I'm sick of the rabid Islamophobia on these boards...

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Dear Eco. You can try to increase the font size by holding down the CTRL and + sign to increase your font size or CTRL and - sign to decrease. I hope this helps.

By the way I have seen the dispatches video and I believe it does a great job of exposing the puritan extremists. Note that Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad who is also Muslim is interviewed by dispatches and explains that the imams at these mosques all subscribe to the same Islamic ideology that is either salafism or wahabism that has its roots in Saudi Arabia.
 
Palladio said:
If anybody thinks democracy and Islam mix, look at a map of the Middle East and point to a single Islamic democracy.
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Dear Palladio, if democracy and Islam do not mix then what are we Muslims doing living here in non-muslim democratic countries?. if it is not for the pursuit of freedoms and opportunities in democratic countries we would all be living back in our respective “Muslim” countries.

There are also many native westerners who convert to Islam on an annual bases, who love their freedoms and opportunities in these countries. Many Immigrant and revert Muslims call these countries home, we raise our families, pursue education and career opportunities, express our opinions, practice our faith and are quite happy. Therefore Islam and democracy mix very well.
 
I forgot to add.
There is an extremist ideology spreading out of Saudi Arabia which considers everybody who doesn’t believe in the exact same creed as them as an infidel or kaffir. In some circles they are referred to as the Takfiris. That is to say those who consider anybody who doesn’t believe in their exact interpretation of religion a kaffir or infidel.

It is important to distinguish between salafi / wahabi muslims and the rest of the Muslim population. Because the rest of us do not agree with this ideology.

The disagreement of other Muslims with this ideology is presented by Dr Irfan al-alawi and Prof. Abdul Hakim Murad (fast forward to 9:00 minutes into the video) in the same dispatches video posted by Eco.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2668560761490749816
 
I know that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it sure seems like all terrorists are Muslim. Islam seems to have a problem peacefully coexisting with other religions. Everytime Islam borders a non-Islamic region (i.e. Kashmir, East Timor, Mindinao, the West Bank, Lebanon, Chechnya to name but a few) , there always seems to be violence and it isn’t the Christians or Hindus or Buddhists that are initiating it.

Why should we have to conform our beliefs to accomodate them? It should be the other way around. Frankly, I’m not interested in understanding them.
 
Generic_Man said:
There are.

They’re just never heard.
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Truth said:
Because this is essentially a fact. To believe otherwise is simply foolhardy. How many suicide bombers are Christians doing it in the name of Christ?
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Be careful, not that long ago historically Christians were in fact killing in the name of Christ. Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire continually made the point that Christianity was a religion of war and used that as a justification to try to rid the world of it and base society on reason. They neglected the fact that most Christians did not condon violence at that time.
We can’t make that same mistake these days concerning Muslims. We must avoind simplistic generalizations that could lead to hatred.
It is believed that there is a struggle in the Islamic world between the moderates who want to reinterpret the Koran and put the more problematic verses in context and the extremists, who want to put an 11th century conservative spin on Islam. In Pakistan, in particular, there is a deep faultline between traditionlists and moderates. Pakistani novelist Moshin Hamid says “Yes ,there are extremists here, but they are a minority in a nation of 165million people.Most of us want nothing to do with violence”.( National Geographic, Sept 2007, p. 45)
Another example of the struggle is the movement in many Islamic countries to improve the status of women. “In many Islamic countries, reformers have largely abandoned attempts to replace sharia with secular law, a route that has proved mostly futile. Instead, they are trying to promote women’s rights within an Islamic framework.”(Foriegn Affairs, January-February, 2006, p. 25)
We would do well to recognize this struggle in Islam instead of falling for stereotypes
 
famdigy said:
Dear Palladio, if democracy and Islam do not mix then what are we Muslims doing living here in non-muslim democratic countries?. if it is not for the pursuit of freedoms and opportunities in democratic countries we would all be living back in our respective “Muslim” countries.

There are also many native westerners who convert to Islam on an annual bases, who love their freedoms and opportunities in these countries. Many Immigrant and revert Muslims call these countries home, we raise our families, pursue education and career opportunities, express our opinions, practice our faith and are quite happy. Therefore Islam and democracy mix very well.
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You misunderstand what I wrote: Islam has never and could never found democracy of any sort. You are merely exercising commonsense, I guess, in coming to a part of the world where you can make money. Most of you are still living back in those beauty spots you refer to. Welcome: I hope you are enjoying the fruits of Christianity: liberal democracy. As for conversions, in the U. S., that’s among blacks, and for reasons that are obvious: the failure of Americans, Christians first and foremost, to integrate them after slavery. Islam will never grow very large except in countries where illiteracy and isolation thrive, or where certain populations are so repressed that they turn to whatever seems helpful to them, such as blacks have here.
 
Dear Palladio,

Don’t forget that prior to the Age of enlightenment, most of the Christian world was living under the repression of the Church and King in a peasants v.s. Lords existence. With all respect for your religion, it was no thanks to Christianity that western world developed the freedom it enjoys today, rather its the fruits of the movement that advocated reason, science and rationality as the primary basis of authority above divine or natural law.
 
