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SUBMISSION

Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
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Fifteen years ago, I was introduced to a young man who had escaped from Paris. Paris? Yes, Paris. He was the oldest son of a father who was an orthodox Muslim. They were quite well off. He was not too sure of his father's business. He was 20, had excellent grades and was a top athlete. After he graduated, his father informed him it was now time for him to go back to his town of origin and study to become an Imam. However, he was raised as a Parisian, speaking perfect French as well as Arabic. He studied the Koran but as he grew up he contrasted his world of Christian sophistication with his duties and attitudes of a Muslim cleric. No comparison, Unknown to his father, he took increments of "spending" money from the ATM card his father gave him and instead of living expenses he had saved the money until when he was to return to his Arabic roots, he traded in his plane ticket for one to London. I won't detail how he changed his identity and wound up in NYC, and eventually the heartland. Here is his view of Islam:
(I have edied it for brevity). "Islam is based on virtue; the very word means 'submission.'' It is truly not a religion, nor is it merely a set of beliefs but it is an entire way of life. The Koran doesn't simply govern everyone's conduct it is extended to all aspects of society. It regulates law, war, peace, education, economics, sexual conduct, trade and family. Sharia governs everything. It mitigates what it considers the rot of all other beliefs."

Between the Koran and Sharia, if one is to believe, there is no possible way that any Muslim true believer can ever be at peace with any other philosophy or way of life. All of those seeking peace will inevitably be frustrated because they are dealing with shadows. A charade being put on by Muslims for the benefit, eventually of themselves. All those Western peacemakers know that, yet they continue to participate in a game where the rules all favor their opponents. Everyone, Obama, Trump, Bush, Clinton, knows this, yet they continue to go through the motions -- and my question is, why on earth do they continue to do it.?


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  • Posted by roneida 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    dino,, as the old saying goes, "Hang together or hang separately." Scary thought but it may become the life saving motto of those of us who believe in Atlas and John Galt. It may be that all we have is us.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Tribal leaders are consummate dealers in power and manipulation, whether Muslim or not, and fiercely protect their control over subordinates. Tribalism is not constrained to the uneducated. Here in the U.S. we are sliding into a form of tribalism devoid of facts or principles. Our universities are tribal, with individualism, opposition to authoritarian rule, and free expression punished. The extremes are becoming dominant, forcing people into widely separated mindless camps set on ever increasing intolerance and violence.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Generalize much?

    What about Mormons? Hindi?

    Abandonment of science and reason? I'd wager there have been quite a few scientists with a belief (faith or religion) that made significant contributions.

    Nicholas Copernicus
    Johannes Kepler
    Galileo Galilei
    Blaise Pascal
    Isaac Newton
    Michael Faraday

