Eid ul-Adha is celebrated by practicing Muslims as a commemoration of a “Prophet” called Ibrahim (Abraham) who was allegedly willing to ritually sacrifice his son Ismael for the voice of a man he heard in his head whom he called “God”.
The story goes that Abraham’s all-knowing God demanded the head of his son as a sacrifice to find out if he really believed in him. This had a number of reasons. One being that his god was a real attention whore with insecurities about his ego. Another was that his god was a homicidal psychopath.
Abraham being mentally challenged (in every sense of the term) had his parental preservation instinct still in tact and did the only thing applicable in his situation. He made more stuff up to get him out of the embarrassing situation he found himself in. With his sharpened knife still in hand and onlookers around him, he realized he couldn’t do it after all and sacrificed something that was seen to have equal value as a child at that time: A sheep.
A: “umm…oh…really…uhuh…uhuh..”
B: “…what’s going on?”
C: “…He’s talking to his god…apparently there’s been a change of plans…”
A: “..yeah, umm..God said that he’s now convinced that I believe in him…And now he doesn’t want me to kill my son but rather umm….a sheep, yeah…Here, let me help you untie your hands son…No hard feelings, right?”
B: “How do you know it’s God?”
A: “..Because..his angel told me, yeah, that’s right!..”
B: “..what angel?”
A: “..angel..ga..geb..Gabriel…called Gabriel”
B: “Gabriel? Isn’t that your cousin’s name?”
A: “YEAH! SO WHAT? IT’S COINCIDENCE, OK?! I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP!!”
C: “…you’ve got issues….”
B: “Well, that was fun…”
C: “Yeah…we should do this every year…”
I: “I’M TELLING MOM!!”
Muslims celebrate this traumatizing act of child abuse (even in these times) by sacrificing (killing) a goat or sheep and eating its flesh with family and friends. The killing is done according to traditional Muslim rituals, meaning the animal is not sedated as is usually the case in many modern countries and is killed by cutting the animal’s throat and allowing it to bleed to death. Blood is seen as “haraam” or “not kosher” by Muslims.
I can’t see what moral lesson can be learned from Abraham’s abuse story nor why the sight of this gory and creepy ritual has been passed on by Muslim parents to their children throughout the ages. How would they have passed it on if “Gabriel” had been caught up in traffic and was too late to bring the message that God had changed his mind about having a child-sacrifice that day?
The legality of the slaughter ritual in modern countries is an saddening situation. The Netherlands for example, has laws that forbid animal cruelty and has specific guidelines on how to slaughter animals in manners that minimize suffering. The laws though have exclusion clauses allowing slaughter with no sedation and with animal suffering -thus rendering the laws useless- should the killing be a religious sacrifice.
Laws in a perfectly modern country are adapted to accommodate rituals and practices that were premiered by primitive bronze-age people for the sake of tolerance towards those that have different world views. What’s next? Murder laws with exclusion clauses for so-called honor killings to accommodate those that have different views on the value of lives?
Contrary to common propaganda, in real life not all people are equal nor are all people treated equally. We live on a planet that inhabits a multitude of races or kinds of humans amongst other animals and plants. Even if we would like to think we do, we don’t view all people equally, we don’t treat all people equally, we don’t mourn all people equally, we don’t value all people equally. We perhaps should, but we don’t. Not all people are equally smart. Not all people have enjoyed the same education, same life experiences. Children grow up to become individuals, not hive members. Consider the value of an Iraqi killed by a soldier, be it a civilian, mercenary or otherwise compared to that of the life of a US or British soldier killed in Iraq.
Consider the attention given to the milestone that more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq (3000) than all the people lost on 9/11 (2,973). The milestones that more people had died in the invasion or more Iraqis had died in Iraq during the first few days than on September 11, 2001 went by with no notable notice what so ever. It is the emphasis on US soldiers that brings forth this discrimination between the numbers of those worth mentioning and those not worth investigating.
Should we agree that not all people are the same in appearance, in political opinions, in culture, in value towards others than why bother amending laws and regulations to accommodate those that have ideologies that not only differ in the values and morals from one’s self, but even contradict them?
Surely altruism is fantastic principle that is installed in the majority of beings on this planet, but when taken too far and taken into the context of human religious practices, the respect for other people’s opinions and rituals simply for the sake of them being opinions and rituals of other people becomes absurd.
