Here is a major reexamination of the circumstances surrounding CAIR founder Omar Ahmad's infamous statement (which he still denies making): "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." He denies saying those words, but the original reporter still stands by her story.
"Did CAIR founder say Islam to rule America? Muslims confront Omar Ahmad as newspaper insists report of controversial remarks accurate," by Art Moore for WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
It's a citation used frequently by critics to argue the highly influential Council on American-Islamic Relations is an extremist organization – founder Omar Ahmad's alleged 1998 assertion that Islam must one day dominate the U.S. – but now Muslim leaders have confronted Ahmad, expressing concern that someone from their community could voice such radical sentiments.Ahmad told the Muslim leaders – and WND in an interview – the attribution is a "total fabrication" and assured them the newspaper, the Fremont Argus in California, issued a "clarification" after he "challenged" reporter Lisa Gardiner.
That seemed to satisfy the Muslim leaders, but Gardiner told WND she continues to stand by the story, and Editor Steve Waterhouse said he's confident she got it right. After hearing that news Thursday, one of the Muslim leaders immediately resurrected the issue with his colleagues, declaring Ahmad and CAIR need to find a way "to extinguish this fire."
"She was a good, solid reporter," Waterhouse said of Gardiner. "She was absolutely certain about what she said and what she reported."
Gardiner, who now works for a non-profit group, told WND last week she's 100-percent sure Ahmad was the speaker and that he made those statements, pointing out nobody challenged the story at the time it was published eight years ago.
"She's lying," Ahmad said upon hearing Gardiner's defense of the story. "Absolutely, she's lying. How could you remember something from so long ago? I don't even remember her in the audience."
What a ridiculous defense. I speak to crowds all the time, and you know something? I have spoken to people even when I don't even know their names. I have spoken to groups without having names and resumes for everyone in the audience. I suppose Omar Ahmad makes sure he knows everyone in the audience before he begins speaking.
CAIR, which has enjoyed access to the White House as the country's largest Islamic advocacy group, recently defended the six imams removed from a US Airways flight because they were deemed a potential security threat.Ahmad, who stepped down as CAIR chairman last year, maintained to WND he "never uttered those words."
"It is not my stance, it is not what I believe in," said Ahmad, CEO of SiliconExpert Technologies in Santa Clara, Calif. "The year before (the 1998 event) I was a commissioner for my city and took an oath on the constitution and never had a problem. It doesn't make sense for me to think that way. I was shocked to hear somebody reported that."
It was WND's 2003 story about Ahmad's alleged remarks that prompted the Muslim leaders to query the CAIR founder two months ago. In a string of e-mail correspondence copied to WND, the leaders first debated among themselves, then asked Ahmad to tell them whether the report is true and, if so, to repudiate the remarks.
Mike Ghouse, president of a Dallas-based group called World Muslim Congress, told colleagues in the e-mails that Ahmad allegedly has made a "dangerously militant statement."
"The harsh reality is, we do not want to hear and acknowledge that no Muslim in America or anywhere else in the world wants to live in an Islamic nation," Ghouse wrote.
The 1998 Argus article, also published in the sister San Ramon Valley Herald, paraphrased Ahmad saying: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant," and, "The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
In one of his replies to the Muslim leaders, Ahmad wrote: "These statements are total fabrication and I never said them at all. Actually there (sic) were not direct quote and I challenged the reporter and the newspaper and they published a clarification 3 years ago."
The Muslim leaders, at the time, seemed satisfied with the denial, including Ghouse.
Ghouse told WND he understood Ahmad to be saying the newspaper and the reporter had backed off on their claim that the story is true, perhaps, at least, expressing some doubt about it.
But Waterhouse said flatly, "We did not publish a clarification."
''This is not going to die'
The editor explained that after hearing from Ahmad in the wake of WND's May 1, 2003, article, his paper published a story of its own one month later referencing Ahmad's denial but also clearly stating the newspaper was not backing down.
