Persecution (Dec 2)

[Lazerus]

Failing to speak out against radical elements in your relgion is silently supporting them. Numbers lend legitimacy to a cause. The reason scientologists arn't locked up in insane asyliums is because there's a lot of them.

If a man blows up a building "because god told me too", and all the other priests of his religion condem that action, the man stops being a holy warrior and starts being a skitzophrenic.

If a man blows up a building and the priests do......nothing. That's it. The possibility that god really did tell him to do that is left open. Which is a silent admission that, maybe, god is inclined to do that sort of thing. And since priests support whatever god does, that tacitly supports that violent action.

That was a clear and insistent "maybe".

Ah, no.

If you admit, it's possible god told that man to release a biological weapon against Africa (for instance), then your admitting your god is a butcher. No good creature would ever consider such an act. And that supports violence.

[Detrius]

Okay, another misunderstanding...

You offered two possibilities:

"Failing to speak out against extremists in your religion is wrong." and "Failing to speak out against extremists in your religion is not wrong"

I just wanted to know which possibility you support in this case.


...and please don't start this "your god" thing on me, it won't work.

[The JAM]

[scratches head] Just a minor question here, but.....is this thread going anywhere?

[Wanderwolf]

[scratches head] Just a minor question here, but.....is this thread going anywhere?

Does "in circles" count?

[StrangeWulf13]

Guess I haven't missed much then. I'll go get the marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers...

[MikeVanPelt]

I haven't seen you distance yourself from the likes of Demetrius "Van" Crocker lately, does this mean you support right-wing terrorism?

I have never heard the name Demetrius Van Crocker. Your message is the very first time the name has ever appeared before my eyes.

So, how am I supposed to "distance myself" from someone whose existance I have absolutely no knowledge of?

As for "right wing terrorists" in general, I have, as a search in google groups can find, made public disparaging remarks about "Nazi skinhead-pinheads", Ku Klux Kluckers, and said that Paul Hill deserved to be executed for the murders he committed.

Any Muslim who has just awakened from a coma and has never heard of Al Queda, I'll also give a pass on not distancing himself from them. Do you have any evidence that such a person exists? Anywhere?

[Trillan]

To me, the biggest issue with religion in the world... and even in this thread... is that somehow being a moderate follower of your faith is considered superior to striving to perfect it. Instead of comparing moderate followers, why not compare the ideal? Granted, you'll never find someone who completely encapsulates that ideal, but you can at least know what the respective beliefs are striving towards. A belief should be judged on its merit, not on the butchering of it done by its believers.

Simple really. "Ideal" followers of faiths, weather it's muslems strapping explosives to their chest, or christans driving bomb-cars into abortion clinics, tend to be unadulterated phycho's who scare the crap out of the rest of us.

That is not an ideal Christian. That is, in fact, someone who has completely missed it.

[MikeVanPelt]

1) They were not slapped in handcuffs.

1) Really? Good of you to say otherwise, when the Palm Beach Post, KTVZ in Oregon, and even AZ Central, (which accuses the imams of the most) state that the men were taken off in handcuffs. I'm glad an observant man like you was on the scene to tell us otherwise.

None of these people were on the scene, either. Most papers just get stories off the newswires and run with them. No telling where AP gets its stories; maybe the same imaginary Iraqi police captain that they got one of their other recent stories from.

As for my source:

http://washtimes.com/national/20061201- ... _page2.htm

Mr. Shahin is the spokesman for the imams who attended his federation's conference last week in Minnesota and were evicted from US Airways Flight 300 because of suspicious behavior.

The imams dispute the account of seven witnesses, including two law-enforcement officers, that the imams shouted hostile slogans and took unassigned seats in a pattern used by terrorists. Mr. Shahin calls the reports "exaggerations" and "false statements."

"I did everything normal, I did not do anything that is not normal in my mind." He said he and his colleagues were removed from the plane because three of the men said prayers in the concourse.

Mr. Shahin said they did not orchestrate the event to create a lawsuit or make a public issue of profiling Muslim passengers.

"We love US Airways, and we want to fly with them," Mr. Shahin said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations will pursue a lawsuit on the imams' behalf, Mr. Shahin said.

Mr. Shahin says they were not led off the plane in handcuffs, as reported, nor were they kept in handcuffs during their five-hour detention, and they were not harassed by dogs.

Mr. Shahin has since changed his story. I guess the original story wasn't inflamatory enough. Who knows what the story will be next week?

