Derbyshire v Spencer, The Final Round
Robert Spencer gets one more crack at defending Religion of Peace?-Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. Who will be the last man standing in the battle that got underway one week ago following John Derbyshire's review of the book?
John Derbyshire wishes I had read his review of my book Religion of Peace? “more carefully,” since he now contends that he did not say – as I had characterized him as saying — that “Christianity and Islam are ‘equally likely to incite violence.’”
I ask Mr. Derbyshire’s indulgence if I mistook his statement in his review that “God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ” as meaning that God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ. It was on that that I based my own summary of what I took to be his view: that Christianity and Islam are “equally likely to incite violence.” Looking at his words again, I still think it’s reasonable to conclude that that’s what they mean.
But no matter. If he doesn’t mean that, so much the better. He now says, “persons wishing to commit violence will find justification in any text they pick up-the New Testament, the Koran, Science and Health, or the Harry Potter saga. Charles Manson, if memory serves, got his inspiration from a Beatles song about a fairground attraction.” This is obviously true, but Charles Manson is in the bughouse for excellent reasons, and if Derbyshire is now saying that any text – any text at all – is no more or less likely to incite violence than any other, this would manifest a nihilism so corrosive as to strip all words, and everything altogether, of any meaning. It is certainly true that someone who is thoroughly deranged and depraved could understand “Do you don’t you want me to love you/I’m comin’ down fast but I’m miles above you” (from the Beatles song in question) or even “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” as containing some kind of coded command to destroy other human beings, but clearly the words don’t mean that, and that is why we do not see and have never seen large-scale, international movements of terrorists justifying their actions by invoking Beatles songs, or Harry Potter, or Science and Health, or…the Bible.
The Qur’an, however, is quite another matter. It has given rise to a global movement of terrorists who frequently and copiously quote its teachings to justify their actions (in ways the Crusaders, Inquisitors, and all the rest of history’s Christian bogeymen never dreamed of doing with the Bible). Unless words mean absolutely nothing, “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them” (9:5) and “fight…the People of the Book…until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29) and “fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah” (2:193) and all the rest (and there are many more) do contain more incitement to violence than a pop song about a playground slide, and thus more violence is committed in the name of the Qur’an than in the name of Helter Skelter.
And to be sure, Mr. Derbyshire is cautiously “inclined to think that Islam offers more and better justifications for militancy than does Christianity.” That, of course, is my entire point in the book, since that very point is routinely controverted in the mainstream media. It is controverted to an extent that I thought it necessary to consider it in a book-length treatment, and to try in the process to give people who enjoy the benefits of living in the Judeo-Christian West a sense that they have a culture and a civilization that they should be proud of, and begin to defend more forthrightly and unapologetically.
This is not a matter of religious belief or proselytizing. I don’t proselytize in the book, which is about the value of Judeo-Christian civilization; accordingly, Mr. Derbyshire’s continued insistence that “irreligious people see all religions as equally preposterous” seems to me to be a bit off the point in this discussion. I am not arguing in this book that Christianity is less preposterous than Islam, and there is nothing I wrote in it that could not have been written by an informed atheist, or Jew, or Buddhist. The fact that Mr. Derbyshire considers Christianity preposterous is noted; it may, however, have blinded him to the ways in which he benefits from the civilizational advances it fostered, as well as to the ways in which the propagandistic “equivalence” arguments that are so prevalent nowadays sap the will of Westerners to defend what we are told every day is a rotten, worthless thing.
Thus I appreciate Derbyshire’s quip that “perhaps the book’s subtitle should be: ‘Why Christianity is a religion of peace and Islam isn’t, and how I wish it were the other way round!,’” but I must reject the sentiment. The whole point of my book is that Judeo-Christian civilization stands for values that are more humane and life-affirming than those of Islamic Sharia. In place of supremacism, conformism, fear, and a culture of violence and revenge, there is the possibility of genuine virtue, born in genuine freedom, and an affirmation of the dignity of the human person that does not – pace Derbyshire’s earlier contention – lead with any inevitably to relativism and the loss of the will to defend one’s own. We can only regain that will by recovering a sense of the value of who we are, of what we have done, and of what we have made. That is why I wrote this book, and why I am as glad as he is that Mr. Derbyshire and I share some views of what must be done to extricate us from this present fix. With all his immense talent and insight, I look forward to fighting alongside him for the survival of our embattled common civilization.
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RELATED LINKS ON PAJAMAS MEDIA:
[Book Review] Christianity Good, Islam Bad?
Mano A Mano: Spencer V Derbyshire
Derbyshire V Spencer, Round Three
Muslim Moderates Or Muslim Secularists
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94 Comments
1. Charles Stone:Until I read Mr. Derbyshire’s review of Spencer’s book I looked forward to Derbyshire’s columns in National Review.
Now that he has shown complete ignorance of Islam and its threat to the rest of the world – and his unwillingness to investigate that threat for himself, I will be spending my time more constructively than his future columns in the Review.
Aug 28, 2007 - 5:51 am 2. olivia:“xian”? Yet “Al-Islam”? No agenda here.
Aug 28, 2007 - 6:00 am 3. joshlbetts:matoko kusanagi,
Your patronizing tone betrays your islamic supremist views.
Ad hominem is thy name.
Aug 28, 2007 - 6:14 am 4. matoko kusanagi:why do xians object? X is the greek representation for the Christos isn’t it?
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:08 am 5. matoko kusanagi:No charlesstone, Spencer is as ignorant of al-Islam as he is of the history of xianity.
xianity has never nutured science.
ask the albigensians and galileo.
just because Spencer claims to have studied the Qu’ran doesnt mean he is an islamic scholar…he only can regurgitate the jihaadi interpretation. He has no original exegesis…he is only copying the jihaadi version.
naturally the jihaadi version is militant.
If Spencer had any claim to true islamic scholarship, wouldnt he be able to get debate time on al-jazheera?
lol, they wont give him the time of day.
joshlbetts…..i am not an islamic supremist, i am an elistist intellectual snob. =D
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:20 am 6. Chip:I’m an IQist and and an educationist if you will.
I am also a sufi and a neo-mutazhili.
it is just a more comfortable fit for my awkward skull furniture.
All religions are CSSs [or culturally stable strategies, a term Dawkins coined in John Maynard-Smith's excellent book, Evolution and the Theory of Games].
No religion can be “peaceful” in the strict sense, since all religions are competitive evolutionary strategies.
Spencer’s book is basically sillie, and can only be endorsed by triumpahlist xians with no significant schorlarship or knowledge of history or evolutionary biology.
Christians developed a tradition emulating the life of Jesus called monasticism.
Muslims emulate the life of Mohammed by killing the unbelievers, taking booty, and enslaving women and children. All of this validated by RECENT fatwas.
Yeah, pretty much the same.
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:25 am 7. matoko kusanagi:exactly why are you holding my comments?
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:36 am 8. matoko kusanagi:i have never been off topic here…altho my opinions may have been offensive to gerard van der leund i suppose.
i have seen no hard statistical data supporting “eurabia”. i merely asked him to give me sources.
chip, i think you are referring to another sillie book, “the truth about muhammed”…i have always longed to ask spencer….if the jihaadis are forced to emulate muhammed in head chopping, etc, why are they not also forced under the concept of al-insan kamil to emulate muhammed in his care for the poor and widows and orphans?
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:48 am 9. Andrew:as we know, the jihaadis are quite brutal about exploding and slaughtering muslim populations.
why don’t the jihaadis go around cutting off their sleeves so as not to disturb sleeping cats?
muhammed did that too. the answer is that there plenty of examples of benevolent behavior behavior by muhammed in the qu’ran….both spencer and the jihaadis studiously ignore those, and cvncentrate on their personal version of al-Islam.
