Caravaggio's Gentleness

The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio, 1602

I wrote on Sunday about the painting the The Thinking Housewife posted in an entry titled "Fathers and Angels," showing Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac to God. Caravaggio has not been a favorite of mine. But recently, I realize how delicately he paints expressions. In fact, of all the possible paintings, his was the one I chose to depict the terrible moment when Jesus is betrayed by one of his own disciples. The humility on Jesus's face as he is grabbed by Judas is so moving.

Caravaggio's style is still too harsh for me, and with too much contrast. But, I think his method is a way that allows him to focus on faces and expressions. The open and innocent expression of the young angel while he is giving the faithful Abraham a ram to sacrifice instead of his beloved son, shows Abraham that this is indeed a messenger from God. Again, the focused light on the young angel's face shows us that this is a psychological interaction, between God and man, and not one of will or power. Yes, our God is powerful, but how differently he shows us His ways compared to the relentlessly harsh and remorseless methods that the Allah of the Muslims prefers.

Fathers, Sons and Angels

The Thinking Housewife has several posts on Fathers, and of course, Father's Day. She has posted the beautiful, chiaroscuro, painting by Caravaggio of a father's sacrifice of his son to God (at the demand of God). Abraham was rewarded by having his son Isaac back. In the spirit of all children, and to all fathers, those with us and those no longer, I join her in wishing them all a Happy Father's Day. There are also many father figures, those attentive men who make sure a patriarchy persists in our chaotic world. They are perhaps the most neglected, and deserve our thanks and praise.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the View from the Right

Lawrence Auster at The View From the Right has linked to my recent post "All about Ayaan" on the ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I have never liked Ali. I found her to be contemptuous of Christianity. I personally believe that the antidote to Islam is not atheism, but Christianity. Christianity is the route that the former Muslim Sam Solomon has taken. Ali has gone the godless way. Even the normally "lite" Mark Steyn agrees with me, according to the quote that Lawrence Auster provides.

Hirsi Ali on View From the Right

Jesus and Islam

Frontpage Magazine has an interesting article comparing the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus the Muslims discuss in the Koran, titled: Jesus of Nazareth vs. Jesus of Neverland.

The article has a lot of interesting information. One is the flat out contradictions between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus of the Koran. The writer (William Kilkpatrick) asks pertinent questions to determine the authenticity of the sources (the Bible vs. the Koran). He discusses how the Islamic version of Jesus falls apart when put under the same scrutiny as that of Jesus of the Bible.

I think one of the most rigorous arguments for the existence of the Jesus of the Bible is all the narrations that depict his presence, his words and his actions. The Jesus of the Koran, on the other hand, has no personality or even a presence. He appears like a disembodied spirit. Here is what the author writes about him:

The Jesus of the Koran appears mainly in the role of a counter to the Jesus of the Gospels, but “appears” is really too strong a word. This Jesus doesn’t attend weddings, or go fishing with his disciples, or gather children around him. He has practically no human interactions, and what he has to say is formulaic and repetitive. He is more like a disembodied voice than a person. And, to put it bluntly, he lacks personality.

 The author claims that this Jesus in the Koran "appears mainly in the role of a counter to the Jesus of the Gospels." It is an interesting argument. Do read the whole thing to get more insights into one of the most fake religions of the world. The more I learn about Islam, the more I realize that it was created on the backs of Christianity. The Anti-Christ if ever there was one.

We certainly have our enemies chiseled just right for us.

Burqua Prejudice

Frontpage Magazine has published an article of mine: Burqua Prejudice. You can read it here, with interesting comments by readers following the article.

I must say, I like the ambiguous photo that FPM has put up of the Fabulous Four. If I were a Muslim (and even not), I wouldn't want the women in my culture to dress and look the way they do. We don't have to be Muslim to be modest.

Burqa Prejudice

Frontpage Magazine has published an article of mine: "Burqa Prejudice." You can read the whole thing here, with comments by readers following the article.

The Future King of England and Islam

I wrote a couple of days ago about the deep spiritual manoeuvrings that are going on to Islamicize Palestine. This is of course happening in Europe (Eurabia) and the United States and Canada too. I don't think it is simply a structural strategy - putting mosques up, demanding sharia, including sharia financing in banks, building Islamic religious schools, etc. etc. I think it a psychic and spiritual take-over as well. The end result is of course a world populated with Muslims. But, it would be much easier, and much more efficient, if this occurred through conversions.

As I've said on this blog, I think all this Muslim infusion is not simply a take-over, and later a subjugation, of the host population. But an attempt to get deep into the skins of these non-Muslims, so that they will suddenly spontaneously combust into Muslims.

Here is the "Christian" future King of England, and Head of the Church of England, tying together environmentalism with Islam. Granted he is speaking in the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, so one could argue that he might be allowed to say a couple of nice things about Islam. But, this isn't the first time one has cause to question his relationship with Islam; even Daniel Pipes has speculated on it.