[Heimdal]

I'm curious about the whole church burning thing? When I google it, I can find stuff on it easy enough, but haven't been able to find any numbers. 300 is a big number, I would say 30 seems much closer but I don't know what the number is derived all from?

On the topic of christians feeling their beliefs to be oppressed as of late... it really is entirely nonsense. Christianity is dominant, and all the attacks upon it have been collective (though not specifically collective) efforts to bring it down to a level playing field with other religions. Christianity is still dominant, however, so there's nothing to complain about when it's still king.

The notion that christianity is under attack in such a way that threatens its survival... I would liken this to arguments of reverse racism. When a white person uses the N-word, it is scorned as racist remarks.. yet when a black person calls a white person a honky, it isn't. Why is that? It doesn't seem fair, right? Well it is fair. "Honky", or whatever like term, doesn't have the stigma that the N-word has. When we're called that, we're basically being lumped in with a view of white people in general. But woe is us, white people hold the majority of power anyways. Any notion of us not being in an advantageous position because we're white is foolish illogic.

Same deal with christianity, as my second paragraph there said. The majority often likes to find reasons to make itself the victims of minority, as it's defense against it. It's a fundamentally flawed logical error, that only seeks a means to keep the upperhand -- not equality.[/b]

[Detrius]

I have never heard the name Demetrius Van Crocker. Your message is the very first time the name has ever appeared before my eyes.

So, how am I supposed to "distance myself" from someone whose existance I have absolutely no knowledge of?

As for "right wing terrorists" in general, I have, as a search in google groups can find, made public disparaging remarks about "Nazi skinhead-pinheads", Ku Klux Kluckers, and said that Paul Hill deserved to be executed for the murders he committed.

Any Muslim who has just awakened from a coma and has never heard of Al Queda, I'll also give a pass on not distancing himself from them. Do you have any evidence that such a person exists? Anywhere?

we had that before

*refers to this post*

[MikeVanPelt]

I have never heard the name Demetrius Van Crocker. Your message is the very first time the name has ever appeared before my eyes.

we had that before

*refers to this post*

That points me to

Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Madmoonie wrote:
My point was and is, do not generalize me or what I believe. If I am not supposed to believe that all Muslims are evil and that atheists are of the devil, then you have to give ME the benefit of the doubt (and the person you were talking to) that I am not Westboro Baptist, a gay-bashing, racist (for lack of a better word) idiot.


You do realize that no-one actually accused you of these things but that we were using a dialectic approach to prove our point, yes?
_________________

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. _No_one_ ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Where's this Crocker dude mentioned in there? I don't see it. I did a "find" on the page with Firefox, Firefox can't find any mention of "Crocker" anywhere on this page either.

[Detrius]

Where's this Crocker dude mentioned in there? I don't see it. I did a "find" on the page with Firefox, Firefox can't find any mention of "Crocker" anywhere on this page either.

The point is that no-one can expect you to protest against right-wing extremism on a 24/7 basis.

So, what is reasonable to expect from Muslims? All upright Muslims rallying on the streets against fundamentalism each time a lunatic advocates a what they feel is an utterly corrupted version of their beliefs by blowing himself up on a marketplace? What do you think those clerics were going to talk about on that convention anyway?

From the Conference Booklet of the convention those six clerics wanted to attend to:

Posting Imams’ Opinions by Media Releases about Denouncing Violence

For sometime now, Islam has been constantly on the media accused of terrorism and claimed to be encouraging acts of extremism and violence. Hence, NAIF thought it necessary to take some action against this and publicize messages supporting peace and moderation.

In this regard, NAIF intends to select a number of Imams to be in charge of this task of responding to the media. Each Imam will be responsible for
one or more specific week(s) of the year. Given the unfortunate state of the world, it is likely that during each week there will be an opportunity to
condemn extremism and violence. The Imam in charge of this week would write a short message, perhaps 50 to 200 or 300 words, responding to the
specific event released in the news during their week. Then, this message would be sent via e-mail to all the Imams on NAIF mailing list seeking their
approval or disapproval of the event that occurred. Afterwards, an official statement representing NAIF’s stance condemning violence and extremism would be issued.

NAIF would then phone the editorial page editor or the city page editor of the local newspaper or a local broadcast station, and tell him that — in response to some recent event — NAIF condemns violence and extremism. To encourage the local newspaper or the local broadcast station to post Imams’ official statements, NAIF would tell this editor that his newspaper or broadcasting station will have sole and exclusive right to print or broadcast the message within the next 24 hours. Afterwards, the message will be sent to the national media. This necessitates that a list of e-mail addresses for national media resources (New York Times, Chicago NAIF's ccomplishments and Plans Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, Associated Press, Time magazine, Newsweek, etc.) would be developed.

