Submitters

One of my readers is a former resident of Mumbai, and has a blog of his own and some very interesting things to say about Islam and Co. Go check it out at Myminddroppings.
He pointed out that the number of hijackers on 9/11 was also .... (drum roll) ... (wait for it) ... NINETEEN! There's a lot of speculation that this was intentional and there was no 20th highjacker, no matter how many people confess to it. Hard to say much one way or the other without woo-woo hats and conspiracy theories, but I found out there is more to this than I'd thought. [stay calm, I haven't converted to islam, lol]

This guy Rashad Khalifa didn't just write a book, he started a whole cult, Aside from his lysergic logic and tortured translations, the guy was a scam artist from way back, according to people who knew him. Luckily I didn't, so I can't prove that, but it sure fits with the everything else we can prove, like with court records.

When he's 43, married, with two kids, his building manager is going out of town, so he claims he has friends interested in renting an office and he borrows the keys. Then he advertises for volunteers for a research study on human auras, and when a 16-year-old girl shows up, he tells he to undress, feels her up and rapes her. The judge heard evidence on this for three days and ruled there was enough evidence (in 1979, when such cases were routinely dismissed) that he should stand trial. He admitted he was guilty and copped a plea.

Does that sound like a prophet of god? Well, yeah, actually it does. Fucking underage girls seems to be a prerequisite. At any rate, he started with the Nineteen crap in 1973, did the rape in '79, claimed to be a Messenger from God by 1988, and it gets worse. His fans are called the Submitters, and there are a lot of them. Here is the Chapel Hill terrorist explaining why he drove an SUV into a crowd of his fellow students:

“In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women. I know that the Qur'an is a legitimate and authoritative holy scripture since it is completely validated by modern science and also mathematically encoded with the number 19 beyond human ability. After extensive contemplation and reflection, I have made the decision to exercise the right of violent retaliation that Allah has given me to the fullest extent to which I am capable at present.” source

_________he was murdered by other moslems in 1990. [ I tried to find an adjective to go there, but what fits? Ironically? Deservedly? Fortunately? Hilariously? Insert whatever you think fits.] He insisted that the hadith are no good, and he even revised the koran to make his numbers come out right. Using the standard debating techniques of the Islamic world, the Muhammad Commandos of Sector 5 stabbed him 19 times because they disagreed about the truthiness of the Hadith. Oh well.

I Warned You, Mutherfukker.

Surah 26 has prophets galore; Moses, Abraham, Noah, Ad, Thamud, Lot, and those mysterious People of the Wood. It's the same story every time, with different actors: God sends a message, they ignore it, god kills them all. You'd think god would wise up and change his tactics after a few million deaths, but somebody seems to be telling him “Heck of a job, God.” And every story ends by saying how god is mighty and merciful. Wait ... What? How is he merciful when he kills everybody? They explain it.

208. Never have We destroyed a habitation till We had sent admonishers to them
209. To warn. For We are never unjust.

See, he warned them first. So that's OK then. Reminds me of something I saw on the news lately.

Behind the scenes...

Uzza is no longer with us. That is, the meat person who posted as Uzza is gone. These posts were always a joint effort with Watercat, that is, the meat person who posted as watercat, that is, me. I've decided to just continue this blog myself, retire the old screen name watercat, and keep posting as Uzza. Sorry if that is confusing, but I can't see "watercat" having a blog called "uzza's something". It'd be like Mohammed having a book called "God's Words" LOL!

the Miracle of 19?!

Thanks to an anonymous troll for pointing out that I missed this whole issue, and by missed I mean purposely ignored so I wouldn't have to descend to the level of drooling imbecility needed to even talk about it. Basically, some guy wasted a good portion of his life doing numerology with the koran, and claims the number 19 words repeats miracle numeral something.

Specifically, he babbles about the Miracle of 19, and how god spelled some names wrong in chapter 27, therefore we must write NUN instead of the N god wrote, cuz if you change god's stuff the gematrical values, [ (yeah, I looked it up--it's a numerical substitution code that has mystical significance] the gematrical values of a lot of random numbers add up to the number of chapter 68, Hallelujah! Or something. Here, maybe you can figure it out. Anybody with an actual education would know immediately why this is beyond pathetic, but if your school consisted of memorizing random syllables out of a holy book you maybe need this explanation.

