Moreover, the topics they do discuss -- Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- are more catered to Muslim concerns. "Christian, Muslim leaders offer no new remedies against extremists," from AFP, August 1:
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AFP) — A conference of Muslim and Christian leaders aimed at promoting interfaith dialogue ended here sidestepping the thorny issue of religious fundamentalism.Now I ask you, what do any of the above topics -- important as they are -- have to do with inter-faith dialogue? Aren't "inter-faith dialogues" supposed to be about exploring, understanding, and debating other faiths?
[...]"The practical issues included world poverty, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation in Palestine and Israel, the danger of further wars, and the freedom of religion," said Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan, describing the closed-door meetings.
The final declaration, approved by consensus, states that Muslims and Christians "affirm the unity and absoluteness of God.Nice to see Christians submit to that peculiar definition of Allah: tawhid. Not that Christians aren't monotheists, of course. But it's very telling, as it was very expected, that the definition agreed to by both Christians and Muslims just so happens to be the one that totally comports with Islam: the two English terms "absoluteness" and "unity" are often the best translations of the Arabic concept of tawhid. Incidentally, it is the concept of tawhid that Muslims most rely on to discredit the Christian concept of the trinity.
The final text of the meeting avoids mentioning Christian or Muslim fundamentalist ideologies, though the final declaration does "denounce and deplore threats made against those who engage in interfaith dialogue."
To all participants: you have to actually first engage in "inter-faith dialogue" before you defend it; and as this report makes clear, there was no real inter-faith dialogue present.
Islam's Allah is capable of anything, some ridiculous in light of science, even creating sinners for his hell on purpose completely subverting free will, turning Allah into the equivalent of a kid who pulls out flies' wings. But he's -- and you know Allah's a he -- not capable of Aristotelian categories or anything which might upset delicate Muslim sensibilities, and least of all their barely-functioning rational minds.
Given that it culminated in the "tawhid", the conference might be said to be antichristic in its scope and effects:
"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son." (1 John, 1,22)
Allah is the Father of Lies, and Mohammed was the Prophet of the Lie.
Muslim grievances all seemed to be covered, but not a word about the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world.
hartford courant had the article on this yesterday
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-interfaith0731.artjul31,0,2764226.story
I don't see what any kind of interfaith dialogue can accomplish at this time. There is absolutely no way to reconcile the differing theological views. The problems as viewed from Muslims are all one side: ie non-Muslims are in the wrong.
Is any group more useless & sucker-hearted than the Christian kumbaya inter-faith dialogue types when it comes to Muslims?
A possibly dangerous waste of time. Who elected the Christians who represented their faith? Lots of talking shop platitudes. Not much else.
Which part of this do the Jewish and Christian attendees of this so-called "inter-faith" dialogue, find confusing?
Muslims and Interfaith Dialogue... ? Riiight...
Like Muslims and Respect for Religion. Like Islam and Tolerance for the Other.
Why is the world so slow to "get it"?
When you're dealing with Islam, EVERYTHING is one-way. There is no dialogue; there's only a monologue, a lecture. Islamic "dialogue" is mere "grievance theater" designed to prove that every non-Muslim entity in the West is working against holy Allah and glorious Islam. The only "respect for religion" they can envision is respect and submission TO Islam BY Infidels. The only "tolerance" they recognize is OF Islam BY the West.
Nobody else's opinion counts. No other people, no other cultures or belief systems, have any validity whatsoever. Therefore no people, cultures or belief systems have any right to object to Islamic machinations or to oppose Islamic goals. (Just like Mohammed himself, the Islamic culture is narcisstic: everything outside itself exists merely as an object to be manipulated, or an obstacle to be overcome. Everything "other" is a tool to be used at the whim of the believer. That the "other" might have beliefs or intentions of its own is completely irrelevant. After all, we don't ask a tree if it wants to be chopped down for lumber, now do we?)
So: you and I, America and Britain and the rest of Europe, everything that Western Civilization has achieved; our books, our beliefs, our laws -- we are all trees to the lumberjacks of Islam.
