No matter where you're coming from, the hope for the world is the same. Of course, our perceptions of how hopeful the world is would differ, but that does not make a difference to the actual value.

It changes everything when these people are in charge of governments that ultimately decide what course of action is taken to determine the outcome of certain major things in our world.


If it was a common goal, like when the world banded together to stop Nazi Germany from taking over the world, I would agree with you. But not everyone shares your country's vision of Islam being a massive evil in the world that needs to be brought to it's knees.


Sometimes you can try to make things better, but will ultimately fail. Does being optimistic/delusional help you sleep better at night? We are constantly being we are reminded of the continuing collapse of the West because no there is no convincing enough voice stating the obvious flaws in our society. Rather we focus on problems that are smaller in comparison to the internal ones we suffer on a daily basis. Therein lies the biggest problem I find with your country...focusing too much on the external rather than the internal. The Muslims have a saying that goes "The greatest conflict is not outside of you, but inside." and that couldn't any truer than it does at this point in time.

I think you're completely disregarding everything I've said. Ultimately fail? Explain the constant and un-ending improvement of human quality of life and violence.

How am I being delusional? I am absolutely the only one of us two who is looking at it in an unbiased light.

Anyway, this thread is about religion so enough of this topic.

What's the point? Not everyone shared the vision that Nazi Germany was a massive evil in the world that needs to be brought to its knees.

Anything is possible, yes. But like I said, when the world is being ruled by morons who prevent the impossible from becoming possible and will continue to do so, then really, what hope is there? It's not just Islam, but look at your government...how they deny certain things that would improve the quality of living for most people (ie. certain scientific endeavors like stem cell research). So please bite the bullet several times before firing it in other people's directions.


No you're not. You're trying to affirm a unison, linear way of interpreting things in the world (mainly through scientific means). I would say you are an impartial mediator when it comes to discussing most topics, but like a lot of people on this board, you seem to have a bias towards not just radical Islam, but Islam in general. To each their own though.


Indeed. I just finished downloading a couple movies which I will go watch now. Enjoy the rest of your night (I assume it's night in Texas, I dunno, I could be wrong).

Ah but you see, this is where your falut lies. There is no different interpretations of empircal fact, which is really what I was using to exemplify my point. When discussing things such as "hope for the world" there is only one acceptable manner of evaluation and that is a method that will achieve useful results and not become a trivial "yes, no" set of banter. It is far less useful for discourse to cite anecdotes and to appeal to emotions when trying to achieve justification for ideals than it is to cite empircal studies. I think your position of argument is flawed from the beginning.

Anyway, this is the end of that.

The people that didn't see a problem with Hitler's regime were people that were brainwashed by Nazi propaganda. If you're implying the majority of Muslims are brainwashed, then you have some major re-assessing of the religion to do. Not that I'm accusing you of making a direct comparison, but to somehow imply the situations/organizations are similar is pretty damn stupid. Muslims are not trying to take over the world. They just want to be left alone. How they practice their religion and how live should be none of your concern. The West should stop acting like an adult trying to discipline a child.

I will respond to your posts in the morning. For now, goodnight rexxz and Kruel.

Also, you condemn the generalization of Muslims but then do the exact same thing to "The West" (if that isn't a nebulous term, I don't know what is).

I wasn't implying that they are imilar, but your notion that it is okay since not everyone thinks it is wrong is absurd. Do you think about the oppression of people under the Islamic rule?

Also, almost all religious people are brainwashed in part, including the Muslims.

ALRIGHT PEOPLE, HAVING STARTED THIS THREAD AND SEEN WHERE IT HAS GONE (WHICH I AM PROUD OF NONETHELESS) IT'S BEST WE GO BACK ON TRACK AND START A DISCUSSION ON MOHAMMED AND NOT GET BOGGED DOWN IN ANOTHER RELIGIOUS DEBATE OR WHATEVER IT IS.

I KNOW YOU'RE ALL INTELLIGENT, IT'S OBVIOUS, BUT RATHER THAN NIT PICK OVER RELIGION LET'S ZERO IN ON THIS THREAD'S MAIN SUBJECT: MOHAMMED.

WHO HERE HAS ANYTHING TO CONTRIBUTE ON THE MAN'S LIFE, TIMES, AND LEGACY?

AND BTW, THIS ISN'T ANOTHER CORNER WHERE THE ANGST OF THE 9/11 ERA GETS VENTED-- FIRST AND FOREMOST, I- SPECIFICALLY I- WANT TO LEARN ABOUT ISLAM, AND PERHAPS OTHERS AS WELL.

