Thread: Buffalo NY beheading

Originally Posted by sparq

I am not in a disagreement with you. I personally find their system of values and lack of respect for life and for free will unacceptable; I can not respect such a culture. On the other hand, I do not think that generalizing this case into a Muslim vs. Western way of life clash in the media can help. There are too many politically correct idiots out there who are hungry for their five minutes of fame.

I get what you are saying and I agree with you completely!

jockeys, I think you may have edited your post, but when the question (paraphrasing), "How do you deal with someone who is obstinately opposed to your way of thinking?" was posed, you replied, "You kill them." (Or something along those lines.)

Did you mean that wanting to harm or kill someone who has a totally unwavering belief is the only thing bull-headed people like that understand? Or did you mean that you support killing people from that culture?

"I know of no other culture / religion that teaches where taking the life of a loved one because they did not do as you asked is acceptable."

Well, at least historically/biblically speaking, the Judeo-Christian God's instruction to his people included:
1. stoning to death homosexuals. "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."Leviticus 20:13

2. kill any woman who has inappropriate contact with an animal. "And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:16

3. Kill false virgins:“…If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death..." Deuteronomy 22:13-21.“
4. The Bible also provides for the imposition of death on adulterers. " 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. Leviticus 20:10

These are the words of the God who is now and forever, who never changes.


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Originally Posted by Chimensch

I feel that the OP's intent was to give us an example of Muslim barbarity, as if no white American has ever cut up his wife and shipped her body in a suitcase, in order to, indirectly, support the "clash of cultures" justification of US foreign policy. I cannot support the concept that we "in the west" are more civilized than the people of the "east" so long as we, or our allies, are dropping white phosphorus bombs on children because they live near a terrorist, know a terrorist or have heard the word terrorst or whatever facile excuse we can come up with for slaughter on a grand scale.

Actually my reason for the original posting was to bring the sad event to light. the murder was overshadowed by a plane crash also near Buffalo, that killed 49 people.

the only reasons i can understand for killing others is:
the need to protect your life or that of your family
you are a member of the military and are following lawful instructions from your superiors
or you have murdered others and a jury of 12 persons, good and true, have convicted you and sentenced you to death.

the point of terrorism is to terrorize.
the point of warfare is to destroy enough of the enemy so that they are willing to accept your terms of peace.

what other nations allow to happen within their borders are the concerns of those nations.

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

"I know of no other culture / religion that teaches where taking the life of a loved one because they did not do as you asked is acceptable."

Well, at least historically/biblically speaking, the Judeo-Christian God's instruction to his people included:
1. stoning to death homosexuals. "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."Leviticus 20:13

2. kill any woman who has inappropriate contact with an animal. "And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:16

3. Kill false virgins:“…If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death..." Deuteronomy 22:13-21.“
4. The Bible also provides for the imposition of death on adulterers. " 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. Leviticus 20:10

These are the words of the God who is now and forever, who never changes.


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And then we grew up.

Every religion has violence and intolerance as early characteristics. then it matures and becomes more reasonable. Islam , is now about the age Christianity was when it was at its most horrific state sponsored worst. Some day it too will grow up and being the youngest of the major religions maybe then we can get beyond the whole "my gods are better than your gods" thing.

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

"I know of no other culture / religion that teaches where taking the life of a loved one because they did not do as you asked is acceptable."

Well, at least historically/biblically speaking, the Judeo-Christian God's instruction to his people included:
1. stoning to death homosexuals. "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."Leviticus 20:13

2. kill any woman who has inappropriate contact with an animal. "And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:16

3. Kill false virgins:“…If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death..." Deuteronomy 22:13-21.“
4. The Bible also provides for the imposition of death on adulterers. " 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. Leviticus 20:10

These are the words of the God who is now and forever, who never changes.


…

Yes, yes, we all know the bible has things like this. The point is that the Christian churches have progressed from this and everyone knows it! I'm sorry, but it's silly to bring up an examples like this because they do not reflect current practice. When was the last time this teaching was actually taken literally? Priests don't tell people to commit murder over adultery or some other affront to "honor", but in some Islamic places, they do just that. C'mon, man. You can do better than this.

