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Muslims to act as "human shields" at Coptic Christmas Eve mass

Color me impressed. Its a good beginning...a good sign. I hope that more and more this becomes the norm.

It's not a first step. This kind of activity across the region at the government and social level have been going on for years. People are just paying attention now.
 
I certainly did NOT say "stop", and yet you get 3 thanks for this garbage reply.

I posted much else in the thread, and another today, in a related topic, you could say nothing about.
Instead we get this grotesque putting of words in my mouth/Non-quotation.
This is beyond Disingenuity.
The number of threads I'm active in at the moment is in the double figures... and I have a social life. Don't worry, I'll get to you.

Your posts were incredibly hasty to remind us that there exists a history of religious violence, which indicates that you want us to focus on the violence and ignore the tolerance. While the 'stop' was hyperbole on my part, it was based on the apparent fact that the tolerant actions of Egyptian Muslims are threatening your worldview of Islam.
 
The number of threads I'm active in at the moment is in the double figures... and I have a social life. Don't worry, I'll get to you.
However briefly.


Your posts were incredibly hasty to remind us that there exists a history of religious violence, which indicates that you want us to focus on the violence and ignore the tolerance. While the 'stop' was hyperbole on my part, it was based on the apparent fact that the tolerant actions of Egyptian Muslims are threatening your worldview of Islam.
I disagree with your subjective description "hasty."
I felt it only fair/perspective-giving to point out that right up until this happened (ie, even all through December), it was business a usual.
Google away or again... go to Copts.com.

And when you used the caricature quote, even it was seriously off and shows a lack of understanding of the situation in Egypt.
"hey, stop that! You're ignoring your rich tradition of killing each other!"?
There's NOT "a rich tradition of killing each other".
There's a rich tradition of ONE-way and institutionalized persecution of the Copts by Egyptian Muslims and their govt.
Not unlike the non-Muslim minorities in many other countries. The ones that are even left that is.

Which leads to my post on the last page in which I explain my special problem with Islam.
I think I laid out the basic problem/'worldview' .. if very briefly.
Be glad to debate it (it's still there).. and probably could just by requoting my many other debates already on this board.
It gets to be tedious laying out the places, facts, and figures, which could lead one to no other conclusion.
Confirmed, tellingly and ultimately, by Muslim reformers and their perilous situation.
 
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mbig: from reading your posts, it seems that your problem is not with Islam itself, but with the literalist/fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. If that's the case, then you won't get much disagreement from me.

The disagreement comes when you start to think that such extremism is indicative of the entire demographic. As indicated by the word 'extremist', that's blatantly not the case - and the subject of the OP is a vindication of this.
 
mbig: from reading your posts, it seems that your problem is not with Islam itself, but with the literalist/fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. If that's the case, then you won't get much disagreement from me.

The disagreement comes when you start to think that such extremism is indicative of the entire demographic. As indicated by the word 'extremist', that's blatantly not the case - and the subject of the OP is a vindication of this.
Good ian.
Been looking to discuss with someone who doesn't have alot of political baggage/hamstrung by PC/Leftism etc, and who has some background scientifically and otherwise

So let's not start (if we are starting) by using the strawman "entire demographic".
We're both, I hope, above such tactics.

My usual numbers are [roughly] 1/3 pure Islamist, 1/3 who agree or would never disagree with group one and who are still Conservative Literalists, and perhaps 1/3 who would like a more secular religion even tho many of them would also say they're literalist. The latter group reading the Koran more liberally even if many are huggers of it.
I think those are rather generous considering some polls I could cite.
(ie attitudes on 'importance of religion in daily life', Sharia, Homosexuality, etc)

Only in the RELATIVE/PC world of descriptions of Islam could many contries be considered 'moderate'.. while maintaining many strict tenets of religion; Shariah etc.

As I was saying the other day in the Europe section..
A Muslim with the IDENTICAL politics of "Radical", "Right Wing" "Fundamentalists" as Falwell, Roberston et al and MORE... (ie, Homosexual-intolerant, wants Sharia law, Jail time for criticism of Islam, Anti-Woman, Antisemitic, etc etc) is considered a moderate by Euro-liberals.
Only if you are a suicide bomber according to virtually all in that section are you an 'islamist'/Radical/etc
Yes, according to many in that section, the Muslim version of Falwell/Roberstson they joyfully mock... is 'moderate'.
alexa insisting there is no Islamism problem in the UK.
it's unreal.

And that's just Muslims in the West!
One could, as I have many times, further elucidate worldwide from Mauritania to Mindinao; the Long "islamic Frontline" where people die EVERY Day in the name of Islam. (why bother with the fudgy 'ism')
 
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It's not a first step. This kind of activity across the region at the government and social level have been going on for years. People are just paying attention now.

