I’ve read a number of media types including Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post say we need to move on from 9/11. Many sadly agree with him. For me, moving on isn’t possible because the horrors inflicted by many Muslims continues.
We can only pretend to “move on” by simply ignoring it.
Christians are persecuted, killed, raped, and torched on a regular basis for the crime of being Christian in many parts of the world.
The media ignores it for many reasons. One – the incidents are often not caught on video. But I think more importantly much of the media doesn’t cover it is because it’s just Christians being persecuted.
The persecution of Christians by Muslims goes often willfully unreported by mainstream media. But Raymond Ibrahim reports on a number of awful incidents that took place just last month. Check this out:
Attacks on Christian Symbols: Churches and Bibles
Indonesia: Two churches were set aflame; officials downplayed these atrocities by arguing that the buildings were “only made of board” and not real churches. A mayor also proclaimed that churches cannot be built on streets with Muslim names, even as Muslim majority regions reject the building of any churches.
Iran: Officials launched a Bible burning campaign, confiscating and destroying some 7,000 Bibles, many publicly burned. Likening their tiny Christian minority to the “Taliban and parasites,” the regime also “cracked down” on Christians (who make up less than 1% of the entire population), arresting many, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.
Iraq: Two churches were bombed: the first damaged the church and wounded 23; the second damaged the church (a third church was targeted but the bomb was defused before going off).
Nigeria: Two churches were bombed, including a Baptist church no longer in use due to previous Muslim attacks; when officials arrested Islamist leaders, a third Catholic church was torched.
Apostasy and Forced Conversions
Eritrea: It was revealed that at least eight Christians have died in prisons, most under severe conditions and torture, simply for refusing to recant Christianity.
India: A female who was formerly stripped and beaten by a Muslim mob for converting to Christianity, continues to receive severe threats to return to Islam or die; likewise, Muslims held three Christian women “threatening to beat and burn them alive if they continued worshipping Christ.”
Iran: A Christian pastor in Iran remains behind bars, where he is being tortured and awaits execution for refusing to recant Christianity.
Malaysia: Religious police raided a church when they “found evidence of proselytisation towards Muslims” and “receiving information that there were Muslims who attended a breaking-of-fast event at the church”; a Facebook campaign created to support the raid and to “prevent apostasy” has already drawn support from 23,000 people.
Norway: A Muslim convert to Christianity was tortured with boiling water and told by fellow Muslim inmates “If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you”; if deported, he risks death by stoning for leaving Islam.
Pakistan: Muslims openly abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl at gunpoint saying she had to convert to Islam; another Christian woman who was abducted, drugged, and tortured for two years—all while being informed she had converted to Islam—happily made her escape. In both cases, the police, as usual, are siding with the Muslim abductors. Most recently, two Christians returning from church were attacked by Muslims and beaten with iron rods for refusing to convert to Islam or pay “protection” (jizya) money.
Sudan: A 16 year old Christian girl finally escaped from her Muslim kidnappers, who “beat, raped and tried to force her to convert from Christianity to Islam”; whenever she tried to pray, she was beaten again and called an “infidel”; when her mother went to the police, they told her to convert to Islam before they returned her child.
Uganda: In accordance to Islam’s Hanafi School of law, a Muslim father locked his 14-year-old daughter in a room for several months without food or water, simply because she embraced Christianity; when rescued, she weighed 44 pounds.
General Oppression, Violence, and Murder of Christians
Bangladesh: Church leaders, including an elderly pastor, were severely beaten in a police station for protesting that Muslims had illegally seized and occupied a Christian home. A previously tortured Christian activist is in hiding in Honk Kong, even as his wife and children face death threats from surrounding Muslims.
Egypt: Soon after breaking their Ramadan fast, thousands of Muslims rampaged a predominantly Christian village, firing automatic weapons, looting and throwing Molotov Cocktails at several homes; they beat a priest, plundering and torching his home; another Copt was murdered in his home, which was also ransacked. Separately, a Copt was savagely attacked by seven Muslims in front of a police station; he lost one eye and required 20 stitches in his head. And girls leaving church were sexually harassed by Muslim who hurled stones at the church shattering five windows.
