't know what could possibly speak more succinctly than exactly that.

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© Brian Tiemann