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My point is all religions have, can and do act as inspiration for barbaric acts. Period
mikewineliberal | 20.02.09 – 5:17 pm |
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No, they don’t all, any more than all writers or plumbers act as inspiration for barbarity. Your anti-religion prejudice prevents you from seeing and acknowledging the possibility – or even the historical and present actuality – of religions as a force for good.
A good point, Ms Tant.
For myself, Id like to see MWL show us how Jainism meets his rather childish criteria.
Millie Tant | 20.02.09 – 10:48 pm
I’m happy to agree with that. my point is a narrow one
Any chance of replying to my earlier posting? Keep it civil and accurate for a change.
What, do I work for the bbc? I don’t
Or do you mean
“I asked for a list of Christian fundamentalist terrorists stoning people to death and calling for the death of all the members of another religion and launching rockets against practitioners of such a religion”.
That’s a silly debating point. I’m talking about barborous acts in general, not the detail. Do you want me to respond “at least Hamas don’t bomb abortion clinics”?
GCooper | 20.02.09 – 11:18 pm
A fair point. A lot of small sects, have a record they can be proud of. I’m talking about the World’s major religions.
Islam is the ONLY major religion whose adherents commit atrocities all round the world, week in, week out – in the name of their religion.
End of story – except to weaselly moral relativists who cannot even comprehend the concept of evil.
MWL: I seem to have fallen into the trap that I often warn others against. You are clearly not interested in rational debate, so from now on you are on my “Don’t feed the troll” list.
NotaSheep
You are right, the guy seems to have strayed across into the spout-any-old-ludicrous-bollox area recently, defending the indefensible.
Hey guys, i’ve sought to support my points with evidence. We’re not going to agree, and I hope I haven’t offended you. But I could just as easily accuse you of being irrational. But don’t accuse me of trolling just because I challenge the view that islam is uniquely pernicious. In my view it isn’t.
look, I am happy to accept that radical islam out punches all other religions in acts of barbarity at present. This has by no means always been the case; nor is it exclusively the case, with christianity and hinduism both inspiring acts of terrorism. I conclude from this that mad and bad people can find anything they want in religion. It’s in the nature of dogma and irrationality.
MWL: Your apology doesn’t go far enough, your evidence is paltry, calling me irrational does offend me.
So: “don’t feed the troll“
MWL
Your dodgy arguments went back into history, mostly in an exaggerated way.
Stick to the here and now. That is what BBC “news” is meant to be about. Just swallow the fact that the OVERWHELMING preponderance of current and recent violence stemming from religious belief is Islamic. Aimed not just at the West but at other beliefs too.
And if you make that crucial step – which you appear to be evading – then ask yourself WHY ?
And then – if the penny drops – you will start to realise that you and yours are directly or indirectly in the firing line.
Jihadists may be “mad and bad” in our eyes. But they are not mad and bad in the eyes of huge numbers of Muslims, all the polls show this. Because Islam is seen to be justification for jihadism – indeed it is the very source of jihadism.
Yes, you can narrow this down to, say, the wahhabi strain.
But which strain dominates all the mosques in Britain ?
NotaSheep | Homepage | 21.02.09 – 5:32 p
Just be aware that every time you call me a troll, I will physically hurt.
Don’t feed the troll.
ouch
JohnA | 21.02.09 – 5:54 pm |
Because Islam is seen to be justification for jihadism – indeed it is the very source of jihadism.
Yes, you can narrow this down to, say, the wahhabi strain.
But which strain dominates all the mosques in Britain ?
At least as important is the exaggerated sense of victimhood amongst Muslims. I would bet that most of those who tacitly condone or tolerate (or who just sit there silently) all the violence and threats share the feeling that the world – especially the US – is trying to have a war against Islam itself, and not just Al Qaeda or whomever.
Judging from the wide variety of ethnic groups who all chant the same refrain, it would seem that most Muslims in Britain and Europe think that their religion is somehow under threat. Rather than getting the sense that they need to help stop the extremists – whom they don’t support in the end – most Muslims think that those people are somehow part of the West’s war against Islam, rather than the other way around. They can’t very well all be conquest-minded when they don’t believe that Mohammedans started anything in the first place. Most of them didn’t even believe that Muslims could do 9/11, but did believe that it was done by Israel and the US as an excuse to attack Muslims. There’s a big difference in mindset here.
I would bet that most Muslims in the UK don’t really think this struggle is about creating a real Londonistan, but rather about arrogant Westerners threatening their religion. They would be very wrong, but that really seems to be the mindset.
This isn’t surprising, really. How much media and government attention is focused on defending Islam, rather than informing Muslims in general that this isn’t about them or their religion and they really ought to be helping? The BBC is certainly more guilty than most for helping to paint this picture. Loads of complaints about how dangerous and vile Islam itself is only adds to that, of course, but the main sense of victimhood comes from the news and politicians, not individuals who are angry at what they see as barbaric behavior.
The violent strain of Islam on display in mosques in the West use the idea that the West is at war against Islam to inflame passions. The jihadi imams in the UK don’t inspire the kids with dreams of reclaiming Al Andalusia, but rather with dreams of defending their religion against attackers. There’s a big difference between that and the idea that the problem is more about conquest. The conquest thing is obviously an issue in places where there are actual wars going on in historically Muslims areas – Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan – but that’s about an area where they already live, not conquering a Christian land and making it Muslim. A firebrand imam in Finsbury Park isn’t going to get the kids excited about turning the local Evangelical Lutheran church into another place to worship Allah, but he is going to inspire them with dreams of defending Islam elsewhere in the world.
I don’t think the jihad/conquest idea is the right approach at all. Breaking down the idea that the West is at war against Islam is the better angle.