Being a Pakistani Muslim turned Atheist, I can tell you a LOT about Islam since I had it shoved down my throat since the day I was born.

Muhammad is portrayed as a perfect human being in islam, without any flaws or anything. Perfect to the point that his sweat smells of perfume (:lol:)

Muhammad is shown as a pious and humble man. He never attacked anyone even when he was attacked. The strange thing is that these hypocrites that label themselves as Al Qaeda spread a misconception that Muhammad said that we should kill non muslims and shit like that. I'd hate to defend a religion I hate, but Islam strictly forbids killing. The non muslim killing was a small excerpt from a verse around the time of the Battle of Badr or something, I think.

If you want to read about him, there are plenty of biographies done by obsessed lunatics.

If you are thinking of converting to Islam, then don't. Take it from an ex-muslim. I won't go into detail, because that would cause my post to become a pointless biography

Alright, back on topic...

He married a nine-year old girl, and that's why Islam allows females to get married at the age of nine.

Also, he was illiterate, and the Koran was written down at least a hundred years after his death.

From what I've heard it is possible that the Qu'ran was actually a writing by a heretical Christian sect. in the Mid-East that Muhammed intercepted during one of his many military campaigns. It fits in with portions of the Hadith that state that occasionally Muhammed would forget parts of the Qu'ran, though it also brings into question whether he was illiterate, or maybe just had advisers who were reading it to him as a propaganda tool to keep his military morale high.

Speaking from my end of things, the toleration of scientific endeavors during the high period of the Middle East during the Middle Ages was heavily due to progressive thinking monarchs. A lot of the mathematical developments were heavily dependent upon the spreading of Greek thought (particularly Aristotelian works) which Western Europe were not exposed to. Western Europe did not really have access to translations of Plato's writings, only some oral applications of some of his philosophy via St. Augustine superimposed on scripture.

Mainstream Islamic and Christian theology are essentially a middle ground between Plato and Aristotle, both of whom were proponents of Teleological views on metaphysics (though there were differences between the two in their application) while most secular thinkers come from the opposing Epicurean school of Greek thought, which reverses the teleological view of form following function and states that objects move because they exist, rather than objects existing for the purpose of moving.

To state that religion is inherently opposed to scientific advancement is basically to argue the point of Lucretius, which is an early example of retaliation from the metaphysical naturalist viewpoint towards the pagan priesthood, who had been hindering technological progress in the name of maintaining their political power. I think that in the case of Lucretius, Socrates, and several others after them there is a good case to be made that established religious institutions have been hostile towards scientific advancement, but this is not universally true according to several arguments put forward by Musick, which I myself could bolster with examples of prominent Catholic theologians during the Middle Ages who fought to spread Greek thought through the west and eventually did.

By the same token, Marxism is essentially a form of Metaphysical Naturalism, thus diametrically opposed to theology, and I think we can agree that there was a good level of repression of certain modes of scientific thought that might have worked against the Utopian ideas in their ideology, particularly in the Soviet Union. I know that a good number of Atheistic thinkers have argued that Marxism carries similarities to religion, but so does just about every other mode of thought in a couple of areas.

I think it is foolish to state that religion is universally hostile to scientific thought, and it is equally as foolish to state that atheism is universally accepting of all things scientific. Anyone who would argue either of these is guilty of revisionist history, which I assert is far more destructive than any suicide bombing, notably because it is a contributing factor in what makes them occur.

Yet another reason why Islam sucks.

Hell's Unicorn's post is incredibly long

I'll read it when I'm not feeling so sleepy

I like to cover all of my bases in single posts rather than be misunderstood, sometimes I go overboard.

If they just want to be left alone, why don't they leave (for example) China alone, 16 police officers were killed by Muslim sepratists because they hate chinese culture and want it to be seperate from theirs. I mean how much more proof do you need of Islam's fundemental imperial nature. The suicide bombing should be proof enough of how delusional Muslims are. Muslims are taught that thinking about things beyond what is in the Quran is heretical, no wonder there so primitive. If Muslims just want to be left alone, why do they spread to every down trodden youth. Why is Saudi Arabia the only country on earth, under one religion and where death is the penalty for preaching other beliefs. What could be more intollerant, fascist and imperialist than that.

To play devil's advocate here, why does China need to control the region that is so heavily populated by Muslim's? If these people are so backward and inhuman, it would make much more sense to allow these primitives to secede from the country and then face starvation from a lack of gifts from the ever benevolent People's Republic (sarcasm)? They'd lose less soldiers that way.

