Because Opi is saying there is a double standard.. but there isn't. She's comparing apples and oranges. There is a Jihad against non-Muslims as urged by the Islamic holy book.

"Derka Derka Derka Derka.......JIHAD"

There is a double standard but it works both ways. On one end, Islam has been given a negative image to the point where "terrorism" is synonymous with "Islam" these days. Therefore, other terrorist acts aren't viewed in the same light. Even an attempted hijacking by an Islamic person would've been perceived as a big deal in light of world events. The same attempt by a nonMuslim should also be a big deal because anything can be a precursor of things to come---which is what we learned with the govt. coverups and events preceeding 9/11. If those feisty Christians act out again, maybe it will be taken more seriously. :)

I won't get into the other side of the double standard because it has absolutely nothing to do with this topic.

A Jihad is really a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; : a personal struggle in devotion to Islam especially involving spiritual discipline
: a crusade for a principle or belief. So, it seems that holy war is interpreted by the extremist members of the faith differently than the Q'uran urges it. Similar to how some Christian extremists interpret "Christian soldiers" and other "battle" and "spiritual warfare" references to be something that it is not.

YOU are the one comparing apples to oranges here - a double standard for reporting can exist outside of comparable events. You do not need a "Christian WTC attack" to have a double standard. Regardless of your other points, until you can get past your own bias to see this, nothing you write will make sense.

OMG!! buy a ladder and GET OVER yourself!


Just because you knew people who died, does not mean you have exclusive knowledge on what violence or terrorism is. We all were witness to 9/11, I might not have had anyone who died in the WTC or on United 93, but I can assume I know what violence and terrorism is.

Your not all high and mighty, so get down off of that high horse. FORGET ABOUT YOUR OTHER THREAD, as many people have tried to mention to you, _opi_ is not going to give you an answer, so stop fishing around for it in other threads.


Hitler got attention because he killed millions and millions of Jews!!!

You seriously don't even know the meaning of the word Jihad. You "assume" that because there is a terrorist organization out there called "jihad" or what not, that anything with the word jihad is bad. TAKE A FREAKING CLASS, AND LEARN SOMETHING!! seriously.

You need to get over the fact that Muslims are not the only "terrorists," and realize that Christianity has a few terrorist organizations out there too.

I was wondering what blueangel was talking about. I couldn't find his/her Q'uran post anywhere in this thread.

I think its in the one about Radical Islam....she posted 3 "quotes" from the Q'uran that she got off the internet and pretty much harassed _Opi_ to give her an explanation about them.

I think that if Americans gave 2 shits about anything not involving the USA, we would have heard about this story. The Daily Show did a gag showing the covers of all the international Newsweeks, with the US one. On all but the US cover the story was "Losing Afghanistan?" On the US edition, the cover was "My Life in Pictures" Welcome to the attention span of the American public.

That said, I do not think the two actions (9/11 hijacking and this hijacking) are comparable. If anything, this the equivalent to taking a hostage, something that happened in Amish country, in Iraq and in several other places over the past weeks.

I think the major difference in why some people call for Muslims to "speak out" is because of the reasons for the violence. To clarify:

If a Muslim blows himself up for his twisted views of jihad and Allah's will, and is supported by other people using "Allah" as a justification, it makes it seem like the religion approves of this.

If a Christian attacks a school house full of children and does not do so "in God's name" then his religion is not being held accountable for his actions. If he did say "this is God's will" and his church condemn's him for it, again only he is accountable for his actions.

I say all this knowing that the vast majority of Muslims are no more violent than I am.

Also, take into consideration the number of Catholics who are called upon to defend/denounce the actions of priests, the pope, etc. and all Benedict did was quote a dead guy. (He had a good point, but he should have totally known better) It's not just Muslims who are being called to denounce those who harm their religion.

Very true but "involving the USA" is relative.

A lot of the things going on the Middle East aren't directly involving the USA but Americans make it their business to know about them and/or intervene somehow. All in the name of "fighting terrorism." They need to edit that to say all in the name of "fighting terrorism that may or may not have a trickle down effect on the US. We can never be sure so we need to keep a close watch on THOSE PEOPLE."

I really haven't heard calls for violence from Catholics or Protestants lately.

I take it you haven't been listening to Fred Phelps, Randall Terry, or Eric Rudolph lately, then.

I'm not familiar with Randall Terry or Eric Rudolph, but as a resident of Kansas I'm aware of Fred Phelps. How many "Christians" of all those that profess in the world are like that though, less than a percent?

You just named three people. There are thousands of militant muslims. No comparison.

