The US diplomatic missions attacked in Egypt and Libya

[KatDaddy]

Re: The US diplomatic missions attacked in Egypt and Libya

@chaibiskut

This is your bottom-line. Now we’re talking.

That you think the Crusades/Inquisitions were fought in ‘self-defense’ is a subjective view. If I humor you, what’s the difference between ‘large scale invasion’ in the name of religion, and suppressing and persecuting populations in the name of religion? How does that make a European any less religiously violent than a Moor? I’m surprised you’re making such an obviously nonsensical argument. In any case, blaming Islam for the ME riots is facile. You were making more sense when you talked about religion being usurped by politics.

If you’re claiming that the Quran encourages violence while the Bible and Torah does not, you are being blatantly disingenuous. Either you condemn them collectively, or adopt the more critical view that Abrahamic scriptures tell stories of both war and peace, bloodshed and tolerance. Scholars from all 3 traditions analyze and understand them in a larger contextual framework. The same texts can be manipulated to make the case for both violence and peace. I would take you more seriously if you argued monotheism, by its very non-inclusivity and claims to superiority, fosters intolerance and violence. Instead, it is telling that you single out Muslims and insist, in defiance of history, that they are uniquely inspired by their scriptures to commit violence while Christians and Jews act ‘defensively’ and converted people with sing-song. Even Christian apologists don’t claim this. Do I have to quote from the Old and New Testaments, the Torah, to show you that we all come from the same source? Christians are quick to disown the Old Testament, which they attribute to the Judaic tradition. (When in doubt, blame it on the Jews). They emphasize Jesus’ Last Sermon and his famous ‘turn the other cheek’ to the exclusion of controversial statements like ‘I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword.’ Muslims, to their credit, have stuck with one text and own all of it - the good, the ugly, and the misunderstood. We don’t pretend the last Prophet was a tree-hugging hippie. We don’t recognize any of the Messengers to be unconditional pacifists. We recognize the Quran as a text that was revealed over a period of 23 years, a compilation of events and recommendations, some historically contingent, some normative. That Islam currently faces a crisis of scholarship with Salafism being funded and propagated is another matter.

Anyhow, why not just assert that Islam is a violent religion from the get-go. Why put up a pretense about respecting the Prophet’s teachings. That’s unnecessary. Don’t fear the moderators, you shouldn’t have to apologize for your beliefs. However I’m not very skilled at debating with racists. Condemning scripture is one thing, but questioning the genetic and cultural makeup of Arabs is a whole other level of right-wing crazy. Generalizing about 400 million people living in 22 countries isn’t something educated people like yourself do. To that end, Arabs and Jews are cousins, and it’s not a coincidence both are uncouth and hairy. Look, I made a funny.

You’ll agree this is a waste of time, and it’s derailing this thread. Start one in R&S and we can discuss how the children of Abraham are inherently savage to your heart’s content.

ps. I’d be surprised if you had any Arab or Muslim friends. Mingling with cultures other than your own is an antidote to disdain and ignorance, which is really just thinly disguised fear. Try it sometime.

This is my last post on this topic, as you said it could be wast of time. Just want to clarify my points.

I have to give you credit for getting to core of my predicament. I did not want to start another flaming conversation, hence used race instead of religion. Same way, it sounded like I am saying violent suppression is better than wars. What I meant was, from the beginning of time one class/group always used violence as a tool to rule the other. In the beginning it was simple, we need the “furs” you have or we want your cattle etc. As human race developed they become more sophisticated, started finding other reason, but the aim the same, your wealth.

Stories of wars and violence as part of the religious literature is one thing, spreading an entire religion with invasion is another. It becomes the doctrine of the religion. In The stories of Bible again does not mention violence as part of religion, the war or violence mentioned in Bible are mere record of history, in fact record of history before Jesus. Christianity did not rule vast part of the land in matter of 200 years. Again initially the religion spread as with apostles. I am not saying Christianity is better. In fact, as I mentioned before Prophet has given a very rational thinking guide to lead people to a way of life which was very much in need at that time in that area.

The issue is the way it spread. It was the first religion that spread by war. The spread of communism in eastern Europe is the closest thing I can compare the spread of Islam to. A group that strongly believed in an ideology and swept the rest of the world with war. Religion thus became nationalism. (I sometimes wonder why three of the first four Khalifas were assassinated?) Today every country where Muslims are minority (even < 5%) have groups of Muslims holding grudge against the government in the name of religion. They want to put religion above nationalism. It offends the rest of world. In fact most countries have recent memory of sacrifices they made to achieve the nationhood they have; imagine how would they feel. Imagine how would memorial to your war heroes desecrated by a religious groups because, people of that religious group are being killed elsewhere .

You are a sophisticated thinker and prolific writer; I know you understand by argument here. Use of violence to spread religion was started by one religion and to large part it is still using violence to fight the perceived threat.

BTW, I have Christian and Muslim and Arab friends. My Arab friend is a mentor to me and helped me very much; but he is not a Muslim though. One of my best friend a moderate Pakistani women, she would never discuss these things. I grew up with Muslims at school and at home. In fact, I could never discuss with any of my Muslim friends in detail about religion. I am a history and human geography buff.