Islam is evil, terrorism is its logical consequence

... that a religion was used as an excuse and a justification for murder.

If we look at the Jewish scriptures we see in the book of Exodus that Joshua killed a lot of people for his god. The city of Jericho is only one of many examples that the Jews reportedly killed every living thing in a community. We can find in Deuteronomy the sentiment that anyone who isn't Jewish is evil. We find in Judges that the god of the Jews made Sampson become a trouble maker in order to cause a war between the Jews and the Philistines because it was time that the Jews put the Philistines in their place. Isreal under King Solomon was very empirialistic. Solomon expanded the size of Isreal by means of killing the citizens of the neighboring countries. The Jewish scriptures describe a history of centuries filled with Jews killing their neighbors in the name of their god. The scriptures say that this is what their god wanted them to do.

The Christian scriptures do not call people to do violence. Just the opposite. That didn't stop the Christian churches from instigating numerous programs of genocide on foreign peoples and programs geared to purge heretics from among their own ranks in Europe. This kind of thinking continued from 312 A.D. to the 20th century. The Inquisitions killed a huge percentage of people in Europe. Many of those people were Jews. The Spanish killed millions of people in the New World in order to expand the Spanish empire and to convert the peoples of the New World to Christianity. About the time that the Spanish finished doing this Americans had already spent a hundred years doing the same thing in North America. Canadians also treated the native Americans in the same way. Both Americans and Canadians masacred native peoples in the name of manifest destiny which happened to fit well with their version of Christian theology.

The militant Muslims are not in the majority. Political sources that I've heard say that the fundamentalist Muslims do not win political elections. They appear to be a minority of the population.

Attempting to paint all of the members of a large group with the same brush is usually inaccurate. Exceptions would be groups like the Ku Klux Klan or Neo Nazis, but those groups are relatively small anyway. Large groups always have a diverse membership. That's just human nature.

It doesn't make any sense to condemn all Muslims for the actions of a few.

Zionism, the most concentrated and long-lasting terrorist phenomenon in history, is its consequence. A far higher proportion of Rabbinical Jews support Zionism than of Muslims
Al Qa'ida and the like, and far more people have been killed by the Zionists on behalf of each Rabbinical Jew than have been killed by Al Qa'ida etc. on behalf of each Muslim, so Rabbinical Judaism must be more evil than Islam.

In fact I don't believe the above - I think that Rabbinical Judaism is truer than Islam - but I submit the argument to emphasize that simplistic explanationas will not do.

First, I notice that you have not challenged the claim that Islam is evil and that terrorism is its logical consequence. But if the mention of Judaism, to which many on this forum are likely more sympathetic, is intended to undermine that claim, you will have to do better.

Islams collectivist, mysticist nature is to blame, and that trait is shared by all religions. Some of those religions discourage murder in their sacred texts (instead of including a handy litany of situations in which killing is required, as in the Koran), but all appeal to a non-corporeal authority as the ultimate standard, which, being non-corporeal, is frequently held to be "beyond" accountability to real people, even when real killing occurs. If other religions that share similar mysticist/collectivist premises have similar effects, or have historically, I exhibit no surprise. I did not post to compare Islam to other evil religions (pardon the redundancy), only to state that Al Qaeda practices a literal interpretation of Islam, not an interpretation that is at odds with the actual words of the Koran.

Second, I dispute your definition of "terrorist" that includes the organized military of a sovereign nation, Israel, which acts to defend its citizens from attack. Indiscriminate killing of peaceful civilians is the mark of Palestinian suicide bombers. The Israeli military does make incursions into Palestine, but they also target known terrorist havens, and do so very precisely. Innocent civilians do die in wars, but the difference between warfare and terrorism, according international law, is [i]targeting[/i] civilians. That is not what Israel does.

