The only thing that gives me hope is that sometimes people see the light:

Absolutely Uncertain (You Tube video by “Irina”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgvMGLdc908&list=PLC2A32D103123C08E#t=73
18-minute mini-documentary follows the journey of Irina, a 23-year-old liberal, Jewish New Yorker who voted for Obama in 2008

Why I'm burning my last bridge with Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMnIh10po0
Join me as I wreck my last artifact of support for the war criminal-in-chief!! *I figured out the fraud a while back, but recently found this shirt in my closet

The problem with this country is it doesn't read. It doesn't inform itself on the issues. I'd probably still be a major nigger hating racist if it wasn't for books. If you want the skinny on that go to my Facebook Notes and read my "Racism Speech" which really isn't a speech so much as it is part of my memoirs to my two boys.

I wasn't really into this Islam thing until I happened to read The Haj by Leon Uris and Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabrielle almost back to back. I'll submit the following to give you an idea of what happened.

“we may describe it, (jihad), as a surgeon's lancet and not a butcher's knife.” Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (I'm sure there are about 200 million dead people that would disagree with him. And this from the guy who's been called the Mahatma Ghandi of Islam.)

About two years ago I ordered some reading material, including Taha's "Second Message", and a “study” Koran to find out what this "Islam thing" was all about. When I was sixteen I was chanting nam yo ho renge kyo to a piece of paper, (gahonzen?), having NO idea what I was doing. A few years later, hair down to my ass and a knapsack on my back, I hitchhiked cross country, got saved in Nashville Tenn. and went to live on a Christian farm in Mansfield Ohio. (Not the prison.) My gra'mom called me a "seeker". As I said, there came a time when I wanted to understand this "religion of peace". It was Humaid's article on jihad I found in my Summarized Bukhari that decided “things” for me.

If Islam is the “religion of peace”, where in Sheikh Abdullah bin Humaid's article on jihad can I find the equivalent of “Love Thy Neighbor” and “good will toward men”? And explain its prominence, and significance almost as an “Introduction”, in a book that's described as “the most authentic and true among the books of the Prophet”: My Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari. Also address “jihad” as it's defined in Reliance of the Traveller and answer the same question. (Chapter O-9.0: Jihad O: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion.” And explain why the “greater” jihad is only mentioned once here and never seen again in this “Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law”.)

Compare Humaid's “jihad” and Emmet Fox' Sermon on the Mount and tell me which one best represents a spirit of Love and “compassion”.

Lastly; would you pick Sheikh bin Humaid to sit on a Human Rights Commission? (That's a trick question by the way.)

Maybe you can throw in an explanation of the Jews are “monkeys, pigs and rats” on page 656 and the part where Mo says, “if somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him” on page 613 in the chapter on Jihad.

Also, explain why Humaid's “jihad” shouldn't be “Exhibit A” in refuting the “religion of peace” claim.

I've posted this many times to many Muslims and have yet to get a single response. Well, I did receive a response from some goofball named “Dr.” Mohsen El-Guindy asking me to read his books. Instead I downloaded a bunch of his articles. Which were pure rants. An Imam, sidestepped it by telling me I had to “study Islam” to gain a greater understanding.

Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah by 'Sheikh Abdullâh bin Muhammad bin Humaid
ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?233460-Jihad-in-the-Qur-an-and-Sunnah&s=4df3fc2e4e0596eb3b38115ef4b8f506 ),

Subscribe to Jihad/Campus Watch and the Middle East Forum/Quarterly, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Gatestone Institue, FrontPage Magazine, American Thinker,The Clarion Project, Cross Muslims: Muhammad unveiled, Religion of Peace (dot com) and read Raymond Ibrahim, Efraim Karsh, Patrick Poole, Caroline Glick, Bat Ye'or and others.

“She's Buried Chest High”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXdy5Fwwfzg

“An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Victory will never be found by taking the line of least resistance.” Winston Churchill

“What the horn is to the rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp, the Mohammedan faith is to the Arabs of the Sudan-a faculty of offence. All the warlike operations of Mohammedan peoples are characterised by fanatacism” Winston Churchill

“While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.” Mahatma Gandhi

The Palestinian boy was burned alive:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/05/palestinian-boy-mohammed-abu-khdeir-burned-alive

Israel has Gaza under siege, what are they suppose to do, role over and die?

The cease fire agreement is just ploy. Israel and Egyptian government are both unfriendly to Palestine. Would you agree to sign a contract written by your enemies without any representation from your side.

At the point that Israeli soldier was killed the ground invasion had already began, what would anyone except?

