Never use a religion's authoritative texts in evaluating it. It's so much more edifying just to make things up!

Monday, October 29

Never use a religion's authoritative texts in evaluating it. It's so much more edifying just to make things up!

To Lexa, from here:

various sects of Christians have been killing each other since long before the birth of . . . Muhammad, which is true. As for not knowing what I am talking about, this is a historical fact. I am sorry that my use of the term "Protestant" so confused you that you chose do discount my point entirely.

You ought to be apologizing for your historical illiteracy, not blaming others for it.

As to your "historical fact," since Christians were persecuted as a matter of policy until the fourth century and Mohammed was born in the sixth, what "sects" were killing each other during those two hundred years? Please be specific.

lagoMatamoros: I think that you are missing my point entirely. Just as I refuse to play what I refer to as "the Bible game" with conservative Christians, so will I refuse to play this game with you. I did not, and will not, debate specific passages of any revealed religious text. I believe that such efforts are both useless and futile.

Yes, never use facts in a debate/discussion, and whatever you do, never, ever use a religion's authoritative texts in analyzing that religion!

It's so much more edifying just to make things up.

My point, which you apparently did not get,

Again blaming the victim. How honest of you!

People have some strange desire to point out how much more intolerant Islam is than any other religion that could possibly be. I assert that this is not the case; rather, there are plenty of religions that are comperably intolerant. I chose Christianity because it is comperable to Islam both in size and geographical spread. I think that we have all agreed on this comparison, yes?

No, that's a tu quoque argument, a logical fallacy. If the topic is whether or not Islam is intolerant, discussing any other religion has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on determining an answer.

If you want to compare religions, you may, but if you rule out using their foundational documents to evaluate them, all you have left is human behavior which may or may not reflect accurately their gods' wills.

Feel free to argue from ignorance, but you will not find such a comparison beneficial to Islam since it has raped, enslaved, and slaughtered hundreds of millions (billions?) of non-Muslims in the name of Allah since Mohammed first began the bloodshed nearly fourteen hundred years ago.

And your Religionists of Peace have carried out around the world nearly 10,000 attacks since 9/11 alone.

To quote rabello

Do you really want to cite rabello? He was eviscerated by an exceptionally skilled (yet restrained) member in the "Why revile Muslims?" thread on the old board.

those who are so ready to point out the intolerance within Islam do no such justice to religions like Christianity.

That's because Christians are not running around raping, enslaving, and slaughtering non-Christians in the name of Jesus.

Neither do you find any commands from Christ to "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5), or to, "Fight against the people . . . until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

Which is, of course, why you won't go to the texts. As long as you avoid addressing them, you can say, "What about McVeigh?" (not a Christian) in hopes that no one notices that for every Western nut violating Christ's commands, there are ten thousand Muslims obeying Allah and imitating Mohammed as they slaughter infidels.

I, and many others, call this discriminatory.

Which indicates that you've don't have any substantive (read, "fact-based") argument to make in defense of Islam.

If you want to flood the debate/discussion board with flame posts, fine, its your time and energy. But I will continue to disagree with you in principal until I see you posting like this on the board of every major religion.

That's several falsehoods in one.

First, I am not "flooding" the board.

Second, neither are my posts "flames." I cite the word of Allah and the example of Mohammed in explaining the teachings and practices of those who want to "fight until all religion is for Allah."

Third, it is illogical to say that one's criticism of A is invalid unless one criticizes similarly B through Z, whether or not the others deserve such criticism.

Fourth, to say "I will continue to disagree with you in principal until I see you posting like this on the board of every major religion." is an admission that your only basis for disagreeing is not what the religion actually teaches and practices, but emotion.

My question to you: what is so special about Islam that it deserves the dubious pleasure of all this attention? Why not devote this much anger to the sects of other religions that cause untold pain and suffering on a daily basis?

To answer your second question first: Name one religion that causes "untold pain and suffering on a daily basis." There's only one, and that's the one the god of which commands the faithful to "cause untold pain and suffering on a daily basis" until "all religion is for Allah."