In the 4 years I spent across the region, this has never been common or 'the norm.' Silence is the norm. Im glad this happened. I hope it catches on. I hope Muslims become MORE vocal and aggressive against those fundamentalists that bastardize their faith.
 
@mbig
85.jpg


I think it's a problem of how we classify people - of (dis)association, and sliding scales. For each worldview (liberalism, conservatism, Islam etc), we create a scale, where 'mostly normal behaviour' is at one end and 'acting illegally because of that worldview' is at the other. We call people at the far end 'extremists', people at the near end 'centrists' (or RINOs :p) and people in the middle 'moderates' - they might hold strong views and not act on them, or they might act only on the more-accepted facets of their worldview.

But not all scales are made equal. People who act illegally because of political views are often not considered to be in that political category - they're just considered to be random nutters, whereas at the moment those people who act illegally because of Islam are considered to be part of the spectrum; thanks in part to people like RoP, insisting that the bombers are the 'True' Muslims. Because the suicide bombers are occupying the 'extremist' category on the Islam scale, that pushes the intolerant-but-peaceful Muslims into the 'moderate' area. At the same time, partisan hackery causes political 'moderates' to be described by the opposite side as 'radicals', which pushes them towards the outer end of the scale (not in actions, just in name).

Comparing political scales with religious scales will then result in the disparity you've pointed out - it's not a 'liberal' thing, just a consequence of how we classify people. The two solutions to this problem are to stop the two main causes - stop the partisan hackery that distorts politicians positions to the point of absurdity ('Obama is a marxist! Obama is a Marxist!) and recognise that/agree with the many Muslims who don't consider suicide bombers to belong to the 'Muslim' scale. I found it particularly interesting in the article linked to in the OP that one Muslim said "I feel great sympathy for her family’s loss, yet I don’t feel that as a Muslim I should apologize on the behalf of murderers." - she doesn't feel that the bomber has anything in common with her such that she (or any Muslim) should apologise on his behalf. He's not on her scale.

Pic related - while it's originally a snarky (if fairly valid) joke, it also points out that we only judge people as 'extremists' or 'moderates' based on the actions of other people who we've also chosen to include in their category.

EDIT: Post 1000! Hello, DP veteran-hood!
 
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That cartoon is very misleading but does serve to illustrate my point.

How many Christian abortion Clinic bombers are there/have there been in 10 years?
2? 3? 5?
After all, this IS in good part a Quantitative debate.

And then I ask... How many people died in the name Islam just TODAY. Probably 20/30 or so.
300 a day during the 20 year Sudan/NIF genocide.. a lesser number during the Slaughter in East Timor. (in 'moderate' Indonesia)

I think it's a problem of how we classify people -....

But not all scales are made equal. People who act illegally because of political views are often not considered to be in that political category - they're just considered to be random nutters, whereas at the moment those people who act illegally because of Islam are considered to be part of the spectrum;
I haven't included random Muslim crime nor Saddam Hussein's politics. (yet)
Muslims, like everyone else, have street crime and politics beyond religion.

thanks in part to people like RoP, insisting that the bombers are the 'True' Muslims. Because the suicide bombers are occupying the 'extremist' category on the Islam scale, that pushes the intolerant-but-peaceful Muslims into the 'moderate' area. At the same time, partisan hackery causes political 'moderates' to be described by the opposite side as 'radicals', which pushes them towards the outer end of the scale (not in actions, just in name).
So I'd like your opinion on .. let's call it the 'Falwell proposition.'
What do we call Muslims with his same degree of Piety/Intolerance are.... 'Moderate', 'liberal'!, 'normal' muslims?
I think they ARE 'normal Muslims', but this is Terrible news (tho not really news any more) for the planet, and Demonstrably bad news for the EU and Scandinavia who are SUFFERING an influx of intolerant (but er.. normal) Muslims.
As an atheist I can see this double standard from afar quite clearly.

These are normal Muslims too. Not "terrorists" or 'Radicals'. (?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIgG3qvcUX8
Yes, the above is Saudi Arabia.. but one can watch Antisemitic TV/read antisemitic articles DAILY in the Arab world even/no-especially in 'moderate' Egypt.
Many Muslim Arabs, perhaps HALF of them, even in the West, are conspiracists re 9/11 and otherwise.
Witness the recent Shark attack in Egypt blamed on Mossad.
BUT.. we must not call them 'extremists', fundamentalist, etc, lest they get even worse?


