I've reached my limits with Islam...

[FightingFalcon]

I try to be a really tolerant person and not condemn anyone because of the group that they belong to but recently I've just had it with Islam.

I realize the religion as a hole is not guilty for the actions of a few but how many times are we going to have to watch Imams, Shieks and Clerics denounce the West and encourage violence against us? People always tell me, "O well there is no Islamic pope so they can't defend themselves blah blah blah." Complete BS. There are plenty of important leaders in Islam who could get up and just say ENOUGH with the violence. Enough be-heading foreignors. No more encouraging RAPE against Western women. A complete condemnation of terrorism once and for all.

Christianity doesn't have a pope either (only Catholics do) but somehow all 2 billion of us are able to come to a consensus. When fringe elements in Christianity appear (like those who protest the funerals of soldiers because they defended "gay America"), we Christians are quick to distance ourselves from them. We do not associate with them and we condemn their methods.

So far in threads about Muslims raping women in the West, every Muslim poster has refused to denounce their fellow Muslims. Yarta and Ms. Poetic both attacked the writer of the story instead of their fellow Muslims. Why? What is so hard to do?

I am just sick and tired of this religion. I am sick of having to hear how peaceful it is after studying their history for years. I'd be the first to admit that Christianity has had a bad history but so has Islam. I am just so tired of this shit about how we can't criticize Islam because its un-PC.

Fuck that. I will condemn anyone, regardless of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, etc. who harms innocent people. I am so done with hearing the same old arguments again. "This isn't true Islam....It's just their culture....etc." Even if it is your culture to rape women and stone gay men - I don't give a shit. That doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want. What if my culture forced me to kill everyone who took the Lord's name in vain? Is that OK?

I won't condemn every Muslim because I have several Muslim friends who I know abhor what their fellow Muslims are doing. But until I get some sort of high-ranking Muslim to do the above (reject terrorism, rape, be-headings and finally tolerate their fellow human beings), I am completely done with that religion.

/rant.

wow that felt good.............

[Merceditas]

I sure have tried to keep an open mind. More than anything I feel sorry for those muslims who want to get past their backward, arrogant, inferiority-complex, culture/religion.

Did I mention an inablity to accept responsibility, a distored sense of honor?

[dustdevil28]

I haven't looked at that tread, lately. You gotta expect some garbage from Ric, so I don't find it too surprising, but what about posters like PersianPride? Have they had anything to say?

[Merceditas]

Battleborn,
PP wrote this:

This is quite simply intellectually bankrupt and is no better then what we see in the national vanguard website.

In a world of violence and hate you manage to highlight an act of violence and hate performed by Somalians. Congradulations

boards.historychannel.com/message.jspa?messageID=600384995

[FightingFalcon]

Muslims refuse to condemn the actions of other Muslims - I have no idea why.

I'm not asking them to condem the individual or group. Just their actions. Can I at least get a Muslim cleric to stand up and condemn violence? Just one? That'd be great.

[oneifbyland]

You might get one - but that's the point, too. There should be a massive outpouring of condemnation of the acts -- but there never will be. Degradation of women is so ingrained in their culture at various levels that condoning rape and SENTENCING WOMEN TO BE RAPED as punishment for real and/or imagined crimes their brothers commited is just one end of a continuum of misogynistic psychopathology.

And of course what are these barbarian men doing in Sweden? Thay move there to live off the dole and spearhead the Caliph State envisioned by theur religious leaders.

[Merceditas]

There are a few organized groups out there working to reform Islam so as to live in the modern world. Thank goodness for them.

Here's one group I ran across today:

www.freemuslims.org/

[stratagosv]

Read The World is Flat By Thomas Freidman.

Just for some help... Imagine christians trying to be world powers while going by the strict law of the old testament. Islam keeps dictators in power, and because its "the perfect religion, both spiritual and political" it is OBVIOUSLY the great satans fault that muslims are doing so poorly

[cameron]

Write your own Thomas Friedman column!

