Lawsuits to protect Free Speech against Religious Violence?

[AAAhmed46]

Why is his choice of location 'stupid,' and what does his work with the FBI have to do anything, and who's accusing him of being a secret terrorist, and what does this have to do with the discussion here? Another red herring?

People are still raw from 9/11. Maybe 20 years would be better, but it obviously is having the opposite affect of interfaith.
I bring up the FBI connection because i have heard many american and CANADIANS say he has connections to terrorism, that he is secretly trying to institute sharia. He said insensitive comments about 9/11 based on foreign politcies. Maybe he was wrong, but many say that. The fact it he has been working with the fbi since 1998. He has toured the middle east for the bush administration. And he is a SUFI muslim, the saudi folk dislike them, and the terrorists tend to target them for death.

Yet HE si being accused of terrorism.

Ah, the old, "they embarrass us, so they're not true Muslims... and oops, we don't know where they are, sorry..."

They threatened to kill someone for speaking their mind. For talking about a religion. I can see you don't take that kind of thing seriously. That's obviously part of the problem.

Well so far, in my experience they have been lampooned as a joke. It's like Fred Phelps. I don't see many christians taking him seriously.
Although id like to point out that revulution muslim didn't actually threaten directly, they said they hoped something bad would happen to Trey parker and matt stone. it pretty much IS a threat. But they arn't charged. Which brings up another disturbing question: Why have they not been charged yet? They were making veiled threats. That is obvious.

Be my guest. Think there will be any death threats over it? I can find illustrations of Buddha easily, and Christian art for 2,000 years has been centered on Jesus, and Western art was centered on Christian religious imagery for over a thousand years.

Not my point. Christian religious imagary tended to venerate and show respect for Jesus. Same with buddha. It's all very loving. And historically, there have been lots of images of muhammed. Most loving, but some offensive, such as one painting in italy(or is it spain? I gotta check)

I'm not mocking a religion. I mock the founder of it, since he married a 9 year old, ordered hundreds of deaths, including assassinations, and declared that a woman's silence is to be construed as consent. I didn't learn any of that from AHA, so you can toss that broken record of a response. This stuff is historical fact, verified by a reading of the koran.

While i don't want to get into the aisha issue here since it will take this on ANOTHER tangent.
The ordering of deaths and assisinations were all in WAR, a war of survival not fun, a fight against genocide. War was declared. There is clear command in the quran not to kill innocent civilians. As for the consent issue, where did you read this? I haven't seen anything like this in the quran, nor sahih Bukhari or sahih muslim.

Don't feel like I'm singling Islam out. I could spend a day talking about crooks like Joseph Smith, too. You can judge a great deal about a religion by its founder.

I disagree, most mormons i have met are great people, some of teh best 'christians' i have ever known. Most respectful toward me and my faith as well. Also, alot of what is known about joseph smith is highly polemecal. I don't agree with him, or everything he did. But talk about another faith group highly misiunderstood. Yes, i find their constant evangalism annoying, and i don't like Mitt Romney, but they are good people, with good religious principles to live by.

Muslims have to embrace the concept of a pluralistic society, where freedom of speech counts for more than that which does not offend. It's the price of admission.

Although i believe western interference has caused lots of problems, you are very very right.
The muslims closed themselves off from the rest of the world, thinking they will evolve like anyone else. When really, they retarded their own development. I talk to britishers who say the only muslims tehy meet are non-practicing muslims or apostates. So they are left with the impression that practicing muslims cannot interact with the rest of british society. Why? Because it seem practicing europian muslims seem to rarely intermingle with the rest of europe. And this is disturbing to me. They learn the same stuff, i have met and listened to lectures by Imams from europe and britian. Yet they never mix. It's strange.
While here in north america, perhaps because of more selective immigration, you have more educated, more widely dispersed muslim populations. There are entire muslim ghettos in europe, yet in Canada and the united states, this is not the case. The immigrants are widely spread.

I don't know about the author, i heard he is a conservative(emphasis on HEARD). But he writes an exellent point often missed:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/foreign-policy/ ... -terrorism

Who is this 'they?' France is banning face-covering garments. I don't see banning of books in the media anywhere. Personally, I think everyone should read the koran.

'They' are muslims. People are getting less reactionary. Burning the quran contreversy was so stupid. Let him burn it. He's buyiing qurans, and in islam the only respectful way to dispose of unwanted, mistaken(as in mistakes inside the text) dirty, or excess scripture of all religion is to burn it. To throw it away would put it through filth, which is a no no in islam. Once got a bible from some missionaries once. We didn't want it. My brother wanted to throw it, but my dad said thats disrespectful to the script, so we burned it, collected the ashes and put it outside.

Because I'm breathing it, and I know about Oxygen, CO2, Nitrogen, and the effects of atmospheric pressure on gases.

There you go.

Yes, it is less 'bumpy.' Now it's just the Islamic world trying to wipe out the jews. Where's the 'lot of work done against extremism' when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Yes, anti-semetism is a big problem in the muslim world. Though you will be hard pressed to find muslims who actually want to wipe the jews out. Though plenty of palistinians still raw from 60 years ago don't want isreal to exist. They will talka bout jewish conspiracy theories, all sorts of crack pot bullshit. But most don't want a genocide.
Daniel pipes, a man who was one of the foremost critics of islam and one of teh few anti-islamic writers to have a PhD in islamic history wrote that(man i wish i could find this again...) anti-semetism in the muslim world was not so significant until the 1800s, and says that it's this current conflict that fuels so much of it.

