Muslim uproar - (Merged)

[Skybird]

Party time! :()1:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5347876.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5348436.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873167,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/15/pope.islam/index.html
http://www.welt.de/data/2006/09/15/1037631.html
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E128628988B514DEC9EB56459FBE8A7BC~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html

So far, minor or no coverage in those US and French medias that I scan (certainly not all, and Herald Tribune link currently broken). However, Al Jazeera surprisingly is silent about it, too (they have a current headline of Egypt groups wanting to quit treaties with Israel, calling the end of peace treaties "real democracy" for the ME).

Threats from officials of the Turkish government. A parliamentarian resolution from Pakistan. Intimidation from the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood, and the even more "radical" workers party. Self-deception and angry balking from the central commitee of muslims in Germany. Angry comments by the OIC. Mass protests in Kashmir. Rallies along africa'S North, protests in the Me countries, demonstrations in Asian places as well. And more angry official comments from Quatar, India, Indonesia, Algeria...

Of course, it all has been peace and love and truth in Islam history, whereas christianity again is reminded that the crusades were unjustified aggression (against Isamic attack and invasion, which usually is not told), and still live until today, and Islam has been it'S poor, poor victim, and that there are so many lies being told about Islam today, and that Muslims demand this, and demand that, and apologies needed, ans serious concerns, and blablablabla and lots of gobbelgobbelgobbel.

This is the paragraph in original that spiked current emotions. It holds nothing nothing nothing anyone needs to apologize for, and the pope made it clear that he is quoting already existant words anyway.


In der von Professor Khoury herausgegebenen siebten Gesprächsrunde kommt der Kaiser auf das Thema des Djihad (heiliger Krieg) zu sprechen. Der Kaiser wußte sicher, daß in Sure 2, 256 steht: Kein Zwang in Glaubenssachen – es ist eine der frühen Suren aus der Zeit, in der Mohammed selbst noch machtlos und bedroht war. Aber der Kaiser kannte natürlich auch die im Koran niedergelegten – später entstandenen – Bestimmungen über den heiligen Krieg. Ohne sich auf Einzelheiten wie die unterschiedliche Behandlung von „Schriftbesitzern“ und „Ungläubigen“ einzulassen, wendet er sich in erstaunlich schroffer Form ganz einfach mit der zentralen Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Religion und Gewalt überhaupt an seinen Gesprächspartner. Er sagt: „Zeig mir doch, was Mohammed Neues gebracht hat und da wirst du nur Schlechtes und Inhumanes finden wie dies, daß er vorgeschrieben hat, den Glauben, den er predigte, durch das Schwert zu verbreiten“. Der Kaiser begründet dann eingehend, warum Glaubensverbreitung durch Gewalt widersinnig ist. Sie steht im Widerspruch zum Wesen Gottes und zum Wesen der Seele. „Gott hat kein Gefallen am Blut, und nicht vernunftgemäß zu handeln, ist dem Wesen Gottes zuwider. Der Glaube ist Frucht der Seele, nicht des Körpers. Wer also jemanden zum Glauben führen will, braucht die Fähigkeit zur guten Rede und ein rechtes Denken, nicht aber Gewalt und Drohung . . . Um eine vernünftige Seele zu überzeugen, braucht man nicht seinen Arm, nicht Schlagwerkzeuge noch sonst eines der Mittel, durch die man jemanden mit dem Tod bedrohen kann “.


In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (F×< 8`(T) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

the complete speech in original German words can be found here:
http://www.faz.net/s/RubBF7CD2794CEC4B87B47C719A68C59339/Doc~E13506B0B9C304B269D3CF78C543B2E42~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html

The English translation here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

I hope no apology takes place (for what?) Let Islam drown in hysteria again for all world to see it's lying face and selfish, sly self-deception. Time to stop being obedient servants for the interests of Islam. I need a bucket nearby, just in case I can't hold it.

Maybe we should have a yearly championship for Muslim performances of self-deception and mass-hysteria, we could hold it at Monte Carlo and call this festivity a "Hysterial", and award the three highest scoring contributions some kind of an award to show them how much we care and really take them seriously. Little marcipane figures of Muhammad, or a golden box with a set of beer mats with ol' boy's face. :up:

[The Avon Lady]

Hey now, if the Pope doesn't retract his accusations of Islam promoting violence, Muslims around the world might respond violently! :hmm:

And that would be the Pope's fault! :yep:

[Immacolata]

Excitable lot, aren't they?

WE had it last time. Torching of our embassy in Damascus, riots in the streets of Indonesia. At least the saudis merely boycotted danish dairy products for some months. That was the closest thing to a rational reaction I saw from that conflict.

[Skybird]

Good man, that is. and I knew it! ;) I knew that he would not turn out to be the tough hardliner many feared, he was called the "Panzer-Kardinal" over here. His faces change with the official positions he holds, and pope is a different job than being boss of the congregation. In a long TV-interview with German TV two or three weeks ago he chuckled when being confronted with a remark that he had been expected to be like this, ,or like that, saying that people have divided him into so many sub-personalities that he cannot count his many parts anymore, something like this he said. but he was always one and the same man, he said, just doing different jobs that came with different responsebilities. From what i have red from his writings, he has a laser-sharp mind. I can only recommend to read some of his many stuff, it goes both to the heart and the intellect and shows his fundament in greek philosophy. Now, that is a pope with whom I can deal, for a change. His predecessor I found disgusting.

[Onkel Neal]

Muslim fury at pope jihad comments
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/15/pope.islam/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/15/pope.islam/index.html)

We never hear "Muslims fury at terrorists using their religion as basis for murder and mayhem" :roll:

[Immacolata]

Perhaps because they aren't spoon fed gov't propaganda about evil america. Im pretty sure half of this is due to selective information propagation. The other is becacuse they have no democracy. I wonder what it is that makes it so hard for Middle eastern countries to have a democratic gov't and voting system.

[Skybird]

I need to mark this day in my calender - Neal has made a contribution in an Islam-related-thread. Nice party last night, Neal? How many drinks? :-j

BTW, I had already included your link in my list of links! http://www.langkawi.dk/smileys/b330.gif

[Skybird]

Perhaps because they aren't spoon fed gov't propaganda about evil america. Im pretty sure half of this is due to selective information propagation. The other is becacuse they have no democracy. I wonder what it is that makes it so hard for Middle eastern countries to have a democratic gov't and voting system.
Quran. Hadith. Sharia. Muhammad. Absence of democarcy and market economy is not root of their problems, but a symptom of their problems. That's why "bringing them democracy" fails.

[The Avon Lady]

Turkey demands an apology.

Pakistan, too.

So does this animal (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/013106.php).

BTW, for those who have appreciated her endeavors, Oriana Fallaci has passed away (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013111.php). RIP.

[Immacolata]

No, that is so easy. Just blame people's religion and you are free to ignore anything. Follow the money instead. Who gains by this?

[Skybird]

No, that is so easy. Just blame people's religion and you are free to ignore anything. Follow the money instead. Who gains by this?
For me it is not even a religion, but a political agenda, aiming at totalitarian control of society, and subjugating societies that are not already part of it by force, violance, war, lies, bribing, deception, infiltration, colonization - whatever it takes. That ruthless Western economists and plutocratic elites and family clans like the Bushs (but also so many others!) make profit by doing opportunistic business with hostile factions does not change the fundemantal queerness in Islamic "thoelogy", it's lack of self-testing and self-analysis, self-reflecting and uncensored theollogical research on the matter of Islam. In Quran school, "studying the Quran/Islam" means effectively only this: learning it word by word (the word quran has a linguistcal root leading to a translated meaning of "recitation"), copying the teachers comments uncritically, not raising questions about it. Like I just wrote yesterday: not asking "is the quran right?" but "Why is it that the quran is always right?"

So, you can rightfully criticise both Islam and western plutocratic structures (what I do, btw.), but do not lead back one problem to the other. You are dealing with two independant problems, not one that is also causing the other. The problem with Islam is very much the religion and teaching itself, the content, the message, the ideology; the demand and self-perception of being for the best of all mankind, so that it is even in mankind's interest to be subjugated by Islam. that's why it sees no harm in using force against infidels. We infidels must be forced into our luck, you see. It does not compare to any other religion.

[STEED]

News of the World, headline

Former Hitler youth member bites back.

I bet they wished they ran that one. :lol:

[monkee]

I've lived 12 years as christian in Islamic country. All muslims I knew were against fundamentalism. I don't have problems with their theology. IMO any theology can/will be abused.

[Oberon]

Hmmm, better let Bruno Platter know that he'd better start arming his recruits...we're marching against Islam!!

http://www.deryni.net/images/templar.jpg

[Skybird]

I've lived 12 years as christian in Islamic country. All muslims I knew were against fundamentalism. I don't have problems with their theology. IMO any theology can/will be abused.
Define difference between "Islam" and "fundamentalism".

[The Avon Lady]

News of the World, headline

Former Hitler youth member bites back.

I bet they wished they ran that one. :lol:
They did (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/013112.php).:yep:

[monkee]

same difference as christian and their fundamentalism and judaism vs zionism.

Not every muslims follow all the guidelines in the Quran.
The same way that not all christians would follow all Bible guidelines like:

Stoning fortune tellers to death
Death sentence for cursing one own's parents
Death sentence for adultery
Kill homosexuals
Kill non believers
etc...

[Skybird]

Christianity and fundamentalism, and the church as a third faction settled somewhere between these two. Christianity, depending on the Christ and his teachings, as covered by definition in the four gosples in the new testament, probably best interpreted by the tradition of the so-called Christian mystic. Fundamentalism then being founded on - what? Old testament? Psalms? Letters? Probably. the bible is of that structure, an ancient and archaic teaching (OT), and then Christ who said he did not came to obey the old teachings, but to fulfill prophecies. Later, afetr the gospels, the ursurpation of authority by Paul, but that is another story. The formulation Jesus choosed is extremely important, for it indicates what he wants to express: fulfillment, instead of carrying on with the old tradition. that means an end to something, because it got fulfilled, something new therefore is started: Christ's teachings that new thing was. By ending the old dogma of the old God, he was a thread to the privileges of the pharisees depending on the old teachings to found their earthly power and influence, thus they tried to get rid of him.

Now, show me a comparable kind of structure in the Quran. By language analysis some suras can be attributed to Muhammads time in Mekka, and other Suras that seem to have their origin in his time in medina (none of them has been written by himself, btw, for he could neither read nor write). But you have no formal structure, no division of the Quran into several parts or sections, In fact the quran is only one complete section, without further supplementations, adn the closer to the end you come, the more ocnfused an impresison the (increasingly shorter) Suras give, until you think they are just hasty notes written down in haste on a piece of paper, as a reminder for later. Islam also claims it has been given as a complete whole, and did not emerge over a time period, it did not develope, was not adjusted, supplemented, or anything like this (different to what the churches today admit about the way the bible was formed). there is no such thing like Old testament (eye for an eye and so on), and four gospels ending that kind of thinking in the Quran. Quran compares not to the bible, it only compares to the oldest parts of the bible. The archaic, unforgiving ones. So, if in Christianity these old parts of the bible are "fundamentalistic", and Islam'S pendant in scripture only holds a comparable fundamentalistic content to this part of the bible, but has no pendant to the other ones, nothing like a reformating "four gospels", how could Islam produce anything that is not Islamic-fundamentalistic? In fact it never has, those heretics, often bright thinkers, that tried to point at the limits of the quran and wanted a free testing and questioning of Islam's scriptures - by that had left the ground of true Islam that in the overwhelming majority of cases they were imprisoned or murdered. the only way of Islam to defend itself agaisnt questions and doubts about why it is how it is - is by wiping out these questions, for it has no answers that would stand a reasonable testing.

It is sometimes said that all religions are hostile against reason and logic, for they cannot cope with these. That is not true of

a.) Buddha, who even ordered and demanded for reasonably analysis instead of believing, and logic (he is said to even have outhought greek philosophers of his time that seeked him for dispute, and they later amditted their defeat and some gave up their former philosophical tradition and studied buddhist psychology instead); and

b.) i have no problem to see reason and logic in Jesus' teachings as well, I can approach them the same way approach Buddhist psychology: one only needs to understand that the verbal symbols he uses must no longer be decyphered in the archaic way older parts of the bible had been encoded in, means: Jesus taught a new conception of what God is, and that has nothing in common with the God of the old testament, but is more metaphoric, and not to be taken literally (one of the problems with Chriszian and islamic fundamentalists as well: word-for-word interpretation, thinking in absolute literal ways: the archaic religion before Jesus' appearance has been, and all of Islam still is like that).

Islam IS fundamentalism, and exclusively so, and it is very much a "mono-cockpit", made of one piece only - you cannot strip it of some things you do not like, like christians in the following of the Christ's teachings can (and must!) reject much of what has been said in older parts of the bible. A Muslim doing so feels the illness and incompleteness of Islam's teaching, that is good for him for he is aware that he suffers a deficit, so he is yearning for more, western rights and values for example. By that he is no more muslim, but an apostate that is not willing or unable to admit that he already has rejected Islam. There is a reason why moderate "Muslims" and Muslim governments cooperating with the West and trying to implement certain western measures (legal systems for example) get targeted by "fundamentalistic Muslims" as well. For they are rightfully defined as treachery, and islam's teachings do not allow apostacy.

What I ask is why such Muslims that are no Muslim anymore, nevertheless reject to end their official following of this islamic ideology, and are offended when one is telling them that they are violating integral parts of what they claim is still their belief. I also ask why they remain so damn passive about Islamic aggression, and deficits in Islamic culture and nations, are so eager to "conquer" (in the widest sense of the word) new hunting ground, and even allow "extremists" to commit mass murder and war and terror in the name of that wonderful ideology these moderate muslims claim they still want to be a part of. "Moderate muslims" are contradicting themselves. For me, they are deeply confused and illogical people.

Just btw, most of the last year'S Muslim attackers in London, Madrid, are said to be coming from integrated, eductaed families. They had jobs, and perspectives, where considered to be ordinary, normal, kind. Nevertheless, western culture somehow did not find entrance into their Islamic thinking, obviously, or was driven out by Islamic thinking again. I wonder why this is so...

How many terror acts we have seen that were commited by christian fundamentalists in modern times? How many uproars of Christians about the DAILY massive insultings and mocking at Jews and Christians in Arab and Palestinian TV programs, calling them swine people, telling Islamic kids that they are no humans, but the offsprings of donkeys and apes??

You are chasing shadows.

[Onkel Neal]

I've lived 12 years as christian in Islamic country. All muslims I knew were against fundamentalism. I don't have problems with their theology. IMO any theology can/will be abused.

That's good. It's what I want to believe. I just wish normal Muslims would speak out against the bad ones, not just anyone who says something about Islam.

Sorry, Sky. :p I guess I couldn't resist.

[TteFAboB]

To put it in one sentence, the Pope has said that it is irrational to spread faith through violence.

Every Muslim or anybody else who is criticizing and protesting against the Pope, thus, believes otherwise. They criticize a critic of the use of violence.

We urgently need to stimulate Islamic theology, they desperately need to develop logic. I've tried pinching a Sunni Imam but it's irrelevant to work with these Imams who live outside the Muslim world, they eventually crack, succumb and start speaking what you want to hear because they can only be possibly accepted for what they appear to be and not for what they really are. We need to move forward, not pretend reality does not exist, ignore the problem.

I suggest all these critics receive an invitation to a theological debate in the Vatican. Not with Ratzinger, however, he is one of the greatest and most brilliant philosopher ever and he'd crunch, chew and spit the Islamic clerics just like Muhammad was massacrated by the Jewish rabbis back in his day. Considering the precedent, such a thing might be rather counter-productive. Of course, the difference being that Muhammad attempted, today's clerics rarely even try dwelling in theology - have you noticed not even a single theological argument was sent to the Pope? Only impressions, opinions and lies.

We musn't use comfortable excuses not to investigate, to stay away from philosophy, for this is exactly the reason why Islam is what it is: 1400 years of theology being confined to closed and small groups of clerics - those who strayed too far and started to develop an ethic different to Islam were promptly "silenced", meaning Islam does not know how to defend itself nor solve the contradictory for they never had to, up to this point.

EDIT: Damn, I started writing this post before Skybird posted his last one. I'm sorry if he makes me sound repetitive, but I've only read him now.

those heretics, often bright thinkers, that tried to point at the limits of the quran and wanted a free testing and questioning of Islam's scriptures - by that had left the ground of true Islam that in the overwhelming majority of cases they were imprisoned or murdered. the only way of Islam to defend itself agaisnt questions and doubts about why it is how it is - is by wiping out these questions, for it has no answers that would stand a reasonable testing.

[Onkel Neal]

same difference as christian and their fundamentalism and judaism vs zionism.

Not every muslims follow all the guidelines in the Quran.
The same way that not all christians would follow all Bible guidelines like:

Stoning fortune tellers to death
Death sentence for cursing one own's parents
Death sentence for adultery
Kill homosexuals
Kill non believers
etc...

