The National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iranâs bomb project has stirred a great deal of controversy. Some say that there is no reason to abandon the war posturing and start negotiating a live-and-let-live deal with the Mullahs since they have âabandonedâ their quest for the bomb. At least, that is what the not-so-reliable report seems to imply. Others, with good reason, remain skeptical of both the validity of the report and the ever-cheating, conniving Mullahs.
This controversy aside, the irrefutable fact is that the Jihadist belief in Islam itself poses an existential danger to the world. Beliefs energize and direct actions. Beliefs are as indispensable as the air we breathe. Even an atheist is a believer in his own system of disbelief. Not believing in anything is a mental breakdown. There is something about humans that demands a belief. A belief can be anything or a combination of many things; it can be well-defined and even rigid or a loosely put-together hodge-podge with considerable latitude. It can be magnificent or the most abhorrent. But it has to be there. Beliefs steer our vehicles in the journey of life.
A peculiar thing about beliefs is that they donât have to be based on reason. Rationality does not have full charge of the human mind. Emotions, fantasies, misperceptions, and a host of other operations make us the muddling fuzzy-thinkers that we are. A constant upheaval rages in the arena of the mind, where all kinds of clashing forces and conflicting information vie for a place. All along, some mysterious housekeeper of the mind works at maintaining a semblance of coherence and order.
It is in the chaotic, fallible, and conflict-ridden battlefield of the mind that beliefs are subjected to constant assaults as well as reinforcement. Somehow, usually in early life, the foundation for a belief system forms. Once this happens, the person builds on that foundation and protects it against anything that aims to change or undermine it.
The importance of early years in belief formation was recognized centuries ago by Saint Augustine, who said something to the effect: give me a child until he is seven, and he will be forever mine. Sigmund Freudâs entire theory of Psychoanalysis is based on the primacy and importance of childhood experiences and education. The famed behavioral psychologist J.B. Watson went even further by declaring:
âGive me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, and Iâll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any specialist I might select â doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts, and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary, and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.â
What Watson said may not hold perfectly in every case. Yet, the essence of his boast is indeed supported by numerous studies. Early environmental influences play the primary role in programming and setting the mind on its course. In actuality, the brain says: first come, first served. It is for this reason that Muslims are overwhelmingly born to Muslim parents, Hindus to Hindu parents, Catholics to Catholic parents, and so on.
This is not to say that changes, even major ones, are impossible after the early years. They are possible, and they happen in some instances. However, for significant changes to occur, major re-working must occur in the mind. Change is effortful, and the law of energy conservation also applies to the working of the mind and mitigates change unless the incentives to do so overcome the default mode of inertia.
The parents, other adults and children, and the prevailing culture are powerful teachers and trainers of the young mind. In the Islamic world, for instance, Islam permeates every aspect of life with overbearing severity. The young mind has little access to competing non-Islamic input. As the childâs foundation of belief forms, the mind works to protect it, further, reinforce it, and bar, falsify, or dismiss any ideas that may clash with its already in-place contents.
Humans lack comprehensive preprogrammed software and instincts to direct us in life. We, however, are born with pre-dispositions, which are the rudiments of software programs that will be further elaborated in our interaction with life. We are, therefore, importantly dependent on how we and others, and in what fashion, further elaborate the rudimentary software. Somehow, there has been a trade-off. As our brain evolved both in size and power, what few instincts we may have had gave way. In a real sense, we took more and more charge of our own destiny.
As humans became more autonomous, a brain operation called âConfirmation Biasâ evolved to maintain internal harmony within the mind. Studies have shown that when Confirmation Bias is at work, the brain areas ordinarily associated with rational decision-making are inactive. By contrast, an elaborate network of brain structures that process emotion and conflicts is highly activated. In short, confirmation bias has its own brain resources that shut out the reasoning parts in order to protect the already in-place beliefs and preferences.
Confirmation Bias protects beliefs, values, and ideas, be they political, religious, or of any other type; it is also helped in the discharge of its functions by the mindâs defense mechanisms, such as rationalization (faulty reasoning) and denial (refusing to accept the reality of the irrefutable). Allocating extensive brain faculties to content protection demonstrates the critical importance of the mindâs belief to its normal functioning.
The mind, concurrent with fiercely protecting its belief, actively seeks to reinforce it further with whatever supporting evidence it can muster. Total or major replacement of beliefs, particularly as one ages, becomes less likely, yet it happens occasionally. On the other hand, ideas are much more amenable to change, replacement, or discard as long as they do not substantially undermine the integrity of the overall belief.
However, if a personâs ideas keep on changing gradually, they may swing the balance in favor of a total belief change. This is how Muslims usually become apostates, for example. Therefore, it is imperative that the belief of Islamofascism be challenged at every bend to make Muslims start thinking and re-examining their ideas of faith.
