I don’t like the sound of that.
It’s a bad policy to let beer wear off.
We need a steady infusion of beer to make life bearable. Or beerable. 
I like to let the BAC level drop between major decisions, then ramp things up again!
wisemen said,… " beauty is in the eye of beerholder"
Or the one wearing beer goggles.
Mate, Drake invited you a while back to contribute your views to this topic and I’d like to see them too.
What’s lacking from this thread is informed opinions from any stream of Islam.
On a separate point, is that a youngish Soekarno in your new avatar?
Mod Note*
Discussions regarding Kosovo have been split off into this thread.
Please continue the discussion there…
Reopened, STAY ON TOPIC!*
To be honest man,… i dont want to be honest here,…
but i guess just to add color in this discussion,…
Islam is not a religion by just a birth to me,… I earned it,. i think george eller knows,. ppl from my region are christian majority (menado),… i can learn peace from islam.,. as we are thought to be patient (pasrah) to God’s Will,. and accept His will,… it is correct that we are subject to defend ourselves from any aggressions,…
i really hope people able to see,. that there are extremists in any form of society,. as a moslem myself,…i love peace to the max,… why,… so i could perform my pray peacefully,. can visit my friends and collegues during ramadhan,… and go to Mecca when my time is right,… and all with peace of mind,… I used to learn to read Koran where the preacher speaks nothing but how important it is to tolerate others,. and to respect others ,… as we want to be tolerated and respected,…
THIS is non political statement from me,. this just my simple explanation with regards to my religion and the Messenger that i love so,…
btw,. The guy is Grand General Soedirman,. the very first Indonesian Military Leader,. Guerilla master,… despite his power over army,. he choosed to stay out political rings,… very proffesional soldier,… sadly,. he died young,… not even reached 40 yrs oldf
Cheers
G
I’ve read several posts in this thread…and I watch the news and do my best to read and educate myself because only a fool assumes he knows everything.
“Anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day should speak with goodness, or otherwise hold his peace.” [Saheeh Muslim]
Umm…not seeing much of that, but to each his own?
I have a Muslim “comrade”, as in we exchange thoughts, via the internet. I rarely talk to him, but I find the best way to really hear people is to treat them like a human being, so as long as he does that, and I do that…we seem to be fine.
He pointed something out to me, similar to this statement;
“That belief should be based on knowledge and clear proofs, rather than on blind faith and it should also not contradict our reasoning, for why would God create reason and religion that fundamentally contradict each other?”
Ok, something just…really…didn’t make sense to me which sure if I reduced my brain power it might work out. But I over analyze, so I looked at the first part.
“That belief should be based on knowledge and clear proofs -”
Believe:
- to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so: Only if one believes in something can one act purposefully.
- to suppose or assume; understand
Belief:
- something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
- confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
- confidence; faith; trust: a child’s belief in his parents.
Therefore it is a belief, not -the- belief everyone else has to endure.
“- it should also not contradict our reasoning, -”
Our reasoning? The truth is not limited to man’s lack of understanding or reason.
“- for why would God create reason and religion that fundamentally contradict each other?”
I’ll advert to my statement prior to the quote above. It’s more like “Why would MAN create reason and religion that fundamentally contradict each other?” because apparently if anyone asks questions we behead them. That’s why “God” doesn’t.
I also hear a lot of this “I’m not an extremist.” stuff. That’s really good, why don’t we see more of them on TV bringing home a little R&R for the rest of the Islam radicals? The radicals are those who take the religion to the fullest extent. They illustrate what the religion is truly about. I mean, they’ve only been doing this “Kill the infidel.” act for over 1000+ years. But Isure, we can go ahead and rest on the possibility they’re just radicals and, it’s worth over looking that to find those ‘nice guys’.
:roll:
Check it out…and the site too. Jeeze, they sound pretty threatened to me. If someone came to me trying to convert me to Buddhism, Christian, Muslim - I’d at least listen. The truth is the truth, always has and always will be, and we’re all human, doesn’t mean I’ll buy what you’re selling but I’m not going to lie and hide from you. Of course unless, you’d like to behead me.
They are a threat, and people just love to pacify themselves. During WW2, most countries either didn’t believe, or pursued life as it was…obviously those countries who were engaged are exempt. We ignore it until it costs -us-, the -individual- something. So until you’re actually threatened it means little.
The theory is that the Koran was written by God through Mohamed and is therefore without error and infallible.
Then…why didn’t their God write it, like…[thinks] the Ten Commandments? Come on, we all make up our religions, make it perfect!
People want to avoid religion when this whole flop is a religious war.
There’s a lot that goes through my minds. I feel we wait much longer we’ll be at war. World war…that is if it just keeps going. You don’t hear anybody else doing suicide bombings their “God”…yes he gave you this wonderful life, strap some Composition B to yourself and have fun.
I don’t know everything, but I know they make a wonderful name for themselves and it’s written in the blood and guts of everyone who “turned away” from the Islam people. I’m not really interested anymore in “non extremists”…they’d better convert because they really don’t stand out from the extremists.
