Dennis Prager Quotes

Vladimir Lenin. Despite Lenin’s abhorrence of anti-Semitism, there were any other Russians for whom it was normal. After Lenin’s death, Stalin and his henchmen used anti-Semitism to divert attention from the Communist Party’s failure to meet its economic and other goals.

Michener had chaired a county campaign committee and discovered that most great amount of the virulent, anti-Catholic, messages and materials that impinged on the campaign were tax-exempt religious publications and church newsletters.

Most people are familiar with the people are familiar with the terrible persecution of the Jews in Spain by the Christians. Although there were a few examples of tolerance to Jews by Muslims when they controlled Spain and instances like modern Turkey. Generally however there is and has been Islamic persecution of Jews, Christians, and other non Muslims in almost all nations where Muslims have been in control. Until the Enlightenment, Christian persecution of other religions was just as bad if not worse.

This is a very important historical quotation in that it shows the extensive degree of anti-Catholic prejudice that existed in America in the late 1930s. Most of the anti-Catholic feeling was based in the absurd but real belief of millions of Protestants that the Pope was trying to control America. Then there was the fear and that American Catholics would take political direction from the Vatican and the Catholic bishops. The perception of the Church was hundreds of years out of date. Most of the anti-Catholic bias reduced along with anti-Semitism in the remainder of the 20th century as Americans became much more religiously tolerant. By the 21st century, religious prejudice still existed but it was limited to a small group of Americans whose views were generally condemned by the American mainstream of thought and opinion.

The amazing thing about this quotation of 1913 is that at the end of the 20th century the Christians were again at the Muslims throats and Bosnian Muslims were being murdered and ethnically cleansed by the Roman Catholics of Croatia and the Eastern Orthodox Christians of Serbia. The hatred had persisted—the legacy of 1000 years before.

Odo of Chatillon-Sur-Marne. This is an amazingly distressing quotation for most moderns. Here we have the Pope preaching genocide and ethnic cleansing. This was one of the main triggers of the bloody Crusades and is not forgotten by Muslims in the Middle East Today. As Islam has not changed a great deal in 1000 years, most Muslims assume that the same is true of Christianity and especially the popes and the Roman Catholic Church. This is one of the reasons that the Islamic world reacts so strongly when a pope makes any statement negatve about Muslims and Islam.

Alabama passed a set of laws making it a crime to assist undocumented immigrants in any way. However, many of the religions in Alabama required providing sanctuary. It would not be Christian to provide food for poor documented immigrants and their children but not provide food for poor illegal immigrants and especially their innocent children. Many of the religious groups in Alabama filed a lawsuit to declare the Alabama state laws unconstitutional. The Federal Courts did do but the basis of their ruling was the state was encroaching on a Federal function—control of immigration. The court did not have to rule on the thorny issue of interference with religion so the point has not yet been settled.

The French were governing Syria under a League of Nations mandate which was about to expire in 1936. The Alawites and other minorities feared for their future once the Sunni Muslims took over the government. The petition asked the French to continue to exercise their authority. The Alawite solution was to ruthlessly seize control of the Syrian government with the support of the Christians, Jews and other minorities. Al-Assad’s son and then his grandson took over as the President (de facto dictator) of Syria. In the 2012 Syrian revolution against the Alawites, al-Assad (the grandson) fought the insurgency so brutally that many nations ended up supporting and aiding the rebels. However, the fear of what would happen if the Alawites were again relegated to minority status, drove the Alawite brutality.

This is a huge epic poem that he wrote over several years. At the time, the Persians considered themselves far more civilized and sophisticated than the Arabs who were but tribesmen. They really resented the fact that it was the Arabs that brought Islam. And before, most of the Persians worshipped Zoroaster. Although Islam spread faster and further than any religion in history, it was not always easily accepted as this stanza of the poem indicates. There is to this day a superiority that the Iranians perceive over the Arabs. And to this day, many Arabs resent the Iranians for this attitude.