It is a knotty question for the West, and one that will not go away. In past history there was a simple answer: fight. Charles the Hammer was necessary to put a stop to the merciless and relentless expansion of Islam. Ghengis Khan broke the back of Islam from the East.
But today? Today our values and our religions are in a different place, our countries have different vulnerabilities. Yet, as though we lived in the Crusader past we are still asking questions like these? “Do we extend equal civil rights to those who’s stated aim is to destroy us?”
Well. Do we?
Is Islam something that is merely divided into sects? Or has Islam become two competing religions with the same name? One the jihadist of old, and the other sheltering people who desire to be in peace? And does the peace include other who believe differently, or those of the historical enmity to the old Islam? The Islam of aggression and oppression?
We can’t focus only on Islam. We have to get a handle on what it is that dictates our own values… and God knows that is under fire and debate today.
Because, I will speak plainly now, if you are interested only in the secular, you are advancing towards the old regime of Atheism as found in Communism past…. you will have to rout the religious views of all who hold to an allegiance to God. Otherwise, the other alternative is that we will have to stop cutting ourselves off at the knees and recognize the Christian base to our thinking in the American form of democracy. That is why we tolerate other religions, so we may ourselves have toleration.
And then along comes Islam….. the religion we were insulated from for so long.
And now the question of holding to our own values is going to come with a cost. A cost not seen since other times in the Christian timeline. We are going to have win these others to our point of view, that which holds the Western values of free marketplace religion, with a williness to deal with terrorists and suicide bombers without becoming that ourselves. We will have to stay true to the ideals that resulted in the Geneva Convention in the face of those who use it against us and flaunt its every clause.
I don’t know how this is going to come out, honestly.
I think we are in danger of moving to a restricted and oppressive climate here in the USA if we don’t get the questions and the answers right.
So all of you voices to “just nuke’em” can shut up now. You aren’t in that sort of situation and probably never will be again. And in retrospect we still don’t have clarity on what that brought us in the past.
And all of you in favor of internment camps- are you also in favor of the idea that some of you might find your turn in them should history shift just a bit from where it is now? That puts “do unto others” in a whole different light, doesn’t it?
And me? I intend to continue to pipe up for Christian ideals, for freedom to evangelize and win hearts and to submit that a large part of the solution is what we do one on one to those we call enemy. Do good because we honor the good.
Where are you in all this? Are you thinking about it?
My experience is that Islam as it is expressed in Muslim’s lives and thinking varies deeply. I think we are mistaking culture for religion. I say stand fast to our principles – they are what has created the freedoms we love and live by. To step down from that would be handing the victory over.
You are dead right that we are in danger of moving toward a restrictive and oppressive climate. The real problem is us – people want to believe in some sort of secular paradise of consensus, when it never has existed in the US and never will. We need to respect our freedoms and stand up for them, and we cannot do so unless we stand up for the right of Muslims to worship as they choose so long as they don’t commit crimes or advocate them.
IMO if a preacher is advocating going to shoot someone the preacher has committed a crime and may be charged with that. But if an imam or preacher is merely saying that those of other religions are wrong, bad, immoral, going to hell etc, let him or her preach.
We can’t censor “hate speech” without losing free speech and freedom of conscience and religion in this country, because what is a clear truth to one person is hate speech to another. This always has been so and always will be.
We’re in agreement. I would like to further say that the whole “hate speech” extra area of law has unfairly weighted it. There are too many vulnerabilities for miscarriage of justice in ideas of “hate speech” for the reason you mention.
I think its primary intention was to make wrong more wrong. There was always a problem in that.