12 Reported Murdered at Charlie Hebdo by Islamists

recedite

volchitsa wrote: »

Yes. I heard a European expert on Islam recently (before this, but about young European converts and Muslims going to Syria) and his argument was that when you question these young people, they actually know very little about Islam, and that their actions are in fact a form of nihilism...

Oh right. A European expert. He should know then.
How does he explain that the families of these militants often say that they "changed" after spending enormous amounts of time listening to radical preachers down at the mosque.
Why was so much time and money spent on putting away Abu Hamza, when he can't even hold a rifle?

katydid

recedite wrote: »

Oh right. A European expert. He should know then.
How does he explain that the families of these militants often say that they "changed" after spending enormous amounts of time listening to radical preachers down at the mosque.
Why was so much time and money spent on putting away Abu Hamza, when he can't even hold a rifle?

You seem to be challenging what Volchitsa said, but you're actually confirming it. It's from being led astray by radicals that they make the choices they do.

volchitsa

recedite wrote: »

Oh right. A European expert. He should know then.
How does he explain that the families of these militants often say that they "changed" after spending enormous amounts of time listening to radical preachers down at the mosque.
Why was so much time and money spent on putting away Abu Hamza, when he can't even hold a rifle?

The reason I said European was that he is an expert on Islam for having studied it as an academic subject, but is not (afaiaa) Muslim. His interest in the subject is intellectual but he can't be suspected of having been brainwashed into it, or of being emotionally invested in defending Islam as a religion of peace etc.

I don't understand the point of your other questions, never mind the replies you expect.

Mark Hamill

katydid wrote: »

He says he came to uphold the law, and he did. Not by following every direction of the OT, but by following the spirit of it.

He literally says that he is there to uphold every single part of the law, so you are just plain wrong:
"For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. "
He even specifically warns against setting aside any, even the least, of the OT rules, as doing so will endanger your chances in heaven.

katydid wrote: »

What he says in Matthew is the exact opposite of what you claim; he's pointing out that while the religious conservatives claim they are following the old laws to the letter, they are no more doing it than himself, as they don't insist that disrespectful children are executed. They are just hypocrites, because they don't acknowledge that they don't follow them to the letter.

No, he is claiming they aren't following the old laws (god's rule) at all, because they have put their own rituals ("traditions of the elders" = Pharasaic oral law to always wash hands) above the rule of god (Old Testament Law = wash hands only for certain situations). He is calling them hypocrites for putting themselves above god's rules.

Mark Hamill

katydid wrote: »

You seem to be challenging what Volchitsa said, but you're actually confirming it. It's from being led astray by radicals that they make the choices they do.

And if you were to ask them and their radical preachers they would say it is the other, non-violent, followers who are being led astray.

Of course, to the outside, it just looks like all of them are being influenced by people using ancient ambiguous texts to tell them what they want to hear.

smacl

katydid wrote: »

It suggests that Islam is being misinterpreted and abused by individuals and regimes for their own purposes.

Perhaps you could send a note to that effect to the king of Saudi Arabia, as I see that Raif Badawi received his first tranche of the 1,000 lashes on Friday, to be followed by 10 years in prison, for the heinous crime blasphemy. They initially wanted to to try him for apostasy, which still carries the death penalty in Saudi. Note that we're not talking about a few renegade extremists here, we're talking about the national government of a large country. A government which our government is only too happy to trade with.

Nor is Saudi alone in legitimising what amounts to murder, torture and imprisonment for the crime of slighting Islam at a national level. I don't for a moment believe it is a reasonable argument to suggest that these people are misinterpreting Islam. I think, as with Christianity, there are many interpretations of this religion, many of which are benign, some of which are barbaric and deserve to be highlighted as such.

BuilderPlumber

smacl wrote: »

Perhaps you could send a note to that effect to the king of Saudi Arabia, as I see that Raif Badawi received his first tranche of the 1,000 lashes on Friday, to be followed by 10 years in prison, for the heinous crime blasphemy. They initially wanted to to try him for apostasy, which still carries the death penalty in Saudi. Note that we're not talking about a few renegade extremists here, we're talking about the national government of a large country. A government which our government is only too happy to trade with.

Nor is Saudi alone in legitimising what amounts to murder, torture and imprisonment for the crime of slighting Islam at a national level. I don't for a moment believe it is a reasonable argument to suggest that these people are misinterpreting Islam. I think, as with Christianity, there are many interpretations of this religion, many of which are benign, some of which are barbaric and deserve to be highlighted as such.

Yep. Saudi Arabia to my mind too is a major problem with why the violent, cruel, hardline interpretation of Islam predominates. And unfortunately this cruel fascist dictatorship is too important to ignore or isolate. If something was to happen in Saudi Arabia to destabilise it, the world would go into a deep recession that would make 2008-2015 look very mild. Thus this regime can implement a Hitler-style fascist version of Islam completely unchallenged. Its arrogance and stubbornness knows no bounds and reform is just not on the agenda there.