Well said!
Yes, the Bible, Old Testament and New, prescribes some insane (by today's standards) rules and punishments for transgressions. Most Jews and Christians pay no attention to stuff like:

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 -If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

That's a direct commandment from the Lord yet even the most Bible-as-literal-truth fundamental Christians ignore it. And my point: if any Christians did try to implement such a barbaric law, the rest of the Christians would oppose and condemn such behavior. They wouldn't be silent and then "outraged" when some non-Christian said such a law was evil.
The ME Muslims, I can understand them being "outraged" for everything, they're pretty ignorant. But the western world Muslims, they should not be so silent. As I said before, IMO, western/moderate Muslims should get their religious house in order and spare us their indignation.

[Skybird]

That's a direct commandment from the Lord yet even the most Bible-as-literal-truth fundamental Christians ignore it. And my point: if any Christians did try to implement such a barbaric law, the rest of the Christians would oppose and condemn such behavior. They wouldn't be silent and then "outraged" when some non-Christian said such a law was evil.
The ME Muslims, I can understand them being "outraged" for everything, they're pretty ignorant. But the western world Muslims, they should not be so silent. As I said before, IMO, western/moderate Muslims should get their religious house in order and spare us their indignation.


Well said. :up:

[Immacolata]

Perhaps that is all the islamic religion needs. A sound theological overhaul to drag it into the 21st century, screaming and kicking. Awful lot of screaming and kickin' going on already. Just isn't well on the dragging side of things.

It would help if some of the oh-so-liberal-egalitarian european countries would create a modern theological faculty for islamic studies. Not just the dissection of ancient text but actual education of imams and theological study. Might even develop some new doctrines out of it. Problem is perhaps that today the imams are educated in countries that are not keen on that kind of debate.

[Skybird]

Perhaps that is all the islamic religion needs. A sound theological overhaul to drag it into the 21st century, screaming and kicking. Awful lot of screaming and kickin' going on already. Just isn't well on the dragging side of things.

It would help if some of the oh-so-liberal-egalitarian european countries would create a modern theological faculty for islamic studies. Not just the dissection of ancient text but actual education of imams and theological study. Might even develop some new doctrines out of it. Problem is perhaps that today the imams are educated in countries that are not keen on that kind of debate.
We have such academies in Germany. As far as I know, all of them are rated as extremely hostile towards the constitution, our Bundesverfassungsschutz reports year for year. they are under constant obervations, but demands of the BVS to shut them down for the BVS has things no longer under control, are ignored by politicians. Most famous one is the Saudi-founded king Fahd-academy in Bonn. BVS lists it as a centre of terror-breeding.

See my longer remarks here that adress that problem, too:
http://people.freenet.de/Skybird/DialogueWithIslam.rtf

You cannot squeeze out of Islamic ideology what it does not include, in any way or another. That's why educating imams in Europe will not work (it is the old idea of Europe'S left and Eurocrats to create an Euro-Islam by that). But that is feeding the beast with your own hand, and literally so. What would the church's religion be withoiut Jesus? No new testament, only the old one. No christianity therefore, just that old hack-'n-slay-stories of the OT. It would effectviely be where Islam has been and still is today thorughout all the last 13 centuries. Problem is - Islam does not hold those potentials like other religions. It stagnated, it had no one coming after Muhammad. no parallelfigure to jesus. Only the old dogma, and stagnation. No reformation. no enlightenment. no dispute, only the riigid sticking to the reamrks of Muhammad, and that is all. Squeeze it as you want, you will not get much more out of it, no matter how many European academies you found.As far as I do have red information about several figures in Islamic history that had shown up with more liberal thiughts, and questions to Islam, all of these fiugures were not depending on the quran, but had stepped beyond it. They had left it behind in a way. And most payed with their freedom and/or their lifes with that. None was able to found a tradition that ever developed any signifoicant influence in the islamic world and changed the going of Islamic history.

That we in Germany is under pressure by Turkey to accept Turkish teachers and Imams in Germany, and Turkish language for educating, and that we do not state-control this process and shall not allow it being done by state-controlled Imams indicates that the reality is shifting towards exactly the opposite direction of what you wished for. I bet it is the same in all other European countries. Just look wherew Britain is standing today: a representiave survey showed just weeks ago that one third of Britiosh muslims would like to see sharia implemented, and excuse violance and terror acts if it helps to push islam in Britan and the West. the quote is even higher amongst the young ones. The British are fighting a lost battle, they were tolerant and reasonable for too long. One could also put it into other words: they were too arrogant for too lo0ng, assuming that their civilized superiority would be enough to tame Islam and domesticate it. Now the beast has escaped it's box, and grows stronger and stronger. Good luck, Britain. Luck will not help you, but such a phrase is considered to be well-meaning and polite when parting.

[Immacolata]

Ah, perhaps the rub is that your imam school is founded by Saudi people. They are amongst the most pig-headed and orthodox. I think that was a mistake. No the education should be part of the established european tradition of the university. That is how our vicars and priests have been educated for near a millennium now. Not involve dogmatists from the middle east. It was possible to squeeze jesus into judaism to found christianity, afterall.

But perhaps you are right. Where I live there isn't much leeway for muslims right now, and there is talk about evicting more or less all of the imams.

[Skybird]

It's cooking on.

http://www.welt.de/data/2006/09/15/1037631.html

2nd chairman of Turkish governmental party compared the pope to Hitler and Mussolini, saying he would be remembered by history as an equally evil figure. - Who is it now needing to excuse himself?

And Chameni from Iran said it is to be regretted that Christianity now is governed by such a shameless person that does not understand Islam (of course, we all misunderstand poor well-meaning islam, Mr. Chameni, we are just stupid, TV-drunken westerners, you know) and "unfortunately has offended it." (how new. How original. Next!) "Muslim have reacted to it and will keep on reacting." - Well, you infantile worthless full-time-sucker - unfortunately your stupid mindset and that of all the other infantile useless full-time-suckers in your muslim world are offending my intelligence and reason day in day out, week after week months after months, year after year. I have reacted to it, and will keep on reacting to it: not by stabbing your medieval-dressed imams on the streets, like you do with christian priests, and not by sending chrisztian militias to massacrate Muslim villagers, like you do, or telling lies aboiut history, like you do, but by brandmarking you as the aggressive, sly and backwardly primitive ape-men that you are.

What has the pope done? He illustrated that religion shall never be an excuse for violance, and shall not be propagated and spread by the use of violance, and that the use of violance to acchieve this necessarily is a violation of God's wishes himself. Judging by their modest and reasonable reactions, Muslims all over the world seem to have a problem with agreeing to that. :dead:

From Egypt their is a demand to the Muslim world, to threaten to brake all relations with the Vatican if the Pope does not apologize in person, and in public. - Well, all I can say: couldn't get much better than that! :yep: We should set up a petition encouraging to brake all ties. what, of course, they will never do - the conquest of the West is more important.

[mr chris]

It's cooking on.

http://www.welt.de/data/2006/09/15/1037631.html

2nd chairman of Turkish governmental party compared the pope to Hitler and Mussolini, saying he would be remembered by history as an equally evil figure. - Who is it now needing to excuse himself?

And Chameni from Iran said it is to be regretted that Christianity now is governed by such a shameless person that does not understand Islam (of course, we all misunderstand poor well-meaning islam, Mr. Chameni, we are just stupid, TV-drunken westerners, you know) and "unfortunately has offended it." (how new. How original. Next!) "Muslim have reacted to it and will keep on reacting." - Well, you infantile worthless full-time-sucker - unfortunately your stupid mindset and that of all the other infantile useless full-time-suckers in your muslim world are offending my intelligence and reason day in day out, week after week months after months, year after year. I have reacted to it, and will keep on reacting to it: not by stabbing your medieval-dressed imams on the streets, like you do with christian priests, and not by sending chrisztian militias to massacrate Muslim villagers, like you do, or telling lies aboiut history, like you do, but by brandmarking you as the aggressive, sly and backwardly primitive ape-men that you are.

What has the pope done? He illustrated that religion shall never be an excuse for violance, and shall not be propagated and spread by the use of violance, and that the use of violance to acchieve this necessarily is a violation of God's wishes himself. Judging by their modest and reasonable reactions, Muslims all over the world seem to have a problem with agreeing to that. :dead:

From Egypt their is a demand to the Muslim world, to threaten to brake all relations with the Vatican if the Pope does not apologize in person, and in public. - Well, all I can say: couldn't get much better than that! :yep: We should set up a petition encouraging to brake all ties. what, of course, they will never do - the conquest of the West is more important.

Spot on Skybird:yep: Could not have summed it up better myself.
Why should the pope say sorry, They have never said sorry for anything ever.
They just keep on moning thinking the world owes them a favor

[HunterICX]

:x an apology?

I,m still waiting for an apalogy made by all the muslims that called us INFIDELS

[waste gate]

I,m still waiting for an apalogy made by all the muslims that called us INFIDELS

And therein lies the rub. Muslims can say and do anything wihtout protest. Yet if a cartoon is drawn or a politician stands against Islam or the Ponitif speaks out against evil, the Muslim world is outraged. The more I see of their act the less likely I am to give an inch or look at their 'religion' in a politically correct manner.
Also the lack of outrage from what have been come to be termed as 'moderate Muslims' does not endear me to anyone who claims to be of that 'religion'.

It is time for all of us to wake up and see what is happening. These people want our lives.

[snowsub]

the pope wasn't the only one
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200609/INT20060911b.html

and the typical reply
The head of the government's own moderate Muslim advisory committee, Ameer Ali, said Howard risked inflaming tensions seen in rioting between white youths and Arab-Australians in Sydney last December.

But the prime minister refused to apologise and repeated his comments in an article written for Sydney's Daily Telegraph tabloid on Saturday.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/228337/1/.html
"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it," Howard said in a radio interview.

"People who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."

and backed up by his deputy
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20345166-1702,00.html

and he also called for muslins to recognise Israels right to exist

In comments to mark the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, Mr Howard said: "No decent genuine Muslim would support terrorism."
He also said Muslims must fully accept that Israel had a right to exist. Islamic leaders in Australia have reacted angrily to the comments, saying Mr Howard should not single out Muslims for criticism.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1699598/posts

Mr Howard was criticised two weeks ago for suggesting that a small minority of Muslim immigrants did not do enough to integrate into Australian society.
In an interview with The Australian newspaper on Monday, he insisted: "We are not attacking Muslims generally."
"But you have to call terrorism for what it is - it is a movement that invokes in a totally blasphemous and illegitimate way the sanction of Islam to justify what it does."
He added that "on occasions they [moderate Muslims] should come out and be more critical of terrorism".
"We shouldn't pussyfoot around," he said.
In a later interview with Sky TV, Howard also said that Muslims should accept the right of Israel to exist. "If we could reach a settlement whereby there was a total acceptance of Israel's right to exist ... and also the establishment of a Palestinian state which was fully recognised, that would remove one of the arguments used by the fanatics," he said.


We shouldn't pussyfoot around :rotfl:
wonder if he'll get a jihad put on his head :hmm:

[Yahoshua]

He's got courage, that a point to his credit.:up:

[Skybird]

He's got courage, that a point to his credit.:up:
But he is not as consequent as it seems, softening things up again: "But you have to call terrorism for what it is - it is a movement that invokes in a totally blasphemous and illegitimate way the sanction of Islam to justify what it does." I wonder what is so blasphemous and illegitimate in the legitimiation of Islamic terror. Just because the Quran names this kind of violance by other words ("schlagt den Ungläubigen auf die Nacken"), it does not change the demand for violance itself. As long as we still take this kind of consideration when confronting Muslims about their violance-hungry ideology, we cannot expect that they give ground and start thinking about it - they just see that we give them the room to evade any self-reflection. why should they start to rethink, to test their ideology, to analyse it - if they feel no pressure and no pain by running aground with it? If one wants to do "reasonable Muslims" a favour - one should start talking tough with them, and not accepting any verbal distortions any longer.

[Yahoshua]

Yes, I do see how he's softening it (to a degree). Yet he's still taking a great big leap by saying any of this at all, he's putting his career at stake. Something quite rare among todays' politicians (unless it's something illegal that benifits them directly:nope: ). The pope I'm not so worried about he's in that position for life.

[Gizzmoe]

What has the pope done? He illustrated that religion shall never be an excuse for violance, and shall not be propagated and spread by the use of violance, and that the use of violance to acchieve this necessarily is a violation of God's wishes himself.
Why didn´t he use the history of his own church to illustrate that? There would have been more than enough good examples, he didn´t have to bring Islam into it.

[Immacolata]

I'd probably try to smooth out as well if I suddenly got thousands of angry people at me. Especially after witnessing the rabbid mobs after the Mohammed cartoons.

AT this point however, I just cannot take them serious. I mean, I can when some nut job decides its a fine thing to blow up innocent people in suicide actions. But that torches-and-pitchfork mentality is just too easy to get out in them. It is as if they almost WANT to be offended. Always waiting for signs that can reinforce what they already know: That the west thinks little of islam.

[Smaragdadler]

Time for a sermon.

The Woman Girt with a Sword

Written by John Whiteside Parsons

It is to you, woman, beautiful lost redeemer of the race, that I dare address this chapter. That which stirs in you now is not madness, is not sin, is not folly, but is life, new life, and joy and fire that will beget a new race, and create a new heaven and a new earth.

When you were a child, did not the wind speak to you and the sun? Did you not hear the mountain's voice, the voices of the river and the storm? Have you not heard the tidings of the stars, and the voices in the silence, ineffable?

Have you not gone naked in the forest, with the wind over your body, and felt the caress of Pan? And your heart has swelled with spring, blossomed with summer, and saddened with the wolf of winter. These things are the covenant, and in them is the truth that is forever.

And you have sought companions as high-hearted as yourself, and found them not, save in elusive memories in dream and song. For you found a blight over the world, a blight of silence and sorrow, and your companions walked in guilt and shame, in fear and hate, sin and the sorrow of sin, and you were alone. Ah, there was laughter, but a hectic laughter; pleasure but furtive pleasure, unsatisfied and ashamed. And now your heart is saddened. But be not sad, my beloved. Be joyous and unafraid. For within you is the song that shall shatter the silence, the flame that will burn away the dross.

It is you that are the redeemer; the redeemer of sin and sorrow, of guilt and shame, you, woman, oh splendor incarnate! How long have you served in chains, a slave to the lust of pigs and the guilt of pigs?

How long have you writhed under the foul degradation of your holy name, whore, or suffered silently under the infamous degradation called virtue?

How well have you known the stake, the rack, the whip, bar, chains, imprisonment, entombment in the service of your master.

And was the bond fear, was it weakness, was it cowardice and inferiority? Oh, shame of man, it was none of these, it was love. A man was crucified in a redemption that failed. Yet were ten times ten million men crucified, this infamy were not redeemed.

Priest, father; husband, lover; jailer; judge, executioner; despoiler; seducer; destroyer; this has been your lover; your master; oh, woman defiled.

Yet pity him, for he too sought love.

But there is an end, and a beginning and the beginning and all the future is with you. For you are the mother of the new race, the redeemer and lover of the new men, the men that shall be free.

Now I shall speak to you of men. Men desire three things of woman, a mother greater than themselves, a wife less than themselves, and a lover equal with themselves. Against the mother they are ever in revolt, the wife they hold in contempt, the lover ever eludes them.

Consider the husband; how he hates woman and flees himself, fearing that he will slay her.

Consider the great lover; how he grasps for love and his hands close upon nothingness.

These are bewildered, frightened children, playing games against the dark. And those who wear brass and swords, who strut and slay, are they not the most frightened of all? Therefore pity them, therefore forgive them.

In the ancient world there were men for a season, then cities arose, and leisure, the riddle of the sphinx, and they turned to gilded popinjays, gracefully accepting futility.

Then Christianity, an anodyne for slaves, an enteric for barbarians whose deeds gave them indigestion, a whip for slave masters.

Yes, Faust is the prototype of the middle ages, but not the Faustus of whom Kit Marlowe tells. It is a darker Faust, Gilles de Retz, who betrays the Maid in his lust for power; then, smitten, prays to God in his Chapel and ascends to all horror in his cellars.

And so the dreary story until man, appalled by his own nightmares, turns at last to the dream of liberty.

It is the voice of Voltaire, jaded, cynical, weary of folly, that sounds the opening bar of a tremendous and mocking prelude; Tom Paine, one man, one real man, broken and at last betrayed by all the wooden champions; Cagliostro, plotting the revenge of the Templars with a woman and a necklace; Will Blake speaking uncomprehended with the tongue of angels; Shelley and his beautiful futile gesture; Swinburne, that almost recreated Helas before he too was broken; Byron, Pushkin, Gautier; all instruments in a prelude to a symphony that was never played.

And science, how it was to save us. That brave new world of Huxley, Darwin, Hegel and H.G. Wells, with only the voice of Spengler to dissent. Science remaking the world, an international language, a universal brotherhood, beyond nationality or prejudice or creed. That house of cards, beautiful vision, how it has fallen. These creators of the new age, who dare not speak or think or move without permission of the military. Unboundaried titans, who will hang for speaking across one border; where is your new world?

Champions, where is freedom? what has gone awry? A man can guess but no man can solve. We must turn to woman for the answer.

