Who's Distorting Islam?
Daniel Greenfield at blogs at FrontPage:
We all know that the real Islam is a religion of peace. A pacifist religion which was spread by Mohammed handing out bunches of flowers to people and asking them if they wouldn't like to sit down in a circle with him and groove.And then he chopped off their heads if they refused.
...So what does Anwar Al-Awlaki think is the real Islam that America is attempting to distort?
Al Jazeera: The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have quoted CIA investigators as talking about the possibility of targeting you in a drone attack. Why do you think the Americans want to kill you?Awlaki: Because I am a Muslim and I promote Islam. The charge is "incitement"; my relationships with Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk and some 9/11 attackers, and now I am accused of being linked to 14 cases...
"They want to market the democratic and peaceful US Islam... they want an Islam that has no sharia ruling, no jihad and no Islamic caliphate."
"We call for the Islam that was sent by Allah to Prophet Muhammad, the Islam of jihad and sharia ruling."
I hate to say it, but the droned terrorist has a point.
Ari Armstrong, quoting Craig Biddle, blogs that we misunderstand Islam at our peril:
American leaders fail to recognize the actual nature of Islam and of those who genuinely embrace it. As Craig Biddle explains:Many Muslims around the world aim seriously to "live" and die by Islamic law--and to force everyone else to do so too. This is the explicit goal of Muslims who take their religion seriously--because it is the central commandment of Islam: Muslims must submit to Allah, spread Islam, and, ultimately, make the whole world submit to Allah.As to why many Americans fail to recognize these facts and thus fail to demand that our government recognize them, see Biddle's article. That many Americans do fail to recognize the facts is evident in the frequent headlines about Islamic attacks on and threats against America and Americans--including the attack in Benghazi.
A Muslim woman explains an essential difference between Islam and other religions:
Islam shows a strong resistance to progressive interpretation due to the the central belief that its holy book is always-and-ever infallible, unchanged and unchangeaable, written by God himself.
And she continues:
While I am open to being corrected, I would claim that in the West, most Christians no longer take the violently misogynistic and homophobic parts of the Bible literally, and those who do (eg: the Westboro Baptist Church) do not have the political power or legal recourse to actualize their beliefs, so if they happen to do so it is not of much consequence materially. As such, I'd argue that if it is at all coherent to claim that a religion can be characterized by certain beliefs, we cannot claim that Christianity, in the manner in which it is currently practiced and applied, is characterized by many violent Biblical edicts that have become, in practice and modern thought, no longer relevant. In addition to this, there is a strong Christian presence, normalized in mainstream media, that avidly condemns violence based on misogyny and homophobia as specifically unChristian. In light of this, it would be a gross and unfair misrepresentation to claim that Christianity is characterized by ultra misogyny and violence or that this is a common element of the thought of Christians simply because those elements are present in its core scripture. In addition to being a misrepresentation, it would not be a productive method of discourse because pointing that out has very little to do with reform when governance among Christian-majority countries happens to be secular and thus can combat the attempted legislature of Christian-based laws on secular grounds.
It's a huge problem that Islam has these failsafes built in. We want to believe (as I believed until I started educating myself about Islam after 9/11) that Islam is just another religion. But in a number of ways -- life- and freedom-threatening ways -- it is very much not.
Totes!
Wake up, 'sheeple'!
It's a "huge problem"!
Crid at January 19, 2014 12:58 AM
If you think that a book was written by "God", you have a SERIOUS problem with reality.
Yes, you do.
Radwaste at January 19, 2014 6:46 AM
My understanding is that Allah essentially possessed Mohammed's body and churned out the Quran.
As such, who can propose removing one stroke, let alone one letter or even a paragraph? that's something an apostate might do.
And you know what they do to apostates.
I R A Darth Aggie at January 19, 2014 8:02 AM
And the Shia and Sunni (or at least some of both) have already declared each other apostates. Why don't we just pull completely out of the Middle East and let them fight it out with each other? It's not as though we need their oil any longer.
