Malaysian firebombings over "Allah" use

yeah, that's mature.

...and therein lies the paradox!

what an ironically ignorant thing to say

lmao@ianakaeeen, You seem to be such a divine oracle of wisdom making an insipid statement as that, and exactly where do you suggest we get our wisdom from...you? the t.v.?Bill O'Reilly? Oprah? I have a quote for you that rings true, "Even a fool is thought wise until he opens his mouth." Google it if you can't figure out where that quote came from!!!

to choirtramps23: You have obviously missed my point. Ianakaeeen was referring to wisdom, not knowledge. The two have separate meanings but are inherently similar hence the confusion. Wisdom: The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of such experience, knowledge and good judgement. Knowledge: Applies to any body of facts gathered by study, observation or experience, and to the ideas inferred from these facts. (The difference is learning and application. Knowledge is the gathering of facts by study, observation, ext. Wisdom is the practical application of knowledge, and hopefully sound judgement used with discretion.) Choirtramps23 You seem to have a sophist view of my aforementioned statement to ianakeeen, use a dictionary next time or didn't they teach you to use one in college?

I thought the point of my comment was straightforward and to the point not indeterminate or vague. Ianakeen was calling everyone insane who places their wisdom in books, "a couple of thousand years old." I was pointing out the fact that he/she was an imbecile for making such an obtuse blanket statement about something they know nothing about! Anyway this conversation of ours seems to be pointless, (even though I enjoyed talking with you about it, you seem to be an intelligent, sincere person) so I am going to end it and bid you aDieu...

nice video, keep up the good stuff.

I guess he was too busy strolling to video the carnage at the bombed out churches? Self righteous little pricks have filled the media with their personal opinions rather than reporting the facts of extremist Muslim actions, secretly or openly sanctioned by leaders of the Muslim communities. The recent history of Afghanistan, Iran, and other Muslim countries testifies to the fact that moderate Muslims have no control over the extremists. Put that in your hookah and smoke it for awhile.

are you trying to instigate a fight? because that is the most ignorant bigoted predjudice thing ive heard all god damn day.

Islam is a lie, and the truth exposes it.
It quite likely is the only factual and honest statement posted here so far, and I could care less if you believe I'm bigoted or not.

2hellnwait, i dont need to believe your bigoted, your obviously bigoted. there is nothing factual or honest about your statement. ya know its people like you who are gonna escalate these wars to the next level. and ideas like yours that lead to senseless violence.

@goodname, read "A God Who Hates" by Wafa Sultan, she “speaks out against the evils of Islam and she essentially reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, it is not a few “radical Jihadists” who are guilty of distorting otherwise warm and fuzzy Islamic precepts, but rather the culprit in engendering this kind of vitriolic hatred and bloodlust is none other than the Koran itself, along with the paradigm of the prophet Muhammad and the “god” known as Allah.

Granted, this is not the popular and politically correct view of "the religion of peace" that has been falsely propagated upon the masses who haven't a clue of what the 'world' is just now becoming aware of, and which doesn't have the political will or guts to deal with.

Citing a gamut of Koranic verses and providing concrete historical evidence dating back to the 7th century, Sultan proves that the predicate for Islam is unadulterated fear, violence, hatred of the other, theft and murder. From the genesis of the Islamic movement, the author informs us of Arab nomadic tribes raiding one another in bloodthirsty rampages that left sheer devastation in their wake.

Thus, the religion of Islam instills a hatred of the infidel, “the other” and anyone who does not subscribe to the tenets of their bellicose belief system. History has recorded that scores of heinous murders of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs were perpetrated by the hands of Allah’s followers. Because their god is described in the Koran as “The Harmer:, “The Avenger”, “The Compeller” and “The Imperious”, it is Sultan’s view that the Islamic people have internalized such labels and have sought to emulate the rudimentary character of their deity. Brutal savagery towards anyone they perceive to be a threat and even against one another is one of the modalities through which Muslims actualized these “godly” traits.

Muhammad was a man bereft of moral authority; a pedophile and a purveyor or violence and falsehood; He gave his tacit approval to his followers to continue on the trajectory of “holiness” by engaging in hostile acts of religious zealotry, without regard for human life.

