Quran vs Bible II

OK, here's the other post from Steve Wells at Dwindling in Unbelief.  In this one he looks at their perspectives on women. It's deficient in profanity, but excellent otherwise.

 *****

The worth of a woman: the Bible vs. the Quran

Don't you love it when the Bible and the Quran agree (more or less) on something? I do. Because whenever they do, you can be pretty sure they're both wrong.

Take the worth of a woman, for example. They go at it from slightly different angles, but come up with the same answer. A woman is worth about half as much as a man.

Here's what the Bible has to say.

And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver.... And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.


And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels.


And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver.


And if it be from sixty years old and above; if it be a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels. -- Leviticus 27:3-7


So, depending on their age, females are worth 1/2 to 2/3 as much as males.

But what does the Quran say?

Well it doesn't come right out, like the Good Book does, and place a monetary value on human life, male and female. But it does compare the value of men and women from a financial point of view.

Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females, and if there be women more than two, then theirs is two-thirds of the inheritance, and if there be one (only) then the half. -- Quran 4:11


... unto the male is the equivalent of the share of two females. -- Quran 4:176


And the Quran tells us just how much we should trust a woman's testimony: it's worth half that of a man's.


And call two witness from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not at hand, then a man and two women. -- Quran 2:282

So praised be Jesus and Muhammed (peanut butter and jelly be upon them)! The Bible and the Quran agree: a woman is worth half as much as a man.

*****

(Once again, all credit goes to Steve Wells at Dwindling in Unbelief.)
And, I'd just like to add, all thinking people agree: a woman is worth exactly as much as a man and the Bible and Quran are both worth half as much as any other book. If that.

Switzerland in the Quran

Since I'm studying the quran, whenever it makes the headlines I go all tingly like I knew stuff, like I was in the loop, instead of here in my mom's basement, typing on the internet.

This week, president Gaddafi, the Lead Lunatic of Libya, says the quran is against Switzerland. Who knew?

He's calling for a jihad against watches and pocket knives. Not a terrorism kind of jihad, cuz that'd be bad, y'unnerstand, only an armed struggle kind of jihad, cuz that's way different, somehow.

Muslims are supposed to go stop Swiss planes from landing, and Swiss ships from docking, and Swiss chocolates from melting in your mouth.

He tells me

“Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate – is against Muhammad, God and the Qur'an”

Damn, I haven't come to that part yet. The Quran disses Switzerland? Must be in the last chapter.

Or maybe ... Mr Bad Hair is just throwing a tantrum. Those nasty old Swiss arrested his kid just for beating up the help, and now they won't let him build minarets. So he arrested some innocent dudes, took his 5 billion dollars and went home, and now he's telling his peeps Allah wants them to smite his mean old enemies. Where have we heard this before? The Fashion King of the Desert Sands can't just have a new Revelation, though, cuz the final edition is already out. Too bad.

You Have to Look at the Context!

Personal Failure, a really smart person with like the best blog on the interwebz, objected to what I said in my last post. What she said is eminently reasonable, so watch me try to weasel out.

I was being all snotty about verse 5:101

“... do not ask about things which, if made known to you, may vex you.”

and she said she reads it as saying don't ask if you're not prepared to handle the answer.

Of course, we're both applying logic to the koran, = Epic Fail in the first place, but she's absolutely right, that is what my little quote mine implies.  Gawd, I so feel like an ass for trotting this out, but ... aargghhh ...

you have to look at the context 

Overall, the whole book keeps harping on how you've gotta BLEEVE! without question, so there's that. Then zooming in a little, the rest of the verse throws in a great big BUTT

[005:101]  O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things which, if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. But if ye ask about things when the Quran is being revealed, they will be made plain to you, God will forgive those:

So it seems to be comparing two case: asking questions when the quran is being revealed, versus when it's not. 

