Informed rational freedom loving people have all the reasons in the world to fear islam. The twin fogs of political correctness & ignorance must be dispersed before western society better understands this menace. Even a brief review of islamic theology & history quickly exposes the deadly roots of this evil ideology.
Mohamhead was a 7th century murdering warlord who rose to power on a river of blood surrounded by thugs and gangsters using intimidation, violence, deception and trickery to expand their criminal empire while mercilessly suppressing and killing their opponents and enriching themselves on stolen booty.
The evil koran is a collection of sayings and speeches by this diabolical madman claiming divine guidance from some mythical sky-god which has inspired generations of crazed fanatics to abhorrent behavior resulting in historys worst ever crimes against humanity starting 1400 years ago and still continuing even today.
Islam is just another fascist totalitarian ideology used by power hungry fanatics on yet another quest for worldwide domination and includes all the usual human rights abuses & suppression of freedoms.
While there are some reasonable people in Islam, there seems to always be an element that is quite dangerous and will never be willing to cooperate with anyone. This element will always be wanting to turn governments and societies into Islamic rule. Of these, we should indeed be on high alert. They appear to have already tipped the tide in Europe, while the traditional Europeans slept happily. For some strange reason that I do not understand, western culture seems to accept Islam as they would no other. They do so to their peril.
The tools of Christians are those of prayer, the word of God, and reason. Aquinas used these to defeat Islam 750 years ago, and they can be used again.
Fear of Islam and Muslims, which is highly, highly condensed among Christians, is one of the things that really makes me, as a Christian, very sad. All the “information” seems to be coming from Think Tanks funded by individuals with a soft spot for Nazism with mouthpieces such as Pamella Geller and Robert Spencer: both shown to have ties with Neo-Nazi groups. This fear of Muslims and Islam is fueling hate crimes…
We as Christians are partially responsible for this because we are parroting lines like “creeping Sharia” and preaching outdated, Eurocentric history which still (wrongly) makes Muhammed out to be a blood thirsty monster when the reality is far more nuanced than that. STOP pandering to Islamophobia, which really is just that: the IRRATIONAL fear of Islam and Muslims!
As a Christian, I do not wish to be offensive to anyone, including Muslims. I have found that calm dialogue in a respectful manner gets further than doing insulting things. That said, we live in a society where we are not promised to be protected from things which we disagree or find offensive. Muslims find cartoons of Muhammad offensive; as a Christian, I find it equally offensive that I am subjected the Lord’s name used as a curse word, which I am force to hear on a daily basis. I find it offensive to see Jesus in a pan of urine, which was done as “art” in a well-respected gallery. Yet I am told that I have no right to ask such people as offends me to stop.
I am plugged in to the Christian apologetics community, and know or have met many people who speak about Islam from a Christian perspective, although I have not met the two people you named. I do not know any Christian apologist who is phobic about Islam. The vast majority of them are careful scholars who are trying to accurately lay out the truth, and reach Muslims with the good news of Jesus.
It is possible to disagree with respect. But as Christians, and specifically Christian apologists, it is our task to respectfully disagree with Islam. Muhammad gave false prophecies, which is evidenced by the Islamic doctrine of abrogation. By contrast, Jesus was the true messiah. I know of no way to say Muhammad was a false prophet and that Islam is incorrect about Jesus, other than to say it directly. If Muslims find this offensive, I am sorry, but I must speak.
As for your link to loonwatch, I do not find their reporting to be very accurate. Of the few instances which they report that I happen to know a lot of details, their position is very biased and lacking. For example, their reporting of David Wood, Nabeel Qureshi, and Acts 17 Apologetics was incomplete and factually incorrect. When I also find zero articles that blame Muslims for voilence, I am very doubtful of their motives.
I do not wish that anyone offend Muslims, but we live in a society where we are not protected from insult, and even if someone is insulted, they have no grounds to do what they did to Salmon Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, or Molly Norris.