Upon hearing that information Thursday from WND, Ghouse sent out an e-mail to colleagues on his World Muslim Congress list with a copy of the June 2003 story by Waterhouse's newspaper chain and stated: "We had discussed this a few months ago, it appears that it still has some fire in it, this is not going to die."
"I think Mr. Omar Ahmad and CAIR need to think hard and figure out a way to extinguish this fire," Ghouse wrote. "The above statement is one of the most anti-Islamic, most arrogant, bullying statement[s] made in behalf of Islam. Let's strip this for good."
Ghouse acknowledged in the e-mail, "Most of us do not want to deal with this. However, that statement is dangerous, it is indeed frightening to the average American, given the false propaganda that Islam spread through sword is still in currency and I see that non-sense (sic) once a week on the net. The neo-cons live and thrive on propogating (sic) fear, their survival is dependent on hating and denigrating some one or the other. This is going to be a relentless battle."
Another Muslim leader who participated in the string of e-mails in October, Iftekhar A. Hai, told WND that as a Sufi from India, he has a different view of Islam than Ahmad, an Arab, but he respects CAIR as the leading Islamic human rights organization in the U.S.
"If he said it, I say that he's wrong, but if he said he has not said it, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt," said Hai, co-founder and director of interfaith relations for United Muslims of America in Sunnyvale, Calif.
But Hai, who noted he was educated at a Catholic school in India, says his main job "is to work among religions for peace," and he is a part of CAIR only to the extent that once a year he buys a ticket for a local fund-raiser.
Ghouse also is a native of India.
'How Should We As Muslims Live in America?'
WND tried to get comment from others reported to be at the 1998 event in Fremont, Calif., a session organized by the local Islamic Study School titled, "How Should We As Muslims Live in America?"
Gardiner's article mentions two other speakers – Sheik Hamza Yusuf, a prominent American convert who directs the Islamic Study School's parent group, the Zaytuna Institute; and Hatem Bazian, an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Bazian drew national attention during a 2004 anti-war protest in San Francisco when he asked why there is not an "intifada," or uprising, in the U.S. as there is in the Holy Land. Later, in an "O'Reilly Factor" interview, he explained he was referring to a non-violent, "political intifada."
Bazian did not respond to messages from WND, and an assistant to Hamza said the sheik was on sabbatical and was too busy to reply.
Hamza's aide, however, referred WND to Feraidoon Mojadedi, the director in 1998 of the Islamic Study School.
Mojadedi said in an e-mail he had no record – audio or visual – of Ahmad's presentation.
"I don't know if the article is accurate or not, because it's been about 10 years since that event," he wrote.
Mojadedi did not reply to a follow-up e-mail asking specifically if he heard Ahmad's speech, and, if so, what the CAIR founder said.
Gardiner's 1998 article, which quotes Mojadedi, said in part:
Omar M. Ahmad, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic relations, spoke before a packed crowd at the Flamingo Palace banquet hall on Peralta Boulevard, urging Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the Islamic faith with those who are "on the wrong side."
Muslim institutions, schools and economic power should be strengthened in America, he said. Those who stay in America should be "open to society without melting (into it)," keeping mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam, he said.
"If you choose to live here (in America) ... you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam," he said.
Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant, he said. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth, he said.
'We have to respect others and be respected'
Ahmad told WND he had no recollection of what he said at the 1998 event. Asked what he would say about the subject of the role of Muslims in America, he replied: "We're here as a minority, and we live in a pluralistic society, and we have to respect others and be respected."
Ahmad said it was only in 2003 that he learned of Gardiner's story, and by then it was too late to press any legal action.
"I would have gone there and sued them if I had known about it," he said.
In April 2003, CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told WND his group had demanded a retraction from the California newspaper. But he amended his statement after being informed by WND the editors and reporter had not been contacted with any such demand.
Ahmad told WND he has tried to find some way of verifying the contents of his speech and even "offered $1,000 to someone" to find a tape of it, if any existed.
