The film ‘Fitna’ is a really nasty and biased piece of inflammatory, manipulative garbage made by a right-wing anti-immigration asshole.

I’ve decided to link to it here for three reasons.

1. LiveLeak took it down temporarily because of death threats. Fuck that. Fuck anyone using threats and intimidation to control what we see and hear.

2. The people featured in the film really did say the things they said, and it’s reasonable to expose them to the light.

3. I’m aware that there are nice moderate Muslims, just like there are nice moderate Christians and nice moderate Jews. I’m also aware that there are scriptures in the Quran (Bible, etc.) that urge peace and shun violence. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. How peaceful a religion is depends on who’s running it at the time. Even if a religion is currently completely nice, there will always be some ‘bad scriptures’ lurking in there, waiting for some weirdo to interpret in their own violent way. It’s only a matter of time. Tick tick tick.

And when enough people believe their interpretation, they’ll take planes into buildings, and kill people for not believing. They’ll even murder their own children because of the extremist view. And there’s no way to reason them out of it — the delusion is fixed.

This is why moderate religionists are just as responsible for extremism as the extremists. The problem is god-belief. If people believe that a supernatural being exists, and wants them to do certain things, then their belief can be co-opted by anyone convincing. If not now, then when the climate changes. The line is not between the moderate and the extremist. It’s between the rationalist and the supernaturalist.