Islamists In Bangladesh Demand Murder of More Bloggers 389
An anonymous reader writes "Days after the killing of leftist blogger Thaba Baba, mosques throughout Bangladesh called for a popular uprising to demand the killing of other bloggers who had held a rally calling for the death of Jama'at-e-Islami leaders convicted of war crimes. This happens in an atmosphere of ongoing tension between Left and Right, with the leftist government threatening to outlaw rightist parties while the right uses violence to quiet selected enemies."
Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um. No. Remember that lady who named a teddy bear Mohammed and there were mass movements in the street calling for her death?
Or the cartoonist who was killed cause of one of his drawings?
As bad as westboro is, they are 1. Super Small, and 2. Haven't actually killed anyone yet.
Islam is a batshit religion, that happens to contain a decent number of sane people who happen to have been raised inside of that culture. The quicker we realize that it is anything BUT a religion of peace, and deal with it appropriately, the better.
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So something like Christianity six centuries ago? :)
Re: Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or like Islam today, which is much more relevant.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Islam desperately needs a Protestant reformation.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well first of all it's decentralised, so no pope to rally against, and second of all the Westboros and related nuts aren't Catholic. The creationists and extremists are all Protestant sects, so even after a reformation look what happened. The quicker we realise that the Abrahamic religions in general are a blight, the better. I won't say all religions because Buddhism is okay, but most.
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This makes no more sense than concluding something from the fact virtually all serial-killers are male. "Creationists and extremists" is a nonsense collection, but leaving that aside, the views of Westboro Baptist represent less than
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Funny)
I always thought the Westboro Baptist Church was an atheist business trying to make money in lawsuits by masquerading as a retarded church.
True (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know why parent has been marked Funny - it should be marked insightful. Check this http://kanewj.com/wbc/ [kanewj.com]
Big Devil US of A (Score:5, Informative)
Its not going to happen as long as extremist countries like Saudi Arabia are an ally of the world's only super power. Saudi Arabia actually goes out and promotes extremism. Hell, the freaking religious police hits 10-12 year olds with canes if they are out playing soccer during prayer times. Growing up there, thats one of the most vivid memories I have, running from these idiots lest you get hit with canes, money was good so dad moved there for a while.
They have tons of oil money, you take this oil money and spend it in poor Islamic countries like Afghanistan and this is the shit that happens. There are direction on how to behave in a war in Quran, i.e. fight the enemy, Islam does not tell you to show the other cheek but tells you to stand for whats right. This is what is quoted again and again to show extremism in Quran. This is exactly what Islamic extremist do, point out to drone strikes where countless innocent have died to establish US is the devil. Truth is somewhere in between, on both sides its the necessities of war, US is no more the devil than Islam is extremist.
No one ever talks about how quran tells you to behave in normal days, the instructions are "not to sit with those who you disagree with", yah thats it, no killing, no extremism, "walk away". Besides, if any of you picked the quran and did read it, it has tons of stuff on importance of "patience". Again and again it tells you god is with those who are patience. God himself is extremely patience, and yada yada yada.
Google tells me patience is a noun: The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
This is clearly not what Islam stands for today in the world view as well as those who are extremists, at least they are on the same page. If it suits you to believe in what these extremist believe, then be it, you are NOT better for it.
Nonetheless, drastic measures are needed to curb Saudi wahabism being spread to poor countries. Its not even so much organized by the Saudi Government, they do make there donations and shit, but its the populace, millionaires will establish religious schools and tell them to teach "whats right", unfortunately they believe "right" is intolerance and extremism.
Personally, I am tired of explaining this again and again to people, nut jobs have screwed up this religion from discovering algebra to poets and chemists, its come to this.
Why US let this happens (think Russians in Afghanistan during cold war) is a topic for another day.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
I fear that it needs more than that. Actually it was Luther who stood first against Pope and dogmas. However, at that time Church was already over it's fever to kill everyone who disagreed. Let's remember, it took centuries for them to get there. They thought that excluding from Church was enough.
When I look to Middle East Islam, I fear they will have huge problems to get over that phase. Everyone who disagrees are sooner or later silenced. Some would say that economical development is only answer, but I fear that it won't be enough.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Luther wasn't the *first* to stand against the Pope --- rather, the first to do so while also accumulating enough backing from local and regional political leaders (Fredrick, Elector of Saxony et al.) to avoid being squashed with extreme prejudice by the Inquisition. A "reformation" for Islam, to cause meaningful change in the conflict-ridden Middle East, requires a pre-existing political shift to significant leadership factions who would benefit from a "kinder, gentler" Islam, rather than the authoritarian extremism that keeps the current group in power.
