What is Religion?

Let’s first clarify what is religion. Religion should be personal. It is a set of personal beliefs about why we are here in this world, where we are going, and how we should behave with respect to this philosophical foundation. It is a worldview that guides our everyday decisions and actions on a personal level. Religion can also mean the congregation of a group of people (“organized religion”).

In the past, even within Western Civilization, religions have been used to justify rule by hereditary succession. Most governments have progressed beyond this kind of rule. The world has mostly become democratic. Even in Sharia (Muslim Law) countries, democracies have sprouted and grown. Nowadays, the only remaining religious monarchy is Saudi Arabia. However, in many countries even today, government rule is still justified and founded on religious grounds. I include communist countries in this list.

Communism as Religion

Is communism a religion? As defined above, religion is a set of beliefs. One characteristic of a belief is that by definition it is faith-based: you continue to believe in it even though it has been amply proven otherwise. Communism is violently anti-religion, but it has religious characteristics itself. Case in point: China.

China has clearly gone capitalist, but its communist leaders still deny this. The Chinese communist leaders have proven, by their own actions, that communism just won’t work, but they can’t admit it. They cannot admit the failure of communism most especially to their own people. This kind of behavior is no different from that of religious leaders when faced with scientifically-proven facts about the fallacies in their beliefs. Faced with the problem of a popular but blasphemous book, religious leaders ban the book or at least prohibit the faithful from reading it. Likewise, faced with the popularity of playing in the stock market, communist party leaders in China have admonished the faithful (communist party members) from engaging in stock trading.

Why even be a communist party member when you know that your core beliefs have been blown to smithereens? Because there are practical and immediate benefits to being a communist party member. Party members are first-class citizens, everyone else is second-class, a phenomenon in China which parallels a similar observation in countries like Saudi Arabia. In the Kingdom of Saud, there are clear advantages to being Muslim, especially about getting the best jobs and best positions within a job category. This explains why it is not uncommon for Filipinos who have worked in Saudi Arabia for several years to convert to Islam.

Islam as Ideology

If you agree that communism is just another religion, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to understand that Islam is an ideology, at least partly. What makes Islam an ideology is that, just like communism, it includes a belief in an inevitable historical destiny for the world. Communists believe that the natural state of the world is communist, just as Muslims believe that our final destiny is Islamic. Islam (just as communism), therefore includes a “master plan” for how humanity can reach the final state. Never mind that the historical path to the final state of utopia is forced on people violently: for both communism and Islam, the end justifies the means. The objective is not justice in the here and now, but rather the objective is that one final state of society.

Communists believe that the inherent contradictions in capitalism eventually lead to the emergence of communism. Muslims believe that religions other than Islam eventually lead to the one true religion. For Muslims, we are all Muslims inside us; it’s just that we either don’t recognize it or we refuse to see the essential truth. We have been led astray by minor religions. We just need a little push to lead us to the one true religion that lies dormant within us. That “little push” could be violent, but what difference does it make to kill a few hundred or even a few thousand non-combatant people against the good of all humanity?

For us infidels, it remains difficult to accept that Islam is the one true religion, and rightly so. In return for our intransigence, we non-believers are at best second-class citizens in Sharia countries. At worst, killing innocent, civilian Christians and peoples of other faiths can be justified on the same basis. I realize this is a strong statement that I am sure liberals would deem “biased”. It is most definitely politically incorrect. Is it even plausible? It most definitely is, considering the influence of Wahhabism in most of today’s Muslims. There are two observations that support this assertion:

1. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, it is very rare to find Muslims who condemn the killings; and
2. In fact, most Muslim communities honor as martyrs those who die killing people of other faiths.

Political Correctness

If Muslims themselves are not going to protest against the radicals, we non-Muslims should at least not acquiesce to Islamic ideology. The problem is the perversity of neo-liberal attitude and irrational views on religious diversity and racial discrimination.

Liberals either don’t understand or their fear is clouding their understanding. If we don’t at least denounce what is clearly very bad behavior and point to its cause, we would be encouraging Islamic radicals and those who quietly believe in them.

Religious freedom does not mean tolerating very bad behavior. It does not matter what religion you have, if your religion teaches you to kill innocent people, then there is something wrong with your religion. If you put that “religious” teaching into practice, justice requires that you and the Imam who taught you be put down or banished from civil society.

Neo-liberals have been blaming all religions whenever an outburst of violence against civilians occurs, even in the face of statistical preponderance of Muslims committing those crimes. This indefensible liberal view is exemplified by Obama’s statement that “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ …” Never mind that the Crusades were a response to Muslim aggression and Christianity and its teachings are now way past the despicable phase that was the Inquisition. Never mind that Muslim ideology and nothing else (not “injustice” against Muslims, not the “lack of opportunity” for Muslims) is to blame for all jihad attacks.

Real leaders point out an unmistakable lie when they see it. Political correctness, especially when practiced by no other than Obama himself, makes a mockery of the truth. Political correctness allows and even encourages the abdication of leadership.