Is Islam evil?

If the only two choices are good or evil, then it's evil. But it's probably more complicated than that.

<but there's billions of peaceful Muslims goes right here>

The Islam as practiced in many parts of the world produces a culture that is at odds with western values---as the Swedes have painfully learned. And that's not even getting into the terrorism aspect. It's a politically incorrect fact that Islam produces terrorists at a higher rate than any other religion.

And not terrorists who are incidentally Muslim; rather, their acts are directly rooted in their interpretation of Islam.
yep..the rise of the salafists along with the rise of "political Islam"created a powder keg.
Allahu Akbar
 
Yet people never use the word "evil" when talking about other religions that kill for power. Ex.: Catholics and Protestants in No. Ireland.
I remember a few IRA bombings that were evil..they were called hideous, criminal..who knows about evil -it's implied with murder.
 
Yes, the bombings were evil, not the religions themselves.
yep. like the terrorists attacks are, and the entire ISIS existence is evil.

salafi Islam is fine by me -as long as it's not jihad.

IRA bombings were the same as AQ itself -they kill civilians by design."radical Islamic terrorism"
 
so its either an evil religion or an anti west religion.

It is an Abrahamic religion, one of 3.
The other two are Judaism and
Christianity.

All are derived from the same man.
All three share major beliefs and components.

Religion itself by it's nature isn't evil but religion is often used to justify great evil.
This can be said of any religion and it has been previously proven that more have died in the name of Christ than any other religion.

The issue isn't Islam but rather the culture of death that is Semitism.

Life simply has no value to Semites.

Therein lies your problem.
These are not people to be messed with.
They want to be left alone.

All they require of us is to be left to their own devices.

There is no solution to the ME.

When wr stop destroying their countries we will stop producing refugees.

Until then everything we do will be subject to the inexorable law of unintended consequences.
 
yep. like the terrorists attacks are, and the entire ISIS existence is evil.

salafi Islam is fine by me -as long as it's not jihad.

IRA bombings were the same as AQ itself -they kill civilians by design."radical Islamic terrorism"

"Radical Islamic terrorism" but never "radical Catholic-Protestant terrorism" is my point.

Btw, I've heard trump use the words "radical Islamic terrorism" since he took office and how has that affected anything?
 
Right now I'm reading a book about honor killings that Tom mentioned, Murder in the Name of Honor by Rana Husseini. Ms. Husseini was born in Jordan but her nationality is Palestinian. Here are a couple of excerpts.

"Ms. Husseini describes an interview in a Jordanian jail she had with a young man named Sarhan who in 1999 shot his sister Yasmin because she was no longer a virgin after she had been raped by a brother-in-law. In the interview, Sarhan explained, “‘I killed her because she was no longer a virgin,’ he told me. ‘She made a mistake, willingly or not. It is better that one person dies than the whole family of shame and disgrace. It is like a box of apples. If you have one rotten apple would you keep it or get rid of it? I just got rid of it.’

When I challenged Sarhan by pointing out that his act contradicted the teachings of Islam and was punishable by God, he said, ‘I know that killing my sister is against Islam and it angered God, but I had to do what I had to do and I will answer to God when the time comes.” He added, “I know my sister was killed unjustly but what can I do? This is how society thinks. Nobody really wants to kill his own sister.”

An honor killing occurs when a male relative decides to take the life of a female relative because, in his opinion, she has dishonored her family’s reputation by engaging in an "immoral" act. An immoral act could be that she was simply seen with a strange man or that she slept with a man. In many cases, women are killed just because of rumors or unfounded suspicions.When I went to investigate the crime I met with her two uncles. At first when I questioned them about the murder they got defensive and asked, "Who told you that?" I said it was in the newspaper. They started telling me that she was "not a good girl." So I asked, "Why was it her fault that she has been raped? Why didn’t the family punish her brother?" And they both looked at each other and one uncle said to the other, "What do you think? Do you think we killed the wrong person?" The other replied, "No, no. Don’t worry. She seduced her brother." I asked them why, with millions of men in the street, would she choose to seduce her own brother? They only repeated that she had tarnished the family image by committing an impure act.

