Emory U's Religious Left Can't Handle the Truth

I'm just glad the Nazis didn't declare themselves a religion or it would still be around and defended by idiots like these Emory clery.
Probably their opposition to the ad will help bring attention to it. Saves you the trouble of streaking across the campus.

They did declare it a religion, in no uncertain terms...and it is still being defended, also in no uncertain terms, and in classic fashion, too.

(video):
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/

True...their vociferous reaction to this will actually bring attention to it, emory doesn't want.
It boils down to simple "brass tacks":
Just goes to show the difference between those of us straight thinking folks, and those on the politically correct fringe (which they are very much)...

For us, our religion influences our politics.
For them, their politics influences their religion- because politics IS their religion. That is reason #1 why they are so in league with the islamofascists- David Horowitz's has a book called "Unholy Alliance" that pegs them all.
"birds of a feather" ya know.

enemy who has declared war on all Americans who do not subscribe to their perverse view of Islam.

This is the only point l disagree with Robert, as l view "Islam" as perverse and because it is so, it allows people to act on as terrorist. To be honest there is no other way to look at "Islam" but a perverse cult. Those born into it and are good at heart will try to "cherry pick" to good parts and chose to ignore the many violent passages in the koran.
But those who become "pious muslims" and take their koran as literal can become terrorists. These "moderate muslims" need to recognize this and change their koran, or for their own humanity leave it.

Saddam Hussein had a Catholic as Prime Minister, and ther are several Christian mayors in Palestine. I know some Armenian Orthodox Christians who lived in Iran with no problems. I have seen no evidence the Muslims are at war with Christians, although there are probably a few individual Muslims who dislike Christians (in the same way that there are obviously some Christians who dislike Muslims!).

It makes no sense to say Muslims are at war with women, as surely 50% of the Muslim world is female.

Now, if it is presented as a war against Jews and homosexuals, that is nothing which need alarm 'the right'.

Barnaby,

Your post really lacks the passion to make it even partially plausible that you believe the tripe you write. Throw in a few "Allahu Ackbar"-type phrases in there, or maybe even some benign-sounding generic quotes from the Koran about women being Allah's jewels or how Christians are protected as people of the book and maybe you'll sound a bit more believable. Sounds like you're just going through the taquiyya motions as is.

Good, maybe your lack of passion is a sign that even Muslims are no longer believing their own schtick. That'd be progress.

Here's a subtle point, Barnaby: The problem is not anti-Jewish or anti-Christian prejudice per se, though that exists among Muslims, it's that Islam is a power ideology that cannot stand a rival to its power. The Qur'an makes clear (9:29) that Jews and Christians are to be subjugated and then tolerated as long as they are in an inferior status known as the dhimma, and pay the jizya. Although the jizya was eliminated 100 years ago, the mentality of domination of Infidels under the Islamic system, based on Islamic law, or Sharia, still exists. That explains the opposition to Israel, since the Jews are not dhimmi there in an independent state. It also explains the Lebanese conflict, which sought to eliminate Christian political power.
But sure, a Christian can be a mayor or minister, as long as the Muslims are on top. Just don't challenge that power, or you're in big trouble.

jewdog,

That is why I have come to the conclusion that we in the West need to rediscover "our" version of "power doctrine" and become more Roman. The Romans would have put the Muslims down ruthlessly and efficiently. All this hand-wringing in the West about what to do would have been laughed off (as I laugh it off personally, but I'm only one person). A combination of the Roman mentality toward the enemy with modern technology would be unstoppable and solve the problem permanently within a few years, at most.

OK, Maybe I'm wrong about most points to do with Muslims (as a group)- I have read the Koran, but only passing, and am not an expert. But my reading at that time showed it much more similar to Christianity than I had expected, and it did strike me as being hugely incongrous with my Christian beliefs.

My 'pro-Muslim' comments were based on:
1) I know personally quite a few Muslims (from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria), who are thoroughly decent, friendly people, and who, by the way, do not seem to oppress women (or at least not in a cruel way). They are fair and compassionate, and I like and respect them.
2) As a Catholic, and social conservative, I find myself in agreement on their objection to many moral issues.
3) Even without being a Muslim, but only a Catholic (and I suppose, therefore more tolerant), I find many aspects contemporary US culture to be immoral.

Please correct me where I am wrong.. Maybe I am just lucky to have meet only 'good' Muslims.

1.

"My job has very little to do with Spencer and Horowitz, as I am not in the business of debate with antagonists. Rather, my work involves compassionate and productive inter-religious cooperation - confronting and grappling with the realities of religious violence and difference, while at the same time aspiring to rise above the antagonism of the Terrorism Awareness Project."

[Aysha Hidayatullah is the Muslim Religious Advisor in Emory's Office of Religious Life.]

2.

"I am not so naive as to defend the sinister people who lay claim to Islam and distort its teachings in order to wage war on Israel and the West. Nor do I dismiss the very real threat they pose to Jews, Israel and virtually all humanity.

Yet I refuse to allow Horowitz and Spencer's alarmist rhetoric to intrude on our campus and breed mistrust between Jews and Muslims at Emory while we strive to build bridges of understanding and respect between our communities.

Fostering a culture of fear creates division, not positive change. We can maintain constructive conversation between our communities while simultaneously opposing the brutality of violence against any people.

In fact, it is a vital Jewish interest to improve relations with the Muslim community, and in so doing, we must insist that moderate Muslim leaders raise their voices in opposition to terrorism and the culture of hate propagated by Islamic extremists. Only through personal interaction, partnerships, and coalitions can we communicate our concerns, build respect for one another, and pursue peace."

[Michael Rabkin is the director of Emory Hillel]
-- both statements from the article above

The moral preening of Rabbi Michael Rabkin, his making a virtue of his own ignorance, and out of that ignorance, his belief that not the Truth, but sometihng else, a Getting Along with Muslims by not lookikng too deeply into the doctrines of Islam, and attacking with all the viciousness he, this comical figure (almost by now a stock character of the American pantomime) lddffggdefending Islam -- about which he knows so much, apparently. Of course he does. He's in the interfaith feelgood truthiness business. Don't confuse him with what is in Qu'ran, Hadith, and Sira. Don't tell him about Muhammad. He knows about Muhammad. He knows what Muslim students tell him. He knows that even President Bush, even Condoleeza Rice, know that Islam is a Good Thing, with a few extremists attempting here and there to "hijack a great religion." He knows all about the jurisconsults and he knows what al-Ghazali wrote, and Ibn Kaldun the historian and early sociologist. He knows what is said in the khutbas. He knows the full history of the 1350 years of Islamic conquest. He knows all about how wonderful it was for Jews under Islam -- and don't, for god's sake don't -- try to get him to read Andrew Bostom's forthcoming sourcebook on Jews and Islam, or even to read the introductory essay by Ibn Warraq on Islamic antisemitism (which can be found, on-line, at www.newenglishreview.org). He knows.

He's been rightly guided, you see, by none other than the Islamic advisor on campus, the lady who bears the name of the child-bride of Muhammad herself, and who tells us she won't condescend to engaging in any debate over mere facts (no, debate over mere facts, facts such as what is actually the doctrine, clearly expressed in the texts, and in the 1350-year history of Muslim conquest of non-Muslim lands and, everywhere, subjugation of those non-Muslims, whether Jews or Christians, Zoroastrians or Buddhists or Hindus, everywhere that Islam conquered, and in ways remarkably similar over that time, and a space that extends from Al-Andaluz to the East Indies).

Why won't this Muslim adviser engage in debate and can only name-call but not offer a coherebt refutation? Because she can't. Because no such refutation can be offred. Only Taqiyya-and-Tu-Quoque, only name-calling in which those who calmly point out certain home-truths -- for every single statement made can be backed up with copious quotation from the canonical texts (Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira) and examples of such attitudes (Muslim hatred of this, Muslimhatred of that, Muslim inculcation of hatred for this and that) can be given.

She explains away her failure to offer any coherent refutation, or any refutation at all. Why won't (why can't) she do it? Because, you see, she, Aysha Hidayatullah, is not engaged in such matters. She won't dignify with a response, etc. She is engaged not in talking about Islam, and the specific contents of Islamic doctrine --not the kinds of things that Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Ibn Warraq or Ali Sina or tens of thousands of known apostates, and hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of unknown ones -- are here to tell us about, here to inform us (or does Aysha Hidayatullah think she can suppress the articulate and imporessive testimony of someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or dismiss her as "hate-filled" because she is even more critical, even more damning, with all the fury of someone who had to endure Islam for so long, than either Spencer or Horowitz allow themselves to be.

No, she won't debate. Why won't she debate? Because you see, as Aysha Haydatullah puts it:

"I am not in the business of debate with antagonists. Rather, my work involves compassionate and productive inter-religious cooperation - confronting and grappling with the realities of religious violence and difference, while at the same time aspiring to rise above the antagonism of the Terrorism Awareness Project."

