“Geert Wilders: Islam Is Not a Religion, It’s a Totalitarian Ideology”

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/02/28/geert-wilders-islam-not-religion-totalitarian-ideology/

Yes, he sometimes looks rather weird in photographs.  But that’s by far not the most important reason for objecting to Mr. Geert Wilders, who may soon be the leader of the Netherlands.

His claim that Islam isn’t really a religion at all, but merely an ideology “with many of the trappings” of one, is flat-out, crazy, historically illiterate nonsense.  I can’t imagine that there’s a single serious scholar of the subject — religious or not — who would agree with what he says.

If Islam isn’t a religious tradition, if the Qur’an isn’t a religious book, if Jalal al-Din Rumi and Ibn al-‘Arabi and al-Ghazali and Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya and Farid al-Din ‘Attar aren’t religious writers, I’m a two-foot tall Chinese leprechaun billionaire named Alejandro Gomez.

Latter-day Saints in the United States ought to think long and very hard before embracing such offensive silliness — both because it’s just plain wrong and because, while we rank above Muslims and atheists in the esteem of our fellow citizens, we’re rated below Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, and Hindus.  In other words, we’re not sitting so securely in American society that we might not be next.  And there are plenty of folks out there — you don’t have to look very far to find them — who deny that “LD$ Inc.,” as they term it, is a genuine religion.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)