Sura 32: the Prostate

Let's recap. We're blogging the Koran, recording our impressions as we go, which mostly are: Borrrrrinnnnng!!!1!1 Considering all the other things going on in my life, it's hard to keep dragging myself back to this dreck. But I'll keep going, and finish this project, because of some mysterious genetic defect.

We're in past the middle of the Late Mecca period. Mohammed's been preaching for about 8 years, and still hardly has any followers. It's easy to see why. He hasn't said anything noteworthy, he's just another raving street preacher giving the same lame sermon over and over. And over. Chapter 32 is just another version of it:

...this is a true book, bla bla god made everything, knows everything, bla, bla judgment-day's a-comin', bla. Verses 14-16 tell us good people fall down in adoration, (the name of the chapter, 'The Prostration', comes from this, not male bladder dysfunction), they forsake sleep in order to pray, they give money (Betcha never saw that comin, hmmm?). And about that god, alias 'We' and 'Me', here's what he's like:

¹³ If We had so willed, We could certainly have brought every soul its true guidance: but the Word from Me will come true, "I will fill Hell with Jinns and men all together."

The fuck? At least he's upfront about it. What's missing is any reason to a) worship such an asshole, and b) believe anything Mohammed says. Oh, and c) read this book.

WHOA, WHOA, HOLD IT, What's this shit?

²¹ And indeed We will make them taste of the Penalty of this (life) prior to the supreme Penalty, in order that they may (repent and) return.

The “them” we-me-god is talking about is me, and probly you reading this, all of us who don't swallow his judgment day threats. God wants us to suffer. He's not content with torturing us after we die, he wants us to suffer in this world. Says so right here. Am I paranoid to think some of his followers might interpret this to mean:

Allah wants infidels to taste of the Penalty of this (life)
Allah will like it if I make infidels taste of the Penalty of this (life)
For the sake of Allah, I should make infidels taste of the Penalty
I should go shoot some infidels, for the sake of Allah.

Naw, that'd never happen.

The Rape Cultists

Chapter 23, the Believers, starts out with a plug for sex slavery

¹ The believers must eventually win ... ² Those who ... ⁵ ... abstain from sex, ⁶ Except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or the captives whom their right hands possess, for (in their case) they are free from blame,

There ya go. God's complete guide to life, telling us he's perfectly down with having slaves, and raping them. This isn't new, we've seen it before here and here. I'm too disgusted to make any snarky comments.

After that, Al-zheimers-lah gets a little confused, forgets what he said in the last chapter, that (21:30) “We made from water every living thing”, and starts rambling

^23:12 Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay);
^23:13 Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed;
^23:14 Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!

Best to create my ass. The god in genesis just formed man out of dust and breathed on him. No fumbling around with clots and lumps. The Bantu's god created people just by puking. If that's not better, at least it's a lot simpler.

God rambles on for a spell, about how he made other stuff too, date palms, and olive trees, and cows and ships, and that reminds him that

1. A prophet shows up,
2. people diss prophet,
3. God kills everybody.

but he uses two thousand words to say it, and that's the rest of the chapter.

bleh

Chapter 21. The Prophets. 112 verses.

Picture it. Some crazy guy comes wandering down out of the hills and says he talks to god. You want proof, right? Those Arabs weren't stupid, they asked the same thing from Mohammed:

⁵ ... “bring us a Sign like the ones that were sent to (Prophets) of old!"

God's telling the story, and he says naw, yer wrong,

⁷ ... the apostles We sent were but men, to whom We granted inspiration ...
⁸ Nor did We give them bodies that ate no food, nor were they exempt from death.

He seems to be saying none of the other prophets did any miracles, so he don't gotta neither, nyahh nyahh. I guess we're not supposed to remember Moses's magic wand, or even later in this same chapter when they try to burn Abe at the stake and

⁶⁹ We said, "O Fire! be thou cool, and (a means of) safety for Abraham!"

Too bad they didn't try that with Mo. He'd've won them pagans over for sure if he would've pulled a Sam McGee. And if he didn't, well, that would've saved the whole world a lot of grief.

When they ask why anybody should believe him, god (aka Mohammed) just keeps repeating how god made everything, people didn't appreciate him, and then he killed them all. That's really his only argument. We've blogged thru over half the koran by now and three quarters of it consists of nothing else but this, so when it blows a whole chapter on different ways to say it again, excuse me if I'm not transported into a frenzy of religious ecstasy. Or still awake. They could just say (repeat chorus) 112 times. Save ink.

Al-zheimers-lah says he created man from dust (3:59), fermented clay (15:26) semen (16:4) a soul (4:1) dust-sperm-clot-flesh (22:5), so it's no surprise when the old gent blurts out another one:

(21:30) We made from water every living thing.

God should stay on his meds.

And finally, a quiz.

BZZZZT! Wrong. None of the above. The good things are how much land you control, how big your borders are, how big your empire is, how much power you have. God says so, see?

⁴⁴ Nay, We gave the good things of this life to these men and their fathers until the period grew long for them; See they not that We gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its outlying borders?

This is just so spiritual and uplifting, I could just go out and knock off a convenience store.

Obliquitous Comminations?

Chapter 14 says the lord's path hasn't got obliquity (v3) LOL, says to fear his commination (v14), LOL. Who talks like that? This is the Ahmed Ali version, and Amazon's review says he's “succeeded in bringing all of the subtlety, depth, and spiritual power of Islam into his translation”. If you say so, dude. Different strokes and all that, but most of us say crookedness and threats, since about the 15^th century.