Therefore, might I suggest that you lose the fifth column mentality and take the time to actually pay attention to the carnage this theocratic mental dis-ease has perpetrated upon all mankind since its inception?

really? do you think that this book by 1 disenfranchised ex-muslim is the ultimate proof that islam is evil? how about the thousands of other books that due in fact present islam as a religion of peace, are they null and void now that ms sultan says otherwise?

pretty weak, just like using a book review from the anti-muslim, pro-israel, homophobic, christian web-site worshippingchristian.org

sigh

*sigh*. . . It appears to me that you're an Islamic apologist, and in no way will you succumb to the barbaric reality of the murderous atrocities attributed and continually perpetrated on innocents daily by 'good' Muslims in the name of 'Allah'. . . you need not look long or far to witness the violent evidence of the "religion of peace," but then you cannot see with eyes and mind shut, can you?

gasp, an islamic appologist, why golly i never saw it that way, ya mean really i might be one. oh boy im scared, guess i better open my heart to christ so that he might open my mind and erase all the evil islamic educations that i learned. mister you think theres a chance i might even become as open-minded as you?

Because you asked, it is questionable.

shazam.

nail on the head.

I think you missed the nail.

Religion is not a cancer: zealotry is a cancer.

...yeah, but does that confusion really excuse firebombing churches? =/

absolutely not, but it did shed a bit more light on the issue...education...

Why all the distinctions for the different gods of the different religions. Aren't they all the same god?

Azharul, I salute you! First of all, even though you were struggling with a foreign language, you managed to be clearer than many Current folks for whom English is their mother language. That's no small feat. Excellent work.

Second, your post was extremely educational, and gets to the root of a question I had. Knowing that Malay was the local language, I was very curious about WHY the local Catholics had chosen to use "Allah" instead of the malay word for God (tuhan, as you informed us), and therefore what would be the contextual interpretation for describing God as "Allah" instead of Tuhan Kristian, as you explained.

From your response, I can only conclude that the use of Allah was a not-so-subtle attempt by the Catholics to inform Muslim Malays that the "Tuhan Kristian" and the Tuhan Muslim are the same, but that Jesus was the "son" of that same God. And that makes sense considring the Malasian court finding that the Catholic church was trying to convert Muslims.

Not that I have a problem with that...I think all religions have the right to try to spread the word. What bothers me is that ANY religion thinks it has the right to kill anyone who converts away from them. Maybe if they did a better Public Relations job and more communty services, they wouldn't have that problem.

...just saying...

A-men...er...I concur...

true, never seen a fundamental atheist blow themselves up. is there even a such thing as a fundamental atheist?

whoa dont get your panties in a bunch you two. not attacking atheism here, l

look, religion is not all bad, it even makes some people happy. some people even use it to better their lives.
lack of religion is not bad either, it shows a higher level of reasoning, and encourages the much needed questioning of long held beliefs.

whichever side your gonna go to, thats your thing, i just think, IM MY OPINION, that its really annoying when somebody comes up to me saying that i need to have jesus in my heart, or else im gonna go to hell, or that i need to pray 5 times a day or im gonna go to hell, or that religion is bullshit, never did anything good for anyone, and that anyone who belives in it is some kind of savage mental defective.
ya know?

I hate it when I agree with you. In this case...I do.

Not that you care.

@ choirtramps23: umm... china? no offense, but being atheist does not automatically make one a pacifist.

true that. again i wasnt trying to be rude. sigh... typing and it's lack of inflection.

"absolute bs, the cause of this, is the same of that of your comment: lack of education"

-goodname

when it comes down to it, we should consider all religions themselves a lack education. and to some of your further comments, yeah, it is true that the religious texts, for the most part, dont condone violence or hate or corruption, but it is only a book and subject to the short comes and misinterpretations of the people who preach it. it could in all reality be the truth, but once it leaves the mouth of anyone it has inherited some specific meaning in reflection of that persons own beliefs and concerns.

and so you dont misinterpret what i am saying, spirituality and religion are 2 different things now a days, i have no qualms with spirituality and like to think myself quite spiritual, but when we look at the true history of religion without bias, it is something based in control, structure and predigests meant to coral and give meaning to the most impoverish among us.

in all truth, this was completely the fault of religion, however fringe you want to claim it.

ya know it seems that it dosent matter what i actually say, people are just gonna read what they want. i never said this didnt have to do with religion, in fact i said this had everything to do with religion, albeit a sad interpretation of it.

look, religion is not all bad, it even makes some people happy. some people even use it to better their lives.
lack of religion is not bad either, it shows a higher level of reasoning, and encourages the much needed questioning of long held beliefs.

on each side people are going to come up short, and fuck up. take a look at street crime, gangs,gun crime in the us, the drug war, things like that. i would consider most of the people involved godless, although not card carrying atheists its clear they dont uphold the basic principals of any religion. in the same way neither do terrorists, neither do corrupt govt officials....

goodname, it could be that the reason no one seems to understand what you say is because 1) you are not very clear, and hence, not a very good writer, or 2) whatever you say simply makes no sense even when it is expressed well.

