Isis

[scraparcs]

The issue itself here is no ISIS or any other group. The issue is Islam. Islam in true form is a religion, a political system, a moral system, an economic system, a military system and a conquering system.

These folks are just doing what Islam asks of them.

You could completely misinterpret Christianity in the same way.

I wasn't going to say this, but now I am. Completely wiping out the ISIS won't stop militant Islam, it'll just wipe out the ISIS.

A couple of years ago, I did a semi-intensive study about the origins of Islam in a class. I wrote a short paper about the life of Muhammad if you're interested, I'll PM it. Anyway, Islam actually started out in it's earliest days as a harmless religion. Muhammad's early relationships with Jews and Christians were very peaceful. After Muslims were removed by force from Mecca, they went to a then Jewish city, Medina and actually had a treaty with them. In fact, the earliest Muslims prayed towards Jerusalem along with the Jews. However, their fall out started when Muhammad was told by God to pray towards Mecca. Even after that occured, Christians were still allowed to pray openly in Mosques. As I mentioned early, too early on in it's days did Islam get met with militant resistance so it the religion became infused with militaristic ideas. Which is why it was so militant at the beginning, but over time most Muslims aren't militant anymore.
I think too often our approach to militant Islam is just fighting the symptoms without fighting the disease. So, we wiped ISIS from the face of the Earth, no one would argue that's a bad thing. Then what?

Another terror group based upon Islam would form. We beat up al-Qaeda and ISIS emerged.

Thanks. Just skimmed a wikipedia article on it, for what that is worth.

Personally, I don't care. Don't think Aussies or Yanks should even be in the area - and the region isn't ever likely to be anything but the home of some form of Islam.

What does sadden me is the rhetoric that seems to flow when these topics are brought up, ie:

"WE" are good, wholesome, saved and moral
"THEY" are evil, barbarous, unsaved and immoral

Therefore...

God probably wouldn't mind if we killed a bunch of them. For the greater good, of course.

War should always be a last resort, but given how things look, we may have to resort to this in order to prevent more death. It can get pretty "us vs. them" when discussing the issue, but it could have horrifying consequences if we wholly rule out the possibility of war.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Thanks. Just skimmed a wikipedia article on it, for what that is worth.

Personally, I don't care. Don't think Aussies or Yanks should even be in the area - and the region isn't ever likely to be anything but the home of some form of Islam.

What does sadden me is the rhetoric that seems to flow when these topics are brought up, ie:

"WE" are good, wholesome, saved and moral
"THEY" are evil, barbarous, unsaved and immoral

Therefore...

God probably wouldn't mind if we killed a bunch of them. For the greater good, of course.

Yeah, in general I have a "live-and-let-live" worldview and think America would be better off we if we took up a noninterventionist foreign policy.

That being said, the beheadings of non-combatant foreigners and their merciless treatment of their own countrymen is indeed something that the international community needs to respond to. Now, I think we need to take the higher road and not play their game of "eye for an eye" but the rate that things have escalated with them in the Middle East should at least give one pause for concern.

I don't necessarily buy that Islam as a religion has an agenda to take over the world, I mean most religious systems have an innate desire to see the whole world adhere to their beliefs - Christianity included. Muslims are just as convinced that they are right as we are, so at some level we can't fault them for that. But I don't believe the extremists who talk about "raising the flag of Islam at the White House" necessarily represent what the entire Muslim community believes.

We would cry foul if the entire secular world insisted that Christianity believes what the Westboro Baptist Church believes, so I think any decent human being and especially any decent Christian should afford members of any other faith the same courtesy.

 

[Kaonashi]

AWESOME BAND! LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWjhxnVcmgg

 

[Solik S]

War should always be a last resort, but given how things look, we may have to resort to this in order to prevent more death. It can get pretty "us vs. them" when discussing the issue, but it could have horrifying consequences if we wholly rule out the possibility of war.

"Preventing death" is typically not what war is about.

1984 is an amazingly prophetic book, not in the sense of "predicting" the future, but of explaining the present.

 

[Rhamiel]

You could completely misinterpret Christianity in the same way.

