Mary
Oh for crissakes are you STUPID or what??
The answer to that is what...
I've already said time and time again that the Christian history is just as much filled with bloodshed and backwards thinking as Islam. Yes, Christians HAVE acted just as bad as Muslims in the past.
In the past? Oh, well, I don't know what the chap who blew up the Oklahoma building's religious beliefs were, but we've had Christian terrorists blowing each other up in Europe for ages. Less than a hundred and fifty years ago in the USA people believed they had a divine right to clear the Indians off the land by any means neccesary.
What you are missing is that the sociological development of people in the USA THEN is similar to that of many Muslims TODAY. Hell, you Americans still practise judicial homocide, and we in Europe find THAT barbaric inhumane and intrinsically unjust. Is it surprising that less sociologically developed countries cause reactions like that in more sociologically advanced ones. Of course, I realise most American won't accept judicial execution is an example of being sociologically backwards. But that's the entire point. Socially backwards misogynisctic Muslims won't accept their misogyny is socially backwards.
IF it is the lack of SOCIOLOGICAL development that is causing people to approve and participate in inhumane activities, then it is the SOCIOLOGICAL development of those people we have to change.
Of course, whether you are interested in this is another factor; you seem far more interested in insisting another religon is intrinsically harmful despite not actually having proved anything like that. Which is why I think religious bigotry (which some Muslims are as good as as some Christians) is at the heart of your argument.
Your statement that " All you've shown is the expression of religious belief has different characters in different places at different times" is just plain ridiculous. Of course the expression of religious beliefs is different and that's the whole point: Islam hasn't frigging changed!!
Ah, so they've not changed. That's your opinion having studied the facts?
Then how come Mary, they were once a pretty (for the times and in comparison to Chritians) progressive and tolerant society?
Then how come some Muslims are still progressive and tolerant?
If some Muslims are violent and some are not violent then there have been changes.
Seems ONCE AGAIN you sterotype in a way liable to encourage fear and distrust, not to mention ignorance. You state Islam hasn't changed when there is evidence that it has.
And you keep contrasting people in modern, democratic societies with emancipation, general sufferage, with secular governments and educated populaces enjoying a generally high standard of living with people who live in traditional non-democratic societies with misogyny, dubious electoral systems, influential religious lobbies desperately trying to keep some power by appealing to 'traditional values' (my, some of that sounds like America), generally uneducated and frequently misinformed populaces living in poverty.
And your 'conclusion' is that it's their religion which makes them different! I suppose the difference in the percentage of black Americans with a criminal record and white Americans with a criminal record is to do with their colour, rather than the differences between the two populations on any other number of different levels (highest level of education attained, average income etc.)?
If you find that argument offensive, ridiculous and bigotted (as it is) you'll maybe understand why I feel your argument is the same.
Yeah... right... as I say, when there is so much difference between the socieities you compare to decide without support that it's just religion that makes one be violent and the other not, really illustrates more about your attitude towards Muslims than your ability to analyse the situation.
Like I said at the beginning of this discussion: blow it out your ass.
Oh please, "stupid", "blow it out your ass"; look, first of all you being rude to me doesn't bother me. Secondly, if you're going to be rude, do try to be more original, intelligent and mature when you do so, as Junior High level insults are a little weak.
I've proven over and over again that the religion AND culture of Islam is f*cked---you simply choose to ignore it.
No you haven't. You've compared vastly dissimlar (in governance wealth and education) populations and decided that religion is the sole differentiator, even though you admit yourself that religions have pretty identical ranges of behaviour over time.
If you're too "politically correct" to ignore what these lunatics truly are, then that's your problem,
PC has nothing to do with it - and you're not even right describing me as that. Get your facts straight, just once? I've described much of Islam as backwards and living in internal worlds a few hundred years behind the modern day. Oooo, so politically correct am I. You're just so fixed in your opinions that no amount of reality will change them.
I really don't give a shit and I really have no further interest in wasting anymore time with someone who wants to defend this religion to the hilt, and totally ignore what they truly represent.....
...and there's the bigotry that lies underneath.
I hope you're still defending them when they end up taking over the western world one day, which they inevitably will thanks to morons in the government who turn a blind eye.
... and now you sound like a maniac; and the 'funny 'thing is Mary that you sound like the exact opposite of the most dangerous typoe of Muslim. The ones that blame the Christian West for everything and say they (the Christians) are taking over the world. You blame the Islamic Arab world for everything and say they are taking over the world.
Well, I hope you and all of that ilk are very very happy together in your world of bigotry and pain. If people with opinions like that are in charge, then we really, really are going to have problems.
heathen
I just don't get how someone can be so against a mind control cult like the WTBTS yet overlook the same brainwashing that goes on in the muslim world .
