The problem, Mike and Richard, is that Palestinians were dancing in the streets, people have been murdered constantly, innocents klilled, children murdered.
I find it really difficult to pass judgement on a few (ok, quite a few, but still a few) when we (supposedly Christians and Jews) insist on continuing to do the same to them
institutionally, with our governments and our military and our economic systems. We’ve killed an awful lot more of ‘them’, innocents and children, than they have of ‘us’.
These actions are not lone extremists, but institutionalized actions. Their schools train them for these missions.
Then there would be an awful lot more of them going on. The thing that surprises me most about the current wave of terrorism is how little of it there actually is. It’s not like the streets of Belfast in the 70s. Thank God.
The Koran–the book that is the sole basis of their heresy
Err, no it isn’t. They have
hadith too.
–approves of dhimmitude, lying to non believers, and war against non believers.
Have you ever read Leviticus or Numbers? Without the prism of the teaching of the Church to tell us what is, and what isn’t, we could be said to ‘approve’ of all the things in there.
Now it seems very disengenuous of you to paint the troublemakers as extremists. Actually, it is those following their book who are doing this and the muslims who are peaceful are the unusual ones.
No doubt therefore you also think the ‘usual’ Christians are also going around stoning unbelievers, avoiding shellfish, hiding women when they have a period, and refusing to wear clothes made out of more than one sort of cloth, and those not doing that are the unusual ones.
And don’t throw out extreme fringe Christian groups. No Christian group condones terrorism. The IRA was a secular movement, not a religous one.
They still went to Church. They said they were Catholic,
I guess the people who’ve blown up abortion clinics did that for secular reasons too
Islam however merges forceful (bloody) war with religion and government and terrorism is their means.
Some extremist interpretations of Islam, perhaps. If mainstream Islam was like that, the world would be a lot more bloody than it is right now.
You may note that the official position of the Catholic Church, Nostra Aetate, disagrees with you.
The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems
You both seem to think that because all humans are in the image of God and have a fallen nature we are all the same and what we believe makes no difference. We have free will. That murdered Nun is a magnificent example of that. This evil comes through in their fruit, so too the good of the foillowers of Christ.
It matters Who you believe in.
Err, well yes, else I wouldn’t be a Catholic. I am deeply passionate about my faith, and that is part of the reason I follow it closely when it tells me to respect others, and not to prejudge people based on any characteristic.
Mike