About that religion thing
Dawg has gone to some trouble to suggest that it isn’t Islam or the Koran which inspires terrorism – it’s the awful conditions of life many Muslims face. His head, metaphorically, has been handed to him. He does, however, note that it is a small minority of the world’s Muslims who are active terrorists and likely less than a majority who support those terrorists. I might quibble with that but I suspect the numbers are rather higher for today’s text:
The case of Mehdi Kazemi has been reported with a degree of sympathy by the liberal British media which, by and large, doesn’t like seeing people hanged. The BBC found itself in a bit of a bind because, while it wholly approves of sodomy, it approves of Islam too. Both are on its Category One list of stuff which deserves to be treated nicely in news reports. And so we were told that while Iran was a ‘conservative’ society which did indeed exhibit the occasional bout of homophobia, it wasn’t necessarily the case that Kazemi would be strung up as soon as he got back. If he pretended not to be gay, he’d probably be OK for a while. At other times we have been informed that Islam is a peaceable religion which has nothing at all against homosexuals, it’s just the macho, patriarchal culture which prevails in that part of the world. This little nugget of voluntary self-delusion is true only if you accept that Islam itself is a product of the macho, patriarchal culture in that part of the world. There are 57 member countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, of which 41 sign up to state persecution of homosexuals and ten put them to death. ron liddle, the spectator
And, well, yes, Fred Phelps and his tens of adherents and Jerry Falwell and the Pope are not too keen on homosexuals. However, and here is my point, so far as I am aware, no Western nation or mainstream Christian communion calls for their execution.
Here is the thing, Dawg, Christianity has come to terms with the Enlightenment. Some wings have embraced Enlightenment values, others have grudgingly accepted the reality of those values without actual embrace. Not so Islam.
So the question I have is whether mainstream, leave aside Wahhabi and Safal variants, Islam is capable of not killing homosexuals or advocating (to use the lefty coinage) for their deaths.
(Note: I have no problem at all with Imams, Pastors and Rabbis condemning homosexuality from their pulpits or in the letters pages of newspapers – they and their adherents have a perfect right to condemn whatever they believe to be sinful…it’s the killing which I want renounced.)
April 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
You keep missing the point.
The central argument of Fitna is that there is a direct line from some verses in the Qur’an to acts of terror. I raised some equally bloody-minded verses in the Bible, and the response from you and some of your commenters is that Christians don’t fly airplanes into buildings.
Exactly my point. You’ve handed your own head to yourself. It’s obviously not the religion per se that’s causing all the trouble. Got the point at last? So much for the simple-minded thesis of Fitna.
My argument, then, was solely against the premise of Fitna. And you folks helped to make it for me, precisely by arguing that similar passages in the Bible have not had similar effects.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Dawg is of the same mind as the CHRC - it is “social condition” (soon to be a prohibited grounds for discrimination) that causes terrorism not vile fanaticism, not personal choice.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:38 pm
again – the left-wing noise machine at work:
If it is proven that Islam is theologically violent and anti-Enlightenment, out come the quotes from the Old Testament `proving’ that Christianity is just as inherently violent as, er, Islam is NOT. Or something.
As Moe Berg once said, Don’t try to figure it out.
It’s not for figuring.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:08 am
My goodness, this should be read:
http://dustmybroom.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3160&Itemid=1
N.W.: “But why would Allah tell muslims to kill and rape innocent non muslims?”
Imam: “Because Non-muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet. If you don’t believe me, here is the legal authority, the top muslim lawyer of Britain, Anjem Choudhary.”
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 am
“It’s obviously not the religion per se that’s causing all the trouble.”
Your argument is oversimple. All religions have their holy books (I guess), but does each book have the some status within each religion? Are the traditions of interpretation the same within each religion? Is the content really that similar? (Anyone can cherry-pick bellicose and pacific verses from the Bible and the Koran, but what’s the overall impression made by each book?)
I can’t answer these questions, and I wouldn’t turn to the director of Fitna for answers, but to assume that the answers must be Same, Same, and Same – or God knows what sort of thoughts we might be led into – is naive.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…..and certain dogs are simply..well…smarter than other dogs …..i’ve had a lot of dogs and i think i know what i’m talking about here…i certainly know this theory of mine holds true of humans….
am i making any sense here ?....
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
let me put it another way….in canada perhaps 3-400 morons in Canada enjoy the jackboot and sunglasses thing….and wearing quasi military gear and lederhosen..scarfing down steins of beer and knackwurst mit sauerkraut and so on…playing with flags and bunting and making speeches from non existent balconies…and droning on about Jews and inflated holocaust numbers and so on…
and rightly or wrongly the Dawg feels it’s acceptable to bring the full weight of paralegal gov’t mandated authority onto their necks.
but yet millions upon millions of folks whose religion’s very dogma and doctrine calls for the wholesale murder of Jews get a total pass from the Dawg…..
btw hitler LOVED dogs….as i do…which should be passing strange but isn’t….cause kate at SDA loves dogs too.
if you get my drift.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
The Fitna theory—that belief in Islam is intrinsically violent and incompatible with freedom and democracy is wrong, anti-historical (nobody in the West even thought that way until 1979)and potentially very dangerous. But the reaction to that from much of the left to the effect that Muslims are just one more third world group and that it’s all social-cultural and originates in various putative discriminations and oppressions is equally anti-historical, blind and dangerous. I have little doubt that most of the many Muslims in my city are making fine citizens and that their children will hopefully do us even more proud, but surely it is clear by now that, both theologically and culturally, it is uncommonly difficult and dangerous for Muslims to express dissent (the ones that do are incredibly brave)and that, again both theologically and culturally, their first impulse is to exclude “the other”, enforce conformity and be separate and “pure”. That by itself wouldn’t necessarily be so objectionable (think Amish and Orthodox Jews) except that when it is combined with the prosletyzing nature of Islam and the refusal to tolerate dissent or “apostasy”, you have a recipe for big trouble and a xenophobic, pliant, terrorized community. They should be welcomed, but we’ve got to get a better grip on who we are and draw lines in the sand about what being Canadian means. Successful immigration is based on an unstated bargain—you support youself and give us your loyalty and we will embrace and welcome you as one of us faster than anywhere else. And leave the mess back home back home!
