The Islamic State jihadis think of the U.S. as a Christian nation, and so they think of destroying it as breaking the cross, which language is also reminiscent of this:
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle said, “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, son of Mary (Jesus) will shortly descend amongst you people (Muslims) as a just ruler and will break the Cross and kill the pig and abolish the Jizya (a tax taken from the non-Muslims, who are in the protection, of the Muslim government). Then there will be abundance of money and no-body will accept charitable gifts. (Bukhari 3.34.425)
“Islamic State vows to ‘break the American cross,'” Reuters, August 19, 2014:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State, the Sunni militant group which seeks to establish a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, released a video on Tuesday that gave the strongest indication yet it might attempt to strike American targets.
The video with the theme “breaking of the American cross” boasts Islamic State will emerge victorious over “crusader” America. It follows a video posted on Monday warning of attacks on American targets if Washington struck against its fighters in Iraq and Syria.
The latest footage speaks of a holy war between the al-Qaeda offshoot and the United States, which occupied Iraq for nearly a dacade and faced stiff resistance from al Qaeda.
Islamic State’s sweep through northern Iraq, bringing it close to Baghdad and in control of the second city, Mosul, drew U.S. airstrikes on the country for the first time since the end of the American occupation in 2011.
The video showed footage of President Barack Obama as well as strategic U.S. ally King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and attacks on American soldiers.
Fr. Basil says
Since when is the Cross American?
And since when is the USA a Christian nation?I’ve asked many pop-evangelicals who insist we are to give ONE quote from the NT in our founding documents.
WVinMN says
The US was founded based upon the pursuit of religious freedom, and those Europeans who first sought these shores were to a man and woman Christian. Yes, the establishment clause contained within the 1st Amendment prohibits the government from ESTABLISHING a national religion, but that in no way contradicts the fact that Christian traditions and values shaped this country! I mean, the fricking Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” ! Whom do you think Jefferson was referring to regarding THEIR CREATOR?! Zeus? The founders and other former American titans believed that the US was indeed a nation that owed it’s existence to G_D, and that G_D was unquestionably of the Christian variety. But don’t take my word for it, or even some random “pop-evangelical” (whatever the hell that is) for that matter…
From The American Thinker…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/the_judeochristian_values_of_a.html
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….”
He also wrote:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” He also wrote: “Almighty God hath created the mind free. … All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens…are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion…”
He also wrote:
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
President George Washington said this when proclaiming our National Thanksgiving Holiday:
“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God ….”
John Adams wrote this:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Later, Abraham Lincoln wrote these words about the Bible:
“In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to men. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong.”
somehistory says
Great response.
One thing many people neglect to think about is when someone is sworn into office or in court in the past, the Bible was used as the man or woman so swearing was taking an oath before God.
It is illogical to say that the Founders didn’t believe in God when there is so much evidence to the contrary.
JIMJFOX says
Does this claim rest on how the term “Christian Nation” is understood?
As an atheist, I accept what we term Christian values are desirable and realistic (mainly)… although
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy…” isn’t my idea of a loving God.
The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion
by Jim Walker
Originated: 11 Apr. 1997
Additions: 26 Dec. 2004
Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence.
Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity.
The U.S. Constitution
The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land for America and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. (For those who think the date of the Constitution contradicts the last sentence, see note 1 at the end.) The U.S. government derives from people (not God), as it clearly states in the preamble: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union….” The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion.
So I don’t know that America was ‘founded as a Christian nation’- we should bear in mind the religious fervour common in 1770’s and the Founders’ aims to prevent what was happening in Europe infecting the new nation.
Terry Yound says
As an atheist you will be the first to be beheaded.
Anonymous says
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”
That is not in any way, shape, or form a Christian doctrine. It is pure Liberalism. The God of Christianity, moreover, is a trinity, which Jefferson’s “Creator” was quite obviously not, given his repudiation of the idea. This “Creator” then cannot possibly be the Christian God.