You would actually really really like this author if you read his other books and articles.

www.tarekfatah.com

http://www.amazon.ca/Jew-Not-Enemy-Unve ... 086&sr=8-1

[AAAhmed46]

"Even among the neo-atheists, Hitchens seems most consistent and least hypocritical."

I'm just curious, what do you find inconsistent and hypocritical about the "neo-atheists"? To add to your anecdote, I have to agree I enjoyed Hitchens attacking Dawkins for his "cringe inducing" suggestion atheists be called "brights." (Nevermind the 'tude; atheists shouldn't have a name. There's no name for people who don't believe in Santa Clause or alchemy.) Besides, everyone I've ever heard of is a 99% atheist (atheist, or better, nonbeliever, with respect to all religions except their own).

Well, they are just as irritating as non-violent religious fundamentalists. They are trying to convince people to think like they do. Old school athiests seem to have a more 'live and let live' attitude compared to the 'neo-athiest' movement. Some even respect the role of religion in peoples lives. Historically, athiests/athiesm has been an afteraffect of progressiveness(i mean this in a non-political matter)

The big four seem to have the most inflexibility in their views.
Many of them will make social commentary without knowledge of social situationa nd brand it a religious issue.

Sam harris once talked with Reza aslan, and said the reason shiite extremists kill so and so group was because they are a different sect of islam. But since Reza was actually you know, knows about the middle east, he pointed out that shiite iraqis were killing shiite kurds, and how Sunni iraqis were killing sunni kurds or other iraqi sunnis of different tribes/backgrounds.

Now hitchens on the other hand, has visited and travelled the middle east. He is very careful in his scholarship. I have read his writings, and i disagree with them. But HOW he argues his point is alot more well researched, and careful than Harris or dawkins. They never visited, and they are physical scientists, not social scientists. hitchens is a journalist, the ideological, the philosophical, the political his his realm, and he sticks to it.

He is also the most willing to put his money where his mouth is. He used to think waterboarding isn't torture and said he woudl be willing to go through it. He went through it, and changed his mind. He is consistent in his views, but also honest. He admitted that such a practice is highly immoral, and that he would have admitted to anything to make it stop. He even conceded a possibility he could be wrong(on some issues, not athiesm) while dawkisn throws a fit when someone disagrees with him, and harris's arguements resemble a kid sticking his tounge out more than careful scholarship.

I have also read that many who debated the 'big four' of neo-athiesm that hitchens is the most easiest to have a conversation with after a debate, the most 'human'.

Politically, i tend to agree more with Dawkins than hitchens. But hitchens just knows more about politics, and talks more informed, dispite my disagreement with him.

[gmattson]

Very interesting and in general, enlightening discussion.

Truthfully, I know very little about the various religious groups in the world. When people ask me what religion I belong to I say "I try to be religious but don't belong to any religion"!

I'm enjoying the topic and am learning a lot about the Muslim religion as described by AAAhmed46.

[Jason Rees]

"Even among the neo-atheists, Hitchens seems most consistent and least hypocritical."

I'm just curious, what do you find inconsistent and hypocritical about the "neo-atheists"? To add to your anecdote, I have to agree I enjoyed Hitchens attacking Dawkins for his "cringe inducing" suggestion atheists be called "brights." (Nevermind the 'tude; atheists shouldn't have a name. There's no name for people who don't believe in Santa Clause or alchemy.) Besides, everyone I've ever heard of is a 99% atheist (atheist, or better, nonbeliever, with respect to all religions except their own).

Not sure what he means. I'm looking forward to getting Sam Harris' new book from the library. Are atheists dictating morality for everyone else now? Atheism truly does seem to be congealing into a religion. And yes, Hitchens was in his glory attacking Dawkins' 'Brights.'

Everyone you've ever heard of is 99%? A pretty broad stroke, there, Ian.

[AAAhmed46]

"Even among the neo-atheists, Hitchens seems most consistent and least hypocritical."

I'm just curious, what do you find inconsistent and hypocritical about the "neo-atheists"? To add to your anecdote, I have to agree I enjoyed Hitchens attacking Dawkins for his "cringe inducing" suggestion atheists be called "brights." (Nevermind the 'tude; atheists shouldn't have a name. There's no name for people who don't believe in Santa Clause or alchemy.) Besides, everyone I've ever heard of is a 99% atheist (atheist, or better, nonbeliever, with respect to all religions except their own).

Not sure what he means. I'm looking forward to getting Sam Harris' new book from the library. Are atheists dictating morality for everyone else now? Atheism truly does seem to be congealing into a religion. And yes, Hitchens was in his glory attacking Dawkins' 'Brights.'

Everyone you've ever heard of is 99%? A pretty broad stroke, there, Ian.

Basically, i was trying to say is that they come off as fundentalists of their own brand.

Even the literalists of christianity and islam do not take religious texts as literally as many neo-atheists.