Problem then was that other states started copying it. Kuwait, Libya, Iran, Pakistan, etc. all were turned into 'Saudi Arabia-lite' (repressive but less so) by new regimes that took note of what the Saudis were at. Then, the Taliban in Afghanistan took 'Islamic' fascism to levels not even seen in Saudi. And now we have al Qaeda, al Shabaab, Boko Haram and especially ISIS/ISIL inspired by all this fascism.

Most Muslims follow a moderate form but most regimes in Islamic nations use the hardline form unfortunately (or if the government is not at it, some rebel groups are). All Islamic nations are either total dictatorships or else have powerful unelected elements in their regimes. All regimes to a greater or lesser extent trample on people's freedoms and justify it in the name of religion. Saudi's cruel form of Islam is followed due to Mecca/Medina being on its soil.

So, what's the solution to seeing an end to so-called 'Islamic' fascism and terrorism? The only way is for a peaceful reform of Saudi Arabia. A violent overthrow of the regime there is not worth the risk (a recession 20 times as bad as the 2008 onwards one possibly leading to a major war) and no one can afford to not to trade with it. But while the current king of Saudi wants reform, he is up against it from powerful councils and Mullahs who all want to keep the fascist system in place. If moderate Mullahs and councils took over, then there is hope. But that is not the situation at the moment in Saudi.

JaseBelleVie

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2015/01/german-newspaper-hamburger-morgenpost-arson-attacked-over-20151117135939826.html

A German newspaper from the city of Hamburg was the victim of an arson attack for "daring" to re-print the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Another attack on European journalists within a week.

katydid

smacl wrote: »

I don't for a moment believe it is a reasonable argument to suggest that these people are misinterpreting Islam. I think, as with Christianity, there are many interpretations of this religion, many of which are benign, some of which are barbaric and deserve to be highlighted as such.

"Misinterpretation" is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to religion, one could say. BUT to most sane people, reading a religious text and taking from it that one is licensed to murder innocent people because of slights to the religion's founder, or because of expressing one's personal opinion about that religion, IS misinterpreting it. The general purpose of religion is to provide guidelines for a way of life that benefits the individual and society, and it's hard to believe for most people that any prophet or deity would expect such "vengeance" to be wrought in his or her name. And before you cite the Old Testament and the violence of Jehovah, that was a different time, place and society, that saw God as a vengeful and mighty king. We've moved on a bit from that. Mostly.

BuilderPlumber

recedite wrote: »

Oh right. A European expert. He should know then.
How does he explain that the families of these militants often say that they "changed" after spending enormous amounts of time listening to radical preachers down at the mosque.
Why was so much time and money spent on putting away Abu Hamza, when he can't even hold a rifle?

Abu Hamza and other preachers of hate should be shut down immediately. I am glad he is in prison where he belongs but am surprised he was not interned years earlier. People like the latterday Hamza rarely see violence, don't carry guns and don't get hands on with the terror. They instead inspire others to do so by preaching cleverly assembled hate speeches designed to show how much wrong is done to Muslims by the West, Israel, Russia, Middle East govts, China, etc.

Free speech has been hugely abused and these people used the West's free speech culture to sow the seeds of their hatred. Free speech should be allowed of course but not when it is highly offensive, motivated by hatred or racism, or is spoken to provoke violence and inspire violence.

recedite

katydid wrote: »

BUT to most sane people, reading a religious text and taking from it that one is licensed to murder innocent people because of slights to the religion's founder, or because of expressing one's personal opinion about that religion, IS misinterpreting it.

Or, the sane person might conclude that the religious text in question was clearly written by an insane person.

katydid

recedite wrote: »

Or, the sane person might conclude that the religious text in question was clearly written by an insane person.

They might indeed. But that is a different issue, since in general the tenor of religious texts tend to be positive and pacifist. Picking things out of context and abusing the text is not being true to the original.

recedite

You like to pick out the happy clappy bits of text, somebody else might prefer the more aggressive bits. Both of you say the entire text is the word of god.
Surely that makes both of you wrong?

katydid

recedite wrote: »

You like to pick out the happy clappy bits of text, somebody else might prefer the more aggressive bits. Both of you say the entire text is the word of god.
Surely that makes both of you wrong?

When did I say that?

recedite

Is any of it the word of god then?

katydid

recedite wrote: »

Is any of it the word of god then?

Well, I can't speak for what Muslims think about the Qur'an...

The Bible is a collection of texts written by humans over a period of a thousand years.

recedite

You are being obtuse now, you know it is all supposed to be divinely inspired, but written by human hand, or nowadays by robotic printing press.

