“At least 40 millions Muslim youth in the Muslim world’s religious schools, called madrasas, are avidly memorizing the entire Koran plus a generally extremist body of related traditions—the hadiths” (Don Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 69).
Pietism and Art
“In contrast, from the Middle Ages through the time of the Reformation up to around 1800 when spiritualistic pietism began to drive beauty out of the church (as if one can have inward beauty without the outward signs of it), there may have been simplicity but always beauty in the things Christians did. That was …
Don’t Be Righteous Over Much
“Though justice were to be managed by the most holy, wise, self-denying, and meek men upon the earth, yet there would be much danger in winding it up to the highest. For it is administered by men full of infirmities; there God will not have it strained too high. He will rather have charity to …
Kinda Fun
Today this little blog o’ mine (I’m gonna let it shine!) passed a significant milestone. The January just passed was the first month where I averaged over 4,000 visitors a day. Great to have you all here.
House of War
“Both the Koran and the hadiths effectively divide all of mankind into two camps. Muslim commentators call them the ‘House of Islam’ and the ‘House of War.’ Translation: Anyone who is not a Muslim is assumed to be rejecting Islam. Rejecting Islam equates to attacking Islam, Mohammed and even God. Attacking Islam makes one its …
Wound Too Tight
“Compulsion in such things as we are speaking of is to strain justice so high as to make it the peak of justice, which is the degeneration of it . . . If justice is wound up a peg too high it breaks” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 83).
Religion of Peace
“Multiple unabashed Muslim sources varyingly describe Mohammed himself presiding over the beheading of at least 500 Jewish men, five at a time. Their bodies were buried in a long ditch. Other Muslim sources place the number of Jewish men slain as high as 900. Their wives and daughters became sex slaves for Muslim men . …
Humility Produces Great Art
“But even if artists did not have the high honor we tend to grant them today . . . they did make beautiful things—so beautiful, in fact, that we so many centuries later still go to look at their works and often pay much to have their works restored in order to hand them down …
A Ditch on Both Sides of the Road
“Some think all things should be suffered, and they are loose and cause divisions on the one hand. Others think nothing is to be suffered, and these are rigid and cause divisions on the other hand” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 69).
Pious Mutilation
“Islam’s widespread practice of amputating the clitoris and sometimes part or even all of the vulva from the genitalia of Muslim women, affirmed in a hadith by Mohammed himself, most like also traces back to the founder’s deliberate abuse of sex to lure pagan males into his cult” (Don Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. …