Is a CounterJihad forming in the West?

[Sophistry_and_Illusion]

@Valteron

Have you ever noticed that Muslims seem to do badly in debate? Is it because they are more used to a tradition that demands submission, punishes “heretics” and apostates with death, and generally puts more faith in violence and force than in debate and toleration of other viewpoints?

Oh, good; more ignorant anti-Muslim generalizations from Valteron. You know, if he dialed back his rhetoric, he might find some allies on this board. I’m worried about radical Islam, too, but having lived in a Muslim country for 6 years, I think I can say the above generalization is just ignorant bullshit.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Sophistry and Illusion

Oh, good; more ignorant anti-Muslim generalizations from Valteron. You know, if he dialed back his rhetoric, he might find some allies on this board. I’m worried about radical Islam, too, but having lived in a Muslim country for 6 years, I think I can say the above generalization is just ignorant bullshit.

South O’ Beantown is now a Muslim country?
:eek:
Shit, call in the airstrikes NOW!

[mswas]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Oh, I never thought his point was invalid. There is most certainly an insidious group of terrorists plotting the demise of perceived enemies worldwide, including you and I and our families. There’s no doubt that there IS an actual “War On Terror” and we are engaging in it, perhaps not as purposefully or with as good intentions as we’d like to believe…but it’s there, and it’s real.
And I hope that the West gets it’s shit together, doesn’t kowtow to concessionary tactics to subvert it, and crushes it utterly with malice aforethought.

Crushing it is unecessary, Islam keeps itself backward. It’s just a matter of not propping up governments and letting the institutions crumble of their own accord. Saudi Arabia couldn’t survive without Western workers. We built and maintain their infrastructure, without us the House of Saud would be nothing. We’re fighting the War on Terror Back Asswards. It should be a policy of containment, not one of regime change. We should be allowing governments to collapse on their own due to the fact that so many of the nations there are holdovers from British and Soviet colonialism. Let them shakeout and form on more sensible tribal lines, like Europe has. Unfortunately we’re addicted to oil. The problem also is that it is Sunni Arabs with the Wahabist reformation going on who are our biggest business partners. We are spending the most money on the most violent of all Muslim extremists. The real threats are places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even moreso than Iran or Syria.

Europe’s demographic issue is a real big problem for them. Muslims are outbreeding the native Europeans quite rapidly, and if you have an antagonistic demographic willing to riot over the publishing of cartoons, well something needs to be done. We’ll see how it goes. It was interesting to see the backlash against the Archbishop of Canterbury recommending the use of Sharia law in British courts. This may be the issue that solidifies the notion of European nationalism. They can’t long survive with two separate laws for their citizens.

Muslim extremists may be a minority with only 240 million believing in radical and violent tactics, but they are largely concentrated in the countries we are most tied to economically. They are disproportionately Sunni Arabs. Take some Islamist rhetoric, infuse it with ghetto gangsta ethic, and economic disparity in French ghettos, and ultimately you’re going to have an ethnic cauldron bubbling.

[mswas]

@Sophistry and Illusion

Oh, good; more ignorant anti-Muslim generalizations from Valteron. You know, if he dialed back his rhetoric, he might find some allies on this board. I’m worried about radical Islam, too, but having lived in a Muslim country for 6 years, I think I can say the above generalization is just ignorant bullshit.

Well the people you knew had better start speaking up, because they are being shouted over by the guys who can’t stand teddy bears and cartoons on one side, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the other.

[Sophistry_and_Illusion]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

South O’ Beantown is now a Muslim country?
:eek:
Shit, call in the airstrikes NOW!

La illaha illa Allah, ya heah?

[samclem]

@mswas

Muslim extremists may be a minority with only 240 million believing in radical and violent tactics, but they are largely concentrated in the countries we are most tied to economically. They are disproportionately Sunni Arabs. Take some Islamist rhetoric, infuse it with ghetto gangsta ethic, and economic disparity in French ghettos, and ultimately you’re going to have an ethnic cauldron bubbling.

I’m not sure where the “240 million believing in radical and violent tactics” comes from. Not necessarily disagreeing, just want to know where it comes from.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@mswas

Crushing it is unecessary, Islam keeps itself backward. It’s just a matter of not propping up governments and letting the institutions crumble of their own accord. Saudi Arabia couldn’t survive without Western workers. We built and maintain their infrastructure, without us the House of Saud would be nothing. We’re fighting the War on Terror Back Asswards. It should be a policy of containment, not one of regime change. We should be allowing governments to collapse on their own due to the fact that so many of the nations there are holdovers from British and Soviet colonialism. Let them shakeout and form on more sensible tribal lines, like Europe has. Unfortunately we’re addicted to oil. The problem also is that it is Sunni Arabs with the Wahabist reformation going on who are our biggest business partners. We are spending the most money on the most violent of all Muslim extremists. The real threats are places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even moreso than Iran or Syria.

