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New What ISIS really wants
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New very well written, thanks
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Juan Cole's thoughts.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/02/todays-about-daesh.html

I'd like to think that Cole's take is closer to reality.

Cheers,
Scott.
New whose reality? Yours? Mine? Abe from Sammara?
When the first Mohammed cartoon came out I emailed Both Sistiani and A senior cleric in Qum. Both replied back with their logical view of the situation that the cartoonist must be murdered. (think they meant killed, their english was stilted) It was very obvious to them, senior leaders of millions of muslims between them that was the logical conclusion that must happen.
Remember Salman Rushdie? It wasnt a bizzare minor sect of Islam that wanted him dead. It was the mainstream leaders that wanted him dead.
The Atlantic article explains the motives well. I read the legal reasoning behind the burning of the Jordanian pilot and by its own internal logic it was a reasonable decision. Horrific but logical by their lights.
I think Mr Cole has his rose colored glasses on.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Cole has been studying this stuff for 40 years or more.
Biography.

Wood's background isn't quite as extensive.

Religious leaders don't often get brownie points for being moderate. I don't take a strident answer as being indicative of what the majority actually believes. The fatwa against Rushdie effectively ended in 1998.

We'll see what happens.

Cheers,
Scott.
New death penalty for mischief on offer
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Almost 6 years ago?
Recall there was a lot of protests around the presidential elections in Iran in June 2009. Some people were calling it a revolution.

Cheers,
Scott.
New last nov 2014 better time fr ya?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New It must be hard for many Muslims . . .
. . to see the true face of Islam so harshly exposed for all the world to see. How can they do anything effective against Islamic State when all this stuff is clearly stated in the book they hold most sacred of all things? It would amount to apostasy - punishable by death.

They can do as the quietist Salafism guy does, cherry pick out just the stuff you like and ignore the rest, hoping it just goes away - but that isn't working too well right now.

As for Juan Cole, every point he makes has some truth - and uses it to make light of the whole situation - very dangerous. I'm sure plenty of intellectuals were similarly dismissive of Hitler - until they were sent to camp.

New It's interesting to watch
Here in the UK there's no significant element of non-Islamic fundamentalist religion. Hindus and Sikhs in particular are notable for their effortless integration into British society (although the H and S younglings do occasionally knock 7 bells out of each other, but they soon grow out of that tribal-rather-than-religious thing). I don't even know what a fundamentalist Hindu does. Be really excellent to people to get a super-special place on the wheel of karma? Invite even more people into the temple for awesome curry?

But in the US, of course, there's a fucking huge element of non-Islamic fundamentalism, and it's got its hooks into your political and legislative system, big style. And it's the proponents of such who are most vocal about the imperative to bomb some sense into the locals in the middle-east.

I foster a hope that the current doubling-down by the fundies in the US is just the death throes of a religion that's heading towards a well-deserved irrelevance, like here - where people go to church on Sundays, perhaps participate in the coffee mornings to raise money for the church roof, but that's about it and nary a thought about the Supreme Being passes between the ears for the remainder of the week - but I'm not so sure.

I think that Islam is going through the process that Christianity in Britain went through from the 16th to the 19th centuries (i.e. a transition from what we would call today widespread fundamentalism towards a practically (if not theoretically, although that's more-or-less there nowadays) secular society where religion is very much a light hand on the tiller if you fancy it, rather than being the thing that informs all you are and do), and the compression into a much shorter timeframe means that this process is going to be horrifically violent.

Of course, all this bullshit is because some dickheads decided some old books were (a) The Rules and (b) immutable.
New Ha!
But in the US, of course, there's a fucking huge element of non-Islamic fundamentalism, and it's got its hooks into your political and legislative system, big style.

Yes, of course, there's the "official" church of the State in the US whose bishops sit in our Senate and the figure head is a queen. Completely unlike the England.
New You can "Ha!" all you like. You're arguing against a point I didn't make.
However: let's be realistic.

