It's true. All that Filipino violence being perpetrated in the name of Islam is because Muslims don't trust the "motives" of helpful, giving Christians. "Muslims need assurance Christians not out to convert them," by Vincent Cabreza, for Inquirer, August 10:
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines--The soldier-founder of an evangelical support foundation for Mindanao called Project Islam has said that a key to lasting peace in Mindanao would be an assurance to Muslim Filipinos that the dominant Christian population would not set out to convert them.What, do they fear that Christian arguments, especially vis-a-vis Islam, are irrefutable, and that any Muslim who truly considers them will immediately convert? Or are they concerned that Christians are going to forceably convert Muslims? The latter possibility is as implausible as the former is plausible.
Col. Johnny Macanas, Philippine Military Academy camp commander, told 38 sophomore and senior university students belonging to different faiths during a talk here Sunday that distrust by Muslims of the Christian-dominated government's motives for helping them was at the core of the enmity that fueled the separatist movement.Note to Philippine government: stop helping them.
Macanas said he formed Project Islam in 2001 after years of military assignments in Mindanao—a period during which he was a "Muslim hater.'Project Islam, an acronym for "I Still Love All Muslims,' has built over 400 shelters in poor Muslim villages. The project helped swing rural Mindanao sentiments in favor of Christians, Macanas said.
He gave the lecture on invitation of an international youth organization called Peace Tech, which is supported by Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.[...]
Macanas and Islamic scholar Bedejim Abdullah engaged the college students in frank talk about Muslim life, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections and the migration of Mindanao natives to Luzon, to prepare the students for the August dialogue.
Most of their questions centered on how justice was viewed in Islam, jihad and Jesus Christ.
Abdullah said people were generally ignorant of the fact that Jesus Christ was a key figure in both religions.
He also said Moro rebels who used Islam to promote revolutionary ideologies were hurting fellow Muslims.
"When Abu Sayyaf members kidnap and kill, they also kidnap and kill Muslims. In [the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States], many of those killed were Muslims although no one talks about it,' Abdullah said.
Macanas said he grew up believing Muslims were hateful because of a Catholic-dominated culture that maintained traditions like the "zarzuela,' which depicted battles between Christian and Muslims.
Muslims have also been growing up with prejudices of their own against Christians, Abdullah said.
No, really?!
The article says - "Macanas said he grew up believing Muslims were hateful because of a Catholic-dominated culture that maintained traditions like the "zarzuela,' which depicted battles between Christian and Muslims."
From this, the unwary reader would assume that *all* the zarzuela was about, was anti-Muslim propaganda.
NOTHING could be further from the truth. Try googling 'zarzuela', as I just did, and you will turn up all sorts of wonderful stuff, very little of it having anything to do with battles between Christians and Moors.
The zarzuela is a sort of popular comic opera/ musical that, invented in Spain, 'went native' in the Philippines, giving rise to a distinctive Filipino theatrical form.
As far as I can work out, if the zarzuela that Macanas saw, included battles between Christians and Muslims, that would be because such battles have in fact been part of the historical experience of Christian and animist Filipinos since the 15th/ 16th century, and *everything* that happens in people's lives is grist for the zarzuela mill (hey, there's even a zarzuela about cockfighting...).
But I didn't find anything in my initial googling, to say whether that was the case.
It would be interesting to know whether Filipino zarzuela that do include 'battles between Christians and Muslims' as plot-elements, are set in Moorish Spain long ago and far away, or whether they refer to the Filipino experience.
Can any Filipinos here, provide enlightenment on this subject?
I love zarzuela. I read Iberia when I was young,and was immediately intoxicated with Spanish culture. Give us some Zarzuela, extra heavy on the moorish themes.
What a shaky little religion/total living system they have!
Of course, they're just pre-judging Christians, by the way they, Muslims, would act.
I have a little story. I've told it before, so I'll try to keep it brief.
A young, homeless couple, not completely down, but headed in that direction, asked me for some money. They told me they had tried to get help at the mosque/school across the road, but the man there told them they would have to become Muslims before he would be willing to help them.
