God’s Will

We were created as human beings before we chose our religions, acquired our cultures, learned our languages, or belonged to our homelands. So, we cannot be good religious people, or good citizen, if we are not human beings first. Our religions, cultures, languages, and loyalty to our homelands are learned, and they are non-biological parts of our life. So, why do people use them to kill our nature and innate part of our life (the humanity)? Religion, culture, and language are put to their highest use when they build a community. But sometimes, our loyalty to them makes us forget our humanity, when this loyalty changes to be prejudice against others.

Some of my friends did not like the movie "Noah" 2014 because it did not follow the biblical or Quranic story. But the movie presented an important issue which is the conflict between religion and the humanity... Between what you believe is God's will and some Human principles, such as not killing kids.

Does God command us to do something against our Human principles?

How can a believer kill his humanity?

How can a believer use his religion to justify the evil that he commits?

Is God unable to carry out his will into effect on earth, so He created us to carry it out?

How can a good believer transform into an evil human? Because his religion commands him? Or because he is an evil human by his nature?

How does a believer know God's will for sure, and tries to carry it out without waiting for God to carry it out by himself?

Does not that happen in all religions?

Did not God say in the Quran that the disbelievers will be in the hell fire, so some Muslims killed them to send them to hell fire, and these Muslims transform into terrorists?

Did not God promise the Jews the Holy land, so the Zionists did not wait until God would give it to them? Instead, they waited for Great Britain to carry Balfour Declaration out, Occupied Palestine for them, supplied them with Guns, train them to kill and exile the Palestinians in one of the worse Ethnic cleansing in the history, to create a Racist state.

Do not some fundamental Christians believe that Jesus will not come back to the earth until Jews will go be back to the holy land and create the state of Israel? So they support Israel and supplied it by money and guns to exile the Palestinians from their land, houses, kill them, and destroy their houses, as if God commanded them to use their strengths and powers to support the killer and blame the victims when he tries to defend himself. 

Even the white house now preaches like a church in a state that its constitution separates between the church and the state.

If American nation really regrets what they did for the Native Americans and African Americans, and asks them to forget and forgive, so why do they support another nation to do the same action?

Why did not they forgive and forget Hitler and Osama Ben Laden?

Did Jesus talk to the victims only when he said: “love your enemy”? But the oppressor does not need to love his victims, just because he is strong enough to oppress others?

If you use all of your powers and strengths to put a weak man in a corner and punch him without any mercy, do not wait for him to use his mind to respond to you. Of course his respond would be crazy. Terrorism is the crazy respond to 70 years of Israel oppression. Terrorist attacks do not happen because the terrorists do not like American life style as most Americans believe.

But how can Americans know the truth if all their media are different in everything except about Arab–Israeli conflict? All the American media present this conflict from the Israel view. For example, in every ancient they show how many Israeli victims, but they never show how many Palestinian victims. They show how the Palestinian use violence, but they never show how Israelis use it. But Americans still have responsibility to look at this news from different views on the internet if they want to know the truth.

Trump knows that his decision, to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, will help the terrorist group to recruit and mobilization new members and to justify their attacks under the pretext defending the Palestinian land. But Trump would be happy if any terrorist attack will happen, because it would distract attention from the news of his administration's relationship with Russia.

All the Bloods are Sacred

More than one American, when they know that I am from Egypt, asked me this question: “What do you think about killing Christians and bombing churches in Egypt?” Actually, one of this Americans asked me this question before he knew that I am Muslim. Maybe he thought I am Christian just because we met at the chapel, so he said: “I am so sorry when I hear about Muslims killing the Christians and bombing their churches in Egypt.” For all these American friends I write this post now.

First, it is not right to say “Americans kill Jews” just because one American shoot people in a Jewish center in Kansas 2014, or “Americans kill Christians” just because one American shoot people in a Texas church 2017, or  “Americans kill Muslims” just because some Americans have attacked more than 35 mosques in 2017. Two of these mosques were burned to the ground in the same state (Texas) in one month (January).

Of course it is not right to say that. Even though these shooters and burners are Americans, they do not present the common belief of the majority of American society. So these incidents still individual incidents, or the worst estimates they are small groups’ incidents.

In the same way, you need to distinguish between the terrorist groups and the Middle Eastern societies. Yes, these terrorist groups arefrom these societies. But they are not accepted there. That is why they live and hide in mountains outside the cities.

