Free Inquiry Sidelines

The following articles are from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 19, Number 3.

Due to fears brought about by reports of Louis Farrakhan's poor health, it is highly probable that the Nation of Islam is preparing the minister for immortality. Old NOI leaders never die. They just fade away-to the Mother Plane. According to Farrakhan, the Mother Plane is "a wheel that you call a UFO," similar to Ezekiel's wheel in the Bible. The Mother Plane houses several "baby planes," each one loaded with explosives to be dropped upon America when God gives the word. (Farrakhan has shrewdly-and correctly-pointed out that, if religionists do not scoff at the story of Ezekiel's wheel, they cannot scoff at the Mother Planet tale.)

In 1934, after the group's founder, Fard Muhammad, mysteriously disappeared, the NOI deified him. In 1975, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad died. According to Farrakhan, however, Muhammad never died. He is now aboard the Mother Plane, preparing for the future. Farrakhan has invited nonbelievers to dig up Muhammad's gravesite, to find that his remains are not there.

Though Farrakhan originally advised people to stop referring to him as "the Honorable Louis Farrakhan," he eventually changed his mind. He is now merely "Honorable," and Elijah Muhammad is now known as the "Most Honorable" Elijah Muhammad.

On September 16, 1995, Farrakhan told a shocked crowd at a Washington, D.C., Baptist church that the Million Man March was inspired by an otherworldly vision he had in 1985. A UFO delivered him to a spacecraft where Elijah Muhammad informed him that then-President Reagan was plotting to bomb Libya. An American attack was thwarted when baby planes were released to chase away two U.S. jets. Farrakhan was beamed back to earth shortly thereafter. He told the shocked audience, "I really don't care if you think I'm a nut."

It is likely that, after his death, Farrakhan will join the immortal pantheon of former NOI leaders.

Thus Sayeth God's Billboards

Highway billboards purporting to offer messages from God himself are all the rage now in parts of the U.S.. They feature brief, text-only admonitions or warnings without fine print or information on sponsoring organizations. Some of these "God Speaks" dispatches include:

Let's meet at my house before the game. - God
Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer. - God
Don't make me come down there! - God
What part of "Thou Shalt Not ..." didn't you understand? - God
That "Love Thy Neighbor" thing ... I meant it. - God

These actual billboard messages, however, don't begin to cover the possibilities. How about:

That thing about women being subservient to men ... I meant it. - God
Keep thinking that way and I'll cause another 100,000 highway accidents. - God
I took time out from managing every detail of a vast universe to write on a billboard. - God

Yes, There Is a Hell

Agnostic Matt Groening, creator and producer of the hit TV animated series The Simpsons, finally set the record straight in the New York Times Magazine (12-27-98):

"I was very disturbed when Jesus found a demon in a guy and he put the demon into a herd of pigs, then sent them off a cliff. What did the pigs do? I could never figure that out. It just seemed very unChristian. Technically, I'm an agnostic, but I definitely believe in hell - especially after watching the fall TV schedule."

Send interesting news items and tidbits to Sidelines, Free Inquiry, POB 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0644, or e-mail to: aszalanski@centerforinquiry.net.

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