The merits of this initiative are that it, first, would make it possible to reach out to the media and express Imams’ opinion regarding violence, extremism and terrorism. Second, an electronic copy of each message sent and the date on which it was sent to the media will be filed. Accordingly, when someone in the local or national media complains that Imams do not condemn extremism and violence, this claim would be refuted on the basis of the official statements issued earlier.

I just think that it might be a good idea to support this cause and encourage those people on taking a more vehement stance against religious fundamentalism instead of arresting them at airports.

[Axelgear]

I would just like to say that as a general rule, I like nice people.

At first glance, this has nothing to do with the topic, but in all truth, this is all about who people do/don't dislike. Maybe if, instead of debating who is/isn't persecuted, you could all take a break from this and make this forum a bit friendlier by discussing what is enjoyable?

I doubt what I say will get anyone to stop arguing, in truth that is not my goal, I just want people to here to realize this forum doesn't have to be so dark that it makes Nosferatu feel at home. I'm gonna start a cheerier post.

[Detrius]

*feels compelled to agree and abandon this thread*

'nuff said

[Wanderwolf]

Mike, this gets even better when you realize that my AZCentral story is dated after your source.

Since obviously we need to get at the truth here, I'll find the earliest source in hopes of minimizing distortion.

Okay; the oldest, biggest account of the event is from CBS News, posted the day of the event. It's an AP story written the day before, but it's there. More information was added in the next day's article. (Still no handcuffs.)

CBS' last official entry on the matter came one week after the incident. Here is the official, recorded statement from US Airways' spokeswoman as to the sequence of events:

"US Airways Group Inc. spokeswoman Andrea Rader said prayer was never the issue.

"Apparently, as they were boarding, one passenger overheard them saying what they thought were anti-U.S. statements," Rader said.

She also said the men got up and moved around the airplane, forcing the flight crew to consult with the airline about whether they might pose a security risk. Local law enforcement and the FBI thought they did, she said.

"We're sorry the imams had a difficult time, but we do think the crews have to make these calls and we think they made the right one," she said. US Airways plans to meet with the imams this week, Rader said."

There it is, as directly as we're going to get it: No seatbelt extensions, no loud cursing of the U.S. But also no handcuffs; the crew asked the imams to leave the plane. They refused, and were led off by police. But no handcuffs. The airline refused to allow them to fly that day. (After the 11/27 protest prayer, however, the imams purchased a US Airways ticket and flew away.)

Good enough?

Yours truly,

The well-researched,

Wanderer

[MikeVanPelt]

From the Conference Booklet of the convention those six clerics wanted to attend to:

Posting Imams’ Opinions by Media Releases about Denouncing Violence

For sometime now, Islam has been constantly on the media accused of terrorism and claimed to be encouraging acts of extremism and violence.

This is where they're going wrong, right here. It's all media accusations, there are no terrorist acts being committed by any Muslims anywhere, oh, no, it's all a Mossad plot.

Which is ridiculous, and is seen as ridiculous by anyone with open eyes. No, not all Muslims, not by any means, but by a very large and significant fraction.

The problem is, there is a cancer at the heart of Islam, and until Muslims of good will take serious measures to remove it, and not just measures against talking about the more virulent symptoms of the cancer, it's only going to get worse.

NAIF would then phone the editorial page editor or the city page editor of the local newspaper or a local broadcast station, and tell him that — in response to some recent event — NAIF condemns violence and extremism.

Here's exactly the problem I'm talking about -- the newspapers are not the problem. People blowing up people, slitting their bellies open and pulling their intestines out, sawing off their heads, setting them on fire and burning them alive, crucifying little children -- This is the problem. The people doing this happen to be Muslim. Prominent Muslims, leaders of Muslim nations, assert that the Holocaust didn't happen, and anyway, Hitler should have finished the job. Muslim nations teach "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as history in their schools.

The Imams, if they are serious, need to address the people committing the atrocities, not the people who take note of the fact that the atrocities are happening.

[Trillan]

Here's exactly the problem I'm talking about -- the newspapers are not the problem. People blowing up people, slitting their bellies open and pulling their intestines out, sawing off their heads, setting them on fire and burning them alive, crucifying little children -- This is the problem. The people doing this happen to be Muslim. Prominent Muslims, leaders of Muslim nations, assert that the Holocaust didn't happen, and anyway, Hitler should have finished the job. Muslim nations teach "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as history in their schools.