Second, what happened in the Middle East last few decades is a result of using the religions in the political conflicts, so it distorted and defiled both the politics and the religions. For example, the politician candidates ask people to vote for them in the name of God. The religious men describe these candidates as they are emissaries of God, and warn people, they will be in hell fire, if they vote for another candidates. The military leaders bring the religious leaders with when declare their military coups. I think it is a good lesson I wish Americans, especially the conservatives, learn it.

Third, churches are not the only target of the terrorist attacks in the Middle East. The targets of these attacks include, beside the churches, Security ambushes, police stations, military troops, tourist sites, famous writers and artists, senior government officials, judges, and even mosques. For example, the second important mosque in Islam, the mosque of the prophet of Islam by himself, was a target of a terrorist attack in July 2016. Also, the worst terrorist attack in Egypt was in a mosque on November 2017. Even this incident, the western media showed it as a part of a conflict between two Islamic sects, as the Sunni Muslims killing the Sufi Muslims.  

Even though the terrorists do not discriminate us, they kill all of us equally, the western media discriminates the victims. This media does not care about any Middle Eastern blood that is not shed on a church. I think they forget that if there is no black or white blood, also there is no Christian or Muslim blood. All the bloods are sacred, and I do not believe their humanity when they choose the blood that they cry for and the other blood that they ignore. I do not believe it is religious problem. I believe it is cultural problem, because the western civilization used to look at itself as it is the center of the world, even in the time of the globalism.

Bell Curve of Civilizations

Like human life go through three stages of bell curve: childhood, youth and aging, a nation history goes through these stages too. A nation starts its history very weak like a child, then becomes strong, and then goes back to be weak again.

In the following pages, we will use the terms “childhood, youth and aging” to distinguish between three civilizational stages in nations' history, not ages stages in people's lives. The first one (childhood) is pre-civilization, the second one (youth) is the civilization, and the last one (aging) is post-civilization.

In the childhood stage, people live a natural life, with no rule. They do not have the sense of belonging. Each one of them has an individual interest, to find the materials that feed his natural needs, such as foods, drinks, clothes, shelter and sex. They might kill each other for these materials. They focus only on their present minute. Because they are Illiterates, they cannot learn from their past, and because they are closed mind, they cannot look at their future.

They live in this way until some man inspires them with an idea. This idea could be religious (such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam), national (Such as Nazi, Zionism and Arabism), political (such as Autocracy, Democracy and Anarchy) or economical idea (such as Capitalism, Socialism and Communism).

The idea
Religious	Nationalism	Political	Economic
Judaism Christianity Islam	Zionism Nazi Arabism	Autocracy Democracy Anarchy	Capitalism Socialism Communism

This idea would unite the people around it, so they would start to feel the sense of belonging, and to see their community interests. This idea would enrich their material and natural life. It would make them creative technologically, and looking at their future to face the challenges they have. They would apply science practically in their life to meet the needs of their societies in special circumstances, and to supplement what he lacks of power and abilities. But when they would look at their past their belief in this idea would get strengthen.

They would work very hard to reach the top point of their youth stage; even they could kill those who try to stop their progress and rise. So when they would reach it they would feel that they have to rest. They need to enjoy their minute, and they deserve to celebrate. They would start to spoil their children, so next generation would be weaker and seeking for luxury and consuming. Their bell curve would start to go down, generation by generation, to decline and collapse.

In the aging stage, their life would stagnate, immobilize and be full of rules and have no nature. They would care about the manifestations of their idea more than the idea itself.  For example, they would care about the rules of their election and parliament but they would not care if they really have democracy or not. They would care about their religious clothes and Places of worship more than the principles and values of their religion.They would care about their Communist party more than justice and equality. Their idea would be more important than its respective owners, so they would have any problem if all the believers of their idea die for their idea to live! Accusations, recriminations, suspicions, mistrust, religious excommunications and political and sectarian propaganda would be very common; because they would judge and accuse each other by treason, infidelity, unbelief or unloyalty to their idea. They would look all the time at their past, and feel nostalgic. They would kill in the name of their idea, which explains why some people kill in the name of their God, and some nation kill in the name of Democracy!

