THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
Opinion
Editors Notes: There is so much wrong with this copy and paste from Elizbeth Warren's website that we can hardly begin to unpack all the things that are factually wrong, false or just flat out lies and mischaracterizations of the real world we live in. It is a shameful and shocking display of ignorance and hate for one of our most scared GOD-given rights.
Elizabeth Warren img elizabethwarrendotcom
Nevada – -(AmmoLand.com)- I apologize for the length of this, but Elizabeth’s Warns plan to take away your gun rights is over 3,000 words long and include new ways to take away your rights that even Mike Bloomberg hasn’t thought of yet, including limiting your free speech rights as gun owners to get involved politically and to speak out against bad and dangerous gun laws.
While NVFAC PAC is a state PAC and we don’t get involved in federal elections, it’s worth the time to read Elizbeth Warren plan because it includes every new anti-gun initiative we will be opposing over the next decade in Nevada.
Elizabeth Warren in her own words and what she vows to do to our right to keep and bear arms: (what follows is quoted directly from her website)
As president, I will immediately take executive action to rein in an out-of-control gun industry — and to hold both gun dealers and manufacturers accountable for the violence promoted by their products.
I will break the NRA’s stranglehold on Congress by passing sweeping anti-corruption legislation and eliminating the filibuster so that our nation can no longer be held hostage by a small group of well-financed extremists who have already made it perfectly clear that they will never put the safety of the American people first.
I will send Congress comprehensive gun violence prevention legislation. I will sign it into law within my first 100 days. And we will revisit this comprehensive legislation every single year — adding new ideas and tweaking existing ones based on new data — to continually reduce the number of gun deaths in America.
Reform advocates are engaged in a valuable discussion about gun reforms that can be achieved by executive action. We must pursue these solutions to the fullest extent of the law, including by redefining anyone “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms to include the vast majority of gun sales outside of family-to-family exchanges. This will extend requirements — not only for background checks, but all federal gun rules — to cover all of those sales. This includes:
Requiring background checks. We will bring the vast majority of private sales, including at gun shows and online, under the existing background check umbrella.
Reporting on multiple purchases. We will extend the existing requirement to report bulk sales to nearly all gun sales. And I’ll extend existing reporting requirements on the mass purchase of certain rifles from the southwestern border states to all 50 states.
Raising the minimum age. We will expand the number of sales covered by existing age restriction provisions that require the purchaser to be at least 18 years old, keeping guns out of the hands of more teenagers.
My administration will use all the authorities at the federal government’s disposal to investigate and prosecute all those who circumvent or violate existing federal gun laws. This includes:
Prosecuting gun traffickers. Gun trafficking across state lines allows guns to move from states with fewer restrictions to those with strict safety standards, and gun trafficking across our southern border contributes to gang violence that sends migrants fleeing north. I’ll instruct my Attorney General to go after the interstate and transnational gun trafficking trade with all the resources of the federal government.
Revoking licenses for gun dealers who break the rules. Only 1% of gun dealers are responsible for 57% of guns used in crimes. My Administration will direct the ATF to prioritize oversight of dealers with serial compliance violations — and then use its authority to revoke the license of dealers who repeatedly violate the rules.
Investigating the NRA and its cronies. The NRA is accused of exploiting loopholes in federal laws governing non-profit spending to divert member dues into lavish payments for its board members and senior leadership. I’ll appoint an attorney general committed to investigating these types of corrupt business practices, and the banks and third-party vendors — like Wells Fargo — that enabled the NRA to skirt the rules for so long.
To protect the most vulnerable, my administration will use ATF’s existing regulatory authority to the greatest degree possible, including by:
Protecting survivors of domestic abuse. We will close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by defining intimate partner to include anyone with a domestic violence conviction involving any form of romantic partner.
Reversing the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken our existing gun rules. We will rescind the Trump-era rules and policies that weaken our gun safety regime, including rules that lower the standards for purchasing a gun, and those that make it easier to create untraceable weapons or modify weapons in ways that circumvent the law. This includes overturning Trump-era policies enabling 3-D printed guns, regulating 80% receivers as firearms, and reversing the ATF ruling that allows a shooter to convert a pistol to a short-barreled rifle using pistol braces.
Restrict the movement of guns across our borders. We will reverse the Trump administration’s efforts to make it easier to export U.S.-manufactured weapons by transferring exports of semi-automatic firearms and ammunition from the State Department to the Commerce Department, and we will prevent the import of foreign-manufactured assault weapons into the United States.
