Whether someone recognizes it or not we are all apart of this process by how we spend our time and money. The smallest decisions have an affect on our community, country, and world. When our world view does not coincide with our actions we support convictions contrary to our own which can have devastating effects. In a world with conflicting views fighting for influence it is detrimental that our actions coincide with our beliefs.
There are many people that still hold on to the world view that I once had. Based on the belief that everyone has a common desire to be a good person, they strive for the world to be a peaceful place with little conflict. In an effort to combine all ideas in a liberal form they eliminate the pure or complete form of every idea including religions, political systems, and ideas that have existed for hundreds of years. In its effort to end the confrontation amongst conflicting world views their philosophy aggressively attacks them all. It is a totalitarian idea that says, “We can not tolerate the intolerable.” It eliminates all ideas that become too extreme or fundamental even though it itself is very extreme. It dulls the minds of the masses to feel safe behind words like open mindedness and tolerance. Those that believe in a specific religion or idea are viewed as close minded, intolerant and extreme. To have a liberal, open minded view does not avoid conflict by combining ideas. It is simply another conflicting world view.
While defending himself as a Christian in his book “The Audacity of Hope” Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States makes an effort to end the conflict between Christianity and other views. In the process he makes an aggressive attack on Fundamental Christianity to the extreme point of redefining what being a Christian has meant for the last 2000 years. “When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelations-whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion. This is not to say that I’m unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I’m absolutely sure about-the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace” (Obama 224).
The Golden Rule, battle against cruelty, value of love, charity, humility and grace can all be found in the Bible but that is the foundation of Barak Obama’s world view not Christianity’s. Christianity stands or falls on the belief that Jesus Christ was god on earth. In the book of John in the Bible Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my father is. From now on you have known him and seen him!” (John 14:6-7)
It would make no sense for the Jews to kill Jesus because he said I come to preach the Golden rule, battle against cruelty, value of love, charity, humility and grace. They killed him because he said that he was the Messiah, equal with God, and therefore more powerful then them. Christians have always believed that Christ died for the salvation of people on the cross and rose from the dead as a fulfillment of ancient scripture. Christians believe human’s are inherently corrupt and can only live with the characteristic Obama describes through a spiritual transformation through Christ.
To do it without him only leaves ambition, pride and arrogance. In this world of mixing ideas the very definition of an organization or religion is many times in conflict. Martin Luther King Jr. a Christian Civil rights leader once said, “So I say to you, seek God and discover him and make him a power in your life. Without him all of our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest nights” (King 49).
America is a superpower that symbolizes the western world and its beliefs. The United States’ technology, creativity and military force have changed the world. It has always maintained a separation between religion and government. Islam is a religion that requires complete submission to its God named Allah. The word “Islam” actually means submission to Allah. To maintain submission to their God the Muslim must follow the words of their holy book entitled “The Koran.”
Barack Obama said in Cairo in 2009, “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings” (The Arab American News).
His words are hopeful and reach out to those who want the world to be a place for all ideas and beliefs to exist together. This view stands on the assumption that all beliefs share a common foundation and do not need to conflict with one another. There are many sects of Muslims that agree with Obama and desire relations with the Western World but there are others who do not.
For example Abu Bakar Bashir is an Indonesian Muslim Cleric and he said, “But the West is trying to weaken Islam from outside and inside. They attack our people and invade our countries from outside, and they weaken us from within with ideas like secularism, liberalism and democracy. This is all designed to contaminate our pure Islam” (Muslim Life Malaysia).
Most of the terrorist organizations listed under the “Background Information on Foreign Terrorist Organizations” on the U.S. Department of State website are Islamic organizations. In its purest form under its prophet Muhammad, Muslims gained power through preaching and force. In his book “Islam World Religions” Matthew S. Gordon describes Muhammad’s actions after conquering Mecca:
The year was 630, and Muhammad stayed for only a short time in Mecca-long enough to establish Muslim control over the town and to win support of the Meccan population. For the next two years, Muhammad expanded his influence throughout the Arabian Peninsula. He sent envoys to distant tribes, calling on them to convert to Islam. Many of the tribes did so with little protest, whereas others were convinced only with the use of force. Before long, Muhammad controlled most of the peninsula (Gordon 26).
