Religions > Atheism > Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!!
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michael Wallace" |
| Date: |
15 Jan 2006 12:05:56 AM |
| Object: |
Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 13:47:50 +1100, (Rifty) wrote:
}Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
}
}> The point was that with the declining rates of birth in the West and
}> the increase of Muslim immigrants and their higher birth rates at some
}> point many Western nations will become majority Muslim within several
}> decades. I know that you can't really imagine, or accept, this
}> happening, but since you think you're pretty bright, what do you think
}> as a hypothetical will happen to those countries at that time?
}
}You want a hypothetical, huh? Oh well, everyone's right with those, no
}matter what they say, until proven otherwise. I'll ignore your earlier
}smart-arse comments as they say more about you than they do about me.
Er, you started the smart arsed comments, and telling me that Muslims
weren't around in Roman times WTF was that?
}I'll also ignore the fact that you can't possibly know what I can
}imagine or accept will happen, even though you are also no prophet and
}can't know what will happen either.
}
}So, let's assume what seems to you to be the horrific scenario - that in
}'several' decades, 'many' Western nations will be Muslim. OK, that's
}the hypothetical - let's run with it. I'll humour you, though I will
}then explain to you why this scenario is never going to happen.
}
}If there are a majority of Muslims and democracy is still in fashion,
}and if the majority of Muslims are spread evenly enough in the country,
}then presumably you could have a Muslim PM, a Muslim dominated democracy
}and civil service. But guess what? You would also have a vast variety of
}Muslim beliefs and practices, Muslim rivalries and power broking. One
}thing's for certain - it won't be a monolithic form of Islam, and that
}will make a huge difference. Islam only *looks* relatively monolithic in
}western countries because tiny Muslim minorities who feel under threat
}minimise their differences - and bear in mind that Muslims of all sorts
}of ethnic backgrounds have gone to western countries. All the apparent
}unity will disappear the larger the Muslim (or any other) community
}grows. Intermarriage with non-Muslims - very common in Islam where men
}take non-Muslim wives - waters down the orthodoxy and the children of
}those marriages have a different perspective on the religion than either
}of their parents. Marriage with other Muslims not of the same ethnicity
}- again, not unusual in Muslim communities abroad, will also have this
}effect.
}
}There will be other challenges for politicians that could easily make
}religious affiliation secondary to some other cause. There will be new
}technologies that will revolutionise thinking in ways your tiny mind
}cannot hope to grasp.
}
}Some Muslims will throw off the shackles of dogma
}just as Christians have and have no trouble living with their
}neighbours. Read about Mughal rule in India and you'll get a clue.
}
}You appear to think that religion is going to dominate the 21st century.
}I very much doubt it, and the changes will come more and more rapidly
}the longer ahead your 'several' decades stretch.
}
}Alternatively, of course, if communalists like yourself have their way,
}there will be as much mayhem and bloodshed as you need in order to
}create your self-fulfilling prophecy - the one you peddle with such
}venom and ignorance on this newsgroup.
}
}That do for a start?
}
}Now here's why your scenario won't happen. You might have to join up the
}dots, which will be a challenge for you, but give it a go.
}
}The birthrate argument contains a huge and fatal fallacy. It assumes
}that little if anything changes over decades to affect the rate of
}births. That's like the bright sparks who say, "If the earth continues
}its present birthrate, we'll be standing shoulder to shoulder on every
}bit of land." Long before we stand shoulder to shoulder with nothing to
}eat or drink or a bed to lie on, other factors will have changed the
}outcome.
}
}It's the same with your scenario. When one community produces lots of
}children in a modern western state, these kids can't get educated
}properly and thus are relegated to the worst jobs and the lowest pays.
}People quickly learn that the smaller the family, the better the
}education and all that goes with it. Result? declining birthrate in that
}community. And if you want to compare it with black ghettoes in the US,
}remember that Islam is so family orientated and determined to protect
}'family values' that the two are not comparable in any meaningful way.
}
}And IF the rate of population growth in one community starts to make an
}impact on others, they will make certain adjustments. As parity in
}population rates start to be approached, the majority will make sure
}that it elects people who look after its interests. 'Democracy' will be
}much more carefully managed to ensure that power does not slip away.
