Who Are the Real Hijackers of Islam?

[AmbulanceDriver]

Well, here's the issue - how did you decide what was orthodox?  By reading the National review's assessment of what Islamic texts support.

Muslims, however, don't consider the National Review to be authoritative.  Nor is most of what they do consider religiously authoritative interpretations readily available in english.  Of course, the pronouncements of their authorities are pretty standard (as Micro points out) for a Judeo-Christian view: no killing innocent people.  I'm not sure how you can discard that for the religious analysis of the National Review, as smart as whoever wrote that might be.

Ok, see, here's the problem.  The no killing "innocent" people.  That's fine.  The problem is, who defines what is "innocent".  And how is that defined?  It's pretty easy to justify (regardless of what flavor of nutjob you might be, be it Muslim, Christian, or other) that you must kill the "guilty".  Or the "Not Innocent".  Then it's just a matter of labeling.  Abortion providers?  Clearly the guilty.  Mohammed cartoonists?  Oh, most definitely guilty.  Daughter who brought dishonor to the family?   Guilty.  

Does this apply to most of the worshippers of [insert deity of choice]?  Absolutely not.  As a Christian, I don't think it's my duty to punish the guilty.  That's God's bailiwick.  But when you get people off into nutjob land, be it suicide bombers, abortion snipers, or what have you, then you have a problem.  

[roo_ster]

Well, here's the issue - how did you decide what was orthodox?  By reading the National review's assessment of what Islamic texts support.

Muslims, however, don't consider the National Review to be authoritative.  Nor is most of what they do consider religiously authoritative interpretations readily available in english.  Of course, the pronouncements of their authorities are pretty standard (as Micro points out) for a Judeo-Christian view: no killing innocent people.  I'm not sure how you can discard that for the religious analysis of the National Review, as smart as whoever wrote that might be.

Thanks for playing, but you are wrong on all your assumptions. 

I owned a couple different paperback Korans in HS and read them.  Went to college, studied the Carolingians, read Pirenne's Mohmmed & Charlemagne, & sought out all sorts of mo-temporaneous materials with a focus on histories of Mo.  Got a pretty decent grounding before reading this week's National Review.

As for contemporary religious authorities, most of the bigs in the ME seem just fine with killing non-combatants.  Heck, even a "moderate" invited to the White House ended up going all jihadi.  Then, of course, are the Muslims I have worked with in the 'states, most of whom were genocidal anti-semites under their veneer of civilization and education(0). 

All the big local Muslim religious authorities are of like mind, some even going so far as to endorse the worst bits of the Iranian regime, endorse wife-beating & the killing of homosexuals.  They have done so in public, both in their own printed advertisements, and verbally in front of these odd critters called "journalists," who record them and tell the rest of us about it.  When their co-religionists are nabbed for materially assisting terrorist, the religious authorities and largest local mosques support them.

SS, your words don't count for much relative to all that.








(0) Turks excluded, as I have yet to meet an immigrant Turk with such views. 

[Tallpine]

Until their daughter is seen talking to a boy who isn't a male relative.

Then they kill her for bringing dishonor to the family.

Yeah, but we can't enforce true morality on the entire rest of the world.  People over there have been raised on those beliefs, and the daughter's scandalous behaviour is as obviously evil to them as child molesting and talking in the theater is to us.

As long as they aren't killing Americans, or moving over here and killing their daughters (which would get handled under our civil laws).

I just don't think we should fall into the trap of advocating the same things that the Muslims do, like genocide.  That daughter is just as dead whether her relatives kill her for dishonor, or whether we kill her with bombs. 

[grampster]

My position on the modern world problem with the reality of a religious, cultural situation that seems to be like an octopus that stretches around the world due to modern communication and transportation has alternated between providing a nuclear flashbang or ignoring it as much as possible.

