A solution for Iraq

[Formaldehyde]

And Pam Geller. Good grief, son, you know how to pick 'em.

It is actually difficult not to find Islamophobic quotes from her.

Here is what the International Business Times has to say about Ms. Geller:

Pamela Geller: Free Speech Advocate Or Hate Speech Proponent? Texas 'Draw Muhammad' Organizer's Most Outrageous Quotes

Pamela Geller, the organizer of the "Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest" in Garland, Texas, where two shooting deaths occurred Sunday, claims solidarity with Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for what she describes as her desire to advance free expression. But her history of incendiary speech has many calling the political activist a bona fide hatemonger.

The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized Geller's organization, Stop the Islamization of America, as a hate group, deeming its ideology "anti-Muslim." Two other New York groups the SPLC cites as hate groups are also founded by Geller: The American Freedom Defense Initiative and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, as the Village Voice notes.

Select quotes from Geller’s blog and media interviews lend credence to SPLC’s characterization of her:

"n the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man. ... If you don't lay down and die for Islamic supremacism, then you're a racist anti-Muslim Islamophobic bigot." --New York Times, Oct. 8, 2010.

"Note the faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.” --Geller's photo caption of participants at a Norwegian Labour Party summer youth camp on the island of Utoya hours before they were attacked by Norwegian far right mass killer Anders Behring Breivik in 2011. Sixty-nine of them would die in the mass shooting. Think Progress took a screen shot of the caption on Geller's blog before it was removed. Geller also wrote in her blog, "I am not condoning the slaughter in Norway or anywhere. ... But the jihad-loving media never told us what antisemitic war games they were playing on that island. Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda." --Pamela Geller, "Summer Camp? Antisemitic Indoctrination Training Center," July 2011.

"t is a spearhead of an ideological project that is deeply opposed to the United States of America." On Arabic language instruction in Texas schools. --Fox Business, "Follow the Money," Feb. 14, 2011, reported by Media Matters.

"How low is the state of the world? When bold-faced lying, Goebbels-style propaganda ministers like the execrable Reza Aslan are not relegated to the outermost fringe of society, but instead are given platforms to spew their libel and vile invective on ABC morning shows, and when such a person is introduced as a 'scholar,' that should give you an indication of the low state of the world.[ The little beast Reza Aslan is a scholar of what, exactly? Evil." --Pamela Geller, "The Depravity of a Succubus: Wretched Reza Aslan," October 2010. Aslan is an Iranian-American scholar, author and professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and a frequent media pundit on Islamaphobia.

"I don’t think that many westernized Muslims know when they pray five times a day that they’re cursing Christians and Jews five times a day."--New York Times, October 2010.

"The President of the United States is advancing jihad against the oath of office that he took." --Atlas Shrugs, "President Jihad: Obama Encouraged Violent Palestinian Muslim Protests Against Israel," April 1, 2010.

In October 2008, Gawker found a Geller blog post in which, according to Gawker, she claimed that President Obama was the love child of Malcolm X[/B]. Geller's addendum in 2009 refuted that it was her claim, and she said instead that it was from a writer who "did a spectacular job documenting Obama’s many connections with the Far Left." --Pamela Geller, "How could Stanley Ann Dunham have delivered Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. in August of 1961 in Honolulu, when official University of Washington records show her 2680 miles away in Seattle attending classes that same month?" (Original title in all caps.) October 2008.

Not only is Geller an obvious Muslim-hating bigot, she is a birther.

Of course, Geert Wilders and Robert Spencer aren't any better...

SPLC Hatewatch: Dutch Lawmaker Brings His Anti-Muslim Spiel to U.S.

Newsweek: Geert Wilders: The ‘Prophet’ Who Hates Muhammad

Der Spiegel: The Netherlands' Fearmonger: Geert Wilders' One-Man Crusade against Islam

SPLC: Robert Spencer

Spencer Watch: Exposing JihadWatch's Robert Spencer

Loonwatch ("the mooslims! they're heeere"): Why You Shouldn’t Trust Robert Spencer’s Biography of the Prophet Muhammad (I)

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I

I disagree with the premise of your question. As I said in my last post, the vast majority of people who died in Iraq after the war were not killed by Americans. They were killed by violence directly motivated by the Islamic religion. Implying that the US are responsible for all the violence that occured after 2003 is simply a misrepresentation of what really happened. The US did not target civilians. Islamic extremists do. And they do it ruthlessly. Their very point is to cause the highest amount of suffering and agony. That is why, for example, they don't rest after a terror attack, but immediately go out and deploy bombs in the hospitals where the injured people from the first terror attack are taken to.

During Iraq--Iran war US was supplying weapons to both sides. Yes american goverment didnt kill anyone then just like Charles Manson didnt but responsibility is there. US did many things in this respect and many caused much suffering and even lead to genocides. Sure many of these were done secretely or with some subtlety to defend the "good" side or in name of democracy but looking at it from different cultural perspective USA may appear in some aspects almost like a satanic force.

I agree with you that terrorist and extremist are problem but to equatate their action with religious ideology doesnt offer any solution just like doing the same in a case of evil done by USA and democracy.
Sure all the abrahamic scriptures contain some written tolerence to violence or even support it in special cases but I doubt it is any worse then popular saying among some western circles: Greed is good.
All of the religions has been functioning as some sort of stabilizing factor over the world through centuries in spite of the giant egoism present in all of them. Now tell me with what kind of different egoism you wish to replace it? And remember as long as "greed is good" is going to be the template lot of people are going to be murdered and enslaved. Strangely enough its the religions in its highest form which is trying to offer solution just for that.

EDIT:
"The problem of the present day world isnt how to feed poor but how to feed rich." Mother Teresa

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I disagree with the premise of your question. As I said in my last post, the vast majority of people who died in Iraq after the war were not killed by Americans. They were killed by violence directly motivated by the Islamic religion. Implying that the US are responsible for all the violence that occured after 2003 is simply a misrepresentation of what really happened. The US did not target civilians. Islamic extremists do. And they do it ruthlessly. Their very point is to cause the highest amount of suffering and agony. That is why, for example, they don't rest after a terror attack, but immediately go out and deploy bombs in the hospitals where the injured people from the first terror attack are taken to.

