Truth about Islam

[richcrassus]

Have a read of this site, i cant cut and paste extracts because the computer im using cant do it. Though any of you who read this are welcome to do it. PS. i dont believe jesus is lord.


www.jesus-is-lord.com/islam.htm

[ayesha]

the link doesnt work, please recheck and retype.

[danholo]

The link works for me but I didn't waste any time reading it. It's just a bunch of crock anyway I bet.

[Mediocrates]

Yeah it is . Don't take this personally folks but save the bloody shirt waving for somewhere else. I am personally offended by this kind of thing.

[ayesha]

I'll take your word for it & not bother then.

[soral]

This is a brilliant site, it is about time someone exposed Islam for what it is!

I only wish that these truths could pervade our currently muslim obsessed media. You are not allowed to speak out against Islamic terrorists, yet Christian and Jews are fair game??? That is logic that only a liberal could subscribe to. And it infuriates me! :mad:

[Mediocrates]

Hmm when goyim tell me about Talmud and about how it 'proves' that Judaism supports killing goyim I just want to throw a bottle at their heads.

I understand only a part of my own life so I don't even pretend to understand someone else's religion. I think claims like this are frankly a little nutty. A little bit like Renaissance map makers scratching out areas on their maps with notations like "Realm of Sea Monsters" and "Land of three-eyed midgets".

[andak01]

Does this type of attack fall under Rabbi Hillel's 'do unto others' philosophy? Because I subscribe to that, and you won't find me posting links to articles declaiming Judaeism or Christianity. There is nothing to 'expose' about Islam. It is relatively straight forward. We worship G_D, the Father, Allah all the same. We accept in addition to other Prophets and Messengers Muhammad (SAW). We observe 5 pillars prayer, charity, fasting, declaration of faith and pilgrimage. We pray for guidance 5 times a day. Within this prayer is Surah Fatihah 17 times per day.

Mediocrates, you keep throwing your bottle. I've got a bottle of my own. But when a Goy comes after you and your family, I'd expect you to defend them. I have that same right. I pray that I will never have to exercise it.

[ibrodsky]

Perhaps someday we will progress to the point we can respectfully discuss and critique each other's religion. That could be a valuable learning experience.

I briefly scanned the referenced site and noticed a number of false statements. You will certainly not find "the truth about Islam" there.

[JustPat]

Originally posted by ibrodsky
Perhaps someday we will progress to the point we can respectfully discuss and critique each other's religion. That could be a valuable learning experience.

I briefly scanned the referenced site and noticed a number of false statements. You will certainly not find "the truth about Islam" there.
What do you expect from somebody who is still fighting against the "Holy Roman Empire"? It always bugs me when people start out touting their commitment to exalt "the Light" and then spend all their time cursing the darkness. I actually find more encouragement in forums like this than in site like the one noted.

[humus_sapiens]

Isn't it amazing that some medieval Muslim rulers and scholars, much more tolerant than most of Christian world at the time, were guided by the same Koran as today's HAMAS, Hizbollah and al-Qaeda, or even those Islamic schools in the East and the West that incite hatred?
Year 1420... time for enlightenment?

[JustPat]

Originally posted by humus_sapiens
Isn't it amazing that some medieval Muslim rulers and scholars, much more tolerant than most of Christian world at the time, were guided by the same Koran as today's HAMAS, Hizbollah and al-Qaeda, or even those Islamic schools in the East and the West that incite hatred?
Year 1420... time for enlightenment?
And that the same Bible is used to incite hatred as to encourage tolerance. Leadership is an awesome and sobering responsibility. When will we hold leaders responsible for the actions of those who follow them?

[Mediocrates]

I guess but then that puts in stark contrast their purported ability at self governance. If it's all just superstituion, voodoo, being told to go out and kill then that's where the discussion on democracy ends.

[humus_sapiens]

Originally posted by JustPat
And that the same Bible is used to incite hatred as to encourage tolerance. Leadership is an awesome and sobering responsibility. When will we hold leaders responsible for the actions of those who follow them?

