Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Suspected Boston Bomber, May Not Get Islamic Funeral From Wary Muslims

[Penny Lane 8,159]

They don't have to communicate or change anything... The extremists in their religion don't seem to have a problem doing it for them and giving credit.

It's a shame that the extremists in any religion, or political party, or organization of any kind cancel out the majority.

[decocker 7,198]

They don't have to communicate or change anything... The extremists in their religion don't seem to have a problem doing it for them and giving credit.

of course they don't. and westboro has no qualms in calling themselves christian. plenty of other christians won't claim them. see how that goes..

[sandinista! 1,816]

Terrorism and the other Religions

Posted on 04/23/2013 by Juan Cole

Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States.

As for political violence, people of Christian heritage in the twentieth century polished off tens of millions of people in the two world wars and colonial repression. This massive carnage did not occur because European Christians are worse than or different from other human beings, but because they were the first to industrialize war and pursue a national model. Sometimes it is argued that they did not act in the name of religion but of nationalism. But, really, how naive. Religion and nationalism are closely intertwined. The British monarch is the head of the Church of England, and that still meant something in the first half of the twentieth century, at least. The Swedish church is a national church. Spain? Was it really unconnected to Catholicism? Did the Church and Francisco Franco’s feelings toward it play no role in the Civil War? And what’s sauce for the goose: much Muslim violence is driven by forms of modern nationalism, too.

I don’t figure that Muslims killed more than a 2 million people or so in political violence in the entire twentieth century, and that mainly in the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988 and the Soviet and post-Soviet wars in Afghanistan, for which Europeans bear some blame.

Compare that to the Christian European tally of, oh, lets say 100 million (16 million in WW I, 60 million in WW II– though some of those were attributable to Buddhists in Asia– and millions more in colonial wars.)

Belgium– yes, the Belgium of strawberry beer and quaint Gravensteen castle– conquered the Congo and is estimated to have killed off half of its inhabitants over time, some 8 million people at least.

Or, between 1916-1917 Tsarist Russian forces — facing the Basmachi revolt of Central Asians trying to throw off Christian, European rule — Russian forces killed an estimated 1.5 million people. Two boys brought up in or born in one of those territories (Kyrgyzstan) just killed 4 people and wounded others critically. That is horrible, but no one, whether in Russia or in Europe or in North America has the slightest idea that Central Asians were mass-murdered during WW I and looted of much of their wealth. Russia at the time was an Eastern Orthodox, Christian empire (and seems to be reemerging as one!).

Then, between half a million and a million Algerians died in that country’s war of independence from France, 1954-1962, at a time when the population was only 11 million!

I could go on and on. Everywhere you dig in European colonialism in Afro-Asia, there are bodies. Lots of bodies.

Now that I think of it, maybe 100 million people killed by people of European Christian heritage in the twentieth century is an underestimate.

As for religious terrorism, that too is universal. Admittedly, some groups deploy terrorism as a tactic more at some times than others. Zionists in British Mandate Palestine were active terrorists in the 1940s, from a British point of view, and in the period 1965-1980, the FBI considered the Jewish Defense League among the most active US terrorist groups. (Members at one point plotted to assassinate Rep. Dareell Issa (R-CA) because of his Lebanese heritage.) Now that Jewish nationalsts are largely getting their way, terrorism has declined among them. But it would likely reemerge if they stopped getting their way. In fact, one of the arguments Israeli politicians give for allowing Israeli squatters to keep the Palestinian land in the West Bank that they have usurped is that attempting to move them back out would produce violence. I.e., the settlers not only actually terrorize the Palestinians, but they form a terrorism threat for Israel proper (as the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin discovered).

Even more recently, it is difficult for me to see much of a difference between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the Hebron massacre.

Or there was the cold-blooded bombing of the Ajmer shrine in India by Bhavesh Patel and a gang of Hindu nationalists. Chillingly, they were disturbed when a second bomb they had set did not go off, so that they did not wreak as much havoc as they would have liked. Ajmer is an ecumenical Sufi shrine also visited by Hindus, and these bigots wanted to stop such open-minded sharing of spiritual spaces because they hate Muslims.

Buddhists have committed a lot of terrorism and other violence as well. Many in the Zen orders in Japan supported militarism in the first half of the twentieth century, for which their leaders later apologized. And, you had Inoue Shiro’s assassination campaign in 1930s Japan. Nowadays militant Buddhist monks in Burma/ Myanmar are urging on an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya.