Christianity has never nurtured science.
So Roger Bacon was not a scientist.
Neither was Gregor Mendel.
Aquinas contributed nothing to the scientific method.
Renaissance scholars never got patronage from Church officials.
The university system was not organized and supported by the Christian Church.
Black is white, up is down, and a sufi has no religious agenda.
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:51 am 10. matoko kusanagi:also, Islam preserved Aristotle’s treatises through the work of Ibn Rushd [Averroes].
Aug 28, 2007 - 8:25 am 11. matoko kusanagi:It is said that without Averroes, a muslim, there could have been no Thomas Aquinas, an xian.
conveniently left out of spencers argument.
the Derb is right about everything, except about giving spencer street cred as an islamic scholar…he is not…he is a jihaadi scholar if u will. sects of Islam are as various and different as sects of xianity.
and al-Islam and xianity are both CSSs.
Spencer can only reference one school of exegesis. this is an extremely narrow interpretation to base a book on.
a profound lack of schorlarship IMH0.
you know…i thought the blogverse was all about factcheck and do-your-own-research.
a lot of ppl here seem ready to swallow whatever spencer is dishing.
may i remind you all the man is selling books? he is telling you what you want to hear, even if it has zero basis in reality or history.
there are good things and bad things in all religions. all religions seek to promote the evolutionary fitness and well being of their constituents.
all religions evolved…and are evolving.
do you think Spencer’s position is an impediment or an accelerator to the evolution of al-Islam?
Aug 28, 2007 - 8:34 am 12. Chip:I meant exactly what I said.
Sheik Saleh Al-Fawzan issued a pro-slavery fatwa in 2003. There are other more recent fatwas which link it more clearly to the capture of slaves in war.
Of course Muslims lie about this and the media doesn’t cover it.
Aug 28, 2007 - 8:40 am 13. matoko kusanagi:andrew, lol.
Bacon was an alchemist, and he was imprisoned and executed, non?
Mendel would surely have been excommunicated if he extended his theories to homosapiens.
if xianity is into promoting and nuturing science, why the Discovery Insititute? I have already explained, IDists that were science oriented would be working to get into college curricula, not highschools. there would be endowed chairs, research assistants, graduate students, peer-reviewed journals, fundage.
Aug 28, 2007 - 8:45 am 14. matoko kusanagi:ah chip….there are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philsophy.
more fatwas at least, lol.
http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/fatwas-useless-against-madmen/
Aug 28, 2007 - 9:04 am 15. matoko kusanagi:sry…..the quote should be…there are stranger things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy….chip.
=D
my essential point is, all religions are basically the same under the skin. we really have to overcome the whole mine-is-better-than-yours thing.
i think there are only two basic truths in the wide wide world….
1. there is a biological basis for all behavior….and…..
2. everything evolves.
Have a nice day!
Aug 28, 2007 - 9:19 am 16. matoko kusanagi:lol…my solution for world peace…
N0T mine-is-better-than-yours…
but….
yours is better for you…mine is better for me.
mutual respect? it is all the same deity…Dr. Atran and I promise.
best witches.
Aug 28, 2007 - 9:55 am 17. matoko kusanagi:http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/fatwas-useless-against-madmen/
sry link wuz busted
=D
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:09 am 18. DoktorNo:Please, don’t feed the troll! “Matoko kusanagi” is well known to Mr. Spencer, and readers of JW! Go to archives of JW to see by yourself!
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:15 am 19. matoko kusanagi:moderator i demand that you delete doktor no’s cvmment as per your policy!
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:26 am 20. matoko kusanagi:it is both offtopic and offensive.
lol
also doktor no is trolling for traffic for the twodigit site jihaadwatch….link up or shut up, doktor no.
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:28 am 21. Ivan Lenin:=D
matoko kusanagi’s bias against Christianity is obvious, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to her/his words.
I wish people would talk more about what Spencer’s views implies in terms of American policy. If Islam is inherently evil, is there a way for us to reconcile with them? Can we tell 1 bln Muslims that they must reform their religion, or else?
Spencer claims that those Muslims who claim that Islam is NOT trying to destroy the West, are white-washers, or ignoring reality.
And here is where Spencer stops. In his writings, he rarely, if ever, makes a distinction between ideologies and people. He says that those who are not waging jihad, are not real Muslims. To me, it’s like a mullah saying to Americans, that unless they eat at McDonald’s, they are not real Americans. In other words, it is simply rude.
I think we should try to punish those who spread hatred of America in the name of Islam. But other than that, I don’t think Americans are the kind of people who will want to tell Muslims what to believe and how to pray. We may believe the Koran to be dangerous; but it’s not enough reason to declare all Muslims our enemies.
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:28 am 22. UK US person:matoko kusanagi:
the word is silly not sillie hmmm that may disqualify from your desired tag of an elite intellectual snob.
“everything is biologically based and everything is evolving is your faith. all religions are the same under the skin.”
These are not facts, these are beliefs and can be debated. If you wish to take that on faith that’s up to you. But one can tell that debate is not your stong suit – using hypotheticals “if Mendel had done such and such ” proves nothing. And you get your facts wrong e.g. Roger Bacon was subjected to house arrest but was free at the time of his death. he was not executed. Spencer is describing the Jihadis’ interpretation of the koran. If you have a problem with Jihadi interpretation then I would suggest that you take it up directly with them.
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:35 am 23. matoko kusanagi:ask spencer, doktor no….he told me himself that he has no quranic exegesis of his own. i can print the email if u like.
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:40 am 24. matoko kusanagi:i can give links to his historical innacuracies also.
wouldn’t u think a published author could at least get history right?
UK US person…
Spencer pretends to an impartial interpretation of the Qu’ran…that is my complaint..he is only giving the jihaadi interpretation, not a universal one.
“everything is biologically based and everything is evolving is your faith. all religions are the same under the skin.”
These are not facts, these are beliefs and can be debated.
nope, these are scientific theories and are in the process of being proven by the scientific method in the scientific community, lol. unlike say, “Intelligent Design”.
=D
lol spelling is immaterial to me, im a mathmajor.
we are the elitist of the elite, didnt u know?
“biologists speak only to chemists,
chemists only to physicists,
physicists only to mathematicians…
and mathematicians only to god.”
would you like a bibliography?
Aug 28, 2007 - 10:56 am 25. matoko kusanagi:i would start with Scott Atran’s In Gods We Trust if you are capable.
ivan u are sooooo not listening.
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:01 am 26. Morton Doodslag:i am not biased against xianity, i am saying all religions are the same.
yours is better for you, mine is better for me, right?
my beef with Spencer is that he is skewing the data to sell books.
xianity is no better than islam, and no worse.
lol.
Spencer’s final response to Derbyshire was hardly necessary. Derbyshire’s feckless arguments equivalencing Islam and other religions are in tatters.
And let the squalid triumphal rantings of Muslims like “matoko kusanagi” serve as a reminder of the insane and disruptive nature of our Muslim enemy.
On one matter, it absurdly states that: “Islam preserved Aristotle’s treatises through the work of Ibn Rushd [Averroes].”
An abject lie and bit of marxist/islamist agitprop.
Palimpsests can still be obtained of Aristotelian and many other texts from Byzantium of 1400 A.D. The myth that Western Greco-Judeo-Christian Science owes anything to Muslims, or somehow required Islam to “preserve” and pass those things back to the West is a black Marxist/Islamist conspiracy.
Islam contributes mayhem, murder, and desiccated crumbs.
Christians, Jews, and Western Secularists deliver a feast.
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:11 am 27. matoko kusanagi:dude, didn’t any of you get the title of the Derb’s original review?
