Surprising? Not at all, but newsworthy nonetheless. It is but one more example in the broader pattern of disturbing conduct by the Obama administration in its drive to gain the approval of the Muslim world at seemingly any cost.
It will not make us safer. It will not make us, or anyone else, freer.
An update on this story. "Stop preaching or get out: The king is unamused by Christians who proselytise," from The Economist, July 29 (thanks to Twostellas):
Evangelical Christians in the poor world are rarely accused of undermining public order. All the more surprising, then, that in recent months around a hundred have been deported from Morocco for just that. The Christians, mostly from the United States and Europe, have been accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a crime punishable by imprisonment under Moroccan law, which protects the freedom to practise one's faith but forbids any attempt to convert others.
In accordance with Sharia.
Rules against proselytising are quite common in Muslim countries but Morocco has long enjoyed a reputation as a bastion of religious tolerance in the region. Almost all the country's 32m citizens are Sunni Muslims but churches and synagogues exist, alongside mosques, to cater for the 1% of the people who are Christian or Jewish.
Such open-mindedness presumably appealed to the Christian missionaries who ran the "Village of Hope" home for children 80km (50 miles) south of Fez, a former capital known for religion and scholarship. The 16 aid-workers had cared for abandoned children for over a decade when, in March, the Moroccan authorities sent inspectors to the orphanage, then gave the workers a few days' notice to leave the country. Witnesses reported distraught farewells between the Moroccan children and the foreigners who had acted as foster parents.
Morocco's communications minister, Khaled Naciri, said the missionaries "took advantage of the poverty of some families and targeted their young children". The aid-workers deny pumping the children with Christianity. But sympathisers say that even if they did, a few hours of preaching was a small price to pay for education and pastoral care. There have been further expulsions since then, most recently of an evangelical Spanish teacher.
"Moral rape," and "religious terrorism," the Moroccan officials called the alleged evangelization activities in the prior story linked above.
Local residents are quick to point out that it is not only Christians who have been targets; last year a similar campaign was waged against Morocco's even smaller population of Shia Muslims. But the motivation for the crackdowns is probably political more than religious. Morocco's constitution is based on the hereditary position of the king as "commander of the faithful". Any drift of Muhammad VI's subjects away from the dominant stream of moderate Sunni Islam might, his advisers fear, diminish his authority.
A false dichotomy of politics and religion, where there is clearly no such distinction here, with Islam active in its capacity as a political system claiming divine sanction.
The American branch of an evangelical organisation, Open Doors, which speaks up for persecuted Christians across the world, is backing a campaign by a Republican congressman, Frank Wolf, to press the Moroccans to be kinder to the evangelicals. Seeing that Morocco is one of America's closest Arab allies, the American administration has been notably silent.
As an Evangelical Christian and someone who knows a bit about political science, I think I understand what's at work here.
Evangelicals are not a key Obama or Democratic constituency, and this is not likely to change. The Evangelical community has noted closely which party is most supportive of abortion, the sexual revolution, and homosexuality. We know exactly who it is who reads Margaret Atwood's _Handmaid's Tale_ and spreads other vicious calumnies about us. We are also very much aware of who is willing to sacrifice our First Amendment rights to follow the Bible in calling homosexuality sinful and refusing to ordain women (at least some of us do not ordain women) with hate-speech and anti-discrimination laws in order to distribute power to their homosexual and radical feminist clients. We also know who it is who insists on calling us "racist" at every opportunity no matter how much soul-searching and criticism of some of our 19th century forbear's views we engage in. We know as well who it is who has a warm spot for radicals who wanted to strangle the last senator with the guts of the last preacher (and our preachers tend to be vetted and called by the people in the pews rather than imposed by the state or a distant clerical hierarchy).
Further, the Democrats are quite incensed at us because, when we noted the favor shown to abortion activists and feminists back in the 1970's, we abandoned Jimmy Carter in his hour of need, even though our parents and grandparents voted en masse for Franklin Roosevelt. This, I believe, is one reason why a left-leaning media-political-legal complex suddenly discovered "fundamentalism" in people like RUhollah Khomeini and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The purpose was not so much to accurately describe a phenomenon in the Islamic world as to discredit us Evangelical Christians as un-American.
