In Washington, they’re practically praying for one.
President Barack Obama, who still believes that his job consists of giving speeches, convened a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” the purpose of which was to provide a platform for the president to give a keynote speech. In it he insisted, as he does, that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, and that arguments to the contrary only lend credibility to the Islamic terrorist organizations that have nothing to do with Islam. He cited a letter from a fifth-grader, a Muslim girl named Sabrina, who wrote: “If some Muslims do bad things, that doesn’t mean all of them do.” President Obama was impressed with these remarks — “the wisdom of a little girl,” he called them. If the alternative is Marie Harf, we suppose he could do worse.
Of course, no sensible person walking the earth believes that every Muslim on the planet is an al-Qaeda sympathizer or an Islamic supremacist. The problem is that (1) some of the world’s Muslims do sympathize with Islamic-supremacist views, (2) there are an awful lot of them, and (3) Islamic organizations are the preeminent practitioners of terrorism around the world at the moment.
It’s an inconvenient truth.
And here’s a pro tip for the media morons. Tim McVeigh was not a Christian.
[Update a while later]
ISIS and the vulgar Marxism problem.
This article not only seems relevent, it includes quotes which should produce a knowing chuckle from Jim and Andrew:
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Is-Anders-Breivik-a-Christian-terrorist-1624540.php
Yes, it’s just the same thing, because so many millions of Christians agree with Breivik, and his followers are taking over vast territory, crucifying and beheading people.
If those are the goal posts, then why care if McVeigh was a Christian?
I know it’s of little consequence to Leftists, but because I care about the truth?
Why did you bring up McVeigh at all? I thought you were bringing up McVeigh to make some sort of point, and if so, I thought it was a sure thing that Breivik would be just as relevant to that point as McVeigh is.
I brought up McVeigh to make the point that Leftists are so desperate to find Christian terrorists they have to make them up.
Brevik is hardly more of a Christian than McVeigh was. He supports Hindu attempts to stop the spread of Christianity in India and encouraged Odin worshipers to fight alongside European Christians to expel the Muslims. He could have gone with Odin worship but didn’t think it could unify all of Europe against Islam, whereas Christianity possibly could.
Anyway, the “same thing” that I had in mind was this:
O’Reilly said Tuesday, “No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The man might have called himself a Christian on the ‘net, but he is certainly not of that faith.
When Muslims start saying en masse what O’Reilly and the vast majority (99.99%) of Christians say about mass murder then we can talk.
Oh, nearly everyone arbores mass murder, including the vast majority of Muslims, that doesn’t stop lots of people dying in mass killings. Most of those running the Nazi death camps were Christians, the killers at the Srebrenica massacre were Christians.
Most of those running the Nazi death camps were Christians
Do you have a citation for that? Nazis weren’t Christians, they were pagans.
You are changing the subject. Again.
The point is that we have never seen condemnation of muslim killings by muslims.
And death camps were not run by Christians. Read your history books. A picture of Hitler hung in every church in Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany
The clincher is that Germany was (and is) a Christian country, with at that time only 1.5% of the population being non religious.
There were 8.5 million members of the Nazi party by 1945, so most had to have been Christians.
There weren’t that many people running the camps. The commanders had to pass ideological tests. A Christian would have failed.
The point is that we have never seen condemnation of muslim killings by muslims.
Simply rubbish, you think, as a recent example, the Egyptian government didn’t condemn the recent execution of Coptic Christians??
You somehow managed to miss the condemnation, world wide,of the Charlie Hebdo killers??
Google is your friend, examples of Muslims condemning these acts abound, you just don’t see them because it doesn’t suit what you want to believe.
There weren’t that many people running the camps. The commanders had to pass ideological tests. A Christian would have failed.
You got a citation? Got copies of these tests? There were so few non-religious Germans they would all have had to have been running the camps for Christians to have escaped that duty.
Do you really think I was being literal in terms of taking tests?
I see your Wikipedia link, and raise you a Wikipedia link:
Hitler emphasized that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science.
Simply rubbish, you think, as a recent example, the Egyptian government didn’t condemn the recent execution of Coptic Christians??
Do you really think that under Morsi, the government would have cared?
Andrew, there is a big difference between one belonging to a faith and one’s faith being used as justifications for one’s actions. When did the Nazi ever claim to be soldiers of Christ on a holy mission?
Bob is absolutely right. Just to be consistent, we’d better write off the entire Environmental movement because of Earth First’s violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Bari
It makes me chuckle too, because it shows your desperation.
So we should not hold Islam accountable for the actions of some of its members. We should actually say that they are not even Islamic. But all Christians alive today are responsible for the crusades and inquisition? All Christians are responsible for Breivik?
I mean if the inquisition were so bad, we would be outraged by something similar happening today that was killing in some of the most brutal ways imaginable right?
