Muslims Who Stand Up To Islamists -- Karima Bennoune

[moralist]

Greg,

That same rhetorical form can be applied to Christianity, that the only good Christian is a fundamentalist Christian, which is a bad person, and only bad Christians make good people (or to use your exact format: the good Christians are bad, and the bad Christians are good).

How does that sound turned around? Not so clever?

A big difference between difference between fundamental Christianity and fundamental Islam is that in Christianity there is no beheading of infidels, no 72 virgins for suicide bombing mass murderers, no chopping off hands, no wild killing spree jihads, no stoning women to death, and not even any burkas!

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity because it already went through its reformation a long time ago. Today the good Christians are good Christians, and the bad ones are bad.

There are NO contemporary counterparts in fundamental Christianity for this...

[Richard Wiig]

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity

A strange saying that. What does it really mean to hijack a religion? it's meaningless really.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity...

Greg,

Not even the KKK? Or this: Christian terrorism?

Actually, you do say something I agree with. You said Christianity "already went through its reformation a long time ago." So at least the evil people who hijack Christianity have difficulty getting ultra-large followings and they stay on the fringe.

Islam is a much younger religion, so I believe it is playing catch-up in learning how to institutionalize the moderate middle and vilify the crazies. This stuff is slow because it has to happen over generations (as all religious reforms do) and the reform does not go in a straight line. Instead it goes up and down depending on the charisma and effectiveness of the different leaders. That offends our modern remote-control mentality. We want to change the channel all right already. Enough of that show. We keep pushing, but the damn button doesn't work.

Just look around the world, not only at the violent places. We are living smack dab in the middle of the Islamic reformation. We are witnessing it in real time, for those who see.

But not those on the extremes. They can't or won't see. (Neither case serves for my values.) These are the Islamist fundamentalists on one end and anti-Islamic bigots who want to start The Crusades all over again on the other.

Michael

[Richard Wiig]

Bernard Gaynor responds to Glen Mohammed, who wrote this article in The Australian about fixing the problems with his religion. Gaynor poses some difficult questions.

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/a-challenge-for-glenn-mohammed/

[Richard Wiig]

Telling the truth about Hamas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KakxXN5Z-XI

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bernard Gaynor responds to Glen Mohammed, who wrote this article in The Australian about fixing the problems with his religion. Gaynor poses some difficult questions.

http://bernardgaynor.com.au/a-challenge-for-glenn-mohammed/

Huh...

A moderate Muslim wrote a newspaper article about moderate Islam. And declared:

When IS beheads an innocent person, it is doing so in my name. I am here to make a declaration that it is not in my name. These people are a threat to me, my faith and my country and I will do all I can to protect Australia from any harm that these people within my faith may inflict on it.

Good.

More will come.

And, of course, more non-expert experts will pop up to tell them what to do.

(Thanks, Brant, for that perfect term "non-expert experts.")

Actually, there is already a growing number of moderate Muslims speaking out and those who see can see them. Those who don't see--and use hatred in the place of their eyes--ignore and/or rationalize.

Glenn Mohammed's article is a clear answer to the bigoted delusion that moderate Muslims who love their religion do not exist. These brave folks are damned by the fundamentalists and damned by the anti-Islamic bigots, all for speaking out qua Muslims. The fundamentalists want obedience and silence and the anti-Islamic bigots want them to trash everything they hold sacred. Anything else proves to both fanatics that moderate Muslims do exist and that galls them to no end. Yet moderate Muslims keep speaking out as moderate Muslims. Not as mouthpieces for fanaticism. They do exist.

If one does not identify something correctly, especially if one denies it exists, one cannot evaluate it correctly.

The reader can decide for himself or herself who is doing what.

Michael

[moralist]

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity

A strange saying that. What does it really mean to hijack a religion? it's meaningless really.

It simply means to do evil under the color of the authority of a religion.

It's similar to a policeman committing crimes in uniform under the color of his authority as a law enforcement officer. This is a seriously grievous offense because it besmirches all law enforcement officers.

One of the ten commandments is not to take the name of the Lord in vain. That is a mistranslated from the Hebrew. It literally means not to carry the banner of the Lord falsely... or not to commit evil in the name of God. This is an especially malevolent deceit because it tempts people to hate what is good (God) unjustly. Many people today hate God because of the evil done falsely in His name, and once they do they don't go back. They just keep on hating.

