What Caused the Recent Bombings in London?

[Art]

Yes, I have. They don't compare.

Here's what the old testament says to do with non-believers

The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee

and religious tolerance

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him

and revenge

Thine eye shall not spare him: thou shalt exact life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot

The point being all religions are blood thirsty and cruel if taken to extremes and there are as many christian fundamentalists around as muslim fundamentalists.

It is patently wrong to paint muslims as some kind of defective people because of the Koran.

Muslims are real people just like the christians, jews or whatever on this forum and have the same share of vices and virtues. Their lives are just as valuable to them as yours is to you which is why I find it so galling whan people flippantly dismiss non-combatant muslims killed by western militaries as 'acceptable collateral damage'.

The justifiable outrage expressed by most contributors with regard to the bombs in London is to be commended but I fail to understand why there is not the same level of outrage when muslims are on the receiving end.

 

[Astronuc]

Ok...well, there was a lot more in that post relevant to that point. By taking it out of context, you implied that I don't question Christianity and I was relatively clear about saying that I do.

Russ, I have great respect for your opinions regarding non-technical (e.g. politics and social issues) subjects and I agree with you on most of your political views. Of course, I think you are a great engineer.

 

[Astronuc]

The justifiable outrage expressed by most contributors with regard to the bombs in London is to be commended but I fail to understand why there is not the same level of outrage when muslims are on the receiving end.

Then put me on record as condemning any violence against any innocent population. That is the principal reason that I oppose war, and in particular the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In my opinion, from their own words, members of the Bush administration reflect a callous indifference to the death of innocents.

 

[Anttech]

The justifiable outrage expressed by most contributors with regard to the bombs in London is to be commended but I fail to understand why there is not the same level of outrage when muslims are on the receiving end.

Aggreed...

 

[Hurkyl]

If I recall correctly, one of the main religous principles that drive Islamist extremism is that "The only just law is God's law". Violence against non-Fundamentalist nations (including other Muslim nations!) is justified, and even encouraged, because it's righting the injustice of man-made laws.

Another driving factor is that of "defending one's homeland" -- with a liberal interpretation of homeland, which includes territories that were once ruled by Muslims, and even territories that merely paid tribute to Muslim leaders!

 

[Art]

If I recall correctly, one of the main religous principles that drive Islamist extremism is that "The only just law is God's law". Violence against non-Fundamentalist nations (including other Muslim nations!) is justified, and even encouraged, because it's righting the injustice of man-made laws.

Another driving factor is that of "defending one's homeland" -- with a liberal interpretation of homeland, which includes territories that were once ruled by Muslims, and even territories that merely paid tribute to Muslim leaders!

Perhaps you could jog my memory and remind me which christian countries are currently being invaded and occupied by muslim troops?

 

[Anttech]

Perhaps you could jog my memory and remind me which christian countries are currently being invaded and occupied by muslim troops?

Cyprus, but that's for another day ;-)

 

[Hurkyl]

Perhaps you could jog my memory and remind me which christian countries are currently being invaded and occupied by muslim troops?

None. Why do you ask?

We do see Islamist "troops" striking out against "Christian" countries, however.

(Islamism and Islam are not synonyms)

 

[Art]

[edite: Art - we've been patient, but there are limits. Personal attacks are not acceptable.]......Russ please explain why you have taken it upon yourself to edit out my request to Hurkyl to show consistancy and condemn your posts attacking muslims (including 1,500,000 americans).
If you are embarassed by my drawing attention to your posts I suggest you think about what you have written before hitting the submit button.

Note to other readers of this forum just so as you know what we are dealing with here Russ has already deleted this message 3 times!

 

[Art]

None. Why do you ask?

Guess it proves the old adage then 'Action speaks louder than words'

 

[Hurkyl]

Guess it proves the old adage then 'Action speaks louder than words'

If you say so. Why do you bring it up?

 

[pallidin]

Ok everyone, let's make one thing clear.
How many times has the current U.S./Allied administration specifically directed lethal attacks against "innocents" ? Ummmmm... NONE.

How many times has Al-Qaeda done this? Hmmmm. I think I need my calculator now.

 

[Bilal]

I am so busy, but may be I have to join in this difficult time ...

First I express my sympathy to the families of the victims. I do believe that more than 99% of Muslims do not agree with such barbarism.

Now I just would like to present some general short comments:

- Muslims are 20% of the world and they are majority in 55 countries. They belong to different cultures, nations, races, languages ... they have different religious sectors, different history, different mentality ... the same as Christian or Buddhists. So it is silly to generalize against this large world based on what a tiny group of people do.

- Muslims are victims in Bosnia, Palestine, Thailand .. So it is silly again to use these as examples of Islamic terrorism! While it should be examples of the reason behind the mistrust between the West and the East.