If it's not, don't ask, cuz the answers will vex you, cause trouble, make you ask more questions, you'll start investigating, be like our buddy Albert, first thing you know you'll invent the PC or the find neurotoxin that makes you see angels. Can't have that shit.

OTOH, if the quran is being revealed when you ask, the answer will be made plain, you won't get vexed, you'll just go lemming along. That fits in with the overall sales pitch of this rag, and that's what god'll forgive you for. 

Thing is, I'd guess the Quran is being revealed to me, since I'm reading the damn thing, but the only way it's making anything plain is by burying it in so much bullshit the surface levels out and grows prairie grass. So the answer is that the guy who wrote it was a damn liar; I'm prepared to deal with that, no problem.

How about it, PF? Am I off the hook?

Don't Ask.

Here's something really ugly. There is simply no excuse for it, none at all. Before I tell you what it is, sit down, grab something, and light up a blunt, 'cause it's really bad. And that's not me talking BTW, it's Arfan Shah, with the breaking news that GASP! some people are criticizing scholars! THE HORROR! When you suspect some beardo is shining you on, you should hold it in and not articulate it, ever. The koran has his back, too:

(5:101) O believers, do not ask about things which, if made known to you, may vex you.

Our buddy Arfan was nice enough to respond to my comment, but their website is screwed up so I could never read his answer. Damn.

All I got was frustrated, better than those two guys in Arizona, they went to a mosque and start asking questions, they got arrested. They cursed, those rascals did. Arrested for 'suspicion of disorderly conduct', something they do in Der Homeland. I miss the United States, where you had to actually commit crimes before they arrested you. I'm sure it'll all be OK once they take over and run the country according to Sharia Law, Biblical Principles, whatever.

There's a reason for the fatwa on questions. It went into the hadith instead of the quran, since Mohammed didn't say Simon Says allah sez first, but here's why:

'The worst criminal among the Muslims is the one who inquired about something which had not been made unlawful, and then it was declared so, because of his inquiry.' (Bukhari et al)

That's the worst? Worse than murder, robbery, or bareing an ankle? Let's see, their holy book tells them this, and these guys go to Ask Imam to find out how to wear their watch? Wtf? And then Imam tells them not to put cow piss on their asshole. Seriously.

Maybe that is good advice. Don't ask—fucken think!

Quran vs Bible

Because I'm lazy, and Steve Wells kicks my ass at blogging, here are a couple of posts from Dwindling in Unbelief. First I thought I should link to them, but then why not just copy the whole thing? This is the first one, it asks

Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?  

The LORD is a man of war. Exodus 15:3

Fight in the way of Allah. Quran 2:244

Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? Is there a way to objectively answer such a question?
Well, it wouldn't be easy. But it is possible to compare the amount of cruelty and violence in the two books.
Here is a summary of the highlighted verses in the SAB and SAQ.

	Number of Cruel or Violent Passages
Bible	1121
Quran	520

So the Bible has more than twice as many cruel or violent passages as does the Quran. But the Bible is a much bigger book. How do they compare when size is taken into account?

	Violence and Cruelty	Total verses	Percent
Bible	1121	31173	3.60
Quran	520	6236	8.34

When expressed as a percentage of cruel or violent verses (at least as marked in the SAB/Q), the Quran has more than twice that of the Bible. (8.34 vs. 3.60%)

Of course this analysis does not consider the extent of the cruelty in the marked passages. And that is an important consideration. Is Numbers 31:14-18, for example, more cruel than Quran 5:34? That is something that each person must decide.
A good argument could be made that either book is the most violent and cruel book ever written. The award would go to one or the other, for neither has any close competitors.
It is frightening to think that more than half of the world's population believes in one or the other.

(all credit goes to Steve Wells at Dwindling in Unbelief. All I did was steal it)

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare God a Dime?

