More Thoughts On "The Religion of Peace"

[Perknose]

No, not that one, THIS one:

EKET, Nigeria — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him – Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

"It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity," said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.

For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund.

"When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats," he said. "It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change ... and children are defenseless."

It's right in the Bible, the very foundation of Christianity and the inerrant word of God: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."Hey! Christians in this country even did it during the Salem Witch trials!
Look, I'm sure this has been posted before, but I need to counter the hordes of posters here who are condemning ALL of Islam because of the most primitive and hateful of them.

It's NOT the religion, it's the state of cultural development. The Arabs (and many Africans) lag woefully behind us, but's it's not Christianity and it's not Islam, it's JUST primitive cultural ignorance.

My point is, those Nigerian Christians are just as ignorant as the Islamic haters.

In India, despite laws against it, some Hindus in the villages still force the widow to burn herself to death on the funeral pyre.

In the UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA, we didn't allow our wimmins to vote until 90 short years ago! And in the South, the laws of the STATE forbade "dem blackies" from eating in the same restaurants as white folk as late as less than 50 years ago -- hell, they were still casually murdering and lynching them up until then.

I have no truck with the fucking Islamic fundies. BUT us stupidly and crudely blaming ALL of Islam will leave a legacy of hate that will play into their hands with their own populace.

The old dictum applies, "All politics is local."

Continued ignorant braying/mocking of Islam as the religion of peace is counter-productive and, well, slack-jawed ignorant.

As the article so presciently says, "When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats..." So I say to all of you here yawping and gesticulating like so many monkeys on hate meth, wise up and stop making ALL of Islam the over-generalized scapegoat.

It may make you feel good to have an easily identified cartoon enemy, you may proudly consider any distinction that contains less than a billion plus people to be too nuanced, but continuing to demonize ALL of Islam is a murderous mistake.

Despite your naive and juvenile desires, we cannot and will not wipe out entire regions or religions or ethnicities. The world is getting smaller every day, and the price we pay for letting the hate fester GROWS every day.

Look at the price we are paying already:

Civil libertarians, have you noticed how many freedoms WE CITIZENS have lost to the "war on terror"? And we are currently spending a TON of our blood and national treasure fighting this war abroad, at a time when our budget deficits are making us WEAKER and ultimately, less safe!

The MORE we demonize ALL of Islam, the more we risk some teenaged American Muslim with misguided teenaged "ideals" becoming the smarter and more successful conduit of a killer dirty bomb here in our own country.

Nobody wins under that scenario, trust me.

And it's only a matter of time unless we counter this threat at the source, by being brave enough and far-sighted enough to find a political and social counterpoint to radical militant Islam.

We can play "whack a mole" all we want and kill as many "#3 Al Quaeda" guys as we want, but we're just wasting Billions of our dollars that we desperately need at home and needlessly sacrificing thousands of our brave American military

And we're just treading fucking water. Waist deep in the big muddy, and the big fool says to push on. Have we learned NOTHING?

Wise up, smarten up, grow up. The stakes are high here, very high. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

And what exactly is the solution?

 

[DesiPower]

WOW! did you write all that... wow!!!!
/tldr

 

[Daedalus685]

WOW! did you write all that... wow!!!!
/tldr

Its not even 1000 words....

What a state society is in that what equates to perhaps the abstract and table of contents of many papers is too long to bother reading... If you don't care then don't post and move on with your life...


At any rate.. I tend to agree with you perk. People, specifically stupid people, are often to blame instead of a group distinction (such as religion).

Though I find there are legitimate issues with religious faith particularly as it related to its ability to allow even those who shouldn't be part of the 'stupid' to act as such. But certainly as society advances (and generally as folks become more intelligent) the issues we notice with a religion and complain about at no end on here seem to vanish... though so too does the proportion of practising religious...

 

[Jaskalas]

And what exactly is the solution?

We tend to our flock and they tend to theirs. If Muslims do not condemn the "most primitive and hateful of them" then we must condemn Islam. We need a very strong dialogue with them to measure whether or not they are with us or against us.

