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Comment by Micheal on April 18, 2010 at 7:43am

ooooooooops i meant here

Comment by Micheal on April 18, 2010 at 7:41am

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Comment by QM - [Mr. Molotov] on April 17, 2010 at 2:43pm

The 'one true religion' idea, in my opinion would hold true probably for all religions. I mean that a follower of a certain religious idea would be following it because he or she believes it to be the true one. And I think the same would apply to all the schisms within Islam. I was obviously taught that the same thing (I was raised as a Sunni Muslim).

At the risk of sounding like an apologist (which I am certainly not) the major threat at the moment does come from the Salafi school of thought (sub sect of Sunni school) which is followed by members of Al-Qaeda and company. However, most schisms do agree on certain things like death for apostasy, forming a Muslim rule over the entire world and that it is a religious duty of every Muslim to spread the message of Islam (they might disagree on what tactic to use). I would not agree that convert or kill is a modern phenomenon as such since it was used quite often after Islam had established itself in Arabia and in the life of Mohammad.

As for the UN resolution, it is quite absurd and upsetting. The resolution is proposed by Pakistan (my home country) which has a pretty pathetic human rights record of it own and where there is blatant discrimination against religious minorities. And now they have UN's blessing to commit human rights atrocities because criticizing it would mean violation of religious freedom.

Just a thought, does that mean Muslims can now carry out anti-semitic activities under auspices of UN because Islam tells them that they should prosecute and kill all Jews?

Comment by Фелч Гроган on April 16, 2010 at 11:45pm

Firstly, convert or kill is mostly a modern phenomenon, though it does have it's historical precedents. And its "kafir". "Kaffir" are limes whose leaves go well in Asian food. Islam was at one stage so tolerant that it didn't murder sane people on sight - they just slugged them with hefty "infidel tax" instead. Islam wasn't always stupid - in the old days they had business models.

Second there is no "one true religion" with islam. Just like xtianity, it too had a schism splitting into sunni and shia (sorta like catlicks and proddies). The split is about 90/10 with a tiny minority of sufis that are neither and hated by both. Sunni and shia are then subdivided into a myriad of other idiotic sub-sects. So islam as the "one true religion" is nonsense. All of these sects are each the "one true religion" and the others are all infidels, heretics and blasphemers. Hence the body count of muslims killed by muslims in god approved terrorist attacks absolutely dwarfs the body count of kafir killed the same way.

But for sheer dumbness, nothing beats the folks that like to criticise Hitchens, Harris, Pat Condell and anyone else that raises their voice against islam as hysterical islamophobes. The overwhelming majority of these people wouldn't even be able to tell you whether Al Qaeda was sunni or shia, let alone what sect. Unfortunately, these twerps tend to overwhelm the online world and have some fantasy that moderate islam will arrive and save the day. It won't. Out of all the abrahamic religions, islam is the most retrograde and atavistic. It is a dead culture mired in apathy, endlessly reliving some mythic glorious past as the cradle of civilisation, but deep inside knowing that in the last 800 years it has achieved nothing of any benefit to anyone. It is this sense of failure that breeds seething resentment, and the brutishness of the culture has no other way to vent it other than violence and subordination of the weak. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. It is raw nihilism embodied and has no place in the 21st century. That, my friend, is what you call a pickle of a situation.

Comment by Prog Rock Girl on April 16, 2010 at 3:52pm

I am not sure if the UN resolution actually has power or if it is more symbolic. I always said the UN is only as good as the countries that make it up and that includes plenty of Islamic countries. The defamation laws are a huge blow to free speech--basically they give special protection to religions (Islam putting down other groups is sometimes treated like it's just their free exercise of religion) and it creates an atmosphere of infallibility. In some cases, telling the truth, even quoting the Quran is considered defamatory (usually truth is a defense in defamation cases.)

I'm wondering if there is any historical precedent in which a civilization was conquered simply b/c it valued pluralism and decided the most important thing was to accommodate and tolerate the intolerant.