On Media and Motive - The Chapel Hill Murders

      About 2 a.m., Wednesday February 11, 2015, three bodies were identified as the victims of a shooting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  The victims were college students, 23, 21, and 19 years of age - all shot in the head by a Craig Stephen Hicks, also a resident of Chapel Hill.
      This event quickly whipped our "crack" media infrastructure into a frenzy, where they expeditiously sought to assign motive to this horrible crime.  Oddly, the standard media angle - a mass murder by gun - was almost completely passed over in this instance in favor of a more inflammatory one - the murderer was an atheist and the victims were Muslim.
While I'm sure the Fox newsroom broke into spontaneous orgasms over this revelation, curiously all the mainstream media latched-on to that angle as well.
      Keep in mind - no motive had been released or even found yet by the police department handling the crime, with the exception of a known argument over parking.  Yet the media, having investigated Hicks' Facebook page let pure speculation run rampant despite the complete absence of correlation between the event that occurred and the information on the page.
      Fox News, The Silver Fox on CNN, The Today Show, The NY Times, even local affiliates began reporting the story as a "hate crime," and even before a motive had been established.  But was this a hate crime?  Those who know Hicks said no.  Now - one might expect friends and family to cover for someone they care for, but when you look at the Facebook page - the one of the alleged Muslim-hating, godless atheist who was fueled by his Muslim hate to commit murder, you don't actually see the motivation.
      His Facebook page confirmed he considered himself an atheist.  He was in favor of gay marriage.  He was in favor of abortion rights.  He re-posted a number of typical atheism-related memes.  He did question religion - most specifically, Christianity in his posts.  But very little was present that would suggest he so viciously hated Muslims, he felt the need to randomly go murder three in an apartment complex.
      It would seem that not only were these innocent people deprived of their lives by a man who clearly snapped, WE have once again, all been deprived of a reasonable and factual media.  It's as though it were a deliberate attempt to whip the American - and world public - up into a frenzy, probably to bolster sagging ratings.
      So now the pot has been stirred and a table is being turned on atheism.  Atheists, myself included, tend to regularly point out the correlation between religion and psychopathic and/or homicidal behavior in individuals and groups.  Naturally, this event is forging a backlash that puts atheists and atheism in the spotlight for similar transgressions.  However, the reasoning behind it is clearly unsound.
      First point - atheism is NOT and organized community.  There is no charter.  There is no book of laws and regulations.  There are no churches - aside from perhaps the internet and occasional groups who meet maybe once a month to drink beer and talk.  More importantly, there is no code within atheism that provides for hate crimes to be committed.  There is no sanctioning of violence or exclusion or immoral behavior.  Atheism is NOT a religion.
      By contrast:
           The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9). 
          In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church.
          All tallied, the God (Yahweh), of the Bible kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.
          The Holy Qur'an - The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text.  They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.

            Quran (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."

            Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them." 
            Now these are but a few verses and examples.  The books are literally LOADED with words allegedly from GOD or ALLAH, spewing hatred, jealousy, immorality and death.  And that doesn't even take into consideration the heinous acts done over the centuries by the Catholic Church, reform churches who burned "witches", Holy wars of both religions and the horrific things coming out in the name of Islam today.
      So religion is predestined to create environments where horrific things become justified - "in the name of God."  Two-thousand years of acts of homicide are supposed to be excused, but one atheist goes nuts and it's ALL our fault?
      My second point is this - despite one's upbringing, despite one's belief system, some people just lose their shit.  Some people are caught in madness and that's the way it is.  Some people are religious, some aren't.  Most people don't murder three innocent people on a Wednesday, but occasionally some do. Religious or not.
      This Chapel Hill homicide appears to be far less about religious hate and far more about internal madness.  And even if it is found that he hated the victims for some reason, because they were Muslim, atheism holds no triggering factor that would've promoted the action.
      Despite what our illustrious media machine may have to say about it.

ISIS - clear and present danger

First of all - Hi! I'm back. Haven't posted in a couple years, but I feel I need to take my rants off Facebook and channel them elsewhere, so this seems as good a place as any.

Today - my rant is ISIS. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, but it's far more than that. The opinion I'm about to express will contain some well-known facts about ISIS/ISIL that I encourage readers to research for themselves. And of course, I will espouse my opinion on the situation involving this uprising.

