Oriana Fallaci

[fable]

Be careful, here, guys. You're moving from a discussion of Oriana Fallaci's prose to a discussion of two of the most controversial religious books in the world, about which ten people can be expected to have ten opinions about the same passages, all of them stating that their opinions are simply fact. You may want to spin this off into a separate thread, because we've had this kind of thing grow and take over subjects very easily in the past.

[Ambiorix]

Your call, Fable.
I think it's been all rather civil up till now. But if you think we'll better end it here, I will.
I was holding back on my reply cause I didn't want to monopolise the thread.

[fable]

@Ambiorix, I'm not suggesting ending the conversation--just moving that portion of it that relates specifically to holy texts of various religions onto another new thread, because it's bound to take on a very luxuriant life of its own. I would expect plenty of challenges to any interpretation of the Quran, the OT and the NT from a host of members, and the original issue might be lost sight of.

It's just advice I'm offering to clarify the issues you wish to discuss. Provided the conversation remains sane and inflammable, I won't intervene.

[CM]

Actually Stoning to death is a Islamic condition or punishment. The FGM is not. Rather it occurs in the African continent instead of Islamic nations. For more information check the following thread:

http://gamebanshee.com/forums/showthrea ... genumber=1

FGM is covered in the 15 pages somewhere. Not sure where. As for women being equal to men. They arent. In some cases they are far better than men in others not so. Mothers are credited in scripture to have the heavens placed at their feet and for one to enter heaven all he needs is to care for his mother. Second any person who raises a minimum of 3 girls will earn a place in heaven. Women in case of marriage (1/4) and family inheritance earn 1/2 of the total wealth, after which the males are allowed shares. There is no ifs and buts about it. If there are 2 daughters and a wife. 1/4 goes to the wife. After which 1/2 is divided among the daughters and then the rest goes to the sons and other relatives. There are many examples...i will follow Fables suggestion and open a new thread on Women in Islam.

Now you stated that you agree with what Fallaci had to say, what exactly do you agree with?

[Littiz]

As I said, I won't post extra comments on the matter.
I only reply to CM, so I can explain and apologize if I've been somewhat
harsh. Actually Thorin gave it for granted that I was extending my
invective against ALL Muslims.
And he "suggested" again racism as an easy solution.
While you have started to explain all the good things about immigration,
as if I had already said something you didn't like.
This annoyed me, frankly.
(Actually, you spoke the truth. There are also many bad sides, and a real
problem given by clandestines, and the incompentence of our governments, but it would get me too far).

Don't worry, I don't read ONLY Oriana Fallaci.
The whole point of my rants, here and in the other thread, is simple.
I understand you can't like that article. Wrong or right, it's not the point.
She's only the voice of a growing fear towards the extremisms of your religion.
I think it's not bad for you to know that such a fear exists.
Fanatics exist, you are not negating this.
Let me add that the "pool" of fanatics has to be large, if they managed to find
30 of them ready to die for the terroristic attack.
You couldn't find a *single* italian ready to die for anything! (I challenge you! )
Now, we "western" people cannot reason with fanatics.
But we can reason with YOU and all the moderate representants of your religion.
9/11 surely increased the diffidence and the alarm.
Should I witness a SINCERE manifestation of mourning from the
"moderate Islamic World", then many of my prejudices, and *some* of my fears, would flow away.

[frogus]

I am rather confused, as I do not know who this journalist in question is, and I don't know where this discussion came from, and everyone seems to be discussing rather different things -

So I will react to the quotes from her journalism, and give my general thoughts on racism and freedom of Speech with regards to it...:

She is mistaken in her judgements of the Islam world for this reason (and the same reason applies to all racist sentiments IMO):

In my opinion, and the opinion of all right-thinking people in the world, some of the teachings of the Bible and the Qu'ran are immoral: I'm sure everyone agrees that both texts contain passages which can be interrpreted as commandments to do bad things.
However, most good theists ignore these teachings, recognize human fallacy, the pressures of the times etc, and try to do good, sometimes disregarding the literal word of the Book in favour of acting virtuously and morally.
Some theists follow literally their interpretation of the Book, in order to do bad...to oppress women, or to commit genocide in South America.
I'm sure we can see that both the good theists and bad theists are both theists. It is unarguable that an evil Muslim is more or less of a Muslim than a virtuous one. They are both equally muslim, so evidently it is not their Muslim-ity (sorry, made up word ) which makes them either good or bad. The goodness or badness is clearly in their own soul, and good muslims (or Christians or whatever) will use holy teachings to explain their goodness, while bad ones will use it to justify their badness.
I hope that this is logical and everyone can see that it is true...

