Posted on 03/14/2006 5:58:55 PM PST by Louisiana
IMO the answer is absolutely no!
How many more Atta's, and his compatriots, do you want to trust? Did looking at him tell the people he lived near whether he was good or evil? He didn't go around screaming in the street and bombing infidels in his neighborhood, did he? How do the people he dealt with in NJ feel about him now?
So the terrorist of 9-11 were considered 'good neighbors' by people like you, and not suspected based on his religion and what it says about infidels? How does blind trust like that make you feel when it cost all those lives?
You have to look at the Muslim without the rose-colored glasses that are the mark of those who want to avoid a truth that may be too ugly- and too large- to deal with cleanly.
And comparing the fringe/extreme elements of other religions is fine until you come to the part where the ONLY religion that boldly states it must dominate, is Islam. It is also the only 'religion' ENFORCING that belief through bloody means, globally.
The whack-job people like Jim Jones, or backwoods preacher types, aren't crying 'Jihad' on the world, or hacking heads off on TV.
If I say I'm a Christian, people have the right to assume that I believe that for which Christianity stands-and they have to right to judge me by it.Same goes for you if you are a Mason, or a Democrat, or a Hassidic Jew, or even a Boy Scout troop leader. You refuse to judge Muslims by the scripture they hold sacred; giving them every excuse to be duplicitous. Why such latitude with words plainly written in the Koran?
Yes- there are bad members of every religion; but on the planet, right now, ISLAM is the 'religion' causing wholesale terror. Don't compare isolated street thuggery with organized crime, or the perverse bad 'Christian' who becomes a serial killer with training camps for terrorists, or countless Muslim mothers who can't wait to sacrifice their children for Allah.
The serial killer was one man, killing a small number, and his religion will call him evil and reject him as a Christian. There was no permission for his deeds in his place of worship.
The religion of the 9-11 terrorists, and every barbarian executing people, calls them martyrs and elevates them to revered status. Whether or not your local Muslim shopkeeper will obey them, the words in the 'sacred Koran' DO encourage the bloodshed we are seeing! There is PERMISSION for it in mosques, and in the Koran.
It IS about religion, no matter how you try to talk around it. Our enemies know why they hate and attack us, and they say it over and over- RELIGION.
And I would rather distrust EVERY potential Mohammed Atta out there, and be wrong, than trust them and be proven wrong when more Americans die.
"They are Muslims like Ted Kennedy is a Catholic."
I know. Ted Kennedy is hardly a Christian, Kerry is one of those "spiritual" bozos, and Hillary is an atheist who "attends services."
They are a disgrace to those of us who actively pursue Christ's example.
None, of course.
Did looking at him tell the people he lived near whether he was good or evil? He didn't go around screaming in the street and bombing infidels in his neighborhood, did he? How do the people he dealt with in NJ feel about him now?
Did the BTK killer tell people he lived near whether he was good or evil? Ted Bundy? Timothy McVeigh? Did they go around screaming in the streets and killing people out in the open first? Do I need to go on? You want some magical measure by which we can sort good people from evil people, a convenient black hat or white hat to sort the heroes from the villains. I'm sorry but such a convenient way to sort good people and evil people doesn't exist, no matter how badly you want it to.
So the terrorist of 9-11 were considered 'good neighbors' by people like you, and not suspected based on his religion and what it says about infidels? How does blind trust like that make you feel when it cost all those lives?
Plenty of Muslims are good neighbors. A few weren't. The Able Danger hearings show that the United States government had the means to distinguish good Muslims from bad Muslims before 9/11 but wasn't allowed to.
There are plenty of ways to prevent another 9/11 without deporting everyone who is Muslim. And even if we were to deport or exclude every Muslim, how would we know we were successful? Why can't a Muslim lie about his faith? Or do you also propose that we deport and exclude anyone who looks Eastern European (Chechyans and Albanians), Middle Eastern, Persian, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, or African (Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, etc.) just in case someone who looks like that is really one of those cagey Muslims lying about his faith? And then how do we stop the John Allen Muhammads and John Walker Lindhs of the world? How can you know for certain that anyone isn't a closet Muslim waiting to practice their jihad on you?
