Jihad Watch: Esmay speaks

May 28, 2006

Esmay speaks

Garbo talks! Dean Esmay has finally responded to my post here. His reply, as I might have expected, is nasty, mean-spirited, and full of ad hominem attacks and misrepresentations of my work and views.

Here is the substance:

Still, let's try to get to the meat of this: Spencer's ultimate argument is based on a red herring: I (and others) are supposed to point to any mainstream school of Islamic thought that completely rejects holy war (violent jihad). Well, none of them do. So what? I never thought they did.
Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong! Sure you say that some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!

Well, obviously this is a false analogy. If there were a global movement of Christian slavers today, justifying their actions by the Bible, it would be a workable analogy. But there isn't.

Also, I am not saying that the Bible and the Qur'an are the only sources. Far from it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that the Seventh Commandment forbids slavery. I frequently mention Islamic sources other than the Qur'an that only buttress the message of violence in it, rather than mitigating that message -- see, for example, here.

In other words, the jihadists are working from a broad, mainstream tradition within Islam, not just from a few Qur'an verses. There are many implications of this. But above all, any genuine Islamic reformer needs to confront this entire jurisprudential tradition -- not just ignore its existence.

Esmay also explains why he is so good and I am so evil:

Ditto his bizarre request that someone provide him with Islamic texts sufficient to make violent radicals put down their weapons--which I think any sane person would view as an outright impossibility.
Now here's the thing: I knew this was impossible before I'd ever heard of Robert Spencer, and so did Robert Spencer. So what is the purpose of this argument? Well one of us, apparently, finds the fact far more significant than the other one does. And one of us apparantly makes a living selling books and on speaking engagements to explain how violent jihadism is to be found in Islamic scholarship. The other goes out of his way to befriend muslims who are anti-terrorism, and to highlight writings by muslims who reject terrorism. One of us obviously wants to help muslims, while the other insists that no he doesn't hate muslims he just doesn't trust any of them who object to violence on religious grounds.

I have explained this again and again, and he ignores it: I am for moderate Muslims who reject terrorism. I am not for those who try to sell me a bill of goods about how there is no basis in the Qur'an or Sunnah for religiously-based violence. That is not reform; it is deception. I love the former, but I will not put up with the latter. Esmay shows no sign of caring about the distinction. He says this:

What also troubles me, Robert, is that you claim you want to defeat jihadist terrorism, and you also claim you want to help muslims who work toward examining troubling aspects within their faith, but you accuse muslims who disagree with you of lying to you--they apparently can't just be wrong, or draw different conclusions from you.

The difference is actually this: if a Lutheran preacher in 1520 said, "the Church teaches transubstantiation, and that is wrong," he would have been a reformer (leaving aside the question of the legitimacy of the reform, which has nothing to do with my point). If he had said, "the Church has never taught transubstantiation," he would not have been a reformer. He would have been a deceiver.

Anyway, for Esmay it is all because I have a tiny readership, and he has a huge one:

Spencer says he doesn't do anything like this, but in fact this is exactly what he's doing here. Apparently, from what I can see, he does it for a living, which is probably why he's calling out high-traffic bloggers to pick fights with; it's an absolute certainty that I have a lot more readers than he does, and he probably knows it despite his obsessively repeated claims that nobody reads me and that I am utterly unimportant to him (yes, so unimportant he feels the need to send me obsessive, juvenile emails and repeated taunts from his blog).

This is false in a number of ways. In the first place, I didn't pick a fight with him; he was attacking me and my work before I had ever heard his name. As for readership, I was told by some people after my first response to him that he had a tiny readership, and that was borne out by this, which is what I base my assessment of readership on; it could be wrong for all I know. Actually it doesn't matter, because I was actually referring to the impossibility of convincing him of anything, but the possibility of convincing people of good will. But anyway, it looks from that as if Jihad Watch has a much larger readership than Dean's World. You tell me if I am reading that wrong and that the lower line actually somehow signifies a larger readership. But I don't think it does.

And as for those "juvenile" emails, Esmay is no doubt referring to my reference to Matoko Kusanagi as "dodgy company" and my sarcastic reference to his calling me a traitor, when I said I was late for a flag-burning. I confess to being acerbic. But he ignores the substantive points I made in those emails, as he has breezed by virtually all the substantive points I have made. Here is a portion of one -- which answers his point that it is absurd for me to call on moderate Muslims to refute the mujahedin. Juvenile? Taunting? You be the judge. Esmay's statements are double indented, mine are single indented:

Most of the muslims I know say you're incredibly duplicitous and malicious and engage in circular logic and straw man arguments

I wish you or they would provide an example of this duplicity and malice. The fact is that only I know what is in my heart, and whether I am doing this out of malice, and only I can know such a thing -- just as only you know your own motives for anything. Their case would be aided considerably by specific examples of these alleged crimes. But all I can tell you is that I am doing my best to report honestly about Islamic theology and the Islamic world, and that the fact that I constantly meet with such charges -- bereft as always of examples -- makes me in turn doubt the good faith of those who make them.

--the most laughable being your demand that someone provide sufficient references to make the violent jihadis put down their arms, which any idiot knows is completely impossible.

This isn't laughable in the least. Nor should it be impossible if what you and people like Matoko are saying about Islam were true. If the broad mainstream of peaceful Muslims really had the Qur'an and Islamic theology on their side, and they were just as appalled as anyone else by the global activity of the jihadists, they would be doing things like holding classes in every mosque, teaching Muslims the true peaceful Islam and inoculating them against recruitment by the mujahedin, which proceeds along the self-professed assumption that they represent "true Islam" and "pure Islam." If this is not the case, as the moderates insist it isn't, then they could do a great service to the Muslim community worldwide, and to the world at large, if they began a large-scale campaign to discredit the mujahedin on Islamic grounds.

I don't think this is unreasonable at all, and I think it's telling that it doesn't exist. I speak of making violent jihadis lay down their arms in that context -- assuming that someone who believes he is carrying out the will of Allah, as they undeniably do, will change his behavior if he comes to see the will of Allah in a different light. But ultimately what I am calling for in that way is the kind of campaign to which I refer above.

Thank you for your very first reasoned response, almost entirely free of insults and abuse. I can see from your site that you have good intentions, and have been stunned by your boiling and uninformed hostility toward me and my work. That hostility may continue, but I am going to keep giving you reasoned responses to your points, as I think ultimately we are working in the same direction -- although I am aware you may indignantly reject such an idea.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Anyway, Esmay has entangled himself in an insuperable contradiction: he has admitted that no "mainstream school of Islamic thought...completely rejects holy war (violent jihad)." Then he renews his accusation that I am taking "the most tendentious and pernicious interpretations" of Islamic scholarship and declaring "that these are the inescapably correct views." Well, if no mainstream school of Islamic jurisprudence rejects violent jihad, then violent jihad is the Islamic mainstream -- and it is not I who am cherry-picking among Islamic texts to create my own private Islam.

The exchange between Dean Esmay and me is available for everyone to see. He accused me of misrepresenting peaceful Islam, and has now acknowledged that peaceful Islam is not mainstream. He did not respond to my request to demonstrate that mainstream Islamic teaching is peaceful and tolerant, which was his initial objection to my work -- and of course, he cannot do so. As soon as his Muslim foes of terror are willing to acknowledge that as well, and to work among Muslims to mitigate the power of the Qur'an and Sunnah to recruit and motivate terrorists, I'll be happy to give them all support. But as long as they continue to deny that that power exists at all, I respectfully decline to play along.

Posted by Robert at May 28, 2006 6:52 AM
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Comments
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)

I know of Robert Spencer. I have read his books. I never heard of this Esmay character.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069

at May 28, 2006 7:29 AM

esmay just wants to win a debate. He has formed his conclusions and he sticks to them. I think he has an ego problem. No open mind, not listening to any rational thing, not even bothering to just a little matter on this site. No, I think the mind is open, it is open from all sides. Reason blows in, reason blows out.

Posted by: arjun.sevak

at May 28, 2006 7:30 AM

Robert, never get in an argument with a fool. Passersby might not be able to tell which one one of you is the fool.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069

at May 28, 2006 7:44 AM

Bohemond:

If they can't, then I have utterly failed to communicate my point. We'll see how reactions go.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 28, 2006 7:52 AM

I read these attacks on Robert from guys like this Esmay and that Auster and all I can do is throw up my hands and ask to borrow someone's copy of Dummies for Dummies. I just don't get it!

Posted by: Shy Guy

at May 28, 2006 8:13 AM

I am far from being an expert on islam but I know when someone is attempting to pull the wool over my eyes and I steer clear of people like Esmay. I post here because most of us are on the same side. Most of us realize the truth is islams enemy, none of the we can work it out peacefully types has actively attempted that feat of magic. The best we can do with muslims is form limited alliances and temporary treaties. Their core belief systems and our are not compatible and assimilation can only happen through force. Their goal of converting us all can not be changed, bent tweaked or controlled. Only two outcomes to this struggle are possible, the end of freedom or the end of islam. When free societies openly debate the cost of cowing down to islam and the benefits (if any) it brings, we will finally be headed in the right direction. Robert and those like-minded early soldiers in this battle will go down in history as leading the charge. The others? Well history doesn’t like those who advocate alliances with the enemy. Roberts ‘show me the proof” mentality works. I have beaten back many coworkers and relatives armed with typical PC arguments of peaceful muslims and all religions are violent. Those types of arguments are shallow and tired. Each person we wake up spreads the truth. I could not have proved the threat posed by islam without Robert and his books. I don't have the knowledge nor the resources. I can only influence my limited spire of influence, Robert has a growing global following. You should be proud the PC/Dhimmi types continuously attempt to discredit you and even prouder they continuously fail.

Posted by: Ronin

at May 28, 2006 8:36 AM

The coin never drops:

Another lefty looney in my town has just last week accused me that 'I have become far more radicalized since 9/11"- , that "my activities only contribute to 'polarize' the the camps of the Mohammedans & infidels and incite 'moderate' muslims" which turns them into 'radicals', etc. etc.

I walked out in disgust.

Last night I went to the carnival in Port Douglas. I saw hundreds of young, scantily clad women have fun and enjoy themselves. Later on I took a stroll around town, watching young, happy couples walking home, laughing, having fun.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that we have no inbuilt resistance to Muhammedan infiltration. Our people are totally unprepared and far too naive to deal with cunning and deceit, and the evil of Islam.

We will collapse like the Incas when the Conquistadors invaded...

So by not talking about it, by trying to dodge the issues, the problem will go away? Don't think so...

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at May 28, 2006 8:42 AM

The fact is that only I know what is in my heart, and whether I am doing this out of malice, and only I can know such a thing -- just as only you know your own motives for anything.........For me this the key to the war on terror...It is a battle of right or wrong...good or evil....Slitting a womans throat with a boxcutter and then ramming a jet into a building is evil..no matter what you claim is the reason for this action.Taking a 16 year old boy from his father is wrong.The heart very much is a part of this war...EVIL IS EVIL under any name!

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 8:46 AM

I am often reminded (as you may be bored to read again) of Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death. Becker draws out WHY folks get so emotional (and in Esmay's case, rigid) about arguments. The reason is this: we have no guarantee of living into the next second, and our worldview is a way of ensuring (in our minds) that we will live and prosper into the next second. On the level of symbol, we fear that if we lose an argument, we die.

The sociobiologist dude (featured in another thread) was so deep into the egotism of academics that he cannot see that simple truth is what counts, not who tells the truth. Esmay is less of an academic and may come around sooner.

Islam is a political philosophy with a religious justification. The miserably named "War on Terror" is mis-spending limited resources if it is not addressing the dangers of sharia.

Islam is itself a problem.

Posted by: StillBreathing

at May 28, 2006 8:55 AM

"Suddenly, it occurred to me that we have no inbuilt resistance to Muhammedan infiltration. Our people are totally unprepared and far too naive to deal with cunning and deceit, and the evil of Islam."
-- from a posting above

Unprepared, uneducated, and unfocussed.

Newscasters in the United States are right now too busy trying to find out what that strange name "Shiloh" means to bother to find out what it is exactly that Sunnis have against Shi'a, and vice-versa, in Iraq, much less discover that they have been at each other's throats a thousand years before the founding of the Americna Republic.

Why does that matter? Because it is obvious that those who now want us to stay in tarbaby Iraq, and to be tied down, will shriek that "we caused the problem" and "we have to stay and fix it" and "we just can't leave."

Unprepared, uneducated, unfocussed. To a suicidal degree.

Posted by: Hugh

at May 28, 2006 8:57 AM

We are known for the company we keep.And we can take nothing with us when we die... except the knowledge that we tried in our on small way(in my case lol )to make a difference.Robert you have made a difference many of us here learned about islam from your books,we are able to send or familys and friends to this website for the info they need.Please fight on.I am not pandering (lol ) Like I said in an earlier post.I am from the time the good guys won.....Lets bring back those days.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 9:04 AM

Robert, I am stunned by your elegant and witty rebuttal of this person's ravings. I am also amazed though at how much time you are investing in dealing with his ridiculous assertions. So often he does not even seem to understand the point you are making. Your comparison of the traffic analysis is very damning for the credibility of Mr Esmay and really I think he should go into the forest and howl at the trees as he doesnt appear to have much of an audience otherwise. But, I have learned from the writings on this site that one strategy of the jihadists is to consume our resources, economic, social and judicial to reduce our ability to fight back even in the court of public opinion and so I hope you wont allow yourself to be trapped into wasting your valuable time on this lightweight.

Best wishes.

Posted by: payingattention

at May 28, 2006 9:05 AM

Esmay by himself is unimportant. He simply offers, on a convenient platter, specific examples of a more general idiocy. Pointing those idiocies out, all the omissions, the illogic, the missstatements, the miscomprehension, the crudeness of thought and expression, is not a waste of time because of their generic nature.

Posted by: Hugh

at May 28, 2006 9:18 AM

Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong!

The koran says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong.

In fact, it was because of the islamic slave traders that we had slavery as we think of it in the first place!

Moreover, because of the koran -- the islamics are still the primary slave traders today.

"Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong!"

Posted by: witness

at May 28, 2006 9:20 AM

Even an idiot would call this guy an idiot.

Posted by: Prickzilla

at May 28, 2006 9:21 AM

I agree with Hugh, If Robert points out what is wrong with the thought process they use.He has added a weapon to use in the war on terror.Not all the weapons we use go bang bang.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 9:29 AM

"Pointing those idiocies out, all the omissions, the illogic, the missstatements, the miscomprehension, the crudeness of thought and expression, is not a waste of time because of their generic nature."

Kill one, frighten ten-thousand...or something to that effect.

Esmay on his own may not be worth the effort, but he flings at Mr. Spencer common arguments. Defeating them in this particular case serves to defeat them in others by virtue of their similarity. In other words, Mr. Esmay steps to the front of the pack, Robert knocks him down and serves him up as an example to the rest.

Posted by: Eisenhund

at May 28, 2006 9:29 AM

Robert knocks him down and serves him up as an example to the rest....well said Eisenhund

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 9:34 AM

"Most of the muslims I know say you're incredibly duplicitous and malicious and engage in circular logic and straw man arguments "

hey, captain obvious, there is no wonder that muslims you know find this site horrible and would do anything to bring it down (even phisically). That's the religion of peace at its finest

Posted by: gorniak

at May 28, 2006 9:35 AM

Robert simply asks that Muslims acknowledge the militant(Jihad) teachings in the Quran, however we have seen Muslims continiously deny that there exists these kind of teachings in the Quran. When confronted about them; some clerics like to argue that if you can't understand Arabic then you are misreading the surahs, and the hadiths. Of course this is quite absurd because more than 80 Pct. of muslims throughout the world do not speak Arabic or Farsi.

The simple test has always been that you need to acknowledge that you have a problem before you can correct it. You Can't help a person get on the right path until they recognize or are willing to admit they have a problem (Psyche 101) be it alcohol and drugs. Abusive behavior is sometimes a learned thing in a disfunctional family,and thus it is difficult to correct it unless they are willing to recognize it for what it is.

Posted by: Mackie

at May 28, 2006 9:41 AM

Most of the muslims I know say you're incredibly duplicitous and malicious and engage in circular logic and straw man arguments ".......
We are known for the company we keep

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 9:46 AM

In the face of outrageous verbal bullying, Robert unwaveringly sticks to his pedagogical mission, patiently dissecting arguments using only the truth as his guide, always open to correction, but resolute in standing against unreason and deception, deliberate or otherwise. His marvelous equanimity is an inspiration to me.

Posted by: Stendec

at May 28, 2006 10:16 AM

Esmay wrote:
Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong!

Hey Esmay, consider yourself proven wrong:

NIV 1 Timothy 1:9 We also know that law {9 Or that the law} is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
10 for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers--and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine...

Posted by: markjames

at May 28, 2006 10:27 AM

Whenever I see somebody resort to the "I have more readers than you do" argument I know that person is a loser who knows that they have lost the argument, since clearly the number of readers one has means little or nothing in terms of whether you know what you're talking about or not. And, knowing nice Muslims obviously doesn't mean anything regarding whether or not mainstream Islamic doctrine is supportive of violent Jihad or not. Esmay, who I used to regard as a good blogger, really comes off looking like an idiot here. He's totally out of his league.

Posted by: Eye Doc

at May 28, 2006 10:37 AM

Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong!.............Both Ezekiel 27 and Revelation 18 deal with GODS feeling on slavery...only people who spend no time in the BIBLE would claim the BIBLE has anything postive to say about slavery.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 10:59 AM

Sorry for being graphic, but when I see arguments like "I have more readers than you do", I read them as "my penis is longer than yours".

Just a thought…

Posted by: DoktorNo

at May 28, 2006 11:28 AM

Onesimus.

Yes, Mr. Esmay, the Christian New Testament supports slavery - slavery to Christ. And I would much rather be his doulos than Mohammed's.

I respect your convictions, Robert, but it is astounding to witness the amount of energy you've exercised on this circular, opaque, meritless poseur who obviously just wants to glom onto your notoriety to become the latest darling of the latest media darlings. I do hope, though, that more are introduced to JihadWatch through this.

DoktorNo: I believe Robert was merely responding to the fallacious argument, hoping to dispose of it. The whole point, as Robert has stated, is to not let unfounded assertions remain unchallenged.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen

at May 28, 2006 11:36 AM

The above post was supposed to start with the sentence:

Mr. Esmay may also like to read the Letter to Philemon, and Paul's plea for the Emancipation of Onesimus.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen

at May 28, 2006 11:46 AM

"As soon as his Muslim foes of terror are willing to acknowledge that as well, and to work among Muslims to mitigate the power of the Qur'an and Sunnah to recruit and motivate terrorists, I'll be happy to give them all support. But as long as they continue to deny that that power exists at all, I respectfully decline to play along."

Rumplestilskin for grown-ups..

"Demons, Your names are Jihhad and Dhimmi."

"You know our names"

RS-

Every children's fable, every wisdom of the ages, tells us that we must name the daemon(s) to have power over them, we must deliberately and with courage address the daemon(s) by name to have power over them. The names of Islam's daemons are Jihad and Dhimmi. You have named them and openly called them by name and then called them evil to their faces. Unless all of Islam does the same the Deamon will devour them.

You are a friend to Muslims.

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 12:27 PM

GREETINGS INFIDELS AND GAY MUSLIMS!, ive read dean's inane rantings,and not so clever muses!.This man has deprived the "village of an idiot"!,ive seen "wiser eating grass...and cleaner too".He speaks with forked tounge,typical traits of an apologist muslim....

Posted by: scotsguy

at May 28, 2006 12:40 PM

It is obvious that Mr. Esmay has bought into all the PC-speak about Christianity. It seems that he hasn't actually spoken to a real mainstream Christian in quite a few years, or, perhaps, at all.

His attempts to tar Christianity with the same brush as islam neglects the complete difference each faith makes in its claims about its scriptures. For a mainstream Christian the Bible is inspired, it is the word of God filtered through the fallible minds of men and women and is therefore, in and of itself, fallible also; it is merely the best guide to God's thoughts that we currently have and we freely acknowledge that God gave us the power of reason to use alongside our readings of the scriptures. Sometimes, we acknowledge, the Bible isn't even man's interpretation of what he thought God was trying to say - it is simply one man's personal thoughts and beliefs that he felt inspired by God to write down.

For islam, on the other hand, the koran is the word of God (well, allah, which is probably not the same as God at all, in my opinion), absolute, unfiltered, verbatim truth as far as the moslem world sees it. It cannot be interpreted, it is not permissible to apply reason to it, it is not permissible to ignore any part of it, for it is the literal word of allah. It can never change and no new experience of mankind can ever alter its meaning one jot or tittle.

It is Mr. Esmay's failure to appreciate this important distinction between the approaches to the two sets of writings which leads him to say the faintly risible things that he does about modern Christian beliefs and standards.

Moreover, when he makes the point that Christians, or Christianity, has, in the past, behaved in such-and-such a reprehensible way and therefore should not criticise the moslems of today for doing or believing the same thing he is ignoring that for mainstream Christians the revelation of Christ's message of love did not stop two-thousand years ago but is ongoing. Christians are still striving to change, to conform more nearly to the model of Christ. We are still listening to the Holy Ghost and still receiving revelation. We are still growing and changing and developing and learning. Not for nothing do we refer to ourselves as the children of God because, like children, we are still growing up.

This process of growing up can never happen in islam because the koran is fixed and immutable and nobody is allowed to apply reason to it or to re-interpret it or to give more credence to some verses than to others. Small wonder, then, that as the centuries have passed islam has begun to look like a barbarous, Satan worshipping death cult whilst the secular, liberal democracies of the West with their Christian heritage have forged ahead politically, economically, socially and, most importantly, morally. Only in the West does one find the deep level of moral debate that we are used to; only here is there any hope for mankind's future development.

Mr. Esmay, I have only one thing to say to you - grow up!

Dominic.

Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem

at May 28, 2006 12:43 PM

It is obvious that Mr. Esmay has bought into all the PC-speak about Christianity. It seems that he hasn't actually spoken to a real mainstream Christian in quite a few years, or, perhaps, at all.

Mr. Esmay, I have only one thing to say to you - grow up!

Dominic.

Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem

at May 28, 2006 12:44 PM

Sorry about the double post. My finger slipped.

Dominic.

Posted by: necessitasnonhabetlegem

at May 28, 2006 12:46 PM

Mr. Esmay worries about non-existant problems with Christianity and the Bible (the Inquisitions are long gone, slavery was outlawed by Christians, starting in England and ending with a Civil War in America... or did Mr. E cut those classes in history?) when we have an ongoing, world-spanning, daily terroristic problem with the "religion of peace", AKA Islam, and specifically with intolerant, dogmatic, anti-freedom, misogynistic Islamic Imperialism.

Now, what is his point?

That he knows Muslims who do not really follow the Koran?

Wonderful.

I hope this trend continues and that they all Mohammedans become apostates to the playbook of that pedophile warlord, popularly known as the "Recitation" (al-Qur'an).

But to deny that the main Islamic texts, the Koran and the Hadiths, are riddled with hateful, vengeful, contemptuous and distorted views of all other faiths, then Mr. Esmay, as I have recommended previously, should pick up a few (pre-p.c. translation) Korans, and start thumbing this curious little book (shorter than the New Testament). Then delve into the various Hadiths (Bukhari, et al) for some insight intot the type of person Muslims are following (and de facto 'worshipping'... as the cartoon jihad demonstrated... in the figure of "the perfect man" Mohammad).

Maybe then he will doubt the bona fides of his Muslim friends (ironically it is "forbidden for Muslims to have infidels as friends", -or perhaps he missed that quaint Islamic teaching) when they deride a site like this for being "malicious", etc.

The truth is a bitch. And her puppies are starting to spread throughout the web.

They even have teeth... honed on a growing knowledge of Islam.

It is a warlord's "religion", at root, and intends to conquer the world, either through slow infiltration or violent jihad. That's the plan they espouse in their mosques, whether disguised in metaphors ("justice for the oppressed Muslims") or openly, as with Abu "Hook" Hamza.

I oppose this plan, since its success would result in the end of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and human development. Locking us in the 7th century forever. Bowing to the dismal tenets of a murderous military conqueror.

Or does Mr. Espay espouse that?

I just don't see what he wants, other than to make his Muslim 'friends' feel good.

Instead of asking them what they want.

Let him quiz them about the aims of Islam, ultimately.

And the world that would result from their theocratic dominion.

I see a tyrannical "religious" gulag, from Trinidad and Tobago to Tokyo, with mullahs, imams and ayatollahs regulating every aspect of human existence, from the size of the stones useful for killing women who commit adultery to which hand, which animal and which compass point is "unclean".

Personally, I'd rather see all Muslims leave Islam in disgust with its vile dogmas. And stop defending the indefensible, the incredibly superstitious, and the frankly ludicrous ("the shooting stars are missiles used to hit devils with", ad absurdum).

The end of Islam will be a relief for the world, like a Berlin Wall the size of Mt. Everest falling.

I wish all Muslims liberation from submission.

And Allah a nice glass case in an air-conditioned museum, right next to Quetzecoatl, Moloch and Baal.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at May 28, 2006 12:49 PM

"And Allah a nice glass case in an air-conditioned museum, right next to Quetzecoatl, Moloch and Baal."

Lenin too, PB.

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 12:57 PM

Ignorant know-it-alls like Dean Esmay make stars like Spencersirius shine all the more brighter.

