‘The Butterfly Effect’ - Obama, Climate Change, and Islam’s War against the World

If even the wings of a butterfly have weight and shared causality, then what of the teachings and example of a seventh century desert prophet?

by Ralph H. Sidway

President Obama, during his recent address at the Coast Guard Commencement ceremonies, again offered his profound views on the myriad vectors shaping global unrest and chaos. Ranking high among the primal forces threatening us — high enough to be emphasized by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet — is that bane of mankind, “climate change.” 

Lest there be any doubt of the gravity of the situation, or of his authority in such matters, Mr. Obama predicates his mission with a great “I am” statement:

“I am here to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and make no mistake, will impact how our military defends our country.”

The Obama Administration is consistent and adamant on this topic. This past February, Vice-President Biden told college students in Iowa that “global warming is the greatest threat of anything at all, across the board,” and Secretary of State Kerry has likewise been beating the same drum.  (Never mind that the data shows we have been in a “global warming pause” for nearly two decades, and that climate-change IPCC scientists resorted to manipulating the data in order to create the fraudulent "hockey-stick graph" and advance their agenda.)

Curiously, the Administration’s emphasis on the threat from “climate change” seems to roughly balance its insistence that the Islamic State Caliphate is “not Islamic” and is not much of a threat anyway.  One might be tempted to think that the “war against climate change” is being used as a tool to deflect attention away from Islam’s war against us.

But let’s allow, for the sake of argument (and in deference to the great Ray Bradbury’s short story, “A Sound of Thunder”), that there is some validity to “The Butterfly Effect,” the chaos theory corollary which postulates that events of great consequence may be set in motion by much smaller events separated by vast scales of time and distance. “Change one thing — Change everything,” says the tag for the 2004 Ashton Kutcher film of the same name. 

So, in the Obama narrative, chaotic weather shifts are contributing to drought, floods, poverty, inequity, and a host of other effects, all triggers generating global violent extremism, as disenfranchised groups duke it out for dwindling resources — or something like that.

But no matter how you dress it up with fancy words and phony analysis, the Obama narrative of “Blame it on the weather” is not only incorrect, it is as deceitful as the hockey-stick graph itself.

Let’s rather explore “the Butterfly Effect” and take a quick ride in Ray Bradbury’s time machine back to the early 7th century. Let’s set the dials for shortly after Muhammad makes his hijra to Medina (Year 1, in the Islamic calendar). Let’s listen to the prophet and watch his actions. But take care not to step off the path.

Islam in SciFi 3: World War Z

After discussing the Borg of the Star Trek universe in Part 1, and the shuffling zombies of The Walking Dead in Part 2, I wish to apply the SciFi angle to Islam in a slightly different way by considering the symbolism behind the new Brad Pitt blockbuster, World War Z, scheduled for release on June 21, 2013.

In my Walking Dead article, I surveyed the zombie apocalypse genre pretty thoroughly, so I won't discuss that again here. I did mention the jacked-up zombies of 28 Days Later, which are not the typical slow-moving undead, but are instead infected by what is called the "Rage Virus," which accelerates their mobility, and their killing capabilities.

It seems something similar to the rage virus is what is infecting Brad Pitt's adversaries in World War Z, only in WWZ the outbreak is not limited to an island, but rapidly spreads around the globe through its highly infectious nature, and the 8 second transition period from bite to biter.

The trailers are filled with harrowing scenes, with rapid, rabid mobs overrunning cities, defenses, buildings, helicopters, climbing up over one another to scale fortified walls. (There is even a deeply disturbing scene on a jetliner which jolts to mind memories of the 9/11 jihad hijackings.) It is truly shocking imagery, yet in a strange sense, it seems we have seen something like this before...

Why yes, we have... in the massive Arab Spring riots in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Tunisia and Libya, and in the riots in Fall 2012 over a YouTube video said to insult Muhammad and Islam, and of course the infamous riots which raged throughout the Muslim world in 2006 following publication of cartoons of Muhammad by a Danish newspaper, and so on.

Taking the Arab Spring as one example, the shocking inhumanity of that supposed "freedom and democracy" movement, which has ended up sweeping hard-core Islamists into power, was exposed for all the world to see. Murder, rape, molotov cocktails, madness, screaming, mayhem; the only obvious difference seems to be that zombies don't wave flags or Qur'ans, or promise "freedom and democracy," or claim to follow a prophet of peace and tolerance.

