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August 13th, 2010
12:44 PM ET
Opinion: Why we needed an imams' declaration for peace
By Dr. David Liepert, Special to CNN Immediately before 9/11, al Qaeda was considered almost below most Americans' notice. One Washington Post/ABC News poll found that in early 2002, only 14 percent of Americans thought Islam encouraged violence. These days, the popular perception of Islam is dominated by al Qaeda and its radical agenda. Al Qaeda has grown into a monster that dominates the American psyche, and many non-Muslims fear that the majority of Muslims are bent on violent takeover. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Editor's note: Dr. David Liepert is a member of the Calgary Council of Imams, comprised of 50 of Canada's mainstream Muslim faith leaders. He helped craft the Canadian Council of Imams Declaration, released Friday. He is author of "Muslim, Christian and Jew: Finding a Path to Peace Our Faiths Can Share."
http://rediscover911.com/2010/03/was-america-attacked-by-muslims-on-911/
Pres. Obama is correct that the founding fathers provided for protection of those who wish to worship. However, if you consider that Nativity Scenes and Crosses and even the greeting "Merry Christmas" have come under fire for being insensitive, then the building a mosque so near a sacred spot of honor and loss for the United States is just wrong.
I agree with you. Though personally I don't give a crap for the location of mosques, ground zero is a sensitive spot for many Americans. I assume the guy in charge is 100% American, because he seemed stubborn about it's location. However, Islam has nothing to do 9/11. It was a terrorist group. What we be doing if it were the KKK who crashed planes into the tallest buildings in the world? They aren't Muslim, and there certainly isn't anti christan feelings in the majority of Americans.
My real fear: That constant alienation and persecution of American, moderate Muslim people will push them away from us.
There is no denying that there are Muslims who are extreme. There are others who are oppressed, and there are others who still live in the past. But the majority of them don't live in America. The vast majority of American Muslims are honest, god-fearing, workaday people just like everyone else. They were work 9-5s, they try to raise a family, they attend their respective places of worship and they were horrified at 9-11 (just go ask them. I know I have).
These people are not the enemy. Rather they should be viewed as ambassadors so that the real America – the tolerant democratic capitalist equal America that everyone yearns for – is what is broadcast to the world. Fighting the hatred of America that the middle east harbors is not going to be accomplished by giving them more reasons to hate us.
Islam is neither a religion of peace nor a religion of war.
Islam allows violence in self-defense.
Islam allows violence in self-defense? Give us a break!! The real Islam:
Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the massacre in Mumbai, the assassinations of Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.
And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
Current crises:
The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.
You are an insane, racist bigot you know what for saying that. Do you call the systemic murder of 11,000,000 people a hoax? Anti semitism applies to Jews and Arabs (though it refers mainly to Jew haters). But Arabs ( most are Muslim) are a semetic people too. Only the first two sentences apply to my point. The last two is food for thought.
Remember guys in America: this may be a story of one state in India. But it is going to be America's future. I guarantee this will happen in New York city pretty soon. This is the next step for Muslims.
"There’s nothing surprising about the rash-like emergence of violent Islamism in Kerala. God’s Own Country, as Kerala was known for its natural splendour and cultural heritage, is rapidly turning into the springboard of jihad in India. This hasn’t happened overnight, nor has Islamism spread its tentacles over the past few months to make its presence felt in the most shocking manner: The attack on a professor for allegedly denigrating Islam has served to highlight the seeping terror unleashed by homegrown jihadis.
The rain-gorged verdant plains and hills along the lush Malabar coast are fast turning into the billious green of radical Islam. Roadside brick-and-mortar glass-fronted shrines dedicated to Virgin Mary with flickering candles lit by the devout and ancient temples with amazing hand-crafted brassware and bell metal utensils that once celebrated the Hinduness of Kerala are overshadowed by spanking new mosques that seem to be mushrooming all over the place. Not only are they built with Arab money — donations by Muslim Malayalees working in Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, add up to only a fraction of the cost — but they also symbolise the increasing influence of Arab ‘culture’, which is largely about visible manifestations of Islam and Islamism, that threatens to stamp out Kerala’s rich indigenous culture rooted in India’s civilisational past.
