101. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234582 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Do you suffer from dyslexia? There is a clear difference between "no absolute morals" and "absolutely no morals". Read them slowly to yourself and think it over.

Claiming that someone who doesn't agree precisely with YOUR moral system does not mean they don't have one of their own.

J Mac I never claimed otherwise. But take a look at these posts:

Roger Stanyard:

"I have the advantage of knowing that there is an absolute moral standard. "

No such thing

Sciros:

We are not "more moral" beings today than humanity was 2000 years ago; the morality of the times has merely changed.

Sorry, but all of this sounds to me like relativism - cultural relativism in the case of Sciros. Help me out if I'm missing something here.

For the record J Mac, I don't think anyone here really is a relativist; they all understand the difference between a culture that brings up little girls in safety, and one that condemns them to rape. I'm just pointing out what's wrong with these statements.

I 'm also unsure of your statement that 'no absolute morality' doesn't translate into 'absolutely no morality'. But doesn morality, by it's very nature, have to be absolute? If murder - taking innocent life - is wrong, then that's an absolute. And if there are situations in which taking innocent life isn't morally evil, then that would be an absolute, too.

Sorry, the point I'm trying to get at is that 'moderation' is meaningless if it isn't anchored to non-moderate absolutes. Sorry if I'm being unclear.

102. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234575 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 3:53 pm

What is this "absolutely correct morality" and how is it determined?

Sciros that is a really excellent question, so, if it's okay, I'll reply in depth tomorrow? I'm about to hit the hay, and I thought I'd take a few well-aimed pot-shots at the more ridiculous comments before I hammer out my rather extensive discussion of the subject of ethics.

No such thing except in the minds of ideological bigots who claim to know the answer to everything.

As I have long said, religious fundamentalists are exactly the same as the fans of Adolf Hitler, Maoism, Pol Pot, Trotsky, et all - all birds of a feather screaching to the same tune.

Oh? Well, if there's no absolute morality - then by what standard do you consider these men evil? Why do you use their names as though it were pejorative?

Incidentally, you are right, though, about the similarities between the theocrats and the totalitarians. See if you can spot why. Here's a hint: both the priests and the totalitarians all marched for three values that are identical and always form the basis of any major horror.

The common denominator is not, btw, total conviction, or fanaticism. Fanaticism is ethically neutral. The suicide bomber is a fanatic; so is the soldier who throws himself over a grenade to save his troop. Adolf Hitler was a fanatic; so was Winston Churchill. The Jihadis are, and always have been, fanatics; so was Charles Martel who prevented Europe from falling to Islam. Which brings me to this:


Steve

Yep.
Edit: 'moderate' evil is not exactly "ok", but should be dealt with moderately...

Here's the problem. Evil is always capable of marshalling tremendous ruthlessness behind it. Unless you are capable of bringing ruthlessness to the fight, better be prepared to loose. And unless you have the strength of profound moral conviction, you'll never stand against it.

When Giordano Bruno decided he would sooner die than recant his beliefs, he wasn't behaving 'moderately'. Nor was Nelson Mandela, when he chose to live like a fugitive and risk death, and eventually gain twenty-seven years in prison for his convictions, he wasn't being particularly moderate either.

In any great struggle, the moderates are worthlees; they are, at best, cannon fodder for one side or another. It is those capable of true dedication that direct the way things go.

103. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234379 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 9:18 am

Really, Sciros? Then how can you say that the rape of nine-year old girls is wrong? How can you say that the Holocaust was wrong - or the Gulag? How can you say that anything - at all - is worthwhile then?

104. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234368 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 9:07 am

Moistly suits you well. 'Moderation in all things', eh? So, if we are faced with evil, it's okay if it's only a 'moderate' evil? Or if we know something to be virtuous, we should only pursue it 'moderately'?

I realize that I am being unfair. I have the advantage of knowing that there is an absolute moral standard. Further, it is this failure - the failure to be able to defend morality consistently - that has lead to religion's persistence.

105. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234360 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 8:52 am

*even more dryly* J Mac I did say 'noone in their right mind', emphasis added.

irate, I have stated my points about this before: yes, that's fine in a private contract. What I have a problem with is this infernal de facto state monopoly (or cartel, perhaps), and this article is one of the reasons why.

106. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234349 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 8:29 am

*dryly* Steve,

Just a minute. This stinks of hypocrisy. You don't want governments to control doctor's ethics, but you are OK with goverments throwing people out of the country if their ethics don't agree with yours (such as regards Sharia).

Whereas you support the rights of goons like Abu Usama, but not of qualified doctors. If the game is who is hypocritical, I think that the judgement falls in my favour, not to mention the judgement about whose political views reflect a saner grasp of reality.

The presence of Abu Usama and Hizb ut-Tahrir and the rest of these goons is a matter of civilizational survival, not something you can claim for your proposition.

Government regulated medicine is to ensure that all people have the same rights to treatment, and that some people aren't denied treatment because of a particular doctor's views. This isn't about controlling a doctor's ethics. A doctor can have whatever ethics they like, just not work in publically funded institutions.

Which is why medicine should be private, not public. That has been my point all along.

The disagreement is more fundamental, though. You assert that you have 'a right' to medical treatment, regardless of whether or not anyone wants to provide it. Well, what are you going to do if they say no? What are you going to do when it's you on the operating table, and the doctor resents the collar you have placed round his neck?

107. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234311 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 21, 2008 at 7:01 am

Noone in their right mind thinks it should be okay for a twelve year old girl to be engaging in sexual activity. There are names for this, and there are sound reasons why not.

But that, however, was not the issue. The issue is this infernal governmental control over doctor's ethics (because as we all know the average politician's moral standard is so much higher than the average doctors...). The question that I'd like answer is what, exactly, are you going to do when another gang gets into power that has rather different ideas?

In the subject of socialized medicine everyone seems to have their own little plan of how to rule - er, regulate - the business. What makes you so sure it's your plan that's going to get accepted? And even if it is, by what right do you stuff it down everyone else's throat?

108. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #233446 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 20, 2008 at 12:08 am

*yawns and stretches* Sorry about the delay.

No "government" should not have that right. Evidence based medicine and scientific research should have that right. "Government" should not be the dictatorial body you characterize it as. It should be a means of communication; those with the evidence and facts collected before them discussing and debating what treatments are ethical or not and appropriate or not. I DO support such regulation over willy-nilly every doctor for himself.

Sorry J Mac, but as nice as this sounds, it's not what is happening and what always will happen. When the government signs the cheques, it is the entity that has control. Take a look at this thread, and you'll see the argument coming up time and time again that because it is the government that's doing the paying, it gets to dictate. Which is why the NHS is pouring insane - literally insane - amounts down the homeopathy drain.

That's the problem.

secondsoprano

This appears to be a novel reworking of the "Nazis were athiests" theme and its mealy-mouthed cousin "you can't be moral without god", now brought to you in in a new and utterly despicable form. Fanusi, are you suggesting that doctors who do not rely on supernatural support for their clinical decisions are to be compared to the Nazi doctors?

Of course not. But the underlying principle is just as bad. I believe Nairb said he didn't give a damn about his doctor's consciences - on what exactly does he think he's relying? What does he think the source of both conscience and ability is?