All this "dialogue" stuff is just sawdust.
Da'awa and the blame game. That's all...
Inter-Faith Dialogue.
AKA: Everything-that-is-wrong-with-the-West-alogue.
How do we organise a few inter-faith kafir SWAT teams to gatecrash these sorts of cosy gatherings?
Preferably a team comprising Coptic Christians, Sudanese Christian refugees from the Jihad, Armenian and Assyrian and Chaldean Christians (ditto), unconfused Jews, Sikhs (complete with turbans and kukris), informed Hindus, and an apostate from Islam or two or three or four. All members of non-Muslim faiths to be conspicuously wearing emblems of their religion and carrying copies of their sacred texts, in defiance of the Rules for Dhimmis. (For extra effect, Christians in the team would be advised to wear a Star of David as well as the Cross, and a little Israeli flag lapel pin).
Go along and start asking the awkward questions. The black and Indian members of the team can raise the little matter of the appalling Muslim mass murders and enslavements of Africans and of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. The Copts and Assyrians and Armenians can add *their* own little history lessons.
The Christians can sweetly ask the Muslims on what basis, precisely, do they believe Abraham offered Ishmael rather than Isaac? - and make it clear that they, the Christians, regard the Jewish rather than the Muslim narrative as demonstrably prior in time to the Muslim Big Lie (which was made up out of whole cloth) and as unassailable.
The Jews (primed beforehand) can ask the Muslims why they think that a hapless 'body double' was crucified instead of one Yeshua of Nazareth, and make it clear that whatever their [the Jews'] disagreements with the Christians about Jesus/ Yeshua's person and work, they do regard it as plain historic fact that he was a Jew and was crucified and died exactly as the Christian (and other) documents say; and that they view the Muslim narrative as nothing more than a counterfactual ahistorical Big Lie.
Then the entire team, led by the apostates from Islam, can raise the little matters of the Golden Rule as practised by most high human civilisations, and as contradicted and blatantly denied by Islamic Arabocentrism and nazi-style supremacism; and of the Permission to Lie or Dissemble to Advance Muslim Power; and of the division of humanity into Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam, with permanent total war mandated between them from the Muslim side with the intent of gobbling up all of dar al Harb and killing, crushing or absorbing all of humanity.
Perhaps some atheists and agnostics could start pointing out how sharia grossly contradicts every clause of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
One might not be able to get into the meeting itself - the article isn't clear whether it was 'open to the public'. But one could set up shop on the steps outside, so to speak.
Nobody else's opinion counts. No other people, no other cultures or belief systems, have any validity whatsoever. Therefore no people, cultures or belief systems have any right to object to Islamic machinations or to oppose Islamic goals. (Just like Mohammed himself, the Islamic culture is narcisstic: everything outside itself exists merely as an object to be manipulated, or an obstacle to be overcome.
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse
Islam is the perfect coercion machine, at every level of its effects on human beings. There is no 'dialogue' with coercion, except appeasement. We know that does not work with Islam. There is no 'interfaith' involved, because Islam is NOT a religion, but a perfect coercion political machine, begging to be dismantled by the civilized world. If there is talk, let if be of that, how to dismantle it.
"Schuller, who said he was horrified by the way some Christians demonize Muslims, ..."
It becomes apparent that Schuller doesn't have a clue about Islam...or the way Muslims really treat Non Muslims....
Schuller is attacking imagined enemies much like Don Quixote attacking the windmills...
Schuller is a Dhimmi in the making...
This subject was actually on my mind a bit this week.
I have yet to hear of anybody organizing one of these so called "inter-faith" events who has actually spent any time studying comparative religion, or even any other particular religion.
The only exceptions I can think of are Christians or Jews who have read some entirely sanitized and artificially sweetened material about mohammedanism -- but that's it.
You never hear about a mohammedan talking about Buddhist or Hindu religious history or theology or especially not ethics.
The mohammedans have no interest in understanding anything outside of mohammedanism.
This crap has nothing to do with understanding and everything to do with special praise and privileges for, and submission to mohammedanism.