I really disagree with this. I think that in most areas blacks are treated very well, including equal opportunities in employment, housing, and in some cases even special status, such as in university entrance requirements. Obviously there will always be bigots, on both sides of the equation, blacks and whites. Recent surveys suggest that blacks treatment towards whites however is much worse than whites treatment towards blacks. Most reporting is such as you suggest though, that the problem only goes one way.

Institutional harassment of blacks is against the law in this country. Whenever it is detected it is punished by the legal system. This has nothing resembling terrorism towards blacks and it has nothing to do with comments regarding violence in the islamic religion.

Are you suggesting that mistreatment of blacks during periods of slavery and ongoing discrimination justify islamic terrorism?

Spider...ahhh, don't twist my words.

You know I am Jewish. I believe in and pray to one G-d and one G-d alone. Remember the Shema?

HOWEVER, I am NOT going to belittle anyone else's faith. I have friends and family who have different beliefs than I do. My personal thoughts on other religions is that they are all different paths to the same place. Who am I to say what is right or wrong for another?

Freedom of religion, friends...that is what it is all about.

"My personal thoughts on other religions is that they are all different paths to the same place. Who am I to say what is right or wrong for another? "

This is what I'm trying to understand, the above quote. If I worship Zeus, will I end up in the same place as King David? Is that what the Bible teaches? It seems to me that God called all other gods abominations and everyone who followed another god a fool. I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. Are you saying that all who seek enlightenment will eventually find it in the Lord? Or are you saying that all paths are equally correct? If the latter, I am truely confused.

Okay, Spider, I know you are trying to stir it up.

I will attempt to explain myself one more time. I hope and believe that each one of us finds our own path and that is right for them.

I do not know who will end up where. I am just waiting on the Messiah.

It is not yours to question or even undestand my beliefs. My relationship with G-d is mine and mine alone.

Gai gezunterhait!

philosopher, my point is that if you believe the incredulously racist bigoted belief in this country right now that Islam is the creator of terrorism and the perpetrator of terrorism, you are sadly incorrect. Terrorism comes in all faces, backgrounds and noone but noone is in a race or religion or cult or group that is exempt from the fact terrorism was a way of forcing your way of thinking on others and was used universally. America was made by the terrorizing of Europeans for religious beliefs and political beliefs and then the racial dominance changed here in America by the terrorizing of the natives who lived here first. This is my point. Blacks are not receiving the "red carpet" treatment you are portraying either. But that is another long drawn out discussion of which few whites understand or really care to.

Feral,

I haven't read this whole thread (yeah its short but my connection/i-face sucks) - but I'm wondering if you meant to post your last comments in a different thread? the one on women and radical islam? apologies if I'm. mistaken.

Michelle,

Its good to see you can relate to your faith with humility and tolerance. (Hmm... that may sound like a veiled insult to those who do otherwise - but I really do appreciate your approach.)

"It is not yours to question or even undestand my beliefs. My relationship with G-d is mine and mine alone. "

Okay, I can dig that. But one more question. Would you have responded the same way if...Abracadabra or KerryO or Jess or Invisible or Massagetrade had asked you about your religion?

Feral,

Please disregard my last post.

Some of them have asked me about my religion. My answers don't falter, nor do my beliefs change. You are the only one that forms their questions in attack mode. At least that is the way it seems.

I have discussed religion with Massage and Abra in the past. They have never questioned what I believe in. Nice exchanges on beliefs and difference and similarities.

And my girl, Jess, is just waiting to teach me to surf whenever I can get myself Down Under.

And you know that Jews are not missionaries.

Dayenu!

I'm out of here. Going to spend some time with a nice Catholic boy.

It seems there's been a thread-jacking here.

For one thing, PJ has obliged us by offering to answer questions about a religion she has chosen to follow. She doesn't have all the answers, but she took the time to look them for us.

She has also made it quite clear that she is forbidden to attempt to convert, only to answer questions. I'm sure the reasons she has chosen this belief is no different than the reasons others have for choosing a different path.

She has spoken quietly, respectfully, and clearly.

I don't see questions here anymore. I see people who have NOT chosen this religious view and therfore do not see the picture of that religion as she is seeing it.

Maybe you don't 'agree' with the Islamic view 'as you know it', but maybe you don't know what she knows.

If you have a question about her beliefs, ask her, respectfully and remember she didn't create the religion, and she's still learning about it. So if you think you know something she doesn't, try telling her, and asking if that,particular thing, is part of what she is learning.