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Similarly, many of the Islamist fights are really based in politics. Bin Laden started out by opposing the local autocratic governments, and only extended terrorism to the US because of it's support of those autocratic governments. The US was the great satan to Iran because of its support of the Shah (and the coups orchestrated by CIA to keep him there). Fights in Afghanistan have always been about invading armies (Russians and US). Fights in Iraq are about seeing which ethnic groups can come out on top
More like 7-8 centuries (Score:5, Insightful)
But ya
Christianity grew up. It's not perfect, it still has plenty of crazies in various kinds, but by and large Christianity grew out of the crusades mentality. Islam by and large has not.
Thus I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to criticize Islam in a way they do not criticize Christianity (I'm an atheist by the way). That Christianity was all "kill the unbelievers" 700+ years ago does NOT give Islam license to be that way today. Society can, and should, advance. I would hope that in 700 years people would look back on society today and be glad that their society was even better than it is now.
In very many ways Islam is still largely stuck in the Dark Ages and it needs to stop. We shouldn't give it a pass because Christianity was also in the Dark Ages several centuries ago.
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Christianity grew up. It's not perfect, it still has plenty of crazies in various kinds, but by and large Christianity grew out of the crusades mentality. Islam by and large has not.
Oddly enough, I don't see some massive Islamic empire waiting to invade us. I suppose they're being cunning and organising their massive worldwide imperial structure without anyone noticing.
Re:More like 7-8 centuries (Score:5, Insightful)
But ya
Christianity grew up. It's not perfect, it still has plenty of crazies in various kinds, but by and large Christianity grew out of the crusades mentality. Islam by and large has not.
Islam in the western (read: prosperous) world mostly has. Almost all extremism has direct origins in countries with oppressive regimes or areas with so much poverty, corruption and inequalities that any person would find it hard to create a decent life under moderation. The average muslim in a decent environment does not resort to terrorism or hatred any more than the average non-muslim in such an environment.
Re:More like 7-8 centuries (Score:4, Informative)
The muslims didn't come by force or in any way invaded Palestine.
Didn't happen that way. The region fell to the Rashidun Caliphate at the Battle of Yarmouk [wikipedia.org], a decisive victory over the Byzantines.
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Precisely like Christianity six centuries ago, and very much like Christianity in some pockets of the world today.
Absolutely inexcusable in any circumstances.
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That is a proverbial drop in a buck of water compared to those killed by Islamists in Iraq alone, per year, for years, and recently.
If you mean the various crusades over the years, there were 15,000 to 25,000 men on both sides, over decades, according to the link below. Again, a drop in the bucket.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question [yahoo.com]
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The misinformation is staggering.
Hitler was an avowed atheist. He went to Christian functions as a child, which most Christian parents have their children do.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler [wikipedia.org] Many historians say that Hitler had a general covert plan, which some say existed even before the Nazis' rise to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich, which was to be accomplished through control and subversion of the churches and to be completed after the war.
Further down
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultra-strict disciplinarian religions are aggregators for people with impulse control problems. You can see how all aspects of Islam are designed around catering to low-EQ people.
Eg: Women covering themselves with veils, or from head to toe.
(Translation: when I see women's skin, I can't control myself, I might jump her, so she better make sure not to show any skin, coz I sure can't be expected to control my urges)
The mob riots over Youtube videos - how the hell is that just a "tiny minority of extremists"? Which other religion does this?
Where are the "greater majority" who oppose such extremism? Gone fishin?
Wherever Muslims are in the minority, they want all kinds of minority rights. Wherever Muslims are in the majority, what kind of rights do they give to minorities? I don't see any other ethnic groups immigrating to Muslim-majority countries. On the contrary, I see all the minorities leaving.
The fact that Muslims want as many rights for themselves as possible while giving as little respect as possible from their side towards other religions -- well, that tells me all I need to know about how to treat that religion. I'm not going to show more tolerance to someone than they're willing to show to me. Anything else is called masochism.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
The quicker we realize that it is anything BUT a religion of peace, and deal with it appropriately, the better.
Can you elaborate on this? How to deal with it? This isn't one of those vague political "yada yada yada" ideas, because dealing with a widely held religious belief usually involves war, discriminatory laws, or any other of a wide variety of excuses to stamp on personal rights and freedom of association.
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Just let them splash in their own puddle of mud. Encircle the Islamic world tightly so there are no spillovers and no threat to western society and let them solve their own problems. One day they will realise their foolish ways and progress into a better age. For now, a good start would be NOT funding their wars and their revolutions - this is a double edged sword with its sharper edge turned towards us. We quickly need to abandon oil and move to other, not necessarily cleaner fuels. The environmental impac
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
"that happens to contain a decent number of sane people who happen to have been raised inside of that culture"
One thing that many people don't understand is that Islam is more than a religion, its a culture that dictates how one should live, worship and govern its people. Islam knows no borders and Muslims have a very strong sense of belonging to the point where an Afgan and Iranian would see each other as brothers and not men from different countries.
