Pen on gutlesspacifist.com responds to a blog he read where the blogger’s answer is to conclude that there’s “enough there” in the Koran to conclude that Islam is a dangerous religion. Hogwash. That was also Pen’s response, but in a more positive way.
Mark… it is hard for me to think that the *only* way to win the War on Terrorism is to wipe out Islam…
Could it be that if we give poor, unemployed, young muslim men and women something more to hope for then an afterlife filled with virgins that will do their beck and call — we might find the tide of the War on Terrorism turning in our favor — and that — without destroying a single copy of the Koran.
the quote from the source of this debate:
Yes, but there’s enough in the Koran proper to get people to warp themselves into jihad mode. Even if people preach a moderate Islam that focuses on the “greater jihad” (jihad means struggle, but takes on the connotation of holy war in modern use) against personal sin, there will be a few yahoos that will want a more literal interpretation.
There’s so much in the Old Testament to “go withy” for a militarisitc, imperial force to “take up the cross” and kill the infidel, which is exactly what the Church did around the turn of the first millenium (aka The Crusades). So little awareness of history, and so arrogant an assumption about the “incorruptibility” of the “Christian nationalist”. And who is it that is at the forefront of such violence-inviting, shrill nationalistic melding of Bush and War and Jesus? The fundamentalist Religious Right. While they don’t fly planes into buildings, they are complicit , approving, and encouraging of killing innocent civilians in greater numbers now than the Al-Qeida terrorists killed on 9/11….and all of these inncocents are not even accused of harboring terrorists, and yet the Church in America is AOK with all of this apalling overkill. Shameful. Betrayal of the Prince of Peace. Jesus does not call us to return evil with evil, but the very opposite. At the very least, carry out a targeted, focused pursuit of the covert terrorists. Keep civilains out. To drop bombs is morally unjustifiable, and asking for innocent deaths. And it is NOT the only way. All of this is to meet out punishment and death on populations for the sake of preventing our own military deaths, and in the process, indiscrimanately meeting out hundreds and thousands of “them” (aka. their innocent civilians).
Thanks dlature for the link.
After further conversation with Mark – I have discovered that he wa sbeing tongue in cheek.
But that isn’t to say that there are a number of crazy people out there who subscribe to the “machine gunner’s creed” — which is — shoot’em all and let Jesus sort’em out.
Thanks for agreeing with me that we — as the church — shoul dhave more options before us than evil for evil.
Thanks again.