Which do you want us to worry about?

☐ That a contagion of fanaticism will take hold in the modern world, where people heretofore uninterested in such things (and in fact running from all faiths in a tremendous, multi-generational demographic exodus) will suddenly find Islam irresistible?

☐ That a whole buncha Moozlim Nasties will make there way over here and fuck us up because of their Evil Beliefs™, which for some reason will be resistant to modernity's temptations even as they spend their lives mastering contemporary logistical, economic and operational sophistication?

What's on your mind?

'Sides, Amy, "Zakat is the third of the five pillars of Islam."

You knew all about that, right?

Okay, Crid, why the false dilemma?

This is a report on what somebody said. Are you defending them?

I have to ask, because I have no idea what's up yer butt about this, and just in case you're Patrick posting under another name.

If Patrick and Crid were the same person it would be hilarious given how often they fight on this blog.

Zakat (obligatory charity) is only for Muslims, Crid. And jihad against the kuffirs (the infidel).

How do you explain the number of Americans of Somali or Arab descent who have lived most or all of their lives exposed to "modernity's temptations" in the USofA and yet fallen into the clutches of IS or similar factions?

Consider the strange case of Moner Mohammad Abusalha.

"American authorities conceded that they knew little about how a young man who grew up a basketball-obsessed teenager in a Florida gated community had become a suicide bomber."

The tools of expression I bring to this are irrelevant: Fonts, idioms, typesetting/pasteup effects, diagrams, metaphors, simplicity & elegance, complexity & detail…

There's nowhere your minds won't go to resist taking the point.

I mean, we'd think there was a nuanced psychological mechanism at work, something out of a Hitchcock film where a little child witnesses a candlelight murder through a doorcrack and grows up as if with no memory of it, but then starts getting involved in bizarre stuff (Hey! Someone write that down!)…

But you (convincingly!) come off as sincerely unaware of what's been said to you. Unresponsive as if deaf & blind to it.

And if I'm so ably warping your own perceptions to confound and mock you, then I am a motherfucking genius. MacArthur Fellowship, Nobel Prize, Kennedy Center TV show with a ludicrous, beribboned 'medal' from the President… There'd be no limit to the honors I am due…

But how likely is that? No. No, I'm not the problem here.


> why the false dilemma?

Golly, Raddy, I'm sorry you found the playful "Quiz" format too oppressively reductive… Breaks my heart to offend you that way.

But, see, Amy won't say what she expects when offered a full constellation of freedoms and opportunities. So I've been trying to whittle it down to just a few, easy-to-comprehend scenarios for her to consider... Questions of short words, never more than nine... Anything to make her say what's on her mind.

She won't do it.

She's perfectly welcome to select either of the tick boxes above, to blend her own hybrid, or to describe a distinct and ever-broadening Universe of possible outcomes from her beliefs.

Yet as you can see, she went inane & unresponsive:


> Zakat (obligatory charity) is
> only for Muslims

What the fuck, Amy? "Only for"?

Yes! It's A PRECEPT OF ISLAM. I said that. Charity is an essential part of Islam, just as "Feed the poor!" is an essential part of Christianity! Are you pretending that affirming my question answers it? Are you that dismissive of similarities between the faiths?

I think you oughta be… They demonstrate the puckering lunacy of your tightly-sphinctered rhetoric.


> How do you explain the number of
> Americans of Somali or Arab descent
> who have lived most or all of their
> lives exposed to "modernity's
> temptations" in the USofA and yet
> fallen into the clutches of IS
> or similar factions?

WHAT number?

That's not a rhetorical question, Ira. Answer me. How many are you talking about?

I doubt you'll respond specifically, because you never do, so I'll play the ball where it lies: You're truly concerned about "Americans of Somali or Arab descent who have lived most or all of their lives exposed to 'modernity's temptations' in the USofA and yet [fall] into the clutches of IS or similar factions."

I'm not worried about it. Ever been to South Central, Chicago's South Side or inner-city Oakland? We got serious problems here. You wanna stress over "falling into the clutches," go ahead. Religion ain't Ebola.

You've been here for years, IRA, but I've only been reading your comments carefully for weeks. You've never expressed a belief or opinion in straightforward, sincere language... Everything's a backhanded, bank-shot quibble. You can't say what you really mean.

OR...

…"American authorities conceded that they knew little about how a young man who grew up…

How's THAT for an expression of servility? "American authorities" are expected to know how everyone is living, and how their religious beliefs are playing out, at all times. And if they don't, they must (shamefully!) "concede" their ignorance.

And how dare they, right?

It's more likely that some beat reporter sidled up to a paperwork cop in the police station by the coffee machine as the story broke and asked 'Eddie, what was goin' on with that little weasel, anyway?' And Eddie reached for the non-dairy creamer and said 'Fuck if I know....'

An hour later it's on the internet: "American authorities conceded...."

You've never expressed a belief or opinion in straightforward, sincere language... Everything's a backhanded, bank-shot quibble. You can't say what you really mean.