What makes this an even better idea is that other outside powers such as the Chinese may come in and try to "pacify" the region their way. And if we're lucky, at least one of those horrible, oppressive cultures just might get wiped off the face of the earth by the others. We can always hope.
Yes, I said it. Any way-of-life that defines "peace" as "when we rule the world" both deserves and needs to be wiped out. (And no, I'm not at all certain this includes all versions of Islam, but it may.)
jdgalt at January 19, 2014 9:56 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4209082">comment from jdgalt"Why don't we just pull completely out of the Middle East and let them fight it out with each other?"
Excellent and highly sensible idea.
Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 10:21 AM
"Why don't we just pull completely out of the Middle East and let them fight it out with each other?"
Excellent and highly sensible idea.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 10:21 AM
Yes, I too, look forward to World War III with both a nuclear and chemical attack on Israel when the Arabs realize that we don't care, and don't have the political will to police the region any more.
Isab at January 19, 2014 11:37 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4209318">comment from IsabOur being in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan helped how? Other than making a few fewer Americans to collect Social Security?
And why is it America's obligation to police the rest of the world? And furthermore, the notion that we stop nuclear attacks with boots on the ground is ridiculous.
Gillespie:
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/08/30/3-reasons-not-to-go-to-war-with-syria
Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 12:35 PM
☑ Isab at January 19, 2014 11:37 AM
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 19, 2014 1:46 PM
> Our being in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan
> helped how?
We're "in Iran"? Did anyone else know about this.
Iraq: Saddam & psychopath sons dead, weapons neutralized, exemplar
...Of for fuck's sake, it's 2014. Are you serious?
> And why is it America's obligation to police
> the rest of the world?
This is childish. You should do some reading about international affairs.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 19, 2014 2:05 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4209464">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]We had zero business being in Iraq and Saddam kept a lid on all the tribal, warring factions that are now free to blow each other and each other's children up.
Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 2:13 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4209466">comment from Amy AlkonChemical weapons use is sometimes of interest to us and sometimes not:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/26/declassified-cia-documents-reveal-us-hel
Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 2:15 PM
Israel has said for many years that they can defend themselves as long they have material (beans and bullets) aid.
As it stands, if the U.S. Government actually got out of the way and started granting oil & natural gas leases we could be the largest energy exporter in a few years. The unemployment rate in North Dakota is 2.7%. A Wal-mart worker can start at $15 an hour. And that is ignoring that fact that we have enough coal to still last for hundreds of years.
So if we produced our own energy and found a way to make it worth the time for manufacturing plants for goods to be opened in the U.S. again ::cough::kill the unions::cough:: we could get back to the founder's ideas.
So if we, as a country, want to support Israel, we should. Then we stop buying oil from middle east and let them fight it out.
Right now we are playing the same role that the Jews did in Germany.
The Islamic governments and imam's are saying the U.S. is the great Satan and the rest of the bullshit. Then we react (passively or aggressively) and then they say "See the great Satan did this." Where if we generally don't care what they do to each other maybe a change will come.
And then another point in this is that yes the U.S. may have the political will to do something. But have you noticed that there is a $17 TRILLION ($17,000,000,000) credit card bill that is coming due?
Jim P. at January 19, 2014 4:11 PM
> We had zero business being in Iraq and
These aren't principles, they aren't even daydreams. It's as if you've spent twenty years listening to your fingertips and singing La-La-La....
The Arab Motherfucking League was begging for American intervention in Syria. In 2013! Worms had long since harvested the salt from Saddam's eyeballs. It's like you're still pissed off about Sinead O'Connor making fun of the Pope on SNL.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 19, 2014 4:31 PM
We had zero business being in Iraq and Saddam kept a lid on all the tribal, warring factions that are now free to blow each other and each other's children up.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at January 19, 2014 2:13 PM
Yes, Saddam kept a liid on the waring religious factions, like
Himmler kept a lid on the "Jewish problem".
But I guess since you are not a Kurd, a Christian or a Sunni, who the fuck cares?
If we had let Saddam get away with the invasion of Kuwait, and ignoring the no fly zone imposed after Gulf War I, the entire Middle East would have been in flames, (kind of like it is now) with Mr. Obama and his complete lack of any kind of coherent policy, foreign, domestic, or otherwise.
