Violent Islam/Peacful Muslim

      

    I have been looking into Islam an Sharia Law. As I  learned about both I realized there was a deep divide among not only Atheists but among the general  population about how to consider the two subjects. I asked Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, a writer and historian who formerly taught World History and Islamic Civilization at Golden Gate University in San Francisco  "Do You think in this country we should be worried about Sharia Law creeping into our existing legal system?" 

   he told  me "The only danger to our legal system would be banning free speech (that is not incitement).  Muslims have a legal arm (CAIR) that tries hard, but has not succeeded in overturning free speech. The Europeans, however, particularly the  British and French,  mistakenly thought they were fighting religious oppression when they began taking people to court for maligning religion.  It was intended to fight the holocaust deniers, but is now being used to  stifle criticism against Muslims.  European courts are now revisiting this issue."

 This is not to say we shouldn't pay attention. Our legal system may fall victim to isolated attempts at implementing Sharia  Law into our existing system. Just as we deal with creationist who try to sneak their learning plan into our school system. It's just one of those battles we must keep fighting over and over in order to keep our constitution free of unneeded and/or unfair changes. When we see an example of Sharia Law being inserted into our system as an alternative to our own legal system it must be stopped.

  When we see a judge making decisions based on their own belief system instead of applying the existing law, we must speak out against it. The biggest problem I have with Sharia Law is it combines two of the things I wholeheartedly believe should be kept separate for everyone's good. It combines religion and law into one and uses it to govern the people. As we all know this practice tends to result in unfair punishment and it often ignores the truth just as religion ignores the truth about itself. I have often wondered how believers would like it if we had a court system that was based on the same logic they use when considering religion. Sharia Law is that system and I don't want the lesson to be learned by example in the USA.

  Part 2

   Islam often called the peaceful religion. The problem is not everyone who follows this religion is peaceful. Someone tried to convince me that I was mistaken by questioning the peacefulness of Muslims. "Look at the Westboro Baptist Church. How do you think they look to people in the middle east?" 

  I would hope they look like radicals, and I would hope that they would also look like a dozen radicals, because that is what they are. A dozen people who follow the word of the bible closer than most any others. The example made me laugh out loud. It shows there are extremists in any religion, that's about it. When the number of extremists reaches the number we see in Islam I think it is fair to make certain assumptions. A friend of mine recently made a statement against Islam. He was then bombarded by Atheists who condemned him for labeling all Muslims. (the word 'muslim' was not in the statement)  Then as the comments went on he was criticized for calling all Muslims 'terrorists'. 

  I've seen this happen too many times. The intelligent Atheist turned into a blabbering moron because they make assumptions or just plain outright put words in another person's mouth. Then they proceed to rip into that person for what they claim was said. Why this happens I do not know but it is pathetic, annoying, and a complete waste of time. Instead of any discussion the author has to waste time explaining what should be obvious if people would only read the original post without twisting it like a pretzel and then bitching because they don't like the shape of it.

  The point I am making is Islam can be described as a violent religion, that is not incorrect. I think it needs to be realized that there are far more active violent Muslims than Christians and the level of their violence is alarming to me. I would think for anyone to say Islam is a peaceful religion without at the same time pointing out the violence which also stems from it is irresponsible. Just calling it peaceful and ignoring the reality is not going to change anything, it must be realized that almost daily people are blowing themselves up in order to kill others.

   Even if the fundamentalist Christians were to get into power  I doubt we would see anything like Sharia Law (at first anyways) Christians aren't saying rape and slavery are okay because the bible condones it. Radical Muslims say their violent laws are orders from their holy book and should not be questioned. Sharia law is only supposed to be applied to Muslims but how many times have we seen that not to be the case? Should we refrain from calling Cancer a deadly disease because not everyone dies from it? 

  Yes Muslims in the United States tend towards peaceful practice of their religion it would be irresponsible of me not to concede that point but we must understand there is another side to Islam and it is not peaceful, it is dangerous. It also has, by it's own admission, a desire to eliminate those who oppose them. That is a fact, we can not, and should not get angry just because someone points out the ugly side of truth.

 I don't see any reasonable person claiming anything that applies to an entire group except those people who want to dumb themselves down and make assumptions. Do we need to point out nothing is absolute after everything we say?

     Before I end I would like to address Atheists who dislike outspoken Atheists because they are "are no better than fundamentalist Christians"  getting into people's faces and demanding they are correct. There is a huge difference between the two. As long as outspoken Atheists base their arguments on things which are PROVEN TO BE TRUE they are NOTHING like the fundamentalist expecting you to just "have faith". So please stop trying to equate the two it's a lame attempt to insult people just because they don't do things the way you would. It doesn't make them wrong, it makes them different.  

  If an Atheist wants people to believe there is no possibility of any type of god,claims to know this for a fact, and expects everyone to think the same way, then they are arrogant and stupid. It still doesn't make them like a fundamentalist Christian. Our intelligence and our argument comes from realizing and admitting what we do not know and then working towards answers without any magical explanations.I hope that explains things.