Coming from you Crid, thats fucking hilarious

Will someone, ANYONE, say out loud what they're afraid of?

I'm begging here.

The American foreign policy elite is obsessed with the Middle East[…]

The region is an economic dwarf. Its combined GDP—even including oil—represents roughly 6 percent of world GDP. Its population is closer to 5 percent of world population, and its military forces are similarly unimpressive. […] No Middle Eastern state can project power outside the region—not Iran, which spends about $18 billion per year on defense, and not Saudi Arabia, despite its roughly $60 billion in annual military spending.

Nonetheless, three fears have turned this small, poor, weak region into the central focus of U.S. foreign policy: oil, Israel and terrorism. Each of these concerns merits attention, but nowhere near the amount they have received over the last several decades.

…Ghost stories around the campfire, maybe?

Okay, Crid.

I've seen enough BS in public schools about incorporating the fantasies of religion to be wary of allowing any religious beliefs to disrupt the principle of equal treatment under the law. Sharia seems to be popular, and there are enough softheaded people in the USA to allow this here.
Once it's allowed, I fully expect people to kill each other over their fantasies here in the USA.

What I get from Amy is part of the story of the influences of Islam. What I get from you is that you want her to shut up, not elaborate further, and to accuse others of not getting a point is very Patrickian.

> BS in public schools about
> incorporating the fantasies
> of religion

???

This phenomenon is entirely new to me... It's certainly not been a topic here. I can't imagine that this is sincere.


> wary of allowing any religious
> beliefs to disrupt the principle
> of equal treatment under the law

??

This is all so wordy and dessicated. It's the kind of thing someone says when they've been caught in an indulgent fantasy, and were trying to pretend was for rational reflection rather than an emotional fulfillment.

I asked you guys what you were afraid of.

> Sharia seems to be popular

It "seems" to be? At least a decade after registering its Earthly presence in your conscious mind, that's your description of Sharia's appeal & penetration?... "Popular"?

Well... Popular like Taylor Swift, or popular like potable water? I.E., popular in a particular (and passing and silly) context, or popular like the dearest animal desire of every living person eight times a day? Who needs it?


> Once it's allowed

You think the practice of religion, even Islam, is presently "disallowed"? Do you imagine that your personal (and mild) cosmological tastes just happen to be sustained by an invisible (but dwindling) array of laws which constrain the believes of others, or which diminish your need to deal with them decently?

You understand that America is the most religious country in the world, right?


> What I get from Amy is part
> of the story of the influences
> of Islam.

No no... That's not what she says of her offerings. She says she "knows all about" Islam. That she's given it several hours of study every week for the last ten years. It's too late for you guys to go humble.


> you want her to shut up,
> not elaborate further

JEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZ
ZZZZuhhhSSSSSSSS

…Just as I of asked you today, and you let me down. What are you worried will happen here? And how will it go? The first comment offered two skeleton arguments, and one must describe your fears more closely than the other, but you decline to choose. Instead, Public schools religious belief disrupt popular law, sharia thang something. And then, in wonderful reflex of social puffery for yourself, a bit about how the man on the street is "softheaded."

This is the weird week for this argument, because you seem to think it's an infectious disease... That dastardly agents will bring radical Islam (and you'll acknowledge no other kind) to the United States, where the sharpest, strongest people who ever lived will will find its infantile strictures novel and gratifying… As if growing up in modernity had NOT taught us to contain and disregard the idiot impulses around which primitive lives are built. (Americans are "softheaded," right? Other ones, I mean, not your proudly worried selves.)


Like I said, ghost stories. You guys are sitting around the campfire, sugar-stoned on s'mores and choking on the smoke of green deciduous twigs. There's fang-toothed SNIPES out there!

Flynne is a fucking sensible woman, y'know? Tough. Cocktail dresses. New jobs when she wants them. Gorgeous, disciplined, musical daughters. SHE'S PACKING HEAT. I don't know her well, but in the circles she moves in, and seven circles around those, she has nothing to fear from Islam. When someone like Flynne offers in a comment that "They're here," the only conceivable explanation is that she's enjoying a daydream.

In a world of real but indistinct threats, like Ebola, daydreams are a comforting distraction.


So, guys, go crazy with that stuff. The rest of us remain free to ridicule.

Ok, rereading... You're sincerely concerned that Sharia will become law in America.

Who will want this to happen?

Oh, AAAAAAAAAAA-MMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYY.....

These are your new friends, huh?

Christians must share the true gospel when witnessing to Muslims and help them compare Jesus vs. Muhammad. Aspiring missionaries should revisit how to become a missionary and frontline missions and Bible organizations must adapt faster to the changing spiritual landscape.

The "changing spiritual landscape."

We haven't seen this kind of garage-band foolishness since July, when Lobster's friend was publishing "scientific journals" from Harriman, Tennessee.

Is this a joke?

She's fuckin' with me, right?