Straight talk about Islam

[theoldwolf]

Colonel West tells it like it is.

I believe in a world that works for everyone, with no one left out. This includes religious freedom. But it's time to stop calling Islam a religion of peace, when it is clearly founded on principles of death and terror and conquest and bloodshed and subjugation of women and infidels.

I call on Muslims everywhere to publicly declare that they repudiate the philosophy of conquest and dhimmitude. I call on the body of Muslims in the world to root out the violent from among them, cut off their funding, isolate them from society, and excommunicate them from their supposed faith.

Then, and only then, will I believe that Islam is a religion of peace.

Comments

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Tragic. We will accept Islam when it cease to be Islam by traditional definition, and devout Muslims will accept western culture when it ceases to be recognizable as western culture.

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

The enemy are the Jihadists. If you conflate them with Islam, if you accept that their reading of the Quran is the the proper reading of the Quran, then you are playing into their hands. The threat is real, but whoever tries to paint all Muslims with that brush is dripping poison into your heart.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

>The enemy are the Jihadists.

Indeed. And from where I sit, the Jihadists are winning the hearts and minds of mainstream Islam.

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

I had 2 co-works. they were married to each other for almost 15 years before he finally convinced her to convert to Islam. Fifteen years. They had 2 sons.

He convinced me that not all Muslims were bad, not all of them hate woman and think we are only here to serve them. I truly believe that he was one of the few that do believe that Islam is a peaceful religion.

I chalk the ones who lump every Muslim into the Jihadist group as the same people who lump all Wiccans in with Satanists or all Christians in with the Crazy-Cult Christians.

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

Are they? Here's a survey with data from 2006 to 2009.



http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1445/little-support-for-terrorism-among-muslim-americans

You may want to check your sources. There's more at Pew Research, like these:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/26/where-terrorism-finds-support-in-the-muslim-world
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1817/muslim-networks-western-europe-event-transcript
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1814/muslim-public-opinion-hamas-hezbollah-al-qaeda-islam-role-in-politics-democracy

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

This chart does nothing more than support my thesis. Anything below Jordan, almost or over half the people believe that suicide bombing can be justifiable. 36% in France is terrifying. 17% in my own country is disturbing. And Pakistan's results are about as trustworthy as an election in the DRC. The reason I give these figures a "half-empty" slant is because the majorities in the Islamic world - if they are truly majorities - are silent, whereas they should be loud, vocal and outraged that Jihadistan has kidnapped their faith and turned it into a global bone of contention.

Believe me, I want nothing more than to be hopeful about the prospects of peaceful coexistence of all faiths - but turning a blind eye to reality and to cease to be vigilant in the face of a real threat to western civilization is cavalier and foolish.

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

To be clear, anything less than 100% rejection is worrysome. Hoever, you voiced concern about the trend, that Jihadists gain support. I've had a further look around and came across this table:

http://pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=19&survey=10&response=Often/sometimes%20justified&mode=table

I read this as support for sucicide attacks is going down as a general trend. The vast differences between the different countries also show, that Islam on its own can not explain the findings. There must be other factors involved.

There are many things going wrong. Amongst them is that, depending on the country, 25% to 60%(!) of the Muslims do not believe that 9/11 was carried out by a group of Arabs (page 51 [2]). It's worse in Europe than in the US. So we are dealing with seriously misinformed people here, who are missing/distrusting vital information.

P.S.: More detailed results are

                  often / sometimes / rarely / never justified
France (2006) [1]    6        10         19      64
US (2007) [2]            8                5      78

[1]http://pewglobal.org/files/pdf/253.pdf
[2]http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

It's my impression, that indoctrination and feelings of unjust treatment / suppression are more important to the attitudes towards terrorism than religion itself.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

The Pew chart is interesting, if reliable. It does show a gradual downward trend over the years.

No question that people are being misinformed or misled, which is a natural consequence of a decentralized authority. When people like Khomenei or Muqtada al-Sadr are allowed to become local gods, what they say is interpreted as law. Tragically, while Islam long had a reputation for being guardians and disseminators of knowledge, today's Islamic world largely dedicated to keeping its population in ignorance of anything except the Qur'an.

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

That day will come. It wasn't too long ago that Christians were committing similar atrocities without anyone batting an eye--and anyone who says otherwise needs to take a trip to Belfast. It's just Islam's turn right now.

[carlfoxmarten]

There's an interesting comment made by one of the characters in Mass Effect 2 on a faction of robots that has decided to wipe out all the other forms of organic and non-organic life in the galaxy:
"[We] believe that all life should self-determine. The Heretics have chosen a path that prevents this. They must be stopped."
(written from memory as I can't find his lines anywhere online)

Though in my opinion, stopping them has several possibilities, including winning them over to another, less violent religion, like Christianity, Buddhism, etc.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

As much as I believe in my own chosen spiritual walk, I can't go so far as to wish mass conversion on Muslims. There is much good in their faith, and the Muslims I know personally are doing their best to live good lives, the same as with most Christians that I know. With the Islamic population set to double in short order, becoming by one analysis 1/4 of the world's population, what is needed is a central spiritual authority, one who can speak with authority and repudiate all the idiotic fatwas issued by self-aggrandizing mullahs. The fragmented nature of Islam, however, does not leave me any hope that such will ever be the case.

[leadsporkofdoom.livejournal.com]

Fine, when do the devout and good Christians snuff out Westboro, the sects and leaders/speakers that encourage bigotry, hate of the different, denial of bodily rights and all those good traditions we should uphold because we're Americans?

Because if we're going to start pointing fingers at other beliefs' fault for not quelling their 'crazies'....

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Amen brother, amen.
A pox on Phelps and fundies of all stripes and creeds

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

I have never called for the "snuffing" of anyone. For that matter, Westboro is thoroughly marginalized - no church I know of condones their philosophy or their tactics. Everywhere they go, people of all faiths or no faith thwart their activities and their efforts. They are understood to be the lunatic fringe of religion, and the legal eagles are watching their every move. As soon as they do something that falls outside the purview of the much-abused First Amendment, they will find themselves on the wrong side of the law. White supremacist groups and other radicals enjoy the same sort of negative attention here.

If the mainstream Islamic world would treat Jihadistan with the same disdain, the insurgents would find their funds dried up, their movements micro-analyzed and their effectiveness neutralized.

Mainstream religions and their moral philosophies are probably best discussed under another head...

[thefoxaroo.livejournal.com]

Amen!

One of the members of Furstralia is muslim. When he found out that I'm a sevvy he asked if his being a muslim "would be a problem." I replied "Of course not" but it worried me greatly to hear him ask such at thing. I respect the faith and sincerity of people who are not in my church, and expect them to return that respect.