Muslims stage anti-US rallies over Koran abuse report

And not doing so at all is basically the equivalent of saying that you are superior to them. Is that the truth? Do you feel superior, Lash?

My behavior is superior.

But, we are all created equal. Or at least, that's my opinion.

I wouldn't doubt your superior behavior. Yet what you said in your post was



You said that in order to accept that to them, their book is of supreme value, we would all have to agree with them that we are all inferior. I don't know how you got this idea. But, the opposite of being inferior is being superior, not behaving superior.

Hence my question.

You don't have to subscribe to an opposite.

They are not superior.

I am not superior.

The one who imagines they are superior is incorrect.

I got the idea that they (the Muslims who do the vocal street screaming) believe they are superior because they say they are. Do you know what 'infidel' means? Have you actually listened to their rhetoric?

What is not in dispute is that a few years ago Arab terrorists, while running from Israelis, took hostages in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity and used one of the Holiest Churches in Christiandom as their toilet for 39 days. Where was all the 'outrage', then? Hmmm. I don't seem to recall that there were wholesale riots, violence and killings over the Bible being desecrated then.

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp490.htm

On April 24, the Jerusalem Post reported on the damage that the PA forces were causing:

"Three Armenian monks, who had been held hostage by the Palestinian gunmen inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, managed to flee the church area via a side gate yesterday morning. They immediately thanked the soldiers for rescuing them.

They told army officers the gunmen had stolen gold and other property, including crucifixes and prayer books, and had caused damage....
One of the monks, Narkiss Korasian, later told reporters: "They stole everything, they opened the doors one by one and stole everything....They stole our prayer books and four crosses...they didn't leave anything. Thank you for your help, we will never forget it."
Israeli officials said the monks said the gunmen had also begun beating and attacking clergymen."

When the siege finally ended, the PA soldiers left the church in terrible condition:

"The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. They also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests' quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal....
The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear.

Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms. Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. "Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold," said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico."

You're right. It's not in dispute.

Well. Time to take to the streets, beat our heads and kill some Palestinians.

OE - the version of the Washington Times article I read doesn't have the misspelling of Koran (Korean).

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050512-111805-5936r.htm

LOL

Thanks, JW. That's interesting. Generally, I'm still wondering why people are willing to riot and burn houses and get killed over an alleged desecration of the Koran.

Yet, at the same time I'm really concerned - without knowing how big this really is, but the idea that this is more of a pan-Muslim thing than just the (sorry: usual) Iraq-Afghanistan stuff is not really comforting.

It's amazing how unpredictable the whole Muslim world still remains. To me, that is. Or has anybody seen this coming?

Although i've never posited anything specific to allegations of a descration of the Quran, i have in these fora stated time and again over recent years that we are just digging ourselves deeper into a hole with regard to the image the Muslim world has of us. It matters little whether or not the incident actually happened as adverstised. People in the Muslim world believe it did, they already think of us as the Great Satan, they will likely never believe any denial on our part, no matter what evidence is presented.

How is America not exporting their culture? ...and I don't mean solely expoting freedom and democracy. America has been exporting everything quintessentially American for decades.



Freedom is for those who choose it. Correct.
Freedom is not unique to Americans or American culture. Correct.
However, you immediately become less free when you become bond to the shackles of religion; Islam, Christianity, what-have-you...
From that point, complete surrender to the principles of that religion permit freedom only within strict parameters.
That's not freedom.
Christians are not immune, nor are Muslims.



Free press is wonderful, but there is no guarantee the vice grips of a propaganda machine won't be clinched tight like a sphincter.
Even in America, it gets tough to shuffle the bull form the sh*t.



I'm actually shocked to hear someone of your intellect resort to such language.
Canadian First Nations were treated like primitive, sub-humans during the push through the Canadian west--in hindesight, a real travesty from our convenient place in time.
Surely you don't mean to call them sub-human just because they react emotionally to something you have no emotional affinity to or understanding of.
I think you're above that....but you're not above them.

edited to add quote bar

Yeah. As long as I don't murder, don't applaud murder, and don't intentionally inflict harm on people, I am above those who do.

