hiredgun

Saudia Arabia may be nominally an Islamic country but it is not an Islamic government. It is a monarchy, not a caliphate. Its culture is as much tied to the pre-Islamic Arab era as to Islamic teaching itself. And the "indoctrinated" people who side with Osama bin Laden also hate their own government, which they do not recognize as legitimate.

My life is outdated, ugly, and vicious? (edit)

Okay at first I flamed you for your ignorant and offensive statement, but I thought I could do better than that.

Look, I'm not a very religious person myself... you could say that I'm struggling with religion. Now I go to a catholic university, and the jesuit priests i've met here are some of the most amazing people I've seen. their conviction, their integrity, their wisdom, all stems from the strength of their faith, their godly way of life.

I have been around Muslims all my life. Correctly practiced, it can (just like Catholicism) be a beautiful way of life, like any other religion. It can add balance and peace to families and communities. It can make people humble and generous.

So STOP stereotyping an entire faith based on the actions of a few twisted people.



That said, I do believe that a conflict between the world (not just "The West") and militant, intolerant Islam is inevitable and necessary. And I will be on the right side, as will every true Muslim I know.

filtherton

You know what? I think that an ignorant secularist could say the exact same thing about catholicism and be just about as accurate as you are. How long did catholicism enable pedophiles? I don't want to get in some kind of catholicism v. islam discussion because that would be pointless. Just trying to point out that if someone was talking about catholicism the way you are about islam, that is in general and onesided mischaracterizations, you'd be all over them. Don't pretend your shit don't stink.


As for minnesota somalians:
I don't tink you can attribute "causing drama" to the fact that these kids are somalian or muslim. It is probably more a function of being a refugee from a country ravaged by armed conflict. It is that simple. Muslim or not. How easy would it be for catholic refugees from las favelas in sao paulo, brazil to integrate into american culture? Would you then attribute their "causing of drama" to their catholicism?

Mojo_PeiPei

False the Saud family has a long stemming pack with the Wahabi natives. Wahabism is the only brand of Islam allowed in the country. I don't know what nominally means, but if them being forced to go the mosque 5 times a day or face penalties is not a sign of how hardcore they are, I don't know what is.

You sound like a half way decent guy, and I'm sorry if I caused any personal offense. But I'm sticking by what I said, The Arab-Muslim culture is dominated by people who do anything to keep others down, if its not tribal leaders and warfare in afganistan and Pakistan, its theocracy's and shaaria law Iran, Saudia Arabia, Indonesia, Afganistan, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Sudan. And again like I said, I never knocked all the people, all I said was the culture and religion was all to easy to enable them.

As far as Filtherton's pedophile comment, sure someone could say it, doesn't mean that it would hold any water. Pedophilia in the church is horrible, but that comes down to a bunch of psychologically sick fucks, and is perhaps more a testament to our culture here in America rather then the church, kinda funny how even though there were so many priest pedophiles in the church that it was still lower percentage then that of the regular population though eh?

I mean I also suppose if we want to talk about secularists doing stupid shit we could talk about Saddam or even Stalin. In russia if you didn't buy into the Soviet heroes you were shipped to the gulags, or if you tried to practice your choice brand of Islam in Iraq you were detained, beaten, and possible killed.

Your arguement about the refugee catholics has some merit I'll admit. But again the culture and raising of said somalians holds water too, they are nothing but a bunch of common street thugs, and I can't say that about all of them, but every experience I've had with Somalia's has either turned violent or I left before it could, and it has happened many a times.

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Lebell

Not a good comparision.

A (corrupt, in my mind) hierarchy enabled pedophiles in the Catholic church, but never in my years of going to them did I hear the priest stand up and say that pedophilea was good or that we should go practice it.

Unfortunately, there are Mullahs that preach the murder of innocents every day in the Muslim world.

Secular Catholics raised a firestorm of protest that has forced the Church into major changes in the way it approaches priest pedophilea.

Occasionally you read or hear about a Muslim group (usually) in the Western countries that denounces Muslim radicals. And you can read about praise of such radicals that same day (usually in the East or on Western Muslim BBS's).