I've been skipping over your walls of nonsense, but this caught my attention. Your position here is outright ridiculous.

The US destroyed the government and infrastructure of a nation, leaving anarchy in its place, and you contend that they are not responsible for people dying in that anarchy? It is small wonder you bury such positions in giant walls of text that most people won't bother to read.

You think this has something to do with Islam? I live in Los Angeles county. If something happens to disrupt distribution of water here, be it natural disaster or foreign invasion or Republican economic policy, there will be nineteen million casualties within a month. That has nothing to do with religion, that is just the adjustment required to reduce the population from what a modern technological society can support in this environment to what an anarchy subsistence society can support in this environment.

Your attempts to pin blame for the catastrophic results of actions your country took are gross.

 

[Funky]

Sorry to get back to you guys so late, I was very busy over the weekend. I must say though that I am somewhat puzzled. Judging by your comments, it does not seem that you had a look at the videos I provided in my last post, nor that you have had a look at the facts I linked to in my previous posts. I can only offer the information and the perspective that has led me to my opinion. I can't force you to look at this stuff. However, it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation when many arguments brought up are contrary to the facts.
If nothing else, granted you trust me that I am not a racist bigoted Muslim hater, but someone who is interested in defending liberal values and rights for all people, I'd think it should be of some interest as to how I came to my conclusions. This is not just about me, there are many more like me who hold these views for similar reasons. It would be helpful to at least try to understand where these people are coming from.

And Pam Geller. Good grief, son, you know how to pick 'em.

Not only is Geller an obvious Muslim-hating bigot, she is a birther.

Of course, Geert Wilders and Robert Spencer aren't any better...

I deliberately picked Geller, Spencer and Wilders, because they are often viewed as being the most strident of the prominent critics of Islam, and also tend to get away bad in the press.
But even they do not in any way display hate or bigotry against Muslims as people. None of the quotes you provided show this. The most charitable reason I can think of why you see bigotry towards Muslims in these quotes, is that you deem critique of Islam to be so offensive towards Muslims that it actually functions as an attack on them as people. But this cannot be the standard. No doubt, many Muslims are deeply offended by what these people say. But being offended can never be the boundary for free speech. The very reason why we need free speech in the first place, and why it is so important, is that we are free to criticize any idea, even if it is offensive to some people. This is the hallmark of free societies. The only correct response to Muslims who wish to silence any critique of their religion can only be „sorry, but free speech trumps your religious wants.“
Unfortunately, we do not always see this happening. Perhaps the most obscene case was the recent incident in Garland, after which not the violent Muslim terrorists were comdemned for their attempt to cause a bloodbath, but the victims of this almost-catastrophe. Instead of pointing out the courage of the people who stood up for free speech, they got labeled as bigots, right-wingers, „islamophobes“ etc. for having offended Muslims. It is this insanity that people like Geller, Spencer and Wilders, among with many others (though arguably far too few), have acknowledged. Considering that the freedom of speech they are fighting for has the tradition of being a liberal value, the branding of them as right-wing extremists is especially ironic. It's most absurd in the case of Geert Wilders, whose whole political agenda, be it health care or social policy in general, is much more in align with traditionally left-wing interests.

So you do not gain points for linking to some journalists who describe these people in derogatory terms. We are all aware that large parts of the liberal press has been favouring the slander of people who point out a problem instead of focusing on the problem itself. That is precisely the problem! Journalists are just other people with opinions. Don't trust what other people say, look at the facts and form your own opinion. Under several of the articles you linked there are user comments pointing out flaws in the authors' arguments and giving a different perspective on the issue. How did you decide to go with the opinion of the author and not with one of these commenters? Ultimately, the only intellectually honest thing to do is to investigate the issue yourself. Take a look at this video for example, featuring an interview with Robert Spencer. Whether you follow his train of thought or not is not the issue. What is the issue is that this is not a man surfing on a wave of hatred towards Muslims. He is a man who is very well educated on the topic of Islam and is throwing his opinion into the arena, as food for thought. You are free to evaluate his arguments and agree or disagree with him. That is the nature of modern discourse. Slandering and marginalizing opinions that may seem inconvenient is not.

Also, do not to forget, all these guys do is write and talk. They do not go out and kill people. If someone disagrees with them, they will attempt to engage in a discussion. This is how free, civilized societies work, unlike large parts of the Muslim world where dissenters are imprisoned and killed.

I, for one, bring up Christianity because -regrettably- I don't know much about Hinduism or Buddhism on any level beyond an introductory college course. That said, given the violence propogated by Buddhists in Myanmar against the Muslim minority, some of the actions of the Buddhist majority government in Sri Lanka sort of qualify as war crimes, and anti-Muslim riots in India indicate that religion and violence is not isolated to Abrahamic faiths.

That is fine. I am certainly not going to stop you from criticizing Christianity! What I am trying to point out is that in a discussion about the doctrines of Islam, and how a literal understanding of these doctrines plays out on a global scale, the response shouldn't be that Christians have done bad things in the past too. This is not some contest of which religion has caused the most harm in world. I am happy to dive into criticism of Christianity. We can gladly talk about the Buddhists in Myanmar. We would quickly come to notice that what they are doing is largely a response to years of Muslim violence in the country they have had to endure. We would also notice that it is very difficult to draw a line from Buddhist scripture to performing acts of violence. This religion is fundamentally different than the Abrahamic religions, and certainly than Islam. That does not mean that what the Buddhists are doing shouldn't be condemned. But it isn't happening in a vacuum.

And, more importantly, even if they were ruthlessly slaughtering Muslims without any reason other than pure sadism, that still would be of no relevance to the issue at hand, namely the connection between Islamic scripture and the violence and oppression we see by Muslims all around the world.

