Deadly Islamist attack in Britain

[stressedouttt]

<p>

There is an interesting book on the inability of Islam, particularly Sunni Islam, to adapt to science because it believes science and fact must adapt to belief. The author is Taner Edis. He’s from Turkey and teaches at Truman State. I believe he’s Muslim.

The majority of Turkish people may be Muslims, but… it’s not exactly “Islam friendly.” Girls with headscarves have been kicked out of universities. Their attempts to be secular are very extreme.</p>

<p>Islam is not inherently incompatible with science. Historically, the only religion I’ve ever noticed coming into conflict with science is Christianity, and even then many Christians rejected the idea that their religion must conflict with science, and accepted science. The Islamic Empire has contributed quite a lot to science.
[PBS</a> - Islam: Empire of Faith - Innovative - Algebra & Trigonometry](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/innoalgebra.html]PBS”>PBS - Islam: Empire of Faith - Innovative - Algebra & Trigonometry)</p>

<p>

The essential problem Islam has may be summed up in the Sunni/Shia divide. Without getting into the details of Shia, the Sunni - which means essentially Orthodox - are driven by the literal words of the Quran. What are those? The Quran repeatedly - and I mean repeatedly - says it is a book with doubt and without ambiguity (though it is full of ambiguity). This drives Sunni toward the most literal interpretation.

Sunni does not mean Orthodox, and there are so many different interpretations within Sunni Islam that you cannot make this generalization.</p>

<p>The Middle East only compromises of 20-25% of Muslims worldwide so it’s a bit exclusionary to refer to it as “Islamic society.”
Islam does call for an Islamic state, but I would like to point out that the “Sharia” implemented by Arab dictatorships (who are supported by and support extremists) are contradictory to Islam (I recognize that there are many interpretation issues, but quite a few things are simply false, to be frank).</p>

<p>

as one British Islamist said not long ago, “behead capitalism”

Capitalism isn’t forbidden in Islam so this isn’t something inherent in Islam, though I have no doubt it’s something many fanatics wish for.</p>

[stressedouttt]

<p>

There are some Muslims calling for reform and modernisation of Islam. One example is the Canadian Irshad Manji

Not to say, of course, that those who are not calling for a modernisation nor believe in it are extreme or backwards ;)</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

The problem is that Islam requires political control and that means control of the state and the legal and moral contexts determined or allowed by the state. There is no distinction between church and state, which explains the need to implement Sharia.

</p>

<p>You make many good points, Lergnom. </p>

<p>Islam is directly contrary to many western countries which require a separation of church and state. I fail to see why any muslim would want to come to a western country which requires them to live contrary to their religion. I also fail to see why places like the UK would let so many muslims into their country. If you god tells you that you must live under the rule of religious leaders, I can’t see how you would find it acceptable to live in a country run by elected secular leaders. The chances of assimilation are limited and that seems to be the problem in Briton.</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>Yes, pointing to a list of achievements in Muslim science that ended over 1000 years ago is very much related to today. That is the problem, as many Muslims are keen to acknowledge.</p>

<p>It’s unclear what direction Turkey is taking. They elected an openly Islamist leadership and just this week banned alcohol ads and sale on Friday but at the same time they have a huge tourist industry. They make tons of noise about Gaza but buy weapons from Israel. It’s a pickle. Turkey gets hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists but the days of military control and the expressly non-religious state of Ataturk are gone. Who knows what will happen? The Turks I know are divided, hopeful about integration of the economy into the EU and pessimistic about social trends.</p>

<p>BTW, I know that Sunni means “usual habit” or other words to indicate normal practice. That’s why it is translated to “orthodoxy” because that is what the words stand for. To argue about that is silly. So for example, one difference is literally how one prays with the position of the hands … though of course some Sunni sects do it differently from other Sunni sects the point is overall the Sunni consider themselves the “orthodox”. Generalization is how people speak. Pointing out that something is a generalization is a way of not engaging with the content.</p>