They are aggressive, and seemed as stuck to their positions as

Harris adn Hitchens supported the Iraq war, but atleast hitchens talked about waging war morally and literally did support nation building(agree with him or not). Harris, despite now releasing a book about morality, talked about dropping a nuke on the middle east as a solution for terrorism and torture being alright for it all.

Hitchens greatly believes teh war on terrorism is about religious fundamentalism. But he is enough of a pragmatist out of the big four neo-athiests that he realizes that this fundamentalism has strong political roots. Harris just simplifies it and says it's just crazies.


Most of these guys lampoon christianity and Islam for making it easy for people to give into their inner beast and excuse violence for utopian visions(yes my spelling *****)

But the neo-athiest movement also believes in utopian visions. They believe in the superiority of their ideals, and even spreading them militarily. While you guys ont he forum support the war in Iraq for different reasons, Hichens, for all my compliments of him, supported it for the spread of liberal ideals. Harris because he viewed teh entire people as barbaric. Dawkins was far more critical, but believes in utopianism, and a 'clash of civiliations' of the religious(all of them) and the rational. Seems all three try to 'convert' others to their own views, or if tehy do not, forcefully enforce values, just like fundamentalists. Even if you are or are not pro or anti Iraq war, it doesn't matter. Thats not my point. My point is that the THINKING behind these guys is the same mindset as trying to create a caliphate or christian utopia.

(I hear athiests are detested in the united states, but here in Canada they seem fine. Maybe thats why athiests here are less angry than Maher and so many others. Maher always talks about being an oppressed minority, canadian secular humanists don't seem nearly as bitter. Either Canada has a different attitude toward athiesm or simply canadians are ust more mellow)

I saw interviews for Harris for his book. Harris constantly talked about how we are morally evolving, and historically become more moral as time goes on.

But how? We evolved scientifically sure, but science is a method to reveal reality. It's neutral in terms of ideology, it can dictate morality TO A DEGREE but should not be used as the primary measurement, because the scientific method is MADE to discover, not dictate. The moment we let it dictate morality, we can make it dictate ANY morality. It's up for interpretation.

In teh last 100 years, yes human rights have never been so free and equal as they have been in the last 300 years.(And i agree with Bernard lewis, teh muslim world basically isolated it self and thus skipped out on these last 300 years of enlightenment) But there were morally enlightened periods in history all over the place, from asia, south asia, arabia, europe, south america.

But how long did these highly moral periods last? We have no idea how long our western liberal(i say liberal in a non-political sense) will maintain it self or be respected.

These last 300 or 400 years of enlightenment have also seen the MOST death by war, most devastating of genocides(IE Holocaust with six million jews killed, Chechen genocide of five hundred thousand civilians, The turkish genocide of the armenian genocide which numbers i sadly do not know and needs to be acknowledged by the turkish government(shameful), Bosnian genocide, lots of stuff in Africa...) The death tolls in war were greater of human evilb ecause we are more capable of evil.

Now some will argue that the worst has happened in countries taht have no enlightenment values. But the ottoman empire was greatly influenced by enlightenment values, and they tried to kill off the armenians. The germans were enlighted people, and they tried to kill the jews. Stalin was all for industrialization, yet look at what he did.

The neo-athiests assume that by rejecting religion, that third world countries can have better lives if they reject the delusions of religion.
But do they realize taht america and europe consume 80% of the worlds resoarces? China and INdia get industrialized, get a middle class comaprable to the united states(it's getting there) and suddenly there will be less resoarces to go around. Less oil, less resoarces. Do you think everyone is going to act and maintain such civilized behavior to eachother at that point? It will become a war of resoarces, just like in the past.

Sam Harris most of all. He basically seems to, out of all of the neo athiests, say if you do not think like me you are less than me. Reza Aslan talked about debating these guys, and found that because he believed in a higher power, they thought he was intellectually disfunctional, or that athiesm is predominantly due to intellectual superiority. Just as christian and muslim fundamentalists believe they have an ultimate truth that non-christians/muslims do not have.

In college, some of my best professors were christians, Jews, and muslims. PRACTICING christians, jews, and muslims. ANd yes, many great professors were atheists too. One of my favriote proffesors was an athiest Iranian woman. We would have long conversations about religion, atheism, existentialism.
Difference between her and them? She engaged in debate very respectfully, put herself in my shoes. As a result, I came away with a greater appreciation for existentialism and her brand of athiesm.


Athiesm and agnostisism is but another world view. It can be reached yes, but greater education, someone may look at evidence and percieve it as proof god doesn't exist or that they are unsure and thus embrace an agnostic view. Or they find evidence confirms what they were raised to believe, or if they were not raised in a religious home but non religious home, then maybe they will choose a faith to practice as they see it leaning in that direction.


But it seems the neo-athiests seem to forget that.

Dawkins to his credit, despite also falling into utopian ideals, sticks strictly to philosophy(Although he is a biologist, not a philosopher) and science to prove his points. He talks less about it, and sticks to what he knows more.

