Dealing with Islam
Three, wipe them off the face of the earth - not very friendly or practical. Can anyone offer a better solution than one of these three?
This letter has not been edited.
The religion of Beace(excuse me Peace) Arabs have trouble with the letter P show their true face.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/
As long as we refuse to see that this a continuation of war of ideology/religion/civiliation...the Muslim will be encouraged to do more acts of terroism.
George, should we make the Muslims in this county and Europe wear arm bands to identify them?
Maybe we could round them up into camps just until we figure how to kill them.
Should we smite them with the sword or use stones?
I get the distinct idea that you prefer door number 3.
Posted by Sharon B. on July 8, 2007 06:51 PMGeorge, do you really think this is a workable idea?
"Two, leave them alone as long as they leave us alone - a novel and very workable idea. "
They have shown they won't leave us or anybody else that is not a muslim alone. You, like many in Europe, seem to believe that this is our fault. You have not payed attention.
The PC Europeans, including the UK are now censoring their own speech - they are not allowed to call the terrorists Muslims. They can't refer to a "war on terror."
Said a former British jihadi extremist who has renounced the movement,
"When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.
What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2115832,00.html
We can not submit or appease. We must fight them, not allow them to use our freedoms against us in order to gain a foothold here, not be politcally correct in speaking about these extremists.
We also need to acknowledge those Muslims who do not believe the literal reading of Islam and encourage those moderates here and abroad to speak out and denounce the extremists.
Also, I hope we are smart enough not to elect any "surrender monkeys" to the white house or Congress. Appeasing these extremists only draws laughs and scorn.
Posted by RU Serious on July 8, 2007 06:58 PMGeorge:
How about we all pledge to educate ourselves?
Posted by Charles B on July 8, 2007 06:58 PMGeorge - you got it almost right. Muslims are required by their "religion" (read: ideological cult of subjegation) to offer non-muslims three options:
1. Convert to Islam
2. Submit to Islamic domination under Sharia Law and live as a lowly second class citizen with limited rights and paying extra taxes (see "dhimmi" and "dhimmitude" and "jizya")
3. If #1 and #2 are rejected, wage war unto death.
Muslims in this counrty are too small of a minority to effectively execute this so they bide their time and engage in "Sharia creep" (see Minnesota airport taxi issue, Dearborn nonsense, etc). In Europe, the situation is becoming dire.
Either we deal with the Muslims or they will deal with us.
Posted by Liam on July 8, 2007 07:01 PMSharon B. - which of the three do you choose???
(although as a woman under Sharia, you would never be offered a choice in anything of import)
There are many Americans who are aiding the cause of the Muslim terrorists. Some of them have posted in this thread, although fortunately forums like this are pretty harmless because of their limited audience. They are the people who see the conflict as one between Islam and the west. If there were 200 million Muslims who wanted to be terrorists, we would have a much worse situation on our hands than we do now, but there would still be a billion who do not want to be terrorists. But the ranks of the terrorists apparently are growing, thanks to the recruiting efforts of those who want to make this a war with Islam.
The Muslims who oppose terrorism are not at all doing a good job of reacting to those who support it. I expect one reason is the efforts of those who want to demonize all Muslims. That puts them on the defensive and makes them want to spend their energy defending their religion rather than improving it. The more that the general Muslim population feels accepted by others rather than rejected, the more likely they are to complain about the bad ones in their midst.
I expect that if the terrorists were to give out an Oscar to the non-Muslim who has aided their cause the most, George Bush would be close to the top of the list.
George Lilly-livered doesn't tell us which of the three he would prefer to see, but it's not difficult to imagine which one. Wipe them off the face of the earth. I can imagine the terrorists spreading that kind of talk far and wide in the Muslim world and among Muslims in the west. How do you think a good Muslim feels when ignorant people like Lilly and some of the posters thinks he should be wiped off the face of the earth? How would you feel?
There are perhaps seven million or so Muslims in the United States. So far we have had no problems with them. But those people who campaign to wipe them off the face of the earth are working hard to change that.
Let's see, what is it I hate about the terrorists? I know, it is their desire to wipe us off the face of the earth.
Actually, Truth, it has been estimated that there are about 1.2 million Muslims of voting age in the U.S.
One of the main points of the British ex-jihadist made was that until the extremists are made to take responsibility for their crimes by the moderates and the moderates demand that mainstream Islam take a look at and study and write about the theology that is the underlying cause, nothing will change and more and more Muslims will be converted to extremism. In other words, they need to bring Islam into the 20th century.
Unfortunately, PC Islam rules here and is mistakenly trumpeted by our media and government. PBS had a chance to give the moderates within this country and abroad a voice, but stifled a film on just that subject. Oregon PBS is going to air it - maybe somehow, the rest of us can see it sometime. Islam vs. Islamists is the name of the film.
Posted by RU Serious on July 8, 2007 08:54 PMRU Serious - what civilized people consider crimes and atrocities are seen as sacraments by jihadists. Do not expect them to "take responsibility" for what that see as the greatest good.
Posted by Liam on July 8, 2007 09:11 PMTruth,
"But the ranks of the terrorists apparently are growing, thanks to the recruiting efforts of those who want to make this a war with Islam."
Can you name a war where recruiting efforts were not increased by the enemy?
The fact that Muslims are not backing down and are fighting back is a sign of a worthy enemy. What did you think? Did you think the age of prolonged warfare was over and that all future wars would be like Desert Storm?
There are plenty of mistakes in the way we go about this war. Calling it the "War on Terrorism" is foolish. This is, like most wars, a battle of cultures. Islam is the rival culture. It matters not that some Muslims are peaceful. Just like it mattered not that many Germans were peaceful during WWII.
The main problem with this war is that it has been fought too carefully. Post-modernism has destroyed strategic warfare. Everything is tactical now.
Post-modernism is killing more innocent civilians than carpet bombing would. We are not breaking the will of the enemy. We are an annoyance. Muslims will not back down because we haven't applied enough pressure to them. Given enough pressure anyone and anything will break. It all comes down to making the enemy face a simple choice: would life be better for us fighting America or submitting to her? We have not yet applied enough pressure to make them choose the latter.
Posted by John II on July 9, 2007 12:29 AMJohn II , where and how would you apply the pressure. Who would be carpet bombed? and how many nations hit?
Christianity may be in a decline because the birth rate of Muslims is so much larger. Eventually the Mormons and Muslims will be fighting for this country, since even the Catholics birth rate is down.
Liam and Lillly, with their false choices, are a microcosm of what was wrong with this war from the beginning.
Posted by Sharon B. on July 9, 2007 02:27 AMSharon B. - the choices that I presented you are not offered by me - they are "offered" by Islam - an offer you can't refuse. That is their dogma pure and simple, and not my or anyone else's "spin." Don't blame the messenger (me).
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 07:08 AMWhich slogan do you think best describes the way we Americans should react:
Wipe them off the face of the earth.
Win their hearts and minds.
Among the "wipe them off the face of the earth" crowdin history we find Hitler, Stalin, General Hideki Tojo, Hamas, al Queda, and, apparently, RUSerious, Lilly, and John II.
Let's see. Sometimes you can judge the worth of an approach by the people who support it. So, let me name below the prominent people in our country who support the "wipe them off the face of the earth" approach:
There, did I overlook anyone?
No, that doesn't conclusively show it's wrong, any more than the fact that no one of prominence thinks we should drop a nuclear bomb on each of the Muslim countries. It also takes common sense to know it is grotesque.
You think George Bush is bad? What if someone with the mentality of Lilly, RUSerious or John II were running the country? They are among the few people who could make Bush look good.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 07:18 AMWhen you read a post by John II that advocates more violence, you need to remember that he also thinks it may be necessary to overthrow the United States government in order to "correct its wrongs". Right, John?
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 08:36 AMAs much as Christians (and Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and other civilized peoples) abhor violence, Islam ultimately leaves no choice - submit to Islam or you will have violence inflicted upon you. The only choice civilized peoples have is to submit, resist (or forestall) Muslim violence with counter-violence. It's unpleasant, but that's the deal that Muslims inflict on any and all non-Muslim societies.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 09:14 AMOLW (original letter writer) asked if we had any other ideas, right?
Well, I like the hearts and minds, while keeping all military and law options.
But I would convert in a heartbeat if it meant living or dying.
No religion means enough to me to die for, but I would work every day to over throw the Muslim religion, even while praying 5 times a day.
What we would choose as a nation is different than what we could do as an individual.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims, as is true of the overwhelming majority of any people, would much rather live in peace than in violence. People who try to paint all Muslims with the same brush that describes the terrorist Muslim surely have some need for mental counseling. They are a grave danger to the United States in their efforts to make a billion and a half people our mortal enemies. Dear God, don't we already have enough enemies?
If these fanatics had their way, we could look forward to a situation in which the death and injured toll in in Vietnam, even in World War II, would be dwarfed, a situation in which the misguided belief of many foreigners that the United States is the biggest threat to peace in the world would suddenly make sense, a situation in which our lofty ideals, which we often have violated but always retained as our ideals, would be smashed to smithereens, a situation in which the United States would be forever changed for the worse.
One of the biggest problems we have in the United States is how uninformed we are. People read a few highly biased articles condemning all Muslims, and since it fits their own predilection to violence as a way to solve problems, they heartily endorse such an attitude without really having any idea of what they are saying.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 09:57 AMSharon - those burkas get pretty hot in July. If you were going to work to overthrow Islam, as a Muslim (which you said you would be) that would constitute apostasy, a capital crime for which there is no appeal and for which no mercy is ever shown. Your options would remain - submit like a slave or die.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 10:05 AMLiam, so what would you do, submit or die?
