Bush praises Islam for its 'morality'

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | Dec 6, 2002 | Bill Sammon

[robowombat]

Bush praises Islam for its 'morality' By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Bush yesterday removed his shoes, entered a mosque and praised Islam for inspiring "countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality."

For the second time since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president yesterday visited Washington's oldest mosque, the Islamic Center, where Muslims from 75 nations gather to worship. Mr. Bush marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by praising Islam as a hopeful religion of mercy and tolerance.

"Islam affirms God's justice and insists on man's moral responsibility," said the president, flanked by a half-dozen imams. "Islam gave birth to a rich civilization of learning that has benefited mankind." The overture to Muslims came four days after religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Mr. Bush "ignores history" by not acknowledging that Islam is "violent at its core."

In an interview with The Washington Times last month, Mr. Robertson said he understood the president's political need for support from the Muslim world in the war on terrorism, but said the president should not speak about Islam as a religion and that he "is not elected as chief theologian." The conservative commentator accused the president of succumbing to "political correctness" by praising the religion of terrorists who attacked America on September 11.

Mr. Robertson repeated that accusation on ABC's "This Week." The host, former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos called the disagreement "a theological dispute which is driving a political wedge between President Bush and some of his conservative Christian allies."

That characterization was disputed yesterday by the White House. "This may be an area where they disagree," a senior administration official said of Mr. Bush and his conservative Christian allies. "But there are areas of agreement."

The director of the Islamic Center, Abdullah Khouj, praised the president's visit and told him that it demonstrated "the value of human tolerance, a virtue taught by Islam and practiced here in America."

The president's visit came one day after a Pew Foundation poll found widespread anti-Americanism in some Muslim nations. With the United States preparing for war with Iraq, the administration is eager to mitigate rising tensions on the "Arab street."

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Mr. Bush "acknowledged the United States has a job to do and we have to bring people together between the United States and the Muslim world."

To that end, Mr. Bush praised American Muslims for "upholding our nation's ideals of liberty and justice in a world at peace." "Millions of our fellow Americans practice the Muslim faith," said Mr. Bush, a born-again Christian. "They lead lives of honesty and justice and compassion."

Mr. Robertson first criticized Mr. Bush in The Washington Times interview last month. When Mr. Stephanopoulos reminded him of this quote, Mr. Robertson refused to back down from his assessment of the president's view of Islam. "It ignores history," he said. "Any student of history knows that it's not a peaceful religion." "It's violent at its core," he said. "There is absolute virulent hatred of Jews, and the idea that every Jew has got to be killed before the culmination of the age. That's what Islam teaches, and I think that's violent."

Other conservative religious figures have spoken out in recent months against Mr. Bush's frequent statements about the peaceful nature of Islam, including the Rev. Franklin Graham and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the latter of whom called Islam's prophet Muhammad a "terrorist."

Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan disagreed. "The president believes that America is a nation that welcomes people of all faiths — Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and many others," he told The Times. "He's made it very clear that the war on terrorism is not a war about religion. It's a war about good vs. evil."

Mr. Bush is not the only administration official making overtures to Muslims in recent weeks. Others who have participated in Ramadan events include National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill.

[Uncle Miltie]

Separately, the Washington Times reports that the Islamic Center of Washington is funded directly by the Saudis, and that political content is forbidden in the Imam's speeches.

Only while in Saudi Arabia in Arabic can they claim the Jews caused 9/11.

[SunStar]

The United States of America -- Home of embarrasingly stupid Political Correct speech fascism

[ml/nj]

Islamic society used to be far more advanced than Christian society, so when Bush praises it as having many great achievements, he is correct.

What, Exactly, are the Great Achievements of the Islamic World?

ML/NJ

[Sonny M]

When people ask if Islam is a violent religion, bush should simply act like the so called moderate clerics when they were asked about 9/11......They said nothing, most people in america don't like islam, they don't want to hear it bashed, but they certainly don't want to hear it praised. No need to be politically correct, let the deafining sound be our response to this ideology with bloody borders.

[crystalk]

THAT isn't morality! That is just locking the women away in a kharam, so that no men could possibly get TO them, and they also cannot get OUT to the men!

