Silicon Valley and Islam: Jewels in the Mouth of Satan

Last week, Dr Bill Warner at the Center for the Study of Political Islam released a short video discussing the "economic warfare" being waged on him by Silicon Valley and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These technocratic white knights are pushing non-capitulators out of the conversation to make way for the moral degeneracy of Islam.

Companies like PayPal, YouTube, Facebook, and Google are using cringy SPLC hate lists as their guide in targeting dissenters. Whether they realize it or not they work to protect evil. Like many American politicians they make lies a way of life. 

Silicon Valley and the Bay Area have a long history of seducing the rest of America with the bit of hedonism. Perhaps you recently read about California State Senator Scott Wiener out of San Francisco. Wiener co-authored legislation that now makes it a mere misdemeanor to knowingly infect someone with HIV. It's now California law. Don't be surprised when your state follows. And don't be surprised when you're called a "hater" for resisting.

Demonic Enslavement

With the above in mind, I couldn't help but think how the gross, demonic hedonism that runs through Islam is so close to the unrepentant sexual degeneracy storming our culture. It all comes from the same dark place. It's all lies from the father of lies. He wants to enslave us. He mocks the life in Christ.

In order to believe that Islam is a peaceful victim worth fighting for you'd have to believe that war is peaceful -- along with subjugation and rape. 

Muslim using young boy as a "honey pot".

In order to believe that unrepentant sexual deviance is peaceful and worth fighting for you'd have to believe that slavery to impulse is peaceful -- along with spiritual death and mockery of God.

CA State Senator Scott Wiener.

We Don't Have to Pretend

All people of conscience should understand that empires come and go. Never forget that our country was bitten by Enlightenment thinking at her founding. There's a lot to love about America but for the sake of your soul -- it's okay to be suspicious of the mechanisms that made a place for evil. Take care to guard your heart. Resist the impulse to get-along. Enlightenment ideas, by design, push us toward secularism and empiricism at the expense of morality and the true God. You are free to question spaces made for the evil one.

We don't have to pretend that Mohammed is a source of cultural strength because our leaders say so (or because of the First Amendment). We don't have to co-sign the sexual revolution to be open and loving. We don't have to affirm the violent homicide of pre-borns in their mommies' bellies in order to stand with women or the poor. 

We must render unto Caesar and be mindful. Tread carefully. As time passes our marginalization will likely intensify. The culture wants us to affirm its progress or face the consequences. May our true citizenship be the New Jerusalem. America may send us there sooner than we think.

That "Low-Level Hum" ? It may be your Conscience.

Suspicion of Islam is not a bad thing. It is a sign of moral, mental and spiritual health. Especially when it comes from among Muslims.

by Ralph Sidway

In the recent story, “Backlash from Brussels terrorism frustrates Muslims in Maine,” by Matt Byrne, Portland Press Herald, one of the Muslims interviewed, Ahmed Abdiraham, described a “low-level hum of suspicion that permeates [Muslims’] everyday lives.” 

Mr. Abdiraham attributes that “low-level hum” to the “anger and hostility displayed nationally during the political campaign season,” which he claims stokes fear and anger against Muslims.

I wonder if that “low-level hum” which Abdiraham hears might not be coming from a different source. 

Here’s why.

Counting the Tragedies from the San Bernardino Jihad Attack

Trying to assess the magnitude of the loss in last week's massacre committed by two devout Muslims...

A composite photo of all 14 victims from the San Bernardino shooting rampage. They are top row left: Robert Adams, Isaac Amanios, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman and Sierra Clayborn. Second row from left: Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman and Damian Meins. Bottom row from left: Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco and Michael Wetzel. (Courtesy of family / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Times has put up a very respectful piece honoring the San Bernardino shooting victims. Short bios with photos portray a very diverse group of good, dedicated people. You can read their stories here, and then say a prayer for the repose of their souls, and for God's care for their families.