Those long uncut beards get just as hot.
Posted by Sharon B. on July 9, 2007 10:50 AMSharon,
I would choose death, but I would fight as long as I could. And, I wouldn't be dying for my religion, since I don't believe in God. I guess you could say I would be dying for my LACK of religion but, freedom would be the real motivating factor.
Posted by Mike on July 9, 2007 11:04 AMSharon - In the spirit of freedom and of 1776 I would fight to the death. No forced beards for me thanks.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 11:34 AMBTW - only Islam will ever force us into this unpleasant choice. No other religion or atheism is geared towards the conquest and submission of others as is Islam. It is a unique cult of conquest and we ignore or sugar-coat that at our own peril.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:10 PMReally, Liam? Then just what were the Crusades and 100 Years War all about? Nothing more than conquest and submission (of either the "Holy Land" or protestants/Catholics, depending on which side you were on). Don't sugar-coat history to suit your own prejudicial mindset, guy.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 12:19 PMPaulie - I was talking in the present tense whereas you are refering to long-past events that no longer have currency anywhere in the civilized world. The Islamic doctrine of conquest and submission is alive and well, unlike its Christion analogue.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:24 PMLiam,
The only effective way to fight the spread of Islam is for Christians to give up their similar beliefs in ghosts and magic. All religions are co-dependent.
Posted by Charles B on July 9, 2007 12:31 PMCharles B.,
Let's say every single American became an atheist; Then what? How would that stop the spread of Islam?
Posted by John II on July 9, 2007 12:37 PMCharles - you can bash religions all you want, fine with me but that misses the point in this case. Islam is not a religion, it is a political movement of conquest and subjegation that has discovered the political and tactical advantages of offering unprovable, voodoo-istic rewards in the hereafter (rivers of wine and honey, etc, even though alcohol is forbidden in earthly Islam) for sacrifices made on Earth in the cause of Islam. Islam is no more a religion than is Nazism or Stalinism. At least those latter two were honest enough to present themselves as political movements and not to pretend they were religions with nonsensical heavenly rewards.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:42 PMThere was time when narrow minded people thought all blacks were bad, and a time when they thought all Jews were bad, and a time when they thought all Germans and Japanese were bad. It's an evil inflicted on us by the human condition. How can I feel superior? One way is to condemn those who are not like me.
Perhaps the biggest problem with many of the countries in Africa, and at times in South and Central America, is that the fringe fanatics who want to kill people who believe differently than they got control of the government. Fortunately, the fringe fanatics in the United States have to be satisfied with trying to get control of this forum.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 12:43 PMTruth - I think Klanism and Nazism are bad. Those are behaviors or ideologies. I think you are confusing ideologoies and races.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:55 PMWhatever, Liam. I hope that your reading of history makes your teeth rot, makes you fat, and gives you diabetes. No sense arguing with a fool . . .
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 12:56 PMWow Paulie - I guess you showed me.... Your argument and logic are irrefutable.
Seriously - I didn't mean to frustrate you. May I suggest "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" available at most libraries?? Or the "Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" By be forwarned - they are not pleasant to read and have been known to destroy feel-good, Pollyanna sentimentality about the nature of political Islam.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 01:04 PMWow. You actually have the self-righteousness to think that I care if you validate what I say? Let me put this to you in a way you can maybe understand: I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK. Seriously.
And take your little "reading suggestions" and throw them in the trash. They'll get more attention there. Seriously.
Furthermore, muslims as a whole are not bent on world domination any more than all christian republicans are fascists. Seriously.
And finally, you don't frustrate me, although you do annoy me because you are so self-important. Rather, your black-and-white, myopic view of the world is nothing short of pathetic. Seriously.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 01:13 PMPaulie - others will be the judge of this exchange. I don't think you will come off very well with your emotional rants.
For the record - I am still 100% against Nazism, Stalinism, Klanism, and Islam. For basically the same reasons in each case. Sorry if that offends you or makes your head explode.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 01:18 PMHow about
4. Stop bombing them, and lay off supporting dictators in their countries
"Truth - I think Klanism and Nazism are bad. Those are behaviors or ideologies. I think you are confusing ideologoies and races.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:55 PM"
I presume you are referring to my mention of the bigotry that has existed against blacks. That is really not different in principle from the bigotry that has existed against women, Catholics, Italians, homosexuals, poor people, rich people, Yankees, southerners, etc. It is a matter of attributing to a whole class of people the characteristics of a few. It is what you are doing. It doesn't matter whether the class is defined by race, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation, social customs, etc. It is all bigotry and is based on ignorance and the need to feel superior.
And invariably, it results in grave injustice, although in the case of Muslims it also results in danger to our security, this business of trying to making enemies out of friends or neutrals or opponents of our enemies.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 01:30 PMLiam,
If I really cared what all these idiot posters thought (and you and me are members of that crew too), I wouldn't even post anything in the first place. So what if I look like an emotional ranter? You still look like a pseudo-intellectual desperately clinging to patently wrong notions.
And I don't actually care what you are for or against, whether 100% or otherwise, and for whatever reason. You make me annoyed, not offended or whatever else you want to fantasize about.
So why do I even bother? Well, I am not a troll. I just wanted to point out a historical fact that you conveniently overlook, and deliberately at that.
Look at it this way. What is the year according to the Islamic calendar? Is it maybe just about the same point when Christians launched the Crusades according to their calendar? Is there maybe a cultural parallel there? Is it unfair to view an essentially medieval cultural through a post-industrial lens? (And muslims are just as unfair to view a post-industrial world through a medieval lens too, you know.) Finally, do you think that it may be even a little bit wrong to paint an entire religion and culture merely because of their radical wing? (Or in other words, would you consider it wrong to paint all american christian republicans as fascist because of what Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps says?)
Maybe you should shelve your emotions too, and just try to be a trifle more objective.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 01:37 PMTruth - I don't know how to respond to your assertion that
"It doesn't matter whether the class is defined by race, religion, political beliefs, ..."
Political beliefs that drive atrocity (the Holocaust, the slaughter at Beslan, the ongoing butchery of Buddhists by Muslims in Thailand, etc) are in no way comparable to race, sexual orientation, etc.
"I hate Nazis" cannot be compared to "I hate Jews." I don't know where you are getting that from.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 01:38 PMPaulie - I think you misunderstand the problem. Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps qualify as radical examples of their religion (BTW - to the best of my knowledge, for all their ranting and craziness, no one has ever died or been injuried by them or their followers). In Islam, the reverse is true. Osama bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, al-Zarahiri and the Wahabisits are the moderites. The "radicals" are those who propose living in peace with non-muslims, not trying to dominate non-muslims, allowing the use of alcohol and pork in their presence, etc. The US has many such radical muslims, but they are subject to being cowed by the traditionalists, as events in Minnesota and Dallas have shown.
BTW - who has been so silly as to paint all republican american christians as fascists? Never heard of that before.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 01:49 PMTruth,
Can you name a war America was involved in that followed two of your strict rules for warfare:
a) The enemy must not increase recruiting efforts.
b) The enemy must not include innocent people.
Liam,
OK, I really should have used the word "reactionary" when referring to al-Zawarihi and the other hate-filled muslim ideologues. But to paint this group as "moderate" is laughable, since it is very hard to get much further to the right than these guys in muslim culture.
And, BTW, remember that Rudolph guy who bombed the Atlanta Olympics along with abortion clinics, and other people who have bombed abortion clinics or shot doctors who worked at these clinics? They were definitely under the spell of reactionary christian preachers in this country. Remember, that just because you want all christians to be seen as little angels does not make them so.
And all you have to do is look at the more virulent liberal blogs to find the "christian republicans = fascists" point of view. Just because you have never seen it does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that it does not exist.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 02:00 PMPaulie - the Muslim moderates are those who follow the Quran and the hadith (traditions of Mohammed) and don't make up modernistic, non-Islamic feel-good stuff to appease modern and non-muslim sensibilities.
As for "Christian terrorists" you can probably cite Rudolph, McVeigh, the Klan, the Idaho White supremacists, the guys who killed Alan Berg and others. But they are one-off fringe groups who are widely and unequivocally condemned by mainstrean Christians (and others) and who have never come close to critical mass. Are widespread security measures needed because of these guys? Of course not - next time you have to jettison some personal items at the airport and remove your shoes, you know who you have to thank - by-the-book, mainstream, traditionalist Muslims.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 02:07 PMLiam,
Until you connect a few dots between the relative (temporally speaking) cultural development of christianity and islam, you will get nowhere, especially in convincing me to unequivocably hate all muslims as hate-filled murderers.
Take care!
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 02:14 PMPaulie - who besides you used the term "hate-filled murderers??" Muslims, BY DEFINITION, believe in Islam which mandates subjugation of or war on non-muslims. Some might be "cultural" or "radical" and pretend to be muslims even though they reject that basic tenet, but that doesn't change what it means to be a Muslim.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 02:22 PMLook, Liam, put down your smarmy books on Islam written by westerners and expand your horizons a bit.
The proper interpretation of "jihad" is to wage war on yourself to change yourself for the better. If that lofty ideal is reached, then, and only then, can jihad extend to others. Just like the christian adage, "charity begins at home". It does not matter if followers misinterpret the passage, since if they do they are in violation of the tenets of Jehovah or Allah, depending on the Abrahamic branch in question, and shall not win the favor of either face of the god of Abraham.
True moderate muslims recognize this, but are afraid to speak out for fear of their lives (just like christians were in the days of the witch-hunts, Inquisition, and religious wars of Europe).
True, "islam" means "submission" as translated, but it is a personal submission to Allah. So there has been a grave misinterpretation of this idea, but where is this different from the grave misinterpretations of christianity since the days of the apostle Paul?