Can you name any other conflict in which they count the number of ammunition fired by one side? If you can't, its because conflicts are never reported that way. It is a talking point from Netanyahu's propaganda scripts and you shouldn't trust a source that just reads propaganda.

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.)

Damn Volumpt...saw yer poignant plea for divisive assholes and got here as fast as I could!! (I'm a bit thick, remind me again, what rule he broke expressing what seemed to this a-hole, a quite righteous consternation?)

Dear People Who Create a Crinkle in My Particular Pet Peeve With Regard To Site Functionality Relative To A Civil Framework Of Communication:

Myynah, mnyas, nyah (hands on hips and with self-righteous defensive demanor and suitable pout and eye-roll), furthermore, because you, and I dindn't nyah, and myah muh blerp, durka, durka, durka, Mohammed Ghihad!"

“The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend!”
― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

Congrats catfart, make it real this go-round and step out into something besides some dooty?

I think we need to separate the motivation behind this example of free expression (which is basically "this is why we should only have whites in europe") and the content of the expression itself (which is basically what? Mohammed was gay?).

The first is hateful and should be called out as such.

The latter is, I think, pretty innocuous. Yes, it's offensive to muslims, but I don't think ridiculing a religious icon qualifies as hate speech. If it did, videosift is in serious trouble.

@RedSky I would add that the Jewish laws of Leviticus, Deuteronomy etc. are the foundations for Sharia law, but that most Christians throughout history see Jesus as having repudiated Jewish law (this is of course a question of interpretation), causing it to have "lived on" almost exclusively in its Islamic form. I still hold that as far as fundamentals go, the Quran and life of Mohammed are somewhat more easily used as unequivocal justification for violence than the New Testament and Jesus. (I would reference gorillaman's comment, but... see below)

I'm glad you brought Indonesia into the picture, as it is a good example of my argument. It may be the most populated muslim country, but it has repeatedly refused to let its central gvt be encroached upon by Islam, i.e. to become an Islamic state or espouse Sharia (despite the pressure from noisy fundamentalists).
In the one part of the country where Sharia is allowed to be enforced, Aceh, you get the same amount of unethical conduct and discrimination/violence towards women, homosexuals, non-jilbab-wearers, "adulterers" etc as you'd expect in the meanest of the Islamic states. And where do they find those discriminatory laws and the "divine" authority to enforce them? The Quran of course.

@gorillaman You make a few salient points (about the life/example of M. and the fact that, unlike The Bible, the Quran is the work of one author, alive at the time of the religion's birth) but you lose all credibility by
a) using a homophobic slur as a pejorative in your first line and
b) making gross (and false) generalisations, notably the all-caps
"THIS IS WHAT ALL MUSLIMS BELIEVE" which is so easily demonstrably false (simply ask the nearest muslim). If it had read "this is what fundamentalist muslims believe" or even "this is what all muslims should believe if they want to honestly hold that the Quran is the perfect word of God" then you would be a bit closer to reality.
Finally, the hyperbole of your last paragraph does not help your credibility either. I am as antitheist as one can be, and the gross demonisation of religious believers (aka fellow human beings) as criminals and inhumane, ethic-less zombies not only made me shake my head sadly, it also reminded me of how religious extremists depict atheists.

@Babymech You do know that most of the Islamist terrorist attacks were perpetrated by middle-to-upper-class, well-to-do educated men, not poor and desperate Jean Valjeans, right?
The reason I pointed to your first comment as one of the "ignorant extremes" of attitude towards Islam and violence is that, the way I read it, it illustrated the common rebuttal that often comes from the far-left when a terrorist/mass-murderer is found out to be a Muslim extremist: "it must be other political/socio-economical factors, it can't be plain old religious fanaticism" or "it's our fault for waging war on them". While I agree that the US should never have gone a-warring in the ME, it's often a false equivalence and ignorant simplification to exclude or minimise the religious factor. In hindsight it was maybe rash of me to read that much into your comment, but I hope I have made clear what I meant.

As for Maher's stance that Islam is (in this point in history, as he stresses) worse than Christianity: for my opinion see above, and feel free to refute my "argumentum ad comparatio" to support your disagreement.

@hpqp

Jainism tends to be one of the few exceptions, but even there I am sure it has been misconstrued for misdeeds at some point in history.

I would not disagree that in aggregate there are more Islamic extremists in the world than of any religion but that is not because of anything exceptional in Islamic ideology or core* texts. Leviticus to name the obvious, in addition to many passages in the Old Testament using Christianity as an example incite violence.

They key difference is Western society, the rule of law et cetera has largely normalised/PC-ed this text wilfully ignoring or purposely misinterpreting religious instructions to fit with modern practices. I don't see it at all implausible that substituting Christianity for Islam in the world, the alternate religion could not be used to incite equal hatred.