As a matter of fact, it took many generations, reforms and dead ends for the Christianity to become more tolerant. AFAIK, many (if not most) Muslims think that Islam is good as it is today. I'm only confused, are those "good" or "bad" Muslims. :confused:

[andak01]

Originally posted by humus_sapiens
As a matter of fact, it took many generations, reforms and dead ends for the Christianity to become more tolerant. AFAIK, many (if not most) Muslims think that Islam is good as it is today. I'm only confused, are those "good" or "bad" Muslims. :confused:

When did this happen? The only difference I see in the tolerance levels is a segregated radicalized religious school system, much of which was started in Pakistan and encouraged as a hedge against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The Muslims I have met fit perfectly well within a modern world. In fact many are even trying for jobs as translator with the DOD and Homeland Security. They are plenty tolerant and work in major corporations and in the highest realms of science and technology.

Conversely, I know Christians that get on TV everyday and preach against Islam today the way they used to preach against the evils of Judaeism. They spend a good deal of their money towards the extension of food for Bible programs in every corner of the world where they are least wanted. It is their passionate belief that all Muslims are evil and misguided and must be converted to Christianity or we will all go to hell. Tell ME about this tolerance because I am eager to experience it first hand!

[JustPat]

Originally posted by andak01
Conversely, I know Christians that get on TV everyday and preach against Islam today the way they used to preach against the evils of Judaeism. They spend a good deal of their money towards the extension of food for Bible programs in every corner of the world where they are least wanted. It is their passionate belief that all Muslims are evil and misguided and must be converted to Christianity or we will all go to hell. Tell ME about this tolerance because I am eager to experience it first hand!
Tell me, which of these Christians do you "know"? Which of these TV Christians is a representation of true Christianity? Someone should explain to you that real Christians are perfectly willing to let you go to hell if you choose to, not unlike the G_d we serve. The difference is that we stand ready to give you directions the other way.

[andak01]

We all need to understand that once the message is delivered, there is no further responsibility on the part of the proselytist. You can believe what you want and I can believe what I want. We are not under obligation to make each other's lives miserable by saying who's going to Hell and who isn't. In fact, we know nothing of the sort and it is our obligation to make the best intention of love towards God that we can. If we can build bridges based on our mutual love of God, so much the better. Or we can waste our lives fighting about who is right and who is wrong.

I repeat, the most sincere message from the Qur'an involving the treatment of Unbelievers is the Surah by that name (AKA Surah Kafiroon).

Say : O ye that reject Faith!
I worship not that which ye worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
To you be your Way, and to me mine.

Christians and Muslims and Jews need to understand that people's beliefs are generally sincere, that there isn't one group that is lying to everyone about what they believe. If that were true, none of the major worlds religions would have lasted a generation. No, all our beliefs are real, they will not be shaken. If we want to live together in this world, we need to study our common points, not search for flaws.

Imagine if you went home every night and searched your wife's face for wrinkles, or mocked her each time she made a mistake. The marriage wouldn't last any time at all. But we are so willing to do that with other people's cultures and religions. How can we expect to build cooperation on a basis of suspicion and hatred?

But, you say, "They did it first, they did it worse." That's true back to Adam, and he must have been miserable because he had nobody to blame for his lack of forgiveness. :D We want to be close to God, but we keep refusing to have empathy for our fellow man and to imitate in our own small way God's forgiving nature.

[Mediocrates]

http://hnn.us/articles/1439.html

What Is It About Radical Islamism that Leads People to Commit Acts of Terror?
By John Calvert
Mr. Calvert is Assistant Professor of History, Creighton University.

To judge from the terminology employed by Islamist radicals such as Osama bin Laden, one would assume that the current terrorist campaign against the United States and its allies is part of a religious war with roots reaching back to the distant past. Bin Laden and his associates speak of America as the most recent incarnation of "Crusaderism" and conflate Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the calumny of the Medina Jews in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. They compare regimes such the Saudis with the "hypocrites" who "stabbed Muhammad in the back" during his struggle with the pagan Meccans. Viewing their individual struggles as episodes in an on-going zero sum contest, these radical Islamists justify terrorist violence against "infidel" powers such as the United States with reference to a fixed Qur'anic worldview that incorporates all efforts to create an ideal Islamic State regardless of time or place. As is clear from much post 9/11 rhetoric in the United States, many Americans, influenced variously by Orientalist, religious or political notions, have been quick to oblige this kind of essentialism.

