Do Muslim Terrorists and their Homicidal Maniacs make you distrust the religion and feel anger towards all religions?

[Athanasius]

The Question has two parts:

1. Do Muslim terrorists and their homicidal maniacs make you distrust the religion?

-AND-

2. Do the actions of such people make you distrust all religions?

"2" is easier to answer. As a general rule, religion does not promote killing any more than any other human system of thought. Systematic atheism in China and the former Soviet Union has killed far more people than radical Islamic Fundamentalism has in the last century. Any system or ideology can be twisted and abused by those who are self-seeking and embrace malignancy. So my answer is, "No." Religious people are no more inclined than anyone else to be destructive.


"1" is more difficult to answer. I do not distrust Muslims. But it is the only world religion that was essentially founded through military strife and conquest. Abraham "started" the Jewish religion, Jesus started the Christian religion, Lao-Tse started Taoism, Confucius started Confucianism, Buddha started Buddhism, Hinduism's origins are lost in complexity, and Nanak started Sikhism as a unique blend of Hindu and Islamic thought.

Islam was founded by Mohammed in the six hundreds. By 732, it had spread (often through military conquest) throughout northern Africa and into Spain, where its advance was stopped by military force in the Battle of Tours. What I am getting at is this: all religions wield power, and those who would use power inappropriately will at times take advantage of any religious system. But there is no large, worlwide religious system that lends itself to that as readily as Islam. Jihad is almost "the sixth tenet" of Islam, and no world religion was as dependent on conquest in its nascent years as Islam was.

Combine that historical fact with the kind of things that Tripleshot mentioned, and you have a mess.

Fortunately, the overwhelming number of Muslims are sincere, peaceable people. The actual "Five tenets" of Islam are beautiful things,(although I personally disagree with the first one). Hence they tend to take a more allegorical view of "Jihad" or strongly limit its applications in today's world.

I do not distust someone simply because they are Muslims. But early Islam as a system embraced Jihad without apology. It is almost a fundamental tenet of the religion, and that fact lends itself all too easily to abuse.

The best thing Imams can do is publicly denounce Jihad and categotrically reject it as part of the Islamic religion. Many world religions have fallen prey to a flawed concept of "holy war" at times. Only one (that I know of) has actually taught and embraced the doctrine as a major precept since its foundation.

Since the literal concept of "Jihad" is interwoven with early Islamic history, it lends itself to tremendous abuse today.

So, I do not distrust the religion as a whole, but I am realistic. Until the religion as a whole addresses this fundamental flaw in its early ideology, it will be used by extremists again and again.

 

[jackschmittusa]

I doubt that any Arabs in the Mideast are looking up terms in the OED or reading any tomes on international law to decide who got "invaded" by the U.S..

 

[Alistar7]

Fencer, you just keep missing the point.

I agree many people see things that way, but that is not the reality of the situation.

By lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together, which was done to higlight your opinion of his efforts at international diplomacy, context is important, you suggest the pattern and result were the same, both led to unapproved "invasion".

I was only trying to point out the difference between the two, one was approved, one was not. Both cases also show Bush's efforts at diplomacy and international consensus, disporoving your stated opinion as to his beliefs and efforts. Apparently you remembered that exchange, did it hurt that much?

What you brought up was from a previous thread correct? Why did you drag it in here? You saw I used the word invade myself and jumped at the chance to state I was the one who casually misused the term this time. Once again, you were wrong, I had used that in stating Iran was lucky we did not invade there as we did in Iraq.

No country is ever going to give permission to be attacked, invaded, occupied. By that reasoning no action would ever be legal.

 

[Alistar7]

By "flying off the handle" is this what you meant?

"INVADES?

There was UN approval for Afghanistan."

that was my repsonse, hardly flying off the handle. yet you took the time to go back in old threads, look that 5 word sentence up and construe it as "flying of the handle" and base it as an excuse to attack my use of a particualr word.

 

[LunarRay]

Originally posted by: Athanasius
The Question has two parts:

1. Do Muslim terrorists and their homicidal maniacs make you distrust the religion?

-AND-

2. Do the actions of such people make you distrust all religions?

"2" is easier to answer. As a general rule, religion does not promote killing any more than any other human system of thought. Systematic atheism in China and the former Soviet Union has killed far more people than radical Islamic Fundamentalism has in the last century. Any system or ideology can be twisted and abused by those who are self-seeking and embrace malignancy. So my answer is, "No." Religious people are no more inclined than anyone else to be destructive.