WVinMN says
“That is not in any way, shape, or form a Christian doctrine”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that someone who rejects the Holy Trinity can also believe that the Christian G_D was the creator of all life on this planet. Look up The Church of the Latter-Day Saints and Jehovah’s Witness for starters.
And btw, pure liberalism (aka collectivism) is rooted in the fact that all rights and privileges emanate from man, and therefore, only a man-made creation (government) is capable of distributing said rights and property.
Anaonymous says
Mormons and Jehova’s witnesses are not Christians and do not worhsip the Christian God, who is a trinity. Your appeal, flying in the face of logic, to their belief in the Christian God as counterpoint to my contention that people who reject the Trinity do not believe in the Supreme Beign of the Christian religion, presupposes the very thing that you are attempting to prove therewith.
Or, to put it bluntly, that a being that is not a trinity can be identical with a being that is, as you would have it, is an utter absurdity.
Jay Boo says
The Anonymous Muslim distorts the concept of the Trinity and WVinMN ever so anxious to get in a (no god) point of view jumps in for a BS tag-team follow up on the original distortion as if it were a solid foundation.
What a tangled web they weave.
Jay Boo says
WVinMN Please disregard comment about Anonymous tag – team
I misread your follow-up
Kasey says
Yet in the USA it seems that all men and women are not actually ever given equality, but it’s nice just to say so, for World public consumption.
WVinMN says
Wow, you can parrot MSNBC talking points or those spewed about by your favorite functionally illiterate entertainer…oops, artist!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/worldviews/2012/06/13/us-ranks-6-in-best-worst-g20-countries-for-women/
We come in at number 6 regarding women’s rights (oh no, I actually cited data!).
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
And on the economic front, the US comes in at number 10. Unfortunately, we have slipped a bit over the last decade, primarily thanks to leftist scumbags like yourself. Have a nice day!
BC says
Well even Abe was not perfect but he did see that slavery was wrong. The Founders though were were Ok with slavery, they owned slaves. All men created equal meant all white men and they certainly did not think non whites were equal and neither did the Spaniards who enslaved the native Americans before them.
The words of the bible were used to justify slavery
Jay Boo says
BC said,
“The words of the bible were used to justify slavery”
That is a clever ending punch line.
I understand that you have your smug atheist or agnostic viewpoint to promote but let’s not imply by using careful omissions.
That is dishonest.
You (imply) that the problem is specifically with the bible and not the person misusing it. The belief in no god at all and rejecting the teachings of Christ could more easily be used to justify slavery, if we wish to be completely honest about this issue. What are these (important) Bible words that you mentioned but left out?
Unlike the slave-trade religion of Islam that was established specifically (for) promoting and enforcing the slave trade, Christianity has not such parallel, not even close. Many of the most outspoken abolitionists were Christians.
It takes great effort for the unscrupulous slavers to twist the words of Jesus to justify such behavior where it is very simple to quote Muhammad’s life and teachings that clearly promote the slave trade.
nacazo says
We are so self-centered in the West that it is going to be our perdition. Who cares if the gazelle nation was founded as a Christian nation or not?
What matters is that the wolf nation wants the gazelle nation for dinner and it’s saying that the reason is that the gazelle nation is Christian.
The gazelles keep discussing whether or not they are a Christian nation and the wolf nation is taking advantage of the gazelles’ distractions to circle them in order to eat them.
WVinMN says
I would argue that a nation that maintains Christian values is far more likely to recognize evil and respond in kind as opposed to one that is purely secular in nature. If one doesn’t subscribe to the idea of right and wrong, than why would one care about atrocities committed half way around the globe? I mean, who are we to judge ISIS? They are simply acting upon their cultural norms. Funny thing, nacazo, the people who speak such gibberish currently control the only country in the world capable of stopping the evil we talk about around here on a daily basis. And given that we lost the cultural debate, and by definition, the Christian debate in this country, moral equivocation has become the norm. Western secularists are your proverbial Gazelles, nacazo, and Gazelles rarely stand up to wolves.