Isab at January 19, 2014 5:33 PM
It's stunning that we are so contemptuous of Islam, the we don't believe that they will DO PRECISELY as they say they WILL.
"Oh those poor barbarians, they will eventually come around to the correct thinking..."
riiiight.
SwissArmyD at January 19, 2014 6:42 PM
I quite frankly don't care either way. But if you lock them into their own cesspool and let them decide what they want to do, you may get a good result eventually. Imposing it from the outside so far has failed.
Jim P. at January 19, 2014 8:16 PM
If you've graduated 7th grade, please raise your hand.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 19, 2014 8:56 PM
Islam shows a strong resistance to progressive interpretation due to the the central belief that its holy book is always-and-ever infallible, unchanged and unchangeaable, written by God himself.
The Christians I'm familiar with say the same thing about the Bible.
Rex Little at January 19, 2014 9:38 PM
> The Christians I'm familiar with say the
> same thing about the Bible.
This is an important datapoint.
Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Little. Well said! Noted! ✓
For some reason, Amy can't appreciate this truth.
She'll say there's a "huge problem" with Islam's literalism, something absolutely unprecedented…
…But she won't say what it is. Or what she wants to do about it.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 19, 2014 10:32 PM
But I guess since you are not a Kurd, a Christian or a Sunni, who the fuck cares?
Yeah, pretty much. People get the government they tolerate.
lujlp at January 20, 2014 4:33 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4210509">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]The Christians I'm familiar with say the > same thing about the Bible.
This is why we have so many Christians stoning their neighbors for adultery.
Amy Alkon at January 20, 2014 5:27 AM
Which century are we talking about? Because Christianity has had horrible episodes of stone-throwing.
...Or are you conceding that Islam is likely to be tamed (or is demonstrably being tamed), as was Christianity, on which it's partially based?
I bet you're not. For some reason, you find enchantment in this moment. You like pretending there's something almost supernaturally (!) unprecedented happening with Islam, even though you won't make predictions on how it will play out... Or offer an opinion for how it should play out.
Christianity was no fun for civilization to deal with; you perhaps think it was because you arrived after the ugly stuff.
But who doesn't prefer a battle that's over to one that's hotting up?
...Besides a Sheepleist, I mean?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 6:03 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4210555">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]The bible is seen as a historical document and allegory and not the word of god. As someone at one of these links points out, the only people taking it literally are the handful of nutbags known as the Westboro Baptist Church. I love when you, Crid, someone who is ignorant about Islam, argues about what it does and does not stand for and how it does and does not compare to other religions.
Amy Alkon at January 20, 2014 6:14 AM
The reason that Christians can BOTH believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, AND not take it perfectly literally, is a clever kludge factor called Jesus Christ.
IF you accept that Jesus fulfulls all of God's requirements, then... well, he fulfills them.
The requirement for salvation is that you believe in him, and his sacrifice for you, and ask for forgiveness.
Because of this, Average Joe realizes that that all that stoning people thing is over, because Jesus says: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." John 8:7.2
so anyone that was throwing stones for adultery after that point 2000 years back, is full of it.
Which is to be expected, since, hey "all humans are sinful" and stuff... but we don't blame that problem on God, rather ourselves, who have agency to NOT be.
That kind of position of The Law being fulfilled by the Son of God, leads to some interesting conclusions, and not all the same ones, which is why you have lotsa varying doctrines. ESPECIALLY based on the idea that the codification of what Jesus said and did, was written down long after. Regardless of if you take it as Divinely Inspired... or just some stuff written down about some guy that seems to have a knack to begin a religion, and somehow make it stick for a LOT of people.
That gives you the wiggle room, but still required eons to get people to settle down over this 'killing infidels' thing.
Whether that is valuable to you or not, depends on you, because this relationship to God becomes singular to you. You dun even need a Church if you don't want one, though that drives churches crazy. They are after all, associations that exist for their members, so they need members.
Seems a little bit different from Islam, now, doesn't it?