It was many thousand years ago, before histories were written, that the change came. We must turn our memories even farther. why can we not, who sprang from those loins, though it be long ago, the age of Isis that is mistakenly called the matriarchy. It is not a matriarchy as we imagine it, a rule of clubwomen, or frustrated chickens. It is an equality. The woman is the priestess, in her reposes the mystery. She is the mother; brooding yet tender; the lover; at once passionate and aloof, the wife, revered and cherished. She is the witch woman. It is coequal. Undifferentiated, the man, chieftain, hunter; husband, lover; thinker; doer. The woman, priestess, guardian of the mystery, sibyl of the unconscious, prophetess of dreams. Thus balance; stability.

Then, catastrophe untellable, the patriarchy, archtypified by the demonic monosexual monster; Jehova. And now, in the rule of priests, woman is an inferior animal, man a superior god, isolated, and at the mercy of his merciless intelligence. It is war, total war without quarter; between the emotions that must and the intellect that will not. Every religion in the patriarchy is a self contradictory monstrosity - Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Mohammedism, facism, communism, democracy, science and every other faith of the historical world. It is dogma, creed based on axioms that shift like straws in the wind of the intellect, and upon this shifting structure man has failed, and must fail, for he knows their futility and fights for them with all the sick fury of frustration. He knows that he is a little boy playing with erector toys and chemical sets, playing cops and robbers in a game that goes too far.

He has lost his mother; his wife fails him, his lover eludes him. The mystery has gone out of the temple, banished by a senile and self sufficient council of beards.

Woman, woman, where are you? Come back, woman, come back to us again! Forgive, forget, sit in our temples, take us by the hand, kiss us on the lips, tell us that you love us, that we are not alone. Witch woman, out of the ashes of the stake, rise again!

You see, it was in the dianic cult that the old way continued. Those splendid and terrible women, Messalina, Toffana, La Voisin and de Brinvilliers, took magnificent revenges. And others, women and men too, sought the forbidden mystery in secret rites, and purchased a brief reunion at an awful price.

This was the hope in the maid of Orleans, the hope of hopeless millions that at last was come the woman who would redeem them. May her fate and her failure teach you that innocence is no protection.

Be cunning, oh woman, be wise, be subtle, be merciless. I have said, understand, forgive, forget. But forget not overmuch. Trust nothing but yourself.

I have spoken of those great poisoners, but there is a worse revenge. Know that all revenge is revenge on self and most terrible is that taken by the frigid woman. Count her in the millions and in the ten millions. Heed not what she tells her husband or lover; heed well what she tells her intimate, her doctor.

But with many the cause lies deeper. It lies in two things, the failure of her mate to be a man, and her failure to be true to herself.

There is the black murderous guilt with which parents poison their children, and that is a cause of frigidity.

There is suppressed incestuous love.

There is fear of disease, and of children.

But you, who have known something of these things, have no shame therefore. Strength is not born, it is gained by understanding and overcoming.

Then go free! Then sing the old, wild song: EVOE IO, EVOE IACCHUS IO PAN IO PAN EVOE BABALON!

Go to the mountains and the oceans and the forest, go naked in the summertime that you may regain the old joy and love gladly and freely under the stars.

But the body is not beautiful? Here is a secret. The body is molded by the mind. Embrace fear, repression, hate, then look upon the body - or rather do not look upon it. But go free, love joyously, without restraint, run naked a little. Then watch the cheeks flush, see the breasts swell, the supple contours, the flowing rhythm. All disease and all deformity are bred in fear and hate. Therefore, oh woman, are you called healer.

Woman, priestess of the irrational world! Irrational, but enormously important, and how deadly because it is unadmitted and denied.

We do not want to be drunken, murderous, frustrated, poverty stricken, miserable without cause. These things are not reasonable or scientific, yet they do exist. We say we do not want war. But the cause of war is a psychological necessity and war will continue until that necessity is otherwise fulfilled.

We do not avail in saying that we will love this person or hate that person because it is reasonable. We are moved willy-nilly despite our reason and our will forces out of the unconscious, irrational world, forces that speak to us in dreams, in symbols and in our own incomprehensible actions, and that would only be redeemed by understanding, whose name is woman. Only after understanding can will and intelligence prevail, for they are otherwise no more than blind, self destructive force.

Woman, put up unworthy weapons. Put up malice and poison, false frigidity and false stupidity. Draw the sword, the two-edged sword of freedom, and call for a man to meet you in fair combat, a man fit for your husband, fit father for your eagle brood.

Call upon him, test him by the sword and he will be worthy of you. For you two are the archetypes of the new race.

Somewhere in the world today there is a woman for whom the sword is forged. Somewhere there is one who has heard the trumpets of the new age, and who will respond. She will respond, this new woman, to the high clamor of those star trumpets; she will come as a perilous flame and a devious song, a voice in the judgment halls, a banner before armies. She will come girt with the sword of freedom, and before her kings and priests will tremble and cities and empires will fall, and she will be called BABALON, the scarlet woman. For she will be lustful and proud; she will be subtle and deadly, she will be forthright and invincible as a naked blade. And women will respond to her war cry, and throw off their shackles and chains, and men will respond to her challenge, forsaking the foolish ways and the little ways, and she who will shine as the ruddy evening star in the bloody sunset of Götterdämerung, will shine again as a morning star when the night has passed, and a new dawn breaks over the garden of Pan.

To you, oh unknown woman, the sword pledged. Keep the faith!


(http://users.indigo.net.au/darke/gallery/pics/CrimsonBabalon.jpg)

[Immacolata]

I don't think I could force myself to read that. Seems very crazy.

[Yahoshua]

It's philosophy.....and one written in where reality is at a great distance from it.

Philosophy holds little use other than to waste time with meaningless haste. To focus attention to itself in the goal of self-perpetuation without goals or ends.

(btw, you really didn't need to post that photo with the article).

*EDIT*

Looks like the Mohammedans have done an excellent job of refuting the Popes' remarks (sarcasm).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_churches

[XabbaRus]

How many have downloaded the translation of the Pope;s speech and read it?

I did and well it seems a storm in a teacup and I find myself agreeing with Skybird.

If you read the comments on the BBC news section's have your say you will see some ridiculous ones asking for the Pope to step down. It's not going to happen and the Catholic church and teh pope are not going to apologise especially when there is nothing to apologise for.

I read one comment that the invasion of Byzantium (by muslims) was for self defence due to incursions from Byzantium, as written by one guy on the BBC Have your Say, and the gist was that it was fine. Now don't get me wrong but isn't this why Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded? So it's the other side of the same coin so they shouldn't be getting upset.

But the popes speech was basically how can reason and faith can coexist, and showing that reason isn't blaspehmous but entwined with faith, the example being that you don't go about preaching by violence, that is not reason, it is against the faith, so in order to be faithful to god and his words you have to act with reason, think about what you do and why.

Also I know the Christian church doesn't have a bloodless history but AFAIK no church of the Christian faith is calling for a wholly christian world, and didn't the Pope apologise for the way the Catholic church treated the Jews in the past?

BTW my first name is Benedict.....

[Skybird]

Yes they really have red his speech very well - that's why it took them close to two days to even react to it! Has anyone noticed? The speech was held on Tuesday - the hysteria started on Thursday.

He said:

"God is not pleased by blood and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature... Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats. "

No wonder that Islam has a problem with that and feels offended by being reminded of it's deficits! compare this to the many extremely violant passages in the 2nd, 4th, 8th and 9th Sura, and thoughout all of Quran, where violance, fighting and killing is even described as a pleasing of God, and a sure way to gain his sympathy!



"To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm or weapons of any kind or any other means of threatening a person with death,"

Reply: burning churches. Okay then. Islam makes sick minds. No offending, but a logical conclusion. even "moderate" Turks in Germany are attacking the Pope. A little generalization is in order, then.

2:190 - "And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you."
2:193 - "Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah's"
2:244 - "So fight in the way of Allah, and know that Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing."
4:76 - "Those who are believers fight in the way of Allah, and the unbelievers fight in the idols' way. So fight the friends of Satan; surely the guile of Satan is ever feeble."
8:39 - "Fight them till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah's entirely."
9:12 - "But if they break their oaths after their covenant and thrust at your religion, then fight the leaders of unbelief."
9:29 - "Fight (qaatiloo) those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden -- such men as practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book -- until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled."
9:123 - "O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness
2:191 - "And slay them wherever you come upon them"
2:191 - "But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then if they fight you, slay them - such is the recompense of unbelievers."
4:89 - "then, if they turn their backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them"
4:91 - "If they withdraw not from you, and offer you peace, and restrain their hands, take them, and slay them wherever you come on them; against them we have given you a clear authority."
9:5 - "Then when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush."
4:74 - "So let them fight in the way of Allah who sell the present life for the world to come; and whosoever fights in the way of Allah and is slain, or conquers, we shall bring him a mighty wage."
4:74 - "When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads."

To hell with it. It's bandit's thinking, for a bandit's world, 7th century. Greed and hate and aggression, no sign of holiness. Bah.

It is said that Islam loves peace and only fights in self-defense. Historically that is not true, it'S fight for the most in invasions and wars of attack, so I don't see it like that peaceful image, but just imagine it would be like that - of what help would that be, if even a carricature that is absolutely rule of the day and tame and according to western common practice and was pusbolished in a wetsern paper, in a Western country, is enogh to make Islam declare a case of violant self-defense? What trust you can put i9nto the reason of an actor who acted the most aggressive thorughout hisn own history, calls any self-defense of his vitim an act of aggression and an attack on Islam, and that even does not care to read a speech carefully and instead willingly ignores all context - just so that he can go onto the streets again, and burn symbols of those that refuse to become like him? Problem is that to a greater degree than any other political or religious ideology Islam considers itself to be the best world possible, to be in the best interest of all mankind, and that it therefore has the right to even impose itself on others who do not want to be part of it. That it willingly also use bribery to lurk others into it's realm is nothing that makes it's holiness shine in a brighter light. Muhammad used gifts and giving priviliges to secure the suppoort of his followers, he distributed the prey of his many many wars, and the crowd was cheering. Strange way to be serious aboiut a "holy message". Ah, bah-bah - it's all so disgusting. :down:

[Skybird]

I take the freedom to hijack the comment by a reader at Dhimmiwatch. take note of the texts he refers to.


Salih Kapusuz reportedly said of the Pope's speech, "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."
Fighting back against the Muslims who threaten to invade our countries and kill and/or dominate us: sounds like a smart mentality for the Pope to promote and for the world to adopt.
I hope the Pope doesn't back down.
Posted by: Josephine at September 15, 2006 11:23 PM (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/013102.php#c270057)

We're forgetting that that the Muslims are reacting so violently because what Pope Benedict XVI said was true:
Jihad: The Holy War of Islam and Its Legitimacy in the Quran
Ayatullah Morteza Mutahhari
http://www.al-islam.org/short/jihad/ (http://www.al-islam.org/short/jihad/)
Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders - World Islamic Front Statement
23 February 1998
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm (http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm)
Islam's War to Save the World - 1,300 Years of Struggle
by Howard Bloom
http://howardbloom.net/militant_islam_timeline.htm (http://howardbloom.net/militant_islam_timeline.htm)
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE GREAT CALIPHATE
(Explanation of the Third Great Jihad)
by Larry Abraham
http://web.archive.org/web/20060916062237/http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/clash.html (http://web.archive.org/web/20060916062237/http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/clash.html)
Enemy Islam. An Interview with the Bishop of Rumbek, Sudan
by Sandro Magister
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7044&eng=y (http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7044&eng=y)
Twenty-first Century African Slaves - In the Land of Islam
by Sandro Magister
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7007&eng=y (http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=7007&eng=y)
I could list more, but I think people's eyes would glaze over.
Pope Benedict should apologize for his TRUTHFUL WORDS when the Muslims have apologized for the TERRIBLE DEEDS of the genocide of nearly 2.5 million, along with the forced sale into SLAVERY of another 750,000 black African Christians, Animists and Muslims over the last 20 years in Southern Sudan and Darfur and errorist acts against innocent civilians all over the world that has taken the lives of no less than 4,500 innocent civilians and would have slaughtered more except for the efforts of polices and armed forces of countries as diverse as Australia, India, the Phillippines and the United States.
If these Muslim clerics would condemn these acts without reservation, and would condemn the attempted bombing of numerour Shia Mosques simply because the worshippers were Shia, Then I will e-mail the Pope and post a letter telling him to apologize for his truthful story.
Otherwise, I'll say that the truth often hurts, esp. those who want to be in denial about the violant nature of their religion and its need for Reformation and Renewal.
Michael


Over the past months I have red the same numbers that he is quoting there.

Islam wouldn't need to have any relevance in the world and in the West today, if they just would not have that damn O-I-L. That's the only reason why our representatives keep on talking to them, shaking their hands, and smile at their faces: O-I-L. We would not need them to sell goods they never learned the skill to invent and produce themselves. We would not need to deliver them weapons and tools to build them. we would not need to send them medicine they cannot produce themsleves. We would not need to send the Red Cross in when they have a desaster and find their socieities are too inadequate to handle that alone. We would not need to accept their demands to open the West for Muslim colonisation more and more. We would not need to tolerate Islamic presence in the West. we would have the freedom to simply leave them alone - and their would be nothing they could do about it. we would not need to invite them, as long as they are what they are. We would be free, and would have the freedom to defend our freedom. It would not be at their cost, for they voluntarily choose to live their lifes like they do and have been commanded by Muhammad to do - we do not demand them to stay where they are, it was their decision. We would be free just to move on and leave all the trouble with Islam behind. And we would have the freedom to set up preconditions: we would be able to demand them to give up their primitve minds and laws, clean their hands off all the blood, apologize for all the violance and desaster they have brought on human civilization, and then - only then - we would be able to decide if we invite them into our house, or not, and teach them how to raise skills and how to create a society's possebilities like our own. - We would have the freedom to choose. We would be free to no longer depend on them. We would be free to no longer accept their terms. we would not need to accept any obligations towards them. We would be free to laugh in their faces, turn our backs on them, and leave them alone, laughing, and living a much better life.


It's not their reason, it's not their wonderful culture, it's not their peaceloving attiude, it's not their convincing tolerance, it's not their arts and treatment of women, it'sd not their magnificent reason and logic, it's not the attractiveness of their ideology, it's not the legal codes, it's not their ethics and values.


It simply is about their damn O-I-L.


Conclusions, anyone?

[Takeda Shingen]

Philosophy holds little use other than to waste time with meaningless haste. To focus attention to itself in the goal of self-perpetuation without goals or ends.

I disagree. Even the most base examinations of history clearly demonstrate that philosophy has shaped the course of thought in both the east and west.

(btw, you really didn't need to post that photo with the article).

I agree.

[Skybird]

What has the pope done? He illustrated that religion shall never be an excuse for violance, and shall not be propagated and spread by the use of violance, and that the use of violance to acchieve this necessarily is a violation of God's wishes himself.
Why didn´t he use the history of his own church to illustrate that? There would have been more than enough good examples, he didn´t have to bring Islam into it.

http://www.faz.net/s/RubCF3AEB154CE64960822FA5429A182360/Doc~E633B94C8ED46473BBACA9A3CDD3FDF4F~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html

"Die Gewaltgeschichte des Christentums ist beednet, in der Gewaltgeschichte des Islam stecken wir mittendrin. die völlig unverhältnismäßigen reaktionen aus der muslimischen Welt zeigen, daß der Papst das richtige Thema angeschnitten hat."

The complete speech in original German words can be found here:
http://www.faz.net/s/RubBF7CD2794CEC4B87B47C719A68C59339/Doc~E13506B0B9C304B269D3CF78C543B2E42~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html (http://www.faz.net/s/RubBF7CD2794CEC4B87B47C719A68C59339/Doc~E13506B0B9C304B269D3CF78C543B2E42~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html)

The English translation here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/be...nsburg_en.html


Anyhow, there is a statement now saying that he regrets that he has been misinterpreted. Hehe, clever. That is as far as an apology for this should go - at maximum. I'm sure that many will not be satisfied with it, wanting to see him worshipping the greatness of Islam. what will come of his recommendation to translate his speech into Arabic so that Muslims themselves could form an opinion on the context he quoted in , remains to be seen. German Turks who speak German also attacked him. I think it is not only misinterpretation, but general anger that someone has put a finger on something where they are sore. I wonder why.

[TteFAboB]

What has the pope done? He illustrated that religion shall never be an excuse for violance, and shall not be propagated and spread by the use of violance, and that the use of violance to acchieve this necessarily is a violation of God's wishes himself.
Why didn´t he use the history of his own church to illustrate that? There would have been more than enough good examples, he didn´t have to bring Islam into it.

The reaction proves the Pope is correct, that's the point. We have clerics who believe that the expansion of faith through violence is acceptable. Would it have been better to quote Saladin? "European merchants supply the best weaponry, contributing to their own defeat."

If this belief is there, then bringing Islam into it or not is irrelevant. For someone who believes it's okay to spread his religion through violence, it doesn't matter if your mouth is shut or open. Such a cleric only wants to hear you to know if you want to convert, pay dhimmi tax or die. They do not grant you the treatment (tolerance, silence) you want to offer them and in this process you contribute to your own "defeat" if I were to quote Saladin with some leeway.

