US Gen. Petraeus Decries "Burn A Koran Day"

[Bakustra]

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.

So, Shep, why did a number of Christian and Muslim religious leaders condemn Pastor Jones? Are you suggesting that they did so because they are afraid of the evil Muslims? I mean, nobody has threatened Pastor Jones.

Instead, people have said that this might piss off people in Afghanistan, but I can't talk any further about that with you. It'd be a pointless exercise and my irony meter is giving off klaxons right now. I'll just remind you about how you go on about how you might have sympathy for the Palestinians if you hadn't seen images of them cheering on a holiday that coincided with September 11th, 2001, and which took place before people in Palestine heard about the bombings. Then I'll let other people think about that, because I know that you won't do so.

Meanwhile, your paranoia is amazing. You seriously believe that people would care about one jackass in Maryland burning a pile of things? Or are you trying for a publicity stunt?

[Master of Ossus]

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.

So... you think that there is nothing evil about preaching violence and intolerance? You think that there's nothing inherently worse about one religion that follows a text which is 5 times more intolerant and 10 times as violent as another religions?

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.

Perhaps we would be, but we'd be making these arguments on the basis of conduct or culture and not based on the Koran itself. Anyone can read it and conclude that it is vastly more violent and less tolerant than the Bible. Again, if you haven't read the thing, I challenge you to go through it. You can even sample some parts of it. Five or ten books will be more than sufficient, and you can select them randomly or from a particular part of the book, as you choose. I'm confident that you'll find the work an absolutely shockingly violent, intolerant text. Indeed, no one who reads it cannot help but conclude this, and (just like apologist Christians) they have to be carefully coached on what parts of it constitute the "real" religion in order to avoid this conclusion.

[Bakustra]

I notice that you ignore my point about judging religions solely on their holy texts. Surely the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents are more important, no?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

The first time I read through the Koran cover-to-cover, I was in Roman Catholic elementary school, and I've read it, select chapters from it, and various peoples' analyses of it many times since, chauvinistic orientalist that I am.

And frankly, your line of argument is so ridiculous and so obtuse that I'm not at all interested in opening a dialogue or debate with you. Suffice is to say that if we followed your line of reasoning, John Milton would be more blasphemous than Anton LaVey.

[MarshalPurnell]

This thread is now acutely painful.

Nietzschean presents the Chomsky Cliff Notes version of history, cliches about "enlightened Muslim rule" and "barbarous Europeans" that are just as unsubtle and cliched as the equally facile alternative viewpoint of "barbarous Muslims" and "heroic Crusaders." Ask the cizilbashis how enlightened Ottoman rule was - oh yes they were all slaughtered or driven into Iran, and you don't even know what they were. You know when the first Ottoman printing press was established? In 1729 by Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam; which published all of 23 volumes between then and 1743, when it was abolished due to conservative opposition. Intolerant, narrow-minded, insular Muscovy had established one back in the 16th century, two hundred years beforehand. And yes, just go ahead and dismiss the devshirme, the massacres of Christians in the Balkans, and the genocide of the Armenians.

The Ottomans did have some enlightened policies. Of course, so did Poland-Lithuania, and Venice, and Prussia, and Sweden, and the Swiss Confederacy, and the Netherlands. The Ottomans also had some rather ugly imperial policies and practices, and their suppression of the cizilbashis was pursued with the same determination and on the same grounds (being a heterodox element liable to revolt) as the Spanish expulsion of the Moors. Oh, and even at the height of Islamic splendor under the Abbasid Caliphate there was this Christian state called the Byzantine Empire. Maybe you've heard of it? It had quite a lot of education and trade and urban planning and Imperial pomp and all that other impressive civilized stuff. Of course Song China put both to shame in the later part of the era.

Fetishizing the Ottoman Empire or Al-Andalus or the Caliphate as a kind of enlightened, morally elevated fantasy-land of ideal Muslim rule is just as historically inaccurate and biased as portraying Europe in the Late Medieval and Earl Modern period as backward, ignorant, and exceptionally intolerant. Neither the Occident nor the Orient can ever be painted in such a broad brush.

Now of course, the Islamic World was actually rocked (like a hurricane) by the Mongols, who devastated the Persian and Iraqi centers of Islamic learning, though orthodox Islam was already rejecting the Hellenistic influenced philosophers in favor of Mysticism. Al-Ghazali had already won and established Occasionalism as the established mode of thought, despite the rear-guard action of rationalism conducted by Averroes - who ironically had his greatest impact on Christianity, through the medium of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. The Crusades were small fry compared to that, and after the First Crusade the Latins and nearby Muslim states went through a whirlwind of enmities and alliances that gives the lie to the idea of some united Islamic front or fanatical Christian aggressors. The complaint that European colonialism serious brutalized and impoverished the Arab lands is just so devoid of any historical truth as to be dismissible out of hand; if anything European colonialism (which was almost entirely indirect outside of the French control of Syria-Lebanon) saw the establishment of modern institutions in those lands that laid the foundations for the halting, incomplete, and ambiguous state formation that followed. I rather doubt leaving Arabia united in some grand tribal federation under the Hashemites would have led to greater progress, though perhaps Wahhabism would not be such a problem.

