The rule is if you are a white male you can only condemn what you are. This makes white males and Christianity fair game. If you are not a white male then you are also allowed to condemn white males and Christianity. Everything thing else is out of bounds.
"Progressives" (the word is used very loosely in this case) like CC and his minions are afraid of insulting Islam. They will make great dhimmi.
Why should progressives waste their time condemning Islam? You guys do that so well.
Progressives spend their time understanding and reconciling the intersection between religious freedom and secular law.
Stop whining and enjoy your role as bilious hate-mongers.
Let me give this a try.
Why should progressives waste their time fighting these barbarians? You guys do that so well.
Progressives spend their time navel-gazing and reconciling the non-existent intersection between people who kill anyone (Muslim or not) that opposes them and secular law.
Stop whining and enjoy your role as the West's protectors.
"renconciling the intersection between religious freedom and secular law"
... you mean like this:
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2007/1...dern-
islam.html
So Liberal, how do you reconcile fascism with secular law?
Softtalk: Just stay out of the way then.
"Just stay out of the way then."
lol! "me and my blahg will conquer the world!" deluded much?!
KEvron
Chevron: Softtalk was addressing a political class, either that or he doesn't realize how many people share my views. Your comment misses the point.
I'm confident though, that my thoughts about Islam are logical, and in that, they have their impact. Your derision does nothing but give impetus to my views.
Don't you find it strange, that you aren't able to offer a counter argument; nor is SoftTalk. Liberal tried, but still couldn't attack the substance of the post so he changed the topic.
Paul, my post was not directed at you. I was not trying to offer a counter argument.I was simply trying to point out how inane Liberals comment was.
Isn't that special.
You just lumped a religion in with three extreme political ideologies.
What you don't seem to fathom is that almost everyone would happily condemn extremism in any form. That includes, by the way, Christian extremism.
Islam is no more a political ideology than Christianity. And since there are extremist elements in both of those religions, those same elements are equally subject to criticism.
Would I criticize Islam? You bet I would. It's a religion and that is nothing more or less than superstition, in exactly the same way Christianity is. Would I criticize either in the same category as Nazism?
No.
I would however, unrelentingly rake over every coal I could find, any Muslim who thought Islam possessed the right of political action or force.
You don't seem to be able to distinguish the difference and, to be completely blunt, just demonstrated what you don't know, as opposed to what you do.
Now. Turnabout being fair play, you get to call me a moron.
I promise I won't write a whiny post about it.
:)
ATTN DAVE:
1. "You just lumped a religion in with three extreme political ideologies."
Islam is unlike other major religions. It is a whole-life, whole-society social and political ideology, which is mandatory, as well as a theology of man and society vis a vis God, not just the individual or community-of-believers, such as is Christianity or Judaism.
2. "What you don't seem to fathom is that almost everyone would happily condemn extremism in any form. That includes, by the way, Christian extremism."
Ah, the good old moral equivalence. When:
a. Christians, Jews, Buddhists or whomever, start flying highjacked civilian airlines into skyscrapers, killing thousands of people;
b. with tens of thousands of fellow Christians, Jews, Buddhists or whomever CELEBRATING (the tapes of the Palestinian celebrations were shown here, among other sites, as I recall);
c. when the Christian world starts wars or severe tensions with damn near all their non-Christian neighbors;
d. when Christians rewrite the Bible to include a commandment to make all the non-Christians in the world become Christians, submit as second class non-Christian citizens, or be killed;
e. when Christians, Jews or whomever start "honor-killing" their own daughters, sisters for not wanting to wear Christian burqas;
f. when Christians change their societies into mirroring the home of Islam-Saudi Arabia, outlawing all other religions; forbidding Jewish or Christian bibles; making proselytizing other religions a capital offense; sentencing female gang-rape victims to be flogged and jailed;
g. when Christians riot, commit arson and kill at the slightest hint, real or imagined, of "insult to Christianity" or "disrespect to the Savior"...
3. "You don't seem to be able to distinguish the difference and, to be completely blunt, just demonstrated what you don't know, as opposed to what you do."