Now, on another note, in response to whatever was comprehensible in your post...

while it's nice of you to try to make Islam out to be a swell religion, your post obviates the fact that, throughout the Muslim world, it is a crime punishable by death to convert from Islam--not coincidentally, this is the fact at the heart of this recent clash.

Hardly an example of tolerance and peace, and since it is a general characteristic of the faith across the globe, it's not unfair to say that it is an indictment against the religion as a whole, and not just a few "extremists".

absolute bs, the cause of this, is the same of that of your comment: lack of education

So you think China being like the Middle East would be a good idea?

thats nowhere near the point i made. at all.

My point is, do you really think China becoming Muslim would make the world MORE peaceful?

That India—were it to convert to the faith of its brethren Pakistan—would become MORE stable?

That Japan and South Korea would have accomplished as much as they have had they shared the same faith of Indonesia?

Why does Turkey lag so far behind its European peers, despite having a population larger than all but Germany and Russia? It has a smaller GDP than the freakin' Netherlands, despite having four times the population. And don't attribute it to European imperialism, because the Ottoman Empire was by all measures *larger* than the Dutch Empire.

to restate my point; blaming the failings of southeast asia soley on religion, is uneducated, and naive.
there are so many more, more important, factors to take into account in the examples that you mention. poor leadership, and lack of education and resources are the first to come to mind.

it dosent matter what religion the people any country have, as long as they have the intention to learn, to teach, to grow, to make the world a better place, rather than to tear it apart.

Why is there such poor leadership in Muslim countries?

Why is there lack of education in Muslim countries?

It certainly ain't lack of resources, unless you don't count oil as a resource. -_-

could you stick to a point, are you trying to talk about Indonesia or saudi arabia? would you like to compare china to lebanon, or iran?

neither of the 2 questions you asked have simple answers, in fact they have very long and complex answers that vary from country to country.

religion is not the one and only answer to either of them, that is my point,

i will also point out that muslim countries arnt the only underdevolped countries in the world. look at the economys of non-muslim africa, and eastern europe and tell me if its any better there, look at human rights in china and north korea, and let me know.

which brings me back to my second point. Human decency, and tolerance. the worlds problems are not confined to one part of the world, one branch of religion, or any religion at all. these problems stem mainly from gross intolerance and greed, which NO religion preaches.

My "point" is Islam's political influence on countries in the contemporary era, so any country where Islam is the state religion is fair game.

Just because non-Muslim countries also have problems doesn't mean Islam isn't necessarily a negative influence on the countries in which it connotes political power. Just because totalitarianism is bad doesn't mean anarchy isn't. The USSR was bad for Eastern Europe, and non-Soviet countries that were also bad doesn't in any way discredit this claim.

Living standards are far higher in China than in the Middle East, and they continue to improve daily. China has a higher life expectancy than Turkey, Egypt, Iran, or Indonesia; and even North Korea has a higher life expectancy than Pakistan or Bangladesh.

firstly, i dont think life expectancy is in any way indicative of the quality of life.

secondly, the political systems in the muslim world are among the most corrupt on the planet, however the political games being played there are just that, political. the saudi royal family are arguably the most influential people in this world, there are also amoung the least muslim. to use the countrys vast oil wealth for yachts and palaces while millions of saudis are living in poverty is not islam.

(Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the Angels, the Books, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves." ) (2:177)

Political corruption, greed, intolerance, are all non-muslim. every religion for that matter preaches against these things...

I would like to add that the religion in these countries IS deeply ingrained in their politics and therefore in their failings. You spoke of being naive but on your part it is lack of experience people from very Westernized countries take for granted separation of State and Church and it's affect on the people and the country as a whole.

true that religion is ingrained in some of the political systems of these countries, however the corrupt govts of these countries use a very old, very conservative, interpretation of islam, and they only use it on certain levels.
the saudi example above makes it clear that the govts of these countries pick and choose which part of islam to use for their benefit and conveniently disregard some parts that dont suit their agenda, or bank accounts, the terrorist twist islam in the same way.

also this stone age version of islam that the govts of countries like saudi and iran are using is not reflective in any way of what the citizens of those countries want. the fact remains that the people in these countries, though they dont agree with these political systems, are still muslim.

calm, you are very uneducated, or so it would seem. Especially your use of "Muslim and Islam". You said it would be bad if China became "Muslim" Muslim means(translated) "one who submits to Allah" and Islamic means "submitting to Allah" Islamic is the word.

@ greendarthpotato:

Ok, so you made a claim...