}The closer that the Muslim and non-Muslim group approach parity, the
}more this game will be played, and without political power, the minority
}group will be constantly frustrated in its attempt to achieve that goal.
}
}As well, your silly scenario totally ignores other relevant factors.
}There are large non-Muslim minorities in the west as well as Muslim.
}Hindu, Chinese, African, West Indian.... very few of them Muslim.
}Presumably they will be growing at a similar rate to the Muslims, so
}that makes the idea of Muslim numerical domination very unlikely indeed.
}
}Finally, there is no way that this hypothetical parity could be achieved
}within a few decades - let's say 5 decades if you look at present
}figures and pretend that they won't alter. In 50 years, so many other
}factors will have intruded that what you're arguing will have little
}relevance to the political, social and religious realities of the
}mid-twenty-first century.
}
}More than enough. Your attention span won't cope.
}
I will address some of your Brave New World scenario points next time.
I personally disagree with your ideas given what we see in Islamic
countries today along with how things are shaping up with Muslim
immigration into the West I believe there is a very strong possibility
of a new Dark Age if Islam achieves dominance and given it's
aggressiveness and growth rate that makes it a very real threat. Of
course any view that disagrees with yours must be wrong which is fine.
But no intelligent person would disagree with you, right? You think
you're a clever guy, maybe you are but then what's a clever guy doing
running a schlepy computer training business?.
Anyway, to further clarify what I am referring to it's easier to post
a chapeter of a book called The Lucifer Principle printed in 1994 it
has proven to be quite prophetic. Another worthwhile book is The
Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, both excellent books,
both written by raving lunatics according to the likes of you.
_Are There Killer Cultures?_
"Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy,
seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and
wailing, ride his gelding (and) use the bodies of his women as a
nightshirt and support."
-- Genghis Khan
"He butchered three of them with an ax and decapitated them.
In other words, instead of using a gun to kill them he took a hatchet
to chop their heads off. He struggled face to face with one of them,
and throwing down his ax managed to break his neck and devour his
flesh in front of his comrades. ...I ...award him the Medal of the
Republic."
-- General Mustafa T'las, Syria's Minister of Defense praising
a hero of the 1973 war with Israel before the Syrian National
Assembly.
"Appeasing of governments which revel in slaughter is an
invitation to worldwide catastrophe."
-- Fang Lizhi.
Some readers will be outraged by my presumption. How dare I
regard any group as barbaric. What appalling ethnocentrism! There are
no barbarians. There are simply cultures we haven't taken the time to
understand. Cultures to whom we haven't given sufficient aid. Cultures
in need of development. Beneath the skin, all men and women are the
same. They have the same needs, the same emotions, and the same
ideals. If you simply took those folks you speak of so contemptuously
out for a cup of coffee, you would discover that they are just like
you and me.
But there are barbarians -- people whose cultures glorify the
act of murder, and elevate violence to a holy deed. These cultures
portray the extinction of other human beings as a validation of
manliness, a heroic gesture in the name of truth, or simply a good way
to get ahead in the world.
Certain Islamic societies tend to be high on this list. On
November 28, 1943, Franklin Roosevelt met secretly with Joseph Stalin
and Winston Churchill in Iran. When Roosevelt returned home, he sent a
telegram to the Shah thanking the Iranian ruler for his hospitality.
The President explained that he'd noticed the hills in Iran were bare.
American agronomists had learned to prevent soil erosion and enrich
the landscape by planting trees on slopes like these. Roosevelt
suggested an experimental tree-planting program. The Iranian leader
thanked FDR. But privately the young potentate was highly insulted:
According to Moslem standards, the gift demeaned his virility. Stalin
was far more understanding of Mohammedan culture. He offered the Shah
tanks and planes. {29}
Hafez al-Assad, current leader of Syria, worked hard to
solidify his position as the country's undisputed ruler. He didn't do
it by selling Syria's citizens on the values of his political
platform. Instead, he slaughtered 20,000 Moslem Fundamentalists who
opposed him. {30} According to The New York Times, in 1980 Yasir
Arafat, the Palestinian leader, had a Lebanese imam (a holy man
roughly equivalent to a pastor) shot in the head for refusing to
preach the propaganda of the PLO. Then Arafat visited the imam's
Lebanese home, took his ten-year-old son aside, explained to the
little boy that his father had been murdered by the Israelis, handed
the lad a gun, and said, "When you grow up, use this to take revenge."
