A different world view
October 9th, 2008 by Brian Withnell
First, I want to say that Islam is nowhere near homogeneous. There are modern Muslims that look at Islam in much the same way that nominal mainstream churches look at Christianity … it is viewed not as all encompassing, and they reject the idea that the Koran is anything more than just the writings of men without any infallible truth. I would posit that is a minority position at this point. There are others on the opposite extreme who would just as soon slit your throat if you were not a Muslim as look at you. There other others in between. If only 5% of Muslims are of the “slit your throat” variety, that means there are millions of people out there willing to slit your throat.
Educate yourself about those that do intend you harm … make sure you understand them. They are here (i.e., this country). Radical Islam is not a “nice neighbor” but an inflitration of those who would undermine our constitution. Radical Islam does not accept any religion as tolerable. In the long run, they will even not tolerate themselves (any faction different in even the smallest way from “their own”).
I highly recommend you look at what is the practice of jihad by these countries. TryThe Third Jihad as a start. Look at what Islam teaches its children. Here, teaching children to hate and desire being a martyr would be called child abuse. While I believe there are Muslims that are just as secular as any mainline church member, I know there are others that would want to lull us into thinking all Muslims are peaceful.
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October 9th, 2008 at 12:30 am
First, I want to say that Christianity is nowhere near homogeneous. There are modern Christians and there are others on the opposite extreme who would just as soon slit your throat if you were not a Christian as look at you. There other others in between. If only 5% of Christians are of the “slit your throat” variety, that means there are millions of people out there willing to slit your throat. Educate yourself about those that do intend you harm … make sure you understand them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
October 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
First, I want to say that Caucasian culture is nowhere near homogeneous. There are modern Caucasians and there are others on the opposite extreme who would just as soon slit your throat if you were not a Caucasian as look at you. There other others in between. If only 5% of Caucasians are of the “slit your throat” variety, that means there are millions of people out there willing to slit your throat.
Educate yourself about those that do intend you harm … make sure you understand them. They are here (i.e., this country).
October 9th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Brian,
I can see by the zimzo/Kiddn’/liberal clone talking point that something is being missed. Kiddin’s “caucasians” cover completely those terrorist Islamic countries of which you are talking about. Zimzo’s “Christian terrorists” are those fanatics that don’t adhere to the King James Bible; specifically the New Testament and the teaching of Christ. A religion that puts the power of GOD into the believer’s hands and promotes the annihilation of all peoples and religions that are NOT of theirs is a terrorist religion. Was the King James Bible Old Testament not superceeded with the New Testament were Jesus explained GOD’s plan and wishes and gave us the path to salvation? I didn’t see the part where it states to wipe out all others that don’t believe. I thought that that was GOD’s right and HIS right alone. HE is the judge, jury and the diseminator of justice from what I have learned. That is NOT what the Koran espouses. Why has that book not been “updated”?
The only line that makes any sense and is truthful is “Educate yourself about those that do intend you harm … make sure you understand them. They are here (i.e., this country).” Now that is a true statement.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
zimzo,
“Christians and there are others on the opposite extreme who would just as soon slit your throat if you were not a Christian as look at you.”
Where to start. This is not a teaching from ANY Christian sect I am aware of. catholic (RC, Anglican, Lutherin)- no, Calvinist - no, Pentecostal - no, Bapatist — no, Anabaptist (Mennonite, Amish …) - no, Methodist - no. Which loons are you talking about zimzo?
October 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Kevin,
5% hey. less than 1% of all Muslims are of the violent is I can be sort. about 10% are somewhat sympathetic. So we are more than five ties as violent as the Muslims? Are you screwed up, or are you being deliberately over th top. I can’t tell.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Marjorie and ACTivist made a video! And is that Jack with his hand in front of his face?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wroj0FLvzs
October 9th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
No, zimzo. Pay attention. The lady in the video is a DEMOCRAT — a CLINTON supporter.
Perhaps it is you, your sister/wife, and your brother (also named zimzo).