Just to set the record straight (hehe, I said straight) I have some major problems with organized religions, so I'm not saying Christianity doesn't have issues, but at least it's past killing people who want live their own lives.


Jordan

Originally Posted by syslight

And then we grew up.

Every religion has violence and intolerance as early characteristics. then it matures and becomes more reasonable. Islam , is now about the age Christianity was when it was at its most horrific state sponsored worst. Some day it too will grow up and being the youngest of the major religions maybe then we can get beyond the whole "my gods are better than your gods" thing.

This is a very good analogy Syslight!

The point of my post is that while certainly some of the more extreme practices have been abandoned, there are still plenty of folks who haven't moved past some of what I alluded to. There are plenty of people who still follow and ciite to the Bible to justifiy denying equal rights to those who have a different sexual orientation, for example. And there are still plenty of churches that prohibit or strictly limit the role of women in the church based on selected biblical passages. I have no argument over the point that "we" have progressed in terms of no longer applying Biblical tenents that would involve the application of capital punishment for infractions other than murder, but the fact of the matter is that the Judeo-Christian holy book(s) contain some of the same whacko instructions from God as does the Muslim holy book. Some would say that in our "moving on" we ignore God's rules. All will be explained in the next life, I guess...

I think that the islamic religion has been a bit unjustly attacked here.

Basically there are extremist interpretations and there are moderate ones, just like in judaism and christianity. It seems to me that it's just that currently in islam there are more extremist sects than there are in christianity or in judaism. Still I would like to have a statistical data, because my feeling is that the ratio of muslims who practice 'honor killings' to those who don't is less than 1 (I think it's orders of magnitude less, but that's pure speculation).
Every few years there'll be a 'christian flavored sect' that would commit a mass murder or mass suicide so the extremist factor is larger than 0 for christianity as well.
And 1 and 0 are the only numbers that are somewhat non arbitrary.

I still can't bring myself to believe that this makes islam worse religion than christianity or judaism, as jim noted fundamentaly they're all extremely violent and it's the interpretation that a particular group adopts that is all important. But then we cannot generalize at all.
I know plenty of muslims whose beliefs are much better than those of plenty of christians. And by 'better' I mean closer to what is acceptable in our society, i.e. no extremist doctrines.

Originally Posted by gugi

I think that the islamic religion has been a bit unjustly attacked here.

Basically there are extremist interpretations and there are moderate ones, just like in judaism and christianity. It seems to me that it's just that currently in islam there are more extremist sects than there are in christianity or in judaism. Still I would like to have a statistical data, because my feeling is that the ratio of muslims who practice 'honor killings' to those who don't is less than 1 (I think it's orders of magnitude less, but that's pure speculation).
Every few years there'll be a 'christian flavored sect' that would commit a mass murder or mass suicide so the extremist factor is larger than 0 for christianity as well.
And 1 and 0 are the only numbers that are somewhat non arbitrary.

I still can't bring myself to believe that this makes islam worse religion than christianity or judaism, as jim noted fundamentaly they're all extremely violent and it's the interpretation that a particular group adopts that is all important. But then we cannot generalize at all.
I know plenty of muslims whose beliefs are much better than those of plenty of christians. And by 'better' I mean closer to what is acceptable in our society, i.e. no extremist doctrines.

You make some good points gugi. I think the bigger issue is cultural, and how religion is translated into society (awkward phrasing, but I hope the meaning is clear). There are plenty of Christian whackos, but the west has taken steps to ensure that society is largely protected from them. I don't think Muslim states have done this, and the bottom line is that this is bad for people on the whole. In fact, many places seem to be getting more extreme. Any people who take their scriptures literally and impose this on the society are going to have a hard time getting along with others - regardless of the religion. That's a big reason we have the conflict taking place now.

If I'm not mistaken, there are several honor killings in the US each year. What has drawn the attention to this one, I think, is that the owner of the station set out to change the perception of Muslims in the US (or to change their perceptions of themselves as well). It puts more of a spotlight on the issue.

Jordan