"You fly one fucking airplane into a building and that's all anyone can talk about!"

-- Mohammad Atta's Ghost

Mohammad is the only prophet who drew a sword in name of his own religion. All other prophet were more about peace than violence, Moses ran away, Jesus was crucified. Mohammad led armies and was a general, all muslims know this historic fact.

So why are Sunni and Shia fighting? a few hundred years ago, there was an argument about whether or not a non-direct relative of Mohammad could become leader.

This conflict is not simply about religion, it's also about these smaller militia groups grabbing land/money/power.

The video failed to mention that the centrally elected government in Iraq never had any real control over the Kurds (Kurdistan) in the north, which were (and still are) a self-governing state.

quagmire is an apt one-word description, used a lot around 2002. without the giggity-giggity, of course.

Just wasn't sure which side you were saying had the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance, I think, is just referring to the holding of two contradictory beliefs irrespective of consequences or reality (I could have cognitive dissonance from a simultaneous belief in the divinity of Jesus and the inerrancy of Mohammad, for example).

So I'm pretty sure that climate change deniers could conceivably see this video and see cognitive dissonance.

But you're not one of them crazies, so good on ya Just had to check.

*promote

In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued.

August 19, 1953, a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, organized by the United States (CIA) with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax). The coup—with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mossadegh—forced Mossadegh from office. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason. /wikipedia

Iran got trampled on and interfered with by foreign nations exploiting her natural resources--oil. I'd be pissed too.

By contrast, Iran knows what happened to her next door neighbour after Iraq changed the preferred currency for oil sales from USD to Euros late in 2000 (They switched back to dollars in 2003.)

Kim Jong-un and Mohammad walk into a bar. The reblogger of this comment dies.

Regimes supported

Juan Vicente Gomez, Venezuela, 1908-1935.
Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931-1944.
Fulgencio Batista, Republic of Cuba 1952-1959.
Syngman Rhee, Republic of Korea (South Korea), 1948-1960.
Rafael Trujillo, Dominican Republic, 1930-1961.[citation needed]
Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), 1955-1963.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran, 1953-1979.
Anastasio Somoza Garcia, Nicaragua, 1967-1979.
Military Junta in Guatemala, 1954-1982.
Military Junta in Bolivia, 1964-1982.[citation needed]
Military Junta in Argentina, 1976-1983.
Brazilian military government, 1964-1985.
François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Republic of Haiti, 1957-1971; 1971-1986.[citation needed]
Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay, 1954-1989.[citation needed]
Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1965-1986.[8][9]
General Manuel Noriega, Republic of Panama, 1983-1989.
General Augusto Pinochet, Chile, 1973-1990.
Saddam Hussein, Republic of Iraq, 1982-1990.
General (military), Suharto Republic of Indonesia, 1975-1995.
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire/Congo, 1965-1997.
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, 1981-2011.
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Kingdom of Bahrain, 2012.
Saudi royal family, 2012.
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan, 1991-2012.[10]
Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia, 1995-2012.[11]
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea, 2006-2012.[12]

Sorry, but those are lame and old excuses. The Soviets were doing the exact same thing too, why do you singular blame carving up of nations on the west? More than that, there has never been a time in all of human history when that was not happening. Before the British empire it was the Romans, before them it was the Egyptians, along the middle of that was mohammad and his crews attempts at their own empires.

I'm not willing to excuse atrocities and crimes because of earlier atrocities and crimes. The Sunni on Shia and Shia on Sunni violence predates America by a few centuries anyways, and it does nothing today to dissuade, prevent or even retaliate against the West. It is vile and far beyond what is seen by proponents of any other major religion.

What "evidence" is this that you're speaking of? I've asked you to provide it before, but instead of providing any kind of empirical evidence you just link to newspaper articles of people behaving badly in the name of Islam (which I could just as easily do for Judiasm or Christianity).

As we've discussed extensively together before, you keep implying there is one "Islam" out there that is practiced uniformly by all adherents as opposed to the reality--multiple incredibly diverse groups of people who believe in one god that sent a prophet named Mohammad to write the Qua-ran in that god's name. They disagree a great deal, however, about how the Qua-ran is to be interpreted in practice, in particular about the parts that reference violence.

I have no problem with people pointing out that certain interpretations of Islam can be dangerous. I do have a problem with people painting a broad brush and equating Islam with danger.

