[quote]lixy wrote:
Nothing wrong with Gitmo. Move along.
Page not found | Harper's Magazine [/quote]
I like it:
Islam deserves contempt.
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sifu wrote:
So while I am well aware of the history that you refer to, it is not a history that Jesus would have condoned.
Jesus who? There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any such person ever existed so to compare his ‘life’ with that of Mohamed is ridiculous.
More irrelevance that I am not going to bother arguing with you about. The existence or nonexistence of either Jesus or Mohammad does not matter at this point in time.
You certainly do like to try and distract the conversation away from looking at your side.
In Jesus, Christians have a central role model who taught people to be peaceful and forgiving.
Mohammad on the other hand was very violent and unforgiving. This is why Muslims are violent and unforgiving.
Or maybe it is the other way round, maybe they find that the violent teachings within Islam resonate with the way that they feel. [/quote]
There are certain behaviors that just about universal to all people and there are certain triggers that can set them off and cause them to be be violent. ie Adultery or having a different opinion.
The problem with Islam, is in those circumstances it not only gives sanction to violence as an appropriate response, but teaches that a violent response is a service to god. [quote]
I am not a defender of Islam.
You have been very defensive of Islam.
By calling it a hateful religion based on the ramblings of someone who was clearly mad? [/quote]
But you have been defensive of Islam. You have been trying to distract this thread into an attack on Christianity and then all other religions.
[quote]
I think that it is ridiculous for anyone to be trying to base their life on outdated ramblings of clearly mentally ill people who think they have been speaking to god.
Now you are just trying to stroke yourself.
Jesus had some good ideas, people should be more forgiving and have more love for each other. People who live by the sword do eventually bring violence upon themselves. I would not call those ideas mental illness. I would call them enlightened.
I was referring to Mohamed as much as I was to the followers of whichever Jesus you are choosing as the son of god. [/quote]
I understand. You think that anyone who is religious is an insane lunatic.
Jesus and Mohammad were two very different people who lived their lives in very different ways. One set a good example of how to behave while the other set an example that would get you thrown in jail.
Something about Jesus that I don’t think you are appreciating is that one does not have to be religious in order to learn from him. ie Jesus treated people the way he wanted to be treated. He treated people well and most people loved him for it.
The early Gnostic Christians had the gospel of Thomas. Thomas doubted the divinity of Jesus, but he still saw that there was something of value to Jesus that transcended religious belief.
[quote]
I have repeatedly stated that all religion is wrong, I have even clearly stated that parts of the Koran and the Hadith are more blatantly hateful that the Christian Bible.
My point for thick prats like you who are having difficulty is that for a Christian to complain about an Islamic person blindly following stupid religious edicts is hypocritical.
If anyone is a thick prat it is you. You are constantly making generalizations about “all religion” that are ignorant. You are constantly trying to imply that they are all the same when it is quite obvious that they are not.
The only Christian part of the bible is the New Testament. Out of the NT which parts are blatantly hateful?
Then why is the NT part of the Christian Bible?
I would have thought that would be self evident.
Well I know technically why it is there, it’s due to the decisions made at the first council of Nicea. My question is, to modern day Christian, why is it there if it is not relevent? [/quote]
Well if you know why it is there why did you ask? Perhaps it is still there because it serves a purpose. It provides perspective. With the Old Testament there to refer to one can see how the religion evolved up until Jesus. Then when he came along you can understand what he was up against with trying to show people a new way of thinking.
[quote]
Why are passages from the OT read in Churches as lessons? Why did Jesus refer to the OT?
Your first question answers the second. The Romans are the ones who inserted the OT into the Christian bible and took out gospels that they didn’t like. Jesus made a break with a lot of the old testament so churches probably shouldn’t teach it.
Ah, so you actually follow your own religion then. Congratulations, not only are you a sifu but the founder of a religion.
(I actually have more respect for people who want to figure out their own spirituality than people who just believe what they are told to by organised religion. My question would be, why bother with a bible at all?) [/quote]
So you can learn about what other people have come up with and hopefully get pointed in a good direction.
Or as Bruce Lee said a good teacher can’t give you the truth, he can only show you the way.
[quote]
There is a lot more to Christianity and Islam than just edicts. There is also the example that was set by the founder of each religion.
When Christians or Muslims go around acting like Jesus good things will happen. But when Muslims or Christians go around acting like Mohammad there is bloodshed and suffering.
Mohammad was a man of violence. Jesus was a man of peace. So it is not hypocritical for Christians to complain about Muslims violently acting like Mohammad.
Again, Jesus who?
There are those who say the same thing about Mohammad. Interesting that you don’t question the existence of him though.
