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Another lesson for Plato!Reader comment on item: How the West Could Lose Submitted by Noah Wilk (United States), Mar 6, 2007 at 02:38 Plato once again feels like slamming his head against the wall while trying to prove me wrong. Oh well, there's no law against masochism, now is there? :-) Plato wrote: "Do the meek inherit it? This 'mandate' was disproved abundantly during the occupation of the Americas and other colonies." First, what does that have to do with the topic? Nothing. Second, that line refers to Christians inheriting the earth after the end times. It does not apply to your argument. Third, it has no bearing on the fact that Muslims do indeed obey their mandate to lie to infidels. In other words, you're wasting your breath as usual, Plato. "Jesus did not come to destroy the OT laws." Nor has anyone claimed that. Plato, you have a bizarre tendency to respond to arguments that no one has made. I said that in Christianity, the peaceful verses by Jesus (ie "turn the other cheek") supercede the violent verses of the Old Testament (ie "an eye for an eye"). Do you know the difference between destroying and superceding? Beyond that, the quotation you mention is the subject of some very intense debate as to what it really means, and is far beyond the scope of this discussion. But once again, the matter is irrelevant to our discussion. The fact remains that in Christianity, nobody practices the violent OT verses because they are superceded by the peaceful NT verses, while the opposite is true with Islam (in regards to both the practice of violence and to the later violent verses superceding any peaceful earlier ones). "The OT laws are no better than Islamic laws. How many Christians swear by them now?" You are making my argument for me, you do realize that, right? The fact is that no Christians live according to OT Biblical law, yet Muslims mainly endorse the violent verses of their Koran. As I said, you just agreed with me. "Your eyes and ears seem to have deceived you. Do you seriously believe that parents and imams (despicable though some of their teachings are) tell Muslim children to lie and cheat the infidels." I don't need to "believe" it. It's a provable, verifiable, documented fact. It happens in mosques, madrassahs, and Muslim homes every day. "The Muslims you have met are for certain a special breed." No, they're just typical. Misinformed, fanatical, ignorant of reality. "I am willing to concede that a goodly percentage are willing to defend their faith when it is questioned by twisting the truth. But to conclude that a whole mass of humanity believes their religion tells them to lie and cheat takes a bit of believing. " It's mandated by their religion, and while not every single Muslim that walks the earth does so, the majority do. And then there's the problem of how to tell which ones are lying or when they are lying, since they are mandated to lie. "Certainly their religion allows them to but that does not mean that they have made lying and cheating the infidels an article of faith of their daily lives. " Clearly, you do not follow Muslim politics, nor do you deal much with everyday Muslims. "Quite the contrary I would think that they BELIEVE their religion does not allow them to lie to anyone." And as usual, you would think wrongly, because lying is indeed mandated by their religion. Once again, the polar opposite of Christianity. They also have a historical track record of lying, breaking treaties, etc. "I concede that could be an explanation for that surprising figure accepting collateral damage. But you have made an assumption about what people were thinking when the question was asked." You make a lot of concessions, but still you refuse to admit the truth. We know how Muslims think, we know how they define things. It's not rocket science to figure out how they interpret the question. "Again I concede that could explain the figure and again you have attempted to read the Muslim mind when they were polled. That is a lot faith in one's ability to read what is going on in other peoples' minds." No need to "read minds" when we can simply look at how they define things and how they think, then extropolate. Again, this does not take a genius IQ to figure out. "Since you are a Vedantist let us bring in the concept of 'maya', illusion. 90% of terrorism world wide is Muslim inspired so jumping to the conclusion all Muslims are terrorists certainly has the hallmark of maya to me. The reality of Islamic terrorism gives you the illusion that all Muslims are terrorists." Your understanding of maya is inaccurate, as was your understanding of karma. It is no illusion that Muslims constitute the vast majority of terrorists on the planet, the vast majority of terrorist actions and terrorist groups, etc. Again, verifiable fact. "Yes it is a disservice to your belief and what your eyes apparently see. You believe what the polls I have referred to are saying is maya, that the elephant of Muslim terrorism is chasing you and you have decided to bring out your heavy weaponry to frighten the elephant." I hate to break it to you, Plato, but an example of maya would be believing that most Muslims are peace-loving, that most denounce violence, and that