US Gen. Petraeus Decries "Burn A Koran Day"

[Darth Yan]

He was opressed for about 10 years before fleeing to medina (his followers were actually being murdered at points in time.) he actually sent some of them to ethiopia just to escape. he wasn't exactly living in luxury. The quran isn't as hateful as you claim, though it does have isssues. I showed that it doesn't allow terrorism and death of civillians, whereas the bible does. ergo, there are definately areas where the quran is more progressive. The bible was also unfair to women, and historically muslims had a better track record when it comes to human rights. (look up doctrine of perpetual servitude to see the church's stance on non christians). My point is that your claim is false, or at the very least less true then you might think.)

You claim that islam is mostly bad; It isn't. It does have far more good in it then you give it credit for. that is one of the things i'm trying to prove. and the bible is just as bad, if not worse, in quite a few areas.

[Shroom Man 777]

I must say, I do agree with Ossus: It is indeed perplexing how on this board, with the sheer vitriol and hatred of Christianity that is routinely expressed by reason of that religion's "intolerance," Islam, objectively a more violent, intolerant and retrograde faith in just about every quantifiable way, never lacks its defenders.

It's perplexing how people can spout off these sorts of claims about the board's stances without any evidence. I guess poisoning the well is easier.

He should quantify his points by showing the appropriate weapons yield calculations to support his argument.

Or, otherwise, maybe the 'sheer vitriol and hatred of Christianity that is routinely expressed by that religion's "intolerance"' is caused by the fact that the majority of us here are living in predominantly Christian nations, and thus our bitchfits most often correspond to Christian shit instead of Muslim shit because our places are full of shitty Christians instead of rarer shitty Muslims? And if most of us were from shitty Muslim places full of shitty Muslims, then we would be likewise bitching and having sheer vitriols and hatreds of Islams that is routinely expressed by reason of that religion's "intolerance"? In short, we bitch more about Christianity because we're from places that have, guess what, more Christianity. Lol who knew am i rite etc.

Not to mention, Muhammad was hardly poor and oppressed when he wrote his intolerant religious founding document.

Oh, but Hoth, he didn't write it! It was compiled by other people from his teachings after he died. That's really a totally different thing.

Who gives a fuck about who or what wrote that and shit or when and where, anyway?

Oh no the Bible was whatevered in the Council of Nicea during I-don't-give-a-fuck-century A.D. LOL!

The Islamists did it after who-the-fuck died! It is differents! Woah!

The Ramayana Ding Dongs were compiled after the century equinox when the poachers sawed off Ganesha's tusks! Oh no!

So fucking what?

[Darth Hoth]

Blah, blah, blah . . .

Hey, newflash, kiddo: Repetition of your claims ad nauseum is not the same as proving them. Nor is it an autowin to scream "Bigot!" on an intelligent board like this.

I restate my challenge: Present evidence to disprove Ossus's original point or concede it.

While you ponder your inability to do so, I will be signing off for tonight. See you.

[Kanastrous]

The Ramayana Ding Dongs were compiled after the century equinox when the poachers sawed off Ganesha's tusks! Oh no!

Only the left tusk.

Heathen.

[Akhlut]

Why explaining why Christians are less shit-headsy, whereas being rich and norant (the opposite of IGnorant, geddit lol), predisposed these people to ignore their stupid ancient religious shit-texts.

Unless those Christians are poor and ignorant in Africa, in which case they'll enslave children and use them as soldiers to fight a civil war to impose themselves as a quasi-theocratic dictator, all the while drugging those children so they'll believe their immune to bullets. Or murder children for being witches because someone in the village has a goat that gave birth to a kid with two heads.

[D.Turtle]

Wouldn't a better standard be the level of secularity?

Christianity was (and can be) just as anti-science/progress as Islam is today (in certain countries).

So maybe it would be better to compare a somewhat more secular Turkey with the less secular Middle East, or maybe somewhat more secular Indonesia?

Hell, maybe one could look at Pakistan, and compare regions dominated by religious extremists (aka Taliban) with other regions (if they exist) that are more secular?

Fortunately, most so-called "christian" countries in the West are not so much dominated by their christianity, but by their secularism. Maybe one could compare areas that are less secular (bible belt in the US) with areas that are more secular (the East and West Coast).

