Terrorism in London

My point stands: modern democracy evolved in the christian world, not elsewhere, adn that is not coincidental. That early Christians ignored the nascent democracy of rome and greece does not contradict that fact. Nor does it contradict my point that the faith is not unamenable to demcoracy, unlike Islam.

The "defensive" interpretation is one disengenously used by some these days. In the earlier passages, Mohammed speaks of defensive postures. But when he had power and armies, that was entirely changed. no one can read the passages I presented, or those that faith presented, and objectively and rationally say otherwise. Similarly, many quote the passage: There is no compulsion in religion." It too was written in the earlier time of the faith, but was superceded later on. In fact, islam has the concept of 'abrogation,' which states that where there is a conflict between passages, the later ones abrogate the earlier ones. There are infinitely more passages that state, flat out, that Jiahd is a war to defeat all the non islamic world for islam, than for the very few that suggest otherwise. Guess which ones were abrigated?Ugly? Yes. Also the truth.You're welcome to be in denial, perhaps motivated by good will, and perhaps motivated by relativist culture, but the truth remains: Listen to what the islamists say; they cannot be clearer.

I do not know which event in particular you are thinking of, but if we take the Conquest of Canaan as an example then it is more than just one ‘whole people’ that are involved. Also, this event lasted 5 years (some commentators say 7), so it was quite a long reign of terror that the Israelites embarked on. This is surprising when we consider that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving people, and most have openly condemned the terrorist acts that we have seen lately.It also makes me wonder why Islam hasn’t taken over the world yet, giving that they have had 1300 years in which to make their moves. Oh I dunno, it is one possibility that explains why a 30 year old Rabbi wasn’t married, that’s if he wasn’t married. I would add that it is an even bigger stretch to argue that Jesus was a god. But we are both projecting our modern day western views on to an ancient society, we both find it abhorrent but it was not at all unusual 1300 years ago. Well, the Old Testament is pretty clear on the rules of owning slaves as well, and it gives explicit instructions on how to treat them, and since the Old testament is the word of God and Jesus is supposed to be God then Jesus promoted slavery. Well, I happen to think that the Qur’an is essentially a rewriting of the Bible by a guy who obviously had come into contact with Jews and Christians during his early days. I view the Qur’an as nothing more than Muhammad’s imagination running wild mixed in with a dose of wishful thinking. But I can still appreciate that it is an historical texts that reflects a lot of the background in which it was written, many of its contents appear barbaric to us but we have to remember that much of the Old Testament contains equally horrific acts. In short, all holy books can be used to justify anything you want, even the peace loving Buddhists have had their militant groups. I would prefer to approach a subject from as objective a stance as possible until I have as much information as I need before making any conclusions, I think we are all guilty sometimes of making uninformed conclusions. A great deal of Islamic teachings are also a force for peace, and on balance the peaceful Muslims way outnumber the terrorist ones. As has been said before, who is to say that these terrorists are actually Muslims when their actions contradict much of the Qur’an?Was Torquemada a Christian? Again though, this may well be a cultural thing, it took Europe quite a long time to go down the democracy road, so who knows what the future holds?Brian.