I am not sure I agree that such a stance is a "complete misinterpretation" of Islam

we can look at the central figures of both

Christianity was founded by Jesus Christ, a traveling rabbi who preached forgiveness and was the "suffering servant" who died on a Cross

Islam was founded by Muhammad, a tribal warlord

the first 300 years of Christianity was filled with Christians who would die at the hands of the Pagan Roman Empire including the immediate successors of the Christian movement, the Apostles, with all of them being martyrs (except for St. John who died in exile on Patmos)

the first 300 years of Islam was filled was filled with violent conquest, including the immediate successors of the Islamic movement, the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs, who were political/military leaders.

also, how can we claim that this is a "misinterpretation" of Islam
while Wahhabi style Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran might not be as in your face brutal as ISIS, they are still really repressive, having the death penalty for convers from Islam (about 12 countries in all, including all the countries in the Arab Peninsula have leaving Islam as a capital crime)

this is not some bizzar fringe, this is a very large percentage of Islam, not just now but through the ENTIRE history of that religion.

 

[Rhamiel]

We would cry foul if the entire secular world insisted that Christianity believes what the Westboro Baptist Church believes, so I think any decent human being and especially any decent Christian should afford members of any other faith the same courtesy.

yeah but Westboro is a handful of members who and every major Christian Church and Denomination has spoken out against such absurdities as those held by Westboro

militant Islam has thousands of followers all over the globe, has an active army in ISIS and is deeply represented by the understanding of Sharia law in at least 12 countries

not just "less advanced" countries like Somalia or Afghanistan or Mauritania.

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emeriti's, Yemen and Iran also have apostasy laws that have the death penalty

yeah, Christians used to burn witches at the stake.... that happened for a period of time in the Middle Ages up threw the very Early Modern period and now it has stopped.
this would be like if there were a handful of Christian countries that still burned witches at the stake....
like that is not even conceivable in modern Christianity

 

[scraparcs]

"Preventing death" is typically not what war is about.

1984 is an amazingly prophetic book, not in the sense of "predicting" the future, but of explaining the present.

Typically no, but we're all quite aware of 9/11 and ISIS is doubleplusungood.

 

[AztecSDSU]

Thanks. Just skimmed a wikipedia article on it, for what that is worth.

Personally, I don't care. Don't think Aussies or Yanks should even be in the area - and the region isn't ever likely to be anything but the home of some form of Islam.

What does sadden me is the rhetoric that seems to flow when these topics are brought up, ie:

"WE" are good, wholesome, saved and moral
"THEY" are evil, barbarous, unsaved and immoral

Therefore...

God probably wouldn't mind if we killed a bunch of them. For the greater good, of course.

Well when was the last time westerners sent anyone a video of some of us cutting off a journalist's head with a knife? Yeah, I think they win the award for savage behavior.

 

[Solik S]

Yeah, in general I have a "live-and-let-live" worldview and think America would be better off we if we took up a noninterventionist foreign policy.

Agreed and I wish our leaders would do the same. Lots of Aussies still remember WW2 and Americans coming to our aid. Unfortunately it seems the various alliances usually means Aussies step in and help without deciding what is in the best interests of Australia. Vietnam is a good example, and so is, imo, the current decade long war in the middle east.

That being said, the beheadings of non-combatant foreigners and their merciless treatment of their own countrymen is indeed something that the international community needs to respond to. Now, I think we need to take the higher road and not play their game of "eye for an eye" but the rate that things have escalated with them in the Middle East should at least give one pause for concern.

An atrocity is frequently used as a justifiable reason for getting involved. Most people wouldn't agree that it means getting involved if the atrocity is committed in -their- country though - and some other nation steps in to "clean up". In other words, if some terrible act of barbarism happens here in Aus (and no country is free from barbarism) and it makes world news - then no - I don't want to fear some other country coming in to "save the day", which is likely just going to translate into flattened towns and a bunch of civilians getting killed, injured, etc.

I don't necessarily buy that Islam as a religion has an agenda to take over the world, I mean most religious systems have an innate desire to see the whole world adhere to their beliefs - Christianity included. Muslims are just as convinced that they are right as we are, so at some level we can't fault them for that. But I don't believe the extremists who talk about "raising the flag of Islam at the White House" necessarily represent what the entire Muslim community believes.

