Quote:
Originally Posted by halla
lest we forget the secularists/atheists:

democide/death by government:
china 1949-87 76,702,000
ussr 1917-67 61,911,000

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Who's excusing them?

who said who was excusing them. i was opting for inclusion of all groups/religions. you on the other hand did not include the secularists/atheist. i filled the void.

The Inquisition is long gone. Yet Muslims worldwide are still casting a long blade on the infidel's throat.

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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)

Fair enough, actually!

I think a lot of this thread is missing the point by trying to find parallels with other religion. There are a large number of Muslim who advocate the use of violence in order to spread Islam. I'm not only speaking of Al Queda, although Osama Bin Laden would be a prime example. One has only to look to the Ayatollah Khomeini, the foremost religious icon of Iran, to find militant speech in the name of religion. Or look at state run television in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in their treatment of Jews and Israel, and you will find suicide bombers applauded as martyrs for the faith. The Palestinian leadership, to the last man, see their struggle not only as a political one, but also a religious one. Their youth is indoctrinated to believe that armed resistance is a religious duty. It's not an isolated thing, and there are no contemporary parallels in other world religions. Islam has a very militant aspect to it, more so than other 20th century faiths.

I routinely say the larger religion cannot fairly be tarred by the actions of a small group of adherents. Though I do point out that such events explain why many folks don't think religion and morality are strongly linked.

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Man up.

Define a "large number". We're talking like...out of some...2.3 billion muslims worldwide.

A bit of perspective here also. The countries with the largest Muslim populations are:

1 Indonesia 182,570,000
2 Pakistan 134,480,000
3 India 121,000,000
4 Bangladesh 114,080,000
5 Turkey 65,510,000
6 Iran 62,430,000
7 Egypt 58,630,000
8 Nigeria 53,000,000
9 Algeria 30,530,000
10 Morocco 28,780,000

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I'm a leftwing fascist, disease spreading, devil worshipper!

Anyone can cherry-pick quotes. Thus this opinion is vacuous and without merit.

Mosts religions are antithecal to democracy unless there is a seperation of church and state.

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I'm a leftwing fascist, disease spreading, devil worshipper!

Nor did I include Buddhists, Hindus, Animists, various political ideologies and plain old fashioned nutcases. Since we were talking about religion and violence I limited it to the two most well known.

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I'm a leftwing fascist, disease spreading, devil worshipper!

Well, the Pew Report shows a strong radical element in most Muslim countries. You can look at the figures yourself, if you like.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248

Now, besides Bin Laden, Jaffar Umar Thalib and his Laskar Jihad Organization in Indonesia has murdered an estimated 10,000 Christians. Then, of course, there's Hamas, which has proclaim "jihad till either victory or martyrdom." Then there's the Abu Nidal organization, the Abu Sayyaf Group, Ahl-e-Hadees, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, al-Gama's al-Islamiyya, Al-Ittihad al-Islami, Armed Islamic Movement, Asbat al-Ansar, Fighting Islamic Group, Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Muslim Brotherhood----all of these are devoted to Islam and all are violently militant.

There are only a small number of Christian fundamentalists who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. However, all Muslims believe the Koran is the very word of God. While most Christians have no problem rejecting the violent verses in the Bible, Muslims cannot reject the violent verses in the Koran, of which there are hundreds.

Jihad, in the sense of waging holy war against unbelievers, giving them a choice of conversion, death or submission, has been part of Islamic theology since the Prophet set out these choices and probably always will be. There are no Muslim authorities who have repudiated this type of violent jihad.

Yet, oddly, many do.

That is complete nonsense. You are arguing from ignorance.

Here is an outstanding article on the history of jihad (the violent kind), and how it is similar and dissimilar to the practices of other religions. I include it for background.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-e...jihad_4579.jsp

In particular, note that it's discussing the *extreme* modern interpretation of jihad used *only* by fundamentalist militants -- and that Al Qaeda, for example, considers even moderate Muslims to be heretics and thus deserving of the sword.

Note the interesting observation that in classical times, the only real difference between jihadists and, say, Christian missionaries is that the missionaries followed soldiers into new regions, while the jihadists were soldiers and missionaries rolled into one. But that form of jihad isn't practiced today.

Now for some examples of Muslims redefining jihad:

Jihad as an attempt to heal the rifts in post-genocide Rwanda:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Sep22.html
(and note the passing references to Christian complicity in the massacres)

A description of peaceful jihad -- pretty much indistinguishable from any other form of proselytzing.

Here, an Israeli rabbi explains the long divide in Islam over the meaning and use of jihad:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...304253,00.html

To quote a bit:

Qur'anic scholars throughout the ages have held differing views on the meaning of jihad. The idea of jihad is derived from the Arabic root meaning "to strive" or "to make an effort." This word has been interpreted to mean an inward spiritual struggle to attain perfect faith or an outward material struggle to promote justice and the Islamic social system.

Catch that? There has been strong disagreement since the beginning of Islam.

To drive the point home:

However, this belligerent interpretation of jihad has not been accepted by all Qur'anic scholars. Many Islamic scholars argued and continue to argue that the Qur'an and Islamic Prophetic traditions allow war only for self-defence against persecution and aggression.


According to this view those that defined jihad as an expansionist war were misguided and distorting Qur'anic ethics. They point out that the division of the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb does not exist in the Qur'an or Prophetic traditions.


The duel interpretation of jihad - peaceful and warmongering - by Islamic scholars indicates that its usage to sanction the slaughter of innocent people tells more about the people who are interpreting the Qur'an then the Qur'an itself.

Congratulations on letting the extremists define Islam for you.

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Man up.