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| Muslims Kill and Riot in Response to Florida Pastor who Burned a Koran |
WARNING: WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR LIFE IN THE PRESENCE OF ARMED RADICAL MUSLIMS AND COULD RESULT IN YOU BEING CHARGED A BIGOT, A FUNDAMENTALIST EXTREMIST, OR ULTRA RIGHT WING HATER SIMPLY FOR CONSIDERING.
How would an American react even if steeped in extreme Fundamentalist Christianity or true followers of the most hateful ultra-right talk show flamethrowers like Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, or Alex Jones if there were a news report showing a small Islamic congregation burning Bibles?
Don’t Blame Extreme, Very Extreme Christian Fundamentalists – Blame Islam.
For a little bit of context consider this. While reading this remember an "artist" presented a work called "Piss Christ" in 1987. the work of photographer, Andres Seranno, was of a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass container of the artist's urine. His "art" won the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art's "Award in Visual Arts" funded by US taxpayers through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA.) The center is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
This horrible expression certainly ignited plenty of debate, but in few instances made the national news. No riots resulted. Nobody was beaten up or killed. The most violent reaction was people calling talk shows in sheer disgust. Somehow, "Piss Christ" is every bit as bad or even worse than the notion of a Koran being burned in protest. Shall we come up with more examples of Christ images being defiled, Synagogues vandalized or destroyed, or American flags burned?
Do Moslems have some dispensation allowing them to kill, injure, and destroy when something hurts their feelings concerning their faith?
For those who don’t think there’s a serious problem endemic in Muslim Society, how Muslims are responding to the act of a extreme radical fundamentalist preacher in Florida, proves otherwise among thousands of Afghan Muslims who’ve resorted to murder and violence in response to behavior which regardless how detestable is legal expression of protest and free speech in our society. Given the hundreds, well truthfully thousands of instances where anti-Western mobs have desecrated Bibles, burned American flags, and destroyed just about anything they can find that represents Judaism, and the typical reaction in the west is little more than verbal outrage, we can surely see how on a comparative basis our culture is far more civilized and moral than theirs. There was also the case of the Danish cartoonist who issued a small number of cartoons, which would have been just run of the mill political cartoons if targeted against any party besides Muslims that created riots through out the West in Muslim communities. The Media and politicians got on their high horses condemning these cartoons while had the cartoons been directed at Christians or politicians, it would have just been routine. The Islamic press is full of out rightly hateful, racist and bigoted cartoons directed at Jews, Christians and Western leaders. That a cartoon of a pregnant Condoleezza Rice carrying a monkey as a fetus drew nothing other than ho-hums in our culture.
There will be attempts to equate the Florida church with being a Christian version of the Taliban or perhaps to associate them in a broader context that would include the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. That would not be a fair assessment either. The Westboro Baptist Church is clearly a bastardization of the Church. It’s a hate group which willfully inflicts pain on suffering citizens for who they are not what they believe. That they hate homosexuals and taunt grieving families puts them in the rarest form of extremism found in the United States except for Moslem Jihadists – as in the murder of a Military Recruiter and the Fort Hood Massacre. The Westboro freaks are universally condemned in society.
The small Florida church run by Pastor Terry Jones is called the Dove World Outreach Center. Anti-Islamic sermons are commonplace for a church with a congregation of approximately fifty families. Talk show demagogue, Glenn Beck, similarly has been attempting to demonstrate that Islam is the evil converse of Christianity and the warnings of the Book of Revelation and depiction of the anti-Christ and final struggle is reversed in Islam as though the 12th Iman is really the anti-Christ. There are some rather extreme anti-Islamic notions among the ultra right wing and extreme fundamentalists. But unlike the psychotic Beck who has thousands of viewers, Jones only represents are very small fringe group. How is he any more extreme than perhaps Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farrakhan? Do they get a “mulligan” because they attack traditional American religion?
There was one horrible case of non-Islamic terror in the United States, the Oklahoma City bombings conducted by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. In an attempt to relativize Islamic terrorism, the Liberal establishment and their news media cohorts attempt to argue that this, the second worst episode of terrorism on American soil, were Christians after all. Maybe they had some contact with the Christian Church but their hateful acts were not justified as an expression of their faith. They expressed nothing like “Allah Akbar” – there were no expressions of in the name of God or Jesus. These were two guys totally out of sorts with the Christian religion. They represent no movement – not even that expressed by the most extreme talk show barkers like Alex Jones.
Again we do not agree with the behavior of the Florida Church; however, it is not a matter of bigotry taking issue with another religion. Part of freedom of religion is the freedom to challenge religious doctrine whether that of the majority of Americans or views of smaller minorities or even cults. The open discussion of religion, examining various religions’ holy texts, and what cultural practices evolve out of those religions is all valid expression of speech and intellectual pursuit.
As such, there is nothing wrong with being critical of Islam. In fact, there is nothing wrong with warning others that maybe this is a form of belief others should be encouraged to view very carefully.
