Islam is a peaceful religion.

I would point out that most instances of human rights abuses, such as the rape mentioned on the last page, are in rural areas.

I read an article fairly recently about a father and son in rural Afghanistan who beat his daughter to death for talking to an American soldier; the mother tried to stop him and now lives in anonymity away from her family. I also remember reading an article about a women-only radio station in Kabul which gives people advice and hosts chat shows, as well as playing a lot of Western music.

Attitudes are slowly changing, and as is visible across the Arab world, governments are finally being brought to account. The problems are largely culturally ingrained; the development of these countries merely lags behind the industrially-advanced Western world, which had its fair share of Christian-inspired violence and atrocities.

You can come up with "violent" quotes from the Koran, but let me remind you, the authentic meanings from the Koran are from the Arabic language and needs to be mastered in order to understand the quotes because Arabic language is one of the hardest language to be translated.If you only checked the translations, you would be mostly misunderstand about the quotes.There are certain quotes that is only for certain time and purposes, not all of the quotes are used for most purposes in this world.

That's a load of bullshit. Almost all professionals will disagree with you.
Translating Arabic is about as easy as translating Germanic languages, and is as easy as translating Hebrew.

This comic sums up how I feel about Islam.

I feel the same only Christianity didn't calm down. We made them change. And now they have pretty much have the same values as we do and they are actually even taking credit for it which is hilarious.

Well, lets see... Commit mass murder by the order of a group of paranoid and/or religious fanatics, on another group of people because - even though 99% of them are normal, innocent people - 1% of that group are also paranoid and/or religious fanatics, but of a different belief.

OR

Not... hmm...

Iono man, whatever you say, it is still stupid.

Doesn't every religion claim to be peacful? and how many actually are?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1101574--police-shave-mohawks-off-punks-at-indonesia-concert?bn=1

Yeah cause the only other option to ignoring them is to kill every single muslim...

Of course not, but as he used my words in extreme, I did the same.

orly?

Seeing how there is about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world (somewhere around 23% of the world population), yes, that is a small number. And even if some of them think that it is ok to kill for Islam, how is that any different from killing for oil or land or w/e?

Besides, if it is ok to draw that conclusion for Muslims, then I guess it is ok for me to state as a fact that all americans are fat, stupid, christian warmongers who hate homosexuals and all non-white people. I mean, the number (and the general stereotype) is against them.

I'm going to respond to you with a copy paste from another similar topic.

I see you're playing the old card of "Just because some muslims do it, doesn't make islam bad. Look at all the good Muslims."

While, of course, as most people do, completely ignoring the counter argument of, "...Ok, then just because there are good muslims...doesn't make Islam good. Look at the bad ones."

Let's get one thing clear before I start addressing you with my view. Moderates are far better than extremists...and there is certianly a difference between them. Moderates aren't the ones flying jets into buildings or blowing themselves up in the streets.

However moderates present a different problem. The problem of forcing everyone to respect faith. Moderates have this idea that faith...is this untouchable thing, that should always be respected no matter what religion it's placed in. Muslims, Chirstians, Jews, all of these practices, under this moderate idea of what faith ought to be regarded as, are complettouchable...when it comes to criticisms. People are allowed, under this cover, to raise their children to believe themselves to be a chirstian, or a jew, or a muslim, without ever being taught to question it, and nobody is allowed to disapprove...not for any reason, because faith is to be respected.

It is under this cover that we have blurred religions. Moderates have made it incredibly difficult to tell religions apart from eachother. so hard that many people ca't tell from going to services, or listening to moderates in what they believe, what the differences are. They can't see that religions in fact DON'T teach the same things, DO teach a lot of different things, and the things they DO teach the same are not taught equally well.

Think about it. Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? I've heard it said to me that islamic extremists are born he Israeli occupation, and of our own(the united states') mishandlings of Iraq and Afghanistan...well if that's true, then the Buddhist suicide bombers should far outnumber the Islamic ones.

The tibetian people have been through a far worse, far more cynical occupation than Israel. Some million and over Tibetans have died due to China's occupation. Yet you don't see them rushing the streets, and crowding around with signs, asking for the deaths of the chinese non combatants.

