To make it REALLY simple, Christians are not Old Testament believers, they are followers of Christ.
I don't think I'm the one who needs to learn about Christianity. Christians theologically speaking of course, believe that they are under a new covenant (see Grace) and therefore, don't have to abide by all the laws and dictates of the OT such as those found in Deuteronomy/Leviticus, HOWEVER, Christians do believe in the OT as revealed by God and believe that the OT foretells the coming of Jesus (as). Are you telling me Christians don't believe in Psalms, Proverbs, etc. etc. etc.? I could teach you a thing or two about Christianity and the theology thereof if you want, I did it for the majority of my life.
I just believe "differently" now on some key points!
The point was not about Christianity which many of you got your undies in a bunch so quickly and never even read what I wrote. My point was about textual criticism and how one uses it to define a religion. Now I used Deuteronomy, because that was one of the most extreme verses off the top of my head, but if I had to go to the NT if it would make some feel better and make it harder to just dismiss a point by throwing out half of the Bible instead of actually trying to see a point I could go to Jesus (as) calling the Samaritan woman a dog, or stating that he didn't come to bring peace but a sword, or when Jesus (as) said "those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me" etc. etc. If you want Biblical references I can provide them. The point is not that these things exist in the Bible whether OT or NT, the point is,
How are they used, translated, understood, and by whom?
I would be laughed out a seminary, Christian theology, etc. class if I cited those versus (and many more) as evidence that Christianity or Judaism promotes violence no matter how many historical, present, etc. examples I can point to of actual Christians using those versus to commit violence. I would be told about exegesis. I would be told about context, I would be told to look to scholarly and doctrinal renderings to understand the spirit of the text. Do you know that I once had to write a 10 page paper on one "lost" parable from the synoptics! It's not that hard by the way, but the point is, what is barely 3 lines in the Bible can take 10 pages to explain.
My point in all that is, why should any logical thinking person believe that the same isn't true for any other religious text?
Have any of you taken any religion courses? Have you ever had to write about Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, etc.? Have you ever had to actually research a religion including your own? What you will find out is you can't sum up an entire religion in soundbites nor by the images flashed before you on TV.
Hell, you can't even fully understand Christianity unless you learn about Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and maybe Aramaic!
So how can you expect to read something on a net, from a site with a stated agenda against Islam, that's in English, when everyone on the planet knows by now, that no Muslim regards any translation as the actual Qur'an and the you must learn Arabic to even get close to understanding it? Did anyone know how many different dialects of Arabic there are?
As I said, my point is, talking points are cute, but the reality is when it comes to Islam, if it doesn't come from scholarly sources, commentaries (tafsir), fatwa's, or statements from Islamic institutions, then it most likely is not true.
Now I would like for one of you to find a Fatwa from an accepted Sunni (largest sect) institution that states anything remotely close to terrorism is OK! You won't find one, because it's already been ruled upon as Haram, because, suicide, the killing of innocents, the killing of POW's, fighting offensively, etc. are all Haram, The Grand Mufti of Mecca went as far to state that terrorists will go straight to the hellfire and any who agree with them. There's a whole section on fatwa.com
So you guys can "talk" about Islam, that's easy when you have no personal experience with it, but I live it everyday and I don't raise my children to be anything other than patriotic American citizens who (God-willing) will join the Corps and help kill the terrorists.
Moving right along...
Islam is violent because the Qur'an and the hadith prescribe violence as a standard of behavior toward "infidels." (For some reason, Salaam did not mention the hadith in his rebutal.)
Again, please remember the life of the prophet Mohammed. He practiced violence against Jews and Christians, and taught his followers to do the same. Muslims have never renounced this history, and they never will, unless they cease to be Muslims.
Again I refer to the above mentioned comments.
A: Show me these verses, I guarantee you can't point to more than 30.
If you did I will ask you very simple questions:
- Why are you ignoring the other several thousand verses in the Qur'an?
- Did you read the verses before and after (i.e. context) for example, one of the oft-repeated verses by non-Muslims making a "point" is the "slay them wherever you find them..." verse 2:191, but never, never, ever, have I seen a non-Muslim on any of those "sites" or those who continually bring verses up like this quote the entire verse or the verses before or after that plainly state that fighting is only against oppression (see self defense) and if the enemy makes peace or offers peace that you are required to accept it!
- What translation did you use? Often another mistake non-Muslims make, translations in of themselves are not accepted by Muslims, an actual Qur'an if it includes a translation MUST have the original Arabic in it to be considered a Qu'ran. By naming the translator, your naming the source of your scholarship, because the translators tend to have notes and commentaries that explain why they translated some things the way they did, because believe it or not, Arabic doesn't always translate well into English! Which is the case with most Semitic languages, so those who happen to think the KJV is the best translation out there, might want to reconsider that notion....
Now as far as the Hadith and why I haven't mentioned them and hardly ever do from my record, is that it's pretty simple. Non-Muslims especially the anti-kind, try to dumb down my religion in the most simplest terms they can in order to state negative and false thing about it. To study Islam actually study Islam is very exhaustive and not something you can just pick up from reading a website or a couple of books. Qur'an and Ahadith are exhaustive studies in of themself and then on top of that you have the whole learning Arabic thing.