Had he used another example, would you see Christians being manouvered into massive protests? Stuff burning up? A comparison to Hitler? Would anything similar happen in Europe? You know that answer very well.

If you search for Middle Eastern newspapers in the internet you will find a daily anti-west, anti-christian, anti-semite freak show and the European reaction to this is pure disdain. However a historical quote causes a wide-spread massive uproar - smells very fishy, and it is. The Muslims aren't protesting, they are being told to protest. Once again, as in the Muhammad cartoon episode, we are witnessing a complete false theatrical display.

All of this is very important. We did not see this mobilization in the anniversary of 9/11. Not the manouvered masses on the streets, nor the piles of clerics and political figures had anything to say or any sign to display. A new precedent is being set. The more they show their organization and combined voice, the more we can demand their voice next time Muslim Iraqis kill Muslim Iraqis.

Can't take the Pope's word without wiggling like a dying cockroach, but they have nothing to say about the inter-Muslim carnage. Why is killing less of an outrage than words? If one believes violence is appropriate, then it makes sense indeed.

[malkuth74]

One day the world will wake up and understand the Peacful Religion of Islam is not so Peacfull for some.

And yet I do not see any Islam Leaders standing up and Denouncing the Violence? So basically what the pope said is true.. And the muslims are proving it yet again.

Most of us know history. And history tells us that Christians once had a Time that is vaguly familiar to todays Islam. The Dark Ages had many people burned at the stake for being Pagans etc. Most where actually Christians killed by Radicals. Its pretty scary if you think about it. After the Dark ages Christians became a little more mello to what we have today. Muslims have yet to have a Dark Age type event. I'm afraid it might be coming though.

[HunterICX]

Just saw on the news about the reactions made by the muslims

1''Hang the Pope!''
2''If the Pope Doesnt Apologise , the Allah will rip of his skin''
3''We will win the fight''

and some more. but cant remember them.

but about number 3, this is funny...So they mean in an war conflict they win? mmmm...with what? Swords and suicide bombers?:lol:

So I heard that on the Television the first tought was ''Right , you guys with what army?'' they aint got **** as military uses. and what they have...are some things that survived the last couple of wars. but like as it always has been...We have to shut up, and they can call us whatever they want and can get away with it...Mmm

You know what , I think we have to become the Christians like we were, and every time those Muslims numbnuts tell something insulting towards Jezus Christ , that we should attack the Mosque's that we can find in OUR country and start burning an couple of dozen Muslim flags and DEMAND !!! an freaking Excuse from that Iman that said that!. because when they can do that , why cant we?

I think we rather have become some pussies....we are to nice to the ones that spit on our lives, say things about us that are insulting . and if we open our mouths and say something about whats True about the muslims they are making some radical rampage.

I think the pope doesnt has to do more, and the pope musn't make an personal Apology.

Sorry that this sound Extremly Right sided , but after all the years seeying that muslim rampage crap on tv and hear about it pisses me of too much.

[mr chris]

Good post Hunter!! :up:
It has been reported by the BBC that the pope has said sorry, which in my veiw sucks. As for dealing with muslim problem that our world faces. Ithink we need to act hard and fast and take no notice of any of the do gooders, no matter how messy it gets. Its about time the western world and powers stood up to those who continualy try to plot our downfall. By using any means nessacary.

[DanCanovas]

I agree with the views of this post entirely. I wish people would wake up and see all the bull**** thats going on.

[Skybird]

Just saw on the news about the reactions made by the muslims

1''Hang the Pope!''
2''If the Pope Doesnt Apologise , the Allah will rip of his skin''
3''We will win the fight''

and some more. but cant remember them.

but about number 3, this is funny...So they mean in an war conflict they win? mmmm...with what? Swords and suicide bombers?:lol:

No, but by mass immigration, turning our own laws against us to protect their agendas and paralyse our constitutional self-defences, exploiting the lack of unity among Westerners, and eventually turning their oil into a weapon - again (like in the early 70s).

I do not know where you currently olive, but here in Europe, the ongoing Muslim COLONISATION and the lacking willingness, even active resistance, of a clear majority of them to fully integrate into Western value standards and Western culture meanwhile has turned into a Major threat for Europe's cultural integrity. they have found traitors in our own middle, in form of the Eurocrats, economists seeking cheap labour, arrogant donkeys who are convinced they are of too superior civilisation as that Islam could threaten them or could withstand the temptations of Western freedoms, and the complete political left spectrum. These traitors that try so hard to sell us to our worst enemy, argue that if we open the gates of our homes and cities, Islam will not need to fire at our walls and damage and destroy them. Momentum is theirs, we are outnumbered, we depend on ion their oil, we get outbreeded by them and they are charging more and more aggressively. If we do not manage to change this fundamentally, we will loose this, and loose all that is ours: history, culture, identity, ethics, humanistic values, separation of state and religion, creativity, potential to develop, to research and to construct - we loose everything.

the current uproar against the pope is politically motivated, too. He opposes a Turkey membership of the EU, no wonder that they take every possibility to damage him. He demands reciprocity in the relation between the church and Islam, whereas his retarded predecessor was willing of one sided compromises: giving ground to Islamic demands, while Islam stayed unmoved and did not anything to answer on equal terms and haioled this "dialogue" that effectively was a monologue only - a profitable arrangement for Islam that Benedict tries to bring to and end. John Paul's policy was suicidal - Benedict's policy is fact-oriented and reasonable, demanding balanced relations basing on the principle of mutual give-and-take, and no more dhimmitude. Islam does not want to give. It thinks it must not do that, as wonderful and divine as it is.

The latest comment of the BBC displays how much pro-Muslim and how reality-distorting it already is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5352404.stm

[XabbaRus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5351988.stm

I see the Pope is sorry that muslims haven't understood his words properly. I hope that's as far as it goes. I am damn sure the pope did not go out to deliberately offend Islam.

I see teh Muslim Brotherhood guy is saying it doesn't go far enough Pope should apply in person and that he should apologise for insulting Islam.

[Skybird]

Yes, the pope is said to be sorry for being misunderstood and that he got misinterpreted.

I also feel sorry that he got misunderstood and misinterpreted. :lol:

I also say this: Benedict is too smart as that he would not have known what would follow when holding that speech with that quote. Read some of his stuff and realize his way of clear thinking and knowledge, and then tell me that he could have missed this after the muhammad cartoons just gave an example. I think it was intention, a calculated attempt to give Westerners another push to open their eyes and realize the true nature of Islam. And the Islamic world is stupid enough to deliver exactly the reaction that was ordered, by that illustrating, that it indeed does not agree with the pope's conclusion in that speech that religion shall not be spread by the sword, and that violance cannot replace reason and logical persuasive power when advertising religion.

[XabbaRus]

True, and listening to BBC Radio 4 the muslims weren't getting any sympathy from the interview panel or the audience. I agree they [muslims] have reinforced what they say they don't mean.

[malkuth74]

From the Pope.

I'm sorry for saying that Radical Islamist are violent. I'm sorry that my words have caused Violence from the Radical Islamist around the world, and have caused Churches to be burned and likenesses of me being burned in the streets. I'm sorry I was right, and you proved it with your Violence. I'm sorry.

And since I have no armies, to cause another Crusade with, I will recall that army which you say I have sent. But of course their is no army, so i'm sorry if it does not work.

I'm afraid I can not tell you in person, since you might just Cut off My head. I'm sorry I can not say this in person. To sum it up.

I'm sorry for calling you violent, and having to say I'm sorry for the violence you have caused.
For sending a Crusading army I do not have.
And for not saying it in Person for fear of Losing my head.
Sorry.

:damn:

[Perilscope]

And since I have no armies, to cause another Crusade with, I will recall that army which you say I have sent.
Well it's true the pope doesn't have an army, but does have a form of "military" guard, the Swiss Guard. :D

[HunterICX]

Well...I wished he didnt apologysed....

because the muslim cant hurt him , if they do...the muslims will be in trouble . because remember...the Pope is Holy!

[XabbaRus]

But he didn't apologise per say. He just said he was "sorry that his speech was misinterpreted." He didn't say "I'm sorry that I caused upset to Islam."

Two different things. Actually if you think about it, it is a double edged apology, feeling sorry that they didn't understand it could be read as, "well you got upset, that wasn't my intention, but you are too stupid to read past the quote."

[Smaragdadler]

(btw, you really didn't need to post that photo with the article).
...
I agree.

I want to apologise for my copy&paste-sermon and the photo-link. I'm so sorrrrry that this was misinterpreted...

[Yahoshua]

It's accepted.

We just need to remember that kids may be looking over Moms (or AL to be specific) shoulder at what's on the PC.

[STEED]

Statement from the Pope
====================


Listen up you Islamic dogs I was a member of the Hitler Youth and we took no crap from anyone and that includes you lot of hot heads just keep pushing me, and the boys and I will shove red hot pokers up your backsides.

[mr chris]

Fantastic Steed:up::rotfl: Just wish that was what the Pope really said.

[The Avon Lady]

Statement from the Pope
====================


Listen up you Islamic dogs I was a member of the Hitler Youth and we took no crap from anyone and that includes you lot of hot heads just keep pushing me, and the boys and I will shove red hot pokers up your backsides.
Brits, watch your six (http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1330).

[The Avon Lady]

(btw, you really didn't need to post that photo with the article).
...
I agree.
I want to apologise for my copy&paste-sermon and the photo-link. I'm so sorrrrry that this was misinterpreted...
Is there a reason why you have not edited your post and removed the photo?

[mr chris]

Sound's just like the tory's :down: Would sell there own mum to get back in power:nope: For one they have never had my vote and never will

[Smaragdadler]

Is there a reason why you have not edited your post and removed the photo?

Shure.

[STEED]

David Cameron is wet behind the ears and will never be voted in, why vote for a mirror image of Blair.

[The Avon Lady]

David Cameron is wet behind the ears and will never be voted in, why vote for a mirror image of Blair.
Suggested reading from our side of the pond: Column One: The free world's Achilles heel (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913631570&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). Columnist Caronine Glick has been one smart cookie for years! :yep:

[Gizzmoe]

FYI, I´ve removed the image that Smaragdadler posted after receiving some complaints.

[The Avon Lady]

FYI, I´ve removed the image that Smaragdadler posted after receiving some complaints.
But you didn't replace it with my recommended substitute pic (http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/1078/200602102020p21000062020lady20godiva20in20training jpgev6.jpg)!

[STEED]

Suggested reading from our side of the pond: Column One: The free world's Achilles heel (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913631570&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). Columnist Caronine Glick has been one smart cookie for years! :yep:

Interesting reading but the way things look Labour will be re-elected in the next general election as for there leader well all I can see the knives are out. Gordon Brown may not get the leadership.

[Smaragdadler]

FYI, I´ve removed the image that Smaragdadler posted after receiving some complaints.
The corpus delicti is the link under the quoted text. :ping:

[TteFAboB]

Ratzinger did not apologized. He said he was sorry for being considered offensive to the sensibilities of Muslims. And taught them how to read a text by saying his quote is a historical quote and not his own thoughts.

Read Tarcisio Bertone's statement. Find the Islamic reciprocal to the Nostra Aetate. It is clear that Ratzinger and the Church are in favour of reciprocity and dialogue.

However, in Muhammad's land:

"Papa’ya suikast - Assassinating the pope" - #16 best-seller book in Turkey.

Turks are experienced Christian slayers: http://www.christianfreedom.org/images/Alerts/CFI%20Alert%207-06-06.html; http://www.asianews.it/dos.php?l=en&dos=70&art=5303

Somali cleric calls for the assassination of the pope, and anybody else aswell: "Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim." He said at a Mosque. - http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/somali-cleric-calls-for-popes-death/2006/09/16/1158334739295.html

Somali Islamists are also experienced Christian slayers - http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913647295&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

And they share common goals with the Al Qaeda: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/11/1036308581808.html

The ultimate common goal being: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763217.html

None of this causes any uproar. No Muslim cleric has anything to say against these people, nobody is outraged. The "extremists" are always elsewhere, always obscure, under some dark rock, inside a dark cave nobody can find or point fingers at. An abstract entity that cannot be sued, arrested or executed. They only come to be when a terror attack happens, only then are they identifiable.

Where is the reciprocity? Where is the dialogue? Where is tolerance and peace? Where are the massive protests and critics now?

The age of horrorism: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1868732,00.html - Part one; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1868743,00.html - Part 2; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1868746,00.html - Part 3.

[Skybird]

Nice text in your sig, TteFAboB! :up: Should be printed on page one in every school book. Should be written on every church door and Western parliamentary door as well.

[mr chris]

Nice text in your sig, TteFAboB! :up: Should be printed on page one in every school book. Should be written on every church door and Western parliamentary door as well.

Ah but the muslims living in the western world would be outraged!!!:rotfl:

[HMS Utmost]

Party time! :()1:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5347876.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5348436.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873167,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/15/pope.islam/index.html
http://www.welt.de/data/2006/09/15/1037631.html
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E128628988B514DEC9EB56459FBE8A7BC~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html (http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc%7EE128628988B514DEC9EB56459FBE8A7BC%7EATpl%7EE common%7EScontent.html)

So far, minor or no coverage in those US and French medias that I scan (certainly not all, and Herald Tribune link currently broken). However, Al Jazeera surprisingly is silent about it, too (they have a current headline of Egypt groups wanting to quit treaties with Israel, calling the end of peace treaties "real democracy" for the ME).

Threats from officials of the Turkish government. A parliamentarian resolution from Pakistan. Intimidation from the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood, and the even more "radical" workers party. Self-deception and angry balking from the central commitee of muslims in Germany. Angry comments by the OIC. Mass protests in Kashmir. Rallies along africa'S North, protests in the Me countries, demonstrations in Asian places as well. And more angry official comments from Quatar, India, Indonesia, Algeria...

Of course, it all has been peace and love and truth in Islam history, whereas christianity again is reminded that the crusades were unjustified aggression (against Isamic attack and invasion, which usually is not told), and still live until today, and Islam has been it'S poor, poor victim, and that there are so many lies being told about Islam today, and that Muslims demand this, and demand that, and apologies needed, ans serious concerns, and blablablabla and lots of gobbelgobbelgobbel.

This is the paragraph in original that spiked current emotions. It holds nothing nothing nothing anyone needs to apologize for, and the pope made it clear that he is quoting already existant words anyway.
d, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
the complete speech in original German words can be found here:
http://www.faz.net/s/RubBF7CD2794CEC4B87B47C719A68C59339/Doc~E13506B0B9C304B269D3CF78C543B2E42~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html (http://www.faz.net/s/RubBF7CD2794CEC4B87B47C719A68C59339/Doc%7EE13506B0B9C304B269D3CF78C543B2E42%7EATpl%7EE common%7EScontent.html)

The English translation here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

I hope no apology takes place (for what?) Let Islam drown in hysteria again for all world to see it's lying face and selfish, sly self-deception. Time to stop being obedient servants for the interests of Islam. I need a bucket nearby, just in case I can't hold it.

Maybe we should have a yearly championship for Muslim performances of self-deception and mass-hysteria, we could hold it at Monte Carlo and call this festivity a "Hysterial", and award the three highest scoring contributions some kind of an award to show them how much we care and really take them seriously. Little marcipane figures of Muhammad, or a golden box with a set of beer mats with ol' boy's face. :up:[/quote]

Too right mate! I've been saying this all along! There whining whinging is pathetic and at worse totally at odds with what Pope Benedict said. I think a muslims countries control of its people needs addressing if they let this go on.

Whats worse is the liberal left media taking the rightious muslim side in the decrying Christian crusades while totally ignoring what the muslims were actually doing back in those days!
The savage invasions by the armies of Islam across the Middle east, Eurasia, the Balkans, The Mediterranean and up to the very gates of Vienna have never been forgotten in the affected countries and believe me if you went there and tried singing the muslim praises you would soon be put right!. From 700s - 1700s were oppressive times indeed for occupied countries.
One day I fear the world will be shown once again how cruel some people of the Crescent religion can be...

[TteFAboB]

@Skybird (and mr chris):

Agreed, but while I created this piece of text and thus the reason for the lack of quotes, the inspiration comes from Hanna Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" - though the concept is also generally present in the works of Ortega Y Gasset. :know: :up:

[VipertheSniper]

An Italian Nun was killed in the capital of Somalia today. Peace-loving religion my ass.

[scandium]

Late to the show here, but if I have this right so far... the Pope made some comments about Islam that offended the Muslim Community... and the Subsim community is offended that they are so easily offended. err ok... and the beat goes on.

[XabbaRus]

No Scandium the pope gave a lecture and a portion of it was misinterpreted as a general attack on Islam and there have been protests around the world some of which involved burning two churches and we are just saying how we are fed up with them getting offended at everyone who says anything about Islam.

Read the lecture you can find it on the BBC news website and then you'll see what the fuss is about.

