I am along with all the other major religions.
Yes, actually the proportion of violence does matter when discussing it.
No one must follow anything, fanatic or not. But is it likely that a fan will dress up as the person they are idolizing? Millions of Star Wars and Star Trek fans kind of prove this point. They do.
So, why is it a stretch to suggest that some of the fans of Muhammad will attempt to emulate his actions? Because it is obvious that they will. The same as some will try to act like Christ rather than like Crusaders.
To the extent that fanaticism drives that violence, your argument seems strongly flawed.
You seem to be unfairly generalising my argument; yes, the proportion of violence does matter when discussing the proportion of violence. But I wasn’t discussing that, as I pointed out and as you directly quoted. It seems unreasonable to quote a person saying they aren’t arguing a particular topic and then call them out for failing to argue that particular topic. Illogical, even. I have to question why you’ve selected these two points (one point, really) to argue with, rather than the rest of my post which actually asks questions of you.
Because some act like Crusaders.
The problem is that you (and Magiver) seem to be drawing a line - that Muslims fanatics act the way they do because some are following Mohammed. Magiver generalises the point; the most fanatic will logically follow their prophets. But, when that same logic is applied to Christians, suddenly it doesn’t work anymore; Christian fanatics, as violent and unpleasant as they may be, too, to whatever extent in proportion to fanatics of other stripes, aren’t as they are because they follow Jesus. It seems like a double standard; as if, on one hand, there’s a desire to be able to lay the blame at the feet of Mohammed, whilst avoiding doing so in the case of Jesus.
The issue is not, per se, with the idea that fanatics will attempt to emulate their prophets, but the idea that those fanatics are dependent on those prophets to do what they do. That we could replace Mohammed with Jesus, and suddenly loads of Islamic fanatics would be forced to become peaceful and pleasant. People will generally find support for whatever they believe irregardless of their purported source of those beliefs. It’s just not a case of people sitting down with an open mind and saying “I want to be like this person”, but rather “This person was like me”.
People dress up as characters from Star Wars and the like all the time. They write fanfiction, too. But, oddly enough, sometimes the characters that people like or write about aren’t the same as the ones others see. You’ll get people swearing up and down that Darth Vader was a purely immoral bastard, and others saying that he was really a good person and did the best he could. Are they watching different films? No. And yet, people come away with different interpretations of these characters. And find different reasons for emulating their behaviour. From the same source, and everything. So it would be odd for me, with my interpretation of Darth Vader, to come along and say “All those people who dress up as him; they do it because they see the character as I see him”, because I have no way of knowing what their interpretation is, or what reason they’re doing it for.
I suppose the end question is; how can we know that there is not the same amount of violent Islamic fanatics doing what they do in attempts to emulate Mohammed than there are Christian fanatics doing what they do in attempts to emulate Jesus? When interpretation of character, personal biases, and the strength of belief that comes with fanaticism come into play, it’s not really all that easy a question. And yet, it’s treated as having an obvious answer.
To start with it’s 2010. Your point died centuries ago in organized political wars. Otherwise airport security would be looking for Monty Python.
The logic holds up nicely in this century and is born out with the disproportionate level of violence attributed directly to perceived transgressions.
We agree that both sides have fanatics who commit violence. Yet, those who do so and follow Muhammad are actually following his dictates or actions. Those who do so in Jesus’ name are not. Which book is the worse of the two because of it?
The outcomes being indistinguishable from each other, what possible difference can it make?
It’s far better to be killed by someone who didn’t really mean it and feels bad about it.
What, they repent, and don’t go to Hell? I’m going for bad puns, and they get off? Fuck that shit!
Because they aren’t and there has been ample evidence in this thread to that effect.
???
There has been no evidence in this thread, (or any other that I have seen), that the zealots of one reliogion are actually following the dictates of their beliefs more closely than any other. And we certainly have no evidence that zealots of any religion have actually brought more harm to the world, based on their religion, than any similar group.
We do have a number of claims for those points, based on one-sided interpretations of various scriptures and a dismissal of all contrary information, but we have no actual evidence for your claim.
(We will now see a regurgitation of the “Mohammed was a violent aggressor” theme that is based on one interpretation of events and which ignores the fact that, as presented in his scriptures, his actions were always defensive. ::: shrug :::)
Dead or maimed is dead or maimed. Regardless whether the scripture to which the zealot appeals is filled with brutal violence or fluffy bunnies, the historical record shows that zealots are quite willing to engage in violence, no matter how their scriptures are written. It is simply special pleading to claim that “the other guys are worse” due to their scriptures, when the “good guys” have been equally or more brutal at different times either due to or in spite of their scriptures.