And as for the first, the answer is noted above. The squeaky genocidal mass-murderer gets the grease.

No major religion's adherents rape, enslave, and slaughter those who refuse to convert or submit to their god but Islam.

Worse than that, the will of Allah and the example of Mohammed require such violence:

"the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: 'Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya . . . If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them . . .'" (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).

"fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . " (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

"Allah's Apostle said: 'I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle . . . '" (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

On the fall of Constantinople

"[...] the great church of Hagia Sophia was filled to capacity. Thousands of people were moving towards the church. Inside, Orthodox and Catholic priests were holding liturgy, the last Christian service after almost 1,000 years. People were singing hymns, others were openly crying, others were asking each other for forgiveness [...].

"Bands of Ottoman soldiers began now looting. Doors were broken, private homes were looted, their tenants were massacred. Shops in the city markets were looted. Monasteries and Convents were broken in. Their tenants were killed, nuns were raped; many, to avoid dishonor, killed themselves. Killing, raping, looting, burning, enslaving, went on and on [...].

"The great doors of Hagia Sophia were forced open, and crowds of angry soldiers came in and fell upon the unfortunate worshippers. Pillaging and killing in the holy place went on for hours. Similar was the fate of worshippers in most churches in the city [...].

"Thousands of civilians were enslaved, soldiers fought over young boys and young women [...] the invaders broke the heads of those women who resisted on the floor of the churches and they raped them dead. The famous icon of Apostole Loukas was totally destroyed.

"The sultan asked for the young sons of Duke Loukas Notaras. Their father refused and Mehmed was ready to take their heads. Notaras asked him to kill him after his sons so that he was sure that they were dead and not disgraced from the pervert sultan.

"And this is what happened."

Black Tuesday, The Last Day of the World, the twenty-ninth of May, anno Domini MCDLIII

On American Liberty

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."

Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson Washington, Mar. 23, 1801

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

The truth about Mahomet

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property -- either as a child, a wife, or a concubine -- must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -- the science against which it had vainly struggled -- the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Winston Churchill, Churchill, Winston S. (1899), The River War, First edition, Vol. II, pp. 248-250

A war of twelve hundred years

"And he [Jesus] declared, that the enjoyment of felicity in the world hereafter, would be reward of the practice of benevolence here. His whole law was resolvable into the precept of love; peace on earth – good will toward man, was the early object of his mission; and the authoritative demonstration of the immortality of man, was that, which constituted the more than earthly tribute of glory to God in the highest [...] The first conquest of the religion of Jesus, was over the unsocial passions of his disciples. It elevated the standard of the human character in the scale of existence. [...] On the Christian system of morals, man is an immortal spirit, confined for a short space of time, in an earthly tabernacle. Kindness to his fellow mortals embraces the whole compass of his duties upon earth, and the whole promise of happiness to his spirit hereafter. THE ESSENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS NATURE.

[...]

“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE

[...]

"Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant. [...] While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”

John Quincy Adams, Blunt, Joseph (1830),The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9, pp. 268-269

Impossible Islamophobia

Nearly one and one-half millennia of slavery, rape, and slaughter in Allah's name ...

80% of American -- not Pakistani, not Saudi Arabian, not Iranian, but American -- mosques teach jihad/Islamic supremacism ...

Nearly twenty-seven thousand documented jihad attacks since 9/11 alone, and ...

Islam's "Ideal Man" Muhammad -- Allah's "beautiful pattern of conduct" for those who want to please it -- preached and practiced genocide, pedophilia, rape, slavery, torture, mutilation, anti-Semitism, theft, extortion, arson, wife-beating, polygyny, religious and gender apartheid, sedition, treason, deceit, and blasphemy and warned his devotees that "Allah made me do it, and you will too, or else!"

No, "Islamophobia" is impossible. Merely pointing out simple facts regarding a genocidal, malevolent, and totalitarian ideology is neither phobic nor intolerant. It is highly rational and moral.

We are in only the latest phase of an ancient and existential struggle, Allah's war against humanity.

Speaking the truth in love

Never surrender

"we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone [...].

"we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end [...] we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender [...]."

Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940