McCain's Islamic Problem Isn't a Preacher Problem

I find this post and your philosophy as excellent companion reading to Vincent Bugliosi's book: The Prosecution of George W. Bus for Murder.

In fact, I don't think I could get through the day without both doses of reality-at the moment.

Thank you, Mr. Chopra.

PS. One small editorial note: typo in the last paragraph says without McCain "stopping" should be "stooping"

Thousands of crimes are committed in the name of religion. Warfare, terrorism, and corruption are perpetrated by those who claim to serve God. Religion seems to be at the root of so many problems.

The fault lies, not with all religion, but with false religion. A widely respected religious figure, Jesus Christ, indicated that false religion produces bad works, just as a “rotten tree produces worthless fruit.” (Matthew 7:15-17)

False religion meddles in war and politics. A prominent religious leader in the United States declared: “You’ve got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops.” His solution? “Blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” By contrast, the Bible says: “If anyone makes the statement: ‘I love God,’ and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus even said: “Continue to love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44)

False religion spreads false doctrine. Most religions teach that the soul or spirit is some invisible part of a human that survives the death of the physical body. By means of this teaching, many of these religions exploit their members, charging money to pray for departed souls. However, the Bible teaches a different doctrine. “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.” (Ezekiel 18:4) “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) Jesus taught that the dead will be resurrected—an unnecessary action if humans had an immortal soul. (John 11:11-25)

Jesus warned: “Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 7:19) According to the Bible, false religion will be chopped down and destroyed. A prophetic vision recorded in the Bible book of Revelation, chapters 17 and 18, explains how and when this will happen.

False religion exerts influence “over the kings of the earth”. And yet, this influence will end along with all false religion.

In the Bible book of Revelation, a harlot is sitting on the back of a fearsome beast. The beast has seven heads and ten horns. (Revelation 17:1-4) The harlot exerts influence “over the kings of the earth.” She dresses in purple, uses incense, and is exceedingly wealthy. In addition, by means of her spiritistic practice, ‘all the nations are misled.’ (Revelation 17:18; 18:12, 13, 23) The Bible helps us to see that this harlot is a worldwide religious entity. She depicts, not any one religion, but all religions that produce rotten fruit.
The beast that the harlot rides pictures the world’s political powers. (Revelation 17:10-13) False religion straddles the back of this political beast, attempting to influence its decisions and to control its direction.
“The ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire.” (Revelation 17:16) In a sudden, shocking move, the world’s political powers will turn on false religion and completely destroy her.The Bible book of Revelation shows what will prompt this action: “God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought.” (Revelation 17:17) God will call false religion to account for all the despicable acts she has committed in his name. In a stroke of perfect justice, he will use her political paramours as his instrument of execution.
If you do not want to share the fate of false religion, you must “Get out of her, my people,” urges God’s messenger. (Revelation 18:4)

According to the Bible, Islam fits the definition of a false religion and it will be destroyed. But almost every so-called Christian religion fits that same definition of false religion. They too will be destroyed. The real question is: How can you identify true religion. The answer is found in the Bible.

True religion produces good fruit.- Matthew 7:17.
True religion practices love. True worshippers are “no part of the world,” are not divided by race or culture, and display ‘love among themselves.’ (John 13:35; 17:16; Acts 10:34, 35) Rather than killing one another, they are willing to die for one another.—1 John 3:16.

True religion trusts God’s Word instead of teaching “tradition” and “commands of men as doctrines,” true religion bases its doctrine on God’s Word, the Bible (Matthew 15:6-9) because “all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight.”—2 Timothy 3:16.

True religion strengthens families and upholds high moral standards. True religion trains husbands to ‘love their wives as their own bodies,’ helps wives to develop ‘deep respect for their husbands,’ and teaches children to ‘be obedient to their parents.’ (Ephesians 5:28, 33; 6:1) In addition, those entrusted with positions of authority must have exemplary morals.—1 Timothy 3:1-10.

Find the religion that fits this criteria, and you will have found the true religion.

True religion is only a factor in an election where there is mandatory voting that carries punishment for non-compliance. True worshipers will not vote in an election because they support God's Kingdom.

Aka NiCOLAiTANS!

Mr. Chopra you get a bit carried away in your post. It comes out as if you were equating Islam with Christianity on the issue of defending God. Well, I am sorry to say you are completely off on this one.

Islam is a dogmatic religion and while I grant you that Christianity has its own brand of religious dogma practiced by the religious right, there is only that sliver of overlap that I can see. It's as if a huge circle of religious dogma representing Islam and its followers is intersecting with a small (really small) circle of religious right Christian fundamentalists in the US (that breed is almost extint in Europe). It's an intersection of circles of completely different sizes. I for one have not met any Muslim who is not a fanatic if by fanatic you mean that they believe Koran to be the word of God and believe in related Islamic dogma. A liberal Muslim is like a rare wildflower growing on some mountain top.

Moreover, the Christian right really does not impose their views on the rest of the world. They lead rather insular lives. I am hardly bothered by them. I cannot say that for Muslims. The terrorism that is spawned by some of the more radical elements within Islam has a global impact. So please don't get carried away by your liberalism. The post is a gross distortion of the facts.

And that injection was largely because the media as it always does has become fascinated by a bunch of people they don't even begin to comprehend.

We'd been hearing about 'values voters' - a peculiar nomenclature used by newspaper editorial boards and leftist TV hacks since Bush beat Kerry by 4% as a stand in for people that believe in some sort of God - since 2004.

So when two religious people - one an actual pastor (a term your average newspaper reporter probably had to look up)- Rather than asking them questions about policy and such things that actually matter all they did was hit them with religious questions. What were the candidates supposed to do? Not answer the question?

John McCain is proving himself to be no better than George Bush/Dick Chenney. He will say anything the radical Christian militants want to hear, anything the fiscal conservatives want to hear and anything the zenophobic white old men (and women) want to hear to get elected. What he won't say is what his definition of "winning" in Iraq. When asked about foreclosures his answer was nearly as short as Chenney's "so".At least he is not lying about being a compassionate conservative. He knows a "good" conservative has no compassion!

QQ:

The answer would be something on the lines of

/headline/

"A group of geologists discover an Islamic country above American oil" :P

Amen on the concept that God does not need defending! Unfortunately, the theology of Islam demands it.

We Americans are generally comfortable with the idea of separation of church and state, and just blow off all the rabid Christian rhetoric -- but this is a total disconnect for many of the world's Muslims. It is incomprehensible to them that a virulent preacher whispering in McCain's ear would not have more authority than the law of the land....

So McCain does have a preacher problem....

Romney would have been a much better choice as president since his Mormon background is theologically neutral towards both Muslim and Jew. Of course Ron Paul is the only candidate who really "gets" the Middle East.

Maryann...
No, Michelle has been away with their children. She got back and was on the campaign trail today...she would make a better candidate then Hillary.

As far as Obama...what do you not like about him?

People make those snide remarks but do not make a reasonable answer on what they have against him.

I really am curious..I find him principled, honest, intelligent, I like his policies...he has a sense of humor, can laugh at himself..and he can work with all kinds of different people. He is Christian, but I feel that as a Pagan I would be as valued. I know those things have not been in evidence in the administration we currently have...but I sure am ready for it.

terra

OBAMA 08!

GARYD - while having another republican president ranks right up there as the least desirable of all possible outcomes in the near term, other things have occurred recently that are less than desirable. Injecting religion front and center in our current presidential campaign is pretty undesirable in it's own right - but that seems to be our present political vote-getting reality all around.

I suspect this is in part a function of wringing out the collective consciousness of America through a protracted war. Of course it started on 9/11, but has grown exponentially ever since with the occupation and fallout from Iraq, and the more recent revelations of corporate greed in financial institutions that have bottomed out our economy - all the while supported by the Bush administration.....up to this very minute.

While people seem to be turning to religion, this could be a misapprehension of what's really occuring - perhaps people are beginning to understand that in government as elsewhere, you get what you pay for. First Bush (twice), then the ongoing war, and now local & global financial disaster.

Are people doing the math?? Rather than facing the enigma of our current downward trending societal situation, politics saturated with religion is simply a diversion....frankly the necessary solutions to our self-created problems are so daunting, it's no wonder candidates are hiding behind the smokescreen of their religious alliances.

Since I associate a good many of these problems with either past republican dominance or the current congressional republican obstructionism that we live with despite their minority status, it's safe to say that it's not just another republican president that I fear - I'd like to see the GOP, in it's recent neocon incarnation, gone from the body politic for a very long time to come..........or at least a very scarce presence in domestic and foreign policy-making processes and decisions.

Other than that, I fear more conservative right-wing republican justices on the Supreme Court - that's about all I can think of for now.

And you sound like a person who thinks nothing ever will happen that you don't like except for the republicans holding the Presidency.

GARYD - predictions, predictions, and more predictions - of what never happened. 'If wishes were horses, then beggers could ride' as my dear departed mother used to say.

Now you sound like one of those Buscho shell game war planner scammers that had to conjure up a really good reason why we invaded Iraq after the WMD hoax went bust.

To this day, there is no concrete evidence available whatsoever, that would or could ever have justified a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq - and just one of many singular 'achievements' of the Bush administration that will go down in infamy.

Read 'American Dynasty' by former Bush insider Kevin Phillips to get a better handle on how we came to invade Iraq without a single valid reason. At least none that the American public has ever been made aware of.

Having been in one false war myself, I, among many others, was uniquely attuned to perceive the conception of yet another false war in Iraq from the very beginning - and for what today remains clandestine and undeclared reasons.

We've heard a thousand excuses, we've had the phony media spin, the surge, and on and on....and we've lost 4000 troops with countless thousands injured for life - and spent down about 1 trillion bucks so far. That doesn't take into consideration the devastation visited on Iraq and the Iraqis.

You don't think this is in part why our economy is in such dire straights today?? One thing the war did accomplish - generating a more united and increasingly wide-spread Islamic fundamentalism and the growth of it's fanatical adherents, just itching for a fight.

We've managed to pitch the 12th century against the 21st century in an ever-escalating battle of technology against the purest form of religious fanaticism (wherein resides a total devotion and dedication to the cause of defeating the 'infidel' enemy for the glory of God). Very simple-minded, but exceedingly effective for waging a protracted war.

Problem is, they've got all the oil..... now that really goes to the heart of this Iraq business.

The task of spreading democracy among traditionally autocratic, monolithic and theocratically driven medieval tribal factions is a fool's game for sure.

Why is the cleric Al Sadr such a high profile figure in Iraq today?? Because he fits perfectly the above outlined description of the preferred contemporary Iraqi leader, now that Saddam is gone...........

That is the true nature of the beast - and so much for the democracy scam.

perspective yours needs a bit of changing.

All you said is predicated upon to statements one of which is obviously false and the other one which almost certainly would have proven false.

The first supposition - the one obviously false is that Saddam Hussein was immortal. Why does this matter? Because the available evidence suggest that his two sons were simply to bug house to be able to effectively keep Iraq together. Not even the Sunnis liked those boys and for good reason. That all but guaranteed some sort of civil war after Saddam died which in turn would have meant Al Queada involvement on one side or the other.

The second supposition was that Saddam would never have made common cause with Al Queada against us. All things considered I don't think there was ever any choice in that regard on Saddam's part. And Al quead being a Sunni out fit stuck in the middle of a Shi'a world would have eventually turned to Saddam for resources if nothing else.

Just a clarification if I might - we took the natural and justified war with al-Qaeda to Iraq, and thus made it a war with Iraq by virtue of our invasion of a sovereign nation. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a war there now.

This may have been God's war as far as Bin Laden and al-Qaeda (in Pakistan and Afghanistan) were concerned, but had nothing to do with Allah in Iraq before we invaded.

We started this war for completely unjustifiable reasons and with the wrong country, and this inconvenient truth haunts us today and will continue to do so for many years to come. Had we stayed focused on the clear and well-defined enemy of the moment (al-Qaeda) we might not be at war with a significant portion of the Muslim world today.

What could have been more stupid on such a monumental scale?? This is the infamous & ignominious Bush legacy and will remain so when this gargantuan national blunder is recorded in the history books of the future.

But you're right about McCain - he remains completely fixated & supportive of continuing in Iraq indefinitely, and with pretty predictable proclivities for extending the war into Iran. His alignment with right-wing evangelical religionists is more than a little worrisome.

After all, these are the apocalyptic rapture-bound nut jobs that see war in the Mideast as a prelude to the End Times....where their true-believing behinds will be sucked up into heaven while the rest of us 'infidels' are cast into eternal damnation for all eternity. This they declare with all the hubris and bombast of a pentacostal preacher.

McCain is such a paltry candidate that it's no wonder he's grasping for straws in his mad peripatetic search for support - hopefully his alignment with Hagee and Parlsey as his spiritual advisors will be the straw that 'broke the preverbial camel's back' as regards his campaign to lead us down the road to Perfidy..........

I suggest that McCain has a strong MORAL compass, but supports war because he has a weak SPIRITUAL consciousness. MORALITY is merely the aggregated opinion of an affinity group one identifies with. It has no significance beyond human temporal existence. SPIRITUALITY comes from personal knowledge of God through love and service to one's fellow man. Obviously, McCain is not alone among candidates or their fellow humans in this failing, but we are all called to do much much better.

How did our oil get under the sand of those Islamofascists? Thats what I want to know.

Our War on Terror and Aggression:

An update (or how are or have we spent USA taxpayers’ money to eliminate global terror and aggression)

A Recent and Partial Body Count:

1a) Assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

1b) 9/11, 3000 mostly US citizens, 1000’s injured.

2) The 24/7 Sunni-Shiite centuries-old blood feud currently being carried out in Iraq, 4000 US troops and 82,109 – 89,605 Iraqi civilians iraqbodycount.org/

3) Kenya- In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.[2]

4) Bali-in 2002-killing 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens. A further 209 people were injured.

5) Bali in 2005- Twenty people were killed, and 129 people were injured by three bombers who killed themselves in the attacks.

6) Spain in 2004- killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.

7) UK in 2005- The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four radical Islamic suicide bombers, injured 700.

Other elements of our War on Terror:

1. Saddam, his sons and major henchmen have been deleted. Saddam's bravado about WMD was one of his major mistakes.

2. Iran is being been contained. (beside containing the Sunni-Shiite civil war in Baghdad, that is the main reason we are in Iraq. And yes, essential oil continues to flow from the region.)

3. Libya has become almost civil. Apparently this new reality from an Islamic country has upset OBL and his “crazies” as they recently threatened Libya. OBL sure is a disgrace to the world especially the Moslem world!!!

4. North Korea is still uncivil but is contained. With the opening up of rail traffic between North and South Korea after 50 years and with the assistance of the US Navy in retrieving NK ships and personnel, a fresh sense of civility is potentially afoot. One of the most eminent US cultural institutions, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, has performed a landmark concert in North Korea.

The concert included music by Western composers and a Korean folk song, and was broadcast live on local television.

Recent threats against South Korea and the test firing of missiles unfortunately muted the appearance of civility.

5. Northern Ireland is finally at peace.

6. The Jews and Palestinians are being separated by walls. Hopefully the walls will follow the 1948 UN accords and the Annapolis Peace Conference is at least somewhat successful.

7. Bin Laden has been cornered under a rock in Western Pakistan since 9/11.

8. Fanatical Islam has basically been contained to the Middle East but a wall between India and Pakistan would be a plus for world peace. Ditto for a wall between Afghahistan and Pakistan.

9.Timothy McVeigh was executed. Terry Nichols will follow soon.

10. Eric Rudolph is spending three life terms in prison with no parole.

11. Jim Jones, David Koresh, Kaczynski, the "nuns" from Rwanda, and the KKK were all dealt with and either eliminated themselves or are being punished.

12. Islamic Sudan, Darfur and Somalia are still terror hot spots.

13. The terror and torture of Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Kuwait were ended by the proper application of the military forces of the USA and her freedom-loving friends.

14. And of course the bloody terror and aggression of the Japanese, Nazis and Communists was with great difficulty eliminated by the good guys.

"America and Iraq have gone to war, implicitly, to preserve God's honor and uphold his truth."

Not true. America went to Iraq to secure the second largest oil reserve in the world. It intended to capture, not combat, the nation. Iraqi resistance to occupation resulted in war. Any talk of God's will is propaganda promulgated by lying hypocrites.

When the British empire reigned supreme, it was common for Brits to speak of their conquests as "the Christian thing to do." They imagined themselves to be noble of purpose, delivering the heathens to a better life. Stuff and nonsense.

If there were no God or belief in God, men would find another excuse for their criminal actions.

Dear Mr. Deepak Chopra

I have always admired you and enjoyed reading your material, until I cam across this from above article:

"America and Iraq have gone to war, implicitly, to preserve God's honor and uphold his truth."

Your a worldly and wise man. How did you come up with that?

Iraq never went to war nor declared war on America. 'Shock and Awe' was a bombardment attack on a sovereign country without any UN approval and against the million of world population who came out on the streets to vent their anger at Bush's plan to bomb Iraq, on trumped up charges, which later proved to be based on lies at worst and hearsay at best.

Iraqis never invoked God or had any animosity towards Americans despite the decade long of starving that country to death, with Clinton's daily bombing of the south of Iraq. Memory is in short supply??

Now we know what happens when a strong army invades a helpless people. They muster any resources to fight back the invaders. In this case religion and God features strongly in their culture, so thy call forth the voices of religion to fight the invaders. That is not very hard for any seasoned person, like yourself to see.

Give them firepower and WMD and they will drop God in a jiffy and fight the US army with like weapons.

Here is another truth. The US/Mossad knew full well that Saddam and Iraqi army was weak and non-existent. That was the reason for attacking Iraq and taking it over in such a short time.

If Iraq had the power of Soviet or China, the US would not dare come near. These are facts. Try playing them sometime in your world views but always come out longing for world peace and brotherhood of man, as you naturally do.

Peace brother.

Bravo, Mr Chopra, for calling a spade a spade.

So now it's a problem for a Christian religious leader to believe that Islam "is a false religion"? The two religions are mutually exclusive. Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God. Muslims believe Jesus to be a prophet who was not the Son of God and did not die on the cross. Muslims believe Mohammed to be a prophet of God and the Koran to be the word of God. Christians do not. You simply cannot believe in Islam and believe Christianity is not false and the same with Christians and Islam. Sure, you can call the other religion "misguided" or something but it comes down to the same thing. You can believe in nothing if you want, but having faith in one religious believe by definition means not having faith in its opposite.

excuse me, what happen to Michele Obama, did
her husband duct tape her mouth. some one should duct tape obama mouth, he speaks out of both sides

As I said on the Your thoughts page only at the periphery.

And true practitioner of any religion we believe somewhere in his soul that other religions are false at one point or the other if not all.