After writing my “NYC: A Quick Visit to the Park 51 Mosque” article, I decided to send an email to John Lichten who is one of the Mosque’s non-Muslim employees.
Christopher Logan
To john.lichten@park51.orgHello John,
Last night I was reviewing the Park 51 blog. After reading your welcome letter I just have one quick question for you. As a Christian how can you support a religion that calls for the dominance of Christians?
Thank you,
Christopher
The following email was shortly sent back to me by John.
John Lichten
To Christopher LoganHello Christopher,
Thank you for writing. On a rather basic level, I support Islam as an American Christian, since America is a country which specifically forbids one religion dominating over the other. Actually, one reason as to why I wanted to work for Park51 was that many of the remarks against Park51 appeared claiming America as a “Christian country” – not only were these statements going against the intentions of the founders (who openly welcomed Muslims), but the statements were also being used to make Christianity dominate over other religions!
Theologically, I can’t really comment, as I don’t know enough about either religion (IIRC, the bible doesn’t talk about Christian-Jewish relations at all, whereas the quran talks about them a lot due to the different circumstances regarding their origins, but don’t quote me on that). However, from a historical perspective, and as a Protestant with Jewish ancestry, I would have much rather lived in Muslim Spain where I would’ve been taxed extra but mostly left alone, than in Inquisition-era Spain where my non-Catholic identity would’ve had me exiled or worse.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!
Thank you,
John Lichten
Park51
Besides wanting to point out some facts to John, I had a few other questions for him.
Christopher Logan
To john.lichten@park51.orgHi John,
Thanks for responding. In my previous email I had mentioned that Islam calls for the dominance of Christians, and now you are telling me you are against any religion dominating another. Yet you still support Islam. No offense, but that does not make sense.
009.029 (People of the book means Christians and Jews)
YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.The Founding Fathers were warned about Islam and they made a huge mistake by allowing it to be practiced here in the first place.
During the year 1786 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to speak with Tripoli’s Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. Jefferson and Adams asked the Ambassador how can they make war on nations that have done nothing to them? The Ambassador replied that “It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once”.
Islam allows rape, slavery and lying. Are you saying that fits in with the intentions of our founders?
John Quincy Adams on Islam:
“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, […..] Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST.- TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant … While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”
In your second paragraph you admit that you know little about Islam. Do you always stand up for things you know little about? This is not the era of Muslim Spain. But do you know how Islam got as far as Spain? Do you know that the Islamic scriptures call for Muslims to fight and kill Jews to reach judgement day?
Muslim Hadith Book 041, Number 6985:
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
Are you willing to have your family’s future generations living under Islamic Law? If the answer is no then why are you promoting Islam?
Also ask yourself why your Muslim co-workers did not disclose this information to you. If any of them want to debate me on this, just have them show up here.
Thank you,
Chris
As of now John has gone lights out on me.
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