About Daniel Shayesteh

Dr Daniel was born into a Muslim family in Northern Iran. He became a radical Muslim leader and teacher of Islam in the militant Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, closely supporting Ayatollah Khomeini. However, after falling out of favor with Khomeini’s political group, he escaped to Turkey where there began an amazing journey to faith in Jesus Christ.

Daniel's mission is to help others understand and lovingly respond to those who do not know Christ. He is also deeply concerned for the future of Western societies, their loss of confidence in Judeo-Christian values, and their persistent naivete about the implications of the world-wide Islamic revival.

Who Are the Protectors of Freedom?

To respond to this question we need to know what freedom is and then examine our communities, schools, universities, leaders and governments and see their stand towards freedom.

What and where is freedom? How do we receive and protect freedom?

The Bible says:
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).
By setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (1 Corinthians 4:2).

When a prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah, if the thing does not follow nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:21).
The Bible believes that man is capable of knowing the truth and allowing the truth to free him from untruth. So, freedom means knowing the truth, being occupied by the truth and being freed from untruth. The Bible gives responsibility to man to investigate, compare and discover the truth and eventually allow the truth to take possession of him, enabling him to protect freedom.

To know the truth, we have no choice but to read the beliefs in the world and embrace the one which is true.

Let us see how Islam, atheism, secular humanism and the New Age describe freedom:

Allah is the leading force in Islam, and he says:
No one knows its (Quran’s) hidden meanings except Allah (Quran 3:7).

…they (unbelievers) dispute about Allah.  And he is mighty in strength and severe in punishment (Q.13:13).
It is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Apostle to have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and His Apostle, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path (Quran 33:36).
The Quran neither believes in human beings' capacity for understanding nor in their capacity for decision making. It is Allah and Muhammad who decide for us all. In other words, people must follow Allah without knowing him and receive whatever Muhammad gives to him. If we rejects or question Muhammad’s authority (Q.8:6, 13, 31) we will be called hostile (v.15), deaf, dumb and worst of beasts (v.22) and our finger tips and head will eventually be chopped off (v.12).

Atheism (communism) also believes that:
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Individual and Society, Moscow: Progress, 1984, P.162).
For atheists, people's understanding is secondary to the decisions of their society. In other words, society will establish an authoritarian government and the government will decide for people what to speak, wear, eat, drink and believe. We all are aware of what happened to those who spoke in opposition to the ruling authorities in communist countries. Freedom is evil in communism.

Today, the most dominant beliefs in the West are secular humanism and the New Age.  These ideologies believe that everything and everybody has their own personal truth. If this is the case, then there is no need for people to worry about freedom or lack of freedom, because the terms become meaningless in a context of coexisting belief systems, where anything and everything goes if it is true for you.

We see how the humans heart, mind and conscience are degraded in all the above non-biblical belief systems, in which spiritual oppression is veiled by so-called ‘freedom’.  Human beings are given freedom in these ideologies to surrender blindly to nothingness.

Imagine a time, maybe it has already arrived,  when the followers of Islam, atheism, humanism and the New Age establish strong roots in a society and have more rights than the followers of the Bible. Not only will it be that freedom cannot be protected in such a society, but it will also be progressively uprooted. This is where the Western societies are now being led.  The God of the Bible, who is all-knowing and rejects blind obedience, is replaced by blinding gods and blinding beliefs.

How can people have freedom if God, the author of freedom, is not allowed to live among them? How can they have freedom if they harbor and nurture authoritarian beliefs among themselves, against the God of the Bile?

For this reason we need to give place to God. We need to be the temples of His holy presence, so that His Spirit can come and reside in us, reflecting the light of His perfect law of liberty to people around the world. When He is in us, we can live and speak in the name of Freedom.  It is this freedom which gives us the courage to speak out against its enemies.

Nobody can protect freedom without God. It is only through God that true freedom can be received and upheld. It is our responsibility to receive and proclaim that truth and freedom.