Embarrassed

January 27, 2007 | AdamSmithWasRight

[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.

[pollyannaish]

Bravo.

[I got the rope]

I think you are being silly.

the Preamble

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There is no such concept in Islam. The very word blessings speaks of a divine nature which come from the God of the Bible. Not allah.

It comes from Psalms: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

[presidio9]

Mormons are not considered Christians by most Christian sects. Do you think Mitt Romney calls himself a Christian?

[Eva]

I think that most Christians (and Jews) are very open about their condemnation of acts that are wrongly claimed to be done in name of our religion, for instance abortion clinic crimes, or the so-called Baptists who harrass the families at military funerals. Christians are not supposed to be haters. We are taught to hate the sin, and love the sinner. But terrorism is not just a sin and Muslims who whine about their rights, and ethnic profiling have to realize that they have earned the mistrust of the American people with their silence. If the American Muslims are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

[presidio9]

We are different from all the other nations you mentioned in that we are not an indigenous race ethnicity or nationality. The comparisons don't work.

[jcb1379]

Blessing when taken as you intend it does indeed seem to come from God. When it is taken as it is MEANT, however, it refers to all those things to which Liberty entitles us. It is not used in the religious context in the preamble. It is used in the "something promoting or contributing to happiness, well-being, or prosperity" sense (answers.com). Kinda like how a father gives his blessing to the marriage of his daughter and her fiance. Or do you mean to imply that every father that has ever "blessed" his daughter's marriage is a proxy for God? I would hardly say we are a blessed nation, either. Have you seen San Francisco lately? Or the state of protection for the unborn? Or respect for the beauty of each individual based on his creation by the same God that created us all? Perhaps "blessed" in the secular sense, in that we are very prosperous, but I would say we are in trouble when it comes to the moral state of our nation.

[presidio9]

The interior quotes are from Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. I posted them because you said that Jews and Muslims were "not a passing thought at the time." This is demonstrably false, obviously. I guess the anwser to my own question is "yes, you ARE ignorant."

[jcb1379]

Islam is not a race. Buddhism is not a race.

I fail to see the point of your counter. Judaism is the only religion with which I am familiar in which the label of the followers also denotes their ethnicity (i.e. "Jew" refers to their religious expression as much as it refers to their ethnicity).

[presidio9]

There is no such concept in Islam. The very word blessings speaks of a divine nature which come from the God of the Bible. Not allah.

Muslims do not reject the Law of the Bible. Just Christ's divinity, and a few other things. Islam is layed down on top for Christianity, not in absentia from it.

[Nathan Zachary]

" As Christianity has changed such that it now exists in a symbiotic relationship with Democracy so too can Islam." It has not. Christianity, not a word of it- has changed. It BROUGHT democracy to the western world, not learned to exist along side it. What has changed in Christianity is the people, and the leaders of people. No longer do we rely on the interpretations of a single priest/church. People can now read what the gospel says for themselves. This came about with the protestant movement, when scripture was nailed to a church door for all to read.

[fr_freak]

Socially, yes, we are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian tradition. Legally, we are influenced by Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, et al.

The framework of the US government was designed by people with a Christian worldview to govern people with a Christian worldview. A muslim society could never have produced this Constitution, nor was this Constitution sufficiently designed to govern people with a Muslim worldview, given that the Koran is far more specific in its requirements for daily living (i.e. sharia) than Christianity, not to mention the fact that Islam has a fundamentally different outlook on the inalienable rights of human beings.

[presidio9]

Germany was founded by Germans. America was founded by people of many nations. Jews and Deists were definitely among them, but there were hundreds or even thousands of Muslims living in America in 1776.

[Nathan Zachary]

" Muslims do not reject the Law of the Bible."

Pure BS. It's stated right in the Koran that it rejects all the word of the bible, blaming Jews for abrogating it. Every word of the Koran not only is in direct opposition to the bible, it comes from Jewish folklore as well. Islam is not layed down "on top of Christianity either. It defies every word Christ spoke.

[Stark_GOP]

Show me were the word "Democracy" appears in the Constitution.

[AdamSmithWasRight]

I don't mean to get involved in this discussion but as ambiguous as the Constitution seems at times, I always found the Constitution quite clear in terms of religion. Free exercise is an inalienable right of all Americans as long as it doesn't infringe upon anyone else's rights and the government shall have no religion itself. Thus how can religion be denied and how can religion be in government under the current framework provided by the Constitution?

[Aurorales]

No, it doesn't. And I never said it did. Please reread my statements.

Catholic faith beliefs versus Muslim beliefs. Two different animals.
I am a Christian. So please do not interpret what I said to mean I am a basher of religions.
Do not get angry with me because you read something in my opinion that was not there.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...where are these moderate Muslims?

No easy answer to your questions...but at the very least, this article represents one of their own who has asked the same questions and feels the need to address our concerns in the best way he knows how. I can live with that.
But I want to see more. Much more.

[oneolcop]

Dear AdamSmithwasRight: I realize that I'm a hour behind the thread, but I haven't had time to catch up.

You sound like an intelligent and sincere person, so I would like to ask your thoughts about the essential aspect of these issues:

(1)Can there be legitimate dissagreement about the specific words of the Koran regarding what to non-muslims seems to be repeated commands to slay "non-believers" if they do not convert? and (2) If the answer to the first question is no, how do you avoid the conflict between the concept of freedom to practice (any) religion and these commandments?

[Nathan Zachary]

" there were hundreds or even thousands of Muslims living in America in 1776." You sure come up with a lot of BS. I gather you are counting the slaves brought over, slaves who were not Muslim at all, just captured by them. There is plenty of material to debunk the assertion they were Muslim. Not to mention the koran itself that claims Blacks will never see Allah's heaven, that they were put there by Allah so Muslims could enslave them.

[anglian]

Even a cursory glance at history demonstrates. Beginning with the Pilgrims in 1620, the Bible was used as a foundational piece of authority in early American homes and towns. These settlers embedded scriptural truths in their children, who did so with their children, and so on. So, the men who founded our country in 1776 had been reared with 150 years of solid, consistent, reverent Bible training.

Many of the founding fathers shared three essential truths that held them together as a unified body. First, they believed that Jesus Christ was Savior and Lord. Second, they saw Christ as the giver of liberty. Third, they understood the Bible to be the ultimate authority on civil government. Girded with these truths, these men entered into debates and discussions, the result of which was the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. These two documents are far removed from any other governmental writings up to that point, because they emphasized a revolutionary idea: men should be free to govern themselves.

What was the basis for this radical movement? It was Holy Scripture! Our three branches of government correspond perfectly to the writings of the prophet Isaiah: “For the LORD is our judge [judicial branch], the LORD is our lawgiver [legislative branch], the LORD is our king [executive branch]” (Isaiah 33:22).

Again, their intent was not to create a Christian nation, but it certainly was to organize a system of government around the obviously high moral and ethical standards of Scripture.