Coach Dave on Muslims

I find that fundamentalist Christians have a tendency to overlook large stretches of the Old Testament and Coach Dave is no exception. In a blog entry titled "What if the Pilgrims Had Been Muslims?" he credits the Bible for the American belief that murder is wrong. Speaking to a group of high school students he asks them "Why do we American's think murder is wrong, yet suicide bombers think they will be honored in heaven for having murdered innocent people?" The answer according to Coach Dave is that we follow the Bible while the Muslims follow the Koran.

Of course, Coach Dave ignores the fact that the Bible is full of instances where Jehovah ordered the slaughter of groups of people who displeased him, every man woman and child. No doubt Coach Dave believes that all those people deserved God's wrath. Nevertheless, a fundamentalist view of the Bible plainly supports the principle that God may periodically find it necessary to order his followers to slaughter large groups of people (including noncombatants) and that those followers better jolly well do so if they want to stay on God's good side. The fact that Allah's followers might feel obligated to carry out similar orders certainly is not precluded by the teachings of the Old Testament.