A Religion of Peace?

The recent massacre at Ft. Hood should make us all concerned. This is the latest in a string of massacres perpetrated by Muslim-Americans in the name of their religion. We need to screen people of the Muslim faith in the military and at the workplace and we need to screen them now.

Major Hasan's family has said that he was a loyal American, and that he was not a radical Muslim. I know. This is what should concern us. Here was a man acting alone according to the dictates of his faith. He screamed "Allah Ackbar" "God is great" the Jihad call that has echoed down through the ages as the battle call of the "religion of peace."

Look at the religious wars fought across the world today. With the exception of the now settled conflict in Northern Ireland, where are the religious wars that do not involve Muslim. We see Muslim-Hindu violence, Muslim-Jewish violence, Muslim-Buddhist violence, and Muslim-Muslim violence. Where are the Christian-Hindu wars or the Buddhist-Jewish wars? They are so minor as to be non-existent. Yet Islam is involved in violence on every side.

I believe there are two reasons for this.

The first is the Muslim belief in unity. It is a matter of pride to Muslims that they see themselves as a single brotherhood, looking out for each other. This seems to be the case with Major Hasan. His writings indicate that we should not be fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq because a war against one Muslim is an war against all. That is not unity. This is paranoia.

The second reason is found in the nature of the Muslim idea of God. The Muslims say they have an all powerful God. Yet for some reason, these same Muslims are convinced that their God needs military assistance to accomplish His ends. Jeremiah mocked the idols of the nations by pointing out that they had to be carried from place to place. How different is it from the Muslims, who think that the honor of God must be defended by military means?

Contrary to popular thought, Jesus was not a pacifist. He said nothing against the military or the police, neither did he ever suggest that executions should not be carried. Jesus just believed that neither God nor His people needed defending by military means. He does not need us fighting for him. He fights for us. He does not need us conquering a world of which He is already Lord. That is why he told his followers to turn the other cheek. It is not because he thought that our enemies should not be punished, but that we should pity them, because it is God who does the punishing. When Major Hasan went on his rampage, somewhere in his mind he must have thought he was punishing our country for what they were doing to him and to other Muslims. He was taking upon himself a role that the Bible reserves for God alone.

All Muslims are not killers, neither are they dangerous. There are good Muslims, generous Muslims, and charitable Muslims. However I it is my opinion that they are good in spite of their religion, and not because of it.

We ought not worry about profiling. We should be careful about putting Muslims who embrace the paranoid, fortress mentality aspect of Islam in places where they care in contact with the armed forces.

I'm sure there are many Muslims who disagree with my assessment of Islam. They are more than welcome to disagree. In fact, I hope that I am wrong. But the evidence suggests that Islam is not a religion of peace with others, but of war against the world. The more Christian a person becomes, the more peaceful he becomes. The more Muslim a person becomes, the more prone to violence he seems to become.

Peaceful Muslims will disagree. Good. I hope they speak out loudly, not only to we infidels, but to their fellow Muslims and say that they really are a religion of peace, and not of violence. With every suicidal maniac who suicidally throws his life away killing others, it becomes harder to believe.