If Islam didn’t exist the world would be a safer place.
I wondered how long the “enemy vacuum” would last after the Soviet Union fell. Turns out it wasn’t long at all. I have a feeling that this enemy will be more reliable. At least we are doing everything thing in our power to make sure it survives and grows stronger.
What other religion terorrizes the world like that?
chainpin, meet Christianity. Christianity, meet chainpin.
“Pope Urban II called upon all Christians to join a war against the Turks, promising those who died in the endeavor would receive immediate remission of their sins.”
Sounds eerily similar to something going on today…
Dude, that shit went down nearly a thousand years ago. Most religions have evolved peacefully over hundreds of years as society/humaity have become more civilized. Islam has not evolved to become more peaceful it has evolved to become more violent.
Dude, that shit went down nearly a thousand years ago. Most religions have evolved peacefully over hundreds of years as society/humaity have become more civilized. Islam has not evolved to become more peaceful it has evolved to become more violent.
If you don’t think there extremist Christians out there doing nasty things in the name of their lord, nothing we can say will sway your opinion then.
What about these nutjobs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidian. Were they just stockpiling weapons for a hobby?
When are people going to get that these one off acts are the acts of loony extremists? What the Muslim community needs to do a better job of is self-policing and speaking out against these nutjobs. They haven’t done a good job in that respect at all.
We’re going to have to disagree. I don’t want to kill them all. I want the exact opposite. Like the song says: I’d like to build a world of hope and furnish it with love: grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves. Peace on Earth is what I want, but it is my opinion for that for the time being, radical islam is a menace that prevents this from happening. I believe there are plenty of good muslims out there but there are also some very bad ones that give the religion a bad name and the good ones don’t seem to do enough to make things better.
How far back did you have to look to find a violent “group” of Christians? And how often does Christianity produce violent groups? Now, compare that to the number of violent (radical) Muslims.
Yes, there are some nut-job Christians out there, but acts like Waco and OKC while very upsetting are very rare compared to the nearly daily acts of terrorism by certain radical muslims. It is not nearly an even comparison between the two.
Yes, there are some nut-job Christians out there, but acts like Waco and OKC while very upsetting are very rare compared to the nearly daily acts of terrorism by certain radical muslims. It is not nearly an even comparison between the two.
Fine, but considering the almost 2 billion Muslims, the numbers of these terrorist acts are still infinitesimal. Don’t get me wrong, I think they need to be dealt with accordingly, however, don’t paint an entire religion based on what these guys are doing.
How far back did you have to look to find a violent “group” of Christians? And how often does Christianity produce violent groups? Now, compare that to the number of violent (radical) Muslims.
Hm, not so far back the Nazis were killing off everyone they could, that wasn’t Protestant. You think they killed jews, muslims, gypsies, Russians, Catholics and allllll the rest because the Nazis were… athiests?
I lived in Jerusalem a while back, I can’t even tell you how often I was absolutly floored by the crap extremists on all sides were saying. I had Jewish friends, like REALLY religious guys who prayed ALL day adn talked about doing good deads alll the time, talk about how much they agree mosques should be blown up or burned down. I had muslim friends who told me I was an exception, but the other jews they knew, wellll… I had (and still have) Christian friends that think, well, … turn or burn!
I think I need different friends!
Seems to me it’s religion (extremists therein) that’s the problem.
What other religion terorrizes the world like that?
chainpin, meet Christianity. Christianity, meet chainpin.
“Pope Urban II called upon all Christians to join a war against the Turks, promising those who died in the endeavor would receive immediate remission of their sins.”
Sounds eerily similar to something going on today…
With all due respect, get off the crack pipe brah.
I don’t give a fuck what happened ages ago, I only care about the present, and in the present, Muslims are terrorizing the world.
Period, end of story.
Why should I have to live in a world with such intolerant people?
what no one seems to realize is that the Muslims’s view is to convert everyone to their religion and kill the infedels that do not convert
Even though it isn’t true, plenty of people “realize” it.