Keep up the good work Robert and may one day all Muslims see the light.

Posted by: William The Crusader

at May 28, 2006 1:05 PM

Esmay wrote:
Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong!

mmmm...the Bible says:

Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you".

Also,

Mark 12:31 "...Love your neighbour as yourself..."

So unless Dean Esmay wants to be a slave, then the Bible actually quite clearly state that slavery is wrong.

/Goes back to sleep

Posted by: Thuunda

at May 28, 2006 1:06 PM

To further refute the spirit of Dean Esmay. I should send him R. Burns documentary New York. One could ask why? I especially like the episodes from 1919-1931; this tells the years of red scare, boom, boom and more boom and then bust of 1929. It shows the magnificent spirit of the non-Muslim. A spirit bursting with creativity, culture and intelect. We are in total sense the descendents of Europe. I also like episode eight which shows the creation of the WTC and follows the building through 911. It shows the endless vitality of man, his strivings and failures. Where is such a society in Islam? Where are such cities? Not Dubai with its nice post-card facade, but the real gritty: The Lincoln Center, the NY Public Library, Jazz, the pulsating diversity and freeman? who somehow manage to avoid killing each other . . . where is this in Islam? Not just the facade, the smiling Bandar, the dhimmi-yes men of the West--the answer is this zest is destroyed by Islam, reducing its peoples in every way. Something about the US and our cities brings out the best in man. We reinvent ourselves. This reinventing occurs within Islam too, but in the wrong direction: kind of like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Perhaps this Dean Esmay or Zogby or whomever would put the blame on colonialist crusaders smashing 'a great civilization.' Bolderdash.

Posted by: biorabbi

at May 28, 2006 1:19 PM

My humble observation on this subject;

I have read many things Robert has written. I have compared that with what little history I have read. I compare what Robert has written with events that are taking place at the present time. Robert, you are correct.

The more people like Mr. Esmay get brave enough to come forward with their entrenched “superior” knowledge, the more I learn from it. All these people think they can approach the subject with a nice smile and soothing twisted words all the while positioning the knife in the back. If he is so intent on doing some good, why don’t he go to the Middle East and go to work on Hamas, - Hizbollah, - PLO, - PFLP-GC - Thug of Iran - etc. etc........There is a lot of good work he could do there.

Robert - Right On.
Esmay - -Idiot

Posted by: THSIMJ

at May 28, 2006 1:20 PM

Let no man deceive himself.If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, Let him become a fool.That he may be wise. ...I see Robert always asking, wanting to learn and teach....I dont get that from other so-called experts....I'll stick to Jihad Watch...

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 1:31 PM

Thuunda-

The argument is a contorted attempt to make some moral equivalency between Islam-Mohammed and Christianity-Christ. I am not a sectarian relgious man, but the whole message of Christ is "turn the other cheek" and the Sermon on the Mount.

Ghandi said that it was reading and rereading Jesus' "Resist not evil. Turn the other cheek" that caused him to persue the road of nonviolence as a force to move mountains in India.

Ghandi said he kept wondering what Jesus meant when he said "Resist not evil. Turn the other cheek" and one morning when he was taking a walk it came to him: he said (and my memeory is pretty close re this) "What Jesus meant is that you must speak the truth and you must show the greatest of bravery. You must speak the truth even if it means taking a blow on the face, even if you must take several blows on the face-and that you must stand your ground, not back-down, and continue to speak the truth and that this was the way to defeat evil."

There is simply no essence-of-teaching comparison between the violence of Mohammad and the teachings and nonviolent behavior of Jesus. That is the truth (and I'll stand my ground on that-LOL.)

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 1:44 PM

I have yet to see elephants fly. Emsay and his ilk are not still looking, but are absolutely postive they can. Someone told them so.

Posted by: Sheik er' Bouti

at May 28, 2006 1:49 PM

I looked at Esmay's website and find him to be a seriously confused man. He claims to be an atheist, but takes every opportunity to say he doesn't want to be an atheism and to attack atheism. Some could mistake Esmay's ambivalence about atheism for open minded effort at serious thought. Instead, I suspect that it is an emotionally needy form of intellectual masochism.

Intellectual masochism and not "moral relativism" or "cultural relativism" is what underlies most dhimmi attitudes like Esmay's. To label a set of values as a form of "relativism" implies a well-thought philosophical approach. Instead, we observe the incoherent floundering that characterizes Esmay and other dhimmis. I suspect that the only reason "relativism" is brought up to be attacked by the right-wing has something do with the needs of the Catholic Church to defend its bizarre moral philosophy, especially the Doctrine of the Double Effect. (Ask any friend ignorant about Catholic moral philosophy about the Doctrine the Double Effect and see if they don't think it's crazy.) Charges of relativism have little to do with the statements of the alleged relativists.

Posted by: Pediomelum

at May 28, 2006 1:51 PM

It seems to me that the evil of Christians is in not following the teachings of Jesus and the evil of Muslims is in following the teachings of Mohammad.

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 2:06 PM

I realize that your reference to slavery and the Bible was only an off hand point to you and not really part of your essay.

It may be a minor point, but the offhand reference to slavery in the Bible bothered me. I am Jewish and can not speak about the Christian viewpoint on the subject. However, in Judaism, the word translated as "slavery" has nothing to do with the slavery in the United States before the Civil War or the slavery being perpetrated nowadays in Sudan. In fact, "Do not Steal" in the ten commandments means "do not kidnap". If a slave runs away from his master, we are forbidden to return him. The way a slave is to be treated is very strictly regulated. The talmud says (paraphrase), "He who purchases a slave has purchased a master". As a result, any discussion using slavery as an analogy has to differentiate the actual "slavery" being discussed.

In fact, anyone who attempted to justify slavery (as carried out before the Civil War or in Sudan) using the Bible only shows his ignorance of the Bible.

Sabba Hillel
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7637/544/640/SabbaHillel.jpg

Posted by: Sabba Hillel

at May 28, 2006 2:26 PM

Dear Robert,

As if I needed to be reminded, once again I am struck by your perspicacity and even moreso by your patience in dealing with such a twisted, irrational, hate-spewer like the Esmay.

Yikes! What illogic! What false analogies! What moral equivocation!

"...some mainstream Christian groups have changed [their view on slavery]..."

How insane is that?

But the point is well-made: Islam is stuck to a dogmatic (and irrational) reading of an absurdly contradictory text and will never be able to correct the potential evils that flow from that fact, contrary to what the Christian church has always done, from day one, through the application to scripture and to the faith of reason and experience.

Happy Memorial Day. It's Open Trackback Sunday at TDO.

D. Ox
http://thomistic.blogspot.com

Posted by: Dumb Ox

at May 28, 2006 2:31 PM

Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong! Sure you say that some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!

Prove him wrong? OK, Dean.

You're wrong. This is not very complicated.

A large, mainstream Christian school rejects slavery outright and without reservation and has done so for years..

No such large, mainstream Islamic school rejects jihad.

Posted by: Powderfinger

at May 28, 2006 2:35 PM

Robert,

Innovation is forbidden in Islam. It is a sin.

You know this. Esmay knows it as well. And this is why your attempts at honest debate with apologist "scholars" like Esmay will never result in an honest response or a fruitful debate. He wants peace at any cost, and the truth is a very, very, minor price to pay for that in the minds of people like him. The moment Esmay acknowledges the truth of the plain point you are making (and which he continues to dance around)--that every mainstream school of Islamic thought acknowledges that violent jihad is a part of koranic and hadith law--he is acknowledging that this can never be changed by any devout Muslim, and that taking the conflict to its conclusion is the only way things will ever be settled between Muslims and the rest of us kuffār. Their law forbids any other solution except our subjugation. Esmay would rather carry on the lie that Islam is a religion of peace, in the hopes that most Muslims will somehow start believing it if it's repeated often enough. He is a fool.

But I'm not just looking critically at Esmay. As I said, you're certainly as well-aware of this fact as Esmay, and, like him, dancing around it with this stuff about respecting any Muslim who acknowledges that violent oppression of nonbelievers is enmeshed in written Islamic law, and then rejects this violence. Since, again, that sort of innovation is forbidden and considered to be one of the worst sins in Islam, I'm sure you know that no devout Muslim can ever do such a thing.

So let's stop this tapdancing and false moderation and get to the point: the conflict of Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations (if you want to attach that word to the former; I hardly think that's appropriate) can play out in only one way: Muslims waging jihad against the rest of us, again and again, whenever they become sufficiently powerful that they think they might be able to beat us. And this will NEVER end as long as Islam exists. Eternal war is built-in to Islamic law, as is injunction against ever changing this fact.

Posted by: Pickle

at May 28, 2006 2:41 PM

I hardly know what to say. I've read and re-read everything Mr. Esmay has to say and all I can conclude is that a village somewhere is missing it's idiot.

Posted by: realwest

at May 28, 2006 3:02 PM

Well, to steal from Dorothy Parker,the affair between Dean Esmay and Dean Esmay will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature (only rivalled by Lawrence Auster's white hot passion for Lawrence Auster.)

Posted by: AnneCrockett

at May 28, 2006 3:25 PM

"Spencer's ultimate argument is based on a red herring"

The only red herring Robert Spencer will ever see is if Dean Esmay takes a white herring and spray paints it red.

Posted by: billybob

at May 28, 2006 3:34 PM

Pickle,

I am with you. RS seems to have a problem getting to the point. You may be interested to review an exchange between he and I on a thread from yesterday (May 27) entitled "On assertions without evidence". At this writing, I am the last one to have posted in that exchange.

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 28, 2006 3:35 PM

"I hardly know what to say. I've read and re-read everything Mr. Esmay has to say and all I can conclude is that a village somewhere is missing it's idiot."-rw

Re intellectual firepower-and honesty:

The whole thing is a mis-match. It's like putting Peewee Herman (Esmay) in the ring against Mike Tyson (Robert). After 1 Round Esmay looks like a pizza pie. I think Robert just likes to spar and tune up for the real matches-same with himself (AKA Hugh).

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 3:43 PM

Frank:

I am not now, nor have ever been, Hugh Fitzgerald.

Neverpayretail:

I think you are missing my point, as well as my methodology. As I told you before, I have no substantive disgreement with Hugh Fitzgerald on that issue. Of that I am 100% certain. If you think you see one, you are misunderstanding either me or him.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 28, 2006 3:48 PM

"Frank: I am not now, nor have ever been, Hugh Fitzgerald."

Robert,

I know that's true for sure. "Himself" (as Irish lads sometime refer to types like Hugh) is a bit puffy in the chest. He's in charge-it's unspoken.

But he does know his stuff, smart man, scholar.

Posted by: Frank

at May 28, 2006 4:06 PM

Robert --

Yes you have been Hugh Fitzgerald.

Posted by: Hugh

at May 28, 2006 4:43 PM

Robert Spencer,

Wow!

"I think you are missing my point, as well as my methodology." This sounds so familiar, just like an Islamist and their apologists claiming the Koran is being quoted out of context, that translations from Arabic to English are inadequate, etc.

"As I told you before, I have no substantive disgreement [sic] with Hugh Fitzgerald on that issue. Of that I am 100% certain." Denial! This is a clear refusal to address the evidence and logic so presented.

"If you think you see one, you are misunderstanding either me or him." Projection! You project the problem onto me! Instead of addressing my logic, you dismiss me in like manner to Islamists and their apologists - it is all just a misunderstanding of the peaceful nature of Islam.

Remarkable! When backed into a corner, prideful human nature is revealed over and over again across the entire spectrum of human activity and all history. Sir, I respect your scholarship, as much as I respect James Madison (author of the Constitution). However, as you refuse to explicitly declare Islam dangerous and violent, Madison refused to declare slavery inconsistent with the principles of freedom on which this country was founded. He was not alone. For seventy years this country was locked in an endless debate over slavery that only allowed its further entrenchment, to where a horrible war had to be fought to end the damn thing.

The same is happening now concerning the threat of Islam. The threat is manifest in Europe NOW. Today we have the same denial, the same refusal to cross that line, to declare Islam dangerous and violent, and REJECT it. Outwardly. Openly. No apology. No regrets. Otherwise, its entrenchment will march on here as it has in Europe.

There is an out. You can Change Your Mind.

Sincerely,
neverpayretail

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 28, 2006 5:08 PM

Neverpayretail:

Sir, I know Hugh Fitzgerald. Hugh Fitzgerald is a friend of mine. When I say that Hugh Fitzgerald and I have no substantive disagreement on this issue, I am telling you something that I know to be true. Your logic may be crystalline, but if it leads to a disagreement between Hugh and me on this issue, it has led you astray -- and no amount of comparing me to an Islamist in response can change that.

Your analogy is faulty: James Madison was pro-slavery. I.e., he did nothing to stop slavery. He may have owned slaves; I don't know. Now, if you think that your analogy applies to me, i.e., I am doing nothing to stop the Islamization and dhimmitude of the West, you simply haven't been paying attention.

I invite you to search the archives here, read the FAQ, read my articles, and read my books. I am not trying to sell you anything. But do that, and then come back and tell me I'm comparable to an Islamist and soft on the spread of Islam in the West and its imminent subjugation. My views are patent and clear.

Anyway, you are under no obligation to read this site if you think I'm pro-jihad. There are plenty of others. Consult the links on the front page.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 28, 2006 5:18 PM

With Islam's built-in programs of deceit and treachery, how can you possibly know for certain that a "moderate" Muslim is truly moderate? Other than their word, how can you know?

Not to mention: "take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors..." (Quran 5:51)

Posted by: Greg

at May 28, 2006 5:19 PM

Slavery and the West

The West is the only civilization in all history that has not only voluntarily given up the practice of slavery, but has also, in the process of that progress, developed a wealth of ethical, legal, political and philosophical tools to deconstruct slavery.

Furthermore, the modern West deconstructed its own slaveholding culture in large part on the basis of the enduring, resilient, evolving, progressive genius of Christianity. Esmay and others like him apparently demand that any ethical belief-system worth its salt be statically valid: this is not how the real world lives and breathes: goodness, in people and in societies, grows and develops over time. The West, beginning as Classical Rome & Greece, continuing for centuries as Christendom, then building upon that in sometimes antagonistic but ultimately mature dialogue as the modern West has done more good for the world than any other civilization in history -- because over time, slowly and painfully, it has become more good than any other civilization in history.

Posted by: Television

at May 28, 2006 5:51 PM

Robert Spencer,

My criticism of your failure to address my argument in no way implies you are pro-jihad. My criticism shows that you use the same avoidance tactics when backed into a corner as the Islamists. Concerning "crystalline" logic leading me astray, if the logic is crystalline, and the evidence clear, it is not I who is in error.

My analogy is not faulty. Madison spoke in such convoluted fashion about slavery that only one thing was obvious - he did not want to talk about it, fearful of the effect on the union he had just worked to establish. Endless debate did ensue in the public sector, with no progress, and slavery did become more entrenched over that time. With Islam we see the same in Europe now.

I do not suggest you are doing nothing to halt the spread of Islam. While you do not speak in convoluted fashion about jihad, you clearly refuse to declare Islam dangerous and violent, and so take the next step - rejection of Islam, as opposed to stuck in endless debate about Islam. You have not been paying attention. My views in this exchange are patent and clear.

As such, the basis for your invitation that I search archives, read FAQ, articles, books, as well as reminding me I am under no obligation to read this site, and consult links, is faulty, requiring no further comment.

Sincerely,
neverpayretail

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 28, 2006 6:15 PM

A minor and probably redundant note on the Esmay paragraphs quoted above:

"Spencer's ultimate argument is based on a red herring: I (and others) are supposed to point to any mainstream school of Islamic thought that completely rejects holy war (violent jihad). Well, none of them do. So what? I never thought they did.
"Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong! Sure you say that some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!"

The first paragraph compares bodies of thought and commentary with Scripture itself. This is an improper comparison and a detour; the second paragraph returns to a comparison of Muslim and Christian bodies of thought and action, which is the proper comparison for his ostensible purpose, to show that Mr. Spencer's "ultimate argument is based on a red herring."

Comment 1: The thing I would be ashamed of if I had written it is the words he puts into his rhetorical opponent's mouth that "some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this." Some? SOME? Please show me a mainstream Christian group today that says that slavery is okay. For extra credit, review the history of abolitionism in the West, noting whether or not abolitionism was connected with and arose from "mainstream Christian groups."

Comment 2: I would not use the slavery example from the Muslim side in a debate like this because the actual history seems to be (correct me if I am wrong) that the main bodies of Christianity worked actively to abolish the pro-slavery positions and actions of the main bodies of Muslims, even into the late 20th century. That is, if we compare the "main schools" on the issue of slavery, the Muslim side comes out as defending slavery against a multi-century anti-slavery campaign from the Christians. A most unflattering comparison, from the Muslim side.

Pilgrim

Posted by: Pilgrim

at May 28, 2006 6:22 PM

profitsbeard

Then delve into the various Hadiths (Bukhari, et al) for some insight intot the type of person Muslims are following (and de facto 'worshipping'... as the cartoon jihad demonstrated... in the figure of "the perfect man" Mohammad).

And that is why we should return to calling them Muhammadans -- Worshipers of Muhammad and maybe Allah

Posted by: dennisw

at May 28, 2006 6:45 PM

As far as xianity, the Bible and slavery, the "slavery" of the OT wasn't based on ethnicity nor on a massive trading of peoples. It was part of the penal system where a victim could impose, within limits, a period of time in which the offender, rendered service. All slaves were to be set free every Jubilee year as well. The slavery then of the US and the Roman Empire was far more expansive in terms of it being applied as part of conquest or narrow in terms of only applying to peoples of African descent only. The New Testament pretty much, through the teaching of Paul, precludes Roman type slavery because all peoples were made in God's image so that an offense against the person was an assault on God. Since Islam has no notion of the Image of God, since the very notion of an "icon of God" is blasphemy and their theology is constructed on strict voluntarism, persons can have at best instrumental rather than intrinsic use.

Moreover, the Theodosian Code, promulgated under Theodosius I in 382, in which he made Christianity the state religion (not Constantine by the way) weakened punishments for offenders bringing it more in line with the Biblical concept of slavery. That is, one couldn't be sentenced to die in the Circus or games but would rather serve in the mines. Not a great advance, but one, nonetheless. Further advances were made under Justinian in the 6th century. Added to this was church law that forbid branding of humans or the keeping of slaves and therefore far more extensive, and far earlier, in its rejection of slavery as practiced under the Romans than the earlier two mentioned codes. The banishment of slaveyr in the western world, in the medieval west and east, then was the product of Christianizing a society, whereas the reintroduction of slavery to the western national powers in the Enlightenment period was by and large the result of the Islamization of North African cultures and their interaction with said western powers.

Posted by: American_Palamite

at May 28, 2006 6:53 PM

" I hope you wont allow yourself to be trapped into wasting your valuable time on this lightweight. "

from a post above.

I agree Robert. Methinks that Esmay will be flattered by the headline "Esmay speaks" and the associated (undeserved IMO) attention his correspondence has created.

Posted by: cathkins

at May 28, 2006 6:54 PM

Retail:

I will not be maneuvered into making a statement that would be simplistic and misleading.

Islam is more multifaceted than Nazism, and involves many beliefs, some good, some bad. You are comparing a huge 1400-year-old tradition over many nations with 12 years of Germany. If you met a Nazi in 1938, you would know what he thinks. But the fact is that when you meet a Muslim today you can have no certainty about what he thinks or knows.

This does not mean that I think there is some sect of Islam that teaches indefinite peaceful coexistence as equals with non-Muslims; there isn't. But Islam has meant many things to many people at different times. There are Muslims that know nothing of what I am saying here. This is a fact that must be reckoned with.

To condemn it outright as such would also be too easily misunderstood in many ways. It would drive away people who would otherwise be our allies -- and I am not in the business of doing that. In this fight we need all the help we can get. It would also be seen as genocidal, and would thus be counterproductive to the anti-jihad effort.

So I will not be maneuvered into doing it. I have been quite specific about core elements of Islam that are evil and must be resisted by every decent human being. I have been quite specific about the circumstances under which Muslims should be allowed into Western countries in a sane society. If that is not enough for you, so be it.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 28, 2006 7:24 PM

Mr Spencer,

I'm a woman who used to embrace and love Islam, at least the version of Islam that I knew. Granted, I always knew Islam was bigoted towards women and believed it to be a patriarchal religion, but I firmly believed in “submission to the merciful and kind Allah”. I thought that just like other religions, Islam needed to reform itself and adjust to 14 centuries of social changes. In the aftermath of 9/11, I was appalled by the reaction of many of my fellow Muslims. While I felt terrible shame at sharing a common religion and ethnicity with the 19 mass murderers, many Muslims I knew, some who have been living in the States for over 25 years, felt glee. Upon a trip to the Gulf, I learnt that some restaurants brought in large projection screens so people could enjoy their meals while watching thousands burn alive in NYC and DC. I was disgusted and started my quest for answers. I wanted to distance myself as much as possible from the terrorists, rather than my religion. It did not take long for me to realize that Prophet Mohamed had two completely different personalities. One I call the Mecca personality where he preached mercy and charity. The second is the Medina personality where he turned into a ruthless tyrant. While I had read the Quran in Arabic many times (Arabic is after all my native language), I never fully understood it until I read the English translation. As you know, the Arabic version borrowed many words from Aramaic and other ancient languages that I did not understand. I started noticing the huge contrast between the violent message of Mohamed and the loving message of Jesus Christ. When I learnt about the Quraiza massacre, the enslavement of the Quraiza females (Mohamed took one as his wife after killing all the males in her family), the murder of Fatima bint Marwan, and how conveniently God sent Mohamed a verse ordering him to marry a woman who was practically his daughter-in-law, I felt disheartened, betrayed and appalled. I, therefore, walked away from this religion and never turned back. When Mr Esmay talk about the moderate Muslims he knows, he needs to be aware of one thing. Muslims who support terrorism –even if they may never carry it themselves – know how to play what I call the “Arafat” game very well. They say one thing to a westerner and another to a fellow Arab. On 9/11, as we stood watching the Pentagon on fire from my office window, a Palestinian-American colleague of mine, gave me a nudge and said in Arabic with a smile on his face “It was about time”. This is after parading his sorrow for all other American office workers to see. This gentleman had been living in the US for 30 freaking years. I had only been a resident for 3 years then and was not even an American citizen yet. Mr Esmay is right that not all Muslims are terrorists. My family would never hurt a fly. Nevertheless, they are incapable of any scrutiny of Islam. They firmly believe that 9/11 is what else – a Jewish conspiracy. This refusal of Muslims to criticize their religion is the reason it cannot be reformed. That, and Prophet Mohamed’s declaration that the Quran applies to all times and cannot be changed (which as an Arabic speaker, I beg to differ with). For people like me, the truth comes at a cost. You are ostracized and doomed to a lonely existence, away from your own. If you decide to speak, they ask for your head on a platter. So you stay silent, try to listen to their endless conspiracy theories without screaming, thank God for your American passport and for the great and unique country of America.

Mr Spencer, I know you are a beacon of truth Please keep enlightening us. Mr Esmay ought to take a queue from you. His actions can only hamper efforts towards reforming Islam, and marginalize people in my position.

Thank you.

Mishka

Posted by: Mishka

at May 28, 2006 7:51 PM

I was just reading a chapter in Leaving Islam that made think of this post.........Later I realized that this prejudice and hatred Muslims harbor in their hearts against almost all non-muslims is not the result of any misinterpretation of the teachings of the koran but because the koran teaches hate and prejudice. There are many verses in the koran that call believers to hate nonbelievers, to fight them, to call them najis, to subdue and humiliate them, to chop off their heads and other limbs, to crucify them kill them wherever they find them. ALI SINS --Leaving Islam.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 7:58 PM

sorry typo..ALI SINA

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 7:58 PM

Dean boy needs to learn how to use frames. His site is unreadable.

Posted by: Jaynie59

at May 28, 2006 8:05 PM

Mishka,

Wow! Thank you for that powerful comment. And thank you for becoming an American.

Posted by: del

at May 28, 2006 8:19 PM

That's an excellent comment, Mishka. I wonder how many Muslims have had the information and freedom to reexamine their religion as you have? I bet plenty. But I wonder how many of them have been able to talk about it? Not many, I bet, since that can get your throat cut in many parts of the world.

The logical fallacy in what Esmay says is fairly subtle, Robert. You asked for the identification of any mainstream school of Islamic thought that completely rejects violent jihad; he responds by asking where the Bible rejects slavery.

If Esmay wanted to stay on the topic, he would have asked for the identification of any mainstream school of Christian thought that rejects slavery, the answer to which is "All of them,'" though this would have been a lousy way for Esmay to argue his point, so I can understand why he needed to change the subject.

Posted by: Pavel

at May 28, 2006 8:35 PM

And now that I've gone back and read Esmay's actual post, rather than the small excerpt quoted above, I see that he goes on to say, after he questions where the Bible condemns slavery,

Would you consider that statement to be tendentious? Pernicious? Mean-spirited? Well, you should, because it would be, because while Christianity does have a long and sorry history of embracing slavery, and the Bible does indeed fail to condemn slavery, in recent centuries Christians have been instrumental in ending the practice, and Christians are still fighting it, and they are to be applauded for it.

In other words, in the famous words of Emily Litella, "never mind." It's a lot more reasonable in context.

