Posted on 03/30/2003 1:35:21 PM PST by 4.1O dana super trac pak
Seems like a poor example to choose. Sounds like something Jesus said:
"Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs" (Luke 11:47-48).
Vision 2020 is not really intertwined in this mess. It is just a goal to have the country "civilized"
I understand what you are saying, but I think they have been in this country for a long time without incident. They are managing to practice their religion without trying to change our government to an Islamic State. I do think their theology makes it difficult. I don't know any Muslims, so I don't know how much variance there is in that area of their theology. I've read claims that go both ways.
There are a lot of crazy religions, cults, and psycho beliefs all over the world. Mankind has believed in God in some fashion in every culture throughout history. It is innate to our nature. That doesn't mean all religions are equal and true because they are not. But that does mean that freedom for mankind cannot exist without freedom of religion. We might as well learn to live with the crazy ones while realizing the true author of freedom is God Himself. It is His right to judge them -- ours when they break our laws.
Regarding this article, and again without firsthand knowledge, many Muslims do seem overly hateful to those who disagree with them. I'm not comfortable with the statement that ALL Muslims are that way. I've met some that seem very meek and conservative and harmless.
Most religions worth anything believe theirs is the only way. I have no quarrel with that. So what. It's really about what attitudes and actions result from your beliefs. Killing = bad. Conversion by sword = bad. Conversion by persuasion = fine.
Why reinvent the wheel? Clinton & Janet Reno have been there & done that (remember Branch Davidia?)
It wouldn't be a complete "Muslims in the U.S.A." without calling for the crybaby WAAAAAAAHMbulance!
For your safety of course.
I think one thing that more and more Americans (and Western Europeans) are coming to realize is that Islam -- as both a culture and as a religion (because, in Islam, religion and culture are one and the same) -- is fundamentally (pun intended) INcompatible with all other religions and cultures. So the answer to your first question is, "no", Islam _cannot_ "co-exist" outside of an Islamic state, anywhere. Because, for Islamics, there can be no such paradigm as "co-existence"; the Quran mandates either submission to Islam or the destruction of the non-believers and/or infidels who refuse to convert.
And to answer your second question, I think it is quite obvious that the "ultimate goal" of Islam is to make the entire WORLD "an Islamic State". They intend to do this by any means possible: conquest, subversion, demographics, using whatever tactics it takes to achieve their ends.
I firmly believe (and was beginning to realize even _before_ the attacks of September 11, 2001) that a great, perhaps final, struggle is shaping up between the forces of Christianity and "the West" against the forces of Islam. I'm not "religious" in the organized sense (that doesn't mean I'm a non-believer), but the struggle we are in now looks to me to have the potential to become the Biblical Armageddon; the final showdown between good and evil.
Three years ago on Free Republic, we relished in the maps portraying a divided "red" and "blue" post-election America, and the implications from those divisions. One need only to review the red/blue maps (which I saved) to comprehend that we are becoming a nation of opposed beliefs.
But, in a similar sense, the world itself seems to be taking sides - not so much along economic lines (as the leftists predicted), but along religious: Islam, growing more powerful, aligned against not only the Christian West but everyone else. And because Islam is the world's last "militant" religion, the more it expands, the more Islam senses its ultimate goal might lie within reach: total domination, with a unified globe submissive to Allah.
Until recently (say 10-20 years), Islam was not perceived by most of us in the West as being particularly dangerous _TO US_. Dangerous to those who lived in the backward Islamic societies perhaps, but not TO US, for they seemed to have little more than stone knives and skins with which to threaten the infidels.
But certainly in the post 9-11 world, Westerners must realize that the power of technology is within reach of empowering Islamics with the tools to achieve their goals - those "tools" being weapons of destruction and the technological sophistication on how to use them.
They must be stopped. Whether we will be able to rise to meet that challenge still is unclear to me. Yes, we will prevail in Iraq. But Iraq is but a single step on the journey that we - the English-speaking Judeo-Christians of the West - are now bound to travel. It won't just stop there. Will the West be able to confront Islamic expansion and use whatever means necessary to defend itself? Again, I'm not yet convinced.
Having written all that, let me address a fundamental (again, pun intended) issue in the Daily News story. That issue is: what can be permitted to be taught within private (NOT "public") schools that do not accept public funding? Can we intervene and "ban" textbooks that present such drivel as is being taught in the Islamic schools in America? If government can do that, then why can't it _also_ intervene in _other_ non-public schools, such as "Christian Academies", and the like, and ban textbooks that teach creationism? Or, if government is to have the power to shut down Islamic home-schooling, will it also have power to stop Christian home-schooling? Difficult questions, indeed.
And until we can _answer_ these difficult questions, I will remain unconvinced that we are in actually capable of "stopping Islam".
It isn't going to be easy. But again, Islam must be viewed as nothing less than a threat to the survival of the West itself. How much of the West will be left - once Islamics get their way?
What are we prepared to do to prevent them from getting their way?
Cheers!
- John
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