Religion of peace strikes again: Danish cartoonist intruder shot

[Skybird]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8437433.stm

A knife and an axe, eh? Mentally deranged dirtbag. Maybe we should deal with him the way he intended to deal with that cartoonist, and send the bloody remains via instant airdrop back to Somali.

[SteamWake]

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh312/UlteriorModem/Islam.jpg

[ETR3(SS)]

Not even those goons at Visa Marketing could come up with a picture so priceless. BZ for that pic SteamWake.:yeah:

[Morts]

somehow im just not surprised by this....:damn:

[Tribesman]

Not even those goons at Visa Marketing could come up with a picture so priceless. BZ for that pic SteamWake.
It would be better if they just used the signs the idiots were using instead of having to use photoshop.
That's not bad going, two years after the picture did the rounds some people still don't know it was faked.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

It would be better if they just used the signs the idiots were using instead of having to use photoshop.
That's not bad going, two years after the picture did the rounds some people still don't know it was faked.

It's still funny!!! :D

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Why does it seem to me that the cartoonist had it comming? :hmmm:
Generally the European Media have it comming so terrorist attacks stopped surprising me since 9/11. Though its bad to kill innocent people, i wouldnt mind some TNT planted on the BBC headquarters.

[Torplexed]

Though its bad to kill innocent people, i wouldnt mind some TNT planted on the BBC headquarters.

There's a statement which meshes beautifully with the photograph above. :doh:

[Snestorm]

Time to tighten the immigration regulations more. DF!

[nikimcbee]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8437433.stm

A knife and an axe, eh? Mentally deranged dirtbag. Maybe we should deal with him the way he intended to deal with that cartoonist, and send the bloody remains via instant airdrop back to Somali.

You mean this:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

[Onkel Neal]

Why does it seem to me that the cartoonist had it comming? :hmmm:
Generally the European Media have it comming so terrorist attacks stopped surprising me since 9/11. Though its bad to kill innocent people, i wouldnt mind some TNT planted on the BBC headquarters.

You wanna kill people because of their religous or political views?

[Morts]

Time to tighten the immigration regulations more. DF!
DF ? are you f*cking kidding me ? that group of wannabe nazis who think that the only criminals in denmark are the foreigners....:damn:

[Lt.Fillipidis]

You wanna kill people because of their religous or political views?

I didnt said that! All i said is that BBC can take a bird that poops on a guys head and present it as a savage assault with multiple victims!

[SteamWake]

I didnt said that! All i said is that BBC can take a bird that poops on a guys head and present it as a savage assault with multiple victims!

And along those lines I present "Stories missed by the mainstream meadia"

Yes its biased to some degree yet it still holds alot of truth in the subject matter.

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/politics/2009/12/31/big-stories-mainstream-media-missed

[Skybird]

Why does it seem to me that the cartoonist had it comming? :hmmm:
Generally the European Media have it comming so terrorist attacks stopped surprising me since 9/11. Though its bad to kill innocent people, i wouldnt mind some TNT planted on the BBC headquarters.

:nope: So you want to assume that I deserve death also because I speak out against Islam so unforgivingly, and call it a primitive, racist barbary and do not duck away from it's hilarious, inhumane claims...? Have I coming it to me, too? :stare: Hell, I even was engaged in court action against it, and we were successful - must all my family now being wiped out in well-deserved revenge for my arrogant offending of Islam's totalitarian glory ? Or would you take pleasure in seeing me being tortured to a slow death for being so unwilling to obey it's demand for power and influence?

Read my sig. It is so very true.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

:nope: So you want to assume that I deserve death also because I speak out against Islam so unforgivingly, and call it a primitive, racist barbary and do not duck away from it's hilarious, inhumane claims...? Have I coming it to me, too? :stare: Hell, I even was engaged in court action against it, and we were successful - must all my family now being wiped out in well-deserved revenge for my arrogant offending of Islam's totalitarian glory ? Or would you take pleasure in seeing me being tortured to a slow death for being so unwilling to obey it's demand for power and influence?

No, no you got me all wrong mate! By saying he had it comming i meant that presenting such images to the public (i have seen quite few of them) is bound to provoke hostilities by islamists. Even if he did the same with jesus or budha, probably the same would have happened.
And by saying i wouldnt mind some TNT into BBC HQ is a way to say that im sick of how the media have a way to exaggerate events.

[Happy Times]

DF ? are you f*cking kidding me ? that group of wannabe nazis who think that the only criminals in denmark are the foreigners....:damn:

Not the only, but do the they have a higher crime rate or not?

[Torplexed]

No, no you got me all wrong mate! By saying he had it comming i meant that presenting such images to the public (i have seen quite few of them) is bound to provoke hostilities by islamists. Even if he did the same with jesus or budha, probably the same would have happened.


Over the years, I've seen plenty of cartoons that poked fun at the Pope(s). I've never yet seen or heard of an Opus Dei or Vatican hit squad going into action to knock them off afterward. At least not in this century.

http://www.dougmarlette.com/media/pope.gif

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Over the years, I've seen plenty of cartoons that poked fun at the Pope(s). I've never yet seen or heard of an Opus Dei or Vatican hit squad going into action to knock them off afterward. At least not in this century.

It happened in the past centuries though.
And Islamists today are like the christians were in the middle ages.
Except that today they stone you instead of burning you or drowning you to see if you're a witch and if you are then burn you.

And besides that, the image you show is nothing compared to one i saw some time ago showing Muhammad f*cking a goat...

[Skybird]

No, no you got me all wrong mate! By saying he had it comming i meant that presenting such images to the public (i have seen quite few of them) is bound to provoke hostilities by islamists.
And so...? no cartoons on Islam, please? The cartoons were not even very good, with the single exception of the one showing Muhammad's head as bomb, which makes great mockery of the violent, obsessive thinking of the man, and really illustrate nicely the nature of his thoughts. Jews, christians, atheists, polticians, unions, lefties, rightwingers, male, females - all of us are expected not to tick out when a joke is made about us or at our cost, or a cartoon is published about us. What freaking problem is there with Islam in Denmark and the West? If crowds of people get hysteric about it in far away muhammedan countries, I could not care less, if they get red faces and want to pump up their heads until they explode - okay, fine with me, the more do like that, the better - but in our own countries and home culture, with free speech, free press and free opinion guaranteed by our costitutuion, Islam either plays ball and lives by our cultural rules and standards and shuts up when claiming that it is more special than any other lobby group, or it packs it's damn unwanted things and gets the hell out of here - together with any other narcissistic fundamentalists, no matter their religious or pseudo-religious origin.

Even if he did the same with jesus or budha, probably the same would have happened.
Why do I doubt this... In fact much worse cartoons about the church gets printed regularly, and it makes no waves at all. Not to mention the extremly hateful, racist cartoons on Jews, also on Christians, that you can see in Muslim countries, in papers, even in TV shows for the kids. The danish cartoon on Muhammad - oh, what offence...! but a hundred times more malicious, racist stuff 20 minutes each day on children'S TV in Egypt - no porblem, it's just about those freaking Jews, and those dhimmi Christians, you see.

And by saying i wouldnt mind some TNT into BBC HQ is a way to say that im sick of how the media have a way to exaggerate events.
And what do they exaggerate here? the defence of free speech, free opinion and free press? Or the story of an armed assassin trying to kill the cartoon author? Or haveing printed the cartoons in a clear speakout against stupid dhimmi-politicians who were all to willing to fall back when Islamic nations demanded them to cut free press in the West?

Our freedom should always, always, always be a million times more precious to us than the claims of some narcissistic bloodthirsty suckers from the stoneage that we should pay respect to their idiotic, inhumane ideology and cut our freedoms in order to not "offend" it.

[Torplexed]

And Islamists today are like the christians were in the middle ages.

Ta-dah! Something we agree on and part of the problem in a global society.

