Hi Picosito: You said,
"Allah is just another false God. Mohammed thought he was real cool in inventing Allah as the answer to Jehovah and the Christians."
The word "Allah" is an Arabic word meaning God. It was around long before Mohammed. He did not invent anything in response to Jehovah and Christians. The English word "Jehovah" was not typical to Christians, and did not come into use in Europe until after Mohammed.
"He thought he was providing the true God for Ayrabs but was just uniting them under the label of his own false God, Allah."
Arabs already worshipped Allah long before Mohammed. They worshipped the same God as Israel and Christians. Mohammed believe he was a "true prophet" suerior to Jesus. This is not all that much different than Joseph Smith thinking he was a true Prophet greater than Jesus (and Smith said that) ... so the issue was not about true God vs false god ... but about true prophet and true religion.
"The fruitage of this can be seen in the willingness of Allah's "worshippers" to blast themselves and others into smithereens of flesh and blood and bone. The "true God", whoever the hell he is, would not condone this."
Islam prohibits suicide. The people doing this are radical extremists, much like White Aryan's Resistence, and White Supremistist, and Neo-Nazi groups in our nation who claim to be Christian ... except that these radical Sunni's (brand of Islam) are very numerous, have a lot of grass roots supports and well financed.
But their willingness to die is not much different than Christians, Jews and others who are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. The difference is that normal soldiers try to get through a situation alive ... whereas these radical nuts, like Kamikaze's during WWII, try to come out dead.
"So that gives the Israelis the moral validity to do what they're doing."
Israel is trying to survive. After they left Germany and survived concentration camps they filled up Palestine ... they became the majority, and evetually took over the government ... and with US support, they succeeded in taking land from Palestinians, who had earlier welcomed them. It was not about any god issue ... but about survival.
The difference between the Israel and the West vs radical Sunni's and Shiite's, is that western democracies do not try to kill innocent civilians ... and the radical Islamic extremists target innocent civilians. It is a difference in philosophy ... and a big difference in culture ... many of these people still live as they did 2000 year ago ... because their religion will not really let them progress in a free market that would bring down the walls of religious and tribal superstition ...
Unfortunately, Western Europe is castigating Israel when Israel defends itself, and by doing this, they give indirect moral support to Arafat and the Palestinians.
I have no idea what the solution should be, because both sides have a right to survive, and both sides have claims to the same land ... so somehting will have to give someday, or they will be at each other's throats forever.
Following Bible principles, we will avoid trying to live - or demand others to live - by an extensive and rigid set of dos and don'ts that go beyond the teachings of the Bible. The Watchtower, 4-15-02, pg 22, pp 15
