All too often, despite the original message of their respective prophets (Muhammad: “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another;” Jesus: “Love thy neighbor as thyself;” Buddha: “In the end, these things matter most: How well did you love?”), members of various major religions allow themselves to be manipulated into divisiveness, into concentrating so intently upon what is repulsive about others that it seems to block any sense of shared humanity. Nearly every inane thing to come out of Donald Trump’s mouth since the terrorist attacks on Paris last November is a testament to that fact (the man claims to be Christian, while others decry him as anti-Christian).
Monday, Dec. 14 a group of 200 Santa Barbara, California residents – Atheist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim alike – stood shoulder-to-shoulder and marched from the county courthouse to De La Guerra Plaza in an event titled ‘Not in Our Name.” The event was organized as an interfaith response to the San Bernardino shooting, and also the backlash and hate crimes that followed.
The group included local police officers, the mayor of Santa Barbara, and various local religious leaders. Since the late 1990s, Santa Barbara has had an active Interfaith Initiative, which works to promote real understanding and community among diverse religious communities, as well as to address regional resource and community problems.
All those present made it clear they were there for unity, and to stand up against bigotry and radicalism of all kinds.
“We are proud to be American, we are proud to be Muslim, and Mr. Trump, we are not going anywhere,” said Santa Barbara native Imam Yama Niazi of the Islamic Society of Santa Barbara.
“There is no choice but to love when you are a Christian,” stated Christian Pastor Michael Faccuito.
“We’re all of the same country [America],” said Sam Kadi, a filmmaker who grew up in Syria.
The group marched behind a banner that read “Standing on the side of love,” as young and old, Muslim and Jew, Americans all, debated the next presidential election, the Syrian refugee crisis, and, fittingly, religious tolerance.
This Article (Atheists, Christians, Jews and Muslims March in Unity) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
If you look at a 500 year expansion of Islam and Christianity, they are definitely terrorists, invaders, murderers and have been responsible for genocides of 10s of millions of people around the world.
Anonymous you all are just as bad as mainstream media about what Trump said about Islamic people. Trump is not talking about the nonextremist just the radical extremist. You need to stop putting crap like this out you are making the situation worse just like mainstream media and their propaganda shows. We are sick of hearing it.
and how is this making the situation worse? Don’t annonymous have the RIGHT to freedom of speech? Don’t they get to post what they want to on their own website? How is the situation getting worse because of these posts? if you read this article, generally, it is because you believe you are a part of annonymous and believe in them. Why, then, are you reading this article? How is this, in any way, bad? this is what the people wanted to do and annonymous informed its followers about the situation. It’s like your local news, but about issues going on nationally and globally.
Well said ? Thank you
Donald Trump is a nazi and should be shot, hung and posed on!
I SUPPORT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀
(Muhammad: “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another;”
Taking this quote out of context, is clever but stupid!This quote is aimed at believers, not the non believers, that are to be slain (Jihad)!
I could say the same to you, something tells me , you also misinterpreted love by sex! obviously it’s the only way for you to love (have sex with) someone without slaying him/her …