Now, I am not saying that christianity or islam is evil per se, but the way both have been interpreted has definitely resulted in many evil doings. Christianity's evil acts were committed (mostly) several centuries ago, but temporally and culturally speaking, islam is behind christianity by several centuries. Are you beginning to understand whare I am coming from?
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 02:48 PMPaulie - interesting that since I am in command of the facts and have not engaged in emotional outbursts or name-calling, I am accused of reading "smarmy [sic] books" and of being "a pseudo-intellectual desperately clinging to patently wrong notions." Damned if I am informed and damned if I am not.
Strictly speaking, Muslims distinguish between the "greater Jihad" (inner struggle) and the "lesser Jihad" (what is often called Holy War). Since the greater Jihad can never be completed, one should in theory never have time for lesser Jihad (killing others wholesale). But that's not the way it works in practice, as we know all too well. At the current standoff at the Red Mosque in Islamabad, the hold-outs were screaming "Jihad!!" - suffice it to say they were not referring to the greater variety.
To understand the relation between Islam and the world's religions, consider that Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastorianism, paganism, atheism and all the other religions are varieties of sheep. Islam is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's trying to pretend it is a sheep, and with great success in many quarters, but it is a blood-thirsty wolf nonetheless. It's first victims are Muslims themselves, and then the non-Muslims. Islam is evil, even though not all self-proclaimed Muslims are not. Christianity is benign, even if not all self-proclaimed Christians are.
Are you beginning to understand where I am coming from?
Liam,
Well, SO sorry to hurt your precious little feelings and sense of superiority (narcissist that you keep showing yourself to be). Your so-called "command" of the facts is very weak, just like your argument. You are quite obviously so entrenched in your own mode of thinking that you will never admit that you're even a smidge wrong, only welcome those that want to believe the (at best) half-truths that you're peddling.
Well, whatever, guy. If you can't even agree to disagree, then I think that you know where you can go. Seriously. And I'll see you there. Seriously.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 03:17 PMAs Paulie says, Christianity's "evil acts" were committed several centuries ago. Now, unfortunately, it's Islam's turn to try & shove their ridiculous dogma down the world's collective throats.
This is just a repeating pattern with the "Big 3" monotheistic religions (Judaism less so) - to cause misery & strife because they they are "certain" they have the answer to all mankind's problems, even if us "uninformed masses" don't know it ourselves.
The problem isn't Christianity, Islam or any other creed, it's religion itself - imagine how much better off mankind would be without this garbage. This is what authors like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins & most recently Christopher Hitchens, have been saying eloquently for a long time.
Wish these fundamentalists (of whatever stripe) would find a barren corner of the earth & just go and slug it out amongst themselves - and leave the rest of us alone.
Posted by drew on July 9, 2007 03:24 PM"Well, whatever, guy. If you can't even agree to disagree, then I think that you know where you can go. Seriously. And I'll see you there. Seriously."
Well, alright! I'll see you all there too. First round is on me!
Mr. Skank, will you be joining us as well? I would love to buy a few drinks for my favorite commie, socialist, liberal, bleeding heart, anti-capitalist foreigner. I'd offer to buy Truth a drink as well but he has already taken plenty of money from my paycheck for his retirement; He owes me a round (or two).
Posted by John II on July 9, 2007 03:26 PMPaulie - cite one mistatement of fact that I made. I won't hold my breathe waiting. You have already shown you have no use for facts and knowledge (perhaps that's why you seem to be so sympathetic to Islam) with your coments about the books I mentioned. Your penchant for ad hominem and belittling attacks in lieu of fact-based rebuttals just show you for what you are.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 03:28 PMWell, Liam the Narcissist, you can't even agree to disagree, so you know where to go. Seriously. And BTW, great job misrepresenting my views the very same way that you are misrepresenting the facts in play. Great job, guy! So proud of ya!! I'll see you where you know you can go. Seriously.
John II,
I usually just ignore your posts, but that one was pretty darn amusing. You should show your sense of humor more often.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 03:34 PMLiam: "Political beliefs that drive atrocity (the Holocaust, the slaughter at Beslan, the ongoing butchery of Buddhists by Muslims in Thailand, etc) are in no way comparable to race, sexual orientation, etc.
"I hate Nazis" cannot be compared to "I hate Jews." I don't know where you are getting that from."
Liam, people who hate Jews and blacks and Catholics and whatever don't hate them simply because they are Jews or blacks or Catholics or whatever. They hate them because they consider them bad people. In other words, they hate them for the identical reason that you hate Muslims.
You ask someone who hates blacks. He won't say, well, because they are black. No, he'll say because they are all criminals or because they all stink, or some such. Ask someone who hates Catholics Why? He'll say something like because they are trying to take over the world, or because the nunneries are nothing more than brothels for the priests. He'll say that because he is ignorant and wants to feel superior, the same reason for why you hate Muslims.
Truth - I don't hate Muslims, never said I did. Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Unfortunately many are also victimizers in the name of Islam. I hate Islam because of its innate supremacism and subjugation imperative. I look askance at Muslims, don't hate them. In this country at least, they are presumably Muslims by choice, unlike blacks, gays, etc.
Islam wants to sugjugate me or kill me. Why would I not hate that?? Don't you??
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 04:04 PMEven though doctrinaire Islam and doctrinaire Christianity have been in an adversarial position for some fourteen centuries,we have another 800 pound gorilla in the living room-China,who will be the prime beneficiary of an apocalyptic war between Islam and the West....I would think a continued Neo Cold War is the best way to deal with Islam,maybe with our leaders showing enough backbone to do a little more rocket-rattling and a little less kowtowing to the PC "Left",which as we all know has nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with attacking other Americans.
Posted by Jimminy on July 9, 2007 04:43 PMJohn II asked pertinently:
"Let's say every single American became an atheist; Then what? How would that stop the spread of Islam?"
It would then become a clash of a rational civilization vs. an irrational one. The current reality is a clash between two irrational ones. I'll take my chances on the rational side in the former scenario.
Every person who admits that their favored mythology is a construct of man undermines the spread of Islam by weakening the foundation of credibility and the suspension of disbelief that religion is built upon. Death by a thousand defections.
Atheists would also be more thoughtful in their response to the irrational actions of the enemy. There would be no superstitious nonsense to cloud our thinking.
Are you with us?
Posted by Charles B on July 9, 2007 07:12 PMIt is ridiculous for anyone to say "I don't hate Muslims but I hate Islam". The only way a religion can hurt anyone is through the people who belong to that religion. The only way to get rid of a religion is to kill its adherents. "Look, I don't hate you but I hate what you believe so I must kill you".
There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who reject terrorism. But that makes no difference to people like Liam. Since there are some Muslims that want to kill us, he thinks we have to kill all Muslims.
What Liam and people like him want is for us to be like the terrorists, but under a different name.
The real battle is one for hearts and minds. People with Liam's attitude aid and abet the enemy in this battle. How can you win a person's heart and mind and at the same time say "I want to wipe you off the face of the earth"?
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 07:30 PMBango, liked your number 4. Especially the bit about dictators like our shah puppet we put in Iran.
Love all the names John II called you, seems his wanting a kinder, gentler, thug free forum didn`t last too long.
Islam is having an internal struggle between moderate and fanatic groups. It may reform itself like Christianity did, but it needs a reformation, or its brand of protestant leader like Luther.
Parts of Islam, like Indonesia are more prosperous and forward thinking. Islam came there later then in the Middle East, I think.
No one on the outside could reform Christianity and no one outside Islam can reform it.
Now if we can all just outlive the fanatics, or sway them, or kill them when we know who they really are....
Posted by Sharon B. on July 9, 2007 07:30 PMJimminy said without a hint of the self-awareness necessary to recognize his glaring hypocrisy:
"I would think a continued Neo Cold War is the best way to deal with Islam,maybe with our leaders showing enough backbone to do a little more rocket-rattling and a little less kowtowing to the PC "Left",which as we all know has nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with attacking other Americans."
So it's option three then?
Posted by Charles B on July 9, 2007 07:38 PMLiam, A belief system is not necessarily a religion.
theist believe in A God, atheists believe in NO God.
Religion is believing in some kind of God.
It is like mater and anti-mater, if an atheist and a believer in god touch, they will annihilate each other.
My parents believed in space people, that did not make it a religion.
Posted by Sharon B. on July 9, 2007 07:44 PMCharles B.,
"Atheists would also be more thoughtful in their response to the irrational actions of the enemy. There would be no superstitious nonsense to cloud our thinking."
What rubbish! How does Christianity "cloud our thinking" in terms fighting a war against Islam?
I think your zealousness in regards to opposing all religion has clouded your own thinking.
Posted by John II on July 9, 2007 07:46 PMSharon: "Parts of Islam, like Indonesia are more prosperous and forward thinking. Islam came there later then in the Middle East, I think."
Indonesia conclusively puts the lie to those ignorant people who view Muslims as monolithic clones of the terrorists.
Indonesia has about 234 million people and has more Muslims than any other nation in the world.
The Constitution provides "all persons the right to worship according to their own religion or belief" and states that "the nation is based upon belief in one supreme God." The Government generally respects these provisions; however, some restrictions exist on certain types of religious activity and on unrecognized religions.
Indonesia "has a market-based economy in which the government plays a significant role."
Indonesia has a female president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
"The national motto is "unity in diversity". The founding principles of Indonesia, the Pancasila, include a belief in God. But beyond this, religious tolerance is seen as the cornerstone of relations between different faiths - even though almost 90% of Indonesians are Muslim. Moderation is therefore built into the country's constitutional framework."
