Bin Laden Was Not Buried At Sea

[Leroast]

In the 12th century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, initiated a dialogue with the Islamic world. "I approach you not with arms, but with words," he wrote to the Muslims whom he imagined reading his book, "not with force, but with reason, not with hatred, but with love." Yet his treatise was entitled Summary of the Whole Heresy of the Diabolical Sect of the Saracens and segued repeatedly into spluttering intransigence. Words failed Peter when he contemplated the "bestial cruelty" of Islam, which, he claimed, had established itself by the sword. Was Muhammad a true prophet? "I shall be worse than a donkey if I agree," he expostulated, "worse than cattle if I assent!"

Peter was writing at the time of the Crusades. Even when Christians were trying to be fair, their entrenched loathing of Islam made it impossible for them to approach it objectively. For Peter, Islam was so self-evidently evil that it did not seem to occur to him that the Muslims he approached with such "love" might be offended by his remarks. This medieval cast of mind is still alive and well.

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and you talk about intolerance of others beliefs. Islamophobia, with its long Christian tradition, is a concerted effort to dehumanise the people who live on 60% of global oil reserves and next to Israel. It also ties in with the millions of Christians who would quite like to provoke nuclear armageddon to bring on the rapture (never hear you moaning about these fanatics who infest the US military).

Washingtons Blog makes the point that: fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all very much alike, and often willing to use violence to spread their ideology, while more spiritually mature Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all much more tolerant and peaceful than their evangelical brothers:

As Christian writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explained, there are different stages of spiritual maturity. Fundamentalism – whether it be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu fundamentalism – is an immature stage of development. There are peaceful, contemplative Muslim sects – think the poet Rumi the poet and Sufis – and violent sects, just as there are contemplative Christian orders and violent Christian groups (and peaceful and violent atheists).

[Leroast]

Sorry your point is what exactly, just because you found a spurious link showing FGM isn't mandatory, doesn't take the point away that many Muslims do this for both religious and cultural reasons and I never said I preferred Christianity or Judaism any better did I?

Next!

Enjoy this topic:

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=176926

Edit: More

Thats not my point. You disagreed with my assertion that it cuts across religion.

Why is it a spurious link?

[Charlie The Tramp Returns]

No such thing as Islamophobia, I'm an Islamosceptic, having been to the heart land of this terrible desert dogma. I suspect though you haven't, have you?

What concerns me is the anti Christian phobia across the Islamic Nations who regard them as unclean.

[Leroast]

No such thing as Islamophobia, I'm an Islamosceptic, having been to the heart land of this terrible desert dogma. I suspect though you haven't, have you?

Enjoy:

What M Scott Peck says about immaturity is equally valid for Hitchens who is an atheist fundamentalist and ironically enough, like some of his more religious fundamentalist bedfellows, invokes miracles to justify his violent impulses.

Your immediate rejection of the Islamic position on FGM just goes to show that you are not merely a skeptic but a bigot.

[Leroast]

I dont need to defend Islam or any other religion. Fisk says exactly what I said upthread: honour killing transcends religion and culture. You didnt even read the article did you?!

A 10-month investigation by The Independent in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank has unearthed terrifying details of murder most foul. Men are also killed for "honour" and, despite its identification by journalists as a largely Muslim practice, Christian and Hindu communities have stooped to the same crimes. Indeed, the "honour" (or ird) of families, communities and tribes transcends religion and human mercy.

[...]In Jordan, women's organisations say that per capita, the Christian minority in this country of just over five million people are involved in more "honour" killings than Muslims – often because Christian women want to marry Muslim men.

[Leroast]

You didn't answer my question: Have you been to Saudi Arabia?

No I've havent been to Saudia Arabia. What was your experience? It must have been awful.

[Leroast]

Which makes it all the stranger that, as I've said before, you support Saudi sponsored extremist insurrections in Libya and Syria. Most peculiar.

Where do you think this Islamohate is going to take us as individuals and as a society Bulltrader?

If you want some idea of what’s going on in Southern California, these days, take a look at

of a demonstration in Yorba Linda, where an inter-religious charity event for the homeless was surrounded by hundreds of screeching banshees, screaming their hatred of Muslims. And lest you think this is just a fringe phenomenon, note that no less than three elected officials addressed this hate-fest: congressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller, and Villa Park councilwoman Debra Pauly – all three of them Republicans, naturally.

