The Koran -- Serious business.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Ah yes, back to the "its not the religion that is to blame, it is the people!". Nothing in Islam is actually influencing any of this, people are just "misinterpreting" the literature.

People hold responsibility for their own actions.

and OH GOD IT WAS FUCKING INEVITABLE WASNT IT

[Elvis]

I never said the fanatical Muslims are 'misinterpreting' Islam. I said they have a different interpretation of Islam.

'Misinterpreting' implies there is one true meaning. There are several sects in Islam. So of course they all differ on the meaning.

I don't know what the true meaning of Islam is. I know that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not flying planes into buildings and blah blah blah.

[quannum]

You're alternative is to say Islam is the problem. That's just a very intellectually lazy way to deal w/ the extremists.

Even though you trivialize that standard rebuttal - it does not take away from it's honesty and meaningfulness. It's common sense.


how is this thread only on page 3? I am dissapoint.

[EternityEnd]

I don't ever remember a christian in America killing someone over the tearing of a book.

I remember christians in america killing people over what they were born as. Which is... worse than killing someone for tearing a book, in my opinion. Books are really fucking important, man.

[Correction]

Ah yes, back to the "its not the religion that is to blame, it is the people!". Nothing in Islam is actually influencing any of this, people are just "misinterpreting" the literature.

Ah yes, back to the "it's not the people that are to blame, it's the religion!" Tribalism, greed and opportunistic self-interest aren't actually influencing any of this, people don't have any kind of free will and simply obey Allah.

[Elvis]

Even though you trivialize that standard rebuttal - it does not take away from it's honesty and meaningfulness. It's common sense.


how is this thread only on page 3? I am dissapoint.

Care to clarify? How am I trivializing Neo's argument?

I mean who do you think you're talking to when you say 'Islam is the problem'?

Do you think you're reaching the extremists? Do you think they give a damn?

You're talking to the moderate majority. Those are the people who have to deal with it. The extremists are set in their ways because of their life experiences. Where they live/how they're brought up/etc.

[Neosutra]

The "moderate majority" doesnt seem too moderate either, at least the middle eastern ones (which make up a large percentage of the sect).

[Plow]

Woody wins this thread.


Everybody say it with me now:

We are all individuals!

[quannum]

Those are the people who have to deal with it.

that's part of the problem actually.

[Elvis]

Let's step back a second. One example. Very superficial but you decide if I'm off-base here.

Iraq was not Islamic in the Saudi Arabia style of Islam. Iraq - like many countries in the ME - could have become a first-world country one day. It sure as hell had the resources. Saddam was a secular dictator. He was no religious fanatic.

Terrorism increased exponentially after the war.

The population wants us out of there. They despise us.

Now do they NEED religion to tell them to despise us? Or are they similar to us in that they'd react to a foreign occupation/invasion w/ antagonism?

Do you think our country with it's own religious blah blah and gun ownership and jingoism and history would be peaceful?

Do you think 15 year old kids wouldn't get their hands on weapons and fire them off at the occupying army?

We apply unrealistic standards to others. Religion is a very EASY way to attack an entire people.

Via Islam, the Arabs are just one monolithic blob. They are all the same. They 'aren't really moderate'. They hate irrationally. They have no legitimate grievances. Anything they do is because they're all under mind control.

That's the impression I'm getting from you. I'm sure I'm inaccurate because what I said above is a straw man - HOWEVER, you believe it's all Islam. You believe all Muslims should be "ashamed" by the actions of a minority of Muslims - extremists.

You cannot even fathom what WE would do if the tables were turned.

[Serif]

15th religion thread in the last 2 weeks where Plow battles Neo and his sidekick EternityEnd? Or is this one different?

[Plow]

15th religion thread in the last 2 weeks where Plow battles Neo and his sidekick EternityEnd? Or is this one different?

I have nothing to do with this one, dunno what's going on here really.

[Dazd]

Let's step back a second. One example. Very superficial but you decide if I'm off-base here.

Iraq was not Islamic in the Saudi Arabia style of Islam. Iraq - like many countries in the ME - could have become a first-world country one day. It sure as hell had the resources. Saddam was a secular dictator. He was no religious fanatic.

Terrorism increased exponentially after the war.

The population wants us out of there. They despise us.

Now do they NEED religion to tell them to despise us? Or are they similar to us in that they'd react to a foreign occupation/invasion w/ antagonism?

Do you think our country with it's own religious blah blah and gun ownership and jingoism and history would be peaceful?

