Posted on 02/06/2006 9:29:24 AM PST by Pokey78
THE trouble with the West is that we have forgotten that some things are sacred.
We find it so difficult to comprehend the reaction of the Muslim world to that ham-fisted Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist because our churches stand empty, our faith is weak and our God has left the building.
The idea that this is still a Christian country is laughable. We may haul in the local vicar for weddings and funerals, but that's about it. We worship our idols -celebrity and money, the sex lives of the rich and famous - but the Good Book is about as relevant to most of our lives as the ration book.
Christianity is widely mocked. The feeble humour of the Jerry Springer opera whipped up some half-hearted controversy, but nobody really cared beyond a few Bible-bashers considered to be humourless spoilsports.
Once this was a Christian country, back when we were all singing two hymns a day at school and fretting about burning in hell for our sins.
When I was a child, we could all chant the Lord's Prayer by heart. Do the Vicky Pollards of today know the Lord's Prayer? Can't see it, myself. So I feel an instinctive sympathy for Muslims who still hold to the belief that there is such a thing as blasphemy.
The Muslim community say that those puerile Danish cartoons should not have been printed, and they are right. It would not have been censorship or the curtailment of free speech to not print (and reprint) the offending cartoon. It would have been basic human decency. It would have been cultural restraint at a time when tension between the West and the Muslim world is higher than it has been for centuries.
I have read a number of commentators say that they would "defend to the death" the right of some crappy little Danish paper to print their nasty little cartoons.
But if I am going to die for a cause, then it is going to be a better one than the right of some Scandy cartoonist to print offensive rubbish.
If we are going to argue with Muslims, then let it be about something worthwhile.
The attitude of Islam to women. The attitude of Islam to gays. The attitude of Islam to Israel, which is routinely threatened with extermination by everyone from Hamas to the leader of Iran to mad mullahs with spit on their beards in Finsbury Park.
Printing that cartoon was supremely stupid. Muslims have a right to live their lives without seeing their religion vilified in a way that is designed to cause hurt, anger and offence.
What Muslims should never have the right to do is what they did on the streets of London on Friday. Around 500 demonstrators marched from the Regent's Park mosque to the Danish embassy, carrying the most sickening placards I have ever seen in my life.
On the streets of the city where Londoners were murdered and maimed on July 7, the pinhead protesters carried slogans boasting: "Europe, you'll come crawling when mujahideen come roaring" and "Behead those who insult Islam". On the same streets where four terrorists committed mass murder, a placard gloated: "Europe you will pay - fantastic 4 are on their way".
A toddler, 20-month-old Farisa Jihad, was dressed by some moronic adult in a hat that sneered: "I love Al-Qaida".
And they got away with it. Nobody was arrested for these sickening incitements to murder. Nobody was charged for spewing slogans of hate that gloated about the dead and broken bodies of July 7.
And that offends me. That offends me to the core of my being.
Responsible Muslim leaders have already condemned the appalling placards. But it happened. And I can't think of any thing more likely to create real loathing for Muslims. I can't think of anything more likely to make the BNP a real force in British politics.
I can't think of anything more likely to make the average British citizen - whatever his colour - ask: Whose country is it anyway?
MUSLIMS deserve the respect accorded to all our people. They take their religion infinitely more seriously than we do, and we should understand that. And if they want to burn down a few empty Scandinavian embassies in Syria because of crass depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, then personally I couldn't care less.
But when someone starts carrying placards in my city gloating about 9/11 and 7/7, when men with big mouths start promising death and destruction, when you tell us that we will be massacred if we offend you, then our tolerance is pushed to breaking-point. Muslims deserve to have their faith respected.
But if they want a Muslim country, then perhaps they should go and live in one.
I was taught that Jesus has greater authority than me insofar as taking God's law into His own hands. I would not presume, for example, that I had the power to forgive sins just because Jesus did.