October 9th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
zimzo,
You said there are Christians who would slit your throat as soon as talk to you. This I assume was yet another attempt to draw some moral equivalence between Christians and Muslims. Or are you just spouting bigotry, again.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
zimzo,
Jack’s right. I would never do a video with a Hillary supporter. Do you keep that home video out in the open or just bring it out on special occasions?
October 9th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Jacob,
“5% hey. less than 1% of all Muslims are of the violent is I can be sort.”
Please decipher before I feebly attempt to answer.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
that video is another reason to vote for obama. i bet she’s a palin supporter now.
jacob, good for recognizing anglicans as catholics, but the problem is that sects of denominations are violent in christianity (protestant klan, the roman catholic ira, etc.) just like islam and even judaism. why link the violent minority of islam to the violent minority in other religions rather than to islam in general. the same people would be violent no matter what, islam is an excuse.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
el,
She said she is a Clinton supporter, and there is no reason not to take her at her word.
Actually not. The teachings of the New Testament, and the Quran and the Hadith are quite different.
Can you find an equivalent of the Sword Verse in the New Testament, or references to subjugation in a state of dimitude for nonbelievers ? Nope, you can’t..
October 9th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
yeah, no problem, let’s take her at her word…but i thought qualin was picked to win over clinton supporters?
and i like how you have to specify the new testament, as if Christians ignore or do not follow the old testatment (and we all know what’s in there). but in Acts 3:22-23 it says that “you must listen to whatever he tells you and it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.” that could be exploited. but even with the overwhelming message of peace in the new testament, Christian’s haven’t always been so peaceful.
by the way, if anyone wants some light reading, look at deut. 25:11-12 and 25:5-10. good stuff.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
yeah, let’s take her at her word. but wasn’t qualin picked to go after clinton voters?
restricting it to the new testament is pretty clever. are you saying Christians don’t read the old testament? i would imagine not, it must be because we know what’s in the ot. but acts 3:22-23 does talk about rooting out those that do not listen to the prophet. that could certainly be exploited.
by the way, if anyone is looking for a light read, look up deut. 25:5-12. good stuff!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Zim,
I fully believe that if there are Christians out there that would slit your throat as soon as look at you that you should educate yourself about them as well.
The IRA and klan are two that couch themselves in “Christian” words, distort the clear teaching of Christ, and very clearly would probably slit my throat as soon as look at me. I educate myself about them as well.
I don’t think they have any state sponsored television programs that attempt to indoctrinate children into believing it is a wonderful good thing to become a martyr and spill one’s own blood in killing others. (Did you view the link?) If there are such programs, I’d be perfectly willing to post the same level of excoriation (and even more) for such sects.
If you don’t find such things (encouraging your own children to kill themselves) reprehensible, then there is something wrong with your head.
Show me any group that does that, and I’ll be glad to protest them as well.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Zim,
One more thing. The bit about Islam not being homogeneous was to say that not all Muslims are of the same type as those that would support those things. There are moderate Muslims that do in fact condemn those that state such — and it was to say not all Muslims deserve the excoriation heaped on those that are violent.
Brian
October 9th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Bad examples, el jefe. The Klan was violent not BECAUSE of their religion, but because of their racism. (Yes, they targeted Catholics, too, but here again, the majority of Catholics were recent immigrants.) The IRA was violent because of the English occupation of Northern Ireland, not because their religion told them to kill Protestants and Anglicans.
Contrarywise, Islam teaches Muslims to kill the infidels.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
in each case religious beliefs are exploited to justify violence ultimately to advance a political agenda. do you think that there is no political agenda behind islamic militancy? the reason klan members, ira terrorists, and islamic militants perpetrate violence is that they are angry, bitter, homicidal people…just like that guy who shot up the unitarian church. why not equate the militants with the violent in other religions and not with the peaceful in the same religion? they have a lot more in common.
and again, deut 25:5-12, good stuff. especially if you have a king james version.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
el jefe,
Islam is not just a religion, but a geopolitical system. The other radical groups you reference, their goal was not to spread their geopolitics throughout the populated world. IRA, radical yes, but they wanted to take their country back from the Brits.
