I would agree with you, but you need to change "Islam" to "Fundamentalism". If you exchanged Christianity with Islam, and put them in the same social and economic circumstances as the Middle East, I think you'd have the same. Look at Ireland.

I think there are plenty enough "hooks" in the Christian Old Testament for someone to use if we were just pissed off and uncomfortable enough. That's the answer for the Middle East, in my opinion. It isn't just money, mind you, it's COMFORT.

You get enough people watching Arabian Idol, stuffing their face at the local all-you-can-eat Pizza bar, and looking at free porn on the Internet every night, they'll be a lot less apt to blow themselves up. That's why we don't do it, who the hell wants to blow themselves up when you can scratch your ass and go rent a Gals Gone Wild video?

I went to college with a LOT of wealthy Arab students. They come here to party, then they go home where they are pissed off. If they were off their heads on coke and up to their armpits in the wemenz there, they'd never consider all this high-minded crap.

"I haven't seen any reports of the Irish beheading people lately."

But you have to admit that the decline of terrorism in Ireland can be correlated directly to the level of comfort there. As time went on and their economic situation and education (independent thinking) improved there were less and less attacks. People don't want their leisure screwed up by ideologues.

"I certainly believe that Christianity has almost (almost) enough poison in it that an ideology could hijack it and use it for their cause. But Christianity doesn't espouse a specific form of government which I think is the key difference."

Yet poor, uneducated Christians spent several hundred years being led by state religions. What changed? Education, technology, wealth. Period. We didn't "reform" religion for religion's sake, as can be seen by the opinions of Christian fundamentalists around here and elsewhere.

There are many Christians that would be darned happy with their equivalent of a Caliphate here in the US. You've met some of them here. The reason that is IMPOSSIBLE here is we don't want that stuff messing with our entertainment and leisure. Hell, many of the ones that WANT a Christian caliphate are up to their armpits in debauchery as we find out once they get caught.

The honest ones, i.e. most of them, the people sitting in the pews who vote, would prefer not to have to risk scandal under a religious authority. That's why you won't have it here, and once our culture bleeds into theirs, good or bad as that may be, neither will there be any Muslim nations.

There are many Christians that would be darned happy with their equivalent of a Caliphate here in the US. You've met some of them here.

The problem with your analgoy Bakerstreet is that while some would love to see a nation based upon the literal interpretation of the Bible, they are not burning, rampaging, pillaging and murdering to achieve their ends.  They talk.  They discuss debate and argue.  ANd the few that get violent are roundly denounced, shunned, imprisoned or killed and no one sheds a tear for them. Yet all of the bad traits just mentioned occur with regularity in muslim nations, without denunciation, condemnation or imprisonment for the offenders.

And that is the mote in the eye.

If you make people comfortable, you reduce their willingness to fight and so can win without firing a shot.

Which is exactly why the government will always maintain a welfare state. As long as American poor have color TV's and PS2's, they're not likely to participate in a rebellion.

And we all thought they were stupid!

The problem with your analgoy Bakerstreet is that while some would love to see a nation based upon the literal interpretation of the Bible, they are not burning, rampaging, pillaging and murdering to achieve their ends. They talk.

Because they wouldn't want to endanger their comfort, doc. It isn't the Osama bin Laden nutjobs that make Islam frightening to people, it is the man-on-the-street with nothing to live for. You could have a hundred Osamas, but without the 19 people flying the planes they would amount to pretty much the Unibomber.

We definitely have had Christian bombers. But, you'll say, they are an abberation, the exception to the rule. Nope, I think they prove the rule. The hate is still there, and the propensity to violence within religion is still there.

The difference? Comfort, education, and freedom. Mainly comfort. Drag a kid out of a hovel in Palestine and you have a good chance of indoctrinating him. Drag him away from a comfy couch and an X-Box, and the chance is basically nil.

So it isn't the religion. It's how fertile the field is for hate and violence. Even when we hate, we are Machiavellian enough to take a pass on blowing ourselves up. When you live in the rat hole that is the middle east, the value people on their day-to-day lives is a lot less.