- USA and UK left OBL free to invade Iraq... this assists Alqaeda terrorists to plan such bloody attacks.

- If Islam ask to annihilate the (non Muslims) how you could explain the fact that 10% of Arab today are Christian after 1300 years of Islamic rule? So why we did not hear about ‘’ annihilation of infidels’’ as the Crusaders did in Middle Ages or as NAZI (production of western civilization) did in 2WW.

- USA created “Wahabi Muslims’’ in 80s to fight the ‘’atheists Communists’’, so it is their mistake to give power to this tiny extremist and unpopular group in Islamic world. The supporters of this group counted by ten thousands among more than one billion Muslims (the same as the support of KKK among the American or the support of NeoNazi among the German). ...

 

[Art]

If you say so. Why do you bring it up?

In reference to your quote. Just seeing how it compared with how things are being played out in the real world.[deleted]

 

[Bilal]

What about bombing of Baghdad and murdering of ten thousands of innocent Iraqi people based on lies? Or they are not count?

Unfortunately you can not claim that Bush and Blair are higher morally than OBL. Instead to invade Iraq they should finish Alqaeda first and many Muslims will support them completely. They have enough reasons to fight till the last member in Alqaeda , but their dirty war in Iraq changed everything completely. They just want to take the advantage from terrorism for their ‘’hidden agenda’’.

Ok everyone, let's make one thing clear.
How many times has the current U.S./Allied administration specifically directed lethal attacks against "innocents" ? Ummmmm... NONE.

How many times has Al-Qaeda done this? Hmmmm. I think I need my calculator now.

 

[Bilal]

I born as Muslim but I am not religious. This means in the eyes of OBL and his supporters I am not considered as Muslim.

I am willing to discuss about this topic. You claim that you read Koran and you can not compare it with Old Testament, so show me where the Koran encourage the terrorism and I will answer honestly?

Yes, I have. They don't compare.

 

[Hurkyl]

Just seeing how it compared with how things are being played out in the real world.

I'm not seeing it. How does asking about Muslims invading Christian countries have any bearing on the driving forces behind Islamist extremism?


Bilal: don't forget the murdering of innocent Iraqis by their fellow Muslims too! Surely attacks in which they are the target are at least as worthy of attention as attacks in which they were collateral damage? (whether or not you believe that one of the goals of the invasion was to make Iraq a better country for Iraqis)

 

[pallidin]

What about bombing of Baghdad and murdering of ten thousands of innocent Iraqi people based on lies? Or they are not count?

Unfortunately you can not claim that Bush and Blair are higher morally than OBL. Instead to invade Iraq they should finish Alqaeda first and many Muslims will support them completely. They have enough reasons to fight till the last member in Alqaeda , but their dirty war in Iraq changed everything completely. They just want to take the advantage from terrorism for their ‘’hidden agenda’’.

Hmmm... I was under the impression that the U.S. led coalition invasion of Iraq specifically targeted military interests and personnel.
Can you offer any evidence of a specific, directed attack on pure civilians?
I would be the FIRST to cry foul.

In contrast, Al-Qaeda seems to thrive on blowing apart 3-year old children and other innocents, be it in Iraq, London or anywhere else.

 

[Bilal]

Dear pallidin,

Do you think that UK and USA care about the number of their victims in Iraq? Could you ask first Bush and Blaire why they reject to count “officially” the civilian victims in Iraq by the occupation forces?

I do not like to make comparison between what the hell Alqaeda and those trash terrorists do with what UK and USA doing. Those people doing these attacks in the name of Islam, so I will never forgive them, I wish they will be annihilated completely and soon… they gave dirty image for our nations.

UK and USA is quiet long story and it is your problem if you do not know what the type of crimes they doing in our region since decades.

Here are some western links about the crimes in Iraq (what we see in ME media –including documentary video tapes is much horrible!):


Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps
Sunday July 3, 2005
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1520136,00.html


Robert Fisk homepage :

Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo-American Aggression in Iraq
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page1.htm

http://www.iraqvictims.com/

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq
Min Max
22787
25814


http://www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/iraq/022204_hidden_victims_of_iraqs_war.htm

"We are not talking about one disaster. When people - and America - talk about 9/11, it is one disaster they have been talking about for three years. But there are ten to 15 9/11s that happened to this country."
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/names.htm

Named and identified victims of the war on Iraq
In remembrance
September 2004
This table lists the names of 3,029 civilians killed as a result of the US-led military intervention in Iraq up to September 12th 2004. This collection was compiled by members of the Iraq Body Count project (IBC), using a wide range of sources, primarily press and media reports. Approximately 2,000 of the names were supplied by Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi researcher who directed an on-the-ground, door-to-door survey undertaken by 150 Iraqi volunteers in the Summer of 2003 (http://civilians.info/iraq/), in collaboration with the US-based Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) directed by Marla Ruzicka (http://www.civicworldwide.org/).