And as jack points out, murder is not in their textbooks. Comparing Deuteronomy and the Quran ? You’re joking right ?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
el jefe,
Do you really believe that religious beliefs are being exploited in the IRA case, or is it that the IRA is acting out of a sense of discrimination by the British government, and putting up a fight that just happens to break along religious lines? I tend to think the later (the RC Pope does not sanction the actions of the IRA, and from what I recall, actually condemned the violence — I’m not RC, so I am stating what is a distant memory, but the official doctrine of the RC church is that the IRA, when it is violent in attempting to “win” independence, is committing sin.
The klan is not, at least as far as I know, a church or even a religious organization (though they do blaspheme the name of Christ by twisting the message of the gospel to propagate their ignorant views). The klan has no support (other than that of individuals) of any church of which I am aware. There are much worse examples of intolerance by Christians, but there are also examples of Christian persecution as well.
The biggest difference I see is that many of the imams of Islam preach violence. Iran specifically has had a violent past that was the official position of the country, and the country was and is an Islamic state … there is absolutely no separation of church from state in Iran, and the country operates under Shari’a law. That is about as “official” a policy of violence as you can get for a religion (though I suppose thugs in India might be a little higher on the list).
October 9th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
dans, are you saying murder is not in the ot…you are joking right? it is also noteworthy that you call the ira radical but not the klan. but yes, you can compare the bible and the talmud to the quran, they do talk about murder. and isn’t the primary Christian message to spread Christianity throughout the whole world? why don’t you call it a ‘geopolitical system’ and not a religion. and yes, look up the verses i’m quoting from deut, i am joking about deut.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
First, el jefe, the Catholics in Northern Ireland were persecuted because they were Catholics. It is part of the long, ugly history of the British Isles, the lessons of which, since 1066, can be summed up in one phrase: “Don’t trust the English.”
The IRA was fighting occupation and persecution by that occupation. Religion was only a factor because that was the reason they were persecuted. Their religion did not tell them to commit terrorist acts. (Do not take this as my condoning the IRA’s terrorism. Had they kept to non-civilian targets, they would not be terrorists, but freedom fighters. The choice of targets makes all the difference.)
Now, going to Deuteronomy 25:5-12, there are two parts. The first, verses 5-10, guides the actions of a man to his brother’s widow. I see no problem there, and have used that passage as an argument that polygamy is not only not a sin, but is in this instance REQUIRED.
The second part deals with a physical punishment for a sin. Jesus’ sacrifice has paid for all of our sins, if we accept that payment. Thus, the requirement to put homosexuals to death no longer applies. The misconception is that was a death PENALTY. It was, in fact, what was necessary to cleanse oneself of the sin of homosexual activity. That is still the minimum requirement for cleansing oneself of that sin. However, Jesus has paid the price for ALL sins, and by doing so, He can cleanse us of ALL sins.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
brian, the way you are distancing yourself from ira and klan activities is how many muslims react to the violent islamic groups. and seriously, if you are talking about violent pasts, look at the church’s behavior in europe, it’s not pretty. this past wasn’t because of Christian teaching, but politics. the survival and rise of islamic states is due to the political explotation of islam, not islamic teaching.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
el jefe,
From a Christian perspective (at least a protestant perspective) the church and the state are separate in their spheres. One of the oldest protestant confessions (the Westminster Confession http://www.opc.org/wcf.html) has a chapter on the civil magistrate, chapter 23, which talks about how the magistrate is different from and separate from the church.
