I met an Islamofacist

[Solaris]

Today in sixth form, I was discussing "God is not great" by Christopher Hitchens with a friend to whom I had lent my copy. I casually mentioned I saw Christopher Hitchens on Question time in a youtube video defending the Nighthood of Salmond Rushdie. And an Asian fellow who is in my year jumped in and said something like:
"Salmond Rushdie is a dick head, he should be killed", he then went on to explain how Rushdie was a racist and deserved to die and how if he had the chance he would kill him himself with whatever tools he had at hand, even if it meant his own death in the process.

I tried to reason with him, but he said when you insult Islam you deserve it. He then talked about how the west had declared war on Islam in Iraq and such, and re-iterated his hatred of Rushdie.

I was absolutely shocked that he would say that, his Asian and presumably Muslim freinds were not as outspoken, but a few did indeed nod in agreement.

I was utterly shocked.

Discuss:

 

[99.vikram]

I think Rushdie is awesome for what he did. Yay, knighthood! :E

 

[Nemesis6]

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/behead_those_who_insult_islam.jpg

 

[kirovman]

How if he had the chance he would kill him himself with whatever tools he had at hand, even if it meant his own death in the process.

Can't he just hang himself like normal emos?

Will he kamikaze himself in the name of the Emperor? Like a good Shinto student.

It's not much different, although this train of thought is much more pan-national.

 

[Laivasse]

'Islamist extremism' is more widespread than we can possibly acknowledge without invoking lots of paranoid Islamophobic hysteria. It is not just a case of 'some people are mad and violent about their religion, the rest smoke eternally the pipe of peace'. In reality, there are a lot of gradations. (1) You have the hardcore minute minority who hold highly radical views and are prepared to act them out violently, and (2) you have a far larger proportion of people who silently agree with the former group but who are generally too cowardly and self-absorbed to take action personally. Then (3) you have those who pay lip service to pacifism but who still believe in an overarching zionist conspiracy; who think that the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings were inside jobs and who hold a dislike of western authority that goes beyond the rational (and that's really saying something). Then there is the final group, (4) who honestly decry violence in all its forms and condemn anyone who uses Islam to justify it, and who believe in cooperation with the government.

I don't want to overgeneralise, and I acknowledge that of course Muslims can hold more complex and different views to these. However even this generalisation is less of a generalisation than the idea that 'it's just a few bad apples'. The views that I have heard from the muslim community can be broadly broken up into the above 4 categories, so to me it's an accurate summary.

I'm not going to pretend I know exactly how tose views are represented within the muslim community, but I do suspect that the more hateful views are held by more muslims than we'd like to acknowledge. Sounds like you, Solaris, ran into a guy from my group number 2. Hell, in this shitty police state you could probably report him and have him investigated for glorifying terrorism.

What pisses me off is that even among group 4, the comparative hippies, there are people who are massively right wing and who very uncomfortable, for example, with the notion of freedom of speech, or the freedom of non-believers to 'blaspheme'.

Basically Islam/most religion is too much of a mind cancer for you to expect its followers to respond well to rational argument when dealing with a conflict of interests (since even many priests and imams will happily define faith as an irrational thing). The answer...?



...KILL THEM ALL. You know it makes sense.

 

[leib10]

When working at Village Inn, I served two Palestinian nationals who were delighted at Hamas's coup d'etat.

 

[Asknoone]

Retards happen, what can you do.

 

[Absinthe]

Laivasse got it right on the money.

 

[Polaris]

Report him.
Christopher Hitchens is great, btw.

 

[CptStern]

Dear Anti-Islamowammofacists

My secretary wears a hood on her head and I've never seen her legs (could be a satyr) ..should I club her to death as a perventative measure?

Signed, concerned employee

 

[Gray Fox]

There is a good article that might explain why Islam seem to produce the most violent followers. I do not agree totally with it's conclusion, but it's a good read nonetheless.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/Ohmyrus/Once_were_warriors.htm

 

[Godron]

We need psychology. Politics is all about people, we need to understand how people work before we can do anything to control them beyond threatening them with laws. I can't see how we're to do anything to actually stop extremism itself without understanding the psychology behind it. We can arrest them and try to increase security, but they only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky all the time. So we need to stop the cause - the poisoned thinking itself.

Oh wait, just noticed Grey Fox's link...

BTW, <3 Laivasse

Dear Anti-Islamowammofacists

My secretary wears a hood on her head and I've never seen her legs (could be a satyr) ..should I club her to death as a perventative measure?

Signed, concerned employee

D:

 

[ehudyoda]

com'on

...
I was utterly shocked.

utterly shocked ? utterly shocked ???

