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Deep in a long puff piece about their fallen hero Al Gore and his breakfast, The New Yorker brings us Gore comparing Bush's Christianity with the Islam of two jihadist hotspots: Saudi Arabia and Kashmir.
His analysis, has just enough of the intellectual pose in it to impress The New Yorker; but in fact it's preposterous and dangerously misleading. Predictably, Gore doesn't mention, possibly because he doesn't know, the chief and decisive difference between Islam and Christianity: that the former has a developed doctrine and tradition mandating violence against unbelievers, while the latter does not.
No, I am not saying that Christians have never been violent and hateful. I am saying that when they are, they transgress the teachings of their religion; but when Muslims act the same way, they obey some important teachings of theirs. This again is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists; many, thank God, ignore these violent elements of their religious tradition. But to deny that these elements exist, or to treat Christian fundamentalism as if it has an equal capacity to inspire violence, is simply to deny the facts of the case -- and to foreclose on the possibility of any growth of a genuine movement for Muslim moderation, since you can't repair what you won't admit is broken.
I recently came across a discussion on some bulletin board where someone was equating the Beslan massacres with the Columbine high school killings. The writer was criticizing those who spoke of the Islamic religion of the Beslan murderers, saying that the Columbine killers were Christians, but were never referred to as such. But in fact, of course, the Columbine killers were vocally anti-Christian. The bulletin board writer was assuming that the religion of the Beslan killers was incidental to their actions, when in fact there is abundant evidence to the contrary. And Gore is here assuming that all religions, or at least Christianity and Islam, are equivalent in their fundamentalisms, when again the evidence suggests otherwise.
The problem with all this is that it continues to keep us from looking squarely at the real problem and working to solve it. Until the Islamic roots of the Beslan killers, Osama bin Laden, and the rest is generally recognized and dealt with, the problem of jihad terrorism will continue. No one will dare go to its source and work there to cut it off.
Gore’s mouth tightened. A Southern Baptist, he, too, had declared himself born again, but he clearly had disdain for Bush’s public kind of faith. “It’s a particular kind of religiosity,” he said. “It’s the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it’s not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back. You don’t hear very much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you don’t hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It’s the vengeance, the brimstone.”
Posted by Robert at September 8, 2004 4:05 PM
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Islam is just another religion...
...and the nazis were just another political party...
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at September 8, 2004 4:32 PM
Gore, like Kerry, like Chomsky, like Moo(re), will end up in the Dustbin of History. Failing another islamofascist attack on the US, the Republicans will win the White House for a 2nd term, and one can hope there will be another Republican in the White House after Bush retires. I don't think it will be Cheney.
4 more years!
Posted by: Gary at September 8, 2004 4:59 PM
Hmmmmm...looks like someone wants attention again!
What is he trying to say exactly...we need to put people like him in power and forget about our religion?
at September 8, 2004 5:13 PM
Bush and Kerry Miles Apart on the Death Penalty
...As governor of Texas, Bush signed off on 152 executions. As president, he has maintained his support for the death penalty. Three men have been executed under federal law while he has been in office, the first federal executions since 1963.
....Kerry has said he opposes capital punishment except in cases involving terrorism. While he may have voted in favor of some omnibus crime bills that included expansions of capital punishment, on stand-alone legislation Kerry has opposed the death penalty in a variety of ways.
Kerry is funny,I support the death penalty for all the Islamic suicide bombers. thats a safe stance
Al Qaeda For Kerry
Posted by: Bar at September 8, 2004 5:15 PM
Gore would then label Jesus Christ a fanatic, equal to Mohammid?
From the Bible:
Many will come to the face of Jesus Christ and say "I am a believer" and Jesus will say "depart from me, because I never knew you".
It is only between Jesus and Al Gore as to his Christianity, but Jesus said you are "either with Me or against Me, there is no in between".
I do not believe Al Gore to be a Christian. I believe him to have done what Jesus said men would do..."they will remove Christ from religion, and put theirselves in the position of gratification, and still call this religion".
This also shows the danger of forgetting what made this nation great. Al Gore was the vice president of this country. He does not even know that this is a Christian nation. Look at our founding fathers, thier studies, writings and statements....Al Gore would have hated their guts.
George W. is being pursecuted for his Christainity, good for you George....and remember Jesus Christ was killed by Priests for being to religious.
