Wasn't aware that TC had a twin.

that should provoke a response

who is TC ?
not Tettleton Chew i hope

@ ava-- shoot at the messenger & ignore the message

Oh yes, MM, and Christianity, of course, has NEVER been a religion to destroy sites of cultural significance or burn books or kill, rape, and loot...

Nope.

NEVER...

"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."

--Christopher Hitchens

(And yes, there have been secular book burning and secular people have killed, have raped, have looted...but it is out of that same twisted seed of fanaticism and self-righteous assurance and dogma from which religion springs...the worst of secularism may trace its roots to that poison well of the religious fervor, the best aspects of it may be seen in those timbers slowly struggling and growing away from such madness.)

In short--

While I am FAR from one who would, at all, defend Islam as a religion...

DO NOT insult an entire group of people, sir, and cast stones when your own presumed church and faith is a Glass House of God itself--

And a single Stone of Reason can shatter it and expose its crimes the same as Islam and Judaism and any other religion of that sort.

DO NOT Presume to know a thing about my religious beliefs obiwan
what outrages has good old Hymen, the greek god of matrimony and his adherents caused ??? and Shiva is a bit of a goer, I understand what Krisna and Shiva represent, and I identify more with Shiva than Krisna

I'll just remind the posters that every idea ever invented by man was abused by morons at one time or another. So don't go around blaming ideas. Make no mistake, morons are the greatest plague of humanity.

it is true I do not think much of Islam, but if I had a 15th century Islamic shrine next door and any mob turned up to destroy it, I'd defend the shrine & shoot to kill, not shoot to warn or wound.

Erm...if I'm to take it from that post that you're Hindu...which would surprise me, admittedly, but in any case, if you are...

and you identify with Shiva...

Granted my knowledge of Hinduism (or I should say the many forms of Hinduism) is rather limited, especially compared to the Abrahamic religions...

But for all your railing against these "Islamic thugs" destroying things...

Isn't Shiva known as, among other things, The Destroyer?

"I'll just remind the posters that every idea ever invented by man was abused by morons at one time or another. So don't go around blaming ideas."

And yet there IS such a thing as an idea which INVITES "abuse" of its ideals and despotism and tyranny in its scriptures...

When you say Eve was taken out of Adam, and is subsequently treated and written as being subject TO Adam...

That's the text DIRECTLY endorsing an anti-female sentiment and a misogynist world view; if a fundamentalist reads that and considers women second-class citizens as a result, yes, he probably is a neanderthal to begin with, but still, you cannot say the text ISN'T supporting his viewpoint, he's not twisting its words around.

Likewise:

--Rape...the Bible allows for that (Lot offering up his two daughters to the village people in the stead of the Angels being molested, anyone? What a KIND father...)

--Murder (several occasions, but to take a fun and famous one, Abraham being told to kill Isaac in the name of God, and being completely ready to do it before God pulls the ancient equivalent of a "PSYCHE!" on him...again, what a GREAT father Abraham is here...)

--Genocide (Amalakites...need I say more?)

--Incest (Noah's Ark, need I say more?)

--Slavery (All over the Bible...and 10 Commandments AND the Teachings of Jesus--to pick on the NT as well to show it's not sterling clean either--and in neither case... between God, Moses, AND Jesus, no one thought to say "Oh, and stop enslaving your fellow brothers of humanity, please?")

--Thought Crime ("Thou Shalt Not Covet"...not convicting you for an ACTION you take, but simply what you THINK? To take it a step further, to believe in a god besides Elohim/Yahweh/Whatever you wish to call him, and later, in the NT, to not accept Jesus as a savior...this is met with derision at best and punishment and retribution at worst...for something you THOUGHT? Again, not for an ACTION OUTRIGHT, like, say, even making a graven image of God--never mind all those paintings and sculptures of Jesus, of course--but just a thought, and you're guilty for what you think? Orwellian, anyone?)

--Bigotry Towards Homosexuals (That disgusting chapter that IS Leviticus...)