Bertrad russel(BLAH SPELLING) has always been very respectful in his debates and views. And seemed far more critical about even his own views on unreligion that these neo-athiest dudes here today. Most of whom are NOT social scientists or philosophers(save hitchens, who is a journalist dealing with the social)

Classic athiest scholars like Russel and others like him seem to have philosophy that views the world in far less simple terms than the neo-athiest movement. And i can respect that. They were after all, philosophers talking about philosophy. It was their specialty. They are not Biologists or brain surgians talking about philosophy but philosophers talking about philosophy.

Classical athiests and agonostics=Awesome

Neo Athiest=Irritating. But they have a right to express their views. I just think they are just like religious fundamentalists.


And i have not read him in much detail, but didn't nietzche(SPELLING AGAIN!!!!) warn about this stuff? About men who think they have an absolute truth, and that they alone have it, not realizing the world is more grayer than they realize?


And he was an anti-thiest if im not mistaken. Afterall, he coined the phrase 'god is dead.' Right? He despised most religion. He spoke highly of zen buddhism and other eastern philosophies, but even then only specific variations of them. He was not a theist in any way, nor did expect anyone to blindly follow his writings. But he did warn of men...all men who think they alone know the truth and everyone else is blind or mislet.

He was an angry but intellegent guy.



Oh and yes my spelling *****.

[AAAhmed46]

Very interesting and in general, enlightening discussion.

Truthfully, I know very little about the various religious groups in the world. When people ask me what religion I belong to I say "I try to be religious but don't belong to any religion"!

I'm enjoying the topic and am learning a lot about the Muslim religion as described by AAAhmed46.

Good, my hope is to not offend anyone. And i hope I haven't done so. I just want to add an alternative point of view to some of these discussions.

[IJ]

Wow, lots of words. I limit myself to a few comments:

JR: I don't know anyone who believes in more that one religion. There are hundreds out there. They are all thus effectively <1/100s "believer" or >99% nonbeliever. See what I mean? These faiths are generally mutually exclusive; either Jesus is the son of God, or he's not, for example. So while lots of religious people feel they're all worshipping the same God, or what matters is faith in general, that sounds crazy to me. It's like saying a belief in planets is what's important, and so it doesn't matter if we think we're on the third or the 9th or if there's 1 or 20.

Ahmed, yeah, they're pretty vocal about their concerns. I share their fear that mushy thought is a threat in all forms (I feel the same way about "religious" belief in, say, herbal supplements or chiropractic rather than studied therapies). I agree with you that Hitchens is very well read and knowledgeable (what part of his work do you disagree with?) but don't really care if Harris is not. He may be wrong about which shiite is killing which shiite (thank you, south park, for reminding us that religious hatred is not the only kind in religious wars in it's Dawkins episodes) but none of that factored into anything in his "Letter to a Christian Nation." The logic is pretty solid (or enlighten me, if not).

For me, the difference between strident atheists and strident religious people is the source material and the ability to be proven wrong. Atheists would be happy to accept proof if it came. Religious argument seems largely limited to quoting from scripture and pointing out that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

If anyone is interested:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2309627/Why-I ... Ibn-Warraq

PS: lots of Christian work is indeed loving, but this is only because they permit the art and so the only people who would portray Mohammed are those who reject the need not to portray him, ie, nonbelievers. That's just cause and effect. Besides, what rampage and threats did Christians anywhere go on once they saw Piss Christ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

[AAAhmed46]

Wow, lots of words. I limit myself to a few comments:

JR: I don't know anyone who believes in more that one religion. There are hundreds out there. They are all thus effectively <1/100s "believer" or >99% nonbeliever. See what I mean? These faiths are generally mutually exclusive; either Jesus is the son of God, or he's not, for example. So while lots of religious people feel they're all worshipping the same God, or what matters is faith in general, that sounds crazy to me. It's like saying a belief in planets is what's important, and so it doesn't matter if we think we're on the third or the 9th or if there's 1 or 20.

Ahmed, yeah, they're pretty vocal about their concerns. I share their fear that mushy thought is a threat in all forms (I feel the same way about "religious" belief in, say, herbal supplements or chiropractic rather than studied therapies). I agree with you that Hitchens is very well read and knowledgeable (what part of his work do you disagree with?) but don't really care if Harris is not. He may be wrong about which shiite is killing which shiite (thank you, south park, for reminding us that religious hatred is not the only kind in religious wars in it's Dawkins episodes) but none of that factored into anything in his "Letter to a Christian Nation." The logic is pretty solid (or enlighten me, if not).

For me, the difference between strident atheists and strident religious people is the source material and the ability to be proven wrong. Atheists would be happy to accept proof if it came. Religious argument seems largely limited to quoting from scripture and pointing out that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

If anyone is interested:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2309627/Why-I ... Ibn-Warraq

PS: lots of Christian work is indeed loving, but this is only because they permit the art and so the only people who would portray Mohammed are those who reject the need not to portray him, ie, nonbelievers. That's just cause and effect. Besides, what rampage and threats did Christians anywhere go on once they saw Piss Christ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

On religion:
People express themselves in very different ways. I understand when hindus say tehy worship one god, as vishnu and Rama and Hanuman are all the avatars of a single supreme being.
The greeks, viewed the gods as powerful, but not omnipotent. They were not even eternal. The one eternal force was 'fate'. Which is treated with a reverence and mystry reserved for god. 'God' it seems, is a universal term for the eternal, whatever that is.
Because many WESTERN agnostics and christians will have a sympathy for christianity but dislike for islam(while ive seen muslim/ex-muslim agnostics have sympathy for islam but dislike for christianity), i nearly took the opposite opinion out of irritation. But ive seperated politics, and emotionalism from it all, and have come to respect christianity, particularly the new testament.
These religions all came out of different cultures. So these religions express appriciation for the 'eternal' or 'god' as we like to call it, differently. Thats why it's all so mucky.