The fact that they do not all explode whenever they are near enough an infidel to take at least one of us with them supports your claim that "Not all muslims believe they will get an orgy in heaven if they blow themselves up to kill the infidels." But what such disbelief [i]requires[/i] is that they do not believe the Koran(!) which states very clearly that (1) six dozen virgins await good Muslim men, and (2) killing enemies of Islam is a [i]guarantee[/i] of Paradise. I don't care to quibble about how the Koran defines these enemies of Islam, there are too many separate passages that do, unequivocally, [i]require[/i] killing any who do not submit. The only way to hold a contrary belief is to disbelieve the Koran, as I do and as you probably do too, judging by the fact that you have a computer that is allowed to access sites outside of Muslim theocracies.

And before you leap again to the conclusion that I advocate genocide, look very closely at where I have used the word Muslim, which refers to people, and where I have used the word Islam, which refers to a lot of stupid ideas, beginning with one extraordinarily stupid book.

Before the rise of Islam, people in that part of the world were revered throughout the known world as scholars. Algebra was invented by an Egyptian, al-Jabr, for example, and if I remember correctly, the number zero was introduced to Europe from Persia or the vicinity. But once Islam began to dominate, every culture it touched began to stagnate, and there has been [i]no[/i] important contribution of original thought to [i]any[/i] scientific theory since! No theorectical discoveries and no useful technology, of any kind!

Islam is an evil belief that degrades everything good on Earth that makes human life pleasant, and even possible. [i]Only[/i] submission to Allah is valid in Islam, and human life is literally meaningless.

A difference stress junkie ignored, and which I failed to emphasize, is that people [i]choose[/i] to join the KKK, but if they're unlucky enough to be born in Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc, they are just subjects of Islamic dictatorship from birth to death, which will come much sooner if they express any preference to do other than submit to Islam. That is meant to address his and your concerns that I mean to call all [i]Muslims[/i] evil, which I do not. I mean to say that [i]Islam[/i], the stupid collection of dogma that offers people no option to do other than submit, is evil, [i]Muslims[/i] are first vitims of that evil, even those that eventually become terrorists.

It is not possible to effectively oppose an ideology while sharing its basic premises.

Holcberg is worthy of nothing but my total contempt.

In what way does garbage like this move us towards a resolution of the conflicts in our societies.

How does this ignorant pandering to bigotry help ?

In the past this guy would have been a Jesuit priest or a Nazi propganda officer at best.

Objective my ass.

Another lowlight in the human sewer called righteousness.

I don't think they represent all Muslims, just evil minds that use the Islamic faith for their own purposes. It is a strict religion, but I don't see the majority of Muslims going to extremes.

What I see is a group of killers that have found a way to justify their actions through religion to gain power.

I can't quote scriptures, but I can't condemn any religion because it can be interpreted in an evil way. If evil is in your heart, thats how you will interpret it.

To many, Islam is peace. We need to cultivate that and empower those people.

Islam is unique in seeing the world as two parts: the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War.

That being said, historically Moslems have been fairly tolerant of Christians and Jews, allowing them to keep their religion and lives at the price of an additional tax and limited liberties. They only became intolerant when the balance of power shifted and the European nations became militarily superior.

Also, this great struggle between the European and Middle Eastern cultures has been going on since the Hittites sacked Babylon. That's about 3500 years.

I agree Tony..

I condemn the actions myself but where is the understanding or misunderstanding coming from??

Where is the proof that islam is evil? You could say christianity is evil as you may be able to interpret passages as evil in the bible!

Why can 2 different people study islam and one of them want to kill and the other not???

Islam has over 1 billion followers -- what percentage have interpreted islam evil? or ignorant of good?

**see bottom answer?? **

Is their hatred out of ignorance??

One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good." - Gurdjieff

Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it." - Shakti Gawain

If "evil" is really ignorance, the people such as Bin Laden should be considered retarded.

"no less evil than the bible and it's extremists were 400 years ago."

So because other religions went through a period of "evil", you will forgive another religion for doing it now? [b] It is their fair turn to be evil?

Anyone who follows history says to follow history so we don't repeat the same mistakes, not so we can justify evil behaviour because someone else did it before.

Whilst England is blamed for the US slavery in many accounts raised here, the Britis abolished slavery in 1807, almost 60 years before America.

I too, strongly agree that we should not pass judgment based on history, but it is done on a regular basis here when it suits someone's personal agenda.