Uh . . . really?

Three people who lead groups of people. My point is, in terms of mainstream Christianity, they are a radical fringe group. They reflect mainstream Christianity as well as the islamic extremists reflect mainstream Islam.

Out of millions of Christians, there's way more than "less than a percent."

Just look at the list of hate groups and the FBI watch lists and find that a large percentage of those groups place Christianity as their core. Those are just the people who have been detected as members of well-known hate/domestic terrorist groups.

Right!!

The tendency for people to say "oh, those Christians are the exception and not the rule" reflects the double standard. Muslim is one of the largest (if not the largest???) organized religions in the world. Yet, it has grown a reputation of being violent and anti-American based on a series of events from the past 5-10 years. People don't say "those Islamic extremists aren't the rule."

There are extremists for everything...however, I think you'd have a very difficult time showing that Christian extremists commit acts of violence even close to the level that islamic extremists do

Yes but there's a difference between "America" and "Americans"

For the most part "Americans" didn't care about the Middle East. "America" in the form of the government did.

I think all the Abrahamic religions have gone through their violent phases. Israelites killed to get into the Promised Land and there were militant zealots who expected Jesus to overthrow Rome. Christianity's major ones were the Crusades, but also witch hunts and Inquisitions. Islam is dealing with a similar thing right now. This does not mean that all people in any religion are violent, just that some have used religion for violence.

Pope Benedict's comment that started yet another fight was basically trying to say that God (by whatever name) and violence do not mix. God is rational, terrorism and violence are irrational.

Oh and shinerbock no, there isn't a lot of Catholic violence right now, but if you don't think that sexual abuse is just as bad as violence, you have some other issues. The percentage of clergy who abused children was small, but still the majority was called upon to denounce them. Just as the percentage of muslim militants is truly small, but the majority is called upon to denounce them.

But violence is not the only standard. Think of corruption, of abuse, etc. Violence is just more in your face.

Reposting this from the other thread for DSTChaos:

-------
I agree that there are extremists in many religions. All one has to do is look at the Crusades, or the Salem Witch trials.... hence, why I'm not a fan of organized religion.

However, and maybe Opi can chime in here... what is one to think about Islam when the final words of Mohammed to his disciples was, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say, "There is no god but Allah."

and, in Qur'an :39 it says, "Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah." and "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief --non Muslims) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone."

and in Ishaq :587 "Our onslaught will not be a weak and faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violenty before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight unti our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace."

Perhaps I'm not reading these quotes correctly, but it doesn't seem like a faith of tolerance and peace. Opi.. could you please clarify?

To comment on you, I'd like you to clarify the, well, the entire Old Testament that shows, explicitly or implicitly that it is ok to kill, rape and steal for land, just because you want it.

Yeah, but you're straying from terrorism to just general immoral acts. Nobody is molesting children because they are acting out their beliefs. Its a problem sure, but I don't think its directly related to Catholic faith.

Fight, onslaught, mutilate, plunder = literal or figurative? spiritual warfare or physical/actual warfare?

Any religious doctrine could be interpreted as intolerant and not peaceful. Christian doctrine says things like love thy neighbor (and so does the doctrine of other faiths...I believe the Q'uran has similar teachings) but Christianity isn't necessarily tolerant or peaceful toward 1) nonbelievers and 2) people with certain lifestyles. Depending on how Scripture is interpreted and what crazies get a hold of certain interpretations, we could see (even more) crazy Christians running around oppressing and killing people in the names of Jesus and God.

The crusade wasn't magically called off and not every muslim is part of the Jihad. Everytime an abortion doctor is threatened, it is act of some one who sees himself as a CRUSADER and the rest of him call him a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST because that is what he really is.

I'm going out on a little bit of limb, but according to my good friend (who is muslim) there are NO calls to violence against non-Muslims in the Koran. (whatever spelling you like)

I agree with your point. Just look at the Christian extremists who bombed abortion clinics.

Many passages in the Bible.. both in the New and Old Testament can be interpreted many ways. That's why I was asking for an interpretation of these passages in the Q'uran.

But, could there possibly be a peaceful interpretation of the above quoted Q'uran passages? It seems to be all about "forcing" others to convert.. not about "witnessing" or "spreading the word."

I agree with much of what you say.. however.. I disagree about the "truly small" percentage of Muslim militants. There are jhadist networks and cells all over Europe, the US, and... in fact.. the world. There are training camps for militant Muslims, and schools that brainwash young people to promote the hate of all non-Muslims.