That’s my 2 cents and a wooden Reich’s Mark.
And that, I think, represents the attitude of a very large part of the Islamic world.
It would have been a bigger part before the Western invasion of Iraq polarised many Muslims.
Bahrain challenges the notion that all Islamic countries are now intolerant of other religions and rabidly anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.
Nono is the first Jewish woman in the Shura Council, which includes a Christian woman among its 11 female legislators. All its members are appointed by the king. The elected 40-member lower house has only one woman lawmaker.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/30/africa/ME-GEN-Bahrain-US-Ambassador.php
However, Bahrain’s history also demonstrates the damage done by the establishment and conduct of Israel to a community previously tolerant of Jews, although Bahrainis themselves seem to have remained tolerant. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/bahrain.html
I’ve read several posts in this thread…and I watch the news and do my best to read and educate myself because only a fool assumes he knows everything
Is the thing that everyone should do, first read, then answer.
Thanks for your post. 
All religions have beliefs and proofs, that satisfy them.
Islam accepts the prophets in the old and new testaments. If you discount the beliefs and proofs in Islam, you also discount those for Judaism and Christianity.
Because so far as people like me are concerned, the concept of a god who loves his creation of man and who can do such things or allow the Holocaust or Rwanda or Kampuchea or Darfur is utter bullshit.
People who want to barrack for a particular religious team have a different view, bound up in Jesuitical intellectual abstractions about free will and so on, or just zealous and irrational adherence to a given creed. If that makes them happy or helps them to accept all the evil in the world which their god allows to happen, good luck to them.
Ever heard of Joan of Arc? The Spanish Inquisitions? Galileo?
Not a lot of acceptance of contradiction by the Christians in those cases.
Current prejudice towards Muslims often results in overlooking the many attempts many of them make to engage with the non-Islamic community. I’ve accepted the invitation of Muslims like those in the article below to hear their explanation of their religion in their prayer rooms. They’re a bloody sight more welcoming and tolerant than the Catholic lay people and clergy who tried, unsuccessfully for the first fifteen years of my life, to institute my religious formation.
The same reason that you don’t turn on your TV and see news reports of traffic flowing smoothly or people living happily and co-operatively.
The only cars you’ll see have been crashed and the people will be the tiny proportion in the community who are criminals or other anti-social ratbags, like politicians.
Nothing like this article ever appears in the national press, nor are the sentiments expressed in it accepted by those who want to believe that all Muslims are intent on taking over the West and subjugating us to Islam.
Muslims reach out on Australia Day
By Roderick Shaw 15 January 2008Local Muslims will celebrate Australia Day with a special service and invitations to Marsden Park’s Baitul Huda Mosque which means House of Guidance.
The program’s co-ordinator, Mirza Sharif, said Muslims would celebrate their Australian identity while reaching out to the broader community.
“Islam teaches us to have a love of our nation,” Mr Sharif said.
"Islam teaches us we should reach out to every individual in the nation.
“As residents of Australia, we want to instil that in our children.”
The Ahmadiyya Muslim community is hosting the Australia Day celebration.
The Ahmadiyya movement teaches that no religion has a monopoly of truth and that no single religion offers spiritual salvation.
“We like to say: `Love for all, hatred for none’,” Mr Sharif said.
The Baitul Huda imam, Mahmood Ahmad, said worshippers would also pray for Australia’s well-being.
“We find Australia to be a good country with fairly tolerant people,” Mr Ahmad said.
“If some individuals do bad things, we cannot blame everybody and no one should condemn all Australians.”
He said Islam had no place for terrorism and should not be judged because of a few extremist individuals.
Mr Sharif said anti-Muslim feelings in Australia were not as strong as in some other countries and there is a growing understanding of Islam in Australia, with relations between the communities improving.
“We’ve had inter-faith meetings and visitors’ excursions here,” Mr Sharif said.
"Some Catholic school students visited the mosque one day and left knowing more about Islam than when they came in.
“We’ve also had humanitarian programs for the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.”
The Baitul Huda Mosque Australia Day program starts at 2pm on January 26.
The mosque is located at 20 Hollinsworth Road, Marsden Park.
http://rousehill.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/muslims-reach-out-on-australia-day/1162532.html
I wouldn’t.
They can all fuck off as far as I’m concerned.
There’s a world of difference between someone explaining their religion to me and trying to force me to join it.
It’s remarkable that we have laws controlling door to door sales of consumer items and telemarketers but nothing regulating self-appointed god botherers peddling their preferred brand of celestial bullshit in the belief that they have the right to convert me to their form of delusion.
Does gumalangi’s post at #123 sound like a threat?
I’d rather live among tolerant and good people like him than people who type him just because of his religion as a threat to peace.
Events in recent years indicate that people like Dubya are a much bigger threat to peace, and to people like gumalangi, than he and most Muslims are to them.
Probably the same reason that God was too busy to write it for the Catholics, who among other things are required to believe in the infallibility of the Pope, an office which, to use an unfortunate but apposite phrase, has covered itself in shit over the clerical child sexual abuse scandal.
Gott mit uns?
In God we trust?