SwissArmyD at January 20, 2014 10:30 AM
> The bible is seen as a historical document
> and allegory and
Today it is, at least by most of it's enthusiasts. This IS not always and WAS not always the case.
I call it The Internet Special Effect!: Amy Alkon cannot read those two sentences. Her monitor is just blank for that part, like a vertical blind spot: No pixels.
> I love when you, Crid, someone who
> is ignorant about Islam
You are so full of shit. Your expertise is a thin-air fantasy.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 11:03 AM
No one is denying that there aren't nutbags in Christianity. Westboro is the latest, but they haven't killed anyone yet, that we know of. Then their was Koresh and Waco. Whose fault is up for debate. Before that was Jonestown in Guyana with over 900 dead. Then there are the 22 dead in the 1838 Mormon War.
But the majority of Christian deaths/massacres in the past few centuries have been in the hundreds or thousands per decade. And when most Christians hear about a mass killing they hold a prayer vigil for the lost.
But then when you look at the Muslim faith you still have 64 percent of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan support the death penalty for leaving Islam. Or in other words if you declare yourself an atheist you have to worry about 64 of the 100 people around you willing to kill you.
In the days after 9/11 you had Christians going to church and praying for the dead. In Islamic nations you had fucking dancing in the streets.
So fuck you when say that there is a moral equivalent of the Christian fainths and the Muslim ones.
Jim P. at January 20, 2014 3:42 PM
I unreservedly apologize for "full of shit." It was inexcusably arrogant.
But Amy... You're not serious.
If you were serious, this would end somewhere besides 'I know more than you do!!!!'
In any case...
Sincere apology. I was wrong.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 9:25 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/01/19/whos_distorting.html#comment-4211603">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]Crid, I print actual references to support what I write on Islam. You just chortle the same tune. On and on.
Amy Alkon at January 20, 2014 10:29 PM
"Sincere apology. I was wrong."
Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 9:25 PM
That is the hottest thing I've heard a guy say in a long time.
I work with people who fact check and acknowledge being or doing wrong, but the unabashedly bald acknowledgement-apology combo is a rare and beautiful thing.
Michelle at January 21, 2014 5:20 AM
You like pretending there's something almost supernaturally (!) unprecedented happening with Islam, even though you won't make predictions on how it will play out... Or offer an opinion for how it should play out.
Actually crid, that would be you. AMY'S point is that over the last 1500 yrs NOTHING has changed and they are acting the same way they have for centuries and that is what the problem is.
lujlp at January 21, 2014 7:26 AM
Actually crid, that would be you. AMY'S point is that over the last 1500 yrs NOTHING has changed and they are acting the same way they have for centuries and that is what the problem is.
Posted by: lujlp at January 21, 2014 7:26 AM
Religion like politics is "downstream" of culture, to paraphrase Andrew Breitbart.
I suspect most of you non historians, who also cant speak the lanaguage and lack first hand expereince in the middle east, cant understand what the drivers are.
Crid apologized, for calling names, not for being right, about the kind of shallow thinking it takes to believe that Islam is the problem here.
Arabs and Arab culture are the problem here, but it is not pc to say so.
When we went into Japan after World War II, Shinto, and Buddism continued to exist. We didnt need to stamp them out, because the American occupation changed Japan's culture which was the change that we needed to make.
Isab at January 21, 2014 10:06 AM
"Crid apologized, for calling names, not for being right..."
Posted by: Isab at January 21, 2014 10:06 AM
Entirely understood.
One attorney to another, I know that arguing well goes beyond being correct. I find a trustworthiness in people who call themselves on the distinction between being right, and going about something the wrong way. Especially when one has stooped to character assignation.
Intelligent, rational, passionate, trustworthy, and occasionally humble is an attractive combination.
Michelle at January 21, 2014 10:39 AM
> I print actual references to support what I
> write on Islam.
They fail. It's usually a disengaged, head-in-sand academic looking for some time on cable chat, not anyone with a clear view of history or world events. And certainly no one with a policy proscription.
> You just chortle the same tune.
