Beagle on June 4, 2008 at 3:18 PM

I hear ya’ Beagle, but then I am explicitly aware that I am preaching to the choir here, but thanks for the nod.

Islam is a faith and the people who worship God (Allah) are Muslims. So you are saying we will win any war against any of those who believe in God?

How do you suggest we destroy faith or any faith for that matter?

Monas on June 4, 2008 at 8:56 AM

Vide Rome v. Carthage

Spencer does not portend to declare how western military operations should occur. Spencer in no way alluding that Islam should or ever could be abolished. Spencer merely states the need for non-muslims to identify the inherent supremacist tone of Islam and that secular non-muslim societies worldwide should guard against the creeping expansion of Shari’ah.

Ball, park, trot, tag every base. Put it on tee shirts and tattoo it on your back.

davod on June 4, 2008 at 1:28 PM

?

He quotes leading Islamic thinkers, those who argue against him here do not.

He refers us to the Islamic schools of jurisprudence, and guess what those who argue against him here don’t do?

I’ll bet he’s used to it by now, though.

Oh, and “Monas,” that was a pretty awful logical fallacy as well. Did you have to look up how to pretzel-ize other people’s words, or does it come naturally to you?

Ed Morrissey is a standup guy and a terrific commentator over at Hot Air, and I’ve much enjoyed being on his radio show a couple of times. A few days ago, however, he posted a favorable evaluation of the Singer/Noor……

but you do realize that Muslims pretty much took over the Christian vision of hell whole-hog and just put different people in it? How the abhorrence and cruelty of the idea of hell counts against Christians and not against Muslims is left to the reader to discern, I suppose.

because if you complain about the muslims in any way you could end up a bit shorter….if ya know what I mean….

These include, but are not limited to; demographic conquest (based on higher fertility rates and the open practice of polygamy which is divinely sanctioned), the exportation of mosques (who preach literal Islam based on the prevalent intolerance in the Qur’an) and madrassas (some accused of being publicly funded like TIZA). They are found in the Saudi textbooks that they graciously provide to US public schools. The are found in the infiltration of governmental agencies like the FBI and those that shape counter-terrorism measures (as if these counter terrorism agencies do not need to focus solely on adherents to Islam). They actually infiltrate elected government as we see with Ellison. They include the pnow permanent financial burden of extra airport screening and security of public transportation infrastructures.

The anti-western, pro-Islamic culture creeps outward everywhere. In Britain, terrorist acts are now referred to as “un-Islamic” acts, yet they continue unabated. In the US, american cultural holidays are being challenged, like Halloween on the grounds that it offends Muslims. Pork products are disappearing from public school menus quietly. Religious accomodations, like footbaths are being installed in public airports and universities. All the while, day after day, we hear the shrieks from Muslims around the world that through jihad, Allah will grant them victory over the great satan of the US and Israel.

The West capitulates and Islam ever-advances.

…And we are sitting here actually debating on what to call them, astoundingly proposing that by a simple change in our vernacular, it will somwehow offset this reality or blunt the inherent threat that Islam poses to the culture of the West?

Opponents of Spencer will try to portray Robert’s approach (the truth) as alienating Muslims and a poor way to prosecute the “war on terror”, or what have you. They accuse Spencer of basically attempting to revive the Crusades and establishing a holy war that they deem, cannot be won.

Hogwash.

Spencer does not portend to declare how western military operations should occur. Spencer in no way alluding that Islam should or ever could be abolished. Spencer merely states the need for non-muslims to identify the inherent supremacist tone of Islam and that secular non-muslim societies worldwide should guard against the creeping expansion of Shari’ah.

How can we expect any change in Islam if we cannot correlate the problem of terrorism to Islam?

I guess at the end of the day, people must decide if Spencer’s exhaustive research and dedication to the concept of Islamic jihad is a more valid authority than those who wish to engage in newspeak, who are standing paralyzed with fingers crossed behind their backs, refusing to acknowledge the truth because it is uncomfortable.

That’s an easy call, in my estimation.

shazbat on June 4, 2008 at 12:17 AM

what the people who are so ‘horrified’ about the whole concept of hell is that for those who are not His, heaven would be an even more intolerable place….His very presence would be the worst torture imaginable.

We can definitely win any war against any amount of Muslims,
venividivici on June 4, 2008 at 8:06 AM

May be you don’t understand.

Islam is a faith and the people who worship God (Allah) are Muslims. So you are saying we will win any war against any of those who believe in God?

How do you suggest we destroy faith or any faith for that matter?