Arafat wanted the boy to be a killer. {31}
Holiness, righteousness, and even day-to-day propriety in
Islamic cultures are based on the example of Mohammed. {32} Though
Islamic literature praises Mohammed as a man of peace, he was also a
military leader. In 624 AD, The Prophet announced the concept of the
Jihad -- the holy war. He said in the blessed book, The Koran, "I will
instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above
their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. ...And slay them
wherever ye catch them...." In the next nine years, the man of peace
ordered a minimum of 27 military campaigns. He personally led nine of
them. {33}
It is not surprising that Moslem jurists would later declare
that there are two worlds: the world of Islam -- Dar al-Islam -- and
the non-Islamic world -- Dar al-Harb. These two territorial spheres,
explained the Moslem scholars, are in a state of perpetual war. {34}
According to some Koranic interpreters, any leader who fails to "make
wide slaughter" in the land of the infidel is committing a sin. A
statesman is only allowed the temporary expedient of peace if his
forces are not yet strong enough to win. {35} This may explain why
Elias Canetti, in his Nobel Prize-winning book Crowds and Power, calls
Islam a killer religion, literally "a Religion of War." {36}
In reality, Islam, like most other religions, has both its
positive and its negative sides. It imposes a host of admirable
responsibilities on its adherents: for example, zakat, the
presentation of regular, substantial contributions to the poor. Allah
also demands that his followers "give glad tidings to those who
believe and work righteousness," {37} "cover not Truth with falsehood
nor conceal the Truth when ye know (what it is)," {38} and "treat
with kindness your parents and kindred and orphans and those in need."
{39} However, Allah issues many a darker order as well. And the
percentage of modern Islamic adherents who have focused on Allah's
calls to combat is dismaying.
Today, the descendants of the Persians who fought the Greeks
in 480 BC are devout Moslems. In the '30s, one of them labored
diligently to become an Islamic scholar. He pored over the Koran for
years. As he demonstrated his superior knowledge of Allah's
pronouncements, he rose in the ranks of Iranian holy men. Finally he
achieved the penultimate title -- ayatollah (roughly equivalent to a
Catholic cardinal). {40} His name was Ruhollah Khomeini, and he wrote
books, pamphlets, and even taped and distributed his speeches to
inspire the citizens of Iran with sacred virtue. The ayatollah's words
roused Iranians to overthrow the shah and usher in a government based
on strict Islamic doctrine.
What did the ayatollah's pronouncements say? Among other
things, that infidels are like dogs. Their existence is an affront to
Allah. Here's how the ayatollah himself put it:
"...Moslems have no alternative... to an armed holy war
against profane governments. ...Holy war means the conquest of all
non-Moslem territories. ...It will ...be the duty of every able-bodied
adult male to volunteer for this war of conquest, the final aim of
which is to put Koranic law in power from one end of the earth to the
other. {41} "The leaders of the USSR and of England and the president
of the United States are ...infidels....{42} ...Every part of the
body of a non-Moslem individual is impure, even the hair on his head
and his body hair, his nails, and all the secretions of his body. Any
man or woman who denies the existence of God, or believes in His
partners [the Christian Trinity], or else does not believe in His
Prophet Mohammed, is impure (in the same way as are excrement, urine,
dog, and wine)[sic]." {43}
Concluded the Ayatollah, "Islam does not allow peace
between... a Moslem and an infidel." {44}
Though many of us imagine that the promotion of harmony is a
prime objective of every major world faith, the ayatollah disagreed.