Europe’s demographic issue is a real big problem for them. Muslims are outbreeding the native Europeans quite rapidly, and if you have an antagonistic demographic willing to riot over the publishing of cartoons, well something needs to be done. We’ll see how it goes. It was interesting to see the backlash against the Archbishop of Canterbury recommending the use of Sharia law in British courts. This may be the issue that solidifies the notion of European nationalism. They can’t long survive with two separate laws for their citizens.

Muslim extremists may be a minority with only 240 million believing in radical and violent tactics, but they are largely concentrated in the countries we are most tied to economically. They are disproportionately Sunni Arabs. Take some Islamist rhetoric, infuse it with ghetto gangsta ethic, and economic disparity in French ghettos, and ultimately you’re going to have an ethnic cauldron bubbling.

Well, yeah…there is that oil thingie…
I wish we had stayed ahead of the technological curve with regards to transportation and seen this shit coming. It’d be awful nice to be here within the castle walls with proprietary transportation technology that eschewed petroleum and thumbed our noses at the ne’er do wells at the city gates…

[tagos]

@jjimm

Or do you include Indonesia? Turkey? Malaysia? Bangladesh? Islamic areas of India? Islamic areas of China? The UAE? Bahrain? Quatar? Morocco? Lebanon?

Because there are plenty of atheists in those places, who have little to fear, and in cases constitutionally protected rights. And sadly for your hysteria, the second list contains the majority of Muslims in the entire world.

In Indonesia you cannot get an identity card unless you pick an officially permitted religion.

The Muslim religion (80 to 85 percent of the population) is taking grip on the country. Hundreds of Catholic and Protestant churches are burned and vandalized every year; religious minorities are living in fear. Atheism is still banned - each citizen has to choose one of five “officially permitted religions.” Religious indoctrination which allows no alternative views is on the rise.

Excerpts from State Dept Report

The Constitution provides for the freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice. The Constitution accords “all persons the right to worship according to their own religion or belief ” and states that “the nation is based upon belief in one supreme God.” The first tenet of the country’s national ideology, Pancasila, declares belief in one God. However, some restrictions exist on certain types of religious activity and on unrecognized religions. Government employees must swear allegiance to the nation and to the Pancasila ideology. The Government sometimes tolerated extremist groups that used violence and intimidation against religious groups, and often failed to punish perpetrators. The Government did not use its authority to review or revoke local laws that violated freedom of religion. [Para # 18]

The Ministry of Religious Affairs extends official status to six faiths: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and, as of January 2006, Confucianism. Atheism is not recognized. Religious organizations other than the six recognized religions can register with the Ministry for Culture and Tourism only as social organizations, restricting certain religious activities. Unregistered religious groups do not have the right to establish a house of worship and have administrative difficulties obtaining identity cards and registering marriages and births. [Para # 19]

The Government requires officially recognized religious groups to comply with Ministry of Religious Affairs and other ministerial directives, such as the Revised Joint Ministerial Decree on the Construction of Houses of Worship (2006), Overseas Aid to Religious Institutions in Indonesia (1978), and the Guidelines for the Propagation of Religion (1978). [Para # 20]

On December 9, 2006, the House of Representatives passed a new civil registration bill requiring citizens to identify themselves on government ID cards as belonging to one of the six religions recognized by the Government. The bill legalized what in the past had been a nationwide administrative practice. The bill does not allow for the registration of other religions on ID cards. [Para # 21]

Clearly an atheist paradise.

Dawkins Publisher faces jail in Turkey

Richard Dawkins’ best-selling atheist manifesto The God Delusion was at the centre of a growing row over religious tolerance yesterday after the Turkish publishers of his book were threatened with legal action by prosecutors who accuse it of ‘insulting believers’.

Erol Karaaslan, the founder of the small publishing house Kuzey Publications, could face between six months and a year in jail for “inciting hatred and enmity” if Istanbul prosecutors decide to press charges over the book, which has sold 6000 copies in Turkey since it was published this summer.

And in a more general sense.