And in the modern world the Islamic world is impoverished and backward. That includes Turkey and Indonesia and Malaya as much as the Arabs, but to lesser degrees. Being impoverished and backward is directly correlated with disproportionately low contribution to the world economy and science. At the same time, why is the Arab world impoverished and backward? Colonialism is a non-excuse; countries in Asia that were colonized for longer, and with greater brutality, contribute far more. And they do not lack the infrastructure of modernity in the same way Central Africa (which is hardly uniformly Christian, as asserted elsewhere) does. They have some dysfunctional cultural practices which can be linked to Islam in one way or another, either encouraged by misogynistic and anti-intellectual attitudes promoted by the practice of their religion or as a direct result of the failure to impose secularism. Those countries which are less observant of Islam are generally better off, but all (except Turkey, the most successful Muslim country of all) formally enshrine Islam to some degree or other. And we should recognize that Islamic fundamentalists are either more willing to use violence, or enjoy significantly larger numbers and sympathy from their co-religionists, and thus exercise a significantly larger negative influence than fundamentalists of other religions. One can also make a strong argument that Islam is more resistant to acceptance of secularism for a variety of reasons peculiar to it, such as the insistence on the inerrancy of the Koran (to a degree only fringe Christian sects claim for the Bible) and the all-embracing nature of Islamic practice, which is taken far more seriously than (most) followers of other religions still claim.

The situation is vastly more complex than claiming "Islam is evil" but it is utterly naive to pretend that Islam does not represent an obstacle to modernity different from and more difficult than most religions.

[Master of Ossus]

I notice that you ignore my point about judging religions solely on their holy texts. Surely the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents are more important, no?

So... we should base our opinion of Islam not only on the Koran itself but also on the fact that Muslims around the world ran out and killed people because of some cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Got it. Thanks for clarifying.

[Master of Ossus]

The first time I read through the Koran cover-to-cover, I was in Roman Catholic elementary school, and I've read it, select chapters from it, and various peoples' analyses of it many times since, chauvinistic orientalist that I am.

And frankly, your line of argument is so ridiculous and so obtuse that I'm not at all interested in opening a dialogue or debate with you. Suffice is to say that if we followed your line of reasoning, John Milton would be more blasphemous than Anton LaVey.

In case you hadn't noticed, John Milton was not trying to found a religion. He was not trying to inspire his readers to specific actions based on their religious faith in his document. But moreover, who cares about blasphemy? Blasphemy is defined only by religious views. I'm talking about the objective actions which these texts are designed to inspire. Promoting violence and intolerance towards people with different religious views is wrong.

[Thanas]

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.

No. That title had lond passed by then, possibly even as early as the 16th century.

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.

You have a very idealized view of the Ottoman Empire that really has not that much to do with reality, as anybody who had spent any time reading up on the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the West should realize. Heck, I've read original documents from the era and the Ottomans are far from the idealized version you espouse here. Those enlightened principles, as you call them, were just as easily abused time and time again, culminating in the brutal treatment of border districts, Greece etc. Also, let us not forget that the Ottoman Empire was the first to committ genocide in the 20th century. Granted, under nationalist influences, but if you want to argue that the "enlightened" principles are supposed to go in their favor, then don't gloss over the fact that their brutality was about on the same level as the worst the Christian nations could do.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I think MarshalPurnell at least brings up some relevant points, and further points that will allow me to put a more fine point on my original post, which I admittedly wrote with broad strokes, because seriously. And I'm going to do a point-by-point just this once because it's a pretty dense post.

Ask the cizilbashis how enlightened Ottoman rule was - oh yes they were all slaughtered or driven into Iran, and you don't even know what they were.

Um, yeah, I do. And while their treatment was fairly brutal, I admit, comparing Ottoman relations with the Qizilbashis - who were not an ethnic group so much as a militant state-within-a-state, more akin to a culturally homogeneous Hezbollah than a people - to, say, the various expulsions of the Jews which most European nations took part in at one point or another (Jews which of course the Ottomans welcomed with open arms), is disingenuous to say the least.

You know when the first Ottoman printing press was established? In 1729 by Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam; which published all of 23 volumes between then and 1743, when it was abolished due to conservative opposition. Intolerant, narrow-minded, insular Muscovy had established one back in the 16th century, two hundred years beforehand.

I think I already mentioned how the Ottoman Empire had fallen behind by the Seventeenth Century, so this can't be a retort to me, but kudos to you if it was just a burning factoid you wanted to mention.

And yes, just go ahead and dismiss the devshirme, the massacres of Christians in the Balkans, and the genocide of the Armenians.

Devshirme was without a doubt an unjust practice, but as to non-specific 'massacres' I will give no specific reply. However, I will note that the supposed genocide of the Armenians was accomplished under the CUP, which really cannot be characterized by most standards as a direct successor to previous Ottoman governments, and can more properly be called a transitional government between the Empire and the Republic of Turkey - and, notably, it was the first government to poison the Empire's discourse by turning its priorities to ethnic and national distinctions within the Empire.