At work we have two Pakistani kids, brothers. I was talking to one of them about a company that was started by two guys from Iraq and his face instantly lit up, smiled and said "Oh wow, my people started that business?" At first I was confused and asked him "Wait, I thought you are Pakistani" to which he replied "Yea, but they are Muslims like me". That really showed me how close the Muslim people are connected by their belief. Its to the point where a Pakistani is proud of the achievements of two men from Iraq, a completely different country. When was the last time anyone here spoke of an achievement of a Christian from another country with pride based solely on the fact they they were Christian like them?
Christians do not have that kind of bond with each other and therefor don't understand why the Muslims go crazy when someone disses Mohammed or makes a YouTube video calling Islam a religion of terrorists. You are insulting an entire culture, spiritual belief and government of all Muslims, everywhere. Christians have gotten to the point where they don't really give a shit, though there are sects that are still very close with each other (Mormons etc.). So when someone makes a Jesus joke or calls the church a scam, they don't take up arms and call for death.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
And that issue is exactly what makes this so outrageous. If my brother was spouting off, embarrassing the family, I'd punch him in the face and tell him to shut up. Yet, this global "brotherhood" you speak of remains, at best, absolutely silent whenever a small percentage of "their people" launch some rancid extremest call for the murder of innocents. At worst, they join the protests.
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Islam knows no borders and Muslims have a very strong sense of belonging to the point where an Afgan and Iranian would see each other as brothers and not men from different countries.
Might be different if they were more numerous where you live. The "Sunni" and "Shi'a" sects go at eachothers throats. Wouldn't you rather have people coming together based on things that are actually important to people (like physics or maths or engineering)?
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Informative)
Islam knows no borders and Muslims have a very strong sense of belonging to the point where an Afgan and Iranian would see each other as brothers and not men from different countries.
Really? What about Iraqis and Iranians [wikipedia.org], do they also see each other as "brothers"? How about Sunnis and Shiites [wikipedia.org], they're both Muslim so they must get along perfectly right?
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Um. No. Remember that lady who named a teddy bear Mohammed and there were mass movements in the street calling for her death? Or the cartoonist who was killed cause of one of his drawings?
As bad as westboro is, they are 1. Super Small, and 2. Haven't actually killed anyone yet.
Islam is a batshit religion, that happens to contain a decent number of sane people who happen to have been raised inside of that culture. The quicker we realize that it is anything BUT a religion of peace, and deal with it appropriately, the better.
Viewed with intellectual detachment, the term "batshit" (crazy) would apply to most religions, and without question it applies to every last one that uses it's version of "the word of god" to justify the mistreatment of "the other". The fact that Islam is the "word" of choice for the most crazy right now has nothing to do with the religion. Think harder
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Interesting)
My barely informed theory: Muslims who want to kill Christians and others are being faithful to a straight-forward reading of the Quran, and Muslims who just want us all to get along are using twisted interpretations of the Quran to accomodate their view.
But I'm certainly not an expert. Any who is want to comment?
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Islam considers itself the updated purified version of Christianity. ie. God gave the truth to the Jews, but they corrupted it, so then God gave the truth to the Christians, but they corrupted it, so Islam is today the True version, and last thing they want is for it to be diluted in any way.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not all Muslims are Terrorists.
But most Terrorists are Muslims.
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Is that actually the case? Here in Europe, Islamic terrorism gets a lot of press, and does exist, but I don't believe to has close to majority responsibility. In Spain, for example, there has been one major Islamic terrorist attack (the 2004 Madrid subway bombing), but thousand of ETA terrorist attacks, which have killed several times more people. In the UK, the major perpetrators of terrorist attacks have been Christian paramilitary groups, split between militant Catholic paramilitaries and militant Protes
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But America is all that matters, and 9/11 has quite a score to catch up to for the christian terrorists.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
most Terrorists are Muslims.
Troll.
This moves in waves.
Let's not forget about IRA, ETA, RAF, various other left-wing bombers in Europe, untold guerilla movements in Africa and South America.
With some exceptions it mostly follows where there are active separatist movements at any given time
Do your homework.
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Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not all Muslims are Terrorists.
But most Terrorists are Muslims.
You need to differentiate tactics and goals.
Terrorism is a tactic. If the people performing terrorism had control of civil courts and law enforcement, large standing armies with M1 tanks, F18's, and drones, I suspect they wouldn't be doing things that get them labeled "terrorists".
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But most Terrorists are Muslims.
Most terrorists are human.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Funny)
If your argument is that you were blown up by a Christian then how are you posting crap to Slashdot? Usually when a person is blown up they tend to die. What ISP do you have from "paradise?" How are your virgins? Are they dudes?