Hmmm... I was under the impression that the U.S. led coalition invasion of Iraq specifically targeted military interests and personnel.
Can you offer any evidence of a specific, directed attack on pure civilians?
I would be the FIRST to cry foul.

In contrast, Al-Qaeda seems to thrive on blowing apart 3-year old children and other innocents, be it in Iraq, London or anywhere else.

 

[Bilal]

All what happen now in Iraq is responsibility of Bush-Blaire ... they promised to stabilize this country within 3 months of occupation, but it became the worst country in the region. We never hear about Zarqawi or AL qaeda in Iraq till the Anglo-American invasion...

USA and UK are not charitable organization to lose their soldiers and to waste their money for the eyes of Iraqi people! Saddam is bad but surely he is not the worse dictator, may be Karimuv (personal friend of Bush) is classified as the worse by human right organizations since many years. ...

Do not forget that all wars started for creating permanent peace! Even Hitler invaded Europe to stabilize it and to convert it to peaceful paradise.

Wars create only more wars and no civilized human believe in wars.

I'm not seeing it. How does asking about Muslims invading Christian countries have any bearing on the driving forces behind Islamist extremism?


Bilal: don't forget the murdering of innocent Iraqis by their fellow Muslims too! Surely attacks in which they are the target are at least as worthy of attention as attacks in which they were collateral damage? (whether or not you believe that one of the goals of the invasion was to make Iraq a better country for Iraqis)

 

[russ_watters]

Russ, I have great respect for your opinions regarding non-technical (e.g. politics and social issues) subjects and I agree with you on most of your political views. Of course, I think you are a great engineer.

We're ok - I'm just opinionated.

 

[russ_watters]

I am willing to discuss about this topic. You claim that you read Koran and you can not compare it with Old Testament, so show me where the Koran encourage the terrorism and I will answer honestly?

I did not say the Koran encourages terrorism, I said it is easy to interpret the Koran in such a way as to allow/justify it. You may think the difference is subtle, but it is an important one.

However, I'm not going to do much more discussion here. This has turned into a call-Russ-names-fest. No, it wasn't you, but the whole tone of the thread has dropped beyond repair.

 

[quetzalcoatl9]

I did not say the Koran encourages terrorism, I said it is easy to interpret the Koran in such a way as to allow/justify it. You may think the difference is subtle, but it is an important one.

Perhaps the main difference is that in Islam there is the notion of "jihad", which has two main meanings (according to wikipedia):

Muslims often refer to two meanings of jihad by citing a hadith recorded by Imam Baihaqi and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (even though its isnad is categorized as "weak"):

* "lesser (outer) jihad" — a military struggle, i.e. a "holy war"
* "greater (inner) jihad" — the struggle of personal self-improvement against the self's base desires

This leaves the door open to the possibility of violence, depending upon how one (or Islamic authorities) interprets the meaning of "jihad". There is no such notion in the new testament of the christian bible. Infact, Jesus was a figure of peace and those who used christianity as a source of violence (such as during the Crusades) were actually going against the teachings of Jesus.

And, regardless of how one may interpret "jihad", is the fact that Mohammed was himself a military leader, which many see as an indication that terrorism and Islam will always be intrinsically linked, unless the Islamic faith were to undergo some kind of reformation.

 

[russ_watters]

One last thing I missed before. I didn't directly respond to this second sentence:

Yes but russ you still need to keep an open mind. You cannot condemn an entire religion because of this.

I did not and do not condemn the entire religion.

 

[Hurkyl]

Wars create only more wars and no civilized human believe in wars.

It's a pretty thought, but it sounds like wishful thinking to me. Even within civilized societies we need things like police and swat teams: I've not really seen a convincing argument that war is something civilized society can abandon all together.

 

[Evo]

And, regardless of how one may interpret "jihad", is the fact that Mohammed was himself a military leader, which many see as an indication that terrorism and Islam will always be intrinsically linked, unless the Islamic faith were to undergo some kind of reformation.

Funny you should mention that, but I was thinking earlier that it's time for serious reformation. The change will have to come from within. Is there a movement among Muslims to reform the religion and get rid of the negative aspects?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Funny you should mention that, but I was thinking earlier that it's time for serious reformation. The change will have to come from within. Is there a movement among Muslims to reform the religion and get rid of the negative aspects?

I don't think there really are any negative aspects of the Koran. It all depends on the interpretation. There are and have been so many different sects of the religion with their own philosophies and histories that you can't help but expect there will be people who see the religion differantly. There are sects that are as peaceful as buddhists.

 

[SOS2008]

I born as Muslim but I am not religious. This means in the eyes of OBL and his supporters I am not considered as Muslim.

I am willing to discuss about this topic. You claim that you read Koran and you can not compare it with Old Testament, so show me where the Koran encourage the terrorism and I will answer honestly?

