Posted on 10/19/2010 12:28:21 PM PDT by betty boop
Very well presented. Very difficult to refute. Nay, impossible to refute. Excellent. Thanks.
I suspect that the key ingredient that makes Christianity different is the central tenet that each person must come to personal faith in Jesus Christ.
mohammed accepted forced conversions.
Jesus asks for the heart of the believer.
That is totally inconsistent with the use of force in conversion.
Counterfeit “religion” keeps going through my mind. One offers (glories in) life, one offers (glories in) death - “Choose ye this day,” is what I would say.
I think Christianity had a head start on the upstart “counterfeit” by about 6-700 years. They both have a “prophet;” they both have a holy book “divinely” inspired, etc. We know who energizes “Christianity,” but just who energizes Islam? As the Church Lady would ask, “Mmmmm, could it be - SATAN?”
Mo-ham-head not only accepted forced conversions, he forced conversions. I still don’t like the only three choices offered by Islam (the imperitive form of the verb which is “submit”): 1.) Convert to Islam; 2.) Remain a second class citizen paying protection money to Islam; 3.) Die. What kind of a “religion” is that? Islam wants to subject the whole world to its “way.” I think Satan also wanted the whole world to be subject to his “way.” I suspect you know that there is only one “way,” and His name is Jesus the Christ, the “Way” and the truth.
Aye, there’s another rub (distinction). Jesus is the way and the truth. He hates liars. Liars will have no place in His kingdom. Islam promotes lying and swearing falsely in order to further its aims (Al Taqqiya). Sheesh. Enough of their crap already!
Agreed, dear brother in Christ! Excellent point. Which tends to substantiate Overwatcher's asssertion that there is no such thing as a "moderate" Muslim.
What we do know is that a Jew cannot enter Saudi Arabia. He'd never get a visa. Christians are allowed — but are absolutely prohibited from wearing a cross or any other insignia of the Christian faith; and would be in the most serious trouble with the authorities if they were "caught" carrying a Bible.... The implication being that if they are carrying a Bible, they must be proselytizing. And this is absolutely forbidden!
The Saudi regime — and Islam more generally — is illiberal — in the classical sense of that word, deriving from the word "liberty." There is no liberty in Saudi Arabia. Period. And especially not for women. This crucial Anglo-American value simply has no meaning in Islam.
Don't forget that Islam means submission, subjection — the very opposite of the Anglo-American idea of liberty as individual freedom "under God."
Great points in your last, xzins. Thank you so much for writing!
Great point, dearest sister in Christ.
The ruling family, the Royal House of Saud, is comprised of some 5,000 MALE members. Some appear to be more open to the West than others — e.g., Prince Bandar. Others are outright sponsors and financiers of world-wide terrorism.... Quite possibly it is the latter who enjoy the support of the natives....
Don't forget that Islam means submission, subjection — the very opposite of the Anglo-American idea of liberty as individual freedom "under God."
Contrarian groups will create all sorts of arguments regarding their “rights and privileges” and use the all-powerful oligarchs to enforce their “winning ideology” by “Federally” pounding you (Virtually) up the anus. All the Civil Rights “stuff” has been usurped by an apathetic populous who trust the elitists running the show rather than studying the document that was put in place to control the show. Death by suicide...
Thanks for your great post and pings.
You and I both know the answer to that question, dear rollo tomasi: NO!!!
Thank you ever so much for asking it.
It seems to me that logic and observation are the very fundaments of rational thought. Logic is pretty much a given, a universal as the philosophers say. Observation is what keeps us connected to the world of actual reality. Their combination is what you term Realism. (Which, by the way, conforms to the classical understanding.) Fortunately, it seems human beings are well-equipped (at least in potential) to handle both.
But they need freedom to do it.
FWIW, I prefer the word "liberty," because my idea of liberty is necessarily connected to God (thus i.e., to the nature of man, and to truth and justice, among other things). Moreover, I believe that liberty is unrealizable in the natural world without Him. JMHO.
But in the "no-God" situation, freedom loses its context and thus its meaning.... Without that connection, the word "freedom" can be applied to virtually innumerable contexts of personal and social behavior, including those known to be deleterious to the well-being of humans and society.
This is a rough description of where moral relativism gets you!!!
You wrote,
Contrarian groups will create all sorts of arguments regarding their “rights and privileges” and use the all-powerful oligarchs to enforce their “winning ideology” by “Federally” pounding you (Virtually) up the anus. All the Civil Rights “stuff” has been usurped by an apathetic populous who trust the elitists running the show rather than studying the document that was put in place to control the show. Death by suicide...Your point being that the U.S. Constitution is already "dead as a doornail???"
I STRONGLY doubt that.
Just because the currently-sitting ersatz POTUS finds the Constitution "inconvenient" (because it legitimates and establishes a doctrine (or contract) of negative liberty — i.e., it is a constraint on government, not on citizens) doesn't mean you have to accept this view. And as a consequence, evidently, to give up in despair....
Exercise your liberty! Just because the elite law schools have been trying to declare-dead-and-bury the Constitution for the past 50+ years doesn't mean the Constitution has died. It only means they have been trying to kill it.
Dontcha know the presently-living Constiution has to "die" to make way for the "Living Constitution?"
But it still lives in the hearts and minds of American citizens. And it is we who have to defend it.