You've seen the WWZ trailer above. Here is very nearly a mirror image from RussiaToday news, reporting on the YouTube riots. With a little editing, it could pass for another WWZ movie trailer, even including a spinning globe graphic showing the spread of the Muslim Rage Virus:

One thing is similar between the slow, shuffling zombies and the jacked up Z-zombies: neither type has a human conscience. Regarding the Human Conscience, I said this in my post on the Walking Dead:

The point in considering all this is to draw the comparison with the Islamic worldview, the worldview of Jihad, where Muhammad is the al insan al kamil, the perfect man and most beautiful pattern of conduct. From this primary principle are traced all the horrendous excesses of the shari'ah, which derive straight from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Muhammad: Infidels (kuffir) are the most vile of created beings, Jews are equated with pigs and monkeys, non-Muslims must convert to Islam, submit to Islam's authority, or be killed, amputations for thieves, stoning for adulterers, and more and more blood and carnage. 

What happens when a Muslim buys into the Islamic worldview and accepts Muhammad as his example, submitting himself to the shari'ah, is that the Muslim submits his (or her) conscience to the uber-conscience of the Ummah. Such a Muslim ultimately commits moral suicide, deadening his conscience to the point that murder is justifiable; condemning non-Muslims, deceiving them, and if possible waging war against them is not only permissible but obligatory. Because Muslims who have submitted to the Jihadi worldview believe that Allah has ordained everything and Islam is superior, they have lost virtually every last trace of a normal human conscience. They are instead propelled by dark red impulses at the base of the brain. The Jihadi is like a slightly more intelligent, more functional zombie. 

We might dare to specify it a bit more clearly: the Jihadi is a moral zombie.

The Global Jihad Pandemic is not the first outbreak of evil which springs into being when men and women kill their God-given conscience. We've seen similar plagues before: the French Revolution, the Armenian Genocide (which really spanned from 1894 to 1923 and beyond, see here and here), the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent seven decade reign of militant atheist terror in Russia, Nazism and the Holocaust, the killing fields in Cambodia, and so on. However, the Global Jihad is unique in that it is inspired by religion, not fleeting political movements, and in that it draws from a pool of adherents numbering around 1.5 billion. World War Z indeed.

Amazing how the terrifying images out of the Islamic world mirror these nightmarish zombie fictions. And we really should not be too surprised at the similarity, as the Qur’an commands this: 

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Sura 8:12) 

Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah and your enemies. (Sura 8:60)

Am I implying that all Muslims are jihadist terrorist zombies? Of course not. But most terrorists and all jihadists are Muslims, and according to one reputable statistic, there have been almost 21,000 deadly jihad terror attacks since 9/11/01. The recent Boston Marathon bombings have like never before raised the issue of how Muslims become “radicalized” — or as some prefer to call it, “self” radicalized — as if the Muslim turn to violent jihad could occur in isolation from any influences. Indeed, as we have been learning, the Tsurnaev brothers were associated with a radical mosque in Boston, and four separate studies over the last decade have shown that upwards of 80% of mosques in the U.S. promote jihad, violence, Islamic supremacism and sedition (see here, here, here and here).

The Islamic Jihad plague is not a random phenomenon which is impossible to understand. Rather it is a religious commandment and worldwide movement, one which indicates a spiritual death and turn — analogous to how a zombie turns — a deadening of the conscience, enabling the replacing of it with dark and blood-red motivations.

Brad Pitt may not realize it, but his epic zombie apocalypse film, World War Z, provides us with the most vivid metaphor yet of the real world war we are already facing.

Brad Pitt's character in the film is a UN investigator desperately searching for clues to creating a cure to the zombie plague. In confronting the real-world Islamic Jihad Zombie Plague, the only possible cure is Christ. Don't laugh, jihadis can be converted! We have such an example in the fearless martyr Fr Daniel Sysoev of Moscow, who spoke and wrote boldly against Islam, and before he was killed by a Muslim extremist had converted some eighty Muslims to Christ, including some hardcore Wahabbi extremists.

