pointing out the reality of what goes on in Muslim countries is not casting the first stone.
First of all, were you there working as a manual or domestic help? I am sure you were not free to wear a cross. If you were there during Ramadan, you would have been force to practice that fast whether you were Muslim or not. Slavery is still alive and well in the Muslim world and it is hidden like all the rest of the stuff.
They are offered job opportunities and money and when you are from a poor area what they offer looks good. It is the same thing that happen when eastern European women are lured into coming over here and they end up into forced prostitution. However, we have laws against that stuff and they don’t. Our country tried to fight this and in Saudia Arabia it is institutionalized.
Let us not forget that slavery was a live and well in our own “Christian” country until 1865.
Yes but many Christians were opposed to it. That was true in England as well and it was one member of parliament that fought for over 30 years to abolish it. Popes throughout Church history have always spoken out and against slavery. Christian Europe was built on the ashes of the Roman collapse which used slavery extensively. But as Europe grew, it did not incorporate slavery. The slavery you are pointing out came from Protestant countries not Catholic.
that what happens when people bring in groups of illegal immigrants. They are used and abused when they are here illegally.
Be carful with this argument… Theres one case of a pope receiving a gift of slaves and then dristibuting them to the clergy. Of course, this was a private action, and doesn’t reflect on the office in my opinion.
and Christians (Yes Catholic and Protestant’s) fought and died for freedom for slaves.
What case or Pope are you referring too? With all due respect, if you bring up something like that example, you probably going to have to state who and when. One bad Pope does not undermined the fact that slavery has always been condemned by the Catholic Church and those who dealt in the slave trade were ex-communicated.
And most Muslims are horrified by terrorists.
Moral relativism ahoy!
While your desire for more charitable discourse is laudable, I think there are times in human history when plain speaking is required, and this is sadly one of them. I know plenty of good Muslim men and women, but the ideology that many of them hold to - the actual “belief system” of Islam - is poisonous.
This thread about Islam is like all the others before it. What is wrong with criticizing an ideology?
Not everybody who dislikes America is necessarily a terrorist. I may not like them, either, but disapproval or even hatred doesn’t mean they would kill innocent people.
I know a fellow whose passport was taken away. He worked for a company that had a contract with the SA government. His company was having a dispute with the SA government, and none of its employees were allowed to leave the country until the dispute was resolved.
On a humorous note, my son recently spent a few days in an Islamic country [not SA] on his way to India. He boarded a train, and unknowingly chose a women’s car. He was arrested and fined $25.
I coould have quoted Mattew 7:1-5 about the standerd we use to judge others, not the one we use to judge ourselves, is the standerd God will use to judge us.