It's important to reflect on the loss. Perhaps like many of us, I've been focused in my earlier posts on the attack and the details surrounding it, the connections to ISIS, and the ongoing threat from Muslims inspired to zealously follow the example of Muhammad and the words of the Koran.

I'd like to reflect now on the depths of the tragedy of San Bernardino from a different perspective.

In the Orthodox Church, at the Midnight Office, we pray:

for protection...  from plague, famine, earthquake, flood, fire, sword, invasion by enemies, civil war and sudden death; and that our good God, who loves mankind, will be merciful, kindly and easily entreated, turn away and dispel all wrath and disease stirred up against us, and deliver us from his just threat that hangs over us, and have mercy on us.

In the Orthodox view of life and salvation, sudden death is a tragedy, because those who die unexpectedly are deprived of that final time of preparation for eternity which a final illness provides. Who among us is repenting until their last breath? Who among us would feel prepared to face the judgment if we were confronted by violent attack by "sword, invasion by enemies, civil war and sudden death"?

So we pray for the souls of those whose lives were cut off so suddenly, without that time for preparation. May God have mercy on their souls!

There is, however, another element to this tragedy, which I wish to explore, and that concerns the deluded, deceived jihadis, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik.

We must not forget that these two people were also created in the image of God. 

How deceived they became by immersing themselves in the Koran and the example and words of Muhammad! How tragic that they took Islam so seriously that they allowed their God-given conscience to be nullified, neutered, deadened. 

And then, having murdered their God-given conscience, they then proceeded to plan and implement the wicked, evil, bloodthirsty mass murder of other people created in the image of God! (And people who had thrown them a baby shower only months earlier!?)

Do we see how the one murder leads to the second? 

But this is not merely an individual tragedy. This is the tragedy at the very heart and core of Islam.

How Nazism Explains ‘Moderate’ and ‘Radical’ Islam

Were non-violent Nazis the "real" Nazis? 

by Raymond Ibrahim, PJ Media — August 16, 2015

If Islamic doctrines are inherently violent, why isn’t every single Muslim in the world—that is, approximately 1.5 billion people—violent?

This question represents one of Islam’s most popular apologetics: because not all Muslims are violent, intolerant, or sponsor terrorism—a true statement—Islam itself must be innocent.

Let’s briefly consider this logic.

First, there are, in fact, many people who identify themselves as Muslims but who do not necessarily adhere to or support Islam’s more supremacist and intolerant doctrines.  If you have lived in a Muslim majority nation, you would know this to be true.

The all-important question is, what do such Muslims represent?  Are they following a legitimate, “moderate,” version of Islam—one more authentic than the terrorist variety?  That’s what the media, politicians, and academics would have us believe.

The best way to answer this question is by analogy:

Breaking News: Ottawa Gunman a Recent Convert to Islam

Terrorist shooting attack is the second fatal Muslim Jihad Attack this week in Canada. See here for more.

Alleged Ottawa Gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, recent convert to Islam

And it seems that these Muslims were acting in direct response to calls from the Islamic State Caliphate for Muslims to attack sites in North America (see here and here).  These are not "lone wolf" attacks. They are a direct result of an increasingly emboldened Islam, and the ideology which commands such attacks comes directly from the Quran and the example of Muhammad (see my post on the 'Jerusalem' Omnimax film here.)

With 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, if only 1% are motivated to obey the Quran's commands to wage jihad against non-Muslims, that means there are 16 million radicalized Muslim jihadists out there. If the ratio is 10%, the Muslim jihad army jumps to 160 million.

As I wrote in an article in May 2013 (Message to Muslims: Time for Some Serious Questions) after the broad daylight murder and near beheading of British soldier Lee Rigby by a Muslim:

This is gravely concerning, and should prompt us to pose the following questions to all Muslims everywhere: 

1. Do you subscribe to this same "theologically determined logic" which spawns acts of violence and terrorism by Muslims in every country of the world, and drives an Islamic supremacism which seeks to establish a global caliphate to bring Islam to world dominance? In other words, do you feel in your heart, as a Muslim, that you are at war with non-Muslims?