You were trying to keep this friendly? Which part was that? Where you accuse me of fabricating facts, or changing my position and misrepresenting yours?I guess I could be wrong about the moving goal posts thing. It could be that you simply built an elaborate strawman and despite my repeated clarifications of what my position was, decided to argue in such a way that I defeat your strawman or (you suggest) I am wrong.To be clear I was trying to keep things friendly, but then your attempts to dodge argument, accuse me of fabrication, and then misrepresent what I was saying have not left me in a good mood.Let me untwist your pretzel logic so you can perhaps see what is making me a bit surly... Above you say that you were "characterizing" my position and not your own, but that is in direct contrast to the documented facts. In post 181 you wrote the following: Thus the above says that according to you, IF Blair's decision to go to war... EVEN AS A RETROACTIVE DECISION... was to prevent terrorists from operating in Britain then he failed a long time ago. To that I replied "Thank you for supporting my position". For some reason, you responded to my agreement with your position by saying in post 195: That is a complete change in your position. You were obviously trying to turn the phrasing so that it looks like I think saying such things is silly, when in fact I had just been agreeing with your own position. The evidence is clear. You were not characterizing my position at all, you were deliberately mischaracterizing my position. Please do not do this again.Now on to the actual topic of the subthread...Nowhere did I ever say that Blair explicitly guaranteed that Iraq would prevent 100% of the attacks on Britain by diverting AQ resources. I have repeatedly made that clear to you, yet you keep insisting (at this point) that that is what I have to show to prove my position correct. So you are either moving the goal posts, or you are using a strawman.I will try once to get the specifics clear with you. If you insist on demanding I am saying something else, or must show something else, then you will only have proven my point.My position was that Blair backed Bush's post hoc pretext for Iraq that it would create a FRONT LINE, in the war on terror, and that it would add to British security by diverting resources. You stepped in to challenge my position with this... Now I moved from there on out assuming that is what we were talking about. This clearly shows you think no one had used that rationale, and even that it hadn't been used much (which I freely admitted was not used as much as other rationale). You even went so far as to say... I am darned how that can be read any way but you believing he had not raised that rationale even retrospectively. And thus what criteria was being set. You will note that even at this juncture we do not have 100% guarantee of anything, especially from me. "Prevent" I would agree with, but 100% stop, no.At one point I said the following as sort of a summary... Which elicited your request for sources... And this is where the pretzel logic began. I never said that Blair said 100% anything, so where did it come from? All I said here is that Bush and Blair were using ad hoc policy development and post hoc rationalizations, and one they have used is an implication that Iraq was good policy because since then there have been no attacks.This idea that I claimed Blair guaranteed anything is the beginning of a strawman on your part or a shifting of the goal posts. Since then you have been hanging your hat on that single comment of yours, not mine, as if to prove I did not have evidence to back up what I said.When I responded with evidence I did not realize that it was your singular strawman to which I was supposed to be getting source material. I thought you were just using that as an example and the main idea being a support for my contention about post hoc rationalization. Remember that as of this time your position was that he had not ever changed his position (indeed "no one" had according to you), most especially to an argument that Iraq would work to protect Britain from AQ terror attacks.Thus I went on to show he very well did... As well as showing that news media and members of your own govt had recognized and criticized such commentary by Blair... Thus my actual position, the one I thought you were requesting sources for, is well documented. I suppose I can say that in any case, and at the very least I have rebutted your earlier position regarding how Blair did or did not discuss Iraq. I cannot do anything for you about the 100% guarantee thing as that is your position, and was never mine at all, except to point out that it is a misrepresentation.Now let's look at a problem with something else. If Blair had used "Iraq is a front