My present position is that the Western Civilized world needs to decide to make some sort of a stern example to radical Muslims that sends a world wide message that says...Here you go, you reap as you sow and from this day forward do as you will within your bailiwick, but don't try and export your violent, tribalist, misoginystic religious practices to those places who reject your religious notions.  If you wish to be like us, welcome.  If you don't, stay where you are.   We don't wish to live like you, but we will trade with you.  If you don't like those terms, bad things will occur and you will not survive.

[makattak]

Are you seriously asking those questions as if the Copts, Iraqi Christians, and Pakistani Christians do not practice honour killing just like their Muslim neighbours!?

It's amazing how people can convince themselves they've got a picture of what those minorities are like without having spent even five minutes trying to learn about them.  Newsflash for you: it is just as dangerous to be a woman in Pakistani, Iraqi, or Egyptian Christian communities as it is to be a woman in muslim communities in the same places.  They're the same third-world people.

Got a citation for that, chief? Cause I checked SPECIFICALLY before I posted to see what I could find along those lines.

[MicroBalrog]

http://islam-west.com/2008/10/muslim-victim-of-christian-honour.html

[De Selby]

Got a citation for that, chief? Cause I checked SPECIFICALLY before I posted to see what I could find along those lines.

Sure - here's an article about the prevalence of honour killings in Egypt including Copts:  http://zcommunications.org/honour-killings-3-4-the-lie-behind-mass-suicides-of-egypts-young-women-by-robert-fisk

Most relevant:  

. The Christian Coptic community – perhaps 10 per cent of the Egyptian population – has closed itself off from any "honour" killing investigations even though Christian girls have been murdered because they wanted to marry Muslim men. "Christians cannot talk about this outside the church," Azza Suleiman complains. "We have tried to open up shelters, but the government will not allow it. They say: 'Please, no talk of incest.' And 'honour' crimes are often also related to inheritance."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-a-place-of-refuge-from-fear-and-guilt-2075213.html

Here in Jordan, there are Christians as well as Muslims, and per capita the Christians suffer from 'honour' crimes more than the Muslims."

This one in Iraq got worldwide attention, at the time mostly without too explicit a discussion of the non-Muslim perps:
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?q=node/1690

And Pakistan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30khans-t.html

It is simply not the case that Christians don't commit honour killings in these places - they do so throughout the mediterranean, in the middle east, and in South Asia, for just the same cultural reasons as the Muslims in those places.

[makattak]

It is simply not the case that Christians don't commit honour killings in these places - they do so throughout the mediterranean, in the middle east, and in South Asia, for just the same cultural reasons as the Muslims in those places.

I didn't say they didn't. I asked for numbers. You haven't provided any.

I'm not surprised there is murder. Humanity is depraved wherever it exists. I still would like some numbers, and no one seems to have them.

[Tallpine]

I still would like some numbers, and no one seems to have them.

Here's one: 42

[De Selby]

I didn't say they didn't. I asked for numbers. You haven't provided any.

I'm not surprised there is murder. Humanity is depraved wherever it exists. I still would like some numbers, and no one seems to have them.

You didn't provide any either - but yeah, it happens sufficiently often to warrant articles about it, just like you get articles about muslim honour killings. 

We are all in agreement, at this point, that there are Christian honour killings in the same countries where the are Muslim honour killings though, aren't we?

[MicroBalrog]

I for one am not depraved. Deprived, might be.

[grampster]

There are people all over the world who do weird, vicious, evil, warped things on behalf of all sorts of beliefs.  My concern, other than sadness for those who are the brunt of those acts, is that behavior or belief ought not to be acceptably exported to places that do not have those beliefs.

[Perd Hapley]

My concern, other than sadness for those who are the brunt of those acts, is that behavior or belief ought not to be acceptably exported to places that do not have those beliefs.

Can you clarify, please? You mean that people should not spread their beliefs into new areas?

[Tallpine]

There are people all over the world who do weird, vicious, evil, warped things on behalf of all sorts of beliefs.

But I'm different than that.  I just do those things for fun