There's no one else to do this but us.
Thank you so very much for sharing your insightful observations, rollo tomasi!
You referenced ideology as part of the current public intellectual mix.... Increasingly showing up in political discourse nowadays.
FWIW, to me an ideology is in principle always an abuse of reason that almost always involves a rejection of Reality, or at least of "the human condition."
This is hardly a thought that arises with me. The classical Greeks were well aware of this problem, this flight from Realism. Heraclitus described it as a relapse into a dream state, in refusal of the One Logos. Plato called it nosos, clearly indicating it as a profound spiritual disease, the disease of a man who refuses to engage with/in the world beyond himself. The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero further elaborated the syndrome, describing it as aspernatio rationis — that is, as "rejection of reason."
The other thing I wanted to mention is I believe the logic and experience behind the Constitution rests on eternally truthful grounds. And so whatever lies are thrown at it, finally they cannot and will not stand.
But it would be really nice if American citizens could help out a little bit along these lines — that is, the defense of our foundational organizing principle as We the People of the United States of America.
At the very least, dear reader, go VOTE next Tuesday, November 2nd!!!
This is a point I've tried recently to make.
When they refer to the "living constitution", they mean that they interpret it as meaning whatever they want it to mean. Which means, in effect, that the constitution is dead.
The constitution is only alive if you read it as meaning what it says, as meaning what its writers intended for it to say, and if you read it as having the authority its writers and framers intended it to have. We are the ones who believe in a "living constitution". Again, the enemies of freedom use words to mean the very opposite of what they mean.
Others have made a similar point. Precedence in law should matter, but if you let precedence trump the constitution the constitution is finished. And so are we. Its a kind of moral and intellectual corruption.
You know, there is more than one kind of corruption; but it seems they all usually are found in close proximity to one another.
Liberals are happy with gov't granted privileges that are alienable..
Conservatives require Unalienable Rights.. that are unalienable..
Which is why liberals see illegal aliens as undocumented citizens..
Because to them illegal citizenship is alienable thru amnesty..
Just make them citizens and the problem, many many problems, goes away..
Pretty much how liberals deal with just about everything..
Change the law and moral problems go away..
Like affirmative action, everybody is equal except some are a little more equal than others..
Very logical to a liberal.. teenager logic..
They have their truth you have yours.. its all a matter of opinion..
To them, the Constitution is just some opinions of some conservative white men..
NOT a model to base all law on...
The truth is they do not know what Constitution means..
OR they do know but want to change the Republic into a Democracy..
I think they do know.. and are seditious and treasonous in nature and agenda..
On purpose with malice aforethought..
Dontcha know the presently-living Constiution has to "die" to make way for the "Living Constitution?"
But it still lives in the hearts and minds of American citizens. And it is we who have to defend it.
There's no one else to do this but us.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
Absolutely! People seem to think that 'ideology' is just a fancier, more modern-sounding word for 'principles.' In fact, 'ideology' started as a pejorative term, just like 'bureaucracy,' and is still correctly used as such.
As St. Thomas Aquinas warned us, beware "the man of one book." One book, or idea, becomes a Procrustean bed against which the whole of creation gets measured, and must be chopped or stretched to fit. Ideology and religion are not incompatible, but ideology and compassion are: the ideologist is a ruthless judge, to whom any thought or fact outside the idea is unforgivable.
In this sense, it might be correct to call Islam an ideology.
Oh so very true, mrreaganaut! Alternatively, an ideology is like a kind of filter that one lays down over reality, which screens out all evidence that does not conform to one's ideological presuppositions. Two great examples of this: Marxism and Darwinism....
Marx absolutely forbade any questioning of his system. You had to buy it whole cloth, or not — but if not, you'd be some kind of an "enemy," someone "outside" of "our group." Darwinism rejects any and all non-material aspects of reality. If something cannot be directly observed, then it doesn't exist. But note that no Darwinist (or anybody else for that matter) has ever directly observed evolution. The very idea is non-material — as are all ideas.
Ideologies tend to be riddled with internal contradictions of this type. Which is evidently why their sponsors do not want you to look too closely into their fundamental premises or — as in Marx's case — outright forbid all questioning altogether.
As to your suggestion that Islam might be ideological in this sense — e.g., is selective when it comes to its definition of reality — well, just on the basis of what can actually be observed, I think you are correct!
In any case, I do not/cannot recognize the reality it proclaims.... That the God of Truth wants his sons to exterminate non-believers is simply incredible to me. To me, such a "god" is no God, but a satanic creature conjured up in the imagination of 7th-century Bedouins....
Still it is true that not all Muslims subscribe to this doctrine of Jihad — i.e., as the extermination or subjection of non-believers so that the Ummah, the global Islamic caliphate, may be established on earth. For such "non-radicalized" Muslims, Jihad is understood as an internal battle, as a self-conquering whose object is to conform one's self and moral life to God's law. It has nothing to do with wiping out Jews and Christians....
The problem is complex; certainly I do not have all the answers. Islam itself seems to have divisions in it. And has actually been subjected to withering criticism by such Muslims as Salman Rushdie. Of course, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini instantly proclaimed a fatwa — a death sentence — against Rushdie, after his Satanic Verses came out in 1988. Somehow, after all this time Rushdie has managed to stay alive....
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