As children and women in hijabs walk with quiet dignity into the charity venue, the crowd unleashes its fury of hate: “Go home, go home, go home!” they yell. Is it a coincidence that this is the very same message in the note from Shaima’s killer?

Link

[Leroast]

The point is, these cultural and socially accepted norms have grown up in countries (and communities) which are deeply religious and occur where Islam is usually the dominant dogma.

The burqa predates Islam. FGM predates Islam. Honour killing predates Islam.

FGM occurs in Christian dominate Kenya (83%) and in the oldest Christian state in the world, Ethiopia (62%). Muslim dominant Egypt has more female professors than Christian dominant Germany. Afghanistan has more female parlimentary representatives than the UK.

Treating women badly predates Islam. The Prophet was an egalitarian who fought for womens rights in a deeply conserative and patriarchial society. Christians also hated his message:

It was when the Christians of Europe were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims in the Middle East that Islam first became known in the west as the religion of the sword. At this time, when the popes were trying to impose celibacy on the reluctant clergy, Muhammad was portrayed by the scholar monks of Europe as a lecher, and Islam condemned - with ill-concealed envy - as a faith that encouraged Muslims to indulge their basest sexual instincts. At a time when European social order was deeply hierarchical, despite the egalitarian message of the gospel, Islam was condemned for giving too much respect to women and other menials.

In a state of unhealthy denial, Christians were projecting subterranean disquiet about their activities on to the victims of the Crusades, creating fantastic enemies in their own image and likeness. This habit has persisted.

We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam

Jesus would have thought differently though. You're not really getting this religion thing are you?

"It is ironic, yet inescapably true that the greatest Christian of the modern world was a man who never embraced Christianity."

Martin Luther King, Jr

[libspero]

Which makes it all the stranger that, as I've said before, you support Saudi sponsored extremist insurrections in Libya and Syria. Most peculiar.

Where do you think this Islamohate is going to take us as individuals and as a society Bulltrader?

As a casual observer.. the sooner all of this sky fairy organised religion nonsense dies out the better.

We'd almost grown out of it in the UK by the 80s but we've imported a lot more since then.

Globally it does far more harm than good.. nothing but division and friction (as you rightly point out in your post above).

[Leroast]

As a casual observer.. the sooner all of this sky fairy organised religion nonsense dies out the better.

We'd almost grown out of it in the UK by the 80s but we've imported a lot more since then.

Globally it does far more harm than good.. nothing but division and friction (as you rightly point out in your post above).

I agree but whether we like it or not the evidence indicates that religion is an integral part of the human condition. During the Great Depression religion was one institution that prospered. Given the historical legacy and continued colonial condition of the Middle East is it really that surprising that the people have barricaded themselves in around religion? I dont think Dawkins/Hitchens approach creates a constructive dialogue. Its childish and immature because they fail to recognise reality.

It is cynical of great Western thinkers to furrow their brows and ponder the decline and fall of Arab civilization, which once was "militarily, economically and culturally far superior" (Hans Magnus Enzensberger). The West played a major part in making that happen. It plundered and ravaged the colonies and then withdrew. In 1830, when the colonization of Algeria began that country had a literacy rate of 40 percent, higher than that of France or England. In 1962, when the French occupying forces pulled out, it was under 20 percent. Colonialism stole from the Arab world more than a century of development. Seventeen years after the French conquest of Algeria, Tocqueville noted with resignation: "The lights have been extinguished… We have made Muslim society much more miserable, disorganized, ignorant and barbaric."

How can the Abrahamic faiths which are based on love be blamed for creating division and friction? Is religion itself the problem? Is colour a problem? Are regional accents a problem? Or is it humans natural tendency to use any excuse to create in and out groups and those who seek to exploit those tendencies?

We are seeing a coordinated effort to create a 'clash of civilisations'. Hitchens and Dawkins represent witting or unwitting quislings for this grand plan.

[Leroast]

The Eradication of the Christian Communities of the Middle East

It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum and before the crisis in Libya. Nor is it a coincidence that Iraqi Christians, one of the world's oldest Christian communities, have been forced into exile, leaving their ancestral homelands in Iraq. Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British military forces, the neighbourhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to the Yinon Plan and the reconfiguration of the region as part of a broader objective.