If you want to have a more complete view of what happens to those who respectfully disagree with Islam, see here: http://www.answeringmuslims.com/p/dearborn.html
The raw video is clear about what happened, and is not any sort of anti-Islamic phobia. It does involve people who happen to disagree about Islam….which, I might add, it not legal under Sharia.
I am offended by that too, but the thing is you seem to think (and many other Christians seem to think) that it is just “Muslims” in general who are offended by cartoons of Muhammed when in reality the vast majority, while hurt by it, didn’t get up in arms. The media distorted it to make it seem like Muslims just en masse got up and started throwing death threats around. Also, the fact that Muslim countries are being bombed left and right for oil and for neocolonial purposes is never mentioned so when some Muslims do get angry, it is portrayed as if it is happening in a vaccuum. “Oh, those Muslims are just angry again!”
The thing I am getting at is that whether or not they realize it, they (and I too for a long time until I actually took up a serious study of Islamic culture to better understand Muslims) are repeating anti-Muslim preujudices from other sources which ultimately stem from these racist provenances. Dr. Craig, for whom I have great respect, in one of his Q&A’s on his site said something along the lines that Muslims don’t have love of man, just of God, and as a result they are hateful to others (I am paraphrasing as I cannot remember his exact words). Coming from someone as intelligent as Dr. Craig, I find this very disturbing and it shows me the extent to which anti-Muslim sentiment has really gone. Muslims, theological disagreements aside, have a long, largely peaceful history which yielded some of the greatest cultural achivements the world has seen (Andalusian Spain for example).
I am not saying to be a yes-man to everything Muslims say, because I am convinced that theologically, a lot of what they say is wrong (their view of Jesus as just a mortal man for example). I am saying to be careful where you get your information from. As I said, the Islamophobic, anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all time high (as evidenced in the article I tried to link in my last comment: I am unfamiliar with the articles you mentioned from that site, but in their defense they are trying to counter the misreporting and stereotypes of Muslims spread in the media. Their biblical hermeneutics from what I see is indeed shoddy, but that aside, I think they have done an able job of exposing the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer et al.) with elderly Muslims being beaten almost to death, Muslim women being accosted and having their hijabs ripped off their heads and spit on. Also this insane fear of Shariah like it is some monolithic, evil destroyer of worlds. Anyone familiar with Judaism will see that Shariah and Halakha are basically the same, and for Islamophobes I fear that they will see the connection and perhaps take up anti-semitism while they are at it!
Again, it is not about offending Muslims because everyone will be offended by something. I am saying, again, just be careful about where you get your information from regarding Muslims. They are not a homogenous group which all support al Qaeda, and by FBI statistics only about 1% of the world’s Muslims are of that persuasion. Sorry for the long post but as a disciple of Christ I felt it is my duty to speak up and warn my fellow Christians.
Oil and colonialism are not the scope of this blog, so I will just say my experience and training contradict what you are saying.
No one on this side wants to condone violence.
Regarding the history of Muslim people groups a d the current level of violence, I respectfully disagree. I don’t know where you’re getting your info, but if its primarily loonwatcb then it’s incomplete. I encourage you to look at the Christian apologists who specialize in Islam. Several are former Muslims and are credible. The ones I know have a good heart and do careful work.
Also, even if its 1% (I think it’s closer to 5-7% worldwide, but I’ll use your figure) then there are 15,000,000 Muslims trying to make me a dhimmi or kill me. But you are correct that the vast majority are not terrorists. But in not loudly separating from the terrorists they are not helping to solve the problem.
Loonwatch is not the only place I get my information. Mainstream studies in Islamic history contradict the view of 1) Muhammed as some barbaric warlord whose ONLY goal in life was killing and slaughtering (not that he never killed or commanded others be killed, but that is not the sole extent of what he sent out to accomplish) and 2) comparatively speaking, Islamic civilization has been far more peaceful than a) the media portray and b) Christian apologists maintain: a reason I am troubled by Christian critiques of Islam. I am not saying this makes Islam true because I don’t believe it is but it is intellectually disingenuous to continue to hold to these views in light of contemporary scholarship. All I am doing is cautioning other Christians of falling into this trap.
