Originally Posted By: thorTheir move to take over the world is happening as we speak. The only question is how long you and folks just like you will remain in denial. Hopefully not so long as you find them knocking on your door. As long as they knock and don't just blow it up, I'm cool.
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Three Things About Islam
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Not to you damien, just a general response.Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims August 30, 2010 | ISSUE 46•35 SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was "perfectly happy" to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world's second-largest religion."I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?""And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero," continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. "No, I won't examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people's universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell.""Even though I am not one of those people," he added.When told that the proposed "Ground Zero mosque" is actually a community center two blocks north of the site that would include, in addition to a public prayer space, a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant, and athletic facilities, Gentries shook his head and said, "I know all I'm going to let myself know."Gentries explained that it "didn't take long" to find out as much about the tenets of Islam as he needed to. He said he knew Muslims stoned their women for committing adultery, trained for terrorist attacks at fundamentalist madrassas, and believed in jihad, which Gentries described as the thing they used to justify killing infidels."All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts," said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country's armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. "Period.""If you don't believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka," Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. "Or worse, a rape camp. That's right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps."Over the past decade, Gentries said he has taken pains to avoid personal interactions or media that might have the potential to compromise his point of view. He told reporters that the closest he had come to confronting a contrary standpoint was tuning in to the first few seconds of an interview with a moderate Muslim cleric before hastily turning off the television."I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn't want to hear," Gentries said. "But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of 'other' to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities."Added Gentries, "That really put things back into perspective."
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Originally Posted By: OldFolks
Ramadan road trip: Moving melting pot finds peace, love and animosity
I think I'll grab a Christian buddy, a black man, and a Muslim, and do a 50 churches in 50 days trip through Syria. See what kind of reactions I get.
Interesting story, but I gave up halfway through. Too darned long to read tonight!
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What actions Muslims have taken, past and present, are a part of history. Something to be studied, but never erased...just as it should be with any factual history. Those who attempt to put a spin on it are of the same ilk who demanded everyone turn a blind eye when Hitler invaded Poland. Peace of mind, for them, is so much more important than reality...past, present, or future. It's a wonder folks like that ever leave their houses.
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Of course history must be studied and not be erased. The trouble is, thor, that you don't seem to apply the same principle to what actions Christians have taken, past and present. When the two are compared I'm afraid we don't come out well.I don't think it helps to say "that was the Catholic church" - the Catholic church was the Christian church in the West until the Reformation. Muslims will point out with at least equal force that today's Muslim fundamentalists do not represent mainstream Islam.Nor can you argue very convincingly that the Quran's theology is more aggressive than the Bible's, for a practical reason. Both the Quran and the Bible have parts which seem to support aggressive war, and parts that support peace. Interpretation is therefore crucial. You and I have some knowledge of how Christians interpret the Bible from our own learning, but neither of us are Islamic scholars. We have no way of knowing how mainstream Islam interprets the Quran's attitudes except by repeating what some other people tell us that we happen to have heard - and how do we know they are correct?I think there are grounds on which Islam can be fairly criticised. But I think you have chosen a bad battleground for your fight.
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Originally Posted By: damienI think I'll grab a Christian buddy, a black man, and a Muslim, and do a 50 churches in 50 days trip through Syria. See what kind of reactions I get.Interesting story, but I gave up halfway through. Too darned long to read tonight! Ya know that might be a kind of an interesting trip in a more equally secular yet no less Islamic country, kinda like Turkey.
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Originally Posted By: OldFolksYa know that might be a kind of an interesting trip in a more equally secular yet no less Islamic country, kinda like Turkey. Wanna go? I've got several black friends if you can come with a Muslim.