"I know I didn't say that," he said. "How could anybody believe that when I say Muslims enjoy freedom here to worship, and it's better for them than anyplace in the world.
"If people know me personally, they will say it's nonsense," he continued. "Look at the whole of my life, what I've said."
Read it all.
Now that muslim leaders get so much more press than they did 8 years ago, especially in light of the 6 imams news story, with which he is connected, and no doubt the reason for covering his tracks at this juncture, they realize they have to be more careful about expressing their ideology, and their plans, so openly and so brazenly. Tisk Tisk.
Da'wa is about stealth. War is deceit.
Yeah. Never had a probem getting the kaffir to swallow the lie that is islam.
Every time this guy opens his mouth, he seems to make an even larger fool of himself.
Do not Forget about I.Hooper:
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants the United States to become a Muslim country.
"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."
Founded in 1994, CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association of Palestine, identified as a "front group" for the terrorist group Hamas, according to Steve Pomerantz, former chief of the FBI's counterterrorism section.
Another ex-FBI counterterrorism chief, Oliver "Buck" Revell, has called the Islamic Association For Palestine – Hooper's former employer – "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants."
Show me a truthful Muslim and I will show you an infidel.
Although it could turn into nothing more than yet another taquiyya moment, why not confront Ahmed with his "alledged" statement:
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
and ask that he affirm or deny it today.
Example:
Mr. Ahmed - should the Koran be the highest authority in Amaerica - yes or no? If not, why not and what should be the highest authority?
Should Islam be the only accepted religion on Earth - yes or no? If not why not?
Islam will never conquer America as long as there are patriots willing to fight it. I, for one, will NEVER submit to Islam and will fight it to the end of my life (and beyond from the afterlife if that is possible).......
Well, he could always use the John Kerry excuse and say that he flubbed the punch line of a joke...
Cheers,
http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com
From the article:
Uh oh, Salman Rushdie time. A lone kafir having the nerve to say that a True Believer is not telling the truth? She had better watch for any late-breaking fatwas before walking to her car alone. And I, for one, would volunteer to walk her to her car, she is a very brave person.
Why is it too late? Go ahead, CAIR, file a lawsuit, what do you have to lose, other than another lawsuit, just like all the others? Let's go through the discovery process, find out who is funding CAIR, to whom is CAIR sending funding? Let's air it all out in a courtroom.
If he didn't say it, it is one of those oft-repeated lies that have become truth, like the incredible, astonishing propaganda and lies about Israel that muslims have even convinced themselves are true.
He said it, he meant it, end of story. I can't believe it took so long for the islamic damage control machine to leap into action. Islamic hubris, a revolting and incongruous phenomenon considering islam's manifest inferiority as a religion, culture, and legal/political system, invariably comes back to haunt these arrogant, pathological liars. They just can't contain their delusions of superiority, but they expect Americans to respect islam and their imperialistic agenda.
When muslims learn that their convoluted concepts of truth, justice, and morality are anomalies to the civilized world, they might learn to keep their brazen mouths shut. I hope they never catch on.
"She's lying," Ahmad said upon hearing Gardiner's defense of the story. "Absolutely, she's lying. How could you remember something from so long ago?
its quite simple reporters take and keep notes that's how they get their story straight so all she had to do is look at her notes from that time, so it appears the liar is Ahmad not Ms. Gardiner Mr.Ahmad is shown himself to be very opportunistic and willing to use any cause to advance his brand of Islam. Or that's my opinion
Parse that sentence carefully. Note the double-negative. Read it slowly, and see what he is really saying.
That part is more than a "he-said-she-said" issue. Go through the paper 3 years ago, and show us the published clarification. If it's not there, that would be a lie, which would allow us to judge the veracity of Omar Ahmad's statements.
'How Should We As Muslims Live in America?'
O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people. - 5:54
We call it a melting pot. Muslims should be welcomed to live in America as Apostates.
Maybe Hooper or Ahmad oughta take over as House Intelligence chief since either of them might have the correct answers to questions like:
"Is Al Qaeda predominantly Sunni or Shi'ite?"