Do you think 15 year old kids wouldn't get their hands on weapons and fire them off at the occupying army?

We apply unrealistic standards to others. Religion is a very EASY way to attack an entire people.

Via Islam, the Arabs are just one monolithic blob. They are all the same. They 'aren't really moderate'. They hate irrationally. They have no legitimate grievances. Anything they do is because they're all under mind control.

That's the impression I'm getting from you. I'm sure I'm inaccurate because what I said above is a straw man - HOWEVER, you believe it's all Islam. You believe all Muslims should be "ashamed" by the actions of a minority of Muslims - extremists.

You cannot even fathom what WE would do if the tables were turned.

They hated us looooong before the war, they've been trying to rid the world of "infidels" for quite some time. Religion basically is mind control, they use it to teach their children to hate any non Muslim and strapping a bomb to your chest to kill enemies of Islam is a good thing. The entire basis of their beliefs revolves around the Koran and being rewarded in heaven by Allah so you can't say that the religion is not the cause of it.

Yes I'm aware there are extremists in every religion but nothing comes close to the problem that Islam currently presents. It's stupidly easy for terrorists to recruit massive amounts of people by using religion, all they have to do is say "Hey go kill these Christians or go kill some Americans and Allah will allow you into paradise blah blah." Saying that the problem lies solely with the individuals is pretty ignorant because if the religion wasn't there they would basically lose the entire driving force behind their cause and their tool to recruit new people to use as human bombs.

[Correction]

Elvis is involved this time. That's a new kind of flavor to the religion talk.

[Neosutra]

Since when did Pakistan get invaded by US?

And this shit has been going on since the beginning of your religion. You cant tell me that it doesnt encourage these actions in anyone without a reasonable education (and even sometimes with the education).

[Seraph]

Elvis is involved this time. That's a new kind of flavor to the religion talk.

A New Challenger Approaches!

[Plow]

You're stating Elvis is Muslim now?

[Serif]

Elvis is involved this time. That's a new kind of flavor to the religion talk.

A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES...

Edit: Damn you Seraph!

[Elvis]

I'm Indian (sans the accent; I'm Americanized, born and raised here) and atheist. My mom use to take my sister and I to temple (Hinduism) when we were younger but it was due to tradition and not faith. My father is an atheist, Bush voter (TWICE!) and possibly sympathetic to neoconservatism.

I'm only telling you all this because I got private message'd about this a couple times by some people and you yourself have asked me this in the past. Last time I just told you I wasn't Muslim or Arab.

Anyways - I never (NEVER) once said Islam was innocent. I never once said that Islam didn't play a role. This discussion has taken place over and over across different threads.

The last time it happened - that I remember - it originated out of a topic about Christian fanatics burning 'witches' alive somewhere in Africa.

Here is my response:

I have always (read other redundant threads like this) stated that Islam plays a role but is not the source in a meaningful sense.

I think the problems in the ME are mainly due to geopolitics - land and resources (like most wars throughout history).

I think political repression can lead to religious fanaticism. I think the culture of the ME is intertwined w/ Islam (most Muslims are Asian I think). So you have a very religious region that is also dealing with serious geopolitical problems.

I think if we were dealing with an occupation on the scale of ours in Iraq - we'd react in a similar fashion.

You group people in the ME as a monolith. They are all Muslim. Everything they do is due to their Muslim-ness. You do not even acknowledge that they MAY have legitimate grievances against us.

Europeans have been fucking up the ME for over a 100 years. The region only recently (relatively speaking) decolonized. It is dominated by corrupt family dictatorships THAT WE KEEP IN POWER.

We do not even care about Islam. We care about favorable economic relations. That's how governments work. They do not have 'friends' - they have 'interests'.

Look at Hamas - before them was the secular nationalism of the PLO.

If you read some of the opinions of Arabs immediately post-911 - they voiced their concern over our support for corrupt and dictatorial regimes like the House of Saud/Mubarek/etc. They didn't hate our secularism or liberty. That's not to say the extremists don't.

Why did Obama congratulate the King of Saudi Arabia recently on blah blah blah (the usual pretentious politician bullshit)?

Why aren't we spreading American values and delicious liberty in Saudi Arabia? Maybe it's because we don't give a flying fuck about that stuff when our vested interests are protected.

[Neosutra]

I never really grouped them all together, I just wanted to make sure you werent claiming these continued extremist acts were only regional/tribal influences and not at least partially to blame on Islam itself.