Oh no, I fully accept that Mohamed may also be a ficticious character, though the story is a little bit more consistant and beleivable and was written down closer to his supposed life. [/quote]
I think they are probably both real people who lived.
There is a scholar who says she believes that the dead sea scrolls have a reference Jesus and John the Baptist.
[quote]
I will worry about real issues that are causing people to fight.
Now you are making me laugh! Your arrogance is astounding. It rivals your ignorance. You have repeatedly admitted that you don’t have the necessary frame of reference to understand what is motivating the jihadists.
Yet when someone who is religious like PRCaldude points out where they are getting their motivation from you rubbish it. Then come back with some stupid bullshit because you are trying to put their thinking into a frame of reference that YOU can understand.
ie From reading your previous posts I can tell you think that poverty is a cause. That we can buy them off somehow. The jihad isn’t some kind of social justice movement. But you believe it is because you can’t understand how religion can trump materialism or the desire to live.
Poverty is a cause, as is the lust for power and the desire to control people. As is a lack of education. If people could get past religion then they would have to confront the real reasons that they want to kill each other.
You are going to need to rethink your beliefs on that because Bin Laden isn’t poor and those doctors who tried to burn down the Glasgow airport were not uneducated.
No I am not, the critical mass of religion is the great unwashed, just because a small number or rich, educated people are involved doesn’t mean that education isn’t the key. [/quote]
A couple of years ago they did a survey of young British Muslim college students. Over one third of them said that they thought it was okay to use violence to promote religion.
I think you are deluding yourself into thinking that it is just a matter of education to sort out what is wrong with Islam. Mohammad Atta came from an educated family. Bin Laden is wealthy and educated. Zawahiri is a surgeon. There are quite a few educated jihadists. But I have also seen some moderate Muslims who came from fairly modest backgrounds.
Affluent, educated people can have their own issues. They can have all their material needs satisfied and still feel that something is missing. Religion is one of those things that they turn to, to fill that void and they can get quite fanatical about it too.
[quote]
And they didn’t really burn down Glasgow Airport, they badly burned themselves and did minor damage to the frontage of the airport. Watch you don’t go sensationalising an event Daily Mail style. [/quote]
Reread what I wrote. I wrote, “those doctors who tried to burn down the Glasgow airport”. They “TRIED” I didn’t say they succeeded.
[quote]
The real issue is that we have people who will read a badly translated and edited book that is over a thousand years old and try to use it as a set of rules to live their life by. Swapping the book doesn’t solve the problem.
When a religion’s central role model is a warlord who used violence in order to pursue his own agenda and religion as a way to keep his followers motivated and obedient there will always be problems with that religion.
Religion plays a role in a lot of peoples lives, you aren’t going to get a way from that anytime soon. Besides it doesn’t make sense to trash all religions just because one happens to be particularly evil.
I think it makes perfect sense to trash all religions due to the intellectual dishonesty involved regardless of any relevent level of ‘evil.’ [/quote]
It doesn’t make sense to trash all religions just because one of them has a real problem getting along with others. It just clouds the issue and causes confusion.
[quote]
I just think it makes more sense to trash Islamic warmongering homicidal maniacs for being warmongering homicidal maniacs first and Islamic second. Especially when the person doing the trashing is religious themselves. [/quote]
It doesn’t make sense when it is the religion that is inspiring them to violence. If a critic is religious themselves it may be something to take into consideration, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong.
[quote]
When you start off by talking about religion, it makes it very easy for people to dismiss you as attacking them solely based on religion and ignore the actual meat of the attack. In effect you are playing into their hands. The Imam can stand up in the Madrasa and say, ‘See they hate us because they are evil Christians and we follow the true word of God as revealed to Mohamed.’ [/quote]
So you think you are going to score brownie points? Are you aware that in Islam atheists are considered apostates who are to be killed? Christians and Jews can get a pass if they pay Jizya but nonbelievers like you are considered to be worse than satanists.
[quote]
So what is your suggested solution then? I’m not talking about the whole Middle East conflict, just Guantanamo, what would you do?
First thing is this. Everything we need to know about the Geneva conventions can be learned from watching reruns of Hogans Heroes. Soldiers in uniform get humane treatment under Geneva convention.
Enemy agents caught out of uniform are classified as spies or saboteurs and can be executed. So a lot of those people there are lucky they haven’t been executed.
I think we should make an effort to sort out who is who quickly so we don’t hold any more there than we need to. But I don’t think we should just let potentially dangerous people go just because people in Europe want to whine or because Muslims are going to be pissed off.
