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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 1:15 am Post subject: |
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I make almost zero reference to America, ever. Why do you keep falling on to that as a defense? If you are unable to talk about islam in Europe, then don't. No shame.
But I do concern myself with violence. It is terrorism I'm not over excited about. But comfy Westerners can and will be bullied into dhimnitude by violent individual muslims keeping the lid on all criticism.
You are looking at islam with post-Christian eyes. Do you realize that? You are placing onto them assumptions informed by our cultural evolutionary experience with Christianity. I really suggest you learn hard the history between 'us' and 'them'. It is interesting to put our current position in a historical position.
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Islam, like all religions, does not exist outside of its adherents. Muslims should be neither defined nor judged based on what some guy wrote 1500 years ago. Nor should they be judged on what a few extremists are willing to do in the name of "Islam." By identifying the acts of extremists as Islamic acts, you are merely falling for the extremists' bait. They want to create the West-Muslim divide. |
What some guy wrote is islam. They must, to be a muslim, submit to what that "guy" wrote 1500 years ago. The extremists are the most obedient muslims. The West-muslim divide exists, and has long before me or any other living islamodetester. Learn. The. History.
Here is a decent history I found with a quick google search. Take a look at Benard Lewis if you want to move your understanding beyond platitudes of "moderation". The site is quite "right" but I can find no factual errors at first glance.
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Humiliation of Muslims and the coming Siege of Vienna
Blake Gartner - 4/12/2007
The �Zionist entity� is at the forefront of the clash between the West and Islam. And yet, it is a tiny country, less than half the size and population of Netherlands. World Jewry stands at just 13 million people, so it has never been a titan in global affairs. The two dominant world religions in a constant clash with each other since the 7th century have been Islam and Christianity. Today the battle continues - whether against the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan or against the rioters on the streets of Paris.
When Napoleon marched on Egypt, defeating the Arabs with extreme ease, Christendom seemingly won. The Ottoman Empire fell as a result of WWI and the West forgot about the Islamic threat. But Muslims did not. Muslims felt humiliated.
The only thing people dislike more than being attacked is being ignored. The West ignored the Middle East, seeing it as an uncultured backwater useful only for its oil resources. But to Muslims, everything from the defeat to Napoleon to the dismantling of the Caliphate by Ataturk is �humiliation�. At times it seems like �humiliation� is the Muslims� favorite word. They do not lose wars � they get humiliated. They do not suffer from economic stagnation � they get humiliated. They do not compromise on a UN resolution � they get humiliated. Reading Islamic press one sees the word �humiliation� with spectacular frequency.
What Muslims claim to want is �respect�. But what is respect? The Islamic vision of �respect� is to be the dominant global power. It is to have the military power, the economic wealth and the international prestige to get what they want, whenever they want. Any compromise in any forum is immediately condemned as �humiliation� due to their weakness � a humiliation that naturally should be countered by pressing their political and military muscle.
But Islam was indeed a dominant power for much of its history. Today it is hard to imagine Morocco defeating Spain, Tunisia conquering Italy and Turkey marching up to Vienna, but it did happen in the past. Muslims were the dominant power in the world for many centuries, and it is that �Golden Age� that today�s generation, whether Islamists or Nationalists, seek to re-capture.
The first millennium of its existence was an almost unmitigated success for Islam. From its roots in the Arabian peninsula, it first spread its wings to Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and North Africa � all of which were then part of the Christian world, culturally closer to the West than to the Arab states we see there today. Armenians, during the war of 640-652, were among the few able to stop the onrush of Islamic forces, preserving Armenia and Georgia as Christian nations to this day.
With the Middle East under their control, Muslims proceeded to take over Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and much of France, reaching 2/3 of the way to Paris. In the first half of the 9th century, Rome and most of what is now Italy fell to the newly dominant Religion of Submission (islam means �submission�).
Before the rise of water travel enabling countries along the Atlantic Ocean, (England, Spain, Portugal, Holland, France) to set up empires, the dominant military and economic powers were located in southern Europe and Middle East � that being the trades routes where people exchanged not only goods, but information and ideas. Northern and western Europe was mired in what are commonly known as the Dark Ages. These were not the powers that could stop the Islamic invasion.