The idea of spreading Christianity throughout the world is contained within scripture, but it is not spreading any culture throughout the world. The first big conflict within Christianity was the debate as to whether Gentiles had to become Jewish in order to be Christian. The first church council (a presbytery if you will) met in Jerusalem and stated that Gentiles did not have to adopt Jewish customs and culture. Christianity is not about spreading a culture, it is about the spread of religion that is orthogonal to every culture in this age.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
what do the northern irish catholics & palestinians have in common? persecution, occupation, and terrorism.
and where did gays come in, the verse is about a woman grabbing a guy by the ’secrets.’ and are you saying polygamy isn’t a sin if it’s when a woman is with two guys?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
brian, i completely agree with what you say about Christianity. but that’s not always how it’s practiced. it’s not that much different with islam. certainly there are more rituals with islam than protestant Christianity, but islam is not trying to push a ‘culture’ as much as a discipline, which is really what Christianity advocates as well. both can be exploited by politicians. you can’t really fault the religion, it’s more based on the circumstances of the country. the problem is with the violent groups, not the religions.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:19 am
el jefe,
I do not agree that Islam is not pushing a culture as well as a religion. Shari’a is part of Islam … the law of Islam, and it is the law of Islamic states.
Islam does not see a separation of church and state. It also seems that the Islamic form of “religious toleration” is for other to be in dhimmi status (second class citizens with specific, legal encumbrances codified in law).
It is not legal to build a church in Islamic states, even to repair one that was damaged. The destruction of the Buddhas in Iran show a lack of tolerance for even the history of a different religion. This reflects one of the blackest times in Protestant Christian history … the destruction of Roman Churches in Germany during the early years of the reformation. Luther castigated those that had done the violence in his name, and it stopped. The leaders of Islam in Iran are the ones that demanded the destruction of the statues that were of at least historical significance. The loss to the world was tragic. I no more think those stone idols were “gods” than I would think a stick is a god, but neither would I destroy a 2000 year old statue of Greek or Roman gods that are just wood or stone.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:27 am
el jefe,
What Jack was referring to in the relationship of a widowed wife is that the brother (kinsman redeemer) was to take the deceased brothers wife and raise a family for him. This was not the case of a woman having two husbands, but of a man having two wives (the first marriage by the widow would have been completed … “until death us do part” is the limit for marriage vows) and the living brother could easily have already been married and then have a second wife (his brother’s widow).
I do not support the idea that this is still valid or required today … the laws of that country ended with that country and are not binding on any other than the general equity would require. The need then was from the standpoint that only the males could own property, and the inheritance of the brother would be lost if he did not have a son. The first son born to the widow would have been “counted” as the deceased brother’s son, and so the property would remain in the family.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:29 am
i thought the buddha’s were destroyed by the the taliban in afganistan?
October 10th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Kevin,
Sorry, typed that on my way out the door. …
NOT
“5% hey. less than 1% of all Muslims are of the violent is I can be sort. …”
BUT
5% hey. less than 1% of all Muslims are of the violent sort. about 10% are somewhat sympathetic. So we are more than five ties as violent as the Muslims? Are you screwed up, or are you being deliberately over the top. I can’t tell.
1. can you answer that?
2. does it make SOME sense now?
October 10th, 2008 at 12:32 am
el jefe,
your questions to me regarding the Klan and the IRA have been answered by others. I see you have provoked some excellent thinking. How refreshing.
Yes, the Budda’s in Afghanistan where destroyed by the Taliban. They used a tank.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:55 am
You’re on to something, Jack, but not completely in my opinion. You have to consider that Islam may be as susceptible to nefarious outside influences as Christianity has been throughout its history.
I lived, traveled, and worked for many years among West African Moslems who would never have given a thought to attacking me or any other Christian in their midst just because of certain words in the Koran. They, in fact, while adamantly faithful to their own religion and almost universally resistant to conversion, even allowed Christian missionaries to set up shop in their territories and neither harassed nor harmed them. As a Christian, I never felt fear when I was among them because of religious differences. For the most part, they were a good, kind, and remarkably tolerant people.
And, then, in some places things seemed to change. I speak particularly of Northern Nigeria, overwhelmingly Islamic but with considerable Southern Nigerian Christian enclaves in the major urban areas. When I walked those streets many years ago, I sensed a sort of accepted religious co-existence — not a mixing per se but at least a live and let live attitude.
