Dear Muslims,
I was inspired by Sam Harris’s little book, Letter to a Christian Nation, in which he argues how Americans literal acceptance of the Bible and the Christian dogma, can endanger the future of Civilization as we know it. How on earth could people’s belief in God destroy our Civilization? The Belief in God usually comes in three flavors: Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Each flavor has a variety of toppings, for instance in your case of Islam, you have the option of choosing amongst a number of toppings such as Sunni, Shiite, Wahabi, Salafi, Sufi, etc.
Once you have picked your flavor, well picking the flavor is for most parts not YOUR choice but a product of your geographic location on Earth and the flavor chosen by your parents which was chosen by their parents which was chosen by your great grandparents etc. ad infinitum. For instance, if you happen to have been born in a village in the Swiss Alps, to non-Muslim parents, it would be highly unlikely that you will grow up believing in the benefits of martyrdom and the rewards of 72 young virgin girls upon entering Paradise after blowing up yourself and a whole bunch of other people. On the other hand, had you been born in a village in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan, it would be highly improbable that you become a choir boy when you reach the appropriate age (that is if you happened to be a male). But you will grow up believing that Armageddon is the ultimate objective, which brings us back to the question of destruction of our Civilization.
It so happens that the world’s only Superpower with the mightiest military and an arsenal of some 7000 nuclear warheads each of which makes the "Little Boy" look and sound like a fire cracker, is also the most religious nation in the so called “Civilized World”. Never mind that Americans were the first people in the world that enshrined the complete and total separation of Church and State in their Constitution, and that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic did not exhibit any signs of religiosity in their writings and governing. Today, religion plays a very important role in the governance of the U.S. both at federal and state levels. Of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, not a single one has officially declared his/her non-belief. Indeed, in order to get elected to Public office or be appointed to an important position in any branch of the Government, candidates are forced to wear their Faith and religiosity on their sleeves. Every session of the Senate and the House starts with a prayer delivered by the Chaplain of each Chamber. No formal ceremony including military ceremonies will start without an invocation, and no prayer or official address by a Government official, from President down, shall end without asking the Almighty to bless the United States of America. Such a practice of religious rituals is not seen in any other Western nation, and can only be found in some Islamic countries. It will not be inaccurate to regard the U.S. a bottom-to-top Theocracy which is very hard to dismantle as opposed to the Iranian Theocracy which is top to bottom and can easily be dismantled by removing the top.
Sam Harris, produces staggering statistics in his book regarding the degree of religiosity in the U.S. He quotes a recent Gallup poll that shows 53 percent of the Americans are Creationists, and despite the extensive body of evidence which points to the antiquity of the cosmos and the Solar System, some 50 percent believe that the entire cosmos is only six thousand years old! Forty percent of the Americans believe that Jesus will return within the next fifty years and since His return can only happen following a cataclysmic event such as the battle of Armageddon, what is to keep them from electing the right wing religious zealots with the mission of preparing the world for His second coming. And that would mean the end of Civilization as we know it.
Having read Sam Harris’s book, I thought a similar letter to you, Muslims, will not be a bad idea not because you, too, are capable of destroying the Civilization, rather because you have somehow managed to stumble into becoming the enemy in the battle of Armageddon, and thus have completed the picture for the Christian zealots in the United States and anywhere else.
