Crazy
And what of the opressed 50% of the Muslim population, the women - are they just a necessary sacrifice?
Thi Chi, I'm hoping you don't agree with this guy...
The history of Islam
by Elsewhere 111 Replies latest jw friends
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Mary
Avishia said you: could also find four big haired, heavily made up "christian women" that enjoy helping bomb abortion clinics and getting beaten by their promise keeper hubbies. But I betcha they are not the majority.
LMAO!! Good point!!
I remember reading Not Without My Daughter years ago and what an eye-opener it was. Betty Mahmoody, an American woman married to an Americanized Muslim, finds herself literally trapped over in Iran with her daughter after her hubby tricked her in to going there for a "vacation". Once there, he beat her, locked her up, abused both her and her daughter on a semi-regular basis all with the full backing of both his religion and culture. If she divorced him, she lost her daughter, as a mother has no Rights at all to her children in a divorce over there. She finally managed to escape but the story of day to day life in Tehran she experienced was incredible. Many Muslims were furious when her book was published and of course tried minimizing the horrors she endured and accused her of lying.......after all, it put Islam into such a bad light. Kinda reminds me of listening to J.R. Brown's tripe after the pedophile scandal within the Organization broke.
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scotsman
Thi chi and Mary
Your lack of comment on Crazy's call for the nuking of the Middle East on religious grounds indicates you agree... could you be accused of item 2 in the posting guidlines? How disappointing.
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avishai
Your lack of comment on Crazy's call for the nuking of the Middle East on religious grounds indicates you agree... could you be accused of item 2 in the posting guidlines? How disappointing.
I'm not commenting on it either, so?
Scotsman, just what the HELL are you talking about? Perhaps they have more important things to do rather than watch a computer screen, in a different time zone than you, 24-7.
Actually, I will comment.
I don't wanna see everyone in the east fry. I don't want to see people over here or anywhere die. But. I do want the extremist muslims knock it the hell off. I don't want to hear statements like the ones from OBL that everyone in the world will convert or be put to the sword. How do you suggest we stop these guys? And, no, I'm not suggesting nuking, if anyone wants to unfoundedly accuse ME!!!
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scotsman
Hi Avishai
I didn't include you because you hadn't argued for the destruction of Islam. I'm happy to wait for their replies. I don't have a nice neat answer for solving the problem of the Middle East, but dialogue is preferable to nuking.
Hopefully Thi Chi will reply without copying and pasting Richard Csaplar, friend of Pat Robertson.
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Abaddon
Mary
I really don't give a flying act of copulation what a bigot might think of me Mary.
I also don't think that idiot's opinions hold much water either; and how an atheist can 'support Islam' when he thinks all religions are utter rubbish, when you get down to it, I don't know. An atheist can certainly be against bigotry though.
Oh really? Please tell me which facts I was wrong on.
You have stated;
" ... when Mohammed first tried preaching to these people, there were numerous attempts on his life."
(just as there were on Jesus; no difference there)
"Incest, rape, robbery and muder were commonplace"
(but you've since admitted that European Christians actually behaved the same)
"... the ruler of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical moron, changed the face of Islam and instead of progressing, they started to regress and they've been regressing ever since"
(HYPERBOLE; the al-Sauds have not caused all of Islam to regress)
"the founder of their faith was a pedophile"
(and many European Christians and even some religious leaders of Christian faiths have been describable in the same way from a modern point-of-view, so no difference there)
"Christianity has made headway towards tolerance and the treatment of women, Islam hasn't"
(FALSE; you don't know about Turkey, Northern Africa, American and European Muslims and Muslims in other areas where headway has been made in equality.
(regarding the thoughts of Ayatollah Khomeini in his book Tahrirolvasyleh)
"This sort of thinking is accepted throughout Islam, not just a small part of it."
(FALSE; you're talking oput a non-optimal orifice for verbal communiaction here Mary)
(regarding Iran)
"They didn't want change, they wanted to stay right where they are. And they haven't budged an inch since."
(FALSE; go read a book about modern Iran Mary)
"Even the most liberated Muslim woman STILL cover themselves all up like good little girls, to show their submission to men."
(HYPERBOLE; gross exageration, or you don;t know what you're talking about)
"The Koran is very explicite when it says that men are superior to women."
(just like the Bible; no difference there)
"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!!"
(FALSE; Islam has changed)
"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."
(HYPERBOLE and fear-mongering)
" ... they treat women like second class citizen?"
(HYPERBOLE; implies this is universal to all of Islam)
"That they promote suicide bombers?"