ISIS could not have existed had the Second Gulf War not occurred. Simple as that.

Let's say this is true (and I'm inclined to say that it is). We agree that the war against Iraq and the negligence of an afterward plan has had disastrous outcomes and has led to the conditions under which ISIS could thrive. But where do we go from there? Can we not get past that? Should we criticize America forever and ignore why ISIS are behaving as they are behaving?
I could turn your statement around and say that ISIS could not have existed if many Muslims in Iraq and Syria didn't hold malicious beliefs which are based on a literal understanding of their holy texts. ISIS could not have existed Islam hadn't been spread through violent Jihad to Iraq and Syria in the first place. This game of pointing fingers leads us nowhere. And it's not like the whole world hasn't condemned the attack on Iraq already. The fact is that we currently have a massive problem in the region caused by an Islamist group, which follows a literal understanding of the Koran and the Hadith, and which has support in the tens of millions of Muslims (which is a rather modest estimate). The question is, how do we get rid of this group in a lasting manner? It should be clear that the ideas that lead these guys to do what they do can not be eradicated solely by military means. It is the ideology behind it that must be criticized, harshly and ruthlessly. The world is getting too small and weapons too deadly to deal with such a destructive ideology indefinitely.
So by all means, hold the US morally responsible for helping to awaken the theocratic barbarism of ISIS. But please acknowledge that this will not help solve the problem that ISIS presents at the moment.

Not sure what you are on about, but I've brought out treatise by Islamic scholars emphasizing that cherry picking lines is not in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence and that the Koran in-and-of-itself is not the sole source of authority in Islam.

As I said before, I think it is great that these scholars you mentioned hold this opinion. Unfortunately, vast numbers of Muslims do think that the Koran and the Hadith are the sole sources of Islam and of how people should live their life in general. Just check the numbers in the polls. As to the cherry-picking, again I can only urge you to read the Koran. There is no need for cherry-picking when pointing to violent verses in the Koran. This is the topic of the book. It is what the religion is about. Yes, many Muslims are decent human beings who ignore or re-interpret the gist of their holy texts and hand-pick the rare verses which are not in total contradiction to everything the civilized world stands for. This is not surprising behaviour. I mean, we have been seeing this in Christianity for centuries. I'd guess that most people who call themselves Christians haven't even read the bible. And if they have, they largely ignore its barbarism, or go through some mental gymnastics to reconcile the problematic passages with modern-day values. Thank God many Muslims are doing the same. More power to them. But when these people claim that the Koran is not in and of itself problematic, or that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, then they should not be taken any more seriously than the Christian apologists who say that the bible doesn't endorse slavery or offer a favourable view of genocide (at least in the Old Testament).

Sure, there are a few hopelessly backward countries where authoritarians are in complete control, and in some cases they are even controlled by fundamentalist Muslims. But that is hardly representative of the entire Muslim world, much less whatsoever of the Western world. And what is more important, it really has nothing to do with the religion of Islam as it is currently practiced by the overwhelming majority of Muslims who do none of those things. They even deliberately pick countries like the US to live in to escape that madness themselves

You have unintentionaly just proven my point, this is precious. First you claim that the problems we see in Muslim countries are confined to just a few places, and go on to point out the refugees who try to escape from their home countries on a massive scale. These people do not just come from a few „backward countries“, they come from all over the Muslim world, precisely because of the cruel oppression and harsh religious laws in these places. And for the most part they don't go to America, but to Europe. In 2014, Germany alone took in over 200.000 refugees. The sheer numbers of people is a massive problem for Europe. Why do you think we are seeing so many refugees from Muslim countries if there are no problems there? And it's not like these people are all moderate Muslims escaping from the rule of a few radicals. Many of them are Shiites escaping from Sunnis, Sunnis escaping from Shiites, or belong to other Muslim sub-groups running from inner-Islamic violence.

Moreover, why do you think their countries of origin are so backwards? It's not because the people there are stupid or incapable of building a functioning society. It is because of the religion. It is no coincedence that Muslim countries rank lowest in regard to every relevant definer of a successful state. This should not be surprising when we are talking about a religion that promulgates contempt for the values of the Enlightenment, teaches its children to hate the infidel at earliest ages, and deprives societies of the insights and aspirations of half their population. You say it has nothing to do with religion when in fact it has everything to do with religion.

And as to your „overwhelming majority of Muslims who don't do these things“, I can only repeat to check the polls. The numbers are written black on white, just look at them! Depending on how the questions are asked, we are talking at best about a huge minority, and at worst a large majority of Muslims who do hold pernicious beliefs.

When a fundamentalist Christian bombs an abortion clinic, or murders an abortionist while he is in church, do you try to blame Christianity? When a Jew apparently engages in a hate crime against a Christian church in Israel, do you blame Judaism? What makes Islam any different?

How often must I say this? Yes, I do blame Christianity for religiously motivated crimes! I will not hesitate to blame Judaism when a Jew commits a crime inspired by his religion. But these are not on equal footing at all. The difference lies in the sheer numbers. I blame the eight murders of abortion doctors in the history of the US on Christianity AND I blame the tens of thousands of murders committed in the name of Islam around the globe. I blame Christianity for wanting to deny homosexuals the right to marry AND I blame Islam for torturing and killing them. I blame Christianity for wanting to teach creationism in schools AND I blame Islam for performing massacres on girls' schools. I blame Christians for thinking that unbelievers will go to hell AND I blame Muslims for hunting them down and killing them. Can you not see the difference between these two religions and the effects they currently have? Can you not see that one of the two is far, far worse than the other?

Take our prior exchange, where you in one response you say we should condemn attacks by Christians too, and in the very next response proceed to downplay the impacts of FGM by Christian countries to keep up the attack on Muslims, while erroneously claiming my source contradicted my argument.