[Skybird]

A lovely one about the church.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/7791/wolfsschafspriester.jpg (http://img519.imageshack.us/i/wolfsschafspriester.jpg/)

The artist of this has even had public exhibitions with works like this, in museums and public building. Many of her shots are being done inside churches and monasteries.

No violent clashes in the street. No death threats. No nation-wide hysteria.

In fact, most media and most people did not even care.

[Snestorm]

DF ? are you f*cking kidding me ? that group of wannabe nazis who think that the only criminals in denmark are the foreigners....:damn:

25 seats, and growing.

[Skybird]

It happened in the past centuries though.
And Islamists today are like the christians were in the middle ages.

Which is meant to say - what? That we are one thousand years ahead of them and have left this primitive stage behind? :hmmm:

And besides that, the image you show is nothing compared to one i saw some time ago showing Muhammad f*cking a goat...

Oh my dear, how shocking!

If it would end religious wars and bring tolerance to all mankind, I would happily f##k that f##king goat myself, wave a hat and groan like a donkey and smile like the winner of the jackpot all the time!:shucks:

[Morts]

25 seats, and growing.
thats just sad..but i really hope you're kidding about voting DF....
if you're not, well, then i feel sorry for you

[Onkel Neal]

Even if he did the same with jesus or budha, probably the same would have happened.
And by saying i wouldnt mind some TNT into BBC HQ is a way to say that im sick of how the media have a way toexaggerate events.

Well, we have had this discussion here before, we can safely say that the Vatican has not ordered a hit on Madonna. :03:

http://romancatholicblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/madonna_cross.jpg


The problem as I see it, (and several people here have pointed out), we are dealing with two very different cultures. Western culture allows people the freedom to be rude to religon, to a certain point. Islamic culture does not tolerate this. The question is, do we as westerners allow the islamic people to dictate to us what we can say?

[kiwi_2005]

The cartoonist is an outright fool He should of known better with the islamic faith that if you mock it expect to be put on their wanted list and murdered sometime in the near future. Its no different than if i went and drawed a cartoon mocking some MAfia mobsters mother making her look like a slut or something. What would happen? To islamic extremists their god & prophets is everything you cannot go round insulting their beliefs and expect to not be done over for it. Mock the Christian god and a finger wont be lifted im talking modern times here, in some cases they have complained but never put out a hit on the persons. Mock the Islamic God or their prophets even and you better go into hiding...

Best dont go there.

[Torplexed]

Even if he did the same with jesus or budha, probably the same would have happened.

I don't know about drawings, but as far as I can tell the Buddhists are very forgiving of using explosives to deface their icons. They haven't hit the Taliban lately.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__hspjzfC024/SY03eYfrlOI/AAAAAAAAA-U/Y-0cdled8kg/s400/20b.jpg

[Skybird]

The cartoonist is an outright fool He should of known better with the islamic faith that if you mock it expect to be put on their wanted list and murdered sometime in the near future. Its no different than if i went and drawed a cartoon mocking some MAfia mobsters mother making her look like a slut or something. What would happen? To islamic extremists their god & prophets is everything you cannot go round insulting their beliefs and expect to not be done over for it. Mock the Christian god and a finger wont be lifted im talking modern times here, in some cases they have complained but never put out a hit on the persons. Mock the Islamic God or their prophets even and you better go into hiding...

Best dont go there.

The White Rose were outright fools. They should have known better with the Nazi'S state that if you criticise it expect to be put on their wanted list and murdered sometime in the near future. Its no different than if i went and drawed a cartoon mocking Saddam's ego making him look like a sadomasochistic gay or something. What would happen? To tyrants like the Nazis, their ego, claim for power and control, and their reputation is everything, you cannot go round insulting their self-legitimation and expect to not be done over for it. Mock the democrats or the humanists, and a finger wont be lifted, im talking modern times here, in some cases they have complained but never put out a hit on the persons. Mock Hitler or Stalin or Saddam and you better go into hiding...

Best dont go there.

-----

You know what? I'm glad they nevertheless did.

Freedom does not get lost all in one step. It gets given up in many small steps, one by one, or gets taken away in many small steps, one by one.

and those giving it up because they do not dare to fight in it's defence, do not even deserve it, for they show that they do not know what to do with freedom anyway. If you think you have no use for freedom, you do not need freedom. Nothing wrong then to live as a slave.

Grovel like a dog, whimper like a dog - and get treated like a dog.

Ah - good time to watch Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" again. Another one of these fools who went to where they shouldn't have gone. Best watch it before it gets banned!

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Skybird - First of all, why this attitude?

And what do they exaggerate here? the defence of free speech, free opinion and free press?

There's no such thing as Freedom of press, speech and opinion in the media mate. Wikipedia has them but only because anyone can edit anything.
Truth doesnt sell.

Now, like i've said islam is just like christianity was in the middle ages.
You believe in it? Be proud. You dont? Keep it for yourself.
Its not that i dont agree with you. Its that i prefer not to mess with them unless i am given a really big gun.

Oh and lets not talk about claims of power and control cause that a big part of the US history. Too big to fit this forum.

Edit: But why did that 44% who voted for Hitler kept supporting him till the end? Maybe they knew something more than all of us? Than all the "great" historians?

[Skybird]

Skybird - First of all, why this attitude?

What do you think is my attitude? On what do you ask this question?

There's no such thing as Freedom of press, speech and opinion in the media mate. Wikipedia has them but only because anyone can edit anything.
Truth doesnt sell.

Our constitution gives us all that, blavk on white. If we allow lobbyies and parties to hijack it, then this is soemthing sdifferent, and our own fault. but our must fundamental rights gives these freedoms to us. They guarantee these freedoms for us. That is true for the german constitution. that is true for the american constitution. Lets do not mix the events in Denmark and the issue of Islamic ideology, with the way we allow politicians and lobbies to deformate our culture. It's two different debates.


Now, like i've said islam is just like christianity was in the middle ages.


that is not really true in ideological content, but I assume you mean the powerhunger of botzh islam and the church as an institution.


You believe in it? Be proud. You dont? Keep it for yourself.

Well, what now, what should it be for you? Be advised I am no Christian or church-follower. I am atheist, antitheist, with a certain sympathy for Chan-Buddhism and Taosim and Christian Mysticism.


Its not that i dont agree with you. Its that i prefer not to mess with them unless i am given a really big gun.

Your choice, but your - and our - bad. Because they have chosen to mess with you. islam is here, and it wants it all. you either choose to confront it, or you are already defeated. Over the years I decided to stand up against it it. We have had two totalitarian regimes in Germany over the past 100 years, I think we do not need a third one now. We should have learned our lesson: totalitarianism never is good, and miust be prevented as long as you still have the chance. Because once it is strong enough, it spells desaster.

Oh and lets not talk about claims of power and control cause that a big part of the US history. Too big to fit this forum.

You might be surprised what this forum has proven to be able to handle in disucssion sizes. ;) However, I insist on mentioning islamic claims and demands for power and control if the talk is of Islam, because it is Islam's heart and essence, it's primary nature, it's cause. It' is no relgion of peace, but a policy of conquest. What that should have to do with American history, escapes me. You jump a bit too much from one theme to another one, I think. Can one not talk of islamic slavery in the medival as well as still in present, because in America there has been slavery in the past, and then has been abandoned? :06: that makes no sense. Refgering to the latter,. does not forbid the refring to the first. but it is two different debates. And we do not talk about american slavery or colonialism here, but about an Islamic assassin attacking an a Danish cartoon author, and about Islam.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Your attitude is not-too-friendly. I didnt noticed you're from Germany so its just the way you write?

I trust that you dont speak perfectly english cause you missunderstood me quite a few times. This "You believe in it? Be proud. You dont? Keep it for yourself." goes together with what i've said right before it. That was in middle ages with christianity and now with islam. Im not religious myself at all. Infact im opposed to religions as i believe that -today- they declined from spiritual guidance to economics/politics. Religions are given too much power these days.

