“First they came…” is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power

Try having a holiday in the Bible belt of America, you’ll come out and say that “Christian society is so narrow minded”.

If you don’t have the time to visit the US, try listen to Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell (he has since passed away). Same message of hate as well.

The holier than thou syndrome affects not only the Muslim but the Christians as well. We have had wars for hundreds of years basically some of us think that my God is better than your God. It will not go away.

I agree to a certain extent what Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens have surmised, religious belief provokes war. It has always been and it will always be.

And a note to Alex, you said “And when the Moslem fare worse against others (economically, socially and politically) they become very disappointed and project their anger and frustration at others while the root problem lies in themselves not the US or the Jews or whoever the in their top hate- list”.

That is missing the point by a mile. While I agree that Muslims have issues of disunity but the discontent in the Muslim world against the Americans and the West has very little to do with just being envious of the West. The chief consternation has always been the unfair US policy in the Middle East.

Much as I hate to say this, but in Islam religion and politics comes hand in hand. No 2 ways about it.

Beside this issue, personally, i think the media is inappropriate to label muslims under one banner because there is so much diversity in the muslim world- many types of muslim with different views. For example, our PM say that religion cannot be separated from politics but the Turk leaders will disagree with him.I remember one of them say that religion is pure and politics is dirty, how can you mix them together!

FYI, Turkey and Malaysia remain the most developed nations in the muslim world, they are both democratic,they started secular but now moving in different direction. However, whether they stay status quo next decade remain to be seen as the world getting very competitive.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

I think everyone of us should adopt such attitude that mentioned in the quote when reading / studying holy books. What’s wrong if we adopt certain values that contained in other religion’s holy books, which we think, after research, are suitable to us while we remain as believer of our own religion? Such attitude will only enrich ourselves and our beliefs. We should not have fear that after reading / studying holy books of others, we would convert to that religion. We should not have blind faith on what we believe at.

For your information, the above quote is the teachings of Buddha. So, by adopting this Buddha’s teaching will not make you a Buddhist. It will only make you a better Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Toaist or whatever.

I like to quote what Sheikh of Dubai said,-”…i don’t care what faith you belong,as long as you got skills,respect and do not disturb your neighbours, you are welcome here to do business and make money…”

Again, as I mentioned before, it will not be fair (at least academically) to judge others sacred beliefs (and our own for that matter!) if we do not have a correct understanding of its teaching. Our exposure to the western media have fed us with the a lot of misconception about other religions especially Islam.

But modern day, respected leaders from the Islamic world like Mahathir and Attaturk(sp) see the great danger in mixing them, and thats why they stand out and did very well in bringing up the countries, as you know.

Unfortunately, the moment you wrote “And worse Mohammed preached a message that direct his follower to mix religion and politics together at the same time” , you intentionally or unintentionally condemned the teaching of other religion as well.

This only shows how shallow is the understanding of majority of people towards their own and other religious beliefs. Non-muslim and muslim alike. I stayed in developed country most of my adult life and this kind of statement was thrown to me all the time by people from the street. True academia would never made such statement.

If we truly understand the nature of this kind of discussion, we would refrain ourselves from questioning the teaching of Islamic religion and discussion of secularism itself.