"The leaders of our religion were all soldiers, commanders and
warriors," he wrote, "...they killed and they were killed." The
concept of a peaceful prophet was so alien to the ayatollah that he
was convinced Christ's message had been deliberately distorted by
Westerners. Said Khomeini, "This idea of turning the other cheek has
been wrongly attributed to Jesus (peace be unto him); it is those
barbaric imperialists that have attributed it to him. Jesus was a
prophet, and no prophet can be so illogical." {45}
Khomeini's dicta may seem irrelevant now that he has long been
dead, but his words have actually gained in influence since his
demise. Early in the '90s, Iraq's humiliation in the Gulf War
undermined the credibility of the secular Moslem regimes, leaving a
power vacuum into which Fundamentalism leaped. {46} There are
currently roughly one 100,000,000 Islamic fundamentalists
(rechristened "Islamic revivalists" by some scholars {47}). Activists
among them, employing the slogan "Africa for Islam," are making
diligent -- and often violent -- efforts to seize power in numerous
sub-Saharan states. {48} They have gained sufficient favor with South
Africa's ANC that Nelson Mandela, in a 1992 visit to Teheran, told the
Iranians that Africa must be reshaped along the lines of the Iranian
revolution. {49} (Ironically, when South African leader Bishop Desmond
Tutu gave a speech to a Palestinian crowd in 1989 lauding Palestinian
interests, he failed to realize that the Arabic banners carried by his
listeners read "On Saturday We Will Kill the Jews, on Sunday We Will
Kill the Christians!") {50}
Khomeini-style fundamentalists have become vigorous political
forces in areas like China's Xinjiang region (where as of 1994,
Beijing officials were seriously concerned that the area's
inhabitants, influenced by propaganda from Iran, would attempt to
break away and found a fundamentalist Islamic republic). {51} Islamic
fundamentalists have been involved in the Indian state of Kashmir's
vicious civil war. {52} They've been active in Malaysia, {53}
Thailand (where Moslem guerilla forces were fighting in 1993), {54}
and the Sudan {55} (where an Iranian-backed fundamentalist regime is
engaged in a campaign to subjugate, exterminate or -- according to the
United Nations International Labor Organization -- literally enslave
the black Christians and animists in the southern region of the
country). {56} Followers of Khomeini have been moving aggressively in
Algeria, {57} Jordan, {58} Tunisia, {59} Lebanon, Kuwait, {60}
Pakistan, {61} Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan (where by 1992
posters and portraits of the ayatollah had become a particularly
strong sales item in local stores), {62} France, {63} and, according
to Greek Defense Minister Ioannis Varvitsiotes and the University of
Belgrade's Dragoljub R. Zivojinovic, Czechoslovakia, Albania and
Yugoslavia. {64} In many of these cases, fundamentalists are sweeping
elections, manipulating generals, funding insurrections, sponsoring
terrorism, or actually taking control. {65}
Islamic fundamentalists have poured money into America's black
communities in an effort that has brought more than a million U.S.
African Americans over to the one true faith. {66} While most of
these converts remain peaceful, Al-Fuqra, a predominantly
African-American Islamic group under the leadership of Pakistani
Sheikh Mubarak Ali Jilani Hashemi, has declared a jihad in North
America, and, according to law enforcement agencies, has been involved
in bombings, murders and other forms of bloodshed in Colorado,
Arizona, Pennsylvania and Canada. It has been reported that Al-Fuqra
also had a hand in the 1993 effort to blow up New York's United
Nations building, the city's FBI headquarters, and its Holland and
Lincoln Tunnels. {67}
When the Iranians declared a death-sentence on British author
Salman Rushdie, black American imams everywhere from Brooklyn to Los
Angeles enthusiastically supported the move. (So did the Moslem head
of UCLA's Middle Eastern Studies Department.) Even a loyal
African-American Gulf War veteran, won over to Allah in 1991, stated
after his change in faith that "soon it [Islam] will take over all of
America, then the world." {68}
The U.S. African-American community is only a beachhead.
Islamic forces have been attempting to gain control of U.S. media
outlets in the hope of using them as propaganda tools for the Moslem
point of view. The Saudis and America's Christian fundamentalists
battled in the early '90s for the right to purchase America's second
largest wire service, UPI. Ultimately, the Arabs won. In addition,
Amal Adam, the former head of Saudi Arabia's equivalent of the CIA,
was the primary backer of a British-based firm called Capcom, whose
chief officers were the heads of TCI (Telecommunications
Incorporated), America's largest player in the cable television game.
In 1993, TCI made headlines when it came within a hair's breadth of
merging with Bell/Atlantic. Had the effort succeeded, it would have
formed what financial analysts universally heralded as one of the
giants of the coming interactive media revolution, giving the Saudis
additional leverage for American media manipulation.