The CoE is pretty much irrelevant to the daily life of people in the UK (note our effortless legalisation of gay marriage, forex). We have openly atheist party leaders, one of whom has a much better than even chance of being Prime Minister in May. But then, being "openly atheist" in the UK is about as controversial as my Volvo. "Openly atheist? The clothes-wearing, air-breathing bastard!". There are bishops in the HoL (fat lot of good it did them in the gay marriage vote, mind), but that's going to be an elected, secular chamber within the next couple of parliaments.

Everywhere in the UK it's totes fine to be an atheist, despite our having a Church of England. It's totes not fine to be an atheist across huge swathes of "secular" America, and absent the metropolitan centres of the left and right coasts, it seems to be getting worse, not better. You might have a black president now, you might have a woman president next, but I'd wager a pint you won't have a gay or atheist president in my lifetime.
New Can't we just elect a gay, atheist woman of Jewish ancestry?
Then we don't have to listen to the rest of the world congratulate themselves for their moral superiority any more.

I mean, obviously we'd oppose absolutely everything she tries to do. But at least it would prove once-and-for-all that we're not bigots, right?
--

Drew
New back when your betters were kowtowing to the royals
we decided that having a state backed religion was bullshit and specifically wrote in the founding documents that religion can fuck the fuck off when it comes to interference in government affairs. Of course the religious have been fighting that tooth and nail since the founding of the country but thats what they do.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Real question
Which is better: Having a law that says there can't be a state religion, but an electoral process that effectively blocks participation by minority or non-religious people? Or having an official state church that has no real day-to-day influence?
--

Drew
New thats what you have courts for
I dont think the current president was voted in by the majority smugs, do you? All of the fervently democratic folks seem to be open to non religionists, or do you think that the democratic party is against atheists gays and non whites?
In the 1950's maybe but they have grown up since then
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Colbert did a bit about this
Paraphrasing: Don't judge America by what we actually do. Judge us by what we would do. America would never torture people. America would never judge people by the color of their skin. Etc. etc. etc.

So you say we're open to atheists? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/congress-religious-affiliation_n_6417074.html
The 114th Congress has a grand total of one member who is unaffiliated. That's 0.2% of Congress vs 20% of the U.S. population. Apparently people are 100 times more likely to be unaffiliated than to vote that way.
--

Drew
New eh? bhudist muslim hindu anglican lutheran catholic unitarian
accounts for 1/2 of the crew, not exactly raging fundies, more a label
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New You count Anglican, Lutheran and Catholic as "other"?
Catholic is the largest single denomination within "Christian", and of the Protestant denominations Anglican and Lutheran are both in the top 5.

Not much of an argument, even by your standards.
--

Drew
New you counting them in the same group as liberty university graduates? I dont
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New That's a different question
You're arguing that "these" Christians aren't the same as "those" Christians. I'm talking about whether a non-Christian can be elected.
--

Drew
New Obama did. He's Muslim. I heard that on the radio.
New Did Rev Wright know that?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New not a chance
I am sentenced to coerced worship. I report to a holy roller judge. If I give any push back I go straight to jail.
New Neither. Both are equally bad.
Having an official church gives the impression that organized religion has merit. It doesn't. It is an opiate.
New Clearly the latter, of course
A demonstrated, unarguable irrelevance is the ultimate vote in such matters, and needs no violent other-forms of protest for the POV:
to.. just.. Go Away (but one has to have patience for that to work.)

We've had indirect, small-scale confrontations all along--since the Beginning!--about 'believing'; none of the modrin deconstructions discover anything new
about about the fatality of such sub-routines running-in-background in an otherwise functioning mind (wherever That thing "resides"?)

Will the 21st Century see occur a true denouement of the whole virus? Or will it require First: the extermination of the entire species
(and most-all mammals, none of whom has ever been given a vote at The Green Table) to shred that DNA?


SCARY.. innit? to be unable to predict that Answer, with any confidence.
(You'd first have to disabuse every Believer of any faith that there can ever be Certainty in this world/such as we Are.)