When huge numbers of that so-elusive person, the "moderate Muslim" demonstrate AGAINST Islamofascism, against Islamic terrorism; AGAINST persecuting non-Muslims in majority Muslim countries; FOR equal human rights for women, for gays, for all peoples of whatever faith...
When all these events come to pass, I'll say, OK there is Christian extremism, like Islamic extremism. I think it a damn safe bet I'll NEVER have to do this.
What do you think about this, Dave? Do you agree my preconditions are fair and reasonable, in keeping with Western liberal democracy and humanitarian values? Or, if you disagree, please tell me why.
There’s an unwritten rule among “progressives” that one is not allowed to condemn Islam.
Ha, your whole argument is based on an incorrect assumption - or should I say slanderous presupposition.
Pity the small mind mind that argues against straw men.
You are not bright, you are dull.
I will go on the record as stating that all religion is inane and misguided. Furthermore, Islamic radicals are particularily violent, but that is owing more to their backward culture than the philosophy of their religion.
Anyone that lives by dogma and/or assumption and colored thinking, instead of pragmatic evaluation of pertinent reality and available information, is stupid.
I include you in the latter.
You insult me with your trite meanderings. I am NDP. I know how to think, and when you want lessons in cognition, I will gladly give them to you.
There are no rules, there is only evaluation of immediate situation. Of course, one must have a developed morality to understand this.
Dave in Pa, you didn't finish your #2 statement. Learn how to make a valid point, why don't you.
For instance, #3, you expect an irrelevant occurrence to 'come yo pass' as you say, before you pass judgment on an unrelated situation.
That makes no sense. None whatsoever.
There are hundreds of examples of Christian motivated acts of extreme violence. It does not matter if anyone else is more violent, or less, the acts of Christian radicals speak for themselves.
See you in Ireland, or Spain. You tell all the people that died there that they don't count.
I fucking dare you, freak
http://mikmikshtick.blogspot.com/
I see the moral equivicators are out in force today.
mikmik, could you link us to 5 news articles out of the last month, where Christians, quoting the Bible, have killed people?
The past year?
The past 5 years?
Here's since Monday:
12/21/2007 Pakistan Kanaan A Fedayeen, carrying a bomb packed with nails and bomb bearings, detonates in a mosque, killing at least fifty.
12/20/2007 Iraq Baghdad Fundamentalists bomb a liquor store, killing three passersby.
12/20/2007 Iraq Kanaan A Fedayeen suicide bomber kills a dozen people at a Sunni council meeting.
12/19/2007 Thailand Narathiwat Islamic gunmen on motorcycles brutally assault a car carrying bank employees, killing three.
12/19/2007 Thailand Pattani A 42-year-old man is shot to death by militant Muslims.
12/18/2007 Iraq Baghdad Jihadis take out seven Iraqis in multiple attacks, including a university professor.
12/18/2007 Philippines Basilan Abu Sayyaf gunmen kill two Filipino troops in an ambush.
12/18/2007 Iraq Abbara Sixteen people sitting in a caf� are blown to bits by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
12/18/2007 Iraq Mosul Yazidi tribesman are the target of radical Sunnis, who manage to kill ten.
12/18/2007 Iraq Baquba Children are among the casualites as a suicide bomber detonates along a city street.
12/18/2007 Afghanistan Farah Fifteen Afghans guarding a fuel tanker are murdered in cold blood by a Taliban ambush.
12/18/2007 Thailand Yala Four local guards are shot to death by Muslim radicals, who then behead one of the bodies.
12/17/2007 Afghanistan Uruzgan A bicycle bomber murders a family of five, including three children.
12/17/2007 Pakistan Kohat A teenage suicide bomber kills twelve off-duty soldiers returning from a soccer game.
12/17/2007 Pakistan Banda Two children are killed during a rocket attack by Islamic militants.
12/17/2007 Afghanistan Ghazni Two local cops are gunned down by religious extremists.
12/17/2007 Somalia Mogadishu Islamic militants are suspected of firing a mortar shell into a market, killing four civilians.
