March 8, 2016 5:30 AM

Another (Not So) Great Moment in Religious Intolerance and Persecution

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism in hundreds of social media posts. The report carried in Al-Watan says the 28-year-old man admitted to being an atheist and refused to repent, saying that what he wrote reflected his own beliefs and that he had the right to express them. The report did not name the man. It added that ‘religious police’ in charge of monitoring social networks found more than 600 tweets denying the existence of God, ridiculing the Quranic verses, accusing all prophets of lies and saying their teaching fuelled hostilities. The court also fined him 20,000 riyals - or, just short of £4,000.

There are times when I have to remind myself that Saudi Arabia is a country our government considers a valued ally in the Middle East and a bulwark in the war against terrorism. Though virtually all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and though the Wahabi Kingdom is one of the worst and most brutal theocracies in the world, we support Saudi Arabia with billions in military aid every year. It’s a classic “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” scenario, and I understand that diplomacy can be a messy, amoral affair that can leave one feeling the need for a long, hot shower. Yet we stand idly by when the Saudi government executes a man for the heinous, unimaginable crime of…wait for it…being an atheist.

As any good, God-fearing, Christian patriot understands, atheists deserve whatever fate awaits them…right?

I’m hoping someone might be kind enough to explain to me again why religion isn’t just about the worst thing ever invented by mankind? When you consider that over the course of human history, more people have been killed because of religion than virtually any other issue…well, how is it that religion continues to be considered a good thing?

Perhaps it’s not so much that religion- the concept- is the problem (it’s not), but rather that it’s used as a means of social control by those who wish to consolidate political power and eliminate enemies, whether real or potential. It has nothing to do with teachings that more often than not are about love, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence; it has EVERYTHING to do with enforcing one’s narrow moral framework as the law of the land. It’s about political tyranny camouflaged with a patina of righteousness.

In 2014 the oil-rich kingdom, under the late Saudi King Abdullah, introduced a series of new laws which defined atheists as terrorists, according to a report released from Human Rights Watch.

In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, King Abdullah attempted to clamp down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.

Article one of the new provisions defined terrorism as “calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based”.

How thoroughly ignorant and morally bankrupt must a religious faith tradition be in order to justify executing those whose only “crime” lies in rejecting the majority religion and choosing another path? This has nothing whatsoever to do with the view of religion that holds such faith to be a way to promote peace, love, and understanding. No, this is a clear example of religious faith bastardized into a means of exercising social control and eliminating anyone who might even tangentially be viewed as a threat to the established order.

I have not seen any of the unnamed man’s tweets, so I can’t speak to the contents, nor can I address what manner of threat he may or may not have posed to security and continued peace and good order within Saudi Arabia. Still, the idea that someone could be persecuted to the point of execution for simply refusing to fall in line and accept the religion employed by the state as a means of exercising social control should be anathema to anyone who values their faith.

If you don’t think this sort of thing could happen here in America, I’d ask only that you take a good, long look at the top three candidates running for the GOP Presidential nomination. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio are all peddling an intolerant and inflexible theology intended to breach the wall separating Church from State…and, conveniently enough, elevate them into the White House. The line separating Saudi Arabia from the United States when it comes to Right-wing politics is exceedingly thing. No, atheists aren’t being executed in America- yet. Discrimination against atheists is perhaps the last remaining socially acceptable form of discrimination remaining in this country. If those who would dismantle the Constitution in favor of an intolerant, hyper-Conservative Christian theocracy succeed in seizing power, what’s happening in Saudi Arabia might become a distinct possibility here.

The fact that our government accepts this state of affairs without so much as a word of protest is not only distressingly immoral, it should be taken as an indication that this sort of persecution isn’t viewed as a problem. Execute atheists and no one notices nor particularly cares; begin executing Christians and just watch the righteous outrage and demands for action commence.

If that isn’t the worst sort of inhumanity and hypocrisy, I can’t imagine what would be.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 8, 2016 5:30 AM.

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