--Totalitarianism (You don't get to democratically elect your eternal leader, or have any say, or even question your eternal leader, and you must constantly sing his praises and declare him to be infallible and always correct even if he or science or basic ethical inklings seem to disagree with him...applies to North Korea, and just as well to the God of the Bible...on a "milder" note, we can thusly almost see Jesus as somewhere between the ancient equivalent of a televangelist and cult leader alongside his oft-painted role as a progressive and a reformer.)


And I can go on and on with this, but I'll leave it there...

When the text ITSELF supports these claims and ideas...

It's no time twisting the words around, it's the words themselves that are twisted.

"it is true I do not think much of Islam, but if I had a 15th century Islamic shrine next door and any mob turned up to destroy it, I'd defend the shrine & shoot to kill, not shoot to warn or wound."

If I had in my possession the an Original First Folio of Shakespeare's, the Original Tablets or papyrus of Homer's "The Iliad," AND the T.S. Eliot's first physical draft of "The Waste Land," Ezra Pound's physical corrections and all...

If I had ALL THAT in my possession...and folks here can surmise just how much that might mean to me, AT LEAST as much as your shrine would mean to you...

I wouldn't shoot to kill a mob, especially if I could shoot to wound or scare.

But kill?

For all the death in Shakespeare, Homer, and Eliot...

If their originals stood because I murdered a mass of people when I could've wounded, scared away, or done anything else...

If those documents exist because blood was spilt, they become stained with blood.

And that "damned spot" would never fade from them, or from me, no matter how loudly I might cry "out! out!" afterward.

I would be ashamed to know I'd murdered people over what amounts at the end of it all to a bit of parchment, clay, and ink.

Macbeth incarnate would be ashamed I'd killed living beings for scraps of paper, and done so with the intent to kill rather than wound, escape, scare, ANYTHING ELSE...

Shiva embodies both creation and destruction.
& absolutely, any mob behaving the way these thugs are in Africa, If I was armed and had good position, I'd drop the bastards for good, and the shrine isn't "mine" or from "my religion", its the principle of the thing, run about causing carnage, raping, killing, looting, and destroying significant valuable cultural heritage items just convinces me more, if I had the "shot", there wouldn't be any hesitation.
Plus there is no shoot to warn with a bunch of these thugs, once you open fire it's kill or be killed

it's a hypothetical, I would expect the State to ensure Civil Order in the first instance
I am not a fan of "lynch mob justice"
but in a situation where the State fails to ensure Civil Order & I see a mob killing and raping, my first instinct is to get those I care about and other innocents to safety, that done, if I had the weapon(s) and ammunition, then Iook out thugs

I like the fact that several posters think I am "out of order" but make no comment on what is happening in Africa, so that's OK with them ????

...And you don't see the logical problem with using a "to the death" sort of mentality with a group of people who are, quite literally, ready to bomb and terrorize the entire world and FEED off the idea that they'll do this "to the death" to the point they think they'll be rewarded for it?

You don't see your stance as both fulfilling and fueling their radicalism, and in turn fueling their bombings and attacks all the more?

I'm no dove here, I'm not saying "don't defend yourself at all" or "always be a pacifist," but I DO think that extremists on one side fuel and feed off of extremists on the other side, be they Democrats who lean into Socialism or Tea Partying Republicans or Israeli militants or Palestinian terrorists or fundamentalist Christians or radical Islamist sects...

In ANY case--

The two extremes clashing ALWAYS hurt those in the middle...and that's more often than not the decided majority.

Moslems are some of the most decent and peace-loving people that you will ever meet. They prise family and friendship above most other things. I hope that none of our younger, more impressionable readers will not allow this or the actions of a few to deter them from getting to know Moslems on a personal basis and reaching decisions based on your own mind and personal experiences.

This is an act of barbarism.

Tool has song called Opiate that puts perspective into the whole "follow the leader" attitude.

Choices always were a problem for you.
What you need is someone strong to guide you.
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow,
what you need is someone strong to guide you..
like me, like me, like me, like me

If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me.
Now don't judge or question.
You are broken now, but faith can heal you.
Just do everything I tell you to do.

Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow.
What you need is someone strong to guide you.
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow.
Let me lay my holy hand upon you.

My Gods will becomes me.
When he speaks out, he speaks through me.
He has needs like I do.
We both want to rape you.

CIA covert op.

Look I love a peaceful, law abiding society where all individuals are equal under the law and the democratic process is used to resolve disputes.
I saw these Thugs being interviewed, they claim they are destroying these Muslim shrines to show that Allah is the "supreme God" and to show their "reverence for Allah"
well how misguided and illogical can they get ???
So moderate Muslims who are good citizens are welcomed by me into Australia,
but Thugs who kill and rape, and no effective action by the Sovereign State responsible for providing it's citizens with a safe society, I wouldn't hesitate if I had one of those bastards in the crosshairs.
I have freely admitted in other discussions that I am a "contradictory and illogical" person at times.
But if I was in Timbuctoo, had a good weapon, plenty of ammunition, good position and I saw one of these thugs waving a machete or poorly maintained AK47, chasing some innocent person, I would drop the bastard without hesitation, thug or CIA oppo.
not that i put much credence to the CIA covert op claim
These are not people who will allow you to have a rational discussion about what they are up to, so you cannot wait for a perfect operating environment to appear before taking action.

Only the Impotent are Pure

I hope you realize how racist you sound.

umm, islam is not a race.....The race card, how tiring.

"I saw these Thugs being interviewed, they claim they are destroying these Muslim shrines to show that Allah is the "supreme God" and to show their "reverence for Allah"
well how misguided and illogical can they get ???"

Actually... not to defend these people, but what they're doing is completely logical, rational, and traditional (at least, in the last 200 years) if you're a salafist, and this sort of mayhem is nothing new among salafis. When the Saudis briefly took over Medina, for instance, they removed the bodies of the Prophet Muhammed and the first two Caliphs from the great masjid there, demolished their tombs (looting the valuables in the process, of course), and reburied them in simple unmarked graves to put an end to 'veneration'.

"But if I was in Timbuctoo, had a good weapon, plenty of ammunition, good position and I saw one of these thugs waving a machete or poorly maintained AK47, chasing some innocent person, I would drop the bastard without hesitation, thug or CIA oppo."

I dunno. Is killing the living to protect the dead really the right thing to do, even if the living are boneheads?

*eye roll* Islam is not a race, therefore prejudice against muslims can never be motivated by racism! Nonsense. The point is, the poster clearly thinks of people from another part of the world, who's culture he clearly does not understand or have any kind of respect for, in extremely stereotyped terms, willing to use a single even to tar billions of people with the same brush. That's racism, let's not split hairs. I'm sorry you're tired of the race card. You know what I'm tired of? Actual fucking racism.

How come someone be "Islamic" and "thug"?..

Do you also think someone can be Christian and pedophile?

the word you were looking for was Bigot, not racist.

People use the race card all the time, and 90% of the time, it is just someone who islooking for an excuse to blame someone else for something.

Sure, the race card has legituses, but at least use the RIGHT WORD!!!!!

Islam=there are members of every race thatbelong to this religion, so it can not be RACISM.

Please, use the right WORD.

That's really stupid. Sorry, I'm not backing down on this one.
Just because Islam includes people of many different races, in many different parts of the world, that doesn't mean that the stupid, toxic things MajorMitchell has said here aren't motivated by racism.

Shrines are a typical example of syncretism - islamic doctrine catering to ancient folk traditions where uprooting them would be too hard. Shrines are quite obviously a sin of shirk (polyteism, idolatry), which is a very grave one, but the mainstream muslims tolerate it. Fundamentalists have no use for syncretists, who are in fact usually even worse than heathens in their eyes since they destroy the purity of faith. So as Tolstoy pointed out, this is exactly the behaviour one can expect from islamic fundamentalists.

you dont have to back down, You are wrong according to the Websters English dictiionary...lol

rac·ism

1) a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2) hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

So, you can say whatever you want Mafia, but you used the wrong word, and it is a word that is OFTEN used incorrectly, and thus the REAL meaning of it is watered down.