I could bring an elephant and you’d still call it a zebra if it suited your purposes. Guys like Osama are following their religion as it is written and as Muhammad practiced it.
Muhammad didn’t act in defense only. He acted many times as the aggressor. You have been shown that in this thread, but chose not to believe it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that his followers were the ones to write his history, either.
Of course not, but they are all the texts we have. Have you a seperate history from 7th Century Arabia, from verifiably neutral sources that we may compare? And your insinuation of dishonesty on the part of early Muslims is a mite underhanded. You have no evidence to offer, you simply slip a few drops of cyanide into the well water.
You have no problem depending on the veracity of the Koran if you find its passages uncomplimentary, if you think they support your case. But if passages in the Koran run counter to your argument, well, we know they are all Muslims, therefore we cannot trust their veracity.
That isn’t simply lame reasoning, thats paralyzed from the neck up.
I don’t need to poison anything. Everything is right there in the Quran and the Hadiths. Osama isn’t making shit up when he uses his religion to justify his actions. Whereas if he was a Christian, he’d have to use the Old Testament to get there and ignore Jesus almost entirely.
What I’m saying is that realistically there is probably a veneer of civility over Muhammad’s history as with almost anything in history written by the victors. Or are you going to deny that happens, too?
More likely, if you brought an elephant and I acknowledged that it was an elephant, you would begin accusing me of calling it a zebra even if I never mentioned “zebra” in any context.
Consider, for example, your current response:
This does not address my actual statement in any way. It also falsely accuses me of a position that I have never posted.
I noted that you are basing your claims on your own particular interpretation of the Qur’an. I had not even claimed that Mohammed was not violent. In response, you simply repeat your interpretation, (based on various beliefs and reports passed down by Byzantine observers). You might even be correct in your interpretation that Mohammed was aggressive as well as defensive. However, that is not what the book, itself, says. To get to that understanding, you must bring in other interpretations. The Qur’an, itself, indicates that the violence was all undertaken for purposes of defense. (I don’t even hold that the Qur’an’s version of events is accurate, any more than I believe that the minimized Roman actions and exaggerated Jewish actions regarding the death of Jesus in the Gospels is accurate.) But that is not the point we are discussing. You claim that the words of the Qur’an promote aggression while the overwhelming majority of Muslims would hold that it only provides for defense.
I addressed the issue of interpretation, and you replied by repeating your interpretation while refusing to acknowledge that it was an interpretation. I am not the one who is resolutely avoiding the actual issue, (the words of the Qur’an), that you brought up; you are. You are shifting the goalposts from what is actually printed in the book to your version of what might (or might not) have been a more accurate historical presentation, while still claiming that it is the words in the book that are the spource of the problem.
Your initial claim to which I responded was that there had been “ample evidence” that the actions of Muslims differ from the actions of other religions (with a subtext that it is the words of the Qur’an that cause the difference) and I will still note that no such “evidence” has been presented–only interpretive claims regarding your beiliefs regarding the beliefs of people whose beliefs you do not share.
Someday, we may remember the New York imam for his efforts to explain America to the Islamic world. We will say “Who was that mosqued man, I wanted to thank him!”
You are so going to hell.
Jesus, of course it is an interpretation. We could interpret the elephant to be a zebra, but it is still an elephant.
The only real interpretation going on is the word ‘defense’. Muhammad uses it rather loosely. He claimed it was in defense when he attacked the Jews (and I can’t remember right at the moment which group it was. I or Magiver provided cites earlier), yet they weren’t attacking him at the time, nor were they likely to in the future unless it was for their own defense against the Muslims who had wiped out a couple of other tribes of Jews before them. They finally surrendered and were slaughtered and enslaved for their troubles. So out the window with ‘when they stop fighting you should stop fighting, too’ entries in the Quran. Unless you use a definition that they have technically stopped fighting, because pillaging, looting, raping, and slaughtering doesn’t fall under the definition of ‘fighting’. So, I guess he wasn’t a hypocrite after all.:rolleyes:
So, we’re back to you deciding what other people believe about the book that holds their scriptures and then deciding, for them, how they are supposed to act on their beliefs–except that you want to pretend that your imposed interpretation has more reality for them than what they actually believe.
We are not talking about elephants and zebras, just enormous men made of straw.
Where do you get this? Is there some other authoritative, unbiased source of contemporaneous reporting? Or does the Koran say “Yeah, they were a pretty harmless bunch, but we wiped them out anyway.” Perhaps you will share with us your source for these penetrating insights?