Posted by: Pavel

at May 28, 2006 8:44 PM

If in Robert's article above one follows the link to the site statistics for Jihad Watch and Esmay, and if one assumes there are 500 million internet users in the world on any given day, one gets the following numbers of visitors to Esmay's and JihadWatch:

Average daily number of visitors for the last 3 months:

Jihadwatch: 48,500 visitors per day
Esmay: 12,500 visitors per day

So Esmay seems to have royally put his foot in it by his false brag that he gets more traffic than Jihad Watch. Over the last three months Jihad Watch received four times the number of visitors.

Posted by: traeh

at May 28, 2006 9:00 PM

Mishka You are a voice of reason...if more had reason instead of bloodlust...We wouldn't be here now.We would be enjoying our family's and watching a sunset....Thank you..

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 9:47 PM

Sheik says:
"Last night I went to the carnival in Port Douglas. I saw hundreds of young, scantily clad women have fun and enjoy themselves. Later on I took a stroll around town, watching young, happy couples walking home, laughing, having fun.

"Suddenly, it occurred to me that we have no inbuilt resistance to Muhammedan infiltration. Our people are totally unprepared and far too naive to deal with cunning and deceit, and the evil of Islam.

We will collapse like the Incas when the Conquistadors invaded...

So by not talking about it, by trying to dodge the issues, the problem will go away? Don't think so..."
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 28, 2006 08:42 AM

Great point, sheik. I've been thinking the same sorts of things lately. People are so preoccupied by amusements (not to mention important stuff like work, family, etc.) that they just aren't mentally and physically prepared for what is, gradually, hitting us and changing our societies. It requires a certain amount of interest and investment of time to figure out that there's more behind this than a small handful of radical terrorists, but all the information is right there in the opne if people want to look for it. We should have already a comprehensive strategy implemented, but for the most part we are still at the stage of trying to wake people up. But I guess that's always how it's been--'some must watch while some must sleep' (Shakespeare).

Posted by: Archimedes

at May 28, 2006 9:58 PM

Archimedes you are wise....I told my sister n law about Islam and gave her a list of websites....and books to read...She said I want to be happy and I dont want to talk about this stuff.....me too......But my eyes are open.....maybe being asleep is less painful.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 28, 2006 10:03 PM

Esmay is wrong to say that Christianity has a long track record of "embracing" slavery. Christianity TOLERATED slavery, but that is quite different from tacitly endorsing and promoting it.

In fact, several instances within the Bible suggest that if anything, slavery was something on the way out from the moment that Christ said that his followers should "love one another, as I have loved you." And additionally, when Christ said that his Holy Spirit would descend when he ascended, and that the Spirit of Truth, would "lead you unto all truth." That line where he stated that His Spirit would descend, would guide the Church, would watch over her, and preserve her from doctrinal error, and moreover, LEAD the Church towards all truth, contained within it, from its inception, ab initiio, the possibility of doctrinal development. WHICH THE GREAT CARDINAL NEWMAN wrote about, in his seminal essay "ON DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE."

Islam by contrast, has within it, no feature that allows for doctrinal development, nor a history not scholastic tradition, that affords such development. WHICH THE POPE, Benedict XVI, recently observed.

The Koran, the recitation IS, it is not the inspired word of anything or anyone. It is UNCREATED. Now if you're a muslim, the possibility of the recitation being faulty, being insufficeint, nor having within it the answer to all future possibilities, is simply blasphemous, absolutely blasphemous.

I don't know why Esmay, Ms. Kusanagi and so many others have trouble grasping that. Especially when a theological expert such as Josef Ratzinger articulated the problems with islamic doctrinal development so precisely.

I mean Esamy, read up boy.

Posted by: Dan

at May 28, 2006 10:28 PM

As for Christianity and slavery, notice this:

"Both slave and free must equally philosophize, whether male or female in sex...whether barbarian, Greek, slave, whether an old man, or a boy, or a woman...And we must admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue." These remarks by [Christian theologian] Clement of Alexandria (c.200) cannot be confused with the view of most educated citizens of the Roman Empire in the third century. The sentiments they express would have been equally unusual, or more so, in the other great civilizations of the time: the various empires stretching across Asia, as well as those in the Americas and in Africa south of the Sahara.

-- from page 2 of Christianity on Trial, by Vincent Carroll & David Shiflett

One need not believe in Christ to understand that the early Christians and the New Testament brought an unprecedented consciousness of human equality into history, along with a new liberty, both of those values implicit and sometimes explicit in the message of universal love. Human equality and liberty were part of the message in Christ's washing of the diciples' feet, as well as in his separation of the things of Caesar from the things of God, and in much else he is reputed to have done.

The movement for the end of slavery in the world was started by Christians in Great Britain, who used the Gospels and emphasized Christian beliefs to make the case against slavery. As far as I know, no comparable and comparably effective anti-slavery movement has happened in any other culture in the world, though slavery had been practiced virtually everywhere at almost all times until the Christian abolitionists came along. The rest of the world slowly followed the Christian, and Western, lead on this issue.

Slavery even now still exists in parts of the Islamic world. Muhammed considered it a good deed to free one's slaves, but according to mainstream Muslim scholarly tradition, he owned slaves and concubines himself, and supported among his followers the taking of slaves as booty in war. Nothing like that can be said for the central figure of the Gospels.

More people need to study Islam more closely, reading Qur'an and Hadith, in order to grasp that a major religion like Islam can be a cult in the negative sense, with a hatred of spiritual freedom, and global totalitarian plans, even though many Muslims are benign and good people who have no such plans and who are not particularly aware of the tenets of their own cult.

Posted by: traeh

at May 28, 2006 10:29 PM

Mishka - thanks for that post. It was fascinating and moving.

Former Muslims are very powerful in waking people up in the best way. I hope you will continue to do whatever you can, but keep safe.

Posted by: traeh

at May 28, 2006 10:38 PM

Over at Ali Sina's faith freedom anti-Islam site you can sign up to buy his book when it comes out.

Sina is a former Muslim from Iran who pulls no punches and is brilliant. He teamed up once with Robert Spencer to debate two Muslims on Frontpagemagazine.com. Robert was his brilliant and steady self; Sina was dazzling. The two Muslim debaters never knew what hit them.

Signing up for Sina's book will help get it published at a major publishing house.

Posted by: traeh

at May 28, 2006 10:53 PM

Robert,
It seems like you are having a difficult time getting through to Dean Esmay. Perhaps you could communicate with him more effectively if you employed some of his own techniques:

Over dramatizing,
Over simplifying,
Glossing over and dismissive of valid points
Shrill name calling
Provably Inaccurate statements
Overall hysterical juvenile tone

Esmay apparently, doesn't "get" logical, factual, verified, articulate, concise, reasoned prose, such as you provide.

Posted by: Xero G

at May 28, 2006 10:55 PM

Mishka-

Welcome.

Very moved by your tribulation.

Write your story down, from 9/11 on.

Your words are powerful and your insight is important and needs to be heard. It would make a valuable book.

(If you do, try contacting Regnery publishers once you have an serious outline and at least the first chapter -20 pages or so should do. They have contracted Mr. Spencer's next book on the Muslim "prophet", to be called: "THE TRUTH ABOUT MUHAMMAD", and might be interested in your intimate side of this world-historical conflict.)

People in the West need more critical viewpoints, like yours, about the hidden face behind the "moderate" veil of Islam.

Freedom is more frightening than the cocoon of slavery, but it is the only place the heart can open.

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

-George Washington.

All the best.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at May 28, 2006 11:11 PM

I have written an essay on sophistry and moral equivalence which is sufficiently demonstrated by Dean.

http://www.james-everest.org/freedom/

Interesting how liberals are always so proud.

Posted by: james_everest

at May 29, 2006 12:32 AM

While I had read the Quran in Arabic many times (Arabic is after all my native language), I never fully understood it until I read the English translation. Posted by Mishka

Thanks for sharing your story with us. I think the American people would be astounded at the number of loyal, patriotic, muslim "Americans" who celebrated 9-11 with flagrant exuberance, as well as the duplicitous deceivers who celebrated behind closed doors, while feigning shock and sorrow in public. The Islamic apologists and useful idiots have argued here that the muslim "community" was as deeply shocked and saddened by 9-11 as all other Americans, and they have excoriated anyone who claims otherwise.

Many Islamic scholars, apologists, appeasers, and useful idiots have insisted that to understand Islam, one must speak Arabic. Yet you, an Arabic speaker, were enlightened by an English translation. I find this very interesting.

Posted by: Susanp

at May 29, 2006 1:03 AM

Esmay has admitted in his ugly way that Islam is not reformable, and Jihad will always be with us. I will always maintain that Christianity is, in fact, reformed Judaism. Christ taught us a lot of things, the most important of which was the separation of the spitirual from the physical. Spiritual cleanliness and physical cleanliness are not the same thing. My Christian God does not care which hand I eat with. He certainly doesn't care whether or not I have had a bath before I go to Church.

Even if an Islamic messiah were to arrive and proclaim a "new" Islam, there would be those who would not follow. It would create another division in an already fragmented, contentious religion. If this "new" Islam attracted 500 million followers, there would still be 750 million Mohammedans to to continue with the killing, torture, rape, bombings, burnings, beheadings, ad mauseum.

Posted by: Pelayo

at May 29, 2006 1:06 AM

I am an unabashed and unashamed atheist, a social liberal, that is sometimes conservative (depends on the issue) and sometimes Leftist and sometimes Rightist (again depending on issues, I refuse to allow some self appointed demigogue(s) define me and my agenda, which is simple.. maximum choice, liberty and freedom for all, but I can not and will not bestow upon others that which they will not bestow upon me.. none of that turn the other cheek and offer my neck to the scimitar crap.

That said and done Robert is on the side of the angels (where there angels in deed), and has clearly proven that Esmay and his ilk cherry pick and are guilty of what he (they) accuse Robert of (it's called projection folks).. erecting strawmen and logical fallacies, and Esmay delightfully impaled himself on the horn of his own dilemna as Robert so graciously proved. Mot only did Esmay fail to respond to Roberts challenge to wit: "He did not respond to my request to demonstrate that mainstream Islamic teaching is peaceful and tolerant, which was his initial objection to my work -" he admitted that it was impossible to find a mainstream school of Islam that rejects violent Jihad.

I go further, there is no school, scholar or Imam who will or can reject Jihad be it violent or non violent, for to do so would be apostasy and of all of the sins in Islam, apostasy (irtidad) is the worse and Muhammad clearly said that fitnah is worse than slaughter, translation subjecting Islam to trial, humiliation and examination is more horrible than slaughtering those that would subject Islam to trial, examination and humiliation (discreditation).

Esmay is not a liberal, he is, in my humble estimation a troll, a self righteous, obfuscating troll who abhors and hates the very culture that has nourished him and has provided him the means and wealth by which to attack and destroy that culture.

In other words a nihilist, in the same camp as other End Times nihilists, be they a Trotskyite, a Leninist, a Hitlerite, a Stalinist, an Ahmadinejad or a Tim La Haye. Come to think of it Islam is a nihilistic ideology, if for no other reason than it annhilates the individual, and suffocates the human spirit and unique identity.

Posted by: Nariz

at May 29, 2006 1:27 AM

My God, Mishka,

I am very moved by your story. By your abundant courage. You live in courage and truth. How it must sour life to live in silent fear, pretending to agree, as many “Muslims” like yourself must do to survive.

Are there support groups for doubting Muslims? And then for ex-Muslims, to help them “come out” to their family who consider it blasphemy, etc. So many people born into Islam must feel like you did, but I bet they have no one they can share it with. You, of course, could provide the understanding these sufferers need. Ali Sina is trying to provide that also. You could be a huge asset to the minority of Muslims whose innate sense of ethics and logic cause them to reject Islam (as Islam falls very short in these two areas).

By making your story highly available, as someone above suggested, you could change lives. In fact, I think such a story of transformative realization would be a powerful movie subject. It has a personal, spiritual, political angles to it. And the interpersonal relationships angle, too. A story of struggle for a righteous cause, and about the decision to be true to yourself.

I like to imagine that your realization about Islam has a mass collective tipping point. Meaning that with enough visibility, more and more Muslim people would recognize your truth in their own experience. And soon it would be a like a cascade! Dominos of Muslims leaving Islam (or at least determining to reform it, make it tolerant, drop jihad, etc. – I know it’s “immutable,” but in America, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”).

Thank you for the inspiring story, Mishka.

Posted by: WestwardHo

at May 29, 2006 1:48 AM

#Susanp

Thank you for your kind words.
The verses in the Quran are not in chronological order, but rather ordered by length, starting with the longest verses. What I did not know at the time was that if you arrange them in chronological order, the result is disturbing. The earlier verses, which are quite similar to the Christian message of love and forgiveness, are followed by the jihadi ones that preach violence and intolerance. As a Muslim, I focused on the good verses and believed the violent ones to apply only to the times of Jihad, when Mohamed and his followers were fighting for their life and the survival of their religion. When I realized that, according to Islam, the earlier verses are nullified by the latest ones, I felt that I was punched in the stomach. Nevertheless, I don't want you to believe that all Muslims believe in that message of violence. Most of them don't realize it. My sisters for example keep shaking their head every time they hear of an execution in Iraq stating that Prophet Mohamed has banned cutting trees, let alone hurting people. It is very hard for people to wake up and realize that the entire foundation of their faith is a disgusting swamp of lies. It was extremely hard for me to come to terms with this. I don't know why after 9/11 I felt the need to face the truth regardless of how bad it was, and others would rather hold on to what they know. I get verbally assaulted whenever I convey to other Arabs (Americans or otherwise) that I am an American first and foremost and love the US dearly. I was accused of being brainwashed and a traitor. My family is convinced that I am going straight to hell for my blasphemy. I think it is very important that people like Robert Spencer, Bernard Lewis, Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and my personal hero Dr Wafa Sultan continue fighting for us. Dr Wafa Sultan in particular did the unthinkable. She walked into the lion's den (Al Jazeera and its millions of radical viewers) and debated him with eloquence and grace. This is actually one time I would say I wish you guys spoke Arabic, because the English translation did not do her justice.

Posted by: Mishka

at May 29, 2006 1:49 AM

# Profitsbeard

Thank you for your kind words, but I think you give me way too much credit. I neither have the eloquence nor the writing skills of Mr Spencer to be able to write a book (I'm still looking for a way to make a contribution to this great country, I still don't know how). When I listen to Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Dr Wafa Sultan debate the issue, I realize how small I am, compared to these two amazing women. I firmly believe that Islam will eventually implode upon itself. I think the revolution will come from within, once Muslim women achieve financial independence. Being able to provide for myself allowed me to break many social chains that Arab society put on its female members. This is why Muslim men are terrified of women becoming more independent. As you recall, one of the first rules the Taliban put in place was prohibiting women from working. The majority of Arab men feel very threatened and resentful towards independent women. Their immediate reaction is to call them "whores", even if they were the very incarnation of piety. Sadly the capitulation of the mainstream media in both the US and Europe to the Danish cartoons have set us back 100 years I think. Appeasing jihadists will only empower them to bully us more. You'd think this would have been one of the most important lessons drawn from WW2, but alas, people are quick to forget.

Posted by: Mishka

at May 29, 2006 2:07 AM

Mishka, you may not feel equal to Dr. Sultan, but you are not small! I felt so much admiration reading your posts. It takes a lot of courage to seek the truth and then embrace it, especially when family and friends do not support your doing so, and when the culture that you are rejecting is violent against dissenters. G-d bless you, truly. And I agree, Esmay should take his cue from Robert!

Batyahgirl

Posted by: batyahgirl

at May 29, 2006 2:26 AM

Mishka,

"(I'm still looking for a way to make a contribution to this great country, I still don't know how)"

I found one way, in another of your posts:

"This is actually one time I would say I wish you guys spoke Arabic, because the English translation did not do her [Wafa Sultan] justice."

You could try to translate the transcripts with this in mind (and also provide the complete transcript, as I have read that the MEMRI translation was quite incomplete). With your background and the changes in mind and heart and society you are going through, you could be an excellent translator for such a subject.

It's just a suggestion, one for which I, and perhaps many others, would be enormously grateful.

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 2:53 AM

Robert Spencer,

Manuevered? Open, honest debate is not about maneuvering. This is not some game. In my view open, Honest debate is about changing minds with data and logic, exactly as I have brought to this exchange. What happened to miswak and tasawwuf? Now it is about the multiple facets of Islam, and all sorts of Muslims, here, there, and everywhere, over 1400 years? Why didn't you say that in the first place? It is not I doing the maneuvering. Perhaps you did not say this before because it makes you sound just like Esmay & Co. In this exchange, it appears that for You debate is all about maneuvering. Oh, and this phrase "simplistic and misleading" is just more Esmayitis creeping into your discourse when backed up against a wall.

Your own research on Islam drives decent, thinking people to declare Islam violent and dangerous. Yet, you refuse that step. On the "On assertions without evidence" thread you posted this same response, but added, "I have fangs" (some kind of threat?). Figuratively speaking, your refusal makes you a dog on a leash (with fangs), who is very, very good at barking endlessly (and I commend the excellent substance behind the bark) at the likes of Esmay, intellectually speaking, a mere chattery squirrel. People get used to the bark, and know they can walk safely past. You run out to the end of your self-imposed chain, and cannot reach them. They learn to Ignore You.

You reply that condemning Islam "would also be seen as genocidal". Huh? Condemning a system of belief is genocide? This is absolute nonsense. You argue endlessly that Islam supports violent jihad, and you are suddenly worried that rejecting Islam will be viewed as genocide by the very jihadists you already condemn? Ridiculous. They could not hate us any more, and so what if they do? Us rejecting Islam will not get them any more money or weapons or recruits than they already get anyway. You cannot possibly Know different.

Regarding the fight, and allies, in each case Islam is the threat. Refusal to reject Islam only plays into the enemy's hands. Any democracy that does not reject Islam will come under Islamic pressure with the mere presence of Islam, especially absent rejection. The only sane society is the one that rejects Islam, so as to avoid the big waste of resources to fight it, and the risk of losing to Islam. Any other position is weakness.

Your refusal to reject Islam, an act your own research supports, makes you Weak, which is exactly what the enemy seeks. As long as you are merely a barking dog at the end of a leash, the enemy knows your limits, and so can easily strategize around you.

And no, Weakness is not "good enough" for me.

Sincerely,
neverpayretail

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 29, 2006 3:40 AM

Miska,
Your story deserves to be told again and again, but here at JW you are in essence, preaching to the choir. If writing a book is too daunting a task, you could still make a difference by posting your insights on mainstream Islamic sites, especially if you can post in Arabic. You have the opportunity to make Wafa Sultan proud.

Posted by: Xero G

at May 29, 2006 3:47 AM

Mishka

Thank you for your inside view of why Muslims follow Islam despite what is in the Quran. Reading your post reminded me of several testimonials on faithfreedom.org by ex-Muslims who summoned the courage to forsake Islam. I admire your courage, and given the threats that apostates from Islam face, I do hope that you are in no danger.

Like Susanp noted, one of the defenses that Muslims often use to explain away hateful verses in the Quran is in the translation. It's therefore noteworthy that your eyes were opened when you read an English translation. Ali Sina noted that his transformation happened when he read the Quran fully in the original Arabic. Apparantly, the Quran can open one's eyes either way.

While Robert and Hugh have indeed done yeoman's job in enlightening us, your posts above have been invaluable in getting us an insight into how Muslims think. You mentioned that most Muslims don't realize the message of violence. But how does that happen - given what's in the Quran, and then backed up by the Ahadith, and other Islamic literature, not to mention that most Imams make sure that it isn't misunderstood? You mentioned how it turned your stomach, but on the flip side, many have responded to that by becoming more beligerant. Are there ways of predicting how a Muslim would react once he knew the truth about Mohammed?

Posted by: Infidel Pride

at May 29, 2006 3:52 AM

Mishka, great posts.

You write well and, if I may recommend, your story of how and why you left Islam could be sent in to be published at any of the following sites:

http://www.islam-watch.org/leavingislam.htm

http://www.faithfreedom.org/testimonials.htm

http://www.secularislam.org/testimonies/testimonies.htm

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/

You will note that practically all of the apostates do not use their real name, nor do they give out specific personally-identifying information, for obvious reasons.

For islam-watch, if you decide to send your story there, send to watch.islam@gmail.com

I am sure that Islam-watch, which is run by ex-Muslims, would welcome your story and would publish it.
http://www.islam-watch.org/

Posted by: Archimedes

at May 29, 2006 4:01 AM

neverpayretail is an idiot. Robert Spencer is very effective against Jihadist Islam doing what he is doing. I like Lawrence Auster too. I don't get his argument with R Spencer. Not every opponent of Islam has to be harsh and hard core. Mr. Spencer is hard on Islam via his scholarship that proves his points. Not by proclaiming Islam is a heinous awful cult. He would never get another book published

Posted by: dennisw

at May 29, 2006 4:15 AM

The first post by Mishka ... absolutely fascinating. Good luck to you!

Posted by: dennisw

at May 29, 2006 4:22 AM

Neverpayretail,

For goodness sake. You've made your point already. At this point you are only nagging the man.

As I understand it, Robert is aiming to be as honest and accurate in his statements as possible. No recklessness, no hysteria, no over-generalizing (which is easily refuted by even the most novice of Islamic apologists), just dead-accurate statements that are heavily supported by research. Spencer's _P.I.G. to Islam_ was on the NY Times Best-Seller list for over 15 weeks (as I recall), and that book pulls no punches. Tell me what punches are pulled in these headings, all from the P.I.G.:

"Chapter 1: Muhammad: Prophet of War"
"Chapter 2: The Qur'an: Book of War"
"Chapter 3: Islam: Religion of War"
"Chapter 4: Islam: Religion of Intolerance"
"Chapter 5: Islam Oppresses Women"
"Chapter 6: Islamic Law: Lie, Steal, Kill."
"Chapter 7: How Allah Killed Science"
"Chapter 8: The Lure of Islamic Paradise"
"Chapter 9: Islam--Spread by the Sword? You Bet."

....and so on.

Your suggestion about Robert's alleged "weakness" is ridiculous. He has put his life in danger in expressing his criticisms of Islam.

Posted by: Archimedes

at May 29, 2006 4:39 AM

neverpayretail

I agree with you (and TV on the previous Lawrence Auster thread) on this. Invaluable as Robert and his work has been, there is a difference between him simply presenting the evidence without comment - a persuasive exercise, vs. contradicting any assertions about Islam being dangerous and violent - something that's howls for a contradiction. And the depth of its history, in contrast with Nazism, doesn't justify the halo around it: ask the millions of Copts, Maronites, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists et al persecuted by them whether they agree.

To condemn it outright as such would also be too easily misunderstood in many ways. It would drive away people who would otherwise be our allies -- and I am not in the business of doing that. In this fight we need all the help we can get. It would also be seen as genocidal, and would thus be counterproductive to the anti-jihad effort.

Robert

Like Mishka pointed out above, there may indeed be Muslims who have no idea of what their religion entails. Leaving aside the question of which way they may turn once they do, how does that negate anything that's been proven about Islam?

As for allies, I know that we need all that we can get, but how desperately do we want the "soft" allies i.e. the ones who think Islam is good, and would abandon us the moment we stated otherwise? Also, doesn't it make sense for us to have allies who at least agree with us on this salient point? They may have varying opinions on Iraq the model, intervening in Darfur, jiziya aid to Egypt, etc but on Islam? If you are going to pick up allies who believe in the "ROP" party line, we aren't much better off then when we started.

If you want to avoid saying it to avoid a genocidal tag, fine, but by contradicting those who do say it, you aren't making the anti-Jihad cause any easier. Unless you believe that one can be pro-Islamic but anti-Jihad - something the Whitehouse and a lot of Dhimmi governments worldwide seem to believe.

Posted by: Infidel Pride

at May 29, 2006 4:54 AM

Retail:

In this as in any subject, there are multiple legitimate conclusions that may be drawn from the same evidence.

I think your analysis of the question at hand is not only wrong, but manifests astoundingly poor judgment, which if followed would drastically weaken the anti-jihad resistance.

Now, enough.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch

at May 29, 2006 5:35 AM

Pavel,

Thanks for pointing out the context of the two Esmay paragraphs on which I commented.

It seems that those two paragraphs were an explicit and open straw man set up by Esmay as a sample flawed argument and not as a statement of his own position.

So I withdraw my comments.

Pilgrim

Posted by: Pilgrim

at May 29, 2006 10:08 AM

In response to Sheik's comment above regardig the innonce and unpreparedness of most of the West towards the Islamist goal of world conquest....
read the Time Machine by H.G. Wells. These guileless, ignorant and essentially innocent folks are ELOI. The exist in Wells novel in a carefree, idyllic state frolicking thru a meaningless life until the MORLOCKS (Muslims) occasionally come to harvest them for food. Since the MORLOCKS are smart enough to only take a few at a time the ELOI continue on blissfully unaware if the fate awaiting them.

Unfortunately there are many Eloi in the West and it is only thru the actions of a few good men and women standing ready to deliver 'rough justice' on their behalf that these miserable creatures such as this Esmay stand any chance of remaining free.

Today is Memorial Day. Remember the Thousands of young men and women who have voluntarily sacrificed Their LIVES to keep us in freedom these past 230 years. From Crispus Atticks (sp) standing his ground at the Boston Customs House to pfc D. Moquin ( a local man). These were ordinary men & women who give their last full measure of devotion for you, me and the country I love so dearly.