(HYPERBOLE; implies this is universal to all of Islam)
"That citizens of Islamic countries aren't allowed to question either the government or the religion without major repercussions?"
(HYPERBOLE; implies this is universal to all of Islam)
Oh, me having a discussion with dubla is quite different to discussing something with you.
He and I may have differences of opinion. But then he's never come over to me as trying to portray 1.2 billion people as intrinsically dangerous due to their religion as I believe he's far to smart and well-informed to do such a thing.
But he's not continually making factual errors in his statements and carrying on with the same opinion regardless.
He's not constantly making false comparisons (statements about organisation a that apply to organsiation b and claiming that this shows organisation a is different to organsiation b).
He's not using hyperbole at every opportunity to create a distorted impression of a population of 1.2 billion people by attributing the attributes of a minority to them to all of them.
You on the other hand have based your argument on at least 4 false comparisons, 6 gross exaggerations, 4 false statements, "and a partridge in a pear tree". Despite this your opinion is the same as before you had the above pointed out to you.
Ever considered running for political office? You seem to have ALL the qualities a politician needs nowadays...
My only conclusion is that whatever your opposition to Islam is based on, it isn't based on facts as the facts don't seem to change your opinion.
I honestly don't think you're a bad person or a stupid one Mary (argumentative banter aisde). I think you're a victim of anti-Islamic propoganda and are perhaps not as well informed about this issue as you think you are - there's little else to explain the mistakes and exaggerations you make.
Your lack of willingness to moderate your opinion in face of new facts does give one pause however. In light of this, unless you have any fresh insights or insults, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.
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Mary
I honestly don't think you're a bad person or a stupid one Mary (argumentative banter aisde). I think you're a victim of anti-Islamic propoganda and are perhaps not as well informed about this issue as you think you are - there's little else to explain the mistakes and exaggerations you make.
Why thank you for that assessment Abaddon! I feel so much better now that I know you don't really think I'm stupid! You think I'm a victim of anti-Islamic propaganda, I think you're a victim of pro-Islamic propaganda and I don't think either one of us is going to change our minds.
Your lack of willingness to moderate your opinion in face of new facts does give one pause however.
I've stated here that I do not this every Muslim on the planet is evil and no, Scotsman I don't want to see a billion people nuked. What needs to happen is a major change within Islam and for them not to take every word in the Koran at face value. Yes the bible is just as chauvanistic, but the majority of Christians today don't take statements like "let a woman learn in silence" and "a woman should be in full submission to her husband" still at face value like they did in times past. Islam needs to do the same.
In light of this, unless you have any fresh insights or insults, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.
I agree.....let's call a truce on this one.
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JT
I read all the post here and they all make excellent points and ref to historical info details are great- but after all is said and done we still end up with one issue that can't be overlooked-
and that is all belief systems for the most part follow the same pattern in one form or another:
"We got the inside track to god over here and you don't"
when you combine these messages from the divine with politcial goals you got some "Sh!t" on your hand
in my view we are merely seeing the march of human history and one group is merely replacing another group. each time the stakes become higher. consider this
you are a 11 yr Cushite in the field with your uncle,granddad and older bro all of a sudden you see dust on the horizen at first everyone thinks it's a storm approaching, but you granddad says he don't think so and sends your 21yr bro to ride out and see what it is- granddad thinks it is an approaching army and orders everyone to run to the village and warn everyone
sure enough it is an army and as they approach you hide and what you see is killing and destruction, you see your 2 sisters 14 and 17 dragged off screaming as this jewish army shouts "Jehovah has given us this LAND AND BOOTY"
as you lay there you are thinking my great great granddad own this land- yes the jew have arrived in your town-- taken over and announced that all is ours including the virgin women and all of it in THE NAME OF THIER GOD-
FAST FORWARD A FEW 1000 YRS - you are an african, etc -- with your own belief system and a group of Christians roll in town--- annouce GOD has declared that you must be baptized if not WE ARE GOING TO KILL YOU
fast forward again --Sept 11- a group of muslim declare OUR GOD TO US TO DO THIS-
the jews rolled in and caused pain and sufffering, then it was the christian turns and sad to say you and i are living in a time when it is now the musliums turn- problem is these guys unlike their counterparts - have access to nuclear weapons
but we are still dealing with the BOTTOM LINE ISSUE - wheneven folks believe that god whispers into thier ear you can rest assured you will have problems-
while there are many things that belief systems do that are good and excellent, this is the underbelly of belief systems-
once you remove the fear of DEATH FROM a person what can you do with them
think about this, as jw we read the exp of jw in prison, concentration camps and they remained faithful to the cause and as an elder i would ref that the reason they could stand up and other groups in the concentration camps compromised is because we had god standing by them
and i am sure most of us-- if not all of us truly believed that if we had to die for the cause (SAKE OF THE KINGDOM LINE) we would be in paradise
well my friends this is the same mindset that belief systems have always fostered "DIE FAITHFUL-- YOU GET THE HOOK-UP FROM GOD"
so going back and forth over WHO WAS WORST is a nice exercise in cut and paste, but the basic mindset of each group is exactly the same
WE GOT THE INSIDE HOOKUP TO GOD AND YOU DON'T
how sad
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Abaddon
ThiChi
Oh deary deary me...
