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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Islam and violence
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Ikkyu
I think that's right. It's the logic of Al Quaeda and IS - since some Westerners come here to inflict violence on us, then they are all violent.
So weird to see people here using the same logic. It's also fatal logic at times.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It is fun that there is a nuclear submarine named Coprus Christi (body of Christ), which they put "city of" after protest. I sure hope that if they ever fire missiles from it, they say "taste and see that the lord is good" accompanied by the true love of Christ within their hearts.
The Trijicon guns with bible verses one them is also interesting.
[fixed link]
[code]
[ 12. January 2015, 19:41: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
What about the recent torture revelations in the US?
And the large numbers of innocents killed in drone strikes?
Or the civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Or the torture and war crimes in Algeria done by France?
Are those Christian crimes?
Only if they were done by US generals shouting "Jesus saves" or "Sing Hosanna!" as they did it.
Classic error of equating 'West' with 'Christian'. Whereas Islamic terror is done overtly in the name of Allah, citing Islamic teaching and shouting God is Great
And I haven't seen any evidence of any US soldiers marching into a village and killing 2000 children and their mothers.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Mudfrog's ideas would be laughable if they weren't so dangerous, as over-generalizations often are.
It reminds me of the old ideas of the savage African or the savage Arab, whereas we in the West are so civilized. Never mind, eventually the benighted Muslims will catch up with us.
Yeah, right.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It is fun that there is a nuclear submarine named [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_City_of_Corpus_Christi_(SSN-705)]Coprus Christi[/url] (body of Christ), which they put "city of" after protest. I sure hope that if they ever fire missiles from it, they say "taste and see that the lord is good" accompanied by the true love of Christ within their hearts.
Well, okay. But the sub was clearly intended to be named after the Texas city from the beginning. I'd be willing to bet that most non-Catholic Texans don't think of wafers and chant when the city's name is mentioned, anymore than Californians do when they talk about their state's capital.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
What about the recent torture revelations in the US?
And the large numbers of innocents killed in drone strikes?
Or the civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Or the torture and war crimes in Algeria done by France?
Are those Christian crimes?
Only if they were done by US generals shouting "Jesus saves" or "Sing Hosanna!" as they did it.
Classic error of equating 'West' with 'Christian'. Whereas Islamic terror is done overtly in the name of Allah, citing Islamic teaching and shouting God is Great
And I haven't seen any evidence of any US soldiers marching into a village and killing 2000 children and their mothers.
My point was that blaming ALL Muslims for the crimes of some makes as much sense as blaming ALL Christians for the crimes of some Christians.
Al Qaeda and ISIS claim that there is a western Crusade against all Muslims. Do we want to create one?
And about numbers:
What about more than 130,000 civilians? Iraq body count And that includes children and mothers.
Or the genocide in Rwanda? Wikipedia
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And I haven't seen any evidence of any US soldiers marching into a village and killing 2000 children and their mothers.
Is 2000 some kind of tolerance threshold?
How does 347-504 unarmed civilians rate? Does it change anything if some of the women were gang-raped and mutilated before being finished off?
Oh, and I think Alan Cresswell had a few other examples of atrocities perpetrated by self-styled Christians you somehow seem to have missed.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Islamic terror is done overtly in the name of Allah, citing Islamic teaching and shouting God is Great
To refresh your memory about earlier posts, here's the rationale put forward by Lord's Resistance Army commander Vincent Otti (from that link):
quote:
Lord’s Resistance Army is just the name of the movement, because we are fighting in the name of God. God is the one helping us in the bush. That’s why we created this name, Lord’s Resistance Army. And people always ask us, are we fighting for the Ten Commandments of God. That is true – because the Ten Commandments of God is the constitution that God has given to the people of the world. All people. If you go to the constitution, nobody will accept people who steal, nobody could accept to go and take somebody’s wife, nobody could accept to kill the innocent, or whatever. The Ten Commandments carries all this.
ETA: According to this page:
quote:
By 2004, the LRA had abducted more than 20,000 children, while one and half million civilians had been displaced and an estimated 100,000 civilians killed
[ 12. January 2015, 20:03: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
See also the Christian militias in the Central African Republic, which have been killing Muslims. Ah, but hold on, maybe they are Not True Christians?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Classic error of equating 'West' with 'Christian'.
