Plight of a moderate Muslim

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 7:40 pm

ASPER wrote:

im not afraid of any alqaeda(its fictional but oh well) dude,any wannabe alqaeda its not a muslim.
the majority of muslims are against terrorism of any form and know 911 was an inside job,thats a fact,some still into the alqaeda dream and that they can put islam in the world with violence,but thats the minority and even some dont express it out and rather "dont have an opinion" on the terror subject.

its like saying the video of this jew is like all jews.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e1842edc4f
if its the minority or majority u decide after you check what they have done to the world.

remember that behind closed doors politicians are friends,somewhat like wwf wrestlers...

peace

Yes with regard to your statement concerning the majority of Muslims being moderate; no with regard to the attack of the 11th of September 2001 being an "inside job" though I am definitely not an admirer of the current Administration of the United States of America. Certainly even the "lesser jihad," (violent struggle; the greater jihad is the inner struggle to be a better person or for a more just society, etc.) has clear rules (defensive not agressive, no killing or even attacking of innocent civilians, especially women and children; no violent attacking let alone killing of clergy of any faith (possibly reserved for People of the Book -Jews, Christians, Muslims and arguably according to some Shi'at Ali also including the Zoroastrians and the Sabaean Mandaeans) no poisoning of wells, no cutting down of date palms (destroying livelihood or means of sustenance) and so on). Thank you for your contribution.

Salaam aleikhem/Shalom aleichem/Pax vobiscum/Peace be with you. Apologies if transliterations for Arabic and Hebrew inaccurate representations of pronunciation.

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 7:49 pm

ASPER wrote:

On what basis do you unilaterally declare AL-Qaeda fictional? You could argue that they are blamed or take "credit" for more atrocities than they are actually guilty of, or that their training was originally in a context of the Mujiahideen [sic] whose efforts to oust the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and their allies from Afghanistan backed by the United States of America, but denying their existence altogether does not appear to me a premise that can be convincingly maintained without exhaustive evidence that you have not yet provided. Please do not take offense if I appear to be rather harsh in rejecting your hypothesis; I hold you in the highest esteem. (well I respect you).

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:02 pm

Tha_Cat wrote:

snake321 wrote:

Similar things have also happened in Christian churches. One guy in my state was thrown out of church because he didn't vote for Bush.

Moral equivalency = politically correct horsecrap.

Quit being politically correct.

Moral equivalency? How is criticising faults of individual Christians and Muslims alike moral equivalency? It is moral relativism of the worst sort to describe an action as wrong in one context, right in another, though moral relativism is not generally associated with the Right. And one's vote is not legitimate grounds for excommunication (effectively what the congregation that expelled one of its congregrants on its own authority was doing).

And "politically correct" is an over-used and ambiguous term. One might equally object to a right-wing equivalent of "political correctness". (including expelling someone on the basis of their vote). The person you were replying to was only relating an incident; snake321 made no comment as to whether the action was morally equivalent or not, though criticism of the action of expulsion was (justifiably in my view) certainly implied. Its being equal to any specific injustice in a Muslim or other context was not specifically judged in that post.

"Political correctness" while having some basis as a legitimate object of criticism, can all too frequently be used by the Right wing of politics as a convenient fiction to quell dissent, paradoxiocally citing their own freedom of speech as the issue. This may admittedly be also used by the Left.

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Last edited by AlexandertheSolitary on 18 Feb 2007, 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:12 pm

jimservo wrote:

ASPER wrote:

m not afraid of any alqaeda(its fictional but oh well) dude,any wannabe alqaeda its not a muslim.

The Islamic community must be able to say more then "terrorists are not Muslim."

If a Christian said: I must go kill an apostate, I would will condemn it absolutely and without qualification, and we must be willing to stop such a person by any means necessary. Muslims must be willing to do the same with Muslims.

If a significant portion of the Christian community claimed to support violence such as the 9/11 attack, then the Christian community would be have a serious problem to deal with internally. Well, the Muslim community has a serious problem deal with internally, and unfortunately those problems have spiraled out and hit hard not only Muslims (which is bad enough), but members of other religions, and members of no religion at all.

Many Muslims have already condemned terrorism repeatedly. And why are people not regularly on the back of Christians like myself to condemn verbally, unambiguously and without reserve the actions of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda or of the at least nominally Protestant Ku Klux Klan? (I am willing to provide an unambiguous condemnation right now. These people are profaning the name of Christ through their evil actions). But a single statement, or several repeated ones, appears to be considered insufficient in the Islamic context. This must be frustrating for Muslims, given that there are other issues that need to be addressed.

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:15 pm

skafather84 wrote:

islamic discussion....an oppertunity for me to learn!! ! i'm excited.

i'll certainly delight in my return coinciding with this topic.

/finalized my move into california

Yes, learning is exciting.