Islam is not an evil ideology. It is indeed a disservice to mankind to lie and to proclaim that most Muslims are peaceful. That's like saying "Most Nazis were peace loving, it was just a couple of misguided anti-Semites among them who hijacked Nazism and caused all that killing". "Islam is not palatable to me either. And you have done a nice hatchet job on that poll which debunks your belief." I "do a nice hatchet job" on all lies, illusions, and propaganda. And no, that poll did nothing to "debunk" my beliefs, because I only believe in verifiable truth. "Well, now I'll be damned. You have come round to believing in polls at least as long as it fits your belief. And you seem to be privy to Muslims' private thoughts when polled." Again, I call the polls accurate when they are accurate, and absurd when they are obviously absurd. Polls that contradict verifiable, observable reality are just garbage. In fact, I have repeatedly stated that the polls showing "just" 50% or 70% of Muslims as violent are inaccurate since the number is undoubtedly much higher. "Again your futuristic vision may turn out to be correct but I am unwilling to play Nostradamus." One need not be Nostradamus to predict the future. The art of predicting the future is simple. You look at the facts, you look at situations, you consider past events of similar types, and you extropolate the most likely outcome. Example: Most people who hurl themselves off Niagra Falls in a barrel die. Plato is going to attempt to hurl himself off Niagra Falls in a barrel next week. Next week, Plato will probably die. Looking at all the factors, only a fool would stake his future and the future of his country and his descendants on a supposition that has no historical precedence to it and that flies in the face of both common sense and analytical outcome by pretending Islam is not a threat. "And reformation does not require masses of people. Martin Luther was a lone individual who managed to influence a whole lot of people." A whole lot of people who were willing to reform. Therein lies the difference. "Yes we are sceptical about the truth you peddle because it means accepting that human nature, yours and the Muslims, is so typical of our race that there is no alternative to the destruction of one or the other." First of all, it is not my truth I am speaking (not "peddling"). It is THE TRUTH I am spreading. Second, you need to brush up on your reading comprehension, because I have repeatedly stated that my plan does more to avoid destruction of eitehr side than any other solution given thus far. You conveniently skip over the whole issue of deporting and isolating Islam in order to force it and give it time to reform itself. The destruction aspect only occurs in two situations... 1. We do nothing (yours and Michel's solution) Both are avoided by deporting and isolating. That is standard procedure when attempting to control any virulent disease, and Islam is precisely that. " And if that is truly our nature then we would have self-destructed a long time ago. We still might if each side retreats into their mental fortifications." It is human nature to go to war. It's the entire history of mankind, and always will be. The important thing is to make sure that the side of good wins each time. "The mathematical calculations you present look suspiciously like the mathematical calculations by the 'science in the Koran' believers when they calculate the speed of light from some vague references in their Book." Then use math to prove me wrong, don't just claim I'm wrong and then cower from proving that. Show me how, if there are 1.2 billion Muslims on the planet, and only 30 show up for a peace rally, that constitutes a majority of Muslims. Not in this universe will your math prove that. "Take the polls that support your belief, reject any that don't support it, add or multiply by some arbitrary figure and hey presto out comes the speed of light, or any other figure you wish." You avoid confronting those numbers, as does Michel, for the very same reason Michel avoids doing so - because you cannot refute them! It's simply math, Plato. Grab your calculator. If there are 2,000,000 Muslims in America and only 300 show up for a peace rally to reform Islam, what percentage of American Muslims are in attendance? More Muslims in America stood up to denounce the cable tv show 24 than showed up at the rally to denounce Islamic terror in Arizona. More Muslims in America stood up to protest when we threw suspiciously-acting immams (who were later proven to have terrorist links) off a plane than will stand up at the Reform Islam rally this May (bet on that, and trust me, I'll be posting the moment that happens!). We see tens of thousands of Muslims worldwide celebrating and dancing in the streets when the Sept. 11th atrocities were committed. For that, they can generate crowds in the thousands or tens of thousands. When Saddam is executed, they can assemble in the thousands to protest. But hold peace or reform rally in Egypt, or Saudi Arabia and how many show up? Zero! Because they don't even have peace rallies there! Time to start facing reality, Plato. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (2112) on this item
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