In Iran, the Israelis have been trying in vain to get the Iranian Jewish community to leave. Iran's Jewish population is actually the second largest in the Middle East and arguably the oldest undisturbed Jewish community in the world. Iranian Jews view themselves as Iranians who are tied to Iran as their homeland, just like Muslim and Christian Iranians, and for them the concept that they need to relocate to Israel because they are Jewish is ridiculous.

In Lebanon, Israel has been working to exacerbate sectarian tensions between the various Christian and Muslim factions as well as the Druze. Lebanon is a springboard into Syria and the division of Lebanon into several states is also seen as a means to balkanizing Syria into several smaller sectarian Arab states. The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze.

A Christian exodus is being planned for the Middle East by Washington, Tel Aviv, and Brussels. It is now being reported that Sheikh Al-Rahi was told in Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy that the Christian communities of the Levant and Middle East can resettle in the European Union. This is no gracious offer. It is a slap in the face by the same powers that have deliberately created the conditions to eradicate the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East. The aim appears to be the resettling of the Christian communities outside of the region so as to delineate the Arab nations along the lines of being exclusively Muslim nations. This falls into accordance with the Yinon Plan.

Re-Dividing Africa: The Yinon Plan is very Much Alive and at Work...

In the same context as the sectarian divisions in the Middle East, the Israelis have outlined plans to reconfigure Africa. The Yinon Plan seeks to delineate Africa on the basis of three facets:

(1) ethno-linguistics;

(2) skin-colour;

(3) religion.

It seeks to draw dividing lines in Africa between a so-called "Black Africa" and a supposedly "non-Black" North Africa. This is part of a scheme to create a schism in Africa between what are assumed to be "Arabs" and so-called "Blacks."

An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity is underway.

This objective is why the ridiculous identity of an "African South Sudan" and an "Arab North Sudan" have been nurtured and promoted. This is also why black-skinned Libyans have been targeted in a campaign to "colour cleanse" Libya. The Arab identity in North Africa is being de-linked from its African identity. Simultaneously there is an attempt to eradicate the large populations of "black-skinned Arabs" so that there is a clear delineation between "Black Africa" and a new "non-Black" North Africa, which will be turned into a fighting ground between the remaining "non-Black" Berbers and Arabs.

In the same context, tensions are being fomented between Muslims and Christians in Africa, in such places as Sudan and Nigeria, to further create lines and fracture points. The fuelling of these divisions on the basis of skin-colour, religion, ethnicity, and language is intended to fuel disassociation and disunity in Africa. This is all part of a broader African strategy of cutting North Africa off from the rest of the African continent.

Preparing the Chessboard for the "Clash of Civilizations"

It is at this point that all the pieces have to be put together and the dots have to be connected.

The chessboard is being staged for a "Clash of Civilizations" and all the chess pieces are being put into place.

The Arab World is in the process of being cordoned off and sharp delineation lines are being created. These lines of delineation are replacing the seamless lines of transition between different ethno-linguistic, skin-colour, and religious groups.

Under this scheme, there can no longer be a melding transition between societies and countries. This is why the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the Copts, are being targeted. This is also why black-skinned Arabs and black-skinned Berbers, as well as other North African population groups which are black-skinned, are facing genocide in North Africa.

What is being staged is the creation of an exclusively "Muslim Middle East" area (excluding Israel) that will be in turmoil over Shiite-Sunni fighting. A similar scenario is being staged for a "non-Black North Africa" area which will be characterized by a confrontation between Arabs and Berber. At the same time, under the "Clash of Civilizations" model, the Middle East and North Africa are slated to simultaneously be in conflict with the so-called "West" and "Black Africa."

This is why both Nicolas Sarzoky, in France, and David Cameron, in Britain, made back-to-back declarations during the start of the conflict in Libya that multiculturalism is dead in their respective Western European societies.

Real multiculturalism threatens the legitimacy of the NATO war agenda. It also constitutes an obstacle to the implementation of the "Clash of Civilizations" which constitutes the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, explains why multiculturalism is a threat to Washington and its allies: "[A]s America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues [e.g., war with the Arab World, China, Iran, or Russia and the former Soviet Union], except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat. Such a consensus generally existed throughout World War II and even during the Cold War [and exists now because of the 'Global War on Terror']."