Worse yet, the Democratic national nightmare is when Evangelicals start shaking hands across racial divides. It could mean serious losses among African-Americans and Hispanics.
Hence, if a bunch of Evangelical Christians in some foreign country are mistreated by an unsympathetic government, a Democratic administration is not going to care how those foreign Evangelicals' American brethren are going to feel.
And, given Obama's political background and associations, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't feel a little bit wistful about what the Moroccan king is able to do in his bailiwick
The Obama Administration has been "notably silent" about the murders of Christians in Pakistan. It has been "notably silent" about the attacks by Muslims on Buddhists in the Chittagong Hills region of Bangladesh, and the attacks on Hindus in that country for such crimes as passing by a mosque as Friday Prayers get out. It has been "notably silent" about the attacks on Buddhist farmers, monks, teachers in southern Thailand, offering no moral support for the government and people of Thailand. It has offered no "notable support" to the government and Christian farmers in the southern Philippines who are under attack by Muslims who routinely kidnap and kill Christian villagers. The Obama Administration hasn't said a word -- would that entitle us to call it "notably silent" -- about the imposition of Shari'a in Nigerian states, and the attacks on sleeping Christian villagers. The Obama Administration has been "silent" -- would you still want to say that it has been "notably" silent or just "silent" on the subject of Bashir, whom even the World Court has described as a war ciminal, and who is now even now, with his fellow Muslims in Khartoum and fellow Muslim Arabs in the Arab League, trying to figure out how to make the referendum in the Christian south on independence a pointless exercise.
The Obama Administration has been "notably silent" about the perseuction of the Baha'a in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Obama Administration has been "notably silent" or possibly just "silent" about the repeated murders of Christians in Iraq, where the situation is such that half the Christian population - Assyrians and Chaldeans -- has fled. It has been "notably silent," too, about the acts of Muslim terrorism and destruction -- including ancient libraries in the case of the tiny Mandean population -- directed at Yazidis, Mandeans, and all others whose crime is that they are not Muslims.
The Obama Administration -- are you getting tired yet, are you heartsick yet so that you can hardly stand it? -- has been "notably silent" on the attacks on converts to Chrisianity and Christians doing the converting, not only in Morocco, but in Algeria, especially in the Berber regions, for the Berbers, unlike the Arabs, possess an ethnic identity that does not reinforce, but works against, the Muslim identity. The Obama Administration has been "notably silent" about the legal decisions in Malaysia - "moderate" Malaysia -- that have declared non-Muslims to be Muslims, in cases arising because of marriage, or because of death, or because someone wanted to become something else but was not permitted to, and the Obama Administration has been "notably silent" about the destruction of a Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur and of Christian sites, too. And come to think of it, the Obama Administration has said nothing -- would that constitute being "notably silent" -- about the destruction of churches, and the killing of Christians, in the Moluccas and elsewhere in Indonesia, the place where Obama got his introduction, and learned just about all he knows about Islam from his stay there, as a schoolboy, between the ages of 6 and 9.
Had Obama not been content to assume that he "knew" and still worse, "knows" about Islam, because his father -- who left when Obama was two, was a nominal (syncretistic, African) Muslim, and because of that three-year stay in Indonesia, at an atypical school, in an atypical and secular city, in the most atypical of Muslim countries, with a secularist history that has not yet been entirely overcome, had he instead taken the occasion, these last twenty years -- and my, how tellingly incurious of him not to have done so -- to start studying Islam, its texts, its tenets, the attitudes that naturally arise from those texts and tenets, and the atmospheris of societies suffued with Islam -- well, had he been curious or studious enough to have done so, instead of merely accepting the convention idea that "all religions are the same" or that, as a "great religion," surely Islam could not inculcate malevolent notions, for no "great religioin" could possibly do that, then being well-prepared, perhaps the Obama Administration would not have been, on every conceivable occasion, "notably silent" about the persecution, humiliation, and physical attacks, including murder, that characterize the treatment of so many different kinds of non-Muslims, in so many different countries where Islam dominates, and Muslims rule.
