Posted on 01/17/2003 6:11:48 AM PST by chance33_98
Church's sign has Muslims outraged
Florida pastor says criticism of Islam is legal and fair
Associated Press Friday, January 17, 2003
Jacksonville --- The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Florida is calling on state religious leaders to repudiate a Jacksonville Baptist church's roadside sign the group claims is anti-Muslim.
The sign outside the First Conservative Baptist Church in Jacksonville's Mandarin area reads: ''Jesus Forbade Murder. Matthew 26:52. Muhammad Approved Murder. Surah 8:65.''
Altaf Ali, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Florida, said his organization attempted to talk with the Baptist church's officials about the sign, but were rebuffed with belligerent language.
''All Americans must band together to condemn hate speech designed to divide our nation along religious and ethnic lines,'' Ali said. ''Any attempt to marginalize or vilify one religious community is an attack on all people of faith.''
The church's pastor, the Rev. Gene Youngblood, who also leads the Conservative Theological Society and Conservative Christian Academy, said he has been using the marquee-type sign to express the church's opinion for 15 years and has no plans to remove the message.
''First and foremost, are we not entitled to freedom of speech?'' Youngblood said.
Youngblood, who said he is an expert on world religions, said he had been threatened and his property vandalized. He said he has filed 13 police reports since July.
Youngblood said his church would issue a formal statement later.
Iman Zaid Malik, spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida, said some Christian friends brought the offensive sign to his attention.
''Misinformation must be rejected by all people of conscience,'' Malik said. ''This shows that the vast majority of Americans reject hate and seek a society where good overcomes the evil.''
Malik said the Quran verse indicates that those who believe and are steadfast in battle will overcome much larger armies. It is not an endorsement of murder, he said.
The verse reads: ''O Prophet [Muhammad]! Inspire the believers to conquer all fear of death when fighting, [so that] if there be twenty of you who are patient in adversity, they might overcome two hundred; and if there be one hundred of you, they might overcome one-thousand of those bent on denying the truth, because they are people who cannot grasp it.''
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the Quran also states, ''whoever murders a person . . . it will be as if he killed all mankind, and whoever saves a life, shall be regarded as if he saved all mankind.''
ON THE WEB: Council on American-Islamic Relations-Florida: www.cair-florida.org
First Conservative Baptist Church: www.conservative.edu/main.htm
The bible has more than one reference to genocide, in which a race was obliterated with God's blessing.
We just want an example.
Old Testament, say 'Hi' to any Amelekites you should meet.
That's because most people's faith resides in their heads, where it can be attacked and possibly won over with persuasive arguments, instead of in their hearts where it can never be conquered and for which one is ready to die for.
Or when McVeigh blows up the Federal building. Muhammad has been dead for over a thousand years. Individuals committed these crimes.
Ah, "HATE speech" - defined as telling the truth to those who do not want to hear or know the truth.
Stay vigilent, stay armed, and NEVER trust a muslim or a liberal (both are terrorists, they differ only in technique and weaponry.)
People like Hodar scare me.
The violent passages you refer to in the Old Testament, have been superceded by the doctrine of peace in the New Testament.
The peaceful pasages in the Quran were superceded by the later-written passages urging violence against unbelievers
Why is that so shocking? And I might clarify...that most German's living in Germany in the 1940's were Nazis or supported the Nazi Party, just as most Islamics support terrorism against Israel/America/capitalism/freedom.
Its not hard to imagine many on this thread holding a gun to a non-christian's heads and demanding they renounce their religion or die. FR seems to be full of the most un-christian christians I have ever seen.
First off...I never claimed to be Christian, so your blind judgement of me is unwarranted. Second off...most Christians I know have a pretty good idea and perspective of what good and evil is...obviously you don't. The pastor of the said church does, and is willing to stand up for what is good without worrying about appeasing or offending; kudos to him. Third off...we'll see how "christian" people are when their loved ones are seen jumping from a burning building, dying in a hijacked plane, suffering from radiation poisoning, or perhaps picking the scabs from smallpox sores. Appeasement is so much more attractive isn't it?
And would you do a patent search on mono-stable nucleotides? What does that have to do with anything? My point has been (sheesh .... 10th time?) is when anyone takes a single verse, and uses it out of context, it can be unfair. See post #62.
If you will but open your lying infidel eyes and see the truth of Q'ran, you will have everlasting peace. love and happiness. But Allah and the Prophet Muhammed, May Peace be Upon Him, are not cruel. Should you choose not to convert, Islam graciously offers you, as it has many hundreds of thousands of Christians in the Sudan, East Timor, Kosovo, Pakistan, and oh so many other places, the peace of Christian Martyrdom, and a place in Paradise as a slave of one of the Faithful.
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