The Limits of Religious Accommodation…

Being a Christian in a (some say) “Christian nation”, I have come to expect my employer, school, community, state, and nation to accommodate my beliefs by recognizing Christian holidays and accommodate my beliefs.  It helps that my beliefs have been molded by not only my religion, but by the 200 plus year moral traditions of my country, and the millennia of traditions of my ancestors from a substantially Christian Europe.

So, is it just Christian accommodation we should expect?  Or is it universal religious accommodation we should expect?  Non-Christians of other faiths expect religious accommodation.  Atheists expect no accommodation for religions.

OK, here’s the rub:  There are religions wherein some of their doctrines, morals, and traditions are illegal based on our Judeo-Christian legal system.  For example, practitioners of Santeria, a Cuban blend of African lore and Catholicism, occasionally make the news. Why?  Because their practice requires the use of animal sacrifices. Many communities tried to outlaw this practice, but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.  Undoubtedly, PITA was pissed.  Here is a summary of related legal action from Wikipedia:

n 1993, the issue of animal sacrifice in Santería was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Santería were unconstitutional.^[20]

In 2009, legal and religious issues that related to animal sacrifice, animal rights, and freedom of religion were taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Jose Merced, President Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha Texas, Inc., v. City of Euless. The court ruled that the Merced case of the freedom of exercise of religion was meritorious and prevailing and that Merced was entitled under the Texas Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (TRFRA) to an injunction preventing the city of Euless, Texas, from enforcing its ordinances restricting his religious practices relating to the use of animals,^[21] (see Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 110.005(a)(2)) without the court having to reach his claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The city of Euless, even after losing a drawn-out lawsuit that tested the boundaries of religious liberty in Texas, was still searching for new ways to shut down Merced's spiritual practices.^[22]

Now comes a tougher religious nut, Islam’s “sharia.”  Should or will the 1,400 year doctrine and traditions of Islam be upheld by our courts on the basis of freedom of religion and “religious accommodation?”  Keep in mind that most of Islam’s religious mandates are antithetical to our own long standing legal traditions, such as:

• The methods of punishment for laws broken:  chopping off heads, hands, and other body parts
• The reasons for these punishments:  Converting from Islam to any other, or to no religion; embarrassing or humiliating your family; women not submitting to men in approved ways; insulting Allah, and many others.
• Many practices that we consider misogynistic.
• Beheading of gays.
• Taxation of non-Muslims at a higher rate for their “protection.”
• Non-Muslims subject to loss of rights held by Muslims – if the Muslims in charge allow their existence at all.
• Many other Muslim doctrines, laws, and traditions too numerous to mention here that are contrary to our nation’s long-standing religious and cultural convictions and practices.

Which of these “religious mandates” will our supreme court uphold in the name of “religious freedom” or “religious accommodation?”

It is likely that our rapidly growing and influential Muslim population will demand religious accommodation for a number of their “religious” practices.

And if this creates political havoc, the next step will be progressives proposing the elimination of all manner of religious accommodation out of a sense of “fairness.”  Example:  Ok kids, since this piece of poison candy isn’t good for you, you aren’t allowed to have any candy.  Or one plane crash  used as an excuse to prohibit all flights. 

If reason were exercised by our electorate, our leaders, and our courts they would determine that any doctrine, tradition, and law of Islam that contradicts our established legal system and cultural mores shall be unlawful, and promotion of such laws considered as treason or sedition.  But I doubt that will happen.

If reason is applied, Muslims are certain to cry “discrimination against Islam.”  What about  the religious traditions of Santeria that break our animal cruelty laws?

The above conundrum is exactly why Islam needs to be treated NOT as a “religion” in these matters, but as a political ideology, in the same manner as Nazism and Communism.  Islam is an all-encompassing way of life with an overarching legal/political component:  Sharia.  It is so far deviant from our Judeo-Christian tradition and ethics that it is incompatible with and destructive of the legal traditions of our nation and our way of life.

The cultural traditions and doctrines of Islam are the primary motivators (excuses?) for terror and killing in the world in our age.  That should be reason enough to distinguish Islam from virtually every other belief system we must contend with.  Islam is not worthy of “religious accommodation.”

That should also be reason enough to stop the influx of Muslims into this country and to make it clear to Muslims who choose to remain here that they will be subject to the laws of this nation, and not their Sharia.

*****

Related: 

Obama accommodates Islam by caving into Iranian demands for continuing development of nuclear weapons DESPITE Iran’s leader proclaiming “DEATH TO AMERICA.”  Do you see anything wrong with that picture?

Not a small minority of “radicals”…

Given that Islam’s premier skill set is deceit, it is no wonder that people who aren’t really paying attention to that religion are deceived.  That skill set is not some recent political strategy adopted by some  radical Muslim offshoot that has nothing to do with Islam.  It is a feature of pure Islam. It has been a core doctrine in Islam from the practice of Muhammad 1,400 years ago down to this very second.  Deceit is taught in Islamic schools, mosques, and Islamic centers.  Deceit is to Islam as the golden rule is to Christians.  It is ingrained in their culture as perfectly normal.

In dozens of nations and thousands of communities around the globe where Islamic populations are dominant, Muslims apply some version of Islamic morality and law (sharia).   If you are a female, gay, infidel, or apostate Muslim, you forfeit your freedoms and possibly your life.   I would think that thoughtful Americans, Brits – heck, all Europeans – would consider Islam a cancer and treat it like they would any subversive organization.  But no.  It is easier to pretend they are just like us and just want to get along.