<p>The reason Muslims come to other countries varies. Some come for economic reasons. Some because they’re persecuted at home - meaning they’re Shia or Sunni where the other is in control or belong to some subgroup sect (that may not be considered Islamic but which they themselves see as Islamic). And some come expressly to convert the rest of the world to Islam - which is similar to Christianity - and some of those come to assert political control over the rest of the world, unlike Christianity, and some of those see violence as the best course. Where I grew up had a large population of Lebanese, both Muslim and Christian, who largely came over because the civil war made things rough. We also had a large population of Iraqi Chaldeans - a form of Christian - and with them came some Shia because they were oppressed by the ruling Baathist Sunni. And so on. </p>

<p>I just read this amazing piece by Jack Khoury in Haaretz in which he translates part of a speech given today (Saturday) by Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hizbollah. Though the rebels are various Sunni groups with heavy representation by Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda, he portrays them as stool pigeons for Israel and America: </p>

<p>“If Syria falls in the hands of the Americans and the Israelis and the American representatives in the region, the ‘resistance’ will be isolated and Israel will enter Lebanon and force its laws upon it. Lebanon will return to the Israeli era.” </p>

<p>And then he says this:</p>

<p>“These combatants coming from many countries received many allowances to leave their countries and arrive at Syria. This is the American method of destabilizing Syria from the inside, using these organizations that brand everyone as heathens, those organizations that had killed more Sunni Muslims than anyone else. An example of this is what is happening in Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia. We think that the armed forces taking over Syria are a great danger to Lebanon and all the Lebanese, not only Hezbollah or the Lebanese Shiites.”</p>

<p>In other words, yet another fight between Sunni and Shia in which the justification argument is the other side isn’t Islamic. That is the real war going on in Syria and between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni nations. I think the Sunni states were surprised by the ramped up involvement of Hizbollah - now essentially running the military campaign - and that may end up increasing support for the rebels in this proxy war between the Islamic superpowers. And each will blame the US and Israel because that is how you say the other guy isn’t Islamic. It isn’t actually meant as truth. But of course idiots in the West will say see, it’s all about our involvement in the Middle East and support of Israel, etc. It isn’t. It’s about Sunni versus Shia, Iran versus Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni states and we are ways of labeling the other side as anti-Islamic.</p>

[raiders83]

<p>Of course Ron Paul isn’t the only one saying that. He advocates a more peaceful foreign policy than almost any Dem or Rep. I think it’s important to remember that in the past Christian communities would drown you if you floated, cut your head off as punishment, and had large amounts of power over whole states.</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>It’s important to keep in mind that we have standards in the West that we apply to ourselves. Here is an example, a mild one, of what comes out of … well, here’s the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khameini speaking to a room full of women completely covered in nearly identical whole body black cloaks on Iranian TV about 2 weeks ago:</p>

<p>“The European races are barbaric. They wear freshly pressed suits and ties, and they smell of eau de cologne, but deep down they still have the same barbaric nature known from history. They kill with ease. They murder people without any problem. Therefore, beating women in their homes is of no consequence to them and Americans, whereas in an Islamic environment it is unimaginable.”</p>

<p>When people here keep pointing out that not all Muslims are terrorists, which is kind of obvious unless you’re a moron, think about what is said by the people who teach terror.</p>

[stressedouttt]

<p>To be frank, I’m a bit tired of this thread. It’s gone too far. I haven’t and won’t reply to many things said, because it’s simply too tiring for one human being to handle. I’m surprised the mods have allowed this to go one for so long. I’ll just leave with this one last tidbit (immature or not- take it as you will- though I found the description area quite sweet): [Haters</a> Gonna Hate by *ISolitude on deviantART](<a href=“http://isolitude.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/art/Haters-Gonna-Hate-244852366]Haters”>Haters Gonna Hate by ISolitude on DeviantArt)</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@Lergnom

As to the caliphate idea, remember in the middle of the 20thC Egypt and Syria “united” into a single Muslim state - on paper, sort of.

</p>

<p>The United Arab Republic (union of Egypt and Syria) was based on pan-Arab nationalism, not the Islamic caliphate idea. Indeed, the religious right party, the Muslim Brotherhood, was banned and repressed in Egypt / UAR at the time.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@Lergnom

It’s important to keep in mind that we have standards in the West that we apply to ourselves.

