The Prblem with Anti-Islamic Arguments

[micatala]

http://www.twincities.com/newsletter-mo ... ck_check=1

The article includes a short quiz on violent rhetoric, and asks the reader to choose where the rhetoric resides, Bible or Koran.



Questions for debate.

1) Is the author, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, correct? Do Christians, at leat in the U.S., tend to get the benefit of the doubt while Muslims are often condemned in a blanket fashion?


2) Is it fair to Christians who do not understand the context of the Koran to use the Koran to criticize modern Muslim's? Should we discount opinions on the Koran or Islam provided by individuals who show no understanding of Islam?


3) What benefit does the anti-Islamic rhetoric prevalent in today's U.S. society provide to that society? What detriments does it present?


Even if criticism of Islam in general, or particular Muslim or Muslim populations is justified, should we not ask what good or harm this criticism does? Of these three questions, 3 seems to be the most important. It also leads to the follow up.


4) To the extent that their are radical Muslims who practice violence, what is the most constructive way of dealing with those radical views?

[delcoder]

You want atheist blemishes, here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_ ... _Communism

Wow! I like the way you debate.

[East of Eden]

BTW, my doctor is a muslim (brilliant, fun, generous, sophisticated, nice, gorgeous, and man I mean HOT), and her husband is my wife's cardiologist (nicest guy ever). They just opened a practice in a huge new restored old building near the historic old town harbor and everyone in town turned out for the opening, everyone loves them, they save lives and are an appealing couple. They were broken hearted about what the taliban did tothose buddhist cliff carvings and told me about all the historical sites near where they're from in pakistan. A college friend was from Iran and freaked out when the ayatollah came in and destroyed everything. A former design colleague is muslim; she's a huge fan of new england architecture and small town life and apple picking. My favorite local bass player and yoga teacher is muslim. Funny, funky, nice, gentle, talented guy. Posts great stuff on facebook, usually music and comedy related. EDIT (three more): the woman at the post office who looks like something out of a norman rockwell painting? Half irish, half lebanese. My wife's godmother: half italian, half lebanese. The guy who fixed my vacuum: married to a cute little blond, lived in london and spain, very erudite and nice. Moroccan. Speaks french, english, spanish, and arabic. Business owner. Recently some new hamsphire redneck called the police on him because he was sitting in front of his own store in the car on a cellphone calling his family about pizza.
All world travelers, all delightful folks. They all despise Bin-Laden. I mean where does it stop? These folks are as american as you and me. They're muslim like most people around here are catholic: nominal/cultural/liberal.
Despise radical extremists, but leave the rest of them out of it, please! Surely you can see the reasonableness in that?

Irrelevant, during WWII you could have found many smart, talented, hot German-Americans, but that would not mean Hitler was not a threat.

[East of Eden]

- the religion is different from the muslims?

No it is not, that was my point.

- the bible is just as bad. Absolutely warlike, violent.

I speak of Christianity which is a New Testament creation. The Law (Old Testament) existed purely to "bring us to Christ." You will not find "Absolutely warlike, violent" in the New Testament.

No, the Old Testament existed purely because the Jews were God's "chosen people", thus God gave them "Commandments & Laws" that were apprantely inscribed by the "Finger of God" (2 Stone Tablets) as a warning & a guide. It's strictly a Christian ideology (aka Paul's ideology) that asserts God came down to earth as a sacrifice whom "Redeemed us from the curse of the Law". God "Al-Mighty" (In Christendom) was born from a womans private part, as a baby, ate, pooped & cried, got spat on, got tortured etc...etc..

Millions of "Infidels" were killed in the name of Christ, just have a flip through any history textbook. "Turn the other Cheek"... yeah right. As a muslim, i have no intention of sugar-coating Islam, by all means we follow the Mosaic Laws & uphold the word of God & by all means Islam is militant. Many Christians such as yourself that want to portray Christianity as "Love, Peace" etc..., the truth is the exact antithesis of your pre-conceived subjective beliefs. If you want to stereotype terrorists & make them the front cover for Islam, then why would it hurt your feelings if i portray Christianity as being nothing more than "The Crusades, The Inquisition, Reformation(1518), Witch Hunts, The Holocaust, The Christian Identity Movement" etc...etc... ?

This is not debate. It is offensive bigotry.

Its not germane to the argument. Violence is. I am just trying to clear away your obfuscation.

delcoder, you portray more "hate" than anything else. By all means, i literally hate the Christian doctrines (Trinity, Hypostatic Union, Kenosis, Atonement & Blood, Divine Sonship etc..), but you do not see me getting emotional or making appeals to empathy.

