If you are not worried about MUSLIMS yet.... 6169

the the anybody a another

****Note -- before wearing yourself out here, you may want to read my last four paragraphs first.****

No. Again, I'm unaware of McVeigh ever citing anything but politics as a reason for his action. If you have another datapoint, please cite it, but you can't logically connect his actions to a religion unless he fulfills two criteria at least: (1) he states that he committed the crime because it was called for under his relgion, and (2) the religious understanding he was operating under is-was theologically defensible by that religion.

Then by

That's easy to disprove. Question: What did the following have to do with Iraq? Lebanon barracks planting, 1992 Trade Center planting, the USS Cole, Khobar Towers, the Embbutty plantings in Kinshasa and Dar-es-Islam, 9-11, Bali? Since you have personic events of extreme magnitude occurring PRIOR to the Iraqi invasion, one can hardly argue that Iraq is the cause of Islamic terrorism. That's like saying that the Great Depression was caused Bretton Ridge.

Not logically. Koresh declared himself to be the second Messiah, and the Son of God like Christ. Anyone with cursory knowledge of the New Testament understands that that's not just a minority viewpoint, that's blasphemy. Thus, he was the polar opposite of Christianity. That's like me voting for increased welfare and pensions, higher taxes, centralized goverment planning of the economy, and then declaring myself a fiscal conservative.

OTOH, there is nothing in bin Laden's theology that is not backed by accepted Islamic religious thought. His views he holds on jihad are the traditional ones, traditional views of jihad as a tool to expand the reach of Islam. This is *not* a heretical view within Islam. He is influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, (his trusty sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood) which you'll have a hard time arguing is "fringe", as they just scared the poo out of Mubarak in the last election. his inspiratoin from the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab teacher who, back in the 18th century, cut a deal with Muhammad Ibn Saud, resulting in the House of Saud ending up ruling (Saudi) Arabia, and the Wahabi teachings came to dominate the entire gulf region.

So, what you're trying to do is argue that the existence of a psychopathic loner who might have gone to a church once (McVeigh), and a Christian heretic whose beliefs had no traction (Koresh) permit drawing moral equivalency between the thousands invovled in committing the aforementioned list of attacks, and whose religious views, although not majority, have (1) a fair amount of popularity amongst Muslims were mainstream at one time, (cqpress citation, above) and which reflect the predominate religious thought amongst the richest set of nations in the Islamic world?

Nonsense. You seem to be a smart guy, I don't believe you yourself believe what you are arguing. It's indefensible.

no

Everyone knew that Milosevich was an atheist communist engaged in genocidal acts for political reasons. Thus, no clerical comment was warranted. (The Pope hasn't commented, as far as I am aware about, Robert Mugabe, Myanamar, nor the Kashmiri situation, either.)

Not at all. Lag factor matters. The Spanish fatwa against OBL states that it was, as far as they were aware, the first one released against him.

A more critical read gives creedence to the notion that the clerics have started to understand that bin Laden is not going to be the next Saludhinn, and are no longer playing both ends against the middle.

No. I was referring to polling in the 2002 timeframe. But, here's some other information:

(To be fair, I am quite aware that OBL is starting to be "over" in the ME. question of "what took so long" remains relevant to understanding the mindset.)

Sort of like Chopper Read or Ned Kelly worship

I think there's some of that, largely brought on by two factors: First, life in the ME sucks. Our pets live better than the average person there. It sucks because totalitarian rulers siphon the money and commerce out of the hands of the people by lavish lifestyles and-or building up their militaries and-or kickbacks to large tribal groups of retainers. Also, Islam states that at the end of time, all the people in the world will be Muslim (polar opposite of Chistianity). So, in order to keep the financial and religious angst of the people from percolating into revolt, political and religious leaders have to have a bogeyman to blame all the people's problems on. The current bogeymen of choice are the US and Israel.

So, yes, this does contribute to folk-hero types of popularity. I don't think for a moment that a 50% approval rating for OBL means that 50% of the people are about to sign up for the cause. However, the matter is not black-white, and I have no doubt that large numbers of more moderate religious conservatives, hoping that OBL was the guy to re-establish the caliphate, ignored his bloodthirsty nature whilst writing checks to him.

When OBL releases a fatwa, he doesn't write it. He can't. He's not clergy. But, more to the point, there's nothing innovative about his viewpoints, just minority. He's issued three fatwas against the US, perhaps four, the last with the Islamic Council of Afganistan as signatories. His beliefs are well backed by the core Islamic religious documents, and are not "mainstream" simply through what he chooses to emphasize, which, again, is not determined by HIS interpretations (aka a personality cult like Koresh) but by the writings of Wahab and the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Qutb).