Rabkin "won't allow alarmist rhetoric" (so it is mere "rhetoric" that Robert Spencer offers us in his many books -- not hundreds of passages, from Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, but "alarmist rhetoric"). He will "refuse to allow" [anything at all, including a close investigation of the texts, and history, of Islam] that "alarmist rhetoric to breed misturst" [no, anything that breeds "mistrust" -- even the truth, or specific truths -- cannot be allowed, must be kept out, must not be discussed, must be attacked and banished before they reach the ears, the eyes, the minds of the impressionable young, some of whom, Rabbi Rabkin fears, might actually go to the texts, read the history start to learn something other than what Rabbi Michael Rabkin wishes them to hear. Because if they investigate, if they do such things as read "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or visit the website www.faithfreedom.org of apostates from Islam, or if they read Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim" or if they read Bat Ye'or's "The Dhimmi" and "Islam and Dhimmitude" and "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam" or if they read Andrew Bostom's "The Legacy of Jihad" (and his forthcoming book on what Islam inculcates about Jews, and how Jews were treated in Dar al-Islam), or if they were to read Robert Spencer's "The Truth About Muhammad" or "Onward, Muslim Soldiers" or the anthology "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance," or if they were to read the studies of Islam by Snouck Hurgronje, or Arthur Jeffery, or Gustave von Grunebaum, or St. Clair Tisdall, or Henri Lammens, or Sir William Muir, or any of a hundred or two hundred great scholars of Islam, who wrote in a peiod when the Michael Rabkins of this world, terrified of any investigation of Islam, and determined to squash anthing that could conceivably be considered critical of Islam, "wounding" to Muslims, insufficiently solicitous of their feelings and the main duty of them michael-rabkins of this world, which is no the truth (who cares about that? What good is the Truth if the truth is unsettling, disturbing, unpleasant, might require a re-examination of certain Articles of Feelgood Interfaith by the likes, the comical even self-parodic likes, of Michael Rabkin, who is, you see, against anything, including the truth, that might "intrude on our campus [apparently, his duty is to shield his young charges from reality, as Michael Berg was shielded by his own father, before meeting up with real reality in Baghdad]and "breed mistrust between Jews and Muslims" [oh, just Jews? What about Christians and Hindus and Buddhists? Should they, being much more numerous in the world, and better able to protect themselves, be allowed to find out certain things about Muslims and Islam that the Jews must be shielded against, so that those Jews behave properly and do nothing to antagonize the Muslims, for that would never do, that would be dangerous for Jews, to find out too much about Islam, so the scared rabbit Michael Rabkin, his palpable fear of offending Muslims in thought, word, and deed being offered by him, for his own sake, and for the outside world, as not cowardice and wilful ignorance (but not completely ignorant, for one detects in Rabkin's subdued hysteria a fear of what Islam might in fact be, and what he is determined not to find out, and not to let any of those whom he has a duty to instruct, and enlighten, not to keep permanently unaware in order that they remain permanent subjects of Queen Pollyanna -- and as far as the likes of Rabbi Michael Rabkin of Emory's Office of Religious Life" long may she reign, The scared rabbit presenting himself as one who will nobly "strive to build bridges ofunderstanding and respect" between our "two communities" -- just like Hidayatullah's "compassionate and productive inter-religious cooperation" (which means exploiting the ignorance and naivete of the non-Muslim students in order to exploit them for the purposes of defending Islam and deflecting any intelligent examination of it -- no doubt also fostered by relevant Muslim and non-Muslim collaborators (google "MESA Nostra" for more) on the faculty, and invertebrate administrators who want no rocking of boats (which is why alumni should cut Emory off at the pass, cut off the Development Offices at all universities where this Defense of Islam has become an untouchable doctrine, beyond all critical scrutiny or criticism).

Yes, this is Rabbi Rabkin's task: to "build bridges of understanding and respect" and to avoid anything that might cause "division" when only "positive change" is to be permitted [forget what the texts or history say, if those texts might "cause division.

Here is what Rabbi Rabkin reveals to us his fearful worldview, his perfect embodiment of dhimmitude. If he did not exist, Bat Ye'or would have had to invent him, but he does exist, and so do others like him:

"we strive to build bridges of understanding and respect between our communities.

He thinks that those who attempt to direct our attention, as Robert Spencer has, to the texts, the tenets, the attitudes, of Islam, are merely "[f]ostering a culture of fear" and that this "creates division, not positive change." And of course anything at all that "creates division" must be a Bad Thing. Thus Muslims are allowed everywhere to be exempt from critical scrutiny, their doctrines unexamined, their behavior, following those doctrines, both now, in Thailand and the Sudan, in Nigeria and Bangladesh, in Upper Egypt and southern Lebanon, in Iraq with the Christians and Mandaeans and Yazidis, and of course with the infidel Americans, in Madrid and Beslan, in Moscow and Amsterdam, in Paris and Bologna, in London and New York and Washington -- not merely those who do the deeds, but those who applaud the deeds, deareest chuck -- for if one man cruelly kills another in a sports stadium, and ten thousand people wildly applaud and cheer, then those ten thousand are also guilty -- and all over the world, Muslims have taken sides, taken sides to applaud not only the 9/11/2001 attacks, but elsewhere. Every poll shows very large numbers of Muslims -- not a "handful of extremists" -- supporting acts of terrorism against Infidels. The polls in Great Britain, polls which surely underestimate the real support for terrorism in those who would mute or attempt to hide their murderous hostility to Infidels, and no one would claim to support Bin Laden, or local terrorists, if they did not) have startled English people, but they should not have. No doubt Rabbi Rabkin finds this all distressing, and since he believes that "it is a vital Jewish interest to improve relations with the Muslim community" and hopes that the real Muslims, the vast majority of peace-loving blah-blah, will soon do what they have not done, soon do what they show no signs of dooing, soon do what they have had 1350 years to do, and have not done, which is to denounce not only acts of terrorism but the Jihad as a central duty of Islam, he is going to continue to mislead his young charges, and some of them, the more sheep-like among them, the ones content with pieties and hope, and the belief that People Are the Same The Whole World Over and ideologies can be ignored, and anyway, isn't Islam a "religion" and aren't all "religions" Good Things? Isn't that right?

Oh, it's more than right for Rabbi Michael Rabkin, palpably fearful of finding out (a perfect Podsnap, he doesn't want to know, won't know, will with a snap of his fingers put All Disagreeables behind him). Please-- don't worry him, don't upset him, don't make him have to think.

Life is hard enough as it is.

OK, Maybe I'm wrong about most points to do with Muslims (as a group)- I have read the Koran, but only passing, and am not an expert. But my reading at that time showed it much more similar to Christianity than I had expected, and it did strike me as being hugely incongrous with my Christian beliefs.

I assume in the last part you meant to say it is congruous with your Christian beliefs, since that's the gist of your earlier sentence.

It reminds me of a quote I recently read about Islam: "What's true in Islam isn't new and what's new isn't true".

Islam probably is "better" than what came before it for people with the misfortune to be born in what used to the known as the Third World. The problem is that these same people seem to think it's better than what's going on in the modern world. Islamic supremacism in an industrial world context is inherently problematic.

As immoral as things may seem to be in the US, the fact is that when people have freedom, they are going to excel in ways both good and bad. Being a mature individual means realizing that the world isn't perfect and that trying to impose perfection from "on high" won't work over the long run.

The point about Nazism becoming a religion is not a stupid one. By 1944 there was an active movement within the SS(? teutonic knights), and organised by Himmler, to do just that.

Had they won the war (and despite decades of misinformation it was a very closely run event) Hitler, who was already seen as a messiah by many Germans, would have been deified upon his death and national Socialism would have evolved into an ideology similar to that of Islam upon which it was based(Hitler had open admiration for both the Koran and Muhammad).

The only differences between Hitler and Muhammad were that muhammad used god as his excuse while Hitler didn't bohter AND the fact that Muhammad had no one as determined as him to accept the necessasry casualties to beat him or his successors as did Hitler(stalin).

Remove stalin and Europe would still be nazi.
Add a stalin to 632 AD and there would be no islam.

Look at what 12 yrs of Nazism, did to germanic youth (werewolves, hitler youth, 12SS div etc) then ponder what 1400 years of indoctrination can do to a group.

Barnaby you are a fool and unworthy of answering.
Go read some history before you waste our time with irrelevance.

Don't go looking for Jewish heroes, there are few and far between.

When professor Israeli came to Australia he found himself disinvited as soon as his message was advertised in the media.

We had to reorganize the whole thing and finally found ourselves with about 300 Jews, but mostly over 50 types, the young ones just don't seem to care.

Sad, but that's how it is.

I could give you a few more exapmles, but unless something very serious happens, nothing will change.

Frustrating indeed...

"We condemn any act that aims to intimidate, threaten, or reductively portray a religious group with the intent to antagonize or demean its members.

So why is the Emory Campus Ministry so upset by Horowitz and Spencer? Aren't they condeming the same things?

The difference is that Howowitz and Spencer are honest about who the culprits are...they name names, they supply evidence.

The Emory Campus Ministry, out of some false sense of tolerance, seeks to shift the focus away from those who are really guilty of the things they claim to condemn, onto those who are telling the real truth.

Barnaby - of course there are similarities...a significant portion of the Qur'an was borrowed from Christian (or at least Gnostic) beliefs.

But do you realize what the Qur'an says about Jesus? "...of a surety, they killed him not". There, in a few pen strokes, it completely invalidates the foundation of Christianity (and hence Catholicism) which preaches "Christ, and Him crucified".

You need to do MORE reading...

Godefroi,

But do you realize what the Qur'an says about Jesus? "...of a surety, they killed him not". There, in a few pen strokes, it completely invalidates the foundation of Christianity (and hence Catholicism) which preaches "Christ, and Him crucified".

There are also some apocryphal gospels that believe Jesus was not crucified nor was he divine. These apocryphs were shoved aside during the institutionalization of the Church.

