Why do people not like Muslims?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
on a few things said:

One has to wonder as well, if there is an inherent problem with Islam, why is it that all this muslim militancy really seems to get started in 1979?

1. the failure of secular Arab nationalism (yes, I know Arab != muslim, but im talking the larger historical narrative here. besides, i think one could make a case regarding failure of secular Pakistani nationalism as well). From 1967 on Sayed Qutb's followers could say, SEE we were right, not Nasser.
2. The Saudi response to the Iranian revolution, which was to fund the spread of militan wahabism as fast as possible to preempt the appeal of the Iranian revolution to Sunni populations.

Re your casualty numbers
1. Are you including civil wars? Im thinking of Tajikistan, Algeria, Afghanistan pre-2001, etc.
2. Of course this doesnt approach the magnitude of World War 2. The nature of the "war" is much closer to the cold war than to WW2.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Albert Speer

?

Furthermore, there are numerous lines in the various surahs that hint at an interpretive nature of the Koran. There is no dogma in Sunni Islam, the individual believer interpreting the Koran himself. This may be the cause of extremism as, whereas, a religion like Catholicism will be moderate or liberal if the papal curia is moderate or liberal, Sunni Islam (and most protestant faiths) will have believers who interprete the koran in a reactionary way while others will not. the individualism of sunni islam allows for extremism.

Yes, this was my understanding. Interpretating the Koran (and the Hadiths) is something Sunni muslims have been doing for hundreds of years, following 4 different legal schools in doing so.

My impression is though, that individuals are not supposed to do so, but should follow the example of a person learned in the law, a member of the Ulema.

In traditional Judaism there is a general rule that you should be part of a particular community, and follow the rulings of the rabbi who is decisor for that community, and NOT go opinion shopping (though it happens, even among the Orthodox) Is there any equivalent in Sunni Islam?

In Judaism there is no working priesthood (descendants of the ancient priesthood are recognized, but are of little contemporary importance) anyone who is personally observant and knows the prayers may lead them. OTOH decisors of legal questions ARE formally ordained (IE Rabbis) Is there no such formal ordination for legal decisors in Sunni Islam?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what Christians are you speaking of? If they do not take the original texts as being literal, they are not Christians. All of Christian dogma, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, for the past two millenia, has stated that the original texts are the word of God.

Well, that is unfortunately false. Paul's letter to the Romans, for example, is clearly not belived to be the direct word of God; that's why it's Paul's letter and not God's letter. I'm assuming you mean a more central book, like Exodus or the Godpels or something. The gospels, however, were written by human beings; thus we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

Even Deuteronomy, which is supposedly the laws given to the Israelites by Moses, is likely to have originated around the 7th century BCE.

I guess it depends on what you mean by original texts, but it should be obvious (and it is widely held among many Christians) that much of the Bible is in fact not the direct word of God; at best it is inspired by God, though still written by humans who had interests and predjudices particular to their time and place.

there is actually more leniency as the Koran says quite explicitly that moral Christians and Jews who follow the teachings of their faiths will have heaven. There are no doubt contradictions between the Old Testament/Torah, the Gospels, and the Koran yet God is merciful and lenient enough to allow these contradictions exist and those who subscribe to beliefs that defer from the Koran will still have paradise. Is this not more leniency than perhaps any religious faith has ever had?

That is true, but totally irrelevant to the point I was making. By leniency, I did not mean tolerance; you seem to be confusing those two. I accept that Islam, in a pure form, is a very tolerant faith (probably more so than Christianity) for the reasons you provide, but that does not make it lenient in the non-literalist sense.

Furthermore, there are numerous lines in the various surahs that hint at an interpretive nature of the Koran. There is no dogma in Sunni Islam, the individual believer interpreting the Koran himself. This may be the cause of extremism as, whereas, a religion like Catholicism will be moderate or liberal if the papal curia is moderate or liberal, Sunni Islam (and most protestant faiths) will have believers who interprete the koran in a reactionary way while others will not. the individualism of sunni islam allows for extremism.

An interesting and compelling argument that does not address the original point. I think your analysis of the source of extremism is very interesting, though as I said I was evaluating fundamentalism and not extremism.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Re your casualty numbers
1. Are you including civil wars? Im thinking of Tajikistan, Algeria, Afghanistan pre-2001, etc.
2. Of course this doesnt approach the magnitude of World War 2. The nature of the "war" is much closer to the cold war than to WW2.

Yes, I am including civil wars-as I said, Algeria being #3, though if we include Afghanistan, as per my second post, it goes to #4. Even then, for example, these wars are not out of line with say regional wars like Vietnam and Korea for the bloodiets of these wars that involved international interventions or interstate fighting (Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq). Even the internal strife is not, sadly, of extreme natures. Sudan is about as Bloody as the Congo, and none of those internal civil wars are out of line, with say conflicts in Latin America in the 70's and 80's.

[muxec]

Islam is the religion in violence in it's roots. Mohamed said that one day everything will belong to muslims only and it's the aim of muslims.

I'm not a rascist, but I study "history of religion" course in University

[GePap]

So? Christians believe at the end of the day anyone who did not convert goes to hell.

Being exclusive is a fault of monotheism.

[muxec]

Originally posted by GePap
So? Christians believe at the end of the day anyone who did not convert goes to hell.

Being exclusive is a fault of monotheism.

But Christians do not say that they must be sent to hell as soon as possible.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap
So? Christians believe at the end of the day anyone who did not convert goes to hell.

Being exclusive is a fault of monotheism.

raises hand and waves vigourously

[muxec]

And Christians never promised 72 virgins to martyrs ; )

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'd assume enternal salvation may involve something like that.

Besides the 72 virgins is a mistranslation.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


raises hand and waves vigourously

Says the member of the "chosen people"

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Besides the 72 virgins is a mistranslation.

What is the correct translation then?

The best thing I heard about it is that these girld revirginzed themselves after the act

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Illegal according to the killer? .

Which is why "murder" is a useless word. It's a legal term.

But you just said it was a legal term?

It is, and when misused it becomes a meaningless appeal to emotion.

Murder is defined as the killing of one person by another against the will of the killed.

No it isn't.

Fundamentally, it isn't. Societies are somewhat continuous, the only real discrete thing we can deal with here are individuals. So, the individual morality of a given Muslim. My argument would seem to stand.

Not if there were people who didn't want to be beaten and killed for not wearing a hijab.

Simply put, while all subjectives are equally valid, we are faced with contexts in which we have to judge, and in that context some things may be more valid than another. Outside of that context, all are equally valid.

WTF? You are never required to make moral judgements. In fact, holding to relativism, you can't make (objective) moral judgements. Anything else is just objective morality calling itself relativism.

What you can do is make [/i]subjective[/i] judgements based on your own personal moral philosophy, but to pretend that they have any significance beyond that is fundamentally incompatible with relativism.

Wrong. You confuse direct imposition with environmental. If you are sitting on a bench, you are environmentally preventing me from sitting on that bench. If I walk over, pick you up and throw you 10 feet away, then I am directly impeding you.

I'm directly impeding you both times. You just happen to think that it's OK to impede people in some cases but not in others, great, that's your personal morality.

Fair enough, I'll go for that. I am not one to align myself with a particular value system except my own.

Great. I am also not one to align myself with a value system other than my own - which happens to coincide generally with that of the West.