Dodgy Bad Taste Warrior Queen Lyrics

[vimothy]

it would be great when such a revision of the hadith (and maybe even bits of the qur'an) came through. I'm afraid however that the work will be dismissed as the work of heretics by influential clerics in for instance Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Properly understood, there is no movement in Islam more modern than the neofundamentalist strains like the Wahhabi, Salafi and Deobandi schools. Saudi Arabian clerics already dismiss most of Classical Islamic thought and jurisprudence. As with the fascists of Europe, radical Islam is only conservative if you share the same perspective, i.e. that the last 1,000 years were a disaster and that we must somehow turn back the clock.

 

[vimothy]

Well I could be wrong but if you tot up all the victims of the European states and the US in various wars I imagine that would be quite a significant number. Possibly more than those killed by Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain.

Don't think so - worst killers in the 20th Century were Hitler, Stalin and Mao. If you count wars that they started as well as internal democide and the results of abysmal pet policies (like the great leap backward), the numbers they murdered are practically beyond comprehension. Be interested if anyone can link to any research proving me wrong, but I doubt it. Possibly in terms of proportion of population in earlier European history (perhaps?), but in terms of absolute numbers I think it's easy to see what the correct answer is here.

"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."

 

[vimothy]

Instead of continuing round in circles - maybe we could try a little thought experiment instead?

If someone was trying to establish which religion was the most hateful or violent in its teachings through scripture what would that process involve?

Totally OTM here, droid.

I think that the heart of the matter (and without getting into the mostly missing distinction between Islam the religion and Islam the non-secular culture) is that there is no way anyone can prove a causal relationship between religion and violence, let alone one specific religion and violence, however much we might like to assert it anecdotally (as with Hitchens). The problem as I see it is if Islam (e.g.) is the cause of violent terrorism, how is it also not the cause of violent terrorism, i.e. how is it that not all Muslims are terrorists? If you read the literature, the actual quantitative and qualitative research on terrorist biographies (e.g. Sageman), it is pretty clear that another, much more influential "cause" of Islamic terrorism is the small social networks among isolated (intelligent, often scientists) immigrants (not necessarily in the West), which can reinforce radicalism without a wider community there to temper it with reality. In fact, you can observe almost exactly the same process with regards to 1970s European secular terrorism. Polz admitted this in another thread. It's not at all clear what motivates an individual to become a suicide bomber, even less should we feel confident enough to say, "Islam is a hateful religion", or "Islam causes violence". We cannot say that and know it to be true.

I think it's basically an epistemological problem. There's an old story -- I forget the names involved -- where one person shows another a picture of ragged looking men praying on a raft. "Look," this person says, "they survived the storm because they prayed." The other (smarter) persons asks, "Where are the pictures of those who prayed, but died?" Polz has the same blind spot for silent evidence, and so ignores the obvious counterfactual: if Islam causes violence, how does it also (and at exactly the same time) not cause violence in equal or probably vastly greater measure?

 

[vimothy]

would anybody argue that fascism isnt necessarily more evil than liberal democracy?

when we can have a hierarchy of bad ideologies, why cant we have one of religions?

or would you say the following cults (christianity and islam were a cult one time as well) are just as good as for instance zen buddhism:

Branch Davidians
Heaven's Gate
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (Uganda)
The People's Temple (Jim Jones)
Solar Temple
Aum Shinri Kyo

But religion is also not only an ideology (historically, not even principally); it can be a culture as well, particularly in non-secularised societies where there is no separation between religion and any other aspect of life. You mocked me in another thread for producing Sufi poets and Classical Islamic scholars as demonstration of the difference between Islam and the cults listed above, but the distinction is worth making. There is a lot of daylight between Islamic civilisation and a fascistic ideology that appeals to basically the same demographic as European 20th Century radicalism. Where are the Branch Davidian mathematicians? Where are the Solar Temple historians? Where are the Heavan's Gate palace builders?

 

[john eden]

I think Vim's comments on this thread have been very good (notwithstanding the communism/fascism thing which we've covered elsewhere and I don't really want to rake over!)

this way any really aggressive ideology which has at least one adherant who doesnt kill people can't be called aggresive.

Regarding the problem of "the real reason" behind peoples actions: We simply will never know what "the real reason" is, probably people themselves dont know it either. We can only look at what these people say about the reason of their actions. Also, even when they are totally untruthful about their motivations and they just are bloodthirsty sadists who dont believe in anything, they still choose islam as a defense of their actions, and they will only do this when there is some kind of logic and audience for this reasoning, otherwise they would have chosen communism, anti-imperialism or whatever ism you can think of.

