Hmmm, I’d make a case that you are completely wrong and there are other books out there that will specifically tell you what words mean and that by using logic you can learn to correctly parse sentences for what the meaning of the author intended, but I’m afraid that you would just ignore it and make up whatever you’d like to hear.
I agree with tomndebb, that books should be read within the context of when they were written, who wrote it, and the intended audience at the time, but like you, I am afraid that most people just want to read things they agree with or to justify their actions and the Koran makes it easy for them to do so.
So, how come the Jews get a pass on this? Not that they don’t deserve one, all the shit they’ve been put through. But if the issue is instructions in one’s holy text to commit inhumane acts, if that is the defining point here, well, then, they have some problems as well. You got Numbers and Deuteronomy, massacres of Aramites, Bashamites, Amorites, and sundry others. And we’re talking about massacres here, total wipe out. On the instructions of God Almighty.
Not just fight, or convert, or tax, but kill, wipe out, annihilate. Don’t see anybody suggesting that we toss the Torah onto the fire as well. Don’t see anybody suggesting we go to war with Israel, since so many of them are Jews and their holy works condone…nay, order!..massacres.
Seems a mite inconsistent. Assuming that the real issue here is the contents of holy text.
Where do you get the idea that they do? If they start showing inclinations to follow their texts as written (and the fact that I’m not familiar enough with it to say good or bad), then we should be concerned. Muslims are just in the spotlight at the moment.
My mistake, I assume that one needs a considerable depth of knowledge before one can condemn another’s views and beliefs. But the people you support in this haven’t the slightest idea what they are talking about, there is no real reason you should either.
“I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
Probably just a political statement, though officially he was Roman Catholic. Outside of vague romantic mythology, he was a man with no discernible spiritual dimension whatsoever. He didn’t want to exterminate the Jews because of some religious bigotry, he thought it was a practical and scientific fact that Jewish blood polluted and degraded humanity.
One does not necessarily need a religious motivation to commit unspeakable evil. (See Stalin, Joey)
It appears that I know more about comparative religion that you do. How’s that for a start?
As well, I am very biased against demonstrations that have a high probability to provoke the death of innocent people. Of course, if you don’t agree, no explanation is possible. Its a given, or it isn’t.
Definitely not. People do horrible things for all sorts of reasons. But, I wonder why it is so hard for people to accept that they’ll do it because god told them through his holy book and that they might be right (according to the book) in so doing.
Apparently not if you don’t think that people act upon what they read in their particular holy book.
Are you worried about what will happen if the fire gets out of control? Then what is to worry about? Why would anyone get killed because a very small number of people who no one ever heard of before in some inbred town exercised their right to free speech?
I agree that the right to free speech trumps someone’s desire to be offended.
Sure they do! They act upon those passages which confirm what they already believe, and ignore the rest. As has already been exhaustively pointed out to you, the Koran also contains passages that demand that the pious Muslim respect and revere the Hebrew and Christian traditions as worthy forbears. It also contains such passages as you have seized upon as definitive.
Christian Bible is chock-a-block with such contradictions, including three entirely contradictory stories about Jesus’ last few moments, one of which invites the interpretation that he died an atheist.
Jesus enjoined his followers to sell what they owned, and give it to the poor. If this has become a standard behavior amongst professed Christians, it is certainly news to me.
You don’t know? Seriously? How many people had heard of Sarajevo before some inbred idiot got shot there?
As do I, I am First Amendment fanatic, and I wouldn’t dream of infringing on the right of my fellow citizens to do something incredibly stupid and hateful. That was never at issue.
Good question. Let’s apply it to you and a couple of others. Why should we listen to you, Magiver, and Don? You guys have more than proven that you’re no expert on Islam and Muslims.
You claim that Islam is, in some odd fashion, responsible for the riots. I have noted that there was a lot of silly blaming of “Muslims,” but that the causes had nothing to do with the religion, itself. The Islamic Association, responding to the sort of nonsense criticism that you have employed, in this case including vague insinuations by Sarkozy, tried to dampen the the criticism by issuing a fatwah ordering any Muslim to desist. Of course, since the rioting kids often had Muslim parents, but were not, themselves, actually practicing Muslims, the fatwah had no effect. The only “Muslim” connection to the rioting was that the kids perceived that the police regarded them as Muslims and harrassed them on that point, even though the kids could not care less about Mohammed, Allah, the Pillars, or anything else regarding Islam.
You are the “psychic” one, trying to insist on a “Muslim” link that you have not even tried to define and for which there was ample tesitmony at the time, (reinforced by Kobal2’s testimony and your own link), that Islam was not a cause of the rioting, except as it was an excuse for the authorities to harrass poor, mostly immigrant kids.
Monty,
I am quite willing to say that I’m not an expert, but have quite a bit of experience in the Middle East working and living with Muslims. At least when I interpret people’s actions I can do so using the filter of their culture and somewhat bypassing my own. People never having left their country and basing everything they know upon the interactions with people of foreign cultures in their own country, or from just short stints abroad, have a much harder time doing so.
I have yet to see anyone disprove my assertions in this thread be they expert or not, though.
All religious texts are not created equal: The Koran is particularly odious.
People act upon those texts because they have the authority of god backing them.
The texts can stand on their own and be interpreted impartially. Using arguments that the majority of people ignore the bad parts doesn’t mean that they aren’t there or can’t be used by a minority as originally intended by the author. And given the cult like conditioning that Islam imparts upon its adherents, especially in developing countries, it is not surprising that the minority of nutters is quite a bit larger than the equivalent comparatively sized religions.
Its precisely because they are assertions, they are not testable. They rest solely on the authority of yourself. Nothing wrong with that, as such. But if this thing goes forward, and nobody dies as a direct or indirect result, that will be a friggin’ miracle. And I’ve seen damned few of those. YMMV.
Since you are unwilling to consider facts, you will not find any statement to persuade you that your ideas are false.
It is probably true that all religious texts are not created equal.
Your assertion that the Qur’an is particularly odious is based on your acceptance of other people’s cherry picking of verses out of context. Therefore, your claim is unpersuasive, whether you think it has been “disproven” or not.
That is probably true, if a bit tautological.
Your claim that the verses that you have cherry picked are being used “as originally intended by the author” is false. Given the error of this statement, you are simply left with the fact that some nutter can use pretty much any text to rationalize any behavior. (See the U.S. Constitution and the Posse Comitatus loons for good examples.)
Islam probably does need to go through a period similar to the European Enlightenment, but it is hardly “cult like” (except as used as a pejorative by people who understand neither Islam nor cults).
The number of “nutters” associated with it probably has far more to do with the fact that the countries that were subjected to the most Western interference most recently during the Cold War happened to be primarily Muslim. When the Cold War collapsed, (and anti-Islamic governments fell), the “nutters” had a chance to flex their muscles.
I’m sorry, to which side of this debate are you referring to? Because I haven’t seen any more compelling evidence from the other side other than to ignore what is plainly printed in the Koran itself and the Hadiths that support it.