Investigators Seek Motive Behind Tennessee Shooting Rampage

[Sarmatian]

To be fair, some treatment was given to their own populations... Ireland was starved to death as India was, or the Boers, so Muslims were no more a target to abject treatment than others. Same can be said for Muslim population under Muslim rulers.
As Russia is concerned, Nicolas II ordering to shoot at angry crowds wanting bread show how much "religious" Russia under a good Autocrat was benevolent. Not speaking of few Czars as Ivan The Terrible...

I don't really agree with the first part of your post but we've already strayed too far from the original topic so I won't comment on that.

The bottom line - westerners (or Christians if you wish) committed much more violence all over the world and caused much more deaths than Muslims.

That is an answer to the mantra Frags here (and many other elsewhere) repeat constantly that Islam is an inherently violent religion.

[Pannonian]

I don't really agree with the first part of your post but we've already strayed too far from the original topic so I won't comment on that.

The bottom line - westerners (or Christians if you wish) committed much more violence all over the world and caused much more deaths than Muslims.

That is an answer to the mantra Frags here (and many other elsewhere) repeat constantly that Islam is an inherently violent religion.

Right now, at this moment, western Europeanised descendants of the Christian kingdoms produce far more desirable places to live in than the Muslim descendants of the Ottoman empire. To the point where the founder of the direct successor to the Ottoman empire declared that the European civilisation was the only civilisation in the world. Whatever the inherence of the respective religions, I'd far rather live in western Europe than in the former Ottoman empire, and I'd like the former and the latter to have as little to do with each other as possible. I don't care about the moral height or depth of each; I just want to live in my world, while they can go and live in theirs.

[Sarmatian]

Right now, at this moment, western Europeanised descendants of the Christian kingdoms produce far more desirable places to live in than the Muslim descendants of the Ottoman empire. To the point where the founder of the direct successor to the Ottoman empire declared that the European civilisation was the only civilisation in the world. Whatever the inherence of the respective religions, I'd far rather live in western Europe than in the former Ottoman empire, and I'd like the former and the latter to have as little to do with each other as possible. I don't care about the moral height or depth of each; I just want to live in my world, while they can go and live in theirs.

Ottoman Empire from the start was influenced a lot by Greco-Roman legacy so it's not wonder he said that, especially as the new Turkish state was confined to just Anatolia and relieved of the burden of trying to govern Arabic, Persian, Egyptian and Berber areas...

In the end, that's a fair point you're making, but I believe we can agree that we (western governments to be precise) are not really leaving them alone to live in their world.

[Fragony]

I don't really agree with the first part of your post but we've already strayed too far from the original topic so I won't comment on that.

The bottom line - westerners (or Christians if you wish) committed much more violence all over the world and caused much more deaths than Muslims.

That is an answer to the mantra Frags here (and many other elsewhere) repeat constantly that Islam is an inherently violent religion.

Why do you keep bringing in the age of expansion it has no business here. I could bring in the Arabian slave-trade, or be even cheaper, but that also doesn't belong here so I won't. Yes Islam is an inheritanly violent relgion, and no, not all muslims are violent

capice

[Sarmatian]

Yes Islam is an inheritanly violent relgion,

How can you consider Islam an inherently violent religion when it is a really a mishmash of Judaism and Christianity, sprinkled with some Arab paganism?

A monotheistic religion with a holy book, a God who is demanding your unquestionable obedience, merciful God if you're proper, vengeful if you're not, piety rewarded after death, wickedness punished after death, worldly possessions unimportant, urge to convert the heathens, same commandments, same prophets, same standards of "pious life", same sins, rejection of idols yada yada yada...

I mean, there's even the second coming of Jesus in Islam, who will come back to fight the Anti Christ. In the very early stages of Islam, Muslim were doing their prayers in Christian churches.

[Fragony]

How can you consider Islam an inherently violent religion when it is a really a mishmash of Judaism and Christianity, sprinkled with some Arab paganism?

Daily news should do

[Sarmatian]

Daily news should do

I give up.

[Fragony]

I give up.

