I would be very suprised if there is not intense planning for actions much larger than 9/11 going so that the severity of the damage will be worth the inevitable level of intense pushback they will certainly receive.

Nah, they’re cowards. After they got stopped at Viena (1683), they hadn’t done much of anything for almost 300 years until we started pumping oil money into them. In terms of casualities, apart from one unlucky day in 2001, what they have been enable to inflict on the west is miniscule, even in camparison to what they do to each other daily in Iraq, but especially compared to the ‘thumping’ they would get if they tried 9/11 again. What we are trying to due in Iraq is far more ambitious than our plans were for Vietnam, and our casualties are less than 1/10 of that.

They are stuck with a hopelessly broken religion and it must really irk them. The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the Protestant Remonstration, started out as quibbles about the Eucharist and existance of free will and led to the 100 Years War. That eventually led to the separation of church and state, because that’s what Jesus said in the first place. But Islam says the opposite, so there can be no Islamic Reformation beyond what the Wahabists have already done to end their 300 year slumber. They could go the way of Reformed Judiasm, which is to basically to blend into Christian style culture, but what are the chances they will follow the example of the Jews? Hopefully they will, for the first time in their 1300 years, come up with a innovative solution that will actually help humanity.

I don’t know enough about the Koran to debate its specifics and what they mean but my basic point is this:

In the Bible, God instructs his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers. We accept this but do not interpret it as a call to do the same b/c of the teachings of Jesus, thousands of years of history, etc.

In the Koran, Allah commands his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers and Muslims do interpret this as a call to do the same. Hence, interpretation is key and reform is possible.

Yes, it is clear you do not know much about the Koran (or for that matter the bible), or you would see that the other things you say don’t follow. There is no equivalence to be drawn between the Koran and any other religious text, anywhere, because no other religious text is construed to be the literal instructions of god handed down for humans to read–and, on top of that, a prescriptive blueprint for bringing the entire human species under Islamic rule, both by force and by conversion. It’s really not a subtle distinction. It something quite unique to Islam.

It is possible to be a bad Muslim and not follow the dictates of the Koran (as do many in the west), and it is possible for an individual to reject Islam altogether (as do some in the west). But it is not possible to reform Islam away from the words of the Koran anymore than it is possible to reform Christianity away from the notion that Jesus was the son of God. The infallibility of the verbal instructions of the Koran is absolutely fundamental to the very meaning of the faith, and it is those instructions that direct Muslims to behave in a manner hostile towards non-Muslim peoples, not any “interpretation” of them.

And Where TF was all the Islamic tolerance and respect for all faiths – that she was barking about – while Gemayel was getting his head blown off today?

I don’t know enough about the Koran to debate its specifics and what they mean but my basic point is this:

In the Bible, God instructs his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers. We accept this but do not interpret it as a call to do the same b/c of the teachings of Jesus, thousands of years of history, etc.

In the Koran, Allah commands his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers and Muslims do interpret this as a call to do the same. Hence, interpretation is key and reform is possible. — JaHerer22

…not being an expert in the Koran — is anyone here? — or the Bible limits the weight of ones argument, but taken at its word, the Koran is, in my experience, easier to interpret and discuss than is the Bible. The Koran is anything if not blunt.

In the passage of Deuteronomy you cite, the Israelites, wandering from Egypt until the Egyptian vestige died out, were being instructed to take posession of the land promised to them by the God of Israel. They were to cleanse it and supercede life there. The practices of the people there offended God, but that explains these harsh measures to the Children of Israel, and was their “marching” orders…then…back in the 13th Century BC.

The orders given were pretty explicit, and not much interpretation was need. Kill ‘em, sweep land clean of ‘em…then they were to get on with your lives.

It should be noticed that, once the land promised was taken, folks did settle down. That were the usual Middle Eastern “misunderstandings” — the word “Philistine” comes to mind — but those were specific instances.

They spend the subsequent 34 books of the Old Testament (Joshua though Malachi) failing again and again to follow the ordinances of their God, even to the point of exile and ruin.

The teachings of the The Christ may color or soften the stories of the Old Testament to some, but the lessons of the Old Testament were the buttress both Christ and later Paul would use in speaking to the Jews of their day, and to us today…meaning that the tales of Joshua’s marching orders to whack the Jebusites has something to teach us.