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The Irish terrorists are not Catholic. Calling yourself a Catholic does not make you a member of the Catholic faith, that goes for any faith. Striving to live the teachings of a faith makes you a member. Blowing up your fellow man is not a Catholic teaching.
I am not Catholic.
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Yeah, and Stalin wasn't a Communist, and No True Scotsman would ever tell a lie.
The Irish Republican terrorists/freedom-fighters (depending on which side you adhere to) may not have been toeing the line of Vatican City policy, but they certainly were closely integrated with Catholicism as it actually existed in their country. They operated with the tacit support, rather than condemnation from the pulpit, of their faith communities. There certainly were internal Irish Catholic calls for peacemaking; but more
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are glossing over the fact that, while offensive, holding up a sign saying "God hates fags" isn't quite the same thing as killing somebody. I'm not a fan of religion at all. But of the significant world religions Islam is alone in constantly calling for death and destruction. Simply look at any country that has a significant population of Muslims intermixed with another group. How many of those places have no tensions? None. Zero. Zip. Of course the Muslims always seem to have a reason for declaring a Fatwah and calling for death.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. is actually a decent example of a country with a significant Muslim population and general lack of any fatwahs or jihads going on. There are some occasional nuts, but I don't think it's any more prevalent than with any other religious group: an American Muslim is no more likely to try to bomb you than an American Christian is.
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* You need to check the definition of "significant."
* You must not have been paying attention around 2001 when a Fatwah claimed the lives of over 5,000 people.
* You can use th
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The Americans I'm personally most worried about are the left wingnuts that think that Government is the arbiter of their morals, like Bloomberg's assault on soda, or the do gooders that want to ban happy meals and shit like that. Because, when they win (and they are winning) they will want to control everything. But Liberals love to poke fun at (R) types for their issues on Abortion (stay out of my womb), they are completely silent when their side wants to control everything else.
And they are so fucked up,
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The Americans I'm personally most worried about are the left wingnuts that think that Government is the arbiter of their morals, like Bloomberg's assault on soda, or the do gooders that want to ban happy meals and shit like that. Because, when they win (and they are winning) they will want to control everything. But Liberals love to poke fun at (R) types for their issues on Abortion (stay out of my womb), they are completely silent when their side wants to control everything else.
And they are so fucked up, that some liberals are trying to ban smoking (all kinds) while at the same time trying to legalize marijuana. How are they going to smoke pot when smoking is illegal?
You're confusing "liberal" with "authoritarian." I'm a liberal, but I also support the right to sell and consume big sodas, greasy burgers, and cigarettes/weed/what-have-you, and I also broadly support the 2nd amendment, as well as women's rights.
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I think you are glossing over the fact that, while offensive, holding up a sign saying "God hates fags" isn't quite the same thing as killing somebody. I'm not a fan of religion at all. But of the significant world religions Islam is alone in constantly calling for death and destruction. Simply look at any country that has a significant population of Muslims intermixed with another group. How many of those places have no tensions? None. Zero. Zip. Of course the Muslims always seem to have a reason for declaring a Fatwah and calling for death.
The only Christian analog I can think of is people who attack abortion centers / doctors.
But even that isn't a good parallel, because the people doing that have a goal of saving innocent humans. There's just a disagreement, which largely falls along religious lines, about what constitute a human in that case.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
These few loud attention seekers do not represent Islam...
Your comment might hold merit if Westboro was blowing people up, or they were forcing their young girls into FGM, or there was a substantially large number of them involved in grooming one particular race of girls for sex exploitation, or in some countries nearly all rapes are being committed by one group. Or they were threatening women who stood up for themselves, or even rose to positions of power. But none of that really holds any water does it, even when you expand outside of westboro at large.
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Is there more extremists in Islam than in Christianity ? I think it's pretty clear that the answer is yes.
Are the extremsists, including violent ones who are willing to kill by the dozen among Christians ?
Yes. Fewer than among the muslims, but there sure are *some*. Breivik ring a bell ?
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Yes. Fewer than among the muslims, but there sure are *some*. Breivik ring a bell ?
Hey...congratulations, you managed to find one person in the last 10 years, compared to the 20k odd terrorist attacks by muslims alone! Boy that's sure some ratio, you a betting man because I already like those odds.
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before making excuses, please remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately for this "distinction" to have much meaning, you need to have the alleged "average" people and clerics of Islam start denouncing the actions of these "loud attention seekers" more strongly than a token, "it wasn't us."
Do a large number of these "average" people of Islam show up at the places where these "attention seekers" go, to make a shield between them and their targets, like a lot of people (both Christian and non-Christian) do at Westboro "events"?