Posted by: walnutst

at May 29, 2006 10:11 AM

Mischka:

I hope you return to this thread.

You MUST publish your story. If you don't feel competent expressing yourself, copy editors can help you. Also, as someone stated above, posting it in arabic on islamic websites will be a HUGE step.

But please, if you want to contribute to this Great Country, apply to a government agency that needs translators - FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, etc. Apply to them all. They - and we - need you desperately. Not only can your translations be of value but you can help root out those disloyal translatores that are not doing their jobs and misleading the government. You can do all of this at once and become a Great American of whom we would all be proud.

Mr. Spencer:

I understand your tactics AND your strategy and I agree with you 100%. You are accomplishing goals that no one else could and will continue to do so. God Bless You.

CGW

Posted by: CGW

at May 29, 2006 10:35 AM

Dean Esmay Challenge:

Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!

The very first Christians did not appear until AFTER the apostle was sent out of Jerusalem from the house of Judah:

Act 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

They were given a New Covenant that was promised by the mouth of Jeremiah:

Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

In that New Covenant - there is not one single New Testament Scripture that exists where humans are taught to be violent with each other - not one. If so Dean Esmay - the present it!

Luk 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I [Jesus] should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Mat 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels [NOT HUMANS]shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.

Jam 2:13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

Hbr 10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

The 'Allah' of the Koran teaches the complete opposite! from wht the New Covenant teaches - and that is a fact that will remain Dean Esmay - until the day you present just one New Covenant Scripture that preaches for humans to be violent with each other!

You either love True Peace - or you don't. The New Covenant preaches nothing but Peace between ALL humans and that is easily proven.

Your 'Allah' provokes you to challenge the Christians. I have decided to take him up on his challenge:

Koran 035.040 Say [to the 'unbelievers']: "Have ye seen these 'Partners' of yours whom ye call upon besides Allah?

{The eye-witnesses [apostles] of the Son of God wrote letters of what they saw and heard. Muhammad wasn't even there]
No human on earth today wrote either the Koran or the New Testament.

This much we know:

The apostles of Christ wrote (carefully preserved) letters of what they saw and heard while they were with Him. Their letters all agree - in that the Son of God - a great Prophet - delivered the Gospel of Christ and that

He died on a cross:

1) Matthew

2) Mark

3) Luk 23:33

4) Jhn 19:23

5) 1Pe 1:19

and was resurrected

1) Mat 28:9

2) Mark

3) Luk 24:36

4) Jhn 20:27

5) 1Pe 1:3

Muhammad, who wasn't even there with Jesus - calls all of these eye-witnesses - who were there - Liars - offers no evidence and no other witnesses speaking in the first person to back up his story.

That same verse from the Koran (035.040) goes on to provoke further...

... Or have We given them a Book from which they can derive clear evidence? - Nay, the wrong-doers promise each other nothing but delusions.

Is Palestine a delusion?

021.024 Or have they taken for worship other gods besides him? Say, "Bring your convincing proof:

027.064 "Bring forth your argument, if ye are telling the truth!"

The Bible says...

Isa 42:9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: Before they spring forth I tell you of them.

Psa 83:4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

Isa 14:31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times. The whole book of Isaiah was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls as recent as 1947 by a young Arab boy. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written long before the Koran was - and yet - the Koran never even mentions the name Palestine.

Isa 45:21 Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD?

Isa 41:26 Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous?

We're ALL looking at Palestine...aren't we?

Where in the Koran is the name Palestine mentioned? the biggest issue of ALL time for the Islamic world!? Where is allah's convincing proof?

The prophecy about Palestine is a HUGE sign to prove that Word of the Lord of the Bible - is True!

2Pe 1:19 We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.

Exd 15:14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.

Rev 15:3 And they -[the Christians] - 'sing' the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.

2Cr 10:4 The weapons [Scriptures] of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.

1Ti 1:18 According to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them - mightest war a good warfare

And that is the Power for destroying the preacher of Beheadings - Gang Rape - Crucifixions - Genocide

Mat 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Mat 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Dean Esmay? Until the say you are able to present just New Testament Scripture where humans are allowed to be violent with each other - you will remain a liar.

Neither does the Old Testament teach humans to be violent with each other either:

Rth 2:3 And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field ATER the reapers

The '''Stone''' that the builders rejected - is Jesus - the Prophet of God.

He is also called the Word.

Posted by: Beth

at May 29, 2006 10:56 AM

Exd 15:14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. {{{This is the song of Moses.

The Saints 'sing' it

Jer 16:14 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, - The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

Jer 16:15 But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north

Isa 14:31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.

Mat 12:30 He that is not with Me - is against Me {There is no in-between

You 'Allah' mentions the name Israel - but not the name Palestine

Life or Death - Choose

Eternal Life is at stake

Posted by: Beth

at May 29, 2006 11:05 AM

You will know what is in the heart - by what comes out of the mouth.

Mat 19:18 Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder

The New Covenant Scriptures can not be broken. They do not contradict.

The carefully preserved letters of the apostles never preached any other way for humans to behave.

There are too many copies of the Koran available to all societies. [It is already too late for "modernizing" Islam]

Feed the children with this statement:

Islam is a religion of peace and this will be the future for all...

005.033 THE PUNISHMENT of those who '''wage war''' against Allah and His Messenger IS: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet. >> 002.216 009.039 >>> Throughout the earth >>> 004.100 - 004.101 - 004.094

033.061 They [the non-Muslims] shall have a curse on them: whenever they are found, they shall be seized and slain without mercy.

033.052 It is not lawful for thee to marry more women after this, nor to change them for other wives, even though their beauty attract thee, except any thy right hand should possess as handmaidens [gang rape of their feamle captives]

They are permitted to trade back and forth the non-Muslim women [and girls] they take as prisoners of war [after killing their men]

047.004 Therefore, when ye meet '''the Unbelievers''' in fight, smite at their necks.

The only way to defeat those teachings of 'fire' is with 'Fire' - simply because the Koran already has free reign - and has been given the reputation {whether you like it or not} as being from The Almighty God" {{{The children that it is being fed to - don't know the difference.

That is a reputation that has power. Does it not? Just look at the present situation that has been brought before all nations.

To reject the Truth that the Bible does have the Power to defeat the preacher of "crimes against all humanity" is to leave no solid sound Foundation for uniting all who reject Islam.

Simply because - the Bible does have the reputaion of being from The Almighty God"

And it speaks far better things! along with offering Proof that its prophecies are True!

We're all looking at Palestine - aren't we?

The choice is Now or Never - to use the only Power that the non-Muslim world has - in defeating the body [made up many members] that bows to Beheadings, Gang Rape and Crucifixions!

Especially since it is being introduced to American children - in the public schools.

Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

There are too many Korans that are available for destroying the idea that Islam can be "modernized".

Precious time at that, because children do grow up fast!

If the Koran preaches peace AND war - there can be NO peace - because the war teachings will wipe out the peace teachings.

It does not take a genius to figure it out.

And time is of the essense!

Let no one blame the God of the Bible - if the consequences of allowing the Koran to have free reign begins to over-come them.

Posted by: Beth

at May 29, 2006 12:27 PM

Well said, Robert.

Mr. Esmay has reduced himself to accusing you of noting the impossibility of the impossible. So even Esmay agrees that the authoritative teaching of Islam is on the side of the jihadists and he affirms that he knew this even before he started attacking you for truthfully pointing this fact out. The "conversation" is making progress. And I imagine that rational readers of Esmay's blog will note the incoherence of his thinking at this point.

If Mr. Esmay chances to read this post, I invite him to understand that the principal mission of Jihadwatch is to alert non-muslims to the threat to their liberty that is posed by the authoritative teaching of Islam in the hands of the billion or more Muslims who either already have fallen or who easily could fall under its sway. The intended audience of Jihadwatch is not moderate Muslims, but non-Muslims who are not yet aware of the historical and present character of mainstream (ie radical) Islam and who may be lulled into a false sense of safety by the fact that many Muslims who live in the West are not living mainstream Islam.

When Jihadwatch and its principals point out the weakness of the moderate islamic program, they do so not for the purpose of discouraging the moderate Muslims, but for the purpose of encouraging non-Muslims who are not well informed about the nature and history of Islam to not place their hope in the low-odds outcome of the triumph in our lifetimes of moderate Islam over orthodox Islam.

It does no good to believe, as Mr. Esmay apparently does, that if non-Muslims don't talk about this fact [the fact that the jihadists have the authoritative teaching of Islam on their side], then the at-present non-radical Muslims (kusanagi's "pious middle") will not notice it. That is foolish since there is a massive worldwide movement, funded by Saudi oil money, working to remind the worldwide Muslim community of their orthodox Islamic obligation to subjugate the infidel world. Our silence about this will not discernible slow them down, but it could significantly and perhaps catastrophically delay the West's own self-protection.

Mr. Esmay, I invite you to think of Jihadwatch as a "backup" plan. Perhaps your mission of encouraging the moderate Muslims of the world to reform and transform mainstream Islam into something that can peacefully coexist with infidel polities will succeed. I applaud your efforts though I have little hope that they can succeed. So there is need for a backup, for if your vision of the future of Islam does not come to pass, then the West will need to defend itself. And for that, it will need to wake up to the nature of the threat. In 1938, it was possible to imagine that Chamberlain was right about the nature and future policies of the Nazi regime. But there were others who foresaw the possibility of war and who began to prepare for it. We are today all deeply in their debt. In may be that 50 years from you, you or your descendants will be deeply in the debt of Robert Spencer and people like him who sounded alarms at a time when it was unpopular to do so.

Thank you, Robert, for your outstanding work and your inspiring example of grace under unust attack.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 12:44 PM

Those people who hate the entire religion of Islam are eager to lap up everything you dish out, after all............Islam is not a religion it is a cult that glorifies death.....Allah the demon is a god that ask his followers to kill children in his name.....to rape...torture....Mr Esmay you do nothing to teach...to warn...to wake up those asleep and in danger because of the filth that is the koran....You offer no hope and no help either.Jihad Watch does all that and more.

Posted by: storagemanager

at May 29, 2006 12:50 PM

I see three reasons for Robert Spencer to stick to specific cases and avoid the universal generalization that neverpayretail wants Robert to draw:

1. Humanistic reason:
Robert's reportorial, specifics-based approach avoids being the rallying point for any gang or thug who might harass or injure innocent Muslims based on an overgeneralization;

2. Strategic reason:
Robert's reportorial, specifics-based approach avoids getting too far ahead of the rest of society, since most of society knows little about the huge phenomenon of Islam and is far from ready to adopt a universal generalization about Islam; the mainstream wants particular cases, indubitable specifics, concrete knowledge;

3. Epistemological reason (reason based on the nature of knowledge):
By avoiding a universal generalization, which would be a philosophical, not scientific, statement, and by sticking to a reportorial approach focused on specifics, Robert clings closely to a scientific mode, which is where the Western tradition and media and ruling elites mostly are now, in terms of decision making. The factual basis of the scientific/reportorial approach most readily lends itself to the building of consensus. But neverpayretail wants Robert to leave the scientific mode of specifics and enter the philosophic mode of universal generalization, which latter is notorious for creating multiple schools of thought and century- or millennia-long controversies before reaching consensus, if consensus is ever reached at all. By sticking to the scientific mode Robert makes it very difficult to dismiss his work out of hand, and if he is careful in reporting the facts, it is impossible to refute him. The same cannot be said for neverpayretail's metaphysical or philosophic approach. Neverpayretail needs to learn to distinguish between universal generalization and extremely broad-based, yet finite patterns. It is his failure to understand that distinction that is largely responsible for his disagreement with Robert.

Robert's formidable effectiveness in debate, which we have all witnessed numerous times, is based on his stubborn clinging to concrete specifics, rather like a Zen master. It is this approach, and not any philosophic one such as neverpayretail wants Robert to adopt, that got Robert invited to consult with the United States Central Command in Florida.

Posted by: traeh

at May 29, 2006 1:10 PM

There is great value in inviting people to draw their own conclusions from the evidence. It seems to me that this is what Robert Spencer does in his writing. He presents the historical and present evidence with helpful commentary and invites the reader to interpret the meaning of this.

Would it be fruitful to this educational agenda to lead with the conclusion "Islam is Evil and Dangerous?" Perhaps JW and DW should be renamed to "IslamisEvilandDangerous.org"?

That might please some of the JW and DW readers, but it would do little to draw in people who do not already agree that "Islam is evil and dangerous". For those who are not yet decided on the matter, this affirmation may in fact be an obstacle to further understanding. This is particularly true for people who genuinely want to believe that there is a irreducible core of goodness in Islam that could be brought out to mitigate the horrors of its actual practice. These people may be convincible, but need to figure it out for themselves. That, it seems to me, is one of the principal agendas of JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch --- to help people who are not yet alert to the danger to become alert to it. And many of these people will not pay attention if the conclusion is simply fed to them.

Robert is recruiting people to the defence of the West. He seems to be having some success. That his methods aren't as strident and as exclusive as those, say, of Larry Auster displeases some. So be it. Those of us who think we can do a better job are perfectly free to start our own weblogs in addition to using the JW forums to promote our preferred approaches to the problem.

I thank Robert for his outstanding work.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 1:38 PM

traeh,

"By avoiding a universal generalization, which would be a philosophical, not scientific, statement"

Why would condemning German Nazism not be a "universal generalization...a philosophical not a scientific statement", while condemning Islam is?

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 2:04 PM

Archimedes,

The response/reply exercise does not constitute nagging. I had no idea the exchange would result in revealing what it did. As to recklessness, hysteria, and over-generalizing, I suggest you read the June 8, 2005 post at JW entitled "Fitzgerald: Mr. Bush, meet Ibn Warraq and Ali Sina". I think my position is pretty close to that of Mr. Fitzgerald, especially when he speaks of making Islam less attractive and giving ear to defectors from Islam.

Regarding the references you cite, credit is due, and I have not withheld it.

As to my claim of Robert Spencer's weakness, you and I disagree. I have already stated my rationale, and there is no reason for me to restate, hence, no reason for us to have exchange about it.

Incidentally, the entire exchange started on the May 27, 2006 JW thread entitled "On assertions without evidence". I only mention since you may not be aware of it. No disrespect intended.

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 29, 2006 2:05 PM

Infidel Pride,

Thank you for the support. Others on these threads have lent support as well, and I appreciate it. Not everyone has lent support, and at least one has called me an idiot. My analogy to the silence accorded to slavery by the founders of this country may be a new dimension to the debate over Islam in this country. Perhaps those who followed this exchange are pondering that. The analogy occurred to me while reading "Founding Brothers", chapter: The Silence, by Joseph J. Ellis.

I think it noteworthy that the commenter calling me an idiot said this in Spencer's defense, "Mr. Spencer is hard on Islam via his scholarship that proves his points. Not by proclaiming Islam is a heinous awful cult. He would Never get another book Published." Many pro-slavers in 1790 used similar justifications for the silence when they said (and I paraphrase) "Clearing those hot, humid, disease-infested swamps is awful work. White men won't do it. We Need slavery to get that Work done".

Anyway, thanks.

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 29, 2006 2:07 PM

Robert Spencer,

As in any subject, facts, disciplined logic, and the lessons of history rule out the legitimacy of many conclusions.

I think your refusal to declare Islam dangerous and violent on the basis of your own research shows astoundingly poor judgment, which serves to strengthen the jihad movement. To give credit where due, much of what you do does damage that movement.

I now know something of you that was before hidden - at least from me. Thank you for the exchange. I had no idea the exchange would play out as it has. Live and learn.

Note: There may be some reading this new to the exchange referenced above. If you wish to follow it, it initiated on the May 27, 2006 JW thread entitled "On assertions without evidence", jumped to the May 28, 2006 JW thread entitled "Esmay speaks", and then late in the exchange began to be double-posted on both threads.

Sincerely,
Neverpayretail

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 29, 2006 2:09 PM

Hi Television,

There may be no difference, but in the 1930s it was not clear to everyone that Nazism was evil and dangerous. Hitler was Time's man of the year for 1938.

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,760539,00.html

I don't have access to the whole article, but the lead characterizes Hitler as a "statesman", which is rather different than we regard him today. And I do believe that Hitler inspired the admiration of some for his turning of the German economy around.

It may be that people yelling "Nazism is evil and dangerous" in the 1930s may have been less effective than those who documented concrete evils of Nazi policy and theory in the hope of educating the many who thought they saw some good in National Socialism and who hoped that it might be a peaceful neighbor. And perhaps I am mistaken, but the question of how to best alert the somnolent to the present threat of Islam certainly is worth careful consideration.

The unequivocal judgement "Islam is evil and dangerous" is perfectly legitimate for many purposes, but as a practical matter, it is (or at least, it appears to me to be) not highly suitable for persuading people who do not already agree.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 2:19 PM

Dhimmisoftheworldunite,

I'm not sure what would satisfy "neverpayretail", but as you may know, I've never stated what I want Robert to do in light of my dissatisfaction with his gingerly approach to the question of the condemnation of Islam. For the record, I'm not calling for Robert to emblazon his website with "Islam is evil and should be condemned!" on a daily basis, nor even to write one single article or chapter in a book that argues such a condemnation. What would satisfy me is one statement, anywhere, in response to the question, "Should Islam be condemned?", that would make the simplex case that, "Yes, Islam should be condemned, and here's why: boom-boom-boom."

Of course, once Robert did that, some folks may at some point come out of the woodwork and start making demands that he unpack that simplex case; but I don't think that should be cause for concern that the case unpacked would be a Pandora's box inimical to the anti-jihad cause: I'm perfectly confident in Robert's ability to stay on track and patiently reiterate the simplex case for condemning Islam without ever being "maneuvered" into false slippery slopes like Demonization of Islam --> Genocide against all Muslims --> based on Racism; and so forth.

I therefore think Robert is drawing his patient, reasonable line in the sand a bit short of where the facts warrant: indeed, Islam is worse than German Nazism -- unless Robert thinks the attempted genocide by Muslims against Hindus of over 60 million (just to pick out of a turban one of several examples from the evil history of Islam) was not centrally motivated by Islam. If he does agree that the Hindu genocide (and all the other Muslim atrocities of history and the present) was centrally motivated by Islam, how in the world does the vetust richness and diversity of Islam let it off the hook of condemnation!?

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 3:31 PM

Television,

Thanks for that last post to Dhimmisoftheworldunite. A Simple statement along the lines of what you suggest makes sense. Such a statement arrives at the Obvious conclusion, would permit Mr. Spencer to reference it when asked, and so, when properly challenged, avoid resorting to nonsense in defense.

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 29, 2006 4:14 PM

Hi television,

I see your point, but I think that Robert's concern is not to take every argument to its uttermost logical conclusion, but to alert the somnolent to their peril, which calls for a measure of wisdom and tact in discerning how to awaken them without stimulating a reflexive dismissal of the concern. If the exchanges with Esmay show anything, they show that there are intelligent people who reflexively reject blunt honesty about Islam. Esmay has his reason (seemingly) in the fear of radicalizating the "pious middle" by speaking the truth in their hearing. Others have different reasons.

The JW/DW agenda is not a theological or metaphysical agenda of plumbing ultimate good and evil and assigning to Islam its rightful place on that spectrum. Its agenda is to alert people to their peril. It is permissible to call Islam "evil and dangerous", but it is not mandatory in every context, and this distinction leaves room for consideration of whether it is profitable to do that in light of what the purposes of JW/DW are.

I don't agree with Robert on everything, and in a few of my posts I have questioned the wisdom of speaking as bluntly as he sometimes does --- the Weyrichian concern of trying, where there is little at stake, to avoid driving away potential friends and helpers. Robert walks a fine line, and his approach --- highlighting the facts with a little commentary and leaving the reader to think out the implications for himself --- strikes me as sensible and it is evidently effective.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 4:26 PM

Here's an example of why it may not suit the purposes of JW/DW to assert the ultimate theological/metaphysical conclusion that "Islam is evil".

That assertion begs the question "evil by what standard?" and that question can split the anti-jihad movement. For Evangelicals, the answer is simply that "Islam is a false religion that leads people to damnation." For libertarians, the answer might be something along the lines of "Islam is incompatible with the realization of human potential through actualization of the self." For left-liberals the view might be that "Islam is evil because it infringes on personal autonomy, most clearly in the realm of sexual expression and reproductive freedom." Many or most Evangelicals reject the understandings of the libertarians and left-liberals.

The anti-jihad coalition, to the extent that such a thing even exists, does not agree within itself about "why Islam is evil." And Robert does not wish to have that particular conflict rise above the common concern that Islam threatens to overwhelm us all in this century. It's a reasonable posture and I think that we should leave the man alone to write his "life of Mohammed and why it matters to us" biography rather than pestering him to conform to our individual standards of ideological purity.

That's how it appears to me.

I wish you all well.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 4:41 PM

Retail, your argument is compelling but there is a dividing line between scholarship and activism. In today's world, political correctness has become a universal doctrine, as well as a lethal weapon to silence those who dare to speak the unpleasant truth. The group-thinkers eagerly await every opportunity to condemn the courageous bearers of truth at the merest hint of PC impropriety. Evidence is irrelevant; all it takes to destroy someone is innuendo. Mr. Spencer is already accused of ignorance; the good old hackneyed standard, "racism"; and of course, Islamophobia. We all know that these allegations are ridiculous, but his critics have convinced many that he is a spiteful Islamophobe who doesn't know what he's talking about.

If Robert Spencer officially "condemned" Islam, he would lose all credibility as a legitimate, reputable Islamic scholar. Mr. Spencer studiously presents the truth and facts about Islam to a skeptical audience that wants to believe the lies. People tend to react with hostility to information that is threatening, thus they resent the messenger. Mr. Spencer explains the doctrine of Islam in a forthright, calm, and detached manner, devoid of the tergiversation of muslim scholars and apologists, which is precisely the correct way to do it. It requires great talent and discipline to provide an exegesis of Islam without becoming enraged, hostile, resentful, and defensive. Mr. Spencer's impartiality serves to buttress his arguments, at least in my opinion. He is not promoting a hidden agenda, merely presenting the facts for people to evaluate as they see fit.

As he pointed out, many muslims are oblivious to much of what their religion teaches and aspires to accomplish. By condemning Islam, he would invite even more antipathy and would risk being ostracized by mainstream groups that are crucial to his efforts to disseminate the facts about Islam. We might all agree with him and continue to support him, but we already know the truth. His target is the millions who do not. In our hyper-sensitive, relativistic society, condemnation of any religion, even the most vile and repugnant, would be suicidal.

Posted by: Susanp

at May 29, 2006 5:06 PM

The anti-jihad coalition, to the extent that such a thing even exists, does not agree within itself about "why Islam is evil."

Here's a basic litmus test (there are others that could be added to this, but this by itself is a sine qua non):

If any member of the anti-jihad coalition does not support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they should be summarily excluded from the coalition. Islam is intrinsically, endemically, traditionally, zealously, ideologically, actively, and presently opposed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This isn't rocket science. This isn't a matter of "theology" or "metaphysics". Individuals, and groups, can be rightfully and rationally condemned, no matter whether they happen to also sell girl scout cookies and help little old ladies across the street, along with the other absurdly mitigating factors (Islam is older, Islam is more varied, Islam has many more people that seem nice) by which Robert in gingerly fashion distinguishes German Nazism from Islam.

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 5:09 PM

Susan,

Robert is already unjustly beleaguered and vilified by the majority: I doubt that if he simply stated that Islam is condemnable as it stands (and has stood since the time of Mohammed) it would make much significant difference to his calumniators -- they already think he condemns Islam anyway and all the other related things you listed in your post. I haven't seen anyone from the vast and dominant mainstream publicly support Robert and invite him to speak or write in their venues on the basis that "Robert does not condemn Islam".

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 5:18 PM

"He has formed his conclusions and he sticks to them. I think he has an ego problem. No open mind, not listening to any rational thing, not even bothering to just a little matter on this site."

arjun:

What Esmay has is a severe case of Cognitive Dissonance, a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning:

if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning.

and—counter-intuitively, perhaps—if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are less likely to concede that the content of what has been learned is useless, pointless or valueless. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".

Posted by: Don Miguel

at May 29, 2006 5:28 PM

You mentioned that most Muslims don't realize the message of violence. But how does that happen - given what's in the Quran, and then backed up by the Ahadith, and other Islamic literature, not to mention that most Imams make sure that it isn't misunderstood?
Infidel Pride ~ good questions

CGW~ I would think if she (Mishka) watched the pentagon burn she is already a US gov't employee. I wonder how she became so fluent in English. Better than many natives?

Mishka~ Now that OBL has admitted that he was the planner of the 9/11 massacre how do peaceful muslims reconcil this?

I would like to point muslims to Ergun Caner who was a muslim and the author of Unveiling Islam, an easy to read book which says many of the same things that Robert Spencer writes in his books. It is written from a Baptist perspective since he has converted, but he was raised muslim. I would think anyone wanting to enlighten a muslim could try to get them to read this book if they are willing to read with an open mind since it was written by one of their (former) own followers of the religion.

And finally, why hasn't the koran been written into a chronological format? It sure would make things easier to read and understand. Is it because muslims don't want it understood? It wouldn't change any of the words. Just the order. I suggest a koran written in chronological order and possibly with the appropriate ahadith in an accompanying book in order and cross referenced.

Is there a reason this hasn't been done?

