Husband’s letter came out in the paper the other day. I had a one sided conversation with somebody in the comments. But all the other commenter could say was that I was deluded, I believed in fairy tales, that I don’t care about people. The usual well thought out debate. I will be barraging you with more of his letters. We care about Muslims, just not Islam. A hard question.
Sadly another ‘active shooter’ situation ongoing today in the Inland area of LA, our papers have live coverage — at or near a Regional Center in San Bernardino, a facility that serves the disabled. 15-20 wounded, according to early reports. Lord, have mercy.
Of late I’ve spoken to many friends and relatives about the world becoming increasingly more polarized – Islam against everyone else. It has been very disheartening to hear so many people tell me that the Quran and the Bible are “just alike – neither is more valid than the other.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Bible teaches Christians to love their neighbors. If a Christian harms others, he is setting aside Biblical teaching and is subject to potential damnation. The Quran teaches that harming others is appropriate to advance their religion, or appropriate in cases of adultery, homosexuality, or theft. The Quran also relegates women to second-class citizen status (no education or equality in court proceedings). Muslims must set aside the Quranic code to live in a pluralistic society.
If a Christian leaves the faith, that is their choice. If a Muslim renounces Islam, they may be subject to a death sentence (quite possibly from their own family).
If a young Muslim woman dates a non-Muslim or wears western clothing she could face a death penalty (again, quite possibly from her own family). Did you know that we average 27 Honor killings/year WITHIN THE UNITED STATES already (stat from the DOJ)?
If a Muslim kills in the name of Allah, they are rewarded with greater status in heaven. If a Christian kills (except when sanctioned by the government or in self-defense) he may spend eternity in Hell.
These are significant differences between these two sacred texts.
I believe he sent this but it has not yet appeared in the paper:
Refugees or Conquerors
Just a quick observation. For the past yeah-many years liberals have claimed that our pilgrims were invaders. Now that the agenda demands it, President Obama (at his weekly address on Nov. 26, 2015) stated, “In 1620, a small band of pilgrims came to this continent, refugees who had fled persecution and violence in their native land.” Which is it – were the pilgrims conquerors or helpless refugees? Or, perhaps, they arrived as refugees and became conquerors. Winston Churchill once said, “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Are we the modern-day American Indian, welcoming those that will ultimately conquer us?
The KKK is a ‘supremacy’ organization that is held in contempt by the vast majority of Americans (including myself). I can only imagine how people would react if someone said, “I’m a moderate member of the KKK. I don’t believe that we should kill all the Blacks, but they should not be allowed to go to college and they should be subjected to higher taxes”, would we react with, “oh, well that makes all the difference in the world, let’s be friends”. Or, would we react with incredulity; shake our heads and walk away.
Islam is a ‘supremacy’ organization in the same mold as the KKK only much worse. The KKK targeted Blacks, while Islam targets every non-Islamic group and other Muslims that don’t conform to their version of Islam.
Why is it that the KKK is viewed with revulsion while we’re told that Islam is a viable religion – often referred to as a ‘religion of peace’? The truth is that Islamic fundamentalists kill more people each year than members of the KKK have killed in its entire history. Over an 86 year period the KKK is responsible for 3,446 deaths. That’s 40 deaths/year (all of which were unconscionable). The DOJ reports that the Islamic community averages 27 ‘honor killings’/year WITHIN THE UNITED STATES already. For some reason these don’t seem to get much publicity.
By accepting Islamic refugees we are communicating that we accept and thereby endorse their ‘supremacy’ religion.
He is looking for feedback. Obviously, we believe they are human beings and Christians are called to love such. We are to help the helpless and the hopeless. But how does that help play out in this situation?
The problem is that people choose to look at those passages in the OT about totally wiping out the population of an area the Israelites have conquered, & other similar passages, when comparing the Quran with the Bible. Then they pick out the nice-sounding verses from the Quran to prove that it is a “peaceful religion”.
The problem I can see in the KKK comparison is that people will say that the KKK was specifically formed as a hate group, while Islam is a religion of which only a minority are jihadists. (Note that this is what I think some people will say, not my own thoughts.)
The start of the Quran does have several of the OT stories in it. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Joshua and Caleb, Moses, Abraham…even Jesus and Mary.
They will counter with the Crusades, as my dad countered with Bolivar. But, I will pass it on, he is always looking to fine tune the letters, making them as clear as possible. He wants people thinking of these things.
Husband was told recently by an elder in our church that he had no idea where Muslims came from and knew nothing about Islam. Husband is kind of on an education mission. But he wants to be accurate, expressing our concern for the people and distrust of the religion/culture. A Theo political system.