From Moses and his 10 commandments "the law" was supposedly the word of god, supplemented and developed with the OT, the books of the Talmud, the Torah, then upgraded with the NT following the prophet Jesus, then upgraded with the Koran and Hadiths following the prophet Mohommad. A whole collection of works written by men (some crazier than others) who were "inspired by god".

stevejazzx

katydid wrote: »

They might indeed. But that is a different issue, since in general the tenor of religious texts tend to be positive and pacifist. Picking things out of context and abusing the text is not being true to the original.

How much barbaric content does something have to contain in order to render any renaming neutral or even positive content meaningless? I reckon the OT has surpassed itself in this regard.

Here are some doozies...

• No. 1:St Paul’s advice about whether women are allowed to teach men in church:
  “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
• No. 2: In this verse, Samuel, one of the early leaders of Israel, orders genocide against a neighbouring people:
  “This is what the Lord Almighty says... ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)
• No. 3: A command of Moses:
  “Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)
  
• No. 4: The ending of Psalm 137, a psalm which was made into a disco calypso hit by Boney M, is often omitted from readings in church:
  “Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” (Psalm 137:9)
  
• No. 5: Another blood-curdling tale from the Book of Judges, where an Israelite man is trapped in a house by a hostile crowd, and sends out his concubine to placate them:
  “So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up; let’s go.’ But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.” (Judges 19:25-28)
  
• No. 6: St Paul condemns homosexuality in the opening chapter of the Book of Romans:
  “In the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:27)
  
• No. 7: In this story from the Book of Judges, an Israelite leader, Jephthah, makes a rash vow to God, which has to be carried out:
  “And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt-offering.’ Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.’” (Judges 11:30-1, 34-5)
  
• No. 8: The Lord is speaking to Abraham in this story where God commands him to sacrifice his son:
  ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ (Genesis 22:2)
  
• No. 9: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22)
  
• No. 10: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” (1 Peter 2:18)

smacl

katydid wrote: »

"Misinterpretation" is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to religion, one could say. BUT to most sane people, reading a religious text and taking from it that one is licensed to murder innocent people because of slights to the religion's founder, or because of expressing one's personal opinion about that religion, IS misinterpreting it. The general purpose of religion is to provide guidelines for a way of life that benefits the individual and society, and it's hard to believe for most people that any prophet or deity would expect such "vengeance" to be wrought in his or her name. And before you cite the Old Testament and the violence of Jehovah, that was a different time, place and society, that saw God as a vengeful and mighty king. We've moved on a bit from that. Mostly.

So you're suggesting the 28.83 million good Muslims of Saudi Arabia that stand behind their government when it tortures and imprisons a man for the crime of blasphemy should be excused on the grounds of insanity? More likely that vast majority live in fear of a despotic theocracy that will give them the same treatment if they should step an inch out of line.

Where are all the imams across the Muslim world coming forward to condemn this barbarism, because I'm not seeing so many of them. Surely they should be coming forwards in their thousands to say this is not what Islam is all about? Much like the inaction and cover ups of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland in the past, I for one consider their silence to be complicity.

Cabaal

katydid wrote: »

Well, I can't speak for what Muslims think about the Qur'an...

The Bible is a collection of texts written by humans over a period of a thousand years.

...and yet its believed it is the word of god by millions and millions of Christians, do you believe they are wrong?

If its not the word of god then everything in it including the 10 commandments are not gods word and it means Christians are merely following some "rules" made up by another human.

Thats not a very good basis for a religion that claims an all powerful god made us all.

You've gotten yourself so tangled up in trying to avoid answering the questions in a straight way you're now just making yourself look foolish

Cabaal

smacl wrote: »

Where are all the imams across the Muslim world coming forward to condemn this barbarism, because I'm not seeing so many of them. Surely they should be coming forwards in their thousands to say this is not what Islam is all about? Much like the inaction and cover ups of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland in the past, I for one consider their silence to be complicity.

If there's one great thing we've learned from religion, its that even when its followers know they've done some awful sick twisted things they won't get off their arse to protest against it. At the end of the day they have a god that they believe will forgive them...so that makes it alright.

Hence the lack of massive marches in Ireland over the decades about the sex crimes committed by and covered up by the catholic church.

The followers of ANY religion who fail to speak out about the crimes committed by the religion they claim to be part of are part of the problem.

In Ireland many Catholics knew about the sexual abuse, the selling of baby's etc but they did and said nothing. These people are part of the shame, they are part of the crimes, they are part of the suffering.

When it comes to the Muslim faith, those that fail to speak out about people being sentenced to jail or death for blasphemy in other Muslim country's are no different, they claim to share the same faith and same god....well then act like it!

jank

The above can also be extrapolated to many other things. E.g. the BBC and the Jimmy Savile abuse case, US swimming scandal that has gone on for decades, Chinese communists that refused to believe reports about food shortages and punishing those that wrote those reports (thus they started writing 'good' reports about increase food production).