Posted by: Borg

at May 29, 2006 5:53 PM

Hi television,

I think that your talk of "litmus tests" is counter to the spirit of what JW/DW is trying to accomplish, which is to alert people to the peril to their liberty that is posed by Islam.

There are many things that Islam is unequivocally opposed to. One that I suspect is even more vehemently rejected by Islamists than the UNDHR is "Trinitarian theology", which is regarded by Muslims as a form of polytheism and a very grave crime. Should Evangelicals insist that "embrace of Trinitarian theology" be part of the litmus test?

One of the great and and perhaps decisive questions of the 21st century may be whether the disparate factions of the balkanized West can work together to resist the progress of Islam across the Earth. Robert and Hugh are appealing for that.

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite

at May 29, 2006 6:53 PM

Borg. This helps as far as Koran in a chronological order. I too think the deceit in the Koran is better understood when it's in chronological order. We can see how Muhammad changed to a murderous demon after Hegira to Medina ----->>>>>>

Some Western scholars of the Qur'an attempted to arrange the surahs in chronological order. You might want to ask your lilbrary/bookshop for the following:

J. Rodwell (The Koran, London: 1861)
N. J. Dawood (The Koran, London: 1956)
H. A. Ali (The Message of the Qur'an Presented in Perspective, Tokyo: 1974)

The last one even attempts to arrange the verses in chronological order!

(Note: I am not endorsing any of these works, which are all translations of the Qur'an.)

Regards and Salaam
Razwan
http://forums.understanding-islam.org/community/showthread.php?s=aed050843855eae333ce9276bad188e7&t=273&page=2&pp=15

Posted by: dennisw

at May 29, 2006 7:01 PM

neverpayretail

You owe Mr Spencer an apology. Your criticisms are immature. Spencer is fighting the Jihad in many effective ways. Your dumb suggestions would kill Mr Spencer's effectiveness. Seen in the worst light you are an agent provocateur who is craftily tying to draw Mr Spencer into saying things he will be slammed and denigrated for. My own estimate is you are simply a a naive fool

You have a childish concept of what silence in the face of Jihadist Islam is. Robert Spencer most certainly is not silent. His website is very active. He updates it every day. I know of no other website like it that has the latest Jihad news every day. That has many good to excellent commentators with Hugh being the foremost. This takes time and effort for Robert to do. He reaches many others via his books. These books are a labor of love, no one is becoming rich off of them. He has the guts to write an upcoming biography of Muhammad which can really raise danger to his personal safety. Who else has the brass balls to write such a book these days?

This website is the opposite of silence. This website is where I have learned the most about Islam though I do visit faithfreedom.com and others

Thanks to you, Robert Spencer!

Posted by: dennisw

at May 29, 2006 7:21 PM

SusanP

Agree with your post which is 7 above from this one. You said it better than I, exactly why Mr Spencer is very effective the way he is and taking any of neverpayretail's advice would ruin this effectiveness

Posted by: dennisw

at May 29, 2006 7:26 PM

dennisw~ Are you Razwan? That link is more of the same - it's right because it says it's right

Posted by: Borg

at May 29, 2006 8:34 PM

Television asked me:

Why would condemning German Nazism not be a "universal generalization...a philosophical not a scientific statement", while condemning Islam is?

Television, my point is not that you cannot try to universally generalize about Islam, and perhaps even be successful. My point is that it is hard to do convincingly, much harder than to universally generalize about Nazism. If the caliphate existed and controlled all Muslims worldwide and were on the march with numerous divisions of tanks and brigades of soldiers and hundreds of airplanes dropping bombs in Europe, it would be a lot easier. Nazism existed for only 12 years. Islam is a far more complex phenomenon that has existed far longer, and that has no single center of political power, certainly not in the way the Nazis had Berlin. A rather different kind of Muslim lives in Indonesia than lives in Saudi Arabia. It's fine for you to draw the conclusion that across all its variation, Islam remains a unity, and an evil one. But to generate consensus around that point is much harder, given all the differing circumstances, than to build consensus around the idea that Nazism is evil. So arguably Robert is smart to just sidestep that Sisyphean task and stick to the abundant concrete specifics that no one can refute, and allow people to draw their own general conclusions if they wish.

Still, I have to confess to some uncertainty on what Robert's position is on all this. My uncertainty is enhanced by the chapter titles from Spencer's Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades:

These titles seem like they might amount to universal generalizations. Then again, they might just be shorthand that leaves out qualifications and exceptions that can be found inside the chapters. I don't have my copy now, so I can't check.

But let's suppose you are right and there is no difference in the difficulty or worth of universal generalization about Nazism and universal generalization about Islam. That would only invalidate one of the three reasons (the epistemological) I gave for not using universal generalizations. It doesn't invalidate the strategic or the humanistic reasons (see below), does it?

I think there is room for a more "philosophic" and general approach and that's why I visit Ali Sina's website all the time (go to his site and sign up for his book everyone!). Robert supports Ali Sina too, though their approaches are very different. In my view Robert's approach is the only sort that has a chance of penetrating into the hearts and minds of New York Times journalists and their readers, i.e., into the "mainstream" media, and that is a terribly valuable ability Robert has. But there is room for more than one approach to these matters.

3. Epistemological reason (reason based on the nature of knowledge):
By avoiding a universal generalization, which would be a philosophical, not scientific, statement, and by sticking to a reportorial approach focused on specifics, Robert clings closely to a scientific mode, which is where the Western tradition and media and ruling elites mostly are now, in terms of decision making. The factual basis of the scientific/reportorial approach most readily lends itself to the building of consensus. But neverpayretail wants Robert to leave the scientific mode of specifics and enter the philosophic mode of universal generalization, which latter is notorious for creating multiple schools of thought and century- or millennia-long controversies before reaching consensus, if consensus is ever reached at all. By sticking to the scientific mode Robert makes it very difficult to dismiss his work out of hand, and if he is careful in reporting the facts, it is impossible to refute him. The same cannot be said for neverpayretail's metaphysical or philosophic approach. Neverpayretail needs to learn to distinguish between universal generalization and extremely broad-based, yet finite patterns. It is his failure to understand that distinction that is largely responsible for his disagreement with Robert.

Posted by: traeh

at May 29, 2006 9:23 PM

Television:

Is it possible that what I said about neverpayretail applies to you?:

Neverpayretail needs to learn to distinguish between universal generalization and extremely broad-based, yet finite patterns. It is his failure to understand that distinction that is largely responsible for his disagreement with Robert.

Posted by: traeh

at May 29, 2006 9:30 PM

Dhimmis,

"Should Evangelicals insist that "embrace of Trinitarian theology" be part of the litmus test?"

It already is part of the UNDHR, insofar as the UNDHR ensures freedom and equality of religious practice. Also, you may not have picked up on a subtlety of my litmus test: it's a negative litmus test, not a positive one: i.e., anyone who opposes the UNDHR is out (but that doesn't mean the UNDHR is the sole criterion of membership in the anti-jihad movement).

Think about it: anyone who opposes the UNDHR is out: that means that an evangelical group that demanded that Trinitarian worship be part of the litmus test would be, ipso facto, failing the litmus test.

Posted by: Television

at May 29, 2006 11:31 PM

traeh,

"It's fine for you to draw the conclusion that across all its variation, Islam remains a unity, and an evil one."

What do we mean when we use the term "Islam"? Do we mean simply the sum total of Muslims? Do we mean a motivating ideology that unites them, despite their differences? Or do we mean a messy constellation of ideas that highlights their differences and reveals there is no real unity?

Behind some answers to these questions are many attempts at having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too (HYCAEIT): i.e., many "moderate" Muslims will claim Islam is too variegated to make generalizations about it, but at the same time will posit certain unifying features of Islam that make all the world's Muslims (or most Muslims, as a detachable "Islam" from the "small minority of extremist hijackers of Islam who-are-not-true-Muslims") so peachy keen and hunky dory and so un-terrorist-like. Robert's HYCAEIT seems to be that there is an "Islam" that is evil and dangerous, but that because it is only a central, crucial, gigantic chunk of a larger "Islam" that is ethically and culturally variegated, then he can't condemn "Islam", because he doesn't want to condemn the latter, larger Islam when he condemns the former Islam: therefore he avoids the word "Islam" when he is condemning-by-implication. The pivotal problem with Robert's approach here is that the smaller Islam that Robert condemns, by screaming implication, on a daily basis is avowed by him to be not some peripheral, detachable part of the larger Islam, but its very heart -- central, crucial and vital. In my book, a central, crucial, vital heart of something is that something, and the rest, no matter how many-splendored its "tapestry" seems, is, ethically speaking, window-dressing: and if that heart is evil and dangerous, then the whole body is a Frankenstein monster -- made more dangerous for its distracting camouflage that would obfuscate the condemnation. Robert and you seem to be confusing the aesthetic level with the ethical level.

You make much of "Robert's reportorial, specifics-based approach", but no one, not even the AP wire, is or can be wholly and merely data: there is a guiding interpretive ideology behind Robert's choice of data, presentation of data, explanation of data, day in and day out. He may be exercizing more restraint than others in this regard, and I agree that is a good thing; but he is not avoiding making general, "philosophical" claims about what all the data mean. And he chooses to avoid condemning Islam because that would in his mind necessarily entail condemning every last couscous stand, every last carpet fiber, every last sandal strap, every last friendly Muslim, every last piece of hygienic advice now and for the last fourteen centuries.

Again, this is not rocket science: when an organization has a central tenet enjoining its members to feed live little girls through wood chippers every Friday, and when our reportorial, specifics-based approach shows that many members of this organization have been, as good members, dutifully following this central tenet for centuries and continue to do so now, then it doesn't matter if that organization has all the many-splendored variety of Islam and all the venerable centuries of Islam, and all the smiling faces of Islam: that organization must be condemned: Robert himself would condemn it. What would you think of someone who refused to condemn such an organization? (There is only one reason why I would let someone off the hook for refusing to condemn that organization, and I will have to let you guess what that is, though it is hinted at in your post: I have no evidence that this pertains in Robert's case, though if it did pertain, I would have no evidence. It's a bit unlikely and rather cloak-and-dagger, though not out of the realm of possibility; at any rate, the possibility is a moot point.)

Posted by: Television

at May 30, 2006 12:28 AM

XeroG

“here at JW you are in essence, preaching to the choir”

I certainly was not trying to preach to anyone. The reason I decided to post on JW is to convey a message of support to Mr Spencer. I can only imagine how disheartening it must be to be constantly attacked when he is just trying to bring the world’s attention to the danger of Islamic ideology. You recommended that I post on mainstream Islamic websites. The readers of such sites are usually the same jihadists that I distanced myself from by abandoning Islam. These people are fully aware of the violent mandate of Mohamed and have actually embraced it. Any efforts at debating the issue with them can only result in endangering my life and that of my family. My siblings are still in my native country, so their safety is a matter of concern to me.

Borg

You asked “Now that OBL has admitted that he was the planner of the 9/11 massacre how do peaceful muslims reconcil this?”

Well, do not underestimate the power of denial. My older sister for example believes that the OBL tape was fake, dubbed or just fabricated. She just cannot accept the idea that a fellow Muslim would commit such atrocities. The conspiracy theories are part of the Arab landscape. Following the devastation of the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia, the US gvt sent the USS Abraham Lincoln to provide much needed aid to the victims. Do you know what many of the people in the Middle East and East Asia believed? They thought that the Tsunami was caused by a nuclear bomb that was being tested by the US gvt in the Indian Ocean. When I heard this, I was speechless. What can you say to such ignorance?

Infidel Pride.

How can so many Muslims be unaware of the violent message of the Koran when most imams make sure that it is understood?

I can only speak about my own experience with the matter. The Koran and hadith have some beautiful passages in them that are quite similar to the loving message of Christianity. There are many instances when Mohamed commanded piety, fairness, tolerance and charity. He was actually in many ways quite liberal for his times, allowing women to inherit and testify – albeit giving them less rights than males. I failed to realize that Mohamed’s message changed completely in Medina, as he became richer and more powerful, because of the deceitful arrangement of the suras. Furthermore, I always believed that the Jihad passages applied only to the times when Muslims were persecuted by the pagans of Quraysh. I never listened to the Imams because I considered them to be screetching, rather than preaching. I don’t believe that Islam turns people into killers, I believe that you have to be evil to embrace the Jihadi message and go on a killing rampage of innocent people. This is too complex to explain in a single post. When I tried to share my findings with my family, it was too disturbing for them and they could not deal with it. They are more comfortable holding on to their view of Islam, a religion of peace, brought on by a pious man that was known as “Al Mustafa”, i.e. the most distinguished for his goodness and piety, which was actually true in Mecca. I personally needed to know the truth, to understand what motivated young men to commit mass murder in the name of God and turn one of the most beautiful sentences in Arabic “God is the Greatest” or “Allahu Akbar” into a call for war that makes me cringe. I wanted to find a way to distance them from my religion. I ended up realizing that they actually had a better understanding of Islam than I did.

Posted by: Mishka

at May 30, 2006 2:07 AM

Correction:

"People that left were asked to officially plegde that they do not believe that Mohammad is the phrophet of god"

Posted by: tjwork

at May 30, 2006 2:40 AM

Mishka

Thanks for explaining this. It's interesting that decent Muslims project their own ideas of what's moral and ethical on what Mohammed did, ignoring what their imams truthfully explained to them. It's fascinating that people can think that they understand Islam better than those who have made Islam their entire livelihood.

I disagree with XeroG - you did well by posting here. Mainstream Islamist websites are de facto criminal websites that ought to be monitored by law enforcement, if they aren't already, and you can't convince them that they are on the wrong path. But you can educate dhimmis and unwary infidels about what Muslims really think, and that would be far more useful towards ultimately bringing sanity to your former fellow Muslims.

One more question, if you are still reading this - when one criticizes Islam/Mohammed, and quotes appropriate verses from Islamic texts, does that typically anger, or embarrass a Muslim? How should one approach that when the subject comes up? I usually avoid discussing Islam with any Muslim at all, but if it does become a topic of discussion, should one criticize/condemn/praise (in taqiyya style) Islam? And is Mohammed above reproach?

Posted by: Infidel Pride

at May 30, 2006 4:44 AM

Borg

I'm not razwan. But he's pointing to three Korans that are in chronological order. According to him at least.

Would not such Korans expose Muhammad's evolution to an evil mastermind?

Posted by: dennisw

at May 30, 2006 6:27 AM

Mishka said:

I wanted to distance myself as much as possible from the terrorists, rather than my religion. It did not take long for me to realize that Prophet Mohamed had two completely different personalities. One I call the Mecca personality where he preached mercy and charity. The second is the Medina personality where he turned into a ruthless tyrant. While I had read the Quran in Arabic many times (Arabic is after all my native language), I never fully understood it until I read the English translation. As you know, the Arabic version borrowed many words from Aramaic and other ancient languages that I did not understand. I started noticing the huge contrast between the violent message of Mohamed and the loving message of Jesus Christ. When I learnt about the Quraiza massacre, the enslavement of the Quraiza females (Mohamed took one as his wife after killing all the males in her family), the murder of Fatima bint Marwan, and how conveniently God sent Mohamed a verse ordering him to marry a woman who was practically his daughter-in-law, I felt disheartened, betrayed and appalled. I, therefore, walked away from this religion and never turned back. When Mr Esmay talk about the moderate Muslims he knows, he needs to be aware of one thing. Muslims who support terrorism –even if they may never carry it themselves – know how to play what I call the “Arafat” game very well. They say one thing to a westerner and another to a fellow Arab. On 9/11, as we stood watching the Pentagon on fire from my office window, a Palestinian-American colleague of mine, gave me a nudge and said in Arabic with a smile on his face “It was about time”. This is after parading his sorrow for all other American office workers to see. This gentleman had been living in the US for 30 freaking years. I had only been a resident for 3 years then and was not even an American citizen yet.

Question for Mishka:
How can so many Muslims be unaware of the violent message of the Koran when most imams make sure that it is understood?

Mishka replies:
I can only speak about my own experience with the matter. The Koran and hadith have some beautiful passages in them that are quite similar to the loving message of Christianity. There are many instances when Mohamed commanded piety, fairness, tolerance and charity. He was actually in many ways quite liberal for his times, allowing women to inherit and testify – albeit giving them less rights than males. I failed to realize that Mohamed’s message changed completely in Medina, as he became richer and more powerful, because of the deceitful arrangement of the suras. Furthermore, I always believed that the Jihad passages applied only to the times when Muslims were persecuted by the pagans of Quraysh.

++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++

I continue to be amazed by the above answer from Mishka. How the non-chronological order of the Koran kept her confused about the evil side of Muhammad and by extension Islam. In another post she said reading Koran in English made it easier to see the difference between the Meccan verses and Medina verses. Muhammad was a preacher of good in his Meccan years. He turned to evil in his Medina years

Thanks Mishka!

Posted by: dennisw

at May 30, 2006 6:48 AM

Dennisw,

The policies of Meccan verses vs Medinian are actually quite similar; the differences are overrated. The chief difference is that, in Medina, 'Allah' specifically granted the Arab Muslims full permission to deliver Allah's punishment on earth. In other words, in Medina, Allah's laws were now firmly in the hands of Arab Muslims (and still are today). The reason behind the Meccan-Medinian difference probably has nothing to do with Mohammad being a good guy (Mecca) turned bad (Medina). Mohammad makes all kinds of threats in the Meccan verses and then cashes in on them in the Medinian verses. In Mecca, he and his men were militarily weak and small in numbers. It would have been imprudent for him to attempt a military coup at that stage. In Medina, they gained more recruits (many of them hardened criminals) and allies, began raiding caravans, and soon declared war against all humankind (and it's still on, today).

Posted by: Archimedes

at May 30, 2006 7:09 AM

What would satisfy me is one statement, anywhere, in response to the question, "Should Islam be condemned?", that would make the simplex case that, "Yes, Islam should be condemned, and here's why: boom-boom-boom."

Posted by: Television

That is the Question of all time! It should be asked by every person - great and small - with a demand for an answer!

The rape spree that is being carried out by muslim gangs in Europe is a perfect example of "We reap what we sow"

This I will ask in the name of the Beslan children: At point do we begin to ask that all important Question? -

"Should Islam be condemned?"

The fact that the Koran is already available to all - is not being taken into consideration by those who speak of reforming Islam. {It will never happen!

A phony Islam is being introduced to American children in the public schools.

Because we will "reap what we sow" and the widely available Koran has already been planted.

Time is of the essence for boldly objecting! Those of us who have children - know how fast they grow.

"Should Islam be condemned?"

For the future of our children - YES! with an ear deafening ROAR!

Posted by: Beth

at May 30, 2006 10:38 AM

A phony Islam is being introduced to American children in the public schools. Damage Done!

Posted by: Beth

at May 30, 2006 10:48 AM

Dennisw,

Sorry for the late reply. I have been spending some time with friends.

Disagreements and criticisms do not require apology. I think Mr. Spencer understands that. On several occasions, going clear back to May 17 (my first two comments on JW), I explicitly gave him credit for his work, and expressed my gratitude.

The terms "crafty" and "naïve fool" are mutually exclusive. I do not see how I can be both.

I believe Mr. Spencer's effectiveness would be unaffected or even enhanced if he were to follow my suggestion. To carry one's own research to the obvious conclusion adds weight to the research itself. Failure to take that step only gives fuel to those who are already slamming and denigrating him. In their eyes, if he won't take the step, why should they? In their eyes, he does not trust his own research, so why should they? What they see is a guy asking the same question over and over again, which to the naïve listener may give the appearance of self-doubt. This is not to say that I doubt his research, nor even that he does. It just gives detractors another excuse to doubt him, over and over again.

Concerning "silence", I distinguish between saying something has badness in it, and saying that something Is bad because of all the badness in it. The abolitionists not only talked of the badness of slavery (beatings, lynching, chains, humans as property, etc), but they also said outright that slavery is evil, and did not look to the slaver owners for approval of that judgment. From 1790 forward Congress put up tremendous resistance to Any discussion of slavery, and was mostly successful. That refusal allowed it to become more and more entrenched. I think the entrenchment is dangerous. There needs to be a clearly, simply stated reason, backed up by facts, to resist such entrenchment. Continually asking "show me a mainstream Islam that is not jihadist" does not function as reason to resist the entrenchment. To resist such declaration on the grounds that it is "simplistic and misleading", and then explaining that stand as he finally did (once we got past dental hygiene) only adds confusion. Reasons for action are not effective stated as questions. For the larger populace to support resistance Simple rather than Subtle is Most effective for motivation. This is the world we live in as driven by unchanging fundamental human nature. And if this risks upsetting "PC world" academics and media people, well, preserving our freedom is worth that risk, and besides, I think they will get over it.

I have benefited from reading comments posted subsequent to the exchange. I see others agree with me, at least on some points. I have some good company. Maybe I am neither crafty nor a naïve fool. Yes, I may be an agent provocateur, which actually sounds kinda cool. However, I just rolled with the flow, and never expected things to turn out as they did. I have been backed into a corner before, even by my own son. Under those circumstances it always worked best to just say "whoops".

So, thanks for your input.

Your friendly agent provocateur (and a pretty good dancer, but not a tap dancer),
neverpayretail

Posted by: neverpayretail

at May 30, 2006 3:42 PM

Archimedes

The policies of Meccan verses vs Medinian are actually quite similar; the differences are overrated.

I will keep that in mind. Thanks for the entire reply. I can barely stand reading the Koran's hogwash.

Posted by: dennisw

at May 30, 2006 3:43 PM

neverpayretail

Any man who is writing a biography of Muhammad is out in the vanguard of anti-Jihadism. Spencer just chooses to do it differently than you suggest.
Another man posted the table of contents of:

Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades:

This book shows Robert is way ahead of the pack with his critique of Islam. I fail to see how you can demand more from him, and like I said if he did it your way it would backfire.

Posted by: dennisw

at May 30, 2006 7:34 PM

Television said:

Robert's HYCAEIT seems to be that there is an "Islam" that is evil and dangerous, but that because it is only a central, crucial, gigantic chunk of a larger "Islam" that is ethically and culturally variegated, then he can't condemn "Islam"

A crucial part of the statement above is where you say the evil kind of Islam is "a central, crucial, gigantic chunk of..."Islam..." You say here not "the" central feature, rather, "a" central feature.

Television said:

The pivotal problem with Robert's approach here is that the smaller Islam that Robert condemns, by screaming implication, on a daily basis is avowed by him to be not some peripheral, detachable part of the larger Islam, but its very heart -- central, crucial and vital.

Not quite. He doesn't avow this dark Islam to be Islam's "very heart" -- all Robert does is argue that the dark Islam is some substantial part of Islam's very heart. "Substantial" can mean "the vast majority", "bare majority", "plurality", perhaps even "big minority"; substantial can mean various things, and it seems to me Robert has intentionally not tried to pin this down. It's too difficult, both to ascertain and to persuade others of.

It seems to me you have unnecessarily assumed that if item "A" is not peripheral, then not only is it the central element in the core; it is also the only central element in the core. Perhaps you would be correct to do so. In any event, you will find it difficult, though not necessarily impossible, under current circumstances, to generate broad consensus around this distinction between periphery and center. You will find it easier if you use quantitative language: "75% of Muslims believe x, while only 25% of Muslims believe y"; "94 violent statements in the Koran, and only 20 tolerant statements, which latter have been cancelled by the Koran's verses of abrogation." But as soon as you introduce terms of quite complex and often ambiguous meaning, like "center" and "periphery," you create problems for yourself in persuading people. If you can solve those problems, more power to you.

Television said:

In my book, a central, crucial, vital heart of something is that something, and the rest, no matter how many-splendored its "tapestry" seems, is, ethically speaking, window-dressing...

Pragmatically speaking, you are right here, or often you will be right. But in terms of "truth," it is harder to establish that the peripheral practicioners are not, somehow, at least part of the central Islam. In arguing against those who make that countercase, my guess is that you will find yourself backing up your own case with specific examples and quantitive observations, and explaining that what you mean by "central" is some quantitative predominance, of Muslim actions, Koran verses, Sharia opinions. Then why go to the trouble with "center" and "periphery" in the first place? Just start from the quantitative and specific. Leave terms (like central and peripheral) that have multiple ways of being understood, out of your rhetoric as much as possible, or at least leave them till after you have made your case based on specifics and quantities, and then explain that when you use ambiguous terms like central and peripheral, your only meaning intended is precisely what you have just explained of specifics and quantities.

Television said:

...and if that heart is evil and dangerous, then the whole body is a Frankenstein monster -- made more dangerous for its distracting camouflage that would obfuscate the condemnation.

I partially yield to you on this, as I have in another post. To some degree, the evil parts of Islam, parasite-wise, use and exploit any part of Islam that is good. Especially where evil is dominant, the remnants of good will tend to subserve and strengthen that evil in some ways. I can only go part way with you on this though, because the remnants of good, even while they may paradoxically sometimes strengthen a dominant evil, remain nevertheless good in some ways and no doubt also sometimes restrain the dominant evil. So I partly disagree, partly agree.

Television said:

Robert and you seem to be confusing the aesthetic level with the ethical level.

Rather I suspect you are confusing the pragmatic/ethical level with the level of truth. Pragmatically speaking, one can sometimes adopt the shorthand you wish to adopt about Islam, and in practice shorthand may often be necessary and sufficient ethically. But in terms of realities and truth, any formula or statement is at best an extremely accurate, not perfectly accurate, shorthand. Yes, this is true even of the Nazis. It is true of everything.