I accept your point on Islam. The Islamic fascists are literally doing exactly what their (un)holy scriptures tell them to do.

That's why I said "bad" Muslims are actually good Muslims, because they don't follow everything written in the Koran.

Greg

[moralist]

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity...

Greg,

Not even the KKK?

No Christians regard the KKK as being even remotely Christian. Only the KKK members do. And trying to compare the KKK's impotent miniscule numbers to the scale of world wide Islamic fascist terrorism is trying to make quite a stretch. :

Or this:

Christian terrorism?

That's spit in the ocean compared to the worldwide scale of Islamic fascist evil.

Actually, you do say something I agree with. You said Christianity "already went through its reformation a long time ago." So at least the evil people who hijack Christianity have difficulty getting ultra-large followings and they stay on the fringe.

Islam is a much younger religion, so I believe it is playing catch-up in learning how to institutionalize the moderate middle and vilify the crazies. This stuff is slow because it has to happen over generations (as all religious reforms do) and the reform does not go in a straight line. Instead it goes up and down depending on the charisma and effectiveness of the different leaders. That offends our modern remote-control mentality. We want to change the channel all right already. Enough of that show. We keep pushing, but the damn button doesn't work.

Just look around the world, not only at the violent places. We are living smack dab in the middle of the Islamic reformation. We are witnessing it in real time, for those who see.

But not those on the extremes. They can't or won't see. (Neither case serves for my values.) These are the Islamist fundamentalists on one end and anti-Islamic bigots who want to start The Crusades all over again on the other.

Michael

I'd like to see the day when Muslims get off their asses and clean house in their OWN damned religion... and quit leaving the job to the "infidels" to have to do for them.

Greg

[Jules Troy]

Warning entering a Sharia free zone:

Set your watches ahead 1400 years.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No Christians regard the KKK as being even remotely Christian. Only the KKK members do.

Greg,

Christianity is the banner they fly under. Christianity is what they preach. The Bible is their holy book.

They're Christian.

Maybe rotten Christians, but still Christians.

Ignoring that is denying reality. I see no reason to do that.

When I, from the outside, see people resorting to this form of denial, I get suspicious. I think, why are they lying about it? What is their agenda? Can't they see references to Christianity throughout KKK writing? Can't they hear Christian stuff coming from KKK mouths?

Much better to say, yeah, they are Christians, but they distort the religion so much they are evil. They are not just hypocrites, but evil hypocrites. Other Christians wish they would leave the religion altogether and make one of their own, with their own holy books and everything.

I resonate with that. I do not resonate with the "XXX, who preaches Christianity, is not really a Christian" approach. Notice I do not go along with the "who is really a Muslim approach," either.

I'm a simple man and I like clarity, not word games. I believe many, many people think as I do and they are weary of constant attempts to rewrite reality to promote an agenda. They see it as deceit.

You're free to say as you wish, though. I just won't take it seriously if it is rooted in these word games while blanking out reality that is easy to see and hear.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'd like to see the day when Muslims get off their asses and clean house in their OWN damned religion... and quit leaving the job to the "infidels" to have to do for them.

Greg,

You mean Muslims like Glenn Mohammed?

Infidels will never reform Islam. Only Muslims will. We should encourage the ones who are working at it instead of giving ears to those who damn them.

And I empathize with your impatience. I, too, belong to the remote control culture. I wish I could push a button and change the channel. Reality does not work that way, though.

Reforming a religion is a long hard slog. It took Christianity centuries.

Michael

[Richard Wiig]

Another difference is that today evil people can't hijack Christianity

A strange saying that. What does it really mean to hijack a religion? it's meaningless really.

I accept your point on Islam. The Islamic fascists are literally doing exactly what their (un)holy scriptures tell them to do.

Which, being the case, means that Islam is not being hijacked. I still think the term is meaningless, and nothing other than another non-concept used to evade reality.

[Richard Wiig]

No Christians regard the KKK as being even remotely Christian. Only the KKK members do.

Greg,

Christianity is the banner they fly under. Christianity is what they preach. The Bible is their holy book.

They're Christian.