As for Christianity, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda initiated hostilities that displaced two million people. Although it is an African cult, it is Christian in origin and the result of Western Christian missionaries preaching in Africa. If Saudi Wahhabi preachers can be in part blamed for the Taliban, why do Christian missionaries skate when we consider the blowback from their pupils?

Despite the very large number of European Muslims, in 2007-2009 less than 1 percent of terrorist acts in that continent were committed by people from that community.

Terrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents.

It takes a peculiar sort of blindness to see Christians of European heritage as “nice” and Muslims and inherently violent, given the twentieth century death toll I mentioned above. Human beings are human beings and the species is too young and too interconnected to have differentiated much from group to group. People resort to violence out of ambition or grievance, and the more powerful they are, the more violence they seem to commit. The good news is that the number of wars is declining over time, and World War II, the biggest charnel house in history, hasn’t been repeated.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/terrorism-other-religions.html

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

of course they don't. and westboro has no qualms in calling themselves christian. plenty of other christians won't claim them. see how that goes..

and I think westboro are under a hundred and we have to put Police around them everywhere they go to keep someone from killing them. Doubt they could run a terrorist network in this country

[spookyturtle 9,465]

and I think westboro are under a hundred and we have to put Police around them everywhere they go to keep someone from killing them. Doubt they could run a terrorist network in this country

They aren't smart enough to.

[duraaraa 203]

Terrorism and the other Religions

Posted on 04/23/2013 by Juan Cole

Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States.

As for political violence, people of Christian heritage in the twentieth century polished off tens of millions of people in the two world wars and colonial repression. This massive carnage did not occur because European Christians are worse than or different from other human beings, but because they were the first to industrialize war and pursue a national model. Sometimes it is argued that they did not act in the name of religion but of nationalism. But, really, how naive. Religion and nationalism are closely intertwined. The British monarch is the head of the Church of England, and that still meant something in the first half of the twentieth century, at least. The Swedish church is a national church. Spain? Was it really unconnected to Catholicism? Did the Church and Francisco Franco’s feelings toward it play no role in the Civil War? And what’s sauce for the goose: much Muslim violence is driven by forms of modern nationalism, too.

I don’t figure that Muslims killed more than a 2 million people or so in political violence in the entire twentieth century, and that mainly in the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988 and the Soviet and post-Soviet wars in Afghanistan, for which Europeans bear some blame.

Compare that to the Christian European tally of, oh, lets say 100 million (16 million in WW I, 60 million in WW II– though some of those were attributable to Buddhists in Asia– and millions more in colonial wars.)

Belgium– yes, the Belgium of strawberry beer and quaint Gravensteen castle– conquered the Congo and is estimated to have killed off half of its inhabitants over time, some 8 million people at least.

Or, between 1916-1917 Tsarist Russian forces — facing the Basmachi revolt of Central Asians trying to throw off Christian, European rule — Russian forces killed an estimated 1.5 million people. Two boys brought up in or born in one of those territories (Kyrgyzstan) just killed 4 people and wounded others critically. That is horrible, but no one, whether in Russia or in Europe or in North America has the slightest idea that Central Asians were mass-murdered during WW I and looted of much of their wealth. Russia at the time was an Eastern Orthodox, Christian empire (and seems to be reemerging as one!).

Then, between half a million and a million Algerians died in that country’s war of independence from France, 1954-1962, at a time when the population was only 11 million!

I could go on and on. Everywhere you dig in European colonialism in Afro-Asia, there are bodies. Lots of bodies.

Now that I think of it, maybe 100 million people killed by people of European Christian heritage in the twentieth century is an underestimate.

As for religious terrorism, that too is universal. Admittedly, some groups deploy terrorism as a tactic more at some times than others. Zionists in British Mandate Palestine were active terrorists in the 1940s, from a British point of view, and in the period 1965-1980, the FBI considered the Jewish Defense League among the most active US terrorist groups. (Members at one point plotted to assassinate Rep. Dareell Issa (R-CA) because of his Lebanese heritage.) Now that Jewish nationalsts are largely getting their way, terrorism has declined among them. But it would likely reemerge if they stopped getting their way. In fact, one of the arguments Israeli politicians give for allowing Israeli squatters to keep the Palestinian land in the West Bank that they have usurped is that attempting to move them back out would produce violence. I.e., the settlers not only actually terrorize the Palestinians, but they form a terrorism threat for Israel proper (as the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin discovered).