Your argument with Robert may be about strategy, rather than about truth. You acknowledge, I guess, that a universal generalization will be imprecise. You seem to feel however that the imprecision involved is too insignificant to stop one justifiably making the universal generalization. Or maybe you don't really want a universal generalization, but simply a broader generalization than Robert seems willing to make at times. Robert, for all we know, might agree with you on the relative insignificance of the imprecision of your universal generalization about Islam, but disagree with you on the way of treating that "small error". He may disagree on how to treat it, for reasons humanistic or strategic, or both.

Alternatively, Robert might disagree with you not only about the right way of handling the inadequacy of your universal generalization in this case; he might also disagree about the degree of inadequacy of your universal generalization, and think the exceptions to the general rule are more common than you allow.

Television said:

You make much of "Robert's reportorial, specifics-based approach", but no one, not even the AP wire, is or can be wholly and merely data: there is a guiding interpretive ideology behind Robert's choice of data, presentation of data, explanation of data, day in and day out.

I agree partly; this is an excellent point such as one comes to expect frequently from you, Television. (Actually, from my own TV here at home I've come to expect the opposite of excellent points!) However, there are different kinds of selection. There is tendentious selection, and wholesome selection (i.e., something close to choiceless awareness). There are also differences of degree and even of kind between levels of generalization and specificity. The kind of "selection" and "interpretation" that Robert does remains close to "data" (even if "data" and "interpretation" cannot be strictly distinguished, except by a further "interpretation" that does the distinguishing). But because Robert remains close to data, others can check his "selection" and see if it is a fairly wholesome selection or a tendentious one. He would of course maintain that his "selection" is not guided by any narrow "ideology" but by something approximating to choiceless awareness.

When you get to the high level of generalization you want to apply, universal or near universal generalization, that is just much harder to check for all kinds of reasons. The level of generalization is so high that checking it might require not only acquisition of huge amounts of outward "data"; in addition, purely inward operations would have to be performed, on the level of thought, and inward evidence "collated," for testing purposes. When we are testing outward truths, the world can confirm or at least disconfirm them. But when we are testing non-quantitative inward truths of a certain degree of generalization, only an inward process can confirm them. How do we know that a given person's inward process is objective? To have the degree of certainty provided by the outer world in confirming outer truths, inner truths would have to confirmed by someone in some sense equivalent to the outer world, i.e., someone would have to have almost superhuman integrity, i.e., be like a god. While I do think human beings can potentially approach a divine state of integrity, it is exceedingly rare and difficult.

Posted by: traeh

at May 30, 2006 9:08 PM

To Television:

You seem to want to add to Robert's reporting of data and of broad patterns, an additional twofold task:

1. That he adopt as an explicit program that everyone and every organization should be tested as to whether they adhere to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and if they don't,

2. Robert should condemn non-adherents as evil and encourage others to condemn non-adherents.

I don't say there would be no benefits if Robert adopted your plan. But there would be some disadvantages: Suddenly people would have two quite new bases on which to disagree with Robert. They might not like his practical proposal, and might find other proposals much better for all kinds of reasons. And they might not like something in his moral stance or in his moral thinking, and object to that. Your proposal for Robert might make him like a suit that only relatively small numbers of people would feel comfortable wearing, or even trying on.

But if Robert sticks mainly to facts and broad patterns tied to facts, those can be of use to almost anyone. All kinds of practical initiatives can result. All kinds of moral responses can occur, which might be quite condemnatory yet not fit into whatever particular moral box you would have Robert pushing. Anyway, to focus on a course of action or a universal moral conclusion would arguably be premature when most people hardly know what this vast phenomenon called Islam is yet.

But having argued so much against your position, Television, I can't say I'm entirely sure you are wrong.

Posted by: traeh

at May 30, 2006 10:34 PM

traeh

[You quoted me:] Robert's HYCAEIT seems to be that there is an "Islam" that is evil and dangerous, but that because it is only a central, crucial, gigantic chunk of a larger "Islam" that is ethically and culturally variegated, then he can't condemn "Islam"

[You responded:] A crucial part of the statement above is where you say the evil kind of Islam is "a central, crucial, gigantic chunk of..."Islam..." You say here not "the" central feature, rather, "a" central feature.

My use of the indefinite article "a" involved a subtle grammatical nuance beneath the distinction you see. The "a" in my sentence you quoted refers to Robert's use, not to my view of the subject to which the article points.

Beyond that, I think you are splitting hairs with your argument that is based on the idea that a center can have parts that are... well, not so central. If we begin by agreeing there is a center of something, then one of us, on the basis of subdividing that center, asserts that what the other person considered to be the center is really only a part of that center, then we should not be speaking of "center" anymore. I only use the word "center" when I am referring to an indivisible unit or a fasces ("bundle") of items where each item is necessary and not one of the items can be detached without destroying that center; all else pertaining to that unit or fasces is a collection of parts that orbit that center. Secondly, the whole point of the word "center" is that it is of central importance with relation to the unit under consideration. With Islam, we have a center that is a fasces, consisting of several items that are collectively and singly necessary for the center to remain as itself: the so-called "pillars" of Islam, and Jihad (and Jihad itself entails another "bundle" of indissoluble features -- Sharia, Eschatology, Supremacism-Subjugation, Military Conquest). Whether Islam can remain integral without Jihad is more than a theoretical ontological question: it is a pragmatic historical question whose answer, based on Muslim history and Muslim ideology & behavior past and present, leans with crushing preponderance toward "No". This reflects the problem with Muslim reformers and their apologists today: they are picking at the center of Islam and theorizing what pieces of its heart or brain can be destroyed without destroying Islam. It's like dissatisfied Catholics who want the Catholic Church to give up a list of such central tenets that it would no longer be the Catholic Church anymore; they should just join another Church or set up their own community or just become agnostics.

To abstain from condemning Islam is, in effect, to re-define the fasces that constitutes its center -- either by cherry-picking among the indissolubles therein (which can only be done theoretically, not actually) and minimizing one or more of the evil "parts" therein, or by enhancing the diluting effect of the bona fide parts (the parts that really are "parts", as opposed to members of the fasces of the center) that orbit that center. Robert's method seems to be the latter.

"[Robert] doesn't avow this dark Islam to be Islam's "very heart" -- all Robert does is argue that the dark Islam is some substantial part of Islam's very heart."

I'd have to see evidence of this from Robert's own words -- keeping in mind my argument above about how a "heart" or "center" has no "parts", per se.

"you will find it difficult, though not necessarily impossible, under current circumstances, to generate broad consensus around this distinction between periphery and center. You will find it easier if you use quantitative language: "75% of Muslims believe x, while only 25% of Muslims believe y"..."

I'm not denying this kind of apportionment pertains to Islam and Muslims. That's looking at the apples, not the oranges. To the identification, definition and condemnation of Islam's evil center, it doesn't matter what variety there is among Muslims concerning that evil center of Islam, nor does it matter what variety there is in Islam orbiting that evil center -- except insofar as all peripheral parts orbiting that evil center are to be condemned as long as they support or even passively countenance that evil center.

"as soon as you introduce terms of quite complex and often ambiguous meaning, like "center" and "periphery," you create problems for yourself in persuading people."

I think you are injecting complexity into my terminology. I repeatedly maintain that this is not rocket science: if an organization has a tenet that is

a) sufficiently evil
b) vital
c) central

then that organization should be condemned. (Indeed, that evil vital tenet would have to be not merely peripheral but way out on the periphery to exonerate the organization. I.e., even an organization that had a good center, but a peripheral part that was vital and evil, could be subject to condemnation, depending on the degree of peripherality. Thus, once we're in the ballpark of "center", all bets are off. No more negotiations with Tony Soprano's organization: he and his cronies murdered people in fidelity to its central fasces. His organization must be condemned.)

What complicates the evil of Islam is

1) its aura of historical venerability, its aesthetic cultural diversity, its socio-psychological diversity, and its bewildering jungle of "parts" that orbit its evil center;

coupled with

2) certain apodictic givens of the modern West's multiculturalism.

"why go to the trouble with "center" and "periphery" in the first place? Just start from the quantitative and specific."

The need for quantitative explication is mainly relevant to how we respond to an evil organization, not for proving to obtuse people who have been deformed by multiculturalism that it is evil in the first place. We have abundant data now to prove that the organization Islam is dangerous and evil, but most people persist in diluting that data in a complexity of "parts" that orbit the center. They will not reorient their minds until the data starts raining down from the skies on the heads of their families, friends, neighbors, cities, fellow countries.

"Pragmatically speaking, one can sometimes adopt the shorthand you wish to adopt about Islam, and in practice shorthand may often be necessary and sufficient ethically. But in terms of realities and truth, any formula or statement is at best an extremely accurate, not perfectly accurate, shorthand. Yes, this is true even of the Nazis. It is true of everything."

One can easily simultaneously condemn Islam, and recognize and try to use (or more appropriately, try to salvage) whatever good parts orbit its evil center.

"[Robert] would of course maintain that his "selection" is not guided by any narrow "ideology" but by something approximating to choiceless awareness."

Awareness of the evil manifested in each datum. That evil is not just the general, amorphous evil of the world, obviously, but pertains to an identifiable constellation which has a guiding center and which is dangerously metastasizing -- and Robert would agree; and yet, apparently, simultaneously disagree. Robert seems to be having his close-but-no-cigar and smoking it, too.

Posted by: Television

at May 31, 2006 1:12 AM

Call an obstetrician! The punchline suffered in the delivery...

Posted by: jsla

at May 31, 2006 2:38 AM

Archimedes and DennisW

“The policies of Meccan verses vs Medinian are actually quite similar”

I beg to differ with you on this matter, and Mr Spencer can correct me on this one, but Islam started as a peaceful religion. The violent verses of Jihad appeared later, after the Hijra to Medina. Mohamed actually tried to befriend Jews and Christians, but when they rejected him as God's prophet, he turned violently against them as he became more powerful.

Even in the Hadith, you will find countless stories showing Mohamed as an exemplary human being. There is a book called “Al Duaa Al Mustajab Min Al Hadith Wal Keetab” or the Answered Prayer from the hadith and the Book by Ahmad Abdel Jawad. Please read it if you ever find it in English. It was my bible when I was a Muslim and the reason I loved Islam dearly and held on to it for so long. It combines many of the statements that followed Christian teachings. I’ll try to translate a passage for you as best I can.

“ And the prophet (PBUH) said: And God Almighty says – I shall not let my worshipper down and will be by his side every time he calls upon me. Whenever he thinks of me, I am thinking of him. Whenever he talks about me to his own company, I talk about him to my own. Should he move one inch closer to me, I will move a mile closer to him. Should he come to me walking, I shall run towards him with my arms wide open”. This is the God I believed and still firmly believe in. He is always by my side, lovingly keeping me under his watch.

There are many ahadith that refer to doing good to others, including your enemies. There are instances when Mohamed warned his people against cruelty to their animals, telling them that on judgment day, even the camel will talk and report to God how he was treated.

These are some of the Meccan verses that I was able to find in English. It will take me some time to dig for more.

1. Be patient and bear with those who deny the truth; God will deal with them...73:10, 11 (3)
2. 'To you is your religion, to me is mine'...109:1- 6 (8)
3. Be patient with the evil doers...38:15-17 (38)
4. Show patience to the pagans...20:130 (42)
5. Don't be in a haste to fight...19:83, 84 (44)
6. Be patient with the unbelievers (pagans); God's way will prevail...20:134, 135 (45)
7. Mohammad is not sent to dispose of people's affairs...17:54 (50)
8. God guides those whom He pleases; rewards will be in paradise...10:25, 26 (51)
9. God will call into account the pagans who slander the Qur´an...15:91-93 (54)
10. It is not God's job to see if people believe the truth or not...6:104 (55)
11. Turn away from those rejecting faith and proclaim peace on them...43:88, 89 (69)
12. Invite the unbelievers (pagans) with beautiful preaching and gracious arguments; be patient and do not retaliate...16:125, 126 (70)
13. Leave the unbelievers (pagans) alone...23:54 (74)
14. Repeal evil with good deeds...23:96 (74)
15. Leave the unbelievers alone and wait in patience for God to punish them...52:45, 47, 48 (76)
16. Mohammad is only a warner and not an enforcer...67:26 (77)

There is a notorious verse (2:256) which stated that “There is no compulsion in religion” (in Arabic: la ikrah feel deen)., as God shall enlighten whom he chooses.” This verse was unfortunately overridden later by another (9:73) “O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and hypocrites and be harsh with them”. I always held on to the first verse and assumed that the second one applied to the enemies of Mohamed during his life. The chronology showed me that it was actually nullified by the second verse.

I am in no way trying to defend Islam, but I just want you to know that I have too much integrity and intelligence to have embraced a religion that only commands people to be killers. It is dangerous to think that way because you are alienating those Muslims who do not accept the violent message in Islam which took place in Medina, following the earlier more peaceful message. For a while, I held on to the hope that one of the caliphs had changed the Quran and falsified the hadith (one of them ordered his men to kill Mohamed's grandson and great grandson after all, Hassan and Hussein, sons of Fatima, were most precious and beloved to the Prophet of Islam and they were shown no mercy) . That could explain the contradiction in the message. Alas, this upon itself is considered blasphemy and is punishable by death according to Sharia’a. My only choice was to walk away.

Posted by: Mishka

at May 31, 2006 4:38 AM

Television said:

The "a" in my sentence you quoted refers to Robert's use, not to my view of the subject to which the article points.

Yes, I understood that was a reference to Robert's use.

Television said:

I only use the word "center" when I am referring to an indivisible unit or a fasces ("bundle") of items where each item is necessary and not one of the items can be detached without destroying that center; all else pertaining to that unit or fasces is a collection of parts that orbit that center. Secondly, the whole point of the word "center" is that it is of central importance with relation to the unit under consideration. With Islam, we have a center that is a fasces, consisting of several items that are collectively and singly necessary for the center to remain as itself: the so-called "pillars" of Islam, and Jihad (and Jihad itself entails another "bundle" of indissoluble features -- Sharia, Eschatology, Supremacism-Subjugation, Military Conquest). Whether Islam can remain integral without Jihad is more than a theoretical ontological question: it is a pragmatic historical question whose answer, based on Muslim history and Muslim ideology & behavior past and present, leans with crushing preponderance toward "No".

5 pillars: 1)praying five times a day; 2) pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in life, if possible; 3) shahada: affirming there is no God but God and Muhammed is His Prophet; 4)alms to the poor; 5) Ramadan fast. Jihad is by some scholars considered almost a sixth pillar. To these six should be added the supposed verbatim divinity of the Koran.

As far as I know, for orthodox Islam, the five pillars plus jihad are an indissoluble "bundle," because the Koran is taken as God's verbatim word valid for all time, and these six are laid down in the Koran (or are some of the six laid down in the Hadith?).

Are alms to the poor evil? Is a pilgrimage evil? Fasting? It seems to me the evil dimension of Islam is twofold: 1) violent jihad and plan for world domination and 2) the fact that the Koran's support for this violent totalitarianism is taken to be the verbatim, eternally unchangeable word of God. You seem to say that because these evil elements are indissoluble from the other, neutral or good central elements/pillars (like alms-giving), the evil elements corrupt the other central elements/pillars totally and make those other central elements purely evil. One of the problems with that approach is that it would seem to incapacitate the ability to distinguish degrees of evil or depths of evil. From your perspective, there would apparently be no difference if instead of alms-giving, Mohammed had substituted child-eating. Once something is evil, in your view, no more distinctions need be made on that score. You cannot measure degrees or depths (which circle of hell are we talking about) in part because you do not want to differentiate among the elements that make up the bundle, it's all evil, period, fini, because a center, you say, cannot have parts (though a bundle in some sense clearly does have parts, or else we couldn't distinguish a "bundle," and all we would 'see' is an infinitesimal point center). Instead of a "bundle" maybe this part of your argument requires terming the center to be a "unique structure," comparable to a work of art, or a personality, where if you change one thing you change the whole, and in effect destroy it or, what is similar, totally transform it. But that doesn't entirely solve the problem with your position. In a painted work of art the colors indeed form a unique whole in which all the colors are essential and you cannot remove any one color without utterly changing the work of art. Even though that is true, yet there are different colors in that work of art, and they can be distinguished. In saying that the evil "colors" make all the other colors equally evil in the center, you would seem to cripple the ability to distinguish what are clearly distinct elements with semi-independent moral qualities: the 6 pillars and the Koran's alleged divinity. I would say that in the unified and indissoluble composition, the evil colors do affect the other neutral or "good" colors, but those "good" colors do remain at least somewhat distinct from the "evil" colors, and what's more affect the evil colors.

If you said that anyone is evil (or foolish, or afraid) who refuses to condemn violent jihad and the goal of world domination, I would agree.

Television said:

if an organization has a tenet that is a) sufficiently evil; b) vital; c) central; then that organization should be condemned.

I agree. But part of the difficulty here is that Islam is not a single "organization" and furthermore, some significant part of what you call "evil" in Islam is, strictly speaking, not so much "evil" as foolish, ignorant, backward, even insane. Your approach seems to completely neglect that fact.

Television said:

What complicates the evil of Islam is 1) its aura of historical venerability, its aesthetic cultural diversity, its socio-psychological diversity, and its bewildering jungle of "parts" that orbit its evil center; coupled with 2) certain apodictic givens of the modern West's multiculturalism.

I would only add that there is some moral diversity as well.

Television said:

To the identification, definition and condemnation of Islam's evil center, it doesn't matter what variety there is among Muslims concerning that evil center of Islam

It matters in terms of avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings with tens or hundreds of millions of Muslims, at any rate, and numerous non-Muslims. Consider: tens or hundreds of millions of "Muslims" do not know that Islam advocates totalitarian takeover of the world and violent jihad; most Muslims know the Koran only through reciting ancient Arabic, and don't know what the ancient Arabic being recited means. To these Muslims, Islam means little more than prayer, and social and familial solidarity of a sort we would recognize as often backwardly traditional and of dubious morality, but hardly pure evil. You will say that is not the true Islam, which includes totalitarian jihad toward world domination. Fine. But though Islam without those malignant evil elements is not the "true" Islam of Muslim scholars, it is what tens or hundreds of millions of Muslims mean by the word "Islam." Little more than a kind of religious solidarity, often of a backward sort. When you call Islam "evil" these Muslims believe you are calling evil the "Islam" they experience directly, which is mainly a question of their immediate social relationships and lifeways, and in many cases contains no notion of totalitarian world domination or murdering infidels. At a minimum, then, your approach would seem to create the possibility of huge misunderstandings between this type of Muslim, of whom there is a large number, and yourself.

Television said:

One can easily simultaneously condemn Islam, and recognize and try to use (or more appropriately, try to salvage) whatever good parts orbit its evil center.

To my mind, this would mean designating "alms-giving to the poor," which is one of the five pillars, as "orbital" or "peripheral" to the evil center. Because to my mind alms giving is not evil. Yet you have said that the five pillars plus jihad are all central, so that to you, alms-giving must be deemed central, and therefore it must be evil. You say it is made evil by association with other evil elements at the center such as jihad. To me that is only a partial truth, one which recognizes the unity at the center but exaggerates that unity to the point where you cripple the ability to distinguish different elements making up the center, elements with semi-independent moral qualities like the semi-independent qualities of different colors forming the unified composition of a painting. And anyway, if all the central elements are equally evil, why is it that some central elements do the corrupting while other central elements get corrupted, as you have pointed out? Doesn't that suggest the very differentiation you say is not there in the center or is not meaningful?

Television said:

Robert seems to be having his close-but-no-cigar and smoking it, too.

If you are correct in that last statement, then the cause would be either unintentional error on Robert's part, or conscious tactic and perhaps humanistic caution (to protect innocent Muslims).

If you are wrong in your last statement, then the cause would be that Islam and evil are both a bit more complicated than you allow.

As we have discussed this issue, it has to me seemed to grow more complicated, at least in terms of what would constitute effective rhetoric.

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 4:43 AM

Traeh

Well said. Television's statements alienate people like myself. Although I chose to leave Islam, my entire family is still Muslim. They are the nicest and kindest people you will ever meet and will give the clothes off their backs to help others. To claim that Muslims are just evil because they belong to an evil religion is both repulsive and naive. Islam is too complex of an issue to be labeled black or white. Like you said, Islam commands helping and feeding the poor. Eid is celebrated with the slaughter of a lamb and the donation of its meat to the poor. In Ramadan, Muslims are required to refrain from cussing and are expected to show patience and piety. Good hygiene is extremely important in Islam, we have to wash before every prayer and we have 5 of them per day. One cannot reject this all simply because there are some seriously evil aspects in Muslim ideology.

Islam can and will be reformed. The biggest disservice Prophet Mohamed did to his people is by claiming that the Quran cannot be changed as it is word for word written by God. This is the biggest handicap to Islamic reform, and this is what is keeping Islam stuck in the Middle Ages. Overcoming this belief will open the doors to the rejection of Shariaa and Jihadist ideology. If Television thinks that over a billion people will leave their faith overnight, it ain't going to happen. Also, over 1 billion people are not all violent, or awaiting some hidden command to turn into suicide bombers. The jihadist ideology tends to appeal to psychopath, sociopaths and nutcases. This is why Islam is so successful at recruiting criminals in jails. These people become Muslim because their violence has the stamp of approval of God on it (remember the DC sniper). It is very important that non-violent Muslims be made aware that Mohamed did declare war on all non-muslims and not only Jihad El Nafs (Jihad of the soul) as many believe. Muslims who want to leave Islam need to be protected from radical Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was 2 steps away from being thrown into the wolves a few weeks ago. Dr Wafa Sultan is under constant threat. Apart from my immediate family, I would not dare to share any of my views (and I no longer discuss this issue with them either because it is too disturbing for them) because I fear of the repercussions on my life if I speak up. The biggest danger comes from Wahabi funding of madrassas and the radical clerics who are given a soap box in every mosque. Atta and Jarrah for example got indoctrinated in Europe, rather than in the Middle East. The blind Egyptian sheikh (Forgot his name) behind the WTC bombing in 1993 was allowed to preach his message of hate in the US. We need to completely revise our immigration policy and start deporting any cleric caught inciting violence in the US. The Europeans need to do the same. We also need to close down certain Muslim groups that operate in the US as think tanks, but are nothing more than a mouthpiece for Jihadists. We need to prevent a news agency like El Jazeera from broadcasting here and the Europeans ought to do the same. I cannot handle more than 5 minutes of the filthy lies that are broadcasted on this news channel, but many arabs swallow everything they are told on it. This would allow moderate Muslims and apostates in the west to start speaking freely without fear for their life. I'll get off my soap box now, I promise.

Posted by: Mishka

at May 31, 2006 8:12 AM

Mishka,
For the most part, you sound ok. But my experience on the ground here in India shows me that there are no "moderate muslims". I know of only one, he lived among the Hindus for too long and is peaceful. He once saw the sawing off the head of a goat in a mosque and gave up meat. In every riots, there are no "extremists" imported. They are all indigeneous. And, while we are at it, can't the poor eat bread and cheese ? Or rice and vegetables ? As long as every muslim is made to saw off the head of an animal, and I know ALL muslims must saw off heads, we have a zombie who can saw off the head of a human. This is basic psychology.

Posted by: arjun.sevak

at May 31, 2006 11:21 AM

Mishka said: "To claim that Muslims are just evil because they belong to an evil religion is both repulsive and naive."

I never claimed that all Muslims are evil; nor have I claimed that Islam itself is entirely evil. I have only claimed that because Islam enshrines evil at its center, it must be condemned as a system. Why good people remain Muslims must be due either to

1) ignorance of the evil at the center of the system around which their entire lives revolve

2) lucid fear of being lynched or killed or, at best, ostracized and punished in a variety of subtle ways (property taken away, children taken away, etc.)

3) a kind of passive timidity and self-imposed quasi-myopic naivete that suspects, from its peripheral vision, that there are horrible things about this World called Islam, but doesn't bother itself to look into it more closely, out of a mix of laziness and fear: such people can be good in the sense that they never do violence themselves and just mind their own business and would help people in need who happened to cross their paths: but by remaining Muslims, they are contributing to the culture, by passively enabling it through being members, that is causing misery and suffering and evil.

As for #1 above, the sheer amount of evil in the Qur'an & Ahadith, as well as in the behavior of Muslims today and throughout history, leads me to believe that those Muslims who are ignorant of the evil mountain of their Islamic World must be ignorant due not to mere accident, but due to some calculated deception process woven by those who are entrusted with the pedagogy of Muslims: a weaving process of quite some artistry and cleverness. The Army of the Ummah requires many different types of people: you need evil violent people for the front lines of attacks and conquest and for the "religious police" and avengers of "threats" to Islam; you also need a vast population of relatively stable family nuclei that will be the incubators of more mujahideen and who collectively by their sheer presence in numbers represents one important wing of the triumphalism of Islam, and among this population it would be imprudent to teach the evil center in all its brazen zeal & fanaticism, grounded in Mohammed himself.

For all three types of good people who happen to be Muslims, the only sane and humane response would be to leave Islam and never look back, except in grief and horror.

Posted by: Television

at May 31, 2006 11:52 AM

# arjun.sevak

There are over 100 million Muslims in India Sir, I am truly amazed that you managed to meet them all. Good for you.

You say that I "sound OK for the most part", I feel humbled that I have somehow managed to barely meet your high standards.