[Skybird]

Late to the show here, but if I have this right so far... the Pope made some comments about Islam that offended the Muslim Community... and the Subsim community is offended that they are so easily offended. err ok... and the beat goes on.
Parallel to Muslim actions of the last 48 hours: does that statement of yours mean subsim-community has one Mullah-killing, two mosque burnings and a call for murdering the Imam of Mekkah free now...? :-?

They are already pushing further. This morning the Muslim Brotherhood said they found the comments of Benedict sufficient (as if we depend on them founding anything sufficient...). Just some hours later they have changed their mind and said, they now wanted more apology.

Again.

Central commitee of Muslims in Germany called it "a beginning of a reasonable dialogue". I thought we had that since the early or mid-sixties...?! What have they done in all those decades, in all those meetings? Dreaming? And while the church bend more and more towards them, and kept it's lips sealed about hundreds of thousnads of Catholics being murdered by Muslims in progroms in the last deacdes, islam itself did not give an inch, and only demanded more and more and more and called that a dialogue...!?

Again.

Speech held on Thursday. First hysteria on Tuesday. Today is Sunday. After five days - still not a single Muslims explained in reason and argument into any microphone or camera what it actually is by what Benedict should have offended Islam by his own deeds and words. They only say "He offended us. We were offended." But they cannot explain in which way, by what, how it worked. Anyone else here who doesn't know why he is doing what he is doing?

-----

Kid:"Wanna candies, mama!"
Mom:"No candies we have in the house currently, son, and you already spend all your pocket money to buy some yourself. and speak in complete sentences, will you, you're old enough."
Kid:"But wanna have! Wanna have! Bäähhhh! Wannaaaaa hääääveee! buhuhhuuuu."
Mom: "Shut up now, try to behave like a big boy."
Kid:"Cäääändies! Giimmeeeehuhuuhuuhuhu! Wanna hääääve! Bääähähähääää! Bähähäh!" (stomping feet.)
Mom: (rolling eyes, mumbling)"How did I deserve this child?" Then hiding behind the door while kid is throwing kitchen knifes at her.

[The Avon Lady]

Late to the show here
Understatement.

[scandium]

Late to the show here Understatement.

*shrug* I stopped paying attention to the Pope when I was 12 and Jihad Watch isn't part of my daily reading (nor even my weekly reading). I could pretty much care less about fundies of any stripe - but I do still find the fear and loathing of the big bad Muslim boogeyman, and the out of all proportion attention it gets, moderately amusing.

To use Skybird's child analogy, the best response IMHO is to ignore it, since attention is exactly what it craves, and by rewarding bad behaviour with attention (whether positive or negative) you merely encourage the undesired behaviour; a protest isn't terribly effective if its ignored completely, however its very effective if it gathers headlines and people talk about it as though it actually mattered.

By the way, this is not the same as ignoring a "problem", since the underlying issues and tensions that these protests are merely symptomatic of have always been ignored and I'd be surprised if they're ever properly addressed in any of our lifetimes.

[Yahoshua]

http://logo.cafepress.com/2/356074.1222382.jpg (http://www.cafepress.com/rightwingstuff/1222382)

"....the best response IMHO is to ignore it...."

[The Avon Lady]

http://logo.cafepress.com/2/356074.1222382.jpg (http://www.cafepress.com/rightwingstuff/1222382)
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2715/iwillnotsubmitjj5.gif (http://www.cafepress.com/hotairshop/1342354)

[Skybird]

Why weakening one's own stand by making bad comparisons? Islam does not so much compare to fascism, which is very much specific an ideolgy for a certain way of thinking deriving from the context of time and place (Nazi-era, Italy, Germany). Islam as the ideology that focusses and centres on Muhammad and uses terms and concepts and thought patterns that did not fall down from heaven to earth but that exclusively derive from Muhammad's sly thinking (that's why I call Islam by precise definition: Muhammadanism) is no offspring of these, but it surely falls under the definition of totalitarianism (like fascism does, too).

We do ourselves no favour by mixing up terminology and offering the other side a chance for counterattack and/or distraction for free by that, just to have a catchy phrase like "Islamo-facism" at hand. It is Islamo-totalitarianism, not fascism.


WHY ISLAM MUST BE CONSIDERED AS TOTALITARIANISM

The MS Encarta 2005, German version, defines totalitarianism like this:
Translation: Totalitarianism - typology for a political type of rule,
- that is conducted by means of dictatorship,
- that does not know the system of separation of powers,
- that does not allow democratic rights or suppresses them,
- and that uses open or hidden force to subjugate all economical, social, political and cultural life in the name of an ideology that is asserted by the state.

German original: Totalitarismus, Bezeichnung für eine politische Herrschaftsform, die mit diktatorischen Methoden ausgeübt wird, das Prinzip der Gewaltenteilung nicht kennt, demokratische Rechte nicht zulässt oder unterdrückt und sich mit offener oder verdeckter Gewaltanwendung das gesamte wirtschaftliche, gesellschaftliche, politische und kulturelle Leben im Namen einer staatlicherseits geltend gemachten Ideologie unterwirft. (…)

And:


(...) Different to the autocratic structures that existed before the totalitarian systems of the 20th century, (...) in a totalitarian state there is no more a perceivable border between the public and the private area, because almost everything is subordinated to the state's needs, requirements and commands and every criticism by and freedom rights of the indiviudal is supressed, if needed: by violance. Despite their character of being dictatorships, totalitarian states have in common a populistic element that must not necessarily root in a mass movement, but by use of mass communication and the state's ideology that they help to propagate, and a more or less strong Führerkult (also see: Führerprinzip) turns the people of this state into supporters of this totalitarian state.

German original:
(…)Im Unterschied zu den schon vor den totalitären Systemen des 20. Jahrhunderts existierenden autoritären Herrschaftsformen (…) gibt es im totalitären Staat keine erkennbare Grenze mehr zwischen dem öffentlichen und dem privaten Bereich, weil nahezu alles den staatlichen Bedürfnissen, Erfordernissen und Anordnungen subsumiert und jegliche Kritik und Freiheitsrechte des Individuums nötigenfalls gewaltsam unterdrückt werden. Gemeinsam war und ist den meisten totalitären Staaten trotz ihres diktatorischen Charakters ein mit ihm verknüpftes populistisches Element, das zwar in keiner spontanen Massenbewegung wurzelt, aber dank moderner Massenkommunikationsmittel und der über sie propagierten Staatsideologie sowie einem mehr oder weniger ausgeprägten Führerkult (siehe Führerprinzip) relevante Teile des jeweiligen Staatsvolkes zu Anhängern eines totalitären Staates macht. (…)

Islam, understood in the meaning as laid out in the Quran and the example set by Muhammad’s life, fulfils these conditions.

And the Wikipedia defines Islam like this:

Totalitarianism is a typology employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which
- the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. Totalitarian regimes
- mobilize entire populations in support of the state and a political ideology,
- and do not tolerate activities by individuals or groups such as labor unions, churches and political parties that are not directed toward the state's goals.
- They maintain themselves in power by means of
o secret police,
o propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media,
o regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism,
o and widespread use of terror tactics.
Critics of the concept contend that the term lacks explanatory power. They argue that governments which are often classified as totalitarian may not be as monolithic as they appear from the outside, since they may hide a political process in which several groups, such as the army, political leaders, industrialists, and others, compete for power and influence .(…)

Again, Islam, understood in the meaning as laid out in the Quran and the example set by Muhammad’s life, fulfils these conditions.

The theory of totalitarianism is under criticism for summarizing too many different regimes of different ages and cultures under the same general typology. Some of these arguments are valid, imo, but nevertheless I think many of them are not valid with regard to Islam. I am aware of this dispute around the term, but for the purpose of this essay I refuse to go deeper into it. And honestly said, some of this criticism appears to be hairsplitting only anyway, in an attempt to raise Western understanding and tolerance for brutal regimes of the past and present.

http://people.freenet.de/Skybird/DialogueWithIslam.rtf

[Skybird]

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2715/iwillnotsubmitjj5.gif (http://www.cafepress.com/hotairshop/1342354)

Nibelungenlieder...

[Takeda Shingen]

Nibelungenlieder...

Did someone call for our resident Wagnerian?

Alberich, from Das Rheingold, Scene III. Very apt for Islamic terrorism:

Die in linder Lüfte Weh'n
da oben ihr lebt,
lacht und liebt:
mit goldner Faust
euch Göttliche fang' ich mir alle!
Wie ich der Liebe abgesagt,
alles, was lebt,
soll ihr entsagen!
Mit Golde gekirrt,
nach Gold nur sollt ihr noch gieren!
Auf wonnigen Höh'n,
in seligem Weben
wiegt ihr euch;
den Schwarzalben
verachtet ihr ewigen Schwelger!
Habt acht!
Habt acht!
Denn dient ihr Männer
erst meiner Macht,
eure schmucken Frau'n,
die mein Frei'n verschmäht,
sie zwingt zur Lust sich der Zwerg,
lacht Liebe ihm nicht!
Haha, haha!
Habt ihr's gehört?
Habt acht!
Habt acht vor dem nächtlichen Heer,
entsteigt des Niblungen Hort
aus stummer Tiefe zu Tag!

[Skybird]

I was thinking more on the phase of the story when Etzel's hall already stood in flames and the knights of Burgund killed ten Huns for every one of their own getting killed... :-? - "Das ist der Nibelungen Treu..." Or in modern language: Semper fi.

Edit: just red it a second and a third time. "Very apt for Islamic terrorism." You are right, Tak. ;)

[Skybird]

That says it all:


Der Vorsitzende des türkischen Direktorats für Religiöse Angelegenheiten, Ali Bardakoglu, bezeichnete Benedikts Klarstellung als indirekt und unzureichend. Der Papst habe am Sonntag nur die Reaktionen in der muslimischen Welt bedauert, nicht aber, das 600 Jahre alte Zitat überhaupt verwendet zu haben

from: http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E154D117CD9624312AA3E646AC2A32AC3~ATpl~Ecommon ~Scontent.html


The chairman of the Turkish directorship for Religious Affairs, Ali Bardagoklu, said that Benededict's clarification only was indirect, and insufficient. The pope only had regretted the reaction of the muslim world, but not to even have used that 600 year old quotation.


Thank you for making the point this all is about so very much clear for everyone, Mr. Bardagoklu. The point is: stop thinking free and speaking free, and start thinking and speaking Islamic, and censor history so that Islam can only appear in the brightest of light, even if it is not true or deserved.

[The Avon Lady]

Dear Scandium:
Head-in-the-Sand Liberals (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-harris18sep18,0,1897169.story)
Western civilization really is at risk from Muslim extremists.
By Sam Harris, SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason." His next book, "Letter to a Christian Nation," will be published this week by Knopf. samharris.org (http://www.samharris.org/).

September 18, 2006


TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.

This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.

This difference does not bode well for the future of liberalism.

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities.

Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals.

Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration — especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq — liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.

Recent condemnations of the Bush administration's use of the phrase "Islamic fascism" are a case in point. There is no question that the phrase is imprecise — Islamists are not technically fascists, and the term ignores a variety of schisms that exist even among Islamists — but it is by no means an example of wartime propaganda, as has been repeatedly alleged by liberals.

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.

We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren't.

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

[Immacolata]

Before the Muhammed cartoon incident, I would have flat out rejected that article. A few broken eggs does not an omelet make.

Before the Pope-quotes-dead-king-incident, I was asking myself if the problem was ever really going to be solved.

Now I am starting to belief that no matter what we do, or don't do, short of converting ourselves to islam, there will be no respite, no shelter from random terrorist acts, made to cause as much spectacle in the media as possible.

They are a fickle lot, and they will take offense at anything when the opportunity arises, in order to widen their appeal, and sinister types their recruitment base.

We either shed the ancient yoke of religion or get some serious synkretism running, and fast. Or forget about world peace.

But first we will have to stop kowtowing to the radicals, just because we really really really would like their oil. Untill the last drop of oil has been sucked out of the ME soil, the region will flare up time after time, and no stability will come over it.

[The Avon Lady]

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/2715/iwillnotsubmitjj5.gif (http://www.cafepress.com/hotairshop/1342354)
Nibelungenlieder...
Are you calling me a dragonslayer? :|\\

[Immacolata]

Well it was a wyrm, technically speaking ;)

[The Avon Lady]

Well it was a wyrm, technically speaking ;)
A wiggly wyrm? :p

[Skybird]

Before the Muhammed cartoon incident, I would have flat out rejected that article. A few broken eggs does not an omelet make.

Before the Pope-quotes-dead-king-incident, I was asking myself if the problem was ever really going to be solved.

Now I am starting to belief that no matter what we do, or don't do, short of converting ourselves to islam, there will be no respite, no shelter from random terrorist acts, made to cause as much spectacle in the media as possible.

They are a fickle lot, and they will take offense at anything when the opportunity arises, in order to widen their appeal, and sinister types their recruitment base.

We either shed the ancient yoke of religion or get some serious synkretism running, and fast. Or forget about world peace.

But first we will have to stop kowtowing to the radicals, just because we really really really would like their oil. Untill the last drop of oil has been sucked out of the ME soil, the region will flare up time after time, and no stability will come over it.

Terrorism is not what conerns me. Even if we would have one 9/11 every year, our societies would absorb it, would survive it, would get used to it and adopt.Look at Israel'S almost relaxed attitude towards it.

that socalled moderate muslims, who rarely if ever stand up and take action against the "radicals" that speak for them, in the name of their same belief, quoting from the very same book, are becoming more and more by numbers, that political strategies of parties, and laws are getting changed i their favour, that people are so kind and friendly to say they are willing to put fighting Islam on the same level as freedom, peace, humanitarianism, christian teaching, that the immense qualitative differences are ignorred and this censoring of history and blinding of ones own eyes and rape of reason is called "tolerance" - this is what concerns me. where was something like "moderate Islam" ever able to project any influence on the history of Islam? where has it ever effected the way in which Islam dealt with other culutres? Nowhere! NOWHERE! It always was "You are mine!" Only a few people would be stupid enough to say they "tolerate" nazism, and that they care to not offend the hurt feelings of a sensible (or hysteric) Nazi when openly attacking Hitler. But concerning an ideology that has fought us for 1300 years and that claims even wider ranging demands and wants to subjugate all what is not itself by every means necessary and available, and that until the very day regards parts of Europe as it's colonies that were lost and needs to be won back, beforte the rest of Europe is put under the shining light of Islam - they open their hearts and minds and surrender and open all gates and let their future masters in withiout resistance, withiut care, without thinking about the act of turning future generations into slaves of medieval primitive thinking. "But that Muslim guy I know is a friendly man, they certainly are not all that bad, stop generalizing, Skybird!" And people in Germany for the most were not knowing about KZs, and were friendly people, even reasomable - but Hitler and Nazism still was a reality and needed to get burned out with rude force. For which most Germans today are thankful.

Dieses islamische Geschichtsdenken ist so verdammt verlogen, verschlagen und scheinheilig, und es ist gierig bis in die Knochen. Orwell's dysutopia was dilletantic, compared to Islam.

Why should Islamic people ever start to change, and reflect about themselves, when you naive idiots all around try your best to free them from any negative, aversive consequences their Islam is causing them? Wake up to the reality of human nature: people do no change when they are well and have their wishes fulfilled, they only change when their life does not work, when their is pain, and pressure as a result of the way in which they live their life. Feed them, nurse then, let them have their way, support them - and kill any motivation for them to think about themnsleves, if it is really all that clever how they spend their lifes and what they are thinking. Spare them the need to adopt to our standards wihtin our sphere of this globe - and see Islamic society not changing as a direct result of your well-meant stupidity. Because you already act as obedient servants to the wishes of Islam. See your house falling and theirs raising as your well-earned reward, then.

[Immacolata]

Are you adressing me with that tirade, or yelling at the world at large?

[Skybird]

World at large, and everyone who feels adressed. :) Yours is only the first two paragraphs.

[SkvyWvr]

Before the Muhammed cartoon incident, I would have flat out rejected that article. A few broken eggs does not an omelet make.

Before the Pope-quotes-dead-king-incident, I was asking myself if the problem was ever really going to be solved.

Now I am starting to belief that no matter what we do, or don't do, short of converting ourselves to islam, there will be no respite, no shelter from random terrorist acts, made to cause as much spectacle in the media as possible.

They are a fickle lot, and they will take offense at anything when the opportunity arises, in order to widen their appeal, and sinister types their recruitment base.

We either shed the ancient yoke of religion or get some serious synkretism running, and fast. Or forget about world peace.

But first we will have to stop kowtowing to the radicals, just because we really really really would like their oil. Untill the last drop of oil has been sucked out of the ME soil, the region will flare up time after time, and no stability will come over it.

The region was in turmoil way before any oil was produced there. I believe that unless we are willing to embark on a new Crusade, all will be lost.

[moose1am]

More wars have been fought over Religion that I care to think about.

History as taught in the West shows that the Muslims used the sword to spread across North Africa.

[The Avon Lady]

History as taught in the West shows that the Muslims used the sword to spread across North Africa.
Someone's been cutting history class!

Naughty! Naughty! :know:

[Immacolata]

More wars have been fought over Religion that I care to think about.

History as taught in the West shows that the Muslims used the sword to spread across North Africa.

