I've never defended Islam, and never will. It's undoubtably the single most dangerous religion on the planet today.
I was using Christianity in my comparison with Islam. This thread is about a Muslim who committed an act of terrorism with a little influence from his religion. In my opinion it was a good comparison, because Jeff and HMTH were claiming that Christianity is completley innocent and nothing like this ever happens under Christian influence. I listed 4 different instances where Christian extremism led to terrorism. They then claimed based on this information -- that Islam is dangerous, which I agree with -- that fact alone justifies segrageting Muslim Americans (American soldiers no less). That's wrong, just as it would be wrong to do that with Christians. If you accept it's wrong for Christians, but not for Muslims, you're holding a hypocritical position. Fine if you hold that position, just admit that you're a hypocrite.
Also, it doesn't really matter, to me anyway, what the Bible is "wrongly" used for. Wrong is wrong and it doesn't matter how you got there. Now, since we know wrong can most definitely come from the Bible, as many different people can interpret it many different ways*, it should be completely discarded or at the very least revised. But that's impossible because all of it is "devine", so nothing can be changed without millions, possibly billions of people bitching about it.
Don't you think Hitler believed he was doing good? Should we not consider his acts inhumane based on the consequences that proceeded them, why should his intentions come into play at all when considering whether the act is good or bad? It's meaningless.
*funny bit of information I've come to notice... every single believer I come across has his own interpretation of Heaven, Hell, the soul, etc...
Wow, your thinking is like a tangled extension cord. Let me see if I can untangle it.
First, there is nothing in Christianity, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucism, Shintoism or any other faith other than Islam that serves as a declaration of war against people of other faiths.
Terrorists are defined as people who use terror as a way to achieve a given political goal. Nut jobs that murder abortion doctors are not really terrorists per se because there is no concerted effort to bring change through terror. That is what separates a lone nut job from a terrorist.
Even if we assume there is an element of terror, examples of this type of thing outside of Islam are so few and far between that they can not be considered as indicative of anything other than isolated nut jobs committing murder. This is light years different than what we see from Muslims who have orchestrated hundreds of well planed deliberate conspiratorial attacks designed to commit terror in ACCORDANCE with Islam.
Put simply, to compare Muslim terrorism with the isolated acts of non-Muslims is ludicrous.
Comparing the Bible to the Qur'an is equally as foolish. Nowhere in the Bible is there a concept such as jihad or dar al Islam. Nowhere in the Bible is the hatred or murder of people of other faiths promoted. There is a history of conquering and warfare in the Bible, but it does not, as does the Qur'an, promote ongoing warfare against people of other faiths. Nor do an estimated 10% of Christians believe that the World should be converted by the sword as is the case with Islam. That comes to 130 million people by the way.
America must face the reality that we are fighting an enemy that is more insidious than any we have faced before. We are facing an enemy that is highly skilled in deception and infiltration and considers no act to appalling.
Nobody is suggesting a knee jerk reaction that would punish all Muslims. But, we must at the very least recognize the scope of the threat we face and accept that some very unattractive options must be open for debate.
The threat we face from Islam is in no way similar to any threat we have faced before and can not be compared to any other. To do so is to complicate the issue.
