initiating this section :)

[wrldtrvlr]

What are your thoughts on Adopt A Terrorist For Prayer? http://www.myatfp.com

For me it's a creative idea having a positive solution as its focus.

[Ibrahim]

I think it's a good idea. One problem with the name, "the War on Terror," is that it's ambiguous whether it's a war against terrorism or a war against terrorists. The two are different things, but I think people often confuse them. The war against terrorism includes the war against terrorists, but it cannot be limited to that. For the war against terrorism to succeed ultimately, the hearts and minds of people have to be changed so that they no longer think terrorism is a valid way to pursue your goals. It certainly is worthwhile to ask God to do this.

[al-Najashi]

Speaking of Terrorism, I watched a very interesting video the other night with a Muslim friend of mine. The debate was entitled, is Religion Compatible with Reason" or something to that effect. The debate was between Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Sam Harris, author of End of Faith. Reza of course argues from the Theistic point of view, specifically Islamic, while Harris argues from the Secular point of view. It's available for stream at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5og-hyD3A7A or you can download it from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,642,D ... kTV-CSPAN2

I won't go too much into the debate, you should watch it for yourselves, but there was one interesting comment that is relevant to this thread that I'd like to mention.

Reza is getting increasingly frustrated with Sam's continual quips about Islamic terrorists, finally Reza responds by saying how "unsophisticated" Sam's argument is. Sam is in fact comparing the worst actions of a group who call themselves Muslims with the best of Atheists. However, when Reza brings up Mao Tse Tung or Stalin or Nazism, immediately Harris responds that these groups were abhorrent groups that did not represent the ideals of Secularism.

What became immediately apparent was that Sam was not using the same criteria to judge his own worldview that he was using to judge Islam. This allowed him to categorize terrorists as Muslim or Islamic, but also to remove Secularists or Atheists from the same charge of terrorism because this is not the ideals of Secularism or Atheism.

All along, from my understanding, most Muslims would say that the targeting of innocent civilians is an action that is completely un-Islamic so in fact those who do such actions are kaffir. At least that's my understanding. The recent fatwa from Deoband in India was something to this effect. I don't think the world is listening. Or isn't willing to accept this important differentiation.

I did however think that Sam Harris brought up a good rebuttal to Reza Aslan as well. What should the role of "true" followers of faith be in response to those who claim to be of the same faith, but are obviously doing things that without question are outside of that faith?

My Muslim friend said to me that in my country these Christian extremists wouldn't kill me if I challenged their views, but if Muslims begin to stand up to people like the Taliban, etc. their lives will be threatened. How can we expect them to speak up? What right do we have as outsiders to make such a request?

At first I thought he had a good point, and nowadays, maybe he's generally right. However, what about Martin Luther King Jr., what about the Christian Abolitionists who stood up against slavery? There are at least historical examples of Christians who sought to correct extremist Christians of their un-Biblical views and who suffered and possibly even lost their lives to do so. I think Christians in the West should be ready to continue to do this when and where it is appropriate, however, I'm still in agreement with my friend that it can come off very paternalistic to tell a people of another faith community that they need to do more to challenge extremist views within those who claim to be of the same faith.

Any thoughts on the way forward?
-Najashi