Let's not deceive ourselves about Islam. Islam per se is not our enemy, but they have a l-o-n-g way to go before they can be equal partners with (most of) Christianity and Judaism in Abrahamian culture and civilization.
Why do I say this? Simply this: today, most Christians and nearly all Jews understand how inherently evil slave trading and slave holding are and nearly all the 'voices' in both faith communities reflect this. Not so with Islam. Islam was the 'faith' that opened the first (which might still be proceeding under the law's radar) great slave trade, the trans-Sahara slave trade which has lasted not four but fourTEEN centuries with a death rate closer to 85 percent rather than the 25 percent or so from the Atlantic slave trade--which, btw, began as an extension of the trans-Sahara slave trade!
No: in the absence of Muslim voices unafraid to raise themselves against slavery and slave-trading across the board and in favor of EQUAL human rights and dignity for ALL, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, I for one neither can nor will accept the 'equality' of Islam with Christianity and Judaism.
Individual Muslims are another matter. Toward them I hope I will always show Christian charity, mercy and forbearance.
Individual Muslims are another matter. Toward them I hope I will always show Christian charity, mercy and forbearance.
Some will say, it took Christendom long enough to come to that point. Just so. But it has, and almost from the beginning it had figures which were at least uneasy about the implications of slave-trading and slave-holding and who raised their voices accordingly. All the way back to Fray Anton Montecito who scourged his fellow Spaniards for their treatment of the natives in 1512--five years before the Reformation began.
Who can Islam put up beside Fray Anton, Bartolome de las Casas, Samuel de Champlain, Roger Williams and John Woolman? If such figures are there, why do we know nothing about them?
Until and unless such figures can be found and put among pioneers of human freedom, 'mainstream' Islam cannot be seen as an equal and we may need to treat it as a likely enemy of human freedom.
Leftists, be not deceived: if the Islamists win a jihad, you'll be among the first batch of the executed and your alliance with them will make exactly NO difference!
