After reading this article on Eid-al-Adha, and the end of the hajj, I am reminded of the animosity between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. What a puzzle.
The first time I met either a Muslim or a Jew was in college. The dorm where I lived housed all sorts of interesting people, and I was fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends. Several members of the group had also never been around people who were not Christian, and we had lots of questions. But as we talked to our friends (and looked on the internet for answers when they were less than informative about their religion) we noticed something: The teachings are really not all the different between the religions. Be nice, play fair, worship God. There were a lot of really compatible beliefs. One question that I puzzled over with one of my friends was, "Why the fuss? Why the anger & the hatred between these groups?" I still haven't figured that out. That question became even more puzzling when I realized that all 3 religions share the same Old Testament foundation.
Based on what I read then, and what I've read this afternoon, my best guess is that in every group there are Kooks and Crazies. The Crusades were not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus Christ. In all my study of the Bible I've never seen anything that would justify wandering over to your unbelieving neighbors and killing them all because they refuse to convert. Not a very good missionary tool. And even if they did convert, it wouldn't create very sincere converts. The same things could be said about the current jihads that I've heard about, and the attacks on 9-11, or the Holocaust, although I don't think that was ever about converts. While I've never made an exhaustive study of Islam, I've never read anything that even hinted that 9-11 might be justified.
IslamiCity: Understanding Islam
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