SFA

If you think you question the wisdom of Muslims - I hope this video encourages you even more. (Read subtitles)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28b_1448759815

How is this different than anyone predicating their viewpoint based on their interpretations of the Bible, Quran, Torah, Book of Mormon, etc?

My experience has taught me well not to engage in religious conversation in the course of business.
I will say though in particular any religion (or lack thereof) is an idea.

I do believe our constitution still protects the free expression of ideas, which includes the criticism and rejection of them. Personally I think as Americans, we should not allow ourselves to be rewired in our base values from fear, so we are OBLIGATED, I think to question those ideas which are illogical to us, and practice at the same time whatever faith, or lack thereof is ours.

It is not however our obligation at all to respect all religions, but rather we should TOLERATE them, do no harm, and peacefully coexist, as generally we have like nowhere else.

In particular there have been ideologies that cannot peacefully coexist with our society. (such as slavery as example) we have legislated it's removal.

It's dangerous IMHO to make blanket statements on ideas based upon their most maniacal and fundamentalist forms, as this would be generally threatening to the free expression of ideas. I have had the great fortune of becoming friendly with colleagues worldwide, whom have all forms of faith, and lack thereof. What is clear to me from this life experience is not the fight between the religious forms or none, but between whose ideas are collaborative and constructive vs. those whose ideas are obstructive and destructive.

I cannot say if the video presented here is the mindset of anyone I've ever met in the course of my travels but certainly it exists, and also in particular I think this is also precisely why we have specific human rights here so we may defend in the event a particular groups ideology should threaten the greater peace. Also It should not be confused with the "politically correct" thing, as it's the only way to conduct a free nation.

I applaud anyone who wants to take on the scrutiny of a particular religion or atheism, but to do it reasonably you'll have to question them all. There'll be a ton of questions, and there won't be a lot of black and white to be found in that endeavor.

Cheers.

G

Ger,
Great job not engaging on a religious topic. I admire your brevity.

Western society has an obligation and a right to protect itself from ideologies that threaten its existence. Re3ligious tolerance necessarily cannot extend to those ideologies that include the murder of "infidels" and the destruction of societies that do not buy into a particular group of religious tenets.

Going forward the only possible solution to our current problem with mancial fundamentalists is to kill the maniacs and search out and destroy the organization(s) and physical locations where intolerance and murder are taught to young men and women from childhood. It's literally a survival issue for western civilization. Sooner or later, even with the predisposition for primitive worldviews which preclude scientific achievement, some nutbag with the technical ability to construct a WMD (and, particularly worrisome a bioweapon) will manage to kill millions.

This all seems obvious to me.

mark s wrote:Western society has an obligation and a right to protect itself from ideologies that threaten its existence. Re3ligious tolerance necessarily cannot extend to those ideologies that include the murder of "infidels" and the destruction of societies that do not buy into a particular group of religious tenets.

Agreed

mark s wrote: Going forward the only possible solution to our current problem with mancial fundamentalists is to kill the maniacs and search out and destroy the organization(s) and physical locations where intolerance and murder are taught to young men and women from childhood.

Wait, what? You want to kill everyone with incompatible worldviews?
This is the exact line of thinking they have. Are you really that different?

mark s wrote: It's literally a survival issue for western civilization. Sooner or later, even with the predisposition for primitive worldviews which preclude scientific achievement,

Religious people in America don't do that. (young earth, climate change, shooting up planned parenthood, teaching creationism in schools)

mark s wrote: some nutbag with the technical ability to construct a WMD (and, particularly worrisome a bioweapon) will manage to kill millions.

This all seems obvious to me.

Reverse Western for Muslim and you are practicing what they are preaching. Only we have WMD. Constant intervention and regime changes in foreign affairs haven't worked well for us, yet we should double down on it? We have no problems with fundamentalist allies, so it isn't a Moral quandary.




I won't say it seems obvious, but reexamining our foreign policy seem like a logical move.

So the earth is not spinning?

or is it my head

"Wait, what? You want to kill everyone with incompatible worldviews?"

No, we need to kill the MANIACS that would shoot up the offices of a magazine in retaliation for "offensive" cartoons or the MANIACS that would murder 129 frenchmen because the way of life of the french is offensive to the MANIACS. Alternate worldviews are not the issue at all. The USA includes many many groups with alternate worldviews that (mostly) live together in harmony or at least respectful tolerance. Even when that tolerance is missing (like the horrible group that demonstrates at the funerals of soldiers) nobody is getting murdered.

