[quote]Sloth wrote:
We’re talking about christians who don’t want to wear the Hajib. You compare that, to running around butt naked? Yeah, you got me with that arguement… [/quote]
Yes, I do. For you, showing butt is offensive. Iranians have different standards and a woman displaying her hair offends them.
And what on earth is wrong with running butt naked anyway?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
lixy wrote:
Now how about you show me a picture of a Mosque in the Vatican? Well, didn’t think so…
What? Why would the Vatican be part of this discussion? I don’t see the relevance?[/quote]
Aha! You’re backing off now.
Next time, think twice before making dubious claims.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Pretty much. As it’s practiced throughout much of the mideast and other regions, yes. I find it to be barbaric and oppressive. While laws on the books supposedly protect religious minorities (and only those recognized)the reality is vastly different. [/quote]
No, it’s NOT practiced throughout much of the middle east. What do you base these claims on? I’ve been to pretty much the majority of countries in the M.E. and north Africa and I can tell you that you’re very much mistaken.
People will abuse laws and that’s a fact of life. How about I go on about to tell you about the “oppressive and barbaric” acts Muslims suffer at the hand of some Jewish fundamentalists in Israel. And, yes, even there the laws on the books supposedly protect the religious minorities, yet the reality is vastly different?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Um, no, I’ll spell it out for YOU! They’re not practicing the law on the books! That’s the point of the article! By the way, I didn’t make the claim Turkey lacked any such law. It’s just the unfortunately, even in such a secular/Islamic nations christians are becoming increasingly worried. Please do refer to the other articles though.[/quote]
Stop surreptitiously editing posts after you submitted them.
Play fair and add an EDIT: sign when you must do that.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Um, no, I’ll spell it out for YOU! They’re not practicing the law on the books! That’s the point of the article! By the way, I didn’t make the claim Turkey lacked any such law. It’s just the unfortunately, even in such a secular/Islamic nations christians are becoming increasingly worried. Please do refer to the other articles though.
Stop surreptitiously editing posts after you submitted them.
Play fair and add an EDIT: sign when you must do that.[/quote]
I attempt to go back and edit grammar and spelling mistakes, time permitting. But, I have no idea what you’re talking about in this case. Please point to the post in question, and please share what I supposedly edited. Waiting.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sloth wrote:
lixy wrote:
Now how about you show me a picture of a Mosque in the Vatican? Well, didn’t think so…
What? Why would the Vatican be part of this discussion? I don’t see the relevance?
Aha! You’re backing off now.
Next time, think twice before making dubious claims.[/quote]
What? Backing off of what? I never understood why you brought up the Vatican, so how the hell am I backing off? Are you going to explain it’s relevance?
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sloth wrote:
We’re talking about christians who don’t want to wear the Hajib. You compare that, to running around butt naked? Yeah, you got me with that arguement…
Yes, I do. For you, showing butt is offensive. Iranians have different standards and a woman displaying her hair offends them.
And what on earth is wrong with running butt naked anyway?[/quote]
So, let me see if I get your argument. You’re defending the imposition of Islamic religious law upon minorities, because americans don’t want some dude’s shitty ass sitting in the seat next to him at the local Denny’s? The extremes of argument you go to, to defend the oppression of religious minorities, women, liberal/moderate muslims in Iran, is laughable.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Pretty much. As it’s practiced throughout much of the mideast and other regions, yes. I find it to be barbaric and oppressive. While laws on the books supposedly protect religious minorities (and only those recognized)the reality is vastly different.
No, it’s NOT practiced throughout much of the middle east. What do you base these claims on? I’ve been to pretty much the majority of countries in the M.E. and north Africa and I can tell you that you’re very much mistaken.
People will abuse laws and that’s a fact of life. How about I go on about to tell you about the “oppressive and barbaric” acts Muslims suffer at the hand of some Jewish fundamentalists in Israel. And, yes, even there the laws on the books supposedly protect the religious minorities, yet the reality is vastly different?[/quote]
Refer to above posts. Oh wait, you’ll defend the imposition of Islamic dress codes on women and religious minorities because it offends backwards and barbaric throwbacks.
Sloth,
I hate to defend a medieval regime like the one in Saudi Arabia or the backward theocracy of Ahmadinejad, but you keep pushing me by claiming that the excesses seen in such places are inherent to the Islamic culture. I am part of that culture and my knowledge and experience within it qualifies me to speak of it and its people better than you. What your favorite news channel/outlet fails to tell you when reporting the whacky stories from the Muslim world is the outrage expressed by a great fraction of the population towards such actions.
Yes, some Islamic countries need to reform on many aspects of civil liberties. The process is well on its way in most of them. Trying to demonize Islam is only holding those actions back because it gives ever more support to the radicals.
And please don’t misinterpret the post when I get back at you by pointing out the horrors or injustices (past or present) commited by Americans or Europeans. It’s by mean a way to justify the actions of the freaks; merely an attempt to show that it has nothing to do Islam the way the other side’s freaks have nothing to do with Christianity.
