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Islam makes more sense than the crap that the average evangelist spouts. Some people lampoon the whole 72 virgins thing, but the average Evangelical is just following his own version of a cargo cult. Anybody heard of the "Left Behind" series?
Having said that, Bush doesn't care about Muslims. He really doesn't. He doesn't care about anybody and he's just making politically correct generalities. If he cared about Muslims he wouldn't have levelled a Muslim country and made millions of them refugees, all because a certain mustachioed leader tried to "kill my dad".
Actually I tend to agree based on my own experiences. However, for those that have an irrational fear of all Muslims I was hoping that President Bush could allay their fears.
I don't think I have an "irrational" fear of Muslims...I think my fear is altogether rational. I think there are "good" and "bad" muslims, just like any other religion.....but I honestly feel the "good" muslims are those willing to DEFY the precepts of Islam, and to go AGAINST its harsh, uncompromising positions. The "bad" Muslims are the ones who faithfully carry out the commands of "The Prophet".
I'm not a student of religion, and anyone who was could "blow me out of the water" in a debate. But I do know that Christianity replaced a vengeful, harsh, unforgiving Old Testament world, with Christ's forgiving, "turn-the-other-cheek, love your enemies, do unto others" message in the NEW testament. And that happened long before Mohammed was born. Christians may indeed commit many offenses to this day--but when they do, they are SCORNED by their fellow Christians, not praised. Big difference. A "martyr", in Christianity, is "one willing to be put to death before renuncing his faith"--it has nothing to do with blowing up innocent people or little children. In Christianity, we call that "being a homicidal murdering psychopath", not a martyr---and we normally don't hold posthumous parades in their honor. Big BIG difference.
There's no "New Testament" in Islam. Allah is still a hard-nosed, vengeful, punitive god, and there's very little mentioned in the Quran, as far as I know, about any sort of forgiveness or compromise. One is commanded to "obliterate" the enemies of Islam, not to "live with" them, "forgive", or "get along" with them. Such compromises actually invite the DERISION of true believers.
Any muslim who wants to "go against the current", and to get along with us "infidels", of course, should be welcomed. But I DON'T think that true Islam is a religion of peace...and I DON'T think I'd want anything I believed in to be endorsed by George Bush....that's almost laughable....George Bush says a LOT of things..doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about...
Islam makes more sense than the crap that the average evangelist spouts. Some people lampoon the whole 72 virgins thing, but the average Evangelical is just following his own version of a cargo cult. Anybody heard of the "Left Behind" series?
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Religious faith, by definition, is that which can't be "proven" in the everyday sense. You are free to accept or reject it according to your own conscience. But rest assured that, even if you reject the evangelical Christian's message and call it "crap", the worst he'll probably do is call you a name--or try and make you feel guilty--or tell you you're "going to hell". He probably will NOT attempt to blow you up, kill your family, or put out a death threat which forces you into hiding. And if he DOES, he'll be called a "criminal" by his fellow believers, not a martyr.
Religious faith, by definition, is that which can't be "proven" in the everyday sense. You are free to accept or reject it according to your own conscience. But rest assured that, even if you reject the evangelical Christian's message and call it "crap", the worst he'll probably do is call you a name--or try and make you feel guilty--or tell you you're "going to hell". He probably will NOT attempt to blow you up, kill your family, or put out a death threat which forces you into hiding. And if he DOES, he'll be called a "criminal" by his fellow believers, not a martyr.
I don't think I have an "irrational" fear of Muslims...I think my fear is altogether rational. I think there are "good" and "bad" muslims, just like any other religion.....but I honestly feel the "good" muslims are those willing to DEFY the precepts of Islam, and to go AGAINST its harsh, uncompromising positions. The "bad" Muslims are the ones who faithfully carry out the commands of "The Prophet".
I'm not a student of religion, and anyone who was could "blow me out of the water" in a debate. But I do know that Christianity replaced a vengeful, harsh, unforgiving Old Testament world, with Christ's forgiving, "turn-the-other-cheek, love your enemies, do unto others" message in the NEW testament. And that happened long before Mohammed was born. Christians may indeed commit many offenses to this day--but when they do, they are SCORNED by their fellow Christians, not praised. Big difference. A "martyr", in Christianity, is "one willing to be put to death before renuncing his faith"--it has nothing to do with blowing up innocent people or little children. In Christianity, we call that "being a homicidal murdering psychopath", not a martyr---and we normally don't hold posthumous parades in their honor. Big BIG difference.
There's no "New Testament" in Islam. Allah is still a hard-nosed, vengeful, punitive god, and there's very little mentioned in the Quran, as far as I know, about any sort of forgiveness or compromise. One is commanded to "obliterate" the enemies of Islam, not to "live with" them, "forgive", or "get along" with them. Such compromises actually invite the DERISION of true believers.
Any muslim who wants to "go against the current", and to get along with us "infidels", of course, should be welcomed. But I DON'T think that true Islam is a religion of peace...and I DON'T think I'd want anything I believed in to be endorsed by George Bush....that's almost laughable....George Bush says a LOT of things..doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about...
