Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've told my boys that upon reaching the age of 18, they are free to practice whatever beliefs they hold, as forcing my beliefs onto them becomes a moot point when they go beyond the age of reason.
As for the person in the original post who stated to you that Muslims don't believe in God, she is sorely mistaken. I spent 18 months in the Gulf total, and if there are any people who believe in God, it's the people of the Islamic faith. The worst that you can say about them is they are a "heretical cult" of the Judeo-Christian family of beliefs. They say that Allah is the same as Yahweh/Jehovah/God, and that we are the ones who have mistaken our beliefs as the true ones.
I digress.
Forcing one's beliefs onto another is one of the causes of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and a myriad of other bloody and horrendous series of crimes that man has perpetrated upon his fellow human beings. People who endorse this sort of thing belong to the school of "kill 'em all, and let God sort them out, He will surely know His own". In other words, God help the inoocent.
Religious persecution was what caused our forefathers (even if they weren't white) to flee Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Puritans were a group that fled traditional Anglican faith for a place to practice in peace. Ditto Quakers, Ditto Catholics in Maryland. Heugenots fled France and settled in Acadia and fled from there to N'Orleans (hence Cajun).
Are we less than the people who founded this country? Do we not believe that the right to practice the religion of our choice is not part and parcel of the Bill of Rights? Separation of church and state was dedicated to the idea that without a state church, people could not be forced by the government or their peers to worship in a way which went against their beliefs.
I believe in God. Christ himself said thet in His Father's house, there were many mansions. These mansions (IMO) were where the families of beliefs were being housed. Not for people to enjoy a material benefit that would be less than useless to spiritual beings.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
