London under attack.

[SMS]

A favorite of some on right, III%ers, and other so-called conservatives. There's a parallel and a hypocrisy here.

 

[YukonGlocker]

A favorite of the right, III%ers, and other so-called conservatives. There's a parallel and a hypocrisy here.

View attachment 102038

Exactly, and it's been pointed out here for years. It's the same thing as liberals saying "a small percentage of the millions of gun-owners kill innocent people, so we should do something about guns" and conservatives responding with "no, it's the person, not guns in general"...but in this case it's conservatives saying "a small percentage of the millions of muslims kill innocent people, so we should do something about muslims" and liberals saying "no, it's the person, not the religion in general". It's almost as if both liberals and conservatives want it both ways while simultaneously declaring the other one wrong...lol!

 

[Gunbuffer]

Way more than a small percentage of Muslims. It's not the people. It's the religion.

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

Way more than a small percentage of Muslims. It's not the people. It's the religion.

A post brilliantly explains the vast difference between true Islam and the perverted version the very, very few radical Muslims use to justify their acts of barbarism. And this is the response...

 

[Glocktogo]

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. If the evil carnage we witnessed on Sept. 11 were typical of the faith, and Islam truly inspired and justified such violence, its growth and the increasing presence of Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a terrifying prospect. Fortunately, this is not the case.

The very word Islam, which means "surrender," is related to the Arabic salam, or peace. When the Prophet Muhammad brought the inspired scripture known as the Koran to the Arabs in the early 7th century A.D., a major part of his mission was devoted precisely to bringing an end to the kind of mass slaughter we witnessed in New York City and Washington. Pre-Islamic Arabia was caught up in a vicious cycle of warfare, in which tribe fought tribe in a pattern of vendetta and countervendetta. Muhammad himself survived several assassination attempts, and the early Muslim community narrowly escaped extermination by the powerful city of Mecca. The Prophet had to fight a deadly war in order to survive, but as soon as he felt his people were probably safe, he devoted his attention to building up a peaceful coalition of tribes and achieved victory by an ingenious and inspiring campaign of nonviolence. When he died in 632, he had almost single-handedly brought peace to war-torn Arabia.

Because the Koran was revealed in the context of an all-out war, several passages deal with the conduct of armed struggle. Warfare was a desperate business on the Arabian Peninsula. A chieftain was not expected to spare survivors after a battle, and some of the Koranic injunctions seem to share this spirit. Muslims are ordered by God to "slay [enemies] wherever you find them!" (4: 89). Extremists such as Osama bin Laden like to quote such verses but do so selectively. They do not include the exhortations to peace, which in almost every case follow these more ferocious passages: "Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them" (4: 90).

In the Koran, therefore, the only permissible war is one of self-defense. Muslims may not begin hostilities (2: 190). Warfare is always evil, but sometimes you have to fight in order to avoid the kind of persecution that Mecca inflicted on the Muslims (2: 191; 2: 217) or to preserve decent values (4: 75; 22: 40). The Koran quotes the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, which permits people to retaliate eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but like the Gospels, the Koran suggests that it is meritorious to forgo revenge in a spirit of charity (5: 45). Hostilities must be brought to an end as quickly as possible and must cease the minute the enemy sues for peace (2: 192-3).

Islam is not addicted to war, and jihad is not one of its "pillars," or essential practices. The primary meaning of the word jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle." It refers to the difficult effort that is needed to put God's will into practice at every level--personal and social as well as political. A very important and much quoted tradition has Muhammad telling his companions as they go home after a battle, "We are returning from the lesser jihad [the battle] to the greater jihad," the far more urgent and momentous task of extirpating wrongdoing from one's own society and one's own heart.

Islam did not impose itself by the sword. In a statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the Koran insists, "There must be no coercion in matters of faith!" (2: 256). Constantly Muslims are enjoined to respect Jews and Christians, the "People of the Book," who worship the same God (29: 46). In words quoted by Muhammad in one of his last public sermons, God tells all human beings, "O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49: 13)--not to conquer, convert, subjugate, revile or slaughter but to reach out toward others with intelligence and understanding.

So why the suicide bombing, the hijacking and the massacre of innocent civilians? Far from being endorsed by the Koran, this killing violates some of its most sacred precepts. But during the 20th century, the militant form of piety often known as fundamentalism erupted in every major religion as a rebellion against modernity. Every fundamentalist movement I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion. Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. But in amplifying the more aggressive passages that exist in all our scriptures, they distort the tradition.

It would be as grave a mistake to see Osama bin Laden as an authentic representative of Islam as to consider James Kopp, the alleged killer of an abortion provider in Buffalo, N.Y., a typical Christian or Baruch Goldstein, who shot 29 worshipers in the Hebron mosque in 1994 and died in the attack, a true martyr of Israel. The vast majority of Muslims, who are horrified by the atrocity of Sept. 11, must reclaim their faith from those who have so violently hijacked it. - Karen Armstrong

Interesting take, but in comparing the New Testament with the only Koran, there are some passages that moderate Muslims don't readily mention. These do in fact exhort the faithful to slay non-believers wherever they may find them, and only grant quarter under extremely narrow circumstances dictated entirely by Islam. Most of the non-Islamic world are completely unaware of what Surah At-Tawbah states in the Koran, and if they have any inkling of what it says, it's through extremely diluted interpretations which don't convey the most critical aspects regarding non-believers. Even if they were aware of those verses in the Koran, it's doubtful that most could convince a member of the Caliphate to spare them in the chaotic moments of a terrorist attack.