Why are there muslims who are not aggressive against non-muslims? for the same reason that there are adultrous christians: not all believers follow all the rules of their religion.

When i say Islam is a hateful religion, i say this because the texts of islam (qur'an, hadith) consequently call for aggressive actions against non-muslims, gays and women. Do these texts influence people in their actions? Muslems say they do, and we have no other way of proving it (are actions ofcommunists inspired by marx and lenin? is anbyody's act inspired by an idea, there is no way of "proving" this, in the way you seem to want.)

It's pretty clear to me that most adherents of Islam are not engaging in aggressive behaviour towards non-muslims.

I think unpicking the reasons for human behaviour are important, personally. Saying "we can never know" the real reasons is a bit lazy.

Indeed, the specific conditions that cause the tiny minority of people to engage in acts of violence are something which we should aim to discover, not least because that may reveal ways of preventing it happening.

Obviously that is a bit more difficult than putting it down to a "hateful religion", as Nick Griffin has.

(It would seem from his appearance on Newsnight last week that Mr Griffin is now convinced that Islam is also the root of all hard drugs in the UK. How mental is that?)

 

[luka]

one muslim boy i used to kick around with at colege in plaistow, everytime he went ot the sweet shop to buy some crisps or somehting he'd always insist on getting me something even if i didn't really want anything and he said that was cos of being muslim. therefore islam is not a religion of violnece becasue they beleive in sharing crisps.

 

[vimothy]

Polz -- can you post the relevant Hadith or Quranic injunction to suicide murder?

It strikes me that you have the causation presisely the wrong way around. It's not that Islam causes violence, but that violence seeks out whatever justification it can find. In the post WWII period, in the exact same region (the ME), violence was "caused" by Arab Radicalism in all its various types, just as it is now "caused" by Radical Islam in all its various types. So what happened there -- why did Arabism stop causing violence, and why did Islamism start causing violence? If we follow your logic, we must conclude that Arab Radicalism simply ceased to be a hateful ideology, and that Islamism became a hateful ideology at about the same time (after the 1973 war, perhaps). Obviously, it was more complicated than that. Underlying grievances remained, while secular ideologies (Arab Socialism, Pan-Arabism, Baathism, etc) had already acheived power yet delivered few gains. (I'm not going to go deeper into the labyrinth of Islamism; anyone interested in reading further should look up Olivier Roy).

Islam didn't cause violence in the Mid East, it began in the post-colonial period when Islam's influence on Arab radical movements was minimal. After the failure of Nasserism, Islamism and neofundamentalisms have replaced leftist movements as the voices of opposition in the region. "Violence in search of a cause."

A weaker (but more supportable) version of your statement would be something like "Islam is a necessary but not sufficient cause of Islamic terrorism." However, it's also easy to note (or should be!) that, "Islam is a necessary but not sufficient cause of liberal Islam." The problem is that the fact that Islam is used as a justification of violence by terrorists tells us nothing absolute about the essential nature of Islam. I repeat the question: If Islam causes violence, how can it also cause non-violence? Obviously it's about the way that the believer interprets (or often ignores) scripture and law. The Wahhabis just threw pretty much all of it out -- that's how much of a shit they give. Hizb ut-Tahrir aren't reading Muslim scholars, they're reading other teenage radicals who want to recreate the caliphate. Jihad is a collective duty -- the whole notion of suicide operations or going to kill Shia in Iraq because Zawahiri tells you is in fact pretty much heretical in traditional terms. Reading the Quran will tell you nothing about what is going on in the world today. You'd even be better off reading Marx, Mao or Che Guevara.

this way any really aggressive ideology which has at least one adherant who doesnt kill people can't be called aggresive.

Er, no, I'm not the one making logical errors here.

Total world Muslim population: 1.5bn approx.
Total number of deadly Islamic terror attacks since 9/11: 11,000 approx. (according to The Religion of Peace, an agressively anti-Islamist website, so this is unlikely to be an underestimate)

Let's say that every attack involved 10 Muslim terrorists and that every attack involved different personel (which is unlikely, but should provide us with another large overestimate). This means that in the last six or seven years, during a "Global Salafi Jihad", there are only slightly less than 1.5bn peaceful Muslims, or about 13,500 times more peaceful, non-terrorist Muslims, than terrorists. It's not the case that there is only one peaceful adherant. You have the situation back to front. I'm not saying "all swans are white" and ignoring your picture of the black swan. I know they're not all white. Rather, you're saying that they're all black.

