If we did not allow Muslim foreigners into the United States...........

[Kondor3]

"...What about the American soldiers in Iraq who raped and murdered an Iraqi girl, and murdered her whole family? Do you think that kind of thing is an isolated incident?"

Did they rape and murder the girl, and murder her family, in the name of their vision of God?

If not, then, we have apples and oranges here... non sequitur, for comparison purposes.

 

[Pogo]

There is one complication with such a simplistic and starry-eyed outlook...

Islam encourages its adherents to wage Holy War and to come to the defense of all their co-religionists under a variety of conditions and circumstances, including simple criticism of its precepts and practices and its founder.

No other surviving mainstream religion contains such enjoinders which remain operative on a broad-spectrum basis across their domains.

This difference renders Islam far more susceptible to use as a Spiritual Rationalization to wage war and to kill and to commit violence than its counterparts across the globe.

This, in turn, serves to present Islam as a Poison Pill and Warrior's Creed and Political System to the rest of the world, in the guise of a so-called Religion of Peace.

Your words are seductively attractive, and all people of goodwill are likely to wish that this was true, but the Realists of the world realize that there is something not-quite-right with that blanket statement.

Or so it seems to this observer...

This is the same tired BS argument over and over and over and over and over. We've heard it for years: "when they do it they're following their book; when we do it it's some wackaloon not following the book". You guys want it both ways: we collectively aren't responsible for a few deviants but they collectively are. That argument has never been valid, and doesn't fix itself by getting repeating it over and over.

You can run the same bad play out on the field again and again; it's still a bad play and it's still going to fail. What is it they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

It's the same argument as "well, my religion is 'the one true faith'" (pronounced by each one). Sure it is. Mine is too.

No, Pogo, it's true I'm afraid.

When Christendom goes to war, it does so in violation of the precepts taught by its Founder.

When Islam goes to war, it does in in accordance with the precepts taught by its Founder.

Big difference.

There exist a fair number of people of goodwill who are so deeply committed to Religious Tolerance across the board and in treating all belief systems equally that they are blinded to the differences and the resultant risks and dangers and susceptibilities.

We perceive this differently and I will have to be content with that.

All you're doing now is restating what I just said: "Us good, them bad", based on your own interpretation of somebody else's book (or even books). That's more than a little presumptuous, to put it kindly.

 

[Pogo]

"...What about the American soldiers in Iraq who raped and murdered an Iraqi girl, and murdered her whole family? Do you think that kind of thing is an isolated incident?"

Did they rape and murder the girl, and murder her family, in the name of their vision of God?

If not, then, we have apples and oranges here... non sequitur, for comparison purposes.

Scott Roeder and Father John Earl and Eric Rudolph and James Kopp (he of the ironically named "Lambs of Christ) and the Reverend Paul Jennings Hill and Michael Griffin certainly did. So did the quartet of Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons and Kaye Wiggins who called their act of terrorism "a gift for Jesus on his birthday".

I don't get why this parallel should be elusive. Some of us are trying to draw distinctions that have no difference. Religious violence is religious violence, period. We don't get some kind of waiver because it's "our side".

 

[Kondor3]

"...All you're doing now is restating what I just said: 'Us good, them bad', based on your own interpretation of somebody else's book (or even books). That's more than a little presumptuous, to put it kindly."

You are correct.

All either of us is doing now is repeating our previous assertions.

I have read both the Bible and the Q'uran and some measure of supplemental high-quality analysis and narration and have contemplated these things and current events sufficiently so as to have formed the logical and sensible opinions that I expressed earlier.

I am no scholar in such matters and it has been more than a decade since I undertook that analysis and I have probably forgotten by now half or more of the details that I gathered and weighed as relevant back then.

But I have managed to retain (in memory) both the macro-level conclusions that I reached back then and the most salient points that led me in that direction.

Both belief-systems share the historical narration of the Old Testament and assign it varying weights, however, in order to determine whether one or the other is more susceptible to mischief...

Within the domain of the Primary Narratives on which both systems are actually based (and which supercede any teachings to the contrary in the Old Testament), the challenge would be to:

1. find for us all instances in the New Testament in which the Founder of Christianity has explicitly said that God wants his followers to kill in His name or to advance The Faith or defend the Faithful.