(Was there an irony button in play when the following article was written? Or am I missing something? This was an interview for "Intelligence" Committee Chief, right??????????)
From: http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/12/incoming-house-intelligence-chief.html
(With thanks to the Drudge Report)
Monday, December 11, 2006
Incoming House intelligence chief botches easy intel quiz
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite."
That is wrong. Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics.
Reyes could also not answer questions put by Stein about Hezbollah, a Shiite group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in Southern Lebanon.
Stein's column about Reyes' answers was published on CQ's Web site Friday evening.
In an interview with CNN, Stein said he was "amazed" by Reyes' lack of what he considers basic information about two of the major terrorists organizations.
"If you're the baseball commissioner and you don't know the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox, you don't know baseball," Stein said. "You're not going to have the respect of the people you work with."
While Stein said Reyes is "not a stupid guy," his lack of knowledge said it could hamper Reyes' ability to provide effective oversight of the intelligence community, Stein believes.
"If you don't have the basics, how do you effectively question the administration?" he asked. "You don't know how is on first."
Stein said Reyes is not the only member of the House Intelligence Committee that he has interviewed that lacked what he considered basic knowledge about terrorist organizations.
"It kind of disgusts you, because these guys are supposed to be tending your knitting," Stein said. "Most people are rightfully appalled."
Pelosi picked Reyes over fellow Californian Rep. Jane Harman, who had been the Intelligence Committee's ranking member, and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, who had been impeached as a federal judge after being accused of taking a bribe.
Calls from CNN to Reyes' office asking for reaction to Stein's column have not been returned.
--CNN.com Senior Political Producer Scott Anderson
ISLAM CAUSES TERRORISM!
Posted by: americaningermany at December 11, 2006 11:07 AM
So simple.
Yet so hard for many to fathom.
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." - CAIR
"We will bury you.",/i> - Nikita Khrushchev
Those statements are not easily forgotten.
Any thinking, freedom loving American would latch onto that statement like a laser beam.
She is not lying.
"She's lying," Ahmad said upon hearing Gardiner's defense of the story. "Absolutely, she's lying. How could you remember something from so long ago? I don't even remember her in the audience."
1) Mr. Ahmad seems to acknowledge that the illiterates who initially memorized their so-called prophet's divine revelations must have gotton some of it mixed up or wrong before the Koran was written down years after the fact.
2) Being a good Muslim, Mr. Ahmad thinks that four Muslim males have to verify that a non-Muslim female reporter was present at an event before even her prescense can be accepted as the truth.
Please stand up to these clowns EVERY time they say or do the things they say and do.
TAQIYYA baby TAQIYYA!!! Islam, all spin, all the time. Especially when it comes to decieving (it's a game really) the stupid liberals of the West
1) Mr. Ahmad seems to acknowledge that the illiterates who initially memorized their so-called prophet's divine revelations must have gotton some of it mixed up or wrong before the Koran was written down years after the fact.
Very good point, Mazama.
Of course he'll have the "divine revelation" card to play.
Correct. And every Islamic country is a security disaster. Religious minorities are killed and persecuted in Islamic countries.
I've never seen any group of people more prone to make unscientific and unreliable correlations as those who follow Islam.
Islam IS propaganda, the two are the same.
He will now.
Heh.
It's almost as if Muslims in N. America and throughout the west don't know what the fruits of spreading Islam will be. or do they?
If they were so happy in those Islamic lands , why leave? If Muslim countries are so righteous, why leave? If Islam is so beautiful , why leave?
If they are treated so well under Islam and the West is soooo terrible, why leave?
I have a good idea^^.
I don't trust any Muslim, because you cannot trust ISLAM . they kill each other in even greater numbers than they kill infidels.
Islam is Anarchy. Islam is cruel. Islam IS Evil.
The eveidence is overwhelmingly supportive.
"The harsh reality is, we do not want to hear and acknowledge that no Muslim in America or anywhere else in the world wants to live in an Islamic nation," Ghouse wrote.
