Kerry in Ottawa: ‘Legitimate and Beautiful Religion… Totally Distorted’ by Attackers

[rangerrebew]

- The PJ Tatler - http://pjmedia.com/tatler -



Kerry in Ottawa: ‘Legitimate and Beautiful Religion… Totally Distorted’ by Attackers

Posted By Bridget Johnson On October 29, 2014 @ 7:21 am In Politics,Terrorism | 2 Comments


Secretary of State John Kerry met with U.S. Embassy staff in Ottawa on Tuesday, thanking them for getting through a “pretty jarring” lockdown after last week’s terrorist attacks, including on the parliament building.

“We’re living in an incredibly challenging time. It’s almost cliched now to sort of say that, because it doesn’t fully bring home to people the full measure of challenge that we all face. I’m sure some of you have served in Kabul or Baghdad, and the last thing you expected was to come to Ottawa, know that there were gunshots in the streets and that the parliament was potentially under siege and certainly assaulted by one individual with weapons,” Kerry said.

“That brings home to us that this is a different kind of challenge. This – the challenge of our generation is going to be to deal with religious radical extremism, which exploits a legitimate and beautiful religion that is being totally distorted, has nothing to do with what they purport to be pursuing, and nevertheless captures the minds of some of our young people, even in America. We have over a hundred people who’ve gone over there to fight with ISIL. Several hundred from France, from Germany, from Britain, from Holland, from the Netherlands, from Australia – run around the world.”

Kerry said the battled has to be won with “ideas” and not just ”our efforts on the ground in this coalition with kinetic efforts.”

“And we’re also going to win it with better alternatives for a whole bunch of young people who today live in places where they feel oppressed, where they don’t have a lot of opportunity, there’s not enough education, they don’t have jobs, but they know what the rest of the world has because they all have smart phones, they all have mobile devices, and they’re all seeing what’s going on and they trade thoughts,” he said.

“…So our challenge is to not make them think that modernity and rule of law and civil society and states that have long existed is somehow the enemy.”

Kerry warned the diplomats “it could get harder before it gets easier in some ways in certain parts of this journey.”


Article printed from The PJ Tatler: http://pjmedia.com/tatler

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/10/29/kerry-in-ottawa-legitimate-and-beautiful-religion-totally-distorted-by-attackers/

[DCPatriot]

Think George Costanza here....somebody must have photos of John Kerry in the shower.

"WHAT!  WAIT!!   The water was COLD!!"

[mountaineer]

For your reading pleasure:

Question:
Does the Quran really contain dozens of verses promoting violence?

 Summary Answer:
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text.  They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.   

The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God, however this can work both ways.  Most of today's Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence.  Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny.  Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.

Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed.  Muhammad's own martial legacy - and that of his companions - along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.

More at The Religion of Peace.com