The Imams, if they are serious, need to address the people committing the atrocities, not the people who take note of the fact that the atrocities are happening.

Them being Muslim isn't "one of those funny coincidences," either. Muslims are commanded to kill Christians and Jews simply because they are Christians and Jews. I haven't got the exact reference and quote with me, but I can look it up at home later if anyone cares.

[Setesh]

The basic problem here is backlash. Christians in general have shoved their view of how everyone should live down our throats for so long that now that we can do something about it, some think we should at every turn. The problem is the opposition have spawned its own fanatics. Years of fighting the christian fanatics have forced them to follow the same tactics if they want to get heard. Does this mean its right? No, extremism on either side is wrong.

Some battles are worth fighting, some aren't, but experience has taught the ACLU and FIRE that if they don't act like the enemy they lose. So now christianity must, as always, reap what it has sown. And will whine us all to tears of boredom doing it.

As to RHJunior's comic.

The WWI cross, Not everyone who fought and died in The Great War was a christian. A neutral memorial would better serve to honor all who fought and died, not just the ones who believed in christ.

Baby Jesus, manger scenes are kinda creepy anyway, and Christmas was a replacement for older pagan celebrations. (Virtually all christian holidays are actually renamed pagan ones) The Vatican decided to put his birthday there since 'if everyone’s going to celebrate anyway lets make them celebrate for our reasons' was standard op for the early Church. Since Jesus never existed (No 'ahem' christian text mentions him until after the second century, not even the 632 pages of religious debate correspondences from a Bishop to a Rabbi, never once do either of them mention the J man.) its not his birthday. Frankly I think the world, or at least the mall, is a better place without these eyesores.

Crucifix in urine, *shrugs* its not even an original idea. The pre-revolution french were locking people up for urinating and defecating on crosses every week. That federal money was part of the prize is unfortunate but hardy the most ridiculous thing they spend a truck load of money on. Besides once they give the money its up to the institution on how to spend it, same as all the private donators.

Religion in school, the same schools that used to, and some still do, expel students for not saying the 'Pledge'. As I said backlash, christianity has been shoved in school for so long now the opposite is starting to come around. (though I was assaulted, not teased or belittled, physically beaten for not being christian when I was in school) Its also a vast minority of incidents I can match with incidents of non-christians receiving the same treatment or worse. Like my wife who in highschool was told in writing that she was 'not to come to the minority affairs office to report religious discrimination' because she was a straight white girl being told daily she was going to hell for being wicca. (Irony being she was a pagan but not a wicca)

I could go on for hours. I boils down to this.

Christians has oppressed and literally persecuted non-christians in this country for decades. Now that your not allowed to push it in certain places you complain its 'persecution'. The other side is using your own tactics against you, and you complain its 'unfair'. Get over it. Its not going to change until christianity does.

Does this apply to any christians on the board personally, I don't know, but it does in general.

[Tom Mazanec]

This is one reason why, picking my battles, I chose right-to-life (I have taken part in demonstrations outside an abortion clinic, BTW). It does not discriminate against other people, it discriminates FOR them (since I believe pre-born babies are people, no matter how small). BTW, I would not be against allowing legally true contraception (that is not just a form of early abortion, like IUDs). My Church can legislate it as a sin if it wishes, but should do that only on its members, just as it would be a sin for me to miss Mass on days of obligation, but not for others outside my Church. Choice before conception, afterwards you have already made your choice.

[Lazerus]

Okay, another misunderstanding...

You offered two possibilities:

"Failing to speak out against extremists in your religion is wrong." and "Failing to speak out against extremists in your religion is not wrong"

I just wanted to know which possibility you support in this case.


...and please don't start this "your god" thing on me, it won't work.

And I told you. Your the one who said my answer was logicly inconsistant, so I rebutted that statement.

That is not an ideal Christian. That is, in fact, someone who has completely missed it.

Do you believe christ was the son of god, that he died for our sins, and that only through belief in him can we find salvation? If yes, you are a Christian. Peroid. Any qualifiers after that just clarify which sect of christianity your a part of.

Them being Muslim isn't "one of those funny coincidences," either. Muslims are commanded to kill Christians and Jews simply because they are Christians and Jews. I haven't got the exact reference and quote with me, but I can look it up at home later if anyone cares.

The reverse is also true.