Huge billboards, advertising ‘Arab Pardha’ in English and Arabic, now jostle for space along with those advertising jewellery, new apartment blocks and investment schemes. The ‘Arab Pardha’ billboards are illustrated with larger than life images of women clad in head-to-toe burqas: They look shapeless and formless, their identity smothered by black fabric and their eyes barely visible through slits. “Arab Pardha”, declares one billboard, “All pious women should wear it.” The copywriter has it all wrong; it should have read, “All pious women should disappear behind it.” For, that’s what the burqa is meant for — to make women disappear, make them invisible, deny them the right to exist as individuals. Any argument to the contrary is spurious and any religious edict cited in support of this grotesque suppression of individual liberty is specious."
Why doesn't CNN have thoughtful articles like this?
Remember guys in America: this may be a story of one state in India. But it is going to be America's future. I guarantee this will happen in New York city pretty soon. This is the next step for Muslims.
"There’s nothing surprising about the rash-like emergence of violent Islamism in Kerala. God’s Own Country, as Kerala was known for its natural splendour and cultural heritage, is rapidly turning into the springboard of jihad in India. This hasn’t happened overnight, nor has Islamism spread its tentacles over the past few months to make its presence felt in the most shocking manner: The attack on a professor for allegedly denigrating Islam has served to highlight the seeping terror unleashed by homegrown jihadis.
The rain-gorged verdant plains and hills along the lush Malabar coast are fast turning into the billious green of radical Islam. Roadside brick-and-mortar glass-fronted shrines dedicated to Virgin Mary with flickering candles lit by the devout and ancient temples with amazing hand-crafted brassware and bell metal utensils that once celebrated the Hinduness of Kerala are overshadowed by spanking new mosques that seem to be mushrooming all over the place. Not only are they built with Arab money — donations by Muslim Malayalees working in Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, add up to only a fraction of the cost — but they also symbolise the increasing influence of Arab ‘culture’, which is largely about visible manifestations of Islam and Islamism, that threatens to stamp out Kerala’s rich indigenous culture rooted in India’s civilisational past.
Huge billboards, advertising ‘Arab Pardha’ in English and Arabic, now jostle for space along with those advertising jewellery, new apartment blocks and investment schemes. The ‘Arab Pardha’ billboards are illustrated with larger than life images of women clad in head-to-toe burqas: They look shapeless and formless, their identity smothered by black fabric and their eyes barely visible through slits. “Arab Pardha”, declares one billboard, “All pious women should wear it.” The copywriter has it all wrong; it should have read, “All pious women should disappear behind it.” For, that’s what the burqa is meant for — to make women disappear, make them invisible, deny them the right to exist as individuals. Any argument to the contrary is spurious and any religious edict cited in support of this grotesque suppression of individual liberty is specious.
But there is a larger purpose behind propagating the ‘Arab Pardha', or purdah, which is insidious and frightening for those who value freedom. This is one of the many instruments adopted by Islamists to push their agenda of radicalising Muslims and imposing their worldview on others without so much as even a token resistance by either civil society or the state. The darkness of the world in which they live is now being forced on us. Decades ago Nirad C Chaudhuri was to record in his celebrated essay, The Continent of Circe, “Whenever in the streets of Delhi I see a Muslim woman in a burqa, the Islamic veil, I apostrophise her mentally: ‘Sister! you are the symbol of your community in India.’ The entire body of Muslims are under a black veil.” The Continent of Circe was first published in 1966; forty-one years later, the community wants the black veil, the ‘Arab Pardha’, to envelope ‘secular’ India.