The ever-shrinking Byzantine Empire struck back in the 840�s, but its limited successes were soon turned back as Muslims sacked Messina in 842, Enna in 859, Syracuse in 878, Catania in 900.
In 904, Thessalonica, the second-largest Byzantine city, was taken over by Arabs from Tunisia. Seven years later, the Byzantines suffered another embarrassing defeat in Crete.
After a brief respite, Muslims sensed another opportunity to spread their religion and civilization to the �darkness of barbarism and unbelief�, when the Byzantine rulers decided to disband most of their military, preferring to pay mercenaries when troubles arouse. The Byzantine army consisted largely of the elderly officers and untrained young kids (for centuries after its destruction, the word �Byzantine� was used to mean �effeminate decadence�).
Faced with the decaying of what was arguably the only stable, viable state in Europe, the West was again on the brink of annihilation. In 1095, Pope Urban II hoped to organize Christendom around a fight for Jerusalem, a tactic frequently used before and after by Muslims. But the first military engagement failed miserably, as the Turks slaughtered almost every man sent into battle. The second battle was much more successful and some of the lands previously lost to Muslims were recovered.
The Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. At its height, the Crusader Kingdom was about the size of Israel and West Bank. For more than a hundred years, Muslims could do little about the new country, fighting occasional wars, mostly to contain the Christians. But in the 12th century, a Jihad on Jerusalem was organized. In 1187, settlers lost Jerusalem � it was now the Kingdom of Jerusalem... without Jerusalem. A small strip of land along the seaside of what is now Israel and the southern half of Lebanon was all that remained. Subsequent Crusades recovered Jerusalem, but all was lost when Sultan Khalil captured Acre, the new capital of the Kingdom, and proceeded to either slaughter or enslave all remaining settlers.
The Crusades were a failure. Islam won, forever reinforcing its sense of invincibility against the infidels. I�ve heard many Muslims say, �It took us 200 years to defeat the Crusader Kingdom. Israel has existed less than 60. We have another 140 to destroy it, and we will.�
But Islam did not stop at the defeat of the Crusader Kingdom. In the 15th century, the Turks finally destroyed the Byzantine Empire, conquering its capital Constantinople.
At the other end of Europe, much of Spain and Portugal was under Islamic rule for 781 years until 1492. Faced with Arab Muslims threatening from the West and Turkish Muslims threatening from the East, Europe struck back with a vengeance again. Spain and Portugal were won back, pushing Islam back into North Africa. But just like the first time when the West responded to Islamic aggression with violent Crusades, the new European attempt to defend itself and even the genocidal Inquisition fell short of taking back everything that was lost. Constantinople remained part of the Islamic world.
In 1526, Sultan Suleiman conquered most of Hungary, with Bulgaria already under his control. Three years later, the Turks reached all the way to Vienna and laid siege to it. The city stood up only because it was attacked too late by a Turkish force that was too tired from prior battles. In 1532, the Ottomans tried again, but faced stiff resistance in western Hungary.
For 150 years, the Ottomans tried to jump from southeastern Europe into its heartland before the epic Battle of Vienna. This time, the siege began in July of 1683. During the siege, 10,000 Viennese troops were surrounded by 140,000 Turks. They would probably fail, and allow Islam into the center of Europe, but King Jan III Sobieski of Poland sent a 30,000 man army to protect the city, possibly saving the Western civilization. The Battle of Vienna began on September 11. When the battle was over next day, 4,000 Christians had been killed � and 15,000 Muslims. Vienna survived again.
The rest is history. The Enlightenment and later the Industrial Revolution sent the West far ahead of Islam. In the 19th century, Napoleon showed just show dominant Christendom was over Islam. The Caliphate was eliminated when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. The West stopped fearing Muslims, viewing them as nothing more than �oil cows�. And Islam truly ceased being a power.
That, of course, is what the West wanted to believe. Truth is that Christendom still didn�t recover most of the territories lost since the rise of Islam. Constantinople (now Istanbul), Egypt, Syria, Bosnia and Chechnya were all Christian lands in the past.
