Slim: ...as an Agnostic Fundermentalist…

I don’t know and you don’t either, eh?

Corrections and Clarifications…
The recently defeated UK law was to stop incitement to religeous hatred, not to stop comments on religeon. The general aim was to give minorities who were mainly identified by their religeon the same rights as racial groups.  The example usually given was that of Jews, who are protected under racial laws, where as Muslims are not.  It is therefore differeent to say ‘Kill all Jews’, to ‘Kill all Muslims’.  The counter arguement was that courts apply the law, not the spirit of the law. Also incitement is already a crime (’Go out and kill...’).  Crimes committed for racial means in UK are however treated far more strictly, and have harsher penalties.  The difference with religeon is of course that is a choice (a nonsensical one, but still a choice).  Debating racial origin is on the other hand pointless (’You’re so right I shouldnt be black/white/asian/oriental etc, I will convert to ...’)

Also before claiming that Islam is a religeon of hate, does anybody actually know what the Koran actually says (I don’t).  Richard Dawkins (yes that one) recently said Jesus was okay, and he agreed with his message of peace.  This message does not square with the old testament message of ‘Kill All Non-Israelites’ that is a repeated message in many parts of the Old Testament.  Christianity still has it’s past of shame- Crusades, inquistions, forced conversions, the sizable minority of US Fundies who think that the Middle East should be forceably converted.

Islam just seems to be at the same stage Christianity was at the same age.

Christopher Hitchens says it very well:

Hitchens is wrong in his opening. This quote on Islamic tradition is from a current events article on Wikipedia.

The Qur’an, the Islamic holy book, does not explicitly prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry (verses 41 and 52). Direct prohibitions of pictorial art, or any depiction of sacred figures, are found in some hadith, or recorded oral traditions. Muslims differ as to which hadith are to be accepted and which disregarded.

Views regarding pictorial representation within the Muslim community have varied from group to group, and from time to time. Shi’a Muslims have been generally tolerant of pictorial representation of human figures, Sunni Muslims less so. However, the Sunni Ottomans, the last dynasty to claim the caliphate, were not only tolerant but even patrons of the miniaturists’ art. Many Ottoman miniatures depict Muhammad; they usually show Muhammad’s face covered with a veil or as a featureless void emanating light (depicted as flames). Pictorial surveys of Islamic religious art can be found on the internet. [Three links deleted] Note that the last site also contains some extremely and intentionally offensive modern depictions of Muhammad.

Most contemporary Muslims believe that ordinary portraits and photos, films and illustrations, are permissible. Only some Salafi and Islamist interpretations of Sunni Islam still condemn pictorial representations of any kind. Offensive satirical pictures are a somewhat different case — disrespect to Islam or to Muhammad is still widely considered blasphemous or sacrilegious.

This page from the Metropolitan Museum of art is one of several that shows representations of the human form. There is a long tradition of doing so.

***Dave nailed it.

LastHussar, you got in before me. I hope my link helps.

All MUslims are FUCKED UP PSYCHOTIC FREAKS.......the recent events which stemmed from the Danish cartoons have made me lose any shred of respect I had for these peoples. I dont think that they can even be called people. Normal sane people do not behave in such a way. All they know is violence and nothing else. They react to everything with violence. They have no concept of acting rationally and peacefully. They do not value human life… they use any opportunity to kill as many as they can. These people are so psychotic and crazy they will eventually succeed in destroying themselves… hopefully before they over populate the western world....

All MUslims are FUCKED UP PSYCHOTIC FREAKS.......

No they aren’t, I have a good friend who is muslim, she has never expressed an urge to go and kill anyone who doesn’t believe in islam. So there’s at least one who doesn’t fit your description.

I wasn’t going to reply to this comment, but it does highlight the dangerous attitude on both sides. Namely laying the blame for the actions of a few at the doorsteps of many, as with the above poster, and the muslim extremists who threatened to harm all europeans because the actions of a few.

All MUslims are FUCKED UP PSYCHOTIC FREAKS

As my American supervisor used to say
Extremists deserve each other. For those who have sutch posts, I say you are no different than those Muslims. Your governments are doing the revenge for you. Just don’t hurt your self over this.

MH, anytime you say; “All ‘X’ people are ‘Y’” you sound like an idiot.  I am concerned that many moderate Muslums fail to condemn violence, however.  Just as many Christians cheer the death of every Muslim.

