Sixteen police killed during attack in China

No doubt about it, certainly it is confusing and contradictory.

But the Koran is even worse than the bible in the way it is organized, and how the contradictory items usurp in relevance the peaceful ones because of times they were spoken by Mohammed or because the longer text is deemed more important.

Giving the moderates in Islam a tough sell in debates in their religion.

DD

 

You may not believe in The Bible, which is okay with me, but at least give Christians the respect of our principal book.

 

I respect the Bible, and the Koran as ancient literature. The problem I generally have is in the interpetation of the meanings in those texts, and how they can sometimes be twisted and allow for misinterpetation of those texts to motivate people to do evil instead of good.

And it seems rare that the context in which things were written is figured into such discussions, such as Pork being an unclean meat as an example.

Times have changed, science has proven a lot of the text to be faux science and mythos, but yet the religion does not change to reflect the marching forward of humanity.

I find nothing wrong with a good moral code, but if something has been proven to be false....yet it is still held as a fervant belief....like the age of the earth in the bible for instance.....it just makes me scratch my head and wonder how people can blindly follow something that was written down by man who was trying to explain the unexplainable.....and now a lot of it has been explained, but still ignored.

To me, all religions are mythos, no different than the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Summarians etc......I respect their moral code, but find their unbending ways in relation to their texts to be hard to fathom.

DD

 

I was referring to the lack of capitalizations only. For example, "How to Fix a Widget" is the bible of widget fixing. However, The Bible is a collection of books that some (including me) believe was a divine message (through messengers) to humanity.

 

I understand that is what a good number of people believe.

Personally, I don't think it was inspired by God etc, but rather was inspired by politics of the region and times.

For centuries MANY people have said they are speaking for God, or inspired by God, to me...today's religions are just the one's that hit critical mass.

DD

 

If it's not the misinterpretation of the Bible or Koran, it'd be something else. It's easy to blame conflicts are started by those books because they are often used as the rallying cries. However, if you look at history, religion is generally the justification, and not the cause of conflicts.

 

And Islam's Koran is very confusing and not written out well, it contradicts itself all over the place, and changed in tenor and tone as Mohammed gained in stature and became a warlord.

Islam to me is probably the one religion that I have the most issues with, I have a very hard time believing that one man was talking to God and had his followers write down what he said.

Why would people be more inclined to believe Mohammed than say...any other person claiming to talk to God?

It just seems naive to me to believe that....I mean didn't David Koresh claim he was talking to God too, or Warren Jeffs, or Jim Jones, or....well...you get the idea...any time it is just one man....it makes me want to cry BS.

And the Barbary Pirates were using EXACTLY the same types of reasons FROM THE KORAN that are being used today.

Thomas Jefferson was wary of Militant Islam....he was right.

DD

 

We digress in Islamic terrorists slaughtering Chinese policemen.

 

So you are basing this Barbary Pirates were militant Islamofacists statement on what the ambassador said? The same ambassador who talked about the commission he would get if the US agreed to pay the protection money to the Barbary states?

What kind of religious conviction is easily overturned with money? Would Bin Laden call for an end to Al Queda if the US just payed him off? If they justified their piracy and their hatred of europeans with the Koran, that's how pretty much all humans act towards people and cultures different to their own. I mean this was happening when the US was still heavily in the slave trade.

The Barbary pirates were interested in profit first, just like everybody else. That's why it's not the same as militant Islam. Bin Laden was born into a wealthy family, yet he chooses to live in caves to wage his holy war.

 

The leaders of the nations were interested in Money but they used the Koran and Islam to recruit and motivate their people.

Basically the EXACT same rhetoric from the Koran that Bin Laden is using today was used back then.

And they used it for more than 400 years.....Militant Islam is a direct bi-product of a confusing holy book....and the contradictions contained within it.

It allows people to take certain portions (because the book is meant to be followd completely) and twist the logic to get people to do evil.

Any religion that says it is the only one, and to kill followers of other religions is 100% a problem to the rest of the world, IMHO.

DD

 

Even if it was in name only, my memory was that they belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

 

PRC's resolve to crack down hard on separatist/terrorist crimes in these remote Chinese territories should not yield to the pressure of hosting Olympics in Beijing. It shall also never hesitate to flip the bird to those terrorist-loving, China-bashing *human rights groups* (snicker).