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Originally Posted By: IneligibleOf course history must be studied and not be erased. The trouble is, thor, that you don't seem to apply the same principle to what actions Christians have taken, past and present. When the two are compared I'm afraid we don't come out well.If you stopped at the past, I might have agreed. As far as the present is concerned, there is absolutely no contest. Wow. Just, wow. Quote:I don't think it helps to say "that was the Catholic church" - the Catholic church was the Christian church in the West until the Reformation.For the present, again, moot. You seem to insist on being stuck in the past. My concern is the present...how about we stick to that for now. Quote:Muslims will point out with at least equal force that today's Muslim fundamentalists do not represent mainstream Islam.And the Koran tells them to lie to infidels just like you. Do you actually believe you're special somehow? Quote:Nor can you argue very convincingly that the Quran's theology is more aggressive than the Bible's...Maybe not...but this guy can. I strongly suggest you pay attention to what he has to say. His wife, who he mentions, is in radio and has been listening to Muslim radio for decades (she's from Egypt and speaks fluent Arabic) and has a pretty good take on what Muslims are really all about. You can start at around 4:30 of part 2 for some of the real meat of it, but better to watch the whole thing. I don't agree with everything he says/thinks...but he knows Islam in a way that you and I hopefully never will. Of course you can always turn it off and continue to swallow the PC version of Islam you get on your liberal TV "News" program, if you prefer. Part 1 of 4
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Originally Posted By: damien
I think I'll grab a Christian buddy, a black man, and a Muslim, and do a 50 churches in 50 days trip through Syria. See what kind of reactions I get.
Try it and you may not come back alive.
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thor, thor. Quote:As far as the present is concerned, there is absolutely no contest.How many Christians have been killed by Muslims in recent years? How many Muslims have been killed by Christians? Quote:Wow. Just, wow.I don't see the relevance of that article to anything. The article itself points out that it is different among the tribes - i.e. it is cultural. It is not something Islam enjoins or approves.What is more shocking is that Western forces were apparently unaware of or not briefed on this aspect of some Middle Eastern cultures, which is hardly a secret. Quote:You seem to insist on being stuck in the past.After you have been talking about history! Have you no shame, thor? Quote:And the Koran tells them to lie to infidels just like you. Do you actually believe you're special somehow?An example of the logical fallacy of 'poisoning the well' (which I have mentioned to you before). Quote:Maybe not...but this guy can. . . [etc]You found it too much bother to read a chapter of the Bible, and you expect me to listen to 40 minutes of that drivel?I started where you suggested - well, slightly further back. I heard Avi Lipkin 'prove' the non-existence of the Islamic heaven, which he calls "the Islamic Utopia", by the fact that the word 'Utopia', invented by Sir Thomas More in 1516 for a book about Plato's Republic drawn to its logical conclusion, and a word never used by Muslims for heaven, is derived from the Greek (which Lipkin gets wrong) for 'no place'. When a man argues like that, does he have any right to be heard further?I did listen a bit longer (with saint-like patience). He goes on to say "Afghanistan was a country of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Christians", rather glossing over the earlier successive conquests by the Medes, the Persians, Alexander the Great and Seleucid and his dynasty, the Greco-Bactrians, the Sakas, the Parthians, the Kushans, the Sassanids, the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, and Kabul Shahi, to name a few. The conquest by the Arabs (642-870: it was a slow process) is apparently something completely new. Well, he seems to imply that they must have killed all the Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Christians, but more likely the whole country was told to convert, as the Roman Empire was told to convert to Christianity. (Not something I agree with, of course.)He goes on to say that the Muslims have been killing each other - which is true, but as a practice it is hardly restricted to Muslims. An awful lot of Christians killed each other in the two World Wars. He says that a million Afghans were killed by each other "in the last ten years", which, unless this talk was an old one, would cover the last few years of the Afghan Civil War with the Taliban plus the US invasion and subsequent occupation. It isn't clear where he gets the figure of a million from; it seems unlikely. The population of Afghanistan in 1979 was about 13 million; it is now about 28 million. The US Civil War (in a Christian nation) was far bloodier than most wars and killed about 620,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians in a population of about 32 million over four years.He then went on to mention that the Pashtuns were the majority of Afghans (actually 39-42%) and are "related to the Pakistanis" (Pakistan is only 15.4% Pashtun). After that display of not knowing what he was talking about, I gave up.His wife may listen to Arabic radio, but both of them are Jewish from birth. I haven't seen any evidence that they are familiar with mainstream Islamic Quranic exegesis, which is what is needed here.