A normal, patriotic future King of England would find it hard to praise a foreign religion in any way (perhaps a respectful nod in a diplomatic fashion could be expected). But a full on:

The inconvenient truth is that we share this planet with the rest of creation for a very good reason - and that is, we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us...

Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with creation.

is surely indicative of a mind that is  amenable to the messages of the Koran?

This quote could be out of context since it is one of a few available at the source the Daily Mail. Perhaps he said more positive things about Christianity in the same speech. But still, the fact that the Mail only quoted this part of the speech reveals where their thoughts are. And I still argue that the comment is far too Islam-positive for a future King of England, who presumes to head her Church as well.

The most important quote, which I presume also comes directly from the Prince's speech, is what heads the article:

"Follow the Islamic say to save the world," Prince Charles urges environmentalists

Ground Zero Mosque Protest

Stop Islamization of America poster 
for the planned rally against the 
Ground Zero mosque,
with event schedule

[Click on image to see a larger poster]

Kudos to Pamela Geller, of  Atlas Shrugs and Stop Islamization of America, who has organized a rally today to stop the "Ground Zero" mosque that is planned. Even the pathetic CBC is reporting on it, and mentioned her organization SIOA by name. Their argument is that this mosque is being built by moderate Muslims, who need a place where they can practice their religion of peace in peace, since they are nothing like their radical counterparts who blew up the Twin Towers. Therefore, these CBC geniuses conclude, these conservative (read evil, here) movements need to be stopped.

The Spiritual Source of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Allah vs. God

Bat Ye'or and Sam Solomon, two prominent scholars and chroniclers of Islam, were the speakers at yesterday's event organized by the International Free Press Society- Canada, and the Free Thinking Film Society. When I went to the venue, which was at a synagogue in the northern limits of Toronto, my only concern was that I wouldn't be able to get there on time due to the heavy traffic exacerbated by road construction. I made it in ample time. But the synagogue became more significant than just a venue. Bat Ye'or started her presentation by saying that this is the first time she has given a speech in a synagogue. Sam Solomon's speech was titled, "Islam and its eternal enmity towards the Jews." So, a synagogue was infinitely appropriate for this very important conference, where both Bat Ye'or and Solomon repeatedly reminded the predominantly Jewish audience that Muslim enmity towards them is very real, and growing daily.

Sam Solomon spoke first. I dutifully took my notebook and pen at hand, to jot down his words. But, after his first sentence, it was clear that we were in front of a formidable orator, and it was better just to listen. Solomon, a former Muslim, is now a Christian. He was a Muslim scholar and sharia law expert. His introduction to the majority Jewish audience was to plead forgiveness for having condemned and maligned them in his former days while a devout Muslim. Then he plunged  right into Muslim hatred of Jews and Israel, which he says is inaccurately attributed to the creation of modern-day Israel. He explains that this deep-seated hatred goes to the origins of Islam, when the Jews rejected Muhammad's newly-created religion, and he condemned them for it. Solomon has a new book out, which bears the same title as his presentation: Al-Yahud: Eternal Islamic Enmity and the Jews.

The extraordinary effect of a former Muslim, who cites chapter and verse of the Koran in Arabic in order to gets his message across, is mesmerizing. Solomon has an incredible oratory voice despite his slight build; a voice which could have easily traveled across the large room without a microphone. His citations in Arabic conjure up images of a Muhammad throwing out these phrases in fits of fury (or Allah's fury, to acknowledge Muhammad's source). The harsh guttural sounds of Arabic almost need no translation into English; we know that these words are not said in love or compassion, but in hatred and destruction. Jew hatred, in Islam, is not an incidental affair resulting from border skirmishes. It is deep-seated in the psyche of Muslims who read (or listen to) Muhammad's words, words which are set in stone in the Koran. Muslims are mandated to hate Jews (and Christians).

This spiritual connection between Muslims' hatred of Jews and Christians is further elaborated by Bat Ye'or. Despite her quieter demeanor, this small lady is no less extraordinary, if nothing for her meticulous description of Islam's infiltration into European society, and now the world at large. She too has a new book coming out which is titled, Toward the Universal Caliphate: How Europe Became an Accomplice of Muslim Expansionism. She explains that her new book will delineate the global network that bodies like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are building in order to finally construct their worldwide Ummah.

One of the most significant insights I got from her presentation was her explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in spiritual terms. Informed people understand that the conflict has been manufactured by Muslims and Muslim apologists in order to find a basis for the destruction of Israel. But, Bat Ye'or says that the efforts behind the Palestinian concept is to separate Christianity from its Judaic roots to facilitate the Islamizaton of Christianity, and to render the whole region Islamic. Israel and the Jews can then be destroyed through a united Muslim front, as the Jews' natural allies, the Christians, become Islamicized. The end goal is to replace Israel with Palestine, rendering the whole region Islamic, and where Jerusalem takes its seat as the center of Islam.

