didaskalos's Blog

Veterans' Day! I am humbled by their sense of duty, honor, and sacrifice. Thank you troops!

If you can makeit  through this long presentation, I am confident you will be blessed and feel proud to be so well represented in the fight for freedom.

This article is really long, but amusing, informative, and encouraging … well worth the read. Western media often doesn’t have access to this type of thing and, when it is discovered, don’t consider it “news worthy.” I personally thing that it is very revelant.

What do you think?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTUwY2QyNjA0Njcw
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Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’
Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.

By Raymond Ibrahim

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.

First, the new media — particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) — have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world — even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned — call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.

Secondly, Botros’s broadcasts are in Arabic — the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic world. Botros’s mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature — much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations — and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus.

A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous — and authentic — hadith stating that women should “breastfeed” strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time. A leading hadith scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women “forbidden” to the men with whom they are forced into contact — the logic being that, by being “breastfed,” the men become like “sons” to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.

To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at al-Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institution — went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing “Rida’ al-Kibir” (sharia’s term for “breastfeeding the adult”), which prompted such outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently recanted.

Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sirhan’s show, Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was instigated by Botros: “I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his sources!”

Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema.

The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma — a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab — asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: “According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?” The two ulema would give no clear answer — dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since “there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you.”

The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, “low-life people like that must be totally ignored!” and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” the sheikh responded, “You don’t need to understand.” As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, “Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor — that’s his problem!”

But the ultimate reason for Botros’s success is that — unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint — his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn’t just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.

Botros’s motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote “Israeli interests,” or “demonize” Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.

— Raymond Ibrahim is editor of The Al Qaeda Reader.

There is a storm on the horizon. This storm threatens to use our liberties as Americans to rob us of our freedoms. The storm is called Islam. Why should atheists and agnostics join with Christians to combat this menacing threat? After all, aren't Christians the enemy too of those who don't believe in God, a god, gods, or don’t' know what they believe? On the contrary, biblical Christians should be considered as best friends to the atheists and agnostics even though their beliefs are very different.

Christianity seeks to persuade others to embrace their faith. It is not by force, but by love and a winsome lifestyle, moral excellence, and integrity that the imperfect Christian seeks to share, as a beggar who has found bread tells others, where they can come to have their hunger satisfied. We are unapologetic in expressing our desire for others to know Jesus Christ personally, however, it is always and only by persuasion that this can be done.

If Islam becomes the dominant religious influence in this country, all of our precious freedoms are at risk. We as Christians have fought and died for our country's freedoms that guarantee that an atheist is free NOT to believe in God. Islam offers no such guarantee. In fact, Islam promises severe persecution of those who don't believe in Allah.

So my atheist and agnostic friends, while you may disagree with Christianity, it is not your enemy; Islam is your enemy. Join with the Christians to oppose this threat to our precious freedom of religion as Americans that allows us to agree to disagree. Yes, we want to influence society, but the religion of Islam is satisfied with nothing less than imposition, domination, and forced submission of our culture and our way of life.

I was going through the "all blogs" pages/archives to see if some topics that were on the community page had any further comments. I came across Mater's blog about Di being punished and removed for comments she made. I was curious so I look back further  and was shocked at what I discovered.

 It seems that pages are repeated (containing the same blogs) effectively burying blogs deeper in the pages. I also notice that one of my blogs that had recently made the community page was nowhere to be found. The subject of that infamous blog ...? MORMONS are REALLY POLYTHEISTS. I mentioned their Public Relations machine. Some commented that it is dangerous to mess with them. I guess FOX is scared as they removed the blog everywhere except for my newsroom.

If they keep this up, they will purge their bloggers and their news viewers. I had previously told friends about FOX News at 10, but if this keeps up and the gag order discourage open debate, I'll find another venue.


 

The other day, I was reading in the East Orlando community newspaper that a company, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. LDS or Mormons), had purchased some property on S. Alafaya Trail that would allow the completion of the Innovation Way. This article caused me to reflect on the Mormon Church.

My first thought was how the Mormon Church Public Relations juggernaut influences how they are perceived by the community. They produce great commercials that promote family, are known for their clean cut young people who serve as missionaries, and tend to be politically conservative pro-American patriots.

My experience with the young men in black pants, white shirts, riding bicycles and wearing a black name badge does not inspire good feelings. What is it with a young man half my age trying to insist that I call him “Elder So_and_so?” This attempt to gain the authoritative high ground over the unsuspecting person masks the unorthodox, non-Christian divergences of the LDS church’s heretical teaching.

The Mormon Church owning companies reminds me of the Rev. Sung Yung Moon of the cult know as “Moonies,” who did jail time for his fraud, it that he promoted special “marriages” and “family” much like we see in Mormonism.

This leads to the content found in the “subject line.” The reason that Mormons promote “eternal marriage” is because such a marriage is essential for a good Mormon’s role in the next life … to become gods and goddesses where they will rule over their worlds and their spiritual children (produced from the eternal marriage union). This basically makes Mormons polytheists. They teach a form of spiritual evolution to godhood saying that … as we are God once was, and as He is, one day we will become.

What have been your encounters with the Mormon public relations machine and religious double-speak (using Christian language but different definitions of terms) that covers over their dubious origins and non-Christian teachings?