Apples and oranges. Milosevich was secular. (In order to prove otherwise, find me a quotation from the New Testament that indicates that Christians ought to be waging war to establish Christian lands. That would make your point.) that

I haven't claimed majority support. I've claimed (and shown) that his is a minority view within Islam based on the teachings of Wahab, and argued that since the precepts of Wahabism dominate at least half a dozen Islamic states, including most of the richest states in the world, to label it as "fringe" and "irrelevant" would be like arguing that the Southern Baptists are "fringe" and "irrelevant" simply because most Christians are Catholics.

and are no different than liquidateing Christians that

History states the opposite. Read the history of the Middle East (Dr. Bernard Lewis is an easy read). When Muhammad pushed north into Christian lands, there was none of the same sort of sabre-rattling and rhetoric about anything similar to what you see in Islam. (Some of that short of rhetoric appeared during the Crusades, but the Crusades were such a mish-mosh of political and religious objectives it's hard to draw clear motivations from them.)

Proven false. (see references to Wahab control over multiple countries.) such

Yes, there are all sorts of people who write checks rather than act in these cases -- I alluded to them above. Here, we're looking for support or condemnation from credible religious organizations. Find me a credible Christian organzation (Catholic, Church of Christ, Baptist, buttembly of God) which supports planting clinics. I can show you clerics from respected establishments who support the jihadists and their objectives.

of information and articles proving that jihadi terrorism is hardly fringe. Obviously the focus is on terrorism vs. Jews, but there are no shortage of articles concerning the US here, and I think you'd be hard put to find equivalency between this scope and a few nutcases who are so worked up about end that they've abandoned the political process.)

Then that would be the equaivalent of the Muslms wyou

Well, they don't have jobs. :-)

cumentid-2762-history-3,2360,655,1701,2762

You'd say? :-) 179 attempts (not all successful, or you would have said so) show moral equivalency juxtaposed against 9-11, Khobar, the Cole? And what have the anthrax hoaxes (which are unsolved) have to do with anything? Do you have some specific insight that they were part of some mad, Christian plot? held

Nonsense, and disproven above. If you need more, here's an artucle on how the militaristic intepretation of jihad is more historical and mainstream, whilst the view of jihad as an internal struggle is more modernistic. (the latter interpretation is analagous to the Christian internal struggle -- Christianity has no analogy to the former.) It doesn't directly refer to the current dilemma, but you can easily figure out where the players fit in.

first Western the is the PA place FWIW.)

Christianity in the region (a topic of which I am closely familar) doesn't demonstrate the same characteristics. In fact, Christianity hasn't used a forcible-expansion model since (roughly) the Reformation. (The view that the current state of Islam is more analogous to the Christianity of the Middle Ages has some relevance here.) So, there is really no historical or logical reason for beliving that plugging in Chrisianity in place of Islam would result in the same dynamic. Christianity simply doesn't operate that way anymore. people that

Apples to oranges. The rationale matters. For example, the killing of civilians in Israel is justified by Hamas because Israel has compulsory military serivce, and therefore all Israeli citizens are military targets. When the person go after purely civilian targets (such as the planting in Jordan) that's when they lose support and get themselves in trouble, as is now happening in Iraq. any came saying

Religious writings. Here's plenty written by one of the core jihadi apologists, just laced with references to Quran and hadith:

You undoubtedly know that Christianity has a strong pacifistic tradition. If you wish to argue moral equivalency in this area, you'd have to find the same tradition in Islam. Good luck.

Nobody's blaming anyting on one single religion. The problem is that your chosen analytical paradigm, leading you to argue moral equvalency, is too cynical. Although it could be argued, as you do, that religion is the biggest cause of misery-rest-destruction on the planet (although I suspect that most men, committing atrocities in the name of religion, would have found another reason to do them had religion not been handy) you can also argue that it's the biggest cause or comfort-life-prosperity on the planet. Far more have taken solace in their religion, or been helped by people of religious motives, than have been the otherwise.

That said, not all religions (speaking here of the human insbreastutions derived from belief) are indeed created equal. Like cultures and societies, some exhibit more dysfunction than others, and such situations may flip-flop over time.

A case could be made that, during the Middle Ages, Islam was less dysfunctional than Christianity. Islam created a great society, people took their charitable obligations seriously, leading to minimum of poverty, education flourished, and trade between Europe and the East created a ready stream of income for the kingdom. At the same time, Europe suffered under a coercive religious hegemony that channeled money to the clergy first, stifeled education, and kept people in the dark about their religion so as to transfer ultimate power to the religious clbutt.

At this point, things have largely flip-flopped. There are no Christian empires, education is flourishing, and the free market system inspired (largely) by the Protestant Reformers has brought wealth and prosperity to the west. Now, it is the islamic countries locked under the same thumb of coercion as was Europe, although not always at the hands of the religious clbutt.

You want to argue eqivalency, I suppose you can, but you need a milliena of history to do so. Those of us interested in the moral condition of the here and now, who have no cynical requirement that "religion must be proven evil, and equally so" can see matters for what they really are, which is a (relatively) enlightened state of Christianity (and Judaism, for that matter) juxtaposed against a virulent religious ideology which has both critical mbutt and momentum for growth.

Mike

But, that's likely far enough. I think its pretty clear on scope, scale, and magnitude, threre's really no way to claim moral equivalency here, unless you really, really want to, for some sort of item on your own personal agenda (possibilites: (1) you hate Christianity and want to discredit it whenever possible, (2) you hate moral absolutism and try to discredit it whenever possible, and-or (3) you dislike the notion of sociomoral distinctions.)

Mike