If there is ANYONE to blame, it is the Africans that sold the people into slavery.

For drugs, who do we come down on harder, the person that buys a bag or the dealer that sells the bad?

Who do we come down on harder, the dealer selling that bag or the head of the operation that runs the whole operation?

You want to blame anyone for slavery in the US, take it right back to Africa.
[b]
But you did have me going there for a minute. I learned ol Abe freed the slaves and didn't ever hear about any Brit references. Thought maybe this was yet another shortcoming of my public education! ;\

Since you brought it up though, I do not believe that any religious text "proves" anything about anybody's mindset, and only says as much about its author as any other work of fiction.

I also have NEVER met anybody who is good BECAUSE of a religion. I've met some who are good and practice some religion, but they always have ideas of their own, and choose their religions according to their personal convictions, not vice versa. I picked my philosophy according my personal convictions, too, not my beliefs according to this philosophy.

Having a belief [i]structure[/i] of any kind is useful like any other hierarchy: it helps keep things organized.

Applying logic to the dogma of the Koran reveals a hierarchy of values that I find repugnant. That is the extent of my statement that Islam is evil and terrorism is its logical consequence. The literal words of the Koran mandate violence in defense of the faith, in some scenarios that clearly violate international laws regarding warfare. The Koran requires terrorism. If holy books of other religions are shown to make similar demands, I interpret that to mean that those religions are also evil, not that Islam is less evil.

I am referring to a specific issue I saw where some researchers were looking into biblical translations, due to changes ni dialect used they could have interpreted th esame words as meaning, Jesus walked on water, or Jesus walked BESIDE water.

When you translate from one language to another ther ISN'T just on einterpretation as some words do not have an exact English equivalent but they can mean several things based on the context and the context is used to decide which one fits best.

Eg.(a STRANGE example) In Japanese, the word that is used to describe being horny can actually be interpreted as being 'itchy' in English as there is no direct translation, it could also mean antsy, edgy, or even a more recent 'pumped'. A little misleading to say the very least.

So one language's words CAN have several meanings, and th einterpretation of WHAT is being implied is up to the translator to decide, this woul dof course mean what HE want it to mean. Yet others follow this interpretation....'religiously'.

SO we actually do agree, translation has several factrs stopping it's accuracy. Double meanings that the interpreter has to choose between.

As an example of how religious texts can be twisted to justify evil acts. This exonerates the texts not the acts. Sinc ethe opening of this thread was a condmnation of the text upon which islam is based, the statement in to the point.
My comparitive Theology Professor used to say that insight that there is one god (or whatever word you chose to use) is interpereted in light of the culture of the person who has the insight and founds the religion. He called it the Axial insight.
Whoever said it was right. Darknes is driven out by light. But, as imperfect humans, the best of us color that light, leaving shadow.

One example, the fifth commandment. the difference between "Thou shall not kill" and "Thou shall not murder" are enormous. Which translation, which word is the difference between a pacifist that will not shoot a man using a pitchfork to kill babies on one end and an executioner saying, "I don't care that what he did was spit on the sidewalk, the judge found him guilty and signed the death warrant."

As for your statement that holy books do not shape personal beliefs, I an flabbergasted at the not only the arrogance of that statement, but the way it discounts the personal statements of religious people. their journals and their teachings.

Kell em all and let Allah sort 'em out?

That is the mantality that sees Western culture in such shock and horror when these terrorists take action.

NOBODY understands the enemy, nobody has any reasonable and definitive way of adressing the enemy, where they reside, WHY they terrorize people etc.

"One of the first requirements in any conflict is to know the enemy how he thinks, what he values, what his goals are. In the current war against Islamism, we in the West have done and are doing a poor job of understanding our enemy on his terms; rather, we have reduced his behavior to our own particular prejudices and categories. Indeed, our enemy has been much better at knowing where we come from and exploiting our cultural ideals and weaknesses than we have been in understanding his."