Structural Changes To Pass Gun Safety Legislation
The next president has a moral obligation to use whatever executive authority she has to address the gun crisis. But it is obvious that executive action is not enough. Durable reform requires legislation — but right now legislation is impossible. Why? A virulent mix of corruption and abuse of power.
Big money talks in Washington. And the NRA represents a particularly noxious example of Washington corruption at work. Over the last two decades, the NRA has spent over $200 million on lobbying Congress, influencing elections, and buying off politicians — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The NRA spends millions poisoning our political discourse with hateful, conspiracy-fueled propaganda, blocking even modest reforms supported by 90% of American voters.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, the American people rallied for reform. President Obama suggested several serious legislative changes. The Senate voted down an assault weapons ban. It rejected a background checks proposal, even though 54 Senators from both parties voted for it, because of a right-wing-filibuster. These were the bare minimum steps we needed to take. And six years later, Congress still hasn’t done a thing.
This pattern repeats itself throughout our government. When money and influence can override the will of a huge majority of Americans, that is corruption, pure and simple.
It’s time to fight back. I have proposed the most sweeping set of anticorruption reforms since Watergate — a set of big structural changes that includes ending lobbying as we know it and slamming shut the revolving door. My first priority when I’m elected President is to enact this package to get our government working for everyone again.
But anti-corruption legislation alone won’t be enough to get gun safety legislation done. After decades of inaction, Democrats have rallied behind a number of important gun reforms. If we continue to allow bought and paid for extremists in the Senate to thwart the will of the people, we will never enact any of them.
Enough is enough. Lasting gun reform requires the elimination of the filibuster.
Legislation To Reduce Gun Violence
When I am president, I will send Congress comprehensive legislation containing our best ideas about what will work to reduce gun violence. It starts by ensuring that safe, responsible ownership is the standard for everyone who chooses to own a gun. We’ll do that by:
Creating a federal licensing system. States with strict licensing requirements experience lower rates of gun trafficking and violence. A license is required to drive a car, and Congress should establish a similarly straightforward federal licensing system for the purchase of any type of firearm or ammunition.
Requiring universal background checks. I’ll expand background checks via executive action — but Congress should act to permanently mandate universal background checks. And I’ll push Congress to close the so-called “Charleston loophole” that allows a sale to proceed after three days even if the background check is not complete.Increasing taxes on gun manufacturers. Since 1919, the federal government has imposed an excise tax on manufacturers and importers of guns and ammunition. Handguns are taxed at 10% and other guns and ammunition are taxed at 11%. These taxes raise less in revenue than the federal excise tax on cigarettes, domestic wine, or even airline tickets. It’s time for Congress to raise those rates — to 30% on guns and 50% on ammunition — both to reduce new gun and ammunition sales overall and to bring in new federal revenue that we can use for gun violence prevention and enforcement of existing gun laws.
Establishing a real waiting period. Waiting periods prevent impulsive gun violence, reducing gun suicides by 7–11% and gun homicides by 17%. Over the past 5 years, a national handgun waiting period would have stopped at least 4,550 gun deaths. The federal government should establish a one-week waiting period for all firearm purchases.
Capping firearms purchases. About one out of four of firearms recovered at the scene of a crime were part of a bulk purchase. Congress should limit the number of guns that can be purchased to one per month, similar to a Virginia law that successfully reduced the likelihood of Virginia-bought guns being used in criminal activity.
Creating a new federal anti-trafficking law. Congress should make clear that trafficking firearms or engaging in “straw purchases” — when an individual buys a gun on behalf of a prohibited purchaser — are federal crimes. This would give law enforcement new tools to crack down on gun trafficking and help keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Raising the minimum age for gun purchases. I’ll extend existing age requirements to virtually all sales, but federal law is currently conflicting — for example, a person must be 21 to purchase a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, but only 18 to purchase a rifle. Congress should set the federal minimum age at 21 for all gun sales.
We can also do more to keep military-style assault weapons off our streets. We’ll do that by:
Passing a new federal assault weapons ban. The 1994 federal assault weapons ban successfully reduced gun deaths but was allowed to expire ten years later. Congress should again ban the future production, sale, and importation of military-style assault weapons, and require individuals already in possession of assault weapons to register them under the National Firearms Act. Just as we did successfully with machine guns after the passage of that law, we should establish a buyback program to allow those who wish to do so to return their weapon for safe disposal, and individuals who fail to register or return their assault weapon should face penalties.
