I don’t think Islam as a religion is any worse than any other religion but the current incarnation of Islam seems to be producing a lot more terrorists than other religions. People keep talking about all these “other reasons” that correlate to Islam and terrorism, that are suppose dissociate teh causal connection between the two but all i ever get are vague arguments about social pressures (that frankly don’t seem very unique absent the demagoguery of the Islamic clerics). Perhaps Islam has been hijacked but I have seen a lot of Islamic extremists talk about what amounts to imposing islamic theopcracy everywhere. Perhaps this is just the symptomo of some other poltical issue but its not clear what that other political issue is.
I think Palestine has a lot more to do with it than you think. Whenever I hear extremists talk about how evil America is, they always mention Israel and Palestine in the same breath. I think that there is a lot of sympathy for palestine in islam and the Palestinian use of terrorism has sanitized terrorism for some people deep in the heart of Islam. I hear moderate muslims unequivocally condemn terrorist acts but all too frequently they smypathize with the terrorist and they refuse to condemn the organizations that support that terrorism. Too often the guy on camera telling muslims to go kill people are religious figures.
What sort of desperate political pressure are we talking about here?
I agree, despite this list:
I think its better here than anywhere else. What does that tell you?
I don’t blame Islam as a religioun for this, I know any religion can get perverted by people with an agenda but the fact remains that Islam has been hijacked by clerics who seem to think terrorism is OK.
Then I see shit like this:
And it makes me want to cry. There are all sorts of atrocities that are committed in the name of God but these days we see too many of them coming from muslims.
Well all parts except the “love your neighbor” (which Jesus (God) actually said as opposed to Moses telling us that God said the stuff we read in Leviticus).
When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus replied,
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matt22:37-40]
IOW, EVERYTHING flows from these two principles. Somehow, “thou shalt not have gay marriage or allow fags to serve openly in the military” became more important.
And most Christian terrorsist quote from the Bible.
Leviticus is one of the early chapters in the bible. Its the book that says don’t be gay or each shellfish.
How would you define it? I’m not trying to invent facts. What would you label as “terrorism” Are the Iraqi civilians who died during our unjustified invasion of Iraq the victims of terrorism?
WTF are you talking about? How is that an unsupportable conclusion? If you tell me that most crimes are committed by blacks (despite the fact that blacks only make up about 1/8 of the country) then how is the conclusion that the black community has a problem with crime unsupportable? I would think its self evident.
If the bomber was motivated by religion and pastors and priests were all justifying the bombing and Christian around the world were celbrat6ing the bombing then, yes, I would be offended by building a church near the abortion clinic site. I think it would be insensitive.
OK forget the Shinto, lets just leave it at a Japanese cultural center with a big statue of the Japanese Emperor.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” is from Leviticus 19:18. Jesus was quoting from it.
That’s one way to interpret Jesus, but one could also decide to fixate on the verse where he says to slay everyone who will not accept him as king (Luke 19:27). Most Christians, don’t and they find more palatable ways to interpret that verse, but a motivated preacher could probably use it to manipulate folowers aginst a ahted enemy and a perceived enemy of Christ if he wanted. A person who wanted to paint the New Testament in a violent and intolerant light could also use that verse as exhibit one.
If your conclusion is based on prison population, it could mean that blacks are convicted at a higher rate than whites for similar crimes and/or police tend to concentrate their patrols in black neighborhoods and/or the rich(predominately white) can afford the type of legal council that will keep them out of jail.
I’ve already said exactly this earlier in the thread. I define unnecessary killing of civilians as “terrorism” and the civilians deaths from US bombing as victims of US terrorism.
More important than how I perceive it is how THEY perceive it, though. You can bet your ass that THEY think it was terrorism, and why shouldn’t they?
So most of the deaths in WWII caused by the Allies was really terrorism? You have an overexpansive view of terrorism and the fact that tterrorism doesn’t have a concerte meaning doesn’t mean it can mean whatever you want it to mean.
Cite please.
I’m not condoning anything we did in Iraq but our bombing didn’t kill hundreds of thousands. The invasion by the most Iraqi Body Cont website counts 7200 civilians killed during the invasion, after the invasion, most of the deaths were caused by insurgents and intersect violence.
I may be missing something but I don’t see any evidence that American bombing killed hundreds of thousands. Can you provide a cite?
Why would Americans erect a statue of the Japanese Emperor? I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they did, but you’re stretching the analogy. The Muslims building this Mosque are not putting up a statue of Osama bin Laden. If they did, that would be offensive (but still legal).
I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing “the other side” condemning you for being an extremist, which would sort of be necessary for you to paint yourself as some sort of “moderate”.
No, what YOU are saying is complete and utter bullshit based on what you would like the facts to be, not on what the facts are.
They condemn the terrorist act, they even condemn the terrorist but I rarely hear unequivocal condemnation of Hamas or Hezbollah.
Or were you just talking about the universal condemnation of Osama bin laden and al qaeda? Because when I think of the Palestinian conflict, I think of Hamas and hezbollah.
Well why the heck don’t we single out those churches that breed extremists? Don’t you think its fair game to point out that a lot of the Christian whackos all seem to follow the same brand of Christianity?
on a related note, I tried baconaise and “beef bacon” for the first time this weekend. I love the baconaise and wonder why i am just discovering it and I was surprisingly satisfied by the beef bacon.
Well maybe theres some confusion. if you look at my original reply I said that I would not be able to make any conclusions based on prison population then i went on to blame the federal drug sentencing guidelines and rap music for much of the disparity in prison population (seriously, take a look at when black prison [population exploded and when the federal drug guidleines went into effect and when rap music became popular, its just my pet theory, noone else seems to take it seriously).
But if you told me that blacks ACTUALLY COMMIT most of the crimes then i would say that the black community has a crime problem.
In the case of Islam and terrorism, we know that muslims ACTUALLY COMMIT most terrorist acts, so I conclude that Islam has a terrorism problem.
Well, most people think terrorism is a version of assymetrical warfare so it is generally not practiced by the folks with the biggest fucking military man has ever known but if you want to expand the definition of terrorism, can i call every murderer in this country a terrorist? Can i call every rapist a terrorist?
If I were Iraqis i would be thinking invasion and occupation, not terrorism. Your definition of terrorism just seems way too expansive.