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Islam is not a monobloc, there are many varieties and sects, the same as with any other religion.

The problem with Islam today is the spread of the very conservative Wahhabi mode of thought and similar ideas.

It would be a great mistake to equate Wahhabi with all of Islam, any more than equating the Westboro Baptists with all of Christianity.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I don't think Islam is the problem. Islam is what it is, and it's been like that since the day it was founded.

Islam used to be a lot more moderate on the whole* (and Sufis used to be everywhere, because they're awesome) but like any culture that hits a down swing, they radicalized and like any part of the world that is going through the turmoils of growing up, they have their problems. People just love quickly associating one of the most identifiable aspects of the region as the sole reason it struggles and its stupid. It's almost like no other part of the world has people brutalizing each other for other stupid reasons.

Boiling all of the Middle Easts problems to 'it has Muslims in it' is just veiled bigotry (and completely incorrect).

*One of the interesting this is that women covering themselves head to toe doesn't originate in Islamic culture. They picked it up from Persia. Persian noble women would cover themselves in elaborately decorated clothes to show their status as far back as the Hellenistic Period. I bring this up merely to iterate the point. This isn't Islam just being Islam. That tradition is culturally engrained in a large social context. Attributing it solely to Islam is wrong.

EDIT: And because Wahhabi's keep getting referenced, you can trace a lot of the current extremes of Islam to a single Wahhabi doctrine; make it up as you go along. No I'm serious. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab told everyone to stop listening to Imams and other religious leaders. His philosophy of Islam boiled down to make it up as you go along. This eventually carried over into a larger distrust of all intellectualism and academics.

The days of Saladin and wisdom, tolerance and education among the Islamic nations of earth, when the Western world were the barbarians at the gates, is long gone.

I also feel the need to point out that Saladin marked a serious point in the ongoing downswing of Islam's artistic and scientific heritage during the middle ages

Get ready America…. They are here and the demands to submit to “their way” are already happening all around us.

Ah patriotical fear mongering, truly a fine art.







Obviously the solution is simple, if they want these laws on top of the law for whatever country they're in then they can have it; but why would it then also apply to those not following this religion?

 LordofHats wrote:
That's some strong conspiracy theory BS in there.

I often wonder if the people who write this kind of thing have ever cracked open a history book for more than five minutes. Unless they're really that dumb, they should have realized that things just don't work that way.

Really? So the taliban didn't use a soccer stadium to shoot women in the head who were wearing makeup? A certain group didn't just kidnap 250 Christian girls? There weren't threats world wide when some yokel published cartoons in a tiny little country in Europe? What planet are you on?

And Christians blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Christians had a polygamy camp where they married underage girls in your own state.

What's your point?

donkey-caves are going to be donkey-caves.

 Frazzled wrote:
What planet are you on?

One filled with straw men (the local wizard ran out of brains).

 Col. Tartleton wrote:
If the event in question actually happened, its a demonstration of issues with an individual judge or if we must reach further, the Italian justice system. It has no relevance to Islam at all.

The greatest danger to America from religion is from Christianity not Islam. Fundamentalist Muslims may kill a few people now and then but its a minor issue which can be dealt with on a case to case basis. The danger posed by Fundamentalist Christians in this country is far more real. There are far more Christian zealots than Muslim zealots and they have far more influence and do far more damage to our society. While Islam is understood to be a foreign actor, Christianity is far more native to this country, and as a result it is more difficult for the people to differentiate between our secular liberal beliefs and the Christian fundamentalist subversives who have been trying to destroy the values of our republic since its inception.

Perhaps in some parts of Europe Muslims are more of a threat, but that's only because of the now weak Christian influences in those societies. In the Muslim world, yes, obviously Islam is the greater danger. In Pakistan people should be worried about Islam. In Indonesia people should be worried about Islam. In Egypt people should be worried about Islam. In Turkey people should be worried about Islam. Not in Italy. Not in Britain. Not in the US.

Its like you don't have a clue. Pray tell, how do those millions of Christian zealots pose a threat? I've not seen radical Baptists blowing themselves up in Walmart recently. You're not busy toking out in Colorado or something are you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Islam is not a monobloc, there are many varieties and sects, the same as with any other religion.

The problem with Islam today is the spread of the very conservative Wahhabi mode of thought and similar ideas.

It would be a great mistake to equate Wahhabi with all of Islam, any more than equating the Westboro Baptists with all of Christianity.

Except of course the Wahhabi brand is spreading even into moderate areas of Asia now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
And Christians blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Christians had a polygamy camp where they married underage girls in your own state.

What's your point?

No an antigovernment nutjob blew up the Oklahoma building. Get your facts straight bucko.

The cult was broken up.

How many people will die today from bombs and killing between shiites and sunnis?