In Islam that translates to brutal total disregard for opposition.

I'm not an expert on islamic fundamentalism (are you?), but that certainly seems to be true. They are devils. Chirstians used to be the same way hundreds of years ago, and even today, while christians don't do the killing, many fundamentalists sure look forward to divine justice and hell. Many non-christians see that as a difference in degree, not in kind.

Be specific. Some things have been done in the name of Christianity that are in no way Christian. You see it is not the same thing. When Muslims are violent they are practicing Islam. When Christians are violent they are disobeying their faith.

There is a 2 lettered acronym i say to myself everytime i hear this claim.
Show me violence in the Quran that is not found in the Bible?

Atleast the Quran doesn't portray God as "encouraging the killing of innocent children & BABIES & women" whereas the Christian God enthusiastically tells his followers to 'destroy all' (Terminator?) :

(1 Samuel 15:2-4)
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, INFANT AND SUCKLING, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

"Now kill all the boys (a euthemistic way to say innocent kids). And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31:17-18)"

No reasonable man can comprehend such violence towards innocent children & suckling babies as originating from an "All loving God" as "Direct Instructions" ... wait... we have the "Golden Rule right"... Ok, your God is both a 'hypocrite & a baby/child killer', why did the concept of "Turning your other Cheek" appear after God quenched his thirst for blood? What a coincidence. (What ashame those 'peace rules' still didn't work, infact the Christians are no less guilty of staining history books with blood than any other religion is)

Some Christians argue that those 'violent Christian groups (e.g. Saint Augustine’s cognite intrare)' are not "real" Christians. There is little reason to believe that those 'violent' groups are any less "Christian" than traditional churches. (Ofcourse, you assume the "truth" of some particular sect of Christianity)

In his own words, Augustine stated:

The wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy. To love with sternness is better than to deceive with gentleness... In Luke 14:23 it is written: 'Compel people to come in!' By threats of the wrath of God, the Father draws souls to the Son.

In this post my evidence is 1. your lack of evidence, 2. your resorting to baloney and salami, and 3. your apparent ignorance of islamic culture.
Pointing out your apparent ignorance is not an immature tactic, it is a germiane point.

1. The Koran is my evidence. I pointed to how many times it says, "Then shall ye fight." I also pointed to its provisions for apostates and prosyliters.

1200+ Violent Biblical Verses

We all know what the OT teaches as a punishment for apostasy. In the NT, Jesus as a "Law following Jew" also believed in the OT, i gave an example to EoE earlier:

1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,
2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3 Jesus replied, "And WHY do you break the COMMAND of God for the sake of your tradition?
4 For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother MUST BE PUT TO DEATH.'
5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,'
6 he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
7 YOU HYPOCRITES! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"

(Matthew 15:1-9)

Jesus CLEARLY taught that WHOEVER breaks the commandments of God, whether it be Saul of Tarsus, is a hypocrite that only honors Jesus with their lips. Thus, because the context of the above applies to all of Gods laws, that would definitely include:
Deuteronomy 13:6-9
Deuteronomy 17:3-5
Leviticus 20:27

3. I don't give a hoot for Islamic culture. Say what you will about how wonderful it is and it will not cover the fact that it is a violent religion.

Agreed, Islam is militant which you find violent, absolutely agreed, no argument.
Regarding Christianity, you can make it sound 'beautiful' as much as you want, but you will never wash away the bloodstains "In the name of Christ" that are in our history textbooks nor can you go around ripping out leviticus & deuteronomy from every bible in the world.

As to the handling of the Ft Hood soldier, we should have known that Muslims hold Islam as the ultimate authority for their actions. All a Muslim has to do to justify jihad is to determine that Islam is threatened. At that point any action they take to defend it is justified and will be rewarded by Allah.

A monstrously false claim.
Are you saying i can blow myself up or i can come into your house & kill everyone if i have a fuzzy feeling about "Islam being threatened" ?

The organic union of the Umma is a theme in islam, and how to apply it in a modern democracy is an issue their big thinkers, the non-fundamentalists, are currently trying to work out. I say we help them.

In the end the Islamic fundamentalists will win because they are violent and they like being violent. They will string up the non fundamentalists from the light poles and Allah will reward them for doing it.

