Irony Missed

The other day, Fox News posted this story about a Muslim with an “amazing” story who converted to Christianity. The original headline used the word “heroic” to describe him, subtly implying that his conversion put his life in danger, thus painting Muslims as fanatics. What’s more, Fox’s pro-Christian bias is on full display. I find it hard to imagine that Fox News would ever feature a story about an “amazing” Christian who heroically converted to Islam, Buddhism or Shintoism. (I don’t really see any major American media outlet featuring such a story, so this doesn’t apply specifically to Fox.)

What I found interesting are these paragraphs from the story that clearly demonstrates the cognitive dissonance in most religious people.

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: . . They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.'But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions. Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view. So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world. . . . There are two facts that Muslims don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion. Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. . . . So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Islamic perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand. If people, if Muslims, start to understand their religion first of all, their religion and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Islam. They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about.

Now notice what happens if you swap a couple of prominent words:

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: . . . They built those walls and made people ignorant because they're afraid. They didn't want people to discuss anything about the reality of Christianity, about the big questions of Christianity and they asked their followers, the Christians, 'Don't ask about those certain questions.'But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she's going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it's very, very available for everybody to study about Christianity, about other religions. Not from the Christian point of view, but from other points of view. So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Christian and the Arab world. . . . There are two facts that Christians don't understand ... I'd say about more than 95 percent of Christians don't understand their own religion. It came with a much stronger language than the language that they speak so they don't understand it ... they rely only on religious people to get their knowledge about this religion. Second, they don't understand anything about other religions. . . . So, all their ideas about other religions on earth are from Christianity’s perspectives. So those two realities, most people don't understand. If people, if Christians, start to understand their religion first of all, their religion and see how awful stuff is in there, they'll start to figure out, this can't (be) ... because most religious people focus on certain points of Christianity. They have many points that they are very embarrassed to talk about.

No change. Sounds exactly the same, means exactly the same thing. One delusion, replaced by another.

I only wish the guy had gone the next step and applied the same critical thinking skills he used in rejecting Islam to his new Christian faith.