HS. What a movie

[haygood at myway.com (Brian Haygood)]

WOT Historical, Theological and ~Political.  You've been warned.



Julie, your question is answered at the end.



I saw an interesting piece on that topic on History Channel the other day.  They had people talking about islam and saying how the Koran verses about wiping out other people had often been misinterprated.  Obviously some people think the verses say you can kill anyone, while others say they only allow you to attack "aggressors" and to defend your land.  Did you ever notice how every time you hear some statement from some attacking muslims it labels their victims as "aggressors".  Kinda makes sense now, doesn't it?  In practice, Muhammed (sp?) and his followers in Medina were attacked by the Meccan's.  They not only defended themselves, but attacked the city of Mecca and took it over as their own.  I can't help but wonder what he would have done next, but he died two years later.  



To me it is all about Muhammed gaining power by declaring himself better than others and finding a cause or enemy to rally behind.  Sounds a lot like Ceasar, Alexander, John Smith (Mormons), and on down the line to Stalin, Hitler, etc.  Muhammed was obviously way better than idiots like Stalin and Hitler at what he did, and you'd be insulting Muhammed to equate them.  



The other interesting point of the show was that Islam claims that the same message was given to the prophets Moses and Jesus as was given to Muhammed.  They claim that the Koran (Muhammed's teachings, which were compiled years after his death) are the true revelation God was trying to give each of them, but that the others were distorted.  What struck me as funny is that the "mistakes" made in the Bible and Torah include such subtle things, like the idea of a messiah, salvation, etc.  If you removed every reference to a coming Messiah from the Torah, and each reference of Jesus as a savior, son of God, part of God, etc. from those books, there simply wouldn't be anything left.  You are left with Jesus as a great prophet, like Muhammed says, but seriously confused about who he is, why he is here, what he is to do, etc.  Could it be that distortions make up the fundamental concepts iterrated again and again and again in these books?  What, are they just typos?   



Obviously you have to be pretty unfamiliar with Judaism and Christianity to buy in to that sort of thing.  



...anyway, Muhammed was a total genius.



How's that for a WOT rambling.  



Back to the original question:



Why don't the moderates stop most of the stuff we see going on?  Well, first of all, they have a different idea of what it means to "defend" themselves than we do, apparently.  Iran even has the gall to say they haven't attacked anyone in over 50 years, and that they never will do so (their ambassador to the UN said this recently).  Sure, if you don't consider training, supplying, directing, harboring, and financing people to fight your battles for you.  In that sense, the US hasn't attacked anyone since 1862, either.  We just train and equip an army, air force, marines, coast guard and navy that sometimes do that sort of thing.  



Now there certainly must be good hearted moderates out there who really don't think this stuff should be going on.  I'm really sure there are.  However, we can't expect them to have any better luck ensuring that others don't do wrong than we do.  There is certainly no shortage of whackos within christianity or judaism.  To date I'm not sure the Muslims have done much worse than the "christians" who attacked them ruthlessly during the crusades.  That was a bunch of guys blatantly ignoring what their theology demanded.  At least the Koran gives mulsims ways to soft-shoe around what they are doing.



Last statement:  People do things that are wrong, whether you are decieved into blowing up people for some political goal of a "religious" leader, or just into lying when its convenient, we all do wrong things to some degree.  Jesus claimed that, regardless of the severity of what we do, we all can be forgiven.  Maybe he was just misquoted all the many times he said that, as Islam teaches, or maybe he was right.



/rant



Brian













 --- On Thu 08/24,  < julie@menloparkrandd.com > wrote:

From:  [mailto: julie@menloparkrandd.com]

To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org

Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:58:08 +0000

Subject: HS. What a movie



I just watched Flight 93. Glad my daughters out for the night.<br>Its the herdest movie I have ever watched.<br><br>If Isam is so peaceful, why are not more Muslims trying to stop the extremists.<br><br>Sorry for the post. Just very upset.<br><br>Scirocco content: I drove shadow today, Big Reds going tomorrow<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Scirocco-l mailing list<br>Scirocco-l@scirocco.org<br>http://neubayern.net/mailman/listinfo/scirocco-l<br>

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