"Although it has an overwhelming Muslim majority, the country is not an Islamic state. Over the past 50 years, many Islamic groups sporadically have sought to establish an Islamic state, but the country's mainstream Muslim community, including influential social organizations such as Muhammadiyah and NU, reject the idea."
The reason why the fanatics who want to us to have billion two hundred million Muslim enemies are unaware of the foregoing is that they are steeped in ignorance and bigotry.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 08:15 PMSharon - what are you talking about?
Truth - I know how to speak English and I have never said or implied anything liek "killing all Muslims." Please stop putting words in my mouth.
As for hating Islam but not Muslims - it's a variant of "hate the sin..."
Committed, sincere, mainstream Muslims abide by the Quran, e.g. "Strike terror in the hearts of the Infidel" "Harass the infidel" and "Fight the Infidel." Cultural Muslims are not ardent about that stuff, but are easily cowed by the mainstream Muslims found in Gaza, Al Quaeda, etc.
If you want to asssert that I believe this or that, please cut and paste from my posts and don't make stuff up out of whole cloth.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 08:28 PMTruth,
You said:
"The real battle is one for hearts and minds.
Can you name a war that was won by winning "hearts and minds"?
We have now learned of Truth's third rule in warfare:
a) The enemy must not increase recruiting efforts.
b) The enemy must not include innocent people.
c) Victory can only be achieved by winning hearts and minds.
Liam, your 3:05 post Atheism and all other religions. Sheep. Atheism is not a religion.
John II, when your enemy is all over the place, maybe even next door to you, carpet bombing, as someone suggested, might not do the trick.
How thoughtless of the radical Muslims to mix themselves in with the innocent population.
Guess we should just glaze over their country. Their stronghold, And where is that again?
Posted by Sharon B. on July 9, 2007 09:02 PMLiam,
"If you want to asssert that I believe this or that, please cut and paste from my posts and don't make stuff up out of whole cloth."
Liam, 8:28pm.
Mr. Pot, I would like to introduce you to a Mr. Kettle . . .
"You have already shown you have no use for facts and knowledge (perhaps that's why you seem to be so sympathetic to Islam) with your coments about the books I mentioned."
Liam, 3:28pm
I never said that I am sympathetic to islam. And I could rattle off the list of books from which I learned the history, culture, and religion of the muslim world (which is in the double-digits, unlike your two books you cited. Wow!! You read TWO books on islam and now you are an authoratative expert!! What a narcissist!!! But at least I can rest easy knowing that I know how to use English, unlike you, no matter what you want to believe, refer to your whiny 8:28 post.), but I am not as self-righteous or self-important as you obviously are.
Take your pseudo-intellectual claptrap BS back to the coffehouse, big shooter. You may impress a few teenagers there.
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 09:32 PMLiam: "As for hating Islam but not Muslims - it's a variant of "hate the sin..."
So you now want to bring up the bible. How about saying the whole thing, Liam, hate the sin but love the sinner. Do you love the Muslims? The whole idea of that biblical verse is that we should love the sinner, not kill him. Is that your attitude?
It's really difficult to know what you think should be done about Muslims, but it sounds like from much of your commentary that you believe that all Muslims are now, or in the future will be, dedicated to killing all non-Muslims. I can't imagine a more bigoted and ignorant attitude than that.
You say: "Islam wants to sugjugate me or kill me. Why would I not hate that?? Don't you??"
Come now. Islam is a concept. Concepts cannot subjugate or kill; only people can to that. Concepts are quite harmless unless there are people to carry them out. Why are you afraid to admit that what you are saying is that you hate Muslims? What you are saying is that the Muslim population wants to subjugate or kill you. Of course, that is absurd. Do the over two hundred million Muslims in Indonesia want to subjugate or kill you; what have they done to accomplish that?
What about the Muslims in Albania, Bahrain, Guinea, Qatar,Tunsia, etc, countries with a very large Muslim population; what have they done to indicate they want to subjugate or kill you?
Most militant Muslims are busy killing each other rather than non-Muslims. Saddam killed more Muslims than anybody else. There are many more efforts in Iraq to kill other Muslims than Americans. Does all that suggest that their main objective is to kill non-Muslims?
You say: "Either we deal with the Muslims or they will deal with us."
What do you mean by "deal with them"? I don't think you are talking about card games. You like to use vague language so that no one can really tell what it is you are talking about.
You say: "Sharon B. - which of the three do you choose???"
Am I wrong to infer from that and your other posts that of the three your choice is wiping them off the face of the earth?
You don't say what you mean by "cultural Muslims". There are Muslims of many different cultures, from Irag to Albania to Afghanistan to Indonesia, to name only a few. You seem to mean Muslims who don't agree with you on what it means to be a Muslim, as though you are better positioned to know what it means to be a Muslim than the Muslims are.
Surely you know you are flat wrong to suggest that all committed, mainstream Muslims want to subjugate or kill non-Muslims. There is a widespread debate going on in Muslimland by highly religious Muslims over the acceptance or rejection of the terrorist brand of Islam and over the need to reform Islam.
And I certainly don't blame you for ignoring my post about Indonesia since it catapults your claims about Islam into the sewer.
Posted by Truth on July 9, 2007 10:10 PMTruth Hates it When people do not answer his questions to his desires. What a crock........when Anyone is to ask Truth a Question.........and he thinks its too much.........even when asking a YES/NO question..... EVEN after apoligizing for any misunderstanding and rewording question to fit forum.......He cries foul and says insincere and immature..........and then He ignores people that continue to debate his information............ As you state you goad to get what you want.......Well others can play that game too.
Apologized to you once......You took as sign of weakness and attacked. Apologized again out of kindness of heart, not out of weakness but when you pull same crap on others, you prove to me and the world of your selfishness and childlike tantrums.
Sounds like you are throwing a tantrum yourself, bwr. Nice . . .
Posted by Paulie on July 9, 2007 10:28 PMYes Paulie learning from people like you and Truth.......or shall we rehash yours above. Try to be civil and you and others use as a weakness. Most of you have been asked to discuss over coffee and you all ignore? Why is that. Can we not come together as americans and try to get along within our own borders? Betting that you and I would have more in common than not. You dont like republicans, I dont either.....just so happens I dont like your party either. Extremism has got this country by the onions and not letting go. Would hope that we can come together as a country and community.
Posted by bwr on July 9, 2007 10:35 PM"How does Christianity "cloud our thinking" in terms fighting a war against Islam?"
Because consciously or subconsciously it is viewed in the context of a Biblical struggle, rather than a problem of logic. Bush himself has made claims of taking orders from a "higher power". Do you think that his religious beliefs are fake or are they really guiding his actions?
The fact that you call it a "war against Islam" is indicative of this compulsion..
Posted by Charles B on July 10, 2007 07:24 AMCharles B.,
You still haven't told me how Christianity clouds our thinking in terms of fighting Islam. Would you like me to disregard your comment as meaningless rhetoric that was not meant to be taken literally?
As for the war against Islam, do you feel it is not a war against Islam but should simply be a war against al Qaeda?
Would the spread of Islam bother you about the same as the spread of Christianity? If America became an Islamic nation, would that bother you more, less or the same as a nation of Christians?
RU Said ” One of the main points of the British ex-jihadist made was that until the extremists are made to take responsibility for their crimes by the moderates and the moderates demand that mainstream Islam take a look at and study and write about the theology that is the underlying cause, nothing will change and more and more Muslims will be converted to extremism. In other words, they need to bring Islam into the 20th century.”
Yeah ok, but the problem is that if the moderate is embarrassed by things we do or policies we have towards them, then they can’t keep the fringe on a leash. Every time one of our “surgical strikes” nails some old woman, or a wedding party, or a family with small children, it shuts the moderate up, forces them to become more radicalized, and turns the radical into the only valid voice.
You cannot plead with your brethren for reason and calm when every taboo in your culture is being broken by the people you claim should be treated with calm and forgiveness.
Every time our soldiers kick in a door, every time they arrest somebody’s father in front of their children, every time we let a sniffer dog into a Muslim kitchen or their daughter’s bedroom, we silence the moderate and empower the radical.
On top of all this, their radicals import texts directly from our own right-wing speakers and evangelicals. Pat Robertson’s and others damning criticism of our culture were taken verbatim and included into the Muslim radicals speeches and video. They point gleefully that their condemnation of western culture must be right because even western church leaders agree with it!
JohnII said ” Mr. Skank, will you be joining us as well? I would love to buy a few drinks for my favorite commie, socialist, liberal, bleeding heart, anti-capitalist foreigner.”
I am disappointed – you forgot “atheist” and “elitist” ;)
btw Mr. Lilly, you might want to check on a map. Glasgow isn't in England.
You might also want to go read "Lawrence of Arabia" and note the warnings that he spelled out for the British government.
Posted by Bango Skank on July 10, 2007 10:17 AMThere is an interesting "take" on Islam in the current edition of Newsweek. Of course, it is but one of many such "takes" but it is interesting and informative; how accurate it is is above my pay grade.
My summary:
Contrary to what you often read, What some refer to as the "death culture" in Islam today, is of pretty recent origin. And, according to the author's analysis, it has resulted largely from the minimization of the influence of the Islamic clerics.
The death of the Ottoman empire in the 19th century "led to "the devalidation of Islamic education and Islamic law, the marginalization of Islamic scholars," who until then had collectively acted as counterbalance to tyranny and extremism" which led to a vacuum in power. Into that vacuum stepped the radical fundamentalists.
The article claims that the current hatred of the west by the current radical fundamentalist leaders is of recent origin and did not exist for the preceding hundreds of years during which Islam was a leader in many sciences and was an advanced civilization compared to the west.
