Terrorist attack in Mumbai: 80 feared dead

[cathal maguidhir]

London/Mumbai, Nov.29: British daily --The Independent - has revealed how a newspaper photographer took an astonishing picture while hiding inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.


Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus.
'Armed police would not fire back. - I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera'

[garlandgreen]

Oh I see. Trying to force a certain agenda through. Williing to bludgeon incidental facts along the way. As well as wreck the thread.

Just for the record, some of the bloodiest atrocities have been committed by atheists. So really, no "side" has their hands clean.

No you don't see. It's about ideology. Not believing in something is not an ideology. People don't do things based on what they don't believe but on what they do. The rest of it doesn't amount to anything more than whataboutery

[garlandgreen]

You will of course elaborate on this in the context. It may be that I am a tad too tipsy to understand what you mean, or more than likely, you are willing to engage in obfuscation to again muddy the waters.










It doesn't need to be answered to further the discusssion, hence it remains unanswered. It merely seemed you were trying to avoid engaging with the point.



My point remains and has always been that regardless of whether the word is 'divine' or not, it is still contradictory. Many muslims thus are faced with a choice about which interpretation they identify with. Thus we can assert that one cannot define a muslim by a specific, fix set of beliefs.




Abitrary or something abitrary in my opinion it something that exists by virtue of the fact that it exists. An arbitrary rule for example, does not exist because it has been deduced by reason or practice, but because somebody said so, and gave no good explanation for it. Thus in this instance, you stated that phobia could not refer to an ideology. No good reason existed for that, indeed even if there had not been precedent for phobia to be used in the context of an ideology, it still would not mean that it couldn't. Phobia is a good term in my opinion, as it highlights that there is an unwarranted fear, by many in the western world, of those who hold the islamic faith. But rather than engage with what you deem to be the idiocy of the nomenclature, why do you not engage with the point I made about how anti-islamism (better?) comes dangerously close to being on the same par with racism.

I didn't "muddy the waters" I was dealing with the points as you presented them. I've dealt with most of what you said there several times. "Phobia" is not a good term if you don't accept that fear of what it influences it's adherents to think is dangerous is an irrational one. Unfortunately the evidence is against you on this. The point I'm making is

1. Does this religion influence the behaviour of it's adherents

2. If so the influence it has must be open to the same kind of critical dissection as Communist, or Democaratic ideologies and the .

Your only point of rebuttal appears to be to say it's adherents don't all believe the same things or behave the same way. Which I'm happy to concede is the case.

No doubt some "Scholars" and apologists can dress the assertions of the caravan raider up to look like something sublime but to me to reference the President elect of the United States "Lipstick" and "Pig" come to mind. Fear of something that influences the way people think and behave whatever else you might call it is not a phobia.

I'm amazed that such an obvious point should need to be explained.

[VoxII]

London/Mumbai, Nov.29: British daily --The Independent - has revealed how a newspaper photographer took an astonishing picture while hiding inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.


Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus.
'Armed police would not fire back. - I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera'

Interesting but not that surprising. Funny too how the "Indian commandos" kept their faces concealed during press conferences too. All for security purposes to be sure, to be sure!!!!

[Red Revolutionary]

Now I am staying out of this debate (give my head peace) but I have to tell you that I couldn't give two hoots what Muslims believe as long they they do not believe that they have an Allah-given right to impose their religion and associated "legislation" on the entire planet. I also believe that the rise of Islam is the single greatest calamity ever to befall mankind.

For the love of god.

[Trampas]

For the love of god.

Quite so....

[irish_bob]

Quite so....

while islamic fundamentalism is a huge threat , i believe by far the biggest challenge facing mankind is climate change

[Trampas]

while islamic fundamentalism is a huge threat , i believe by far the biggest challenge facing mankind is climate change

We will agree to differ then.

[garlandgreen]

You have to deal with more than one problem at once. Climate change, Islamic fundamentalism, financial crisis. Multitasking is necessary. Problems won't wait for you to solve one before the repercussions of the other manifest

[Riadach]

I didn't "muddy the waters" I was dealing with the points as you presented them. I've dealt with most of what you said there several times. "Phobia" is not a good term if you don't accept that fear of what it influences it's adherents to think is dangerous is an irrational one.

Could this have been easier expressed as 'phobia is only a good term if you accept that fear of what Islam influences its adherents to think is an irrational one?' I hope I'm not strawmanning you by writing it like that, it's only I could take no other meaning from the above. The phrasing is rather torturous.

The problem is, your fear of Islam and those who hold islamic beliefs is only rational if you limit that fear to those who hold those exact beliefs of which you are afraid, i.e. world domination, murdering in the name of Allah. The problem of course lies in the fact that you wish to tar every muslim person with those beliefs, and wish to assert that Islam is, and only can be, a fundamentalist's charter. Therefore, although your fears are valid and rational to certain fundamentalist Muslims, they are not valid nor rational in regard to Islam as a whole. Ergo, you are holding an irrational fear of an entire religion and its adherents . Is arachnophobia a rational fear by virtue of the fact that somewhere there are indeed poisonous spiders? Therefore I think phobia is an appropriate word for what I describe.

Unfortunately the evidence is against you on this. The point I'm making is

Depends on how you use the evidence it seems.

1. Does this religion influence the behaviour of it's adherents

I'm quite sure it does, unfortunately for your argument it influences a minority to commit acts of cruelty and slaughter, and a majority to live moral lives and indulge in charity.

2. If so the influence it has must be open to the same kind of critical dissection as Communist, or Democaratic ideologies and the .

But I don't tar all communists with the same brush? Indeed I know quite a few. I do not presume they are all going to engage in mass collectivisation or purges, or send individuals off to gulags in Siberia or try to establish a cultural revolution. I'm not afraid of communism or communists, because I know that not every communist holds the same beliefs. If I started to presume that because someone was a communist, they supported stalin-like purges, then I would be engaging in inaccurrate prejudice, and wandering into the grounds of irrational phobia.

Your only point of rebuttal appears to be to say it's adherents don't all believe the same things or behave the same way. Which I'm happy to concede is the case.

Good, so therefore you cannot tar every muslim with the same brush, or islam as a whole, on the basis that some pervert the religion in order to commit atrocities.

No doubt some "Scholars" and apologists can dress the assertions of the caravan raider up to look like something sublime but to me to reference the President elect of the United States "Lipstick" and "Pig" come to mind. Fear of something that influences the way people think and behave whatever else you might call it is not a phobia.

Are you likewise afraid of university courses?

And before you state that you are only afraid of this motivation, because it produces violence, does that mean that you are afraid of all philosophies/believes/influences that have at one stage or another motivated influenced individuals to commit acts of violence? Are you afraid of democracy?