A requested topic for Kathulos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...gg6C0G6g&index=3
This message was last edited by the player at 18:18, Fri 03 Jan 2014.

Thought provoking.

Kind of hilarious.

Yeah, having read the Koran, there are quite a few lines like that. My translation is here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3434

" If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, that is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known, you, nor your fathers";  of the gods of the peoples that are round about you, near to you or far from you, from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; you shall not consent, nor listen to him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shalt you spare, neither shall you conceal him: but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. "

..

" Certain base fellows are gone out from the midst of you, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known"; then you shall inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in the midst of you, smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. "

" If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, that will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and will not listen unto or obey them; then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard". And all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones: and so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. "

"And if [a city or nation] will make no peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it: and when Allah delivers it into your hand, you shall smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shall you take for a prey for yourself; and you shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which Allah hath given you. Thus shall you do unto all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these peoples, that Allah giveth thee for an inheritance, you shalt save alive nothing that breathes; "


Edit: Sorry, listed my references wrong. Those are from Deuteronomy.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:07, Fri 03 Jan 2014.

I'm not entirely sure what their message was.  We're they upset about muslims being muslims, or were they upset that people complain when they (the christians) say crazy stuff?  They gave the impression that people are defending the right to kill apostates, or drive christians out, or whatever, but does anyone (in the states at least) actually defend those positions?  Who were they actually upset with?

It sort of seemed like they were generally anti-muslim, and figured that since the koran says X, they can assume all muslims follow the line and do what it says, and thus it's okay to hate them.  But at the same time, they seemed to be implying that it's unfair when people do the same thing to christians.  Which is it?  Paint everyone in a religion by the harshest words in their holy book, regardless if they follow those words or not, OR do we give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and judge each person as an individual based on what they believe?  I'd vote for the latter, personally.  But it seemed to me like the people who made the video wanted it one way for christians and another for muslims.

Also, they tried to make this into some 1st amendment thing, which I feel like people don't really understand these days.  I feel like whenever someone says something stupid, and people get upset about it, the person says "Hey, don't you believe in the 1st amendment?!" as if the 1st amendment protects you from anyone ever disagreeing with you.  What the first amendment means is that the government can't stop you from saying what you like.  But everyone else is still free to think you're a jerk for saying it, and to treat you like you're a jerk (in ways that are legal to treat jerks, at least).  People yelling "Shut up, you jerk!" aren't violating your 1st amendment rights, they're exercising their own.

It's like, obvious, really. Sometimes the sheer absurdity of someone not understanding baffles me so much I can't respond in order to educate.

Well, it should be allowed, but being allowed, and being tolerated, should not be one and the same. Tolerated legally yes, in a judicial sense, but not tolerated in the sense of having to withstand ignorant insults without responding with a defensive stance of your own.

Ad-hominems like "Islamophobe!" And "Hate monger" and "Racist" are stupid, when there is no hate monger, racist, or anyone who deserves to be treated that way verbally.

That's true, but I think we're in danger of setting up a straw man.

Firstly, this was clearly a scripted video. So there's nothing in the video itself to get upset about.

So obviously, they're taking issue with some real life event where someone spoke out against Islam and was shouted down. But without seeing the specific real life event, it's impossible to say if they were justified or not.

I do know I've seen plenty of people speak out against the violence of violent Muslim groups like Al Qaeda without repercussions. But I also think the people fussing about the "ground zero mosque" (which was no where near ground zero) were in fact being reactionary fools.

The ending part of the video was real. People were protesting in Dearborn, and the police arrested them.

I remember the incident which occurred where they were being arrested. They were street preaching while a muslim street fair was going on, and they were arrested.

Hmm, if they were trying to draw attention to a real world event, I think they did a fairly bad job of it by showing 2 seconds of footage at the end.  Is that the event you want to discuss, or is it the rest of the video you're interested in?

Here's a long article about Dearborn:
http://www.theatlanticcities.c...e-hate-muslims/3360/

Unfortunately, they chose (intentionally, of course) the worst possible person ever to interview for the anti-Muslim side, and they don't really interview anyone from the other.

Here's something from the other side:
http://dearborn.patch.com/grou...st-during-e0efa43960
http://www.christianexaminer.c...10/Art_Jul10_01.html

The TL;DR: The pastor from Gainesville, FL who burnt a Koran (then burnt another when no one was paying attention), protested at the Arab International Festival. He's been protesting around the area Dearborn for a bit, and was arrested once, but the court ruled the arrest unconstitutional and released him.

You can check out some pictures of his protest in the Dearborn Patch article. I think it's pretty important to note firstly, his signs are pretty inflammatory, but also it's like six people in a caged in area surrounded by thousands.

This caused a counter-protest, and people started throwing things at them. (Those people weren't arrested.) The protestors were 'escorted' out by police; it's not clear whether it was voluntary.

