mga

[QUOTE=Thor Q. Mada]A humanist doesn't hate people for their conviction. A humanist looks down and despises backwardness, a feature which is common throughout all religions.
QUOTE]

i, for one, never considered myself as a "humanist". far from it...this liberal also owns several hand guns and numerous rifles of various kinds. and, so that you don't have to wonder: i am NOT a hunter.

Escaped A.I.

basically i am at the opposite end of the spectrum. in simply leaving them to their own devices they will see the awesomeness of western secular ways (namely supa hot sexy porn) and eventually leave the religion behind, as many westerners are doing these days.

once they see the benefits of secularism, they will want it too. i also believe the mideast was on the road to secularism as long as 50 years ago, check out the pre-sadam baath party. it is the social chaos brought upon them by imperialism which has strengthened islam.

take iraq as the most potent example. it was heading towards secularism, the standard of living was rising, and then a western crony like sadam steps in, starts some wars, and chaos engulfs the country.

everybody falls back on islam becuase it has a clearly defined set of rules to live by, and it is preferable to no rules at all.

Howard

I mentioned this in another thread. IMO, there is very little the West can do to effect the course of Islam. We are not going to abridge our free speech laws to avoid offending them, although, and this point has been lost in the cartoon fiasco, only a very small percentage of Western media outlets actually printed the cartoons. So there are far more people who are trying to avoid offending Muslims than trying to do so. (However, I haven’t seen much made of this fact either by the legion of moderate Muslims that we keep hearing about or by the Muslim apologists on this board.)

Whether moderate Islam or radical Islam becomes dominant will be determined by Muslims, not by us. As far as I’m concerned, the West has no obligation to afford Muslims special treatment (and even if I did it wouldn’t happen). OTOH, people shouldn’t deliberately try to antagonize Muslims, and, to be sure, responsible people won’t. However there are plenty of irresponsible and hate-mongering types who will do just that. Sooner or later some magazine or newspaper will do something like this again, and if Muslims, excuse me some Muslims, over-react again, it will only deepen the divide.

Frankly, I’m not optimistic. I think the Muslim extremists will ultimately prevail because extremists, by nature, are far more proactive than moderates. I think the West and Islam are in for a protracted and bloody war. Who knows what the consequences of that will be.

Thor Q. Mada

Well, I dont understand the jump from liberal (which I am not) to guns and gun control. This gun polemic only exists in the US and the reasons are socio economic. For the rest of the world this gun thing is not a topic, and neither is intelligent design by the way.

Booyakasha!

Well I for one welcomed the cartoon controversy, not only because it exposed how dark and sick Islam is, but because by shining a light on a religion like Islam that is in fact so closely related to "our own" religion of Christianity, my hope is that all religions will look foolish and dangerous.

Ultimately the plan is not to get rid of literal belief in Islam, but to get rid of literal belief in all religions.

EsoCyn

I say we should do the same thing that we do in the face of Christianity; for the most part, remain pacifistic and have senses of humor about the same thing, but use tasteful activism. Attack the problems with the religion, don't resort to cliches about violent Muslims or insult Muhammed wantonly.

For the record; I don't hate Muslims, Christians, Jews. I don't hate anyone. I hate actions and some things that people believe in which I think is backwards. I love all people and see positive strengths in everyone who will allow themselves to show their positives. I hate the religions, not the people (to be short and sweet.)

trendkill

It's not our job to make them "go away". We are responsible for keeping our own countries free. The Middle East can do whatever it wants to itself.

I'm with Styrofoamdeity 100%. Especially the part about "hating Muslims" .

Booyakasha!

Well, if certain people had made Hitler "go away" before he went on his rampage, millions of lives could have been saved.

Saying that "The Middle East can do whatever it wants to itself" is just fine, until 20 years down the road when some nuclear-armed motherfucker like bin Laden gets a bee in his bonnet over some cartoons and sends a few nukes our direction... then you won't be so casual about the threats posed by Islam and nuclear weapons.

Escaped A.I.

^^ intervention certainly has not made anything better. it can be argued that is becuase our motivations were less than honest, but i doubt any intervention we make in the future will be welcomed, or a move towards peace.

Answerer

Count me in as one. I already lost hope in that region.

I once think that way too. However, given the large amount of passive moderates (Government or not), western apologists and large amount of death threats being send around. That aren't going to happen. People are not going to waste their time, effort or even life over things that don't guarantee success.

Ignore them is the best. So that they can't find any excuses to blame anyone.