picoico
October 27, 2005, 8:25pm
181
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
austin:
and what does that mean?
It means you need to look at that source through the lens of the Palestinian-Israli conflict. Scholarship my ass…it’s hardly comprehensive.
Non starter, as one cannot logically proove that they are NOT liars.
picoico
October 27, 2005, 8:27pm
182
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
[QUOTE]
you obviously do not know the kooran
[/QUOTE]
Subdued is not a synonm for humilating and brutalization.
You distort, and willingly so. You are the liar.
picoico
October 27, 2005, 8:34pm
183
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
Chritians expelled Muslims from spain. Christians did indeed invade Hindu lands during the Eurpean Imperial age…
Egypt for the most part welcomed the Muslim invaders, as did the Iraqis (who were under the Persian yoke).
Slavery did not poke it’s head significantly until the Imperial age of Islam…
The Crusades were a response of Christian terrorists who could not tolerate the relative peace of Jerusalum under Muslim rule, who in comparison were a civilizing force. It is agreed that for the most part by historians that the Crusades was more self-serving by the Church and the feudal elite than anything else.
Needless to say, feudal Europe had no valid claim over Jerusalam as it never lay part of a Christian empire since the fall of Byzantium…
picoico
October 27, 2005, 8:37pm
184
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
Did they take knowledge from other civlizations? Sure. All good ones do. Did they add to it? Yup.
Would the west be lost if they had not kept the knowledge alive? Yeah…
picoico
October 27, 2005, 8:39pm
185
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
LOL…another fine source…notice the lack of references?
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
Yup the muslims and jews as they were seen as collaborators
austin
October 27, 2005, 9:38pm
187
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
something about the 2nd SS Panzer Division of the Nazi German reich appeals to you?
picoico
October 27, 2005, 9:43pm
188
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
Perhaps he should rename himself to “Dresden”?
austin
October 27, 2005, 9:51pm
189
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
picoico:
Chritians expelled Muslims from spain. Christians did indeed invade Hindu lands during the Eurpean Imperial age…
Egypt for the most part welcomed the Muslim invaders, as did the Iraqis (who were under the Persian yoke).
Slavery did not poke it’s head significantly until the Imperial age of Islam…
The Crusades were a response of Christian terrorists who could not tolerate the relative peace of Jerusalum under Muslim rule, who in comparison were a civilizing force. It is agreed that for the most part by historians that the Crusades was more self-serving by the Church and the feudal elite than anything else.
Needless to say, feudal Europe had no valid claim over Jerusalam as it never lay part of a Christian empire since the fall of Byzantium…
where do you get your ideas about history?
most of the lands of the middle east that arab armies invaded and conquered by the sword, were Christian and Jewish
NONE welcomed the arabs
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/hindu_kush.html
Hindu Kush means Hindu Slaughter
…read what the muslims did to your people
OMG
October 27, 2005, 9:52pm
190
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
OMG
October 27, 2005, 9:54pm
191
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
[quote]
It is due to misspelled. The real pronunciation is Hindu Kash. Not Kush. and Kush is not Arabic word, its Persian.
austin
October 27, 2005, 9:54pm
192
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
no
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
.If you really want to know about this division
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
austin:
no
take a lookhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_inquisition
picoico
October 27, 2005, 11:49pm
195
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
What has been discussed so far is basic…it falls under the realm of “common knowledge”. Failing that, pick up any book by Karen Armstrong or even an Orientalist like Bernard Lewis.
And shortly after Muslim…Persia was an odd ball…most remained Zoroastrian well to the 9th century…
Incorrect. The Byzantians had the Egyptian orthdox christians under their yoke…Muslims could care less about their theological dispute and so the Egyptians found the Muslims to be the better of the two.
As for Hindu Kush…the name predates Islam in the region…
OMG
October 28, 2005, 12:54am
196
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
Yes Picoico I agree with you about Hindu Kash's name but the real pronunciation is "Hind-o-Kash " not "Hindu Kush".
Hind-o-Kash is made of two words, Hind and Kash. Hind stands for India and Kash stands for Kashmir. So Koh-e-Hind-o-Kash means Mountain of India-Kashmir. Its a Persian word and I see that people useually mispronounse Perian words.
Before arrival of Islam the sub continent was called Hind as we read the history before Pakistan. And this chain of mountain is situated on the border of Hind and Kashmir so it is called Koh-e-Hind-o-Kash.