Banning high-capacity ammunition magazines. High-capacity magazines were used in 57% of mass shootings from 2009 to 2015, allowing the shooters to target large numbers of people without stopping to reload. Congress should enact a federal ban on large-capacity magazines for all firearms, setting reasonable limits on the lethality of these weapons.
Prohibiting accessories that make weapons more deadly. Gun manufacturers sell increasingly deadly gun accessories, including silencers, trigger cranks, and other mechanisms that increase the rate of fire or make semi-automatic weapons fully automatic. Congress should ban these dangerous accessories entirely.
We should also do everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of those at highest risk of violence. We’ll do that by:
Passing extreme risk protection laws. Extreme risk protection orders allow families and law enforcement to petition to temporarily restrict access to firearms for individuals in crisis or at elevated risk of harming themselves or others. Congress should pass a federal extreme risk law and create a grant system to incentivize states to enact their own laws that clearly define extreme risk.
Prohibiting anyone convicted of a hate crime from owning a gun. Too often, guns are used in acts of mass violence intended to provoke fear in minority communities; more than 10,000 hate crimes involve a gun every year. Any individual convicted of a hate crime should be permanently prohibited from owning a gun, full stop.
Protecting survivors of domestic abuse. Domestic violence and gun violence are deeply connected — in an average month, more than 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. I’ll close the boyfriend loophole, but Congress should make that permanent, and expand the law to include individuals with restraining orders or who have been convicted of stalking.
Securing our schools. Parents shouldn’t have to buy bullet-proof backpacks for their children — guns have no place on our campuses or in our schools. Congress should improve the Gun-Free School Zones Act to include college and university campuses, and apply to individuals licensed by a state or locality to carry a firearm.
If we want real, long-lasting change, we must also hold the gun industry accountable, including online sites that look the other way when sellers abuse their platforms. We’ll do that by:
Repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Nearly every other industry has civil liability as a check on irresponsible actions, but a 2005 law insulates firearms and dealers from civil liability when a weapon is used to commit a crime, even in cases when dealers were shockingly irresponsible. No one should be above the law, and that includes the gun industry. Congress should repeal this law, immediately.
Holding gun manufacturers strictly liable for the harm they cause through a federal private right of action. Gun manufacturers make billions in profit by knowingly selling deadly products. Then they are let completely off the hook when people take those deadly products and inflict harm on thousands of victims each year. State tort law already recognizes that certain types of products and activities are so abnormally dangerous that the entities responsible for them should be held strictly liable when people are injured. Congress should codify that same principle at the federal level for guns by creating a new private right of action allowing survivors of gun violence to hold the manufacturer of the weapon that harmed them strictly liable for compensatory damages to the victim or their family.
Strengthening ATF. The NRA has long sought to hobble the ATF, lobbying against staffing and funding increases for the agency and getting its congressional allies to impose absurd restrictions on its work even as the agency struggled to meet its basic responsibilities. Congress should fully fund ATF’s regulatory and compliance programs and remove the riders and restrictions that prevent it from doing its job.
Regulating firearms for consumer safety. Today there are no federal safety standards for firearms produced in the United States. We can recall unsafe products from trampolines to children’s pajamas — but not defective guns. Congress should repeal the provision of law that prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating the safety of firearms and their accessories.
Tightening oversight for gun dealers. Today there is no requirement for federally-licensed gun shops to take even simple steps to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands. Congress should pass basic safety standards for federally-licensed gun dealers, including employee background checks, locked cabinets, and up-to-date inventories of the weapons they have in stock.
Holding gun industry CEOs personally accountable. I’ve proposed a law that would impose criminal liability and jail time for corporate executives when their company is found guilty of a crime or their negligence causes severe harm to American families — and that includes gun industry CEOs
Tragedies like the shootings we witnessed in El Paso and Dayton capture our attention and dominate the conversation about gun reform. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg of gun violence in America. Every day, we lose one hundred Americans to gun violence, with hundreds more physically injured and countless more mentally and emotionally traumatized. And Black and Latinx Americans have borne the brunt of the gun violence tragedy in our country.
In the past, those statistics have been used to justify increased policing and strict sentencing laws. Communities already traumatized by gun violence were doubly victimized by policies that locked up their young people and threw away the key. We’ve got a chance to show that we’ve learned from the past and to chart a new path. It starts by acknowledging that gun violence is a public health crisis, one that cannot be solved solely by the criminal justice system.
