Posted on 03/27/2003 8:26:19 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
Luis still thinks they're lying to us.
The Taliban are not Arabs. The Chechens are not Arabs. Neither are Jamaat al Fuqra, Jamaat al Tabligh, Jemaat i Islamyia or Abu Sayyef. Hezbollah is funded by the Iranians.
Their targets and victims include France, Italy, Germany, Russia, India, Australia, the Philippines, as well as America and Israel.
Certainly there are Arabs involved, but the foes we fight are not united by Arabic.
Sorry. Your sneering admonition to TLB is not warranted.
IMO, if your position even remotely resembles oppressing thousands of peaceful American Muslims, who go about their businness every day and bother no one, stripping them of their First Amendment Rights, then:
1) You're carrying Osama's water. You would validate every word he spoke.
2) You obviously don't have anything about Christianity to teach me.
3) Your mindset is one that people such as Osama would exploit. He loves zealots such as yourself, as they elevated him to a position of authority and now help maintain it.
"Carrying Osama's water..." LOL!
You are correct about one thing. I am a zealot for Christ. There is only one way to God and it ain't through Islam.
I have a Muslim friend that is a very nice lady. She is Palestinian. AFAIK, she does not advocate anything such as what the jihadists do. I suppose I should ask her if she would like her "First Amendment Right" stripped from her? < /sarcasm>
The fact that America has thousands of peaceful Muslims still does not obviate the fact that a large percentage of the Muslim world has declared war on the West (Christianity and Judiasm). Go to www.memri.org if you don't believe me.
Have a day.
We should be careful before assuming that a recognition of a Clash of Civilizations between Islam and the West implies a desire to oppress those Muslims who actually do live peacefully among us.
The question on the table is this:
Do Islamic moderates represent "true Islam," or are the elements of Islam that are intransigently hostile to us the true spiritual heirs of Mohammed?
I've come to the latter conclusion, but I also recognize the benefit of fighting against a fractionalized opponent, rather than a coherent, pan-Islamic jihad. The best course, it seems to me, is to correctly identify our foes and thier motives, while prudently avoiding actions that would make them a more dangerous enemy.
Well, gee, pal. The Qur'an really doesn't say anything about killing the infidel, does it?
Can't do that. We have laws against it. The first Amendment does not protect religious violence, just the right to worship.
Yes. From Day one he has tried to paint this as a war against Islam as opposed to a police action, brought about both as a result of his crimes and the reluctance of the Taliban to fork him over.
Agreed.
I don't know what you're talking about. But her right to worship peacefully, and in adherance ot our laws is absolute.
We will punish terrorism. We have no right to punish peaceful, American Muslims. They are protected by our Constitution.
Do I have a choice?
When I saw the Arab Street jumping up and down in glee on 9/11, I knew the world had changed.
I don't have to assume it, the poster in question admitted such. He has called for this repeatedly in fact, all over the forum.
IMO, that's a huge mistake.. if for no other reason (of which there are several, actually) than the "benefit of fighting against a fractionalized opponent" you cite.
As far as the question of Radical Islam being the mainstream.. I honestly don't know.
The Bible, for example is very plain and explicit.. Yet you see very spirited arguments on the interpretation of scripture that exist to the present day. I know that personally I have big problems with the way some passages are intrepreted by my Catholic bretheren.
I maintain that I am correct in this and by the same token I can see where a "moderate" Muslim might argue that he's a "true" muslim and be convinced of it..
He may well be wrong, but if he believes it and is not using the Koran to justify religious oppression then who am I to argue and why would I wish to?
Then learn to read. That was the point of my post.
It was prefaced as such.
The world didn't "change" we lost a building and 3,000 people.
If David Mitchell aka Emmanual actually had been able to get his new religion off the ground, would it be much different from Islam? Emmanual took a 14 year old girl as his "wife" but wasn't Mohammed's little girl only 6? A pedophile is a pedophile. Judaism had some polygamy in the early years but no indications that pedophilia was ever acceptable. Christians follow Jesus who certainly wasn't a polygamist or pedophile.
I maintain that I am correct in this and by the same token I can see where a "moderate" Muslim might argue that he's a "true" muslim and be convinced of it..
He may well be wrong, but if he believes it and is not using the Koran to justify religious oppression then who am I to argue and why would I wish to?
It's understandable to try and find some sectarian conflict in our experience, and try to construct an analogy regarding Islam. However, I think the utility in that is limited, and the reason is the objective difference between the moral character of Jesus and that of Mohammed.
Reasonable people can look at the worst atrocities committed ostensibly in the name of Christ, and objectively say that those who committed the offenses were not acting as Jesus did, or would. Yet when we look at the worst atrocities of Islam, we can objectively say that the transgressors were acting just as Mohammed did and would; which is exactly the opposite of our observation of faithful Christian behavior.
Despite differences in doctrine, the vast majority of Christians, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, are in fundamental agreement on the nature of Christ. It is Christ's nature, and our agreement upon it, that have rendered bloody sectarian strife between Christians, or between Christians and other religions, ever more infrequent. Most Christians understand that to initiate bloodshed is not Christian.
An atheist or an agnostic wouldn't mind having a neighbor who emulated the behavior of Christ in his day to day life. It's hard to imagine they'd like a neighborhood full of people who emulate Mohammed.
The initiation of bloodshed is very Mohammedan.
In addition, we're also aware of a vast number of so-called Islamic moderates who nevertheless make every conceivable excuse for the atrocities of their co-religionists. How moderate can the really be?
Far more rare is the Muslim who actually condemns the brutality of the civilization spawned by his religion. They deserve all the credit in the world for the courage of their stand, even though they are not yet ready to reject the source of that brutality.
In a way that's what it is ---Islam is an Arab Nationalist religion ----but there are other kinds of Islam ---except that all Islam originates from the Arabs. I've met Persians who aren't like Arabs ---they don't even like them, they aren't as hate-filled, they call themselves Muslim but I think they're Islam is influenced somewhat by what they were before ----they'll even admit Islam was imposed on them by the Arabs but they had a flourishing culture of their own previously.
When I say "power over others", I mean the ability to FORCE others to obey your will, whether they want to or not. Simple persuasiveness is influence, not power.
Desire for money is OK, if it is satisfied by producing something of value to exchange for it, but evil if it is satisfied by using physical power to rob or intimidate
Desire for sex is OK, if it is satisfied by persuading the other person to cooperate voluntarily, but evil if you use power to rape or intimidate the other into cooperating
That's why I say "the essense of evil is the lust for power over others" -- it is the decision to satisfy your desires thru the use of force rather than free exchange and cooperation, because you don't want to go thru the effort needed to satisfy your desires thru exchange, persuasion, and cooperation
Nice picture, though.
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