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www.thegospeltruthministry.com
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| A Member's Bulletin Board. In most cases items posted here originated as email, except as noted. As a Member you are free to submit items to post here. Send to webmaster) |
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FAITH FRONT Dennis Prager Dennis Prager's nationally syndicated radio show is heard daily in Los Angeles on KRLA-AM (870). He may be contacted through his website. THE RIOTING IN France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.
Here are five of them:
(1) Why are you so quiet?
Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by
Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and
Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim
demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan
against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen
more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this
terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see
torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and
anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.
There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it
possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils
perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the
millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are
non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli
government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra
and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli
Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there
been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims
to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?
(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in
Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just
as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.
(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a
free country?
According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that
promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is
free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free.
Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free"
states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states.
Why is this?
(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened
by Muslims in the name of Islam?
Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim
murderers. Last year, Muslims — in the name of Islam — murdered hundreds
of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic
terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them.
Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in
"honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called
for the extermination of Israel.
(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims
persecute other religions?
No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The
Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world
because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great
numbers of Christians.
Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you
deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of
Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy
McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh
committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of
Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the
world.
As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a
long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me
to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam,
have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted
interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as
in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian
state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.
Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers
to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have
real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better —
for you and for the world — than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.
We await your response.
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