Though this is going OT, I know it has been posted several times that the three major religions share similar beliefs up to Abraham (in other words, the Old Testament). The old law, for example as quoted earlier by another member - an eye for an eye, is still a belief in Islam for this reason--though not typically practiced in exchange for greater rewards later. I agree with Bilal that the Koran most certainly can be compared with the Old Testament, as well as the Torah.

 

[quetzalcoatl9]

Funny you should mention that, but I was thinking earlier that it's time for serious reformation. The change will have to come from within. Is there a movement among Muslims to reform the religion and get rid of the negative aspects?

Yes, it would have to come from within. Perhaps one of their religious leaders would take that up as a cause, and others would follow. This would, however, produce yet another "brand" of Islam in addition to the Sunni, Shiite, etc. Since that would have the seeming effect of de-uniting Islam in the short-term, it's hard to imagine that happening anytime soon. Only after suffering more tragedy, as preceeded the Protestant Reformation, will such a thing be considered - and even if that does happen there is no guarantee that it won't be followed by yet more internal fighting amongst the Islamic factions (in analogy to the 30 Years War).

 

[Evo]

I don't think there really are any negative aspects of the Koran. It all depends on the interpretation. There are and have been so many different sects of the religion with their own philosophies and histories that you can't help but expect there will be people who see the religion differantly. There are sects that are as peaceful as buddhists.

There are many negatives, for example women are discriminated against, they are not the equals of men, they are forced to wear headscarves. I remember reading some time ago writings of Mohammed and if I recall correctly, he blamed women for men's shortcomings. It wasn't that men were weak, women were evil. Maybe that's over simplifying it, but I remember getting ticked off.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Ah, I see... I was thinking more along the lines of this warrior for god mentality that everyone seems to attribute to it.

But aren't women evil?
I think that exists in most religions doesn't it? Adam and Eve? I'm not to sure about it but from what I have heard muslim women are supposed to be respected and revered even though they lack many freedoms.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, an influx of reasonable arguments has sucked me back in (damn you, Evo)...

Funny you should mention that, but I was thinking earlier that it's time for serious reformation. The change will have to come from within. Is there a movement among Muslims to reform the religion and get rid of the negative aspects?

I was also thinking about that earlier. People often talk of "Christianity" as a single religion, but I was thinking that the Protestant Reformation changed an awful lot of the bad things in it that caused things such as the Crusades. And while the Catholic church still exists, it too was forced to change by the Protestant Reformation. And recent rifts suggest we may be nearing a second Reformation.

To my knowledge, Islam has not had a similar internal revolution.

 

[Townsend]

I did not and do not condemn the entire religion.

Well ok then, sounds good.

Unfortunately, after I read the Koran, it confirmed the worst of the stereotypes I'd heard. Until then, I tried to keep an open mind in the way you suggest. After I read it - while can see why it's possible to be a peacful muslim, I also can see why extremism can easily come from that book.

That sounds to me like you are walking a thin line between condemning it and keeping an open mind. It is for this reason that I said "you cannot condemn an entire religion for this". It was not meant to accuse you of condemning it but to suggest that you keep this in mind when considering it.

I know you're too smart to openly condemn an entire religion and I am not suggesting that you have or will ever do such a thing. But please keep in mind that regardless of how bad a religion can be at times when we are being tried the most we must be vigilant in our morals and values (most of which I am sure are common to both of us). We place individual liberty and freedom of religion on the highest mantle and we need to be careful not to lose sight of that.

Regards

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Well, an influx of reasonable arguments has sucked me back in (damn you, Evo)... I was also thinking about that earlier. People often talk of "Christianity" as a single religion, but I was thinking that the Protestant Reformation changed an awful lot of the bad things in it that caused things such as the Crusades. And while the Catholic church still exists, it too was forced to change by the Protestant Reformation. And recent rifts suggest we may be nearing a second Reformation.

To my knowledge, Islam has not had a similar internal revolution.

I think that there have been but as pointed out by Quetz9 it tends to lead to splintering. In the Islamic world there isn't a central religious leader/hub on par with what the Protestants and Catholics have as far as I know. And what they do have really mainly effects the mainstream while the problems lie mostly in the underdeveloped countries with more orthedox views.

 

[Evo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1479326,00.html

'Bin Laden's nightmare' seeks Islamic reformation

Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent
Monday May 9, 2005
The Guardian

A Muslim woman author, once described as Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare, is to call for the setting up of an Islamic reform movement to press for a change in the faith's attitudes towards human rights, women and pluralist societies at a public meeting this week.

Irshad Manji, a Canadian-based writer and broadcaster, is to launch her campaign for Ijtihad (independent thinking) with a claim for Islamic pluralism and the aim of setting up a foundation for young, reform-minded Muslims to explore and challenge their faith.

"Through our screaming self-pity and conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we are dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it is now."