LOL at Hogan’s Heroes. It’s a bit tough to draw the line just at uniform. Not every country issues easy to distinguish uniforms to all combatants. But in general I agree with you, the tough thing is defining how long to hang on to potentially dangerous people. The problem is that people have been held for an extremely long time when the government knows that they have no chance or making a realistic case against them. The continuing trickle of negative PR around torture, abuse etc is probably more of a risk than any individual at this stage.[/quote]
Just remember that on Hogans Hero’s there was the gestapo man Colonel Hofshteter who was always saying that if he caught someone out of uniform they would be shot. That was the standard treatment for spies and saboteurs.
All the people who we have in Guantanamo have been caught out of uniform. So under Geneva rules they are not entitled to even be alive right now.
War is hell. One of the unfortunate aspects of war is innocent people get hurt and killed. We should not be letting dangerous people return to the jihad to kill more of our people in order to appease people who already hate us.
It is a no win situation. We need to do what is best for ourselves first.
They just proclaimed Shiria Law in part of Pakistan. What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Taliban? Stop terror? Create more terror?
I do not think these people will stop until they gain all of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some people may not have liked Musharraf, but atleast he attempted to keep the lid on these guys. With the “islamists” in power, the Taliban has grown stronger.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
They just proclaimed Shiria Law in part of Pakistan. What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Taliban? Stop terror? Create more terror?
I do not think these people will stop until they gain all of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some people may not have liked Musharraf, but atleast he attempted to keep the lid on these guys. With the “islamists” in power, the Taliban has grown stronger.[/quote]
I guess we can expect a central Asian caliphate of sorts. The thing to do would be to try to foment strife between Shia Iran and the neighboring Sunni Taliban.
Rowan Williams is declaring shari’ah law in Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4631128/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Society-is-coming-round-to-my-views-on-sharia.html
Same questions:
What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Muslims? Stop terror? Create more terror?
Strife between Shia Iran and the Sunni Taliban?
Probably would be a good idea again since it saved the West once in 1624. Only the British backed the Persians against the Ottomans.
Today, I do not trust either side.
Yet Iran and The Taliban almost went to war once already and it probably would have been cool had Iran crushed the Taliban pre-9-11.
-edit, I read up on the Ottomans. The war with the Persians did not save the West, but it spread the Ottomans out, and started a period of decline. I stand corrected Varq…(from an older thread) the Ottomans were undefeated for approx. 300 years, not a bad run, but less than I originally thought.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
lixy wrote:
Nothing wrong with Gitmo. Move along.
“…interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation…”
Oh dear! How terrible! What an outrage!!! [/quote]
If your short attention span doesn’t get in the way, do read further down.
“The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes[…]”
[quote]Chushin wrote:
lixy wrote:
Nothing wrong with Gitmo. Move along.
"…interference with religious practices and beliefs,… " [/quote]
Yes, the most important of which is jihad as-sayf.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Chushin wrote:
lixy wrote:
Nothing wrong with Gitmo. Move along.
“…interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation…”
Oh dear! How terrible! What an outrage!!!
If your short attention span doesn’t get in the way, do read further down.
“The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes[…]”[/quote]
lixy, your Arab mujahideen have been butt-raping little boys and raping women to get them to blow themselves up. Where is your outrage for that?
Arabs and central Asian Muslims regularly bugger young boys:
Here’s another one for you, lixy:
[quote]?I do pose a threat to the United States and its allies,? he said, according to a transcript of the 2006 hearing. ?I admit to you it?s my honor to be an enemy of the United States. I am a Muslim jihadist, and I?m defending my family and my honor.?
…
Zahri said he heard the call to jihad outside a mosque in Yemen in early 2001, and he decided to go to Afghanistan as a trainee to eventually fight Russian forces in Chechnya, according to military documents. Within a week, he met bin Laden at an al-Qaida guesthouse, one of 10 meetings that military officials allege he had with terrorist leaders.
[/quote]
What an Islamophobe!
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
lixy wrote:
Nothing wrong with Gitmo. Move along.
I like it:
Second, there is a good deal of discussion of displays of contempt for Islam by the camp authorities, and also specific documentation of mistreatment of the Qu?ran. Remember that the Neocon-laden Pentagon Public Affairs office launched a war against Newsweek based on a very brief piece that appeared in the magazine?s Periscope section concerning the mistreatment of a Qu?ran by a prison guard.
Islam deserves contempt. [/quote]
If your religion is damaged by someone mistreating a book (or saying something nasty about a leading figure) then it doesn’t seem to me to be a very strongly based religion.