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:16 am 28. matoko kusanagi:Xianity good, Islam bad?
caveman speak, lol.
he’s making fun of Spencer.
why do none of you have any self decrepating humor?
there is a lot of data on negative correlation between religious belief and IQ, but i think the strongest negative correlate might be sense of humor and religious belief.
you’re all so….humorless and pompous….
i despair.
morton is a case in point.
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:32 am 29. matoko kusanagi:aquinas used averroes writings, gazhali was also influensive on the west.
it is indisputable that the first physicians and mathematicians and cosmolgists were muslims and hindus and zorastrians…why are u threatened by that? why is that a problem?
sillie man.
in the old days science and religion were the same thing.
now they are not, lol.
i mean…..xians burned marguerite porete….jews crucified christ….muslims crucififed ibn hallaj…all religions suppress heresy.
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:38 am 30. DoktorNo:pattern recognition anyone?
Is any moderator here?
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:43 am 31. matoko kusanagi:c’mon doktorno…what have i said that isnt the truth?
Aug 28, 2007 - 11:55 am 32. matoko kusanagi:hehe…admit it!
ur trolling for traffic for jihaadwatch.
morton, all religions are the same!
and we will see it proven scientifically in my lifetime.
unfortunately, not in yours i think.
older, arent u?
unlike say, ID theory.
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:01 pm 33. matoko kusanagi:lol.
unlike say, ID theory…..which will never be proven.
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:06 pm 34. AndyJ:the IDists themselves do not believe in it…or they would be funding departments at universities instead of trying to litigate it int highschools.
lol.
All religions MAY be the same from a certain distance. At this distance, Islam wants to kill me and my family.
Perhaps you stand at a point where they will not kill you or yours. I hopes so.
I don’t believe there is a point at any distance where Christianity is a threat to me and mine or you and yours.
Believe what you will or not. It only matters when you come to kill me. Then it is very very important.
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:17 pm 35. matoko kusanagi:Andy im a sufi muslim.
and i do not wish to kill u or your family.
that is my point…Spencer is lumping all muslims together and only a allowing a single valid interpretation of the Qu’ran– his, which is isomorphic with bin ladn’s.
spencer says there is only one way to interpret the Qu’ran.
i object.
i object to spencers biased and selective view of history, and that ppl are too lazy or too invested to factcheck him.
muslims, christians and jews, and all the peace loving peoples of the world should be allied against the Reavers. Reavers can be any faith. or none.
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:39 pm 36. matoko kusanagi:spencer tells everyone that Reavers are predisposed to be muslims…indeed that any muslim that faithfully reads the Qu’ran has a high probablity [nearing certainty] of becoming a Reaver.
[read jihaadi].
i obect to this interpretation of the Qu’ran. and it is not helpful to pretend xianity is superior to islam. it is not.
all religions are the same.
holding my comments again?
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:40 pm 37. matoko kusanagi:i really think doktorno violated your policy.
lol.
Islam wants to kill me and my family.
no, spencer is telling you that Islam wants to kill you and your family.
Aug 28, 2007 - 12:46 pm 38. matoko kusanagi:that is his version of Islam.
Reavers want to kill you and your family…there are reavers in any faith, or unfaith.
Real muslims dont consider the jihaadis to be muslims…they kill other muslims…that is against the prime directive.
But spencer would have u believe that reading the Qu’ran is a direct cause of Reaverism….that is not true. 0r all muslims would be Reavers.
because we all read the Qu’ran.
Aug 28, 2007 - 1:01 pm 39. Dan:Presuming anyone is interested in wading through matoko’s comments this far down the thread…
Robert Spencer’s scholarship cannot reasonably be questioned since a large portion of the seminal texts of Islam, from whatever fiqh, have been put on the internet, often with opposing Arabic text. This is of course useless for a person like myself, but with the titles one may then cross-reference using Amazon.com, where everyone from matoko-like posters afflicted with morbid personality disorders and ordinary naive bourgeois amateurs like myself can, with reasonable confidence, gather the public perspective on the book, apprehend into the historiographical debate, and then proceed to read. It really is not so occult as so many demogogues would have you believe. To become a scholar is one matter, but to become a competent amateur is quite another.
That said, the plain fact of the matter is that scholastic comprehension of Islam is not necessary for an outsider to assess whether Islam, in any of its salient forms, advocates religious war as a duty, or whether it does not. Plainly, it does; the fact, everywhere the case, that every individual Muslim is not presently sharpening a sword or cleaning his AK-47 is neither here nor there, just as a priest rodgering a little boy implies no particular criticism of the Sermon on the Mount. Spencer mostly confines himself to written documents – Quran, hadith, Sunna, Hanbali, Mutazalite, New Testament, Old Testamenet, what have you.
Of course, a tradition like Sufism, to which matoko belongs, he says, is less easily known because of its own mystical traditions – but Sunnite (Orthodox) Islam is not so gnostic, since it is written down.
Honestly, the Islamic holy books are not so long or expensive that most people are incapable of reading them or cannot afford them. The only necessary thing is to come to them in a naive spirit: you do not know what they say until you read them. You do not know where the people are from, what they do, who they are. With that in mind, you simply read. And that is the beginning of scholarship. From my own personal readings, I have found nothing that Spencer’s work contradicts, and nothing in the texts I have and can find online that contradicts Spencer.
Nota bene: matoko’s comment “Islam preserved Aristotle’s treatises through the work of Ibn Rushd [Averroes]” is accurate but misleading. One great gaping hole in Western education is the total ignorance of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, and indeed of the course of Greek history. As the Angel Maroni said to Muhammad, “Read!” Oh wait…
Aug 28, 2007 - 2:17 pm 40. huxley:Robert S. — Great rebuttal.
“…if Derbyshire is now saying that any text – any text at all – is no more or less likely to incite violence than any other, this would manifest a nihilism so corrosive as to strip all words, and everything altogether, of any meaning.”
Nailed it!
Aug 28, 2007 - 2:25 pm 41. Whistling Dixie:Spencer’s right. Derbyshire is clueless. And the troll is a muslim.
Nu?
Aug 28, 2007 - 3:05 pm 42. Marcelino:Matoko,
your points represent, or so it seems to me, the most careful of arguments against Spencer’s project. You do Derb an immense service in back-filling points in his argument that he has overlooked.
Nevertheless, to this observer, it seems that you commit the same error of which you complain in Christian polemic. Namely, appealing to the rich variety of the Islamic tradition while at the same time creating a reductionist straw man of the incomparably rich Christian tradition of enlightened inquiry into science and the humanities. Aquinas cites Ibn Rush’d plentifully, but far more does he cite Scripture, Augustine, The Philosopher, Ps.-Dionysius, Damascene and others in his commentaries of philosphical texts. Further, Aquinas did not depend on the divine Averroes for his reception of Aristotle, that came by way of the School of Toledo, independent of the Commentator’s texts (although the philosophy produced by the School of Toledo, esp. by J. Hispanus was heavily dependent on Averroes). There would have certainly been an Aquinas without Averroes, and beyond doubt a Bonaventure, as well as the entire Oxford school.
Further, Bologna, Reggio, Paris, Oxford, and Montpellier all PRECEDE the arrival of the New Learning of Aristotle (i.e. mediated by Islamic Spain) by at least a full generation (more in the case of the older institutions). The intellectual glories of Islamic Spain are impressive enough without your gilding the lily.
It is silly that some commentators here would discount your arguments based on your faith (thereby perpetuating the Derbyshire-Averroist error of presuming a double truth). Nevertheless, Christianity had not permission, but the command to absorb science (in the broad sense) in order to understand the God of creation whose traces are to be seen in the natural world. Thus Augustine’s (s. IV ex/V) argument about Christians as the new Jews plundering the Egyptians. Although this is evident even earlier in Christian scripture itself, as in Galatians St Paul urges according to the Latin Vulgate, his followers to seek out the “enigmas of the figures” in scripture. Paul himself used the Greek word allegory for this. From the beginning, the gates to interpretation were thrown open.