Islam: Scraping off the whitewash

Whenever anyone points out to the dreadful treatment of women in Muslim countries, apologists are quick to point out that women in pre-Islamic Arabia had no rights and that Islam elevated their status. Pre-Islamic Arabia was inhabited by many different tribes with diverse cultures. In some tribes women were mere chattels, unwanted baby girls were buried alive and widows were inherited by male relatives. In tribes where women had high status, women could practice polyandry, divorce their husbands and engage in trade. Muslims insist that tradition and not Islam is to blame for horrible treatment of women in Islam afflicted countries. Passing the buck on to tradition may be very convenient but it does not absolve Islam. One would think that in the course of fourteen centuries, Islam would have succeeded in eradicating these injustices against women, after all Islam is way of life not just a religion for Sundays. It has specific rules on all aspects of life from which hand to hold the Qur’an with, to rules on slavery and banking. Instead, tradition had become so intertwined with religion that one props up the other.

Muslim apologists and their Western allies, never tire of telling us how Islam has been misunderstood and that Westerners have got it all wrong. They incessantly repeat that Islam is a religion of peace and point to Qur’anic verses such as: “Let there be no compulsion in religion” Qur’an 2:258 and “To you be your Way, and to me mine.” Qur’an 109:6. There is no mention of the fact that these verses were “revealed” when Muslims were few in number and subject to ridicule by the pagans. Later, as Mohammad and his followers gained ground, the above verses were abrogated by the ones which commanded war and bloodshed.

Abrogation

"Let there be no compulsion in religion; truth stands out clear from error" (Sura 2.256).

Apologists for Islam often quote this verse, and most Westerners, unfamiliar with the Koran and imagining that it must obey the same theological logic as the Christian Bible, assume that Islamic scripture mandates religious toleration toward non-Muslims. That assumption is inaccurate.

The Koran includes many abrogated verses, called mansukh, and abrogating verses, nasikh; the latter cancel the former, rendering them invalid, though they nevertheless remain in the Koran and are deceptively quoted, for Western consumption, as though they still represented genuine Islamic beliefs. Nasikh and mansukh are legion: Of the Koran’s 114 suras (chapters), only 43 are without abrogated or abrogating verses. That is naturally surprising, and so unexpected that few Westerners are aware that significant segments of the Koran have been theologically annulled.

The pacific, tolerant message of Sura 2.256 reflects the historical circumstances of its composition. Islam was still then decidedly a minority faith and Mohammed and his small band of followers, in Medina and surrounded by non-Muslim enemies, were threatened with destruction. The early Koran of necessity presented religious tolerance as a divine command because nascent Islam had not yet acquired the physical power to compel conversion: “The Apostle had not been given permission to fight or allowed to shed blood … he had simply been ordered to call men to God, endure insult, and forgive the ignorant” (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah).

But when Islam became powerful, Allah’s eternal message changed. Islam could now “call people by the sword” – that is, compel conversion – and accordingly “verses of the sword” were conveniently revealed to the Prophet, verses that sanction and indeed command conversion of the Infidel by armed violence, which historically would be Islam’s preferred method. Sura 2.256 was thus abrogated by a later verse, composed after Mohammed had begun to prepare his new Muslim empire for Jihad against the non-Muslim world: “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush” (Sura 9.5). This “verse of the sword” not only abrogates 2.256, but also abrogates well over a hundred earlier verses that formerly taught peace and tolerance toward non-believers.

New English Review: Religion of Peace

And this doctrine of abrogation, necessitated by the many contradictions which abound in the Koran, originates as putatively taught by Muhammad, himself, at verse 2:106: “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?” . This verse, in combination with verses* 16:101, 22:52, and 87:6, was elaborated into a formal system of abrogation (naskh in Arabic) by the greatest classical Muslim Koranic scholars and jurists, which entailed (p.72),

…the suppression of a ruling without the suppression of the wording. That is to say, the earlier ruling is still to be found in the Koran, and is still to this day recited in worship, but it no longer has any legal force [emphasis added]

But it is only when viewed in the larger context of the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad war—which derives substantively from the abrogating Koranic sword verses—that Judea Pearl’s naïve equation to “similar” verses from the Old Testament, becomes entirely fatuous. From the bellicose verses in the Koran, expounded upon in the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the Islamic institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims to bring the world under Islamic rule (Shari’a law).

Since its earliest inception, through the present, jihad has been central to the thought and writings of prominent Muslim theologians and jurists. The precepts and regulations elucidated in the 7th through 9th centuries are immutable in the Muslim theological-juridical system, and they have remained essentially unchallenged by the majority of contemporary Muslims. The jihad is intrinsic to the sacred Muslim texts, including the divine Koranic revelation—“the uncreated word of Allah”. The Old Testament sanctions the Israelites conquest of Canaan—a limited domain—it does not sanction a permanent war to submit all the nations of humanity to a uniform code of religious law. Similarly, the tactics of warfare are described in the Old Testament, unlike the Koran, in very circumscribed and specific contexts. Moreover, while the Old Testament clearly condemns certain inhumane practices of paganism, it never invoked an eternal war against all of the world’s pagan peoples.

