In Five Hundred Words Or Less

This is a guest column I submitted to the local paper, The Herald Times. It was offered in response to an earlier column sumitted by two Muslim professors at Indiana University. The newspaper understandably restricts columns to 500 words or less. I squeaked in with 499. I will attempt to retrieve the column by the two professors and post on this blog also. Its interesting that they insist that Islam is a religion of peace which completely ignores all the fanatical rambling about killing infidels, the boiling in oil, and on ad nauseum. Just as Christians ignore the OT verse which commands parents of insolent teen-agers (how many are not insolent) to tie them up and stone them to death.

Thank you for submitting a guest column to The Herald-Times.


Your column is under consideration.

A September 7 article addressing the concerns of the Muslim community in relation to the 911 tragedy, quotes University Professor Faiz Rahman as saying "Muslims are the only group in this country that people can publicly vilify without being chastised."

Professor Rahman may find solace in discovering that actually, Muslims rate a distant second. Atheists, that defiled group with which I have cast my lot, come in at the very bottom, even below Muslims as someone they would want their children to marry.

But why?

Atheists had no part in the murder of 3000 innocent people on 9-11. They don't knock on doors trying to persuade strangers to "convert" to atheism. No atheist has ever shot a doctor in the face nor beat a child to death trying to expel demons.

So what are atheists doing?

The answer yields a pleasant surprise. Three of the wealthiest men in America; Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Ted Turner, none of which believe in the supernatural, have pledged their billions to charity. Not only that; they have challenged other billionaires to join them. Some forty of them have.

Even more surprising, a poll of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of approximately 2,100 members of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes, revealed that only 7% of them believe in a personal god. If the notion that atheists are inclined to criminal behavior is true, we should find these gifted men and women out stealing, raping and pillaging, rather than discovering all those things that have so tremendously benefitted mankind.

Given all that, I don't know what else atheists can do to improve their lot. However, I have a bold, (some may say presumptuous) plan that would surely secure Muslims a loftier perch than second from bottom.

Since 3 million Muslims spend around 2 billion dollars annually on their pilgrimage to the Hajj, where they throw some 147 million stones (49 each) at a wall representing the Devil, Muslims might want to consider skipping the event for one year only and pledge the 2 billion dollars to establishing a world class university. Having thrown down that gauntlet, challenge atheists to match it.

Certainly I am not qualified to speak on the effectiveness of stoning the devil. As an outside observer, I can only say that it seems the thorough trouncing he got at last year's Hajj had little effect. In fact it seems to have had the exact opposite effect. 2011 has seen an abundance of drought, disease, war, genocide, fires, floods, famine, air and stock market crashes, government gridlock and a slow motion housing crash. Surely this is not the work of a kind and compassionate god. Satan seems even stronger.

I can however give a nod in the direction of the National Academy of Sciences, that den of unbelievers who have worked so hard to improve the lives of all of us. Four billion for education? A worthy goal.

Stone throwing? Maybe not so much.

Charlie Sitzes
Bloomington, IN