I wouldn’t put it so harshly, though there’s an element of truth in what he says about the lands of Dar Al Islam. Generally, in states or nations of that sort, non-Muslims were expected, at minimum, to pay the tax, or *Jizya, *which is imposed on Christians and Jews living in *Dar Al Islam. *And then to live lives as *dhimmi, *or those controlled by the Muslim system of government (which is both religious and civil, all rolled into one) imposed upon them as a conquered people. Most non-Muslims, in strongly Muslim, theocratic states, live in fear of property confiscation and worse, by the way. This is what the jihadi network (AQ, etc.) wants for all of us, though they’re appallingly short on details and concrete plans for government, once one begins to drill down into their worldview, which–to tell the truth–is strongly reminiscent of Marxism/Leninism in that regard.
*Sorry Bro, radical islam is the problem these days and until ‘we’ deal with the problem we will find ourselves in a state of perpetual war until the problem is dealt with. *
We’re going to have to disagree. I don’t want to kill them all. I want the exact opposite. Peace on Earth is what I want, but it is my opinion for that for the time being, radical islam is a menace that prevents this from happening.
In that case, what does “dealing with the problem” entail? And what does burning a mosque have to do with it?
This is what the jihadi network (AQ, etc.) wants for all of us, though they’re appallingly short on details and concrete plans for government, once one begins to drill down into their worldview, which–to tell the truth–is strongly reminiscent of Marxism/Leninism in that regard.
What the radicals want is to be able to live their own strict and anal version of religion without outside influence and interference. They blame their own lack of viability on “evil” outside consumer influences… some imaginary, and some very real. The only mature approach would be to let them have their society… which would slowly fall apart from within… as all repressive regimes do. Our taking over Afghanistan merely gave them an easy target. As long as we keep fighting them, they’ll keep fighting back, and we will never “win”. They are better at this game than we will ever be.
“Who are really the terrorists here?”
Is it not possible to have terrorists on both sides of a confrontation? You don’t have to have a one-to-one correspondence between white hats and black hats, after all.
In any case, all these goings on in Corvallis and Portland can’t hold a candle to what happens in those towns in the S. M. Stirling novels I’m reading. 
Islam as a religion came into actual being in the mid-7th century, some 600 years after Christianity began to take root. In other words, it’s behind in its development and evolution by about that same 600 years, so I hold out the hope that 600 years from now (okay, maybe 400 years from now if it really behaves and does its lessons with seriousness of purpose) we won’t have the issues with an ever-growing segment of a religion numbering some 1.2 billion adherents, at least, that wants to take everybody else out in order to ensure that Allah reigns supreme.
It’s a simple numbers game, C. If even 1 percent of 1 percent of the Muslim population subscribes to Jihad Bil Saif (“Jihad by the sword”) as practiced by the Wahhabist/Salafist contigent among the religion (and it’s thought that there’s a larger percentage than that, in actuality), then there’s a hardcore group of extremely fundamentalist practitioners that we’re going to have to deal with and who aren’t going to be bought off by promises of comity and amity and peaceful coexistence.
Also, expecting the pronouncements of America-based Muslim leaders in speaking favorably of our country to carry any weight throughout much of the so-called ‘Muslim world,’ as much of the Left apparently expects, is extremely naive, because those pronouncements won’t carry any weight whatsoever. We’ve found this out through numerous surveys and studies. And many Muslims in other parts of the world (and even here, unfortunately) can’t help it–because of their religion’s outlook–but all they see is us supposedly “persecuting” fellow Muslims and they want to strike out in fear and anger. It’s wrongheaded and profoundly ill-informed, but that’s just the way it’s going to be for quite a long time. We could give Muslims every single thing they want and demand, and it still wouldn’t be enough. It would eradicate any vestige of the country American was at one time, but it wouldn’t be enough, sorry to say.
“What the radicals want is to be able to live their own strict and anal version of religion without outside influence and interference. They blame their own lack of viability on “evil” outside consumer influences… some imaginary, and some very real.”
You’re describing the Taliban, which are not Al Qaeda. The Taliban are a regional entity, namely Pashtun. Al Qaeda is Sunni, and have a global reach. The Taliban want to remain in their own world, Al Qaeda wants to kill you for living in yours.
Both utilize terrorism to achieve their goals.
This is what the jihadi network (AQ, etc.) wants for all of us, though they’re appallingly short on details and concrete plans for government, once one begins to drill down into their worldview, which–to tell the truth–is strongly reminiscent of Marxism/Leninism in that regard.