It seems to me that some of your assertions make the classic error of equating 'Middle East' with 'Muslim'.
Some of the organisations and countries that you cite are every bit as much political organisations as religious ones. The fact that some politician mentions 'Allah' is not automatically more significant than the fact that it's standard practice for American politicians to mention 'God', living as they do in a country whose motto is 'In God We Trust'.
[ 12. January 2015, 20:38: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Teufelchen
Shipmate
# 10158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Note that even in Britain, Muslims are willing to kill their young women in 'honour killings' if they marry the person they choose.
Actions which are repeatedly condemned by Muslim leaders - both because those actions are evil and un-Islamic, and because the white-Christian-dominated press demands such condemnation from faith leaders with no direct connection to them.
Violence against women is endemic in our society. It is not peculiar to Islam. To attack Muslims at large in order to remedy this evil is like cutting off your foot because there are chickenpox spots on it.
t
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Little devil
Posts: 3894 | From: London area | Registered: Aug 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Yes, honour killings are reflections of a geographical culture, not of Islam. They predate the arrival of Islam in the relevant areas of the world. In India, Hindus carry out honour killings.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's frightening that so much illogicality is prevalent on all sides. The Islamists over-generalize and say that all Westerners are guilty of the violence against their lands; but here we find Christians over-generalizing and saying that Islam itself is violent.
The trouble is, that in Europe now, we have growing movements which are using this illogicality to say, that Muslims should be controlled more, or should be expelled, or are dangerous people. Demonization is going on on all aides - the Great Satan, as they say in Iran.
I just hope we are not going back to the 30s, when it was the Jews who were said to be toxic.
[ 12. January 2015, 20:46: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
What a useless thread. Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing; all the nuance used to discuss Christianity stripped away.
The Islam that the Islamic State and Saudi Arabia believe in is extremely violent - by design. The Islam that many Ahmadiyya believe does not seem to be particularily violent.
So what is "Islam"? And what is "inherently"?
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
Al Qaida kills in the name of Islam. The USA kills in the name of freedom. I'm pretty sure that isn't an inherently violent concept either. When people are angry at another group, they pick out the thing they think differentiates them from that group and wave it around like a banner.
As for support - it is very difficult to tell how much support these groups have for the simple reason that they are vicious, bloodthirsty and heavily armed. That being the case, there's a pretty good likelihood that much of the "support" comes from fear and self preservation rather than genuine enthusiasm. Combine that with the mix of genuine, reasonable grievances about invasions, drone strikes and human rights abuses, and a huge amount of misinformation that typically gets passed around about the immoral and decadent west, and you really don't need Islam to be inherently violent to get the exact situation that you have today.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
We used to have an Islamic Shipmate, who somehow wandered in, possibly by accident. (Plato's Cat? I'm not certain about his screen name).
Of course, Ship manners can be deceiving and there is no guarantee that someone who seems reasonable and nice here truly is. Still, he put up with a lot of crap from people who wanted to tell him how awful his religion was and had no desire to hear him explain it. When he finally left (probably because he decided he didn't need the toxicity in his life), I felt the Ship was definitely poorer for it.
The point of this rambling is that when he was around, we were able to talk TO a Muslim, if only one. That seemed to be one more than some shipmates had ever taken the opportunity to engage in conversation. Now we can only talk ABOUT Muslims, and there is no reason to believe we will be more correct than a group of Muslims would be talking about Christianity.
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I couldn't find a British survey but the next best (or worse depending on your POV) is a US based survey from Christianity Today.
Oh. A survey is not a debate. quote:
The debate is certainly is all to be had
The question to my mind is which debate.
I think most of us probably agree that Western democracies are, so far, the least bad alternative we have found.
Democracy (or what passes for it) is not without its atrocities, as amply illustrated on this thread, including by me, but I still think it is less bad than the alternatives. We may even agree that for all its failings, Christianity has made some positive contributions. To my mind, the best option for now in human terms looks like attempting to make religious pluralism work within the framework of democracy.
I think Christianity has the theological baggage to address that challenge and, in spiritual terms, that it could advance the kingdom of God in doing so. It seems to me that some Muslims are also very willing to make a go of that challenge. Working together with them and those of other faiths who are also willing to do so offers the prospect, in the long term, of fewer people embracing more violent alternatives.