We can start to do that by investing in evidence-based community violence intervention programs. Federal grant funding today focuses significantly on law enforcement and incarceration, rather than interventions designed to stop gun violence before it occurs. The data in urban communities indicate that the majority of violence is perpetrated by a small number of offenders, and many cities have found success with programs that identify those at highest risk of becoming the victim or perpetrator of a violent gun crime, then employing strategies to interrupt the cycle of violence before it escalates. Programs that engage the surrounding community, employ mediation to prevent retaliation, build trust with law enforcement, and provide needed long-term social services have been proven to de-escalate tensions and dramatically reduce violence. As president, I’ll establish a grant program to invest in and pilot these types of evidence-based intervention programs at scale.
Annual Research And Annual Reauthorization
Historically, when Congress works to address big national issues, we don’t simply pass one law and cross our fingers. Instead, we continue the research — into new policies and around the consequences of our existing policies — and then come back on a regular basis to update the law.
We don’t do this with guns. Not only have we not passed meaningful legislation in almost a generation, but thanks to the NRA, for decades Congress prohibited federal funding from being used to promote gun safety at all, effectively freezing nearly all research on ways to reduce gun violence. Last year, Congress finally clarified that the CDC could in fact conduct gun violence research — but provided no funding to do so.
This ends when I’m President. My budget will include an annual investment of $100 million for DOJ and HHS to conduct research into the root causes of gun violence and the most effective ways to prevent it, including by analyzing gun trafficking patterns and researching new technologies to improve gun safety. These funds will also be used to study the reforms we enact — to see what’s working, what new ideas should be added, and what existing policies should be tweaked. And every year, I will send Congress an updated set of reforms based on this new information. That’s how we’ll meet our goal.
The conversation about gun violence in America is shifting — but not just because we’ve seen a spike in violence fueled by the NRA and the Trump administration’s dangerous policies and extremist rhetoric. It’s also because of the tireless work of activists, organizers, and community leaders who have been fighting for reform at the state and local level.
If you need proof that the majority of Americans support common-sense gun reform, look at what’s happening in state legislatures and city councils across the country. Moms, students, and faith leaders have been packing hearing rooms and taking back spaces formerly reserved for NRA lobbyists. Survivors of mass shootings are doing the critical work of turning our attention to daily gun violence in cities that don’t make headlines.
And it’s working. States that pass expanded background checks see lower rates of gun-related deaths and gun trafficking. States that disarm domestic abusers see lower rates of intimate partner gun violence. States with extreme risk laws have been successful in reducing gun suicides and have used them to prevent potential mass shootings. Community-based violence intervention programs are popping up in cities across the country.
Together, we can build on this momentum. We can build a grassroots movement to take back the Senate, eliminate the filibuster, and pass federal gun safety legislation that will save lives. And from the White House, I’ll make sure that the NRA and their cronies are held accountable with executive action. If we turn our heartbreak and our anger into action, I know we can take the power from the NRA and the lawmakers in their pockets and return it to the people.
After reading all of her plans to disarm and silence Americans, all I have to say is: she must be stopped.
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For freedom,Don Turner, PresidentNevada Firearms Coalition PAC
Nevada Firearms Coalition PAC
The Nevada Firearms Coalition-PAC was created as the political arm of the Nevada Firearms Coalition. Our mission is to support responsible, pro-gun policies and likeminded political candidates, and we will oppose all efforts to infringe on our 2nd Amendment Rights and candidates who support increased gun control. www.nvfacpac.org
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
We are used to seeing the suppression of our content here by Facebook using their selective bias. There are many examples of their actions against the freedom of speech and suppression of opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women, including their blocking our articles from being posted and their preventing people from sharing from our Facebook page. Facebook has also banned people for sharing material from Jihad Watch and shadowbanned the page itself. One of their favorite tactics is to suspend both me and Robert Spencer from posting every few days, requiring us to go through the same identity checks time after time in order to get the “privilege” to post restored. This prevents us from running our autoposts of Jihad Watch articles on Facebook.
So it has not been unusual for me to see block messages when doing anything on Facebook. Recently, however, Facebook deployed a new censorship tactic. A German Facebook user requested more information on Robert Spencer. When when I tried to respond, I used Google Translate to understand what he was saying, and was pleased that it was not another one of those “Allah will make you burn in hell” messages that waste my time. I put the URL for the About Robert Spencer page into Google Translate, and messaged the German user back. But then this came up. I was bit surprised, but not shocked to see it:
An error occurred while processing this request. Please try again later.