Kerala’s ‘Arab Pardha’ billboards are a taunting reminder that in ‘secular’ India we must remain mute witness to the communalisation of culture, politics and society by peddlers of Islamism and its offensive agenda that is rooted in the most obnoxious interpretation of what Mohammed preached millennia ago. Even the economy has not been spared: Islamic banking, Islamic investments and Islamic financial instruments have surreptitiously entered this country under the benign gaze of an indulgent UPA Government whose Prime Minister spends sleepless nights agonising over the plight of Islamic terrorists and demands that all Government initiatives must be anchored in his perverse ‘Muslims first’ policy. The Prime Minister’s admirers claim he is a “sensitive person” who is easily moved by the “plight of the helpless”. Had he been moved by the pathetic sight of a Muslim woman, as much an Indian as all of us, forced to wear an ‘Arab Pardha’, his claimed sensitivities would have carried conviction. But such expression of sympathy, if not resolve to combat the insidious gameplan of Islamists inspired by hate-mongers and preachers of intolerance who draw their sustenance from the fruit of the poison tree of Wahaabism that flourishes in the sterile sands of Arabia, would demand a great degree of intellectual integrity and moral courage. The Prime Minister may be an “accidental politician”, but he is a practitioner of politics of cynicism. For that, you neither need intellectual integrity nor moral courage.
Every time there is criticism of the Islamic veil, which comes in various forms of indignity — the hijab, the niqab, the burqa, the chador — whether from within or outside the Muslim community, we hear the frayed argument: It’s a matter of personal choice; it’s an expression of religiosity; it’s culture-specific; it’s a minority community’s right, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. All that and more is balderdash, not least because there is no Quranic injunction that mandates a Muslim woman to wear an ‘Arab Pardha’. Given the nature of the community’s social hierarchy and the grip of the mullahs, rarely does a woman protest, leave alone rebel. Those who do, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian activist whose book The Caged Virgin provides a revealing insight into Islamism’s warped religio-political ideology, are hounded and live in perpetual fear of losing their lives. Blasphemy is not tolerated by those who live in a world darker than the darkest burqa, a world in which even Barbie wears the Islamic veil lest her plastic modesty be compromised."
I am so fed up with the racial divide in America. The discimination that African Americans continually endure on a daily basis is disgraceful. I grew up in a diverse environment, and educational system that initially blinded my immature mind into believing that "White" people thought of me as equal. As I got older and away from my adolescent school environment, I began to see the truth. My life experiences have given me the realization that "Black" people are the race of people to be hated, oppressed, scrutinized, and are not to be trusted. The "trash" race. The "bottom-of-the-barrel" cursed race. In America, animals are treated better than "Blacks". Have you ever given any thought about why police officers have so much compassion when dealing with "White" people verses "Black"? You see it every day. Watch the news, read your local news paper. "White" people are always reasoned with, given a firm talking to, and assisted when in danger. "Black" people, on the other hand, and questioned and interogated when they are the victim. Put on hold or disregarded when in danger. And, too many times, murdered by the people that gave an oath to protect in serve. Sometimes out of fear, sometimes because of pure hatred. The older I get, the more I hate being "Black". Not because I don't like my race, but, because of how I'm treated for being who I am. I don't condone the situation that happened in Conecticut with Omar Thornton, but I understand his frustrations. I'm sure alot of people would do what he did if they thought they could get away with it. That may sound cruel, but, it's the truth. Then, you got this guy Mike Gallagher spreading lies and racial hate over the radio air-ways fueling racial tension like its o.k., and, getting paid for it, it makes your think. "White" people don't even have enough respect to address the President for who he is. President Barack Obama! Not Obama. Or, Barack. He earned that title people! You never heard people saying; George. It's probably one of those things that people don't give much thought to. But, I do. At this point in my life I think that I've had more than my share of racial prejudice and injustice. I am ready to explode. "White" people want "Blacks" to get to there breaking point and snap, just so they can say . . . see, I told you them niggers are crazy! Well, here is a news flash for the masses. The next person that makes me feel like I'm being unfairly treated because of my race, . . . I'm gonna choke the life out of them!!!!