Comparing political scales with religious scales will then result in the disparity you've pointed out - it's not a 'liberal' thing, just a consequence of how we classify people. The two solutions to this problem are to stop the two main causes - stop the partisan hackery that distorts politicians positions to the point of absurdity ('Obama is a marxist! Obama is a Marxist!) and recognise that/agree with the many Muslims who don't consider suicide bombers to belong to the 'Muslim' scale. I found it particularly interesting in the article linked to in the OP that one Muslim said "I feel great sympathy for her family’s loss, yet I don’t feel that as a Muslim I should apologize on the behalf of murderers." - she doesn't feel that the bomber has anything in common with her such that she (or any Muslim) should apologise on his behalf. He's not on her scale.
Thanks.
Let's be clear there IS a disparity though and I reject this hypocritical dualism.
And that I have a right to call Most Muslims on what many here call Falwell/Robtsn on. Intolerant, Fundamentalist, etc without being called the absurd word 'Islamophobe.'
Especially the Many in the West who are second-generation/home-grown bigots.

On that note.
RoP has a better understanding than you think.. and certainly better than all his daily opponents in the section.

Ibn Warraq. Formerly posted on his website ISIS (Institute for Secular Islam)... now author of "why I am not a Muslim'.. alas.
http://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Anthology/Islam/IbnWarraqWTC.htm
Excerpt:
“Ah, but you are confusing Islam with Islamic fundamentalism. The Real Islam has nothing to do with violence,” Apologists of Islam argue.

There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism: at most there is a difference of degree but not of kind. All the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism are derived from the Qur’an, the Sunna, and the Hadith – Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian construct derived by Muslim jurists from the fundamental and defining texts of Islam. The fundamentalists, with greater logic and coherence than so-called moderate or liberal Muslims, have made Islam the basis of a radical utopian ideology that aims to replace capitalism and democracy as the reigning world system. Islamism accounts for the anti-American hatred to be found in places far from the Arab-Israeli conflict, like Nigeria and Afghanistan, demonstrating that the Middle East conflict cannot legitimately be used to explain this phenomenon called Islamism. A Palestinian involved in the WTC bombings would be seen as a martyr to the Palestinian cause, but even more as a martyr to Islam.


“Ah, but Islamic fundamentalism is like any other kind of fundamentalism, one must not demonise it. It is the result of political, social grievances. It must be explained in terms of economics and not religion,” continue the apologists of Islam.

There are enormous differences between Islamic fundamentalism and any other kind of modern fundamentalism. It is true that Hindu, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalists have been responsible for acts of violence, but these have been confined to particular countries and regions. Islamic fundamentalism has global aspirations: the submission of the entire world to the all-embracing Shari’a, Islamic Law, a fascist system of dictates designed to control every single act of all individuals. Nor do Hindus or Jews seek to convert the world to their religion. Christians do indulge in proselytism but no longer use acts of violence or international terrorism to achieve their aims.

Only Islam treats non-believers as inferior beings who are expendable in the drive to world hegemony. Islam justifies any means to achieve the end of establishing an Islamic world.

Islamic fundamentalists recruit among Muslim populations, they appeal to Islamic religious symbols, and they motivate their recruits with Islamic doctrine derived from the Qur’an. Economic poverty alone cannot explain the phenomenon of Islamism. Poverty in Brazil or Mexico has not resulted in Christian fundamentalist acts of international terror. Islamists are against what they see as western materialism itself. Their choice is clear: Islam or jahiliyya. The latter term is redefined to mean modern-style jahiliyya of modern, democratic, industrialised societies of Europe and America, where man is under the dominion of man rather than Allah. They totally reject the values of the West, which they feel are poisoning Islamic culture. So, it is not just a question of economics, but of an entirely different worldview, which they wish to impose on the whole world. Sayyid Qutb, the very influential Egyptian Muslim thinker, said that “dominion should be reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He conferred upon men. An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so that this moral rearmament could take place. The ultimate objective is to re-establish the Kingdom of Allah upon earth...”

And of course one can observe Islam in action in the aforementioned places from the Algerian Civil War to Abu Sayef in the Philppines.
It's really too long to elaborate now.

Which is another point of the oft dismissed RoP which you kind of coincidentally/accidentally touch on.
Islam is Not just a religion, it is a complete life system and I would say Religio-Political philosophy.
People say to him, islam is protected as a religion, but Islam is also a political view and may not deserve the same protections as other [mere] religions whose main differentiation point is which building you go to on Sunday.

I'm wandering a bit now, but don't want to lose the thematic violence of Islam.. and in this case the copts.
One of the two Middle Eastern Arab countries remaining that have any Christians left.
The other being Lebanon which is Dar al harb and from which More maronites have fled than remain.
 
