Yet another damn terrorist attack

[ricketyclik]

Yes, Doc, I know that. However, Muslims of almost all persuasions believe that slavery, for example, is wrong. Yet Muhammad himself took, traded in, and owned slaves, and the Quran (which, unlike the Bible, Christians, and Muslims, IS a monolithic entity) unambiguously allows for taking slaves in battle. I want to know how this contradiction is typically resolved, if only by the two or three largest schools.

How is the fact that JC was OK with slavery "typically resolved"?

[Elok]

. . . I am unaware of any textual support for that claim, ricketyclik. Unless "JC" is an abbreviation for "Paul."

JM, thanks.

[EPW]

Jesus lived in a slave society and never addressed slavery*

*the morality of

[Elok]

True. Possibly because Jews didn't own many? AFAIK, slave ownership in that era was mostly a gentile thing. Don't have time to address details at present.

[EPW]

Possibly because Jews didn't own many?

Are you suggesting that Jesus never read the old testament?

[Dr Strangelove]

Jesus lived in a society under foreign occupation. Originally Israel had been only a sort of protectorate, but when the natives objected the Romans moved in and essentially took full control, leaving Herod as a figurehead. Typically when the Romans did this they took the best property and the best businesses. We know for a fact that the Romans had begun introducing Latifundae in the province and had seized the locals as slaves. They also began building new ports and trade posts. The Gospels describe Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem for the purpose of a Roman census, but I wonder if in fact the Romans weren't taking an account of their human stock in order to determine who they were going to enslave for their projects. As a carpenter Joseph would have been a prime candidate. Perhaps the real reason he took the family to Egypt was to escape being pressed into labor on a Roman project.
I'm sure that some Jews still owned slaves, most of the slave-owners would likely have been collaborators.

[Sava]

I find this discussion to be completely ridiculous. Quibbling over religious texts that ultimately date back thousands of years in an attempt to designate a religion with over one billion people seems like something only a fundamentalist psycho would do. There's little utility in the exercise beyond forming justification for discriminatory policies or behaviors directed towards Muslims.

Furthermore, the obsession with Islamic interpretation is disturbing and indicative of a deep seeded bias.

[kentonio]

Talking of terrorism...

New Allegations Renew Old Questions About Saudi Arabia And 9/11

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, some current and former American officials have been urging President Barack Obama to release secret files they say document links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Other officials, including the executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, have said the classified documents do not prove that the Saudi government knew about or financed the 2001 terrorist attacks, and that making the material public would serve no purpose.

Now, unsubstantiated court testimony by Zacharias Moussaoui, a former al-Qaida member serving life in federal prison, has renewed the push by those who want a closer look into whether there was official Saudi involvement with al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 hijackers. They say it should start with the release of 28 pages relating to Saudi Arabia from a joint congressional inquiry into the attacks.

"We owe the families a full accounting," said Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat who has read the classified pages written in 2002. They were left out of the public version of the report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said they could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Officials on both sides of the debate acknowledge that protecting the delicate U.S.-Saudi relationship also played a role.

Lynch and Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., have sponsored a resolution that calls for declassifying the records. The White House has asked intelligence agencies to review the pages with an eye toward potential declassification, spokesman Ned Price said, but there is no timetable.

The controversy comes at a consequential moment in the relationship between the U.S. and the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has a new king — pro-American like the late monarch — and the two wary allies are working closely to confront the Islamic State, the turmoil in Yemen and Iran's nuclear aspirations. At the same time, U.S. officials say they continue to privately admonish Saudi Arabia over human rights abuses in the kingdom, such as the recent flogging of a blogger, and its support of the spread of religious extremism abroad.

Moussaoui, who claimed during his terror conspiracy court case that he had planned to fly a plane into the White House on Sept. 11, was deposed by lawyers in a civil suit by some Sept. 11 families who are seeking damages from the Saudi government and other defendants, including charities and banks. Saudi Arabia vigorously disputes the allegations.

Moussaoui testified at his trial that key members of the Saudi royal family continued to fund al-Qaida in the late 1990s, even after the organization had declared war on the House of Saud. He also described plotting with an employee of the Saudi Embassy in Washington to shoot down Air Force One.

Lynch said the classified 28 pages, which are drawn from intelligence collection and FBI investigations, "are consistent" with Moussaoui's testimony.

"There are specifics, there are transactions, there are names," Lynch said.

Others who have read the document say it's far from definitive.

Two senior congressional aides described the case as weak. One noted that just because Saudi citizens helped the mostly Saudi hijackers in the U.S. does not mean they knew about the operation. Another said that the pages contain inaccuracies that could compromise an important diplomatic relationship.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity to describe material that remains classified.

"If you think it's thin, well then, why not release it?" Lynch said.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he supports the release because he believes the pages would "demystify" the notion of a Saudi conspiracy.