It truly is illogical to cite the Geneva Convention as the [i]basis[/i] of the claim that terrorism and the Koran, which requires it, are evil. I did not make it clear enough that mention of international law was only for the purpose of emphasis by way of context: even among nations, who assume that war will occur (otherwise the phrase "war crimes" would probably be redundant, or meaningless), minimum standards are set for treatment of prisoners and conduct of battles. Destroying places of commerce violate even those pragmatic rules, as well as the prohibition against murder.

"And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." (Koran, 2:193)

"until persecution is no more"

Persecution? By who's definition? All Islamists or just the radicals that have misinterpreted the message?

Do all those of Islam feel that they are being persecuted by...Christianity or western culture. I certainly don't think so, many move here and to other Christian focused countries in the world. Would they do this is they felt persecuted by Western civilization and culture?

that they want.

All lands that have EVEN at any point in time must be reverted back to the muslims.

All non-muslims but be eradicated from those lands.

This includes the complete destruction of Israel, not a simple withdrawl.

The bible tells you to go fourth making deciples of all nations, but leaves out the part of wiping out anyone and everyone that stands in your way.

You don't get promised an orgy in heaven in the bible for killing infadels.

Learn from the mistakes of others, not use that as an excuse for present day mistakes. Because we have seen this in the past, it should be looked down on HARDER every NEW time it comes up.

Bottom line, don't use religion as an excuse to kill people and don't excuse ANYONE else that does.

Slavery was abolished in the Canadian colonies after the American revolution, as some slaves had been given freedom after fighting for England in the war.

But it wasn't long before slavery was abolished in the British Empire. In 1807, slave trading was abolished by Britain, and all slavery in the empire abolished in 1833.

The Royal Navy even ran a blockade of Africa to try and prevent any slave trading. This put a serious dent in the importation of slaves into the US.

So while many accuse Britain of supporting the South during the US civil war, its not that simple. Some merchants were eager to trade with the south, but officially no war materials were supposed to be sent. One ship that was sent to the south as a warship had to be smuggled out under the noses of the British government. And there was a strong anti-slavery sentiment in both Britain and Canada. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians joined the union forces, mostly over the issue of slavery.

James

when compared to other religions Islam is fairly new and young. It orignated in that part of the world where no civilization was existing. it was a desert with nomads, illiterates,and the rulers were not aware of any religion. people were living by natural laws and brute forces. during this period the europe and the rest of the world had experienced some kind of codified religion and this religion had passed through the harsh process of growing.

Islam when founded took into consideration the highly undeveloped world of the desert as its people to be reformed and some kind of discipline has to be brought in.

hence its teachings were aimed to bringing a surgical remedy to the rotten society.

christianity too had its brutality aginst people, who were not able to accept it. But the fast economic development that has taken place in the european countires has broght in a kind of tolerance, and made the severity get mellowed.
political governance has taken precedence to religios supremacy.

But for the oil wealth, the arab world has not seen any economic development and still many of its people are nomadic and brutal.

that is where the problem lies. what kind of development activities are going on in Afganistan,middle east and arab world. In spite of the oil money in what way the common man in Southy Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, etc., is better off economically.

why they were not able to have a social security system as in sweaden,Finland, Denmark etc.

once the poverty, illiteracy are removed from these islamic countries, terrorism will also go away.

I distracted from the important point. I don't care if you want to claim that you got your values from the bible. I don't believe you. I think you fit your interpretation of whatever scripture you choose to your own [b]personal[/b] beliefs, but neither of us has any proof, so I'm happiest to drop that disagreement. No good can come of arguing things nobody can prove.

The point that is [b]important[/b] to me to make is that the nature of any culture's belief system dictates the parameters of debates about values within that culture. A culture that advocates killing for faith is doomed, and likely to take many members of other cultures with it.

Call that arrogance all you want. If you're truly flabbergasted, I'd recommend against reading any of my other posts, they might provoke any cardiovascular issues you have.

