Islam vs. the West?

I'm about as close to an expert on world history as anyone can be without having a degree. My strongest point is Roman History, as well by Ancient and Medieval history of Europe and the Mid East.

The Moslem Turks conquered my favorite Empire, the 2206 year-old Roman Empire (in 1453 AD, 40 years before Columbus arrived in America!). So you can imagine how irked I am that the Moslems destroyed one of history's greatest civilizations.

And I agree that one of our biggest security issues today is terrorism from Moslem extremists. (Though I think Illegal Immigration is a far more dangerous threat).

The thing is, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are different sects of the same religion. All three worship the same God; the only difference is that Jews don't believe the Messiah has come yet, Christians believe Jesus was the Messiah, and Moslems belive that Jesus was a Prophet, and that Mohammed was the final Prophet.

In any context historical or modern, Moslems are no more violent than Christians, Jews, Hindus, even Atheists. Because when it comes down to it, we're all equally human, no matter what God(s) we do or don't believe in.

The man who wrote "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" was on a local radio show here just a few days ago. First he said that Islam is a dangerous religion because it teaches its believers that infidels (non-Moslems) are only worthy of death. That's not true - Islam teaches that non-believers should be converted at every opportunity, but those who don't convert should be taxed. Seriously.

Then he started talking about how Moslems are bad because they behead or stone criminals to death. The irony here is that Christians were still doing much the same thing only a few decades ago - and some Christians still do.

It's tragic that several thousand innocent people were murdered by Moslem extremists in the WTC bombings. (Though I do believe parts of our own government had their hand in planning that tragedy). It's also tragic that several thousand innocent people have been murdered - some intentionally, some not - during our wars to get Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

I agree that we MUST stop the Moslem extremists, because of the fact that they are determined to destroy every one of us. But remember, not every Moslem is an extremist, just like not every Christian is a David Koresh or a "Reverend" Phred Phelps.

My point is that we'll never win this war through the commercialized Propaganda that the authors who wrote "The Truth About Mohammed" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" are trying to get rich off of.

While I agree that it's way overboard to threaten this guy with death, what did he expect? How many Christians would be pissed off if an Buddhist wrote a book called, "The Truth About Jesus"? If an Atheist spit in your face and called you a moron who wastes his faith on an invisible cloud being, wouldn't your first reaction be to want to kill him? When you spew false propaganda about a man's religion, isn't that much like spitting in his face and insulting his beliefs?

The only way we can win this war against terrorists is to eliminate the terrorists, NOT by killing innocent people or preaching hateful propaganda against the survivors. All that does is create even more extremists, which creates more terrorists.

Respectfully,
Thomas Lessman
. http://www.thomaslessman.com/
Email: talessman@yis.us
Blog: http://www.talessman.blogspot.com/