Posted on 01/26/2007 9:16:25 AM PST by AdamSmithWasRight
As I read the news day in and day out from my perspective of being on the inside looking out, I look at my own home and couldn't be any more embarrassed than I currently am. It has been compounded from 9/11 by constant images and stories in the media about the actions of the Muslim community.
I must admit to myself if I was on the outside looking in I would probably look at myself in the same way so many others do. If all I saw were nihilistic thugs raping, robbing, murdering, and littering the streets of the world with the bodies of innocent people I wouldn't know what else to think of this group of people for religion.
As I now sit inside of the United States I find myself looking at this house in two perspectives. At times from the inside looking out and wanting to escape for this image that has haunts me day in and day out but also at times from the outside looking in. It is these proud patriotic times when religion takes the passenger seat or well I should say, isn't even in the car, that I look at that house and think, "Don't you people get it???"
At moments like this I realize and force myself to accept the reality that the real problem here is the Muslim community itself. It is no longer the fundamentalsits or Al-Qaeda alone, rather the very community itself that has failed to deliver or even show an attempt to remedy this nihilistic ideology within their ranks. As an American but also as a Muslim I would like to convey my most sincere apologies although I know to most this are just empty words in light of the death and injury of so many. For most we have reached a point where apologies and words will do nothing but further agitate the situation. Rather what is needed is action.
It is this which I do recognize and wish deliver, but I realize that I can only do this with help from others. I would hope that the American people, my brothers and sisters, would not so easily give up on the Bush doctrine of changing the face of the middle east where this dangerous threat to world civility and humanity is found. If we hope to find change I believe we can only find it in the overthrowing and or absolute destruction of the very regimes and elements that support this authoritarinism from within their midst. As long as we hold on to the Bush doctrine I honestly believe that we can one day watch the purple fingers of freedom wave from Morocco to Indonesia.
Until that day, if it comes, I apologize my friends and ask you to stick with the President and his vision for a new middle east.
That is a distinction lost on many I'm afraid. And here I thought all those hours reading primary sources, and stacks of books piled in the basement to hold up the Lego creations and Hot wheels tracks, were never going to be used properly again. ;-)
Ignorant oversimplification. There are many sects of Islam. Saying all Muslims are radical or have a problem with America is like saying all Christians are snake handlers.
I DO agree with the sentiment that Muslims in general, and American Muslims in particular have not done enough to denounce some of the more recent and disgusting actions that Muslims have taken. I'm not saying that Christians and Jews don't have things to apologize for from time to time. Just that your silence adds fuel to some of the uglier sentiments that we have witnessed here.
There's apparently no restriction on being an American and an asshole though.
No, not ignorant, far from it. Maybe I did simplify it but I chose to.
A true Muslim will have problems with our laws and belief system.
From my reading on the subject of Muslims, this is what I believe.
Doesn't say that at all. All it says is that no one (of the Christian churches) ie Catholic, protestant, Anglican, will have favor over the other. It's freedom OF religion, not FROM religion. And government will not interfere with the church.
"In his autobiography, Jefferson recounted with satisfaction that in the struggle to pass his landmark Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), the Virginia legislature "rejected by a great majority" an effort to limit the bill's scope "in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan." George Washington suggested a way for Muslims to "obtain proper relief" from a proposed Virginia bill, laying taxes to support Christian worship. On another occasion, the first president declared that he would welcome "Mohometans" to Mount Vernon if they were "good workmen" (see page 96). Officials in Massachusetts were equally insistent that their influential Constitution of 1780 afforded "the most ample liberty of conscience to Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians," a point that Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons resoundingly affirmed in 1810."
Source: The Library Of Congress
So what? I am a Catholic. I reject Roe V. Wade. Does that make me unAmerican?
There are TWO main secs, three if you count Sunni/wahabism. All others are not considered Islam and are apostates by those three. They are what 90% of all Muslims belong to.
Except for a few sura's in the Koran and a few hadith, they all read basically the same Koran as well.
The other secs do not add up to much.
You're good..........!!!!
Re-read what I said. We are a "Christian nation" insomuch as the majority of our populace is Christian. Germany is a "Lutheran nation," England an "Anglican nation," Pakistan a "Muslim nation," China a "Buddhist nation," and so on and so on. We are not a LEGALLY Christian nation, as the Christian religion is not codified in law. We are a SOCIALLY Christian nation, as the majority of our population is Christian.
Ah, c'mon, you are supposed to use reinforced papertowel rolls for structural support! Thataway, your books can hold open stubborn doors or even out wobbly tables!
Excellent rebuttal.
Really? Seems that is someone narritive you've posted, not Jeffersons Autobiograghy.
Doesn't say your take on it either; simply says that Congress can't make any law favoring or disparaging any religion. SO, if I want to worship a golden calf, Congress can't encourage it nor can Congress deny my right to do so. Thus the original statement stands.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." i.e. Congress will not establish a national religion, nor will they prevent any religion from practicing.
Oops. I'll take the penalty for improper use of equipment. :-)
I'm out of here, but I see I'm leaving the place in stellar hands.
Have a good one.
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