[spartan_0214]

News Flash: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060922/ap_on_re_eu/pope_muslims_9

The Pope is on talking terms with the Muslims...........how sweeeeet! 

I hate to be so typical american but here goes:

Muslim= 

[Mefustae]

Muslim= 

Would you mind not trolling, please?

[spartan_0214]

Yes, I mind

[Polpolion]

How many times has someone called Islam "violent" and then Muslims in the Mid-East gotten (more) violent and killed (more) people?



@Spartan: That is actually pretty rude to non-radical Muslims. It's generalizations like that that get people angry. For example, remember when I got PO'd at Kara for calling Americans idiots?

Wow. If the USA had one majority race, I'd call it racisim. But we don't, so I won't. But I am getting a tad pissed of at people calling the general populace of America idiots...

Thats what I thought.

[NGTM-1R]

A. Muslims are not all violent. Islam is not a violent religion, any moreso than any other.

Uh, you might want to check your facts again there. Since as I've pointed out before Islam is the only major religion that is accepting of offensive warfare, blood feud, and other forms of violence.

Mohammed fought the first jihad. Don't tell me it's not violent moreso then any other, you don't know what you're on about.

[Mefustae]

How many times has someone called Islam "violent" and then Muslims in the Mid-East gotten (more) violent and killed (more) people?

Notice how I said Middle East, Middle East alone, and Middle East specificly.

What exactly do you mean by that? Protesting is actually rather widespread across Muslim countires. For example, several Roman Catholic militants were killed in Indonesia a few days ago, which most definintely contributed to the Pope hosting talks.

Anyway, you will find that the Middle-East is a centre of muslim violence namely because the muslims in that region feel the most persecuted in the modern age, and are thus far more easily swayed into violence by fanatics and extremists than, say, a muslim family living in Anytown, USA.

@Spartan: That is actually very rude to the non-radical Muslims. For example, remember when I got pissed at Kara for calling almost all Americans idiots a couple days ago?

Exactly, the only blanket statement that holds any smidgin of accuracy is saying that all people that make blanket statements like the ones we've seen in this [and previous] threads are utterly juvenile, incredibly ill-informed and downright mentally deficient.

[Darius]

Grouping and stereotyping is a human trait. We can't help it. Some of us try not to succumb to it. Most people just can't be bothered. It's not a good thing, or a bad thing, but just a thing that our brains do to make information processing easier.

I was born Muslim. I've spent most of my life around Muslims. Many of my closest friends are Muslim (although most of them are not).

So, according to some people in this board, my friends and I are AK-47 wielding violent jihadists who kill nuns, missionaries and make baby Jesus cry.

According to other people in this board, Americans are imperialist, gun-crazy, trigger-happy cowboys who bomb and invade countries whenever it suits them.

****ing accept it. Get your heads out of the asses of the media for a minute. Take a step back for just a little while, and try to broaden your view of the world beyond what your society is telling you.

Not only will you offend less people that way, but you won't have any need to get so defensive.

[Bobboau]

so... who called you and your freands fundimintalist nut jobs?

[Blaise Russel]

Uh, you might want to check your facts again there. Since as I've pointed out before Islam is the only major religion that is accepting of offensive warfare, blood feud, and other forms of violence.

Mohammed fought the first jihad. Don't tell me it's not violent moreso then any other, you don't know what you're on about.

No. But we've done this. 

[castor]

I think we are just running in circles by pointing at religions and accusing them as the cause of these problems.

The darwinian ways of combating brought us this far, but they don't work at all when the size of the population in one (the global human society).
it is kind of looking at symptoms of an organism having an autoimmune disease - seeing itself as a baddie and attacking.
And I think this is sort of fitting analogy too; if people would actually know what they are doing and why, most of this s**t wouldn't be happening.

[IPAndrews]

Sure if you got rid of religion some people would find other reasons to be violent because basically that's what they want to do. On the other hand other people who would have been quite normal if not for religious indoctrination will simply remain... normal. Now how can that be a bad thing? Religion. You know it's a bad idea.

[KappaWing]

Sure if you got rid of religion some people would find other reasons to be violent because basically that's what they want to do. On the other hand other people who would have been quite normal if not for religious indoctrination will simply remain... normal. Now how can that be a bad thing? Religion. You know it's a bad idea.

