I love Ayaan; so, thanks for putting this up. She thanks and recognizes all of the horsemen prior to beginning. She is essentially swearing fealty to atheism publicly at that point making it clear that she is still the queen of atheism.

She says the term moderate Muslim is a useless term. Are we talking about temperature? Interesting points she makes about Mohamed of Mecca Muslims and Mohamed of Medina Muslims and the ‘others’.

She talks about chapter 2 verse 40 or something like that, flog the adulterer and flog the adulteress and then it says, ‘let no compassion guide you’ or something like that. Essentially, rid yourself of compassion in the execution of this task. She says when there are things like this written and taught, this marks the end of civilization. We must always keep compassion in mind.

She says ‘questioning’ changed everything in terms of religion and the culture; changing very slowly, almost from an evolutionary type of standpoint; but, of mindset instead of life-form. In particular she says this about Christianity and explains that this is why things can be discussed openly in the west without fear of death threats or death. I disagree with this point.

The establishment of the first secular democracy in history about 240 or so years ago had a dramatic impact on the evolution of a person’s ability to speak openly about religion. This example in part further motivated a revolution in France and has since inspired many. It has since become undermined by the Reganites and they are Legion.

The establishment of the first secular democracy in history followed some period in Europe where people were being burned alive and crucified based upon religious judgments handed down by theocratic governments. This went on for 5 centuries in Europe. The architect of this idea was Saint Augustine, whom you see in stained glass all over the place.

She talks about Islam being a death cult due to devaluation of this life out of concerns for the much more important afterlife. While it is true that Martyrdom and Jihad are death cult tools that are above and beyond what the other Abrahamic religions have to offer currently, it is also true that the belief in an afterlife undermines the value of this life for us all. Belief in an afterlife is a death cult, in whatever form.

However, it must be acknowledged that she is trying to get the atheist community to acknowledge differences between the religions. For me to offer here that, ‘belief in an afterlife in whatever form … .’ only detracts from her most important message. The differences between the religions are important and we have a responsibility to openly acknowledge these differences and examine them publicly.

Thanks again for this post.