There is a large portion of Islam followers who "misinterpret" the Quran, seeking Jihad and destruction of other peoples, or infidels of the "Great Satan". If only a tiny fraction, it stands to reason that these extremists can be many people from the pool of "more than a fifth of the word's people". In the eyes of these extremists, what I said earlier is valid. Perception is their reality, and of their victims. I didn't mean to lump all of Islam into that category, I apologize. Just as with Christianity, there are numerous interpretations and practices of it as well. However, I fail to see the threat and violent pattern in other religions on the scale of the Islamic extremist, in this present age. Thus, Islam gets more attention. Nothing is worse than having a violent, hateful disposition, derived from a faith (or otherwise), with the perceived backing and blessing of their God as their justification to commit violent acts on others.
That is the problem with religion. How is their interpretation any more right or wrong over yours? I think it would be better in the secular world if terrorist didn't blow up crap. But at the end of the day I think your guess is as good as theirs what god wants.
To some extremists, yes, they believe that. Did you not read what I wrote, or are you in complete denial of why some terrorists do the things they do? ..back at ya. BTW, my posts here have not been directed at this one shooting incident.
In any case, the world must choose how to react to it, and that will never change. Live, die, fight, run, hide, ignore, deny....it's all there.
the constitution was used to justify segregation, was that interpretation more right and would it be better to just not have a constitution? any text/philosophy/ideology can be used to justify many actions which may not be acceptable in our eyes. not to say islam or religion in general hasn't been used more often than others in the recent past to justify atrocities. but, you can take away religion, and still have atrocities committed due to nationalism. genocide in russia, turkey, rwanda, were all ethnocentric or nationalistic. similarly even today the terrorism inside afghanistan, in regards to pushtuns v. the hodgepodge of northern alliance, or in pakistan the desire of the pushtun tribes to have autonomy in waziristan are certainly more ethnic and tribal than religious.
ok but Islam as a religon does not have a monopoly of it I don't think violence and war are mentioned in the Koran anymore than the Bible the problem is not the religion, but the political and nationalistic objectives of the people who commit the crimes and they choose to use their religion to gain sympathy for their cause
so you don't think there are people who ACTUALLY believe that violence is compelled by God?? that interpret a religious text to suggest that they're supposed to be doing the crappy things they do??
are they even religious? they go to strip clubs and drink alcohol? the Koran expliticitly says God is not cool with that my point is they have a nationalist or political cause first then they happen to be Islam then they interpret the Koran to justify their violence in order to get the sympathy or support of the more than a billion Muslims worldwide who don't share their political and nationalist cause
1. I don't think that they end up at strip clubs and drink means they don't believe they're doing the will of God when they commit violence. As I said earlier, if you believe martyrdom is a fast-pass to Paradise, then what you do in your final days here with strippers is pretty inconsequential. 2. Are you a person of faith? Not asking to get personal, but just to understand. It's very difficult for me to separate politics and my faith. How I view God colors entirely how I view humanity and how we should treat one another....and that, more often than not, shapes how I vote and what I think about politics, generally. I don't believe the 2 are separate....particularly coming out of Islamic tradition where ideas of separation of church and state are entirely foreign. 3. I can understand you saying this of someone like Osama Bin Laden...that he's using a twisted view of religion to encourage people to do crappy things....that's EXACTLY what the Church did in the Crusades, frankly. But for the foot soldier, this is about God, however warped and twisted his/her view may be of God.
I didn't know that God is an "the end justifies the means" kind of guy which countries has waged the most wars and killed the most persons? what religion do they all belong to? were they compelled by their God? No. That's not God. the crusaders travelled across sea to wage war against people who has done no harm to their own homeland. they were made to believe by their leaders that it was God's will (but it isn't really God's will we all know that). I don't blam Christianity or the Bible. this guy for example waged war against people whom he perceives as attacking/oppressing his own homeland. that's his primary motivation. We shouldn't blame Islam or the Koran.
I think MM has a good point here. With extreme fanaticism a lot of things can be rationalized. Consider one of the first rationalizations that happen with any sort of violent movement. Anyone that goes out and kills people in the name of a religion that preaches peace, and that goes for more than just Islam, has already rationalized a contradiction.
I don't believe He is, either...but there are people who believe that. Their subjective views of what God commands and who He is is what we're talking about. OF COURSE IT'S NOT GOD!! I'm not saying it's God. I'm saying it's these people's views of who God is. I don't either. But I damn sure blame the Church that told their followers that God demanded the blood of Jews and Muslims! They promised them eternal life in exchange for their willingness to go spill blood. Hell, yes, I blame the Church for that. Not his own homeland...his own religion. Read his own report he gave. He says you can not ask Muslims to attack other Muslims...he gives no specificiations as to any nationality. Religion transcends nationality, oftentimes. And once again...I'm not blaming true Islam or the Koran.
The guy was raised by a father who was a Palestinian refugee. That is an issue of nationalism. And that leads to Hamas which is a perfect example of how nationalism and poor treatment gets turned into religion. If there had never been an Israel, if there had been no Lebanese civil war, Hezballah and Hamas wouldn't have their armies or clout. I agree that they believe it is about God. But without politics and nationalism, and without a sense of the world treating them like dirt, they wouldn't be attracted to a message about God wanting you to blow yourself up, and Hamas and Hezbollah would have a following equal to Westboro Baptist Church. Hasan after having been raised by a father who undoubtedly viewed the world through very fatalistic eyes, after having felt like an outsider in his own country, and being a loner with no close friends and nobody to talk about it with, felt the need to strike back. This isn't the work of a 9/11 mastermind. This isn't even the work of a behind the scenes puppet master sending children into the blossom of the enemy to blow themselves up. You can say it was about religion, about politics, about any number of things. They would probably all be true from a specific superficial angle. But this was a single ineffectual act of a man who felt the world had turned against him. I see more in common with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold or the VA Tech shooter, than the Taliban in this specific case. Acting as the istrument of the will of God seems much more noble than expressing your personal disaffected loneliness and rage through a murder spree and suicide by cop.
now I'm hearing that some in the military didn't go after Hasan because they feared crossing the "political correctness" line. That's PC run amok right there, and our President is leading the charge. "Don't jump to any conclusions!" Uh, yeah. Thanks Barack, if it weren't for your line of reasoning this jackazz could have been caught before many innocents died.
wow, now you've managed to actually blame obama for this, and it only took 6 days. i feel you though, jumping conclusions worked for the previous administration, why not do it now
Um. Are you seriously trying to blame Obama for the Army not preventing this? Normally you only do this kind of stretching on economic issues, which usually have some kind of grain of truth embedded in a pile of "maybes" and a mountain of horsecrap. But this is just a complete abandonment of all reasoning and logic. You are smarter than this.