You have to look at the Muslim without the rose-colored glasses that are the mark of those who want to avoid a truth that may be too ugly- and too large- to deal with cleanly.
I think there are plenty of ugly things on the horizon. I think a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran is not out of the question. It still doesn't make me want to round up Muslim people who pose no threat to me or you, even if you don't believe such Muslims exist. You can go on about what they secretly think all you want. The truth is that anyone could be hiding a dark soul and Muslims don't corner the market in that department.
And comparing the fringe/extreme elements of other religions is fine until you come to the part where the ONLY religion that boldly states it must dominate, is Islam. It is also the only 'religion' ENFORCING that belief through bloody means, globally.
The religion ENFORCES itself? That's a nice trick.
Evil people are selling a certain brand of militant Islam through violent means. What they are doing doesn't require religion. It's not all that different from how any other militant group gets people to fall in line. It's a fascism problem (which is why I think Islamofascism is a very appropriate term for that particular subset of Muslims).
The whack-job people like Jim Jones, or backwoods preacher types, aren't crying 'Jihad' on the world, or hacking heads off on TV.
I find it ironic that you claim Christians aren't calling for a "jihad" when that's essentially what you are calling for against all Muslims. Yes, I know. You think "they" started it first. Who are "they"? A small fraction of Muslims who are fanatics, not every Muslim man, woman, and child.
If I say I'm a Christian, people have the right to assume that I believe that for which Christianity stands-and they have to right to judge me by it.
Why should they? How do they know you aren't the next BTK killer in hiding? He certainly claimed he was a Christian and women died for years because his friends and family trusted he was a good person.
Same goes for you if you are a Mason, or a Democrat, or a Hassidic Jew, or even a Boy Scout troop leader.
There are plenty of people (I'm not one) who are convinced that the Masons behave exactly the way you accuse Muslims of behaving -- that they hide their true selfish and evil agenda behind lies. I can dig up some web sites if you want. How can a Mason prove they aren't lying to those conspiracy theorists? They can't, because you can't prove a negative. As for Boy Scout leaders, how many of them have taken advantage of their positions to molest boys? Do you feel guilty because the trust you and others have placed in Boy Scout leaders has allowed quite a few young boys to be molested? How about all of the children molested by priests and ministers who were trusted by their congregations because they said they were Christian and said all the right things?
Again, you can't know for certain that anyone isn't lying to you or that they won't abuse your trust. That's how Evil people operate, whether they are Muslims or not. If you really want 100% certainty and 100% safety, you are never going to have it, no matter what class of people you surround yourself with because people in a class don't act identically. They are individuals that do their own thing.
You refuse to judge Muslims by the scripture they hold sacred; giving them every excuse to be duplicitous. Why such latitude with words plainly written in the Koran?
Not all Muslims hold that particular bit of scripture as sacred, a point you and others repeatedly ignore. But even if that were not the case, the latitude is warranted by the fact that I do not observe the close correspondence between a persons professed faith and honestly that you seem to believe exists. Just because a religion has a doctrine does not mean people follow it. Plenty of Christians lie, divorce, commit adultery, dishonor their parents, and so forth. How can I tell with certainty if a Muslim is a liars? I can't. How can I tell with certainty if a Christian is a liar? I can't. And that uncertainty, alone, is no reason to deport all Muslims or keep them out of the US. I simply evaluate Muslims by their behavior, the same way I evaluate Christians -- by their behavior rather than worrying about some deep and dark agenda that they might have hiding in their heart. People did notice that something wasn't quite right with Atta and the other hijackers. They just didn't act on it.
Yes- there are bad members of every religion; but on the planet, right now, ISLAM is the 'religion' causing wholesale terror.
Several sects of Islam are, indeed driving terror. That's not all of Islam. Your attempts to identify the threat are not the problem. The overly broad brush you are painting with is. You are hunting a wolf with a nuclear bomb.
