Posted on 11/06/2001 5:34:41 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
With the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan less than two weeks away, American officials are scurrying to reassure Muslims here and abroad that the United States is not anti-Islam. There's even been discussion -- thankfully, abandoned recently -- that the United States might pause the bombing in Afghanistan out of respect for religious sentiments. Americans are acutely uncomfortable with anything that smacks of religious intolerance. It's part of our heritage, indeed one of the most noble aspects of our history as a refuge from religious persecution. But has American religious tolerance made us more vulnerable to attacks from those who would exploit such freedom to hide their true purpose?
Since Sept. 11, Americans have learned a lot more about the Muslim population of the United States -- including the fact that it is one of the fastest growing in the country. In cities and towns around the nation, mosques are springing up to serve devout Muslims, who must pray six times a day. In addition, some Muslim communities have established their own schools or cultural centers to teach their faith. But some of these institutions -- by no means all -- are preaching more than belief in Allah and adherence to Islam. Some prominent Muslim religious leaders and teachers in Muslim schools in the United States preach hatred, even violence, toward other religions and groups, especially Jews. And they make no secret in talking to fellow Muslims of their disdain for the United States.
Just two days before the Sept. 11 attack, a popular imam from the San Francisco Bay area, HamzaYusef, gave a speech in which he predicted that the United States "is facing a very terrible fate. And the reason for that is because this country stands condemned." A year earlier, another nationally renowned Muslim leader, Muzammil Siddiqi, warned, "American has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come." Yet neither of these statements kept the White House from inviting either man to meet with President Bush in a show of support for the American Muslim community in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
When asked why the two were invited, a White House staffer told the Washington Post: "To be honest, it's been difficult finding someone who is -- how should I put this? -- totally clean, or who qualifies as a through-and-through moderate."
But it's not just the White House that has been taken in. In Cleveland, the head of the local Islamic Center, Fawaz Damra, was exposed recently for having called on fellow Palestinians in Chicago to donate money to Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group, this despite being the model of interfaith cooperation in Cleveland. Damra is well-known for inviting Jews to celebrate the end of Ramadan at his Islamic Center, but he has also been videotaped in 1991 asking a group to donate money to kill Jews. " Who will give $500?" he asks on the tape, to kill "12 Jews," whom he calls "the sons of monkeys and pigs."
Although some members of the board of Damra's mosque wanted him to resign his position after the tape became public, Damra's critics ended up being the ones forced out. And this even after the board found out that Damra had been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Yet despite their hateful rhetoric and possible connection to terrorist acts, these religious leaders are largely exempt from scrutiny by law enforcement. The FBI has been reluctant to investigate radical Muslim clerics, even when it suspected that their mosques were being used to fund terrorism and recruit terrorists. "The veil of religion that has been draped over mosques," an FBI official told the Washington Post recently, " will be tough to move off."
But religion cannot be an excuse for illegal activity. We may accord great leeway to religious belief -- but we cannot tolerate clear and present dangers to our very lives. Nothing requires us to tolerate those who would kill in the name of religion, or encourage or assist others to do so.
But it's only men who are using that irresistible hammer of faith to enforce regulation. It's a common result when religion and governance are co-mingled. It is exascerbated when the other half of the planet has already separated the two, and will eventually "infect" the Moslem World.
The way Faith is set up, people assign such great weight to it that unscrupulous men can't help but use it to enforce regulation. In this case, western decadence (aka equal protection under the law and basic right to let alone) is encroaching (and eroding) Islamic rule, which is intertwined in governance throughout the Moslem World to one degree or another. Fortunately, most governing bodies have already begun the process of separating the two as indicated by the more moderate Islamist areas. You might want to give them credit for that. But so long as these monarchies, dictators and appointed presidents dispense inequality and favoritism, the great throngs of people will continue to look to religious clerics for governance.
"The makers of our Constitution...sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of the rights of man and the right most valued by civilized men." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928.
A: No. Islamic governments (the more "open-minded" ones) are "tolerant" of religion. The United States does not merely "tolerate" religion. There's a big difference. We have FREEDOM of religion. The U.S. Constitution recognizes this freedom as an UNALIENABLE right with which every human being is endowed by the Creator, which no government has the power to grant or take away.
Link:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.:
Please explain in your own words exactly what it was that he and his followers did that deserved an attack by government agents followed by the immolation of surviving men, women, and children.
Since 9/11, after looking at Islam on the world scene, as well as the raw text of the Koran, I am leaning towards believing that this is a murderous intolerant cult that should be shunned. "The good Muslims" do not seem willing to denounce their murderous breathern in an great numbers or volume, thus I conclude they are "with" the murderers by their silence (or outright support, in many cases). I currently choose to not do business with Muslims, encourage others to do the same, and recommend we limit immigration by Muslims.