How could he do this? Only by the love of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The teaching of the beloved Russian Saint Seraphim of Sarov comes to mind: "Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and a thousand will be saved around you."

Regardless of how far gone a jihadi may seem, he or she is still a human person created in the image of God. Unlike a zombie, a Muslim can repent, renounce his false religion and embrace Jesus Christ, and be raised to newness of life. This hope of the awakening and conversion of every soul is at the core of our faith. And as a line from the WWZ trailer says, "Each one we save is one less we have to fight."

I deliberately have included this Christian exhortation, both to encourage the Christians who may be reading this, but also to encourage all of us, whatever creed, whether believers or atheists, to not allow our own innate human conscience to die or burn out during our struggle against the “jihad zombies.” If we allow hate to rise like bile within our hearts, we ourselves are in danger of becoming less than human, and the zombies which plague us will have won a double victory. We must admit to having mortal enemies, but we do not have to admit their infection into our hearts. "Let us forgive all by the Resurrection."

In closing, just for emphasis, here are some more images to make the zombie-jihad connection. See if you can tell the difference:

Islam in SciFi 2: The Walking Dead

As far as I can tell from the stats on this blog, by far the most popular post I have done (so far) has been, Islam in SciFi: The Borg.  Based on such popularity, it looks like this approach deserves to be an ongoing series, which really makes sense. Christ used parables to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven. Similarly, we can draw out aspects of Islam and jihad by employing examples we all can relate to, straight from our haram pop-culture. Don't you just love the irony of it?

For this entry in my fledgling series on Islam in SciFi, I have chosen the hit AMC series, The Walking Dead, which starts its third season in mid-October, just a couple of weeks from now.   The Walking Dead is, of course, the most popular manifestation of the bizarre modern phenomenon of the 'Zombie Apocalypse' doomsday narrative. The theme dates at least as far back as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), but it was really George A. Romero and Night of the Living Dead in 1968 which brought the zombie mythos to life, so to speak.

Whereas the parallels between Islam and the Borg were many (leading me to issue a warning to Rick Berman and the Star Trek team to beware, lest they find themselves under a death fatwa for patterning the Borg cube after the Kaaba in Mecca), the Zombie Apocalypse, whether described by George A. Romero or Robert Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead graphic novels), offers a completely different terrain for us to consider, with many of the lessons and parallels pertaining to the remnant of humanity who struggle to survive.

Devout Adherents of 'The Religion of Peace'

But first of all, we have to confront the zombies, or as they're called in the AMC series, the 'Walkers'. Am I saying that Muslims are like zombies? No. At least most of them aren't. But I do think we can make the case that, just as I discussed in my post on the Borg, when humanity is confronted with an implacable foe, a nemesis which cannot be negotiated with, then battle is the only option, and victory the only desirable outcome. In the case of the Walkers, their motivations are brutally simple: if they smell, see or hear you, they're going to try to catch and eat you. That is the extent of their existence. For the survivors in The Walking Dead, their battle is initially just for survival. 

At the end of the first season of The Walking Dead we were treated to a little zombie science. Rick and Laurie and the rest of the survivors made it to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, where the last surviving scientist showed them a real time brain scan of someone who was bitten by a Walker, died and then was reanimated as a zombie. (The victim was the scientist's wife. This is a deeply dramatic show.) The brain scan showed the victim's normal synaptic activity. Then, as she weakened and neared death, the brain showed less and less activity. At death it went completely dark. Then, upon reanimation due to the zombie plague, only a deep red minimal activity was seen at the base of the brain, the most primitive, primal nerve center.

A Zombie Herd in The Walking Dead

The point was made. Walkers are no longer fully human. They no longer possess a conscious mind as we know it. They are reanimated corpses which are driven by an animal-like hunger which they cannot control. They have no memory of their former life (though we have seen glimpses of the briefest recognition in one victim right at the beginning of being reanimated), and they have no trace of a human conscience. They are being propelled by dark, blood-red impulses at the base of the brain. 

This is similar to the condition of a Borg drone. When a person is assimilated into the Borg collective, the individual ceases to exist and is controlled by the collective mind. In the case of zombies, there is barely any mind there, but because all the zombies have the same instinctual drive to feed on flesh, they act somewhat like a collective. They even travel in herds. We were treated to the spectacle of a huge, shuffling herd of Walkers limping down the highway at the start of Season 2. The onslaught of a much larger — and more highly motivated — herd during the Season 2 finale was the stuff of nightmares.