The Ottomans did have some enlightened policies. Of course, so did Poland-Lithuania, and Venice, and Prussia, and Sweden, and the Swiss Confederacy, and the Netherlands. The Ottomans also had some rather ugly imperial policies and practices, and their suppression of the cizilbashis was pursued with the same determination and on the same grounds (being a heterodox element liable to revolt) as the Spanish expulsion of the Moors. Oh, and even at the height of Islamic splendor under the Abbasid Caliphate there was this Christian state called the Byzantine Empire. Maybe you've heard of it? It had quite a lot of education and trade and urban planning and Imperial pomp and all that other impressive civilized stuff.

Now that's just silly. By the time the House of Osman came to power, the glory days of Constantinople were well gone, and its light had long ceased to guide Christendom. A great deal of the city that had been sacked and burned in 1204 wouldn't be repaired from dereliction until after the Ottoman conquest several hundred years later.

Of course Song China put both to shame in the later part of the era.

Yes and no, but sure.

Fetishizing the Ottoman Empire or Al-Andalus or the Caliphate as a kind of enlightened, morally elevated fantasy-land of ideal Muslim rule is just as historically inaccurate and biased as portraying Europe in the Late Medieval and Earl Modern period as backward, ignorant, and exceptionally intolerant. Neither the Occident nor the Orient can ever be painted in such a broad brush.

I will concede that in working in broad strokes I probably over-reached, but neither will I accept your equivocations that would make every nation morally equivalent because a few black marks can be found on every hide.

Now of course, the Islamic World was actually rocked (like a hurricane) by the Mongols, who devastated the Persian and Iraqi centers of Islamic learning, though orthodox Islam was already rejecting the Hellenistic influenced philosophers in favor of Mysticism. Al-Ghazali had already won and established Occasionalism as the established mode of thought, despite the rear-guard action of rationalism conducted by Averroes - who ironically had his greatest impact on Christianity, through the medium of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics.

I think the strength of Islamic Mysticism before the Mongol Conquest is more than arguable, but you aren't specifically wrong.

The Crusades were small fry compared to that, and after the First Crusade the Latins and nearby Muslim states went through a whirlwind of enmities and alliances that gives the lie to the idea of some united Islamic front or fanatical Christian aggressors.

I never made any indication that this was the case - the Middle Eastern states had competing regional interests, like any other states, and neither would I argue for any unification on the other side - hell, I think I brought up France's support for the Ottomans (before the balance of power changed and they were against the evil muslims again) just the other day on this board.

The complaint that European colonialism serious brutalized and impoverished the Arab lands is just so devoid of any historical truth as to be dismissible out of hand; if anything European colonialism (which was almost entirely indirect outside of the French control of Syria-Lebanon) saw the establishment of modern institutions in those lands that laid the foundations for the halting, incomplete, and ambiguous state formation that followed.

oh jesus christ why did i start responding to this post

I rather doubt leaving Arabia united in some grand tribal federation under the Hashemites would have led to greater progress, though perhaps Wahhabism would not be such a problem.

Congratulations on false dilemmas.

And in the modern world the Islamic world is impoverished and backward. That includes Turkey and Indonesia and Malaya as much as the Arabs, but to lesser degrees. Being impoverished and backward is directly correlated with disproportionately low contribution to the world economy and science.

I find it kind of mind-blowing that you would declare the second-fastest growing economy in the world, and possibly the healthiest economy in Europe, as having a 'disproportionately low contribution' to world economy.

At the same time, why is the Arab world impoverished and backward? Colonialism is a non-excuse; countries in Asia that were colonized for longer, and with greater brutality, contribute far more.

Many Asian countries, such as Thailand, China, and Japan, also have a direct line of succession, unbroken by European conquest, back to their origins. And hey, the only Muslim-majority state that wasn't a European satellite for several decades (though not for lack of trying) - Turkey - is also a healthy, prosperous state. Gee golly, I wonder if we're onto something!

I guess Iran also evaded conquest by the European powers (until WWII, at least), but its structural problems are either direct consequences of things which long precede even the existence of Islam or extremely recent changes whose lasting power is in question.

And they do not lack the infrastructure of modernity in the same way Central Africa (which is hardly uniformly Christian, as asserted elsewhere) does. They have some dysfunctional cultural practices which can be linked to Islam in one way or another, either encouraged by misogynistic and anti-intellectual attitudes promoted by the practice of their religion or as a direct result of the failure to impose secularism. Those countries which are less observant of Islam are generally better off, but all (except Turkey, the most successful Muslim country of all) formally enshrine Islam to some degree or other.

Turns out secularism is generally good. AMAZING.

And we should recognize that Islamic fundamentalists are either more willing to use violence, or enjoy significantly larger numbers and sympathy from their co-religionists, and thus exercise a significantly larger negative influence than fundamentalists of other religions. One can also make a strong argument that Islam is more resistant to acceptance of secularism for a variety of reasons peculiar to it, such as the insistence on the inerrancy of the Koran (to a degree only fringe Christian sects claim for the Bible) and the all-embracing nature of Islamic practice, which is taken far more seriously than (most) followers of other religions still claim.

Yeah, as of today, the discourse of Islamic practice is only beginning to emerge from the deep, dark pit of literalism and pseudo-medieval doctrine that it sank to in the wake of colonialism.