"1" is more difficult to answer. I do not distrust Muslims. But it is the only world religion that was essentially founded through military strife and conquest. Abraham "started" the Jewish religion, Jesus started the Christian religion, Lao-Tse started Taoism, Confucius started Confucianism, Buddha started Buddhism, Hinduism's origins are lost in complexity, and Nanak started Sikhism as a unique blend of Hindu and Islamic thought.

Islam was founded by Mohammed in the six hundreds. By 732, it had spread (often through military conquest) throughout northern Africa and into Spain, where its advance was stopped by military force in the Battle of Tours. What I am getting at is this: all religions wield power, and those who would use power inappropriately will at times take advantage of any religious system. But there is no large, worlwide religious system that lends itself to that as readily as Islam. Jihad is almost "the sixth tenet" of Islam, and no world religion was as dependent on conquest in its nascent years as Islam was.

Combine that historical fact with the kind of things that Tripleshot mentioned, and you have a mess.

Fortunately, the overwhelming number of Muslims are sincere, peaceable people. The actual "Five tenets" of Islam are beautiful things,(although I personally disagree with the first one). Hence they tend to take a more allegorical view of "Jihad" or strongly limit its applications in today's world.

I do not distust someone simply because they are Muslims. But early Islam as a system embraced Jihad without apology. It is almost a fundamental tenet of the religion, and that fact lends itself all too easily to abuse.

The best thing Imams can do is publicly denounce Jihad and categotrically reject it as part of the Islamic religion. Many world religions have fallen prey to a flawed concept of "holy war" at times. Only one (that I know of) has actually taught and embraced the doctrine as a major precept since its foundation.

Since the literal concept of "Jihad" is interwoven with early Islamic history, it lends itself to tremendous abuse today.

So, I do not distrust the religion as a whole, but I am realistic. Until the religion as a whole addresses this fundamental flaw in its early ideology, it will be used by extremists again and again.

This is very well reasoned and persuasive... thank you!

 

[Zrom999]

Some things people should know:

1) The words "Jihad" and "Crusade" mean the exact same thing. They aren't always used in terms of killing "infidels"

2) Islam has 2 major sects: Sunni and Shi'ite; which are very different from each other.

3) Islam is one of the largest religions in the world. If every muslim (of all sects) got up one morning and said that they are going to kill all the non believers, basically everyone else would be screwed.

4) Most terrorist have political agendas, not religious agendas. It just happens they belong to a certain religion.


As for this:

Originally posted by: dahunan
Economic Sanctions on all countries that allow these freaks to bastardize and sodomize their religion and use it as a Terrorist Tool

STARTING with Saudi Arabia

I would pull every single American Influence out of the country and then tell them to hand over every al-Qaeda member and close all madrasas and denounce wahabism or we will start bombing any suspected target and will assasinate any and every financier of Osama Bin Laden and his murderers

The US can break off relations with the Saudis, but then they would just buy their weapons and sell their oil elsewhere. The only one who would be hurt by this is the US. The US also can't just bomb them, their military is equipped with modern US equipment unlike the Iraqis who were armed with mostly outdated junk from China, Russia and France. The US needs this relationship with the Saudis more than the Saudis need them. They have the option of taking their money and oil elsewhere such as to the Europeans, who would gladly welcome it, and leave the US gov't standing around with no fuel and holding their... well you get the point.

 

[Moonbeam]

I find this a profoundly interesting subject. Here's one western analyst's take on it:
----------------------------------------------------------------
What is Jihad
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
December 31, 2002
What does the Arabic word "jihad" mean?

One answer came last week, when Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his jihad to defeat the "wicked Americans" should they attack Iraq; then he himself threatened the United States with jihad.

As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.

The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.

Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth.

Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. That's how Muslims came to rule much of the Arabian Peninsula by the time of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. It's how, a century later, Muslims had conquered a region from Afghanistan to Spain. Subsequently, jihad spurred and justified Muslim conquests of such territories as India, Sudan, Anatolia, and the Balkans.

Today, jihad is the world's foremost source of terrorism, inspiring a worldwide campaign of violence by self-proclaimed jihadist groups:

* The International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: Osama bin Laden's organization;

* Laskar Jihad: responsible for the murder of more than 10,000 Christians in Indonesia;

* Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami: a leading cause of violence in Kashmir;

* Palestinian Islamic Jihad: the most vicious anti-Israel terrorist group of them all;

* Egyptian Islamic Jihad: killed Anwar El-Sadat in 1981, many others since, and

* Yemeni Islamic Jihad: killed three American missionaries on Monday.