I must, in turn, respectfully disagree with you. I am well aware of christian criticisms of Islam, and I agree with most of them. That is not what I am getting at. You sweep oil and colonialism under the rug rather easily when those are two of the biggest impeti for Islamic fundamentalism, yet Christians never adress them which is a reason for my disquietude with Christian apologists (and people in general unfamiliar with the intricacies of the religion) who are content to condemn Muslims as people in a vacuum and blame Islam the religion entirely for fundamentalism. Again, this is primarily about the way Muslims are treated, NOT about the veracity of Islam.
Furthermore, it is not true that “moderate Muslims” (in other words, Muslims who act entirely like westerners and only say they are Muslim without following the tenets of Islam) have not loudly separated themselves from terrorists. I am not sure where you get that from, but it is a widespread lie which, again, too many Christians believe. There have been rallies, sermons by Imams, workshops, educational attempts, on and on and on by Muslims to distance themselves from the likes of al Qaeda only for 1) them to be ignored while impugned for putatively not doing anything to distance themselves from terrorists or 2) for the media to completely ignore them. You also havn’t addressed the hate crimes against Muslims in america and how they are constantly harrassed. This is the last comment I will post but the only thing I ask is that you and anyone else who read this research the matter by actual scholars of the field. Muslims, despite their theological differences, are our brothers and sisters under God and we cannot stand by and allow them to be harried and labeled as terrorists en masse.
If you want a good source for Muhammad and the nature of Islam, see “The Life of Muhammad” by Ibn Ishaq. There are a couple of others that are in this category…early sources, Muslim sources, so they cannot be accused of including Christian bias. There is enough material from Muslim sources to show that Muhammad was a false prophet.
I would strongly caution you to take modern Muslim sources with a dose of skepticism. There has been a well-funded PR campaign to put a face on Islam that does not exist, has not existed, and will likely never exist. These early sources give a more true picture of the roots of Islam.
Thomistic Bent 
Informed rational freedom loving people have all the reasons in the world to fear islam. The twin fogs of political correctness & ignorance must be dispersed before western society better understands this menace. Even a brief review of islamic theology & history quickly exposes the deadly roots of this evil ideology.
Mohamhead was a 7th century murdering warlord who rose to power on a river of blood surrounded by thugs and gangsters using intimidation, violence, deception and trickery to expand their criminal empire while mercilessly suppressing and killing their opponents and enriching themselves on stolen booty.
The evil koran is a collection of sayings and speeches by this diabolical madman claiming divine guidance from some mythical sky-god which has inspired generations of crazed fanatics to abhorrent behavior resulting in historys worst ever crimes against humanity starting 1400 years ago and still continuing even today.
Islam is just another fascist totalitarian ideology used by power hungry fanatics on yet another quest for worldwide domination and includes all the usual human rights abuses & suppression of freedoms.
While there are some reasonable people in Islam, there seems to always be an element that is quite dangerous and will never be willing to cooperate with anyone. This element will always be wanting to turn governments and societies into Islamic rule. Of these, we should indeed be on high alert. They appear to have already tipped the tide in Europe, while the traditional Europeans slept happily. For some strange reason that I do not understand, western culture seems to accept Islam as they would no other. They do so to their peril.
The tools of Christians are those of prayer, the word of God, and reason. Aquinas used these to defeat Islam 750 years ago, and they can be used again.
Fear of Islam and Muslims, which is highly, highly condensed among Christians, is one of the things that really makes me, as a Christian, very sad. All the “information” seems to be coming from Think Tanks funded by individuals with a soft spot for Nazism with mouthpieces such as Pamella Geller and Robert Spencer: both shown to have ties with Neo-Nazi groups. This fear of Muslims and Islam is fueling hate crimes…
We as Christians are partially responsible for this because we are parroting lines like “creeping Sharia” and preaching outdated, Eurocentric history which still (wrongly) makes Muhammed out to be a blood thirsty monster when the reality is far more nuanced than that. STOP pandering to Islamophobia, which really is just that: the IRRATIONAL fear of Islam and Muslims!
