Posted on 10/22/2001 9:49:46 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Cal Thomas
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Cal Thomas (back to story)
October 23, 2001
Bishop doesn't think Islam is peaceful
One sees many white, Anglo-Saxon, mostly Protestant members of Congress and others on television today vouching for the "peaceful" nature and intent of Islam. Oprah Winfrey has done a show on "modern Muslim women" -- none of whom would be allowed to dress in contemporary clothing, be educated, or even appear on television if they lived in radical Muslim states.
I ask the Right Reverend Bullen Dolli, an Episcopal Bishop in Sudan, what he believes about the nature and intent of contemporary Islam. "It is a militant religion," he tells me and laughs at those who serve as its character witnesses.
Bishop Dolli was in Washington last week at the invitation of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He attempted to warn Congress and anyone else who would listen of the dangers to his country and the United States posed by Islam, especially in its militant form.
In Sudan, says Bishop Dolli, the coercive instruments of the state use brutal force to insure that no other religion but Islam is practiced. The congregation of All Saints Cathedral in Khartoum, a peaceful assembly of Christians, was recently disbanded and many members were arrested, tried in kangaroo courts and either imprisoned or punished by caning.
Bishop Dolli says former Sudanese President Sadiq el-Mahdi has prophesied that by 2010, the world will be dominated by Islam. His prophecy is written in Sudanese school textbooks.
In Sudan, says Bishop Dolli, many Christian church buildings have been either bulldozed or bombed from the air. Non-Muslims suffer persecution in employment, and all women, whether Muslim or not, are forced to wear the black chador and veil. The government army has been renamed "Jundy Allah" (the Army of Allah) and they fight jihad (holy war) against those in Southern Sudan and non-militant Moslems.
Slavery continues to be practiced by the murahaleen, members of government-backed militias who regularly conduct raids against Christians in Southern Sudan. The murahaleen have killed thousands, enslaved children and young women, stolen cattle, plundered and burned food stores and crops and are reported by various human rights organizations to have raped both men and women.
Over 2 million Sudanese civilians are estimated to have died since 1983 as a result of the continuing warfare, according to the IRD. Many millions more have been forced to flee their homes. Bishop Dolli says radical Islam's goal is to dominate the entire African continent with its militant, oppressive, dangerous and increasingly popular brand of religion. So-called "Islamic moderates," in the bishop's view, are among the first targeted for extermination by the extremists, even before they go after Jews and Christians.
If Sudan is too far away to worry about, is Potomac, Md. close enough? The Washington Post's Marc Fisher recently visited a Muslim school in that D.C. suburb. What he found ought to send chills up every American spine. An eighth grader told Fisher: "If I had to choose sides, I'd stay with being Muslim. Being an American means nothing to me. I'm not even proud of telling my cousins in Pakistan that I'm American."
The school principal said: "Allegiance to national authority is one thing, but the one who gives us life is more entitled to that authority. This is the story of religion through all time. When national laws and values go counter to what the Creator believes, we are 100 percent against it."
When Christians, Jews and those of most other faiths disagree with the American government, they have worked within the system to change it, or in extreme cases (as with Martin Luther King Jr.) have been willing to suffer government's punishment for violating our laws for a nobler purpose. It is different with militant Islam, which seeks to dominate the nation in which it grows and, when in control, diminishes the rights of all who disagree.
Don't think so? Is there a country controlled by Islamic militants that guarantees equal rights for all? Why are we allowing Muslim schools in this country to promote ideas that are seditious? Bishop Dolli knows better. Why don't the rest of us, especially after Sept. 11?
©2001 Tribune Media Services
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Fess up, fellas...
1. Convert to Islam.
2. Be subjugated as a slave.
3. Be killed for your faith.
Question: Which of the above three will you choose?
Answer = NONE OF THE ABOVE. To quote Paul McCarthy: "We will FIGHT for the RIGHT to live in FREEDOM."
There is such stark contrast between Christianity and Islam as to say there is no comparison at all.
Christianity is tolerant of and can live with Islam, not so in Islamic countries.
Christianity may believe in Just War but teaches against war; not so in Islam.
In Christianity the taking of innocent life is an intrinsic evil; not so in Islam.
I am speaking here of beliefs and not practices. Sin is everywhere, and sinners who sin gravely can be found everywhere and from every religion. But Christianity does not teach that the sin is OK. Islam does because it justifies the means by the end.
Islam is first and foremost a political movement hiding behind a "religion" concocted by what appears to be (from the historical evidence), a mentally unstable, tyrannical opportunist. Read on for the historical evidence (if you haven't seen it yet):
Who was Mohammed, the founder of Islam?:
"THE ANCIENT religion of the Arabs was the worship of the stars .... The chief seat of this ... worship was the city of Mecca...".