Government is elected by us and for us and we can and do evaluate its performance and change it at regular intervals.We use it to take a coordinated approach in building and maintaining society with the aid of science.

Oh dear, oh dear... I remember reading a rightist article where the author was complaining about leftists desire to replace loyalty to God with loyalty to the state - at the time I wondered "what about those of us who tick the neither of the above box?"

The point is this: placing your trust in government requires a truly unacceptable level of faith.

Fanusi, I think you are arguing against yourself here. From an athiest perspective, the bible, the koran, the torah and the holy handbook of the great spaghetti monster are all works of fiction, akin to the Lord of the Rings etc. So logically, we [if I can take the liberty of speak for many of the posters here] think it equally illogical that "a reputable medical school" would pass a doctor who based her medical decisions on such texts.

Not necessarily. There have been, and there are, many excellent religious doctors. As long as their faith does not conflict with the set guidelines of the medical institution in question that grants them membership and accredation.

This, btw, J Mac is the way to have control exercised by science and reason, and not by the whims of government beaurocrats.

For any organization or individual to establish a good reputation requires alot of work, and then that reputation needs to be guarded jealously (especially in todays world of litigation and media presence) . That is the way standards are maintained in private practice, and it works a lot better than these trolls from the bureaurocracy.

And speaking of which, I am indebted to you, Jesus86 for pointing out who exactly will be in charge of this mickey-mouse order: the OHC. This is the same OHC which brought charges against the Canadian Nazi Party despite the problem that the latter does not, in fact, exist. The one that brought suit against a plastic surgeon who refused to perform a labiaplasty on two post-op transsexuals, on the grounds that he had no experience in this kind of thing and didn't know what, as it were, he was getting himself into. The OHC upheld that ridiculous ruling.

I have no like - at all - of religion, but my opposition isn't just to religion but to all forms of unreason. And frankly, I'd sooner take my chances in a Catholic hospice than deal with something run by this gang.

(Thanks for the info Jesus86. Keep fighting the good fight).

I also notice that what is going around seems to be solely the care of the patient, with nothing said about the rights of those who are to provide it. Do you know what it takes to achieve a medical degree? I know a fair few med students, and I am just... unimpressed with this assumption that they are to have no voice and no say.

Of course we "dictate to doctors what they must and must not do". They must study medicine at an accredited college, they must demonstrate an agreed level of clinical competence, they must endeavour to do no harm, they must not undertake medical procedures without informed consent.

ACtually, they don't - you get those without degrees, without any real knowledge - they're called 'homeopaths', 'faith healers' etc. These clowns are free to hawk their wares, and you and I are free to avoid them, and men like James Randi and Richard Dawkins are also free to rake them over hot coals publically.

Ditto the kinds of regulation in a private system. A private, professional body's power stems from its reputation, which is hard won and must be jealously guarded. It isn't, therefore, necessary to research all doctors, anymore than it is necessary to be an aerospace engineer to decide on an airline, or to know which airlines are, not to put too fine a point on it, screamingly dangerous (I'm thinking of Air Nepal that sacrificed a goat to get its engines working again).

I'm sure there's other stuff here, but I have to get to work. Sorry.

109. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232535 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 9:37 am

J Mac

While governments can be pretty screwed up I would rather have a doctors mind "throttled" by a regulatory agency staffed by other medical professionals than by a religious dogma that is not subject to question or review.

Well, you're pushing at an open door with me. That's another reason. Imagine the US employs this kind of socialized fiasco - say, under the Obama administration or whatever - that Morgan's so in favor of, and then the religious right again gets back in power. And they'll say: "Government has the power to override doctors' consciences? Okay, then: no more birth control. No embryonic stem cell research. Maybe even no blood transfusion." What're we going to do once we've dug that pit?

In a private system you can go elsewhere. You can't do that in a socialized one. Here's a hypothetical: say there's a really good Catholic heart surgeon. I'd go to him for heart surgery. However, when I need birth-control, I'd go elsewhere.

EDIT: I trust noone will think less of me if I don't engage with steve's infantile rhetoric, given his track record of reasoned debate with me so far. I will confine myself to saying that I could tell you no end of horror stories about the results of socialized medicine in the NHS, its effects both on doctors and patients. And even that's small potatoes compared with some of the things I've seen in other parts of the world (you can ask South African doctors what they think about socialized medicine).

110. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232524 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 9:10 am

In Ontario, all doctors are employed by the state, so as there are no private doctors, this question is moot.

*nods* And there you have it. This is exactly why socialized medicine is immoral. And impractical. I still have not heard an answer to this question: Are you really willing to trust your medical care to someone willing to work under compulsion, with his mind throttled and abrogated? Are you really willing to entrust your life to that?

That, incidentally, is what's wrong with the following argument:

What if all doctors were privately employed - what if they all - unregulated as they would be in your ideal world - decided not to treat anyone called Fanusi? Or anyone with a father called Fanusi? Would that be OK?

Actually, yes, that would be their right. Now, which is more likely: that I am going to come face to face with a world where all doctors, unaccountably, refuse to treat me? Or that you will meet - in the offices, on the operating table - only those doctors willing to work under compulsion? That isn't safe if they resent it, and still less if they don't.

I'll worry about your hypothetical if it ever comes to that. You'd be better placed to worry about this situation now.

But if they are to be licensed by the state, medical college, or other such association, then they must abide by the rules of that association. Abide by the rules, or resign/relinquish their license.

Scatch 'state' and I agree entirely. That's the point. In the same way that we hope to send our children to the best Universities, because we know that the degrees they get mean something, it is entirely and completely moral for a private organizations of doctors to lay down ground rules and to rescind their certification if someone violates those basic standards. And the individual has the ability to look, and check up on these different groups and see which organization has the best track record.

Oh, just returning to Morgan:

We, in Canada, by-and-large, however, value different things than our neighbours to the South

Such as being able to force other people to work, and to force those on whom your life depends to act against their mind and their conscience. Again, what do you think you are counting on when you go for medical checkup?

Incidentally, I'm not American. But I would observe, that if your citizenry is so educated, how come America keeps running rings around you and the rest of the world in every single field of science and technology?

111. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232506 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 8:29 am

J Mac thanks, that clarifies my position greatly. Just from that last post, I don't think we have that many differences.

My principle response was to Skip who said Doctor's are not entitled to refuse, and nor are construction workers, engineers etc. (see his comment about a hydroelectric dam).

Well, if it is a matter of clarifying the contract, that's something for political argumentation and deciding - and it's one of the problems with government control. I'd like to ask one more thing: What about private doctors are they, or are they not entitled to refuse?

112. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232500 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 8:17 am

I bet you follow a few company rules you'd rather flout under 'compulsion' than lose your job.

irate I can actually answer that: at a time of some considerable financial distress, I was told to remove a Star of David that I was wearing to commemorate Holocaust remembrance day. I resigned.

Why is it a doctor's right - someone paid to do a specific job - to take the money for doing that job but then refuse to do that job because of religion? Resign or do the job. It's a simple as that.

Of course. I never disputed that. If the doctor - say - in this question is working for someone, drawing his salary from a Hospital, for example, then, of course, it would be right and proper to fire him.

Termination of a contract for non-compliance is not force. Writing something into law is. That's the crucial difference.