Oh and the other great kicker about Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. One of his best friends and most loyal allies? Muhammad bin Saud. Founder of the Saudi Dynasty, who today receives massive support from the US government and continue to be borderline to full Wahhabis.

Our own foreign policy has been breeding that gak for decades.

No an antigovernment nutjob blew up the Oklahoma building. Get your facts straight bucko.

Who specifically targeted his attack at the perceived anti-Christian trend in the US government. Get your facts straight.

 Frazzled wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
And Christians blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Christians had a polygamy camp where they married underage girls in your own state.

What's your point?

No an antigovernment nutjob blew up the Oklahoma building. Get your facts straight bucko.

He was Christian, targeted anti-Christians. Don't get your blood pressure up just because facts don't fit your narrative.

The cult was broken up.

That will make the girls that were raped in the name of our God feel good and warm inside, I'm sure. Doesn't change the fact that the cult existed, continues to exist in other places, all in the name of Christianity.

How many people will die today from bombs and killing between shiites and sunnis?

How many people will die today from actions by Christians?

Edit:

Then there are these guys: http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/08/world/africa/central-african-republic-convoy/

This is why we need a distinct and inviolate French style separation of Church and State here. It protects everyone from radicals of any type.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

No he targeted the SS building. What on earth are you talking about?

How many people will die today from actions by Christians?

0

There are several extremist Christian groups in the world; Lord's Resistance Army is a good one. The Ku Klux Klan has been on and off for years, and while White power groups are more about race, they do incorporate a lot of Christian-ness into their ideology. Oh and of course Guy Fawkes. Never forget the man who tried to blow up the British government to establish a Catholic theocracy and is today best used as a symbol for anarchists

I would agree with Frazzled though that the notion that Christians represent any kind of active threat to America is silly. I'll worry about them when they start holding the Oklahoma City Bomber up for Saint Hood. Until then, there are other groups way more likely to become a real danger.

Well, it does give us some introspective though.

That little surge of anger Frazzled felt when he disagreed that the Oklahoma City Bomber is an example of Christians?

That's how the majority of Muslims feel every time somebody holds up the other idiots as an example of Muslims.

The point is not "Christians are as bad as Muslims", or trying to quantify the religious badness of any group. The point is that nobody likes to be painted with a broad brush because a subgroup of people make all the news.

Motivation[edit]
McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege (shown above) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.The chief conspirators, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, met in 1988 at Fort Benning during basic training for the U.S. Army.[17] Michael Fortier, McVeigh's accomplice, was his Army roommate.[18] The three shared interests in survivalism.[19][20] They expressed anger at the federal government's handling of the 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standoff with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge as well as the Waco siege—a 1993 51-day standoff between the FBI and Branch Davidian members which began with a botched ATF attempt to execute a search warrant leading to a fire fight (it is unknown whether ATF agents or Branch Davidians fired the first shot) and ended with the burning and shooting deaths of David Koresh and 75 others.[21] In March 1993, McVeigh visited the Waco site during the standoff, and then again after its conclusion.[22] McVeigh later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids.[12][23][24][25]

Target selection[edit]
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as it appeared before its destructionMcVeigh initially intended only to destroy a federal building, but he later decided that his message would be better received if many people were killed in the bombing.[26] McVeigh's criterion for potential attack sites was that the target should house at least two of three federal law-enforcement agencies: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He regarded the presence of additional law-enforcement agencies, such as the Secret Service or the U.S. Marshals Service, as a bonus.[27]

McVeigh, a resident of Kingman, Arizona, considered targets in Missouri, Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas.[27] McVeigh stated in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize nongovernmental casualties, so he ruled out a 40-story government building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of the presence of a florist's shop on the ground floor.[28] In December 1994, McVeigh and Fortier visited Oklahoma City to inspect McVeigh's target: the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.[23] The Murrah building had been previously targeted in October 1983 by white supremacist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, including founder James Ellison and Richard Snell. The group had plotted to park "a van or trailer in front of the Federal Building and blow it up with rockets detonated by a timer."[29] After Snell's appeal for murdering two people in unrelated cases was denied, he was executed the same day as the Murrah bombing.[30]

The nine-story building, built in 1977, was named for a federal judge and housed fourteen federal agencies including the DEA, ATF, Social Security Administration, and recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps.[31] The Murrah building was chosen for its glass front—which was expected to shatter under the impact of the blast—and its adjacent large, open parking lot across the street, which might absorb and dissipate some of the force, and protect the occupants of nearby non-federal buildings.[28] In addition, McVeigh believed that the open space around the building would provide better photo opportunities for propaganda purposes.[28] The attack was planned to take place on April 19, 1995, to coincide with the anniversary of the Waco Siege and the 220th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.[32]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

McVeigh, Nichols and their associates were deeply radicalized by such events as the August 1992 shoot-out between federal agents and survivalist Randy Weaver at his Idaho cabin, in which Weaver’s wife and son were killed, and the April 19, 1993, inferno near Waco, Texas, in which 75 members of a Branch Davidian religious sect died. McVeigh planned an attack on the Murrah Building, which housed regional offices of such federal agencies as the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, the agency that had launched the initial raid on the Branch Davidian compound

http://www.history.com/topics/oklahoma-city-bombing

Maybe you should look at the article on the Branch Davidians while you're on Wiki

I know who the Branch Davidians were.

