Good things about Islam?

Did I say these issues were not an influencing factor? No.
However suicide bombings are the result of religious belief. No one martyrs themselves if they do not have the utmost conviction in God and the afterlife.
When people with rational beliefs disagree they discuss/debate the issues, not kill hundreds of innocent people. When people hold irrational beliefs, belief not on evidence, such as "my God is the only true God" there is no way to settle the dispute other than to kill each other. The Koran clearly calls for infidels to be killed, and the more you believe in and dignify the book, the more likely you are going to carry out its content.

Look at the 9/11 hijackers, many of which were well educated to university level and not persecuted…. Mohammed Atta (an Egyptian) had a degree in architecture; both Majed Mashaan Moqed (a Saudi) and Satam M. A. al-Suqami (a Saudi) were law students while Ziad Samir Jarrah (a Lebanese) was born to a wealthy family.

The thing that links all these people was not lack of education, or nationalism, but their utter conviction in their religious belief and their hate for non-followers of said beliefs.


I support all peace processes. Rational discourse on all levels will get us there.
 
yes, lets blame every factor we can touch, except religion, homers right once again. see my sig.
 
Then how do you account for the fact that the vast majority of all suicide bombing occur as a direct response to occupations (and this occurs across relgious groupings)? Please see Robert Pape and "’DYING TO WIN: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."

Does religion play a part? Yes. I think we all need to accept that. Does that play the prevailing part? No. It's a complex tapestry. And one can't discount Nationalism -- which we should note tends to map onto many Islamic areas as well, by that I mean heterogenaic religious and national groupings of people. The fact is that Terrorism and nationalism have been linked for centuries.

BTW -- it's been clearly established in human history that geocide is not always linked to religion.

- Matt
 
ok, lets play this game once again.....lets blame nationalism, which we can, but is nationalism a particularly rational belief? irrational belief will get you these results. again, how do you account for the 9/11 hijackers, that was a purely religious act, as demonstated by their words, wills, and backgrounds. only by convincing someone of an afterlife full of rewards, will you convince him to die in such a fashion.
 
How do you explain the ETA then?

Terrorism is an act of a small group against a large group, as evidenced by the American revolution.

Your blind devotion to anti-religion zealotry has prevented you from seeing the big picture. There is a reason that the leaders of the movement target aide workers and its not religion. It is because when you start changing the truely unfathomably bad conditions in which the people live you take away their anger at the West for having more and flaunting it. When you are no longer angry at people for wasting money and food because you just saw your kids die of curable illnesses or illnesses related to poor nutrition you no longer feel the need to attack the representatives of that culture of waste. Look at the conditions these people live in and look at regions that have gone through similar division and have come out stabilized. I can tell you here and now it had NOTHING to do with addressing religous differences or animosities and everything to do with establishing a stable infrastructure and all the things that go with that- public education and public health, political stability and movement of needed goods.

Oh and suicide bombers are NOT a result of religious belief, they are the result of despiration and conditioning. If you drill anything into despirate people long enough, they are willing to give their lives for it- its not a concept that is forgien to us. Merely the mode is foreign.
 
Such as when the Tibetan Buddhists suicide bombed China…. wait, they didn't.

I agree that the trigger would have likely been politics i.e. the motivation behind the planning of the attacks, but for the individual terrorists, the motivation is obviously their religious beliefs. As I’ve said, actions derive from beliefs and such suicidal terrorist actions result from the utmost conviction in God, ‘paradise’, and that being a martyr is your divine calling.

Here's a question: do you think people would blow themselves up if they did not believe in an afterlife or a God?

Also consider that the targets of such suicide bombing attacks are almost always those who do not share the attackers religious beliefs.
 
ETA does not carry out suicide missions. This actually supports my argument. If it was purely politics and nationalism then why do we not see suicide bombers who are NOT extremely religious? Clearly to commit to a suicide mission requires the utmost belief that there is a God, a paradise, and that you’re going directly to it.

Do you honestly think someone would intentionally blow themselves up without this belief?
 
I totally agree with your sentiments. Murder of innocents can never be justified or acceptable. But is an innocent Lebonese or Palestinian life taken, less valuable than an American or Westerner ? absolutley of course not. But the global oil and arms industry wont make a dime bombing your house or local mall. It would be interesting if someone could provide revenue figures for overseas sales of high tech weaponry.

It is also worth noting that the jews who commited terrorist atrocities against the British and Palestinians circa 1945, shortly after formed a government and a state. The British protectorate of Palestine sanctioned by the then UN was bludgeoned by terrorism to become Isreal. Historically and arguably lawfully, the land belongs to the arabs. Lets not forget the Americans and the Brits were happy to do business with Pol Pot, Sadam and a whole host of other monsters, because at the time, it was politically expedient. The Americans, Brits and many Arab nations are inherently good, moral people trying to live productive lives. Until power is devolved from big business and the maniacs with their fingers on the buttons, there will be no peace or stability for any of us.


