Two massive car bombs found in London

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by lazs2
I sure that we are due for an attack..  I don't worry too much tho since it will be in a very blue city.... probly one with heavy gun control.

up side?       Gun sales will go up.... less people will vote blue next time... people will realize they need to be responsible for their own safety.

Down side?   the blue areas will become more like 1984 (the book) with even more freedom given up for false security.

lazs

Why do you think less will vote blue? A large scale attack would just point out the complete failure of the current administratiuon.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by john9001
i guess the terrorists didn't read that part.

Kind of my point. People who point fingers at an entire faith based on the actions of a few are just plain wrong headed.

[john9001]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Kind of my point. People who point fingers at an entire faith based on the actions of a few are just plain wrong headed.

the actions of a few, but the support of many.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Did you notice that that chronology was kind of not relevent.

I found this passage from the Koran.. thought it was interesting.

"Say to the disbelievers:
I do not worship that which you worship.
Nor do you worship that which I worship.
And Nor will I worship that which you have worshiped.
Neither will you worship that which I worship.
To you belongs your religion, and to me mine."


Chapter 109.

Why did  you think it was interesting? And why are you quoting that part instead of the part about killing the infidels, stoning the adulterers or opressing the women?

[Karash]

The IRA puts these jokers to shame tbfh.

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Hortlund
Why did  you think it was interesting? And why are you quoting that part instead of the part about killing the infidels, stoning the adulterers or opressing the women?

Why would you not find it interesting? Look up the "slaying the infidel" passages. You may be surprised by the context.

[john9001]

Originally posted by Karash
The IRA puts these jokers to shame tbfh.

the IRA wanted to free their country, the islamists want to take over the world.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Why do you think less will vote blue? A large scale attack would just point out the complete failure of the current administratiuon.

Let's not forget the outrage of the current anti-administration over the monitoring of overseas calls. I expect those who were silent during the repeated attacks while Clinton was in charge to remain silent. Of course I know the hypocrites won't.

[Dowding]

...but have you ever wondered why you have such a visceral hatred for Christianity and an innate desire to make excuses for Islam?

Hey look Tronsky, he's got you all figured out! You visceral hater of Christianity, you!

If anyone has a visceral hatred of another religion around here, Seagoon, I'm afraid you would appear to be one of the most likely candidates. Like some reciprocal, up-side-down David Irving, you seek to blame the actions of a minority on a diverse majority. It really is quite interesting to watch.

Fundamentalists are the same the world over - they want to take away your independence of action and thought, building a mono-ideological society as they go... whatever flavour they come in.

[Seagoon]

Hi MT,

Originally posted by midnight Target
Kind of my point. People who point fingers at an entire faith based on the actions of a few are just plain wrong headed.

The Sura you quote, 109, is from the earlier portion of Muhammad's life while he was still in Mecca attempting to persuade animists, Christians, and Jews to embrace his new religion. Eventually these attempts collapsed and he was forced to flee to Medina. From that point onwards the Quran takes on a more militant tone with Suras like the following: "[9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil). Eventually, of course, the conversion of the other cities of the Arabian peninsula came not via "discussion" but the sword, and Muhammad was at the forefront of the early Jihad to establish Islam, and when it comes to a religion you judge a faith by the life and teaching of its founder(s) and its fruits.

Most Westerners studying the Quran are unaware of the doctrine of "Abrogation" or Naskh (the are also sadly unaware of doctrines like Taqqiya or "permissible dissimulation") which means that earlier verses are replaced or abrogated by later ones so a few comments on that subject might be worthwhile. Here's a good summary from Robert Spencer on the subject:

How does this work? Consider the verses about wine. In one place the Qur'an says that wine has “some profit” (2:219) for mankind, but elsewhere declares it an “abomination, of Satan’s handwork” (5:90). Muslim scholars generally agree that the wine verses are a relatively clear instance of abrogation. Without abrogation, a pious Muslim would have to declare that "Satan's handiwork" offers "some profit" for mankind.

There is wide disagreement among Muslim theologians as to precisely which verses have been abrogated and which others have replaced them. Still, it has been a mainstream notion in Islamic theology that if a verse revealed at Mecca contradicts another revealed later at Medina, the Medinan verse takes precedence. In an earlier response to Esmay I explained how this principle of abrogation works for the Islamic teaching on jihad, and for general reference I will repost that material here, with some revisions.

