[QUOTE=SlyFrog, You post the greatest nonsense one can imagine and then you claim to have “studied” Islam? Which univ at which dead end of this globe was that? Or did you fail to understand a thing of what was lectured.
And why should I wear blue jeans in your opinion? And what is the relation between “blue jeans” and “using technology”?
That remark shows once again you complete ignorance and your bigotry.
For you any “educated” Muslim must follow The US Way" even up to his clothing.
(Now what a miracle in addition to that I write in English, be it that I use the non US Standard. Surely you must now be overwhelmed by the Hig Westernized Level of my “education”.)
Well, of course they’re different, because they are different conflicts. I don’t have time to start totalling up which groups have killed how many people, but I don’t think Middle Eastern groups will be the topmost if I do.
Look, you guys can keep saying that there’s something inherent in Islam that is causing these conflicts. I think this is a particularly short-sighted and disastrous way to look at it, but that’s your chocie. However, your pick of the Churchill quote
is very telling. If this quote is indeed from the Sudan campaign, then Churchill’s
beef is not with Islam, but with the fact that the Sudanese Arabs didn’t want
to be ruled by the British and Egyptians. He has conflated a nationalist conflict
with a religious one. Of course, in Churchill’s mind, if you didn’t want to be ruled
by the British, it must be because of your barbaric religion. It couldn’t have
anything to do with the fact that it sucked for most people to be ruled by the
British. But nevermind, let’s just blame the religion rather than the colonial
policies. Right?
This is geting funny. Since the OP rants about religions and wants to bring the mass killing of people in ralation with that, I have a…
OP, do you have an idea of how many people the Christian that is occupying the White House has killed lately and how many die daily because of this Christian in the White House?
I think what Churchill was getting at is the process of ‘religion first, everything else later’ attitude, and how it can affect situations and sections of society where it is not needed, for example science and tech can get hit pretty hard if its haram.
This is geting funny. Since the OP rants about religions and by all means wants to bring the mass killing of people in connection with religion, I have a question:.
OP, do you have an idea of how many people the Christian that is occupying the White House has killed lately and how many die daily because of this Christian in the White House? (“Inspired by God” to become president of the USA)
Has access? Probably a huge percentage. I get three or four Spanish TV stations in my apartment on a normal cable package.
Aldebaran, I hate to say this but you are showing a definite lack of knowledge about America. I’ll tell you what. I looked up some answers to you questions. Guess the answers. Please don’t check the 'net. Just tell me how many people in America, in your estimation, speak a language other than English. Give me a percentage, or give me a number (our population is about 290 million). Then I’ll post a few facts.
For safety from indoctrination, I’ll take being unilingual and secular over bilingual and religious every time.
Yeah it getting kinda amusing, because I reckon by what you said we should have an Atheist, but then you would be blaming then wouldn’t you? Or how about if we got a Muslim president, would you blame him for the deaths then? Or would your victim mentality creep in and leap to the defense of him ‘not being a good follower of Islam’
[QUOTE=SlyFrog, You post the greatest nonsense one can imagine and then you claim to have “studied” Islam? Which univ at which dead end of this globe was that? Or did you fail to understand a thing of what was lectured.
And why should I wear blue jeans in your opinion? And what is the relation between “blue jeans” and “using technology”?
That remark shows once again you complete ignorance and your bigotry.
For you any “educated” Muslim must follow The US Way" even up to his clothing.
(Now what a miracle in addition to that I write in English, be it that I use the non US Standard. Surely you must now be overwhelmed by the Hig Westernized Level of my “education”.)
Salaam. A[/QUOTE]
Aldebaran,
You post the greatest nonsense one can imagine and then claim special insight into Islamic radicalism. What stinkhole of a country at the armpit of the globe do you come from to have this understanding? Or does living in your dirt encrusted hovel, listening to a BBC broadcast once per month and considering yourself enlightened, constitute “understanding”?
Wow, this thing you’ve developed with insulting the poster and not commenting on the post, other than to say, “You’re wrong, you don’t get Islam” is pretty easy. Thanks Alde, now I’ve got a new weapon in the “stupid attempts at argument” bag o’ tricks.
OP, why don’t you first of all try to find out what exactly is “haram” in Islam before telling the world that you know about it? Throwing out an Arabic word is not very impressive when it is followed by nonsense.
So you think I am now doomed because I use a PC? I can assure you that I am not doomed and I know where I speak. Not only because I am Muslim but even more because what you think you can speak of as if you know about it is my studyfield.
Salaam. A
Marley, it is not about “having access”. I have access to the whole world. It is about
Understanding the language(s)
Having interest in exploring what you have access to.
Making the effor to actually do it.
If you come with the argument that many students follow a “foreign language course” as a proof that they then actually also “know” that language, then I must say that you are far away from the reality. The same counts for those with family members who are immigrant and hence are “exposed” to an other language. That is not sufficient to be bilingual or multilingual.