Remember that video of Madeleine Albright negotiating with Kim Jong Il that Brad posted? Here's Jim Baker negotiating with Ahmadinejad -- equally hilarious. I know you all will like it (though the Munich thing is so overdone).

"And it has been documented that none were "poor muslims". All came from well to do or middle class families. Very Similar to the SLA of the 70s here (Patty Hearst poor?). Quite simply, the Al Qaeda whack jobs you hear about are not dirt poor and barely subsistent. Usually, they come from well to do families. So comfort is not an issue."

lol... and the conversation starts all over with post #1...

You're thinking in the narrowest terms. This is a cultural situation as Brad points out, but Islam is just the blunt tool they use. It could be Christianity, it could be Judaism. Average Joe Christians by the hundreds of thousands went to die in Middle East over centuries in the Middle Ages with no other purpose than to kill Saracens for the church.

You'd say, well, that wasn't the fault of Christianity, that's because we were ignorant, uneducated people who mainly lived bleak, pleasureless lives. It wasn't the religion, it was the susceptibility to hate and fundamentalism in people who had yet to have their renaissance and find their individuality and intellectual freedom. To that, I'd say *exactly*.

And it is the same for Islam now, and people who have suffered for over a thousand years without their own renaissance. You can nitpick, but you can't dispute the fact that Christianity has been the excuse for far, far worse than anything al Qaeda has churned out. You'd be hard pressed to find many religions that haven't.

So it isn't religion, is it? I see a huge difference between US Muslims and the Muslims I knew that came from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Same religion with differences far less than between mine and KFC. It is obvious to me that it isn't religion, it is their society, and Islam is just a tool.

You are infuriating, Dr. Guy. I don't know if it is because you just don't have the intellectual tools for debate, or if you are just too lazy to come up with a counterpoint, but I am damned sick of you and your ilk saying that anyone who differs with you is "excusing" terrorism. I, of all people, was accused of "cheering" for terrorists not a week ago by your ilk right here on JU.

I don't excuse Islamic terrorism. I don't excuse the vast majority of Germans who were Roman Catholic. I don't excuse the Crusaders where were Catholic. I don't excuse the tens of thousands of white supremacists in America who claim to be Christians.

I don't excuse Sikh terrorists, I don't excuse protestant and Catholic terrorists in Ireland. I don't excuse "Christian" militias in Africa that commit acts of genocide. I don't excuse untold numbers of wacko religious cults who have killed people.

I don't have to excuse ANYONE to point out that any religion can be perverted into a hateful call to arms. I don't think you really need to look too deeply to see that whether you are an Islamic terrorist or not relies heavily on whether you are influenced by Middle East politics MUCH, MUCH more than Islam. If it were just Islam, we'd have a relative similarity in Western countries, but we don't.

You don't like to look deeply, though. You like for things to be Democrat vs. Republican, Muslim vs. Christian, Liberal vs. Conservative, Atheist vs. Religion, etc. It makes it easier for you, but it doesn't reflect reality.

The actions of even ALL muslims should not be the criteria for judging Islam ITSELF. Looks could be decieving .... especially if the look is from afar and based on misleading media and disinformation.

Replace Muslim with Nazi and Islam with National Socialism. Does it still sound reasonable? And if not, what is the difference?

Would you consider some of the fundamentalist stuff that passes for "religion" down in that section laudable?

Gotta step in here, Baker. As a fundamentalist, I have to tell you, there's not much push for a "worldwide caliphate" as you portray it. I have my beliefs, and others have theirs, but truly I've never asked for anything except the right to practice my faith without government interference.

Yes, there's a push to ban gay marriage (which I DO consider a bit ridiculous, for several reasons, as you know), but barring federal recognition of gay marriages is hardly equivalent to executing someone for renouncing their faith. Even Fred Phelps, for all his idiocy, has not beheaded anybody, nor has he advised his followers to do so. There's simply a lack of widespread examples of Christians strapping bombs to their chests and walking in shopping malls. Even the abortion clinic bombings, as it turned out, were not performed by radical conservative Christians, but by a self avowed atheist.

