Because Islamists Are Cowards
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 8 months ago
Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this week, according to a human rights group following the case.
The five men were among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution watchdog group.
“Judging from recent cases, it is likely that, at the very least, those detained may face lengthy prison sentences,” said CSW spokesperson Kiri Kankhwende.
Christianity threatens national security. In fact, anything but Islam threatens national security, because Islam is a political religion meant and designed for people control.
The reason these Christians are under threat by the state is that the Islamists know that if they expose their own system (I use that term loosely) of faith to inspection and logic, it will fall. Christians have no such fear.
Islamists threaten people with violence when their thinking is under the slightest threat because they are scared. They are cowards. Would my reader ever threaten someone with bodily harm if they didn’t “convert,” or ever relinquish their own faith when under such threat?
On March 12, 2013 at 9:36 am, Publius said:
Islam is Arab tribal patriarchy made sacred. And such societies cannot tolerate apostasy because the tribe cannot permit any cracks in the wall protecting the group against the world.
Basic principle: Once in, you cannot leave.
Think of a street gang and how they’d tolerate a member who publically voiced any question about the gang’s purpose or goals.
Basic principle: Once in, you cannot leave.
Why is anyone surprised when Islam behaves this way? They’re simply being true to their roots.
On March 12, 2013 at 9:52 am, craig said:
As much as I agree that Islam is false, irrational, and depraved, I must disagree with you on this point. We are too accustomed to thinking of intellectual courage as trumping every other kind.
Christians expect a rational world because they believe in a rational God. That we do not see this fact is due to two millenia of steeping in it; it is the root of Western culture. Christian apologetics appeals to rationality and rewards intellectual courage of the sort you mention.
Moslems believe in an irrational God, and so accept an irrational world. A central tenet of Islam is the denial that God can have a Son. Moslems attack Christians because they (Moslems) are told that Christian teaching is blasphemy and an affront to be punished. In attacking, they certainly display the courage of carrying out their convictions.
It cannot be denied that we Christians have grown soft in recent decades due to fear, and have rewarded the instigators of violence against us. It bothers me to see Western writers applaud appeasement as a virtue, when it is simple physical cowardice masquerading as intellectual courage. Courage is not simply about passively tolerating the intolerable.
On March 12, 2013 at 10:02 am, Herschel Smith said:
Well, the post isn’t a comprehensive thesis on Christian apologetics, although I could write one with some help from Alvin Plantinga and Greg Bahnsen.
I’m not sure of the point you’re trying to make, except to say that if you mean that we in the West have lost our nerve and courage, and the stomach to do what is right, I certaintly concur with you there.
But I’m only speculating what you might be talking about.
On March 12, 2013 at 11:32 am, Erik said:
Ridiculous. It seems like with every passing day this blog grinds harder and harder into conspiracy theories that teenagers believe while going through puberty. This sounds like that weird kid in class who believed that Muslims had a unified plan to outbreed Europe and America as some social or domestic jihad.
I’m honestly surprised I’m not beginning to read posts on here about how reptilian overlords are infiltrating our government and how the Illuminati controls everything that goes on in the world. My god.
I’ve been visiting this blog for quite a while now. Specifically back when it was primarily about military related news. Back then I found myself in near total agreement with your views (and in some cases I still do agree with the more rational thoughts) but now it seems like I’m constantly walking into a circus.
It’s not my intention to insult or anger anyone but as a rational and well-intentioned human being I feel it necessary to speak my opinion.
On March 12, 2013 at 12:33 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Erik,
So what is it that you know that we don’t? Is the report about Iran preparing to imprison Christians for their faith incorrect? If so, then post the URL or give original source.
Otherwise, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and neither do you.
As to it being “necessary” to speak your opinion, I am assuming that someone is forcing you to perform the act of typing on your keyboard. Otherwise, the correct idea would be that you voluntarily chose to give us your opinion. I don’t want you to feel bad about this error, I just voluntarily chose to point this out.
On March 12, 2013 at 5:29 pm, craig said:
On March 12, 2013 at 10:02 am, Herschel Smith said: “I’m not sure of the point you’re trying to make…”
I didn’t think the point was buried, but OK.
The point is, our by-now ritual condemnations of terrorist violence as ‘cowardly’ only serve to debase our understanding of the virtue of courage and its associated vice, cowardice. No matter how abhorrent their deeds and their religion, the terrorists at least have the moxie to put themselves at risk of personal physical harm. They treat the clash of civilizations as total war, and openly declare it so. We persist in treating it as a sporting league competition, and complain that the other side is ‘cowardly’ when they refuse to play by the rules of sport.
Are we claiming the virtue of courage rightly, or are we putting a principled face on avoiding conflict? Many Vietnam War protesters were insistent at the time of being ‘conscientious objectors’, but disappeared from the protests once the draft ended. Saving one’s own skin may be an understandable motive, but it’s not a noble one.
On March 12, 2013 at 5:35 pm, Herschel Smith said:
craig,
I don’t disagree with your point, but it’s a different one than I made in my article. My point goes to an epistemological issue and the courage the Mullahs and other Islamists have (or don’t have) to open their system up for inspection by logic. They won’t because they will lose if they do that. As for our own courage to understand the war that Islamists have declared on everyone else, I got it, at least now I do, but that’s not what I initially made the subject of the post.
Not that it is an unwelcome point (I agree with it), just that it isn’t what I started out discussing.