1 Mohammed was born in 571 A. D. His father died before he was born, and his mother when he was only six. In his youth he tended sheep and goats, and at twenty-four he was employed to drive caravans of camels by a rich widow, ‘Hadïgah, whom he married.
2 When he was forty, while wandering alone on a desolate mountain near Mecca, he had a vision. An angel appeared to him and told him to read, and recited certain verses.
From youth he had suffered from a kind of hysteria, and this vision seems to have increased his tendency to hallucinations and ecstasy.
There was an intermission of two or three years before the vision reappeared, after which revelations came rapidly.
He became convinced of his prophetic mission, and began to make converts, the first being the **women** of his own family.
3 For years, however, the new religion made little progress, and the prophet underwent great hardships, finally having to flee from Mecca to Medinah. From this “Flight,” which took place in 622 A. D., the Mohammedan era dates.
Two years later began the Holy War, and from this time on Mohammedanism [Islam] was extended largely by the sword.
When its founder died in 632, it was firmly established as a great political power as well as a religion; and it is now said to be the belief of about a hundred and seventy millions of people.
The excerpted introductory notes above are from: The Harvard Classics-1909–14. Chapters from the Koran HERE
Critical thought is absent in those who don't immediately question the legitimacy of (a political movement disguised as) a "religion" founded by such an emotionally unstable, power hungry mentality as described above.
Karl Marx called them "useful idiots". Barnum called them "suckers".
Easy-Going Ecumenism: Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?
On American college campuses, tracts are being handed out making the claim that Christians believe in three gods rather than one. The Muslims who are handing them out are causing no end of confusion for students -- including Christian students who don't understand one of their core beliefs -- the doctrine of the Trinity.
According to theologian Dr. Timothy George, in the post-September 11 world there's been an outpouring of good will that is expressed toward the unity of all people and away from the kind of divisiveness that so often rears its ugly head. The problem, George points out, is that we're seeing an over-reaction -- a kind of easy-going ecumenism that would amalgamate different faith traditions into a single homogenized whole.
The intention, he says, may be one of respect, but the reality is that this is a sign of utter disrespect. It is disrespectful not to take seriously what a person claims to be the truth. And on that basis it's certain that no Muslim would believe that the god of Muhammad is the Father of Jesus -- and we shouldn't either. The difference is the Trinity.
Christians believe that the one true God has forever known Himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's foundational to our faith -- and yet, George says, it is perhaps the most neglected doctrine that we hold. Why? Maybe because we can't understand it or explain it. Maybe we just don't see why it's important. And so, George says, "we tend to shove it to the side, until all of a sudden we find ourselves in a discussion with a Muslim, who says to us, 'Oh, you Christians claim to believe in one God, but really you believe in three gods.'"
And that is exactly what the Qur'an teaches about Christians. We need to remember that Muhammad lived some two centuries after Augustine. St. Augustine wrote one of the great treatises on the Trinity. He did so in the face of heretical beliefs about God that were circulating in his day. But those beliefs continued to spread, and eventually they reached Mecca, where Muhammad lived. According to these heretics, God has a wife called Mary, with whom he had intercourse, resulting in Jesus. It was this distortion that Muhammad heard and believed, and many others who call Christians "tri-theists" think that we really do believe in three gods.
Dr. George insists that this is why a strong grasp of the doctrine of the Trinity is vitally important. It's "nothing other," he says, "than the conceptual framework needed to understand the story of Jesus as the story of God."
Muhammad's mistaken teachings about the Trinity continue to influence millions of Muslims. At this time of great curiosity about religious teachings -- at this time when many Muslims may be rethinking their own faith -- Christians must reach out to their Muslim neighbors, learning what they believe, and learning how to lovingly correct their misconceptions about what we believe.
But we cannot do this unless we understand our own teachings -- especially the doctrine of the Trinity. I hope you'll contact us here at BreakPoint so we can send you some material that will help you. It's a doctrine that teaches that there is only one true God -- and yet within the being of God from all eternity there has always existed a bond of relationship, love, and intimacy: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.
BreakPoint with Charles Colson - Commentary #011022 - 10/22/2001
Unstable mentalities, with their feminized/relativistic worldviews, and reliance on feelings, can never present a legitimate defense for their fluctuating beliefs.
They must always try to distract readers / on-lookers by getting them to focus their attention on "the messenger(s)" rather than "the message" (which they can't legitimately refute), just as ken21 did.
Critical thinkers NEVER fall for that transparent tactic.
BTTT
Read his member page and you'll see where he comes from. Just another kook religion hater.
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America -- here
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