The “small minority of radicals” that have nothing to do with Islam are on the march.  Their march consists of leaders of Islamic states and their supporters and sympathizers numbering in the millions if not tens of millions of other Muslims that oddly have nothing to do with Islam.  Heck, the entire Islamic religion has been hijacked by a billion Muslims who have nothing to do with Islam!

Western leaders are fools.  As if in a drug-induced stupor, they dismiss facts about Islam and Islamic history.  US leadership wants a treaty with Iran concerning their development of nuclear weapons  They are hoping that Iranian leadership is just like us – morally speaking – and have the same aspirations as we have.  We are fools to think that.

While it is true not every Muslim is a jihadist, most Muslims are either sympathizers or active supporters of Muslims jihadists.  Their doctrine clearly teaches the things the jihadists do.  Their doctrine also teaches two other things:  1) They are called to support the jihadist because it is the right thing to do, and 2) They need to mask their true thoughts, intentions and actions in an infidel culture to defend themselves and to further Islam.  That is “taqiyya.”

The “nice Muslim next door?”  He is either an apostate (not practicing most of Islamic doctrine) or he is practicing taqiyya – most likely the latter if he still calls himself a Muslim.

What about Judhi Jasser, the token peace-loving go-to Muslim on Fox news?  He is an apostate.  He goes against the flow of not only the majority of Islamic texts, but against the teaching of nearly every mosque in this nation and the world.  That is, unless he himself is also practicing his own rendition of taqiyya:  a foil to attempt to deceive Americans that Islam is something that it is not – like the front man in a Ponzi scheme.   We are deceiving ourselves to wishfully think that Islam can be transformed into something it never was – at least not within the lifetimes of our grandchildren and beyond. 

Small minority of radicals?  I have undergone a progression of understanding of Islam since 9-11:

Before 9-11:  I knew nothing about Islam, or at best, that it was just another religion.

Weeks following 9-11:  I started researching.  I was initially influenced by the words of George Bush I, that “Islam is a religion of peace” and by Karen Armstrong who is an apologist for Islam.

I began reading and gathering facts about Islam from a variety of sources.  The most common source was the media at large that continued to offer the Karen Armstrong and George Bush version of Islam.  But soon I began balancing those sources with others such as Brigitte Gabriel, Robert Spencer – and later many more.  These sources actually presented facts about Islamic beliefs and value systems.

Eventually, the facts gained a lot more credibility in my mind than the fluff presented by people who “knew a nice Muslim next door.’'  (Or in the case of George Bush, who probably had a know-nothing apologist for Islam, or perhaps Muslims in the State Department as his advisors on Islam.)

A few months after 9-11 I accepted the idea that there is a “radical” component to Islam and that most Muslims don’t abide by that radical flavor.

It didn’t take me too many years (I guess I’m a little slow) to do some math on Islam.  Of the 1.6 billion Muslims on earth and a mere 10% being radical (meaning they would commit violence to further their cause), that means there are “only” 160,000,000 radical Muslims.

And one third of US Muslims support Islamic terror.  The percentage is probably much higher.  What self-respecting taqiyya-inspired Muslim would tell a US pollster what he really believes?  The 19% above probably refers to the broader US population of progressives, liberals, fascists, and socialists who thrive on chaos to gain more power.

*****

Since I do believe in the evolution of thought and learning, it took me a couple more years to realize that it takes a number of non-jihadists to be eyes and ears, provide political cover, mentoring, teaching, logistics, training, and funding for the jihadist effort.  That understanding led me to a new calculation of jihadist supporters that likely doubles or triples the number of front line jihadists.  That upped the number of supporters to close to half a billion – probably more.

More recently, considering the likes of Obama who clearly supports the Muslim cause (whether he is Muslim or not, he is doing what a Muslim would do), I remembered his words from his book “Audacity of Hope.”  He was emphatic that he would side with [Muslim immigrants] should the political winds shift in an ugly direction. This declaration added more light to my understanding of an even more widespread Muslim support for violent jihad – the Muslim sympathizers.

There are those we call “cultural Muslims”, or “casual Muslims”, or “peace loving Muslims” which some believe make up the majority of Muslims.  This Muslim majority, as Obama claimed he would do, will likely side with the doctrines of orthodox Islam, the “radicals”, the military wing of the Islamic ummah, if the winds shifted in an ugly direction - from their perspective – meaning if the rest of us woke up to understand what Islam is all about and attempted to do anything about it.

So no, the Islamic threat is not merely from a tiny minority of radicals who have nothing to do with Islam.  The threat comes from the greater majority of those who claim Islam as their all encompassing model for life and morality following in the path of Muhammad.  Study the life of Muhammad if you want a clue of what faithful, devout orthodox Muslims have in store for the infidel.

*****

Related:  See where pro-Islamic Tweets come from – you may be surprised.

What a breath of fresh air and sanity…

I listened to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the joint session of the US Congress (presentation linked below).

What a breath of fresh air after being subject to the stench of insanity foisted on the American citizens by our own political leader.

This man made sense.  Our man makes little sense and mocks the intelligence and sense of right that most of us innately possess.

His words provided a ray of sunshine and rational hope – not the false hope of the dark side we have to endure for another year and a half.

Listen and determine if you agree that the words spoken here reflect reality and sound logic and not the counter-intuitive, anti-American blather we usually hear from our Trojan horse in Washington: 

Here is the full transcript of the Prime Ministers speech to Congress.

http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/running-transcript-of-netanyahus-speech-before-congress.html/

 

Related: 

Why Obama dislikes Netanyahu.  If it is not Obama’s affinity for Islam, then it is this…

Those who do not confront evil resent those who do.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414702/why-obama-so-dislikes-netanyahu-dennis-prager