BF2S Forums Modern Islam is a blight on humanity

lowing wrote:

Uzique wrote:

lowing wrote:

and you do realize this is not 150 years ago right? We are talking current events and reacting to current events with little regard to what happened 150 years ago.

this is why you are so frustratingly stupid. you have no sense of relativity. you are completely narrowminded and historically tunnel-visioned. what is 150 years in the history of a civilization? what is 150 years in the history of a religion? a blink of an eye. only the most violent and drastic of changes/upheavals occurs within the space of one century. you're acting like the christian west is all high-and-mighty and the greatest human civilization because we established a (pretense of) a democracy 150 years ago. when did america achieve a 'true' democracy, free from oppression? 40 years ago? great. have a cookie. you are angelic compared to those islamic devils!

and the main cause of oppression in egypt was a dictator that only kept power and was continued to allow his despotism because of western influence/relations. the egyptians were sick of a government that was selling out their real arab values and culture to western capitalism and influences that were against their way of life, and against their will. all the concentration of power in that arab state was in the hands of basically english/american politics. they're revolting for more oppression? no. they're revolting to establish their own democracy. islam has nothing to do with it: it's simply their culture. islamic democracy is no more of an oxymoron than christian democracy; the power structures are not inherently contradictory.

please read a history book. fucking hell. please. PLEASE.

Uzi, America or Europe 150 years ago is not the issue and I am quite certain has not even been mentioned as a link or concern by anyone except you. I am acting like mistakes have been made and corrected. Islam has the advantage to learn form those mistakes and not make the same ones. Instead, Islam purposely ignores the progress of civilization and continues to cling onto idea that were given up centuries ago. This is the problem with Islam.

As far as they're concerned Western 'Civilisation' is but a blip which will soon fizzle out.

They've been around for thousands of years, they expect to be around for thousands yet.
Why would they care how a civilisation barely a few hundred years old defines 'progress'?

Dilbert_X wrote:

lowing wrote:

Uzique wrote:

this is why you are so frustratingly stupid. you have no sense of relativity. you are completely narrowminded and historically tunnel-visioned. what is 150 years in the history of a civilization? what is 150 years in the history of a religion? a blink of an eye. only the most violent and drastic of changes/upheavals occurs within the space of one century. you're acting like the christian west is all high-and-mighty and the greatest human civilization because we established a (pretense of) a democracy 150 years ago. when did america achieve a 'true' democracy, free from oppression? 40 years ago? great. have a cookie. you are angelic compared to those islamic devils!

and the main cause of oppression in egypt was a dictator that only kept power and was continued to allow his despotism because of western influence/relations. the egyptians were sick of a government that was selling out their real arab values and culture to western capitalism and influences that were against their way of life, and against their will. all the concentration of power in that arab state was in the hands of basically english/american politics. they're revolting for more oppression? no. they're revolting to establish their own democracy. islam has nothing to do with it: it's simply their culture. islamic democracy is no more of an oxymoron than christian democracy; the power structures are not inherently contradictory.

please read a history book. fucking hell. please. PLEASE.

Uzi, America or Europe 150 years ago is not the issue and I am quite certain has not even been mentioned as a link or concern by anyone except you. I am acting like mistakes have been made and corrected. Islam has the advantage to learn form those mistakes and not make the same ones. Instead, Islam purposely ignores the progress of civilization and continues to cling onto idea that were given up centuries ago. This is the problem with Islam.

As far as they're concerned Western 'Civilisation' is but a blip which will soon fizzle out.

They've been around for thousands of years, they expect to be around for thousands yet.
Why would they care how a civilisation barely a few hundred years old defines 'progress'?

apparently we're being a little precocious and ahead of ourselves, feeling smug and satisfied with our shiny german cars, chinese ipods, fast-food franchises and indonesian sweatshop luxury fashion. somehow, for some deluded reason, the occidental world are a little hesitant to join in with the self-congratulatory "woohoo! we're the pinnacle of human advancement!" party...

Jay wrote:

lowing wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

This really.

When the West is threatened we see no problem pointing nukes, or using them, and fighting proxy wars all over the world just to 'remind' the other side we mean business.

We're surprised the East reacts much more mildly when we threaten them.