Hope it is clear to you. BTW that link gave me a good laugh about Hindu Kush ..........lolz.
austin
October 28, 2005, 3:33pm
197
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
I think the ‘kush’ in HinduKush is Farsi and means slaughter
http://www.amadan.org/HDR/vig-payal.html
To the Hindus, this mountain range was known as Paariyaatra Parvat . But the last Hindu king of Kabul was killed three years earlier. Muslims ruled this land now, and they called these mountains the Hindu Kush – “Slaughter of the Hindus”.
austin
October 28, 2005, 3:38pm
198
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
no
Karen Armstrong is a former nun with a long history of mental illnesshttp://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2004/08/karen-armstrongs-crisis-of-faith-and.html
This is actually Karen Armstrong’s third memoir. The first, Through the Narrow Gate , was written shortly after she left both her convent and Catholicism as a whole, and focused on that experience. The second, Beginning the World , was about her attempts to enter into secular life in England in the 1970s and 80s. Somewhere along the line she felt dissatisfied with both, partly because they didn’t leave enough room for the serious crisis Armstrong experienced long *after *she left her nun’s Habit behind. That crisis is partly the despair of a person who comes to realize that, in a way she will *always *be a nun, and partly her long struggle with a mental illness that finally becomes manifest (after 10 years of failed psycho-therapy) as epilepsy.
For me, the most interesting parts in the book are the accounts of her evolving relationship with English literature, particularly 19th century poetry, as well as T.S. Eliot. It’s Eliot’s *Ash Wednesday *-- written while Eliot himself was undergoing a crisis of faith (but in reverse) – that gives Armstrong the title of her book and many of her best insights.
I was surprised to discover that, not only did she major in English at Oxford, Armstrong wrote a Ph.D. (or D.Phil.) dissertation on the subject of Tennyson’s poetry. Oxford failed to grant her a doctorate, and the ejection from academia that followed led her down what turned out to be a very profitable track. Armstrong first taught in a private high school for a few years, then started writing books and television series on religious issues. Over a period of years, she got over her anger with the Catholic Church (especially for its treatment of women, and for the failures of the Convent system she experienced first-hand), and developed a fresh curiosity and moderated respect for the Abrahamic religions, whose study would become her life’s work. (In recent years, Armstrong has become one of the foremost western interpreters of Islam; see her books Islam , or A History of God )
SHe is considered a ‘scholar’ by the uninformed.
And I would like to see the reference by Bernard Lewis you cite.
picoico
October 28, 2005, 3:43pm
199
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
And who may the uninformed be…anyone who dosen’t share your agenda? The ones you quote aren’t even scholars by a long shot…
austin
October 28, 2005, 4:23pm
200
Re: Is Islamism a bankrupt ideology?
piccolo..whatever
http://www.tektonics.org/af/armstrongk01.html
We have had a few requests (and one defiant challenge) to look into the work of Karen Armstrong, author of several books including one we will survey in part here titled The History of God . This has taken us a while, because it seemed clear from the way Armstrong’s work was cited by others (like Jonathan Kirsch) that her work was, well, more wind than heat. And it turns out that this is the case.
Do not expect any original research or argumentation from Armstrong. The findings of liberal Biblical scholarship and of the likes of the Jesus Seminar are taken as indisputable fact, and the argument progresses from there without skipping a beat. It’s all in there to some degree: JEDP, the Jesus Seminar, dating Proverbs to the 3rd century BC without explanation or analysis, much less dealing with of competing views; a false interpretation of Ps. 82 (which happens to match one I refute by the Mormons in The Mormon Defenders ), political correctness, and anachronism. In light of that most or all of what Armstrong assumes to be true about the Bible is refuted via links or material on this page, we merely refer readers to Encyclopedia index (see sidebar) and offer our usual Whitman’s Sampler of bitter chocolates:
It is clear from her introductory words that Armstrong grew up in a religiously strict environment and desired a touchy-feely religion, but is upset because, well, she didn’t experience God the way she wanted – what she got was a holy being; what she wanted was a health tonic. What she got what was the Bible; what she wanted was a Dilbert calendar.