Nah, most wars perceived as religious probably just used it as a pretext for political aims. Name me one religious war and I will point out to you it's vested power and economical interests between the warring parts.

The region was in turmoil way before any oil was produced there. I believe that unless we are willing to embark on a new Crusade, all will be lost.

Well that turmoil was caused by the meddling British empire and France as far as I recall. The middle east was AFAIK not severely unstable under the ottomans, for instance.

As for a crusade is needed, it is a fool who thinks that he can solve the problems of terrorism by a crusade or a war. If all it takes is a bright idea in the head of a random person to go on a jihad suicide attack, how do you except you can prevent this by conventional means?

So far the crusades in the middle east have all turned out to be disasters. A thousand years ago, and today.

[The Avon Lady]

So far the crusades in the middle east have all turned out to be disasters. A thousand years ago, and today.
Could you please explain to us all why much of this in Europe is (for the moment) no longer so?

http://blog.camera.org/archives/Islam%20map1.jpg

Also, could you please tell us why there were Crusades to the ME in the first place?

[SkvyWvr]

Well that turmoil was caused by the meddling British empire and France as far as I recall. The middle east was AFAIK not severely unstable under the ottomans, for instance.

Yes, during the industrial boom but you can't blame oil for the problems before that.

As for a crusade is needed, it is a fool who thinks that he can solve the problems of terrorism by a crusade or a war. If all it takes is a bright idea in the head of a random person to go on a jihad suicide attack, how do you except you can prevent this by conventional means?

I do believe war can solve this. It has to be a ruthless war which the west, at the moment, is unwilling to undertake. As was mentioned earlier, you have to inflict pain on them to get them to change.

[Immacolata]

[quote=Immacolata]
I do believe war can solve this. It has to be a ruthless war which the west, at the moment, is unwilling to undertake. As was mentioned earlier, you have to inflict pain on them to get them to change.

No one is willing to wage such a war. It is complete bollocks to even think about it.

As for your map AVL

Show me one of the age around the ottoman empire, lets say late 1700th century

Like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Ottoman_1683.png

Hardly the result of any crusades

The british empires accumulated territory:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/18/British_Empire_Anachronous_6.png/800px-British_Empire_Anachronous_6.png

Hardly the result of a crusade, either.

As for the medieval crusades? Normally I do not give a flying fart about Wikipedia, but actually this rundown is a very good description of it Crusades wiki style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades)

To cap it short, the pretext was a war of religion, the vested economical intereset was trying to gain power and riches while there was available hands for it. Naturally the Crusades could not have taken place after the bubonic plagues of the late medieval era, simply because there was no hands and people had no problems getting rich grabbing their dead neighbours estates.

There was tensions between empires as the caliphate pushed towards Byzantium. The casus belli came perhaps from the destruction of the Sepulchre in early 1100th century. However, it was about politics, power and land. Religion was a nice flavour to it.

The Reconquista of Spain was another conflict over land. The moors lost that battle. Was it a religious battle? No, I do not believe it was more religious than it was driven by politics

“War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.”

[moose1am]

So you are saying that they didn't use the sword to spread Islam across North Africa 3 decades after the death of Mohammad?

I guess the History Channel got it wrong again!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/7chapter3.shtmls/storyofafrica/7chapter3.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/7chapter3.shtml)

[XabbaRus]

The thing is many Muslims or at least those who have been posting on BBC site now consider that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a "crusade" in teh terms of "The Crusades" of the middle ages. Why, because George Bush said the word crusade when he was talking about taking on terrorism. It was jumped on to mean religious crusade which wasn't helped by teh fact that publlically GWB is a religious guy. It is a shame none of them found a thesaurus and looked up the other meanings of the word crusade and thought about whether he meant something else....

[SkvyWvr]

[quote=Immacolata]
I do believe war can solve this. It has to be a ruthless war which the west, at the moment, is unwilling to undertake. As was mentioned earlier, you have to inflict pain on them to get them to change.

No one is willing to wage such a war. It is complete bollocks to even think about it.


I believe I did mention that the west was unwilling to wage such a war. As for your "bollocks" don't be surprised if the crawl up your buttocks when the terrorists use a nuclear device and the west finally say's ENOUGH!!

[Immacolata]

So you are saying that they didn't use the sword to spread Islam across North Africa 3 decades after the death of Mohammad?


I don't believe I ever refuted that fact. As for the west not willing, I say NO ONE is willing for such a war. No one in the world is. A few mad hatters, yes, but the world population? No. And you sort of need a helluva lot of soldiers for that war. What if they don't want to fight?

The thing is many Muslims or at least those who have been posting on BBC site now consider that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a "crusade" in teh terms of "The Crusades" of the middle ages. Why, because George Bush said the word crusade when he was talking about taking on terrorism. It was jumped on to mean religious crusade which wasn't helped by teh fact that publlically GWB is a religious guy. It is a shame none of them found a thesaurus and looked up the other meanings of the word crusade and thought about whether he meant something else....

Well GWB never left me the impression that he was the sharpest pencil in the desk drawer when it comes to oratory skills. He probably just chose his word poorly, but Im pretty sure that it would not change a lot even if he picked other words. The muslim posters on BBC probably don't bellieve the stated motivations behind the attack on Iraq (the WMD argument). And we know now it was hogwash. So if the pretext wasn't WMD, what is then? Why did Bush and his lackeys need to invade Iraq? If not for the oil, and not for the WMD, and there was no Al-Qaeda connections, what motivations are left, then?

[HunterICX]

[quote=Immacolata]
I do believe war can solve this. It has to be a ruthless war which the west, at the moment, is unwilling to undertake. As was mentioned earlier, you have to inflict pain on them to get them to change.

No one is willing to wage such a war. It is complete bollocks to even think about it.


I believe I did mention that the west was unwilling to wage such a war. As for your "bollocks" don't be surprised if the crawl up your buttocks when the terrorists use a nuclear device and the west finally say's ENOUGH!!

finnaly say's enough...most of the western population had it enough in their minds. and we're already in an War. but its not completly open yet. but sooner or later there will be an WW3. and that one is going to be terrible.

[The Avon Lady]

As for your map AVL

Show me one of the age around the ottoman empire, lets say late 1700th century

Like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Ottoman_1683.png

Hardly the result of any crusades
Wrong! Notice the retreat of Islam from, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy. How did that happen?

And can you imagine what your 17th century map would have looked like had there been no crusades? And please answer the question: why were there crusades in the first place?

[Yahoshua]

"What if they don't want to fight?"

Here's a simple answer:

http://ruk.ca/images/bigredbutton.jpg

It's really quite simple.

[Fish]

One hour, seventen minutes.
Not for kids though!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1211228663574416724

[Skybird]

No - show it especially to your children, so that they can learn, get imune to the lies being told by Western liberals and socialists and wellmeaning idiots - and are prepared to resist to Islam, which will confront hem at school, at university, at job, in the medias, in all social life - and will do more and more so. the tools to wage war have chnaged, they are no longer trying it by military conquest, afetr our ancestors fought for their lifes and with great luck defeated them three times, with stakes already ridiculously high. Nevertheless, the scene of our ordinary life has been turned into a warzone again, an ideologcial war that is fought with the same Islamic intention on mind: to obliterate all mankind that is not islam itself. hiTech armies will not defend us, superwepaons will not save us: only our knowledge aboiut Islam'S true nature can give us and our chilsdren the needed determination to fight them back and out nof our homes. their fighting spirit is superior to ours, for they do not fear death, while we love life. this is our weakness. We can copensate for that not by weapons, but by insight and knowldeg that we need to fight the,m and that we need to fight them even if for many of us the fight is self-sacrifical - we need to take our motivation not from a belief that getting killed in war will earn us heavenly rewrds, but by some elemtnal Prussian or Roman virtues: that to win thatb fight at all cost is necessary for the survival of our children's future in a free, non-Islamic wolrd and culture - and that our own individual survival is not as important then our world winning the fight against Islam. we must not love death, like they do, but we must understand that our death shall not shy us away from fighting them, with all needed detemrination and unforgiveness needed. This is so,emthign no hitech and no satellite-guided smart bomb can do for us. We could have better weapons - and still be too much a weakling as that we could stop them. greater numbers and no fear of death is superior to hitech, beyond a certain ratio. Byzantium was destroyed because of this.


I have seen half of the movie until now, and my needles are at 110 % again, although I already know all that stuff. Note that many of the western muslims they have interviewed express kind and friendly and concerned opinions - nevertheless indicate that they do not see the connection between conquest and martial spirit, and the teaching of Islam: that orginally calls these "qualities" into life. You cannot expect these people, although they are kind and friendly and even I do not assume that they would slit my throat, to change Islam. they are not seeing clear about the true nature of their ideology, they try to paint it nice, try to avoid that they are folliwng an ideology that directly is responsible for the aggressiveness of Islam, for it demands it. Islam is the religion of hate, death and conquest, it is the religion of thanatos, not eros. That is why I reject to accept it as a religion, it is a political ideology, hidden in superstition, fed by greed and megalomania and absence of reason and logic. These people are not representative for true Islam. Call them what you want, but they are not representing the Quranic, Muhammedan Islam as was existant during the last 13 centuries. By their attitude I see them in clear violation of the Quran's demands - and how can they be isamic when ignoring centrals demands of the Quran? Muslims must learn what gangster Muhammad really was. Only this can be a cure that leads them to question the Quran, this absurd result of Muhammad's anti-intellectual self-justification. These people will only be of help, when they understand this: and become apostates. I do not demand them to become this or that, i do not want them to turn out to be what I want them to be, but I demand that they stop supporting Islam, and leave it. But by trying to live a "friendly life" and falsely labelling that "Islam", they actually make it look harmless, and assist directly the ongoing existence of real Islam: and that is the fighting Islam, that in this unique attitude of self-deception the West still considers to be a pervertion, a hijacking, a minor group, a radical school, a non-representative school of Islam. But it represents the only true face of Islam, and islam never has been anything else than that.

Over the weekend I red a good essay on the matter of violant Islam in the German FAZ, print edition. AL yesterday showed me where it had been set up on the web, on some blog site. It is German language, but if you understand only a bit of German, I urge you to read it. It is harsh truth, but it is truth, and the many historical examples are fact. If we do not understand these things, we will loose anything, all our world, our homes, our culture, our identity, our dignity, our rights and freedoms, our future - evberything. The clash of civilizations is a war for our sheer survival, and not only of the West but of all non-Islamic mankind. And Islam is the unlimited attacker.

Nobody wants to listen.

Ich könnte darüber verzweifeln.

http://myblog.de/kewil/page/1122265

[Yahoshua]

Choose this day whom you will serve.

[Perilscope]

That video clip pretty much sum up what I already knew. However, what I did not know, and sickens me, is to see a lot of muslim countries debate on television our death. To see so many idiots with such poor minds, and have power to be in front of the national TV and advocate our death in such a natural way. Here in our Western society, if one even dares to desire death on "anything", they will be marked as fanatical, disturbed person. Yet, there, they are on TV and probably acclaimed by the majority of viewers.

For me all of those tyrant preachers are hardly monkeys with bed sheets on their head. :88)

[Yahoshua]

But they're fanatic monkeys with sheets on their heads who have LOTS of power. And they're eager to use it.

[Immacolata]

As for your map AVL

Show me one of the age around the ottoman empire, lets say late 1700th century

Like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Ottoman_1683.png

Hardly the result of any crusades
Wrong! Notice the retreat of Islam from, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy. How did that happen?

And can you imagine what your 17th century map would have looked like had there been no crusades? And please answer the question: why were there crusades in the first place?

The Reconquista was large and small conflicts dragging on for what, 400 years? IT might put glory and starsprinkles on what a rather simple fight for land and power to call it a holy crusade. The crusades were pretexts for conquests and military campaign. The frankish kings backed their lot, the cordoba calpihate his lot. Granada capitulated at the end of 15th century first. And that is how history is shaped.

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.”

Crusades came about because a lot of idle hands needed something to do. with the destruction of the Sepulchre there was an excuse for starting a campaign in the ME. Oh, and don't forget, they also took a stab at Constantinople, now that the armies were up and marching. The "wrong" church, so they are fair game too. It had nothing to do with Constantinople being a fat ripe target, surely! Economical and social factors was the primary motivator, wrapped up in nice glossy fight for christendom gift wrapper.

The same argument has been used by everyone. The danish kings went on crusades in the Baltic to kill some heathens and earn brown nose points with the papacy. Oh and get some land too, of course. New vassals to support his feudal throne. When they are heathens, infidels etc. it is much easier to put the to the sword and take their belongings. Conquests has been made in the name of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism... pharaoism? Probably lots more I have no clue about. I see a patterne here, to use religion as a tool for political ambition.

[The Avon Lady]

Simply unreal! Been reading Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes"? Or perhaps John Esposito's "Islam: The Straight Path"?

What? Muslim's seizing two thirds of what had formerly been the Christian world, during a period of over 300 years before the 1st Crusade, had nothing to do with the Crusades?

Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comenus' plea for help against the Muslim's butchering of myriads that was taking place against all infidels, was hyperbole, a mere "excuse"?

(Good grief! Are there no Christians out there in forumland that can speak up for themselves? No wonder everyone hires Jewish lawyers!)

Here's some real history for you. From Pope Urban II's Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095 (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-fulcher.html):
For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
Nothing about conversions or conquest. It was all (intended to be) about removing Islam from what once were none other that Christian lands.

Did it fail? Mostly but partially not. Did it have to fail? No. There are lessons to be learned.

And today, there's more of the same. Do you wish to be like the martyrs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Smyrna? The choice is ours.

(Smyrna - today's Izmir. Anyone know what anniversary just passed 3 days ago?)

[Immacolata]

Yes yes yes, the crusades were held, and all that is a fact. But I do apply the view that religion is a coat of paint over the deeper conflicts of land and income. There would have been no crusades or islamist conversion by the swords if there hadn't been monetary gains from it. Somewhere, someone made a buck on this. Religion flavours your actions and motivations, but mankind itself is responsible for its actions, not God or sundry divinities. Since the dawn of civilization, soldiers have always marched to the jingle of coins, no matter if they were holy templar knights or saracen warriors.

Remember it was the RE-conquista, not just the Conquista. Git off mah land!

[The Avon Lady]

Yes yes yes, the crusades were held, and all that is a fact. But I do apply the view that religion is a coat of paint over the deeper conflicts of land and income. There would have been no crusades or islamist conversion by the swords if there hadn't been monetary gains from it.
I disagree on both counts.

The Crusades were not initiated for monetary gain or to stem the monetary losses to be more precise. It might be shocking to hear this but some people actually do believe in coming to the defense of their brother and sisters and the innocent.

And as much as Islam has precise laws on the division of the spoils of war, what motivates the average adherent Muslim soldier is doing Allah's will, whether he gets something out of it or not. Allah is to die for, according to the Quran. Witness the 100s of suicide terrorists in the last 2 decades. Jihad at its pinnacle.

[Immacolata]

Well at least we are that far now. I believe that man can act out of compassion and disregard monetary gains. Every person can chose to do this, and many do, luckily. But year long, centuries long military campaigns are not made out of compassion, but out of ambition and the prospect of a little <Jingle jingle>, titles, land, power, prestige. When Richard the Lionheart set course towards Jerusalem with a band of soldiers, the spoils of war to them was as much of a motivator as the pious part of it, make no mistake. The initiation it self might have the best of intentions, but the participators, who WERE the crusade, surely had other ambitions than merely gobsmacking in the name of christendom. Casus bellum was the destruction of the Sepulchre. And since they were infidel anyways, there was as bellum justum as well.

I prefer this understanding of things rather than the Corsican Goat Feud analogy I used earlier. Is mankind so irrational that he will squabble with his neighbour for centuries, both having forgotten the original cause? I think not.

I have been to Israel and experienced the commotion after another bomb blast struck Tel Aviv. Not a pleasant experience, and we were even far away so saw nothing of the gruesomeness. And of course the suicide bombers gain no money from their attacks. However, a mere 100s? It is the cause of many hundred tragedies, but that is not a war. You know, a WAR-war with soldiers, generals, conquests. It is not an army. It is crazy people doing crazy stuff. As a person can act out of compassion and unselfishness, he can also act in malice and evil. But because 100 malicious idiots blow them selves up to make some kind of ridiculous statement, there is a long shot to having millions marching under arms for the very same purpose. If Jihad is at its pinnacle when terrorists manage to blow up busses, trains, airplanes, then how would they ever manage to mass up a real army and actually grab any land? The WTC attack, which must be the cusp of the pinnacle of jihad, killed so many and was a great spectacle. But what did the jihad gain from this? New converts? A new caliphate? No. It is like blind men's rage. Hurting someone, but accomplishing nothing in the long run.

The very passion, hatred, whatever - the big emotional dimension of the jihad we see today (ie the cells of terrorists and the suicide bombers) seems to be without any clear objective. They will always threat our view on safety, but their irrational anger and unfocussed, spectacular pinpoint attacks on civilians gains them nothing.

