The
president made a fundamental error in his speech at the National Prayer
Breakfast: He tried to maintain the liberal absurdity that all religions, all beliefs, all theologies,
are equally valid. He wants to maintain the myth that all religions are fundamentally the same and only
superficially different, whereas the fact is most religions are fundamentally
different and only superficially the same. The President’s ignorance of
religion and history is evident by his analogous comparison of Christianity and
Islam. He compared Christianity and Islam, using the Crusades and Inquisition
as examples. He is correct; both produced unsightly atrocities, and they were
distortions of “Christianity.” However, there are fundamental issues with this
comparison:
First,
the strongest point is simply that there is not one example in the life of Christ of anything approaching a
Crusade or an Inquisition. There is not even one example in the life of Christ of violence, and not a
shred in the New Testament. There are plenty in Muhammad’s Quran and other holy
writings. No amount of distortion can vanquish this simple and straightforward
fact.
Second,
the Inquisition, while awful and inexcusable, murdered an estimated 3000-5000
thousand people over three centuries. Granted, that is thousands of people too many. But
think about Islamic terrorism in comparison. September 11 alone saw nearly 3,000 deaths.
Think about all that has happened just since 9/11, and the Inquisition is no
longer visible in the rear view mirror. This does not even
include the centuries of terrorism prior to 9/11. So as awful as the
Inquisition was, make no mistake: There is no comparison to Islamic terrorism.
Three,
there were many serious issues with the Crusades. However, what most people do
not know is how they started: They were a response to a call for help by the Byzantine
Empire to Western Europe, in response to Muslim invasions of the aforementioned empire. They were
not conceived of as a holy war in any way similar to how Muslims have so often
framed their wars as wars of conquest on behalf of the faith. The Crusades were
initiated as a response to a cry for help to defend lands which had already
been invaded.
It is
also worth noting that the Crusades never went beyond the former frontiers of
the Byzantine Empire pre-Islamic invasions. There are many problems with the
Crusades, but they were no jihad. This is something very few people know, and
of course even fewer are interested in acknowledging, since, after all, it is a
cultural stereotype which is far too useful. What progressive or Islamist would
want historic facts to get in the way of historicity.
The
president’s points about showing humility, etc. are well-taken; it is his
attempt to make the public believe the absurdity that all religions are the
same, to which I object. All religions have been abused. Such is the case with
every facet of human existence that one might even say, it is the only
absolutely binding thread that brings it all together (that is if it involves
man) it has been abused. But the facts of history speak forthrightly for
themselves. The lives of the founders of Christianity and Islam also speak for themselves. Let us not disconcert ourselves in attempting to grasp for this
evanescent of equality of all religions the president presents to us as fact.
Let not such an infantile discourse again be our response to such
merciless and malevolent evil as that we all recently saw carried out at the
bidding of ISIS. One can only surmise that President Obama does not realize the
thousand-year “statute of limitations" has lapsed.
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