Love. It. or leave it, eh?
New rush is gay?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New It's scary to watch.
I had the book "In The Shadow Of The Sword" on my GoodRead's wishlist for ages before I found a reason to put some moolah down to buy it. It attempts to trace the history of how the Quran came to be, which by necessity means describing the history of the Levant and the Middle East from roughly 0AD to about 700AD (I'm a bit fuzzy as to the exact date).

The history is fascinating, because it includes how the Eastern Roman Empire became Christian, a slice of history I'd not heard told before. It also tells of how the Arab tribes had a consistently warlike relationship with their neighbours since practically forever.

When the author turned his narrative to the stories about the Prophet, he admitted that there is a awful lot of early material simply missing. You might think there's a lot missing about the early Jewish scriptures. There is an ocean of material about that compared to early versions of the Quran: because they either do not exist or are under heavy lock and key. Just once he made the suggestion that the later Muslim scholars watched very carefully how first the Jews and later the Christians redacted and edited their own scriptures. This meant they figured out how to shape the Quran and Islam so both are set in stone with no room to move.

Now, that's just one scholar's effort. But even if it's vaguely correct, there are other signs that Islam was designed to not move with the times.

Wade.
New Re: It's scary to watch.
Reviews seem to indicate that Holland didn't do his research.

Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New That's why I'd like to read another book on the subject.
But I'm in no hurry. I'm not nearly so interested in the topic as I used to be.

I don't even remember how Tom Holland's book got recommended to me.

Wade.
New while it is true that the winners dictate how history reads
there is a buttload of stuff as an aside on how the muslims evolved
here is the 10 cent version
http://www.patheos.com/Library/Islam/Origins/Beginnings?offset=1&max=1
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Re: It's scary to watch.
Thanks, Wade.. a fine demo that, what. ever. one chooses to write about [the entire Religio- metaphysics topic], never shall there be a moment's respite from OTOH, since every single ant in the hive.. has his/her [only True Grasp©] of the entire enchilada.

What a Surprise..! that,
tales of onlookers, dwelling on a (probably..) flat Earth, over which the Sun God drove his chariot each day: should generate Point/counter-Point over each syllable "told as exact transcription"
… what, probably forever?

Assuming a polymath, with reading-for-comprehension skillz in the top 1% (we measure Everything, now) ingesting every chronicle from the Greeks onwards, then chroniclers (sorted by date/locale) of the suspected events, that seem to be of enduring Interest: how many (academic lifetimes) would be required to assimilate/analyze then outline some summary of all these homo-sap writings (whether creative opinions or putative first-person testaments: aka journal-ism') ??

Probably the limit of my interest in a topic, never-to-reach consensus, even as to the base-news-koan formula: Who What When Where (very rarely any remote provable!-Why) might be:
this lengthy Review of Holland's 'review' of (whatever eclectic sources he extirpated from the mass ..which he liked.)

(And if you like/hate his style ?? He has another bucket-of-worms,) under Why science ignores God. This essay is brief-enough; could be worth a scan or a giggle, depending..
Bon appetít, pursuers of truthiness (or even just plain satisfiction?)

I too, a Prophet, predict: that our jelloware is simply too primitive to Deal With "n-dimensional assorted Universes", for being demonstrably: unable to deal with this local one and its myths of.. Oh, say:
[Time=0 er, let's call that a Singularity, ergo FIFY] ;^>

Don't worry. Be Happy.
--Meher Baba


Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.
But always remember: Cops are armed and Dangerous; the corpus becomes corpse ... easily.
New Adam Silverman's take.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/02/17/so-tell-me-whatcha-want-whatcha-really-really-want/

