" Amen, Amen, Amen "

Thursday August 18, 2005
Op Ed: Letters To The Editor

Bible, Quran all subject to interpretation

Dear editor:

An article in the July 21, 2005 Dallas Morning News (by a self-styled moderate Muslim journalist who is based in Toronto, Canada) is titled, "What does Islam have to do with it?" The journalist, Irshad Manji, had just returned from a visit to England where her moderate Muslim friends insisted that Islam had nothing to do with the London attacks. The moderate Muslims in Britain produced a statement, which contained this line: "The Quran clearly declares that killing an innocent person (is) tantamount to killing all mankind." Irshad Manji points out that the complete verse in the Quran has exceptions, which the radical Muslims use to justify their killings of innocents.

This brings to mind radical Christians in our country: The evangelical chaplains in the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for instance, told the cadets there that unless they were "born again" they were bound for hell -- even if they were members of various other Christian sects. These chaplains supposedly took their narrow view from the same Bible used by all other Christians and used their authority to impose it.

Remember -- whether it is the Christian Bible or the Quran -- it's all in the interpretation. Religion has a bloody history caused mainly by religious fanatics. Frankly, I am terrified of anyone, whether Muslim, Jew or Christian, who is absolutely sure he/she knows the correct moral beliefs for everyone on earth. And I think that such a person is deranged.

Ruth Lilly
Zephyr

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/08/18/op_ed/letters%20to%20the%20editor/letter01.txt
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Susan B. Anthony

" I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. "
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Blaise Pascal:

" Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. "