2. If you say you do not subscribe to this worldview, how do you support your position from Islam's sacred texts? Because — as you should know — all Islamic supremacists and jihadists fully support their actions using the Quran and the example of Muhammad and the consistent teaching of Islamic jurisprudence, and they say your religion commands you to support them in the global jihad.

3. In your heart of hearts, when you continue to see such horrific acts being perpetrated in the name of Islam by men and women who claim to be devout Muslims and use your own sacred texts to back up their actions, do you question the validity of your Islamic faith, your Muslim identity? In other words, "Are you finally reaching a crisis point in your faith?"

In short, it's time to ask Muslims everywhere, "Why do you remain a Muslim?"

It's time for Muslims to ask themselves, "Why do I remain a Muslim?"

'Grounds for Impeachment': Forbes Op-Ed makes the case regarding Obama

Regular readers of my blog know that I strongly disagree with and criticize President Obama on an array of issues, concentrating especially on his support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (for which he has been charged with 'Crimes Against Humanity' at the International Criminal Court), Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al Qaeda/Al-Nusra in Syria, his support of the genocidal persecution of Christians by Muslim extremist groups, and in general for his efforts to wipe away 1700 years of Christian civilization through actions designed to reverse St. Constantine's Edict of Milan.

Though I have weighed in on domestic and political issues before, I generally try to restrain myself, as that is not part of the specific purpose of this blog. However, the below editorial which recently ran in Forbes deserves to be widely shared and acted upon.


Obama's Disdain For The Constitution Means We Risk Losing Our Republic
Forbes Op/Ed by M. Northup Buechner — 11/19/2013

Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he has changed it five times. Most notably, he suspended the employer mandate last summer. This is widely known, but almost no one seems to have grasped its significance.

The Constitution authorizes the President to propose and veto legislation. It does not authorize him to change existing laws. The changes Mr. Obama ordered in Obamacare, therefore, are unconstitutional. This means that he does not accept some of the limitations that the Constitution places on his actions. We cannot know at this point what limitations, if any, he does accept.

By changing the law based solely on his wish, Mr. Obama acted on the principle that the President can rewrite laws and—since this is a principle—not just this law, but any law. After the crash of Obamacare, many Congressmen have implored the President to change the individual mandate the same way he had changed the employer mandate, that is, to violate the Constitution again.

The main responsibility the Constitution assigns to the President is to faithfully execute the Laws. If the President rejects this job, if instead he decides he can change or ignore laws he does not like, then what?

The time will come when Congress passes a law and the President ignores it. Or he may choose to enforce some parts and ignore others (as Mr. Obama is doing now). Or he may not wait for Congress and issue a decree (something Mr. Obama has done and has threatened to do again).

Mr. Obama has not been shy about pointing out his path. He has repeatedly made clear that he intends to act on his own authority. “I have the power and I will use it in defense of the middle class,” he has said. “We’re going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress.” There are a number of names for the system Mr. Obama envisions, but representative government is not one of them.

NM Court Says Christian Photographers Must Compromise Beliefs

This is a bit off topic, but as I claim to be both a Christian, and a Photographer (and used to photograph weddings), it hit pretty close to home, and certainly is an important story as a sign of the times. If I hadn't already stopped doing professional photography years ago, today is the day I would quit for good.

NM Court Says Christian Photographers Must Compromise Beliefs
By Todd Starnes — Fox News — 8/22/2013

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that two Christian photographers who declined to photograph a same-sex union violated the state’s Human Rights Act. One justice said the photographers were “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

In 2006 Vanessa Willock asked Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography, to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” in the town of Taos.

Huguenin and her husband declined the job because their Christian beliefs were in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony.

Willock found another photographer at a cheaper price but nevertheless filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission accusing Elane Photography of discrimination based on sexual orientation. She was later found guilty and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines.

“The Huguenins today can no more turn away customers on the basis of their sexual orientation – photographing a same-sex marriage ceremony – than they could refuse to photograph African-Americans or Muslims,” Justice Richard Bosson wrote in the court’s unanimous decision.

