Posted on 10/09/2001 3:19:08 PM PDT by Humidston
Eph 6:12: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."
Let's be cautious about talk of genocide (post 29). Justice is essential, war may be necessary, but let's stop short of blanket genocide, just because people don't worship the same God, or just because a small percentage of fanatics want to trigger Armageddon.
We can, must, and will, handle this without resorting to genocide.
I am not a scholar of Islam, or anything else, but what I believe is that Islam is a valid religion created by God for the salvation of souls. Valid religions are created by God to suit different temperaments. Each and every religion created by God goes through ebbs and flows of proper adherence by people. Hence Buddhism has been in a state of moral decline for hundreds if not thousands of years while Chistianity has been for a few decades. Hence there are Middle Eastern cities where anything and anyone is for sale, such as Baghdad, which had a long-time reputation as a dirty, disgusting city, but not always so. Perhaps we can point to supposed violent passages in the Qur'an; as in the Bible there may be individual passages which suggest a violence and bloodletting as proper usages of religion. Luckily in Christianity the Church alone has the responsibility to authoritatively interpret Scriptures, and as we are well aware there are divisions within Christendom where that authority is usurped to the detriment of indeed the entire world.
I am reminded of the Red Pioneers, basically a Boy Scout-type organization promulgated by murderous Marxist-Leninist-Communists in Russia, where they were seen as wholesome and harmless and patriotic. Generations of youths in Russia were raised in this organization, and indeed anything said against the Soviet system was seen as an attack on patriotism, Boy Scouts, and motherhood, but really the root of their society was in this murderous Communist ideology. The Russian people often times just didn't know any better, since their press was so controlled. I see a lot of the fanaticism in the Middle East the same way. There are generations of youths being taught to hate Israel and America, and anything which underscores the invalid observance of their valid religion is seen as an assault on their patriotism and way of life, albeit through the proxy of their religion, which few really adhere to in a serious way anyway.
Few of today's observant Muslims would have the ability to understand the Islamic success of a Hussein al-Hallaj, much as most Christians today would have no understanding of the Christian success of a St. Germaine or St. Francis of Assisi, much as most Hindus today would have no understanding of the Hindu success of a Sri Ramakrishna.
Face it, Islam is from Muhammad, Christianity is from God. They can not be reconciled.
I had not heard this disquieting information from a scholar regarding Islam to date, and believe the research (above) has produced very serious consequences to our future. I guess we could all hope this cleric is incorrect, but judging from the behavior of the members of the jihad, I doubt it.
God clearly allowed it. . . . and is and will use it for His purposes whether i understand it or not. . . . thankfully, He has decreed it's days are very numbered--as they are for all of us in this dimension.
So you KNOW that Islam is basically a plot of Antichrist to deceive unto destruction but you DON'T THINK it should mean it leads to violence on Earth?
Be decerning my friend . . . take a stand.
Bingo!! There it is in a nutshell!
Thanks for posting this, and remember one thing........our God IS God.
At the festival on the slope of Mount Arfat he said, "O thou signpost for the dull witted!" And when he saw all the people praying, he climbed a hill and watched them, and as they were all coming back he struck himself and cried out, "Thou exalted Lord, I know thou art pure, and I say thou art pure of all the praise of the praisers and all the worship of the worshippers and all the thoughts of the thinkers. My God! Thou knowest that I cannot fulfill the obligation of praise. Praise thou thyself in my stead, that is the true praise."
He was asked whether a contemplative has time left over for himself. "No," he said, "Time expresses the state of one who needs time for enlightenment; but whoever cannot be content with his state is a knower. That is, one must be able to say, in the words of Mohammed, 'I have times with God when no angel, no cherub even, can grasp me.'"
He was asked, "What is the way to God?" He answered, "Pull back both your feet, and you will be with him - one foot from out of this life, the other foot from out of the other life."
Likewise he said, "Knowing means seeing all things, but also being submerged, like all things, in the Absolute."
He said, "When the servant has arrived at the rung of knowledge, God sends him an inspiration, his joy becomes dull, and nothing is to his taste any longer, except the enjoyment of God."
Moreover he said, "The gaze of the seers, the knowledge of the knowers, the light of those who know in the spirit, and the way of those who make swift progress, and the eternity of Before and the eternity of After and all that lies between are temporality." And how do we know this? Hussein answers, "Whoever has a heart, let him throw away his eye, then he shall see."
Likewise, "Whosoever seeks God sits in the shadow of his penitence, but whomsoever God seeks sits in the shadow of his innocence."
Likewise, "Whosoever seeks God runs ahead of his revelations, but whomsoever God seeks has revelations that overtake his running."
Likewise, "Hours of divine enlightenment are shells that lie in the sea of our hearts; the morning of resurrection casts them up on shore, and they spring open."
He said, "I am the one I love, and the one I love is I; we are two souls fused in one body. When you see me, you see him. When you see him, you see us."
Now when people began to be astonished at him, liars without judgment revealed themselves, and also many adherents. Wonderful things were seen of him. Some whetted their tongues to calumny and brought his sayings before the caliph. The Imams of Baghdad also voted to condemn him to death, because he had said, "I am God!" They demanded that he should say, "He is God!" He replied, "Yes, everything is he! You say that he is submerged [in the beings], but Hussein is submerged; the ocean does not become submerged, nor does it annihilate."
On the way to his execution he danced, flinging his hands about like a high-spirited stallion, though laden with sixteen chains. They said, "What sort of going is this?" He answered, "Am I not going to my place of sacrifice?" Thereupon he uttered a loud cry and sang these verses:
Never would I wish my friend to be accused of cruelty.
He handed me what he drinks himself, as a host to a guest.
But as the cups went round he called for the block and the sword.
So it fares with him who drinks wine with the dragon in the heat of summer.
That's exactly right. I think we've condemned the people of the past, like the Spanish Inquisition when we should instead learn from history. Hopefully it won't take us 700 years to figure out what we must do.
Anybody who even thinks that Ismal a "religion of peace" is quite simply ignorant of history.
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