Now, we are dealing with state-medicine, a government controlled business. This is exactly why I'm against socialized medicine; it inevitably means government control.

J Mac

This ultra-liberal bullshit about people wanting life served to them on a silver platter without ever having to lift a finger of their own to work just pisses me off

*dryly* That's the first time I've been called an ultra-liberal. I have never argued that you don't need to work to support your life. I have said that you are not entitled for force someone else to work. If you are running a hospital, you are entitled to employ or not employ or fire someone. That is your right.

The idea that trained doctors are ones who won't "lift a finger of their own" is just plain insane.

Morgan,

nother consideration is that education is largely subsidized in Ontario, and that the same doctors who are taking advantage of tax dollars to receive their educations in the understanding that they will help everyone, regardless of belief or ethnicity, with what they need, as paid for almost entirely through government dollars, are neglecting to do so.

Although for some reason I think that you will see fault with subsidizing education as well as health care.

Correct. This is what always happens with this sort of socialized nonsense. Government finance means government control. We are always told that 'no, no, it's got nothing to do with control'. Of course it does.

113. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232489 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 7:50 am

I notice that there are certain smiling and self-righteous supporters of slavery here. Case in point:

Doctors who refuse to supply services because of matters of conscience currently have a luxury that many others in our society do not have. They are spoiled.

For example, imagine a hydro electric utility worker who feels it is against her conscience connect an abortion clinic to the power grid because of the implications. They are not allowed to refuse this work, so it gets done. End of story.

skip who the hell are you to declare that someone is not allowed to refuse work? What are you going to do if they still refuse? Force them? Force someone to work? There is a name for this.

A man who's willing to work under compulsion isn't safe to be trusted in a stockyards, let alone an operating table. Who the hell are you to treat human beings, let alone human beings of this quality, like this?

Would it be acceptable for a Jehovah's Witness to become a doctor and then refuse to give a life-saving blood transfusion resulting in someone's death? All because his fairy tale claims it is wrong to do so and, regrettably, at two in the morning no one else is around to do it instead?

Yes, it would, irate. It would be his absolute right. And it would be the right of the patient to go to another doctor, and it is also the right of a medical college not to grant a license to him.

There are, as I see it, two fundamental realizations that make up human adulthood: 1) Realizing that reality is what it is, that it is an absolute not to be escaped, and 2) understanding that no human life exists for the benefit of another.

114. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232445 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 6:13 am

All this legislation would do, as I see it, is to throw out considerations that have NO medical value. Would you want your doctor to decide your treatment based on his interpretation of The lord of the rings, Sherlock Holmes or the latest episode of The Simpsons?

I should not go to such a doctor, and nor would any reputable medical school pass him.

No, the issue isn't about religion, but about the mind. Do you really think you can force someone else's mind? And even if you could, on what would you count when you enter his office?

And to whom would the power of this collective conscience be given? I still have no answer to that.

115. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #232423 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 18, 2008 at 5:24 am

Witness the final abortion of socialized medicine. I think we all know of one incident where doctors were told to lay aside their consciences.

This sickens me beyond my capacity to say. On what, exactly, do we depend when we go to the doctor if not his conscience? And who's going to get the grand job of deciding what is and is not acceptable? In whom will the massive power of the collective conscience rest?

Forty-plus years ago there were those who knew where the socialization of medicine would go, and that this would be it's final outcome. They were ignored by fatuous, self-righteous fools. Well, here's the conclusion.

116. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #232067 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 17, 2008 at 2:46 pm

I was going to let this rest until later, but right now I feel I need to answer:

Evil is "not" such a useful word. When someone mugs you are they evil? If they pull a gun to mug you are they evil? If they shoot? If they kill? If they pull the gun on a child or a cripple?

As a matter of fact, yes, yes they are.

Listen: I have studied what happened in the Holocaust and the Gulag. Now was that, or was it not Evil?

And, Lazarus, yes, that is evil. You cannot reduce human beings to a set of influences. Evil is anti-life: it is what destroys, and enslaves, and degrades, and spreads misery.

You cannot know good if you don't understand evil. And you can't feel honest love for the good without hatred for the evil.

The word 'selfish' is exactly wrong here. What self was involved in Vorkuta or Aushschwitz? That is the point that alot of people find hard to grasp: they weren't the result of that obscene excuse that is granted, that they were men motivated by a higher purpose that left them blind to the mounds of bodies. The truth is that those mounds were the purpose.

Go read some of the tales of the Holocaust, or look at the hideous degradation of the dhimmis under Islam, or the treatment of slaves, now and then. You will see that this is beyond any kind of rational motive. It is its own motive.

117. Rushdie condemns cancellation of Muhammad novel

Comment #231747 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 17, 2008 at 1:48 am

To everyone,

If this continual capitulation and crawling before Islam continues, where, in hell's name, is it going to stop? Does anyone see anything good in the future if this trend is not reversed?

118. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231742 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 17, 2008 at 1:28 am

Bonzai, let me get one thing out of the way first:

With a few exceptions, Muslims are not single purpose automatons you make them out to be."

And I have said this where exactly? What I have said is as follows: Edmund Burke noted that for evil to suceed all it takes is for good men to do nothing. Therefore, the basic way that evil works is by getting good men to the point where they will do nothing. And it does this by undercutting their moral conviction by getting them to accept a twisted code of morality. That is what I claim for the Muslims of this world. The overwhelming majority of those that _don't_ support evil have been brought to the point where they can't oppose it. Can't oppose it because they can find no moral code to draw on.

I wrote the following on the Dalai Lama thread:

The point about Muslim moderates is that they are moderate. Now, ask yourself: in what revolution, in what grand struggle in human history have 'moderates' of any stripe been worth a damn? Which barricade was manned, and what man stood tall on it and said "Brothers, we shall not give an inch, we shall fight to the last - for moderation!"

In short, I think that the moderates will be no help whatsoever in this fight, that there are two kinds of Muslims, largely, those who support Shariah and Jihad and those who will do nothing to stop it.

There's a real confusion about the nature of evil and evil ideas. You know the saying 'For evil to triumph, it is enough for good men to do nothing'? Well, the trick of all evil in all times has been to get good men to the point when they do nothing.

If you imbide a toxic doctrine such as multiculturalism or relativism, it will do no immediate damage. No immediate damage. But there will come a point in your life when you need every scrap of your courage, every piece of your integrity to do the right thing - and that's when the booby trap in your brain will go off, providing you with countless reasons to keep your mouth shut and your head down.

And that's the first step into the darkness. The effect of Islam on moderates will firstly be to paralyse them in the face of the radicals - and then to slowly turn them into radicals themselves. Because cowardice is inherently unstable. It is very, very difficult to be able to say "I know this is wrong, I know I should speak up - but I'm just too damn scared", and effectively impossible. The temptation to think that maybe, just maybe, the evil ones have a point. Of course, not that you'd agree with everything, but...

And that's the formula of moral corruption. Look around the web, and you can see it happening. A moderate Muslim webzine, 'The American Muslim' had an article on 'Islamism as a viable political philosophy'. Who are they trying to convince? Themselves. They are trying to drown out their batter conscience with that kind of thing.

This is why we see former moderates become fully fledged fanatics.