OK, back to the Koran. It's Koran time, Whoo hooo!  So there were these twelve Israeli captains, see, and God gave them their orders. Here's what they gotta do:
Pray. ...... check
make donations. ...... check
swallow whatever codswallop my apostle Mo hands out. ...... check
loan me a few bucks. .... WHAT??!?!?

[5:12]  God did aforetime take a covenant from the Children of Israel, and we appointed twelve captains among them. And God said: "I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practise regular charity, believe in my apostles, honour and assist them, and loan to God a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resisteth faith, he hath truly wandered from the path or rectitude."

ROFLMAO! It's not a typo, every translation says that. Give god a loan? What, he's down on his luck, he can't just say “let there be a million bucks” anymore? Why does god need money in the first place? Bills to pay?  Cthuhu is pressing him for the rent?

Once I stopped laughing I asked muslims to explain it, and they said:

“God has promised to return to man every penny that he spends in His way along with His reward,”

That's what the Mormons tell you, give 10% of your gross to the church, (notice the bait & switch there, god --> church) and god will make sure you will get it all back. Poor people say this, mostly.
See, God has a slush fund for after you're dead, where he dispenses Heavenbucks, good only for new harp strings and whatnot. Can't spend them down here.

Give god a loan. Bwaahaahhaahaa.

ummm

Gahhhh. It's past time I posted something. I'm looking to start on Sura 5, but it's a big long thing, 120 verses, gives me that feeling you get standing at the edge of a cesspool just before you wade in to unclog it. So I'm learning Chinese, teaching myself the guitar, doing anything to procastrinate.  If I should turn up with a comment on your blog, kick my ass and make me get back to work.

Meanwhile, this guy has something to say. 
 

Is This Child Abuse?

What do you think?

More War!

48:1 Verily We have granted thee a manifest Victory:

oh fuck, not more of this crap. War, war, war. It's on the nightly news, it's in the koran, it's in the bible, everywhere. Mohammedans want to kill the christians, christians want armageddon, the Hindus want a piece of the action ... all the pagans want to do is smell the flowers. And we're the evil ones. Fuck.

So what's the big victory this time? Well guess what, god forgot to tell us. Some commentationators say it refers to the Muslim conquest of Mecca. Others say it means the Treaty of Hudaybiyya. Still others say it refers to Mohammed being constipated and finally managing a good healthy dump, but that's just me. What the hell, these scriptures can mean anything you want, so why not?
It goes on about the believers gonna get rivers in gardens, and wants god to

⁶ ... punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Polytheists men and women,

Punish Punish Punish, this guy is a real prick. It reminds us Mohammed is God again

¹⁰ Verily those who plight their fealty to thee do no less than plight their fealty to Allah.

Get it? Mohammed = Allah. So is allah the prick who wants to punish everybody, or is that just Mohammed, or are they the same? Throw in a holy spook and you'll have a trinity.

Line 13 rags on somebody he calls the desert arabs for not joining in his war. Godhammed hates people that don't volunteer to go fight in his wars, kind of like the Republicans. If he says Weapons of Mass Destruction I'm gonna shit.

Whatever battle he's talking about, his cult won, and he says they're getting a lot of loot. Line 24 says there was no fighting in Mecca, and then “he gave you victory over them” wtf? How was there a victory, and loot, if there was no fighting? Just to make things obscure it adds this:

^48:25 ... Had there not been believing men and believing women whom ye did not know that ye were trampling down and on whose account a crime would have accrued to you without (your) knowledge, ((Allah) would have allowed you to force your way, but He held back your hands)...
^48:26 While the Unbelievers got up in their hearts heat and cant - the heat and cant of ignorance,- God sent down His Tranquillity to his Apostle and to the Believers, and made them stick close to the command of self-restraint;

Trampling people without noticing, is this the Christmas sale at Walmart? I tried to parse all that but I gave up. It looks suspiciously like, “some of the people in Mecca were in the cult, so that's why you didn't get to do the Rape of Nanking bit. Sorry.” Evidently the Mohammedans invaded Mecca, and left a few survivors. Nice of them, what?