12/17/2007 Somalia Mogadishu Three children in their mother are among a dozen civilians killed when suspected Islamists shell a marketplace.
12/17/2007 Iraq Balad Ruz Children are among seven killed by a suicide bicycle bomber at a marketplace.
12/17/2007 Thailand Yala A migrant worker is murdered by Islamic terrorists.
12/16/2007 Pakistan Bajaur A local soldier is shot to death by Muslim terrorists.
12/16/2007 Thailand Pattani Two teenage boys are shot off their motorcylce by Muslim gunmen, one dies.
12/16/2007 Iraq Mosul A woman is among four people murdered by Islamic terrorists.
12/16/2007 Pakistan Khar Religious extremists abduct and behead a local soldier.
12/16/2007 Turkey Barakli A 65-year-old priest is stabbed during mass by a young Muslim angered over Christian "proselytising."
Paul, we're on the road, so hopefully some of the others who pay attention will be
Paul, my post was not directed at you. I was not trying to offer a counter argument.I was simply trying to point out how inane Liberals comment was.
In the process, you made an astonishingly inane comment yourself. I don't see any of you warriors battling "barbarians"...just a bunch of cranky men whining on a blog.
...Don't worry, scared little boys. We'll protect you.
I don't see liberals protecting ANYONE. They'd sooner ignore the threat, while doing everything they can to shut down those who are trying to point it out- not to mention, in the process, curtail Freedom of Speech.
You are actively doing something, 'liberal'? Please do tell us what. Name the organizations, point us towards the letters to the editors you wrote, link us to where you and yours are working in the military, as you seem to desire that any and all of us be doing (mostly because you'd rather someone else die so you can Bitch about having to have your freedoms defended by a bunch of murderers and rapists (a la murtha and michael moore, et al)).
Not that I expect any kind of rational or even Truthful answer from you. Just more equivocating and pontification.
Eh. I have things to accomplish before we hit the road in two hours. No more time trying to convince blind fools.
Paul, Junker, softtalk, Dave in PA (I wonder how close you live to my hometown of Harrisburg?), Merry Christmas!
SoftTalk: Got it. My mistake. Perhaps I should read a bit slower ... :))
Otter: Merry Christmas Otter. I live a long way away ... but had clients from Harrisburg at one time. Dave in PA lives closer.
Dave: If Islam were a religion only, where it's ideology would compliment or at least function reasonably well within a liberal democratic system, I'd have no problem with it. I'm not a Christian for instance, but I have no problem with Christians, Budhists, Sikhs, and Hindus because there doctrine doesn't impact negatively on liberal democracy ... as they've proved the world over. In fact, hardly any religions function poorly within liberal democrachy.
Islam though, as Dave in PA, pointed out, is far more than a "religion". It is a political/cultural/religious ideology. It is a guide to ordering all of society ... and is much more detailed and specific in that than communism or fascism or even than the Nazis were. In such then, it is far more dangerous because it is barbaric.
Islam is barbarism which is set in oppostition to civilization ... period.
I encourage you to investigate ... especially the source documents of Islam.
Fortunately, there aren't that many devout Muslims in the West.
Thank you Otter. Merry Christmas to all the bloggers. By the way Liberal, I don't think it's inane to call the actions of the Taliban & al-Qaida barbaric.
Softtalk: Merry Christmas and the best in the New Year. Thanks for dropping by :)
I don't see liberals protecting ANYONE. They'd sooner ignore the threat, while doing everything they can to shut down those who are trying to point it out- not to mention, in the process, curtail Freedom of Speech.
You are actively doing something, 'liberal'? Please do tell us what. Name the organizations, point us towards the letters to the editors you wrote, link us to where you and yours are working in the military, as you seem to desire that any and all of us be doing (mostly because you'd rather someone else die so you can Bitch about having to have your freedoms defended by a bunch of murderers and rapists (a la murtha and michael moore, et al)).
Not that I expect any kind of rational or even Truthful answer from you. Just more equivocating and pontification.