Sorry if I'm responsible for thread-jacking. I probably should have stayed out of this one. I simply don't see any value in the culture of mohamed.

Dragoness, you seem to have issues about the racial situation here in the US. I don't know what this has to do with islam, or why you personally wear your feelings about it on your sleeve, but I do know many people, like you, feel it their personal responsibility to appease the racial tension with their personal intervention and sacrifice. Good luck with that. With that approach the safest position is to ignore any racial bias from blacks in this country. It simplifies your position so well. Good luck with that.

Personally I would like the racial situation to improve, and I think it will, but I actually think your position stirs it up worse rather than helping. Fair and balanced, repeat that, fair and balanced.

Conversations evolve. Thread-jacking would be taking the conversation in a completely random direction, like saying "I like pie". The conversation has changed, but anyone can reply to an earlier post and get the conversation back to the original subject.

Philosopher, if you wanted to have the last word, sorry. I was using the terror inflicted on black folks as an example of the many forms of terror apart from the assumption in this country these days that Islam is the only breeder of terrorists That was my point, I could have chosen a different example, that one is closer to home. As for my views of racism in this country, I see,as most southern folks, you have your own ideal of the racial conditions here. I am here to tell you racism from whites on blacks is alive and well and flourishing. It is elsewhere but southern whites have there own take on it and they are prejudice and racist still today. You did prove it for everyone to see. The racial discussion should have happened on another thread and I do apologize for that to the other people on this thread. Again when I made the example of the black terrorism in this country it was not to start a racial discussion on that level.

Right, well I had a friend from Alabama, a white guy, who told me things like that 15 years ago. I had a hard time believing him then because I never see it. But at the time he said that KKK was still a problem in the area. I lived in Mississippi at the time and still never saw it. I remain a skeptic. Mostly whites and blacks I have known work to get along with one another.

In the city, in Texas, we do not have that. I might not know as much about it as some others.

I hardly think its a big problem in Colorado though. I seem to recall your profile pointing to you living there. Yeah, Denver. That's hardly the south. Do you see the KKK actively harassing blacks there and terrorizing them? Maybe you have a new terrorist movement there that the news has not discovered? Maybe since you live in Colorado you just prefer to believe the worst about the South, without bothering to experiencing it for yourself.

Hardly seems like this topic is about islam anymore. I really didn't mean to change the subject. This is too far off topic to be reasonable.

I have lived in the south, philospher, the sad thing there is like I said they have their own biased form of being "not prejudice". No, here in Colorado the racism is much more subtle but it is still here. I have seen the racial profiling, etc... I never speak from what I have heard on a subject as serious as this one. I do apologize for using this thread incorrectly. I am trying to close out the racial conversation on here. Although, the bias in our country on Islam is actually fairly racial too.

In the bible, Jesus claimes to be God.
Now by islam if I am correct; a prophet cannot lie right?
so since Islam sees Jesus as a prophet whom cannot lie; where does he really stand?

Am I correct to say that Islam states a man can have no more than 4 wives?

The prophet Mohammed/Muhammed (sorry, not sure) is documented by Muslim scholars to have had way more than that (16+ if I recall correctly) and his youngest wife he took to bed was age 9.
what does this say about Islam?

Didnt mohammed steal is sons wife?

Here are some verses that always birth question:

Sura 9:5 says,
Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every strategem of war.

Mohammed said, "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers are women."
http://answering-islam.org/Women/in-hell.html

And there is another verse in Sura I think that states that if the wife refuses to do what the husband says; they are to be beaten.

Sura 5:33 records what is done to infidels who resist Islam:
Their punishment is...execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from the opposite sides, or exile from the land.

How can you love a religion that so ful of hate?
We all know that if the world loved each other like brothers and sisters the worl would be perfect.
But we are born with sinful hearts, so this is impossible.

Just compare Jesus with Mohammed; just compare the prophecy's in the Bible that came true from old to new testament, just look at the prophecys of the new testament that are coming and have already come true in modern times ie: Hebrew coming back as a common spoken language in Israel.

Not to mention that the Quran is full of contradictions.
Whereas, if you study the bible by CROSS REFENCING and reading in CONTEXT it is crystal clear that the Bible is the inspired Word of the only God; the God of Christ.

Spider
You do worship Zeus. As Rev tells us where Satans seat is.... Miles

Milesoftheusa,

We can always count on you for intelligent and topical comments.

Topical? Study where satans seat is and your eyes might be opened Spider... Blessings.. Miles