Combined with their early conversion tactics it is a fact that the early Muslims provided for their community with violent raids on foreigners. With this history there will always be an element of Muslims that see no problem with including violence into their religion. On the contrary there is a large group of liberal or progressive Muslims that believe in changing with the times. They find a home and brotherhood with liberals of different faiths and beliefs but not without a price. They are commonly no longer considered a true uncompromised Muslim by others. The conflict of world views is always present it simply changes its target.
Most people fail to discover that the most extreme views have historically been birthed in times of great despair. Islam came from a time that many authors sum up into the word “Barbaric”. Christianity arose from the Jewish people while they were under sever oppression under the Roman Empire.
During the industrial Revolution cities were exploding as an increasing amount of people left the country or their own small business to work in a factory. After long hours, sometimes over 14 hours a day adults and many of their children would return home. The cities were growing too fast and entire neighborhoods of shacks that sometimes housed multiple families were falling apart in the horrible conditions. Many citizens from the country did not know how to live in the city. They would dump their trash and waste into the streets and raise pigs and chickens in the alleys. The air was full of burning coal and many of the wells and rivers were polluted. At the expense of this poverty the wealthy were obtaining large fortunes and living in blatant extravagance. It was during this time that Karl Marx wrote his famous “Communist Manifesto.” In it he describes his interpretation of a factories work force:
“Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and on the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is” (Marx Location 112).
It was through this extreme oppression that he sounded the trumpet for a Communist takeover:
“The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. The have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”(Location 488 Marx).
Currently, China and North Korea are communist countries with Nuclear weapons. China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. On a CBS Report website Lara Logan informs America of its involvement with China regarding its National Debt, “The nation's debt is the largest in history: $12 trillion and counting. That's over $80,000 for every American worker. China is now the largest holder of U.S. debt. It's also the largest exporter and within the next five to seven years, it's expected to surpass the U.S. as the largest manufacturer in the world.”
As China grows in its influence in the world one must look at its world view. Amnesty International is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization and on their website they state:
Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations in China. An estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial, and millions are unable to access the legal system to seek redress for their grievances. Harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders are on the rise, and censorship of the Internet and other media has grown. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians, and of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who practice their religion outside state-sanctioned churches continues. While the recent reinstatement of Supreme People's Court review of death penalty cases may result in lower numbers of executions, China remains the leading executioner in the world.
That is a drastic difference than the Constitution of the United States of America’s First Amendment which states:
Congress shall make no lay respecting an establishment or religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (Cato 43).
As our world enters one of the worst global economic times in history it is everyone’s responsibility to have a conscious world view. How we spend our time and money gives influence and changes the world. We need to ask ourselves: When we purchase a product what companies are we supporting? What country are those businesses in? What government officials are we voting for? In a world engulfed in economic crisis that is made up of opposing religions, politics, and countries our actions matter now more than ever. The world view with the most influence is going to be the world we live in.
Works Cited
“China Human Rights.” Amnesty International. 2010. 30 Apr. 2010
http://www.amnestyusa.org/china/page.do?id=1011134
“Background Information on Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” U.S. Department of State. 8 Oct. 1999. 2 Apr. 2010
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2002. Print.
King JR, Martin Luther. The Measure of a Man. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001. Print
Gordon, Matthew S. Islam World Religions. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1991. Print
Logan, Lara. “American Debt Threatens Status as World Power.” CBS Reports. USA Today. CBS Evening News, 8 Apr. 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2010.
Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Public Domain Books, 2005. Kindle Book.
“Muslim Life Malaysia.” 3 Sept. 2006. 20 Apr. 2010
http://muslimlifemalaysia.blogspot.com/2006/09/abu-bakar-bashir-radical-yes-terrorist.html
Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. Print
“The Arab American News” Obama's speech in Egypt aimed at healing rift with the Muslim world. 9 June. 2009. 20 Apr. 2010
http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=World&article=2251
Bibliography
Bulliet et el., The Earth & its Peoples. 4th Dolphin ed. Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.
Carson, Clayborne. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2001. Print.
Moore, Michael. Dude, Where’s My Country New York: Warner Books, 2003. Print
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