Posted by: alaskan1000 at September 8, 2004 5:19 PM
Could someone please send Gore Samuel Zwemer or Canon W. Gairdner, comparing Jesus and Muhammad. He has time to read; he might just do it. On the other hand, it is so much easier to avoid studying the matter -- opinions can be offered so much more freely without any knowledge to gum up the mental works.
Posted by: Hugh at September 8, 2004 7:14 PM
ALrite foljks,
checkout thjis funny conservative bumper sticker I found via a link from nationalsecurityblog.com
http://www.theallright.com/images/Terror_kerry.jpg
This one snatched a good laugh from me.(:-)
Posted by: voletti at September 8, 2004 8:17 PM
How absurd to believe that preaching and applying the Beatitudes would have a positive effect on Islamofacists. On the contrary, they would be heartened, taking such behavior as a sign of weakness. And we know what would happen next.
Thank God for the pregnant and hanging chads that prevented Gore from occupying the Whitehouse!
Posted by: epg at September 8, 2004 8:20 PM
Someone please Al Gore where we come from as Americans:
Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of Scripture for the people of this nation. Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, "Give me liberty or give me death"; but in current textbooks, the context of these words is omitted.
Here is what he actually said: "An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not the strong alone Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
These sentences have been erased from our textbooks.
Was Patrick Henry a Christian? The following year, 1776, he wrote this: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the front of his well-worn Bible: "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our creator." He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role.
On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: "It connected in one indissoluble bond the priciples of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them it faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country."
In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: "The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools."
William Holmes McGuffey is the auther of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools, with over 125 million copies sold, until it was stopped in 1963.
President Lincoln called him the "Schoolmaster of the Nation." Listen to these words of Mr. Mcguffey: "The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our nation, on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free Institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously that from the sacred Scriptures. for all these extracts from the Bible, I make no apology."
Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the Scriptures: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies, is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."
James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said this: "We have stoked the whole future of all our plitical constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to goern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."
Most of what you have now read has been erased from our textbooks. Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our country's Christian roots.
Does Al Gore know our history? is he a Christian? does he support and respect where we came from? does he realize this is a Christian nation? does he support our educational system that continues to rewrite history and remove our heritage? does he support separation of Church/and State when obviously, our Founding Fathers did not intend this?
This is what Liberals want us to accept...if you have to, be religious, but don't have God.
Posted by: alaskan1000 at September 8, 2004 8:58 PM
Nice cut and paste, alaskan.
Maybe you can explain this to a dumb lib'rul like me: if the founding fathers wanted this to be a "Christian" country, why is there no mention of the Bible, God, Jehovah, Yaweh, or Jesus in the Constitution? Why? Were they forced to be "pc" by the "lib'rul media" like your dear Lord Dumbya and his constant smacking up to the Saudis?
Oooo-wee. I know a certain bunch of people that are going to be fighting mad come November 3.
Really now, wouldn't you all like to see another "impeachment?" LOL. Vote for Kerry. You know you'd love that. Bush can't be impeached for lying to us about Iraq and getting 1000 servicemen killed, because... I guess the Supreme Court secretly declared that no one in the Bush family can commit a crime.
200 billion of YOUR dollars for Iraq, and only 5% of cargo boxes are searched... only 5% of airline flights have an Air Marshall... and they STILL don't check every suitcase for bombs. AND there is only one border guard for every FIVE MILES of the (extremely looooong) USA-Canada border. I wonder how much an Air Marshall or Border Patrolman or a Cargo Box Checker makes an hour? Oh well.
Ah what the hell. Vote for the draftdodging coward. If your daughter/wife/mother/sister gets pregnant from a rape, you can always send her to France for an abortion.
W = "Wouldn't Go."
Posted by: kj at September 8, 2004 9:38 PM
Good God. If kj can't even accept the opinion of someone as erudite as Hugh, then he is Really lost.
If Kerry would only be honest about his service and his congressional record, he might have made it. And he still might. I'm sure the UN is already making plans for our troops, just in case.
Posted by: Gary at September 8, 2004 10:11 PM
Help me understand kj...
"200 billion of YOUR dollars for Iraq, and only 5% of cargo boxes are searched... only 5% of airline flights have an Air Marshall... and they STILL don't check every suitcase for bombs. AND there is only one border guard for every FIVE MILES of the (extremely looooong) USA-Canada border. I wonder how much an Air Marshall or Border Patrolman or a Cargo Box Checker makes an hour? Oh well."
Are you saying that America should not be spending money on defending their homeland, should be spending it more wisely or should be spending more?
