I believe that there is a lot of confusion over what the cause is, and your post contributes to that confusion. Generally the cause is the liberation of Palestine, and it has been that which has fueled so many of the attacks on the west because of their support for Israel in this area. That has created a wider 'cause' which is manifested in many ways; some by the extremists that you believe have the support of the majority of Muslims, but which from my experience they do not. So you ask, why do the majority not rise up and overwhelmingly condemn their actions? Muslims see themselves under attack from the west through the sorts of discriminatory laws now applying in the US when it comes to their rights as individuals - e.g., those that target people from middle eastern communities. They are stuck in a bind - do they attack those who claim to be righteous Muslims who are carrying out these attacks on innocent outsiders in places like Iraq first, or try to defend themselves from perceived attacks from the west and then deal with their extremists? Their tendency has always been to deal with the external threat first. There is a certain logic about that.
It is my view (agreeing with you on this point), that they should be more vocal against these people in the first instance, but it takes a lot of guts to do that - as those Germans in the 1930s who did not go along with Nazism discovered when the state was controlled by people who will stop at nothing to get what they want. But Muslims may regard the bigger enemy to be states such as the US which they believe are out to stop Islam from penetrating the west as much as possible. They may not be right, but that's what they believe.
I don't believe that. I have never heard any ordinary Muslim say that. I have certainly heard extremists say it, just as I constantly hear or read people in this group call for the destruction of Islam and all Muslims. They are as bad as each other because they are both based on ignorance - which politicians and extremists on both sides make use of.
If you mean, the way Islam is intepreted by Muslim persons, then it is. But Islam is not intepreted that way by the majority of Muslims any more than the terror in Northern Ireland is driven by Christianity.
With you so far...
Where do you get the bit about "Offensive" jihad? Sounds like a modern interpretation by someone or other.
This is a bit of a red herring. Hadith is a disputed field of authority amongst Muslims. The majority of Muslims (to which you refer above) are poor, uneducated, and non-white, which is fundamentally much more of a problem than that they are Muslims. It is their proverty and ignorance that makes them a fertile field for exploitation - economically by the west and religiously by their own politicians.
Yes - but only if attacked first. You left out that bit. "Allah does not love the aggressors." How do you explain that bit?
Then that does not mean by force, even though in the past, Islam, like Christianity, has expanded itself by force.
Which at least indicates that religious minorities should be free to practice their religion. I agree that the way some Islamicists work now, this does not happen. I have issues with that. In fact, I have deep issues with the way some Muslim groups have taken over Islam in some places, and turned it into something the Qur'an says it ought not to be. (As a non-Muslim I also have some real issues with Qur'anic verses as well, but that's another story). I can parallel that with the Hindu fanatics spawned in the last two decades of the 20th century in India, and some Christian groups. And before you make the claim again that you wrongly made below - this doesn't make it right and I never said it did - OK? It is reasonable nevertheless to say that Muslims are not the only ones at fault in this regard.
It is all in the way it is intepreted.
"Apologist garbage' is the LAST thing it is. That's your interpretation - it was never mine and never will be. Mine was intended to show that when there are similar faults on both sides, one of them has no right to take a morally superior position. That is all. How you interpret making such a comparison is your problem.
But you are making the same mistake. You are referring to an Islam that existed hundreds of years ago. Admittedly there are some Muslims who would like to see a return to that position, but that is not the case with Islam now either. I lived in Bangladesh for a long time - no-one asked me to pay the jizya - did they ask you in your Muslim country of residence?
As to kidnapping people, I would hope that nowhere in the world would persons liquidate innocent people in various ways, but they do. It happens in any number of countries. These men who call themselves Muslims and dissolution victims like a sheep are disgusting and sick, but the Basque in Spain who sets off a plant that kills and maims his victim is in no way better. You are implying there are varying degrees of terrorism that involve the dissolution of victims. I don't see any. Sticking a knife in someone's neck and liquidateing them that way is no better nor worse morally than dying because your guts has been half blown out by a plant. They are both obscenities and crimes against humanity.
As I said, tell me a state in the world that charges non-Muslims the jizya. Each has gone past that point centuries ago.
Do I? Always? How many times is that? Once?
?????
That's a non sequitur. Do you mean a black man now in the USA killing an innocent white woman there, or any black man anywhere in the world and any white woman? Let's buttume you mean the former, as the latter is ridiculous. The fact is that every event has multiple causes, and you can't take one in isolation. After all, to illustrate that point, if there had been no slavery to the US, then the liquidate scenario you refer to wouldn't have arisen, would it? Therefore, in a sense, it is part of the chain of causation that might lead to the liquidate of the white woman. There will be many other factors. It's not a yes-no question that you ask. In fact, it's a "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" sort of question.
Rifty
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