Greetings from Las Vegas

I arrived back home on 21 October 2015 where my neighbor-friend Winda met me at the airport. Returning after so many months away always feels surreal, as if fallen into a parallel universe, I suddenly popped back out having never left. My sense of time is distorted with east bound jet-lag, more pronounced this time than ever before. After two weeks I still found myself wide awake at odd night time hours with my usual afternoon naps occurring at any hour between the fuzzy parentheses of listless lethargy.

For several years a gradually declining sense of smell has been a minor concern. Lately it has become more pronounced. Research reveals that such symptoms often are an early precursor of Alzheimer's disease! That prompted many hours glued to the screen learning about the subject of hyposmia. What a surprise to to discover the "use it or loose it" dictum applies to the sense of smell as we age. Now I try to pay more attention to how many different odors I can detect as I wander about and how distinctly they register in my brain, hoping it is not too late to revitalize that enigmatic sense.

The universe, to be sure I'd have something to distinguish this home coming from so many others, contrived to make it memorable. First, one of the "run-flat" tires on my old garaged 'Vette contained a screw puncture, providing an opportunity to test the flat tire performance while driving to the repair shop. Next, accumulated mail contained notices of missed medical appointments hidden among all the junk. Then, two weeks into pouncing on the inbox of nearly nine hundred email messages, the solid state "C" drive in my main computer suddenly failed! Sure it had become toast, I ordered a replacement Samsung 850 EVO 250GB while trying to reorganize the contents of four other drives to make one a substitute "C" drive in the interim.

With so many interesting distractions while traveling in exotic foreign lands it has been easy to loose track of the horrendous events taking place on the other side of the world. Now back, I am once again overwhelmed by the looming catastrophe facing our civilization. My travels throughout the world have taken me through many predominantly Islamic countries offering the opportunity to mingle with thousands of wonderful people professing the ancient religious faith of their Prophet. But today, when I ponder the activities of that small radical minority of Muslims who fanatically scream their hatred of Western social values and vow to replace them with draconian constraints on human freedoms enforced by barbaric punishments, I fear they might just achieve their ultimate stated objective of ending the human race! ISIS is the current ugly face of that movement. Thomas Piketty Thinks Inequality Led to the Rise of ISIS. He makes some persuasive arguments for the ISIS movement being a direct consequence of the economic inequalities growing throughout the world, though there is substantial evidence that the economic system itself is at fault. I find his ideas warrant further probing as it now appears the U.S. may have entered a period of class warfare! (Thanks to my prolific Las Vegas information gate keeper, Andy.)

I interviewed a number of would-be gurus during my commune years several decades ago and noticed how some would don the veil of infallibility, justifying controversial assertions with the claim of "divine" inspiration, just as Muhammad did. However, he also included justifications and means for silencing forever anyone questioning his pronouncements. That foresight insured his anachronistic ideas would be nearly impossible to ever modify in response to changing social, political, technological and other aspects of sociocultural evolution. It is bewildering that more people have not found the courage to question any of the most radical aspects of his ideas through the centuries! Of course, the credible threats of death prominently emphasized throughout the Qur'an are powerful deterrents to criticism, even when abundant evidence is screaming "something is not right here!" The situation is complex, to be sure.

It is so complex I have been moved to reexamine the discipline of Complexity Theory. The collective mind of humanity benefits from the great variety of religious philosophies around the world and throughout history. Because religions influence the way human minds work, they add diversity to our problem solving approaches and that inevitably improves humanity's collective accomplishments.

But in Islam all must submit to the "will of Allah." Conformity is a "virtue." Still, knowing Allah's will depends on the pronouncements of a human being claiming to speak with the authority of "God!" If that human being actually spoke the word of God verbatim, he certainly made a lot of historical errors which an omniscient supreme being never could have made!  Thus, the assertion that Muhammad accurately recited God's words which were relayed to his mind by the angel Gabriel and that scribes recording the words made no transcription errors, creates some extraordinary credibility problems.

I searched for serious Muslim rebuttals to the many harsh criticisms of mistakes in the Qur'an, but so far have found only self serving obfuscation and rationalizations by Muslim scholars. Like the Christian Bible, the "infallible" Qur'an is full of embarrassingly obvious factual errors! Next, the central idea of submission begs the question: submit to whom? One assumes it must be the author of the "recitations" and for anyone who understands that "divine inspiration" still comes from or through the brain of a human being, that would be the person of Muhammad himself. It is hard to ignore the fact that so much of the "divine inspiration" found in the Qur'an favors the human author.

Long a student of world religious practices, I realized my understanding of the root causes of the radical Islamic terrorism phenomenon needed to be updated. A quick search for informative material on the Internet revealed endless resources. Of those I checked, the following has been the most helpful:

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic.

The author's assertion that ISIS promotes an anachronistic version of Islam is reinforced by mountains of evidence. If the Atlantic article does not convinced you the World is facing an Armageddon challenge, than move on to one of the other enlightening articles I found:

ISIS is self destructive, for a scary reason - CNN.com or

Recent Attacks Demonstrate Islamic State’s
Ability to Both Inspire and Coordinate Terror.

Not all practicing Muslims are silent on the subject of religiously inspired violence, of course. 'Entera', one of my most prolific information gate keepers in Santa Barbara sent me an article by a Deeyah Khan entitled: "What IS do is like grooming - they prey on guilt, loneliness and anger" This gutsy British woman castigates the extremist elements in her Muslim faith for distorting its teachings to glorify and justify violence.

An article entitled: "You Can Never Be “Nice” Enough to the Muslims" by Naomi Ragen, an angry American-born Israeli novelist, playwright and journalist, showed up in my in-box from a respected Big Bear Lake Writers Group friend. The Jewish author's vitriolic style makes her powerful emotions hard to ignore and no doubt is an accurate reflection of the frustrations many Israeli citizens endure.

Generation Jihad (British TV on Islam all 3 Episodes) is a three hour BBC documentary about radical Islam in Britain. Authoritative and credible, it offers a thought provoking historical examination of the rise of religiously inspired terrorism in Britain.

I have long wondered why more American Muslims have not loudly spoken out against the minority screaming insults at America and its values. The Third Jihad - Radical Islam's Vision for America is a Clarion Project hour long film which examines the historical evidence assembled by a group of moderate Muslims showing the dangers radical elements of their religion pose to the American way of life. Watching this presentation helped me understand the difficulties faced by concerned moderates. Calm and reasoning, this film convinced me the time for "politically correct" defensive reactions to the threat from this small segment of the Muslim community must evolve into a vigorous offensive. I never thought I'd catch myself saying anything like that, but it is no longer rational to "turn a blind eye" to this threatening evil! "Live and let live." only works when both sides want to live. If you still need additional evidence, watch a few more of the YouTube presentations here... starting at the top, but pay attention to attributions as you move deeper into the nearly 2 million videos!

Hidden among all the hysterical Muslin screaming available on the Internet, I found one very carefully worded Islamic voice of reason. Difficult to read, it no doubt has been intentionally ignored by most Muslims: Islamic Declaration On Cultural Diversity. Can you imagine what the radicals think of it? Certainly their espoused objectives are diametrically opposed to the principles outlined in the declaration. Moderates would do well to publically embrace the Declaration.

"Where to next?" is a query I hear often from friends following my international exploits. Cuba has been on my short list for a while and several places in India are attractive. However, since returning, my deeper thoughts have been overwhelmed by Islamic questions and the existential challenges some extreme forms of that religion present to our civilization. So, I am feeling an urgent pull to places where one can examine the subject first hand. Where to? Time will tell; serendipity will decide.

Peace,

Fred L Bellomy