But now I think I see: being a fundamentalist, you look at every other religion as a fundamentalism and only see that. Well, I agree that islamic fundamentalism sucks big time, the worst of the worst. But you're ignoring the rest of it. That's sad, and dangerous, as I think it's you folks that will do to them what you fear they will do to us, and start another crusade, this time with deadlier weapons.

Now who is spreading paranoia? Another crusade? Are you serious? Ignoring the rest of it? Violence is part and parcel of Islam. Its praised in the Koran. It is rewarded by Allah.

Child killing & Baby killing is praised in the Bible & infacted rewarded for (God makes the killers into "Great Nations"). Get over it.

You're just a hater. At least you admit it.

I don't hate Muslims.

Im glad, i don't hate you too.

I pray for them.

No need to pray for us, muslims pray for Christians.

I hate Islam and the Koran as both distort what God (Allah) is and what our relationship should be with Him and each other.

Me too.... Christianity for preaching a DemiGod (Fully God & Fully Man? ). Or God becoming a man & being crucified & tortured & spat on & eating & pooping & crying & praying to himself in another entity etc...etc..


Conclusion:

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

(Matthew 7:1-5 )

Your above attempt to equate Christianity with Islam in the violence department doesn't work, Murad. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists today are Muslims. The Christian misdeeds from centuries past were done in spite of the word and deed of Jesus (who harmed nobody), the Jihadists act because of the word and deed of the 'prophet'. You yourself have admitted here Islam is a militant religion. That being the case, why shouldn't we be concerned with it in a way we aren't with other religions?

[micatala]

Well that's simply not true. The crusades happened because they were obeying their faith as they saw it, just as the islamic terrorists are obeying their faith as they see it. Arguments can be made on both sides for both religions as to which is correct.

The crusades were not the Christian thing to do. Where did Christ say we were to fight for anything? The Koran and Mohammed both call for fighting. Not the same by a mile.

Here is one among many examples in this thread of exactly the thing pointed out by Pitts and me on page 1. delcoder feels free to interpret the Koran and characterize what Muslims believe in order to denigrate the religion and Muslims, while he expects others to accept his own interpretation of Christianity.

He feels free to cherry pick what he wants from both the Bible and the Koran, the good for the Bible and the negative for the Koran.

Certainly he is free to do so. Yet it is clear that this constitutes anti-Islamic rhetoric based on the definition I offered on page one. It is clear he is employing differing yardsticks for the two situations.

If delcoder feels his own characterizations of his Christian beliefs are valid and should be accepted, then the consistent, the Christian thing in fact according to the Bible, would be to accept Muslims own understanding of their religion and holy book.

As to your analogy of black and white and pantone colors you have it backwards. What is viewed is black and white and what is argued is the colors are not black and white but many shades in between. (The numerical values for all colors lie between those for black and white)

Only in greyscale, doing so ignores all the other colors available.

The numerical value for a color is a four byte unsigned integer. Only three bytes are used. Each byte varies from 0 to 255. One byte indicates the value for red, another for blue, and the third for yellow. The numerical value for red is 255,0,0. RGB remember. Don't argue with a computer graphical programmer.

Uhhh. Not all possible colors are represented by the 256 color system you describe here. The electromagnetic spectrum is a continuous spectrum.

For flagrantly disobeying an order he was rightfully relieved of duty, considering the severity of the charges given it happened in a war zone I wouldn't be surprised if he got a bad conduct or dishonorable discharge, loss in grade all the way down to private along with fines and some prison time. If your religious convictions make it impossible for you to carry out orders then he shouldn't have volunteered for service in the first place. You are as wrong as can be here, a soldiers ultimate authority is their chain of command which extends from fire teams all the way to the POTUS.

He was following his chain of command. Christ out ranks even the president.

Once again, this is might be true spiritually, or according to your opinion, but not in the secular, governmental sense.

The late Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, Vatican City, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Scotland, Wales, the UK(along with all colonial holdings), the over 300 principalities that would later form Germany, Poland, Russia, Austro-hungarian empire...

Non of these fits the definition of a Christian state as it applies to Islam nor can there ever be as Christianity has no provisions for government nor banking.

So now you are applying the Muslim definition of a theistic state to what were Christian states?

So, you use any yardstick convenient at the time to characterize Islam as negative, even if it means using Muslim understandings with respect to Christian nations.




Let's be clear. Do some Muslims use Islamic arguments in support of violence? Yes.

