I’ll take that as a no.
I could just as easily make the same claim about the United States. But, you know, it’d be more compelling if I could back it up in a way that doesn’t require people to fly across the world to verify it.
No, I find the idea of asking for a cite for the statement you questioned as too stupid to respond to. But I’ve already gone through my reasoning for that in several other threads, and am done educating people like you for the time being on the appropriate and inappropriate use of “cite? you gotta cite?”.
So are we just supposed to take your word at face value on all matters regarding “middle easterners”?
People have a choice of wat media outlet they can look at, in the Middle East, they don’t.
Of course people in the Middle East have a choice (reg required)
http://www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDetails.do?itemID=12565&extID=10032&oliID=213
And
Hey, but keep making up facts.
If you are saying that the governments of Jordan and Egypt are support al-Qaeda, I’m going to have to ask for a cite. The notion is hard to believe since al-Qaeda represents a significant threat to both governments. Until then, I’ll have to assume this is just one more ludicrous assertion you’ve put in this thread.
No, the issue is what categories of statements are “citeable.” Analysis and opinion is not “citeable;” unlike some people here, I do not hold out my opinions to be facts capable of being cited. Likewise, when people disagree with my opinions and analysis, I prefer that they explain why, instead of saying, “cite?”
Asking people to cite opinions and analysis is like the following dialogue:
“Conservatives give too many tax breaks to the wealthy.”
“Cite?”
or
“Life begins at conception.”
“Cite?”
The notion is even more difficult to conceive. I’m just going to assume that you are completely incapable of comprehending my posts and that I’m wasting my time responding to you.
Nonsense. Here’s what you wrote:
I understand why middle easterners have a different perspective - it is because they do not know what is going on in the world. It is precisely the continuous feeds of news received that every western action is an attempt to commit genocide, with no counterbalancing viewpoint, that leads to this myopic vision.
Note the parts I’ve bolded. Those aren’t opinions, they’re claims of fact. Where’s the evidence that “middle easterners” are unaware of world events? Where’s the evidence that all news sources in the region spin every western action as an attempt to commit genocide? Where’s the evidence that there is no diversity of viewpoints?
You seriously just don’t get it. Rather than admit a problem with your whole “cite” response, you are trying to change something that is opinion and general analysis into a “fact” so that you can keep your little belief that “cite” is a really clever response.
So they are claims of fact. Okay, define a “middle easterner.” Define “unaware.” Define a spin of “every action.” Does this include the reporting of western soccer scores? Are you claiming as fact that you believed my statement to say that all newsfeeds available really do take all western acts as genocide? Reread what I wrote, did I actually say that all newsources spin every western action, or that newsources spin every western action.
If you are going to try to play these chickenshit games rather than really argue, you should at least be better at it, and not misrepresent what someone actually said while trying to play cute little semantics games yourself.
Post what you want in response, because I’m done wasting my time with you. Your money’s on the dresser.
Well, of course, in this thread you have:
-
Implied that there was no opression under British colonial rule. This to me indicates that you have a lack of historical knowledge about the colonial period.
-
Indicated that Israel doesn’t have “effective” peace agreements with any of its neighbors. When pointed out that these agreements have been effective at stopping cross-border terrorism against Israel from these countries, you have made an outlandish claim that these countries are supporting al-Qaeda, and that is why there is no cross-border terrorism. This logically makes no sense.
At this point, I agree with you that it’s best that we stop debating, since it’s clear you don’t have a good grasp of Middle East history or current events, and you have not bothered to provide any data to back up your more outlandish claims.
You tell me. They’re your words, after all. Did they mean something or not?
I believed that you thought your statement had some basis in reality–something we can measure and see whether it’s true or false–rather than being pulled completely out of your ass.
Are you now saying that you made it up entirely, with no basis in fact? If so, why did you bother posting it here?
Again, here’s what you wrote: It is precisely the continuous feeds of news received that every western action is an attempt to commit genocide, with no counterbalancing viewpoint, that leads to this myopic vision.
Shall we break it down into its component ideas?
-
There is a continuous feed of news that paints every western action as an attempt to commit genocide. This is a claim of fact, with some room to quibble over exactly what counts as “continuous” or “every western action”.
-
There is no counterbalancing viewpoint. This is a claim of fact.
-
#1 and #2 are the reason why those in the region have a different perspective on the war (“this myopic vision”). This is analysis.
Sure, plug your ears. Good luck here in GD, pal… if you can’t even handle me, just imagine how you’ll crumble before a good debater!
This thread has moved on somewhat but just to reply to some comments related to what I was talking about.
Mr 2001 said:
These OT punishments may be in the bible but they are not part of christianity (and never have been). Just because something is in the bible doesn’t mean it’s a part of christianity.
There’s no point in quoting something from the bible and comparing it to iffy quotes from the quran. The quran and the bible are thought of differently by their respective followers. A muslim has to believe everything in the quran (because it’s all the direct word of god), a christian doesn’t have to believe everything in the bible.
