moosenose

Seems like there is some disagreement about which pillar it is...try this link:
http://www.islamset.com/encyclo/five_pillars.html

"The Profession of Faith
1. The Five Daily Prayers
2. Almsgiving
3. Fasting
4. Pilgrimage to Mecca
5. Jihad"

Down at the bottom, they call Jihad "the sixth pillar", and say that "jihad" means striving to please God.

filtherton

To quote the link:
bolded parts added by me.

That's a far cry from what you said:
Just saying.

Elegant Holmes

seem's I read somewhere that the Russians who took out the terrorists in that theater awhile back wrapped thier bodies in pig skin before planting them. Maybe one of you more computer savy types could tell me if it's true or not. Sounds like a good way to get radical fundamentalist guys to stop killing people to get to heaven.

zen_tom

While we're at it, let's address the other widely held myth that martyrdom grants the fundamentalist access to given number of virgins in heaven.

The actual truth is that rather than heavenly access to a host of virgins, Islam actually proscribes access to 70 raisins. Go figure.

The way I see it, if someone is willing to blow themselves up, they are not going to be deterred by pigskin, leftist/rightist criticism or anything else we might have up our sleeves. We should be looking at the roots of the problem that make people feel this way in the first place because deterrants are not going to have a great deal of effect after the fact.

zen_tom

moose, there are christian groups who have been equally murderous based on grounds of faith. Islam certainly doesn't have a monopoly on fundamentalist crazies.

moosenose

So Islam is NOT a religion that shows very little respect to the concept of religious diversity? Muslims don't generally view athiests as deviants who must be converted, by force if necessary, to "save their souls"?

Everybody says "we must be tolerant of the poor muslims", but nobody ever says "the muslims must be tolerant of other religions or people who believe differently than muslims do". Why is that? Minority status? Well, there are over a billion muslims, so considering the plurality among the religions, they're one of the biggest religions out there. Well, that, and the habit of people who say things that offends certain muslim clerics ending up with Fatwas issued on them... Rushdie wrote a work of FICTION back in '89 that some felt was derogatory of Islam, and they're STILL trying to kill him....even the guy who wrote the "Peace Train" song. Theo Van Gogh criticized Islam, and where is he now? Wait...maybe I better shut up, lest I end up with MY throat cut. Eh, on second thought, screw it. I'm PROUD to be an Infidel. If they want to kill me, let'em try.

zen_tom

That's weird, moose, I responded to your post, yet my response appeared before yours. - here it is again, in case it's hard to follow:

There are christian groups who have been equally murderous based on grounds of faith. Islam certainly doesn't have a monopoly on fundamentalist crazies.

Mephisto2

Let's just use the top 10 searches returned by Google, shall we?

http://www.islam101.com/dawah/pillars.html
http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/pillars.shtml
http://www.viewislam.com/pillars/
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/re/fivepillars.htm
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/I_Tr...vePillars.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam
http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-16.htm
http://www.carm.org/islam/faith_five_pillars.htm
http://www.iad.org/Pillars/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/pe..._pillars.shtml

I could go on and on.

In other words, "jihad" is NOT one of the five pillars of Islam, as you stated. Squirm as much as you want, but your bigotry has been proven.

I'm no fan or apologist for terrorists, but I can't stand sweeping generalizations that help promulgate untruths (and hatreds) about whole religions.


Mr Mephisto

moosenose

That is not necessarily true. I know of at least one company that provides "provisions" to various governments, and uses a porkfat-based product as a bullet-lube. It seems to work. If it's because of the pork product or the thing it's lubing, I don't know, but somebody might do a study of it someday...

moosenose

I guess it depends on what your search terms were. I used "Pillar" and "Jihad", and came up with this as the first link:

www.doroquez.com/arts/documents/rsoc01.pdf

Along with 51,299 other hits.

zen_tom

What do you mean "it seems to work"?

Are you seriously suggesting that anyone is going to care whether the bullet that kills them has been exposed to bacon?

moosenose

Well, it's either that, or the idea of getting shot doesn't appeal to them. Hence the need for a study on it.

filtherton

I was just saying that you were being disingenuous.