But to put it mildly, Muslims believe that only the Qur'an is Holy and the word of God and the Hadith are man-made, therefore we believe that the Hadith can have error whereas the Qur'an cannot. That is why Hadith have a whole science to them where we track down the source, origin, authenticity, etc. etc. etc.
Blindly quoting a Hadith will make one look like an idiot to the average Muslim if you can't quote from what school did it come, what chain of narration, etc. etc. etc. So as a matter of practice and experience I only debate the deep Islamic issues with Muslims as I find that many non-Muslims don't really care to know about Islam, they are just picking at the surface looking for something they won't ever research, but seems like a "gotcha" item to quote and make themselves feel knowledgeable.
Just like you can't just pick up a Bible and go preach and teach Christianity (well you shouldn't anyway), don't think you can just pick a verse or two out the Qu'ran or quote a Hadith out of tens of thousands, and consider yourself an expert on Islam. Unless your a Hafiz or scholar of Tafsir, and especially if your not even a Muslim, it's pretty arrogant to think you know as much as many claim to know about Islam. Many of these words I just typed some of you probably never heard of before. And I didn't even get into important topics like maghdab, qiyas, etc. terms that one has to know before seriously discussing Islam, and I bet you the majority of your sources never heard those terms either, which is why they won't ever get caught debating Muslim scholars and teachers, because they would be found out to their audience many like yourselves who help raise them money by paying to hear them speak, buying their books, going to their sites etc. Ask them why they won't do it if they really know the "truth" about Islam? The smart ones among them know that it's exhaustive and they aren't interested in scholarly stuff in the first place, they know their audience is of a certain demographic and only want the type of stuff that's easy to read, doesn't need any explaining, and can easily back up their emotional feelings about dem Muzzies.
The only thing that will ever be true and something that I will readily agree with any of you on is that there are a bunch of "Muslims" (I wouldn't call them that hence the quotes) who are terrorists. These killers don't care about non-Muslims or Muslims for that matter, they will kill any and all who don't comply with their goals. They must be stopped by any means necessary.
What many of you don't get (apparently) is just like you, they pick and choose versus to justify their agenda which Islamically speaking is incorrect and why Obama rightfully so and to standing applause quoted the Qur'an correctly and mentioned a verse that somehow anti-non Muslims and terrorists miss in their reading of the Qur'an, which states that the killing of one innocent life is like the killing of all mankind, but the saving of one life is like the saving of all mankind.
Lastly, what to do about it (terrorism). If many of you think for one minute that you sound realistic by stating that every Muslim the world over should quit their jobs and leave their homes and go seek out terrorists around the globe, I know you have been smoking crack. You know damn well, that none of you would ever ask any group of people to ever do that before. I'm convinced the bar is only raised so high from some of you is because you know it's impossible, therefore you will always have a "gotcha" comment. It's to keep you busy and others in business.
Now what is realistic is taking charge of my post and observing all things within sight or hearing. So what we Muslims in America are doing (I'm an American, not Saudi, Iraqi, etc.) is ensuring that Muslims here are being vigilant in our posts (Mosques, schools, homes, etc.) and working with law enforcement to ensure potential threats from radicals are dealt with as well as educating our youth against radical ideologies. Now if we should be doing something else please let us know, because even when we denounce stuff, we are told we are not denouncing. The funny thing is most of the denouncing is about incidents that rarely occur in the US!
I often see some of you write "well Christians would..." that's a lie and you know it, when that idiot at VA Tech went and killed the students and the videos were found with him talking about how he was doing it for Jesus (as) etc. was there any marches? Denunciations? Did Christians around the world get involved? NO, what about the Phelps crowd? These requests of mass denunciations are only asked of Muslims and the greatest irony of it all is the main ones who keep talking about what Muslims need to do, are the LEAST likely to be victims of terrorism!
The most likely to be killed by a terrorist is a Muslim hands down! All of you on this site and others acting as if you face an imminent threat at your local Walmart from a terrorist attack, talking about how evil Islam is, will most likely never actually have to deal with your market, Mosque, school, etc. being blown up by terrorists. How many of your women actually have to worry about getting raped while going to get water or go to a market?
That's the main reason I scoff so often at these right-wing commentaries, because the number one victims are Muslims yet your all scarred and paranoid like you have this is your reality.
So the funny thing is you want the raped Darfari women to prove that her religion isn't violent, you want the Muslims whose Mosque got blown up while they were praying to apologize, you want us to "prove" something to you? For what? So you can sit on your safe couches, watch your cable news, and feel a little better about yourself?
Newsflash, the Muslims who are actually facing the slaughter of terrorists and don't have the luxury of being armchair quarterbacks, actually believe in their religion and they know unlike you that terrorists are about as Muslim as you guys are!
If you actually care, tell your representatives in Congress to shape foreign policy that doesn't support dictators, that won't talk to the Saudi's you know the ones who lashed a 75 year old woman? Ask them to support the AU and help them get a mandate to do more than just observe people getting raped in Darfur, actually help empower Muslims to be able to speak up and fight, instead of helping validate the rule of many Middle Eastern tyrants.
Other than that, you can continue doing what your doing and criticize on the sidelines, while people actual work to educate and support initiatives at the grassroots that will hopefully see change in many of these countries and communities.
In other words, what have you done other than complain about the boogeyman?
