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Beliefs, Actions, and Sharia Law

At the core of my belief system are these basic premises: I am a fully functioning, responsible, intelligent adult. I trust my moral compass, my own sense of right and wrong, my personal belief system, and how I choose to conduct myself when alone or with others. Therefore, I do not want, and I do not need, others instructing me in what, why, when, where, or how I believe, or in how I should behave in nearly all circumstances. I am willing to modify my beliefs and behaviors based on my own experiences, on my understanding of them, how I assimilate them, and what I conclude about them after my own evaluation of the facts, arguments, and circumstances surrounding them. I do not and I will not voluntarily relinquish any of my beliefs or activities to others, especially not to those who are known as “religious,” or clergymen, or clerics, or anyone presuming to have superior moral, spiritual, or intellectual thinking about life on this planet, or in what anyone believes I should value about them. I base my belief system on the fundamental right of freedom—in thought, words, and deeds. I am also a bit of a snob: When I survey the world and the collective beliefs and actions of others, in the main I recoil and choose not to be like them. But I am tolerant of those who only disagree with me.

Whatever I believe I make my actions conform to the law—at least to the extent that my conscience does not implode in doing so. Common sense dictates that my freedom extends only as far as my reach, or to the point at which yours begin. Life is a compromise. I reasonably expect that you will do the same. I make wide and frequent concessions to my wife and to all those who are close to me, knowing that discretion is often the better part of valor to my well-being, if not to my personal survival.

There is little that is new or distinct in my belief system. It generally conforms to life in all democracies and to life in the Western world. To be sure, tyrants have taken grave exception to all such belief systems wherever they have reared their ugly heads.

With that said, the question and the issue that I want to pursue is this: What and how much tolerance should you and I have for those who disagree with my observations and yours that arise up from our residencies, from our sensibilities, and from our collective wisdom within and among others living in Western cultures? This is a very important issue as it relates to those who believe in and adhere to Sharia law.

I have an imperfect understanding that some 800 to 1000 thousand years ago, Christians and Muslims engaged in a series of wars known as the Crusades. I have no desire to resurrect them here, merely to note that the underlying conflict was religious in nature involving basic human mistrust in the religious beliefs of others, and that killing and religion are not mutually exclusive concepts. Nor do I intend to bring back those inglorious days of the Inquisitions when Christians killed other Christians under the direction of 70 different popes. Again, it is just the notion that something as fundamental to our belief systems today (and as benign a concept as heresy) could give rise to trials, imprisonments, tortures, and violent deaths. Both periods underscore why I avoid religion as a driving force in my life. They both offend me down to the core of who I am. And so it is with some righteous indignation that I speak out against religious intolerance as a prelude to my discussing religious intolerance among others while simultaneously having a fundamental mistrust of all religions. So be it.

Donald Trump has taken the position that we should suspend immigration into the United States by Muslims—until we can sort out who are the good guys from the bad guys. I agree with his position, although perhaps for different reasons. I find Sharia law totally offensive and unworthy as having any protection whatsoever by our Constitution.

I am not an authority on Sharia law, but it does not follow that I cannot write about it with some authority stemming from the language in which it is stated. I also have the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate issues within the central wisdom of critical thinking and in accordance with the scientific method; I know murder when I read about it; I know maiming and abuse when I read it; I know degradation when it is written out in English; and I know intolerance when someone tells me he or she believes in it. I am repulsed by it all. There is no room in my belief system that will allow me to accommodate any of it. And I am a very tolerant person, willing and able to make wide accommodations for other belief systems. Sharia law is an affront to my beliefs and to humanity as I know it.

More importantly, our laws and our Constitution forbid all the offensive practices stated in Sharia law. It matters not whether anyone claims to be a Muslim in name only, or that they will abide by our laws willingly even when they conflict with Sharia law. I want a lot more from those who enter this country and are given the freedom to travel, to assemble, to preach, to proselytize, and to do and say many things short of taking actions. How will anyone know when the freedom to engage in those activities becomes superseded by a religious law that compels them to act on them? We have too many examples of those who were given high trust and who violated that trust with utter disgrace.

Let’s close the immigration gates now to all those who believe in Sharia law until we have really good answers to this issue.
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 This brief summary of Sharia law can be found on at least 100 different websites:

1. Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad.
2. Islam orders apostates to be killed.
3. Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.
4. Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death.
5. Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed.
6. Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated.
7. Islam commands that a male and female thief must have a hand cut off.
8. Islam allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge—physical eye for physical eye.
9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives.
10. Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.