Humans are very tribal that way, be it religion, an institution, a political ideology. All reason goes out the window when they are deemed under attack and the 'greater' good has to be upheld.

ScumLord

smacl wrote: »

Where are all the imams across the Muslim world coming forward to condemn this barbarism, because I'm not seeing so many of them.

That could be because the media would prefer to show you Muslims that are shouting hate rants and firing machine guns in the air.

katydid

Cabaal wrote: »

...and yet its believed it is the word of god by millions and millions of Christians, do you believe they are wrong?

If its not the word of god then everything in it including the 10 commandments are not gods word and it means Christians are merely following some "rules" made up by another human.

Thats not a very good basis for a religion that claims an all powerful god made us all.

You've gotten yourself so tangled up in trying to avoid answering the questions in a straight way you're now just making yourself look foolish

Most Christians don't believe it's the literal word of God. They believe it is divinely inspired; in other words, written by humans who were inspired to write by their faith in God.

I haven't tangled myself up in any way whatsoever. I have consistently repeated the same facts. You have got tangled up in your understanding.

katydid

smacl wrote: »

So you're suggesting the 28.83 million good Muslims of Saudi Arabia that stand behind their government when it tortures and imprisons a man for the crime of blasphemy should be excused on the grounds of insanity? More likely that vast majority live in fear of a despotic theocracy that will give them the same treatment if they should step an inch out of line.

Where are all the imams across the Muslim world coming forward to condemn this barbarism, because I'm not seeing so many of them. Surely they should be coming forwards in their thousands to say this is not what Islam is all about? Much like the inaction and cover ups of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland in the past, I for one consider their silence to be complicity.

Do you really think the citizens of Saudi have a say in what their government do? You think that half the population there allow themselves to be treated like sub-humans?

oscarBravo

Let's be fair: there has been extensive condemnation from Muslims of this attack. News coverage of the demonstration in Paris showed many, many French Muslims marching in solidarity with the murder victims - disagreeing with what they published, but agreeing with their right to do so.

Hell, even Hamas condemned the attack.

smacl

jank wrote: »

The above can also be extrapolated to many other things. E.g. the BBC and the Jimmy Savile abuse case, US swimming scandal that has gone on for decades, Chinese communists that refused to believe reports about food shortages and punishing those that wrote those reports (thus they started writing 'good' reports about increase food production).

Agreed, but just because the behaviour is not unique to organised religions, it in no way excuses them as one of the biggest sources of such offenders both currently and historically. In many ways, organised religion provides the ideal environment for such miscreants to thrive.

Humans are very tribal that way, be it religion, an institution, a political ideology. All reason goes out the window when they are deemed under attack and the 'greater' good has to be upheld.

Again agreed, but I think modern western society is more aware of, and willing to deal with such behaviour. This ranges from increased transparency in public life, to secularity, down to much smaller things like anti-bullying campaigns in schools. Even in a country such as Ireland, where there is no doubt some corruption still in public life, it is a fraction of what went before it. Civilisation does move inexorably forward, and the Charlie Hebdo atrocity was a clear attempt to stifle this.

smacl

oscarBravo wrote: »

Let's be fair: there has been extensive condemnation from Muslims of this attack. News coverage of the demonstration in Paris showed many, many French Muslims marching in solidarity with the murder victims - disagreeing with what they published, but agreeing with their right to do so.

Hell, even Hamas condemned the attack.

Indeed, but my point (which is slightly off topic to be fair) was to note that as all this goes on, the Saudi regime continues to flog a man who's only crime was promotion of free speech. I'd have a little more respect for Hamas if they were to equally criticise the Saudi's for their behaviour. What exactly separates one barbaric atttack against free speech from another?

katydid

stevejazzx wrote: »

How much barbaric content does something have to contain in order to render any renaming neutral or even positive content meaningless? I reckon the OT has surpassed itself in this regard.

Here are some doozies...


[/LIST]

Way too much stuff there to address each one. People have written books on that kind of thing. Leaving aside the OT quotations, which are clearly anachronistic and are mostly from that part of the OT that is simply written down oral history, without any spiritual value, you have picked two or three from the NT, and specifically from the epistles. The issue of women's place in the early church, slavery, and of homosexuality are very complicated, and can't be answered in a couple of paragraphs. All that I can say here is that you will also find mention of women with leading roles in the early church, you can read the nuanced situation of Onesimus and Philomen and Paul's attitude to slavery; and in the case of homosexuality, it's widely accepted that Paul was referring to the temple prostitution practices, rather than homosexuality in general.

ScumLord

katydid wrote: »

Most Christians don't believe it's the literal word of God.

They probably shouldn't call the bible "the word of god" then. It's a bit confusing.