Scrap's conversation
So, my friend J (AKA Scrap), sent me this article and asked for my thoughts on the subject... He may have bitten off more than he could chew. I don't know my response is what he was looking for, or if it even makes sense... I'm running on very little sleep and this response was a stream of consciousness type thing. So, it may be garbled nonsense to anyone but me...
However, I thought the subject was pertinent and I wanted to see if anyone else who is smarter than me had a thought about it... So here's the article, and my response...
The Islamic threat is greater than German and Soviet threats were
By Dennis Prager
Mar 28, 2006
Only four types of individuals can deny the threat to civilization posed by the violence-supporting segment of Islam: the willfully naive, America-haters, Jew-haters and those afraid to confront evil.
Anyone else sees the contemporary reality -- the genocidal Islamic regime in Sudan; the widespread Muslim theological and emotional support for the killing of a Muslim who converts to another religion; the absence of freedom in Muslim-majority countries; the widespread support for Palestinians who randomly murder Israelis; the primitive state in which women are kept in many Muslim countries; the celebration of death; the "honor killings" of daughters; and so much else that is terrible in significant parts of the Muslim world -- knows that civilized humanity has a new evil to fight.
Just as previous generations had to fight Nazism, communism and fascism, our generation has to confront militant Islam.
And whereas there were unique aspects to those evils, there are two unique aspects to the evil emanating from the Islamic world that render this latest threat to humanity particularly difficult to overcome.
One is the number of people who believe in it. This is a new phenomenon among organized evils. Far fewer people believed in Nazism or in communism than believe in Islam generally or in authoritarian Islam specifically. There are one billion Muslims in the world. If just 10 percent believe in the Islam of Hamas, the Taliban, the Sudanese regime, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, bin Ladin, Islamic Jihad, the Finley Park Mosque in London or Hizbollah -- and it is inconceivable that only one of 10 Muslims supports any of these groups' ideologies -- that means a true believing enemy of at least 100 million people. Outside of Germany, how many people believed in Nazism? Outside of Japan, who believed in Japanese imperialism and militarism? And outside of universities, the arts world or Hollywood, how many people believed in Soviet-style totalitarianism?
A far larger number of people believe in Islamic authoritarianism than ever believed in Marxism. Virtually no one living in Marxist countries believed in Marxism or communism. Likewise, far fewer people believed in Nazism, an ideology confined largely to one country for less than one generation. This is one enormous difference between the radical Islamic threat to our civilization and the two previous ones.
But there is yet a second difference that is at least as significant and at least as frightening: Nazis and Communists wanted to live and feared death; Islamic authoritarians love death and loathe life.
That is why MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) worked with the Soviet Union. Communist leaders love life -- they loved their money, their power, their dachas, their mistresses, their fine wines -- and were hardly prepared to give all that up for Marx. But Iran's current leaders celebrate dying, and MAD may not work, because from our perspective, they are indeed mad. MAD only works with the sane.
There is much less you can do against people who value dying more than living.
The existence of an unprecedentedly large number of people wishing to destroy decent civilization as we know it -- and who celebrate their own deaths -- poses a threat the likes of which no civilization in history has had to confront.
The evils committed by Nazism and Communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz.
But the threat is far more serious.
Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, author, and contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
Copyright © 2006 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
My response:
OK... Here are my thoughts...
I agree 100% that militant Islam is a scary and potentially dangerous religion. I think that any religious fanaticism is scary and potentially dangerous... However, snake handlers are only dangerous to themselves.
Anyway, I don't know if it is valid to assume that there are 100 million people who are as extreme with their beliefs as those in Hamas or the Taliban. If there were, the world would be in far more dangerous turmoil than it is now. However, with the US and their dwindling list of alliess flexing and posturing the way they have, it is highly possible that more people will become fanatical about their beliefs. Push people into a corner by threatening their religious beliefs and their way of life, and you are just begging for trouble.