"The issues raised in those pages were investigated by the 9/11 commission and found to be unsubstantiated," he said.

That commission, which built on the work of the joint congressional inquiry with access to FBI files and secret intelligence, did not exonerate Saudi Arabia. But it did conclude in its 2004 report that there was no evidence that the Saudi government funded al-Qaida during the planning of the attacks.

"It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported al-Qaida before 9/11, although some governments may have contained al-Qaida sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al-Qaida's fundraising activities," the report said. "Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al-Qaida funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."

Two ardent dissenters from that conclusion have been former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a leader of the congressional inquiry and longtime chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and John Lehman, a Sept. 11 commission member and former Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.

Graham has said he sees "a direct line between some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia." He believes that a Saudi government agent living in the United States, Omar al-Bayoumi, provided assistance to two Sept. 11 hijackers in San Diego at the behest of elements of the Saudi government.

The New York lawsuit argues that Saudi rulers were playing a double game in the years before the attacks, expelling Osama bin Laden and declaring opposition to al-Qaida, while secretly funding it to assuage the kingdom's religious conservatives.

Moussaoui, in testimony from a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, told plaintiff lawyers it was "an absolute lie" that Saudi Arabia severed its ties with bin Laden and al-Qaida in 1994.

"This is a complete misleading ... assumption of people who are not familiar with the way the Saudi government is established" because the government has "two heads of the snake," he said, according to a transcript.

The House of Saud, he said, "cannot keep power in Saudi Arabia without having the agreement" of the extremist Wahhabi religious establishment, he said.

"Look, see, we are not against Islam or the jihad, we finance bin Laden."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6635758.html

Absolutely zero chance of this going anywhere in the face of the IS situation.

[Lorizael]

I find this discussion to be completely ridiculous. Quibbling over religious texts that ultimately date back thousands of years in an attempt to designate a religion with over one billion people seems like something only a fundamentalist psycho would do. There's little utility in the exercise beyond forming justification for discriminatory policies or behaviors directed towards Muslims.

Furthermore, the obsession with Islamic interpretation is disturbing and indicative of a deep seeded bias.

I truly think you're fundamentally misunderstanding Elok's intent here. From all of my conversations with him, this just seems like an attempt on his part to learn about a subject in which he is not well versed, but interested. He's curious about how Muslims resolve these doctrinal issues because he's curious about doctrinal issues in general. That's all.

[DaShi]

If Elok was interested in learning, he'd refrain from making such judgements out of ignorance. He's approaching this topic from a forgone conclusion.

[Lorizael]

I haven't seen him make any judgments whatsoever. In fact, I've seen his specifically refrain from making judgments. See:

I'm not trying to argue that "Islam is inherently violent," or whatever. I have looked at the life of Muhammad, and seen that he unambiguously favored and did things which most modern Muslims abhor, e.g. mass executions, or enslavement of children. I am not so disrespectful towards Muslims, nor so credulous, as to assume that all billion-plus of them are stupid, naive or ignorant. Thousands of people, at a minimum, have pondered these contradictions and come to answers which they, at least, find compelling. I want to know what they concluded, how, and why. Or at least the CliffsNotes version.

But you have this sort of weird, hostile, knee-jerk reaction to everything Elok posts, so I'm not particularly interested in having this conversation with you.

[DaShi]

A lot of people say they aren't doing something that they are doing.

Elok claims that he likes to research a lot. Why not research this topic? Instead we are getting posts similar to those of that "racialist" poster whose name I've completely forgotten.

[Lorizael]

Yeah, that's a good place to take this argument. "I know that none of Elok's posts reflect the nasty things being said about him, but they could!" You're basically a long-winded, slightly more coherent version of AAHZ when it comes to Elok.

[DaShi]

Look, he's directly criticizing facets of a religion he doesn't understand. He's also lecturing others who do have more knowledge of the religion. You can pretend it's something else and instead make three posts about me, but that's not going to change what is actually happening.

Elok's argument is basically the same as the old: "Why don't all Christians treat the Bible literally? If they don't, how can they be Christians?" He's not saying that all Muslims are evil. However, he is saying that Islam is inherently evil or violent. Even if he says he's not.

You can claim that he doesn't realize that he's doing this. But others clearly do and are being affected by it.

[Sava]

I truly think you're fundamentally misunderstanding Elok's intent here. From all of my conversations with him, this just seems like an attempt on his part to learn about a subject in which he is not well versed, but interested. He's curious about how Muslims resolve these doctrinal issues because he's curious about doctrinal issues in general. That's all.

I'm certainly open to that possibility. I admit I am quick to judge.

However, I'm reminded of the maxim, "there are no stupid questions, only stupid people".

Also, if this is a misunderstanding on my part, I apologize to you Elok.