Apostates? Just Folks Who Think For Themselves! Sign the Petition!


Been contemplating this shocking story about censorship in American universities for a while, following on from our previous pieces on how intolerant Islamists tried, and, disgracefully, succeeded in curtailing campus freedoms when students wanted to watch American Sniper. 

Enemy Within Captures Another US Campus 

But this case is worse.

An opinion piece written by a student at the University of California-Berkeley explaining her decision to leave Islam has been pulled from the school newspaper’s website over fears for the author’s safety.   http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/students-anti-islam-article-retracted-due-to-safety-risk/

We all abhor the ludicrous blasphemy laws in barbaric Middle East countries and dumps like Pakistan.

Here in Indonesia too such legislation exists, and is used not so much for real ‘blasphemy’ as to let the fanatics in the Sunni community persecute those who dissent from their dogmas.

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tajulTajul, one of Indonesia’s prisoners of conscience https://rossrightangle.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/indonesia-shariah-fanatics-howl-for-blood/

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But personally, I get most livid about the iniquitous attitude towards ‘apostates,’ as if apostasy, changing one’s religion, is somehow bad.

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Apostasy_myspace

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Of course it’s not.

Apostasy is the formal renunciation of one’s religion. One who commits apostasy is called an apostate.

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Intelligent people actually make use of the brains that God gives them to think for themselves, and if that means they come to the conclusion that the creed they were brought up in does not make sense any longer, then they’ll leave it.

They may cease to believe in anything at all, or they may switch to another religion that suits them

Whatever, it’s entirely up to them. And good luck to them in their spiritual quest. If God Almighty is sitting up there in Heaven and doesn’t like what they decide…

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  • wrath-of-god
  • … well..
  • He’ll getcha! And He needs no help from us. ,

I certainly may not always agree with the reasoning of people who ‘jump the dyke,’ as the old Ulster phrase has it. But, if somebody converts in or out of a faith, I respect their decision.

A recent example was the daughter-in-law of Indonesia’s President Jokowi, who abandoned her Christian religion to marry the President’s son. Nobody forced her to do this, so I respect her choice. If her groom had chosen to become a Christian, I’d have respected that too!

Apostasy is nobody else’s concern.

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  • freedom-of-religion
  • oooooooooooooo
  • Now, back to the issue.
  • The opinion piece, titled “On Leaving Islam,” recounted the personal story of the narrator (whose name we will withold) growing up a devout (though moderate) Muslim in Pakistan, but later abandoning the faith as she learned more about the world.

No need for me to go through the whole article. There’s the link if you want to do so.

But what is utterly appalling is that a few days after the article was posted, it was taken down and replaced by a note from ‘Californian’ editor-in-chief Kimberly Veklerov that reads “This opinion blog has been retracted because of personal safety concerns.”

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  Unforthcoming Editor Veklerov

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And this Veklerov woman is refusing to reveal what sort of threats, to whom, and from whom, these safety concerns arose.

Certainly, if you read the article, you’ll have to agree that it was no hate-screed. The author declared an intention to share what I’ve learned about Islam over the years. I plan to defend it and give credit where it’s due.

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  • censorship
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  • So my guess would be it’s not so much any personal or even theological content but the mere fact that this young person has thought seriously about Islam, then abandoned it.

If a friend of mine gave up on the Protestant religion, in which I was raised, I’d be curious about his or her reasons. I might even debate them, in friendly fashion.

But I wouldn’t be unpleasant to the apostate.

And as for making physical threats – only a filthy savage would do that.

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devil destroyed

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The full text of the article, without the author’s name, can be read here.

But whilst writing all this, I came upon a petition, about a pastor, imprisoned by the evil regime in Iran.

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\ Pastor Saeed Abedini with his family, before his imprisonment in Iran.

This man has committed no crime understood as such by civilised human beings.

He’s held prisoner for his religious beliefs. The pig-ignorant savages who have him want to force him into apostasy. Tehran does not tolerate people’s right to worship peacefully according to their conscience.

Each day Iranian guards demand he recant his Christian faith and become Muslim. He is threatened with an extended sentence.

I think we should support him.  

Here’s the petition link.

http://www.afa.net/action-alerts/tell-president-obama-get-christian-pastor-out-of-iranian-jail/