And if you even suggest that it is not I will stab, stone and burn you alive…
You know, I don’t know what it is, but something keeps telling me that Islam somehow isn’t the religeon of peace.
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
And, for example, self-proclaimed Christians in the United States lynched thousands of people. Your point?
If the violent actions of some followers of a religion count as proof that the religion is bad, then pretty much all religions are in the same boat. (And atheism is no better off, considering various atrocities in the French Revolution and China and the USSR.)
Oh, and for the other side of the coin, how about tens of thousands of people in 85%-Muslim Indonesia and East Timor using nonviolent protest against an oppressive dictatorship?
There are violent and non-violent people in every religious group. It’s silly to tar an entire religion with the brush of some of its adherents’ violent actions.
Gee, I can’t recall the last time I heard of any christians murdering 200 people because of the Miss America pageant.
Gee, Hail; generalize much. Or should I say “Display your prejudices much?”
Is there some rule I don’t know about that requires at least one of these threads a week?
HA: Gee, I can’t recall the last time I heard of any christians murdering 200 people because of the Miss America pageant.
Oh, so only murdering people because of the Miss America pageant (it was actually the Miss World pageant, by the way) counts as a sign of evil on the part of your entire religion? All other types of violence and bloodshed should be blamed solely on the individual perpetrators, not on the religion they happen to belong to? I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Islamic zeal was cited as the cause for the riots. I know its terribly politically incorrect, but that doesn’t change the fact that these are the actions of an uncivilized, barbaric, primitive culture.
(And I know it was Miss World. Is was juxtapositioning it with the US & Miss America.)
Correct. But that culture is not necessarily a product of Islam. After all, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, etc. have all had instances of religious rioting. With the results just as deadly.
No, no, no. Atheism is the religion of peace. The rest of you losers are just dying to kill someone.
Oh wait. So am I. Never mind.
If atheism is the religion of peace then someone needs to explain Stalin to me. Also don’t forget the Tianamen Square massacre, perpetrated by an atheistic government.
Every religion has nut cases doing evil in its name. For every Islamic terrorist, there are probably 1000 peace loving followers of Islam that wouldn’t harm a soul.
I know what you mean, Neurotik. It seems that every time a Muslim somewhere in the world does something violent or stupid, there are those who will pounce on the incident and use it to “prove” that Islam itself is to blame.
Hail Ants - How does this incident prove that Islam is a violent religion? Where in the Quran does it say that you are supposed to beat innocent bystanders to death when protesting something? It doesn’t.
These protesters may have a legitimate issue with the Miss World pageant - and there are many in the “civilized” west who also feel that the pageant is immoral and degrading. I seem to remember a women’s rights group storming the stage one year in an effort to sabotage the show while Bob Hope was hosting.
The behaviour of the Nigerian protesters was, but to say that their actions were in any way encouraged or even condoned by Orthodox Islamic Doctrine is not only wrong, but dangerously so. If you seriously believe that Islam is inherently violent, then I respectfully suggest you read the Quran (all of it) and the Hadith and think again.
Ummmm… From the short list department.
From the Quran (4:140):
“When ye hear the signs of Allah held in defiance and ridicule, ye are not to sit with them unless they turn to a different theme.”
In other words, if you hear people insulting Islam then don’t associate with them unless they change the subject. Nothing about stabbing, stoning or burning alive…
Let’s not forget that Christianity’s a religion of compassion, and yet…Westboro Baptist Church (is that the right name for that festering boil on society?) showed their compassion by picketing the funeral of a gay man. Real compassion there. Why don’t you bitch about that, Hail? Or perhaps you’re only prejudiced against Islam.
Monty, no need to cast aspersions just yet. Perhaps his views are based on a misunderstanding or ignorance of Islam’s basic tenets, rather than on a deliberate and malicious desire to denigrate the world’s second largest religion and its billion-plus followers. I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt until he proves otherwise. Then I suppose it goes to the pit!
What makes religious ideology so special? Someone can stand up and state a strong dislike about a political or philosophical ideology without being called a bigot. State a strong dislike for a religious ideology and suddenly you’re a bigot. What’s up with that?
Marc
Marc, without digressing too much from the OP, I don’t think that this reaction is strictly limited to religion. If someone states a strong dislike for a particular ethnic group, then he or she could quite rightly called bigots. If someone were to say " I think that Judaism is an inherently avaricious religion and that all Jews are greedy," then we could also call that person a bigot.
“All communists are hippy homosexuals”
“All Union Workers are Greedy, lazy scroungers”
“All Republicans are evil Nazis”
“All Americans are fat and dumb”
“All French are rude and snooty”
In general, when someone makes sweeping statements such as the above which denigrate an entire group, they leave themselves open to accusations of bigotry. Politics and Philosophy are not exempt, it’s just that race and religion seem to lie higher up the “sensitivity scale”. Now in relation to the OP, Hail Ants seems to state that Islam is an inherently violent religion. While I strongly disagree with him and take offense at his assertion, I will refrain from calling him a bigot unless he proves to be one.
I think one should be able to separate atheism from communism, and ask themselves if it was really atheism that perpetrates this kind of mass hysteria and hatred. Personally, I just don’t see people getting all worked up to go kill somebody in the name of no god. I do see plenty of people getting all worked up to go kill in the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed. The peaceful Muslims leaders often end up murdered in many of these Islamic countries. Communism is probably every bit of a religion as Islam and Christianity. All require worship, only in communism’s case they require worship of the state. It’s often about power.
Did anyone watch PBS’s Frontline last night dealing with the Search of bin Laden? It’s worth watching. It’s easier to see where the hate comes from, after seeing this show. From conservative religious mosques, to continuous tv propaganda, often blaming America for their problems, and to religious police watching everyone’s public move, these people in many of these Middle Eastern countries really don’t have much of a chance to be anything but what their countries conservative religious leaders want them to be. They have the power to reek havoc on anyone that disagrees with their view. It’s virtually impossible to have a strong disagreement with any of them. You end up in prison or dead.
JZ