The situation is vastly more complex than claiming "Islam is evil" but it is utterly naive to pretend that Islam does not represent an obstacle to modernity different from and more difficult than most religions.

Whenever I see people trying to paint entire religions as a simple 'obstacle' to some vague idol of 'the Modern', I wonder where the fuck they get off being allowed to accuse others of 'broad strokes'.

[Thanas]

I think I already mentioned how the Ottoman Empire had fallen behind by the Seventeenth Century, so this can't be a retort to me, but kudos to you if it was just a burning factoid you wanted to mention.

I think his point is the same as mine - that the Ottoman Empire had already fallen behind by the start of the sixteenth century. In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest it never had a technological edge towards western Europe.

Devshirme was without a doubt an unjust practice, but as to non-specific 'massacres' I will give no specific reply.

I suggest you read up on the Ottoman conquest of the Venetian territories, or the conquest of the Balkans.

Now that's just silly. By the time the House of Osman came to power, the glory days of Constantinople were well gone, and its light had long ceased to guide Christendom. A great deal of the city that had been sacked and burned in 1204 wouldn't be repaired from dereliction until after the Ottoman conquest several hundred years later.

A) You were talking about the heyday of Islam, so bringing up the ERE in relation to that is just fair, especially considering the exchange of knowledge that existed.

B) You seem to forget that the Osmans forbade the Byzantines to repair parts of the city, especially the walls and the areas around them.

I find it kind of mind-blowing that you would declare the second-fastest growing economy in the world, and possibly the healthiest economy in Europe, as having a 'disproportionately low contribution' to world economy.

Turkey is neither the healthiest economy of Europe and their fast growth is nothing special as they start from a much lower level than the vast majority of EU nations.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I mean, nobody has threatened Pastor Jones.

You're wrong, he has been threatened, the problem is that Islam isn't the monolithic bloc Ossus and Shep want to believe it is and Muslims condemned the death threats.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I think his point is the same as mine - that the Ottoman Empire had already fallen behind by the start of the sixteenth century. In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest it never had a technological edge towards western Europe.

I don't think that the Ottomans were ever particularly ahead technologically, no, though I'd disagree about 'never' - the Romanian cannons it brought to bear in 1453 and its general accomplishments in architecture and other arts remained impressive by European standards until about the time of Roxelana, I'd say, at which point in Europe the effects of the Renaissance and Reformation began to saturate the scene. Also, more capitalized R words. Robble Robble Robble.

I suggest you read up on the Ottoman conquest of the Venetian territories, or the conquest of the Balkans.

Ah, bloody annexations. Yeah, no argument there. But I will argue that the Ottoman treatment of its newly-conquered minorities during and after conquest were still far more civilized than equivalent European treatment of, say, Africans, Central Asians, American Aboriginals, Spanish Moors, or other people it encountered in the same periods.

A) You were talking about the heyday of Islam, so bringing up the ERE in relation to that is just fair, especially considering the exchange of knowledge that existed.

Ah, I misread his statement, I thought it was in reference to the Ottomans again. My bad.

Turkey is neither the healthiest economy of Europe and their fast growth is nothing special as they start from a much lower level than the vast majority of EU nations.

Well, which countries have a stronger economy? The rest are either weighed down by debt, or weighed down by the countries weighed down by debt, the Eastern ones are weighed down by infrastructure and emigration, and the Western ones by aging populations and disappearing cottage industries. Germany is more robust than most, but its import/export priorities are starting to stumble really badly.

Meanwhile, Turkey is surging in pretty much every index of prosperity and growth I know of, from education to exportation to population.

But getting into a debate about current European economics (a headache no matter which side you take) alongside a debate about modern Islamic problems and various separate periods of history in the Middle East is something I really want to believe neither of us want to get into.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I will note that I haven't done any formal study on the Qizilbashi people, and most of my education on the Balkans under the Ottomans comes from a variety of secondary sources. I probably won't be able to bring much to the table in this debate as far as really strong sources because my current university is thoroughly lacking in both material and professors dealing with the Middle East.

[Thanas]

I don't think that the Ottomans were ever particularly ahead technologically, no, though I'd disagree about 'never' - the Romanian cannons it brought to bear in 1453 and its general accomplishments in architecture and other arts remained impressive by European standards until about the time of Roxelana, I'd say, at which point in Europe the effects of the Renaissance and Reformation began to saturate the scene. Also, more capitalized R words. Robble Robble Robble.

If you mean the cannons at the Fall of Constantinople, those were actually built and designed by a Hungarian mercenary. And they were not really that impressive - breaches were repaired quickly due to the slow rate of fire and in the end the Ottomans won the siege by good old throwing more troops at the enemy until he runs out of ammo/ can no longer shoot them fast enough. This was extremely risky - had the Byzantines had a thousand more troops, the assaults most likely would all have failed.

Ah, bloody annexations. Yeah, no argument there. But I will argue that the Ottoman treatment of its newly-conquered minorities during and after conquest were still far more civilized than equivalent European treatment of, say, Africans, Central Asians, American Aboriginals, Spanish Moors, or other people it encountered in the same periods.

