Islam & Muslims

My parents were Christians in general, Catholic & Methodist in particular, who compromised and changed to Lutheran. I was raised in the Lutheran church and never thought about changing to another denomination until I went to an USAF school in Illinois. I met a young woman there who brought me to a  Baptist church. At first, it was quite a shock to see how the Baptists preach out of the pulpit and so emotionally.  After a while, I actually embraced the Baptist style of preaching.  Today, I go to both Lutheran and Baptist services.

My father was in the USAF, and I grew up in several different countries: Germany, United Kingdom, France, & Belgium. We visited many other countries while we were in Europe, like Holland, Scotland, Luxembourg, Austria, to name a few.

Growing up in these countries as a child, I made lots of foreign friends and learned about their societies, their customs, and so on.  The experiences I had as I was growing up taught me, along with the teachings of my parents, to accept other people, other cultures, the beliefs and superstitions of other religions with respect for them.

I have problems with other religions that will prevent me from ever changing my beliefs to their's, but I also acknowledge the Christian religion also has problems mostly due to the conflicts (different interpretations) in the Bible and the really off-beat fanatics who have taken Christianity off the really deep end.

I have problems with different denominations within the Christian religion. I have attended other churches seeking either a reason to join or a reason to avoid that denomination.  For the most part, there usually are only a few beliefs with which I find difficult to accept.  I could list them, but it would serve no purpose to do so. Instead, I want to express the major problems I have with Islam and Muslims.

This essay is not meant to anger Muslims or provoke them to seek me out to kill me, but only to express my freedom of speech and be entirely honest about what I believe and what I don't believe, and any problems that bother me to some extent beyond interesting.

I am a Caucasian male, but in so being I do not live life believing whites are always right and non-whites are always wrong.  For instance, what the whites did to the American Indians during the birth and growth of the United States was often unforgivable and in the greatest degree of cruelty. To be fair, the various tribes also were extremely violent and sadistic.  What happened was a classic case of  'do what we say or die', instead of understanding the cultures of others and working to live peacefully together.

The Crusades to the Middle East were misguided.  It is terribly wrong to make attempts to force people to change their religious beliefs to the beliefs of the oppressors. Religious beliefs are usually as deeply a part of a person as the marrow in their bones, and this makes it difficult for those people to change their beliefs.  Those who easily change from one belief to another should be suspected of not really being committed to either.

Parents pass on their beliefs to their children, and their children pass on their beliefs to their children, and so on and so on for generations.  Christian missionaries travel to spread the word of the Christian God, but they make no effort to force people to believe in Christ.  The missionaries just keep preaching and teaching.  They do things to demonstrate what people who love Christ would do and should do to please God.  If people then believe, it is a choice they make of their own free will.

The biggest problem I have with Islam and radical Muslims is the way they are trying to force non-believers to believe. It is my understanding that they have two objectives: first, to send a message to the United States by killing innocent people, and the more they kill the better; second, to make everyone on the planet convert to Islam.

It is a futile effort to try and change the beliefs of everyone.  It will not happen; ever. The continued efforts of radicals and fanatics to convert others does nothing but perpetuate the deaths of thousands of people; a complete waste of lives.

Muslims, understand this: spread your message. Broadcast it to the world. Publish it in every book, magazine, all over the Internet. But don't tell people they must convert to Islam or die.  Most people will choose death, and in so choosing nothing is accomplished.

This life we live is a brief one. The belief all religions have is that there is a better life after this one.  We all believe the next life is peaceful and beauty beyond belief.  Most importantly, most of us believe the next life is spiritual, not physical.

How many believe in an evil supreme being?  Maybe a few do, but they would not be the mainstream believers.  The mainstream believers, whether they be Buddists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, or whatever, believe their gods are good, forgiving, full of grace. It seems to me the fanatic Muslim believes their god, Allah, says it is okay to kill and murder.  What kind of god is that?

After many years of speaking with people of other denominations/religions, I have concluded that there really is only one god.  It's just that all the different religions see Him in different ways.  We all need to communicate, but we do it in different languages. We all need to worship, but we worship differently.

I can visualize Judgment Day when all humans will face God, but He will be much different than we imagined.  We will all realize, even the Muslims, that we were very much wrong about Him.  He will be greater than we imagined; more forgiving, more perfect; more than our feeble human brains could possibly believe.

Just because we believe in God differently does not give one religion the right to exterminate another.  Muslims today, the radical ones, are now even worse than any of the Crusaders ever were.  Muslims believe eventually everyone on the planet will accept Islam as the one true religion.  It is insane for anyone to believe killing and murdering will make this change.