Eh. I have things to accomplish before we hit the road in two hours. No more time trying to convince blind fools.
What a psychotic rant. You are one raging moron, Otter.
So, I condemn Islam with all the confidence and right with which I condemn fascism, Nazism, and Communism.
You could have saved yourself the typing and specified your argument right here. Unfortunately, it's a false comparison. Islam is a religion, the others are ideological political systems. There is some overlap, but not enough to justify a blanket condemnation.
You need to define your terms better, but that would invalidate your argument.
anon: We've already dealt with your point.
I'm sorry you're confused, but you haven't adequately dealt with the point. As I said, you wish instead to redefine Islam the way YOU want it to be defined, so that you can justify your blanket statements of bigotry
You want to group Islam in with modern versions of theocratic totalitarianism or authoritarianism, or fundamentalist extremism, that are found in some regions of the Middle East. 'Islam', however, refers strictly to the religion and does not have anything to do with these other concepts per se. You should be saying that you condemn the political systems instead, which would make your previous analogy with communism and facism work properly. Your point would be clear and would make sense.
You want to argue that you are right to condemn Islam by connecting it with justified condemnation of other political systems, but to get there you're using a false premise, or not using the proper term when you refer to Islam.
anon: When you read up on Islam, come back and we can talk. You've got the same preconceived notions I had a while back ... until I discovered that I was wrong.
And, why should I say I condemn only the political aspects of Islam when I completely and totally condemn it's spiritual concepts as well. Frankly, they are barbaric.
Until then, we can't even agree on the basic premises, so there's no need belaboring the point.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/Islam
It's a pretty straightforward definition. I get the feeling that you WANT to say 'I condemn Islam' because it sounds so sensational, but when cornered you clarify by adding to the definition of Islam.
Very well, I'm sure everyone understands what you mean, so you don't have to acknowledge that your definitions are so broad as to render your point incorrect.
By the way, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to read anything that's going to convince me that the word 'Islam' refers to anything but a religion. We have perfectly good other words for what you WANT Islam to mean, some of which I mentioned in a previous post, so I prefer to use them. They are much clearer and more descriptive, and I don't come off sounding like a bigot.
But as I said, I suspect your real desire is to say things that are borderline intolerant, just so that you can subtly and underhandedly make some point about excessive tolerance and political correctness. I think that's a minor victory for you no matter how the reaction is, or whether or not you're proven wrong.
anon: You don't agree with me, on my fundamentals ... so why all the rationalizations. You think I'm a bigot and I think you are naive.
If you are proven correct someday, we are no worse off; if I'm proven correct, the world is going to become a much uglier place over the next decades ... either that, or Islam will transform itself and the millions who live under it's slavery will be much better off and can enter the family of liberal democratic ideals.
By the way, what creed do you aspire to that it is a taboo to condemn any religion?
I'll run this past you, in case you missed it. What do you say to Wafa?
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2007/
1...extremists.html
and here:
http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2006/1...as-it-
gets.html
and especially this:
http://www.haloscan.com/members/....php?
post=54926
Please consider your response carefully.
You might be interested that a former Muslim who grew up in Pakistan and Saudi agrees with Paul here
You might be interested in his history
The best writing is at the bottom of that last link where he talks about the brutality and hatred that Islam inspires in his countrymen and how he became fed up with this over 9/11
I carry out the rationalizations because I think it's interesting to probe why you would make such a claim.
I don't think you're a bigot, per se. I think you're making a sensational statement that involves a redefinition of what the word 'Islam' actually means, which is very narrowly referenced to religious practices and has nothing to do with politics. That's the definition of the word, and at the bottom of it that's all I'm talking about.
Islam is connected to violence, this is true. I'll grant you that it is connected more strongly than Christianity. Yet, this doesn't change the fact that by saying you condemn Islam, you give the impression that you condemn a whole religion. You don't (I assume); or at least you shouldn't. Islam is practiced in many different ways, and some are peaceful. I'm pretty certain you know this, since you don't seem THAT dense. The universal generalizating premise of Islam as a violent religion is falsified by the fact that I know two people who are peaceful Muslims; I assume here that a religion is at least in part represented by its followers.