But jihad's most ghastly present reality is in Sudan, where until recently the ruling party bore the slogan "Jihad, Victory and Martyrdom." For two decades, under government auspices, jihadists there have physically attacked non-Muslims, looted their belongings and killed their males.

Jihadists then enslaved tens of thousands of females and children, forced them to convert to Islam, sent them on forced marches, beat them and set them to hard labor. The women and older girls also suffered ritual gang-rape, genital mutilation and a life of sexual servitude.

Sudan's state-sponsored jihad has caused about 2 million deaths and the displacement of another 4 million - making it the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our era.

Despite jihad's record as a leading source of conflict for 14 centuries, causing untold human suffering, academic and Islamic apologists claim it permits only defensive fighting, or even that it is entirely non-violent. Three American professors of Islamic studies colorfully make the latter point, explaining jihad as:

* An "effort against evil in the self and every manifestation of evil in society" (Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, Hartford Seminary);

* "Resisting apartheid or working for women's rights" (Farid Eseck, Auburn Seminary), and

* "Being a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one's anger" (Bruce Lawrence, Duke University).

It would be wonderful were jihad to evolve into nothing more aggressive than controlling one's anger, but that will not happen simply by wishing away a gruesome reality. To the contrary, the pretense of a benign jihad obstructs serious efforts at self-criticism and reinterpretation.

The path away from terrorism, conquest and enslavement lies in Muslims forthrightly acknowledging jihad's historic role, followed by apologies to jihad's victims, developing an Islamic basis for nonviolent jihad and (the hardest part) actually ceasing to wage violent jihad.

Unfortunately, such a process of redemption is not now under way; violent jihad will probably continue until it is crushed by a superior military force (Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, please take note). Only when jihad is defeated will moderate Muslims finally find their voice and truly begin the hard work of modernizing Islam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is probably a very popular view here, but I wonder. Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life, a claim that all of life is religious, that there is no such thing as separation of church and state. Everybody, Most people in the West, fear a religious state. The only problem I have is whether Islam is not in fact the ultimate in religious expression. From within Islam there isn't really a problem with Islam. It is the truth and the will of God. What if it is? You, no doubt are sure of your answer. I am not.

Nothing can stand against the will of God.

 

[rahvin]

"2" is easier to answer. As a general rule, religion does not promote killing any more than any other human system of thought. Systematic atheism in China and the former Soviet Union has killed far more people than radical Islamic Fundamentalism has in the last century. Any system or ideology can be twisted and abused by those who are self-seeking and embrace malignancy. So my answer is, "No." Religious people are no more inclined than anyone else to be destructive.

Atheism killed very few, those killed were done in by communism. This is the second time I've seen you say that and it's a blatently biased constuction. Atheism held no motive in almost all the killings in China and Soviet Russia. There were some murders that can be attributed to atheistic thought (christian murders and tibet in china and jewish purges in Russia), but the vast majority were politically motivated and had nothing to do with Atheism. I really hate it when you say that because the Soviets believed in athiesim that it motivated them to murder whereas conflicts that were entirely motivated by religion and often carried out by churches.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_haught/holy.html

 

[Moonbeam]

rahvin's link ends with this comment:

"Anything that divides people breeds inhumanity. Religion serves that ugly purpose."

But the question I have is, can we find in human nature anything deeper than religion to explain this tendency to divide. I think so, and I also think the real purpose of religion is to cure that deeper illness. As I see it division is the result of classification and discrimination. This is a tree, this a dog. This is good and that is evil.

Before language there was no comparison, only the infinite unity of being. Isn't the real purpose of religion to remember, to transcend the chasms that appeared in our psyches when we separated the world into things. Isn't God consciousness an experience of oceanic love.

What could be the source of the disease that impels men toward separation. I think it's the separation of the self from the self, the learning of self contempt and the Swedish syndrome adoption of the ego appeaser of the terrorist. It is the terror of memory, the remembrance of pain.

 

[Athanasius]

Hi rahvin:

I am not trying to pick a fight. My comment was sloppy. I agree that most of the purges were political in nature. The point I would make is that most of the purges in religious systems are really political in nature as well. They aren't born out of any particular tenet of the religion, they are an abuse of the religion. They are power struggles where the stronger persecute the weaker because the weaker do not accept the prescribed ideology, whether atheistic, communistic, or islamic. But in Jihad, one finds a major tenet of a particular religion that openly embraces the use of force.