Maybe rotten Christians, but still Christians.

Ignoring that is denying reality. I see no reason to do that.

Which Christian doctrines support their actions? Is Christianity in fact what they do preach?

[Richard Wiig]

No Christians regard the KKK as being even remotely Christian. Only the KKK members do.

Greg,

Christianity is the banner they fly under. Christianity is what they preach. The Bible is their holy book.

They're Christian.

Maybe rotten Christians, but still Christians.

Ignoring that is denying reality. I see no reason to do that.

Which Christian doctrines support their actions? Is Christianity in fact what they do preach? If they distort things so much then clearly it can't be Christianity anymore. They have distorted it.

[Richard Wiig]

I'd like to see the day when Muslims get off their asses and clean house in their OWN damned religion... and quit leaving the job to the "infidels" to have to do for them.

Greg,

You mean Muslims like Glenn Mohammed?

Infidels will never reform Islam. Only Muslims will. We should encourage the ones who are working at it instead of giving ears to those who damn the.

Raising difficult questions that need answers. Working towards creating a sanctuary where Muslim reformers can be safe, does not damn them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here comes the rapid fire bigoted crap that makes this kind of discussion so tiring.

Dude.

You don't give a shit about what I think, or what anybody else thinks, for that matter, if they think differently than you.

And you ask questions as if you are interested.

You don't want the answers.

Not really.

You just want a hook to preach hatred with.

This question stuff from you is a silly game. Transparent as all get out.

This is a forum of ideas, not preaching. Keep it to the idea level.

I doubt you understand what that means, though.

Michael

[moralist]

No Christians regard the KKK as being even remotely Christian. Only the KKK members do.

Greg,

Christianity is the banner they fly under. Christianity is what they preach. The Bible is their holy book.

They're Christian.

No they're not, Michael, because KKK values are not Christian values. The reality you're ignoring is that no Christians regard KKK members as Christians. You have a whole religion denying the legitimacy of a tiny group of evil people by totally rejecting them.

A duck can call itself a swan all it wants... but all the swans know it's just a duck.

Greg

By the way, the exchanges between you and infidel are absolutely riveting.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

What religion does the KKK preach? Judaism? Islam? Buddhism? Scientology?

I hear Christianity coming from them every time I see them. Biblical verses. The works.

btw - You say there is a "whole religion denying the legitimacy of a tiny group of evil people," but I don't see any widespread effort by Christians to expel the KKK from Christianity. I never have seen that. I just see sporadic individuals once in a while use the rhetorical form I dislike when they talk bad about the KKK. Even then, the form I see most often is "KKK does not preach true Christianity," meaning it preaches false Christianity, but Christianity nonetheless.

And these individuals are few and far in between--they speak up most often when someone points out the KKK is a Christian group or asks if it is. In my experience, the vast majority of Christians do not address the religion of the KKK on any level.

Sin of omission, maybe?

When members of the KKK say "We are a Christian group," I generally enjoy the sound of crickets...

Michael

[william.scherk]

I don't know a lot about how the Ku Klux Klan inducts its members, or exactly how recruitment efforts stress their Christian heritage -- though I do know the founder was a Christian pastor. I did find an article at the Christian Post with quotes from one of the KKK's Imperial Wizards (excerpts below). It does seem likely that newer racist extremist groups -- as instances among the larger Christian Identity movement -- explicitly graft their bigotry and stupidity upon a religious stock. A Christian stock.

It's really too bad that some of us here quit trying to understand the scope and breadth of Islam, too bad that some are satisfied with what little they know of Islam in the world so far. It makes for cartoonish versions of complicated reality. It's a fruitless conversation if one side insists their cartoons map to reality, without distortions due to simplification.

-- I am thinking to myself something like this: "I bet both Greg and Richard could tell us things about Islam that we don't all yet know. Things like how the Ismailis differ from Twelvers and how Twelvers differ from Seveners and how Seveners are different from the Ahmaddiya, and how Indonesia's version of Islam is not the same as, say, Pakistan's version. And how many ostensibly Muslim countries from Egypt to Malaysia have condemned ISIS ... and which religious leaders have condemned ISIS... "

Sadly for me, I haven't learned much from either of these expert/informed/interested parties. I perhaps should by now know what they mean by "Real Islam," but I don't. I do know that Richard finds it scary indeed, and that Greg's koanic ignorance leaves him fairly placid no matter the subject.