Also, what by the way was Averroes’s reward for his philosophizing? I seem to remember that it won him exile. He was both genius and heretic, as were also a number of geniuses in the Christian realm. It is however to say that he represented the norm of Islamic society, for the verdict of that society upon him was little different from that of Christendom’s on Eriugena.
More to say, but perhaps PJM should rather give us such a duel to constructively consider the question.
My regards, Marcelino
Aug 28, 2007 - 3:57 pm 43. huxley:“Honestly, the Islamic holy books are not so long … that most people are incapable of reading them” –Dan
Yes. I don’t read Arabic but I have read a couple of translations of the Qur’an and it’s not that long or difficult a book. You just have to read it as though its words mean what they say. That’s all that it takes to grasp the supremacism, intolerance, and propensity to violent jihad built into Islam.
I encourage all Americans to read the Qur’an!
Aug 28, 2007 - 4:03 pm 44. SSD:No Christian related terrorism these (Modern) days? Really?
LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army based in Uganada): Responsible for the still ongoing insrugency (since 1987) in Northern Uganada in order to establish a christian state. Why?
Q: “Your movement is called the Lord’s Resistance Army. What exactly does it see as an ideal system of government?”
A: [b]“Lord’s Resistance Army is just the name of the movement, because we are fighting in the name of God. God is the one helping us in the bush. That’s why we created this name, Lord’s Resistance Army. And people always ask us, are we fighting for the [biblical] Ten Commandments of God. That is true – because the Ten Commandments of God is the constitution that God has given to the people of the world. All people. If you go to the constitution, nobody will accept people who steal, nobody could accept to go and take somebody’s wife, nobody could accept to innocently kill, or whatever. The Ten Commandments carries all this.”[/b]
Links:
- http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=58&ReportId=72472
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord’s_Resistance_Army
NLFT & ATTF (Baptist terrorist organizations based in Nagaland): Responsible for a 20 year insurgency in Nagaland a pure Baptist state.
Christian Terrorists Kill 44, Wound 118 in Attacks in Northeast India
GUWAHATI, India (AFP)
October 2, 2004
Some 44 people were killed and 118 wounded in three nearly simultaneous bomb blasts Saturday morning in Dimapur, Nagaland’s commercial hub, in what a top official called the “worst ever terrorist strike” in the tiny state’s history.
Gunmen in neighbouring Assam state later killed 15 villagers and injured a dozen more, police said.
“There were limbs everywhere and blood was splattered all over,” said student leader T. Zheviho who was at crowded Dimapur railway station where one bomb exploded as passengers awaited a train.
Two other bombs went off in the Hong Kong market, which sells Chinese goods, and an adjacent market.
“I had a miraculous escape,” Zheviho told AFP by telephone from Dimapur, 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of Nagaland capital Kohima.
Police said the plastic explosive RDX appeared to have been used in the railway blast that created a huge crater beside a platform.
“We found a briefcase with fuse wires… it contained RDX and a timer-device,” V. Peseyie, Dimapur additional police chief, said.
Seventeen more people were killed in a wave of attacks in neighbouring Assam, police said.
Unidentified attackers raked shoppers with gunfire at a marketplace in Makri Jhora village, 290 kilometres (180 miles) west of Assam’s main city of Guwahati, killing 11 and injuring about a dozen, police said.
The same gunmen later shot dead four more villagers in a nearby forest, police superintendent L. R. Bishnoi told AFP. Two more people were killed and 10 injured in two blasts in the Assamese district of Bongaingaon, 220 kilometres (136 miles) from Guwahati, Bishnoi said.
One person was killed and seven wounded in an earlier bomb blast in Assam.
Police also reported two other bombings in a village on the outskirts of Guwahati in which four people were injured.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the day of bloodshed in the insurgency-infested northeast where some 30 guerrilla groups are battling for greater autonomy or independence.
The attacks occurred as India marked the 135th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi who waged a campaign of non-violence to free the country from British rule.
“It is distressing such violence broke out on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the capital New Delhi.
Nagaland’s ill-equipped hospitals battled to treat the wounded.
“Many have multiple face and abdomen wounds. They’re in a state of trauma. We’re trying to cope. We’ve never had such a devastating emergency,” said doctor T. Lotha at a private hospital in Dimapur treating blast victims.
Nagaland Chief Minister Neibhiu Rio said at least 26 people were killed in the Dimapur blasts and another 86 were in hospital. “The death toll may go up as many are in a very critical condition,” he said.
“This is the worst ever terrorist strike in Nagaland. People are still dealing with the shock — they’re not yet thinking about who to blame.”
Mourners crowded churches across Nagaland, which is mostly Christian, to pray for the victims.
The blasts were the second major burst of violence in the northeast since mid-August. Fifteen people, many of them children, were killed in a rebel attack on an Independence Day parade in Assam August 15 for which the United Liberation Front of Asom claimed responsibility.
(b)The armed insurgency in Nagaland began soon after much of the local population converted to Christianity. Many militant groups, seeking to secede from India to form an independent Christian state, are funded and armed by the Southern Baptist Church. Some of the groups such as the National Liberation Front of Tripura have been involved in a campaign of “gunpoint conversions” and “ethnic cleansing” of native non-Christians, which has left over 50,000 dead and many more refugees over the past two decades.(/b)
Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=1503&e=6&u=/afp/20041002/ts_afp/india_northeast_blast
October, 2003, The Washington Diplomat
(an interview with Isak Chishi Swu, chairman of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim )
…It was clear after only a few minutes that Swu’s main preoccupation will be with creating a Christian state, which comes higher on his list of priorities than socialism, nationalism or even democracy.
Overflowing with evangelical zeal, Swu explained that Nagalim will send out 10,000 missionaries around the world when it achieves independence. “Our intention is that Nagalim is for Christ. We have proclaimed it. Nagalim is for Christ… God has got his plan for Nagalim,” he said. “We were evangelized by the American Baptist missionaries back in 1839, and we don’t have the adequate words to thank the American missionaries.”
Source:
- http://www.washdiplomat.com/03-10/a4_03_10.html
More Info:
-http://www.hinduhumanrights.org/India/CleansingInTripura.html
-http://ssksurya.blogspot.com/2005/11/christian-terrorism-in-india.html
And lastly, the christian fundies who fund Israel’s military millions of dollars, while turning a blind eye to the suffering they cause. Why? ALL FOR THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS, OFCOURSE!
^^^^^Now is the death toll these groups cause close to the ones committed by Islamist terrorists? Are they an International threat like the Islamist terrorists? Absolutely Not. But this just goes to show you that Christianity -like almost every other religion- has violence committed in it’s name.
Aug 28, 2007 - 6:08 pm 45. huxley:“Honestly, the Islamic holy books are not so long … that most people are incapable of reading them” –Dan
Yes. I don’t read Arabic but I have read a couple of translations of the Qur’an and it’s not that long or difficult a book. You just have to read it as though its words mean what they say. That’s all that it takes to grasp the supremacism, intolerance, and propensity to violent jihad built into Islam.
I encourage all Americans to read the Qur’an!
Aug 28, 2007 - 6:58 pm 46. Benson:1. Spencer won this debate long ago.
2. Spencer erred, however, when he tried to inform us by contrasting Islam with another faith. Islam can be understood by anyone who looks at it. No comparisons needed. Spencer’s earlier books are more than sufficient.
3. Huxley’s right: the Koran says what it means, and means what it says. Non-Muslims can understand it. All else is sophistry.
4. Muslims are not permitted to leave Islam. Millions of them keep their heads down rather than oppose the insanity openly. You can’t blame them.