Very cold, no?
Abscedere - so...what did you tell the young couple in question?
I find it supremely ironic that Muslims, in tones of offended virtue, regularly accuse Christians of 'bribing' people into the church with charity, implying of course that they are shocked! shocked!!! by such unscrupulous behaviour; since Muslims regularly offer people money, or other things, to convert to Islam. (Ask Mr Fitzgerald for some of the stories that *he* can tell).
I am told that in Africa Muslims are imitating the Christians by doing things like digging wells. BUT: whereas Christian charities will dig a well and then make it available to all without distinction, the Muslims will dig a well and then declare that it is exclusively Muslims, for the use of. You don't want to walk ten miles to the nearest waterhole? No? You want to use our well? But it's a MUSLIM well and unless you become a Muslim, we won't let you use it. (I am afraid I cannot give a link for this story, but when I read it, a couple of years ago or more, I was not in the least surprised).
There's an op-ed by Persian apostate from Islam, Ali Sina, that discusses Islam's contempt for the Golden Rule. Here's the link; highly recommended for any person reading this who is new to this site and as yet knows little about Islam, for this is one point about Islam that we kafir absolutely *must* get through our heads.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina51007.htm
A mindset like that would make it impossible for Muslims to conceive of someone doing good to another person (especially someone who is not of the same faith as themselves) out of pure and simple charity, free from ulterior motives.
After the tsunami, in one of the hardest-hit regions, heavily-Islamised Aceh in Indonesia, the Muslim clerics there were terrified that charity from non-Muslims was all a 'front' to bribe people to convert out of Islam.
Abscedere - have you ever read C S Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters"? He represents the devils as all being firmly convinced that God's [YHWH'S] declarations of love for humanity *must* be a 'front', a scam of some kind. I'm afraid when I see Muslims whingeing and complaining about Evil Christians Bearing Gifts, I am reminded forcibly of C S Lewis's suspicious conspiracy-minded devils.
"Muslims need assurance Christians not out to convert them"
Christians have a duty and an obligation to convert Muslims. To ask for these assurances is to ask that Christians not exist. We are called to preach that Jesus is the son of God and that Muslims follow a false god and false religion.
Get over it.
Most of their questions centered on how justice was viewed in Islam, jihad and Jesus Christ.
Abdullah said people were generally ignorant of the fact that Jesus Christ was a key figure in both religions.
Well, did he explain about justice? Jihad, or the role of Jesus in Islam? They will stay ignorant if Abdullah (slave to Allah), has his way.
The three 'J's:
Justice: Islam does not kill innocent people.
Jihad: An internal struggle for purity.
Jesus: A revered Prophet.
Any questions? No? Good, lets call it a night...
dumbledoresarmy,
I advised them to forget the mosques, forget the Muslims, and to try to make their way to the nearest Catholic church.
I'm not a Catholic, but I know most Catholics are charitable, and their chances of getting help there were better.
Failing that (which I doubt would fail) I directed them to my own church, farther down the highway.
I told them that they had dodged a bullet, so to speak, and that Muslims are dangerous, even if they're not terrorists, in the most violent sense.
No, I don't think I've ever read any C.S. Lewis. I'll have to do so--I've heard good things about his works on this website.
The charity issue aside, there is one issue, at least to me, that is the largest kink in islam. That is the fear of conversion from islam. I have never seen such a phobia about conversion away from a religion since the Reformation.(No, I am not THAT old.lol) And it was by far more tame than the islamic fear of conversion. If the "word of allah" is so damn lifting, and full of truth, then why concern one's self about members converting away. They will obviously see the error of their ways and return. Unless of course there is a problem with islam, a problem that it can never address. The issue of one's soul and the path to peace and true salvation. Islam cannot answer these simple issues. It would be interesting to see the numbers of those who leave islam and never return when in the absence of pressure from the community.
Ok, then....since it is mostly the Arab countries that produce oil, then we can blame Islam on Global Warming.
Notice the Liberals blame the manufactorers of machinery and cars, and western oil companies. So why not blame the oil producers that produce the most.