Why do we 'Christians' dislike Muslims so much? Could it be because Muslims are a reminder of from where we have fallen, and that makes us uncomfortable?

Yes, they are a heathen people, but they are also close to us in origin, in that they are `people of the Book' as they put it: i.e., followers of the Old Testament. Like the Jews, Muslims are lost because they don't have Christ, although the Muslims do at least give Jesus the respect of being called a great prophet, while the Jews curse him and his family. In matters of actual belief, though, we find a great lesson.

One can see, without too much effort, by simply reading the writings, letters, and often even military dispatches of our ancestors like Washington, Davis, Jackson, and Lee, that the whole attitude surrounding religion has changed radically for the Christian since the late 1800's. At that time, as well as before, people's lives centered around their religion. It was the single overwhelming force in their lives. God was the center of their universe, and everything else was made subservient to that view. They were literalists; God said it, therefore that settled it - end of story.

Then along came the transcendentalists, of whom the radical abolitionists were a good example, who ushered in the humanistic apostasy that typifies what passes for Christianity today, and certainly all current mainstream churches. In this view of the world, man's conscience, his needs, and his desires could transcend the expressed Word of God, effectively changing the answer to that greatest of all theological questions; "Who made who?" To the transcendentalist, as well as to his spiritual heirs today, although most would never bring themselves to admit it, if God is subservient and changeable according to the will and wants of man, then man must have made God and not the other way around, radically diminishing the status of the Almighty from that of a supreme, all-ruling being to that of a servant, like the genie in Aladdin's lamp.

Today, instead of our lives revolving around religion as it did for our ancestors, religion revolves around our lives. We have displaced God from the center of the universe, until He is just another satellite revolving around us, along with family, job, and entertainment.

With Islam, it is different. We call them a `backward religion', and in the eyes of the modern apostate called "Christian" for want of a better term, they are indeed, because they are, in the sense of faith, where we once were. For the practicing Muslim, like the old-time Christian, his god is still the center of his universe. While we may mumble a private prayer when we think of it, the Muslim publicly bows toward his holy city and prays several times a day. While we barely mention God in passing, the Muslim's conversation is likely to be interspersed with regular references to Allah and his prophet. He takes his belief dead seriously: seriously enough to die for, and serious enough to kill for, if he believes it to be the will of his god.

That attitude was once the norm in Christendom; so what happened? Look at ourselves and our society: a society that once welcomed God in its government, demanded His presence in our class rooms, and reverenced Him in our casual communications, and compare it with what we have created since? Muslim society can be brutal, certainly; heathen societies often are. However, does their brutality even begin to match our casual and legally protected slaughter of over 40 million of our own children for our convenience? Can any behavior in their society match the adulteries and perversions that we accept and embrace, even in our churches? Now ask yourself this question: "Have we advanced religiously, or have we devolved, and fallen away?"

The Christian should not hate the Muslim, but should look at him with disgust; not disgust at the Muslim, but disgust at himself, that a poor, ignorant heathen better understands the nature of faith and man's relationship with the Supreme Being than he does!