Doubtful, considering the tales they tell of the Janissaries and the Ottoman's habit of flaying people alive / enslaving them. The Spanish allowed the moors of Granada to leave in peace, the Ottoman Janissaries OTOH oftentimes massacred even surrendering garrisons.

For example, when Europe was inventing things like the concept of honorable surrender, the Ottoman's "distinguished" themselves when they slaughtered/sold into slavery 7820 out of 8000 surrendering Venetian soldiers in 1715, when they retook the Morea. (There is the claim that the janissaries just got out of hand, but if the commander of an Army could not restrain them in such a public and important event of honor, then just think what they were up to when not supervised).

At least when the Spanish conquered the Moorish lands, they did not enslave the population. Unlike the Ottomans.

Well, which countries have a stronger economy? The rest are either weighed down by debt, or weighed down by the countries weighed down by debt, the Eastern ones are weighed down by infrastructure and emigration, and the Western ones by aging populations and disappearing cottage industries. Germany is more robust than most, but its import/export priorities are starting to stumble really badly.

Meanwhile, Turkey is surging in pretty much every index of prosperity and growth I know of, from education to exportation to population.

But getting into a debate about current European economics (a headache no matter which side you take) alongside a debate about modern Islamic problems and various separate periods of history in the Middle East is something I really want to believe neither of us want to get into.

Fine by me. Turkey has the lowest GDP in the EU (maybe save Greace nowadays), its infrastructure is leaps behind the others and even the worst Eastern country is better off than Turkey. Also...disappearing cottage industries? WTH? The problem with Turkey is that a lot of its growth is not in sustainable industries, but lowest-bidder industries. If they would enter the EU, that would necessitate an enormous amount of subsidies to fix.

Even more, Turkish growth would (and will) stop pretty soon because you can only go so far with T-shirt factories.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Doubtful, considering the tales they tell of the Janissaries and the Ottoman's habit of flaying people alive / enslaving them. The Spanish allowed the moors of Granada to leave in peace, the Ottoman Janissaries OTOH oftentimes massacred even surrendering garrisons.

For example, when Europe was inventing things like the concept of honorable surrender, the Ottoman's "distinguished" themselves when they slaughtered/sold into slavery 7820 out of 8000 surrendering Venetian soldiers in 1715, when they retook the Morea. (There is the claim that the janissaries just got out of hand, but if the commander of an Army could not restrain them in such a public and important event of honor, then just think what they were up to when not supervised).

At least when the Spanish conquered the Moorish lands, they did not enslave the population. Unlike the Ottomans.

Yeah, Byron's old tale. Yeah, as I said above, I feel no need to defend the Janissaries and their actions in conquests. On the other hand, I have some problems with characterising the Ottomans as worse than the Spanish in enslaving conquered populations. Certainly, Spain enslaved native populations in its American possessions. More importantly, 'enslaving the population' gives the wrong impression that the people conquered were indentured through the generations, which, well, largely wasn't the case since the Ottomans had a great deal of trouble manufacturing legal reasons for keeping enslaved populations, well, enslaved, for more than the first plundered generation. Even their second-class millet citizens had more autonomy in practice than Europe's equivalent serfs and free-holding farmers.

I will note without arguing the point that the vast majority of our documentation for Ottoman atrocities in the Second Morean War, and its latter wars in general, come from nineteenth-century Christian European and English authors - actually, I just checked to verify something, and you might get a kick out of this, but the only source wikipedia lists for the massacre of the surrendering Venetians is George Findlay, who fought along with Byron in the Greek War of Independence. I know Findlay is well-respected in German academia, but it seems to me like he can't be entirely relied upon as an objective source for in these matters. Your mileage may vary.

Anyways, having re-read the past couple pages, I've quickly realized that debating the merits of seventeenth-century Ottoman occupations and such is a tangent I really never meant to go on in the first place - my response to Cecelia5578 was popped off without much thought and less finesse - and, like most debates, I can practically guarantee that it's only a matter of time before I'd get bored anyways and bow out of the argument without distinction.

So if it's all the same to you, I'll go ahead and concede right now so that the thread can go back to crazy people afraid that the Muslims will take our jobs and throw burqas on our women unless we hate them hard enough.

Can you recommend any books on the Ottoman Balkans, by the way?

[Master of Ossus]

You're wrong, he has been threatened, the problem is that Islam isn't the monolithic bloc Ossus and Shep want to believe it is and Muslims condemned the death threats.

Oh, for fuck's sake, can we stop with the strawmen, yet? I never claimed that all Muslims have the same beliefs about Islam. I only criticized the Koran itself--the founding document of the religion--as encouraging violence and intolerance. In that regard, it far outstrips even the Bible. Plenty of Muslims disregard those parts of the book (which kinda makes you wonder what's left), but that's neither here nor there with regards to the criticism of the book itself.

[Bakustra]

I notice that you ignore my point about judging religions solely on their holy texts. Surely the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents are more important, no?

So... we should base our opinion of Islam not only on the Koran itself but also on the fact that Muslims around the world ran out and killed people because of some cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Got it. Thanks for clarifying.