So while we can logically say 'That man is evil', and 'That man is also a muslim' we absolutely cannot say 'Therefore all muslims are evil'. I am shocked that people still say and believe this type of thing. It is exactly the same fallacy as 'I am a woman, the Virgin Mary was a woman, therefore I am the Virgin Mary.' It is prepostorous, and an utterly invalid position.

Therefore, it may even be the case that all Muslims are evil. It could conceivably happen that millions of bad people were all born into Muslim families, and then eventually every single Muslim in the world could be a bad person (of course this will never happen in real life, but it is a logical posibility). In this case, it will still be wrong to say 'All Muslims are evil', because it is not necessarily the case that all muslims are evil. It is a pure coincedence whether a bad man happens to be a muslim, or whether a muslim happens to be a bad man. The very existence of moral good muslims destroys the notion that islam makes the believer evil, and therefore any judgement as to the goodness or evillness of the whole of Islam is irrational.

I hope that made sense, and it should explain why, IMO, any racist beliefs are illogical (just change the word 'muslim' to your choice of racism-target ).

All that said, I think that Whats-her-face has every right to say these things. I have thought about Freedom of Speech, and I think that it is a necessary right in the world today. She has the right to say that all Muslims are bad, and I have the right to tell her why she is wrong .

Sorry if this had nothing to do with the discussion

EDIT -

Originally posted by Littiz
Fanatics exist, you are not negating this.
Let me add that the "pool" of fanatics has to be large, if they managed to find
30 of them ready to die for the terroristic attack.
You couldn't find a *single* italian ready to die for anything! (I challenge you! )
Now, we "western" people cannot reason with fanatics.
But we can reason with YOU and all the moderate representants of your religion.

Littiz, please do not make any judgements about entire races. Although I know that you don't hold racist beliefs yourself, if you are prepared to say things are true of All Italians or All Westerners, you could in theory be prepared to say that bad things are true of all Italians, or all muslims..all blacks or all Jews. To remain free of racism you must realise that no judgements can be made about people based on only their race...see my above post for the reasoning . If I were an Italian I would be insulted that you are prepared to judge my willingness to die without even having met me.

PS - Also it is of course not true that being born into a muslim family makes a person more willing to die for the causes of terrorism. It is absolutely not a racial, religious or geographical issue. If exactly the same situation were taking place in Italy as is taking place in the middle east, then Italians would be killing themselves to hurt others. Do not think that just happening to exist on one point of the globe changes peoples psychological make-up. Just pray that such a situation never happens in your home town, and try to find peace where there is none by understanding the similarities which unite us all as humans.

[Ambiorix]

Originally posted by CM
Now you stated that you agree with what Fallaci had to say, what exactly do you agree with?

I didn't exactly say that. I said I have no problem with her making those statements nor with Littiz' posting a link to her writings. And I should add: I make allowances for her temperamental Latin style of expressing herself. Hope that doesn't sound racist.

But if you ask me if I criticise Islam: yes, I do. And yes, I think western civilisation is to be preferred to the current state of Islamic civilisation.

[Ambiorix]

Frogus,
While I'm impressed by your use of logic, I still think you are mistaken.
It's not about the individual moral qualities of the persons who are part of a certain religion or civilisation. There's no reason to assume that muslims are in any way bad people. I certainly don't think of them in that way. It's about what religion and ideology do to people. How they influence the way they think and act. I believe religions are no more equal than political ideologies are.

[AntiChrist]

hehe I came up in the topic. I feel so special. Just a note, I'm an atheist and I don't mean to offend anyone. Take it lightly, it's more poking fun at those that follow so blindly and are so set in there ways that they cannot accept those with different beliefs. If someone wishes to talk about it PM me or start another topic. I don't want to change the subject or anything, I just came up here so I figure I'd say something.

[CM]

Littz you felt you were flamed but now you are saying it was just because you were annoyed? Ok. I think i understand. I agree it is part of a growing fear, where the majority are defined by the minority - the fundemantalists. Its like thinking all germans are neo-nazis. Or all black americans are represented by Louis Farakhan. It isnt fair and neither is it true. "Large" is a relative term. 30 people out of 1.2 billion isnt large. 100,000 out of 1.2 billion is large. But to the point i can understand why they feel america is an enemy. Take Egypt for example, it recently locked up an American Uni Proffessor for stating his opinion against the Govt. The US has threatened to cut of aid. However the move by the govt to detain and arrest Egyptains who say so and who are Islamists is applauded by the US govt. Last weeks Economist covers this in an article if you want to read more about it.