"Sooner or later, even with the predisposition for primitive worldviews which preclude scientific achievement,"

this is an accurate statement. Fundamentalist religious belief is often a substantial barrier to understanding science as it replaces real learning with dogmatic and unchallengeable assertions by the koran, bible, or whatever. The guy in the video is a case in point. He is so blinded by his dogma he is literally incapable of understanding the absurdity of his arguments.

The whole problem is that the most fervent (devout) Muslims are the most militant. The milktoast Muslims do not speak out for fear of reprisal. They quietly are complicent with those Muslims doing the dirty work (because of their faith), so they can live a wesrtner lifestyle., IMO.

The Quran says to eliminate all the infidels (non believers). Then once this is achieved, the least pious Muslim should be eliminated from the least pious on. Logically, this would (eventually) leave only the 2 most pious Muslims. This does not strike me as a good plan for the continuation of mankind.

The Quran also states that is ok to deceive(lie) to further the causes and spread the influence of Islam. And that this proliferation iOS the duty of every follower of Islam.

Muslims are exempt from Obamacare, as insurance is consider to be gambling and thus against their religion.

The only discernible difference between the 2 beheading cartoons is that the Saudis are big political donors who believe in some perverted form of capitalism akin to intellectual elitism.

There is only one solution to combat Islam, zero tolerance.

A quote that is commonly attributed to Abraham Lincoln warns future generations that the demise of the USA will come from within and not from the outside of the USA. Part of coming to America is to fit in, learn the language, fit into unity, pay, the culture , etc.

It is funny how on one hand the liberal elite profess cultural diversity and on the other One World Order, depending on the circumstances of the situation. Are we all the same or are we not?

Equal anything (opportunity, income, housing, etc) can not be answered until equal effort is addressed.

Sausage fingers is the reason I thanked Mark's post lol

Dan R. wrote:The whole problem is that the most fervent (devout) Muslims are the most militant. The milktoast Muslims do not speak out for fear of reprisal. They quietly are complicent with those Muslims doing the dirty work (because of their faith), so they can live a westener lifestyle.

In light of the murder of abortion doctors and the recent Planned Parenthood clinic attack let's see if Dan's statement makes just as much sense when we substitute the work "Christian" for "Muslim":

The whole problem is that the most fervent (devout) Christians are the most militant. The milktoast Christians do not speak out for fear of reprisal. They quietly are complicent with those Christians doing the dirty work (because of their faith), so they can live a westerner lifestyle.

Taken out of context is not really a dialogue. I did expect better from you, Kowboy.

But, then again, you continually come in on the low end of my expectations (even for you).

Add on the context of principles of Isalm and you get a better view of the big picture, IMO.

There is no current Christian doctrine that calls for genocide of non Christians, let alone organized groups terrorizing innocent citizens around the world.

Christians prosecute other Christians daily. Christians denounce violence of other Christians regularly. Christians do not target others based on religious affiliation for senseless violence against innocent civilians.

Read up on the 3 crusades, the Inquisition, the subsequent dark ages. These were the dark ages for all of mankind, not just any single group.

And yet all men from different backgrounds and experiences can disagree without the overwhelming desire to harm one another. I cannot say this is true for other peoples and why it's more than reasonable to question it.

Whether or not we take action against it overseas to enforce western ideals is not the question, clearly we should defend ourselves assertively. It's whether we change our ideals here to take action against it here that is dangerous. We can't live in freedom if we cannot give others with other ideas the chance to peacefully coexist. Maybe I avoided a bit (or completely) the question of specific ideals of specific religious beliefs, but this is the point of our constitution and what makes us what we are isn't it? Our identity may be weighted towards the teachings of a particular group of religions, but yet the point is to give all comers a chance to contribute without having to abandon their religious practice, however dissimilar it may be to ours.

Just from those I've known, they haven't had to be milk toast, to be peaceful, they've just had to accept the fact that others disagree, and put their ideas in proper perspective. For those able to, we have to remember that THIS was the country for them. I have a hard time accepting that we should change that for fear.

I'm not even close to liberal politically by the way, I believe in the constitutional principles whom our descendants left everywhere else in droves to live under.

G

Ger Vanderbas wrote:.....clearly we should defend ourselves assertively....