I have never understood why a non-believer should be respectful of someone elses beliefs. I respect their right to the beliefs but don’t expect me to respect the actual belief. There is a reason I don’t believe it.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
It is a no win situation. We need to do what is best for ourselves first. [/quote]
Now this I totally agree with
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
They just proclaimed Shiria Law in part of Pakistan. What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Taliban? Stop terror? Create more terror?
I do not think these people will stop until they gain all of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some people may not have liked Musharraf, but atleast he attempted to keep the lid on these guys. With the “islamists” in power, the Taliban has grown stronger.
I guess we can expect a central Asian caliphate of sorts. The thing to do would be to try to foment strife between Shia Iran and the neighboring Sunni Taliban.
Rowan Williams is declaring shari’ah law in Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4631128/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Society-is-coming-round-to-my-views-on-sharia.html
Same questions:
What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Muslims? Stop terror? Create more terror?[/quote]
I think it is bloody ridiculous!
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
They just proclaimed Shiria Law in part of Pakistan. What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Taliban? Stop terror? Create more terror?
I do not think these people will stop until they gain all of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some people may not have liked Musharraf, but atleast he attempted to keep the lid on these guys. With the “islamists” in power, the Taliban has grown stronger.
I guess we can expect a central Asian caliphate of sorts. The thing to do would be to try to foment strife between Shia Iran and the neighboring Sunni Taliban.
Rowan Williams is declaring shari’ah law in Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4631128/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Society-is-coming-round-to-my-views-on-sharia.html
Same questions:
What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Muslims? Stop terror? Create more terror?[/quote]
The man is a fool who chosen has not to represent for Christianity. Giving sharia legitimacy is a huge mistake. It is the beginnings of a separate Islamic state that will increasingly demand more and more.
It won’t appease the muslims, instead it will only encourage them to demand more. If they don’t get it then they will resort to more violence. So it is going to result in a lot more terrorism.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
They just proclaimed Shiria Law in part of Pakistan. What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Taliban? Stop terror? Create more terror?
I do not think these people will stop until they gain all of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some people may not have liked Musharraf, but atleast he attempted to keep the lid on these guys. With the “islamists” in power, the Taliban has grown stronger.
I guess we can expect a central Asian caliphate of sorts. The thing to do would be to try to foment strife between Shia Iran and the neighboring Sunni Taliban.
Rowan Williams is declaring shari’ah law in Britain:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4631128/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Society-is-coming-round-to-my-views-on-sharia.html
Same questions:
What does anyone think? A good idea? Will it appease the Muslims? Stop terror? Create more terror?
The man is a fool who has not to represent for Christianity. Giving sharia legitimacy is a huge mistake. It is the beginnings of a separate Islamic state that will increasingly demand more and more.
It won’t appease the muslims, instead it will only encourage them to demand more. If they don’t get it then they will resort to more violence. So it is going to result in a lot more terrorism. [/quote]
Rowan Williams is obviously a complete apostate. He should be replaced with Nazir Ali immediately. I’ve heard he’s steel under silk.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
lixy wrote:
If your short attention span doesn’t get in the way, do read further down.
“The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes[…]”
Cliff notes, please? I can’t seem to make it to the end of that.[/quote]
The piece reads like TNR’s “gotcha” involving Scott Thomas Beauchamp, which was later discredited utterly. These Leftwing mags have been looking for a smoking gun.
This “invasion of the bodies of prisoners” sounds to me like it amounts to an external body cavity search, which is done to all prisoners in the US at one point or another. Prisoners like to hide drugs and weapons in external body cavities. Duh.
The key to understanding lixy is in the Arab sense of shame. Obviously, Islamic mores and philosophical presuppositions couldn’t be involved in the pathetic state of Islamic civilization (the source of lixy’s/Arab shame), so a scapegoat must be found: Jews and the US (which is obviously controlled by Jews, foreign policy-wise). It is much easier to project than to introspect. Endless grievances are manufactured to keep the projection going and to avoid questioning Islam, which can obviously not be in error since it was handed down from Allah through his Prophet.
So PRCal do you reject that any abuses were taking place at Guantanamo?
[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
So PRCal do you reject that any abuses were taking place at Guantanamo?[/quote]
When I consider the way that terrorist victims have died, (ie jumping out their death from a quarter mile tall building on 9/11 to avoid burning to death, or being trapped under the wreckage of a burning nightclub in Bali, or having their head hacked off on video) or the awful ways that people will die if nuclear, chemical or biological weapons get used on us, I find it hard to have much sympathy for people in Guantanamo.
They are certainly getting way better treatment than their victims have. Besides calling a lot of that harsh treatment torture is a bit of an exaggeration.
How many of these guys were released and committed acts of terror, were arrested again, or were killed?
Any numbers?