As a Christian, I do not wish to be offensive to anyone, including Muslims. I have found that calm dialogue in a respectful manner gets further than doing insulting things. That said, we live in a society where we are not promised to be protected from things which we disagree or find offensive. Muslims find cartoons of Muhammad offensive; as a Christian, I find it equally offensive that I am subjected the Lord’s name used as a curse word, which I am force to hear on a daily basis. I find it offensive to see Jesus in a pan of urine, which was done as “art” in a well-respected gallery. Yet I am told that I have no right to ask such people as offends me to stop.
I am plugged in to the Christian apologetics community, and know or have met many people who speak about Islam from a Christian perspective, although I have not met the two people you named. I do not know any Christian apologist who is phobic about Islam. The vast majority of them are careful scholars who are trying to accurately lay out the truth, and reach Muslims with the good news of Jesus.
It is possible to disagree with respect. But as Christians, and specifically Christian apologists, it is our task to respectfully disagree with Islam. Muhammad gave false prophecies, which is evidenced by the Islamic doctrine of abrogation. By contrast, Jesus was the true messiah. I know of no way to say Muhammad was a false prophet and that Islam is incorrect about Jesus, other than to say it directly. If Muslims find this offensive, I am sorry, but I must speak.
As for your link to loonwatch, I do not find their reporting to be very accurate. Of the few instances which they report that I happen to know a lot of details, their position is very biased and lacking. For example, their reporting of David Wood, Nabeel Qureshi, and Acts 17 Apologetics was incomplete and factually incorrect. When I also find zero articles that blame Muslims for voilence, I am very doubtful of their motives.
I do not wish that anyone offend Muslims, but we live in a society where we are not protected from insult, and even if someone is insulted, they have no grounds to do what they did to Salmon Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, or Molly Norris.
If you want to have a more complete view of what happens to those who respectfully disagree with Islam, see here:
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/p/dearborn.html
The raw video is clear about what happened, and is not any sort of anti-Islamic phobia. It does involve people who happen to disagree about Islam….which, I might add, it not legal under Sharia.
A few of my comments can be found here:
I am offended by that too, but the thing is you seem to think (and many other Christians seem to think) that it is just “Muslims” in general who are offended by cartoons of Muhammed when in reality the vast majority, while hurt by it, didn’t get up in arms. The media distorted it to make it seem like Muslims just en masse got up and started throwing death threats around. Also, the fact that Muslim countries are being bombed left and right for oil and for neocolonial purposes is never mentioned so when some Muslims do get angry, it is portrayed as if it is happening in a vaccuum. “Oh, those Muslims are just angry again!”
The thing I am getting at is that whether or not they realize it, they (and I too for a long time until I actually took up a serious study of Islamic culture to better understand Muslims) are repeating anti-Muslim preujudices from other sources which ultimately stem from these racist provenances. Dr. Craig, for whom I have great respect, in one of his Q&A’s on his site said something along the lines that Muslims don’t have love of man, just of God, and as a result they are hateful to others (I am paraphrasing as I cannot remember his exact words). Coming from someone as intelligent as Dr. Craig, I find this very disturbing and it shows me the extent to which anti-Muslim sentiment has really gone. Muslims, theological disagreements aside, have a long, largely peaceful history which yielded some of the greatest cultural achivements the world has seen (Andalusian Spain for example).
I am not saying to be a yes-man to everything Muslims say, because I am convinced that theologically, a lot of what they say is wrong (their view of Jesus as just a mortal man for example). I am saying to be careful where you get your information from. As I said, the Islamophobic, anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all time high (as evidenced in the article I tried to link in my last comment: I am unfamiliar with the articles you mentioned from that site, but in their defense they are trying to counter the misreporting and stereotypes of Muslims spread in the media. Their biblical hermeneutics from what I see is indeed shoddy, but that aside, I think they have done an able job of exposing the likes of Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer et al.) with elderly Muslims being beaten almost to death, Muslim women being accosted and having their hijabs ripped off their heads and spit on. Also this insane fear of Shariah like it is some monolithic, evil destroyer of worlds. Anyone familiar with Judaism will see that Shariah and Halakha are basically the same, and for Islamophobes I fear that they will see the connection and perhaps take up anti-semitism while they are at it!
