Myths About Muhammad 2. Demon Possessed

     Having read the biography of Muḥammad, I have to admit to a grudging respect. But how you assess him depends on your terms of reference. Are you looking at Muḥammad the Arab, or Muḥammad the prophet? In the case of Muḥammad the Arab, I will not speak a harsh word against him. He was a moral giant striding across his environment. His faults were those of his society, but his virtues were his own, and that is the best which can be said about any of us.
     However, if you look at Muḥammad the prophet, the ideal man, the model to which all men should aspire, then it is hard not to agree with what H.G. Wells said in An Outline of History (1920):

Because he, too, founded a great religion, there are those who write of this evidently lustful and rather shifty leader as though he were a man to put beside Jesus of Nazareth, or Gautama, or Mani. But it is surely manifest that he was a being of a commoner clay; he was vain, egotistical, tyrannous, and a self-deceiver; and it would throw all our history out of proportion if, out of a sincere deference to the possible Moslem reader, we were to present him in any other light.

     So now let us look at a few criticisms of Muḥammad. The Rev. Jerry Vine caused a ruckus when he called Muḥammad a demon possessed pedophile, and an inspirer of terrorism. Let us examine each of them in turn.

Myths About Muhammad 3. Pedophile

     You won't need to read much of anti-Islam polemics to find Muḥammad described as a pedophile. For 25 years he lived in a monogamous marriage with Khadīja, a widow 15 years his senior, who was not only his first, but apparently his greatest, love. However, she died when he was aged 50, after which, as a middle aged man with the prestige of a prophet, following psychological processes on which we may speculate, he threw himself into the hobby of collecting women. (It is interesting to note, in passing, that the verses in the Koran promoting the sexual pleasures of Paradise - the famed "72 virgins" - all date from his monogamous period. Once he had started gathering an earthly harem, these revelations ceased.)
     Be that as it may, the accusation of pedophilia relates to his marriage to ‘Ā’isha, a name sometimes written as Ayesha, which more closely approximates the pronunciation in her Meccan dialect. That he was very fond of her is not disputed, though her own attitude was more nuanced. It is also not disputed that she was his only virgin bride, and was very young when the marriage took place. But how young?

Myths About Muhammad 4. Violence

     The Rev. Jerry Vine also claimed that Muḥammad was an inspirer of terrorism. Is this accurate? A lot will depend on how his modern followers interpret his actions and words, because flying planes into skyscrapers and blowing oneself up in the middle of a crowded building are somewhat different from the way Muḥammad waged war. During the conflict with the Meccans, first blood was drawn at Ṭā'if, when a raiding party sent out by Muḥammad cut down unarmed men in violation of the pilgrims' peace. So shocking was this to his contemporaries that God had to send a chapter of the Koran justifying it. But the important point to note was that the outrage was directed at the violation of a religious taboo. Nobody criticized the killing per se. This is the whole point: the violence perpetrated by Muḥammad was standard for Arabian warfare. In this sense, he wasn't doing anything unusual.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Suicide Statistics

     Ages ago, when I submitted my scientific studies for publication, they were in turn submitted to a couple of anonymous reviewers who, I presume, had undertaken studies in a similar field, and they made recommendations - not all appreciated - on how my data could be presented, and their possible implications. Likewise, when I was asked to review someone else's paper, I also made recommendations - which I hope were appreciated. That is how peer review works. So how could a prestigious journal publish a paper whose data make no sense whatsoever?

    Take, for instance, the recent paper by Raifman, Moscoe, Austin, and McConnell, entitled

Difference-in-Differences Analysis of the Association Between State Same-Sex Marriage Policies and Adolescent Suicide Attempts,

 which was widely touted as proving that the introduction of same-sex "marriage" (SSM) in America reduced adolescent suicide by 7% overall, and 14% among homosexuals and lesbians. Right away, an alarm bell rang. How could even a large reduction among a very small minority result in such a large overall reduction? It was time to examine the document in detail.