I knew this would be right down your alley, mac. Your comments about Bush I would say are on the mark.
My issue with the whole Christian new testament deal is that when push comes to shove many of these "loveydovey" Christians revert right back to the Old Testament. I don't see a whole lot of scorn happening either, except from the evil lefties of course.
I think we give ourselves too much credit in patting ourselves on the back about how much more civilized and humane Judeo-Christian societies are. As many Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere can attest to. Lots of innocents blown up or killed over there, collateral damage, too bad. There have been plenty of innocents killed over there and atrocities that have taken place by our side, as I know you are aware. Or as the "illegal aliens" might agree. Or gays. Or the poor and homeless. Etc, Etc. A lot of Hate being preached out there. And I am aware not all Christians are like this, but some of the loudest are. And I am not trying to defend the "barbarism " of some of these Muslim societies either...lots of hard core bad guys over there...but I think the average Joe Arab is more worried about his family and putting food on the table then killing all the infidels...maybe we need to back off and not fuel the fires of religious zealotry on all sides...or would that be "cutting and running"?
OTOH, Christians sat on their thumbs while the Holocaust happened. If you want to judge a religion by its results, Christianity is no better than any other religion. Just because some Muslims are percieved as harsh or barbaric by Westerners/non-Muslims doesn't mean that is a fair analysis of the religion as a whole. Islam has just as complex a theology as Christianity or Judaism and has a large literary and scholarly tradition. The Western world owes alot to Muslims. Without Muslims, Europe would probably be stuck in the dark ages for hundreds of years with Germanic barbarians killing each other over the scraps of Roman civilization. Muslims advanced disciplines like science (Arabs invented distillation) and astronomy (lots of Arabic names for stars, Altair, Betelgeuse, Algol, etc.), mathematics (algebra), medicine (plastic surgery, glasses, eye surgery,), accounting, literature (romantic fiction started in al-Andalus, Spain) and a host of other things that Europeans had lost in the Dark Ages.
OTOH, Christians sat on their thumbs while the Holocaust happened. If you want to judge a religion by its results, Christianity is no better than any other religion.
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I still say, though, that the very UNIQUE principles upon which the US was founded were "thought up" by some very sincere men of good character who got MOST of their "upbringing" in a Christian atmosphere. It was the unique "turn the other cheek", "love your enemy". "put others before yourself" philosophy which made possible the very novel idea of a nation dedicated to taking care of EVERYONE..even those you found "hard to like".
All this was the doing of a small, select group of Protestants, and would NOT, I believe, have taken place under any other group. There are plenty of Catholic countries, Muslim countries, and others, but in no other case has there occurred the unique combination of "do-good" passion, tempered by a strong capacity for guilt, and a reverence for "free-thinking" that prompted the founding of the US. So great was the status of free thought, in fact, that these early Christian founding fathers even specifically guaranteed the right to be FREE of their own Christianity...you were actually free to disagree!!...pretty unique, I think, and still pretty rare among the world's nations and religions.
Is the US a "Christian" nation? By definition, no, because the early founding fathers went out of their way, in their Christian open-mindedness, rationality, and concern for all, to make sure it was NOT looked at as an exclusively "Christian" nation. Muslims, Catholics, Jews---NO ONE else, I don't think, would have done this. So the US today is a SECULAR nation, that has benefitted hugely by being founded by a small group of a certain very tolerant type of Christians.
I think it's a misnomer to suggest "we"..(the US) are "At war with Islam". We are secular--we don't go to war with religions. Unfortunately. Islam doesn't have any comparable "Freedom of thought". To the Muslim mind, an attack upon any of them, is BY DEFINITION, an attack upon Islam. They cannot conceive otherwise. They think in "tribal", black-and-white terms, and we don't. Americans just don't think of each other as "brothers" in the way that Muslims do.
As far as your praise of the glories of the Muslim past, all that is true. The Chinese, also, made huge strides in science while Europeans were still "living in the trees". But in a sense, none of that matters in the here-and-now. The fact is, that for one reason, or many, both the Muslims and the Chinese "reverted", and stagnated, and lost their "lead". Most of this, I feel was not due to "outside aggression", but to their own internal cultural collapse. We can talk all day about what "might have been", or who once owned what--but there's no end-(and ultimately no point)--in such speculation. The fact is, that to a great degree, the society of the US stands alone in recent times as the world's best example of trying to offer hope, refuge, and sustenance to ALL....and it stands head and shoulders above most others in this regard. And it was founded by a sincere, thoughtful group of thinkers of the western Christian cultural tradition, and that's where most of its decency and freedoms are based.
Ugh, the anti (insert villain here) dogma is usually so stupid and more often than not, completely wrong. Anti Christian vitriol is particularly bad.
Was it Islam that defeated Hitler?
Buddha?
Tao?
Vishnu?
... or was it a compilation of western, hugely Christian nations?
are you implying that Hitler was a muslem?
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