What has the west threatened the ME with really? The west discovered, R and D' ed and produced the most critical natural resource for the east to sell us. The west has GIVEN the ME all it needs to become viable and stable, economically. We did not steal it or pillage the ME for it. We developed it for them and are now buying it from them. Pretty good deal for the ME, and hardly a threatening gesture.

It's got nothing to do with oil really. It's all about cultural invasion. In the same way that you hate Islam because you're terrified of Sharia Law ending up on our shores, the Muslim clergy are terrified of losing their grip on the people and hatred for the West is a manifestation of their backlash. It ain't oil, it's Coca-Cola and Wranglers that they're afraid of.

The only difference between your conservatism and theirs is that they are in actual danger of the change taking place and thus are preaching violence. If there was a Muslim invasion here you bet your ass that Christian ministers would be preaching violence in response. Self preservation.

Good points.  Granted, I guess this means we'll periodically blow them up when they become inconvenient to our interests.

In a way, I can sympathize with interventionists.  The tradeoff isn't too bad in the long run in certain respects.  We topple a few governments here and there, bomb a few thousand civilians, and make business deals with whoever is left in power.  Meanwhile, all we get in response are a few terror attacks and protests.  The insurgencies really aren't nearly as powerful or deadly as the media often makes them out to be when you consider how many of them we kill vs. how many of our own people they kill.  To be honest, insurgencies kill more locals than soldiers.

We've lost very few of our own people from all this -- even when including 9/11, so when looking at what we get in return, it is somewhat of a winning arrangement.  The debts are rather high, but I guess they're still smaller than the debts of our entitlement programs.

Invasions actually don't suck that bad for us compared to how much they suck for the locals, but when you look at a lot of the recent revolts, a bunch of these people are going to die either way when their countries descend into civil war.  I guess that makes them acceptable collateral when looking at things from a cost-benefit analysis.

And after the dust settles, we even get to change their cultures to being slightly more like our own -- which is great for business.

Sucks to be them, I guess...   lol

Uzique wrote:

well at least you're being honest with yourself. but i guess the muslims are just barbaric, brutal bastards for their reaction to that business proposition... right? uncultured uncivilized swine. they should just comply with our global capitalist vision and give us cheap oil and stay obeisant and complicit.

Oh, I'm not saying that at all.  They're just cannon fodder.  Poor bastards...

It is kind of humorous that they believe Allah will save them though.  He clearly hasn't.

Technology is really all that will save you in this world.  If you've got better weapons and more of them, you win.  All this nonsense about invisible beings has no worth other than providing people some placebo effect of hope.

Greed clearly wins over hope almost every time. Granted, uniting greed and might is the optimal combination.

Turquoise wrote:

Uzique wrote:

well at least you're being honest with yourself. but i guess the muslims are just barbaric, brutal bastards for their reaction to that business proposition... right? uncultured uncivilized swine. they should just comply with our global capitalist vision and give us cheap oil and stay obeisant and complicit.

Oh, I'm not saying that at all.  They're just cannon fodder.  Poor bastards...

It is kind of humorous that they believe Allah will save them though.  He clearly hasn't.

Technology is really all that will save you in this world.  If you've got better weapons and more of them, you win.  All this nonsense about invisible beings has no worth other than providing people some placebo effect of hope.

Greed clearly wins over hope almost every time. Granted, uniting greed and might is the optimal combination.

If technology is the clear victor, then explain Vietnam. or the Philippine uprising in the early 20th century, Or the First Boer War.

UnkleRukus wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Uzique wrote:

well at least you're being honest with yourself. but i guess the muslims are just barbaric, brutal bastards for their reaction to that business proposition... right? uncultured uncivilized swine. they should just comply with our global capitalist vision and give us cheap oil and stay obeisant and complicit.

Oh, I'm not saying that at all.  They're just cannon fodder.  Poor bastards...

It is kind of humorous that they believe Allah will save them though.  He clearly hasn't.

Technology is really all that will save you in this world.  If you've got better weapons and more of them, you win.  All this nonsense about invisible beings has no worth other than providing people some placebo effect of hope.

Greed clearly wins over hope almost every time. Granted, uniting greed and might is the optimal combination.