As one critic of this annoying trend tweeted: I guess the instinct is that whenever something bad happens, no matter who it happens to, religious people need to be taught a stiff lesson.
_______________________________________
Directly after a mass shooting, in the minutes or hours or days between the first trickle of news and when police find a suspect or make arrests, it is very difficult to know what to do. Some people demand political action, like greater gun control; others call for prayer. In the aftermath of a violent shooting spree in San Bernardino, California, on Wednesday, in which at least 14 victims are reported to have died, people with those differing reactions quickly turned against one another. …
One such tweet:
Try this: Stop thinking. Stop praying. Look up Einstein’s definition of “insanity.” Start acting on gun violence prevention measures.
There are many assumptions packed into these attacks on prayer: that all religious people, and specifically Christians, are gun supporters, and vice versa. That people who care about gun control can’t be religious, and if they are, they should keep quiet in the aftermath of yet another heart-wrenching act of violence. At one time in American history, liberals and conservatives shared a language of God, but that’s clearly no longer the case; any invocation of faith is taken as implicit advocacy of right-wing political beliefs.
______________________________________
Mumsee, there is one factor that one cannot forget in examining any culture or religion. It is one that you yourself have mentioned in connection with the children you seek to help. That is that human being were created in the image of God and that image is broken. Thus, as Os Guinness says in his new book Fool’s Talk:
Unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but it is still always the truth, so they can never completely get away from it. An unbeliever’s view of the world without God may contain many deep truths, and have all sorts of genuine merits, But that view of the world can never be completely true, because the unbeliever will not accept God, without whom it will always be finally false at some points. Yet at the same time, the unbelievers’ views of the world are never completely false, because they can never get away completely from God and his truth.
Although Islam is false and is wholly opposed to truth, the human being who practice that religion do act as other humans do and are motivated by the things that other human beings are motivated by. They can be appealed to by reason, by love, and all the other positive motivations that work even in the heart of the most hardened atheist; because, as humans created in God’s image, they cannot be consistent to their own beliefs. The religion of Islam may seem to be consistently violent – although, as this link demonstrates, it isn’t even consistent in that: http://thecripplegate.com/can-isis-be-considered-real-muslims/ – but the people are not consistent to that violent teaching – if all the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims were consistently violent, we would all be toast by this time. The providence of God restrains and constrains even the unbeliever. If He did not, humanity would have destroyed itself long ago.
In connection with what I just wrote, there is another point that I have been considering since our last discussion. [I apologize for my harsh tone at the beginning of that last discussion.] In Matthew 5:43-48, also Luke 6:32-35, Jesus tells us to love our enemies because of that providence of God, in which He sends rain on the just and the unjust, and is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Christ goes on to say that loving and caring only for those who care for us is no more than what the ungodly do. It is what Muslims do – giving charity to other Muslims, especially during Ramadan. In Christ’s statement, He points out not only how Christians can make a difference, by caring for our enemies, but also points out what motivates unbelievers, which is to care for those who care for them. In the wonderful way God turns things on their heads, the way to get Muslims to care for us, is to care for them.
On a related, but less philosophical note – due to the inconsistent nature of unbelievers, certain practices may be enhanced by their beliefs, but not necessarily caused by them. Such is the case with honour culture. It is not confined to Islam. Hindus, Sikhs, and even some Christians in the Middle East and Central Asia also practice honour culture. Similarly, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the practice of female genital mutilation is practiced among Muslims, but predated the spread of Islam. It is not just Muslims who will kill for the sake of honour. The honour culture predates Islam by millennia, and was long established in Arabia before Muhammad appeared on the scene. Its presence can be seen in the Pentateuch. Simeon and Levi massacred Shechem for the sake of honour, while the Mosaic law imposed justice in the midst of an honour based culture – such laws as the law of jealousy in Numbers 5 would have helped protect women from the deadly consequences of being whispered about in an honour culture.
Thanks, Phos, for the comments and the site. Interesting. And challenging. I will need to copy that and read it in print. We will probably be some of those taking in a Muslim family, in the end. I cannot see turning away folk in need. But we are to be wary as well. Prayer for sure.
That last answer was to your first post, I did not refresh before posting.
Your post at 10:15, Mike says you are absolutely correct on the individual basis but what to do on the national basis. Kind of goes with my “discussion” with the individual on the local paper. If we open our doors to the refugees, whose doors will they be entering? I have a large house and could take several by American standards and probably thirty by the standards of some other countries. But I cannot take in one hundred thousand more. Am I then telling my neighbors that they must take them in regardless of their beliefs?
