Oh boy this is fun.
The most important thing, at the end of day, is the personal right to pursuit of happiness.
Indeed it is.
Islam is the biggest threat to that, in the West, right now. You seem to gloss over the suicide bomber.
Islam is perceived as the biggest threat, yes. The reality of it is Islam isn't - but that's another story for another time. About the suicide bombings - of course it's a problem - i just don't like going into details of it - death and anything connected are not things that I like talking about as it causes anger and thus clouds judgement.
England and Ireland fought a war for a very long time. There were many acts of terror carried out by the IRA. I don’t recall any (although there may have been one or two) suicide bombings.
True.
It does seem, to me, that suicide bombing is a product of Islamist militants. The Western world has asked for Muslims help in dealing with this.
This is true, and the help is appreciated - it may not be said, but it is definately felt.
For a large part of the Muslim world, judging by the posts I have seen on this site (It is saddening to note that this is one of the milder Islamic message boards, yet the, seemingly, supporters of Bin Laden types, are here are at least 30% of the group), Islam is not ready or willing or able to deal with that problem.
Again valid points - it's a case of not enough muslims doing enough - a point that has been regularly told in the mosques since this whole thing started.
Those that support such things, such as suicide bombing, like to point to Palestine and say “Well those poor folks don’t have any other means to fight the Zionist with”, well that leads me to this.
That same statement doesn’t hold true for those in Iraq blowing their selves up in the name of Islam, surely they have many other means to carry on the fight.
And you will find many muslims say the same - the ones that don't will be now refered to as "the crazy ones" - who are much disliked.
There are a number of posts on this site stating, that what these folks are doing is against the teachings of Islam. Fine, Great, Glad to hear it. But there always seems to be a “but”.
It is like when someone say’s “I am sorry, but”. That isn’t an “I’m sorry” at all. What it is, is an attempt to justify the actions that are being apologized for, as in “I am sorry for what I did, but, what you did drove me to it”.
What I find so sad about all that is going on right now is this.
The amount of money and lives that is being wasted on both sides, in disagreeing could have had such better results with just a few changes on both the East and the West’s parts.
Again, I agree with you. Killing innocent civilians should never be justified though. I know we get a few crazy freaks on here that are "pro anything that hurts non muslims" on this forum - i've seen my fair share of them.
Never before, in my life time, has the West been more willing to spend hard earned dollars on helping things in the East. Never before, in my life time, has the East been so quick to reject and condemn the West (take a look at Rou’s posts on his thread Bringing Democracy to the East, or however it is titled).
There is a large amount of anger amongst many muslims nowadays as they perceive they are being attacked, which is understandable given the current climate.
Many of the muslim community however
are appreciative of the fact - there are substantial benefits of living in the west - which i'm sure everyone will agree with.
I don’t know, perhaps it has always been this way, and only the fact we have the internet to see it for our selves just makes it seem like a recent development, I don’t know.
It probably is actually - the more we see, the more we know. The internet is great at letting people see.
What I do know is that there are three groups of folks in this world, those that are part of the solution, those that are part of the problem, and those that are not helping one way or the other.
That's definately true.
Today, Islam seems (if this site is any indication) to be made up, by and large, of the latter two groups.
Then I guess i'm in the minority group that is part or trying to be part of the solution.
Why is Islam fighting with Russia over Chechnya???? What does it have to do with any ancient Islamic land ownership?
Probably very little if anything at all - a trigger happy attitude seems common amongst certain muslims who keep using Islam as a way to do things - this is wrong. so very wrong. As a result, this thread has started.
That is the justification given for the Palestine’s isn’t it, that is also the justification given by some on this site in their support of Somalia’s threats to Ethiopia right now, isn’t it?
The sad thing is, the muslims that are "leading" are not the most level-headed/intelligent ones. This only makes my life more difficult - I already have to work twice as hard as everyone else (face it, if you ain't white in the UK, you gonna have to work extremely hard - it's a fact of life), and now these freaks cause trouble which means I have to work even harder - not enough people realise this.
As I have stated in a number of my posts, reform of Islam will have to be lead by Muslims, or, this will only get uglier and uglier, and many folks will suffer needlessly for it, both in the East as well as the West.
I and many muslims alike will agree with you on this. In fact, I often have this discussion with my brother
The East is, today, making the same sorry mistake as the West did over the last 50 or 60 years. The West supported many bad people like the Shaw<sp> of Iran, and Marcos, and Noriega, and any other number of other despots, just as long as they were willing to play ball.
If Saddam had been willing to play ball with the West, he would still be sitting pretty (that say’s many sad things about the West).
The truth both sucks and hurts.
For all of GWB’s faults (believe me, I am not a supporter of his), at least he has seen that parts of our/USA’s foreign policy has, for a long time now, been wrong headed. He has also faced up to the fact that the Bin Ladens of the world are not going away by them selves.
What I have came to understand about the Bin Ladens of the world is this, either quit breathing or convert.
I don’t freely choose to do either.
Ditto.
Until all the Bin Ladins are gone and those that support Bin Ladin, or refuse to help fight the Bin Ladins, and the West will not peacefully co-exist with the Middle East.
True, but that doesn't mean
Islam and muslims can't coexist.
It is a shame that we spend some much time arguing, instead of trying to find common ground. But it is rather like what I was told on the “Comparative Religion” section when I tried to find common ground, “Anything that disagrees with Islam, WE disagree with”.
I too dislike that attitude. But the problem lies on both sides (this is not justification by the way, just saying
)
Aamirsaab, as an aside, two things that I have found amazing to me is this:
Jesus was opposed by the Jewish folks because of his contradictory teachings.
Islam is opposed to my understandings of Jesus’ teachings as well….. yet the Muslims on this site can’t even tell me what the teachings of Jesus were. Amazing.
lol, that's true. Not many muslims that I know do know all the teachings - but that's were we need to start learning - sadly, not enough want to learn.
The second thing I find amazing is this, the number of folks that post “I wish the whole world was ruled by Shira Law/Islam, yet when we look at how quick Islam descended into bickering after Muhammad’s passing……. Look at the thread “The last truly Islamic State?” and all the examples given…..sad….. just really sad.
lol, again, i've had the same conversation with my brother and the conclusion is the same: "it's a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch"
Sorry about my post sort of being a scatter-gun approach Aamirsaab, it just seems that you may be a reasonable enough of a person for it to have been worth while.
Ah nothing to apologise for - I like trying to find common grounds with people and sometimes, scatter-gun approaches are the most effective way
.
You're most welcome.
p.s; if there is anything that I haven't covered in this post, please feel free to ask and i'll do my best to answer.
) willing to do anything about it,or sit on our behinds and point the finger at each other.