Jaae.
 
Yes, I've always enjoyed the work of Edward Said. Though admittedly sometimes I've got to go over the same piece several times to be able really understand it. He discusses neccessarily complex subjects - many in the anti religion camp don't want to deal with that... they only hear and see what they want to hear and see - basically parodies of that which they profess to detest.

Funny enough the people who should be reading his stuff instead of spewing idiotic anti-religion rants.... generally don't. They don't want to deal with what Edward Said has to says because what he writes and thinks doesn't fit into their black and white worlds where everything fits in it's proper slot with pre-defined labels.



Matt,
Is 'Orientalism Revisited' a distinctly different book?
Is it the original 1978 text with additions?
Is it the book listed below?

http://www.amazon.com/Orientalism-Vintage-Edward-W-Said/dp/039474067X/sr=1-1/qid=1159934082/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7352836-2399129?ie=UTF8&s=books
 
Are you trying to use an example of a people NOT using suicide bombing as a tactic in fighting against the occupation of their country to suggest that suicide bombing is NEVER a tactic in fighting against occupation?

Probably not. And the idea of martyrdom for your religious beliefs exists within Islam. But killing yourself in the pursuit of your belifes is hardly unique to Islam. For example: Buddhist monks setting themselve son fire in protest against the Vietnam war, and Japanese kamikaze pilots in WWII (it's hard to separate Japanese nationalism from Shinto beliefs.)

While it's true that there are fanatics who calls themselves Muslims who try to justify murder in the name of their religion, that is true of pretty much every religion at some point in history. You would no doubt argue that the common factor here is religion itself, but I would counter that by pointing out that there are countless acts of goodness and kindness (which don't tend to make it into the history books!) carried out by people and motivated by their beliefs - and again it is religion which is the common factor.

Religion can motivate people as force for good or as a force for evil. The common factor is 'people'.

I disagree. The September 11th hijackers had no way of knowing how many Muslims were in the WTC. The July 7th London bombers must have known that many of their potential victims would be Muslims. Palestinian suicide bombers have targetted places where both Jews and Muslims frequent.
 
i hope i read that wrong....are you saying that because there might have been/probably where muslims in the building, that homers statement is invalid? OR are you saying because of this 9/11 wasn't a religiously motivated act?
 
Homer said this:



To which I replied:



I don't know how mnay Muslims live and work in NYC, but I'd guess that it is likely that there were a quite a few working in the WTC.

What I can say with certainty though is that you couldn't cause a major explosion in London without very likely killing Muslims as well as other religions. The suicide bombers were British - they would have been well aware of this.

I simply used a few examples to show why I think that Homer's point is incorrect. If you can think of any examples which support his theory then I'd be interested to hear them.
 
Quoting out of context is quite common. Very often people ignore what comes directly before or after something they don't like, and just point to the bit they don't like whilst kicking up a fuss.

eg (paraphrasing) "I judge no one; but when I judge I am right because I am with God". Actually, that's a very crap paraphrase. But the idea is that people very often quote the "I judge no one" part and then claim that it's contradictory because Jesus does a lot of judging in the NT. However, they ignore the part where he says that on the occassions that he does judge, he is correct because he is with God. Of course, that in itself does not go well with those who are arguing against Christianity. But it does remove one of the "contradictions" that they originally attempt to "prove".
 
We have a nationalized Iranian who works in a department close by me and I ask him a lot of questions regarding the middle east. His response is, they feel they have no choice. An F-16 flies over head, drops a load, and 100 people die. The Iraqi's have squat, a few weapons, some unexploded allied ordinance, and people. So instead of using a plane to bomb 100 into parts, they use suicide bombers to target 100 people in a restaurant. It actually makes sense from their point of view.

Also, someone earlier said that Islam is the religion of violence. I don't know, I haven't studied Islam. But wouldn't christianity look the same from the Islamic side of the table? I'm not talking the crusades or anything, but being forced to accept democracy at the point of a gun really isn't a lot different than being forced to accept islam at the point of a gun.
 
Actually I have to take issue with that. The natural state of humanity is freedom, people resist being caged, resist being restricted, resist being controlled, just like any other animal. True we can be 'domesticated' like a dog or a cow, but given the chance a dog will slip out the door and cow break through the fence (that's why dog collars and barbed wire were invented ).

Democracy may not be perfect, but it's better than any other form of government that's yet existed, because it allows for the people to choose. Maybe it's only the difference between being a dairy cow and a veal calf, but that's a pretty big improvement in my view.
 
It might be our 'natural state' but the fact is that for most of history, the vast majority of people have lived under despotism in one form or another.

I agree that it is probably the best we've had, but in a sense it's a luxury. If people are starving or in danger of death then political systems are not their most immediate concern (even though ironically it is probably politics which caused their problems in the first place!)

Another point is that people generally prefer to be oppressed by 'one of their own' than ruled benevolently by an outsider.
 
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