New War Brings Back Old Lies

The US is at war again, this time against ISIS or ISIL or The Islamic State or DAIISH or whatever it is they are being called now. It really doesn't matter what you call them, they are a bunch of sick, crazy individuals who are perverting the religion to claim to follow. Of course in the US the only thing that many people will pay attention to is that the members of this group claim to be Muslim and their actions will give some in America another excuse to hate Muslims.


This hatred of Islam and its followers confuses me to no end. Most of the people who rail against Islam in the US consider themselves to be Christians, as do I, but I can't for the life of me reconcile their words and actions with Christianity.


I have heard them claim that Muslims are trying to force everyone in the US to live under Sharia Law and to convert to Islam. They say that they don't want Islam forced down their throats. This is quite confusing as many of these same people want to take away a woman's right to have an abortion, for any reason at all, because of religious reasons. They want to put prayer, seemingly Christian prayer (which can be several different things depending on which denomination we are talking about), back in public schools. They want the religious doctrine of creationism taught in schools as science. They think that gay and lesbian couples shouldn't be able to get married because of what they believe God thinks. On this last issue, I have been to gay pride festivals in several US cities and in cities in Canada and Europe as well. I have seen Christians protest and yell and scream at the festival goers, telling them they are going to hell and that they are sick. Interestingly enough I have never seen a group representing any other religion do this, only people who consider themselves Christians.


The same is true of the other issues listed above, time and time again in the US Christians rise up and try to push their religion down the throats of everyone else. In Tennessee they tried to stop a mosque from being built. I haven't heard of any Muslim groups in the US trying to stop churches from being built. Many Christians will say that the US is a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles, and that it should be following God's law. Strange that some of the founding fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn't believe this at all. They saw the danger of a religion trying to and working towards imposing itself on others and I have to say they were right. In the US the only religion I know of that is trying to impose its will and law on people is Christianity. This of course makes these Christians look like extreme hypocrites when they claim that Muslims are trying to take over the country. Muslims around the world have called on us to realize that groups like ISIS don't represent Islam any more than the Westboro  Baptist Church represents Christianity, unfortunately there are too many Christian extremists who refuse to believe this. A few days ago Muslims around the world organized protests to show that they in now way condone or accept or are willing to tolerate the actions of groups like ISIS. As a Christian I want to say that I know Islam is not what these terrorists have fooled themselves into believing that it is. I would also like to say that I, as a Christian, in no way, shape, form, or fashion condone or agree with the actions taken by Christian extremists and in some instance Christian terrorists that are sadly all too common in my home country. I believe that hate is probably a sin in every religion, I know it is in Christianity.