But he didn't learn what he should have learned. There is nothing stopping him now. He could start learning, right there in the White House.
And if he does, if he does it right, he will no longer find being "notably silent" a suitable response.
Barry doesn't care. He's too busy transforming America into the Soviet Union.
Sorry, but "Hope" and "Change" doesn't apply to fighting for the human rights of oppressed religious minorities in the Muslim world.
Obama administration "notably silent" on Morocco's treatment of Christians
......................
Obama administration "notably silent" on Egypt's treatment of Christians; Obama administration "notably silent" on Pakistan's treatment of Christians; Obama administration "notably silent" on "Palestinian's" treatment of Christians...
More:
The Christians, mostly from the United States and Europe, have been accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a crime punishable by imprisonment under Moroccan law, which protects the freedom to practise one's faith but forbids any attempt to convert others.
......................
Does that apply to conversion attempts by Sunni Muslims? Why even bother asking?
More:
Almost all the country's 32m citizens are Sunni Muslims but churches and synagogues exist, alongside mosques, to cater for the 1% of the people who are Christian or Jewish.
......................
This is disingenuous. The implication here is that "moderate" Muslim Morocco simply allowed those places of worship to be built by the tiny non-Muslim minority.
In truth, all but a handful of those churches and synagogues are quite old. Morocco had the second largest Jewish population anywhere in Dar-al-Islam until 1948, where—in vicious reaction to the founding of Israel—they forced almost the entire Jewish population, who had lived there for millenia, out of the country.
Before 1948, there were 500,000 Jews in Morocco. Today the Jewish population is fewer than 700.
More:
Morocco's communications minister, Khaled Naciri, said the missionaries "took advantage of the poverty of some families and targeted their young children".
......................
Who is taking care of these orphaned children now that the Christians have been expelled?
So many of the charities in the Muslim world are run by the hated Christians and other Western Infidels—the Ummah as a whole is not big on charity—except when they mean Zakat, which is more likely to be used to fund Jihad terrorism than to educate and care for orphan children.
"The Obama Administration has been "notably silent" about the murders of Christians in Pakistan..."
What else are we to expect from a bunch of cowards who cannot even bring themselves to utter the term "Islamist"?
Why should anyone care about those Christians?
Maybe here's why:
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-Pastor Martin Niemöller 1/6/1946
I was about to say that the administration had also been notably silent about the treatment of Christians in Egypt, the Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. But I see that Hugh and gravenimage have already said it, and said it better than I could have. I'm posting just to second their remarks, and to "count coup."
Obama is silent because he can't blame tea party participants or G.W.Bush....
Obama is silent because he does not care what happens to non muslims.
No Faye, the President does care about non Muslims. He assures us that we are free to practise our faith, just so long as we pay the jizya and feel ourselves subdued.
Obama is silent because all he… truly cares about is himself and insuring an eight year presidential run and all the goodies that come afterwards. For just like Jimmy the dhimmi Carter and hunky stud Big Willy Clinton, Obama is an utter fool and a self serving con man.
Obama is not a leader – he is a follower, and a user, and a bad actor to boot. The only thing that floats Obama’s boat, is the fact that he is a pathological narcissist and has effectively created a cult of personality for himself. Other than the good organizational skills he possesses and his uncanny memory, Obama near tops the list of the useless tools to ever become president of the United States of America.
And besides, Obama has never nor will he ever whisper even one ill word about Islam itself. For he probably believes in its non-existent, evil deity Allah - which in reality is nothing more than the creation of Muhammad’s sick mind and ticket to the good life.
Too bad that the neo-cons have proven themselves to be such greedy scum bags while in power. The American people need a good alternative to vote for. Choosing Obama and the democrats was clearly a choice between the lesser of two evils. Ironically the electorate got it wrong.
I love what the great American horror writer Steven King had to say about Obama becoming president. He said something along the lines of – “Bozo the Clown could have gotten elected with the opposition he was facing.”
And as the great Ali Sina said a couple of years ago – “Obama is a Trojan Horse for Islam”. Yes indeed he is.
America is a great though imperfect country full of mostly good people. The world needs America to get its house in order and fast.