Don't compare isolated street thuggery with organized crime, or the perverse bad 'Christian' who becomes a serial killer with training camps for terrorists, or countless Muslim mothers who can't wait to sacrifice their children for Allah.
The Muslim training camps are less about Islam than about fanaticism. The Nazis got people to sacrifice themselves the same way for their race. Pol Pot got his followers to murder 1.7 million of their countrymen based on class jealousy. Are the fanatics a problem? Absolutely. Hunt them down and exterminate them. But that doesn't justify mistreating Muslims who aren't fanatics and such Muslims exist, regardless of what the doctrine of their religion says.
The serial killer was one man, killing a small number, and his religion will call him evil and reject him as a Christian. There was no permission for his deeds in his place of worship.
The point you keep missing is that the permission just doesn't matter all that much. You don't need Islam or the permission of God in your religion's doctrine to be a murderer or part of a violent murderous movement. At the other end, plenty of Muslims aren't violent murderous thugs. There is no 1:1 correlation between Islam and evil murderers, not even between Islam and evil organized mass murderers.
You are trying to say:
Islam justifies lying, therefore all Muslims are liars. Islam justifies killing infidels therefore all Muslims want to kill infidels.
The fallacy of that argument can be illustrated by the inverse claim:
Christianity condemns lying, therefore no Christians are liars. Christianity condemns murder, therefore no Christians are murderers.
Things just don't follow all neat and tidy like that.
The religion of the 9-11 terrorists, and every barbarian executing people, calls them martyrs and elevates them to revered status.
There are certainly Muslims who all them martyrs and elevate them to revered status. There are also Muslims who condemn what they did and think they are garbage. Not all Muslims are the same. They don't all speak in one voice.
Whether or not your local Muslim shopkeeper will obey them, the words in the 'sacred Koran' DO encourage the bloodshed we are seeing! There is PERMISSION for it in mosques, and in the Koran.
It is not the permission that's driving the killing. It's the imams and leaders who encourage that behavior. And if my local Muslim shopkeeper isn't interested in obeying them, then he's not my enemy and I see no reason to treat him like one. Further, I'd consider it mighty unjust if you or anyone else did.
It IS about religion, no matter how you try to talk around it. Our enemies know why they hate and attack us, and they say it over and over- RELIGION.
It is, at least in part, about religion. It's also about culture and other ideologies. But the religious part isn't as broad or monolithic as you are painting it. Wahabbists are certainly a problem. The ruling Iranian clerics are certainly a problem. Lots of other Muslims are not a problem.
And I would rather distrust EVERY potential Mohammed Atta out there, and be wrong, than trust them and be proven wrong when more Americans die.
Would you rather distrust EVERY potential BTK killer out there, and be wrong, than trust them and be proven wrong when more women are tortured and murdered?
But...have you discussed Israel with them? I have found that to be most enlightening.
I am a product of our PUBLIC school system.
I believe they do exist. I see that when you treat people with respect you generally receive it back. In this case, I think one can trust but verify.
First, let's not lose track of the original topic of this thread, which is "Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen?" That's not attacking Islam. That's attacking all Muslim, which is an important distinction. You are free to complain about elements of Islam you don't like, as far as I'm concerned. There are elements of Islam I don't like, either. Just don't take liberties with the truth when you are doing so, as some have done in this and other threads, or you will be doing the same thing you complain they do. Do I think Christianity is a better religion than Islam? Sure. Do I think all Muslims are evil terrorists just waiting to murder me? Of course not.
Second, I see evidence that not all sects of Islam nor all Muslims interpret the passages used to make these claims about Islam in the same way. For those that do, however, your criticism is certainly warranted. Though I think the passage about lying doesn't say anything that many people, Muslim or otherwise, do in practice out of expedience, I agree that a religion should set the bar higher on lying.
Finally, early Judaism, from which Christianity comes, justified all sorts of things including genocide, racism, and murder. It managed to change and evolve over time so it's no longer the religion it was in the Bronze Age. My point about Islam changing is that I think it's possible, but by no means certain, that Islam could change into a religion that's more 21st Century friendly.