A lot of the discussion focusses on particular verses in the Quran to do with killing 'non-believers'. To point those verses in isolation and then deduce that this is an evil creed, requiring it's adherents to kill, is to fall into the same delusion that some so-called
muslims have done. One has to read the Quran (like any historical scripture ) contextually. Some verses are universal and apply to all Humans at all times, others are targeted at particular individuals around give events, and others somewhere in-between. A muslim's main prime directive from the Quran is to uphold the sanctity of human life - each life is precious and contains a "'spirit' from God". Killing innocent people is a criminal act carried out by evil human beings - there is NO justification. Islam calls for the safety and security of all human beings (muslim or not !) and protection from exploitation & oppression. This applies equally to Eskimo communities threatened by drilling in Alaska as it does to a starving child in Africa, Washington or China.

Tragically, in this age of 'consumable' sound-bites, vast tracts of our fellow human beings don't have the time or inclination to think beyond the slogans fed to them , whether it be from the parliament, the pulpit or the press.

Sometimes I wonder if Randite extremists know how to think for themselves.

While I love her stuff, and have leatherbound copies of 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'The Fountainhead' that I read every year, I consider myself to be an independent thinker who observes human behavior and makes my own decisions based on objective facts.

Personally I feel that the problem with Islam, Christianity, Libertarians, Ultra-Capitalists, Socialists and other belief systems, is the extremists who feel that THEY are correct and that everything THEY do in the name of their belief systems is right. When this is expressed in violence, people that are not extremists take notice. They also take notice when there are major ethical violations like the Enron scandal and modern day 'slave' labor.

The examples provided from the Quran are what Islamic extremists use to justify their actions. The fortunes made, and lost, by certain Enron employees are that Ultra-Capitalist extremists use to justify their actions.

In either instance, the extremists are the ones that cause the problems.

Do not remember what happened yesterday let alone a year ago so this thinking is quite all right to them. ;)

It's normal and expected so events like 9-11 are remembered and even the recent bombings in London but these same people will forget that Christians under the guise of Liberating Ireland from British control where doing this under the Roman Catholic Banner for many years previously.

Terror only started on 9-11 to these people, nothing at all bad happened before that. :)

While some may have some vague concept of what happened to London during WW11 this is now just a vague concept that wasn't quite as bad as has been portrayed and the attack upon a city in Japan 60 years ago was necessary and ended the War in the Pacific they will accept this without accepting the utter devastation and ongoing death toll from that one single incident.

The problem is not the religious beliefs of these people but when you run into fundamentalists of any description you do have a problem. :)

Col ]:)

Your acceptance and understanding that humans are humans is very well said.

I have met, played with and become good friends with more muslims than I can count. They have been THE most peacful and respectful people I have EVER known. In fact I find them FAR more peaceful and humane than most Christians I've met, not to place one religion above another, but to shed reality on what we consider wholesome peace.

I have nver met a Muslim that believes that Christians are infidels, my best friend's dad (when I was younger) was a musician in a Muslim church and was the kindest and most 'at peace' man I had met at that time, an ex-girfriend (that I would have married in a heartbeat) was the daughter of an Ismaeli Muslim priest. I went to her mosque with her and met MANY practicing Muslims. Not ONE ever looked down upon me for NOT following thier religion or following Christianity (not that I am a practicing Christian but was born into and Christened under The Church of England), in fact MY religion was never discussed, they were just warm, welcoming and VERY VERY hospitible. Nobody ever mentioned what I should believe, nobody ever preached to me, yet many were happy to answer various questions I had about teh religion and offer biblical stories, much as we would tell the stories of Noah or Moses. Nobody tried to influence my beliefs though, it was just open arms that welcomed me to learn IF I chose to learn or take interest.

So the common THEORY that ALL Muslims follow a book based on hatred is absolute horse s**t. It's just something people say when they don't understand, they don't know any better and they reach what they consider a logical conclusion.

Again though, pure crap.

Just as there were radical Christians there are radicals in any religion that act purely on someone else's warped interpretation of the writings and rules of thier religion.

This is not the 'face' of the religion in any way, it's closer to the other end I think.

The orgy in heaven with 23 'beautiful virgins' and the stamina of 30 young men was an edict passed down by a Mullah about 400 years ago and has been perverted ever since. It was a dream that 'God' told him to apolstize (sp) to the people of Islam.

