Posted on 06/15/2002 4:58:56 AM PDT by Clive
What happened to two American missionaries, husband and wife, in the Philippines recently was surely the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
A pair of innocent, noble people trying to educate the poor and introduce better health care were kidnapped by Muslim terrorists and then abused and starved. When government soldiers tried to rescue them, one hostage was killed, another badly injured.
Once again, the people who shot, slashed, bombed, tortured and maimed did so in the name of Islam.
I'll follow the statement immediately by saying the majority of Muslims I have met have been fair and fine people, and that many Muslims live in dreadful conditions around the world and have a right to demand change.
Problem is, most of their governments are Muslim, too. Many need to stop blaming the West, Christianity or Israel for sufferings imposed on them by their own regimes.
Nor will I play the white liberal card here and say their religion is the same as mine.
I respect Islam, but I do not believe in it and also consider it misguided. I've said so when I've spoken in mosques, dined with Muslim leaders, shaken their hands and embraced them.
In many instances, Islam has either lost its way or, more worrying, some of its leaders have encouraged it to walk down a twisted path.
It is not Christians, Marxists or secular nationalists who strap explosives to themselves and mass murder children in Israel. It is not Jews or Hindus who plant bombs in Kashmir and kill innocent people.
It is not Roman Catholics or Unitarians who fly airliners carrying mothers and children into buildings full of the harmless.
Theological support
Yes, of course, people of all faiths do dreadful things. But none with such regularity and with such theological support from so many. Important this.
It is simply untrue to claim the Muslim world universally despises violence.
Equally untrue to claim that thugs in, for example, Northern Ireland, act in the name of religion. Their actions are immediately and genuinely condemned by most Protestants and Catholics alike.
Similarly in Israel, where just a few days ago the members of a small Jewish group planning to bomb Arab targets were arrested and incarcerated.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Harakat ul-Mujahedin in Kashmir. Muslim terror gangs in the Philippines, India and the Balkans. Muslim teenagers bombing synagogues in France, Britain and Belgium. A novelist threatened with death for having an opinion, embassies invaded and trashed, journalists having their throats cut and their bodies dumped like garbage.
It's certainly true that parts of the Muslim world have been badly treated, colonized and economically deprived. But truth cries out to be heard.
There is now more money and wealth in large parts of the Muslim world than in many other places, and it doesn't seem to stop the violence and the anger.
I see passages in the Koran that appear to call for vile levels of brutality and bloodshed. Muslim friends tell me all this needs interpretation, and that the Bible is just the same.
Of the first, I am yet to be convinced. Of the second, I totally disagree. The old covenant tells a story in which terrible as well as wonderful events occur. The central messages, however, are of justice and peace.
Added to this is the fact that for Christians, everything must be viewed through the prism of the New Testament.
Let me be direct. This consistent and ideological cult of blood and death simply does not exist today among Jews and Christians, or among members of most non-monotheistic faiths.
It may well be that Islam is at a particularly difficult and confused stage in its evolution, but then Muslims tell me their faith is unchanging.
Other religions certainly have used violence to pursue their ends, but most if not all have realized the error of their ways. We cannot constantly refer back to early Medieval Spain and cite Muslim tolerance, which was true in its day. But today, we also have to observe the present and count the number of Muslim terror groups that roam the world.
Change has to come from within. Until that happens, many of the bullies, the bigots and the bad of the world will listen to the cries of Islam.
You seem to have a difficult time with these things, so let me help you out. Catholics do not teach that molesting children is permissible. It teaches that is sinful - as, btw, are the cover-ups.
I suggest YOU read the Koran and see that it DOES teach that killing infidels - like Christians and Jews - is a virtue.
While you have breakfast with your frineds, ask them if that is or isnt in the Koran.
BTW, were you in Mecca long ago, you would have been tolerated only until the "prophet" gained majority. Then, the bloodbath would have included you.
Maybe not, I sense they could easily convert you..have a nice, morally-equivalent day
I'm not dining with my enemies. I know my friends. I know who to trust. They are always welcome in my home, and I theirs. You, no.
