I've been saying (or at least thinking) for years that we really need to stop worrying about being the good guys and just do what's right. Nobody we ever think of as a hero became one by trying to be heroic. Unfortunately, we as a culture have spent the last fifty years finding new and better ways to sell soap, so too easily we forget that salesmanship is a rather meaningless skill when push really comes to shove.
Of course it's really easy for me to say things like this. What will I actually do?
Simmons seems to have left a couple of lines out of his story. Let me add them:
“According to their own writings, which we all know well in my day,” continued the Time Traveler, “ ‘Hadith Malik 511:1588 The last statement that Muhammad made was: "O Lord, perish the Jews and Christians. They made churches of the graves of their prophets. There shall be no two faiths in Arabia.’" I started to speak, but there was more. The Time Traveller continued, taking a copy of the Torah from his pocket. "'I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.'" He read. "These two quotes from two books, coupled with bullheaded people who believed words more important than peace with their neighbours, created the Century War."
A little extra stupidity on the part of the Bible cannot justify the "Murder and Oppression for the Glory of God" mindset that is inherent to Islam. If this were just about Israel and Palestine, you'd have a point, but we're dealing with the wider issue of Islamic 'Manifest Destiny' - which must be stopped. If Islam must be destroyed to stop it, as Naziism had to be, so be it.
I'm someone who likes to make things, whether it's a shoe rack, a garden bed, a novel, or a business proposal. I am a husband, father, son, brother, friend, employee, entrepreneur, reader, writer, cook, art student, musician, HOA president, church chorister, game master, comic, cynic, softy, displaced country gentleman, Mormon, vegan, moderate conservative, heart patient, photographer, renaissance man, history-buff, pet-owner, gardener, chess-player, baritone…
Yeah, I can’t pin me down, either.
4 comments:
I've been saying (or at least thinking) for years that we really need to stop worrying about being the good guys and just do what's right. Nobody we ever think of as a hero became one by trying to be heroic. Unfortunately, we as a culture have spent the last fifty years finding new and better ways to sell soap, so too easily we forget that salesmanship is a rather meaningless skill when push really comes to shove.
Of course it's really easy for me to say things like this. What will I actually do?
Simmons seems to have left a couple of lines out of his story. Let me add them:
“According to their own writings, which we all know well in my day,” continued the Time Traveler, “ ‘Hadith Malik 511:1588 The last statement that Muhammad made was: "O Lord, perish the Jews and Christians. They made churches of the graves of their prophets. There shall be no two faiths in Arabia.’"
I started to speak, but there was more. The Time Traveller continued, taking a copy of the Torah from his pocket. "'I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.'" He read. "These two quotes from two books, coupled with bullheaded people who believed words more important than peace with their neighbours, created the Century War."
A little extra stupidity on the part of the Bible cannot justify the "Murder and Oppression for the Glory of God" mindset that is inherent to Islam. If this were just about Israel and Palestine, you'd have a point, but we're dealing with the wider issue of Islamic 'Manifest Destiny' - which must be stopped. If Islam must be destroyed to stop it, as Naziism had to be, so be it.
Torah, not Bible, but same difference. Certainly a poor excuse to take it out on the rest of us.
At any rate and out of curiosity, how would you know what Simmons did or did not intend to be in his story, Anonymous?
Post a Comment