2. find for us all instances in the Q'uran in which the Founder of Islam has explicitly said that God wants his followers to kill in His name or to advance The Faith or defend the Faithful.

Then tally the results of (1) and (2) and present those numbers to us.

You and I both already know just how lopsided that tally is going to be, don't we?

And that doesn't even take into account the incessant calls to Domination and Punishment of the Unbeliever and the Infidel to be found in the Q'uran which do not exist in the New Testament.

Nor the promises of Paradise for any Believer-Warrior who dies in the service of Islam.

In the era of the Crusades, clerics promised Christians the same thing - but they had to squeeze juicy rationalizations out of thin air, in contradiction to the core teachings of their Founder.

At any point in the history of Islam, clerics promise Muslims the same thing - but they don't have to bother squeezing-out bull<bleep> rationalizations - it's all written down in black and white, by the Founder himself.

I perceive you to be a good fellow and I perceive the best possible and most admirable intentions and motives in attempting to hold-the-line with respect to Religious Tolerance or Religious Equivalency in this context, so I do not sense a Fifth Columnist or Apologist mindset at work in you, as I have sensed in several of our colleagues.

But - rightly or wrongly - I perceive a dangerous naivete in this narrow context that I will always challenge, because I see great danger in continuing to walk through life without the good sense to keep an extra-close eye on this alien and ultimately hostile belief system.

This is not xenophobia on my part... it's xeno-realism... or so I see it.

Your mileage, of course, may vary...

 

[Kondor3]

"...What about the American soldiers in Iraq who raped and murdered an Iraqi girl, and murdered her whole family? Do you think that kind of thing is an isolated incident?"

Did they rape and murder the girl, and murder her family, in the name of their vision of God?

If not, then, we have apples and oranges here... non sequitur, for comparison purposes.

Scott Roeder and Father John Earl and Eric Rudolph and James Kopp (he of the ironically named "Lambs of Christ) and the Reverend Paul Jennings Hill and Michael Griffin certainly did. So did the quartet of Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons and Kaye Wiggins who called their act of terrorism "a gift for Jesus on his birthday".

I don't get why this parallel should be elusive. Some of us are trying to draw distinctions that have no difference. Religious violence is religious violence, period. We don't get some kind of waiver because it's "our side".

It's not a denial that such violence exists.

It's not giving 'our side' a pass.

It is recognizing that one side is far more prone to such things than the other.

Prone.

Susceptible.

More likely.

Contains more of the ingredients that can more quickly cause that to materialize.

Because of dangerous permissions that have been built into one of those systems.

----------

Oh, and, by the way, are you reciting the names of the US soldiers who committed such acts in Iraq, in the name of their vision of God, or are you showing us unrelated names pertaining to religious violence here in the US?

 

[Pogo]

"...All you're doing now is restating what I just said: 'Us good, them bad', based on your own interpretation of somebody else's book (or even books). That's more than a little presumptuous, to put it kindly."

You are correct.

All either of us is doing now is repeating our previous assertions.

I have read both the Bible and the Q'uran and some measure of supplemental high-quality analysis and narration and have contemplated these things and current events sufficiently so as to have formed the logical and sensible opinions that I expressed earlier.

I am no scholar in such matters and it has been more than a decade since I undertook that analysis and I have probably forgotten by now half or more of the details that I gathered and weighed as relevant back then.

But I have managed to retain (in memory) both the macro-level conclusions that I reached back then and the most salient points that led me in that direction.

Both belief-systems share the historical narration of the Old Testament and assign it varying weights, however, in order to determine whether one or the other is more susceptible to mischief...

Within the domain of the Primary Narratives on which both systems are actually based (and which supercede any teachings to the contrary in the Old Testament), the challenge would be to:

1. find for us all instances in the New Testament in which the Founder of Christianity has explicitly said that God wants his followers to kill in His name or to advance The Faith or defend the Faithful.

2. find for us all instances in the Q'uran in which the Founder of Islam has explicitly said that God wants his followers to kill in His name or to advance The Faith or defend the Faithful.

Then tally the results of (1) and (2) and present those numbers to us.

You and I both already know just how lopsided that tally is going to be, don't we?

