The Cult of Islam?

I think I have an open mind.     

    

I’ve travelled through Asia, Europe and North America.  I’ve met people from a variety of different cultures.  I ENJOY learning about the differences that separate us and the similarities that make us human.  And even though I was raised in a Presbyterian family, I feel that if you believe in a different God or Entity, then you have every right to do so.    

But lately, there has been something that has been bothering me.   Despite my boasts about having a worldly point of view, I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around a certain subject.  And that subject is Islam. 

I just don’t get it. 

Let me give you a current example.  If you read CNN.com or pay attention to Human Rights Watch, you may have heard the story about the Christian Pastor, Yousef Nadarkhani, who has been sentenced to hang for the crime of Apostasy.   If you’re not familiar with Apostasy, it is basically giving up Islam for another religion and in this case, it is Christianity.  If this is the type of punishment that Muslims give to each other for leaving their faith behind, then it pretty much guarantees that there won’t be a lot of defectors to a more benevolent religion.  And if Islam is using this type of psychological control to keep the herd in control, then how can this be described as a religion?  Sounds to me like more of a cult. 

I realize that these are inflammatory statements and I would GLADLY like to be proven ignorant by someone who knows a lot more about religions that what I do.  But don’t tell me that these punishments are handed down by extremists unless you are going to tell me that the whole nation of Iran is extreme.  And don’t tell me that nobody dies from Apostasy anymore because even the threat of it is ridiculous to me.  And if you tell me that Yousef knew what was going to happen and deserves his punishment, then we have nothing more to say to each other. 

Why isn’t the whole country of Iran up in arms about this sentence?  Why would they let this guy be condemned to death for his beliefs?  Geez, in the United States we debate about whether we should execute criminals who go on a human shooting spree in a mall and take out twenty lives.  I suppose it boils down to a degree of tolerance and it doesn’t seem like there is any with Islam. 

Islam has been getting a lot of bad press lately and maybe outsiders shouldn’t even try to understand it.  Maybe we should just accept that we can’t understand it and let it go.  Or maybe (here’s a suggestion), the leaders of Islam in this country should do a much better job about educating Westerners about their beliefs.  Right now, I bet if you ask a lot of Americans the difference between Muslims and terrorists, you’re going to get a lot of blank stares.  And whose fault is that?  The Muslim community, plain and simple.  The outcry over the Islamic Center near the previous site of the twin towers reinforces how little Americans know about this religion.  Americans fear what we don’t know and as a country, we sometimes know very little. 

I hope the international community doesn’t forget about Yousef Nadarkhani.  I realize that in every religion, there can be extremes of interpretation, but no one deserves to die for something as peaceful as a belief in a different God.  

And on that issue, I definitely have a closed mind.      

There are better ways to die

If you’re having one of those days where nothing is going right (flat tire, dog vomited on couch, relatives coming to visit), you should look on the bright side …  

At least one of your daily activities doesn’t include getting stoned to death by an angry mob which includes some of your family members. 

The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on a true story and is one of the most excruciating movie experiences I’ve had in recent memory.  Soraya was a woman who lived in a remote Iraninan village and had the very unfortunate situation of being married to a man who wanted to marry another woman.  When Soraya starts working at another man’s house because his wife recently passed away, Soraya’s husband accuses her of being unfaithful which conveniently (for him) carries the death penalty under Islamic Sharia law.  

I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that there is a stoning scene.  If you’re watching a movie called The Stoning of Soraya M., you should expect that at least a few stones are going to be tossed around.  What I didn’t expect is that the stoning scene would last as long as it did and it almost made me physically sick.   Like death in slow motion, the scene was so real and agonizing that you just wish someone would have pulled out a gun and blown her head off. 

And I mean that in the kindest possible way. 

With the type of subject matter that it is, this movie is clearly not for all tastes but if you can stomach the final twenty minutes, it will baffle you to think that this form of execution can still exist in the 21^st century.   And it isn’t just for convicted serial killers; people who commit adultery or homosexual acts can be brutally tortured and killed by this method if you are living in certain Islamic states.  Even the lawyers who try to DEFEND the accused are subject to death penalties.  If you visit the website http://stopstonningnow.com/wpress/, an Iranian lawyer has currently four death penalties against him for trying to save the life of a defendant Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani who faces death by stoning. 

What the hell?  These people are not human.  They are monsters.  Don’t they realize that spending time in an Iraninan jail is probably torture enough? 

After watching a movie like this, I like to read the reviews and while most of them were good, I was shocked to read a few that said that the movie was “Islamophobic” and “melodramatic”.  First of all, saying the movie was Islamophobic is like saying that a movie about the Holocaust is Hitlerphobic.  If there is something in your religion (even in the fine print) that says that it’s just fine and dandy to stone someone to death, then maybe you should consider switching to a more benevolent prophet.  And accusing the movie of being melodramatic is like accusing someone of crying at their mother’s funeral.  In fact, Soraya was a portrait of restraint; despite the immediacy and inevitability of her painful death, she barely shed a tear. 

In terms of the moviemaking, the acting was uniformly great and Shohreh Aghdashloo as the heroic aunt should have been nominated for an Academy Award.  The only misstep in my opinion was an attempt at some final conflict when a car wouldn’t start at the very end of the movie.  No doubt it is a shocking movie and very well made.  I strongly recommend its viewing.  

And here is the book on which the movie is based.