Brzezinski's next sentence is the qualifier of why populations would oppose or support wars: "[The consensus] was rooted, however, not only in deeply shared democratic values, which the public sensed were being threatened, but also in a cultural and ethnic affinity for the predominantly European victims of hostile totalitarianisms."

Risking being redundant, it has to be mentioned again that it is precisely with the intention of breaking these cultural affinities between the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region and the so-called "Western World" and sub-Saharan Africa that Christians and black-skinned peoples are being targeted.

Ethnocentrism and Ideology: Justifying Today's "Just Wars"

In the past, the colonial powers of Western Europe would indoctrinate their people. Their objective was to acquire popular support for colonial conquest. This took the form of spreading Christianity and promoting Christian values with the support of armed merchants and colonial armies.

At the same time, racist ideologies were put forth. The people whose lands were colonized were portrayed as "sub-human," inferior, or soulless. Finally, the "White Man's burden" of taking on a mission of civilizing the so-called "uncivilized peoples of the world" was used. This cohesive ideological framework was used to portray colonialism as a "just cause." The latter in turn was used to provide legitimacy to the waging of "just wars" as a means to conquering and "civilizing" foreign lands.

Today, the imperialist designs of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have not changed. What has changed is the pretext and justification for waging their neo-colonial wars of conquest. During the colonial period, the narratives and justifications for waging war were accepted by public opinion in the colonizing countries, such as Britain and France. Today's "just wars" and "just causes" are now being conducted under the banners of women's rights, human rights, humanitarianism, and democracy.

Extracts from Israel and Libya: Preparing Africa for the “Clash of Civilizations”

[Game_Over]

Could people please not confuse faith and religion

which are two entirely separate things.

Clearly if there is one God, which is a logical assumption to make even if God is defined as the 'Big Bang'

then what different religions do in the name of this God is irrelevant.

religion is just humans doing what humans do

just because some people choose to commit murder then attempt to justify this

does not mean that someone elses faith is a bad thing

[Leroast]

I'm going to humour you for a moment, let's say that culture does transcend religion as you suggest above although you attempted to say honour killings aren't part of culture when clearly they around the world.

If you didn't believe that honour killings weren't connected to culture then you would have referred to it as plain old 'murder' but you didn't.

Both you and Fisk have just made the case against multiculturalism and by doing so have in a sentence, confirmed what those on the right and far right have been saying for decades.

That is we should never have allowed people into Britain whose culture we cannot influence or change for the better [...]

Even if only a minority of the cultural diverse immigrant muslim, hindu, sikh and christian communities condone honour killings?

You are right though; it is a culturally backward phenomenon. My point was that its not specific to muslims (and I was trying to convey as Fisk says, that it transcends human values and deceny)

Like all those other allegedly Islamic specific issues which concern you.

[Leroast]

It may be part of your human condition, but it's not part of mine.

I think you fail to understand Dawkins or Hitchens and you have the brass neck to consider their thoughts on religion childish and immature.

Now, talk to me about this man who married a child, sorry the prophet of this desert dogma.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhK-UZyyNqg

Hitchens is immature. Like more religious fundamentalists he refuses to question the foundation of his beliefs. He simply insults and ignores (or calls for their death) those who

. I've done a search for Hitchens and Griffin to see if he responds to Griffins implicit challenge. Nothing. Not only is it ironic that Hitchens advocates violence to justify his belief in miracles (like more religious fundamentalists) but it is a retired professor of Theology who points out that Hitchens wears no clothes.

“Most intellectuals have a self-understanding of themselves as the conscience of humanity,” said the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein. “They revel in and admire someone like Vaclav Havel. Chomsky is contemptuous of Havel. Chomsky embraces the Julien Benda view of the world. There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice.

Link

[Leroast]

And that's why I and other like me, contend that the West is a lot more freer than a lot of Middle Eastern countries.

If you'd read more Chomsky and less Hitchens you wouldnt make such silly statements.

Mr. Chomsky, many people claim that the Arab world is incompatible with democracy. Would you say that the recent developments falsify this thesis?