It is here that Woods’ article also misses something else important. Iraqi Islam, both Sunni and Shi’i, is tribal centric. The concept of ijma, in an Iraqi context, is related to Iraqi tribal dynamics. Most of the senior sheikhs and grand sheikhs are also the imams for the portions of their tribes where they reside and often for the greater community in their area. This is because of cross tribal ties. Only the three Shi’a Sayid Tribes (descended from the Prophet’s through his grandsons) are exclusively of one sect – Twelver Shi’ism. The rest of the tribes are all interrelated by marriage. For instance, one of the most senior Jabouris I interviewed told me that his mother was from the Utbi tribe and she was Shi’a, as was his sister in law. Moreover, I was told over and over that even if the Jabouris south and east of Baghdad are all Sunni, they have Shi’a Jabouri cousins in Basra, because everyone in Basra is Shi’a. The Shamori, which include tribes in Syria and Saudi Arabia too, are completely internally mixed according to sect. The tribe is so big and so far flung that it has both Sunni and Shi’a members prominently displayed on its tribal tree. As a result of not relating the complexity of the interaction between religion and tribe among Arab Iraqis, Woods does not take into account what helped cause the downfall of al Qaeda in Iraq – they pissed off the tribal leadership, especifically the sheikhs, sub-sheikhs, and their heirs. AQI did not seem to understand that tribe and religion was so intermingled. As a result they tried to do the same thing in Iraq that they did in Afghanistan – marry in to a kinship group (Pashtun khel in Afghanistan, tribe in Iraq). Once affiliated by marriage, they then made a play for leadership because they had money, weapons, and other resources. This worked in Afghanistan, because despite using the term, there really are not any tribes in Afghanistan, at least among the Pashtun. Pashtun kinship dynamics, when mapped graphically, are chaos – they look like a Jackson Pollack painting. In Iraq, the tribal dynamics map very neatly either on traditional family tree type of graphics or hub and spoke diagrams.


An interesting read.

Cheers,
Scott.
New [Cool Hand Luke} 'What we've got here is a failure to communicate' [/Cool]
(It might even be a meta-failure, given the overlays of relationships among the squabbling millions (both Authorities and their minions.)
The most visibly operative clusterfuck appears to be quite pedestrian (residing in reptile brain) and universal/not just a Muslim thing) but transcend sects, tribes ... organization of any sort; maybe it is the anti-organization root-emotion? ~~ Don't *you* tell me what to do! and especially: don't tell me what the Right(eous?) interpretation of my religion is supposed to be!!

{{sigh}}n

Further, (per both analysts cited) the major justification for all the bloody battling seems to be about convincing all these 'individual'-muslim-interpreters that, the most important Reason for rolling out this new Caliphate is:
Apocalypse Now er, real-Soon next!! aka The Sky IS Falling.

That is: (too) a Jackson-Pollock painting is a lousy model for a Venn or other attempt at picking out relationships.. let alone (anything like! ijma /"consensus" ... as weirdly interpreted by these masses.
But we needn't attempt to grok-to-even mediocrity all these confabulations: Murican Taliban have given us the Fatherland version of rapturing out [a FAIL already, for mistaking "the spiritual" with the icky/material corpus.]

(To me) the absurdity of this entire tissue of Claiming Knowledge of the un-Knowable (that is: missing the point that The Absolute is Without Attributes, meaning: you CAN'T! fucking psychoanalyze His/Her/IT's "wishes, preferences" etc. This root-absurdity neatly cancels-out all the jillions of hours of 'scholarship' and all the modern nattering about the previous natterings.
You might as well be determinedly lecturing a starfish about 2d/2p electrons determining valence.

At least these two commentators seem capable of describing [one hand clapping?] what appears to be the longest-running-ever, game [something with 'Doom-' as suffix or prefix] which predates the necessary transistors to play today's versions. The whole plot and underpinnings as described by both these worthies strikes me as the Model of bringing pure-Boolean, (machine-) digital logic to matters that lie right at the limits of Reason: ineffable matters about the (sometimes provably!) un-Knowable ... (no matter How one "frames" n Questions.)