"Parse that sentence carefully. Note the double-negative. Read it slowly, and see what he is really saying."
This is an especially keen observation. It is taqyia at its finest. The truth of the matter is that Ghouse probably didn't mean to say it that way but it is the truth.
The liquor by the drink ordanance was passed in Tulsa is this manner. The voters did not recognize the double negative that was written in the proposition. They were confused and passed the ordinance.
In hindsight, the reporter should have recorded the entire speech on tape.
Still, Ahmad has been very slippery and has not explicitly disavowed the contents of the original statements.
One way to check if Ahmad is lying is to look at what the Koran (and accepted Hadith) says. The original statement, which was paraphrased and attributed to Ahmad, is in agreement with the Koran. The subsequent denials, evasive as they are, run contrary to the Koran and Hadith, except if his subsequent denials are regarded as permissible lying.
I have posted some resources on Islam's ultimate goal, here.
For a Muslim to reject the basic premise that 'Allah' intended Islam to be the religion followed by the entire world constitutes apostasy, according to fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence [e.g., Reliance of the Traveller, o8.7(20)]. Also...
The tafsirs (Ibn Kathir, Al-Jalalayn, Ibn Abbas, etc.) agree that this statement means that those who don't want Muhammad to be successful in his mission should kill themselves. And what is Muhammad's mission, and thus the mission of all subsequent Muslims?
Muslims must struggle against non-Muslims by any means necessary to establish Islamic law.
Qaradawi, the popular and highly influential Muslim scholar and leader, writes:
Until Ahmad renounces the above Koran and hadith statements, it is safe to conclude that he is (1) probably lying, though it is also conceivable (though less probable) that he is (2) ignorant of those Islamic scriptural statements, or that he (3) has some idiosyncratic progressive reformist interpretation of those scriptural statements (e.g., the verses were historically specific and no longer apply)--which is highly unlikely because CAIR is not a progressive reformist group. Rather, CAIR consistently demands that America adjust to suit Islam, not the other way around. That policy is 100% consistent with the original paraphrased remarks attributed to Ahmad.
Clearly, together with the reporter's testimony, these considerations make it much more probable that Ahmad is now lying than telling the truth about his originally paraphrased views.
It is irrelevant whether or not Ahmad said what's attributed to him-we all know what CAIR's agenda is. Besides, this organization has said so many similar sounding things that another such statement doesn't really matter. The question that should be asked is why is CAIR still allowed to operate at all? It is engaged in propaganda on behalf of Islamania-the known (if unmentioned) enemy of the US. For that reason alone it should be shut down.
We all know this is what CAIR wants. If CAIR had it their way islam would be dominant in America. But after 9/11 they have to watch their words more carefully.
The question is, Are we goign to stand up and defend our religion? Or are we going to spit on the graves of our forefathers who fought and died to secure religious freedom in this country? http://sacredscoop.com
Is Ahmad lying ?
Do islamists lie ?
Do bears do it in the woods ?
But then, maybe he was lying when he said he wanted sharia for all America.
Then he can say, I was lying then, but I am not lying now.
Good argument.
Fodder for juries,
which usually send the carrier of this argument to the Big House (where they can carry on their islamist studies).
credit man said
credit man, I'm with you, I can accept that Ghouse made a typo, we all do. He's supposedly the "good guy" in this story, one of those "moderate Muslims" we always hear about.
But I have to say, at the back of my mind I'm wondering if he is upset that Ahmad wants to install Islamic sharia in the U.S., or upset that the infidel heard Ahmad say that, which will now make it more difficult for Islamic sharia to be installed in the U.S.? Is Ghouse playing "good cop" to distance himself from Ahmad, the "bad cop", who got a little too honest for his own good?
Again,
Ghouse made a typo, but then what was he trying to say? That he, the president of World Muslim Congress, doesn't want to hear that any Muslim anywhere in the world wants to live in an Islamic nation? That's odd. If he is a Muslim, and believes in the teachings of the Qur'an, why would it be so important to him that no-one in the world live under Islam? Can one believe the teachings of the Qur'an, and at the same time spend one's life making sure they are not spread?