Nice exchange folks and once again nice "cut and Paste" Reality.
It is something that maybe we need to let time take care of. It seems as though some feel that they can force or shame folks into peace. There are Americans that are still not too fond of Muslims before 9/11 and that anger had just increased and add followers post 9/11. I, in some ways understand it because I know old relatives who can not bring themselves to be plesant to a white American because of racial issues they experienced in the 40s. That's many years folks so the 9 years since 9/11 might not be enough to get those feelings and hatred out of some Americans hearts.
Just give it time. Cerades fail and the truth will come to the surface.
SR: Sorry but again you must not have read what I wrote in completion. I never once said all Americans are bigoted and stupid but unfortunately the ones that are get the most air-time and they convey to the rest of the world a wrong and twisted view of REAL Americans just like how the terrorists are a minority of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world yet what they do makes everyone believe all Muslims are like that when that is not the case at all. As far as you saying that just because the Imams are asking for peace it is an admission of guilt in some way, well it's all your "plain speaking Americans" as you call them that have asked for public outcries from the Muslim population against terrorism, which in itself is beyond idiotic because anyone with half a brain would know that many Imams across the world have already spoken up since 9/11 until now, it just wasn't broadcast on any major media platform. This seems weird since American networks were first to show people dancing around in the streets after 9/11 in certain countries yet the article and news of those countries which echoed the sentiments of the majorities in those respective countries calling for peace and condemnation of this attack were never shown on any American news networks or papers. Trying getting a different view of things. I watched new from all over, from relatives in Europe, India, Australia and the Middle East and all of them felt the same pain on 9/11 as did most of the world and they despised those who did this, "those" being the terrorists, not a religion in general.
Once again the facts about koranic-driven terror and why no Muslim can be trusted.
1a) 179 killed in Mumbai/Bombay, 290 injured
1b) Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh
2) 9/11, 3000 mostly US citizens, 1000’s injured
3) The 24/7 Sunni-Shiite centuries-old blood feud currently being carried out in Iraq, US Troops killed in action, 3,481 and 924 died in non-combat, 97,172 – 106,047 Iraqi civilians killed,
4) Kenya- In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.[2]
5) Bali-in 2002-killing 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens. A further 209 people were injured.
6) Bali in 2005- Twenty people were killed, and 129 people were injured by three bombers who killed themselves in the attacks.
7) Spain in 2004- killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.
8. UK in 2005- The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four radical Islamic suicide bombers, injured 700.
9) The execution of an eloping couple in Afghanistan on 04/15/2009 by the Taliban.
10) Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan: US troops killed in action 1,116 killed in action, 902 killed in non-combat situations as of 08/10/2010. Over 40,000 Afghan citizens killed.
11) The killing of 13 citizen soldiers at Ft. Hood by a follower of the koran.
12) 38 Russian citizens killed on March 29, 2010 by Muslim women suicide bombers.
13) The May 28, 2010 attack on a Islamic religious minority in Pakistan, which have left 98 dead,
14) Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route—a Boeing 747-121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas—was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members.[1] Eleven people in Lockerbie, in southern Scotland, were killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270. As a result, the event has been named by the media as the Lockerbie Bombing.
Once again, please stop reposting the same things. Yes, we read it, it's very shiny and pretty and we'll put it on the fridge with a magnet for all to see. Go back to playing in the sandbox.
Grant,
Glad to see you remember. It is doubtful that Dr. David Liepert has seen the list of Islamic horrors and also not everyone remembers i.e the necessary reiteration.
I have words for the likes of you. Words too nasty for public use. It's people like you who make it impossible to move forward. If you can forgive Germans after WWII, then you can forgive Muslims. In fact, it just so happens those people were of Islamic faith. The KKK is christen, but you don't see Jews burning bibles. We're also aware that would ruin support for israel. Anti musilm behavior will ruin support for the U.S in a region where we need every ally we can get.