We’ll never work this all out until the violence stops.  Stop the violence, everyone, and then we can talk.  You know, like grown-ups, instead of like chimpanzees with cruise missiles and IEDs.

LH asks; “before claiming that Islam is a religeon of hate, does anybody actually know what the Koran actually says (I don’t)”

It doesn’t really matter what the Koran says any more than it matters what the Bible says.  What matters is what the bulk of that religion’s followers do.  Religions seem to orbit around their source documents but are hardly defined by them.

I wonder how much the media is to blame for peoples reactions to this. It seems that they are so good at only portraying the negative reactions of the extremeists, they fail to report the whole story. As such, you never see those Muslisms who have protested the terrorists or the extremists reactions to said comics.

As another thought, I wonder what reaction we could expect from people like Fred Phelps, if the western media portrayed Jesus as a child molestor (in light of all the recent Priests and pastors who have been blamed for said acts). In reality, something like that would never even make it to a paper, satirical or not.

Please don’t take this as me being an appologist for the acts of those extremists who have taken this thing to far. As far as I can tell, the only thing they have reinforced is the depictions of Muslisms as terrorists.

If there are Muslims protesting acts of terrorism, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT!!!

However before anyone pops up with a claim of Western media bias, I have not seen any stories about such protests during my visits to Al Jazeera.

Mind you, I understand why any Muslim would be reluctant to protest Muslim violence - Muslims don’t seem to mind killing Muslims.  But only Muslims can ultimately put a stop to this and redeem their faith from a dead-end existence as a haven of violence and ignorance.

The sheer number of people involved in this insanity—we’re talking in the tens of thousands—makes it difficult for me to continue to believe the claim that “most Muslims are not extremists” that we’ve heard time and again since 9/11. The so called “moderate Muslim majority” has been awfully quiet about this nonsense and if all they’re going to do is stand around whistling when the extremists go psychotic then they’ve got no one else to blame but themselves for the image problem their religion has around the world.

If they really give a shit about how they’re being perceived they’d be doing their best to put an end to this. As it stands the LEAST they could do is speak up about it.

Muslim_Hater, you reminded me that nutjobs don’t just live in Texas.

There are some parallels that can be drawn between the large crowds of Muslims calling for the destruction of Denmark and Germans calling for the expulsion of Jews prior to WW2.  Pack mentality is a damn dangerous thing.  In the hands of skilled orators, a crowd of fairly regular people can turn into a bloodthirsty mob.

What I find especially ridiculous is that the angry muslims are bombing the Danish embassy, as if the Danish government had anything to do with the publishing of the cartoon.  Not recognising the difference between a governement and a newspaper is just ignorant, and this just adds to my theory that someone is rousing up these masses of pissed off muslims.

A couple of good articles on truthdig.com today:

Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam with links to verses from the Koran like this gem:

“Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . . [I]f they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil-doers"(2:190–93).

And then there’s this article, which speaks to the notion that these “protesters” have been purposely riled up:

Cartoon Protests Stoked by Dictators

Yep, with a moniker like Muslim Hater, you’ve guaranteed yourself the right to be taken seriously and be respected.

STUPID EVIL BASTARDS ARE YOUR MASTERS THAT YOU ARE SCARED-SHIT TO CRITISIZE, THE ONE sCREWING YOUR COUNTRY, THE ONE TERRORIZING ALL OF YOU.
DID YOU GUESS WHO IS IT YET

ZIONAZIS YOUR MASTERS

BY NOT STOPPING THEM YOU NOT ONLY HARMMING YOUR COUNTRY BUT ALSO THE REST OF THE WORLD

HIS ULTIMATE GOAL

GOY KILL GOY, THE MORE THE BETTER

ITS ALL IN EVIL-TALMUD

Oh boy, an incoherent anti-Semite. And here I was thinking that this topic was pretty much cached, comment-wise…

Looks like someone managed to wriggle free of his straight jacket and got on the computer at the Nurse’s station. That or he typed it all in using his nose. Would explain a lot.

OB quoted verse from quran
Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . . [I]f they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil-doers"(2:190–93).

this verse is specifcly about the lords of mecca killin Mohammad followers, and driving him and the remaining followers out of their houses, and out of mecca. It is not general.

