Mosque opponents target the evils of Islam

[oldcatholicguy]

You could not have a peaceful dialogue with Hitler, Estaline, North Korea, Fidel Castro, Napoleon, with all the fundamentalists., OK?
Peaceful dialogue with these is a nice way to have your head chopped off.

Apples and oranges, unless of course you are trying to argue that all Muslims everywhere are jack booted atheist imperialistic facist communists with a fundamentalist style faith in a God. Talk about a split personality. Also, you need to make a call to Rome and let them know the dialogue it’s been having with Cuba since at least BJPII isn’t possible.

 

[Hunter24]

So, Christianity trying to re-conquer what was their is a sin for you…
Well, nice reasoning…
“Ethnic clensing of Muslems by Slav Orthodox Serbians in former YugoSlavia” - now let us see if you know History or you only see the Muslim viewpoint. Why did christians behave this way? Do you know why?
So, you are pro-turk and against the peaceful greeks? funny…
So, we cannot consider Saudi Arabia … they are out of this world … but you open your eyes wide for every Christian sin. which side are you in ?

If you read my later post i specificly said i understand and feal that the Spanish were justified because the Moors had invaded spain, it just annoys me that Christians deny what happened.

Please explain to me how the genocidal Serbian military is the victim here…

yes i am pro Turk, frankly i like them quite a lot, and the Greeks of that period were not exactly peaceful.

Yes we can consider the Saudis, but it must be taken with a grain of salt.

I am on my own side, im a pagan. Both Islam and Christianity have done wonderful things, spread learning, advanced science, and given us amazing cultural works. without Islam we have no algebra, without Christian monks we have only scraps of knowledge of the Roman world. But people have also done terrible things in the names of these religions.

I just dont like when people A. demonize people for the work of their ancestors, and B. deny history.

now because there is a massive amount of christians here ive taken to arguing that christianity has also caused many problems through history. personaly i have no preference between the two religions.

 

[Contarini]

Isha, the last of the 5 prayers, can be all night, although it usually isn’t.

*Fajr * is pre-dawn and must be before sunrise. That means that now, around where I live, it starts at around 4:45 am (it gets as early as 3:55 am). It is preceded by the muezzin calling them to prayer, so it does get pretty middle-of-the-nighty.

That makes sense–silly of me to just think about the last prayer and not hte first.

Have people living in such communities made any attempt to approach the local Muslims respectfully and say, “We are committed to your right to practice your religion, and we admire you for being willing to get up so early to pray, but is there any way that the early call to prayer could be done in a way that doesn’t disturb other people’s sleep?”

Maybe they have, but it seems to me that this is largely being used as an excuse.

Edwin

 

[sedonaman]

Please prove that the sole or primary reason for all these actions was their faith. …

I don’t have to; you are the one making that assertion. The simple fact is, after 463 years of Muslim aggression, the West finally got fed up and tried to put a stop to it, and not only that, it gets vilified … by its own people. How Nietzschean can you get???

… the most common cause of war, namely “I have a bigger sword then you and I want your stuff.”

I will grant you that; however, generally, people need a moral reason to do evil [e.g., killing a fellow human being and taking his “stuff”]. The promise of paradise for fighting in a religious cause provides that reason. Throw in 80% of the booty “your stuff”], and you have a near perfect justification. We can only speculate what percent each [religion vs booty] contributed. It probably varies with the individual who has been dead for over 1,000 years.

 

[PJH_74]

Oh please, don’t drag out the old equal dignity and value = sameness canard. The fact that many religions have religious assignments of duty based on gender has NOTHING to do with that religion’s outlook on the civil rights of women in larger society. You can’t possibly be thick enough to equate that with the allegation (I’m not scholar enough to verify if this is true) that Islam requires secular courts to assign women’s testimony no more than half the value of a man’s. If this is, indeed, an integral part of the Islamic faith and indispensible teaching then it is a sick religion incompatible with American law and values. As I mentioned above, there are other troubling aspects of Islamic teaching that I’d like to see clearly addressed by muslim leaders

Of course I don’t necessarily equate a religion’s internal sex based assigned roles with their political stance on equality. My point to you is would YOU ever require a Priest or Pastor in those churches to sign a declaration indicating they respected gender equality? But you are supporting such things for Islam when you yourself admit you don’t even know if it’s true that some variation (and there are many) of sharia law assigns women half value.