Take Saudi where 19 of the hijackers originated. It is a staunch US ally right? Which doesnt allow women to vote, they cant drive, and they get billions of dollars from the US govt in support and there are US troops nearly 5000 to provide the Saudi family support. People are hanged, body parts chopped off. It has one of the worst Human rights records with AI and HRW. Yet the US provides the royal family with a great deal of political and monetary support. How are people going to like this?

As Italians dying, i bet quite a few were ready to suicide bomb the South Korean team and the Ref

Ah but i am not a moderate at all. I am a die-hard conservative. If you read my political views, they are typical of the western educated elite in Islamic societies. I adapt to western ways of living, but my state of mind and thinking is conservative.

Honestly you wont see any mourning at all as we dont feel the loss. 500,000 children have died in Iraq since 1992. We dont mourn them. Thousands have died in Afghanistan. We have not mourned them. Hundreds died in Lebanon, Kashmir, Aceh, Palestine and Chechnya. We dont mourn them. We dont have the time or the ability to do so for our own people, why would we do something for people half away across the world, that many feel support dictatorial and unislamic regimes?

Amb, my bad. I thought you said you agreed with what littz said in the other thread and since littz agreed with Fallaci, i concluded you did to. Now you see something wrong with the present govts in Muslim countries? So do. Read my rant above about Saudi and Egypt. As i said to Fable in another thread. The govts in the Islamic world save Malaysia and Iran are not representative of the people and have regimes that are either supported by the US and the West or stifled by them. Take Iran. Women Literacy 80%, education provided aim is 100%, they can have jobs, they can do what ever they want, walk on the street etc. All because of Khatami. Far better than Saudi dont you think? And instead of encouraging and helping Khatami against the extremists. Bush goes and declares Iran an axis of evil state, turning popular opinion against what Khatami was trying to do.

Of course when it comes to saudi, where women cant vote, work or drive let alone leave the house without a man, the govt is supported and appluaded. Mind you the WTC terrorists were all Saudis, not Iranis. Yet who gets labelled a terrorist state? Iran. Who is still provided aid, military support and allowed to violate human rights left right and center Saudi.

Instead of promoting democracy and western values, the US took the opposite stance. Anyway that was not relevant at all, oh well.

You are free to your opinion and to state it. However for my own knowledge and to further the discussion what exactly do you is wrong with Islam? Any thing specific?

[AntiChrist]

Hmmm...I think I'll have to look into this a bit more. Knowing Bush (and moreover, the whole US government), I wouldn't doubt anything you've said. I suppose I was one of the ignorant ones. I thought that pretty much all Islamic regimes were the same. Hmmm...anyone know any websites where I can read a bit more about this?

[CM]

Antichrist, i am not sure if there is a single website you can use to learn all of this. I am an International relations student who has been discussing politics since i was 16. I am 20 now and most my information has come from reading the newspapers and talking with other muslims and friends.

The first source i would suggest to learn about the basic sturcture and stuff of an Islamic country is go to the CIA website and search for the country under the world fact book. This provides a detailed brake of economy to politics to communication. Search for the different countries and see what the basic stats are. After that i would suggest reading newspapers. My personal choices are bbc world news the economist and NYT for daily detailed news that is not totally subjective. These three medias are very objective in my eyes.

Then to get the Muslim slant on things i read the pakistani newspaper The Dawn - http://www.dawn.com - and the arab news - http://www.arabnews.com - which has alot of computer problems. The site doesnt always work.

To the get the Islamic slant in western newspapers you should read the Guardian and Independent based both in the UK. Specifically search for Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky and Pilger for articles that are very pro-muslim. I would consider them objective, but my views should be considered biased.

That would be a start i guess. If you have a site that you want to look at and give my point of view, please feel free to PM me

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Quick offtopic announcement.

Just thought I'd mention that, for any who are interested, discussion of what the anti-christ is can be found here. I mention this only because the topic came up earlier and so as to avoid spam in the thread.
Thank you.

[Littiz]

Here we are again. Frogus, I've already explained my points here.
There are DIFFERENCES between races.
Either physical, or cultural. There are inclinacies, there are
traits, there are genes.
To negate such differences at all costs is just a pose.
There are, simply and evidently, "different" races.
Or different cultures. And different moments in history.
It's more likely to find an Islamic suicide terrorist, than a Swedish one.
Don't you agree? I do.

You are obviously right that each culture harbors good, and evil men.
I'm worried about the evil ones.
(Anyway, that article was written right after 9/11)

If I were an Italian I would be insulted that you are prepared to judge my willingness to die without even having met me

See? I was right! If you were italian you would take no offence!
actually, ehm, @CM, maybe you found something after all...