 WELL DONE!

[m]

Click here for a helpful quote from the Koran.  While you're at it, read the whole thread.  It gets quite interesting.

[NGTM-1R]

All undue respect to people who whine about stereotyping...grow up, will you? I am not spouting unsubstantiated kneejerk bull****. I've actually spent some time to study this. I have a small library of books by international authorities on the subject. After consulting all available evidence, the conclusion comes forth that Islam is more accepting of violence then other major religions. This makes it more easily turned to violent radicalism.

So, Darius, Mefustae, pack up your damn straw men and get the hell out of town, or bother to actually argue.

[Mefustae]

Click here to see me get owned.

Corrected.

So, Darius, Mefustae, pack up your damn straw men and get the hell out of town, or bother to actually argue.

Excuse me? I voice my objection to unfair stereotyping, and suddenly my arguments are fallacious and I should leave town? We have a saying where I come from; get stuffed.

Anyway, you'll find that I don't disagree at all in saying that Islam is far more easily radicalised by fanatics, as has been demonstrated by current events. I only disagree with morons who lump all muslims into their arguements when they say 'Islam is a violent religion, it should be abolished!!', which is a belief that more than a few on this board have expressed.

[Kosh]

****ing accept it. Get your heads out of the asses of the media for a minute. Take a step back for just a little while, and try to broaden your view of the world beyond what your society is telling you.

It is not just what "our society" is telling us though. How sbout those violent reactions to cartoons in an obscure Danish newspapers? The death threats made to prominent people in the islamic community who refuse to go along with the fundamentalist non-sense (like a former dutch minister, I can't remember her name though). The problem is that we see sooo much of this, and we are getting tired of it.

[Shade]

I only disagree with morons who lump all muslims into their arguements when they say 'Islam is a violent religion, it should be abolished!!

Indeed. For the last several millennia, fanatics and megalomaniacs have used religion as a way to justify their actions, and Islam simply happens to be the hot pick these days. 400 and 1100 years ago it was Christianity, 3200 years ago it was the greek gods supposedly spawning a massive war. A thousand years from now our decendants may see hinduism in the same role.

Religion is simply an easy excuse since a lot of religious texts are wide open to whatever interpretation you want. If it didn't exist, those people would have to use something else to justify their actions, but they would still be killing as they do now.

As for the whole cartoon row, it had exactly nothing at all to do with religion after the initial apologies had been exchanged (which happened months before it erupted in the international media). It had to do with internal politics in the affected countries, mostly politicians in weakened positions seeing it as a chance to shore it up by doing something that would get TV time and grab the public's attention, and then others following suit when it seemed to become a general trend. You know, to not look like they were twiddling their thumbs and all. All politics, no religion, which was once again simply the excuse those people used to justify their actions.

And if it actually had been a religious issue, you'd think it might actually have affected Denmark more directly, given the 100.000 or so muslims that live here (the largest minority). But it didn't. There were no riots, no deaths, not even any minor bruises. No burned churches, no demonstrations in front of either parliament or any of the several mosques in the country. Because there was no political gain to be had from it, and the religious part had been solved long ago by the time it all erupted. Finally, it might also be mentioned that the reason it all erupted in the first place was that some emigrated Imams decided to use it as a way to gain more political leverage in their countries of origin. With no success, I might add.

The stuff that's happening now with the pope is essentially the exact same thing. There was no religious offence in what he said at all, actually. It's just being spun that way for political gain.

[castor]

Cultural conditioning.

When you have this going on, it doesn't make much difference whether you are using the Koran or some of the Harry Potter novels.

[IPAndrews]

As for the whole cartoon row, it had exactly nothing at all to do with religion after the initial apologies had been exchanged

By which point they'd already gone too far. At some point the followers of Islam and Scientology seem to have got it into their heads that they have a "god given" right to deny people their freedom of speech when it suits. Let's not be under any illusions here. Demanding apologies over a cartoon is already pretty extreme.

[Shade]

They didn't "demand" them. It was all quite civil back here, it was only in the middle east it blew up. I do agree about religion in general not exactly being for free speech - But it's not just those two you mentioned, christianity is just as guilty.