The article closes with the admonition that only Islam can do successful battle with this cancer that has infected its new leaders.
Here are some quotes from the article, which you can read in full at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19636920/site/newsweek/page/0/
"Would any other culture or religion produce a group of doctors and professionals who apparently deemed it morally correct to kill innocent people in large numbers? Has something gone wrong with Islam itself, or at least the culture it has produced?"
"Even in the United States, where Muslims are far more assimilated into Western society than they are in Great Britain or Europe, 26 percent of younger Muslims say suicide bombing can be justified under some circumstances, according to a Pew Research survey released in May. The question of whether modern Islam has been contaminated, or twisted out of shape, is even on the minds of some Arab leaders. “We used to talk about the extremists coming from the poor or desperate people,” says a high-ranking Muslim diplomat. “Then, after 9/11, we had to face the fact that it was middle-class Arab men, too. Now with this British plot it's not just middle class but also doctors. It's very strange. I don't know where this will take us.”
"The Muslim communities in both Britain and America have vociferously denounced the U.K. plot. “These people are not from us and we are not from them,” said a statement by the Association of Muslim Health Professionals."
"Finally, over the long run Islamic history has been dominated more by relative peace and prosperity than by jihad."
"The irony is that this virulent strain began with the removal of Islam from public life during the “modernization” of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, when Western legal structures and armies were created. That led to "the devalidation of Islamic education and Islamic law, the marginalization of Islamic scholars," who until then had collectively acted as counterbalance to tyranny and extremism, Bulliet says. Instead of modernization, what ensued was what Muslim clerics had long feared: tyranny. "You had the implicit notion that if Islam is pushed out of the public sphere, removed from public life, tyranny will increase," says Bulliet. "By the 1960s that prophecy was fulfilled. You had dictatorships in most of the Islamic world." Egypt's Gamel Nasser, Syria's Hafez Assad and others came in the guise of Arab nationalists, but they were nothing more than tyrants.
Yet there was no longer a legitimate force to oppose this trend. In the place of traditional Islamic learning—which had encouraged science and advancement in medieval times—there was nothing. The old religious authorities had been hounded out of public life, back into the mosque. The Ottoman Empire had been destroyed in World War I, and the caliphate was abolished. Arrogant autocrats ruled the political sphere."
"Arab anger against the West is a relatively recent phenomenon as well. At least until the Iraq War, most present-day Arabs didn't think in the stark clash-of-civilization terms preferred by scholars such as Bernard Lewis, a closet neoconservative. Modern Arab anger and frustration is also less than a hundred years old. It stems from the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, in which the British and French agreed to divvy up the Arabic-speaking countries after World War I; the subsequent creation, by the Europeans, of corrupt, kleptocratic tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan; the endemic poverty and underdevelopment that resulted for most of the 20th century; the U.N.-imposed creation of Israel in 1948, and finally, in recent decades, American support for the bleak status quo. The Al Qaeda phenomenon was born of an Islam misshapen by modern political developments—many of them emanating from Western influences, outright invasion by British, French and Italian colonialists, and finally the U.S.-Soviet clash that helped create the mujahadeen jihad in Afghanistan."
So, you see, it is true: it is all the fault of the Republicans after all.
Posted by Truth on July 10, 2007 10:51 AMTruth - your last attack on me was pretty lame as I have come to expect.
The three choices I mentioned to Sharon were the 3 that Islam offers to non-muslims:
1. Convert to Islam
2. Live as a dhimmi and pay jizyah tax
3. Be warred upon.
These are no choices that I made up - they are central to Islam, from Islam. If you don't like it, don't blame the messenger.
That is part and parcel of the Islamic faith and any practicing Muslim by definition is obliged to enforce that. The fact that some Muslims have a "live and let live" attitude is similar to Catholics who believe in abortion or Jews who eat bacon cheeseburgers -- they are freelancing. The problem is, while Catholics and Jews are free to do that and not have to worry about being persecuted here on Earth, for a Muslim to make up their own version constitutes apostasy, a capital crime under Sharia. Even if given the chance, most Muslims probably would not kill an infidel except perhaps if being directly attacked. But they praise with faint damnation those Muslims who do carry out the letter of the Quran and Sharia.
As for Indonesia - it has its fair share of violent Muslims. Remember Bali?? The daily murders of innocnet Buddhists in southern Thailand are by Indonesian-inspired Muslims.
Muslims don't offer us the choice of "wiping them out."
Posted by Liam on July 10, 2007 11:51 AMLiam, most religions and belief systems have nasty bits that simply get ignored.
Fundamentalists are dangerous precisely because they actually try to follow the dictates accurately.
For the most part, people follow the tenets of their faith in an approximate and laissez faire way.
Christians don't burn witches anymore, they don't stone people, and they don't put adulterers to death. They also don't generally avoid all forms of work on the Sabbath.
Same way that Jews on the whole ignore the inconvenient or embarrassing parts of their faith.
The same is likely to happen to Islam, and the only form of Islam, Christianity, or Judaism that we can tolerate is the kind that isn't seriously practiced and in which fundamentalists are kept in check by social and legal pressure.
However, the more we provoke them, the more we rub their noses in it, and the more we behave duplicitously towards them, the more to the fore the fundamentalists amongst them will be and the more the nasty parts get practiced.
What kills fundamentalism is irrelevancy, not violence.
Posted by Bango Skank on July 10, 2007 12:22 PM"What kills fundamentalism is irrelevancy, not violence."
For an atheist, Mr. Skank, you sure make a big leap of faith to believe that statement.
How do we bring about Islamic irrelevancy? Are we supposed to simply ignore Muslims for the next 500 years until they eventually catch up to the current moral standards of the West? And what if Muslims are not satisfied with irrelevancy?
How do you explain our effectiveness in stopping Nazi fundamentalism with extreme violence?
BS, to make John II happy your nice line should have said:
"What kills religious fundamentalism is when the mainstream and progressive members of the religion make it irrelevant to the faith."
As for the Nazi fundamentalism, that wasn`t a religion, and those folks were pretty easy to spot.
We keep trying to make Christian fundamentalism irrelevant in this country, and little by little, I think we are winning.
Posted by Sharon B. on July 10, 2007 01:18 PMAwww,Charlie B,let's try this again.One big reason not to have an apocalyptic war with Islam is that they and the West would be so weakened as to make China the dominant power on the Earth,and therefore in a position to work lots of unpleasant mischief.The West is aware of those circumstances,but the Iranian variety of fundamentalist Islam seems to be entirely unaware of same and continues to spoil for a fight....I simply think that in a tactical public-relations-with-Islam context it's a service to humanity and an act of Christian charity to remind the aforementioned loudmouth Persian rug-sellers and their whitebread proxies here at home that the United States invented nuclear warfare and one of the inevitable consequences of the apocalyptic war militant Islam seems so to desire(and that we do NOT desire)will be that Iran will in a day's time become a radioactive desert,uninhabitable for centuries if not millenia.
I'd like to make a further observation.The concept of an Apocalypse is one peculiar to Christianity and I think would be among the first assumptions rejected by atheists.To be sure I think it most unlikely that the scenario envisioned in Revelation and the "Left Behind" series where alien superbeings do battle with each other and us will come to pass.....But I think also that the secularists in rejecting the idea of a Biblical-style Apocalypse have perhaps unconsciously rejected the idea that ANY civilization wrecking event could occur....In that regard the secularists are showing the same lack of awareness as the Islamists,and I just hope that our leadership will,as I said,show some backbone and speak plainly.
Bango Skank - you can ignore Islam and the threat it represents at your own peril. Cemetaries around the world are filled with those who have tried that.
Posted by Liam on July 10, 2007 01:28 PMJohnII said ” How do we bring about Islamic irrelevancy? Are we supposed to simply ignore Muslims for the next 500 years until they eventually catch up to the current moral standards of the West? And what if Muslims are not satisfied with irrelevancy?”
I thought you would never ask! ;)
Firstly you empower the moderate and modernist groups and listen to them. Help with healthcare, education, science, and bring them into the discourse both public and diplomatic. Give them air at the UN, and allow them to locate and state the Muslims countries grievances and concerns.
Secondly, remove the current obstacles to the moderate voice, like when we publish only the views of the fundamentalists, and do things that embarrass the moderate and empower the fundamentalists, and let’s start being an honest broker.
Third, quit thinking that we can engage in half a war.
Fourth, make our own fundamentalists irrelevant in politics, the economy, and public discourse. Make Dobson and company boring, uninteresting, and retrograde. Remove their influence. Move them from the front page to the back page.
The idea is to make the fundamentalist irrelevant, not the moderate.
”How do you explain our effectiveness in stopping Nazi fundamentalism with extreme violence? “
The need for violence was a frank admission of having failed to act in better ways.
The punishment and embarrassment inflicted on the Germans after WW1 gave rise to Hitler, and even when his nascent movement was noted as being worrisome, “our” leaders thought it was a fine thing. They all thought Mr.Hitler was a jolly good chap, and an exemplary leader and positive force for commerce and capitalism. The warnings were ignored and the Kaiser was undermined as was the opposition to Mr.Hitler. His youth-brigades were seen as a rather fine example of Christian health with generous dollops of fitness, marching, and prayer.
They made pledges of honor and morality, and vowed to abstinence and purity.
Take a look at the material by Leni Riefenstahl. The west did nothing because they actually quite agreed with Mr.Hitler. They even thought Fascism was a rather fine, if quaint, idea. Mr. Mussolini was lauded and thought of as an upstanding and highly respectable man. Remember how Churchill kept trying to tell everyone that a storm was brewing? They only got fussy when Messrs. Hitler and Mussolini threatened their business and mineral interests.
