On Moslems

Moslems, many of those whom I have met, are very spiritually strong and good people. I've always admired Moslems like Muhammed Ali (whom I have not met) and others for their spiritual strength. Also, Moslems are a Semitic people like the Jews, monotheistic like the Jews also. No matter how much I try to think of Christianity as a monotheistic religion, Christianity nowadays at least, is practiced as a polytheistic religion except maybe for the Calvinists.

We often like to talk of the suicide bombers when we talk of Moslems. Israel completely tries to ignore the Palestinians almost like strictly religious families ignores homosexual sons or daughters like they don't exist. Moslems do exist and although the extremes of Moslem faith poses a threat, most Moslems have consistent values with Christians. Now we can argue endlessly about how people dress or eat or worship, but these things do not matter all that much and have varied in cultures all over the world.

I met one Moslem while I was in the hospital for bipolar disorder and I really admired his spiritual strength. But I was disturbed by one thing, his lack of critical thinking skills. This is a skill that I gained from Harvard University when I walked into it and started attending classes and lectures. I sincerely apologize to Harvard for this. Anyway, critical thinking skills is still a very Western Art. Not many people outside of Western academia or Media or even Politics seem to engage actively in proposing a system that is better than the currently accepted one with its set of goods and evils.

He asked me about an essay he had written and it was simply the typical high school essay with the head, the body, and the conclusion. There was no attempt to chase an idea into all its cul-de-sacs, loop-arounds, etc. Despite that, I found myself admiring the man for his strength, consistency, and determination.