General Chat

On our local radio religious program this morning was a report from Egypt of a 10 yr old girl shot by a soldier..She was leaving church carrying her bible after attending bible class..She was shot because she was an obvious christian and therefore classed as a traitor to her country..Evidently nearly all Christian churches in Egypt and Syria have been destroyed..The reporter said they only want a Muslim democracy and are steadily carrying out ethnic cleansing....My question is WHAT'S DEMOCRACY???? Am I missing the point and meaning??? LES.

That is really shocking, Leslie.

It is not only Egypt unfortunately. Those types of atrocities are going on in many countries. Prayer lists in churches for Christian friends caught up in warfare or "ethnic cleansing" are often long.

Hopefully this little girl's death will shock leaders into action to prevent such horrible things happening.

So, so sad Leslie. :-(


I'm a practising Christian and have been laughed at when I say that persecution still happens today.

I consider myself fortunate that I live in a place where I am surrounded by a choice of Christian churches to attend and that I can enter any of them without fear of retribution.

It's about time we stood up to be counted before...... it's too late.


Cx

According to the Telegraph, the shooting was by a Person Unknown - no suggestion that it was a member of the Security Forces.

Unfortunately John, its unlikely that that this example of ethnic/religious cleansing will make the slightest bit of difference. Extremist Islamists would probably be celebrating the deed if they weren't otherwise occupied.

Words fail me, how horrendously sad. What kind of world will our grandchildren be living in in 10 - 20 yrs time... :-(

jude

As so many people have been killed in Egypt this last week and on both sides,

I think it is irresponsible for any Newspaper or Radio station to pick out 1 child and say that she was killed purely because she was a Christian....

People of all denominations are sheltering in Churches and Mosques.

In my book this is truly awful journalism

What is happening in Egypt at present is truly awful.

The principal objective of the Muslim Brotherhood is to establish an Islamic state subject to Sharia law. That is their idea of democracy. It is also the driving idea behind the "revolutionaries" in Syria which is why the west is ambivalent in its support of them.

In Egypt the Christians (mostly Coptic and about 20 % of the population ) were and are strong opponents of ex Pres Morsi.

The Muslim Brotherhood has burnt down at least one Coptic church in Cairo during the last week. Despite its claims of non-violence it has always been well armed. Murdering and terrorising Christians is nothing new for the M.B. I would be extremely surprised to see such an act carried out by the army.

The chances of getting some sort of true democracy up and running in the near future ( measured in years not months ) are poor to non-existent. The chances of a civil war are also low, mainly because the M.B. does not have heavy weapons or military skills. It has no support at all from the army. What is most likely is a pseudo-democracy similar to that of Turkey until fairly recently backed up by the army.

There is no sign that western reporters in Egypt have any idea at all what they are witnessing which is both dangerous and unhelpful. The current narrative of the Morsi democrats v the nasty resurgent army is wildly wrong. It would help if at least some of the reporters spoke Arabic.

For whatever reason the Egyptians cannot pronounce the basic Arabic sound " th " ( though of course the English can no prob. ) . Instead they use the " Z " sound. For that reason the Gulf states refer to Egyptians as "zizzis". Zizzi is Arabic slang for the male member. Don't tell Mr Magoo.

The Government are considering dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood.

I guess Egypt will then have multiple factions will varying degrees of power and the fighting will continue for months.

nicely explained Rollo - I have much better understanding now

As for the dreadful killing of that little girl - sadly whoever was responsible has probably already forgotton all about it and will continue to kill in the same way - it'll make no difference at all

Sending a ten year old girl out to church, carrying a bible at a time when there is obvious religious unrest all around you ?

Could that be a bit of fanaticism as well?

exactly Sharron

Let us not forget the hundreds, and possibly thousands, of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who have been killed in recent days. We have seen images of mosques packed with men seeking refuge. Perhaps a more pertinent question would be to ask where the women are.
Many of these are innocent people and make up a far greater proportion of the country's population than the approximate 20 per cent Christians.
The interim government is looking at ways to "remove" the Muslim Brotherhood, supporters of the ousted Mohammed Morsi who, let us remember, was voted in democratically.
As for the 10 year old Coptic Christian girl, there is no irrefutable evidence to suggest that she was shot by a soldier.

Then, there were the images of the man, in all likelihood a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, shot dead as he stood in front of a tank with his arms raised. Again, there is no evidence as to who he was shot by and the various news services have been very careful to point this out.
I found it somewhat reminiscent of Tiananmen Square.