I would submit, that the problem that the "muslim" world has, is that they are dominated by religious extremists, and not by a secularist separation of church and state.

[Akhlut]

So will you then withdraw your complaint that Islam is more evil than [insert religion here], given that religions do not really moderate or encourage violence, seeing as people will rely on it when it seems beneficial to them and will seek other recourse when that seems more beneficial?

I will not. That all religions (and secular ideologies, for that matter) can be abused to promote violence and intolerance does not mean that some are not also more inherently violent and intolerant than others. You are proposing a false dilemma between two extremes.

So, can you objectively prove that Islam is worse? That's going to be a tough row to hoe, given that Christianity's responsible for the Holocaust and the extermination of Native Americans.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why not settle for the Bible and the Koran being both equally full of shit, and the only reason Islam gets a bad rep nowadays is because Arabs live in shitty places and a lot of them are poor and ignorant, and because a lot of them are poor and ignorant, that makes them more susceptible to subscribing to shitty beliefs that make them out to be a whole bunch of shitheads?

(Whereas the Christians are better and get a better rep because instead of being shitty, their lot in life is actually better so they aren't desperately forced to cling to beliefs that make them into super-shitheads, and so they only believe in beliefs that make them out to be moderate-shitheads)

It is late. I better sleep before I make shit worse.

Unless those Christians are poor and ignorant in Africa, in which case they'll enslave children and use them as soldiers to fight a civil war to impose themselves as a quasi-theocratic dictator, all the while drugging those children so they'll believe their immune to bullets. Or murder children for being witches because someone in the village has a goat that gave birth to a kid with two heads.

That's Africa. I bet if the hippie movement caught on in Africa, they'd have legions of child-soldiers doped up on LSDs and weed, and send them in inhuman waves to spit on the faces of Vietnam veterans and burying them with literal (and poisonous) flower power.

But yeah, that place is a load of bullshit. Just like the Middle East. Surprisingly both are also impoverished and rife with ignorance and crap. But oh no, we better start correlating their distinguishing ethnographical and religious features to make broad and simplistic stupid conclusions about things that we're oversimplifying because of our puny brains!

[Shroom Man 777]

So, can you objectively prove that Islam is worse? That's going to be a tough row to hoe, given that Christianity's responsible for the Holocaust and the extermination of Native Americans.

The people who perpetrated the Holocaust reformed themselves into an upstanding First World country full of nice well-to-do Christian people. Likewise with the people who tried exterminating the Native Americans, they also went on and became pretty countries with nice pretensions of standing. They are all nice and clean and rich. Certainly this can't mean that their beliefs are bad or anything. Why would it? These are happy people! Happy people deserve to be happy because they do good!

This is unlike those who follow Islam, because they tend to be dirty and come from nations that aren't well-to-do, but are filled with filthy unclean poor people who can easily be exploited for resources. They're uglier. So it must be because of Islams! Or, at least, because of other readily identifiable features we can associate with their negative characteristics!

[Darth Yan]

i wasn't even trying to answer the main debate. You actually did get that particular info of his life wrong. And what's more, you claimed that

I must say, I do agree with Ossus: It is indeed perplexing how on this board, with the sheer vitriol and hatred of Christianity that is routinely expressed by reason of that religion's "intolerance," Islam, objectively a more violent, intolerant and retrograde faith in just about every quantifiable way, never lacks its defenders.

That is a lie. We don't hate christianity. We hate double standards; I bet that if you asked most people they'd also find islam repugnant. However, you still ignore my main point (Islam is more complex then you think, therefore it is not as easy to define as you claim. If you actually looked, and took historical and societal context into account, then you would see that the quran is actually not as intolerant as you claimed.) I cited evidence to back up my points from actual islamic texts. You also cite claims ad nauseum, and you claimed that paul was a defender of women's equaliity (which he wasn't). He claimed that there were few verses an apologist could cite; I showed him many. I showed him areas were Islam actually was more progressive (rules of warfare). I am not claiming that Islam is better then christianity.

Ossus is trying to vastly oversimplify Islam. THAT is my problem. You and he are trying to simplify a complex religion. Others have called you out on it. You claimed that it's impossible to know about muhammed's life, whereas anyone with even the slightest knowledge would know THAT THAT IS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE HADITH!!!!!!!!!!!! Islam is bad. It has flaws. But to say that it's worse then christianity is a lie.