Sorry, but, thats pathetic.

 

[kirovman]

utterly shocked ? utterly shocked ???

Sorry, but, thats pathetic.

What was his emotion supposed to be?

Ragingly livid?

Manically depressed?

Entirely satisfied?



Why is it pathetic to be shocked at something that is shocking?

 

[Godron]

OK, just read Grey Fox's article link thing. Vera interesting; it doesn't look at the psychology of the religion, but its explanation of why Islam is the way it is seems pretty sound...
The bit I don't get is all this stuff about how Islam fails Muslims in the modern world of t3h internets.

Islam is like the specialists. It prospered because its ethos makes it very successful as a medieval war machine when men fought with swords, bows and spears. But these same values make Muslims ill-equipped in an industrial and now post industrial world.

But it said Islam is about motivating people, not military tactics.

Muslim women are not encouraged to work. It is a fact that women who stay at home tend to produce more children than those who go out to work. A high fertility rate may be a military advantage in an era when men fought with primitive weapons, but this is a handicap in the era of the internet.

... I'd have thought that military strength would always be increased by a high population, regardless of how many internets there are. Hell, the fertility rate of something 6.5 kids per Muslim woman means they could win a war simply by outbreeding their opponents. In fact, something tells me they already are.

Today, a high fertility rate leads to poverty in third world countries

Wouldn't this have always been the case?

But these same qualities are handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Today they lead to poverty, belligerency, war and defeat. Many Muslims look back with fondness to their days of glory and try to recover their former days by using the old methods. That is why there is today a rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism across the Muslim world. They are bewildered at their weakness and look for conspiracy theories. Muslims think their failure is due to some Jewish or American plot not realizing that failure comes from within themselves. They are out of touch with reality.

Once were warriors, Muslims are now like Don Quixote tilting at windmills in a world they no longer understand.

These last two paragraphs really don't make sense.
How can Muslims be nostalgic about a centuries-old lifestyle they never lived? And guerilla warfare and terrorism are hardly "old methods", AFAIK. How can modern Muslims "no longer understand" the modern world if they've lived in it all their lives?

TBH, some of those claims seem a bit irrational, especially about their resorting to conspiracy theories. Another thing that caught my eye about that article was:

The trick is to stop thinking that Islam, like other religions, was designed primarily to uplift humanity from barbarism by making us kinder, more forgiving and so on.

Other religions? AFAIK, the only religion that was specifically designed to do that is Buddhism. Christianity does have a lot of good in it, but the Old Testament, which is where it all started, is just full of shit, as we all know. Just read Leviticus.


Other than that though, great read!

 

[Sulkdodds]

Surreal.

I've never yet had the (mis?) fortune to meet a proper bastard of that particular ideology, although I have known people who say that Palestinian or Iraqi suicide bombings are justified resistance. That's on a slightly different level to kill-the-blasphemers.

Laivasse pretty much nailed it.

What was his emotion supposed to be?

Ragingly livid?
Manically depressed?
Entirely satisfied?

Why is it pathetic to be shocked at something that is shocking?

Clearly eh, yoda would have jumped up and punched the guy in the face so hard he would land in Rushdie's toilet.

 

[Gray Fox]

To answer a few of your questions, Godron.

Many rules in the Islam have to do ,like the guy said, with the upkeep and mindset of a middle ages military machine.

High population is not so important anymore in the world of nukes, and smart bombs. We have seen in the first Iraqi war how much technological advantage helps against regular armies.
Remember IRL you have no healtbars, the distances armies fight over are a lot bigger, and commanders are not omni sentient .

Fertility rate did not lead to high poverty because a lot of people died at a young age. You had to have a lot of kids to make sure someone could take care of you when you were young. Today, thnx to modern medicine a lot more survive and that is today one of the biggest reason for poverty and food shortages. But people refuse to give up old practices.

Muslims can easily be nostalgic about the past in the same way that Italians can be about the great roman empire, or British about their big ass empire. Many leaders have reminded people of their past glories to inspire them to reach those heights again.
The same is true for a lot of Muslims to a certain extent.

And Islam is still more militaristic then Christianity, sure Christianity has a lot of shit, but it isn't nearly as militaristicly oriented as Islam.

 

[Nemesis6]

I've never yet had the (mis?) fortune to meet a proper bastard of that particular ideology, although I have known people who say that Palestinian or Iraqi suicide bombings are justified resistance. That's on a slightly different level to kill-the-blasphemers.

Be glad you haven't. If you really do want the experience, add a skullcap to your clothing accessories, and if you wanna make it extra spicy, make a game of it: You start at day 0 and keep count of of the times someone has yelled "Yahud!", or simply "Jew!", or sometimes "yahud" which is strange since "Yahud" is the plural form as far as I know. Anyway, living in England, this should be quite an easy game for you.