 

[JSt0rm]

We tend to our flock and they tend to theirs. If Muslims do not condemn the "most primitive and hateful of them" then we must condemn Islam. We need a very strong dialogue with them to measure whether or not they are with us or against us.

I think this story is about Christianity...

 

[irishScott]

The difference is that Islam, by its very nature, fosters cultural immaturity. The lack of secular thinking is one of the most prominent examples. Islam in and of itself may not be completely to blame, but it certainly isn't helping.

As for the article, I can guarantee that if that article was the on front page world wide there would be a mass outcry from Christians of all sects and levels of authority. As opposed to 9/11, where people were dancing in the streets of the middle east. Is it a coincidence that the vast majority of these people were Muslim? Is it a coincidence that countries run by Islamic government are usually quite culturally backwards?

I think an Israeli officer put it nicely when defending racial profiling: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslim."

 

[Jaskalas]

I think this story is about Christianity...

Read the OP. It is far more broad then you would give it credit for.

 

[Sinsear]

Nice try at deflection OP, but we already know where you stand.

 

[bfdd]

The difference is that Islam, by its very nature, fosters cultural immaturity. The lack of secular thinking is one of the most prominent examples. Islam in and of itself may not be completely to blame, but it certainly isn't helping.

As for the article, I can guarantee that if that article was the on front page world wide there would be a mass outcry from Christians of all sects and levels of authority. As opposed to 9/11, where people were dancing in the streets of the middle east. Is it a coincidence that the vast majority of these people were Muslim? Is it a coincidence that countries run by Islamic government are usually quite culturally backwards?

I think an Israeli officer put it nicely when defending racial profiling: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslim."

Good post and your second paragraph is the main reason why some of us are harder on Islam than Christianity when it comes to things like this. It should be obvious that now a days Christianity is quite evolved from where it was even just 100 years ago. The saddest part about the whole Arab world is that at one time it was a center for learning and cultural diversity.

 

[Atreus21]

The difference is that Islam, by its very nature, fosters cultural immaturity. The lack of secular thinking is one of the most prominent examples. Islam in and of itself may not be completely to blame, but it certainly isn't helping.

As for the article, I can guarantee that if that article was the on front page world wide there would be a mass outcry from Christians of all sects and levels of authority. As opposed to 9/11, where people were dancing in the streets of the middle east. Is it a coincidence that the vast majority of these people were Muslim? Is it a coincidence that countries run by Islamic government are usually quite culturally backwards?

I think an Israeli officer put it nicely when defending racial profiling: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslim."

I was going to post something similar. How is it, Perk, that the majority of muslim nations tend to be so socially behind?

Some of the nicest folks I've ever met were American muslims, so this is obviously a culture problem, but religion weighs in heavily in that discussion.

 

[flavio]

As for the article, I can guarantee that if that article was the on front page world wide there would be a mass outcry from Christians of all sects and levels of authority. As opposed to 9/11, where people were dancing in the streets of the middle east.

There was mass outcry from Muslims of all level of authority against 9/11.

There were mass amounts of christians celebrating the abortion doc getting shot.

 

[Perknose]

I was going to post something similar. How is it, Perk, that the majority of muslim nations tend to be so socially behind?

Some of the nicest folks I've ever met were American muslims, so this is obviously a culture problem, but religion weighs in heavily in that discussion.

You are ignoring the example in my OP. Most all of "Christian" Africa is also behind. I don't blame the religion there either, just the stage of socio-political development.

You also conveniently ignore all the historic examples I post of primitive social practices right here in America, from the Salem witch trials through women not getting the freaking right to vote until 90 years ago to blacks facing state imposed Jim Crow up until LESS than 50 years ago.

Get my point now?

Societies evolve, independent of which flavor of which religion rules at any one moment and it is WRONG and murderously COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE (please read or re-read my OP) to blame ALL of Islam!

 

[Perknose]

And what exactly is the solution?