However, the idea that normative Islam stands behind Islamist generated terrorism does not hold up to scrutiny. From the standpoint of critical analysis, a correct understanding of the phenomenon requires that we consider its origins and the development of its discourse in historical terms. As most scholars and commentators recognize, Islamism is a fairly recent phenomenon that arose in reaction to the failure of post-colonial Muslim states and societies to engage on an equal footing the robust nations of the West. Military defeat, occupation and economic and political subordination have been the orders of the day. Ominously from the Muslim perspective, these worldly challenges are accompanied by the pervasive influences in Muslim societies of imported Western culture, which many Muslims regard as threatening to the integrity of their civilization. Given these and other pressures, it is not surprising that Muslims have sought to revitalize their history, so that Islamic society may once again flourish as a divinely guided society must and should.

Modern era Muslims have responded in different ways to the conditions of dependency and malaise. Whereas Muslim modernizers have attempted, often with considerable success, to accommodate Islam to global modernity, Islamists have sought conceptually to distance Islamic culture from what they purport to be the hegemonic and hostile civilization of the West. By honoring the culturally authentic over the foreign, Islamists are thus able to create a classic boundary mechanism that marks them off from the Western culture of the dominant order, thus providing their quest for empowerment with a "cultural affect" grounded in the validating sentiments of pride and identity. We have already drawn attention to the Islamists' tendency to regard events and trends in the present as contemporary manifestations of Qur'anic paradigms; such instantiations provide Islamists with a sense of Islamic civilization's continuity and purpose. Another important aspect of the reifying process is the Islamists' definition of Islam as a totalizing entity sufficient unto itself. Rather than treat their faith as a congeries of beliefs and religiously informed social practices, Islamists conceive Islam as a comprehensive ideological system (nizam) covering all aspects of the state, economy and society.

Conceived as such, the Islam of the Islamists stands in stark juxtaposition to the political and ideological systems of the West. In the Islamist perspective, it is only natural that American policies as regards Palestine and Iraq should be unjust since Americans, in common with other Westerners, ignore the divine mandate, both in their private lives and in their public dealings with others. Both the South Asian Abu Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) and the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), two of Islamism's most influential ideologues, equated the moral universe of the West with the condition of disbelief and cultural barbarism characteristic of the Arabs prior to the advent of the Qur'an.

Islamist terrorism emerges in the nexus of despair and the promise of utopia. Although most Islamist organizations, whether in Egypt, Pakistan, or Indonesia, favor strategies of moderation and gradualism in their quest for the islamization of society and the state, there exist Muslims who are impatient with this bottom-up approach. Attracted to the most radical tenets of the established Islamist ideology, these men have rather opted for the "propaganda of the deed," which often includes dramatic acts of terror designed less as politics "by other means" than as manifestations of superior spiritual power and will. It is risky to pin a particular profile on the perpetrators of this violence. The evidence at hand suggests that they tend to be younger men, often with limited career prospects who feel deeply the sting of humiliation and civilizational blockage. Many have lived for periods in the West, experiencing first hand the "debased" culture and "biting arrogance" of Americans and Europeans.

What is clear is that the terrorists of 9/11 and of operations of lesser scope have articulated their rage in a declared context of "total war," one absolute system against another, no holds barred. In so doing, they identify their struggle with a sacred cause that elevates the debased nature of their terrorist activities. Rather than reflective of foundational Qur'anic principles, radical Islamism is a pathology born out of the structural imbalances of the modern world.

[Revkha]

Originally posted by andak01
.

Conversely, I know Christians that get on TV everyday and preach against Islam today the way they used to preach against the evils of Judaeism. They spend a good deal of their money towards the extension of food for Bible programs in every corner of the world where they are least wanted. It is their passionate belief that all Muslims are evil and misguided and must be converted to Christianity or we will all go to hell. Tell ME about this tolerance because I am eager to experience it first hand!

A quote by Omar Ahmed, chairman of the CAIR, an American Muslim organization - from the editorial of the May 7, 2003 Jerusalem Post - - - -
CAIR chairman, Omar Ahmed, said in 1998: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran... should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." end of quote .

So -- on the one hand we have the Christians who believe their faith is the true path to G_D and conversely we have Islamists who believe their faith is the true path to G-D. What happened to the common belief that both faiths have in monotheism and worship of the same G_D. But then religion has incited many wars. Mere humans - fragile, ignorant, intolerant, arrogant, lost sheep who have strayed from the real message. Hell is going to be pretty crowded, particularly for those who have done so much evil in the name of G_D.