Raymond Ibrahim, editor of the essential Al-Qaeda Reader, in the American Thinker skewers the politically correct wordplay lauded in the New York Times, which I discussed here yesterday. The estimable Ed Morrissey wrote about this at Hot Air last night…

Spencer’s argument is flawed. It sounds like a retort but it really isn’t. He cites a few theoreticians of Islam with an implicit assumption their version of Islam is mainstream. I have no idea if he’s right, but I’m sure I know millions of people who say he’s wrong.

freevillage on June 3, 2008 at 8:24 PM

Muthuswamy completed a statistical analysis of the Koran, Sira, and Hadith for The Center for the Study of Political Islam, and found the following about “Jihad”:
Statistical analysis of the trilogy revealed that 97% of references to “jihad” relate to war and a mere 3% to the concept of “inner struggle.”
So, Jihad is an inner struggle 3% of the time, and warfare 97% of the time. Guess I can safely assume when a follower of Islam is waging Jihad, that 97% of the time, I had better be ready to defend myself.
djtnt on June 3, 2008 at 9:22 PM

Here are two ways to use “numbers” to prove a point. The first, by freevillage, is essentially a bunch of anecdotal crap and assumption, masquerading as knowledge. The second, by djtnt, actually tells me something about the broad scope of the “jihad” concept in Islamic thought.

I can’t stand watching Robert Spencer because he always comes off like such a great big tool. Not only that, but the guy is a dangerous religious fanatic that would plunge the US into an endless, unwinnable war against Iran, while gas prices soared into the double digits.
John on June 3, 2008 at 8:26 PM

My hero in life is Julius Caesar, as in “render unto Caesar”. I don’t think I have to take a back seat to anyone in opposing the presence of religion in public life. That said, I want us to go to war with Iran even more than Spencer. We can definitely win any war against any amount of Muslims, provided we have the will. What are they going to use for weapons, when we get even more aggressive about interdicting weapons shipments from North Korea, China, et al.? Allah’s wishes? And just how high do you think gas will go if Iran gets nuclear weapons and starts blackmailing the rest of the world?

The very idea of Hell, an infinite punishment for a finite number of sins, is the most abhorrent and cruel idea that a sick mind could imagine.

freevillage on June 3, 2008 at 8:37 PM

Nietzsche called, he wants his pre-syphillis-induced dementia rhetoric back. I love Nietzsche and all his rhetorical criticism of Christianity, too, but you do realize that Muslims pretty much took over the Christian vision of hell whole-hog and just put different people in it? How the abhorrence and cruelty of the idea of hell counts against Christians and not against Muslims is left to the reader to discern, I suppose.

It is my understanding that Islamism is Religious-Political. Being governed by Islamic law.

2. “For instance theres been only one Islamic extremist terrorist attack against Britain but everyone here agrees that Britain is on the verge of being conquered by Islam.”

Sorry. The new British term for anything involving Islamic Extremist terrorist attacks (or just plain Muslims attacking) is anti-Islamic attack. (No. I am not joking).

Are you saying that Quran has universally been interpreted the same way? Please illustrate that by comparing/pointing to equivalence between a modern Turk, Osama bin Laden and a mainstream muslim from Norway.

freevillage on June 3, 2008 at 11:54 PM

Freevillage, I don’t claim to be an expert on Islam, or religion in general, but my understanding is that all of the major branches of Islam include the concept of violent Jihad. Can you name one that doesn’t?

Can you point to a quote in the Christian bible that commands the faithful to wage indefinite war against unbelievers?

Until you can your moral-equivalence argument is a waste of bytes.

Yep, when we bombed Germany and Japan, we were not just aiming at Hitler and Tojo.

Johan Klaus on June 4, 2008 at 12:25 AM

No, during WWII we were aiming for everything and anything to weaken the enemy and achieve victory. We seized or destroyed as much of their infrastructure and facilities as possible and only after the enemy was utterly defeated did we begin to help them rebuild.

In the coming decades while we’re waiting around to see if our democratic experiment in the Middle East takes hold, terrorist states are working to develop nuclear capabilities. If they succeed they will be able to deter any future efforts on our part to eliminate the Jihad should our experiment in Iraq fail. Even if Iraq does remain a democratic state it may not spread to other countries in the region, and even if it does, it doesn’t necessarily preclude those societies from continuing to support or condone Jihad activities.

I would feel more confident if we were creating a secular democracy in Iraq.

In my view we are in a race against time. We have to defeat Jihad, once and for all, before Islamists obtain a nuclear deterrent. After that the situation will become infinitely more dangerous.

shazbat on June 4, 2008 at 12:17 AM

I don’t really want to go too far down that road. It’s a pointless conversation in terms of chances that either of us is having of convincing the other to change their mind.

