Islamic antics going too far: a look into our reaction to their reaction

[milnie]

but we all have to remember that a few hundred years ago it was us (not the americans as they didn't exist yet ) who were the terrorists, running around enforcing our god on the heathens and killing anyone who didnt believe, ... , or just looked funny. what goes around comes around dudes. welcome to the other side of extremism. sucks, dont it?

[Boston Rockbury]

and we're still doing a bunch of shit right now. Every time we eat factory farmed meat or buy some cheap 'made in China' crap produced by some dude who is over-worked, under-paid and exposed to industrial contaminants. We live mad, immoral lives but we are so close to it we don't see it.

[milnie]

its a classic strategy mate - the subserviant invasion. the developed nations become so dependant on developing nations, the developing nations actually become bigger and more powerful and the master/servant role switches.
give it another 50 years dudes, if the world isn't baked or in a nuclear winter, we'll all be speaking chinese.

[BikerDude]

with Salman Rushtie and then the danish Cartoon and then this latest nonsense I'm semi wondering if it might not be sort of good to take the George Carlin "dirty words" approach. Maybe the world should join in producing an absolute shit storm of movies and cartoons and every other sort of thing making fun of Mohammed.
Maybe an absolute tsunami of this from every corner of the planet would simply render the entire point moot. I mean they would be running around in circles tryna stomp out little fires.
Eventually they'd just have to shut up about it. And what are they gonna do be more pissed?
Is that even possible?

We'd just have to decide whether to call it a 'war on Islam' or a 'crusade'. Both sound pretty good - maybe we should get some advice from George Bush.

If we're trying to stamp out ideologies that lead to death and destruction let's not forget what a great job American political ideology did in Iraq.
That was a real fucking winner.

What?
How in the hell does anything that you quoted suggest either a war on Islam or a crusade?

If people talk about speaking out against Islam in spite of the typical political correctness of not criticizing any religion no matter how loathsome I just don't see how that can be compared to the war in Iraq. I'm having a tough time following.

[BikerDude]

But who are the real 'madmen'? Western consumerist societies are the worst offenders of climate change and that will do infinately more damage to humankind than a few nutters burning down the odd cinema. WE are mad. It's just more comfortable to point the finger somewhere else.

Some things we do are bad and certainly religious fundamentalism is.
Criticizing one does not indicate acceptance of the other.
It's not 2 sides one with white hat and one with black hats.
There are plenty of things to criticize western societies and Christianity but that's not what this topic is about.
Are you suggesting that it's all the fault of US policies?
Our history of misdeeds in the mideast is to blame and the religion that prescribes Jihad and terrorism is actually incidental?

[BikerDude]

and we're still doing a bunch of shit right now. Every time we eat factory farmed meat or buy some cheap 'made in China' crap produced by some dude who is over-worked, under-paid and exposed to industrial contaminants. We live mad, immoral lives but we are so close to it we don't see it.

That's all true.

[BikerDude]

I suggest that nobody lose site of what the issue is.
It is spelled out pretty comprehensively in Osama Bin Laden's letter to America in his own words.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
He lists a bunch of grievance first some that have merit and some that really do amount to "hating our freedoms".  But in the end any of his grievances are all irrelevant.
Once he reaches the part about what he requires from us the first item is that we become Islamic.
His version of Islam is 100% literal. It requires acceptance of Islam period.

What we have is a clash of the 2 most vile and intolerant religions in the world.
And both sides have drawn a line in the sand. More specifically the religions draw a line in the sand.
Both require people to follow them to the exclusion of all others.
When he talks about the the "Zionist Crusaders" in the mid east he has a point.
But it is a fact that Islam is a vile and horrible monstrosity that is simply the most repressive and evil thing that anybody could imagine. So for him to point out all of the myriad of sins of the west in the end is irreverent. It's their way or the highway. I am talking about the 100% literal reading of Islam.
My sentiments about Christianity are not much better.
Most of the most vile things that are done in it's name are not spelled out in a fatwa but they are real.
There's a reason why the nickname for the CIA is "Christians in Action".
All you have to do is look at Blackwater (XA) and a lot of the stuff that has been done by big corporations and guess what, it's all tied up in this weird apocalyptic lunacy.
The left behind series of books sells millions here. If a mushroom cloud appeared above Baghdad there is no doubt that there are a lot of Christians that would happy about it.
Christianity has nearly transformed to an apocalyptic cult of people cheering for the end times.
It's absolutely sick.