The American people need to wake up to that manipulative fraud Obama and vote is sorry ass out of office.
I am a Canadian ex-Muslim with a website.
http://www.considerationsofacanadianex-muslim.org
The Obama administration hasn't made much noise about the pressures on believers in China, North Korea, Laos, or Cuba as well.
Ebonystone, I like your concept of "counting coup". I guess a lot of us have noticed things about which the current administration shows little concern.
Islam is in fast demise thanks to the christinization movement.
"We are living a tragedy sir, by Allah we are living a tragedy, by Allah we are living a tragedy." (Sheikh Ahmed al-Qataani on al-Jazeera TV.)
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/05/dying-islam-lislam-mourant.html
I have something that I would like to say to our Muslim friends out there this evening.
Wake up people. Pull your heads out the 7th century Arabian sands. Don’t waste your lives being pawns to the evil cult of a mad man. And Muslims who leave Islam should not feel that they have to join one of the other two dessert religions, or any religion for that matter. It is enough for Muslims to discard Islam as this is the key to their success and the day that their lives begin again. Peace.
Obama is silent, because the man is not a Christian ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Why Obama Is Not A Christian: Reason #1"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4cMB8ktCT8&feature=related
Obama is indifferent to religion -- though was willing, as others have been, to attend church if it helps his political career, as it did in southside Chicago.
But lack of faith alone, without more, is not what worries. Among those who are the most keen and ferocious opponents of, and warners about, Islam, have been Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Oriana Fallaci, Pat Condell, and others, including some who have written for this site.
No, what worries is his belief that he "knows" about Islam from his own accident of birth, and the three years he spent as a child in Indonesia, and from hearing an islam-slanted narrative about men and events, especially from the likes of Rashid Khalidi.
If Obama wishes to pull a Prince Hal bidding farewell to Jack Falstaff -- well, Falstaff was much more winning than Rashid Khalidi, the PLO propagandist masquerading as a scholar, but someone who talked to Obama, got to Obama, before Obama really knew much at all about Islam or about the history of the Arab war against Israel, and Obama still is quite ignorant about both matters.
But he has the time, if he so chooses -- why not cut out any watching of basketball games, and relax instead with, say, "The Dhimmi" or "Islam and Dhimmitude" -- to educate himself. Lots of people in this country are doing that. Why shouldn't he?
The guy who tried to blow up LA International Airport on Millenium Day ( 2000) has now requested US asylum. Unbelievable? The judge is considering his request seriously!! That's unbelievable!
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/muslim-terrorist-applies-for-us-asylum/
I agree that what is most worrisome about Obama is his "mis-understanding of Islam".
Unfortunately, Obama's indifference to the evils of Islamic theology may not be based on his ignorance of the religion. Instead his views and actions may very well be a calculated political move.
You guys down there in the States may very well have a full blown narcissist on your hands. Islam can do very strange and dangerous things to the minds of people fundamentally lacking in honesty who fall short in the category of good intentions. It is disturbing to look at and listen to Obama, knowing that for the first few years of his life, Muhammad's cult of Islam was Mothers Milk for little Barry O.
In a recent speach directed to the Muslim world at large, President Obama stated the following:
"I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America ‘s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco . In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States."
President Obama apparently takes for granted the actual historical facts behind this statement.
Investigate the following link for an enlightening treatment of what really happened:
http://blog.mycountrymatters.com/2009/07/01/america-the-barbary-pirates-and-obamas-abuse-of-history/
"{They} have been accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a crime punishable by imprisonment under Moroccan law, which protects the freedom to practise one's faith but forbids any attempt to convert others." --from the article
The phrase "freedom to practise one's faith" is just propaganda. We are talking about Islam in Morocco, which has outlawed what we in the West would call freedom of religion, or freedom to practice one's faith. What we in the West call religious freedom simply does not exist in any Muslim majority country.
The penalty for non-Muslims proselytizing to Muslims, mentioned here, is one of the classic restrictions of the dhimma. Non-Muslims are not allowed to proselytize to Muslims; that would be a violation of the dhimma contract and thus they could be put to death. At the same time, Muslims are permitted, indeed obligated by the Quran, to proselytize to non-Muslims.
