Like the Unabomber?
Delete double post
The Donald wasn’t talking about suspected extremist groups. He was talking about every adherent to a particular religion, regardless of their guilt.
You don’t think there are religious leaders calling for the murder of abortion doctors?
Hell, you can find an abundance of conservative vitriol now saying things like “Who cares? PP kills babies” My guess is a good majority of so called pro-life Christians are perfectly okay with what happened.
I love it when conservatives suddenly start to pretend to care about gay people when it’s part of an argument for bashing Muslims.
Islam is the religious right. I’m no more a fan of it than I am of Christianity. But I don’t think that there should be a bar against letting Christians immigrate to this country. I don’t try to pass laws preventing Christians from opening churches near where I live. I don’t argue that Christians should be subject to heightened police scrutiny because they kind of look like the guy who just shot up a Planned Parenthood. I think Muslims in this country deserve to be treated exactly like Christians in this country. This is an idea that troubles a lot of Christians, who don’t like to be reminded that the primary difference between them and the Muslims they spend so much time demonizing is primarily one of degree, not kind.
The Donald didn’t propose any such thing. A reporter baited him with an insane proposal that The Donald didn’t take seriously enough to refute.
And here we see the basic problem, folks.
It’s a problem we all have, of course. All of have only so much love and hate in our hearts. Love and hate are zero sum games. And if you hate Christians as much as Miller does, you just can’t work up much hate for Muslims, even when they do things much, much worse than any Christian has ever thought of.
Hence, when a Muslim suicide bomber kills off Miller and his family, rest assured his dying words will be, “Yeah, well, what about Fred Phelps?”
Imagine two people:
- Abdul is a Muslim shopkeeper in Yemen. He has helped stone homosexuals to death.
- Gladys is an 85 year old Baptist baker in Arkansas. She won’t sell wedding cakes to gay couples.
Miller will tell you they’re exactly the same, that they differ only in degree (seems like a hell of a degree to me, but Miller is a mod so we have to pretend he’s smart). But in reality, Miller hates Gladys a million times more than Abdul. Oh, he can force himself to denounce Abdul if you push him, but his poor little heart just isn’t in it, and it shows.
Let me offer the hypothesis that it’s because violence and terrorism and the abuse of human rights is more a cultural phenomenon than a religious one, and that it’s associated with oppression, political instability, and general backwardness rather than any real religious devoutness. In those situations religion may become a tool and a rallying point of oppressors, but it’s not the root cause.
Those two countries, as bad as they may be in many ways, are more culturally advanced in terms of things like womens’ rights and human rights than many other Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Bangladesh is 90% Muslim and has elected women as senior political leaders including Prime Minister, and Indonesia, with the largest Muslim population in the world, has had numerous female political leaders and scholars. Meanwhile Eritrea, which is half Christian, is one of the most repressive nations on earth. One can either posit from this that Christianity is a worse contributor to human rights abuses than Islam, or one can correctly conclude that religion has little to do with it, or if there is an association it’s often more a symptom than a cause.
It’s amazing that conservatives who argue that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” cannot see this far more obvious and far more real and tangible disconnect. They can believe that there can be “law-abiding gun owners” but there can never be law-abiding Muslims.
i love it when people respond to messages with ad hominem attacks in Great Debates.
Please show me where I have not been concerned with gay rights or abortion rights or the rights of women in the past. And I’m not a conservative - I’m a libertarian, which means civil liberties mean a lot to me. That’s why I support gay marriage, abortion, free speech, etc. You know - all the things I’ve been talking about in this thread. Show me where I’ve been inconsistent about this, or retract that offensive comment.
Otherwise, take your obnoxious assumptions and character assassination to the pit where it belongs, and get back on topic.
This is an offensive false equivalence. If you don’t think so, go find some stats like I posted that show anywhere near the level of intolerance and illiberal attitudes within Christian countries.
And no, a crazed loon who shoots up a planned parenthood is not a good example. Perhaps you could find some organization that has 30,000 Christian followers and is dedicated to lopping off the heads of non-Christians? I will also accept a major branch of Christianity that condones killing wives and daughters who ‘dishonor’ the family, or perhaps a serious percentage of Christians who think that leaving the faith should be punishable by death?
I’ve already posted cites to more than a dozen Muslim countries where large minorities or even majorities of the citizens believe these things. Find me ONE Christian country that is equally illiberal, or even in the ballpark.
I think all people should be treated equally. For example, there should be no ‘sharia law’ exceptions for Muslim Americans. There should be no ‘cultural’ exceptions for the mistreatment of women. There should be no ‘no go’ areas where police are not allowed in Muslim communities. There should be no exemptions to rules about face covering for driver’s license pictures or other government documents. There should be no speech laws against blasphemy. There should be no persecutions of citizens who make movies or write books or cartoons critical of Islam.
