Monday, December 6, 2010

Sharia Trying to Hitch a Ride on the Ten Commandment Coattails?

Someone who rides the subway to work e-mailed me that this--an ad for the latest "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" conference--was staring her in the face during this morning's journey.

It's interesting that the conference theme is "Reviving the 10 Commandments in the Modern World" since the original ten come from Jewish scripture and are the basis of our Judeo-Christian civilization. But from the sounds of it, conference organizers hope to use Moses's Big Ten to try to sneak sharia law into our "secular" (kafir) body politic. Here, for instance, is the substance of a talk to be given by Imam Zaid Shakir and Prof. Tariq Ramadan:
Modern societies have become fundamentalist in their secularism and have effectively banned religion from the public square. Religion has been relegated to the status of a personal hobby, to be practiced behind closed doors. Does public morality suffer as a result? Is religious morality inherently divisive and disruptive as many believe? Originally, secularism in countries like the United States, England, and Canada was not antagonistic to religion but simply deemed that there would be no coerced state religion or religious tests for politicians. Is the current judicial antagonism toward religion in general incongruous with the idea of majority rule in democracy, given the majorities in the U.S. and Canada are still informed by religion? In America, some argue that the Ten Commandments are congruous with the values upheld by the Founding Fathers, but the Supreme Court has prohibited any public displays of religion in government buildings. Have we adopted the French model of Laicism, and if so, is any room left at all for religion in the public square?
I have a hunch the answer to that last one is a resounding "yes," especially if the religion in question is you-know-what.

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