Fanthorpe's Fantasies

"Brinton couldn't believe the inscription when he read it in the cold white moonlight. He was looking at his own grave. He tried to read the date but the light wasn't strong enough to be certain. He returned to the graveyard by daylight . . . but the grave had gone.
He left the town in horror, but the grave followed him. He was drawn to burial grounds like iron to a magnet. It was always the same. By moonlight he saw the grave, but never the date. By day he saw nothing. One night he saw the month. Then the day; at least he saw the year. He knew he was due to die in one week. What could he do? Can a man forestall his fate? Can a mortal outwit the dark designs of destiny? Was it all in his mind? Perhaps Roger Brinton was mad? The asylum is warmer than the grave. The day before he was due to die he saw the grave again . . .  the earth was newly turned . . . it was waiting for him!"

    This was the blurb on the back of a paperback I found in a secondhand shop in the 1970s. It drew me in, but when I read it my immediate impression was that it was mediocre. Still, it took some sort of hold on me. I threw away novels by Robert Heinlein and Stephen Donaldson after I had read them, but never that worn paperback by Bron Fane. Also, there were indications inside that a couple of characters formed part of a series so, after a lapse of thirty years, I decided to ask the internet about the mysterious Mr Bron Fane. What I found was astounding.

What's Got Into the "National Geographic"?

     The National Geographic Magazine, to which my family has been subscribing since 1963, frequently contains article which are not, strictly speaking, geographic in nature. For many decades they have provided grants for the study of wild animals, the results of which have been published in the magazine, but at least they can be justified as being set in exotic foreign places. Ditto the forays into archaeology, and history. Nevertheless, it is hard to see the geographic justification of articles on the King James Bible (December 2011), food (December 2014), or beauty (January 2000). This is not to say that I objected to these articles; I found them very interesting. However, in January 2017 they dropped all lip service to their original charter, not to mention common sense, when they jumped onto the latest bandwagon, with an entire issue dedicated to the "gender revolution".

What Are We Going to Do About the Polygamists?

     I was expecting this. A problem which is endemic in Europe has now reached Australia - or has at least been acknowledged here: the Government is financing Muslim polygamy. Last Sunday's newspapers reported how Centrelink is providing spousal benefits to second (and later) wives because it is cheaper than giving them single parent benefits. The husbands are not prosecuted for bigamy because the marriages have not been officially registered. Let me state here, with all due respect (and not much is due): this problem exists simply because the powers that be have lacked the moral courage to nip it in the bud.

Why I Am a Christian

     The short answer, of course, is that I was blessed to have been brought up that way. I have always felt God's guiding hand on my shoulder. I have always lived in His presence, and known the peace of mind and the exaltation that brings. But when you grow to man's estate, and it is obvious that what you were taught is rejected by many, it behoves you to determine whether it can be justified intellectually as well as experientially.
     For myself, my degrees were in science, with particular emphasis on zoology. But over the decades I have sought to satisfy my curiosity about such fields as history, anthropology, and psychology. A cynic once declared that I have read widely, but not deeply. By that as it may, it provides an advantage over those whose studies have been intense in a single field and limited in others. It has always appeared incongruous to me that any educated person could be a non-believer - especially if his field is astronomy or ancient history, when he must face the issues head on.

Why I Would Have Voted for Trump If I Were an American

     Watching from the other side of the Pacific, I see that my long held prediction about the United States has at last come true: the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum. It is not so much who won the election, but the fact that it was a choice between the two worst candidates. As one of our commentators put it, it was between "a vulgar and undisciplined popularist and a morally compromised machine politician". Another put it more succinctly: between the mad and the bad. (And Sanders wasn't so great, either.) No, I wasn't surprised at the Trump win. I need only refer to the prediction given by Wayne Root, but other commentators from both the left and the right had made the same point: when voting is non-compulsory, the really important factor is the enthusiasm of the candidate's followers. As an outsider, I am not going to talk about Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, the insecure laptop, or Wikileaks. Nor am I going to praise Trump's virtues because, basically, I can't think of any. Indeed, if it were my country, I would be really be concerned about a loose cannon rolling around the corridors of power. Nevertheless, I had been hoping - nay, praying - for a Trump triumph, for two good reasons.

None of My Best Friends Belongs to a Minority

     You frequently hear said by people wishing to appear tolerant, that "Some of my best friends are [insert name of appropriate minority]. But I don't believe them. No, I am not saying they are liars; they merely suffer from a deficit in logical expression. What they really mean to say, I suspect, is: In my daily life I deal with a lot of different people, many of whom belong to [such-and-such minority], and I get along well with them all. To illustrate my point, let me analyse the first statement.