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Westboro Baptist Church is made up up maybe a dozen individuals in a nation of hundreds of millions. Radical Islam is now a significant majority in many Muslim countries, and a significant minority in many more.
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Re:Sure... we believe you (Score:3, Informative)
You idiot. You apologist.
www.prophetofdoom.net
They DO represent muslims, because Islam is pure evil, just like its inventor, 'Mo-ham-head', who was a mass murderer, multiple rapist, and a paedophile - all documented by MUSLIMS for 1400 years, because they think those crimes are okay, as long as 'god' tells them to do it.
You really are a moron of the first order.
Do you have nothing against Islam?
Then you have nothing against stoning, amputations, flogging, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, beheadin
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For other subjects, but mostly these of politics and religion, whenever someone suggests "those guys are just a small minority", I have to wonder: how do you know? have you counted them or is it wishful thinking?
How many murders has WB done? (Score:2)
Oh wait, WB is just annoying but not outright killers.
How many people are forced to live under rule of the Westboro Baptist church against their will?
Oh wait, they do not get to enforce their rules on others.
So... they are the same how?
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True. But it's also true that the average muslim is considerably more conservative than the average christian. Infact if a christian held views as medieval as those of the average muslim, we'd call him an extremism: his position really would be extreme in the christian church.
For example, the pope was an extremist. His views where more extreme than the views of 95% of catholics, and 97% of christians.
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Actually even word "conservative" here would mean very different things. I would go out and call Islam very radical at it's core - which makes problems for normal people who has Islamic legacy. There never has been "sanitation" of Bible, because it never needed one - all what changed was rules of Church and people's attitude towards belief system. However I don't see how Islam can continue it's existence without rewriting or throwing out some parts - or at least changing core interpretations. Last such try
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
How in the hell this has been modded "5 Insightful"?
There are two kinds of muslims:
* peaceful sinners who cherry-pick from the Koran
* murderous savages who do as the prophet commanded
I see you're used to Bible which contains thousands of contradictions and thus can't possibly be followed without massive cherry-picking. It does contain savage commandments like "when you approach a town, you need to issue an ultimatum: if the denizens surrender, kill only old women/the infirm/those uppity/etc and put the rest into slavery, taking their women as your wives and concubines -- but if they refuse to surrender, you must slaughter them all. Except for a list of tribes, which you're not allowed to spare and must slaughter without quarter, including livestock" -- yet no one takes such commandments seriously today, despite Jesus reaffirming the old law multiple times.
On the other hand, the few contradictions in Koran are limited to "how many angels visited Miriam", the biggest one IIRC is about permissibility of alcohol. There's not a shred of doubt about being obliged to murder infidels. You must be forgiveful but only to those who convert to Islam, you may subjugate people of four religions but only for a period of time, you should offer infidels a chance to convert, and when facing overwhelming force you may merely lie and use "stratagems" until a time to strike happens.
It is impossible to follow the Bible in full. It is well possible to follow the Koran. And thus I disagree with your claim that those who do are merely "few loud attention seekers who do not represent Islam".
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I see you're used to Bible which contains thousands of contradictions and thus can't possibly be followed without massive cherry-picking. It does contain savage commandments like "when you approach a town, you need to issue an ultimatum: if the denizens surrender, kill only old women/the infirm/those uppity/etc and put the rest into slavery, taking their women as your wives and concubines -- but if they refuse to surrender, you must slaughter them all. Except for a list of tribes, which you're not allowed to spare and must slaughter without quarter, including livestock" -- yet no one takes such commandments seriously today, despite Jesus reaffirming the old law multiple times.
The commands you listed were specifically for the Israelite tribes conquering Canaan at that point in time.
They're different in nature than the ongoing commands about how the Israelites were supposed to live day by day; which was a condition for them to continue living in Canaan. Their descendants violated these laws. The Bible claims this is the reason their nation was destroyed and their people scattered, much as they did to the Canaanites before.
In turn, those commands are different than the comm
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Interesting)
As an secular/cultural Muslim, this is one of the biggest points.
This is such an important point.
It is hard to describe to people what Islam is. It is not just belief in God or attending church once in a week.
I grew up overseas, went to Islam school, not an extreme one by any stretch of the imagination, so I do consider myself quite learned.
Islam is composed of the Koran which is relatively vague and you can read it to mean a lot of things and you can apply a lot of context to things.
But the Koran is not the core of Islamic practice. That is the hadith... which basically stems from the belief that Mohamed was a great man... therefore we should do as Mohamed did to have the best Islamic practice.
So I was literally taught to enter the washroom with the left food, to sleep on my right side, not to stand up and pee... That is the level of detail we have in the Hadith on the life of Mohamed and what it is that Muslims are taught to do. This is standard Sunni/Shia Islam.
