Posted on 11/10/2001 1:02:41 PM PST by ouroboros
When five militant Muslims bent on murder pulled up to a Christian church in Pakistan, the first man to die was a Muslim.
He was a Muslim police officer assigned to guard the church, and he stood his ground against five gunmen and died in a vain attempt to protect the Christians inside.
And when the 16 victims were buried, their funeral was attended by thousands of Muslims who joined the Christian survivors in their grief and in their denunciation of the murderers.
There are people who, for their own selfish purposes, are trying to convince Americans that Islam wants to go to war with Christianity. That is a load of slop. The oldest Christian communities in the world today are in Islamic countries. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all Middle Eastern religions, and all three have existed together for centuries.
I’ve pointed out before that the deputy prime minister of Iraq is a Christian and that there is a Christian church in Michigan built with a million-dollar donation from Saddam Hussein, who is Muslim. Most of the Palestinians in the Bethlehem area are Christians, and the oldest Christian church building is there. It has, by the way, been shot up badly by the Israelis.
There are Christians all over the Middle East, just as there are Jewish communities throughout the Middle East. The troubles we see there today all started with the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which involved Great Britain’s betrayal of its Arab allies in World War I. An excellent book on this topic is "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin. But these troubles are about secular matters, not religion.
Hamas opposes Israeli occupation of Palestine, not Judaism. Ditto for Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. The fact that extremists on both sides call each other names should not be mistaken as religious positions.
Islam considers Jesus as a holy prophet of God, and the Virgin Mary is much revered. By contrast, the Jewish Talmud, a collection of rabbinic writings, describes Jesus in very harsh and insulting terms and shows clear hostility to Christianity. The book "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" by Israel Shahak, the late Israeli human-rights advocate, can shed more light on this subject.
Religions are by definition exclusivist views of the world, which is a sound reason for keeping politics and religion separate. Ecumenicalism can carry you no further than simply respecting other people’s right to have different opinions and beliefs than you do. Classical Judaism and Islam both prefer a religious state - as, indeed, at one time did Christianity. The idea of church and state separation is uniquely American in the modern world, though it evolved from the British experience. Many Muslims and Jews today also favor keeping them separate.
A final point to keep in mind is that if you are going to judge religions, you should judge them as they are now understood and practiced, not as they were in the Middle Ages. One can always find quotations from all major religions that, out of context, seem harsh and brutal to modern sensibilities.
But the conflict we are now engaged in is not religious in any sense of that word. There is no Islamic plot to take over the world. The grievances are all about secular matters - U.S. and Israeli policies that have often victimized Arabs in particular and Muslims in general.
Muslims and Christians are both taught to treat others as they would be treated. Unfortunately, not all political leaders are willing to practice that.
And heterosexuals never do such things I suppose?
As for the you being buddy buddy with the Moslems, so what? In 1929 there was something called the Hebron massacre where Arabs killed many Shephardic Jews. These Arabs were "friends" with the Jews for many years. One of the survivors of the massacre noted that Arabs can keep hidden their enmity for many years and when it is revealed it is quite shocking.
The incident precipitating the Hebron massacre was a bunch of punks raising a Zionist flag over Temple Mount. Moslems reacted in anger and a week of communal violence ensued. 250 people died, almost half of them Moslem. Sixty-four of the victims, as you note, were Jews in Hebron. Somehow you have managed to forget the rest of the story.
I repeat hate mongering is vile.
"The only reason Reese would be supplying us this info, is that he is looking to pick up chicks. Pretty pathetic. He is ugly as a sheep (both inside and out)."
The National Socialists, like all good socialists, were atheists.
RobbyS
Reese is not distinguishing between Islam as practiced in Turkey and Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia. The latter is a reactionary kind that deliberatrly looks backwards to the Middle Ages.
The Documentary Lady
In these places the power falls along religious lines. It's the politics and not the religions.
Muslims believe that the Koran is the perfect word of Allah, as perfectly transmitted by his messenger, Mohammed, and that only Mohammed was authorized to transmit the word of Allah. The fundamental problem here is that Osama bin Laden is not a bad Muslim, but is, in fact, a good Muslim, who is doing precisely what the Koran instructs him to do:
Medina SurasA hypothetical future cult, that featured Mohammed prominently, but was not inherently violent in nature, would not be Islam, but would be some other, as yet non-existent, pagan cult.
The Chapter of Women
[Chapters from the Koran]
The Harvard Classics 1909–14But if there befalls you grace from God, he would say—as though there were no friendship between you and him—‘O would that I had been with thee to attain this mighty happiness!’ Let those then fight in God’s way who sell this life of the world for the next; and whoso fights in God’s way, then, be he killed or be he victorious, we will give him a mighty hire.
What ails you that ye do not fight in God’s way, and for the weak men and women and children, who say, ‘Lord, bring us out of this town 19 of oppressive folk, and make for us from Thee a patron, and make for us from Thee a help?’
Those who believe fight in the way of God; and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Tâghût; fight ye then against the friends of Satan, verily, Satan’s tricks are weak.
Do ye not see those to whom it is said, ‘Restrain your hands, and be steadfast in prayer and give alms;’ and when it is prescribed for them to fight then a band of them fear men, as though it were the fear of God or a still stronger fear, and they say, ‘O our Lord! why hast thou prescribed for us to fight, couldst thou not let us abide till our near appointed time?’ Say, ‘The enjoyment of this world is but slight, and the next is better for him who fears;’—but they shall not be wronged a straw.
... Why are ye two parties about the hypocrites, when God hath overturned them for what they earned? Do ye wish to guide those whom God hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye shall not surely find for him a path. They would fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from among them until they too flee in God’s way; but if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them, and take from them neither patron nor help,—save those who reach a people betwixt whom and you is an alliance—or who come to you while their bosoms prevent them from fighting you or fighting their own people. But had God pleased He would have given you dominion over them, and they would surely have fought you. But if they retire from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace,—then God hath given you no way against them.
Ye will find others who seek for quarter from you, and quarter from their own people; whenever they return to sedition they shall be overturned therein: but if they retire not from you, nor offer you peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them;—over these we have made for you manifest power.
This terrorism is a religious war.
The religion waging this war is Radical Islam.
Not all Muslims in history or in the present are Radical Islamic fanatics just as not all Catholics throughout history burned Protestants at the stake and not all Protestants throughout history burned Catholics at the stake.
However, it is extereme foolishness not to acknowledge that a certain sect of Islam has declared a religious war and that they are deadly serious about it. To deny such a truth is as foolish as declaring yourself to be a practicing a witch at Salem, Massachessets in 1692.
IMO most of the "religious wars" have been fought because of disparate political power, not religious views.
I am referring to the Hebron massacre of 1929 before the state of Israel was created.
You don't know about that? Read up on some history so you'll learn something about how Arabs operate and how "friendly" they can be before they decide to do a massacre.
Btw... in response to your previous paragraph (not reprinted by me) about heterosexuals being child molestors also, molestation is not a major part of the heterosexual lifestyle; it is with the homosexuals. At least 30% of homosexuals probably do it.
OB, That is the problem in a nutshell. "leaders". "My way is better than your way and you MUST follow ME." Peace and love, George.
And your point is?
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