Pseudo-intellectual gibberish with a large helping of I’m-bored. I don’t why this comment thread is still open anyway.

This film, produced by the Science Research Foundation, a Harun Yahya institution, presents the Muslim response to and denunciation of terrorism. Beginning with the event of September 11, the film explains that all kinds of violence against civilians are crimes against humanity and grave sins in religious terms. It is also stressed that terrorism is an inherent feature of secular ideologies like communism, fascism and racism. In contrast, all theistic religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – are opposed to terrorism and their ultimate goal is to bring peace and brotherhood to mankind.

Everyone Arguing about this issue and Wants to find an answer, i recommend you downloading this Movie, if you think it’s going to play with your minds or make you convert to islam or anything just don’t watch it!!!!Sob7an Allah(How Strange-I recall God), God Gave Us Minds So We Can Search And Drill For the truth Even if it was hard to Achieve or find, and Whoever wants something must work for it, and what i’m working and will be working(I.S.A) is Just to make Allah Proud & Well-Pleased of me that i was such the Material and the example of how the human can be neither the reason of Earth’s destruction nor A blood-Shedding Creature, Unlike What Angels And Satan Thought About The Human when they first saw him created and when they’re commanded to bow for him Except satan thought that he’s better…etc(Human History)Begins….
Well Satan Isn’t and wasn’t Neither Better nor More Powerful Than Me! And He’s Not Gonna Stop Me From Reaching Paradise Where all whom i loved i’ll hope to see there.
There is no forcing in Peacing-Aka-Islam,
The Messanger Has To ONLY-Deliver the Message…Thank You for Raising My Good Deeds& 4 no other benifit except clearifing what my religon(Happy-life,LIFE-SYSTEM) relly is(Allah knows better)…I Hope God Forgives Us All Except Criminals.

Actually, I understood your original post, both in content and context. I just wanted you to clarify your thoughts.

Many contracting companies that are in Iraq are already benefitting from their oil. I assumed that you meant ‘business’ in that sense. I agree with you that bombing temples in Iraq would not allow us to maximize what benefits we might be able to garner, whether that be as warrior or businessman (though I do not think these two things are necessarily mutually exclusive). What could we possibly gain by bombing the temples at this point? That was my only point.

You didn’t. But I thought that’s where you were hinting at as well.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I was a gang member and know first hand how to conquer. And I know the ramifications of being a conqueror. What La Shawn advocates (blowing up the temple) is in the conquering mode. But President Bush and his advisors aren’t in that mode cause they can’t. If our military destroyed every temple in Iraq that terrorists/militants were in, what you think happen here in the States and the world? The wholesale, pure, unadulterated hatred that would be directed from internally and externally would would be damn near unprecedented. I know. Cause I conquered before. So, are we Americans ready to be conquerors to fight the war on terrorism?

And where did I mention oil?

What you said is sick, and nothing short of evil!”

Blowing up a building is equivalent to rape?

What you said was immoral, and nothing short of stupid.

You speak as if we went to war for profit. We did not go to war merely for oil in Iraq, despite the low opinion you have of our government. My concern in this post is that our presence in Iraq does not further disrupt the tenous situation in the middle-east. Advocating the blowing up of temples does not further our cause for a peaceful and democratic middle east. But that does not mean we are doing in merely for oil. However, it is disturbing that the real threats that Iran and N. Korea pose do not seem to be real enough for our present administration.

Now if you want to be conquerors, you have to be hard enough to deal with the after-effects such as having an even bigger target on you. So big that anyone will take a shot at you. You may even have to fight a World War. Many Americans ain’t that hard and will wilt.

We’re not warriors, we’re business people collectively. Sure we have warriors here, but our ultimate goal in America is the quest for wealth. Captialism rules everything around us.

I admit I wasn’t addressing your points directly. The reason why we are not bombing their religious sites with abandon is that it would probably worsen the tenuous relationship we have with the rest of muslim world- however valuable that may actually be. The fighting that is occurring at this shrine is not isolated, certainly there is unrest in other parts of Iraq. Because of this, the 2 options you propose really won’t help to alleviate the overall unrest that exists (if it did, then I would say they are valid). There is no easy solution to the mess that is Iraq at this point- if there were, I’m sure our administration would have started to implement it.

SCSI,
It’s the ‘them’ that I am trying to address. I don’t disagree with your statement that it’s cowardly to hide behind something sacred, but should we not try to respect that which is held sacred by many, and condemn those who are cowardly who are hiding behind it? I don’t personally hold all Muslims responsible for the few terrorists using the shrine inappropriately. And because of that, I don’t see that the two alternatives you pose are the ONLY two available.

It is the whole of the Iraqi people, outside of the modest Christian population, which would be offended by an American assault which damaged that especially important site.

What your religion teaches you about the importance, or lack thereof, of places holy to Muslims is irrelevant. History is replete with wars fought between various groups or countries on religious grounds, simply because they declined to be tolerant of the beliefs of others.