So far from being "morality," such is a surrender to mortmain and to the idea that humans are just raging beasts [sexually] who are not CAPABLE of morality!

Can it be that Bush doesn't know these things? I knew them when I was 12.

[crystalk]

That is nothing more than a hallowed myth.

[A2J]

Islamic society used to be far more advanced than Christian society, so when Bush praises it as having many great achievements, he is correct.

If true, at what cost? The imprisonment of untold millions through fear?

Yeah, way more "advanced."

[CanisMajor2002]

*grin*

Not enough thanks is thrown around here, so I'll say: Thanks for the info.

[Bob Z.]

Islam, scientifically has given the world so little of value it could be written on a gum wrapper.

Robert Boyle - scientist and chemist

Michael Faraday - physicist, formulated laws electromagnetic induction, did groundwork for making dynamos, electric motors and transformers

James Joule - science of thermodynamics

William Thompson a.k.a. Lord Kelvin - thermodynamics and the Kelvin, temperature scale

Johannes Kepler - laws of planetary motion (more on Kepler)

Carl Linnaeus - botanist, professor

Matthew Maury - leading scientist in oceanography and hydrography

James Clerk Maxwell - electromagnetic theory

Samuel F.B. Morse - invented the telegraph, Morse code is named after him

Isaac Newton - laws of gravity, motion and calculus

Blaise Pascal - invented early calculator, helped discover the theory of probability

Louis Pasteur - invented vaccination, immunization and pasteurization

This is just a small list. Basically, all Islam has to offer the world is terrorism.....the more closely you follow it, the more you hate America, and Israel and the more dangerous to the world you become. It is one of the most useless (and dangerous!) faiths going.

Without Christianity, modern science would not even exist. Even atheists have acknowledged that.

Without Islam, we would not have hijackings, homicide bombings, kidnappings, sniper attacks, blah blah blah. His,

Bob Z.

[Walkin Man]

Now you will hear that our only Islamic enemies are the "bad muslims" the rest, the vast majority, are nice and peaceful.

Hmmm...

Want to know what the most popular toy is that all these nice peaceful muslims are buying for their kids?

Bin Laden toy a 'must have' in Muslim world

December 06, 2002, 07:17 AM

There is one toy for sale in the festival markets of Karachi that catches the eye as Eid approaches. It is a distinctive, bearded figurine, riding 'shotgun' in a military jeep, and its proving to be a big hit with mothers and fathers buying holiday presents for their youngsters. Toy crazes are a common theme in the build up to Christmas holidays in the west with certain 'must have' presents disappearing off shelves in a flash, parents queuing up for hours or even coming to blows to make sure their offspring has the latest thing. The story is no different in the Muslim world as Eid approaches but one of this year's 'must haves' would probably be banned from sale in many parts of the west, an Osama bin Laden action figure complete with military jeep and bodyguards. "As you know Osama is very popular in the whole world, the same thing is happening in Pakistan, people like him and he has become a celebrity now," said Imran, a young boy eyeing up the goods on offer at a Karachi toy store. "Children like Osama's car. They want to buy toys like Osama's cars or Osama's guns," echoed Eram, a young girl showing an equally keen interest in the toy. According to a toy stall holder, Naseer, some parents were even paying up to $4 in advance to insure they could become the proud owners of one of the dolls.

http://www.sabcnews.com/world/the_middle_east/0,1009,48819,00.html

Need I say more???

[crystalk]

WADR that is STILL nothing more than a hallowed myth. You are proving my point, it IS hallowed, IS politically correct.

Too bad you are still HALLOWING it, but I will just keep on HOLLOWING it, and we will see who beats it first.

Oh, wade a minnit, you are BUILDING IT UP!!!

[mutters under breath]nuther ex christian

[tessalu]

In Kandahar, Afghanistan, the Muslim men are known for having boy lovers and are called "ashnas". The men may even be married and have children. Sodomy does exist in the Muslim world, so I do not know just why they are so moral. In Islam, Paradise is described more like a house of ill fame, where each Muslim male gets 72 perpetual virgins, so it is worse than the Mustang Ranch,
and I am not interested in going there.

[Paul Ross]

Islamic society used to be far more advanced than Christian society, so when Bush praises it as having many great achievements, he is correct.

