I just found it today. I don't know how long it has been out. It could have been out for a year for all I know. As to why this view is not more widely disseminated, I don't know. Could it be that viewpoints such as this are just too tame to garner attention? If he were calling for death to infidels, we would probably see it plastered all over the place.
Comment: Beware of moral equivalency - the Rev. Phelps (as bad as he may be) has, to my knowledge, NEVER commissioned anyone to fly airliners into buildings.
Don't change the meaning of my statement. I was making the point that one person does not define a complete religion.
"Don't change the meaning of my statement. I was making the point that one person does not define a complete religion."
There - I reposed your statement in its entirety.
Without citing percentages (because I don't know them), I will say a LARGE segment of Moslems are of the "death to Infidels" variety; while a SMALL (statisticly insignificant)number of Christians subscribe to Phelps view.
I'm as "live and let live" as anyone, but when someone wants to do me harm it would seem to be proper to respond. I happen to reside in western NY state - 50 miles from where a terrorist cell was busted just yesterday. How many more such cells are there? We don't know - but we'd better hope the FBI or some other entity does.
Does Phelps support similar such cells bent on the DESTRUCTION of people with which he disagrees? I don't think so.
Very good point, unassailable in itself.
I'd feel better about it if I'd been reading a sea of essays like this emanating from Islamic scholars starting a year ago. I'd feel better if he cited all the passages to which he alludes. I'd feel better if every spokesman for Islam or Arabs who I see in the media were not primarily concerned with whining and complaining about how unfairly "his people" are being treated — rather than twisting himself in a pretzel to assure all that he unconditionally and in the harshest terms condemns the murderers and all who then enabled and now praise them.
The contrast between the behavior of public Moslems as a whole over the last year, and how public Christianoids as a whole certainly would have behaved had such an act been committed by professed Christians — no matter how crazed and heretical — has been made often enough that I won't repeat it.
But it is as valid a point as yours.
So I guess I have to say that your truly sage dictum, one person does not define a complete religion, cuts two ways. Your lone essayist doesn't define Islam, either — particularly given the very loud, very public, and fairly univocal behavior of Moslems over the last year.
Dan
You're oversimplifying the reasons that this article hasn't been widely disseminated, even within Muslim countries: the governments of said countries NEED the radicals to A:) keep the regular Muslim Joes and Janes who want to decent, quiet life on a tight leash, lest they get TIRED of all the crap and pull a backlash, and B:) because those same governments 1:) contain a proportion of said radicals, usually with ties in the military, which causes the 2:) very real possibility that IF said government doesn't at least look the other way and let the radicals operate their little organized crime ring, said RADICALS WILL PULL AN IRAN on them. Capische?