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Ustwo

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Dragonlich

hiredgun, I was talking about *third-generation* immigrants. I.e. kids of kids of immigrants. There should be some 50% women in this group, but apparently these aren't good enough. Whether that is because of the parents or the kids is pretty much irrelevant IMHO.

filtherton

Mojo, Lebell,
You got me. Bad comparison. My apologies.
I was trying to make the point that Islam is not the problem. You can infer whatever you like from the actions of some muslims, but you must also be aware that, all things being relative, any atrocity that can be attributed to muslims has at the very least a comparable atrocity that can be attributed to christians. Neither religion is fundamentally flawed(unless you're an atheist). At times they just happen to be misappropriated by dysfunctional people with ulterior motives.

And as long as we are confusing arabs and muslims maybe this will shed some light:
http://www.iiie.net/Intl/PopStats.html

Sorry if it is difficult to read. If you have problems the link is right there.

There are 1.5 billion muslims in the world. How many aren't arabs? Feel free to figure that out for youself, i'm too lazy.
How many of these muslims have no problem with america and our freedom?

Zeld2.0

Once again to point out to people - Arab does not equal Islamic. Not to mention that many people Islamic hate to be labeled Arab.

Sparhawk

I have a couple Persian friends... They *hate* it...

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Mehoni

Your source might not be correct.

Your source:
My source:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/factbook/geos/sw.html

It's mistakes like that that makes me doubt things

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Ustwo

Arab-Islamic culture fosters militant Islamic cultures across the globe, especially in Africa and SE Asia. So whats a good term for it? Most of the left doesn't seem to like Islamofacist, so give us a term for these throw backs so we can get back to talking about issues over semantics.

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filtherton

I bet it is still accurate enough to support the argument that most muslims aren't arabs. Which was the reason i posted it, but if you have better worldwide figures by all means, post away.


Was timothy mcveigh a christofascist? How about the branch davidians? If it is only a matter of semantics perhaps we could call them 15th century catholicism-ists, that is, if we aren't going to worry about being too pc.
-or-
You could call them terrorists and leave it at that. Seems pretty accurate, doesn't imply nasty things about a huge group of people, many of whom wouldn't lift a finger to harm america.

Mojo_PeiPei

Were Timothy Mcveigh's actions and motivations of a religious nature? No the man was a lone wolf racist who hated the federal government. Davidians? Not sure whom they are, if your referring to the nuts from Waco, well thats just a horrible attempt at trying to paint christians anywhere near the ballpark of Islamofacists.

Filtherton why do you always insist on throwing horribly unrelated and off base cases of would be christian wrong doing? Is it an attempt at trying to justify the actions taken in Islam (in the context) of this thread? I might even in certain cases concede points of christians doing insane things i.e. abortion clinics. But, again, in the context of this thread they are NO WHERE near the level of anything that is going in in the Islamic world, yet you latch on to a few minute examples and have no response to any of the clear points that show these horrible trends in Islam... whats your deal?

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filtherton

Yes, i'm a "christaphobe," i am frightened of jesus christ.
My christophobia?? LOL that's rich.
Perhaps if you had read some of my posts in the philosophy forum you might see that i have attempted to defend certain aspects of christianity from some of the more outspoken athiests on the tfp. I shouldn't even have to address this with you though, since you obviously have no idea what i am about when it comes to religion you have no grounds to make such claims. Sometimes i have to remind myself that grown-ups don't need to use name-calling in their arguments. Perhaps that is a good lesson for all of us.


I'm pretty sure the branch davidians were suffering from a twisted form of chistianity. While obl is no david koresh, he is no mohammed either.

As for mcveigh... He comitted his act of terrorism on the two year aniversary of the massacre at the branch davidian compound. He also had ties to the christian identity movement. The christain identity is "based" on some crazy ass interpretations of the words of jesus christ. They believe that nonwhites are soulless "mud-people". It appears chritianity can be missapropriated too. Maybe this is the christ you were refering to when you called me a "christaphobe".
Maybe i am just being clumsy in all this though.
My point is that you cannot infer the motivations of an entire group of people by the actions of a minority of that group of people. How hard is that to understand?
In comparing islam with christianity i was attempting, apparently misguidedly so, to help you to see the this issue from my perspective in terms which are already familiar to you. That is to say, christianty seems to have a lot in common with islam. There are many christians who are horrible people who do horrible things. Sometimes these people base their actions on misinterpretations of christianity. This doesn't mean that christianity is the root cause of these people's actions. There also are many muslims who do disgusting things in the name of islam who are actually just really fucked up people using islam to attach an air of authority to their misguided power-grabs/need to feel important. These people probably do think they are righteous just as david koresh thought he was righteous, or the church during the spanish inquisition. This doens't mean that islam or christianity are inherently evil, just that its followers are human with human flaws.