"Peacefully coexist" this is the key term. I believe everyone has more than ample opportunity to peacefully coexist. At the same time, we can not tolerate a jihad endangering the public safety of our citizenry. Our ideals are all based on protecting the innocent and defending ourselves against tyranny. No reason to fix a plan that is not broken, IMO. May have to tweak the plan for modern times, but we can (& should) continue efforts to protect the innocent and fight tyranny.

My rights end at the tip of your nose. Meaning that I can not do whatever I want with no regard for the safety and rights of others. This would include indiscrimanite killing, treating women as chattel, and generally infringing on other's equally important rights.

Unalienable rights are not necessarily unlimited, regardless of point of view.

Based on research I just did, we have 2.6 Million muslims currently living in the US.

I am aware of considerably few events that disturb the peace.

So, either this is a boiler waiting to happen, or this is a kneejerk reaction to yet another event overseas?

Do we really imagine that the oppressive mindset we reject is truly contagious here, or could it be that the oppressed are here to avoid the oppression, except for some percentage of completely evil idiots?

There is a right to free expression of ideas, but terroristic threats are not at all protected. Of these 2.6 Million shall we deport them, or shall we have a concentrated effort on removing/punishing those whom clearly threaten?

ISIS is a different story, and they clearly require extermination. The 2.6 Million here? Maybe a slightly different program.

Just sayin.

There was a huge preemptive bust 20 minutes from my shop 2 years ago.
They arrested 40 + people.

I do not think that deporting anyone is the answer, as much as letting more in with dubious to no background info.
There has been a lot of foiled plans, they just are not in the news. A train goes through town and doesn't blow the whistle, doesn't mean it did not go through town.

It is easy to research from your car or home.
A little incident at the Boston Marathon, may make the discussion a bit more relevant. I bet it is to the survivors.

There will be more. It is a matter of when and not if.

I will choose the proactive rather than the reactive path every time.

On that note. Merry Christmas...

Good move Ger, discussing religion and politics make even the smartest person sound ignorant.

Dan,
I have to disagree with you!
These are your exact words:

Dan R. wrote: do whatever I want with no regard for the safety and rights of others..

I merely deleted the paragraphs around it that did not support my intent.

I have to agree with Kowboy.

(What, I thought that's what we are doing here)

Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want but you don't mix religion or politics with business. So this is as far as this topic should go.

This is my first post here, unfortunately not business related. I am a Muslim, and seeing here some comments just disappoints me.

I agree that if there was a real threat to our free society (I call the western countries my home as well) I would be in arms with whoever stands for freedom. But to generalize and to paint all Muslims with the very few radicals is just ridiculous.

In fact I would state that those claiming Muslims in general are the threat have the same ideology as ISIS as they might make the same claim about non-Muslims.

ISIS is killing whoever they want, including many Muslims. It's a political group using religion as an amplifier. Think about from which region almost all radicals are coming from. If you ask any scholar in the field of terrorism they will explain that most radicals state political reasons for joining radical groups, not religion itself. IMHO the radicalization we see in the middle east is a result of unresolved political issues of the last decades in the same region.

Indonesia is world's most populous Muslim-majority nation but had a stable political situation in the past decades. What have you heard about Muslims in Indonesia?

If we believe that "exterminating ISIS" is the solution, than I would say we are just fighting the symptoms and not the cause. We should rather try to understand what the cause for the radicalization is. We would do the same in our business if faced a problem, wouldn't we?

Anyways... great being here and hope to get some support from fellow business people to get me started in this business.

Peace!

Osman,

Welcome. Most intelligent people realize that ISIS no more represents Islam anymore than the ignorance you hear and read directed towards Muslims represents Christianity. Please do not hold all of us accountable for this ignorance and bigotry.

People use all religions to promote hateful ideology. It has nothing to do with the religion. The KKK used crosses. Hitler used Christianity to justify his actions.

Please know the majority of people do not lump all Muslims into the same group with ISIS.

I am as redneck, southern, grab your guns as you can get (just ask my dear friend Miles). However, I have NOT and will NOT say that Muslims in general should be compared to ISIS! Although liberals WILL assume that I am in the KKK because I fly a dreadful confederate battle flag in front of my home.

Yes, what LITTLE I have learned about the Quran (SP?) breeds a lot of hate but so does the old testament of the bible. Either way, Christian or Muslim that go to an extreme are terrorists! Those that do not are generally good, peace loving folks.

Just my .02 from a southern backwoods redneck. Stick around BROTHER!

Miles, is it ok that I post on this even though I have never fully read the Quran (SP) or the Bible either?