I've been in countries with heavy Moslem populations, and I am way too polite and courteous to go into someone else's home and declaim Jesus, evangelize, or otherwise toot a horn. As my hosts encourage discussion, I participate. But I'm not a slob to insult my hosts. And I don't consider my duty to convert others to my way of thinking. Their thoughts and beliefs are their private property.
I've got news for you: that "aroma" has more to do with their personal hygiene than with breakfast.
Infidel does not mean some store-front self-proclaimed evangelist can declare anybody as an infidel and thus give me a mandate, and absolution, to go kill.
That's what I learned in Riyadh, and over breakfast this morning.
Mecca? The Holy site? IF I was there, it would be by invitation, and I'd be safer than the streets of south Chicago. Or Miami.
Convert? Many have tried, many different religions. My houseguests know better, we just enjoy our trust and friendship.
Not at all. It's still heading right where it always has - straight into the pits of hell. May it arrive very, very soon...
A cosmetic act, since it has been proven that the Saudi government financially supports terrorist groups and individuals worldwide -- not to mention the vitriolic anti-Semitic and anti-American spew that regularly appears in their government-controlled press.
To hold Saudi Arabia as a model of Islamic tolerance or virtue in any respect is, frankly, outrageous.
The other incidents of Islamic self-correction you mention are the purely anecdotal and local acts of a few -- contrast these with the outrage and public condemnation of priestly sexual abuse by the Catholic laity.
Representatives of Catholic lay groups, and members of the clergy, are regularly quoted in the press, and seen on TV, condemning the actions of the both the predator priests and the hierarchy that shielded them. Many are now complaining that the reforms don't go far enough.
Contrast this with the actions of Mosque leaders and Muslims in case after case -- instead of public condemnation of both terrorist acts and terrorist support within their ranks, there is not only constant denial, but lawsuits, threats and outcries from American Muslim organizations against anyone who dares to criticize them or their religion, and many who advocate change in the Islamic faith or Islamic law live under constant death threats, or are ostracized, shunned or deported from Islamic countries.
Did you learn in Riyadh as well, that if more than 3 Christians get together to have a private meeting, they can be arrested and thrown into jail, in Saudi Arabia?
As a unaligned deist I was welcomed at a social function of Jews and Muslims who publically, media invited and present, firmly denounced terrorism of all flavors. Made all four major local tv news, and print. Key speakers wore their traditional religous garb.
At the close, we ALL prayed to our one God, in unison, for peace.
You didn't see it, I'm sorry.
I go out of my way to find goodness, and I do.
We did, often, and no problem. Maybe we could have been by some weird law, but we did, no problem, with knowledge of and with occasional participation of, our local hosts.
We sure as hell didn't parade a statue of the Pope down main street, but I wouldn't do that in Belfast, either.
To make a long story short, my daughter finally gave in and converted to Islam basically so she and her husband would be allowed to go to Kuwait and attend his brother's month-long wedding ceremonies--the family now lives and works in Kuwait. They have given her a new name; the name I gave her when she was born isn't good enough. She must wear their dress even when she is in her own country and they visit here. My daughter says that her conversion is merely to keep her inlaws happy.
They have never bothered to meet us. We don't count because we aren't Muslims.
In Muslim countries, Christians are "tolerated" if they pay a special tax, never mention their religion to anyone, live by Islamic religious law, and never build a church or even repair existing, historic churches without official permission (which is never given).
I am sure my daughter's inlaws are nice people, but they are NOT tolerant in any way.
By the way, they all became U.S. citizens so that the father would get an automatic, large raise in his job in Kuwait (U.S. citizens are paid more than Pakistani citizens there for some reason). Only my son-in-law is serious about being an American. He has assimliated quite well, but he still defers completely to his family because if he didn't, they would have nothing to do with him.
Actually, I'd say you live in an alternate universe.
In the end, they were just crooks who eventually got their due rewards and passed into history.
We still have crooks, very few of which would cite scripture as their defense.
Only Islam seems able to merge evil acts into relegion while transcending ethnicity (at least on the surface).
No, it's been just starting.
it's been converting from sword fight bravery perception tests to nuke'em bravery perception tests.
Before committing to a marriage, each partner should check out the other's family medical history, religious leanings, and especially motivation and ambition.
Yes, love is blind.........but without open eyes it can also be very deadly!!
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