We have a winner. People seem to blur Islamic extremists with Muslims without batting an eye. But call that poligamy camp in Texas a "group or Mormons", or that Houston case a "Christan killer mom" or the LA case a "Christian massacre"--and you will get people jumping out of the woodwork (for good reason I think) to jump on those misconceptions and generalizations. I might add it wasn't long ago in Texas, and supposedly based on judeo-christian principles, it was legally defensible for a man to kill another man found with his wife (e.g., honor killing).
And clearly Catholicism was responsible for the Crusades (in part), The Inquisition, and, more recently, IRA bombings. Clearly it is the culture of the religion (NOT). Also beheading goes back way before Islam. As does many other gruesome execution tactics (burning at the stake). Does every time we hear someone doused with gasoline do we say his Christian influence/the Bible caused him to do it (since burning is more common in Christian history/nations and noted in the Bible). Was it the Christian influence that caused that Wyoming kid to be tortured to death. Besides, does it matter whether it is beheading, burning, stabbing, or shooting. The murder is the same. I suppose the only extra distinguishing sick thing to it is if it purposely slow, painful and terrifying.
That's ridiculous. If a Christian minister/preacher/priest/revival leader/publisher of a Christian newspaper/Sunday School teacher, who went on and on about how peaceful and wonderful Christianity was had committed such a crime, the headlines would ABSOLUTELY say so. After being inundated with terrorist videos from Al Jazeera showing Muslim terrorists chopping the heads off of captured 'infidel' prisoners, we now have a Muslim man who had a TV station whose express purpose was saying how bad-assly peaceful and cool Islam is, and he cut his wife's f***ing head off. It's worthy of discussion.
time to add fuel to the fire. Muslims like to kill people. Christians like to touch little boys. discuss.
I don't think it unfair to question. Maybe. I'm not proclaiming anything with certainty - merely pointing out how dumb it is to suggest that a link between this man's faith and the murder is incomprehensible.
It's completely irrelevant because it is cultural. If I could show you solid facts that: 1) Honor killings don't occur in all Muslim countries 2) Honor killings happen in non-Muslim countries Would you be satisfied that Islam is irrelevant here, and cultures of specific countries are the ones propogating this behavior? Key point: You can claim what you like, but in the end... Any random person can claim to be Christian on the outside and say that the Bible/Jesus has told me to bomb an abortion clinic.... Would that make me Christian? All it shows is that this person is using Christianity to justify his/her actions. Whether he/she is Christian is between that person and God. The only thing you can do is go to the source of the man's claims and see if they add up. In this case, they absolutely do not.
Pardon if I do not address the rest of your post, but this really is the key point, as you say. The subjectivity of it is precisely the problem, not an excuse. I mentioned before that my first post (how does islam attract so many whackos) was firmly tongue in cheek. It's all whacky to me. Sure, you can argue that by your interpretation of such-and-such text or creed, they are firmly in the wrong. And those same people will accuse you of the same. Instead of asking "would that make me a christian", perhaps you should ask "why would that person seek refuge under the guise of christianity?" Or, more generally, why would so many people use religion in general as an excuse? I guess I'm flipping wildly off tangent here and I'll let it go.
i think this is absolutely right. but in the present case, i doubt and there is no evidence that the dude beheaded his wife for any religious inspired reason. that being said, in general, religion is way more appealing in muslim societies than freedom or democracy or nationalist excuses. and its simply a function of what appeals to the most people or at least the segment you're trying to appeal to. in france, nationalism, secularism, and egalitarianism works. in china nationalism certainly seems to work. in most muslim countries, none of the other ideologies/philosophies are as deeply entrenched/as effective as religion.
Is that right? I know it goes to state of mind...that he didn't know what he was doing when he did it...but I've never heard about the honor killing part.
So you would conclude that if something like that happened Christianity had something to do with that? Did Ted Haggard do drugs and have gay sex because that was the Christian thing to do? Worthy of discussion is subjective but without any further proof its speculative. The man cut his wife's head off and is a Muslim. That is terrible but we have no other evidence that this was an honor killing of the means he did it had anything to do with the religion. For all we know he would've shot her but didn't have a gun.
That's not what Lynus302 said. Unless you have a guillotine handy, cutting someone's head off requires effort. Speculation merited.