Moose
Posted by: Moose at September 8, 2004 11:55 PM
I don't see how Bush lied about Iraq. Every country in the world had intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. The arab countries told Gen. Tommy Franks that they would be used against US troops. Where are the WMDs?...most likely they were moved to Syria. I've heard liberals say that we should have attack Iran because we KNOW that they have WMDs but I'm guessing if we went there we wouldn't find anything either. Russia said that Iraq was planning terrorists attacks in the US and agsainst US interests. Sadam paid the familys of suicide bombers thousands of dollars. There were terrorists training camps in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was welcomed there and joined the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam an IRAQI terrorist group from northern Iraq. He paid and armed terrorists to kill an american diplomat in Jordan in which he was sentenced to death by the Jordanian government, he was responsible for the beheading of Nick Berg and Kim Sun-il, he trained terrorists to use poison to attack Europe, he is responsible for the bombing of the UN building in Bagdad, he was also planning to release chemical weapons in Jordan which was foiled before it happened. The point is that there were terrorists there before we attacked Iraq. Iraq is the heart of the middle east...the terrorists understand the importance of this war...if they lose they will be dealt a very large blow...but obviously ignorant liberals still don't understand.
I like your quote at the end from the Kitty Kelly book that's going to come out where she accuses Bush of using drugs and sending a girlfriend to France to get an abortion...it's very similar to what she wrote about Reagan...in fact it's almost the same...Reagan's got his girlfriend and abortion...nancy was in involved in adultry...ect...It's kind of pathetic that she couldn't come up with anything new...just recycled a story she made up about Reagan...
Posted by: General_Patton at September 9, 2004 12:14 AM
KJ: how about the fact that good old billy boy had many chances to get bin laden, and failed. The left stands for everything wrong. For the left to call murder a womens right to choose is sick. A sacrifice at the alter of selfishness. that is what the left is all about....
Posted by: Bar at September 9, 2004 1:43 AM
lib'rul. Oh yeah. That good-ole', dumbed-down, feel-good-about-yourself-without-any-effort-to-actually-Learn, self-esteem over math skills, if-physically-challenged-Johnny-can't-play-soccer-no-one-can-because-it-hurts-his-self-esteem, I'm-(insert race here)-so-I-can't-Possibly-get-thru-it-without-Massive-government-aid, public school education. Comes thru again and again.
They are teaching islam in our schools. And it is Your side that is putting this into our schools, KeithJoy. Show me where, in the fevered imagination of the Bush-is-part-of-the-Take-Over-The-World crowd, it is stated that Conservatives are pushing this garbage? That is one aspect of it I haven't heard of yet.
Buy a frigging clue.
Posted by: Gary at September 9, 2004 10:47 AM
KJ
This was not a cute posting, this should be a alarming and educational experience of history.
Something continiously ignored by people not willing to seek the truth.
I do not believe you to be a dumb liberal, I do not believe that you are ignorant to the facts. What I do believe is that you reject the truth. Which is worst? Being dumb? Being ingorant? Being presented with the truth and walking away with it?
I reviewed your post and I do not see that you have the ability to reveiw truth and understand it.
You really do spew like a true liberal. Even "your" liberal media has shown that your posts are wrong.
You ask questions of me pertaining to our Founding Fathers and their intention of Christ in America. Can we say Pilgrims? They were not people on vacation. But I suggest you open a book and quit reading the media. Study these subjects and see if I am wrong. Don't waiste my time trying to pick a fight and not respecting your opponant or the subject. Even Osama has studied who he is against.
If I saw you driving down the road and I stopped you and told you that the bridge ahead was out, would you argue with me? would you proceed (at least) with caution?
I am not the person on the side of the road but the Bible is. The Bible has already told us the bridge ahead is out and that we should stop........and all I keep hearing is "I ain't stopping, because nobody is going to tell me what to do."
Ask yourself...."who is wrong?" (I am not talking about Kerry or Bush.)
Posted by: alaskan1000 at September 9, 2004 1:17 PM
Is anyone else noticing the growing derangement among the Democrats "of name?"
Al Gore has been showing medication breakthrough most of this year. He acts often like the hyperemotional Arab-Islamist that he tries to attribute to Bush. Aside from periods of loss of emotional modulation and the faculty of reason, Gore denies and projects the demon that is his inner self.
Sen. Bob Graham now publishes a book seriously asserting that Saudi Arabia cooked up 9-11 with Bush's assent and consent. The part of the interview by Chris Mathews I heard on the radio this morning left me thinking that Bob Graham may have become delusional.