Even more recently, it is difficult for me to see much of a difference between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the Hebron massacre.

Or there was the cold-blooded bombing of the Ajmer shrine in India by Bhavesh Patel and a gang of Hindu nationalists. Chillingly, they were disturbed when a second bomb they had set did not go off, so that they did not wreak as much havoc as they would have liked. Ajmer is an ecumenical Sufi shrine also visited by Hindus, and these bigots wanted to stop such open-minded sharing of spiritual spaces because they hate Muslims.

Buddhists have committed a lot of terrorism and other violence as well. Many in the Zen orders in Japan supported militarism in the first half of the twentieth century, for which their leaders later apologized. And, you had Inoue Shiro’s assassination campaign in 1930s Japan. Nowadays militant Buddhist monks in Burma/ Myanmar are urging on an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya.

As for Christianity, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda initiated hostilities that displaced two million people. Although it is an African cult, it is Christian in origin and the result of Western Christian missionaries preaching in Africa. If Saudi Wahhabi preachers can be in part blamed for the Taliban, why do Christian missionaries skate when we consider the blowback from their pupils?

Despite the very large number of European Muslims, in 2007-2009 less than 1 percent of terrorist acts in that continent were committed by people from that community.

Terrorism is a tactic of extremists within each religion, and within secular religions of Marxism or nationalism. No religion, including Islam, preaches indiscriminate violence against innocents.

It takes a peculiar sort of blindness to see Christians of European heritage as “nice” and Muslims and inherently violent, given the twentieth century death toll I mentioned above. Human beings are human beings and the species is too young and too interconnected to have differentiated much from group to group. People resort to violence out of ambition or grievance, and the more powerful they are, the more violence they seem to commit. The good news is that the number of wars is declining over time, and World War II, the biggest charnel house in history, hasn’t been repeated.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/terrorism-other-religions.html

Find me some Jainist violence.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It's a shame that the extremists in any religion, or political party, or organization of any kind cancel out the majority.

Do they? Are Christians viewed as a murderous clan because of those that go and blow up clinics and murder physicians in the name of God?

[david'sgirl 134]

Let's say we started having terror attacks by Catholics, that killed thousands. All the attacks were made in the name of Catholicism and aimed at furthering some radical view of Catholicism. Let's also say the Pope and leadership of the church rather than denouncing them and helping stop them, attacked anyone that drew a correlation between the attacks and Catholics as Catholic phobes.

Tell me you would not draw some conclusions.

Catholicism got a big black eye because a select few in the leadership allowed child molesters to operate with out punishment or condemnation, Tell me why we can not hold Islam to the same standards or even dare point out that a problem is present.

Have you never heard of the attacks by Catholics on Protestants in Northern Ireland?

I'm not following your logic or train of thought.

The bombers may have been Muslims but that does not mean they represent the entire religion.

It is pretty clear they were acting on their own agenda. It is quite unfair of you to lump every Muslim in with a couple of nuts who decided to be terrorists.

[david'sgirl 134]

and I think westboro are under a hundred and we have to put Police around them everywhere they go to keep someone from killing them. Doubt they could run a terrorist network in this country

Westboro is not a church. They are a cult run by a pathetic elderly homophobic man.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

They aren't smart enough to.

tru dat

Have you never heard of the attacks by Catholics on Protestants in Northern Ireland?

I'm not following your logic or train of thought.

The bombers may have been Muslims but that does not mean they represent the entire religion.

It is pretty clear they were acting on their own agenda. It is quite unfair of you to lump every Muslim in with a couple of nuts who decided to be terrorists.

I have never lumped all Muslims in with those two. However there is a certain element within Islam than is prone to radicalism and terrorism .

There are several Muslims on here who are decent, reasonable, people who have educated me and tempered greatly my opinion of the religion. There are also a couple who defend anything and everything any Musim does and call anyone who dares address it an Islamaphobe.

Bottom line is that they are no different than any other religion, with the exception being their rouge radical element is not tempered in some countries and enjoys enough support to carry out violence all over the world.

Edited April 24, 2013 by The Nature Boy

[scotinmass 588]

There are 1.2 billion Muslims. If they were all nasty terrorists who wanted to blow up innocent people and force Sharia law on the rest of us I'm sure they would have done it by now.

How many terrorist attacks have there been by Muslims? A few hundred maybe? So that means that almost all the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world have not committed a terrorist attack and have no plans to ever do so.