Many traditional Islamic theologians and Qur'an commentators argue that violent material, such as sura 9, abrogates more relatively tolerant material such as sura 109. This is not a newly-minted view "cherry-picked" by Osama bin Laden; it is in fact a very ancient view. When discussing why Muhammad didn't begin sura 9 with the customary invocation bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, "in the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful," an intriguing answer comes from a Qur'an commentary that is still highly valued today in the Islamic world, Tafsir al-Jalalayn. This is a fifteenth-century work by the renowned imams Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahalli (1389-1459) and Jalal al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Suyuti (1445-1505). The invocation, suggests this tafsir, “is security, and [Sura 9] was sent down when security was removed by the sword.”

Security’s removal by the sword meant specifically the end of many treaties the Muslims had made with non-Muslims. Another still-influential Qur'an commentator, Ibn Kathir (1301-1372) quotes an earlier authority, Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim, to establish that the Verse of the Sword, sura 9:5 ("slay the unbelievers wherever you find them") “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term.” He adds from another authority: “No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah was revealed.” And yet another early commentator, Ibn Juzayy (d. 1340) agrees that one of this verse’s functions is “abrogating every peace treaty in the Qur’an.”

This idea is crucial as a guide to the relationship of the Qur’an’s peaceful passages to its violent ones. Suras 16, 29, 52, 73, and 109 — the sources of many of the Qur'an's verses of peace and tolerance — are all Meccan. That means that many Muslims, guided by commentators such as those above and the imams who teach from them, see these suras only in light of what was revealed later in Medina. Being the last or next-to-last sura revealed, sura 9 is generally understood as being the Qur’an’s last word on jihad, and all the rest of the book — including the “tolerance verses” — must be read in its light.

Ibn Kathir states this explicitly in his commentary on another “tolerance verse”: “And he [Muhammad] saith: O my Lord! Lo! these are a folk who believe not. Then bear with them (O Muhammad) and say: Peace. But they will come to know” (Qur'an 43:88-89). The commentator explains that “say Salam (peace!) means, ‘do not respond to them in the same evil manner in which they address you; but try to soften their hearts and forgive them in word and deed.’” However, that is not the last word on the subject. As Ibn Kathir notes: “But they will come to know. This is a warning from Allah for them. His punishment, which cannot be warded off, struck them, and His religion and His word was supreme. Subsequently Jihad and striving were prescribed until the people entered the religion of Allah in crowds, and Islam spread throughout the east and the west.”

In other words, Muhammad gave peace a chance, with the pacific suras, and then understood that jihad was the better course.

For a quick explanation from Islamic sources check out this page:
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=2656&CATE=1

- SEAGOON

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Why would you not find it interesting? Look up the "slaying the infidel" passages. You may be surprised by the context.

Why would I not find it interesting? Id say its about as interesting as the rest of that cursed book.

The context would be that the passage was written during a period when Mohammeds tribe was involved in a war with a neighbouring tribe. Therefore it is a very agressive and hostile verse...and in it, all good moslems are instructed to slay the infidels. Whats your point?

[Seagoon]

Hello Dowding,

Originally posted by Dowding
Hey look Tronsky, he's got you all figured out! You visceral hater of Christianity, you!

If anyone has a visceral hatred of another religion around here, Seagoon, I'm afraid you would appear to be one of the most likely candidates. Like some reciprocal, up-side-down David Irving, you seek to blame the actions of a minority on a diverse majority. It really is quite interesting to watch.

Fundamentalists are the same the world over - they want to take away your independence of action and thought, building a mono-ideological society as they go... whatever flavour they come in.

A lot of this argument always strikes me as positively surreal. Its rather like being in the middle of the Blitz and commenting "Nazism is the greatest threat we face, we must all seriously consider how best to stop it's violent expansion, and combat it as an ideology" and hearing:

* How can you condemn an entire political ideology? You are overlooking all the good teachings of National Socialism.
* National Socialism is no more "violent" than democracy, look at all the agressive wars "democratic nations" have waged!
* Not all Nazis are violent, why I know some Nazis who lived nearby and they were the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. Not like some people around here...
* Well if warmongers hadn't provoked them, they never would have gone to war in the first place! Besides they've been terribly oppressed by the Western Democracies, we've brought this upon ourselves. Besides do you know how many innocent Nazis we've killed, and how many attrocities we've committed? why I have this running tally I can't wait to put on the internet when we invent it. I'll call it germanwardead.co.uk!