Perhaps this is the modern guerilla warfare, which makes it hard to fight conventionally. The campaigns in Lebanon shows this with chilling clarity. How are you supposed to defeat an enemy that hides between civilians without butchering the lot of them? You can't! But as long as they can field merely 100s per decade for suicide attacks, maybe we can perservere for long enough? Ireland, England, Spain have experienced many terror bombs. They have not unravelled. Will Israel unravel? I hope not.

[Skybird]

No matter what the religious argument was (and it dominated in the first time, and certainly for the only successful crusade there ever was: the first one), and if the religious argument later was hijacked by ambitions for material gains, or not, one thing must be clear: that the disputed territories once were Jewish and Christian dominated, as a conseqeunce of the Roman empire, and that they got attacked and conquered by Islamic armies, which makes the crusades not a war of aggression, but a war of defence, trying to win back what had been lost in ground to an invading aggressor. The cruelty of some crusader'S acting, the killing of prisoners, for example, was not always a result of barbarism, but of military thinking: the europeans had no reserves, no ressources left, low man numbers and very, very thin supply lines, they often simply could not afford to supply prisoners in huge quantities (a story from Richard's part in the fight). However, before Richard after one battle had killed all Muslim survivors for this military reason, Islamic leaders had massacred even more Christian survivors of a battle, too, but on what they claimed to be their own ground and in a much better supply situation and with a numerically superior force in place, the excuse of not being able to feed them or having not enough men to guard them is not available for them. Where Richard acted out of military needs, they killed the survivors of that Christian army, to send Europe a clear message: "This is the best fighters and knights you have? Look what we do with them! Hahahaha!" It was an act of terror, so to speak, to pour horror into the heart of the europeans so that they may shy away from trying to win back for Christianity what originally was land of their religion. - An example just to illustrate that Muslim acting was not less brutal and violant then sometimes that of the crusaders - but not for reasons of need, but other, less manadatory needs.

The reconquista was a (successful) attempt to win back territories that had been lost to Muslim invasion, and to kick the aggressors out of Spain as well as Sicily, Italy, Greece. Which was acchieved in Spain, after the Islamic attackers had commited terrible atrocities over centuries and caused a tremendous share of pain and tragedy for the original people of that Spanish territories, suffered mass killings, slave harvestings, discrimination, plunderings, destroying major cities, etc. Some Spanish cities suffered progroms and complete destruction not only once, but several times from Muslim hands. The faery-tale of wonderful tolerant coexistence in Cordoba - is a myth. Never forget that Muslim tolerance means humiliating, discriminating supression of those people that suffer the questionable honour of being tolerated in this state of socalled dhimmitude. Repeatedly , Muslims in Spain also fought amongst themsleves, and then called then Christian kingdoms in the North for help - which usually was granted, out of fear that denying that help suddenly would lead to a unification of the rivalling muslims who then would turn against the Christian kingdoms in an act of this typical Muslim fury over the offense of having been rejected when they demanded something.

And one major difference between Christianity, basing on and following the explicit teachings of Jesus (without whom their wouldn'T be anything called Christianity). Christians who act with violance and intolerance, and who start wars of aggression to conquer new land, are violating the explicit teachings of Christ. Muslims who start wars of conquest and act violantly against other cultures and faiths, are following the explicit teaching of Muhammad and the Quran. The age of imperialism in Europe was a violation of Christian religion. The ongoing history of imperial conquest in Islam is because of it's religion. And this should teach everybody an important knowledge.

If anyone thinks it needs armies nowadays to spread Islam , he better thinks twice. After being militarily defated on european soil repeatedly, now manipulation of mass media and public opinion has proven to do a much better job for Islam in modern times, and tailoring politically correct thinking to it's needs. It gives them access to the West supoerior technology and weaponry. Then there is oil, then there is the weakness and downfall of western cultureand it's values and the lack of unity amongst europeans, and finally there is the unforgiving impact of demographic pressure, and the "fast breeding program" of Muslim colonists who already have moved to the West. where original europeans nowadays have 0-1 children, Muslims tend to have 3-7 children, and more. Stealth Fighters and GPS-guided bombs will not help us against these new enemy tactics. And if we do not find a stronger answer, we will become slaves of Islam inside of what once has been our own house. It will also mean that Islamic world control, if it manages to acchieve that in congruence with it'S ideological teachings, demands and proclaimed and written down demands and intentions, will in fact put an end to human history and evolution for terrifying long times to come. The standstill of any mental evolution - for me this is a vision of bleak horror.

[STEED]

Pin a medal of them fish, Oops you can't do that.


http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/printer_friendly/news_logo.gif
Fish enlisted in US terror fight

One of the most common types of fish in America has been enlisted in the fight against terrorism.

San Francisco, Washington and New York are using bluegills - also known as sunfish - to safeguard their public drinking water.
A small number of fish are kept in tanks which are constantly filled with water from the municipal supply.
The computerised system registers changes in the fishes' vital signs and sends an alert when something is wrong.
Since 11 September 2001, the US government has taken the threat of attacks on water supplies seriously.
Early warning system
Under federal law, nearly all community water systems must be assessed for their vulnerability to terrorism - and water supplies are constantly monitored and tested for chemical and biological agents.
"It's like an early warning system - it acts as another line of defence," said Bill Lawler, co-founder of Intelligent Automation Corporation, the San Diego-based company that makes the anti-terror apparatus.
Bluegills - a hardy species - are highly sensitive to a wide number of toxins. When they are exposed to such substances they experience the fish version of coughing, flexing their gills to expel unwanted particles.
At the first sign of stress in the fish, the computer system will send an alert by email, pager or mobile device, also known as "fish phones".
New York City's bluegills were put to work recently when the system caught traces of a diesel spill before any of the Department of Environmental Protection's other devices.
The bluegills do have limitations however. They cannot reliably detect germs and are no use against other sorts of attacks - the bombing of a water main, or computer hackers attacking the systems that control the flow of water.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5360612.stm

Published: 2006/09/19 15:56:55 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[Immacolata]

And one major difference between Christianity, basing on and following the explicit teachings of Jesus (without whom their wouldn'T be anything called Christianity). Christians who act with violance and intolerance, and who start wars of aggression to conquer new land, are violating the explicit teachings of Christ. Muslims who start wars of conquest and act violantly against other cultures and faiths, are following the explicit teaching of Muhammad and the Quran. The age of imperialism in Europe was a violation of Christian religion. The ongoing history of imperial conquest in Islam is because of it's religion. And this should teach anybody..

Yes it does teach indeed. Firstly it strengthens my hypothesis that war is waged and won on monetary gains, not religion. AS you see, religion is conveniently put in front when it serves your purpose for conquest, and just as conveniently put aside when it stands in your way. Blood and iron, my friend, is how the world is crafted, not by religious flim flam.

[Skybird]

Oh, THAT Fish you mean! :lol:

[STEED]

Dose our Home Secretary Dr John Reid really believe asking British Muslims to inform on their own family members to spot potential extremists? Fat chance they are a closed community and will never do a thing apart from protest and a spot of rioting when some one up sets them.


http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/printer_friendly/news_logo.gif
Reid call over Muslim extremism
Home Secretary John Reid is to call on British Muslims to do more to help root out potential extremists.

In a speech Mr Reid will ask Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children and act if they suspect they are being radicalised by extremists.
The comments will reflect government frustration that not enough has been done since the 7 July London bombings.
However, some Muslim leaders have concerns and, last month, urged a change in UK foreign policy.
Key role
It will be Mr Reid's first speech to a Muslim audience since he became home secretary in May.
During his trip to east London, when he will also visit a mosque, he will say that community and religious leaders can play a key role in the fight against terrorism.
Mr Reid will not tell Muslim parents to report their concerns to the police but wants them to confront their children's behaviour and talk to them.
He will remind his audience that many of those killed in al-Qaeda attacks have been Muslims.
The home secretary will add that the fight against terrorism is a fight to defend common values.
'Dreadful misjudgement'
In an open letter last month, some Muslims leaders said British foreign policy was putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad.
Mr Reid described the letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 organisations, as a "dreadful misjudgement".

HAVE YOUR SAY
Introduce licencing for all preachers of all religions
David Holman, Europe

Earlier this year, Tony Blair said the government alone could not root out extremism in Muslim communities and defeat the terrorism it creates. After the 7 July attacks last year, ministers organised national roadshows targeting fanaticism.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/5362052.stm

Published: 2006/09/20 08:43:04 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[Skybird]

Islam does not make a differenc between religion and policy - "my friend". And the early crusades were triggered by motives of this religious flim flam, not ambitions of conquesting new territory. and even during later crusades, there always were those who participated in them for exclsuively religious motives, thinking of the freeing of the Holy Land from Muslim occupation a religious duty. One can ask if this would have been supported by Jesus. but surely these people followed the rleigious authority that they believed in: the church. don'T see it with modern eyes. You need to see it through their eyes.

What you labelled as "flim flam" just illustrates that you seriously underestimate the power factoir of motivation. In this, Muslim armies always have been superior to christian armies. Reasonable mind and logical acting is no match for the fury caused by religious believing. Bynzantium died, despite superior weapons. Spain fell, and Karl the Hammer only won the battle - not because he was stronger, but the Muslim factions acted like bloody dilletants. Vienna was saved - by sheer luck. The Mujaheddins outsat the Russian'S frightening firepower. NATO will not see much better fate. The Americans have suerior firepower - and still have lost control over the country of Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Reason, and weapons technology, is no match for - expecially religious - motivation. Just look how much a single shot with a tank cannon costs (1200 dollar, roughly), for that money a motavted suicide attacker will doe much, much more damage to you.

Economically and financiall, we have already lost the war on terror. They use cents to make us waste billions.

If I hold no fear of death, and even long for it, no weapon you can buy can stop me from attacking you. That unimportant my motivation is. and if you have a problem with massmurder, or oyur public has, the only questionthat remains is can I come up with more buddies sharing my mindset than you have bullets to fire before your people call you back, stopping you from commiting these atrocities against my group.

[STEED]

Well, well no surprise at all. :smug:


http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/printer_friendly/news_logo.gif
Reid speech disrupted by hecklers
Home Secretary John Reid has called on British Muslims to do more to help root out potential extremists.

In a speech Mr Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children and act if they suspect they are being radicalised by extremists.
The comments reflect government frustration that not enough has been done since the 7 July London bombings.
His speech was interrupted by a Muslim heckler who said he was "furious" about "state terrorism by British police".
Mr Reid watched as the protester was led from the building by police and stewards.
The protester accused the minister of being an "enemy" of Islam.
A second heckler was ejected a few minutes later after he also interrupted the speech.
Key role
The man emerged from the venue clutching several posters, one of which said: "John Reid you will pay!"
It comes after some Muslim leaders expressed concerns about the UK's foreign policy and called for it to be changed.
It was Mr Reid's first speech to a Muslim audience since he became home secretary in May.
During his trip to east London, which also involved a visit to a mosque, he said that community and religious leaders can play a key role in the fight against terrorism.
The home secretary said "our fight is not with Muslims generally". Instead, he said, there was a "struggle against extremism".
"Our battle is with those terrorists who have no respect for human life, equality or the democratic process," he said.
He spoke of there being a "conflict of values" between "terrorists on one side" and most of "modern civilisation" on the other.

HAVE YOUR SAY
Introduce licensing for all preachers of all religions
David Holman, Europe


Mr Reid did not tell Muslim parents to report their concerns to the police but wants them to confront their children's behaviour and talk to them.
And he reminded his audience that many of those killed in al-Qaeda attacks have been Muslims.
The home secretary added that the fight against terrorism is a fight to defend common values.
In an open letter last month, some Muslims leaders said British foreign policy was putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad.
Mr Reid described the letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 organisations, as a "dreadful misjudgement".
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the government alone could not root out extremism in Muslim communities and defeat the terrorism it creates. After the 7 July attacks last year, ministers organised national roadshows targeting fanaticism.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/5362052.stm

Published: 2006/09/20 11:40:02 GMT

© BBC MMVI

[The Avon Lady]

Dose our Home Secretary Dr John Reid really believe asking British Muslims to inform on their own family members to spot potential extremists?
Been there, done that (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002752.php). :nope:

[STEED]

Dose our Home Secretary Dr John Reid really believe asking British Muslims to inform on their own family members to spot potential extremists?
Been there, done that (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002752.php). :nope:

AL, drop him a line and tell him it will not work.

[SkvyWvr]

How do well educated officials come up with such dumbass ideas? :damn: :nope:

[The Avon Lady]

Dose our Home Secretary Dr John Reid really believe asking British Muslims to inform on their own family members to spot potential extremists?
Been there, done that (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002752.php). :nope:
AL, drop him a line and tell him it will not work.
Are you crazy?! After yesterday's BBC report about attacking phone booths, nothing doing! :nope:

[The Avon Lady]

I will now wait for the first major US false alarm, when someone decides to place fish in parks and in buildings to check the air for terror-based contaminations and panics when they all start dying within minutes of their placement.

[STEED]

Are you crazy?! After yesterday's BBC report about attacking phone booths, nothing doing! :nope:

Try email or a letter or what ever. :lol:

[The Avon Lady]

How do well educated officials come up with such dumbass ideas? :damn: :nope:
By being well educated dumbasses. Quite common, actually. :yep:

[joea]

Reality TV:

http://newsbiscuit.com/article/new-reality-tv-show-will-put-martyrs-in-paradise


A new reality TV show plans to trick Muslim extremists into thinking they are taking part in a suicide bombing, and then secretly filming them as they explore what they imagine is the afterlife.
Following the success of last year’s reality TV show Space Cadets, in which contestants were duped into believing that they had been sent into orbit, Channel Four has been under pressure to raise the stakes in the competitive world of reality TV.
‘If death is the ultimate reality, then making the participants think they are dead is the ultimate reality TV show’ said producer Jeremy Gill. ‘These young extremists will really think they have died for the jihad and gone to their Islamic paradise.’
The show’s set up is quite simple. Extremist militant young Muslims will be tricked into thinking that they are about to lay down their lives in the Holy Jihad. But instead, the suicide bombs in their suitcases will only be stun grenades. When they wake up they will have no idea that they are actually in a specially prepared aircraft hangar outside Luton.
‘They believe that seventy two virgins will be waiting for them in paradise. In our version, there is only Christine Hamilton and Carol Thatcher’ explained the producer of Jihad Martyrs. ‘We thought it would be more entertaining if paradise was consistently disappointing and very badly run. Nothing works and the food is awful. Oh and God and St Peter will there too, because we these guys have to adjust to waking up in a Judeo-Christian heaven. And we made God Jewish. Channel Four does have a remit to cater for all faiths, and we wouldn’t want to cause any offence.’
The programme is already in production and the first episode will transmit next month. Police will not be informed of the identity of the suicide bombers until the end of the series, nor the secret location in which the programme is being filmed; ‘We thought it might compromise the illusion that these people were in Heaven’ said Jeremy Gill. ‘…if armed policeman suddenly burst in and pumped thirty bullets into their heads.’


This just might be the answer.

*Sits and awaits a 2000 word post by Skybird, and numerous links from Jihadwatch by Avon Lady as well as sundry miltary solutions from US posters*

[Oberon]

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I read that one the other day, that website is really good! :up:


Right...where's Avon and Skybird...can't believe I got a post in before them :o

[Skybird]

:rotfl: it will get that TV station being bombed into a deep crater, but still :rotfl:

[tycho102]

This just might be the answer.

*Sits and awaits a 2000 word post by Skybird, and numerous links from Jihadwatch by Avon Lady as well as sundry miltary solutions from US posters*
*decides to buck the grain*

I think we need to endow a university research program to fully understand the the moslem grivances. If we really understood and addressed their grivances, then we would all be able to live in harmony with each other. Everything comes down to understanding. And love. The moslems really just want love and understanding. If you were poor, and everyone else around you was rich, you would want people to help you. You would want kind, understanding, caring, nurturing people to accept you for who you really are, and just give you the help you need to get ahead.

*plays Bett Midler's "From a Distance (http://history.acusd.edu/gen/snd/fromadistance.html)" on the iPod*

[Oberon]

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o

http://www.garnersclassics.com/pics/brian/blasph.jpg

*stone is thrown at tycho.*
"WHO THREW THAT?!!"
"No-one, and I mean NO-ONE, is to throw anything until I blow this whistle, even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say Muslim in a positive light!"

[STEED]

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o

http://www.garnersclassics.com/pics/brian/blasph.jpg

*stone is thrown at tycho.*
"WHO THREW THAT?!!"
"No-one, and I mean NO-ONE, is to throw anything until I blow this whistle, even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say Muslim in a positive light!"

Are there any women here?

