Cat Stevens banned from the US

Equivocal? He said he thought Salman Rushdie should be murdered for, and I’m paraphrasing, killing the followers of an entire religion. Nice. And he was a relatively new muslim at that time. What’s the deal? I figured you lost your mind, then you converted.

I didn’t find his denial very clear or reassuring. Other than the fact that he felt he had been “tricked” by a “mischievous” journalist, “probably in disguise.” The best I can say after reading his commments is that “Yusuf” was in fact equivocal (Rushdie shouldn’t be murdered in England. But ask me about, say, Iran) and apparently believes that British muslims should seek out enough political power to pressure the government to censor the critics of his religion.

I’d like to think this is merely retribution for “Morning Has Broken”, else for producing nearly nothing since.

Almost anybody is a threat to America, for that matter, including a grandmother as diminutive as Bernardette Devlin McAliskey. (q.v.)

America is now so delicate that nearly no one can be let in.

Yep, Sean’s right – they are both very bloodthirsty books with an ethos of revenge and punishment that is nothing like the “gentle jesus meek and mild” version your average Anglican bishop would have you beleive. Believing them means you either have to deliberately ignore huge slabs of them or adopt a very primitive and tribal mindset.

Yep, Sean’s right – they are both very bloodthirsty books with an ethos of revenge and punishment that is nothing like the “gentle jesus meek and mild” version your average Anglican bishop would have you beleive. Believing them means you either have to deliberately ignore huge slabs of them or adopt a very primitive and tribal mindset.

You guys do realise that for the last two thousand years, the vast majority of the most intelligent segment of the population, including some of the greatest geniuses ever born, have been studying the Bible? Have you really carried out the sort of long term, in-depth study that would really justify concluding with such devastating self-certainty that you are right and, for example, Thomas Aquinas was wrong?

It’s a real pity that Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard and St Augustine never had the chance to sit down and read a couple of weblogs; they would have got lots of their silly confusions sorted out in double-quick time.

No, no. The really intelligent realised the vicious shortcomings of Abrahamic religion long ago but have been too afraid to say so. They have all been members of a secret foundation designed to preserve the secret knowledge and shorten the time of darkness as much as possible. The final rapture may be coming now which is why the organisation has been appearing in public but they have had to tell many noble lies so there may be a big gap between its real and ostensible motives. All of the secret history is not out in the open yet so there remain many unknown unknowns but no one will be left behind.

Umberto Rumsfeld, is that you?

Of course, if Zak has been right according to the lights of the great thinkers, that means he must agree with me, so “Daniel, you’re wrong” has to be interpreted in an esoteric, hidden Straussian sense.

I’ll trade you a Lebniz, Descartes, and Schmuley Boteach for one Darwin and a Nietzsche. The thinkiers you cited were operating with only a partial knowledge. Speculating in the dark. Not to mention, as others have stated, if you didn’t believe you either starved or were hanged.

Some of the more dangerous terrorist leaders of our time have been blind or had hooks for hands.

Name four.

john b – He is specifically referring to the former leader of Hamas.

Cat Stevens has been denied entry due to his donates to several Islamic charities accused of supporting terrorism.

What makes dsquared think that any of his exemplars actually “studied” the Bible? These days most of the Christian academics who really do study it have admitted that it’s a mass of contradictory interpolations.

“To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is
like littering the streets with loaded guns.” -Richard Dawkins

It was always my understanding that Yosef Islam going along with the fatwa on Rushdie was a result of new convert enthusiasm- a test to show the Imams he had Muslim credability. After all, how many Catholic singers go along with the Pope’s idiotic ramblings about Birth Control but don’t really mean it? Or maybe I’m simply giving Stevens too much credit and he really is just a useful dupe for Theocrats. I seriously doubt he’s a terrorist though, given that he’s one of the few Muslims to actuall publically denounce the use of terrorism as rightious tactic.

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens views have changed quite a bit over the past few decades. When he started off as a Muslim, he was pretty austere. He considered music unIslamic, and preached this view to Muslims who have had musical religious traditions extending back a thousand years.

These days, he’s not as much of a nut — he no longer thinks music is prohibited. He’s even released some Muslim-style music! Put his early religious extremism down to the vehemence of a new convert? Perhaps, but not all new converts go that route. He could have done better.

(By the way, his news Islamic music really stinks compared to his old stuff.)

As for being banned in the USA, it is a new development. He used to be able to enter without any problem as recently as 2000.

jroth — You’re absolutely right. The one-size-fits-all mentality at TSA leads to citizen frustration, which leads (with Congressional pressure) to compromises with security.

But what can they do? Profile? Yikes!

James, if we carry on like this Islam and fundamentalist christianity may even the scores.

As things stand I can see two good arguments for Fyreflye.
First there weren’t so many people around to kill when religion was at its most murderous.

Secondly atheism isn’t an all encompassing belief system, nor is it monolithic. It’s like saying most killers didn’t drive Fords so driving Fords is morally superior. For example, which other atheistic belief systems like Marxism have high death counts?

From my atheistical (actually just so potestant that am unable to take any organised eligion seriously) point of view, Marxism in its murderous Stalinist and Maoist incarnations shares so much with religion that it is hard to tell the difference.

D-squared — during most of the Christian era most good Christians didn’t read the Bible. They listened to heavily interpreted homilies loosely based on the Bible. Thank God. During the Reformation mass Bible-reading began, and the results were pretty bloody (30 years war, etc.) Without a system of interpretation derived from non-Biblical sources, the Bible IS bloodthirsty. The Hebrews were punished by God at least once for not massacreing enough people.

And I jsut read Descartes’ Discourse on Method, and while I realize that he probably did identify “God” with some functioning concept in his actual serious thinking, there weren’t any serious Bible echoes that I remember, and there were lots of explicit admissions that he was trimming his thought to orthodoxy in fear of the Inquisition.

Since Crooked Timber fell at the feet of Juan Cole on the issue of Dr. Al-Qarawadi, they may be interested in 0his views on Cat Stevens.

Fair enough, one can only hope his views really have changed. His views on Jews in 1988 seemed a bit off:

“The Jews seem neither to respect God nor his creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who consider themselves to be ‘God’s chosen people.’…There will be no justice until all the land is given back to its rightful owners… Only Islam can bring peace back to the Holy Land.”

Hands up who can spot the democratic nation left off his map of the world?

Are some of you actually saying we have the right to BAN people from the US for what they SAID? Many comments here refer to Stevens’ remarks about Rushdie. Unpalatable, sure, but do such remarks warrant ex-communication? Some commenters here seem to be saying “well Stevens said bad things in the past, so his banning is justified.” I don’t agree with that. Seems a country claiming to value “free speech” shouldn’t be so quick to condemn a guy citing not his actions, but his words.

Now I’ve heard that they banned Cat because he gave to charities, which IN TURN funded terrorism. I’d like to see the evidence for the causal chain there, and I’d like proof that Cat knowingly gave that money specifically for the cause of terrorism, before I’d support banning him from the US. My taxes buy tanks, which are occasionally used for actions that I don’t support. I am guilty?

Perhaps I’m misreading this discussion, but I’m a little alarmed at how quickly many here seem to be buying into the Terror State, the doctrine stating that the giving up civil rights is a necessary part of security. I’m not seeing the crime here proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

And turning the plane around in mid-flight, just because they discovered Cat Stevens? That seems like an over reaction to me. Now, if I found out Barry Manilow was on my plane, yeah I’d want off ASAP…

Moon Shadow… Peace Train… Wild World… great songs that are still great songs, despite what has become of the soul who created them.