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Morris Dovey

Mark & Juanita (in ) said:

| You realize that it not the Saudis that we are fighting, right?
| Those Saudis who flew the planes into the towers were not acting at
| the behest of the Saudi government. The Saudis do contribute to
| the problem through their support of Wahabbism, but they are
| careful not to do so within their own boundaries.

Yuppers - nor the typical moslems of any nation. We're discussing a
relatively tiny portion of a large population spread across many
nations.
|
| Now, if you were a Saudi citizen, how would you have been treated
| had you openly attended Sunday School or other "Fellowship
| Services"? Also, how would the Saudis have treated you had you
| offered to share details of your faith? Not in a pushy way, but
| just sharing?

It would probably not have been a big deal if I'd gone to satisfy my
curiosity. If I attended for any other reason, I'd probably have been
admonished.

I did, in fact have a number of conversations with Saudis about both
Christianity and Islam. In all of those discussions we were interested
in learning about how the other thought and felt about their beliefs.
I recall being surprised to learn that we shared the same Old
Testament.

| Indonesia has laws that prohibit Christians from openly
| evangelizing or sharing their faith. The converse is not true.

There've been enough pushy JW's ring my doorbell that I might've been
tempted to pass that same law, given the opportunity.

| Back to the point, it's not the Saudis, or the Kuwaities, or the
| UAE citizens that are the issue and they aren't the ones openly and
| actively pushing the concept of jihad on the west (they may be
| quietly supporting and abetting, but that's a different issue).
| They aren't the ones who are going to be issuing the ultimatums ---
| it's those who are pursuing the radical agenda that are going to be
| making those offers.

Agreed.

||| Realize that for the people committing these acts and the
||| countries that harbor them or are controlled by them, islam is
||| more than just a religion; it *is* their whole culture and way of
||| life. From enslaving their women in the hajib and burka to the
||| rejection of all things islam to the way they treat their
||| criminals. The sharia law is their whole goal and the spread of
||| islam to the entire world is their raison' de' etre'.
||| Unfortunately, unlike orthodox Christianity in its evangelism,
||| islam is founded on spreading by the sword and killing those who
||| fail to convert is absolutely condoned. [yeah, I know about the
||| inquisition --- that does *not* count as orthodox Christianity,
||| there was nothing scriptural about that activity]. Take a look at
||| the current islamic rise in France and England; once these groups
||| get power in small regions to implement sharia, they will spread
||| and attempt to implement that in larger regions as well. Note
||| that in those countries, the groups aren't calling for equal
||| rights, they are calling for extra rights and the ability to live
||| outside of the rest of the cultural norm.
||
|| s Yeah, we all know this stuff - the problem is that when I was
|| there I saw no evidence of any of it. The adult male Saudis that I
|| met loved their families but appropriately didn't share (and I
|| didn't pry) intimate details. My mother visited (by invitation)
|| with arab women and wouldn't say much about it to me other than to
|| say that they seemed like good and happy people. Mom was _the_
|| anti-gossip and wasn't bashful about telling me that some things
|| were "none of your business."
||
|
| You are aware of the riots in France, the push for allowing
| various communities in London and areas in Canada to be ruled by
| sharia? Those folks aren't playing "good and happy people" nor are
| they assimilating into the countries into which they have emigrated
| -- they are attempting to get those countries to conform to *their*
| culture.

Yup.

| I have also read other first-person accounts of dealings with the
| Arab world. One of the most telling statements was, "I found that
| I liked them, but couldn't respect them". I also know, through my
| wife's acquaintances, a woman whose husband was in Saudi -- she had
| very interesting observations regarding their views of western
| women.

Well, I was a kid and my parents required that I show respect to all
adults. I did so and in return was treated with respect by them - and
somewhere along this process of treating each other with respect, I
found myself experiencing a very real respect.

I never had any contact with Saudi women so can't offer any first-hand
experience. I will, however, suggest that foreign women (no matter
where you are) seem to be considered either exotic or weird (or both).

||| The silence from the "moderate" muslims condemning these acts is
||| deafening. While there are a few moderate voices, they are few
||| and far between and very often accompanied by a whole bunch of
||| "but monkeys". i.e. "but you have to understand ... " "but you
||| don't realize their ... " etc.
||
|| I suspect that if I were a Muslim, I'd probably decide that
|| discretion was the better part of valor, too. They also watched
|| the 89 people of 'different' religious conviction die in Waco.
|| Hell, that even made me wary.
|
| You have got to be kidding.
|
| We have Time magazine fabricate a story about desecrating the
| Koran and the muslims seethe, rage, riot and burn churches and kill
| people.
|
| We have somebody draw cartoons and the muslim world seethes,
| burns churches and kills people.
|
| A pope makes a statement referencing an 13'th century pope's
| comments regarding how islam tends to be violent and we get muslims
| seething, rioting, burning churches, and killing people. Then they
| make the statement that anyone calling their religion violent
| should have their head cut off.

Those reactions /are/ extreme. One of the questions worth asking might
be how many people were participating out of a moslem population of
how many? You speak as if all moslems went off the deep end; but I
know that not all did.

| Now, you might say that the moderates are afraid of these people,
| but at the same time, that doesn't speak well for the direction
| that religion is taking, does it? Somehow you tie their failure to
| speak out to Janet Reno's attack on Waco?

Does it speak at all of the direction Islam is taking? If the KKK
plants a burning cross in someone's front yard, does that speak of the
direction Christianity is taking? If the Attorney General sets up an
operation that causes the deaths of 89 men, women, and children of a
fringe religious sect, does that speak to the direction the US
government is taking WRT religious groups?

| You still haven't provided your answer; given the jihadi's
| going-in negotiating position, what is your counter-offer? Simply
| saying, weill I was in Saudi Arabia and they are really nice people
| who didn't bother me is not going to work.

I didn't, did I? Why would you conclude that I would join in such a
negotiation? My most likely response would be "I'm not interested. Go
to hell," just as it would be to the KKK, the skinheads, any other
kind of extremists who offered a similarly unacceptable set of
choices.

Right here in the States I've been threatened, I've been shot at on
two occasions, and I've actually been hurt a couple of times; but I
seem to lack the circuitry for it to upset my applecart.

And finally, no - they are not free to kill me. They can choose to
/try/ - but I am similarly free to avoid being killed; and I'm free to
dispatch individuals who make that attempt.

You missed my point, BTW, on the Saudis (but also the Lebanese,
Pakistanis, et al). I didn't say that they were nice people who didn't
bother me - or I didn't mean to convey that. In more clear terms,
those I got to know were /good/ people who accepted me exactly as I
was. Not tolerated - accepted.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto