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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 29, 2005 America’s war against religion From the RIGHT side Mike Green Saddam Hussein’s trial has resumed and so have his rants. He opened proceedings by declaring that his captors, the United States government, were “invaders” and “occupiers” of Iraq. Ironically, the U.S. government has agreed with such assertions, having considered our military foray into Iraq an “invasion” and having previously accepted the title of “occupiers.” At least there is some agreement in the chaos that has ensued since we first ventured militarily into Iraq in 1991. But as the newly-formed Iraqi government seeks to find common ground and consensus, it is likely the only thing upon which we can all agree. Today our nation is attempting to establish a secular democracy in a nation that is rooted in religion. In other words, we are attempting to achieve in Iraq what could not be achieved in our own nation. By attempting to govern a devoutly religious people with a secular government made up of people screened and put onto ballots according to our authority as rulers of Iraq, we have inadvertently swatted a hornet’s nest and released a swarm of problems that threaten to send us running from the region despite the president’s call to “stay the course.” The president ought to take a course in history. One of the great philosophers of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist organization comprised of more than 70 affiliate groups worldwide, is a man by the name of Sayyid Qutb, who wrote two books, “Milestones” and “The America I Saw.” Qutb was an Egyptian who studied in the United States at several locations in California, Washington D.C., and Colorado in the late 1940’s. He graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, subsequently refusing an invitation to remain in the U.S. and get his Ph.D. His idealized America (prior to arriving) had been stained with observations of a nation that had no resemblance to its reputation. Qutb chose to return to Egypt, where his knowledge and perceptions of America infiltrated Islam to its core. What Americans ought to know about Qutb is his most fundamental philosophy that permeates every aspect of Islam today. It is this philosophy and perspective that attracts Muslims to the call of jihad, which creates suicide attacks on a consistent basis in an effort to defend Islam itself from what is perceived as the greatest of all wars. To summarize Qutb’s philosophy: Secular, or anti-God (evil), governments cannot peaceably lead people who devoutly believe in God. The secular will attempt to persuade the religious to adopt secular beliefs, thereby causing them to denounce their own. Qutb put it this way, if Athens represents reason and science and Jerusalem represents God and religion, then the two are in constant conflict with one another. They cannot co-exist in the same place. And in America, Qutb noted, the terrible truth was that Athens had won. Science and reason had annihilated God and religion. When Qutb returned to his native Egypt, he led the political and militant fight to remove the British influence that had consumed the country. He wrote extensively, and his writings encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to take such actions as burning movie theaters, clubs and particular establishments perceived as promoting a secular or anti-God culture and perspective. That same fight against western influence, perceived as undermining and destroying religious beliefs and practices, is alive and well today in Iraq. It is this core belief that draws Muslims to the battle zone and encourages them to stand firm against the “Great Satan” they perceive the United States to be. Meanwhile, George Bush has informed the world that the U.S. is determined to establish a secular government (under the guise of democracy and freedom) in Iraq, a nation that sits between two fundamentalist Islamic countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia (the very seat of Islam itself). In essence, we have drawn a line in the Middle Eastern sand. And our determination to establish a secular leadership during the birth of this new government has no precedence in American history. In our beginning … The framers of the U.S. Constitution looked to one of the most revered documents of their time as a platform upon which they would construct the highest law of the land. That document was the Constitution of Massachusetts (1780). The framers of that document looked to the one guiding presence in their midst in order to establish the laws of that region, which would eventually become the framework for the laws of the entire nation. That guiding presence was God. But that was then … Today, our nation’s government has divorced itself from God upon the guiding principle of “separation of church and state.” While those words are not found in our constitution, they are prominent in the Russian Constitution of 1918 (Art. 2, Ch. 5, No. 13), which states, “… the church is to be separated from the state and the school from the church …” Thus, upon an altar of today’s secular beliefs that trump the Christian beliefs that helped create the original laws of the country, the government and its instrument of influence, the public schools, wage war against religious people and nations. It is because of the public schools’ inability to understand religion, much less teach it, that generations of students have come to adopt secular understandings that belie the peripheral religious experiences to which millions of children have been exposed. The resulting confusion children often develop while growing up in a secular society that has religious roots is part of the reason for the vast amount of ignorance and apathy prevalent among millions of Americans, Qutb observed. During the period of time Sayyid Qutb was studying in the U.S., the Supreme Court would rule on Everson vs. The Board of Education (1947), which would become the precedent upon which future Supreme Court rulings would eventually rule against ritualistic reading of the bible in public schools (1962) and organized prayer in public schools (1963). In the infamous 1947 ruling the Justices considered the notion of a separation between Church and state, based upon a premise that parents sending their kids to Catholic parochial school on a public school bus did not deserve to receive the reimbursement payments that other taxpaying parents received from the district. Justice Jackson offered an understanding of the ruling with which he disagreed in his dissent. He declared that public schools are organized: "on the premise that secular education can be isolated from all religious teaching so that the school can inculcate all needed temporal knowledge and also maintain a strict and lofty neutrality as to religion. The assumption is that after the individual has been instructed in worldly wisdom he will be better fitted to choose his religion.” Such a