This is where it is very useful to understand history. I've read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a Jew who survived the Holocaust. What is interesting to see is how few, how very few fully-fledged Nazis there are, how little he sees of them, and how much hate there is of the regime. Yet the machine grinds on.

But there is a key difference between the Jihad and the plagues of Communism and Nazism. The two latter ones were an attempt to transform a society, to import something alien into it. The Jihad arises from the basis of those societies itself. It won't simply collapse like Communism, nor can it be militarily defeated in the way the Nazis were. This is something much more dangerous.

If you look at the history of the Muslim world in the last century or so, the resurgence of Islamic radicalism is a rather modern phenomenon

Well, let's look at this objectively shall we? The Jihad terrorists are almost all offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, that dates from 1928, which has the express aim of restoring the Caliphate; it collaborated with Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. The Grand Mufti was then part of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, he incited genocide from Egypt. Now before that, the Ottoman Empire existed, which, amongst other things, killed a million Armenians and two and a half million Christian Serbs in World War One. During the long reign of the Ottomans, all religious minorities were degraded to an extent that's hard to imagine. As late as 1909, Europeans in Mosul noted that the Muslims treated Christians and Jews as slaves. This was a constant throughout the entire dar al-Islam: they were forbidden to worship openly, had to pay punitive land and personal taxes, that had to be presented in person in a manner of degredation (they were usually slapped or otherwise struck when they handed the money over). Their word was never valued in court, so they were eternally at the mercy of any accusation of any Muslim anywhere.

This is what Christopher Hitchens describes as the pornographic side of power. The relentless, miserable degradation visited on those poor souls under the dar al-Islam is beyond human comprehension. Read Bat Ye'or's Islam and Dhimmitude if you want to get some idea of how hellish that existence was.

This isn't a new war. It's part of fourteen centuries of Jihad that has had only one goal - to conquer the world and enslave it.

Well, I would ask you if that is the case why is that Hamas only get elected in the 2000's after the conflict has been festering for 60 years if they are always motivated by Islamic fanaticism? Why the long wait?

Well, the answer's rather obvious: It became clear that Arafat couldn't finish the job with Israel, so they turned to HAMAS. Arafat routinely praised the Mufti as a hero, and whenever he went to any of these damn 'peace processes' he returned and made speeches full of allusions to the treaty of Hudabiya - that is, the treaty that Muhammad entered into and then broke when he was in a position of strength.

Arafat's gang was every bit as Jihadist as HAMAS, they were just more circumspect about it.

The Mullahs in Iran wouldn't have come to power if the CIA hasn't gotten rid of Mossadegh,-- a secular, democratically elected President with a program of modernization,-- and imposed the Shah. When the Shah brutally crushed all secular oppositions with the help of the U.S.A., the only force potent enough to depose him would be Islam. It is really not that hard to make the connection.

Yes, and then the Ayatollah killed more people in one year than the Shah did in his entire reign.

This also makes a more general point: the Sha was a Persian nationalist, and that's always been a powerful antidote to Islam. The Ayatollah on the other hand said that he wouldn't mind watching Iran burn if it meant Islam triumphant.

I agree with you though. Alot of the idiotic policies toward the Muslim world have been thanks to a suicidal lack of knowledge about Islam. Take the current Wilsonian nonsense in Iraq. How are you going to get a Sunni/Shia divided country, one suffused with Islam, to be democratic? You can't.

I do agree with you about the foolishness and the criminality of much of Western policy in the middle East. But that doesn't change one iota of what Islam is, what it always will be. Western intervention doesn't explain the massacres of Christians and Animists in the Sudan, in Nigeria, in Kenya and so on. It doesn't explain the girls barricaded in burning buildings, it doesn't explain the cartoon riots, it doesn't explain the huge numbers of Muslims in the west who want Shariah.

Here's what thereligionofpeace.com has to say:

It's all about Iraq, isn't it?

Yep, it's all about Iraq and...

India and the Sudan and Algeria and Afghanistan and New York and Pakistan and Israel and Russia and Chechnya and the Philippines and Indonesia and Nigeria and England and Thailand and Spain and Egypt and Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and Ingushetia and Dagestan and Turkey and Morocco and Yemen and Lebanon and France and Uzbekistan and Gaza and Tunisia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Mauritania and Kenya and Eritrea and Syria and Somalia and California and Argentina and Kuwait and Virginia and Ethiopia and Iran and Jordan and United Arab Emirates and Louisiana and Texas and Tanzania and Germany and Australia and Pennsylvania and Belgium and Denmark and East Timor and Qatar and Maryland and Tajikistan and the Netherlands and Scotland and Chad and Canada and China and Nepal and the Maldives and...

...and pretty much wherever Muslims
believe their religion tells them to:

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... nor follow the religion of truth... until they pay the tax in acknowledg-ment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection."
Qur'an, Sura 9:29

You might be able to explain this or that gang by reference to root causes if they occurred in isolation. But there is no way to explain it if you look at the whole picture, no way to explain it, except by reference to Islam.

But even that 'might' is very, very small. No people on earth have suffered so much as the Jews at the hands of the Germans and not one Jew has taken up suicide-murder in Germany in revenge.

119. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231604 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 4:17 pm

43nd, no problem. It's somewhere at the back of The Trouble With Islam Today which is a good sociological source text, but bloody useless as a guide to Islam.

Good essay on the subject here:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/12/trouble-with-irshad-manji.html

And I agree with you about multiculturalism. I personally find all those fancy postmodernists and relativists even more disgusting than the terrorists - at least the latter believe that absolutes exists and that one way of living is better than another (I disagree with them about everything else, thought).

*nods* Exactly. "There are two sides to every issue: one is right, the other wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the necessity of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no truth or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condmening both the robber and the robbed, who orders the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between poison and food, it is only death that can triumph. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that blood transfusion that drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube."

There is an objective standard of morality, by which I mean, there are values and modes of action and laws and societies that are condusive to life on this earth. Those that go against this code are acting on the principles of death, which means: starvation, torture, famine, degradation and slavery.

120. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231541 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Lazarus, may I suggest those resources now? One of the best places to start is with Ibn Warraq's essay: "Islam, the Middle East, and Fascism". Also, google The Unofficial Ibn Warraq Website, a compendium of his writings.

The following websites are also first-rate:

JihadWatch (www.jihadwatch.org)
(especially Hugh FitzGerald's Writings & the Qur'an blog)
Faith Freedom (faithfreedom.org)
The Religion of Peace (thereligionofpeace.com).

But "Consistent, continual, harsh criticism" might not work. I don't think it will, because simply constantly telling them they are simply wrong will back them into an angry corner and these religios/political leaders will take their people with them in to their area of hurt.

On it's own, that's true. We have to be able to offer them a better vision of life - which is another reason why multiculturalism is nonsense. You imply as much in this statement:

The response today should be to assert western values

Yes. But we have to understand what those Western values are. We need to return to our roots here, the basis that was first laid by Greece and Rome, the vision that was so clearely stated by Condorcet:

The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments will exist only in works of history and on the stage; and when we shall think of them only to pity their victims and their dupes; to maintain ourselves in a state of vigilance by thinking on their excesses; and to learn how to recognize and so to destroy, by force of reason, the first seeds of tyranny and superstition, should they ever dare to reappear among us.