 Frazzled wrote:
Couple of links posting that Timmy was motivated by actions against the Branch Davidians

So he was not a Christian motivated by Government actions against another group of Christians?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Islam is not a monobloc, there are many varieties and sects, the same as with any other religion.

The problem with Islam today is the spread of the very conservative Wahhabi mode of thought and similar ideas.

It would be a great mistake to equate Wahhabi with all of Islam, any more than equating the Westboro Baptists with all of Christianity.

Thank you for this. I know a few Muslim families, and they are no different than anybody else.

 Allod wrote:
Yeah. I'd also be very, very strongly against taking the Bible as the source or even basis of our law.

Are you Christian? Do you believe the part that you do not want to see applied are the very word of a perfect god?
I am not Christian, so obviously I do not want it as the basis of my laws.

 Allod wrote:
So, what does this prove, apart from the fact that I understand the necessity to separate between church and state?

The fact that you do not want to apply certain laws from the Bible clearly show that you do not think these laws are good. The fact someone do not want to apply 4:11 (http://quranexplorer.com/quran/) clearly show that this someone does not think 4:11 is a good law. If the same person claims at the same time that 4:11 is part of the unaltered ultimate testament from a perfect omnipotent omniscient entity…Let us say there is an obvious contradiction, and moral/cognitive dissonance must be at work.

 Allod wrote:
No, thanks.

Okay, no problem then.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As far as the Islamic world goes, their country, their rules.

feth no. First it is obviously not what is happening in most of the “Islamic” world, in which the government is rarely at the same page as the population, so it is not “their” rules. Second because I do not care about nationality, I feel much closer to some progressive Iranian secular atheist metalhead than to some French religious extremist racist nutcase, and I therefore do not see “the majority of that arbitrary political entity wants to persecute some minority, and because they are the majority, they have every right” as something with any kind of moral value.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Part of the problem in this day and age is the clash of values between west and east.

By East, you mean Islam, right? And by West, basically the rest of the world or something? Because I guess you do not put South Korea and Japan as part of the East in that clash, do you?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I've never bought into the argument that our values are better than their values, because that just results in all sorts of problems.

Do you know which values are better? Those that you feel are right. If someone else disagree, talk it out. That is how you will shift the consensus, in one way or the other. But do not expect me to pretend I do not think my values are better, because sure I do. If I did not, they would not be my values.

 LordofHats wrote:
*One of the interesting this is that women covering themselves head to toe doesn't originate in Islamic culture. They picked it up from Persia. Persian noble women would cover themselves in elaborately decorated clothes to show their status as far back as the Hellenistic Period.

So, how comes when in Iran you see someone with a full veil that covers the face, you can basically bet 100 to 1 that it is an Arab tourist, then ?
I do not buy into your explanation, really.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
and on the other hand, we've seen what happens in the Middle east when western powers try to impose their values on the Middle east.

Have we? No, we have not. Because they never tried. It is not middle east, but I am going to talk about that because that is something I know more about for obvious reasons: even though France did pretend for a long time that Algeria was part of France, they never tried to make the Algerians into Frenchmen. They barely made mock attempts to convert them, they never tried to mix them with actual Frenchmen, they never gave them an equal status as Frenchmen, they did not educate them the same way.
To quote Wikipedia:

To further his plans for the royaume arabe, Napoleon III issued two decrees affecting tribal structure, land tenure, and the legal status of Muslims in French Algeria. […]
Napoleon III visualized three distinct Algerias: a French colony, an Arab country, and a military camp, each with a distinct form of local government. The second decree, issued in 1865, was designed to recognize the differences in cultural background of the French and the Muslims. As French nationals, Muslims could serve on equal terms in the French armed forces and civil service and could migrate to metropolitan France. They were also granted the protection of French law while retaining the right to adhere to Islamic law in litigation concerning their personal status. But if Muslims wished to become full citizens, they had to accept the full jurisdiction of the French legal code, including laws affecting marriage and inheritance, and reject the competence of the religious courts. In effect, this meant that a Muslim had to renounce some of the mores of his religion in order to become a French citizen. This condition was bitterly resented by Muslims, for whom the only road to political equality was perceived to be apostasy. Over the next century, fewer than 3,000 Muslims chose to cross the barrier and become French citizens. A similar status applied to the Jewish natives.