Now, do you mean the Middle Eastern Arabic Muslim world, the Indonesian Muslim world, the Turkish Muslim world, the North African Muslim world, the Black American Muslim world, the European Muslim word? I think you'll find that SOME areas have problems with religious indoctrination; a problem that Islam shares with Christianity.
If you have a good point, why the need for the broad and inaccurate stereotype?
And what have you got to say about the "brainwashing" (I'd rather term it religiously oriontated indoctrination) that goes on in the Christian world? And I'm not talking about high-control groups either; I can roll out the PEW Institute stats which show that in terms of how beliefs are religiously motivated, the USA is closer to Pakistan and Nigeria than Europe if you like.
AFA I know they do not grant other religious groups the right to peaceful assembly and are murderous when it comes to christians , it even goes on in africa .
They are a far more dangerous cult than the WTBTS could ever hope to portray .
Parts of Islam, just like parts of Chritianity, are cultic. You ignore that both religions can have high-control groups within them.
The moslem religion is so hateful to the jews as well and is considered the #1 threat to peace and security in the middle east .
AH, so Israel isn't considered in any way to blame for the problems there? God, a world view like that is sooooo simplistic it's laughable. I bet you don't even know about how water supplies have played a major part in the conflict. You find the 'bad' guy, and that is it; you don't pay any attention to why he's 'bad' and who else is also being 'bad'. Please stay out of politics. And the judicial system.
Arafat and his muslim extremists have declared holy war
Yes, and the American Colonialists felt they were morally right to wage war against the British. Of course, they (in true heroic fashion) saved the religous justifications for killing Indians. Nothing like war against a non-technological society to prove how 'noble' and 'god-fearing' a nation is. I know this as Britain has been equally 'noble' in its past.
along with bin laden ,
Ah, so an extremist without a state fighting against the West and Christianity is the same as one fighting for freedom from Israeli interferance and independance? Don't get me wrong; I know far too much about Arafat to be comfortable with him (the Palestinian Authority has a ghastly human rights record against its own people let alone their terrorist links), but you're making rather broad comparisons.
we've been through this with saddam
Ah, yes... Saddam wasn't that much of a Muslim... which you'd know if you knew what you were talking about. Are you one of the people who STILL believe there was a link between 911 and Iraq? As I said previously, you can believe what you like heathen, but proving what you believe is harder, and comparing chalk, cheese and cauliflower really doesn't make it look like you are spoeaking from a postion of authority.
and kodaffi ,
One good thing to come out of the demonisation of the Islamic world that Bin Ladin and Bush seem to have accomplished together is that it put the wind right up Muammar al-Qaddafi. But the guys more of a socialist than a Muslim extremeist. He's just a nasty evil bastard whose funded Isalmist groups when it suited his socialist pan-Arab vision of the future. But, you didn't know that did you?
sadatt
Before I get a needle and thread to suture myself after my potential reaction to this you'd better explain what you think you mean.
the shaw of Iran
Is there no begining to your knowledge? In what way was the Shah of Iran a Muslim extremeist? Of course being so abjectly ill-informed doesn't stop you believing things, nor will finding out you're wrong as you can be with this example make you think your 'argument' is in any way weakened.
the russians have been fighting the muslims in chechnya ,
Would it be okay if they were Christian freedom fighters?
They're still living with the same mentality and culture as they were centuries ago.
AH... 'they'. I find once an argument decends to a level where 1,300,000,000 people are a 'they' there is little point in continuing it as the generalisation and sterotyping has reached a point where rational discussion is really no longer an option. Of course, with all the other differences between the populations that Mary and you compare when trying to make Islam out to be an intrinsically violent religion don't have anything to do with the bahviour of some elements, it's all in the relgion - even if most adherants of the religion don't behave that way.
Lordy... I can't understand why people will argue so long and so dumb over the right to be bigots.
They STILL can legally beat, torture and murder their families in many Islamic countries. Which part of this don't you understand??
I understand very well, but you can't explain (for example) why in North Pakistan some people will behave like that (although NOT legally), but most people of the same religion in South Pakistan will not.
You insist it's the religon, when it's pretty obviously, from the above examples and all the others, it's local culture which influences the expression of religion.
We need to target the problems in those cultures, not target a religion that is merely expressing the traditional values of those cultures.
If we target the religon we don't target the problem and we turn the whole thing into a religous conflict.
It isn't, it's a conflict of traditional values and religion (any religion) having the final say in secular affairs and modern humanistic values where religion does influence secular affairs. We face that fight all over the world.