[andak01]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
http://hnn.us/articles/1439.html


Pretty good article. It made me realize that during the 60s, the Civil Rights Movement in America underwent a similar crisis. There were the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims among the gun toting side and Martin Luther King et al on the peaceful side. Then there was Malcolm X, who preached the violent side until he visited Mecca and discovered the true message of Islam. Like King and many who have died before, Malcolm X was killed for speaking against the people who would spread violence, the very group he had once supported.

What I mean to say here is that our outrage at the Islamists comes from their methods rather than from their message. Although not seeing the West per se as a threat, there are many more moderate voices of different religions and cultures that seek a balance to the threat of unbridaled global corporate hegemony.

[humus_sapiens]

Originally posted by andak01
What I mean to say here is that our outrage at the Islamists comes from their methods rather than from their message.

Ahhh, now I get it! Don't judge the Nazis by "their methods", listen to their "message". Yavohl!

[andak01]

Originally posted by humus_sapiens
Ahhh, now I get it! Don't judge the Nazis by "their methods", listen to their "message". Yavohl!

No. Read the article. This IS a modern rethinking of medieval philosophy, not the Qur'an, but commentators on the Qur'an. Nazism was based on Christian anti-Semitism spawned before and during the rise of Lutheranism, not the Bible, but commentators on the Bible. However, we still live side-by-side with Lutherans today. Read what Martin Luther had to say about the Jews. Another major influence to the Nazis was a pop version of Nietzche. But we don't shoot people for reading him today either. Yes, actions DO make a difference. And access to weapons makes a difference. Don't you ever ask yourself when you see a radical waving a gun in the street, where they got the gun? Who sold them a European or American made weapon? And I am all for tracking the sale of these items, but I would also like to see their production reduced. We have European and American factories cranking out tools of killing and selling them en masse to whomever shells out the bucks. This ought to stop. An angry man with no weapons is little danger to society. And a well educated one is less likely to be angry in the first place.

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by andak01

What I mean to say here is that our outrage at the Islamists comes from their methods rather than from their message. Although not seeing the West per se as a threat, there are many more moderate voices of different religions and cultures that seek a balance to the threat of unbridaled global corporate hegemony.

This comment is very revealing. It shows that you are essentially a Leftist who has rejected traditional secular ideologies such as Marxism in favor of Islam.

Thus, though you are a moderate you did not gravitate to Islam for purely spiritual reasons. You see Islam as an antidote to the supposed evils of free markets and corporations.

I'm curious if you think there are corporations that use physical force to oppress and subjugate people. Are there corporations with armies? Are there corporations that employ guerilla or terrorist tactics? Are there corporations so powerful they can deny people freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc?

Based on my ongoing study of religion and history, one could also make a compelling case that Islam seeks "global hegemony." Why should we distinguish between terrorist and non-terrorist Muslims when you lump all corporations together and offer no proof that corporations use physical force to intimidate and/or conquer?

[andak01]

Just as there are some Muslims that use exclusively force to achieve their agenda, there are and have been also some corporations that kill people who strike and assassinate those who have anything damaging to say against them. In both cases, it doesn't take a lot of bastards to spoil the broth. I am sure the vast majority of Enron workers were decent people. Only a few knew everything that was going on. But they were a powerful few. Part of their power lies in the fact that they don't play by the rules.

As for global hegemony, people who place power and politics over morality are apt to be drunk with their power, regardless of their agenda. So, although global hegemony is no more a part of Islam than it is any other religion that proselytizes, of course there are people who take that path. But converting anyone against their will is definitely forbidden. Just as in Christianity, where you will find thousands burnt at the stake for refusing to convert, so among Muslims you will find that. The Qur'an states in several places that our duty is done once we have stated our beliefs. So nobody has any reason to fear someone simply because he follows the words of the Qur'an. There must be a specific political indoctrination as well. But don't forget the filter with which these people see the world. If someone tells you that you are being attacked, and then you see tanks and bombs raining from the sky, you are likely to believe it. And you may believe other things they say as well. Conversely, when someone tells you that they are bringing democracy to your country by invading you, and all the empirical evidence you see is anarchy, you are likely to doubt them. That is common sense and reasonable behavior. What you then do based upon that trust or that doubt is what divides criminals from protestors.