News-Record.com

A couple of interesting things in your post.

1: The statement that 60% of the area's population is under 25, meaning that the median age must be significantly younger. I wonder why they have so few older folks? What is the average life expectancy in that part of the world? I wonder if such a starkly different level of economic well-being is contributing to Middle Eastern anger towards the West?

2: We all know about the rise of popularity in the various forms of Islamic extremism in the Arab world. But this statement about how parents are increasingly moving their kids to religious schools, leading the governments to add religious content to the public schools, makes me wonder. Are we seeing the way America will go in the near future?

We all know how an awful lot of parents are removing their kids from the public schools in order to make sure they are indoctrinated with the religious/political ideas they prefer, rather than risk exposing them to contradictory notions from government-run schools.

Are we moving along the same path that will lead us to become a nation of religious extremists with no interest in protecting our secular traditions and freedom of religion for all?

Before we worry too much about the "other guys," should we not work to make sure we don't foul up and follow the same path they're on? If there's going to be a new Dark Age, which is what this story seems to imply, hadn't there better be a strong, secure place where Enlightenment and civilization can weather the storm?

Namtac's entry is replete with error and arrogance. Error, in that Christian commitment to its ideals of righteousness and love is at all comparable to the legalistic, hate-based MO of Islam. It really takes a lot of self-delusion to come up with that idea. It just a tired old tactic of the humanist left, born of desperation and a dearth of good argumentation.

Arrogance, in that he audaciously PRESUMES that his humanist America is, or ever could be, "a strong, secure place where Enlightenment and civilization can weather the storm?" How absurd! It is his "enlightened" public schools that are full of violence, death, sex and ignorance. It is humanism's denial of absolute values that has propelled the US on a path of HIV, broken marriages, and dead babies. And humanistic socialism is now psotioning itslef, wiht the help of the media, to win the next election and socialize America into poverty and despotism.

No, America was founded as a Christian nation (not talking about the government, per se) that taught its young, not only arithmatic, but biblical morals, values and family life. So it is only reasonable and sane for any parent, especially Christian ones, to withdraw their children from the godless, socialistic, and amoral ignorance factories they're trying to pass of as institutions of learning and culture.

The only hope for America is that it should be truly and thoroughly permeated with the Gospel and the Word of God; not by force or coersion, but by the preached Word, legitimate political advances, and the loving and patient way of Jesus.

There could NEVER be a more opposite MO to true, biblical Christianity than Islam. To lump them together is pure ignorance. I guess that's what our vaunted public schools and universities do to minds these days.

Namtac's entry is replete with error and arrogance. Error, in that Christian commitment to its ideals of righteousness and love is at all comparable to the legalistic, hate-based MO of Islam. It really takes a lot of self-delusion to come up with that idea. It just a tired old tactic of the humanist left, born of desperation and a dearth of good argumentation.

Arrogance, in that he audaciously PRESUMES that his humanist America is, or ever could be, "a strong, secure place where Enlightenment and civilization can weather the storm?" How absurd! It is his "enlightened" public schools that are full of violence, death, sex and ignorance. It is humanism's denial of absolute values that has propelled the US on a path of HIV, broken marriages, and dead babies. And humanistic socialism is now psotioning itslef, wiht the help of the media, to win the next election and socialize America into poverty and despotism.

No, America was founded as a Christian nation (not talking about the government, per se) that taught its young, not only arithmatic, but biblical morals, values and family life. So it is only reasonable and sane for any parent, especially Christian ones, to withdraw their children from the godless, socialistic, and amoral ignorance factories they're trying to pass of as institutions of learning and culture.

The only hope for America is that it should be truly and thoroughly permeated with the Gospel and the Word of God; not by force or coersion, but by the preached Word, legitimate political advances, and the loving and patient way of Jesus.

There could NEVER be a more opposite MO to true, biblical Christianity than Islam. To lump them together is pure ignorance. I guess that's what our vaunted public schools and universities do to minds these days.

"Namtac's entry is replete with error and arrogance. Error, in that Christian commitment to its ideals of righteousness and love is at all comparable to the legalistic, hate-based MO of Islam."