And the 10:30 post. Yes, a lot of the ideas in the Quran come straight out of the Old Testament. But, in that honor killing by Simeon and Levi, though they killed an entire town, they did not kill their sister. Either way is wrong.
A friend shared this brief piece that says there have been more mass shootings this year than there have been days. As of yesterday, 334 days, 351 mass shootings, according to the article. That is inconceivable, if true.
I tend to be in favor of gun ownership rights, although I do agree with background checks, & requiring a safety class, as they do in Connecticut. But these statistics are alarming.
Although I realize, & have argued, that people determined to commit mayhem will find a way to do so, I still wonder if we do have what some call a “gun culture”, & what to do about it. The mass shooting seems to have become the preferred method of expression for the disaffected & angry, & I don’t foresee things calming down any time soon.
Okay, so I found the answer to my own question (whether or not the above statistics are accurate). The answer is NO. I didn’t think so.
There have, of course, been way too many, but not nearly as many as a particular site is claiming.
“Mass Shooting Tracker’s definition of a mass shooting as any gun violence event in which 4 people including the shooter are injured would include gang shootouts, robberies and drug deals gone wrong, suicide-by-cop incidents in which bystanders were inadvertently injured by police, and other incidents that deviate drastically from the Columbine and Sandy Hook type events that most Americans think of when talking about a mass shooting.”
Wandering Views 
the people on radio and TV think I care that the police chief in Chicago was fired.
So they fired him. move on.
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Sadly, I find myself in agreement:
” …. The man has done enormous damage. We will be living with the consequences for a long time. …”
Sigh.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/12/save-the-planet-from-barack-obama.php
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Husband’s letter came out in the paper the other day. I had a one sided conversation with somebody in the comments. But all the other commenter could say was that I was deluded, I believed in fairy tales, that I don’t care about people. The usual well thought out debate. I will be barraging you with more of his letters. We care about Muslims, just not Islam. A hard question.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Sadly another ‘active shooter’ situation ongoing today in the Inland area of LA, our papers have live coverage — at or near a Regional Center in San Bernardino, a facility that serves the disabled. 15-20 wounded, according to early reports. Lord, have mercy.
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We are surprised at how many people see no difference between the Koran and the Bible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mumsee, these people have read neither.
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Here is one he has not sent yet:
The Bible vs. the Quran
Of late I’ve spoken to many friends and relatives about the world becoming increasingly more polarized – Islam against everyone else. It has been very disheartening to hear so many people tell me that the Quran and the Bible are “just alike – neither is more valid than the other.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Bible teaches Christians to love their neighbors. If a Christian harms others, he is setting aside Biblical teaching and is subject to potential damnation. The Quran teaches that harming others is appropriate to advance their religion, or appropriate in cases of adultery, homosexuality, or theft. The Quran also relegates women to second-class citizen status (no education or equality in court proceedings). Muslims must set aside the Quranic code to live in a pluralistic society.
If a Christian leaves the faith, that is their choice. If a Muslim renounces Islam, they may be subject to a death sentence (quite possibly from their own family).
If a young Muslim woman dates a non-Muslim or wears western clothing she could face a death penalty (again, quite possibly from her own family). Did you know that we average 27 Honor killings/year WITHIN THE UNITED STATES already (stat from the DOJ)?
If a Muslim kills in the name of Allah, they are rewarded with greater status in heaven. If a Christian kills (except when sanctioned by the government or in self-defense) he may spend eternity in Hell.
These are significant differences between these two sacred texts.
LikeLike
I believe he sent this but it has not yet appeared in the paper:
Refugees or Conquerors
Just a quick observation. For the past yeah-many years liberals have claimed that our pilgrims were invaders. Now that the agenda demands it, President Obama (at his weekly address on Nov. 26, 2015) stated, “In 1620, a small band of pilgrims came to this continent, refugees who had fled persecution and violence in their native land.” Which is it – were the pilgrims conquerors or helpless refugees? Or, perhaps, they arrived as refugees and became conquerors. Winston Churchill once said, “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Are we the modern-day American Indian, welcoming those that will ultimately conquer us?
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And the third, which he is still deliberating:
Islam and the KKK
The KKK is a ‘supremacy’ organization that is held in contempt by the vast majority of Americans (including myself). I can only imagine how people would react if someone said, “I’m a moderate member of the KKK. I don’t believe that we should kill all the Blacks, but they should not be allowed to go to college and they should be subjected to higher taxes”, would we react with, “oh, well that makes all the difference in the world, let’s be friends”. Or, would we react with incredulity; shake our heads and walk away.