Either you believe in the eternal, but don't know how to express it,(Monothiestic/panthiestic agnostics) your unsure the eternal exists(agnostics) or do not believe in the eternal(athiest)

About athiests being intellectually superior to theists:

And what about ex-athiests that become christian or muslim? Are they not open to evidence? Why do you assume athists are teh only ones who claim to view evidence? Someone got convinced of something. Ive met ex-athists muslims, and im sure there are ex-athiest christians running around.


About Ibn Warraq: Ive known about him for a long long time.

Thing is, there are athiest critiques of islam far less polemical than his. Check out Tariq Ali's article 'Letter to muslim youth' or something like that. It's a peice of an even longer book of him talking about why he is not a muslim. He is an athiest.

http://tariqali.org/

He basically denounces islam but does so without nearly as much polemec as warraq. I can also grab a rebuttal of Ibn Warraq as well,if you want. But it's long as hell. Besides, with exception to his 'why is monothiesm better than polythiesm' arguement, his stuff is basically just rehashed missionary/crusader claims.

Bernard lewis also does a better job than Ibn warraq in attacking islam. He's an atheist as well. Bernard lewis has studied islam for 60 years. Did i mention he is an atheist too?

Lets not foget Cenk Ughers(blah turkush last names) speaking at an athiest agnostic conference as he is an agnostic. He used to be a muslim.

Now Daniel pipes, he often resorts to scare tactics, yet also is very much critical of islam without resorting to Ibn warraqs polemics. He also knows WAY more about Islam than Ibn warraq, as Daniel pipes has a PhD in islamic history, while warraq is a psychologist.


My point? If you want to show people an athiest critique of islam, your better off pointing them toward Pipes, Lewis, or tariq ali. Even Hitchens.

Hitchens:

I disagree with hitchen's support of the Iraq war, and his belief that terrorism is a threat to the civilized world. There have been greater threats. It isn't even support of it that bugged me(Because well, saddam was an #####) it is the fact that he believed that this somehow prevents terrorism, and fundamentalism. Saddam tried to commit genocide, he was a rapist(forced concubines) but he was a secular dictator, and his second in command was a christian. So how does it prevent terrorism then?

More over, evidence indicates that terrorists have been empowered by foriegn wars with swelling ranks. Rummfields own intel basically says this.

In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Defense Science Board Task Force to review the impact which the administration's policies -- specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- were having on Terrorism and Islamic radicalism. Interesting findings.

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically, "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan"

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/dsb/commun.pdf


And most importantly, i dislike the utopian vision he has, like all these other guys, that somehow we are morally advancing. We most certainly are NOT moraly adcancing. Being able to eat with a fork and fire a gun doesn't mean less people are stabbing someone with that fork or shooting someone with that gun.

On sam harris:
SO you believe in a nuclear strike on the muslim world? You believe in torture? Not waterboarding but torture? And his understanding of islamic literature and theology is laughable. And while hitchens is harsh on islam, he atleast demonstrates sophisticated knowledge of the religion AND the region, And therefore comments on middle eastern politics with knowledge. Harris(unlike hitchens) has never visited the middle east, and clearly has alot less knowledge of the place than hitchens does. Only a fool comments on what he does not know about. The fact he got his ass handed to him by Aslan on politics cements that.
Dawkins, to his credit, does not do this. He refuses to poke his head into the political(alot less atleast) and make blanket statements about how foreign policy should deal with crazy religious people.

And why are athiests these days reading these works and not hard work done by classic athiest philosophers?

You also said the 'big four' particularly guys like harris would change their views according to the facts. And while harris and Aslan were equal when debating theology, when they debated middle eastern politics, harris was torn apart. HE was proven time and time again that there is far far far more to violence in the middle east than a simple answer as fanatism. Aslan proved that religious fanatics are but a piece of a bigger puzzle, with political causes as wel.

Yet Harris did not change his views, despite the evidence. He still says the same thing.



On christian violence:

And Glenn Greenwald showed that the piss christ 'art' had many death threats issued against teh creators and other form of blasphemy.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

And the south park contreversy, BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION. Three men. Three men ostrasized from other muslims in new york.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/item ... dacQYTT4oJ

Muslim columnist Zahed Amanullah wrote an article for the Guardian entitled “No [Muslim] freak-out over South Park”, saying:

But has there really been any Muslim outrage? The characterisation of Muhammad in a July 2001 episode entitled “Super Best Friends“, where he teams up with Jesus, Moses, and Buddha to defeat evil (even though Buddha “doesn’t really believe in evil”), has been available for viewing online (if not on a spooked Comedy Central) for nine years without censorship, more than enough time to spark another cartoon crisis if Muslims really cared. As should be obvious by now, they don’t.

South park airs in the middle east all the time, including the super best friends.