Now the followers of either can be as good as, or as bad as, what they believe. But the DEFINITION of 'good' for Islam is the very thing Christianity deems evil. To lie and kill infidels makes you a GOOD Muslim. To lie and kill others makes you a BAD Christian.
I think that a persons sense of Good and Evil transcends religion, which is why atheists can understand themselves to be good or evil and why similar concepts of good and evil are found across many religions. Further, recent research into how the brain makes moral decisions suggests that at least some of our sense of right and wrong is hardcoded into our brains. Regardless of what Islam or Christianity says, people will also listen to that internal compass. That's why many Christians intuitively reject the Christian doctrine idea that otherwise good people will still go to Hell simply because they don't believe in Jesus, even if they never had a chance to hear about Him. It just doesn't seem fair, regardless of what the Bible says to support that theological position.
Oh- and the training camps aren't about religion,eh? I suppose the promise of martyrdom and 72 virgins isn't why they want to die? They're promised cars and Reeboks or something? Please!
The ideology could be swapped out with any number of other ideologies. Do you think there were no terrorists before Islam and no terrorists who aren't Muslim? There are plenty of Christians who have managed to twist Christianity to the same end. Now you could argue that Islam requires a lot less twisting than Christianity to be used that way, but that's not the same thing as saying that all Muslims are bad.
And your last question was so inane I'm gaping here! Distrust every potential BTK killer? WHY NOT? What's it cost compared to the lives it would save to be suspicious instead of trusting?
Ah, you finally get to the heart of the matter. Yes, it's not a simple matter of automatically trusting or not trusting but a matter of risk and cost assessment. You need to look at the cost and benefit of what you suggest. I see little benefit in trampling the Constitution and deporting even the friendliest and kindest Muslim simply to reduce the risk of another terrorist attack because Able Danger has shown that we can detect the bad guys and distinguish them from the good guys. The cost for condemning all Muslims, in my opinion, goes beyond any benefit we'd get from it and the safety we'd get is not absolute. If they can bring drugs into the US illegally, they could get terrorists into the United States illegally. And deporting or even monitoring all Muslims would simply create resentment among the good Muslims and a false sense of security for everyone else.
For someone whose moniker is ' Question Assumptions', isn't it ironic that you choose to assume everyone is good until proven otherwise? Shouldn't you question THAT assumption?
I seem to remember that "innocent until proven guilty" was the foundation of our legal system. I'm not asking you to leave your front door unlocked, take the police off the streets, or leave the borders unguarded. I am saying that one should have at least some reason to believe a person is guilty before treating them like a murderer.
My primary complaint is agianst the claim that there are no good Muslims and every Muslim is a liar and secretly waiting to kill infidels. If you realize that's not the case, then you don't disagree with me on my main point of argument here.
The motive behind the terrorism is in fact Islam, and what is ordered in the Koran. Muhammad IS the example.
The overt motive behind the terrorism is several specific sects of Islam and the people promoting them. They do. in fact, use Muhammad as an example but other Muslims read those same texts and interpet them differently, as relating only to that time and place in history or within the context of the prevailing culture of the time, much as many Jews would not consider the acts of Bronze Age Israelites, from Solomons concubines to genocide against various Canaanite peoples, appropriate for today's Jews. Anti-Christian web sites make the exact same sorts of claims against Judaism and Christianity and, as I mentioned earlier, some of the anti-Islam websites even acknowledge anti-Christian atheist sites as part of their inspiration. My point here is that it's possible to practice Islam peacefully, even if everything the critics say about the tenents of the religion are true, and we should be rewarding Muslims who do, not telling them that we can't be bothered to sort them out from the terrorists.
Also, if you want to be critical of the life of Muhammed as written, or those to use it as a model for life in the 21st Century, by all means do so. I'm in full support of the right of people to debate and argue about religious matters and fully support the right of newpapers to publish those cartoons, most of which would offend only those looking to be offended by anything. But the fact that a few Muslim newspapers did publish the cartoons and more than a few Muslims shrug it off, expecially in the United States, suggest that there are plenty of Muslims who aren't fanatics. Are they bad Muslims? Osama bin Laden would likely think so. But they are good Muslims from a Western Civilization perspective and we shouldn't join bin Laden in condemning them.