Islam is a ‘supremacy’ organization in the same mold as the KKK only much worse. The KKK targeted Blacks, while Islam targets every non-Islamic group and other Muslims that don’t conform to their version of Islam.
Why is it that the KKK is viewed with revulsion while we’re told that Islam is a viable religion – often referred to as a ‘religion of peace’? The truth is that Islamic fundamentalists kill more people each year than members of the KKK have killed in its entire history. Over an 86 year period the KKK is responsible for 3,446 deaths. That’s 40 deaths/year (all of which were unconscionable). The DOJ reports that the Islamic community averages 27 ‘honor killings’/year WITHIN THE UNITED STATES already. For some reason these don’t seem to get much publicity.
By accepting Islamic refugees we are communicating that we accept and thereby endorse their ‘supremacy’ religion.
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He is looking for feedback. Obviously, we believe they are human beings and Christians are called to love such. We are to help the helpless and the hopeless. But how does that help play out in this situation?
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Mumsee, I said something similar to Hubby after I heard the Pilgrim comment. We see how that worked out for the locals. 🙂
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The problem is that people choose to look at those passages in the OT about totally wiping out the population of an area the Israelites have conquered, & other similar passages, when comparing the Quran with the Bible. Then they pick out the nice-sounding verses from the Quran to prove that it is a “peaceful religion”.
LikeLike
The problem I can see in the KKK comparison is that people will say that the KKK was specifically formed as a hate group, while Islam is a religion of which only a minority are jihadists. (Note that this is what I think some people will say, not my own thoughts.)
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You can also point out that Islam has been almost totally spread through military conquest, especially in the beginning.
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The start of the Quran does have several of the OT stories in it. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Joshua and Caleb, Moses, Abraham…even Jesus and Mary.
They will counter with the Crusades, as my dad countered with Bolivar. But, I will pass it on, he is always looking to fine tune the letters, making them as clear as possible. He wants people thinking of these things.
Husband was told recently by an elder in our church that he had no idea where Muslims came from and knew nothing about Islam. Husband is kind of on an education mission. But he wants to be accurate, expressing our concern for the people and distrust of the religion/culture. A Theo political system.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For anyone who follows Twitter in the aftermath of a tragedy, you may have noticed the latest trend: “prayer-shaming.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/prayer-gun-control-mass-shooting-san-bernardino/418563/
As one critic of this annoying trend tweeted: I guess the instinct is that whenever something bad happens, no matter who it happens to, religious people need to be taught a stiff lesson.
_______________________________________
Directly after a mass shooting, in the minutes or hours or days between the first trickle of news and when police find a suspect or make arrests, it is very difficult to know what to do. Some people demand political action, like greater gun control; others call for prayer. In the aftermath of a violent shooting spree in San Bernardino, California, on Wednesday, in which at least 14 victims are reported to have died, people with those differing reactions quickly turned against one another. …
One such tweet:
Try this: Stop thinking. Stop praying. Look up Einstein’s definition of “insanity.” Start acting on gun violence prevention measures.
There are many assumptions packed into these attacks on prayer: that all religious people, and specifically Christians, are gun supporters, and vice versa. That people who care about gun control can’t be religious, and if they are, they should keep quiet in the aftermath of yet another heart-wrenching act of violence. At one time in American history, liberals and conservatives shared a language of God, but that’s clearly no longer the case; any invocation of faith is taken as implicit advocacy of right-wing political beliefs.
______________________________________
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What, you think they might want to control our thoughts next? Oh, too late.
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Remember the football coach who was told he could not pray silently on school property. Sounds like an attempt to legislate thought.
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Seems like I read about that in a book somewhere.
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Mumsee, there is one factor that one cannot forget in examining any culture or religion. It is one that you yourself have mentioned in connection with the children you seek to help. That is that human being were created in the image of God and that image is broken. Thus, as Os Guinness says in his new book Fool’s Talk:
Although Islam is false and is wholly opposed to truth, the human being who practice that religion do act as other humans do and are motivated by the things that other human beings are motivated by. They can be appealed to by reason, by love, and all the other positive motivations that work even in the heart of the most hardened atheist; because, as humans created in God’s image, they cannot be consistent to their own beliefs. The religion of Islam may seem to be consistently violent – although, as this link demonstrates, it isn’t even consistent in that: http://thecripplegate.com/can-isis-be-considered-real-muslims/ – but the people are not consistent to that violent teaching – if all the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims were consistently violent, we would all be toast by this time. The providence of God restrains and constrains even the unbeliever. If He did not, humanity would have destroyed itself long ago.