I fully agree that violence is effective, but then you have to accept what its use makes you. We can “solve” the Middle-East “problem” with massive violence and propaganda, but it turns us into exactly the same form of being as the Nazis, for whom extreme violence was just an expression of manifest destiny.
Do you want to be a Nazi and accept peace only as the result of a mountain of skulls?
However, I don’t think “we” are up to either alternative – we won’t “disarm” our own fundamentalists and we won’t wage a full war either.
So this is going to take a long time and be less than completely successful.
By going easy on the bombs, and being more free with medical, technological, and scientific help, we can get close enough over a decade or so. Without popular support, the fundamentalists just wither and are confined to the odd little outburst that costs a few lives here and there. That will be the price we have to pay for not doing a proper job either way.
Uhh,Sharon-Christian fundamentalists didn't hijack airliners and crash them into the WTC and the Pentagon.....Might be a good idea to turn a tap and help make Islamic fundamentalism irrelevant first.
Posted by Jimminy on July 10, 2007 01:49 PMJimminy said ” Christian fundamentalists didn't hijack airliners and crash them into the WTC and the Pentagon.....”
Indeed not, but what Christian fundamentalists say, who they denounce, and the effect they have on foreign policy leads directly to Islamic fundamentalists flying planes into things and blowing themselves up. Of course there is also our rather rabid approach to energy resources, but then Kissinger’s “political madman” theory was also informed by religious overtones.
”Might be a good idea to turn a tap and help make Islamic fundamentalism irrelevant first.”
You can’t do one without the other, they are tightly coupled.
However, turning a tap is a brilliant idea. Provide clean water to Muslims in impoverished places and you earn big fat glistening brownie-points for all to see.
Dropping big shiny bombs on them in Africa instead, and you edge all other Islamic countries just that little bit closer to them seeing their nationality as secondary to their religion. If that happens, then the game is over.
"Firstly you empower the moderate and modernist groups and listen to them. Help with healthcare, education, science, and bring them into the discourse both public and diplomatic."
Are we not attempting to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are we not building their infrastructure, allowing girls to attend school, and helping them set up a secure democracy? That doesn't seem to mollify them. Unless, you are suggesting we merely give them money earmarked for those purposes?
"Give them air at the UN, and allow them to locate and state the Muslims countries grievances and concerns."
Are they not currently able to do that? I plead ignorance on this point. Is the UN purposely silencing Islamic nations?
"Secondly, remove the current obstacles to the moderate voice, like when we publish only the views of the fundamentalists, and do things that embarrass the moderate and empower the fundamentalists, and let’s start being an honest broker."
Is this really a problem? I was just watching a CNN report by Ms. Amapour(?). The last half of her report was dedicated to pointing out moderate Muslim artists and rappers. I also saw parts of the PBS rejected Islam documentary about the concerns of moderate Muslims.
In the end, the media will always chase stories involving crime, death, destruction and corruption. If the Muslims stopped blowing themselves up, the media would stop focusing on the more radical elements.
"Third, quit thinking that we can engage in half a war. "
Agreed.
"Fourth, make our own fundamentalists irrelevant in politics, the economy, and public discourse."
Well, that would make for a dull world. Which fundamentalists are you referring to? Socialists? Communists? Marxists? Environmentalists? The word fundamentalist is harmless with a modifier.
" Make Dobson and company boring, uninteresting, and retrograde. Remove their influence. Move them from the front page to the back page."
Isn't Mr. Dobbs already boring? I've never watched his show but I saw him on Bill Mahr's show once. He's a dimwit. He is already inconsequential.
Posted by John II on July 10, 2007 02:29 PM"They all thought Mr.Hitler was a jolly good chap, and an exemplary leader and positive force for commerce and capitalism. The warnings were ignored and the Kaiser was undermined as was the opposition to Mr.Hitler."
On the one hand, you suggest we coddle the Muslims, and on the other hand, you point out that coddling and appeasing the enemy in the past was a mistake.
Should we take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad serious when he threatens to wipe Israel off the map? At what point during Hitler's rise to power would you have had the West act to stop him?
Posted by John II on July 10, 2007 02:40 PMI know I am jumping in late here, but as I have been reading this thread, I am bothered by the assertion made at several points that Christian atrocities were committed in the past.
What about the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in Africa. They have killed, kidnapped and raped thousands upon thousands in Uganda and the Sudan. Their "goals" have become muddled recently as they expand, but they claim to be Christian and seek to establish a government based on the Ten Commandments.
There are other examples of Christian terrorist groups in Africa and South America. In Asia there are Buddhist terrorist groups. I believe that the ETA (Basque separatists) are largely Christian.
Terrorists come in all stripes and they appropriate whatever dogma or theology they need to recruit and justify their tactics. It is no more fair (or useful) to damn Islam as a whole for the actions of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, than it would be to damn Christianity as a whole for the actions of the LRA. When we get distracted by condemning whole religions we provide diversion and fodder for the terrorists.
” Are we not attempting to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are we not building their infrastructure, allowing girls to attend school, and helping them set up a secure democracy?”
Heavens I hope not.
If this is what it looks like when we are trying, then I think we are in far bigger trouble than I feared. They look at the US as the country that is the richest, most technologically advanced, and can put people on the moon. The only explanation they have for why they still have less electricity, water, waste disposal, and medical than before the invasion is that we don’t want to. If this is the best we can do, then imagining anything else than failure and eventual humiliating retreat is just fantasy.
Either way, tally up guns vs butter any way you want – tote up tons of food and medicine provided versus tons of weapons and ordinance, or tally man-hours spent, or money allocated or spent. Add up any metric you want, it is sure to come up heavily tilted towards the guns.
” Which fundamentalists are you referring to? Socialists? Communists?”
Very funny.
Turn south until you hit the Mega Churches.
- ever hear of Reuben Torrey?
” Isn't Mr. Dobbs already boring?”
No, he is frightening.
If he was a lone preacher with only his neighbors and family dog listening to him he would just be boring or pitiful. The audience he gets here both from his followers and politicians means that no only does he greatly influence our policies, but also gets the attention of the Muslims. They watch him, and they reach conclusions about who we are and what our intentions are by watching him. When a big name preacher says that maybe we should knock off Hugo Chavez, that message is absorbed by Muslims as well as Latin Americans. The fact that the politicians in charge didn’t even flinch tells them volumes about us.
” On the one hand, you suggest we coddle the Muslims, and on the other hand, you point out that coddling and appeasing the enemy in the past was a mistake.”
Nothing wrong with coddling, and just because you coddle something doesn’t mean you don’t think it dangerous and deserving of attention. The proper treatment for a white-phosphorous grenade is lots of coddling. We should indeed pay attention to what Mr.Ahmedinejad says and also to who is listening to him and agreeing with him.
We should also know what he means rather than what some dimwit portrayed him as saying. The Israeli remark being a case in point.
We didn’t coddle Messrs Hitler and Mussolini, we actively supported and lauded them.
Coddling the Germans and Italians after WW-I is likely to have prevented Nazism and Fascism from ever rising.
We actively supported and lauded Mr. Hussein too, if you recall.
Coddling the Iraqis with medical assistance may have been a better option than letting hundreds of thousands of their children die for lack of basic medical treatment during the embargo.
I think that switching from Mr. Kissinger’s aptly named “Madman principle” to a foreign policy based on “coddling” would be a great improvement.
Keri, I think you are confused.
The claim is that Islam is particularly inclined towards violence and repression and the evidence given for this is recent events and Islamic holy writings.
That doesn’t mean though that either side of the argument is conflating “terrorism” with Islam or even “jihadism”.
You are correct about Christian atrocities and you can add the Phalangists and the Sabra and Shatila massacre to your list, and if you are willing to widen your timeframe, there are plenty of examples of Christian atrocities in the last 2000 years.
However, “terrorism” doesn’t really enter the picture.
My personal view is that “terrorism” is a word for ninnies and there is nothing of substance under the emotionally flashy word itself.
It loosely refers to guerilla tactics, but is essentially a meaningless and useless term.
Tell me who you think is a terrorist, and it tells me about you but nothing about what you are referring to.
Except for the writings of Archibald Stirling I know of no military strategist who has thought that guerilla tactics were a serious option of the militarily strong. Even Mao saw guerilla tactics as a temporary measure until a large standing army could be deployed.
Groups tend to drop guerilla tactics as soon as they have an army to field, so it remains a “weapon of the weak”.
Keri - what texts are these Christian terrorists basing teir actions on? Are they coercing people to convert? Are they shouting "Praise the Lord" as they slit throats? More info would help here.
ETA (like IRA) are nominally Christians but they are not committing their crimes in the name of religion, rather in the name of nationalism. The religion doesn't play into their crimes.
Islam is not a religion, it is an ideology that proclaims itself a religion for expediency and tactical advantage. It is not a sheep, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Posted by Liam on July 10, 2007 04:48 PMBango,
I disagree. I do think some of the posters here (particularly Liam) are conflating Islam with terrorism.
A small sample:
Either we deal with the Muslims or they will deal with us.
Posted by Liam on July 8, 2007 07:01 PM”
BTW - only Islam will ever force us into this unpleasant choice. No other religion or atheism is geared towards the conquest and submission of others as is Islam. It is a unique cult of conquest and we ignore or sugar-coat that at our own peril.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:10 PM
The Islamic doctrine of conquest and submission is alive and well, unlike its Christion analogue.
Posted by Liam on July 9, 2007 12:24 PM
And I agree with you that terrorism is not the best choice of words, I was looking for something easily understood and economical. This thread is ripe with attitude that Islam and Muslims are unchangeably vicious and that other religions, particularly Christianity are not.