He bases all his mumbo-jumbo on 74:30 where it says “over it are 19.” Nobody has ever known what that meant, so he came up with this bogus explanation and wrote a book. He insists it's a miracle because, because, well god said so looky here in verse 35 "[74:35] This is one of the great miracles." Look how other people have translated that line:

(35) That "Saqar" is one of many pits of Hell that is ghastly and immense,
(35) it (the moon) truly is one of the greatest of all things,
(35) Surely it (the Qur’an) is of the greatest (of God’s signs);
(35) Verily, it (- the Fire of Hell) in itself is one of the great calamities,
(35) That Hell too is a somber reality.
(35) Indeed hell is one of the greatest entities.
(35) Verily it is one of the greatest woes.

Do you get the feeling this guy might be ... uhh ...not entirely reliable? Did I mention drooling imbeciles?
Don't blame me, I wasn't even gonna mention it.

God's Whorehouse

Chapter 56 uses 96 verses to say what pretty much what Cheech says above:

On Judgement day people will be divided into three groups. The bad ones will get scorching wind and drink boiling water, natch. The good ones will get shade, fruit, streams, and virginal slave-girls.

People that are especially good go in a third group, and they'll recline on gold couches, while "youths of never-ending bloom"(17) will give them non-alcoholic wine, fruit and bird meat, and slave-girls. And all they will hear is "peace, peace".

Slavery. In heaven.

Sura 20, boobs

Chapter 20, named Ta Ha (two random letters), starts out saying the Koran is a warning, then retells the the stories of Moses and Adam again. These versions contradict the Biblical accounts, and also the other versions in the koran: for example in chapter 7 it blames the golden calf incident on Aaron, like the bible, but in this version some guy named Samiri was behind it all (85-87).
Mo also mixed his stories up with older myths. All of them had a tree of life, and the Babylonian Enuma Elish and the Akkadian Adapa both have a food of immortality that the heroes didn't eat. But in verse 120 Mo has Adam eat it. Whoops!

As soon as they ate, “their hidden parts were exposed to each other.” Before that Adam's dangly bits were not exposed? How did that work? And until they ate, Adam never noticed Eve's boobs, but then he was suddenly grossed out, the way men always are by things like this. The whole point of the Bible story was a made-up tree of knowledge that could show those horny old pagans, who thought sex was OK, that it was really OMG DirtyNastyShameful! It seems to have escaped Mo's notice that immortality wouldn't do that.

Obama vs Mohammed

Obama is so not a muslim.
He was just sworn in as President of the US, and all the news shows are talking about how they managed to flub up the Oath of Office. Obama noticed right away when Roberts said it wrong, and he wouldn't repeat it till it was right, but then when he did hear it right, he said it wrong himself! This for a short little verse they both knew by heart! It's funny, kinda, but nobody is really upset about it because we all know that's just how human language works, right?

Now compare that to the koran. Supposedly somebody wrote down Mohammed's big long speeches, without ever making a mistake. Muslim zealots say it is the literal words of god, but they also say god didn't say it: god never spoke directly to Mo like he did to Moses, much less wrote things down like he did for Joe. It was the angel Jibreel that appeared and spoke to Mo. First god said it to Jibreel, then Jibreel said it to Mohammed, then somebody else wrote it down, and in all that, nobody ever once made a single mistake. Supposedly.

I guess they just don't make Messiahs like they used to.

Jesus Envy

Chapter 19

1. There was this old guy Zachariah, who prayed for an heir. An angel told him he'd have a son named John, and he asked for a sign, so the angel told him he wouldn't talk to anyone for three days, so he didn't. And John was a good kid.

16 An angel came to Mary and raped her told her she'd have a son. She gave birth by a stream, under a date tree, and the baby told her not to talk to anyone that day. She brought the baby home, people called her a slut, she pointed at the baby, and he told them; “I is a prophet!”. He wasn't God's son, and you'll go to hell for saying he was.

40 Abraham accused his father of devil worship, and got thrown out. Him and his sons Isaac and Jacob were all prophets; also Moses, his brother Aaron, and Ishmael, and Enoch, all prophets. Those who believe them will go to heaven. People that don't will go to hell, including anybody who says god had a son.