André Malraux famously said that "the twenty-first century will be religious, or there won't be a twenty-first century at all". I think that the banishment of religion from the public sphere by secularism (as has been particularly the case in France) has a lot to do alienation and the ensuing rise, in the West, of violence predicated on irrational spirituality.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The greatest failure by far is ours. Christian. Islam is proof of the failure.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
So, Mudfrog, the only reason that Mr and Mrs Ebrahim don't come around to your house and murder Mrs and Major Mudfrog in their beds is because they live in a western democracy and that - rather than their own intrinsic humanity or their faith, is the only restraint on their otherwise murderous tendencies?
With black and white attitudes like that, it looks like the terrorists have won after all
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And Sharia law isn't just the opinion of some radical Imam somewhere in one mosque.
Actually, that's pretty much exactly what sharia law is.
You realise that Sharia law is pretty much like saying 'common law' or 'civil law'.
The United Kingdom and Pakistan and the United States and Zimbabwe are all common law jurisdictions, but you'd be unwise to assume that the law in the United Kingdom is the same as that in Pakistan. Sharia is like that.
What happens under sharia is that you take your legal dispute to an imam. That imam has been trained in one of a number of schools of interpretation (fiqh). Think the schools of Hillel and Shammai in Old Testament Judaism. The schools of interpretation use more or less different principles of deciding cases. The imam decides your case, according to the principles of interpretation. That decision is binding upon the two parties, and anybody else who chooses to accept it. Anybody who is not a party to the case may ignore it if they think that the imam is wrong.
So any particular ruling in sharia is pretty much exactly the opinion of the imam who gave it. It may be considered more or less well-founded by other imams, but it has no intrinsic universal authority.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
The difference between the LRA and ISIL it seems to me is that I don't see Christians in the west providing material support, nor justifying the actions of, or going to fight with the LRA. I don't see Christian Ministers (even the whackiest) extolling the virtues of martyrdom nor calling for a state based on the 10 Commandments. I've not heard of Christian sub- groups in Australia recruiting for the establishment of a "biblically-based" society and going over to help LRA The vast, vast majority of Muslims don't support ISIL or Alquaeda or apologise for their actions either BUT a few do and this is deeply unsettling. I think it's justified to ask what is it that makes people do this-the people themselves say it's to honour and defend the prophet-equally so other Muslims say that it's a betrayal of Islam and totally at odds with the faith-we hope it's true but what other explanation do we have? I "get" suicide bombers from Palestine attacking Israel, I really do, but Australian born and educated people going to fight with Isil or Australian born girls going to become brides of ISIL fighters-I just don't understand.
We (those of us living in western democracies) are, understandably afraid of being blown-up, beheaded, or shot by somebody claiming to be acting on behalf of their prophet. It's an overstated fear given that you are far more likely to die in a car accident than by an act of terrorism.They claim to be doing it in the name of religion, it's not unreasonable for people to believe them. Again, that's not the same as saying ALL followers of the religion choose to follow that path or that the religion requires it but I've not heard of any Australian, Englishman or Frenchman killing or taking a compatriot hostage to defend the name of Jesus.
There are some valid points raised in a press release by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group in Australia, published in the SMH article
quote:
The statement on Monday said its "hesitance to condemn" such attacks reflected its desire to "resist a vile, racist and narcissistic worldview that highlights and humanises European life but dehumanises and makes invisible non-European life".
but this is nothing but an outright threat,
quote:
"It seems some in Australia are arrogantly and irresponsibly heedless of the fact that provoking and insulting a people's core beliefs is a matter that can only end in acrimony for everyone concerned," it said.
It concluded: "The establishment of a just Caliphate, with the true interests of all humanity at heart, is the only assured response to the unending crimes of European and Western powers harming both Muslim and non-Muslim alike."
Inciting acrimony, much?
I just don't see any other group, be it religious, ethnic, political or whatever making such threats against Australian society. Again, just before somebody tells me most Muslims don't do this I whole-heartedly concur but what is it that makes a certain sub-group act this way? There are plenty of disaffected and marginalised groups in Australia, what is it that makes this very small sub-group of a very small portion of the Australian population act like this?
