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Politics : Islam, The Message -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AmericanVoter who wrote (2)	10/30/2001 8:26:32 AM
From: joseph krinsky	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 758

Where are the Muslims that have organized from all over the world to go and fight against the ben ladens?

To: AmericanVoter who wrote (2)	10/30/2001 9:20:03 AM
From: Don Pueblo	Respond to of 758

I agree completely, my friend. There are not many organized religions on this planet that don't have subdivisions of faithful members who have never tried to kill the adjoining subdivision, or at least the non-believers on the other side of the mountains. For example, I myself have been accused of being an 'evil Jew or Muslim' by an actual living human being who proclaimed to be a Christian minister, on Silicon Investor! Message 5510883 Now, even though you and I are of different faiths, we could easily be sitting in a Starbucks somewhere and laughing about that with each other; except for the fact that this particular dude is serious. I mean zero sense of humor. I've been asking him the same question for three years, a question he has steadfastly refused to answer. It's the same question I could rhetorically ask to the Taliban, or anyone else for that matter... In your perfect world, say 100 or 200 or 1000 years in the future, where are the followers of [pick 5 prophets]? The reason he has refused to answer the question is, in my opinion, because he lives in the United States and knows his answer is unpopular with the vast majority of his fellow citizens. One does not have to look far in history to see crimes against humanity and atrocities of the most henious kind committed by the devout followers of [one specific prophet] as proof of the underlying motivation of these lunatics, eh? It's a simple perversion of the message of [one specific prophet]. I've never answered my own rhetorical question, but the answer, of course, is, "They have either seen the error of their ways and converted to [one specific prophet] or they are dead, and I will gladly assist in the cleanup process." I think you and I can easily agree that cutting someone's head off for the "crime" of paying attention to the wrong prophet is, for all intents and purposes, counter-productive to the underlying intent of the message from [one specific prophet]. Additionally, it's a well known fact that if any minority(not just a religious minority) is unjustly oppressed for long enough, they lose all their sense of humor and can become overly rude towards whoever is oppressing them. So, there must be some balance somewhere, otherwise we all turn into criminal bastards and lose our sense of humor. I've heard someone describe a fanatic as a radical with no sense of humor. The balance is what we call civilization, which we might loosely descibe as "no guns going off while we pursue our journey towards truth and freedom". This implies tolerance. The reason why Emile and others like him will never answer my question is because he is totally intolerant of some specific groups of people that live on the same planet as he does. Either they convert, or they are dead forever. Not unlike other individuals we might name, eh? So, while I agree that additional education about Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or any other of the great religions on this planet is absolutely critical to world peace, I propose that an equally important factor is a simple tolerance of other people's spiritual beliefs - or lack of same, if that is the case. How does one do that? For me it breaks down pretty simply. First, we have events which strongly suggest that the persons committing them have adopted a battle cry something like "I will personally cause you so much pain that you will be forced by the events around you to start acting and thinking like I already do." Then, we have events that suggest "I understand that you and I do not totally agree on the specifics of 'supernatural' revelation and ultimate truth, but we will both allow and defend our right to believe differently as long as we both remain civil, and sometimes even if we don't." My point was simply that the two sides in this current conflict are being described very differently by the two sides. One side has defined the enemy as "infidels" - sub-human non-believing creatures that have the same value as an annoying insect and can righteously be exterminated without recourse (thus assuring one's status in the afterlife as literally higher than any prophet), and one side has described the enemy as religious mutants who are supporting, and committing, evil acts - and have defined themselves as traitors to their own religion and global criminals that must be stopped before they commit additional crimes against the entire civilized world. Simply stated, it is my personal opinion that oppressing someone because they are not praying "correctly", or not praying at all, is completely insane (it serves the purposes of those who are evil) and thus counter-productive to the words of [pick any prophet].

To: AmericanVoter who wrote (2)	10/30/2001 7:45:12 PM
From: Ben Wa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 758

Having read the PBS interviews with Bin Laden, he is quoted as saying basically that all Jews are the enemies of Muslims. Quoting from OBL, "We are certain that we shall, with the grace of Allah, prevail over the Americans and over the Jews, as the Messenger of Allah promised us in an authentic prophetic tradition when He said the Hour of Resurrection shall not come before Muslims fight Jews and before Jews hide behind trees and behind rocks." - Can you discuss the part of the Quoran which has this passage? My opinion is that carrying grudges hundreds of years from when the fighting happened during the founding of Islam is just plain stupid. But, since you should know more about Islam than I, what do you think?

To: AmericanVoter who wrote (2)	10/31/2001 4:19:23 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 758

The message is no longer the medium , but the idolatry . The ink and the paper... the scripture have become the substitute idolatry that was to be at all costs avoided . But Spinoza said it much better than i ever could ... plato.stanford.edu Truth is simple ....religion is the "complex". regards Mars