Noam Chomsky: The thesis never had any basis whatsoever. The Arab-Islamic world has a long history of democracy. It's regularly crushed by western force. In 1953 Iran had a parliamentary system, the US and Britain overthrew it. There was a revolution in Iraq in 1958, we don't know where it would have gone, but it could have been democratic. The US basically organized a coup.

In internal discussions in 1958, which have since been declassified, President Eisenhower spoke about a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world. Not from the governments, but from the people. The National Security Council's top planning body produced a memorandum – you can pick it up on the web now – in which they explained it. They said that the perception in the Arab world is that the United States blocks democracy and development and supports harsh dictators and we do it to get control over their oil. The memorandum said, this perception is more or less accurate and that's basically what we ought to be doing.

That means that western democracies prevented the emergence of democracies in the Arab world?

Chomsky: I won't run through the details, but yes, it continues that way to the present. There are constant democratic uprisings. They are crushed by the dictators we – mainly the US, Britain, and France – support. So sure, there is no democracy because you crush it all. You could have said the same about Latin America: a long series of dictators, brutal murderers. As long as the US controls the hemisphere, or Europe before it, there is no democracy, because it gets crushed.

The West Is Terrified of Arabic Democracies

[Leroast]

Empirical research by the World Values Survey tested the culturalist assumptions and found the Islamic faith was a statistically insignificant factor in determining whether or not a country could adopt democracy. Assertions by Fukuyama of a so-called cultural “Christian univeralism” underpinning any democratic development fail to explain why some culturally Christian-majority regions like Orthodox-majority Eastern Europe and Russia and Catholic majority countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa continue to struggle to develop stable democracies. It also fails to explain why Confucian/Shinto-majority Japan has a vibrant democracy. A more likely explanation is the perpetuation of authoritarian political systems by local despots with foreign economic and political assistance.

Likewise, claims of Islam as more inherently prone to violence than other religions— implied by Huntington’s assertion, “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards” — does not stand up to empirical scrutiny. According to a study by the Oslo-based Centre for the Study of Civil War at the International Peace Research Institute, Islam, when examined as a separate variable, is no more violence-prone than any other religion.

In fact that study found Catholic-majority Latin American countries tend to be the most violence-prone. (According to the study a disproportionate amount of the violence that occurred within Muslim-majority countries, occurred in Arab-majority states.) However the study found religion was a statistically insignificant factor for incidence of violence. Crossculturally, political and economic issues—specifically oil, economic well-being, and a lack of democracy—are the main factors correlating with violent behavior in countries.

Examining Bin Ladin’s Statements:A Quantitative Content Analysis from 1996 to 2011

[Leroast]

haha I've been Hitchslapped

I'm not religious as I indicted in my response to Libspero. I have a soft spot for Bostrom's simulation hypothesis but I'd have though that idea horrifies religious people. My position takes account of the scientific evidence you dismissed.

[R]eligion is an inescapable artefact of the wiring in our brain, says Bloom. "All humans possess the brain circuitry and that never goes away."

Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking. Bering has seen this too. When one of his students carried out interviews with atheists, it became clear that they often tacitly attribute purpose to significant or traumatic moments in their lives, as if some agency were intervening to make it happen. "They don't completely exorcise the ghost of god - they just muzzle it," Bering says.

The fact that trauma is so often responsible for these slips gives a clue as to why adults find it so difficult to jettison their innate belief in gods, Atran says. The problem is something he calls "the tragedy of cognition". Humans can anticipate future events, remember the past and conceive of how things could go wrong - including their own death, which is hard to deal with. "You've got to figure out a solution, otherwise you're overwhelmed," Atran says. When natural brain processes give us a get-out-of-jail card, we take it.

That view is backed up by an experiment published late last year (Science, vol 322, p 115). Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas in Austin and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, asked people what patterns they could see in arrangements of dots or stock market information. Before asking, Whitson and Galinsky made half their participants feel a lack of control, either by giving them feedback unrelated to their performance or by having them recall experiences where they had lost control of a situation.

The results were striking. The subjects who sensed a loss of control were much more likely to see patterns where there were none. "We were surprised that the phenomenon is as widespread as it is," Whitson says. What's going on, she suggests, is that when we feel a lack of control we fall back on superstitious ways of thinking. That would explain why religions enjoy a revival during hard times.