@CM:
Your points are right. Countries are led by politicians, or religious leaders
that do politics.
(And to say what I think about politicians would be against forum rules)
Anyway, I don't care about the reasons of those who intentionally kill
innocents. They do an act that goes against humanity.
They are the Evil.
As nazists were. You are right again.
8.000.000 people slayed.
8.000.000.
I would have said terrible things about germans, in those years.
Someone would have replyed: "You cannot generalize!"
True. But something was going incredibly wrong in Germany.
Even more true.

[frogus]

@Amb and Lit, you are mistaking cause and effect. You are more likely to find an Islamic suicide terrorist than, say, a Christian one (@Littiz, I will not comment on your using 'Islamic' and 'Swedish' as opposite examples ) but it is not because they are Islamic. It is a pure coincidence that many Islamic nations are (and sadly have been through history in some cases) in turbulent political states. I think it should be obvious that it is the political and miltary action going on in the Islamic world which creates an increase in the suicidal terrorist:citizen ratio. It is not the religion itself, and absolutely not the geographical origin of a people which makes it prone to breed terrorists.

PS - and on a slightly less rational note, if Christianity is such a noble religion, what happened to Ireland?

[Beowulf]

PS - and on a slightly less rational note, if Christianity is such a noble religion, what happened to Ireland?

Um, what did happen to Ireland? Do you mean the depressingly frequent terrorist attacks up North? Because they are easily enough proof that Christianity is just as susceptible to irrational, homicidal maniacs as Islam.

@Littiz - surely you're more likely to find suicide bombers in regions of gross poverty and political instability, than in wealthy, secure and well educated countries? Attacking Islam as the cause of suicide bombings is likely to cause even more resentment, whereas doing something about the problems those countries experience may just help stop suicide bombings.

[Ambiorix]

Originally posted by Beowulf
@Littiz - surely you're more likely to find suicide bombers in regions of gross poverty and political instability, than in wealthy, secure and well educated countries? Attacking Islam as the cause of suicide bombings is likely to cause even more resentment, whereas doing something about the problems those countries experience may just help stop suicide bombings.

Nonsense. Where are the suicide bombers from sub-saharan Africa, the slums of South-America or India?
The people who perpetrated the september 11th attacks were all from the middle or higher classes. Some of them were even at European universities. Hardly paupers. Nor are the Islamic countries from where they were recruited (Yemen, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, ...) the poorest countries in the world. And Osama himself is/was rich enough.

Wake up and smell the Jihad, people.

There is NO relation between terrorism and poverty. Remember the spoiled children from higher and middle-class parents who were part of Bader-Mainhoff and the Red Brigades.
It seems ideological fanaticism is a stronger motivater for such madness than is poverty.

[Robnark]

i would say that poverty doesn't breed terrorism by itself - it's the combination of a lot of things, but principly oppression (or the idea of oppression), and certain organisations that are willing to exploit resentment. terrorism is worldwide, and bred by discontent. poverty IMO is not the prime motivator (although in a poor country, it would be easier to motivate more people to a cause - you get a civil war instead of terrorism, and there's a lot of that in su-saharan africa etc.).

the example of suicide bombings being an 'Islamic' problem, i would disagree strongly with. the only widespread examples of it are in Israel, and there are the combined factors of poverty, widely held feelings of resentment and oppression, and organisations willing to exploit these factors. in the face of these circumstances, it is highly unlikely that some form of terrorism would not be practiced.

[Ambiorix]

Originally posted by CM
You are free to your opinion and to state it. However for my own knowledge and to further the discussion what exactly do you is wrong with Islam? Any thing specific?

Hum.. . Quite a few things. Some of them related to the Qur'an and the Hadith. But both of those are related to the Prophet, his personality and his life. If the mods say I can do that, I will. But I suspect this will end in tears or the mods intervening. If this were a public square I would gladly accept your challenge. The more so if you were to buy me a drink in a bar of this public square.

[Littiz]

@Frogus: the example "swedish" - "islamic" was by purpose.
You can divide people by many possible criteria. And still see differences.
Maybe you're right, radio has some part in it.
And so? Does it change my point? Does radio in your country push you
to become a suicide bomb?
I don't think I'm saying things that hard to understand.
You can see whatever reasons you want behind this, yet the fact remains,
when I saw the second plane crash on the Twin Towers, I *knew* they were
islamic fanatics. And I was right.

Christianity a noble religion? I don't care a damn about Christianity.
I'm atheist. If you want to flame me, read my posts more carefully before.
But see, I can speak badly as I want about catholics, and sometims I do, yet
they let me live in peace between them. This thing I HAVE to admit.

whereas doing something about the problems those countries experience may just help stop suicide bombings.

Agree!!! But the first step is to LOCATE the problems.
Not negate them

@Robnark: you forget 9/11, Jihad AND their training camps.