When religion is more trouble than good

Yes, the only reason you believe is because you have been brainwashed. And then you whack me when I question your beliefs. And when I ask you to prove that God exists you ask me to instead prove that God does not exist. It is you who insists that God exists so the person making that claim must do the proving, not the other way around.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

My article ‘The Perlis Mufti Should Talk About More Important Things’ (READ HERE) has attracted many very angry responses from Muslims — most which were not published because they just repeated the same thing that so many others have already said. Muslims, just like Christians and all those who believe in God and religions, hate it when their beliefs are questioned.

But why get angry when someone questions your beliefs? Why not just reply with valid and credible  arguments? Debate that person who questions your beliefs. Prove that person wrong. Why whack that person and accuse him or her of all sorts of things and call him or her all sorts of names? Instead of calling me a pig, dog, atheist, kafir, murtad, jahil, sesat, etc., just counter my arguments with better arguments of your own.

The long and short of it is Malaysians do not have debating skills, they do not really know the subject matter in enough depth, they hate reading and do not read enough, they stopped learning the day they left school, what they know is based on hearsay and rumours, they hate being told they are wrong, and disagreements or differing views are considered an act of hostility and not an academic exercise.

The Crusades killed more Christians and Jews than it did Muslims

If everyone believed in God but did not have any religion the world will be a far better and more peaceful place. It is because of religions we hate and kill one another. People have been killed in the name of God and religion long before recorded history. In fact, the Old Testament is a very violent book and is full of stories about killing infidels and disbelievers in the name of God. If you think Islam and Hudud are violent then read the books of the Old Testament and see what God really wants you to do…kill, kill and kill.

Realising this, Christians (or Christian apologists) try to convince us that Jesus came to change all this and that Christianity is a religion of peace and love, not of war and killings. But that is not true and Christians are living in denial.

In fact, Christianity itself is not an invention of Jesus. Jesus was a Jew and a reformist. His mission was to reform Judaism and restore the original teachings of Judaism where religious institutions and priesthoods do not exist. Jesus was opposed to the system and that was why the system wanted to get rid of him. He was a threat to the religious hierarchy that had taken over the religion and shaped it into the form where it could dominate and control the people.

In short, Judaism had become an oppressive and repressive system and the people in that system were slaves of the system. Judaism had become a form of slavery and Jesus wanted to free the Jews from the clutches of religion, meaning also from the clutches of the system or religious hierarchy.

More than ten million died in the ’30 Years War’ between Christian and Christian

More importantly, Jesus was not interested in spreading any religion. He just wanted to save the Jews from their own ignorance and deviation from the true teachings of Judaism. It was Saul who wanted to spread Christianity to the gentiles (non-Jews). And that was why Saul clashed with Peter and James who felt that Saul was deviating from what Jesus had intended (especially when Saul wanted to allow gentiles to become Christians without having to circumcise and still being allowed to eat pork).

The fact that Saul was a Roman citizen spared him or else they would have killed him. Even then Saul, who took up the ‘Christian’ name of Paul, had to run away to the safety of Rome or else he would have been killed. Later Paul was killed anyway, together with Peter who had also gone to Rome. Being a Roman citizen Paul was beheaded while Peter was crucified, a more painful way to die.

My opinion, after a long study of the history of Christianity these last seven years, is that it was Paul and not Jesus who founded Christianity and that Peter and James were against it. But it was not until more than 300 years later that Christianity was institutionalised and became the official religion during the time of the Emperor Constantine who was a pagan and never became a Christian himself (although some say he converted to Christianity on his death bed).

‘True’ Muslims do not believe that Islam is a religion of peace because Islam was propagated at the point of the sword

For two thousand years Christians have been killing one another to claim the right to the title of the true teachings of Christ. But then the true teachings of Christ is Judaism and not Christianity. And that is also the same for Islam. Everyone claims they are following the true teachings of Prophet Muhammad. If so what are the true teachings of Muhammad?

Was Muhammad a Sunni or a Shia? Was he a Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i or Hanbali? Was he a Salafi or Wahhabi, the religion of his place of birth? Was Muhammad a secularist or a theologist? Did Muhammad set up a theocracy or a democracy?

Yes, Muslims claim they are loyal and obedient followers of Muhammad but they do not follow what Muhammad did. The day Muhammad died the Muslims started fighting amongst themselves. They quarrelled for three days about who should be the successor or Caliph before burying the Prophet’s body. And from that day Islam followed the path of Christianity by deviating from the true teachings of their prophet and by breaking up into many groups and by killing each other to claim they are the true followers..

So, tell me again, why are you a Christian or Muslim? Is it because you are following the true path? What then is the true path? And where did your ‘holy books’ such as the Gospels and Hadith come from? From God? How do you know? Can you prove that God wrote those books? Or are the Gospels and Hadith actually ‘Books of Hearsay’?

Then we fight and kill one another over whether the Gospels or the Hadith are the true word of God.

The only reason you are a Muslim is because you were born into a Muslim family and was brainwashed into believing in Islam

So, tell me again, why are you a Christian or Muslim? Is it because you are following the true path? How do you know it is the true path? Is it because you have been brainwashed since childhood into believing that your religion is the true religion? If you had not been born into a Christian or Muslim family but instead were born into a Hindu family would you be a Christian/Muslim or a Hindu? Have any children of Hindu parents gown up as Christians or Muslims, say since the age of five?

Yes, the only reason you believe is because you have been brainwashed. And then you whack me when I question your beliefs. And when I ask you to prove that God exists you ask me to instead prove that God does not exist. It is you who insists that God exists so the person making that claim must do the proving, not the other way around.

Some of you ask me to read the Bible or the Qur’an to find the truth. That is the most stupid argument I have ever heard. Have they not heard the saying that the fruit of a poisonous tree is poisonous? If Christianity or Islam is fake how can reading the ‘holy books’ of a fake religion prove that the religion is true? You first need to prove that your religion is true before your holy books can be considered true as well. If not it is a lie covering a lie. Get it?

Now over to you. Prove me wrong. And I mean PROVE.