Why Indeed?

My good friend Wayne forwarded me the following email which apparently has been circulating around the internet:

OUTRAGED MUSLIMS! OH MY!

We wake up this morning to see video on CNN showing rampaging Muslims around the world. In Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Rim ...Muslim Mobs spreading mayhem. It seems that these mighty mad Muslims are rioting and firing their ever-present AK-47s into the air because of cartoons. Yup ... this latest epidemic of Muslim outrage comes to us because some newspapers in Norway and Denmark published some cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Muslim outrage huh. OK ... let's do a little historical review. Just some lowlights:

a.. Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.
b.. Muslim officials block the exit where school girls are trying to escape a burning building because their faces were exposed. No Muslim outrage.
c.. Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged girls on their way to school in Indonesia. A Christian school. No Muslim outrage.
d.. Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage.
e.. Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage.
f.. A Muslim attacks a missionary children's school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage.
g.. Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Muslims shoot children in the back. No Muslim outrage.
h.. Let's go way back. Muslims kidnap and kill athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. No Muslim outrage.
i.. Muslims fire rocket-propelled grenades into schools full of children in Israel. No Muslim outrage.
j.. Muslims murder more than 50 commuters in attacks on London subways and busses. Over 700 are injured. No Muslim outrage.
k.. Muslims massacre dozens of innocents at a Passover Seder. No Muslim outrage.
l.. Muslims murder innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage.
m.. Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons. No Muslim outrage
n.. Muslims are involved, on one side or the other, in almost every one of the 125+ shooting wars around the world. No Muslim outrage.
o.. Muslims beat the charred bodies of Western civilians with their shoes, then hang them from a bridge. No Muslim outrage.
p.. Newspapers in Denmark and Norway publish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslims are outraged.

Dead children. Dead tourists. Dead teachers. Dead doctors and nurses. Death, destruction and mayhem around the world at the hands of Muslims … no Muslim outrage ... but publish a cartoon depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and all hell breaks loose.

Come on, is this really about cartoons?
I know and understand that these bloodthirsty murderers do not represent the majority of the world's Muslims. When, though, do they become outraged? When do they take to the streets to express their outrage at the radicals who are making their religion the object of worldwide hatred and ridicule? Islamic writer Salman Rushdie wrote of these silent Muslims in a New York Times article three years ago. "As their ancient, deeply civilized culture of love, art and philosophical reflection is hijacked by paranoiacs, racists, liars, male supremacists, tyrants, fanatics and violence junkies, why are they not screaming?"

Indeed. Why not?

My own brief answer is that Islam, in its essence, is a faith-based culture of death. Because it is a culture of death, human lives have no meaning or value. Because it is taken on pure faith, no means remain by which to question it. For to question or argue would require an appeal to reason – the very antithesis of faith. Thus the only recourse by which to settle differences is violence: “Kill the unbeliever who dares reject, question, or belittle our faith. Burn his buildings and property. Beat him into submission. Then he will ‘learn’ that ours is the ‘true’ and ‘enlightened’ path.”