I like this one. It sums up these religions in a nutshell:

^48:29 Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. and those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers, (but) compassionate amongst each other.

Follow the rules, but only for the people in our cult. Kill all the rest. There are studies that show this to be the main characteristic of organized religion---Word! For the Lulz, it ends with another incoherent metaphor, muzzies = trees (or something), and says the scriptures described muslims, this way:

29 ... Their marks are on their faces in consequence of prostration. That is their description in the Torah — and their description in the Gospel

FAIL. Show me where it says muslims have calluses on their foreheads.

Happy Day of Lust

That's what Fundies called Valentines Day when they protested it  in 2006. Who knew it was a “debauch festival”?  This year the Russian beardos have condemned it because it “contradicts not only the norms of Islam, but also recognised human morality.”  It's nice of them to point out how those are two different things. 

This year, Maylasian women are advised to “hold onto their panties” (I am not making this up) by the factorily clueless  National Fatwa Council.  They've been scared of V.D. since 2005, along with  yoga, ghosts, tomboyism, black metal, and the word Allah. This year they claim a “bare your love campaign” is urging women to go around without underwear (I swear I am not making this up!), and we should all, I dunno, care, or something.    

Kamal thinks the whole thing is silly. May suggests an alternative, cheekily. As always, the Pink Chaddi Campaign rules. Yay!  Here's to ridiculing these shitforbrains out of existence.

Does Not Compute

Everybody knows Male circumcision is among the rites of Islam, but the book says
 

"The work of Allah who has 'perfected everything' (He created)." (Qur'an 27:88)

"You will not see any flaw in what the Lord of Mercy creates." (Qur'an 67:3)

"He is the One Who has 'made perfectly everything' He has created: (Qur'an 32:7)

For the record, I'm totally down with these Muslims. Remember--

Does. Not. Compute.

Malingering

The last post established that brain tumors can cause pedophilia. Stands to reason they cause other shit too, like coprolalia, not to be confused with coprophila, which I don't know what causes and I don't wanna know, in fact I'm sorry I even brought it up.

Fuckedupness in the brain causes schizophrenia, and we all know its symptoms. That's right, religious delusions! 24% of schizos have these kinds of experiences, their symptoms are the worst, and they respond less to treatment. 

We've known that ever since William James wrote the Varieties of Religious Experience back in 1902 and showed that these crazy-visions were indistinguishable from the prophet kind. Or the drug-induced kind, which is why we all read that book back in the sixties between our conversations with god. He was groovy.

Drugs can cure them too. Here's a case where clopenthixol cures ghost possession and criminal behavior. It's a two-fer. With the right dope we could cure all the three P's—Paranoia, Pedophilia, Polygamy. And Prophethood. They all have it, here are links to Jim Jones and David Koresh. And Joe Smith, too LOL.

Well Mo's another one. Arias outlines how Mo had epilepsy, as per Ali Sina, in his book. The dude seriously spazzed out.

"Whenever the wahy (revelation) descended upon the Messenger of Allah (Peace & Blessings of Allaah be upon Him), it affected him, the stress showed on him and his face would change” (Ibn Kathir re 4:15)

All the Mohammedans agree he got all weird when he claimed to be hearing god: he sweated like crazy, snored, made funny noises, got red in the face, moved his lips like talking, and when it was over he came to himself gradually. Sahih Muslim says he snorted like a camel.

During revelation Umar used to cover Muhammad with a piece of cloth and Muhammad snorted like a camel …7.2654

Something's funny. Back when he was being a pest in Mecca, the tribe had a meeting to decide what was wrong with him.

"‘Then he is possessed,’ they said. ‘No, he is not that, ... for we have seen possessed ones, and here is no choking, spasmodic movements and whispering.’ " and “you said he was possessed, but he is not, for we have seen the possessed, and he shows no signs of their gasping and whispering and delirium”.

