Originally posted by: Proletariat
Originally posted by: raildogg
Originally posted by: conjur
Quite a few Muslims living in the U.S., eh raildogg? Don't see them blowing themselves up.
Quite a few muslims living in europe as well, and they are not blowing themselves up ... but that doesn't mean a thing. We're talking about a religion which has become very violent in the past few decades, and anyone with any bit of sense will realize that.
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
You have a point. If you look at virtually every single political hotspot across the globe, there's a Muslim population bordering some other group. I think perhaps Islam is at war with itself and everyone in the vicinity gets sucked in somehow.
Yes, Islam is at war with itself and others. There is major change going in within Islam and we should let whatever happens happen on its own. We should stay out of their business. The more we get involved in their religion and decision-making, the more problems for us and them. Muslims need to realize that they better stand up for their religion and prevent the terrorists from hijacking it. Or even the radical clerics, such as the puppet thug of Iran, al-Sadr. Or even his master thug mullahs in Iran.
These people have or are trying to hijack Islam. I'm not sure if its the latter or not.
I think there are some semi-legitimate wars being fought by Muslims... but overall Islam is becoming a violent religion. In modern times much more violent than even its Judeo-Christian counterparts.
I don't even think that the terrorists are hijacking Islam... because if you look at the history of Islam especially in the early conquests of the two most advanced civilizations in the area - India and Persia; they were incredibly brutal. They used to cut Sikhs heads off and put them on hot boiling plates and build brick walls around their remaining family members... even the children.
I've read a lot of nasty stories.
Are we talking about India, since you metnioned Sikhs? A lot of that stuff is you have to look at things in a persepctice of "who is in power"? I know that India's Muslims dynasties have been pretty well historically, but there was an idiot or two in the middle of it that persecuted everyone that didn't follow his ideology. So if you have an idiot among eight, do we say that is a product of the religion, or that is the person himself at fault?
A good example (regretfully I'm not at home so I can't draw on my references right now) was in the 1200s or so there was a governner in Eygpt and he was a freaking idiot. He persecuted Christians, anyone not a Muslims, and even ATTACKED Muslims if they weren't part of his specific views. Now when he finally died, the region breathed a sigh, the new ruler rolled back on almost eveything the previous ruler did. Now would it be fair to say that Islam was the fault there?
A lot of muslim countries have a lot of oppression because they have a tyranical form of government and oppress their own people. This makes for some angry subjects.
Just like pisabird said, this is very true. However, because they are Muslim or not is irrelevant. Tyrannical Government (that we support
) doesn't make for happy people...which should definitely be an "oh duh..." type of thing
Historically also, very early days of Islam were very violent and I know people like to point this out to me. I usually ask them, "why do you think that?" and the reply is "because it is Islam". But they forget the part that Prophet Muhammed was actively attacked and amushed and many attempt to assinate him occurred
You have to fight back against those who attack you, right? Too bad we forget things like even with figthing against those who attack him, the idea that you should leave women and children alone was always maintained~
Outside of that, Islam, much like Buddhism, spread through merchents who traveled to areas carrying the faith. At their destinations, the local elites were often interested in what merchents had to bring because they always wanted to maintain their position in society. If a merchent comes from a location that is very powerful, in order to gain favor and help establish "legitamacy" the local elites will things like take in customs, or even *gap* convert to another religion in order to gain favor. This is what sets up the stage for long term social conversion of a society (in both a cultural and religious sense).
That and for Islam, Iran converted from Zorastrain(sp?) to Islam very quickly. The basic tenents are similar, so the change to the religion was a simple one to make, that within a few years almost 80% of the country had converted. Only about 20% chose not to convert, and groups like many zorasters(sp again sorry...) left to places like India for fear of assimilating into Islam and losing their ways.
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