And also, would you mind proving that Hamid still considers himself a Muslim. A quote with a link will do.

Being the insulting snark you are, you neglect to acknowledge that I did considerable research on Hamid before writing this. You’re just upset because people like Hamid confirm all of yr own prejudices about Islam. You don’t want to see a Jew tear down your supposed anti-jihadi poster boy.

Who specifically incited Naveed Haq to hate? You seem to have specific people in mind. Care to enlighten us? Care to enlighten us about yr own Jewish background?

Sadly Richard, I think that you are a propagandist who belongs at Fox News. They provide short messages to readers who like to hear Bill O’Reiley tell them what they want to hear. Do you simply not like to read more than one paragraph before you form an opinion on an individual? Are you sure you’re not a republican in disguise?

If you want to make peace with fellow Muslims you must understand them in more detail and know what their internal struggles and conflicts are. They have multiple interpretations of how Islamic laws apply and Salifi (of which Wahabbi is one sect) preaches the most abhorrent practices that breach many basic human rights.

You need to support the individuals that practice Islam and struggle for Tikun Olam, There are many interpretations of Jewish laws and Tikun Olam is our struggle to find the right interpretation that let’s us live in peace with our fellow human beings.

You must be certain of the truth before you defame a fellow human being. Tikun Olam is not about spreading propaganda and bashing struggling souls; that is what we have Fox Channel for. Seriously, if you’re just another propagandist then go work for them - you’ll make more money.

Tawfiq is a practicing Muslim, not Evangelical Christian. He is permitted to describe his experience of Salafi Islam as it affected his life in a very negative way. He is trying to heal Islam and make Muslim lives better, and as a result the world will benefit; Tikun Olam means fixing out world and that is what Tawfiq is trying to do.

I’ll stop writing now as I know you don’t like to read too much.

Shalom and may you learn what Tikun Olam means.

Yehuda Isaac from Seattle.

Naveed Haq, a Muslim Pakistani, was incited to shoot, kill and wound innocent people working at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. He was taught that hating and killing anyone who did not please his views was justified. His mentors in the Pacific North West continue to incite hatred. To stop them, join me in a unified voice with fellow Americans and speak out against the circumstances that allowed this to happen. Tikun Olam cannot be achieved through the teaching of hatred.

Homosexuality is another issue where Christians may do violence to others - gays - using the Bible as justification, but they are putting actions to their disapproval that the scriptures condemn. Thou shalt not kill means just that and not Thou shalt not kill or else we will kill you.

I don’t know what, if anything the New Testament says about homosexuality. But the Torah clearly labels homosexuality a sin & says anyone who commits a homosexual act should be stoned. So unless the New Testament says anything more tolerant than that you’re clearly wrong.

I have a real problem with your claim that Christianity is clear as the driven snow merely because the Gospels do not literally support violence against dissenters. The plain fact is that Christian tradition is full of acts of violence commited against dissenting Christians and other religions (like Judaism). Do you really think all those who followed the Pope’s dictum to war against the infidel Muslims & Jews during the Crusades did so believing the Gospels didn’t support their actions?

I don’t know of any outspoken critic of Christianity in recent times (since the beginning of the 19th century) whose life is or was in danger, supported by the teachings of the Gospels.

It’s very convient to use the 19th century cutoff date which allows you to ignore the travails of Galileo, Joan of Arc, the extermination of the Albigensians, Savanarola, the Inquisition, etc. You can argue that the Gospels don’t specifically encourage these types of acts but again those Christian perpetrators fully believed their actions WERE sanctioned by the Gospels.

Christians who do violence, do it on their own initiative and not on the teachings of their Church.

Even the devil can quote Scripture and does. The same holds true for intolerant violence-prone Chrisitians.

to assess a religion’s stance on violence, it doesn’t matter what it teaches, but only what its followers do and believe that matters. Is that a reasonable assessment of your posts on this subject?

Not at all.

As to your replies, it is likely that I didn’t express myself very well as you missed some of my points:

RS - “I disagree. Religion & politics are inextricably intertwined in Northern Ireland. If Protestants and Catholics didn’t think their religion condoned their acts of vengeance they wouldn’t have carried them out.”

Whether the individuals thought this or not doesn’t change the point that Christianity and the Church did not condone it. There isn’t a single instance of a member of the clergy saying that the Gospels approved of the violent acts. The Christians carried out acts of violence despite the lack of support from the Gospels. (It is certainly true that some clergy encouraged and maybe assisted, but that is on their own conscience, not the Church’s.)

RS - “There is no cut & dried answer to that just as there is no cut & dried answer to that in the Christian & Jewish traditions. There are Muslim sources that condemn violent acts against Muslims & non-Muslims & ones that condone them. It all depends on who you read & who you trust as yr arbiter of Islam. And it’s the same in most of the world’s religions.”

That is difficult then. I guess you are saying that Islam can be misappropriated for violent purposes if a Muslim uses the sources that support it, while defenders of Islam as a religion of peace do so using the sources that condemn violence. I have a philosophical problem with that. I can’t talk about most religions as I haven’t studied their scriptures in depth, but I can say Christianity doesn’t condone violence in any of it’s teachings. The reverse, in fact. The Old Testament concept of an eye for an eye is completely absent from Christian scriptures.

RS - “Dissenters in every religion and society are reviled for their views. It would be a terrible mistake to believe that Islam has any problems that are diff. or worse than any other religion. Are there intolerant Muslims? Are there violent Muslims? Are there murderous Muslims? Of course. But are there murderous, intolerant, violent Christians & Jews in the world too? Certainly.”