If you look at where violence was with the danish cartoons, nearly all areas were areas where ethnic violence is common

Dr. Malik:

There were demonstrations and riots in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, Nigeria, Palestine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Danish embassies in Damascus, Beirut and Teheran were torched. But, as Jytte Klausen has observed, these protests ‘were not caused by the cartoons, but were part of conflicts in pre-existing hot spots’ such as northern Nigeria, where there exists an effective civil war between Muslim salafists and Christians. The violence surrounding the cartoon conflict, Klausen suggests, has been ‘misreported’ as expressions of spontaneous violence from Muslims ‘confronted with bad pictures’. That, she insists, ‘is absolutely not the case’. Rather ‘these images have been exploited by political groups in the pre-existing conflict over Islam.’


Now, lets look at salman rushdie. Surely it was banned in many muslim countries?

Similarly, the Salman Rushdie affair had political not theological roots:

We have come to accept almost as self-evident the idea that the worldwide controversy was sparked by the blasphemies in The Satanic Verses that all Muslims found deeply offensive. It is not true.

The Satanic Verses was published in September 1988. For the next five months, until the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa on Valentine’s Day 1989, most Muslims ignored the book. The campaign against the novel was largely confined to the Indian subcontinent and to Britain. Aside from the involvement of Saudi Arabia, there was little enthusiasm for a campaign against novel in the Arab world or in Turkey, or among Muslim communities in France or Germany. When the Saudi authorities tried at the end of 1988 to get the novel banned in Muslim countries worldwide, few responded except those with large subcontinental populations, such as South Africa or Malaysia. Even in Iran the book was openly available and was reviewed in many newspapers.

[AAAhmed46]

...........some countries are just better at controlling them because they have better infrastructure.



rom Jeffrey Weiss, Politics Daily, today: “And we’re still left with a terrible problem for a free and multicultural society: Even though 99.999 percent of Muslims abhor attacks on innocent civilians on moral and theological grounds, 100 percent of attempted terrorist attacks on the U.S. (and, with the exception of the Basques in Spain, terrorists attacks on all Western nations) since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing have been committed by people claiming to act in the name of Islam.”

Compare that claim to reality:

“1998: Dozens die in Omagh bombing: At least 27 people are feared dead in the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict three decades ago The blast in the market town of Omagh, County Tyrone, at around 1500 BST on Saturday, left more than 100 people injured or maimed” – BBC.

“September 21, 2000: A rocket attack on MI6 headquarters in London is believed to be the work of dissident Irish republicans” – BBC.

“In a series of court documents that were at turns chilling and bizarre, federal investigators said U.S. Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins misled government agents investigating the 2001 anthrax mailings, sent emails with language closely matching the handwritten letters sent to victims and had access to the strain of anthrax used in the crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the evidence, including hundreds of pages of unsealed documents, proves that Dr. Ivins was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax mailings . . . The most compelling evidence points at Dr. Ivins and his laboratory at the U.S. Army biodefense facility at Fort Detrick, Md.” — Wall St. Journal, August 7, 2008.

“Olympic bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph — wanted in attacks that killed two people and injured more than 100 in the Southeast — was arrested early Saturday in western North Carolina and faces a Monday morning court date. Rudolph has been charged in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia; 1997 bombings at a gay nightclub and a clinic that performed abortions in the Atlanta area; and a bombing at a clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1998“ – CNN, May 31, 2003.

* Continue Reading

“U.S.-born Jewish terrorist suspected of series of attacks over past 12 years: The authorities have arrested a resident of the West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel for suspected murder and a role in a string of murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed Sunday after a gag order was lifted. Yaakov (Jack) Tytell, who was arrested last month, is suspected of involvement in the murder of two Palestinians and the rigging of a bomb that seriously injured a boy from a Messianic Jewish family in Ariel. . . . Some of his actions were allegedly motivated by hatred for gays and lesbians” - Haaretz, November 3, 2009.

“The Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday charged alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel with two murders, three attempted murders and other acts of violence. “It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said Teitel at the Jerusalem courthouse. “I have no regret and no doubt that God is pleased” — Haaretz, December 11, 2009.

“Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally Saturday night in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square, a top aide confirmed. He was reportedly shot in the arm and back by a Jewish man in his mid-20s who is allegedly affiliated with right-wing extremist groups. . . . Amir confessed to the assassination and reportedly told investigators, ‘I acted alone on God’s orders and I have no regrets‘.” — CNN, November 4, 1995.

“The chairman of the Jewish Defense League and a member of the extremist organization are accused of a bombing scheme aimed at the office of an Arab-American congressman and a prominent Los Angeles mosque. JDL chairman Irv Rubin, 56, and Earl Krugel, 59, were held without bail Wednesday after being charged with the failed bombing plot. Authorities said the two men held a series of meetings in October to plan the bombing of the King Fahd Mosque and the San Clemente office of freshman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif” — Fox News, December 13, 2001.

“Professor Zeev Sternhell knows as much as anyone about the current threat from Jewish terrorism. His right leg is recovering from shrapnel caused when a bomb, believed to have been the work of right-wing Jewish extremists, exploded outside the front door of his Jerusalem apartment last week. While Arab-Jewish violence is common, the attack on the 73-year-old historian has shocked public opinion in Israel because all the evidence points to it being intra-Jewish. ‘I consider it an act of Jewish terrorism,’ he said in an interview from the modest apartment where the bomb exploded” — Telegraph, October 3, 2008.