The ground is ripe for worldwide Islamic fundamentalist
expansion. Mohammedanism is currently the fastest-growing religion on
the planet. {69} There are a billion Moslems -- as many as Jews and
Christians combined -- and that number is increasing daily. According
to Cairo University's Professor Ali Dessouki {70}, 50 countries are
now Islamic. What's more, there are massive Mohammedan populations
everywhere from Nigeria to Mongolia, the former Soviet Central Asian
republics, {71} Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The countries with
the world's largest Islamic bodies of citizenry are not even parts of
the Arab world -- they are Indonesia and China. {72} To top it off,
Islamic public opinion, if the Arabs, {73} Iranians and Pakistanis are
an accurate barometer, is virulently anti-American.
Today's Islam extremism is the perfect example of a meme grown
ravenous. Saddam Hussein, in his 1990 drive for expansion, claimed to
be following Allah's message. The late General Zia ul-Haq, former head
of Pakistan, who masterminded the fundamentalist-led Afghan resistance
efforts using U.S. funds, kept a map in his office with all Iran,
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia marked in green. It was
the symbol of his ultimate ambition -- unified Moslem rule extending
through every green-marked territory. {74} In 1990, one enthusiastic
Turkish official, minister of state Ercüment Konukman, noted the
substantial Turkish populations in the former Soviet Union and China,
and looked forward to uniting them "under the colors of the Turkish
flag." {75}
A fundamentalist clergyman in Lebanon says, "Don't believe
that we want an Islamic republic in Lebanon. ...What Hezbollah wants
is a world Islamic republic." {76} Cairo constitutional lawyer Dr.
A.K. Aboulmagd adds, {77} "I even venture sometimes to say that Islam
was not meant to serve the early days of Islam, when life was
primitive and when social institutions were still stable and working.
It was... meant to be put in a freezer and to be taken out when it
will be really needed. And I believe that the time has come. ...The
mission of Islam lies not in the past, but in the future." Dr. Abd El
Sabour Shahin of Cairo goes a step further and warns that Western
civilization makes a big mistake when it "thinks it will endlessly
remain dominant." {78} Even secular Moslem intellectuals teaching in
the top universities of the United States and Europe have joined the
expansionist bandwagon, calling for a leader who will pull world Islam
together into an unstoppable force. {79}
"Islam will... take over the world," said an Egyptian in Cairo
in the late '80s to a crew from Britain's Granada TV. No isolated,
gray-haired zealot, he was one of a new breed of young university
graduates, members of the middle class, and professionals, often among
the highest achievers in their region. These religious devotees do not
have a happy fate in store for those of us in the west. Explained the
young Egyptian, "Islam is a tree that feeds on blood and grows on
severed limbs." {80}
In the early and mid-nineties, a spate of books and articles
appeared proclaiming that, despite such rhetoric, Islam poses no
geopolitical danger. Abul Aziz Said, of the School of International
Service at American University, said point blank that "Islamic
fundamentalism is not the enemy of the west." "Islamic
fundamentalism," he declared, "is a defensive social and political
movement, a reaction to westernization and modernization." It is, he
insisted, "an attempt to restore an old civilization, not create a new
empire." Yet, later in his article, Said said that ancient imperial
triumphs were at the heart of the "world influence" fundamentalists
were legitimately attempting to "regain." And the veil slipped a bit
from his true feelings when, zeroing in on his conclusion, he declared
that "imitative responses of Muslims to the challenge of the West...
evince... identification with the 'enemy.' " {81}
John L. Esposito, former president of the Middle East Studies
Association, criticized "the creation of an imagined monolithic Islam"
and contended that those apprehensive about fundamentalism "fail to
account for the diversity of Muslim practice." {82} Palestinian-born
Columbia University scholar Edward Said echoed the assertion that
diversity renders the notion of an Islamic threat, in Said's word,
"phony." {83} However, diversity within a cultural community does not
necessarily halt its expansionist drive. The European West spread its
often brutal control over every continent while so divided and
"diverse" that it was engaged in an almost nonstop series of
internecine wars. And early Islam conquered a territory almost equally
vast while its leaders squabbled and fought, and its religious sects
were rent by schism.
