3-Mar-15 World View -- Why did ISIS release 19 Assyrian Christian hostages? / Iran aids Iraq's army attack on Tikrit

[NoOneImportant]

John, we clearly understand your point: that Islam is engaged in a brutal internal conflict. A conflict where it appears from the outside that Muslim is killing Muslim. What you don't appear to realize is that each side paints the other side in that Muslim vs Muslim conflict as apostate, or as a non-believer. Each side believes that IT AND IT ALONE is the real Islam. Embodied in that contention is that the others are either apostate, or not true Muslims; as such each side sees the other as legitimate non-believer targets. While I don't presume to speak for vincecate, I believe that we both understand your contention; and in no material manner disagree with it.

What you either reject or fail to understand is that is not the extent of Islam's march, or reach.

Regarding just exactly how many of these sub-human monsters there are? I don't pretend to know, I frankly have no real idea, nor do you, as exemplified by your preposterous 5k - 20k estimate. Noting the polling of Muslims: as noted in a prior post, the numbers who support jihad are frightening - those who either directly support it, or refuse to answer the question approaches 30%.

How many? As noted above no one has any real idea. Just re-reading your daily post we quickly come up with the following:
The Syrian Army - torture, chemical weapons, indiscriminate murder of non-combatants;
Hamas - suicide bombers, indiscriminate firing of missiles into a civilian population;
Hezbollah, aid to the Assad regime with support of his crimes, support of terror world wide;
ISIS - beheading the innocent, the destruction of the treasures of antiquity, murder, torture, sexual slavery;
The several Taliban derived organizations in Pakistan - the indiscriminate killing of school children;
Boko haram - kidnapping of children, sexual slavery, murder, torture, burning of villages, and the murder of the occupants;
Iran's - Republican Guards, at least some of the Iranian army.

And this is the easy list, it ignores the Chechnya, Yemen, Libya, Mali, China, Philippines, et al.

And just in case you believed the Mosul museum to be an anomaly - http://news.yahoo.com/bulldozed-ancient ... 12292.html

[John]

More evasions.

What's your number?

[vincecate]

What ISIS is REALLY doing is killing tens of thousands of devout
Muslims. The Koran does not permit ISIS to kill tens of thousands of
devout Muslims. Nor does the Koran permit ISIS to unilaterally
declare tens of thousands of devout Muslims to be non-Muslims, in
order to have an excuse to kill them. If it did, then any Muslim
could kill any other Muslim simply by declaring him to be a non-Muslim
under some phony pretext.

Indeed. In Pakistan they can claim someone blasphemed and nobody expects them to repeat what was said, as that would be another blaspheme. So without any evidence or any specific allegation, and no real possibility of defending against the accusation, someone can be sentenced to death for blaspheme. Really. Yes, sometimes there are phony claims. The penalty is still death. It is not a legal system I would be happy to live under. In the case below 2 politicians who tried to help an accused woman (mother of 5) were assassinated. And, "Experts say the laws often are exploited for personal gain."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... tence.html

What you quoted as saying Muslims can not kill Muslims was not from the Koran. Muslims honor killings are usually of female Muslims in their own family. If killing anyone who read the Koran was against the Koran, honor killings would be clearly illegal. Basically the way it works is that someone who commits adultery is thought of as not a good Muslim. So the killing is ok. Honor killings accounted for 1/3rd of all violent deaths in Jordan in 2005. A Sunni can think of a Shia as not a good Muslim, so it is about the same thing really.

http://www.meforum.org/1988/does-islam- ... r-killings

In some sense you are trying to claim you have figured out what true Islam is and that ISIS is not true Islam. But the Shia, Sunni, Hamas, Boko Haram, Wahabis, ISIS, etc all think they have figured out what is true Islam and they have studied the book far more than you. And there are many different versions of Muslims. And they really do kill each other. And your interpretation of the book(s) really does not matter. What matters is what they do with their beliefs. If you say a Muslim branch that kills other types of Muslims is not a true Muslim, there will be no true Muslims left.

I find your demand for a particular number of evil Muslims strange. I could not tell you how many evil Americans or how many evil Catholics their are either. But I can tell you that ISIS thinks they are following the Koran and I can see how they would think that.

[John]

More evasions.

You can estimate to the nearest 100 million.

[vincecate]

More evasions.

You can estimate to the nearest 100 million.

