Beauty and the Beast is actually out of context in this situation. That song is referring to romantic love. You don't find Christians killing in the name of their book very often. You find people who were raised Christian killing, but rarely FOR their book. Even the case of killing the abortion doctor in Kansas wasn't a case of a guy killing someone FOR the bible. He was killing because he felt he was protecting life. In this case, this dude quotes the Bible as his justification. Very disturbing.
Unless you can give me a few "for-instances" then I stand by my comment that it isn't very common.
well, for instance, to use the Koran. It tells Muslims to kill nonbelievers. So they declare Jihad, and they kill nonbelievers. Terrorists who blow themselves up for the jihad, and think that is what Allah wants them to do are killing "for the book."
I mean, none of the Priests who are molesting children say they are doing it BECAUSE the bible wants them to. This is different. He said he killed that man BECAUSE the bible told him to. We don't have that circumstance often. The guy who attended church in southern California and shot up the health club left a note saying he did it because he was lonely. He left all his money to a church, but he didn't shoot the girls BECAUSE of the bible.
Does that makes sense?
Originally posted by RE: BlaxicanI would have said "for God", but I feel the reality of the matter is based around the words in the Bible, not the word of God.
What do you mean when you say "for the book"? The guy didn't say he stoned dude for the book, he said that upon reading the book he realized that its what God wanted him to do.
Hence, for his book.
well, for instance, to use the Koran. It tells Muslims to kill nonbelievers. So they declare Jihad, and they kill nonbelievers. Terrorists who blow themselves up for the jihad, and think that is what Allah wants them to do are killing "for the book."
tj, you've asked several times, with increasing incredulity, why I do not believe that Islam is a violent religion. Each time, you've posted a link, usually to MSNBC.com, with the latest debacle from the Mideast. I'll admit, as I have in my real life persona, that the violence that I see throughout that region scares me. It is a violent culture clash, and such events are rarely settled peacefully. As I have said offline, I sincerely hope that the reckoning does not take place during my time--I believe that I can offer more lasting contributions in times of peace than of war. So I believe that I can empathize with your antipathy for the religion of Islam. At times I give in to that impulse too; it is very easy to see the events in the Mideast as the actions of a singular enemy trying to destroy everything you hold dear.There is, for me, a more powerful force than those emotions, however. I try to live my life as though the truth is more important than how I feel about it. And the truth of the matter is that nearly seven million Muslims live peacefully in the United States of America every day, without trying to blow anything up or destroy our freedoms. 65,300,000 Muslims in China live without revolting against a government that allows women to go to school. If Islam was an inherently violent religion that absolutely cannot be allowed to exist in the real world, these communities would behave differently. If your evaluation of Islam were accurate, we would expect to see significant clashes between Muslims in America and the Judicial system. No such refutations of American authority are found in the press. If your evaluation of Islam were accurate, we would expect to see most Islamic nations, not just the ones in the Mideast, to experience significant religious unrest as different religions interact. Indonesia, despite having 86.1% of its population declared Muslims and a minority of 9% Christians, does not experience widespread religious oppression. In fact, the Indonesian constitution stipulates freedom of religion. From a purely factual perspective, the predictions that would result from the idea that "Islam is a violent religion" are simply inaccurate. That worldview is not an accurate one.
Having taken up the burden of responding, I am left responsible for the slurry of links that you've posted--most of which involving some sort of religiously inspired violence--over the past few months. There are a few common themes in the stories you've posted: a mob is outraged over some perceived slight, and takes to the streets to demonstrate. A vigilante takes revenge over some perceived slight. Some cleric somewhere in the wastelands of Afghanistan makes a ruling that is backwards and vile and barbaric. All of them include forces that you leave entirely out of your evaluation. The most obvious example is poverty. The US Military is not up against some elite fighting force. It isn't SEALs vs. Israeli Commandoes. It is SEALs vs. peasants. The F22, peerless fighting machine, death on wings, is being pitted against farmers who consider themselves lucky to double their goat herd. Poverty is rampant, and its contribution cannot extracted from the whole shitstorm that is the Mideast. Another factor that I have yet to see you concede is the demographics of terrorism. The networks are filled, at least today, by people whose lives have been shattered by years of war, family members terrified of the Taliban/Al Quaeda, and corruption on a level that puts Blagoiavich to shame. Those are some social reasons that come to mind without even a glimmer of Google-Fu. Others, people with a more detailed understanding of the region, would be able to tell you about the effects of generations of intertribal warfare and the fierce divisions between Sunni and Shi'a sects, which mirrors in the microcosm the general mistreatment of the Kurds and good lord the entire region is just a morass of social quandries that are entirely separate from the religious situation.
Historically my explanations can be even broader. The biggest redflag for the region was probably the decline of the Ottoman Empire; various economic crises and a shitton of local uprisings brought the "Old Man of Europe" to his knees. That fall has yet to conclude--the region has basically never recovered from that blow. It didn't help that two World Wars swept the productive capacity of a generation or two away from rebuilding, or that the Colonial powers were drawing lines on a map without even bothering to ask the people on the ground what the aftereffects of various partition plans would be. This is still a gross oversimplification, because the pressures of Soviet Russia on consumer good availability and the whole dustup between Pakistan and India (not to mention the AIDS epidemic from Africa) are all pressures that I haven't even begun to incorporate. None of this is religious.
Blaming Islam is a gross oversimplification, especially since we've seen it flourish in other parts of the world where the situation on the ground is not inherently shitty. Good science isolates the variable in question. In so far as is possible, we can do that by comparing Islam from within and without the Middle East. That comparrison absolutely does not suggest that Islam is the primary cause of strife in the region.
I mean, from your story, they make my point for me:
So let's come right out and say it - the 9/11 hijackers weren't evil mutants. They did not hate freedom. They, too, were the heroes of their own stories, and they died for what they believed was right - truth, justice, and the Islamic way.
You guys hear about those Jain religious warriors or that violent conquest of India in the name of Jainism? It's not very surprising of course, because the ancient Jain religious texts are stuffed full of edicts about how unbelievers will burn in the fire and apostates should be killed. Then there is that interesting stuff about how a woman is only worth half a witness and the specific guidelines for beating your wife. Those Jains are hardcore.
Although Jainism isn't a violent religion and woman don't hold a lower place on the food chain, no, not at all.
Pretty fascinating stuff.
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