Fr. Basil says
\\I mean, the fricking Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” ! Whom do you think Jefferson was referring to regarding THEIR CREATOR?! Zeus?\\
There is no indication that Thomas Jefferson personally meant the God of Christianity, as he rejected many Christian doctrines. For example, he said that the Virgin Birth was as ludicrous as the classical pagan story of the birth of Minerva from the head of Jupiter.
Furthermore, the Treaty of Tripoli (marking the first interaction of the US government with militant mahometanism) which has the force of law in the US says explicitly that “the government of the United States is in no way founded on the Christian religion.”
There’s a big difference between a Christian nation and a nation of mostly confessing Christians, but that might be too subtle for many people to grasp.
thomas_h says
“if you think that Christianity and the Bible is not at the base of the founding of America then you are profoundly ignorant of history.”
And of America.
Wellington says
Damn shame that America at present has a total weakling as Chief Executive. (What head of state of ANY other nation thinks Obama is a strong, resolute leader?)
Ah, where’s an Andrew Jackson or Ronald Reagan right now? None in sight I can see. Damn shame. Time for a new crusade (yeah, that’s right, Muslims, a CRUSADE). Ain’t gonna’ get it while the clueless guy presently occupying the Oval Office is there. Will have to wait till 2017 for a new POTUS (we’ll be doubly worse off if then it’s that massive incompetent and ignoramus, Hillary). Hope 2017 is not too late to turn things around. Till then we’re stuck with the Anointed One. Yeah, damn shame.
Tradewinds says
Interesting you mention Jackson. I’m currently reading a biography titled “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” by Jon Meacham (2008). I recommend it. And yes – Bring Back The Crusades. The Muslims have to be stopped again.
Wellington says
Old Hickory is the kind of Democrat I could vote for, Tradewinds. None in sight though.
Meacham is a fine writer. I think the definitive biography of Jackson remains Robert Remini’s three volume work. Remini also wrote very fine biographies of two other great Americans——Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. All worth the read.
Tradewinds says
I’ll look into those after I finish the Jackson bio. Thanks.
Uri says
Good God, you’re a tiresome bore.
Go down to Crawford and cry with Georgie boy, you superficial poseur.
Uri says
Comment for Wellington
thomas_h says
“Superficial poseur”! – bellows a profound idiot.
John C. Barile says
Uri, does it ever occur to you that you, yourself, might be a rather tiresome bore?
I say this not to provoke your indignation, but to try to discourage personal attacks from any one of us. Bristling ad hominems aren’t on topic. They are disrespectful and should be avoided by us all.
John C. Barile says
BTW, you seem to have missed the comic thrust of my dig at President Obama–I was reworking material of Groucho Marx.
John C. Barile says
@Uri
Wellington says
Exactly what I think of you, Uri, so we’re even. Have a nice day.
John C. Barile says
Wellington, I share your disgust.
thomas_h says
So do I.
Gail Griffin says
According to Iraqi News IS is on the run. At least the leaders are. Back to Syria. Also the US just miss droning Bagdaddy again, two days ago. He’ll get his cuppance
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
… the theme “breaking of the American cross” boasts Islamic State will emerge victorious over “crusader” America.
Yeah, most of America is athiest/agnostic/secular progressive. But, it is of profound significance that they live in a society with mores, law and ethics of Judaism and Christianity.
These Caliphate dudes despise us, and why not, we despise ourselves, and have reasons to be. The Caliphs don’t like all that turn the other cheek stuff. Wait, they do like it when their enemies foolishly respond to Jihad operations by jutting out their cheek to slap.
And, we fund the Jihad, too. U.S. taxpayer dollars are being handed over by Hamas to the Iranians right now to stock back up on Qassam missiles. God help us when they finally get cruise missiles and long range heavy drones. Ouch! All in the name of Allah, of course.