Esposito, like many other writers on the topic, justifies the
ferocity of anti-western Islamic sentiments by reminding us that "many
in the Arab and Muslim world view the history of Islam and of the
Muslim world's dealings with the West as one of victimization and
oppression at the hands of an expansive imperial power." There's no
question he is right. {84} However the Islamic world held the upper
hand in the struggle between the Occident and the Levant for over
1,100 years. The West managed to turn the tables briefly when the
Crusaders established a short-lived middle eastern toehold. However,
the Crusader states were not planted on undisputed Moslem land. The
heartland of the Islamic empire, the section bordering the
Mediterranean rim, was a deeply Christian area, a vital spiritual and
economic core of a "Western" imperium which, for over six hundred
years before Mohammed's birth, had included the non-Arab provinces of
Turkey (known then as Asia, Galatia, Bithynia, Pontus and Cappadocia
-- where St. Paul established many of the first churches), Syria
(whose city of Damascus was one of the earliest major Christian
centers), Israel (homeland to the Jews since roughly 1,200 B.C., and,
despite Roman efforts to expel the native population, still dotted
with Hebrew villages when the Moslems arrived sword in hand), Egypt
(populated at the time by rabidly Christian descendants of the
pyramid-builders, along with significant numbers of Greeks and Jews),
Libya (the former Cyrenaica), Tunisia (Carthage and its environs,
where St. Augustine was born and eventually became bishop of Hippo),
and Northern Algeria and Morocco (then called Mauritania). These were
the countries that had produced the Bible, the Christian monastic
movement (born in Egypt), St. Jerome's conversion (in what is now
Turkey), St. John of Damascus, the famed early church historian Bishop
Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen, Saint Athanasius, the Aryan heresy, a
significant number of fathers of the Roman Catholic faith and the
Eastern Orthodox creed.
The knights of the cross did not retain their reconquered
kingdoms long. They took Jerusalem in 1099 and were expelled by 1187.
Nonetheless, according to historian Amin Maalouf, the author of The
Crusades Through Arab Eyes, modern Arabs tend to see today's world
events as a continuation of the Crusades.
For 600 years after the fall of the Crusader states, Islamic
forces returned to the attack, capturing Greece and chunks of Eastern
Europe, raiding towns in Sicily and the Italian coasts for goods and
slaves, preying on Mediterranean shipping, chaining Europeans like
Miguel Cervantes to the oars of their galleys, and until 1826 forcing
the Christian citizens of Yugoslavia and Albania to give up their
children to Moslem overlords (who brought up the males on the Koran,
then turned them into soldiers known as Janissaries).
It wasn't until 1798 that Napoleon began to shift the balance
between East and West again when he briefly invaded Egypt, from which
he was ignominiously expelled by the British and the Turks. But the
heavy-handed fertile crescent "imperialism" so resented by the Arabs
didn't begin until after the First World War, and it lasted less than
40 years. Southern Spain remained under the Moslem yoke for 781 years,
Greece for 381, and pieces of longtime Christian terrain like St.
Augustine's North African homeland and the religious and secular
capital that eventually eclipsed Rome in power and splendor --
Byzantium -- are still in Moslem hands today. Syria, on the other
hand, was only under western control for 21 years, Egypt for 67, and
Iraq a mere 15. If one accepts Esposito's reasoning, Westerners -- who
were bludgeoned by "an expansive imperial" Islam for well over a
millennium -- have more right to fear an Islamic revival than Moslems
have to hate the West.
More to the point, Phebe Marr, of the National Defense
University's Institute for Strategic Studies, contends that militant
extremist groups dedicated to violence and an absolute rejection of
the West are small. In addition, she claims, "The radicals do not have
a broad base of popular support. ...Even in Lebanon, however, where
such groups flourish, a poll of university students taken in 1987
indicated that more than 90% disapproved of... assassinations, hostage
taking, and sabotage of government installations." On the other hand,
Marr admits that "there may be only a thin line between the open,
mainstream movements and their clandestine [violent] counterparts."
She concludes that "the Islamic revival is not only here to stay but
is likely to be a leading domestic political force shaping the
Mediterranean region during the coming decades. Despite political
vicissitudes, the various movements loosely collected under the rubric
of 'Islamic Fundamentalism' have shown a staying power that indicates
they have achieved both breadth and depth in their indigenous
societies." {85}
Like Marr, Abbas Hamdani, professor of Middle Eastern history
at the University of Wisconsin, asserts that "to propose a monolithic
view of Islam and then equate it with fundamentalism would be wrong...
