THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM 3574

amigo cabal

It is abuse and subjugation if the government forces someone to wear it or permits others to force someone to wear it. That is the issue.

You did not answer the question.

They try, but they do so through political and legal channels and often are not at all successful, in most cases, more moderate viewpoints prevail. In democracy the rule of the majority is followed but with respect to the rights of minorities. People are allowed to make basic choices for themselves. As a person that believes in no religion at all, I at times get frustrated with religions, but in America the influence of moderation keeps everything on a tolerable level, although at times, for various reasons things get out of balance, but for over 200 years the American system has overall done a good job of keeping the country stable and the people free (it took us nearly 100 years to get rid of slavery and a large number of people died over it), but most of Americans, even right after the war in 1865, chose to put our differences aside and work together, not letting hatred blind us. Even those who don't believe in religion still have basic values which are pretty much the same as the various religions we have in America. A lot of Americans say they are religious, but a very large number rarely practice any form of religion. The amazing thing about America is that our citizens come from everywhere else and overall live together peacefully. Individuals do bad things, but these individuals tend to come from all the different races, religions, and creeds and our nation usually through the state governments uniformly tries to discover and punish these criminals. It is not a perfect country, a free country can never be perfect, but the citizens, dispite all the bickering you here in our press, are relatively happy with freedom.

Your hatred of the Jews blinds you. Most Americans support Israel for different reasons. The Jewish-American reasons are obvious. However the majority of the population is not jewish, yet it supports Israel. America tends to support "underdogs", especially the jewish people that were so abused by the Nazi's in WWII, that is, nearly exterminated. Somewhere along the line, Americans decided that the Jews should have at least a small homeland. The jews pushed into Palestine that was under British rule at the time and before one knew it, the state of Israel was formed and over 50 years later it is still there and people are still being liquidateed for political reasons.

Most Americans tend to respond negatively to Muslim hatred of the Jews. We realize that Muslims in the area of Palestine have real grievances, but we are not tolerant of the blind hatred of the Jews so we tend to support the jewish position. Nor not all of us are happy with the insistance by Israel that it be a "Jewish" state any more than we like "Muslim" states as we belive in secular government (except for those religious fanatics in our own country that try to control the rest of society--but in most cases they only make a lot of noise in the press without causing much change)...we want to see Israel as a place of refuge for Jews but are uncomfortable with the Muslims being pushed out and also not permitted to worship in those holy places that also have Muslim significance, however, a large part of the reason is the violent choice that many Muslim organizations have made, that is to hate Jews, rather than just live with them and share the heritage and religious sites in peace. The Palestine issue is not going away for anyone and the solution is not around the corner. However, there does seem to be some hope in that it appears that both sides seem to be tiring of hating and being afraid all the time. Hopefully there will be a peaceful resolution.

Actually, Americans are starting to support Muslim "underdogs" in some places. A lot more Americans nowadays are also getting more simpathetic to the Palestinian position. The only thing that prevents a lot more sympathy is these terror plantings that continally occur. The possibility of a democratic government in Iraq has a lot of Americans pulling for the Iraqi people. Most Iraqi's are Muslims, but when those people show real toleration for other religions and each other, Americans want to help all of them.

The mistreatment of Muslims in Yugoslavia was a big reason, if I remember correctly for the support of direct US involvment.

I would tend to think that would show Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bad light, both appearing to be very backward countries in terms of governments and Islamic religious domination of the people.

We hear about these honor killings all the time in teh ME . In every society there is a certain amount of labreastude (such as tolerance about killing a cheating spouse or the lover of a spouse) but toleration of these practices is becoming increasingly rare at least in the United States. However, there is a lot of media hype about the honor killing of young women in the ME, admittedly it is my understanding that most ME governments attempt to punish those who follow the practice.

I saw Zorba the Greek years ago, how is that relevant?

I don't understand your answer to this question. This alleged event happened a couple of years ago.

Am I right that I read it in Time or Newsweek or did the incident happen?

Well, in a land of 300 million people this kind of thing indeed happens every day, but the fact is this thing happens everywhere, but in America we tend to attempt to tell the truth about it and we also prosecute to the fullest those individuals who rape and-or women and children. In a lot of nations this activity is ignored by the press or suppressed by the government. The issue is whether the GOVERNMENT supports practices that are abusive of human rights.

I have got to disagree a bit here, but not totally. While I agree that Muslims, like the rest of us, love their families, child abuse is something that is universally practiced worldwide by more people than any of us would like to believe. America, because of its free press often is the first place worldwide to bring bad things out into the light (for example, the toleration of the Roman Catholic Church of paedophile priests--the thing that worries me is that the Catholic Church may still tolerating and covering up the practice in other countries where Catholicism is a stronger influence). I do think that in some repressive societies that there are fewer bad acts by individuals due to the government controlling more of the society and life around them. However the cost in lost freedom is also high as governments and individuals in those governments tend to abuse their power if given too much.

I am glad to hear that the honor killings are just individual exceptions and not tolerated in Muslim countries.

And yes, America and the West, has created a lot of their own problems by their unnecessary and greedy dependence on ME oil. The Saudi kingdom should have fallen years ago but has been propped up by US money, too much of it which has been funneled off into wealth outside of Saudi Arabia for the royal family. Americans are starting to lose toleration of Saudi excesses also. The majority of persons against the west seem to be coming from this little country from whom we buy so much oil.