</p>

<p>But perhaps not always to others. The third and fourth sentences of the Khamenei quote you listed probably resonate well with anyone living in a country that was under colonial control by a Western power, or on the losing end of a more recent military conflict with a Western power*. Governments, whether religious or not, in such countries tend to use those foreign enemies as convenient political scapegoats to distract people from their own failings, so it is easy for them (or non-governmental organizations) to whip real or imagined historical injustices into virulent racism, a story that happens everywhere (many of the posts in this thread can be examples of this).</p>

<ul>
<li>Israel is included in such enemy Western powers for this propaganda purpose, obviously. The current government there is not exactly stopping giving its enemies more propaganda fodder, though (e.g. settlements).</li>
</ul>

[mom2collegekids]

<p>*Quote:
The fact that the Crusades happened shows that any religion can have this problem. It’s just that Islam is the religion that has this problem right now.
*</p>

<p>Oh good heavens. Those things happened at a time when everyone was acting like barbarians. It was the way it was back then. We can’t equate behaviors from centuries ago to behaviors of a more enlightened time. </p>

<p>The problem is that a certain part of the world is stuck in a time-warp of many, many centuries ago.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

To be frank, I’m a bit tired of this thread. It’s gone too far. I haven’t and won’t reply to many things said, because it’s simply too tiring for one human being to handle.

</p>

<p>To be frank, I was hoping you would listen to other posters and realize that Islam has many problems with its teaching and how it is practiced by many millions of muslims. People have the right to refrain from any religion or practice what ever religion they chose without being told that there is only one god, the muslim god. Women should never be treated differently by the government and government should never be run by one religion. Suicide bombers of civilians in the name of one’s religion should never be condoned or tolerated. </p>

<p>Instead your response is that Christians are just as bad. Yet you overlook that bad people acting on behalf of Christianity are few and far between and when Christians acted badly on mass scale such as the crusades those events occurred hundreds of years ago and are irrelevant today.</p>

[Lergnom]

<p>Yeah, I knew the pan-Arab nationalism involved in the UAR. Part of my family is Egyptian. But pan-Arab is a version of the caliphate idea in which the ideal of all Arabs is a barely disguised substitute for Islamic. The idea can be made clear by realizing Egypt has never considered itself “Arabic” as a people. They are Egyptians and have seen themselves that way for a very long time. Pan-Arabism was a weird mix of anti-colonial (mostly anti-British and anti-French) because of the era - mixed with religion and anti-communism (which I think was more pro-strongman than anti-communist). Like all things in the region, it’s more complicated than can be rendered in a sentence.</p>

<p>As for anti-colonial statements, sure there is an aspect of that. But here is a guy close to Khameini talking in April: “The Jews are currently subjecting us to an unprecedented trial. As you read in the Koran, Solomon ruled the world… and God ordered a group of sorcerers to come out against him. The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool. All the measures that have been brought against us originate with the Zionists. The U.S. is a tool in their hands. So far, they have not used the full [scope of] their sorcery against us. Sorcery was the final means to which they resorted during the Ahmadinejad era, but they were defeated. This ability of the Jews was eliminated by Iran. Five years ago they tried to oust Ahmadinejad.”</p>

<p>But there are occasional voices of sanity. Here’s one, Egyptian columnist Khalid Muntasir in Al-Watan:</p>

<p>"When the Jewish internet and social network magnates get together, put aside their competition and unite to declare a $33-million grant for medical research on incurable diseases that prolongs human life – I cannot help but cry out ‘long live the descendants of apes and pigs,’ as they were described by Dr. Mursi and his movement. On the other hand, those who detonate bombs in the midst of the innocent, murder tourists and eviscerate them, assassinate politicians, thinkers and intellectuals, and accuse others of being infidels can go to hell, where they can continue indulging their sick taste for violence and blood.</p>

<p>"The founders of Facebook and Google and the Russian billionaire [Yuri Milner] are the ones who truly love life, change it for the better, and have passion for freedom and creativity. They respect scholars, as opposed to those whom we call scholars merely because they memorized 100 old books and can recite them without interpreting or even understanding them – scholars that could be replaced by a single DVD containing these books, which can be read at the stroke of a key on a keyboard costing less than $1. …</p>