If you think this doesn’t go against our Community Standards let us know.
“Not again,” I thought. I tried again, using the Jihad Watch homepage in Google Translate. That was blocked as well. I tried posting the link on my own profile. I got the same block every time.
Then I tried different translation combinations, thinking maybe the problem was that German authorities were not allowing Germans to read our site, yet always got the same result. However, this behemoth of a company, with unlimited resources, has tripped over itself this time. While the block is clearly intended to prevent material that violates Leftist orthodoxy from being translated, it has been applied in too careless and broad a fashion. I discovered this when I tried sharing a translated link from Disney.com. Yes, they were blocking that also. It seems as if that when you go to translate a website, Facebook flags it as going against their community standards. Clearly Facebook doesn’t intend to block either Disney.com or Google Translate as a whole. They just caught up these and others in their attempts to prevent people from seeing the truth about jihad.
Well I had a good laugh at this, anyway, and I don’t get many of those having to work with Facebook.
(USA Today) — Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy protection this week amid declining membership and a drumbeat of child sexual abuse allegations that have illuminated the depth of the problem within the organization and Scouts’ failure to get a handle on it.
After months of speculation and mounting civil litigation, the Chapter 11 filing by the scouting organization’s national body was unprecedented in both scope and complexity. It was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware Monday night.
The exact effects on Boy Scouts’ future operations are unknown, leading to speculation about the organization’s odds for survival, the impact on local troops and how bankruptcy could change the dynamic for abuse survivors who have yet to come forward. Some fear that at a minimum it will prevent survivors from naming their abuser in open court. …
In court filings, the Boy Scouts said it faces 275 abuse lawsuits in state and federal courts around the country, plus another 1,400 potential claims.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
The organization once known as the Boy Scouts of America just filed for bankruptcy in court, but some would say it became morally and philosophically bankrupt quite a while back.
Some years ago it allowed openly homosexual boys in its ranks, then openly homosexual adult leaders; next came “transgender” kids and girls and the removal of “boy” from its name (it’s now technically SCOUTS BSA). Interestingly, though, most of these changes probably wouldn’t sit well with another scouting innovation: all-Muslim troops who pray to Allah five times daily and don’t pledge allegiance to our nation.
Their existence and practices again came to light when Whatfinger News sent a tweet (below), which in the original included a video of a Muslim troop in action.
Claiming the Muslim Brotherhood “infiltrated” the BSA is strong language, and may or may not be entirely accurate. It’s not some new assertion out of left field, however, but is based on media reports dating back to at least 2011.
The Boy Scouts of America maintains scouting partnerships with Islamic groups closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, WND has learned.
The Boy Scouts of America welcomes major religions, including Islam. It has incorporated under its banner a group called the National Islamic Committee on Scouting, or NICS, which provides Muslim scouts an opportunity to earn badges or emblems by participating in religious activities.
The NICS scouting emblems include an “Allahu Akbar” emblem, which means “Allah is greatest” in Arabic.
Formed in the 1920s after the demise of the Ottoman Islamic empire, the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent of most of the major jihadist groups in the world, including al-Qaida and Hamas. The prosecution of a terror-finance scheme in Texas presented evidence of the Brotherhood’s aim to destroy Western civilization and establish an Islamic society under the rule of the Quran.
Just as telling, however, is a friendly, pro-Muslim-troop article from 2017 by mainstream media outlet WFAA 8 ABC. Entitled “All Muslim Boy Scout troop: What they want you to know” and featuring Troop 2690, “the first chartered Muslim troop in Northeast Ohio,” the piece starts out relating the group’s good works and touting its Americanism.
But after outlining what the boys do, WFAA informs about what “Islam is telling them NOT to do”: “say the Pledge of Allegiance.”
“We pledge our allegiance to God, not to a flag or a country,” Muhammad Samad, the troop’s chartered representative, is quoted as explaining.
WFAA then tells us that 12-year-old scout Mohammad Zoraiz has his own take. “Maybe even more than SAYING the pledge is ‘American’, is the basic tenet that we don’t HAVE TO ... BECAUSE it’s America,” the site writes. “‘Our founding fathers taught that and thought of that in our country,’ says Zoraiz.”