Let's not forget either than Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country. While I will not argue that it is free of Islamic extremism, it's comparable wealth, growth rates and relative government competence is the key factor that stops it from also being the primary disseminating source of Islamic extremism.

*A footnote on this, as you may know Islam as an extension to Qur'an has a number of sayings of Mohamed texts known as Haddiths. There are many of these of various degrees of legitimacy and repute. On that basis you could argue that Islam has the greatest capacity for inciting violence directly through these texts due to the relative looseness of its ideology.

@BicycleRepairMan

See above. Specifically, the ability to silence criticism is a by-product of modern technology interacting with lesser developed societies in the Middle East without a powerful central government authority figure or the rule of law. .

Functionally it's not that different to say the Spanish Inquisition which saw a church establishing itself in a position of authority through negative cohesion and intimidation, it just involves the confluence of different factors.

OOooops!-You alerted the comment down-vote PC police squad of culpable deniers with that one bobby, you pathetic troll!! You, you, anti-community, rabble-rouser!!

Didn't you get the memo?? All presidents are sacred since Bush Jr. in this poorly-constructed paradigm-Plus he's an African-American so he's holier than the new fucking pope-Some folks treat divisive language against our cunt president with jihad-launching fervor not unlike drawing a goddamn cartoon strip featuring Mohammed-

Remember: Don't feed these trolls!!

As many times he calls for the death of anybody that draws a cartoon of a towel head and calls it Mohammed maybe he should take his own advice and become 'an hero'

1. The Swedish government handed Mohammed al-Zari and Ahmed Agiza over to the Egyptians after they "obtained promises from the Egyptian authorities that the men would not be tortured or subjected to the death penalty, and would be given fair trials". Even Human Rights Watch conceded that this was done merely to "cover itself", knowing full well that these two would be tortured.

So yes, the Swedes are more than capable of sending Assange to the States.

2. According to Fair Trials International, Swedish law permits a level of secrecy for trials such as this that everyone should be concerned about. No public hearings and extended isolation, to name the key aspects.

3. As previously said, if Swedish authorities assured either Assange or the Ecuadorians that he wouldn't be handed over to the US, he'd be in Sweden already. It is entirely within their power to bring an end to this farce or to reveal Assange to be full of shit, should he still not comply even after acceptable guarantees were provided. But they chose not to make these assurances. And the stakes are too high for Assange to accept anything less, given the consequences he faces should he ever enter the US.

On a personal note: if it was me, I wouldn't believe any assurances by any country that took part in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program -- including my own country in the case of Khalid El-Masri.>> ^Babymech:

There is no way that any Swedish politician or authority would support Assange's extradition to the US. Nothing you ridiculous conspiracy theorists have come up with so far has indicated that they would. Maybe the US would kidnap him (?) but that could happen in London or Ecuador or wherever. Meanwhile, you delightful people think that alleged rapists should not have to collaborate with authorities investigating the charges as long as they're famous enough, and that the women making these claims should not have the basic rights that any other Swedish citizens normally would. Tasteful.

Thanks
In reply to this comment by lampishthing:
Oh wait I know how this works *quality

indeed, I like the oud + violin combo:)
In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
Thanks : I thought they were great.
In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

Thanks I thought they were great.
In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

>> ^hpqp:

Poor @shinyblurry, methinks you grasp the straws too much. Ask the majority of Americans who America's N°1 enemy was during the Bush years, and you'll get "Bin Laden" or eventually "Osama Bin Laden". Hardly any (if any) would properly name him as "Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden". It's no wonder a first century writer and political activist writing against the person in power would use the name his audience knew.
I can't believe I actually had to spell that out to you (oh wait, yes, I totally can).


I would say you're the one grasping at straws here; is it that you will just believe anything anyone says that agrees with your preconceived notions about the bible? It doesn't say the number of the nickname or title of the beast, it says his name. More importantly, the number 666 will be so identified with the antichrist that you could use it interchangeably with his name and everyone would know who you were referring to. This clearly wasn't the case with Nero. Further, he didn't fulfill the prophecies which would identify him as the antichrist.

Poor @shinyblurry, methinks you grasp the straws too much. Ask the majority of Americans who America's N°1 enemy was during the Bush years, and you'll get "Bin Laden" or eventually "Osama Bin Laden". Hardly any (if any) would properly name him as "Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden". It's no wonder a first century writer and political activist writing against the person in power would use the name his audience knew.

I can't believe I actually had to spell that out to you (oh wait, yes, I totally can).