Sincerely,
/Lixy
P.S:
Your hygiene argument doesn’t hold since you’d get arrested for being in your underwear as well. For all those reasons, you can’t attack the Iranian code of dress on a religious basis.
[quote]lixy wrote:
That wasn’t me that asked you to show a church in Saudi Arabia. I was wondering why you’d compare the vatican to SA. That’s like asking to have a catholic church directly inside a mosque.
Let me remind you how biased the judicial system was against the Blacks a couple of decades back. Some might argue it still is…
So that makes it ok for muslims to be biased against Copts? I thought you said Islam protects religious minorities, which is it?
Your arguement lacks common sense. It is like me saying it is ok for the US to attack Iraq because the Muslims invaded Persia back in 633.
I don’t see the revelance either. Who cares if there’s no mosques in the Vatican.
You said: “Islam calls unambigously for protection of the freedom of Christians and Jews to practice their faith and harshly condemns taking away their right of worship.”
I said, if so, show me a mosque in SA.
Then you compare Islamic Fundamentalists to the KKK, I can see the comparison, but there was a civil rights movement in this country, and now when racists murder someone, it is seen as an outrage, like when the three white supremists dragged the black man to death, the whole country was horrified at this crime.
When the Islamic extremists behave in the same fashion, you have apologists who say that they don’t represent Islam while blaming their actions on the West. So in effect, instead of condeming these actions, you are indeed excusing them.
But isn’t that right out of the Koran, before declaring a Jihad, you’ve got to feel like you’re oppressed. Then it is ok to kill. So by saying the West, Jews and Christians are oppressing Muslims, you have all the excuses you need for a Holy War.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Let me remind you how biased the judicial system was against the Blacks a couple of decades back. Some might argue it still is…
So that makes it ok for muslims to be biased against Copts? I thought you said Islam protects religious minorities, which is it?
Your arguement lacks common sense. It is like me saying it is ok for the US to attack Iraq because the Muslims invaded Persia back in 633.
[/quote]
It was not an argument. Just a fact to keep in mind when looking at the court’s decision. Do I agree with it? Hell, no. Do I think Islam agrees with it? Definitely not.
I was just trying to show that judicial systems evolve with time and that Egypt gained independence only a few decades back. It has been under state of emergency for the last 25 years or so. Cut them some slack!
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Context, on the other hand, is everything.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
When the Islamic extremists behave in the same fashion, you have apologists who say that they don’t represent Islam while blaming their actions on the West. So in effect, instead of condeming these actions, you are indeed excusing them. [/quote]
Let me tell you how a progressist mind works: When there’s a problem with something, you try to go to the root causes to make sure such problems don’t arise again. It’s all about building a better society.
So, when you have a young man killing people over a hot meal, you blame precarity and you try to find solutions to remedy it.
When some drunk driver runs over someone, you blame the bottle. When a punk start shooting at his classmates, you question the ease with which he procured the weapon. When kindergarten children are violent, you blame it on TV programs they watch.
When your ship is taking water and you decide that a bucket gotta do the job to keep it afloat, the progressist will inevitably point out that you’re doomed to sink unless you decide to deal with the breach that’s bringing in the water.
For all those reasons, you can’t talk about apologism here. Most of the ones that “blame it on the West” are Western intellectuals in the first place and have nothing to do with Islam. In the US, it might not show, since the population is evenly split on the issue, but get to Europe and you’ll realize that just about every serious analyst restlessly points out that you can’t get rid of the “new-age” terror until you deal with the underlying issues.
For heaven’s sake, eve a bunch of hardline conservatives in the US agree with that, and urged you to deal with the Palestinian problem (the main rallying cause of Al-Qaeda pre-2003) if you’re ever to get rid of the problem. Are they apologists too?
Absolutely not. Jihad was the prerogative of Muhammad. Warlords, politicians and - more recently - nutjobs abused and distorted that concept.
The rest is history…
[quote]Sloth wrote:
ISTANBUL, April 27 (Compass Direct News) [/quote]
[quote]lixy wrote:
Let me tell you how a progressist mind works: When there’s a problem with something, you try to go to the root causes to make sure such problems don’t arise again. It’s all about building a better society.
So, when you have a young man killing people over a hot meal, you blame precarity and you try to find solutions to remedy it.
When some drunk driver runs over someone, you blame the bottle. When a punk start shooting at his classmates, you question the ease with which he procured the weapon. When kindergarten children are violent, you blame it on TV programs they watch. [/quote]
Wonderfully, Lixy exposes the “progressivist” mind - individual responsibility and pathology never enter the equation. Bad things are always someone else’s fault, or something else’s causing.
Naive, predictable, and worthless.
Identification of the underlying issues is key - the problem is, no one will speak candidly about what the causes could be, because such a frank and honest discussion might come off as “intolerant” or hurt someone’s feelings in breach of “multiculturalism” and “relativism”.
Those enslaved to such concepts have no business being involved in deciding “what the root causes are”.