Anyways, this example shows once again how Muslims insist on imposing sharia on non-Muslims and how some of the dhimma restrictions on non-Muslims remain in effect to this day.
Yes, Kinana, this is yet another proof of lack of balance, reciprocity.
And I like us to look at the world faith-wise, ahead of nation-wise. And one faith I see playing false, taking but not giving.
Since there are large and growing Islamic minorities in the lands of the other faiths, it is unfair that these Islamic religious minorities get treated with equal rights, including proselytization-freedom, whereas in the reverse situation the religious minorities are oppressed, heavily disadvantaged.
In an international thinking world this together with the Islamic death-penalty for apostasy, should be grounds for holding Muslims accountable, not stopping until complete reciprocity is achieved. And I think we can begin with holding Muslims living in Democratic countries accountable. In an intelligent way at least.
Asking them which it is that they choose: Having equal rights for all religious minorities and apostates all over the world or the current situation.
If Muslims choose the current situation or refuse to choose or in their declarations and behavior continue to support the current situation, well, then ...
At least we can open the eyes of the ignorant, or "fair-minded, neutral" masses ever more. And we can ask these Muslims who choose against reciprocity, if they really want to live in a country so clearly opposed to some of their essential laws, goals and interests. And if they think that's fair.
We have a lot of questions to ask to Muslims living in Democratic countries, I feel. Because I think that being Muslim should be a choice, for which accountability may be asked.
But I concede that at present being Muslim for many still amounts to the effect of the accident of birth. But the choice for or against democratic laws and the interests of democratic nations and real reciprocity, for THAT choice, or lack thereof, people most definitely can be held accountable.
Here on JW, this story may receive interest and be proof of "lack of balance", but at the Economist comments page, there is hardly any shock at this treatment of aid workers caring after children in one of the West's most "tolerant allies" - instead comments about "all religions are bad", or "what would happen to Muslim proselytisers in America?"
Is this lack of interest from mainstream-thinking people not newsworthy in itself?
"I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America‘s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States."
This is from Obama's Cairo speech -- on America and its relations with Islam, it was possibly the least true, and most dangerous, speech ever delivered by any President in the history of the United States. That speech has been taken apart by many, who have shown in how many ways almost every remark in it is an affront to history, by this self-proclaiimed "student of history" who appears to know nothing about the history of Islamic conquest, the history of the Muslim slavers who wreaked havoc on the shores of Western Europe, and seized and enslaved over the centuries perhaps a million Europeans, and caused villages on the shores -- as far north as Ireland -- to worry about the sudden appearance of Muslim raiders, who pillaged, destroyed, and seized men, women, and children, who would be taken back to Muslim North Africa and enslaved, and used for various purposes.
In the case of Morocco, in that one sentence above, Morocco may have been the "first nation" -- the Sherifian kings of Morocco owed allegiance to the Ottomans, which does not make it quite a "nation" in the way that France or Englahnd were -- to formally recognize the United States of America, but so what? A few years later, that same Morocco was the "first nation" to make war on that same Republic, the first nation whose aggression required the Americans to go to war against it in response.
That is left out, and in the next sentence in Obama's completely misleading, and often blatantly false account, we are, confusedly, transferred to the Dey of Tripoli (modern Libya), who like the Muslim rulers of Morocco and the dey of Algiers, and Tunis, And the history of treacherous dealing, which every American envoy experienced, in dealing with the kings of Morocco, and the deys of Algiers and Tripoli, is not part of the narrative which Obama gave, and did not have to give, and by giving won no friends among Muslims but did manage to mislead Americans, the very people he is supposed to instruct (he has failed to instruct them truthfully) and protect (he has not done that sufficiently), and, in their dealings with these Muslims, came to discover what they had not known, the Muslim belief in the rightness of Islam and in aggressive acts to push back the frontiers of Dar al-Islam. In those days, before the wishing, and the hoping, before the pieties of Diversity and Tolerance, before the Interfaith Healing Racket could be imagined, American diplomats and political figures and military men reported truthfully, without blinders, on what they observed, on what they encountered -- and you can read a lively and excellent account about what they encountered in Michael Oren's "Power, Faith, and Fantasy."