LikeLike
In connection with what I just wrote, there is another point that I have been considering since our last discussion. [I apologize for my harsh tone at the beginning of that last discussion.] In Matthew 5:43-48, also Luke 6:32-35, Jesus tells us to love our enemies because of that providence of God, in which He sends rain on the just and the unjust, and is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Christ goes on to say that loving and caring only for those who care for us is no more than what the ungodly do. It is what Muslims do – giving charity to other Muslims, especially during Ramadan. In Christ’s statement, He points out not only how Christians can make a difference, by caring for our enemies, but also points out what motivates unbelievers, which is to care for those who care for them. In the wonderful way God turns things on their heads, the way to get Muslims to care for us, is to care for them.
LikeLike
On a related, but less philosophical note – due to the inconsistent nature of unbelievers, certain practices may be enhanced by their beliefs, but not necessarily caused by them. Such is the case with honour culture. It is not confined to Islam. Hindus, Sikhs, and even some Christians in the Middle East and Central Asia also practice honour culture. Similarly, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the practice of female genital mutilation is practiced among Muslims, but predated the spread of Islam. It is not just Muslims who will kill for the sake of honour. The honour culture predates Islam by millennia, and was long established in Arabia before Muhammad appeared on the scene. Its presence can be seen in the Pentateuch. Simeon and Levi massacred Shechem for the sake of honour, while the Mosaic law imposed justice in the midst of an honour based culture – such laws as the law of jealousy in Numbers 5 would have helped protect women from the deadly consequences of being whispered about in an honour culture.
LikeLike
Thanks, Phos, for the comments and the site. Interesting. And challenging. I will need to copy that and read it in print. We will probably be some of those taking in a Muslim family, in the end. I cannot see turning away folk in need. But we are to be wary as well. Prayer for sure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That last answer was to your first post, I did not refresh before posting.
Your post at 10:15, Mike says you are absolutely correct on the individual basis but what to do on the national basis. Kind of goes with my “discussion” with the individual on the local paper. If we open our doors to the refugees, whose doors will they be entering? I have a large house and could take several by American standards and probably thirty by the standards of some other countries. But I cannot take in one hundred thousand more. Am I then telling my neighbors that they must take them in regardless of their beliefs?
LikeLike
And the 10:30 post. Yes, a lot of the ideas in the Quran come straight out of the Old Testament. But, in that honor killing by Simeon and Levi, though they killed an entire town, they did not kill their sister. Either way is wrong.
LikeLike
Front page of the NY Daily News: “God isn’t fixing this”
http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/02/media/new-york-daily-news-cover-san-bernardino-shooting/index.html
____________________
The front page was met with both agreement and anger when it was tweeted out as a preview on Wednesday night.
Some users found the cover to be “deplorable” while others called it “brilliant.”
_____________________
I think Brit Hume had the best comment on Twitter:
“This is what happens when a publication’s editors lose control of themselves”
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A friend shared this brief piece that says there have been more mass shootings this year than there have been days. As of yesterday, 334 days, 351 mass shootings, according to the article. That is inconceivable, if true.
I tend to be in favor of gun ownership rights, although I do agree with background checks, & requiring a safety class, as they do in Connecticut. But these statistics are alarming.
Although I realize, & have argued, that people determined to commit mayhem will find a way to do so, I still wonder if we do have what some call a “gun culture”, & what to do about it. The mass shooting seems to have become the preferred method of expression for the disaffected & angry, & I don’t foresee things calming down any time soon.
Scary times.
http://usuncut.com/news/there-have-been-more-mass-shootings-than-days-in-2015/
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Another Facebook friend says they are including kids shooting BB guns at each other in those statistics.
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Okay, so I found the answer to my own question (whether or not the above statistics are accurate). The answer is NO. I didn’t think so.
There have, of course, been way too many, but not nearly as many as a particular site is claiming.
“Mass Shooting Tracker’s definition of a mass shooting as any gun violence event in which 4 people including the shooter are injured would include gang shootouts, robberies and drug deals gone wrong, suicide-by-cop incidents in which bystanders were inadvertently injured by police, and other incidents that deviate drastically from the Columbine and Sandy Hook type events that most Americans think of when talking about a mass shooting.”
http://truthinmedia.com/fact-check-355-mass-shootings-far-2015/
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