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Teufelchen
Shipmate
# 10158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I just don't see any other group, be it religious, ethnic, political or whatever making such threats against Australian society. Again, just before somebody tells me most Muslims don't do this I whole-heartedly concur but what is it that makes a certain sub-group act this way? There are plenty of disaffected and marginalised groups in Australia, what is it that makes this very small sub-group of a very small portion of the Australian population act like this?
Which group is culturally dominant in Australia? How did it get that way? Do you think its members need to be actively extremist in order to go on benefitting from this state of affairs?
Of course not. The people risking the most are people who feel (I suspect wrongly) that they can change the world to their (collective) advantage by their deeds.
The challenge to us is to change society in positive ways, because it's quite apparent that oppression doesn't work.
t
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Little devil
Posts: 3894 | From: London area | Registered: Aug 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read those comments about Australia. Good grief. The irony hurts bad. The white man's burden is a poignant one.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I forgot to say that in the Middle East, the West does not say that it is killing in the name of Jesus, but in the name of freedom. This is very important, and those being killed are very grateful for that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Evangeline
Are you serious - promoting something published by Hizb-ut-Tahrir? Are you aware of their history and their aims?
They exist to promote the creation of a caliphate - preferably world-wide - in which only sharia law holds sway; they deny the right of Israel to exist; they hold that the primary role for a woman is that of a mother and wife. They also preach that women should wear the chaddor or jilbab.
Are you aware that even the spineless UK government has banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir as an organisation that promotes terrorism?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Evangeline
Are you serious - promoting something published by Hizb-ut-Tahrir? Are you aware of their history and their aims?
They exist to promote the creation of a caliphate - preferably world-wide - in which only sharia law holds sway; they deny the right of Israel to exist; they hold that the primary role for a woman is that of a mother and wife. They also preach that women should wear the chaddor or jilbab.
Are you aware that even the spineless UK government has banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir as an organisation that promotes terrorism?
In other words, their version of Islam inherently violent.
Good thing their version is less common than other versions.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And I haven't seen any evidence of any US soldiers marching into a village and killing 2000 children and their mothers.
There's Fallujah 1 and 2. Hundreds of civilians killed in each battle, tens of thousands displaced.
I honestly don't think you've been paying attention.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
What makes a group like Hizb-ut-Tahrir come out with tosh like the thing in the SMH?
Easy: they're following the lead of their founder, Omar Bakri Mohammed. Yes, HuT existed in simple form in Lebanon before OBM but he took it to the next level, particularly in his time in the UK.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And I haven't seen any evidence of any US soldiers marching into a village and killing 2000 children and their mothers.
The means are different. They just do it from inside an air conditioned building in Nevada:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147
Even the official US figures depend on the assumption that every male of military age killed by one of these strikes is a terrorist.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It is fun that there is a nuclear submarine named [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_City_of_Corpus_Christi_(SSN-705)]Coprus Christi[/url] (body of Christ), which they put "city of" after protest. I sure hope that if they ever fire missiles from it, they say "taste and see that the lord is good" accompanied by the true love of Christ within their hearts.
Well, okay. But the sub was clearly intended to be named after the Texas city from the beginning. I'd be willing to bet that most non-Catholic Texans don't think of wafers and chant when the city's name is mentioned, anymore than Californians do when they talk about their state's capital.
As it happens, all of the Los Angeles-class submarines are named for cities. Apparently "the Angels", "Saint Francis", "Saint John", "Holy Faith", and "Saint Paul" (with Minneapolis) weren't sensitive enough to protest over. ("St. John, eh? Yeah, OK, I bet he'd smite.")
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
As it happens, all of the Los Angeles-class submarines are named for cities. Apparently "the Angels", "Saint Francis", "Saint John", "Holy Faith", and "Saint Paul" (with Minneapolis) weren't sensitive enough to protest over. ("St. John, eh? Yeah, OK, I bet he'd smite.")
I can just hear them launching an attack and saying, "Take that, ye brood of vipers!"
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Evangeline, not only can I think of examples from the USA of people trying to suggest our society's laws should be based on the 10 Commandments, and basically saying that any law that departs from the Bible is invalid, I can think of Australian examples as well.
