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Originally Posted by spence
Is this that much different than the founders of our Nation who conquered Native Americans and engaged the trade of African Slaves for over a century?
Yes, it's quite different. The "Native Americans" were conquered by the people whom the Founders revolted against. By the time the Founders were born, most of them were "native" to America. And the conquered "Native Americans" you referred to were conquering each other before they were conquered by various Europeans. And those conquered "Native Americans" didn't consider themselves to be "American."
And the Founders created a deadline for the ending of the Slave trade. And that Slave trade was "inherited" (a term you like to use to excuse Obama of various culpabilities) by the Founders and most of them knew and professed that it was a savagery that needed to be extinguished. And the Founder's Declaration of Independence specifically stated that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that the people would institute their own government. And that government would derive its just powers from the consent of the people who created that government. And that when that government became destructive of those ends, the people had a right to alter or abolish that government.
And the American Founders did not believe in conquering other nations and forcing them to pay tribute or convert to Americanism.
And the American Founders did and said these things contrary to the ways of the world at that time. They didn't institute just another version of the same old tyrannies that ruled the rest of the world. They created something unique to their time.
Do you think that in the medieval sectarian world in which Mohammed lived if you weren't conquering you would be the conquered? You learned that in your religious studies 101 class right?
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Unlike the American Founders, The Founder of Islam, was an active believer in conquest and the enforced conversion or collection of tribute. And he directed that Muslims could enslave and that it was good and righteous to do so. And Muslims were more active in the African slave trade than others, as well as making slaves of Europeans and other non-Muslim Middle Easterners. And they were more brutal about it. And Muhammad did not make a provision for ever ending slavery. The conquest, slavery, brutality, imposed by Muslims on the rest of the world continued many generations after the Founder of Islam had gone to his virgins in the sky. Though it has diminished in recent times, a slave trade still exists in Islam.
And the Founder of Islam made no declaration of equality of all men. He did not proclaim that everyone had unalienable rights. And he did not allow that people could institute their own governments, nor that the government that Muhammad created would operate by consent of the people. He did not allow that there were any reasons or rights that Muslims could have to alter or abolish Islam. He, unlike the American founders, created his own version of the tyrannies of his time.
It wasn't because Muhammad's time was just so immersed in tyranny and conquest and slavery and brutality that he couldn't escape the norm and create something more egalitarian, loving, accepting. Christianity emerged in the midst of as brutal times six centuries before Islam.
And therein is the difficulty of reforming Islam. Its Founder's actions and decrees are the opposite of the fundamental transformation required to make Islam a partner with present day religions and governments. Christ, as a model for Christianity, can still fully be embraced. Muhammad, to make Islam up to date, would have to be eliminated or recast as someone else. Or just quietly be ignored.
And, unlike Islam, America's Founders can still be looked to as models for how to govern.