Hey guys, I just got from Rio de Janeiro and it was fabulous. I will post photos tomorrow when my wife returns. She took the camera with all the photos with her on her trip today before I could save them on the pc.
Truth Dancer,
There are no "authorities" in Islam. There may be self proclaimed, vocal, out of control guys who want to think they have some sort of leadership but this is not a part of the teachings of Islam.
You are wrong TD. You need to extend your studies beyond that of what some western influenced Muslims tell you. Your repeated claims that there are as many versions of Islam as there are Muslims is equally wrong. Anyone who has studied religions can say Islam is far more united in belief and practice than Christians and Jews. There simply isn’t any wiggle room for Muslims to comfortably maneuver with their attempts to mesh Islam with Western sentiments. Few have tried and those are the few you keep referring to – the few. These people would be kicked out of Muslim majority societies if they expressed their views openly. Only in the West can they do this, but not always can they do it safely, even over here.
I already said there is no supreme authority as there is in Catholicism, but this doesn’t mean there are
no authorities in Islam at all. Again, you even conceded the point that your friends go to the Imams who are by definition, authorities. If they weren’t authorities then why would anyone bother with them? Here is an excerpt from Daniel Peterson:
When Muhammad died rather suddenly and unexpectedly, the senior Muslim leadership scrambled to improvise an institution—the caliphate—that would provide a ruler for the still-growing Islamic state, which, by the Prophet’s death, covered virtually all of the Arabian Peninsula and which would, within a century, extend from Spain to the borders of India.
Very soon, however, the caliph lost much of his religious authority (though not his political power) to intellectuals, and particularly to legal theorists. On the basis of the Qur’an, heavily supplemented by precedents gathered from the hadith [ha-DEETH] (reports of what Muhammad and his immediate associates said and did), these thinkers elaborated a very subtle and sophisticated body of law that came to be known as the shari‘a (sha-REE-ah). Then, roughly three centuries after Muhammad’s death, the “gate of interpretation” of the shari’a was declared closed. Islamic law was set, so it was announced, for all time.
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/040705iraq.html
When Osama bin Ladin spoke of the humiliation of Islam over the past 80 years, he was referring to the collapse of the most recent Caliphate. Islamic authority has completely been given over to the scholars ever since. The scholars at Al Azhar University represent some of the highest authorities in Sunni Islam. But just because the Caliph doesn’t exist, does not change the fact that Islamic law states that Muslims are obligated to wage jihad, even if there is no Caliphate. People that insist there is no authority in Islam except for the Quran, are trying to pull one over on you. Their agenda is to free “Islam” from any blame from terrorism or any other Muslim related atrocity.
James Bond,
Almost all organized religions breed hate and bigotry because they are naturally exclusive and marginalize anyone who doesn't follow that religion. Christianity is the same way, and it always leads to the same thing, wars of religion
This is demonstrably false, and is a symptom of the multicultural relativism that has gone rampant in the West. Christianity can hardly be said to be “just like” Islam in its capacity to “breed” terrorism as has Islam.
Oh yes. trust the person who uses the phrase "unwashed brown person" to know who is and who isn't racist. I may sing "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" but it doesn't mean I don't have a "Y" chromosome.
That phrase was never used by Daniel Pipes. You should read what was actually said in the article, along with the asterisk comment.
Well I won't hold my breath waiting for the 1 billion Muslims on the planet to kill the 5 billion non-Muslims. Muslims are not taking the world tomorrow. That is reality.
You are right of course. It might take another century, but if things do not change, they are on that path.
Plutarch,
Israel receives more foreign aid than any country in the world.
And it has used it well too, unlike other countries who receive it.
Indeed, foreign aid to Israel consists of 30% of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget. Foreign aid ranges from $3 to $5 billion a year.
This doesn’t add up since Egypt receives around 2 billion per year. They have been receiving money from the US since 1948 to keep them from attacking Israel. So if the Foreign aid doesn’t exceed five billion then Egypt receives 40% at least. Get your facts straight. The 3-5 billion refers to aid given in the Middle-East alone. In FY2005:
Consistent with previous years, Egypt and Israel will receive the bulk of U.S. aid to the Middle East -- more than $4.4 billion -- as follow-on support for the Camp David accords of 1978 that resulted in a peace treaty between the two countries. Egypt will receive $1.3 billion in military assistance and $535 million in economic support. A portion of the economic support funds is tied to Egypt's attainment of significant domestic economic reforms, beyond what it achieved in prior years.
http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/20 ... 06545.html
Why don’t we also “shock” the taxpayers by letting them in on the fact that Egypt is entirely anti-American, supports America in virtually nothing when their support is sought after, it helps breed Islamic terrorism, and yet we have been consistently giving this country around $2 billion/year. It is also worth noting that Israel’s two billion in military aid, much of it is guaranteed to be done in purchasing American made arms. Palestinians receive enough money that if spent wisely, could bolster their own economy and rag their children from illiteracy. Instead their main desire is the destruction of Israel and the money goes sending their children on bombing runs.
Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world’s greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinians’ bellicose propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers.
This, however, does not faze international aid types. Nigel Roberts, the World Bank’s director for the West Bank and Gaza, blows off past failures. Addressing himself to donors, he says, “Maybe your $1 billion a year hasn’t produced much, but we think there’s a case for doing even more in the next three or four years.”
Roberts is saying, in effect: Yes, your money enabled Arafat’s corruption, jihad ideology, and suicide factories, but those are yesterday’s problems; now, let’s hope the new leadership uses donations for better purposes. Please lavish more funds on it to enhance its prestige and power, then hope for the best.
This la-la-land thinking ignores two wee problems. One concerns the Palestinians’ widespread intent to destroy Israel, as shown by the outpouring of grief for arch-terrorist Arafat at his funeral, the consistent results of opinion research, and the steady supply of would-be jihadists. The Palestinians’ discovery of their inner moderation, to put it mildly, has yet to commence.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Re ... p?ID=16383
You continue to rant…
But, it is U.S. money that props up this university system. A stone’s throw to the Palestinian refugee camps, or a missile throw to Ethiopia, show a huge disparity in the standards of living between U.S.-supported Israel and other states which receive miniscule relief moneys.
So what? Do you have some kind of point here? Israel is the only country on the brink of war. It was attacked by numerous Arab countries shortly after its creation and this war is inevitable because of the Islamic hate towards the Jew; much of the attention by US politicians has been to thwart that war from occurring during their administration, and practically all they know how to do is give money.
Yet, Israel conducts espionage operations against the U.S. military. To his credit, President Clinton resisted strong-arm tactics from the Israeli government to pardon convicted spy and U.S. citizen Jonathan Pollard.
And? You think there are not US espionage operations in Israel? Give us a break. This is standard fare in international intelligence. Tell me when Israel funds a terrorist group to kill Americans, and then we’ll have something to be concerned about.
You curiously state that the Crusades were a defense of Christianity and the atrocities were not directed by the Popes. I beg to differ.
Of course you do, but you cannot appeal to education and information.
When a leader of the Crusader army asked Papal legate Arnaud-Amaury how to distinguish the enemy from other citizens, the latter responded with a famous quote: “Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" — "Kill them [all]! Surely the Lord discerns which [ones] are his.”
You mean the famous statement that may be spurious? The statement that still doesn’t come from the Pope, and the statement that implied killing other Catholics and not “citizens”?
“There is little to authenticate Arnaud's reportedly infamous command to the crusaders at Beziers in July of 1209 to "Kill them all. God will know his own." No source of the time actually records his saying this.”
http://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/arnaudamaury.htmlNow, do you have anything to counter the fact that the Crusades were a defensive maneuver against centuries of Islamic conquests?
You claim that the Arabs have desecrated Christian shrines. I do not dispute that. Yet, the Arabs permitted public Christian worship before the Crusades.
The Arabs? Were they Muslim Arabs? Christians and Jews were not permitted to worship in public when living under Islamic rule; this was an Islamic edict established in the Pact of Umar, and has been the guideline for most Muslim rulers ever since. Among many other humiliating circumstances, conquered Jews and Christians had to agree that, “We shall not manifest our religion publicly.” -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pact_of_Umar The Arabs and their Ishmaelite predecessors have occupied Palestine long before the Jews. For a balanced, humanist, view of the way Christians have Arabs over the years, I would invite you to read the Durants’ Civilization discussion of the Arab conquest and the Crusades.
If you are relying on Will Durant then no wonder you’re making ignorant statements. I recommend you educate yourself with the latest scholarship has uncovered: Thomas F. Madden “The New Concise History of the Crusades,” and Jonathan Riley-Smith “The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades.” Regarding the propaganda against Israel I recommend -
http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/pdf/BigLies.pdf