How am I downplaying FGM by Christian countries? What I did is refer to the article you yourself provided and note that only two of the listed countries with the practise of FGM are Christian, whereas the rest, including the worst ones, are Muslim. This shows that it is simply a fact that FGM is predominantly a problem in Muslim countries. Stating this fact does not downplay anything. What does downplay the role of FGM in Muslim countries in tremendous fashion is your claim that it is predominantly a Christian problem, when in fact the exact opposite is true.

I agree with you that terrorist and extremist are problem but to equatate their action with religious ideology doesnt offer any solution

First and foremost, we should identify the problems based on what is true. We cannot solve any problem without correctly diagnozing its source. And I actually disagree that identifying religion as the source is hindering a solution. By and large, religion is on the retreat. It has been so for centuries. This is much less true of Islam than it is of Christianity, but even in Islam there are hundreds of millions of believers who don't take their scripture all too seriously. I am convinced that in the long term religions will not survive the scrutiny of reality, which, thanks to the internet, is rapidly spreading into the last corners of the world. What we can and should do is help to speed up this process. If we as humans have any moral responsibility to bring the world forward and make it a better place, helping to overcome religion is clearly among the most useful things we can do. And it is not even that hard. Afterall, we have reality on our side. Just spread what we know to be true about the world. Progress won't come in a day, and we won't get rid of Islam or any other religion tomorrow. But we must apply conversational pressure to anyone who takes their scripture too literally. We have to support moderate Muslims to reform their faith as an intermediate step. This is the way forward. The way forward cannot be set aside necessary criticism out of fear of offending people. I am optimistic that we can do this. But we must work together and call a spade a spade.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

First and foremost, we should identify the problems based on what is true. We cannot solve any problem without correctly diagnozing its source. And I actually disagree that identifying religion as the source is hindering a solution. By and large, religion is on the retreat. It has been so for centuries. This is much less true of Islam than it is of Christianity, but even in Islam there are hundreds of millions of believers who don't take their scripture all too seriously. I am convinced that in the long term religions will not survive the scrutiny of reality, which, thanks to the internet, is rapidly spreading into the last corners of the world. What we can and should do is help to speed up this process. If we as humans have any moral responsibility to bring the world forward and make it a better place, helping to overcome religion is clearly among the most useful things we can do. And it is not even that hard. Afterall, we have reality on our side. Just spread what we know to be true about the world. Progress won't come in a day, and we won't get rid of Islam or any other religion tomorrow. But we must apply conversational pressure to anyone who takes their scripture too literally. We have to support moderate Muslims to reform their faith as an intermediate step. This is the way forward. The way forward cannot be set aside necessary criticism out of fear of offending people. I am optimistic that we can do this. But we must work together and call a spade a spade.

Religion is first and foremost an ideology. You seem to be under impression that by removing one ideology with another or by creating some kind of ideologic vacuum you are going to get an instant victory. Also you seem to think that barbarism is something connected with the past and the present day man is free of it but in both of these cases 20th century and even recent past seem to sugest the contrary. Both communism and fascism as an ireligious ideologies put the destructive side of religion to the shame.
You fail to see that religion if freely practised is actually cultivating man such was the case in Afgan society which was one of the most tolerant societies in the world at the beginnig of past century prior to all the medling from superpowers while US is allied with one of the least tolerant kind of societies that exist in muslim world. Why is that?
Isnt it becouse this intolerace actually serves the best to the greed of the business interests?
You really think that by removing an ideology which points man into somethig beyond into his future capacity you are going to help the world? Religion in its essence is transcendent while ordinary human nature isnt. Religion points to infinite for love and transcendence while ordinary human nature approaches the infinite for possesiom and with greed.
Please give it a deeper thought. This isnt as much about any ideoly but fundamentally about the complex human nature. You cant preserve man from giant destruction if you dont adress this issue.
I can see that in the future man can do without religion but I also see the possitive role it has played in history of man and his cultivation.

 

[Phrossack]

Your attempts to pin blame for the catastrophic results of actions your country took are gross.

Funky's not American any more than I'm Christian.

 

[Antilogic]

Sorry to get back to you guys so late, I was very busy over the weekend. I must say though that I am somewhat puzzled. Judging by your comments, it does not seem that you had a look at the videos I provided in my last post, nor that you have had a look at the facts I linked to in my previous posts. I can only offer the information and the perspective that has led me to my opinion. I can't force you to look at this stuff. However, it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation when many arguments brought up are contrary to the facts.
If nothing else, granted you trust me that I am not a racist bigoted Muslim hater, but someone who is interested in defending liberal values and rights for all people, I'd think it should be of some interest as to how I came to my conclusions. This is not just about me, there are many more like me who hold these views for similar reasons. It would be helpful to at least try to understand where these people are coming from.

Really, you are puzzled? Join the club.

I deliberately picked Geller, Spencer and Wilders, because they are often viewed as being the most strident of the prominent critics of Islam, and also tend to get away bad in the press.

I am particularly alarmed you don't seem able to distinguish between a group of radical practitioners and the entire sum of practitioners, much like Geller. For those who are lurking in this thread or don't recognize her name, she was the person who was opposed to a Muslim community center in New York City because of 9/11.

How am I downplaying FGM by Christian countries? What I did is refer to the article you yourself provided and note that only two of the listed countries with the practise of FGM are Christian, whereas the rest, including the worst ones, are Muslim. This shows that it is simply a fact that FGM is predominantly a problem in Muslim countries. Stating this fact does not downplay anything. What does downplay the role of FGM in Muslim countries in tremendous fashion is your claim that it is predominantly a Christian problem, when in fact the exact opposite is true.

I have never, ever held that position in this thread or elsewhere. You are simply wrong.

To recap, for the lurkers: You specifically claimed that "horrendous acts of barbarism" inspired by the bible, your words, "by and large didn't happen anymore", and went on to claim the few that did were not "killing people" or "subjugating women" or etc. Any example to the contrary was dismissed as ancient history. You also held the position that the crimes committed on behalf of one religion do not excuse the crimes committed on behalf of another, so I presented you with a source that showed that yes, in the here and now, there is FGM in both predominantly Muslim and predominantly Christian countries. You have taken this as a "blame Christianity/the West/USA/whatevs" first argument, which was pointed out to you as incorrect. Repeatedly.