Palladio said:
You misunderstand what I wrote: Islam has never and could never found democracy of any sort. You are merely exercising commonsense, I guess, in coming to a part of the world where you can make money. Most of you are still living back in those beauty spots you refer to. Welcome: I hope you are enjoying the fruits of Christianity: liberal democracy. As for conversions, in the U. S., that’s among blacks, and for reasons that are obvious: the failure of Americans, Christians first and foremost, to integrate them after slavery. Islam will never grow very large except in countries where illiteracy and isolation thrive, or where certain populations are so repressed that they turn to whatever seems helpful to them, such as blacks have here.
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Now this is outright racist.
 
famdigy said:
Dear Palladio,

Don’t forget that prior to the Age of enlightenment, most of the Christian world was living under the repression of the Church and King in a peasants v.s. Lords existence. With all respect for your religion, it was no thanks to Christianity that western world developed the freedom it enjoys today, rather its the fruits of the movement that advocated reason, science and rationality as the primary basis of authority above divine or natural law.
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You have a lot to learn, my friend.

No big deal: if I lived in the Middle East, I would have to learn a lot, too.

First you present a silly picture of the middle ages that one used to get from the movies, not from history. It’s like me saying that all Muslims live in tents and hold a hareem: just that silly.

Then you’ve fallen for what one bit of what historians label the myth of enlightenment progress: if you have the time to read one of the many books to demolish that myth over the last fifty years, try the several hundred pages by J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment. (Yale University Press).

Look carefully into the lives of the following makers of science and scientific method, and of modern philosophy: Copernicus, Bacon, Descartes, Pascal. Consider that the vast majority of Renaissance scholars–who brought back Greek and Latin texts–were Christians, from 1300 onward, and that the Renaissance forms a continuum with the Enlightenment for that very reason. Peruse the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: Christian, Christian, Christian.

Take your time.

Nobody can force you, here.

Presumably, that’s why you are here in the first place.

May God grant you the leisure to make the very best use of your free will and your new-found civil liberties.

And welcome, agin.
 
I don’t hate Islam or most Muslims. Actually I don’t hate anyone and I know some pretty cool Muslims. However, I would highly recomment this book amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743289684/ref=pd_sl_aw_jset-1_low-book_38378990_1 written by an ex-Muslim who became a member of Dutch Parliament. Of course, it’s just her story but her experience seems to be pretty common and scary. If even 10% of a billion people think honor killings and destroying infidels and the like are just peachy, it’s reason enough to be a bit alarmed by the whole thing, don’t you think?
 
Thank you for your welcome. You may be right, that I may not know all of my moslems friends. But, I can see by my own eye that many moslems youth help protecting our church during crisis. I found my refuge together with my wife and one-year-old son in a moslem neighbor, within a moslem neighborhood while those people who claimed to be moslems looted Jakarta, and raped some Indonesian chinese, back in May 13th 1998. And the vice versa, our Archbishop Mandagi from Ambon cathedral, risking his own life protecting a mosque and many moslems refugees inside from burning by people who claimed to be christian during Indonesian civil war in Moluccus. That’s why during that religious based civil war in Moluccus, “moslems” did not target catholics in their war against “christians”. By showing the rosary, the catholics were protected by the moslems. We, the catholics were neutral during such dark period.
 
Dear Palladio,

We can at least agree that Copernicus didn’t see a conflict with Christianity and science, unfortunately being Christian himself wasn’t enough to prevent the church from placing his book on the list of banned books. Galileo who came after him suffered a much harsher treatment by being labeled a heretic and sentenced to house arrest for life.

In short, wouldn’t you agree that Galileo and others like him sacrificed a great deal in order to have the ideas of democracy, tolerance, and reason to eventually break trough and overcome the established institution of the church

I would guess It took at least 1500 years from the time of Jesus (as) until the age of enlightenment for people to be ready in demanding change. The freedoms we enjoy today did not come cheap and are not without struggle. In drawing parallels between the development of Christian and Muslim societies. I feel that the Muslim world to a great deal has a long way to go before archiving the same liberiteis for themselves.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
It might be better if Muslims repudiate the hateful and violent teachings of Muhammad against disbelievers instead of telling us that they are against terrorism.

Please erase the jihad verses of the Quran - that might convince us of the genuine feelings of Muslims in repudiating terrorism.

One the one hand you do not repudiate these hateful and violent verses but instead condone, support and teach them to the next generation of Jihadists, and then tell us you repudiate terrorism.