Let me state for the record, that I am NOT a racist. I hold nothing against any human being based upon their race - where one is born or what race one is, is no one's "fault" and in fact creates wonderful diversity for our planet.
I will however, reserve the right to critique the choices people make - as adults - with the full capacity to reason their own actions.

There is a tendency in the media, the political spin doctors, and at all levels of government to classify ISIS or ISIL as a terrorist organization. While terrorism IS part of their modus operandi, it should not be mistaken for the be-all, end-all of their existence.
There is also a tendency to disconnect the group with the Islamic religion, in favor of labeling the group simple "madmen." While I agree that their intentions are in fact "mad", it is wrong to ignore the influence of Islam - particularly the Qur'an and the words of the prophet Mohammed - with respect to the group's ambitions. For that matter, their very name bears the name of their religion.

What is ISIS/ISIL?

ISIS stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Syria). ISIL stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There is much confusion over these terms, I've actually heard people criticize president Obama for using ISIL, prompting the ill-educated public to accuse him of "being so stupid, he doesn't even know the name of the group he's talking about."
TO BE CLEAR - ISIS and ISIL - are the SAME GROUP. There is NO difference aside from which faction happens to be referring to it.
ISIS (ISIL) is a jihadist, rebel group which controls territory in Iraq and Syria an also operates in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
It has allegiance to Al-Queda and other Sunni insurgent groups.
It's leader is a man named, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the group has grown considerably under his leadership. He was the key to the sudden strengthening of the group because he is believed to be a  prophesied caliph (leader) to bring a WORLDWIDE caliphate, (claims religious, political and military authority over all Muslims worldwide), to fruition.
The group actually controls vast areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria at this time, despite meager military bombardments. They also control pockets all across the regions I previously described.
Their actual, stated intention is to, in five years, conquer the entire Middle East, Muslim Africa, Muslim Asia, and in fact - SPAIN.

While a 5-year plan may be a bit optimistic, they have conquered vast swaths of land very quickly. And their plan to achieve this is not unlike many conquering armies of the past.
They start with a village, conquer it, conscript more men and teen boys from that village, kill anyone who opposes them, and moves on to the next village. Repeat.
It's a simple and comprehensive plan.

But what of the religion? You say they sound like simple brigands and they are not of "God"? 
Wrong.
They have been very successful because they use the words "of God" available to them in the Qur'an. The Qur'an very explicitly dictates in many ways that a caliphate should exist and Sharia Law should be achieved via Jihad.
Essentially, anyone who is not on-board with this is guilted into being on-board with it using their own religion as an example. If that doesn't work - they die.  The use of their RELIGION is how they have been able to conquer so much so fast and how they are able to have so many cells in the region who will likely one day soon become an equal problem.

For the record - Christianity once did the same. Still does in more mild manners. But at one time, Christianity was as bloody a proposition as Islam.
Islam is about 600 years younger. Go back 600 years or so into Christianity's past. Think about the chaos. The Inquisition, the Crusades, burning "witches" - every bit as barbaric.
ISIS represents the "growing pains" of RELIGION. Period.

But we don't live in benign times. In 1400, no one was going to destroy entire countries via nuclear annihilation.
If ISIS continues to flourish and uprisings start occurring everywhere they are now and the world sits back and does nothing ... how long before they get hold of something that will really do some damage? And think of the millions of Muslims worldwide, embedded in other countries.  How much damage could even a small percentage do if they became seduced by their religion's dark side?

Bottom line - ISIS is the problem in the Middle East that we should've been waiting for. If ever a time was necessary to stop a growing army - this is it.
I am sorry we spent so much time fighting in the Middle East, plutocratic wars that were little more than profiteering for our elite. Because this day was bound to come. Now we're really being backed into a corner and most Americans don't even see it.

Yesterday this happened:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/obamas-isis-war-powers-request-heads-congress-n304316

Link it up - check it out.
Unfortunately - this one IS necessary.

But I can only hope our leaders realize that we've taken too much out of our economy and military to go this route ourselves. We need to organize a global response to the question of ISIS.  The security and stability of the world may lie in how we proceed.

The USA cannot be the designated "world police." We cannot sustain that title anymore. We need to acknowledge that we need help with this battle and we need to accept it.