5. In one sense, the troll here is useful, because he can instruct those who don’t quite see yet that Islam fears and hates exposure. Still it’s best not to feed him.
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:30 pm 47. Xanthippe:While I find all religions equally preposterous, I do not find them all the same.
There are no fundamental Christians who threaten me because I lead a decadent lifestyle. However…
Aug 28, 2007 - 7:32 pm 48. Randy Miller:[quote]no, spencer is telling you that Islam wants to kill you and your family.[/quote]And the TV. And the Koran. And MEMRI. And the newspapers. And a thousand voices shouting Allahu Akbar as the behead, bomb, shoot, stab, beat, rape, etc., etc.
Shouting down Robert Spencer does nothing to drown out the roar of Islamic hate.
Aug 28, 2007 - 9:29 pm 49. matoko kusanagi:hmmm…let me summarize for you guyz.
here’s the salient points.
1. The Qu’ran states quite clearly, as im sure spencer is aware, that muslims cannot kill other muslims. that is the “prime directive”. Reavers pretending to be muslim justify that by ambiguous and sketchy interpretations which spencer regurgitates for you guyz. One that does that is no longer muslim. the Qu’ran also has lists of mandated benevolent behaviors…both Spencer and the jihaadis ignore those. Spencer is giving u the jihaadi version of the Qu’ran. He validates them. He is a cheerleader for the Forever War if you will. He is also making $ from selling you books that tell you what you want to hear, ie that your religion is superior. He is taking gross liberties with history, and giving you a single non-original school of quranic exegesis.
2. Altho i am a mutazhili and a sufi [read muslim] i don’t share jihaadi belief. i do not wish to convert you. i believe that yours is better is for you, and mine is better for me. However, neither do i wish to see you proselyting. Proselytization is obscene to me. it is the act of saying mine is better than better than yours. i am aware that it says go and spread the word in your sacred book. so how about you strike that and well strike the slay the unbeliever part?
Mutazhili actually believe in analogous interpretation of the Qu’ran…a non-literal interpretation. the bible should also be interpreted that way, and not just for the song of solomen. frankly, no ancient texts should be interpreted literally–they are extremely dated.
3. All religions are the same. They have a basis in evolutionary biology from the Environment of Evolutionary Advantage (EEA). Religions extended consanguinous kinship and fitness benefits to a much larger memetic tribe. Religions evolved and are still evolving.
4. All religions promoted science in the old days as a side effect—originally religion was science! but as science became a competitor of religion, religions became less supportive. Today science is not supported by any religion that i know of, with the possible exception of sufi metaphysics investigations and mutazhili reason and science in the First Obligation.
Again, a good example of anti-scientific behavior in religion is the xian Discovery Institute, which eschews funding university research in favor of litigating highschool schoolboards and propaganda type publications.
4. As science advances, we become more sure of the biological basis of behavior, thru the scientific method. We will be able to visit the stars, to extend our lifespan, to cure disease, to time travel. We may be able to prove the existance of god. I think that after all this time science and religion may converge, become one again.
Aug 29, 2007 - 7:14 am 50. Liam:At least for those that open to it.
=D
but we will never secure world peace as long as religious ppl insist that one religion is better or more true than another. Dawkins is right in a way…religious belief has caused most of the worlds problems. But he is wrong about what to do about it. Religious belief will never be eradicated…it is hardwired. What we can do is to seek to channel it for the greater good.
I do not think validating jihaadi quranic exegesis is a good way to approach a solution.
@ SSD
“No Christian related terrorism these (Modern) days? Really?”
It is quite a little list you complie there. Unforutnately over the same time period you and I both know we could find 100x as many deaths caused in the name of Islam.
Another huge point you miss is that there is no group like CAIR in the US that is a voice of christians that in any way condones these groups (cair won’t condemn hammas, and has shared some of the same leaders). There is no soilidarity movement between the groups you describe and christians in western countries that call for a pan-christian state. There are no apoligists in western countries saying, “it might be bad, but they are oppressed.”
As far as th eLRA the leader describes himself as a “spirit medium” and is wants an Acholi state. Aside from giving lip service tot he ten commandments it is hardly a christian movement.
In all those attacks you quoted can you find where any christian leaders defended their actions through verses in the bible? can you find any christian leaders who defended their action at all?
Aug 29, 2007 - 8:06 am 51. matoko kusanagi:liam, religious attacks confirm what the Derb said, that religion amplifies both the bad and the good among members.
Aug 29, 2007 - 8:29 am 52. matoko kusanagi:Did you know we also live under sharia law? sharia is no more than codified social mores, taboos and religious values. I have had many ppl tell me that judeo-christian values are in corporated in the constitution and in our laws.
I am interested in the whole “judeo-christian” meme. Do Mormons acknowledge that Jews abhorr them for the practice of dead baptism?
I think it is cultural borrowing without permission, lol.
and actually…religion is just memetic tribalism. political memberships like naziism and fascism are also memetic tribalsm.
Aug 29, 2007 - 8:38 am 53. matoko kusanagi:think what tribalism does, and why we are hardwired for it–it is a fitness enhancer.
think about Rwanda, Dafnur, the American frontier….perhaps tribalism and religion and politics just incorporate the “mine is better” meme.
tribalism is hobbesian.
the only antidote is the rule of law.
“Millions of them keep their heads down rather than oppose the insanity openly.”
Aug 29, 2007 - 8:43 am 54. matoko kusanagi:no, benson, this is not true.
most muslims actually believe that everyone will become muslim eventually. that is why we dont proselytize.
and we respect the people of the book…because you already have experience of the Divine Beloved.
Marcelino shukran jazeelyan for the beautiful comment.
Aug 29, 2007 - 9:02 am 55. matoko kusanagi:Perhaps I do ignore the rich traditions and scholarship of Aquinas.
But modern christianity is not supportive of science, as is evidenced by the Intelligent design debate.
If xianity supported the scientific method, the Discovery Institute would be endowing chairs at universities and funding research projects. They are not.
And no antique religion was supportive once science became a contradictor and a competitor. Therefore Spencer’s hypothesis is false.
holding my comments again? lol
Aug 29, 2007 - 9:07 am 56. huxley:go right ahead.
i’ll just get them exposed elsewhere if you do.
along with the fact that you suppressed them.
matoko — You are not being suppressed, as you keep complaining.
There is always a delay when I post comments here too. I assume the moderator is unpaid and maintains this list at his or her convenience, not mine.
Given the way you have essentially spammed this list with long, multiple posts that pretty well disrupt any conversation, I would have blocked all your comments way sometime ago. The moderator is more generous than I am.
Aug 29, 2007 - 9:42 am 57. matoko kusanagi:lol…my comments are gone….u have an hour to restore them.
Aug 29, 2007 - 10:24 am 58. matoko kusanagi:then i shall seek redress for the offense.
hav a nice day!
no huxley…my comments were blocked…then the last four comments dissappeared for an hour!
Aug 29, 2007 - 11:28 am 59. matoko kusanagi:now they have magically reappeared.
never doubt that i am in convo with the Derb, and that i shall call in my markers with Dr. Yes and Proteinwisdom….and even Dr. Ledeen and Den Beste-sama if need be.
the Pajamafia deleted a comment of mine before…when i asked Geraud for some hard data on eurabia.
i may not post much anymore, but im connected.
never doubt it.
and do you know what else Huxley?
Aug 29, 2007 - 11:46 am 60. matoko kusanagi:I have completely discredited Spencer’s premises at this point.
I’ll put it into a formal fisking on my blog.
three salient points for you, since u are blocking me.