Hmmm ... sooo, ... the patient does not present typical epileptic seizures, but something different, yet similar ... a very strange case, doctor. Some people say he didn't show any outward signs at all, that he just dozed off, woke up and claimed a revelation. No epileptic fits, no drama:

The Holy Prophet was among us. In the meantime he dozed; then he raised his head, smiling, ...told them that a Surah had just been revealed to him.”

That's his wife Aisha, and she oughta know, talking about him receiving divine revelation from god making up chapter 108. She's also the one who told him this:

"I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires." (Sahih Al-Bukhari, V6, B60, N311)

 

It seems like he realized early on what a good scam he had going, and milked it for all it was worth. Got careless after he was all powerful, didn't bother to put on a good act every time.

There're other opinions, of course. Marmaduke Pickthall, in his introduction of the Holy Quran, says "the words which came to him (Mohammed) when in a state of trance are held sacred by the Muslims and are never confounded with those which he uttered when no physical change was apparent in him. The former are the Sacred Book (the Koran); the latter the Hadith or Sunnah...”

Since Sura 108 is part of the NobleSacredHoly Quran, Pickthall is calling the Mother of the Believers a goddamned liar. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. How could a devout believer do such blasphemous thing? The Buybull thumpers over at answering-islam know why:

LOL “it is stated ...'if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached (Jesus' gospel) let him be eternally condemned'" (Galatians 1:8)..
“To be brief... the Koran was revealed by a false spirit (a demon).” “With the above statement Pickthall is confirming that the Koran was recited by Mohammed while in a state of trace or in other words under demonic possession.” LOL! I guess they told them, dint they?

These scripture lemmings are just SO CUTE when they argue.

Brain Damage

Couldn't have said it better myself. Here's this blogger--

The first case is one of the most peculiar stories you’ll ever hear in the realms of neurology and psychology. Imagine a perfectly normal middle-aged man who has a career and a family, a man who has normal interests in sex and shows no signs of any deviancies. Then, virtually overnight, he becomes addicted to sex (a condition known as “hypersexuality”) and becomes entrenched in child pornography. He even tries to molest a prepubescent girl, despite having shown absolutely no sexual interest in children for the first four decades of his life. In other words: a perfectly normal 40-year-old man suddenly turned into a pedophile and a would-be child molester, for no apparent reason (at least at first).
Now, people don’t just become slaves to hyperactive sex drives and start groping children after having lived what is arguably the first half of their lives without having shown the slightest impulses to do so. Yet, this is what happened to the man who is the subject of this first story source of the Quran.

Wait, what? Are we talking about Mohammed? Sure sounds like it. I crossed out a couple words, since Mohammed didn't just TRY to molest prepubescent girl, he fucking MARRIED one. But we all know what caused the big changes in the Prophet's personality, right? An angel of the Lord appeared to him, and ... wait, wait, let's back up.

the Virgina case:

he showed up at UVa hospital complaining of headaches and saying he feared he would rape his landlady.Burns described his behavior as impulsive and hypersexual.
"He was propositioning the nurses and the female residents," Burns recalled. "... He would stop the conversation between the doctor and himself and ask women to get into bed with him."
"It started with a fascination of pornography, including child pornography, and as the tumor grew the symptoms worsened” ... A judge ruled that he had to pass a 12-step sexual addiction program or go to jail. But the man was thrown out of the class after he solicited sexual favors from staff and classmates. ... But then the tumor was found.

-----Joe tells what happened next:

Tumor appears, man becomes a pedophile. Tumor is taken out, man is cured. Tumor reappears, man once again becomes a pedophile. Second tumor is taken out, and the man is once again back to normal. I don’t think it takes an M.D. to see where this leads.

