This seems to be the key point here, and why Islam is so problematic - it demands to not be questioned, or many of its followers will get defensive/aggressive. Every ideology should be allowed to be questioned without it immediately being perceived as an attack against people. Any ideology.
Quick question. Do you believe AroundTheWorld is Islamophobic? Because if you don't, I'd say you don't have any logic or critical thinking.
He's not saying you shouldn't question THOSE people. He questions them just as much as you do, and in a very clear manner as we've seen time and time again. He's wondering why you are boxing him in as having the same ideology as terrorists when IMO and IHO and probably in 99% of people's opinions he does not share an ideology with them. That is not taking into account your reckless and crude labeling habits.
no, its ok to question it and learn more about it and investigate. heck, that is what I did to learn and understand it better and I did the same with christianity, judaism, bhuddism, everything really. The problem is not studying it, questioning, learning about the background, it is really attacking it the way you have. I have seen people question it and try to understand it better and educate themselves on misunderstandings and even disagree, and that is fine. But the tone and consistent attack and ignorance on your part crosses the line into elementary generalizations and stereotypes. So the problem is not questioning or trying to learn more about it, it is your tone, your one sided post about the same thing over and over again.
That's not even the problem. What he tries to do is get the Muslims to agree with him that Islam is an inherently violent religion and the Quran needs to be changed.
Would you agree that much of the Muslim beliefs were delivered through Muhammad, who was fairly violent in his life? The whole concept of a "just war" and the formal position to fight is fairly plain for most to see in the Qur'an, no?
Clearly they would not agree to that. Muslim beliefs are through Muhammad PBUH but from Allah according to Islam. Leaving that part out skews the question. Also, your use of the word violent skews it even further. Violence is sanctioned only in self-defense in Islam. Muhammad PBUH was violence-averse basically except in the case of imminent mass murder based on beliefs, holocaust-style. Since we are discussing acts of terrorism, which are not in self-defense IMO, then your questions are irrelevant. They only become relevant if you believe acts of terrorism stemming from Muslims are in self-defense. Do you believe they are in self-defense (as OBL does)?
Gandhi (known for his peaceful approach) on Mohammed. "I wanted to know the best of one who holds today's undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind....I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to this friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life." I have a hard time believing that someone like Gandhi who was about peace would have admired someone who was "violent".
Some of these people probably mistake Indians for terrorists as well. Keep in mind that these people are truly the most ignorant morons you can come across. I'm talking complete brainwashed r****ds.
Once again, I am not the one boxing him in with those people. First of all, showtang043 strikes me as a sincere and non-violent poster (however misguided in his beliefs he may or may not be). But whether you like it or not, THOSE people regard themselves as followers of Islam, actually as especially pious followers. So I am not boxing them in, they are Muslims. And wasn't it you actually who recently posted a video where Muslims in the UK said "even Bin Laden is closer to me than the Kuffars because at least he is a Muslim"? Would you dispute that a lot of Muslims actually think that way, especially in the Middle East? Do I need to re-quote the Pew surveys about Bin Laden's popularity ratings in predominantly Muslim countries? You yourself actually said that you used to think that Muslim lives counted more than non-Muslim lives. Now, you are a very intelligent guy who to some extent has overcome that kind of thinking. But as an intelligent guy you also know that there are many, many who still think exactly that way. You are pointing it out yourself: Whether they are acting in "self-defense" is open to interpretation (although neither you nor I nor any other sane person would actually say they are acting in self-defense). But they claim to do so. Heck, the lunatic who shot those two US soldiers at Frankfurt airport (where I am right now) thought he acted in self-defense. He actually became radicalized by watching (fake!) videos on Islamist websites of a woman supposedly being raped by US soldiers (among other Islamist hate propaganda that radicalized him within a short timeframe, only a few weeks or months). If some of the crazier posters here were to find out who I am, who knows if one of them were to be crazy enough to try and harm me, supposedly acting in "self-defense" ("this Islamophobic kuffar attacked our faith"). Huge difference here to what Jesus taught, by the way: Turn the other cheek. No encouragement for violence, even in "self-defense" (now, of course, the Bible says a lot of other stuff, but you know that I think that just like the Quran it's just a collection of stories written down by men over time). But at the core, Jesus taught and stands for something different than Mohammed: "Turn the other cheek" vs. "violence (in self-defense)"
The problem with that mindset is there are plenty of people who call themselves christians at the time that wanted to trouble jews, there were people who called them selves american's and christians who were for slavery a while back, I mean there are all kinds of examples in this regard, so sure in every time there are bad people, but it still doesn't justify boxing everyone and saying the ideology is wrong, you can't have such elementary logic, you have to see that there is a deeper issue bc not all muslims, even those who are devout share this views but they read and learn from the same ideology, but ironically most of the violence comes from association against america, which is not a religion, but its often based from political disagreement or ideology...that can be more of a reason, you can sit there and say ok some of the arab world has this mentality, bueven to say all of it is just misguided.
The usual argument "but others do bad stuff (did bad stuff), too". There is plenty of violence against non-Muslims in many countries that has nothing to do with America (e.g., Pakistan).
It is the usual argument because its fair and holds foot, just because its usual, does not dismiss it. Yes there is plenty of violence against non-mulims in many countries like pakistan. There is just as much violence against Muslims in those countries, most of the victims happen to be muslims in fact and that says something that is much bigger and beyond religion even if the idiots use the religion as the name, don't dignify their minds and their causes by saying they are right and that it is about their religion that they are standing up for . Is that fair?