1. Islam is non-peaceable only in jihaadi exegesis, which is all Spencer is capable of reproducing.
2. Contemporary xianity IS NOT supportive of science or the scientific method. cite: ID “theory”.
3. All religions supported science and reason when science was part of religion. All religions are CSSs. Islam is no better and and no worse than xianity in historical support of science.
QED
in humility, i will say the shayks, imans and mullahs of my faith could do more……..to make it clear that suicidebombers are abdicating Islam by their actions. I belive this has begun to happen.
Aug 29, 2007 - 12:55 pm 61. duh_swami:But al-Islam is a consensus religion and this change must come from the grass roots up, unlike the top-down pronouncements of xian sects.
And do you think Spencers books help this? His ignorance and crude sophistry and complete lack of empirical scholarship comfirm all our paranoia about the “judeo-xian” west.
He is not helpful in the Dialog.
He does active harm by validating jihaadi exegesis and western stereotypes of muslims.
And he offers no solutions.
“God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ” as meaning that God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ.
This, er gentleman, apparantly believes that the god of Islam and the God of the rest of us is the same god.
Rubbish. He lost me right there.
This threads comments should be named The Motoko hour…
Aug 29, 2007 - 1:20 pm 62. matoko kusanagi:one last comment…….
i find it perishing odd that Spencer has not poked up his head to refute my arguments…..why?
Is it because i speak the absolute truth and he has no recourse?
lol!
Marcelino, we have not need to duel.
We are agreement, perfectly copacetic.
The cross-polinization of the great religions preserved Aristotelian traditions. How amazing it would have have been to be alive at that time! I would have Ibn Arabi, Dawkins would have been Ibn Rushd, and you could been Aquinas.
I think tho….Spencer would have been a minor funtionary….perhaps even a Pharisee…clinging desperately to literalist texts, absolutely incapable of original thought.
Aug 29, 2007 - 1:24 pm 63. Andrew:“andrew, lol.
Bacon was an alchemist, and he was imprisoned and executed, non?
Mendel would surely have been excommunicated if he extended his theories to homosapiens.
if xianity is into promoting and nuturing science, why the Discovery Insititute? I have already explained, IDists that were science oriented would be working to get into college curricula, not highschools. there would be endowed chairs, research assistants, graduate students, peer-reviewed journals, fundage.”
I was going to ignore this, but the sufi with the oddly japanese-sounding name just keeps going on about ID, so…
No, old sport, Roger Bacon was not executed, nor arrested. Sorry. As to his status as an alchemist, alchemy was a kind of infantile chemistry. We should be careful about mocking our elders. How many of us, who benefit from modern science, actually know much about it?
You don’t know that Mendel would have been excommunicated, and in any case, he made his contribution without persecution.
You also don’t answer one of my salient points: that the university system wherein Western science and mathematics re-flourished was a product of the medieval church.
The influence of Averroes and other Muslim Scholars notwithstanding, let’s not pretend that they were the only source available. In fact, let’s not pretend that medieval Islamic Science was anything other than a careful absorption of earlier wisdom from other cultures. No shame in that, we all do it. But it certainly seems that when its position across the world’s major trade and cultural diffusion routes declined, Islamic science declined right along with it.
Finally, to ID. It is tedious to point out that Intelligent Design is a challenge to evolutionary theory held by only a small clique of otherwise harmless evangelicals. I am a Catholic, and have been in Catholic schools most of my life. At no time during this period was the teaching of evolutionary science controversial. Even the last Pope said publicly that the weight of evidence behind the theory made it credible, and certainly no challenge to Christian faith, if understood as “the how rather than the why.”
If Christianity has a beef with science, it is science which makes humanity its servant rather than the other way around (see human cloning, embryonic stem cells, etc). Yet I have not heard the supposed Inquisitor Pope Benny issue fatwas calling for the heads of scientists who engage in such things. The fools who bombed abortion clinics, on the other hand, have been widely condemned and jailed without achieving even the mildest martyrdom.
Using ID as proof of Christian anti-science is not just the ignorance of trendiness, it is banal by the same lights.
Your ball, troll. And do me a favor and try to keep your response within some limits of correct English spelling and to avoid saying “lol” every three sentences. I assure you, no one here is laughing out loud, and I have my doubts that you are, either.
Aug 29, 2007 - 1:42 pm 64. Scorpius:OK, I have to step in here and correct Matoko (who is female BTW, but her true identity will remain undisclosed by myself) on this pile of dung she uttered.
most muslims actually believe that everyone will become muslim eventually. that is why we dont proselytize.
Lady, you don’t even understand your own religion. Ever heard of Dawah? The muslim invitation/call/what have you to faith?
Muslims are quite aggressive in
Aug 29, 2007 - 2:17 pm 65. matoko kusanagi:proselytizing, they are only matched by some fringe Christian groups in their assertiveness.
But andrew, you are so dreadfully amusing.
Bacon was confined under house arrest, and free at the time of death…but it is true that in my zeal to correct spencer’s faux history i gave all the credit to ibn rushd and ghazali, and not nearly enough to Aquinas. i apolo. in truth the aristotelian traditions were preserved by a rich cross fertitlization cultures. I did not mean to leave Aquinas out the way spencer leaves out averroes…..lol.
Indeed aristotelians and platonists preserved the knowledge of my tribe, the pythagoreans, after the massacre by Kylon and the Democrats.
What i say is that xianity is no better than islam, and no worse…they are both religions, and flawed and glorious and evil and magical in turns.
the university system arose at a time when jesuits were the only scientists…of course it was sponsored by the church! And my ID example is perfectly valid….if xians are so enamored of the scientific method…..if they even DERIVED IT as spencer suggests, why, by all means let ID theory be proven by the scientific method in the scientific community. Why not?
As is, it is the perfect example of dishonoring the scientific method, meh, to litigate instead of investigate, to foist an unproven psuedoscience on defenseless youth?
ta, andrew.
be ashamed.
i attended Immaculate Conception parochial school myself…i am familiar indeed with catholicism.
i say, catholicism is better for u, islam is better for me. lol.
still nothing from spencer?
this must mean i have won! will he print a retraction of the falsehoods and ommisions in his sillie tomes do you think?
lollolollolll!!!
Aug 29, 2007 - 3:23 pm 66. matoko kusanagi:duh_swami, i myself believe that hashem==god==allah. i do not require that you believe it.
Muhammed believed that too…when the Qu’ran says “slay the infidel”, Muhammed means pagans. the people of the book are not pagans.
we all believe in the same monotheistic deity.
As xianity evolved from judaism, so islam evolved from what had gone before, both xianity and judaism.
scorpy, dawah is not proselytization…it is an offering. proselytizers insist on hell for those who refuse them, and proselytizers insist that theirs is the only truth. We do not think the religions of the people of the book are inferior. we do not beleve we have a monopoly on the truth. after all we all believe in the same being. Issa (Jesus) is revered as one of our prophets. Issa is greatly beloved by one of the greatest of our teachers, Ibn Arabi.
Aug 29, 2007 - 3:37 pm 67. matoko kusanagi:curioser and curioser…now the comment between my comment to duh_swami and scorpy’s comment has vanished into the bit bucket…it was addressed to Andrew….
i think…
my use of ID theory as counterexample to Spencer’s assertion that the scientific method is a part of our “judeo-xian” heritage must be hitting a nerve somewhere.
Aug 29, 2007 - 3:49 pm 68. matoko kusanagi:this is getting tedious…moderator, either post the comment or let the Pajamafia stand accused of censorship. i’ll just post it on my blog and get my patrones to link it.
andrew, rather than tell me that argument is banal and trite, give me a substantive rebuttal please.
better yet, why should ID theory be excused from the scienctific method, if it is indeed a science?
i do not think it is wise to discuss ESCR with me, since my father is dying a hideous death from early onset alzheimers. i am not very impartial on the matter.