--------

If god is appearing to this guy, he only shows up when there's a tumor. Maybe god is the tumor. OH SHIT! Not so long ago I had one of those OH SHIT maybe I killed God! That's bound to be a one way ticket to hell. Shucks. At any rate, all kinds of weird shit happens when your brain is fucked up. Ditto I guess when god appears to you.

More from the Neurocase article

a cascade of other symptoms: sharp pains in the chest and sensations of breathlessness; alterations of hearing; occasional musical hallucinations – he would always hear a particular song ‘as clearly as if it were being played in the next room’... 

 (Hmmm, I wonder if this is where they got that strange way of reciting-not-singing the koran. Did the angel sing it to Mo? Have to look into that)  Surgeons took out part of his temporal lobe, which just made it worse:

'behavioral changes of irritability, hyperphagia [increased eating] and hypersexuality (including coprophilia) developed. He became more sexually active with his wife and masturbated more often. Compulsively, he began to watch adult pornographic images and videos on the internet when his wife slept. ...Some websites solicited him to view and purchase child pornography. He became obsessed with this and eventually purchased and downloaded pornographic images of prepubescent females engaged in sexual activities from the internet.' For which he got busted, the shrink put him on meds, and 'His sexual obsessions disappeared, and according to his wife, "he became much warmer and loving but the medications shut off his libido... sex became non-existent."'

So there ya go. Fuckedupness in the brain cause changes in behavior and sexuality. On a side note, if we'd had cyberporn back then, instead of conquering half the known world Mo might have stayed in the basement jacking off. Remember that next time somebody complains about the internet.

Quranalysis

Not much in Chapter 62's eleven measly verses—god rocks, Jews suck. Way back, Lolkoran did some research on this one:

The fact is, reading the koran is NOT uplifting; it's a horrible chore. Part of the problem is that it's is a terrible piece of writing. Nobody could pass Freshman English by stringing together verses that don't tell a story, aren't grouped around separate topics, and aren't even in chronological order. Plus it's repetitious, self-contradictory, full of vague generalities and doesn't even indicate who's talking at any given point.

█ Here's an experiment on a random chapter, Surah 62: Friday. We start with the original text, 347 words, and take out all the Godifying. Saying “Allah” is the same as “Allah, the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, the Mighty, the Wise,” and the only reason for the bloviating flattery is to make your sermon sound impressive. It may fit in a tent revival meeting but it has no place in written prose. This eliminates 14% of the text.

█ We're left with 299 wds. Now we take out the gratuitous insults: blatant slurs like “God Damn them! How perverted are they!(9:30)” and the nonstop ranting that's constantly piled on anyone who disagrees with the author. This removes another 13+% and makes the text marginally palatable.

█ Next we rewrite the archaic King James Grammar that every self-styled prophet is compelled to use, since the marks won't believe their Almighty Lord could possibly talk except in a 16th century English Court dialect full of convoluted grammar fossils that take twice as long to say. This includes the ridiculous “Say to them” and pronominal goulash that translators are forced to put in to avoid the supposed narrator, God, saying “My Savior is Me (7:196)”. Fixing that reduces the text another 27% and we're down to 159 words of actual content, 46% of the original. Whew! Here's the breakdown.

This is God's best effort? If Shakespeare wrote that way he'd have made a good plumber, but that's not the worst of it. It's hard but rewarding to decipher ancient writings, extract the wisdom of other cultures, search for inspirational nuggets to help live life more productively. This isn't the place to do it—you'll get no uplifting feeling from reading the koran. The more I read it the more depressed I get, and when I put it down it is not with positive feelings. Without the snark and lolcats I'd be like Kafirgirl :

“I used to be one of those obnoxious Pollyanna types who always sees the bright side of things. And this damn book has quickly turned me into a curmudgeonly old misanthrope. I feel like I’ve been walking around in a state of perpetual pissed offness.”

The 48% content is horrible! I had expected some mix of Old Testament smiting and vengeance mixed in with an overall positive message of moral guidance. It's not like that at all. Here's a summary of the whole book:

Do what I say
or
I'll kill you
and
torture you in hell forever.