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Like(I use Facebook too much....)
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I would love to tag along! Thor could overcome his fears and come too.Saint Elias church in Aleppo(Supposedly) Ananias' house on Straight Street, old Damascus
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thor, if I may give some unsought and unwanted advice, I would mention that Francis Bacon in one of his Essays said that if you want a committee to decide some question, you shouldn't populate it half-and-half with people with strong views on both sides, but with undecided people from the middle. When looking to bolster your case, you seem to look for people who already strongly support your own views. The result is that you have put up a number of liars and nut-cases who offend principles of truth and reason, and thereby end up weakening your argument in the eyes of others.You would do much better to look for sources that are knowledgeable and scholarly, and see what they say. Look for quality and even-handedness of scholarship, and let the results be as they may.
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Originally Posted By: IneligibleWhen looking to bolster your case, you seem to look for people who already strongly support your own views. The result is that you have put up a number of liars and nut-cases who offend principles of truth and reason, and thereby end up weakening your argument in the eyes of others.Spoken in classic liberal format. Instead of attacking the position, you attack the people...and the biggest liars are always the first to call others liars. Keep that in mind next time you think about pointing the finger at somebody else.As I said, I don't agree with everything he says...but what he says concerning Islam is spot on. And you can't deny it, or you already would have.
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Originally Posted By: IneligibleI haven't seen any evidence that they are familiar with mainstream Islamic Quranic exegesis...That's because you aren't trying to find it...you'd rather not find it. Since you didn't listen to the whole thing, you'll never know...and I'm quite certain that's the way you like it. Quote:...which is what is needed here. What was needed was a glimpse of what life is like among Muslims once their percentage of the population grows beyond a certain point. That glimpse has now been provided...whether you choose to look at it or not.
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Originally Posted By: thorAnd the Koran tells them to lie to infidels just like you. Do you actually believe you're special somehow? Originally Posted By: thor...and the biggest liars are always the first to call others liars. Keep that in mind next time you think about pointing the finger at somebody else.IRONY ALERT
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Quote:Spoken in classic liberal format. Instead of attacking the position, you attack the people...and the biggest liars are always the first to call others liars. Keep that in mind next time you think about pointing the finger at somebody else.I think bob has disposed of that comment very nicely. Hoist by your own petard! Quote:As I said, I don't agree with everything he says...but what he says concerning Islam is spot on.Why should anyone believe that, of a man who thinks the origin of the word 'Utopia' disproves the existence of a Muslim heaven? Quote:And you can't deny it, or you already would have.I already have denied it - can't you see? In the bit I heard there was barely a statement that was not false. The man is simply not a trustworthy guide. Quote:That's because you aren't trying to find it...you'd rather not find it.I would be interested to find it. But you can't provide it, so you revert to your usual bluster, sigh. Quote:What was needed was a glimpse of what life is like among Muslims once their percentage of the population grows beyond a certain point.What point is that, thor? Is life in, say, Turkey, so mysterious?Has it ever crossed your mind, thor, that you damage your favourite causes by arguing for them? For each person, there are some things he/she shouldn't do, due to sheer incompetence. In my case the list is quite long, and includes a lot of handyman tasks where I make what I am trying to fix much worse. Reasoning is not your strong suit.
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Originally Posted By: Ineligible Quote:Spoken in classic liberal format. Instead of attacking the position, you attack the people...and the biggest liars are always the first to call others liars. Keep that in mind next time you think about pointing the finger at somebody else.I think bob has disposed of that comment very nicely. Hoist by your own petard!Go ahead...check the book. Then we'll know who's telling the lies and who isn't. Quote:Has it ever crossed your mind, thor, that you damage your favourite causes by arguing for them? For each person, there are some things he/she shouldn't do, due to sheer incompetence. In my case the list is quite long, and includes a lot of handyman tasks where I make what I am trying to fix much worse. Reasoning is not your strong suit. LOL! Spoken like Satan himself...as somebody who badly wants somebody else to go away. Sorry, big guy...not happening.
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Everything has some hidden agenda for you, doesn't it, thor? What an exhausting and fearful life you must lead. You must miss out on a lot of good things.