For a different, and in many ways much more frightening, take on the zombie apocalypse, consider the movies 28 Days Later, and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. In these films, the "rage virus" is unleashed, transforming the infected into manic, jacked-up predators, who are swift, vicious and just as merciless as the shuffling Walkers. This scenario is similar to the plague in I Am Legend, Will Smith's contribution to the zombie mythos. It is also similar to Muslim riots occurring all over the globe now.

Obviously, for the zombie apocalypse survivors to, well, survive, they have to kill zombies. The horror of the zombie genre, and its disturbing popularity in our post-modern, post-Christian world, is largely the perversion of seeing how humans become themselves less and less human, as they are forced to kill an endless mass of infected fellow humans. There is barely even a glimpse of an authentic Christian voice in any of these zombie tales. There is at least the struggling human conscience, but Christ is largely absent from the zombie genre. The zombie apocalypse is a post-Christian phenomenon, and we are seeing a real-world depiction of it now on the nightly news.

A Herd of Muslim Protestors last week

Amazing how the images out of the Islamic world mirror these nightmarish zombie fictions. But the comparisons go far beyond the obvious visuals.

The point in considering all this is to draw the comparison with the Islamic worldview, the worldview of Jihad, where Muhammad is the al insan al kamil, the perfect man and most beautiful pattern of conduct. From this primary principle are traced all the horrendous excesses of the shari'ah, which derive straight from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Muhammad: Infidels (kuffir) are the most vile of created beings, Jews are equated with pigs and monkeys, non-Muslims must convert to Islam, submit to Islam's authority, or be killed, amputations for thieves, stoning for adulterers, and more and more blood and carnage.

What happens when a Muslim buys into the Islamic worldview and accepts Muhammad as his example, submitting himself to the shari'ah, is that the Muslim submits his (or her) conscience to the uber-conscience of the Ummah. Such a Muslim ultimately commits moral suicide, deadening his conscience to the point that murder is justifiable; condemning non-Muslims, deceiving them, and if possible waging war against them is not only permissible but obligatory. Because Muslims who have submitted to the Jihadi worldview believe that Allah has ordained everything and Islam is superior, they have lost virtually every last trace of a normal human conscience. They are instead propelled by dark red impulses at the base of the brain. The Jihadi is like a slightly more intelligent, more functional zombie.

We might dare to specify it a bit more clearly: the Jihadi is a moral zombie.

For many infernal reasons, the fourteen-century-old Islamic zombie plague is once again spreading. We have seen an explosion of jihad plots in the last few years. As recently documented on JihadWatch, a partial list includes:

A devout follower of Muhammad

. . . the activities of Muslims such as Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and motivated by its texts and teachings -- all in the U.S. in the last couple of years.

Whether jihad plots, or zombie plotlines, the challenge is the same: how does one survive a brewing apocalypse?

For an Orthodox Christian, we strive to forgive and even to love our enemies. And in doing so, we may see some of them come to the truth of the Gospel. The teaching of St Seraphim of Sarov comes to mind: "Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and a thousand will be saved around you." Some may have the calling to be a true missionary: The New Martyr Fr. Daniel Sysoev (†2009) converted over eighty Muslims to Orthodoxy, including some hard-core Wahabbis. St Kosmas of Aitolia (called "Equal to the Apostles") in the 18th century went about Greece and Albania, teaching, establishing schools, and preaching in the center of towns until he was martyred by the Turkish Muslims, who could not stand that he was strengthening the faith of the oppressed Orthodox Christians. It is these luminous examples who show us the better way of dealing with the Walking Dead. For regardless of how far gone a jihadi may seem, he or she is still a human person created in the image of God. Unlike the Walking Dead, a Muslim can repent, renounce their false religion and satanic prophet, and embrace Jesus Christ, and be raised to newness of life. This hope of the awakening and conversion of every soul is at the core of our faith.