There is diversity of thought within Islam as there is in Christianity. About the only thing can reliably about all Christians is that Jesus came down to save or inspire us. Not every Christian even believes in a Triune God. In the same, about the only thing you can probably say reliably about all Muslims is that they believe in the 5 pillars of Islam. So let the individual Muslim show you he or she is as much as you would like this done for you.

 

[YKohen]

That makes sense–silly of me to just think about the last prayer and not hte first.

Not silly at all. It’s natural.

Have people living in such communities made any attempt to approach the local Muslims respectfully and say, “We are committed to your right to practice your religion, and we admire you for being willing to get up so early to pray, but is there any way that the early call to prayer could be done in a way that doesn’t disturb other people’s sleep?”

Practically, that works when the Muslims are a small minority. It doesn’t when they’re not.

 

[manualman]

That makes sense–silly of me to just think about the last prayer and not hte first.

Have people living in such communities made any attempt to approach the local Muslims respectfully and say, “We are committed to your right to practice your religion, and we admire you for being willing to get up so early to pray, but is there any way that the early call to prayer could be done in a way that doesn’t disturb other people’s sleep?”

Maybe they have, but it seems to me that this is largely being used as an excuse.

Indeed, one wonders if Islam is flexible enough to replace the muezzin call with an app for that?

I know my wife found an Angelus reminder app. It’s pretty cool!

 

[YKohen]

nytimes.com/2004/05/05/us/tension-in-a-michigan-city-over-muslims-call-to-prayer.html

 

[oldcatholicguy]

I don’t have to; you are the one making that assertion. The simple fact is, after 463 years of Muslim aggression, the West finally got fed up and tried to put a stop to it, and not only that, it gets vilified … by its own people. How Nietzschean can you get???

I will grant you that; however, generally, people need a moral reason to do evil [e.g., killing a fellow human being and taking his “stuff”]. The promise of paradise for fighting in a religious cause provides that reason. Throw in 80% of the booty “your stuff”], and you have a near perfect justification. We can only speculate what percent each [religion vs booty] contributed. It probably varies with the individual who has been dead for over 1,000 years.

Actually you do have to prove it because your asserition is that all your listed acts were due to Islam and not the most common causes of the acts (empire building, territorial gain, economics, plain old greed, etc). You are making a rather specific claim without supporting it. Using your rather simplistic criteria, I could make as “valid” claims as yours against the HRE, the ERE, the Vikings, Irish sea raiders, Baltic pagans, the Poles, Hungarians, and the Russians (or the people that would form Russia after the time period you listed). Wow, who would have thought that Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Norse and Baltic Paganism were all such blood thirsty religions. Failure to engage in critical thinking leads to simplistic and poorly thought out arguments.

And no, people generally don’t need a moral reason to do evil. They need a justification that allows them to ignore morality to do evil. Such as claiming that their victims are nothing more then blood thirsty evil savages and that the ends sometimes justify the means.

 

[sedonaman]

Actually you do have to prove it because your asserition is that all your listed acts were due to Islam …

You read that into it. In any event, does it really matter what the Muslim motives were? I’m sure the Christians who were sacked didn’t ponder or care what they were. The fact is that Culture A attacked Culture B for 463 years until B said enough and fought back. Is that so hard to understand?

 

[oldcatholicguy]

You read that into it. In any event, does it really matter what the Muslim motives were? I’m sure the Christians who were sacked didn’t ponder or care what they were. The fact is that Culture A attacked Culture B for 463 years until B said enough and fought back. Is that so hard to understand?