We would cry foul if the entire secular world insisted that Christianity believes what the Westboro Baptist Church believes, so I think any decent human being and especially any decent Christian should afford members of any other faith the same courtesy.

Agreed and well said.

 

[AztecSDSU]

We would cry foul if the entire secular world insisted that Christianity believes what the Westboro Baptist Church believes, so I think any decent human being and especially any decent Christian should afford members of any other faith the same courtesy.

Is there a Christian fringe? Yes there is. However, this might be a little more valid if the Westboro Baptists had a functional army. As much as I have zero respect for the Phelps clan, they aren't even remotely violent. Let alone actually waging a conventional war against anyone. The scale of the Christian fringe and that of radical Islam are just not comparable.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Is there a Christian fringe? Yes there is. However, this might be a little more valid if the Westboro Baptists had a functional army. As much as I have zero respect for the Phelps clan, they aren't even remotely violent. Let alone actually waging a conventional war against anyone. The scale of the Christian fringe and that of radical Islam are just not comparable.

My point wasn't tactics nor was it size, it was categorization. There are many outside of Christianity that make the shortsighted and incorrect assumption that all Christians believe what Westboro believes. Open-minded people usually accept the explanation that Westboro doesn't represent the whole of Christianity and is actually the opposite of what Christianity stands for. Yet when the shoe is on the other foot, peaceful Muslims are mocked and derided because we refuse to accept the possibility that someone could be both a Muslim and peaceful. We make narrow-minded comments like "that's an oxymoron" or "there's no such thing" yet millions of people have lived out their entire lives as exactly that - peaceful Muslims.

 

[Zach91]

My point wasn't tactics nor was it size, it was categorization. There are many outside of Christianity that make the shortsighted and incorrect assumption that all Christians believe what Westboro believes. Open-minded people usually accept the explanation that Westboro doesn't represent the whole of Christianity and is actually the opposite of what Christianity stands for. Yet when the shoe is on the other foot, peaceful Muslims are mocked and derided because we refuse to accept the possibility that someone could be both a Muslim and peaceful. We make narrow-minded comments like "that's an oxymoron" or "there's no such thing" yet millions of people have lived out their entire lives as exactly that - peaceful Muslims.

Not all Muslims are radical terrorists. But if you look at the numbers, there is a FAR greater ratio of radicals in the Muslim population then there is in the Christian population. An estimated 15-25% of Muslims are radicals. The Christian population has nowhere near that percentage of radicals. A few inbreed WBC members, and a handful of kooks that killed a couple of abortion doctors hardly stacks up to the masses of radical Muslims who have butchered hundreds of thousands in countless terrorist attacks. Therefore, it is logical to assume that any given Muslim has a higher probability of being radicalized/violent than any given Christian.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Not all Muslims are radical terrorists. But if you look at the numbers, there is a FAR greater ratio of radicals in the Muslim population then there is in the Christian population. An estimated 15-25% of Muslims are radicals. The Christian population has nowhere near that percentage of radicals. A few inbreed WBC members, and a handful of kooks that killed a couple of abortion doctors hardly stacks up to the masses of radical Muslims who have butchered hundreds of thousands in countless terrorist attacks. Therefore, it is logical to assume that any given Muslim has a higher probability of being radicalized/violent than any given Christian.

What are your sources for those statistics?

Assuming those numbers check out, I'm certain Christianity had a radical population of similar size in at least one point in history. In a lot of ways, Islam is following the same historical path that Christianity has, they're just about 600 years behind us.

 

[Zach91]

What are your sources for those statistics?

Assuming those numbers check out, I'm certain Christianity had a radical population of similar size in at least one point in history. In a lot of ways, Islam is following the same historical path that Christianity has, they're just about 600 years behind us.

The statistic I gave is an estimate from a consensus of US intelligence agencies. Feel free to look into it if you want. Regardless of whether there was a large percent of radical Christians hundreds of years ago or not isn't the issue. Radical Muslims are the ones posing a threat to global and national security today. When Baptists start committing genocide, torturing people, and chopping people's heads off on a global scale---then I'll reevaluate my position.

