Friday, March 28, 2008
Mark,
where is this video playing? where did you find it/how did you hear about it?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 02:40 AMSlugFest,
Where have you been hiding?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 02:46 AM“Where have you been hiding?”
Under a rock, apparently. Apologies!
And now I’m off to catch up on the news.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 02:58 AMIslam is islam...no moderate, only silence. Silence is consent. Brilliant little start. I’ll call this Dutchman a brave hero. Willing to risk his life to preserve his country. A concept seemingly lost to most of the eurocowards, fiddling away while the monster grows to kill them.
Tsk, tsk.Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 04:41 AMMark, Your “no comment” tag seems to intimate that you support this film be censored.
So Slugger has freedom of speech on the internet, but showing this film is “abusing” it?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 05:29 AMI suppose we are all inured to the kind of violence that was on the video. Never mind the army getting into schools to recruit vulnerable young people, let them see that and they will have an enemy for life.
As someone who would be from the left of the equation, and supposedly more tolerant, I would have to say that there must be a no holds barred conversation as to where we are going in Europe right now. Multiculturalism has clearly failed!
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 08:12 AMjaysus thats a bit strong
a depressing video but i can’t but help think that it’s easy enough to cobble this sort of thing together to put across a racist agenda.
As i have said in other threads i’m seeing an increase of the swastika being scrawled across the city along with the “keep ulster white”, “this is belfast not bangladesh” “they didn’t die for a multicultural ulster” etc etc.
We have to take a very firm stance on the growth and spread of such like.
Dialogue is the only way forward because in a vacuum, there are those that will step in to ferment the type of extremism (religious, racist or otherwise) seen in this video.Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 10:35 AMHow exactly is this an “abuse” of new media, or any media?
Is Islam now to be elevated beyond criticism?
For half a century we’ve enjoyed the freedom to criticise, condemn and yes ridicule any institution we so desire; the Catholic Church, the British royal family and presidents of the US among many, many other institutions have all had to endure massive scrutiny, they have been lampooned and viciously attacked and they’ve just had to put up with it.
That is exactly as it should be.
Can someone please explain to me why one of the most misogynistic, anti-Semitic and homophobic philosophies on planet earth should get such a free pass that to dare even illuminate its wilder teachings gets condemned as “racist” (despite it not even being a race!)?
Mark, you’ll have to come back again old son and explain your “abuse” and “no comment” comments.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 11:04 AMA good message, but overdone by cut and paste jobs from newspapers and youtube. It would not be too difficult to cobble together a montage of Christian leaders inciting hatred, of soldiers (e.g. Serbian and Croatian), kissing crosses and being blessed by priests before killing Muslim civilians. The terror in Srebrenica and Eastern Bosnia, where Muslims were subjected to a campaign of genocide (which been judicially established, so I am not cheapening the concept) equals anything carried out by bearded lunatics who understand nothing.
Islam is far more complicated than terror and hate, although it clearly includes that. The majority of Muslims are very tolerant, and having spent over 5 years living in a predominantly Muslim city, I can vouch for that first-hand.
However, there are clearly many dangerous depraved people out there and the issue needs to be addressed, as history shows that small groups of fanatics can seize control while the rest of us carry on oblivious.
NB
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 11:09 AM1.5 billion people in the world follow Islam.
Thats 1/5 of the planets population.
If they were all bent on killing the rest of us, we wouldn’t be alive today to see these things or type these words.
One might have thought that of all places in the world, we might have seen that identifying an entire group with the views of a part of the group might not be a sensible or indeed, accurate thing to do.
But then again…
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 11:29 AM“Islam is far more complicated than terror and hate”
Indeed.
Now - lets think whose purposes it serves to depict the entirety of Islam with hatred of the West and ask 2 questions:
Which powerful group would like to bring on a world-engulfing conflict leading to “The Rapture”?
What are sane people going to do about the latter group of lunatics (with access to the most powerful destructive force in the world) AS WELL AS those lunatics who use their own bodies and explosives to cause destruction?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 11:43 AMThis is utterly disastrous, it’s like a modern day counter-reformation.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 12:01 PMIm not against this video being posted up, although I cannot see what purpose it will serve bar bringing the bigots out of the woodwork. To me all religion is the curse of human kind and I could have if I had the skill or the cash, have made a similar movie about any one of the world major region’s. Indeed the record of islam compared to Christianity is almost pacifist. As a former Archbishop of Canterbury once said, without Christianity there would have been no Auschwitz although I am a little surprised Mark felt it necessary to blog this piece.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:03 PM“Islam is far more complicated than terror and hate”
Nobody would deny that, and the Catholic Church is far more complicated than paedophile priests and the presidency of the United States is much more complicated than a refuge for boozed out frat boys but there have been gazillions of instances in the recent past when they have been lampooned and caricatured as such. Both the Catholic Church and the US presidency merely had to take the hard knocks and get on with it.
Why should Islam be any different?
As someone who loves and cherishes my many Muslim friends and family members I assure you that the best thing that could happen to Islam is for it to be subject to exactly the same sort of scrutiny that any other institution in the modern world has to undergo.
If you are confident and secure in your religious beliefs then you can have no objection to strong vigorous criticism, the Catholics have discovered that so have Bible believing Christians among others, why should Islam get a free pass?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:08 PM*Indeed the record of islam compared to Christianity is almost pacifist.*
The Hindus of India might quibble a bit with that Mick, I’m no apologist for Christianity but let’s not lose the run of ourselves with regard to Islam’s record.
By the way despite the Archbishop’s coments it’s not entirely clear how you can link the activities of the specifically anti-Christian Nazis, who chose as their banner the pagan symbol of the broken cross, with Christianity.