In term of groups that basically want to set up Australia as a Christian state, Catch the Fire is probably the most prominent. Danny Nalliah has stood for political office(I forget the political party's name).
It isn't remotely difficult to find people who treat Australia as a Christian country rather than a secular one. Just spend time on an internet comments page on the right kind of issue and it will come through. Take same sex marriage for example, where you can guarantee that someone will manage to suggest that any marriage outside a church is invalid (which of course gets a reaction from all the heterosexuals that were married in a purely civil ceremony).
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
So just like some conceptions of Islam are inherently violent, some conceptions of Christianity are also inherently violent?
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
As it happens, all of the Los Angeles-class submarines are named for cities. Apparently "the Angels", "Saint Francis", "Saint John", "Holy Faith", and "Saint Paul" (with Minneapolis) weren't sensitive enough to protest over. ("St. John, eh? Yeah, OK, I bet he'd smite.")
I can just hear them launching an attack and saying, "Take that, ye brood of vipers!"
And a little mouse shall lead them. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
So just like some conceptions of Islam are inherently violent, some conceptions of Christianity are also inherently violent?
I'm not sure whether or not this question is directed at me, but as it ties in nicely to what I was thinking about for my next post anyway...
To my mind, the comment about "which group is in power in Australia" is very pertinent. Because I think a lot of what we're talking about here has little to do with inherent traits and a lot more to do with which options people believe are open to them.
A lot of the things we're talking about are just examples of 'asymmetric warfare'. People engage in what we call 'terrorism' when they don't have access to or can't be part of a conventional army.
In other contexts, where we approve of their objectives, we're just as likely to call the same people a resistance movement or freedom fighters. It's worth noting that authoritarian, repressive regimes that we thoroughly disapprove of will happily call their opponents 'terrorists'. The label is not so much about the violence as about whether we consider the goals of the violence justifiable. World War 2 resistance movements were certainly happy to kill non-military collaborators.
If there's a reason why Christians don't engage in violence, the biggest single reason is that they feel they can achieve most of their aims through other methods. The ballot box and advertising campaigns for one. It's much nicer to achieve your goals that way. Christians in the West generally get away with threatening a politician's electoral success rather than the politician's life.
But there certainly are some Christians who, if they can't achieve their aims by other means, think that violence is an available option. Bombing abortion clinics is one clear example.
The short version of all that rumination is that instead of talking about 'inherently violent', it might be better to talk about 'willing to embrace violence', and acknowledge that most of the Christians around us don't exist in circumstances where they conclude that it's necessary to translate that willingness into action.
And to acknowledge the ones that do tip over, like Anders Breivik - the biggest single terrorist attack in Europe in recent years wasn't committed by a Muslim but by a man claiming that his nation's Christian heritage was under threat.
[ 13. January 2015, 01:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Sorry, Sioni, I was keeping it simple and local for him.
By citing KCNA and Pravda?
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
And a purg personal attack to boot!?
Nicely done!
Pravda is an exceedingly well known organ of the former USSR and, especially with the link provided, the KCNA being the same for North Korea should be obvious. THis is part of the simple. I did assume you would be familiar with Fox. I did not wish, nor felt the need, to assume you were familiar with news agencies anywhere other than the US. I had no immediate desire to go into a comprehensive comparison. So a simple comment for me and a local reference for you.
I did notice that you did not supply a rebuttal to the meat of the comment, though.
quote:
Originally posted by Green Mario:
Having said that I think there is very little justification for violence when looking at the entire bible because the revelation of Jesus eclipses anything revealed in the old testament
When Christians then cease to use the OT to pronounce judgement, perhaps there will cease to be justification for referencing its faults.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Evangeline
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# 7002
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Posted
Oh dear this white woman's burden is heavy on this thread (yes, I'm being ironic).
My point is that it is not illogical and outrageous for Australian people to make a link between Islam and violence as some seem to be claiming.
I don't see anybody claiming that Islam and violence are synonymous but in their day-to-day life there is anxiety about being the victim of violence at the hands of somebody claiming to be acting on behalf of their prophet. 88 Australians were killed and about that number again injured in 2002 by Al-Quaeda. A month ago, the city of Sydney was shut down and 20 or so people terrorised and 2 killed by a madman granted asylum here. Photos are splashed on social media of a 10 year old Australian boy holding up decapitated heads in Syria.