And that doesn't even take into account the incessant calls to Domination and Punishment of the Unbeliever and the Infidel to be found in the Q'uran which do not exist in the New Testament.

Nor the promises of Paradise for any Believer-Warrior who dies in the service of Islam.

In the era of the Crusades, clerics promised Christians the same thing - but they had to squeeze juicy rationalizations out of thin air, in contradiction to the core teachings of their Founder.

At any point in the history of Islam, clerics promise Muslims the same thing - but they don't have to bother squeezing-out bull<bleep> rationalizations - it's all written down in black and white, by the Founder himself.

I perceive you to be a good fellow and I perceive the best possible and most admirable intentions and motives in attempting to hold-the-line with respect to Religious Tolerance or Religious Equivalency in this context, so I do not sense a Fifth Columnist or Apologist mindset at work in you, as I have sensed in several of our colleagues.

But - rightly or wrongly - I perceive a dangerous naivete in this narrow context that I will always challenge, because I see great danger in continuing to walk through life without the good sense to keep an extra-close eye on this alien and ultimately hostile belief system.

This is not xenophobia on my part... it's xeno-realism... or so I see it.

Your mileage, of course, may vary...

I'm really really really not interested in tallying books. That's a fool's errand, since as we've both noted, zealots will commit what they want whether the book literally prescribes it or not. This is a non starter. Once again, selective interpretation, and it's getting tiring.

 

[Kondor3]

"...I'm really really really not interested in tallying books. That's a fool's errand, since as we've both noted, zealots will commit what they want whether the book literally prescribes it or not. This is a non starter. Once again, selective interpretation, and it's getting tiring."

My contention is that one Belief System is far more prone to being cited as the basis for violence than its peers.

You challenge that contention.

I suggest that we put it to the test and quantify that basis.

You decline, citing the best subjective rationale that you can muster at the moment.

I wanted to quantify the assertion and translate that assertion into measurable fact.

You prefer to hang onto your preconceived notions rather than establish a baseline.

Noted.

You're right... that is, indeed, quite tiresome.

Not to mention allowing you to remain safe-and-snug inside that preconceived notion without putting your notion to the test.

No skin off my nose... OK by me...

Thanks, anyway.

 

[Pogo]

Did they rape and murder the girl, and murder her family, in the name of their vision of God?

If not, then, we have apples and oranges here... non sequitur, for comparison purposes.

Scott Roeder and Father John Earl and Eric Rudolph and James Kopp (he of the ironically named "Lambs of Christ) and the Reverend Paul Jennings Hill and Michael Griffin certainly did. So did the quartet of Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons and Kaye Wiggins who called their act of terrorism "a gift for Jesus on his birthday".

I don't get why this parallel should be elusive. Some of us are trying to draw distinctions that have no difference. Religious violence is religious violence, period. We don't get some kind of waiver because it's "our side".

It's not a denial that such violence exists.

It's not giving 'our side' a pass.

It is recognizing that one side is far more prone to such things than the other.

Prone.

Susceptible.

More likely.

Contains more of the ingredients that can more quickly cause that to materialize.

Because of dangerous permissions that have been built into one of those systems.

----------

Well then you have the same assignment I gave yesterday's troll: show some numbers. Numbers of actual events, not what some book says. I've already provided a few; build on that.

Oh, and, by the way, are you reciting the names of the US soldiers who committed such acts in Iraq, in the name of their vision of God, or are you showing us unrelated names pertaining to religious violence here in the US?

None of those are soldiers; they're all terrorists or murderers who acted overtly on (their interpretation of) Christianism. A small sample.

This is why I keep saying it's a distinction without a difference. When you have people maimed by a bomb or killed by a bullet (or the case of Fr. Earl, attacked with an axe (here's another)), the victims are just as dead, just as maimed, and the act is just as wrong.

Trying to excuse one by disowning the violence prescribed in one book while condemning the other by highlighting the same thing in another, that's just selective reasoning. I'm really not impressed by that tactic.

 

[Kondor3]

"...Well then you have the same assignment I gave yesterday's troll: show some numbers. Numbers of actual events, not what some book says. I've already provided a few; build on that..."

No problem, Pogo...

Read 'em and weep...

List of Islamic terrorist attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...None of those are soldiers; they're all terrorists or murderers who acted overtly on (their interpretation of) Christianism. A small sample..."