Uninformed ecumenical zeal in search of a fantasy Islam yet to be created, does not excuse making intellectual, let alone moral equivalences, between the severely limited and contextualized war proclamations of the Old Testament, and the permanent proto-jihad war injunctions of the Koran.

[mswas]

@samclem

I’m not sure where the “240 million believing in radical and violent tactics” comes from. Not necessarily disagreeing, just want to know where it comes from.

There was a thread where a poster broke down the analysis of a Pew study. He averaged the percentages of people who said that Suicide Bombing is a reasonable tactic. The average came out to about $ 240m. I do not remember the name of the thread or the poster unfortunately. This was also eliminating the people who put down ‘rarely’. It was all the people who said, “Sometimes or often”.

[mswas]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Well, yeah…there is that oil thingie…
I wish we had stayed ahead of the technological curve with regards to transportation and seen this shit coming. It’d be awful nice to be here within the castle walls with proprietary transportation technology that eschewed petroleum and thumbed our noses at the ne’er do wells at the city gates…

One of Obama’s promises is to work on civil infrastructure and green tech. I hope he has the prescience to work on a national rail system and massive solar arrays in the southwest.

[jjimm]

@mswas

He averaged the percentages of people who said that Suicide Bombing is a reasonable tactic. The average came out to about $ 240m.

That is an expensive survey!

[mswas]

@jjimm

That is an expensive survey!

lol

[LonesomePolecat]

@tomndebb

(On the other hand, people who believe that all billion+ Muslims are part of that extreme Islamist movement qualify as nutters in my lexicon, as well.)

Perhaps you could show where someone has claimed that “all billion+” Muslims are part of that extreme Islamist movement?" I don’t know of anyone who’s ever said that all Muslims are terrorists or supporters of terrorism.

Careful with that straw man. It could be a fire hazard.

[BrainGlutton]

@LonesomePolecat

Perhaps you could show where someone has claimed that “all billion+” Muslims are part of that extreme Islamist movement?" I don’t know of anyone who’s ever said that all Muslims are terrorists or supporters of terrorism.

Careful with that straw man. It could be a fire hazard.

@Valteron

Surfing around the web, it would seem that more and more people in the West are beginning to wake up to the fact that Islam is engaged in a world-wide jihad to bring abiout the world domination of their religion.

Not exactly a strawman. “Islam” being a rough synonym for “all Muslims.”

[Bridget_Burke]

I’ve seen no evidence of a counter-Jihad movement. Just a bunch of bitter, frightened xenophobes hunched over their PC’s.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bridget Burke

I’ve seen no evidence of a counter-Jihad movement. Just a bunch of bitter, frightened xenophobes hunched over their PC’s.

Plus the neoconservative movement. Not a grassroots movement, entirely intellectual and academic and journalistic, but don’t forget them; they’ve had a lot of influence on this Administration’s policies.

[intention]

@Bridget Burke

I’ve seen no evidence of a counter-Jihad movement. Just a bunch of bitter, frightened xenophobes hunched over their PC’s.

Bridget, perhaps you should brush up on your Google-fu, where a search for

“counter jihad” movement

brings up thousands of pages, many of them directly relevant …

w.

PS - where did you see the “bunch of bitter, frightened xenophobes hunched over their PCs” … sounds like one of the circles in Dante’s Inferno.

Am I bitter? No.

Am I frightened? As a cartoonist who has drawn MoToons , yes. A “religion” that preaches that people should be killed because of the pictures that they draw is a frightening thing.

Am I xenophobic? No. I live in one of the most racially diverse regions of the planet, with friends of all flavours, colours, and religions. Including Islam.

w.

[Ludovic]

@John Mace

And how many Christian missionaries are there fanning out over the globe trying to bring about the “world domination” of their religion? Frankly, I think they are being more successful than the eeeevil Muslims you keep trying to get us to worry about.

Oh, that makes it perfectly all right, then :rolleyes:

[LonesomePolecat]

@BrainGlutton

Not exactly a strawman. “Islam” being a rough synonym for “all Muslims.”

So if he’d said “The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,” you would assume he meant that every individual Japanese man, woman and child was directly involved in the assault?

[jjimm]

@LonesomePolecat

So if he’d said “The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,” you would assume he meant that every individual Japanese man, woman and child was directly involved in the assault?

No, but when he stated blatantly that all Muslims, including some of the liberal Muslims that I count as friends, are unwittingly part of a movement that has similar intentions to the Nazis - that’s when he meant it.

“I see Muslim people. All the time. They’re walking around like they’re normal people. They don’t know that they’re Muslim!.”