Complex and seemingly intractable in the short run situations do not lend themselves to sound bite solutions, but the following would help:

1. First, cease the unnecessary and counter-productive and crude demonization of ALL of Islam. It helps nothing, and it plays right into the hands of their xenophobic fundies who can then say, "See, the Crusaders HATE us, ALL of us and our sacred religion, ululululululululu!"

2. Realize that there isn't a strict military solution! Why? Because there isn't! Kill the next 3# Al Quaeda, make more martyrs, up pops another. Face it, WE are the outsiders over there. Some tolerate us, others take our money and use it for their own ends, but almost no one there really likes us! And the longer we stay and the more unavoidable civilian casualites we create, the more lasting animosity we create.

NOW, this is sticky because there IS a dedicated group who will NOT soon give up on attacking us. Sadly, when we had the WORLD'S good will after 9/11 and our counter-attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan, we could have used our considerable resources to crush them then and there, BUT . . .

GEORGE BUSH and the NEOCONS fucked that opportunity for us, by pulling prime resources AWAY from the hunt for Bin Laden right when we were close and committing them to our wildly successful establishment of a Shia-based, pro-Iranian gov't in Iraq that only cost us Billions and Billions, indeed TRILLIONS of dollars, thousand of American lives, and TENS of thousands of permanently maimed Americans.

It's a good thing we didn't need those TRILLIONS of dollars at home or to cut the deficit or anything, though!

So, yeah, the task is far tougher now. We can't just withdraw. BUT we do have to stop demonizing ALL muslims and their religion or we'll never get anywhere!

3. Middle East. Israel. So fucking difficult, the Bush administration, when they came in, decided this basic festering point for discord lacked an easy solution (it does) and since they then coudn't score domestic political points with it, they simply leave it alone and attempt nothing.

That was cynical cowardice and short-term political expediency on their part!

IF THERE WERE A CLEAR AND EASY PATH HERE FOR THE USA WE WOULD HAVE FOUND IT ALREADY.

But, we do need to strike some better balance between our principled (and costly) for the democratic State of Israel to exist AND the fact that that support indirectly enables the most fanatical of the expasionist, no-compromise settler groups to continue to build on all the Arab land they want in the midst of the Arabs and then count on the blunt might of the Israeli armed forces to bludgeon the Arabs when they respond.

No justice, no peace. The Arab fundy jihadist "Death to Israel" types will continue to find fertile ground amongst the Arab population as long this continues, AND, YES, unfortunately it WILL be a LONG time after this expansion stops until they lose the support they've gained.

Sad, but true.

But one thing is beyond true. The cycle of violence begetting more violence continues, YES, at Israels own risk. It is simply not in their best long-term interests.

The solution, whatever it is, is NOT and cannot be solely a military one.

Remember, the British won just about EVERY battle in our Revolutionary WAR, and yet never blunted our desire to have our own free government on our own land.

Remember, the British held ALL the power cards in India and still lost to a skinny guy in a diaper.

Remember, we killed MILLIONS of Vietnamese and yet never broke their will.

Like the Americans, like the Indians, and like the Vietnamese, the Arabs, even so POORLY led as they are, aren't going anywhere else ever and even Israel won't KILL them all, so, there is NO military solution, only a political one, whatever that may be.

I KNOW this is like pissing into the wind, pearls before swine, coals to Newcastle, and Sisyphus pushing his rock, but there y'all have it, my puny and no doubt flawed attempt at light amongst all this CRUDE, ahistorical, partisan fanboy heat. <shrug>

 

[woolfe9999]

The difference is that Islam, by its very nature, fosters cultural immaturity. The lack of secular thinking is one of the most prominent examples. Islam in and of itself may not be completely to blame, but it certainly isn't helping.

As for the article, I can guarantee that if that article was the on front page world wide there would be a mass outcry from Christians of all sects and levels of authority. As opposed to 9/11, where people were dancing in the streets of the middle east. Is it a coincidence that the vast majority of these people were Muslim? Is it a coincidence that countries run by Islamic government are usually quite culturally backwards?

I think an Israeli officer put it nicely when defending racial profiling: "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslim."

