"Moderate" Muslims

Submitted by Bill Storey (United States), Apr 17, 2007 at 10:26

The problem with moderate Muslims is that they are not really Muslims, since they do not follow the teachings of the Koran. It is similar to liberal Christians who do not believe in the miracles of Christ, or moderate Jews who do not believe in God at all, but continue to follow Jewish holiday customs. All of these folks are those I would call "cultural" Muslims, Christians, or Jews. People who have been raised in a particular religious tradition, but do not follow the real teachings of the faith that produced the tradition.

The real problem is that the Islamists will never listen to the "moderates," since they do not believe they are really Muslims. As a Christian, I never listen to the liberal National Council of Churches on theological issues, since I don't believe the vast majority of its members are Christians.

There have been periodic periods of peace between the West and Islam over the past 13 centuries, usually as a result of exhaustion in the various conflicts between the two. Eventually, another period of exhaustion will set in, but we should not delude ourselves into thinking that there will ever be a real and lasting peace. Islam is a predatory and imperialistic religion; it has been so from the beginning, and is unlikely ever to be anything else.

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