Highlighting the Islamic portion of the historical invasion and counter-invasion of Europe/N Africa/Middle East that goes at least as far back as Carthage and using this highlighted section while ignoring the rest as support for a “Islam is evil, see how invasion happy it is” argument is intellectually dishonest. It’s like pointing to Soviet Russia’s occupation of Eastern Europe and saying “see how evil these athiest communists are, they take over Eastern Europe, something they would have never have done had they still been Orthodo Christians” without bothering to mention that the Soviets did nothing different then Orthodox Christian Russia or pagan Mongal Russia. Well no different outside of the fact that they actually accomplished what Orthodox and Mongal controlled Russia tried but failed at.

And yes it is hard to understand because you aren’t arguing culture A vs. culture B, you are arguing religion A vs. religion B. Religion is a subset of culture, culture is not a subset of religion. If you want to present a culture A vs. culture B argument (which I view as valid given the historic record) then you need to do so. Such an argument would include more then just the fact that culture B is religion B; and more then “well they’re religion B so that is the reason they invaded or caused a war” (i.e. a “big picture” approach to understanding the motives behind a particular act, invasion, or war).

 

[sedonaman]

Highlighting the Islamic portion of the historical invasion and counter-invasion of Europe/N Africa/Middle East that goes at least as far back as Carthage and using this highlighted section while ignoring the rest as support for a “Islam is evil, see how invasion happy it is” argument is intellectually dishonest. It’s like pointing to Soviet Russia’s occupation of Eastern Europe and saying “see how evil these athiest communists are, they take over Eastern Europe, something they would have never have done had they still been Orthodo Christians” without bothering to mention that the Soviets did nothing different then Orthodox Christian Russia or pagan Mongal Russia. Well no different outside of the fact that they actually accomplished what Orthodox and Mongal controlled Russia tried but failed at.

And yes it is hard to understand because you aren’t arguing culture A vs. culture B, you are arguing religion A vs. religion B. Religion is a subset of culture, culture is not a subset of religion. If you want to present a culture A vs. culture B argument (which I view as valid given the historic record) then you need to do so. Such an argument would include more then just the fact that culture B is religion B; and more then “well they’re religion B so that is the reason they invaded or caused a war” (i.e. a “big picture” approach to understanding the motives behind a particular act, invasion, or war).

No, because I can’t help what people read into my list of events.

 

[Hunter24]

You could not have a peaceful dialogue with Hitler, Estaline, North Korea, Fidel Castro, Napoleon, with all the fundamentalists., OK?
Peaceful dialogue with these is a nice way to have your head chopped off.

Why does Napoleon alwase get dragged into this stuff, just wondering. i see a long list of very sadistic men and the Napoleon, why?

 

[IbnFiktur]

I will grant you that; however, generally, people need a moral reason to do evil [e.g., killing a fellow human being and taking his “stuff”]. The promise of paradise for fighting in a religious cause provides that reason. Throw in 80% of the booty “your stuff”], and you have a near perfect justification. We can only speculate what percent each [religion vs booty] contributed. It probably varies with the individual who has been dead for over 1,000 years.

Historically (and tragically), people don’t necessarily need a strong “moral reason” to go to war. Let’s not forget that the Romano-Byzantines and the Persians had been struggling over various bits of territory at great cost to local peoples for centuries before Islam came about. The Muslims were simply far more successful than either the Persians or the Romans. The soldiers in the respective armies fought because (in the Roman case at least, I don’t know much about the late antique Persian military) they were professional soldiers who were very much interested in booty. This is not a phenomenon unique to the early Islamic empire.

 

[confucius]

This is a repeat of a previous post for the benefit of those who missed it:

There were 463 years between Mohammed’s death in 632 AD and the calling of a Crusade to free lands that had been Christian before the Muslim invaders arrived; but to hear what passes for common “knowledge” [from self-hating Christians at that!], the whole affair was solely the fault of power-hungry popes, greedy soldiers of fortune, and Christians who were persecuting harmless, pious Muslims minding their own business. Muslims are only too happy to help Christians perpetuate this mea maxima culpa attitude.

