Does Poll Show Islam Not Religion of Peace?

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Heresson
That You don't need a brain to have a soul doesn't mean that everything without a brain has a soul.

OTOH, it doesn't mean that anything with a brain has a soul, so what is the point? And who has a soul? And why?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
And you have freedoms in islam as well, it's just that the cells are smaller.

Of course you can have freedom with Islam. Indonesia is a muslim country, and a democracy, Albania is, Turkey is. And MOST muslims living in the West follow democratic values.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Atahualpa


OTOH, it doesn't mean that anything with a brain has a soul, so what is the point? And who has a soul? And why?

It's a matter of discussion. I was defending one point of view, not necessarily mine.

Freedom... pah! The world is a prison, you can just choose if you want a nice looking cell or not. And you have freedoms in islam as well, it's just that the cells are smaller.

Very nicely said.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ramo
Yes, let's deport everyone who thinks Western society is decadent and immoral; there goes 3/4 of the Republican Party (and a good fraction of the conservative Dems).

I'm only picking on those who want to destroy (by their own admission) the society that they chose to live in. Obviously they chose poorly, and lucky for them they have the choice to live somewhere else. I see no reason why the other members of that society (ie those who don't want to destroy it) shouldn't help them on their way to overcome any inertia.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

I think you are wrong in looking at AQ this way. AQs ideology is decidedly religious - its hostile to the existence of individual muslim "nation states". Their take on certain local conflicts is from a strictly Islamic POV -

Does anyone IRA man ever complain about Brit occupation of CATHOLIC land?

As for the UK being a protestant state cause of the limit on the king, now youre just being silly.

You're misrepresenting me- there seems to be a rash of this lately.

I haven't said that the United Kingdom is a PROTESTANT state- I've simply pointed out the startlingly obvious, that the Act of Settlement disbars Catholics from the succession, and disbars a royal who marries a Catholic or who converts to Catholicism. It doesn't also specify Muslims or Hindus or Seventh Day Adventists.

It also wasn't a point about the personal power invested in the hands of the reigning monarch, but thanks for bringing that strawnman up too.

As for the IRA complaining about 'Catholic' land being occupied, I've never suggested such a thing. However, they did want to 'return' the six counties to Ireland,a state which had an inbuilt bias towards Catholicism in its constitution.

Given the position of fundamentalist Protestant Unionists (the Pope is the Antichrist, et cetera) one doesn't have to be a genius to join the dots and see the sectarian side of the picture.

Oh, and OBL and Al Qaeda's Sunni fundamentalism is remarkably flexible when it wants to be- videos ? cameras ? photgraphs and websites ?

So much for the Sunni fundamentalist view on the banning of the reproduction of images.

[Dr Strangelove]

Islam is a religion of piece(s).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by molly bloom



You're misrepresenting me- there seems to be a rash of this lately.

I haven't said that the United Kingdom is a PROTESTANT state- I've simply pointed out the startlingly obvious, that the Act of Settlement disbars Catholics from the succession, and disbars a royal who marries a Catholic or who converts to Catholicism. It doesn't also specify Muslims or Hindus or Seventh Day Adventists.

It also wasn't a point about the personal power invested in the hands of the reigning monarch, but thanks for bringing that strawnman up too.

As for the IRA complaining about 'Catholic' land being occupied, I've never suggested such a thing. However, they did want to 'return' the six counties to Ireland,a state which had an inbuilt bias towards Catholicism in its constitution.

Given the position of fundamentalist Protestant Unionists (the Pope is the Antichrist, et cetera) one doesn't have to be a genius to join the dots and see the sectarian side of the picture.

Oh, and OBL and Al Qaeda's Sunni fundamentalism is remarkably flexible when it wants to be- videos ? cameras ? photgraphs and websites ?

So much for the Sunni fundamentalist view on the banning of the reproduction of images.

An inbuilt Catholic bias???? Geez louise. Muslim states that enforce Sharia family law, and that in general out religion the Irish Republic by a long ways, are considered secularist devils by AQ, not worthy of even being called Muslims.

And yes their Sunni fundamentalism is flexible - so what. Their particular ideology is flexible on certain things, and decidedly inflexible on other things. That hardly shows that religion isnt central to their ideology.

[lord of the mark]

Molly, have you ever read a book on Al Qaeeda, or related groups? It doesnt sound like you have. (i freely admit to not having read anything on 20th century Ireland, and I should) It really sounds like youve decided the way to reply to the bigoted rightwingers is to assert that AQ is really no different in its motivations from the factions in Ireland, ergo Islam is no different from Christianity, ergo stop bashing muslims.

NOw this really isnt necessarily. It is wrong, profoundly wrong, to bash innocent muslims, who hold views of Islam diametrically at odds from those of AQ and other Qutbists, for the actions of the radicals. But while unnecessary, your apparentely a priori view has caused you to engage in absurd sophistry.

[child of Thor]

ALL religions have done terrible things at some point, and many continue to do so.(here's a challange - someone find a religion that has a spotless record)

In most of these cases its about the politics that hi-jack the religion.

So we have Al-queda using Islam and Neo-cons using christianity(which is just their umbrella for another faith i expect) in this current conflict.
Both use religion to further their political aims, even when using tactics that are completely against many of the fundemental principals of the particualr religion.