In recent years, however, I have noticed sporadic Moslem attacks on these same Christian enclaves, many marked by great bloodshed among the Christians. Without going into an explanation of the long and difficult history of Nigeria since 1960, I might have simply been tempted to mark this down to an early collapse of political comity in an unsuccesful effort to build a federal republic balancing the Moslem North and the largely Christian/Animist South and then to a long period of political instability and economic difficulties.
However, the extremely bloody inter-religious violence seen at times recently in the North makes me think that the radical Islam I see elsewhere has managed to infiltrate into Northern Nigeria and change the whole complexion of that place. It seems to me — and perhaps others may disagree — that the form of African Islam I once knew firsthand has taken a bloody nose of late, not unlike that given to Christianity in Northern Ireland and the Balkans and so many other places. I am not so sure, based on my own experiences, that you can blame Islam per se for this. I really think there is something else at work here, and it isn’t very pretty. Does the teaching of Jihad come to mind?
October 10th, 2008 at 1:45 am
wolverine,
What you saw in Nigeria is what we all hope for but it is not the norm. Look at the map today. Everywhere Islam borders another culture there is violence. Is this a historical aberration? Go to
http://www.peacefaq.com/dhimma.html
and decide for yourself.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:53 am
“[Are] you saying polygamy isn’t a sin if it’s when a woman is with two guys?”
There is no such thing.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Here’s a question for discussion: Can you think of any war in the world right now that does not involve Muslims?
October 10th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Jack, polyandry, in which a woman has more than one husband is or has been practiced in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, parts of India, Polynesia, Mongolia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Civil war in Colombia does not involve Muslims. The conflict between the lao and Hmong does not involve Muslims.
The Sri Lankan Civil War is primarily a conflict between the Tamils and Sinhalese both of who are predominantly Buddhist and Christian, although the Tamils expelled Muslims from Jaffna, so I guess you could say they are “involved” although they were the victims of the conflict not the instigators. The other five major ongoing wars in the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and Somalia do involve Muslims but they also involve Christians.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:14 am
The civil war in Burma is between communists on one side and the Buddhists and Christians.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
zimzo,
The Christian side of the conflict in Africa is unarmed and it is a slaughter, you write as if there is a moral equivalence. That is patently absurd.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I didn’t act as if there was moral equivalence. I just answered Jack’s question.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Thank you.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:05 am
zimzo named a few, the civil war in columbia (and all the conflicts in latin america) do not involve muslims. one last thing to add about culture and islam…turkey, iran, the uae, indonesia, these are all very different cultures within islam.
thanks jacob, though i never meant for the deut quote to lead to a serious discussion about polygomy.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Goofed on the country, but it was Islamic fundamentalism that required it.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
What this thread suggests in total though is that if there is a violent contingent, it usually is not the whole of a group. But it does make sense to think in terms of know what is there. It would make perfect sense to know the IRA if you are in Northern Ireland, it would make perfect sense to know if there are radical Islamic terrorists attempting to infiltrate the U.S. And it certainly would make sense to know if any other group that espouses violence (even if the whole of them do not espouse violence) in order to protect society as a whole.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Brian, don’t try to run away from your own words. If you look at the FBI’s list of terrorist incidents, terrorism by Muslims is a very small fraction of the total. If you were really worried about terrorism and not just writing a bigoted anti-Islam screed you would have written about Christian terrorists who bomb abortion clinics and shoot abortion doctors, Christian groups like Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan that attack gays, blacks and Jews, Puerto Rican separatists or environmental and animal rights extremists. So spare us your attempts to dial back from your original bigoted post.
http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/pdf/Terrorism2002-2005.pdf
October 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
zim,
Your biased, bigoted, liberal invectives mean nothing to me. Islam is not just this country, it is a world-wide phenomena, the FBI only tracks things inside this country. And you are also thinking that this is only about terrorism. It isn’t. Violence on the part of Islamic fundamentalists is not different from other violence in many ways, but to deny it exists is putting your head in the sand.