Grant:
Me a fool?
The fact that this "Moderate" Mr. David Liepert, has to come and say "We are Muslims and we don't endorse killing other human beings" alone tells you all you need to know about Islam and its long taught beliefs.
Mr. Liepert's speech is like the "Moderate" Wing of a Political Party saying that Extremist Wing of their party is deluded. But my argument is that they are the same Political Party advocating hatred of infidels! I didn't say those words, Mohammad did. So don't attack me, attack the person who said it.
And guys like Mr. Liepert can foster understanding first by asking Isalmists to stop calling other people "Infidels". Who gave them the right to call people names?
That alone will bring a lot of discrimination and violence towards disbelievers out of Islam.
The fact that Islam has to say "stop killing other humans" alone is laughable, let alone indefensible.
Calling me names or shouting me down as "paranoid" does not get rid of that fact. Facts can be such a pain.
Yes, facts can be a pain. Especially when you give them a bad name by passing of fake ones as true.
Let's look at the statement for a second: "We are Muslims and we don't endorse killing other human beings." Who needs to say it?
Firstly: People who are accused in blanket statements as being equal to terrorists need to say it in defense to show separation between the vast majority and the extreme few.
Secondly: People who are ashamed of those who claim to be of the Islamic faith but give it a bad name through their actions would need to say it in apology for the misguided nature of the few.
Example: Catholics saying they don't condone the action of priests. EXACT same logic you follow, yet you don't condemn it.
Please educate yourself (Not just by reading the news). Read books, open your mind and most importantly, go meet people you lump in as the enemy. You'll be shocked at what you learn.
SR Lots of people agree with your facts but, hey, we will get nowhere at this level. There is no doubt that Islam in general has very little wiggle room on the topic of individual freedom, and consequently is offensive to millions of citizens of many, many countries. But we are civilized, and need to defend that civility, not with rage, but with firm support for democratic ideals. The first step, I believe, is to trash the concept of confrontation between Christian and Muslim, because that is a convenient fabrication for the poorly informed on both sides ot the battle. Forget the Bible and the Koran and the Torah, this is 2010, at least 1400 years since that stuff was written. Would we trust doctors who derive their diagnosis from ancient medical writing? (OK, so those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, right? But it is today that worries us. )
Grant is right. We all need to get educated in the history of the conflict, but I believe that we can easily take a pass on the doctrine, because it is only relevant in the sense that indoctrinated people cant seem to look beyond the doctrine.
So can we change this? Who knows? We have to try.
A good pair of binoculars and a few hours of properly tutored stargazing will convince anyone that there is a far greater power out there. Far greater than any god which can be invented in the minds of mere mortals.
On the subject of "convincing argument", you may be old enough to remember Ella Fitzgerald singing "It Ain't What You Say, It's The Way That You Say It".
No doubt you have done your homework, but if you do decide to take Grant's advice and look for some other writing on Islam, I recommend Bernard Lewis. Authority and then some. Lots of references to help get the broadest possible perspective.
So where do we go from here? Move on from the online commentary and into real productive work? Or more rants?
To Grant: Great post and I totally agree with what you said. Sadly a lot of Americans are either unlike you or they don't speak up which ends up giving the notion to the rest of the world that Americans in general are bigoted against Muslims, which is def. not true. As for SR, he's the same as Reality and a bunch of others on this site, people label them as trolls but there not. There scared of the unknown and just not bright enough to know any better and don't care enough to learn the truth, just what the bias media tells them.
GSA:
Thank for your gratuitous pity, I don't need it.
Again, those calling disbelievers and the realists who ask questions about the motivations of the followers of Islam, names is not going to do you any good or win you any favors from plain speaking Americans.
We are neither bigoted nor stupid as you claim.