I would like to provide a longer response, but at the moment I have to run.
Keri - the Quran contains statements like this:
“Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Muslims subscribe to the quran, by definition.
What are we supposed to think? I am not making stuff up - that is a direct quote. Where does the Bible say anything like "kill non-Christians wherever you find them...."???? A little help please..
Liam: "Even if given the chance, most Muslims probably would not kill an infidel except perhaps if being directly attacked."
I agree. There are a billion and perhaps two hundred million Muslims, though there is no way to know for sure. If only ten percent of them were at war with the west, that would be something like a hundred and twenty million. Only one percent would be twelve million. I leave it to anyone who reads the news if there is any indication that there are anywhere near that many Muslims out to get us.
Estimates of the number of potential terrorists in England and Wales vary from "a tiny minority of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims" by the authorities to up to 100,000 thousand by Tony Blankley whose attitude toward the Muslims is similar to Liam's.
United States intelligence estimated a short time back that there were up to 20,000 members of al Queda in Iraq.
That is a maybe 1/10th of one percent of the Iraq population, and if there is anywhere that ought to attract people out to get us it would be Iraq.
The fact that Muslim extremists are spending much more of their energy killing other Muslims is pretty good evidence that the west is not their main concern.
There is pretty much a consensus now that the Iraq war has increased the number of terrorists considerably. It seems pretty clear to me that, right or wrong, they are driven by a feeling of being persecuted than by a religious belief.
When people go around saying in one form or another that all Muslims are dangerous or that all need to be killed, it doesn't require a certain kind of religious belief for Muslims to react to that with anger and fear and a desire to defend themselves.
My impression is that most Muslim religious scholars reject the view of the terrorists and people like Osama bin Laden. Most of them argue that Islam is a religion of peace. None of that sounds like the most of the Muslim world is intent on destroying the west.
There was a time when just about all Germans, and even more all Japanese, were suspect in much the same way as many people now suspect all Muslims, that is, that they were out to get us. Thankfully, we found out quite differently.
From what I read, the people in Afghanistan initially greeted us with open arms just as did most of the people in Iraq. That doesn't sound like they were out to get us. Of course, the attitudes in both countries changed when our efforts were bent on destruction rather than the construction they so badly needed. These people were not driven by religious beliefs; indeed they considered the Taliban their enemy. They were driven by a need for help from the United States and the west which they got very little of.
Invariably when the people I have read about who have visited Afganistan, and to a lesser extent Iraq, they speak highly of how warm and welcoming the people are. That doesn't sound like a people out to get us.
This is not about a book. It is about a people. Hopefully, no one judges Christians by what is in the Old Testament, or by the considerable amount of violence that has gone on and goes on in the Christian world, or by that small sect of people who think all Muslims are out to get us or need to be killed.
Posted by Truth on July 10, 2007 05:29 PMJohn II asked me to tell him why Christianity would cloud our thinking in responding to the threat of radical Islam based on my statement that without Christianity:
"There would be no superstitious nonsense to cloud our thinking."
Notice how he inserted "Christianity" where I had said "superstitious nonsense"? Freudian Slip much? But I digress.
I'll try to put this in simple terms:
I believe that the best thing Christians can do to "combat" the spread of radical Islam is give up their religion because they would be "leading by example".
Understand now?
An example of clouded thinking is George Bush telling Bob Woodward that he consults a "higher power" when making decisions about war and peace rather than his father, a vastly experienced foreign policy expert with extensive history in the very region in question. You tell me John II Is consulting your imaginary friend rather than an expert clouded thinking?
Posted by Charles B on July 10, 2007 05:37 PMCharles B.,
You said:
"Notice how he inserted "Christianity" where I had said "superstitious nonsense"? Freudian Slip much? But I digress."
No Freudian slip at all. I'm simply courteously paying attention to the things you say. The initial comment you made that sparked my interest was the following:
"The only effective way to fight the spread of Islam is for Christians to give up their similar beliefs in ghosts and magic. All religions are co-dependent."
I think it is incredibly foolish to believe that if we gave up our religion, Muslims would give up theirs.
As for the "higher power" comment, I think you are taking that much too literally. That statement was just rhetoric to make the point that George Bush Jr. is his own man and doesn't rely on daddy to make his decisions for him. I don't believe for a second that he didn't ask his father for advice. Mr. Bush has also stated numerous times that he relies on the advice from his military commanders.
Besides, our country is more than just W. Many other people supported his decision to go to war as well. Are you suggesting religion made them do it?
Like I said before, I think your own feelings about religion in general is clouding your judgment. I don't think you're a dumb man but I believe your passion for atheism causes you to come to dumb conclusions. The fact that you believe the threat from Islam would dissipate if we all converted to atheism is proof of your clouded judgment.
John II,
"No Freudian slip at all. I'm simply courteously paying attention to the things you say."
I'll grant you this. I twisted what you said to make a joke. I stand corrected.
"I think it is incredibly foolish to believe that if we gave up our religion, Muslims would give up theirs."
Why is it foolish to believe this? It's a simple principle: Lead by example. What's wrong with that sort of leadership?
"As for the "higher power" comment, I think you are taking that much too literally. That statement was just rhetoric to make the point that George Bush Jr. is his own man and doesn't rely on daddy to make his decisions for him."
Why should we take his words at anything other than face value? Was it simply a rhetorical exercise when he told us his favorite philosopher is "Jesus Christ"?
"Like I said before, I think your own feelings about religion in general is clouding your judgment."
I guess that equity demands I ask you how.
"The fact that you believe the threat from Islam would dissipate if we all converted to atheism is proof of your clouded judgment."
So you can prove a hypothetical result? Nice trick.
"I don't think you're a dumb man..."
I don't think you're dumb either. In fact I think All You Need is Love.
Posted by Charles B on July 10, 2007 07:58 PMLiam,
In response to your two posts. Trying to sum up the dogma of a truly horrific group like the LRA, especially since it has fragmented in the last decade is hard to do briefly. They leave very few survivors when the attack so I couldn’t say what they say when they are burning and killing whole villages, but yeah they have burned, rapes, murdered, destroyed, kidnapped and mutilated in the name of Christ and creating a biblically based theocracy. They continue to be active today, however there is some progress (albeit small) in disarming/disbanding them. Additionally, some of their dogma is shifting and splintering. Still, they are a contemporary example of a genocidical Christian group who have inflicted mass casualties.
I’m sure there are other additional examples from other groups and other religions. I just know more about he LRR than I do about other groups like Aum Shinrikyo (who kill in pursuit of a Buddhist doctrine).
Its interesting that you seem to believe groups with Christian members (like ETA and the IRA) can separate there religions from their political actions, but you don’t think Muslims can. What is your basis for this position?
As for your quote from the Quran and question about the bible. Yes the bible does at several points call for the deaths of non believers. Below is one such quote.
“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; ... Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.”
-- Deuteronomy, Chapter 17:2-3,5
Now you could argue that this quote is out of context, which is true. But your quote from the Quran is also out of context. Taken in context is is applicable only in the cased of self defense and the Quran goes further to define what constitutes self defense.
I have a few questions for you. First have you really read the Quran or the Bible cover to cover? I ask cause usually when people go quoting out of context it is because they have never actually read the text. I’ve read both and a handful of other religious texts (though I am an atheist). I generally refrain from quoting any of them (because I am rusty and don’t consider myself an expert on any of these texts), but I made an exception to prove this point.
Secondly, you make the claim that Islam is not a religion but is an ideology. Can you explain what your definition of religion is and your definition of ideology. Can something be both, or just one or the other? What are the guidelines you are using to decide what is a religion and what is not? Do you judge other faiths (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism etc.) by the same set of guidelines? Are you consistent or are you changing your definitions to suit your background and opinions?
Third, you (at points) make a distinction between Islam and Muslims. Can you explain what the difference is?
Charles B.,
"Why is it foolish to believe this? It's a simple principle: Lead by example. What's wrong with that sort of leadership?"
Because it assumes that Muslims want to be lead by atheists. You are an atheist. You are leading by example according to your logic. Yet, you don't inspire me to abandon my God and religion. In fact, I love being a Christian. I'm proud to be a Christian. But, I respect your lack of belief. Do you think many Muslims will? Or will you be labeled an evil infidel?
"Why should we take his words at anything other than face value? Was it simply a rhetorical exercise when he told us his favorite philosopher is "Jesus Christ"?"
That's up to you to determine. What's wrong with having Jesus as your favorite philosopher? You don't have to be a Christian to appreciate the teachings of Jesus.
"So you can prove a hypothetical result? Nice trick."
Well, the trick belongs to you. You offered the hypothetical theory that the threat from Islam would dissipate if we abandoned Christianity. Since this never has and never will happen, I can only offer hypothetical criticisms.
"I don't think you're dumb either. In fact I think All You Need is Love."
LOL.
Posted by John II on July 10, 2007 08:38 PMAt this point it seems we're having today's version of the how-many-angels-can-dance- on-the-point-of-a-pin debate.Interesting to read the thoughts of all these well-read and articulate writers,but I'm not seeing a whole lot of suggestions,so I'll advance one: since the war that Islam wages against us is at least as much economic as it is violent,perhaps our leaders might include in their communications with the other side the idea that muzzling the fanatics and playing nice with oil prices means they get to keep on selling oil.Don't wanna play nice?Watch your oil production capability reduced to zero.You too,Hugo Chavez.
