Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Just so you know: Shinto is not a form of Buddhism. It is distinct. Most Japanese do not identify themselves as Shinto.
And you are a elderly lesbian waterpolo player.![]()
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Just so you know: Shinto is not a form of Buddhism. It is distinct. Most Japanese do not identify themselves as Shinto.
And you are a elderly lesbian waterpolo player.![]()
Last edited by Pindar; 07-13-2005 at 03:32.
"We are lovers of beauty without extravagance and of learning without loss of vigor." -Thucydides
"The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage." -Thucydides
I wasn't talking about mainstream Islam. When I said 'they' want to subjugate the world to their particular brand of Islam, I was talking about OBL and the boys.Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
Edit: ~And I SAID THAT in my post. I never referred to mainstream islam when I said 'they' were out to take over the world. I said the jihadists were. Or are YOU trying to make the point that Jihadists are mainstream Muslims?
Quit trying to score cheap points. You're purposely misquoting me.
Last edited by Don Corleone; 07-13-2005 at 03:10.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
A lot of the more multicultural countries have behaved quite bizarrely in their softly softly approach to operational extremist schools of Islam. I can't comment on this authoritatively, though, except to say that I guess they have to be careful about alienating large sections of the community... I dunno...Originally Posted by PanzerJager
Electronically bugging churches tends to provoke a strong reaction from civil rights groups...
About 9% of Arabs are Christian...Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
Reliable estimates of the number of Arab Christians, which in any case depends on the definition of "Arab" used, are rare. According to Fargues 1998, "Today Christians only make up 9.2 per cent of the population of the Near East. In Lebanon, where they have undoubtedly lost their position as the majority, they number little more than 40 per cent, 19 in Syria they are about 6.4 per cent, in the Palestinian-occupied or autonomous territories the figure is 3.8 per cent, and in Israel 2.1 per cent. In Egypt they constitute 5.9 per cent of the population, and in Iraq presumably 2.9 per cent." Most North and Latin American Arabs (about two-thirds) are Arab Christians, particularly from Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon.
Come on . What do you think your proving here. Its more like a miniscule portion of christains are terrorists while a substanial number of Muslims are. Ill alos remind you that Christains far outnumber Muslims. So percentage wise there is no comparison at all. You remind me of Don Quixote more everydayBut they constitute a very small proportion of persons who descibe themselves as christian , in the same way that Al-Qaida constitute a very small proportion of those persons who describe themselves as Muslim .The world trembles under the threat of Christain fundamentalists. Well Europe does at least
Though its not violence but the religion itself that scares them. Again I dont like any fundementalists other than constitutional ones
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Fighting for Truth , Justice and the American way
From this article below. I wouldn't call the CFR a "leftist" organisation.
Do all Muslims see things al-Qaeda’s way?
No. Most Islamic scholars interpret jihad as a nonviolent quest for justice—a holy struggle rather than a holy war. ...LINKOriginally Posted by Council on Foreign Relations
We work to live, and to live is to, play "Total War" or drive a VR-4
Yes it's all true.Originally Posted by Pindar
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Shinto is the traditional so to speak belief of the Japanese people. It constitutes of many gods and godesses, with relation to Buddhism. Very few people adhere to it for Buddhism has taken over for many centuries.
Then why? Jihadists have no real power other then recruiting radical muslims from poor areas to kill themselves for some imaginery cause they made up. Just like George made up his "crusade" against terrorism to take america to war. The blame goes both ways.I wasn't talking about mainstream Islam. When I said 'they' want to subjugate the world to their particular brand of Islam, I was talking about OBL and the boys.
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
I wouldn't call Branch Davidians Christians just like I wouldn't call Islamic Terrorists mainstream muslims. I would call both groups religious fundamentalists trying to impose their belief system on the mainstream.
Religious fundamentalism is a root cause of a lot of problems. They have absolute answers and are absolutely sure in imposing them on absolutely everyone else.
