Religion of peace?!?

A couple of stories showed up on the news over the past couple of days that caught my attention. They have one thing in common: Islamic violence.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that in Jakarta, Indonesia, most of a college campus has been living in tents for a month, after their campus was attacked by "a mob of angry Muslim neighbors...wielding bamboo spears and...Molotov cocktails."

The college attacked? Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology, a private religious college with some 1,400 students that offers seminary classes, and teacher education, among other majors. The small school had been in place for 20 years, and had had peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbors--at least, they had had peaceful relations with their neighbors until 2003.

On July 25, "around midnight, when students woke to the crash of stones falling on their dormitory roof as a voice over a loudspeaker at a nearby mosque cried 'Allah Akbar,' or 'God is great' in Arabic." At least 18 students were injured, though there are no reports of deaths, in the attacks.

The school is still homeless, though the government has offered them an old office building across town to hold classes in, despite the attackers' insistence that the school be closed and dissolved. However, hundreds of students who'd lived in the dorms are still living in tents.

Also yesterday, the Associated Press reported that the government in the Philippines has "started arming civilians to protect against Muslim rebel attacks." While Indonesia is about half and half Muslim/Christian, the Philippines is a mostly Christian nation, with a minority of radical Muslim fundamentalists insisting on self-rule.

(Just one illustration of why the 2nd ammendment of the US constitution is a good idea. We, the citizens of the United States, don't need the government to arm us--we can arm ourselves.)

Just as Orwell's Ministry of Peace was responsible in 1984 for keeping the nation-state (and the whole world) in a constant state of war, I believe the actions of the Religion of Peace speak for themselves, and show it for the Orwellian travesty that it is.