If Islam or Christianity was as dangerous an ideology as you claim, and it is a predictor of a horrible practice like FGM, then why do we not see a comparable fraction of the Indian or Indonesian population (both countries have substantial Muslim populations that exceed the totals in Middle Eastern and African countries) victimized, or a comparable fraction of the European, North American, or South American populations victimized (similarly, there are substantial populations of Christians here)?

The point being made to you is that Islam itself or Christianity itself is not a good predictor. Instead, I would submit to you that a combination of factors including access to education, poor access to modern medicine and proper medical advice, economic poverty, archaic patriarchal power structures in the case of FGM, etc. are better predictors of where FGM is located, and these appear in some Muslim countries as well as some Christian countries. The specific list of factors will change based on each particular issue we discuss, but the criticism will ultimately fall along similar lines.

First and foremost, we should identify the problems based on what is true. We cannot solve any problem without correctly diagnozing its source.

Absolutely true, and you have failed spectacularly to do so.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Absolutely true, and you have failed spectacularly to do so.

The giant walls of text are supposed to keep you from noticing that I think. You are being uncooperative here.

 

[Formaldehyde]

But even they do not in any way display hate or bigotry against Muslims as people.

No. Not at all other than nearly every single remark they make on an extremely frequent basis.

The SPLC has properly labeled them all as Muslim haters. There really isn't any use trying to defend such obvious bigots. It simply cannot be done.


Link to video.

Pam loses it at Brooklyn College after she figures out all but a small handful of the students were goofing on her with their applause:


Link to video.

If they have built a mega-mosque (At Park51 five blocks from the WTC site) would that not have been Mecca-on-the-Hudson?

You are doing your school proud. I want you to know that. Once a great school.

Never again. Never again. Never again. Don't hurt anybody on the way out.

So many students wanted in to see the floor show, the university had to keep rotating them in and out by aisles. It is a shame that she is banned at most universities in the US for obvious reasons. The onlThey could all use a good laugh.

 

[Ajidica]

Let's say this is true (and I'm inclined to say that it is). We agree that the war against Iraq and the negligence of an afterward plan has had disastrous outcomes and has led to the conditions under which ISIS could thrive. But where do we go from there? Can we not get past that? Should we criticize America forever and ignore why ISIS are behaving as they are behaving?
I could turn your statement around and say that ISIS could not have existed if many Muslims in Iraq and Syria didn't hold malicious beliefs which are based on a literal understanding of their holy texts. ISIS could not have existed Islam hadn't been spread through violent Jihad to Iraq and Syria in the first place. This game of pointing fingers leads us nowhere. And it's not like the whole world hasn't condemned the attack on Iraq already. The fact is that we currently have a massive problem in the region caused by an Islamist group, which follows a literal understanding of the Koran and the Hadith, and which has support in the tens of millions of Muslims (which is a rather modest estimate). The question is, how do we get rid of this group in a lasting manner? It should be clear that the ideas that lead these guys to do what they do can not be eradicated solely by military means. It is the ideology behind it that must be criticized, harshly and ruthlessly. The world is getting too small and weapons too deadly to deal with such a destructive ideology indefinitely.
So by all means, hold the US morally responsible for helping to awaken the theocratic barbarism of ISIS. But please acknowledge that this will not help solve the problem that ISIS presents at the moment.

To my knowledge, nobody is denying that ISIS leadership is largely comprised of violent nutters engaging in acts of utter barbarity and criminality that America, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel are all in broad agreement on ISIS being altogether a Very Bad Thing.
Again, nobody is denying that ISIS leadership argues that the only true version of Islam is that of barbaric butchery, intolerance, and hatred.
What several people in this thread disagree with you on is whether of not the hatred preached by ISIS is the true interpretation of Islam or even a valid interpretation under traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

 

[r16]

Also, do not to forget, all these guys do is write and talk. They do not go out and kill people. If someone disagrees with them, they will attempt to engage in a discussion. This is how free, civilized societies work, unlike large parts of the Muslim world where dissenters are imprisoned and killed.

take the word of an idiot that Breivik could have walked away after killing 10 or 20 , with the discovery that his target (some Goverment Minister of Norway) wasn't there and the Norwegians would take like 150 years to catch him , repeating on and on that he was just a blogger with sacrosanct rights to Free Speech . And it would be the typical El Kaide operation ... because the media would have described it so .

 

[Funky]

Let me start with this:

I am particularly alarmed you don't seem able to distinguish between a group of radical practitioners and the entire sum of practitioners, much like Geller. For those who are lurking in this thread or don't recognize her name, she was the person who was opposed to a Muslim community center in New York City because of 9/11.

Geller was not opposed to Muslims constructing a mosque. There are thousands of mosques in America already, and she said that Muslims could build a mosque wherever they wanted. But in deference to the thousands of New Yorkers who had lost family members and friends in the Islamist attack on 9/11, they should not build the mosque in so close proximity to Ground Zero.
To me this seems like a perfectly reasonable position to hold. If a Hindu killed your son, I dare say you would not be in favour of another Hindu group placing a statue of the elephant god Ganesha in front of your window, which reminded you of your painful loss every day.
And it's not like Geller was the only person with this view. A majority of New Yorkers were opposed to the mosque being built in that location.

And what are we even talking about? There was an attempt to murder Geller. Countless death threats have been issued against her. Anjem Choudary said she should be killed on public television. And yet you choose to denunciate her as a hateful person because she was opposed to the building of a mosque on Ground Zero? What kind of bizarre double standard is that?

I have never, ever held that position in this thread or elsewhere. You are simply wrong.