Hitler and the Nazis weren’t Christians, any more than his fellow mass murderer the Marxist Stalin was, nor indeed was Stalin’s fellow Marxist, Mao Tse Tung (nor Pol Pot) a Buddhist.
I know atheists always like to pin the blame for atrocities committed by fellow atheists on religion but historical facts prove otherwise.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:22 PMThis exact same video could have been made about whack job christians or Israeli’s or white supremacisits
So lets just accept it for what it is a piece of propaganda designed to instill hate for moslems and ignore it as such
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:22 PMHarry
Those werent atheists they just werent deists
they were their own religion and as all religions are want to do they used violence to advance their dogma
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 01:24 PMSteve, I take people as they define themselves, the Nazis and the Communists, the world’s biggest mass murderers by a long chalk, defined themselves as either anti-Christian or positively atheistic.
You can delude yourself that in fact they were members of some sort of religion, that is your prerogative, the historical fact however is that atheists were responsible for the most horrific genocides in history, bar none.
As regards your other point, many pieces of propaganda have been made about whack job Christians and Israelis but I somehow doubt that anyone would say that they were “abuses” of the media.
I ask the same question again; why do so many people object only when it is the absurdities of Islam that are catalogued?
Why do militant secularists give Islam such an easy ride?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 02:56 PMAs someone who loves and cherishes my many Muslim friends and family members I assure you that the best thing that could happen to Islam is for it to be subject to exactly the same sort of scrutiny that any other institution in the modern world has to undergo.
Harry
Harry I totally agree with you on the above.
One of the problems with the Qu’ran it is not published in the majority of the languages spoken by the worlds muslims and if it is it is in a poor translation. So most muslims have never read it in its original and as you wrote ‘If you are confident and secure in your religious beliefs then you can have no objection to strong vigorous criticism,’It is a sad fact that millions of muslims know very little about their faith beyond it being traditional. If one brings up the question of translations of the Qur’an with islamic scholars and the aforementioned fact that even the call to pray is in Arabic and thus is not understood in Turkey and the far east etc, the doors slam shut very quickly. For as used to be the way with the Catholic church these ‘experts’ power and influence entails keeping the masses in ignorance about what is actually in the Qur’an.
Runcies point is without Christianity the pogroms and camps that the Jews faced would have been unlikely, for example until recent times [due to Isael] muslims did not persecute jews as they were shown in a good light in the Qu’ran.
Whereas in Christian societies persecuting became almost traditional due to the Jews being blamed for the death of Jesus. [which in itself is interesting as Jesus was a jew] Thus when hitler came along he was building on a half built house of prejudice
All the best
Mick
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 03:13 PMI honestly don’t think the absurdities of Islam are any less absurd than those of Christianity. I say this as one who had a prawn open sandwich at lunch. :)
Nor is my problem with demonstrating these absurdities born of either Dhimmism (sic) or fear.
It is simply a matter of highlighting the inherent difficulties with members of one major world denomination trying to project the belief that all the members of another denomination would if they had the opportunity, fly planes into skyscrapers.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 03:14 PMI take your point, there is no doubt that much of the vile anti-semitism which exists in the Muslim world today can trace its disgusting roots back to European Christians, but given that we in “The West” can clearly now see the sheer repulsiveness of our ancestors’ bigotry it is surely our duty to point out to people, in shall we say less enlightened societies, the folly of repeating our grave mistakes.
Of all the people in the world history demands that we in western Europe should be to the fore in condemning religious intolerance wherever it rears its nasty head, particularly if once again it is the Jews of all people who are bearing the brunt of this ugliness.
We do Muslims and the Muslim world no favours by making excuses for them, in the same we in Europe had to have our noses shoved into the depravities of the death camps before we finally learned the simple lesson of tolerance, surely it is no sin to point out to our Muslim friends the error of repeating our awful mistakes?
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 03:44 PMHarry
If we Judge any religion by its fundamentalist whackjobs then none will come out looking any better than ISLAM did in this videoWhat about american christians shooting and bombing abortion clinics and federal buildings?
My second point is tha Nazism became the religion, marxism became the religion, not that they belonged to one of the recorded accepted sects of organised religion
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 03:54 PM“...trying to project the belief that all the members of another denomination would if they had the opportunity, fly planes into skyscrapers.”
But when 10% of said religion cheer when said planes ARE flown into buildings, we stick our heads in the sand at our own peril.
“surely it is no sin to point out to our Muslim friends the error of repeating our awful mistakes?”
Novel approach Harry. I like it!
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 04:00 PMMick Hall: “Runcies point is without Christianity the pogroms and camps that the Jews faced would have been unlikely, for example until recent times [due to Isael] muslims did not persecute jews as they were shown in a good light in the Qu’ran.”
The Koran is, at best, ambivalent regarding Jews, calling them “People of the book” in some parts and justifying their slaughter in others, such as the destruction of the Jewish tribe of Quraiza. The Koran contain many hostile denunciations of Jews, as a matter of fact.
Other little gems from the Prophet…
Koran-Sura 5:51: O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them
for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the
unjust people.5.82 : Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and
you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and
monks among them and because they do not behave proudly.Surah 9.27: Fight against such as those to whom the Scriptures were given [Jews and Christians]...until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.
Further reading
http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/25/41/
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 04:26 PMCharles in Texas
I think you are simply generalizing, what should the japanese have done when well over 50% of americans[US[] cheered when your nation dropped N bombs on two Japanese cities and killed tens of thousands of women and children, blanket all americans as murdering lunatics. Or should they have attempted to get these things into proportion as indeed they did, and learn from the mistakes of the past.
Of course it is foolish to put our heads in the sand when it comes to the bin Ladens of this world, but to categorize all muslims as terrorists is just plain daft. It also gives Laden a status he does not deserve.
Posted by on Mar 28, 2008 @ 04:32 PM