@ChaosEngine I totally get what you are saying. I'm only taking issue with this statement: "it is still practiced in modern Islam."

Would you say that because Jehovah's witnesses refuse to have blood transfusions that it is a practice of "modern" Christianity? No, of course you wouldn't. Jehovah's witnesses are interpreting the Bible/Christianity in a very specific way but you can't claim their beliefs represent mainstream Christian thinking.

Similarly, while there are certainly those who claim female genital mutilation is required in Islam, they aren't mainstream or "modern" in any sense of the word, particularly when you see where the vast majority of FGMs are occurring and the populations (generally poor and uneducated) that are performing them.

So I find that claiming this is a practice of Islam actually conflates the discussion about Islam (and FGM) unnecessarily. About the worst you can say is that in the Koran, Mohammad meets a woman who performs FGMs and she asks him if what she is doing is wrong. He replies along the lines that no, it isn't necessarily wrong but that she shouldn't cut too much away and goes on to elaborate that it is the duty of men to be circumcised but an honor if a woman does it.

So, if you want to criticize Islam about FGM, you can point to this and note that the Koran doesn't denounce the practice--but it also doesn't explicitly require it either.

@ponceleon I think we fundamentally agree--but we seem to be talking past one another. You seem to be ascribing motivations to me which I don't think are right.

I do Not think that Jennings should be prosecuted because he's a smug, smirking bastard. I do Not think he should be prosecuted because of what TYT says.

I think he should be prosecuted because he was accused of a heinous crime. Apparently--at one time--the prosecuting attorney agreed. Then he didn't--that smells very bad; taking in to account the history of the US justice system favoring rich people over all others (OJ should be in jail for life for 2 murders--he's not because he could afford a team of scummy lawyers). I am "all worked up" because the dropping of the charges at the last minute smells like privilege.

I know I'm somewhat of a one trick pony here; posting all these TYT vids. But that doesn't mean I think they are always right--or even that their reporting doesn't sometimes suck (like this story).

Ammar's hand was cut and required six stiches. Jennings said the cabbie had grabbed the knife by the blade and that's how his hand got cut. So why was Jennings holding a knife? The prosecutor says he had to drop the case because Ammar had possession of the knife in question 5 months after the incident. Why didn't the cops ask where the knife was for all that time? No one has claimed that the knife wasn't Jennings', so how did the cabbie get it? So, the prosecutor says that Ammar is guilty of obstruction of justice for not telling anyone he had the knife. Weiss (the prosecutor) said he then could be fair and prosecute both or be fair and prosecute neither, and he chose the second option. This all stinks and needs to be brought out in court. Civil court means nothing to the rich--he could pay any fines out of pocket money.

But the justice system has a way to take care of prosecutorial misconduct. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has asked that the Federal Investigators to get involved. That--along with pressure from the stirred up public--should get a true investigation of this incident rolling.

(It sounds like you did a good job on your jury.)

The issues here are all wrong.

He's right about "Innocence of Muslims" looking like it was made by "Rank amateurs in a basement studio, no doubt it was. It's so bad that no one would ever have seen or heard of it, if it wasn't for the hoopla it caused. I never would have. Once I did, I sought it out and watched it. Well sort of.

First of all, the quality is garbage, something less than what we would expect from a YouTube video. Past that, The editing, the writing and the acting is terrible. It's confusing and hard to follow. In all honestly, I ended up skimming large parts of it because I didn't get the point. It's that bad.

What I don't understand is why the Muslim community felt this piece of crap video was worth killing people over? What they did was promote the film, and in doing so, brought fame to it. They are just as much to blame in the distribution of said offensive material.

So, some no name, never heard of before Egyptian born person (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) creates a 14 minute anti-muslim video. Naakoula is a graduate of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. Born and educated over seas, he comes to the US and creates a video called "Innocence of Bin Laden" After the film is finished, in post production, he over-dubs all the audio and changes the title to Innocence of Muslims and changes the meaning of the film altogether.

Nakoula has been arrested for the "intent to manufacture methamphetamine" for which he did prison time. Then he pleaded no contest to federal charges of bank fraud as he opened fake bank accounts in order to defraud the banks out of as much as $800,000. He was a criminal with no scruples or morals.

He went out of his way to create this movie just to piss people off. He even claimed it was funded by $5 million collected from 100 Jewish donors, and that he was an Israeli-Jew.