If technology is the clear victor, then explain Vietnam. or the Philippine uprising in the early 20th century, Or the First Boer War.

he's talking in terms of geopolitical 'power' and cultural might... not military strategy

lowing you wouldn't believe in the moderate ability of a muslim if he came to your house, cooked you tea and put ya wife to bed

be quiet

lowing wrote:

Uzique wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

As far as they're concerned Western 'Civilisation' is but a blip which will soon fizzle out.

They've been around for thousands of years, they expect to be around for thousands yet.
Why would they care how a civilisation barely a few hundred years old defines 'progress'?

apparently we're being a little precocious and ahead of ourselves, feeling smug and satisfied with our shiny german cars, chinese ipods, fast-food franchises and indonesian sweatshop luxury fashion. somehow, for some deluded reason, the occidental world are a little hesitant to join in with the self-congratulatory "woohoo! we're the pinnacle of human advancement!" party...

However you see it, the west has seen a greater increase in the quality of life in the past 50 years since we grew up, than ever before. If you do not think something is being done right then, we will have to agree to disagree.

time will tell. stop awarding us the gold medal and a prize star when we're barely into the first lap of the 1500m race

UnkleRukus wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Uzique wrote:

well at least you're being honest with yourself. but i guess the muslims are just barbaric, brutal bastards for their reaction to that business proposition... right? uncultured uncivilized swine. they should just comply with our global capitalist vision and give us cheap oil and stay obeisant and complicit.

Oh, I'm not saying that at all.  They're just cannon fodder.  Poor bastards...

It is kind of humorous that they believe Allah will save them though.  He clearly hasn't.

Technology is really all that will save you in this world.  If you've got better weapons and more of them, you win.  All this nonsense about invisible beings has no worth other than providing people some placebo effect of hope.

Greed clearly wins over hope almost every time. Granted, uniting greed and might is the optimal combination.

If technology is the clear victor, then explain Vietnam. or the Philippine uprising in the early 20th century, Or the First Boer War.

All of those would have been victories if the technologically superior sides had found more casualties acceptable.

Think about how many people we lost in Vietnam vs. how many people the V.C. lost.  What the media was saying about our casualties was actually blown out of proportion compared to how many of the enemy we killed.

And of course, when looking at scandals of villages being burnt down to kill V.C. that had infiltrated them, this would have been a very effective tactic as long as we were ok with the resulting collateral.

The thing is...   the only way a technologically superior side will lose in a war is if it decides its own casualties are unacceptable and a certain amount of innocent people dying is unacceptable.

Yet, if we just looked at sheer numbers of losses of our own people vs. how many of the enemy we killed, I honestly can't think of a war where we lost more than the enemy.

As for civilian casualties, the number that is acceptable is rather arbitrary.  What criteria do you make for that?  Some would say that a single civilian casualty is too much.  Others would say 100,000 is still acceptable.  In the end, the only criteria that seems to matter is how it's portrayed by the media.

Uzique wrote:

UnkleRukus wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Oh, I'm not saying that at all.  They're just cannon fodder.  Poor bastards...

It is kind of humorous that they believe Allah will save them though.  He clearly hasn't.

Technology is really all that will save you in this world.  If you've got better weapons and more of them, you win.  All this nonsense about invisible beings has no worth other than providing people some placebo effect of hope.

Greed clearly wins over hope almost every time. Granted, uniting greed and might is the optimal combination.

If technology is the clear victor, then explain Vietnam. or the Philippine uprising in the early 20th century, Or the First Boer War.

he's talking in terms of geopolitical 'power' and cultural might... not military strategy

lowing you wouldn't believe in the moderate ability of a muslim if he came to your house, cooked you tea and put ya wife to bed

be quiet

So, it was the Taliban, or Iraqi insurgents that rioted over the cartoons, right?

What is "Modern Islam"? Is it the Islam we see predominantly in the Middle East and on TV where women are opressed, free speech and thinking is punished and blowing yourself up to kill innocent civilians is seen as the greatest thing one can do with their lives? Or is it the Islam we generally see in our communities, (or in mine at least,) where it is a faith with peaceful core values that have the same beliefs in love, forgiveness and patience as every other major religion?