    Albert Einstein - not necessarily of faith or religion BUT he did comment on the impossibility of a non-created universe
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Great thoughts on a board such as this are really for like-minded people to catch and run with like a football. Go team!
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  • Posted by brkssb 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    All religions hold the tenet of intolerance for other deities and religions, not limited to Islam. Each requires the abandonment of science and reason in place of dictatorship. Assuage conflicts? Religions thrive on conflicts and feed on evil.
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  • Posted by 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The need to be the universal religion will forever cause, at the very least, constant negotiation. One religion alone, Islam, brooks no negotiation which means that the only alternative is war. If science was able to answer all the basic questions of who, what, when, It might assuage the conflicts to some extent, but, if nothing else, collectivism has proven that religion can take many forms like global warming or cooling, or the state itself, or a charismatic prophet. It is Mel Brooks' explanation of how patriotism got started. "Hooray for Cave Number 47, and to hell with everyone else!"
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  • Posted by 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    People taking a series of fables seriously and using them as a life guide will always be a stumbling block to man's progress.
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  • Posted by term2 7 years, 11 months ago
    Islam is a very fu&*ed up religion to be sure. I dont want anything to do with it, and I do think that muslims who adhere to islam are really potentially evil people. All it takes to "radicalize" them is to point out to them that they are not living like true muslims in the west- and then we are off to the races with "islamic terror". Why 2 billion people would go along with islam is really disturbing to me.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree with this. I'm saying uneducated --> susceptible to extremism. It does not follow that susceptible to extremism --> uneducated.
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  • Posted by 127billh 7 years, 11 months ago
    The whole Muslim thing began back with Ishmael the son of the union of Abraham and Sarah's maid. The prophet finally wrote the Quran some 600 years after Christ. Hence the battle between Islam and the rest of the world has been going on for almost 4000 years. It will be the end times battle at Armageddon. I say, Bring it on!
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  • Posted by 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am aware of all that.
    However, there are over two billion Muslims in the world. Billion with a great big B. You don't come close to that number by only using elites. Many of those illiterates are tribal leaders using what they know of the religion to both enlist and cow others like themselves.
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  • Posted by 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    After reading Rand's mega-novels, one could be in a euphoric haze from the influence of these brilliant works. But unlike other inspiring tomes, when they are questioned, answers are not usually forthcoming. However, unlike those works, when the questions are asked, there's an entire philosophy underneath and behind the novels. Inquiring minds want to know, and with fairly minimal effort, they get to know.
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  • Posted by roneida 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    allosaur... I would be honored if you ever take any of my ramblings for use and print...people like you, and hopefully me, never steal good thoughts because they are for all to use.. I have a dog named Mushka...maybe a friend of Moocher. Best wishes, roneida
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  • Posted by 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is one of its most important strengths. I all other religions, there must be a reliance on the loss of paradise or enforcement by the secular. In Islam, one gets a "twofer."
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  • Posted by ycandrea 7 years, 11 months ago
    It certainly is not conducive to a free society. Not that we have that anymore, but I would sure hate to see something that evil overtake America.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 11 months ago
    Islam has been ideologically at war with everyone else since it was founded. It began simply by enslaving and destroying the rival warlords of Persia but it relies on constant military agitation and fomentation to control its people. Despite claims that it is a "religion of peace", it has constantly been at war (militarily no less) either with its neighbors or itself for more than a millennium. That it has been beaten into submission from time to time has only staved off the inevitable conflicts with other nations. China battles with Islam in its most Western provinces. India and Pakistan have been at it since WW II. Russia has certainly seen its share of Islamic issues with Afghanistan and Chechnya (among other places). The US had to deal with the Barbary Pirates during Jefferson's Presidency, and again today.

    Why do Progressives team up with Islam when ultimately it will destroy them? Progressivism itself is a self-destructive philosophy in the end: trying to understand it will only lead to contradiction because of the misguided belief of elitism and "it can't happen to me" that forms the basis for Progressivism. They are so steeped in self-delusion that what is actually an unleashed rabid wolfhound they see as a cute, little chihuahua.

    Why do politicians try to pretend that they can solve an ideological conflict with diplomacy? Because they do not fundamentally understand their opponent/enemy and they underestimate it. Badly. Few in the Western world really comprehend how religion to many is much more than a one-day-a-week thing, but rather an entire way of life.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Precisely. Sadly, too few people care to know history and seek to place the blame the west for every ill in the world.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The entire history of man has been one ideological conflict turned military after another. The war of ideas shows no history of abating any time soon. What is key is to get down to the root principles of any given religion. Islam is particularly intolerant to anything not itself because it infuses the enforcement power of law with religious dictates where as in other religions, the enforcement power of law is typically secular.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Keep in mind that the Crusades were military responses to invasions by Islam into the holdings of European nations - which included the Holy Land. Many mistakenly think the Crusades were offensive in nature. This was not the case.

    Ultimately, whether the invasion is military or passive through immigration, ultimately it is all about ideology anyway.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Your comment about how "poor, illiterate people" are manipulated into extremism is severely off target. OBL was a highly educated engineer from one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia, and his successor is a surgeon. All of the 9/11 extremists were educated upper middle class.

    Eric Hoffer, author of "The True Believer," described the peculiarity of mass movements as a product of misguided, unhappy middle and upper class people comfortable enough to have the time to be troublemakers. The poor and uneducated who have to scratch to survive, he pointed out, have no time for political or theological struggle, usually ending up as cannon fodder for leaders from the upper classes.

    What drives educated people in these mass movements is fear. They fear the loss of identity, of belonging, of power. The cultural gap between the West, with its focus on individual freedom (especially America, influenced by Native American culture - see "Indian Givers" by Weatherford), and Islam, in which the identity of the individual is subsumed into the umma is a nearly unbridgeable chasm.
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