You are the one who repeats your claims ad nauseum. Ossus cites evidence about poverty in the middle east, and i am in more agreement with him then you. Because you are guilty of what you accuse me of. Ossus can debate. You can't.

[Master of Ossus]

Not to mention, Muhammad was hardly poor and oppressed when he wrote his intolerant religious founding document.

Oh, but Hoth, he didn't write it! It was compiled by other people from his teachings after he died. That's really a totally different thing.

Who gives a fuck about who or what wrote that and shit or when and where, anyway?

Oh no the Bible was whatevered in the Council of Nicea during I-don't-give-a-fuck-century A.D. LOL!
[...]
So fucking what?

Oh, sorry, this goes back to earlier in the thread. I made some snarky comment about how the Koran read like Muhammed had gone through the Bible and concluded that a good religious text should be more like Leviticus and then wrote the Koran based on that model. Some other people took that to mean that I was asserting that Muhammed had personally written the Koran which, they rushed to inform me, was completely false because actually it had been compiled, later. IIRC, Hoth had also had the pleasure of reading the Koran and said that he basically agreed with my response to it, so my comment there was a bit of a joke on what happened earlier.

[Darth Yan]

the old testemant also has similar rules, and muhammed actually was opressed. the entire reason he left mecca was because the authorities tried to kill him a few times and because his followers were being murdered (he sent a significant part to ethiopia for exactly this purpose.) He wasn't exactly living in luxury. And honestly, did you even read those quotes I cited about the rules of warfare (which do technically condemn the kind of terrorism the 9/11 hijackers did)? For all it's flaws the quran didn't actually endorse their actions. I find the muslims less of a threat then the christian right, and I think that the pastor is an idiot (look there's a difference between being a critic and being an asshole) and he was being an asshole.

[Akhlut]

Norway's GDP (purchasing power parity, per CIA World factbook): $267 billion

Norway's population: 4.6 million

Turkey's GDP (purchasing power parity, per CIA World factbook): $874 billion

Turkey's population: 76.8 million

So, Turkey's GDP is just over 3.27 times larger than Norway's, but the population is over 16 times as large. I imagine that this population/GDP discrepancy is repeated all over the Muslim world, wherein the per capita cash differences are simply enormous as compared to many Western nations.

So, I imagine it isn't so much an "Islam effect" as a "poverty effect," and it just so happens that most nations where Islam is the predominant religion tend to have a shitload more poor people and where research is of less value than trying to afford infrastructure, medical care, or simple education.

Even in comparison with similar average income, though, Islamic scientific development lags far behind. If it were purely a function of PPP/capita, for instance, South Korea would produce fewer scientific papers than the UAE per capita (as would Spain and Portugal). The opposite is true. In fact, even the Arab statistics, which generally share a similar culture, reveal the problem with associating it with PPP, since the figures just don't play nice with each other. Jordan, for example, scores pretty highly relative to the rest of its Arab counterparts even though its PPP/capita is nothing to boast about relative to the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. Indeed, the fact that the output number of papers varies so greatly with respect to GDP is powerful evidence against such a model.

GINI should probably also be included in this equation, though, to differentiate between those countries which have a high GDP spread relatively equally among the population, versus those where it is mostly confined to the ultra-rich, while most of the population is living at poverty level.

For instance, Turkey's CIA GINI is 41, whereas Norway's is 25, indicating a more equal distribution in Norway versus Turkey. Jordan, which mentioned as being more productive with science, scores even better than Turkey with 39.7. So, I strongly suspect that it is a mixture of both a high GDP per capita and a lower GINI (more equal distribution of wealth) that helps create a society more strongly geared toward science.

(source, which is from wikipedia, but is sourced itself pretty well)

[Master of Ossus]

That is a lie. We don't hate christianity. We hate double standards; I bet that if you asked most people they'd also find islam repugnant. However, you still ignore my main point (Islam is more complex then you think, therefore it is not as easy to define as you claim. If you actually looked, and took historical and societal context into account, then you would see that the quran is actually not as intolerant as you claimed.)

How "intolerant" have we claimed that the Koran is, Darth Yan? We say that it's even worse than the Bible. It is.