line" all by himself, then you might be free to play logic games with what he might have been trying to imply. But he didn't use that terminology in a vacuum. Bush was using it first and often and it had most of its obvious connotations verbally made explicit by Bush. Thus when Blair chose to back Bush, and use the exact same terminology, that meant he was stepping behind the arguments Bush was using based on that metaphor.But here's the definition from merriam-webster: Front line means the "most advanced", which means "most forward", which pretty well implies no one is beyond that location. Thus as a metaphor, it suggests that the terrorists (and we are discussing AQ), can only reach to that location and no further. Of course that is exactly what Bush was wanting to create in the minds of people, and the Blair helped himself to that same propaganda soundbyte.No, none of them are saying that they guarantee anything. Like any used car salesmen they are careful not to guarantee anything specific, but the wording and so the implication is clear. Bush did explicitly state that in making Iraq the "front" AQ resources are being diverted to that "front", and away from home countries. This is not just metaphor, and Blair had to have known that this was part of Bush's argument. To back "front line", call it a genuine front line, and specifically mention AQ resources, sort of shows where Blair was with regard to Bush's argument.Now people can sneak "behind enemy lines" and attack. Or I suppose the front line might move if the enemy is advancing. Maybe you can try to say one of these occurred, but that doesn't help Blair at all.The post hoc justification of Iraq was that that great risk was to lessen the risk. This event was a pretty nice symbol that the risk is still present, and that Iraq does not divert any real resources. In fact it sort of shows that there are no such things as "front lines" in wars on terror. So why are they using it? Propaganda to make people feel better about failed policies.Hey, how did Iraq actually fail? There were no WMDs, there was no chance he couldn't have attacked anyone including his neighbors, and it is now opened up as a base for AQ to work in and from without having to divert any resources. Indeed we likely just gave them resources totally unavailable to them before.Thus they want to call it the front line and make us feel better that it had accomplished something (made you safer). More like it is the front lie. Even if dumbasses couldn't figure out how worthless it was before the invasion, those same asses should all have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight at this point. I am unsure how many attacks were prevented due to Iraq in some parallel universe but I can tell you quite confidently none were prevented in this one. What evidence is there that it hasn't protected us? Because there is a mountain of evidence that there were no useful AQ assets in Iraq before the invasion, and certainly none directing independent cells in Europe or the US such that their destruction in an invasion targeting Iraqi troops would have stopped anything.What possible mechanism do you propose would have protected people in Britain from AQ attacks, based on an invasion of Iraq which had no ties to AQ operations?By the way, I'll remind you before answering that earlier you thought that that was a silly proposition.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I agree that Blair does a soft-sell version of the same tripe. Unfortunately that doesn't excuse him from the criticisms I have laid on the stance he has taken.I guess I am still befuddled as to why my simple statement and position is getting such a negative reaction as if it isn't true. I have said that BBC had a report which said the same thing I did, I posted a news clip which included an MP saying the same thing, and apparently Galloway is making even stronger charges than I am.Its not like I'm just making this up on my own. Again, I agree it is pitched differently (mainly softer) to the British. But that does not change the implications of the shift in rationale. I'm not sure how you can come away with an interepretation that that was all Blair meant.I did see he was playing the message that we can't leave now (which I agree with), but that did not require his defence of the front line metaphor, with explicit references to AQ resources now being there. I understand and agree with both points. My criticism (the part which people seem to be having a problem with) was regarding his post hoc rationalizing for a failed policy in Iraq, which ended up implying greater safety at home because of it. This tragedy (to me) was a symbol that that recent post hoc rationale was as bogus as his actual ad hoc policy making.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