It may very well be that God (and by extension His son) wants Islam destroyed and all of its practitioners exterminated along with it. As you say, if He does, then He will have no trouble doing it on His own. I am trying to figure out where I fit into the scheme of things and what I ought to do. My Christian-trained heart tells me that I ought to pray for peace, look after my family, gather stones together and wait for some stronger indication that all hope of resolution is lost.
I see that we are moving farther and farther down the road. That is undeniable. But there are yet many rivers to cross before we must resort to all out war. Timing is everything in these matters.
One thing the Muslims have learned from their koran is the war tactic of provoking your enemy to the point of overreacting and thereby moving the masses to your point of view. I think waging war against them requires a little more finesse than it did for Iassac or the others in the Old Testament. As you point out, their philosophy came after the Old Testament was written, so Old Testament methodologies may not have primacy today.
To do what or to or for whom? By what value system do you judge the truth of that claim. The author claims "basic human decency" as if that were some sort of standard. Where is that standard raised? Who is its keeper and how can I review it so I can know whether or not I am a basically decent human?
Shalom.
I understand your point, but I wanted to be clear that there is a huge difference between the Muslim call to subjucate everyone under Islam and the Old Testament call to destroy certain groups because of their particularly vile nature. Those who want to claim that all religions are the same need to pay more attention to the differences.
Israel restrained itself by killing only those whom G-d allowed, and did not even kill all of those. At the end of the book of Joshua there is a list of the Canaanites who were allowed to survive, and they did have a negative impact on Israel.
Islam may be starting with the West because of our embrace of sex worship, but they would not end there. Should they conquer us, they would turn to the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Chinese Communists, and, eventually, each other as each sect claims to be the only true Islam.
There is no synchretism between Islam and Judaism, or Islam and Christianity. The differences are like night and day.
Shalom.
Actually, it is just a question of whose god is real.
Whose god acted in human history to bring his message to the entire world, and whose god sent a secret message to a chosen man in a cave with no witnesses.
Also, whose god led his people toward creating improvements for the entire world to benefit and whose god led his people in to the dark ages.
I recognize that all people believe their own religion and can use their religion to justify hideous behavior. I also recognize that there are ways to evaluate the truth claims of a religion. Rational people, even rational believers, should apply those ways as often as possible to their own as well as to other religions.
Shalom.
syn·cre·tism: Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.
I had to look it up LOL.
Is there synctretism between Judaism and Christianity, in your opinion?
I presume you were asking me, and not yourself. ;)
Yes, Christianity is a Jewish sect. Christians believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, here to accomplish all the things the Jews have always believed Messiah was to accomplish, including spreading G-d's love and forgiveness to all nations (gentiles). In order to accept this notion, Christians have to believe the prophet Isaiah was actually talking about the Messiah coming twice when Isaiah spoke of both a suffering servant and a victorious king. Christians also believe that the Messiah of whom Isaiah spoke would be G-d Himself coming as a man.
Jews (religious, not ethnic) do not believe Isaiah was talking about 2 comings, but one. They also do not believe Messiah would be G-d Himself. What the Christians look to in the second coming, the Jews still look to as the coming of Messiah.
Everything else is in common between Jews and Christians. I don't mean to make light of these differences, but to make much of the similarities.
Shalom.
Thank you for your point of view.
I am all American, having been born here in the USA. My parents and Grandparents were also born here. My father was Lebanese Catholic and my mother was Spanish Catholic. I have an Arabic last name, and sometimes face discrimination from people who don't know me, and assume I must be Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin, based on my last name. Marinite conservatives are fairly rare, but there are a few of us out here. My next door neighbor and close friend is Paul Gottfried, a well-published paleo-con of Jewish origin. We often have interesting discussions about the situation in the Middle East and Europe. Paul is much more noninterventionist than me, so I guess you can't always predict what someone's point of view will be based on ethnicity -- at least in the USA.
Shalom right back at you, thanks for a provocative dialogue, and have a good day.
Shalom.
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