Merkel says Islam not source of terror

No comment.

oh, “no comment”? why ever not? you publish your burblings about most everything else.

I apologise for that last remark. Bit uncalled for.

That’s OK . It’s most annoying for both of us, but not our fault.

I have answered your question more than once, and suggested more books, but Christian Voice will not publish any of my attempted replies, so I had to give up.

I don’t seem able to come up with an answer which is both honest and acceptable to Christian Voice, although neither the van Goch answer nor the books recommended are very controversial, so I can’t understand it.

Sorry.

Perhaps Stephen himself was being temporarily replaced by a deputy. He has kindly relented on my original answer to Georgia, for which I thank him.

You are a very versatile and respected contributor too.

Thanks for the compliment Rox. God bless you & yours too xx

As Stephen well knows, the Koran is no more the totality of Muslim holy literature than the book of Revelation is the totality of Christian holy literature (well, perhaps a bit more).

It is indeed a feature of the Koran that most of it does not tell a story like most of the Bible does (although there are accounts in it similar to parts of the Old Testament, and even involving Jesus and his mother). In fact, another striking feature of the Koran is that the verses are not in chronological order (though you can buy English translations with the verses rearranged according to the best bet of the chronological order of their composition, and many Muslims can distinguish between verses written in Mecca and verses written in Medina).

However, all Muslims are aware of the existence and importance of the Hadith, and the theoretical existence and important of the Sira. The Sira is the life of Mohammed, but it isn’t so clear where they are to get this from, since the early accounts of it (which we would consider the most reliable) are considered unreliable by the Muslim authorities, and have been since mediæval times. There are bits and pieces scattered in the Hadith, and for the Muslim in the street, quite recently written popular accounts of the life of Mohammed. And there have always been “scholars” interpreting things.

If you are in doubt about the relevance of a passage in the Koran to Mohammed’s life or to your present circumstances, you consult the Imam. That is why a “Good” Imam is important, and why consulting a “Bad” Imam, or ISIS through the internet, is discouraged by benevolent governments.

What matters to people in England is how much Muslim terrorism there actually is here, and in fact there isn’t very much at all, not nearly as much as it seems. Things were very much worse when Irishmen, both from the Catholic and the Protestant tradition, were active in England. (It was all mostly England, not Scotland or Wales, with exceptions).

You’re another one keen on pointing out to peaceful “moderate” Muslims what they should be doing according to the Koran, just like ISIS. For centuries, the vast majority of Muslims have not behaved like that..

You can’t really say the Mohammed obeyed the Koran. Unless you actually believe it is the Word of God dictated to him by the angel Gabriel: the best description is that he himself was writing it (though not on paper) throughout his life — not all in a cave in Mecca, as people tend to think. Uncharitable folk might suggest that he made it up as he went along, and from time to time added bits which conveniently got him out of tight corners and furthered his desires of the moment. Or you could say that God continued to inspire him and produced further revelation exactly as they were needed by mankind. You pays your money and you makes you choice, but it isn’t convenient to us to interpret it as a God-given command to do terrorist acts on us now, and nor do most of them see it that way either (after all, if you blow up a bus in London, you will most certainly have lots of innocent Muslims on the bus — yet these Islamist enthusiasts have made no attempt at all to direct their activities to small country towns where they could avoid injuring other Muslims).

The Muslim establishment in Britain and elsewhere, along with most of the men and women who go to the mosques, say bitterly that the terrorists are not real Muslims, and they tend to shun those (including “brides”) who return from Syria, making life very difficult for them. I don’t think all these refugees look on ISIS as true Muslims, either. Who are you to insist that they are, and what is the benefit of doing so on technicalities which actual Muslims are happy to ignore ?

I would be happy for my original reply to you to be published, but if it is thought not suitable for Christian Voice, it seems pointless to continue on this subject. I will try again, though, when I have finished writing this.

Actually, the simple answer is obvious — where you have a leader or role model, you NEVER expect all the followers to be the same ! Nobody claims to be as perfect as Jesus, and this is never expected. No Marxist is as steeped in Marxist doctrine or (usually) so clever an economist and historian as Marx himself. No Buddhist expects to reach the same state as the Buddha.

Thank you for leading me into explaining this important point to you in such simple terms.