[NEON DEON]

The Pope describes early Islamic expansion as violent and present day Muslims threaten violence. :/\\x:


I see not much has changed in a thousand years.:damn: :damn: :damn:

[AG124]

What does everyone think of this article? Although it's primary purpose is to criticize fundamentalist Atheism, it also defends muslims' actions. That's a very, very brief and somewhat inaccurate summary on my part but it is late at night and I am tired.:zzz: I don't really like the article though, although I understand why the author believes some of the things that he does.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/the-sad-state-of-atheism-_b_29749.html

EDIT - Also, an article defending the West's freedom of speech and condemning muslim actions. Not sure if it has been posted here already.

http://www.nysun.com/article/39939?page_no=1

[Perilscope]

How can atheists work with people of faith to create a better society if they won't even read and learn about their fellow human beings? Yet some still refuse, because knowledge might interfere with their own cherished beliefs - not to mention their sales pitch.
Well, reading that part, I can see he lives in a bubble, and I stopped reading there.:nope:

No other comments! :roll:

[moose1am]

Religion can't be seperated from Politics. Religous leaders have used their religous power to control their followers for centuries. The Pope use the King and the King used the Pope in 1307 to get rid of the Templar Knights.

Religion and Politics are both used to control people and to benefit those in power. Power give them access to material wealth and it allows them to use others to get what they want done.


And one major difference between Christianity, basing on and following the explicit teachings of Jesus (without whom their wouldn'T be anything called Christianity). Christians who act with violance and intolerance, and who start wars of aggression to conquer new land, are violating the explicit teachings of Christ. Muslims who start wars of conquest and act violantly against other cultures and faiths, are following the explicit teaching of Muhammad and the Quran. The age of imperialism in Europe was a violation of Christian religion. The ongoing history of imperial conquest in Islam is because of it's religion. And this should teach anybody..

Yes it does teach indeed. Firstly it strengthens my hypothesis that war is waged and won on monetary gains, not religion. AS you see, religion is conveniently put in front when it serves your purpose for conquest, and just as conveniently put aside when it stands in your way. Blood and iron, my friend, is how the world is crafted, not by religious flim flam.

[Skybird]

How can atheists work with people of faith to create a better society if they won't even read and learn about their fellow human beings? Yet some still refuse, because knowledge might interfere with their own cherished beliefs - not to mention their sales pitch.
Well, reading that part, I can see he lives in a bubble, and I stopped reading there.:nope:

Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols. I am atheist myself - and consider myself to be a very religious person. Buddhism is atheistic, too. I would even argue that the new God-concept that was introduced and taught by Jesus, and that stands separate from the God of the old testament, in a way can be understood to be atheistic, non-theistic, in the way that Jesus' "God" is no personalised god, no idol, no theistic entity. I think a religion is the more theistic, the more it is interpreted word-by-word, literally. The more the "believer" understands that words are symbols only and do not necessarily describe a "real reality", the more he turns into an atheist, nevertheless he can remain to be a highly spriitual person.

take the four Gosples, and take them literally word-by-word: and you end up with some Christian fundamentalists who wants to live by biblic rules from a thoisuand years ago and in post-medieval (or pre-medieval!) living conditions. Take the fours gospels and go beyond the word, refuse to understand the word "God" or "Father" as an idol, and you end up with Meister Eckehard or Jakob Böhme.

Me thinks, where there is theism, there may be dwelling emotions and superficial rapture, but there is no true religious experience. Religion needs atheism.

"Die Schrift is Schrift, sonst nichts,
Mein Trost ist Wesenheit,
Und daß Gott in mir spricht
das Wort der Ewigkeit."
(Angelus Silesius, 17th cent.)

[Perilscope]

Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols.Exactly my thought's!

[scandium]

How can atheists work with people of faith to create a better society if they won't even read and learn about their fellow human beings? Yet some still refuse, because knowledge might interfere with their own cherished beliefs - not to mention their sales pitch. Well, reading that part, I can see he lives in a bubble, and I stopped reading there.:nope:
Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols. I am atheist myself - and consider myself to be a very religious person.

You cannot be both a "very religious person" and an atheist at the same time. That's more of an oxymoron than "military intelligence". Religion is not just a belief in some form of "higher power", but also a prescribed set of beliefs within an organized body of dogma and usually laid down through a hierarchal structure (Catholicism offering the best example, where you have the Pope at the top, nearly divine, then the arch bishops, bishops, priests, brothers, and then followers in that order from top to bottom). If you are Atheist, then you reject completely any type of God figure and naturally all organized religion attached to it. Agnosticism isn't quite so extreme, it allows you to reject organized religion but remain open to a God figure.

You confuse religion with spirituality. You can be a very spiritual person yet belong to no organized religion or attend any religious ceremonies or subscribe to any of its dogma - or you can be both spiritual and religious (they are not mutually exclusive).

FYI, from the Buddhist material I've read (top of the list is "Buddhism without beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor) I've come to think of it as less of a religion and more of an applied philosophy. But that's just my opinion, I'm still new to this eastern "religion" but I like what I've read of it so far and identify with its philosophy much more so than I do with the Catholic teachings I was raised with.

[Happy Times]

Wake up people.:doh: http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/05.10.09.TheirPerspective-X.gif

[Happy Times]

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j104/Yodaplanet/placardtranslation.jpg:rotfl:

[The Avon Lady]

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/05.10.09.TheirPerspective-X.gif
I'm sorry. I couldn't make out the last frame of the comic. It's chopped off.

Oh............................ :dead:

More here (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013222.php).

For some amusing pics, look here (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013235.php) and especially the sign on the right (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060915/ids_photos_wl/r2741954457.jpg). :p

[Happy Times]

Great, thanks! :D And AL , im happy that you and your family are Ok, after the large-scale attacks by the terrorists.:)

[Immacolata]

FYI, from the Buddhist material I've read (top of the list is "Buddhism without beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor) I've come to think of it as less of a religion and more of an applied philosophy. But that's just my opinion, I'm still new to this eastern "religion" but I like what I've read of it so far and identify with its philosophy much more so than I do with the Catholic teachings I was raised with.

Sorry to disappoint you, but that is just western romantic thinking. Socalled orientalism that puts buddhism where it doesn't belong. Buddhism has been a religious tool as well. In medieval Japan, the buddhist monks where a major headache for the ruling clans. When they perceived that buddhist law was not duly upheld, they took up arms and stormed the capital. Buddhist religion was as intervowen in politics then as it is today in other religions.

[scandium]

FYI, from the Buddhist material I've read (top of the list is "Buddhism without beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor) I've come to think of it as less of a religion and more of an applied philosophy. But that's just my opinion, I'm still new to this eastern "religion" but I like what I've read of it so far and identify with its philosophy much more so than I do with the Catholic teachings I was raised with.
Sorry to disappoint you, but that is just western romantic thinking. Socalled orientalism that puts buddhism where it doesn't belong. Buddhism has been a religious tool as well. In medieval Japan, the buddhist monks where a major headache for the ruling clans. When they perceived that buddhist law was not duly upheld, they took up arms and stormed the capital. Buddhist religion was as intervowen in politics then as it is today in other religions.

Ok, but I was more describing its western adoption than historical evolution.

[Immacolata]

Well I am sure you could be as eclectic in adopting islam for western consumption. Cut out the raised sabre and dhimmi bits, and focus on the spiritual parts. Easy. Pray 5 times per day. Keep clean bodily as mentally. Treat your brothers kindly. In fact, it would be really nice if they'd do it themselves. I still believe that this is why no religions differ when it is used as a political tool.

But no. We see no such attempts at modernizing islam. The important religious leaders hang on to the ever withering olive branch that islam must remain a fiery force. Today is the day of wrath, called as a response to the pope's speech a while ago. And the reason for this thread.

Let us imagine for a moment that the proper response cited by the quran would be to thumb your nose. Or fast for 3 days in defiance. Imagine that. I am inclined to believe that the problems between the occident and the near orient is perhaps due to the occidental world having won supremacy as the most powerful and dominating culture in our parts. And the proper response to this is the angry fist of defiance. And some nutjobs take this very seriously and blow up people here and there. It seems so bloody illogic.

Danish cartoon drawers make more or less tasteful cartoons depicting the prophet. Response are mass nose thumbings in the streets of Damascus. In Indoneisa 100.000 protestors sit down and refuse to eat food for 3 days.

Sounds nice doesn't it? Instead we got embassy torchings and violence. And anyone not muslim is definitely scratching their head and deciding, these people are dangerous and irrational.

[Skybird]

How can atheists work with people of faith to create a better society if they won't even read and learn about their fellow human beings? Yet some still refuse, because knowledge might interfere with their own cherished beliefs - not to mention their sales pitch. Well, reading that part, I can see he lives in a bubble, and I stopped reading there.:nope:
Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols. I am atheist myself - and consider myself to be a very religious person.

You cannot be both a "very religious person" and an atheist at the same time. That's more of an oxymoron than "military intelligence". Religion is not just a belief in some form of "higher power", but also a prescribed set of beliefs within an organized body of dogma and usually laid down through a hierarchal structure (Catholicism offering the best example, where you have the Pope at the top, nearly divine, then the arch bishops, bishops, priests, brothers, and then followers in that order from top to bottom). If you are Atheist, then you reject completely any type of God figure and naturally all organized religion attached to it. Agnosticism isn't quite so extreme, it allows you to reject organized religion but remain open to a God figure.

You confuse religion with spirituality. You can be a very spiritual person yet belong to no organized religion or attend any religious ceremonies or subscribe to any of its dogma - or you can be both spiritual and religious (they are not mutually exclusive).

FYI, from the Buddhist material I've read (top of the list is "Buddhism without beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor) I've come to think of it as less of a religion and more of an applied philosophy. But that's just my opinion, I'm still new to this eastern "religion" but I like what I've read of it so far and identify with its philosophy much more so than I do with the Catholic teachings I was raised with.

We differ on your view of religion, which has become apparent before. For you, it is a set of historical constellations, that's why you do not differ between "church" and "Christianity", while the content of the thoughts is not so much of interest for you. In principle, it is a tendency to relativize differing contents again, and clean them of differences. For me, religion is the expression of spirituality, and alive spiritual expoerience is not about rituals and idols, but directness (Unmittelbarkeit), and unblinded perception of the reality of cósmos/existence/mind. Thus I say that religion and theism are excluding each other, and that true religion as an expression of alive, healthy spirituality necessarily must be atheistic, non-theistic.

I think and teach this in accordance with Buddhist psychology, religion, philosophy or however you may call it. It is not about how you call it, but direct experience, that's why Siddharta did not actively founded a tradition of theological dispute, like in Christian church. Jesus also did not do that, nowehre he has founded a church. The church came not before Paul. And this guy is a completely different story. One should not match up Church with Christianity. If anything, the church represents "Paulanism".

"Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols." - Or ideas, I should add.

[Onkel Neal]

You cannot be both a "very religious person" and an atheist at the same time. That's more of an oxymoron than "military intelligence". Religion is not just a belief in some form of "higher power", but also a prescribed set of beliefs within an organized body of dogma and usually laid down through a hierarchal structure (Catholicism offering the best example, where you have the Pope at the top, nearly divine, then the arch bishops, bishops, priests, brothers, and then followers in that order from top to bottom). If you are Atheist, then you reject completely any type of God figure and naturally all organized religion attached to it. Agnosticism isn't quite so extreme, it allows you to reject organized religion but remain open to a God figure.

You confuse religion with spirituality. You can be a very spiritual person yet belong to no organized religion or attend any religious ceremonies or subscribe to any of its dogma - or you can be both spiritual and religious (they are not mutually exclusive).



I think you've got it right.

[Skybird]

Well I am sure you could be as eclectic in adopting islam for western consumption. Cut out the raised sabre and dhimmi bits, and focus on the spiritual parts. Easy. Pray 5 times per day. Keep clean bodily as mentally. Treat your brothers kindly. In fact, it would be really nice if they'd do it themselves. I still believe that this is why no religions differ when it is used as a political tool.



No, you can't do that. That's as if one is saying: okay, I pick the teaching of Jesus, but exclude what he has said in the sermon at the mountain. the teaching of Jesus cannot be cut into pieces, and then eclectically choosing those parts you like. It is one whole, one teaching only, it all is crossreferring, it all is in contact with each other "element". you can take the teaching of Jesus, the four gospels) and separate it from the rest of the NT, and even more so from the OT, because the bible has a historical structure shows that it was created over along time, and reflects different phases of man's evolution and understanding of what he means when saying "God." the God of the OT is not the God Jesus talks about. Jesus made it clear that with him something old was ending, and something new was beginning.

The Quran, to sum it up in roughn words, has been "dicated" by one man during a couple of years only, muhammad. It also is one whole, and all thinking that derives from it and for example resulted in the codification of Sharia law in the Hadith is one thinking. You cannot be Muslim, for example, without wanting Sharia, for that reason. you cannot pick some Suras and verses you like, and reject the others. It brings the whole concept of Quranic understanding to collapse. Moderate muslims often are not aware of the contradcitions they create when doing so. It all is one whole. If you do like you suggest, picking some parts, refusing others, you do not reformate Islam, but in fact create something completely new, which is not Islam anymore. Quran does not compare to the bible. If it does, then only to the older parts of the OT. It did not see various phases of evolution and developement, or even replacement (Jesus), like the bible. It only saw a phase of various political ambitions to instrumentalize it during the first three centuries. But this did not affect the structure of it, which I referred to just days ago as a "monocockpit", manufactured by one piece of material only: you cannot raplace a minor part of it when it is broken. you can only replace the complete cockpit cell.

[Onkel Neal]

More here (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013222.php).

For some amusing pics, look here (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013235.php) and especially the sign on the right (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060915/ids_photos_wl/r2741954457.jpg). :p

Isn't that the truth!

http://www.jihadwatch.org/asay.gif

[Immacolata]

Well I am sure you could be as eclectic in adopting islam for western consumption. Cut out the raised sabre and dhimmi bits, and focus on the spiritual parts. Easy. Pray 5 times per day. Keep clean bodily as mentally. Treat your brothers kindly. In fact, it would be really nice if they'd do it themselves. I still believe that this is why no religions differ when it is used as a political tool.



No, you can't do that. That's as if one is saying: okay, I pick the teaching of Jesus, but exclude what he has said in the sermon at the mountain. the teaching of Jesus cannot be cut into pieces, and then eclectically choosing those parts you like. It is one whole, one teaching only, it all is crossreferring, it all is in contact with each other "element". you can take the teaching of Jesus, the four gospels) and separate it from the rest of the NT, and even more so from the OT, because the bible has a historical structure shows that it was created over along time, and reflects different phases of man's evolution and understanding of what he means when saying "God." the God of the OT is not the God Jesus talks about. Jesus made it clear that with him something old was ending, and something new was beginning.

Of course you can. It has been done many times. New interpretations of the bible, new and old, has been carried out many times in the last 2000 years. There is no unified christian church toda if you pay just a little bit attention. But you are probably too busy blindly rambling on these boards about things I doubt you know the full meaning of. There are the copts, the greek orthodox, the catholics, the many versio ns protestants, the anglicans, the ethiopian christians etc. Many and diverse interpretations of the so-called holy words. This is a good sign of mankind being more smart than you seem willing to credit us for.

The Quran, to sum it up in roughn words, has been "dicated" by one man during a couple of years only, muhammad. It also is one whole, and all thinking that derives from it and for example resulted in the codification of Sharia law in the Hadith is one thinking. You cannot be Muslim, for example, without wanting Sharia, for that reason. you cannot pick some Suras and verses you like, and reject the others.
Now that might be because no one WANTS to. Fine, what ever the cause, there is nothing that prevents them except dogma. You cannot be a good christian either without rejection homosexuality. However, societies have figured out how to do that just the same. The books are just paper, it is the people that chose what to do with the words. And you are showing the exact same fundamentalist traits in your interpretation of the gospels and the quran that you seem to fear is the case with all the worlds muslims. You really start to tire me with these constant and unfounded religious attacks. I will discuss it with you no more.

[fredbass]

You know, I'm just confused.

All the pope did is tell the truth. What's he apologizing for? :doh: :know:

[Skybird]

Of course you can. It has been done many times. New interpretations of the bible, new and old, has been carried out many times in the last 2000 years. There is no unified christian church toda if you pay just a little bit attention. But you are probably too busy blindly rambling on these boards about things I doubt you know the full meaning of. There are the copts, the greek orthodox, the catholics, the many versio ns protestants, the anglicans, the ethiopian christians etc. Many and diverse interpretations of the so-called holy words. This is a good sign of mankind being more smart than you seem willing to credit us for.

Watch your tone.
And thank you very much for perfectly illustrating what is possible with the traditions deriving from the bible (if you only would have red carefully what I said you would have seen that I headed at the same direction), and why it was possible.
You are fighting shadows.

Now that might be because no one WANTS to. Fine, what ever the cause, there is nothing that prevents them except dogma. You cannot be a good christian either without rejection homosexuality. However, societies have figured out how to do that just the same. The books are just paper, it is the people that chose what to do with the words. And you are showing the exact same fundamentalist traits in your interpretation of the gospels and the quran that you seem to fear is the case with all the worlds muslims.

You are talking about institutions and dogmas only. Get your things better together next time before starting to balk at me, and at least try to understand what I said, your reply shows that you have not understand much of my posting. I wonder if you even have red it all, or stopped after the first sentence you did not lie.

You really start to tire me with these constant and unfounded religious attacks. I will discuss it with you no more.
At no time I felt you were discussing with me, or with others not sharing your partly incomplete, partialy contradictory views in the last days. You were balking at me, three times in as many days, if I counted it correctly. So check yourself in the mirror, Mr. Clever.