Perhaps you should step back, take a deep breath, and try and wrap your head around the idea that the majority of muslims aren't trying to kill you.

moosenose

That's true. But I've been thinking about it....can you name another terrorist group that has used suicide bombers within the past, say, 20 years, that was NOT, at least according to them, fighting for Islam as part of a Jihad? And which Christian groups have been out mass-murdering people in the past 20 years? I can think of fewer than a dozen bombings by supposedly "Christian" groups (which, BTW, also targeted Christians almost exclusively) in the past 20 years, and none of them killed or injured more than a handful of people or involved a suicide bomber.

moosenose

You're right, the majority of muslims are not trying to kill me. But, oddly enough, almost everybody who IS trying to kill me without knowing me personally (ie because I'm an American) is muslim. Coincidence? I dunno...but it's certainly suspicious.

Mephisto2

We get it.

You don't like Muslims.

Give it a rest.



Mr Mephisto

StanT

I believe the IRA is a bunch of nice Catholic boys.

martinguerre

Mr. M...you ably responded to moose. i won't add anything there.

i think stevo asked :What good is enlightenment and civility if you're dead?

I think the question back is what good is being alive for if you're not civilized?

Burke has the great lines on the subject, which i hardly need quote. Much as i quarrel with the reactionary, i admire his belief in the value of being civilized.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

filtherton

So what is it you're trying to say, exactly?

roachboy

i think that moosenose is saying that he is a racist.
just a guess.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mephisto2

Sme scholars (?) have taken it upon themselves to add something to the fundamental and dogmatic "Five Pillars of Islam". This is akin to me spouting nonesense about an eleventh Commandment.

And ALL of the searches on the first Google page mention jihad and the "SIXTH pillar".

quad erat demonstrandum



Anyway, my interest in arguing semantics and blatant falsehoods with a professed bigot has waned.


Mr Mephisto

alansmithee

Because if you are alive and uncivilized, you can hope in the future to become civilized. But if you are dead and civilized, no amount of hope will bring you back to life.

martinguerre

i should hardly agree with that. i think my signature line will say more about that than i can.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

djtestudo

There is a problem with this whole thing about being "civilized" in my opinion. War is NOT civilized. No war EVER is civilized. It wasn't civilized when Europeans were fighting hand-to-hand for land grabs. It wasn't civilized when African tribes were attacking each other for the purpose of capturing slaves to sell to the Arabs and Europeans. It wasn't civilized when men marched across open fields into a hail of bullets and artillary. It wasn't civilized when nations firebombed whole cities and used nuclear weapons on civilian populations. And it won't be civilized until we are using our robots to destroy another side's robots, which is probably a way's off.

Not to make any point about what we should or should not be doing here, but all this talk involving war and being "civilized" isn't worth anything in my mind.

My personal opinion is that if they are killing our troops in this manner, they should have the same done to them when captured. Also I should repeat my earlier question about how many have died at Guantanimo Bay?

__________________
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--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

zen_tom

An eye for an eye eh djtestudo?

How do you imagine they will respond then? Have you ever heard of a thing called escalation?

You do something bad, they do something worse. You do something worse, they do something even worse. You do something evil, they do something even more evil.

See the pattern?

You must offer the enemy the kindness and humanity that you would hope to receive from them, otherwise you can expect none whatsoever.

There is always a chance to rescue the civillisation that gets lost in war, and everyone on each side has a chance to do it, with every action they take. Whether it's laying down their weapons and going home, or extending some kindness in a detention centre, we're all people, and even under the worst circumstances, there are some of us who have the strength not to act like animals.

I have no idea how many people died at Guantanimo bay, but there are people who have been locked up there for far too long considering many haven't been charged with any crime, and the US had no jurisdiction in the country where they were captured.

We are not at war. In the dictionary, war is described as:

a state of open and declared armed hostile conflict between political units such as states or nations; may be limited or general in nature.

Well there are no states or nations that we are at war with, they don't exist. We should be conducting a Police Operation. But the "Police Operation Against Terror" doesn't have as catchy a ring to it as a full blown war.

Police Operations are civillised, normally. There are rules. Justice must be seen to be served, fairly and blindly.

To call this thing a war, and believe it is the saddest thing, as you, djtestudo (and others here on this board and elsewhere) have just proven when you suggest we descend to the level of depravity of the criminals we seek to bring to justice.

