​I read Rudolph Otto’s book “The Idea of the Holy” many years ago, quite early on in my spiritual struggle. I appreciated his emphasis on both the numinous character and the moral perfection of the Divine. At the time, I felt that all religions shared a similar appreciation and understanding of the holiness or sacredness of God. However, when I more recently became familiar with the roots and teachings of Islam, I was forced to conclude that Islam’s God, Allah, as depicted in many parts of the Quran and other Islamic scripture, is not holy. A god who orders his subjects to hate, and even kill, non-Muslims is not holy. A god who describes the Jewish people as "the vilest of all creatures" and descendants of apes and pigs is not holy. I could go on and on, for the Quran and Hadiths are full of examples of Allah’s unholiness. So when I see pictures of devout Muslims touching their foreheads to the ground in reverence to their unholy god, I feel great sadness. Perhaps there are many nominal Muslims who are simply ignorant of the nature of Muhammad’s Allah, but devout Muslims should know better. The fact that they don’t means that they don’t appreciate or understand true holiness. If they understood, they would know that Allah of the Quran is not worthy of veneration, and is simply a creation of Muhammad's sick ego.

This is what the eminent atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell had to say about Islam:
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“Over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them. And the minority that do understand continue to be Moslems because they have redefined their morality and ethics to fit within the teachings of Islam, which are floridly lacking in morality (italics mine). They therefore redefine what is good and evil in order to fit their lives into what is preached by Islam, instead of examining Islam to see if it fits within the good life. Backwards thinking, imposed by a backward religion.” (Mr. Russell defined “the good life” as “one inspired by love and guided by knowledge”.)

The following article originally appeared on the website turningpointproject.com, and was later reprinted in thecatholicthing.org. It is posted here with permission of the author (William Kilpatrick).

​​A commonplace has emerged among media and political elites that criticism of Islam or even of radical Islam will only serve to drive moderate Muslims into the radical camp.

That argument should be questioned because it can just as easily be that lack of criticism has led to the rebirth of militant Islam. Far from being critical of Islam, Western governments, media, academia, and even churches have bent over backward to claim that all the atrocities committed in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam. Indeed, the Western media have adopted a rigid system of self-censorship that keeps them from admitting that these atrocities are in fact committed in the name of Islam.

The latest example is the reporting on the assassination of a Russian ambassador by a Turkish policeman. Almost the first words out of the assassin’s mouth after the shooting were: “We are those who have given a pledge of allegiance to Muhammad that we will carry on jihad.” If you don’t remember him saying that, it’s because that part of the statement was omitted from almost all news and television reports. Apparently, our betters in the media were afraid that if we were aware of the man’s devotion to Muhammad, we might say something provocative that would turn untold numbers of peaceful Muslims into bomb-throwing jihadists.

Perhaps the prime example of the wages of silence is the current crisis in Europe. Islamic terrorists have declared war on Europe and the result has been a series of deadly attacks – at airports, subways, cafés, concert halls, and, most recently, Christmas markets. All this mayhem is the indirect result of ignorance about Islam – an ignorance that, in turn, is the result of an almost complete blackout of news unfavorable to Islam.

Anyone with a thorough understanding of Islamic culture and religion could have predicted that, even without the 2015-16 flood of Muslim migrants, the steady flow of Muslim immigrants over the years would create a combustible situation. The amazing thing is that the consequences of this massive migration were never discussed – except in glowing terms. Just about the only thing allowed to be said about the migrants was that they would solve labor shortages, refill welfare coffers, and bring cultural enrichment to Europe.

That was the official line. Anyone who deviated from it could expect censure, possible job loss, or even a criminal trial. Say something negative about Muslim immigration on your Facebook page and you would be visited by police. Say it in public and you would receive a court summons. It didn’t matter if you were a famous writer (Oriana Fallaci), the President of the Danish Free Press Society (Lars Hedegaard), or a popular member of the Dutch Parliament (Geert Wilders). If you couldn’t say something nice about Islam, then you shouldn’t say anything at all.

In the European case, the idea that criticizing Islam will create an army of radicals doesn’t hold up. Criticism of Islam is essentially a crime in many parts of Europe and has been for a long time. In Europe, few dared criticize Islam, but the radicals came anyway. More than anything else, it was silence that allowed Islamization and radicalization to spread through France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Practically no one spoke up about no-go-zones, sharia courts, polygamy, and forced marriages, refusal to integrate, crime waves, and the rape epidemic. Now that many are finally beginning to speak out, it may be too late to avoid capitulation (Sweden’s likely fate) or bloody conflict (more likely in France).

The very argument that criticism of Islam will drive moderates into the radical camp suggests that criticism is needed. If Islam is such a hair-trigger religion that the slightest offense might radicalize adherents, there is something radically wrong with the religion itself. We don’t worry that criticizing Catholicism is going to produce angry Catholic mobs rampaging through the streets. We don’t fear that one wrong word is going to cause a young Southern Baptist to strap on a suicide belt.

Islam invites criticism. Given its bloody past and present, it would be highly irresponsible not to subject it to a searching analysis and critique. Such a critique would not aim at alienating Muslims (although some will inevitably be alienated), but at alerting likely victims of jihad.

One of the basics that non-Muslims need to know is that Islam divides the world in two – the House of Islam, and the House of War (all non-Islamic societies). And every Muslim is expected to do his part to make the House of War submit to the House of Islam. Europeans are now experiencing a “don’t-know-what-hit-me” sense of bewilderment because they never learned this basic fact about Islam.