Madelyn Albright self-righteously castigates Cheney because he cited the truth: Elect Kerry; invite more 9-11s. She almost screamed that this is the most outrageous thing she has ever encountered in her life. What a sheltered life she must have led. Rwanda and all of the jihad inspired events seem to have escaped her attention all together. If she is not nuts, then where is her moral compass?
Jimmy Carter castigated Zell Miller for his disloyality to the Democrat Party by speaking at the Republican National Convention -- and does so for pages. The fact that Sen. Miller is a profound American patriot in the finest sense of the term, including unwavering loyality to America and the Constitution, apparently mean as much to Carter as our embassy hostages in Iran did. Thanks to Carter, we have Iran as a major Islamic threat in the world.
Little Lord Fauntleroy Edwards pealed attacks on Cheney because Cheney nailed the significance of electing Kerry and Edwards. He called the Vice President of the United States and former Secretary of Defense--"unAmerican." Obviously the truth hurts. Regarding national defense, will Edwards defend, or prevaricate?
Kerry lies at will and involuntarily, apparently. He is obsessed with Vietnam to the point that I wonder if he is expiating guilt about all of his activities on behalf of Vietnam after the war. His congnition is so loose that he has "more positions than the Kama Sutra," to steal one from Michael Medved's talk show from yesterday. Hank Hill, King of the Hill, summarizes people like Kerry with the time-honored Southern expression: "He ain't right."
He and Edwards want to make nice with Iran to see if they are as bad as the meanies say; if they are, then what? What kind of people are these who cannot even see the threat of jihad and its supporters?
Then there is the chronic paranoia of Terry McAuliffe who heads the Democrat National Committee and who generates statement after statement about Bush and Cheney, and all have no attachment to reality.
James Carville generates plot after plot which "explain," according to him, how Bush has always manipulated the world to gain advantage over others. His medication is either low or needs changing to something more powerful.
The list goes on and on: Ted Kennedy and his senatorial Democrats. These names are sounding more and more like the Hollywood loonies.
What amazes me is how much these people sound like the Muslim apologists and all the Middle East antagonists who hate us so extremely. No wonder their favorite candidate is Kerry. Arab-Islamists in their native haunts sound "nuts." What comes from their lips seems to have by-passed their frontal lobes all together.I point to the articles in Jihad Watch to back me up. The parallels often overwhelm me.
The fact that so many powerful Democrats are starting to sound just like the bad guys alarms me. The rational Democrats like Lieberman and Byah are being drowned out; these Democrats sound like the loyal opposition of old, when both parties stood in total support of America and the Constitution, united against jihad, yet differing on less fundamental issues.
If we are to beat jihad, we really have no choice this November. Do we?
Posted by: George Mason at September 9, 2004 6:11 PM
Meh. And the worst part about responding to kj's bilge?
He gets on JW and DW after 9 at night, Eastern time. By that time, most of the threads we have answered him on are buried pretty deep. He gets to toss out his conspiracy-laden responses, attributing to us (wrong)thoughts which we don't think and making assertions we belong to groups we don't belong to, and then leaves, knowing he'll never be back to see our responses. (what was it he said somewhere? 'why don't you people ever answer my question?' (paraphrased)). And all we are doing is pointing up documented facts, complete with links.
You know, somewhere up above, that person is right. It does sound a lot like muslim or naseem posting here when he shows up.
Posted by: Gary at September 9, 2004 7:24 PM
All hail to a couple hundred Floridians, hanging chads, and pregnant chads who gave Bush an ever-so-slight edge in Florida in 2000. I am now convinced that Al Gore would have been an unmitigated disaster had he been in the Oval Office on 9/11/01.
Gore is steeped in the cultural relativism that is proving to be the suicide of the West. In order to impress the self-important shmoes who run our media, he refuses to even consider the small-d democratic character of his own denominational heritage (Southern Baptist), and engages in the moral equivalence game at which liberal Democrats have long been adept.
Also, the _New Yorker_ has been of less value than used toilet paper ever since James Thurber died. A well-meaning loved one gave me a gift subscription a few years back; I noted that it was still full of "My Abominable Irish Catholic Girlhood" sorts of pieces, and thought, "Good grief: full speed ahead into the year 1968", and declined to renew my subscription.
Posted by: Kepha1 at September 14, 2004 4:47 AM
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