“A doctor who performed abortions was shot to death by a sniper in his western New York home Friday night in an attack denounced as ‘terrorism’ by the state’s governor. ‘It’s beyond a tragedy. It’s really an act of terrorism and, in my mind, a cold-blooded assassination,’ Gov. George Pataki said of the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian.’ — CNN, October 22, 1998.

“A white supremacist suspected of targeting blacks, Jews and Asians in a deadly Independence Day weekend drive-by shooting rampage from Chicago to Bloomington, Indiana, died after a high-speed chase in Salem, Illinois on Sunday night, police said Monday” — CNN, July 5, 1999.

“Mountaineer Militia leader Floyd Looker, convicted in an alleged plot to blow up an FBI fingerprint complex, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison Friday” — Ocala Star-Ledger, October 11, 1996.

[AAAhmed46]

Now lets talk about, just how big a threat are crazy muslims? Certainly they are visible.

http://www.europol.europa.eu/publicatio ... AT2007.pdf

http://www.europol.europa.eu/publicatio ... AT2008.pdf

http://www.europol.europa.eu/publicatio ... AT2009.pdf

On p.7, the 2009 Europol report concludes:

Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests. In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.



Perception is not reality.


Now what is real reality in the muslim world?

Dictatorships, Anti-semetism(sorry my muslim brothers, admit you have a problem since the 1800) abuse of woman. Ignoring 1400 years of islamic scholarship and start stoning woman, forcing woman to live in tents(emphasis on FORCING) Keeping woman uneducated(the dumber she is, the easier she is to control)
and an UNWILLINGNESS to withstand critiques and insults against faith.

Now your wondering "HEY AAAHMED46 WROTE AND COPIED AND PASTED ALL THAT LONG ASS STUFF TO ARGUE THERE IS TOLERANCE FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH"

Yes i did. But my point isn't that there isn't intolerance toward freedom of speech, just that the threat of muslims always killing is exaggerated.

Exaggerated, but still a problem.

Certainly not enough to drop a nuclear weapon as harris wants to.

saudi arabia has lots of oil, yet still people live in bad conditions. Why? Because it's more important for a prince to have a GOLDEN TOILET made of pure gold than to, you know, fix the country.

Is it any surprise people will take their political grievences to religious extremist groups? Thats how they recruit. Jared Cohen(pro-isreal, right wing, intern for condeleeza rice) and Mathew alexander(Wrote how to break a terrorist, pro-iraq war, pro-bush, anti-torture) both interviewed terrorists. Cohen in lebanon, Iran(in iran not terrorists, just anti-western people) Syria and Iraq, while matthew alexander interviewed and interrogated captured terrorists from al-quada(blah spelling, but i can pernounce it better than you)

Both found that MOST(not all) terrorists join fanatical organizations out of political anger.

Jared Cohen LOVES isreal, marches for it. He really likes bush. So he obviously believes their greviences to be lies and propoganda. He says so. But also acknowledges that the men he interviewed were not quoting scripture or yelling religious rhetoric. They were quoting politics. As a jew, he found that the hamas soldiers were insulting jews infront of him, when he told them he was jewish. He said tehy looked very shamed and apologized to him. Then began complaining. Lebanon, he met with the Hezbullah often in night clubs. THey would often drink.

For alexander, it was the same thing. He found them mininformed, brainwashed. Angry. He thought they were scum. But he also notes very clearly, that he found only two men he interrogated to have dreams of establishing a caliphate. The rest blamed america for the breakdown of the country. Many joined Al-qaida due to promises from the organization to protect their families in the chaos that ensued.


It`s religious fanatism tahts a problem, but also anger by educated people who hate their governments, hate what they percieve as imperealism(real or imagined)

You cannot pigeon hole this entire conflict and say it`s ONLY crazies, or only this and that.

Even the taliban, which was entirely a theocracy, has now turned into such a decentralized force, it`s insane. I know Isreali Journalist Nir Rosen actually interviewed them, and found them to have only one uniting ideology: And tahts killing foreigners. There are many who want a theocracy established, others for drugs, others just angry. It`s a mess, and nothign is simple.

When i go to the mosque, i meet afganis and people from northern pakistan. They hate the taliban, hate everythign about it. Hate whats happening in their wing of pakistan and in afganistan. And yes, all will tell you that these men are religious extremits.

But these old men(and young) will tell you also stories of how the very same folk that are religiously charged now, were killing for secular reasons, before adopting extreme taliban style islamic views.

Now some of you are thinking `Why? What? Why?' well guess what? Soldiers, politicians, the very civilians don't understand what the hell is going on either.

Soldiers will say it's the crazy fundamenalists. Some will say it's crazy fundamentalists who are bi-polar(Ie warning civilians to run away one minute, then throwing acid in their faces another minute) Some civlians will say it's fanatics and others will say it's war lords who feel threatened by Nato. Some soldiers will say they don't know what the hell is going on.