One reason for our reluctance to analyze and criticize Islam (an idea) is that such criticism seems tantamount to criticizing Muslims (a people). Unfortunately, even if that is not the intention, it is often the result. A person can’t separate himself entirely from his beliefs, and, consequently, we take criticism of our religion personally. That’s a good reason for presenting the critique as tactfully as possible. But it’s not a good reason for offering no critique at all.

If you can’t criticize a belief system because it would hurt the feelings of people who subscribe to that system, then we were wrong to criticize Nazism, Communism, and Japanese imperialism. Ordinarily, we refrain from criticizing other religions. Such a live-and-let-live approach is generally sensible, but when the other religion takes the attitude that you must either convert, submit, or die, then live-and-let-live is no longer an option. That is the position that we are in with regard to Islam. And it is suicidal to pretend that things are otherwise.

​Based on the available historical evidence, Jesus and Muhammad were very different people, with largely contrasting morals. Reflecting these character differences, Jesus’ portrayal of God is very different from Muhammad’s portrayal of Allah. Christian scriptures describe Jesus as a loving peacemaker, who never promoted violence against anyone, for any reason. The original source documents of Islam (the Quran, hadith, biographies and histories), on the other hand, reveal that Muhammad was a warlord, who could be ruthless to non-Muslims. They contain striking descriptions of the casual and matter-of-fact way that Muhammad and his followers trafficked in violence and bloodshed. The Quran, which Muslims believe is Allah’s infallible word revealed to Muhammad, has several passages advocating violence against non-Muslims (“kafirs”), particularly Jews. Muhammad's character and teachings are reflected in Islamic law (Shariah), wherein the penalty for homosexuality and apostasy may be death (officially in at least 8 Muslim countries today, but potentially enforceable by radical Muslims anywhere). Under Shariah, women are inferior to men, and must veil themselves in order to avoid arousing male passions. Muhammad, who is considered by Muslims to be the perfect man, to be emulated, had people killed just for insulting him or for criticizing his religion. Therefore, the continued existence of Islamic terrorism today is understandable. Jesus had harsh words for the hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees of his time. If Jesus had had the opportunity to confront Muhammad, his words would have been much harsher. However, he would never have advocated violence against Muhammad or his followers. Similarly, those who follow Jesus are to call radical Islamists to task, but we are never to be violent toward them, except, I submit, where necessary to defend others who are unable to defend themselves.

​Many families and friends are grieving deeply for loved ones killed in Las Vegas. My heart goes out to them. Exactly why the 64-year-old perpetrator acted as he did remains unclear, but he was suffering from mental illness. He was depressed and had been given a prescription for anxiety. I feel certain that his illness was due to child abuse (similar to what created HItler). For this reason, I also feel sorry for the shooter. Had he recognized the roots of his distress, he might have been able to experience self-compassion, which is crucial to healing. Reportedly, his father was a bank robber on the FBI's most-wanted list. ISIS is claiming that the shooter had converted to Islam several months ago, but have provided no real backup for this claim.

​The shooter had accumulated worldly wealth, and was a gambling "high roller", but he did not love himself, for anyone who truly loves himself can never intentionally harm anyone. Only the sick, impermanent ego could believe that harming another accomplishes anything. The shooter had lost contact with his true self, his inner child. We were all created in the image of the Divine, pure and innocent, in love with both ourselves and the world. Then things happened, largely beyond our control, that caused us to lose our connection to our innate divinity. Many of us were taught that we are “by nature sinful and unclean”. We were raised in an environment where love was conditional on our acting in certain ways and achieving or believing certain things. We developed an ego that feared rather than trusted. Some of us became angry, hateful and vengeful. In extreme cases, we may have decided to strike out at the world. All of these reactions are products of the ego, but the ego is not who we really are. The ego has forgotten that our true self is a divine and eternal being. This is true for each and every one of us. As Neale Donald Walsch has written, “Hitler went to heaven”. So, too, has the Las Vegas shooter.

Religious fundamentalism is largely based on a false premise, this being that God can be offended, insulted or provoked. Only an ego can take offense at anything, and God has no ego. However, the God that is worshiped by fundamentalists takes offense (i.e., feels slighted or insulted and gets resentful  or angry) when human beings "sin" by either performing, or failing to perform, all manner of actions. Religious fundamentalism is generally patriarchal and promotes hard, ego-based actions such as judgment and punishment at the expense of soft, spirit-based qualities such as love and forgiveness. Both Jehovah of the Old Testament and Allah of the Quran have an ego. Fundamentalist Islam teaches that those who do not act in a manner consistent with the commands of Allah, as revealed by the Prophet Muhammad, risk everlasting damnation and torment. Those who reject the call of Islam are to be subjugated or even killed ("jihad"). Fundamentalist Christians believe that no one, no matter how sincere, can ever be good or innocent enough to satisfy God. As a consequence of "original sin", even newborn babes risk God's wrath. The only saving grace is accepting that salvation has been purchased through the sacrifice of God's son Jesus. However, Jesus never claimed that he needed to be put to death so that we could be made acceptable in God's sight. This was a concept promoted by Paul, and was a carry-over from the Old Testament practice of animal sacrifice. The God revealed by Jesus himself is different. Jesus' God loves us unconditionally and would never sentence anyone - regardless of their beliefs or even their actions - to an eternity of exclusion in hell. True salvation lies in discovering one's real identity, which is a magnificent and loving eternal being created in the image of God.