This is not the place to go into, yet again, what is wrong with Obama saying such things as this:
"And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States."
Whatever can he be talking about? And does he think that when he tells pleasing fables, or fables intended to please, a Muslim audience, he is not being heard by non-Muslims? This "double-audience" business has to be kept in mind: you cannot speak truthfully and fully, even if at times obliquely (with synecdoche -- "Jihad" standing in for "Islam" initially necessary in some situations), to the audience that counts, your own people, if you are going to be worrying about what Muslims will think. And if you lie and lie about the nature of Islam itself in a transparent -- and of course unsuccessful attempt to win over Muslims, -- you will dishearten and confuse and enrage your own people who are not, and never have been,in the entire history of the Republic, "enriched" by Muslims.
Nothing much changes, except our naivete:
March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
Jefferson reported the conversation to Secretary of State John Jay, who submitted the Ambassador's comments and offer to Congress. Jefferson argued that paying tribute would encourage more attacks.
I must be missing something here. This forum is overrun with Christians shouting about Obama not being "Christian". I'm rather disheartened by all of this. The point should be, not that Christianity should reign supreme, but rather, that religion has no place in our government. We should be protected as a people from ANY religion that attempts to overstep its bounds and rule the people. Don't forget the atrocities of the Inquisition.
The point of our democracy is not that the majority rules, but rather, that the rights and freedoms of all people are protected, and that all of us have those same rights and freedoms. The fear of Sharia law in the United States should not be the same as that of a fear of Islam. As a religion, Islam has the same rights of practice as Christianity. All people, regardless of religion, must live by the same laws.
We should be wary of *any* group that tries to impose its standards upon our way of living. Roe v. Wade wasn't about abortion people. It was about the right a woman has to choose. It *is* possible, believe it or not, to be pro-life *and* pro-choice. Though I may believe abortion is wrong, that doesn't mean I should be able to take that choice away from others.
We need to protect ourselves from laws that would limit our freedoms. Period. If I were a Muslim woman in the U.S., I should be able to choose how I practice my faith, the same as many Christians do already. There are countless different Christian denominations, because not all Christians practice the same way, or express their faith in the same way.
Also, for those of you who claim to be Christian...
I'm seeing a lot of hatred and insults on these boards. How do you expect to ever get your point across breathing fire and brimstone? I thought we left the Puritan era...
Rasool Obama has been notably silent...Except when he is not...When he is not he is talking jive hog manure, or singing 'Hey Jude'...Next thing we know he will appear on American Idol and sing love songs...'I got you babe', would be a good first song...
I must be missing something here. This forum is overrun with Christians shouting about Obama not being "Christian".
No it's not...
"We should be protected as a people from ANY religion that attempts to overstep its bounds and rule the people. Don't forget the atrocities of the Inquisition".
The inquisition was not done by 'Christianity'...
T"he point of our democracy is not that the majority rules",
Then lets do away with the vote...
"The fear of Sharia law in the United States should not be the same as that of a fear of Islam".
You cannot separate them...
"Roe v. Wade wasn't about abortion people".
Yes it was...
"I'm seeing a lot of hatred and insults on these boards".
Thanks for sharing that...
"this forum is overrun with Christians shouting about Obama not being "Christian". -- from a posting above
I hadn't noticed that this particular foxhole had been "overrun with Christians" -- a most peculiar and insulting turn of phrase. It is true that some call Obama a "secret Muslim" -- which is not quite the same as a charge of "not being 'Christian'" -- instead of charging him with what can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of all -- that Obama's remarkable ignorance of Islam, and his continued nonchalance about meeting his responsibility to educate himself on this matter, are unacceptable, intolerable, in one who presumes to protect and, as in that awful Cairo speech, instruct us.
And I choose to believe that my presence at JW, in this selfsame foxhole for more than six years. refutes or possibly even refudiates the famous insistence that "there are no atheists in foxholes."
Now, as for planes, on both landing and takeoff....
"Though I may believe abortion is wrong, that doesn't mean I should be able to take that choice away from others."