After all, in Luke 24:27, on the road to Emmaus, the risen Christ tutors followers on that road of his ministry:

7 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

The Man himself did the interpreting.

Mohammed, on the other hand, was — if you believe the source of the Koran as being Allah speaking through a venerated secretary — said to kill and conquer *ALL* unbelievers, until they were either Muslim, subjects or dead. Check back in Deuteronomy again, and you’ll see no call for conversion. Furthermore, the order has a “wear-out date”: when the Amorites, Perizzites and Jebusites, etc., are swept from the land, go ahead and put the banner up, and “Mission Accomplished”.

…differences in the root document, then, in the revelation itself if you will…not differences in interpretation.

For that matter, Muslims aren’t even *ALLOWED* to reinterpret their source documents or their laws. I thought I’d seen it on this thread, but maybe it was on another, either way there was an *EXCELLENT* simple treatment of that by a HotAir poster. In that post, it said that, unlike the inspired writings of the Tanakh/Bible, the Koran places *ITSELF* in another league. It’s not even supposed to be translated! You can’t fiddle with it. Furthermore, discussion of it can only go so far.

There was a guy recently who reviewed the Koran, written in what I’ve heard described as tortured Arabic, hardly transparent. He said that the whole “72 virgins” thing was a mistranslation of what might instead have been “72 white grapes”. We’ve of course all heard of this, but my point isn’t Koranic falliblity, but that the guy who pointed this out was excoriated as being an apostate, a questioner of the unquestiionable, a rocker of Islamic boats, and in general a guy who’d best seek out employment in a bunker somewhere…with a pretty heavy security detail.

If you can’t even criticize what, even to casual eyes, is a bellicose and bloody-minded document, let alone the body of legal and social traditions which’ve grown out it, you’re counting too much on human nature to think that reformation is possible.

You may think that man’s intrinsic and basic goodness will win out. As a Calvinist, I’d have to point out that you’re waiting in the station for a train that never set out…because it doesn’t exist. Consider this from the standpoint that mankind will take revealed truth and screw it *ALL* up.

Mankind’s they tried to do with Christianity — the gnostics, Marcion, Pelagius, Arian, the medieval Roman church, the modern evangelical movement by and large — and you see my point. When you start from something which might have little truth in it from the first place, you might see that, however many people esteem Islam, any attempts to reform would be attempts to fix a broken watch that ran backwards in the first place.

Or, we could simply point to the inhumanity of Muhammad’s example and begin challenging Muslims to defend him. The resulting cognitive dissonance might begin to rupture the fabric causing many people to apostasize. Only then – with the actual example of millions of apostates staring them in the face – would “scholars” begin to dare to consider that perhaps Muhammad ought not to be taken literally. But the shame of defending a psychopath – and the apostasy that follows it – will have to come first IMHO.

RD on November 21, 2006 at 2:49 PM

An excellent idea, RD! Convienient though, isn’t it, that islam forbids depictions of big mo in any form. It allows them to get sidetracked and outraged at the depiction and consistantly deflect any direct questions being posed. Still, it needs to be done. Robert Spencer has taken a BIG step in that direction. Others need to follow and not cower in the inevitable propaganda attempts to change the subject.

Good post, RD.

The reason America is not in flames – yet – is “pushback.” Jihadis try something and see how much pushback there is. In Europe, there is less and less pushback, so they can increase the intensity of their actions. If over 100 cars a night were being torched by “disaffected youth” (as the French call them), they know they would get pushback here. When Norwegian women were gang-raped for not wearing head coverings, an Oslo professor blamed Norwegians for not dressing more appropriately in their newly multicultural country. And in Spain, the Madrid bombings actually changed the outcome of the national elections, so there was actually what might be called “pushforward”.

If World Trade Center 2001 had been treated the same way WTC 1993 had been, things would be moving much more quickly here on the jihadi front. And knowing they face so much opposition here, they also may not want to waste violent actions on small fronts. I would be very suprised if there is not intense planning for actions much larger than 9/11 going so that the severity of the damage will be worth the inevitable level of intense pushback they will certainly receive.

