To Noah on another delusional one?

Submitted by Plato (United Arab Emirates), Jan 23, 2007 at 09:18

Noah, being harsh on Muslims on these blogs serves no purpose. To the ones who already are convinced of the true nature of the religion it is merely preaching to the converted. To the Muslims who visit these blogs if they see calls for banning their religion, nuking Muslim holy places, sequestering Muslims and so on, you are only forcing them to tune out. What Michael and I are trying to do is make them tune in. Go ahead and accuse us of being delusional. Us wimpy hang dog liberals types don't mind. I hope I speak for you too Michael.

As I need not tell you Islam can be directly connected to a huge portion of the death and destruction going on in the world today. At the same time yesterday's violence cannot be exclusively laid at Islam's doorstep. All religions, ideologies, and cultures indulged in needless violence to a greater or lesser extent. The point to be driven home is that other religions have successfully disappeared from the public domain and become almost exclusively an individual's concern.

Muslims should also stop thrusting their religion as the panacea for all that is ill with the world and its people. It is this firm belief of Muslims that "Islam is the solution" which is damaging to themselves and to the rest of the world. The idea is to disabuse them of this extremely silly notion. I am in no wise saying that it is an easy task because of the indocrination Muslims go through from their childhood.

What I am suggesting is, and you so vehemently disagree with, that good sense is given to all humanity not just non-Muslims. It will take a powerful lot of effort on our part to get the job done. The alternative is another holocaust which will make the last one insignificant.

You are right in saying that very few Muslims stand up against terrorism. The saner voices among Muslims are few and far between but I see them growing slowly. Remember the play where the prophet's head was displayed. It was just after the cartoon disaster. When that play came up I thought, here we go again. But it did not happen. Maybe it was fatigue after the cartoons, but I don't think so. I believe and hope it was because the Muslims saw the stupidity of their reaction to the cartoons.

You say:"

The problem with that approach is that 99.5% of them refuse to even acknowledge those holes. It's like the elephant in the room that no one seems to notice

There is also a site by Ali Sina which seems to be very popular among dissident Muslims. And there are the so many sites maintained by ex-muslims. I know of several Muslims who have visited such sites and come away dazed. Sure the large majority of them go into denial. But at least the canker of doubt has been planted. I have noted that from then onwards they are not so free to claim purity or make violently pro-Islamic statements.

You also say: "....Forcing reform will be like forcing democracy on Iraq, doomed to failure. And also strewn with body parts every where you look. That I think is a remedy worse than the disease."Who's gloating?...."

"Which is what many of us (myself, Susan, Dhimmi No More, etc have been doing). Muslims refuse to ever take responsibility for their failures though." Show up enough of them and some will get past their madrassa installed blinkers. Muslims have not been blinded, the blinkers offer a limited view, increase the stumbling blocks in front of them till they can no more ignore them."...The problem is that they refuse to accept reality....."""That's moral relativistic bullshit. American culture is far superior to Islam, and that is an undeniable fact...""...Where are these reasoning Muslims?...""....Notice the utter lack of response from those Muslims who have been challenged here to do so."

"Oh, sure. That explains why they send their kids out in suicide vests and pray ..." That is going overboard a bit. There are Tamil Tigers doing it too, and nobody has said that Tamil parents are generally for sending their children to sure death."...They want their children to die committing atrocities.""Reality proves that claim to be totally untrue. If it were true, we would not have the majority of Muslims endorsing terror and sending their kids out to commit murder/suicide...""I have yet to see virtually any Muslim online that has been willing to look at the reality of his religion and question it,...."

Take a look at these two fatwas for the gobbledygook stuff put out by Islamic websites.Again I put that down to your penchant for hyperbole.Hyperbole is fine to make a point, but I would call that going off the deep end.I have noticed. I "suffered" from the lack of response too. And ours are not the only eyes watching. There must be quite a few surreptitious Muslim eyes reading what we write. Which is the important thing about these blogs. Certainly you need a strong searchlight to pick them out from the darkness of the world they reside in, but they are there and working away to light some candles(Salman Rushdie, Farag Foda, Ustad Taha, Taslima Nasrin...). I hope more iced tea did not pour out of your nose after having read that. As to hen's teeth, evolution always brings up surprises and given enough time you may even see enough teeth in that hen to warm the cockles of your heart.I see that you are against moral relativism and for imposing your morals which you consider superior, on another. The two societies are not on an equal level but each considers the other at a higher level. There is no common ground, and should not be when set against the values you espouse. And they have a role model to shoot for considering the numbers that would make a beeline for the Christian countries if allowed to. Only there are also a few who shoot at the role model.

