Islam

[Contarini]

The doctrine of abrogration is nto something that can be “followed or not.”

I didn’t think [Sunni] Islam had a Pope, much less that you occupied that office.

Many Muslims disagree with your interpretation of their religion.

You completely miss the whole central tenet of Islam: Submission to ALLAH. If ALLAH says later verses cancel out earlier peaceful verses

Yes, if. Many Muslims do not believe that the “verses of the sword” simply cancel out the “peaceful” verses, so your premise is flawed.

and the Taliban and Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood all use this as justification for jihad against non-Muslims (US),

Actually, all these groups have different agendas and different levels of hostility toward the U.S., and they all have particular political reasons for what they do alongside their religious motivations.

the other Muslims know they are right, and don’t criticize them.

Well, then you have to explain why in fact Muslims frequently do criticize such groups.

This is why so many American muslims don’t mouth off, telling us that they think it is wrong. If they do speak out, they say something like, I condemn violence against innocents" which means Muslims, not non muslims. The only innocents in Islam are the Muslims.

So you say. You have no authority to speak for Muslims. I will listen to what Muslims say about their own religion, and to what people who study Islam professionally say about it. They disagree with you.

Explain the numerous condemnations of 9/11 by the sheikh of Al-Azhar and other leading Muslims? Your position simply makes no sense of the evidence–you have to explain the evidence away by putting it all down to Islamic deception. That’s another way of saying that you live in a paranoid fantasy world.

you see forced conversion, or dhimmi status when in an Islamic state.

Those are quite radically different things. Nor do they differ from how Christians have historically treated the non-Christians they ruled. You would be right if you were to respond that it’s proven relatively easier for Christians to move away from these attitudes. But it seems fairly clear that many Muslims have in fact moved away from them as well, in spite of your dogmatic claims (as self-appointed Pope of Islam) that they can’t.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If you’re a 21st Century Pope trying to keep the lid on religious violence, it gets the label “religion of peace”.

Has any 21st-century Pope called it a religion of peace?

Reality is not as black-and-white as you make it. We are not compelled to caricature Islam in either demonizing or whitewashing ways.

We can recognize that Islam is a complex set of beliefs and practices, and that it changes over time like all religions, often in ways that we can’t predict from simply studying its core texts. We should avoid a simplistic reading of the Qur’an just as we expect people to avoid a simplistic reading of the Bible.

Edwin

 

[Trebor135]

lioness;8312046:

you see forced conversion, or dhimmi status when in an Islamic state.

Those are quite radically different things. Nor do they differ from how Christians have historically treated the non-Christians they ruled. You would be right if you were to respond that it’s proven relatively easier for Christians to move away from these attitudes. But it seems fairly clear that many Muslims have in fact moved away from them as well, in spite of your dogmatic claims (as self-appointed Pope of Islam) that they can’t.

Where do you see progress being made in this area?

The jizya–or poll tax paid by the dhimma–has been abolished everywhere, but Europe exercised influence over and/or set up colonial administrations in most predominantly Muslim countries. So, it makes sense that Western norms would have been incorporated into local legislation on this point.

Conditions for Christian minorities vary by country:

• In Lebanon, they used to be the majority, and their political, social, and economic clout is a vestige of this reality enshrined in law, the 1943 “national pact”, and the 1989 Ta’if Accords (brokered, ironically, in Saudi Arabia).
• in Iraq, Christians have faced persecution since the ouster of the secular Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003 at the hands of two powers from the nominally Christian West. The ancient Chaldean/Assyrian communities who have kept the faith appear to be on their way out: the Christian population has halved in the past seven years, and waves of new converts don’t appear on the horizon.
• In Syria, they have enjoyed religious freedom under another secular Ba’athist regime under the Assad family (though I don’t expect they’re permitted to prosylitize!). Depending on whether the protests that began in March this year lead to the resignation or assassination of Bashar al-Assad and the toppling of his police state, the Christians in Syria could very well face the same fate as their Iraqi brethren.
• In the Gulf, Christians are tolerated (as in the United Arab Emirates, where staying on the good side of all the foreign guest workers is a wise idea) or denied all religious freedom (as in Saudi Arabia, where Bibles aren’t allowed into the country and churches are nowhere to be seen).
• In Iran, they’re a tiny minority tolerated by the autocratic Khomeinist regime–which, however, doesn’t view conversion to Christianity by those born Muslim as something to be celebrated.
• In Egypt and Pakistan, born Christians are on the receiving end of discrimination most of the time, mob violence and state complicity on occasion. Egyptian converts to Christ face arrest, imprisonment, and torture; I expect their Pakistani comrades-in-faith are no better off, though I haven’t read of such cases.
• I don’t know enough about Indonesia to comment, except to say that the Islam practiced there is supposed to be more tolerant than in other places, but that violence against Christians has definitely been occurring.

The key difference between Christians and Muslims on the question of treatment of religious minorities is this. The New Testament doesn’t speak to the issue at all–allowing Christian practice to change and improve over time. But the “final, permanent revelation dictated by an angel from God” in the Qur’an discusses how to deal with non-Muslims quite frequently, and it calls for the People of the Book to pay the jizya as a sign of their humiliation–not really something that pious Muslims can easily set aside as “irrelevant to the present age”.

 

[CopticChristian]

Ave Maria!
I have talked with a lot of Coptic Orthodoxes about Islam and they seem to think that it’s an evil religion. But when I read Nostra Aetate it’s seems to be a religion of peace.
Is Islam evil or good?

What you say any Coptic has to say caused you to reflect and ask a question. Those that live in neighborhoods where their neighbors are Assembly of God, Presbyterian, Anglican would have to reflect about those that live with neighbors of quite different perspectives. This may have to do with the notion you speak of.

In essence what we are saying is that there is one earth in the universe. We all believe in one God. Paul in Romans says that God is impartial and is God of all. If all of us were to live our respective faiths without human prejudice and leave everything in the hands of God then we would nurture one another, engage each other with respect and help one another in their theology without trying to impose it. We should in our respective faith beliefs be the best example of what we believe the good to be. We should all pray together.

In regard to your greater question Nostra Aetate is a call to treat our fellow human with respect. In this regard your thread is not about religion but about respect. Here is a summary of Nostra Aetate and some thoughts. The Church still believes that unity is through one common goal if you read carefully. Nostra Aetate is a teaching that the Church has provided for all Christians even the Protestant ones. It is anticipated that we read, know and understand that dialogue should be formulated in this fashion.

1. In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.

One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth.(1) One also is their final goal, God. His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men,(2) until that time when the elect will be united in the Holy City, the city ablaze with the glory of God, where the nations will walk in His light.(3)

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.
5. We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: “He who does not love does not know God” (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.(

We should learn from the Church, our fellow man and woman. One is Mother Theresa.

“There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholics and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs—all different religions. But they all come to our prayers.”

Mother Theresa

I believe that this is what you are saying.