Closer to 0 than 100 million. But I would also point out that Nazis were only a small part of German population and so a large group can go along with some smaller bad group. In real numbers ISIS is not very large, but a bunch of people have gone along with them. I still think it is not a reasonable question.

I have a question for you. I think that ISIS core people (the inner 5,000) think they are following the Koran. Can you see how they could think they are following the Koran?

[NoOneImportant]

Not being evasive.

You fail to understand, or won't admit that it does not take a large number of committed people to kill large numbers of innocents. Islam more than any other ideology breeds those willing to perpetrate, and justify those crimes -- in the name of Allah, thereby exonerating themselves of any responsibility for their crime. You appear to be contented to just clean up the bodies, while saying: "... there are just so many of them (Muslims), what else can we do?" Islam has to make it culturally not okay to repress women, make it not okay to destroy the treasures of the civilizations of antiquity, make honor killings not okay, make mass murder in the name of Allah not okay. If Islam can't do that exclude Islam from Western society.

In so-far as Jihad is concerned, numbers mean little. Ramzi Yousef (the architect of the 1993 WTC bomb), prior to the '93 WTC bombing, planted a bomb on a full commercial airliner with the intent of bringing it down (his admission), it exploded, but wasn't powerful enough to crash the plane, only one fatality -- no big deal except for the dead Asian. His next attempt was the 1993 WTC bombing, where he did much better - he killed 6. Had he gotten it right he would have toppled one tower into the other, bringing them both down - each fully occupied. If successful, It would have killed 10s of thousands. Numbers of these monseters mean little. When Hezbollah bombed the barracks in Lebanon one suicide driver each drove two truck bombs into two different barracks that killed 305 people (241 American Marines). The number of Muslims who killed 2977 people (the official death toll) on 9/11 was 19, roughly five per airplane.

It didn't take 10's of thousands to destroy the irrecoverable treasures of the Mosul museum, nor the Beniyan Buddhas. It only took a permissive attitude within Islam, an attitude that permits those within Islam be believe that such actions are alright - acceptable. There is no agreeing to disagree within Islam... disagree... then die -- isn't that what the Koran says in a hundred or more different places? You may defend it all you desire, but you put yourself in the position of defending the indefensible -- those who think it's okay to murder, and destroy ancient antiquities in the name of Allah. Defend Islam, you may, but let's understand clearly, you don't desire to live under it -- for I think we can both agree that you wouldn't survive long -- freedom is not Islam's forte.

[psCargile]

When I read generalized statements about Muslims here in this forum, I contextually understand that the specific Muslims being referred are the jihadists criminals and not the millions of Muslims that aren't trying to kill non-believers. It kind of goes without saying, does it not? Must we in every instance make a lengthy clarification of how we delineate the people we are discussing?

[MarvyGuy]

So drinking café by the med with my pretty blue drachma and just could not resist jumping into this fray as I have great respect for all here even though I do not always fully agree (but hey when you live in Greece with a pretty blue drachma some things really don’t matter anymore).
Perhaps another way to frame the discussion is rather to talk about moderates versus fundamentalists. So we can have in all religions moderates and fundamentalists. I think in the Christian world you see today the west is more moderate not applying scripture as a fundamentalist would (so sodomy laws being overturned, no fault divorce etc). Perhaps a good example would be the schism between Anglican churches in England and Africa over an openly gay US bishop (or priest? anyway). For Jewish religion they are in the same boat I think with a vast majority being moderate and few being fundamentalist (which is anyway an issue since the Roams destroyed Herod’s temple so even their fundamentalists are in trouble).
I can imagine Islam has also this issue. I have many friends who love Moracco and some live there with no issues whatsoever. We see also even in Syria and Iraq Christians who have been there for close on 2 thousand years (so I suppose they get to pay the tax as allowed). I feel then ISIS seems to be for me more heavily populated with fundamentalists. We can also question that they have also probably some psychopaths acting “religious” so perhaps there are some truely insane monsters who use religion as a cover (so they do not really believe in the religion just use it as ends to means). So a few monsters, plus some fundamentalists attacking anyone they see as moderate/takfir.
Personally I like my blue drachma without a burka so I am glad not to live in Iraq or elsewhere. I am glad the early Christian fundamentalists threw back the early Islamic fundamentalists invaders (though they lost the eastern roman empire) so that my drachma can dress however she wants (within societal norms of course).
I will add as an afterthought I have no opinion on Buddhism or others since I have never studied them.

