I fully agree with tiger here. I need to get a grip? I'm sorry, but I think I remain pretty patient when I see your typical knee-jerk, whimsical posts plastered over every page of this forum, continuously demonstrating you don't have any semblance of a grasp on geolitics or on Islam. Yet you keep coming back with more and more outlandish statements in your typical 'holier than thou' attitude. It's just funny really. You've gone from advocating an assasination of Ahmedinejad to your current flavor of the month of 'winning hearts and minds.' You're all over the spectrum dude and sometimes I wonder if you yourself have any idea what you're talking about. Like I said, you're becoming a caricature of yourself of late and I can't help but laugh. Can you please just calm down? Now give me a few minutes to go back and dig through the rest of this bullsh*t.
Ahmadinejad will be disposable when the Nuclear fiasco is setteled. rafsanjani will take him out. for now, they need him as a mouth piece.
LOL. Ummm, ok. How has anything I've ever said contradicted with what this writer said? I endorse almost the same view, but to an even greater degree. I wholeheartedly condemn the modern day manifestation of Qutbism. Do you even know who Sayyid Qutb or al-Banna were? LOL. I never once have propogated the use of force in the modern day context. I've simply offered reasons as to why the events that are taking place do. The Brotherhood's ideology emerged in response to colonialism, and Qutb advocated the toppling of Western secularism through political and economic means. The modern day interpretation of his books (ie: Milestones) is seen in a militaristic perspective and used to justify violence through Islam. Please, don't try to "educate" me by posting an article you couldn't explain in the least bit.
Glad that you read it. Your defensive attitude speaks for itself, though. Same with tigermission1. Everyone can see how aggressive you two guys get.
Can't blame her, after having seen those guys shoot her professor in front of her eyes while screaming "Allah is great". How can she not link the religion to the actions of these people? Remember, they linked them before she did. How dare you say that. Obviously, you didn't try to understand my last post one bit. One cannot judge the whole faith based on the actions of "a few extremists". However, one can judge the whole "Muslim world" to a certain extent based on how it deals with those extremists. And that is where the leaders of the "Muslim world" as well as those followers who act in a defensive way like you and thacabbage fail miserably. Instead of recognizing the problem and aggressively acting against it, you guys attack those - like you just did again - who step up and point out the problem. Again, you are caught up in a "but they are not better than we are" way of thinking. You are pointing fingers at others in a desperate attempt to deflect blame. No doubt that horrible acts have been committed in the names of most major religions. However, again, what matters is how the respective communities deal with those issues, and how much widespread support within the religious community the extremists can gather. I'm telling you that nobody with a sane mind within the Christian churches will be supportive of those child-molesting priests some love to talk about. They are simply criminals. But it's not like 30 %, 10 % or even 0.1 % of the followers of Christian religions support or even try to understand or relativize what these people are doing. Perhaps some officials try to cover up what they are doing, which is shameful. But that is not comparable to the widespread support the extremists receive from people of Islamic faith. When was the last time you have seen Christians, Jews or Buddhists seen flying a plane into a building? And you bet that other Christians, Jews or Buddhists would not have celebrated that in the streets, like you could see in Palestine or even in many countries in Europe. No. But these crimes certainly reflect on all Americans to a certain degree. And those who hate America certainly try to use these acts to depict all Americans as rapists and murderers and to incite hate against America. Nope, you aren't. You are extremely defensive, and at the same time aggressive. You immediately attack the character of the lady without recognizing that there is truth to what she said. Again, you are attacking the messenger because you are defensive when it comes to the message.
Hilarious! Going thru this thread, the two "aggressive" guys you mention have put up more valid points. You and Dadakota OTOH seem to be rambling quiet a bit while showing very little knowledge of the subject at hand.
tigermission1 and thacabbage are intelligent people, even though I think they have blinders on. You, on the other hand...
Let me be perfectly clear - I do think winning the hearts and minds is the way to go, and I also believe that assasinating certain leaders will help get there. So, it is completely consistent, IMHO. I think killing the leader of the country will weaken the Mullah's hold on Iran, and allow the people and more importanly the military to rise up and overthrow the government. Support the moderates. Look we are not gonna agree, I don't believe in religion, any religion, and I don't feel that I know the truth, I just feel that everyone is just as ignorant about it, Muslims, Christians, Jews...evereyone. I firmly believe everyone is just guessing. The problem is there is no way for either of us to prove who is right, so it is a circular argument - and neither of us is going to convince the other one of anything. The only difference is people who are similar in beliefs to where I am at are not blowing themselves up, or blowing up abortion clinics to make a point. DD
It has nothing to do with "allowing" or rights or imposing beliefs. You do what you are mentally and spiritually prepared to do. You can choose to use force, however you will suffer the karmic consequences. Jesus didn't fight his crucifixion. The Buddha would never have picked up a sword. They would rather have been killed then killed. But I doubt they would expect everyone to be that spiritually advanced.
