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From WND, with thanks to Cathy:
A controversial Islamic lobby group has published an ad in California newspapers seeking to win acceptance with the message that Muslims "respect and revere Jesus" as do Christians.The ad by the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is headlined "More In Common Than You Think," with a photograph of the old city of Jerusalem.
CAIR has launched an advertising campaign called "Islam in America," which in the wake of tensions resulting from the 9-11 terrorist attacks aims to dispel stereotypes and portray Muslims as ordinary citizens who love their country.
The "Jesus" ad, quoting from Islam's book the Quran, reads:
'''Behold (O Mary!)' The Angel said, 'God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name shall be the Christ (Masih or Messiah), Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and in the hereafter, and one of those brought near to God.' (Holy Qur'an, 3:45)
"Like Christians, Muslims respect and revere Jesus. Islam teaches that Jesus is one of the greatest of God's prophets and messengers to humankind.
"Like Christians, every day, over 1.3 billion Muslims strive to live by his teachings of love, peace, and forgiveness. Those teachings, which have become universal values, remind us that all of us, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and all others have more in common than we think."
Muslims point out, however, that they reject Christian belief in Jesus' divinity and regard him only as a prophet.
Muhammad, in fact, is considered by Muslims to be superior to Jesus because Islam's founder is believed to have brought God's final revelation.
CAIR claims to be a civil-rights group that represents mainstream Muslims in the U.S., but the group is a spin-off of the Islamic Association For Palestine, labeled a "front group" for the terrorist organization Hamas by two former heads of the FBI's counterterrorism section.
CAIR issued a condemnation Monday of Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin that made no mention of Hamas or Yassin's responsibility for countless terrorist attacks against Israel, which were part of his stated objective to destroy Jews and the Jewish nation.
I am all for diminishing prejudice and building bridges, but not under false pretenses. Why doesn't CAIR confront the roots of Muslim hostility toward Christians, and repudiate those roots? Why doesn't CAIR quote verses of the Qur'an, like this one, which places all Christians under a curse, and then show why Muslims must reject this kind of thinking? (This is the verse: "The Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" — Sura 9:30).
Posted by Robert at March 25, 2004 10:06 AM
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It amuses me when the Religion of Peace plays the "we believe in Jesus too" card with Christians. Yes, they also believe that Jesus will one day return to the earth.
They just don't mention that their belief is that when Jesus returns, he will repudiate Christianity and kill all the Christians (and everyone else) who refuse to convert to Islam.
Posted by: Susan at March 25, 2004 10:27 AMOh, yeah? It gets worse. For those Canadian posters here, check out the United Church of Canada's "That We May Know Them- United Church-Muslim Relations" document. It is available at the UCC website (sorry, no URL handy).
Absolute theological lunacy. The UCC is seeking to become subsumed into an Islamo-Christian sect. I'll be making a submission in oposiiton in due course, and I'm not even a congregant!
Posted by: Earl at March 25, 2004 11:55 AMWeb sources documenting the ongoing persecution of Christian by Muslims:
http://www.barnabasfund.org/
http://www.domini.org/openbook/home.htm
http://www.csw.org.uk/
I believe CAIR does this to make Islam more acceptable to people. If they truly want to build bridges, then CAIR should invite a Christian Minister, Priest or Reverend to talk to them about Jesus.
They may learn that the Quranic definition of what Christians believe as the Trinity is inerror. They may also find another error in the Quran if they ask a Catholic priest about attributing divinity to Jesus' mother Mary. The Quran states that Mary was worshipped along with Jesus.
As a practicing Catholic, a good knowledge of Church history and the Catechism that dates back to the time of Jesus, Divinity was never attributed to Mary.
I'm sorry to say but the Quran is not without errors.
The koran was indeed writen from the christian holy bible, and is ment to be used as a way to communicate the christian faith to arabs. The koran is not and will never be anything but a missed understood farce. CAIR is itself an islamic foundation to prmote hate and killing by its muslims.
Posted by: christian at March 25, 2004 6:28 PMCAIR misrepresent and believes that most Americans will accept their version because toleration is part of our heritage. Americans also believe that abstract concepts such as peace and love have the same meaning in all cultures and all religions. Thus, they can be duped into believing that the Jesus characterized in the Koran is the same as the Christian Jesus because it is logical and tolerant. Of course we know that not even "tolerant" can be compared, only contrasted, as must be all other abstractions and Biblical figures which were "borrowed" from Judaism and Christianity.
Posted by: epg at March 25, 2004 11:48 PMI personally think it's a campaign of half-truths to gain acceptance, at least temporarily, to an religio-political ideology that wants to dominate you, me and the rest of the "decadent" Western society.
Unfortunately, many weak-but-well-meaning, "let's all hug and get along", people will fall for this propaganda.
Probably a smart move on CAIR's part, but don't believe it for a minute.
In terms of basic ideas (philosophical), Islam and Christianity have all in common. This is just quibbling over details. We in the free world have had the benefit of Christianity having been declawed, defanged, and castrated over the centuries through reforms. So successful has this reformation been that people actually believe Christianity is benign.
Posted by: Ilhad at March 26, 2004 11:03 AMMy dear Ilhad,
"In terms of basic ideas (philosophical), Islam and Christianity have all in common. This is just quibbling over details. We in the free world have had the benefit of Christianity having been declawed, defanged, and castrated over the centuries through reforms. So successful has this reformation been that people actually believe Christianity is benign."
I am afraid that I find this to be a profoundly ignorant statement.
Please supply verses from the New Testament enjoining warfare against unbelievers and reinforced in Christian tradition, comparable to Qur'an 9:5, 9:29, etc.
You may search, but you will find none.
Cordially,
RS
Sir Robert,
I am referring to the philosophical fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, predominately, not to scriptures. True, scriptures provide the sources of these philosophical ideas, but they offer nothing useful otherwise. Christianity is better than Islam because reason has made it impotent to effect any Jihad equivalent, although in its heyday, it was quite anti-life. In truth, nothing is as bad as Islam, thankfully. I can not permit as unsuitable philosophy as Christianity to get white-washed as an ideal. However, Christianity--so far--does not propose to eliminate our lives, our reasoning, our ethical choices, and enforce an amalgam of state and religion as does Islam. Those absences do not constitute a positive, however. Let us render unto Christianity what is Christianity's and unto Islam what is Islam's. Other than this, I fully support your crusade against Jihad (Did I misphrase that?).
Posted by: Ilhad at March 26, 2004 10:39 PM"True, scriptures provide the sources of these philosophical ideas, but they offer nothing useful otherwise."
Now there's a tendentious statement!
Cordially
RS
If Islam reveres Jesus so much, why in Islamic
countries are Christian converts thrown into jail and beaten and tortured? Why are Christian girls
forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men?
Why is it almost impossible to build a new church
or renovate an old one? Why are churches and homes routinely burned down in places like Indonesia and Nigeria? In Sudan, they love
Christians so much they rape the women,
cut off the heads of the adults and make the
children slaves to Muslim families.
I have been corresponding with a man in Cairo who
is serving a multi-year prison sentence for believing in Jesus. He has to spend his time
in prison making crafts to sell since the
Egyptian authorities make the prisoners provide
their own food and other necessities.
Ilhad - Islam has no ethics, Christianity does. They are poles apart.
Posted by: Sylvia at March 27, 2004 5:36 AM
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