That's why this talk is worthwhile, because we are not at war, and we really should be displaying all the civillisation we can right now.

alansmithee

This sounds nice in theory, but this type of thinking will be what gets people killed. Hugs and rainbows won't deter terrorists. Because they will hug back, only they will have not a rainbow but a bomb taped to them.

And I'm sure any of the many people who's heads were chopped of would have LOVED to be indefinately detained in a place like guantanemo, as opposed to what they got. So to think that we are even in the same league is ridiculous.

ObieX

This sounds nice in theory, but this type of thinking will be what gets people killed. Guns and bullets won't deter terrorists. Because they will shoot back, only they will have not a gun but a bomb taped to them.

__________________
We Must Dissent.

RangerDick

I almost spit my morning coffee all over my monitor when I read that. Wasn't there a thread last week that the resident libs here got all incensed about because Karl Rove said that libs thought this exact thing?

Yes, let's hug the enemy into submission, then kiss and tease 'em and tickle 'em until we're all just giggling like little pigtailed schoolgirls! It's a beautiful thought, but in reality, nothing works on the minimizing the threat of an enemy like killing them does.

edit: tag

zen_tom

I don't give a fuck what 'libs' are supposed to or not supposed to think, nor do I know nor care who Karl Rove is.

However, there is a difference between acting like a human being, and holding yourself up to a standard of civility (by not torturing, or chopping off people's heads for example) and tickling a pigtailed schoolgirl. If you are unable to tell the difference, then I suggest you go away and think about it for a while, and practice drinking your coffee without spilling it.

Once again you miss the point about "the enemy"

Ustwo

I bet Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao Zedong just needed hugs too.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

zen_tom

Ustwo, grow up - where did I mention hugs?

Would you like me to reiterate for those who are finding it difficult to understand?

Ustwo

I'd offer the same advice to you, grow up and face reality. There is a time to offer your enemy comfort. We did it quite often in the Pacific vrs the Japanese, trying to get them to surrender rather then kill themselves.

There are also times when you use any means necessary, such as when you have a cold blooded terrorist in your hands who has vital information which you need NOW.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

ObieX

You never know. The german parent-child relationship is usually extremely harsh. Even today. Maybe if Hitler was hugged a little more he *would have* turned out a little less evil. Same goes for the rest.

__________________
We Must Dissent.

zen_tom

How much vital information is the "cold blooded terrorist" going to offer up if he's had his head removed as suggested above by djtestudo, or killed by a pig-lubed bullet as Elegant Holes reccomends?

I respond to calls for cruel and unusual punishment and I get told I'm advocating hugs.

The urgency implied by both the usage of capitals in the word NOW and the description of the "cold blooded terrorist" suggests you think that these people are planning daily and deadly strikes against us. In this storybook world, what vital information does our terrorist have that needs to be extracted with such urgency?

I think you over estimate both the danger, the capability and the menace that these enemies of the West pose. I certainly don't think we are so threatened by them that we need to compromise what is right in order to stay effective. We are so much stronger than they, we simply don't need to resort to tactics of desparation - which is what they are.

Once again I say, this is only a war in name - We are in actuality conducting a Police Investigation, rooting out members of a criminal group who have committed horrendous crimes against innocents. We need information - and if we weren't so heavy handed, we'd have our people on the inside telling us all the vital details.

I could be wrong.

Can we all at least agree that it's probably not sensible to advocate decapitation of captives as part of a simple tit-for-tat policy?

roachboy

and so you see what happens when the notion of the Enemy or Adversary gets detached from the possibility that the enemy might also be a human being---and that the cause of being an enemy is a function of concrete actions, concrete policies, undertaken by the state--which folk who operate and think entirely within the ideological bubble that is the "american way of life" do not tend to see (think about the relation of cheap consumer products to patterns of exploitation exported under teh aegis of globalizing capitalism--at walmart, you have no idea of what goes into making the cheap products--so you can not consider the conditions that obtain in production when buying it--so for too many folk, these patterns do not exist. same model can be mapped into any number of areas)....

once the category of the enemy becomes an abstraction, then the type of brutality that can be justified as being visited upon them is limitless. given the size and power of the american military, this type of thinking as an ideology is of extraordinary potential danger--the implications of which are being visited upon lots of people today.