All of these are features of the European ‘integration’ of Muslims. That’s the real problem. I’m totally for treating everyone the same.
Therefore, I would make immigrants sign a form that says, "I understand that I am entering America. Therefore, I accept that American law says that my wife can file for divorce without punishment. Anyone can legally say whatever they want, including speech that is blasphemous, and expect to be free from persecution or threats. Anyone has the right to join or leave the faith of their choosing without punishment. Religious law is not practised in this country, and will never be practised in this country as its precepts are contrary to our values and constitution.
"If you can accept these values as your own, sign below and you are welcome in America. If not, we will do our best to help you relocate to another country more suited to your values.
If you sign this form, then during the period when your are in our country but not yet a citizen, the violation of any of these rules, or any other violations of the law will result in immediate deportation."
If you’re worried about singling out Muslims, make everyone sign it, regardless of their background or religion.
Absolutely ridiculous. That’s like saying a schoolyard fight and a mass murder differ only in degree, because both are forms of violence. While that may be technically true given the limited definition used to equate the two, such equivalences are essentially meaningless and do nothing to advance debates or solve problems. They’re just smo-kescreens thrown up to confuse the debate.
OK, but what does that have to do with this discussion, which is about Islam?
Read my preceding post and then consider these questions:
What if your pal Gladys lived in Yemen, was born and raised in Yemen and infused with Yemeni culture and values? What if Gladys was younger, a male and powered by male testosterone? In short, what if Gladys was just like Abdul except for being Christian? How about comparing apples to apples?
And what then if Gladys the Christian Yemeni was devoutly religious and aware of Bible verses like Leviticus 20:13, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” Not to mention Deuteronomy 17:2-7, “If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns, which the Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, by transgressing His covenant … then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death.”
What do you suppose Gladys the Christian would do in those circumstances?
You and your fancy facts.
Anyhow, obviously not all muslims are bad but there is a definite agenda to the sharia based theocracies of the world. They don’t just want to have a little caliphate over there ----> in the corner.
And most of these Islam based theocracies also happen to sponsor terrorism around the world. Just a simple fact.
And their populations aren’t over throwing them so they are at least on board to a degree.
There is in fact a bunch of stuff in Islam that isn’t really compatible with ‘the West’ stuff like submission to Allah which is what Islam is at its core. And while there are a ton of well meaning people- that say the ~100 verses in the Quran don’t really say that Infidels should be killed, to me, it is utterly ridiculous to deny it.
Why? Well go to Riyadh stand in the center of town and preach the new Testament and see how long you last. Go to Iran and build a big ole 7th day adventist church and see how many boards you get nailed together. So if we know for a fact that in these theocracies other religions are not welcome, not tolerated and they can and do kill people caught evangelizing I guess there might be something to the kill the infidel thing.
Granted most of us get a bit irritated at preachy people but they take it to a whole other level.
Anyhow- when are we going to step back stop ignoring reality and understand that the whole its “a small group that have been radicalized” isn’t true, it isn’t realistic.
I don’t have an answer I don’t know how the sharia ruled countries and their funding of terrorist and the west can exist together. At least not in their current form. Since the beginning of Islam they have warred with other countries and powers. And today they do the same and have localized excuses. Its the Jews fault in mid east. In Europe it is the european’s fault for (pick a reason)
The part that baffles me the most is when liberals like Ben Affleck go on these ridiculous tirades in defense of Islam when Muslims tend to wipe out that kind of person or what they perceive to be a liberal wherever they take control.
No Islam is not the enemy it is a religion and can’t be the enemy but those who practice it are often ready willing and able to do whatever is necessary to take on and harm those who do not believe the same things they believe in.
Not all Muslims are bad but all Muslims belong to a religion that is more than a religion it is a form of government, a form of rule, a form of law and it has multiple countries that are not only doing bad things to other countries but bad things to its own people. Things that most of us in the West are diametrically opposed to.
It is utterly ridiculous to say small numbers and it is almost always stated by people who have never studied the Quran (Allah), have never studied the Hadith(Mohammed) have never dealt with terrorism, have never gone up against terrorists or spoken to them or read their writings, and have never been to those countries.
The difference is here in the US we can have pride parades for example but in Tehran you either get a sex change or are killed usually by your own family.
It is intellectually dishonest to compare the intolerant fools in the US and whole countries living under sharia law.
You say it has been proven that the “huge majorities” comment has been well demonstrated to be incorrect. By whom? Please cite your source(s)
Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, UAE, Yemen all Sharia law Islamic theocracies and none of them have large cadres of tolerant citizens.
