Islamist extremists behead Western journalists in Syria, massacre thousands of Iraqis, murder 132 Pakistani schoolchildren, kill a Canadian soldier and take hostage cafe patrons in Australia. Now, two gunmen have massacred a dozen people in the office of a Paris newspaper.
The rash of horrific attacks in the name of Islam is spurring an anguished debate among Muslims here in the heart of the Islamic world about why their religion appears cited so often as a cause for violence and bloodshed.
The majority of scholars and the faithful say Islam is no more inherently violent than other religions. But some Muslims ”” most notably the president of Egypt ”” argue that the contemporary understanding of their religion is infected with justifications for violence, requiring the government and its official clerics to correct the teaching of Islam.
Ipso ab initio, Islam is a strong advocate of violence and subjugation.
It extinguished the large and vibrant Christian presence in
North Africa and the Middle East, and seeks to destroy/eject the
remnant of Christianity which still remains there.
Furthermore, although Muslims proclaim the prophet Mohammed as
the most perfect man who ever lived, the recorded and known facts
of his life paint a very different picture. He murdered, and arranged
to have murdered, many who opposed his teachings and his violent
methods. Sometime in his 50’s, he married a 9-year old girl.
No, from Islam’s very beginning, the violence against Jews and
Christians, and its nauseating treatment of females, are present in
full measure.
Why did the Spanish people fight for 7 or 8 centuries to rid the
Iberian peninsula of Islam ? There must have been a reason for this
counter-attack against Islam which spanned many centuries and
generations. The Spanish and Portuguese must have perceived the
Islamic culture as a truly existential threat. It is impossible to
believe that Spaniards and Portuguese were merely misguided
Catholic fanatics.
It will be pointed out that most Muslims live peaceful lives among
their non-Muslim neighbors. Although this is true, it is utterly
irrelevant. The attacks this week in France, and the violence
elsewhere by Muslims against Jews, Christians, and other
non-Muslims, are being perpetrated by a terrorist vanguard which
seeks to subvert or violently destroy the non-Muslim societies in
which they reside. This vanguard will brook no opposition to its
aims. Western societies must not only proclaim freedom of expression
and religion, they must be prepared to defend it.
Thank you for that Ichabod. As a Christian, I cannot accept that Mohammad in any way supercedes Christ. The characteristics of their deity are so alien that I do not accept their presumption that they worship the God of Abraham. The simple, straightforward answer is that Mohammad was deceived and the true God does not deceive.