Iranian Pastor Faces Execution for Refusing to Recant Christian Faith

The thing that frustrates me is the amount of politically motivated comments and the people (on both sides of this argument) who are completely hypocritical when it suits them...

As I have stated before... This whole situation is disgusting. You cannot and should not kill a person because of their religion, race, sexuality... whatever!!

Unfortunately you will get those that use this as an opportunity to Muslim bash... and those who use this as an opportunity to America bash...

Some of you may know me on here for defending Muslims and Islam against attacks. I will ALWAYS defend people’s right to practice their religion and will ALWAYS attack the propaganda machine the treats people unfairly.

However, I still try and maintain perspective and will not fall into the trap of picking sides and becoming biased. Come on people... use your brains... THIS IS WRONG!!!

If the Iranian system allows this to carry on then the Iranian system IS backwards and barbaric... And it CANNOT be justified by pointing out floors in other countries and cultures while snipping "but the west does bad things"

Having said that, it also doesn’t mean that non-Muslims should look down their noses, at the whole of Islam, and judge the entire religion on these sort of horror stories...

I live in a country where we have no capital punishment... I do not look down my nose at all Americans saying “they are all evil blood thirsty murderers because they kill prisoners and start wars”... that would be just plain ignorant.

Come on people let your heart govern your brain... not your political affiliations. The truth is the truth, do not put a slant on it!!

Peace

This is the highest thing a Christian can be subjected to. Don't feel bad for him, he's among a few special enough to be in that position. Those that disagree do not understand the result.

I bet his faith is 100x more real than the Western Christian who goes to church once or twice a week yet works in a job soley to gain money for himself and set up his retirement. I bet the average Western Christian could never ever commit to one local church for life and set his goal in advancing that church with all his money, time and effort.

No this guy in Iran has more reward than all of us whose worst persecution is probably gettign a speeding ticket on the way to churuch

While we believe it's wrong for a Muslim country to do this, The pastor KNEW what he was doing. Many Christians in Muslim countries keep it on the down low for these reasons. This guy was unwise and should have been more careful.

In the Bible when the Hebrew people had to live with those of other countries sometimes depending on the political climate they were told to worship in secret to protect them. This is the same kind of situation.

reply to post by palg1


This is the true, one-and-only "religion of tolerance and peace", muslims claim islam to be.
It´s derived from the ancient Ba-al cult, and their God ´Allah´ is a pagan deity which has nothing in common with our Christian God.
The persecution of Christians is increasing all over the world - especially in those countries where Islam and sharia rules.

I pray for this brave Christian and may God help him.

reply to post by palg1


If you pardon me for being brutally frank, let me tell you the reason - The kings of Christian countries are atheists. They do not believe in Jesus anymore.

You can test what I said by a simple question - ask 10 christians around you -> what would they prefer - Jesus or one million dollars? And let me know how may says Jesus.

Thank you.

Originally posted by vedatruth
reply to post by palg1

 

If you pardon me for being brutally frank, let me tell you the reason - The kings of Christian countries are atheists. They do not believe in Jesus anymore.

You can test what I said by a simple question - ask 10 christians around you -> what would they prefer - Jesus or one million dollars? And let me know how may says Jesus.

Thank you.

does it mean giving up jesus?

if it don't then u better be warren buffet.

reply to post by The Sword

So you think that this is an isolated incident? Think again...

Ask the Coptic Christians living in Egypt if they feel safe going to church on Sunday. Specially since the Arab Spring started. In Lebanon and Syria and even Turkey the Christians always need to watch their collective backs.

No this is not an isolated incident, you need to open your eyes buddy...

Originally posted by GovtFlu
reply to post by palg1

 

"What would the Muslim community do if Christians decided to execute all Christian converts to Islam? "

Isn't this the 2nd case in like 20 years?.. it's as draconian as other nations, but sounds like they're taking the long road on killing them "all"..lol..

Sounds like a political enemy / message sending type thing where he urinated on some Iranian elitists day.

There's no true justice anywhere in this world, Iran is bad.. but they're just one in a bag of b-holes.

But I'm not only talking about this one case. If you have the opportunity go talk to a Christian immigrant from Iran. I have, what made the news today is based on a publicized court decision, from what I am told is first hand experience, situations of this type are often handled by the police directly and the courts aren't involved.
I that police state a convert can and most likely will be dealt with immediately rather than waste court resources.
My friend and his family left Iran for that reason. They were just to afraid for their lives.