The second article (from the Christian Examiner) follows another four Christians protesting at the same festival, handing out literature. The police did arrest them and is pressing charges, although it's not clear what the charges are from the article.

This seems like a free speech question more than a religion question. I'd be especially curious to know Heath's position on this.

Okay, so, what's the actual question here that's being debated?  Do we all agree that insulting people, and being intentionally inflamatory is pretty rude, but is often covered by the 1st amendment?  Do we all agree that holding an anti-muslim protest at a festival where most of the people are muslim is going to offend a lot of people?  As would holding an anti-christian protest at an event where most people are christian?

It seems like the people discussed here are complaining that "Islam teaches hate," getting upset about this, and then teaching hate themselves.

Does anyone here agree with the folks that are burning Korans, or trying to prevent mosques from being built?  Does anyone here agree with whichever moslims believe it's okay to kill christians and jews?  I'm still struggling to see what we're supposed to be discussing.

I'll try this: I'm against hatred of people based on their religion, even if their religion has kooky bits in it (so long as they don't act on those kooky bits).  I'm against anyone saying, for any reason, religious or otherwise, "its okay to kill those people who are different from us".  I will disagree with people who do or promote either of the above (ie, the hatred or the killing).  I think people have a constitutional right to say offensive things, but at the same time, I think it's a pretty rude thing to do, and feel that people have the exact same right to be rude back to you if you do so.  I believe there are evil people who justify their actions with the bible, and that there are evil people who justify their actions based on the koran, and I'm opposed to both of these groups.  Do other people here not share more or less the same view?  What is it that we're supposed to be debating or disagreeing about?

In reply to Tycho (msg # 13):

They don't hate Muslims though.

Actually though, I've experienced constant false accusations of hate mongering by people just for criticizing Islam.

How have you been criticizing it (and where)?

And what were the accusations?

Just the internet, basically, so no harm done, but the point is, that when Christians are accused of doing something, or do it, they are either justly or unjustly condemned, but when Muslims do it, Christians are still unjustly condemned.

I guess I haven't seen the same. In my circles, both Christians and Muslims are condemned (perhaps a little unfairly) for what they do.

Just speaking for myself, I tend to judge Americans more harshly than foreigners -- I know our culture well, and as someone who has lived overseas, frequently there's other stuff going on which we have no idea about until we hunt for it.

In reply to Kathulos (msg # 17):

Hmm, I guess I'm not following just what it is you're upset about.  Sounds like you don't like that when some christians do something, they get criticized for it.  And in addition, you don't like that they still get criticized for it even when some muslims do some other thing (or the same thing?).  But what does what any muslim do have to do with whether christians should be criticized for their actions?  These seem like entirely unrelated events.

It's like you're complaining that after you stole a car, you got thrown in jail.  And they didn't even let you out when some other guy stole a car too!  Oh the humanity! ;)

Are you saying that muslims don't get criticized, because I assure you, they do.  They've got a tougher time of it than christians in the US.  Think of it this way, you're complaining that people accuse you of hate.  The video you linked to implied that all muslims are guilty of several capital crimes (murdering people, aiming to overthrow the government, etc.).  Some christians in the US are outraged when strangers say "happy holidays" rather than "merry christmas" to them at the mall.  Muslims have had their buildings burned down, and have had cities try to ban them from even building a mosque.

I'm an atheist, and I see plenty of problems with Islam, and I have no object people pointing out flaws in it, but use the right forum, and be respectful while you do it.  If you want to criticize actions that some muslims take, that's A-ok by me.  But if you imply all muslims take or support those actions, when many clearly don't, then you're heading into stereotyping, and it starts to look like you really do just hate muslims.

I would say there is, in some ways, a double standard when it comes to christianity vs. islam in the US.  Actually, lets call it double standardS, plural.  People that lean right tend to judge islam much more harshly than they do christianity (presumably because they are the "other" to most people on the right in the US, and in-group loyalty is a strong moral pillar for conservatives), while people that tend to lean left will be more likely to give islam a break that they might not give to christianity (presumably because christianity has much more power in the US than does islam, and liberals tend to have a strong urge to defend the weak and be wary of the strong).  I tend to fall in the latter camp myself, and tend to be harsher on christianity in US because it has so much more clout, and has such huge influence in government and elsewhere.  But if I hear of specific acts of evil committed by muslims I'm not going to defend them.  It's just that I pay more attention to what christianity is up to, since that has much more influence on other people in the US.  If Islam were to become the majority religion, that would flip the balance for me most likely, and I'd probably spend more time critiquing it than christianity.

This thread includes almost nothing but generalizations about almost every type of person, background, and religion.  It therefore makes many of the premises and conclusions mere fanciful opinion.  We can hypothesize about people of all cultures, but that doesn't really get us anywhere.

In reply to Heath (msg # 20):

Pretty much my thoughts exactly.