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:28 pm

jimservo wrote:

charlesbronstein wrote:

I consider I suppose being "moderate" means being open to racial profiling, police surveillance, the erosion of civil liberties"

I consider moderate in the United States to be simply supporting democracy, respecting the multitude of traditions we have and opposing terrorism. By this definition, the King of Jordan, who is often defined as a moderate, would not make the cut.

charlesbronstein wrote:

and if you were fortunate enough to live in lebanon during the summer, having your family murdered by Israeli bombers

Israel is more selective in it's efforts to avoid civilians then the United States. The invasion of southern Lebanon, which was under control of Hezbollah rather then the central government, was perfectly legally due to the fact that rockets were being fired across the border.

Do you have any sources for the accusations of Israeli "murders?" Is it possible that these accusations comes from the numerous false accusations made against Israel?

charlesbronstein wrote:

hypothetically, if Saddam had attacked the U.S he could have appeal to the "moderate christians" in other western states like Canada and Britain to fight the "radical terrorist christians" of the United States.

If a party similar to the Baaths (which are based upon the Nazis) took over the United States, and this party was dominated of say, Southerners, and they massacred (I'm not sure what the exact equivalent is but) 15 million people, and invaded and fought a war against Mexico that killed 15 million more (on both sides), and also tortured their political opponents, raped women in "rape rooms," then I would strongly support an effort by a moderate Muslim power to put into place a more just regime. And anyone who would murder innocent civilians, Christian or not, to prevent the removal of that said barbaric regime, would has no morals what so ever.

charlesbronstein wrote:

the number of people that have died under Israel's actions(with U.S funding)

I would object more to the United States funding of Egypt's dictatorship or the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia. Israel doesn't go out of massacre thousands or millions of people, certainly not the Palestinians. But the Arabs have! This is because they don't care about the Palestinians. They care about distracting there own people from their own problems with hatred for Israel. Israel doesn't even run the Palestinian territories, and hasn't for years. The Palestinian territories are in the middle of a civil war right now between two factions: one extreme, and one more extreme.

I would love for some Sadat (no saint) to rise and for an independent, peaceful Palestine to rise next to Israel, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

charlesbronstein wrote:

Pinochet(U.S. backed)

Yes, we supported him. His predecessor had been backed by the Soviets, you can hardly expect the U.S. to work hard to undermine him.

charlesbronstein wrote:

the contras in Nicaragua during the 80's, makes the islamic terror argument pretty limp.

Really? What was the contras evil ideology. Osama Bin Laden wants to establish a new caliphate across all of America. He speaks of us giving in after 4 million are dead. No threat there. The contras wanted to replace the Communist dictatorship with a democratic government. What is wrong with that? How is that a threat to the United States or the humanity?

Pinochet in Chile was a dictator. Be consistent. Of course the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a dictatorship, or at times an oligarchy, and both it and the United States of America backed regimes contributing to global instability. And no, I am not a practitioner of moral equivalence here; the form of government in USSR and other "communist" or "socialist" countries, no matter how many times some countries might call themselves democratic republics, or people's republics, or people's democratic republics (is there a competition for the most democratic sounding official title of a communist country?) or unions of soviet (workers' council) socialist republics, is vastly worse than a parliamentary or congressional (in the US context) democracy. I merely believe that the backing of various dictatorships if conceived to be in the national interest was indefensible.

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:50 pm

By the way, while the late brutal dictator Sadaam Hussein, for years leader of the Ba'ath party in Iraq and President of the same) appears indeed to have been inspired by the brutal dictator Adolf Hitler, Ba'athism, which originated in (and still governs) Syria, was a mixture of pan-Arabic nationalism, socialism and anti-Zionism (perhaps some similarities with National Socialism afterall. There certainly are in the later developments of the Ba'athist dictatorships of Iraq and Syria. The ideology was jointly founded by Salah-al-din Bitar, a Sunni Muslim, and Michel Aflaqi, a Maronite Christian I think, or possibly a Chaldaean Catholic like the former deputy prime minister of Iraq under Sadaam Hussein, Tariq Aziz. At one point a United Arab Republic was formed encompassing Ba'athist Syria and Gemal Abdul Nasser's Arab socialist Egypt. Currently Egypt, while a key ally of the United States of America in the region providing arbitration at times between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is far from democratic, not that it necessarily was better earlier. Recently, the first election under Hozni Mubarrak in quite some time to provide more than one candidate did not appear to be run fairly. And no, certainly King Abdullah of Jordan may not be a particuarly democratic person; (not are the descendants of Ibn Saud) he might be described as "moderate" in the sense of displaying greater willingness to enter into dialogue with his neighbours in Israel than say, President Mahmoud Ahmadinnejad [sic] of Iran.

While I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq (though subsequently uncertain given its late ruler was undoubtedly a brutal and unstable tyrant) I am troubled by reports that, in the event of an American/Coalition withdrawal of forces, Saudi Arabia was threatening to be involved, lending aid to the Sunni insurgents in order to "defend" Sunni Insurgents against Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias. This could exaccerbate the already existing instability of the region, as Syria is already involved as is Iran; Lebanon appears to be facing yet further difficult times. Yet I am unable to conceive of an effective answer to the many troubles of this region of the world.

Nearer to my home in Australia, a continuance of the status quo in Burma and recent developments in Thailand are also profoundly troubling; in the continent of Africa Sudan and Somalia appear to be in a bad way, as are Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The thoughts of others would be appreciated.