Being reviled for their views means people are doing the reviling, not their necessarily their religious scriptures. What I am trying to find out is whether Islam supports violence against outspoken critics. I agree that there are violent Christians (just think of the shooting of abortion doctors for example), but the scriptures do not support such violence. They support an anti-abortion stance, but they don’t support killing people who carry out abortion. Homosexuality is another issue where Christians may do violence to others - gays - using the Bible as justification, but they are putting actions to their disapproval that the scriptures condemn. Thou shalt not kill means just that and not Thou shalt not kill or else we will kill you. But I digress, the issue under discussion in this paragraph is outspoken critics and not abortion or gays. I don’t know of any outspoken critic of Christianity in recent times (since the beginning of the 19th century) whose life is or was in danger, supported by the teachings of the Gospels.

I do not want to make a terrible mistake and brand Islam a religion of violence through my own ignorance of it. Your answers haven’t helped me as they avoid the connection - or lack of it - between the motivations of perpetrators of violence and the official teachings of Islam and Christianity. This is what I want to understand with Islam. I understand it with my own religion and thus know that the Christians who do violence, do it on their own initiative and not on the teachings of their Church. You seem to be saying that Muslims, unlike Christians, can choose to either justify or condemn violent actions by choosing the appropriate source.

The bottom line for all this is that to assess a religion’s stance on violence, it doesn’t matter what it teaches, but only what its followers do and believe that matters. Is that a reasonable assessment of your posts on this subject?

I do think I know that most of the murdering in Northern Ireland was politically motivated and not condoned by either branch of Christianity there.

I disagree. Religion & politics are inextricably intertwined in Northern Ireland. If Protestants and Catholics didn’t think their religion condoned their acts of vengeance they wouldn’t have carried them out.

whether or not Islam justifies violent acts against Muslims and/or non-Muslims.

There is no cut & dried answer to that just as there is no cut & dried answer to that in the Christian & Jewish traditions. There are Muslim sources that condemn violent acts against Muslims & non-Muslims & ones that condone them. It all depends on who you read & who you trust as yr arbiter of Islam. And it’s the same in most of the world’s religions.

…Outspoken critics of Islam seem to need physical protection…Similar critics of other religions in general don’t need such protection

Dissenters in every religion and society are reviled for their views. It would be a terrible mistake to believe that Islam has any problems that are diff. or worse than any other religion. Are there intolerant Muslims? Are there violent Muslims? Are there murderous Muslims? Of course. But are there murderous, intolerant, violent Christians & Jews in the world too? Certainly.

As a Christian, I don’t have any credible views on Islam, which is why I read as many sides as possible. I do think I know that most of the murdering in Northern Ireland was politically motivated and not condoned by either branch of Christianity there. There was certainly no attempt at biblical justification for violence made by either side. (For peace, yes.)

Following on from that, a main point of contention between your interesting article and Hamid’s equally interesting views seems to be the acceptance or otherwise of violent acts committed in the name of a religion. The knowledge I seek is whether or not Islam justifies violent acts against Muslims and/or non-Muslims. If it doesn’t, it is a religion of peace just like Christianity, my own religion. (I can’t speak for Buddhism, Hinduism or another religion as I don’t have any familiarity with them - perhaps others could comment on their teachings on violence.)

Some Christian clergy have agreed that there can be a ‘just war’. Personally, I feel that such theorizing is very open to subjective interpretation and am always alarmed when I hear it used in defense of one aggression or another. There is no Christian teaching that supports it. Christians who go to war or do violence to others do so without God’s support, irrespective of the cause. All Christians know and accept this.

One thing I do see is that outspoken critics of Islam seem to need physical protection. Some of them are mentioned in your article, others can be discovered by searching the media. Similar critics of other religions in general don’t need such protection. Am I misled in some way in this observation?

Are you not the exact same thing. Being pro Muslim and for the destruction of Israel.

You’re entitled to yr delusions. But I don’t have to subscribe to them. I am neither pro-Muslim nor anti-Israel. In fact, I am PRO-Israel. Yr interpretation of my views reflects more on yr intolerance & narrow-mindedness than on my real views.

You accuse Mr Hamid of being an “Evangelical” when he is a Muslim Reformer.

How can he be a “Muslim reformer’ when in the previous sentence you labelled him by implication an “ex Muslim.” How can you leave a religion & then attempt to reform it?

There may have been a few Imams in USA who said 911

I’ll respond to what I think you’re trying to say since what you actually write is incoherent. Far more than a “few imams” denounced 9/11.

why did Jews after World war 2 do suicide bombing against Germans.

What? What in the world are you talking about?

Are you not the exact same thing. Being pro Muslim and for the destruction of Israel.

You might say you are pro peace but what you subscribe to is defacto the destruction of Israel.

If ex Muslims are Zionist and you complain about them then you are obviously anti Zionist.

You accuse Mr Hamid of being an “Evangelical” when he is a Muslim Reformer.

You accuse of him of being inaccurate when he is quite accurate. There may have been a few Imams in USA who said 911 but they always qualify thier statements that we Americans are somewhat to blame for the attack with our “policies”

If that is true why did Jews after World war 2 do suicide bombing against Germans. Why do Jews not commit terrorism against the Western powers for killing 6 million. Why have the Arabs on their TV stations adopted the exact same proganda that Nazi Germany adopted.

The bottom line is that you are afraid of the ex Muslims or Muslim reformers who speak against Islam because it interupts your agenda of Jew self hatred and anti Zionist activity.

Arabs and former Muslims who are pro Israel are difficult to refute so you must discredit them with your hatred of Evangelicals. How is it that you have great respect for Muslims of which the culture and religion you know little ornothing of yet you are vitriolic of Christians who support Israel.
Being against abortion or agianst gay marriage is not a bad immoral position. You may not agree and that is fine but your hatred of Christians and support for Islam is hypocritical.

Julian