(Read Silverman's epistle.) Also heard recently that Ralph Nader was mightily impressed withThe Tyranny of Words! [yes.. That one] and is/or has produced a book with his version of all that. Heh.
Ergo: [Cool Hand Luke] 'What we've got here is a failure to communicate' [/Cool]

There's no hope for a John Dewey, American-inculcated pragmatist to comprehend the slightest thing of Why? How! WHAT-FOR!! these Millions of individual-"interpreters" are willing to massacre some n-Thousands to "make their individual *Points*."

What does this MEAN? At highest scale of Importance, in my lexicon, is that: the next.. unto perpetual.. dragging-out of their millions of "Missions" shall further confound the pursuit of any worldwide CONSENSUS on courageously-Facing The Planetary Issues. Period.

Add this collective of mo-fos as: sworn Enemies of the survival of the entire fucking species. Screw Them: the thousands or millions whom they will self-slaughter, as they demand attention away-from a REAL problem, not an esoteric re-definition of The Ineffable, a concept which none of these are likely ever to climb Up-to.

This vast waste of mental and physical effort will top How many angels can dance on the head of a pin; I shan't waste any time next, attempting to follow the pure-distilled Idiocy afoot. Hope BHO keeps up, on the reasons for herding ... and not the Usual. The dis-US could still blow this.
{{washes hands}}



Ed: oTpy


Thanks for finding these two epistles; these confirm in detail my supposition all along that, authentic communication 'twixt The rest-of The World and these virtual meth-heads just will Not happen. If the strategy/tactics of the 'materialistic' world can herd them into enclaves where--assuredly--they can self-destruct (via the processes mentioned) ... never-mind "communication". You've saved me future time-wasting analyses of the blow-by-blow soap opera that can't be evaded.

Re-Imagine the utter CLUE-less-ness of the Shogunate way-back, cynically playing on the Certainty of more free-oil for Our Empire ... "in some months.." Cosmic humor? Our greedy cluelessness -vs- centuries-old cluelessness about the philosophical nature of The Un-knowable! (OR as Yamamoto is said to have uttered early-on: I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.. Always wondered if he recalled that, as the first bombs fell on Balalae Airfield??)
Expand Edited by Ashton Feb. 18, 2015, 07:23:03 PM EST
New ThinkProgress's take.
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/18/3624121/atlantic-gets-dangerously-wrong-isis-islam/

Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with Raw Story on Tuesday. He argued that in addition to Wood’s piece being “full of factual mistakes,” its de facto endorsement of literalistic Quranic interpretations amounts to an advertisement for ISIS’s horrific theology.

“Scholars who study Islam, authorities of Islamic jurisprudence, are telling ISIS that they are wrong, and Mr. Wood knows more than what they do, and he’s saying that ISIS is Islamic?” Awad said. “I don’t think Mr. Wood has the background or the scholarship to make that dangerous statement, that historically inaccurate statement. In a way, I think, he is unintentionally promoting ISIS and doing public relations for ISIS.”

Awad also noted that Wood used “jihad” and “terrorism” interchangeably, which implicitly endorses ISIS’s argument that their savage practices (terrorism) are a spiritually justified religious duty (jihad). In addition, there is a major issue with Wood’s offhand reference to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as “the first caliph in generations”: although a caliphate can be established by force, a caliph, by definition, implies the majority support of Muslims (which ISIS does not have) and caliphates are historically respectful of other religious traditions (which ISIS certainly is not).


Another good read.

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who guesses all Christians are cannibals if Daesh is Islamic.)
New cair? really? couldnt you find something on briebart?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New "Council on American-Islamic Relations"
This is exactly the kind of article he would have to write given his position as executive director.

I say, the proof is in the pudding. Not a week goes buy that we don't read about multiple instances of Muslims slaughtering innocents, just because they aren't Muslims, or because they follow a variety of Islam with minor differences in doctrine. This is not just an Islamic State thing, it is throughout the Islamic world, and now beyond.