The American people are way out in front of politicians on this. We know Islam is not a religion of peace. Its history and current operation throughout the world make it the most barbaric force in the world today. The vast majority of American mosques (by the assessment of an American Muslim cleric critical of extremists) are dominated by extremists. These are not "churches." They are intolerance clubs preaching hate and cheering the slaughter of innocents.
Christian fundamentalists believe that only the Bible (as edited by Martin Luther) has religious authority. Koresh believed that he was the Son of God and that he personally possessed an authority higher than the Bible. I don't know of one Christian fundamentalist who would tolerate that kind of talk from anyone without denouncing them and shaking the dust from their feet.
Koresh's followers were for the most part proselytes he personally recruited. He himself was not a member of any Christian fundamentalist denomination, but a former Seventh Day Adventist. Adventism is alien to Christian fundamentalism because it relies on the extraBiblical revelations of Ellen G. White - most Christian fundamentalists consider White to be a dangerous crackpot, not an orthodox fellow-believer.
Koresh's entire movement consisted of about ninety persons who believed in a variety of doctrines completely alien to Christian fundamentalism.
Bin Laden and other Islamic radicals are not considered heterodox freaks by most Muslims, even the Muslims who disagree with them. They do not have 90 followers - they have at least 90 million. Bin Laden and the Wahabbist sect of Islam are a mainline denomination, so to speak, of Islam. Wahabbism is the fourth-largest and fastest-growing form of Islam.
The difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism is the difference between their foundational texts. The New Testament is a noble document which preaches a sublime morality based on charity, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. The Koran preaches bloodshed, vengeance, wifebeating and deceit.
Someone who takes the New Testament extremely seriously thinks and behaves differently from someone who takes the Koran extremely seriously. The morality of the Koran is objectively evil. Hence the difference.
Yes.
This is a very deeply rooted problem within our culture, because the entire foundation or our republic is based on religious indifferentism -the idea that one religion is as good as another.
This axiom isn't stated explicitly, but it is implied. Our government is based on self-evident truths such as that all men are created equal, etc. And in that sense, the basis for our government is valid and just. Additionally, men are free to worship as they please. Again, this is also just.
But the basis for our acceptance of these just policies is slightly flawed. The underlying, unstated premise is not only that men cannot agree on what constitutes ultimate Truth and true religion, but that the resolution of this problem is ultimately unresolvable. In practice, this results in widespread religious indifferentism.
Catholics take the position that the Churh is the One, True, Church, and that this fact is knowable. However, Catholics would acknowledge the justness of freedom of conscience and religious liberty. On the other hand, a government somehow ultimately answerable to the Church would have to use force at times to check the spread of ideologies or religions that would harm the common good.
At the very least a government somehow ultimately answerable to the Church would have a coherent intellecutal basis for opposing the spread of Islam within our country. In the final analysis, our current system of republican government does not.
The subtle flaw in our system of government comes when a religion arises that is hostile to the idea of political tolerance of other religions, such as Islam. So long as such a religion is a substantial minority, it poses no serious threat to the stability of the republic. Once it becomes a majority, our republic will collapse.
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Some may argue that our society is Christian. Perhaps that is so with regard to our institutions, inasmuch as they are derived from Christian origins. But a strong argument can be made that we are a post-Christian society.
Who or what can stand against the spread of Islam? Only the Catholic Church, as far as I'm concerned. Protestantism is too divided and speaks with too many voices to be a serious threat to Islam.
Realistically, it seems to me to be almost impossible for an overtly Catholic government to come about in our country at any time in the foreseeable future.
Along with relativism (Modernism), I see the growth of Islam from within our borders to be the greatest threat against our country. The most efficacious step that we can take to prevent the growth of Islam within our country, and the only step that is even remotely, politically possible, is to close our borders to Muslim immigrants.
Keep in mind that Muslim conversion to Christianity is historically non-existent. And the only way that the spread of Islam has been reversed is by the sword. Closing our borders to Muslims is a matter of survival for our country right now. Unfortunately, I doubt that we have the resolve to do it.
Funny, this exemption does not apply to Protestant and Catholic churches. Just put a sign out in front of a Christian church saying, "Stop Abortion" or "Vote Pro-Life" and see how fast you hear from the IRS, FBI, BATF, etc., etc.
Your equivocation is spiteful and ridiculous - insulting Christians won't help your ethnocentric cause.
There is only one book ever written in history by over 40 authors with the same principles, the BIBLE. That is the law I live by!
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