Letters: Dec. 18, 2006

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Monotheistic religions that lay claim to the one and only possible truth are doomed by their very nature to end up in conflict. The only way out is to free ourselves from these ancient divisive creeds and thus extinguish their fires of righteousness. A little more humility about the human condition and our relation to a higher power would go a long way toward healing what divides us.

CAROLYN D. LEWIS

Ocean View, Del.

It is strange to find the term reason in a religious debate, especially when there is no mention of that single most important human value that defines what we really want and need and that allows everything else to fall into place: namely, compassion.

SERGEI HEURLIN

Culver City, Calif.

The Challenge to Islam

Re Father Richard Neuhaus' Viewpoint [Nov. 27], in which he explained that Pope Benedict XVI is challenging Muslims to confront hard truths: Islam indeed has a menacing aspect, and the Pope finally addressed it directly. Since the defeat of the Turks in Vienna in 1683 and the subsequent decline of Muslim power, jihadists have dreamed of reconquering the Christian West. Islam has an expansion policy, which is that every Muslim has a duty to spread the religion in the name of the Prophet. Criticized as a myopic hard-liner when elected, Benedict might become the Pope of progress in Christian-Muslim relations.

VEITH RUEHLING

Augsburg, Germany

Neuhaus made the most important point of all when he said, "Mosques proliferate throughout cities in the West, while any expression of non-Islamic religion is strictly forbidden in many Muslim countries." No matter what moral failures we find in the "Christianized" West, people have the freedom to exercise their faith and religion. For people to be deprived of that freedom in Muslim countries is immoral.

JAMES E. RUARK

Kentwood, Mich.

Defining Europe

Commentator Tariq Ramadan's Viewpoint column urged the West to remember "the critical role that Muslims played in the development of Western thought" [Nov. 27]. If Ramadan wants to bolster the image of Islam in the West today, however, he would do better to implore Muslims around the world to protest any and all acts of violence, intimidation and terrorism committed in the name of Allah. Only when Muslims learn to accept Christians and members of other religions will they no longer be taken as a threat to world peace.

JACK TREESE

Simi Valley, Calif.

Ramadan listed "mutual respect of human rights, basic freedoms, rule of law and democracy" as values common to Christianity and Islam. But instead of claiming that Islam is misunderstood, why don't Muslims openly oppose Islamic nations that do not share those ideals? And even if Islamic radicals make up only a "marginal minority" of the roughly 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, that is still an enormous number of fanatics willing to die and take as many infidels with them as they can.

RICHARD COLE

San Jose, Calif.

Lessons of Vietnam