You are scary droll sometimes.
Anybody reading these stories not only must be worried. They must act. They must fight against any attempts at "ecumenical dialogue" with Muslims. Muslims aren't interested in such dialogue; they're interested in conquest and oppression.
And if you think that's unfairly tarnishing an entire religion, ask yourselves this: What legitimate, establishment Muslim religious authorities are opposing Ahmadinehjad, the suicide bombers, those who wish to obliterate Israel, imams who call for "jihad" against the West and the like?
Islam is not a religion; it is a satanic death cult. It is to theology what Nazismw was to political science.
Catholics, especially in the West, must wake up and arise or die.
Nations around the world must not tolerate this hate, not just the west. Everyone must work together to dethrone this monster. Joseph, I am curious, what do you mean by, "They must act."?
Joe:
No, Islam is not a satanic death cult because there is no such animal as a unified Islam.
There are several Islams, and we misdiagnose the phenomenon at our peril. Some of which, yes, are a mortal peril to the West. Not all are, however.
More tomorrow.
Joe:
This may surprise the heck out of you, but...
I'm actually inclined to agree with you.
True, there are "moderate" Muslims, just as there are different kinds of Socialists, but the fact remains that Islam, taken to its logical conclusion, is something which I don't want to live under, especially in this day and age.
1. Dave, many thanks for your support
2. Douglas, action would involve understanding what Islam really is about. It means reading the Koran and visiting Web sites like www.jihadwatch.org. It means organizing opposition to "ecumenical dialogue" with Muslims. For the Church, it means making a concerted effort to convert Muslim, not just to "tolerate" them.
3. Dale, to refute your claim, let me repeat what I said in my first post:
What legitimate, establishment Muslim religious authorities are opposing Ahmadinehjad, the suicide bombers, those who wish to obliterate Israel, imams who call for "jihad" against the West and the like?
Islam doesn't have to be "unified" to oppose such blatant offenses against morality. Opposing them only calls for having a fundamental sense of moral decency, which Islam obviously lacks.
If it's not a satanic death cult, Dale, then how would you describe Islam?
Joe:
I would agree that some forms of Islam qualify as "death cults"--the Wahhabi are pretty well there (Rod Dreher has a post about the "revised" Saudi school books that needs reading), as are the forms seen among the Palestinians.
However, our central problems are the Saudi Wahhabi and Persian Shia) as represented by Mahmoud and Rafsanjani) forms.
But that of the Kurds? The Balkan Muslims? The Malaysians and Indonesians? Morocco? The entire school of Sufism? Where you see problems in those societies, you see Saudis or Iranians stirring the pot. If that money went away, there would be a considerable withering of both forms. They are far from magnetic on there own terms.
I acknowledge the problem of the silent moderate Muslim. But they aren't going to stick their literal necks out as long as (1) we do nothing to confront the Saudi kingdom and Iran, and (2) we take a collective whiz on our own principles to cater to the hardliners--e.g., the appeasement seen in the Danish cartoon debacle. The moderates do exist--MEMRI comes up with a few brave voices. But what's in it for them?
How would I characterize the phenomenon of Islam? A mixture of truth and error that is desperately ill at the moment, and, yes--satanic in certain of its forms (how else can you characterize blowing yourself up at a Passover seder, pizzeria or bus?). But--a one size fits all confrontation "solution" is only going to give us the united, motivated enemy we don't need. The First Crusade tried it at Jerusalem in 1099--down to every last Muslim woman and child in the city--and guaranteed that the Islamic powers were determined to scrub the Crusader states from the face of the Earth. That's just the pragmatic aspect--there's also the fact it's hard to square with the Cross.
Understand the form you are dealing with and address its problems accordingly--force when necessary, diplomacy, carrots and incentives where it's not.
And I agree that the Church needs more evangelism (however clandestine it needs to be) and less dialogue.
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Dale, the problem lies in the tenets of the religion itself, not in groups you mention (Sufism, Bosnian Muslims, etc.). Nobody with even a cursory knowledge of the Koran can dismiss the calls to murder Jews and supress non-believers ... calls that don't exist in the Bible.
The problem also lies with Islam's theological leadership. I'm not talking about the crazy imams who preach "jihad." I'm talking about such people as the sheikhs of al-Azhar, the foremost center of learning in the Sunni world. When have they issued fatwas against such crazies, let alone against bin Laden and his ilk, suicide bombers, etc?
Any religion takes its moral cues from its leadership. When that leadership abdicates its moral responsibilities, the religion in question loses all credibility. Why do you think I've been so hard on JPII and the Catholic Establishment for the past four years?
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