I was recently at the Hague with Europol and others and at night back at the hotel I’d talk to dutch and other Europeans about the immigration situation and what is going on there. And these are RW or people with agendas these are people who actually deal with these issues and the problems going on in Europe are horrendous.
The big problem no one is talking about there is the lack of ANY tolerance for atheist and other religions by these immigrants. It is more than just the Paris attacks it is a systematic attack in many areas of the culture in the various European countries.
There are countless reports put out by the LEO and intelligence agencies in these countries where if you can be bothered to read instead of repeating nonsense you’ll see that this isn’t a small minority.
If you just simply count the populations of these Islamic countries and look at what is done in the name of Sharia law there no way you can sustain this small percentage of Islam has been hijacked it is PC nonsense.
Violence (not counting terrorist attacks) committed by Muslims in various countries both Islamic and non Islamic like India, Philippines, Bali, Holland, Switzerland France etc etc on and on is extremely high and there is no way all of this is conducted by just a small minority.
Simple fact is by most accepted definitions of the word there are 10s if not hundreds of millions of radical Muslims. subjugating women, zero tolerance for other religions, zero tolerance for alternate lifestyles, murder of their own family members in honor killings, female circumcision, rape of prepubescent boys (tea wallahs) and many more acts are widespread in the whole of Islam and wherever they take up residence.
It is NOT by any stretch of the imagination a religion of tolerance for anything other than complete submission to Allah-
Emphasis added. I think YOU need to cite your sources, amigo.
Exactly the opposite: we want the same courtesy extended to Islam as you would ask for Christianity.
The guy who shoots up a clinic is “not a Christian.” I’ll grant that. And ISIS are really poor examples of Muslims, too, as a billion other Muslims can testify.
You can’t apply one rule to “your” religion, but demand other rules entirely for “their” religion. But that’s what’s happening all through this thread. Christianity is not being blamed, as a whole, for what a few bad Christians do…but Islam, as a whole, is being condemned as a bad religion, because of what some bad Muslims do.
Hypocrisy.
No, that is not what is happening. What is being pointed out, and consistently side-stepped as you are doing here, is that too much of what makes ISIS’s ideology intolerable is shared by a* majority of Muslims*, in most Muslim majority countries. Once again, people here are just not able to even acknowledge or process this fact, let alone grapple with the consequences, or discuss potential responses to this challenge. It’s the deer-in-the-headlights moment for a large swath of the population of the West. Try going back to post #103 by Sam Stone and consider the implications of these facts, rather than simply joining in with those who are, once again, only able to attack the messenger while positioning themselves as righteous defenders, as if bigotry towards Muslim people is the only possible reason to speak out against the rampant misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, aand other intolerant attitudes, in Muslim communities and Muslim majority countries.
Nope, all my posts in this thread have been condemning Islam because the ideals and values that it officially espouses (eg CDHRI) are alien and incompatible with western values. I noticed you don’t actually respond to my critique of the CDHRI Trinopus, but just instead keep trying to deflect it with “not all muslims”. Well being signed by the governments of 45 Muslim countries in my opinion means its a declaration that is pretty much clearly representative of all muslims.
What do you think the world would be like if, by historical accident, Islam happened to be the predominant religion of first-world western democracies and Christianity happened to be the dominant religion of third-world shit-holes where Christian Biblical exhortations like the ones I quoted earlier were taken literally, the ones that basically said that all sinners should be stoned to death? What does anyone think these third-world shit-holes would be like if they were persuaded to give up Islam and took up fundamentalist Christianity? Seriously. Look at the third-world shit-hole of Eritrea, which is 50% Christian. It’s one of the worst of the whole bunch.
The consequences of confusing cause and effect and blaming the wrong factors leads to seriously counterproductive actions, like for instance invading a stable country for stupid reasons and greatly exacerbating the problem of terrorism.
I fully understand the many and serious human rights violations that occur in many of these backwards countries, and that some of them are breeding grounds for terrorism. Nor am I particularly a fan of any religion, especially any kind of fundamentalism. But being confused about the root causes of problems is never helpful. It ain’t religion, folks, it’s poverty, oppression, lack of education, political turmoil, and persistent backwards cultures and traditions.
Go to Central African Republic, where French troops are the only thing stopping the plan to drive out of slaughter what is left of the Muslim population.
In the West, the word we use for “honor killings” is “crimes of passion”. These have been legally protected in various ways until the last few decades. France actually reintroduced reintroduced adultery has a valid legal defense to murder, after having struck it down in the 1970s.
I’ll give you the apostasy thing.