Afghan Christian released

"Love thy neighbour as thyself" sounds to me more like equality than freedom. I have a hammer-and-sickle flag on the wall behind me right now (but don't read too much into that). The Oklahoma City bombers were motivated by politics, just as the September 11th bombers were. Their respective religions are more-or-less irrelevant. From what others have posted, it appears that your quotes were taken out of context. In any case, I think the proper Christian attitude is to give Muslims the benefit of the doubt.

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Bren, it's not what I think or want that counts. It's what the book says will happen, what has happened in history and what is happening here and now that counts. I'm just observing the evidence and telling you like it is. I can't change that if I wanted to. You can run off sore, but that's not going to change the reality of it all.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

Stop acting stupid.Nobody in the history of the church ever read it that way, but I understand that 21st century people think they are the only ones who understand anything and are never wrong about anything, only those people who lived by Christ for the previous 18 or 19 centuries can be wrong about what Christ meant. Much Western law has been based on the laws of Moses. It is law for governments, for a whole people, to be prosecuted by the duly appointed authorities. It is not for individuals to apply an eye for an eye, and the moral law is good for all governments. Individuals, not governments. Governments cannot submit to their enemies, cannot turn the other cheek. Such submission risks death at the hands of your enemies. Your enemies are often not reluctant to inflict it. Jesus submitted and died on the cross. Christian martyrs submit to their persecutors and die.Governments would {abe: fail to demand justice against criminals and thus leave innocent people at their mercy} They would turn the other cheek on behalf of their citizens, essentially committing them to death at the hands of their enemies. What government in its right mind would ever do this to its citizens? Only one run by the lefties of today who are selling us out to our enemies and even do like to quote Christ to justify getting us all killed. Why? We're talking about the difference between Christians and Muslims. It's on topic. Thanks for the usual personal attack.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-29-2006 12:05 AM

What's astounding to me is that, after pages and pages of dismissing the idea of investigation into the past, and asserting that any conclusion we come to about the past is merely speculation; after pages and pages of dismissing human wisdom as "worldly" and human learning as inherently flawed; after pages and pages of refusing to accept any kind of instruction or correction in terms of the factual errors about the real world you continually make -- you put all your trust in thinkers in the past and ancient human wisdom, people that you can't talk to or investigate or know anything about, as opposed to the thinkers all around you who you could explore issues with, if open intellectual inquiry was your actual goal.People are getting dumber over time. That's your conclusion? That despite putting men on the moon, teasing out the secrets of the atom, and conquering diseases that used to lay waste to continents, we're all actually a lot dumber than the minds of ages past? Does that make sense to you?

Would that include the slave-owners? The witch-burners? Pardon me if I don't take my theology from them. Including slavery laws and witch-burning laws. Pardon me if i don't adopt that as my "moral" code. Love thy enemy. I'm inviting you to broaden the topic to "the law" in general - since you're so amazingly off base on the subject. By their fruits ye shall know them.This message has been edited by Ringo, 2006-03-28 10:06 PM

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Freedom and love are apples and oranges. You said you wanted equality. I said you'd loose your freedom with equality. A culture or nation doesn't need equality of the citizenry for love to be operative. My neighbor may be very rich and I very poor, i.e. unequal and I can love him/her as myself. You may be a wealthy businessman who hires a bum off the street, i.e. unequal, but you may love the poor man as yourself in many ways without sharing half your wealth with him so as to become equal. Savvy? Oh. I took your former statement as implying they were Christian bombers. If their religion is irrevelant, why did you attempt to imply they were Christians? I've read a lot of Islamic text, both from the Quran and the Saunas. I've also observed and read a lot of what the fundmentalist leaders and rulers who advocate the fundamentals of those books have practiced in history and are practicing and advocating here and now in Islamland. I put these together, add it all up and draw the conclusions from the data observed.Islam does not become intolerant in a nation until the following becomes sufficient in a given nation to tighten the noose on the populace of the nation. That's why the religion appears to be peaceful in America. It is peaceful because it has not yet achieved the power and influence to enforce the fundamentals of prophet and his desciples on the populace as it has in the Muslim majority nations, most of which enforce intolerant fundamentals on the citizenry. Thus, no matter who rules in Afganistan or any Muslim nation, according to the books and according to the practice of Muhammed and his followers, heretics converting out of Islam must die!

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

My trust is in GOD, crash, not human beings. I know you think its just people, but it's not, it's GOD I'm trusting. Not human wisdom. And the "past" part is irrelevant. God is eternal.And we are not talking about the physical world now. That's bringing apples into this discussion about oranges.Human beings have no more wisdom now than they ever did. Knowledge, science, those aren't wisdom.

You'd think this would be common knowledge by now but our opponents refuse to accept anything that might save them. Perhaps they won't mind becoming Muslim to save their hides, I don't know.

Similar advice to what those who warned in advance about Hitler were given. But most here won't give a Christian poster the benefit of the doubt about anything. You guys have everything upside down and backwards.

I wasn't talking about strictly economic equality - but what's this about sharing half your wealth? To be equal, you'd have to share all of it (which, by the way, is what Jesus told the rich man to do). So, slavery is an expression of love... how? Withholding the vote from women and minorities is an expression of love... how? I didn't "attempt to imply" anything. I said they were Christians (to the best of my knowledge).If they were Christian in name only, then their religion was irrelevant. Similarly, if the September 11 bombers were Muslim in name only, then their religion was equally irrelevant.The Oklahoma City bombers acted against the (proper) tenets of their religion. As I understand it, the September 11 bombers equally acted against the (proper) tenets of their religion.Same difference. Others posting here have drawn different conclusions. According to my understanding, their conclusions more accurately reflect reality.In any case, the proper Christian response would be to give the Muslims the benefit of the doubt. If I recall my history correctly (and I was very young at the time ), Moorish Spain was far more tolerant - to Jews, for instance - than Christian ever Spain was. Wasn't it Ferdinand who expelled the Moors and the Jews?The idea that Muslim nations must be warlike and intolerant just doesn't hold any water.

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By their fruits ye shall know them.An anti-Muslim attitude is an un-Christian attitude.

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I had in mind the hundreds of thousands of martyrs among others. You swat at a gnat and swallow a camel. You put good for evil and evil for good.
You do not rightly divide the word of truth.
You wrest the scriptures to your own destruction. You are acting stupid. The letter kills but the spirit makes alive.
The flesh profits nothing. Your idea of fruits is fleshly.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-29-2006 12:39 AM

I'm pro Muslim, anti-Islam. You don't know the difference between an anti-Muslim attitude and an educated understanding of Islam.

One set of laws is in a book considered to have been written by men, in their best effort to understand G-d. It does not proscibe change. The other is considered to be the exact, perfect, FINAL, word of Allah, and the set of laws known as Sharia are one of the major sections of the Koran, not one small section easily lost in a much bigger body of work.

If you are so certain that it is crystal clear that your understanding of the War Verses is correct, then you'll have to account for why Moahmmed lived them differnetly, why much - at times most - of islam has seen them differently through all of its history, and why even today there exists a huge portion of islam that disagrees with you. There are very prominent clerics throughout the Islamic world, even here in NA, who preach the version that moahmmed lived, and who support the Islamist movement, which is based on my reading, and theirs, of the War Verses.At best, one can only rationally say that they are written such as to be open to two very different and contrasting interpretations, such that either side may possibly be valid. One cannot rationally argue that it is self-evident that they are passages of mere spiritual and defensive intent.