Posted on 08/13/2002 1:41:35 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:08:07 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
August 13, 2002 -- 'I AM surprised at your lack of courage, Mr. Pipes," one reader scolded me. "Your point of view is for people who believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus," opined another. "You really dropped the ball on this one!" "I hope you are not beginning to lose your nerve." "Totally wrong." Or, more charitably: "Maybe your hope is overshadowing your understanding of the truth."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Why is that, Mr. Pipes? Why indeed?
They've had over a dozen centuries to "modernize"; hasn't happened yet.
To what do you attribute this belief that they must adapt? All I see from the Muslim world is an intense desire to remain in the 7th century and kill anyone who doesn't share their views.
At the rate they're going, the only thing they'll "adapt" to is annihilation.
Finally a more reasonable approach to be heard.
The light dawns. But, it is too frightening for Pipes to contemplate.
My approach has the benefit of offering a realistic policy to deal with a major global problem.
The triumph of fear and appeasement over judgement.
In conclusion, a reflection: Americans have acquired an impressive knowledge of Islam. Contrary to the incessant bleating by apologists for militant Islam about American ignorance of this topic, my readers know what they are talking about. Their critiques are sometimes erudite .... sometimes eloquent .....
These readers, surely, are not typical of American opinion, but their informed antagonism to Islam bears remarking. It is likely to have a larger political role as Islam ever-more becomes central a topic of discussion in the West.
As the Germans say Wissen ist Macht -- knowledge is power.
Islam's past and present are horrifying, almost too awful to contemplate. Despite what some have said here and elsewhere, it presents no parallel with Christianity, which never animated a program of continental conquest. The Inquisition was a fleeting blot on Christianity's escutcheon, and is regretted universally today. The Crusades were a response to the Muslim penetration of Eastern Europe, a matter which Dr. Pipes would appreciate. That that response was overenthusiastically endorsed by temporal rulers anxious to export their domestic brigands to some faraway place has nothing to do with the religious matter.
Dr. Pipes would have us judge Islam not on its past or present, but on its potential future. Yet the events and trends of the day give us no reason to believe that Islam will become anything other than what it currently is: a brutal, misogynistic, totalitarian code that explicitly obstructs both material and political progress.
Either Islam is impeding the development of the cultures it dominates, or it provides a rationale under which they can refuse to accept their backwardness. In either case, it stands in the way. As practiced and interpreted from its sacred documents, neither of these influences can be corrected. Therefore, the question before us is not whether Islam can be reformed, but whether it can be replaced.
What would replace it?
Whatever religion might supplant present-day Islam -- and it might go by that name -- to make it fit for human consumption, it would have to share the fundamental moral underpinnings of Judaism and Christianity: basically, the Ten Commandments. It would have to inform its adherents that they are not superior to non-adherents, nor possessed of superior rights, simply because they accept it. To become the full moral equal of the other great faiths, it would have to incorporate the ethic of benevolence, the desire to see good in and do good to all men, provided only that they respond in kind: Christ's version of the Golden Rule.
Have I said that it must become Christianity? Not quite. Christianity incorporates certain doctrinal requirements about the divinity of Christ and His purpose in becoming a man. Though illuminating and inspiring, these tenets are not necessary to the detoxification of Islam. (In fact, the Trinitarian assertion was the entering wedge by which Mohammed established his new creed, since the Monophysite Christians among whom he preached did not accept the triune nature of God as proclaimed by orthodox Christianity.) Christ did not come to Earth to proclaim a new Law, but to remind us of the old one. He said so Himself: "I come not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it."
If Dr. Pipes envisions some other transformation of Islam that would render it a safe neighbor for us of the Judeo-Christian West, he'd better make it explicit. For my part, I doubt that any other satisfactory evolution is possible.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
I agree."We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Those evil powers have used earthly powers to 'form' Christianity and most of it is man-made religious organization. systems of activity that come from man with the help of evil forces.
The Father did not have this in mind for the Church. The Church is governed by the Holy Spirit....HIS Holy Spirit and we are doing a poor job today of listening to Him.
I hope so!
Well, islam has not changed in 1300 years! Why would it change now? To protect the "feelings" of teary-eyed, bleeding-heart, left-wing liberals and modern mores?
NOT A CHANCE!
Christianity was not really founded or intended by ANYbody on Earth, it seems. It just came to be because it was needed so badly. It is a spontaneous growth becuase Greco-Roman, European culture needed a religion so badly, and so does it now, for that matter, and had better get back to its foundation.
America without Christianity is something that the Jews who have been willing that, will not like to see, let us hope they do a 180 in time.
A cursory examination of Spanish history under the scimitars of the muslim slavemasters will enlighten you otherwise.
Screwing female children (ala the prophet Mohammed) wasn't a part of Christian culture. (Priests screwing male children is a sinister manifestation of Vatican II-and to the delight of the proponents of a homosexual agenda- when the Church heirarchy conspired with satan to make sweeping changes that included allowing gaggles of homosexuals into the priesthood.) Islam and the homosexuals belong in the same category.
Your statement is, in total, false.
Islam can be reformed, but tough love may be needed. When many of the Islamist maniacs who are killing innocents now are hunted down and destroyed, you might see a modernization of other Muslim societies. It won't be easy, but I refuse to believe that all Muslims are evil. If you knew my ex-professor, you'd know that to be true.
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