The numbers truly are quite staggering. While it is impossible to get an exact count.. there have been estimations. Of course, polls are not an exact science, but can give one a rough idea.

Among them: Monte and Princess Palmer's 2003 study finds an estimated four percent of Muslims in the world are Islamist fundamentalists. That is a HUGE number, considering there are an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Islam is the second largest religion on the globe.

I just don't see those types of massive organized cells and networks devoted to wiping out other religions among Christians, Hindus, Buddhists or any other religions.

Made my changes in the quote.

1 - Citation for stats

2 - Define your terms -> 'fundamentalist' does not equal 'terrorist' or even 'militant', on any automatic level

Maybe you aren't understand correctly, but _Opi_ already said that she would not answer you, so please quit badgering her about answering your questions.

I'm going to say it, time and time again...if you want the answers to your question, actually go out, do some research, take a class, talk to a sheik (that's what they are called right?).

Besides, "fight" does not always mean "coming to blows" or any physical violence. For all we know, back when Mohammed said it, he could have meant something totally different.

Like others have mentioned, there are passages in the Bible that are pretty questionable now, but that is because we put our own little "twisted" spin on it.

Badgering. Wouldn't that be considered harassment?

:eek: As a matter of fact, it does. According to http://www.dictionary.com, it says:

badg·er·ing
To harass or pester persistently.

See Synonyms at harass.

Well what do ya freaking know....learn something knew everyday don't cha? :D :D

Obviously, you wont pick up a hardcopy of the Quran yourself and you want the easy way out. Alright, let me break it down for you. Your first citation is "Qu'ran 39". This is not the right way to cite a verse from the holy book. You must have the chapter name or number and verse number. Example: Al-Baraqa 50. Al-Baraqa is the chapter name. 50 is the specific verse. Or you can write it like so..surah 2 (which is Al-Baraqa):50. There is no chapter in the Quran named Quran. Therefore the first quote you gave me wasINCORRECT.

Your second citation is "Ishaq:587". There is no chapter called "Ishaq". In fact, the closest sounding chapter is "Al-Ishiqaq". I thought this was a good-faith mistake until I looked at the verse #. 587. The longest chapter in the Quran is Al-Baraqa. It contains 286 verses. Let me repeat this in case you missed it. There is no chapter and no such verse in the Quran.

Now, I ran some searches on google to see where you might have gotten them and here are the top results:

First verse:

An acoustic guitar forum
Prophet of Doom (lol)
JihadWatch

Second verse:

Prophet of Doom
Jihad in Islam (understanding-Islam.com is a Christian website)
FaithFreedom


They cite those verse the same (incorrect) way. I can only assume you went to one of those sites to get your verses. Like I said, you're wasting your time and you have already wasted mine for making me type an essay.


Have a nice day:)

No it does not. Please stop slandering a Holy Book that you have never read.

How do you leave your home everyday? If I thought there was a mass Jihad going on, I would not dare step out of my house.

As for organized? How so? Muslims in Iraq are killing each other. I would hardly call that organized. Please explain your understanding of world politics so we can understand where you are coming from.

Actually, there is no holy war against muslims in America. Just hate crimes. There's been attacks on mosques, individuals and death threats. Hardly any press coverage.

NICE. :D

_Opi_ I also found those same references in some Bob Jones University "educational material" that is kept at the theological centre here at UofT...

Oh... as for blueangel's 4% Fundamentalist stat... ummm what percentage of Christians would fall into the same bracket? Or didn't the 'study' mention that...

Maybe YOU don't understand. :) I cut and pasted this from another thread for one of the posters who asked about it. I am not pressing Opi, because she has made it clear she will not answer my questions in detail.

And yes, I do agree that "fight" may not necessarily mean "come to blows" which is why I am asking for someone who is Muslim to clarify for me. So far, nobody has stepped up. Why? There never seems to be a shortage of Christians who are willing to clarify verses in the New Testament.

Yes, there has been violence on Muslims, just as there has been violence on Buddhists, Christians, and Jews. Are you saying there are Christian, Buddhist or Jewish cells and training camps which are organized against Muslims? Are you denying there are no Muslim cells, networks and training camps organized against non-Muslims?

Last time I checked, the official Muslim spokesperson is not a member of GC, unless I missed their thread somewhere.

Just because there's Christians who are willing to "clarify" things doesn't mean that a) they should; b) they're correct; or c) that they have ANY idea of what they're talking about. It's nice that the Muslim GC members have more sense than that.

If you'd like to learn more about the Muslim culture and teachings, do your own research and stop demanding that others educate you. You alone are responsible for your own learning.