[/waits for you to support it with examples]

im sorry i believe i missed all of the valid points he made, other than life expectancy is higher in china than some muslim countries. and looking back i still dont see any points, i do see the assertions that if people in other countries converted to islam that they would fall behind.

he not only argues that religion is a significant contributor,rather that it is the most significant with headlining statements like:
"Southeast Asia—going to hell, thanks to Islam."
and the questions regarding education and leadership suggest they fall behind islam as a contributor.

also i dont like to be misquoted, and i stick by my statement that:"blaming the failings of southeast asia soley on religion, is uneducated, and naive"

as far as religion goes, i'll restate my idea so it can't be nit-picked. No religion uses greed,intolerance,or violence as its predominate doctrine.

i also never said or even suggested that religion and politics wernt contingent upon each other. i actually said the exact opposite, while adding that the form of religion used in some of these govts, is archiac, twisted and tailored to the will of the ruling parties. or as you put it "government exploits the Muslim faith" i do disagree with "the Muslim faith controls government motives. " i believe in this case that greed controls the govt motives, and that greed is more than frowned on by islam.

lastly i dont think that calm_incense is dumb, if i did i wouldnt be arguing with them.
all im trying to do here is trying to get people to look at this in a different way. instead of blaming islam for things like this, understand that these people are simply shitty human beings regardless of what they call themselves. they do things in the name of islam to
A) hide behind the sheild of a religion of almost 2 billion
B) further their own twisted agendas. contempt breeds contempt and the more people who start to blame islam for things like this, the more followers these people can get simply by saying that the west, or whomever is out to get them.

Hello Calm_incense. I can offer you an explanation regarding the Philippines' Islamic Rebellion as it's something I'm most familiar with.

Right after the Spanish-American war, The US bought most of Spain's colonies for a cool USD 20 million (The Philippines Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam). The US then opted to "free" Cuba but keep the Philippines as a colony (Until July 4,1946). The Spaniards, having conquered 2/3 of the northern islands of modern day Philippines were never able to control the last 1/3 (Mindanao) and convert it to Catholicism. In the treaty they signed earlier in 1878, the Moros were but a protectorate of Spain and not subjects. Mindanao was practically independent up until the end of the 19th century.

When the Americans took control of the Philippines, the Sultan in Sulu tried to resist American control but eventually acquiesced. When the Philippines was given independence by the US in 1946, control over Mindanao was ceded to the fledgling Philippine Republic, which then immediately sent Christian settlers to Mindanao, infringing on the property rights of the Muslims there.

In 1967, Nur Missuari, a Muslim leader from Mindanao, started a campaign under the Muslim National League to secede Mindanao from Philippine control but was attacked by the army. He then started the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and their armed group the Bangsamoro Army and the rest is still history in the making.

So as far as the Islamic "insurgents" in Mindanao are concerned, it's their land.

I'd bet the same goes for other "rebellions" too -- the group feels marginalized and persecuted so they fight for their freedom. Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian Federation because they were too Chinese (Lee Kwan Yew even cried then, but guess who has the last laugh); East Timor, a predominantly Christian area, seceded from Indonesia, etc.

Hi Goodname,

Southeast Asia was but a bunch of colony conquered during the rise of Europe. The West too rose up in the backdrop of weakening superpowers of their day -- The Ottoman empire was already 800 years old by 1923; The Qing empire of China was already 500 years old by 1912; The Mughal empire disintegrated by 1858 (300 years old) and absorbed by the Brits. Sclerosis usually take hold of the bureaucracy of political systems in a few decades, making reform unlikely (which we're seeing in the US right now as well -- after only about 200 years old).

The West is said to colonize Asia because during the pre-industrial age, the West offered mostly gold and silver to trade with (the major reason why the Opium war was started against China). To make money, the West thought it best to control the ports of exit and entry as well as the trade itself.

When the industrial revolution began, the colonizers further destroyed local industries by having them trade raw materials with finished products from the West (with economies of scale, there's no way hand made goods can compete with manufactured products just with price alone -- and price is the way to reach the mass market).

Sure, the age of colonies and empires disintegrated but a new system is in place with the WTO. IMO Japan, S. Korea, Germany, Israel and Singapore were allowed to be protectionists in their policies to keep the Soviets at bay during the Cold War. China got into the game too, only after she opened up with the US to further alienate Russia.

Malaysia's been attempting the same protectionist strategy since about the 70s with varied results by far due in part with a smaller base market and highly competitive inter-nation trade IMO.

im gonna keep it as simple as possible this time.
"Greed may be a factor as well; however, religion serves to provide refuge and marketability to avarice."

from the quran
"Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the Angels, the Books, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves." ) (2:177)

"when interpreted and practiced, religious texts become tools intent upon the destruction of humanity."

surely anyone who interprets religious texts in that way can be classified as a hypocrite,and a monster. ex: terrorists, corrupt govt officials.

Just so you know your comment was written very confusingly. It looses meaning.