<p>… “As I read the article on this organization, I also happened to watch a video sent to me by one of my friends, in which an important speaker lectured on the benefits of having a beard in treating impotence, and how the beard gives the man virility and strength. I closed the article, shut off the computer, sighed and said: It’s no use. Free us [of your discussions] on whether it is permissible to eat the flesh of demons, whether a woman can disrobe in front of a male dog, and on treatments using camel urine, fennel flower, bee stings, etc. The voice of the sheikh in the neighboring mosque rose and echoed as he cursed the Jews, the descendants of apes and pigs, [wishing] that they would scatter in every direction and that their wives become widows and their children orphans, while the worshipers rejoiced in the mighty victory…”</p>

<p>And here is Saudi Abdallah Nasser Al-'Utaibi who writes for Al-Hayat - cut heavily for space:</p>

<p>"I have made a habit of going to a mosque quite far from my neighborhood for my Friday prayers, in order to escape the three mosques near my home, due to the Imams’ [positions] on various topics.</p>

<p>"In the eyes of the one preacher, a sermon is good only when he takes every opportunity to mention the theory of ‘the plot against Muslims.’ … Every week he calls on Allah to destroy the Jews and Christians and thus prove He can perform miracles. Worshippers are expected to say amen and raise their voices and hands in prayer for the fulfillment of his aggressive prayers. I follow suit, but think to myself: Why has he reduced this mighty religion to praying for the destruction of others? Why don’t we bless them instead of cursing them?</p>

<p>"The second preacher writes his sermons using traditional books that do not befit this era. He uses historical rhetoric that is not appropriate to the present and discusses matters whose time has passed. He preaches that jihad is the pinnacle of Islam and calls on Muslims everywhere to join the processions of jihad fighters in order to liberate this world from evil and make Allah’s word supreme – and all Muslims are expected to say amen. I follow suit, but think to myself: What would happen if this preacher’s hopes came true and the U.S., Britain, France, China, Korea and Japan capitulated to suicide attacks… by jihad fighters throughout the world? What would happen if those blessed saints took over the entire world and controlled the industrial revolution? What would happen to human culture and the technological age we live in? How can these suicide attackers run the world and control its economic resources skillfully, when they cannot even do so in their own countries? I am the only one among the worshippers who thinks: Let us build and develop the land before we think of jihad, contribute to science and progress in the world, and attract [people] to our religion with our cultural superiority. Building and developing the land comes before jihad, [because] the alternative is global backwardness in the name of Islam, which Islam itself is innocent of.</p>

<p>"The third preacher uses his pulpit to attack the media every week. Sometimes he speaks of Al-Arabiya TV and its inclination towards secularism and modernity at the expense of the Islamists, and calls on his flock not to watch it. … I think the day is near when he will rebuke me by name in front of everyone, especially after I heard him curse a friend [of mine] merely for the opinion [he published] in one of his articles.</p>

<p>"I fled all these [mosques] for a mosque that is distant from my home, where I have never heard the preacher curse anyone…</p>

<p>“Next week I will return to my distant mosque, but this will not prevent me from making a small suggestion to the [Saudi] Islamic Affairs Ministry that might help increase the efficiency of Friday sermons and protect them from intentional and unintentional ignorance… I propose that the preachers receive ready-made sermons [from the ministry], since ultimately they are civil servants who are paid to deliver material approved by the ministry, as opposed to their personal opinions and private beliefs. In this manner we can rid ourselves of strange opinions and ideas and adopt an Islamic approach that expresses the authority of the state and its inclination towards the true Islam, which is based on temperance, tolerance and coexistence.”</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>Obviously, the religious right rulers in Iran and other places make generous use of exaggerated hate and racism. But, as your other quotes indicate, the opinions of Muslims are not uniformly vile and hateful as many here seem to think, nor does the power of the religious right in the Muslim world necessarily mean that even those under its rule conform to its ideology.</p>

[tomatox1]

<p>If the only person who thinks the killer is Islamic in England is the killer himself, talking to a camera, well I’ll be damned.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

"I fled all these [mosques] for a mosque that is distant from my home, where I have never heard the preacher curse anyone…

</p>

<p>Islam won’t change until more muslims follow this path.</p>

[tomatox1]