Yes, just like how we should base our opinion of Christianity on abortion clinic bombers. Or perhaps on Arnaud Amalric and his eloquent Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. And we should base our opinion of Buddhism and Christianity on Aum Shinrikyo. We should also base our opinion of Jews on the Irgun too. After all, we should always define a religion by its most extreme members. Hell, putting it that way, I must admit that Muslims are really pretty even, as by your bizarre methodology all Christians and Buddhists are WMD-manufacturing terrorists too! I must admit that I find it difficult to continue conversation with someone as prejudicial as you are, so I will address this to people that might actually listen.

When I say "the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents", that would mean statistical analysis, not bizarre statements that lead people to assume that you're horribly bigoted.

I mean, nobody has threatened Pastor Jones.

You're wrong, he has been threatened, the problem is that Islam isn't the monolithic bloc Ossus and Shep want to believe it is and Muslims condemned the death threats.

What? Muslims disagreeing with one another? Surely such a violent religion of pure evil and suffering would not dare to have differences of opinions amongst its adherents mindless slaves. Man, I sure wonder why the global Muslim conspiracy Shep believes is out for him hasn't attacked the pastor physically yet. Sarcasm-soon-to-be-out-of-context aside, thank you for the correction.

You're wrong, he has been threatened, the problem is that Islam isn't the monolithic bloc Ossus and Shep want to believe it is and Muslims condemned the death threats.

Oh, for fuck's sake, can we stop with the strawmen, yet? I never claimed that all Muslims have the same beliefs about Islam. I only criticized the Koran itself--the founding document of the religion--as encouraging violence and intolerance. In that regard, it far outstrips even the Bible. Plenty of Muslims disregard those parts of the book (which kinda makes you wonder what's left), but that's neither here nor there with regards to the criticism of the book itself.

That's not a strawman, that's just you realizing that your blind hatred has led you down a path that cannot be defended. Every post before this was about Islam as a whole, and you using the Qu'ran to attack Islam as a whole. Please assume that your opponents are at least literate and have a working memory, at the least.

[Master of Ossus]

Yes, just like how we should base our opinion of Christianity on abortion clinic bombers. Or perhaps on Arnaud Amalric and his eloquent Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. And we should base our opinion of Buddhism and Christianity on Aum Shinrikyo. We should also base our opinion of Jews on the Irgun too. After all, we should always define a religion by its most extreme members. Hell, putting it that way, I must admit that Muslims are really pretty even, as by your bizarre methodology all Christians and Buddhists are WMD-manufacturing terrorists too! I must admit that I find it difficult to continue conversation with someone as prejudicial as you are, so I will address this to people that might actually listen.

When I say "the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents", that would mean statistical analysis, not bizarre statements that lead people to assume that you're horribly bigoted.

You are a moron. I used the Danish cartoons as an example because opposition to them was broad-based across the Islamic world. Several countries recalled their ambassadors to Denmark or closed their Danish embassies. Thousands of police had to be mobilized in Pakistan to deal with the number of protesters. All 17 Arab Interior Ministers denounced the cartoons and asked Denmark to punish the cartoonists, as did the entire Organization of the Islamic Conference (which, you know, speaks for all Islamic countries in the UN). Further, the boycott on Danish goods dropped Denmark's total exports by 15.5% at one point, with trade to the Middle East off by half! These aren't the views of extremist fringe groups like all the others you falsely analogize them with. Rather, the mainstream position in Islam was that the cartoonists should have been punished for their actions, and this was adopted as the official government position of all 41 Islamic countries.

Moreover, the riots around the Islamic world were extremely pervasive and broad-based, with serious incidents happening in Indonesia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Egypt, among many others. People died in many of these demonstrations. Over cartoons.

Edit: out of curiosity, what percentage of people would be required to believe something for it to be a mainstream view within that religion? Does it have to be 50%? 75%? Less? More?

That's not a strawman, that's just you realizing that your blind hatred has led you down a path that cannot be defended. Every post before this was about Islam as a whole, and you using the Qu'ran to attack Islam as a whole.

What is the Koran, if it is not Islam as a whole? The Koran is the founding document on which all of Islam is built. Criticizing the Koran, though, does not mean that every Muslim believes in its violent message--I have repeatedly pointed out that many Muslims cherry-pick their verses so as to avoid the violence and intolerance in the Koran. Did you forget, or did you simply not read this in the first place?

Please assume that your opponents are at least literate and have a working memory, at the least.

I do generally assume this, but obviously you are undeserving of this assumption. In the future, I will endeavor to do a better job of using small words and avoiding hard concepts with you.

[Darth Hoth]

Dart Yan:

As usual on this topic, your posts are the by now familiar mixture of strawman attacks, red herrings, and repeated unsupported claims. Ossus dealt with them already; I have little to add. However:

I find the muslims less of a threat then the christian right

The Christian Right is more of a threat? I must have forgotten that there was ever any Christian group on the globe that threatened Lars Vilks's life for showing the video with a crucifix in a jar full of urine. (Yes, he did that, too; hilariously, it does not get anywhere near the same kind of attention.)

I rest my case.

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.