So, what is my point? This piece of scum set out to create an incident and he succeeded.
The Muslim world over reacted and went "Bat-shit insane" (my words). In a fit of rage, they misplaced the blame on everyone associated with the West. They held protests in almost every major country in the world. They killed people and turned this into an international state of panic. "Oh poor us, don't criticize our Mohammad." (insert screams of "oh how could you" here) and ("The western world hates us - kill them now")

Now as a result, we, the people that didn't do anything, are being told we need to be more tolerant of the bat-shit crazy people and start educating ourselves more on their religion and watch more of their movies.

Now I have no issue educating myself on other cultures, in fact I find it interesting. But what I don't like being told is that us Westerners are part of the problem and that if we'd only have educated ourselves, this insensitivity wouldn't have happened. This is so absolutely false and absurd.

I know not all Muslims are "bat-shit crazy," but I didn't see any of them standing up and pointing their finger in the right direction (at some scumbag from Egypt).

As far as I am concerned this is what I see:
1). A scumbag needs to be deported for succeeding in inciting riots causing death.
2). People should be able to have their own opinions and be able to speak them in all areas concerning religion or their lack of faith in them.
3). the Muslim people who took part in the riots and killings should all be punished to the full extent of the law and be shamed by the rest of the people.
4). Muslim people need to get over themselves, learn to accept that their way isn't the only way and learn to "turn the other cheek". (And I use the term "their way" loosely because I don't think even they can even decide and agree on what the rules of their religion are.)

Also, this just happened:

Iran has seized on widespread Muslim outrage over a film insulting the Prophet Mohammad to revive the death threat against Salman Rushdie, raising the reward for killing him by US$500,000 (£320,000).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9546513/Iran-resurrects-Salman-Rushdie-threat.html

Not only do I live in the US, but I live Oklahoma, one of the most religiously conservative states. I don't have a great deal of respect for that brand of religion, for sure. Which is precisely why it's so galling to see a video that suggests that's just what Christians have to be like--that Christians who reject the Bibliolatry and hermeneutic cutting and pasting of those idiots somehow aren't real Christians, that rejecting the sheep-like credulity of these so-called faithful means that the thoughtful ones haven't actually thought it through. And somehow it is averred that those who cling to the ancient traditions of Biblical understanding are inauthentically Christian, since they don't accept the quasi-heretical doctrines of 19th century upstarts.

Your characterization of bible literalists as "idiots" and people with "sheep-like" credulity and the "so-called" faithful, not-withstanding, I will agree that a disagreement on origins doesn't necessarily make someone less Christian. It doesn't say anywhere in the bible that you must agree on a literal interpretation of Genesis to follow Jesus Christ.

Calling the literal interpretation of Genesis a "quasi-heretical" doctrine of "19th century upstarts" is completely ridiculous, though. Almost as ridiculous as quoting Origen and Augustrine and claiming they represented the majority viewpoint of the early church. If you think the early church didn't believe in a literal Genesis, how do you explain Ephraim the syrian, or Basil of Caesarea? What about Ambrose of Milan, who was the mentor of Augustine? They all believed in a young earth, as did many others throughout the centuries.

Let us not also forget that Christ Himself was a bible literalist, who spoke about the narrative in the Old Testament, including Genesis, as literal history, and literally fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah.

As far as dogmatic authority goes, I think that you're partly right about some religions. Specifically, the big Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's important to remember that this is not the entire world of religion (even if they are important), so there are a number of statements about them that will be incorrect about other religions--in fact, most other religions.

It's true that the Big Three do indeed seem to require acceding to the truth of certain propositions in order to remain in their historical form: e.g., that the Torah was revealed by God, that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead, and that Mohammad received the Qur'an from Michael. (for each religion respectively) There is certainly an important sense in which certain very liberal theologians are still Christian, but this is something very different than historical Christianity.

In regards to Christianity, there is a mimimum requirement of belief, such as that Jesus was raised from the dead, to be a Christian.

Moreover, I myself don't think that moral authority is actually essential to religion. It's certainly related to religion, but as I'm sure you've observed--there's not much of a correlation between religious belief and moral behavior. Simple observation shows most Christians to be liars. Morality is not why they are Christian.