The same is true for Christians, past and present. To dismiss this fact by saying "those people are not really Christians" is an assertion based on particular assumptions about Christianity, which of course any Christian is free to make about themsleves and their beliefs. To speak for the beliefs of others however, whether they are Christian or Muslim, especially to make them or their beliefs look negative, or apply the beliefs of some members of a religion to all is usually considered unfair, is clearly counter to some passages of the Bible including Jesus' own teachings.


There are clearly many Muslims who speak against terrorism and extremism, and argue for those views on the basis of their religious beliefs. That you would take a position that essentially says that these Muslims are "not real Muslims" clearly shows again that you are not using a consistent yardstick and seem to be interested only in painting a negative picture of Islam and Muslims.

[micatala]

BTW, my doctor is a muslim (brilliant, fun, generous, sophisticated, nice, gorgeous, and man I mean HOT), and her husband is my wife's cardiologist (nicest guy ever). They just opened a practice in a huge new restored old building near the historic old town harbor and everyone in town turned out for the opening, everyone loves them, they save lives and are an appealing couple. They were broken hearted about what the taliban did tothose buddhist cliff carvings and told me about all the historical sites near where they're from in pakistan. A college friend was from Iran and freaked out when the ayatollah came in and destroyed everything. A former design colleague is muslim; she's a huge fan of new england architecture and small town life and apple picking. My favorite local bass player and yoga teacher is muslim. Funny, funky, nice, gentle, talented guy. Posts great stuff on facebook, usually music and comedy related. EDIT (three more): the woman at the post office who looks like something out of a norman rockwell painting? Half irish, half lebanese. My wife's godmother: half italian, half lebanese. The guy who fixed my vacuum: married to a cute little blond, lived in london and spain, very erudite and nice. Moroccan. Speaks french, english, spanish, and arabic. Business owner. Recently some new hamsphire redneck called the police on him because he was sitting in front of his own store in the car on a cellphone calling his family about pizza.
All world travelers, all delightful folks. They all despise Bin-Laden. I mean where does it stop? These folks are as american as you and me. They're muslim like most people around here are catholic: nominal/cultural/liberal.
Despise radical extremists, but leave the rest of them out of it, please! Surely you can see the reasonableness in that?

Irrelevant, during WWII you could have found many smart, talented, hot German-Americans, but that would not mean Hitler was not a threat.

Fair enough, but following the thread of your argument in this thread, we should consider all Germans, and probably all Lutherans, as practicers of genocide.

Note you identify Hitler as the thread here, not Germans or Lutherans or Catholics or Christians in general.

Why do you not identify Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin laden as the threats instead of mis-characterizing Islam as a violent religion?

Again, this looks blatantly inconsistent.

[sarabellum]

All religions with no blemishes on there human rights record please step forward....

Hey look at that....
No one is stepping forward....

Pot and the kettle...
Jump over the moon...

You want atheist blemishes, here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_ ... _Communism

Stalin was killing twice as many a week at one point than the entire history of the Inquisition.

Standing by for the whopper that the Communists weren't really atheists.

I don't even need to read the link...(but will)
Mostly because I agree with you...
Has an atheist murdered people because of atheism?
Sure..
Even if I can't prove it...
I'm sure it will happen eventually..

People kill over looks...

[Murad]

I wasn't referring to Pauls idea of Jesus, if not believing in a DemiGod is foolishness then obviously I am a fool,

There is no contradiction between Jesus and Paul, see John 3:16. Also many times Jesus said He was God, and of course he was also man. Our sins are against God, only a GodMan could die on the cross and forgive them. For instance Jesus' death on the cross could not save the fallen angels.

GodMan ManGod DemiGod, same baloney different salami.

There is not a single unambiguous biblical verse in the 4 canonical Gospels that portrays Jesus as "God" or "God Al-Mighty".
Infact, the Bible makes it quite clear Jesus was not God:

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
(Numbers 23:19)

The last bolded line is further elaborated in:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... highlight=

Then we have Mark 10:18 & Luke 18:19 where Christian apologetics make some weird interpretation (About how Jesus "really" ment something else):

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.
(Luke 18:19)

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone.
(Mark 10:18)

Then we have the classic:

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
(Matthew 24:36)

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
(Mark 13:32)

Then we have the other classic "Weak God" argument:

“He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.�
(Mark 6:5)

& the golden seal:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.�
(John 14:1)

“I can of mine own self do nothing.�
(John 5:30)

Not mentioning how your God got tortured, spat on, mocked, ridiculed, born from a womans private part, was a carpenter (Call God to build me house?) prayed to himself in another entity, ate pooped etc...etc...