I did not disagree that what he said was not 'stupid or toxic', I simply said it was not, in any single way, by any definition (except your own) racism, and to suggest it was, is, well, ignorant.

Can we please get a mod ruling on whether or not MajorMitchell's comments were racist?

I DEMAND JUSTICE

lol @ jamie.

"Just because Islam includes people of many different races, in many different parts of the world, that doesn't mean that the stupid, toxic things MajorMitchell has said here aren't motivated by racism."

So MajorMitchell not spouting the acceptable shibboleths is wrong, but Salafists wrecking the ancient center of learning in the Sahara is all right? Just by calling out the people who are destroying the heritage of Timbuktu as the pieces of garbage they are that's supposedly racist against... well, somebody. Arabs? Blacks? Tuaregs?

What is happening there right now is indefensible. I don't care if tearing down Timbuktu is part of these people's culture. It's wrong. It's wrong to do things like that and we shouldn't be afraid to say so. This is naked barbarism. We should make no excuses for it.

I'm sure you would join me in being just as outraged if it were a Christian or Jewish or Hindu or any other group committing the crimes. Why should Islam get a pass here?

@Nebu - that was sarcastic, right?

@else Bigotry or racism aside, we do all agree that these were heinous, politically motivated acts which destroyed pieces of history that are irreplaceable, and that those who did this should be killed? I mean, if somewhere, someday, someone found Noah's ark and one day a guy took a blowtorch to it, he'd be as good as dead, right?

No, I don't agree that they should be killed. Killing people does NOT solve things like this.

Islam is a racial issue if you consider racial issues to be issues related to human phenotype.

Anyway, stop tripping. What's going on in Timbuktu is tripe, but even the local people (who are Muslim) are enraged - it won't be long, in my opinion, before these Islamists have popular uprising on their hands. The people of northern Mali do not want Shari'a law. In fact there was already a youth protest in Gao that ended in gunfire, about a week ago.

Also how can anyone in their right mind criticize Islam on the basis of Muslims destroying MUSLIM SHRINES.

If you dislike Islam, why do you care about their shrines???

Just because I am not Muslim, does not mean I can not appreciate things from that faith, or just because I am European, does not mean I can not apprecaite Asian culture, etc...

Is it required? Should I not the mourn the loss of something I place a value on, even if it is not mine?

But why do you place value on it if you do not respect Islam? I'm not sure what position you have taken in this thread, Stressedlines. My comments were directed at those who have made anti-Islam statements and hypocritically use these events in Timbuktu as "evidence" of the validity of their criticisms.

Thucy, I was playing devils advocate really, I dont really give a hoot, the other person does.

My only contribution in the thread, was the use of the word 'racism', which it clearly is not. I dislike that word being used all the time, because it makes it hard to use it when it is needed.

"Also how can anyone in their right mind criticize Islam on the basis of Muslims destroying MUSLIM SHRINES."

That's like not criticizing Catholics for burning Protestant churches, or vice versa. It's still just human violence, and especially senseless violence in that there's no rational reason for it. We shouldn't assume that Islam is correct in Allah existing and therefore the actions of the Salafists are even theoretically justified any more than we should assume certain types of Zionist settlers in the West Bank are correct in God wanting them to turn Palestinians off of their land. Religious arguments have just as much weight in justifying violence as they do in justifying science. That is, none. There are secular values that exist independently of the man-made structures of religious dogma, and not purposely destroying culturally important things is one of them.

How can anyone in their right mind not be critical of something like this? It's evil, nihilistic behavior like we saw when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues in Afghanistan. No excuse should be made for these Salafists. Their actions are reprehensible.

What has happened to TC? I miss him!

Indeed barbaric. Theyll destroy even their own contributions to civilization, as if annihilating persian history wasnt enough.

Yes they are Invictus but their actions can no more be called Islamic than can the killings of Muslims in Burma by Buddhists be called Buddhist.

The Taliban did something similar in Afghanistan to Buddhist statues. But this incident involves an Islamic sect destroying a Muslim shrine and not one to another religion.