As for the news reporting. I have every admiration for the news services who are trying to do a nigh on impossible task in terrible conditions.
Highly respected and experienced Sky News cameraman Mick Deane was shot and killed on Thursday in Cairo.

The death of just one person is shocking but let us not shoehorn the facts to suit us.

John you mention prayer list for Christians. I would consider it far more "christian" if there were prayer lists for any of those suffering under such circumstances irrespective of religion!
Our thoughts should be with anyone in such a situation and not just confined to those who are Christian.

The M.B. does not represent a half of Egypt or anything like it, hence the current mess.

Over the last 50 years the Muslim Brotherhood was the only coherent political grouping in Egypt with the support of about a third of the population, mainly the urban and rural poor. ( In Egypt poor means poor, cemeteries are quite upmarket places to live ... ). The poor in Egypt tend to be be very conservative - you can see the same thing all over the Islamic world and also in Russia.

When elections were eventually held the liberal centre was a mess of small parties with no coherent ideas and very few people of any real ability. Mr Al Baradai has turned out to be a broken reed.

Thus the M.B. won the elections and were entrusted to run a democracy in the interest of all Egyptians. Nothing of the sort happened. Instead Morsi focused on writing a sectarian constitution based on Shari'a law while allowing the economy to go hang.

The assaults on the liberal majority continued without any reporting or much objection from finest in the BBC Newsroom, Sky, CNN and so on.

In particular the vital tourist industry was allowed to implode despite being the main employer of people under 25 - half the population! The reason for this is that the M.B. do not like having large numbers of "infidels" in the country spreading "dangerous ideas" ( such as democracy ) and still less "flaunting themselves " on the Red Sea beaches or drinking the excellent Egyptian beer.

Things got to such an impasse because Morsi and the M.B. flatly refused to change tack or moderate their policies. Waiting 4 years for the next elections while the economy imploded and the M.B. established a de factio Sunni religious state was not an option.

The current situation with a true death toll now in the thousands is lamentable. However the Muslim Brotherhood leadership were well aware of the probable consequences and cannot be considered to be innocent.

In the west people have a tendency to apply western models of culture and politics on to other countries and then judge them by it. They tend to forget that democracy even in the west is a young and tender plant little more than 200 years old at best and often established within living memory. Democracy has never been established without blood and tears. It appears to be dying in England through mendacity and indifference but that is a story for another day.

The best guidebook to what could have been the future of Egypt under Morsi that I can think of is Lenin's "Socialism in Once Country" - chilling.

I am still a bit cynical about the truth of this story. I tried to confiem it at church this morning and no one had heard it.

It seemed a bit early on a Sunday morning for it to have happened and been reported in so much detail.

But it certainly could have happened and children have been caught up in Egypt, Syria and so many trouble spots. And I travelled to my Sunday School as a boy with my little brother with my hymn book (he was under 6 as he got on bus free and I was 3 years older). Never even thought we might be attacked - the world seemed very different for children 60 years ago. There might haver been a lady on bus looking out for us, but I was never aware of that.

We pray for freedom and liberty to worship or not worship as we want, Errol. I am sure you know what tends to happen in religious prayer, and much of it is inclusive. But we also see Christian brothers and sisters in other countries being denied what we have fought for over centuries and in two World Wars.. And we all try to help if we can - and prayer is something we feel is very practical.

It happened several days ago and has been widely reported in the media.

Plus Egypt is an hour ahead of us anyway.

How would people be able to confirm it at church?

I think Sunday School in the UK is probably a little different compared to Egypt.

I was not aware that the two World Wars were wars of religion - must reconsult my history books.

Absolutely no gross insult whatsoever. The World Wars were not as simplistic as that.

I do not see that I was trying to "score points" or "be clever".

Merely pointing out a few facts which anyone could google if they so wished in the interests of accuracy.

EDIT this may not make sense now that John has deleted one of his posts.

Have deleted. And I will not argue with you, Errol. Sorry.

Would appreciate any news thread relating to this incident. Just going to church for second time today to a different place, and will ask if anyone there knows anything about this alleged assassination of a little girl.

If the ethnic cleansing of Jews wasn´t a religious cause, what was it?

one of many -

http://deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/shot-coming-out-of-sunday-school-in-egypt/

John I am sure you will find more accurate information by googling and looking at numerous respected news websites rather than ask at church.