God had "Sons" by the tons throughout the bible, obviously Jesus was the 'one & only Messiah' thus thats the reason John 3:16 refers to him as 'only Son', and certainly not because of Jesus being "God".

Your above attempt to equate Christianity with Islam in the violence department doesn't work, Murad. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists today are Muslims.

Not all Christians agree with the crusaders ideology, but all the crusades are Christians. Ahh, i love your circular arguments.

The Christian misdeeds from centuries past were done in spite of the word and deed of Jesus (who harmed nobody)

Go tell that to Augustine who quoted out of the NT to justify religious wars.
& there is no way you can speak for medieval Christians, im sure the Leviticus had an effect on them.

, the Jihadists act because of the word and deed of the 'prophet'.

Yes they do, wrongly.
Take a look at the disciple of the Prophet, they were the direct students of Muhammad(pbuh).

You yourself have admitted here Islam is a militant religion.

It is not an admission, there is no admitting blatant facts, just read the first verse of the Quran & analyse the assertive speech.

That being the case, why shouldn't we be concerned with it in a way we aren't with other religions?

Be concerned with it, just don't implement your Pseudo "Christianity = Peace Beautiful" ideology.

[Wyvern]

Last time I checked I was not involved in the editing of the bible while you on the other hand seem to think it is okay for you to edit the bible to your hearts content.

You are the only one attempting to edit the Bible. Putting Christianity in the OT is editing beyond belief.

From what I know the christians have a holy book which is called the Bible. The Bible consists of two parts, the OT and NT. Take either away and you no longer have a bible, it would be like trying to read a book but you start in the middle.

Are you trying to hit every logic fallacy there is? This one is called the no true scotsman fallacy.

You evidently have no idea what the "No true Scotsman logic fallacy is." Do you want me to educate you?

Ooh please do.

Also of course it explains why you are afraid of being taken over, without the catholics christianity is the second smallest of the world religions.

I'm not afraid of anything. The New Testament teaches "perfect love casts out all fear." It means nothing to me that my religion is the largest, smallest, or anywhere in between.

Then why are you so afraid of being taken over?

Which means that if push came to shove you would have violated your oath because you would have gone off and done your own thing when you should have been obeying orders.

It means I would not have violated my oath to Christ.

And ended up with a dishonorable discharge or killed or got your squad mates killed. I'm sure those dead mens mothers and wives would be pleased to know their men were dead but you were able to fulfill your oath to Jesus

Let's take a real life example. Say my squad captures a few Iraqi terrorists and we are escorting them back to base when we come under fire. My squad leader says, "Waste them." I refuse. Will I be court martialed?

This is simple it is not a legal order as stipulated under the Geneva convention or the UCMJ.

How do I determine what is and what is not a legal order?

See above.

So I will ask again why were the examples I gave not valid if this is your definition of a religious state? Before the UK became a constitutional monarchy the king or queen was not just a figure head they were the actual rulers and after Henry VIII was also the head of the anglican church. Most European monarchies held to the idea of divine rulers in that the ruler of a nation was the direct representative of god.

To my knowledge no King or Queen in Europe was a religious leader. You are getting ridiculous here.

In an unbroken line from the time of Henry VIII up to the present Elizabeth II whoever the monarch of England is also is the head of the Church of England. Vatican City is an independant nation whose leader is the pope. Prior to the formation of Italy most of that area was also owned by the pope. There I gave you two examples, one catholic and the other protestant and both contained within Europe.

So you think that somehow a religion that has only a few million adherents in our country is suddenly going to grow so explosively to have enough of a population base to change the constitution. Think about how long you people have been complaining about the illegal immigration of Mexicans into this country and yet you don't see them taking over.

Hispanics now make up a huge political force. They are the only group that multiplies faster than Muslims. I say let them in. They work hard and are not terrorists. Their religion does not teach violence. They may be our salvation. Better Hispanics than Muslims taking over.

The majority of hispanics are catholic so according to you they are not christians. Not terrorists? I guess you haven't been keeping track of whats been happening in Mexico the last decade or so and especially the last couple years.

It can't be done because built into the very meat of the constitution is the separation of church and state.

If the Muslims take over Islam will be the state.

Nope sorry the constitution does not allow that, in fact it can't even be amended out and no such amendment could be put in because it would be unconstitutional. Even if 100% of the population would suddenly turn into muslims the government even if everyone wanted it to can't have a state religion. Sure some things would change like it would be standard practice to make oaths with your hand on the Koran instead of the Bible but thats just tradition not the law.

