In the Name of a God - Part 3

As you, my precious readers, are well aware, I have been writing a series of articles which I have entitled "The Name Of A God", in which I have been discussing the disturbing events that occurred recently in the country of Malaysia.

To be certain, I have been talking about the fact that Islamic terrorists, riding on motorcycles, recently lobbed Molotov cocktails through the windows of three Christian churches in Malaysia as retribution, so they say, for the Christians of Malaysia having used the word "Allah", for at least the last 4 decades in reference to their God.

The Muslims of Malaysia, or a pretty large portion thereof, are claiming that even though there is documented evidence showing that numerous peoples of the world throughout history have used the word "Allah" at one time or another as a name for their God, it has somehow come to pass that only they, the people of the Islamic faith have the right to utter, or scribble, and, I suppose, to think of the term "Allah" as a name for a God.

My response to this notion has been, and continues to be best summed up with the word "Poppycock". I don't think that I have been ambiguous in any way about my opinion that neither the Muslims, the Christians, the Catholics, the Hindu, the Jews, the people who worship snakes, the people who pray to gummy bears, or any other believers in a Higher Power have the exclusive and divine copyright on the word "Allah".

I want to now present an idea about this matter. I hesitate to do this simply because of the fact that the matter itself is so absolutely wonky that even though I am putting this out there with my tongue firmly positioned in my cheek (Crap! Now I've let it out of the bag.), there might be those amongst my avid, and, might I again say, unusually attractive readership who might take me too seriously. However, I shall present the idea anyway.

What if the aggrieved parties were to sit down at the big negotiating table of life to work out a resolution to the issue of who could use the word "Allah". What if they were to sit down and the discussion came around to the following: The Christians of Malaysia would henceforth and furthermore agree to not use the word "Allah" when referring to their God as long as the Muslims of Malaysia agreed that no member of their factions would ever use fishing nets.

That's right. You read it correctly. The Muslims of Malaysia, a country made up entirely of Islands, would agree to no longer use nets to fish, or, for that matter, for any other utilitarian or decorative purposes.

"Why, that is absolutely crazy," you might say.

Very well, I respond, but bear with me for a minute.

I also want to assure you before you get squeamish and leap to the conclusion that I might be going into a religious diatribe. I am definitely not.

There doesn't seem to be any dispute about the fact that the written New Testament, in its original form, predates the Koran by several hundred years. I have consulted with Islamic experts, all of whom agree, aside from certain arguments regarding conceptuality. To continue now, I would like to direct your attention to that portion of the New Testament where Jesus encounters one of his future apostles named Simon, and essentially tells him that he is going to change his name to Peter, and make him a fisher of men.

OK now, I am not going to give you the chapter and verse. That is for you, my most revered and treasured readers to research for yourselves should you care to do so. I simply want to use the fact that the occurrence is delineated I the body of the text to throw out a sort of "first use" justification for my argument.

To continue, my argument is simply that if, for some indescribable reason, the Christians and other non-Islamic adherents were to agree to even consider giving up the use of the word "Allah", why would it be unreasonable to suggest that they do so in return for the exclusive rights to use nets for fishing. The New Testament would stand as a timely memorial to the fact that the use of fishing nets and the societal patent could and would rest with people who predate the followers of the teachings in the Koran, again, by several hundred years.

You have to admit that there is a certain wonky logic (More on the word "wonky" and my increased use of it will come in future articles.) in this "tit-for-tat" (I will write nothing explaining my use of the term "tit-for-tat".) suggestion. OK, I don't mean that you have to, in the sense that if you don't I'm going to send some of my buddies out on scooters to fire bomb your church. I just mean that you can see that there is a certain... oh never mind.

Anyway, the deal would go down like this... In return for Christians not using the term "Allah" to refer to their God, the Muslims of Malaysia would refrain from using fishing nets. And in return for the Hindus not building temples too close to Muslim homes (Remember that a large group of Malaysian Muslims cut off the head of a cow for this transgression back in November, and spent an afternoon stomping on the head of this sacred animal in the middle of a group of astounded and bewildered Hindus whom consider the cow to be sacred.), the Muslims of Malaysia would agree to not use the equivalent of the word "Uncle" when referring to the brother of a father (The concept of an uncle predates the Koran by millennia.). And in return for Jews not using the word "Allah" to refer to G-d, the Muslims of Malaysia would agree to not kill, or participate in the killing of, or support in any way, shape, or form even the slightest suggestion that there should be any killing of any, Jews, ever, for any reason. Just go with me now. And in return for the people who worship gummy bears not using the word "Allah" when referring to their God, the Muslims of Malaysia would agree to not eat delicious, tender, fresh and sweet little cute gummy bears, ever, no matter how tempting, or how fresh and sweet and flavored like cherries those little cute gummy bears might happen to be. Ever.

Crap! It was all going great up until that. Even Allah, the omnipotent, omniscient, and only G-d of all creation would have a hard time with that last proposal.

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