Banandangees

Feb 7 2006, 02:10 PM

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.............................................................................................................................................................................In short, banan, your premise is not grounded in reality.

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Cornelius

Feb 7 2006, 02:56 PM

cmoehle

Feb 7 2006, 06:52 PM

I remember right after 9/11 a TV scene depicting a huge group of Muslim women and children dancing in the street. My God! How dare they. --But the follow up on that was it was a dozen people asked to dance for candy bars or some such shot close up by cameras so an anti-Muslim press could shove it in your face.

Maybe on that occasion but even here in the Netherlands, a group of Muslims were out in the street dancing and not for candy bars, just out of sheer joy about what happened at 9/11.

I’m also having a belly full about it’s only a few”. These few don’t stand a chance without the support of the rest.
And Justine is right; hatred seems to be part of the curriculum in the Muslim world.

Dan is right to; we should just get out of their faces and leave them to it.
Shut down all embassies’s there and close down theirs.
Last week I was pleased that my government was sending an additional 1400 troops to help the Afghan people. After the events of the last few days I’m not so sure.

cmoehle

Feb 7 2006, 06:12 PM

Banandangees,Feb 7 2006

02:10 PM

Like I said.

So what is it. You see me commenting on Christianity and you just have to find some way to make me see how you feel? At one time you would come up with bogus arguments about Catholics because you thought I was Catholic. Then bogus arguments about, what was it the other day, agnostics. Now bogus arguments about secularists. What will you make up next?

The clickable smilies that I put in. It makes reference to how many times you take someones simple comments and somehow put a complex spin on their meaning like you did above, not to unlike the "early church fathers did Christianity. Take someting and make it mean something else.

You comment on Christianity, I comment on secularism. Same difference.

I make no bogus arguments about Catholics. That's your bogus argument. If your talking about the "Early Church Fathers" that you have referred to many times in past "religious threads," I'm writing about the early church fathers of the Early Roman Christian Church, not today's Catholic church. I don't know what your are (believe) about religion nor am I overly concerned about it. If I rebute your "Christian" comments, it's only a form of peaceful demonstration. I won't burn your embasy down or do any of "your people" harm.
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" Banan "It's like our ghettos except their nations are somewhat totally ghettos in themselves. "

Whoa! That speaks mountains. What is it, fear?"

actually, my quote was "[/i]except their nations are somewhat totally ghettos in themselves.[/i]"

Not sure what you mean. Do I fear ghettoes? Do I fear Muslims?

The statement was a comparison of the culture and way of life many in Muslim nations find themselves compared to those in the western world. Most in our gettoes live better lives than a good many in some Muslim nations. Thus, conditions and governments (rulers) that eliminate any hope, freedom (especially women), opportunity for their people. Apparently you see it another way. That's fine too.

No, not fear. Just an observation.

bikemanb

Feb 5 2006, 03:10 PM

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it would appear that intolerance is acceptable as long as your in the majority

Remember Tom, it was once this way in our country and the "West" in general.

Short of a Gandhi type leader arising and surviving (bad odds) and changing the face of what passes for Islam today, there most likely will be a World War between Islam and the rest of the world within the next ten years. It really won’t be a war of religions or cultures though it will appear as such, it will be the focusing outwards of the hate and discontent for their failure as nations and a culture by their corrupt leaders thus preserving their own power.

One of the reasons Gulf War II was such a bad idea is that it is further radicalizing the Muslim population and moving the date forward. It is often been said that the Arab “Street” only respects strength but the level of brutality that we would have to exert to instill the necessary fear we as a nation have never had the stomach for.

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Does the so-called "cartoon war" represent the clash of civilizations?
 
I wish I could answer "yes," but I can't.

In order for there to be a clash of civilizations, it is necessary for there to be two civilizations, both of which are prepared to defend their deepest cultural values. Those in the Islamic world who are violently protesting the Danish cartoons clearly represent a civilization that is keen on maintaining its own deeply held traditions and convictions, as the Muslim rioters are prepared to do, even to the point of bloodshed. The Danish cartoons are an affront to their own religion and culture, and it is pointless for those in the West to wish that Muslims could learn to be less fanatic in their approach to their faith: What we call fanaticism is an essential element of their faith, and it is one of the reasons that Islam is still a living religion in a world where so many others are moribund.

But, again, to have a clash of civilizations, it is not enough simply to have one civilization that is prepared to fight tooth and nail to defend its own ethos; there must, in addition, be another civilization that is also prepared to defend, with the same depth of conviction, its own ethical principles. The evidence, unfortunately, is that the West is not even remotely interested in mounting a defense of its values in the face of Muslim fanaticism. Worse, there are signs that the West is even prepared to sacrifice some of its core values in order to appease those who have always despised these values — values such as the freedom of individual expression and the right of every man to hold views that others find offensive and even downright blasphemous.

Consider the reaction of the Danish government to the cartoon wars. Instead of taking a heroic stand and telling the Muslim world that in Denmark freedom of expression is every bit as sacred to them as Mohammed is to the Muslims, the Danish government has announced "that Danish courts will determine whether the newspaper [that] originally published the cartoons...is guilty of blasphemy."

Not so very long ago, the notion that a liberal Western nation, at the beginning of the 21st century, could threaten a newspaper on the charge of blasphemy would have seemed utterly ridiculous. It would have appeared unthinkable that any Western government would even consider using "the crime of blasphemy" as a method for censoring the freedom of expression that the West has struggled so ferociously to achieve. Indeed, every liberal Western nation would have immediately condemned the restitution of the charge of blasphemy as a throw back to a long superceded stage in the development of human freedom. Yet where in the West do you find any government attacking the Danes for having reintroduced a crime that the West ceased to take seriously since the age of the Enlightenment? If those who are trying to appease radical Muslims are prepared to bring back the Inquisition, all in the name of Islam, then where is the so-called clash between the Islam and the West?

The behavior of the Danish government does not suggest that we are in the midst of a clash of civilizations, but, rather, that we are watching a civilization that has lost its sense of purpose capitulating before a civilization that continues to believe, and to believe fanatically, in its own mission. A civilization that no longer believes in itself, and in its values and traditions, is no longer in a position to defend itself from the onslaught of a civilization that does. It is only in a position to appease.

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“A free discussion of Islam remains rare and dangerous, certainly in the Islamic world, and even in our politically correct times in the West… Apostasy is still punishable by long prison sentences and even death in many Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Iran…”

    “You cannot liberalize Islam without criticizing the Prophet and the Koran…You cannot redecorate a house without entering inside.”

tomdrobin

Feb 7 2006, 10:01 PM

I think the attempt to say the fundamentalism of the Christian right in this country is similar to Islamic fundamentalism in the middle east and elswhere is flawed.  Not a fair comparison at all.  One attempts to exhert influence through political means and the other attempts to do so by terrorist tactics and threat of violence.  Not just by a few lunatics, but by large numbers of believers.  I do think the current radical Islamic fundamentalism is similar to the medievel christian period (ie; the Holy Roman Empire).  But, Christiandom is far beyond that period, and will never return to it IMO.

cmoehle

Feb 8 2006, 03:13 AM

But what is the fundamental difference between religious fundamentalism in the East and in the West? The religion, hardly. The East is generally ruled by illiberal tyrants that trample rights, the West by its people in liberal democracies and republics that protect our rights.

cmoehle

Feb 8 2006, 03:38 AM

I'm trying to figure which countries those are? Afgahnistan has known democracy for a brief time, iraq less, Palestine (not a nation) weeks. Iran allows people to vote but controls who can run. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria are monarchies. Pakistan a military dictatorship. What am I missing?