Really, Nikos? Have you looked at the history of all the things that have been done in the name of Christ through the past 2000 years? Can you categorically deny that it's possible for people to develop a "legalistic" or "hate-based" ideology using the Bible? Surely even you aren't that "arrogant." If you are, then I invite you to peruse the website run by Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka... www.gothatesfags.org

So yes, even though the public school system has its problems (no one could deny that), at its heart, the concept of secular schooling is still the best defense we have against the decline into sectarian madness that we see happening in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world.

"There could NEVER be a more opposite MO to true, biblical Christianity than Islam."

An objective viewing of the two religions will show many parallels, particularly in the way both religions view outsiders. Your diatribe is itself a clear example of that. If you are a prime example of "the loving and patient way of Jesus," I'd really wonder what an angry, impatient version of Christian would sound like.

Sorry: wrong url. It is actually

www.godhatesfags.com

Which is a very telling little factoid in itself.

so someone who is fervent in their belief and unafraid to speak in defense of it is now labeled an angry impatient Christian?

"An objective viewing of the two religions will show many parallels"......... and therein lies you ignorance namtac. there are many parallels in many religions and for you that makes them the same ? i suggest that you focus more on what is not parallel when comparing beliefs. Christianity is set apart from EVERY other religion by the fact that God took the form of man (i.e.Jesus Christ) and visited this earth, chose to die upon the the cross to redeem his creation.......that parallel you will NOT find in any other religion. this is my diatribe, waiting for the label !
p.s. i'm not angry but maybe a bit impatient !! :-)

oh one other thing, as a Christian viewing you as an outsider, i can only hope and pray that you might respond if God calls your name......unlike islam who labels you as an infidel who is worthy of physical death unless you convert - hmmmm not much parallel there.

"Have you looked at the history of all the things that have been done in the name of Christ through the past 2000 years?"

This is a thoroughly practical view of Christianity, not an ontological one: i.e. what SOME misguided Christians did in the past, most often had little to do with who Christians ARE in relation to Christ Himself, and are instructed to do in the Scriptures.

What Muslims DO has everything to do with what Mohammed instructed them to do in carrying out Jihad, and the forced conversion of peoples. Rather than an isolated or intermittent practice, as with Christianity, it was, and is still, the perennial and ubiquitous MO of Islam.

Rather than a living encounter with the risen Christ, wherein one's rebellion and sin are acknowledged, resulting in forgiveness and bebing filled with the very Spirit of God; Islam simply calls on a potential convert to say a little formula to the effect that "There is only one God, whose name is Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet." (not verbatim)

So, pointing to un-biblical failures and misapplications of Scriptural truths by armies, rulers, etc. reveals a mindset, that is either unwilling or unable to go to the source literature and the established beliefs of the Christian Faith - or is deliberately using these historical departures to try to make Islam and Christianity parallel religions.

The Gospel of grace, correctly understood and applied, produces a totally different culture and spiritual reality. The MO and nature of Jesus is radically divergent from that of Muhammad, and Islam generally.

I submit that the reason the American public schools are so prone to failure and abuse is that they are devoid of the truth and grace of Jesus Christ, and are thus consigned to produce the kind of corrupt culture that always results from rejecting of God's revealed Truth in the Person of Christ and the teachings of Scripture. You cannot have absolute, reliable moral truth without an absolute and sovereign God. What the schools are teaching is situational ethics, relativistic morality and the absence of Truth. Little wonder they are full (watch the evening news) of sexual promiscuity, teacher abuse, violence, massacres, STD's, unwanted pregnancies, academic disinterest and failure, and a host of other predictable ills. Wake up, my friend, and smell the decay.

The idea of some kind of above-the-fray, objective academic wonderland is nothing more than a humanist-created pipe dream. Neutrality is a TOTAL MYTH. Either one submits to the sovereign God of the Scriptures or he is doomed to wallow in the mire of sin, moral ignorance and ultimate nihilism. The continuation of “public education” as we know it today is a sure formula for continued degradation, academic failure, and student (and teacher) disillusionment.

Your misguided attempt to link genuine, biblical Christianity, in its biblical fullness and historical breadth, to the Westboro crowd is nothing short of myopic, self-conscious punditry. There may be fringe elements that distort and abuse the Scriptures, but they are doing just that, NOT FOLLOWING them. With Islam, we see the ripe fruit of the Koran itself and the MO of primitive, conquest-oriented zealots, now come of age - revealing its true and pervasive colors.