The place where many of our leaders go wrong (IMO), is in thinking that these people will see the American way of life, the freedoms that we have, and will want to be part of that. Like they want to be liberated from their religion and (in our view) it's oppressive rules. That's because most of us don't understand what it means to truly believe in anything. So many of us call ourselves religious, or spiritual, or whatever, but we don't live by the rules that are established in the scriptures that are supposed to be our holy law. (This is using the assumption that most Americans in this argument subscribe to some form of Christianity). To many Americans, religion is a Christmas and Easter event. At most, it's something we do socially on Sunday mornings. But, if you read the Bible you'll see that VERY few people who call themselves Christian truly follow the basic tenets of Christianity. Sure, it's easy to follow MOST of the ten commandments. But Christ was firm in his depiction of the way of life the true believer needed to adhere to in order to make it to heaven. Read the new testament. He lays down the law. Most of America's "religious" citizens live no where near those laws. How important is the pursuit of God in most of our every day lives? According to Christ, it should be #1. But we pursue money, possessions, sex... I don't personally have any problem with these pursuits, but I don't believe in a Christian God, and would never pretend to. But, because of our freedoms, the religion we pursue is a ridiculous bastardization of the one established by Christ.
What's my point? We don't whole heartedly believe in our religion. These people do. Would you be willing to give your life for your god? I say most of us won't. But Christ himself says that this is the way to heaven. (I don't have the exact scripture memorized, or sitting in front of me. It's there, in either Matthew or Mark.) Anyway, we don't understand the tenacity with which these people pursue their god, their heaven. To them, this life is merely a stopping point on their way to god. And they are ready to give everything for their god. This is not something we can understand. (However, to say that Islamic people "love death and loath life", is rhetorical nonsense and fearmongering.)
I think that by pushing these people this way we are opening a can of cobras that could bite us right in the ass... The only way to eliminate the problem is to engage in the extermination of an entire faith. These people aren't going to be swayed to our way of thinking. They aren't going to convert to Christianity. They can't be bullied into changing their beliefs... The only way to get rid of the "problem" is to get rid of the believers. In which case, the Americans would effectively become the Nazis... I'm not saying this is going to happen. And I'm DEFINITELY not saying that this is right. I'm just saying that as this conflict escalates, that is the direction that we will have to take. The harder we push, the tighter Islamics will cling to their beliefs, and IMO the more extreme they will become. Imagine a billion ticks burrowing in deeper and deeper. And the more we pick at them, the more enraged and inflamed they become... And, more dangerous/scary is that the more we pick, the more they reproduce.
Please don't misunderstand... I'm not trying to glorify radical Islam for their firm beliefs and willingness to give everything for them. Although, I certainly wish that I believed in anything with that sort of conviction. Neither am I trying to vilify the US. I think that any form of radicalism is dangerous and scary. That includes radical Islam, and radical right thinkers here.
In my humble opinion, they're all wrong. They're all dangerous. They're all scary. And, once again, the world is in turmoil because of religion. And worse, it doesn't seem to be getting any better... And, worse than that, this time it's not the crusades, or the inquisition. Instead of swords and spears, this is fought with missiles and warheads. There may well be a stormcloud on the horizon if somebody doesn't come up with a good plan. Is there a solution? Not that I can see. And that scares the hell out of me... Except, I don't believe in hell... But we already knew that...
Tenacious d is a fat redhead who is not very smart and is the chief (only) writer for Noxious Stimulation.
Copyright © 2006, Hairy Beanbag Inc.
Update
I have come back to read this after several hours of uninterrupted sleep... I want to clarify that I am NOT condoning, or accepting the idea that the extermination of an entire faith is an OK thing to do. What I mean is, that as we continue to push these people further and further to the extreme, we eliminate the possibility of a peaceful resolution.
My guess is, to the Muslim true believer, the American way of life is as abhorrent as some of their oppressive ideologies might be to us. There is a real lack of understanding between a group of people to whom religion is everything(Islam), and a group of people who are just sort of religious, as long as it doesn't interfere with our lives(American "Christians"). Oil and water.
My guess is, there is only one resolution to this problem. There will have to be an emergence of another prophet. Someone who will be able to give the word of god directly to us. True divine intervention... Since I don't really believe divinity exists, I don't see a true resolution to this problem unless one side or the other relents. That's about all I am going to say about that for now... I want to see if anyone who reads this can make sense of it...