Abaddon should be given kudos for his skilled use of circular logic.
Please explain to me exactly where this is please?
The vary fact of the matter is the Muslim culture is driven by religion.
FALSE COMPARISON This implies others are not. Now, do you mind if us Europeans wet ourselves laughing at the idea that American culture is not being driven by religion? Let me see; I'll not quote the PEW Institute stats again... yet... how about the no gay marriage constitutional amendment? Will you really claim that isn't religiously motivated? And the oppposition to abortion; isn't that also lead for the greatest part by people with religous objections to abortion? And the current President acted on the pressure of such anti-abortionists, did he not?
Look at Iran?s Government,look at the Taliban. Look at what the very killers themselves say. To ignore this simple fact is to ignore History, the Present and reality.
HYPERBOLE This implies all Muslims are like that. If we look at other Islamic countries we don't see them all following Iran or the Taliban. And we have condemnation for terrorism carried out by Muslims by other Muslims. Of course you ignore this diversity of government and opinion in the Islamic world as you wish to paint Islam as a monolithic entity that needs to be feared.
We are in a time where we have a choice, we can try to rationalize this historical aggression (by their own leaders admission) away and start appeasements, and face a thousand years of darkness, or we can make the choice to stand up to this ongoing threat that will send us back to the 9th century, if we loose.
COMPLETE AND UTTER BIGOTED NONSENSE but quite frankly you'll no more shift from your vomit than fly to the moon.
I believe that if I had the time, I could show that the Muslims, in their western imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquests, killed two to three times as many Christians as the Christians killed Muslims in all of the Crusades combined.
If you had the impartiality you would realise that Christians have killed more Christians in wars against each other than Muslims have killed Christians, but scroll yourself down and read the article from Perimeters below...
Oh, and just so we can be sure you are not blinded by religious prejudice, could you say whether you believe that the modern state of Israel is part of the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy leading up to the second coming?
Mary
I think we are obviously going to have different viewponts at the end of this. I also doubt your opinion is as diametric as ThiChi's or as assinine as Crazy who obviously thinks gencide is funny.
Oh, I've realised I'd not reponded to a point you made; you may have missed the import of italics when I said "and not realise it applies to parts of the Islamic world today"
My emphasis on today was to do with this point;
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.
heathen
If the muslim people in the arab nations
Sorry, what did you say?
If the muslim people in the arab nations
What? Are you telling me there's a difference between the majority of Arab Muslims and the majority of other Muslims?
How dare you not lump all 1.2 billion Muslims into one identical lump!
You've clearly turned a blind eye to the evils of Islam
Oh well, that's okay; back to treating 1.2 buillion people like a single monolithic organisation with no diversity of opinion or action. For a minute there I thought you were actually making it clear where the problem lies rather than Islam-kicking in general.
a lame attempt to defend a culture that breeds hatred .
Oh, please clarify something for me heathen. Are you saying a Pushtun tribesman of Northern Pakistan has the same culture as someone from, oooo, say Indonesia? I don't think you would; if I'm wrong in this please say and provide evidence they're the same culture.
Because you used the 'culture' word there - you know what I (not just me though) say is responsible for some portions of the Islamic world being violent whilst you and others say it's the religion.
Now obviously an Indonesian and a Pushtun have different cultures and (typically) the same religion. It's Pushtun culture with it's affection for the Deobandi and Wahhabi ideologies of Islam (note; if you don't know about this you've reached an opinion without all the facts... well done!) that is violent where s the Indonesian culture is, typically speaking, progressive and peaceful.
Be careful or you'll prove my point.
Oh, Thi Chi, heathen, this might help clear up a few misconceptions you have;
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory111802.asp
And this next one's great... I especially like these quotes; it's on a US Army website http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/02autumn/peters.htm having been taken from a magazine called Parameters.
