Evil Muslim conspiracy...

Here's your resounding silence.

But this has nothing to do with Copts. It was written about a specific group of people who had waged war on Muslims qua Muslims: ... and drove them out of Mecca and prevented them from worshiping at the Kaaba: ... and so the Qur'an says to fight them until they stop persecuting Muslims: The Copts are not at war with Muslims, they are not persecuting them, and they are not preventing them from going to Mecca as and when they choose.Now it is true that a sufficiently mad mullah might take 8:38-39 out of context as a "proof text" for why Muslims should kill the Copts; but he would be wrong. He would have to ignore the context of those passages; he would have to ignore the passages in the Qur'an urging that Christians be treated with respect (showing that the passages about the "unbelievers" in Sura 8 do not apply to them); and he would have to ignore the historical fact that Muhammad did not in fact kill or forcibly convert the Christians within his dominions, but only waged war against those Arab polytheists who were using force to persecute his new religion (i.e. the people to whom Sura 8 applies).

Yes, but it's not a command about all non-Muslims. As can be seen by the fact that Muhammad did not in fact wage war against the Christians in Arabia until they all died or converted. Yes, we all remember that war the Muslims started recently over the mythical stockpiling of mythical weapons ... oh, wait, that was someone else.Yes, if people believe that they have the right to self-defense, then they will defend themselves against threats that they only imagine to exist. There's nothing particularly Islamic about this, is there? Not unless Bush is one of those "stealth Muslims" we hear so much about nowadays.

There's nothing there that says you must start a holy war in circumstances in which it would be more reasonable to call the police, and in fact you will note that Muslims do not do so.Muhammad was in a particular situation. The conservative polytheists were trying to wipe out Islam with the sword. Phoning the police wasn't an option. Nor was fleeing the area and hiding --- he was doing that already.Note also that this is an ultimatum --- he's warning the polytheists what they will do if they can't manage peaceful co-existence, which is what he evidently wanted. And this after the heigra and after hostilities had been ongoing for some time. It's not a first response, it's a threat of a last resort.

You seemed to be try to make a case for why, in theory, it shouldn't be a religion of peace. In practice, some Muslims blow people up, but most of them don't; and the Muslims protecting the Copts are sweet, and the Muslims who they're protecting them from aren't.

Christianity has a remarkably poor track record in that respect.Buddhism, perhaps. I seem to recall that there was one Chinese emperor who persecuted non-Buddhists, but perhaps he hadn't got the hang of it. It seems clear enough from the whole text (Sura 9).No-one supposes that Christians or Jews want to kill everyone just because the OT says: "Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass". Then I would say that "the masses" are not, by and large, blowing people up.

Quite so; and I'm sure the bits in the Qur'an about chopping people's hands off led to people having their hands chopped off.I'm not so sure that Sura 8 led to anything more than what it actually says, i.e. the issuing and, eventually, the carrying out of the ultimatum to the polytheists.

"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace." --- George W. Bush, September 2001---Is there anything to conservatism any more except a habit of lying about "liberals"? It sometimes seems as though the actual ideology, such as it was, has evaporated, leaving only the hatred and propaganda as a sort of grimy residue.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Which part of the phrase: "It sometimes seems as though ..." was a generalization?

So what he said was wrong ... but at least he was deliberately lying? I still don't see what this has to do with liberals; but surely the more Muslims believe that Islam is "a religion of peace", the better. If only, for example, Osama Bin Laden had been convinced of that point of view, New York would have more skyscrapers and fewer dead people.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Could you give an example? So far, you have only cited a case in which I am very obviously not making a generalization at any particular speed.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Apparently the Prophet would approve ..."He who makes peace between people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a liar." - Muhammad, Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Hadith 857.Maybe Bush is one of those Stealth Muslims. "God does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither fought against your faith nor driven you out of your homes. In fact God loves the equitable." Quran 60:8"Repel (evil) with what is better. Then will he, between whom and thee was hatred, become as it were thy friend and intimate. And no one will be granted such goodness except those who exercise patience and self-restraint." Quran 41:34-35"Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord, and for a Garden (paradise) whose width is that of the heavens and of the earth, prepared for the righteous - Those who spend (freely), whether in prosperity or in adversity, who restrain (their) anger and pardon (all) men - for God loves those who do good." Quran 3:133-134"The (true) servants of (God) the Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, reply with (words of) peace." Quran, 25:63"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors." Quran 2:190"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them." Deuteronomy 20:10-17 ... or the Bible.Basically the Abrahamic religions were all a bad idea. However, I'd take the Quran over the OT if I had to choose; because self-defense is often justifiable and genocidal aggression isn't.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If post #110 was on topic, then my post replying to it was neither off-topic nor contrary; if it wasn't, then my post replying to it was off-topic but was still not contrary --- since I did not disagree with you, but just asked for examples of what you were talking about.

Well, that made little sense.I maintain that on this side of the looking glass it is not a generalization, hasty or otherwise, to say that something is (or seems to be) sometimes true.If, for example, I say that some cars are red, this is not a hasty generalization, even if I have just seen a red car.

And if one day I see a hundred cars go by and all of them are red, then that is one of those times that it seems as though all cars are red.Quite probably there are, somewhere, some conservatives who have an ideology which they could advocate in positive terms; but lately they appear to have been shouted down by conservatives whose only method of recommending themselves to me is by badmouthing liberals and promising to defend me from Stealth Muslim Marxist Death Panels who want to Take My Guns Away so that The Terrorists Will Win.