The assumption many claim here that terrorism is an Islamic syndrome forget that terrorism has existed in all different kinds of culture. Even the assumption that suicide bombers in Israel blow themselves up because they will be greeted by houris in Paradise seems to be attenuated by the fact that several suicide bombers are non-muslim. Whether it be the tamil in Sri lanka, the Jewish terrorists who fought against the British or that even among the Palestinians several suicide bombers were members of the PLFP (a communist and thus atheist group) and others were Catholics. Check out this video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzNPZf-5aO4
and stop at 8:29.

Venividivici said :

"That is why I have come to the conclusion that we in the West need to rediscover "our" version of "power doctrine" and become more Roman. The Romans would have put the Muslims down ruthlessly and efficiently. All this hand-wringing in the West about what to do would have been laughed off (as I laugh it off personally, but I'm only one person). A combination of the Roman mentality toward the enemy with modern technology would be unstoppable and solve the problem permanently within a few years, at most."

The need to rebecome Roman is not a new phenomenon. That was Napoleon's goal (hence the arc of triumph inspired by the arch of Titus). That was also what Mussolini tried to do. Fascism is inspired by fasces, a bundle of rods that symbolized Roman authority. There are also many fasces symbols in the U.S.

Check : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#The_fasces_in_the_United_States_of_America

My job has very little to do with Spencer and Horowitz, as I am not in the business of debate with antagonists.

Could it be any more obvious that the academic community at Emory openly stifles intellectual inquiry?

de·bate /dɪˈbeɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-beyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -bat·ed, -bat·ing.
–noun
1. a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints: a debate in the Senate on farm price supports.
2. a formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.
3. deliberation; consideration.
4. Archaic. strife; contention.
–verb (used without object)
5. to engage in argument or discussion, as in a legislative or public assembly: When we left, the men were still debating.
6. to participate in a formal debate.
7. to deliberate; consider: I debated with myself whether to tell them the truth or not.
8. Obsolete. to fight; quarrel.
–verb (used with object)
9. to argue or discuss (a question, issue, or the like), as in a legislative or public assembly: They debated the matter of free will.
10. to dispute or disagree about: The homeowners debated the value of a road on the island.
11. to engage in formal argumentation or disputation with (another person, group, etc.): Jones will debate Smith. Harvard will debate Princeton.
12. to deliberate upon; consider: He debated his decision in the matter.
13. Archaic. to contend for or over.

Bravo Hugh.

Rabbi Michael Rabkin , your intentional ignorance, especially when disseminated under the guise of moral/campus authority should result in immediate academic dismissal. Shame on you.

Ooh, you perverse narcissists, you.

How dare you go around selecting those poor jihadis with your reductive and hurtful speech.

You must be some kind of Jihadiphobes

The only problem is saying "Islam is not the enemy...[the] "enemy [as one] who has declared war on all Americans who do not subscribe to their perverse view of Islam."...is dancing around the direct accusation from the politically correct left, with a play on words.

ISLAM IS THE ENEMY....

What is Sharia then? When a individual wholly commits to Islam, is not their struggle against any religion, political entity that opposes the implementation of it...and ultimately leads to a confrontation in order to make those who refuse to submit,submit? Whats the difference between "perverse Islam" and "non perverse Islam" when it comes to Muhammad's example of how he dealt with infidels who refuse to be submissive to his religious fascism?

Its the same with any religion. Someone actually living out the words of Jesus is a "Christ-follower" [Christian]...why is this any different with Islam and what Muhammad said? Since he was the original terrorist in his response to anyone who refused to submit...the fallacy of the modern myth of the "moderate muslim" needs to exposed.

IF individuals align themselves with the Quran with their thoughts, words AND actions...they become the enemy of any free society. This war is not going to be won by just opposing the manifestation of "radical Islam"...because "radical" is simply true Islam. We might win a few battles here and there, but the disease of Islam will continue to spread. How about dig up the entire weed from the root instead of wacking away at the surface? Islam in its entirety must be exposed...give people a honest choice to see it for what it truly is, then Islam will destroy itself.

Sublimer,

What seems more likely? The Jews got it wrong AND the Christians got it wrong (except for the teachings and verses that islam agrees with, of course, those are holy) or the religion that came 600+ years afterwards and was on the outskirts of an already developed religion decided what to do. I offer no proofs, solely intellectual curiosity. Whose teachings are right and wrong then? I think most people see the beauty and understanding with which Christ taught (even proclaiming him to be a guru, wiseman, or enlightened if not being God himself) but hardly any proclaim this about Muhammad. I think it has something to do with examining the teachings themselves, and after critical analysis finding that these two characters are very much opposed, in thought and deed, mission and purpose.

If people want to believe in organization or "institutionalization" of the Church as being something to be distrusted, there's not much one can do. Ground beliefs will stay firm and those who start out with such premises will seek for support of these initial maxims. I hope to present a case for those who want to consider all possibilities. For example, if it is true that Christ died and resurrected himself, why wouldn't the church not allow gnostic-type gospels about him, since they would be lies? And if he isn't God, why does he have such unbelievable teachings (in which he says that he is God, furthermore). The Christian religion is a fulfillment of the understanding of the one God of the Jews, or so it claims. Islam on the other hand claims that who the Christians believe to be God isn't. So following they believe that they DO NOT believe in the same God, they just want to say that you do, but you happen to no realize that everything you know about him/her/it is wrong. Interesting being this God of ours.

The fact of people doing crazy things isn't monopolized by any group, but it is critical to look at definitions. Again, an exercise of correlation and causation.

You mention IRA, Tamil, and Hebrew bombers. A full 0.5 to 1% of those involved in "terrorist" activity over the last 50 years or so. Why are they that low? Because their culture/traditions don't have a precedent or teachings that support anything they do. Herego the extremely low percentage. Islam is the overwhelming leader in attacks on infidels as well as its "own". Ah yes, many people are "causing mischief in the land". So the question I ask, is that considering this high percentage (upwards of 80% probably) is it correlation or causation? Why is the hot topic of the WORLD islam? Why were abortion bombers, IRA, and Tamil fleeting thoughts? Has any religion gotten more press for having its adherents fly into the capital of the world and kill civilians (sparking widespread rejoicing in the parts where these men came from)? Find out about the teachings and decide for yourself. You can freely do that ... in THIS country (note I'm from America).

Palamas,

For Freedom, I personally prefer Holland or Morocco since I also like smoking weed in public. 80 % of terrorist activity in the world right now is Muslim. Indeed. In the 1980's 80% of terrorist activity was Christian (IRA) or Anarchist. In the 2010's it might be hindu, who knows ? 400 years ago the christian world was in turmoil. Today, it is Islam. Does this mean that there is an inherent problem with religion itself ? maybe? Does it mean that only Islam kills while Christianity heals ? Might as well hug my pony.

In Catholicism, there is a holy trinity : God, the holy spirit and Jesus Christ. Muslims, as do some Christians, believe that Jesus was not divine but was a prophet and a messenger of God who possessed the divine spirit. so for Muslims there is a definite split. Jesus is a prophet. And the Christian God is no different than the Muslim Allah. Do you also know that in Muslim theology, Jesus is considered to be superior to Muhammad and that during the Apocalypse the returning Messiah is Jesus Christ ?

Sublimer posted:

"Do you also know that in Muslim theology, Jesus is considered to be superior to Muhammad and that during the Apocalypse the returning Messiah is Jesus Christ ?"

Then why is Muhammad always offered as the one to emulate?

freedomschool,

He is emulated by stupid people who regard Muhammad as being more than a prophet. But Muhammad was explicit that he was simply a man with a message. In Christianity too, there is a big tradition of "The Imitiation of Christ".

Barnaby:

You asked to hear some differences between Christianity and Islam. Below, I present some, but you seem to think that good people can never be mixed up with an ideology that has totalitarian features in its core. You knew some lovable Muslims, ergo Islam can't be bad. That is a mistake.

Critical differences between Christianity and Islam

1. The central figure of the New Testament separated the things of Caesar from the things of God. He said "my kingdom is not of this world." That and other elements of the New Testament have led gradually over centuries to the separation of religion and state. But Muhammad became Caesar, became the ruler of a state and fought numerous wars. When do you think the Muslim calendar begins? With the birth of Muhammad? With his death? His first revelation? No. The Islamic calender begins when Muhammad goes to Medina and becomes the ruler of a state. His legacy as a theocratic ruler is what makes freedom of conscience and freedom of religion so problematic in Islamic lands, and why Christians have diminished to almost zero in many of those lands. Until recent decades, Lebanon I gather was majority Christian. Now they are a minority, and a shrinking one, fleeing from Muslim violence to other lands.

2. Nothing the central figure of the New Testament did can reasonably be used to justify violence. Christians must go against the New Testament to do violence. As a Catholic, you don't need to be told about how essential forgiveness and turning the other cheek are to the New Testament. You don't need to be reminded of the story of the adulterous woman whom Jesus kept from being stoned. Muhammad, however, according to traditions that most Muslims consider reliable, (Sahih Bukhari, for example) said, "If someone changes his Muslim religion [becomes an apostate], kill him." Other interesting events recorded in canonical Islamic tradition: Muhammad was a warlord who fought numerous aggressive wars himself. He ordered the assassination of poets who were critical of him. He ordered to be tortured a man who refused to reveal where a treasure was hidden. He beheaded, or had others behead, between 600 and 900 Jews he had captured. He did not resist the taking of women as booty in his wars, and the use of those women for sex. He ordered the stoning of women for adultery. All of this is in the canonical Muslim tradition, even if many Muslims are only vaguely aware of it. As for the Old Testament, the violence "God" there commands is directed toward specifically named peoples of that specific time. On the other hand, the institution of jihad, unique to Islam, means open-ended warfare against unbelievers till the end of time. When Muslims engage in violence against unbelievers, they have the backing of Muhammad's example. Not so Christians who do violence. Right now, Muslims are engaged in violent conflicts all over the globe. This is not true of any other religion.

3. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, human beings are made "in God's image." The Bible also says to imitate God's creativity and work: "be fruitful and multiply." But in the Quran, it is stated that Allah had no need of rest on the seventh day of creation, because Allah simply commands things to be, and they come into being. In the Judeo-Christian bible, human beings are created "in the image of God" and are God's children. The Quran does not ascribe to that notion, but rather conceives human beings as God's slaves, and so, as Daniel Boorstin pointed out in one of the chapters of his book The Creators, for Muslims to create "is a rash and dangerous act." Boorstin points out that command and creation are characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God and also of Allah. But Boorstin goes on to explain that in Islam, the command element is overwhelms the creative element, while in the Judeo-Christian documents, God's creativity is emphasized. Thus in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God was thought to have set the universe going and then to have withdrawn to a distance, only sometimes intervening by providence. But in Islam, Allah controls all, watches all, determines all that happens.

4. Muslim-majority nations, with a few exceptions, form the most backward region of the world in terms of civil liberties and poltical rights, as you can find out by looking at the reports of human rights groups. If you like, you can try to believe this has little to do with Islam. I find such belief implausible.

5. The Quran tells Muslims not to take non-Muslims as friends, except in a deceptive way, when Muslims are weak or in order to gain an advantage for Islam. Obviously not all Muslims follow this or know about it. But it is in the core of the Islamic tradition, and it makes it a tricky matter for non-Muslims to trust even friendly Muslims. If those Muslims do not publicly disavow certain elements of the Quran, one is taking a certain risk in trusting them. There was a case within the last year or two where a Muslim man murdered his Jewish friend. The Muslim in question had become more religious and learned about the Quran's attitude toward Jews and non-Muslims.

6. The Quran and Hadith together urge Muslims to spread Islamic law all over the world, if need be by force and with the aid of deception. Islamic law does not command the forced conversion of non-Muslims but does something not so different. Three choices are to be offered to Christians and Jews (when Muslims are strong enough). 1. Convert to Islam, or 2) submit to Islamic law and live as a second-class citizen under various kinds of legal and social disabilities, discrimination, and intentional debasement, or 3) be warred on by Muslims.

Barnaby, there are many lovable Muslims in the world, in part because few Muslims understand the meaning of the classical Arabic of the Quran, and many only know the Quran from reciting the old classical Arabic. So Muslims often do not have a clear idea of exactly what their own religion is and does and says. At the same time, recent polls indicate again and again that large numbers of Muslims favor Islamic law over Western civil rights and liberties. Some 50% of Muslims worldwide support Bin Laden. Polls of Muslims who are citizens in the UK show that some 50% of them would prefer Islamic law in the UK, and some 100,000 UK Muslims think the jihad terror attacks in London were justified! Polls also suggest that about one percent of UK Muslims, or about 16,000 people, would be "willing, even eager" to participate directly in terror against the UK!

You will hear sometimes that there are violent verses in the Quran, and verses of tolerance, that it's a mixed bag. Unfortunately, the more violent, intolerant verses mostly came later in time, when Muhammad was in Medina, and therefore are deemed by many imams and Muslim scholars to cancel the earlier, tolerant verses (which were given mostly in Mecca, when the Muslims were still weak).

So you see, your longing, Barnaby, for greater morality in modern society will not be satisfied by siding with Islam. Unless you think totalitarian violence brings morality. And in Islam we arguably face a far more formidable totalitarian force than communism was even in its heydey. (By the way, if you want the sources for any of the claims in this comment, let me know and I'll do my best to dig them up.)

Sublimer wrote:
Do you also know that in Muslim theology, Jesus is considered to be superior to Muhammad and that during the Apocalypse the returning Messiah is Jesus Christ ?

This is a disingenuous attempt to obfuscate the truth in Islam. Jesus is subordinate to Muhammad. It is this portion of the fairy tale that Muhammad tries to excuse Allah's mistake of having previously accepted other prophets like Abraham and Jesus. Jesus does indeed return in Islamic theology, but merely as a tool for Allah to "break the cross", hence eliminating the heresy of Christianity and simultaneously killing the Jews, hence effectively removing all other ideologies that stand in Islam's way.

You going to have to do better than that Sublimer.

Barnaby,

There are many decent Muslims, Muslims in name only, for ideological identification purposes only. The individual Muslim is irrelevant comparative to Islam, and Islam, not the individual Muslim, is to blame for jihad. it is the Qur'an which provides the impetus for jihad, clear as day in the book, with the words being the direct immutable words of Allah.

There are similarities between Christianity and Islam, as others have noted here. Muhammad lifted a fair amount from both Judaism and Christianity to fit his needs. It is because of the existing establishment of both these religions that Allah..err..Muhammad set a distinction between people of the book (Jews and Christians), and all others.

Your moral conservatism is noted, but adds little to the discussion here, particularly about the need to reveal what Islam instructs it's followers to do. Specifically, when one reads in the Qur'an, in much more than a passage or two, that it is the life-long duty of Muslims to cleanse the world of all opponents to Allah's will, you will then understand. To the Islamist, you are an infidel. To the Islamist, the Pope is an infidel. Your exceptional morality will not buy you another second of freedom from Islamic oppression, if they could enforce their will upon you, as is required of them by Allah, always.

sublimer flatters himself in thinking himself sublimer. He seems less so than many.

sublimer wrote:

Do you also know that in Muslim theology, Jesus is considered to be superior to Muhammad?

Whatever in the Bible conflicts with the Qur'an was deemed by Muhammad to be a false element added by Jews and/or Christians to the Bible. In that sense, Muhammad strives to subordinate Jesus absolutely. Sublimer, or rather, "lessSublime" may find that enthralling, but he will pardon Christians if they find it repugnant.

Islam says that the Jesus Christians worship doesn't exist. According to Muhammad, Jesus was not God, was not the third person of any Trinity, was not crucified (Muhammad said that Judas was, secretly, in Jesus' place). Certain stories of Jesus in the Quran make him take on the rather stiff, threatening, totalitarian tone of the Quran. Muhammad attempts to destroy the Christian image of Jesus and recreate Jesus in the image totalitarian Muhammadan style.

awake,

Jesus will not kill the Jews. The Jews will die but so will everyone else. That is the rapture. Jesus will come back to fight the dajjal whi is the anti-christ in Islamic theology.

I think one perhaps gets a feeling of the difference between the Quran and Western culture if one looks at some of the statues of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia, and compares those with the statues of ancient Greece. The Persian and Mesopotamian statues have a certain stiff, totalitarian genius, both subhuman and superhuman at once. They seem to me reminiscent of the Quran, at least in their hieratic impersonality and their authoritarian quality. The Greek statues on the other hand are alive with a sense for the individual and the human, though an idealized or divine humanity is portrayed.

sublimer writes:

Jesus will not kill the Jews. The Jews will die but so will everyone else. That is the rapture. Jesus will come back to fight the dajjal whi is the anti-christ in Islamic theology.

According to mainstream Islamic tradition, the time will come when if Jews try to hide behind trees to escape the wrath of Muslims, the very trees will cry out "Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him."

Isn't that in Bukhari, the most canonical of the hadith collections? I will look for it.

traeh,

I find it funny that when there are violent passages in the OT, Christians say that it was historical and only relevant to that context but refuse to accord the same principle to Islam. You might say that the Jihadis don't do that. I agree but that's the Jihadis and you stubbornly want to believe in whatever they believe in. Most Muslims know however what verses are historical and which ones are cosmological.

traeh,

Have you ever heard of German idealism. It was heavenly influenced by Greek aestheticism.

Perhaps this will do:

From Al-Bukhari (the hadith collection Muslims consider most reliable and canonical)

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 176:
Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar:

Allah's Apostle said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.' "

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177:
Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

Whether it be the tamil in Sri lanka, the Jewish terrorists who fought against the British or that even among the Palestinians several suicide bombers were members of the PLFP (a communist and thus atheist group) and others were Catholics.

You are right in that the Tamil Tigers were the other group that engaged in suicide bombing. Two things here. There were several Tamil separatist groups in Sri Lanka, and the first part of the LTTE campaign was to wipe out all other groups, and then challenge the Sri Lankan authorities. Second thing is that although Tamils are Hindus, this campaign was never a campaign to make that part of Sri Lanka a Hindu country - which is why this movement had no support in India outside the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (something that ended after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991). Even Hindu parties in India, which were supportive of the Nepali Royalists for maintaining Nepal as a Hindu country, never supported the Tamil Tigers, since the latter had and has a goal to make Tamil Eelam - if and when they achieve it - a Secular Socialist state.

traeh,

Do you know that Muslims do not take the ahadiths for granted. Some are considered solid and others shaky and not to be believed as forming part of the faith. You also know that, unlike in Catholicism, there is no religious authority in Islam. Some imam or mullah might say kill all the Jews or issue a fatwa, and i can reply go drop dead. Because no one mediates between me and God. Some Muslims look up to imams for guidance but this is absolutely not necessary. It does allow for a lot of manipulation but it does not form part of the faith. If the Prophet himself said that he is a man and he is not sure whether he will go to heaven or hell, how do you expect me to follow some imam's fatwa as religiously decreed. Some do but they do not know their own religion. They are uneducated people who are easily seduced.