The enemy is religion.
It's all insane.
But that's just my opinion.

[Boston Rockbury]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

[BikerDude]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

So then we should accept Nazi's?
I just don't buy that religion should get different treatment.

And actually I find this confusing. Several post ago I see.....

But who are the real 'madmen'? Western consumerist societies are the worst offenders of climate change and that will do infinately more damage to humankind than a few nutters burning down the odd cinema. WE are mad. It's just more comfortable to point the finger somewhere else.

But when it comes to criticizing religion I should avoid emnity?
Isn't this another case of "Special Pleading" for religion. That it should be treated with different rules?

Here's another interesting article on the same site as linked in the original post.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-and-the-future-of-liberalism

and
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/september-11-2011

[Hominid]

But who are the real 'madmen'? Western consumerist societies are the worst offenders of climate change and that will do infinately more damage to humankind than a few nutters burning down the odd cinema. WE are mad. It's just more comfortable to point the finger somewhere else.

You've built up a false dichotomy; it's not a case of one or the other being more right based on their contribution to global warming. The extent of a society's morality and integrity are just various shades of grey when compared to other societies... The fact that we contribute to global warming has not one shred of continuity with the Islam problem, so let's stick to the issue: Burning down cinemas, and murdering people because one's religious sensibilities are offended is just plain wrong. Period. No excuses. It's whacked...

[Hominid]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

Oh, so we should white-wash the fatwas, minimizing them to something inconsequential for the sake of having a mental spa? These whacky Muslims don't need to be handled with kid gloves.  I'm not saying return evil with evil, but they're like any child that needs discipline when having a tantrum...   

[Boston Rockbury]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

Oh, so we should white-wash the fatwas, minimizing them to something inconsequential for the sake of having a mental spa? These whacky Muslims don't need to be handled with kid gloves.  I'm not saying return evil with evil, but they're like any child that needs discipline when having a tantrum...   

Put the piece away dude. You claim to have converted to atheism but you still sound like a Polish Catholic. We don't need to "discipline" children we just need to love them and teach them and if that teaching involves natural consequences it should still be done with love.

[Hominid]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

Oh, so we should white-wash the fatwas, minimizing them to something inconsequential for the sake of having a mental spa? These whacky Muslims don't need to be handled with kid gloves.  I'm not saying return evil with evil, but they're like any child that needs discipline when having a tantrum...   

Put the piece away dude. You claim to have converted to atheism but you still sound like a Polish Catholic. We don't need to "discipline" children we just need to love them and teach them and if that teaching involves natural consequences it should still be done with love.

The natural consequences of the last 1500 years has done nothing to stop the idiocy... Your "Doctor Spock" child psychology will do nothing but allow them continued licence to be the assholes that they are.

[Boston Rockbury]

As soon as you have an 'enemy' you have a big problem. Better to use all of one's mental powers to re-frame one's relationship with religion in a way that avoids enmity.

Oh, so we should white-wash the fatwas, minimizing them to something inconsequential for the sake of having a mental spa? These whacky Muslims don't need to be handled with kid gloves.  I'm not saying return evil with evil, but they're like any child that needs discipline when having a tantrum...   

Put the piece away dude. You claim to have converted to atheism but you still sound like a Polish Catholic. We don't need to "discipline" children we just need to love them and teach them and if that teaching involves natural consequences it should still be done with love.

The natural consequences of the last 1500 years has done nothing to stop the idiocy... Your "Doctor Spock" child psychology will do nothing but allow them continued licence to be the assholes that they are.

That's just the question though dude. Are they really "assholes"? If it wasn't for arabs we wouldn't have most of mathematics, a lot of modern medicine and DB's favorite web-site hottiesinhijabs.com (don't pretend you never looked dude).

It's Dr Baer by the way, not Dr Spock.

Honestly mate if any of my muslim friends ever looked at this site they'd think is was a KKK convention.

[Hominid]

It *is* Dr. Spock, and the dudes burning down cinemas and murdering people over a Youtube video are indeed assholes. Can't argue over that point dude...