Do you have a link that shows the actual question asked? The Monitor opinion piece doesn’t.
Thank you. A beautiful illustration of ‘it’s ok to kill innocents if I happen to agree with the reason but not if I don’t’. :rolleyes:
The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so nauseating.
magellan01
Do you comprehend the concept that ‘some’ is not equal to ‘most’?
Jeez, it’s like talking to a particularly wilfully obtuse brick wall. What is it about the concept ‘religions are what religions do’ that you are finding so hard to understand? I couldn’t care less what the mumbo jumbo says. I judge a religion by what it actually does in the real world. And Sharia Law is the interface and a bloody unpleasant one at that as we can see wherever it raised its medieval head.
You can dispute to the cows come home whether the Koran has statements that agree with sharia interpretations but it’s not worth the candle especially as that would get into which verses abrogate what (and the sword verses are held by many to abrogate the fluffy bunny stuff).
Sharia law is the method by which the Koran is interpreted in the light of the life of Mohammed revealed in the hadiths. So long as islamic countries are applying sharia laws that violate human rights and decencies then that is what Islam is regardless of what unicorns and ponies for all stories you can make up from cherry-picking sayings.
I’m all in favour of an Islam that comes to terms with the modern secular world of human rights. But outside of inconsequential sects it does not exist.
I cut the equal lack of slack for other religions including christianity in its lunatic extant variants and the actions of the catholic church in effectively aiding and abetting the Aids epidemic in Africa and its unremitting support of torturing dictators in South America in the sixties and beyond. And no doubt a whole lot of other shit if I put my mind to it.
But thankfully most of the West is moving away from letting mumbo jumbo determine how a society runs.
:: quick rummage throuch change on desk ::
Following your precedent, if I pay you £0.94 would you just fuck off. Your nonsense really does get dull.
I’ll try to make this as easy to understand as possible. Any religion can be misrepresented as an excuse for violence. This can easily be demonstrated by numerous events in Christian history, where time and again the slaughter of the innocents was presented as gods will.
This is not just applicable to religions. Pol Pot and Stalin managed to justify the slaughter of millions as the will of the proletariat. Clearly it’s not just Muslims and Christians that are murderous bastards, the atheists are at it too.
Going back to the case in the OP, oppression of women is also something that’s been seen in societies of many different religions and circumstances. Look at female circumcision for instance, practiced as widely in Somalia as it is in Ethiopia. This has got fuck all to do with religion. It’s people seizing an excuse to justify their actions.
Well, it’s hard to know just how to reply to stream of consciousness burbling to reply such as this.
You’re not interested in examples of how religions have always been used as an excuse. You think a person is either a liar or a fucking idiot to say that Islam is no more inherently murderous than any other religion.
Really, let’s just cut to the chase. You don’t trust muslims. Nothing anyone can say or do will persuade you otherwise. You’ll seize upon any incident possible as justification for why people should be wary of them. After all, if I may quote you:
“there is something about Islam that leads people to be barbaric fuckwits”
“Islam is something to be watched, to be wary of”
“If there was another religion whose adherents were similarly barbaric, I’d say be wary of them”
When a person believes statements such as the above, there’s not an argument in the world that will persuade them otherwise.
I understand the point you’re trying to make - I just don’t agree with it. You’re saying “religions are what religions do”, and that it is the actions of Muslims that define what Islam really is, right? But exactly which Muslims are you talking about? Is it the Sunnis? The Shi’is? The Ismailis? The Wahhabbis? The Bahai’is? The Durzis? The Sufis? the Ahmadis?
My point is that you cannot take the actions of Muslims as a definition of Islam itself. There are just so many different sects, interpretations, factions and schools of thought that it is impossible to make that kind of neat little assertion. Some of these sects do not agree that Mohammad was a prophet, some do. Which of these is the “True Islam”, and who are you to make that kind of judgement? The actions of all these different types of Muslims the world over are so different, so conflicting and so varied that it is impossible to say that what they DO is what defines Islam.
Again, even if you focus solely on the Sharia, different countries and courts of law interpret and apply the Sharia in different ways. If the Saudi, Wahabbi-inspired interpretation of Sharia leads to violations of human rights, then by all means criticise them, but it is wrong to vilify and condemn Islam AS A WHOLE because of that interpretation.
I disagree. It exists in the Quran and the Hadith as a guideline for Muslims and Muslim nations to follow:
“Islam has laid down universal fundamental rights for humanity which are to be observed and respected in all circumstances. For example, human blood is sacred and may not be spilled without strong justification; it is not permissible to oppress women, children, old people, the sick or the wounded; women’s honour and chastity must be respected; the hungry must be fed, the naked clothed and the wounded or diseased treated medically irrespective of whether they belong to the Islamic community or are from amongst its enemies. These, and other provisions have been laid down by Islam as fundamental rights for every man by virtue of his status as a human being.”
Sounds pretty good to me. Now I freely admit that Muslims and Muslim Nations might fall short of this ideal, but which nation hasn’t? Even the civilised, secular nations of the West are in the frequent habit of abusing human rights. My point again is that “Islam” as laid down in scripture, is not the same thing as “Islam” as some Muslims choos to interpret it. The scripture provides ample instruction and guidance for Muslims to live their lives in a peaceful and neighborly manner. Some Muslims choose not to see it that way, but that doesn’t mean the scripture itself is inherently dangerous.
No, sorry, but I’ll look around a bit and see if I can find it.