And you know what? Atleast they are being honest. Because very legit perspecties(Nato soldier, afgan civilian, northern pakistnai civlian, pakistani military man, historians) all seem to have totally different views of what is going on, what the problems are.

The only consensus i have seen is that: Woman are getting screwed over, Civilians getting killed by suicide bombers, nato troops killed by roadside bombs.

you have men having sex with little boys dressed as woman(taliban were horrible assholes, but this is one practice they outlawed). Most notably by powerful afgans and northern pakistanis of great influence, often even pro-western. In canada, we had news reports of how our canadian soldiers were getting very very upset at having to sit by and let this happen. Obviously, they have a concience.

[AAAhmed46]

"so adam? What the hell was the point of that giant ass rant of yours?"

Well it's simple: It's stupid to simplify the issues in the middle east right now(and north america) as either purely political, or purely the work of fanatics. It's stupid for Harris to do so as well. And atleast hitchens PARITIALLY recognizes the complexity. Atleast the detail of his writing on the subject, reflects that. And yes, i know, he is very insulting of islam(and christianity, and judaism) but shows knowledge of sophistication in all these places and faiths and issues.

[AAAhmed46]

As you can tell, i have great boredom at the moment and passion for this topic.

Don't worry, ill disappear again......

[mhosea]

Atheists would be happy to accept proof if it came.

What makes you believe in that?

[IJ]

What makes me think atheists would be happy to accept proof if it came? Well, I can't speak for all of them, but generally we think there's a reason why heaven is described as it is (eg, for islam, water and sex are featured, apparently). It's what we long for--it's heaven. We would all like to live on in heaven. Who wouldn't? We would all like a powerful being looking after us. We have yearning for what the theists believe--but there's an evidence gap. We would believe a clear example of God's work because we would like the evidence to support God. It just doesn't. When it does, we'd be thrilled. C'mon, evidence!

Minor detail, but re: the child rape and Taliban, are you arguing the depiction in The Kite Runner was backwards? I'm curious and have no way of knowing.

"Why do you assume athists are teh only ones who claim to view evidence?" I don't assume that; I assume they're the only ones who ARE viewing evidence. If you have good evidence to support the existence of supernatural beings, I am all over it. Please share.

As far as the critiques of Islam go, if they're better than Ibn's, well... I don't need any more convincing anyway! But I will check them out. I guess my question to you is not whether they're rehashed or polemical but whether you can refute them.

Re: Hitchens, yes, terrorism is a threat. Believe there are bigger ones if you like. Fine. Agreed. Still a threat. And I do believe Muslims do hate our freedoms. Policies more perhaps, but freedoms indeed. How do I know this? Because regular old Americans hate our freedoms and wish to restrict them, be they for guns, drugs, or in the one that affects me, marriage, adoption, and military service rights. You think the Taliban supports those freedoms (just guns, evidently)? They stomp out rights as a matter of course. You know this. You think they'd be neutral to us if our policies were different? Hardly. They'd want to crush us more than their muslim brothers in Afghanistan and they harbor little love for those. Moderate muslims less so, but perhaps you can present some evidence as to their voting patterns showing they do or don't support the spread of freedoms inimical to their own religion? And whether this is frequently a product of exposure to Western culture which is more live and let live? I'm curious. You seem to be the go-to guy here for muslim factoids.

Re: Harris: I said I liked his book "Letter to a Christian Nation." That hardly makes me a supporter of every random comment he's made, particularly the ones I've never heard. He's got solid arguments about atheism, and being less educated on the muslim world doesn't change this.

As far as changes in belief go, your link showed me that Christians can issue threats and derail art too. I accept your evidence and agree, the problem is religion, not Islam Remember that South Park didn't depict Mohammed this time, they more focused on depicting the silliness of the inability to depict him by putting him in a suit and making him as bland or nondepicted as possible. That's what made it funny (rather than just provocative).

[cxt]

AAAhmed

Not sure the above really holds---while its true that terrorists are a problem for many places, regions and faiths Islamic terrorists are far and away the most dangerous for everyone including fellow muslims.

The threat of muslims "killing" is certainly not "exaggerated."
This should not be some sort of weird contest on whom has the worst terrorists.........but even a random sample of terrorist violence of pretty much any time in the last 50 years would likely skew heavily one direction.

And dispite what you posted on specific muslim communities doing what they can...which I belive they do.

Almost every poll taken overseas (from the US) shows considerable support for violence in general and extremist groups in particular.

That seems to be an historical problem as well. One of the main reasons that the Spanish were able to take control of Spain back from the Moors in the first place was that they were seriously weakend by internal
warfare with a group of very orthodox muslims that felt that the then rulers of Andlusia were essentially not "good enough muslims" and needed to be replaced.

There seems to be considerable support for violence against other people and other muslims in the Islamic community worldwide.

The actual moderates don't get nearly enough press and support.

As just one example The Imam that refused to allow the Mumbai terrorist to be buried in his graveyard----an--act for which he and his community received serious threats BTW----did not get hardly any press and very few people even mentioned it.

The press needs to show as much interest in people of faith that are laying their lives on the line for peace and tolerence as they do for murderous thugs that revel in wanton slaughter.

Of course its the slaughter that sells. So that is what they push.....mores the pity.