So you can of course imagine the problems with this... a detailed log of a man who lived 1400 years ago being held up as the final perfections of mankind. The logs orally recorded and then written down over centuries across wars/assassins/politics... You don't need a PHd to figure this out.
And so there are many 'bad' hadiths out there. ...
Stoning single mothers for sex out of wedlock... check.
Going to war, capturing the women and making them sex slaves... check.
Going to war to spead Islam... check.
Killing those who speak against Islam... check.
Yes, most people of all faiths have done similar things in their own religion. The difference in Islam is that this is taken as THE FINAL PERFECT WAY TO LIVE with the hadith to show you how to live.
And this is taken seriously by Muslims. As you say, the old testament has lots of 'bad things', but no one takes it seriously and much of Christian thinking today would suggest that many parts have been superceeded by the new testament... which is relatively good... and the portrayal of Jesus himself as a model is a relatively good one.
Now what most Muslims have resorted to is ignoring the bad parts of Islam and simply saying they are out of context... Sure its an intellectual cop out.
It is the same text (the hadith) that tells you to pray five time a day as the one that tells you to go to war and capture slave women. Yes most modern Muslims will ignore the war and slave part.
But in the end, it is for the good. I can't handle the silliness of it all, so I don't follow the religion. But I'd rather have this kind of peaceful ignorance than 'real Islam'.
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And when they incite multiple murders to other people we can deal with them accordingly. Guess what they are a bunch of lawyers that piss people off so they can sue them I doubt they even care about there cause outside of getting rich.
As to the Muslim extremists they are not pulling there punches. Islam allows anybody to issue a Fatwa it's somewhere between a legal opinion and court order primarily dependent on how many people subscribe to and social status of the person that wrote it. They are not sayin
Re:Before commenting, please remember... (Score:5, Funny)
That's right. It's the religion of peace after all!
I'm sure there will be widespread condemnation of this behavior from all the mainstream Islamic mouthpieces.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you think of it in the French revolutionary context, it actually makes pretty good sense. The "right" was pro-Church, pro-tradition, pro-elites, while the left was secularist, anti-elite, anti-tradition. That maps pretty well to what's going on here.
Motorhead had words for this (Score:2)
I twist the truth, I rule the world, my crown is called deceit I am the emperor of lies, you grovel at my feet I rob you and I slaughter you, your downfall is my gain And still you play the sycophant and revel i
NOT a battle between "left" and "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a battle between secular democratic government and koran-thumping nutballs who want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else at sword point.
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the problem comes in when only one sides reserves the right to, and frequently uses, the ability to kill the secularists
progress cannot happen if one side doesn't just debate, but frequently murders proponents of progress
there are forces of the right in every country. but think how much worse it would be. for example, here in the usa, if all the bs you see the right was saying was also accompanied by frequent murder of those on the left, and full support within the right to do so
now you have some idea of wh
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Substitute "bible" for "koran" and "gun" for "sword" and see what happens . . .
Not much. What was supposed to happen?
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To summarize your description simplistically, we might say that Left means "power to the people" and Right "power to the state". However, with Marx-Engels notion of the progression of the ideal (Communist) state as one centered around the maximization of the interests of the people, with authoritarian government only a transitional step until said government dissolves itself in favor of the people... which oddly, never seems to actually happen once a group of people gets in power, incidentally... we have a skewed public interpretation of where that "is" on the spectrum.
We might. But here in the US, it is the left that is constantly arguing that the State needs more power, and the right that is arguing that the State is too powerful. I think your descriptions of Left and RIght are correct, it's just that the perceptions of left and right in the US are distorted, eventually those perceptions will snap into alignment.
War criminals, not just islamists (Score:5, Insightful)
But the attitude didn't change, and after losing an election overwhelmingly to a political party based mostly in East Pakistan, the loser from the West worked with the military to not hand over the power and instead let loose The Pakistani Army, which, with the help of local collaborators (Rajakars), killed 3 million people [genocidebangladesh.org] and raped [youtube.com] 200,000 women in 1971. One of the stated reasons was to "Protect Islam."
Fast forward to 2012. Now there is a war-crimes trial going on for some of the top Rajakars, and like the Arab Spring, social media headed by young bloggers took a leading role in holding the war criminals accountable.
So the Rajakars, who predominantly belong to a party called Jamaat-E-Islami, are trying to inflame popular sentiment (which is overwhelmingly against them) through propaganda that all bloggers are Atheists. Their campaign is funded by huge influx of money from the middle east and a network of highly profitable businesses in Bangladesh. They own TV stations and newspapers that are using photoshopped images to show the alleged debauchery and insults to Islam of the so-called Atheists.
So this is not just a left vs. right issue as people elsewhere might interpret it. This is an active campaign for the Talibanization of Bangladesh along with a campaign to protect people who allegedly committed crimes against humanity.
