Allah Meat

Yeah, that's what I said: Allah meat.

I was going to post about something more serious to day, but you know, sometimes it must be all fun and games. Since the most recent accusation that atheists have no sense of humor, we are obligated to prove otherwise. Unfortunately, this does mean poking fun at silly superstitious people (sorry, if one wants to make the no-humor claim, one should be prepared to open oneself up to ridicule on a variety of levels).

So, today, I give you Allah Meat.

It would seem that a restaurant in northern Nigeria has discovered not one, but three chunks of meat 'inscribed with the name of Allah.' Now, I'm always a big fan of matrixing, where our brains, conditioned to search out the familiar patterns, pull images from textured surfaces. Living in Gettysburg, I can't tell you how many photographs I've come across of the various wooded areas on the battlefield where the takers insist that among the foliage (read; in the foliage), there are Confederate soldiers! And, of course, there's the rampant phenomenon of religous figures on bread, which is strange since I've heard God really has it out for yeast. The best part of all this is that this is how God (or, whatever regligious figures are appearing that day) decides to make himself known. Really? I expected something more impressive.

In the case of the holy meat-stuffs, 'impressive' is not that there was one piece, but three. Stop the press.

A vet told the newspaper the words "defied scientific explanation".

"Supposing only one piece of meat was found then it would be suspicious, but given the circumstances there is no explanation," Dr Yakubu Dominic said.

First off...a vet? What, a war vet, an animal vet? Does either one of these definitons of 'vet' qualify the person to make this kind of judgement call? Is this what they've come to?

Of course, there couldn't possibly be any other explanation--barring pure coincidence, a popularly ignored phenomenon. The fact is that had one single piece of holy meat been found, that to would have sufficed--that, too, would have 'defied scientific explanation.' Really, someone just has to say 'I found a peice of meat and on it was the word 'Allah,' but I was hungry, so I ate it.' People would still cite that as some passing proof of God: 'I knew a guy who knew a guy who had some meat...'. I suppose we have no idea how many holy meats were actually eaten before someone noticed the inscriptions--there were probably hundreds of them! Together they might have spelled out God's specific instructions on how to live, clay tablets being so passe.

"When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind," he said.

Like I said...this is how God choses to make his point? One true religion, as shown here on this piece of boiled, fried cow. In northern Nigeria. What a statement. Bold.

This is what we're up against. On one hand, we can laugh, as I often do (contrary to popular belief). On the other hand, there is nothing more frustrating than the awareness that this is what we're arguing against. Common sense would dictate that this argument should have been over a long time ago, but it persists.

Today, it is good to be a vegetarian.