Killing in the name of Islam is thoroughly counter-productive.  Each murder, each killing, each instance of mass killing, does not convince people to convert in order to live, but instead drives them further away from any chance of becoming a Muslim.  Each death to the non-Muslim is reprehensible and unforgivable.  It raises the question, what kind of god is Allah? An evil god? A murderous god?  Is this the kind of god Muslims worship? Is that the kind of god Muslims want everyone to worship?

Message to radical Muslims: killing people is not going to convince the Earth's population to convert to Islam.  It will only convince the people to despise and even hate you.  You are not furthering your objective, but moving further away from it.

In a later post I will talk about the things in the Islam religion that I cannot now and never will accept; not even under the threat of death.

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The Day the Training Wheels Came Off

Way back in the 50's, bikes were a lot different then. They had pinache, like most cars were in those days. You could tell what make & model a car was from three blocks away, you know? Fins were big then and a car was adorned with lots of chrome. Bicycles were that way, too. Today cars are almost clones of each other. How freaking BORING!. Now you have to practically get close enough to see the freaking plastic adornments on the car to identify who made them.

Back to bikes. The day my dad asked me if I was ready to ride without the training wheels, I felt like a teen getting ready to drive the first time without a screaming parent yelling, "WATCH OUT FOR THAT TRAIN TWO MILES DOWN THE ROAD! YOU SEE IT?" I was excited, yet apprehensive. I mean, would my dad be able to get me to an ER before all my blood ran out of my head should I have an unpleasant encounter with Mrs. Flomax's concrete wall dividing her lawn from the sidewalk? I told myself my dad would drive like the wind while my mother smothered me with a huge bath towel while screaming, "Faster! He's dying!"

I ended that vision when my dad snapped me out of it by cursing the little wrench that slipped off the rounded nut, causing his hand to smack against the bike frame, which was obviously much harder than my dad's hand. "Edward! Watch your language," my mother told him through the open door in the garage that led into the kitchen. Finally, the training wheels were off, and I began to hyperventilate. My dad shoved a big brown paper grocery bag over my head and told me to calm down.

He then wheeled the bike out onto the driveway and I followed. I didn't get far, because I walked into my dad's '46 DeSoto. My dad let out a long sigh and said, "You can take that BAG off your head now." The world came quickly back into focus.

I approached my red and white bike adorned with chrome and streamers coming out of the end of the handlebar grips. My mom came outside to watch, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and holding a first aid kit under her arm. Slowly the bike began to roll down the driveway with my dad hanging onto to fender over the rear wheel. He helped me make the turn onto the sidewalk and continued holding on for a while longer...then he let go. I assured myself I was going to die.

All I could see was the front wheel as I wobbled down the sidewalk like some kid having a stroke. I kept my eyes on the side walk just in front of the wheel. That was a mistake. The next thing I saw was a huge dog on a leash right in front me. I closed my eyes, grimaced and felt myself flying through the air in the darkness (my eyes were closed, remember?). The dog was yelping and his owner, Mr. Extendz, was yelling, "Damn kid! What the hell is wrong with you?" I was tangled up in the leash, the dog and between two huge human legs. I felt the warm blood oozing onto my my body.

"DAD!" I screamed. "I am bleeding!" I opened my eyes and saw him come running toward the three of us. Mr. Extendz untangled the leash from around me and my bike, all the while the dog was barking loudly. He took his dog back in the direction from which they came; back to their house. My mom arrived a second later with the first aid kit, bandages and insect ointment flying out all around her.

"I'm bleeding, Dad! Don't let me die!" He just stood above me, watching me bleed to death. I thought he must have seen there was no hope in saving me. My mom arrived and stopped next to me--motionless. I figured she, too, saw her first-born going to the big bike track in the sky. Then they both started laughing uncontrollably.

"Oh, great! I am dying and all you two can do is laugh at me?"

"Son," my dad said,"do you know what blood smells like?" I put my hand on my lower abdomen and felt the warm wetness. I then looked for the hole where the blood was oozing out. Odd, I thought. Isn't blood supposed to be red? Then the smell hit me. It wasn't blood. The dog was either scared or really ticked off at me, because what I smelled was urine.

My dad picked me up by the back of my shirt and said, "Go back into the house and take a shower. Put on some clean clothes and we'll try again tomorrow in the back yard. Right now I have to apologize to Mr. Extendz and his dog."

Oh ,the bike, yeah. It needed hosed down, but suffered less damage and embarrasment than did I.

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