The War On Reason

Discover Magazine via Instapundit:

What people call the scientific method, he explains, is really the Islamic method: “All the wealth of knowledge in the world has actually emanated from Muslim civilization. The Prophet Muhammad said to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. The very first verse came down: ‘Read.’ You are required to try to know something about your creator through meditation, through analysis, experimentation, and observation.”

So, that's why Muslims have won the largest share of Nobel prizes.

Oops.

“We are not behind because of Islam,” he says. “We are behind because of what the Americans and the British have done to us.”

Of course. Islam is NEVER to blame.

El-Naggar even sees moral meaning in the earthquake that triggered the 2005 tsunami and washed away nearly a quarter of a million lives. Plate tectonics and global warming be damned: God had expressed his wrath over the sins of the West. Why, then, had God punished Southeast Asia rather than Los Angeles or the coast of Florida? His answer: Because the lands that were hit had tolerated the immoral behavior of tourists.

What a vile creature.

Later on:

Chaabouni recalls the early days of her career, in the mid-1970s, when she saw children afflicted with disfiguring diseases. “It was very sad,” she says. “I met families with two, three, four affected siblings. I wanted to do something about it, to know how to prevent it.”

Why might that be?

“It’s a custom here, and in the rest of the Arab world, to marry cousins, even first cousins,” she tells me, though the practice is becoming less common. “Of course, that means they share a lot of genes from common sets of grandparents.”

Perhaps British Pakistanis (what an oxymoron) could take a bit of advice from the doctor; 55% of whom are cousins.

Comments

[See-Dubya]

Okay, how does El-Naggar explain this one?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3348613.stm

[Isaac Schrödinger]

El-Naggar and his wretched ilk have one, and only one, solution: more Islam.

Pakistan, the only nation to be founded on the basis of Islam, got a major earthquake in 2005. More than 70,000 people died.

Why?

Was it because Pakistanis have twig-like infrastructure? Is their emergency response hampered by ill preparation? Don't they have the logistics to handle such an event?

Those questions are irrelevant. Allah rules all. It follows the earthquake was sent by Allah. Ergo, Pakistanis are just not Islamic enough.

The fact that Allah has been murdering disproportionate numbers of his followers doesn't make a dent in the faith. The tragedy is, with more Islam and less reason, the next catastrophe will bring the same deadly result.

[Jim Sullivan]

I didn't get a chance to read the entire article. What was the general tone of it? Was it supportive of El-Naggar or was it critical?

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Neither. The article merely showcased his words in the beginning and then went on to other personalities.

[Saul Wall]

"Why, then, had God punished Southeast Asia rather than Los Angeles or the coast of Florida? His answer: Because the lands that were hit had tolerated the immoral behavior of tourists."

Interesting that Allah decides that poverty stricken people with little political power should be held responsible for the acts of tourists whereas the nations from which these tourists come from don't need any punishment by massive coastal inundation. If Allah is responsible for punishing Muslims with natural disasters, he must also be responsible for punishing Muslims with crappy education systems, dictatorships, poverty and deserts. But things will get better after they are dead if they were good Muslims. After all, it was promised in the Koran. I seem to remember that the Koran promised good things for Muslims in this life too. But hey, just because he reneged so completely and demonstrably on that promise is no reason not to trust him on a promise that can not be verified during one's lifetime is it?

My family had some cousin marriages to keep land in the family over the centuries and while it was not enough to produce health effects, there are some eccentric twigs on my family tree.

""We are not behind because of Islam," he says. "We are behind because of what the Americans and the British have done to us.""

Evil things like refusing to loose World War I so that the Ottoman Empire could have continued to support other dictatorial empires as they warred against democracies. Evil things like defeating Hitler before he could wipe out European Jews and then help them get rid of theirs. Not to mention using a tiny part of that defeated Ottoman Empire to give some of the Islamic world's Dhimmis a sliver of freedom. What I wonder about is why Americans and British have the power to do all these evil things to keep the Muslim worlds down. I mean, even if Allah feels that Muslims are not Islamic enough, he must realize that by always taking the side of the Infidels he is making his religion look bad. Shouldn't he help the "imperfect" Muslims overcome the infidels and then start punishing them for not being perfect? Or does Allah not have the ability to think ahead?

[Josh Scholar]

Oh, it's because they don't make buildings with enough rebar and plywood reenforcement etc.

I remember one year there were two earthquakes of the same magnitude, one in Quebec and one in Mexico city.

The one in Mexico City was a huge tragedy with buildings collapsing and thousands dead. The one in Quebec had no injuries and the only structure damaged was a wall, built by the Spanish over 200 years ago. Everything else was up to first world code.

When the Iranian town of Bam (nice name) was destroyed by an earthquake (and thousands died) the government of Iran vowed to rebuild it but didn't say a single word about making it earthquake-proof this time. Fuckers. It's going to remain a death trap, I'll bet.

[Josh Scholar]

Sorry, Saul and I posted at the same time. I was referring to See-D and Isaac's comments about the earthquake in Bam.