The use of force to punish those who diverge from the prescribed ideology is the problem.

But I think you underestimate the atheistic nature of systematic communism and its atrocities towards people of religious faith. Marxism is fundamentally atheistic, and that spawned two political systems that systematically persecuted (and in China, still does persecute) people of faith. As Karl Marx said:

To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.

Perhaps you downplay it because you have agnostic/atheist leanings and that makes the abuses that much more repugnant to you. In like manner, the Crusades are particularly vile and repugnant to me because it does undercut the core tenets of my world view. I think the Crusades are just as antithetical to genuine Christianity as forced communism is to your particular world view.

I agree that "atheism" did not cause most of the atrocities in the USSR and China. In the same way, religion did not cause the Crusades. But a perverted brand of atheism, derived from Marx, married itself to forced communism in Russia and China. It embraced a Marxist, arrogant insistence that it sees reality clearly and therefore can oppress people by force so that they can have "real happiness." That is absurd. It is as far removed from basic atheism as the Crusades are from Christianity.

Atrocities were comitted under religious regimes and atrocities were committed under atheistic regimes. Does that fact in and of itself have anything to say about those two ideologies? Your attempt to absolutely separate Communism from Atheism is valid. But on a practical level, in history, the two were married by Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Perhaps you view Communism as a brutal perversion and unfortunate attachment to Atheism. Yet that attachment occurred in history. In similar fashion, I lament the Crusades. Yet they happened.

But that isn't the main point of what I was posting. I don't want to go on a tangent, and I will accept your rebuke. My post was sloppy, as I already stated. I was not trying to make a direct cause and effect between atheistic thought and atrocities. In the future, I will try to be more clear.

So back to the main point: the jihad element within the ideology of Islam does lend itself to acts that are contradictory to some of the main pillars of Islamic thought. Since Islam has not universally renounced Jihad, it remains an invitation for further atrocities.

 

[Fencer128]

Originally posted by: Alistar7
Fencer, you just keep missing the point.

I agree many people see things that way, but that is not the reality of the situation.

By lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together, which was done to higlight your opinion of his efforts at international diplomacy, context is important, you suggest the pattern and result were the same, both led to unapproved "invasion".

I was only trying to point out the difference between the two, one was approved, one was not. Both cases also show Bush's efforts at diplomacy and international consensus, disporoving your stated opinion as to his beliefs and efforts. Apparently you remembered that exchange, did it hurt that much?

What you brought up was from a previous thread correct? Why did you drag it in here? You saw I used the word invade myself and jumped at the chance to state I was the one who casually misused the term this time. Once again, you were wrong, I had used that in stating Iran was lucky we did not invade there as we did in Iraq.

No country is ever going to give permission to be attacked, invaded, occupied. By that reasoning no action would ever be legal.

Your point seems to be based around the idea that invasion is "unapproved". This is not the case. A "legal" war can be an invasion. I bought the point up because back in the old thread I was made to feel as if I'd made some sort of damning point by calling the war an invasion. At the time I went out of my way to explain what I meant - thinking that by talking about invasion I'd somehow misrepresented the US/UK. Later in truth I found I was right in this. What got me though was that after having been slammed by yourself and Dari I find that you imply that the last 2 wars were invasion also. I have no problem with that as it is correct - my problem was that I was lambasted for using the word.

I didn't expect (or want) this to drag out into a 20 post debate - I wanted you to realise that the term invasion is not exclusive to some illegal act and that you should be careful in future when criticising people's use of words. I thought that would be best achieved by counter example. You're right in that "flying off the handle" may have been too strong a term though at the time of you orinally posting it I was quite annoyed at the attitude of it. On seeing you mention it again it reminded me of that and also got me a bit miffed since you used it in the same context as myself! That is why I reposted the info.

You still seem to believe I was making some point about "his efforts at international diplomacy" - as I've tried to explain, this could not be any further from the truth. I'm guessing that because you view "invasion" as illegal you thought I was somehow grouping what could be conceived as an "illegal" act with a "legal" one. This is possibly the root of your misunderstanding of my post. Given that, I hope can you see that my meaning implied nothing like what you imagine.

Cheers,

Andy

BTW I do not want this to be a big thing as I enjoy our little tete a tete's I honestly believed you were just going to say. "Oh yeah, I guess it did mean that."