Let's make it weekly then, no mass murder of infidels today so far but it's still early, they are probably sleeping

[Kadagar_AV]

How can you consider Islam an inherently violent religion when it is a really a mishmash of Judaism and Christianity, sprinkled with some Arab paganism?

A monotheistic religion with a holy book, a God who is demanding your unquestionable obedience, merciful God if you're proper, vengeful if you're not, piety rewarded after death, wickedness punished after death, worldly possessions unimportant, urge to convert the heathens, same commandments, same prophets, same standards of "pious life", same sins, rejection of idols yada yada yada...

I mean, there's even the second coming of Jesus in Islam, who will come back to fight the Anti Christ. In the very early stages of Islam, Muslim were doing their prayers in Christian churches.

Christianity has gone through a LOT of reforms, the French revolution that saw democracy take root, later influences that pushed a more humane agenda, yadda yadda yadda...


Islam has not. Islam is the same ****ed up desert living tribal religion it was more than a thousand years ago.


Also, contrary to christianity, islam is a political ideology as well as a religious belief. Where Jesus said "Give to the government what the government expects" (my definition but also the upheld one), Islam has no such ideas about separation between state and religion.

In Islam, the religion IS the state.



That's why it is more than fair to accuse Islam of being inherently evil. The fact that it was created by a warmongering pedophile REALLY, like, REALLY doesn't help the muslims adapt to western civilized society much either.

[a completely inoffensive name]

In 1015 Muslim countries were preserving knowledge from the Greeks and were even applying experimental data to build upon and challenge said knowledge.

[Fragony]

so?

[a completely inoffensive name]

so?

So kad is being wrong, as usual. You know frag, just because you hate modern Islamic political fundamentalism (who doesn't), doesn't mean you have to hate Islam as it was practiced across thousands of years of human history.

[Kadagar_AV]

In 1015 Muslim countries were preserving knowledge from the Greeks and were even applying experimental data to build upon and challenge said knowledge.

So?

So kad is being wrong, as usual. You know frag, just because you hate modern Islamic political fundamentalism (who doesn't), doesn't mean you have to hate Islam as it was practiced across thousands of years of human history.

So because the Arabs helped preserve ancient writings in their desert tribal culture, we should today, 2015 somehow not see Islam as an inherently evil political ideology and lunatic religion?

What in your reasoning has anything to do with how Islam effects the world and their followers today?

I mean, I can DIRECTLY see how, say, Sweden was before we had loads of Muslims, and now AFTER we have accepted a lot of Muslims...


Suddenly free speech is threatened, women are severly harassed, disrespected and raped, way WAY more general chaos in society. So if Islam is so inherently "good", how come it seems to take any society with muslims in it down the drain?

[Fragony]

Fair enough as well, I would first blame multiculturalists though. They are ruining Sweden by taking in the worst of the worst because they have something to prove.

[Gilrandir]

So if Islam is so inherently "good", how come it seems to take any society with muslims in it down the drain?

Some originally perfect ideas when implemented get derailed and end up in a mess. The most vivid example is the communist idea vs the way it was implemented in the USSR.

[Sarmatian]

Also, contrary to christianity, islam is a political ideology as well as a religious belief. Where Jesus said "Give to the government what the government expects" (my definition but also the upheld one), Islam has no such ideas about separation between state and religion.

In Islam, the religion IS the state.

That is entirely false. "Render unto Caesar..." means basically don't refuse to pay taxes to earthly government, a concept existing in Islam.

In fact, one of the reasons why rulers found it easy to embrace Christianity is precisely because of the concept of Divine Right - while before some ruler held to power through force or threat of force, now there was a divine concept that legitimized his rule. He was no longer a strongman, but someone sanctioned by divine power to rule over the common people and made it a sin to challenge his rule.

Not to mention that later Roman/Byzantine Emperors maintained a principle that their rule over entire Christian world was legitimate because they were viceroys of God on Earth.