Nigeria: In what is being called a “silent killing,” ten Christians were slain by Muslims seeking to expunge Christianity from northern Nigeria; eyewitnesses insist that the army is assisting and enabling the slayings.
Pakistan: A Christian family consisting of 26 people, including women and children, lived in slavery for over 30 years, forced to labor on a farm belonging to a wealthy Muslim landowner; they only recently managed to regain their freedom, through the aid of the Catholic Church. Separately, a Muslim mob attacked a group of Christians watching a Jesus movie, destroying the projector. A Christian man was beaten unconscious for celebrating Independence Day, told by Muslims “How can you celebrate when you are Christian? Convert to Islam if you want to join the celebration.”
Somalia: Al-Shabab (“the youth”) is intentionally preventing food aid from reaching the nation’s miniscule Christian minority: “Any Somali that the Islamists suspect to be a Christian, or even a friend of Christians, does not receive any food aid.”
Sudan: A “humanitarian crisis is unfolding” in Sudan’s border region where Christians and their churches are being targeted in a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by North Sudan’s Islamist regime.
United Kingdom: A Muslim family was terrorized and threatened with death because their daughter married a Christian, a crime according to Sharia.
Uzbekistan: Authorities continue to pressure churches and Christians, fabricating evidence to punish or limit Christians’ ability to practice their faith, and subjecting them to excessive fines, false accusations, and confiscating their Christian literature.
Mind you, that’s all just last month.
One could just write it off as isolated incidents but anyone who’s paying attention knows better.
Please check out Ibrahim’s site for more on this topic.
The media has bought into the “move on” meme. They want to ignore this. So it’s up to bloggers and alternate media to make folks aware.
September 12, 2011 at 1:43 pm
As long as Islam is Islam, it will continue to fight against anything and anybody that's not Islam. We can't "move on" until Islam is wiped off the face of the earth. Scotju
September 12, 2011 at 4:10 pm
The Anonymous 8:43am comment needs to go. There is no place for such murderous sentiments on a Catholic website.
September 12, 2011 at 4:11 pm
The POTUS wants us to move on to provide Muslims more and freer access to the hearts and minds of the American people and for more of their votes later to put more Muslims in the House, Senate and Courts. Check my blog for a truly disturbing yet factual video about this.
September 12, 2011 at 4:12 pm
That said, it highlights a pair of errors I see in discussions on 9/11 and related atrocities.
The first error is to argue that America was attacked by Islam on 9/11.
The second is to pretend that Islam had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks.
Neither is helpful, much less smart.
September 12, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Islam will be wiped off the face of the earth when all Muslims are converted to Christianity. That is not murderous. (I am not the original poster. Just sayin')
Surely it is something worth praying for.
A very informative web site that tracks these crimes is at thereligionofpeace.com
September 12, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Islam will be wiped off the face of the earth when all Muslims are converted to Christianity. That is not murderous. (I am not the original poster. Just sayin')
I'm sure 8:43 Anonymous could have said "conversion" if that's what he meant. It's not that hard. Instead, we have his naked, unadorned terminology which does not naturally admit to a "he's just talking about conversion" interpretation. In fact, we don't know that this person has any religious sentiments at all.
Speaking of which–Had this been a self-identified atheist saying the same thing about Catholicism (as I have seen done), I doubt you'd go through the same contortions to read it in the most benign possible light. Excuses should not be made for eliminationist rhetoric.
September 12, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Everyone should read the KORAN. American leaders have read the KORAN in the past — think Barbary Pirates — not for some vague, fuzzy, multy-culty purpose, but to know what the enemy believes and practices.
September 12, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Contortions? Ok. Maybe take a deep breath here. After all, he didn't say MUSLIMS -he said ISLAM!
September 12, 2011 at 7:19 pm
@ Mack: And the a Hadith and the Surah.
There are excellent articles on the jihadwatch.org web site the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and The Crusades is also an excellent starter book.
September 12, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Yeah, contortions. Painful ones, at this point.
"We can't 'move on' until Catholicism is wiped off the face of the earth."
"We can't 'move on' until America is wiped off the face of the earth."
By your logic, both those statements should be kosher, Anon 2:14pm. Neither talks about Catholics or Americans, after all.
You and the moderators are welcome to the last word.
