Convert the Muslims? Not Winning Hearts and Minds

[Doug]

FALLUJAH, Iraq — At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

"They are trying to convert us to Christianity," said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They'd been given the coins, too, he said.


See here.

[RobertMadewell]

I really don't feel sorry for them at all. I am confronted with similar prosyletizing all the time. At least once a month I get someone knocking on my door. Then they try to pass a chick tract off on me or some other pamphlet filled with bad writing. Just today I saw the woman who is taping cardboard signs on stop signs with messages like "Hell or Jesus?" or "Jesus is God!" This has been going on for a year or so. Yet, I can't get angry. I don't mess with the signs. I politely promise to read the pamphlets, and read them until I can't stand it anymore.

If they don't like the coins (btw, I have seen english versions of these coins.), why can't they just throw them away? That's what I do with the chick tracts. I think it's just silly to make a big deal of this. Compared to the prosyletizing here in the states, those coins are real mild.

However, if the military has a rule against prolyletizing then they need to stop it. Not because of religious reason, but because it's against the rules. The command officers need to enforce it. But they probably look the other way.

[Dardedar]

If they don't like the coins (btw, I have seen english versions of these coins.), why can't they just throw them away? That's what I do with the chick tracts.

DAR
I think Muslims have strict rules against Christians trying to convert them in their own lands. I don't think the punishments are light either. Doug might know the verses.

D.

[RobertMadewell]

Darrel, I think you are right. Wasn't it a year or so ago that a man in Afghanistan was going to be executed just for converting to Xianity?

Still, it makes the islamist look a bit thin-skinned. Thin-skinedness is not a quality that I respect.

[Dardedar]

Darrel, I think you are right. Wasn't it a year or so ago that a man in Afghanistan was going to be executed just for converting to Xianity?

DAR
Right. And they would like to get the people that converted them too. And probably their parents, children, grand children and great grand children.

Still, it makes the islamist look a bit thin-skinned.

DAR
A bit thin-skinned? Where would you get the idea that they are thinned skinned.

This was over a cartoon:



Wouldn't it be nice if I was joking?

[Doug]

This was over a cartoon:

DOUG
What is with the Fantastic 4 sign? I didn't know they were Muslims.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The Muslim religion is younger than Christianity. Think about Christian attitudes towards other religions some 600 years ago (actually, from the moment Christianity became an 'official religion' until the American 'separation of church and state'). Presupposing we survive global warming, they'll outgrow it.