I think I have found the source of our misunderstanding. When you asked about "female genital mutilation carried out in mostly Christian countries like Ethiopia and Eritrea", I read that FGM was supposedly practised for the most part in Christian countries, when actually you meant that Ethiopia and Eritrea were mostly Christian. I'll take the blame and I apologize for misrepresenting you.

However, this is irrelevant to my argument. I never said Christianity didn't cause problems in the world, just that these are on a totally different scale than the problems caused by Islam. That two countries in Africa with a majority Christian population happen to practise FGM too, doesn't negate that. First, it may be worth noting that a third of the population of both these countries is Muslim. But let's ignore that and say for sake of argument that only Eritrean and Ethiopian Christians are performing this barbarism. How does that compare to the dozens of Muslim countries that are doing the same? And these are not just Central African countries. The Unicef map you provided was merely focused on Africa (although even on this map we see that Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt are enganged in FGM, too).

You asked why we don't see FGM among the Muslim population of India or Indonesia. Well I hate to break it to you, but we do. (Indonesia, India). We also see it in Malaysia and Pakistan. Moreover, FGM is mentioned several times in the Hadith and therefore has a theological legitimation in Islam. None of the major Islamic schools has ever condemned the practise (whereas virtually all Christians around the world have or would).

So I am sorry, but you are dodging the problem when you say that "some happen to be Muslim countries and some happen to be Christian countries". This is almost entirely a Muslim problem. Just as the subjagation of women, the killing of blasphemers, the killing of apostates, the killing of homosexuals, honour killings, and terror attacks are too.

The SPLC has properly labeled them all as Muslim haters.

Wow, now you bring up the SPLC. This is an organization whose entire political agenda is focused on pointing out supposed "white supremacy". Of course they pounce on figures like Geller, that's what they are there for. Stop arguing from authority.

But it gets worse. I happen to have seen the Brooklyn video you linked to. I was utterly shocked and appalled by this bunch of total morons, who don't deserve to call themselves students. This was at a university. This should be the pinnacle of free discourse and open exchange of ideas. Yet these immature kids, who haven't accomplished anything at all in their lives, yet lack the slightest bit of basic human decency and respect, had no interest in discussion. Their sole purpose was to provoke and cause trouble. That this happened in an American auditorium is outrageous. I cannot fathom how you think that posting that video helps your cause. After an hour of being heckled and insulted, it was a totally understandable thing to say to this frenzied mob of losers that they shouldn't hurt anyone.

I don't share many political views with Geller. I am not very fond of her style of argument, it's not my cup of tea. I don't even find her particularly likable. But what I absolutely despise is misrepresentation, even of the people I disagree with. The fact that you quoted her speech shows that you have watched the video. And yet you decided to completely ignore the real outrage. Instead you pick three quotes which had nothing to do with her speech (which was about helping suppressed Muslim women) and proceed to make a joke about it. I am sorry, but this is the very definition of slander. It is not worth my time, nor anyone else's.

What several people in this thread disagree with you on is whether of not the hatred preached by ISIS is the true interpretation of Islam or even a valid interpretation under traditional Islamic jurisprudence.

There is no "true" interpretation of Islam, nor is there in any other religion. That's just the point. Religion is what its followers make of it. The unique problem of Islam is that it is very easy to obtain a divisive violent worldview from the scripture. It is really not possible to say to ISIS that they are not "true" Muslims when in fact everything they do is laid out in their holy book.

There is also no Islamic jurisprudence. There is no equivalent of the pope in Islam. There are different schools of thought and exegesis, of course. Unfortunately, most of them are very close to the Koran. The difference between Sunni and Shia, for example, lies in the different interpretation of some of the Hadiths and the details of sharia. But they both consider the Koran as the unalterable word of God and are in favour of theocracy. The most unproblematic Islamic school is Sufism, which, while also based on Sunni Islam, focuses on spiritual more than political aims. It is from these guys we often hear things like Jihad being an inner spiritual struggle against one's own ego. I don't know how they manage the mental gymnastics required to get from the Koran to this interpretation, but clearly it is these people who we must support. Unfortunately, they are only a small minority.


And finally to Mechanicalsalvation. Your post contains a lot of statements which I partially agree and partially disagree with, so allow me write into your post to avoid fragmenting it.

Religion is first and foremost an ideology. Correct. You seem to be under impression that by removing one ideology with another or by creating some kind of ideologic vacuum you are going to get an instant victory. I don't know what you mean by "instant victory". I believe that living in reality and being free from dogma is a substantial improvement to human life. The overcoming of divisive dogmas is also the requirement for being able to work together on a global scale and build a sustainable global society. Also you seem to think that barbarism is something connected with the past and the present day man is free of it but in both of these cases 20th century and even recent past seem to sugest the contrary. Both communism and fascism as an ireligious ideologies put the destructive side of religion to the shame. As we have said, the larger problem is dogma. The difference, however, is that only in religion do we place our beliefs on a pedestal and systematically shield them from criticism. This discussion is only so difficult because the dogma at hand is a religious one. Many of the arguments brought up would seem totally absurd in a discussion about any political ideology.
You fail to see that religion if freely practised is actually cultivating man such was the case in Afgan society which was one of the most tolerant societies in the world at the beginnig of past century prior to all the medling from superpowers while US is allied with one of the least tolerant kind of societies that exist in muslim world. Why is that?
Isnt it becouse this intolerace actually serves the best to the greed of the business interests? Your statement about Afghanistan is highly questionable, to say the least. But to the point, if we grant that religions are all false, then the benefits they provide can clearly be obtained through secular means as well. And while I won't deny that the belief in a god has had a positive influence on some individuals, religion as a whole has shattered the world into different moral communities, caused countless wars, incited unthinkable barbarism, impeded science and progress, and has provided false illusions.
You really think that by removing an ideology which points man into somethig beyond into his future capacity you are going to help the world? I believe that teaching people to live their lives as the only one in the most meaningful way is beneficial, yes. I also think that teaching people to honestly deal with their sorrow over death is better than providing them with an illusion. Religion in its essence is transcendent while ordinary human nature isnt. Religion points to infinite for love and transcendence while ordinary human nature approaches the infinite for possesiom and with greed. I very much disagree with this statement. First of all, "religion" is a suitcase term and doesn't point to anything. We'd have to look at the specifics of each religion. Islam, for example, points to Jihad, not to love. The ability to feel love and compassion lies at the heart of our beings. It has been drummed into us by evolution and has been refined by moral progress over the millenia. While theologians love to claim that religion is all about love, we see that religions are struggling to keep up with what has become basic moral common sense.
Please give it a deeper thought. This isnt as much about any ideoly but fundamentally about the complex human nature. You cant preserve man from giant destruction if you dont adress this issue.
I can see that in the future man can do without religion but I also see the possitive role it has played in history of man and his cultivation. Even if religion played a positive role in the "cultivation of man", as you put it, - and as a historian I am very sceptical of that claim - that doesn't mean that we shouldn't move past it. We no longer believe in the gods of ancient Greece or Rome, or the Egyptian, Norse, or Aztek gods. The only reason the current religions are viewed as something special is the number of their subscribers. But at the end of the day, they are all myths, which, while they may contain the occasional nice story, are neither beneficial nor neccessary. In fact, the most atheistic societies in the world, countries like Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Australia, or the Netherlands, with up to 80-85 percent of non-believers, rank highest on virtually every parameter of social life. The problems these countries are facing, if I may slide in this remark, are to a large extent created by Muslim immigrants