quote:

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no one can read the passages I presented, or those that faith presented, and objectively and rationally say otherwise.

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What are you talking about? I just did that. But I then you are on record of accusing me of being non-objective and irrational.Incidently, you misquoted several verses from the Qur'an. In your post you quote: Here is what 2:91-93 says, in three different translations: This is very, very different. I thought that maybe you meant 2:190-193, since these verses do speak of war: But this, again, is very different.Do you understand why someone would doubt the good faith and honesty of your source when such a blatant error is propagated without correction or acknowledgement?Edited to add:
I should add a link to the translations that I am using.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 11-Jul-2005 04:38 PM

But, if the Bible is to be believed then Jesus did personally kill millions of men, women and children!Apart from murdering a child who accidentally bumped into Him, Jesus slaughtered thousands of innocent Egyptian children. Jesus killed more people during the Battle of Ai then the Israelites did, Jesus slaughtered the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and to take it to its ultimate conclusion, 4400 years ago Jesus wiped out all life on Earth apart from 8 people and a few million animals on a wee boat!Kind of puts Muhammad’s ‘crimes’ into perspective doesn’t it?Brian.

Not only that, but if the Bible is to believed Jesus will judge the majority of humans that ever lived as sinful, and he will sentence them to eternal torment.

With respect to my comment: "The Koran orders muslims, all Muslims, forever and ever to kill, kill, kill until all the world is Islamic. That is a order to war into the endless future, and it is exactly what the islamists cite as their authority for their actions," you replied:"This is surprising when we consider that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving people, and most have openly condemned the terrorist acts that we have seen lately."First, the Koran says what it does, regardless of how Muslims see it or behave. However, we really don't know what the vast majoprity of muslims are. I'd say that those who are peaceloving in Arabia are not necessarily the vast majority. Furthermore, there have been very few condemnations of terrorism in most of the islamic world. Where are trhe fatwahs against the terrorists? But there are many insupport of them. In the west the condemnations came very reluctantly long after the fact, with a bunch of "yeah, buts," in response to the condemnation of their lack of condemnation. This much is fact: The majority of mosques, congregagation and Islamic organizations in the west have been taken over by the Wahabbis, a Sunni branch of islamism. This happened with the acquiescence of western Muslims. They did not protest, did not fire the wahabbi Imamas, did not build new mosques, did not make clear to ourselves and our press that islamist front organizations like CAIR (which has had three key members including its founder imprisoned for terrorist related activities) do not speak for them. My belief is that the majority of American Muslims cannot help in their heart of hearts but sympathize with the isalmists' goal of islamicizing our nations, even if they're reticent about their means, and even if they're willing to take a risk that, somehow, democracy will survive an Islamist takeover. Recall that islam was founded expressly to displace judeo-Christian civilziation. The Koran says that in many places. In a sense, it is also true that Christians also tend to desire for Christainaity to displace all other faiths. So the sentiment of these Muslims isn't particularly extreme. It's just that their faith provides for violent means of accomplishing aims, and demands that all mankind be ruled specifically according to the Koran. That is a huge and monstrous difference with gigantic implications.You ask: "It also makes me wonder why Islam hasnt taken over the world yet, giving that they have had 1300 years in which to make their moves."
In fact, islam has made every effort to do exactly that. And until the west developed modern thinking and the technology and political institutions to go with that, islam had made huge advances. It had spain and was at teh gates of Vienna. It had taken, and still has, Turkey. Only then did the west turn them back. (The crusades, BTW, were a western response to islamic aggression. Islam had left saudi arabia and taken over israel and other ME areas that had been Christian. The Crusades were to take back those lands.) Had the west not had a sudden surge of advancement, Isalm would have succeeded in its imperial march.You say that jesus was probably gay, and that that is no less silly a supposition than that jesus was G-d. This mixes unrelated notions. The Christian faith is what it is, whether you accept it or not (I do not), but what matters is that it is essentially a peaceful doctrine and so was jesus. This is in stark contrast to islam and Mohammed.With respect to mohammed having a 9 year old wife, you say: "But we are both projecting our modern day western views on to an ancient society, we both find it abhorrent but it was not at all unusual 1300 years ago."the point is that jesus did not have a 9 year old wife. Nor was he a slave owner or polyganist or warrior who killed. If those were the sensibilities and practises of the time, then he radically opposed them in thought and deed. mohammed did not. And thus the two faiths are radically different. Furthermore, as jesus and Christianity had already presented a more tolerant adn peaceful message, islam, which came 6 centuries later, went backwards.You say that the "Old Testament is pretty clear on the rules of owning slaves as well, and it gives explicit instructions on how to treat them, and since the Old testament is the word of God and Jesus is supposed to be God then Jesus promoted slavery."But G-d himself did not own slaves. Nor did jesus. But Mohammed did. That is a message of vital difference. Moreover, Judaism largely condemns the notion of slavery, despite a few passages with reference to slaves, and Jews ceased the practise eons ago. In contrast, slavery is still common in many Islamic lands.You say: "Well, I happen to think that the Quran is essentially a rewriting of the Bible by a guy who obviously had come into contact with Jews and Christians during his early days. I view the Quran as nothing more than Muhammads imagination running wild mixed in with a dose of wishful thinking. But I can still appreciate that it is an historical texts that reflects a lot of the background in which it was written, many of its contents appear barbaric to us but we have to remember that much of the Old Testament contains equally horrific acts. In short, all holy books can be used to justify anything you want, even the peace loving Buddhists have had their militant groups."Again you mix your personal opinion on faith with the reality of those who abide their faiths and what those faiths say. The Koran does, of course, reference Judaism and christianity. It also expropriates those faiths, says it is to displace them, and offers a view of faith that is backwards, one that predates Judaism and christianty. And, again, there is nothing in the OT that commands Jews to forever and ever kill, subjugate and conquer until all the world is Jewish adn run as a Jewish theocracy. But that is exactly what islam says. And the islamists make no bones about it.You say: "A great deal of Islamic teachings are also a force for peace, and on balance the peaceful Muslims way outnumber the terrorist ones. As has been said before, who is to say that these terrorists are actually Muslims when their actions contradict much of the Quran?"Yes, much of islam is peaceful. Mainly, though, those are the parts that have been abrogated by isalmic thinking by later passages. Sure, the majority of msulims are not terrorists. But far too many cheer them on, give money to their "charities," accept Islamists as imams, as front organizations for terrorists, and so on. One can support without actually doing the fighting. However, this is not to say that the majority is violent. they are not. But the problem remains that the faith demands violence. And thus, we have isalmism.you say, with respect to the west findign democracy first: "Again though, this may well be a cultural thing, it took Europe quite a long time to go down the democracy road, so who knows what the future holds?"Yes, it is cultural, and the culture was largely Judeo-Christian. And that is my point.Steve

Guess we'll have agree to disagree.