I would estimate that the people who are truly bilingual (= perfectly) is about 20% maximum.
Yes, that is a point. Yet there are other dangers then religion to become indoctrinated. Patriotism and aversion form an other form of atheism then your own, for example.
Ok, but now we’re back to talking about something that is very similar to what fundamentalist Christians do in the US, which is trying to impede science. And this still does not address the fact that both Malaysia and India which have huge Muslim populations also have huge tech industries. If you cannot explain to me how come your theory doesn’t explain these two countries, then I have to dismiss your theory as nonsensical.
I mean, come on. From 1900-1954, Iran had a parliamentary democracy. In 1900! How does that square with some backward notion of Islam that is being bandied about here? Where’s your explanation for this?
Trying to view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through solely religious lenses (I realize nobody has done this in this thread, but the implication is there) is equally bizarre. Arafat is hardly a religious leader. He’s a political one. How does this fit in with the Islam is the problem theory?
I didn’t say Islam was the problem, I’m saying that there is a large base of support for people to carry out acts of war and terrorism in the name of their faith. Churchill himself is explaining that although the individual Muslim maybe a good person, he is defeated by the circumstances around him.
And as for the huge tech industries of Malaysia and India, India is a secular state, with a huge Hindu majority, and Malaysian religious beliefs vary quite alot with
Muslim, Buddhist, Daoist, Hindu, Christian, Sikh; note - in addition, Shamanism is practiced in East Malaysia all mixed in the bag. Plus the insitutions left behind by the British ensured a secular state. Name a homogenous Arab/Muslim state which is a success story. There are around 50 states in the Muslim world, and you can only draw out two successes? And one isn’t even regarded as within the Islamic world (India) you should of picked Turkey.
Yes, in Palestine/Israel, SA, and probably now Iraq. And my point is that the Palestinian-Israel conflict is not a faith-based conflict, but is largely a political one which has had faith wedged onto it as a motivational tool.
Yes, the circumstances in that case being the opression of the British Empire.
True, but my point is that the 15% of the population that is Muslim (over 100 million people) don’t have a problem with tech or science by and large. That’s still a good number of Muslims anyway you look at it.
That may be true, but the population is majority Muslim. Any Arab country has a mixture of religions and ethnicities too. How does this prove or disprove your point?
The British institutions may or may not have contributed, they hardly ensured anything.
Ok, let’s keep shifting the bar until your point is valid. Even Turkey wouldn’t qualify under this rule, since they have two major ethnicities and several minor ones. So, please tell me which Arab countries have a small enough non-Arab population for us to examine, because every one that I can think have has some non-Arab minority in it.
And yes, I drew out two successes, and earlier in the thread I pointed out two which were moving rapidly towards economic and political liberalization (Mali and Indonesia). You have mentioned Turkey, another Muslim state that is seeking to join the secular EU. And I also brought up the example of Iran, which was doing pretty well until the US overthrew it’s parliamentary democracy in 1954. So, please tell me how many states you want me to name, or maybe you can list the states that actually fit into your criteria, and we can look at them one by one.
My opinion: colonial and Cold War legacies have more to do with the current problems than some recent strains of Islamic fundamentalism. But, if you can explain to me why I should ignore colonial and Cold War legacies while discussing the Middle East, please let me know.
I can’t statistically quantify interest, exploring, and making an effort, so I can’t answer that question.
I wasn’t going to, but I’ll stop to say you’re overgeneralizing again. I know what the typical high school Spanish course is worth. But having just finished up college, I know a great number of people who did learn foreign languages in school. I have a friend who spent a year in France, another who is going to Austria for a year. My girlfriend has studied German for years and wants to study there before she graduates. There is a popular chemistry professor here who is German, and I saw them have a very pleasant conversation in German a few months ago. He asked her where in Germany she was from.
She’s from Texas.
That doesn’t make any sense. Bilingual means you speak two languages, it doesn’t matter if you learn one at home.
According to this story, the US 2000 census showed that “Nearly 47 million people – about 1-in-5 U.S. residents – age 5 and older, reported regularly speaking a foreign language at home in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. The figures represented an increase of 15 million people since the 1990 census.” That’s not including anybody who has learned another language in school or in any other way, just those who learned it at home.
About one-tenth of Americans also speak Spanish, and that number (like many of the numbers of people speaking a foreign language) is on the rise. You can bet a very hefty number of these people do read their news in other languages. 55% of those 47 million said they spoke English well. So not counting anyone who has ever studied a language other than English, we’re short of your goal. When you include people who’ve learned a language anywhere outside the home, I’m not sure.
Just because you haven’t heard of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Hindu fundamentalists destroyed the mosque at Ayodhya (in India, not Pakistan) in the name of Hinduism. Because some five centuries ago, the Moghul emperor had destroyed a temple marking the traditional birthplace of Ram, and built a mosque on the site. The attack on the mosque sparked religious riots throughout Uttar Pradesh, leading to thousands of deaths.