Forming a religious belief is primarily an emotional undertaking. Therefore, reason must work extremely hard to override emotion-based belief. Yet, it can be done.
There is nothing inherently wrong with religion. Religion can be a tremendous force for the good. However, when religion, this feeling-based belief, is filled with superstition, intolerance and hatred, then the observer of that religion embodies those qualities and becomes a menace to the self and to others. Feelings energize actions. Destructive feelings energize destructive actions.
Muslims living in theocratic states, in particular, are victims of their religious brains. Their religious brains are indoctrinated from the moment of birth by an extensive ruthless in-power cadre of self-serving clergy who are intent on maintaining their stranglehold on the rank and file of the faithful, who are their very source of support and livelihood.
The mullahs and imams, as well as parents and others, envelop the receptive mind, feed it their dogma, and shield it from information that may undermine or falsify their version of belief.
Islamofascism is a pandemic fiercely-promoted belief system that enjoys a huge advantage over the competition. Some of the reasons for Islamofascismâs longevity and success are listed below.
- It is a crusading belief. Early on, it forced itself by the sword, and as time went on, it employed any and all schemes to promote itself while destroying the competition.
- It mandates prolific procreation on the faithful. It allows a man to have as many as four wives concurrently, in part to cater to the lust of the men and in part to produce more children who would, in turn, swell its ranks.
- It gets the first crack at imprinting its dogma on the blank slate of the childâs mind from the very first day of birth. The imprinting is usually deeply engrained and makes it difficult for the person to erase it, or replace it altogether fully. Even when successful, an ex-Muslim, or a âculturalâ Muslim, retains on his slate some traces of the early imprints. It may take more than one generation to erase the Islamic imprints fully.
- It does not allow anyone the choice of leaving its fold at the penalty of death for apostasy.
- It holds that the earth is Allahâs and no non-Muslim is entitled to the same rights and privileges reserved for its own members. Even the âpeople of the book,â Jews and Christians, must pay the religious tax of Jazyyeh to be allowed a subservient place under Islamic rule.
- It campaigns ceaselessly at propagating itself by any and all means while banning other religions from so doing. Islamic proselytizers invade the lands of the unbelievers and work relentlessly to convert others. At the same time, non-Muslim faiths are even barred from having a place of worship in lands such as the cradle of Islam, Saudi Arabia.
- It is anathema to many of civilized humanityâs values, such as those enshrined in the First Amendment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- It is a caste system where the male believer enjoys valued privileges denied to all minorities, women, and slaves. This discriminatory provision guarantees generation after generation of avowed in-power adherents who would shirk at nothing to maintain their privileged status granted to them by Allah.
- It is a powerful carrot-and-stick system of belief. It maintains its stranglehold on its obedient followers by promising them unimaginable compensations, if not in this world, then assuredly in the next. At the same time, anyone who strays from the mandated path is threatened with a raft of unending horrid torture from a vengeful Allah.
- The extortion-high oil prices that oil-rich Muslims extract from the addicted and oblivious non-Muslim world fuel the Islamic jihad throughout the world. Muslim kings, emirs, and sheiks enjoy opulent life and aim to have it the same in Allahâs next world by funneling a portion of their huge parasitic income to madrasahs (religious indoctrinating schools), mosques, storefront recruiting centers, and charitable outlets that would enlist and hold masses of choiceless and fanatical believers. By funding these activities in the service of jihadist Islam, these in-power Muslims believe that they can have it both ways: a material existence of great enjoyment here and an eternal life of hedonism in Allahâs promised paradise. In the bargain, these ringleader menaces of the world aim to assuage their guilt resulting from oppressing the impoverished, exploited masses of Muslims with the delusion they are furthering Allahâs cause.
The danger of the bomb in the hands of the Mullahs has not disappeared, despite what the mainstream media and the Useful Idiots claim by misrepresenting the NIE report. The NIE guesses that the Mullahs seem to have ceased the construction of the warhead in 2003. How can the CIA be sure that this is the case and that the Mullahs are not secretly constructing it? Yet, the IRI, by its own admission, is on a crash program to develop long-range missiles and operates cascades of centrifuges to make enriched weapon-grade uranium needed for the bomb.
The handwriting is on the wall. Huge numbers of Muslims, overwhelmingly poor, under-educated, and deeply indoctrinated in the jihadist belief, are invading the world. It is this human bomb that must be diffused as well as keeping a vigilant eye on the other one that Iranâs Mullahs are relentlessly pursuing.
In short, never mind the nuclear bomb if you like. But, we must do all we can to erase the suicide-homicide belief vest that Islamofascists strap on their masses of the poor, the undereducated, and their deluded followers.
âThink globally, act locallyâ is the rallying cry of the environmentalist movement. The same exhortation even more urgently applies to the fight against the deadly spread and menace of Islamofascism.
This column was originally published on 24 Dec, 2007.
©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.