I cited evidence to back up my points from actual islamic texts.

That doesn't back up your point at all. Both of us have stated that it's possible to cherry-pick happy, touchy-feely comments from both the Bible and the Koran. You then proved it's possible by going through and cherry-picking. That doesn't affect our fundamental argument, though, which is that it's harder to cherry-pick the Koran than the Bible because the Koran really is more violent than the Bible. I cited an analysis which supports this point, and having read both texts I can't imagine that anyone who read both books comparatively would conclude anything other than that the Koran is an even more violent text.

You also cite claims ad nauseum, and you claimed that paul was a defender of women's equaliity (which he wasn't). He claimed that there were few verses an apologist could cite; I showed him many.

I claimed there were 74, +/- a couple. You didn't show me anywhere near that many.

I showed him areas were Islam actually was more progressive (rules of warfare). I am not claiming that Islam is better then christianity.

Dude. In terms of instances of good stuff in the Koran, it doesn't make it to triple-digits. It has over 500 examples of violence and intolerance. Each. As bad as the Bible is, it doesn't approach that level of constant, pervasive hatred. Indeed, as you read through the Koran, you almost can't avoid it. It comes seething through the page that this is a hateful text. Virtually no page of my version of the Koran is complete without a reference to how the scoffers are going to burn forever, etc. etc. etc. Yeah, there's some "good stuff" in there, but you haven't shown that Skeptic's Annotated has systematically underplayed "Good Stuff" in the Koran or overplayed it in the Bible, or that they've systematically gone through and ignored or underplayed intolerance and violence in the Bible (indeed, that would almost defeat the purpose of their website). You cannot defeat the underlying claim by cherry-picking around for a few instances here and there where the Koran has happy peaceful messages.

Ossus is trying to vastly oversimplify Islam.

How? I have read the Koran. I am sharing my views on the Koran.

THAT is my problem. You and he are trying to simplify a complex religion. Others have called you out on it. You claimed that it's impossible to know about muhammed's life, whereas anyone with even the slightest knowledge would know THAT THAT IS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE HADITH!!!!!!!!!!!! Islam is bad. It has flaws. But to say that it's worse then christianity is a lie.

How is that a lie? I have shown you that it's not just my opinion, but that it's supported strongly by the actual texts of the founding documents of both religions.

You are the one who repeats your claims ad nauseum. Ossus cites evidence about poverty in the middle east, and i am in more agreement with him then you. Because you are guilty of what you accuse me of. Ossus can debate. You can't.

You just spent the last 3 or 4 pages of this thread ignoring Hoth's actual argument and seeming to believe that long, out-of-context quotations from the Koran somehow rebut the underlying point.

[Master of Ossus]

GINI should probably also be included in this equation, though, to differentiate between those countries which have a high GDP spread relatively equally among the population, versus those where it is mostly confined to the ultra-rich, while most of the population is living at poverty level.

For instance, Turkey's CIA GINI is 41, whereas Norway's is 25, indicating a more equal distribution in Norway versus Turkey. Jordan, which mentioned as being more productive with science, scores even better than Turkey with 39.7. So, I strongly suspect that it is a mixture of both a high GDP per capita and a lower GINI (more equal distribution of wealth) that helps create a society more strongly geared toward science.

(source, which is from wikipedia, but is sourced itself pretty well)

It's a fair point that GINI (or some other measure of income disparity) might have an effect, but just intuitively I have trouble evaluating whether or not high GINI would be expected to lead to more or less scientific development, particularly in countries that have relatively low or moderate levels of income. For instance, would you expect that a society within which (say) 10% of the population was reasonably wealthy and the rest were deeply impoverished to output more scientific output or less than a country in which everyone was more-or-less equally impoverished? I don't know if I have any strong feeling one way or the other. Maybe it's better if everyone has some chance to do research, and maybe it's better if a smaller portion of the population has a much greater opportunity to do research.

I'd also point out that a lot of this is a cart-before-horse problem. For instance, it's easy to say, "Well, Saudi Arabia's education system sucks, so that's why their scientific output is so bad. No one expects kids to grow up into Edison or Tesla when they're taught nothing but religious texts until they're 18." But, to be blunt, a big part of Saudi Arabia's educational sucktitude is because of Islam. I'm guessing that the same is true elsewhere. Jordan and Turkey and Kuwait, in contrast, aren't just more equal in terms of income than many other countries we're discussing, but they're also much more culturally westernized than Saudi Arabia or Tunisia.

