india? you heard about the attacks?

JTT feels compelled to defend Islam because it is the Leftist way.

At the same time he feels compelled to trash Christianity, also because it is the Leftist way.

And so, in the face of such an obvious contradiction, we should ignore what JTT posts as irrational.

Whatever the relative flaws of the worlds "Great Religions", all of them, in practice, have moved well beyond their primitive origins...save Islam.

Are there Islamic holy men who get it and don't advocate the mass murder of infidels? Of course!

Are there a significant number of Islamic clerics who preach the murder of infidels?

Unfortunately yes.

At it's core, is Islam any more or less a religion of peace or war than the other primary Western religions?

No.

Unfortunately the current followers of Islam, in the main, are living a retarded existence. Where Christianity and Judaism have advanced along with civilization, Islam has not.

This is not a criticism of Islam, but it is a criticisim of Muslims.

If Christians or Jews were bombing the **** out of Islamic targets, the leftists could not be contained in their protestations, and yet they, reliably, find reason to excuse the barbarisim of today's followers of Islam.

The doctrine of a religion is important, but less so than the actual impression it's followers have on civilization.

Because a Sufi Wiseman can be seen as enlightened doesn't mean that people who kill and destroy in the name of Islam are not evil.

When as many Muslims take to the streets to protest Islamist terrorism as those who do when Danish cartoonists mock The Prophet, I will feel a whole lot better about modern Islam.

Ever seen me defend islam? You may see me calling them a worthless pack of pig ******* sand monkeys, but you won't see me defending them. But I won't defend any religion. I think anyone who believes in an omnipotent fairy is a weak minded fool.

Both those statements are ambiguous.

Nothing is more "left" than Christianity. That's why democracy is a feature of Christian nations.

So do I.

I think what you meant was contradictory, not ambiguous.

In any case it doesn't really matter.

My statements were about JTT not, Christianity or leftist ways.

Is "Wilso" some alter-ego of "JTT?"

Not really sure why you felt compelled to post this one.

Nevertheless, we should all, by now, acknowledge that the terrible carnage in Mumbai was perpetrated by Islamists.

That anyone found it necessary to reserve judgment on such an obvious affair speaks volumes.

The NY Times in a feat of logical contortion suggested that the Islamist terrorist attacks on the lone Jewish center in the city might have been a random act.

The AP posted pictures of Islamist terrorists scurrying through the streets of Mumbai, armed with sub-machine guns and labeled them as "suspected gunmen!"

If I see someone running down the street of my town square with a weapon raised and firing, I won't have any trouble identifying him as a "gunman." No suspicion will be required.

Why this ridiculous reluctance?

I don't favor, as a religion, Christianity over Islam, but I know that terrorists running down the streets of Dallas, carrying and firing weapons, and shouting "Jesus is The Way," will be described as Christian Terrorists.

If while you torture and kill innocents you cry "Allahu Ackbar!" then you can be, reasonably, labeled as Islamic (if not Islamist) Terrorists.

Perhaps, said "reluctance," to be forthright about what happened, is because it is not time to address this problem directly? Or, Mumbai, being a financial capital of India may not want to scare everyone more than they already have been scared?

I'm not critical of Muslims. They are no better or worse than Christians or Jews. But I am critical of Islam. Its nonsense.

But its worse than that, its dangerous nonsense.

Because in the wrong hands, or rather in the wrong heads, it justifies and motivates the most appalling crimes. Now immediately people will say "ah but so does this or that religion too..." well maybe and maybe they are also sets of bad ideas.

But the point is Christianity and Judaism are not the problem we face. The problem - that set of stupid ideas which culminates in people running around with machine guns killing people because they believe they are doing God's will and be rewarded in paradise - stems from Islam.

Its Islam that deserves analysis and criticism, and it shouldn't be immune because its a religion. We have no difficulty in criticising other bad ideas which result in wicked crimes...nazism and maoism being two that spring to mind.

Can I assume you know of the theory that Scandinavians are fairly a peaceful people today, as opposed to their Viking history of a thousand years ago, perhaps owing to the fact that those warlike genes went south to other European countries, giving the more southern countries the impetus possibly for many wars in the last millenium?

So, if it could be in the genes, what does that say about any terrorists? Radical Islamic thinking is just a conscious excuse?

It might just be that certain genes, plus testosterone is a bad mixture. We do not know how to change genes; we do know how to change the testosterone level. Hey, the hormone therapy for prostate cancer could be the key to world peace?

