I read a Care Bears storybook from my childhood the other day. This story was about a boy who was being bullied at school. Of course, the Care Bears encouraged the child to befriend the bully because the poor bully was just misunderstood. The two became friends and everything was great in the end. Unfortunately, that's not always how it works.
On September 11th, 2001, I was in college. I was walking across the courtyard and caught sight of one of the school maintenance men. He was muttering and cursing to himself. We asked him what was wrong and he told us. Everyone crowded around televisions, tears refusing to fall because the shock was so great. I had seen the World Trade Center only a few months earlier on a visit to New York. My heart and my innocence broke that day as I watched the billowing smoke.
You see, Islamic extremists are bullies of the worst kind. They don't bully because they're calling out for help. They don't bully because they secretly want to be friends. These people bully because the fabric of their fiercely held faith tells them to. They are instructed in no uncertain terms to wage war on those who are different from themselves. That morning, they waged war on people just like you and me. It could have been us choosing a death by falling dozens of stories as opposed to burning alive. It could have been us, killed by debris while trying to search for survivors. It could have been us on those airplanes, hijacked by suicide Jihadists.
When we were children, we were taught that bullies aren't anything to be afraid of. If we 'killed them with kindness,' they would leave us alone, maybe even be our new friends. Perhaps we learned that by reading books like the one I mentioned. But these bullies, we must fear them. We must fear them enough to have no misunderstanding of their motives. In our hearts, we need to have that terrible morning run a loop to remind us of our fleeting freedom and our fleeting lives. Our children and our children's children count on us to be discerning about lessons like these. A school bully? Sure, being friendly and non-confrontational may work. But these people were never interested in being our friends.
If we value our lives as free-living and free-worshiping Americans, we will educate ourselves about these people. We will read the Qur'an instead of burning it. We will set aside our 'live and let live' dreams and wake up to a 'they live and we die' reality. Humans are animals first and animals who have never been taught mercy cannot show it. The more rope we give them, the more rope they have to hang us with. Do not forget that morning, that bright September morning. Do not forget that someone just like you and me took their last breath because of intolerance and hatred at the hands of one of the biggest bullies the earth has ever known.
I know you and I have already talked about this but I feel the need to say it here again where there's always the possibility of someone seeing it and learning from it ...
ReplyDeleteThe single most important thing any non-Muslim can do, whether Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Atheist, Agnostic, etc. is to actually read the Koran. Don't just buy into the PC info that's been fed to us over the past 9 years. Read it, read it in chronological order (there's a Koran out there that's been published this way called The Simple Koran) so that it makes sense. And find out for yourself exactly what it teaches.
The Koran, unlike the Bible and Torah, is meant to be taken literally and is full of direct commands from "Allah".
And in regards to the whole "befriending the bully" concept. The Koran commands Muslims not to befriend non-Muslims.
And there are a few words people might want to research and find out what they mean.
Abrogation - it plays a very important role in how to understand what's in the Koran and how the more violent, less tolerant passages cancel out - "abrogate" the earlier, more peaceful verses.
Taqiyya - Which is the Islamic principle of lying for the sake of Allah. The Koran gives Muslims permission to lie to non-Muslims to advance the goal of Islam. Which, by the way, is Islamization of the entire world.
This is what Islam means when it says it's the "Religion of Peace". It means that there will be peace on earth through Islam. Once everyone is converted there will be peace.
It is not a religion, it is a "religious ideology" and a political system. One that is hell bent on world domination.
That's not just paranoia speaking, it's in the Koran. It's all in there. People just have to be open to educating themselves and do it.
And finally, no, Christianity does not teach the same things. Yes, Christians have committed heinous acts through out history in the name of God. But there are no open-ended commands in the Bible for Jews or Christians to forcibly convert, subjugate or commit violence against unbelievers. If you claim there are, show them to me. (And no, pulling some obscure verse out of the OT talking about either the Jewish law of that time or merely describing some atrocity committed during wartime doesn't count.
Does this mean that all Muslims, especially American Muslims want to convert or kill us. No. But these Muslims are, according to the Koran, not living by the rules of Allah and are, in the eyes of Allah also Apostates (another one for people to learn).
So in the end, it can be summed up this way, yes there are peaceful Muslims. But they are so in spite of what Islam teaches, not because of it.