"Erudite" contributors to this forum may never understand the dangers of Islam!

Submitted by Joseph Guida MD (United States), Dec 8, 2008 at 16:38

Forum contributors like Dr. Benkin, who admit extensive experience with the indigenous peoples in these troubled Muslim lands, continue to over look or possibly ignore the fact that orthodox Islam is inherently accepting of violent solutions to perceived "problems." Orthodox Islam, unlike orthodox Catholicism (Roman Catholicism, to be specific) advocates violence against infidels and murtadds. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, advocated turning the other cheek rather than the Old Testament's advice of "an eye for an eye." Gross historical inaccuracies have resulted in gross exaggerations of violence allegedly perpetrated by Inquisitors.

Granted, societal mercy and compassion were not as well-developed then as they are today, however the comparison of Muslim violence with Christian violence is a ridiculous attempt to mitigate the outrageous conduct of the prophet Mohammad with respect to his Jewish killing sprees on the Arabian peninsula so long ago.

We so easily overlook Mohammad's marriage to Aisha at age SIX, which he consummated at age NINE! This is pedophilic sex in any language...and is a teaching within the Koran. Jesus was a celebate rabbi/carpenter who displayed gratuitous Platonic love to all that would listen and follow his teachings. Our Nation, via the pen of Thomas Jefferson (and other contributors..Adams, Franklin, et, al.) derived the concept of human equality from JudeoChristian ethics. Islam honors no such moral equality. That is why our Nation and Islamic ideologues are like oil and water...and they always will be.

Another thing! Christianity in the United States and Europe was "reformed" during the First Great Awakening of the mid-eighteenth century and later in the 1930's (Second Great Awakening). Non-agrarian colonists in North America during the Firts Great Awakening showed great sympathy for black slaves...but it was ultimately Christian principles that were the engine behind slavery's abolition in 1865.. Slavery's abolition occurred much earlier in England without a civil war...but Anglican Christianity did much to do away with it.

Orthodox Muslims have not been assuaged by any "Great Awakening." 90% of "peace loving" Palestinians felt that we deserved what we got in 9/11....and this was displayed by widespread dancing in the streets as the towers imploded. The significant majority of middle east Muslims do NOT disparage the use of violence when the Koran calls for it, or when Islamofascists exercise it. (A Jordanian poll demonstrated this after the WTC towers fell..and Jordanians ...and Turks... are considered to be the most cosmopolitan of Muslims) They may not perpetrate it themselves, but they will not come out against their fellow orthodoxia.

A small number may fearfully disagree with violent solutions, but a larger number are NOT unduly disturbed by the use of violence when it has Koranic precedent. How do I know this? How can I be sure? Many of my professional Muslim acquaintances range from Muslim and non-Muslim surgeons and other physicians and nursing staff who have practiced medicine and nursing in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai...for many years before practicing in the US. While these people have been a very rich source of information, many gaps in the "data" are easily closed by reading countless Islamic forums on the Internet....reading the thoughts and feelings of "contemporary" Muslims.

Time and again, I see a clash between the teachings of the Koran and modernity. These clashes are multifactorial. It is instructive to again compare with Christianity. The only "clash" I can find is the disgreement between Catholic theologians and Pro-Choice people: and human embryology is on the theologian's side:Biological life begins at the zygote stage during the pellucida reaction..this is non-arguable in my medical opinion. Islamic teachings yield multiple clashes with modern civilization..and they are not pretty.

Finally, I see that Vatican II was noted in this forum. We Catholics are not proud of the early turn that Vatican II took toward Liberation theology. Indeed, John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) condemned it out of hand as a Communist tool. Nevertheless, much of the confusion has been cleared up...the misled re-led... 40-years later without much loss of life or limb. I can not say the same for rumblings in the Islamic world. Those rumblings were not of a reformative type. They were the screams of a industrious Jewish young man named Nick Berg, or a handsome Jewish journalist named Daniel Pearl ...or the deaths of countless others...that provided such rumblings. The only thing that the Muslim world learned is that ultimately, with the assistance of the Western Civilizations, Judeochristian ethics will prevail over Islamic violence.

The war will be bloody and will have many battles...and will be a long slog. Modernity will prevail. I wish that professionals on this site would stop romanticizing about the plight of moderate Muslims. Moderate Muslims, according to orthodoxia, are non-Muslims. And my experiences, being somewhat more than anecdotal, are that "moderate" Muslims DO NOT distain the actions of the "bravest" Muslims who perpetrate violence on the world's peace loving "infidels.". Their plight is primarily represented by mild embarrassment as the media focuses of individual acts of Koran-supported violence...but time heals those wounds...and the moderates go right back to the same book that permits such violence...the Koran. Comparisons and analogies would not be needed if it weren't for people like President Bush, who erroneously called Islam a peaceful religion. Get your negatives straight Mr. President...waterboarding is NOT torture, Islam is NOT a peaceful religion, and "moderates" who distain the violence taught by the Koran do NOT renounce it!

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