II Cor 6. The context is to come out from among those practicing idolatry which is a sinful practice. Read it for yourself.

Are you going to come up with a new interpretation every time you talk about this passage? First you said it was about distinguishing oneself by practising godliness, now you came up with this new interpretation if it's mentioned again can we get a third interpretation?

Same explanation. Rejection of idolatry is practising godliness.

I reread that chapter just to make sure but the word idol is only mentioned once in the entire chapter. So you ignore the first fifteen verses of that chapter and put all the emphasis on this one verse? This seems to be a prime example of you putting the interpretation how you want it with little regard for what it actually says.

[East of Eden]

BTW, my doctor is a muslim (brilliant, fun, generous, sophisticated, nice, gorgeous, and man I mean HOT), and her husband is my wife's cardiologist (nicest guy ever). They just opened a practice in a huge new restored old building near the historic old town harbor and everyone in town turned out for the opening, everyone loves them, they save lives and are an appealing couple. They were broken hearted about what the taliban did tothose buddhist cliff carvings and told me about all the historical sites near where they're from in pakistan. A college friend was from Iran and freaked out when the ayatollah came in and destroyed everything. A former design colleague is muslim; she's a huge fan of new england architecture and small town life and apple picking. My favorite local bass player and yoga teacher is muslim. Funny, funky, nice, gentle, talented guy. Posts great stuff on facebook, usually music and comedy related. EDIT (three more): the woman at the post office who looks like something out of a norman rockwell painting? Half irish, half lebanese. My wife's godmother: half italian, half lebanese. The guy who fixed my vacuum: married to a cute little blond, lived in london and spain, very erudite and nice. Moroccan. Speaks french, english, spanish, and arabic. Business owner. Recently some new hamsphire redneck called the police on him because he was sitting in front of his own store in the car on a cellphone calling his family about pizza.
All world travelers, all delightful folks. They all despise Bin-Laden. I mean where does it stop? These folks are as american as you and me. They're muslim like most people around here are catholic: nominal/cultural/liberal.
Despise radical extremists, but leave the rest of them out of it, please! Surely you can see the reasonableness in that?

Irrelevant, during WWII you could have found many smart, talented, hot German-Americans, but that would not mean Hitler was not a threat.

Fair enough, but following the thread of your argument in this thread, we should consider all Germans, and probably all Lutherans, as practicers of genocide.

Note you identify Hitler as the thread here, not Germans or Lutherans or Catholics or Christians in general.

Why do you not identify Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin laden as the threats instead of mis-characterizing Islam as a violent religion?

Did you miss the thread part where Murad admitted Islam is a militant/assertive religion?

Again, this looks blatantly inconsistent.

No, it doesn't. Where did I ever say all Muslims are the problem? For instance, I don't think Murad is part of the problem, but I do think he is blind to serious problems within Islam.

[East of Eden]

From what I know the christians have a holy book which is called the Bible. The Bible consists of two parts, the OT and NT. Take either away and you no longer have a bible, it would be like trying to read a book but you start in the middle.

Educate yourself on the Old and New Covenants, you're just looking silly. Jeremiah in the OT predicted this when he said, "The time is coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers." See Galatians in the NT.

In an unbroken line from the time of Henry VIII up to the present Elizabeth II whoever the monarch of England is also is the head of the Church of England. Vatican City is an independant nation whose leader is the pope. Prior to the formation of Italy most of that area was also owned by the pope. There I gave you two examples, one catholic and the other protestant and both contained within Europe.

There was always a line between earthly and spiritual power, unlike in Islam. Queen Elizabeth II, for example, is the temporal, or earthly head of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of that church.

The majority of hispanics are catholic so according to you they are not christians. Not terrorists? I guess you haven't been keeping track of whats been happening in Mexico the last decade or so and especially the last couple years.

Really lame analogy. The drug cartels don't claim to be following Jesus, the Jihadists do claim to be following Muhammed. I don't consider drug lords to be Christians.

Nope sorry the constitution does not allow that, in fact it can't even be amended out and no such amendment could be put in because it would be unconstitutional. Even if 100% of the population would suddenly turn into muslims the government even if everyone wanted it to can't have a state religion. Sure some things would change like it would be standard practice to make oaths with your hand on the Koran instead of the Bible but thats just tradition not the law.

The Constitution can be changed by amendment. I don't so much worry of this happening here as I do Europe.