Posted by Jimminy on July 10, 2007 09:49 PMAnd what if the person delivering the bad news to the enemy were President Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Keri - OT statements like the one you show (there is also the command to stone to death on her father's doorstep any bride found not to be virgin, etc) have been clearly abrogated and rendered moot and obsolete by the New Testament. Have you heard of any self-proclaimed Christian, no matter how "fundamentalist" or "reactionary" advocating much less doing these action from Deuteronomy? Of course not, yet these are daily facts of life in Islamic society (e.g. Muslim honor killings IN BRITAIN; the recent stoning to death of the 16 year old Kurdish girl who wanted to marry s.o. other than her parents' choice, etc)
I have not read the Bible cover to cover.
Nor the Koran, which is all but unreadable. Are you aware that unlike the Bible, which contains history, allegory, revelations (if you believe in those) and is chronological, and is easily readable to believer and non-believer alike, the quran contains only the word of allah as reveled by the angel Gabrial to Muhammed, and is ordered by LENGTH of the chapters? That is, it is a monotone of Muhammad's hallucinations in essentially random order and is highly unreadable. But that's OK, because to taste the sea, one mouthful is sufficient.
As for the ideology/religion point, glad you asked. Here is a simple way to see the difference:
Islam and Judaism forbid the eating of pork. Judaism, a religion, asserts that eating pork is an offence against god and offenders will have to answer to god. End of story. Islam also asserts that eting pork is an offense against allah, and that offenders will have to answer to allah AND to Muslims here and now. Eaters of pork in Sharia societies would be severely punished.
Another example - Islam specifically mandates subjugattion or killing of all non-believers. True religions may want to convert others, but only an ideology is concerned with the power of subjugation or killing.
As for my quote - here's a ref, and you can look at the context all you wish:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/009.qmt.html#009.005
All three translations are by devout Muslims and are considered accurate and valid by Muslim scholars.
Islam vs Muslims - there are laid back "Muslims" who are not crazed wild-eyed homicidal maniacs. Just as there were Nazis who relished burning and looting, so too there were many others who were Nazi in name only, simply going along to get along. This is all too often the case with Muslims. Their silence on unequivocally condemning Muslim atrocities has been deafening. Many Muslims will offer PC lip service to decency, but when push comes to shove, will do or say nothing in opposition to terror. This is why so many mosques get taken over by fire-brands who preach hate and mayhem. Any Christian preacher who would spew the anti-Semetic and anti-western vitriol that these guys routinely spew would be run out of town and ostracized (think Fred Phelps).
Finally, as we have seen yet again, any Muslim, no matter how peaceful, assimilated, and westernized, is subject to SJS - Sudden Jihad Syndrome. It's akin to people who keep wild animals as pets - all is fine for years and then one day, for no obvious reason, the animal spans and someone gets killed. Very analogous to SJS, which in all experience is strictly limited to Muslims.
As for the LRA - it takes more than simply claiming you are acting in the name (XYZ) for that to be true. McVeigh was associated with some far-right "Christian" groups but only a minuscule (non-existent??) number of people take them seriously because their take on Christianity is so bizarre and upsdie down. Not so with Jihadis - they can justify their actions with plenty of non-abrogated, currently operative quranic verses.
Chistianity Today has this to say about the LRA leader:
"Kony, 41, envisions an Acholiland ruled by a warped interpretation of the Ten Commandments. He uses passages from the Pentateuch to justify mutilation and murder. He promotes a demonic spirituality crafted from an eclectic mix of Christianity, Islam, and African witchcraft."
So why does he qualify as a "Christian" terrorist?
Posted by Liam on July 11, 2007 08:20 AM"You are an atheist. You are leading by example according to your logic. Yet, you don't inspire me to abandon my God and religion."
By every statistical measure your religion is shrinking as a percentage of overall population- hopefully I am playing some small part.
"I love being a Christian. I'm proud to be a Christian. But, I respect your lack of belief. Do you think many Muslims will?"
Yes, the large majority of Muslims and Christians are willing to completely ignore large portions of their religious text in order to live peacefully with those who don't share their superstitions (very likely because they don't really believe it themselves).
I had said:
"Why should we take his words at anything other than face value? Was it simply a rhetorical exercise when he told us his favorite philosopher is "Jesus Christ"?"
and you responded:
"That's up to you to determine."
OK, then I think his intention was to deceive, and that he doesn't really admire Jesus Christ at all.
On principle though I will take him at his word in both instances. You seem to want to "interpret" what he says to fit your storyline.
"What's wrong with having Jesus as your favorite philosopher? You don't have to be a Christian to appreciate the teachings of Jesus."
I never said anything is wrong with having Jesus as your favorite philosopher. I admire many things he supposedly said in the Sermon on the Mount. But add "Christ" onto it and yes, I have an issue with my President believing in ghosts and magic.
Posted by Charles B on July 11, 2007 08:56 AMWe talk.They act.We lose.
Posted by Jimminy on July 11, 2007 09:35 AMLiam,
Lets start with accuracy. It is important. The Kurdish girl you refer to that was tragically stoned to death was not Muslim, she was Yazidi. Briefly, the Yazidi are a synchronistic religion, meaning they are a blend of proto-Islam, ancient Persian, Sufi and tribal religions. They do not use the Quran, they do not follow Muhammad, they have a different origin story etc. The Kurds have three main branches, it’s the other two that lean more towards traditional Islam.
Also, it is unfortunate, but there are atrocities like honor killings committed frequently by Hindu’s in India (bride burning). FGM is practiced by Christians, Muslims and Tribal groups throughout Africa. In Ghana (a Christian country) honor killings still occur. Pedophilia still occurs in some New Guinea groups. The list could go on and on. Sadly, atrocity is daily fact in much of the world and it cuts through cultural and religious boundaries. Again, if you are going to judge all Muslims on the actions of the most extreme among them, you must do the same for Christians, Hindus and others.
You have a real problem with wanting to have a different set of rules to judge Christians by than you judge Muslims by. For example, you want to refute the OT quote by contextualizing it within the whole bible (appropriately) by saying it was rendered obsolete by the NT. But you reject the same principle (contextualization) in the Quran. You can’t have it both was, either both texts are subject to context or they aren’t.
As to your definitions of religion/ideology. You failed to actually provide a definition. When you seek to create a universal definition in order to categorize things, you can’t start with your examples. For instance, if I asked you to create definitions for “candy” and “fruit” so that I knew where to place M&M’s and Apples. You can not say M&M’s are candy and Apples are Fruit. That would leave me no rule to apply to other foods I came across. Instead you might say “Fruits grow on plants and have seeds etc.” and “Candy is man made and contains a concentrated amount of sugar (or something along those lines)”. Then I could evaluate both the apple and the M&M’s to see which category they fit into.
So if you were to take the OED’s (concise version) of religion, the definition would be: “Human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience”
Ideology (in the sense you mean it) would be “Doctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group”
Using these definitions, the distinctions (simply) are 1) the belief in a deity and 2) the requirement of obedience.
By these definitions, Islam (along with other Christianity and others) is a religion, where as Jihad or Christian Fundamentalism, would be ideologies.
You seem to want some other definition. That’s fine, I would love to see it. The closest I can get to definitions from your response would be something along the lines of: “a religion requires punishment by the deity only” and “an ideology requires punishment by both the deity and society” But that doesn’t really make much sense and by those definitions atheism is neither a religion or ideology because both require a god. I doubt that is what you meant. I also doubt you will honestly be able to create functional, clear definitions that work out the way you want. I suspect you are just bigoted against a group you don’t know that much about and are hoping to justify that belief with snippets of out of context evidence and by parroting other reactionary sources (without verifying their accuracy). But perhaps I am wrong.
Also, why is it (in your mind) that if a Christian group does something terrible that the larger body of Christians condemn. They are not Christians and the larger body of Christians is respected. But if Muslims do something terrible, and the larger body of Muslims condemn it, the larger body of Muslims is suddenly suspect and they all must share the blame. Once again, you can’t have it both ways. Either all Christians must be judged when a few commit horrors in its name (and the same goes for all religions), or Christians who commit atrocity are not really Christians (and neither are Muslims or other who do the same).
By the way, I’m sorry you find the Quran so difficult to read, I didn’t think it was that hard. Perhaps a tutor would help. And I don’t know what your religion is, but I suspect you are Christian, and I find Christians who can’t even be bothered to read their own religious text to be lazy and ignorant. Why should your views on religion hold much weight when you can’t even be bothered to study up a little bit.
Sorry for the poor formatting, I should have checked it after transferring it from the word doc. where I typed it.
Posted by Keri on July 11, 2007 10:19 AMBango,
(ribbing comically) See, I told you there are those in the thread conflating Islam with “terrorism”. Liam is just the most vocal.
Keri,Charles B-a well known ancient said "Don't disturb my circles".Who?Why?
Posted by Jimminy on July 11, 2007 10:33 AMJimminy,
If you are attempting to compare me to Archimedes, I could be in worse company. One of the greatest western mathamaticians, a little quirky (the bathtub thing), died in pursuit of knowledge, made lasting contributions to his and future societies, and is still respected thousands of years later. Ok by me.
Posted by Keri on July 11, 2007 11:35 AMKeri, point taken and I stand duly corrected.
Posted by Bango Skank on July 11, 2007 02:45 PMNow that this thread has scrolled down to the archives,it probably won't be read again.Still,I must say to Keri that Archimedes said "Don't disturb my circles" to a barbarian soldier who then hacked him to death.Archimedes talked and thought when he could have saved himself.My point is that while it's all very well to talk,perhaps of ships,shoes,and sealing wax,these days it's probably a better idea to come up with intelligent strategies to counter the barbarians who say very loudly that it's their sacred duty to hack US to death.
Posted by Jimminy on July 11, 2007 10:58 PM