All groups have the potential for one of its members doing violence. This is because all groups are made of humans. Also, not belonging to a group still means you are capable of violence because you are still a human. This is a problem with post modern deconstruction.
The goal is to tar current political enemies and systems with historical sins and the provide absolution by allowing people to join this new group, which is actually just tweaked marxism by another name. Some adherents do not even view themselves as members of this new group despite being in lock step on every single issue, voting for the same candidates, or believing in the same lifestyle choices.
Having a progressive President try and grapple with a problem like Islamic militants, which is he largely sympathetic with politically, causes some cognitive dissonance.
So we should not hold Islam accountable for the actions of some of its members.
ISIS is actually pretty unpopular amongst most Muslims, and lots of Muslim countries are invovled in the war against it, ditto for Al Qaeda.
“ISIS is actually pretty unpopular amongst most Muslims”
Think you mean they are popular. Even if some people don’t like the violence, many agree with the ideology. If ISIS wasn’t popular, they wouldn’t have so many recruits from all over the world and a network of popular evangelists in foreign countries preaching their religion.
Even the Muslim countries fighting them, agree with some of their ideology. They just happen to be more concerned about self preservation.
Possibly the meaning of the word “most” eludes you, here’s a hint, there are around 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, ISIS has control over lands occupied by 8 million, they have maybe 60,000 fighters including all the malcontents they’ve attracted around the world.
A good rule of thumb is that 1% of any population are idiots, ISIS has attracted that group.
86% of Egyptians were totally down with death to apostates, just two years ago.
Yeah, just a tiny fringe.
86% of Egyptians were totally down with death to apostates, just two years ago.
So, being disappointed with the lack of support for ISIS amongst Muslims, you change the subject.
I’m not changing the subject at all. You did, with your focus on support for ISIS. Unfortunately, Islam has a much bigger problem than ISIS.
What percentage of Christians, or Jews, in any country, favor the death penalty for apostates?
“Possibly the meaning of the word “most” eludes you, ”
I don’t know. I have seen polls of the majority of people in some Muslim countries agreeing with ISIS ideology or viewing the group favorably. I don’t think we are getting good data on the question, though.
Even if you take ISIS out of the equation, there is still a big festering boil because their views are not abnormal.
Moral equivalency. Does not matter what the issue is; The Project functions on moral equivalency. I cannot think of a single argument advanced by any of the Usual Suspects that is not based on moral equivalency. Moral equivalency is an absolute necessity.
Just going to make the point that if Breivik wasn’t a “true” Christian, by the same logic ISIS and its supporters aren’t “true” Muslims. Reality is that there’re a lot of different Christian and Muslim Gods out there, since interpreting scripture is opinion not math.
Well, the fact that the only example Leftists can offer is a disillusioned fellow-traveler certainly gives me a knowing chuckle… *snerk*
Anyone can claim to be a Christian, but if they commit heinous acts that is a definitive sign that they’re not following Christs teachings and His example.
However, a muslim can commit heinous acts and make the truthful claim that they are following mohammeds example.
Therein lies the difference.
Anyone can claim to be a Christian, but if they commit heinous acts that is a definitive sign that they’re not following Christs teachings and His example.
Also, no true Scotsman would commit those heinous acts.
Is there no truth? Supposing there is, where is it defined?
Christians have a bible. Muslims have a Koran. Scotsman throw logs (not sure how that helps identify the true variety?)
Hasn’t Obama been saying that ISIS aren’t true Scotsmen? Obama takes it a step further to say that not only are the not true Scotsmen, they are not even Scots.
It’s a bit of a conundrum, you see, if you google something like “heinous acts in the bible” you’ll get a list of Bible bits condoning rape and killings, now quite possibly all of these bits are from the Old Testament, whereas the New Testament goes on about not casting stones and turning the other cheek, So I think you make a good point about Christians following Christ’s teachings, but surely we must limit those good Christians to those who don’t believe that Christ was the son of the abrahamic God, because that God was always right (infallible, omnipotent etc) and it’s his teachings that fill the Old Bible.
As far as those who actually follow Christ’s teaching about turning cheeks and not casting stones and bombs, can you think of any leaders of major Christian powers of the last hundred years who’ve followed those teachings? It’s hard to see how any of the recent US presidents can claim to be faithful practitioners of Christ’s philosophy when so little cheek turning has been practiced by them.
As an aside, there’s a world cup cricket tournament going on at the moment, of the 14 countries competing 4 are Islamic (Bangladesh, UAE, Pakistan and Afghanistan) no doubt many here will be surprised that the Muslim teams haven’t resorted to car bombings, IED’s or suicide attacks, despite them losing a few games, one explanation for this is that cricket is a gentleman’s game played by gentlemen, another explanation is that Muslims aren’t as bloodthirsty as the people (Christians?) who advocate incinerating a few million people (but only Muslim people).
