posted
I think it's safe to say that everyone has a cultural history with dark episodes in it. People looking on from the outside can always say they are just like that. People like that are just that way. See? You can see by this and this and this.
What's equally clear to me is that the way forward toward the light is by refusing to think of the problem that way. The father of one of the four little girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (Ginny McNair) is in local politics here now. He said, "White people didn't kill my child; some crazy men killed my child." I think you have to reject the sort of thinking that goes "white people killed my child", or "Islam causes terrorism", or "Mormons are just like that", or whatever it may be. If there is a way through it involves thinking of all of us as one family.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
But there has been, recently, sympthy among mormons for polygamists. At least among those who call into AM talk shows. Like they see them as folks just trying to do their thing being harassed by big brother. The citizens of DC who reelected Marion Barry had a similar sympathy for something they maybe don't officially endorse. I think this is the kind of attitude OSC was frustrated with (in the PARTIALLY QUOTED material). Heck, why am I about to bump this thing again. Anyway, your defensiveness (of everyone who is defensive) suggests that you are more worried about the image of Islam as a whole than purifying the community of the offenders. It's okay. Mormons did the same thing about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. We saw it as an internal affair, and anyone who didn't think so was a hateful bigot.
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I feel as if you are generalizing me, because I happen to live in an era where a culture is experiencing a dark period and I am disagreeing with their actions.
Is there any way I can make it more clear? I do not disagree with their actions because they are Muslim, even though I recognize how the roots of their actions have evolved from that religion. I disagree with their actions because the actions themselves are evil.
There are people in this world who will commit evil no matter how nice you are to them. There are people who will take advantage of your kindness and use it to commit more evil. Forgiving them doesn't mean you hug them and say, Its okay, I understand, go on now and be the good person I know you can be. They'll never improve that way. They need to face real consequences of their action, or they'll continue in their evil patterns.
Heck, of this particular evil I'm barely touched. What of the women who live under some of the extremist rule, who were not allowed to even teach their daughters to read? What of the mothers who struggle to feed their children in war torn countries where even the Red Cross is bombed by extremists?
A person who does horrible things will not stop doing horrible things until they are taught and actually absorb the information a) that the thing is bad and b) how to overcome the pattern they've set for themself. And that is not always a pleasant lesson to learn.
Yes, it is all we. There is no them, only us. We are all sentient beings. And we are all naturally evil.
posted
I think it is important to know what Jihad means. I also found this information in a few other places but I will quote from the Encyclopedia of the Orient under the definition of Jihad with emphasis provided by me:
quote: Muslim law has divided the world into two entities, dāru l-'islām, the adobe of Islam , and dāru l-harb, the adobe of war . Battling against the Abode of war was a duty for a Muslim, as this is the only way for the peace of Islam to take the place of the warlike conditions of the infidels' society. Jihad can be both defence, as well as attacking an enemy.
The enemies of Islam are divided into two groups, the Peoples of the book, āhlu l-kitāb and the pagans, the kāfirūn. The first group, defined as Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Mandeans need only to submit to an Islamic ruler, and live in peace with other Muslims to end the situation where jihad is imperative .
So, you either submit to Islam or you are at war with Islam?
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I'm not going to accept that as a given. In fact, I believe we are all naturally GOOD, and must be taught evil.
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posted
You haven't had children yet, Tom. From early on they are biting and hitting their siblings to get what they want. About four or five is the time they realize that they can lie about things. Luckily, they are very poor liars that early on. Parents catch them and then teach them. If they aren't taught, they'll continue to lie. And sometimes if they are taught.
Innocent yes, but only because it is clear they do not understand that what they are doing hurts other people. If during this time they are not taught, they continue in that behavior and get more clever at it.
I will agree that compassion can be natural. But even that depends on early infant bonding with a caring individual.
I don't believe in original sin. Every child born is as pure as the driven snow. But I do believe in a natural tendancy to act selfishly.
That you think everyone is born good speaks well of how you were raised when you were very young, even if your parents made a botch of it while you were a teenager. You don't remember a time when you didn't have compassion of some type.
But note that, for loving parents, as I assume is the norm for Muslim parents as it is for everyone, to output such youth as will willingly bomb innocents, those children must be taught that evil. But it is not really difficult. All they really need to learn is that these are not really people, but enemies and compassion doesn't apply to them. Or that it is compassionate to kill them. There is some evil for you.
Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Amka's right, Tom. It's not that children are EVIL...but they don't recognize for a while that there's anyone else in the world. They are alone, and other people are objects that respond to their will--so naturally they act for themselves. It takes a while to get the idea that someone else can exist.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I agree with you that individuals who do evil things must be opposed. I'm not for pretending evil doesn't exist. What I dislike in this thread is the idea that Islam fosters terrorism. The thought of defining the problem as being with Islam. If this is true then it's also true that Christianity fosters terrorism. And that white people are naturally brutal and demonic, as Malcolm X once believed.
My objection is not to fighting evil, but to claiming that the evil arises from a particular religion, instead of being something that's endemic in all of us because we are human.
When you do that, you see, you declare war on a huge number of people who would otherwise be your natural allies. Good people who are against the evil actions. That path leads to perpetual war and genocide. The only path that leads to peaceful resolution involves seeing people as individuals.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
The thing is, people are not isolated individuals. They live in communities and act on behalf of those communities, percieving that whatever is good for the community is good for them. If the idea comes up that it is good for the community to foster those who openly kill innocents of another community, then that individual will most likely take up support of that action.
The solution is not to destroy the community, but to remove those influences that actively endorse such activity and replace them with more compassionate solutions, that are better in the end because a community that acts with violence WILL eventually be put down by the others around it that see it as a threat. The action of replacing poor ideals that lead to violence with positive ones may itself require stiff action. This is exactly what is happening now in the middle east.
We can wish all we want, but our world is still divided into nation states, and will remain so until communication is universally global with the majority of individuals. We have not reached that critical mass, yet. IF we gave the internet to every family on this planet, it would still take about three generations for global thinking to occur. As it is, such saturation will take either decades or hundreds of years, with the acceptance of global thought occuring some decades after that.
We can only act in the world that exists, not the one we hope will exist.
posted
Islamic Fundmentalists are not really muslims. They are people who follow a total polluion of Islam.
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