And dismissing the religious tensions between Pakistan and India as nationalist rather than religious in nature is to completely misunderstand the situation there. Hell, the only reason Pakistan exists is because of the animosity between Hindus and Muslems in India, and by no means are the Moslems solely responsible for that animosity. In 1990 I was a tourist in Agra when the aforementioned fundamentalist Hindus attempted to destroy the Ayodhya mosque (they didn’t succeed until two years later). Riots broke out and Agra, and the whole of Uttar Pradesh, were placed under curfew, and the trains were stopped. This stranded us in Agra (and with three days to get to Calcutta to catch our plane, but that’s another story), and one day we were talking to a rickshaw driver and he announced to us that he would explain the situation to us. Interested in the local point of view, we leaned forward. With slow, careful diction, the rickshaw driver announced, “Hindus good. Moslems bad.” He then went on to explain how those Sikhs, who have made trouble in the past too, are also Moslem. It was very simple, straightforward, ignorant religious bigotry.
I presume when you say ‘Churchill’, you mean ‘Winston Churchill’, the British prime minister from May 1940 to sometime in 1945(forget the month). If not, please ignore the following. If it is, then read on…
This man was an evil person. Yes, genious in ways, like many other evil persons. Do not take his words like holy scripture. He lied again and again (it seems infinite), to suit his own existence. He was a power worshipper. Now then, just as many others of his ilk have said true things, it does not mean he should be quoted again and again, just as we do not quote Marx or Lenin or Hitler(of course evil is not equal) about the truths they spoke. This is very harsh what I say, but if you knew all the horrible lies that he said and wrote, you might not judge this so.
Female genital mutilation, yes, that can be classed as a cultural thing but not punishment for adultery. That is down to islam. Not stoning but lashes - 100 lashes for adultery. Almost all muslims in the world believe this, they have to - it’s in the quran. Ask Aldebaran, he will confirm that this is what he thinks should be done to adulterers.
I’m not sure. Islam makes specific provisions for war (providing it’s defensive). One could argue that by dealing with war at all, islam makes itself more likely to be abused by hotheads around the world. One can always claim that one is fighting a defensive war if one is willing to look at a situation in a certain way eg al Qaida could claim that they are fighting a defensive war against the pernicious influence of the west infiltrating the muslim world.
This is so vague that it’s impossible to argue against really. If one wishes to take the position that islam is under attack as a result of western TV programmes and western countries investing in muslim countries then one will forever find a justification for war.
Neverending war, like 1984.
Islam also predicts (apparently) that there will be a big war before the day of judgement comes and lots of muslims will be killed. Mohammed said that islam would once again be reduced just to Mecca and Medina where it started and only then would the day of judgement come.
Dunno exactly how true this is but if it is widely believed (and I think it is) then it’s truth is almost of peripheral importance. The practical effect of this belief will be that most muslims think war is inevitable at some point. So they don’t see a future without any more war because war must happen before the day of judgement can come.
This leads to a sense of fatalism. Fatalism is a trait widely seen in the muslim world - inshallah - god willing. Whatever happens (whether good or bad) is how god intends things to be. No point in humans trying to change things or affect things. Fatalism.
It also leads to an acceptance of war because every time a war happens, muslims think this might be it - the big one! The final conflict before the day of judgement.
Hence every war takes on the guise of a “holy war”. Someone mentioned Churchill and Sudan. The Mahdist revolt definitely had religious overtones. The Mahdi rose from out of the desert and had many hundreds of followers. People followed him because they thought this was the big one, the big war that would lead to the day of judgement.
The Mahdi announced that after he took back Khartoum he would march on Jerusalem where he would meet Jesus (newly returned to earth). It never happened, of course. He took back Khartoum from General Gordon after a siege and then rested on his laurels for a couple of years. After which the British turned up and took Khartoum back again.
Osama can’t be the mahdi because he is too old (the mahdi will be 40) but I bet that if Osama was a bit younger and filled a few of the other criteria, there would be thousands of muslims around the world who would think this is the big one (again) and flock to his cause.
They would rally to his cause until he got caught and shot and then they would assume that, no, obviously he wasn’t the mahdi after all. So they would all calm down again, until next time.
It’s like a scratched record. I, for one, am getting bored. If you’re going to predict a grand war with a mahdi and stuff then at least come up with it or else shut the fuck up until it happens.
Is this the situation involving the temple of Ram? Because if it is, that is what triggered my initial discussion of it. What I had not heard of, however, was that when the original mosque was destroyed, that it was done so with bombs or some similar destructive means with people inside leading to massive death and injury. Was that the case there?
Oh, I understand there is religious tension and killing. I just didn’t realize that there were Hindu terrorists sending suicide bombers into Karachi and blowing up movie theaters, things like that. I guess you learn something every day.