Comments on: A thoughtful post on Christian/Muslim reconciliation

By: Marc McDermott

Marc McDermott — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:59:29 +0000

Great post. It really gets your thinking. My personal philosophy on tolerance and various religions kind of boils down to something my dad always used to say: eat, drink, and be merry. Why spend time getting worked up over the differences between us; there are so many other things to live for. Don't lose sleep over meaningless things, remember, eat drink and be merry! cheers all, marc mcdermott

By: joela

joela — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:59:05 +0000

Happy holiday, Holly!

By: RobertB

RobertB — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:44:32 +0000

It sounds as though the basic requirements for reconciliation were ignored here. The only thing I can think of is that the organiser probably knew nothing about Islam, and judged it by the sort of extreme position that would never be represented at a meetime like that. The sort of Muslim who thinks it’s wrong to have a long conversation with someone of the opposite sex would be about as likely to turn up as a fundamantalist Christian who thinks that everyone who disagrees with them goes straight to hell.

I’m a Methodist, and I’ve been married to a devout Muslim for 14 years. We’ve argued about everything else, but never about religion, since the two have so much in common. Inevitably, I know loads of Muslim women. Some are stricter than others, some wear the hijab, others don’t. Not one of them has any inhibitions about talking to men. that’s not in the Qur’an, or the Hadith, or the Sunna.

Obviously, we don’t grab each other physically, or display large areas of bare flesh. If they asked people attending the conference to observe that much, that would be reasonable. To impose it on people who have nothing to do with it, isn’t. To put restrictions on who they talk to is absurd.

By: unxplaindfires

unxplaindfires — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:00:51 +0000

Hey Holly

Very interesting read. I agree with your sense of tolerance, though I tend (and this is a trait I willingly admit) to reject anything religious out of hand. It is a bit of closeminedess that I am working on, but I am not one for moral or ethical equivlance. Wrong is wrong no matter the culture of the criminal. I do not subscribe to the “scaredness of scared” either- that something can not be discussed simply because it is reflective of someone’s belief system.
Sarah R. made a very intelligent arguement against the idea of such ambiguous equality in regards to schools of thought.
Thanks for the post and for your refreshing honesty in who you are and what you believe.

Jeff