Now, about Islam.
I personally believe that Qur'an has been miss-translated and missunderstood by people. I have gone through quite a few pages from it and there are many points that someone can manipulate to his gain.
Besides this, Islam has done nothing to Greece so far and given the hostile stance we're getting from EU these days and the priceless "Greece is a free rider that got into European Union".
Sorry but im not gonna raise arms to someone that hasnt done anything to me yet, even if i totaly disagree with him, for someone who's so ungrateful.

[Skybird]

Your attitude is not-too-friendly. I didnt noticed you're from Germany so its just the way you write?

Hm? I am not friendly on and to islam, regarding you, I am currently neutral on your personality, but I take the freedom to challenge what you say.

I trust that you dont speak perfectly english cause you missunderstood me quite a few times.

Maybe you do not make yourself clear enough. ;) Understanding English usually is not my problem. Note that I am not the only one asking you some questions. One or two guys have asked you on the same content you expressed, same references like in my questions.

This "You believe in it? Be proud. You dont? Keep it for yourself." goes together with what i've said right before it. That was in middle ages with christianity and now with islam.
Well, over here we cannot read poeple's mind. to me the above sounds quite... interrupted. I can only take you the way you dress yourself in words, so to speak, since what you say and how you put it is the only thing I and we get from you on this medium, necessarily.

Im not religious myself (...) Religions are given too much power these days.
Indeed.

Now, about Islam.
I personally believe that Qur'an has been miss-translated and missunderstood by people. I have gone through quite a few pages from it and there are many points that someone can manipulate to his gain.
Well, I have read the first three quarters of the Quran, plus a lot of more literature on islamic scripture and history, then part of the Hadith, the Sunna, the Sira; I also have spend a longer time in Muslim countries, more than a year. You are right, and you are wrong. there have been different versions of the Quran, but are nio more. And in principle the Quran is not open to interpretation. It nevertheless gets done - sometimes - to lessen some of it'S content. Let me explain, but let me take an easy way, by giving a long quote from an essay I wrote some years ago (it is not the first time that Islam gets discussed here):


As far as the content and verbal style is concerned, generally a split is perceived in the Quran, separating the scriptures of Muhammad’s time in Mekka (beeing more metaphysical in content and style, focussing on ethical and spiritual questions) from those scriptures that are basing on his preachings in Medina, that shows more pragmatical relation to situations and problems of practical life, and are said to be of less prosaic language. It is undisputed amongst Quran-researchers, that the better part of the book without doubt is basing on Muhammad at least actively helping to shape it’s content. The academical voices that defended an opinion that without doubt ALL it’s content is „Muhammad pure“ nevertheless are said to have become rare since a longer while now.

The Quran is regarded as Allah’s revelation to mankind and thus is the basis of Muslim belief. It’s creation must not be explained, because Allah always have been existent and so the Quaran as his word and will cannot have been created by man – as an idea it has always been there. The many doubts that are existent about the tradition that influenced and conserved it’s form and made it to what it is today, are therefor ignored and considered to be irrelevant. Pragmatical from a Muslim point of view, but hardly acceptable for a less metaphysical mindset.

During Muhammad’S lifetime his prophecies had been conserved by verbal delivery and fixing in writing, using palm-leafs, leather, and whatever material was used for that purpose. The effort to do so was unsystematical and unorganized, so that the tradition was scattered around somewhat. Parts of these preachings additionally got lost, when close followers of Muhammad, who had learned to memorize „their“ part of the always increasing collection of preachings, had been killed in one of the many battles they went through. The first Kalif after Muhammad’s death, Abu Bakr (who also was Muhammad’s father-in-law), therefor ordered Muhammad‘s last secretary to collect all written and verbal material that was circulating, to bring it into an order and to fix it in a final writing. The result was a first version of the Quaran about which we know almost nothing today. After Abu Bakr’s death two years after that of Muhammad, his successor, the second Kalif, Umar, is said to have given this version to his daugther Hafsa, Muhammad’s fourth wife, because she should have had such a splendid memory that she seemed to be ideally fitted to become the guardian of a Quaran that now was hoped to see no more changes added to it by circulating different fragments and contents, whose originality was uncertain. However, orientalists raise serious doubts that it could have been like this. It seems to be untrustworthy that the most important document of Islam‘s faith should have been given into the hands of a woman, that – although beeing Muhammad’s wife - was of relatively minor importance in history.

Not that this question is of much importance, because this version of the Quran found no general acceptance, and few years later again complaints were raised, that in the provinces still a growing diversity of different versions of the Quaran were circulating, most or all of them adding new things or reinterpreting it towards a higher level of political relevance, or reinterpreting it in other ways that did not seem to be acceptable, or did not have any authenticity. So the new, third Kalif, Uthman, again ordered Muhammad’s old secretary to collect and form a new version of the Quaran, which he did and compared it with the first version that still was in possession of Hafsa. He also reworked and translated all material into the dominat Arab dialect, that of Mekka, because the fragments that had been scattered around were written or memorized in various different languages. Of this new version he created, only five numbers were written down and were given to the five centers of Islamic knowledge in Mekka, Medina, Damascus, Basra and Kufa.

Scientific research asks some very serious questions about this course of the whole story. It is assumed that there was no single authority, no agreed institution of competence for the Quran existent. That there were two main versions created may have been a sign that there may have been at least two rivalling traditions of interpretation. Criterias for what was accepted for both of these main versions, and what not, are unknown, also who rasied these criterias, if this should mean there were no central figure of evaluationg it all, then this may be interpreted as arbitrariness deciding the second form of the Quran, or choices made that were born out of political opportunism. And why was the first version without influence, why was the number of different versions beside that first collection of writings constantly increasing? All this is in contradiction to Islam’s understanding, that the Quaran was from the very beginning of Islam’s history what it always had been in later times. It cannot have been like that. Islam ignores these questions, and says that all this is unimportant. Despite all the obvious changes it must have gone thorugh, it should have remained unchanged since the beginning. A miracle? But, as P. Raddatz points towards an important question that kept Quran reseach before second world war very busy, how was it possible that during 25 years an ever increasing number of many followers memorized all verbal inspirations and preachings of Muhammad (and that was quite an impressive lot of material!!) , spreading them around all over their living places, giving them to others, so that thousands of passages went through thousands of ears and mouths – and nevertheless all of it shouldn’t have changed the smallest bit, and should have seen no faults and no adulterations (Verfälschungen) of even a minor kind? It is difficult enough to learn the whole Quran from fixed writing only, to learn it without faults by hear-say only seems to be beyond ability of man.

As if this not already raised doubts in the complete originality of today’s Quaran, an even greater problem existed – the changes in written language during the two- or threehundred years after Muhammad’s death. Not before the 10th century the introduction of diacritic punctuation („diakritische Punktierung“) to Arab writing was completed, which changed vocalisation and meaning of words of Arab dialects significantly. I must blindly follow the linguists here, since I do not have any knowledge of that on my own, but they say that the translation of the second Quran version into the new version of Arabic writing necessarily must have increased the level of misinterpretations or changes of understandings of given words, and very drastically so. The new punctuation caused the changes of letters into different ones, and due to the inner nature of Arab language this meant, that words and complete sentences could transform into complete new meanings and understandings. This is the main reason, probably, why the number of different versions of the Quaran, with sometimes very dramatic changes in meaning and content of complete passages, grew constantly in the two hundred years after Muhammad’s death. A caste of professional Quran-readers had been formed by this, and they had high political influence, since due to the unity of religion and politics in Islam their individual interpretations of the Quran really made a difference in local policies. - Even today preachers at the traditional Friday prayers are having high political influence and a significant power to mobilize their community. - They also implemented up to seven differing major traditions of interpretation, that took quite some time to get reduced to a smaller number of traditions again. Like especially radical preachers today, they also may have had personal ambitions, coming from the power that they had to influence the crowds. The impression Islam is giving, that it only were different styles of verbal recitation, has been proven wrong by science, it has not been that simple and harmless and this claim holds no ground. It was not only different styles in presentation, but different conclusions by different styles of interpretation of the Quran, and different versions of Quaran itself. Today’s diversity in possible Quran interpretation, that allows both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists to justify their deeds by the Quran and find coverage from it, may have found it’s reason in this chapter of history.

