Prophet Muhammad insulted by a film, so we claim the right to kill you?

[RedheadDane]

Unfortunately in the US political system, religion has become way too "influential" in the sense that a candidate can't hope to get elected at the national level w/o trumpeting his faith in "God" and thanking "The Lord" and calling for the smiting of the "non-believers." Ugh.

Tell me about it... just the fact that the fact that Obama might be a Muslim (I'm pretty sure he isn't!) is such a big problem.

 

[silverrocket]

...]
The humanities, by contrast, work toward arriving at "consciousness," which exists beyond the constraints of scientific results that may be historical, aesthetic, philosophical, ethical etc. Yes it is subjective, and fraught with pitfalls, however, there is no other way, for example, to contemplate and understand how a religion is constructed and formed.



[...

Your bolded words are not true. Religion is an aspect of culture, which is an aspect of human behaviour, which perhaps is BEST contemplated and understood using the natural sciences. Namely, the science of animal behaviour and behavioural ecology. I think humanities are incredibly useful in examining the proximate formations and constructions of religion, but through the science of behavioural ecology we can have a more objective and general perspective that gives us the understanding of the ultimate causes.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Dude, Obama is twice the war-mongering hawk that Romney would be. There's nothing that a Romney administration would do in the area of waging unjust/illegitimate war on a perpetual, global scale that Obama hasn't done already or contemplated.

Dude, this is pure bull - and pure speculation - and completely off topic here. If you want to take this further, bring it to Gen. Politics or make an election issue out of it. We can debate why one or the other is the bigger war-monger.

 

[gregod]

...troll gibberish...

take your trolling elsewhere.

 

[The Hitch]

Agree with this. Anytime I see our elections here or in the UK, the discussion on the topic of religion does'nt come into it anywhere as much as it does in the US ones. Romney is always being pushed to discuss the Mormon faith and gets criticised for not addressing it enough.

Religion gets used quite a lot actually subtly when talking about more hands on local issues, which a pm and his cabinet here have to deal with a hell of a lot more than a US president, where these issues usually fall to the states.


US presidential elections are about 1 candidate vs another so their religion is important. 1 particularl religion is 100% of the candidate. Here its about the parties so on a national level there is no 1 religion that party represents.

In particular with regards to social issues, all candidates always, always, cite working with religious leaders in the community as a solution.

And in actual commons elections, in certain constituencies, which of course form part of the wider general election religion can be very important and even polarizing.

There was a mayoral election in tower hamlets i recall 2 years ago, which got a lot of attention in the press between 2 islamic factions, where ken livingstone of course took the side of the extreme one.

There is another election that was in the newspapers a year or two ago which was reversed after a court had found the winning candidate had played on religious nature of the community by spreading false information about her opponent having extra marital relations.

 

[Magnus]

take your trolling elsewhere.

Yes. Clearly anyone who presents a view of the world that doesn't conform with your view of the world is trolling.

 

[BroDeal]

In fact that's correct, but it wasn't my fault (so don't get all worked up over it), because the report I read yesterday said he claimed he was Jewish, using the name Sam Bacile. In today's report (which I hadn't yet read at the time I cited that) it told that in fact the anti-Islam director who said he was a Jew, Sam Bacile, was in fact using an alias: his true identity being 55 year-old Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian from Egypt.

He along with his 21 year-old son, Abanob Basseley, made the film in 12 days. Nakoula alias Bacile has had a long history of financial fraud and got himself in trouble with the law for counterfeiting medicines, for which he was condemned to 21 months in the Lompoc prison, in addition to having to reimburse his clients $ 790,000. While in prison he conceived of the film to denounce the "cancer of Islam". With which money? He claimed he was funded $5 million by Jewish financers, while it turns out the film was produced on a budget of $ 50-60,000 which he claims he got from relatives in Egypt.