In any event, Dowding, while I dislike Islam as an ideology because I believe it is false and has not produced anything approaching good fruit, I don't hate Muslims, as a matter of fact one of the differences between Christianity and Islam is that I am commanded to love them and pray for them, while they are commanded to fight and either kill or subjugate me. Usually when you ask Westerners what they like about Islam, the answers they give are not actually teachings of Islam. For instance, seldom do I hear, "O I'm a big fan of the Hijabs and Burkas, total abstinence, stoning for adultery, preventing other faiths from operating in the Dar-El-Islam, women being classed essentially as beasts of the field, Jihad, slavery, and corporate prayer 5 times a day." Instead we get ephemeral statements about arts and sciences in the middle ages, references to changes the West has introduced into the Dar-El-Islam, and complaints about the crusades and the oft-quoted "O its just a small minority" which theory should have been exploded by the Danish Cartoon riots but predictably wasn't.

Dowding my views may be different because I interact with the Soldiers and Missionaries who go into the Dar-El-Islam on a regular basis, as well as ordinary people who have converted from Islam, not with businessmen from Dubai or playboys from the gulf-states, or a few westernized individuals in the USA or Britain. I also have tried to read as much Islamic history, theology, and law as I have had time for.

Now you can dismiss me as a loon and a rabid hater, that's your right in our mercifully democratic society, but I don't think you can prove me wrong by making a coherent argument that Islam is a "religion of peace" or that it is not at the root of events like the slaughter in Darfur and southern Sudan, or countless terrorist campaigns from Thailand to Britain.

If Christians had protested in London holding signs saying "Behead those who call Christianity violent" we'd never have heard the end of it and ultimately "fundamentalist" people like me would have been held responsible, but when Muslims do it, the veil is pulled over the events in embarassment and everyone starts waving their hands and saying "this has nothing to do with Islam as a religion" even when embarrassing documentaries filmed at "moderate" London mosques prove otherwise.

I will willingly uphold, proclaim, and accept every single one of Jesus Christ's actions and teachings and never seek to incoherently disconnect them from the Christian faith, but Just answer me this, did the murder of Asma Bint-Marwan at Muhammad's command have nothing to do with Islam? What say ye?

- SEAGOON

[Seagoon]

It just occurred to me that my comment about documentaries filmed at so-called "moderate" mosques might be confusing to some non-Brits. I was making reference to an edition of Channel 4's Dispatches program which was filmed undercover in a number of Mosques held to be "moderate" and eager to cooperate with the government. What was discovered was that if these were the "moderate" mosques, then things were far worse than anyone had previously thought:

  Dispatches, part 1
Dispatches, part 2
Dispatches, part 3
Dispatches, part 4
Dispatches, part 5
Dispatches, part 6

[Dowding]

In any event, Dowding, while I dislike Islam as an ideology...

When someone goes out of their way to use Nazism as a comparative, I would contend that there is something deeper than 'dislike' at work. I won't call you dishonest, however you are in danger of appearing that way.

As for a surreal aspect to the argument, I quite agree. On the one hand portraying yourself as a paragon of piety, praying for people yet judging them to being akin to card carrying Nazi party members. Very tolerant. Very - if you will allow me to use the term - Christian.

My knowledge of the theology of Islam is not as learned as yours - you clearly preach for a living and that is your religion. However, I would love to see you and an Islamic scholar 'discuss' these issues. What is more, I would like to see the O-Club audience see that argument. At the moment we have an amateur theologian, who readily compares Islam to Nazism as the only side to this argument.

Sadly, the odds of seeing a balanced discussion are slim.

The 'root of events' is not Islam. It's human greed, lust for power and stupidity. Maybe even the need to feel significant. Those have been the key drivers of human behaviour since before Mohammed or Jesus ever walked the earth.

[Elfie]

Really Dowding, there isn't anything wrong with using an analogy to show a point.