And you are a fool if you think a Palestinian state will end the Islamists’ grievances - a mere convenient pretext to advance an agenda - but we have covered that extensively, and you are unwilling to learn.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
individual responsibility and pathology never enter the equation. [/quote]
Those were obviously implied, but since you can’t do much to control those factors (particularly in a suicidal person), you act on the things you can manipulate.
You happen to be above the masses of distinguished intellectuals and scholars and are willing to expose the conspiracy you and your fellow “frank and honest” crowd are victims of.
Get real.
And you are a fool for refusing to see that it’s the most potent rallying cause the Islamist have in their arsenal.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Those were obviously implied, but since you can’t do much to control those factors (particularly in a suicidal person), you act on the things you can manipulate.[/quote]
They can’t possibly be implied, because every single problem you discuss reflexively places zero responsibility on the “victim” and all the responsibility on the rich white guy/US/Israel/corporations/oil companies/European colonists, and on and on and on.
Well, I don’t know what I am “above”, but self-appointed intellectuals don’t deserve any more deference than you do if I hear their theories, critically analyze them, and decide they are wrong.
You are a sheep - because some “mass” of self-described “intellectuals” have come up with something, you blindly follow along, never with an ounce of skepticism. Curiously, the Left - self-appointed defenders of “Reason” - are some of the most gullible lemmings we have ever seen, easily swayed and subject to demogoguery.
The irony is criminal.
Despite your flaw of appealing to the majority of “intellectuals” as a source of authority, you are no better than they are at ducking hard questions and obfuscating.
The most potent “reallying cause” the Islamists have is the inbred pathology that needs no external justification for trying to ram Sharia down the liberal world’s throats for its own sake.
External events -like “Palestinians!” - are used as scapegoats and pretexts to sucker idiots like you who complicitly give these ideological maniacs cover while they go about committing the one sin - conquest - you claim to stand against.
You have been fooled beyond repair. The Palestinians could have a state tomorrow, and Islamists would still want to remove Israel from the map (along with all your “enlightened” Muslim states). The Palestinian “cause” is merely the motivation de jour, largely because it plays so well with the Western “intellectual” crowd you speak of who are drunk on colonial guilt and pacifism. They use folks like you - and your “intellectuals” - as enablers: you provide necessary justifications while they do the slaughtering.
And yet. You continue to peddle these soft theories of sloppy “cause and effect” (though never explaining why so much help to Muslims throughout the 20th century has not “caused” some good-faith dividends), despite the fact you keep getting soundly thumped by rational skeptics all over this forum.
It is entertaining, and yet disappointing at the same time: why would someone so interested in “intellectualism” be so immune to actually learning something?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Well, I don’t know what I am “above”, but self-appointed intellectuals don’t deserve any more deference than you do [/quote]
They are not self-appointed intellectuals. They have earned the title by using their brains harder than others.
No, you idiot! I brought the mass of intellectuals to show GKhan that what he accuses Muslims of (apologism), is in fact widespread among Westerners.
Lots of right-wingers, Republicans and hardline conservatives are criticizing the war on Iraq and say the Israeli/Palestinian issue is central to the issue.
Everyone is deserting Bush’s criminal camp; even traditional allies are washing their hands of the thing.
You confuse cause with catalyst. And you don’t have a clue what a “reallying cause”(sic) is.
I believe the word you’re looking for is du jour.
Are you acknowledging the colonial and belligerent nature of Israel?
Causality is not a theory. It’s an essential component of the world we live in and which you clearly avoid by drawing lines around “the evil ones” and “the protectors of freedom”. It’s a ubiquitous, and your refusal to consider it shows how distorted your view of the reality of things is.
Now, feel free to quibble, twist my words in a strawman and claim that I attribute ALL the responsibility to the rich white guy/oil companies/USA etc…
I’m done here.
[quote]lixy wrote:
PGJ wrote:
WTF??? OK, let’s break it down barney style. Islam is not like Christianity. Islamic society is completely centered on religion. Christian society is NOT centered on religion. National laws in Islamic countries are strictly based on Islamic laws.
In many Islamic nations it is outright forbidden to practice Christianity or any other non-Islamic faity. In some places it’s punishable by death. In Western/Christian nations you practice what you like. I mean, you can even pray in school in Islamic nations (GASP!).
Anyway, if you want to run your nation like that, someone has to control the wackos or else you will eventually end up with a nation born and bred to accept suicide bombing, terrorist activities, and a religious faith that has been completely hijacked.
WTF??? What countries are you talking about? Islam calls unambigously for protection of the freedom of Christians and Jews to practice their faith and harshly condemns taking away their right of worship.
Name me the countries you have in mind when you claim that “In many Islamic nations it is outright forbidden to practice Christianity or any other non-Islamic faity. In some places it’s punishable by death.”
Just so you know, there are over 50 Muslim countries.
You have been seriously brainwashed, buddy.[/quote]
Afghanistan to start with. About a year ago a former Muslim converted to Christianity and was given a death sentence. He had to go into exile in order to save his life. It was big-time national news. Do I really need to name all the Islamic nations that force it’s population to practice Islam, or else?