 

How am I ignoring facts? Does the article not say that they were bought off and that European powers used them for their own purposes? Given the track record of the pirates it looks they were far more interested in money than in religion. If anything the exception appears to the one quote you cited.

 

You ignore the facts that the pirates and their leadership where inspired by the Koran and it's language about killing all non-believers.

It is a problem with the Islamic faith, the contradictions in the Koran....

DD

 

Considering some of Jefferson's quotes regarding Christianity I think he was wary of Militant any religion. You might be surprised though to find out that Jefferson wasn't wary of Islam, but advocated official tolerance of it.

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html

[rquoter]
In his seminal Letter on Toleration (1689), John Locke insisted that Muslims and all others who believed in God be tolerated in England. Campaigning for religious freedom in Virginia, Jefferson followed Locke, his idol, in demanding recognition of the religious rights of the "Mahamdan," the Jew and the "pagan." Supporting Jefferson was his old ally, Richard Henry Lee, who had made a motion in Congress on June 7, 1776, that the American colonies declare independence. "True freedom," Lee asserted, "embraces the Mahomitan and the Gentoo (Hindu) as well as the Christian religion."

In his autobiography, Jefferson recounted with satisfaction that in the struggle to pass his landmark Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), the Virginia legislature "rejected by a great majority" an effort to limit the bill's scope "in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan."[/rquoter]

 

And how come they could be bought off? Their actions don't suit the rhetoric. While they might've cited the Koran its pretty obvious they were motivated by money and not religion.

Your attempt to reduce this as being a religious conflict doesn't hold up anymore than someone could justify the conquest of the Incas as a religious conflict. Pizzaro cited the God and the Bible as justification too but it would be a mistake to say that Christianity was the motivation just as it would to say the Qu'ran was what motivated the Barbary Pirates.

 

But the Koran DID motivate the pirates, it was part of their edict, their beliefs, and their leadership DID use the text in the Koran to get them to attack non-believers.

Just because it may be non-PC to see problems with Islam doesn't mean we should ignore they are there.

The Koran and it's contradictions are a huge issue.....when the moderates want to argue down the radicals, they basically have no leg to stand on, because the radicals can quote the text too.

So, which is it? Islam is a religion of peace? Can it tolerate other religions?

Or is Islam a religion meant to be the ONLY one in the world?

Which is it?

DD

 

And Pizarro used the Bible to justify conquering the Incas. Is it a surprise that people will seek to use their religion as some sort of rationalization for their cause? You seem determined to argue that Islam is responsible for terrorism yet miss the fact that most people that engage in terrorism tend to have other motivations driving them. Your question regarding is Islam a religion of peace might as well apply to Christianity (since the Conquistadors, Crusaders, heck even GW Bush, use it to justify violence) Judaism (since the Baruch Goldstein who shot up a mosque in Hebron and the assasin of Yitzhak Rabin have used that to justify their actions), Hinduism (since Hindus have used that to attack Muslims in India and Buddhist in Sri Lanka), even Buddhism (since Shoko Asahara used that to justify his nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo Subway).

The problem that I see with your attitude is that you are vastly simplifying terrorism, and Islam, down to being "Islam = Terrorism" there are certainly Islamic terrorists but there are terrorists of many other religions too. The problem with this type of simplistic thinking is that while not being PC there is a major practical problem with it. It plays into the idea of a war of civilizations and religions when for the vast majority of Muslims and non-Muslims they aren't interested in a war of civilizations. The people that are though are Osama Bin Ladin and his ilk and to the extent that non-Muslims embrace the idea of a war of civilizations it reinforces his point.

I've read very little of the Qu'ran and won't claim any expertise on it. What I do know from living in Muslim countries in the Middle East and SE Asia, having Muslim friends and neighbors both here and overseas, and having a Muslim US Representative that the vast vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, respectful and friendly. We don't share the same world view but as long as we are respectful I have had no problems. OTOH if I go around with the attitude that Islam is the cause of terrorism I can imagine there will be problems. In fact the biggest problem I've had with Muslims is the perception that America is out to get Muslims which was something I've heard from Muslims both overseas and in the US. I've never heard a Muslim, outside of Al Qaeda propoganda, say that it is their religious duty to subjugate the heathens.

Sorry for the rant but I admit to being peeved to hearing Al Qaeda talk about a war of civilizations and then hear others say pretty much the same thing from the other side.

 

Uighurs I have talked to HATE the Chinese - with good reason. The Koran has nothing to do with this.