At the same time, we note those Christians who defended themselves, their lands, their families and peoples against invading Muslim forces. We are reminded of the holy and righteous example of Tsar Martyr Lazar of Serbia, whose heroic stand against the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo weakened the Muslims enough so that they could not penetrate into Europe, and had to pull back and regroup, before trying again at the Gates of Vienna three centuries later. Tsar Lazar and his army attended the Divine Liturgy the morning of battle, receiving Holy Communion, and before heading out to meet the enemy, proclaimed their faith and loyalty, "For the Holy Cross, and Glorious Freedom!"  If you have no choice but to fight the zombies, this is the Christian way to prepare.

The most confounding (to the modern mind) Christian witness is that of a whole Christian population which refuses to submit to Islam, refuses to deny Christ, but lays its life down en masse. The other-worldly faith of the 100,000 Holy Martyrs of Tbilisi, Georgia (†1227) is such a witness and example.

[After the bloody and terrifying invasion,] the sultan ordered that the icons of the Theotokos and our Savior be carried out of Sioni Cathedral and placed at the center of the bridge across the Mtkvari River. The invaders goaded the people to the bridge, ordering them to cross it and spit on the holy icons. Those who betrayed the Christian Faith and mocked the icons were spared their lives, while the Orthodox confessors were beheaded. 

One hundred thousand Georgians sacrificed their lives to venerate the holy icons. One hundred thousand severed heads and headless bodies were carried by the bloody current down the Mtkvari River. (The Lives of the Georgian Saints, Archpriest Zakaria Machidatze, St Herman of Alaska Press, Platina CA, pp 403, 404.)

  

All these saints, peaceful or warriors, were slain by the walking dead. The Warrior Saint Tsar Lazar, the Missionary Martyr Fr Daniel Sysoev of Moscow, the Peaceful Preacher St Kosmas of Aitolia, and the hundred-thousand ordinary men, women and children of Tbilisi; they were all martyred by their Muslim oppressors. In each case, they sought the Lord, grew in the Lord, acquired the Holy Spirit, and ascended their cross, attaining a glorious resurrection. The walking dead could not touch their souls, and these saints of God reveal to us how to walk in light. This is eternal life. May we be found worthy to follow in their footsteps, and conquer not only the walking dead, but the devil himself!

Islam in SciFi: 'The Borg'

I recently watched one of the Star Trek motion pictures, First Contact (1996), which I hadn't seen in quite some time. It features the Star Trek: The Next Generation characters, and pits them against the evil Borg, who are trying to take over (assimilate) the human race. 

The movie is still very entertaining after fifteen years, its special effects at the service of a witty and engaging story, but what I wish to consider is the nature and symbolic importance of the unique menace introduced into the Star Trek universe by the STTNG series (and if one uses these abbreviations, you may infer he is at some level, a 'Trekker'), featured in this film in a more personal and sinister context than was ever done in the TV series: the Borg.

Short for CYBORG (which is short for 'Cybernetic Organism'), the Borg 'collective' is unlike the Klingons or Romulans, adversaries of Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s (STTOS). The Klingons, you may recall, symbolized the old Soviet Union, with some of the STTOS episodes offering insightful commentary on geopolitics and the Cold War (e.g., 'Balance of Power' and others), whereas the Romulans could perhaps be seen as Communist China, fleshing out a dangerous galaxy of expansionist civilizations whose cultures are distinctly war-like, glorifying battle and conquest, contesting with the peaceful (yet powerfully armed) United Federation of Planets of which our Star Trek characters are essentially naval armed services representatives.

Whereas the Klingons and Romulans are like us, in that they are distinct persons with differing personalities working together to advance their particular value systems and cultures, the Borg are a uniform, homogenized collective controlled by an 'uber-mind'; they exist as a 'hive' of drones, those words specifically used in the STTNG series (and in the Star Trek: Voyager series) and film to describe the collective and its Borg members. 

The Borg exist simply to expand their dominance. They have no culture, no arts, no personal life. (One could adapt the Ayatollah Khomeini's infamous dictum about Islam here: "There is no fun in The Borg!") They cannot think for themselves. They stiffly stride around like futuristic zombies. As they conquer different races and worlds, they kill whom they must, but what they strive to do is 'assimilate' others by getting close enough to inject self-replicating nanobots into the victim's bloodstream, who is then quickly transformed into a drone himself, and then surgically outfitted with cyber attachments to increase his warfare and technological capabilities. The drone's mind is subsumed into that of the collective, which we learn is organized and controlled by the Borg Queen, who seems to be the only Borg with a personality as such; she even declares "I am the Borg," indicating her role and power both.

