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Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from MSNBC, August 15, 2007 , with a headline: Catholic bishop calls God Allah. The following are excerpts: A Roman Catholic bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims. Bishop Tiny Muskins told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia , where Muskins spent 8 years, priests used the word, Allah, while celebrating mass. “Allah is a very beautiful word for God, shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? What does God care what we call him, it is our problem.” A survey in the Netherlands biggest selling newspaper, The Telegraph, found 92% of the more than 4,000 people poled disagreed with the bishop’s view, which also drew ridicule. “Sure, let’s call God, Allah, let’s then call a church, a mosque, and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun,” Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper. Signs of tension had already surfaced in the last two weeks after the head of a committee for former Muslims was attacked and populist anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders called for the Qur’an to be banned. Some Dutch Muslims welcomed the bishop’s comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after Wilders branded the Qur’an a Fascist book in the vein of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kompf, which legitimizes violence. Wilders, whose new party won 9 seats out of the 150 in Parliament in last November’s election, said an attack by two Moroccans and a Somali on the head of a Dutch group for ex-Muslims had spurred him to write. Issues of immigration and integration had faded from the Dutch political agenda over the last year after a period of unprecedented social tension sparked by the 2004 murder of Theo Van Gho, a film maker critical of Islam, by a Muslim militant.
Tom:
Dave, how clueless some people can be, especially, you know, a man who claims to be a man of God. Doesn’t he read the Bible? God does care about His own name.
Dave:
Absolutely. Well, He doesn’t want to be called, Baal, that was another heathen god. Allah is a contraction of “Al-ilah” which means, the chief god. Allah was the chief god in the “Ka’aba” had about 360 idols in it, one for everybody that passed through Mecca . They made a lot of money off of this idol temple. Let’s just put it in John:3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.. The Qur’an, 16 times says god is not a father and he has no son. The Qur’an says if you believe in the Trinity you go straight to hell. All right? Now let’s fit Allah in John:3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.. For Allah so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Woops! We’ve got a problem. Allah is not a father and he has no son. And yet, Tom, it’s not just this guy, this bishop who seems a little bit whacko, but what about every Arabic translation of the Bible in the world that I’ve ever heard of uses Allah for God, because they try to say Allah is simply a generic term for God, like God in English, and Dios in Spanish, and so forth. No, Allah is the name of a god and there is a generic term for god, and I just used it a moment ago, “ilah.” ilah you will find all through the Qur’an, in fact the, “La ilaha I’ Allah, Muhammadan Rasoulu Allah.” That’s the Arabic for saying there is no ilah but Allah. Ilah is a generic term for God. So, this man is not so far out, every Arabic translation in the Bible goes along with this fraud.
Tom:
Right. Well, we could add to that, Allah, historically has 3 daughters, so try to reconcile that with the God of the Bible.
Dave:
No son but 3 daughters, and Allah was a definite---there was an idol in this Ka’aba that represented Allah the chief god in the Ka’aba. So Tom, you see, when Muhammad had to flee Mecca to Medina , well, at that time it was called Yathrib, it was a Jewish town, he killed all the Jews and it was renamed Madina, which means, city of the prophet. He’s trying to convert the Christians and the Jews, who the early parts of the Qur’an called “the people of the book,” and he’s trying to tell them that Allah is the only true God. They know who Allah is, Allah is the chief god in the Ka’aba. So they wouldn’t buy that, and that’s when he turned against them and began to kill them. And his dying words, by the way, were, may Allah curse the Christians and the Jews. Okay?
Tom:
Dave, the encouraging thing about this article is that the people of the Netherlands, who have been through a lot, mentions the death of Theo Van Gho, but there are a million Muslims in this small country, yet they are stepping up to the plate. Certainly, 9 seats out of a 150 in Parliament on the basis of this guy Wilders--I imagine that’s how you pronounce his name-- they are addressing some of these issues and they are not backing away. I think that’s good.
Dave:
Yes, it is. At least they have enough common sense to realize that Allah is not the God of the Bible.
Tom:
And Islam is not peace.
Dave:
Right, and they’ve got real problems, because you want to know the statistics, the statistics are, most of the crime in the Netherlands ; it’s the Muslims. Most of those who are on welfare, they are not working, Why? They complain there are no jobs for us. No, because they are not willing to learn the language and they live in their little enclaves separate from everyone else. So now, as I recall, they have adopted, or are in the process of adopting in the Netherlands , a law; you come here as an immigrant, you will learn our language, and you will adopt our customs and you will integrate with our society. But the Muslims have not been willing to do that, and they are a force for terrorism all over Europe .
