Zeev,
I may not necessarily agree with you about these verses, but I do agree many people of many faiths make things open-ended that should be close-ended. I honestly see nothing in these verses that are close-ended as of yet!
But, in any case, lets make believe we agree and say these verses are close-ended to everyone Muslim except the radicals. But the radicals obviously see them as open-ended, to be time universal as you say. Who's to say one group is right and one group is wrong?
And I'll go one step further, let's assume that the conservative/moderate Muslim side is right, because it would cut down the violence. Who is responsible for convincing the radical Muslim is wrong? It can't be the non-Muslim because they would declare a war based upon Muslim verses non-Muslim. So it has to be the conservative/moderate Muslim that starightens out the radical Muslim. And if they don't come forward and do it, then what?
Most importantly, if the scripture is open ended to support two different interpretations, and one is peaceful and one is violent, I think we have to accept both, accept neither or have the religion within itself clean it up. Otherwise, if we don't address it, we have what we have today, a mess with a bunch of lunatics killing innocent people!
Unacceptable not to address it! So one must choose, accept all of it, accept none of it or clean it up, right???
God Bless,
IGIT |
