U.S. Muslims ask why their religion’s condemnation of violence often goes unheard.

The above headline introduces you to a recent L.A. Times Article. To me, such a headline is a sad reality in America these days. People think they can make all the problems go away with a Tweet, a Facebook post or a verbal statement to their friends. In this case, some U.S. Muslims are wondering why people keep “bad mouthing” Islam, in spite of the fact that U.S. Muslims are denouncing terrorism. I have a news bulletin for U.S. Muslims: Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

The fact is, there seem to be an enormous amount of Muslims across the globe, who do not denounce terrorism, discrimination against women, kidnapping, rape, murder, etc… Instead, they relish it. They relish it so much that they send us videos of beheadings. They talk about murdering innocent people, kidnapping young girls as slaves, forcing Christians from their homes, destroying Christian churches and the open and notorious abuse of women.

Can you understand that most of the world is not all that sympathetic to you when you “denounce” this stuff but continue on with your allegiance to the very religion that has created this monster?

It is great that a lot of Muslims pick and choose the parts of the Quran they wish to follow. In fact, I’m confident that the vast majority of Muslims are “cafeteria Muslims”, meaning that they simply choose not to believe some parts of the Quran. In Christianity, it is considered wrong to ignore parts of the Bible, but believe me, most Christians are extremely grateful to the Muslims who choose to ignore parts of the Quran.

What parts of the Quran am I talking about?
• 2:191-193 promotes offensive warfare to force unbelievers to convert to Islam;
• 4:3 allows the rape of enslaved female captives;
• 4:34 says women are inferior to men and that disobedient women may be beaten and scourged;
• 5:33 promotes crucifixion for enemies of Islam, alternatively, it allows the removal of the hand and foot from opposite sides of the body;
• 8:12 promotes beheading and/or cutting off fingertips;
• 8:39 calls for the annihilation of all other religions through war;
• 9:5 states that non-believers are to be killed, converted or taxed;
• 9:29 is often cited as a part of the Quran which permits slavery and rape;
• 18:65-81 lays the context for honor killings among Muslim families;
• 23:5-6 female captives (non-Muslims) may be raped.

In the past 10 years, we have read, heard and viewed, numerous accounts regarding the atrocities against women and Christians, at the hands of individuals and groups who take the Quran quite literally. ISIS, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and others have murdered, enslaved and/or raped their way into the international headlines.

Meanwhile, the First Lady, Michelle Obama, fights back with a social media campaign in which she holds a handwritten message: #BringBackOurGirls. How regal. I may have missed the news reports on Boko Haram’s obedience to the First Lady’s photo, but I thought I recently read that most of the young girls are still enslaved.

It seems that Mrs. Obama, Mr. Obama and everyone else at the White House, cannot say enough about how Islam is peaceful and that the terrorists do not represent Islam. At an Iftar dinner at the White house in 2013, President Obama said, “Throughout our history, Islam has contributed to the character of our country, and Muslim Americans, and their good works, have helped to build our nation — and we’ve seen the results. We’ve seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants — farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities. Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped to unlock the secrets of our universe.”

Does it seem that President Obama has ordered his staff to find anything and everything they can, in an effort to substantiate his apparent belief that American is not indebted to the revolutionary heroes who lived under British rule in the 1700’s, but to Muslims who apparently operated with such stealth that nobody knew they were here? Seriously. Have the authors of all the history books for the last 239 years deprived us of the stories of all the heroic patriots who shouted “Allahu akbar” as they stood shoulder to shoulder with the Christian revolutionaries who fired upon the Redcoats? I suppose all the Muslim sounding names to the older American cities should tip us off about the Muslim history of our country. You know, Charleston, St. Petersburg, St. Augustine, Jamestown,…

The LA Times article points out that each time the media reports an incident of terrorism, social media is flooded with comments equating Islam to violence. I suppose this is due to a variety of factors:
1. Somewhere in the area of 99% of all recent terrorist acts have been committed by people who say they are doing it because of the Quran, Islam or Muhammad;
2. The terrorists can quote to the Quran, or some other teaching or tradition of Islam which shows that Islam has condoned or currently condones the violence;
3. The people behind the terrorism are radical practitioners of Islam;
4. The people behind the terrorism are recruiting, promoting, training and funding the terrorists in order to achieve the ultimate goal of Islam which is to force the entire world to convert to Islam.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. To people like you and me, the connection is clear, but this seems to escape the attention of the residents of the White House, people who work for CNN, NBC, etc… and American Muslims. And the American Muslims seem to put up with the negative social media posts just about every day since an Islamic terrorist group posts a new atrocity in the name of Muhammad nearly every day.

But infidels like you and me need not worry. U.S. Muslims are denouncing all the murders, rapes, torture, etc… We just need to accept that we are too ignorant to address these issues. U.S. Muslims prefer that infidels like us simply learn to be quiet and wait for all of this to end. They will take care of everything by denouncing the Islamic terrorists and holding up signs that tell the terrorists to stop being bad people.

One person in the article said, “There’s not an intimate idea of who U.S. Muslims are, so the only exposure to Islam they have is Islam and violence,”. So is this all just a bad P.R. campaign by Islam? Maybe if more U.S. Muslims would take to the airwaves to expound on the freedom they feel by wearing a Burka, we would have a more intimate idea of Islam? Honestly, there is only so much the White House can do to help boost the public image of Islam. President Obama has to get his golf in.

I suppose Americans perceive Muslims as violent because it is Muslims who keep on murdering people. The latest trend has been to line Christians up on the beach, them film their beheading by their Muslim captors in the name of Allah. I suppose most people associate beaches with peacefulness, but the videos seem to betray that notion on these videos. Hence the popular conclusion that Islam is not peaceful.

I know people who have served in the Middle East, who tell me that the value of human life is very low in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and other predominantly Muslim countries. These eyewitnesses tell me that even apart from the bombings, murders and other incidents that grab international attention on a daily basis, there is a prevalent and sustained aggression among Muslim men toward Muslim women their Muslim children as well as all non-Muslims. Muslim men often treat Muslim women brutally and children are treated more like property than persons. Some of this is simply due to the harsh conditions in the areas where these people served. There are non-Muslim neighborhoods in the U.S. where the concept of family is terribly out of order as well, but there is no question that many young Muslim males see Jihad as their only hope for anything but poverty and suffering and many young Muslim females have to choice but to submit to male dominance.

Do the Islamic terrorists represent authentic Islam? I hope not. I’ll even give Islam the benefit of the doubt and say that they do not represent true Islam. The question is: Why is the minority ruling the rest of Islam? The problem is, denouncing the terrorists on social media isn’t doing anything to stop the terrorism. People can voice dismay, plaster COEXIST bumper stickers all over their cars, post photos of themselves holding somber signs on social media and go to their grave shouting that Boko Haram is not true Islam, all they want, but all of this will not save one life, free one girl from slavery or prevent one rape.

Actions speak louder than words, and right now, the only Muslims who are taking action are the ones taking lives. To all the U.S. Muslims who ask why their religion’s condemnation of violence often goes unheard, I provide the following:

Indeed someone may say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of God.” See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:18-24)

In other words, begin forming an Islamic army who will confront and remove the terrorists. If these terrorists are truly giving authentic Islam a black eye, it is time you fought to restore the peaceful name our President so dearly wants you to have.