You're mixing jesus with G-d, although i grant that christian theology is confusing on this (Faith will disagree, intelligently).Regardless, there are vital distinctions. If Allah had killed whomever, but had not left eternal commandments for muslims to kill, subjugate and conquer until all the world is an isalmic theocracy, ruled according to the koran, and if Moahmmed led a life comparable to jesus's, then we'd have a parallel. Such is not the case.

A good point, and what is also interesting about this is that in the Qur'an Jesus virtually has the same job!Brian.

That it evolved in the Xian world does not stand. It had evolved elsewhere long before Xianity existed. What is correct is that it rose back to prominence in certain Xian nations.You have not shown any reason why that revival is anything more than coincidence. I myself have suggested some measure of noncoincidence, in that it was the outright oppression of Xian govts which led some beneath to topple and replace them with pagan inspired democracy. What is shows is that Xians are not inherently prone to enjoying or spreading democracy and have in fact crushed them. I don't think Xian theology is inherently biased against democracy, just like Islamic theology is not either. That's why you have many muslims living within democratic nations.Fundamentalist Xianity is diametrically opposed to freedom and democracy, just like most fundamentalist militant factions of Islam and Judaism.I have already pointed out that one of the first documents in "western" history used as a basis for returning power to people, and removing absolute control of monarchs was from Islam.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Okay, but to what are we disagreeing? That you misquoted Sura 2:191, 193? That the translations that I found give a completely different intepretation to those verses? That your quote leaves out Surah 2:190, 192? That these verses put the entire passage in a different context? That all of this cast serious doubts as to the credibility of your sources?To be fair, I did find a translation that is closer to yours. I can't link directly to the passage -- scroll down and select the English translation by Dr. Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Al-Hilali. Also, the verses you are quoting are clearly 2:191, 193, not 2:91,93. But the inclusion of verses 2:190 and 192 still, in my opinion, put those verses in a completely different context.Incidently, for anyone who is interested: I found what may be an interesting site. The link brings you to the same translations to which I have linked before (Shakir, Pickthall, Yusufali), but you can also choose to view commentary (by Pooya and Ali, whoever they are). (By the way, the other source for my translations also include commentary for each surah.)For fun, I have also found The Skeptic's Annotated Quran. This site promises to be hours of fun! There are also links to The Skeptic's Annotated Bible and The Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon. Enjoy!Edited to add the final sentence to the penultimate paragraph.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 11-Jul-2005 07:02 PM

That is not what it says. You are taking sections out of context. Here is a passage which I see you have failed to mention... How do you mesh this with what you have said above? Pedophilia as a thing of abhorrence is a modern phenomena. Marriage or sex with girls about that age remains available, and indeed (when matched with marriage) practiced by Xians within the US. It is doubtful Jesus would have cared, much less demonstrated against such a thing. If you can find one passage that suggests he fought sex or marriage with minors in thought and deed, I'd be quite surprised.That he did not have a wife of 9 is irrelevant as he had no wife at all. Unless you are going to make the statement he found marriage itself to be an outrage, your point is moot. The same holds true for polygamy, though I believe Paul may have spoken on the idea that one wife is better than more.He was against slavery to some degree, though Xians did hold slaves. The major bastion of fundamentalist Xianity in the US was indeed the slaveholding south, and the major African slave trade of Western Civilization began with Xian Europeans.I am unsure if Mohammed had slaves or not (and I will not bother disputing any argument that he did), however the words of his God as he had them set down in the Koran was quite explicit. There are a few entreaties to free slaves as well as taking care of the needy. Here is another passage which you forgot to quote... How do you square this with your claim?Jesus was not a warrior, and Mohammed was. This is true. I am not sure what to take from this as Jesus didn't really have to be, and Mohammed had good cause to be. In any case, the followers of Xianity went on to be the most ruthless bloodthirsty conquerors this world has ever seen. That sort of negates an idea that what the prime messenger does relates to what the followers do.As it is, when Jesus comes back it will be as the sword and he will kill many or will have many killed to create his kingdom... yes or no?Also, and this is kind of interesting, in order to claim his kingship and so greatness and so dominion over everyone, it was important for Jesus to prove direct lineage to a polygamous, pedophilic, slaveowning warrior. So in the end Xianity demands reverence to the same type of individual.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)