Infidel pride,

I remember very well one time when a PFLP member committed a suicide attack. I remember it well precisely for the reasons I wrote. The reason that the PFLP whose founder is a Christian communist accepted to be under an Islamic umbrella is because communism (atheism) was always unpopular in Islamic lands. So it was purely a political move to be tolerated by other groups. This was the time when the U.S. was aiding all religious groups (consider the Contras in Nicaragua) to fight communism. It was also a time when the U.S. was giving a lot of money to spread (with the help of Saudi Arabia) Wahhabism around the Muslim world. This ultimately led to the radicalization of religion through the Muslim world and the rise of Salafism. while religion was always radical in Saudi (they have a literal approach to reading the Koran), this strain spread to other parts. During the Balkan war for example, when the mosques in Bosnia were destroyed, Saudi Arabia offered to rebuild them only if they abided by Wahhabi architecture and if they had Wahhabi imams. Why Saudi arabia (which is responsible fro most of the jihadi ideology we see today) is still a friend of the U.S. is beyond comprehension. well I do have my guesses, oil, saudi investment in the U.S, U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, etc....

But that means that some american profiteers are risking their lives and the lives of people in the rest of the world (in Muslim countries too) for the sake of enriching themselves.

From Sahih Muslim, second-most canonical of the hadith collections:

Book 041, Number 6985:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.

sublimer posted:

"He is emulated by stupid people who regard Muhammad as being more than a prophet. But Muhammad was explicit that he was simply a man with a message. In Christianity too, there is a big tradition of "The Imitiation of Christ"."

No argument from me re: stupid people.
Re: Muhammad's message, can you give a "25 words or less" idea of what you think that is?

And, call me biased, but Christ was worthier of emulation.

Re: your tag, would we get a better idea of its meaning if we translated it from the French?

Sublimer wrote:

Do you know that Muslims do not take the ahadiths for granted. Some are considered solid and others shaky and not to be believed as forming part of the faith.

Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are considered the most sound hadith collections -- that's what "Sahih" means, roughly: "sound" or "reliable." Huge numbers of Muslims give anything in either collection a presumption of truth. Yes, there are many collections Muslims consider of doubtful reliability, but Bukhari and Muslim are not among them. They are considered only slightly less reliable than the Quran, which is not saying much, since the Quran is supposed to be the verbatim words of God. The Bukhari and Muslim hadith collections are to imams similar to what the New Testament is to Christians: inspired by God, not the verbatim words of God.

You also know that, unlike in Catholicism, there is no religious authority in Islam. Some imam or mullah might say kill all the Jews or issue a fatwa, and i can reply go drop dead.

Great, but do you have the guts to do so publicly? Most Muslims either agree with such fatwas, or else don't care about them, or else are too afraid to protest them. Notice a problem with Islam there?

Because no one mediates between me and God. Some Muslims look up to imams for guidance but this is absolutely not necessary. It does allow for a lot of manipulation but it does not form part of the faith.

Again, do you publicly oppose the imams issuing their death fatwas or demanding the spread of Islamic law over the whole globe? Because very few Muslim "moderates" seem to make themselves visible and vocal. You also overlook the totalitarian unanimity of all the main schools of Islamic law. For example they all order the death penalty for Muslim apostates. Do you come out against that publicly? Or do you believe in it?

If the Prophet himself said that he is a man and he is not sure whether he will go to heaven or hell, how do you expect me to follow some imam's fatwa as religiously decreed.

According to the Quran -- which to Muslims is the verbatim word from the mouth of Allah -- Muhammad is an excellent example for conduct. Muhammad didn't claim to be divine, true, but he did claim divinity for the Quran. That is part of why so many Muslims follow it so rigidly, and that is why so many Muslims are willing to follow violent imams' advice -- because they are following what the divine Quran and the canonical hadith and sira say. Let me ask you: Do you deny that the Quran is the verbatim transcript of Allah's word? Because if you believe it is God's verbatim his word, then you will try to follow what it says, including Chapter 9, verse 123, about making war on the infidels who dwell around you.

Some do but they do not know their own religion. They are uneducated people who are easily seduced.

They do not know Chapter 9 of the Quran? They do not know that Muhammad is called an excellent model of conduct by God? They do not know the canonical hadith collections, in which Muhammad orders that if a Muslim changes his religion, "then kill him." I wouldn't mind being convinced of your position, sublimer, but you don't come close to answering my concerns about Islam.

traeh,

I am a Muslim. I don't believe in a literalist reading of the Koran. I hope you do not have a literalist reading of the Bible, in case you are Christian. You keep on saying Muslims but you have to specify which Muslims you are talking about. Is it the Muslims of Afghanistan, Iraq, saudi arabia, Malaysia, Morocco, algeria ? Do you know that there are algerian and Moroccan converts to christianity who are not killed. Do you know that there are a lot of Muslims who speak openly against the Jihadi strain in Islam. If you limit yourself to JW, you might not. I do speak against it and I don't regularly post here but in other sites. If you speak arabic watch Al jazeera and don't just get what Memri chooses for you. A lot of people decide not to respond to the infalammatory language of some imams because they consider indifference is the best way of defense. No reason to give them more time in the spotlight. Others do decide to respond. It depends on each person. But the question : "where are the moderates" is one of the biggest hoaxes possible. You won't see them if you remain in this site. Visit a muslim country and you'll see for yourself.

The Jihadis have been getting so much publicity because sensationalism sells. It is always more spectacular to see someone who says "I''ll kill you" than someone who says "Kumbaya". Plus, if you accuse the person wsho says "Kumbaya" of practicing taqqiya as is often the case in this site, then you must realize that your demands are impossible.

Have you heard of the late terrorist attacks in Morocco. Do you know why they were all thwarted ? Read some more on that. have you heard of the fight between the insurgency and al qaeda ?

Sublimer,

Thanks for the clarification. Below is a relevant hadith

Sahih Bukhari
Volume 3, Book 43, Number 656:
Narrated Abu Huraira:

"Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until the son of Mary (i.e. Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish the Jizya tax. Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it (as charitable gifts)."

The removal of the allowance for the jizya effectively forces the peoples of the other two faiths, people of the book, Jews and Christians to choose to convert to Islam or be destroyed. This is a literary self-fulfilling prophecy, as was foreshadowed in the Qur'an, 3:85.

Qur'an 3:85
PICKTHAL: And whoso seeketh as religion other than the Surrender (to Allah) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.

Sublimer, part of what I don't get is how you reconcile your conscience with the fact that

1. Muhammad united religion and state.
2. Muhammad ordered the assassination of poets who criticized him.
3. Muhammad ordered the gruesome torture of a man in order to make him reveal where treasure was hidden.
4. Muhammad ordered the stoning of women for adultery.
5. Muhammad said "if a Muslim changes his Islamic religion, then kill him."
6. Muhammed ordered the beheading of between 600 and 900 Jewish captives.
7. Muhammad said "no two religions shall exist in Arabia."
8. Muhammad said "I have come to fight against the people until religion is all for Allah."

And I am not even bringing in the Quran yet, which also contains, on the whole, a message that today should surely be repugnant to any healthy, sane, intelligent, civilized person. Allah says to scourge one's wife? Good grief. You don't seem to have been raised in some backwoods land of know-nothings. Why are you attracted to an authoritarian and violent force like Islam?

Erich Fromm wrote a book called Escape from Freedom, which argued among other things that many people fear their own freedom, and seek various methods of getting rid of it. Is something like that what's going on with you? That you cannot find a deep spirituality within your own inner freedom, nor link your inner freedom to a tradition that accepts freedom, so instead you seek a religion that provides an authoritarian structure where everything important is perfectly and absolutely certain and clear? If that seems like ad hominem, I don't mean it that way. I am just perplexed how in the face of all the darkness in the Quran, you find it attractive. Nor do I feel sure I can trust your good will, precisely because Muhammad sanctioned the use of deceit against non-Muslims, and the Quran says Muslims should not take non-Muslims as friends, except as a form of deception when Muslims are weak and in need of non-Muslim allies.

Sublimer wrote:
"I am a Muslim. I don't believe in a literalist reading of the Koran. I hope you do not have a literalist reading of the Bible, in case you are Christian."

Sublimer,

The respective Old and New Testaments of Christianity are just that, testaments of events by men, whereas the Qur'an is portrayed as the immutable divine word of Allah, as revealed to the Prophet.

It is doubtful that you are considered a Muslim by many of your brethren due to your literal rejection of Allah's words, but it is just that attitude which is greatly needed. The impetus for jihad in the Qur'an is obvious. To suggest it be abrogated or changed is insulting to pious Muslims who deem that action as heresy, to dare challenge the direct words of Allah, hence stripping the Qur'an of it's divinity.

Barnaby:

You should watch the video done by Dispatches Channel 4, in England. Their expose of what was really being taught in several mosques is the real islam, not the affected demeanor you encounter with muslims.

See video at:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v218432HzQP29CK?searchId=7656718732473652850&rank=0

Also, I met an ex-muslim, from Pakistan, last week. He still calls himself a "muslim" when in the company of other muslims. But, he made it clear that in spite of the nice demeanor of most muslims, the definitely consider non-muslims as enemies, and in time will treat them as such, if in the position of power.

