Moderate Muslims and Catholics-Nice But Dumb?

[David Sklansky]

First change "dumb" to "inconsistent". Shocking titles get more hits.

Secondly the two subjects I'm going to bring up are quite seperate and each is important in their own right. But I lumped them together because I see a common thread. A thread that can be applied to many things besides these two.

Moderate Muslims can often be seen denouncing Muslim extremeists who espouse violence with the words that the extremists are twisting the Koran's teachings. I have no idea if that is true. But I do know that there have been many western writers who state the it appears the Koran does indeed advocate what the extremists claim. Since that point is bandied about so much why do the moderates not make a major effort to engage extremists in a public debate showing once and for all that both the extremists and the western journalists are wrong? Is it because an accurate reading of the Koran shows them not to be wrong. Are the moderates simply picking and choosing certain things from the Koran to coincide with common sense and a desire to be nice? Nothing wrong with that but they should admit it.

The Catholic analogy relates to whether it is possible to not believe Jesus is the son of God, (even though he is known to you) and still have a chance at heaven. Apparently the Catholic answer is yes. But the fundamentalist Christian answer is no. The fundamentalists express human anguish at this state of affairs that allows a Jonas Salk to go to hell and a rapist to be saved. But on a higher plane they say that God has good reasons for this and more importantly it is not up to them to contradict what is plainly stated in the New Testament. On the SMP forum some Catholic posters have cited a couple of passages that they claim refutes the fundamentalist position but the fundamentalists, especially the articulate NOT READY, have appeared to be able to quickly dispense with these refutations, explaining how those passages are misconstrued and citing numerous passages that state their position. And at least on our forum the Catholics do not debate further. Are the Catholics simply picking and choosing certain things from the Bible to coincide with common sense and a desire to be nice? Nothing wrong with that but they should admit it.