Addressed to fellow American Catholics (who really do believe or, at least, hold sentimental feelings for Christianity): I, LW, do hold that Coptic Christians were killed because of their faith by certain believers in Islam (maybe a weird and minor group, but ISLAM [-slm- means "to subjugate" in the name of Allah based on the revelations of the so-called Prophet, Mohammed]). That is a cognitive …More
Addressed to fellow American Catholics (who really do believe or, at least, hold sentimental feelings for Christianity): I, LW, do hold that Coptic Christians were killed because of their faith by certain believers in Islam (maybe a weird and minor group, but ISLAM [-slm- means "to subjugate" in the name of Allah based on the revelations of the so-called Prophet, Mohammed]). That is a cognitive judgment. Not I, but the relevant authorities in the Coptic have determined that the killings of Christians because of their faith by Islam ISIS executioners. I accept the judgment of said authorities and marvel in humility at those who were martyrs for their faith.
According to President Obama (and to one degree or another by many Catholics, lay people, priests, prelates to any level), Islam "is a religion of peace" and, therefore, any such activities such as the beheadings cannot be islamic per definitionem or, according to Obama, even be religious at all. The Obama dogma is that the so-called religion of people like bin Laden is not religion, rather the reaction to, well, a lack of jobs with a mixture of justified resentment to Western imperalism (forgetting that the expansion of Islam cost the life of 50% of then living Christians, converted (with a sharp sword) Christians, and fought two gigantic Holy Wars (Jihads) against the West killing richly in the process --> there is no pure victim on either side as the Obama-ites would have it).
Why did I write the second paragraph? I am using Obama as a clear and irrefutible exemplification of the secularizing process transforming the West (which, as Gloria.tv Catholics note, also applies to many, too many of "modern(istic)" Catholics, including prelates upto [if I accept the opinions of Louie Verrecchio] the current Pope's affirmation of the (post)modern world and ensuant attempt to adapt Catholicism to said modernity). What has Obama done? If the agents of ISIS or Al-Qaeda really are constituted by secular, matrial frustration (they need )and resentmnent past western misdeeds), then the deaths of the beheaded or any person killed, raped, tortured, "subjugated" is not and cannot in anyway be martyrs because the apparent reason for killing is not and cannot be Islam, let alone religion in any way (which probably would have surprised the Aztec Indians in Mexico, a sacrificial religion that sacrificed endless lives based upon religions grounds).
The reader of my thoughts may be taken back with so much verbiage. If so, chalk it up to the "original sin" of being a professor, we never shut up. (Hell for a professor would be to hold lectures eternally to an empty classroom.)However, my verbiage is part of my attempt to impress the reader with the fact that the modern world that so many clerics are now affirming is a horizontal world that is structurally without redemption, need of redemption, even going so far as to repress religious consciousness of the type particular to martyrs. The Obama-like attempt to define Islam as a religion of peace and the derivative thesis that any violence in the name of Allah and his Prophet is not genuine invalidates any act of martyrdom because the motivation of the executioner(s) cannot per definitionem be genuinely religious.
All the jabber about Islam as a religion of peace is no more than expressed ignorance. Islam is de essentia neither a religion of peace nor of far. Islam is a religion of -slm-, viz., subjugation, relative to which peace and war receive their definitional meaning. Within the terms of my conceptualization of the essence of Islam, the use of violence as a means of subjugating (= jihad) is doctrinally entailed and can be validly called for.
Am I not insulting Muslims? As if insulting Muslims per se were an absolute no, no! No, I am not insulting Muslims, rather seeking to reveal certain essential features of Islam, the belief system, to which Muslims, the believers, subjugate themselves. In my judgment, if Islam is ever to approach the qualifcation of "being peaceful" in se, then it is critical that non-violent Muslims gain an insight into the potentially violent nature of their religion. Hopefully, said Muslims (and I know some) will make adjustment in their doctrine so as, to devilishly misquote Obama) be "fundamentally transformed". Whatever individual Muslims do (good or bad), the religion itself entails the demand to make martyrs of Christians (Jews, Hindus, etc). I do want dialogue, but not one that, as a certain Pope is drunk upon, necessarily leads to unity, rather to truth!