From that remark, I surmise: that you believe infanticide is wrong, but you wouldn't take that choice from others.
Or: that honor-killing is wrong, but ....
Or: that homicide in general is wrong, but ....
Personally, I believe that life trumps liberty. My right to life outweighs your liberty to take my life.
Hmm I love quotes being taken out of context. What I said was "Christians shouting about Obama not being Christian". This does not imply that *everyone* who posts here is one of said Christians. Apparently, since I am Catholic, I don't count as Christian in the eyes of some. Catholicism was the basis for a good chunk of the Christian denominations, and in fact, the other main founding Christian faith was Orthodox.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm all about preventing Islam from imposing their laws and religious principals upon us, however, they are not the only religion that tries to do so. Please note the stubbornness with which many Christians fight to have their religion be the one in control.
My main point was simply this: religion (of any flavor) has no place in government.
The Catholics used to be the majority in many places, and now things have changed. So might the Christians someday become a minority. That is why we should not fight over religion. We should fight to protect the freedom of religion. As long as religions have existed there have been wars in the name of their God(s). Such disputes should be left to conversations outside of the political sphere.
Does anyone understand the point I'm trying to make?
"We should be protected as a people from ANY religion that attempts to overstep its bounds and rule the people."
As a Darwinist myself I see a huge difference between Christianity and Islam and their followers in this respect. Christianity is very much compatible with Democracy while Islam is anti-democratic, in its very laws and stubborn clinging to their immutability as the Quran and Hadith and also much of their interpretation are considered so immutable by Muslims.
Also there are 56 Islamic nations practicing for the most part some kind of dictatorship or theocracy. Even when democratic with voting and constitutional state, not entirely democratic with the rights of women and minorities and freedom of speech and separation of mosque and state. And there are no Christian states like that. Please look international, not only myopic to your own country.
"I'm seeing a lot of hatred and insults on these boards. How do you expect to ever get your point across breathing fire and brimstone? I thought we left the Puritan era..."
Well, the insults are there, granted, but they are meant to ridicule and shame Muslims. And also to get their attention, which often is not achieved by attempts of reasonable, peaceful dialogue just by itself.
The reactions by humans, so also Muslims, to these are often: Disinterest, no passion, laughing reactions, reactions saying people are too busy right now, because of so many other concerns or pleasurable activities. But with insults people, so also Muslims, get a big drive to think about and try to refute what is being said. Moreover, once a firm fierce opposition is set up: A. Muslims will then be much more prepared to have an honest dialogue with "polite" people and B. also will be guarding against fuelling the fierce opposition with words/ deeds that they were accused of, for fear of their fierce opponents being proved right in their "hate"-remarks. This is also how a democracy works, do not censure it.
BUT you in my opinion, confuse "hate" with Holding sane adult humans (which Muslims are) accountable for choosing to stay with Islam, even with all its pointed out consequences, Criticizing their choice, exposing very unfortunate, obsolete, bad Islamic teachings, and declarations and actions of Islamic leaders and followers. And Protest against that.
Granted that doesn't sound nice, but the border is with threathening violence and it should be the contents that matter, not the tone. Otherwise you run the risk of throwing out the baby with the washing-water.
Obama's step motherly treatment towards Christians and Jews is well known. The way he prevented the famous Christian preacher Franklin Graham from leading the Pentegon Nation day of prayer made the Christians side tracked. Christian leaders said " If President Obama fails to intervene to allow evangelist Franklin Graham to lead a National Day of Prayer event Thursday inside the Pentagon, "it will be a slap in the face of all Christians," .
"And invited or not, I'll stand in front of the Pentagon and pray", Graham said in an interview. It is high time obama changes his attitude.