Wrongo! What you and Bush are espousing is a fundamentally false, revisionist-apologist history of Islam, when he praises the 'learning' of Islam. The ACTUAL history shows that it was a number of subjugated Christians and Jews who provided the overwhelming examples of 'learning' from Math to astronomy and architecture that were touted by apologists as 'Islamic'. These conquered peoples often had to produce some intellectually advantageous product to keep them around...and without slit throats. And even then it didn't always work.

Bush is also reticent about acknowledging how many people would LEAVE Islam if they ONLY COULD. Maybe the majority. Who knows for sure. After all, Murderous retaliation awaits the ones who try it. Witness Salman Rushdie. Witness the fatwah's even today by Muslims in Britain! So instead of a 'billion' people finding 'comfort' in Islam, its that they HAVE NO CHOICE. Either you say you believe, and stay quiet about critizing anyone more devout than you, or you will die. We used to say in the conservative critique of the Democrats was that they saw no emenies on the left.And the 'moderate' Islamics only cover up for the REAL, authentic, and true-to-the Koran version that is going to be ultimately implemented in EVERY nation...as it has in EVERY other nation already under Muslim dominance. So to be piteously and obtusely blind to what we are up against, doesn't jolly along the enemies of religious freedom in the listed countries....it just persuades them (particularly since the Islamo-immigration flood is unstemmed in any degree) that we are too weak to oppose their FURTHERING the terror campaign, and encouraging them to continue the charade over 'moderate islam'.

So the only interest which is advanced long term is the jihadists, while the U.S. security is undermined, both domestically and abroad. And I can just see Rove and Card bamboozling the Prez into thinking that these kinds of stunts are 'win-win' and without any actual national security cost.

[Paul Ross]

And what does the Holocaust say about our society?

The Holocaust says nothing negative about OUR society. It was the result not of OUR Judeo-Christian society, but the anti-Christian, atheistic Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany. Adolf Hitler hated Christianity with a passion. Typically, it is the lamest of Marxist misrepresentations to contend the Holocaust was somehow Christian, (typically because the Vatican caved in to Hitler's/Mussolini's threats and stayed silent). In fact, of course, It was OUR Judeo-Christian society which clobbered the NAZI's and rescued the surviving holocaust victims. Meanwhile, the NAZI's found fertile country in the muslim countries, even having auxilary units among them, such as Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovinia. And where do we find even today the fevered belief in, and television shows based on the NAZI-created anti-jewish hoax 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'? I'll Give you three guesses. Who do you think is demanding a renewed holocaust today?

And who is standing four-square against it? Only us.

[Paul Ross]

The sciences and politics benefited the most from a large Islamic Empire, which one could argue was far more tolerable of other religions than Western society was before the United States. Leaps in Astronomy, Medicine, physics, mathematics, chemistry, art, language, and music all were brought in from the Islamic world to our own.

Durant gets it backwards. First, no western society was more tolerant of religions than the Romans and Greeks, who were essentially polytheists. The Greeks even built the statue in Athens to the 'Unknown' God in case they had forgetten any. As to the sciences, this is perhaps the apologists of Islam's lie that is almost as great as "islam is a religion of peace." The Islamic world merely stole these ideas from the Christian and jewish intellectuals who they subjugated. The Mullahs and Caliphates themselves did not encourage intellectual progress. They kept the jewish and Christian intellectuals around so long as it was convenient to keep them around, and profit from their inventions. Your ideas about taxation are also off base. The empire of Islam grew at the explosive rate it did because it taxed as spoils all of its victories on the field of battle. And it continued to tax all those at 1/5th all those who refused to convert. It stripped the wherewithal of the populace to resist. Gross poverty ensued wherever the Jihad's armies went. Vast wealth resided in its sultans, who were then lauded by Islamic apologists as depicting the condition of the people. The prophet, and later the Caliphate, funnelled much of the spoils all back to Mecca. And the jihadists, also getting a lot of earthly spoil, were promised to be at the Prophet's hand, and to have their own 72 virgins in Heavan if they 'martyred' themselves in the cause of holy war.

[Z-28]

Are we confusing Islam with al-Qaeda?