Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (67200)	12/22/2002 3:52:11 PM
From: zonder	Respond to of 70976

I am quite familiar with the importance of ethnic, religious, cultural etc tolerance in the US. You are who you are, nobody is better than anyone else, prejudice is a bad thing, etc etc. few people in America (almost no one until recently) have discussed the connection between Islamic terrorism and the nature of Islam proper. Possibly because they were just not interested in anything that passed outside their borders until 9/11. Let's face it, Americans (in general) are just now beginning to look around to see what is going on in the world. What is the connection between terrorism and the religion Islam? It is not a crusade, if that is what you are asking. It is a rebellion. Masses in Muslim countries have been deliberately kept ignorant and under brutal rule for a very long time, and religion was pumped into their brains from infancy so that they would be easier to rule. Now that mindless mass is so easy to rule, unfortunately, that a Bin Ladin can twist them around his finger by pointing their anger at America. “Islam is NOT a peaceful religion” What is a "peaceful religion", really? Christianity? Who could say so, having seen the crusades, witch hunts, and the Inquisition? The truth is that religions are dumb, idiotic at times, and they adhere to the lowest common denominator in their audience. What a religion is depends to a great extent on what its followers want to do with it. I have read the Quran (along with the Bible and the Torah) and I assure you that for the most part it is a peaceful document about how to be a good person (for the desert people of those times... I laughed out loud seeing the part that said "Do not force your women to have sex when they are menstruating" <ggg>. There are some places about fighting enemies, but frankly, I find them no more scary than the bit about God sending two she-bears to tear dozens of children into bloody bits because they made fun of the bald head of Elisha, who is apparently a holy man God likes more than children. Or Lot offering his virgin daughters to the soldiers who bang on his door to gangrape. Will they be able to control their extreme elements? In time, yes. Just like the Inquisition and the witch hunts were eventually overcome in Europe of the Dark Ages, the Shariat shall also pass. In time. Will they understand that the new attempt to restore militant Islam into being a world power is infinitely dangerous to them – ESPECIALLY if it succeeds? There is no attempt to restore militant Islam into being a world power. There is an extremist minority that is feeding on the misery of the populace who sees the US as helping their governments keep them in the dark ages (especially at Saudi Arabia), oppose Muslims everywhere and help their oppressors (Isr/Pal conflict), and kill their children by blocking importation of antibiotics (Iraq). As a woman who has lived in that part of the world for a long time, trust me, I really do not want to see militant Islam take over the world. But from what I can see, the US administration is so far from understanding (or even wanting to understand) the dynamics of the situation that through their arrogant fumbling, they are going to make things worse.