The process is not to ban just rightist parties (there are plenty)--the process aims to ban Jamaat-E-Islami, which has never clearly stated that their role in 1971 (of helping with genocide and rape) was wrong, and which is headed by people who actively participated in the genocide and rape.
For freedom-loving people everywhere, this must not be allowed to stand. "Atheists bloggers" is just a red herring--don't let this cheap trick by alleged criminals muddy the water.
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Execute anyone who calls for murder. (Score:2, Funny)
Problem solved.
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CNN will hate this (Score:3)
Difficult case (Score:2)
First of all, I don't know almost nothing about Islam (just tons of facts found on Wikipedia), but I have met descent people with that religion. While it's middle age mentality plays some background in all this, my pick is it's popularity within uneducated, poor masses are adding more to these outbursts of violence.
Second part is - while we all love to trash religions in the name of the free speech, and enjoying anonymity given by Internet (at least from dumb ass religious nuts), blogging about how backwar
so.... (Score:2)
Sweden would prove your point (Score:5, Informative)
Oh wait it doesnt. Maybe Norway...nope. Okay how about Denmark? Nah.
Surely ultraviolent costa rica...wait they dont have an army nor much violence to speak of.
There are oodles of peaceful left of center social democratic governments that have been stable and democratic for decades.
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Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
So you see rightist autocracies as a solution to leftist democracies? I understand an abhorrence to the idea of "the needs of many" outweighing the needs of the one and all but, seriously, do you really believe the needs of the few out weigh the needs of the many? Maybe it could just be that your understanding of liberal democracy and mine do not jive? Most authoriatarians that I've simply have a belief that they are somehow superior than others.
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Really? You can't think of a single right wing authoritarian regime other than Pinochet?
Hitler? Mussolini? Argentine generals? Hell, Napoleon? King Richard the Lionhearted? Julius Freaking Caesar? All pretty far to the right, along with most authoritarian rulers throughout history.
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Not sure about Hitler or Mussolini - they mixed up ideologies of left and right.
Richard the lionheart was driven by religion
Hitler himself was solidly right. The NSDAP had a leftist wing led by Gregor Strasser [wikipedia.org] (the Strasserists) but Hitler showed him what he thought of that in 1934.
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So you equate liberty with government handouts? Bizarre, if true.
I believe the founders chose to order it "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for a reason.
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:5, Insightful)
An answer then... because you asked so politely...
At my school they always told me that these muslim people are followers of the religion of love, peace and respect. And that any misconduct of that group could, and SHOULD, be played down with either:
- other religions are violent as well, look at the crusaders, the IRA, abortion-clinic-arsonists, the KKK. (Funny that they never mentioned Sikh / Hindu / other religions huh?)
- Those people 'lost' their religion, so any killings have NOTHING to do with islam.
Now, years later I know better.
9/11, 3000 deaths, by Saudi Arabian muslims.
2002 bomblast in Bali (Indonesia), 200 killed by muslims
2004 muslims killed 250 schoolkids in Beslan (Russia)
2004 muslims blew up 190 people in Madrid (yurp)
7/7 London, 52 killed by... wait for it... muslims
2008 muslims the Mumbai (India) blast killed 160 people.
2013 muslims murdered 13 people in Hyderabad (India, last week)
That totals 3,865 of only this horrendously light weight list. There are thousands of smaller cases like the girl that was shot in the face (by muslims) because she wanted to be educated. Or that (Christian) girl with a little mental handicap that was accused of burning pages of a koran and was almost killed by the people in the neighbourhood. The list could be far more elaborate. Nevertheless I heard about Breivik, and yes people are killed by white-power groups and all... but that is like saying that a paper plane is equal to a 747 because they both fly.
To me things are clear, this religion will never stop until either the last muslim is dead or the whole world is muslim.
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:5, Informative)
To me things are clear, this religion will never stop until either the last muslim is dead or the whole world is muslim.
Sadly that's not even true, the different Muslim sects are at war with each other.
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are not actually helping the case of Muslims with your post. You actually make the case that Muslims are terrorists, even to other muslims.
And short of IRA and Brittain being at war over "religion" (sort of by proxy), you'd be hard press to see the Roman Catholics waring with Lutherans or Baptists. Or Buddists waring with Taoists.
If you look at a map, with active conflicts, you can bet that Islam is involved on one side or the other and come out ahead ... by a long shot.
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ONe of the odd things I've run into with Muslim coworkers, and I'm posting this AC because I don't feel like getting flamed, is that they are very calm and peaceful.
But when you start discussing religion, they'll make crazy ass statements "oh, yes, if you renounce Islam, you should be beheaded" in a very calm and peaceful way, with no anger in their voice. Like saying the sky is blue. Because to them, it is logical and perfectly OK. You never saw Osama Bin Laden shouting, did you, but he LOVED to kill.