Bosson said the Christian photographers are now “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

Solzhenitsyn and the Russian Renaissance

This is an extremely significant essay for our time.

by Andrew Doran — First Things via Pravmir — 8/1/2013

In the early spring of 1953, a sickly Russian novelist, “covered with ice, out of the dark and the cold,” staggered forth from the Soviet Gulag, the constellation of Communist prison camps that stretched from Siberia to South Asia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ill with cancer, had once been a proponent of the system that condemned him to forced labor. Now he saw his nation’s “deep suffering,” like his own, as redemptive.

“The entire twentieth century,” Solzhenitsyn observed in his 1983 Templeton Lecture, was “sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction.” Why? “Men have forgotten God,” he said. At the outset of the twentieth century, the faith of the Russian people could be witnessed even in the trenches of the Great War, where the Germans would gun down thousands of Russians by day only to listen in wonder at their seraphic, if melancholic, chant by night.

But when war and famine proved too much to bear, the Russian people rebelled. Decades earlier, Dostoevsky had prophetically warned that “great events could come upon us and catch us intellectually unprepared.” Those events came swiftly in Russia. The Bolsheviks, the most organized and ruthless of the factions that vied to replace the old regime, emerged victorious. Solzhenitsyn wrote of Marx and Lenin, “Hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.” Nowhere was this more evident than in the Bolsheviks’ systematic campaign of atheistic violence—unprecedented in human history.

Message to Muslims: Time for some serious questions.

In my earlier post of Dr. Mark Durie's analysis of yesterday's London jihad attack, we learned how the jihadists' motivations stem from a "theologically determined logic." 

This is gravely concerning, and should prompt us to pose the following questions to all Muslims everywhere:

1. Do you subscribe to this same "theologically determined logic" which spawns acts of violence and terrorism by Muslims in every country of the world, and drives an Islamic supremacism which seeks to establish a global caliphate to bring Islam to world dominance? In other words, do you feel in your heart, as a Muslim, that you are at war with non-Muslims?

2. If you say you do not subscribe to this worldview, how do you support your position from Islam's sacred texts?  Because — as you should know — all Islamic supremacists and jihadists fully support their actions using the Quran and the example of Muhammad and the consistent teaching of Islamic jurisprudence, and they say your religion commands you to support them in the global jihad.

3. In your heart of hearts, when you continue to see such horrific acts being perpetrated in the name of Islam by men and women who claim to be devout Muslims and use your own sacred texts to back up their actions, do you question the validity of your Islamic faith, your Muslim identity? In other words, "Are you finally reaching a crisis point in your faith?"

In short, it's time to ask Muslims everywhere, "Why do you remain a Muslim?"

It's time for Muslims to ask themselves, "Why do I remain a Muslim?"

As an Orthodox Christian, I believe we offer the Way, the Truth and the Life through the Orthodox Gospel of Jesus Christ. To all Muslims everywhere I offer this challenge: If you claim to be striving to live in truth and in a way pleasing to God, "come and see" what the Orthodox Christian Faith is all about. You will find a Light and Life you never knew existed.

But there is another aspect to this "crisis of faith" you should by now be going through. 

We believe that the human conscience is a divine gift from God placed in every human heart. If your conscience is nagging at you, telling you that there has to be something terribly wrong with Islam if so many of its most devout adherents are committing murder in the name of God, then you simply must obey your conscience and seek answers. You are obligated to that small voice telling you to "get out." Your religion places a huge stigma on apostasy, and as you probably know, even prescribes death for those who leave Islam or insult Muhammad. Why is that? That should even further prove its falsity to you.

Do you not know that even according to the Quran, Jesus (Isa) is bestowed with greater honor from God than Muhammad? Jesus worked miracles, raised the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven, whereas Muhammad did none of these things. 

It's time to leave falsehood and turn to truth. It's time to learn about Jesus Christ as His Church has always known Him and proclaimed Him, "full of grace and truth." 