Kalif Uthman obviously made a wise decision to concentrate the interpretation of Quaran on the five centers of knowledge that were delivered the only five existing issues of the second official collection of the Quaran scriptures. He made a cut and accepted that an uncertain ammount of falsified, wrong material, that was lacking any authenticity, found entrance into the official Quaran. Anything was better than to allow a further spreading of different traditions to interpret the Quaran that only could have led to an increasing diversity in faith – exactly what Islam ideology does NOT want. The Quran-readers that made their living by interpreting the Quaran, and twisted it to the liking of the political needs of those who ordered and payed for their services, or to their own ambitions, lost their jobs and political influence. The centralization of interpreting the Quaran ended the regional political agitation and strengthened centralized, superregional powerstructures.

Due to lacking knowledge of myself I must blindly point out that linguists are able to illustrate how the origin of the word qur’an links parts of the Mekkanesian (?) scriptures of the Quran to the traditon of Christian liturgy, and Christian tradition and languages. This is critical, because Muslims think of the Quran to have been send down to man in Arab language – the Arab language that is known today. But that form of language did not exist before twohundred years after Muhammad’s death. So how could his preachings have been conserved and delivered, if not by accepting that the first and original version of the Quran had not been send down to man and fixed in punctuated Arabic, but more likely in a mixture of the dialect of the Quraysh and Arameic language, or Syrian dialects? Some commentators say that the Quran originally may have been a liturgic reading for Christian services, and that up to one quarter of the Quran’s content until today raises verbal problems with Islamic interpretations of passages that seem to point more towards Christian tradition and the Old and New Testament than towards the usual Muslim interpretation of this stuff. They also argue that the Quran may not have been a document of it’s own value and religious right, but may have been something like a comment to the writings of the Christians, focussing on them as the main word. These authors argue that the Quran probably has no original identity of it’s own, but was more an added comment on the basis of a foreign religious scripture, which most probably may have been the Bible.

Islam’s claim that the original language of the Quaran has been Arabic is highly questionable from an academical point of view, and it’s belief of the Quran’s delivery in that language (despite the well-documented changes the Arab language went through between the 7th and 10th century) as a miracle does not add anything valuable to discussion. The Quaran’s claimed originality is highly speculative, seen that way.

Although Uthman had made sure that the Quran was no longer to be mixed and watered by contacts with foreign teachings, there was still the chance that it would be „misinterpreted“ by the simple fact, that the Arab conquerers, when they started to leave the Arab peninsula and spread Allahs word outside, would somewhat mix and water it when coming in contact with the traditions in Egypt and Syria, here factions were living that were hostile to Byzanz and for that reason tend to sympathise with the Arabs - who could not avoid to be influenced by these foreign religions in return, because their leaders even demanded them to treat friendly those that were hostile towards Byzanz – which now was the Muslim Arabs’ enemy. Although it took until late into the 8th century until the Quaran as we know it today had strengthend in structure and content, one thing was undisputed and beyond doubt for every Muslim from the beginning: that it was the word of Allah, without fault, without doubt, without wrong, without any reason to ask, examine or critisize it, always existent, never changing. This „hard belief“, immune to changes, even more consolidating itself in the more than 1300 years to come, made it impossible for Muslim religion to establish a tradition of self-critical examination of it’s own basis of beliefs, as we have seen it in the developement of Christian tradition, that led to the splitting into different Christians churches and sects, eventually, but nevertheless helped to gain a more modern understanding of Christianity‘s own faith, that considered the many changes the mental evolution of western man during the diffrent phases of Western cultural history went through. The raised levels of knowledge and insight changed Christian religion, growing education lowered the need for religously motivated regulation, the implementation of legal laws replaced the enforcment of religious commandments. But Muslim theology did stop to develope very early in Islam’s history in an understanding of critically examining itself (if the heretic’s writings are not counted as part of the official theology), and seen that way one could even say that it does not exist in a western understanding. There also is only a very limited, often non-existent interest in interreligious and intercultural exchange, whereas the West’s Christianity has developed a theological and academical highly differentiated science of comparing cultures and religions, as well as analysing it’S own history of developement, and origins of scriptures. Paradoxically this lacking ability to adopt to changes, that makes it so tough for Islamic communities in Arab countries to arrive in the modern era, is the basis for Muslim argumentation that Islam, unchanged since long, is superior to any other idea: it did not change because it did not need to do so: as the word of Allah, the basis of it’s faith – the Quran - was perfect from the beginning and thus any correctional change could only have meant: weakness, and falsification of the truth. One needs to reflect this if one wants to understand why the simple export of Western ideas to Islamic countries usually do not trigger the effects one expected (social and powerpolitical structures being also a factor, but not the deciding one). It’s the religiously founded mentality and it’s influence on cultural climate. I always said that the American way of trying to enforce changes by example-setting, military force and/or materialistic corruption, as well as the European „critical dialogue“ to convince Islamic partners by reason or to simply buy their agreement, was doomed to fail from the very beginning - for exactly these reasons. Muslim history does not work this way. Aid project workers having spend a longer while in the muslim part of the third world can sing a song of the Muslim resistance to changes. There is more than one ex-worker who was driven crazy by this. They often proove to be immune to any changes that would touch and affect the basis of their belief.

Quran is understood by Islam as beeing the renewal of the faith (a faith that needed to be restored time and again by a long chain of prophets (Noah, Moses and Jesus beeing just three of them), which in form of Islam itself had found it’s final and unquestionable and most superb expression to which the scriptures of Christians and Jews are inferior, and sinful aberration only of the only true book there is - Quran. Followers of these false doctrine could only win God’s goodwill by giving up their false beliefs and surrender to the superiority of the Quran. Quarn as an Arab word means „recitation“, a repeating and endless recitation of the word of Allah so that it is not to be forgotten ever again, neither by individuals, nor by mankind. It is structured into 114 Sures, in a sequences of presenting the longest in the first, and the shortest at the end (with the only exception of the opening Sure). The single verses (aya=signs of wonder) change by lingual style and prose, depending on wether a given Sure had it’s origin in Muhammad‘s time in Mekka, or Medina. After the second main version of the Quran had been fixed in writing by order of Calif Uthman, seven or eight traditions of conformal recitation builded up, from which – in combination with the increasing introduction of punctuation to Arab language - finally the version of the Quaran emerged that is known today. While the different recitation styles already were collected by Ibn Mudjahid until the first half of the 8th century, the process of verbally transforming the Quran into it’s present form hardly could have been finished until the late 9th or maybe even 10th century.


Western versions indeed can represent different translations into western languages, but one should not overinterprete this and think all islam can be talked down and glossed over just because of translation errors. The Quran breathes a certain spirit and message that you realise when reading it in full, not in quotes and excerpts, and thos spirit, this message is what decides it for me. And I do not tolerate it.

In missionary versions they gave away in pedestrian zones in an obvious attempt to deceive unknwoing naive people over the critical passages to be found in the Quran, I once have found whole sentences being deleted or replaced with extremely surreal euphemisms, everything cruel and grim and aggresive and intolerant was deleted, left out, or replaced with eupheisms open to w wide array of possible interpretations. With tricks like that you could turn "Mein Kampf" into a humanistic manual, of course. If the passage was about something westerners do not want to hear when thinking nice about Islam, or if it was showing the brutal face of Islam, it got corrected in this street version of the Quran. In other words, there exist propaganda versions of the Quran that are meant for propagandistic "smile-crusade". But these do not get mentioned and linked to in academical literature of course. They are betrayal, and a weapon inside a weapon of ideologic warfare. Or in other words: a trap.