With this brief background, we may notice a few key parallels between the Borg, and the looming sinister menace of the early 21st century, Islam.

The Borg always first engage the civilizations they have targeted for assimilation with an invitation. They encroach upon the target civilization's territory with one of their huge cubes, and immediately invite them to be assimilated, offer to raise them to perfection, and warn them ominously that, "Resistance is futile." If the target civilization declines the invitation, the Borg attack, and because of their sheer numbers, advanced technology, and singleminded determination, usually win, and assimilate the survivors of their genocidal assault into the 'hive', the collective.

This pattern is shockingly similar to the practice of Jihad and the Dhimma, as waged by Muhammad himself and his early followers from the Medinan period onward, and emulated for nearly fourteen centuries by devout Muslims. Just as Muhammad did (and he is the perfect example for Muslims, the 'ideal man'), jihadists invite the non-Muslims in whatever territory they are expanding into, to embrace Islam. If the infidels (kuffir, a term which has connotations of being unclean, and even sub-human) refuse to convert to Islam, the Muslims may make war upon them and kill them, unless the infidels acknowledge the superiority of Islam and submit to its temporal rule over their lives and property, paying the humiliating and crippling jizya tax. This 'Third Choice' is perhaps the only real difference between the Borg and Islam. The Borg are not quite so "generous."

As a side note, it is extremely interesting that the Star Trek creators designed the Borg ships to be shaped as cubes (with green-colored phaser weapons—green was Muhammad's favorite color), for the most important site on earth for a Muslim is the Kaaba in Mecca, where every Muslim must face when he/she prays, and to where every able-bodied adult Muslim must make pilgrimage at least once in their life. 'Kaaba', of course, merely means 'cube'. Did the Star Trek team deliberately pattern the Borg on the historical nemesis of Western Civilization? (Perhaps someone should warn Rick Berman and the Star Trek creative team that they may find themselves under a death fatwa should this 'secret' ever be deciphered by the more zealous adherents of the Religion of PeaceTM.)

For Muslims, including those who convert to Islam, if they take it seriously, and embrace such key dogmas as following the Sunnah (or 'Way') of Muhammad, and if they do this diligently, putting aside any internal, personal doubts or reservations, they become like the Borg drones; they inevitably 'submit' (the meaning of 'Islam') and deaden their own God-given conscience for an uber-conscience imposed upon them from without by the Ulema, the Muslim jurists who interpret the Koran and the life and sayings of Muhammad so as to form the Muslim ethos. This is why the Mujahideen can justify killing innocent civilians, women and children, and even other Muslims, in their jihad attacks. Such 'victims', by their living a Western way of life, or cooperating with the United States, are not innocent but guilty, and Muslims who side with the US or live according to Western mores, are de facto apostates, and thus guilty as well.

The concept of guilt and innocence in Islam, is tightly connected to the concept of Allah's sovereignty. Infidels are guilty precisely because they are infidels. Similarly, since, in Islam, the whole earth belongs to Allah, and therefore to the Ummah (i.e., the Muslim community), Muslims have both a right, and a compelling, divine duty to conquer lands not under Muslim control, to return that land to Allah's control. Thus to a Muslim, they are always the victims, and all their wars are defensive, not offensive. They are striving to liberate the world from the wrongful tyranny of non-Muslims. 

Granted, the Borg do not have this precise nuance regarding sovereignty, guilt and innocence, but they are possessed of an innate belief of being the perfect life form, which provides them with similar motivation to bring all sentient life forms into their Ummah of perfection. This fully corresponds to Islam's assertion that Muslims are the best of people, the winners, while Jews are descended from apes and swine, and all infidels are the worst of created beings, and are the losers in this life and the next.