Dear God. You believe that ALL muslims saw off the heads of animals, and therefore must find it easy to saw off the head of other humans. I eat meat, does that mean that I should automatically be a cannibal. I have met many Hindus (not all, I know wonderful people who are Hindu as well)who look down on Indian Muslims and consider them second class citizens. You seem to have lived amongst such people for too long yourself and have come to embrace their views. You obviously understood very little out of what I said previously. Moderate Muslims and apostates cannot go public with their views, they fear the jihadists who will not hesitate to kill them. The people you see rioting are either sheep who cannot think for themselves and obey their clerics blindly or Jihadist thugs who love the idea of Jihad. The moderate and peace loving Muslim is going to be at work, at home, and as far away from these people as possible. If cartoonists in Europe are now fearing for their life from these thugs, imagine what an innocent person living amongst these people must be feeling. I have read 2 of Mr Spencer's books and many of his articles, and I have never heard him once claim that all Muslims are by default terrorists and evil. He strives to open the eyes of Muslims and non-muslims to the danger of the JIhadist aspect of Islamist ideology in an effort to push it towards reform. I don't see any difference between your statement about Indian Muslims and how Jihadists view Jewish people. Jihadists believe that every Jewish person is an evil person, sounds quite similar to what you had just said, does it not?

Posted by: Mishka

at May 31, 2006 12:08 PM

Mishka,
Please do not take me as a hostile. I appreciate your concerns. I had muslims for friends until they all became rabid and started talking how grand OBL was way back in 2000. Even before 9/11.
My second point is rather based on history. The muslims of India made a party called muslim league in 1915 or so. When the British were departing, this muslim league asked for a seperate muslim state. They got it. It is called pakistan. As soon as word broke out that muslims have pakistan, all muslims got out of their homes and started killing Hindus. And they killed uniformly, man, woman, children, all those who were vacating the land of their forefathers to go to live in India. In India, there were some muslims killed, but their number was miniscule. I repeat myself "To kill a million Hindus, there were no armies. There were only the muslims Hindus lived and worked and traded with. And they were all ready to butcher. And they did."

Posted by: arjun.sevak

at May 31, 2006 12:22 PM

"I don't see any difference between your statement about Indian Muslims and how Jihadists view Jewish people. "

Victimizer painted as victim yet again -- This individual may simply be a self deluded fool unable to comprehend his religion's role in the most heinous atrocities, or he may be a smooth Islamic operator who is both fully aware of all the heinousness which Islam intends for humanity but who, (mainly to keep non-Muslims unaware and confused until the blade can be driven home) makes poisonous subtle and cleverly false comparisons such as this filth above in order to further Islam's goals.

Or he may be something in between the self deluded fool and a seditious poisonous snake.

One thing is for sure -- if those are the options the Muslim world presents to the rest of us -- and there's ample evidence to make the indictment -- then there is an argument to be made that what Muslims say, think, or do should matter little to the rest of us -- that is, unless they abandon Islam and begin to work for it's destruction.

If Muslims further Islam in any way -- either from the poisonous drippings of their tongues or their blood caked swords of Jihad --it is proper then to say that Islam has no place in the modern world and Islam is not a force for civilization -- it is civilization's antithesis.

So if we cherish our lives, our liberty, our sovereignty and our future, if we want to further the human march out of the swamps and jungles of barbarism hatred and despair -- NO MEASURE which destabilizes and harms Islam is out of bounds. NO MEASURE employed to annihilate Islam should be left off the table.

Posted by: jsla

at May 31, 2006 12:39 PM

Mishka,
Do not be angry with me. The evidence I have merely proves that there is no moderate islam. There is no "good side" to islam that you point out. It is black and white. Either one is a muslim, or one is a non muslim. Either one abandons it altogether, or praises its "good points". And believe me when I tell you, it is COMPULSARY for all muslims to saw off the heads of goats and sheep and camels. They must do it.

Posted by: arjun.sevak

at May 31, 2006 12:49 PM

traeh

"As far as I know, for orthodox Islam, the five pillars plus jihad are an indissoluble "bundle," because the Koran is taken as God's verbatim word valid for all time, and these six are laid down in the Koran (or are some of the six laid down in the Hadith?)."

Instead of acceding to the Islamic terminology of "pillars", I would rather simply identify what belongs in the fasces of its center: you have identified a further one I neglected to mention: divine inerrancy.

"Are alms to the poor evil? Is a pilgrimage evil? Fasting?"

I'm surprised and dismayed that you would ask these questions at this late stage of the game. As I have repeatedly said, when a system has an evil center, it doesn't matter if there are good adjuncts -- whether those good adjuncts are parts orbiting the center, or whether those good adjuncts are members of the fasces that constitutes the center. Yes, they are good in and of themselves -- but they are not "in and of themselves" when they are within the evil system. At best, they are passive enablers of the evil of that evil system. (As far as pilgrimage and fasting goes, however, I would say that, insofar as they are caught up in the gravitational pull of the galactic system of Islam, they go beyond merely passively enabling, to a further degree of collusion, of symbiotically nourishing the evil, in inculcating a psychological regimentation unto the totalitarianism that helps to make the evil of Islam so dangerous to others and so mentally crippling for its adherents. Even almsgiving can have this function, in inculcating a super-gang mentality similar to street gangs and the Mafia that "helps its own" in oftentimes quite tender and gracious ways -- but considering the evil to which such "helping" is intrinsically tied, then such "helping" should be nauseating to any person of good conscience.)

"You seem to say that because these evil elements are indissoluble from the other, neutral or good central elements/pillars (like alms-giving), the evil elements corrupt the other central elements/pillars totally and make those other central elements purely evil."

No. The central evil does pollute and blemish the apparently good things, insofar as the good things are bound up in supporting the evil center. Tony Soprano in cold blood murders the husband of some woman; then he buys that woman a brand new car and gives ice cream to her children and pets her dog, and pays her mortgage off which helps relieve the stress and financial burdens on her family. You can't isolate the buying a brand new car, giving ice cream, petting the dog, and financial charity from the cold-blooded murder -- they are part of the sincere yet clever & diabolical system that Tony Soprano has woven in order to have the power he enjoys and continue being evil along with enjoying his innocuous life of cigars, family life, and occasional hookers.

"One of the problems with that approach is that it would seem to incapacitate the ability to distinguish degrees of evil or depths of evil."

As I have said repeatedly, I acknowledge not only degrees of evil, but also co-existing good and innocuous parts present in an evil system. But if there is evil in a system and when that evil is

1) sufficiently evil (of a degree of evil sufficient to pass the litmus test of rendering the system condemnable)
2) central (or even, as I realized in my previous post, peripheral in an important way -- another recognition of degrees, btw)
3) vital

Then the system must be condemned, and all innocuous activities and good activities that are sustained by that system would have to be disbanded and close up shop (while the authorities deconstruct that system), and relocate to a place outside that system to continue -- for, while they continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

"But part of the difficulty here is that Islam is not a single "organization"..."

It is, in terms of the fasces. All the features that make it seem not to be a single organization are just accidents of the exigencies of having a vast, sprawling ideology permeating several different regions and cultures, that has lasted many centuries. Within its fasces-center, Islam has the impulse to unify in totalitarian fashion: this impulse is not attenuated by design or good will, but by the sheer difficulty of doing so, when a nuclear culture (beginning with the nucleus of Mohammed's Ikhwan and expanding relentlessly and metastatically over time) has to absorb and digest so much humanity in its ambition to conquer the World in preparation for a psychotically conceived and desired eschaton.

"and furthermore, some significant part of what you call "evil" in Islam is, strictly speaking, not so much "evil" as foolish, ignorant, backward, even insane. Your approach seems to completely neglect that fact."

Just more peripheral paraphernalia attached, like the rag-tag families and beasts of burden and pets and birds and cooks and servants and slaves and musicians and dancers dragged in the train of a conquering migratory Mongolian or Ottoman army. There is a system here, an organism, and all systems and organisms have a center. Part of the conceit of Muslim apologists is that Islam is so wonderfully big and diverse, it is like an "ocean", it is like "life itself" -- this lets it off the hook of having a guiding center to which ethical responsibility can be imputed, leading inexorably to condemnation. It is like an "ocean" and like "life itself" by express design of its central imperative to conquer the entire World -- and that central design, by itself, and by the evil rules it would impose upon people, is evil.

"Consider: tens or hundreds of millions of "Muslims" do not know that Islam advocates totalitarian takeover of the world and violent jihad; most Muslims know the Koran only through reciting ancient Arabic, and don't know what the ancient Arabic being recited means. To these Muslims, Islam means little more than prayer, and social and familial solidarity of a sort we would recognize as often backwardly traditional and of dubious morality, but hardly pure evil. You will say that is not the true Islam, which includes totalitarian jihad toward world domination."

That vast rag-tag diversity and amiable ignorance & naivete you describe that pertains to Islam is part of the totalitarian jihad -- attenuated by the sheer difficulty of maintaining vast populations, but also a diverse mass that felicitously aids the triumphalism of Islam through sheer numbers and presence.

"Islam without those malignant evil elements is not the "true" Islam of Muslim scholars, [but] it is what tens or hundreds of millions of Muslims mean by the word "Islam." "

Tough beans. By remaining Muslims, they are contributing to the evil system's triumphalism. They need to get out. We may pity them and grieve their passive quasi-slavery to an evil system, but me ought not justify it in any way.

"your approach would seem to create the possibility of huge misunderstandings between this type of Muslim, of whom there is a large number, and yourself."

There already is a chasm of misunderstanding: the mere fact that they don't realize they are passively enabling a monumentally evil and metastatically dangerous horror represents a chasm, which is not going to be bridged by my acceptance of or even respect on any level for their choice to remain affiliated with such an evil system. The only proper response is one you would have if you encountered a Charles Manson Family member who cooked and cleaned and drove getaway cars for Charlie and his more knowing inner circle of murderers, but who otherwise had accidentally (or by Charlie's clever design) remained ignorant of the twisted and sordid activities of the Family: Pity and grief and horror if you could do nothing for them: or, if you could: Get the Hell outta there, now!!!! And let's call the police!!!!! And here's a loaded gun!!!!!!! Shoot Charlie or his murderous fanatics on sight!!!!!!!!!!! Come on, let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Television said:

One can easily simultaneously condemn Islam, and recognize and try to use (or more appropriately, try to salvage) whatever good parts orbit its evil center.

To my mind, this would mean designating "alms-giving to the poor," which is one of the five pillars, as "orbital" or "peripheral" to the evil center. Because to my mind alms giving is not evil."

Alms-giving, whether as an orbital part of the evil system or as a feature of the central fasces, supports that evil system. You don't let Tony Soprano continue giving the local shopkeepers and their families (who don't cross him but behave in ways that help keep his system thriving) kind favors, and continue giving financial help to widows of the men he's murdered, etc. If there's any good in a system -- whether orbiting as "parts" or within the nuclear fasces -- it will have to go down with the evil system whenever that evil system can be taken down: if possible, it would be nice to disengage and salvage the good aspects, and relocate them to new systems that are not evil -- either before that evil system is taken down, or after. But if the good cannot be disengaged and salvaged, then it is tied to the evil system. (Don't get confused here: when I say the good must be "taken down", the analogy would not be that the innocent widow who knows nothing of Tony Soprano's evil must herself be "taken down" when Tony is arrested or killed: it means that the good of Tony's almsgiving dissolves with the deconstruction of Tony's criminal organization -- and if the police or some concerned third party can scrape together some money to help that widow once her main benefactor, evil Tony, is gone, that would be nice, but we should not lament the loss of Tony's benefaction in its nature as it is necessarily tied to his evil acts after it's gone nor should we support it or justify it while that benefaction is being maintained by a thriving, successful, murdering Tony.)

"Yet you have said that the five pillars plus jihad are all central, so that to you, alms-giving must be deemed central, and therefore it must be evil."

I hope you can find an answer above to this misunderstanding of yours. To repeat yet again: an evil center that is a fasces (and not a simplex unit of one thing) may have 10 features: a full 9 of them could be good, but if only one is sufficiently evil, then not the other 9 by themselves, but the center itself, and the system of which it is the center, is evil. The only real way to render the good 9 "by themselves" is to rescue them from the evil center and the system that evil center guides -- detach them from the evil center and relocate them apart from the evil center. While this would be relatively easy with the good in Tony Soprano's relatively small and localized system, it would be with Islam a gargantuan and laborious and overwhelming task, since Islam is more like a complex ecosystem in which evil is intricately and intrinsically and inextricably interwoven.

The most pragmatic way to do it (and even this would be colossally difficult) would be to destroy Islam, then invite the surviving millions of Muslims to continue doing good if they like, divorced from the worldview with which they used to associate everything under the Sun. The world, after all, has plenty of ways utterly unrelated to Islam by which a good person can do any number of good activities, and plenty of benign, mature, sane flavors of religion to frame those good activities, if the ex-Muslim would feel the need to do so.

Posted by: Television

at May 31, 2006 1:27 PM

Let me say clarify my own current opinion:

I think that Islam is, in the main, a force for evil in the world. Not totally, but in the main. (I am open to revising that opinion based on new information.)

On a different matter: Mishka has stated earlier in a moving post that she is a Muslim apostate and why. If she makes a statement you think wrong, disagree with her civilly (one person I think crossed the line a bit). Why alienate potential allies to the cause of this site? When you shrink the number of our allies you only help the totalitarian goals of Islam.

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 1:35 PM

Television: my short and clipped post just above is not a response to your recent long post of May 31, 1:27pm. I posted the short post (1:35pm) before I noticed your 1:27pm post. I will have to work on a response, but no time now.

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 1:48 PM

traeh,
Please go through the last 12 posts. You'll get the answer

traeh,
Do go through the last 10 posts. Especially the ones by mishka and the replies.

Posted by: arjun.sevak

at May 31, 2006 3:16 PM

to Television: thanks for your patience. This has been a fascinating dialog for me.

traeh said:

"Are alms to the poor evil? Is a pilgrimage evil? Fasting?"

Television replied:

I'm surprised and dismayed that you would ask these questions at this late stage of the game. As I have repeatedly said, when a system has an evil center, it doesn't matter if there are good adjuncts -- whether those good adjuncts are parts orbiting the center, or whether those good adjuncts are members of the fasces that constitutes the center. Yes, they are good in and of themselves -- but they are not "in and of themselves" when they are within the evil system. At best, they are passive enablers of the evil of that evil system.

Well, but the only reason I go into this question yet again is that as far as I can tell you have never directly replied to the two objections I raised, namely:

1. By your reasoning, it would seem to make no difference of any kind to our moral evaluation (I'm not speaking of what pragmatic action to take) if Mohammed had, instead of alms-giving for a pillar, put in child-eating. It would make no difference, because to you, whatever M. introduced, however “good in and of itself,” is not “in and of itself” when within the evil system. So child-eating and alms-giving become all the same. In this respect you do not, as far as I can see, account for degrees of evil. You seem to want to claim that it matters not a bit to the character of the center, precisely what the “good” elements are, how many there are, etc.

2. You say that the elements of the center or the orbit, however good in and of themselves, become nothing but evil, or nothing but evil in effect, when in the evil system. I have replied to this a couple of times, but as far as I can tell you have not directly responded to my reply which was: yes, good things, especially within a predominantly evil system, can and frequently do subserve and perpetuate the evil. I do not deny and have never denied this. But the good things within the evil system do not always or only serve the evil in that system. In fact, you yourself seem to agree with this in your most recent response, when you say:

for, while [the good or innocuous elements] continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

(I added the italics.) “in addition to any good they might accomplish,” you say. Without reservation I agree with the above statement. You point out that the “good” becomes evil in serving the perpetuation of the system’s dominant evil, but you also allow that in addition the good “might accomplish” some good (even though the good accomplished would not be sufficiently large to redeem the system’s net effect, and that net effect demands condemnation).

This seems different to what you were saying before, and to what you have been saying in earlier replies, where you seem to make the “good” exclusively active for the dominant evil. Perhaps I misunderstood your earlier replies on this. In any event, if you agree that the “good” within the evil system subserves and furthers that evil system, but in addition the good might also sometimes accomplish some good effects (however insignificant those effects might be), then this part of our discussion – really the main part -- is now resolved in agreement between us.
Television said:

The central evil does pollute and blemish the apparently good things, insofar as the good things are bound up in supporting the evil center. Tony Soprano in cold blood murders the husband of some woman; then he buys that woman a brand new car and gives ice cream to her children and pets her dog, and pays her mortgage off which helps relieve the stress and financial burdens on her family. You can't isolate the buying a brand new car, giving ice cream, petting the dog, and financial charity from the cold-blooded murder -- they are part of the sincere yet clever & diabolical system that Tony Soprano has woven in order to have the power he enjoys and continue being evil along with enjoying his innocuous life of cigars, family life, and occasional hookers.

This goes back to the discussion that I said had now been resolved in agreement between us, though this analogy of yours suggests that maybe I was mistaken about what you think. Here you seem to assume that all “good” things in Islam are there only to enable the dominant evil, and have exclusively the effect of enabling evil. Even if that is true in the Tony Soprano case you have illustrated (and I’m not sure it is), it seems doubtful that it is true in every case one might adduce in Islam. Anyway, you yourself seem to agree with my position on this when you said:

for, while [the good or innocuous elements] continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

Television said:

I acknowledge not only degrees of evil, but also co-existing good and innocuous parts present in an evil system. But if there is evil in a system and when that evil is

1) sufficiently evil (of a degree of evil sufficient to pass the litmus test of rendering the system condemnable)

2) central (or even, as I realized in my previous post, peripheral in an important way -- another recognition of degrees, btw)

3) vital

Then the system must be condemned, and all innocuous activities and good activities that are sustained by that system would have to be disbanded and close up shop (while the authorities deconstruct that system), and relocate to a place outside that system to continue -- for, while they continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

This seems reasonable, so I don’t disagree with this. Here, by “condemned” you indicate an action that must be taken. I agree, because to me the net effect of the system justifies shutting down the system as a whole (if possible). My only complaint, which you seem to have removed above by now seeming to agree with me, is that formerly you did not acknowledge any “net” effect, any need to add and subtract goods and evils to get a total. You formerly wanted, so it seemed, to simply declare the system evil not only in whole, but in every part in every way at every moment. To me, this seemed to kill the possibility of discriminating details, not to mention the possibility of recognizing degrees of evil, circles of hell. But since you now seem to agree (perhaps you always did) that one can do an accounting and come up with an estimated “net” result, then I suspect we are in complete agreement.
Television said:

Part of the conceit of Muslim apologists is that Islam is so wonderfully big and diverse, it is like an "ocean", it is like "life itself" -- this lets it off the hook of having a guiding center to which ethical responsibility can be imputed, leading inexorably to condemnation.

I agree with this. But it doesn’t eliminate the need for a “net” accounting of moral deficits and credits. To which you seem to have agreed. Condemnation then becomes a practical result of calculating a net moral negative. Agreeing to calculate “net” does not mean one must say that something is only mildly evil. A “net” result can be that something is hugely and horribly, a very close approximation to pure evil. The only thing a “net” calculation rules out is to call something perfectly evil. Condemnation, in terms of “net” calculations, acknowledges, just as you do, that the evil system is a unity of its good and evil “parts,” the “good” often acting to further evil. But condemnation should acknowledge, as you seem to have done, and I have been asking you to do, that while the “good” subserves and perpetuates the dominant evil in an evil system, yet the “good” does not only or exclusively serve the evil in that system. Condemnation of the system is therefore based on the fact that the system has an evil center. But condemnation also peers into the specific character and degree of evil of that evil center, and acknowledges that some “minority good elements” in that center not only serve the mainly evil quality of the center and strengthen its evil – those good elements also “might accomplish,” as you put it, some good (without being a sufficient good to transform the evil center into a good one).
Television said:

By remaining Muslims, they are contributing to the evil system's triumphalism. They need to get out. We may pity them and grieve their passive quasi-slavery to an evil system, but me ought not justify it in any way.

I would agree with that. My point has been that your former(?) way of putting things would not aid them in understanding that they need to get out. Sure, condemn Islam, say it must be shut down, say it is a net force for terrible evil. Just don’t expect Muslims to pretend that in their totally Muslim lives they experience nothing at all truly good. (Which is the conclusion one might draw you’re your former(?) stance.) They will just think you blind, as will many non-Muslims, and won’t listen to the valid idea that Islam as a belief system and practice needs to somehow very actively opposed and contained or even banned.
Television said:

There already is a chasm of misunderstanding: the mere fact that they don't realize they are passively enabling a monumentally evil and metastatically dangerous horror represents a chasm, which is not going to be bridged by my acceptance of or even respect on any level for their choice to remain affiliated with such an evil system.

I do not and have never said you should accept or respect their choice to stay affiliated. I have only been saying, throughout our long and, to me, very interesting, dialog, that you should acknowledge a “net” moral result, and drop the idea of some absolutely undifferentiated conclusion. You seem to have dropped it that absolute undifferentiation. But if you maintain it, you should do so for practical or strategic or rhetorical reasons only, or as shorthand, but not for reasons of truth. In terms of truth, Islam’s moral character must be determined by the result of an accounting of specifics, leading to a net result which, however extremely and horribly evil it might be, is not perfectly pure evil.
Television said:

The only proper response is one you would have if you encountered a Charles Manson Family member who cooked and cleaned and drove getaway cars for Charlie and his more knowing inner circle of murderers, but who otherwise had accidentally (or by Charlie's clever design) remained ignorant of the twisted and sordid activities of the Family: Pity and grief and horror if you could do nothing for them: or, if you could: Get the Hell outta there, now!!!! And let's call the police!!!!! And here's a loaded gun!!!!!!! Shoot Charlie or his murderous fanatics on sight!!!!!!!!!!! Come on, let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once again, I completely agree, because this is a practical condemnation you are speaking of. Does that mean Charlie Manson’s belief system and actions were perfectly evil and without the most miniscule iota of good? I don’t believe anything in the world is absolutely and perfectly pure. That is a point I have made before that you never seemed to respond to: No statement about a reality can be perfectly precise. Every statement is an approximation, sometimes an extremely good one. The sum and substance of my whole debate with you might be summed up in my sense that, formerly, your position failed to acknowledge the approximate nature of knowledge, which can be very very precise, practically without limit, but never attain perfect precision. Understandably, you tended to equate any such admission of the imperfection of rational statement, with the inability to take practical action to shut an evil system down. If we can’t call a thing pure and absolute evil, but only something approximating to pure evil, you fear we can’t shut the thing down, and will be tempted to try instead to reform it. Well, if you want to get around that, go ahead and speak of Islam as pure evil in whole and in every part and in every way. Just recognize that in doing so you are doing so for pragmatic reasons, because you believe that shutting Islam down will be easier for people if they have a simplified view of things. Don’t confuse those practical reasons with the reality of Islam. The reality is that Islam, like any other “evil” system, can only be some kind of approximation, perhaps a very good one, to perfect evil, but cannot be perfectly evil. Different evil systems will approximate more or less closely to some perfect evil “ideal.” It seems to me you must agree with this, or else you must withdraw your earlier statement that the “good” parts of Islam not only serve to perpetuate its dominant evil; they also “might accomplish” some good (however small).
Television said:

If there's any good in a system -- whether orbiting as "parts" or within the nuclear fasces -- it will have to go down with the evil system whenever that evil system can be taken down: if possible, it would be nice to disengage and salvage the good aspects, and relocate them to new systems that are not evil -- either before that evil system is taken down, or after. But if the good cannot be disengaged and salvaged, then it is tied to the evil system.

I agree with this.
Television said:

(Don't get confused here: when I say the good must be "taken down", the analogy would not be that the innocent widow who knows nothing of Tony Soprano's evil must herself be "taken down" when Tony is arrested or killed: it means that the good of Tony's almsgiving dissolves with the deconstruction of Tony's criminal organization -- and if the police or some concerned third party can scrape together some money to help that widow once her main benefactor, evil Tony, is gone, that would be nice, but we should not lament the loss of Tony's benefaction in its nature as it is necessarily tied to his evil acts after it's gone nor should we support it or justify it while that benefaction is being maintained by a thriving, successful, murdering Tony.)

I agree with this.
Television said:

I hope you can find an answer above to this misunderstanding of yours. To repeat yet again: an evil center that is a fasces (and not a simplex unit of one thing) may have 10 features: a full 9 of them could be good, but if only one is sufficiently evil, then not the other 9 by themselves, but the center itself, and the system of which it is the center, is evil. The only real way to render the good 9 "by themselves" is to rescue them from the evil center and the system that evil center guides -- detach them from the evil center and relocate them apart from the evil center.

In this statement about the 10 items, it seems to me you partly disagree with the following statement of yours made earlier:

for, while [the good or innocuous elements] continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

I prefer this latter statement of yours. It disagrees with the statement that the 9 items, while linked to the 10th evil one, are exclusively evil in effect. As I have said, I agree that the “good” elements often act for evil, subserve it and help perpetuate a dominant evil system. But I agree with you when you leave open the possibility that the “good” elements within a dominant system do not always or only act for evil.
Television said:

While [detaching the “good” elements from the evil system] would be relatively easy with the good in Tony Soprano's relatively small and localized system, it would be with Islam a gargantuan and laborious and overwhelming task, since Islam is more like a complex ecosystem in which evil is intricately and intrinsically and inextricably interwoven.

