COMMENTARY / OPINION
‘Christians Here Really Need Help’: The Persecution of Christians by Raymond Ibrahim
July 16, 2023 at 5:00 am
- The genocide of Christians at the hands of Muslims continued to rage throughout the month. Muslim “Fulani jihadists” slaughtered 2,500 Christians and “burned down or wantonly destroyed” 18,200 churches in just the first six months of 2023. Fifty million Christians have further been “forced out of their ancestral homes and lands into displacement and homelessness.” — news.band, June 3, 2023 – Nigeria.
- “All I can say is that war has been declared on Christians in Mangu [Plateau State, Nigeria]. The terrorists are just attacking and killing Christians in most of the communities around Mangu… Christians here really need help.” — Markus Artu, a member of the Mangu Local Government Council, after 150 Christians were killed in the first three weeks of June; Morning Star News, June 27, 2023 – Nigeria.
- On June 7, the mutilated body of Shazia Imran Masih, a 40-year-old Christian widow, was found. Earlier, four Muslims had “abducted, gang-raped and killed” her “for refusing to convert to Islam and marry the primary suspect.” — Morning Star News, July 7, 2023 – Pakistan.
- “The accused are very influential, and they have been persistently threatening us….” — Zafar Masih, a member of a local evangelical church, Morning Star News, July 3, 2023 – Pakistan.
- “Indonesia’s Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 (SKB) makes requirements for obtaining permits nearly impossible for most new churches. Even when small, new churches are able to meet the requirement of obtaining 90 signatures of approval from congregation members and 60 from area households of different religions, they are often met with delays or lack of response from officials. Well-organized radical Muslims secretly mobilize outside people to intimidate and pressure members of minority faiths.” — Morning Star News, June 23, 2023 – Indonesia.
- “We…. are not building a church. So what’s the problem? When we pray, where is the problem?” — Elysson Lase, Christian woman, Morning Star News, June 23, 2023 – Indonesia.
- Egypt’s “contempt of religion” law — supposedly meant to protect the sanctity not just of Islam, but of Christianity and Judaism as well, is a farce…. [T]his law exists solely for the benefit of Islam….” — Report, wataninet.com, June 19, 2023 – Egypt.
- “Some of the more enlightened [Muslims] and Copts responded by asking why the alleged response by Abanoub Imad were to be considered as a reason to arrest him and put him under trial [even if he did indeed post them], when it was simply a reaction to insults against Christianity? Why are those who insulted Christianity in the first place not to be tried as well? And why are Christians always the only ones to be held accountable for contempt of religions, even though there are countless pages/sites that insult Christianity non-stop?” — Report, wataninet.com, June 19, 2023 – Egypt.
What Qualifies Islam as a Religion? By Amil Imani|
July 16th, 2023 – What qualifies Islam as a religion? What are the criteria for deciding if an ideology is a religion? An illiterate Arab, some 1500 years ago, claimed Allah commissioned him as his emissary. What’s the proof for his claim? The Quran, the book that took him 20 years to put together and bill as the word-for-word utterances of the creator of the universe, Allah? It just so happened that he came up with a tremendously attractive proposition to the forever fighting-plundering Arabs: join me, war with me, and your winning is guaranteed: you kill our adversary, you get to keep 80% of his possessions, including his women and children. You get killed, and your destination is Allah’s glorious sensual paradise, where you will reside forever.
The offer caught like wildfire and, over time, engulfed the world.
There is no proof that Muhammad was indeed chosen and commissioned by the author of the universe for this mission called Islam. So, Islam is a religion because it has a prophet? Why not Nazism? Oh, because Adolf Hitler did not claim so? What about Marx and, Engels, Mao? No, they did not claim to be emissaries of supernatural beings.
Most religions are indeed intended to attenuate human fears. They are based on natural worries, many of which are irrational…but natural nonetheless. For example, many pagan religious practices were focused on the seasonal cycles related to the harvest. Why? Because if the harvest was poor, their entire civilization could perish or be weakened to the point where a neighboring tribe would kill them.
While they misunderstood the scientific basis for whether they created natural (yet irrational) religious beliefs about whether and harvest, in this sense, religions were psychologically helpful and inevitable in addressing natural conditions. But some religions establish for themselves fears of things that do not exist…which the religion itself invented to create and perpetuate fear, and then artificially addressed it to establish a political regime.
The political nature of Islam transcends personal spiritualism and becomes a cult of oppression. This is fraud. This is evil. This is Islam.