Again, it is not about offending Muslims because everyone will be offended by something. I am saying, again, just be careful about where you get your information from regarding Muslims. They are not a homogenous group which all support al Qaeda, and by FBI statistics only about 1% of the world’s Muslims are of that persuasion. Sorry for the long post but as a disciple of Christ I felt it is my duty to speak up and warn my fellow Christians.
Oil and colonialism are not the scope of this blog, so I will just say my experience and training contradict what you are saying.
No one on this side wants to condone violence.
Regarding the history of Muslim people groups a d the current level of violence, I respectfully disagree. I don’t know where you’re getting your info, but if its primarily loonwatcb then it’s incomplete. I encourage you to look at the Christian apologists who specialize in Islam. Several are former Muslims and are credible. The ones I know have a good heart and do careful work.
Also, even if its 1% (I think it’s closer to 5-7% worldwide, but I’ll use your figure) then there are 15,000,000 Muslims trying to make me a dhimmi or kill me. But you are correct that the vast majority are not terrorists. But in not loudly separating from the terrorists they are not helping to solve the problem.
Loonwatch is not the only place I get my information. Mainstream studies in Islamic history contradict the view of 1) Muhammed as some barbaric warlord whose ONLY goal in life was killing and slaughtering (not that he never killed or commanded others be killed, but that is not the sole extent of what he sent out to accomplish) and 2) comparatively speaking, Islamic civilization has been far more peaceful than a) the media portray and b) Christian apologists maintain: a reason I am troubled by Christian critiques of Islam. I am not saying this makes Islam true because I don’t believe it is but it is intellectually disingenuous to continue to hold to these views in light of contemporary scholarship. All I am doing is cautioning other Christians of falling into this trap.
I must, in turn, respectfully disagree with you. I am well aware of christian criticisms of Islam, and I agree with most of them. That is not what I am getting at. You sweep oil and colonialism under the rug rather easily when those are two of the biggest impeti for Islamic fundamentalism, yet Christians never adress them which is a reason for my disquietude with Christian apologists (and people in general unfamiliar with the intricacies of the religion) who are content to condemn Muslims as people in a vacuum and blame Islam the religion entirely for fundamentalism. Again, this is primarily about the way Muslims are treated, NOT about the veracity of Islam.
Furthermore, it is not true that “moderate Muslims” (in other words, Muslims who act entirely like westerners and only say they are Muslim without following the tenets of Islam) have not loudly separated themselves from terrorists. I am not sure where you get that from, but it is a widespread lie which, again, too many Christians believe. There have been rallies, sermons by Imams, workshops, educational attempts, on and on and on by Muslims to distance themselves from the likes of al Qaeda only for 1) them to be ignored while impugned for putatively not doing anything to distance themselves from terrorists or 2) for the media to completely ignore them. You also havn’t addressed the hate crimes against Muslims in america and how they are constantly harrassed. This is the last comment I will post but the only thing I ask is that you and anyone else who read this research the matter by actual scholars of the field. Muslims, despite their theological differences, are our brothers and sisters under God and we cannot stand by and allow them to be harried and labeled as terrorists en masse.
If you want a good source for Muhammad and the nature of Islam, see “The Life of Muhammad” by Ibn Ishaq. There are a couple of others that are in this category…early sources, Muslim sources, so they cannot be accused of including Christian bias. There is enough material from Muslim sources to show that Muhammad was a false prophet.
I would strongly caution you to take modern Muslim sources with a dose of skepticism. There has been a well-funded PR campaign to put a face on Islam that does not exist, has not existed, and will likely never exist. These early sources give a more true picture of the roots of Islam.