Aug 29, 2007 - 4:02 pm 69. matoko kusanagi:“supposed Inquisitor Pope Benny issue fatwas calling for the heads of scientists who engage in such things.”
Aug 29, 2007 - 4:13 pm 70. Scorpius:he fired his science advisor, didnt he?
and yes, in Dawkins documentary he interviews an evangelical pastor in colorado springs, who asserts that foul doctor-murderer Larry Flynn is sitting pretty in heaven…along with some uberhilarious interview footage with Ted Haggard.
zomg!
By the Gods, Major, you can’t even be consistent in a single post.
when the Qu’ran says “slay the infidel”, Muhammed means pagans. the people of the book are not pagans.
then you say:
scorpy, dawah is not proselytization…it is an offering. proselytizers insist on hell for those who refuse them, and proselytizers insist that theirs is the only truth.
So those who refuse to believe will suffer a fate worse than hell by you muslims.
You just proved Spencer right, Islam is a violent religion and the sooner it expires from this reality the better.
Finally, Islam did not “evolve” from Christianity. “Evolve” implies an improvement. Jesus came to end human slavery; Mohammed came to clap the irons of slavery (to “Allah”) back on.
Aug 29, 2007 - 4:26 pm 71. Scorpius:Finally, Matoko, everyone has their comments delayed; that’s the M.O. of this blog. Free yourself of you paranoid delusions of opression; wait, that would require you abandon Islam.
Aug 29, 2007 - 4:35 pm 72. matoko kusanagi:yawn…im bored.
moderator u can keep the comments, after all u have deleted my comments before. i expect it from the Pajamafia.
spencer is too cowardly to even attempt to refute my arguments.
i win!
best witches for your future enlightenment, twodigits
Aug 29, 2007 - 4:36 pm 73. PJ Nasser:–The Major
The real point is that Derbyshire is a secular man. He, like most people, finds religions obscure, to say the least. As well as irrelevant to his life and explaining nothing that he, personally, needs explaining. He’s not anti-Christian, though he’s probably anti-Muslim because they don’t get it. For Derbyshire, religion should occupy a place somewhat like that held by the Church of England: it satisfies those that need that sort of thing, but doesn’t get too much in the way.
Does the fact that Robert Spencer feels the need to come at it yet again show that he’s not entirely secure of his position? That he might be over-egging the cake just a little?
Aug 29, 2007 - 5:21 pm 74. Benson:(Heavy sigh) Above we have a textbook example of the harm done, albeit unintentionally and indirectly, by those who feed a troll.
Self-restraint is called for, and especially when lies and obnoxious words provoke the perfectly understandable urge to reply.
Responses/rebuttals are futile and counterproductive, however. A troll does not issue a challenge to debate. His (or her) words are intended to anger, provoke, offend — and provide him (or her) the opportunity to pollute the thread with a fake “discussion.”
Ignore the troll. It’s the only rational policy.
Aug 29, 2007 - 9:50 pm 75. Scorpius:Benson,
As I am primarily responsible for feeding the troll I apologize. I let a personal dispute (I used to be fast friends with Matoko before she threw her life away to Allah and then deceived me about it). But that is immaterial, I should not have let that personal fight come to this blog.
I sincerely apologize.
Aug 29, 2007 - 11:36 pm 76. daruut:Matoko,
You have many times asserted that “all religions are the same.”
That is like asserting that “all numbers are the same,” as in 43 = 187.
Or all equations are the same, like 1 + 1 = 3.
And you claim to be a mathmatician?!?
At least you’re a tad more interesting than that Dave Mathews guy…if more paranoid about your comments. You write so darn many, that of course they are held for awhile, and I suspect you are attempting to hog this entire thread for yourself.
Aug 30, 2007 - 1:30 am 77. matoko kusanagi:well benson, if im a liar why doesnt Spencer show up and refute me?
no cojones? or im telling the truth and he cannot refute it?
daruut, in mathematics there is a whole book written on whether or not 1+1=2…i think you may be out of your depth here.
the Derb has many thoughts on religions, but none of them are on preferring xianity to islam….read his work, lol.
Aug 30, 2007 - 5:03 am 78. matoko kusanagi:All religions ARE the same….to him, to me, to many scientists evolutionary biologists, cultural anthropologists, etc.
get used to it, lol.
one more point for the chattering class……….i would be very careful about reading the Qu’ran if I were you……that was the first step in my conversion, and in micheal sells’ conversion, and in leopold weiss’ conversion!
Aug 30, 2007 - 6:39 am 79. matoko kusanagi:lol.
if Spencer doesnt show up to refute me, am i the last woman standing?
Aug 30, 2007 - 6:47 am 80. Benson:lol, and a muslimah at that.
For Scorpius:
There is no need to apologize; my words were hasty. I offer you my apology, for you had exceptional reasons to respond to the nonsense.
Don’t we often feel that if we do not fisk a troll, absurdities and untruths may stand?
I confess I came within a whisker of delivering myself of a heated rejoinder…not sure how I was able to hold back.
Let’s try to deny trolls what they want most: attention. It’s difficult! I hope I can follow my own advice in the future. (Sheepish grin)
Aug 30, 2007 - 6:51 am 81. matoko kusanagi:“Who will be the last man standing?”
the last man standing is a muslimah unless any of you “men” can refute my points.
Aug 30, 2007 - 9:15 am 82. matoko kusanagi:i fisked Spencer’s sillie untruthful and biased book, benson, unless you can fisk me, my arguments stand.
benson, the absurdities and lies, the historical calumnies are spencers.
xianity supports the scientific method? ludicrous! cite: ID “theory”.
jihaadi exegesis is the only valid quaranic exegesis? laughable! cite: 1.3 billion muslims that have not gone jihaadi from reading the Qu’ran.
xianity is a more peaceful religion? ABSURD! cite: porete, galileo, the albigensians, the crusades, the 100 years war, the war of the roses, etc, etc ad nauseum.
refute me or stfu.
Aug 30, 2007 - 9:26 am 83. matoko kusanagi:you are the troll…by ad homming me u seek to deflect argument.
loozer, lol.
and i have one more salient thing to say….
have any of you considered how profoundly unhelpful Spencer and Malkin and ppl of their stripe are to General Petraeus and our soldiers in Iraq? Our soldiers are trying to form trusted networks and alliances WITH MUSLIMS and Malkin is giving Spencer airtime to promote his whacktheories.
Spencer says the Qu’ran is basically a jihaadi factory, and it cannot be interpreted any other way. He says xianity is ineffably superior to Islam in peacableness and support of science. Never mind that these things are proven calumnies, how would u all like some undereducated imam interpreting your sacred book?
How about a book called “The Truth About Jesus”?
Malkin and Spencer are sandbagging Petraeus’ armed social work and attempts to ally ourselves with muslims as surely as the media shills and dems are sabotaging the good news from the Surge.
and you are all too stupid to see it.
Aug 30, 2007 - 9:50 am 84. matoko kusanagi:and still one more thing…….this is an infowar, a memewar– given that Spencer validates jihaadi interpretation of the Qu’ran, and ONLY that interpretation, who is he helping?
Aug 30, 2007 - 9:53 am 85. matoko kusanagi:Whose side is Spencer on in the infowar?
i have asked for debate and rebuttals…..none are forthcoming.
Lets commence a bit of fisking, shall we?
“The whole point of my book is that Judeo-Christian civilization stands for values that are more humane and life-affirming than those of Islamic Sharia.”
we also live under sharia. sharia is codified mores, social taboos, and religious values. Both sharia’s incorporate taboos against incest, murder, robbery. Exactly which sharia laws are you objecting to, Roobart? the ones that don’t allow ignorant homeschoolers to debate legitimate quranic scholars? lol.