 

[Formaldehyde]

Geller was not opposed to Muslims constructing a mosque.

Geller was vehemently opposed to local Muslims renovating and modestly expanding an existing mosque because, in her own words, it would be a "Mecca-on-the-Hudson". It would be a "mega-mosque". These were modifications which had already been approved without criticism prior to 9/11, and even reported at that time by Fox News as being a good thing for the local community.

No. She's no Muslim hater who clearly opposed the renovation of this mosque in virulent hate-filled terms.

Wow, now you bring up the SPLC. This is an organization whose entire political agenda is focused on pointing out supposed "white supremacy". Of course they pounce on figures like Geller, that's what they are there for.

"Supposed" white supremacy"? Are you now trying to claim that also doesn't exist on a wide-scale basis, just like you continue to do with Islamophobia, even after recent events in Charleston? Or do you have facts to show that any of those they claim are white supremacists actually aren't?

Speaking of which, you have yet to show that any of the factual statements I posted in this thread regarding these three bigots are untrue, many of which were supplied by the SPLC.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan

But it gets worse. I happen to have seen the Brooklyn video you linked to. I was utterly shocked and appalled by this bunch of total morons, who don't deserve to call themselves students. This was at a university. This should be the pinnacle of free discourse and open exchange of ideas. Yet these immature kids, who haven't accomplished anything at all in their lives, yet lack the slightest bit of basic human decency and respect, had no interest in discussion. Their sole purpose was to provoke and cause trouble. That this happened in an American auditorium is outrageous. I cannot fathom how you think that posting that video helps your cause. After an hour of being heckled and insulted, it was a totally understandable thing to say to this frenzied mob of losers that they shouldn't hurt anyone.

They politely let her give her speech in relative quiet before vocally disagreeing with her hate-filled rhetoric during the Q&A session: Freedom of speech, and all that. These are the very things Geller herself stated were so vitally important during her speech. But only her hate-filled speech should be heard?

Nobody has to be polite to hatemongers during a public question and answer period. This university is even in a largely Jewish neighborhood, and it seemed that perhaps as many as half the audience were Jews. Geller is also Jewish, as she made quite clear during her speech while apparently trying to elicit their sympathy and support. But she didn't even get support from all but a handful of students during her virulent hate-filled rant, and many of the Jews in the audience were laughing just as hard as the Muslim students during the Q&A session. Geller even had her own paid flunky, who was holding the microphone, give one of the only two positive statements about her rant made during the entire Q&A session. Every other speaker was clearly opposed to her wacky views.

Any sort of widespread acceptance of this sort of Islamophobic bigotry is simply not going to happen in this country at any institution of higher learning. And it certainly shouldn't be expected, any more than they would warmly applaud a member of the Westboro Baptist church after quietly and politely listening to his own bigoted hatred for 30 minutes or so.

You really aren't helping your case here by claiming they are "total morons who don't deserve to be called students", much as Geller did herself.

There is good reason why this obvious bigot is not even allowed to speak as an invited guest at virtually all universities in this country, much like the other two Islamophobes which you continue to use in your own attempts to "argue from authority". Only they aren't even close to being "authorities" on anything but hate.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

@ Funky. I dont want to make it into a discussion about religion but I am quite convinced that the moral standards which we now enjoy even though many of us an atheists do come from discipline of human life through out centuries and influence of different religions(no matter how many faults each religion embodies). Evolution gave us instincts but since we are mainly mental beings the cultivation process is done through ideology and if one is genuinly spiritual then also consciously through the psychic element.
You state that religion gives people illusion but what was an invasion of Iraq then collosal illusion?
The human existence without religion is bound to put ego on piedestal. And ego is very dangerous illusion.
Yes, there have been many religious wars but if you look closely they were not largerly fought for God but becouse of ego.
For me God doesnt represent illusion but future capacity. God is something beyond our present capacity and we are on the way to that. Needless to say no religion has patent on it.
There are false things part of all religions but also many inspiring ones which for centuries have helped to form and discipline humanity.
I am afraid if we completely remove religion (which is impossible at this time) we will completely unleash the darker side of man of which ego is the important element.
You are historian so you are probably aware how weak and corruptible human nature is and thats why I feel man needs to have access to something beyond him. When under pressure most people moral values collaps. That was the the case with both nacism and communism and thats the case even now when we justify destruction of countries for whatever reasons.

 

[JollyRoger]

There was a mosque within the twin towers, so screaming about one being in the vicinity was just inane bigotry.