And do not believe that those who did where instantly considered as fully French. Administratively, yes, they were. Other than that…

Maybe if they had, Algeria would still be part of France, and it would be as natural to Algerians as it is natural to people from Brittany, or any other region of France. Maybe not. We will never know.

Now, if the U.S., or any other “western power”, have tried to open schools in middle eastern countries presenting their values, launched debates, broadcast documents with political and social messages, tried to raise awareness on specific issues, distributed lot of literature, and other ways one can use to defend and spread one's value, I am not aware of it. I am very aware of them being control freak, middling with the governments of middle eastern countries for strategic or economic reasons, setting or helping dictators keep in charge, either by covert operation or full-scale invasion. That is by no way “spreading one's value”. That is being an insufferable bully.

 d-usa wrote:
How many people will die today from actions by Christians?

It depends. Do you count fetuses as people ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
This is why we need a distinct and inviolate French style separation of Church and State here. It protects everyone from radicals of any type.

Actually, you need something even better . Yeah, and our current president even claimed he wanted to add that horrible, horrible wart on our legal status to the constitution during his campaign!

Ouze wrote:


I agree wholly with this. I think that Islam gets special protection from our media; and the unstated elephant in the room is always that it gets so because some of it's adherent's are substantially more inclined than other religions to behead people when offended. Our media is especially craven in how we bow to this reality.

So do the Jews, and Israel.

 Gitsmasher wrote:

Ouze wrote:


I agree wholly with this. I think that Islam gets special protection from our media; and the unstated elephant in the room is always that it gets so because some of it's adherent's are substantially more inclined than other religions to behead people when offended. Our media is especially craven in how we bow to this reality.

So do the Jews, and Israel.

And thus the hounds were released, and hell broke loose.

That said, it's a sound argument; regardless of whose side one personally is in the Israel-Palestine conflict I think we can all agree that both sides are rather mean, to understate it, to each other.

 d-usa wrote:
And Christians blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Christians had a polygamy camp where they married underage girls in your own state.

What's your point?

Timothy McVeigh didn't blow up the Murrah building because of his religion. He did it as revenge for Ruby Ridge and Waco.

I don't expect a serious reply though...only the typical d-usa misdirection tactic of bringing up some other completely irrelevant point when someone shows that he's wrong.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
And Christians blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Christians had a polygamy camp where they married underage girls in your own state.

What's your point?

Timothy McVeigh didn't blow up the Murrah building because of his religion. He did it as revenge for Ruby Ridge and Waco.

I don't expect a serious reply though...only the typical d-usa misdirection tactic of bringing up some other completely irrelevant point when someone shows that he's wrong.

Another "he didn't do it because he was Christian. He did it because he was a Christian who wanted revenge for attacks against Christians" post.

Do you even read?

But hey, can't argue the point? Go back to personal attacks.

An example: The report about three women being fined for wearing swimsuits on a beach that were offensive to muslims, has generated a firestorm in responses.

Link to where this happened? I'm confused. Is this about stuff happening in the US or abroad?

It's not happening at all.

That was originally in an Italian satire piece/site -- think "The Onion" -- from where it made the leap to rightwingblogosphere... and here we are.

We should have realized Kron k will save us.

Kronk sensed women being oppressed by not being allowed to wear swimsuits, and was outraged TBone wiener dog style.

Kronk ah ah! He'll save every one of us!

 reds8n wrote:
It's not happening at all.

That was originally in an Italian satire piece/site -- think "The Onion" -- from where it made the leap to rightwingblogosphere... and here we are.

I expect I'll be reading about this article on Cracked next week, in their "Five News Articles That Fooled Everyone" series. I think they are on their fortieth installment or so...

 reds8n wrote:
It's not happening at all.

That was originally in an Italian satire piece/site -- think "The Onion" -- from where it made the leap to rightwingblogosphere... and here we are.

Well, it WAS onion levels of silly. I assume the original is in Italian?

 n0t_u wrote:
donkey-caves are going to be donkey-caves.

This is the crux of the matter.

donkey-caves will use whatever justification to validate their actions.

Whether in the name of their god.. politics... or, creed... in the end, they're just donkey-caves.

 daedalus wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
It's not happening at all.

That was originally in an Italian satire piece/site -- think "The Onion" -- from where it made the leap to rightwingblogosphere... and here we are.

Well, it WAS onion levels of silly. I assume the original is in Italian?

http://corrieredelmattino.altervista.org/?s=bikini

If you look at

http://corrieredelmattino.altervista.org/notizia-shock-ritrovato-santo-graal-nel-relitto-santa-maria-colombo/

it reveals how the Holy Grail has been found


https://www.facebook.com/corrieredelmattino



http://corrieredelmattino.altervista.org/ikea-vendeva-lampadine-potevano-far-morire-i-bambini-strangolati-ritirate-urgentemente-dal-mercato/