And both are 'evil' in their own ways for doing so.

[Heresson]

"All have done this" argument is a weak one. Why some have done something several hungred years before, and some didn't stop doing it up till today?
Hi-jacking religion? It's just a slogan. Neo-cons may be using religion for their means, but Muslim fundamentalists are completely honest in their convictions: their motives are clearly or almost clearly religious.
Religions differ, and islam was since its beginning connected with politics.
Comparison between Muslim terrorists and neo-cons is absurd. For once, attack on Iraq was not due to religious reasons. Bush is not forcing Christianity or Christian law over anyone. He did not ameliorate the situation of local Christians, did not protect them from attacks, and didn't give autonomy to Christian Assyrians, promised to them as early as during ww1.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Heresson
edit.....

Hi-jacking religion? It's just a slogan. Neo-cons may be using religion for their means, but Muslim fundamentalists are completely honest in their convictions: their motives are clearly or almost clearly religious.
edit......

So its the honesty of the hi-jack that is the real crime?

I take ACTIONS over intent, obvious or not as being the heart of the matter, and why you can answer this threads question very easily : Islam is as much a religion of peace as any other. full stop. end off.

But we all know its much more complicated than that and why you shouldn't confuse religious intent with political intent. Thats when the real tradegies happen.

[Heresson]

Islam is as much a religion of peace as any other. full stop. end off.

why do You think so?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

An inbuilt Catholic bias???? Geez louise. Muslim states that enforce Sharia family law, and that in general out religion the Irish Republic by a long ways, are considered secularist devils by AQ, not worthy of even being called Muslims.

Exactly how does this disprove that the Irish Republic had an inbuilt bias ?


I doubt very much that the Easter Rising, foundation of the Free State and Irish Civil War occupy much if any of Al Qaeda's thinking. In any case, I was talking about the perception of Ulster Unionist fundamentalist Protestants- you know, the ones who believe the Pope is the Antichrist ?

Let's hear an eye-witness to the Easter Rising:

The second question might plausibly be called a religious one. It has been so called, and, for it is less troublesome to accept an idea than to question it, the statement has been accepted as truth- but it is untrue, and it is deeply and villainously untrue. No lie in Irish in Irish life has been so persistent and so mischievous as this one, and no political lie has ever been so ingeniously, and malevolently exploited.

There is no religious intolerance in Ireland except that which is political...

...I have never found real intolerance among my fellow-countrymen of that religion. I have found it among Protestants. [...]

But outside of the north of Ireland there is no religious question... clustered around it is a body of men whose hatred of their country is persistent and deadly and unexplained.

James Stephens, 'The Insurrection in Dublin' 1916, Scepter Books

Of course this was before the hardening of attitudes in the later Anglo-Irish war following the execution of the Easter rebels, and before De Valera's archaic conception of some kind of rural Catholic Celtic Revival mythical Eire.

I can (unhappily) contradict Mr Stephens by personal experience- I was brought up in an Irish Catholic Republican tradition which had by then learned to despise Protestants, especially Ulster Protestants.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Exactly how does this disprove that the Irish Republic had an inbuilt bias ?

The original question I thought was about the nature of Islam, and the existence within it of certain important and dangerous grouping (which does not mean that there is a problem with ALL Islam, or all muslims)

To which somebody responded (maybe it wasnt you) that ALL religions have their violent fanatics, that Christianity was really no different from Islam. In the attempt to demonstrate this with examples from the 20th century, somebody turned to Ireland. Which it seems to me, while an awful tragedy, is hardly an example of violence inspired fundamentalist religion in the way AQ and related islamist groups are. That the IRA wanted, for purely secular reasons, to join an Irish Republic that has an inbuilt Catholic bias hardly makes them religiously based the way groups that advocate radical versions of sharia, and denounce the very idea of a state that isnt based purely on Islam, and call for the return of the caliphate, is kinda silly. In catholic terms, it would be like saying the IRA and Opus Dei are equivalent (except that AQ is, I think, rather more extreme than Opus Dei)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Exactly how does this disprove that the Irish Republic had an inbuilt bias ?


I doubt very much that the Easter Rising, foundation of the Free State and Irish Civil War occupy much if any of Al Qaeda's thinking. In any case, I was talking about the perception of Ulster Unionist fundamentalist Protestants- you know, the ones who believe the Pope is the Antichrist ?

Let's hear an eye-witness to the Easter Rising:



James Stephens, 'The Insurrection in Dublin' 1916, Scepter Books

Of course this was before the hardening of attitudes in the later Anglo-Irish war following the execution of the Easter rebels, and before De Valera's archaic conception of some kind of rural Catholic Celtic Revival mythical Eire.

I can (unhappily) contradict Mr Stephens by personal experience- I was brought up in an Irish Catholic Republican tradition which had by then learned to despise Protestants, especially Ulster Protestants.

I know Jews who despise Muslims, especially Palestinian muslims. Some of these Jews are agnostics or atheists. Similarly there seem to be good atheist arabs like George Habash who are quite happy to murder Jews. Hating the members of a particular religious community, doesnt imply that YOUR motivation is religious, especially not where religion is functioning as a marker for ethnicity.