As far as I’m concerned, a simple benchmark applies. If some religion claims to be a religion of peace and love, reasonable doubt is justified.

Elohim,
Mate, when did you last read TALMUD?
“Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.�? Talmud.

I’m constantly amused by people who still point a finger at the Jew and blame him for the world’s ills, past and present.
Are anti-Semites Evil or (how can I put this without causing offence? Fuck it!) sTOOPID!?
Anyone would think there are as many Jews as Chinese on the planet.
I am even more amused when they point the finger and say that the Jew controls all the world’s finance and media.
Rupert Murdoch and a number of other CEOs would be highly amused.

Over 100 years ago Mark Twain wrote:
If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmity of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Sure, a bit of stuff has happened to the Jew in the 107 years since Mark’s observation (like 6 million PLUS murdered by Psychopaths because of their religion and perceived financial control; they were an easy mark weren‘t they … all trusting and such?) but … the Jew survives.
And No, I’m not one, but Mum went to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for nearly three years for helping Dutch Jewish children to safety - away from ‘Xians’, still, baying for their blood and looking for someone to blame for the Treaty of Versailles‘ consequences.
Ravensbruck? 160k women and girls went in. 30k skeletons came out.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship… voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists [or any other minority*] for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.�? Hermann Goering, from a conversation with psychologist Gustave Gilbert while jailed at Nuremberg on the evening of 18 April 1946, documented in Gilbert’s book Nuremberg Diary.” * My addition.

“By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell—and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.�? Adolph Hitler

“What luck for rulers that men do not think.�? Adolph Hitler (1889>1945)

Fundies, be they Xian, Moslem, Hindu, Nazis/White Supremists, or et al, scare me a bit.
They believe their truth surpasses all other truths and like the Xians of old, say: Follow our way or we’ll kill you - we may still kill you if you do follow our way, but, at least you’ll be ‘saved‘.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita: I care not which path man takes for all roads lead to me.
That’s a simple ‘truth’ I can live with.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.�? Buddha (563>483BCE)

But Elohim, I ain’t gonna change your mind, am I?

Searching for truth/wisdom means giving up some certainties.
This takes courage. You’re lacking, son.

(Shit now I gotta post this - suck it in Johnny-boy - commit)

Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita: I care not which path man takes for all roads lead to me.

Interesting that you mention that, John. When I was eighteen I briefly considered becoming a Hari Krishna (my parents were thrilled ). What finally drove me away from it was the very aspect that has consistently forestalled me from becoming a strongly religious person--too many damn rules. Nowadays I consider myself leaning towards Wiccan/Pagan beliefs, even though I am hardly devout in any sense. I’ve always found polytheistic and Eastern religions far more fascinating than the monotheistic Western religions, particularly Christianity.

luckyjohn19

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away

The Jew saw them all, beat them all

Not realy Mark Twain, I disagree

if you consider the jews as race, then the romans,the Egyptions, the Babylonian, and the Persian are as a diluted race today as the jews. If you think of the jews as civilization, jewsh kingdoms also fell like the ones you mentioned.If you consider jews a religion, most of the old religions still exist as new as judism. I dont see how the jews beat them all.

No they aren’t, I have a good friend who is muslim, she has never expressed an urge to go and kill anyone who doesn’t believe in islam. So there’s at least one who doesn’t fit your description.

I have some ex-Muslim friends who have never mentioned any hatred or violence. I have found that the only Muslims who ARE violent are the ones who are actually devoted to the faith. My friends weren’t violent or hateful, but they also didn’t know what they believed (as a Muslim).

Alphamale: if you consider the Jews as race, then the Romans, the Egyptians, the Babylonian, and the Persian are as a diluted race today as the Jews. If you think of the Jews as civilization, Jewish kingdoms also fell like the ones you mentioned. If you consider Jews a religion, most of the old religions still exist as new as Judaism. I don’t see how the Jews beat them all.

All the others you mentioned had/have a land, country or base - the Jews survived despite not having same ... the xian (and Muslim) plan was that they not survive - the Jews beat them all. 

  This looks like it is a pretty good blog. My kind of blog. Death to Islam..cool idiots die,Christians die stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bo-ZRb1Edg If any one thinks Islam is a peace full Religion go this link and tell me its peace.