And by golly, she found one. Armstrong offers up a full slate of statements like these over many pages: “These myths were not intended to be taken literally, but were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express any other way.” [5] We want to ask: How does Armstrong know this? How does she know that Exodus or Enuma Elish were “not intended to be taken literally”? Has she interviewed any ancient people and asked? Of course not – it’s merely assumed that there was some unknown “too complex and elusive” reality that these folks were trying to describe, because otherwise we’d have to deal with the idea that they believed these things were actually true, and that’s what leads to political incorrectness. No genre proofs, no interviews, just assumption based on Armstrong’s preconceived view of the world, and that she herself would never have written such a thing to be taken literally. At any rate, it is clear that Armstrong also assumes that if you don’t agree with this, you’re not grown up yet.
Recounting the salvation history of the Bible and the atonement, Armstrong complains, “there must have been an easier and more direct way to redeem mankind.” [309] If there was, Armstrong does not lay it out; like some recent skeptics we have dealt with, she merely looks at scenario A-1, says, “God could have done better” and leaves it at that. At the back of such objections lies a presumption, “I know better than God and could have done it better” – as if any person has the capacity to lay out a perfect alternate history and know there was a “better way.” Not even Harry Turtledove claims that kind of genius. It’s like the skeptics who say Abraham was a bad choice for God to make – really? So who do they know who was a better choice? Do they have a list of names from the 18th century BC along with full resumes and character references? Such objections assume to possess omniscience in the service of declaring that omniscience bungled the job.
The Trinity is a top subject for Armstrong. Though she knows about the Wisdom literature , she doesn’t see the application to the Trinity, which she assumes is the product of Nicaea, along with the divinity of Jesus. The Trinity, she says, “only makes sense as a mystical or spiritual experience” [117], which I suppose would be true of someone who’d rather not do the relevant homework. The Trinity makes sense to me in light of the Wisdom tradition, and I’d say if you want a mystical or spiritual experience of equal quality to what Armstrong proposes, get up and spin yourself in circles until dizzy. But if you want to understand the Trinity, read the relevant literature.
Political correctness extends only to certain persons: We are advised that Arius, the defender of the heretical view that Jesus was a created being and not eternal divinity, “passionately believed” what he taught, while Athanasius, who taught the eternal divinity of Christ, “managed to impose his theology” on others and was an unhappy camper. Armstrong’s favoritism is about as subtle as Dan Rather’s. Those who “passionately believe” what is wrong are just fine, because they have passion and that’s what counts. Don’t even think of condemning them!
We are told that it was only at the end of the 2nd century that Christianity gained any converts intelligent enough to articulate its views [91]. Apparently Armstrong has not read Wayne Meeks’ The First Urban Christians showing that Paul had more than the usual expected number of converts from the wealthy/literate Roman upper and middle class. She also doesn’t read about the Romans, who she says had not “inherited the Greek hostility to Jews.” Tell that to Tacitus, Celsus, and Lucian, and other Romans who referred to the Jews in derogatory terms. Armstrong’s sociology is rather dismal for an Oxford teacher.
The ancient pagans did not worship idols; the idols were “a focus that had helped people to concentrate on the transcendental element of human life.” [112] Yes, I am sure that’s what they had in mind when they sacrificed infants and had sex on the altars to explain to Baal that they needed some rain. Try that on your next date’s father and mother, teenagers!(Armstrong is only half right anyway: the idols were intended to be focal points for the gods depicted to come down and be present.)
Prophets who condemned false religion were doing so because they were full of insecurities, secretly knowing that their own god was as made up as that of others [50]. I hear a genetic fallacy in the room…
Using JEDP parsing as a basis (a theory which Armstrong admits has been seriously disputed, but which she uses anyway, because no one has come up with anything better — this is like saying we should use the garbage bag with only 8 gaping holes because we haven’t found any with less!), Armstrong divides up the OT, then argues on the basis that those who wrote one part would not agree with the other parts written by other people (as on the subject of God’s anthropomorphism – apparently it never occurs to Armstrong that close and distant terms of relationship are not mutually exclusive over time).
As needed, things like the denunciation of the Pharisees are declared “inauthentic” because they are offensive. (Never mind the ancient use of riposte .)
So, what more needs be said? Armstrong offers only another fortress of political correctness in the wasteland of postmodernity. I can see why certain people think her work the cat’s meow, but from the looks of it, all she has is more begged questions to offer
anything you say piccolobrain