Stenhouse[1] lists only some of the events that took place in those 463 years, among them, 633 – Mesopotamia falls to Muslim invasion, followed by the entire Persian Empire
635 – Damascus falls
638 – Jerusalem capitulates
643 – Alexandria falls, ending 1,000 years of Hellenic civilization
648-49 – Cyprus falls
653 – Rhodes falls
673 – Constantinople attacked
698 – All of North Africa lost
711 – Spain invaded
717 – Muslims attack Constantinople again; repelled by Emperor Leo the Isaurian
721 – Saragossa falls, Muslims sights on southern France
720 – Narbonne falls.
732 – Bordeaux was stormed and its churches burnt down
732 – Charles Martel and his Frankish army defeat Muslims, turning back the Muslim tide
732 – Attacks on France continued
734 – Avignon captured by an Muslim force
743 – Lyons sacked
759 – Arabs driven out of Narbonne.
838 – Marseilles plundered
800 – Muslims incursions into Italy begin, Islands of Ponza and Ischia plundered
813 – Civitavecchia, the port of Rome sacked
826 – Crete falls to Muslim forces
827 – Muslim forces begin to attack Sicily.
837 – Naples repels a Muslim attack
838 – Marseilles taken
840 – Bari falls
842 – Messina captured and Strait of Messina controlled
846 – Muslims squadrons arrived at Ostia, at the Tiber’s mouth, sack Rome and St. Peter’s Basilica
846 – Taranto in Apulia conquered by Muslim forces
849 – Papal forces repel Muslim fleet at the mouth of the Tiber
853 – 871 – Italian coast from Bari down to Reggio Calabria controlled, Muslims terrorize Southern Italy.
859 – Muslims take control of all Messina
870 – Malta captured by the Muslims.
870 – Bari recaptured from the Muslims by Emperor Louis II
872 – Emperor Louis II defeats a Saracen fleet off Capua
872 – Muslim forces devastate Calabria
878 – Syracuse falls after a nine-month siege
879 – Pope John VIII forced to pay tribute of 25,000 mancuses (AUD$625,000) annually to the Muslims
880 – Byzantine Commanders gain victory over Saracen forces at Naples
881 – Muslims capture fortress near Anzio, plunder surrounding countryside with impunity for forty [40] years.
887 – Muslim armies take Hysela and Amasia, in Asia Minor.
889 – Toulon captured
902 – Muslim fleets sacked and destroyed Demetrias in Thessaly, Central Greece,
904 – Thessalonica falls to Muslim forces
915 – After three months of blockade, Christian forces victorious against Saracens holed-up in their fortresses north of Naples
921 – English pilgrims to Rome crushed to death under rocks rolled down on them by Saracens in the passes of the Alps
934 – Genoa attacked by Muslim forces
935 – Genoa taken
972 – Saracens finally driven from Faxineto
976 – Caliphs of Egypt send fresh Muslim expeditions into southern Italy. Initially the German Emperor Otho II , who had set up his headquarters in Rome, successfully defeated these Saracen forces
977 – Sergius, Archbishop of Damascus, expelled from his See by Muslims
982 – Emperor Otho’s forces ambushed and his army defeated
1003 – Muslims from Spain sack Antibes
1003-09 – Marauding bands of Saracens plunder Italian coast from Pisa to Rome from bases on Sardinia
1005 – Muslims from Spain sack Pisa
1009 – Caliph of Egypt orders destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Tomb of Jesus
1010 – Saracens seize Cosenza in southern Italy.
1015 – All Sardinia falls
1016 – Muslims from Spain again sack Pisa
1017 – Fleets of Pisa and Genoa sail for Sardinia, find Saracens crucifying Christians, drive Saracen leader out. Saracens try to re-take Sardinia until 1050
1020 – Muslims from Spain sack Narbonne
1095 – The First Crusade.
And it didn’t stop once the Crusades were over. While the pope has apologized for the Crusades, Muslims have never so much as acknowledged any responsibility, and why should they when there are billions of Christians around to self-flagellate over the issue?

For additional reading, see “The Real History of the Crusades” by Medieval historian Thomas F. Madden catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0055.html

Notes:

[1] “The Crusades In Context” by Dr Paul Stenhouse answering-islam.org.uk/Green/crusades-stenhouse.htm
[2] “Jihad Begot The Crusades”
Andrew Bostom americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4467 [Two parts]
[3] “The Legacy of Jihad in Historical Palestine”
Andrew Bostom americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4999

“Simply looking to expand their borders” ? Sounds like you are admitting they are out to conquer the world … motivated by religion.