Think for a moment, would the Pope make a statement that he doesn't want to hear that any Christian wants to live in a Christian nation? Would a head rabbi say that they don't want to hear that any Jew wants to live in a Jewish nation? Forget the typo, whatever he was trying to say doesn't make any sense either. I'm all for Muslims making honest statements criticising jihadists, but methinks he doth protest too loudly.
lol
Me thinks he doth protest too much.
A simple one-word denial would have sufficed:
"No"
This breaking out into novelesque ad nausem lecturing induces suspicion...next I suppose he's going to demand to know what the definition of "IS" is.
Taqiyyah anyone?
:-D
Being a Muslim means NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY!
I like the way he called his accuser "liar." Now that's the Moslem way!
Actually Ynke'...
I thought more along the lines of:
"...never having to say you're WRONG!"
lol
"Ahmad told WND he had no recollection of what he said at the 1998 event. Asked what he would say about the subject of the role of Muslims in America, he replied: 'We're here as a minority, and we live in a pluralistic society, and we have to respect others and be respected.'"
So how would he suggest they behave if Muslims were a majority? Does this go back to the practice of laying low and behaving when Muslims are a minority and ruling with the sword/Koran when they are a majority?
Do many Muslim leaders and spokespersons speak in a secret Muslim code when dealing with non-Muslims (per Wolfgang Bruno's "Islamic Dictionary for Infidels"?) Sometimes it seems that way.
Rouse himself is lying, even to the point of contradicting the earliest Muslim historians. Islam was spread by the sword, and is being spread by the "sword" (militarily) today (e.g., Somalia, Thailand, Sudan, etc.). Ghouse wants to "battle" over the public perception of Islam as bad (to the extent that there is such a perception); he is not talking about actually doing anything to improve the reality of Islam as it exists. Rather, he is only talking about engaging in a propaganda war about Islam's image.
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." He denies saying those words, but the original reporter still stands by her story.
I believe her. Islam permits deception. The very fact that it has any permission to engage in deception makes it unique among all the religions of mankind. Though I am a skeptic re organized religion, Jesus was right that deception is from "the evil one". Jesus condemned hypocrisy and deception as the heart of evil. Deception will undo this belief-system.
It is a very unpleasant, unsavory belief-system in the matter of deception. Deliver us from evil, deliver us all from Muslim deception.
What CAIR and "Ahmad " are finding out is that the West can read and write, and understand when they say things about islam. you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of th people all of the time. and CAIR's time is up! the gig is up CAIR, you bunch of baffoons, you bunch of hypercites, we are onto you!
ZenaWarriorPrincess-
You nailed it. The problem with deception is that it distorts a person's sense of reality and judgement so that the deceiver believes their own lies. They don't see what you see for that reason, in fact they may never see reality for that reason.
The more I contemplate Jesus' attitude toward hypocrisy and deception and how he condemned that (and paid with his life for that) and was so forgiving with admitted sinners, the more I am impressed with the profound nature of his message. It is not sin that destroys us, its a prideful hypocrisy-deception that kills the soul. It is deception that brings destruction and self-destruction, that kills the very light and life at our core. The message of Jesus is only for the brave hearts who look into the abyss in themselves and see how really bad we are.
(BTW, I am skeptical re organized religion and am not impressed by human nature. The question I would ask Jesus: are human beings really worth it? What do you see that makes us worth it? I don't see it.)
What I find profoundly disturbing about the message of Jesus is not his teachings about hypocrisy-deception. I see that that is the core of much of our problems. However, staring into the abyss of ourselves makes us aware of this propensity in human nature, and paradoxically hardens our hearts. It is what Jesus sees (saw) beside the hypocrisy-deception that makes us love able. I don't see that other side. If we withdraw all the hypocrisy-deception in our souls-that is what Jesus saw. What did he see?