We begin equal. What we choose to do sorts us out.

Nobody did in the recent riots, Lash.

Set, I question the universality of the Muslim World's impression of The US ... mebbe, but I dunno. I do know a small subset of Muslims, or at least professing to be Muslims, for their own purposes actively agitate to keep The Western Media focused on Muslim antipathy toward The West, and Israel and America in particular.

Now, this is merely annecdotal, and wholly personal reference, but I gather from such contact as I have with Muslims (an admittedly narrow and somewhat skewed sample), and from perusing The Muslim Press in general, that this antipathy is not as widespread nor deep seated as some would imagine and others would prefer to portray. Of course, I don't deny we - The West - do a poor job of portraying ourselves, our principles, and our values to most of the rest of the world, Muslim or otherwise.

The punishment for 'blaspheming' against, or flushing, the Koran is death.

If you can prove the same about the Bible, you may have a point.

But, you can't.

They torched cars, destroyed offices, injured people and ran around saying Death to America.

If you can find similar American behavior attributable to the burning of a Bible, please show me.

You may be able to compare it to the World Series, but not burning a Bible...

So, the real nuts of the US are sports fans, not Christians.

For sheer nutsyness, I don't think American sports fans can hold a candle to British soccer fans

Mr L and Miss T strike again

Once again, Timber, the point is not the truth, it is the perception of the truth. Those who profit, or seek to profit, from such anarchy, are intent on increasing Muslim resentment against the west in general and the United States in particular. That there may be little or no material profit is not the point--ego is often the goal, to increase the authority of the rabble rouser within the community. Within the traditional Muslim community, an alim is a righteous man (sorry, ladies, this is a boy's only club), and the aggregate of righteous men, the ulama, are the judges of community standards and morality. But the original object of madrasas and the goal of rabble rousers is to circumvent that traditional institution, and its predictable conservatism. In many ways and in so many places, imams and others who aspire to greater personal authority use the mob to their own ends. Islam does not have a clergy as we understand it. An imam has only what authority he can create for himself.

The west is a traditional target, and long-standing bogeyman. When that Turkish joker shot the Pope so many years ago, his statement to the caribinieri after he was apprehended was that he was out to kill the leader of the crusades. Prior to the 13th century, the world of Islam was thousands of miles long, from Andalus to Java, and within its range, was the cleanest, safest, culturally most homogenous area of the world outside China. It possessed great libraries, pursued trade across great seas and oceans, availed itself of Arabic as a universal language. Absent the centralized political control, it rivaled the Roman Empire in its scope.

But in the 11th and 12th century, a filthy and superstitious lot crept in from the West, and all of the warts and failings of an empire that never was began to be displayed in a glaring light. Ibn Qalinisi in Baghdad bewailed the fate of the world of Islam, denounced the Seljuks and Kurds for constantly fighting one another and not the infidel invader, and called upon Muslims to regain their righteouness and drive the vile infidels from the land. But the crusaders succeeded because the faithful could not or would not unite. One Kurd, Ayyub, began a process of unification, but it was a military process, and involved the killing of more Muslims than Christians. His nephew and successor, Yusuf, Sala'al Din--Peace to the Faithful (Saladin to the Franks), extended that rule and began to reap the benefits of that unity.

Then the Mongol/Tatar invasions swept into the middle east in the 13th century. The fragile empire of the Ayyubids collapsed. The numerous petty states of the crusaders collapsed. Within the space of few short years, nearly all of Islam east of the Sinai and west of Bengal was under the thumb of infidels or of Tatars who paid a condescending lip service to Islam. The West went on to "bigger and better things"--and Islam receeded into a dream of glories which never really were, and nightmares of a world increasingly dominated by infidels.

Certainly this is an oversimplistic statement. But most people aren't given to a complex investigation of history and society. There is a great residue of resentment in the Muslim world, and the cynical opportunist can exploit it. That the majority of Muslims are decent people, who wish no harm to their neighbors i have no doubt. That rabble rousers without a scruple to their name are willing to exploit that substratum of longing and resentment is equally not to be doubted.