<p>If the only person who thinks the killer is Islamic in England is the killer himself, talking to a camera, and if the government views protests to the killing of an innocent soldier as worse than the murder itself, well I’ll be damned.</p>

<p>The government urged its soldiers not to walk in the street of its own capital in unifrom due to the possibility of terrorrist attacks – I can’t find a link at the moment but hopefully I can discover it soon.</p>

<p>*The government urged its soldiers not to walk in the street of its own capital in uniform due to the possibility of terrorrist attacks. *</p>

<p>A soldier cannot walk in the country’s own capital, London, an ancient place with two millenia of history, in safety due to the possibility of sudden terrorist attacks – and David Cameron still cannot bear to enforce stricter immigration laws and take measures to let the current immigrants to assimilate better into society.</p>

<p>What a joke.</p>

<p>Note how the murderer says “where I came from” or something of that spirit, even though he was born in England. This is what happens when the Labour Party intentionally opens the borders and allows mass immigration to flood in in order to permanently change the demographic makeup and thus the political makeup of England so it can rule indefinitely (see [Labour</a> wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser - Telegraph](<a href=“Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser”>Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser)), even though the public views such mass immigration, especially of refugees from the middle-east, as Britain’s biggest problem (see [Immigration</a> is British society’s biggest problem, shows survey of public | UK news | The Observer](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/13/immigration-british-society-biggest-problem]Immigration”>Immigration is British society's biggest problem, shows survey of public | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian)). Liberal corruption to the max! </p>

<p>Muslims are not universally vile and evil. But given that the primary source of immigrants are hatred-and-tension-and-extremism-dominated from parts of Pakistan and India and that the migrants from there are usually Muslim (Hindu to a lesser extent, but they tend not to be terrorists as often), Muslim immigrants, who usually tend to be poorer and less educated due to multiple factors, tend also to commit the most terrorist activities. Of course there are also tons of immigrants from China and Poland and stuff, but these usually are not as poor and less educated or ideologically motivated (Polish extremists are nil) as the Muslim immigrants.</p>

[stressedouttt]

<p>

To be frank, I was hoping you would listen to other posters and realize that Islam has many problems with its teaching and how it is practiced by many millions of muslims. People have the right to refrain from any religion or practice what ever religion they chose without being told that there is only one god, the muslim god. Women should never be treated differently by the government and government should never be run by one religion. Suicide bombers of civilians in the name of one’s religion should never be condoned or tolerated.

I realize all of this. Of course I do. And I hope that I didn’t ever give the impression that something as disgusting as suicide bombing should be tolerated. I have disagreed with and argued with fanatic “Muslims” (well, fanatic is probably a bit excessive- they weren’t terrorists, but they did have some extreme views) before. What bothers me is the the generalizations of Islam that have been stated in this thread.
I hate fanatical Islam. I guarentee that I hate it more than you do. They do such awful things in the name of something that is important to me.
But I also can’t stand the paintbrush assumptions about Islam, as a religion, that have been stated.</p>

<p>

Instead your response is that Christians are just as bad. Yet you overlook that bad people acting on behalf of Christianity are few and far between and when Christians acted badly on mass scale such as the crusades those events occurred hundreds of years ago and are irrelevant today.

Well, not just Christianity. That was a convenient example. My point is that every group (religious groups, ethnic groups, etc.) has it’s fair share of bad apples.</p>

[raiders83]

<p>I can’t emphasize this enough, “When people here keep pointing out that not all Muslims are terrorists, which is kind of obvious unless you’re a moron.” </p>

<p>Anyone unfamiliar with this subject often tends to not engage in the conversation because they don’t understand the above point which leads them to believe there is bigotry where there isn’t.</p>

[stressedouttt]

<p>I am aware that everyone here knows that many Muslims are not terrorists.</p>

<p>Paintbrush assumptions haven’t been made about Muslims. But they have been made about Islam, as a religion, like I said before.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

What bothers me is the the generalizations of Islam that have been stated in this thread.

</p>

<p>What are examples? Most of the posters have repeatedly said that not all muslims are terrorists. Aren’t there provisions of Islam that when taken literally incite extremism?</p>