The problem is how to convince the shooters they are on the losing side. And you can't do that by shooting down every Muslim. It would simply overwhelm all the " inalienable rights, happiness, freedom, tolerance, and goodness" and you would end up getting" racism, sexism, death, rape, intolerance, suppression of freedom, suppression of rights, genocide, etc." Just the old axiom about two wrongs not making a right.If they don't, reality will soon come back to bite them.Truly, even I feel like gloating given the superciliousness of some Muslims, I am sorry to say this but some posts here don't just gloat but want to annihilate 1.5 billion people.Your approach is doomed to failure. They must be forced to reform..."

http://www.islamweb.net/ver2/Fatwa/ShowFatwa.php?lang=E&Id=9335&Option=FatwaId

http://www.islamweb.net/ver2/Fatwa/ShowFatwa.php?lang=E&Id=4186&Option=FatwaId

And consider www.faithfreedom.org or taslima, http://www.mukto-mona.com/ and such other sites by ex-muslims maintained at great risk to themselves. Unless you seriously believe Islam has converted their brains into solid bone, change is bound to come and is coming."Really? Where are all these mythical Muslims? I'm still waiting for evidence of the so-called moderate ones. Haven't seen it yet!""What planet did you say you were from?""Oh sure. I saw how penitent and pensive Avenger and others were when it came up on this blog

"Even when using those respected Islamic sources, they refuse to discuss, question, or debate it..." They do. They find their madrassa masters obfuscated (like Saad Muad being a Jew, treatment of women and plants in war), or were tendentious and soon disappear either to do a rethink or lick their chops. I am sure you have observed how the propagandists quickly fade away when confronted with the real facts and not the fairy tales they learned at the feet of their imams."Explain then, if you will, why so many of them accessing the internet from free countries still refuse to acknowledge"It is not our task. No one invited them here"This is the only proper approach since it isolates them and puts the burden of transforming Islam back where it belongs...on Muslims

Noah, your approach to the Islamic problem is radically different mine. But as the French say viva la difference. Only time will tell which is better.

But history so far argues for the non-violent method. All those values you cherish did not flow out of the barrel of guns and cannons and nukes. They are the result of slow, painstaking effort of individuals over thousands of years, both kings (Hammurabi, Khosrow, Buddha, Ashoka..) and commoners (Socrates, Plato, Gandhi...). The seeds they planted gave you the flowers you so passionately love and want to kill for, " inalienable rights, happiness, freedom, tolerance, and goodness".

You also know the sword of Islam has given us, as you say " racism, sexism, death, rape, intolerance, suppression of freedom, suppression of rights, genocide, etc." Why this faith in the sword when you know the fallout you get is all that you detest.

History tells us only when weilded in defence of those values you cherish rather than enforcing, has violence been effective in conserving them. And history also tells us that in violent confrontations it is almost always the more democratic nation that wins. Democracies rarely use violence against other democracies. And democracies, that without provocation attack dictators also lose, as the US in Vietnam and in now in Iraq. Contrast India against Pakistan.

Forgive this long monologue of mine, it is just that both of us stand for the same values, but I wish to emphasise that those values become valueless if not defended using the values that are being defended.

...." I accept transformation of Islam is the primary responsibility of Muslims themselves. But what harm in helping it along. It is like poverty. It you don't help eradicate it, it will soon come to haunt you. We are all on one planet. Isolationism went out with Woodrow Wilson (?)....." It goes against my wimpy liberal nature to condemn 1.5 billion ( to perdition or death) people who carry virtually all the genetic information that gave rise to me, you and also everyone I love and value. They are practically mirror images of all the rest of us except, unhappily, they were conceived in the wrong beds...." Again fear is the key. They may not acknowledge anything, they have been trained not to, but the memory of what they read is still with them and that counts in the long run. After television, the computer must be the most hated invention for "scholars" of Islam......" Avenger and his brothers are not the only Muslims reading this blog. The Avenger type has propaganda on his mind, the others are reading and observing the discomfiture and incoherency of the defenders of Islam on the site. Important for the health of humanity and thank the internet.Oh I am from Venus and let me guess you must be from Mars. You wont't see too many of them. And you should know the reason why. There are those not-so-moderate ones with a stilletto lurking nearby. However, when a critical mass is reached, helped along by blogs such as these, they will begin to stick their necks out without fear of it being slit.."

Point taken, but that is because there are other Muslims in the room. With the Internet they can view that elephant from every which way. And unless you simply have no faith in the human spirit (I know, you will say that Muslims have no such spirit) how many cannot see, not just the stupidity but the mendaciousness of the answers given in the fatwas I mention later in this post.

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