Just when I think I can reason with you, you prove that you close your ears to anything that doesn't fit your world view.Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
No real power, you say? Tell that to the folks in Manhatten, Madrid or London. Cripes you can be thick skulled, not to mention insensitive, sometimes.
And stop with the 'poor Arabic world' talk. All 19 of the hijackers on September 11th came from middle class or wealthy families. The 4 guys who blew up the London trains were actually from Leeds. The fact is, there's a small but intensely active thread in Islam that is working to conquer the world to force everyone to become a fundamentalist muslim. While the majority of muslims don't share this goal, they seem pretty loathe to speak out against it, and downright resistant to actually doing something to stop it.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
Then can I call Hasidic Jews muslims too? Because Branch Davidians are not a fundamentalist subset of Christianity. They're not Christian at all. Christianity is about the divinity of Christ. They don't believe that. Christianity teaches that Christ is only divine being ever to live among men. Branch Davidians teach whoever they've got up at the pulpit at the moment is divine. People who worship snakes can call themselves Christians, and you can claim they represent our fundamentalist side, but you and they would be grossly wrong. Thus far, I haven't heard too many immams from the mainstream side issuing fatwahs against the hate preachers. I do see mainstream Christian churches defrocking and even excommunicating their wackos from time to time.Originally Posted by Papewaio
I would have expected a better argument than the old 'no difference between Christian & Islamic fundamentalists', and then going and getting a bunch of people that aren't even Christian to be our poster children.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
World religions or lack thereof circa 2003:
Christians 32.84%
(of which :
Roman Catholics 17.34%,
Protestants 5.78%,
Orthodox 3.44%,
Anglicans 1.27%),
Muslims 19.9%,
Hindus 13.29%,
Buddhists 5.92%,
Sikhs 0.39%,
Jews 0.23%,
other religions 12.63%,
non-religious 12.44%,
atheists 2.36% (2003 est.)
I said:Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Now there is differing degrees on how bad they are. But when you compare fundamentalists vs the mainstream of the religion. The fundamentalists normally come across as more extreme, cult like and less peaceful then their mainstream brethren. Sometimes the fundamentalists are so far out that we term them extremists and at that point the mainstream worshippers deny any relationship to the sect.Religious fundamentalism of all religions is a bad thing...
In a few rare instances fundamentalists are more peaceful and happy to have other people lead their own lives...
Oh and I would call Branch Davidian Christian Fundamentalists in the same way Islamic Terrorists call themselves Muslim Fundamentalists.
After all Branch Davidian was orginally called Davidian Seventh-day Adventists and Branch as far as they are concerned is the new name of Christ.
In 1929, Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant, claimed that he had a new message for the SDA church. It was submitted in the form of a book entitled "The Shepherd's Rod." His claims were not accepted and he left to form the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. The term "Davidian" refers to the restoration of the Davidic kingdom, while "Branch" refers to the new name of Christ. In 1955, after Houteff's death, a split of this movement formed the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, headed initially by Benjamin L. Roden. The group established a settlement outside of Waco, Texas, on the property previously occupied by the Davidian group. Leadership and occupancy of the property had been the subject of inner conflict among the Davidians before Vernon Howell (later renamed David Koresh) took charge of the property in 1988. George Roden, son of Benjamin, had claimed that he was the rightful prophet of the group, but was jailed for contempt of court and in his absence Howell took charge of the disputed land.
In 1981 Howell joined the group as a regular member which at the time was headed by Benjamin Roden's wife Lois Roden who claimed to have a message of her own, one element of which was that the Holy Spirit is feminine in gender. In 1983 she allowed Howell to begin to teach his own message which caused much controversy in the group. There was a general meeting at Mt. Carmel of all Branch Davidians in 1984 and the end result was that the group split into several factions one of which was loyal to Howell. At that time Howell named his faction, "Davidian Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventist." It was also at this time that George Roden forced Howell to leave the property. Upon returning to the property under questionable circumstances in 1988, Howell dropped the new name of his association, and assumed the name of the association he and his followers left four years previously. In 1990 Howell changed his name to David Koresh, invoking the biblical Kings David and Cyrus. From its inception, the group was apocalyptic, in that they believed themselves to be living in a time when Christian prophesies of a final divine judgment were coming to pass. Davidians under Koresh believed prophesy to foretell a cyclic series of events, described as a spiral, with history returning to prophetically foretell events but each time, advance in terms of cosmological progress. Koresh supported his beliefs with detailed biblical interpretation, using the Book of Revelation as the lens through which the entire Bible was viewed.