That a preteen provided this answer indicates that the Muslim troop put a lot of thought into their reasons — some would say rationalizations — for not reciting the Pledge. As for more evidence of this, WFAA continued:
“The military, even their motto is God and country. It’s not country first,” says Committee Chair, Kareem Samad.
It is right there in that order in the very Scout oath.
“On my honor, I will try to do my best to do my duty to God and my country,” scout Numayr Abdulalim reminds us.
… When Kareem Samad says, “For us, God is always first,” he says that goes for ALL MUSLIMS in ALL COUNTRIES.
So these scouts would submit it’s not “Anti-American.” It’s “Pro God.”
Perhaps. But do note that members of the military may have their motto and other scouts their oath, but they all say the Pledge.
But be not troubled. WFAA later pointed out that scouting isn’t “as American as apple pie,” anyway, because it originated in Britain. Besides, said a BSA representative, “Muslims make up, in fact, probably the majority of scouting when you consider the scouting organizations in the far east [sic].”
So there you have it, Islamophobes, it’s practically a Muslim organization! (Except for the sexual devolutionary policies.)
In fairness, I’ve no doubt that many Muslim scouts are well-meaning, and they are correct in saying God comes first. Any person with deep faith agrees, and it’s why Christians may resist the government when it tries to compel them to service faux (same-sex) weddings or facilitate prenatal infanticide.
So theists are right to put God first. They’re right to defy the government’s laws when the government defies God’s laws. They’re right to be willing to die for God. But there is a complicating factor: Before we can know with the given theists whether to stand in the phalanx with them or face off against them, two questions must be asked.
Who do you say God is?
What is your conception of what He demands of you?
And since true believers will die for — and perhaps kill for — their faith, getting the answers really matters.
Often forgotten here is that while doctrinal differences exist among different Christian sects and Jews, they all have the same basis for their moral law: the 10 Commandments.
Islam’s basis is different: It’s sharia law. Also note that “the Center for Security Policy released a 2015 poll of Muslims in the US showing that ‘a majority (51 percent) agreed that ‘Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah’” — as opposed to American civil law, as I reported in 2017.
But what of injunctions to commit violence? The New Testament contains no words at all devoted to political violence; the Old Testament contains 34,039 such words, though the enjoinments were generally only applicable in a certain historical time and/or place.
The Islamic canon, however — which comprises not just the Koran but also the Hadith and Sira — contains almost 10 times as many words devoted to jihad. Moreover, the injunctions often are eternal and universal. A good example is Koran (8:15): “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”
Yet far more significant than what’s taught is what’s more often caught: virtues (and vices). Remember that people don’t follow ideas; they follow people, which is why any good parent appreciates a good example’s importance. It’s also why Christians may ask, “What would Jesus do?”
Likewise, Muslims consider their prophet Mohammed “The Perfect Man,” the ultimate role model. Yet far from the prince of peace, Mohammed was a warlord, caravan raider (a bandit), and slave owner and trader. He ordered massacres, used torture, and had dissidents assassinated. He also was a polygamist and made it lawful for masters to have sexual relations with their female captives.
In other words, as with Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and many others, Mohammed was very much a man of his time. But to more than a billion people, he’s also the perfect man even in our time. That’s the point, too. For if someone told you Attila the Hun was the perfect man and his role model, would you turn your back on that person?
So all this perhaps explains a very interesting German study involving 45,000 young people. Released in 2010, it found that while increasing religiosity made Christian youth less violent, it made Muslim youth more violent.
None of this involves casting judgment on individual Muslims any more than it involves doing so with individual Boy Scouts. But calling someone “a real Boy Scout” used to mean he was virtuous, honorable, and trustworthy. It’s hard to know what it means today.
LTRP Note: The following is a commentary by an out-of-house source, providing some insight into the demise of The Boy Scouts of America. We are posting this for informational and research purposes.
“What Happened to the Boy Scouts?“
By Madeline FryWashington Examiner Commentator
The Boy Scouts of America is filing for bankruptcy in “what could be one of the biggest, most complex bankruptcies ever seen,” according to the Associated Press.
What happened? The 110-year-old nonprofit organization has struggled with membership over the past few years due to two controversies: an apparent proliferation of sexual abuse cases and its recent acceptance of openly gay leaders, as well as transgender or female members. When the organization decided to accept girls and transgender boys among its members, it appeared the Boy Scouts couldn’t even tell you what a boy was. Click here to continue reading.