Yeah, give me 30 5 year old boys for 15 years in an isolated 'religous school setting' and I'll turn out 30 ready to die, on command, 'soldiers of God, to stop the evil space aliens who look, well, just like you. Or any group of people you wish. No problem. The techniques are easy to learn and put into susceptable young minds. Theres no difference in the above hypothetical and what has happened in Wahabbiism in Saudi Arabia. Save the fact that Saudi Arabia is running out of young men to commit suicide against the 'Great Satan', America. Now, the its the Iraqi's turn. After that perhaps Iran, though the fundementalist regiem there is softening a bit as the young idealist are more interested in capitalism than the Ayatollahs of thier fathers.

And I can agree with JD here that most Muslims wish to raise there families and lead peacefull lives much like Jews and Christians. Though there will be militants in any of those camps as well.

Where are the militant Zen Buddists, anyways? Thought I invited them too!

Had a very long conversation about Iraq this morning with someone in the office, here. Just reminds me from personal introspection how awfull War really is to endure. Its something that you never fully recover from, I'm afraid. So it makes me even more remorse that so many people want to race into it. Why, oh why?

- beads

[b]Until the West asserts its moral right to exist, we will not be safe from Islamic totalitarianism.[/b]

By Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate
[b][i](Op-ed from the Ayn Rand Institute)[/i][/b]

In the aftermath of the bombings in London, Prime Minister Tony Blair has asked the British people to remain calm and maintain their daily routines; the terrorists win, he says, if one gives in to fear. This, you may remember, was also George W. Bush's response after Sept. 11, when he called on Americans to return to our shopping malls and not be afraid.

But we should be afraid--precisely because of Blair's and Bush's policies.

We face an enemy, Islamic totalitarianism, committed to our deaths. Its agents have shown an eagerness to kill indiscriminately in London, Madrid, New York and elsewhere, even at the cost of their own lives. They continually seek chemical and nuclear weapons; imagine the death toll if such devices had been used in London's subway bombings. In the face of this mounting threat, what is our response?

Do we proudly proclaim our unconditional right to exist? Do we resolutely affirm to eradicate power base after power base of the Islamic totalitarians, until they drop their arms, and foreign governments and civilian populations no longer have the nerve to support them?

No. Blair's response to the London bombings, with Bush and the other members of the G8 by his side, was, in meaning if not in explicit statement, to apologize and do penance for our existence.

Somehow we in the West and not the Palestinians--with their rejection of the freedoms attainable in Israel and their embrace of thugs and killers--are responsible for their degradation. Thus, we must help build them up by supplying the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with billions in aid. And somehow we in the West and not the Africans--with their decades of tribal, collectivist and anticapitalist ideas--are responsible for their poverty. Thus we must lift them out of their plight with $50 billion in aid. This, Blair claims, will help us "triumph over terrorism."

The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq might be considered exceptions to this orgy of penance, but that would be an error. In neither war was the aim to smash the enemy. Unlike in WWII, when the Allies would flatten cities to achieve victory, the American and British armies, by explicit order, tiptoed in the Middle East. Terrorists and insurgents went free, free to return to kill our young men, because we subordinated the lives of our soldiers to concern for the enemy's well-being and civilian casualties. Our goal was not victory but, as Bush so often tells us, to bestow with our soldiers' blood an unearned gift on these people, "freedom" and "democracy," with the hope that they would then stop killing us.

According to Blair, our duty is to shower the globe with money. According to Bush, our duty is to shower the globe with "democracy." Taken together, the meaning of their foreign policy is clear. The West has no moral right to exist, because it is productive, prosperous and free; materially and spiritually, with its money and its soldiers' lives, the West must buy permission to exist from the rest of the world. But the rest of the world has an unquestionable right to exist, because it is unproductive, poor and unfree.

Until we in the West reject this monstrous moral premise, we will never have cause to feel safe.

What we desperately need is a leader who proclaims that the rational ideals of the West, reason, science, individual rights and capitalism, are good--that we have a moral right to exist for our own sake--that we don't owe the rest of the world anything--and that we should be admired and emulated for our virtues and accomplishments, not denounced. This leader would then demonstrate, in word and deed, that if those opposed to these ideals take up arms against us, they will be crushed.