Btw, just to show that this thread I started isn't just another attack on the Muslim faith but more on the evils of the Iranian state or any theocratic state that adheres to these kinds of principles. I will state that have also met some Iranian students (studying here in Canada) that have expressed the view of religious tolerance and openly sited Islams teneants on loving and caring for their Christian / Jewish brothers in God. But they also admitted that they would never say that out-loud back home, it wouldn't be safe for them to express that opinion.

reply to post by gentledissident


In faith you don't play pretend. A real faith is not only religion, it is part of you, your heart, your soul your whole being even. To deny your faith is to deny yourself!

reply to post by fooks


Yes. You have to choose between Jesus on one hand, and one million dollars on the other. Which one will you choose.

If you choose one million dollars, you are an atheist.

Originally posted by vedatruth
reply to post by fooks

 

Yes. You have to choose between Jesus on one hand, and one million dollars on the other. Which one will you choose.

If you choose one million dollars, you are an atheist.

$$$$ wont even help you cross the barrier. So any who would even chose a trillion of this pathetic 3d money over salvation of their soul are not well spiritually.

reply to post by gentledissident


That would be lying. In the bible it states that if you deny Jesus he will deny you. That is why you don't deny your faith for any reason.

Being a muslim is like being in the mob the only way to leave is by death. The ultimate religion ruled by fear.

Sure, this is one incident but that's not enough to convince me that Christians are being oppressed anywhere. Rather, they are the oppressors in most western countries.

reply to post by The Sword


Welcome to the lives of Christians outside of the comfy, money orientated West:
www.compassdirect.org...
Choose a country and see what's happening to the Christians there. All because they are Christians.

Two words: Start praying.

Wow! That's a new one. At first I mis-read and assumed that the Christians were going to kill and Iranian pastor for refusing to convert to Christianity. It seems as if all of the religions can be twisted in ways that justify the murder of those who disagree with their philosophies. Aye, aye, aye. Prophecy or not.

Originally posted by Attrei
reply to post by gentledissident

 

That would be lying. In the bible it states that if you deny Jesus he will deny you. That is why you don't deny your faith for any reason.

If you get 3 strikes, you're out. Just don't play the silly game.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix

sometimes depending on the political climate they were told to worship in secret to protect them.

The Tibetan Buddhists were told the same. They still recommend practicing secretly so that one doesn't externalize the spiritual practices and make it into a reason to think of oneself as more holy than thou!
It's a great idea. If I am going to be killed for meditating, I might just pretend I'm sleeping and do any chanting or gesturing in my own mind. They don't have the power to halt my spiritual progress, so I am not asking for permission, nor even alerting them to what I'm up to. Common sense.

Not that I`m defendng Iran, is it people this story is a lie or is being altered . We all are aware before a major war the public is handed news stories to demonize the enemy If the story is true than something must be done to save this mans life .

These kinds of stories infuriate me immensely! How dare them! And please don’t bring up the crusades! You can’t judge Christians today for what happened thousands of years ago! And if you do address the past, we might as well bring up slavery. I mean really….It’s only fair.

I am a Christian, and if you want to curse me, my G-d, burn the Christian bible, etc… Than have at it! It is what some of us call “free will”! It’s what’s within my heart that matters most! It is your free will to do so, and I’m not going to go out and kill you, or make threats to kill you if you decide to do such things! My G-d teaches love, tolerance, and forgiveness. “Do onto to others, as you would have them do onto you.” “Let he who is not of sin, cast the first stone.” NOT, “Let he who is of sin, BE STONED TO DEATH!” OR, “Kill others as Mohammad would do onto you!” There are some really good videos out there that show how their children are indoctrinated. Taught that the Jews are evil monkeys trying to take over the world! It’s sad! Really sick!

Open your eye’s people; it is the so called “friendly” Muslims demonstrating hate in the streets when someone sketches out a cartoon of Mohammed. I have NEVER seen Muslims out in the streets rallying together to demonstrate their love for this great country! And for those that say that it is only a small majority that are wackos…? Go ahead and burn the Koran, talk down Muhammad, etc..! I’m sorry people! I’m just not feeling the love! Are there really that many people out there that are so oblivious to the truth?

In the United States of America, we currently have 310,338,864 Americans living inside our borders. I will not take in account how many Americans live abroad. Out of the 310,338,864, there are between 6 and 10 million Muslims living here in the United States. It is believed that about 8 million are considered “spiritual” Muslims. If we take the proverbial 1% we consider radical Muslims running around here in the United States of America, out of that 8 million, that would leave around 80,000. If you want to take into account how many Muslims live in the world today. The Wikipedia report estimates 1.57 billion as the most reliable estimate. That is over 5 times the amount of people who live in the United States. If you want to take 1% of the radical Muslims that we need worry about, out of the 1.57 billion, we are looking at about 15,700,000. 1% can be a whole bus load of radical Muslims. I’m tired of people who think 1% of anything means squat!