"Blame her" or not, that proves my point that she has an agenda, which you earlier denied...that's the whole point here. Now that's settled... Simple: A person that paints an entire group of people with one brush and immediately draws life-changing conclusions based on one experience can rightly be called shallow, simplistic, and even ignorant. When a Jewish extremist boards a bus and guns down a few Israeli Arabs, that doesn't change my opinion about the Jewish people at large. When a Christian American decides to lynch a Black man in Texas, that doesn't change my opinion of the Christian people. When a Hispanic man gets caught while smuggling drugs across the border, that doesn't reflect on the Hispanic community at large. It's silly, dangerous, and more reflective of the person who holds such opinions or takes such an approach in life than it's reflective of the ethnic/religious group the perpetrators of the crime belonged to. "Step up and point out the problem"? LOL! Dude, you wouldn't know "the" problem if it hit you in the face. You're an ideologue, plain and simple. You don't provide factual evidence to back up your arguments. You make wild-eyed claims and statements reflecting your opinion and those whom you support, but when you're countered with facts you either disappear altogether or just move on to the next topic. It's pretty telling that you would afford a group of people that courtesy but not Muslims, and it's pretty telling that you have little to no idea about the efforts (past and present) many Muslim-majority states have undertaken to fight terrorism and extremists among them. You and that lady are of the same mold; go ahead, paint with a wide brush... Umm, no. It's called drawing a comparison to refute your silly logic...continue grasping at straws... No, they don't... Propaganda doesn't make it right, just because some group with an agenda (there's that word again) seeks to paint all Americans as a bunch of terrorists who support the crimes committed by their armed forces doesn't make it true; that's where you brain is stuck, that's the type of thinking you have to let go of... There's not much to say about her, her case is very weak and riddled with factual inaccuracies. A strong argument is one based on facts, otherwise it's merely a blathering idiot having his/her personal opinion aired. You could do much better than using her to advance your point, SJC. There are many respected Muslims (key word: currently Muslim) who have credibility within the community and have aired out your concerns in the past, and encouraged Muslims to take more action. Ms. Sultan is not one of them, I can hardly take her seriously based on the weakness of her argument and how silly she looks when she tries to use out-of-context religious texts in a desperate attempt to prove her point. If her point is that "Muslims should strive to do more to counter extremism among them", then she is in good company, there are numerous Muslims who have similar views and have stated so in the past; I am one of them. I have derided Wahhabism in the past and other extremist schools of thought in the Muslim world. I have derided Sayyed Qutb on many occasions as well. I am pretty consistent in that regard... I am attacking the messenger because the messenger exhibited a good deal of ignorance and is not using facts to support her argument, instead resorting to a silly attempt to use completely out-of-context religious texts to support her thesis; we call that anything but 'quality' work in academia. I won't apologize for having higher standards that you apparently do in that regard, and I won't exempt this lady just because you happen to agree with her.
LOL! "Spiritually advanced"? No thanks, you can keep your 'spiritually advanced' thought that prohbits people from defending themsleves and even goes further by saying that it's better to be killed than preserve your own life with necessary violence. We will just have to agree to disagree on that point, I will stick with "Muhammadism" and the UN charter here...
I have to agree with you. It is very natural and human to use violence to defend yourself, but it is above that to be willing not to use violence to do that. Any human can understand violence as defense and, thus it isn't divine. But to go beyond that in an even more supremely peaceful stance, is beyond what many can comprehend, and that is exactly why I believe it is divine.
The coolest thing about the real teachings of Christ is pascifism and non-violence. It requires an utterly unshakeable belief in the afterlife though to walk into the lions den and accept your fate. I think Christianity as practiced in the world today is a sham and a mockery. It should be communalism, selflessness and total nonviolence. It should be much more akin to the teachings of Ghandi and Martin Luther King than to Bubbba down at the mega church telling you God wants you to be rich.
Strip away the woman's religion, anger, tone, attitude, voice, interpretations of the Quron and all that....and get down to the fact of what she is saying. And then you see how awesome it really is. C'mon guys...don't get defensive when you hear her criticize what you hold dear.
It is not a prohibition. You just do what you are mentally and spiritually prepared to do with every single action you make. No prohibition kept Jesus from physically fighting his crucifiction. It's a deep understanding of non-violence, karma and the nature of suffering. It is a deep understanding that violence is never ended with more violence. It is willful action towards a true transformation of peace. It is becoming detached to oneself, or an idea of oneself, and instead living in compassion for all beings. "Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves." ~Buddha http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/bps/wheels/wheel392.html "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:38-42, NIV) ~Jesus
Never happen, they don't want to give up the power over women. It is not about religion, it is about power......same ole same ole !! DD
I agree with most of the post. I don't believe that requires an unshakeable belief in the afterlife. I think it requires an unshakeable belief that living that kind of pacifism, and practicing that kind of love is the best possible way to live your life. I think it actually requires even more than that, but I guess that is where I would try and start.
So what exactly are you complaining about? Her argument is not weak. She speaks the truth. "Muslims should strive to do more to counter extremism among them" is exactly what she is saying. Yet, you are defensive.
