I am deeply saddened by the death of this brave woman. She joins President Sadat of Egypt in dying for peace. She surpasses Sadat in that she also died for democracy! Oh yes we will now be treated to the hate rant of many of my fellow Christians who just don’t want to remember the Inquisition or the Opium War! The latter fought by members of my own Anglican Church to bring the “heathen Chinese” the joys of addiction to opium in Jesus name! Does this mean I believe Jesus would sanction those scandals? Absolutely not!
I heard conservatives list some quotes from the Koran that sanctioned killing. Well let me see if I can list some here:
“A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD’s work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed”!
Wait the above is not from the Koran but from our very own Bible, Jeremiah 48:10! I am an Anglican (Episcopalian)! My church believes that we understand God via:
- Scripture
- Reason
- Experience
- Tradition
Those who commit barbarian acts in God’s name frequently use only Scripture! By the way ALL scriptures have their particular passages we would like to forget! Islam unlike Christianity, has yet to experience major “secularization”. All believers need to place some distance between their actions and their scripture. Observe the Bible:
Luke 14:26
26″If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple”. – Well there is a nice scriptural passages for a Christmas card!
Deuteronomy 20:16
16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
Well now there is a nice thought! Only thing missing is a “Sieg Heil”! These are only a few of many “delightful passages” we would rather forget! Our religion is guided by “Reason” not just Scripture. We create “Theological Rosaries” by weaving the passages that suit our understanding of the Divine. Then we blank out the rest. With Christianity’s “Evolution” we have created a string of passages to form a “Theological Rosary” that is more spiritual and humanistic! – Thank God! Let’s allow the Muslims the same opportunity, after all Bhutto was a Muslim!
Now observe this passage from the Koran:
2:177 It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets; and giveth wealth, for love of Him, to kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due. And those who keep their treaty when they make one, and the patient in tribulation and adversity and time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the God-fearing.
Yes we have to be careful about the Islamic World while they go through their evolution to secularization and liberalization from “Solo Scriptura” to the four fold method I listed above. But Christianity and Judaism are not inherently superior to Islam. We simply went through an evolutionary process that they are behind in. We went through this earlier, probably since we splintered into not just Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, but even within the Protestant fold there were many warring fractions in close geographic proximity. We learned to live with our EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY! Don’t get the idea that Holy Wars are simply a religious phenomena to reduce EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY! Not at all! Do you remember the Soviet Union, Khmer Rouge or Maoist China? Atheists just love to say that the latter do not reflect the “real Atheists”. Well why not give the same consideration to Muslims, Christians and Jews? Let me also present for your consideration my religion website, that I admit has been neglected by myself.
Finally Pakistan, in one way, is more advanced then we are! They already had a woman as the “Head of Government”.
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