Andrew, do you not see a difference between commands to Israel by god and actions taken by Israel that were not ordered? Read the bible carefully. Jesus makes it clear that god did not change, understanding changed.
Taking wives does not equal rape. Rapist are not taking wives.
Please, be specific in your accusations or do not make them at all. Generalized accusations that can’t be refuted are unworthy of you. You’re better than that.
I do find unnerving some things the faithful chose to do that god did not immediately admonish, but this actually shows the bible to be truth… it doesn’t whitewash history, but records it accurately.
Pointing out that some Muslims are not terrorizing is rather insulting to those of us that already know that. Muslims are people meaning they have much in common with most people. Islam is evil, not generalized muslims.
Now if you claim Islam is not evil, then we would have a sincere point of contention. Same for moral equivalence arguments which indicate a huge lack of perspective only a college graduate could embrace.
Islam is evil
Yeah, sure Ken.
But remember, as a good Christian don’t work on Sundays, or you will surely be put to death.
You missed Jesus teaching about doing good on the sabbath?
Islam is evil. Care to debate specifics?
Note I did not say muslims, which is the sleight of hand the disingenuous use.
Andrew is correct. I did do a search on “heinous acts in the bible”. It’s rough stuff. Of course, it’s small parts of the whole, but still, quite disturbing.
As Andrew said, Christians can rationalize it all by saying that’s why God decided he needed to get his representative down here, to straighten out his message, which had been corrupted. I’d surely like to believe it. Unfortunately, Muslims have no such redeeming figure in their canon.
I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, like Andrew, I do not believe that all, or even more than a small portion, of Muslims are violent or incorrigible. On the other, Islam is clearly in need of a Reformation, and mass condemnation could be an impetus to that Reformation.
I’ve said it before: religions evolve with changing times, if they don’t they disappear.
Unfortunately, Muslims have no such redeeming figure in their canon.
I’m not sure that Mohammad’s preaching was as blood thirsty as the Old Testament, Islam does preach a lot about peacefully co-existing with people of other religions, the dramatic bits often quoted are usually taken from sections of the Koran addressing actions permissible in times of wars.
Where ISIS differs from most Muslims is that to them this is a time of war, for most other Muslims trade is more important today.
At the risk of being accused of antisemitism, Jews don’t have a “redeeming figure in their canon”.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Jews aren’t capturing and beheading ‘infidels’, or flying planes into buildings, or gunning down whole offices where some people ‘insulted’ their prophets, or planting bombs on commuter buses, or otherwise killing innocents with no reasonable provocation. Nor do they kill their daughters to uphold the family ‘honor’, nor buy and sell women as chattel. Nor chop off limbs as punishment for crimes. Nor, engage in other assorted medieval behaviors which have no place in the modern world.
“I’ve said it before: religions evolve with changing times, if they don’t they disappear.”
Yes, but this isn’t a passive evanescence. They disappear by fire and sword. If they keep it up, that dark joke people were telling after 9-11 may become prophetic, to wit, why are there no Arabs in Star Trek?
“Islam does preach a lot about peacefully co-existing with people of other religions”
Usually by having them as 3rd class citizens under their dominion.
Is there a Muslim country where other religions are allowed to co-exist without persecution and discrimination?
There are a few but not many. Egypt might be considered one but look at what happened to the copts when the MB took over.
Jesus didn’t change the teachings in the hebrew scriptures. He explained them to people that didn’t understand them, which ironically were the one that were supposed to be doing the teaching.
The law was a tutor leading to christ. The law included capital punishment. What you might call heinous, but capital punishment is a part of civilization.
Islam is not talking about capital punishment for specific crimes. It talks about indiscriminate killing of anyone that doesn’t submit to its tyranny.
I define that as evil.
You can defend Islam, which will not prevent them from killing you.
Since we keep hearing about “Christian” Nazis, lets not forget the Nazi death camps were well surpassed by communists in both the Soviet Union and China.
Hear, hear! Bottom line: people are a problem. Especially people who aim not to produce, but to rule.
Positive Christianity (German: Positives Christentum) was a movement within Nazi Germany which blended ideas of racial purity and Nazi ideology with elements of Christianity. Hitler included use of the term in Article 24[1] of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stating “the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity”.
Waiting for Jim rant to Obama, his Administration, and Andrew that Christian Extremist are not a national priority because not a threat…
It would be cool if they wanted to tone down the anti-Christian talk lest their be hate crimes. Christians are victims of hate crimes as much if not more than Muslims and of course Jews more than both.
Heat death of the universe will occur first because “no friends to the right, no enemies to the left.”
the dramatic bits often quoted are usually taken from sections of the Koran addressing actions permissible in times of wars.
Any act taken makes it a time of war, doesn’t it?
PURE EVIL.