Support for totalitarian Islam will wither only when the Islamic world is convinced that the West will fight--and fight aggressively. As long as the insurgents continue with their brutal acts in Iraq, unharmed by the mightiest military force in human history, as long as the citizens of London return to "normal" lives with subways exploding all around them, as long as the West continues to negotiate with Iran on nuclear weapons--as long as the West continues to appease its enemies, because it believes it has no moral right to destroy them, totalitarian Islam is emboldened.

It is the West's moral weakness that feeds terrorism and brings it fresh recruits. It is the prospect of success against the West, fueled by the West's apologetic response, that allows totalitarian Islam to thrive.

Bush has said repeatedly, in unguarded moments, that this war is un-winnable. By his foreign policy, it is. But if the British and American people gain the self-esteem to assert our moral right to exist--with everything this entails--victory will be ours.

[i]The above was from an op-ed piece from the Ayn Rand Institute and presents a viewpoint with which I happen to agree. These people must be held accountable for their acts and the point must be driven home to them in no uncertain terms.[/i]

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

If you go back to my previous posts, I have been clear to state that it is the extremists in the islamic faith that are the ones who are a global threat as well as anyone who makes excuses for them.

I just wish religions were not so easy to hijack. Yes, other religions have gone through their share of violence and evil but that does not excuse any current evil that is done today in the name of religion. By seeing what has been done in the name of religion in the past should make us better prepared to prevent this from happening ever again, not to point at what happened 400 years ago and make excuses for the murder in London or the MANY attacks on the US in the last 25 years. (not just 9/11).

If more people believed like you do, then there would be less tolerance of terrorism, providing less places for them to hide, train, and recruit.

If my statement was not correct, how do you justifying the recent murders in London? I would be interested to hear your point of view.

The word 'Islam', meaning submit or submissive, isn't the correct word to use here, Absolutely. Yes, I'm aware you've taken this definition from the Ayn Rand Institute, along with sleepin'dawg, which actually means that they are the culprits.

Islam, however, is the religion followed by the majority of Muslims in the world, and is not inherently evil, just as its followers are not either.

Islamic totalitarianism, on the other hand, is correct, however, or, to shorten it to today's practice, Islamists. They are an evil minority of Islam, and tend to interpret their version of Islam extremely narrowly, and often totally at odds with the true meaning of their faith.

While I must admit to a certain ignorance of what we, the 'west', should be doing to end this terrorism (i.e. as outlined by dawg), I do feel sure that whatever our reaction to events such as the London bombings, and all the other atrocities that have gone before, from September 11th until now, I do feel it's not up to us to impose our kind of democracy on a country (Iraq) which they obviously can't handle.

Sure, they'd like A democracy, but not our western version of it. What they want is to re-establish a 'golden age' of Islam, something along the lines of what it was when Islam first came into being.

The fact that this can't really be done, since it lacks, and will always do so, certain parameters that would actually turn it into that 'golden age', i.e. the Prophet himself and his family, this is for them to find out, not for us to tell.

Israel did much the same thing, back in 1948 when they adopted their constitution. They also wanted to re-create that 'golden' Biblical age now lost forever, but failed to realise that without other parameters being firmly in place, i.e., the conditions of the times, such a concept was doomed to failure.

The 'democracy' which exists in Israel, therefore, is not what I would call a western-style one, but whatever the consequences of the choices made in 1948 are today, it's for the Israelis to work out, not 'the west'.

Terrorism, including the extremely militant branch of Islam, the Islamists, which has arisen along with it, will only die out once the west butts out of these countries. If they (Muslims)make mistakes in their choices, so be it. Let THEM sort everything out, in whatever fashion they choose being up to them. Keep the west out of it.

We (in the west) have a certain standard of living, a set of values by which we try to live. Let's just keep to ourselves, without telling anyone else (outside the west) how to run their lives. Let them make their own mistakes. We shouldn't have to pick up the pieces after them all the time.

That is a point on which we will probably not agree, if you truly believe that there is a God to speak His Word. I don't believe that any book "may be the word of 'God'" because I don't believe that there may truly be God.