Except for mass followings in Algeria and Tunisia, fundamentalists
represent a small segment, although a popular, vocal, and highly
motivated one, of the total population. [Hamdani overlooks the Sudan
and Afghanistan, both of which, at this writing, were in
fundamentalist hands.] Even in Iran, which appears to be totally
convulsed in fundamentalism, it is a small minority that has
monopolized power." {86} As the case of Iran demonstrates, it only
takes a minority to seize control of a country, especially if that
minority is enthusiastic about using violence. In Germany's July,
1932, elections, 63% of the voters cast their ballots against the
Nazis. By the November elections, the anti-Nazi vote was even larger.
Yet Adolf Hitler was able to achieve dictatorial power only four
months later on March 23, 1933, in part because his storm troopers --
like the militant gangs controlled by the fundamentalists -- were
willing to murder their opponents. Khomeini's works advocate
vigorously converting or murdering all those who do not embrace
Allah's holy meme. Then they urge a holy war on the nations of the
West. The ayatollah wrote, "Any non-religious [i.e. non-Islamic]
power, whatever form or shape, is necessarily an atheistic power, the
tool of Satan; it is part of our duty to stand in its path and to
struggle against its effects. Such Satanic power can engender nothing
but corruption on earth, the supreme evil which must be pitilessly
fought and rooted out. To achieve that end, we have no recourse other
than to overthrow all governments that do not rest on pure Islamic
principles, and are thus corrupt and corrupting, and to tear down the
traitorous, rotten, unjust, and tyrannical administrative systems that
serve them.... If Islamic civilization had governed the West, we would
no longer have to put up with these barbaric goings-on unworthy even
of wild animals... [Western governments are] using inhuman laws and
inhuman political methods... Misdeeds must be punished by the law of
retaliation: cut off the hands of the thief; kill the murderer instead
of putting him in prison; flog the adulterous woman or man. Your
concerns, your 'humanitarian' scruples, are more childish than
reasonable." Khomeini had a prescription for such problems: "All of
humanity must strike these troublemakers [the governments of the West]
with an iron hand... Islam has obliterated many tribes because they
were sources of corruption [i.e. sources of non-Islamic influence]..."
Judging from the Ayatollah's rhetoric, the next tribes he would have
liked to see obliterated were those in Europe and America. {87}
Allah is rapidly providing Khomeini's followers with a sword
to carry out their master's wishes. He has offered Islam the fire in
which the Koran says those who follow false faiths are destined to
burn: nuclear weaponry. He has also provided the long range missiles
needed to use it. {88} According to the late imam's logic, there may
be only one just and righteous thing to do: employ this technology to
wipe out recalcitrant heathens like you and me.
The modern growth of Islam is the coalescence of a
superorganism drawn together by the magnetic attraction of a meme. But
this meme has an advantage: The social body it is trying to pull
together has existed as a unified social beast in the past. The old
reflexes of solidarity are still there, waiting to be aroused. The
meme of the new Islam is not laboring to generate a small and fragile
embryo. It is simply attempting to awaken a sleeping giant.
.
|
|
| User: "Lost Planet Airman" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 12:50:10 AM |
|
|
Er, you started the smart arsed comments, and telling me that Muslims
weren't around in Roman times WTF was that?
Do you know when Rome existed? If you are saying WTF for someone
claiming that Muslims were not around then, you are the idiot. There
were no muslims during Roman times, if think they were, you need to go
dig out a history book. Or at the very least, watch the History Channel
on occasion.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Rifty" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 02:58:34 AM |
|
|
Lost Planet Airman <knightrd@comcast.net> wrote:
Er, you started the smart arsed comments, and telling me that Muslims
weren't around in Roman times WTF was that?
Do you know when Rome existed? If you are saying WTF for someone
claiming that Muslims were not around then, you are the idiot. There
were no muslims during Roman times, if think they were, you need to go
dig out a history book. Or at the very least, watch the History Channel
on occasion.
I suspect, in defence of this guy who seems incapable of making himself
clear, that he was clawing his way towards saying that he already knew
the Muslims weren't around at the time. He was cranky with me for
implying that maybe he didn't. I'm guessing that that's the gist of it,
even though your intepretation is more logical.