Honor killings are part of a culture, not a religion, and occur in Arab communities in the United States and many countries.
One-third of the reported homicides in Jordan are honor killings. The killers are tr
eated with leniency, and families assign the task of honor killing to a minor, because under Jordanian juvenile law, minors who commit crimes are sentenced to a juvenile center where they can learn a profession and continue their education, and then, at eighteen, be released without a criminal record. The average term served for an honor killing is only seven and a half months.

This is exactly my point.
The ME is a death culture.
Islam isn't the problem it is the excuse.
 
I used simplistic in this sense: "treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler" c9 #20

In that case I'd go w/ "simple" rather than "simplistic".
- "Simple" is the counterpart to "compound".
- "Simplistic" means oversimplification by dismissing relevant complexities.

"I consider the choice (evil or anti-west) to be a false premise and a false dichotomy."

It's an apparent attempt to connect explanation with reality.
We KNOW the fact. The question is, how do we explain it.

The attacks of 09/11/01, the African embassy bombings, the destruction of the U.S.S. Cole, and various other evil-doings indicate a severe & ruthless antagonism between SOME Islamists against the U.S.

"I mostly agree with Scheuer's solutions but not necessarily with this comment: "the reality that many of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims hate us for actions, not values," because how does he conclude that "many hate us" without showing how he arrived at that conclusion."

Scheuer may have devoted a decade or more to that narrow field of study.
It's impossible to blurt out every jot & tittle in a 4 minute TV interview; so he had to give conclusions.

That doesn't mean his conclusions are baseless. Instead it means they simply weren't disclosed in that one interview.

BUT !!

I've heard of some of them; and this may be the missing puzzle piece for you.

For decades traditionalist Muslims have seen the affects of Western culture on their own Muslim culture.

Their teenagers weren't listening to Muslim music. They were listening to Western music, wearing Western style clothing, carrying smart-phones, etc.

Western culture was simply over-running much of Islam.

And since Islam is an ancient tradition to begin with, the Muslim elders couldn't simply compete on market-driven basis; for they'd have had to destroy the Islam they knew.

So instead of winning away ethnic Muslims that were seduced by Western culture; the Muslim traditionalists turned violently radical, and coerced compliance: act Muslim, or you and your family will die.

That's how a school girl like Malala Yousafzai can get shot in the head, simply for attending school. An education is antithetical to these religious troglodytes.

"The Taliban and Isil are not what I call mainstream."

Per capita? OF COURSE NOT!

"Even the so-called mainstream Muslims hate and fear ISIL and the Taliban and those two torture and kill more Muslims than any other group of people."

But not enough to shut them down. I agree. They cower. But why must it be the job of the U.S. to rescue them? When Hitler threatened U.S., we didn't go to Damascus, and beg them to save us. We took care of it.

It does not speak well for Islam that Muslims are willing to have such flagrant atrocities perpetrated in the name of their religion.

I see them as fighting to gain power, not to convert infidels. c9 #20

For a population that size, it's probably both.

The proportion, the ratio is debatable, but almost certainly varies over time.

"Yet people never use the word "evil" when talking about other religions that kill for power. Ex.: Catholics and Protestants in No. Ireland." c9 #22

Yours is a point worth making.
But there's an important distinction as well.

To my knowledge, the Catholic / Protestant carnage in Northern Ireland was not preached from the pulpit; it was rather more freelance carnage; not based on religious / church teachings, but rather more despite them.
 
"Radical Islamic terrorism" but never "radical Catholic-Protestant terrorism" is my point.

Btw, I've heard trump use the words "radical Islamic terrorism" since he took office and how has that affected anything?

give it time. the use of radical islamic terrorism isn't going to change a lot of minds -
but it is effective description,as opposed to Obama's "violent extremists" blandishments.

That along with better vetting like the travel ban, until we can get a working realtionshiop with those countries
(excluding the green card holders -they are fine) reduces the opportunities,and shows a concern that
we aren't going to simply be all PC about this anymore..

In the long run it's our counter-terrorism strategy that is the most important. I'm not sur yet what Trump
is going to do -a lot of this is on autopilot.
But I did hear some IC analysts say they were prohibited to searching locales simply by religion ( Islam)-
which is foolish. Use everything we have. terrorism is an existential threat to the world peace and order.
 
"Islam isn't the problem it is the excuse." R #28
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." sometimes attributed to Seneca the Younger (c.3 BCE - CE 65)
 
Quote Originally Posted by tsuke View Post
so its either an evil religion or an anti west religion.