And here I thought that you were going to treat us to an example of US (Christian) soldiers in Iraq who raped and murdered in the name of their God or their Religion... my bad.

As to the list you've served-up, however... strip-out the simple homicides for us and focus upon Acts of Terror in the name of the Christian Vision of God, or in support or defense of fellow Christians, and then you'll have an apples-to-apples basis for comparison.

"...This is why I keep saying it's a distinction without a difference..."

I see that oh-so-differently...

 

[S.J.]

You have yet to describe my type

You're doing a fine job of that yourself.

 

[Beachboy]

Islam is the scourge of mankind. There is nothing legitimate about a so-called religion that calls on it's followers to kill their fellow man. What kind of sick sonofabitch defends that kind of perversion?

I'll tell you what kind, someone with an agenda. Someone who wants the world to believe that Islam is some kind of world saving message, instead of a violent group of barbarians who murder innocent people in an effort to accomplish their goals.

We gave Muslims a break after 9/11. We let it go. We should have known when they wanted to build a Mosque at ground zero they were using American freedoms to accomplish their agenda. This would be like the NAZI party building their office across the street from the Holocaust Museum. After the Boston Marathon bombings Americans saw the evil they were dealing with. Now the American people and the Government will be putting pressure on these barbarians. They will either assimilate, leave, or be removed - all nice and legal. Sounds good to me!

 

[Pogo]

"...Well then you have the same assignment I gave yesterday's troll: show some numbers. Numbers of actual events, not what some book says. I've already provided a few; build on that..."

No problem, Pogo...

Read 'em and weep...

List of Islamic terrorist attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"...None of those are soldiers; they're all terrorists or murderers who acted overtly on (their interpretation of) Christianism. A small sample..."

And here I thought that you were going to treat us to an example of US (Christian) soldiers in Iraq who raped and murdered in the name of their God or their Religion... my bad.

As to the list you've served-up, however... strip-out the simple homicides for us and focus upon Acts of Terror in the name of the Christian Vision of God, or in support or defense of fellow Christians, and then you'll have an apples-to-apples basis for comparison.

"...This is why I keep saying it's a distinction without a difference..."

I see that oh-so-differently...

1) I didn't mean a link to Wiki. I can do that myself (don't tell nobody but I often do). I meant a side-by-side comparison of comparable numbers. I've already posted about the proportion of Muslim terrorism (variously 2.5 and 6 percent, depending on the range); what we need is a comparison.

That is, we "need" it only if we're committed to wallowing in the idea that we're tallying scores in some kind of religion-versus-religion sports event, which is the OP's idea but not mine...

2) the solders in Iraq was somebody else's example, not mine. I'm sure there are worthy examples from various battlefields as well as domestic violence, but the names I tossed out were all perpetrators who by their own admission acted in the name of Xianity on some domestic religious principle.

.... Which again, see italics above, is not my point, it's just a comparison to disprove the fallacy. But there are no "simple homicides" in there; it's entirely made up of religion-based zealots who are confirmed as such, no Catholic pun intended. It's already apples to apples. I'm way ahead of you.

Why would I stack the deck? It's not like these people are hard to find, unfortunately.

3) Obviously we do see it differently. I see one religion pushing a primitive book of social mores of a way-bygone era with all kinds of weird ideas that some wacko fundamentalists take to heart and act out in extreme ways, and another religion pushing a primitive book of social mores of a way-bygone era with all kinds of weird ideas that some wacko fundamentalists take to heart and act out in extreme ways. See the difference? Me neither. The distinction is lost on me, but it's impossible to look at these two apples and not conclude they're both fountains of wacko.

 

[Kondor3]

I think we've exhausted this round, Pogo... we've both jumped through a couple of hoops and laid-out our positions... and neither of us is making any progress... so... 'til the next time we find ourselves tangling over Equivalency between Christianity and Islam... ;-)

 

[Pogo]

Islam is the scourge of mankind. There is nothing legitimate about a so-called religion that calls on it's followers to kill their fellow man. What kind of sick sonofabitch defends that kind of perversion?

I'll tell you what kind, someone with an agenda. Someone who wants the world to believe that Islam is some kind of world saving message, instead of a violent group of barbarians who murder innocent people in an effort to accomplish their goals.

