Religious Persecution In America

"Before Allah closes our eyes for the last time, you will see Islam move from being the second largest religion in America—that's where we are now—to being the first religion in America…Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant…the Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."  Now that Os Guinness has made these statements by Ahmad and Abdul-Malik public, denials have come forward by Ahmad.  Just the same, I find the whole thing kind of scary.  And remember, the Islamic faith expects to be the government, not just a place you attend church or a faith you follow.  It will not be a democracy.  Look forward to “honor killings” and “public stoning” (and I don’t mean getting high on pot!  Also look forward to Christians or any other faith being put in jail or put to death.

Forgive me if the following is a bit disjointed, but I am truly annoyed.  We live in a country where hostility to Christians is currently tolerated and even encouraged, but religious tolerance is demanded of other faiths and in particular Islam.  The situation seems to get worse every year.  (Just as frustrating is we have a President who is strangely silent when blacks gang up on a white to beat or murder, but rages at the racial prejudice that he suspects when a white does the same to a black - prior to even knowing the facts in the case.)  We have a President who unlike the last 17 government shutdowns ((which I don’t agree with by the way)) has made an effort to make it more unpleasant for all of us while it happens.  He even has his administration officials telling chaplains in the military that they will be disciplined or arrested if they even voluntarily perform religious duties or minister to those in need (which was never done in any previous government shutdown.)   In the last three years the Pentagon has censored chaplains’ public prayers, sermons, etc. and generally intimidated those who perform those jobs in spite of congressional resolutions and demands to the contrary.  Even the National Defense Authorization Act passed last year called for religious freedom protections that have yet to be implemented by the Pentagon.  Now contrast that with the local military base…can you see the cooks being told not to prepare food?  No, you can’t and you won’t.  I worked for the government and went through government shutdowns when budgets weren’t passed.  We were told to go to work and do our jobs that the public expected us to do…and if we didn’t show up we were guaranteed we would not get any retroactive pay when the budget was passed.  Our president’s decision not to talk, negotiate, or compromise on anything, but rather use tactics of intimidation is divisive beyond belief.  Here is a guy who came in to office on the platform of working together and reaching across the aisle and yet has become the most obstinate and divisive president in the last 150 years.

Did you know that it is proven by repeated surveys that religion lowers the risk of substance abuse?  Yet we spend enormous amounts of money on drug interdiction programs and law enforcement activities to slow the rise of our ever- increasing need to run away from our lives through the use of drug and alcohol abuse.  Here’s a fact to make you realize the enormity of this potential: Those who do not attend religious services are on average five to seven times more likely to use illicit drugs and binge drink on alcohol according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.  And yet here we are letting our government stifle and intimidate the very thing that can really have an effect on the crushing societal ills we face.  I seriously question whether our President actually believes in religious freedom and tolerance.  If he does, and these things are happening around him, then I guess I just have to come to the conclusion that he is incompetent.  Either way, we need to make our voices heard on issues such as these and find elected representatives of integrity who will carry our wishes forward in action.  It is our fault if we don’t.  As I quoted elsewhere before recently from George Bernard Shaw “democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

You may all have differing viewpoints on all this and I welcome your thoughts and comments either way.