His partner would be Steve Klein, an insurance agent of Hemet, California, who self-proclaimed himself the "film consultant." He also boasted that he got his hands bloody in Vietnam, while today he is noted by the authorities to have relations with anti-Islam Christian extremist groups like Christian Guardians and the Courageous Christians United (my word the country is full of loonies!). Klein would have been the one who recommended that Nakoula enlist the services of Terry Jones: who better than the reverend of the Koran bonfire to throw fuel on the fire of the Muslim world?

It is all pretty simple. It was Christian bigots pretending to be Jewish bigots complaining about Islamic bigots.

 

[BroDeal]

Dude, this is pure bull - and pure speculation - and completely off topic here. If you want to take this further, bring it to Gen. Politics or make an election issue out of it. We can debate why one or the other is the bigger war-monger.

I gotta go with this. Obama is a weak man. He gave in to political pressure to attack Libya. But Romney is promising Dubya Administration, version 2.0. He whole heartedly believes in American exceptionalism. The mormons are whack. They believe that America is god's country, the founding fathers were inspired by god, and country was set up to allow the return of the "true church." Mormons are dangerous loons and should not be in control of foreign policy.

 

[gregod]

...more trollish baiting...

if you had a good faith argument there could be a debate on its merits, as RedheadDane and i have had in this thread. you are just repeating obvious nonsense in order to be invidious.

 

[gregod]

It is all pretty simple. It was Christian bigots pretending to be Jewish bigots complaining about Islamic bigots.

this made me laugh

 

[gregod]

I gotta go with this. Obama is a weak man. He gave in to political pressure to attack Libya. But Romney is promising Dubya Administration, version 2.0. He whole heartedly believes in American exceptionalism. The mormons are whack. They believe that America is god's country, the founding fathers were inspired by god, and country was set up to allow the return of the "true church." Mormons are dangerous loons and should not be in control of foreign policy.

even though i am very skeptical about obama's tenure, i am not convinced that he is personally weak. however, i understand how he can be seen as such. i think part of his perceived weakness is that he is not a good negotiator. he started off many negotiations with the GOP already giving ground and there was no room to negotiate. as for giving in to pressure to attack libya, my take on the news reports at the time was that he wanted to attack libya earlier than he did, but waited until it was politically feasible.

 

[rhubroma]

It is all pretty simple. It was Christian bigots pretending to be Jewish bigots complaining about Islamic bigots.

If I could have said it so concisely I would have!

(Now let's not let Scott get all riled up round here.)

 

[RedheadDane]

I'm gonna post a meme which, in very clear terms, describe what freedom is:

I guess things go really bad when someone uses their religion as an excuse to use a gun to take away the freedom (lives) of other people.

 

[Amsterhammer]

It is all pretty simple. It was Christian bigots pretending to be Jewish bigots complaining about Islamic bigots.

One of your finer one-liners, Bro.

 

[ToreBear]

@ToreBear

Please elaborate. You can PM if you don't want to clutter up the thread. If I am wrong I would like to be corrected. From what I have read and researched the past year, I would stand by my statement.

Well this is kinda on topic, so I'm willing to take the risk of angering the mods.

I know this is slightly off the topic of religion and violence, but has anyone thought that maybe the attack on the embassy in Benghazi and the general anti-US sentiment has more to do with US foreign policy than some little film?

Libya, under Gaddafi, had the highest standard of living in North Africa and better than most, if not all, the Arabian Peninsula. There was free housing, education, and health care. Gaddafi was trying to get Africa off the petro-dollar and onto the Gold Dinar, so that the people of Africa could benefit from their natural resources and not multi-national corporations. So NATO bombed the sh*t out of their country, killed tens of thousands of people, and supported the overthrow and subsequent murder of Gaddafi. Now Libya is in a constant state of tribal and religious warfare, their resources are open to theft from oil conglomerates, and what standard of living they had is most likely gone forever.

Now NATO is doing the same thing in Syria.

But these are inconvenient and uncomfortable facts. Much easier to blame all this anti-US violence and sentiment on a film.