I singled out Islam among religions which I believe to be universally false, for (1) its role as the ideology claimed by the most disgusting bunch of thugs known to my generation & (2) for its incessant repetition of requirements to go to war in defense of the faith. My primary observation is that such repetition can only have the result in the real world -- among real people who turn to faith for guidance in the first place -- of leaving the impression that Allah likes war.

If you notice that the characterization above implies that all followers of any religion are weak-minded, you have understood me correctly. I believe that people who willingly practice any religion have necessarily either refused, or implicitly admitted inability, to think for themselves. I do not believe that reasoning is part of the religious experience nor compatible with it, so I do not expect that practitioners of Islam are likely to remember all the requirements and prohibitions that apply to warfare in the Koran. I simply have no faith in faith.

And that is as close as I come to faith.

I have taken you at your word many times on the historical development of religions and their original meanings. But here I have to completely disagree with you. I have never "noticed how it's always the small fundamentalist groups in any religion that cause all the problems for the majority of members in the rest of the group?" What I have noticed is that the majority of every religion is intellectually and morally lazy, and utter only a few meaningless words each year on the evil of the "extremists" of their faith, while never once considering that the purpose of a moral code is to be obeyed exactly, and if they are calling exact adherence to such a code evil, then they must logically conclude that the code itself is evil. Failure to do so is possible only as a result of extreme stupidity, or equally extreme evil.

Okay John, I'll grant that in the sense you describe it, I can only agree with you. However, it does seem to be in the nomenclature that we disagree, simply because I know that a group really existed at the beginning of the first millennium CE that was known as 'rabbinical Jews'. They wrote the 'Ethics of the Fathers' (or rabbis).

It ceased to exist exactly as I have described it before, and, as such, they do not exist any longer. So please find another word or phrase to describe what you call rabbinical Jews, because I can assure you, I'm definitely not one!

I am certainly a Jew, and while I believe in the moral concepts (well, some of 'em, anyway!) of Judaism, I do not believe in God and most of the ritual, etc. Rather than rabbinical, why not just call a person a Jew if they are one? That's all you need to do.

G

:) I like your sense of humour :)

My point was that you, Absolutely, emphatically, have no faith in others faith, as deemed to be proven by your understanding of proof itself, yet you must have faith in the evidence or proof of documented facts produced by the scientific community, otherwise you would only believe the facts that you have proven to yourself.

Hope this makes some sense :)

Science is a process that demands logic. When I analyze a scientific theory or law, considering its derivation and consequences, and find that it is consistent (1) with the rest of science (2) with my own observations, then I conclude that the theory or law is accurate. That of course is an incomplete summary, the point of which is that my observations extend beyond my direct experiences. Don't yours?

Faith is belief without evidence. Faith in science would be a contradiction. By the nature of reality, contraditctions cannot exist...

Yes for sure. I only in the last 5 years or so have changed the way I look at things. Like you I relied upon what science proved to me only. It science could not prove it then it didn't exist.

Then i found myself becoming more and more frustrated with unanswered questions and the more i relied upon science to answer these questions -
more questions arose.

So i changed my tact and looked for "reason" instead of "proof".

I found ( for myself ) I became less frustrated.

:)

I'm happy for anybody who finds a perspective that is not frustrating, but you have some misconceptions, which you stated explicitly, so I must correct them.

(1) "Like you I relied upon what science proved to me only."

In fact, I rely on logic to convince me of general truths that are not quantifiable, and thus not properly called scientific, most importantly in ethics. Reason is capable of dealing with concepts like value, causation, and standards, as well as quantities.

(2) "It science could not prove it then it didn't exist."

Ethics would be useless if it could only be proven and applied by scientific processes of quantifying, hypothesizing, and testing. Our minds and senses provide more direct self-knowledge (at least, that is my experience) alleviating the need for extensive testing. What is right can be derived using reason, from human nature and the requirements of survival. In other words, take as your starting point "the way it is" -- those aspects of life that are not subject to change -- then consider our mutual goals: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The inevitable logical consequence: the Constitution of the United States, up to Amendment 10. It has been downhill ever since.