Lam : Your point is well taken, and is one that Ernie --our illustrious leader-- makes on a regular basis. My reply ? I now have my own TV show here in Oregon. I just gave a lecture, broadcast on local television, about the value of criticism of religion. All religions are imperfect, there is no such thing as perfection on Earth. Therefore, if you seek to be truthful criticism is necessary. It should be based on knowledge, not just a lot of complaints, but it is needed. Also I had an e-mail exchange with a Palestinian recently. It isn't possible to be sure if a generalization based on that series of e-mails is valid, but it does fit in with other exchanges I have had with Muslims in the past. To be completely honest about my reactions, I feel that these people are narrow minded bigots. Poorly informed and utterly parochial in their attitudes. You know, "Islam is All True, all other religions are mostly false, or completely false, and all of the other things they say. I am disgusted with such nonsense. So, why not just say what I think ? Will they get offended ? Probably. Will they threaten my life, or set off a bomb some place ? Maybe they will. But I don't expect anything better from them anyway. They are crazy, and it is their religion that makes them crazy. Yet they defend their religion and try to tell us all that Islam is perfect. What a joke, what a bad joke. I am fed up with all of such things. And it only gets worse since they are closed minded. Not all Muslims, obviously, but my guess is that this is the case for most of them. Anyway, what alternative has any real chance to work ? I mean, if you value honesty what other approach has any chance ? At least this way, others who are not all that well informed themselves at least know that someone who is informed rejects the official line of bull that was expressed by Bush and now by Obama. Sure there are other approaches based on compromise or on dialogue, etc.But at some point you --anyone-- needs honesty. If you don't get honesty then everything you try to do is based on lies, and is that for the good ? Muslims want others to be afraid of them, they seek to intimidate everyone else. In my opinion such conduct on their part --which their religion says is a good thing-- is utterly criminal and is evil. Someone has to say it, and if no-one else is gong to do so, I will say it. But if you have some other idea, if it is based on honesty, please share it with others. Thanks for writing Billy --------------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 4/3/2009 10:29:49 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
If feeding the opponent's ego is a sin, then Mr billy is guilty of committing one. For example: Assuming I am trying to end a particular cult, the more I attack it, the stronger the cultist associate with themselves. No only does it not achieve my objective, I risk unnecessary trouble on myself. Worse still if the cult is international, I somehow contribute to chaos upon the rest of the world. My concern is still the same. Is attacking really the best way to deal with this? Lam YongXian 2009/4/3 <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > Religion of Peace Iraq / Christian population as recently as 2000. variously estimated between 1 million ( very conservative figure ) to over 2 million, After persecution and a large number of violent acts against them since 2003, as well as bomb attacks against a number of churches, at least 500,000 have fled the country. Bethlehem and Nazareth, the most identifiably Christian towns on earth, enjoyed a Christian majority for nearly two millennia, but no more. In Jerusalem, the decline has been particularly steep: in 1922, Christians slightly outnumbered Muslims and today they make up less than 2% of the city's population. In Turkey, Christians numbered 2 million in 1920 but now only a few thousand remain. In Syria, they represented about one-third of the population early last century; now they account for less than 10%. In Lebanon, they made up 55% of the population in 1932 and now under 30%. Source Daniel Pipes Why has this happened ? OK, we can identify more than one cause, but there is a common denominator, Islam. To return to the subject of Iraq, at the time of the Arab / Muslim conquest the Christian population was about 50 %. Some scholar claim an even higher total. Even if 50 % is a little high, they were at least a plurality in the country, and no-one suggests a number less than 40 %. What happened to them ? IMHO. all calls for toleration of Islam are suicidal and ultimately anti-Christian, not to mention anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, and-Zoroastrian, anti-Jewish, and you name it. What is the rational justification for toleration of a grossly intolerant religion ? Are some Muslims as people OK ? Of course, and they will be OK in all probability as long as they don't take their religion seriously. But what happens when they do ? My apologies for resuming this discussion at a time when the economy dominates most people's attention, but the story of the history of Christian faith in Iraq has recently come to my attention and, retrospectively or not, and the decline of the Christian population under Islam, from approximately one out of two, to one out of 100, makes me literally feel sick. Billy _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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