Try reading the novels of Victor Hugo. See the brilliant vision of human life that they hold, and what is possible for man on this earth. That is what can give us the strength to win this.

The thing to remember is that the first victims of Islam are Muslims themselves. They have been cheated of their rightful legacy, of their very lives, by a hideous evil. We have to help them understand this, to give them all the aid which we can to break free of their mental prison.

I have a little knowledge of this. I am German and I have what's known as 'the fortune of late birth'. A dark question that I sometimes have to ask is: Had I been born into a culture suffused with hate and evil, if I had been brought up in that, would I have found the strength to say no? To refuse and die rather than take part? The only answer is, of course, I Don't Know. But I am very glad I never have to find out - that the worst the evil we face today can do is kill me. That's nothing.

Uncountable Muslims have had their minds raped and crushed and mutilated by Islam. If we hold any real compassion, any true sense of Justice, then we have to attack Islam as harshly as possible while offering a way for those Muslims - and this is the majority - who are not completely lost to evil to find a way out.

121. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231515 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 1:21 pm

What I said was that they were much, much more consistent then, say, the Bible. And that was one of a number reasons that I said that Islam cannot be reformed. You can reform Muslims but to the extent that you do so, they become apostates.

Now can you drop this hair-splitting? And how about responding to some of my other points?

Sorry, it's late and I'm cranky.

You can observe from the reaction Salman Rushdie got how reformable Islam is.

122. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231503 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Would you please tell me how? I said that there were very few cherries - i.e. peaceful verses - in the Qur'an and I've said that all along. Now how exactly is this inconsistent?

123. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231493 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 12:52 pm

If you think you are going to shut me up with some comparison to anti-Semitism, you have another thing coming. Want to know what the difference is between my comments about Islam and asinine Jewish-cabal theories? It's this: I can back it up. I can cite the Qur'an, Hadith and Sira, and the schools of Jurisprudence, and the utterances from the highest modern-day sources of Islam, such as the Al Azhar and the mullahs of Iran, and the charters of the Jihadist groups, and the opinion polls of muslims worldwide - all of which back my point up.

I'm sorry, but I think you're still missing a basic distinction:

When you are saying Islam is a "Total System", first and foremost a political one, then that, in my mind, is the problem. It's political. That's the problem with religion in general. It gets used politically, and that makes something that's dangerous even more dangerous!

No, Islam isn't being used politically, it is in itself political. Here's a parallel: when Christian priests blessed the fascist invasion of Ethiopia, that was religion being used politically. When the Inquisition fired up, that was religion itself in action.

Now, in Islam, all of the horror we are seeing is driven by the doctrine of Islam.

Look, could I suggest something? Why don't you consult my sources yourself, and see what you think? And compare and contrast them the writings of supposed reformists and see who has the more credible case. Who is playing it straight and who isn't.

124. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231480 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 12:34 pm

First recognise that there may be no way of convincing them.Change may only come about in a generational time frame. It took centuries for christianity.

Well, if that's the case, then all the more reason for us to have as little as possible to do with Islam.

What, exactly, has the discrimination against Muslims been? I hear an almighty stink when some kid throws a Qur'an in the toilet, but never a word when you consider the torrent of evil and hate that pours out of the Mosques everywhere.

Be extremely firm against any extreme muslim thinking

Okay, and what form will this firmness take?

Reinforce secularism and republicanism as a non touchable tenet of integration that has to be abided by.

And how do we reinforce it and what do we do if they don't want it?

Do not treat Islam as something special either negatively or positively

Here I disagree. Islam is evil. I realise that this word is considered gauche nowadays, but it is. Pure, heart-stopping evil, with a history of carnage unequalled even by Fascism and Communism. And this has to be understood: Infidels have to realise what Islam. That has to be the first priority.

125. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231470 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 12:14 pm

You put Islam in a special corner and say that it's different to Judaism and Christianity because it's book is nice and concisely self-consistent

Actually, I pointed out that 1) the Qur'an is much more consistent, and those inconsistencies that do exist are cancelled by the doctrine of naskh, and this always favours the hateful doctrine over the peaceful, 2) that it is central to Islam that the Qur'an is inerrant; virtually all Muslims say that it is the literal, dictated word of God, in the same way that virtually all Christians say Jesus was divine. This is Islam's central 'selling point'. 3) Islam is not a religion in the way that Christianity is, a system of personal spirituality. Islam is a Total System, governing every aspect of life, and that system is first and foremost a political one, and 4) Islam is unique in world religions in having, right at it's heart, a consistent doctrine that demands war on, and subjugation of, the unbelievers.

Those problems aren't ones that can be gotten round easily.

And so, you would have me believe that because of this I could never have a discussion with a Muslim and try to get them to find some moment of doubt, or area for moderation

Er... and I have said this, where exactly? I have repeatedly called for the msot intense criticism of Islam, and the engagement of Muslim minds. This is because all but the most depraved retain some of their human reason, and that is the foundation to build on. What I have said is that arguing for a 'moderate Islam' is a stupendous waste of time, firstly for the reasons cited above, and secondly for the reason that it just plays straight into the Jihadis hands who argue that moderation is just an example of Western corruption. Consistent, continual, harsh criticism will firstly produce more apostates, and will create the seeds of doubt emerge in the rest.

What we have now on the other hand is the indecent spectacle of a cringing, cowardly, apologetic good, and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.

You then follow this by a comment that latter verses override earlier verses. This tells me their are inconsistincies in their verses and there are inconsistencies in what you say.

How, exactly? I have said that the Qur'an is mostly self-consistent, and that those inconsistencies that do exist have long since been resolved.

126. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231459 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 11:58 am

"racist" is the classic cry taken up by those who want to silence the opponents of Islam.

You may notice that they say nothing about the antisemtism inherent in islam, or it's hideous Arab supremacism, or shed a tear for the millions of blacks taken as slaves and slaughtered by it.

No, these days 'racist' is a cry usually heard only from fools and moral cowards.

127. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231436 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 11:10 am

Nairb I agree with your words in principle,but the fact is that this 'careful communications' strategy in practice tends to translate into statements like "Of course we have nothing against Islam, Islam is fine, fine, but it's just these extremists..."

This might be Machiavellian enough and work in a world where all Infidels understood the hellish doctrines of Islam. But that isn't the case. THe problem is the widespread ignorance of Islam, and this kind of rhetoric reinforces that.

There's another problem. Irshad Manji notes that in Egypt, early in the last century, girls ceremonially burnt their veils as a sign of liberation. Why? Because, pouring out of the West was the fire of the Enlightenment, of the idea of human liberation. The cold, stale doctrines of multiculturalism replaced that. And it is this that makes Islam so confident that it can win - it smells weakness.

A far, far better proposition would be to attack Islam full out while holding up the better ideals of the Enlightenment - to show the world's Muslims that life doesn't have to be a long, pointless servitude to a non-existent God and his verminous, corrupted mouthpieces - that life can be lived for its own sake, and the glory that lies with that.

128. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #231428 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 10:42 am

Oh, for goodness sakes...

But broad-based criticism of Islam by secular, white Europeans would, to my mind, only push Muslims to circle their wagons and fight against "racist infidels," thus making things worse for moderates and those who want to give up Islam altogether. And, too many 'secularists" are already crypto-xenophobes who would like to create such polarization.

