This:
Pat Condell is an atheist, who makes factually accurate and acerbicly witty videos about Islam and its threat to the West which can be found at YouTube. In one of his latest he tells us that he finally read the Koran to find that there is a sura saying something like (I paraphrase) "You have your religion and I have mine". On the strength of that, after three years and 65 of angry videos, he states at 5:32 that Islam "could have been beautiful" weren't it for those evil "Islamic scholars". If any Muslim would only read the Koran "what a different and vibrant religion it might be".
I am sorry that Condell has lost my respect, sorry for myself, that is, because it doesn't matter to him, even if he knew. It was my mistake to think here we have an atheist who is not intellectually, morally and ethically corrupt. If he was brought up as a Catholic, as he tells us, he is bound to have read the New Testament, but obviously, the many passages there that would have told him about the INHERENT, if not always practised, beauty of the Christian faith escaped his attention. Why?
How can he believe "scholars" have "twisted" Islam into what it is. Why did he overlook all the violent content in the Koran, yet cherrypicked one, seemingly tolerant, passage. How is it possible that "something ... could have been beautiful" that was created by a rapist, child molester and murderer. How can Pat Condell, with all his shrewd analysis, use the cliché of the many peaceful Muslims who have been betrayed by radical Islam?
I haven't read "Mein Kampf". I tried to, but it bored and embarrassed me, and as I don't think one can learn anything from it (the mechanisms of the Nazi movement are quite clear and well researched) and as I don't share the average German's fascination with The Beloved Führer, I haven't to this day. However, I am perfectly sure that there will be the odd short passage that, taken out of context, makes good advice. Now what about cherrypicking that, to then state that National Socialism "could have been beneficial" weren't it for those evil "Nazi party people". If any German had only read "Mein Kampf", "what a different and vibrant society Germany might have been".
Far fetched? But no! Different of Mohammed, Hitler didn't even set out as a murderer already (in fact he never personally killed anybody).The comparison is perfectly apt and reveals the entire madness, not just of Condell, but of all the "many peaceful Muslims who are being betrayed by Islamism" delusionists.
6 comments:
I'm only half surprised that Pat Condell has went this route critiquing Islam. There have been others who you'd think would be natural enemies of Christianity who had a bout of common sense thanks to 9/11. They were refreshing to listen to, but then the familiar 9/10 attitude overcame them, and they sank back into the muck from whence them came. For instance, Andrew Sullivan was a conservative gay blogger, but then when election time drew near, he promoted the Democrat candidate and turned decidedly liberal. Charles Johnson is another. He grew up Catholic but turned atheist as some point. He went from attacking Islam to attacking ID, creationists and Evangelicals, who he says are more dangerous in the long run than Islamists.
Good points, Bruce! Well, I ought to be only half surprised as well. But Condell came across, at least to me, as a genuine opponent to Islam based on fundamental reasons. At the end of the day one can only acknowledge the fact that what those secular critics all have in common is precisely the lack of any intellectual ot spiritual fundament.
I have thematised Charles Johnson as well in this blog in connection with the "2009 Pro-Köln-Dustup" (links on my startpage). I'd never thought that I'd ever discuss Condell in one context with him. One lives and learns.
Along this line, Attorney General Eric Holder was questioned by Congress about the three most recent terrorist attacks in the county. When asked point blank if "radical Islam" could have been the motivation of these attacks, he refuses to use the phrase "radical Islam." I just listened to the exchange on radio and found a link to it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOQt_mP6Pgg
Gosh, that is embarrassing -- no PAINFUL to watch. Nobody can't lie quite that shamelessly in public, so he must be incredibly stupid.
That Hitler never killed anyone by his own hand is not altogether clear. Apart from his five years on the Western Front, there is the mystery of his niece's suicide, and the fact that his subordinates thought him perfectly capable of it. Hugh Trevor-Roper quotes Himmler saying to Schellenberg: "I can't take [defeatist conclusions] to Hitler! He'll fall into one of his rages, and shoot me out of hand!" But certainly he preferred to encourage others to murder; that had the moral effect he wanted, since he was declaredly out to replace the ethics of pity with an ethics of mastery. Committing murders oneself would have done little to that goal, but getting hundreds and thousands and ultimately hundreds of thousands people to do it for him would certainly advance that cause.
Fabio, you are right. Taking his time as a soldier in WWI into consideration, I ought to have said: "... he didn't murder anybody". In the end it didn't matter much whether he committed murder with his own hands or not.
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