"Neither. How simplistic." c9 #17


"Both" may be the more accurate answer. "Simplistic" doesn't apply to that quotation.

t may not be an expert on it.
c9 may not be an expert on it.
sear may not be an expert on it.

So I'll quote the one that was one of our CIA's highest ranking authorities on it:

On Nov. 21, 2004 Meet The Press Former CIA Senior Analyst Michael Scheuer; formerly referred to as author "Anonymous" of Imperial Hubris said of bin Laden:


Scheuer may know more about it than the three of us combined.

I'm not saying 100% of all Islam is anti-West.
But there's a variety of different forms of Islam:

Wahabi: reportedly one of the most radical
Shi'ah: the Islamist sect that marches in public flagellating themselves, literally beating themselves with chains, bleeding from their scalps
Sunni: Saddam's preference, iirc

Make no mistake:
The Taliban has religious tenets, and they're not Christian or Jewish. They're MUSLIM! And they are assuredly anti-West.
ISIL? Tell me they're not anti-west. They're as megalomaniacal as Hitler was. They won't rest until the entire planet is a caliphate under their control.

Speaking of simplistic I implore you to cease trying to correct other posters.

Your points are often valid enough on their own legs but so are those of the others.
Nuance is a bitch and despite your experience and knowledge you are not the master of it.
 
If they don't live in Western countries then why should they embrace Western culture?
look at the USA and look at Europe.
we really are a country that is open to all cultures,and it helps us to assimilate.

I still see a lot of Spanish/Hispanic enclaves down here-but it's not the norm..
2nd generation are decidedly "Americans"

For whatever reasons -and there are many-Europe simply doesn't assimilate that well -
some of it is sheer numbers of refugees there; but they had the same problem before the last migration
 
If the only two choices are good or evil, then it's evil. But it's probably more complicated than that.

<but there's billions of peaceful Muslims goes right here>

The Islam as practiced in many parts of the world produces a culture that is at odds with western values---as the Swedes have painfully learned. And that's not even getting into the terrorism aspect. It's a politically incorrect fact that Islam produces terrorists at a higher rate than any other religion.

And not terrorists who are incidentally Muslim; rather, their acts are directly rooted in their interpretation of Islam.

"The Islam as practiced produces a culture "

Almost but no.

The Culture precedes Islam by many millenia.
The Culture is of death.

Islam is the justification.

The distinction is very important.
 
Yes, the bombings were evil, not the religions themselves.

OMG!

"The conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events.[27] It also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension,[28] although it was not a religious conflict.[11][29] A key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

So brainwashed. Sooooo brainwashed.
 
"The Islam as practiced produces a culture "

Almost but no.

The Culture precedes Islam by many millenia.
The Culture is of death.

Islam is the justification.

The distinction is very important.

While this is partly true, the people's there who embraced Islam and incorporated previously secular culture, did not became as warlike until they embraced Islam. Jews were not second class citizens in the ME before Islam. Thus, you cannot say that this was part of the culture before Islam.
 
look at the USA and look at Europe.
we really are a country that is open to all cultures,and it helps us to assimilate.

I still see a lot of Spanish/Hispanic enclaves down here-but it's not the norm..
2nd generation are decidedly "Americans"

For whatever reasons -and there are many-Europe simply doesn't assimilate that well -
some of it is sheer numbers of refugees there; but they had the same problem before the last migration

Assimilation is always an initial issue in immigration.

The Chineses, The Irish now the Mexicans, next the Muslims.

Xenophobia is a bitch.
 
While this is partly true, the people's there who embraced Islam and incorporated previously secular culture, did not became as warlike until they embraced Islam. Jews were not second class citizens in the ME before Islam. Thus, you cannot say that this was part of the culture before Islam.

Yes I can.
Jews are Semites.
The Semitic culture of death far precedes Muhammad.

Consider the initial journey around the sea of Galilee at which time the Jews killed all they encountered saving only healthy young males as slaves marked by blindling in one eye.
 
OMG!

"The conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events.[27] It also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension,[28] although it was not a religious conflict.[11][29] A key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

So brainwashed. Sooooo brainwashed.

Yet the truth is also that the Catholics were bombing the Protestants.

Doesn't that suck for your "argument"_?
 
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