Yeah. Secular White Europeans. Uh-huh. Honkies like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Brigitte Gabriel, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish... I'm sorry, what was the point again?

This also doesn't address the basic problem that at the moment it is Infidel ignorance that is the problem. Ignoring what Islam is - as defined by the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira - and what it always has been - as defined by fourteen centuries of horror - is the main problem.

This accepts to the idea that Islam can be reformed. How, exactly? To be a Muslim is to believe absolutely in the perfection of the Qur'an - in the same way that to be a Christian is to believe in the divinity of Christ. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preaches hatred of the kaffirs. Take that out and you will have reformed Islam. You will also have destroyed it.

Personally, I still don't think the Americans or Europeans should over-react to a muslim presence. Multiculturalism may not have worked, but there must be better methods assist integration with western culture and enforce western laws.

How, exactly, do you integrate people who don't want to be integrated? How do you stop people who are quite literally willing to kill their own children in order to preserve Islam?

129. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #231412 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 9:51 am

Lazarus what, exactly, are you on about?

Fanusi's second statement seems to suggest that Islamic religious writings are not so consistent at all, and that the latter ones over-rule any earlier "mistakes". Perhaps what Fanusi means is that the Koran is more consistent than his own statements?

I pointed out that there are very few peaceful verses in the Qur'an and those that do exist are cancelled out in accordance with the doctrine of naskh. What on earth are you on about?

This is a good area to challenge Islam. No-one in any faith would claim the prophet is more perfect than the god that created him. The only people with a chance of going there are christians who claim that jesus-bloke is actually god! All other prophets before muhammed were fallible. King David shagged other people's wives! It's things like this that show Islam is no different to any other religion. Yes most of Islam lives in the dark ages, but there are political reasons for religious leaders keeping them there.

You have understood nothing, but absolutely nothing I have written. It is the Qur'an itself that says Muhammad is to be immitated. I do just love how, in a thread about the rape of nine year old girls, you drag up King David as an example - who may not even have existed, and if he did it was over two thousand years ago!

You say that this could be a ground for reform. You don't get to reform Islam. Do you really think that, just because you say it, Muslims will follow that route?

The 'reform' of Islam has already happened: it's called Wahhabism, and it's the most virulent form in existence.

Old Sarum, Bonzai & others: it's not that there aren't wannabe reformers who want to bring Islam in line with human morality. I actually cited some, such as the Qur'anists. It's that they don't have a hope in hell of succeeding. Any interpretation of Islam that rejected Jihad and all the rest of its evil would become something completely different, and heretical: Ahmadiya, Ba'hai etc.

Trying to reform Islam is like trying to reform Communism or Nazism. A waste of time.

I notice, Bonzai, that you also drag up this 'underlying grievance' nonsense. Tell me, what underlying grievance causes them to rape nine-year old girls? What underlying grievance causes them to shoot schoolgirls in Iraq? What underlying grievance causes them to threaten women for buying cucumbers?

No. The problem is Islam itself.

130. God's Warriors

Comment #231227 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 16, 2008 at 2:35 am

I should have responded to this a long time ago, but I have had a great deal on my plate.

Yes, of course I see fundamentalist Christianity as a threat. But not in the way you think. I think the problems are twofold:

1. Mush-pot Christian thinking has lead to some staggeringly stupid policies. Note Bush's comment that freedom is the desire that God placed in every human heart. Is there any reason to believe this?

2. It leads also to some false identifications - such as the idea that this is "Islam vs. Christianity". No, it's Islam vs. the Rest. For that mattter, it might be more accurate to say "Islam against everything, including itself."

Christian fundies also lead to some other bad effects, principally:

3. It leads people to think that the comical forces of Robertson & Falwell are the worst that religious fanaticism has to offer. That's not true at all. Christianity, as it exists today, is a hybrid, and weakened, and defeated. Islam, on the other hand, exists in a pure state. That's a very different proposition.

There is one way that Christianity could return to the way it was, and I will repeat this: if the free-thinkers do not demonstrate that they are willing and able to take the fight to Islam, to unashamedly stand for what is right against that which is evil, then they will hand the victory to Christianity on a silver platter. Imagine the kind of forces that would be swept into power if there was a CBN attack on american soil.

Now, as to all these guys - Bonzai & others - who seem to understand that Jihad is a constant in Islamic history for fourteen centuries, but think that the Palestinian Jihad has nothing to do with Islam - have you all just missed that they all voted for HAMAS? Here are a few words from that charter:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

For the umpteenth time, the religion/politics division does not exist in Islam. The problem isn't the 'occupied territories', it isn't about the Golan Heights, or this piece or that piece of land. None of these places were occupied before the 1967 war, or in 1960 when Mossad grabbed Adolf Eichman and the Saudi Newspaper ran the headline "ARREST OF EICHMANN, WHO HAD THE HONOR OF KILLING 6 MILLION JEWS".

There wasn't even an Israel when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Hitler on the condition of eradicating the Jews. And so on and so on.

Israelies, Europeans, Americans, Indians, Chinese etc. we're all in this together. And I find it extremely cheap to pass judgement on Israel when you are not, in fact, one of those fighting for your lives against three hundred million Arab Muslims who want every Jew dead.

131. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230329 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:40 pm

SASna & others, sorry - this misunderstanding is my fault. When I say "Christianity separates Church and State" I certainly don't mean what we mean today. I mean that, because of Jesus's command to render unto ceasar that which is ceasar's, the Church and State were separate entities, and the relentless snits and quarrels between them provided an important gap in which Enlightenment could grow. Here you had a lenient Prince who sheltered a freethinker from the Inquisition, there you had Jesuits who maintained the works of Aristotle etc.

This is a very important point, which is made, not by Christian apologists, but by guys like Fareed Zakaria (The Future of Freedom), Peter Gay (The Enlightenment) etc.

On the other hand, in Islam Church and State are one. They can't be separated, not ever.

132. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230319 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Okay, it's getting late and I still have ALOT of work to do, so I'll probably have to make this my last posts for the night.

Bonzai,

The Quran is a horrible enough book, but my understanding is that many of the most outlandish Muslim practices actually come from the Hadith, while the Quran is supposed to be God's word, Muslims are not obliged to follow the Hadith, except for traditional reasons. There are also disagreements over the authenticity of books in the Hadith.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's not so. The Jihad imperative is rooted in the Qur'an, as is the status of dhimmitude, the lesser value of women etc.

There is a broader point though. Say I wrote a book, two thirds of which railed against blacks, calling them 'the vilest of creatures', 'perverse', 'the lowest' etc. Now, even if I didn't include any specific incitement to violence, I'd still be morally accountable for people using my book as a justification for violence towards blacks.

It's exactly the same thing. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preaches hatred and contempt towards the kafirs - not to mention the incitements to violence and evil it contains. There's no way to reform that.

It's also wrong to say that Muslims are not obliged to follow the Hadith. The Qur'an continually refers to Muhammad as the example to be emulated - he is uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man, the Excellent Example. Muslims were usually called Mohammedans, and there's a reason for that - the figure of Muhammad, in Islam, is actually more important than that of Allah, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

There's actually a group that has preached the idea of "Qur'an Alone". They're pretty decent chaps, from what I've seen, but, theologically, they don't have a leg to stand on. The Al Azhar just declared them all apostates, and you know what that means.