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 8:59 pm

[ The Palestinian territories are in the middle of a civil war right now between two factions: one extreme, and one more extreme.

[/quote]

Good quote. Why did not Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen exercise his authority in opposing the use of violence by the Fatah side of the Fatah-Hamas dispute? The actions of Fatah did not appear to be consistent with what might be necessary to defend against the actions of the (less corrupt, but more extreme) Hamas movement, currently the majority of the Palestinean Parliament? Was it a lack of auctoritas and charisma, or was he not concerned to halt this civil conflict? I had earlier, I admit, been favourably impressed by Abbas, a probably mistaken impression.

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Last edited by AlexandertheSolitary on 18 Feb 2007, 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 9:03 pm

ahayes wrote:

This is the problem with all organized religion. My mother and grandfather were extradited from the mormon church simply because my grandfather didn't support the church on their view of polygamy and my mother wouldn't abandon my grandpa because he was extradited.

I thought that the mainstream line of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) had abandoned polygamy. At what date did this change happen? Or were your grandfather and mother former members of the faction retaining the polygamous tenet?

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AlexandertheSolitary
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18 Feb 2007, 9:08 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

maldoror wrote:

Well, this is just the thing; I spend all day online reading opinions, and I spend most of my time reading books, and nothing ever diverges, or at least considers new alternatives. If that sounds like very general criticism it's because it is! In everything, in general. Maybe it's because of AS, but I almost never jive with the author. Where are our groundbreaking novels, documentaries and visionaries? We have Chomsky, Limbaugh, Michael Moore, and Jon Stewart. Having access to the internet and all other kinds of media only spreads the propaganda more efficiently. Going through the university system filter of left wing professors and students, which is currently what I'm doing, doesn't help any. The best thing for free thought is isolation; a guy can educate himself on the popular thinking and conventions by reading books in his own time.

Well, of course there is the generally accepted ideas. I would actually think that you are not reading radically enough though, there are many many very radical ideas online including the various forms of anarchism, and other ideas. Where are *any* groundbreaking novels, documentaries, and visionaries? We have Chomsky, we have neo-Naziism, we have David Friedman, we have many many radicals out there in the world, probably more so than in previous times. What propaganda? You mean porn. I mean, the amount of propaganda out there for various causes is so much that it can no longer be considered propaganda so much as background noise given the number of extremists for whatever views in existence arguing for those thing. Isolation leads to not much, you do not see the world in isolation, you may shut out the voices somewhat but that does not necessarily lead to understanding. Just think that you can read Rothbard, and then Proudhon, for differing perspectives and then afterwards can read up about whatever views you would like.

How are their thoughts freer? Radical does not necessarily equal independent thought.

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Awesomelyglorious
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18 Feb 2007, 10:08 pm

AlexandertheSolitary wrote:

How are their thoughts freer? Radical does not necessarily equal independent thought.

I would not say so either. However, it can indicate a willingness to challenge current convention. Really though, I would defend the late 20th or 21st century as having more free thought than other ages if only because of the increase in ability for the average person to get the information required to challenge the norm. I was largely trying to appease my opponent with such an offering as other people might have their own ideal indicators and there is no test for this thing conducted over the centuries.

ahayes
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18 Feb 2007, 11:51 pm

ahayes wrote:

I meant excommunicated.

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19 Feb 2007, 2:48 am

I'll respond to some things that were said properly later, I'm very busy lately, but I've got one thing to say.

I have at no point said or believed that it's improper to criticize anyone who's deserving it.

What I object to is when someone brings up an incident, like this Muslim being outcast from his Mosque, and people instead of criticizing the thought process of radical Muslims, the particular Mosque, or the particular people who threatened him, start talking about Christians and America.

You ever heard the saying that Two wrongs don't make a right?

You know what would happen if someone tortured a kid to death and in the court room said "John Wayne Gacy did the same thing at least 33 times so why are you saying things about me when he's so much worse?"

That's pretty much the same thing you're saying when you deflect criticism of one thing with criticism of another.

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19 Feb 2007, 10:17 am

Tha_Cat wrote:

LMAO, you just did the exact same thing you criticized us for.

AlexandertheSolitary
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19 Feb 2007, 11:06 am

Tha_Cat wrote:

No one here has condoned the incident initiating this thread, and a careful reading of my posts here would reveal that I am at least as consistently critical of specific Muslims as of specific Christians. (I am a Christian anyway, so I am hardly going to hold with a "Chistianity is also/equally bad or more so." A sizable number of Christians in this time and others worse than ALL the Muslims whom I have actually met and can give a firsthand account of - absolutely). And I respectfully questioned ASPER's position as partially unsound, just as I queried some statements put forward by the other side.

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20 Feb 2007, 11:01 pm

Well my point is that religious fanatacism is religious fanatacism, reguardless if it's christian or muslim, or atheist, or jewish, or whatever brand you wanna put on it. The fanatic muslims and the fanatic christians do many of the same types of things. I'm not saying that it's ok for muslims to be extremists either.

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