I'll try to write a short response to both traeh and awake that would answer your questions although this answer might be pretty general. Traeh, how do I reconcile my conscience. All of what you wrote 1 to 10 is from the hadiths. I don't believe in all hadiths. There are so many contradictions in the hadiths. There are soem that sublimate women and others that debase them. There are some where Muhammad is very loving and caring and others where he is more warriorlike. They were written about 200 years after his death. So how do you want me to believe them ? You also seem to know only of the hadiths where Muhammad is portrayed badly and you completely ignore the others. I guess since you're interested solely on the Jihadi aspect, I can understand that. I just want to let you know that there are two faces to islam as I know there are two faces to any other religion. Christ comes with the sword but he also comes with peace and love.

awake,

Many muslims believe that some koranic verses are immutable and that others are relevant to their historic context. Take the verses on warring the Jews. Most consider these historic. The Jihadists/ salafists who subscribe to a wahhbist literal reading consider them cosmological and immutable forever true. I also believe that the reason there is a new wave of these Jihadis ascribes to two reasons : since the discovery of petroleum saudi arabia has been wealthy enough to export its ideology (view of islam), the other reason is the geopolitical scene and the proliferation of media where you see images of war.

I am considered a Muslim. It depends on whom you ask. If you ask a Jihadi, they will say no. But I also believe that they are not Muslims. In short that is the struggle in the heart of Islam today.

According to the reading of the Koran, there are two ways of looking at it. The prophet said it had seven interpretations (But this is also a hadith and I don't believe in hadiths that much). But there are two philosophical currents. Both believe that the Koran is immutable. That the language transmitted to Muhammad is immutable. However, the split emerges regarding the transcription. Arabic is a human language so is it God's ? So while for some the Koran is the language of God, for others the Koran is an interpretation of the language of God which no one can understand because it is at a different level. In the Koran, animals and plants also pray to God but in their own language in their own ways. This means that the Koran is not the only way to reach God. The Koran is an interpretation of the indecipherable language transmitted to Muhammad.

Barnaby:

Your argument about the number of similarities between Christianity and Islam is a poor one.

Keep in mind that humans are similar/share 90%+ DNA with other forms of life, and 98%+ with apes. BUT that 2% difference is ALL the difference, a world of difference.

elcordobes,

I can say the same thing of Jesus Camp. Show it in Muslim countries and say this what happens in churches across America, but i am smart to know that that is false.

"Keep in mind that humans are similar/share 90%+ DNA with other forms of life, and 98%+ with apes. BUT that 2% difference is ALL the difference, a world of difference."

You can be a scientist working at the labs of Apartheid south africa or in Nazi Germany. We all know where eugenicist policies lead.

Awake,

I don't call for changing the Koran. I call for changing the reading. You can change the parchment, but will that change the hearts and minds? There are violent passages in the OT. There were times when people took it literally and justified slavery or forced conversion. The OT is still the same but we have seen a reduction of aggressive behavior among Christians. I mean some orthodox jews in Israeli settlements still base their expansionist ideology on the OT but in general Christianity or Judaism in general is not going through the tumult that exists in Islam today.

"In the last six years, there have been perhaps a dozen or so religiously-inspired killings by people of all other faiths combined. No other religion produces the killing sprees that Islam does nearly every day of the year. Neither do they have verses in their holy texts that arguably support it. Nor do they have large groups across the globe dedicated to the mass murder of people who worship a different god, as the broader community of believers struggles with ambivalence and a radical clergy that supports the terror."

...The Non Muslim religions vs Islam...no comparison...not even close...

Sublimer wrote:

I am a Muslim. I don't believe in a literalist reading of the Koran.

Good for you. But polls show that about half of the Muslim world supports Bin Laden. About half of UK Muslims desire Islamic law in the UK. About 100,000 UK Muslims feel the jihad attacks against London were justified. About 16,000 UK Muslims are "willing or even eager" to participate in terror against the UK. Are you going to tell me that those numbers don't indicate something is very wrong with Islam? If you say that Islam has been hijacked and distorted by extremists, then I hope you can tell me what is it about Islam that makes it so peculiarly prone to being hijacked and distorted in just that way around the globe?

I hope you do not have a literalist reading of the Bible, in case you are Christian. You keep on saying Muslims but you have to specify which Muslims you are talking about. Is it the Muslims of Afghanistan, Iraq, saudi arabia, Malaysia, Morocco, algeria ?

No, I don't believe in a literalist, nor in a purely metaphorical reading of the Bible. AS for saying which Muslims I mean, well, I just gave you some very disturbing poll numbers from UK Muslims. I referred to these numbers in an earlier comment above. Large percentages of Muslims globally support Bin Laden. I never said that there are no Muslims who reject jihad violence and totalitarianism. Only that there are a lot of Muslims who don't reject jihad violence (100,000 UK Muslims, for example) and totalitarianism (some 800,000 UK Muslims -- by totalitarianism here I mean Islamic law).

Do you know that there are algerian and Moroccan converts to christianity who are not killed.

As I recall, there are some pretty intense laws on the books in one or both of those countries, laws that severely restrict any proselytization by any religion other than Islam. Are you going to argue with that? If you do, I'll check it. That would be severe discrimination against non-Muslims, and I expect it would not be hard to find other forms of severe discrimination, enshrined in law and practice, in those countries. But prove me wrong.

Do you know that there are a lot of Muslims who speak openly against the Jihadi strain in Islam. If you limit yourself to JW, you might not.

Kindly name the leaders of any major, mainstream Muslim reform movement and where they are active marching in the streets of the Muslim world and calling for change. I don't mean a movement with a few thousand members out of the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. I mean a mainstream group. It ain't happening. There may be plenty of "moderates," but they do not come out in public and protest, or only rarely, and in small numbers.

I do speak against it and I don't regularly post here but in other sites.

Good for you. I just don't see how you can reconcile speaking against jihad with following the Quran and canonical hadith, and I'm curious.

If you speak arabic watch Al jazeera and don't just get what Memri chooses for you. A lot of people decide not to respond to the infalammatory language of some imams because they consider indifference is the best way of defense. No reason to give them more time in the spotlight. Others do decide to respond. It depends on each person. But the question : "where are the moderates" is one of the biggest hoaxes possible. You won't see them if you remain in this site. Visit a muslim country and you'll see for yourself.

Not protesting extremism I won't see them, because that doesn't happen, not unless the extremists blow up other Muslims. Show me an example of any large, or even medium, public demonstration against Muslim extremism when directed against non-Muslims? What you seem to mean is that if I go to one of those countries I'll meet lots of Muslims minding their own business and having no desire to be involved in jihad violence. Well, I imagine that "only" perhaps one percent of Muslims want to be directly engaged in jihad violence, and "only" between ten percent and fifty percent of Muslims, depending on the country, think jihad terror is justified, though without wanting to do it themselves, and "only" the same percentages support the implementation of Islamic law. But maybe you can point to large secular protest forces in Indonesia. 600,000 or 700,000 came out to protest for secularism in Turkey. But that sort of thing seems to the exception.

The Jihadis have been getting so much publicity because sensationalism sells. It is always more spectacular to see someone who says "I''ll kill you" than someone who says "Kumbaya". Plus, if you accuse the person who says "Kumbaya" of practicing taqqiya as is often the case in this site, then you must realize that your demands are impossible.

I agree such demands are impossible, but at the same time Muhammad's and the Quran's support of deceit against non-Muslims makes such impossible demands to some extent, inevitable, at least until a Muslim proves what he stands for by publicly opposing Islamic law and jihad violence. Then one can know for certain that he is not deceiving, because he is putting his life on the line and taking a big risk. And he is standing with those of other religions in support of religious freedom, equality of women, separation of religion and state. But I don't even know if you would tell me you support all those things, much less whether you would tell other Muslims that, or say something different to them, as we have seen Muslim leaders do repeatedly. To gain trust, you have some big hurdles to overcome, and they are not all put their by non-Muslims, far from it.

Have you heard of the late terrorist attacks in Morocco. Do you know why they were all thwarted ? Read some more on that. have you heard of the fight between the insurgency and al qaeda ?

Yes, I suppose I know why they were thwarted. Because, as I said, Muslims do not want to experience terror attacks on themselves. But if the jihad is against non-Muslims, Muslims often seem to have many fewer problems with that.

have you heard of the fight between the insurgency and al qaeda ?

You mean in Iraq? Yes I've heard of that.

If all you are trying to say to me is that there is some hope for the Islamic world and for its eventual acceptance of basic human rights, well, there is always hope, however hopeless things look. Freedomhouse.org, while noting that on the whole, with a few exceptions, the Muslim-majority countries of the world continue to lag all other regions in terms of human rights, also points out that there has been some modest progress recently. So there is hope. But the dark side has to be acknowledged, and it's damn dark, sorry to say.

Time to introduce the concept of the intellectual-suicide bomber.

This is an individual who, in order to "win" an argument, simultaneously shuts his own mind to facts and logic, and showers his opponent with the resulting nonsense.

Note that the goal is nihilistic in exactly the same way as the ordinary physical suicide bomber.

The physical bomber suicide seeks death as an end in itself -- not dominance, captives or victory in any conventional sense -- he'll be gone when the attack is over.

The intellectual-suicide bomber seeks a state of not-knowing, an erasure, a blanking-out of the mind. Nobody will know the truth when the argument is over, nobody will know anything. No facts will be recognized, no logic will be performed. There will be a kind of mental silence, a desert of the mind.