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: dahunan
Economic Sanctions on all countries that allow these freaks to bastardize and sodomize their religion and use it as a Terrorist Tool

STARTING with Saudi Arabia

I would pull every single American Influence out of the country and then tell them to hand over every al-Qaeda member and close all madrasas and denounce wahabism or we will start bombing any suspected target and will assasinate any and every financier of Osama Bin Laden and his murderers

This is not terrorism?

I knew that would be the question...

How about only the economic part and a zero tolerance trade ban and work with all of NATO to stop buying any oil from Saudi Arabia and not threaten them with physical harm?

That's a much better reaction(at least it's sane), but it's still somewhat over-the-top. Saudi Arabia has been cooperating in the WoT, just because terrorists still exist in SA is no reason to punish SA. There are still terrorists in the US, are you going to rally NATO for Sanctions against the US?

 

[konichiwa]

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: dahunan
Economic Sanctions on all countries that allow these freaks to bastardize and sodomize their religion and use it as a Terrorist Tool

STARTING with Saudi Arabia

I would pull every single American Influence out of the country and then tell them to hand over every al-Qaeda member and close all madrasas and denounce wahabism or we will start bombing any suspected target and will assasinate any and every financier of Osama Bin Laden and his murderers

This is not terrorism?

I knew that would be the question...

How about only the economic part and a zero tolerance trade ban and work with all of NATO to stop buying any oil from Saudi Arabia and not threaten them with physical harm?

You'd have to give up your SUV for that to work...along with a third of the rest of America :disgust:

 

[konichiwa]

Originally posted by: dahunan

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
MOAB sounds like an Islamic terrorist to me.

The neanderthal in me wants to see it used on some Islamic Terrorists very soon. I will buy the video and watch it as many times as I had to watch the trade centers crumble to the ground and watch the people jumping out of the window on the 100th floor because their skin was being cooked like KFC.

Give me the button!

Rash emotional response: the last refuge of the illogical.

 

[konichiwa]

Originally posted by: Zrom999
Some things people should know:

1) The words "Jihad" and "Crusade" mean the exact same thing. They aren't always used in terms of killing "infidels"

True, but Crusade in the sense of a campaign or a struggle, not a religious war. Jihad simply means "struggle"

 

[przero]

"You'd have to give up your SUV for that to work...along with a third of the rest of America"

Wrong! Try Alaska. We own that oil field.

 

[konichiwa]

Oh you're right. Fabulous idea, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that -- instead of trying to decrease our oil-based fuel dependency now (heaven forbid), we should trample around the world exhausting every last resource for oil (at least those ones that don't have terrorists atm), and then once we run out, find a way to not need oil anymore. Super.

 

[Moonbeam]

An interesting feature of religion is that it produces a great deal of contempt as witnessed by the existence of this thread. It's pretty hard to look objectively at it and say, you know, all these different faiths, and they all say they are the only one. Well they maybe don't all, but those are hard to find. And look, most people believe what everybody around them believes, what they were taught by there parents. This fact alone, the awareness of difference, the fact that there are so many only answers indicates, to me anyway, that something is radically wrong with religion. The thing that troubles me is exactly what I quoted before, the divisiveness of exclusive claims. Why don't people assume that their religion was the creation of some seer's road to vision, one they have chosen to walk, rather than the only vision. This question plagues me because clearly the killing in the name of exclusivity will continue as some cross the bridge. Are they worth all the death. Is personal realization worth the endless religious strife. Is it time to put away our surrogate bridges and walk to heaven on a less allegorical road. Is it time to understand our condition scientifically, to study our potential scientifically and determine if there are higher states of consciousness that are worth more than life itself to reach. That religion is about the hidden potential of man I'm pretty sure, but whether that understanding can lead men to the light is a disturbing question. Religious or otherwise, we are profoundly motivated not to know. Religion has some tricks around that problem. It's a tough issue.

 

[BarneyFife]

How can anyone call this a peaceful religion? These are a bunch of sheep controlled by a some old guy with a long beard that tells them what to do and when to do it. They aren't tolerate of Americans or any other religions. The only thing they want is an Islamic state and are the most blood thirsty group of people I've ever seen. How anyone can strap a bomb on themselves, "hack someone to death" Yes, that cleric in Iraq got hacked last month, or do other disgustful things is an utter fool. How they treat women is a bigger sin. The clerics encourage this type of behaivor except when they are being interviewed on an American tv channel. Remember all the hell that broke loose in Nigeria over the Miss Universe pagent? These people are blood thirsty sheep. I'm amazed at how anyone can defend them. All they cause is trouble.