1. Tunes aren't chortled.
2. My opinion on all this has changed drastically over the years, a migration detailed here with hundreds of citations.
It doesn't matter: You're INCAPABLE of reading them. You won't respond to argument. Your monitor goes blank, lights out, it didn't happen. No considerations of history, or the future, economics, geography or international politics can excite your attention.
You have a VERY slender vector of interest in this topic. No conclusions, no speculations, no suggestions. It begins and ends with you saying you know something about Islam that other people don't know.
I can't imagine what that might be.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 21, 2014 3:48 PM
> Intelligent, rational, passionate, trustworthy,
> and occasionally humble is an attractive
> combination.
I also go for 'inquisitive' and 'engaged,' which have been been missing from these "huge problem" postings.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 21, 2014 3:50 PM
> the majority of Christian deaths/massacres
> in the past few centuries have been…
Golly. Even Little Jimpers seems to understand that religions change over time. (His argument, already troubled, thereby self-destructs.)
> So fuck you when say that there is a moral
> equivalent of the Christian fainths and
> the Muslim ones.
Who said any such thing? What did I ever say about "moral equivalence," or the morality of any religion? I said nothing of the kind... You've imagined something, and now you're "fuck you" angry.
You should back and check. You, Jimpers, should ALWAYS go back and check. You've been doing this to me here for years.
Do you hold people accountable for your imagination in other parts of your life? Family? Bosses? Finance?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 21, 2014 4:56 PM
"So if we, as a country, want to support Israel, we should. Then we stop buying oil from middle east and let them fight it out."
Oil is a fungible commodity. Our refusal to buy it, has no effect on the world market, or the ability of terrorist Arab states to make money off of it.
If US or multinational oil companies pull out of the Middle East, they will be quickly replaced by other companies who will "sell" the oil to the highest bidder, while denying supplies to entities who refuse to support the policies of the terrorist states producing it.
Without western technology, oil production will fall dramatically, as these countries do not have the internal technology to sustain it. Thereby driving up the price of oil drastically on the world market.
A simple understanding of basic macro economics, destroys these childish fantasies of pulling out, and just watching the chaos.
And , of course, Israel can defend itself, but I guarantee, very few of you, are going to like the way that they do it, if they are in real danger of being nuked or overrun.
Isab at January 22, 2014 12:07 PM
As a separate oil-producing nation, Texas would be the 10th largest oil-producer in the world.
So if the rest of the U.S. and Canada becomes a net exporter, why the fuck do we care?
Jim P. at January 23, 2014 7:54 PM
So if the rest of the U.S. and Canada becomes a net exporter, why the fuck do we care?
Posted by: Jim P. at January 23, 2014 7:54 PM
Because the market, availability, and transportation costs control the price.
You want Texas selling all their oil to China, and the price of gasoline, and home heating oil in the US doubling in real dollars in the next ten years?
Or do you have some kind of socialist fantasy, that the US government can establish price, and availability by government decree?
This in turn will increase the price of food, and all consumer goods in the US. The trucks, ships, trains, and tractors that produce food and transport produce and consumer goods in the US don't run on unicorn farts.
Isab at January 24, 2014 7:58 AM
Jimpy, you never got back to me.......
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 25, 2014 1:45 AM
"Why should weapons that have at most killed a tiny fraction of people in a war be a trigger for action?" That depends on which war, and what the side using chemical warfare wanted to accomplish. WWI showed decisively that it's rather ineffective at killing soldiers or even disabling them relative to the side dropping the gas. (That is, both sides are partially disabled just from having to don the protective gear, but generally neither side will gain an advantage - even the first uses of various substances against _unprotected_ troops in WWI only shifted the front lines a few yards.)
But if some sociopathic politicians want to kill their enemy's _small_ _children_, CW is pretty effective. Civilians probably do not have gas masks, let alone ones that are made for tiny faces - and then replaced frequently as the kids grow larger - and even if the masks are available, getting a mask on a toddler would be difficult and _keeping_ it on and sealed for hours well-nigh impossible. And unlike adults, a few seconds of exposure is likely to be fatal.
markm at January 27, 2014 6:16 AM
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