The end.

Well, no, Tolkien it ain't. These are garbled up versions of Bible stories that the koran is verifiying by contradicting them. A lot of dissing the christians for saying Jesus is god. It's even got baby jesus himself saying he's only a prophet (19), although he never actually says who his father is. God says it "is easy for him" (21), and says the kid will be a blessing from “us”, aka “god” (21), and she says no man has ever touched her (20), so it's pretty clear that god is the father. BUT, Christian talk like that would split the earth asunder (90), it's so awful. A big problem for Mo, who was too dumb to see the obvious way out. If any other book said an angel came and “bestowed a son on her” (line 19), you'd flunk Literary Analysis for thinking the angel wasn't the father, but hey look unicorns.

It sounds like the christians were giving Mo grief and making him envy Jesus. You can just picture it. Mo comes to the door in his best suit, knocks, and some christians let him in. Mo gives his pitch, and they laugh at him because Jesus is their personal savior, and Jesus is God and mo's just a measly prophet. They throw him out, and Mo stomps off down the sidewalk muttering to himself,

“Shit, I wish I'd thought of that before. I thought being a prophet was a good angle. I shoulda been thinking big. I should have said I was god. It worked for jesus. Sounds way better. Too late now, I already told everybody I'm just a prophet. That goddamn jesus is messing up my scam. I better have a revelation that says he's a goddamn phony. God'll say prophets are FTW. That's what I'll do. Fucken christians.”

Sura 35 summary

After reading the whole chapter here is what we've got:

One commandment--Thou shalt not have sympathy;

some useless info:

no free will
satan lies
god is satan
other gods exist
god mocks his victims

and some unanswered questions:

The world beguiles me―How?
God promised something―What?
I have to do right―How?
I have to believe―What?
I can be forgiven―For what?
Lies in the koran are true—WTF?

More sura 35 yet.

Mighty Mother Moon

Verse 38 changes the subject to YGS, and asks someone—I guess the Moon cultists, to show what their gods have created (as if he'd done so himself) and asks if they have a book (as if he had one himself). That seems pretty easy to counter. All they had to do was the same thing he was doing---make shit up:

The Mighty Mother Moon hath created the earth and all that is on it. She guides the stars through the heavens, and leads the rise and fall of the tides. Written on Her face are the Sacred Squiggles, which record the words of our Lord Most High in the Sky, for those who understand. But those who hath not wisdom, they see only silly pictures thereon, and invent invisible gods with invisible books that say dumb stuff.

Damn, this is easy. I've converted myself!
------------------

True Lies

New topic
28 the koran is true and verifies what was before it Another meme; MIBIT. What was before it was the Popul Vuh in Mexico, the Tao Te Ching in China, the Upanishads in India. “God” would know about these, but Mo wouldn't, so we can pretty well assume he means the Bible, and Christians have the word of god too. Trouble is, 'verify' doesn't mean 'contradict'. Either this line is a lie or some other lines are, like this one .... (3:45) Verily they are unbelievers who say: "The Messiah, son of Mary, is God." I'm pretty sure the Bible doesn't verify that! For that matter neither does 3:45: "...one whose name will be Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary...” but now I'm just being pissy. And then, get a load of the end of v43—...For you shall not find any alteration in the course of Allah; and you shall not find any change in the course of Allah.
One word—ABROGATION. ---------------------------

Suck It!

New topic
29 I gave the book to those I chose, and of them, if they follow it they get a reward...
Then 30 he describes the reward---gardens, dressed in silk clothes with gold and pearl bracelets. Bling, wow, I'm sumpthin like a pimp! And these bling-wearers 31-32 will praise god for putting them there. And they'll never get tired of their gold. Forever.
Mo can't mention heaven without getting a hard-on for hell, so predict a loving description of tortures next, and here it comes, predictable as sunshine, 33-35, and get this, when they beg for mercy god will tell them to suck it. Literally: 35 And there came to you a warner! So taste it, for the unjust shall have none to help!’
A “most benevolent, ever-merciful" god who mocks his victims after he leads them astray? How could anything possibly justify god acting like this? And if he did, how could any decent person worship him? ---------------------------

Death to Pandas!