Why is this? It's because Buddhism doesn't teach what Islam teaches. Buddhism doesn't teach about infidels. It doesn't teach about the people who don't believe as they do deserving death. It doesn't teach that children who leave the religion need to be killed for Apostacy. It doesn't teach that witches should be beheaded, and give an extremely vague description of what a witch is, so that anyone who seems semi-pagan would be guilty, and thusly beheaded.

That's not to say you couldn't possibly twist buddhism to cause a death toll. Zen Buddhism played a role in the kamikaze fighters of WWII...but you REALLY have to try REALLY hard to twist buddhism to that level. You do not have to work so hard, as a muslim, to turn your religion into such an orgy of violence. And it in fact WOULD be impossible to do so as a Jain. The Jains have this respect, for ALL life...in fact the more extreme a Jain gets, the LESS likely they are to kill ANYTHING.

So you see...it's not fundamentalism, or extremism that's the problem...it's the fundamentals. You can't possibly argue that the core tenet of Islam is nonviolence. Religious moderates...have rendered noticing this kind of stuff, taboo.

It's important to reference that I'm not talking about a race here. You gave the example of "If a black guy mugs me, is it right to assume al black guys want to mug me?" Well, thats a faulty analogy. Nothing about being black...teaches people to mug people. When I speak of Islam I'm talking about guys like John Walker-Lynn...a white man who went off to fight alongside the taliban.

We are not at war with just Al-Quada..or extremist islam. We are at war with Islamic...fundamentalism. What does that mean? It means we are at war with people, who follow the fundamental tenets of their beliefs, strongly and devoutly. The mainstream idea of Islam does INDEED contain the notions of Martyrdom, and Jihad. It contains an IMPERITIVE to convert, subjigate, or kill infidels. If you don't believe this, you must simply read the Quran, or the Hadif.

Contemplate, for a moment, if you will, the biographies of the 19 men who woke up on September 10th, and decided in their minds to go onto planes, slit Stewardess throats, and fly planes into buildings. These people were college educated. Each and every one of them. Many had PhD's. Many of them educated in the West. They were middle class, or better. How many architects and engineers need to hit the wall at 400 mph for us to realize this is NOT merely a problem of extremism...that islam...is what is to blame?

These are not guys who spent a lot of time agitating, or at least publically expressing needs for regime change in the Middle East. These were men who spent a lot of time at their local mosque in Hamburg, talking about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise, and demonizing infidel culture.

We live in a society where it is fully possible to be intelligent enough to build a nuclear bomb, yet still think, and believe, that you'll get the 72 vrigins in paradise, if you detonate it in the right place, and die with it.

Are you getting it yet?

Islam in indonesian is more peaceful that the rest or at least in middle east. Why don't you see how they behave instead the extreme fraction of it.

My conclusion for your words is...
I think you're type of person who just read books,
believing the media and never face the real thing.
Here's an idea.
How about you face Muslims by yourself?
We're also educated peoples just like you said.
It is irrational for educated people to do something inhumane like slitting throats.Even in war,this act is inhumane.
We also have our perspectives and intelligence.
And Jihad is not just about declaring war with Non-Muslims.
Learning knowledge,amplifying your faith and teach people to be a better person
is also a way of Jihad.
There are a lot of things you need to learn.

The survey points out that x/y believes z. Not x/x believes z.

Just as you could say that the population of Americans that are obese is 33.9%, according to a 2008 survey.

What it does show, however, is that your "1%" of muslims are fanatics just so happens to be false, even in restricted populations, such as English Universities.

Now, on a global scale, the majority of muslims live in the middle east, for example, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It would be fairly easy to point out that most muslim middle eastern countries are in fact, some form of muslim theocracy -- just look at Saudi Arabia.
That being said, I'd also like to include that, if you would a) kill for your religion, b) persecute homosexuals for your religion, c) dehumanize women and jews for your religion, etc. you are an extremist.
These are normal practices in the daily culture under a muslim theocracy, just look at Saudi Arabia, (where it's illegal to be jewish, or homosexual, and you'll be murdered on the street if you're a woman who doesn't cover her body and face) and it is supported by the local population.
So, under those conditions, it would be very, very hard to say that 1% of the global population of muslims are not fundamentalist, islamic fascists.