Besides this, Islam has done nothing to Greece so far and given the hostile stance we're getting from EU these days and the priceless "Greece is a free rider that got into European Union".
Sorry but im not gonna raise arms to someone that hasnt done anything to me yet, even if i totaly disagree with him, for someone who's so ungrateful.

Are you aware that Islam has a history of conquest in Greece? It was not only Portugal and Spain, Central France, the Balkan area, the sieges of Vienna, Southern Italy, that got occupied by islamic armies. The Turkish minority you have in Greece is a remnant from those times of the Osmanic empire. Your forefathers were more lucky than for example the Balkan people, you got rid of islam very much again. The extremely sensitive animosity between Greeks and Turks is not due to the Cyprus issue, but the history before. I know both Greeks and Turks, and I know that they have little love for each other. And that is mildy said. Usually the one group speaks with utmost disgust of the other.

What the EU has to do in your reply, I do not know. that there are tensions between both, is well-deserved due to Greece's culture of corruption for which the EU should not be expected to always pay and pay (but it will be stupid enough to do right this), but this discussion has no place here.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Maybe you do not make yourself clear enough. Maybe.

Well, over here we cannot read poeple's mind. to me the above sounds quite... interrupted.

I cleared it out in the first place, though.

Are you aware that Islam has a history of conquest in Greece?

I am aware but the Turks' origins are from Mongolia and they have little to do with Arabs. As far as i know, though. I may be wrong.

What the EU has to do in your reply, I do not know. that there are tensions between both, is well-deserved due to Greece's culture of corruption for which the EU should not be expected to always pay and pay (but it will be stupid enough to do right this), but this discussion has no place here.

And who's responsible about this? The Greek people or the politicians?
Every man in Greece have said at least once "If they would make me president for one day". Its our politicians' fault and EUs fault too because they enforce penalties that have to do with Greece as a whole and not directly to the politicians themselves.

[Skybird]

I am aware but the Turks' origins are from Mongolia and they have little to do with Arabs. As far as i know, though. I may be wrong.

The Mongolian origin of the Turk people is disputed and so far has not been founded by evidence - in other words it is just a theory. More often today'S Turks' (I mean Turkey here) roots are drawn to areas in Northern Iran and Northern Afghanistan.

Fine, they are no Arabs. So what, why do you mention this? They are Islamic. Indonesia also is no Arab country, but is the Muslim nation with the biggest Islamic population. Iran also has no Arab population, they are Persian. And if I convert to Islam, that does not make me an Arab either.

And who's responsible about this? The Greek people or the politicians?
You vote politicians and bosses, do you.


Every man in Greece have said at least once "If they would make me president for one day". Its our politicians' fault and EUs fault too because they enforce penalties that have to do with Greece as a whole and not directly to the politicians themselves.

You country, your votes, your politicians and bosses. Why haven'T you chased them away earlier. Now you are in a mess, home-mdade over at least 25 years, probably even much longer - and we other Europeans should pay for it, as our financial troubles aren'T already big enough even without Greece, and as if the Eu has not already pumped enpormous moneys into Greece in the past. As far as the EU is concerned, it deals with Greece as a nation, not as a family business. It is your job, the people of Greece, to punish and chase away your corrupt leaders and clean out your house.

But the enormous level of Greek corruption that is now threatening your nation, has nothing to do with this threat of an Islamic assassin trying to kill a cartoon author.

[Skybird]

BTW, have you guys noticed it? The silence from Muslim nations is deafening the ears.

[OneToughHerring]

BTW, have you guys noticed it? The silence from Muslim nations is deafening the ears.

You mean muslim nations like Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh wait, I think they might be a little busy with the wars orchestrated by the US that just keep continuing and continuing.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

You vote politicians and bosses, do you.
No. I personally dont.


You country, your votes, your politicians and bosses. Why haven'T you chased them away earlier.

53% of the Greek population didnt voted in the European Parliament Election, 2009.
At least once a month there's a protest going on in Thessaloniki where i live.
And if i go out there, pick up a gun against them, they'll say im a terrorist.

Anyway, back to the point.
I see you have no love for muslims. Others could say you're racist, i say whatever. But since you lived a year with them, as you said, how come that you didnt met at least one "good" muslim?

[Respenus]

...because then by definition he would no longer be a Muslim... (in the strictly limited sense of what Skybird is trying to present).

@Skybird:
Any change we might be able to read the full version of the essay? Very, very informing.

[Skybird]

No. I personally dont.
still it is the Greek people bringing it'S government to power



53% of the Greek population didnt voted in the European Parliament Election, 2009.
At least once a month there's a protest going on in Thessaloniki where i live.
And if i go out there, pick up a gun against them, they'll say im a terrorist.
Fine. The EU has not told you to form a corruption regime. Your national government and the business practices that are infested with corruption - are ot the EU's mistake, nor the Germans or the Frenach'S mistake, but it is the Greek people. Do not hold me repsjnsible if you paint the walls in your flat in a colour you do not like.


Anyway, back to the point.
I see you have no love for muslims. Others could say you're racist, i say whatever. But since you lived a year with them, as you said, how come that you didnt met at least one "good" muslim?
Who said I haven't? Some I trusted for my life. It depended on the place I was. the best general experiences I had in Iran (early and mid-90s). The worst in Turkey.

And no, I am not racist, I do not depend on skin colour, eye form or hair, nor do I say Arabas get born stupoid and the IQ of Persians is lower from birth on becasue they have Persian genes. But I talk about an ideology. Some people try to silence religious criticism by equalling it with racism, but I do not care for the race of believers following a relgion I criticise. when I take the ideology of Islam, and look at it's vilent history of constant conquest and claims for global dominance (until today), then I see little good in it, and almpst nothing that is compatib le with wetsern tradition of humanism, wetsern values and freedoms and civilisation standards. I do not dislike Islam for most of it's worshippers being Arabs and Indonesians and Africans, but because the teaching of Islam. It's about the ideology, not the race.

You could as well accuse me of racism when speaking out against fascism, scientology or Stalin. Actually there are some idiots who do right that. Needless to say they are no close friends of mine.

[Skybird]

@Skybird:
Any change we might be able to read the full version of the essay? Very, very informing.

It was posted in full some years ago (or it got linked), and on two or three occasions, like now, I posted quotes from it.

Okay, I set it up some time later this evening, I only have to invest some time to reformat it in a simple txt-editor. this forum board does not like the Word-formatting.

[Onkel Neal]

No. I personally dont.


At least once a month there's a protest going on in Thessaloniki where i live.
And if i go out there, pick up a gun against them, they'll say im a terrorist.



You think "picking up a gun" against protesters is a valid option? I don't understand that. You talk about blowing up the BBC, and there is no freedom of speech in the media (which negates the whole concept of editorializing), and the cartooist "had it coming"... I can see exactly why you are so upset with Skybird's position.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

still it is the Greek people bringing it'S government to power
Its sad to admit but you are partly right. Many Greeks find it the only solution to survive the corruption with corruption. Greece is way below the standards of EU on many issues and for some of us, the only way is the cheater's way.

But I talk about an ideology.
Islam does cover a wide range of people though and they cant be all of them bad. But nevermind, i missunderstood what you said.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

You think "picking up a gun" against protesters is a valid option? I don't understand that. You talk about blowing up the BBC, and there is no freedom of speech in the media (which negates the whole concept of editorializing), and the cartooist "had it coming"... I can see exactly why you are so upset with Skybird's position.
Not against protesters Neal. Against politicians. I support peaceful protests but im definatly against anarchy.
I didnt said i would do it but many people in the past who did something like this they were called terrorists.

Edit: I talk about the BBC because i believe that BBC manipulates the events so they can "sell" better.
I do support free speech, opinions and press but not any of them is in its pure form in the modern world.
Like someone said some posts before, messing so openly with Islam is like messing with the mafia.
If he wants to do such cartoons he should be expecting trouble. Not that im against it but not everyone thinks the way i do.

