True or False statement regarding Christians and Muslims in the United States

Turkey was a secular nation of muslims until recently. Women had even more freedom and representation in the government than they did in the U.S.

Edrogen, a power hungry muslim fundementalist who gives assistance to ISIS, has made Turkey much less secular. But, the same thing would happen in this country if the Christian nut jobs here got their way.

 

So is this an answer to one of my questions?

Secular Turkey teaches mandatory Islam in public schools.

 

Yeah, you were saying that you did not think a free society would be possible in an Islamic nation, and I was just pointing out that Turkey, and Islamic nation, has had a functioning democracy committed to secularism for most of the last 100 years.

Now, Turkey is not my idea of some great shining utopia mind you -- but then again neither is the United States.

 

But you could argue that the very reason the democracy was functioning somewhat (aside from the fact that the "democracy" was only secured by frequent takeovers of power by the military) was that political Islam was suppressed by the Kemalists. So, rather than being an example for Islam and democracy being compatible, it is in fact evidence that the only way a secular society can be somewhat democratic and functional in a predominantly Muslim environment is if political Islam is curtailed.

So, basically, the exact opposite of what you cited it as evidence of.

 

No no no -- that is exactly what I am saying. I agree with your entire first paragraph. The only thing I would change is, where you say "Islam" I say "religion" as a whole.

Go back and look at the conversation I was having. okie was saying that this was a founded as a Christian nation -- which is untrue and was demonstrated. Then he said that only a christian nation could have a secular democracy, but Turkey is an example that this is not the case -- it shows that a nation with a muslim population can also create a non-religious democratic government.

You see what I am saying now?

My point is not that Islam promotes liberty and democracy, rather it is that no religion does -- and that, no matter what religion a nation has, if that nation turns to secularism, then that nation can have liberty and democracy... but only to the extent that they remain secular.

I wish Edrogen's Islamist Daesh supporting a** was dead, and I hope no Christian versions of him ever gain power in the United States.

 

The Turkish government finances Sunni Mosques and pays their Imams. Do you really think that this is anything like our country?

 

You don't remember when Bush made it to where the government could give federal dollars to Faith Based Organizations?

And you know other democracies in the western world do not have tax exempt status for the huge Church industry -- those tax exemptions are a choice by our government that allows Churches to be not just profitable, but to also act as tax shelters and hot beds of embezzlement.

 

What tax shelters and embezzlement has happened? Do you have any statistics on the amount of abuse that happens across churches in general?

 

Here's just one example found with a cursory search:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations

And the IRS has seen this happen enough to where they have apaprantly had to make new rules to help prohibit it:

www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Increased-Tax-Shelter-Penalties-for-Exempt-Organizations

And that is just a very quick search.

 

Do you think that the US would exist as we know it if our founding fathers were Muslim?

 

No, I don't. But I also don't think it would exist as we know it if the founding fathers would have all been Christians .

Now, if we had a population that was as muslim as ours was Christian, with leaders that were as secular as Jefferson, Adams etc, then, yes, I think our nation would have existed pretty much as we know it.

 

I do agree that our founding fathers definitely understood the importance of removing religion from the rule of law. I'm not sure you give enough credit to the fact that they were predominantly Christian by a large margin and still understood this but that is a point that is not worth arguing.

Protecting the freedom of religion is just as important as not allowing it to enter into the rule of law. It is right there with free speech. I don't believe that Islam will ever evolve to the point where they demand tolerance of any other religion. Until that happens there will never be a Muslim state that is truly free.

So to end this for me as an answer to the OP this is why I think that radical Muslims are more of a threat than radical Christians because we have had radical Christians all along and have been able to deal with them fairly easily.

 

I think it is worth arguing, because it is completely not true historically. You are basing your view of the world on things that are demonstrably false.

 

Right... except the fact that there isn't and hasnt been and isn't a seperation of Church and State, Turkey has mandatory religious classes for children... the goverment oversees and appoints leaders to the Mosques in Turkey... the tax payers pay for the salaries of the Islamic Imams ...Catholics and many other religions are not even recognized by the government... what happens if a political party supports doing away with the state funding of Islam? It can be banned... in the last 10o years Turkey has commited large scale genocide of native Catholics in Turkey... consistently over the last 75 years Turkey has seized hundreds of Catholic Churches without compensation or explanation.... other churches have been destroyed by fire or demolition....

Yeah.... it has been a secular state my ass..... but this fits your other absurb, and honestly, dangerous ideology about the world around you.

 

This is the biggest load of BS.

The USA is not a model Christian nation by any stretch of the imagination and never has been. There have been people that have ruled that have claimed to be Christian but when push came to shove, the religious principles were always sacrificed for practicality, financial reasons or general sentiment.

Hell many of the Founding Fathers were Diests which is radically different that what traditional Christianity was viewed as.

 

Are you saying that it is false that the majority of the men who signed the declaration of independence were Christian? Are you saying that the majority of the population of the US at the time was not Christian? Why don't you demonstrate what is false?

 

Just as I said to ATW, they have liberty and democracy to the extent that they are secular. As you have pointed out, they do not have the level of secularism that we have in the U.S. or that other Western nations have, but they do have an official policy of secularism.

That policy of secularism has allowed them to have the level of democracy and liberality that they have attained (which is beyond most Muslim nations), and if they become more secular then I think they would increase their level of each. Unfortunately they are becoming less secular at the moment.

 

The majority of the population of the United States was Christian when this nation was founded and it is still true today. I have no idea what a model Christian nation is but this is a nation of Christians whether you like it or not.