Your views are not new, IMHO they are based on a rational view of the behavior of the US, UK and France in the last century. A good example of this behavior is the US/UK instigated coup in Iran in 1953 removing the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh through operation ajax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

The problem is that the behavior of the "western" powers has changed.

Your view is complex and coherent, hence I think it's better to ease you slowly into a better understanding of the reality.

I think the best way to do this is through polling data.

Opinion Briefing: Libyans Eye New Relations With the West
U.S. approval among highest ever recorded by Gallup in MENA region
http://www.gallup.com/poll/156539/Opinion-Briefing-Libyans-Eye-New-Relations-West.aspx

According to this poll.
75% of Libyans approved of last years NATO intervention.
22% opposed the intervention
3% were undecided.

If the reality of Gadaffis rule and the NATO intervention is as you think would not these numbers be totally different?

Would one not expect similar numbers as those in Egypt and Tunisia.(13% and 33% in favor of the NATO intervention in Libya)?

The numbers for Algeria should IMHO be taken with a grain of salt, since the Algerian military's preferred response is not something I see an Algerian not taking into account when answering questions.

Here are more numbers from other countries:
Snapshot: NATO Intervention in Libya Unpopular in Arab World
Least popular in North Africa
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154997/Snapshot-NATO-Intervention-Libya-Unpopular-Arab-World.aspx

I can elaborate on your other points as well, but I think this should do for now.

Like I said your understanding of the situation fits into a rational pattern, the problem is that the situation is different now, than it was 20-30-40-50 years ago. Your understanding of the different elements underpinning your overall understanding needs to catch up.

Did this give you food for thought? If you want me to go into each of the premises of your conclusion I can do that too. I followed everything relating to Libya intently last year, so I feel my understanding is pretty much up to date. And It's a very interesting country.

 

[the big ring]

What I see going on, therefore, in the schools of today, is that we have too much technology and not enough humanity. Everyone knows how to use internet, in other words, but they have no damn historical perspective. This is not only sad, but dangerous.

Yes. Teachers make all the difference too - to bring humanity and its lessons to life, to show how pertinent they are to society as a whole and to the individual. There are no course notes for that one.

 

[the big ring]

"Determining what is evidence for something and what isn't is a matter of faith" is true.

Haven't you ever heard of scientists disagreeing about whether or not an experiment and its' results can be used to support a theory?

Or wait till 10-20 studies have been done, look at them all, and produce a "study" that uses all the prior studies as evidence that their conclusions were all wrong.

etc.

 

[patricknd]

You misunderstood me. I said that that was not the job of science, namely to demonstrate what can't be proven. Science works toward the opposite and thus is a discipline that in this sense has interpretive limitations. Objectivity may be pretty, but it is constrained to those phenomena that can't be affected by the myriad designs of humanity.

The humanities, by contrast, work toward arriving at "consciousness," which exists beyond the constraints of scientific results that may be historical, aesthetic, philosophical, ethical etc. Yes it is subjective, and fraught with pitfalls, however, there is no other way, for example, to contemplate and understand how a religion is constructed and formed.

When science is used improperly, it very much can be turned into an instrument of ideology: by way of interpretive reflections to support one's political program. As if science has become politically correct, the humanities less so or even hostile, because they enncourage a type of critical thinking that the political and religious authorities find disturbing and hostile to thier worldview and can't use to further their ideological ends. In fact it isn't the scientists who are being pursecuted in Iran today, but the so called disidents.