 

[AztecSDSU]

My point wasn't tactics nor was it size, it was categorization. There are many outside of Christianity that make the shortsighted and incorrect assumption that all Christians believe what Westboro believes. Open-minded people usually accept the explanation that Westboro doesn't represent the whole of Christianity and is actually the opposite of what Christianity stands for. Yet when the shoe is on the other foot, peaceful Muslims are mocked and derided because we refuse to accept the possibility that someone could be both a Muslim and peaceful. We make narrow-minded comments like "that's an oxymoron" or "there's no such thing" yet millions of people have lived out their entire lives as exactly that - peaceful Muslims.

The problem still remains one of scale. An intellectually honest person cannot say that a tiny fringe group that can barely get 15 people to show up to an inappropriate picket some represents the broad theology of a religion. On the other hand, when you start considering the sheer numbers of people that have to be involved to make something like Islamic State (not to mention numerous other regional terrorist groups) work "radical Islam" isn't a fringe that exists on the margins of the Islamic world. It's part of mainstream Islam. I think what gets mocked is the tendency of peaceful Muslims to pretend that their modernized (and heavily westernized) interpretation of Islam isn't a new innovation, and probably more on the fringe of Islam. The whole "we spent centuries trying to invade and forcibly convert Europe to Islam until the technology gap grew too wide and we stopped trying" thing kind of invalidates the notion of the religion of peace.

The mocking would probably stop if Muslims that were actively trying to moderate and westernize Islam (largely in response to contact with Christianity and superior western living conditions) would just acknowledge reality there.

 

[AztecSDSU]

Assuming those numbers check out, I'm certain Christianity had a radical population of similar size in at least one point in history. In a lot of ways, Islam is following the same historical path that Christianity has, they're just about 600 years behind us.

The problem with that approach is it ignores the basic history of Christianity and Islam. Christianity spread via evangelism, and was a persecuted minority religion for centuries. There are a few minor instances of Christianity being spread by force, but that was largely limited to a few German princes trying to improve their political prospects.
On the other hand, starting with Mohammed Islam was spread solely by violent military conquest. There's almost no historical precedent for the spread of Islam by any peaceful means.

 

[Gnarwhal]

The problem with that approach is it ignores the basic history of Christianity and Islam. Christianity spread via evangelism, and was a persecuted minority religion for centuries. There are a few minor instances of Christianity being spread by force, but that was largely limited to a few German princes trying to improve their political prospects. On the other hand, starting with Mohammed Islam was spread solely by violent military conquest. There's almost no historical precedent for the spread of Islam by any peaceful means.

The ideal was that evangelism be the means by which Christianity was spread, but it doesn't change the fact that there were periods when attempts to proliferate it through conquest were made.

Islam did coexist alongside Judaism and Christianity. It's recorded that in the earliest days of Islam that Muslims in Medina would pray alongside Jews facing Jerusalem and that Christians were permitted to pray in mosques. However once Muslims began to be violently driven out is when violence and warfare began to commingle with their theology.

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

 

[SnowyMacie]

Islam did coexist alongside Judaism and Christianity. It's recorded that in the earliest days of Islam that Muslims in Medina would pray alongside Jews facing Jerusalem and that Christians were permitted to pray in mosques. However once Muslims began to be violently driven out is when violence and warfare began to commingle with their theology.

This, so much this. In fact, I think I said this earlier.

 

[Strider1002]

Islam did coexist alongside Judaism and Christianity. It's recorded that in the earliest days of Islam that Muslims in Medina would pray alongside Jews facing Jerusalem and that Christians were permitted to pray in mosques. However once Muslims began to be violently driven out is when violence and warfare began to commingle with their theology.

Something to consider...
The Real History of the Crusades | Walid ShoebatWalid Shoebat

 

[SnowyMacie]

Something to consider...
The Real History of the Crusades | Walid ShoebatWalid Shoebat

We're not talking about 400 years after the foundation of Islam, but maybe 4 years, if even that long.