For Christians, Israel and Jerusalem culminate with Christianity (through God's final design of bringing all His people under His wing through His Son Jesus Christ). Muslims have their alternate "Jesus," whom they call Isa, and to whom attribute prophetic rather than Messianic characteristics. This alternate Jesus is inscribed into the Muslim and Palestinian "narrative." Israel has occupied a land that rightfully belongs to Muslims, who have both spiritual and historical claims to this land. Thus, those "disputed" territories are neither Jewish, nor a Holy Land for Christians, but belong to Muslims and Isa. This Isa came to Jerusalem not to promote the Judeo-Christian God, but the Islamic Allah. Palestine is where Muslims fight their ultimate spiritual battle against Christians and Jews, the land which their Isa has proclaimed for them and their people.

Not many people describe the Palestinian and Jewish/Christian conflict in these spiritual terms. Even devout Muslims explain it in terms of territorial claims. But, Bat Ye'or, by peeling away at the layers has, I think, come up with a strong spiritual argument for why the Palestinian question consumes the whole world at such a visceral level. It is a matter of Isa vs. Jesus, Allah against God. Truth battling falsehood.

All About Ayaan

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the most famous Muslim-turned-atheist, is doing the rounds to promote her new book Nomad. Initially, she had planned to write a philosophical discourse which she had decided to title Shortcuts to Enlightenment. But she abandoned this project to continue with her roster of memoirs and autobiographies, and wrote the memoir Nomad instead. I've written before that this approach is probably more financially lucrative, and anything she says will be attributed to her opinions or her "personal story" and therefore cannot be refuted by scholars or historians. Welcome, therefore, to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali franchise, replete with adultery, and family and political betrayals - she did abandoned Holland in the midst of the country's grips with the murder of its citizen Theo Van Gogh. What happens to an ex-Muslim atheist who's out of the limelight? Well, she gets forgotten and ignored. And since Ali has never been one to stay out of the limelight, she seems always to have a dramatic comeback.

What is interesting about this new book, whose pages are filled with steamy family portraits and provocative chapters like "School and Sexuality," is its subtitle: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations. As usual with Ali, everything is about her. Wafa Sultan, another former Muslim, and much less egotistical, is the one who alluded to the phrase "clash of civilizations." But Sultan, in her wisdom and understanding, claims that there is no clash of civilization, but a clash between the backward Islam and the civilized Christian West. Here is her elaborate explanation: 

The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations...It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality.

Ali, in her supreme self-centeredness, cannot see through this description. After all, in her eyes, the clash is not between these two opposites, as Sultan explains, but between her (Ali) and the rest of the world. In fact, she has now decided that she, in her lofty conclusions, will clash with the very element that has made the West a formidable foe to Islam; she will fight Christianity.

That was what came across in her interview (or promotional stop) at the Colbert Report. Here is the video of the interaction. At one point, Colbert, the liberal, refuses to accept Ali demonizing Islam. But, perhaps he is less of a liberal than he makes out (TV shows are notoriously left-leaning, and he has to "play the game" to keep the ratings up). What Colbert does, unprecedented in other shows and interviews I've watched, is to invite Ali to Christianity, after having made her admit that she's an atheist. Partly, I think it is his way of telling her to put her money where her mouth is, since she is telling Christians to proselytize to Muslims, and get them to convert to the "better religion" Christianity.

At this point, Ali goes all out in mocking Christianity, which she has no intention whatsoever of joining. She makes fun of the Eucharist, brushes aside the notion of hell in Christian theology, and denounces Jesus Christ, saying she prefers the Enlightenment philosophers to him. Colbert did keep pushing her (in the guise of talk-show humor) until she reached this vocal and hostile condemnation.

Another revealing moment in the show was when Colbert asked her if she is now a Westerner. Her answer was, "I'm becoming one." After close to two decades in the West, including holding important political positions in a Western democracy (the Netherlands), what is there to work out? A forthright, "Yes I am a Westerner" would have been a welcome answer.

What makes Ali undermine Christianity so confidently ? Well, on the front cover of her new book, there is an endorsement by none other than the high priest of atheism, Richard Dawkins himself, who wrote, "This woman is a major hero of our times." And riding on the boldness that other atheists like Christopher Hitchens display, Ali has no qualms about publicly disclosing her religious (non) affiliations.

I wonder how Ali will be received in America? I get the feeling she will just circulate around the neo-cons and right liberal elites, writing her articles and possibly throwing out a book or two for the liberal vultures who love seedy stories about Third World "victims." I suspect she will get quite wealthy in the process. America, though, is not the "progressive" Europe. Religion in America hasn't been abandoned, and Christianity still informs the lives of the majority of Americans.

Ali also has her AHA foundation to promote and upkeep. Perhaps that's why she was hesitant to proclaim her uncontested Western affiliation; her foundation's primary concern is the defense of Muslim women abused by the Islamic culture and religion.

Finally, this is neither here nor there (perhaps - although I do hold a strong attachment to physical appearances), but Ali looks like she's lost quite a bit of weight. Her sordid personal life; living in a country that is not as liberal or religious-free as Europe; and resorting to the lowest denominator to promote her thoughts (writing a memoir rather than the philosophical discourse she had originally planned), must be taking their toll.