Some things already have happened in the U.S., others we should look at what happened in other places that could happen here in our future. In England, there are “no-go” zones for non-Muslims. I have friends that went to England about six months ago, did not know how bad things had turned, and were accosted as they walked down the street because his wife was not wearing a head covering.
In the U.S., there have been honor killings in which women were murdered, not as a terrorist crime, but as part of a culture that is steeped in intolerance. Not that murders don’t occur in other contexts, but to ignore this is to be blind to changes happening in our own back yard. Denying it exists, or minimizing it is no different than southern whites denying discrimination against blacks or minimizing other violent acts.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
zimzo,
w.r.t. 39: fair enough
October 10th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
My point is that singling out Muslims when it is a minority of them who are extremist is bigoted. There are plenty of non-Muslim extremists committing violent acts but you ignored them in your post because your agenda was to sow fear and prejudice against Muslims. Calling me a “biased, bigoted, liberal” does not absolve you from the charges.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Give a zimzo an inch and he bites your hand,
My point is that there are 1000’s of Madrasas teaching that Jews are pigs and Christians are NOT to be befriended. Furthermore in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world the public schools teach this crap along with the protocals of Zion and other trash.
Zimzo, deal with this: sharia law does not allow for equal rights, even in theory, between Muslim and non-Muslim, man and woman. Chatel slavery is okey dokey.
You, and your big mouth live in a society that emerged from a Christian perspective regarding tolerance. There is nothing in the new testament or even the old testament that encourages war with ones neighbor. That is not the case with Islam and the Koran.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I am well aware of the problems of Muslim extremism. I do live in a city that has borne the brunt of it more than any other place in America. However, Brian’s attempts to imply that extremism is somehow endemic to Islam and that other kinds of extremism are not as worthy of our vigilance is simply bigotry pure and simple. Frankly, at this moment I am just as terrified of the irrational anger that is evident at McCain rallies and apparently I’m not the only one:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=12105
DAVID GERGEN: I think one of the most striking things we’ve seen now in the last few days. We’ve seen it in a Palin rally. We saw it at the McCain rally today. And we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence. I think we’re not far from that.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I basically agree with Gergen’s observation. Unfortunately, David often fails to complete his statements by addressing both sides of an issue. From what I saw in Minneapolis and from what I see on blogs all across this country, it is fully evident that we have enough angry warriors on both sides of the political spectrum to further very much the disintegration of civility.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Zim,
The majority of southern whites did not support the klan, but that doesn’t mean that the klan should not have been pointed out (and they were whites). Does that mean those that point out “white supremacist” are bigoted for pointing out the obvious?
You ignore the fact that post started with the claim that Islam is nowhere near homogeneous. The post started with the claim that there were plenty of Muslims that were not violent, that are different from and mostly dishonored by the violent Muslims that rant and rave. In fact, I even posted a wild guess of those that would be violent as only 5% of the group. You also missed that I stated that those groups that garner violence all deserve our watchfulness. You said: “However, Brian’s attempts to imply that extremism is somehow endemic to Islam and that other kinds of extremism are not as worthy of our vigilance is simply bigotry pure and simple.” Yet what I said was that vigilance needs to be practiced for a small percentage of a group. Your characterization is false … endemic is far from what I stated, and is in fact contrary to my statements.
The fact that you don’t seem to accept what is stated, but clearly believe that it is impossible for someone to be open and clear without a hidden motive seems to imply something of your own mind. Do you believe that someone cannot disagree with you and still be honest? If so, you are much more intolerant than what I would have believed.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
While the data is old (2005), and probably the percentages have shrunk (perhaps my 5% is accurate, hard to say) in 2005, many of the Islamic countries had significantly higher percentages than what I have guessed that support suicide bombings (15%). That was the lowest percentage, with some countries much higher. (Jordan was the highest sited, at 57% support suicide bombings.)
I still stand by my statement that all of Islam is not a threat, even in Jordan, 43% of the people there would have said suicide bombing was not acceptable. That does not mean that we should ignore the percentage that believe even suicide bombing is acceptable.