In any case both are compatible and should be encouraged, so I’m by no means arguing for the superiority of the one over the other. It’s just that science (which is really techne), seems to have been given an overbearing relevance in our market driven world today, such that what the humanities can potentially encourage has been transformed into a “luxury” for those that don’t have to keep up, or worry about, modernity. What I see going on, therefore, in the schools of today, is that we have too much technology and not enough humanity. Everyone knows how to use internet, in other words, but they have no damn historical perspective. This is not only sad, but dangerous.

they do have the facebook timeline

 

[rhubroma]

Barbara Spinelli (Italian journalist) is right: freedom of expression loses its value and sense if it remains "sovereignly indifferent to its consequences" (or to put it another way, and in the broader sense, there is never liberty without responsibility). Having said that what is frightening, and will continue to frighten even where freedom of expression is so well tempered as to evade all traps; is what little excuse fires the arms of Islamic hate. What does the American government have to do with a cretinous and mediocre film made by a mediocre cretin? Unfortunately the answer lies in the fact that for us something so incomprehensible is for them an absurdity: namely, that that trailer was emitted on the web without the government knowing. Even if that were the case, we do not prohibit such freedom of expression, however base and inconvenient. This is naturally because they see religion as their only salvation.

What did the ambassador Stevens, the friend of Arab culture and therefore of Islam, and at the same time friend of Libyan democracy, have to do with this "insult to the Koran?" The problem is that if one's vision of the world is tribal, the individual doesn't exist: only the tribe exists. The hate in question isn't among fanatics (according to the crude, though comprehensible, wish: at least they kill themselves), it's not Al Qaeda against Breivink. The hate in question that inflames the squares and spills blood is against all Westerners who are seen as one immense and indistinct tribe of impure blasphemers. Only the Muslim world has the capacity over time to disarm the bomb that is this violence, this archaic mechanism that doesn't recognize, among the people, persons, but only members of a friendly faith or enemy faith.

At the same time what can be said of the guy from California who claimed he was Jewish, using the name Sam Bacile, but is actually a Christian? Or that in the US their exist groups like Christian Guardians and the Courageous Christians United? Or that the US has being bombing the Muslim world for years now? Or that Israel thinks their State was given to them by God? Or that we just might have a Mormon in the White House soon (a cult that believes God sent their forebearers to create 'Merica to reestablish the "true church")? And, if we do, we'll probably go to war with Israel against Iran before the end of 2013?

 

[blutto]

...a nifty summary...

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79593848

Cheers

blutto

 

[ToreBear]

I gotta go with this. Obama is a weak man. He gave in to political pressure to attack Libya. But Romney is promising Dubya Administration, version 2.0. He whole heartedly believes in American exceptionalism. The mormons are whack. They believe that America is god's country, the founding fathers were inspired by god, and country was set up to allow the return of the "true church." Mormons are dangerous loons and should not be in control of foreign policy.

What? The political pressure was from the European allies. They would not have been pleased if the US backed out when they had finally gotten a UN resolution.

even though i am very skeptical about obama's tenure, i am not convinced that he is personally weak. however, i understand how he can be seen as such. i think part of his perceived weakness is that he is not a good negotiator. he started off many negotiations with the GOP already giving ground and there was no room to negotiate. as for giving in to pressure to attack libya, my take on the news reports at the time was that he wanted to attack libya earlier than he did, but waited until it was politically feasible.

I don't know his personal inclinations, but the US did as little as it could get away with during the intervention in Libya. Had the US done less than what it did it would have shaken the NATO alliance to the core.

I think perhaps you guys see US actions abroad too much as a Washington game. The decisions a US president has to make is bigger than the political games in Washington.

As for Obama and Romney. This European hopes the US reelects Obama. He has done a good job abroad within the limits reality has imposed on him. Bush and the neocons wanted to recreate reality to fit their ideology. I'm pretty sure Romney would follow the same route. Though the US' ability to carry out hair brained schemes has been limited as a result of Dubyas 8 years, Romney could still cause a lot of problems.

 

[joe_papp]

Disagree here though...

Fair enough, we'll agree to disagree.

I'm a follower of Glenn Greenwald and find his analysis and insights into the foreign and domestic actions of the USGovt in the "security" sphere to be credible.