... it is time to shift our focus and our energies, to recognize, belatedly, that Islam?s center of gravity lies far from Riyadh or Cairo, that it is in fact a complex series of centers of gravity, each more hopeful than the Arab homelands. On its frontiers, from Detroit to Jakarta, Islam is a vivid, dynamic, vibrant, effervescent religion of changing shape and gorgeous potential. But Islam?s local identities are far from decided in its struggling borderlands, and, in times of tumult, any religion can turn toward the darkness as easily as toward the light.
We should make no mistake: This struggle between religious forms, between prescriptive, repressive doctrine and the sublime adventure of faith, is one of the two great strategic issues of our time?along with the redefinition of the socio-economic roles of women, their transition from being the property of men to being equal partners with men (which is the most profound social development in human history).
The United States will never be the decisive factor in the struggle for the future of Islam. That role is reserved for Muslims themselves. But we can play a far more constructive role than we have yet done?usually on the margins, but sometimes from within unfinished societies. Until now, we have not even bothered to participate.
Our focus on the Middle East has been so exclusive that we have come to see Islam largely through an Arab prism. But the Islam of the Middle East is as fixed, as unreflective, and ultimately as brittle as concrete. We have forgotten that Islam is the youngest of the world?s great religions, that it is still very much a work-in-progress on its vast frontiers, and that its forms are at least as various as the myriad confessions and sects of Christendom.
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Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder.
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Fundamentalist terrorism has not arisen despite the progress the world has made, but because of it.
In times of tumult, men and women cling to what they know. They seek simple answers to daunting complexities. And religious extremists around the world, in every major religion, have been delighted to provide those simple answers. It does not matter if those answers are true, so long as they shift blame from the believer?s shoulders and promise punishment to enemies, real or imagined. Throughout history, from the days of Jewish rebels against Rome and Islam?s early and recurrent fractures, through 16th-century Spanish Catholicism alarmed at the advent of alternate paths to salvation, to 19th-century Protestantism startled by Charles Darwin, religions under siege invariably have responded by returning to doctrinal rigor and insisting upon the damnation of nonbelievers. Each major religion has known its share of threats to its philosophical and practical integrity. Our age happens to be a losing era for Islam, when its functionality as a mundane organizing tool has decayed in much of the world?just as European Christianity had done by the beginning of the 16th century.
Islam certainly is not hateful in its essence?but a disproportionate number of its current adherents need to hate to avoid the agony of self-knowledge. The basic problem is daunting: We face a failing civilization in the Middle East. But if we have the least spark of wisdom, we will do all that we can to ensure the failure does not spread from cultures that have made socioeconomic suicide pacts with themselves to lands that still might adapt to the demands of the modern and post-modern worlds.
Great article, very long; the above's a small portion.
I urge you to read it unless you are so immersed in your prejudices and opinions that you think there's no point...
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Country Girl
It's a very complex thing.
Fact is: the muslims are *raised* with this religion. Religion is inherent in their culture. You can't separate the religion from the law. Their religion *is* the law, i.e., Hadiths and sharia. In *our* country, it is our express desire to SEPARATE the religion from the law, due to constitutional mandates. The two trains shall never meet. Sure, lots of ladies in the US who are muslims still wear the chadra and the burkha. That is not because they have to, here, but because of respect for their religion. This country respects religions. Although it seems backward to us, it is not to them. They are practicing their religion.
Who are *we* to go in and say that their religion, and therefore their law, is bogus, and the only way they can live peacefully is by accepting democracy? Why did it become the US's mission to make all these middle eastern countries democratic? When *need* necessitates change, then it will happen, evolitionarily. When did we become the world's God that we should go in and change the way it has been done for several thousand years? Eventually, evolution will make changes. It has to happen. Most of their men are dying in war now, so these women will need to take up the positions that men formerly held in their kingdoms, and they will need to assume the positions that men formerly held because of need. We can make the needed changes in our own country by using our hard earned money to find alternative forms of energy, and relying on ourselves as we have for a couple hundred of years. We don't have to bother these people. We don't have to bother WITH these people. Eventually, evolution will take care of them all.
Of course, women haven't been treated well in these countries. But eventually, the NEED will arise that women will stop taking all of this and will rise up themselves. Believe me, it will happen. As our culture advances, the women will see that they can be availed of even more freedoms and they will have the majority of voice, since their men are off fighting wars, or dying. Women rose up in this country to get the vote, and so will they. It all arises out of need.
Country