“values” is purely subjective–jews crucified Jesus, xians burned Margarete Porete, muslims crucified Ibn Hallaj. all mystics…the similiarities are intriguing.
Aug 30, 2007 - 10:14 am 86. Ivan Lenin:i denounce your subjective argument.
who decides which “values” are more “humane and life-affirming”? You have aready demonstrated that you are incapable of unbiased empiricism in your promotion of jihaadi exegesis as the only valid interpretation of the Qu’ran.
I want to apologize to Mr.Spencer for misinterpreting his writing in my earlier comment. While his opponents try to portray him as anti-Muslim, I tend to think that he is more objective than Mr.Derbyshire, who in my opinion downplays the role of religion in society.
Spencer encourages his readers to learn about Islam, instead of assuming that it is “just like any other religion”, as many of us would feel more comfortable believing.
Aug 30, 2007 - 11:40 am 87. matoko kusanagi:long delay on the comments moderator.
Aug 30, 2007 - 12:19 pm 88. Muhammad:hehe.
i dont want attention…i want a rebuttal of my salient points.
i have deconstructed spencers arguments.
will no one defend them?
Matoko Kusanagi,
Spencer knows how to spell Qur’an and you don’t. He wins.
Aug 30, 2007 - 12:56 pm 89. gkern:Matoko kusanagi,
There is no universal interpretation of the Qur’an. In Islamic culture might seems to be right as Muhammad demonstrated by his life and his most ardent followers have continued to live out.
You gnostics tend to be consistant in your hatred for faith in the Transcendent yet you espouse one preposterous a priori belief after another. Islam is as gnostic as the Manichee before and the reductionist Darwinian dweeb of the present era which you emulate so well in your pretensions to highQ.
Jayker
Aug 30, 2007 - 1:44 pm 90. Herschel Smith:matoko kusanagi,
Your writing style is the most stilted and irritating I have every run across. Ever. Anywhere. Your prose is the most mundane, annoying, off-point drivel I have ever run across. Sadly (or amusingly), you seem self-assured in your irrelevance.
Robert Spencer: Nice job. Keep up the good work.
Aug 30, 2007 - 1:59 pm 91. Andrew:“the university system arose at a time when jesuits were the only scientists…of course it was sponsored by the church! And my ID example is perfectly valid….if xians are so enamored of the scientific method…..if they even DERIVED IT as spencer suggests, why, by all means let ID theory be proven by the scientific method in the scientific community. Why not?
As is, it is the perfect example of dishonoring the scientific method, meh, to litigate instead of investigate, to foist an unproven psuedoscience on defenseless youth?
ta, andrew.
be ashamed.”
*sigh*
The university system predates the Jesuit order by at least two centuries. Didn’t they teach you church history at Immaculate Conception?
And you don’t listen real good. ID means nothing to me. I don’t believe it, yet I am Christian. The last Pope didn’t believe it, yet he was Christian. Your continued statement that “ID = Christianity” is based on either the purest ignorance or the most willful blindness, and neither speaks well of your argument.
News flash, smart guy: Christianity hasn’t been one, organized entity since, oh about the 5th century, when the Coptic/Marionite/Jacobite churches broke away. Add to that the East-West Schism of the 11th century and the Prod Reformation in the 16th, and you have a multiplicity of communities, each with their own authority.
SOME of those communities are all about ID, because they’re married to a literalist interpretation of the Bible. As I said before, they represent a minority, if an attention-getting one, (for which, I blame most folk’s abysmal cultural knowledge, and the media) Damning all Christianity for the ID crowd is as stupid as hmmmm, damning all Muslims for bin Laden. I’m sure a Sufi can appreciate that analogy.
Continuing, Roger Bacon’s house arrest was brief, and the result of the Condemnations of 1277, a ban on various propositions, some of which were scientifically valid, some of which were not. He was back at work within a year.
I won’t argue that the tension between the mystical and the natural never led to problems for those concerned with pure science. Such a statement is not born out by the historical record. But neither are your arguements, which seem less based on fact and more based on the kind of easy, breezy, popular assertions that people have been making regarding science and faith since the 18th century.
The Church’s support of science and the permittal of inquiry is a matter of public record. To deny this is to further the spread of popular misconceptions that one who believes in science as loudly as you do ought to eschew.
But this is far wide of the point. You write not with a sense of undoing misconception, but with venting your offended piety. You clearly know nothing about Christianity, but in the name of settling accounts will fling any tired trope you can (suggesting that the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses were religious wars, which I pray you don’t really believe). This makes you only different in degree from he who calls for the death of anyone who draws the Prophet’s picture; you know better, but old habits die hard.
For the record, I don’t hold to the notion that Islam is incompatible with modernity. The facts on the ground do not bear such out. But it is instructive to look at Islam’s warrior theology, and the influence it has had. And it is fair, though one should do so carefully, to compare it with other faiths. To constantly shout a man down for this reveals more about you, than about him.
Finally, your writing style does not present the image you wish to impart. Bad spellings of simple English words, repetitive arguments dully worded, and the obnoxious use of “lol” scream “addled teenager” rather than “educated man.” It invites people not to take you seriously.
The Man said “Cast not your pearls before swine”, however, and I see myself losing interest in this debate, which I expect you to consider proof of your genius. Do so, and enjoy the wasteland of intellect you create.
Aug 30, 2007 - 1:59 pm 92. Benson:In view of the rejection of my proposal that we ignore trolls, I fall back to my last ditch, which consists of two reminders:
1. The topic here was the debate between an author and a reviewer.
2. Muslims are explicitly permitted to lie when discussing their faith with non-Muslims.
Does anyone here believe that it does any good at all to try to reprove a tar baby??
Aug 30, 2007 - 3:43 pm 93. matoko kusanagi:sorry if i offend, but my point remains that Spencer cannot claim that xianity is somehow more “a religion of peace” than Islam.
that is unquantifiable.
He also cannot claim superior cultural legacy of science and reason. Other cultures contributed equally.
I am writing a paper on apophasis…xians burned margarete porete, muslims crufified my beloved Hallaj.
Also Spencer cannot claim an understanding of the Qu’ran, Koran, Qur’an w/e…arabic is an oral tradition languange with triple consonants…spelling is various. Meaning in classical arabic is dependent on both inflection and context. that is one reason there can be conflicting interpretations.
Spencer has admitted to me that he no quranic exegesis of his own.
He is giving you regugitated jihaadi exegesis. duh, of course jihaadi islam is violent. He is NOT an islamic scholar. He is not trained….he is a homeschooler if you please.
Spencer insists on a literalist interprentation and ignores any parts that contradict him and the jihaadis, like muslims cannot kill muslims, and he who takes the life of an innocent is killing the whole world.
benson sez–The topic here was the debate between an author and a reviewer.
so….that means no one else can comment?
and!
Aug 31, 2007 - 1:02 pm 94. matoko kusanagi:ima grrl.
c yah.
one thing more…i am very curious about…some commenters on my blog seemed to think the Derb was actually proposing a practical solution to the problem of jihaadis.
given the title, “Xianity good, Islam bad”, and the xian fleas and muslim fleas ad anfinatum… i think the Derb’s position is definitely swiftian, in the Modest Proposal Sense. I think he is poking fun at pompous, bombastic Spencer. That is why i was surprised that the pajamifia hosted this party.
For those of you interested in a nicely detailed nonsatyrical proposal, i recommend Steve Sailor.
Aug 31, 2007 - 1:53 pmHe has some good practical ideas, since Spencer apparently has none, except for empowering the jihaadis by insisting theirs is the only possible interpretation and by sandbagging General Petraeus, Dr. Kilcullen and our warriors in Iraq by denegrating the religion of our Iraqi allies and gloating over the supposed superiority of xianity.