JIMJFOX says
“Yeah, most of America is athiest/agnostic/secular progressive”
Not according to the research- http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations which shows about 58% declare for religious conviction and about 18% classed as ‘unaffiliated’, not necessarily atheist/secular etc.
Phillip says
There is a difference between those who profess a religious affiliation, and those who practice it….talking the talk, vs walking the walk.
chanah says
A big AMEN even JESUS told HIS disciples to buy a sword before HE left for HIS KINGDOM
Luke 22:36
King James Version (KJV)
36 Then said HE unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
John 18:9-11
King James Version (KJV)
9 That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.
10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
Most Christians don’t actually read the Bible here we can see that Peter had a sword, I think that what JESUS meant was that if you take up the sword to intentionally kill somebody on purpose like muslims does then you shall in the end die by the sword, not if you defend yourself, if we can’t defend ourselves then what? Should we just let ourselves be killed, like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery, turning the other cheek is bad business I see it where I live young ppl get robbed by muslims and their parents act like just turn the other cheek, that’s not good to tell a young person just let yourself get robbed by turning the other cheek, try tell that to a rape victim or a person who have just witness his or hers family been slaughtered by muslims well my dear just turn the other cheek and then everything will be just fine
BC says
Nobody knows what ‘jesus’ said or even that he said anything. If you believe everything in the bible, which is a book which has been mistranslated and misquoted down the centuries , starting out as many gospels and cut down to 4 ‘official’ versions by Emperor Conastantine. those four gospels were not written until about 100 years after ‘jesus’ died so how authentic is that? You are just the same as the Muslims, except nowadays you do not want to kill anybody who does not believe what you think they should believe.
John C. Barile says
BC,
I have nothing against you, even if you dislike my profession of faith–but your view of biblical history is incorrect. The acceptance of the Four Gospels as canonical and inspired was affirmed in the Second Century; in large part, in reaction to Marcion’s rejection–c. 140 A.D.–of Matthew, Mark, and John.
John C. Barile says
Modern critical analysis and scientific evidence fix a Late First Century origin of the canonical Gospels. The Gnostic gospels you refer to date from the Second and Third Centuries. Constantine didn’t become emperor until 313 A.D.; the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea took place in 325 A.D.
John C. Barile says
@BC
The Gospels were written in the First Christian Century and are of apostolic origin–they were written within the first Christian generation; not, as you claim, a full century later.
You say the same things as the Muslim apologists do, and I likewise resent that.
Bezelel says
2 Peter 2:12
But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
Jude 1:10
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
I’ll spare the board a sermon but the word does tell us about islamists.
Jay Boo says
A holy book should not be a circle of narcissistic daydreams arranged to form a nightmare scheme.
Good Morning Muslim world, Is commanded you open your book.
Feel the hopeful verse that leads only to the emptiness within, yet again.
The Qur’an
Wtf? says
This is like Hitler commanding the armies under Berlin in the last days. The IS have nothing,no concept of the size or power of the US or any idea that America still leads, very badly, the hopes of the free world. These threats and the beheadings are acts of desperate people who must keep up a front to their enlisted jihadis. I think they have been hit very hard by the air strikes and now facing a fully armed Kurd army might be thinking about going home. Hopefully they will fly over the Eastern Ukraine. No offence to those innocents who died.
JIMJFOX says
I think you’re right. ISIS is typical muslim terror- sure they are skilled at local atrocity but have already had their first hammering at the Mosul dam- hence the attempt to
intimidate by the beheading and threat of more.
Sickening though it is, it should have NO effect on future action except to guarantee more and harder hammering. Anything else will be encouragement.
They are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ as you say; like Israel in Gaza, press on and wipe out the cancer by whatever means necessary. Even a badly led America is a match for any threat and when a new capable POTUS is in charge, look out Islam.