Obviously there's a lot going on, here, but even in Kuwait and the UAE there's a lot less output than you'd expect, and the fact that NO Islamic country scores particularly highly in terms of scientific development, however measured (e.g., by output/capita or output/[PPP/capita]), there seems to be more of a secular trend than a purely economic one.

[Akhlut]

It's a fair point that GINI (or some other measure of income disparity) might have an effect, but just intuitively I have trouble evaluating whether or not high GINI would be expected to lead to more or less scientific development, particularly in countries that have relatively low or moderate levels of income. For instance, would you expect that a society within which (say) 10% of the population was reasonably wealthy and the rest were deeply impoverished to output more scientific output or less than a country in which everyone was more-or-less equally impoverished? I don't know if I have any strong feeling one way or the other. Maybe it's better if everyone has some chance to do research, and maybe it's better if a smaller portion of the population has a much greater opportunity to do research.

I think it strongly depends on the nation in question. To take the UAE, for instance: most of its wealth is due to a mixture of financial services and oil, and most of the wealthy have little to no interest in science, while the poor are, in general, essentially indentured labor from all across the Muslim world used to build the playgrounds of the wealthy. I would hardly expect them to be a force of scientific revolution. Jordan, on the other hand, is, in relative terms, a liberal state with fairly little oil wealth relying mostly on foreign investment; because they have few natural resources to sell off and not much of a financial market like the UAE, they're going to have to find something to keep themselves an independent national entity, such as nuclear power and other scientific exploits.

So, not only GDP/capita and GINI, but individual circumstances for the aforementioned stats.

Edit: Hey! You edited your post right while I was replying!

Anyway, aside from the paragraph I quoted, I essentially agree with the rest, at least to some extent.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Whenever the issue of Islam's treatment of human rights in general compared to Christianity and other world religions comes up (despite the plain absurdity of attempting to qualify such a specious and broad case in the first place), I find it useful to bring up what I call the NUA Official World-Religious-Relations-Survey. It goes thusly:

In the past 200 years, how many Christian nations have been invaded by Muslim ones? How many have been conquered, how many nations have been dismembered, how many have had suffered massive democide under Muslim colonial rule, how many have had their legal, cultural, religious, and state institutions utterly destroyed by the same and then were yoked to this invader's whims, and have had only a few years of independence to rebuild their shattered economies and cultures?

Now, just do the reverse!

It's an easy test, really. Then just divide one by the other, compare the ratio, and think of what kind of sociological effects would result from a strong legal and cultural tradition being excised by brutal occupation, with only a moral vacuum left to attempt to build a society on once you're finally out from under the imperialist thumb, hampered only by this occupier having a massive head-start in cultural, intellectual, and economic foundations, while you're left with a direction-less, poorly-educated, un-industrialized country whose only short-term prospects to avoid bankruptcy involve exploitation of whatever natural resources you can lay your hands on!

Congratulations, the survey is complete!

I just re-did the test the other day and found that the ratio seemed to be about '[dozens or hundreds]/0', or, for some of you out there, '[dozens or hundreds]/[the Balkans and Armenia, because I have no idea what Ottoman policy towards its Christian minorities actually consisted of but I read a wikipedia article about the Janissary Corps once]'.

[Bakustra]

I see no discrepancy. Indeed, such schoolyard responses only serve as additional symptoms of pinheadedness.

Hilarious, that you attempt to claim high ground, when it was you who started it with the insults.

No, I claim high ground because I am a significantly better person than you, for I recognize the existence of morality beyond naked self-interest. It helps that I am not a pinhead. My invitation still stands.

The Qu'ran, curiously enough, is not Islam. Unless you wish to argue that Christianity is genocidal because of the book of Joshua?

It is. The Bible clearly advocates genocide of Canaanites, Amorites and Amalekites, among others. Forget Joshua, this is in the Books of Moses themselves (especially Numbers). Even the Evangelical/inerrantist apologists do not deny this.