It would, in fact, be impossible to believe everything in the bible since it’s so huge and contradictory. You could never reconcile every bit of the bible with every other bit (old and new testament).
Thus lashing adulterers IS a part of islam but IS NOT a part of christianity (even though it gets mentioned in the bible). Stoning adulterers is not an old part of christianity that isn’t used any more for fear of upsetting people. Christians don’t stone adulterers because stoning adulterers isn’t part of christianity.
Islamic countries, on the other hand, WOULD flog adulterers if they weren’t held back by the factors I mentioned earlier (influence of colonial law, imperfect implementation of islamic law etc). The only exception is Turkey (which is secular).
tomndebb said:
Divorce is allowed by the christian church (protestant) so therefore, in allowing divorce, christians are not going against the teachings of their church. The church may be wrong but that is a different matter - the point is the church allows divorce. It’s not a case of christian countries not following christianity properly because of cultural (or other) factors.
The catholic church doesn’t allow divorce (it has anullment which says that there was never a marriage in the first place). But the catholic church doesn’t run any countries (except the vatican). There may be majority-catholic countries but these are all secular so they don’t have to run themselves according to catholic doctrine.
Likewise, christianity doesn’t demand poverty of its followers and nor does it demand that people live like the apostles. So, again, no rules of christianity are being broken.
Jojo, I’m afraid your arguments look a lot like you are declaring No True Muslim is ouside the bounds you set. Given that there are at least a half dozen heavily populated countries with overwhelmingly Muslim populations who are not operating under Sharia, all these claims about what “Islam” demands are simply not based in reality. As I noted earlier, there were even more Muslim countries who were not following Sharia 30 years ago, so it is not as though we are simply seeing a few “bad” Muslims running their countries outside the law. Your basic premise is flawed.
We have Christians who do not follow “everything in the bible” that you excuse with the claim that their traditions are separate from the bible, itself, and we have Muslims who do not follow everything in the Qur’an that you appear to dismiss as not being (good) Muslims. I do not belive that your logic is valid.
I wondered when the scotsman would show up. The thing is: that’s not valid in this case. Every single muslim has to believe every single word of the quran. They may have different interpretations of what those words mean but, whatever their interpretation is, they all have to believe every single word of the holy book, they can’t dismiss any of it. Flogging adulterers happens to be one of those things that they all agree on.
This is just practical truth. There may be muslims out there who think that you shouldn’t flog proven adulterers but there aren’t many of them (I’d be surprised if there are any).
The scotsman analogy can only be taken so far - you can’t be a christian and think that Jesus wasn’t God, you can’t be a monarchist and think that you shouldn’t have a royal family. Likewise, you can’t be a muslim and think that the quran is wrong about any detail.
Flogging adulterers happens to be one of those details that is (unfortunately) spelled out very clearly. Thus, in practical terms, we can say that, effectively, you can’t be a muslim and think that you shouldn’t flog adulterers.
Christianity is a doctrine. It says x, y and z. What individual christians actually do in their lives is irrelevant, what individual muslims do in their everyday lives is irrelevant. They must believe x, y and z in order to be a christian (or a muslim).
In christianity, we could say that the “x” is “jesus was god”. If you don’t believe X then you’re not a christian no matter what else you believe.
In islam, we could say that the “x” is “you must believe every word of the quran”. If you don’t believe X then you’re not a muslim no matter what else you believe.
The quran is very clear on adultery - flogging is the ticket and all the mainstream muslim groups agree on this.
Thus, when the whackos in Nigeria try to stone adulterers, the only error they are making is that they are wrong to stone them - they should be flogging them.
(I love religions, I think they’re hilarious. If religions were comedians I would say that they would correspond to the following:
christianity would be Monty Python - polite but insane
judaism would be Seinfeld - insecure but well-meaning
islam would be the three stooges - slapstick and without a clue what’s going on)
Jojo, what about Ahmaddiya Muslims? I’m not familiar with how they’re specific doctrine is different from Sunni or Shite doctrines, but apparently it’s different enough that other Muslims consider Ahmaddiyas to be heretical. Musn’t there be some room for interpretation in Quranic verses for Muslims to disagree to the point of charging heresy? (as I said, I’m not familiar with the specifics of Ahmaddiya doctrine, so I can’t say one way or the other for sure).
I gratuitously deny your gratuitous assertion. Repeating it does not make it true. We have multiple Muslim societies in multiple locations of the world who do not even practice that particular custom, yet you persist in claiming that they all “have” to believe in that practice. (And the Qur’an contains a lot more than intra-family discipline. For your assertion to be true, you must demonstrate that the entire societies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. all treat all Suras as equally valid and binding.)
Beyond that, you are simply playing word games with your claims of what Muslims “have” to believe in the Qur’an that Christians do not “have” to believe in the bible. There are plenty of Christians who believe in a word-for-word literal acceptance of the bible and even those who do not follow that path generally hold that they must accept the whole bible–subject to different interpretations of the passaages, in the same way that Muslims must treat the Qur’an.