By the way I suspect that many people also have ulterior motives for becomming terrorists since that sort of fanaticism often suggests other problems in a person's life. It wasn't so much the power of the Islamic message that sent John Walker Lindh to the Taliban but his personal problems and hang-ups. I suspect the same is true of many of the Middle Eastern Muslim fanatics. For example Atta's letter detailing the treatment of his body after his death suggests he had lost touch with reality. He had more problems than Islamic theology.
Most Muslims, fortunately do not behave like Muhammad, in spite of his example.
That is a big part of what I'm trying to say. I don't mind people being critical of Muhammed, Islam, or the behavior of Islamofascists. I do mind good Muslims being tossed in the same bucket as the Islamofascists because someone can't be bothered to sort out the good Muslims from the bad Muslims.
Anyone who kills or maims in the name of Jesus is not doing His will.
Yet plenty of Christians have done so, reading the same Bible that you or I read, who thought that they were doing His will. If every religious text were unambiguous and had only a single clear orthodoxy, there wouldn't be sects, yet there are. There are sects of Christianity and sects of Judaism and sects of Islam because things are not really that clear, espeically when run through the filter of what people want the texts to say for other reasons.
Anyone who kills infidels or maims in the name of Allah, is doing exactly what Muhammad did, and in fact he ordered others to do.
Perhaps you or I might agree on which sect of Christianity, Judaism, or even Islam is the most true to the text but there will still be plenty of people to disagree. There are Muslim sects that represent a very different perspective and tradition than al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Iranian mullahs, or the Wahabbists in Saudi Arabia. While Muhammad killed infidels, there were also times when he didn't. It's quite possible to read some of those events and passages as applying to a particular historical situation rather than as a general guild for all situations. Muslims can (and many do) do this. I don't think those Muslims who don't seek to live life like 7th Century Arabs should be grouped with those who do. Maybe they really are bad Muslims. There are plenty of Christian sects that many other Christians would agree are bad Christians, but what most people really care about is whether they make good neighbors or not. I don't see the evidence that some in this thread claim that Muslims are inherently bad neighbors.
Jesus never hurt anyone, He healed people, with His touch.
He attacked the tables of the money changers in the temple and drove them away with whips. In Luke 12, he says, "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." [NIV] There have been so many Christians who interpreted the statement, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" as an excuse to kill Jews that Mel Gibson removed the line, clearly present in the Bible, from his movie because Jews were so upset about it. And while I'm sure that you'll dismiss all the examples of God smiting people in the Old Testament as being pre-Jesus, what about Ananias and Sapphira dropping dead in Acts simply for being greedy?
Muhammad killed and maimed many, with his own hands.
So did plenty of Old Testament heroes. You can't really compare Muhammed to Jesus because that's not what he is to Muslims. He's a prophet, not God on Earth. If Muslims do take his 7th Century behavior as a model for 21st Century living, that's a problem. If they can make the distinction between Muhammed the man and Islam the religion, and at least some Muslims seem to be able to, that's not a problem.
If you can't understand the importance of that basic distinction, then Jesus warning about false prophets will mean nothing to you: "You shall know them by their fruits."
I think the distinction matters, but not in the way it's being expressed. Are Islam and Christianity different? Yes. Are there some important cultural differences between the two? Aboslutely. But it's a long road from there to "All Muslims area bad because Islam tells them to be bad and they all obey without question." The truth lies in the middle that so often gets excluded in debates like this.
And can't you understand that the topic of this thread is individual Muslims and that's why I raised an objection.
You don't seem to comprehend that Islam and Muhammad are inseparable, just as Hitler and the Nazi party were inseparable. That doesn't mean that there weren't decent people in the Nazi party; there were some. But they were decent people in spite of being members of the Nazi party, not because of it.
You may also certainly make that argument. That's not the same as the argument raised in the first message of this thread, or many of those that followed, which pertained to all Muslims. Not just some. Not just most. All.
