Mr. Jenkins, your letter needs to be addressed. This is America and everyone is free to have a political opinion so thank you for speaking up. I read carefully your letter of April 22 responding to my letter of April 11 in the High Desert Star. Your loyalty to President O’Bama is clear but his actions tell me that his loyalties lie, not in America, but elsewhere. That being said, we disagree on a few other basic facts, please hear me out.
Human beings are not animals, we share many similarities but we humans are unique moral beings with an awareness of right and wrong. Our moral inheritance is both a responsibility and a challenge, the animal kingdom is blessed to escape these worries. Knowing and doing what is right is an individual learning process that may first begin in the womb. We learn from our parents, from our written laws, from societal interaction, from our failures, from religion and from the perceived voice of God.
The sad truth is that we humans learn quite slowly, preferring those wrong choices. When our wrongness rises to a certain level the word evil would seem appropriate. Your second misstatement is to claim that Christianity and Islam are equally guilty of dispensing gross evil. Is that what you are saying? If this is your position you have been duped and for some reason find no need to move further into the truth. Christianity has had moments of evil means in history but it is not fair to compare these moments with the warrior religion of Islam.
Is it unfair or inflammatory to characterize Islam as a warrior religion? It certainly is inflammatory but it is also a fair reading of both history and theology. The history is beyond questioning for from the get go, 1500 years ago, Islam expanded feverishly by the sword with political domination of conquered peoples their first priority. Conversion to Islam of conquered peoples became convenient as the centuries passed. If you care to know the history, just google the expansion of Islam.
The evolving theology of Islam has contributed to the radicalization and warrior mentality of the religion. The Koran has little to say about how the religion should treat infidels but as the centuries passed, the theology gave the religion license to kill. For an informed study one can go to the Faith and Freedom website and judge the theology of Islam from people who have come out from this violent tyranny. This website is the other side of the liberal talking points that evade the truth. First hand experience should be important when considering the character of Islam but this website is banned in many Muslim countries.
Christianity and Islam have the same roots in history but each expresses it’s faith in very different ways. The radical element in Christianity has most always focused inward, demanding that believers worship in one manner or another. The Crusades may be the only exception but they were largely a defensive action attempting to prevent an Islamic invasion and domination of the Holy Land which had been for 2000 years a Judeo-Christian holy site. That being said, would Jesus have approved of the Crusades … the debate goes on?
Human religion is the problem. Jesus said “my kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)”. Jesus believed so strongly in the separation of spirituality from politics that he willingly suffered and died an ignominious death at the hands of the religious politic of that day. From the shape of the world today and the conflicts enabled by religion over the last 4000 years, one might assume that religious politics, whether internal or external are anti-God. All of us, Muslim, Christian and Jew are very slow learners.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