The "moderate" "peaceful" Muslims do very little to stop this, mainly just issuing apologetic articles about how this isn't "really Islam", and "it's all a matter of interpretation".

Re-interpreting the literal Word of God through his Prophet to fit situation ethics, is that not apostasy?

It is not permitted to study the Quran in any language except the original Arabic, specifically to eliminate the possibility of straying from the "Literal Truth" due to different shades of word meaning in different languages.
New "the proof is in the pudding"
The Guardian:

Christian militias take bloody revenge on Muslims in Central African Republic

[...]

Muslims came here to trade in the early 19th century and made up 15% of the CAR's population a year ago, but since then untold thousands have been killed or displaced or have fled to neighbouring countries. The UN said last week that while 130,000 to 145,000 Muslims normally lived in the capital, Bangui, the population had been reduced to around 10,000 in December and now stood at just 900.

Amnesty International has called it "ethnic cleansing" and warned of a "Muslim exodus of historic proportions".

As Africa prepares to mark next month's 20th anniversaries of the Rwandan genocide and the end of South African apartheid, what is happening in this long-neglected state is a reminder that forgiveness and reconciliation are easy words but hewn from rock over generations. Christian militias freely admit that theirs is an exercise in vengeance, an eye for an eye, and they will not stop until they have "cleaned" the country of Muslims. On Monday, UN human rights investigators in CAR announced they would investigate reports of genocide.

The seeds were sown in March last year when the Seleka, a largely Muslim rebel group, seized Bangui in a coup, installed the country's first Muslim president, Michel Djotodia, and terrorised the majority Christian population, killing men, women and children. In response, predominantly Christian forces known as the anti-balaka (balaka means machete in Sango, the local language) launched counterattacks against the Seleka and perceived Muslim collaborators.

[...]

In another largely Muslim neighbourhood, PK12, families camp out in grass and mud with buckets, carpets, mattresses, discarded rubbish, cooking pots over charcoal fires and a constant fear of lobbed grenades. Convoys that try to get out of here must run the gauntlet of taunting Christian mobs. In one incident, a Muslim who fell from a vehicle was summarily lynched. In another, five children suffocated in an overcrowded truck and were found dead when the convoy arrived at Bangui's military airport.

Ibrahim Alawad, 55, a lawyer, pointed to a trench and fresh burial mounds and said he had buried a 22-year-old student hours earlier. The area's population had shrunk from 25,000 people six months ago to 2,700 today, he said, while four mosques had been destroyed. "They're not killing the Muslims, they're sweeping them. Imagine someone wants to kill you, roast you on the fire and eat you. It's the hell of the hell. There are no living conditions here."

French peacekeepers stood by at a near checkpoint but there was growing Muslim hostility towards them too. "Our problem is the French," Alawad said. "They are the white anti-balaka. It's like Rwanda, they want to do it again, but we won't let them."

No amount of Muslim suffering appears to elicit mercy from the anti-balaka, who believe they are meeting a fitting punishment for the crimes of the Seleka. Dr Jean Chrysostome Gody, director of the country's sole paediatric hospital, which is supported by Unicef, recalled: "I saw mothers whose children had been killed or injured and they had hate in their heart."

As the anti-balaka responded, he added, children were no longer caught in the crossfire but deliberately targeted. "There were bullets in the heads and chests of children. It's not possible they were there by accident. It's as if people are trying to finish off another race. It's about extreme revenge and it's brutal."


The problem isn't the Christian religion, here. The problem isn't Islam in the middle-East, either. The problem is the leaders who demonize others.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New In response to the kind of Muslim initiated mass slaughter . . .
. . that is happening almost weekly in Africa now.
The seeds were sown in March last year when the Seleka, a largely Muslim rebel group, seized Bangui in a coup, installed the country's first Muslim president, Michel Djotodia, and terrorised the majority Christian population, killing men, women and children.
So, when Muslims are slaughtering Christian, men, women and children, it's OK, because they are just exercising their Freedom of Religion. When Christian respond in kind, that is evil, they are supposed to just sit quietly and accept being slaughtered?