Guys obviously I'm not OK with them destroying historical sites or artifacts, but starting a conversation about how awful it is that shrines and libraries and such are being destroyed is a little like starting a thread called "So the Nazis were pretty bad huh?" It's not really a point that bears much discussion, and kinda goes without saying.

Also @ StressedLines - I think people don't think about or talk about racism enough. Either people simply don't think about it, or are too aware that if they try to say anything about it they'll be accused of "playing the race card" by people like you, who define racism, (or sexism, or cis-sexism or homophobia or what have you) in such narrow terms as to effectively hamstring any attempt to point out or critique all but the most blatant examples of oppression.
Has it occurred to you that the lexicographers behind Webster's English Dictionary are on the whole probably not people who have the best perspective on what racism actually means or looks like in the modern world?

"Yes they are Invictus but their actions can no more be called Islamic than can the killings of Muslims in Burma by Buddhists be called Buddhist."

Actually, you're wrong. When these people use Islam as the justification for their actions what else are we to call it? The Salafists are a puritanical sect that condemns any variation from what they believe is the unchanged "truth" given to Mohammed. their beleif that "error" and innovation has to be destroyed is the entire reason Timbuktu and the Buddhas in Afghanistan and the Saudis' actions in wrecking archaeological remains in Mecca occurs. They say they're doing it for Islam and Allah, why not take them at their word?

Naturally this applies only to their sect. I'd be shocked if more than 1% of Muslims actually took the position that it's alright to do things like tear down Timbuktu. But 1% of a billion Muslims is still ten million people. That's about as many people as live in Michigan or Haiti. It's not a trivial amount of people and they can't be given an inch on apologetics which justify their barbarism even in the abstract.


"Has it occurred to you that the lexicographers behind Webster's English Dictionary are on the whole probably not people who have the best perspective on what racism actually means or looks like in the modern world?"

Wouldn't a lexicographer be exactly the person to tell you what a word means? Their entire field of expertise deals with the meaning of words, including how they change use.

At any rate, criticism of Islam is no more racist than criticism of Christianity is or criticism of Judaism (the faith, not the people) is. A big part of the reason Islam is still cloaked in obscurantism is that people are too quick to cry out racist when something unsupportive of the religion is said.

"Wouldn't a lexicographer be exactly the person to tell you what a word means? Their entire field of expertise deals with the meaning of words, including how they change use." - Please tell me you're being deliberately obtuse. Please tell me you did not actually say that as a serious question. My point is, racism as understood by actual minorities, people who have actually experienced racism is different than what academics writing a dictionary think of racism as being. At the risk of saying something crazy, most people who actually engage with issues like racism in any significant way in a modern context, actual anti-racist activists would (and do) regard StressedLines' Webster's Dictionary definition of the term as laughably outdated and woefully inadequate to discussions of the modern forms of racism.

MajorMitchell is propagating stereotypes, and using those stereotypes to denigrate people who are considered to be and frequently portrayed as culturally and ethnically other. Just because he's grouping people by religion rather than by "race" (which is a bullshit made up concept anyway) or "national origin" doesn't mean he's not being racist. The point is, it's motivated by a disrespect for people who are culturally different from him, and have origins in a different part of the world. I'm sorry, THAT'S RACISM. End of story.

Also @ Invictus - "At any rate, criticism of Islam is no more racist than criticism of Christianity is or criticism of Judaism (the faith, not the people) is. A big part of the reason Islam is still cloaked in obscurantism is that people are too quick to cry out racist when something unsupportive of the religion is said." This may be true, but I doubt it. However assuming I grant your point uhhh, I have to say, that's not the case here. MajorMitchell isn't saying that "There are passages in the Qu'ran that encourage the destruction of valuable cultural heritage sites and that is troubling." He said "if there was any doubt that Islam is a religion for illiterate peasants who herd goats and camels and opress their women..." like seriously guys, read that sentence again. That's not a thoughtful critique of the social impact of Islam, that is just straight up offensive stereotyping, based on an ignorant view of lifestyles and cultural practices in parts of the world that MajorMitchell is not familiar with. What more do you want.