This is the same Church which your religion and forbears have relentlessly persecuted since Islam expanded out of the Arabian peninsula and began waging jihad against the world. Yet this same Church, by the grace of God, stands ready to embrace and receive you as a friend and brother or sister, if you repent of Islam, turn away from it, and turn to Jesus Christ.

It's time for all you Muslims of good conscience to show real courage, bravery, integrity and repentance, leave your former religion, which you know in your heart is false, and turn to Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Church, who offers you the true Way of Light and Life.

We're standing with open arms, waiting for you...

Saying Unpopular Truths

I recently had a challenging conversation with a friend, whose family is from the Middle East. This friend, we'll call him 'George' to protect his anonymity, and I veered off onto the subject of Islam, about which we agree in many respects. We were lamenting how difficult it seems to be for peaceful, good-hearted Muslims of conscience to rein in, stand against, or refute their violent supremacist co-religionists. George related the story of his family's village, where Muslims and Orthodox Christians lived in harmony for centuries, respecting and honoring one another's festivals and fasts, the Muslims protecting their Christian neighbors and looking out for them.

Fair enough, good to know, and thanks be to God.

But then George began lamenting about the violent jihadists, and how they are going completely against the peaceful tenets of Islam. In other words, George was affirming Islam to be a 'Religion of Peace' which has been hijacked by a 'Tiny Minority of Extremists'.

This is when I felt obliged to correct his impression, or to at least try to attenuate it somewhat.

George's position is that shared by most sincere people of good will and kind heart, many of whom, like George, have had direct experiences with kind and virtuous Muslims who treated them and their families with respect, dignity, affection. Because of these experiences, George and those with similar experiences and similarly sincere hearts extrapolate from the microcosm to the macro, from their family or village experience to making a blanket assessment of Islam as a whole. Thus, "Islam truly must be a 'Religion of Peace' because my Muslim neighbors are peaceful people." And if that is the case, then "the jihadists must not be true Muslims, and must be deceived, misguided extremists and not followers of true Islam at all."

Yet is this necessarily so? I don't think it is, and I tried to offer a few thoughts to George as to why.

First of all, I began with Muhammad and his example as being the "beautiful pattern of conduct" for Muslims. As some have put it, Muhammad is the "secret decoder ring" to the Koran, which is indecipherable without the Sunnah, or "Way" of the prophet. Muhammad's life (by Ibn Ishaq) combined with the hadith (traditions and saying by and about Muhammad, which number in the hundreds of volumes) inform the ulema, the collective of Islamic jurists, who apply Muhammad's example to literally every imaginable situation so as to clarify how a devout Muslim should live. Some actions are obligatory, some optional, some permissible, some prohibited. One might think that this is a virtuous exercise for a pious Muslim, wanting to follow the example of their prophet. And indeed, there are many virtuous aspects to Islamic moral code. One can find an Islamic manual for life in the book Way of the Traveler, published by Al Azhar University in Cairo Egypt, the foremost center of Islamic jurisprudence in the world. Yet much of the "moral" code put forth in this book would shock any sane person.

A moral code is only as good as its source. And according to the Islamic source texts themselves, Muhammad is a decidedly un-moral person to follow. Muhammad married his favorite bride Aisha when she was only six years old, and consummated the marriage (i.e., had sexual intercourse with her) when she was nine years old.  Muhammad was 53 at the time.   Think on that for a moment.

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).” (Sahih Al Bukhari 7.62.88)

Muhammad had numerous wives, nine to eleven at one time according to Islamic source texts, as well as concubines captured during his many raids. He is described as having a schedule for regular conjugal visits, and sometimes had sex with all of his wives in one night, one after the other (Bukhari 1:5:268). Fr Zakaria Botros, using the Islamic source texts, tabulates the number of women Muhammad was intimate with, and comes up with a total of sixty six. Muhammad himself is reported as saying, "I never have enough of women" (from hadith Faid al-Qabir 3:371).

