Ernie: Are we reading the same text ? Here is what the author said, exact words-- --------------------------------------------------------- "Let’s Come to Common Terms" [ heading for one of the sections ]
"For the sake of God, let’s keep God out of our games. No religion condones, let alone approves, bloodshed." ---------------------------------------------------------- That is very clear. It is a categorical, and it is untrue. To my examples the Sikhs and Druzes may have been added, and, while the point is rather moot these days, even --to limited extent-- the Zoroastrians. Taoism , too, and perhaps Confucianism. And there certainly are passages in the Hindu scriptures which compare with Joshua or other OT material. The question is, how much bloodshed, how it is limited ( if it is ), what rules of warfare or combat are required.? Etc. Needless to say, some religions have a pacifist core even if various traditions exist which allow for war or other forms of defensive violence. Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism most notably. The point that, yes, Muslims also go to war for any number of reasons that others go to war , is well taken. THAT is Very True. But that is FAR from the whole story and the author was grossly dishonest not to say so. What is unclear is suicide as a means of warfare. No question about the texts the writer cites but there are other texts, Hadiths, or similar, which seem to make suicide a virtue, so the overall tradition is murky and one man's interpretation may be as good as another's on this matter. The fact remains, anyway, that ever since the time of the Order of Assassins back in the era of the Crusades, suicide has been part of at least some Muslim traditions, not just on the part of renegades, but large organized Muslim communities. This seems to have begun with the Ismailis but clearly now has acolytes among entire schools of Sunni Muslims. Not sure what the Christian equivalent might be, but perhaps think of the medieval Knights Templar, although that did not involve suicide as usually defined but did urge fighting to the death in dire situations. For a modern equivalent you'd have to imagine Operation Rescue but with suicide vests or a custom of hijacking planes and blowing them up. Pretty had to conceive even for the most zealous OR people, isn't it ? Yet we hardly think twice when Muslims are concerned since, for a significant % it is "normal." We aren't, you know, discussing a few oddballs who have killed a few dozen people, but tens of thousands who have killed literally hundreds of thousands. And that assumes a support network in the millions. As Barry has said, OK. the number altogether is probably about 10 % of all Muslims, but 10 % of a billion plus ( my best guess is between 1.1 and 1.3 billion ) is a minimum of 100,000,000 and maybe as much as 150,000,000. That is roughly the population of Pakistan, albeit spread out across Dar al-Islam. As for my criticism of the author or anyone else by implication when I wrote, I just watched Fox's usually excellent panel of political experts absolutely mangle the story and meaning of the Geert Wilders episode now playing in the Netherlands, grossly misunderstanding Islam in the process. Even Krauthammer, who usually is as sharp as a pirate's sword, was hopelessly uninformed. Yet that did not prevent him from pontificating on the subject AS IF he knew what he was talking about. Made me almost literally sick. Islam is, maybe more than any other faith, a religion of the book. Allah is, Muslims insist, incarnate on Earth in the form of the words in the Qur'an. As if Jesus, for a Christian, existed per se in the words of the NT. That is, to defy the Qur'an's words, even if someone has to read them to you, is to fundamentally apostasy from God , it is not simply a matter of interpretation and you still have true faith because you believe in Jesus. For a Muslim, to press the analogy, Jesus IS the words of the NT. And anything but literal meanings is out of the question. That is, the entire task is to understand exactly what "Allah" said and meant as an Arabic speaker would have taken "his words" in Arabia in the 600s AD. Yes, this is not quite the situation as it existed in Indonesia where a largely non-text religion loosely based on Islam flourished, and maybe a few other places, but otherwise we are discussing a book-centered religion which treats ( as it has from day # 1 ) the Qur'an as Absolute Law to be obeyed in every particular. Is every Muslim a potential terrorist ? No, only those who actually believe the Qur'an. Alas, that clearly means most Muslims. I cannot give Islam any benefit of the doubt. Billy =================================================== In a message dated 3/8/2010 1:16:57 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Hi Billy, On Mar 8, 2010, at 12:18 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: There also is this whopper : "no religion condones, let alone approves, bloodshed." If you're going to take him to task for misrepresenting Islam, it might be nice if you were as scrupulous in representing what *he* said, which was something quite different: To say that any religion, let alone Islam, can condone or approve killing of innocent bystanders is not only ridiculous but also a lie that has already had catastrophic consequences for humanity. I agree, Islam has no problem with killing apostates, atheists, or anyone who is perceived as a threat to Islamic society. It offers no guarantees of religious freedom. But the author is correct, it doesn't condone killing innocent bystanders (even if it is perhaps less strict than we about what is "innocent"). How can anyone who is informed not understand exactly this ? Because we have not yet found the radical center on this issue. The debate is currently clouded between those who claim Islam is a religion of piece, and those who insist that every Muslim is a potential terrorist and that the only solution is to eradicate Islam entirely (at whatever cost). To that extent, I think the author is right: No limits seem to have been respected in the exercise of intelligence and intellect in defining the ‘enemy’. With dehumanization of faceless terrorists, many a legitimate freedom struggle and a whole faith professed by no less than 1.5 billion people have been condemned. Of course there are far more subtle, intelligent, and rational critiques of Islam than that. But what you don't seem to recognize (or mind), is that such extremists reactions do exist, and actually hinder a honest critique by poisoning the debate. -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ 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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