Both childhood and aging stages are dark ages. People’s goal in these stages is just their survival, because when they look at themselves they feel low self-esteem; because they are dependent even though they are afraid of other cultures.

Unlike childhood and aging stages, the youth stage is golden age. People’s goal in this stage is to be better. When they look at themselves they feel self-confidence, because even though they are independent, they still learn from others and teach them.

Of course, some of these stages last longer than others in different nations. Also, the top point of some nation’s youth stage could be higher than other nation’s youth stage.

	Childhood	Youth	Aging
	Dark ages	Golden ages	Dark ages
Goal	Survival	growing and development	Survival
they look to themselves	low self-esteem	self-confidence	low self-esteem
they look to others	Dependent even they are afraid of other cultures	Independent  but they learn from others and teach them	Dependent even they are afraid of other cultures
Their life	Material life, Nature life and no rule	An idea enriches the material life	Life is full of rules and no nature. They care about manifestations of the idea more than the idea itself
Their thought	Closed minded	Create, Technology	Stagnation and immobility
They look at	Present	Future	Past
When they look at the past	They find nothing.	Their faith get strengthen	They feel  nostalgic
Interest	Individual interest	Community interest	Accusations, recriminations, suspicions, mistrust, religious excommunications and political and sectarian propaganda
They kill	for the Material	Those Who try to stop their progress and rise	in the name of their idea

Ibn Khaldun

When the North African Arab historiographer and historian Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) wrote his book about universal history, he had noticed that there are essential elements that are repeated when nations progress, and other essential elements that are repeated when nations collapse. We can call these elements the reasons of progress and collapse.

He wrote these notes in his introduction which became more famous than the book itself, because it was, as the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee called, "a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place.” Because of Ibn Khaldun’s introduction, he is claimed to be the world’s first sociologist.

Ibn Khaldun conceived a central social conflict between sedentary life in the city and nomadic life in the desert. He explained how a group of barbarians live a nomadic phase in tribes and other small kinship groups until they can develop a sort of social cohesion among themselves. This social cohesion can be intensified and enlarged by a religious or national ideology. Then they become desert warriors on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to conquer the city (sedentary life) and change the leadership.

Once the barbarians solidify their control over the conquered society, however, they become attracted to its more refined aspects, such as literacy and arts, and either assimilate into or appropriate such cultural practices.

But, because the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Also, the social cohesion is most strong in the nomadic phase, and decreases as civilization advances. It carries groups to power but contains within itself the seeds of the group's downfall. So, when a society becomes a great civilization, its high point is followed by a period of decay.

Thus, a new group, bound by a stronger cohesion, can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew. Then, eventually, the former barbarians will be conquered by a new set of barbarians, who will repeat the process.

Conversation

-        Why has the religious and nationalist right trends with its extremist and populist wings achieved remarkable success in separate elections in more than one country recently?

-        Communism collapsed and socialism was weakened by the fall of the Soviet Union in the late Eighties of last centry, leading to the emergence of Eastern Europe spring as the triumph of Western liberalism. On the contrary, the Arab Spring, at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, has completely eroded Western liberalism so that it has nothing left to abandon.

-        How?

-        Liberals seem like a stripper pulling off a piece of her clothes with every step she takes, until she looks completely naked. Liberals abandon every principle of society in order to make society without any principles. At first they renounced religion, then family, then childbearing, then marriage, and so on. Look at European liberalism now. It looks completely naked after it has brought its societies into a fatal crisis. Churches turned into museums, atheism is the most widespread belief. Most new generations do not want to marry, have families or have children.

-        Liberals do not abandon the society’s principles. They just replace the national and religious principles with universal human principles that include all members of the society. 

-        What’s wrong with the national and religious principles? Did not these principles make Europe the best continent economically, militarily and technologically? But on the other hand, what did liberalism do for the Europeans? It has made threatened with extinction, despite their wealth, technological progress and military superiority. It has opened the door to immigrants and refugees, giving them privileges as minorities, until they have turned against Europeans with terrorism and crimes. The Europeans were about to become a minority in Europe.

-        The national and religious principles might be in favor of Europe, but they have been a burden on other peoples for centuries, when Europe had invaded them by colonialism, slavery and exploitation.

-        This may be true, but that is because Europe had led the world scientifically, technologically and culturally, and the rest of the peoples was dependent on it.