Craz
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:4, Interesting)
>>But then we get to this:
>>[To me things are clear, this religion will never stop until either the last muslim is dead or the whole world is muslim]
>>This is the most ignorant and, frankly, stupid thing I've ever seen modded to +5, and I've been here a while.
>>I've got a muslim friend who is quite peaceful and tolerant. Did you mean "every last muslim (except for DahGhostfacedFiddlah's friend) is dead"?.
It is valid to tackle me on the "all of them"-bit because it is logical. You know a muslim who is apparently not violent at all. And that is good news isn't it? All swans are white, one black etcetera. But as far as everyone knows, one example is a bit flimsy as far as evidence goes. Have you seen the riots (stoning of people, petrol-bombing and RPG-ing embassies) for a... wait for it... cartoon... Thousands of hatebeards all being very violent to prove that they are not a violent group. How is that for ironic? These are not extremist nut-cases (not all of them), most of them are 'normal civilians'. There was a shopkeeper in Pakistan who refused to participate in such a protest, and he got killed by the mob. Because he 'left his faith' apparently, that is a normal thing for muslims.
>> Except that there are entire sects [wikipedia.org] of muslims who are dedicated to peace (pay particular attention to their view of "Jihad"). Perhaps you really
>> meant "every last muslim (except for DahGhostfacedFiddlah's friend and members of some sects) is dead"?
Yes, lets get to the word Jihad. There are two sorts, the violent one, and the not-violent one. The latter, fine no problem there. The violent one on the other hand is used ever since the beginning of islam. It made them into the great rulers of large parts of Asia, the Balkans, north Africa, just like Atilla the Hun put violence down as a concept. This continues to this day. Do not forget that! Remember Timbuktu?
The mentioning of a 'large silent and harmless group that is not visible' is the same tactic politicians use to scare their adversaries. As long as you do not know what they say in private, in the mosque, or elsewhere outside the reach of researchers you simply can not tell how many actually (dis)approve on terrorism and jihadism (the violent one). Nor can I for that matter.
The problem with research in this field is that muslims are allowed to lie through their teeth to non-muslims whenever the truth might hurt them. I forgot the name for this, but probably you will find it if you like.
>> But to ignore the billion or so muslims who aren't actively trying to kill us and lumping them in with the - what - 1000 or so that actually carried out the attacks you listed?
Try looking up the term Takfiri. This means in practical terms that one can radicalise out of controll, and no one can do anything because they fear to be made-out for non-believer which is enough to kill you on the spot. That is what happened to Pakistani shopkeeper I mentioned earlier. It is a bit the same like the previous point, you never know how many of those hatebeards are actually meaning what they shout, and vice versa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfiri
Nevertheless they know that the power of the many is more strong than the few radicals after the diverse arab-springs we have seen. Yet, no one is holding the idiots back. NO ONE. They all march after the big kettle drum. And when the attack on innocent people is successful, not one cleric would rise up and be true to the love/respect/peace bit that they always try to sell. No actually, they get on the streets in hordes shouting and clapping and dancing. So that is why I lump them all up. I had it.
That's possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
That I agree on! That is the dumbest thing ever. And curiously, it is not MY invention, but theirs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisions_of_the_w
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:5, Interesting)
Islam is about where Christianity was 500-800 years ago. That is, becoming a major world power and fighting to gain more power, becoming involved in economic and political wars in the name of the religion, and having wars between sects. What if back then the rest of the world had said "we'll never have peace until every last Christian is dead"?
The violent islamists are in the minority of all muslims. Muslims are speaking out against this (despite some people claiming it never happens). If we have modern day atrocities in the last 50-100 years done by Christians against non-Christian minorities, do we blame all Christians for this?
Re:Killing leftists prevents more killings. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with apologists for Islamist totalitarians is that they never look at the actual numbers. Go check the opinion surveys PEW research has done in Islamic countries. As an example, in Pakistan you get 80% approval for execution for apostates, adulterers, and blasphemers.
It is not a "fallacy" to point out that theocratic totalitarianism has widespread support in Islamic countries.
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And what do you think Islamists are?
They are people.
I shouldn't have to say more than that, but apparently that isn't enough. Some are violent, most aren't. That can be said of just about any group of people. Especially from a group that encompasses a fairly large percentage of the worlds population.
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>> After WWII communists began calling those who want less government "right wing"
this does not make it their 'invention' that stuck. Actually it was 'invented' by the French parliament after the Revolution. It referred to the seating arrangements where the aristocracy/conservatives sat on the right of the Speaker and the commoners/liberals sat on the Left. (wikipedia)
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum [wikipedia.org]