Muslims are good. It is just with our mentality that they are Hostile and war freak...
If we would look into it deeply, we are all humans, regardless of religion, that are sharing one world.

We should accept that every person varies, though religion may contribute to ones personality.
We couldn't conclude that Islam religion is peaceful, nor Christians or Americans being fat.

Every person differs..

So you're against reading books then? I kid. I kid.



Certainly. I already have. As I already referenced, there are such things as moderate muslims, and I made it a point in the beginning to seperate the fact that there are moderates, and fundamentalists. My guess is that you're a moderate. Am I right? I can predict it because you're not spouting off anti-non Muslim rhetoric, like...say...this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD1SXVAXxls

Don't get me wrong. Again, I'm not saying all Muslims are like this...but are you saying that one cannot derive what this man believes from the Muslim texts? I believe he might disagree.




I completely agree. And belief in religion, in my view, is...irrational to begin with.



Sir...you don't know inhumane. Inhumane is raping the bodies of dead adversaries in front of their still live comrades, specifically for the purpose of breaking their enemy's spirits. Inhumane is using the dead bodies of your enemies as catapult ammo for the main cities. Inhumane is using the dead bodies of your comrades as bullet shields during D-Day as machine gun fire decimates your comrades into lifeless husks.

In the future, don't you dare tell me I haven't faced reality. This is something I study in depth. I'm sure you wouldn't like me telling you you need to face reality, would you? I don't know you, you don't know me, so don't make that kind of a judgement.

Slitting throats of Stewardesses that are viewed as Infidels, and believing that God has allowed them the right to kill such people if it furthers the cause of the Muslim world? That's just religious fundamentals that were far more commonplace hundreds of years ago, and are still believed by intelligent people today.



It's...ALSO the way of Jihad? Yes, I already knew this. The "two faces" argument. The fact of the matter remains, however, that the vast majority of the time, when Jihad is used in the Hadith and the Quran and the Serah, it is used as a term meaning a spiritual war with the infidel. If you'd like, I can post a link to a muslim forum...that agrees with me.

If you want to make the word Jihad respected as a word? Then use it in a respectful way, and stop other people from using it in a destructive way, as they have been. Don't come at me with, "Yeah it's used in a bad way, but it can be good if it's used by moderates that aren't of the murderous persuasion!" I mean, that's just a complete non argument.



Maybe...but you should too.

Can you point to anything I said that's wrong? I made my argument that detailed and precise for a reason, not so that you can just accuse me of ignorance, without even showing why.

I am afraid you are mistaken; I am not debating whether Islam is good or bad. In fact, I think that most religions are pretty bad, the Abrahamic religions simply being the currently most obviously stupid.

What I am saying is that not all muslims are evil terrorists out to kill all the white, "innocent", western people. That is the picture that media paints for you, and you are stupid beyond repair if you believe that muslims are in any way more dangerous than people belonging to any other sort.

I'm not sure if you realize this, but though some Islamic extremists kill innocents for religious agenda, the western world is not that different. Except ofc you think that killing muslims is ok because you are NOT religious. Dun hurt that they have oil either.

I don't think it's the case that ANYONE in this topic is suggesting that ALL muslims are terrorists. And no, the media...doesn't paint this picture. Just recently a reality show about moderate muslims living in america came out...and they're portrayed as about as normal as normal gets.

I never justified the Western World killing people for petty reasons like "They're religious and I'm not"(which I don't think is actually the case) or "They have oil"...so...yeah. I suppose we're in agreement there.

Okay,maybe you know more about Jihad than anyone on this earth,technically.
What I want to show that we,Muslims want people in the entire world wants to have good perspective toward us.We,Muslims also learned from the Quran and Hadith
that we should be respecting others, even they're non-Muslim.
I think you just see the negative side of us.Don't get me wrong,I'm not accusing you.
This is the conclusion after I see your posts.
I am learning that Jihad is not only about being in war, but to make peace in order
to attract disbelievers to join our brotherhood.That is my Jihad.
There will be millions of Muslim who will volunteer in war,including me.
But humans are getting intelligent from time to time and besides using destructive method,It's best of us to seat down and discuss this matter peacefully.
This is the reason why I make this topic.