Anything and everything is possible, but not, I think, this.

How, in any imaginable way, can this not be the time to address the problem directly?

How many more Islamist terrorist attacks do we need to experience before it's the time?

9/11 - Bali - Madrid - London - Mumbai

And this is by no means the entire litany of Islamist attacks.

What are we waiting for?

A nuke taking out Tel Aviv, London or New York?

The problem doesn't lie with the Indians in Mumbai or Delhi. They are all to happy to blame the attacks on Islamists. In fact they seem all too happy to blame them on Pakistan.

It is the feckless West that resists calling a spade a spade and a madman who kills and maims while shouting praise to Allah, an Islamist terrorist.

This is the way the West ends, not with a bang but with a whimpering refusal to risk social offense.

I totally disagree.

Islam is no more dangerous than any other religion.

The danger of religion resides within the ignorance of its practitioners.

In general, today's Muslims are "worse" than today's Christians or Jews, because, in general, they are more ignorant and repressed.

Salman Rushdie writes a book that fictionalizes Mohammed and Islamic clerics around the Islamic world call for his death.

The Danish press publishes some political cartoons that mock Mohammed and there are riots in the streets of Islamic capitals.

Some half-assed "journalist" reports, on the basis of flimsy evidence, that Korans are being flushed down the toilets in Gitmo and there are riots in the streets of Islamic capitals.

Time after time, terrorists have killed and maimed the innocent in the name of Allah. In what Islamic capital have rational Muslims taken to the streets to protest the carnage?

Are such protest demonstrations happening but just not reported?

And there are many more examples. All of them speak not to a flaw in Islam, but to the ignorance and base nature of millions of its followers.

Religion is a powerfully effective means for the few to garner power through the many, but in order for it to happen, base ignorance, on a grand scale, is required.

There are, undoubtedly, numerous reasons why the West can be blamed for the current ignorance and despair of Muslims.

So what?

Is the argument that the innocents of the West deserve this violent retribution?

Is the argument that the violent madness of the ignorant and despairing is somehow justified?

The first thing the West must come to grips with is that we, in no way, deserve this horror, and that even if we, conceivably, did it will never mend our ways, and make things "right."

We should not make any effort whatsoever to "understand" the people who perpetrate these horrific crimes (torturing and killing pregnant women for example). What does it matter how or why they have allowed their humanity to be consumed by ignorant hatred?

They need to be found out and eradicated.

At the same time, the West does need to do more to ensure that the Islamic world is able to rise above its ignorance and despair.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Islam as a religion is not going to disappear.

Far from it.

Islam is a load of crap Finn and you know it

You dont blame Germans for nazism and you dont blame Russians for communisms similarly you dont blame muslims for ***** Islam.

Except of course an adherent of Islam is defined as a Muslim. But Muslims are people, with whom I have no argument. Its the stupid ideas I have a problem with.

A couple of days ago a boy detonated a bomb in his cart in Afghanistan, killing himself and three British soldiers. What made him do it? Ans. Religion.

The promise of Paradise. And which religion promised Paradise for such a heinous crime?

Any solutions, now that you have identified, in your mind, the problem?

Kill em' all?

I always love it when people presume to tell me what I know. Particularly when what they think I know is that they are right

Actually I do blame Germans for Nazi Germany, and I do blame Russians for Soviet Communism.

Facism, Communism and Islam are simply concepts. They do not exist in practice without practitioners.

While I would agree that certain schools of thought are almost guaranteed to produce ill results, they are not viruses; they do not infect without acceptance of the victim.

What's more, history tells us that there was a time and place wherein Islam was part of a relatively enlightened society.

The problem, as I see it, is that the majority of todays believers in Islam are utterly ignorant, and either socially retarded or pathological.

Well we might agree about Islam, but not all Germans were nazis and not all Russians were communist. I think you have to separate the man the motivation and the action. I think there are some bad individuals but I dont accept there are "bad men" per se. There are obviously bad actions and the ideas, religious or secular, that give rise to them are bad motivators. But you cant say a man is bad because he is "muslim" any more that you can say people are bad for being Russian or Chinese. Or American. Or British.

Happy christmas.

O.K. everyone within a specific geo-political/ideological group may not be bad per se; however, does that mean one must like the culture (aka the people) that spawns a particular political system, or adheres to a certain ideology? In my opinion, by putting the emphasis on not being "bad per se," one might confuse that with therefore being "benign." <sound of buzzer> Wrong answer. Next contestant please in, "Only the Wary Survive."