revelation is parallel to the observations Qutb made during his studies in America. Even as the secularists proclaim that secularism is the highest form of wisdom and knowledge, and the basis upon which people may intelligently form a belief in religion (or not), it has set itself at odds with God and the religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. But in the beginning it was not so. According to the Constitution of Massachusetts: Art. II . It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience, or for his religious profession or sentiments, provided he doth not disturb the public peace or obstruct others in their religious worship. Even public education played a role in molding a moral character within each student: Art. III . As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: … But the detractors of the religious references within this document will lay claim that the men who wrote such words were Deists and not necessarily Christians, as some would like to believe. Nevertheless, the document speaks for itself. Article III continues: And every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law. In addition to specific references to Christianity, the constitution also required that top elected public officials be professing Christians. Chapter VI states: Article I. Any person chosen governor, lieutenant-governor, councillor, senator, or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: "I, A.B., do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth; and that I am seized and possessed, in my own right, of the property required by the constitution, as one qualification for the office or place to which I am elected." Even the prestigious Harvard University was mentioned in the constitution and given its direction: CHAPTER V — THE UNIVERSITY AT CAMBRIDGE, AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE, ETC. Section 1 — The University Article I . Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year [1636], laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great prominence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences which qualified them for the public employments, both in church and State; and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America, it is declared, … That was then … Today … the state of Massachusetts authorizes same-sex marriages . Today … the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that parents have no legal authority to determine what their children will be exposed to in public schools. Today … students in public schools engage in an activities known as “ freak dancing ” where the dancers simulate having sex. School-sponsored social dances, such as proms, have long been open invitations for students to engage in sexual behaviors. Same-sex partners are part and parcel of such venues and Planned Parenthood is hard at work ensuring every student in government schools is equipped with the knowledge that “responsible” and “safe” sex is appropriate through government-sponsored curriculum. Students are encouraged to believe that sex outside of marriage (which is evil, according to Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is acceptable if conducted according to arbitrarily set secular guidelines. Today … it is the secularists that run all three branches of government, the government schools, and the industries of influence (i.e. media, music, film, fashion). They fight to protect the enormous gains through the courts they have made over the past 60 years. Today … the philosophy of the secularists promote reason and science as the “loftier” platforms from which one may perceive society at large, while God and religion are construed to be merely based upon individual opinion and personal beliefs that have no basis in reality or observable fact. Today … secularists inadvertently set themselves at odds with religion and with God. While well intentioned, most secularists have such little understanding of religion that they have no idea that they have positioned themselves as God’s enemies. And today … Muslims in Iraq battle for reasons the secularists do not understand. They recognize the damage that has been done to American society. They perceive the dilution of the influence of religion and the falling away of the religious into the various attractions of the secular culture. And they decry the notion that such influences promoted by a secular government will overtake their societies. They have battled such influences already and yet realize that if America’s influence were to be injected into the Middle East, it would spread more rapidly than any other, undermining the religious laws and influences that have directed and governed their societies for thousands of years, despite the numerous abuses suffered at the hands of unscrupulous leaders and previous empires. Already, Muslims see evidence of American cultural influence. Iraqi media has adopted a program (Iraqi Idol) initiated by an American military leader who governed the town of Mosul as a dictator. (New York Times, June 27, 2004, Biggest Task for U.S. General Is Training Iraqis to Fight Iraqis ) Secularist America does not accept religious ideology, which maintains that everything outside of God is born of evil, and therefore it cannot understand the fear inherent in those who seek to preserve societies that fear and revere God. The bigger picture for America isn’t what is happening in Iraq, but rather what has happened here at home. Our inability as a people to determine what is right or wrong for our leaders, our children and our nation as a whole has rendered us incapable of telling others what ought to be good or bad in their eyes. One of the most revered men who ever lived offered us many great words of wisdom but these below seem to be most appropriate in regard to our country's involvement in Iraq: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Jesus of Nazareth There is a greater war going on than that which we see on television or read about in the newspapers. That war is being fought over the soul of our own nation. Meanwhile, we are sacrificing lives in Iraq for what purpose? To respond to this column send email to [email protected] . Only those responses containing the writer's name, city and phone number (for verification purposes only) will appear on our site. Mike Green is an award-winning columnist and author of, " The WHOLE truth about the U.S. War on Terror: answers to every question you never knew to ask ." ( www.thetruthaboutterror.com ) From the RIGHT Side is a web-only column published by the Daily Tidings. Letters to the Editor and Guest Forums should be e-mailed in text-only format to [email protected]. Please include your address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached for confirmation. Submissions cannot have run in any other publication. Letters are limited to 250 words, Guest Forums are limited to 600 words, and may be edited for length, content and clarity. 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