Thanks for your complete information. I have copied it for further use…if you do not mind.
Muslims Authors are now, in the Arab Spring, criticizing the Muslim mentality of self-pity, all the blame is on the Christians and the Crusades, hundreds of years ago. At the same time, they attack and insult everybody but if somebody makes some crazy cartoons about Mahome, the whole Muslim World falls apart. They cut the heads of Muslims who convert to Christianity yet complain about the inequalities on treating Muslims, as when one country forbids the female veil (at least we Christians, do not cut the woman’s head !!!). They hardly have any Nobel Prize and the Koran is read in Arabic, though most of the Muslims do not understand it. When Mandela went to Palestine and advised Arafat to receive well Israelite General Sharon, Arafat said: “You do not understand. Forgiveness is for you Christians. Our language is revenge!”

So when we are treating the Muslims as “poor little things”, half backwards, we are not doing them a favor, we are keeping them in an inferior step than ours…

Yours is the real approach to the subject, calling the only thing that matters - the historical truth.

 

[confucius]

A peaceful non-“convert or die” dialogue with Muslims. Same goes for his order for the last 700-800 years.

If you see history as informed by a post above, the non-“convert or die” approach worked in the Christian side that did not need St. Francis help but got worse on the Muslim Side.

 

[confucius]

Please prove that the sole or primary reason for all these actions was their faith. You seem to be making the false assumption common amoung atheists that a war that has religion anywhere in it has to have been caused by that religion and not by the most common cause of war, namely “I have a bigger sword then you and I want your stuff.”

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[confucius]

What i see here are a long list of towns being conquored and maybe about 3 acts of religious persecution. invading a city isnt an act of religious persecution.

???
Funny. Why did they attack their own cities ? Coincidence, pure coincidence: these were all Christian cities. What a coincidence ! fortuitous, of course !!!
???

 

[confucius]

Apples and oranges, unless of course you are trying to argue that all Muslims everywhere are jack booted atheist imperialistic facist communists with a fundamentalist style faith in a God. Talk about a split personality. Also, you need to make a call to Rome and let them know the dialogue it’s been having with Cuba since at least BJPII isn’t possible.

I will distinguish Apples and oranges.
All the names I said were dictators.
All Muslim State have some kind of Dictatorship, meaning lack of political freedom.
Cuba: 2 Popes went there. There are priests and bishops and faithful there. I did not understand your point.

 

[confucius]

If you read my later post i specificly said i understand and feal that the Spanish were justified because the Moors had invaded spain, it just annoys me that Christians deny what happened.

Please explain to me how the genocidal Serbian military is the victim here…

yes i am pro Turk, frankly i like them quite a lot, and the Greeks of that period were not exactly peaceful.

Yes we can consider the Saudis, but it must be taken with a grain of salt.

I am on my own side, im a pagan. Both Islam and Christianity have done wonderful things, spread learning, advanced science, and given us amazing cultural works. without Islam we have no algebra, without Christian monks we have only scraps of knowledge of the Roman world. But people have also done terrible things in the names of these religions.

I just dont like when people A. demonize people for the work of their ancestors, and B. deny history.

now because there is a massive amount of christians here ive taken to arguing that christianity has also caused many problems through history. personaly i have no preference between the two religions.

Boy, if something was talked ad nauseam was Inquisition. It seems everyday I hear from them. The Pope apologized already. I have never heard any Muslim or pagan apologize for anything.

Pagans were responsible for 300 millions deaths in the 20th century, more than the Catholic church in 2000 years.

You should study history. The Christian rape of Muslim Women, utterly condemned by everybody (the Pope, the International Community, the Christians, Me) was a revenge of Muslim rape of Christin women 400 years earlier. Never heard an apology of the Muslim.

I have no preference for paganism either, for I do not see this doing any good to the world, compared for instance with the social charities of the Catholic Church.