Praise the Lord!

i hope to all that's good that the previous comment was sarcastic. Why are the followers of the invisible sky fairy so intolerant of other peoples beliefs. they truly could not be any more unbelievable or dangerous.

This is sad to hear, but not surprising that Christianity has grown stronger in pace with the poverty. It's toehold has always been most tenable among the miserable. Hopefully this story will get to other world museums and organizations. As for the people, their loss is the greatest, once they become a world in which their grandmothers are viewed as 'wicked old pagans' instead of vessels of ancient knowledge.

Christ offers hope where there is no other hope. Pagan idols do not offer the hope. Christ conquered the Roman Empire pagans and all over the world. There is no resisting the Gospel. Every knee will bend. Christianity is spreading throughout the third world. There are more Christians in China than in America. Praise the Lord. Korea is sending missionaries to America. You can not resist the power of the Gospel.

I smell a troll.

To listen to Leroy, Christians must travel through space in a cube and end their sermons with "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."

Ms. Dees failed to mention a few pertinent facts about the pagans. "Responding to persistent reports of human sacrifice last August, police raided several shrines of African traditional religionists in Okija, Anambra state, in largely Christian southern Nigeria. The reports had understated the problem. To their horror, authorities recovered more than 80 skulls and 50 fresh corpses. In these shrines, the police recovered three registers. They list 1,258 visitors who had allegedly come to offer human sacrifices in the past five years. Christians say the raid was an answer to their prayers."
Ms. Dees should stick to reporting things in America. She knows nothing about Africa.

Northern Nigeria is Muslim, and under Shari’ah law "idols" and infidel religions are not tolerated.

look how much damage the "missionaires from south korea caused, not least to themselves. And I do beleive that even christians thought blowing up ancient statues of budha by the taliban was an atrocity. surely as humans we want to preserve the best from the past be it art or the enlightenment and not replace one set of gruesome superstitions with another gruesome set of superstitions.

Muslims have been smashing idols and artifacts for centuries. The entire zorastrian religion was wiped out, and they didn't even convert into Islam (as these Pentacostal Nigerians converted out of paganism), they were simply massacred. In fact, Muslims in Nigeria today are doing the exact same thing as these Pentacostals. If you judge people harshly and condemn them for smashing idols and abandoning paganism, then you are Islamophobic.

Diane E. Dees, YOU are Islamophobic.

The pagan religions that Ms Dees evidently is concerned about saving are the human sacrificing type. I am sure that women are not well respected either in the pagan religion, I hear that they are used just to relieve men's biological needs, like the ancient pagan Greeks did. I do respect Ms Dees right to hold her anti progressive values. This is America, not northern Nigeria where there is Shariah law.

I am a Christian, but I believe that there are many paths to God. I get tired of other people of my faith telling me that it is the "only way", so I can imagine how non-Christians feel about it. No wonder so many people don't go to church anymore. Until we learn not to be afraid of what we don't understand, the world will never change.

We talked about Christians and Muslims, but we left out the most important people, the Jews. That war criminal Sharon going to the Temple Mount, home to two major mosques, Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Those sites, making up Islam's third holiest site behind Mecca and Medina, mark the spot where tradition says the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven caused the deaths of many people, the Intifada. In Israel, the ultra orthodox Jews often times attack spit on Christian crosses they say their Talmud justifies the Xenophobic behavior. On Oct. 16, Israeli police turned back members of the Jewish Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, as they attempted to enter the Dome of the Rock to anoint the cornerstone of a Third Temple. It was an extraordinary provocation, given that, for the previous 17 days, the Israeli military and police had been waging a round-the-clock shooting war against Palestinian protesters, armed mostly with stones. Dozens of Arab demonstrators had already been killed, and Jerusalem was about to explode in religious warfare.Had the Israeli authorities allowed these Temple Mount fanatics to carry out their provocation--the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are among the holiest sites in Islam and have been the targets of scores of terrorist attacks by Jewish "Temple Mount" terrorists--a holy war of incalculable consequences would have erupted.

Prof. Watson:
""the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are among the holiest sites in Islam and have been the targets of scores of terrorist attacks by Jewish "Temple Mount" terrorists--a holy war of incalculable consequences would have erupted.""

Like the Holy War which erupted in 638 A.D. after Umar al-Kittab, the 2nd great caliph and former apprentice of Muhammad, burned the city of Damascus to the ground in one of the bloodiest massacres in medeival history, and then turned his army south towards Jerusalem where he besieged the citidel for 4 months. The indigenous, mostly Armenian christian population were beginning to die of thirst, so they finally capitulated and surrenderred.

The reason given for this invasion: The Byzantine emporor refused to convert to Islam.

In exchange for keeping their lives and religious identity, the christians and jews submitted to archaine and humiliating segregation laws that were far worse than anything blacks endurred during the post civil-war south, including paying a hefty tax, wearing a yellow decal on their clothing in public, being forbade to build churches and synagouges or repair old ones, amongst others - All in accordance to the words of the Koran and commandments of Mohammad (PBUH).

Umar then builds the dome of the rock directly on top of the holiest site to Jews for 3000 years, and which was also revered as a shrine to Byzantine christians at the time. On the dome, the words were inscribed, "Allah is not begotten and does not beget, we has no parters beside him"...A big middle finger to the christians who believe in the divinity of Christ.

Jews and Christians were forbidden to enter that site by Muslims ever since, until of course the advent of the Israeli state, Where muslims started an intifada when Sharon contaminated the Muslim grounds with his Jewish filth.

So yeah, that dome.

Why the hate Jimmy? You really have some issues with Muslims.

What hate? I simply recited historical facts. It was just interesting how fanboys of mother jones will put scare quotes around "temple mount" as if there is some dispute whether the jewish temple even existed, or talk about Al-aqsa as one of the holiest sites in Islam, but completely neglect that the same location is THE epicentre of Judaism for thousands of years.

Jews are no longer victims of class warfare anymore (since after the holocaust and the '67 war); they are rich and white, therefore bourgeoise in post modern liberal worldviews. Muslims are the new proletariat: poor, dark-skinned, angry, and full of rag-tag revolutionary zeal. (Despite the fact that orthodox Islam is currently the most anti-liberal, misogynist, homophobic, racist, tyrannical, and violent political philosophy in the world today)

The World Council of Churches has urged its 347 member denominations to give "serious consideration" to pulling investments out of Israel in protest of what it sees as mistreatment of Palestinians. The WCC statement recalls its backing of an economic boycott of South Africa during the antiapartheid movement of the 1970s and '80s. Let us all pray for the peace of Palestine.

Mingora, 12 Sept. (AKI/DAWN) - In a grim reminder of the destruction of world famous Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban six years ago, Muslim militants tried on Tuesday to blow up a seventh-century Buddhist rock carving in Pakistan's Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

There is also one striking difference between the Muslims and Christians in Nigeria.

The Christians are destroying there own property. The Muslims are rampaging and destroying other's property.

There is a difference that I hope Mother Jones should of made form the beginning, unless they are against the base tennents of Liberty in the form of property rights.

I am sure Mother Jones would not have any problem in America if an artist takes an old Christian Cross and mangled it for art.