Defender of the Faith?
A rather horrifying amount of violence perpetrated from those sources.
They’d better convert, to what?
Christianity? With its long history of tolerance, peace and love of mankind as expressed in centuries of religiously based warfare and persecution of non-believers?
Or the sort of tolerant Islam which gumalangi expressed, which is exactly the sort of Islam, and general human attitude, with which we should all engage to avoid the viciousness of crazy Islamists beheading people and crazy neo-cons blundering into countries they have no right to be in and causing more problems than they solve.
Might be helpful to add dates to those cases, as time seems to be a critical and overlooked component here. But europeans like me are anyhow more from a third faction today called atheists or agnostics. Never really understood why you and Nick jumped at this “but the christians also did…” train, it lacks significance for todays situation. But since we are talking in a historic context here, it were also christians who dismantled the stranglehold of the church through reformation and led the world to and through the area of enlightenment. Since particularly my fellow german ancestors paid a high price for the first feat I am not to inclined to allow anything to grow on our soil that could reverse those achievements.
I’m still waiting for the answer to one simple question I’ve posed:
What are the cumulative numbers of deaths due to wars, genocides, ethnic cleanings, pogroms, murders, and overall crime rates broken down by the religious majorities of the countries of origin over the last 200 years?
Then tell me, who has more of the above strife: Islamic countries, or Christian countries?
Stop beating around the bush! Because I simply cannot recall anything approaching the Holocaust of of WWII in terms of deaths of say Soviet civilians or Jews that can even be called comparable to one conducted by a Muslim society…
You call that a simple question??
And where do you see the significance? In ww1 and ww2 europeans mostly battled other europeans, they weren’t religious conflicts, not even ostensibly.
A crime like the holocaust always needs an element of opportunity. A lion in a zoo lacks the opportunity to kill you, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it if the bars were removed.
Yes and no.
Europe in 1950 was probably closer to Europe in 1550 in social attitudes than Europe in 1950, or even 1960, is to today’s very liberal attitudes.
England’s last prosecution under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was in 1944. It’s debatable that it was based on a genuine prosecution belief that the defendant was a witch. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/modern/oddities_modern.shtml Still, England was using laws against witches during WWII, which hardly suggests that England was a highly developed rational and secular society even then.
As am I.
Yes, unlike me, Nick can be hard to understand.
The significance is that Westerners aren’t that long out of the religious trees that they can label others as religious monkeys because they’re still in the religious trees.
There is also no shortage of evangelical Christians who are still further up the tree than most of their ancestors.
Is that a German nationalist or a German Lutheran / Christian view?
That may very well be true. All the more reason to be observant, it could very well go in the other direction in the same amount of time.
:mrgreen:
Hrhr, nice picture. We shouldn’t label those who make an effort to climb down, but what about those climbing up, christian, muslim or otherwise? To be honest, I don’t even understand why the US f.e. allows the christian right to teach creationist biology. There are definatly obvious flaws in certain aspects of that particular democracy and religion. I wouldn’t want 3 Million of those christian nutjobs here either, that has to be said in all fairness towards muslims. I wouldn’t want a jehovas witness as a health minister here. If I were in charge they wouldn’t get the choice to let their sick child die because they think medicine is evil and a prayer will help. They would face the same opposition from me, if I would currently consider them anywhere on the same threat level to civilization as the backward and possibly violent parts of the muslims. But the simple thruth is they aren’t.
A german historians’ view on german lutheran history. I was thinking about the thirty years war there, probably the bloodiest civil war ever, in terms of percentage killed. And those were just catholic and lutheran christians (together with half of europeans monarchs power politics). It all started out nice after luther, there was coexistence until there wasn’t.
Something else we agree on completely.
I think that many of us agree that extremism or fundamentalism or religious fascism or whatever you want to call it, whether bin Laden in his Islamic cave or Koresh in Christian Waco, is bad and incompatible with Western society.
I think the debates revolve around what that generalisation means and how we deal with them in ways compatible with our traditions of religious and other freedoms without allowing those extremisms etc to overwhelm and destroy the system that allows them to exist and even flourish in ways they can’t in their homelands.
Sorry, I can identify the problem but I don’t have the solution. 
And nobody have…
Therefore the best way for us for the while is to prevent the spread of Muslim religion at all.
As the favorable soil of religion extremism.
At least via the supportion of Chistian religion.
I don’t wish to say among the Chistians there are no maniacs… But this is our matter, to the contrast with Radical Islam.
it’s abit late i’m supposed, my children from my catholic wife’s womb are moslem, and they happy with it,… it was their choice between the two,. islam and catholic,. and they choose the former.
And somehow,. your method on how to create a better world is no different to the what Osama has said on his own version of better world,… preventing the spread of west culture to the moslem world,…
i still a strong believer of,… it is not grant you to do wrongdoing things to the wrongdoers,… it just makes you the same to the wrongdoers,…
Cheers
G
This may not be totally germain, but last night at my favorite donut shop, a car pulled in bearing the license plate “ISLAM4U” what if I dont want islam4me? or doesnt that matter I wonder?