Five types of religions - 4 expressions of Islam - Let's talk about it live.

Submitted by Michel (United States), Feb 15, 2007 at 13:25

I would like to submit some more evidence for my often mentioned shades and facets of Islam., this time organized in a chart and historical context. It nicely explains that Islam is evolving with a time lag compared to Christianity (reform) but seems to follow the same trend, but delayed.

http://www.crossroad.to/charts/religions.html

Dhimmi, Noah, Plato - trying to get back to an unemotional discussion, I am seriously curious if you can accept this frame work. If yes - does it really seem so absurd, to approach Islam being as a bit more than just one integrated, comprehensive, fundamentalist movement?

I further like to submit the following article to your scrutiny:

http://www.newswithviews.com/BeritKjos/kjos4.htm (Moderate Islam b. Andy and berit Kjos)

Which may yet again not depict a representatrive view, but almost precisely recount the experiences I personally had and maybe, just maybe adds a bit of credibility to my personal account, as their findings are amazingly congruent to mine. People I do not know, with a completely different background are telling a story so similar to the one I tried to share. Corrobating testimony from completely different viewpoints....and I am sure more can be found.

In all fairness to all links provided in support of differing viewpoints, and not rying to dismiss any testimony to the contrary or atrocities committed by Islamic Terrorism, this piece sheds a bit of light on the positive and lends credibility to people like us who still hope.

I know that it is not sexy, but quite actually rather boring to assume, that boiling Islam down to its people, one can not come to any other conclusion than realizing another kind of Paradox. The topic of Islam seems to be complex in its various expressions and explanations, while at the same time the majority of Muslims may well be as boringly normal as we are.

I invite us all once again, to move the debate on, and away from discussing us and our opinions, but more so our arguments and references we submit as supporting evidence for them.

I am for my part curious to learn about how such material is being understood or valued by all of you.

Come on, guys, let's drop the emotion and anger and talk about the material we collect and submit.

Since the pen, Plato mentioned, is indeed a sharp instrument ( especially since not accompanied by gesture, facial expression or sound/body language) I repeat my open invitation for a multipoint cyberspace roundtable once again.

System requirements: Computer, Hispeed internet access, attached mic ($ 5) and ideally a cam ($50) Download skype ( free), register your ID and send it to MCZala (My ID) and I'll coordinate it from my end.

I conference that way (for free) with family in Europe on a regular basis and the quality is so amazing that you feel the person sits next to you..

Knowing that, even 100% differing ideas are being presented, the tonality of such a cyber table would be much mor e amicable than this anonymous exchange. On top of that, its real time and we could cover a lot of ground within an hour.

I sincerely hope that some of you are willing to try this experiment. Technically a no-brainer, and I am happy to help you set it up. The only challenge will be to coordinate a good time, due to different time zones and availability.

If you are interested, but do not want to share your private stats, you can send me your anonymous (hotmail, yahoo) email info to mczala@hotmail.com and I'll be happy to help you set your system up. The invitation goes to all of you - no exceptions.

Hoping that you are with me in my effort to evolve our debate to the next ( better, respectful, unemotional) level, I remain with best regards

Mi

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