 

[Formaldehyde]

There were others in close proximity that also got destroyed. It made perfect sense for other mosques to expand, or even take their place, to cater to the tens of thousands of Muslims who live and work there, and who no longer had a sufficient number of places to pray.

But no. We can't possibly offend the claimed sensibilities of those who have such bigoted and hypocritical views of other religions to not try to discriminate against them in retribution, even in a country which supposedly prohibits their government from doing so on their behalf.

No, this isn't hatred of another people merely due to their religious beliefs. It supposedly made perfect sense to deny many Muslims who live and work in the area their own religious rights, just so a handful of other Americans would supposedly feel better in some sort of wacky vindictive gesture. It was the only appropriate thing to do, according to many conservative Christian and Jewish Americans.

 

[JollyRoger]

On the New York city community center, didn't we have like 4 thousand-post threads where the ones that play the persecuted Christian card around here the most were explaining why religious freedom should be curtailed?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yup. Some religions are more equal than others.

 

[Antilogic]

Let me start with this:

Geller was not opposed to Muslims constructing a mosque. There are thousands of mosques in America already, and she said that Muslims could build a mosque wherever they wanted. But in deference to the thousands of New Yorkers who had lost family members and friends in the Islamist attack on 9/11, they should not build the mosque in so close proximity to Ground Zero.
To me this seems like a perfectly reasonable position to hold. If a Hindu killed your son, I dare say you would not be in favour of another Hindu group placing a statue of the elephant god Ganesha in front of your window, which reminded you of your painful loss every day.
And it's not like Geller was the only person with this view. A majority of New Yorkers were opposed to the mosque being built in that location.

And what are we even talking about? There was an attempt to murder Geller. Countless death threats have been issued against her. Anjem Choudary said she should be killed on public television. And yet you choose to denunciate her as a hateful person because she was opposed to the building of a mosque on Ground Zero? What kind of bizarre double standard is that?

You are incorrect in your assumptions, and nothing has [peeved] me off more than people trying to make that hateful woman a martyr. It's as bad as Game of Thrones making me feel sympathy for Cersei Lannister or that traitorous Greyjoy.

I think I have found the source of our misunderstanding. When you asked about "female genital mutilation carried out in mostly Christian countries like Ethiopia and Eritrea", I read that FGM was supposedly practised for the most part in Christian countries, when actually you meant that Ethiopia and Eritrea were mostly Christian. I'll take the blame and I apologize for misrepresenting you.

Correct. For your old interpretation, it would have been written "mostly in Christian" and not "in mostly Christian". Now that the grammar is out of the way, let's focus on the substance.

However, this is irrelevant to my argument. I never said Christianity didn't cause problems in the world, just that these are on a totally different scale than the problems caused by Islam. That two countries in Africa with a majority Christian population happen to practise FGM too, doesn't negate that. First, it may be worth noting that a third of the population of both these countries is Muslim. But let's ignore that and say for sake of argument that only Eritrean and Ethiopian Christians are performing this barbarism. How does that compare to the dozens of Muslim countries that are doing the same? And these are not just Central African countries. The Unicef map you provided was merely focused on Africa (although even on this map we see that Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt are enganged in FGM, too).

You asked why we don't see FGM among the Muslim population of India or Indonesia. Well I hate to break it to you, but we do. (Indonesia, India). We also see it in Malaysia and Pakistan. Moreover, FGM is mentioned several times in the Hadith and therefore has a theological legitimation in Islam. None of the major Islamic schools has ever condemned the practise (whereas virtually all Christians around the world have or would).

I'll note that you have again excluded qualifiers I put in, but whatevs, I'm at the end of my patience. FGM has been illegal in Indonesia for nearly a decade according to wiki's sources, although a number of people who were victims prior to the mid-2000s are, well, still victims, and there are law breakers. There are also passages like this one in the articles you cite:

Separately, the executive director of the Wahid Institute, Ahmad Suaedy, disagreed, saying that the practice was based on fiqih (Islamic jurisprudence) that could be interpreted differently by different ulemas.

“Female circumcision is not in the sharia. Maybe, the MUI drew their conclusions from a fiqih that was applied in a particular context and region,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.​

Which is exactly what I have been trying to communicate to you, repeatedly, in this thread. The religion is window dressing. It's whatever the people make it to be, not the other way around, and the believers will do whatever mental gymnastics they have to do to justify their actions. Same thing with Christianity and any other number of religions historically. You are taking a momentary prevalence in a particular slice of time and space and slandering a whole group of people, past, present, and future, with it instead of taking a hard look at other factors that are more strongly correlated with these problems.

And yes, this is the strong atheist critique of Islam, Christianity, etc. that I was talking about earlier. It's not holy text literalism, because you will always find exceptions.

So I am sorry, but you are dodging the problem when you say that "some happen to be Muslim countries and some happen to be Christian countries". This is almost entirely a Muslim problem. Just as the subjagation of women, the killing of blasphemers, the killing of apostates, the killing of homosexuals, honour killings, and terror attacks are too.

See what you did there? This is directly contradictory with what you said later in this same post with regards to Sufism. If you want to pretend your problem is only with the radicals, then at least stop throwing everyone else under the effing bus.

I'm also not dodging anything, you simply are ignoring those parts of my posts. Did you read the list of factors that I thought were better predictors? Either here or earlier in the thread? Realistically, a program of education, accurate medical advice for midwives, modern medical treatment for new parents, broader political rights for women, etc. is going to be far more successful at addressing this issue. For other issues, the list must be modified as appropriate for the specific factors for each, as there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. In simple terms, you are making a wrong diagnosis that will lead to no workable solutions, and my more complicated diagnosis is at least on the right track and will lead to measurable improvements.

So yeah, I'm sick of this. I won't waste any more time on long posts talking past one another or repeating myself. Take the last word and I'll unsub.

 

[kiwitt]

Yup. Some religions are more 'deluded' than others.

FTFY ...