American Indians were not subjected to any systematic genocide. (Although in some cases, isolated populations were, but then the Indians ruthlessly killed white settlers on occasion also.) The vast majority died from disease. And I must have missed Hitler's speech where he motivated his genocide from the Bible.

Of course, this is a red herring. Evidence has already been presented that Islam, as presented in its own holy book is vastly more violent and intolerant.

[Eleas]

The Christian Right is more of a threat? I must have forgotten that there was ever any Christian group on the globe that threatened Lars Vilks's life for showing the video with a crucifix in a jar full of urine. (Yes, he did that, too; hilariously, it does not get anywhere near the same kind of attention.)

I rest my case.

That argument only works if you ignore the context. Vilks' cartoon was exported precisely at the right time and in the right place to speak to an already disenfranchised minority. The attention you speak of was aided and abetted by the media. We've had more than a few US fundamentalist nutbars blowing a gasket over similar things and at similar levels of volume, but guess what? When that happened, those words weren't capitalized upon by an enthusiastic media apparatus who quite naturally need to show them dirty Muslims conforming to the stereotype.

Witness, for instance, the enormous media furore over the blatant lies spoken by CBS among others. You know, that expose where they talked mainly to SD members and intercut the video with clips from the Gothenburg riots. That was...

...ah yes, completely ignored by Swedish media. Reason? Because this wasn't Muslims producing blatant lies about us, but evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians with incalculably greater influence, of course, not to mention holding views closer to that of Swedish voters.

(As an aside, it being close to election nowadays, I feel inclined toward a semi-political musing on the matter: Sverigedemokraterna are constant in that they stick to their guns, and the only confusing part is that they no longer shave their heads and salute one another with a "sieg heil!" (which would at least be honest); the Moderate party's wholly unironic "work makes one free" sounded better in German but is, unfortunately, no better or worse than the rest of their established policies; Folkpartiet consists of people who like the Moderates worship the idea of work for the masses as opposed to salaried work; while finally Centern thrives on never presenting any actual policies or substantial strategy whatsoever. This is the blue phalanx of the country. Unfortunately, it looks like they will win, if nothing else then as an object lesson on the efficacy of the recent decade of fearmongering.)

[Thanas]

I will note without arguing the point that the vast majority of our documentation for Ottoman atrocities in the Second Morean War, and its latter wars in general, come from nineteenth-century Christian European and English authors - actually, I just checked to verify something, and you might get a kick out of this, but the only source wikipedia lists for the massacre of the surrendering Venetians is George Findlay, who fought along with Byron in the Greek War of Independence. I know Findlay is well-respected in German academia, but it seems to me like he can't be entirely relied upon as an objective source for in these matters. Your mileage may vary.

I think this is just a case of English authors being lazy and not reading original sources (again). I wouldn't rely on wikipedia for such cases, having read at least one book that detail primary sources themselves. (Though right now I cannot remember whether he also mentions the massacres I mentioned).

Can you recommend any books on the Ottoman Balkans, by the way?

Klaus Peter Matschke, Das Kreuz und der Halbmond: Die Geschichte der Türkenkriege, (2004) is an excellent book on the various wars and interactions.

[Darth Hoth]

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.

Oh, man, you are comedy gold. Do you not read your own threads? You said (or at the very least, implied) that you would band together with Islam, itself a horribly intolerant religion, just to oppose the "intolerant" Christian majority together with them:

But let me say that most people here live in Christian-dominated societies, wherein intolerance of Muslims is common. So I don't see why atheistic, agnostic, or liberal Christian individuals must therefore contribute to said intolerance rather than acting to counteract it, especially since they face intolerance as well. I mean, it's kinda like how there's overlap between feminists, anti-racists, and gay rights people. It's almost as if they dislike oppression and inequality for philosophical reasons, rather than pure self-interest.

What is this if not . . . naked self-interest?

Meanwhile, I, as a neutral observer, have no problem lambasting the intolerance of both Christianity and Islam, all the while still pointing out that one is worse than the other (which I by now consider proved, since no one has provided any credible refutation of the evidence cited for this argument). Seems I am the one dealing with morality rather than purely tactical considerations.

Are you done with your pompously hypocritical self-righteousness yet? Not that I mind, mind you; you are an excellent amusement to light up the dreary Swedish autumn weather.

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.

Oh, please, what a bullshit argument. How is it functionally any different if "God tells you in this book to genocide people" or "the book commands you to genocide people"? How is this, for example, not an incitement to genocide?

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them

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.

Oh, and Darth Wong is also a bigot for pointing out (rightly) that the Bible is also a horribly intolerant document, and that people who agree with it are thus, by logic, intolerant?

Or, let us look at it from another angle: Would you say that Christianity is not intolerant, because "one must consider the majority and blah, blah, blah"? This is what you must do, by reason of your argument, since you are apparently proposing that Islam is not intolerant. I eagerly await you doing so.

I challenge your claim that a religion cannot be judged by its own holy writings. If you believe that a book is the Inspired Word of God and totally admirable in every way, then you do endorse its teaching, even if you personally prefer to cherry-pick the nicely warm and fuzzy passages to quote.

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.