We also are told Muhammad was a ruthless warlord, who personally beheaded (according to the Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq, a devout Muslim) 700-800 Jews after one battle.

Muhammad extolled deceit in dealing with his enemies. And most importantly for our consideration here, he commanded his followers to wage jihad until the world was brought under the rule of Allah and Islam dominated everywhere. This is the pattern of conduct Muslims are commanded in the Koran to follow. This Muhammad is who the jihadis are following. And this is the reason why so-called "moderate" Muslims have such a hard time. Their own texts are not on their side. There is no "moderate" Islam.

But perhaps Islam could be reformed?

My next point to George was to cite Dr Mark Durie and Islam scholar Raymond Ibrahim, who both solidly argue that the call for a "reformation" in Islam is a false hope. Those who assert that Islam is peaceful, and that it just needs to go through a reformation as did Western Christendom have lost sight of what the reformation was all about. Martin Luther and others sought to strip away the accretions and excesses of Roman Catholicism and return to the source texts, to the Gospels and the New Testament.

(*Note added 4/5/12 - Of course, as an Orhodox Christian, I would suggest that if one strips away the accretions and errors of Roman Catholicism, one arrives at the Orthodox Church, which is the New Testament, Apostolic Church.)

Yet when you apply the same principal to Islam, and return to the source texts (the Koran, the hadiths, the Sira) you get precisely what we see today in Salafism, Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc. They ARE the Islamic reformation. Islam by its very nature as evinced by its source texts commands what these so called "extremist" groups are doing. They are following the dictates of the Koran and their prophet:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Sura 9:29)

Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. (Sura 9:5)

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)

So, when you meet those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly on them... Thus you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam. (Sura 47:4)

After getting to this point with George, I offered something of an olive branch.

How do we then understand the peaceful, generous, kind and virtuous actions of Muslims, especially when they are directed towards non-Muslims? This phenomenon is a result of a purely human, sincere heart — that is — of a warm and living human conscience which has not been subdued by the anti-human "meta-conscience" based on the Koran and Muhammad's example and commanded by the ulema. Put another way, a Muslim acting according to conscience will filter out disturbing passages from the Koran, and act according to conscience. Our conscience is a gift from God, an inner sense of knowing right from wrong. In fact, it is one of the traits which we bear within us by virtue of being created in the image and likeness of God. Thank God many Muslims do, in fact, live this way.

But here is a hard saying: Muslims who live according to their conscience are not living as true Muslims. This is the crucial fact.

Conversely, when a Muslim starts becoming more devout, desiring ever more to follow the Sunnah, the Way of the prophet, that Muslim is in danger of having his God-given conscience slowly supplanted by the "meta-conscience" of Islam. Imposed from without, the Islamic meta-conscience commands the Muslim to go precisely against his God-given conscience, as seen in this verse from the Koran:

Fighting [i.e., Jihad] is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not. (Sura 2:216)

In the case of a jihadist, the human conscience is all but dead, subdued by the Mohammedan uber-conscience. This is how jihadists can kill innocent civilians and children. True Islam is not a religion of peace, but something quite dark and disturbing.

These considerations are an affirmation of the human conscience, and of Christian anthropology, while identifying a very concerning question, namely, where 1.2 billion Muslims on the planet stand in the continuum between possessing a basically healthy human conscience, and having that conscience subverted and replaced by the Islamic meta-conscience.

As I have written in my book and elsewhere, the answer to this challenge is for us to grow ever deeper in our own Orthodox Christian Faith, so that we might be prepared to confess Jesus Christ and share the Gospel when the opportunity presents itself. The heroic Priest-Martyr Fr Daniil Sysoev converted some eighty Muslims to the Orthodox Christian Faith before he was killed by an Islamic extremist. He even reached several very extreme Wahhabis. This should give us great hope, that in the heart of a zealous but misguided Muslim, there may remain a pure desire to know the True God, which can be touched by the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Forgive me, George, for speaking so boldly, but it is the truth, spoken in love.

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.