OK, I lied. I am going to post one more time over this despite the
fact I know it is not going to any good and we need to turn the
dialog back to long beards and not stupid, insipid theological
dogma. At least it is going to make me feel better by venting this
way. To my fellow group members who are sick and tired of this, I
beg your forgiveness.

Father Seraphim, for a person that is supposed to be a Christian
religious teacher, mentor, and / or leader, you are throwing off
just as much hate and anger as those radical Muslim clerics you are
lambasting. You are epitomizing everything I have come find
disgustful about the Christian Church and it is people like you that
make me proud to tell everyone I have cast off all the shackles of
your narrow-minded comrades and discovered a higher truth in the
world.

By saying such things as "I simply advocate awareness of the true
nature of Islam" and "Muslims who are kind and gentle and tolerant
are so not because of Islam, but in spite of it" you are showing
just how much you have allowed yourself to take on such a limited
view of a religion that while you pretend to know so much about, you
really know very little of.

No I admit you are not talking about taking up a sword against the
followers of Islam, but your intolerance is certainly setting up a
form of confrontation between those who believe what you say and
those of the Islamic faith. Sure, you're waiting for them to lift
the sword in anger, but you are blind to see that it is your actions
that provoked the confrontation in the first place. How many times
does one have to be poked and proded before he strikes back. I'm
sorry, none of us have the virtues of Jesus and it is simple fact
that human nature will cause one to lash out if pushed far enough.
Your intolerant diatribe that so many others are echoing is part of
the reason we live in such a screwed-up world. Your kind sit there
wondering why that is while continuing to bellow the same crap out
perpetuating the situation.

You can quote all you want from books that were written by Islamic
followers that talk about violence. I can probably match you quote
by qoute with members of your own faith doing the same thing. For
every book that speaks of violence, how many books that advocate
peace and tolerance have you omitted from you reading list?

I make a very earnest attempt to give your religious tradition the
honor and respect that I ask of my own. I do not let the idiotic
ramblings of a few zealots give the entire Christian community a bad
name as you so easily do to Islam. With folks like Jim and Tammy
Bakker, Jim Jones, Jesse Jackson, those seedy televangelists, and
all those Catholic Priests that can't keep their hands off of
innocent children, it's damned hard.

While we're at it, let me mention the fact of how the Catholic
Church is allowing MILLIONS of people to become infected with AIDS
in Africa and Eastern Europe because some big idiot, namely the Pope
feels that talking about or allow using a condom if you are going to
have sex is a big-ass sin. I ask you what's the bigger sin: Letting
millions of people die a horrible death while spreading the disease
to others, or preventing a single baby from being born to parents
that don't want it?

It further makes me ill for people like you to throw a liberal label
on those who see things differently than you. We are entering into a
sad period of American history where the religious fundamentalists
like you are trying to impose their ideals on the rest of society.
Just as the Taliban created a brutal Islamic state in Afghanistan,
your contemporaries are attempting to do the same thing under the
banner of your precious Lord Jesus Christ in America.

If people are waking up and recognizing just how intolerant you and
your kind are, perhaps that liberal label you are pasting on us is a
truncated way of saying we have been liberated from the evil grasp
of your dogma.

End of rant and I feel much better now. Once again, my apologies to
everyone.