No.
Who has said otherwise? If a Christian commits violence in the name of Christ, then Pit the son of a bitch. But don’t say, “Oh yeah, well what about all the violence Muslims commit?”. And likewise, if a Muslim commits violence in the name of Allah, then Pit the son of a bitch. But don’t say, “Oh yeah, well what about all the violence Christians commit?”.
You would have more change on your desk if you didn’t waste so much money on straw.
The whole point is you’re not pitting “the son of a bitch”. Do that, and no fucker’s likely to argue. Hell, you don’t even need to be that specific - point out that Saudi’s rulers are a barbaric bunch of bastards with a fucking awful justice system and I’d be gobsmacked if anyone said a word in disagreement.
It’s when you start making comments about the whole fucking religion, i.e. about 1/5 of the population of the world, that people start to point out just how broad that brush of yours is.
So, once more with smaller words:
People who say Allah tell them to do bad things are naughty and are fibbers, just like the people who said Jesus told them to do bad things are naughty and are fibbers. That does not make all people who think Allah is great guy are naughty and do bad things.
Short of scanning in a line drawing with happy faces and sad faces I think I’m going to have trouble trying to make this concept any more accessible for you.
Same question to you. Do you comprehend the concept of ‘some’? Do you think that ‘some’ equals ‘most’? Do you think ‘some’ equals ‘all’?
Because that is what you are arguing, and if you cannot grok how ludicrous that is, then I have to agree that you and your ilk are beyond all help.
The point was that all arguments that extrapolate from the particular to the general are bogus. Christians and christianity were used as an example of why the arguments are bogus.
It turns out the Christian Science Monitor article was based on more than one survey and they were conducted by different organizations. This one was conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, wrong called the Program on International Public Attitudes in the article, and is about Iranians opinions versus Americans’ opinions. It includes links to the actual data.
The other survey was conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow, and I’m having more trouble finding it on their website.
That’s actually how I feel about it. So I would have to answer that survey, “rarely.”
EMILE HENRY
(1872-1894)
Not many people have heard of Emile Henry, which is surprising really.
He was born in 1872 in Spain, the son of an exiled Communard. He returned to Paris with his family, and became a student at the Prestigious Ecole Polytechnique.
However, he chose to abandon his studies in favour of “propaganda by deed”.
He placed a bomb in the offices of a mining company notorious for its strike-breaking activities. The bomb was discovered, and taken by the police to a local police station, where it exploded, killing several policemen.
In February of 1894, he placed a bomb in a prestigious cafe, which detonated killing one person, and injuring several others.
Emile Henry marched to the guillotine in 1894, unrepentent.
At his trial he made this defence.
What arguments do you mean? The argument “All Muslims are terrorists” is bogus. But the argument “This woman was punished by Islamic law” is not.
There are two ways to interpret this statement:
-
You can think of a situation in which obliterating a score of completely innocent civilians “in defence of Islam” would be morally justifiable.
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You think the attack on Hiroshima was morally indefensible and, morally, on a par with suicide attacks against civilians.
If the former, please share this situation with me. I would be most interested to know under precisely what circumstances you would grant suicide bombers a pass when they unmake themselves in crowded market places filled with children.
If the latter, please explain how the attack on Hiroshima was immoral, given that the only feasible alternative to such an attack was a full scale land assault which would have killed many, many more people.
Okay. How about if the US (or some other Western or association of Western powers) began a focused campaign of genocide against Islamic nations? I’m talking Nazi Final Solution type stuff here, not just us blundering into Iraq and breaking a bunch of shit. I think that, against a nation that’s rounding you up and putting you in death camps because they want to wipe your religion off the face of the Earth, one could justify a fairly broad range of terrorist actions against the aggressor nation “in defence of Islam.” Not any terrorist action, by any means, but I think that targetting non-military members of the genocidal regime, collaborators, and the civilian infrastructure would be legitimate tactics in a situation like that. And, of course, I don’t think any of the terror attacks carried out by Muslim extremists in the real world is justified. But it’s pretty easy to conceive of an extreme situation in which they would, so I guess that puts me in the “rarely justified” column.
Although I do think the attack on Hiroshima was justified, it’s not nearly the open-and-shut case you present it to be. And, of course, even if you justify Hiroshima, justifiying Nagasaki is a lot more difficult.
This is the second time you’ve interpreted that poll you linked to as supporting deliberate attacks on children. I don’t think that’s particularly honest of you, and the cheap emotionalism of the tactic does not do much to help your argument.
It is disingenuous, though. As I mentioned earlier, the Bible prescribes death by stoning for adulterers. But, if any Christian were to actually implement that law, he would be seen as a radical, far outside the thinking of moderate Christians. It wouldn’t be fair to say “This person was punished by Christian law”, because most Christians don’t see that law as something to be taken literally. They reject the radical interpretation.
I see a double-standard here. Whenever Christian radicals do something violent in the name of their religion, excuses are made, and everyone is quick to point out that the mainstream religion rejects that. But when Muslim radicals do something violent, people immediately scan the text of the Koran to find a passage that justifies it, so that they can proclaim: “See, this horrible, violent religion is responsible for this behavior.”
Seems to me the blame ought to fall on the individuals in the government who are implementing these radical ideas rather than on the religion itself.
I had to read your post several times over. Something in it clicked for me, and so I carefully examined it for meaning that I could mine. And I come away from it thinking that you and I agree. What you say above is true.