Sunday, November 22, 2009

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

I got the following in an e-mail recently and it describes what, after considerable research into Islam, I've been thinking for a while.

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

Theologically - no.
Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Religiously - no.
Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam.

Scripturally - no.
Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically - no.
Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - no.
Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically - no.
Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically - no.
Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him.


Intellectually - no.
Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no.
Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no.
Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as Heavenly Father, nor is he ever called Love in The Quran's 99 excellent names.

Therefore, after much study and deliberation, perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both "good" Muslims and good Americans.

Call it what you wish....it's still the truth.
While, out of kindness, I might not express it so boldly, and I might not conclude that ALL Muslims are dangerous, it certainly makes me suspicious and hesitant to trust them. It's unfortunate...

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Our Amazing Solar System

I got to thinking about the solar system, and the galaxies and the universe and just how vast and amazing it really is, and I did some research. Here are a few facts I found.


The Goldilocks Zone 1
An area of space in which a planet is just the right distance from its home star so that its surface is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, and, thus, life. For our planetary system that zone is:
from 67,000,000 to 141,000,000 miles (107,826,048 to 226,917,504 km),
or, a total distance of 74,000,000 miles (or 119,091,456 km),
Or just 2.01 percent of the solar system.

Average Distances of Planets from the Sun
PlanetMiles 3km 2AU 3Relative 4
Mercury35,983,60657,910,0000.391.00
Venus67,232,363108,200,0000.721.87
Earth92,957,130149,600,0001.002.58
Mars141,635,350227,940,0001.523.94
Jupiter483,631,840778,330,0005.2013.44
Saturn888,187,9821,429,400,0009.5524.68
Uranus1,783,950,4792,870,990,00019.1949.58
Neptune2,798,842,2614,504,300,00030.1177.78
Pluto3,674,490,9735,913,520,00039.53102.12

Notes:
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone
2 http://nineplanets.org/data.html
3 calculated from km data
4 http://solargeometry.com/DistCalc.htm



So, as we see above, the Goldilocks Zone, or the Habitable Zone of our solar system is about 2% of it--something that would be statistically impossible to happen randomly. And yet, here we are.

The second part (Average Distances of Planets from the Sun) gives us an idea of just how huge and empty the solar system is. The chart below shows the planetary distances compared to one another. Another excellent exercise for this is The Thousand Yard Model, which I highly encourage you to get with 10 friends and try.

Some people would have us believe that all of this is the way it is because of random, accidental events in the history of the universe that we are just barely beginning to even begin to understand. On the other hand, others believe that there is some highly intelligent being controlling, constructing and in charge of it all. According to Ockham's Razor, the simpler explanation is most likely the correct one. And this is one reason why I believe in God.