Re: Zombie Muhammad

I think on my first post on this blog, I said I don't claim to be a news breaker. This may be an exception. I'm sure you recently have heard the news about the Muslim who supposedly attacked the atheist "Zombie Muhammad," and the Muslim was let go. If not, here you go.

You can see how easy this is to sensationalize upon without getting the full story. Figure, there's the video... there's a recording of the proceedings. All that good stuff. That's the big reason I didn't figure this was really worth blogging about before now. I knew there was something more than was being reported, but without any kind of inside information, why bother? It inevitably degenerates into a screaming match with little to prove my point.

Well, an anonymous source did come to me. I'll leave it up to the source as to whether or not they want to self-identify, but I'll have no part in that. While one may question the reliability of an anonymous source (I often do), this source did fill in gaps. I hadn't even paid attention to this case all that much until now, more out of frustration toward this kind of mentality than anything. I don't believe that there is a hidden agenda to turn this country over to Sharia. Not one of any scale to worry about, anyway. I find myself more concerned over the Christian extremists - while I fully respect an individual's right to beliefs, extremists of any kind are dangerous, and I cannot support any religion being forced on others.

So, let's take a look at this case now. If there is video of an incident, people generally will agree with the accuser without bothering to watch the video. The site that I linked to above does have the video in question.

I've watched this video. I don't see an attack. I hear "Zombie Muhammad" dramatically screaming that he's being attacked. But, my source says that Zombie Muhammad carried a Styrofoam sign. Now, I think we all know that Styrofoam is generally pretty fragile. It'll snap easier than a twig with any rough treatment. Zombie Muhammad's sign was undamaged. Not only that, but he had no injuries. Whether the guy was attacked or not, "attack" without injuries seldom gets any punishment, especially for someone who was being deliberately provoked and has an otherwise clean record. Seriously, go sit in at your local court sometime. My understanding is that it's all public, anyway.

Next, we have the recording of the proceedings. The atheist claims he had the judge's permission to record the hearing. According to my source, he did not. Thus, he recorded it illegally. With this, he also altered the tape, which brings us to my next point:

My source tells me that the judge is not a Muslim, as claimed by the atheist and a bunch of conspiracy theorists. While Constitutionally speaking (Article VI, Paragraph 3) this shouldn't matter, to say the least, I'm going to give the conspiracy theorists the benefit of the doubt in that this could mean a certain bias. Especially if it seems the judge announced his religion as being Islam. But the point is however that this judge is decidedly not a Muslim, and if I trust nothing else my source told me, I would still trust this as being fact.

Here's the thing, as I see it: there are atheists, and there are anti-theists. An atheist doesn't believe. An anti-theist isn't content with not believing - they tend to have a special kind of insecurity. The same kind of insecurity we see from the most rabid evangelicals. The anti-theists are about hatred for religion, and those who follow a religion. Zombie Muhammad guy is an anti-theist, and not above orchestrating a character assassination to get his way. Because of that, he put both the judge and the Muslim at high risk. I don't doubt that they are both receiving a lot of threats.

So, truly... when you hear an outrageous conspiracy theory, there is honestly a good chance it's a load of crap. In this case, I believe it is. There are gaps in the evidence wide enough to drive a truck through, and those gaps were filled in nicely by what my source told me. For Christians, would you not be tempted to "attack" or at least push away a "Zombie Jesus" that was belligerent toward you and deliberately trying to provoke you? Yes, we have freedom of speech and of religion, but keep in mind that all freedoms go both ways. Muslims have a right to their religion, so long as their practices don't involve harming others, or forcing it on others. Yes, I'm aware of Muslim doctrine involving this, but so does the doctrine of every mainstream religion. It's a matter of what people choose to act on.