 

[vimothy]

this is some kind of deadlock. I say the quran and the hadith call for aggressive action against non-believers, to which you reply that not all muslims kill. Obviously both are true. to repeat myself for the n-th time: i am not talking about all muslims, i am talking about the teachings of islam

There's no deadlock -- you're not contradicting me, you're contradiciting yourself. I'm not denying that there are violent verses in the Quran. There are all sorts of verses. But you seem unable to grasp the very simple implications of this, viz. that what is in the Quran is not necessarily dictating the actions of Muslims in either direction! Islam might be a hateful religion or it might not. I personally think that's a statement that is so vague as to be approaching meaninglessness. There is little "hateful" in Sufism, for example, or in the Islam of the Indian subcontinent (at least traditionally, excepting the relatively recent slide of the Deobandi school into neofundamentalism). Only if you accept a Bin Ladenist construction of Islam (i.e. a Salafi-Wahhabist fundamentalist construction of Islam) is Islam a hateful religion. What about those who disagree? I've already linked to a moderate Islamic think-tank upthread -- are you saying that if they are true Muslims, they should try to be more like Bin Laden and less like Quilliam?

In any case you seem unable to even make a distinction between Islam the religion and the Quran, let alone Islam the culture. Do you think most jihadists are radicalised by the Quran? Do you think that they are radicalised when they hit the later writings, idly sitting in their rooms in Cairo, coming across these verses and thinking, "oh shit -- woman: get me my AK and put on a burka"?

no the quran doesnt call for suicide murder. neither does it call to hijack a plane.

Let's just seperate those two for now. The Quran proscribes suicide. It's haram, forbidden, just as jihad is only permitted as a collective activity, not as a personal quest. Murdering fellow Muslims is also forbidden. In fact, if Islamic radicals really read and took the Quran literally, they'd be forced to act in a very different way. Basically all the schools of neofundamentalism and political Islam involve large amounts of bida, or "innovation". Despite the Quranic ban on suicide and on murdering Muslims, Islamic radicals frequently manage to do both (it's their signature move, one might say). What should we conclude from this? Radicals are going to do whatever the hell they want and justify it in the terms that they think will get them the most support with the eventual goal of taking power or just increasing their own share of it in the short term. It's how the world works. All those fine words about the brotherhood of man and the revolution of the proletariat meant very little when the Communists got into power in Russia. In fact, the situation for the poor and powerless was made worse, not better.

Bin Laden might have justified 9/11 in Islamic terms, but that merely proves my point that Islam is a vast plurality, which can easily be mined for statements for or against any given act, just like any other religion. Historically, it seems clear that Islamic civilisation was more moderate, in terms of inter-religious violence, than Christian civislisation, and preserved large communities of diverse religious believers (e.g. the Levant). Since the NT is more tolerant than the Quran this shouldn't be possible, as both civilisations said that they were based upon the precepts of their repsective religions -- Islamic civilisation should have been less tolerant than Christian civilisation.

It doesn't matter what it says in the Quran, what matters is what Muslims are doing. It's easy:

Some Muslims are violent (say 110,000)
Many more Muslims are not violent (say 1.4bn +)

Therefore Islam is not the variable that predicts violence. It's orthogonal. It's bordering on the irrelevant. This is a non-argument.

What it does say is this:

2.191
And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.

4.89
They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.

4.91
You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority.

now you can say: the quran forbids suicide, but you can also say, suicide is an act of despair, but suicide bombers are martyrs who are slain in the battle against non-believers (ie jihad).

I.e., it depends on how you interpret the Quran. You can even act in direct contradiction to the Quran's precepts, and still claim that you are acting in the name of Islam.

no it didnt. The wahabis formed in 1750 and was were violent against people who they saw as non-believers from the start. And it was this way from the start of islam. The Prophet Mohammed, whose life is seen as something that should by emulated, killed (beheaded) hundreds of non-believers (i know next to nothing about arab nationalism, neither do i really see the relevance, so i wont comment on that).

Political Islam (i.e. the programme of trying to set up an explicitly Islamic State) only became popular post Nasser, who was the main source of Arab radicalism previously. The Wahhabis made their alliances with the tribes of al Jazeera and became the state religion with the establishment of the Saudi kingdom. Wahhabism was (and still is) a radical revision of Islam that ignored scholarly commentary and tried to focus on a puritanical literalism. Al-Wahhab was a reformist. The first criticism of Wahhabism was by Wahhab's own brother, who coined the pejorative "Wahhabism".