And then you insist on using a group, the Branch Davidians, that are not Christian, to represent Christian fundamentalism. Why? Because you want to link Timothy McVeigh and Christian fundamentalism.Originally Posted by Papewaio
1) He wasn't a Branch Davidian either. He was rebelling against what he saw as an unjust action by the government against the Branch Davidians, but in his own views, was rather rather secular.
2) If you really want to blur the lines and claim Christian fundamentalism is as bad as Al Queda, at the very least, pick a group that's Christian. If you had picked Eric Rudolph instead, I might have had a little more respect for this argument, but now, it's clear to me, this is all about 'Osama Bin Laden is Islam's Jerry Falwell'.
Well, that seems to me like a really stupid statement to make. If you really want to equate Christian & Islamic fundamentalism, let's compare, shall we?
Last I checked, Christian fundamentalists were not exporting global terroism in an effort to make everybody not only Christian, but Primitive Freewill Baptist.
Until you hear about 20 members of the Wahaxie, Alabama Free & Independent Primitive Baptist congregation flying 4 planes into the skyscraper in Dubai, to strike a blow for Christianity, and then find out they got a bunch of their money from the Southern Baptist congregation that now won't help put a stop to them, your argument is a straw man.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
How are you defining fundamentalism?Originally Posted by Papewaio
"We are lovers of beauty without extravagance and of learning without loss of vigor." -Thucydides
"The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage." -Thucydides
How many times have we heard mainstream Islamic clerics saying that "this is not Islam" when discussing the actions of extremists?
I think hairs are being split here, guys...
The Branch Davidians originated as a sect which was a mutation of Christianity. Yeah, they ended up being pretty far gone, but they still identified themselves as being associated with Christ and the Christian God.
I'm sure the extremist Jihadists identify themselves as good Muslims too.
Bottom line: none of them are good for the world.
As for "who's worse", well... who cares? How does one calculate this, anyway? In lives lost? They're on a completely different scale in terms of size, impact, agenda, access to weaponry etc. The Branch Davidians are just plain wacky, and give the impression that they couldn't organise a keg party in a brewery...
Okay, Roark, I'll grant you the parallels work in your discussion, somewhat. The big difference though is the Seventh Day Adventists publicly repudiated the Branch Davidians aeons ago. They've even taken them to court several times to force them to quit calling themselves part of the SDA congregation. Where is an equivalent fatwah being issued by all these mainstream immams?
Why is it when a telethon in Saudi Arabia with a Wahabist imam claiming Jews are descended from pigs, so when you kill them, be careful not to let their blood splash on you, there isn't an outrcy from mainstream muslims? Why don't they denounce the charity and break communion with the imam that's preaching that? Cause trust me, if a Catholic priest ever said something like that, he'd be excommunicated so fast, it'd make your head spin.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
I wasn't the one who brought up Timothy McVeigh. Although thanks for the headsup I would say he is another fringe nutter who would have been very easy to influence into an extremist cause.
As for what I would define as a fundamentalist... it is a grey scale. But essentially someone prone to use rigid literal interpretations of a 'holy' work even to the extent of literally interpreting allegorical tales. Intolerence of other points of view, particularly science.
@ Don: Does the Islamic world have a comparable central leadrship like the Catholic church? Maybe they are just not as globally structured...
We get various outraged Muftis speaking in the media about these issues, but no central voice or "official word", so I get the impression that the Muslim faith doesn't have hierarchy that is as finely structured as the Catholic church....