PS Why is it so hard to make myself clear?

[Skybird]

@ Respenus,

The full essay you asked for, has been set up. Find it here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1229763&posted=1#post1229763

[NeonSamurai]

There are countless examples in history where good people follow bad ideology, and they themselves do unspeakable things due to the ideology, but yet are good people at heart.

There is a reason why we always tend to dehumanize our enemies and opponents, as that is part of what allows us to kill other good people, and still view ourselves as being "good".

PS Why is it so hard to make myself clear?

Because bluntly you are not expressing yourself very clearly.

At least once a month there's a protest going on in Thessaloniki where i live.
And if i go out there, pick up a gun against them, they'll say im a terrorist.You basically said that people are protesting where you live, and that if you go and pick up a gun against them (them being the protesters since that is the only group you referred to) they will say you are a terrorist.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

You basically said that people are protesting where you live, and that if you go and pick up a gun against them (them being the protesters since that is the only group you referred to) they will say you are a terrorist.

Not against the protesters for something's sake!
Against the politicians! We were talking about the politicians and by "them" i am refering to them politicians.
Is it the way i write that you dont understand or what?

I already said it somewhere before that i support peaceful protests but i am totaly against anarchy!

[NeonSamurai]

The problem is you are not writing clearly. You made no mention of politicians in that post. How you connected your sentences together placed "them" as being the group you had referred to in the last sentences, which was the populace of Greece and protesters.

When you use "them" "they" etc in a sentence it generally refers to the group you previously identified earlier on in the paragraph or sentence.

[Lt.Fillipidis]

The problem is you are not writing clearly. You made no mention of politicians in that post. How you connected your sentences together placed "them" as being the group you had referred to in the last sentences, which was the populace of Greece and protesters.

When you use "them" "they" etc in a sentence it generally refers to the group you previously identified earlier on in the paragraph or sentence.

Actually we were talking about politicians, then i refered the protesters and then said the rest but by "them" mean the politicians.
My mistake then.

[NeonSamurai]

I know I was just explaining why people were not understanding you, because of how you used the word them in combination with the rest of what you said.

[Onkel Neal]

Quote:
At least once a month there's a protest going on in Thessaloniki where i live.
And if i go out there, pick up a gun against them, they'll say im a terrorist.



You basically said that people are protesting where you live, and that if you go and pick up a gun against them (them being the protesters since that is the only group you referred to) they will say you are a terrorist.


That's the way I read it too. I'm not intentionally trying to misunderstand you, but your comments give me the impression you are ready to go after these groups (BBC, protesters, etc).

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Well, for BBC its the way the say the news that pisses me off.
They DO exaggerate things and i dont like it.
Not of course put a bomb in there for real.

[Skybird]

How damn right the man again is:



The West Is Choked by Fear

An Editorial by Henryk M. Broder (http://www.henryk-broder.de/)

The attack on illustrator Kurt Westergaard wasn't the first attempt to carry out a deadly fatwa. When Muslims tried to murder Salman Rushdie 20 years ago, the protests among intellectuals were loud. Today, though, Western writers and thinkers would rather take cover than defend basic rights.

In 1988, Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" was published in its English-language original edition. Its publication led the Iranian state and its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to issue a "fatwa" against Rushdie and offer a hefty bounty for his murder. This triggered several attacks on the novel's translators and publishers, including the murder of Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi. Millions of Muslims around the world who had never read a single line of the book, and who had never even heard the name Salman Rushdie before, wanted to see the death sentence against the author carried out -- and the sooner the better, so that the stained honor of the prophet could be washed clean again with Rushdie's blood.

In that atmosphere, no German publisher had the courage to publish Rushdie's book. This led a handful of famous German authors, led by Günter Grass, to take the initiative to ensure that Rushdie's novel could appear in Germany by founding a publishing house exclusively for that purpose. It was called Artikel 19, named after the paragraph in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees the freedom of opinion. Dozens of publishing houses, organizations, journalists, politicians and other prominent members of German society were involved in the joint venture, which was the broadest coalition that had ever been formed in postwar German history.


Sympathy for the Hurt Feelings of Muslims

Seventeen years later, after the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published a dozen Muhammad cartoons on a single page, there were similar reactions in the Islamic world to those that had followed the publication of "The Satanic Verses." Millions of Muslims from London to Jakarta who had never seen the caricatures or even heard the name of the newspaper, took to the streets in protests against an insult to the prophet and demanded the appropriate punishment for the offenders: death. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden even went so far as to demand the cartoonists' extradition so that they could be condemned by an Islamic court.

This time, however, in contrast to the Rushdie case, hardly anyone has showed any solidarity with the threatened Danish cartoonists -- to the contrary. Grass, who had initiated the Artikel 19 campaign, expressed his understanding for the hurt feelings of the Muslims and the violent reactions that resulted. Grass described them as a "fundamentalist response to a fundamentalist act," in the process drawing a moral equivalence between the 12 cartoons and the death threats against the cartoonists. Grass also stated that: "We have lost the right to seek protection under the umbrella of freedom of expression."

"I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," commented then-British Home Secretary Jack Straw, referring to the decision by several European media organizations to republish the caricatures. Meanwhile, Vorwärts, the party organ of Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party -- one of the country's two largest political parties -- defended freedom of expression in general, but gave the opinion that in this special case, the Danes had "abused" the freedom, "not in a legal sense, but in a political and moral one." For Fritz Kuhn, the then-parliamentary floor leader for the Green Party, it was a déjà vu experience: "They (the caricatures), remind me of the anti-Jewish drawings from the Hitler era before 1939." With his statement, Kuhn, who was born in 1955, demonstrated that either he had a sensational pre-natal memory or that he had never seen a single anti-Semitic caricature in the Nazi's Der Stürmer propaganda newspaper.

Like Eunuchs Talking about Sex

It was like listening to the blind talk about art, the deaf about music or eunuchs discussing sex based on hearsay. Because with the exception of the left-wing Die Tageszeitung, the conservative Die Welt and the centrist Die Zeit, every German newspaper and magazine followed the advice of Green Party co-leader Claudia Roth, who said "de-escalation begins at home," and erred on the side of caution by not republishing the cartoons. Prominent German psychoanalyst Horst-Eberhard Richter advised: "The West should refrain from any provocations that produce feelings of debasement or humiliation." Of course, Richter left open the question of whether "the West" should also refrain from the wearing of mini skirts, eating pork and the legalization of same-sex partnerships in order to avoid causing any feelings of debasement and humiliation in the Islamic world.

Had the Muhammed cartoons been reprinted by the whole German press, then newspaper readers could have seen for themselves how excessively harmless the 12 cartoons were and how bizarre and pointless the whole debate had become. Instead, the assessment was left to "experts" who had in the past defended every criticism of the pope and the Church as well as every blasphemous piece of art in the name of freedom of opinion, but who, in the case of the Muhammad cartoons, suddenly held the view that one must take other people's religious feelings into consideration.

But that argument was clearly just an excuse, a way of excusing the fact they had been silenced by fear. After all, a few things had happened in the time between the Rushdie affair and the caricatures debacle: 9/11, the London bombings, Madrid, Bali, Jakarta, Djerba -- events which some commentators have also interpreted as a reaction by the Islamic world to its degradation and humiliation by the West. Against this threat, it seemed more reasonable and, above all, safer, to show respect to religious feelings rather than insist on the right to freedom of expression.

Right to Offend More Important than Protecting the Offended

Very few people showed a willingness to break ranks. Among them was comedian Rowan Atkinson ("Mr. Bean"), who in the context of a debate over British proposed incitement of religious hatred legislation, declared that "right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended." And Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a secular Muslim woman then living in the Netherlands, responded with a manifesto that began with the words: "I am here to defend the right to offend."

But she was one of the few exceptions. Even the then-French president, Jacques Chirac, temporarily forgot that he represented the country of Sartre, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, and decreed that "anything that could offend the faith of others, especially religious beliefs, must be avoided."

