Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A world without Islam

Religion scholar Martin Marty -- pushing back against an article in Foreign Policy that asks "What if Islam had never existed?" -- cites a plenitude of religion-fueled conflicts that have had nothing to do with Islam. He concludes with the fact that great atrocities of the 20th century were committed by secular dictators, and offers this insight:
In truth, the conflicts of such a world would parallel those of a world with Islam. Rather than seek to "destroy" Islam and the Muslims, one infers, it might be better for all peoples of faith to look more in the mirror and less out the window, to promote peace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think there's slight confusion here. Marty actually seems to be pushing back against Rod Parsley, not Foreign Policy, by affirming quotations taken from the Graham E. Fuller article in Foreign Policy.

However, I'm really writing to comment on the swipes against Jews/Israel that Marty couldn't resist passing up in his quotation of Fuller material. Similar to resources from the United Methodist Church (pondering Israel divestment in the next week at its General Conference) that foist upon an unsuspecting membership a "Palestinians are natives who 'resist' Jewish European interlopers" narrative, Marty quotes: "As for intra-Christian rivalry, Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Christianity have always had trouble, often lethally expressed. Orthodox Christians mistrust and fear the West as did their ancestors. ... We would still see Palestinians resist Jews...."

I wouldn't be so suspecting of Marty's intentions, except for the fact that there was also this quotation of Fuller given by Marty without context (again in the pattern of the Methodist Church and other mainlines): "And the new Jewish state would still have dislodged the same 750,000 Arab natives of Palestine from their lands even if they had been Christian—and indeed some of them were."

Carmenisacat said...

Hahaha.

Right.

The CREATOR, who dictated that Islam will be made superior to all "notions" preceeding it's actual definition (which the creator gave to us in the Quran)...

...is probably just TERRIFIED to think that a bozo like this might possess an opinion worth considering.

Like...there's Allah up there thinking to himself:

Maybe this bozo is right. I give up.


Hahahaha.

We muslims are beginning to laugh you know and you know what that means?

The fat lady is about to sing.