Note the name of the Christian response, "anti-machete". It's very difficult to negotiate peace when you're being hacked apart with a machete.
New Conscience-free slaughter proves their felt-immunity to any communication with others.
In their Certainty that their god gives them directly: carte blanche to wreak havoc on any who have other allegiances (or none) seems proof-enough than no words next ... shall be attended or exchanged.

That the predictable consequences of their intransigence have not reached critical mass, but Will: appears to be nowhere on their radar because ... God is Great.
Having resigned from humanity, what matters that their ears remain closed? ( I'm not smart enough to imagine a means for Forced-listening, when talking to a stone.)
What care they? that n-thousands shall be slaughtered; they might as well be on crack and it seems inevitable that soon many more will treat them as they would any
homicidal maniac (whatever his personal demons, etc.)

These vipers neither give nor deserve pity. I don't think I'll want to watch how the M.E, treats Incorrigibles (as extreme as the Saudi sect deems to be 'Islam', too)
and whose own practices will likely be tested in whatever madness next descends.
We'll all need Luck--again!--that the main madness stays where it perpetually festers:
the fucking Middle East du any jour.
     What ISIS really wants - (malraux) - (39)
         very well written, thanks -NT - (boxley)
         Juan Cole's thoughts. - (Another Scott) - (29)
             whose reality? Yours? Mine? Abe from Sammara? - (boxley) - (28)
                 Cole has been studying this stuff for 40 years or more. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                     death penalty for mischief on offer - (boxley) - (2)
                         Almost 6 years ago? - (Another Scott) - (1)
                             last nov 2014 better time fr ya? - (boxley)
                 It must be hard for many Muslims . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (23)
                     It's interesting to watch - (pwhysall) - (22)
                         Ha! - (mmoffitt) - (16)
                             You can "Ha!" all you like. You're arguing against a point I didn't make. - (pwhysall) - (14)
                                 Can't we just elect a gay, atheist woman of Jewish ancestry? - (drook)
                                 back when your betters were kowtowing to the royals - (boxley) - (12)
                                     Real question - (drook) - (11)
                                         thats what you have courts for - (boxley) - (8)
                                             Colbert did a bit about this - (drook) - (6)
                                                 eh? bhudist muslim hindu anglican lutheran catholic unitarian - (boxley) - (5)
                                                     You count Anglican, Lutheran and Catholic as "other"? - (drook) - (4)
                                                         you counting them in the same group as liberty university graduates? I dont -NT - (boxley) - (3)
                                                             That's a different question - (drook) - (2)
                                                                 Obama did. He's Muslim. I heard that on the radio. -NT - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                                                     Did Rev Wright know that? -NT - (boxley)
                                             not a chance - (crazy)
                                         Neither. Both are equally bad. - (mmoffitt)
                                         Clearly the latter, of course - (Ashton)
                             rush is gay? -NT - (boxley)
                         It's scary to watch. - (static) - (4)
                             Re: It's scary to watch. - (malraux) - (1)
                                 That's why I'd like to read another book on the subject. - (static)
                             while it is true that the winners dictate how history reads - (boxley)
                             Re: It's scary to watch. - (Ashton)
         Adam Silverman's take. - (Another Scott) - (1)
             [Cool Hand Luke} 'What we've got here is a failure to communicate' [/Cool] - (Ashton)
         ThinkProgress's take. - (Another Scott) - (5)
             cair? really? couldnt you find something on briebart? -NT - (boxley)
             "Council on American-Islamic Relations" - (Andrew Grygus) - (3)
                 "the proof is in the pudding" - (Another Scott) - (2)
                     In response to the kind of Muslim initiated mass slaughter . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
                         Conscience-free slaughter proves their felt-immunity to any communication with others. - (Ashton)

Of course the Satanists don't bother me any more ever since they did a background check on me and discovered I had three sixes in my birthdate.
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