unreasonable and unfair, senax.

mack's post was on point.

typical position taken by overwhelmingly biased conservatives on this board.

lets talk about where i think the liberals screwed up... ah, ah, ah! dont talk about conservatives! stay on topic!
lets talk about how stupid i think dems are... ah, ah, ah! dont talk about repubs! stay on topic!
lets talk about how evil muslims seem to me... ah, ah, ah! dont talk about christians! stay on topic!

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Islam 'itself' does not 'cause' violence. The adherents cause the violence. The believers.

It is true that there was a lot of violence in Christianity, which is odd in its own way because the one area where Christianity really differs from Judaism is in relation to the 'peaceful' nature of Christ, which is easily ascertained from the Sermon on the Mount, which is, in fact, virtually all that is known of his teachings. While Jesus preached the turning of the cheek, Judaism preached 'justice.' There is little support in Christianity to call for violence, while there is plenty in Islam.

I don't know that you can really say that Islam is where Christianity was 500 years ago for the simple reason that BOTH Christianity AND Islam have 500 years of history under their belts. Not all religions will necessarily follow a single course. To me that argument is essentially a theoretical and philosophical 'excuse'. It is a fine theory but doesn't prevent a single mosque or church bombing. You have perhaps defined the problem but not solved it in any way.

It is like saying that a particular axe murderer is a schizophrenic. So what now? Do you just let him get away with axe murdering or do you lock the guy up? I say the argument has no useful purpose other than to excuse the adherents of Islam's violent behaviors as backward. For the rest of us, that is just not good enough.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0bU...watch_response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL0C2QvqIlo#
"The courageous over the infidels, make war for Allah and are not afraid... This is the depiction of the army of Allah that will come at Allah's decree, from here or from there, to liberate these lands from the defilement of the Jews, for Allah was angry with them in his book and called them once 'monkeys,' once 'swine,' and once 'donkeys.'" (Palestinian TV, March 30, 2001)

...Trying to hide from the reality is the natural liberal response. It's such a shame our nation will have to face another horrific attack to mute those that think islam is such a peaceful religion. This is the most ignorant statement I have ever heard from the left loons, "islam is just going through the growing pains, just as Christianity did", as if we are suppose to excuse their radical vicious behavior.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...w&pageId=57141

The project, headed by David Yerushalmi, a lawyer and expert on sharia law, has finished collecting data from the first cohort of 102 mosques and schools. Preliminary findings indicate that almost 80 percent of the group exhibit a high level of sharia-compliance and jihadi threat, including:

* Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs.

* Sermons that preach women are inferior to men and can be beaten for disobedience; that non-Muslims, particularly Jews, are infidels and inferior to Muslims; that jihad or support of jihad is not only a Muslim's duty but the noblest way, and suicide bombers and other so-called "martyrs" are worthy of the highest praise; and that an Islamic caliphate should one day encompass the U.S.

* Solicitation of financial support for jihad.

* Bookstores that sell books, CDs and DVDs promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom.

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

And yet, as my links show, the militant, jihadi interpretation is not recognized as mainstream.

When I quote violent Bible verses, people protest that I have missed the context, or the true meaning of the words, or stuff like that -- in other words, the meaning of the phrase can not be understood merely from a literal reading of the words.

Yet these same people do not extend the same courtesy to Islam and the Quran. They quote verses out of context and claim it must mean what it literally says, universally applied.

At least be consistent.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

Again, it doesn't matter what happened 1000 years ago, the article I posted above are mosques in the US that openly call for jihad against our own nation. They sell books and literature advocating for the destruction of America and Israel. I have never heard of one Christian church advocating for our destruction, have you? And yet this article indicates it is more than just a handful of nuts, it is 3 out of 4 mosques, which is hardly a small faction.

No one disputes the verses in either book were violent in their meaning, it is the acting out that is the problem. The acting out by muslims in America have been minimal, and I would assign that to the fact that there are vast numbers of Americans that would take matters into their own hands if there were attacks being made in America at the rate they are in the middle east. We need to be vigilant and aggressive toward any group that advocates violence and spawns hate.

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

Even taken at face value, the survey admits its findings cover just 100 mosques out of at least 2,300 in the country.

I can find no data or report at either the Mapping Sharia or Center for Security Policy sites that back up the WND report, or provide any clue as to how the first 100 mosques were selected or how they determined a given mosque was preaching jihad. Every reference I can find leads back to WND.

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that western Muslims aren't subscribing to the same fringe radicalism that the Taliban do....

Sure. But first it pays to identify what the problem actually is and separate our enemies from nonenemies.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

I'm not lumping every muslim in America as subscribing to radical islam, but any sympathetic view commands caution on America's part.


Are you racially profiling? I am being sarcastic in my last sentence. I agree, separate them indeed, but you have to infiltrate and profile for that to happen. I see it as compared to pit bulls, not all of them are vicious dogs by any stretch of the word, but having caution is always the smart thing to do.

If the study that was done by just random selection, then there would be a problem. By selecting 100 out of 2300, would be no different than doing a sampling for a poll. I'm not sure if demographics would play a role or not.

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

wrong. let us hear from islam's most perfect man, mohamed.

Volume 1, Book 2, Number 35:
Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr). Had I not found it difficult for my followers, then I would not remain behind any sariya going for Jihad and I would have loved to be martyred in Allah's cause and then made alive, and then martyred and then made alive, and then again martyred in His cause."

First, that's a hadith, I believe, not the Quran. There's a lot of dispute about the veracity and meaning of many hadiths, and in any event hadiths are less authoritative than the Quran.

In any event, the quoted bit is about how a Muslim will be rewarded for fighting in defense of Islam. Nowhere does it justify terrorism or aggressive war.

Not being a Quranic scholar, I can't comment on any other contexts that might be missing.

Islam, having been born during a violent time and then been under almost constant attack during its early years, has a lot of verses about fighting and combat. But many of those verses are either descriptive or else only apply in very narrow circumstances. Sometimes they only applied to a specific historical circumstance.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

Originally Posted by raytri

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that western Muslims aren't subscribing to the same fringe radicalism that the Taliban do....

why is it "fringe radicalism" could there not be a continuum from "mecca islam to medina islam"


http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/ind...&theme=Printer

the problem is that to argue for mecca islam against medina islam requires a reversal of the concept of "abrogation" because the medina suras came after the mecca suras.