We are not going to make society a better place by ignoring the fears and beliefs of a sizeable proportion of the 98% of Australians who are not Muslim.
Fears articulated here, by a conservative journo but published in mainstream, not-right wing newspaper, "These Crimes Have Everything to do with Islam"
Teufelchen, thanks for your reply and I concur to an extent but that's a horrifying assumption that you make about "needing" to commit acts of terrorism. I don't believe anybody in Australia needs to commit acts of terrorism. WOW, that really sounds like justifying violence. My point was not that the Christian white majority don't commit terrorism but that groups like the dispossessed and marginally and mistreated Australian indigenous population DON"T, nor do the migrants from SE Asia or the Pacific Islands. We can't dismiss this as all to do with the Middle East either. When Indonesian Muslims plan and commit the murder of 88 Australians, with funds provided by a Saudi-born Muslim one is surely not completely off base to inquire what part religion has played in that atrocity.
L'organist, my point in quoting Hizb ut-Tahrir, who I hasten to add have NOT been banned in Australia (to do so would be oppressive) was that you don't find ANY Christian groups in Australia no matter how loony making statements in support of the LRA. I am not in any way saying that Hizb ut-Tahrir speak for all of Islam. Just again that when you have people within your society saying things like that and it being quoted in major daily newspapers, it is not unreasonable for Australians to believe that Islam is more violent than Christianity because they are overtly threatening violence within Australia. It's interesting that you seem to be advocating for the oppression of this group and the limiting of free speech by banning it-or did I read you incorrectly?
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If there's a reason why Christians don't engage in violence, the biggest single reason is that they feel they can achieve most of their aims through other methods. The ballot box and advertising campaigns for one. It's much nicer to achieve your goals that way. Christians in the West generally get away with threatening a politician's electoral success rather than the politician's life.
There is a lot of truth in that. But differing groups have differing aims as well, and some of these aims are more compatible with the ballot box and advertising campaigns than others.
As you can see from my posts above, I agree that the phrase 'inherently violent' is problematic.
I would instead talk about issues of persuasiveness of various conceptions of Islam (and Christianity, and Hinduism etc).
If you start a conversation with the shared context of the importance and reliability of the depiction of Jesus in the gospels, then how persuasive is a theology that calls for slaughter of innocents? Well history shows that such theologies can be constructed which are persuasive for certain people at certain times, with horrific consequences, even if we in hindsight believe them to be deeply flawed.
However I don't buy the argument that a shared context of belief in the reliability of the gospels depictions of Jesus has no effect of the persuasiveness of proposed theologies. The view of Jesus in the gospels may be ignored, or other factors may be argued to mitigate against it, but I think that it does over time and in the long run constrain the persuasiveness of the worst theologies.
As a budding evil theologian, you can convince someone that 'love your enemies' doesn't apply to those people over there with the funny hats, but you have to go through the effort of dealing with the phrase. You can't just ignore it and remain plausible and convincing.
The character of Jesus as recorded in the gospels influences the persuasiveness of the varied Christianities.
Now it seems we have various Islams vying for the allegiance of the world's Muslims. Some of those Islams seem compatible with freedom of speech, liberal democracy, freedom of conscience and worship etc. Some of those Islams are evil.
The million lives question is which of those Islams will be the most persuasive, given the shared context of the Qur'an and the life of Mohammad as recorded in the Hadith.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I did notice that you did not supply a rebuttal to the meat of the comment, though.
That's because there was none.
"Twisting news" does not equal spreading deliberate falsehood.
Sharpton is a known liar, tax cheat, sad sack of shit, and good buddy of Obama. There is really no one to compare him to, on Fox or anywhere else.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
How does 347-504 unarmed civilians rate?
Ah, My Lai, the gift that keeps on giving!
Hundreds killed in an inexcusable and unofficial massacre, and despite the fact that it was acknowledged by America, and its perpetrators openly tried and (however inadequately) punished, it still gets regularly trotted out to satisfy the needs of knee-jerk anti-Americanism.
