Readers Write

Writer shows own ignorance of Islam

While pointing out President Obama’s “ignorance about Islam” on Feb. 14, the letter-writer is demonstrating his own ignorance of the “barbaric faith called Islam.” In fact, if one were to read some of his “barbaric” observations in isolation, it would seem as though one is reading the Old/New Testaments. On the other hand, are they prescribed in the Quran? Hardly, unless one chooses to cherry-pick whatever suits one’s fancy and reads out of context.

Among other things, the letter-writer mentions female-genital mutilation, which has nothing whatever to do with Islam, practiced mainly in North Africa, by Christians, Muslims and others, as a socio-cultural tradition. As to his reference to Islam’s “violent history,” a Biblical scholar, based on comparative analysis, recently concluded, “Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran are actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible.” But, as religions mature, we forget the original violence; he calls it “holy amnesia.” I submit that sort of “amnesia” is ubiquitous.

S.M. GHAZANFAR, ACWORTH

Zika virus doesn’t prove climate change

For the unbiased, the words “climate change” mean normal changes of climate over the 4.5 billion year history of the planet. This is a fact like the sun rises in the East. Due to the pause in global warming since 1998, advocates of the global warming scare use the words “climate change” to mean “global warming” alleged caused by fossil fuel use since 1950.

A Feb. 14 Letter to the Editor titled “Zika more evidence for climate change” claims the spread of the mosquito-carried Zika virus is caused by climate change. How is this explained by mosquito-carried malaria infecting over 30,000 (over 30 percent fatal) in Archangel, Russia from 1923 to 1925? Archangel is above the latitude of Fairbanks, Alaska — on the Arctic Circle.

Mosquito-carried infections are recorded to have occurred all over the planet for thousands of years.

JAMES H. RUST, ATLANTA