I grew up Presbyterian. Presbyterian is probably one of the most liberal denominations around, but there's an under current of mistrust - as with all Christian denominations I think - of Islam.

I was brought up to be tolerant. Of course, being human you gain certain beliefs of your own based on your experiences and the experiences of those who influence your learning processes as you become an independent person with independent thoughts. Generally speaking I stay true to the Presbyterian way of being middle of the road with tendencies either way depending on the topic, but the one topic that pretty much always made you lean to the right was the topic of Islam.

Islam, generally and historically, is the basic enemy of Christianity. There has ALWAYS been an under current of fear of Islam and the 'untaught and undocumented' teachings were that we WILL eventually end up in a war based solely on our beliefs. I'm talking about the end of time prophecies. To Atheists and non-believers this will be the equivalent to fairies and unicorns but in the end your beliefs are irrelevant, to us. You are fodder, in the end. That's 'the reality'.

My basic genetic makeup that of mistrust of Muslims and Islam. I reckon probably that could be said the same for them. I have all the time in the world for other human beings if they need my time. No matter their origins or beliefs. I actually helped an ex-Iraqi Republican guard through a security course as a fellow student. I helped him understand certain things. I enjoyed it, and had faith in the government that they were sure about this bloke. Nice guy, but failed because of his language skills.

What horrifies me though is my underlying intolerance and suspicion of Muslims. I'm actually busting to do a course on Arabic and Islam to learn for myself the truth.

Where do you all think this will all end up. Will there actually be an end to all this, or are we heading for an a monumental moment in the human race?.

Christians and Muslims will get along fine as long as they're not forced to tolerate and live in multicultural societies with each other.

The real problem is the leftist-atheists who try to force different people to live together even though both sides just want to live out their own culture.

So, we need to remove organisations like the UN that just increase tensions between groups by trying to make them tolerate others.

This will be true progress!

I do not understand Presbyterian and feel no need to run out and buy a book about it. If they keep their religion to their houses and mosques sans minerets then no drama. There is no law you have tolerate any religion, just have to tolerate the people rights to live in fairyland if they wish. It is not a requirement of tolerance to adopt their belief system or any outward cultural expression of same. You should not even feel the need to understand it. Religion is a belief system that should not be political or cultural in an essentially secular society.

I am actually concerned we now have looney Catholics running the liberal party and a PM who does church door interviews. Never thought I would see the day.

distrust between Christians and Muslims is entirely the product of the male repression of women.
the insecurity that drives men to repress women is manifest in the repression of other religions.
religions administered by agreement between women's and men's committees would coexist in
mutual support.

*I'm actually busting to do a course on Arabic and Islam to learn for myself the truth.*

StG, some years ago I set out to do the same thing, but without
learning Arabic. Writing about religions is commonly left to
religious believers of one kind or another, so hardly unbiased.
I wanted facts, not fairy tales.

The most useful thing I found, was a book called "23 Years",
written by a Persian journalist called Ali Dashti, which was
eventualy tranlated into English.

Dashti spent part of his youth in a so called Madrassa, but later
on moved to journalism. In his 80s, he was eventually tortured
and died in Kohmeini's jails.

23 Years is basically a historical explanation of Mohammed, his
life, how things came together, how Islam as a religion began,
how the Koran came together. The world of Islam made alot more
sense to me after reading it.

Dashti makes no case for or against Islam, he applies good
skeptical questioning that an informed journalist would do.

Once you understand Muhammed's life and how the religion came
together, you'll understand why there is such a clash between
Islam and the rest of us.

I bought my copy from Amazon.

Whistler,

Sounds like you had a bad Father. Most of us had great Christian fathers who didn't repress our mothers but protected them from harm and allowed them to serve the community in line with a woman's basic motivation for existence. It has never been Christianity that has repressed women, it's the alcoholic, drug using atheists that women should watch out for.