1. Choose your title to intrigue the reader through its internal conflict:

a. "War and Peas"
b. "Osama, Boulevardier"
c. "Big Problems, Little Women"

2. Include a dateline from a remote location, preferably dangerous, unmistakably Muslim:

a. Mecca, Saudi Arabia
b. Islamabad, Pakistan
c. Mohammedville, Trinidad

3. Begin your first paragraph with a grandiose sentence and end with a terse, startlingly unexpected contradiction:

a. "The future of civilization depends upon open communication between Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon. If the two don't speak to each other, the world edges closer to the precipice of total war. If, on the other hand, they manage to engage in open conversation and resolve their differences, Israelis could soon be celebrating Seders in Saudi Arabia. But for now, the two men can't speak. Why? You can't make a collect call from Bethlehem."

4. Use the next few paragraphs to further define the contradiction stated above, peppered with little questions making it look like you're having a conversation with the reader. Feel free to use the first person:

a. "My first thought was to ask: Why no collect calls from Bethlehem? It's easy to call collect from Bosnia, Kosovo, even Uzbekistan. Am I sure? Of course I'm sure. I was in each of those places just a few weeks ago, making collect calls all over the world. No problem. So why can't Arafat call collect from Bethlehem?"

5. Remember: Thomas Friedman is the Carrie Bradshaw of current events. Think Sex and the City, write "Sects and Tikriti":

a. "How can Islam get to its future, if its past is its present?"

b. "Later that day I got to thinking about global civilizational warfare. There are wars that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that take you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant clash of all is the one you have with your own civilization. And if you can find a civilization to love the you that you love, well, that's just fabulous."

c. "Maybe Arabs and Israelis aren't from different planets, as pop culture would have us believe. Maybe we live a lot closer to each other. Perhaps, dare I even say it, in the same ZIP code."

6. Name-drop heavily, particularly describing intimate situations involving hard-to-reach people:

a. "The Jacuzzi was nearly full when Ayman al-Zawahiri, former surgeon and now Al Qaeda's head of operations, slid in."

b. "It was Thomas Pynchon on the phone. 'Tommy,' he said, probably aware we share that name . . . . "

c. "Despite the bumpy flight, I felt comfortable in the hands of a pilot as experienced as Amelia Earhart."

7. Include unknowns from hostile places who have come to espouse rational Western thought and culture:

a. "I visited Mohammed bin Faisal Al-Hijazi, former top aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, now a reformer and graduate of the Wharton Business School."

b. "Last year Nura bin Saleh Al-Fulani worked in Gaza sewing C4 plastic explosives into suicide bombers' vests. I caught up with Nura last week in Paw Paw, Mich., where she sews activity patches on the uniforms of Cub Scout Pack 34."

8. Make use of homey anecdotes about your daughters, Natalie and Orly, enrolled in Eastern Middle School, Silver Spring, Md.:

a. "My daughter Natalie, a student at Eastern Middle School, a public school in Silver Spring, Md., asked me at breakfast: 'Daddy, if my school has students who are Muslims and Jews and Christians and Buddhists all working together, why can't the rest of the world be that way?' There was something in the innocence of her question that made me stop and think: Maybe she has a point."

9. Quote a little-known Middle East authority at least once in every column:

a. Stephen P. Cohen
b. Stephen P. Cohen
c. Stephen P. Cohen

10. Conclude your column with a suggestion referring back to the opening contradiction, but with an ironic twist. Make sure the suggestion you proffer sounds plausible, but in fact has no chance of happening:

a. "Driving into Bethlehem in the back of a pickup, I wonder: What if Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon sit down and play a game of poker? And what if the stakes are these: If Sharon wins, the Intifada is over. If Arafat wins, Palestine gains statehood. One game of no-limit Texas hold 'em, and the Middle East crisis is resolved. Just like that. Yasir and Ariel, deal 'em out."

[Merceditas]

awwww............Now I'm going to have to look at his stuff, just to get the joke!

[stratagosv]

Did you make that up all by yourself? :-)

[cameron]

stratagosv said:

Did you make that up all by yourself? :-)

No, I stole it from a blog I read some time ago and saved it to my computer. Sorry I don't remember the site where I first saw it. I remember seeing Friedman on the talk circuit doing the rounds promoting his book and discussing current events. His absolutely insipid remarks would make me want to puke. So when I came across this take down it gave me a good laugh.

[stratagosv]

What about him don't you like?

[cameron]

stratagosv said:

What about him don't you like?

What???

Strat the parody of his columns sums it up.

[stratagosv]

I want to hear it from you, aside from being dull, what's your beef with him?