Speaking of the Caliphate, Muhammad AND the Koran indisputably allow for a Caliph to govern and shepherd the Muslim Ummah. Yet it only lasted 32 years after Muhammad's death before it irrevocably split into Sunni v. Shia factions. In spite of this division, Caliphates ruled most Muslims all the way to 1924. Even when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in 1924 after WWI, it still didn't end as there was already a parallel Caliphate that continues to this day.

The current Caliphate which has been continuous since 1908 is the Ahmadiyya Caliphate (for the sake of distinction, let's call it the Khilafat. The current Khalifa is Mirza Masroor Ahmad, hailing from Punjab, Pakistan, but leading from London. The Kalifa is the embodiment of the "peaceful and tolerant" aspect of Islam. Here's the rub though. Depending on who you believe, the Kalifa only has anywhere from 10-150 million of the world's 2+ BILLION Muslims. Many of the remaining Muslims in the world still believe they are still within a prophesized period absent of Caliphates (since 1924). Unfortunately, even they're aware of the Silsilah Hadith, which states:

"Prophethood (meaning Muhammad (SAW) himself) will remain with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain, then Allah will raise it up whenever he wills to raise it up. Afterwards, there will be a Caliphate that follows the guidance of Prophethood remaining with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then, He will raise it up whenever He wills to raise it up. Afterwards, there will be a reign of violently oppressive [The reign of Muslim kings who are partially unjust] rule and it will remain with you for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then, there will be a reign of tyrannical rule and it will remain for as long as Allah wills it to remain. Then, Allah will raise it up whenever He wills to raise it up. Then, there will be a Caliphate that follows the guidance of Prophethood."

This is where the Caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi comes into play. He is the Caliph many faithful Muslims are fearful Muhammad prophesized as the "violently oppressive" Caliph, as described in the Silsilah Hadith. So even if the majority of the faithful Ummah detest and resent al-Baghdadi and ISIS, you aren't going to get them to declare him an Apostate, on the chance that this is as Allah wills it. al-Baghdadi believes this prophesy and that he's the rightful Caliph, therefore he is well aware that the overwhelming majority of the faithful, aren't going to oppose him any more than is necessary to secure their safety among infidels.

My call the other day for peaceful Muslims to declare ISIS as Apostasy, was really a pointed attempt to show that Islam and the Koran do in fact allow for ISIS and their "violently oppressive" existence. Even the overwhelming majority of Muslims (who are peaceful), can't or won't effectively oppose ISIS, specifically because the Koran has never been updated, modified or overhauled the way the Bible has been. Even if they took this step today, it would be hundreds of years before Islam became as peaceful as Christianity mostly is today.

ISIS has proven with their attacks in the U.S., UK the Philippines and now Iran, that they're a global Caliphate to be reckoned with. BTW, the latest edition of Rumiyah came out yesterday. Guess what? It focuses on the religious justification for it's existence and actions. So all the desperate claims by the left and Obama and London Mayor Sadiq Khan that Islam is a religion of peace are well and good, but utterly irrelevant to the facts in evidence. Islamic terrorism isn't going to go away or even abate anytime soon. It does have a religious basis as provided for by Muhammad, the Koran and the hadiths. Wishing it weren't so will not change anything.

Please fell free to rebut and discuss, I'm all ears!

 

[Gunbuffer]

A post brilliantly explains the vast difference between true Islam and the perverted version the very, very few radical Muslims use to justify their acts of barbarism. And this is the response...

GTFO and hug a mullah

 

[Ace_on_the_Turn]

GTFO and hug a mullah

I am simply in awe. At your brilliant intellect, your flawless prose, your impeachable manner. Please, gift us with more.

 

[D. Hargrove]

I am simply in awe. At your brilliant intellect, your flawless prose, your impeachable manner. Please, gift us with more.

Damn it Ace, Damn it Ace, Damn it Ace.... I wanna be in awe too!!!!! let me be in Awe, please.
Haters of all creeds, colors and religions gonna hate. The same folks that preach peace and love are the one's spewing hatred upon our fellow man. Truth is ya gotta pick your battles in life. To fight/hate/fear/demonize a religion, any religion is simply archaic and will get you nowhere anytime soon. But bless the "haters" as they are ignorant in their ways, the power of truth has not yet set them free.

 

[deerwhacker444]

The same folks that preach peace and love are the one's spewing hatred upon our fellow man. Truth is ya gotta pick your battles in life. To fight/hate/fear/demonize a religion, any religion is simply archaic and will get you nowhere anytime soon. But bless the "haters" as they are ignorant in their ways, the power of truth has not yet set them free.

Do we really need any more uncivilized Barbarians practicing their immoral and backward religions around here. The snake handling, poison drinking Pentecostals sneaking in from Arkansas and SE OK are all the backwards culture we need, it's not necessary to bring in the head choppers and kooch cutters as well..

*apologies and no offense to any of our resident snake handling, poison drinking Pentecostals, of course*

 

[D. Hargrove]

o we really need any more uncivilized Barbarians practicing their immoral and backward religions around here.

I see what ya did there, ya inserted a link that leads to a female genital mutilation story. Those clitclippers are evil, evil, evil!!!!!