EppsNet Archive: Islam

The Day the Delusions Died

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The contradictions and moral bankruptcy of a worldview that spends years worrying about microaggressions and tone policing, but can’t decide what side it is on after the beheading of babies, aren’t exactly difficult to spot. To put it another way: when Black Lives Matter organizations are lionizing Islamist terrorists by posting a paraglider logo, you’d be a fool not to reassess things. — Bari Weiss and Oliver Wiseman Read more →

It All Depends on Who’s Slinging the Hash

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"Cries." Boo hoo. Maybe you disagree but wishing the Queen of England an excruciating death is something one could take exception to without even knowing the race of the person who said it. https://t.co/07rFN8AVfi — Paul Epps (@paulepps) September 16, 2022 I don’t think the sentiment would play any better coming from a white person. The article goes on to say that the professor has faced “violent threats, harassment and abuse.” OK, first of all, let’s all keep our hands to ourselves. No violence. But still, of all the people who claim to have received violent threats or death threats, how many have actually been violently attacked? How many have died? The only case that comes to my mind is Salman Rushdie, and he didn’t get a death threat from a lone nut, he got a death threat from a global religion. Other than that, I have to call bullshit… Read more →

There Has Been a Rumor

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There has been a rumor in recent years to the effect that I have become less opposed to religious orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumor is totally without foundation. I think all the great religions of the world — Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism — both untrue and harmful. — Bertrand Russell, 1957 Read more →

How You Should Think Of Me

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A disciple came to Maruf Kharki and said: “I have been talking to people about you. Jews claim that you are a Jew; Christians revere you as one of their own saints; Muslims insist that you are the greatest of all Muslims.” Maruf answered: “This is what humanity says in Baghdad. When I was in Jerusalem, Jews said that I was a Christian, Muslims that I was a Jew, and Christians that I was a Muslim.” “What must we think of you, then?” the man said. “Some do not understand me and they revere me. Others do not either, so they revile me. That is what I have come to say. You should think of me as one who has said this.” — The Way of the Sufi Read more →

Liberalism and the Wrath of the Privileged Whites

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The largely white and affluent solid liberals are notionally egalitarian and opposed to white privilege, but they include many of the most privileged whites in America. . . . Millions of working-class whites felt that Obama was talking about them, too, when he said, “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” And many of those same Americans knew that Hillary Clinton was talking about them when she ranted about the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it” deplorables. — Pete Spiliakos | First Things Read more →

What Are the Rules on Refusing a Religious Funeral?

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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. —- The father of the Orlando gunman said his son was buried at a Florida cemetery this week. Seddique Mateen would not say where his son, Oman Mateen, was buried, but said it was an Islamic burial. — WPBF.com Is a Muslim entitled to an Islamic funeral no matter what kind of atrocity he commits, in particular, an atrocity committed in the name of Islam? What are the rules on this? Would a Catholic, for example, who pledged allegiance to the Pope before shooting 100 people be entitled to a funeral mass in the Church? I remember a couple of years ago in Australia when an Islamic extremist got himself and a couple of hostages killed in a siege, the funeral director with the Lebanese Muslim ­Association said this: We don’t care about him, we don’t know him, chuck him in the bloody shithouse. Nobody’s going… Read more →

I Pledge Allegiance to [Omitted]

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House Speaker Paul Ryan called on the Obama administration Monday to “release the full, unredacted transcript” of the Orlando massacre gunman’s 911 calls, slamming the Justice Department’s censoring of all references to Islam as “preposterous.” — Fox News Here’s what Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, sounds like in the redacted transcript: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted]. No references to Islam, ISIS or Allah, who becomes “God [in Arabic].” In other news, 911 calls from the Disney World alligator attack are being released after redacting all references to alligators. It’s similar to 2012, when a terror attack (in Benghazi) was whitewashed in the months leading up to a presidential election, the thinking being that vulnerability to terrorism reflects poorly on the incumbent administration. This time they’re is not even bothering to lie about it (the Benghazi attack was supposedly a spontaneous… Read more →

Cognitive Dissonance on Muslims

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How are these two ideas about Islam and Muslims, seemingly held simultaneously by a lot of people, not completely incompatible with each other: Islam is a religion of peace and Muslims are peaceful folks (e.g., Hillary Clinton: “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”) We must be careful not to offend Muslims because if we do, they will kill us (e.g., Hillary Clinton: “They are going out to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”) What am I missing? Read more →

Joyce Carol Oates Gets Slammed

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EppsNet stands behind Joyce Carol Oates in this Twitstorm, in opposition to those who think that while raping women may be a bad thing, what’s really deplorable is freedom of thought and questioning theocracy. In solidarity, we publish a couple of previously unseen (because they’re terrible) photos of the two of us taken with Mark Twain in the Doe Library at UC Berkeley. Read more →