Fortunately for us, none of the nations it commanded genocide against (and to its credit, it was very specific that it was just those, and no others) exists anymore, so to a modern believer those passages are wholly irrelevant, to Christians and Jews both.

It doesn't command genocide, it says that God ordered genocide, thereby indicating that genocidal actions are in line with Judeo-Christian morality, or, rather, Biblical morality, much like murdering one's children for talking back. But most forms of Christianity reject that, and offer their own system of morality that rejects killing, and especially mass murder and genocide. This is because most religions do not consist of a holy book alone. Islam is the same way- one cannot define Islamic morality by the Qu'ran alone, without considering how it is interpreted by its adherents. After all, I could interpret the Bible to indicate that Satan is a good entity, by combining aspects of Job and the New Testament. I would not, however, be able to claim that said interpretation is the Christian interpretation of Satan without being laughed out of any theological conference. The same goes for simply defining Islamic morality by the Qu'ran. One must consider how it is interpreted by the majority of followers and how they act. But that is why I call you a bigot, because you make assumptions based solely upon the Qu'ran, rather than on what Muslims interpret from it. That is prejudicial.

I see that you are an eminently, grotesquely, horribly selfish and bigoted individual. If I were a Christian, I might be inclined to comment on how I forgive you and will pray for your betterment. Not being so, I cheerfully invite you to go jump in a lake. I'm not sure why it's "misunderstood", (or where you got that from, exactly) unless you seriously believe that Muslims are seeking to create a repressive theocracy in the west. In that case, I feel that I might as well just insult you from this point on, as if that is the case you are too disconnected from reality to really talk to.

Hilarious! Just because I point out that Islam is a horrendously intolerant religion based on a horrendously intolerant book, I am a bigot!

Would you also call me a bigot if I said that Christianity and the Bible were intolerant? No, wait, I will do it right away:

I, Darth Hoth, hereby solemnly swear that it is my firm opinion that the Bible and Christianity are intolerant. They are less so than Islam, but saying so is damning them by faint praise.

Oh, no! I am now an anti-Islamic bigot and an anti-Christian bigot!

No, you are bigoted for several reasons. The first I pointed out above, but I am sure that you will continue to be pinheaded about defining what religions believe. The second is that you imply that Muslims seek to oppress other groups. That is a bigoted assumption, and you will of course deny that you implied it with your cute, fuzzy little suggestion that any attempts by non-Muslims to counter intolerance of Islam are a "misunderstood case of 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'". Unfortunately for you, you may well be definitely are the dumbest person in this thread, and the only person you can fool is yourself.

I find it interesting that you don't take offense to "grotesquely self-absorbed", though. Is it a... point of pride to you?

An attempt at snide commentary that only reveals your bigotry. My invitation remains.

I think you did not shout it out loud enough. Try ALLCAPS. Like this: "Bigot! Bigot! Darth Hoth is a BIGOT!

This is the sad approach of one who has no rational argument, but is reduced to attacking his opponent with smear words in lieu of reasoning.

I can't provide a rational argument to counter someone who hides his paranoid theories behind a veil of snide references and smugness. Maybe you should bring them out into the light if you want rational argument. I can't well treat with someone who refuses to acknowledge that a religion is defined by more than holy texts. So you could try and become a little smarter. Or alternatively you could just never talk about religion again, I'm happy either way.

*snip*

I have to say that your methods are still, I feel, flawed until you account for Muslims in developed countries and determine whether they are significantly underrepresented in intellectual fields. After all, they follow the religion too.

Whenever the issue of Islam's treatment of human rights in general compared to Christianity and other world religions comes up (despite the plain absurdity of attempting to qualify such a specious and broad case in the first place), I find it useful to bring up what I call the NUA Official World-Religious-Relations-Survey. It goes thusly:

In the past 200 years, how many Christian nations have been invaded by Muslim ones? How many have been conquered, how many nations have been dismembered, how many have had suffered massive democide under Muslim colonial rule, how many have had their legal, cultural, religious, and state institutions utterly destroyed by the same and then were yoked to this invader's whims, and have had only a few years of independence to rebuild their shattered economies and cultures?

Now, just do the reverse!