Islam did not invade the West continuously for a thousand years. Instead, there were many generations of peace, but that peace was eventually always interrupted by Muslim attacks on Europe. Each time Christians lost large parts of their territory, then fought back, but never fully recovered the lost territories.
For two centuries now, the West was strong enough to ignore the threat from the south. But Muslims felt �humiliated� because they did not have the strongest army, the wealthiest economy and the dominant political power.
Islam began to resurge in the 1960s (some say in the 1920s, but Islamists weren�t strong enough until after Israel �humiliated� Arab nationalists in 1967). First came terror. Then global Jihad. In the 1990s, massive Islamic immigration into Europe began to threaten a demographic takeover. Islam is on the move again. Will Vienna be under siege once more? |
http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2619&cid=3&sid=9 |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:06 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| I make almost zero reference to America, ever. Why do you keep falling on to that as a defense? If you are unable to talk about islam in Europe, then don't. No shame. |
If Muslims in America are not a problem, then the problem does not lie with Muslims or Muslims in the West. It is a European immigration problem. By showing that Muslims can successfully integrate into the West, your whole theory is destroyed.
OTOH, showing that a few extremists can commit dastardly acts of violence does nothing to disprove that the majority of Muslims are not bomb carrying jihadists.
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| You are looking at islam with post-Christian eyes. Do you realize that? You are placing onto them assumptions informed by our cultural evolutionary experience with Christianity. I really suggest you learn hard the history between 'us' and 'them'. It is interesting to put our current position in a historical position. |
So why are so many of "them" trying to become one of "us"? Are they not true Muslims? Or are they all infiltrating us, and getting ready to erupt in one glorious attack?
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| What some guy wrote is islam. They must, to be a muslim, submit to what that "guy" wrote 1500 years ago. |
So my Muslim host father was not a real Muslim? He didn't pray 5-times a day, drank a lot of vodka, and never went to mosque.
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| Here is a decent history I found with a quick google search. Take a look at Benard Lewis if you want to move your understanding beyond platitudes of "moderation". The site is quite "right" but I can find no factual errors at first glance. |
So the history of warfare has been defined by religious identifications. What's your point? George Bush still believes America is fighting for Christianity. How does that make Islam any better or worse than any other religion? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:18 am Post subject: |
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| If Muslims in America are not a problem, then the problem does not lie with Muslims or Muslims in the West. |
America is starting to have the same problems and you know it. If you don't, read up on it. There are almost exactly half the amount of muslims as a % of total population in America. Combine that with the very real fact that Americans are far more culturally confident and less "tolerant" than European myth-manufacturing pc enforcers.
But have patience. islam is spreading quickly amongst the black prision population. The saudi's know exactly what they are doing in targeting a poor, criminality-prone yet protected racial underclass.
If you want to really learn about this, which I very strongly suspect you don't, google 'Jamaat ul-Fuqra' + Saudi and others to get yer education on.
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OTOH, showing that a few extremists can commit dastardly acts of violence does nothing to disprove that the majority of Muslims are not bomb carrying jihadists. |
But the full lack of muslim protests of muslim crimes does directly tell us that the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of muslims are either indifferent or quietly supportive.
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So why are so many of "them" trying to become one of "us"? Are they not true Muslims? Or are they all infiltrating us, and getting ready to erupt in one glorious attack? |
Show me that they are trying to become us. I think our mess in Iraq proves that inside every muslim isn't an American waiting to jump out.
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So my Muslim host father was not a real Muslim? He didn't pray 5-times a day, drank a lot of vodka, and never went to mosque. |
Right. No. Not by the very clear requirements of a muslim in the koran. There is no such thing as a moderate muslim. There are secular and obedient muslims.
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So the history of warfare has been defined by religious identifications. What's your point? George Bush still believes America is fighting for Christianity. How does that make Islam any better or worse than any other religion? |
The point is to put the everyday actions of violence and intimidation into a larger cultural and historical context and conflict. This is the real inconvenient truth of our time. For far too many muslims, 9/11 was retaliation for a battle they lost hundreds of years before on the same day. A battle 90% of Westerners have never heard of. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:31 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| For far too many muslims, 9/11 was retaliation for a battle they lost hundreds of years before on the same day. |
Actually, the battle you're talking about was lost on the 12th of September. And in any case, most Muslims use the lunar hijri calendar, so I doubt the Gregorian date has any significance in that respect. Perhaps you're speaking figuratively.
