For the past several months I have sequestered myself from most social media. For some reason I’ve found myself boarding the train of thought that vast amounts of social media is mostly mindless and mostly pointless… unless you are trying to create a business or be the next Beatles. However, in light of the events in Paris yesterday I do have some thoughts that I’d like to share. And, as with all things of opinion and commentary, these words are to be taken with a grain of salt… or maybe some whiskey.
“They’re not REAL Muslims. WTF?!”
by Senator Brett
Last night I found myself almost angry. The senseless and brutal murders of cartoonists and satirists in Paris not only bothered me, but it left me with a feeling of “it’s only gonna get worse.” How is it that we live in a world where people who draw cartoons are getting killed for their work? How is it that we live in a world where voicing one’s opinion is a dangerous thing? That’s cave man stuff. Have we really regressed that much as human beings?
And, while those thoughts were running through my head it dawned on me that what I was really angry at is religious fanatics. In this case, Muslims. And what made me angrier still was the lack of outcry from Muslim leaders around the world. Shouldn’t they be on T.V. condemning these men? Shouldn’t there be press conferences, and press releases, and all other matter of the such from high ranking Muslim leaders saying how wrong these men are and were? Where is it? Seriously, goddamn it, where is it?!
So, before I let my anger take over my words I decided to look it up online, using none of the American news outlets as sources. Do you know what I found? Muslim leaders have been condemning I.S.I.S. and all radical Muslim terrorist attacks for a long time now. However, It’s just not reported here. It doesn’t make for good television. It doesn’t sell guns and bullets. It doesn’t sell KFC and denture cleaning equipment… because as soon as a Muslim leader gets on American television to say something other than “I’m converting to Christianity” our attention span flies out the window faster than Usain Bolt on “angel dust” running downhill with the wind behind him. And, if we’re not paying attention to the television set we might miss the commercial break.
But, and here’s the real kick in the pants… in the rare instances that it is covered here in our news we see the same tired thing… some low-level Muslim leader, or some Professor of Muslim Studies at some junior-college, or perhaps just some random muslim picked up off the streets. And, it’s all the same. It’s all the same line… “Those men who carried out that terrorist attack are not real Muslims.”
And, I’m sick and tired of hearing that shit. Of course they were Muslims! Just because not every Muslim is going around killing people or knocking over tall buildings doesn’t mean that those dudes weren’t Muslim. They were just Muslim fanatics. Just because the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who contribute to all means of industry, art, science and progress all around the world does not mean that the three men associated with this latest attack weren’t Muslims. It just means that they happen to be bat-shit crazy Muslims.
How stupid do you think I am? You can’t sell me that these men didn’t get their ideas from their Muslim training and teachings. You can’t. I’’m not gonna fall for the whole “It’s not ALL of us doing this!” That whole nonsense of “They’re just extremist so don’t hold me accountable” will not work on me. Passive Muslim to Bat-Shit Crazy Muslim… STILL Muslim.
Well, at least that’s what I thought for about a whole three minutes. That’s when memory kicked in.
I was a young person when crazy people in America started bombing abortion clinics and shooting abortion doctors in the street, all in the name of Christ, mind you. I remember thinking how crazy and stupid it was to kill people because you believe that you are doing the will of God. It seemed to me that the people who were blowing up buildings and killing people were basically saying, “It’s only okay to kill people if I think that God told me to do so.”
At the time my world consisted mostly of my Christian private school and my Christian church. Now, to say that my childhood church was “right-leaning” is like saying that Hitler was kinda “Jew-opposing.” We were very strict, and my school was nothing different.
When the abortions clinics started blowing up, and when abortion doctors started losing their lives outside of their work, I remember that a lot of the people who committed these heinous crimes would say things like, “God told me to.” Many of the people caught in these crimes truly believed that, as a Christian, you cannot allow abortions to take place without something drastic, and they were willing to put their life and future at risk… all in the name of God.
I remember thinking, “Those people are crazy… with a capital “CRAZY!”
But, I also remember a great number of people around me who vocalized the sentiment, “That’s not us. That’s not Christianity. That’s not who we are, or what we stand for.” And, the truth is… they were right. That is not who we were or who we stood for. That was not, and is still not, my version of Christianity, or of my God. I know without a shadow of doubt that I condemn anything done in the name of Christ that isn’t reflective of who I think He is and what I think He would stand for if He was here today. Hell, I’m so careful with labeling anything “Christian” that I won’t even watch a movie with Christian Slater in it, other than “Heathers” and “True Romance”, because I don’t like the use of the name and also because his movies suck. They really do. I mean, they’re bad. Seriously, who green lights this crap?
So, what am I left with?
I live in a world where Muslims kill Westerners because they think they are doing the will of Allah. I live in a world where we are killing Muslims by the thousands with the use of military, all in the name of money and greed disguised and sold as “peace-keeping.” I live in a world where atrocities take place in all sorts of mind-blowing manners… all in the name of God. I live in a world that has been suffering from violence against humanity… all because a long time ago some people started calling God by different names and started worshiping Him in different ways.
Last night, as I was drifting off to Neverland I was thinking on all these things. I realized just how long that I have been distancing myself from the word “Christian” because I oftentimes find it embarrassing. I don’t want to be associated with a lot of the things that Christians do, say or think because a lot of the times it’s highly uneducated and sometimes just plain mean.
True Muslims don’t want to be defined by what other dumb things other fanatical Muslims do. True Christians don’t want to be associated with the dumb things that other fanatical Christians do. All of that seems perfectly reasonable to me. I’m sure that for the sane among you it makes sense, as well.
And, right before I drifted to sleep I thought about how our world isn’t getting better because we aren’t getting better… and I wondered… how long is it going to be before I’m embarrassed to be associated with the word “human.” Just human… not a particular race, religion, sex or creed… just human.
I don’t know… I guess that answer will come when it comes.
-Senator Brett
P.S. I apologize to Christian Slater… not all of your movies are dumb. I liked “Untamed Heart” a lot. I especially liked the part where you died. 🙂
Perhaps, one day.
Senator Brett 