What the radicals want is to be able to live their own strict and anal version of religion without outside influence and interference. They blame their own lack of viability on “evil” outside consumer influences… some imaginary, and some very real. The only mature approach would be to let them have their society… which would slowly fall apart from within… as all repressive regimes do. Our taking over Afghanistan merely gave them an easy target. As long as we keep fighting them, they’ll keep fighting back, and we will never “win”. They are better at this game than we will ever be.
That’s true, but only partly. What the jihadis want is to re-establish the Caliphate under Shariah law, and they want the Caliphate to rule over the entire Dar Al-Islam, including lands that were once Muslim, but are not any longer; this is a key part of the jihadi philosphy. The notion that they just want a small hunk of land to call their own and rule as they see fit is not true. This is why Hamas, which is jihadist at its core, will never, ever recognize Israel’s right to exist: It was once Muslim land and as such, must be returned to Muslim rule.
As far as the other bit in bold, IIRC, it was the jihadis that initiated this conflict with the attack on African embassies, the Cole attack, and 9-11. If we pull out of Afghanistan, we hand them a huge propaganda victory that they will exploit ruthlessly, and use to continue attacks on the West. Any notion that they only fight because we are in Afghanistan is to be ignorant of what happened after the Soviets pulled out. It also begs the question: What would you have us do? Completely pull out of Afghanistan and not respond to terrorist attacks?
Spot
Our taking over Afghanistan merely gave them an easy target. As long as we keep fighting them, they’ll keep fighting back, and we will never “win”. They are better at this game than we will ever be.
This is a common mistake many make about places like Afghanistan, which was ruled with an iron hand by the Talib back before the toppling of that group by us and certain allies among the Afghans. We do this all the time, where we tend to impose our own ideals about how nation states behave or should behave and how the failure to adhere to our ideals will eventually lead to a downfall within those repressive regimes without outside interference by other actors or nation states inimical to those repressive regimes. Usually, we end up quite dead wrong, sadly.
Also, do you think the Talib would still be in power in Afghanistan, killing and maiming those who ventured outside the boundaries of the strict version of Islam they’d imposed, if we hadn’t stepped in, for whatever reason (and wasn’t it Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and others in that group who once referred to Afghanistan as “the good war?”)? The answer, of course, is that they’d still be running things, just as the regime in North Korea will remain in power as long as such people are willing to not only be the lords among the ruins but also to use whatever means would be necessary in order to maintain that lordship, including the mass starvation and killing of their own people. For example, Mao’s various programs such as “The Great Leap Forward,” and his other schemes, directly led to the deaths of millions upon millions of his own people, and the Chinese have shown that they’ll step in and ruthlessly suppress dissent, even to this day, when they need to. They’re still in power and likely to remain so, absent some sort of application of pressure from the outside.
And the Afghans aren’t actually “better at this game” (whatever that “game” happens to be) than we are. They’re just willing to take the extremely long view of things and are acculturated to lives that are nasty, brutish and short, to quote Hobbes on the matter. And just because we might think they can tolerate a higher level of pain than we can doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands, cash in our remaining chips and just move on and hope that our own lives will be free of nastiness, brutishness and lack of length. That’s hardly an existence worth living, cowering as one might in a little hidey-hole, wouldn’t you say?
How far back did you have to look to find a violent “group” of Christians? And how often does Christianity produce violent groups? Now, compare that to the number of violent (radical) Muslims.
Hm, not so far back the Nazis were killing off everyone they could, that wasn’t Protestant. You think they killed jews, muslims, gypsies, Russians, Catholics and allllll the rest because the Nazis were… athiests?
I don’t recall any of the Nazi leaders proclaiming their Christianity. You really don’t think they did it because of their religious beliefs do you? That’s really stretching. But, say they did – You went back 70 years, the better part of a century, to find them. Most of us here, weren’t even alive back them.
I can go back within 70 hours to find a group commiting a series of violent acts in the name of Islam. And the best you can do is something 70 years ago - and that is very suspect. Congratulations - you win.
“I don’t recall any of the Nazi leaders proclaiming their Christianity.”
This is an accurate statement. Europeans, particularly Hitler and much of Germany were largely secular. Hitler is noted several times in his writings that Christianity was an affront to natural law.