More hatred

Submitted by Peter Hanbury (Australia), Jan 2, 2006 at 16:48

Dear Rick,

I appreciate your sincerity, but apparently you have not done your homework, when you claim that hate and murder are the very essence of Islam. I am not a Muslim, but I know that the Quran specifically prohibits the killing of innocent people, but justifies Muslims fighting back against those who attack them. This is not unreasonable. Compare this with the approach of the Bush administration, which has invaded Iraq, and bombed thousands of people to death, on the pretext that Saddam MIGHT at some future time attack the USA.

You say that the United States is not targetting innocent civilians, yet we have seen on TV the footage of despairing parents whose children have been killed, or in some case had their arms or legs blown off. If your own children had been the victims, would you still praise the attackers?

Jesus' message of love, forgiveness and understanding has seldom been adopted by those who who call themselves Christians. Contrary to your claim, so-called Christians have indeed been committing atrocities in the name of religion, almost since the dawn of Christianity. In the 700-year Moorish occupation of Spain, both Christians and Jews were allowed to practise their religion freely. It was only when the Moors were driven out of Spain that the Jews were persecuted by the new "Christian" rulers.

In their lust for gold, the Spanish Conquistadors slaughtered countless people in South America, and justified their actions by citing the barbarous religions of the natives. At the same time, so-called heretics were still being tortured and burnt alive by the Inquisition, which was not a sudden and brief abberation but an evolving process which, as scholars assure us, had been going on since the fourth century. When the Crusaders laid seige to Jerusalem they murdered thousands of Jews as well as Muslims, and they had already slaughtered countless other Christians on the way to Palestine. More recently, Ariel Sharron fell into disfavour because he failed to prevent Christians from massacring Muslims in Lebanon. These are all matters of recorded history.

These "Christian " murderers were not true Christians, just as Muslim extremists are not true Muslims. Study your history books, read the Quran, read the New Testament, and you will see that false accusations help nobody, and hatred merely breeds more hatred

Peter

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