The relevance of Arab nationalism is that if we were having this conversation forty years ago, we would be talking about Pan-Arabism, not Radical Islam. No one thought of Islam as a threat, not even Radical Islam, despite the verses in the Quran being there at the time. Why? Because regardless of what the verses say, what's important is what Muslims are doing. No one was killing in the name of Islam (except in Iran, and even then it was couched in anti-imperialist slogans and leftist tropes).

Yet the verses were there --

And yet the explicitly Islamic terrorism and war (to a significant degree) --

Was not.

Islam is not the variable that explains terrorism. Perhaps Islamism or neofundamentalism is the variable that explains terrorism today, but I don't see you trying to make that arguement.

when muslims are non-violent, this does not mean that it is because of islam. (Neither is it necerassarily the case that when muslims ARE violent this is because of islam). What is sure, though, is that the quran calls for violence against non-believers

This is what it boils down to -- yes, there are violent verses, but so what? You're not saying anything.

again, im not talking about the swans, i'm saying their religion is black.

You said:

One non-violent Muslim does not mean that Islam is not violent;

To which I said:

But I'm not saying that there is one non-violent Muslim; I'm saying that there are over a billion.

 

[fokse vektaire xeven]

Is there another monotheistic relision that has a soldier as its prophet?

 

[noel emits]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard_and_the_military

 

[droid]

What do you think are the differences in a childs view of the world who is reared on either Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed?

:slanted: Ah... so you have a childs view of the world. That explains everything....

 

[droid]

ah, see you've gone from name calling to mocking.

Oh come on! Its not like any other approach has worked...

Maybe you will have real arguments one day.

Yes, but obviously not with you seeing as you dont seem to know how it works. Youre supposed to respond to other peoples points and attempt to convince them of yours, not simply ignore their arguments and repeat yourself ad nausem.

 

[john eden]

Is this all purely theoretical for you Polz, or is there a bigger gameplan?

What do you feel would be achieved by everyone agreeing with you (and Nick Griffin) than Islam is the most hateful religion? Is there any political objective you have in mind?

Fair enough if not, but you seem to be quite vexed by it all and investing a lot of time on it, so I wondered if you hoped anything solid would emerge from your denunciations etc?

 

[luka]

polz, if you read vimpthys last post properly you wouldn't still be on this thread. honestly, read that again. take a few deep breaths and walk away. it was a fantastic piece of clear thinking and to be frank it makes you look astoundingly stupid. i do get the sense that english is not your first language though so its maybe not all your fault.

 

[droid]

there is one post of you that i didnt respond to, and that was your pseudo-scientific, pseudo-objective 6 bullet plan which was the only way according to you to prove which is the most hateful religion.

People have made multiple points in many threads and you have failed to substantively respond to most of them. Vimothys points here are a good example.

for all your use of scientific language, i very much get the impression you really dont have a clue what you are talking about. "Personal testimony (from at least thousands) of members of each faith" how did you think that one up. This is about the comparison of different religious ideas, not some statistical, economic survey. All you (and others as well) seem to be able to think about is numbers (of "good" versus "bad" muslims) but not about the real content and consequences of these religious beliefs.

Youre totally missing the point. Peoples interpretations of religion and how its teachings affects their lives are 'content and consequences of these religious beliefs', so personal testimony would be very relevant in this case.

If you think you can have a 'comparison of different religious ideas' without taking into account peoples interpretations of said religious ideas then...

When i compare three founders of the great world religions, all you can think of is mocking me. When i question whether you've actually ever read (part of) the quran, you become suspicuosly silent

:slanted: Yes I have read (part of) the Quran. And Judaism is a 'great world religion' as is Hinduism.

(yeah, you, with your "not simply ignore their arguments and repeat yourself ad nausem" i would say:"Take a look at yourself, take a look at yourself, Take one big look, take a look at yourself." )

Am I detecting a sense of humour here?

you have this multiculturalist view that goes something like this:
all religions are equal, long ago founded by wise men in their time. we should be respectful towards these religions, mainly because we dont want to be bothered, and strive after some mutual indifference.

Ah - not satisied with declarations of what Islam means to its practitioners, youre now telling me what I think!

FWIW I have little or no time for organised religion of any stripe. I think most of them are pretty 'hateful'. I simply object to the illogical demonisation of one over the others.

i say, being silent about islams dark side, makes you an accessory to misogony, anti-semitism and gay bashing at least, and to the sellout of stuff like "freedom of speech" as well

I say youre an Islamophobe who doesnt understand logic and cuts and pastes dodgy arguments from Harry's Place.