Rifty
--
Academic and Computing Help
http://rifty.net
.
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Wallace" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 03:12:41 AM |
|
|
On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:58:34 +1100, (Rifty) wrote:
}Lost Planet Airman <knightrd@comcast.net> wrote:
}
}> > Er, you started the smart arsed comments, and telling me that Muslims
}> > weren't around in Roman times WTF was that?
}
}> Do you know when Rome existed? If you are saying WTF for someone
}> claiming that Muslims were not around then, you are the idiot. There
}> were no muslims during Roman times, if think they were, you need to go
}> dig out a history book. Or at the very least, watch the History Channel
}> on occasion.
}
}I suspect, in defence of this guy who seems incapable of making himself
}clear, that he was clawing his way towards saying that he already knew
}the Muslims weren't around at the time. He was cranky with me for
}implying that maybe he didn't. I'm guessing that that's the gist of it,
}even though your intepretation is more logical.
}
If I don't make myself clear then ask me to clarify, don't assume. You
do know what happens when you assume?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Rifty" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 04:02:13 AM |
|
|
Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
If I don't make myself clear then ask me to clarify, don't assume. You
do know what happens when you assume?
Jayzus - he's drowning and he'd kark it rather than to take a helping
hand to pull him out of his own sewer.
Sad case.
Rifty
--
Academic and Computing Help
http://rifty.net
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Wallace" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 03:09:31 AM |
|
|
On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:50:10 -0600, Lost Planet Airman
<knightrd@comcast.net> wrote:
}
}> Er, you started the smart arsed comments, and telling me that Muslims
}> weren't around in Roman times WTF was that?
}
}
}Do you know when Rome existed?
Yeah, do you?
}If you are saying WTF for someone
}claiming that Muslims were not around then, you are the idiot. There
}were no muslims during Roman times, if think they were, you need to go
}dig out a history book. Or at the very least, watch the History Channel
}on occasion.
Read the original post, I didn't even mention Muslims in connection
with Rome. FFS...
.
|
|
|
| User: "Rifty" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 04:02:13 AM |
|
|
Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
Read the original post, I didn't even mention Muslims in connection
with Rome. FFS...
and not the grey matter to comprehend why it was mentioned by me.
Rifty
--
Academic and Computing Help
http://rifty.net
.
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Wallace" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
17 Jan 2006 02:25:18 AM |
|
|
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 23:04:49 +1100, (Rifty) wrote:
}Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
}
}> you are not the fount of
}> all knowledge.
}
}That's 'font' of all knowledge, Mikey.
}Please, if you're going to abuse me, get your cliches in order.
}
Maybe you should go ***** yourself, pretentious little git:
http://raymondpward.typepad.com/rainman2/2004/09/font_v_fount.html
http://www.ask.com/reference/dictionary/ahdict/17736/fount
Obviously a noob on Usenet, only in your case a boob as well.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Rifty" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
17 Jan 2006 02:56:24 AM |
|
|
Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
http://raymondpward.typepad.com/rainman2/2004/09/font_v_fount.html
'Fount" is for illiterates, buckeroo. No wonder you chose it. Ask
someone who knows - that's anyone with an education in English language.
Real English, not American.
Rifty
--
Academic and Computing Help
http://rifty.net
.
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Wallace" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
17 Jan 2006 06:14:18 AM |
|
|
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:56:24 +1100, (Rifty) wrote:
}Michael Wallace <carl@partsdirectaust.com.au> wrote:
}
}> http://raymondpward.typepad.com/rainman2/2004/09/font_v_fount.html
}
}'Fount" is for illiterates, buckeroo. No wonder you chose it. Ask
}someone who knows - that's anyone with an education in English language.
}Real English, not American.
}
Actually you've even gotten that wrong, idiot. It's the other way
around but don't let anything get in the way of making a ***** of
yourself.
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Hunter1" |
|
| Title: Re: Evolution Proven at last - suck on this, Creationidiots!!! |
15 Jan 2006 04:30:41 AM |
|
|
Michael Wallace wrote:
But no intelligent person would disagree with you, right?
Bahahahahahaha! Look at the fucking hypocrite trying to duck his way out
of not having a fucking clue what he just read... Perhaps Rifty should
have been typing a tad slower huh??? 8]
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
