11A054 Sayed Musa by Jim Davies, 2/23/2011     Religion is nonsense, as mentioned here before; it's high time human beings grew up and out of it. However, the right of anyone peacefully to believe any myth that takes his fancy is beyond challenge; it's a part of living free. Equally unquestioned is his right to exchange one belief for another, should he so wish. It is therefore particularly barbaric that this young Afghan is to be executed shortly by his State, for having dropped his Muslim beliefs in favor of Christian ones. A more detailed account appears on the Gospel Coalition site, and it seems Mr Musa has led a fine life so far. He lost a leg while serving the Afghan military, then worked as a physiotherapist to help others injured. He has six children, and has been tortured while in prison awaiting his hanging by the government for which he lost a limb, and for which Americans are fighting and dying. In the ZGBlog State Kills Woman, we noted that that is the bottom line when government deliberately ends the life of someone in its power. That victim had killed someone else, so at least there was some small, pathetic excuse along the lines of "an eye for an eye" - but Sayed Musa has not. He was found guilty only of being an apostate Muslim. As we saw last month, Islam in particular fuses government and religion into one, and always did. Its founder was head of state as well as head of religion. The result is a particularly brutal combination; whatever the "church" may want is decreed by the State as law, and since it wants to prevent adherents leaving, laws treat apostasy in the same kind of way American ones treat treason: it's a hanging offense. Outrage in the media particularly stress the merits of Mr Musa and the injustice involved, and plead for mercy, and that short term action may be his only hope. A more permanent fix is to work for a zero government society, so that while religions may remain they will be harmless, there being no laws to thrust them on anyone else. That is little more acceptable to Christian leaders than to Muslim ones, for it's a mere 500 years since European governments were busy executing one brand of Christian at the behest of another; if the former had the clout now that they had then, it's not clear to me that judges in D.C. would not be doing what their contemporaries are doing in Kabul. Your feedback, please! Have you browsed the bookstore yet? There are about forty titles that every serious student of liberty should have as the nucleus of his library.