Lowing since we've discussed this one before I know that I know more about the Islamic faith than you do but certainly not enough to make a detailed accurate judgement. I'll boil it down to statistics though, (or something resembling statistics anyway): In a large-scale demonstration how many members of a society generally turn up do you think? I'm terrible at estimation but take the massive uprising in Egypt where they tried to get one million people to turn up in Cairo - they didn't, they got significantly under than which represents far less than 1/7th of the population of Cairo, (not even 1/80th of Egypt's entire population - which is around 90% muslim.)

Now that was a massive protest. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the cartoon protests were equal to this, (they were not,) and included the entire world Muslim population of around 1.5 billion, (they did not.) Even then you have only 1/7th of a population turning out to protest. The reality is that the cartoons protests were very small but even 1/7th is not enough to make a judgement on the whole.

I've met a lot of muslim people. I've spent, (admittedly little) time in an Islamic country. Out of every Muslim I have met to date 0% of them have been terrorists or extremists or treated me any different from anyone else. Sorry for ranking personal experience above what the media gives me but I simply can't believe that the majority of the Islamic faith - your "moderates" Lowing - are the shouty-murdery-rioty-explody ones. Nothing I have experienced and nothing I have been presented has suggested this.

I think it's correct to distinguish what "Modern Islam" is but it's not what most think. Modern Islam is a religion of peace, love, forgiveness and community - pretty much the same as all the rest. Can it be misinterpreted, can it be a bit old fashioned? Sure. Same as all the others. However it is not antiquated, bastardised or manipulated Islam - now there's your blight on society. All these movements against the Islamic faith, citing "Modern Islam is a blight" - this is never going to help things. Why? Because Modern Islam is not the enemy. Modern Islam is a positive thing. It's the other Islam we don't like - the Old Islam.

Uzique wrote:

lowing wrote:

Uzique wrote:

apparently we're being a little precocious and ahead of ourselves, feeling smug and satisfied with our shiny german cars, chinese ipods, fast-food franchises and indonesian sweatshop luxury fashion. somehow, for some deluded reason, the occidental world are a little hesitant to join in with the self-congratulatory "woohoo! we're the pinnacle of human advancement!" party...

However you see it, the west has seen a greater increase in the quality of life in the past 50 years since we grew up, than ever before. If you do not think something is being done right then, we will have to agree to disagree.

time will tell. stop awarding us the gold medal and a prize star when we're barely into the first lap of the 1500m race

and where is Islam in this proverbial race?

Last edited by lowing (2011-04-05 07:49:20)

UnkleRukus wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

UnkleRukus wrote:

If technology is the clear victor, then explain Vietnam. or the Philippine uprising in the early 20th century, Or the First Boer War.

All of those would have been victories if the technologically superior sides had found more casualties acceptable.

Think about how many people we lost in Vietnam vs. how many people the V.C. lost.  What the media was saying about our casualties was actually blown out of proportion compared to how many of the enemy we killed.

And of course, when looking at scandals of villages being burnt down to kill V.C. that had infiltrated them, this would have been a very effective tactic as long as we were ok with the resulting collateral.

The thing is...   the only way a technologically superior side will lose in a war is if it decides its own casualties are unacceptable and a certain amount of innocent people dying is unacceptable.

Yet, if we just looked at sheer numbers of losses of our own people vs. how many of the enemy we killed, I honestly can't think of a war where we lost more than the enemy.

As for civilian casualties, the number that is acceptable is rather arbitrary.  What criteria do you make for that?  Some would say that a single civilian casualty is too much.  Others would say 100,000 is still acceptable.  In the end, the only criteria that seems to matter is how it's portrayed by the media.

Good point. I guess in the advent of WW2, mass media has sort of gone way too over the top when reporting conflicts.

Accuracy of a bombing mission in WW2 was determined in miles. Accuracy of a bombing mission today is determined in mere feet, yet when a bomb hits and kills 4 civilians there's a massive investigation, PR campaigns, and the media labeling it a massacre. 50 years ago that was almost unheard of since bombs hit areas the size of factories and killed hundreds and destroyed the target and everything around it.

Pretty much...   See, I'm mostly against war not because of whatever happens to the people in the countries we decide to invade but because it's just expensive.  I don't see most wars as being worth the financial cost.

The human cost to us is typically pretty low compared to the human cost for our enemies.   And the human cost to the locals is sometimes the highest of all....

In any case, I guess it's easier to see how interventionism works when just looking at the numbers.