Sounds all good, don't believe the fine print. We as Christians don't even need to believe we can live jointly together. Read all their religious rhetoriic. Their ultimate goal is conversion or death.The people in this country need to know we are a Christian nation founded on these principles. If the President and the rest of them want to embrace, he and them can return to Africa and the Middle East and practice what they do best. In other countries you have to follow their religions, so why are they here trying to destroy our Christian principles? We have a right to keep our traditions and ceremonies without them stating discrimination.
This is our country, not theirs. They did not fight one war nor their forefathers for my freedom.
Stop this madness before they destroy our great America that soldiers are fighting now to save.

So, it appears that CC! has finally entered the religious world! I am going to be looking for an explanation of Easter and why it is celebrated by the Christian world. After all, few people know the real meaning; it has become so clouded with traditionalism.

I don't want CC! to change its course. I am writing because I have taken a beating from many of my religious friends and organizations for standing on the fact that CC! is no way associated with religion but is built on good educational principles taught in every college of education in America.

If this had been a study of how the Muslim embraces CC! as sound transcendent values, I would not object.

I liked Ted Kennedy because he aknowledged his weaknesses and worked very hard to overcome them and because he knew when people needed him to just say "Ouch" when they were troubled.

Islam has some good qualities, but as I have learned through a very thorough investigation of the Quran, the negative connotations outweigh the good. In the Quran (the Islamic Holy Book) there are more references to killing and bloodshed than there are to love and peace. There are more instances of hurting and breaking thy enemy rather than embracing. Also look at the mistreatment of women and how they are used and abused throughout the religion. That character alone speaks for itself.

For all of the oppression of the local Christians under the Muslims in Spain, both they and the Jews were generally allowed to remain and practice their faith.
Similarly for Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Persia/Iran.

There were (and are) indeed periods of persecution, as there were forced conversions. However, Muslim official policy included toleration of the Peoples of the Book.

Most Muslims in the US are not trying to destroy our Christian principles. Most American Muslims relish the freedom of religion we have here, where they need not fear that either the Christians or some more dominant Muslim sect would deny them the right to worship.

I have worked with both devout and secular Muslims and generally found them fairly decent people. I have had Muslims try to convert me, but I have also had Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Cambellites, and a Sokagakkai Buddhist try to convert me.

Some of the negative comments appearing on this page about Islam are a reflection of the xenophobic, uneducated, and frankly materialistic beliefs of whitebread America. People like this are the ones who burned a cross on my parents' lawn when I was born in 1957. My father was an open-minded Muslim from India and my mother a Protestant from Scotland. My father and mother loved this country more than most in the US would ever dare to say because they understood what freedom really is. You can't possibly understand it unless you are deprived of it. One can never imagine what it is really like to be an amputee unless it happens to you.

Intolerant Islam was born in Saudi Arabia, a country the US panders and abets because of our gluttonous thirst for oil. It is interesting how our country looks the other way while radical, billionaire oil-rich Arabs fund terrorisim and foment intolerant religion. Why haven't sanctions been thrown down on the Arab oil states for building and supporting the intolerant Wahaabist Islam? Who do you think supports blowing up public schools and building religious Madressas?
Historically, the longest-living empire in the world was the Islamic Ottoman Empire. It was also probably the most tolerant of all religions and did not try and convert by force.
Imagine radical Christians forcing their beliefs on you. Imagine being a Catholic in Cromwellian England. Imagine being a North American Indian in 1492. A Jew anywhere in Europe prior to 1947. A Muslim in India during partition. A Hindu in what is now Pakistan during partition. I could go on forever.
Intolerance is practiced by all religions when they become fundamentalists and forget we are all human.

I sincerely thank you for your brief synopsis of the belief system of Islam. It is a shame that we only hear about the radical elements within Islam. As a retired teacher of comparative religions and moral theology, I am grateful for your contribition to the toleration of other belief systems.

I think the best way to overcome prejudice is to educate yourself on others' belief systems. Thank you for this information.

My profound thanks to you for the brief synopsis of the five basic pillars of Islam.
I would like to state that I came to the United States in 1962. My father, a Royal Indian Army Southern Command Contractor who had worked with the British army in India, told me to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but I decided to come to California. This is because of the speech made by Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957 in Banglore in south India. During the speech he mentioned that Banglore reminded him of California. I decided to come to California.
In the last 30 years, I have started celebrating Thanksgiving in a very unique way - an additional way. To give thanks to God, I perform two units of voluntary Islamic prayer, either on Thanksgiving Day or on Friday, in the morning, afternoon or evening. Since this is not a compulsory or mandatory Islamic prayer, I choose the day and the timing. In 2001, after 9/11, I made the decision to increase the Thanksgiving prayer from two units to four units, to thank God more for the good life my family is enjoying in these United States. I pray every day to God to bless America, humanity and our spaceship, the Earth, and to save us from the ugly E.Ts. (Extremists and Terrorists). May God give us the strength to fight terrorism, intolerance and hate crimes.

Ramadan’s compassion

I remain waiting for the sun to sink into the westerly horizon.

I am thirsty, hungry.
I feel my mortality.
I am bound by so many limits.
I am not frail,
I am not ill,
I’ve never lived through a famine.

Ramadan gives me a window
to understand reality;
to understand frailty.
When all is said,
when all is done,
there shall be Ramadan’s compassion.

I will continue to wait for the sun to sink into the western horizon;
And start all over gain.

Michael, would you know if you were standing in the presence of God? How would you know? If people absolutely believed that God existed, wouldn't we make better choices?