He has a great quote in this round-table discussion (http://youtu.be/RzyNebE1ex0) re. Romney vs. Obama on foreign policy (start around 13:30 or so) and who's more to the right:

"That's the real problem with the Romney campaign...they want to get to the right of the President when it comes to the use of military force in national security and it's virtually impossible to do that given how indiscriminate virtually the President has been when it comes to military force so you see them [Romney campaign] sort of fumbling around...it's almost impossible to get to the right of President Obama. If they were a little bit more creative...they would go to the Left of the Democrats on foreign policy..."

 

[The Hitch]

This should all be in the us politics thread btw.

What? The political pressure was from the European allies. They would not have been pleased if the US backed out when they had finally gotten a UN resolution.

I don't know his personal inclinations, but the US did as little as it could get away with during the intervention in Libya. Had the US done less than what it did it would have shaken the NATO alliance to the core.

I think perhaps you guys see US actions abroad too much as a Washington game. The decisions a US president has to make is bigger than the political games in Washington.

As for Obama and Romney. This European hopes the US reelects Obama. He has done a good job abroad within the limits reality has imposed on him. Bush and the neocons wanted to recreate reality to fit their ideology.

By european you of course you mean the old elitist - germany, france britain deal and not actual europe. This brainless heroworship of a man who is at the end of the day a politician is far less prevalent outside these 3 major powers.

Besides what people ignore is that obama would not be half as popular in western europe if he actually had to answer to people here rather than be presented by all media as some sort of superhero, which is what he currently gets. I mean the bbc for example have as one of their adverts obama saying - "change", and a father in a hospital holding his new born child and starting to smile as he sees obama on screen. Thats just an example but throughout western europe its been 4 years of obama shown in a positive light and totaly immune from cirticism even on political comedy shows.

As for the last sentence,

I'm pretty sure Romney would follow the same route. Though the US' ability to carry out hair brained schemes has been limited as a result of Dubyas 8 years, Romney could still cause a lot of problems.

This - Republicans= war, democrats = peace stupidity is exactly the type of crap youy get from people who know only what they hear in their local european media, all of which paints bush as a child who has **** cheyney change his nappies and obama as God's representative on earth.

Bill Clinton was talking about invading iraq in 1998, and him and Al gore passed a motion in the senate called the iraq resolution act. Moreover Clinton did go to war in the balkans and ordered a famous, poorly researched bombing of a vital medicine factory in Sudan.

Had Bush lost the 2000 election, America would still have invaded iraq as seen by the fact that half the democrats in congress voted for it anyway, the would be president - Al gore, backed it, the would be vice president - joseph lieberman was its most vocal supporter, and more importantly it was seen as a politically expedient thing to do, and would be especially for the democrats who would stand to gain a piece of their rival parties base.

And Obama is the biggest pilitico of the lot. His record as a senator,state senator and presidential candidate to make up and change his mind based on what is politically expedient, is legendary. If oabama saw a poll tomorrow that nuking canada would win him the election he would do it in a heartbeat.

 

[auscyclefan94]

There was a large riot in Sydney yesterday about this video.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/dont-bring-riots-here-victorian-muslim-leaders-plead/story-e6frf7kx-1226474867112

 

[rhubroma]

Fair enough, we'll agree to disagree.

I'm a follower of Glenn Greenwald and find his analysis and insights into the foreign and domestic actions of the USGovt in the "security" sphere to be credible.

He has a great quote in this round-table discussion (http://youtu.be/RzyNebE1ex0) re. Romney vs. Obama on foreign policy (start around 13:30 or so) and who's more to the right:

"That's the real problem with the Romney campaign...they want to get to the right of the President when it comes to the use of military force in national security and it's virtually impossible to do that given how indiscriminate virtually the President has been when it comes to military force so you see them [Romney campaign] sort of fumbling around...it's almost impossible to get to the right of President Obama. If they were a little bit more creative...they would go to the Left of the Democrats on foreign policy..."

There's nothing more to the right, than the US right. I don't think, therefore, that it is physiologically possible for Romney and his party to "go to the Left of the Democrats on foreign policy..."