I am sorry to be a voice of such gloom, but we have to get to grips with this.

Could I also suggest that you just take a look at sites like JihadWatch, FaithFreedom, or read the online writings of Ibn Warraq (best place to start is with "Islam, the Middle East and Fascism" - google it, & also his unoffocial website).

133. God's Warriors

Comment #230285 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 2:03 pm

Oh, jesus - leviticus, I've written a rather long post on this over at the "We need to stop being such cowards" thread. I'd rather not have to repeat this.

I'm not going to comment on your numbers about Iraq or the rest of it for the moment, because the fundamental point is this: Jihad has been a constant in Islam for fourteen centuries, for far, far longer than the U.S. has even existed. These bastards slaughtered seventy million Hindus when they overran the subcontinent.

134. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230267 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:40 pm

No, it's actually shorter than the New Testament. Still, it is nowhere as well written. I can spend a very enjoyable evening just reading Ecclesiates. The Qur'an... Well, you'll see. Let's just say that when Churchill called Mein Kampf "the new Koran", it wasn't just because of it's hate, violence, and war.

135. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230258 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm

bamafreethinker may I suggest something? Over at Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org) there is a Qur'an blog, which includes a section-by-section discussion of the Qur'an, including the important bits of the hadith, Sira and the commentaries (tafsir).

I understand not wanting to read the Qur'an. It's one of the most wrist-slittingly boring books in the world. Still, there's no substitute for the original text.

There are very, very few cherries. And those that do exist are cancelled by the doctrine of naskh in which the later verses (always more psychotic) cancel out the earlier ones.

136. God's Warriors

Comment #230255 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Well, the Qur'an doesn't specifiy it, but the Hadith does:


Bukhari (6:60:79) - Two people guilty of "illegal intercourse" are brought to Muhammad, who commands that they both be stoned. Apparently their act was out of love, however, since the verse records the man as trying to shield the woman from the stones.



Bukhari (83:37) - Adultery is one of three justifications for killing a person, according to Muhammad.



Muslim (17:4196) - A married man confesses that he has adultery (four times, as required). Muhammad orders him planted in the ground and pelted with stones. According to the passage, the first several stones caused such pain that he tried to escape and was dragged back.



Muslim (17:4206) - A woman who became pregnant confesses to Muhammad that she is guilty of adultery. Muhammad allows her to have the child, then has her stoned (the description is graphic).



Muslim (17:4209) - A woman confesses adultery and is stoned to death on Muhammad's order.


Ibn Ishaq (970) - "The adulterer must be stoned." These words were a part of Muhammad's farewell address to his people on the occasion of his final pilgrimage to Mecca.


Okay, I won't always be here, so please - alot of this stuff can be found quite easily on jihadwatch.org, thereligionofpeace.com, faithfreedom.org and so on. Happy reading LaurieB. ;-)

137. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230249 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Mordacious ever since we started singing 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead' you don't need to duck.

I agree. He may have been flat-out wrong in some areas - Mark Steyn, for example - but it is nice to see him learn.

138. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230241 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Bonzai, bamafreethinker I am sorry, but it won't. Christianity could be reformed - after a truly hideous struggle - because of important fault-lines within it. These are:

1. The Bible is a vast and vague document. It necessitates interpretation and discussion. The Qur'an, Hadith and Sira are much more consistent.

2. Christ has always been seen as a pacifist. Reformers could legitimately claim that they were trying to return to his original teachings. Muhammad was, first and foremost, a preacher of hatred. Two-thirds of the Qur'an preach hatred of the kafir. Remove that and you will have reformed Islam. You will also have destroyed it.

3. There is a Church/State separation in Christianity. Islam is first and foremost a political doctrine.

4. The early Church fathers incorporated huge elements of the Graeco-Roman legacy into Christianity, forming the foundation stone on which the Enlightenment could build.

Even with that it took the full fire of the Enlightenment and the power of science, as well as the hideous thirty-years war to reform it. We don't have that time.

139. God's Warriors

Comment #230230 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Sorry to be the dissenting voice here, but this show is utter drivel. It attempts to whitewash Islam by saying that - today, right now - Christianity and Judaism produce just as much violence as Islam.

Horseshit. Sorry, but I have no patience whatsoever for these kinds of apologietics.

140. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230229 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Donald, sorry that it took me so long.

Fanusi, I have long regarded Islam as significantly different, and much much worse, than Judaism/Xtianity. But I wasn't aware of the figures you quote. Do you have web links? What is the status of the figures? How contentious, or accepted, are they?

Sure thing. One of principle sources is thereligionofpeace.com, which provides some interesting links, many of them to Wikipedia.

On the Inquisition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_tolls

Quote:

García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000. Applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560-1700�quot;about 2%�quot;the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed.

(actually, I made a mistake: this is about the Spanish Inquisition specifically, but since that was the worst of them, I don't think my error was too grievous).

About the Witch Hunts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunts

Quote:

^ Brian Levack (The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe) multiplied the number of known European witch trials by the average rate of conviction and execution, to arrive at a figure of around 60,000 deaths. Anne Lewellyn Barstow (Witchcraze) adjusted Levack's estimate to account for lost records, estimating 100,000 deaths. Ronald Hutton (Triumph of the Moon) argues that Levack's estimate had already been adjusted for these, and revises the figure to approximately 40,000.

Now, as regards the horrors of Islam, my main source of the numbers massacred in India is the work of K.S. Lal, whose The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India is conveniently located online:

http://voi.org/books/tlmr/

A good article on the subject can be found here:
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007743.php

The Armenian genocide, the genocide in East Timor, and what has just happened in the Sudan can easily be found through google and wikipedia.

The number of two hundred and seventy million murdered by Islam I derived from Jamie Glazov, the director of the Centre for the Study of Political Islam and PoliticalIslam.com. His interview, Kafir Dreams can be found here at faithfreedom.org:

http://www.indonesia.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25666&sid=03ce9b8779672c5f9535979233f4695c

And here at Front Page Magazine:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=76B12F33-3165-47D1-80ED-C3F1ACD07D8A

He derives his figures here:

http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/

I should add that I think some of his estimates are on the high side, such as 80 million Hindus; I'd place it at 70 myself. But that really doesn't matter does it - would we let Islam off the hook because it was 'only' seventy million?

Bonzai I don't try to whitewash Christianity. I realise that it sometimes seems that way, but that is because you haven't seen the blistering arguments I have had elsewhere with Christians.

I passionately value Justice, and Justice cannot exist without Reason. You have to know the facts before you can pass judgement.

You mention the conquests of South America and what the exploits of Leopold in Africa. Now, according the wikipedia, the numbers killed were about 10 million. Yet this can't be laid at the door of Christianity, because the driving force behind that horror was racism and imperialism and nationalism; the same blood and soil mysticism that later inspired the Nazis.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am certain that the Christian priests collaborated and sanctioned that, and they deserve full condemnation for it. It was still not the cause. We all know the truly disgusting collaboration between the Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. That darkness was still not caused by Christianity but by the hideous doctrines of Adolf Hitler.

The point I am driving at is the essential difference between Islam and Christianity in that the former is a political doctrine and the latter is not. The fourteen centuries of Jihad were waged because of Islam and nothing else.