All the rest is just elaborations on the basic theme. As I went through paraphrasing the text so that I could understand it, I started using Korancronyms—shorthand terms for things that are repeated constantly. Here are some of them: IKE= I know everything, IKYA= I'll kick you ass, YAGTH= you'll all go to hell. There aren't any korancronyms for things like 'love your neighbor' because it never talks like that.

If you want to sell your product though, you'd better, and it's easy to anthropomorphize and cuten things up for kids. Veggie Tales made Moses into a cucumber! But how do you cuten up “kill them wherever you find them,” or “they will be derided by God, and will suffer painful punishment. Whether you plead forgiveness for them or not, God will never forgive them.” Is this the kind of thing you want your kid absorbing at preschool? You might as well hang up a bloody statue of a guy being tortured to death! Kids'd be better off if you sent them to the local S/M club, Srsly.

Veggie-tales manages to make the Old Testament a fun cartoony expression of the original idea, and that's saying something. But even a happy cucumber giving someone 'molten brass to drink' is just not something I want to see. Or beheading someone or taunting them while 'branding them on their foreheads, backs and sides'.


If those were rare isolated verses, one could ignore them, but they are korancronyms—you can't read more than a few lines without seeing crap like that. Overall it's a constant harangue on the evils of the unbelievers, who actually seem pretty reasonable, unlike the narrator. Reading it is like being stuck listening to some crotchety old bitter relative ranting how nothing in the world is any good; it's a breath of fresh air to get away from it.

The End is Near!

Chapter 64, only eighteen verses, absolutely nothing in here that hasn't been said and said and said before and before and before. It sounds like the earliest Mecca chapters. Probably out of order.

Chapter 61 is more of the same. Fourteen verses: believe, you'll go to heaven; and ...

⁴ Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array,

¹³ And another (favour will He bestow,) ... a speedy victory.

¹⁴ ... We gave power to those who believed, against their enemies, and they became the ones that prevailed.

IOW,

More Gossip

Chapter 66 is god telling Mohammed who he can fuck. Whoop de doo. Nobody knows what it's talking about. The experts argue over it, but either he got busted for screwing his wives out of turn, or he got pissed and divorced them all but went back on his word, or he had bad breath and swore to not drink honey. (no, I didn't make up that last one. It's a hadith. srsly)

There's this handy line, useful for future business endeavors:

[66:2]  Allah indeed has sanctioned for you the expiation of your oaths

Oh and hellfire. Hellfire, brother, hellfire. Lots of hellfire.

Muslims Having Sects

In chapter 49 God says:

Don't raise your voice with Mo!

This is so important, four verses [2-4] tell us it. Gosh.

Line 6. Always ascertain the truth, it sez. What about the four witness from ch 24? Guess we still need them

Line 7 Mohammed aint' gonna do what you want, it's the other way around, Bub.

Line 9, fighting within the cult, needs fisking:

⁹ If two parties among the Believers fall into a quarrel,[we aint talking about any infiddles. Fuck them, let em fight.] make ye peace between them: but if one of them transgresses beyond bounds [bounds being ??] against the other then fight ye (all)[!] against the one that transgresses [Pile on! No wallflowers!] until it complies with the command of Allah [nothing else matters. They join your cult or you keep fighting. Can you stop if they all get dead first? ]; but if it complies then make peace between them with justice and be fair: for Allah loves those who are fair (and just).

Bounds must be that comply with the will of Allah aka Mohammed. They fight over water rights, camel stealing, wimmen, none of that matters, but let somebody not comply with Allammed, that means every cult member's gotta join in thrashing their ass, and don't stop till they fucken do. THAT's the way to keep the peace, mutherfucker.