Christianity is in fact one of the world’s smaller great religions. Missionaries who go to Africa, Asia, and elsewhere around the world and show complete intolerance for local customs typically have wound up in the cooking pot or were booted out of Dodge. That they attempted, over time, to change local beliefs is obviously a different issue and was typically their mission. There were few cases such as those areas of the Americas where Christianity was successfully imposed on the natives. A study of how Christianity was “introduced” to Black slaves in America is equally informative along these lines.

Christianity is in fact presently a declining religion in population among third world countries where Islam is a rapidly ascending one. The most obvious places this can be seen are in Africa and in countries in Asia such as Indonesia and the Phillipines.

That doesn’t imply that religious beliefs are or should be a contest, simply that the beliefs of others, beliefs we often don’t understand and can’t understand, should be tolerated. Failure to do so has given rise to the widely popular murder of Jews all over Europe and Russia for centuries. And Islam, of all religiions, is more similar, as is Judaism, in its beliefs and history to Christianity than are any of the others.

The Church of the Holy Seplechure in Jerusalem has little meaning or importance to Christians, on the whole, although is a place of some interest. Ditto the walls of the original temples of David, etc. there. But to Jews and Muslims they’re terribly important, hence the crux of any final decision relating to true peace between Israel and Palestine will hinge on disposition of lands in Jerusalem.

Christians have no real equivalent of the Wailing Wall or certain structures in Mecca. That doesn’t mean we don’t have some obligation to place some degree of importance on them when we know others do, even though it exceeds our own knowledge and understanding. That’s what “tolerance” of any kind is all about. We rarely are “tolerant” when we are of like mind. It’s when we’re tolerant of the thoughts, beliefs, or ideals of others that we’re truly tolerannt.

Kill every bloody last one of the extremist. But while they’re in that holy temple let their Muslim brothers do the killing. The more dumb things we do without good reason gives those who believe in the Koran, not your Bible, more reason to dislike us. And I’m talking about the overwhelming numbers of Iraqis who are Muslims, along with many common Iranian people who make pilgrimmages to the same shrine.

Our complaints like with the likes of bin Ladin, Saddam, and the mullahs in iran, not with the people. Black churches in the South are still “mysteriously” burning down. The numbers are substantially smaller than in the early 1960’s. There’s a reason for that, the same as there’s a reason for the sharp reduction in lynching of black males for no especially good reason in the same environs. But black churches still burn, Jewish temples are still defaced, and Muslim temples are treated likewise today in America. We’re not there yet. But we have come a long way.

It might also be worth noting that there are something on the order of 5 million Americans of Arab origin living in this country. Most of them are Muslims. They too have an interest in the outcome of the fighting to eject (preferably kill) Sadr. Likewise the American Jewish population has long had a strong voice in seeing that we protect the interests of Israel. We all agree on these subjects when we look at the combined self interests of all Americans. Christians are a minority. Whites are now a minority in the U.S. (or the point is close at hand). We’re no longer a nation of Western European, mostly English white people.

That began to change when we began to import so many slaves into our country. Now the influx of brown people threatens to overtake our black minority. And the number of yellow people, survivors of the same or similar treatment that first drove the English and Dutch to immigrate to America, is a substantial and growing minority.

Poor WASPs like me don’t know which way to turn. Local Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations are turning more and more to “alternative types of leadership” because their membership of minorities is substantially rising while the white majority decreases. Den mothers in the black community, it seems, have differing needs and agendas from their white counterparts in the suburbs. Intolerance, failure to adapt to change, would otherwise bring them to an end.

We have an increasingly large number of new things to be tolerant of. The main criticism often levelled at conservatives is that they will not adapt to change. In today’s world it’s adapt or be left behind. And that’s not a “liberal” idea, it’s a statement of fact. No one asks in this country, or I should say, should be forced to ask why they can’t retain their own beliefs. We’re a country built on tolerance, the most mongrel collection of outcasts and rejects ever seen. We celebrate our ethnic differences when we eat in restaurants serving Vietnamese cuisine or when we participate in St. Patrick’s Day Parades when there’s not a drop of Irish blood in us.

Before WWII there was as much hatred vented by the KKK towards Catholics as towards blacks. We need to insure that Sadr and his gang of rebels, in part financed by the same mullahs in Iran who are funding Al Queda terrorists there, are eliminated. But it would be unwise for a single America bullet to impact on that Temple when there are other alternatives. And from all reports on the Mil Blogs that day draws ever closer. Iraqis have fought hard, and died in larger number than Americans, to date. Let them finish the task. Let Muslims damage or be seen as the source of damage to a Muslim holy shrine.

Conservative beliefs or religious beliefs do not have to change with the passage of time, but the changing of circumstancers requires that their adherents keep pace with changing circumstances to survive.