On the other hand if you do universally condemn the religion KNOWING full well that the universal premise is false, then you ARE a bigot. After all, condeming/impugning the whole religion for something that only involves a part of it is prejudicial generalizing behaviour that is characteristic of bigotry.
So why would you make that claim? Do you want to appear a bigot? Do you really impugn a whole religion, even in the face of the fact that that makes you prejudicial? Or, do you want to make a sensational claim that you clarify later, to make some other subtler point? You're a fascinating character study, I'll give you that.
By the way, I don't think I made any claims about what I believe with regard to violence in Islam qua politics, so I'm not really sure why you have the sense that I'm naive. My guess is that it isn't the first time you jumped to a conclusion. You should really mind that habit. You can wind up looking like a bit of an idiot.
Cafe: I have no doubt that a religion was used to inspire hatred, brutality and violence. They are remarkably good at that.
Doesn't change the fact that Islam, insomuch as it is represented by its followers as well as its writings, is not inherently violent. There are peaceful practitioners of Islam and peaceful portions of the writings. There are peaceful interpretations.
This entire issue is a generalization of the behaviour, interpretation, practice and politics of a portion of the Islamic world to the entirety of Islam. That is a faulty generalization and a bad premise to use for blanket condemnation.
If you get to know Islam well, you will realize that it is the deliberate creation of a single man - the cult of personality of a malign, oppressive, murderous, (and by the end of his life) hate-obsessed madman. It is the Mohammad's cult of personality, not different in kind than Kim Jong Ill created.
It is not a religion where its practitioners have the freedom to improve it and make it fit their consciences - Mohammad foresaw that possibility and did all in his power to forbid it. His exportations against freedom of thought had his followers killing each other as heretics while he was still alive.
Islam is the life of Mohammad as the template for the definition of perfection. And he's a man who broke his treaties, committed genocide (and bound his men to more genocide), took women as slaves and sex slaves, raped, tortured - and fell into paranoia and hatred. The attitude toward outsiders is purely malign. Islam is Mohammad's life as a template - and it's the template of sociopathic madman.
I do pity Muslims who know their religion well and try to be faithful to madness, especially those who either live in non-Muslim countries or who know enough about the world to feel the presence of the outside world - many people aren't meant for the enmity with the world the Mohammad demanded and the pressure of that breaks their minds. I can see the many coping mechanisms that Muslims fall back on, from extinguishing reason to projecting their fears to falling into hysteria.
Anyway, Islam has nothing to recommend it. There has to be a most dysfunctional religion, a most cruel one, and Islam is it. You'll have to get to know the Muslim world well to know just how bad it is.
As for the good things Mohammad said, he said far few of those, and he contradicted them all later when he became a tyrant. And frankly he contradicted the few tolerant things he said pretty early.
You may think that even if this is true, it's best to pretend otherwise - and here is where we will part ways forever.
We live in a democracy - we can not make sane policy unless the public knows the truth. When you don't know the truth you can make choices that will bring disaster and doom.. And this is true on an individual level too.
I have faith in humanity. That's why I believe that we can, eventually, confront the Muslims with a no-nonsense attitude based on reality, demand sentience and set civilized standards at least for .
I will not give up my ideals - the world will be peaceful one day. But not as long as people are teaching that God wants war. So those who teach that become my enemies and I will do whatever it takes to suppress them.
I will not give up my ideals - all humans have a deep need for freedom from oppression, and all will have it one day. But not as long as there are people teaching that God demands oppression. So those who teach that become my enemies and I will do whatever it takes to suppress them.
Another point, as the video talks about the "cartoon crisis" - one point that was not mentioned has to be understood.
In that case or in the similar case where a truly harmless cartoon in Bangladesh (by a Muslim cartoonist!) was used by Muslims in Nigeria as an excuse to raze whole Christian neighborhoods, kill people and burn churches, as we saw in the Armenian genocide where Muslims came out of their Mosques screaming "death to the infidels" and then went out and slaughtered - it is not the cartoons that radicalized them.