Finally, at the end of sura 35, God stays on topic! For seven lines! A record! The moon god people swore they'd follow a prophet if one came, but they aren't doing it (presupposing Mo is one) they keep doing the same old shit, so GWFYU, like in the old days. They should've traveled around and seen ruins of others that god has wiped out, and god'll do it to them too, see, and if god gave men what they deserve, (44 or so) “not a living being would be left upon the earth....” You gotta question the logic here. Man sins, so all those Koala bears and Pandas and bunny rabbits have to die. And he'll do it too, just ask Noah. But, ... “but He respites them till an appointed time”; Then GWFYU. Dudes, you keep using that word most benevolent, ever-merciful; it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Ejaculations

The koran keeps doing this weird thing where it'll say something, and then it'll add a blurb like, verily, He is clement, forgiving. Sometimes they are separate, other times the translators use a semi-colon or a comma so you'll think it's part of the sentence. Here's one. In 35:27 it says god made everything—earth, fruit, cattle—so smart people fear god. That's none too logical, but then it tacks on that god is almighty and all-forgiving. Almighty, sure if he made the world, but what's with forgiving? For what? Same question as before, still no answer; and if he's forgiving that's even less reason to fear him. This would have made sense if they tacked it onto the previous line: GWYU, so fear him. But that would be logical.

It does it again in v39/41. After claiming his god is maintainence man for the heavens, Mo adds that god is forbearing and forgiving ... huh? For the umpteenth time, what's he forgiving? And what's it got to do with maintaining the earth? Is it proof of his forgiving-ness that he doesn't let the earth fall apart? How are these ideas related? I wasted a lot of brain cells trying to link these weird add-ons to the rest of the sentence, but I've finally figured them out. They're ejaculations! An ejaculation is “a short, intense, prayer”, as the nuns in catholic school told us, with completely straight faces, in middle school. LOL.

They don't mean anything, they're just the speaker's emotions overflowing out his mouth. Like Meg Ryan in the picture, or a jihadist yelling “god is great” when he shoots you. There's no point trying to figure out what they mean—just ignore them.

Even More sura 35

In v10 god calls himself 'god' and 'we' in the same sentence (again), sez resurrection will be like rain on a dry earth... Oohh kay, whatever... and v11 is a new topic, a bumbling way of saying people don't get any credit when they do good, but get punished when they do bad.

Still hasn't told us what's bad, except for having sympathy for people. (Maybe there's some logical connection between these sentences? Maybe on resurrection day people will finally get some credit? Nahh, none of the other sentences have been related to each other, there's no reason to assume these two are. God hates context.)
It seems to go with line 5. Satan beguiles you and you get punished, but it's god that leads you astray, so God is Satan? I'm so confused.
----------------
12-15 New tangent: god made and sustains everything, oceans, night and day, etc. but the other gods can't do anything. Not only that, on judgment day the ungrateful twits will deny you ever worshipped them. WTF? Why would they do that? At any rate, it confirms that other gods exist, even describing what they can and can't do. So this contradicts the first pillar of Islam, “ There is no god but Allah...”. So the Koran is unislamic. Who knew?

the First Commandment

We're up to line 9-or-so in sura 35 and so far we've got:
Don't believe imaginary creatures; WIFL; and some unanswered questions---

The world beguiles me—How?
God promised something—What?
I have to do right—How?
I have to believe—What?
I can be forgiven—For what?

Let's see what else we can learn from it. About those people that god leads astray, Line 9-or-so ends with "... so do not waste away your self with grief for them." In other words, we shouldn't have any sympathy for people. An innocent kid who never does anything wrong gets led off to be tortured forever in Hell, and we should just sip our lattes and not bat an eye. Great advice there, from their ALL-MERCIFUL, LOVING god. But at least it gives us some actual real advice—don't care about others. Commandment #1, got it.

Still More Sura 35

Verse (9), or (8) or whatever it is, says: "God leads whosoever He please astray and guides whosoever He will". This verse develops the idea that god does whatever he damn well pleases, evil or good, and there is nothing you can do about it, sucker. The idea was introduced in line 2, so why isn't this up there with line 2? Where is god's editor?