BTW, I am astounded at how adept Islamicist voices in Canada are at playing the rhetoric of discrimination, human rights and multiculturalism to their advantage and what milquetoast suckers our law schools, the human rights industry and others among the progressive beautiful-people set are. They are the ones who are shopping Muslim women, giving a pass to an ever more virulent anti-Semitism and stiffling the Muslim voices of moderation and dissent. And I am throroughly depressed that the free-speech community has allowed itself to be distracted from this real live issue in order to line up behind a small gang of street vandals who, for the vast majority of Canadians, embody not an offensive political philosophy to be debated and challenged, but thuggery, evil and the baser side of human nature. What’s next on our agenda—fighting for the right of the Hell’s Angels to participate equally in public debates on traffic control?
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
dawg says Islam doesn’t inspire terrorism? wow. I’m sure I heard, more than once, several 9/11 hijackers saying “Allah Akbar” just prior to their rendezvous with the promised virgins. Phelps is a nut, no question, but when I board a plane with my 2 and 4 year olds, he doesnt cross my mind. I’m more concerned about the Allah Akbar crowd.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
the ever so LLLiberal doctor dawg(infamous dialectic killer)) banned me from his blawg for posting my previous post here on HIS site….deemed me a burbling drunk…said he’d lost patience with my ‘trolling’ as he deemed it…it was hurtful in the extreme…but i shall survive…sniff….
btw has anyone ever seen superduper K-man and the Dawg in the same room together ?....there are so many similarities….such superficiality and thinskinned hostility …..it’s uncanny…is it possible ?
April 5th, 2008 at 2:37 am
> “it’s the awful conditions of life many Muslims face”
How does this explain Muslims – often children of immigrants, not immigrants themselves – living in Western countries who decide one day to turn to terrorism? Was Mohammed Atta living in a squalid refugee camp? The Glasgow airport ringleader was a doctor. If conditions for Asian and Middle Eastern people in Western democracies are oppressive, then why haven’t Sikhs and Hindus turned to terrorism?
And if conditions in Muslim countries are so terrible, what’s cause and what’s effect? Could it conceivably be true that a religion which teaches that God is an unaccountable absolute dictator, and whose founder received special revelations giving him extra perks of office, might possibly contribute to a difference “governance model”, as they say, than a religion which teaches that God wants leaders to be servants and humble themselves, and whose founder endured torture and death for his followers’ sake?
Get a grip, Dr Dawg. The bottom line is this: No sane person honestly worries about being murdered by Christians, or prosecuted for “hate crimes”, if they “blaspheme” Christianity. Anyone who says they do is not honest, and anyone who thinks they do needs psychiatric therapy for paranoia.
On the other hand, to worry about serious consequences for saying something that some Muslims may consider blasphemous is an entirely rational path in the post-9/11 world.
Note that I said “some” Muslims but, in a religion with 1,300,000,000 followers, a mere one per cent is still 13 million people who might want to slit your throat or report you to the Kinsella PreCrime Police. On the other hand, among Christians both the percentage and the absolute number are so minuscule that they do not factor into any sensible person’s calculations about what to speak, write or publish.
That’s the bottom line. Anything else is spin.
April 5th, 2008 at 6:47 am
A PS to my last comment:
To be fair, sometimes the liberal-conservative complaint that “Politically correct types who are happy to mock or offend Christians suddenly become terribly sensitive about offending Muslims” gets complicated because in certain cases – especially those involving rude depictions of Jesus – “blasphemy” against Christianity coincides, for one brief shining moment, with “blasphemy” against Islam as well.
In these cases, it is highly instructive to compare the progressive thinker’s reaction. In the mid-1980s, the BBC rubber-puppets comedy “Spitting Image” did a run-of-the-mill, mildly cheeky “interview” with Jesus. The “usual suspects” (ie, MAry Whitehouse) protested. The BBC’s producer ignored Mrs Whitehouse because she represented only a tiny minority, of “nutters”. Maybe, maybe so. But then British Muslim leaders complained to the BBC about this sacrilegious parody of an Islamic prophet. Aunty Beeb immediately wheeled around 180 degrees, apologised profusely, and cancelled the episode. “We would never want to ridicle a minority group“, they stammered.
There are minorities and minorities, it seems.
April 5th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
“The BBC’s producer ignored Mrs Whitehouse because she represented only a tiny minority, of “nutters”.”
Yes. There is also very little chance of Mrs Whitehouse showing up for a broadcast interview with 50lbs of Semtex strapped to her waist.
April 5th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
“and droning on about Jews and inflated holocaust numbers”
I’ve also always been curious as to whether these losers listen to Wagner’s Ring Cycle blaring out of their car stereos when they pull up to a traffic light.
Its hellishly difficult to keep the stereotype going if they deviate from the script.