There are wars inspired by Christianity: the Albigensian Crusade for one, that killed about, what, a million?

Yet we have to bear the crucial difference in mind. My post was in response to Philip1978's comment that Islam today and Christianity of yestreyear are the same. They're not. Even if I weren't motivated by Justice, this error needs to be combated, because if people believe that Christianity and Islam are somehow equivalent they will conclude that there are ways of domesticating it, the way Christianity was domesticated, to the point that the worst we have to worry about are fools like Pat Robertson.

No. That is never going to happen. Until humanity regards Islam the way Nazism is regarded, we will not have a decent world.

Would you care to hear my brief against Christianity? It's quite substantial. A millenium of darkness, brought by the choking off of the human mind. Miserable poverty. Outbreaks of hysteria that consumed entire towns. Oh, believe me, I know more about the darkness that Christianity brought than I think anyone else posting here.

And that is why all free-thinkers must demonstrate that they can take the fight to Islam without reservation and without hestitation, without any illusions about what it is, with no moral equivalence and with no ifs, buts or maybes. Anything less than that and it's just wishy-washy apologetics. Which will mean that the Christian fundamentalists, who truly are able to speak forthrightly and fight this beast will be the ones to lead the fight, and to determine the kind of society we live in.

141. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230226 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 12:54 pm

For crying out loud, this site keeps swallowing my reply!

142. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230115 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 9:45 am

Phillip1978, I understand where you are coming from here:

But I have been thinking, if you came back in time to lets say medieval times even in England, you could be burnt at the stake or some other gruesome death for commenting on how nice the halibut was and that it was good enough for Jehovah! Christianity was pretty much as rabid as Islam is now - I am attempting to understand just what it was that changed things and how we could possibly incorporate it into getting the more fundamental followers of Islam to calm the hell down.

But, I am afraid, that you are wrong. I wish you weren't, but you are.

Here is a cold fact: Even the most fluffy-brained wiccans don't place the number of Witch-killings at much more than 60,000. One particularly hair-brained scholar estimates it at 100,000. The Inquisition killed about 3,000 - 5,000 people.

This is chickenfeed to Islam. A hundred thousand deaths? That's peanuts to what these bastards did to the Armenians, or to the Christians of East Timor. And those are nothing compared with the genocide they visited on the Christians and Animists in Africa, or when these monsters slaughtered seventy million Hindus when they overran the subcontinent.

The number of people offered to the blood-god Allah has been placed at two hundred and seventy million. Slaughtered. Not even Communism has such a black history. Not even the Nazis unleashed such depravity.

Christianity was a life-hating horror, without question. But Christianity had important fault-lines that allowed it to be reformed. One was the fact that Christianity was founded by a pacifist. The other is that it separated Church and State. These differences are not trivial. Finally, it grew out of a people who had the immense legacies of Greece and Rome. The Church Fathers were never able to part themselves from that legacy but reinterpreted it in Christian terms and thus provided the foundation from which the Enlightenment grew.

And even with all this, it took a thirty-year conflagration before the reform could take place.

But Islam has always been war, blood, slavery. It cannot be reformed. It can only be destroyed.

There's ways of doing that. There are ways of breaking and weakening and tearing down the dar al-Islam until it finally implodes. But this isn't going to be easy or quick. Islam isn't like Communism, that grew overextended and then collapsed internally. It isn't like Nazism that could be destroyed by taking out the government. Both Communism and Nazism were attempts to graft something new onto societies. Islam is different. It resides, not in any specific government, but in the minds of a billion people.

We can win this. We can wear them down, slowly, like a bulldog. All evil is the same - when it cannot find anything else to prey on it destroys itself.

Yet that requires a total rejection of any foolish illusions about Islam, any euphemism, any evasion about what this nightmare is.

143. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #230018 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 6:55 am

Jesus Christ, is this nonsense _still_ going on?

Give me a break. NEB, good idea.

Phillip, there are alot of Islamic denominations, but none of them differ in any significant way in its approach toward infidels.

Those Islamic reforms that have given rise to something nonviolent - Ahmadiyya, Ba'hai - are out and out heretics.

144. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229882 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:43 am

*shrugs* On the off chance anyone is buying this load of lies from this wretched creature, you are invited to take a look at the history of my comments - I usually use emphasis. In fact, I was using it in this thread before she brought the issue of emphasis up

I am sorry, BFKate, but I simply don't care enough.

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robaylesbury it's a good start. I'll be heading over there myself.

Anyway, is this a sign of people slowly waking up - even those who were pretty fast asleep until now?

145. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229876 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:34 am

DamnDirtyApe it's been corrected. I'm sorry, but BFKate's just lying through her teeth now. I never went back and added the emphasis. I don't know what the hell is the matter with her, but if you look, the typo never reappeared after I made it once. And, yes, it was only once.

What can you do with such a person?

146. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229871 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:30 am

Yeah... Sure... BFKate the emphasis is what made it more than a simple typo... Because, of course, noone uses emphasis to indicate a person's name when they are typing to them. I mean, that never happens, right?

Oh, wait, I usually use emphasis. I refer you to post 122 & 112.

For goodness sakes, get over yourself. I assure you I don't care enough to insult you like that, and I don't stoop to that kind of rhetoric.

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Tyler I'm really not sure. I think that the coverings predate Muhammad - Islam's laws and strictures are heavily derived from the norms of tribal Arabia.

I do find the article excellent. Hari has been off-course before with things like Mark Steyn, but it is nice to see people slowly begin to get it. Heck, I was pretty ignorant - and hence, well disposed - toward Islam about four years ago, and it was the cartoon riots that caused me to start learning. What I found, horrified me.

147. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229853 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 4:13 am

Jesus, Logicel, if this is what an alpha female looks like, what happens as you go down the hierarchy?

But, in point of fact, this is utter hogwash. Orianna Fallaci was an alpha-female. Ayn Rand was an alpha-female. Julie D'Aubigny was an alpha female. Maggy Thatcher is an alpha female, as are Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Irshad Manji, and Brigitte Gabriel. None of them would ever behave in this way.

This on the other hand is shell on a vacuum that tries to fill itself by snarling at everything at the least provocation, flaunting its most intimate details in order to bully others. Sorry, that elicits from me only bored contempt.

My supposed sexual comment was, in fact, a mistype, which I said right at the start, but to such an emaciated ego that will make no difference. For the record - again - I didn't even know about that abbreviation until she informed me of it.

148. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229840 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:58 am

Peacebeuponme yes it's low, and we don't even know it's true. Take a look at this little chucklehead's record. This sort of behavior - does this look like the activity of someone intellectually honest?

And if it is true, what does it say about the kind of person who will use - who will flaunt the death of her own mother and her sexuality to score cheap points on a bleeding internet forum?

*deadly serious* I have met people in some of the worst places in this world. They have always been honest, good people, friendly, decent and above all dignified.

149. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229831 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:50 am

Yes, and we all know that trolling around the internet to pick fights with strangers and using language that a third-rate streetwalker would be ashamed of is an example on character and moral strength.

150. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229825 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 14, 2008 at 3:42 am

Ah, well sorry about that BFKate - in which case then what we perceive as pointless rage, malignant anger, petty exhibitionism, gutter level profanity is really just a plea for help. There are courses available you know.