We gave Muslims a break after 9/11. We let it go. We should have known when they wanted to build a Mosque at ground zero they were using American freedoms to accomplish their agenda. This would be like the NAZI party building their office across the street from the Holocaust Museum. After the Boston Marathon bombings Americans saw the evil they were dealing with. Now the American people and the Government will be putting pressure on these barbarians. They will either assimilate, leave, or be removed - all nice and legal. Sounds good to me!

I guess we were due for a reminder of what kind of wacko started this thread; this is as good an example as any. Again, no facts, just innuendo and out the other, along with the attendant mythology.

We did this before but it wasn't "Islam" building a mosque at Ground Zero; it was a specific congregation of Sufis building a cultural center in a building they were already using for prayer -- a congregation that has been in that neighborhood since the early 1980s. Even if we dumb ourselves down to the level where we believe a religion committed 9/11 (and that's a long way to dumb down), there were no Sufis involved; Sufis have in fact been victims of the same Wahabbist zealots as were purportedly the planners of 9/11.

Such is the pig-ignorant dependence on wispy emotion, as opposed to fact, that trolls like Belchboy live on. Actually understanding what's going on is just way too much trouble when you can pull out the Nazi card and play Freddie Fearmonger and dehumanize the target. Old as the fucking hills.

And then if that isn't hip-boot deep enough, Bigotboy then demonstrates where he's coming from again, bringing in a guilt-by-association with the Boston bombing; not because the perps committed a political act (they didn't), not because they were al Qaeda (they weren't) --- but solely because they were Jews. What's that? Oh yeah, Muslims. Whatever. Insert your scapegoat here, it works the same way every time.

But that's all stipulating, merely for the sake of argument, the fallacy that "a religion" commits violence rather than people. Once again, if we take that logic then we must also conclude that the list of perpetrators I just gave Kondor are irrelevant, because it was not them but Christianity that killed those doctors, maimed that nurse, bombed those buildings, etc.

That's if you want to use the same logic. Suit yourself.

 

[Pogo]

I think we've exhausted this round, Pogo... we've both jumped through a couple of hoops and laid-out our positions... and neither of us is making any progress... so... 'til the next time we find ourselves tangling over Equivalency between Christianity and Islam... ;-)

Just as a point of order, that's really not my quest.

My point is, IF we stipulate that "religion" is the sole catalyst of violence and thus lead ourselves to a comparison of this religion versus that one, THEN we must cite all the cases of Xian zealot violence that disprove that premise.

But that's not my premise in the first place; it's the OP's. I think it's a crock myself, but I'm willing to extend it to its logical conclusion just to show why it's a crock.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

I think we've exhausted this round, Pogo... we've both jumped through a couple of hoops and laid-out our positions... and neither of us is making any progress... so... 'til the next time we find ourselves tangling over Equivalency between Christianity and Islam... ;-)

Good job, Kondor.

 

[Pogo]

I think we've exhausted this round, Pogo... we've both jumped through a couple of hoops and laid-out our positions... and neither of us is making any progress... so... 'til the next time we find ourselves tangling over Equivalency between Christianity and Islam... ;-)

Good job, Kondor.

I uh, think you misread. But feel free to take up his points ...if you can.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Pogo, when you are ready for my league? I'll let you know. Until then? Practice...........

-Jeri

 

[Pogo]

Pogo, when you are ready for my league? I'll let you know. Until then? Practice...........

-Jeri

Ah, another nolo contendre. That's what I expected.

[takes victory lap]

 

[Kondor3]

Pogo, when you are ready for my league? I'll let you know. Until then? Practice...........

-Jeri

Ah, another nolo contendre. That's what I expected.

[takes victory lap]

Calling upon you to quantify the number of times permission is given by the Founder to commit violence in both the New Testament and the Q'uran, and then you backing away from such an invitation to quantify - most likely because you know the outcome just as well as I do - and then having you call for numbers related to Islamic terrorism - and then rejecting the link to the website - and then me tiring of the exchange - is hardly a 'nolo contendre' result.

You're looking at an Intermission - not a Conceding of Victory - so I wouldn't be too quick to lace-up those victory-lap sneakers just yet...