[John]

> Closer to 0 than 100 million. But I would also point out that
> Nazis were only a small part of German population and so a large
> group can go along with some smaller bad group. In real numbers
> ISIS is not very large, but a bunch of people have gone along with
> them. I still think it is not a reasonable question.

It's a reasonable question because you were previously implying that
anyone who believes in the Koran, hence any Muslim, is evil. You've
given a good answer because you're reflecting that ordinary Muslims,
going through the day just trying to feed their families, are not
evil.

> I have a question for you. I think that ISIS core people (the
> inner 5,000) think they are following the Koran. Can you see how
> they could think they are following the Koran?

Yes of course they do.

But that's a trap, because any religious book -- Koran, Bible, etc. --
cannot survive for centuries unless any politician can use it to
justify any action he wants.

Centuries of persecution of Jews, including the Holocaust, were done by
people who believed they were following the Bible.

The evilness of Jews was justified by blaming Jews for killing Jesus.

Another justification is:

1. Anyone who hasn't accepted Jesus as savior will go to hell.
2. Jews don't accept Jesus as savior.
3. Therefore, Jews will go to hell.
4. Anyone who goes to hell is evil.
5. Therefore, Jews are evil.

This is not some fantasy discourse. This is firm evangelican
Christian doctrine. I used to discuss this with my Christian friends
in college. "How is it possible," I would ask, "for someone to live a
good life and yet go to hell for not accepting Jesus as savior?"
Answer: "It's like swimming from New York to Paris. Living a good
life is one mile. Accepting Jesus as savior is the rest of the trip."

Here's a Papal bull issued by Pope Paul IV on July 14, 1555, that
I quoted in 2013:

> "As it is completely absurd and improper in the utmost that the
> Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal
> servitude, can under the pretext that pious Christians must accept
> them and sustain their habitation, are so ungrateful to
> Christians, as, instead of thanks for gracious treatment, they
> return contumely, and among themselves, instead of the slavery,
> which they deserve, they manage to claim superiority: we, who
> newly learned that these very Jews have insolently invaded our
> City Rome and a number of the Papal States, territories and
> domains their impudence increased so much that they dare not only
> to live amongst the Christian people, but also in the vicinity of
> the churches without any difference of dressing, and even that
> they rent houses in the main streets and squares, buy and hold
> immovable property, engage maids, nurses and other Christian
> servants, and commit other and numerous misdeeds with shame and
> contempt of the Christian name. Considering that the Church of
> Rome tolerates these very Jews is evidence of the true Christian
> faith and to this end [we declare]: that they, won over by the
> piety and kindness of the See, should at long last recognize their
> erroneous ways, and should lose no time in seeing the true light
> of the catholic faith, and thus to agree that while they persist
> in their errors, realizing that they are slaves because of their
> deeds, whereas Christians have been freed through our Lord God
> Jesus Christ, and that it is iniquitous for it to appear that the
> sons of free women serve the sons of maids."

And you think that this is ancient history? No, it was mainstream Catholic
law until 1986, when Pope John Paul II withdrew it.

** 25-May-14 World View -- Pope Francis visits Mideast to reconcile with Jews, Orthodox, and Muslims
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e140525

In particular, this was mainstream Catholic law during the Holocaust,
and was used as a justification. Hitler's "Final Solution" directly
addressed this law.

So was Pope Paul IV evil? Were all popes evil until 1986? Were all
Catholics evil until 1986?

[John]

> Not being evasive.

> You fail to understand, or won't admit that it does not take a
> large number of committed people to kill large numbers of
> innocents. Islam more than any other ideology breeds those
> willing to perpetrate, and justify those crimes -- in the name of
> Allah, thereby exonerating themselves of any responsibility for
> their crime. You appear to be contented to just clean up the
> bodies, while saying: "... there are just so many of them
> (Muslims), what else can we do?" Islam has to make it culturally
> not okay to repress women, make it not okay to destroy the
> treasures of the civilizations of antiquity, make honor killings
> not okay, make mass murder in the name of Allah not okay. If Islam
> can't do that exclude Islam from Western society."

Yes of course you're being evasive. It's a really simple question,
but I gather answering it would make your head explode because it
would reveal too much about your own views. And considering a lot of
things you've said, including the last sentence above, then I'm not
sure you're able to answer it for fear of totally embarrassing
yourself.