 

[john eden]

maybe the problem is i dont know who Nick Griffin is. I get the feeling he is quite a horrible guy, and you all seem to think i share his views. i'm simply reacting to things i see in my own surroundings which i dont like. (no not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in my own neighbourhood and country)

as for the amount of time, you can ask that droid and vimothy (see his activity on the politics forum) as well.

as for my political aim: im not a muslim bashing right wing fanatic, i think i the LibDems would be my party of choice (but maybe i dont know enough about them as well) what i just dont get is all the "progressive" lashing out against any criticism of Islam, while this faith is very conservative. I also never understood the idea behind calling criticism of islam racist. How can criticizing a faith be rascist? Because its followers are mainly non-whites? So when muslims would have been white people, criticism would be ok?

Droid, Vimothy and Nick Griffin are all striving towards particular political objectives and their discussions about Islam are part of that with different levels of centrality.

You, on the other hand just seem to want to argue the toss about the contents of the Qu'ran in order to prove that the religion itself is the most hateful in existence.

I find this a bit odd because for me what is important is human beings and what they do.

If, as Vim has pointed out, the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists then I think that should be applauded and we should work towards ways of intensifying that tendency within Islam. You, on the other hand, seem to want to attack non-violent Muslims for not being Islamic enough...

The Muslims I work with, have as neighbours, meet as part of the dealings with my daughter's school, see smoking dope on my stairwell - they are all secular in some aspects and religious in others. I want to encourage the secular aspects, but being concerned with human motivation I recognise that as an outsider I won't do a very good job of this by attacking their religion as being hateful in the current climate. My approach instead is to communicate with them as people and work on our common interests.

I am not clear what you want to do - is it just a case of having a theological debate?

 

[STN]

why are shelters for battered women mainly filled with muslim women?

really?

 

[john eden]

Well I'm all for a full discussion about the role of Islam, Muslims and indeed all religions and their believers and how they fit into society. Having said that I would question the value of someone's contribution to that discussion if it consisted of them repeating ad nauseum that Islam is the most hateful religion. (Like I don't particularly care for DJs who only have one record.)

Presumably you see the value of that approach, because you feel nobody is 'allowed' to say it where you live, but that sort of rhetoric is churned out by the mainstream press on a daily basis in the UK.

I also agree that people should not be given special treatment because of their religion or race. For example it seems to me that housing or schools being allocated on these criteria is a surefire way to segregation and resentment. I therefore support the moves to do away with segregationist schooling and to remove state funding from religious schools.

I am more keen on the bit about treating muslims as human beings, than I am on the bit about repeating how hateful their religion is. I tend to use the former approach in my daily interactions with people. No doubt that is terribly naive and politically correct of me but I don't see any value in haranguing people about how hateful their beliefs are when they are peacefully going about their day to day business.

 

[john eden]

OK.

I'd be much keener to broaden the discussion into people's ideas about how to move towards a secular society, or how to create a culture which is more to do with class than race or religion or whatever.

 

[droid]

Neither do i. In my dealings with my muslim colleagues and neighbours, religion very rarely comes up. The only reason i kept repeating it over here was that people kept attacking me for my point of view. Zhao, Noel emits, droid, all of them basically said: you're an islamophobe, you know nothing, you're a bigot, i dont need to enter in a real discussion with you for your not worth it (that was droid). The first to start a serious discussion was Vimothy (coincidentally someone who has been called "a blatant racist, war monger, and sympathizer of the Bush Admin" himself recently on this board).

You really love playing the victim dont you?

I cant speak for anyone else here, but the 'youre not worth it' thing was based on the fact that you dont seem to understand simple logic, nothing to do with me being 'morally superior' as you tried to claim earlier. You pick and choose which arguments to respond to and ignore arguments that you either don't understand or cant respond to, so its impossible to have a 'real argument' with you, which seems to me to imply an element of irrationality in your point of view.

Ive made this very very clear in this thread, and the statement you've made above is willfully disingenuous.

Ive called you an Islamophobe because you make sweeping generalisations about Islam and Muslims, based almost purely on your own subjective views and some cherry picked quotes from the Quran.

As for what others on this board have called Vimothy - thats nothing to do with me, and only has relevance if you're trying to construct a false narrative where you are the victim of politically motivated bullying - which is not the case.

The fact is that almost no-one here, from the right, centre, or left has shown any support for your views - what does that tell you?