“Whatever is written in the Quran IS the context, its words are taken as eternally binding upon Muslims, as it is taken to be the verbatim words of its god, Allah.”

No, that isn’t true. What is written isn’t a context. I hate to wave dictionaries at people, but:
“Context : the CIRCUMSTANCES that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea”. Concise Oxford Dictionary.
What is written is not the same as the circumstances in which it was written. For example, the American Declaration of Independence is not the circumstances in which the American Declaration of Independence was written.

Most English editions of the Koran do now give some indication of whether a verse was written in Mecca or Medina, and in the context of living in Mecca, there was very little need for violence. The violent verses refer to a time of war when based in Medina. In the context of living now in the West (or in wholly Muslim countries too, with a bit of luck) the violent verses, as when in Mecca, are not appropriate.

Why won’t you allow Muslims the right to live peacefully, as so many of them have for centuries ? I don’t understand what drives you on in your mission.

It might be a good idea to glance at some history. By 1100 AD, Muslims had conquered what you mention — Persia, North Africa, and as much of Spain as they held onto. Also the Levant and most of what is now Turkey, parts of Asia which are still Muslim (notably what is now Pakistan), and Africa in fact as far south as Timbuktu. Also Somalia, and settlements on the East African coast, such as Mombasa and Zanzibar.

So what happened in the next 917 years, if you believe that “those who read these violent verses will take them at face value and act upon them, which is what happened throughout Islamic history …… and is still happening today.”.

Well, Muslims didn’t conquer a lot more, actually. The rest of modern Turkey, and further incursions into Eastern Euope, it’s true (leaving some Muslims still there, mainly in Bosnia and Albania). But Christians fought to reconquer southern Spain, and indeed (mainly in the 19th century) Christians fought to conquer the whole of North Africa. In fact the whole of Africa ! (Ethiopia only briefly, in the 20th century). Muslims had never got anywhere near this !

Meanwhile, Muslim countries had sent out traders and missionaries to establish Islam in places like modern Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia, without actually conquering them and making them subservient to their home country. You may know that several European countries devoted a great deal of energy in doing the same thing very successfully, and they did make a large part of the world subservient to them. So if Georgia is a Christian European, or a white American, her accusations are a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, only worse.

Having won the First World War, two Christian countries took control of the Levant and Iraq, albeit it supposedly on a temporary basis (which in the end it was). The Muslims don’t seem to have conquered anywhere in the 20th and 21st century (N.B.”still happening today”). Territory conquered by ISIS, for example, was part of a Muslim country already. It’s just a civil war inspired by a fundamentalist view of the Koran similar to your own. All those Muslim refugees don’t agree with it at all.

“The Muslims who choose not to perform violence in the name of their faith, does not exonerate them from doing so, ……..relying heavily upon their Imams to tell them what they need to know, and these Imams can very well cherry pick whatever verses they want their listeners to hear.”

But Georgia, that is what everybody wants to happen ! Are you a little bit crazy ? What are you trying to achieve ? You say exonerate ? “Release someone from a duty or obligation” COD. So Georgia actually thinks that Muslims in the West have a duty to attack us, and it is only (apparently bad or inadequate) Imams who stop them doing so. I’m afraid the police may come knocking on Stephen’s door and demanding to know who Georgia is !

“The Muslims who choose to study their faith in more detail, come to the conclusion that it is all about fighting the “unbeliever “to bring them to accept Allah as the only god worthy of worship, to establish his rules over the earth, which is what their role model prophet, Mohammed, taught them to do by his example. ”

Yes, well spotted. These are the extremists who go to fight in Syria, which is illegal for British citizens. Or they might kill Christians and Atheists and Muslims in London or Paris.

I can only say that Muslims managed wonderfully well to build peaceful and productive civilisations at different times in Timbuktu, Seville, Cairo, Isfahan, Baghdad, Istanbul, and elsewhere. However did they manage this ?

It would be nice if Georgia and Mark Jones had a face or a logo. They deserve one.

Was he also joking about funding the mosque ?

This is quite a specific explanation of the very widely-held view that Churchill was an atheist or agnostic, backed up by the common observation that he did not go to church except for such events as weddings (something he admitted in his own writings) and that he hardly ever mentioned Jesus Christ.