I don’t know enough about the Koran to debate its specifics and what they mean but my basic point is this:

In the Bible, God instructs his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers. We accept this but do not interpret it as a call to do the same b/c of the teachings of Jesus, thousands of years of history, etc.

In the Koran, Allah commands his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers and Muslims do interpret this as a call to do the same. Hence, interpretation is key and reform is possible. Certainly not easy or quick, but possible.

That’s at best a conjecture – a hopeful one, but a conjecture nonetheless. Are you willing to concede that? (FWIW “Might be possible” makes a stronger argument than “is possible” but what do I know :-)

Once/if we were to agree that reform might be possible, then we’d collectively have to consider each point of Islam’s belief structure in turn in order to evaluate how likely it is that Islam would reject jihad/Sharia/jizya/ghanimah/taqiyya/nasikh in toto, and if so, exactly what steps it would take to accomplish. (From my point of view, it would require the shattering of the notion that the Koran is a perfect copy of an eternal book, kept in Heaven for all time, and dictated to the prophet Muhammad word for word over a 20-something year period by the angel Gabriel. Why that’s the case, ask me some other time :-)

And it would require inviting severe criticism of the prophet Muhammad as an immoral and misguided being who brought great harm and injury to the world he was ostensibly trying to “improve”.)

The resulting dialogue would begin to flesh out the contours of a possible reform angle, assuming there is one.

Or, we could simply point to the inhumanity of Muhammad’s example and begin challenging Muslims to defend him. The resulting cognitive dissonance might begin to rupture the fabric causing many people to apostasize. Only then – with the actual example of millions of apostates staring them in the face – would “scholars” begin to dare to consider that perhaps Muhammad ought not to be taken literally. But the shame of defending a psychopath – and the apostasy that follows it – will have to come first IMHO.

…if we divide this counrty and this world along religious lines (condemning an entire 1 billion strong-religion as a religion of intolerance) we are just perpetuating the holy war they want.

First, why are people always presuming power and omnipotence that doesn’t exist? We don’t wield such power over the minds of other men in other lands. We can no more make a Muslim a jihadist by calling him names than we can turn a Thai Buddhist into a jihadist by doing the same. (Call a Buddhist intolerant a million times, and he’ll still just look at you strangely, nod his head and be on his way. He doesn’t need your validation to confirm his self-worth or righteousness.)

Second, WE are on the defensive here. If there’s holy war, it is because it will have been brought TO us.

Uh…maybe not.

Little Green Footballs

With Laura Ingraham sitting in for Bill O’Reilly, Robert Spencer confronts a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Edina Lekovic—who lies about the Koran and says Spencer wants to “drive all Muslim…

Unfortunately, a clash of the civilzations may be inevitable. Many people here seem to be looking forward to it though, all too ready to resort back to the days of Holy Crusades, killing Muslims for the glory of God and the West. This is just sad.

JaHerer22 on November 21, 2006 at 11:55 AM

HotAir ate an earlier response of mine to you.

The Crusades were not just Christians killing Muslims for the glory of God. They were a direct response to over 350 years of relentless and extraordinary violent expansionism by islamics. The West finally stood up and beat them back, before being conquered completely.

Do I agree and revel in the glories of those times? No. Did they happen for a very good reason? Yes. Did a lot of really bad and un-Christian things happen during those dark times? You bet. Am I proud of that? Nope.

As I said to omegaram earlier up the thread, it is nobel that we seek and root for non-violent ways of islamic reform. But if you really study islam, the koran, the hadiths and other key islamic teaching/governing documents you’ll see that the religion has boxed itself in and not left very much room at all for peaceful reform.

The religion/state condones and encourages islamic peoples to deceive the non-muslim until they have the numbers and power to attempt political and military victories against all infidels. I wish it were not so. But there it is.

Look at the demographic trends in europe, and russia, and many other countries. Infiltration. Feeding on the host until they’re strong enough, and have inserted themselves into the legal systems of the host countries and peoples. It’s a pattern that has repeated for 1400 years.

I think you misunderstand the belief and intent of many here. But at least you are reasonable in your posts and responses. And I very much welcome that level of discourse.