I have a feeling that like America, China's principle problem is not Muslim radicals, but it's own wishes to keep it's influence large so it can guzzle up resources and dump their poison somewhere other than their own backyards, which explains why they need to dominate another arcane/backward culture known as Tibet.

P.S. - Using the example of Muslims killing drones from an authoritarian government like China to demonstrate imperialistic tendencies in the former is quite flawed. You'd do better to stick to attacking Saudi Arabia for their hostility towards freedom of religion, although then again, you'd still be dictating your own morality to a country that you will likely never go, defending people that you'll never meet.

Yeah your right, bad example. But mostly every Muslim I see doesn't want to intergrate, or respect the laws of the country their in. Because they have prejudices against how they live in their own country. In Saudi Arabia if you don't respect the law, you are severly punished. In western Europe and America, we let muslim men cover their wives in veiles, they did not choose to wear themselves. In Turkey the Burka is illegal, maybe we should take a lesson from them. I'm sick of giving them special privileges and respect they didn't earn.

Well, I've seen examples of both, ones that integrate and ones that don't. But the definition of integration is part of the issue, I for one have not integrated into America's idea of pop culture at all, I loathe most of the music, the fashion, and I have a great deal of animosity towards many of our laws, particularly federal laws.

Insofar as places like Chechnia and the Southwestern portion of China, this could basically be solved by Russia and China simply letting those lands break away and instead of posturing, engage in commerce with them. Our entire approach to national soverignty is based mostly on capricious uses of force, conquest, and centralized authority rather than a more practical nationalism based on cultural distinction. We'd likely solve a good deal of these problems by simply allowing dissenters to break away, form their own countries, and then engage in trade with them. All we are clinging to is a false sense of dominion.

As to banning the Burka here, I wouldn't be opposed to doing this on a state by state level, but you'd be hard pressed to get something like that approved by any government in the advent of political correctness. You'd have to make it a crime to engage in political intimidation using political correctness, which I'd personally love to see happen as I loathe the politically correct and multiculturalism in general.

I don't think mine or American culture is perfect, but we appreciate the freedoms and individual rights of every person. Hardline muslims do not. They want to segregate the inferior unislamic cultures that exist and force them into a lower status, so eventually they become Muslims. In other words they don't intergrate at all. I mean you may complain about America, but you would be on one way ticket to america if you had a taste of living in Saudi Arabia, especially if you were a woman. The problem is most muslims living in a democratic society, don't want to be extreme. But they still be default support the extremists, because they are carrying out whats in their "holy" book. And what your saying is true, discrimination is vital in society, the freedom to critisize other cultures that are so different, inferior or incompatable with our own, should never be taken away. I mean if free speach was taken away, we would be living in a PC dictatorship. My point is some cultures are so vile and incompatable, that they don't diserve to be given respect in our own country.

And I don't obligate anyone to respect Islamic culture, on the contrary, I have basically no respect whatsoever for their backwards way of doing things, and I think their religion was basically stolen from heretical Eastern Christians during the 6th/7th century.

Having said that, there is a difference between not holding a culture in any form of esteem and using their shortcomings as rationale for killing them, manipulating their governments and screwing with their economies, and that is precisely what has been going on and precisely why most of these people (Muslim or otherwise) are pissed off at America. If we had a different trade and general foreign policy, I doubt these militants would be able to get many recruits.

An excellent article about the 'prophet' mohammed today in the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 94361.html

Islam is the fascist religion that wants control of every people and every state to fly the flag of Islam. At least the Christians have moved on with the times and stopped beheading people and using death as a means to spread there hatred of everything that doesn't comply with Islamic morals and standards. After reading a lot of the Qu'ran. It seems like it was rewritten countless times to better reflect and empower Mohammad in Militarily and Politically. It states you may only eat meat if it is slaughtered in the name of God (Allah) by a Muslim, Jew, or Christian. Couple pages later, feel free to kill the Jew and Christian as well. I have no respect for any religion, but I hate this one more than any other.

I can't help but be reminded of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who grew up in Somalia and suffered from genital mutilation (despite her father being against it) and studied strict Saudi-influenced Islam and was very much devout. Yet after being exposed to Western ideas, she became increasingly critical of Islam and is now actively fighting against it. She never gave up, even when faced with death threats.

Please note aside from the shoe-in commenting about suicide bombing that this is an extremist belief and that most Moslems that advocate it belong to the Shi'a sect of Islam, which is the second largest sect behind the Sunni.

What is incredible is how Sharia (a kind of government by principles of Islam) can be manipulated by a large number of clerics.