Muslims have been feuding with christians for about 1300 years now, starting with the Battle of Tours when the Moors were moving throught what is now Spain. And i think at that point in time, it was a dispute more about land and conquership, rather than what the problem is today.

But as I think about the situation more and more, why is it that the Islamic extremists hate christians? And is it Christians, or just Americans? Is it the hundreds or years of bloody wars? Or, do they despise the American way of life? What have we done to upset these people?

Maybe Americans/ Christians should look more at what WE have done to make these people hateful. What can we do to make peace?

Even a haphazard trip through world history would answer your question. Two main periods you might want to investigate are (1) the era of the crusades, and (2) the aftermath of WWI.

what about the aftermath of WWII. please enlighten me

Ummm, point of information....he said World War ONE, not WWII. As is the case in Ireland, the religious intermingling of the political tends to obscure the political part. It is mainly political.

Keep in mind that these particular religions in conflict are all those who claim religious heritage of Abraham, which is why I refer to them collectively as "Abrahamists"--and it's basically power-struggle infighting among people who would otherwise believe the same things.
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edited to add: Now that I tbink about it, the Christian-centric exclusivity of the thread question is curious, not also inquiring into the apparent hate of Jews. ???

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PS--because of another discussion elsewhere, I've already started a thread about details on the Islamic Empire:

http://www.politicalforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2684

...which pertains to some of the details requested in this thread. FYI.

As to what pertains directly with this thread in terms of:
...you've hit that nail right on the head, things being more political in nature than religious. "What have we done to these people" can be summed up in brief this way: our unquestioning support of Israel to the point of establishing double standards. For this you need to review WW ONE thru WWII, up to current times.

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sorry about the mix up, i put one more roman numeral in there than i wanted to. Getting back to the point, what can we do in the future, or now, to resolve this issue? It will take a very long time, but i dont think the way we are going about it now is helping any.

The short answer: because the problem is different people laying claims to the same land because they're all sons of Abraham, as it were, the world should say that none of 'em can have it and put Buddhists in charge of the area and just let the Abrahamists visit.

The long answer is too long for a quick fix, unfortunately. It's been going on too long with too many complications that have cumulated over the years such that delicately resolving the problem now is a project very much like unscrambling an egg.

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isnt it a little more complicated than that? And can we be honest with each other, is what we are doing now, and have been doing in the middle east for the past...oh, say 50 years,...really the right thing to do.

more plainly put, is using force against force just making the problem worse? this is not a rhetorical question, i really wanna hear to what you have to say.

How do you get more complicated than unscrambling a scrambled egg??

Well, considering that you said...

....what we could have conceivably been doing in the last 50 years is turn the scrambled egg into an omelette by continuing to add foreign material. I suppose that's fair, but foreign objects are easier to remove from the omelette than it is to unscramble the egg. The problem with your premise is that it doesn't go back further than 50 years. The problem started in the 1880's and the egg really hit the fan in 1917, which is 87 years ago, not 50.
Yes, force begets more force, no doubt about it. What's called for is, as I said earlier, unscrambling that egg, BUT realizing that the egg was scrambled a whole lot longer than a mere 50 years.

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Could you please provide further information about the BURNING of BOOKS by the Muslims?

I thought I had read that one of the Khalifs ordered them to stop Burning the Books. I think it was Khalif Ali(radiallahu anhu) who ordered them to stop because this event happened during his Khalifate.