The truth is many of the freedoms Americans hold dear are explicitly forbidden in the text of The Koran. The Koran mandates in detail how a person should worship, what a person should eat and wear. Islam has very specific language on how believers must manage their financial affairs. Rules are established for just about every facet of life. Search through the Koran and see how often the word “punish” is used, for instance.
We hear it said that Islam is a religion of peace. Oh really?
The Koran gets darker and more punitive the further along one reads the text. Western intellectuals again try to sort to relativism. Well, yes the Koran has contradictions by so do the Old and New Testaments. The books of the Bible reflect the holy inspiration of numerous figures, but the Koran is the work of one man, Mohammed. Islamic teaching speaks of subjugation, that what contradictions in the text are resolved by that which is written later in the text. Whatever text is newer is considered correct.
Constitutional application: Americans cannot prohibit others from practicing the religion of Islam. No one can be prohibited from any of the benefits enjoyed by others because one is a member of the Muslim faith. Muslims are free to openly express and practice their religion. They are likewise responsible for their own behavior and enjoy no special treatment, accommodation nor are they exempt from anything any other citizen is responsible for doing as a privilege of their faith.
Non-Muslims are free to criticize the Koran and what is written in it without reservation. If in fact a critical perspective directed toward other beliefs are somehow not directed toward Islam, that’s not responsible.
Anti-Islamic bigotry is not that one things the Islamic teaching are abhorrent, but the restriction of a person’s pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, the denial of one’s civil rights, singling out and subjecting Muslims to special treatment without clearly defined just cause is not tolerated.
How do Americans react when we see images of Jesus desecrated or the American flag burned? If there were a huge demonstration in Iran, for instance, where protesters burned the American flag, hung Jews and Christians in effigy, and attacked other things we hold sacred how do we respond?
Americans don’t target Islamic facilities and organize load and angry protests in front of their establishments. We don’t hear cries of “Kill the infidel Muslims.” We might hear some talk show hosts speak angrily of such Islamic protests. Some of their activity might make the news, but if it is it is so sugarcoated.
We accept that even the most vile and hurtful forms of protest are permissible. Laws to prohibit burning the American flag seldom go anywhere. To the horror of most Americans the Supreme Court even supported 9-1 the right of the cursed Westboro creeps to engage in their hateful conduct.
While most of us would seriously disagree with burning the Koran or fear the consequences, doing so is an absolutely legitimate form of protest, and if folks want to release some anger based on the waves of hatred, the constant ridicule of our society, the thousands of people killed by terrorists, the thought of Americans being subjected to cruel murder while Islamic beasts shout “Allah Akbar, that’s a fundamental American right.
Through out history, there have been thousands of corrupt governments. There have been plenty of hateful political ideologies be it communism, fascism, or other forms of totalitarianism, or oppressive theocracies. Of the many religions that have surfaced through out history, is it likely that there are some absolutely abhorrent religions?
We allow Americans to profess communism, but no one goes nuts when people criticize communism. Why do the elites go so nuts when people criticize Islam?
Some times, the answer is quite simple. We’re right. They’re wrong. The Florida Preacher isn’t responsible for the bloody protests but if we look at the behavior of recent protests in Wisconsin, we can see that the angry mob can surface in this country in response to things some Americans don’t like – so we’re not immune.
The action of the Florida’s Terry Jones and his congregants is being pushed way out of proportion. Let us speak out against their over reaction, but defend their right to be idiots. What’s really at issue is the extremism present in the Islamic world where people are murdered, beheaded and beaten and property destroyed on a wide scale basis whenever the right explosive incident occurs that offends some aspect of their mean-spirited sense of religion.
Let’s be honest, there is something fundamentally wrong with Islam. Islam is the uniting ideology behind the most dangerous and destructive forces active in the world today. More innocent people are being killed in the name of Allah than for any other philosophy, religion, political system, or way of life anywhere else in the war.
We must stop the “hush-hush – we can’t criticize Islam” and start asking some very tough questions. If the Islamic faith is one of peace, somebody needs to step forward and prove it – show definitely what the real truth of Islam is and why that interpretation is truly the correct application of Islamic doctrine.
It’s very difficult of speaking of doing what could be very good things like spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the teachings of Buddha, the Wisdom of Moses, the common sense of Confucius in the Islamic world where simply practicing Islam the wrong way can result in harsh punishment and daring to convert to another religion in countries the United States supports can result in death.
When one considers the wisdom of almost every single religion in the world and compares it to Islam, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Confucians, and others don’t need to change their beliefs to accommodate Islam, those who suffer from Islamic oppression should be set free and these other great faiths could be just the ticket. Most belief systems promote the beauty of life. Islam glorifies death and martyrdom.
Outside of Islam, where are there such things as “honor killings.”
When it comes to choosing sides who is more guilty Terry Jones and crew or the rioting murderous Muslims, if forced to chose one or another, we chose against the Muslims.
We rest our case. Pass the matches.
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