KKK Leader: 'We're a Christian Organization;' Claims the Klan Is Not a Hate Group

"We don't hate people because of their race. We are a Christian organization," Frank Ancona, the imperial wizard of the Traditional American Knights of the KKK, told NBC 12, distancing himself from the Klan's violent history, asserting that he is seeking to "set the record straight."

[...]

"Because of the acts of a few rogue Klansmen, all Klansmen are supposed to be murderers, and wanting to lynch black people and we're supposed to be terrorists. That's a complete falsehood," Ancona said.

Despite their exclusive membership status, Ancona argues that it would be a mistake to call them a hate group.

"We want to keep our race the white race," said Ancona. "We want to stay white. It's not a hateful thing to want to maintain white supremacy."

Earlier this week on Twitter, while talking to a user who expressed interest in joining, Ancona described the KKK as a group that's "not about hate." And asserted that the groups is "about love for God, race and nation." He also claimed that Jesus was not a Jew, and said the crowd only "called him a Jew to mock him," adding, "the Jews killed Christ."

[BaalChatzaf]

Freud would have a marvelous time with this p;hoto.

[Richard Wiig]

It's really too bad that some of us here quit trying to understand the scope and breadth of Islam,

Quite an assumption on your part, but regardless, it is inconsequential in regards to the global Jihad. All that matters is how to deal with it, not whether or not people are getting closer to Bernard Lewis. Your view strikes me as somewhat snobbish, being more concerned with erudition than with a proper defence against a rising tyrannical force. You don't need to know that Islam had a so-called Golden Era, or that Averroes was a great man, in order to combat the Jihad. You just need to value life and detest its destruction.

I do know that Richard finds it scary

I certainly don't feel personally afraid, but any rational man should find it scary. What is rising in the Islamic world is evil and savage and indeed scary. And you are more concerned as to whether or not people have a full appreciation of Islam in all it's breadth than you do with combating that rising evil.

[moralist]

Greg,

What religion does the KKK preach? Judaism? Islam? Buddhism? Scientology?

I hear Christianity coming from them every time I see them. Biblical verses. The works.

Michael... you can't go by what people say...

...only by what they actually do.

Jesus said this better:

"Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

I get you.

I know exactly what you mean.

I got you a long time ago and, I think you already know this, I approve of your outlook (much to the chagrin of some ).

I'm just trying to keep communication consistent. It comes off to everyone as honest that way. Facing an uncomfortable fact is a virtue.

Words are labels, not concepts. Open any dictionary to any page and you see that the same word can have different meanings. Christianity is a word and a concept.

I fully agree the KKK does not practice the same concept of Christianity you do. And I agree its concept is disgusting whereas yours is good. (I suddenly hear the chagrin turn to a choking sound... )

The words and surface referents the KKK uses are the same, though. Their label is Christianity and has been from the beginning. The concept is different.

Michael

[anthony]

I don't know of any holder of any ideology who doesn't think it would be a 'good idea' if others, everybody, could see and live by The Truth as he sees it. Secularists, religionists, even Objectivists.

And if they didn't see it immediately, the rationale of some might go, perhaps they should be shown it a little forcefully - after all, it's for their own good. Islam is relatively immature, all seem to agree (though in a more advanced technological age, it 'should' be catching up far faster), but what I'm seeing among individual Muslims is a vast range and mixture of personal evolvement, as much as the broader evolution of the religion. I estimate that most of them definitely want Islam to be accepted as a more modern, established religion, alongside other major faiths, without the trappings of Old Testament-style retribution. But I conjecture there are also the vaccilators who wonder otherwise, struggling to balance The Word with a liberal view -- and always, we can't forget, the fundamentalists for whom the ends are justified by any means. It is a wide range, and each person in it may change from week to week. I was unfortunately reminded recently of this by the vitriolic reactions by some whom I'd thought of as moderate, relaxed Muslims (sophisticated and highly educated) to Israelis, and to Jews as a whole.

[Jules Troy]

For a unique eye opener, visit Israel when HAMAS is firing rockets from Gaza and then see if your views remain the same.