@Grey Fox
That website you link to has been blocked by quite a few organizations in America for "Islamophobia". That means it's a good one!

 

[Jintor]

Ah, Islam.

 

[No Limit]

Kill his whole family, that will make him stop!

 

[kirovman]

Kill his whole family, that will make him stop!

I thought you were supposed to cut the blue wire first?

 

[Laivasse]

We need psychology. Politics is all about people, we need to understand how people work before we can do anything to control them beyond threatening them with laws. I can't see how we're to do anything to actually stop extremism itself without understanding the psychology behind it. We can arrest them and try to increase security, but they only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky all the time. So we need to stop the cause - the poisoned thinking itself.

D:

Despite my slightly anti-islam&salt&vinegar flavoured post, this is essentially what I believe too. It has to be tackled ideologically - extra legislature and upped police patrols and speeches about 'BEETIN' DA TERR0R!' are like putting bandages on a cancer patient.

BTW it would rule if we were actually under threat from a horde of those homoerotic satyrs.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Dear Anti-Islamowammofacists

My secretary wears a hood on her head and I've never seen her legs (could be a satyr) ..should I club her to death as a perventative measure?

Signed, concerned employee

I'd hit it.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

I was utterly shocked.

*smacks head*

This is worth a thousand words right now, but I just don't feel like collecting them all.

 

[Nemesis6]

Oh yeah, Solaris, what you should have done that time and should do the next time you meet one is this: Shout "TAKBIR! or "Allah'oo akbar!". Normally one shouts takbir, and the others follow with Allah'u akbar.

 

[ehudyoda]

A shocked ostrich

What was his emotion supposed to be?

...
Why is it pathetic to be shocked at something that is shocking?

Why? because sticking your head in the sand for so long, might make few obvious things 'shocking' when something (or someone) makes you pip outside your hole.

My dear ostrich friend.

Reminds me of few European governments. (history repeating ?)

 

[lePobz]

Religion should be banned.

 

[kirovman]

Why? because sticking your head in the sand for so long, might make few obvious things 'shocking' when something (or someone) makes you pip outside your hole.

My dear ostrich friend.

Reminds me of few European governments. (history repeating ?)

Can the condescending crap.

It's nothing about sticking your head in the sand.

Everyone knows about Islamofacists.

It's just that you don't normally see them introducing themselves to you as you walk down the street and being quite open about their views.

I think he's entitled to be shocked, it doesn't sound like he meets extremists everyday.

If you're not shocked by meeting people face-to-face who openly want to kill their fellow humans in a suicide bomb attack, then you've got something wrong with you.

 

[Krynn72]

Religion should be non-existent.

 

[Nemesis6]

"Science damn you, United Atheist Alliance!"

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

"Science damn you, United Atheist Alliance!"

The UAA. I like that.

 

[Solaris]

What was truly shocking was that I reckon I have said things far more insulting to Islam than Salman Rushdie has. That man only wrote a book involving the prophet (I think), I have criticized Islam on international radio so it was quite shocking to hear someone who I have exchanged a few words with and see almost every day would potentially kill me if he knew what I had said?

More likely he's all talk, but still, it's slightly unnerving to think people hold those views and express them so openly.

 

[15357]

Religion should be banned.

Yeah, I was going to write that, but was worried that people might take it the wrong way.






Of course, I would have written: "Religion should be illegalizeed and offenders be put into concentration camps where they will work 17 hours a day for all eternity."


Meh.

 

[Solaris]

Yeah, I was going to write that, but was worried that people might take it the wrong way.






Of course, I would have written: "Religion should be illegalizeed and offenders be put into concentration camps where they will work 17 hours a day for all eternity."


Meh.

Replace work with worship god and 17hours with 24 and you have heaven.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

That sounds like a sucky heaven

 

[15357]

Replace work with worship god and 17hours with 24 and you have heaven.

Oh man...



Operation Heaven Liberation, anyone?

I dream of the day when we are able to make wormholes going straight to heaven and kill God. Like that game.... Tales of Destiny?

 

[Godron]

I have criticized Islam on international radio

Woah... tell us moar. Please.

 

[Solaris]

Woah... tell us moar. Please.

I was on a BBC world service radio debate arguing that religion was a force for evil in the world.

 

[Nemesis6]

The one where you quoted someone on this forum's signature, right? :S

 

[Solaris]

Well, yes, but that was a quote from an 18th century artist.

Through imagination, the sleep of reason produces impossible monsters.