A mental silence interrupted only by the ritual recitation of words unconnected to reality.

============

This is really the only way to understand (as near as I can tell) the mental behaviour of the left, and of the jihaddi apologists.

One sees almost no convincing effort to get at the truth by any reliable method. The fact collection is almost absent, and where present is feeble at best. Arbitrary assertions (or lies and denials) are regularly presented in lieu of facts. And the rules of logic are largely ignored.

The vast bulk of the argument is intended only for it's effect on the listener, the primary intendended effects being confusion, uncertainty, fear, shame and guilt, in short, submission.

Objectively verificatiable fact is not offered, neither is logically coherent reasoning. There is no solid safe place offered for the mind to go. Only the directionless mental wasteland of emotionalism, doubt and the submission to authority.

=========

The intellectual-suicide bomber is by far and away the more essential to the jihaddi program.

The physical suicide bombers inspire physical fear, which can be overcome by simple physical courage.

The intellectual-suicide bombers attack the west at its very roots, it's ability to know and build on reality.

And they are turning the universities of the west into a single giant Beslan -- killing the minds of the young before they have a chance to form.

Sublimer,
You say there is violence in the Old Testament too, but "God" in the Old Testament orders that violence against very specific, named peoples.

No other religion has a doctrine like that of Islamic jihad, which sanctions war against unbelievers till the end of time. A number of verses refer only to "unbelievers" and the like, and do so without mentioning any specific nation or people.

Your comparison of Jesus' sword verse, (which virtually all Christians understand as a parable, i.e., parabolic, metaphorical, like so many of Jesus' utterances) -- your comparison of that to the violence in the Quran really pushes you to the edge of absurdity. The comparison suggests you do not know the New Testament, or else that you are capable of blinding yourself to the difference between apples and oranges, provided that will shore up what you want to believe. To suggest that the New Testament portrays Jesus as violent is just utter foolishness. With that comparison either you really don't know what you are talking about, or you are trying to deceive us, or you are trying to deceive yourself.

Tina Magaard has a Ph.D. in intercultural communication from the Sorbonne and a little while back completed a three year study of the core documents of ten major religions. She found that Islam's texts are significantly more violent than the texts of the others.

I still don't know if you believe in separation of religion and state for all states, including Muslim-majority countries. Because if you do believe in that separation, you have a big battle ahead of you with regard to most Muslim countries.

Hi Traeh,

I was going to work but since you were respectful throughout, I'd like to respond before I go. i am not going to respond to joeblough (he's calling me an intellectual suicide bomber already). do you see what I mean when you get words like that thrown at you. It's very hard to argue.

You say that polls show half of the muslims support ben laden. Do the same poll in south america and you will be surprised by the results. A lot of the people who support ben laden do not do so ideologically but he's become an icon, the new che guevara. I personally don't like him but you should not see people's affinity for him in solely religious terms. He's become to symbolize the Anti-american alternative. and in a world where American has become very hated (it's the reality I am sorry), people side with him. It's a sort of a dumb dialectic. I am not with white so I am with black.

The case in England is very problematic and it is due to the incomprehensible tolerance england gave to Abu Hamza al Masri who was calling for sharia and for jihad since the early 1990's. I mean you need to apply some laws when one of your citizens is calling for the government's destruction. An egyptian journalist wrote a letter in the Ahram asking to go back to egypt if he hates britain so much. If he says the same thing in egypt he will go to jail. Now you see why most arab countries are not ready for democracy? Mind you, when i say that britain was too tolerant, I am not saying that they should be intolerant. It doesn't mean that they should expel all the Muslims as many are law abiding and hard working. I never believe in extreme measures. Expulsion might be extreme but letting a provocateur like Abu Hamza talk freely is also extreme.

There are a lot of Muslims who convert to Christianity. Most of them get harrased by their families but that also happens to some extent here when Americans convert to Islam for example. Although the law might disallow it, I know that it is tolerated in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. i mention these three countries because I met converts from these countries. I know it is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia, afgahnistan, Egypt to some extent and possibly Iraq now and am not sure about other countries. But I agree that there should be more freedom in this domain. The Quran says that there is no compulsion in religion. One hadith says to kill apostates. But believing in the hadiths as forming part of the faith is like believing that the works of saint augustine form part of Christianity. They are addenda but not an integral part.

Do you know that after september 11th, there was huge demonstration for support to the US even in Teheran, and in almost every other Arab capital. The only thing that is remembered here are kids dancing in the palestinian territories. The palestinians hate the U.S. for a long time now. But you should understand that the bombs Israel uses to attack the palestinians are donated by the US.

There are demonstrations against terrorism in the arab world, lately in Morocco and Algeria and even in Iraq. You say that this is because it is terrorism against Muslims. Besides the demonstrations after september 11th, there were also demonstrations I remember in rabat after the may 11th bombing in madrid. You can look all of this up.

A lot of the Muslim countries lag behind in human rights especially Sudan somalia and mostly saudi Arabia. It's really the one country that needs to change even more than Iran. But you should also look at other countries and we should study why some Muslim countries are faring so much better than others, how the economic situation play, if the state imams are too radicalized etc.

If I have not ansewered all your questions, I'll try to answer them some other time.

cheers.

joeblough:
I enjoyed your exposition of your idea of the intellectual suicide bomber and found it very interesting. But I disagree with your seemingly complete merging of the left's modus operandi with that of Islam, and with your blanket denunciation of the left. I am usually center-right, I suppose, but the left is as essential to a free society as is the right, seems to me. Which is not to say that one side or the other can't be more wrong at a given time or in a given situation, for example in the situation with Islam. In that particular case the right arguably has a bit more of the truth more often. But as with some of the right, sometimes some of the left is smart and ethical. The right has no monopoly on those qualities.

Besides, hasn't Bat Ye'or pointed out how division among non-Muslims has been important in the past in permitting Muslims gradually to dominate and establish Islamic law? Seems to me therefore we need to avoid making enemies with anyone who believes in separation of religion and state, and who doesn't want to live under a dictatorship, and that means a lot of the left, not just the right. We can't afford to give up on any potential allies.

Is it just me or has sublimer essentially supported the rebuttals to his arguments here?

Methinks a simple "keep up the good work guys and gals" would be in order.

awake,

try to read between the lines. Our position does not differ as much as you think but that does not mean you have persuaded me into changing my mind. Being realistic and pragmatic does not mean that you give in your position.It only means that you are stronger in your convictions. We are not having a fight. At least that's how I look at it. We're here to exchange ideas and you are one of the few in this forum who has spoken intelligently and intelligibly. I would wish some of JWatchers would follow suit.

traeh:

Point taken.

I suppose I invite confusion by using such a vague term as "the left", which may well be interpreted as including people who are not necessarily mental disaster zones, much less jihaddi sympathizers.

But I must protest, as a matter of general principle that if the 20th century has demonstrated nothing else, it has shown us that collectivism, of whatever nature, is extremely dangerous.

I you array the nations of the world on a spectrum from the most free, the most protective of the rights of property and expression etc... and the most capitalistic on on end, to the least free, the least protective of rights, and the least capitalistic on the other end, you will see a clear and obvious spectrum going from better to worse quality of life.

And certainly the biggest and purest implementations of collectivism in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Maoist China etc... have been pefect nightmares of destruction and suffering.

So I have to ask in all innocence, whether it's even possible for a reasonable person to look at all the available information on these subjects and still maintain that socialism and state control of private matters is a benevolent influence as a matter of general principle.

Doesn't one have to shut down part of one's mind to compare even just a few communist, socialist and capitalist countries and not see an obvious connection? How about just east and west Germany, or north and south Korea?

That said, your point still stands. The left so dominates our intellectual classes that it's easy for an otherwise reasonable person to grow up subscribing to beliefs that objective evaluations would never lead them to.

Oh, and thanks for evaluating my thought.

===============

Re the sublimer comment:

"i am not going to respond to joeblough (he's calling me an intellectual suicide bomber already). do you see what I mean when you get words like that thrown at you. It's very hard to argue.".

This is sort of amusing actually.

In reality I hadn't read any of the sublimer posts when I wrote my previous comment, and hadn't been aware of this person.

My comments were inspired by the utterances of the people at Emory U cited in the original post at the top, which is what I was responding to.

But hey, if the shoe fits ...

PS correction of whopper typo in first post.

I wrote "Objectively verificatiable fact", which should have been "Objectively verifiable fact".

sublimer said:

I was going to work but since you were respectful throughout, I'd like to respond before I go.

Well, I try. But I can't say I'm sorry you are going back to work. I'm exhausted from writing all these posts!

...do you see what I mean when you get words like that thrown at you. It's very hard to argue.

Well, it's hard to argue with five or ten people at once all talking at you, and some are not listening too carefully.

You say that polls show half of the muslims support ben laden. Do the same poll in south america and you will be surprised by the results. A lot of the people who support ben laden do not do so ideologically but he's become an icon, the new che guevara. I personally don't like him but you should not see people's affinity for him in solely religious terms. He's become to symbolize the Anti-american alternative. and in a world where American has become very hated (it's the reality I am sorry), people side with him. It's a sort of a dumb dialectic. I am not with white so I am with black.

