The case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghani man threatened with execution for converting to Christianity, highlights one of the crucial distinctions between Islam and every other faith. Every faith has a triumphalist strain, a "we are right and all other must acknowledge it" doctrine. Thinking that we are right is necessary for any faith that believes in truth. But killing other people who disagree is beyond the line of civilization.
Sociologist John Murray Cuddihy, in The Ordeal of Civility and, especially, No Offense, catalogues the ways in which Judaism, Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism had to give up, or at least soft peddle, some doctrine that was too triumphalist for a mixed society. The Chosen People; the Great Commission to evangelize the Jews; No Salvation Outside the Church - each are still official teaching, but all have been put on the shelf so that we may live in peace with one another.
Islam teaches that everyone is really a Muslim, some just don't know it yet. Muslims are forbidden to convert to another faith. Muslim states are the hardest mission fields in the world because of this doctrine, harder even than the communist lands.
Every faith has had to give up on triumphalism in order to live in a civilized world. Islam will have to give this one up, sooner or later.
Sooner, at least in the state law of Afghanistan, would save Abdul Rahman from execution.
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Don't you think it is queer how Bush has really kinda weaseled on this if he is a born again Christian. I know he has never read the Koran, but I wonder if he has ever really studied the Bible anywhere beyond an elementary level. To understand the Koran you must understand its construction over time, having the hadiths and the Sera at the same time and a good synopsis. The same could be said for the Bible. But that is beyond elementary. I wonder if he understands that the Musulman has no problem gaining assistance from the kafir to rid them of maniacal rulers but they should remember their position. Keep the jizya coming and no goddamn backtalk. There, that's a good dhimmi.
Then, of course, he has surrounded himself with agents of Islam like Gordon Norquist and equally ignorant dhimmis out of touch for a myriad of reasons - Karl Rove, clearly giving bad advice and receiving taqiyya by iv drip and then Dhimmi Rice; what can I say? She is still stuck in some dreamworld about Islam being good, and some 'tiny minority' are bad. Time to wake up.
Actually, I think President Bush's initial strategy of treating mainstream Islam as one of the forces of civilization is a good idea. Every world religion is complex, and every one that has ever ruled a civilization has a well-developed strand of peaceful coexistence with infidels, heretics, and even apostates. Treating that strand as the natural governing ideology of political Islam is our best hope of creating a counterforce to the Islamists that is legitimate within the Islam world, as well as outside it.
Gentlemen , to say that Islam is inherently " Bad'' is to miss the woods for the trees.
Is Al - qaida and some misguided over zealous fanatics a fair representation of worlds 2nd largest religion followed in over 40 countries ?
The taliban do not follow Islam , they follow barbarism and can be looked at as similar to the Nazis of yesteryear.
It is a tragedy that Islam is geting lost in the noise all around.
There are however 2 basic issues with Islam :
1) Its failure to adopt/change with times especially when the world is becoming a global village and any differences cannnot remain isolated .This leads to frictions
2) The holy koran is read by all muslims but understood in reality by few owing to the fact that the original version is in arabic. The translations are not easy to follow.This leads to dependence on religious leaders for interpretation .
After abandoning Afghanistan ( and propping Osama and co.) , the US is on its way out after creating mayhem in Iraq .Hundreds of innocent citizens are being killed everyday. Who would one blame for this? Is this not terrorism / but will anybody even thinking this to any other religion ( christanity ) ?
What has been happening in palestine for years ? Has any said jews are bad ? No its a polictical problem.
Alas , Islam is blamed for anything done by its followers..
Gentlemen , to say that Islam is inherently " Bad'' is to miss the woods for the trees.
Is Al - qaida and some misguided over zealous fanatics a fair representation of worlds 2nd largest religion followed in over 40 countries ?
The taliban do not follow Islam , they follow barbarism and can be looked at as similar to the Nazis of yesteryear.
It is a tragedy that Islam is geting lost in the noise all around.
There are however 2 basic issues with Islam :
1) Its failure to adopt/change with times especially when the world is becoming a global village and any differences cannnot remain isolated .This leads to frictions
2) The holy koran is read by all muslims but understood in reality by few owing to the fact that the original version is in arabic. The translations are not easy to follow.This leads to dependence on religious leaders for interpretation .
After abandoning Afghanistan ( and propping Osama and co.) , the US is on its way out after creating mayhem in Iraq .Hundreds of innocent citizens are being killed everyday. Who would one blame for this? Is this not terrorism / but will anybody even thinking this to any other religion ( christanity ) ?
What has been happening in palestine for years ? Has any said jews are bad ? No its a polictical problem.
Alas , Islam is blamed for anything done by its followers..
I mostly agree. I think the case of Abdul Rahman, though, is specifically a problem with the interpretation of Islam, and not just by extremists like the Taliban.
The Afghan Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of evidence.
Good news for civilization.
just wanted to clarify a minor point: post-Vatican II, non-Catholic Christians are recognized as having salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church (1992 Catechism of the RCC, Profession of faith, Article 9, 817-819).Protestants just do not share in what is referred to as the "fullness" of the faith, this fullness coming out of the apostolic and sacramental nature of the Catholic Church.
So, schismatic and/or traditional Catholics still adhere to this exclusiveness but it is no longer the official teaching.
Yes, that is a step toward healing the Reformation breach. Still working on that fullness, though ...
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