Tenacious d is still a fat redhead. Copyright © 2006, Hairy Beanbag Inc.
However, I thought the subject was pertinent and I wanted to see if anyone else who is smarter than me had a thought about it... So here's the article, and my response...
The Islamic threat is greater than German and Soviet threats were
By Dennis Prager
Mar 28, 2006
Only four types of individuals can deny the threat to civilization posed by the violence-supporting segment of Islam: the willfully naive, America-haters, Jew-haters and those afraid to confront evil.
Anyone else sees the contemporary reality -- the genocidal Islamic regime in Sudan; the widespread Muslim theological and emotional support for the killing of a Muslim who converts to another religion; the absence of freedom in Muslim-majority countries; the widespread support for Palestinians who randomly murder Israelis; the primitive state in which women are kept in many Muslim countries; the celebration of death; the "honor killings" of daughters; and so much else that is terrible in significant parts of the Muslim world -- knows that civilized humanity has a new evil to fight.
Just as previous generations had to fight Nazism, communism and fascism, our generation has to confront militant Islam.
And whereas there were unique aspects to those evils, there are two unique aspects to the evil emanating from the Islamic world that render this latest threat to humanity particularly difficult to overcome.
One is the number of people who believe in it. This is a new phenomenon among organized evils. Far fewer people believed in Nazism or in communism than believe in Islam generally or in authoritarian Islam specifically. There are one billion Muslims in the world. If just 10 percent believe in the Islam of Hamas, the Taliban, the Sudanese regime, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, bin Ladin, Islamic Jihad, the Finley Park Mosque in London or Hizbollah -- and it is inconceivable that only one of 10 Muslims supports any of these groups' ideologies -- that means a true believing enemy of at least 100 million people. Outside of Germany, how many people believed in Nazism? Outside of Japan, who believed in Japanese imperialism and militarism? And outside of universities, the arts world or Hollywood, how many people believed in Soviet-style totalitarianism?
A far larger number of people believe in Islamic authoritarianism than ever believed in Marxism. Virtually no one living in Marxist countries believed in Marxism or communism. Likewise, far fewer people believed in Nazism, an ideology confined largely to one country for less than one generation. This is one enormous difference between the radical Islamic threat to our civilization and the two previous ones.
But there is yet a second difference that is at least as significant and at least as frightening: Nazis and Communists wanted to live and feared death; Islamic authoritarians love death and loathe life.
That is why MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) worked with the Soviet Union. Communist leaders love life -- they loved their money, their power, their dachas, their mistresses, their fine wines -- and were hardly prepared to give all that up for Marx. But Iran's current leaders celebrate dying, and MAD may not work, because from our perspective, they are indeed mad. MAD only works with the sane.
There is much less you can do against people who value dying more than living.
The existence of an unprecedentedly large number of people wishing to destroy decent civilization as we know it -- and who celebrate their own deaths -- poses a threat the likes of which no civilization in history has had to confront.
The evils committed by Nazism and Communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz.
But the threat is far more serious.
Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, author, and contributing columnist for Townhall.com.
Copyright © 2006 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
My response:
OK... Here are my thoughts...
I agree 100% that militant Islam is a scary and potentially dangerous religion. I think that any religious fanaticism is scary and potentially dangerous... However, snake handlers are only dangerous to themselves.
Anyway, I don't know if it is valid to assume that there are 100 million people who are as extreme with their beliefs as those in Hamas or the Taliban. If there were, the world would be in far more dangerous turmoil than it is now. However, with the US and their dwindling list of alliess flexing and posturing the way they have, it is highly possible that more people will become fanatical about their beliefs. Push people into a corner by threatening their religious beliefs and their way of life, and you are just begging for trouble.
