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Muslims Versus Christians - Who will win? Aren't they alike? (Page 5)
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dcmacdaddy
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Sep 14, 2010, 01:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
This seems to be making the rounds today. Interesting perspective.
===============================================



> A German's View on Islam
>
> A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
>
> We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
>
> The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
>
> The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
>
> Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
>
> The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
>
> And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
>
> History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
>
> Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
>
> Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
>
> Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
>
> Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on.
I guess there are two ways to approach this.

(For those that think the majority of the world's Muslims are "peace-loving Muslims".)
What can we do as non-Muslims to make the peace-loving Muslims know we are on their side in opposition to fanatical Muslims?

(For those that think the majority of the world's Muslims are not "peace-loving Muslims".)
What can we do as non-Muslims to make the non-peace-loving Muslims know we are opposed to them and their fanatical Muslim peers?
( Last edited by dcmacdaddy; Sep 14, 2010 at 01:17 PM. )
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Doofy
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Sep 14, 2010, 01:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
So, where is the good hard evidence that a majority of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims hold the same values as the world's radical/fundamentalist Muslims?
I believe you have a copy. Suggest you read it?

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
For example, you posted pictures of some Muslims in England protesting the plans to burn the Qur'an. Is it a logical assumption to think that the group of Muslims that came out to vocally and violently protest the burning of the Qur'an are representative of most or all Muslims in England?
Yes. The logic behind this is that we never see protests by moderate muslims against the radical ones. I've not seen any moderate counter protests at all - just silence.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
In other words, do the actions of a small (by numerical size) subset of a group accurately represent the feelings/beliefs/attitudes of the group as a whole?
In the case of islam, I would say so.
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dcmacdaddy
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Sep 14, 2010, 01:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
I believe you have a copy. Suggest you read it?
Still arguing the Qur'an requires Muslims to commit violence and convert the world to Islam, eh? You keep believing that. I'll keep believing what the Muslim's themselves say they are required to do as Muslims.

Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
The logic behind this is that we never see protests by moderate muslims against the radical ones. I've not seen any moderate counter protests at all - just silence.
So, among moderate Muslims silence equals consent and/or approval of the actions of radical Muslims? Does this calculus hold for members of all religious groups or just Muslims?
Can we hold all Christians responsible for not speaking out against violence when Dr. Tiller (the Kansas abortion doctor killed last year) was murdered by some Christian claiming to do God's work?
Can we hold all Hindus responsible for not speaking out against the violent attacks on the Golden Temple in Amritsar?
Can we hold all members of religion X responsible for not speaking out against the violence perpetrated by adherents of religion X?
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Doofy
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Sep 14, 2010, 01:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
Still arguing the Qur'an requires Muslims to commit violence and convert the world to Islam, eh?
No, I'm not arguing it. I'm telling you.

Koran permits wife-beating. Hence, wife beating in islam.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
So, among moderate Muslims silence equals consent and/or approval of the actions of radical Muslims? Does this calculus hold for members of all religious groups or just Muslims?
Yes.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
Can we hold all Christians responsible for not speaking out against violence when Dr. Tiller (the Kansas abortion doctor killed last year) was murdered by some Christian claiming to do God's work?
Originally Posted by Cardinal Justin Rigali
Our bishops' conference and all its members have repeatedly and publicly denounced all forms of violence in our society, including abortion as well as the misguided resort to violence by anyone opposed to abortion. Such killing is the opposite of everything we stand for, and everything we want our culture to stand for: respect for the life of each and every human being from its beginning to its natural end. We pray for Dr. Tiller and his family.
Every group of people will tend to have a few nutters which the rest condemn.
However, when one compares the numbers we can easily see that islam has many more times the number of nutters than every other group combined. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.

Let's have some figures:
6% of British muslims admitted to full support for 7/7.
20% of British muslims admitted "sympathy" for 7/7 perps.
(bear in mind with above figures those people risk imprisonment for "glorification of terrorism", but admitted it anyway)
65% of Pakistanis view OBL favourably (that's 75 million people, right there).
55% of Jordanians view OBL favourably.
45% of Moroccans view OBL favourably.
31% of Turkish view suicide bombings against westerners as justifiable.

This is not just a handful of strugs (like you'd get in other religions). This is a very large bunch of people.
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dcmacdaddy
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Sep 14, 2010, 02:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Koran permits wife-beating. Hence, wife beating in islam.
The Qur'an permitting wife-beating is not the same thing as the Qur'an requiring wife beating. Is it?


Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Quote from a Catholic cardinal regarding the killing of. Dr. Tiller
That's great one cardinal spoke out against the killing. (And that is one of the few areas where Catholics are logically consistent. They truly are opposed to all murder whether it is an unborn baby or an adult baby-killer.) But one cardinal does NOT speak on behalf of all Catholics. Just like one imam does not speak on behalf of all Muslims. Where is evidence of moderates in ALL the Christian sects protesting against the radical Christians in their midst. I think your quote below said somethign about moderates needing to speak out against the fanatics in their midst.
Originally Posted by Doofy
The logic behind this is that we never see protests by moderate muslims against the radical ones. I've not seen any moderate counter protests at all - just silence.

Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Every group of people will tend to have a few nutters which the rest condemn.
True dat.

Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
However, when one compares the numbers we can easily see that islam has many more times the number of nutters than every other group combined.
So, if "20% of British Muslims admitted "sympathy" for 7/7 perps" then that means all British Muslims somehow support the actions of the 7/7 perps?

Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
This is not just a handful of strugs (like you'd get in other religions). This is a very large bunch of people.
20% is NOT "a very large bunch of people". On the contrary, I would say that 80% of British Muslims are hostile to the actions of the 7/7 perps. Therefore, I can say with confidence that British Muslims as a whole are opposed to terrorism. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.
(See how easy it is to make ridiculous generalisations about members of a specific group. Now it's your turn to make another ridiculous generalisation.)
One should never stop striving for clarity of thought and precision of expression.
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Doofy
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Sep 14, 2010, 03:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
The Qur'an permitting wife-beating is not the same thing as the Qur'an requiring wife beating. Is it?
It does actually require it (basically, "if your chick is acting up, beat her").
Go read your koran.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
That's great one cardinal spoke out against the killing. (And that is one of the few areas where Catholics are logically consistent. They truly are opposed to all murder whether it is an unborn baby or an adult baby-killer.) But one cardinal does NOT speak on behalf of all Catholics. Just like one imam does not speak on behalf of all Muslims. Where is evidence of moderates in ALL the Christian sects protesting against the radical Christians in their midst.
Well, the CoE might have mentioned it if they knew about it. But one instance of murder by a nutter isn't exactly headline news the same way that 9/11 was. So I'm guessing they didn't know about it.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
So, if "20% of British Muslims admitted "sympathy" for 7/7 perps" then that means all British Muslims somehow support the actions of the 7/7 perps?
You're missing the point. That's 20% of them who'll admit it and risk a five year jail term in doing so. How many have sympathy and don't want to risk the jail term?

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy View Post
20% is NOT "a very large bunch of people".
Nice attempt at a misdirection.

20% of British muslims combined with 65% of Pakistanis (etc., etc., etc..) is a very large number of people. And there's no getting around the fact that more than half of the people of Pakistan actually quite like the fact that OBL had some of his chaps kill 3,000 of your civilians.

Are you at war with Pakistan? No. So there must be some other factor, some other shared mentality with OBL. I wonder what that could be?
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SpaceMonkey
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Sep 14, 2010, 04:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Are you at war with Pakistan? No. So there must be some other factor, some other shared mentality with OBL. I wonder what that could be?
We aren't technically at war with Pakistan but we've killed a lot of Pakistanis. I bet that has something to do with it.

Record level of US airstrikes hit Afghan militants

Earlier this year there was a lot of press about how U.S. drone strikes were killing civilians in Pakistan's tribal areas.

And given that conspiracy theories are something of a national hobby in Pakistan (http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...964302,00.html), consider also the same principles might be at work that Ross Douthat, I believe correctly, identifies in his columns about wacky U.S. opinion polls and paranoid politics:
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...lic-ignorance/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/op...rssnyt&emc=rss
( Last edited by SpaceMonkey; Sep 14, 2010 at 04:42 PM. )

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Sep 14, 2010, 09:19 PM
 
Burqas in Japan? Ninja Burqas.

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ebuddy
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Sep 14, 2010, 09:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
Burqas in Japan? Ninja Burqas.

Off of ignore you go.
ebuddy
     
SpaceMonkey
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Sep 15, 2010, 01:40 PM
 
Nice column by Robert Wright, a self-described agnostic (if you haven't read "The Evolution of God," I wholeheartedly recommend it):

The Meaning of the Koran - NYTimes.com

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Sep 16, 2010, 11:47 AM
 
Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey View Post
Nice column by Robert Wright, a self-described agnostic (if you haven't read "The Evolution of God," I wholeheartedly recommend it):

The Meaning of the Koran - NYTimes.com
     
Wiskedjak
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Sep 16, 2010, 11:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Yes. The logic behind this is that we never see protests by moderate muslims against the radical ones. I've not seen any moderate counter protests at all - just silence.
Moderate Muslims are speaking out, you just aren't listening ... apparently even when they're given airtime on and support from Fox News.
YouTube - New Islamic Mosque at Ground Zero? (12.21.09)
( Last edited by Wiskedjak; Sep 16, 2010 at 11:27 PM. )
     
 
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