the reverse argument is typically that if you try to understand the political preconditions for "terrorism" you are de facto condoning the tactics--which is an argument that is thoroughly absurd, but many conservatives seem to like it for reasons that i will frankly never understand--mostly because i have not seen a single coherent argument for it.
it seems that folk will speak as though this exlcusion of politics from thinking "terror" is a given, and they move from there.
i sometimes wonder if there is something powerful for folk who argue in this way about the fantasies of unlimited violence visited upon others, particularly these days upon folk who happen to have the bad form to be muslim. given the level of ignorance about islam (witness the appalling posts from moosenose), you cannot expect fine distinctions like coherence to get in the way.

between april and june 1994, the hutu power movement in rwanda portrayed the tutsis as being less than human. on the basis of this, unlimited violence appeared to be justified. it continued to operate as a justification for nearly unlimited violence until it suddenly didnt. then the war crimes trials started.
i do not see much different AT THE LEVEL OF ARGUMENT in the right's vision of "terrorism"--except that folk who make these kinds of arguments seem to feel themselves justified because they are american--which then tips into a level of chauvinism that you would have thought the dark history of the 20th century---two world wars, a cold war, and various colonial adventures in between---would have ground to powder. but it is obviously possible to learn nothing from history.

the feeling that such arguments are justified does not in any way justify them.


here again the question of the effects of right ideology on the folk who subscribe to it raises its head: most of the conservatives i know are prefectly decent folk who have complex views on a range of issues--many of them are christian and they are more often than not quite compassionate in their everyday lives. some have devoted their lives to service to the poor no less---one very conservative friend of mine runs halfway houses and drug treatment programs adn works materially to help folk who are wrecked by the system that, in more abstract arguments, he tends to defend. while we might disagree, we can talk and/or argue more often than not--these folk actually worry in 3-d life about the fate suffered by actual human beings who are poor or ill in the context of american capitalism, and do something to try to help..
in 3-d life, confronted with the possibility of unlimited violence being visited upon others in their name, all of them balk.
but when it comes to this topic of "terrorism", all bets are off.

in a messageboard space, with nothing at stake and no social pressure to control the types or implications of their position, these same folk will morph into a kind of johnwayne cartoon, the implications of which would be--if they had power--massacres on an appalling scale. because once you adopt this way of thinking that the Enemy is an abstraction, an embodiment of evil, there are no limits to the violence. none.

the treatment of prisoners is a border condition: it is a confrontation between types of action in which rules obtain and matter and types of action that ignore the rules and treat human beings as things.
if the americans advance in the world behind their preferred monologue about "freedom" and "responsbility" and maybe--though too rarely from the macho right--human dignity--the mistreatment of prisoners is both an ethical and political disaster.

i frankly find it appalling that anyone would defend it, particularly on such flimsy and ridiculous grounds as "look at what they are doing"

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

moosenose

Wrong. Muslims don't like me. Why? Because I'm an Infidel.

moosenose

Was the IRA known for suicide bombings?

IIRC, part of the PIRA's MO was to call in bomb warnings shortly beforehand so that the people could be evacuated.

StanT

No suicide bombings to my knowledge, I believe "knee-capping" was their tactic of choice. They would set up an appointment, shoot up your knee, and leave you as a cripple. They would also go after your family if you didn't show up for your maiming. I believe you are correct that they called in bomb warnings, but they weren't always accurate.

The point is that terrorism isn't strictly a Muslim thing and that Christians are equally capable.

moosenose

How does it make you feel to know that you would be under a virtual death sentence if you travelled to a country governed by Islamic law because of your sexual orientation?

Fundamentalist Islam is the enemy of virtually ALL of us here. Why? If we are Muslims, because we are not fundamentalist muslims. If we are not muslims, because we are not muslims. And if we are "different" in any way (like if we are atheists or if we are gay), we are Infidels or Heretics who must be killed according to the fundamentalist muslims.

This reminds me of a Jew in Germany in 1936 saying "the Nazis, they're not so bad!"

zen_tom

Firstly I don't see any difference between a suicide bombing and having one dropped out of a plane, they are just two different methods of delivering an explosive device.

Secondly, whether a warning is issued or not (and many times, none was issued) people were murdered. Are you trying to say that Irish Terrorism is ok? No, I know you wouldn't get away with doing that. Perhaps you are saying that Islamic Terrorism is worse?