Simple observation shows most people, probably near the 99.9 percent mark, to be liars. There is no claim in Christianity that Christians are perfect. Far from it. Jesus was the only perfect man to ever live. Christians still sin, but hopefully they sin much less than usual. Christians living sanctified lives are comparitively rare, unfortunately. When you consider that half of the American church does not believe in a literal Holy Spirit or Satan, it isn't surprising.

Instead, I think it's something else--transcendence, and the promise of new states of being. Morality has almost nothing to do with this. The same man can be capable of the most holy ecstasies and raptures before the beauty of the God or gods that he prays to, a writer of the most delicately beautiful hymns and homilies--and the worst bastard on earth outside of church. Cardinal Richilieu was just such a person.

In Christianity, it is to know God personally. Christianity is about Jesus Christ and nothing else. If you subtract Jesus, you don't have anything. You automatically get a new state of being; when you accept Christ you are a new creature, and you receive the Holy Spirit. You also have your sins forgiven and obtain eternal life.

This is why we'll never get rid of religion, of course. But it's also why the monotheistic religions can be so dangerous. They incorrectly tie the ecstasies of the spirit to crude and intolerant dogmas, then demand that all others agree or face the sword or the pyre.

Which spirit? Satan can make you feel ecstacy and love; it wouldn't be a very good deception if it wasn't deceiving. The question you should ask is, where is this coming from, and who gave me a spirit in the first place?

As far as intolerance goes, Jesus made it clear:

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Those are His words, not mine. A Christian is only telling you what He said, which is that you will face judgment for your sins. If you reject Jesus, you are telling God you want to stand trial for your sins on your own merit. If you are rejecting Jesus, it's for a reason that has nothing to do with anything you have written here.

>> ^HadouKen24:

Not only do I live in the US, but I live Oklahoma, one of the most religiously conservative states. I don't have a great deal of respect for that brand of religion, for sure. Which is precisely why it's so galling to see a video that suggests that's just what Christians have to be like--that Christians who reject the Bibliolatry and hermeneutic cutting and pasting of those idiots somehow aren't real Christians, that rejecting the sheep-like credulity of these so-called faithful means that the thoughtful ones haven't actually thought it through. And somehow it is averred that those who cling to the ancient traditions of Biblical understanding are inauthentically Christian, since they don't accept the quasi-heretical doctrines of 19th century upstarts.

Clearly false. Yet that's the whole thrust of the video!



With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we're starting to move away from straightforward commentary on the video. But that's alright with me, if it's okay with you.

As far as dogmatic authority goes, I think that you're partly right about some religions. Specifically, the big Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's important to remember that this is not the entire world of religion (even if they are important), so there are a number of statements about them that will be incorrect about other religions--in fact, most other religions.

It's true that the Big Three do indeed seem to require acceding to the truth of certain propositions in order to remain in their historical form: e.g., that the Torah was revealed by God, that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead, and that Mohammad received the Qur'an from Michael. (for each religion respectively) There is certainly an important sense in which certain very liberal theologians are still Christian, but this is something very different than historical Christianity.

Nonetheless, this is something separate from moral authority. One may deny that there is anything correct about the metaphysical pronouncements of the Bible, and still accept that its moral teachings are profoundly important. This is precisely what philosophy Slavoj Zizek has done.

For most other religions, the number of specific propositions that must be accepted is few to none. Pronouncements about gods or salvation are amenable to multiple interpretations. The ancient Greek philosophers, for instance, were quite religious on the whole. Yet read a book on Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism, and tell me what proposition about the gods that they agree on. You'll find it quite difficult.

The same can be said of Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism, Western Pagan revivals, etc.

Moreover, I myself don't think that moral authority is actually essential to religion. It's certainly related to religion, but as I'm sure you've observed--there's not much of a correlation between religious belief and moral behavior. Simple observation shows most Christians to be liars. Morality is not why they are Christian.

Instead, I think it's something else--transcendence, and the promise of new states of being. Morality has almost nothing to do with this. The same man can be capable of the most holy ecstasies and raptures before the beauty of the God or gods that he prays to, a writer of the most delicately beautiful hymns and homilies--and the worst bastard on earth outside of church. Cardinal Richilieu was just such a person.

This is why we'll never get rid of religion, of course. But it's also why the monotheistic religions can be so dangerous. They incorrectly tie the ecstasies of the spirit to crude and intolerant dogmas, then demand that all others agree or face the sword or the pyre.

>> ^shveddy:

@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.