It's an easy test, really. Then just divide one by the other, compare the ratio, and think of what kind of sociological effects would result from a strong legal and cultural tradition being excised by brutal occupation, with only a moral vacuum left to attempt to build a society on once you're finally out from under the imperialist thumb, hampered only by this occupier having a massive head-start in cultural, intellectual, and economic foundations, while you're left with a direction-less, poorly-educated, un-industrialized country whose only short-term prospects to avoid bankruptcy involve exploitation of whatever natural resources you can lay your hands on!

Congratulations, the survey is complete!

I just re-did the test the other day and found that the ratio seemed to be about '[dozens or hundreds]/0', or, for some of you out there, '[dozens or hundreds]/[the Balkans and Armenia, because I have no idea what Ottoman policy towards its Christian minorities actually consisted of but I read a wikipedia article about the Janissary Corps once]'.

B-but Ch-ch-charles Martel!

In any case, one thing that also would contribute would be brain drain- for many of these countries, aspiring intellectuals would leave and not return, which seems to be a potential hindrance to building up an academic community.

[Kanastrous]

...not to drag us back kicking and screaming to the OP, or anything, but...

BERLIN — The estranged daughter of a U.S. pastor who has threatened to burn copies of the Koran believes he has gone mad and needs help, she said in a German media interview conducted on Friday.

Emma Jones, who lives in Germany, told Spiegel Online she had e-mailed her father urging him to drop his plan to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, writing: "Dad, leave it be!"

He did not reply, she said.

Facing an outpouring of concern from U.S. leaders and anger from Muslims worldwide, Pastor Terry Jones, of Gainesville, Florida, said on Friday he no longer planned to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

But Jones appeared to leave open the possibility he could change his mind if a proposed meeting fails to take place on Saturday in New York with Muslim leaders planning to build an Islamic center and mosque near the site of the September 11 attacks.

"My father is not one to give up," said Emma Jones, 30. "As a daughter, I see the good-natured core inside him. But I think he needs help."

"I think he has gone mad," she added.

She described how a Christian community her father spent years building in Cologne, Germany was at first Bible-orientated but later changed. After leaving the community aged 17, Emma Jones said she returned in 2005 to find it had become sect-like.

"I saw that my father preached and did things that I didn't find biblical at all. He demanded total allegiance to himself and his second wife," she said. His first wife, her mother, died in 1996.

"That was real religious delusion I saw," she added. "Typical evidence of a sect."

Emma Jones said the community kicked out her father in 2008, when he returned to the United States.

"I really hope he comes to his senses," she said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39099740/ns ... -security/

Someone close enough to make something of an informed judgment thinks the guy is clinical. No, no, don't get the vapors and faint from the shock of it...

[MKSheppard]

I say we nuke Mecca till it glows in the dark, shoot all the Mohammedians in the dark, and steal all their oil. We can detonate thermonuclear devices in roughly geometric distribution points so the blast waves will interact with each other, to maximize the Mohammedian megadeath murder-massacres at the various intersection points of the nuclear initiations.

Long ago in my youth; the local surplus store had a tee shirt that showed a skeletal arab in the traditional headdress, etc lying on a sand dune. In the background was a mushroom cloud.

Text was "Nuke them till they glow in the dark, then shoot them and take their oil."

[Kanastrous]

The apotheosis of that genre was Bomb Iran...

...you remember, to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann...

[Samuel]

Er, the reason I brought up Norway was because it was a country that had its economy affected by oil and puts a significantly smaller amount into R&D than its neighbors. However it has non-oil related industries.

Saudia Arabia
http://www.suite101.com/content/saudi-a ... rts-a57264
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/sa.html

95% of their exports are crude oil and 2.5% is "other petroleum products". 45% of their entire GDP and 80% of their budget revenues aredue to the production of oil. Its growth has been almost entirely due to high oil prices, many of its workers are foreigners... I'm not seeing how these countries are at all "normal". They have shitty educational systems due to Islam, but the reason they have a low ratio for research is because they didn't become rich based upon manufacturing.

Text was "Nuke them till they glow in the dark, then shoot them and take their oil."

But, if we irradiate the oil... eh, screw it who wants to be a Captian Planet villian?

[Cecelia5578]

In the past 200 years, how many Christian nations have been invaded by Muslim ones? How many have been conquered, how many nations have been dismembered, how many have had suffered massive democide under Muslim colonial rule, how many have had their legal, cultural, religious, and state institutions utterly destroyed by the same and then were yoked to this invader's whims, and have had only a few years of independence to rebuild their shattered economies and cultures?