Last edited by gang ah jee on Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:32 am Post subject: |
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The really weird thing is that I'm not even that interested in this subject. I just can not understand how people can defend such a violent set of beliefs just because brown people hold them. I guess if Hitler were a Somali we would tolerate him. My mind will not accept hypocritical double standards. It has always been this way.
If a neo-nazi desecrates a mosque in Hamburg, which they do often, do people appeal to the "moderate nazi's"?
I'm done with this thread. I've got other things to do.
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:54 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| If a neo-nazi desecrates a mosque in Hamburg, which they do often, do people appeal to the "moderate nazi's"? |
 When the Saudis start setting up gas ovens, you'll have an analogy to stand on. Until then, playing the Hitler and Nazi cards undermines any credibility you've ever established. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:14 am Post subject: |
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How about an islamic government building nuclear weapons for the explicit purpose of finishing off what hitler started?
Why do you keep dragging me back in huff? Let it die. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:31 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| How about an islamic government building nuclear weapons for the explicit purpose of finishing off what hitler started? |
Except this time the Jews are armed and dangerous. But who really cares? They're both violent religions that deserve each other's wrath.
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| Why do you keep dragging me back in huff? Let it die. |
I started the thread. I'll decide when to finish the thread. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 4:38 am Post subject: |
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| gang ah jee wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| But my real point is that religion is not the equivalent of 'having an imaginary friend' at all. Religion seeks to address a lot of life's essential questions that cannot be addressed by science or even astrology. |
Wow! I'm surprised you have such a high opinion of astrology's ability to address life's essential questions! 
Regarding the rest of what you said though, if I were you I'd add in a 'not neccessarily' or two - many Christians - George W. Bush for example - do believe that they have direct, two-way communication with God and/or Jesus. While it's true that religion has more purposes than simply providing people with supernatural interlocutors, if it is the case that whatever God(s) people think they have been chatting with do(es) not exist(s), then I think 'imaginary friend' isn't a terribly unfair description of the situation.
Of course, some people seem to believe that they are in communication with malevolent entities such as the Devil, in which case 'friend' might not be the right word. |
Regarding particular individuals, Don Quixote thought a wash basin was the famed Helm of Mambrino. George Bush might think he talks to God directly. Big deal. For him, it might be accurate to say that his relationship with God isn't much more sophisticated than having an imaginary friend.
Regarding American Christianity, the Evangelical disconnect with the theologies of many mainstream branches of Christianity is well-known. For example, while even the conservative Catholic Church believes evolution is a valid description of how man became man, literalist evangelicals refuse to believe this. It would be inaccurate to depict all Christians as hard-line creationists. Some Evangelical preachers are quite knowledgable and rational and take good care to promote a mature understanding amongst their followers of what a relationship with God would be like. Many do not. Mindmetoo and BJWD are taking the most negative and unrepresentative Christian beliefs and setting them up as representative of a billion people. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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It's getting worse...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_en_mo/people_gere_kiss_protests
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Protestors in India burn Gere effigies
NEW DELHI - Angry crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of
Richard Gere on Monday after he swept a popular Bollywood actress into his arms and kissed her several times during an AIDS-awareness event. |
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In Mumbai, members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks and set fire to glamorous shots of Shetty.
Similar protests broke out in other cities, including Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city, and in the northern town of Meerut, where crowds chanted "Down with Shilpa Shetty!" |
Didn't I warn you? |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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Did the Hindu's then march out and kill people????
guess not... |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:30 am Post subject: |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_re_as/people_gere_3
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NEW DELHI - A court issued arrest warrants for Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on Thursday for kissing at a public function, news reports said.
Judge Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants in the northwestern city of Jaipur after a citizen there filed a complaint charging that the public display of affection � which he called an "an obscene act" � offended local sensibilities, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. |
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