second hand lover wrote:
SwordQuill wrote:
Psychobabble wrote:
...but overall I think Islam is a pretty peaceful religion.
Insert sardonic laughter. Tell that to the Sassanids. Tell it to the Byzantines. Tell it to Lounes Matoub, Theo van Gogh, Salman Rushdie, and every person in the World Trade Center. But please don't try to pull that crap on me.
Um can I please point out that's called extremist behaviour and not indicative of the entire religion? If you're going to judge an entire religion on the actions of a few fundies then that's pretty.... well.... yeah.
It's pretty what? Why can't I judge a religion based on these people, these so-called "fundamentalists"? They happen to be some of the most pious people on this planet.
I knew someone was going to parrot that line. Can't judge a religion by its "fundamentalists," eh?
First of all, the people who stamped all over Sassanid Persia and Byzantine Syria were not "fundamentalists" by any modern definition. This was the Rashidun Caliphate. These were people who actually knew Muhammed. They weren't the fringe; they were the religion. The original leader, Abu Bakr, was the first male convert to Islam. So tell me again how I can't judge the religion based on his actions.
Second, I have to wonder if all you read were the words "World Trade Center" and responded to that. If so, then I'll simply say that these men did what they did because they honestly believed that they would be rewarded in the afterlife, as per what they read in their sacred texts. I'm not a nutjob (or at least I hope not) conspiracy theorist who will say that every Muslim was secretly pleased over 9/11. Obviously that's not the case, but, if they were horrified, they were horrified because they were human, not because they were Muslims.
It is not extremists only who implement sharia law. It is not extremists only who dream of a world in which there are no infidels. Stop wasting my time with this myth of moderation. Was it extremists only who gathered in transglobal herds of millions to protest those Danish cartoons and hysterically demand the blood of the cartoonists? Either there were no moderates in those groups, in which case moderation is pretty much negligible, or there were, in which case moderation does not negate the willingness to kill (and die) for an idea . . . a concept that is at the very heart of what you call "fundamentalism."
(And, just to show that my disgust doesn't skew in just one direction, I'll be the first to point out that Muslims have suffered their share of religious violence. Just ask the Muslims living in the city formerly known as Bombay.)
What you call the "fundamentalists" are reading the same Koran as everyone else. So don't try to tell me that their faith is somehow a corruption of an innocent religion. Even if it was, do you have any idea how many people, and not just Muslims, actually believe that I should die for my irreligion? Can you agree with me that that is wrong? If not, then this discussion is over. I told you already, don't try to pull that carp on me.
(If you like, we can take this elsewhere, or we can wait for the mods to tell us to get out of the pool.)