In short, Hell is everlasting punishment. And if humanity means anything at all it cannot include everlasting punishments.

That the New Testament somehow cancels the Old Testament is your baseless assumption:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Mathew 5:17

I believe that Jesus is a moral exemplar for the Christians. All I am saying this is what makes Christianity pretty ugly. The moral problem section of Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian” is a good summary of why that would be.

According to early to contemporary Mulism mainstream scholars there’s only one interpretation of Islam.

I’m not arguing that everyone acts upon it. If the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims were engaged in violent jihad it would be obvious.

But did your friends offer any non-mainstream interpretations of Islam that go against the accepted theological doctrine? It sounds like they just called themselves Muslims and kept their heads down.

By taking you (a non-Mulsim) as their friend they are most certainly not following the tenets set out in their holy book.

I’m off now but would be happy to debate you in the future.

Very clever. You’re basically setting up false dichotomies between Turkish secularism (Attaturk having abandoned Islam for Turkish nationalism), al-Qaeda (who actually do understand and practice Islam violently) and a Muslim community in a Northern European country practising taqqiya.

Oh, I see. So you’re going to defend the idea that there’s only one kind of Islam by assuming the right to be an arbiter of who gets to called the real Muslim. Well, that’s circular reasoning. Besides, if your ultimate point is that there’s only a small group who are real Muslims and all of them are nuts then substantively you have no argument with State. However, their way to handle politics is much better.

My Turkish friends from the graduate school certainly didn’t think of themselves as being secular. Neither did a guy from Morocco, who went to Mosque regularly to pray, and who thought that whether or not his bride and eventual wife wore a scarf was inconsequential. All of them thought they were Muslims, they thought they had a set of beliefs directly inspired by Quran, and those beliefs in their mind guided their behavior. And it is in that sense that a claim that every Muslim is at their core driven by the literal interpretation of Quran is utter nonsense.

Float, exactly how can we tell the difference between just an Islamist and a Jihadist? The Jihadists won’t show themselves, and hide behind (willing) non-combatants.

stonemeister on June 3, 2008 at 8:32 PM
That’s not for me to decide but in my opinion it’s not our responsibility to make that determination; the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of Muslims worldwide.

Yep, when we bombed Germany and Japan, we were not just aiming at Hitler and Tojo.

How is the idea of Hell “as immoral as it gets”? The idea that if you are a bad person, you will be punished for it is “immoral”? That makes no sense. The core idea of morality, whether explicitly religious or not, is that an individual will be called to account on his behavior. Hell is the ad infinitum of this core idea. It may not be a very useful conception, but it is hardly immoral. What? Hitler gets to party in heaven with Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa (pace, Hitchens)? Does that make more sense?

Furthermore, the Bible is explicit in that the judgement for who goes to Hell is entirely in the hands of God. He doesn’t ask you to help out sending people to Hell as does Allah, in fact He enjoins against it: “Vengeance is mine sayeth The Lord.” “Judge not lest ye be judged.” “He who calls his brother a fool is in danger of Hell’s fire.” Where do you get your fantasia about Christianity endorsing sadism in light of these famous passages? I agree that the idea of doing bad things to bad people has a certain Pulp Fiction kind of appeal, but that lies completely outside the framework of Christianity.

And furthermore, Christianity is more defined by the New Testament than the Old. I defy you to identify a single passage in the New Testament where Jesus endorses violence against unbelievers as does Mohammed. Don’t offer up crufty Old Testament stuff.

In sum, Jesus is the moral exemplar for Christianity (healing the wound of the Centurion who arrested him) whereas Mohammed is the moral exemplar of Islam (strike at the neck of the unbeliever).

Christianity has a passive eschatology — i.e. “this stuff will happen”. Islam has an active eschatology — i.e. “you should do this stuff”. While each might have a certain lack of appeal, the two are hardly the same.

Are you saying that Quran has universally been interpreted the same way?

Yes I am saying that.

Please illustrate that by comparing/pointing to equivalence between a modern Turk, Osama bin Laden and a mainstream muslim from Norway.

Very clever. You’re basically setting up false dichotomies between Turkish secularism (Attaturk having abandoned Islam for Turkish nationalism), al-Qaeda (who actually do understand and practice Islam violently) and a Muslim community in a Northern European country practising taqqiya.

Is that your diverse interpretation of the Koran? One part heresy, one part actualisation and one part bulls**t?

Not exactly Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Calvinist if you ask me.