Again, you make a practical point that seems to me quite reasonable. My argument with you has never really been about what pragmatic course to take. It has been about how most accurately to characterize what is.

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 5:03 PM

arjun.sevak said:

traeh, Please go through the last 12 posts. You'll get the answer

Thanks, I will. But first would you tell me: for exactly what question am I seeking an answer?

Posted by: traeh

at May 31, 2006 5:08 PM

MISHKA

I am in no way trying to defend Islam, but I just want you to know that I have too much integrity and intelligence to have embraced a religion that only commands people to be killers.

Never would I think that. Millions of Muslims are good hearted by nature and have been fooled by the many beneficent verses (Meccan mostly) in the Koran. Fooled in the sense that somehow this enables them to deny the awful Medina verses of Muhammad's later life.

Common sense says to me that millions upon millions of people are not Muslim because of their evil inclinations. They are ill informed about Muhammad because the evil verses and the evil parts of Mohammed's life are somehow justified and/or glossed over by the Mullahs and other preachers. Often because they all want to believe the best about Muhammad -which is human nature unless the person is evil

It is dangerous to think that way because you are alienating those Muslims who do not accept the violent message in Islam which took place in Medina, following the earlier more peaceful message.

The Medina verse supersede the Meccan verse when there is a contradiction between the two

Posted by: dennisw

at May 31, 2006 9:53 PM

traeh (words in CAPS are supposed to be italicized):

“as far as I can tell you have never directly replied to the two objections I raised, namely:

It makes a difference to the difference between almsgiving by itself, and child-eating in any context. It makes no difference to the system in which almsgiving is found, if that system is evil, and it is evil if it has at least one central (or major peripheral), vital and sufficiently evil tenet. You keep focusing on the part (or the fasces-member), while I am only talking about the system to which the part or fasces-member belong.

“You seem to want to claim that it matters not a bit to the character of the center, precisely what the “good” elements are, how many there are, etc.”

That’s correct. The center, if it’s a fasces and not a simplex unit of one thing (since one thing obviously can’t be simultaneously evil and good – though I wouldn’t be surprised if you would argue that child-eating (if child-eating were the totality of some system's center) had a “degree” of good if the child-eater treated the child nicely before the eating) may have degrees of good or evil if the evil, or evils, that form its totality are not SUFFICIENTLY evil. If at least one of the members of the fasces is SUFFICIENTLY evil, and that evil is vital (i.e., not obsolete without any threat of being "reactivated"), then that center, and the system of which it is a center, is morally ruined and condemnable.

“2. You say that the elements of the center or the orbit, however good in and of themselves, become nothing but evil”

No, they don’t “become” evil, let alone “anything but” evil. I am not focusing on the elements or parts, I am focusing on the system (and/or the center) OF WHICH they are elements or parts. They can be as good as possible, but their goodness will not be able to exonerate the evil of the center, and therefore of the system of which the center is central, if that center has that evil which is SUFFICIENTLY evil as well as vital.

“You point out that the “good” becomes evil in serving the perpetuation of the system’s dominant evil”

It doesn’t have to. Any evil system could have many good features that never “become” evil. That’s irrelevant to the question of whether the system of which they are a part is condemnable or not. If that system is condemnable – and it is if it has at least one evil that is sufficiently evil, vital and central (or not too peripheral) – then no amount of good things and no amount of goodness of those good things will be able to exonerate that evil system. Sometimes, however, good parts can collude with the evil. Note: all good parts or fasces-members do collude with the evil system of which they are parts or members in one sense: their sheer presence helps to maintain the system – unless, of course, their goodness is a form of sabotage working to destroy that system.

“Here you seem to assume that all “good” things in Islam are there only to enable the dominant evil”

It does seem, with the concrete case of Islam, that its good things are serving to enable the evil system; nevertheless, if one could make a case for one or more good things that are not enabling the evil system, that would be irrelevant to the condemnation of the evil system of which they are parts or members.

“You formerly wanted, so it seemed, to simply declare the system evil not only in whole, but in every part in every way at every moment.”

I don’t think so. I think you concluded that because you were confusing the two levels of System and Parts. I have always been focusing on the System, and it can be condemned as evil if at least one part or member is sufficiently, centrally (or not too peripherally) and vitally evil – and no amount and/or degree of goodness also present in that System will have the effect of exonerating that System. It seemed to me in our exchanges you kept bouncing back and forth from System to Parts, thinking that if one condemns the System, one must also condemn one of its good Parts.

“To me, this seemed to kill the possibility of discriminating details”

Discriminating details are dead insofar as the System is found to be condemnable. I don’t give a shit if Islam also bakes cookies for the elderly or if Mishka’s relatives are nice people. Islam must be shut down, regardless of any good things it might be doing, no matter how good they are, and no matter how pure their connections are in relation to the central evil of Islam.

“But since you now seem to agree (perhaps you always did) that one can do an accounting and come up with an estimated “net” result”

Again, the only “net” that counts is determined by the presence of at least one evil that is 1) sufficient, 2) central (or not too peripheral), and vital. After that accounting is done (and it does take some accounting to determine the existence of a systemic evil that fits all three), there is no further thought: immediate condemnation is next, and destruction of that system if possible. The evidence in the system Islam for not only at least one evil, but of numerous evils that pass this litmus test is already abundant and clear. It has been abundant and clear for centuries.

“Condemnation, in terms of “net” calculations, acknowledges, just as you do, that the evil system is a unity of its good and evil “parts,” the “good” often acting to further evil.”

The co-existence of good parts is irrelevant, if there is present at least one evil that passes the 3-point litmus test. The only function of a calculus for determining whether a system is to be condemned and shut down is the presence of at least one evil that passes the 3-point litmus test. Co-existing goods are irrelevant to this calculus.

“condemnation also peers into the specific character and degree of evil of that evil center, and acknowledges that some “minority good elements” in that center not only serve the mainly evil quality of the center and strengthen its evil – those good elements also “might accomplish,” as you put it, some good (without being a sufficient good to transform the evil center into a good one).”

See above about baking cookies for the elderly and my not giving a shit.

“My point has been that your former(?) way of putting things would not aid them in understanding that they need to get out.”

I’m not interested in doing that – not only because it’s a nearly impossible task, but also because I positively resent the imposition of yet again one more Burden for the White Man (i.e., the West), to save benighted non-Western cultures from their own muck and mire. Enough of that already. They should resent it too, for it treats them like children or cute, pitiful animals to be saved, as though they are not mature humans responsible for their own choices, lives and social systems of living.

“Sure, condemn Islam, say it must be shut down, say it is a net force for terrible evil. Just don’t expect Muslims to pretend that in their totally Muslim lives they experience nothing at all truly good.”

They don’t need to pretend that – all they need to do is juxtapose with that experience the realization that the World they belong to is a hopelessly evil, chaotic, corrupt, and regressive prison – a prison so vast and sprawling (vast and sprawling because of the central imperative to conquer the World) that by sheer exigency and accident it allows for plenty of “bubbles” of good experiences.

“terms of truth, Islam’s moral character must be determined by the result of an accounting of specifics, leading to a net result which, however extremely and horribly evil it might be, is not perfectly pure evil.”

A system does not have to be 100% pure evil to be condemnable – it only need have present at least one evil that passes my 3-point litmus test.

“Once again, I completely agree, because this is a practical condemnation you are speaking of. Does that mean Charlie Manson’s belief system and actions were perfectly evil and without the most miniscule iota of good?”

Again, for the thousandth time, Manson could have performed a million good acts along with his evil acts, but they would be irrelevant to the condemnation of the Manson Family as a system, and to Charles Manson himself as a “system”, if it (and/or he) had an evil center as determined by all the methodology I’ve laid out.

“I don’t believe anything in the world is absolutely and perfectly pure. That is a point I have made before that you never seemed to respond to”

I hope my response above settles this: condemnation doesn’t require perfect or pure evil.

[Quoting me:] I hope you can find an answer above to this misunderstanding of yours. To repeat yet again: an evil center that is a fasces (and not a simplex unit of one thing) may have 10 features: a full 9 of them could be good, but if only one is sufficiently evil, then not the other 9 by themselves, but the center itself, and the system of which it is the center, is evil. The only real way to render the good 9 "by themselves" is to rescue them from the evil center and the system that evil center guides -- detach them from the evil center and relocate them apart from the evil center.

[You:] “In this statement about the 10 items, it seems to me you partly disagree with the following statement of yours made earlier:”

[Quoting me:] for, while [the good or innocuous elements] continue within the evil system of Islam, they serve -- in addition to any good they might accomplish -- to perpetuate the evil of the system.

[You:] “I prefer this latter statement of yours. It disagrees with the statement that the 9 items, while linked to the 10th evil one, are exclusively evil in effect.”

I don’t think my 9-10 statement makes the 9 good things evil. My 9-10 statement explicitly says that they are good. I will clarify further: the 9 good things REMAIN GOOD. It doesn’t matter whether good parts become evil by association with the evil system of which they are parts, or whether they become by degree tainted, or whether they always remain good. I am not condemning parts. I am condemning the system of which parts are parts. And no amount or degree of good parts can exonerate an evil system if it has at least one evil that passes the 3-point litmus test. With the concrete case of Islam, I conclude that most of its goods serve to enable the evilness of the system in one way or another; but again, that’s irrelevant to the condemnation of the system qua system – Islam.

Posted by: Television

at June 1, 2006 12:42 AM

jsla

If you had taken a moment to read my previous comments, you would have realized that I am a "she" and not a "he". You also could have spared me your insults and yourself the embarrassment. Militant Islam has cost me dearly and forced me to seek refuge into this great country with the clothes on my back, leaving everything behind. If there is someone who has more at stake to see Jihadi ideology destroyed, it is me, not you. I also take more risk than you by voicing my dissent with Islam. Do you know what is the punishment for apostasy? You took my sentence completely out of context, but if you believe that all non-vegetarians are evil, then there is nothing left to say, is there?

Anyway, my decision to post here was purely motivated by my desire to show support to Mr Spencer whom I admire greatly and read diligently. It seems that I have opened a Pandora's box and invited people like yourself to feel free to judge me and accuse me of all kinds of nasty things. I guess this forum, like everything else in the world, has the good, the bad and the ugly, and that some people suffer from a permanent case of myopia. I think it is wiser for me to just send any future messages of support directly to Mr Spencer.

DennisW

Thank you for keeping an open mind. I personally went to private western schools, where Islam was never on the syllabus. Islam was taught at home and my parents made sure to convey to us the importance of tolerance. My father always stressed the verse I had presented earlier "There is no compulsion in religion". In our household, we never listened to the imams who preached hatred. Moderate imams take liberty in interpreting some of the verses of the Quran and distance them from their real meaning. To give you an example, in the sura of Women, there is a verse that dictates that men should beat their disobedient wives. The sheikh went on to say that when God was referring to "beating" your wife, he meant to beat her with words, i.e. scold her, rather than physically. He also explained that disobedience related to something major and ethical, rather than minor. I was a child when I heard that and remembered asking myself why couldn't God say that directly, why couldn't he use the word "scold" rather than something as degrading and ominous as the word "beat". I realized later that “beat” meant exactly that: inflict physical harm. There is a frighteningly large number of Muslims who understand the Quran clearly and these people need to be stopped. There are also some who may have been as unaware as I was and they need help and support to be able to think freely without any fear of repercussions from the jihadists. No everyone can be as lucky as I am and make it safely here.

I think I have said enough on this website. I had a great pleasure discussing and reading many of the previous comments, but I think I will go back to being a reader as I used to be. Thank you.

Posted by: Mishka

at June 1, 2006 12:48 AM

traeh,

A slight correction to my last post:

"The center... may have degrees of good or evil if the evil, or evils, that form its totality are not SUFFICIENTLY evil."

Of course, the evil that is determined to be SUFFICIENTLY evil by the process of the 3-point litmus test is also a degree of evil -- that would be obviously implied by the term SUFFICIENTLY: it is an evil that reaches a certain threshhold of degree. I probably meant, by my quoted statement above, that once an evil has been determined to be SUFFICIENTLY evil, no further calculus of degrees is necessary or relevant.

Posted by: Television

at June 1, 2006 2:16 PM

"Hey Robert! The Bible says not one word anywhere in it about slavery being wrong. Prove me wrong! Prove me wrong! Sure you say that some mainstream Christian groups have changed their ways on this, but their Bible and the vast majority of the faith's history do not agree! Prove me wrong, prove me wrong!"

ummmmm... Guess this guy never heard of a fellow named Moses, see.. there were these people, and a Pharaoh, and Moses said to the Pharoah.. "Let My People Go" and then....

But hey.. that was just a small story in the Bible, right?

Posted by: Zardah

at June 1, 2006 5:15 PM

Exodus 2:23
During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
Exodus 2:22-24 (in Context) Exodus 2 (Whole Chapter)

Deuteronomy 5:6
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Deuteronomy 5:5-7 (in Context) Deuteronomy 5

Nehemiah 5:5
Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others."
Nehemiah 5:4-6 (in Context) Nehemiah 5

Galatians 4:3
So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.
Galatians 4:2-4 (in Context) Galatians 4

Hebrews 2:15
and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14-16

Posted by: Zardah

at June 1, 2006 5:24 PM

Meanwhile, back at the Koran ranch:

Yusuf
1. [12.30] And women in the city said: The chiefs wife seeks her slave to yield himself (to her), surely he has affected her deeply with (his) love; most surely we see her in manifest error.
(hmmm kinky)

The Light
1. [24.32] And marry those among you who are single and those who are fit among your male slaves and your female slaves; if they are needy, Allah will make them free from want out of His grace; and Allah is Ample-giving, Knowing.
(ahhhh… freedom in death.. right)

The Light

· [24.33] And let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world's life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

(okey-dokey)

The Companions
1. [39.29] Allah sets forth an example: There is a slave in whom are (several) partners differing with one another, and there is another slave wholly owned by one man. Are the two alike in condition? (All) praise is due to Allah. Nay! most of them do not know.

(ii) Sura 4 (The Women), Verse 92.
4.92: And it does not behoove a believer to kill a believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid to his people unless they remit it as alms; but if he be from a tribe hostile to you and he is a believer, the freeing of a believing slave (suffices), and if he is from a tribe between whom and you there is a covenant, the blood-money should be paid to his people along with the freeing of a believing slave; but he who cannot find (a slave) should fast for two months successively:

Posted by: Zardah

at June 1, 2006 5:50 PM

“Some could mistake Esmay's ambivalence about atheism for open-minded effort at serious thought.” - Pediomelum

Mama always said, “Don’t be so open-minded your brains fall out.” I think it’s too late for Esmay, unfortunately.

“I hardly know what to say. I've read and re-read everything Mr. Esmay has to say and all I can conclude is that a village somewhere is missing its idiot.” - realwest

Apparently Esmay beat out Baldrick for that spot by just not showing up, much to Lord Blackadder’s amusement.

“And that is why we should return to calling them Muhammadans -- Worshipers of Muhammad and maybe Allah.” - dennisw

I would certainly prefer that, as the Aramaic meaning of the word peace (SLM) is the origin of the Arabic words Islam and Salaam (peace in Arabic implies submission to Allah). And since their version of Darul Salaam (World of Peace) is an Islamic world, I don’t think that quite fits in with anyone else’s (Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Animist, Pagan, Sikh, Atheist, Agnostic, have I left anyone out???!?!?!?) version of peace.

“Muslims who support terrorism – even if they may never carry it themselves – know how to play what I call the “Arafat” game very well. They say one thing to a westerner and another to a fellow Arab…So you stay silent, try to listen to their endless conspiracy theories without screaming, thank God for your American passport and for the great and unique country of America…I'm still looking for a way to make a contribution to this great country, I still don't know how.” - Mishka

Thank you, Mishka, for pointing out something else about Islam that so many of us “non-Muslims” do not know…that it is acceptable for Muslims to lie to kuffar (infidels, non-believers). And thank you for reminding me why I love my country and am happy to own an American passport, despite being born and raised here.

If I can recommend a way to contribute, you could do any of the following:

1) Work as an undercover source for the government,
2) Work as a translator for the government, or
3) Assist those in the fight in translating Arabic-language films, radio broadcasts, and written documents.

You’re not obligated, but there is a desperate need for Arabic speakers to assist in this fight. We as patriots would be eternally grateful.

“I told my sister-in-law about Islam and gave her a list of websites....and books to read...She said I want to be happy and I don’t want to talk about this stuff.....me too.” - storagemanager

Please tell your sister that ‘Ignorance is bliss…but not for long.’ Then provide her the following insight: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; when drinking from the well, drink deeply.” Good luck.

“To condemn it outright as such would also be too easily misunderstood in many ways. It would drive away people who would otherwise be our allies -- and I am not in the business of doing that.” – Spenser as Himself

neverpayretail & Infidel Pride – I think both of you are missing his point here. Opinion is fine and dandy, but the facts and truth have to stand for themselves. Spenser could alienate those who just do not know enough about Islam by ranting, just like Esmay (whom we’ve already discounted as part of the brains-fell-out sect). So, since we’ve all agreed Esmay is just a ranter…why do we expect Spenser to do exactly the same just because he’s on “our” side? The facts, the evidence…dare I say, the truth, has to be the torch that lights the way of those in the dark.

The Gift of Fire Prometheus gave us is Knowledge, and Knowledge leads us to the Truth.

Posted by: kafir_kelbeh

at June 1, 2006 7:16 PM

"Spenser could alienate those who just do not know enough about Islam by ranting, just like Esmay (whom we’ve already discounted as part of the brains-fell-out sect). So, since we’ve all agreed Esmay is just a ranter…why do we expect Spenser to do exactly the same just because he’s on “our” side?"

To condemn Islam requires no "ranting"; one can do it in a rational, mature, intelligent manner.

Posted by: Television

at June 1, 2006 10:11 PM

Television said:

I hope my response above settles this: condemnation doesn’t require perfect or pure evil.

Well, but that's what I myself think and have said or tried to say in my last post, and I think I said in the post before that. So we officially agree about this: condemnation doesn't require perfect or pure evil. My last post was absurdly long, and perhaps insufficiently clear, so I can't blame you for not seeing this.

Television said:

A slight correction to my last post:

"The center... may have degrees of good or evil if the evil, or evils, that form its totality are not SUFFICIENTLY evil."

Of course, the evil that is determined to be SUFFICIENTLY evil by the process of the 3-point litmus test is also a degree of evil -- that would be obviously implied by the term SUFFICIENTLY: it is an evil that reaches a certain threshhold of degree. I probably meant, by my quoted statement above, that once an evil has been determined to be SUFFICIENTLY evil, no further calculus of degrees is necessary or relevant.

No further calculus of degrees is necessary or relevant for condemnation, taken as practical action. But further calculus of degrees is relevant for knowledge. Such knowledge might not be interesting for this or that person, but insofar as degrees exist -- and you have just acknowledged that they do -- that is relevant for knowledge. This, I think, has been what I have been trying all along to convey, because it seemed to me that some things you were saying ran counter to the fact that degrees of evil are relevant to knowledge, are a part of reality. The unique character of the evil system, the specific way its "good" elements subserve yet sometimes also limit the evil factors, and how they do so concretely, is all relevant to knowledge, because all real.

Posted by: traeh

at June 1, 2006 11:25 PM

Once he clarified his position (which he seemed reluctant to do), I disagreed with that position, perhaps a bit too strongly, and pursued the matter no more with him. He clearly wanted no more discussion.

I have been appreciating the subsequent discussion, detecting no ranting from anyone who has taken the time to follow it. It seems to me that once the truth is established, mankind is served by Action based on that truth.

Action might be a little ahead of the game, but with the growing readership of Spencer's books, the desire for action will gain steam. As I see it, the discussion between Television and Traeh serves the call to action.

There appears to be agreement that condemnation is appropriate. The struggle is how to do it in a pragmatic way that won't "backfire". The term pragmatic seems to include force of law, systematic, practical, and opinions. Also, there might be an issue as to degree of backfire that is acceptable. However, countering any movement is going to experience pushback, and I believe Speculating about it does not form sound basis for not condemning and resisting Islam.

FWIW, I think all this exact same stuff was part of the abolitionist struggle, and the lesson is that delay allows entrenchment which only increases the degree of backfire when things finally come to a head - just a rhetorical statement.

Posted by: neverpayretail

at June 2, 2006 1:34 PM

traeh,

"we officially agree about this: condemnation doesn't require perfect or pure evil."

If you agree that condemnation doesn't require perfect or pure evil, then why won't you condemn Islam?

Posted by: Television

at June 3, 2006 12:01 AM

I can only go part way with you on this though, because the remnants of good, even while they may paradoxically sometimes strengthen a dominant evil, remain nevertheless good in some ways and no doubt also sometimes restrain the dominant evil. So I partly disagree, partly agree.

Posted by: traeh - in a response to television} and if that heart is evil and dangerous, then the whole body is a Frankenstein monster

Mat 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

If the 'evil man' is given free reign - real sorrows will come.

television said

We have abundant data now to prove that the organization Islam is dangerous and evil, but most people persist in diluting that data in a complexity of "parts" that orbit the center. They will not reorient their minds until the data starts raining down from the skies on the heads of their families, friends, neighbors, cities, fellow countries.

And that is the message that society is not getting! but they will - eventually - when 'the sword' comes their way.

Let none of them ask "How could God let this happen?"

It is going to take a unified undiluted voice of the willing - to defeat the unified voice that promises real sorrows - which IS being introduced to the young in Ameica.

God Bless the undiluted voices. May He give them a loud microphone!

Archimedes and DennisW

“The policies of Meccan verses vs Medinian are actually quite similar”

I beg to differ with you on this matter, and Mr Spencer can correct me on this one, but Islam started as a peaceful religion. The violent verses of Jihad appeared later

Posted by: Mishka

What difference does any of that make for the Beslan children today?

Posted by: Beth

at June 3, 2006 10:56 AM

Television said:

If you agree that condemnation doesn't require perfect or pure evil, then why won't you condemn Islam?

Thank you for asking excellent questions. And now, though we may seem merely to have circled back to the beginning of our debate, I think we are in fact at a higher turn of the spiral.

I do condemn Islam. The only difference between my condemnation and yours (I'm not sure this difference actually exists anymore) seems to be that my condemnation acknowledges that within the evil system of Islam, there are "good" elements that not only further evil and perpetuate the evil system, but also sometimes restrain the evil of the system. It seems to me what you have recently said agrees with this. The difference between us now may be mostly rhetorical, i.e., to do with how best to persuade others.

I believe that condemnation is most effectively achieved if tied to description of the specific character of the evil system, including the specific character of the "good" elements that both perpetuate that evil and sometimes restrain it and act for good.

TO BE FAIR TO YOU, it's true that I have been trying to defend Robert's refusal to condemn Islam. Robert has chosen to condemn the Jihad dimension of Islam. He chooses not to treat the the good or neutral elements in Islam as mere perpetuators of the evil system. It seems to me that you and I would now agree with Robert that the "good" elements are not merely perpetuators of the evil system, but also sometimes restrain that evil and act for good.

The difference between you and Robert now seems to be a matter of emphasis: You wish to emphasize the unity of the system and the way in which "good" elements in the system often merely act for evil and serve to perpetuate the evil system. Without denying that side of the coin, Robert wishes to emphasize the other side, which is also real, namely the fact that the good elements sometimes act for good in the evil system and restrain that evil. In terms of knowledge, both emphases possess truth. So the difference I see between you and Robert at this point is not so much in the realm of truth as in the realm of practice. You think Islam must be condemned as a whole, and that the unity of the system, including the way "good" acts for evil and perpetuates evil in the system, is what counts most. Robert prefers to condemn the more specifically evil element, Jihad, and to give the "good" and neutral elements a pass, except in the specific cases where he can show that they are subserving the evil of the system. From what you have been saying, I would think you would acknowledge that Robert's approach also has validity, because "good" in Islam is, as it were, a coin with two sides, one side that restrains evil and acts for good, the other side that serves evil and acts for evil. The side that is effective will depend on circumstances and the angle of observation.

I think there is room for both your approach and Robert's, and I'm not sure how one would determine which is the superior one, if either. It may depend on situation and temperament. If one does use your approach, condemning Islam, not just Jihad, one need not deny the fact that the "good" elements of the system sometimes do not act for evil but restrain it. You seem to have acknowledged this.

You believe that Robert's refusal to condemn Islam, though that refusal has the partial basis in fact I have described, is more misleading to the world than your approach, which also has a partial basis in fact. But maybe your approach has a less partial, and more complete basis than Robert's. That question we haven't discussed. Robert's approach might be more misleading than yours, insofar as multiculturalism and PC are so pervasive today and so help Islam that perhaps we need more from Robert than a condemnation of Jihad and elements that abet Jihad. But Robert's approach also has much to recommend it and has advantages that your approach lacks.

Posted by: traeh

at June 3, 2006 11:57 AM

Beth quoted the Bible:

Mat 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

Beth, I would take the above as shorthand for:

A good man out of the good treasure of his hear bringeth forth mostly good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth mostly evil things.

Posted by: traeh

at June 3, 2006 12:14 PM

To Beth:

I'd like to revise my shorthand above to the following:

A mostly good man brings forth out of the mostly good treasure of his heart, mostly good things. And a mostly evil man brings forth out of the mostly evil treasure mostly evil things.

Also, Beth, remember when Jesus said, roughly, this?:

Why do you call me good? No one is good but the Father above.

Posted by: traeh

at June 3, 2006 12:21 PM