” Although William Lecky’s The Rise and Influence of Rationalism and his History of European Morals , as well as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, established in Churchill’s mind what he later called “a predominantly secular view,” it was William Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom of Man that convinced Churchill that Jesus was an inspired prophet but not the Son of God. ”
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-163/churchill-proceedings-winston-churchill-and-religion-a-comfortable-relationship-with-the-almighty

An inspired prophet but not the Son of God ! Sounds familiar.
On that basis, Churchill may very well have thought that Christianity and Islam were more or less equal, especially as he tended to compare their soldiers, and to compare the (then crumbling) Ottoman Empire to the British Empire (which had also mostly crumbled away when Sir Winston was last the Prime Minister, in 1955 ),

Here is a good quote from Churchill in a letter to his former headmaster, later a bishop.
“Had I lived in the days when the influence of Buddha— or Christ—or of Mahomet began to disturb these primitive forms of worship I should probably have opposed the great movement they initiated.” This was because although he readily acknowledged that all three religions “were in every case more worthy of God and Man than those they superseded,” nonetheless the deluge of blood over the hundreds of years necessary to establish the new religions would have “appreciably diminished” the “sum of human happiness and prosperity.” [Same link]

well, you were the one who said that Churchill had considered converting to islam, seemingly implying he had. Now it appears you are happy to have him as an atheist or agnostic. Make your mind up.

Also, I never claimed he was a Christian.

Ah, but I did specify that this was only “on the authority of the Daily Telegraph”, and everybody knows that he didn’t actually convert to Islam ! It was all quoted from the Telegraph, so any implication which you might have imagined was theirs, not mine.

In fact, as Colonial Secretary he didn’t even know the difference between Sunni and Shia, which is useful if you are helping to divide up the Middle East ! When he didn’t go to church, he didn’t go to his nearest mosque either (the one in Woking).

I am happy to accept your correction that she was only pulling his leg.
Aren’t you pleased ?

During his lifetime, most people would have assumed that it was a Christian country and that he was a christian. As with many people over the centuries, he wouldn’t have wanted to upset the applecart by insisting otherwise.

Actually, the Christian Gospel does encompass the whole of life, and has an obvious political component set out all through the law, the prophets and in John the Baptist, Christ’s title as King of kings, Romans 13 and 1Tim 2, but apart from that, Georgia, spot on about Islam.

It’s a strange thing, then, that Christian countres managed to conquer and convert so much more of the earth than Muslims did, the latter seeming to have fogotten their divine instrurctions for centuries on end.

The concusion has to be that, in practice, the theoretical bais for this in the Bible and the Koran hasn’t been very important, and Georgia does nobody a service by reminding us all of it repeatedly, when most Muslims take no notice of it. She is just doing what ISIS do .

Flooding Europe with Muslim migrants is part of the invasion process. In thirty years time, on current demographic trends, the UK will be 30% Muslims and that is the point they will try to take over. It has already happened in Tower Hamlets. A Muslim government, trying to enact Islamic law in 30 years time. You read it here first.

If a large proportion of the population of Tower Hamlets is Muslim, it seems quite likely that by the normal democratic process there are likely to be Muslim councillors. They aren’t the only Muslim councillors in England by a long way. Some councillors are Methodists, some are atheists .One isn’t usually aware of who’s who in this way.

The Mayor of London is a Muslim. It is perfectly possible that Tower Hamles or many other local authorities, inside and outside London, could find themselves with a predominanly Musliim council, as a result of democratic votes. However, You can’t assume that all Muslims will vote Labour, or that all white people will vote Conservative, or however you imagine it to be, so there needs to be a big majority in the population to give the impression that there is a big majority in the council .

The only way round this would be for you to restrict the vote to Christians.

Exactly. Under half the Labour group are Muslims in Tower Hamlets, but the Independent councillors are all Muslim. Anything Islamic is consequently pushed through. Renaming the wards away from their Christian roots was just one example. None of the five Tories is a Muslim, but they would not dare to say anything against the multi-cultural spirit of the age.

Independent councillor and MPs are permitted within our democratic system.

I’m amazed that there are five Tory councillors in Tower Hamlets. Where I live, there are none at all.