But to the typical knuckle dragging thickos who've never left their own state and have no clue what goes on in the world that doesn't matter. All 1.2 billion Muslims are terrorists and all 1.2 billion Muslims are responsible for the actions of a miniscule minority. Ug me American me great. You Muslim you evil terrorist. You all die.

I watched 3 people die and many more have their legs shredded in my city by 2 evil b*stards who happen to be Muslim. I don't hate Muslims. I only hate the 2 that did this to us. The other 1.2 billion have done nothing wrong.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Ug me American me great.

Murka!

[scotinmass 588]

Murka!

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Most modern religions inspire the faithful to improve their lives. And even religion has come a long way, from Yahweh expecting the Patriarch of the three major religions, to sacrifice his favorite son in order prove his obedience to Him above all else.

"You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected--even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me." Exodus 20:5

Edited April 24, 2013 by The Patriot

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

There are 1.2 billion Muslims. If they were all nasty terrorists who wanted to blow up innocent people and force Sharia law on the rest of us I'm sure they would have done it by now.

How many terrorist attacks have there been by Muslims? A few hundred maybe? So that means that almost all the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world have not committed a terrorist attack and have no plans to ever do so.

But to the typical knuckle dragging thickos who've never left their own state and have no clue what goes on in the world that doesn't matter. All 1.2 billion Muslims are terrorists and all 1.2 billion Muslims are responsible for the actions of a miniscule minority. Ug me American me great. You Muslim you evil terrorist. You all die.

I watched 3 people die and many more have their legs shredded in my city by 2 evil b*stards who happen to be Muslim. I don't hate Muslims. I only hate the 2 that did this to us. The other 1.2 billion have done nothing wrong.

Here is a great article.

Not All Muslims Are Radicals

http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/did_i_say_that/2010/sep/13/not-all-muslims-are-radic/

All of Islam is not radical; nor, are all Islamists, terrorists. However, it is safe to say that all Islamic terrorists are radicals; moreover, most radicals are willing to be terrorists. Since all of Islam is not radical, just how many Radical Islamic Terrorists are enough?

There are two reasons that this question is worth answering. First, many argue that only a few in the Islam faith are radicals - radical enough to join jihad and become terrorists. Second, there needs to be an understanding of how, and why, that number is important.

By The Numbers

1 - It only took one radical Islamic terrorist to murder 13 people and wound another thirty in the Fort Hood shootings. It only took one radical Islamic terrorist, the underwear bomber, to terrorize Christmas Day travelers. It only took one radical, the failed Times Square Bomber, to terrorize an already fragile New York City populace. Is one Islamic radical enough?

4 - Four terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001, and flew the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. These four terrorists were responsible for killing all 92 passengers and, ultimately, nearly 3000 people in the Twin Towers. Are four Islamic radicals enough?

5 - There were five Islamic terrorists in each of the other three planes hijacked during the unprovoked attack against America on 9/11. These three flights, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77, and United Airlines Flight 93, combined, accounted for 175 passengers and crew that were murdered, 125 murders at the Pentagon attack site, and again, nearly 3000 at the World Trade Center. Are five Islamic radicals enough?

19 - Nineteen is the total number of hijackers, terrorists, or radical Islamists, that killed over 3000 people - unprovoked - on American soil. Are 19 Islamic radicals enough?

Not All Muslims Are Radicals!

There are an estimated 1,570,000,000 (1.57 Billion) Muslims, worldwide; that is over one-fifth (23%) of the world's population. Approximately 10.4 million Muslims live in the United States. Nowhere near all, not even anywhere near a majority, are radicals that would be willing to be terrorists. That number is much smaller.

The most liberal of conservatives' estimates is 36.6%, or 574.6 million radical Muslims. More conservative estimates suggest that only 1 to 7 percent of Muslims could be considered radical. An estimate of one percent would bring the number of radicals down to 15,700,000 potential terrorists. If the statistics hold true, then the United States may be host to 104,000 radical Muslims. Be advised that all estimates were based on surveys where the respondent had to approve of the 911 attacks on the United States and admit that they hate the Great Satan. Are 15,700,000 (15.7 Million) radicals enough?

At 15.7 million, Radical Islam, if separated from moderate Islam, would be one of the top ten Major religious groups. Is the world's 9th largest religious sect enough radicals?

Not all Muslims are radicals; but, it is prudent to be concerned about the ones that are. The number one is a significant concern (see Fort Hood). The number 19 was the beginning of a war. The number 15,700,000 is ... apparently ... tolerance.