These superficial similarities are interesting enough, but in the latter third of the film, we see a 'fascinating' (with all due deference to Mr. Spock) exchange between the Borg Queen and Commander Data, who is impervious to assimilation because he is an android, with such powerful encryption codes that he would have to willingly submit in order to ally himself with the Borg. The Borg Queen (portrayed with a creepy sensuality by Alice Krige) seeks to tempt Data by fitting him with the very thing he has always lacked, and always longed for: human skin. (Truly, Data is a futuristic Pinnochio figure, who in many ways is quite human.) His reaction to the Queen blowing softly across his newly enfleshed forearm hairs is a powerful depiction of carnal temptation. 

This use of temptation to convert is a tactic employed again and again by Islamic rulers, as evinced in the stories of the Neomartyrs under the Ottoman Muslims from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and even to our own time (see my previous post). The Christian is offered wealth, women, prestige, and luxury, if he will but renounce Christ and embrace Islam. (Some of the Neomartyrs did succumb to initial temptations, or were in other cases tricked into becoming Muslims, later repenting and confessing Christ, thus expunging their former apostasy and securing their martyrdom and salvation.)

Dramatically, Captain Jean Luc Picard offers himself to the Borg Queen if she will let Data go. Picard himself was captured by the Borg some years before, but was recaptured by the Federation and set free from the Borg's control and fully restored. He comes to realize, in a stunning epiphany, that the Borg Queen did not fully assimilate him as the Borg did with other humans, but was seeking to bend him to voluntarily join the collective, so he could be used to deceive, manipulate and control the Federation. In the midst of Data's temptation, Picard faces and utterly defeats his own nightmares concerning his prior experience with the Borg.

At the climax of the film, Data reveals he was himself merely deceiving the Borg Queen (note the irony, for Muhammad said, "War is deceit"), and he and Picard destroy her and the drones, saving the day and the entire human race, past and future. Their devotion to a humanity worth saving is our final key point in our consideration of the Borg.

The Star Trek universe posits a humanity that has value; it holds an anthropology that is innately advocating the extraordinariness of human existence. This is not a Christian anthropology (for, like all science fiction, Star Trek presupposes an evolutionist cosmogeny), but for our consideration, it makes two very powerful statements: (1) humanity, in all its diversity, with all its flaws, has unique, intrinsic value, and is worth defending, even unto the utter annihilation of an intractable foe; and (2) there are such things as intractable foes which must be completely defeated.

Regarding anthropologies: the Christian and Judaic faiths affirm that God created man in His own image.  In Christ we are raised up to be children of God, and co-heirs of the Kingdom of God with Christ, even reigning with Him if we remain faithful to the end. Hell is precisely our rejection of God and His love. As God's love is poured out on all, it will illumine and bless those who have loved Him and longed to live for and with Him, while it will burn those who have denied Him and hated or ignored God and neighbor.

Islam rejects such claims, believing that man was formed from a clot of blood, and his earthly role and only hope is to be a slave of Allah, and his eternal destiny is either a lusty, carnal paradise if Allah spares him (or if he is a jihadist killed while fighting in the way of Allah), or eternal damnation with Allah personally supervising his endless torture. There is no personal, intimate union of God with man in Islam, just fear of a capricious, vile creator, one of whose 99 names in the Koran is "the Best Deceiver."

Thus the horrific threat of Islamic fundamentalist movements like Wahhabism, Salafism and others, including those who seek to institute sharia law in the United States. These movements, by returning to the example of the warlord, pedophile, false-prophet Muhammad and his bloody Sunnah as the model for all Muslims for all time, and by elevating their rigid, brutal Islamic law as wholly above human reason, understanding and compassion, kill their God-given human conscience, and voluntarily buy into a satanic delusion, becoming the very intractable foe that our PC-infected culture is so loath to confront. 

In the Star Trek universe, some individuals were set free from the Borg collective (e.g., Picard, Seven-of-Nine from Star Trek Voyager), but the Borg itself was wholly irredeemable, and could not be trusted, negotiated with, placated nor appeased. So it is with Islam. More than a "Clash of Civilizations," Islam is a full frontal assault on human nature, human dignity, and on the dignity of God. If we allow Islam to co-opt Orthodox Christianity by assenting to the Same-God heresy, then we are blatantly guilty of blaspheming God, by ascribing to the Holy Trinity characteristics belonging to Satan. That is one intractable foe which must be confronted and repudiated at every turn. The false religion and ideology of Islam can only be destroyed by the Truth and Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Cube has to go.