30 Days

Some time back, a filmmaker named Morgan Spurlock made a movie called "Supersize Me", in which he spent 30 days eating all of his meals at McDonalds to see what the effect would be. I have not seen the movie, but I recall reading that he gained 25 lbs and had his cholesterol go through the roof and the like. Nothing overly surprising.

Anyway, Mr. Spurlock is back, extending the 30 day concept to a television program. This week's episode (airing on FX) should be seen by everyone in this country. Mr. Spurlock took a good old country boy (and faithful Christian) and had him spend 30 days living in Dearborn, MI (apparently the most dense population of Muslims in this country), living with a Muslim family under Muslim rules. He had to dress as a Muslim, follow all of their rituals, and generally walk a mile in their shoes, as they say.

The results were interesting. Every time I hear someone in America poopooing that Islam is a religion of peace, or equating Islam with terrorism, I cringe, and it was very interesting to watch the transformation in the West Virginia man over the 30 days.

It was also interesting some of the things I learned about Islam that I didn't know. For example, we refer to the "judeo-christian" religion in this country, and are all well aware that the two religions started as one, with Christians splitting off from the rest of the Jewish people over whether Jesus was the Messiah or merely a prophet. What I was NOT aware of was that Islam was another branch off of this same tree. The Islamic religion believes (as the Jewish religion does) that Jesus did exist, but they believe he was a prophet. A holy man, to be sure, just not the Messiah.

The point at which Islam split off from Judaism was with the prophet Muhammad.

So in a very real sense, all three religions pray to the same god, whether that god is called God, Jehovah or Allah. Certainly there are greater differences between them than there are between, say, Catholics and Presbyterians, but there are more similarities than most Americans are (I think) aware of. Certainly more than I was.

Everyone who equates Islam with evil (and I most definitely include the President and every single member of his administration) should watch this, and try to understand that the vast majority of Muslims are no more actively evil than the vast majority of Christians, and that both religions have their extremists.

Their lifestyle isn't for me, their rituals, their asceticism are more than I think I could handle. But then, there are Christian sects whose rituals and practices are not to my liking as well, and there are certainly aspects of the Jewish orthodox faith which I wouldn't deal well with. (For an example, ask an Orthodox Jew about Shabbat. I had an Orthodox Jewish roommate in college, and from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday, the list of things he couldn't do (because they counted as "work" in the Orthodox Jewish faith) included things like turning on a light switch, cooking, or even putting out a fire.)

But I digress. I think in this country Muslims have sort of become the bogeyman religion. I'll admit that when I'm flying, the sight of a Muslim (or, for that matter, any out-of-the-ordinary person) getting on my flight makes me nervous(*). But with several million Muslims in this country and in the neighborhood of a billion world wide, the odds that the person getting on to the plane with me is one of the extremists, instead of one of the overwhelming majority of peaceful, harmless Muslims, is probably about the same as winning the lottery.

(* And just to point out that it isn't just Muslims who make me nervous, I took a trip about 6 months back, and on my plane was a Monk. Really, honest to goodness. Dressed in Monks robes, tied with a rope around the waste, wearing sandals on his feet and carrying no worldly possessions. And his presence made me nervous. I think in the current climate of fear of travel, the different, the unusual, and that which we don't understand makes us all nervous. All the more reason to try to UNDERSTAND Muslims, rather than demonize them all for the actions of a few.)

Does any of this excuse what was done by some extremist members of the Muslim religion? No. But Timothy McVeigh was (as I recall) a Christian, and we don't condemn all Christians for the horror at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. The same courtesy should be extended to the millions of Muslims quietly living out their daily lives, just as horrified that this act was undertaken in the name of their religion as Christians are that the Crusades and the Inquisition was undertaken in the name of theirs.

Copyright (c) June 30, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net