The Hue atrocity, however, which took place a month before, and was not a “lone wolf” unauthorized crime, and murdered just as many victims as at My Lai and up to thousands more, is still officially unacknowledged, locked away in the files of the communist dictatorship in Hanoi, never be mentioned by any decent, self-respecting Western leftist.
It is striking the way so many of the Western left tie themselves into knots making excuses for - or at the very least abstaining from criticizing - Islamofascism, in exactly the same way they did with communism.
Perhaps not quite the same, because in the Sixties it was not uncommon for some of them to have posters of Mao, history’s worst mass murderer, on their walls, whereas I have not come across an icon of Abubakar Shekau in a student squat – yet.
As Marx said, history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I did notice that you did not supply a rebuttal to the meat of the comment, though.
That's because there was none.
"Twisting news" does not equal spreading deliberate falsehood.
Sharpton is a known liar, tax cheat, sad sack of shit, and good buddy of Obama. There is really no one to compare him to, on Fox or anywhere else.
Yeah...
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
My point is that it is not illogical and outrageous for Australian people to make a link between Islam and violence as some seem to be claiming.
It's logical. It's also pretty simplistic unless there's a discussion about what kind of link there is.
The main source of objection is not about making a link, it's about treating the link as being a direct causal one.
[ 13. January 2015, 03:42: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I did notice that you did not supply a rebuttal to the meat of the comment, though.
That's because there was none.
"Twisting news" does not equal spreading deliberate falsehood.
Sharpton is a known liar, tax cheat, sad sack of shit, and good buddy of Obama. There is really no one to compare him to, on Fox or anywhere else.
Yeah...
That reply reminds me of the Oregon Ducks.
So confident, yet so weak.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
My point is that it is not illogical and outrageous for Australian people to make a link between Islam and violence as some seem to be claiming
Whether or not it is logical or reasonable to draw a link between Islam and violence cannot possibly depend on the nationality of the person drawing the link.
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
My point is that it is not illogical and outrageous for Australian people to make a link between Islam and violence as some seem to be claiming
Whether or not it is logical or reasonable to draw a link between Islam and violence cannot possibly depend on the nationality of the person drawing the link.
Of course it can when you're talking about people's experience of violence within their own nation. People in Australia don't fear being killed by the Tamil Tigers or the Ku Klux Klan when they're walking around Sydney, they do feel fearful of being killed by somebody who says they are doing so in the name of Islam. Hence, it's logical to link violence with Islam when this is what you see around you and you read threats published by Islamist groups in the newspaper.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
]That reply reminds me of the Oregon Ducks.
So confident, yet so weak.
If you wish to trade information, I will play with you. If you wish to merely trade feeble retorts, you can play with yourself.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by romanlion:
]That reply reminds me of the Oregon Ducks.
So confident, yet so weak.
If you wish to trade information, I will play with you. If you wish to merely trade feeble retorts, you can play with yourself.
Okay then, loser...
Goodbye.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
Of course it can when you're talking about people's experience of violence within their own nation.
Using either your personal experience or the reporting in your local press as a basis for drawing conclusions about a worldwide religion with something in the region of one and a half billion adherents is far from logical.
It is understandable if people in Sydney are scared of being attacked by a Muslim, but it's not logical. You are at greater risk cycling around Sydney than you are of being attacked by a Muslim.
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
My point is that it is not illogical and outrageous for Australian people to make a link between Islam and violence as some seem to be claiming.
It's logical. It's also pretty simplistic unless there's a discussion about what kind of link there is.
The main source of objection is not about making a link, it's about treating the link as being a direct causal one.
Agree totally Orfeo, but that's not what I see being argued here by some-it was that Christianity is just as violent -"just look at the LRA".
It's simplistic to make a direct causal link, that's what I tried to say way up earlier in the thread,
quote:
Evangeline
No, IMO Islam is not inherently violent, history will show that.
My view is that there is a confluence of political, social and cultural, economic and religious factors that have led to a situation in which numbers of Muslim people in various parts of the world feel justified in using extreme violence.
It is unfair, ignorant and divisive to say it's because of their religion -plenty of people of all faiths and none commit acts of horrendous violence but it's also untrue to say that religion has nothing to do with the current acts of terrorism and violence being carried out by Al Quaeda, ISIL, lone wolf Islamists and others.
So let's discuss what that link is.
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