As three former Muslims I know have told me, the hatred we see in the riots is hatred that Muslims have been practicing their entire lives inside of their Mosques. They've been taught paranoia and extorted to commit violence their entire lives. That's why it takes almost nothing to trigger them.
It's what goes on, invisible to us, inside the Mosque that creates this, not anything outside the Mosque.
And that's why pressure, not nice-nice is the answer.
The imams who believe that God wants them to teach hatred and war will only stop doing so if they feel that they are under so much scrutiny that it would be too dangerous to continue.
As long as you are nice, then they will feel that it is safe to follow what they really do believe that God wants. You can't be possibly so nice that they'll say, "you know, Mohammad was wrong about you infidels."
Cafe: Every religion - indeed every ideological system for that matter - has its sordid history. Some more than others. Every system has some founder/patriarch/prophet/follower that was abhorrent, and every one of them has some tenets that are reprehesible. Possibly, Islam has more than others. However, we hold every system not solely up to its past but also up to its present; that is, we take each system to be not only its past, possibly unpleasant, but also its current interpretation and its current followers. That's why we don't consider Christianity to be the same brand it was during the Inquisition. It has evolved and we give it the credit of evolution by letting it represent itself in its present day principles, embodied in its present day interpretation and followers.
If we do the same for Islam, then we are back where I was. Islam, in the present day, is to some degree defined by its present, too.
I believe it's naive to think that we will convince any followers of any religion - Islam in particular - to abandon their beliefs in any great numbers. If that's the plan, then it's a hopeless one, as much as I'd like to see it succeed. Also, the answer to this mass abandonment of Islam will certainly never be an exodus to Christianity or another religion. It would be an abandonment of religion entirely, which is a unachievable ideal.
As three former Muslims I know have told me, the hatred we see in the riots is hatred that Muslims have been practicing their entire lives inside of their Mosques. They've been taught paranoia and extorted to commit violence their entire lives. That's why it takes almost nothing to trigger them.
It's what goes on, invisible to us, inside the Mosque that creates this, not anything outside the Mosque.
Not all mosques teach this. Not all interpretations are violent, despite what the writings condone. There are progressive Muslims.
You are describing accurately how Islam is taught in fundamentalist theocratic regimes, which brings me back to my original point: it's not honest to combine these two concepts for the purposes of a blanket condemnation.
We live in a democracy - we can not make sane policy unless the public knows the truth. When you don't know the truth you can make choices that will bring disaster and doom.. And this is true on an individual level too.
Not quite sure what you're getting at here. If you're saying that people should be taught the truth about religions, then I couldn't agree more, but I think we are going to disagree about what that 'truth' is. I would advocate that all religions, from 'John Frum' cults to Scientology, Mormonism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhims, Hinduism, etc., should be introduced to children as early as possible. Teaching children about one religion alone is dishonest and deceptive, particularly given that they have no choice in the decision of what religion it will be, and it is more than likely going to become the religion that they adopt.
It sounds, however, that you are trying to say that people (probably, specifically, people in the Middle East) should be taught this esoteric truth about Islamic violence, as if doing so would magically make them abandon Islam. If that's the case, I think it's a delusion.
I find it rather hypocritical to suggest that Islam should be singled out as condemnable when the same criteria would have condemned early Christianity or Judaism. It's akin to saying "No one was around in the Middle Ages to stop our religion, or condemn it for its misgivings, but we're going to put our foot down on yours."
Anon: Islamic doctrine is the most vile and violent of all the major religions. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, how you rationalize, it takes number one on the barbarism list by a long shot.
I'd characterize your views as well meaning ... but based on wishful thinking rather than the reality.
If you worship a monster ... you become one.
I used to go to Rabble and post on Islamic atrocities towards women on their feminism forum, I got banned so many times I lost track. It was getting hard to dream up new names. I used Anonimiser hide my IP address.
It was surreal, wild eyed feminists there were like rabid dogs in their defense of Islam.
Rabble.ca truly is the main nerve center of stupidity in Canada.
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