Thus began the "de-escalation" that had been called for. The only problem is the other side isn't thinking about de-escalation. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie is still in effect, and the attempt to murder Kurt Westergaard last week wasn't the first attempt to carry out a death sentence for an instance in which no crime had been committed. Islam may be the "religion of peace" in theory, but it looks different in practice.

A German-Turkish lawyer who lives in central Berlin recently had to go into hiding because she became the recipient of death threats after publishing a book. The tome doesn't include any caricatures of Muhammad. It's just the title that serves as a provocation: " Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654704,00.html)."

There is a saying in German: "Fear is a bad advisor". and I would add: weakness is no virtue, but the inability to form options, alternatives, defences. Only strength can achieve this. weakness - never is anything else but just this: weakness.

[Tribesman]

There is a saying in German: "Fear is a bad advisor".
Fear ? As in Islamophobia and Xenophobia.
Thanks for the advise, I shalll be sure to be careful of these evil foriegn muslims who are planning to take over the world.:up:

[Onkel Neal]

It's not Islamaphobia to recognize the patterns of violence exhibited by some fanatical Muslims.

[Tribesman]

It's not Islamaphobia to recognize the patterns of violence exhibited by some fanatical Muslims.
But it is to take them few fanatics and their views and use them as a measure of islam as a whole, just as it is a phobia to think that them few nuts are going to take over the world.....and of course its a real sign of how bad the phobia has become when Sky repeatedly insists that non-existant laws are real.

[Skybird]

A brilliant and sharp comment by Hamed Abdel-Samad, a native Muslim himself, he teaches history and politology at the university of Munich. He is author of a german book, translated title "My farewell to heaven. A muslim's life in Germany".

Unfortunately it is in German. If I'm bored this afternoon, I'll translate it.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/kommentare/Islam-Mohammed-Karikaturen-Kurt-Westergaard;art141,2992562


Ungeachtet dessen wird der afrikanische Islam nicht selten als Beweis für die Heterogenität und Anpassungsfähigkeit des Islam gepriesen. Er galt lange als Argument, dass es „den einen Islam“ nicht gibt. Selbstverständlich ist der Islam vielfältig in seinen Strömungen und Ausprägungen, und natürlich kann niemand behaupten, dass über eine Milliarde Muslime zwischen Indonesien und Marokko eine gleichgeschaltete Masse bilden – und dennoch kann man von einem Islam sprechen. Denn die Unterschiede mögen für Theologen, Ethnologen und Kunsthistoriker von Interesse sein, politisch gesehen sind sie ziemlich irrelevant. Wenn wir vom Islam reden, meinen wir nicht volkstümliche Erscheinungsbilder, sondern meist die politische Ideologie und die Geisteshaltung, die dem Glaubenssystem Islam entspringen. Es geht um den Islam, der den Westen als eine feindselige gleichgeschaltete Masse sieht und sich davon in jeder Form abgrenzt.

Wenn Muslime selbst vom Islam reden, im Zusammenhang etwa mit der Einführung von Islamunterricht an europäischen Schulen oder der Beantragung des Status einer Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts, dürfen sie von einem einzigen Islam reden. Wenn Muslime von der „Religion des Friedens“ sprechen, sagen sie nicht, welchen Islam sie meinen. Wenn aber Islamkritik auftaucht, kommt ein Taschenspielertrick, um die Kritik abzuwürgen: Von welchem Islam reden Sie überhaupt?
(...)
Das berühmte Zitat des Rechtsphilosophen Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde „Der freiheitliche, säkularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann“ wird gerne durch religiöse Institutionen so verstanden, als seien die Religionen die einzigen Lieferanten dieser Voraussetzungen als Erzeuger von Moral und Solidarität. Ich dagegen interpretiere Böckenfördes These so, dass jede Demokratie nicht nur von den Gesetzen, sondern auch von der Geisteshaltung der Menschen lebt, die diese Gesetze hervorgebracht haben. Viele zugewanderte Muslime in Europa befinden sich außerhalb dieses Konsenses, da sie die europäischen Erfahrungen, die diese Geisteshaltung zustande brachten, nie teilten. Sie halten ihre eigene Geisteshaltung für höher und moralischer. Auch darüber muss verhandelt werden.


In another article he raised my attention by the headline: "In Europe you get muzzled faster than a counter-argument can be given.": http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/anderemeinung/Minarette-Schweiz-Integration-Islam;art22196,2963775

[Skybird]

Done. Needless to say that I question his comment of Islam Light in Europe. He talks of taking Sharia and the aggressive mission away from Islam, and this Islam Light then still being Islam. My argument always has been that this is no Islam at all, then, and that it is impossible to take Sharia out of Islam. With the rest of the text I agree very much.

-----

Hamed Abdel-Samad:

And it nevertheless exist: the just one Islam!


After the unsuccessful climate summit, the Danish capital does not find rest. During christmas night, 760 appartements had been robbed and got devastated, including mine. But that did not sadden the general happy mood. Skaet er skaet, what happened has happened, my Danish neighbour commented very relaxed, who got robbed, too. But right on time with the beginning of the new year, the city gets shaken by the failled assassination of the 74-year old cartoonist Kurt Wetsergaard. More than four years after the controversial muhammad cartoons, a 28-year old wanted to take revenge by knife and axe.

This assassination attempt reminds me of christmas night again, this time not of the robberies taking place, but of another failed assassination - the one against the American passanger plane. There also the candidate for paradise was a Muslim with black-african background.

Often it is claimed that the West creates the globalisation, Asians deal with it in creative ways, Muslim were reactionary, and Africans were passiv. hat about those who are Africans and Muslims at the same time? How passive are these? I do not even mention the Sharia in nigeria, the war in Somalia and Darfur.

Despite that, African islam often gets praised as an evidence for the "heterogeneity" and adaptability of Islam. For long time it served as the argument for the claim that "the one Islam" does not exist. Of course Islam is diverse in it's trends and shapings, and of course nobody can claim that over one billion Muslims between Indonesia and Marocco form one conform mass - but still one can speak of just one Islam. Becasue the differences may be interesting for theologists, ethnologists and art-historians, but politically they are rather irrelevant. When we talk of islam, we do not mean folksy appearances, but the political ideology and the attitude of mind that meet the belief system of Islam. It is about the Islam that sees the West as a hostile, conformal mass from which it strictly fences itself off in every way.

"I am sure that the complete Somali community in Denmark turns against this assault on Westergaard", said the the speaker of this community, Mohammed Gelle, which is a rather daring statement when taking into account that 16000 somalis live in Denmark.But it is no surprising comment for somebody who labels Islam a "religion of peace".

When Muslims themselves talk of Islam, for example in connection with teaching Islami classes at european schools or applying for getting the status of a corporation of public law (?, = Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts), they are allowed to talk of just one single Islam. When Muslims talk of the "relgion of peace", they do not say which Islam they mean. But when a critic of Islam shows up, immediately a cheat by sleight of hand gets used, to scotch criticsm from the very beginning on: "After all, what kind of Islam are you talking about?"
Of what kind of Alcohol are we talking , when we say "too much alcohol harms your health"? Yes, alcohol gets used to produce medicine, or for cooking, but these purposes are not the matter of interest when we talk of the social effects of alcohol. Yes, there are different kinds of alcohol, with different effects. It depends on the volume you consume, and the same is true for Islam. High-proof islam in huge volumes harms coexistence and living together, it hinders integration, becasue this Islam divides the world into friend and enemy, faithful and infidel , and it does not tolerate any other identity beside itself. It is not about Muslims that fopcus on the sprioitual side of Islam, but those many that in every situation of ordinary life grab for the bottle of Islamic dogmas.

Three days before the assassination attempt against Westergaard, I was sitting in the office of Flemming Rose, editor of the culture ressort for the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, and original creator of the idea for the muhammad cartoons. the cartoons were not the theme of our talk. I told him of a striking observation that had gotten my attention: that so very many Somali women walk full of pride with their headscarfs through Copenhagen. This being-Muslim, that obviously has annulled their African identity, seems to be their only source of self-confidence.