I think I tend toward the OP's position - that it is culture driven - and tend to disagree with you. Many of the practices which we condemn today that take place in Islamic countries, for example, honor killings, are well known to predate Islam and go all the way back to pre-Islamic tribal culture in those regions. Religious messages, be they scriptural or in some other form, tend to be quite pliable in how they are interpreted. In western society, we now tend to downplay or re-intepret biblical passages which were previously used to justify all kinds of barbarism, such as the passages cited by the OP. When the culture in Islamic countries changes/modernizes, they will conveniently start to read their own scriptures differently. The warlike passages will all the sudden be viewed as parable or as limited to a very specific context, while more peaceful passages will become more popular. Religion tends to follow culture more than the other way around.

- wolf

 

[Perknose]

Nice try at deflection OP, but we already know where you stand.

Really? Where do I stand? Tell us all, since you know, where I stand!

Use quotes of mine to back it up, or just crawl away and stfu, asshole. You OBVIOUSLY don't even know where I stand.

And deflection where and of what, how? Don't just troll, back up your shallow, asinine attack. Be specific!

 

[bfdd]

I think I tend toward the OP's position - that it is culture driven - and tend to disagree with you. Many of the practices which we condemn today that take place in Islamic countries, for example, honor killings, are well known to predate Islam and go all the way back to pre-Islamic tribal culture in those regions. Religious messages, be they scriptural or in some other form, tend to be quite pliable in how they are interpreted. In western society, we now tend to downplay or re-intepret biblical passages which were previously used to justify all kinds of barbarism, such as the passages cited by the OP. When the culture in Islamic countries changes/modernizes, they will conveniently start to read their own scriptures differently. The warlike passages will all the sudden be viewed as parable or as limited to a very specific context, while more peaceful passages will become more popular. Religion tends to follow culture more than the other way around.

- wolf

That would be fine except the Arab world has been going backwards while the rest of the world for the most part has been moving forward. What was once the center for learning and cultural diversity is now a region lead by religious zealots full of hate that are against modernization of society.

 

[werepossum]

I was going to post something similar. How is it, Perk, that the majority of muslim nations tend to be so socially behind?

Some of the nicest folks I've ever met were American muslims, so this is obviously a culture problem, but religion weighs in heavily in that discussion.

Most of the people surrounding them are Christian, so good people who are Muslims are free to be good and bad people who are Muslims are constrained in how bad they can be. It's true that this kind of behavior is largely cultural, but religion and culture go hand in hand, and where Islam goes, such things as honor killings and officially sanctioned stonings and burnings tend to follow. Islam drags its own culture of death with it - perhaps because it originated in evil people with such customs already in place.

 

[flavio]

Most of the people surrounding them are Christian, so good people who are Muslims are free to be good and bad people who are Muslims are constrained in how bad they can be.

No, it's because Muslims are generally good people. Like most people.

where Islam goes, such things as honor killings and officially sanctioned stonings and burnings tend to follow.

No. There's somewhere around a billion and a half muslims in the world. These things aren't common with most of them. Just as the witch killings in the OP aren't common with most christians.

Islam drags its own culture of death with it - perhaps because it originated in evil people with such customs already in place.

^^^^
This is the face of extreme religious bigotry.

 

[1prophet]

No, not that one, THIS one:

It's right in the Bible, the very foundation of Christianity and the inerrant word of God: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."Hey! Christians in this country even did it during the Salem Witch trials!
Look, I'm sure this has been posted before, but I need to counter the hordes of posters here who are condemning ALL of Islam because of the most primitive and hateful of them.

It's NOT the religion, it's the state of cultural development. The Arabs (and many Africans) lag woefully behind us, but's it's not Christianity and it's not Islam, it's JUST primitive cultural ignorance.

My point is, those Nigerian Christians are just as ignorant as the Islamic haters.

In India, despite laws against it, some Hindus in the villages still force the widow to burn herself to death on the funeral pyre.

In the UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA, we didn't allow our wimmins to vote until 90 short years ago! And in the South, the laws of the STATE forbade "dem blackies" from eating in the same restaurants as white folk as late as less than 50 years ago -- hell, they were still casually murdering and lynching them up until then.