[Gilrandir]

At the time the association between the gesture and the nazis was not set; American students were doing the same salute when doing the morning pledge of allegiance. That the queen was filmed doing the same when a child says absolutely nothing either about her, her parents or her country that comes even close to the point you are failing to make.

It seems to me you are failing to see the point I'm making.

I suppose Ukraine is the place to turn to if you want an example of a bulwark against Nazism, or an example of a wholly incorruptible government. How many Ukrainians served in the SS? Tens of thousands, wasn't it, with some of the worst units being Ukrainian? How many British served in the SS? Less than 50, wasn't it? And most of those cried off when it came to actually doing anything.

Government corruption perception results for 2014. Britain is 14th in the world with a score of 78, firmly in the first world category and ahead of some other indisputably first world countries, including France and the US. Ukraine is 142nd in the world with a score of 26, lowest ranking of all the major former Soviet states. If put into sub-Saharan Africa, which has the lowest general scores in the regions listed, Ukraine would be classed in the lowest third.

Methinks I prefer living in western Europe.

No problem, be my guest. But you, as well as Greyblades above, fail to see what I mean.

Your knee-jerk reaction is some thing like

- Excuse me, your shoe string went loose. Take care you don't step on it and trip over.
- Oh shut up. Mind your own shoes and strings.

What I want to you to do is to realize that in many respects the UK is not a lily-white impeccable democracy with unimpeachable reputation, both in the (recent) past and the present (as you seem to believe). You take ill any hints it might be otherwise adopting the style "You are fool yourself". And snobbery and isolationism you display is a poor help to own up to the truth.

I don't dispute that the UK has lower corruption than Ukraine or that more Ukrainians were fighting in SS divisions than Brits.
Yet let me remind you that if the leader of Britain (on behalf of those who voted for him and those who didn't) had behaved differently in Munich 1938, Ukrainians wouldn't have served in SS divisions.

A new-born Christian just told me that the Bible is partly rubbish, partially history, partially word of God mixed with pure propaganda. She de facto rejects the meaning of the Gospel, but refuses to go until the end of the logic.

Many smokers realize how pernicious their habit is, yet they don't go all the way the logic leads them and quit. The same with drugs, alcohol, gambling and McDonald's.
Human ways sometimes defy common sense.

As far as religious rites are concerned, some people follow them "to be on the safe side", if it turns out there really is something out there after death. Others do it because they like celebrating something. Still others because their environment do and they don't want to be looked askance upon.

Moreover, Bible (as well as other Holy books) are written by humans, so they are fraught with prejudices, mistakes, misconceptions and exaggerations. Any sensible believer must take them cum grano salis.

That is entirely false. "Render unto Caesar..." means basically don't refuse to pay taxes to earthly government, a concept existing in Islam.

And this is one more thing people are extremely fond of indulging in - interpreting Bible words. Partly because it gives tham a chance to say "No, you don't understand it" - and look sagacious.
There are no right or wrong interpretations of any scriptures - anyone can find in them what he likes and thinks correct and others can't prove him wrong because THEY DIDN'T WRITE IT. Only the author can.

[lars573]

That is entirely false. "Render unto Caesar..." means basically don't refuse to pay taxes to earthly government, a concept existing in Islam.

In fact, one of the reasons why rulers found it easy to embrace Christianity is precisely because of the concept of Divine Right - while before some ruler held to power through force or threat of force, now there was a divine concept that legitimized his rule. He was no longer a strongman, but someone sanctioned by divine power to rule over the common people and made it a sin to challenge his rule.

Not to mention that later Roman/Byzantine Emperors maintained a principle that their rule over entire Christian world was legitimate because they were viceroys of God on Earth.

Actually Divine right is a pre-chrisitan idea. Part of Diocletian's plan for stability after the crisis of the 3rd century. He propagated the idea that he was appointed by Jupiter to rule. Constantine, like early Christians oft did, scratched out the pagan god and scribbled in Jesus/Jehovah. Not to mention 2000 years of Chinese Imperial government was based on divine right. Religion in the specific has zero to do with how effective divine right is, but rather the large scale acceptance of a religion or religion-like philosophy that exposes divine right.