1.Conservative Scholars (most Wahhabi)don’t know where they are;

2.Saudi Establishment Clerics who frequently disagree with the Jahadis and threaten their ideology and are supported by the House of Saud;

3.Jihadi Theorists who follow Sayyid Qutb who wrote “Milestones” (similar to Mein Kampf); Palestinian theorist, al-Maqdlsi, a cleric from Jordan; Abd Allah Azzam the organizer in Afghanistan.

What does this all mean? If you all would take the time to read Martin Amis’ “Horrorism”..it is very long, and has the typical securlar slant and a small rant against religion, you can begin to understand what we are up against. You can find the Essay at The Observer, UK and it is worth reading every word. We should replace the word jihadi with QUTBISTS.

Under Qutbism, there is absolutely no negotiation or moderation possible. They want the world under Sharia Law and they are the ones in the forefront.

I would also bet 99% of the Muslims don’t even know or could begin to understand what it is they are trully raging against. They have no idea what it is they are advocating, including Edina. If only 50% of the Muslim population on the planet could stand up and decry the terrorists we might get somewhere, possibly. But, I doubt it. Torture and death not only to oneself but to one’s entire family is too horrorific for them to contemplate.

MPAC Decries Swastika Flags on CA, FL Freeways

In the Bible, God instructs his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers. We accept this but do not interpret it as a call to do the same b/c of the teachings of Jesus, thousands of years of history, etc.

In the Koran, Allah commands his followers to kill and conquer nonbelievers and Muslims do interpret this as a call to do the same. Hence, interpretation is key and reform is possible. Certainly not easy or quick, but possible. Claiming Muslims are by nature violent, incompatable with our society and need to be destroyed or stopped is a cop out. Unfortunately, a clash of the civilzations may be inevitable. Many people here seem to be looking forward to it though, all too ready to resort back to the days of Holy Crusades, killing Muslims for the glory of God and the West. This is just sad.

And why does Robert Spencer want to drive Muslims into the sea?

AP-whenever the remark about no muslims in the future pops up, you manage to nip it in the bud before it grows into a weed. I offer to your toolbox the movie Pitch Black with Vin Disel. There are three muslim characters and I think the lead actor’s name is Keith David. He was also in Armageddon and The Chronicles of Riddick.

Or maybe not.”

(Deuteronomy 20:16-18) — JaHerer22

…and, if there were any “Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” still around, resisting the will of the Almighty by their idolatry or even by their presence, I suppose that this would be an issue.

You can also see, I hope, that Christians and Jews aren’t rushing around killing off Jebusites today. There *ARE* however still a host of Christians and Jews around, and Muslims are killing them.

…as to Islam “evolving”, who has the time for them to come to maturity as a people? They’re killing people *NOW*.

Can Islam evolve? Not according to elementary programming technology. Garbage in, garbage out, remember. If the *BASIC* document of the faith mandates subjugation, beheadings, warfare and destruction unless nonbelievers relent, convert or accept second-class status, reformation will only ever be a form of mutation, not of genuine evolution. Islam, then, will “re-form”, as in change shape…not get any easier to live with.

Do you have a better idea short of increasing hostility, violence, and eventually World War?

Sure. I’d recommend all Muslims convert immediately to Buddhism. But the ball really isn’t in our court.

I agree, but that doesn’t mean the Bible did not tell it’s followers to kill nonbelievers, we have just moved on and evolved as a religion, something Islam could learn from

Actually, there’s no place in the Bible which prescribes such actions. There are passages in the Old Testament that describe such actions taking place (usually against specific peoples who no longer even exist), but not in the form of instructions for all Jews who ever live to behave similarly. (And there is nothing at all like that anywhere in the New Testament.)

But that’s a moot point. Even if the Old Testament did explicitly prescribe violence against non-Jews, or if Jesus had been quoted as having ordained the beheading of all Italians, the bible is not perceived as having been written by God. As such, over time it is possible to de-emphasize most (if not all) passages as having been the result of human failings, and hence “reform” the religion to adjust to changing political sensibilities over time.

The reason that Judaism and Christianity have changed and “modernized” over the past 1300 years and that Islam has not is that such interpretations of the Koran are simply not possible. The Koran is believed to have been literally written by God, who is incapable of error. As such, no portion of it can be “interpreted” by humans, even in ways that can lead to substantial disagreement, let alone to significant reformation. When it comes to the critical issues of expansionism and subjugation, Islam simply cannot change.