¹⁰ The Believers are but a single Brotherhood:

I've noticed that. I noticed it in the 1973 oil crisis. There were all those crocodile tears over the plight of their Palestinian brothers, so I calculated the Saudis raked in enough moola to give a million dollars to every person in Gaza and have some left over. Did they? Like bears play pool. They spent it all on American F-16s. Lately there's Dubai, not really helping, not to mention the Iraq 'war', or Islamism in general killing mainly other Muslims. Not true Scotsmen I reckon.

***

I was waiting at the train station this morning, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off as a train approached.

So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" He said "Why shouldn't I?".

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?"

I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious."

I said, "Me too! …Are you Christian or Muslim?" He said, "Muslim."

I said, "Me too! …Are you Sunni or Shia?" He said, "Shia."

I said, "Me too! …Are you Ismaeli or Twelver?" He said, "Twelver!"

I said, "Wow! Me too!…Are you Usooli or Akhbari?" He said, "Usooli!"

I said, "Me too! Do you do Itjihad or Taqlid under an Ayatollah?" He said, "I do Itjihad!"

I said, "Me too! Are you Progressive Muslim Union, or Muslim Wakeup?" He said, "Progressive Muslim Union!"

I said, “Wow, so am I! Are you 5th Street Mosque, or 12^th Avenue Mosque?” He said Fifth Street Mosque!”

I said, "Die, infidel scum"…and pushed him off.

***

Verse (11) ... don't laugh, call names, be suspicious, or (12) EAT THE FLESH OF YOUR DEAD BROTHER?? WTF??

Oh, whew. This is just a metaphor for doing something really Ewww. That's a relief.

All the rest = allah is hot shit. Maybe so, but he still can't write a decent metaphor.

By the Checkout Line

In Surah 58, the quran becomes a tabloid.

Ho hum. Something about divorce regulations. Also:

¹⁰ Secret counsels are only (inspired) by the Evil One, in order that he may cause grief to the Believers;

From what I gather from my in-depth research that consists of googling a few things and saying the hell with it because I'm so sick of this silliness, they mean gossip: Doan do it. Like we just did in chapter 24, right? Don't do that. Also there's more profound moral guidance to aid all humankind in their search for spiritual meaning:

¹ O ye who believe! When ye are told to make room in the assemblies, (spread out and) make room:

Also, share your toys. Don't push. Let the other boys and girls use your colors.

Thou Shalt Not Lie WIthout Witnesses

OK, somebody asked, what was “the lie” that knotted the quran's panties back in ch 24? The full and complete koran that doesn't need anything else to supplement it or you'll go to hell doesn't say, but the story is all famous. Here's the snark version.

Aisha got stranded out in the desert. Some guy gave her a ride home. People in the cult were all “Ahhh, she fucked him.”

QUIZ

You're Mohammed, people are badmouthing your wife. Do you:

(a) Man up and defend your wife, tell them to STFU
(b) Ask for her side of the story, try to find out what happened
(c) Dump her slutty ass

If you answered (a) or (b) you're just not prophet material. A real honest Man of God^®, such as Mohammed, believes every unfounded rumor that comes their way and hides from cooties. He stopped coming around to visit her, even though she was sick in bed [*remember, that's his "wife" we're talking about]. When she got better and tracked his sorry ass down, she found out about the rumors and got in his face about it. Yay, Aisha. You go girl!

He was noncommittal, in his usual chickenshit way, says allah will tell him if she is innocent or not. Way to be supportive there, asshole.

Then he goes into his old patented “Getting a message from the Lord” routine, panting and falling down and ... well, you've seen it in MarJoe and Jesus Camp.

When he comes to he's got verses 24:11-20 that say they're all talking shit, they shouldn't gossip, and then to stall off the possibility of saying something that's actually intelligent for once, he throws in line 13, that says no one is ever telling the truth unless four male witnesses back them up.

¹³ Why did they not bring four witnesses to prove it? When they have not brought the witnesses, such men, in the sight of Allah, (stand forth) themselves as liars!

So now we got shit like this: