07-17-2009, 11:48 PM
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-new...m-without-idols
Paganism without idols
By M. A. Niazi | Published: July 17, 2009
One of the abiding misconceptions of the War on Terror is that it is a war on Muslims as a continuation of the Crusades, which were definitely a war of Christianity with Islam. This is because the West of today is essentially pagan with a Christian veneer, and wishes Muslims to complete their conversion to the same paganism, and is now struggling to make that conversion complete. It should not be forgotten that the faith of Judaism and Christianity are the same as Islam. Indeed, according to devout Muslims, all three faiths are identical, and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was merely the Last Messenger in a chain that had previously been among the Jews. So had Jesus, only he was rejected by the Jews themselves, and accepted by the Gentiles, to the extent of being accepted by the Roman Empire itself, and adopted as the Empire's religion.
The West was still Christian when it embarked on its imperialist enterprise, which engulfed the Muslim world. However, before decolonisation, it moved. It had already adopted capitalism as its economic system, and it thereupon adopted pagan values to live lives according to. The ideas of paganism had long been present, especially after the post-Renaissance revival of classical learning, but it was only at the turn of the 20th century, just before the First World War, that they were widely adopted, at about the same time as socialism or communism won so many supporters.
While the Christian West had certain shared values with the Muslim World then, it jettisoned these values now. It set-up as the measure of all things Man, and made humanism the ultimate good. Though there was no reversion to the idol worship of the ancient pagans, there was the setting up of untouchable shibboleths, in the form of the freedoms. These were ultimately borrowed from the French Revolution, from its Rights of Man, so that Revolution, even though it was predated by the American, became the seminal Western Revolution, with all of its rigmarole of a new calendar and a new religion, with its virulent anti-clericalism. Western man no longer was willing to be judged by the Almighty, as was Islamic man; and that was the main difference. The Afterlife might have been foretold, but it included a Judgement according to a code, which had been revealed through the Prophets. That this code had included a number of direct instructions was only accepted by Orthodox Jews and Muslims, but not Christians, who had not followed the laws of Moses for centuries before they finally left the teachings of Jesus. The code was also abandoned by the Jews, as they attempted to assimilate and abandoned orthodoxy, and decided to take a national homeland in the Middle East, ignoring the rights of those who were settled there before them.
Paganism without idols
By M. A. Niazi | Published: July 17, 2009
One of the abiding misconceptions of the War on Terror is that it is a war on Muslims as a continuation of the Crusades, which were definitely a war of Christianity with Islam. This is because the West of today is essentially pagan with a Christian veneer, and wishes Muslims to complete their conversion to the same paganism, and is now struggling to make that conversion complete. It should not be forgotten that the faith of Judaism and Christianity are the same as Islam. Indeed, according to devout Muslims, all three faiths are identical, and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was merely the Last Messenger in a chain that had previously been among the Jews. So had Jesus, only he was rejected by the Jews themselves, and accepted by the Gentiles, to the extent of being accepted by the Roman Empire itself, and adopted as the Empire's religion.
The West was still Christian when it embarked on its imperialist enterprise, which engulfed the Muslim world. However, before decolonisation, it moved. It had already adopted capitalism as its economic system, and it thereupon adopted pagan values to live lives according to. The ideas of paganism had long been present, especially after the post-Renaissance revival of classical learning, but it was only at the turn of the 20th century, just before the First World War, that they were widely adopted, at about the same time as socialism or communism won so many supporters.
While the Christian West had certain shared values with the Muslim World then, it jettisoned these values now. It set-up as the measure of all things Man, and made humanism the ultimate good. Though there was no reversion to the idol worship of the ancient pagans, there was the setting up of untouchable shibboleths, in the form of the freedoms. These were ultimately borrowed from the French Revolution, from its Rights of Man, so that Revolution, even though it was predated by the American, became the seminal Western Revolution, with all of its rigmarole of a new calendar and a new religion, with its virulent anti-clericalism. Western man no longer was willing to be judged by the Almighty, as was Islamic man; and that was the main difference. The Afterlife might have been foretold, but it included a Judgement according to a code, which had been revealed through the Prophets. That this code had included a number of direct instructions was only accepted by Orthodox Jews and Muslims, but not Christians, who had not followed the laws of Moses for centuries before they finally left the teachings of Jesus. The code was also abandoned by the Jews, as they attempted to assimilate and abandoned orthodoxy, and decided to take a national homeland in the Middle East, ignoring the rights of those who were settled there before them.