If he didn’t think the pyramids were religious in nature then he would have stated so. I imagine the stunned look was due to a conflict of thought. Regardless, it was the lesser part of my original post. Picking it apart doesn’t change my premise that countries with an Islamic government are noticeably different. If non-fundamentalist Islam were imposed as a way of life on other nations it would be a noticeable change.
How prevalent are honor killings? You read about them in the news all the time, but how prevalent are they actually in Muslim countries?
Well, there’s a difference between “religious in nature” and “idol”, happily. I don’t really have much to say to your other point, other than i’d pretty much agree if you’re talking about countries which don’t have a religion imposed on it already.
Well, maybe by someone somewhere, but as a general rule, no.
Despite our view of Buddhism in the west - the “pure” kind - if you spend any time in majority Buddhist countries, you eventually realise that yes, to all intents and purposes, Buddha is indeed worshipped and prayed to as a deity, by the majority of the Buddhists there - it’s a lot more than “someone somewhere”. He sits alongside lots of other god-type things, and ancestor spirits.
An Egyptian student at Texas A&M wrote an editorial for the Houston Chronicle, just before the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas. I doubt any of the Taliban subscribe–or even surf the Chronicle website. But the student was trying to express another Muslim viewpoint.
He said that Egyptians were extremely proud of their ancient past & the Taliban were revealing themselves as uncouth barbarians.
Anyone curious about Islam ought to ask any Muslims they know. Of course, that’s a bit hard for those living in stagnant cultural backwaters with dwindling populations.
I think you’ve made some good points. I regret to say I’ve failed to put things together and I’ve been a closet bigot who felt that too many Muslims quietly supported acts of terrorism against non Muslims, even if just by not clearly speaking out against them. At the same time I’ve wondered why we as Americans are not more outraged and haven’t taken more action against our leaders who continue to commit moral crimes and at the cost of innocent lives.
For some reason I never saw the two as the same thing, until now. You’re correct. We {Americans} have supported terrorism, if not actively at least with our complacency.
Those of us who believe in Karma in any form, should think about it. The wheel turns and eventually the stuff we see on TV , shake our heads and change the channel, is knocking on our door. For the families and friends of soldiers being killed and maimed in this travesty it’s happening already. What will it take for us to realize we cannot sit idly by without it catching up to us? Then, realistically, what can we do?
If they were receiving communion five times a day, and demanding a special room at work where they can receive communion as well as paid time off the job to do so, I would say it was militant and radical even if no threat of violence is being made. I bring this up because two Muslims where I work are threatening to sue if they are not given a room for their exclusive use for prayer and allowed five prayer breaks, on paid time. If we don’t do this, of course, we are racists who are discriminating against Muslims. :rolleyes:
Nevertheless, if a poll showed that one white person in ten in the United States sympathized with the Klan, most of the people here who protest that radical Muslims are an “insignificant minority” would be deeply disturbed if not alarmed. Radicals don’t have to be the majority to be dangerous. The Communists were not a majority when they seized power in Russia, and the Nazis were not a majority when they seized power in Germany. The Klan never seized power (at least not on a national scale), but I doubt that anyone here would say they weren’t really anything to worry about at the height of their power in the 1920’s simply because they and their sympathizers weren’t a majority.
An awful lot of people here are whistling past the graveyard.
Let em Sue. It’s ridiculous and I doubt they have a leg to stand on. If any adult chooses strict observance to religious dogma then you need to find a job that allows those observances up front. Practicing Jews shouldn’t apply at a BBQ. Christians shouldn’t have jobs that need them on Sunday morning.
Let us know how that turns out.
I don’t know about these guys. They claim CAIR is backing them, but so far everything is a lot of talk. It could very well be a bluff to see if they can successfully intimidate the dhimmis. They’re very touchy about their religion, and generally keep to themselves. Several times they’ve left the break room when other employees brought ham sandwiches or other pork products for lunch, once telling another employee that he shouldn’t eat pork in their presence. On at least one occasion one of them demanded that women working in the office must cover their hair, though I don’t know if he seriously expected compliance.
It’s as though they’re making outrageous demands just to see how far they can push everybody else. It’s tiresome to have to be around people who are constantly looking for excuses for a confrontation.
Strange thing is, these guys are fresh off the boat from India, and I always that Indian Muslims were supposed to be the more tolerant, broad-minded kind. 
I’d guess that that is an accurate assessment of their situation. It would seem to be rooted in personality rather than culture. Much as the occasional black who cries “racism” every time he or she is caught goofing off or the occasional white who cries “PC” every time they are asked to stop insulting people.
Depends on where they grew up. There are several areas in India where the Hindu/Muslim conflict is active and raging. This tends to lead to burned trains and pogroms in that country although the majority of the populace have resisted letting their more fanatical brethren turn the country into a complete cultural war.
There’s a difference — even in Christianity — between worship and veneration. That’s how all that stuff about Catholics worshipping Mary got started. Catholics pray to saints of all kinds, but it is not worship. I think you could argue that Tibetan Buddhism is a religion, but it holds that there are many buddhas.
A remarkable statement on so many levels. Aside from its sheer arrogance and mean-spiritedness, it is profoundly ignorant about the richness of cultures in locations where nary a Muslim exists.
Remember, too, that the Buddha statues were destroyed in 2001. Afganistan became Muslim around 900. So, for about 1100 years, Muslims didn’t see enough of a problem with the statues to destroy them.
The planned destruction was also protested by several Muslim nations ahead of time, so the impetus to destroy such images is hardly a universal tenet of Islam.
The guys at Lonesome Polecat’s work sound like common-or-garden assholes.
To put it in context, this year a company I know of over here sent a Christmas hamper to each of its employees (the workforce is a five-figure number), of whom at least a thousand are Muslim. The hampers were from a particular department store, and could not be altered, and in addition to all the other goodies, they contained both ham and champagne - the employees were warned of this in advance. There haven’t so far been any complaints from any Muslims (or Jews for that matter). I presume those people who object to those items for religious reasons just pitched them, or gave them away.
The planned destruction was even a reversal of a fatwa that Mullah Omar had issued not very long before, saying that, as Buddhism was no longer practiced there, the statues wouldn’t be worshiped as idols and they could stay.
Considering the source: Thanks!
An equally flippant remark, albeit more directly insulting. While I wait for your next face slap, could you explain why you believe people of good character who eek out their meager lives on Indian reservations, for example — substantially through no fault of their own — deserve your derision and ridicule? Or people in inner city slums? Or people in rural communities? Just exactly where are your “stagnant cultural backwaters” where no Muslims live?