Seems that you are the one being dishonest, to me. Although not stupid; this amount of sophistry goes beyond unintentional stupidity. Your very assertion that stating objective facts about Islam (but not Christianity?) is "intolerant" amply demonstrates your hypocrisy and agenda-driven ideology for all to see.

As for oppressing: The koran, of course, supports that, too. But you will no doubt continue with your ludicrous claim that a religion's own holy books and their teachings are utterly irrelevant to the religion itself.

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

No, I just plain did not find it worthy of address. Of course, more unthinking invective is perfectly representative of your debating style in general.

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.

"Paranoid theories"? Just stop it, please, you are killing me! I am some paranoid conspiracy theorist, now, because I dare to criticise Islam? And then you attack my perceived "smugness"? You are giving a whole new definition to the words "irony" and "Newspeak".

You have no argument. You never had one. Now go back hiding under your bed and reading Noam Chomsky.

[Darth Hoth]

That argument only works if you ignore the context. Vilks' cartoon was exported precisely at the right time and in the right place to speak to an already disenfranchised minority. The attention you speak of was aided and abetted by the media. We've had more than a few US fundamentalist nutbars blowing a gasket over similar things and at similar levels of volume, but guess what? When that happened, those words weren't capitalized upon by an enthusiastic media apparatus who quite naturally need to show them dirty Muslims conforming to the stereotype.

Witness, for instance, the enormous media furore over the blatant lies spoken by CBS among others. You know, that expose where they talked mainly to SD members and intercut the video with clips from the Gothenburg riots. That was...

...ah yes, completely ignored by Swedish media. Reason? Because this wasn't Muslims producing blatant lies about us, but evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians with incalculably greater influence, of course, not to mention holding views closer to that of Swedish voters.

I must have missed where they threatened anyone's life and, moreover, actually attacked anyone with physical force.

As for spreading lies about us, Middle Eastern news do that pretty much every day, and it is rarely that one of our media outlets notices.

(As an aside, it being close to election nowadays, I feel inclined toward a semi-political musing on the matter: Sverigedemokraterna are constant in that they stick to their guns, and the only confusing part is that they no longer shave their heads and salute one another with a "sieg heil!" (which would at least be honest); the Moderate party's wholly unironic "work makes one free" sounded better in German but is, unfortunately, no better or worse than the rest of their established policies; Folkpartiet consists of people who like the Moderates worship the idea of work for the masses as opposed to salaried work; while finally Centern thrives on never presenting any actual policies or substantial strategy whatsoever. This is the blue phalanx of the country. Unfortunately, it looks like they will win, if nothing else then as an object lesson on the efficacy of the recent decade of fearmongering.)

You are misrepresenting Swedish politics if you portray the Sverigedemokraterna as part of the Alliance for Sweden. They would not touch them with a pitchfork.

Otherwise, the Social Democrats are just flailing around for any issue to distract the public from the fact they have no constructive ideas whatever if they should win the elections, the Communist Party wants more of everything for everyone and damn budgets or domestic debts, and the Greens are pretty much Reds by this stage. This is the red phalanx of the country. Fortunately, it looks like they will lose, if nothing else then because the people realise that their politics are fundamentally unrealistic.

( )

[Thanas]

URGH.

I am getting really tired of people pointing to Deuteronomy or any other "laws" or "commands by the lord" in the Πεντάτευχος without taking into account the literary tradition. Here's a hint: They are essentially fanfics written by Jewish authors while being powerless and in exile in Babylon or while they were being the little servants of the other large powers. It is fantasy, written to promise the jews that once they were actually powerful and that it, through the grace of the lord, might happen once again.

Some of the more hideous stuff is even a pacifistic interpretation of the Assyrian war curses. Remember the infamous "thou shalts take no prisoners, rape the virgins, kill the rest" quote? That is actually a less extreme rewording of an Assyrian war curse.

[Darth Hoth]

URGH.

I am getting really tired of people pointing to Deuteronomy or any other "laws" or "commands by the lord" in the Πεντάτευχος without taking into account the literary tradition. Here's a hint: They are essentially fanfics written by Jewish authors while being powerless and in exile in Babylon or while they were being the little servants of the other large powers. It is fantasy, written to promise the jews that once they were actually powerful and that it, through the grace of the lord, might happen once again.

Some of the more hideous stuff is even a pacifistic interpretation of the Assyrian war curses. Remember the infamous "thou shalts take no prisoners, rape the virgins, kill the rest" quote? That is actually a less extreme rewording of an Assyrian war curse.

First, this is just theorised, not proven. I know enough about Biblical criticism to know that the last word has not, and likely never will be, said on the pentateuchal authorship and the exact circumstances thereof, especially as regards individual passages. Without being an expert, I cannot really see for myself whether it is more likely that, for example, source J is pre- or post-Exilic, but both views are put forth as serious contenders by the scholars, for one example.

Second, while it is true that the Bible is less violent and intolerant than some other laws and religions of its times (Or later times; I believe I became embroiled in a larger argument on this a while ago, when the specific issue was women's rights. Hell, this is my argument right here and now: it is less violent and intolerant than the Koran, written at least a thousand years later!), that does not change the actual fact that it is, as written, an intolerant document that advocates genocide. Its redactional history or lack thereof does not change that.