The place where many of our leaders go wrong (IMO), is in thinking that these people will see the American way of life, the freedoms that we have, and will want to be part of that. Like they want to be liberated from their religion and (in our view) it's oppressive rules. That's because most of us don't understand what it means to truly believe in anything. So many of us call ourselves religious, or spiritual, or whatever, but we don't live by the rules that are established in the scriptures that are supposed to be our holy law. (This is using the assumption that most Americans in this argument subscribe to some form of Christianity). To many Americans, religion is a Christmas and Easter event. At most, it's something we do socially on Sunday mornings. But, if you read the Bible you'll see that VERY few people who call themselves Christian truly follow the basic tenets of Christianity. Sure, it's easy to follow MOST of the ten commandments. But Christ was firm in his depiction of the way of life the true believer needed to adhere to in order to make it to heaven. Read the new testament. He lays down the law. Most of America's "religious" citizens live no where near those laws. How important is the pursuit of God in most of our every day lives? According to Christ, it should be #1. But we pursue money, possessions, sex... I don't personally have any problem with these pursuits, but I don't believe in a Christian God, and would never pretend to. But, because of our freedoms, the religion we pursue is a ridiculous bastardization of the one established by Christ.
What's my point? We don't whole heartedly believe in our religion. These people do. Would you be willing to give your life for your god? I say most of us won't. But Christ himself says that this is the way to heaven. (I don't have the exact scripture memorized, or sitting in front of me. It's there, in either Matthew or Mark.) Anyway, we don't understand the tenacity with which these people pursue their god, their heaven. To them, this life is merely a stopping point on their way to god. And they are ready to give everything for their god. This is not something we can understand. (However, to say that Islamic people "love death and loath life", is rhetorical nonsense and fearmongering.)
I think that by pushing these people this way we are opening a can of cobras that could bite us right in the ass... The only way to eliminate the problem is to engage in the extermination of an entire faith. These people aren't going to be swayed to our way of thinking. They aren't going to convert to Christianity. They can't be bullied into changing their beliefs... The only way to get rid of the "problem" is to get rid of the believers. In which case, the Americans would effectively become the Nazis... I'm not saying this is going to happen. And I'm DEFINITELY not saying that this is right. I'm just saying that as this conflict escalates, that is the direction that we will have to take. The harder we push, the tighter Islamics will cling to their beliefs, and IMO the more extreme they will become. Imagine a billion ticks burrowing in deeper and deeper. And the more we pick at them, the more enraged and inflamed they become... And, more dangerous/scary is that the more we pick, the more they reproduce.
Please don't misunderstand... I'm not trying to glorify radical Islam for their firm beliefs and willingness to give everything for them. Although, I certainly wish that I believed in anything with that sort of conviction. Neither am I trying to vilify the US. I think that any form of radicalism is dangerous and scary. That includes radical Islam, and radical right thinkers here.
In my humble opinion, they're all wrong. They're all dangerous. They're all scary. And, once again, the world is in turmoil because of religion. And worse, it doesn't seem to be getting any better... And, worse than that, this time it's not the crusades, or the inquisition. Instead of swords and spears, this is fought with missiles and warheads. There may well be a stormcloud on the horizon if somebody doesn't come up with a good plan. Is there a solution? Not that I can see. And that scares the hell out of me... Except, I don't believe in hell... But we already knew that...
Tenacious d is a fat redhead who is not very smart and is the chief (only) writer for Noxious Stimulation.
Copyright © 2006, Hairy Beanbag Inc.
Update
I have come back to read this after several hours of uninterrupted sleep... I want to clarify that I am NOT condoning, or accepting the idea that the extermination of an entire faith is an OK thing to do. What I mean is, that as we continue to push these people further and further to the extreme, we eliminate the possibility of a peaceful resolution.
My guess is, to the Muslim true believer, the American way of life is as abhorrent as some of their oppressive ideologies might be to us. There is a real lack of understanding between a group of people to whom religion is everything(Islam), and a group of people who are just sort of religious, as long as it doesn't interfere with our lives(American "Christians"). Oil and water.
My guess is, there is only one resolution to this problem. There will have to be an emergence of another prophet. Someone who will be able to give the word of god directly to us. True divine intervention... Since I don't really believe divinity exists, I don't see a true resolution to this problem unless one side or the other relents. That's about all I am going to say about that for now... I want to see if anyone who reads this can make sense of it...
Tenacious d is still a fat redhead. Copyright © 2006, Hairy Beanbag Inc.
posted by Marklar at 13:43
5 Letters to the editor