Does the Catholic church cover all christains. Christains are no more centralised in their leadership than Muslims . In fact theres probably more sects of Christianity than Islam.Does the Islamic world have a comparable central leadrship like the Catholic church?
Believe me if any Christain group did this Christains would be screaming about it. We would hunt them down ourselves. Even if you look at the IRA its other christains who are opposed to them. I fear its much the same as catholics in Ireland who dont per say back the IRA but wouldnt mind their agenda being put in place.We get various outraged Muftis speaking in the media about these issues, but no central voice or "official word", so I get the impression that the Muslim faith doesn't have hierarchy that is as finely structured as the Catholic church....
Fighting for Truth , Justice and the American way
Look at what the Saudis are doing with Osama Bin Laden... they have been against him a bit longer then before 2001... and they are supposedly the same Islamic sect.
A lot of these battles are internal that have spilled over to the sides 'allies'.
Are they really or is it all smoke and mirrors.Look at what the Saudis are doing with Osama Bin Laden... they have been against him a bit longer then before 2001... and they are supposedly the same Islamic sect.
Fighting for Truth , Justice and the American way
While I'm not entirely sure about what Panzerjager was saying in his original statement, I have to admit that I was pretty appalled by the way that immediately following the London attacks, many Islamic leaders in Britain tried to paint the Islamic faith as the real victim of the attacks.
There seemed to be a complete unwillingess to accept any blame for the events, but rather, a desire to place blame on the lack of integration in Britain. Also, rather than focus on the suffering of those who were injured, killed or lost loved ones in the attacks, there was a tendancy to focus on the expected backlash against the Muslim community in Britain.
It just didn't feel right and a desire to create a sense of victimisation amongst the Muslim community and validate motives for the attacks will hardly do much to discourage or prevent future fundamentalist terror attacks.
Cowardice is to run from the fear;
Bravery is not to never feel the fear.
Bravery is to be terrified as hell;
But to hold the line anyway.
It has something to do with the Mongols we meet in Medieval Total War. They razed Bagdad and brought the Abbasid Caliphate to an end. Islam was left without any kind of central religious authority.Originally Posted by Roark
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If you're fighting fair you've made a miscalculation.
Im saying that its not an insult to muslims everywhere to recognize and confront the role Islam, and how its presented by certain religious leaders and communities, plays in terrorism.While I'm not entirely sure about what Panzerjager was saying in his original statement, I have to admit that I was pretty appalled by the way that immediately following the London attacks, many Islamic leaders in Britain tried to paint the Islamic faith as the real victim of the attacks.
I believe that PJ has made a valid point that Islam has a serious problem that needs to be sorted out, whodda thought I'd ever agree with you, and it does seem that a lot of people are scared to say anything in case they are called racist.
But, didn't you just know it couldn't last, while your complaints are valid I would agrue that you are blinkered against Islam and the same type of argument could be made against you and others on this forum, this is not meant as a condemnation just an observation as I wouldn't say that I am the fairest most openminded person in the world.![]()
In that case, better heat up the old racist brand, because I agree with you.Originally Posted by PanzerJager
Cowardice is to run from the fear;
Bravery is not to never feel the fear.
Bravery is to be terrified as hell;
But to hold the line anyway.
smoke and mirrors in my book, but hey, i'm not selling best sellers !Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny
Oh. Well at first I was going to post saying I disagreed with you, then I realized that I don't, not when it comes down to it. I don't think Islam is at fault, but certaintly some of it's preachers are.We need to differentiate between the majority of normal mosques and religious branches of Islam and the radical ones.
"But if you should fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home."
Grateful Dead, "Ripple"
You remind me of Don Quixote more everyday
Really ? Thats strange since you seem to be tilting at windmills all the time .
After your declining birth rates are are part of the war on terror and radical Islam topic , whats your next one going to be ? Al-Qaida is behind the imposition of seatbelt laws .
Don ; If you had picked Eric Rudolph instead
But isn't he the one who , in his letters to his mother (which she made public) , moans about the Christians sending him money and gifts , and says he prefers reading Nietzche to the Bible .
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