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
An interesting feature of religion is that it produces a great deal of contempt as witnessed by the existence of this thread. It's pretty hard to look objectively at it and say, you know, all these different faiths, and they all say they are the only one. Well they maybe don't all, but those are hard to find. And look, most people believe what everybody around them believes, what they were taught by there parents. This fact alone, the awareness of difference, the fact that there are so many only answers indicates, to me anyway, that something is radically wrong with religion. The thing that troubles me is exactly what I quoted before, the divisiveness of exclusive claims. Why don't people assume that their religion was the creation of some seer's road to vision, one they have chosen to walk, rather than the only vision. This question plagues me because clearly the killing in the name of exclusivity will continue as some cross the bridge. Are they worth all the death. Is personal realization worth the endless religious strife. Is it time to put away our surrogate bridges and walk to heaven on a less allegorical road. Is it time to understand our condition scientifically, to study our potential scientifically and determine if there are higher states of consciousness that are worth more than life itself to reach. That religion is about the hidden potential of man I'm pretty sure, but whether that understanding can lead men to the light is a disturbing question. Religious or otherwise, we are profoundly motivated not to know. Religion has some tricks around that problem. It's a tough issue.

Nice post. Your insight is refreshing...when it's not in political threads.

 

[Moonbeam]

Lucky, politics, unlike religion, has little to offer in the way of salvation, no? So there I hunt fanatics with a mirror. It's kind of the same insight applied differently. We need both a theoretical understand and practical examples of how we are, I think, no?

Edit: Barney, I don't think anybody id defending them, maybe just the essence of the religion which they have corrupted and misconstrued.

 

[Zrom999]

Originally posted by: BarneyFife
How can anyone call this a peaceful religion? These are a bunch of sheep controlled by a some old guy with a long beard that tells them what to do and when to do it. They aren't tolerate of Americans or any other religions. The only thing they want is an Islamic state and are the most blood thirsty group of people I've ever seen. How anyone can strap a bomb on themselves, "hack someone to death" Yes, that cleric in Iraq got hacked last month, or do other disgustful things is an utter fool. How they treat women is a bigger sin. The clerics encourage this type of behaivor except when they are being interviewed on an American tv channel. Remember all the hell that broke loose in Nigeria over the Miss Universe pagent? These people are blood thirsty sheep. I'm amazed at how anyone can defend them. All they cause is trouble.

Islam isn't a peaceful religion, in fact none of the 3 major western religions are. There are plenty of disgusting acts committed by Christian, Jews, and Muslims throughout history. As for the "bunch of sheep" I know people who believe their rabbi or reverend are infallible. What about Catholics following the pope? Non Catholics can say they are blindly following a demented old man (not my opinion). For suicide attacks, the Japanese did several during WWII. These characteristics you describe can be applied to anyone of any religious or ethnic group.

I almost forgot, "hack someone to death":

"And Samuel said, As the sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." (1 Samuel 15:33)

 

[konichiwa]

Originally posted by: BarneyFife
How can anyone call this a peaceful religion? These are a bunch of sheep controlled by a some old guy with a long beard that tells them what to do and when to do it. They aren't tolerate of Americans or any other religions. The only thing they want is an Islamic state and are the most blood thirsty group of people I've ever seen. How anyone can strap a bomb on themselves, "hack someone to death" Yes, that cleric in Iraq got hacked last month, or do other disgustful things is an utter fool. How they treat women is a bigger sin. The clerics encourage this type of behaivor except when they are being interviewed on an American tv channel. Remember all the hell that broke loose in Nigeria over the Miss Universe pagent? These people are blood thirsty sheep. I'm amazed at how anyone can defend them. All they cause is trouble.

You're an idiot. Not much else needs to be said.

 

[Netopia]

Athanasius... good posts.... as usual!



rahvin, what is the correct way to pronounce your name? Is it like raven, or like rah-veen or like r'veen or like rah-vin (both short vowels)?

Joe

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: Netopia
Athanasius... good posts.... as usual!



rahvin, what is the correct way to pronounce your name? Is it like raven, or like rah-veen or like r'veen or like rah-vin (both short vowels)?

Joe

However the hell you wanna pronounce it, I favor ray-van.