Dutch Filmmaker Theo Van Gogh Murdered

ABC News: Dutch Filmmaker Theo Van Gogh Murdered

I flagged this story last week and then had some trouble logging in to finish commenting on it. It caught my attention, not because it was the distant nephew of Vincent Van Gogh, but because it represents something fundamentally wrong with extreme religious zeal in general. The assassin was a Muslim extremist with links to various organizations which are under investigation from 9/11/2001 events. What was the Dutch film-maker's crime in the eyes of Islam? Well, he criticized Islamic treatment of women. That's all. Some of you may remember Salmon Rushdie's book the Satanic Verses from way back in 1988. There was a fatwa issued against his life by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran and fundamentalist Muslim clerics put a price on his head because all because he was not quite so reverent in his retelling of some Muslim legends.

This is a mindset largely unknown to westerners today. It is something that happens only in the most extreme religious cults of the west. Some may chalk it up to cultural maturity but it can certainly be placed in the realm of language or built in religious pit-falls as well. Two issues which most westerners are exempt from. I've discussed the difference between semitic languages and indo-european languages before. The fact that semitic languages are audibly based while indo-european ones are visually based; or that time is cyclic in indo-european thought where as semitic time is linear. But there is a built in fault in Islamic theology that assumes Islam is the pinnacle of religions AND of culture, government, art, language, etc. There is no secularization of anything in Islam. So thinking critically about art, culture, society, language, etc. is to be critical of Islam. Criticizing Islam is a serious crime. Christians are exempt from this pitfall, as are buddhists and hindoos. There is a secular society outside the mandates of "religion". When Islam was king in the world, circa 1000AD to 1300AD, there was no need to question the far reaching mandates of Islamic law. Islam was a success. Christians on the other hand, free of the burdens of an all encompassing religious edict, were able to innovate, adapt and evolve. Islam did not and so, in the 1300s the great muslim empires of the Ottomans and the Persians began to recede. Once Christian lands were in Christian hands again.

How does this play into the death of a Dutch Filmaker? Well, Islam cannot evolve. It is considered perfect as is. From God's mouth to Muhammad's pen. Everything that is not Islamic is evil. Therefore the Islamic world is forbidden from adopting anything that the infidels invent, unless it helps them kill or convert infidels. Islamic society is stuck in 1300AD. So when an infidel shows up telling them that their treatment of women is wrong, they point to sharia (Islamic law) and say that this is the way Allah mandates that women be treated... questioning this is questioning Allah and Islam and thus, evil... and dangerous. He has to be stopped.

So, one may think, there are certainly Christians out there with the same mindset. And I will agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately these Christians (or fundamentalists) have a hard time with their theology. Christian theology is made up of two currrents: a semetic current which is contained in the Old Testament of the Bible, and a Greek current which is contained in the New Testament of the Bible. Ideally, the New Testament (Jesus and his teachings) should supercede the semitic teachings in the Old Testament. Jesus's great achievement was to blend the two currents into one, giving Jewish philosophy the circumspection of indo-european philosophy. When you hear the brimstone and fire of Christian fundamentalists, they almost always pull from the Old Testament exclusively... ignoring the actual "Christian" portion of their belief system. The wrath of God, or Allah, is a strictly Semitic viewpoint. It precludes looking at a larger world. For people under the yoke of such belief systems there is only their religion and everything else. What isn't part of their religion is inherently evil and evil must be destroyed at all costs. So universal sufferage is not part of Islamic tradition and therefor belongs to the realm of "everything else." As such, it is evil and a good Muslim will seek to destroy it.

No doubt the Muslims have had a rough few centuries with the advancement of European culture and the subsequent backlash against centuries of oppressive Islamic rule in formerly Christian kingdoms. The initial mistake was the idea that Allah was punishing Muslims for their lack of adherence to sharia and lack of devotion to traditional Islamic ideas. So Islam slid further backwards and became more intolerant of non-Islamic concepts. And today, it is entirely reasonable to kill critics of Islam, burn books, and ignore facts, lie, cheat, and deceive in order to further the glory of Islam. The end justifies the means. Islam is backing itself into a corner... either it must transform or there will be a very nasty religious war... the jihad Islam believes it is fighting, may finally come home to them.