All Muslims say: "Peace be upon him" when they speak of their "prophet" Muhammad.
Not in my expeirence. Again, the problem lies in the use of "all Muslims".
This quote says it all:
"Islam rises and falls on Muhammad. He is the religion's sole prophet, Islam's solitary example, Allah's lone conduit. Without Muhammad, Allah, the Qur'an, and Islam would be unknown. Yet the picture the Islamic scriptures paint of this man is not flattering; his words aren't believable. According to the Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad was a thief, rapist, and terrorist."
What was David (willing to murder a friend to have his wife) or Solomon, or any number of Old Testament figures? Without them, there is no Judaism. Without Judaism, there is no Christianity, yet the picture the Bible paints of many of these men is also not flattering.
I'm not saying that this isn't a fair point to raise. It is. It's also entirely possible that Muhammad was far more awful than any hero in the Bible. I also do think that many radical Muslims are trying to encourage a cult of Muhammad to get people to emulate his life. But my point here is that it's not the simple or clear-cut argument that many are claiming it is. There is more too it that you are taking for granted. Must the life of Muhammad really serve as a model for modern Muslims? Does the life of Muhammad really undermine Islam? Was he really a horrible man? Are the Muslim holy books accurate in their depiction of Muhammad's life or what should be in the Koran? All of these questions can and should be raised with Muslims, but that's not the same thing as assuming that all or even most Muslims interpret their holy books in a certain way.
Do not mix Kurd with your Religious affairs. Kurds would have worshiped anyone that could save them from the tyranny of Saddam(backed by so many Arab countries thinking they are going on Jihad and Anfal’ing Kurds).
To tell you a little story, in 1991, I was 12 when after the fist Gulf war, Saddam’s failure in front riots of all Iraqi’a; and after Iraqi army came back to Kurdistan, with their flags saying “Allah u Akbar”. I was looking at an old man shooting the sky and almost going crazy. The asked him what was going on and he replied: I am shooting God, if there is one. I have been worshiping that son of a bitch all my life and named my son after Mohammed after his prophet; but I am seeing all my life he is sending Arabs to kill me. I do not know what it takes for him to accept me as Kurd?”
Moral of the story, anyone would say “GOD BLESS J. W. Bush” if they have seen what we saw from Saddam and Arabic tyranny for over 80 years. I was a devout Moslem but I am only feeling sorry for the time I wasted memorizing Quran and Hadith. Take your Quran and Hadith to the Arabic lands and leave the humanity alone. We can figure out what is right and what is wrong. It is now millenniums after that period and if you do not wake up, you will not be any better than what have been happening to Moslem countries in poverty, conflict, social judging mentality, sexual intolerance. I can speak hours about the corruption in your believes and ideas. Please keep it for yourselves. I do not believe there is a God up and having fun watching us do what we are doing over “his” books.
NO WAY
thanks, Civ.
I'm sorry I missed your comment kamal-kurdi, you only posted once on FR in July 2008. I hope you are safe. Your father was right, he finally understood what mohammad was all about.
“Do you speak any Arabic”
I am appalled at the ignorance of people who cannot distinguish between “Arab,” a cultural/genetic designation and an ideology like Islam. Arabs comprise a very small percentage of Muslims and in the US the majority of Arabs are Christians, and the Majority of Muslims are black. Methinks you know very little about Islam.
The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia. Do you speak Chinese. Have your ever lived in Southeast Asia? Do you read any Southeast Asian papers? How about Iran (which is also not Arab) or sub-Saharan Africa (which is only mixed Arab at best.) Should we conclude you know nothing about Islam, therefore. Do you know where the most violent Muslims in the world are, a country directly associated with terrorist plots against the US? It’s not Arabia, it’s the Philippines.
The entire question revolves about the ideology of Islam, and has nothing to do with “Arabs.” Islam is the only so-called religion in the world in which the political element cannot be divorced from the religious and the political aspects of Islam contradict everything America stands for. A devout Muslim of any stripe that embraces the islamic political views inimical to the American principles of individual liberty cannot be a real American.
Hank
My pleasure.
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