Deal with the facts: There is a Statement here from a Top Religious Body saying that "We don't Advocate Killing". Think about that first. Who needs to say it? Only those who feel guilty of doing it.
This religios blog has become a Muslim propaganda blog.
Stephen Prothero and his band of Pseudo Intellectuals at CNN have suddenly become all convinced that Islam means Peace and want us all to believe in, by repeating this lie, ad nauseum.
Where are the articles that can provide Islamic readers about what they can do to moderate their religion? What can CNN do to bring Islam out of the Medieval Age?
Nothing...The bias of the editors here at CNN is very open and troubling.
SR, I have to wonder if you actually know any Muslims personally. Are you friends with any of them? Or do you just know them but keep your distance and look at them with suspicion?
The fact is the majority of Muslims, particularly those living in North America, are fantastic people trying to live the same kind of life as everyone else. The problem you seem to be furthering is the notion that all of Islams followers = fundamentalist lunatics. You observe (perhaps exclusively through the media?) the acts of extremists in the middle east and you apply it to, if nothing else, normal people here, causing a huge gap to form.
What do you think the long-term goal is of extremists? They want Americans to fear and persecute American Muslims, stirring up feelings of alienation within all Muslim people living here so that over time, American Muslims will be so disenchanted with idiot Americans that they won't care what happens to them.
I had a post blocked by the moderators, but basically, SR, it seems to me that you are a paranoid fool who cannot distinguish between crazy fundamentalists and moderate American Muslims who want nothing more than to live a life of peace according to what their religion actually says (as opposed to the misconstrued messages being thrown about in the real propaganda in the middle east)
Get to know some Muslims personally – likely they are quite pleasant people. And stop creating gaps with American Muslims. If we keep pushing them away, they won't ever support us. THAT is the true goal of the terrorists.
SR: Be happy that CNN is providing this platform for these rants. CNN is almost alone in this format. The NYTimes has apparently abandoned Commentary online , and has definitely given up on the NYCity "Mosque" issue. This is political dynamite, and influential people are influencing public debate. i.e. suppressing.
Try submitting an article or letter to the Globe and Mail in Toronto, including adverse commentary about Islam or Muslim activities. Even the National Post has gone cold on these issues.
Courageous politicians. Oxymoron.
And by articles I mean sentences. Yep, definitely sentences.
An article made up of four sentences. They must be scraping the barrel. I should write for them. I'd probably be able to write something more subtantial. In fact, I'm certain of it.
^ 5 Sentences.
And by 5 I mean 4. Damn keyboard slip.
Or was it. 5 is the new 4!
And by 4 I mean 5. There are five articles. This is fun!
I suppose it's 5 sentences if you consider the hyperlink that says "Read the full story" as a sentence...
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Yodaspeak leads to suffering.
I suggest to all that you watch "3 Facts about Islam" on You Tube. This is not a hate site, nor am I a hater of most American Muslims. Having lived in the Middle East for years, however, and seen Sharia Law at its finest, it will be over my dead body that I allow this type of law to come to America. And yes, while abroad, I have heard lies in the past which were used to further the Muslim cause. I ask you to watch the video; read on what is happening in the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia (as well as here in the U.S. in Dearborn, Michigan). Think about it, Pray about it. Discuss it, and make up your own minds. When believers do not publicly denounce terrorism by their own faith, I become suspicious. It has now been almost ten years since the twin towers fell and how many followers of Islam in the U.S. denounced, as a group, the killing and violence by members of their own religion (philosophy?) here in America. Ten Years! Now they are coming forward primarily because other Americans have opened their arms to their Muslim American (or is it American Muslim?) fellow citizens to begin dialog. Relatively speaking, we are not far beyond the Crusades by either Christians or Muslims. I only pray that we seek the truth on this issue from both sides, and that God's Truth prevails.
Well said, sometimes science fiction must be quoted. The person who came up with that line a genius!