So this video clip of Hijab lecturing Joe Rogan caught my eye.  It’s a video called “Has Joe Rogan Changed His Mind on Islam ?” In it, Hijab starts by saying it’s encouraging that Joe Rogan seems to have changed his tone on Islam. But then he brings up a Malcolm X quote about how being stabbed in the back and pulling the knife out halfway isn’t something to be thankful for. THEN he goes even further, criticizes him, calls him a caricature of materialism, and then lectures Joe about the purpose of life.

All this talk about egoism.  Joe Rogan didn’t see anything about morality, or that feeding our best interests is the basis of morality.  Hijab is trying too hard to sound smart and use big words. All he said is “it does something for them”.  the Hajj does something for Muslims, meaning it gives them something.

If you took this one sentence and converted that to “egoism” you are sadly just projecting what you want him to mean, not what he means.  Joe is simply describing Muslims like any anthropologist would do. He is reflecting that there appears to be what looks like passion and pleasure and purpose and enjoyment in the hajj rituals. 

This makes sense to me.  It’s a sort of spiritual wonderland.  You go to the hajj feeling like you’re in this blessed sacred spot.  Even people say when you see the kaabah you will cry tears of joy.  For me, I was kinda like uhh it’s smaller than I thought. No tears. A bit disappointed in myself really.  Was expecting some crying. Nope

Either way, the point is that these rituals do give a sense of purpose. I mean heck even suicide bombers have a sense of purpose when they blow themselves up.  That doesn’t make it a good thing necessarily. But Joe Rogan is being generous here and saying it does something for Muslims. He’s right. And he’s not being egotistic either.

Hijab should know this.  Deep down inside religion does something for people. Or they wouldn’t follow it.  Look how many videos you have of people who converted to Islam for ’emotional reasons’. Because they had a tragic accident and nearly lost their lives, or otherwise facing difficulty in their lives. It gives them some sense of satisfaction. 

Many people are naive and don’t realize that converting to Islam also comes with expectations. These converts are told they have to quit their “haram” job, cover their tattoos if they have them, wear hijab if they’re female, and behave a certain way. Converting to Islam is not “free” so to speak.  So to repeat Joe said, there are benefits for them, but there are also costs. 

So first of all I want to call out this example from the Quran of a man who has many slave masters.  You see even the examples the Quran uses are hardly even relevant to today’s world. Slavery is done now.  Allah pointed out something that is relevant to those people, and for a few hundred years, and now leaves us saying “Example of a slave? Huh”.  This ain’t no divine revelation, it’s the words of a man who didn’t know better and used examples from his own life. I mean Muhammad was a slave owner himself. He even slept with his female slaves.  Not really what I would call a good example, but nevertheless, the mathal, the example, is what it is.  Irrelevant and outdated. Like the rest of the Quran.

The problem is it’s not worship and submission to the one who created you. It’s the worship and submission of Muhammad’s conception of God, and his teachings and commandments. The Quranic idea of god was manufactured as a synthesis of the Judeo-Christian God with pagan flavor added to it.  It’s not the creator of the universe, it’s Muhammad’s man-made idol. It’s an angry monster who wants total submission and obedience. It’s an angry monster that wants dominance over the whole world. To subjugate the world – as the Quran puts it “yuhudhirahu ala deeni kulli wa law karihal kafiroon” (to dominate overall deens despite the kafirs hating it)

This antagonistic god who hates for non-muslims and Muslims to be allied, who supposedly commanded all the non-Muslims out of the Arabian peninsula, who ordered the execution of those like the Jews of Banu Qurayza who did not submit to Muhammad’s wishes, this is no creator of the universe. He is a destructive antagonistic hateful god. 

I really want to laugh right now.  Why is Hijab so confident that Joe has a void in his life that needs filling?  This is again projection.  Muslims want to make people think that Allah is the only way to be content.  But I know that even as a Muslim that many people, some of who were the most religious of all, were unhappy, uncontent, and miserable with their lives. And the worst thing is that some Muslim psychiatrists tell these people that the solution is to be MORE religious.  

I once read a book called Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I think I read it as a Muslim. It was the story of a holocaust survivor who was a psychiatrist captured by the nazis. He wrote this book on how even in the worst most horrible place you can imagine, in a concentration camp,  people still managed to find some meaning and contentment in their lives.

Well first of all. Joe is 53.  Not “pushing 60”.  And who says he only has 10-20 years more? He might live to 120! That’s another 60 years man. And Heidegger apparently felt that people being afraid of death made their lives less meaningful. He felt that to embrace that death which he called nothingness (Das Nichts) was the key to being more authentic. To embrace this fragility, to “visit the graveyards” is to find more joy.  To an atheist, life is infinitely more valuable and precious, because it’s not followed up by an eternity in the next life. If this is what he meant, I would agree with him. I would say yes. Stop trying to twist philosophers’ words to promote Islam. This fearmongering about punishment in the grave, about heaven and hell, and Allah’s wrath, that’s just stupid.  Islam is very immature in its teachings. It uses a big stick of threats over and over again to convince people to “be good”. It’s not good for humanity, for the world. For anyone.

And my friends that’s all I have for today.