Just as Islam, as codified in Sharia law, does not tolerate questioning/insulting Islam, so Muslim (especially Muslim men) are promised privilege and superiority over non-Muslims under Sharia. They come to expect unquestioning consideration and servitude and become enraged when it is not given by non-Muslims. Feelings of power and control are, after all, addicting. This often irks those who are used to equality under the law and the concept of fairness and reasonableness. So, the claim of Muslim supremacy and domination is often met with derision, even here. As much as that reaction is deserved and right, it can also be the excuse and rationalization for jihadists to declare themselves victims and promote their cause of special treatment. Under Sharia law, jihad is "legal" if sanctioned by an Imam/religious leader and is in "defense" of Islam, Muslims, Muslim "honor," etc., etc., even if it is contrived. Let's not be provoked. Reason, fairness, and truth are only grasped by those who are not blinded by self-interest, but pointing it out can be planting a seed. We already have the laws to put out the flames of Muslim supremacy in the U.S. (although we need to outlaw Sharia law so judges do not "respect" it), we just need to enforce them vigilantly.
As for Obama, he is a Muslim Trojan horse and his followers are ignorant about Islam.
(Quoting from Obama's speech in Cairo:)
""And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States."
Whatever can he be talking about?"
One can never underestimate Barack Obama's capacity for dishonesty and self-delusion, Hugh. He is, after all, an Alinskyite.
Where, indeed, are the Muslim signatories to the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution? Who are these illustrious Muslim Founders and Framers, and why didn't the ridiculous Revisionist in Chief mention them by name while he was pandering to the Muslim world in Cairo???
"Does anyone understand the point I'm trying to make?" -- from a posting above
Yes, I understood your point and I don't accept it.
I don't accept the notion that what everyone should be doing at this and similar sites, and outside, in the great world, is the "ensuring freedom of religion," a task which carries as its unstated corollary the notion that Islam can adequately be described as a "religion" (see JW, articles and postings, passim) akin to, worthy of being "defended" because it is held to be just like, other faiths that are called, out of faute-de-mieux mental laziness, "religions."
Opposing lack of freedom of religion in Islam-dominated lands is not the only thing to worry about. Muslims would argue, in any case, that the dhimmi status, that is the legal inequality of non-Muslims under the Shari'a, nonetheless provides for what Muslims have convinced themselves is "freedom of religion" for Christians and Jews.
You appear to believe that we need only be concerned with defending "freedom of religion" -- that is, ttempting to universalize the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment -- or as you put it, "My main point was simply this: religion (of any flavor) has no place in government." That's not nearly sufficient a goal, and fails to address all the varied ways that Jihad -- the struggle to remove all obstacles to the spread, and dominance, of Islam -- proceeds, nor does it take into account the peculiar nature of Islam as a religion cum politics cum geopolitics, one that offers a Complete Regulation of Life and Explanation of the Universe -- there is no comparison between this total belief-system and those other faiths we call religions.
This is about a President who during election time said much about his Christian beliefs... so if he is not Christian, is Obama still credible, and can we believe him on anything else?
As for not being ruled by any religion, I fully agree... but why mention the Inquisition? When did it happen, in which countries and what relevance, if at all, does it have to what is being proposed by the "Christians" on this forum today?
As far as I see this is a forum posted-on by Christians, Hindus, Jews, atheists and even some ex-Muslims with one shared concern: to stop Islamic expansionism and supremacism, in its many forms, coming to a town near you...
Well if you break than other nation law there is very little the america government can do about it.
You really are suffering from a very bad case of moral equivalency thinking. Try to understand at least this if you're able: No major religion's theological blueprint is inimical to democracy, equality under the law, true freedom of speech and real religious freedom except Islam's. It is of little consequence that some folks from any religion behave badly at times.
What really matters is the religion itself. And among the major faiths of the world only Islam is a threat to freedom and other many good things. Do you think you can finally get this or are you going to continue blathering on more and more with your tu quoque reasoning, which types you as someone so many here no longer have to consider seriously. You're not as sharp as you think. Not even close. Indeed, you are quite limited and tedious. Try growing up intellectually. Give it a shot.
"Seeing that Morocco is one of America's closest Arab allies, the American administration has been notably silent."
By the way, Moroccans are not Arabs, not sure if anybody noticed.
Moroccans, despite their origins in the pre-Islamic Berbers and other inhabitants, are today overwhelmingly Arab in language, customs, and ethnicity. There IS, however, a sizable Berber minority that refuses to relinquish its linguistic and cultural distinctiveness, though the Berbers did convert to Islam soon after the Arab conquest.