BC says
I do not agree they are desperate, at least not yet. They are delusional, deluded people do not get desperate. Remember the Nazis, most of them still believed that Hitler was going to ‘turn the tide’ at the last moment. The ordinary Germans knew the war was lost. Even though they had been getting slaughtered on the battlefields on every front. These Muslim idiots think their ‘allah’ will bring them victory and they are going to paradise anyway if they die
fighting for ‘him’, so they ‘win’ anyway.
mike says
Their goal is to have the United States engage them militarily. They (Al Qa’ida) laid it all out in a manual they produced entitled “The Management of Savagery”. It was translated in 04/05 and a if you google the name you can find a PDF version. It truly is a scary read but in my opinion a must for everyone.
JIMJFOX says
Over 200 pages of Islamic puffery and delusion; if you read all of it you have my admiration. I found (on skimming through it) nothing new. Much in line with the koran and sunnah, all the usual muslim victimhood, blame and hatred.
We should never forget the brainwashing these savages experience from birth, their arrogance born of inferiority, the abject failure of Islam to improve their misery.
And the sheer stupidity to accuse us of ‘islamophobia’
Champ says
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
~ Edmund Burke
JoeTheReader says
Islam is religion of Peace,
So say my good Muslim friends,
The koran does not pretend,
It says kills all who do not worship Allah,
Morons believe their evil is good W’Allah.
Evil is as Evil does,
Ain’t that right my muslim Cuz?
pumbar says
Funny how a sunny disposition and a sunni disposition should be so diametrically opposed.
tpellow says
“Executioner ‘with a British accent’ beheads US journalist in the name of ISIS:
Mother of slaughtered American calls on Islamist group to cease killing and pays tribute to her ‘extraordinary son'”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729287/ISIS-beheads-journalist-James-Wright-Foley-warning-US.html#ixzz3Av49ykUa
duh_swami says
If ISIS ever fulfills its dreams of ‘the Mother of all Battles’ with the US, ISIS will be crushed. ISIS may have jihadi’s in place inside the US for terror attacks, but they cannot win a head on collision with the US.
pumbar says
Once the heavy ordinance dries up I don’t think ISIS could win a head on collision with the Albanian State washing machine company.
hammar says
Of course muslims think America’s Cross, but, a, they get it wrong again!
It is Christ’s Cross. And only through the Cross can one enter heaven. And,
a, they get it wrong again. They want to break the cross, oh fools are a dime a
dozen..and there are lots of muslim fools….who don’t get it….um, Jesus, Savior was a Jew…So was Mother Mary, and all the Apostles…um, er, they don’t get
it. And, er, a, moham was a killer, um er, a thief, um and, a, child raper, and not
the holy prophet they make him out to be, um er, the koran um, oh, not a holy
book after all…Jesus says, ‘pick up your cross and follow me….um, er, through
the narrow gate. So pick up the same cross they want to break…um er, not many
intelligent muslims who comprehend the message? They just can’t understand
their own hateful lust.
Alice says
But..but..but…This isn’t a religious war! Just ask the MSM.
John C. Barile says
Or the White House press office–or, or the President!
SpioritOf1683 says
“The Islamic State jihadis think of the U.S. as a Christian nation”
More to the point, The Islamic State jihadis think the US and the rest of the West is weak.
John C. Barile says
Yeah.
We’ll see about that.
I’ll take time, though. Give it 30 months.
John C. Barile says
It‘ll take time, I mean, to give the jihadis a good lesson; to show them who’s really “weak.”
Terry Yound says
FYI – When the capitol was first built and the churches in DC had yet to build, they met in the Capitol building. This was not considered an offense. There is even a statue of a preacher in the rotunda. Then Freedom of Religion was between denominations of Christianity.
Nigel Dixon says
Errhm… the USA has “In God We Trust” all over its currency. They might want to rethink this very bad marketing idea…
paddy says
The article’s picture brings to mind the Lord of the Rings…the dark forces of Mordor (IS) with Sauron (Caliph) at its head.