I found a great “antidote” to the vitriol on that site, today.
I visited a wonderful Catholic Book Store this afternoon and found a book I’d never seen before: Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics. Written in a question & answer format and very easy to read. If you’re a fast reader, you’ll get through it in a few hours.
The book is co-written by Daniel Ali, a Muslim converted to Catholicism and Robert Spencer, a Christian and author of two excellent books - one is Islam Unveiled; Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Religion and the other is Onward, Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (which he wrote after 9-11)
Robert Spencer is also the founder of Jihad Watch -
jihadwatch.org/ - a site I have referred to many times in attempting to counter the misrepresentations of Islam by Muslim apologists. I recommend that site to everyone.
This book cuts through the intentional misstatements and obfuscations made by Islamists and gives historical and theological arguments and proofs to the contrary.
I don’t often discuss Islam with Muslims, any more. It’s become more important to me to speak to non-Muslims about what I’ve learned, because as these authors will tell you - very few non-believers understand the threats that Islam poses to Western civilization. Even our own President here in the US came out right after 9-11 with the proclamation that Islam is a religion of peace and that we must not tolerate bigotry.
I’m not holding that against him - he was facing the spectre of a huge wave of crimes of retaliation and did not want to further wound the country when we were already in such pain. But, the evidence of Islam NOT being a religion of peace amounts to many volumes of information - it’s covered just adequately in a few pages in this book.
I’ve concluded that
for me it is futile to argue religion with
a person who is not only allowed but directed to lie to non-Muslims in matters of faith.
I might be tempted to do more evangelization and discussion if the Muslim and I are playing on an even field - but that will never be the case as long as one of us is required to lie and the other to tell the truth.
Better that I spend the time and energy praying for conversions, and leave the arguments to those who are more learned, “chapter and verse” of the Qu’ran and the Hadith. There are people who are experts at drawing out the incompletions and obfuscations from the statements made in such discussions and so for now at least, I will leave it to them.
This book is such a series of learned arguments and I heartily recommend it for anyone who wants to know what is behind the hatred for Christians and the West, in general and how to counter anti-Christian arguments.
Hope this will be helpful to someone,
Elizabeth
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