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This both warms and saddens me. The media is and always will be somewhat one sided, painting only the picture it wants to present. Unfortunately for the average Muslim of this era it's the negative that has become our international symbol. Stories like this will not be run by any major publication of form of broadcast, merely because they want an enemy that is pure evil. After all, the common public wants a black and white picture. They want right and wrong, there's no room for the complexities of reality. Thus, at least for now, any of us who have this faith will be forced to remain with the stigma created by the few bad eggs of our people. In reality these select few have taken the religion and twisted it so far past recognition that it's truly saddening, yet their twisted version has become a commonly known one. Emotion, in this case fear and/ or hate, makes a message memorable, but not necessarily accurate.

Cheers ;
Dea
 
That cartoon is very misleading but does serve to illustrate my point.

How many Christian abortion Clinic bombers are there/have there been in 10 years?
2? 3? 5?
After all, this IS in good part a Quantitative debate.

And then I ask... How many people died in the name Islam just TODAY. Probably 20/30 or so.
300 a day during the 20 year Sudan/NIF genocide.. a lesser number during the Slaughter in East Timor. (in 'moderate' Indonesia)
It shouldn't be a quantitative debate. If you were to take it in that direction, the only for you to show that Islam is inherantly violent would be to show that all (or even the overwhelming majority) of Muslims are violent - which is blatantly not going to happen, because it isn't true. Numbers don't really matter unless they're overwhelmingly different - a lot of Muslims live in war-affected areas or under authoritarian regimes who have (ab)used the religion to enforce their power - there's mitigating factors.

I haven't included random Muslim crime nor Saddam Hussein's politics. (yet)
Muslims, like everyone else, have street crime and politics beyond religion.
Well, you shouldn't have. That's not crimes committed 'because they are Muslim', so it shouldn't be included.

So I'd like your opinion on .. let's call it the 'Falwell proposition.'
What do we call Muslims with his same degree of Piety/Intolerance are.... 'Moderate', 'liberal'!, 'normal' muslims?
I think they ARE 'normal Muslims', but this is Terrible news (tho not really news any more) for the planet, and Demonstrably bad news for the EU and Scandinavia who are SUFFERING an influx of intolerant (but er.. normal) Muslims.
As an atheist I can see this double standard from afar quite clearly.

These are normal Muslims too. Not "terrorists" or 'Radicals'. (?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIgG3qvcUX8
Yes, the above is Saudi Arabia.. but one can watch Antisemitic TV/read antisemitic articles DAILY in the Arab world even/no-especially in 'moderate' Egypt.
Many Muslim Arabs, perhaps HALF of them, even in the West, are conspiracists re 9/11 and otherwise.
Witness the recent Shark attack in Egypt blamed on Mossad.
BUT.. we must not call them 'extremists', fundamentalist, etc, lest they get even worse?
Half the Muslim Arabs in the world are terrorist 'conspiracists'? That's an even more off-target estimate than Glen Beck's now-infamous version.

If we take the 'violent ones' off the list, in order to better compare the Islamic 'scale' with the political ones, we get the homophobic etc becoming the new 'radicals'.

The problem is that this can only really apply to Western Muslims. When you look at videos like the one you've just seen, you're seeing people who live in a culture of distrusting (etc) Jews. That's not something that you can blame purely on religion - more on territorial-ism (gaza/palestine, which started off religious a very long time ago but is mainly just a case of land-grabbing politics, sometimes with leaders using religion to fan the fires) and so on.

And while you can certainly call terrorists 'extremists' etc, don't include them in the same scale as ordinary Muslims. There's no reason to do so other than to vilify Islam, and the only result is to act as something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thanks.
Let's be clear there IS a disparity though and I reject this hypocritical dualism.
And that I have a right to call Most Muslims on what many here call Falwell/Robtsn on. Intolerant, Fundamentalist, etc without being called the absurd word 'Islamophobe.'
Especially the Many in the West who are second-generation/home-grown bigots.
Judge people based on their actions. I'm all for that.

On that note.
RoP has a better understanding than you think.. and certainly better than all his daily opponents in the section.

Ibn Warraq. Formerly posted on his website ISIS (Institute for Secular Islam)... now author of "why I am not a Muslim'.. alas.
Statement By Ibn Warraq On The World Trade Center Atrocity
Excerpt:

And of course one can observe Islam in action in the aforementioned places from the Algerian Civil War to Abu Sayef in the Philppines.
It's really too long to elaborate now.
Which is another point of the oft dismissed RoP which you kind of coincidentally/accidentally touch on.
Islam is Not just a religion, it is a complete life system and I would say Religio-Political philosophy.
People say to him, islam is protected as a religion, but Islam is also a political view and may not deserve the same protections as other [mere] religions whose main differentiation point is which building you go to on Sunday.
I'm afraid I'm just going to straight-up disagree with him here. In certain cultures, religion has been woven into a tapestry of intolerance etc - that's true. But that doesn't make the religion bed, just the uses to which it has been put.
 
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