To tell the truth, I don't know if the radical Islamists are the "true" practitioners of Islam (although their practices are more in line with those of Mohammed, Mohammed did, in fact, live in different times. This doesn't excuse the fact, but it does say you can't directly parallel the two). I have to agree that my personal experiences with Muslims have also been almost universally positive. But then, I've known several people in various militias with whom my experiences have been positive, so those positive experiences don't necessarily give you the full view of the person.

I'm frankly offended that you consider Pat Robertson the moral equivalent of bin Laden, Baker. There's a huge difference between stating words on what you believe God's opinion to be and taking action by killing people. In the former instance, if you're wrong, it doesn't matter much in the big picture because you'll find out in the end; in the latter, it DOES matter, because innocent people DIED for your error.

And since you are already offended at me, Gid, I'll risk a bit more and pose the idea that you aren't really a fundamentalist in the first place. You hold your cards close to the vest in most religious discussions, but even then you don't strike me as fundamentalist at all in your beliefs. Maybe you are coming from a different definition of fundamentalism.


Wait... wait... this irks me. Please point out, Gid, where I morally equated Pat Robertson with bin Laden. I was gonna give you a pass on that, but damn, I'm tired of being ignorantly tarred when people can't come up with a good counter argument.

Quote me, if you would.

Please point out, Gid, where I morally equated Pat Robertson with bin Laden.

In response #9, you seem to be indicating the only difference between Christian and Islamic fundamentalists is comfort level. Maybe I read it wrong, but that seems to be your central theme.

It needs to be noted that bin Laden is not poor, he's not destitute, he is an extremely wealthy man, part of that 1% that so many of the wannabe revolutionaries detest. And he didn't build his wealth on terrorism; he inherited it. He has simply EXPANDED that wealth on terrorism.

I feel there is a HUGE difference between Islamic and Christian fundamentalists. Even the terrorists in Northern Ireland, as bad as they were, did not stoop to the level of the nutjobs of Islam.

hold your cards close to the vest in most religious discussions, but even then you don't strike me as fundamentalist at all in your beliefs. Maybe you are coming from a different definition of fundamentalism.

I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, Baker. While I'm not a "young earth" creationist, I am nonetheless a creationist, and not at all in line with the secularly accepted theory of evolution (I don't discard ALL of evolution, but I am firmly convinced against the idea of INTERspecies evolution, and I believe that man is a separate and distinct creation). I may not be what you define as a fundamentalist, but by a technical definition, I would have to say that I pretty much am.

True, there's a hint of social gospel in my core belief system, but I believe caring for the poor and needy (unconditionally) IS a fundamental belief. And I can provide more than ample scripture to support my view, as you are no doubt aware.

There are enough Muslims in America to make it very, very easy to create a terrorist subculture if they wished it. Why don't they, do you think, if the religion is the issue?

There is a school of thought that states that there are sleeper cells in America working towards that end. That it's a matter of time. I don't know if I wholly subscribe to that school of thought, but I'm not ruling it out entirely as a possibility.

I'd say that 19 people on 9/11/01 certainly proved it's POSSIBLE that there is a terrorist subculture. We can't dismiss the actions of the flying Imams as possible actions of a sleeper cell either.

I'm going to take a leap just to prepare a possible scenario for your consideration. I am by no means presenting it as fact, or even as opinion, but merely as a possibility that you can do with as you wish. It is entirely possible that the subculture DOES exist, but that at the moment Islam is at such a minority status in America that acting would endanger their existence. While I don't approve of our government's tactics, they've proven themselves quite effective in the past at getting rid of such groups in the past when the will strikes them. It is possible these sleeper cells are building up numbers before acting, so they have greater protection.

I wouldn't put that out there even as a serious hypothesis as it is because we already have too much overreaction and hysteria as it is. And we don't need people to act as if an idea grounded wholly in conjecture is in any way fact.