One of my favorite verses from the Bible...I find myself quoting it several times a day.
Posted on 08/20/2002 7:14:52 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
It has been said that education does not make fools; it merely develops them. A quick survey of American education in the post-September 11th landscape reveals that the blissful ignorance of the uneducated is being traded for something else - namely, indoctrination.
The most high-profile educational debacle of late is centered at the University of North Carolina. Incoming freshmen at UNC are being required to read "Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations" by Michael Sells. The book is comprised of the 35 earliest suras - the basic division of the Qur'an.
The students are required to read the book and take part in an orientation week, faculty-guided discussion for "a couple of hours" according to UNC Chancellor James Moeser. UNC officials want the 4,200 transfer students and freshmen coming to Chapel Hill to understand something about the September 11th hijackers and their motives.
Last month, three in-coming UNC freshmen brought a lawsuit. The plaintiffs consist of one evangelical Protestant, one Catholic and one Jew, and remain anonymous, being listed as John Doe No. 1, John Doe No. 2 and Jane Roe.
The students' pleas for a restraining order against the orientation program fell on unsympathetic ears last week when U.S. District Judge Carlton Tilley rejected the request. So the Qur'an discussion will proceed.
A less visible but more outlandish "educational" project has been taking place in the Byron Union School District in Byron, California, which has led two families there to file suit.
In the Byron district's plan, students were doing much more than reading the Qur'an. Students were to choose a Muslim name, dress themselves in Muslim garb and, in a simulation of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, they were to give up their lunch one day. Perhaps most offensive, the students took place in a mock jihad game which the students described as "fun."
All this leaves one with the most basic question: Why?
Certainly educational advocates of tolerance and diversity (and all the ulterior agenda that accompany those concepts) are in favor of promoting a culture that is not a Western culture. But in their zealousness to be anti-European, anti-Christian and anti-American, they have set a most dangerous precedent.
Placed into proper perspective, what has happened in almost unfathomable. The hijackers of September 11th were radical adherents to Islam, whose penultimate goal is to see the world come under Islam (the term meaning the very will of God Almighty as set forth in the Qur'an).
If we don't understand the endgame of religious fanatics, we don't understand anything.
There has been a litany of jingoistic statements that the Islamic terrorist forces hate America either because America is prosperous or because America is free or because America is the friend of Israel - and while there is an element of truth in these statements, the unpleasant truth is that America is hated because it is not a Muslim country. America is the land of the infidel, America does not recognize the will of Allah, America does not know the truth set forth in the Qur'an.
Contrary to what some civil libertarians may say, Al Queda doesn't care if Americans loose their "freedoms" because they don't recognize American-style freedoms as such.
They do not claim victory if the U.S. government becomes more intrusive in the lives of its citizens. (The fight against intrusive government is and will remain the preeminent domestic fight for all Americans, regardless of who our external enemies may be.) To these radicals, there is only freedom in following the edicts of the Qur'an and in
subservience to Allah's will.
In the mind of the terrorists of Al Queda, the attacks of September 11th were not only a political and military victory but a spiritual one. While the 19 hijackers carried out their mission with levels of destruction and devastation in excess of the planners' best hopes, it is in the reaction of the American government and American academia that they see a grand and glorious triumph.
Since the day of the attack, the president of the United States has called Islam "peaceful" and "noble." American students now read the Qur'an and mimic Islamic religious practices in state-funded schools -- something not granted to the long-established Judeo-Christian creeds.
The Islamic fundamentalists must see all these signs as a great blessing from Allah. Their God has obviously used the successful jihad of September 11th to open the eyes of Americans to the truth of the Qur'an.
As the American president lauds their religion and American youth now are required to read their holy writ, how can any radical Muslim help but think that Allah is on their side in this new Crusade?
(C.T. Rossi writes on contemporary politics and culture for the Free Congress Foundation.)
Free Congress Foundation
Oh, you mean like our enemy does?
Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs by Ergun Mehmet Caner, Emir Fethi Caner
One of my favorite verses from the Bible...I find myself quoting it several times a day.
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