Ok, I don't see people's affinity for bin Laden in solely religious terms. I still find it disturbing that such large percentages of the Islamic world support a mass murderer, who defines his mission in explicitly Islamic terms, and the response of huge numbers of Muslims is not to distance themselves from that representation of Islam, but support the murderer who advertises Islam in that fashion. And the case of bin Laden strikes me as different from that of Che Guevara. Apparently Che was a mass murderer, but few of the silly millions who have his pop image on their walls and t-shirts are aware of that.

The case in England is very problematic and it is due to the incomprehensible tolerance england gave to Abu Hamza al Masri who was calling for sharia and for jihad since the early 1990's. I mean you need to apply some laws when one of your citizens is calling for the government's destruction.

Ok, but you can't blame England's tolerance alone for what Islam has a peculiar knack for producing. England's tolerance has worked fairly well with other immigrant groups. Why can't it work with Islam? Because Islam regularly gives birth to totalitarians for some reason.

An egyptian journalist wrote a letter in the Ahram asking to go back to egypt if he hates britain so much. If he says the same thing in egypt he will go to jail. Now you see why most arab countries are not ready for democracy?

Not sure what you are getting at here. My impression is that the Arab countries are not ready for democracy because they understand Islam better than the non-Arab countries, insofar as the classical Arabic of the Quran is less opaque to modern Arabs than it is to non-Arab Muslims. I suppose that the Arab world follows Islam more closely than most other parts of the Muslim world not only because the meaning of the Quran's Arabic is less opaque to Arabs, but also because Islam started in Arabia and has been there longest, so that current Arab culture is organically rooted in and grew out of the classical Arabic culture of Muhammad, as does the fruit eventually out of the seed. But I could be wrong.

Mind you, when i say that britain was too tolerant, I am not saying that they should be intolerant. It doesn't mean that they should expel all the Muslims as many are law abiding and hard working. I never believe in extreme measures. Expulsion might be extreme but letting a provocateur like Abu Hamza talk freely is also extreme.

My concern is not to find a way to expel the small minority of Muslims in the UK. My concern is that the Muslim population is trending toward becoming a majority in Europe by the end of the century, and in many parts of Europe well before the end of the century. According to National Intelligence Council estimates, the Muslim population of Europe can be expected to double, perhaps even triple, by 2025. The UK must already monitor some 4000 Muslim jihad suspects. If the population doubles, there will be 8000 to monitor, or more.

Of at least as much concern as jihad violence, though, is creeping Islamic law. And as the Muslim population grows, Muslim intimidation of media and politicians can be expected to increase. I believe there should be an indefinite moratorium on Muslim immigration into Europe and America, or at minimum a severe diminution of such immigration. At the same time immigration into Europe from non-Muslim nations should be increased. This shift could be done in the name of diversity and multiculturalism. Other immigrant groups do not threaten religious and social freedom to anything like the extent Islam threatens those values, and Europe needs workers.

There are a lot of Muslims who convert to Christianity. Most of them get harrased by their families but that also happens to some extent here when Americans convert to Islam for example.

You mean worldwide? Seems to me converting to Islam vs. from Islam involve dangers of quite different orders of magnitude. Statistically and on a global scale, the risk of a non-Muslim being killed for converting to Islam are far, far less than the risks a Muslim faces for abandoning Islam and adopting another religion. The same huge differential also extends to the degree of social ostracism one risks experiencing.

Although the law might disallow [apostasy from Islam], I know that it is tolerated in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. i mention these three countries because I met converts from these countries. I know it is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia, afgahnistan, Egypt to some extent and possibly Iraq now and am not sure about other countries. But I agree that there should be more freedom in this domain.

How much more freedom? Where do you draw the line? Do you think Muslims should be permitted to proselytize in some countries, but not Buddhists or Christians? Do you think the state should intervene in some Muslim-majority countries and forcibly prevent proselytization, if "too many" Buddhist or Christian or Hindu converts are made? I don't know at the moment the level of tolerance or intolerance for conversion away from Islam, in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria. Unless I'm mistaken though, FreedomHouse.org in its 2006 world report gave all three of those countries quite poor human rights ratings in general.

The Quran says that there is no compulsion in religion. One hadith says to kill apostates. But believing in the hadiths as forming part of the faith is like believing that the works of saint augustine form part of Christianity. They are addenda but not an integral part.

You can say that, but as I said before, all the main schools of Islamic law are agreed on the death penalty for apostasy. So it seems to me you are in a very small minority in your view. And I believe you are also in a very small minority of Muslims if you think the canonical hadith of Bukhari are nothing more than "addenda." Bukhari is second only to the Quran in the esteem of virtually all the jurisconsults of Islam, to my knowledge.

Furthermore, you cite the "there is no compulsion in religion" verse, without answering the objection so frequently made against that verse. I refer to Chapter 9 of the Quran, which was "revealed" after the "no compulsion" verse. In Chapter 9, verse 29 of the Quran is, as you know, "Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given [Christians and Jews] as believe in neither Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Apostle [Muhammad] have forbidden, and do not embrace the true Faith [Islam], until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued." This famous verse is one of the main foundations for the three choices Muslims, when in power, are to offer Christians and Jews according to Islamic law: 1) convert to Islam, or 2) pay tribute and agree to be utterly subdued under Islamic law, which in the context of Islamic history has generally though not always to the same degree meant accepting second-class citizen status, including various forms of intentionally debasing legal and social discrimination against non-Muslims, or 3) be warred upon by Muslims. Now, technically, the three choices do not amount to pure compulsion to become a Muslim. After all, one can keep one's religion if one is willing to accept the rule of Islamic law and accept "dhimmitude," i.e., a second class servile status. One can also opt to accept war or death. But those alternative choices are not real alternatives to compulsion.

And Chapter 9, verse 29 for many Muslims trumps the earlier "non-compulsion" verse you quoted, because Chapter 9 was revealed later. According to the doctrine of canceling or abrogation, when there is a contradiction between two Quran verses, the later one is considered the correct one. Abrogation, as you must know (?) is of course mentioned in the Quran itself in two verses, which tell us that Allah can produce better or more complete verses to replace or alter earlier ones, because Allah can do anything.

You may choose not to believe in abrogation, but unfortunately a great many devout Muslims do, and unfortunately Muhammad's later revelations were the more violent, totalitarian and intolerant ones, such as a number of those in Chapter 9.

Do you know that after september 11th, there was huge demonstration for support to the US even in Teheran, and in almost every other Arab capital. The only thing that is remembered here are kids dancing in the palestinian territories. The palestinians hate the U.S. for a long time now. But you should understand that the bombs Israel uses to attack the palestinians are donated by the US.

I believe the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians could have been solved decades ago if the Palestinian culture -- Islam -- at all predisposed people to compromise, freedom, tolerance and open discussion, instead of to fanatacism. The Israelis are far from sinless, but compromise was not stopped, countless times, from their side. It was stopped by fanatical, dictatorial Muslims. Too many Palestinians are full of hate to an extreme degree, as can be seen by the ugly hate material they have on their media and feed to their children, and by the jihadist groups they elect to office, and by the desire of so many Palestinians -- is it not true -- to kill every last Jew. And let's not forget Arafat's lineage, to his "hero" Husseini, ally of Hitler in the "final solution." That is not a culture that can ever compromise and reach a sane solution. That is true sickness.

There are demonstrations against terrorism in the arab world, lately in Morocco and Algeria and even in Iraq. You say that this is because it is terrorism against Muslims. Besides the demonstrations after september 11th, there were also demonstrations I remember in rabat after the may 11th bombing in madrid. You can look all of this up.

I'll try to look into Rabat demos after the may 11th bombing in Madrid.

A lot of the Muslim countries lag behind in human rights especially Sudan somalia and mostly saudi Arabia. It's really the one country that needs to change even more than Iran. But you should also look at other countries and we should study why some Muslim countries are faring so much better than others, how the economic situation play, if the state imams are too radicalized etc.

I'm aware that Indonesia, Mauritania, Mali, perhaps Senegal, are doing not too badly in terms of human rights. But notice that these are all countries on the far periphery of the Islamic world, not at its core in the Middle East and north Africa, where human rights are a disaster. I agree with you of course about Saudi Arabia. Turkey, despite its rep, is apparently not doing so well in terms of human rights, though of course better than most Muslim nations.

If I have not answered all your questions, I'll try to answer them some other time.

cheers.

If not now, when? (Just kidding. I'm tuckered out for now.)

joeblough:
Yep, I think your idea was very imaginative. It struck me as insightful, though I can't say I've really thought it through. But because it's a metaphor or analogy, it must break down at various points. Not that that's any weakness in a metaphor, since a metaphor wouldn't be at all revealing if the two things "compared" were identical. If metaphors are to mediate any knowledge, they have to point to contrast, rather than to complete identicality or complete dissimilarity.

Anyway, I guess you expressed and clarified a thought I had had some foggy half-conscious inklings of before on my own.

sublimer,

The need to rebecome Roman is not a new phenomenon. That was Napoleon's goal (hence the arc of triumph inspired by the arch of Titus). That was also what Mussolini tried to do. Fascism is inspired by fasces, a bundle of rods that symbolized Roman authority. There are also many fasces symbols in the U.S.

I am not trying to say it is new. I am trying to say it needs to be done, unless the Muslims drop their pretensions to "power politics". The problem with Napoleon's and Mussolini's attempts is that there were bigger dogs in the game at that time, who eventually defeated them. The US faces no such potential opposition in the Muslim world, if we were to adopt the proper mindset. I doubt even the Russians and Chinese would complain, once the ball got rolling.

Jihad is war against themselfs too!