Africans in Europe often complain about increasing discrimination, not only by autochthonous, but also by people with migration background. But if they convert to Islam, they perceive it as rising in social status, because their race gets replaced with religion - and suddenly they are being recognised as brothers and sisters. Some even exaggerate it and chose terror as a means of communication to emphasize their membership to the Umma - like the Nigerian and the Somali assassins.

It isno longer a question of centre and periphery. No matter whether in Cairo, Karatchi, Jakarta, Lagos, Berlin or Copenhagen: radical Islam is on the advance. It is not about what is written in the Quran, but about most Muslims' attitude towards this book as the ultimate word of God and as an oracle that gets asked about every issue and aspect of ordinary life. By nature alcohol is neither good nor evil, but it raises the mood that already exists, it makes the passiv more passiv and the aggressive more aggressive. And the mood in the Islamic world seems to be very crummy currently. but this Islamci world is no longer a distant, exotic place behind the ocean. but Muslims live here in Europe, they have demands and want to become more visible. that is okay - but at what conditions?

How does Europe want to live together with people that were not there when Europe established the rules of living together, and who do not feel obligated to share these rules? Do we just say skaet er skaet? will there be again the talk of "single perpetrators" who only "hijacked" Islam in abuse? Will we continue to discuss the "heterogeinity" of islam, until - as always - the debate just fizzles out in an useless open end? Or will one - finally - need to negotiate with Muslims the rules of living together much more detaied and more courageous and more determined? For me, only an "Islam Light" has a future in europe: without Sharia, without djihad, without sexual apartheid, without missionising and without a mentality to always raise demands.

The famous quote by the juristic philosopher Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde "The free, secular state lives by preconditions that it cannot guarantee by itself" often gets understood by religious institutions as if religions are the only suppliers of these preconditions as creators of morals and solidarity. But I interprete Böckenförde's thesis in that way that every democracy does not live only by it's laws, but by the mental attitude of the people that created them. Many immigrated Muslims in Europe are outside this consensus, because they never shared the the European experience that created this mental attitude. they consider there own mental attiotude as being higher and more moral. This also has to be questioned with them.

[Skybird]

The Somalis currently seem to have a run. Now they are after a Swedish cartoonist:

http://www.thelocal.se/24198/20100104/

As is linked in that article, they also make massive use of Sweden as a recruitment base for terrorists - in youth centres.


http://www.thelocal.se/23212/20091111/

Disclaimer: As alaways, i can assure that religion has nothing to do with it. The women quoted in that article, saying "it is part of our religion", is blatantly lying.

[Tribesman]

Needless to say that I question his comment of Islam Light in Europe. He talks of taking Sharia and the aggressive mission away from Islam, and this Islam Light then still being Islam. My argument always has been that this is no Islam at all, then, and that it is impossible to take Sharia out of Islam.
Yet since you repeatedly demonstrate that you havn't the faintest idea what sharia is and the only interpretation of Islam you accept is the same as the modern fundamentalist fruitcakes from the backwaters of crapsville, it means you have no arguement just a phobia.

[Respenus]

Yet since you repeatedly demonstrate that you havn't the faintest idea what sharia is and the only interpretation of Islam you accept is the same as the modern fundamentalist fruitcakes from the backwaters of crapsville, it means you have no arguement just a phobia.

Far from it Tribesman. I cannot say that I have the same amount of knowledge on Islam as Skybird or someone else has, yet the articles I've read in order to write my latest essay clearly spoke of what Skybird has said. Mind you, they were written by Muslims themselves, not by some "crackpot" western who thinks he knows a thing or two about Islam. As Skybird has written in the first post of the essay topic, Shari'ah is necessary in order to comprehend Islam, as it is interwoven into the very fabric of the religion. The same thing is claimed by female Muslim academics in the west (so that you won't just say that I'm talking about hardcore Iranian scholars or the like), that Shari'ah is a part of their religion and that you cannot remove it. They argue, as Skybird has pointed out, that a different interpretation of the text must take place, not that the text itself would be removed.

Please, do not take this as an offence of any sort Tribesman, yet some sort of an academic standard is demanded in any discussion when presenting arguments for someone's case. You calling Skybird over and over again a person with Islamophobia, without offering a different interpretation based on fact, both in scripture and empirical research, is nothing short of an attack on Skybird's academic integrity, one that he has proven, at least to me, over and over again.

[kiwi_2005]

The White Rose were outright fools. They should have known better with the Nazi'S state that if you criticise it expect to be put on their wanted list and murdered sometime in the near future. Its no different than if i went and drawed a cartoon mocking Saddam's ego making him look like a sadomasochistic gay or something. What would happen? To tyrants like the Nazis, their ego, claim for power and control, and their reputation is everything, you cannot go round insulting their self-legitimation and expect to not be done over for it. Mock the democrats or the humanists, and a finger wont be lifted, im talking modern times here, in some cases they have complained but never put out a hit on the persons. Mock Hitler or Stalin or Saddam and you better go into hiding...

Best dont go there.

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I get your point. :) I don't know who the White Rose are but if they protested while in germany at the time then yes they're fools too.! :shifty: Back then in WW2 cartoonist made mock drawings of Hitler / nazis while living in America or Britain with no threat to their lives, same with Saddam in the 80s/90s. With Islamic extremists though every cartoonist knows or should know that if they insult their God no matter where they hide what country they live in sooner or later they're going to be missing their heads. So those cartoonist who still choose to mock are just asking for it. Besides cartoonist who work this way are not making a point they are just sh*t stirring.

[Respenus]

Kiwi, I do hope that you are just messing around with what you've said about the White Rose.

I'd advise you to check this (http://www.viruscomix.com/page474.html) out, as a short intro into what the divide was about in the past and what it is now. Sure it's limited in scope and incomplete, yet it gets the point apart.

[Skybird]

White Rose: maybe better known are the names of Sophie and her brother Hans Scholl. They were at the centre of a resistance and protest circle that circulated flyers where they called for resistance to the Nazis, and brandmakred them as an evil, criminal regime. They finally got caught, brought to tribunal at the Volksgerichtshof, and executed by Guillotine almost on the same day.

The White Rose is held in high honour for its valor and honesty even in the face of their own death.

The text of the six leaflets they managed to bring out, can be found here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/wrleaflets.html

An extremely disturbing, moving, yet unsentimental movie about them, is this, but be advised this movie is not for the faint of heart:
http://www.amazon.com/Sophie-Scholl-Final-Julia-Jentsch/dp/B000H5V8H2/ref=sr_1_1/189-0727063-4788350?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262719723&sr=1-1

It was on my mind for a long time after I saw it. And I am not ashamed to admit that I cried. The atmosphere in the movie is extremely dense and depressing. To stick to your opinion and not pick the easy path under the overwhelming pressure of circumstances like this, gains my maximum of respect.

[Tribesman]

Respenus. The thing is that he seems to insist there is only one interpretation of both sharia and islam and that anything that is not of that single interrpretation cannot be real.
The simple fact that he takes a single relatively new form of interpretation as his true measure shows his closed minded approach to the subject.
It would be the same as taking the Christian Identity approach to scripture and applying it to all Christianity. Its easy to back that up by simply taking individual little bits of the Identity message and finding a wide variety of groups who will each agree with one or two differnt bits. Bundling all those groups and all those little bits together doesn't prove that Christian Identity relays a true interpretation or that Christians agree with their interpretation.

So Respenus the Islamophobia accusation stems not from his seeming wide knowledge, it stems from his refusal to accept that there are differnt versions ....and of course his belief in the global muslim conspiracy to take over the earth in a worldwide united caliphate....which has about as much bearing on reality as a proposal for the Muslims to stop fighting each other over thier differnt interpretations like they have been for the past 1500 years.