I'm definitely on the anti-MoO side in this debate, but what if you change your "past 200 years" to "the mid 7th century to the 17th century," then I think things would be different.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

In the past 200 years, how many Christian nations have been invaded by Muslim ones? How many have been conquered, how many nations have been dismembered, how many have had suffered massive democide under Muslim colonial rule, how many have had their legal, cultural, religious, and state institutions utterly destroyed by the same and then were yoked to this invader's whims, and have had only a few years of independence to rebuild their shattered economies and cultures?

I'm definitely on the anti-MoO side in this debate, but what if you change your "past 200 years" to "the mid 7th century to the 17th century," then I think things would be different.

They would be! Just like your post wouldn't exist if you hadn't missed the point so spectacularly!

Remember, in the 8th Century, up until the 12th, the various Caliphates and Sultanates were pretty much the best deals around for progressive ideals in the entire world. They invented universities, the scientific method, glasses, and horrible, horrible rosewater-based desserts. And the Ottoman Empire - the evil Saracan Turk conquerors - were by leaps and bounds the most enlightened, civilized nation in Europe until the 1700s, when a couple centuries of mismanagement, poorer agriculture, corruption in the Janissary corps, and continuous war with Europe began to take its toll and it fell backwards.

And yes, a lot of that progress was made possible from the riches it gained in conquest, and its ability to draw on a wide variety of cultures to fuel innovation. It still remained one of the nicest places in Europe for most of its citizens - having a multi-ethnic state where most of the government and civil service are drawn from minorities and nearly every peasant is a landholder helps - but its numerous languages meant that literacy didn't really spread from the urban elite until late in the nineteenth century, and its terrain made industrialisation a practical impossibility. Then all of Europe decided to dismember it, dismember all those enlightened principles, and eventually tossed Arabia back where it came after setting up the Wahabbist House of Saud as the biggest kids on the block, and with the Ottoman legal tradition of Sharia dead and gone*, guess what happened? They lost hundreds of years of development and nuance in favour of mad literalism.

The point is that we're talking about Muslim people today, and people are acting as if there's something inherently evil about the whole shebang, or rather, something inherently worse about it than about Christianity. If message boards existed a thousand years ago, we'd be rich Arabs complaining about those barbarous, intolerant Northern folks who shouldn't be allowed to preach their evil verses, and who burn red-headed people in oil, and need to have proper, civilized Sharia-base society imposed upon them if they're going to progress beyond stabbing each other and wallowing in filth like animals.

*Not entirely true. There's still at least one middle eastern country I know of whose legal code is based on a fairly Ottoman interpretation of Sharia Law - Israel.

[MKSheppard]

Obviously Pastor Jones is a bigoted, attention-seeking jackass who embarrasses America by his mere existence.

Who gives a shit about Pastor Jones and his Church's beliefs?

That's not the fucking point.

He has done us all a favor by reminding us all just how intolerant and violent Islam as a whole is -- and how Islam holds free speech hostage through the utterly irredemable and uncontrollably violent acts of it's members as intimidation.

Just look at how Lars Vilks has had to live with death threats and attempted assassinations (they were caught while in the process of planning the attack); since he drew mohammed as a dog.

If he had drawn Jesus Christ as a dog; or drawn it so that a dog's asshole formed Jesus Christ's mouth; the worst he would have gotten would have been a couple of nasty letters ranging from "How DARE you draw the image of Jesus Christ like that?" to "You poor deluded fool, we will PRAY for your eternal soul."

Maybe if he was really unlucky, he'd have gotten the Westboro Baptist People picketing his house with "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL" signs.

With Islam and it's adherents; any form of 'edgy' performance art or freedom of speech exercise becomes a very real physical threat.

It's why I am thinking carefully about my "burn them all" book BBQ idea for next year, because while I can take the invective that would be hurled my way by the Keith Olbemanns of the world calling me a racist jackass; I do care about my relatives -- who would be in the line of fire from the religion of peace and it's adherents -- while I definitely do know what I may be getting into; I can't in good conscience place their lives and livelihoods in danger.

And that in a nutshell is why we should be cheering this guy on.