There is a saying: don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.
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You may be correct my brother. The islamic verses on Jihad have been interpreted irresponsibly by some people who claim to be moslems. The problem is for Islam, they do not have a Magisterium who has the authority to make interpretations such as ours in the Catholic Church. Believe me, the terrorists tend to be “shallow” in their knowledge of Islam. But, they do very charismatic and forceful during preaching. Unfortunately, most of the moslems in their target audience are uneducated or educated but have a certain unconventional thinking toward non-moslems. (yes, the only science the terrorist know is to assemble bombs)Don’t forget that our book of Maccabees (1 & 2) have a Catholic Jihad verses too. Thanks to our Magisterium, that we will never interpret those Catholic Jihad verses irresponsibly. By the way, I am a Catholic, and risen in a Catholic family, and now having a Catholic family.
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
Yes, these poor deluded Islamophobic Egyptians don’t know Islam except what they read in anti-Muslim websites. They didn’t and don’t have to live through the supposed anti-Copt persecution by Muslims in the name and example of their prophet and Islamic Allah.

This report came from Christianpost, an obviously anti-Islamic site, so cannot be believed.

No persecution of Christians ever happened in Muslim countries according to the teachings of Islam. This is all a lie.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20041207/15362_Thousands_Protest_Egypt’s_Neglect_of_Coptic_Persecution.htm

Hundreds to thousands of Coptic demonstrators in the Egyptian provinces of Cairo, el-Minia, el-Behara and Assiut gathered Dec. 5-6 to protest the recent escalation in anti-Coptic hate crimes and the Egyptian President’s inattention to Coptic pleas for protection from government persecution. According to sources, the on-going two-day protest is a response to the Egyptian government’s sanction of anti-Coptic hate crimes such as arson, torture, murder, and the abduction, rape, and forced conversion of young Coptic women.

In the most recent incident, Wafaa Constantine Messiha, the wife of a Coptic priest, was reportedly abducted and forced to convert to Islam.

"Muslims are regularly attacking Copts, and they kidnapped the wife of a priest to force her to convert to Islam," Zaki stated.

Nothing for us to worry about here. Let’s move on - It was the Amish who kidnapped the wife of the Coptic priest to force her to convert to Buddhism.
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👍 👍

😉 Yeah, that’s right…I 😉 remember that…You gotta watch out for those dang:rotfl: Amish!! 🤷 🤷
 
Rodrigo_Bivar said:
Please erase the jihad verses of the Quran - that might convince us of the genuine feelings of Muslims in repudiating terrorism.
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no no no… we don’t erase the words of the Creator in order to appease his creatures.
 
famdigy said:
No, Copernicus was a Catholic (in fact, he studied to obtain a doctorate in Canon Law), and the complex reception of his book across Europe is the subject of work that you would find interesting by Professor Owen Gingerich, at Harvard. Also, De revolutionibus was not banned by the Church. There has never been a conflict between faith and reason in the Roman Catholic Church, which has always stood on the foundation of both faith and reason. Having created The Bible, She fostered the glories of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and educated some of Her sharpest agents (Descartes) and adversaries (Voltaire, who was at any rate a second-rate thinker).

Again, you are assuming progress as a given or inarguable and also assuming that neither Catholics nor Christians had anything to do with either progress or science: Europe was first Catholic, then Catholic and Protestant, and simply nothing of its history could be what it was without the New Testament. You are also ignoring math and philosophy altogether, and political theory (Lipsius, Grotius) and history and historiography.

Worse, you seem to imply that there was nothing of value in Europe until 1789 or, here, until 1776. Which is patently false.

I have no hope whatsoever for any Islamic societies achieving any democracy because I see no irrefutable evidence for it, now or in the past.

Turkey is a possible exception, but nobody (even moderately Islamo-friendly France) wants it in the EU because the radical modernization of Ataturk now reposes upon a police and military state which looks like it is here to stay, not upon a genuine republican democracy. I happen to know one of its pro-democracy leaders. I am surprised they have not murdered him by now.

I appreciate your reply all the more in that, while mistaken, you have taken my own replies in stride, never once writing in haste or in anger.

I hope you will see that I bear no Muslims ill will. My interest in all of this is selfish (it is one part of Islam that has murdered and destroyed and continues to threaten more of the same in the West), but also historical: some people in some places seem all but doomed to tyranny (China is one example: when have the Chinese not been tyrannized?).

I will pray for the emancipation of Islamic societies in particular, as I pray for world peace in general.

I really do wish you the very best in your new home.

God bless.
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Proletarian,

You said:
That’s Saudi Arabia not Islam. To make a foolish statement like that you would have to ignore the freedom of religion that exists in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, The United Arab Emirates, Indonesia…and the VAST majority of Islamic countries
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No, that is the WAHABI sect of Sunni Islam…

Generic,

Your Screen Name is appropriate…you’ve painted the members of this board with the same broad “generic” brush you accuse us of doing to Islam.

I’ve seen very little “Islamophobia” on this board. Just people who reject much of what many Muslims teach and practice. And it’s not just the Islamists we oppose, but also things like honor killings…or the 95% of Egyptian Muslim females who are forced to undergo female circumcision.

FACT Islam was a religion founded and spread with violence…it’s founder was a violent and bloody man.
FACT Most Mulsims in the world are peaceful
FACT a press statement condemning Islamic Terrorists does very little…moderate and liberal Muslims must take ACTION…in the Mosque…more importantly…in the MIDRASHA…and in the STREET to defeat those violent haters…that 10% of Muslims who are Violent.
 
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