The koran repeats this idea over and over without ever realizing that it makes the koran and islam both completely pointless, since following them has no effect on what god does. You're the bestest Muzzie that ever ever lived? Doesn't matter—god'll send you to hell if he feels like it. You're one of us blaspheming infidel satan-worshippers? Doesn't matter—god'll forgive you if he feels like it. Whether you end up in heaven or hell doesn't depend on you, it depends on god's mood swings.

It's said this before. In fact it repeats this same idea about a zibillion times. If god had an editor, they'd probably recommend that he say things once and then use acronyms for subsequent mention. The Koran has its own acronyms—Korancronyms! This one is WIFL, for god saying “I'll do Whatever I Feel Like”. We could make the koran about 50% shorter by using korancronyms instead of giving the whole standard sermon every time an idea comes up. The rest of the chapter =

... WIFL, verse 9, 10&11, GWFYU, PAP, TIT, WIFL, GWFYU, IKE, GHGS, YGS, ejaculations, TIT, verse 43, GWFYU.

See how easier it makes it? I've added a handy chart over on the sidebar. Clicky.

More Sura 35

The mystery of line eight.

Here's one version,

8 But those who believe and do right, for them is forgiveness and a great hire.

And here's another.

(8) Can he, the evil of whose deed is made to look attractive to him so that he considers it good, (be like him who is guided)? God leads whosoever He please astray and guides whosoever He will. So do not waste away your self with grief for them. God is indeed cognisant of things they do.

WTF? Are these both translating the same sentence??? Wait, look at line seven again;

(7) those who disbelieve, they shall have a severe punishment, and those who believe and do good, they shall have forgiveness and a great reward.

The last half of 7 is line 8 in this version. And in the other one,

7 Those who misbelieve, for them is keen torment.
8 But those who believe and do right, for them is forgiveness and a great hire.

OMFG, there are differences in the Koran!! This is not the first time I've run into different numbering like this. Mostly it's a pain in the ass, but it makes you wonder how you're supposed to cite something if they can't even agree what verse it is. This happens again later in this chapter, so some versions are two lines off. Line 24 in some versions is line 26 in others. And verse 3:40 is verse 3:45. God needs the MLA Style Guide.

Getting back to those unanswered questions...

It says if you believe the devil you go to hell, but if you believe and do right, you get forgiven and rewarded. OK, but believe what? Do right how? Forgiven for what? I need details, dammit!
Also, I'm still waiting to hear what to be on guard against, and what the promise was.

Surah 35: the Creator

Here we are, reading the Quran in the order it was supposedly revealed, half way through the Meccan period. Starting the New Year with a chapter about the creator seems fitting. Let's forget everything we've read up to now, pretend we are seeing it for the first time, and see what we can learn.

1. God created everything, and angel's wings come in sets of 2, 3 or 4. Boy, this is good stuff to know!

2. Then it changes the subject to something confusing about mercy--there is none to withhold, but he withholds some of it. Wtf? I had to look at half a dozen translations before one made sense: It's trying to say no one can prevent god from doing stuff. Pretty obvious, if he's god and we're not.

New topic!! Line 3 gets snarky and asks “is there a creator besides god?” It doesn't answer, so logically, next we should pin down exactly what this god-thingy is, right?

4 No such luck, it changes the subject again: “if they call you a liar...” wait, what? Nobody's calling me anything. We're horning in on a private conversation between god and mohammed!

5 But the next line changes back to “O ye folk”, that's us again, “god's promise is true”. Great, but what promise? He doesn't say, he goes off on another tangent, “don't let the life of this world beguile you.” Or satan either; it seems I'll go to hell if I believe what he says. At least that's good advice--If an imaginary creature appears to me, don't believe what it says. Got that, but how does the world beguile me? Doesn't say.

So at six lines in, we've got six sentences, none related to any of the others. We should: be on guard against something it doesn't identify, some unidentified promise is true, a side comment to someone else, a statement of the obvious, and an unsupported claim about god and angel's wings. Now, if god has passed Writing 101, he'll elaborate on these themes, but don't get your hopes up ...

Y'know what? 6000 verses thrown together in random order does not make a book; it makes Mad Libs. But these ones are way more fun!