September 12, 2011 at 9:21 pm
It is the reality of being a Christian, and more importantly a Catholic Christian, that we will be persecuted for our faith. In America we are lucky that the persecution is, so far, fairly mild. That being said, whether it is Muslims, communists, facists, other sorts of securalists, pagans, etc., we will never totally escape persecution until the end of days.
September 12, 2011 at 9:23 pm
Wow. I wrote you a long, thoughtful response, but it was taken off by the moderators. I wish I knew what/which part didn't make the cut so I don't use that again. Was it tone? Length? Because I am posting anonymously? Can't help that.
Anyway. Your response is illogical and uninformed.
Islam is a "religion" that mandates violence.
Catholicism (and other religions) don't.
If you don't know what Islam really teaches you should learn. It will be helpful. And yes, Islamic philosophy was the DIRECT cause of 9/11.
September 12, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Meanie-moderators!
Don't get your feelings hurt; a responsible site must have control, even when you disagree with the editing. You have seen how on other sites a lack of moderation deteriorates into mere vulgar abuse, at which point the sites fail as civilized exchanges of ideas.
The Archbolds have edited me too. Life goes on. Of course in my case, they were wrong. So there, Meanie Archbolds!
September 13, 2011 at 12:40 am
For starters we need to put on "sackcloth and ashes".
September 13, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Anonymous 4:23pm:
1. Don't change the subject. I assume you're trying to make excuses for your "wiped out" comment. My rebuke of your bloodthirsty rhetoric does not make me ignorant of the role Islamic tradition played in 9/11. As should be obvious from my second comment on this thread.
Not so by the way, I own 40 books on Islam, including six by Robert Spencer. I have four Korans with Sunni and Shia commentaries (an interesting contrast), and have the ahadith collections of Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. I also have a couple of manuals of Islamic jurisprudence, and several histories of the religion. I'm pretty certain I can hold my own in a discussion with you. But that's not really the point.
2. The point is, eliminationist rhetoric is contrary to Catholic teaching. Period. Again, your comments indistinguishable from the Iranian stooge-president's screeching against Israel. You know that, and need to repent of it.
September 13, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Yo Dale. Good to know that you know Islam was behind the attack on 9/11 after all, then.
As for my point, it was to merely suggest that your arguments are over the top to accuse the original poster (Scotju – who I am not) of "eliminationist" rhetoric. I disagree with you.
In my post, which was deleted, I had an excellent analogy for you describing the difference between saying Islam must be eliminated and Muslims must be eliminated. Frankly I think that you have to be purposely obtuse, or perhaps just angry, to decide to re-invent English in order to make these words mean the same thing. Catholicism and Catholics are not the same. If you said you think Catholicism should be wiped off the face of the earth I would assume you were talking about a religion, not the people who practice it.
There is a HUGE difference between calling for an end to "Islam", and calling for an end to "Muslims". Please. Suggesting these are the same thing is a factual error. (Being as nice as I can here M&P!_
We SHOULD be calling for an end to Islam! Archbishop Fulton Sheen called for it when he suggested that we pray to Mary for Muslims to be converted. Guess what would happen if they were? Islam would be wiped off the face of the earth. Islam is not equal to Muslims is it? Can we eliminate Islam without eliminating the people who practice it? Sure can. Islam is the ideology. In fact, "killing" people does nothing to eliminate their philosophy. Only causing the philosophy to be rejected kills the philosophy.
This is not semantics. This is a huge, glaring difference. I say black and you are telling me that I said white. No. (Besides – again, it wasn't me who posted originally)
Lastly here. Please, don't call me bloodthirsty. I really don't know why I was edited earlier (wish I knew! Don't want to err again!) but I didn't call anyone bloodthirsty.
You don't know me. My Muslim friends (who were even in my very Catholic wedding bridal party, btw) would disagree with you. But they would also tell you that, "Yep- he wants Islam to be eliminated – he thinks the whole world should be Catholic!" I tell them that all the time. Somehow we are still friends. (Mainly because they are "cultural Muslims" who really don't know what is in the Koran, etc.)
This, btw, is in perfect concert with Catholic teaching.
Oh and I just now re-read and see you are equating me with Ahmadinejad? What?! Oh my. Well that's not very nice is it? Plus it's just plain silly.