While I do not wish to throw fuel on a fire, I feel as a Shamanic
Pagan, I should chime in on this religion thread that seems to be
starting to turn into a bitch-fest over Christianity versus Islam.
As a person who takes pride in his religious traditions, I can
understand the desire to share the virtues of what I venerate with
others, but I do not feel that a Yahoo! Group that is composed of
primarily Gay men is the proper place for such a discussion. But
with the door cracked open on this topic, I'd like to share a couple
of comments their religion to this group.

Both Christianity and Islam are true recognized religions. The
Christian may not be aware that Islam incorporates many of the
Christian traditions into its belief system and is a very peaceful
and honorable religion. There are a lot more Muslims in the world
than Christians by a 3 to 1 ratio. While most people link the Arab
world with Islam, all races of man venerate it worldwide.

The practitioners of Islam have been a lot more tolerant to other
religions than most people would believe. Unlike the invading
Christians who had no tolerance to other religious traditions,
Muslims would go to a new town and ask to be allowed to practice
their religion in peace and harmony along with the other religions.
If they were accepted, all was well, but if they received the butt
of intolerance, then the swords were drawn and in the name of Allah,
they entered into Holy War. The Christians never gave practitioners
of other religions that much tolerance.

Yes, there are Muslims out there that are violent and do terrorist
acts, but there are Christians that do the same thing too. What
about the terrorist acts of bombing abortion clinics, the
assignations of doctors that perform abortions, the burning at the
stake of men and women that allegedly practiced alternative
traditions thought to be witchcraft, and let's not forget the vile
acts that have been done to our Gay brothers and sisters over the
ages. Weren't those Christians that strung up that Gay teen in the
Midwest and left him to die? What about that preacher that is going
around the US doing those "Die Faggots" protests and wanting to put
up anti-gay memorials? Praise Jesus!

Christians can be as barbaric as anyone else. It was Christians that
taught the Indigenous Americans to scalp in order to prove they had
killed a certain number of people. Wasn't that guy named Hitler
brought up as a Christian and how many people was he responsible for
killing? Yea, no Christian has seized a plane and thrown it into a
building, but I think if the tables were turned, it would not be too
much of a stretch to think they would be capable of doing it. Just
as the Middle East is in turmoil over Islamic rights, there is a war
going on in America over fundamental Christians trying to exert
their views of societal behavior upon the whole of American society
where gays cannot marry each other, scientific research cannot
perform to cure disease, and the spread of disease cannot be
prevented around the world because people cannot be told to use
condoms or practice birth control. The point is there are extremists
in both religions and we all should not make blanket assumptions
because of that.

Frankly, both religions are pretty intolerant in general to
homosexuals. I abandoned the Christian faith because of that
intolerance. I see far too many brothers and sisters having deep
emotional and psychological issues because it has been hammered into
their heads they are going to burn in Hellfire for all eternity
because of their sexual orientation. While I am admittedly not
familiar with the Islamic views towards homosexuality, I can only
assume it is a negative one since there is Christian dogma in its
core belief system. I cannot ally myself to a religion that will not
accept me as I am, my true self.

Jesus taught his followers to love all their brothers and sisters,
especially those who were different from them. He never excluded
anyone and embraced everyone where his path took him. I really
appreciate a line in the movie K-PAX where the alien Prot tells his
doctor how everyone on Earth completely lost the core message of
Jesus' teachings. I feel that was an ultimate truth most are too
blind to see.

While I do not feel this is the place to talk about religious
traditions, I did not mind our Muslim friend sharing his views on
Islam. I do have a problem with friendly sharing of ideas turning
into something that tries to tell him his religion is either a false
religion or how all of its followers are bad people. Both
Christianity and Islam are monotheistic religions and at their core,
they teach their followers that there is only one true way to The
Divine. This is a case of two people at opposite ends of a spectrum
telling the other they are wrong and there is no middle ground. That
is the whole reason this world is so fucked up with religious
turmoil.

I will not detail my religious traditions here but rather say that I
am willing to share my views with anyone that is interested in
writing me directly. You must come to Paganism as we do not
evangelically try to convert the masses. I think most would be
surprised and pleased with it if given the chance.

To be blunt our Christian brother was pretty rude in his diatribe.
While he is entitled to his viewpoint, we should strive to keep out
conversations here a bit more tolerant and constructive.

May you touch The Divine and be one with it, whatever your religious
path is that takes you there.

Blessings to all my brothers

Hal Doby
Aka ThunderChildga