Name of the chapter is Ibrahim, it's about Abraham, my candidate for Worst Person in the Entire History of the World^®, what with starting all three of these patriarchal monotheistic horror shows. I'm supposed to know all about him:

35. Remember when Abraham prayed: "O Lord, make this a city of peace, and preserve me and my progeny from worshipping idols:

No, I don't remember. Never even met the dude. And it sounds like he has a personal problem: “Hello, my name is Abraham and I'm an idol worshiper. ... Please, please stop me before I worship again!!!”

It turns out Moslems say that Abraham founded Mecca—that's the city he's talking about, with the pagans and their kinky prayers. They were there first with their sacred meteorite, until he came along and built the Kaaba over it. Apparently this didn't offend their holy site, since there's no word on pagans rioting and throwing rocks and overturning camels. Again I say, these pagans are just too nice for their own good. Some of Abe's children, those who survived their abusive childhoods with the mock executions and all, he stuck there by the Kaaba, out in the desert where there was no food, so they'd have to depend on handouts to survive. That's what this is all about:

37. I have settled some of my children, O Lord, in a barren valley near Your sacred House, so that, O our Lord, they may be constant in devotion. So put in the hearts of men some kindness for them, and provide fruits for them: They may haply be grateful.

Follow the logic here: You'd think god wanted all of us to be holy; but the holy ppl don't support themselves so they'd starve unless they sponge off the rest of us; so if everybody was all holy, nobody'd grow any food, so everyone would starve. I'm with Sam Kinnison, “we have deserts too, but we don't fucken LIVE IN THEM”. When you're too lazy to grow your own food, don't expect handouts from the rest of us—we have to work for a living. These first welfare queens put a lot of effort into complaining how horrible the people were who were feeding them. Nowadays they sit around on the dole, attacking the government. Ya gotta respect those traditional ways, yo.

It harps on this old meme some more too ...

4. ... God leads whosoever He wills astray,
27 God ... leads the unjust into error

Sooo, it's entirely possible this whole mohammed/koran business is god leading people astray, right? How could they know it wasn't?

Hmmm. He's a tricky one, god is.

Oh Fun, a Fundy

Anonymous panties are all wedgied over this post, becuz

If you take verses out of context, you can make them say whatever you want. Oh goody; I'll make “kill every living thing” say “do not harm any living creature”. How do I do that? Waterboard it or something? But in context, God WAS talking about a specific people group (or city in this case); and among that people group that was against God and wicked God said they were against wicked God too? And god said “let there be commas,” .. no wait, he said "kill every living thing." He was was he was was, was he? referring to that group. The nations he lists in the very next verse were nations that burn their children in the fire, human sacrifices, sexual immorality, etc. His list includes the Hittites, the first constitutional government, who wrote the Hittite Laws, notable for rejecting the death penalty, so until you produce some evidence for all these burned up children, we'll just go on assuming you're full of shit, mmmkay?

If you read the rest of the Bible you would know that God never told the Israelittes (sic) to kill everybody else in the world; If I read the previous verse he says to do it to “all the cities”—London, Paris, Bangkok, L.A.--so your point is what, god is all moral because he doesn't bother to hunt down people that live way out in the sticks? in fact in that same chapter for other groups they were at war with by “at war with” you mean the procedure outlined in 10-12: offer to enslave them, and if they refuse, attack them. Y'know, like Hitler or the Visigoths. He said to only wipe out the men,but to spare the women and children- Oh damn, that's right. God only said to kill all the men in the world. So it's all good then. and this ONLY if they would not make peace. By 'make peace' you mean “be tributaries unto thee, and serve thee”(11) like those nice Egyptians made them do earlier.

Also, this is the Old Testament you're quoting from. They were under a different covenant, when Jesus came He fulfilled the old one Jesus killed all the men in the world? and so we're not under their laws. If it doesn't matter, why'd you just waste all that time making excuses for it? Why didn't you just say The OT is bullshit”? Shoot, we could have agreed on something. The New Testament says "Do not kill", even those who do not agree with you. The Koran does not make this disctinction; it simply says "Kill all infidels". At least they're consistent about it.

My point? Don't make a claim about what the Bible or Koran teaches by taking one sentence out of context. Like you just did with the New testament? Sorry, I'll make any damn claim I please. You can come up with intelligent reasons why my claim isn't valid, as opposed to incoherent ones like here: you pointed to the context of the surrounding verses that make it look way worse, to show it's not bad. Epic Fail.

Four minutes later anonymous had an epiphany, or something, and sent a new comment.

No, only the nations listed are to be destroyed. He seems to be disagreeing with something here. Me? Himself? Frederich Nietzsche? Context, dude, context. If u read the Bible they were really bad nations. And if u don't read the bible they were really good nations? Maybe u shouldn't read the bible then. If you're not one of those specific people named who totally defied God (like it says earlier in the Bible) you're safe. I don't want to be safe. I want to be moral, non-violent, stuff like that. But laughing. Read the next verse please:

"However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, oh man, I thought it was bad when yuppies give their kid a new car on their 16^th birthday, god gives these guys entire fucking countries! with instructions do not leave alive anything that breathes. Nothing, got that? Not a baby or a puppy or a kitten 17 Completely destroy them fucking puppies—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you cause He hates the kittehs. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God." Whoops. You said it was cause they were child-burnin', human sacrificin', sexually immoral kittehs. It's really cuz they have this real kinky way of praying, and if they show you it, u r helpless to resist, u becomes mindless zombee, can't halp but join in eevil rites.

Bite me. The context is a couple of holy books filled with thousands of exhortations to violence and murder. A moral book would be full of exhortations like “One should treat all beings as he himself would be treated" (Sutrakritanga). The context is your crappy gods aren't half as moral as the human beings who wrote that.

A Puzzle