Yawn. This will be boring if you are here to make personal attacks. 1) You have said that all Muslims share the same ideology. That is the problem statement here, stop weasling out of it. With that statement, YOU have declared that you are of the opinion that showtang and Osama Bin Laden share the same ideology. We are explaining our view that two people can share a religion but differ on ideology, and vice versa. You seem to be incapable of recognizing a difference between the words ideology and religion. That error is what allows you to intentionally or unintentionally generate certain views about 1.5bn muslims under one umbrella. In OBL's ideology, it is ok to kill innocent people in the name of Islam. In showtang's ideology, it is not. However, they nominally share the same religion. Despite them sharing a religion, it does not mean showtang will be swayed into the same road/path of ideology as OBL. 2) Your use of "there are many" is misleading. I could say there are many in Germany who admire Hitler and want him back and that statement would have the same accuracy of yours. But that's an ingenuine statement which distorts the facts. The huge majority of Muslims do not believe in unsolicited terrorism. There are groups (actually, one sect of a sect) of Muslims who believe that acts of violence are warranted in perceived self-defense of religion > if those are the people you are referring to, then you need to specifically name their group rather than refer to all Muslims. The incidence of Muslims who believe in instigating violence is limited to a sect of a sect, and you are fully aware of the name of that group as you've mentioned them on the board before. The self-defense that the Quran sanctions is not a self-defense of RELIGION as you have indicated in your post. I hope that was just a poorly written phrase. There is no "if they slander the Prophet kill them" in the Quran, there is no such thing. If you are using the word "Muslim" or "Islam" then you have to validate your points using the central and easily accesible document known as the Quran. Otherwise you have to re-adjust your accusations to the appropriate textual evidence from an appropriate sect. 3) Eye for an eye? See, I can take things out of context too. While Jesus PBUH undoubtedly engaged in less violence, if any at all, that is solely due to his circumstances IMO. He was not the leader of a nation or a member of an army. Also, with all due respect to Christianity, I do not unequivocally believe in 'turn the other cheek' and neither do you. This is why we have a justice system. Otherwise when someone crashed into my car or murders my family or steals my money, I'd respond with "crash into the other side, i have another family at X location, and here are my bank account details." I have very little depth of knowledge about the bible, but my own interpretation of turn the other cheek is that it's illustrating a point where you should not take revenge into your own hands if there is less value in doing so than avoiding it. That does not rule out a lawful response to injustice done towards you, i.e. self-defense if someone has broken a peace treaty and is about to engage in mass murder of hoards of people. 4) I did not say it's open to interpretation. I'm wondering if bigtexxx believes that they are acting in self-defense. I'm fully aware that terrorists believe they are acting in desperate self-defense and don't consider their actions to be terrorism. This is why they never call themselves terrorists and never refer to their actions as terrorism. 5) Please stop having a b*tch fit. Barring you being in some poor and uneducated donkey village and you being obnoxious about attacking their views, no one is going to kill you for this. lol They would also kill a Muslim for doing it. This would also happen if you went to some tribal village in central Africa and dissed their beliefs in the same way. This would also happen to me if I was at a skinhead party and said that humans are all from Africa. The statement is not unique to Islam or Muslims, and therefore completely irrelevant to the point you're trying to make.
What personal attack did I supposedly make in the post you quoted? The only poster I specifically referred to was you, and I said you are intelligent. Sorry if you consider that a personal attack, I must take it back :grin:. Wrong. I never said that all Muslims believe exactly the same things, that would be silly, a blind man can see that Muslims are deeply divided. But still, they belong to the same over-arching religion. Again, you were the one who posted that video of Muslims in the UK who said they feel closer to Bin Laden than to "Kuffar", because at least he is a Muslim. Do you have an estimate of what percentage of Muslims would agree with that statement? What are you talking about? I don't think all those Muslims have the same views on everything. You don't need to explain that to me, I never assumed that. BUT - there are a lot of people who fall somewhere in the gap between OBL and showtang, and as the surveys show, Muslims will be a lot more inclined to share Bin Laden's ideology than anyone else will be. No, the idiots who admire Hitler and want him back are fortunately a minuscule minority. The surveys among the Muslim world show much, much higher numbers of support for Bin Laden. I don't doubt that. But why the insertion of the word "unsolicited"? So if one could argue that it is only a reaction to whatever (insert war in Afghanistan, Palestianians, Iraq), it's "ok"? Salafis? Are adeelsiddiqui and his various cousins Salafis? Not based on your interpretation, unfortunately there are plenty of Muslims who disagree. And even you, while not being in favor of killing them, were in favor - at least previously - of them being in fear for the rest of their lives. If you, as a presumed moderate, thought like that, and I would guess that you would consider yourself a moderate, then what does that say about how many people toward the more radical end of the spectrum would indeed think like that ("if they slander the prophet kill them")? A lot of people, unfortunately, as we have seen in those riots because of a few cartoons. But that's a choice (being a member of an army/leader of an army). Tell Theo van Gogh, Hirsi Ali, Kurt Westergaard, etc. etc. etc. They were/are not in some poor donkey village, yet people have been trying to kill them. Ask Salman Rushdie, too.