I have no truck with the fucking Islamic fundies. BUT us stupidly and crudely blaming ALL of Islam will leave a legacy of hate that will play into their hands with their own populace.

The old dictum applies, "All politics is local."

Continued ignorant braying/mocking of Islam as the religion of peace is counter-productive and, well, slack-jawed ignorant.

As the article so presciently says, "When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats..." So I say to all of you here yawping and gesticulating like so many monkeys on hate meth, wise up and stop making ALL of Islam the over-generalized scapegoat.

It may make you feel good to have an easily identified cartoon enemy, you may proudly consider any distinction that contains less than a billion plus people to be too nuanced, but continuing to demonize ALL of Islam is a murderous mistake.

Despite your naive and juvenile desires, we cannot and will not wipe out entire regions or religions or ethnicities. The world is getting smaller every day, and the price we pay for letting the hate fester GROWS every day.

Look at the price we are paying already:

Civil libertarians, have you noticed how many freedoms WE CITIZENS have lost to the "war on terror"? And we are currently spending a TON of our blood and national treasure fighting this war abroad, at a time when our budget deficits are making us WEAKER and ultimately, less safe!

The MORE we demonize ALL of Islam, the more we risk some teenaged American Muslim with misguided teenaged "ideals" becoming the smarter and more successful conduit of a killer dirty bomb here in our own country.

Nobody wins under that scenario, trust me.

And it's only a matter of time unless we counter this threat at the source, by being brave enough and far-sighted enough to find a political and social counterpoint to radical militant Islam.

We can play "whack a mole" all we want and kill as many "#3 Al Quaeda" guys as we want, but we're just wasting Billions of our dollars that we desperately need at home and needlessly sacrificing thousands of our brave American military

And we're just treading fucking water. Waist deep in the big muddy, and the big fool says to push on. Have we learned NOTHING?

Wise up, smarten up, grow up. The stakes are high here, very high. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

TWO THINGS

1)The Wahhabi sect of Islam has been and is using billions of dollars of Saudi oil money to actively hold the religion back culturally and label any moderate who opposes them an apostate, until you solve that problem Islam is going backwards not forwards.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/wahhabism.html


2)Todays liberals are willing to compromise on long standing secular principles to appease Islam under the guise of multiculturalism which they would never do otherwise with Christianity. They are even willing to throw gays and women under the bus when it comes to Islam while at the same time denouncing and calling christians bigots for opposing gay marriage and female priests in christian churches.

One Law For All - No Sharia

(interesting comments by the member on the international human rights council)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU0rcFAX730

It's most ironic because today there are openly gay and female priests and churches that gays and lesbians can attend without having to hide in the closet, what mosque can openly gay muslims attend and not have to hide their sexual orientation in the closet?

 

[flavio]

TWO THINGS

1)The Wahhabi sect of Islam has been and is using billions of dollars of Saudi oil money to actively hold the religion back culturally and label any moderate who opposes them an apostate, until you solve that problem Islam is going backwards not forwards.

As if the Wahhabi sect in Saudi controls all Islam.

2)Todays liberals are willing to compromise on long standing secular principles to appease Islam under the guise of multiculturalism which they would never do otherwise with Christianity.

Not true. They've been appeasing christianity for quite some time.

They are even willing to throw gays and women under the bus when it comes to Islam while at the same time denouncing and calling christians bigots for opposing gay marriage and female priests in christian churches.

False.

 

[sandorski]

Excellent post Perk. :thumbsup:

 

[Budmantom]

Really? Where do I stand? Tell us all, since you know, where I stand!

Use quotes of mine to back it up, or just crawl away and stfu, asshole. You OBVIOUSLY don't even know where I stand.

And deflection where and of what, how? Don't just troll, back up your shallow, asinine attack. Be specific!

You stand with Barry

 

[bfdd]

I have kind of an off-topic question, how come so many people think Muslim is the same thing as Arab?

 

[Oceandevi]

Pissing in the wind perk. Though its admirable that you try. In all seriousness.