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Alice Offline OP
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In the face of all that we read, if you are like me, you are wondering which of the two Islams are the real teachings of Mohammed.

Is it a religion of peace, or a religion of violence? Is it a religion of respecting other 'peoples of the book' (as in Mohammed's letter advocating protection for Christians at the monastery of Mt. Sinai) or is it a religion of 'war against the infidel'?

As a Christian, I have my own opinions, because we are told that chaos and confusion is of the evil one. None of the prophets of the Old Testament or Jesus, the Messiah, preached contradictory values in their life times. Their messages were always consistent.

Never the less, I did a google search to read up a bit more on this contradiction of Islam, and came across this very good and informative article explaining how Mohammed was a different person in Mecca (very spiritual), than he was in Medina when he was a war lord. Now I understand a bit more why there are two sets of contradictory beliefs in the Koran.

(By the way, I am not advocating the website the article is on)

Here is the article:

http://www.renewamerica.com/analyses/060630hutchison.htm

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Is it a religion of peace, or a religion of violence?

Alice:

The article contains your answer. It's both. When Muslims are in the minority and feel they are in a weak position, they preach the "peace" version; when they are in the majority and feel strong, the preach the other. If you want an example here in the United States, you have no farther to look than Dearborn, MI, where the community is now majority Muslim: they passed a noise ordinance that makes Christian churches forbidden to ring their bells, but allows their clergy to blare the call to prayer over loudspeakers five times per day.

In addition to this article, it is well to read Father Zacharias' web articles. This priest has studied the Quran in the original language for decades--the book is forbidden to be translated into other languages; only interpretations are allowed.

I have a quote about Islam and Mohammed from St. Thomas Acquinas' work and will post it when I can find it.

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St. Thomas Aquinas on Islam:

“He (Mohammed) seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected; he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.

He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the Contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms – which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning (1). Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly.”- Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 16, Art. 4

Bob

Last edited by theophan; 08/27/14 04:59 PM. Reason: additional information
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Alice Offline OP
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Dear Bob,

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It's both. When Muslims are in the minority and feel they are in a weak position, they preach the "peace" version; when they are in the majority and feel strong, the preach the other.

You sound like my husband who said the answer is: "First they
wipe out the infidel with jihad, then they are peaceful!"

What I found fascinating in the article is that Mohammed was a different person in his early years than he was from his latter years, and the author of the article says that it is as if two Korans (the early Mohammed, and the latter) are combined into one.

Indeed, that makes sense, but also means that the Koran makes no sense. No holy person worth their salt contradicts themselves!

Perhaps Mohammed was in 'spiritual delusion' in the beginning of his life. The 'angel' that appeared to him was apparently a demon. Even his wife asked him if he knew for sure what kind of angel it was.

In any case, jihad has been waged continuously in history--sometimes successful, sometimes, thank God, not so successful, but one thing is for sure, the world is in the throes of barbaric jihad once again. Only barbarians behead. It is the epitome of dishonoring the person you are killing.




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Someone needs to bring a law suit against the Dearborn city government for violating the equal protection clause. Weakness invites aggression. If they get way with this, will they pass out burqas next?

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As someone who is often disturbed by mostly negative references to Jews in the Prologue from Ohrid, out of all the holy books, I would say the most violent of all is the Old Testament. I think where it comes to violence, the holy writings -- even the Koran, for the sake of argument --are best read in the context of the times. In re. to Islam, the earliest were Arabs, obviously, part of whose way to make a living then was by raids, in other words, they were sensuous men, as St. Thomas corroborates. When higher civilizations became Muslim, I have the Persians in mind, this had a mitigating, civilizing effect on Islam. Of course, their motivations were sensual too, worldy power, beautiful art and architecture, wonderful gardens, poetry, etc. There is a genius to their system, but I suppose anything good from it comes from Judaism and Christianity. But as with many decaying religions, it devolves into mere ethicsm as in Judaism and liberal Protestantism.
There is a lot of resentment in the Muslim world, both as a result of colonialism, and a mixture of attraction to and repulsion from the modern West. Sure, they admire the goodies the West has to offer, but darned if they will allow their daughters to go around dressed like tarts. One wonders with all of the violence, the thin-skinned victim rhetoric, and factionalism if modern Islam is not in fact all-powerful, but actually quite weak?

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Part of the problem is that the intellectual golden-age Islam has been gone for 800 years; the scholastics of the Sunni world lost out in the cultural battle with the fundamentalists and have exercised effectively no influence since the 13th century. These fundamentalist Sunni, partly in reaction to the colonialism you mention, have consistently spawned more and more fanatical groups. I would like to think that monsters like ISIS are the violent thrashings of a dying beast, but I'm not so sure.

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My apologies to the Moderators here and I wish you all the best!

Alex

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Yes. Unfortunately scholarship dealing with the Islamic world does not have the now built in critical mechanism when dealing with other faiths as a subject of scholarship...which Christianity has in spades and then some. Out of the 25 languages Mrs. R has studied, 3 were the big 3 in the Muslim world and the treatment of Islam in classes was straight dogma, with distinction made for the varieties of Islam.
Some think ISIS was a creation of the US intelligence community, as the Taliban was an arm of US intelligence, and S. Hussein was a US ally before that.

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Found this article. It may shed some light on what this is all about. It seems to me that the Sunni branch of Islam does not see anything really wrong with this, though they may not fully embrace it either.

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You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl32%7Csec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D522016

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Originally Posted by Mark R
Some think ISIS was a creation of the US intelligence community, as the Taliban was an arm of US intelligence, and S. Hussein was a US ally before that.

Only some? Nobody remembers less than a year ago when John McCain was braying that they had to be armed with as much as we could arm them with to fight Assad?

[Linked Image from anarchodutch.files.wordpress.com]

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Alice Offline OP
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Originally Posted by jjp
Originally Posted by Mark R
Some think ISIS was a creation of the US intelligence community, as the Taliban was an arm of US intelligence, and S. Hussein was a US ally before that.

Only some? Nobody remembers less than a year ago when John McCain was braying that they had to be armed with as much as we could arm them with to fight Assad?

[Linked Image from anarchodutch.files.wordpress.com]

Those photos are disgusting. Even more disgusting is the rudeness which Orthodox clerics from Syria, hoping to have our help for the embattled and suffering Christian community there, were met with by him last year.

Of course, this photo explains why!

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I am wondering why a TV station such as EWTN has not been giving in depth and up to date coverage of this entire issue, the recent attacks on Christians in Iraq by ISIS especially and on exposing the truth of what Islamic fundamentalism is and where it is going! Or will they wait for 10 years to include in their programming? What other TV media can we rely on for this information? Surely no Pat Robertson and his evangelical agenda! Seems like it is time for a real TV program that is more educational and less into popular devotions, stories of "converts", G.K. Chesterson, etc. We need something better!

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I have to agree on this one. EWTN is Catholic fluff, for the most part. I find I change channels more than I watch them these days. There are many serious issues they could cover, since it is certain that no one else will.

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The quotation from the Angelic Doctor is spot on!

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Similarly, it was revealed decades ago by the prestigious Foreign Affairs Quarterly that Hamas was the brainchild of the Israeli Intelligence Service as a means to wean Palestinians away from their allegiance to the PLO and al-Fatah. Give 'em that ole time religion! How's that working out for you, Bibi?

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