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Does the Oslo massacre highlight the need for a summit of leaders of the world's religions - perhaps in Oslo - to start seriously addressing the underlying causes of religious intolerance and hatred?
- Created by Michael Connolly
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No Christian leader is calling for a Christian form of jihad. This guy acted 100% on his own. And even then, he did it in the name of Europe, not Christianity.
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And of the thousands of Muslim leaders who are indeed calling for jihad against the infidels, they have absolutely no intention of stopping it, nor has it been provoked by anything done by the people they attack. They want world domination, they really do, and will use any means available to achieve it, including mass murder.
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1. How do you know that these Muslims want world domination?
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2. How do you know that Christians don't want world domination?
Lastly, don't you think that America's presence in military bases worldwide and our constant involvement in worldwide military conflicts could be considered by other to be a "provoking event"? How about our economic involvement in other nations? How about the fact that when we give economic aid to nations in need, we tend to have a lot of non-economic rules that must be adhered to (for example, under Bush and other Republican presidents, a lot of rules against abortion or even providing family planning services were part of the economic stimulus)?
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Re: 1 & 2, simple: decades of reading, listening, learning, and interacting with individuals, online and in-person.
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But it doesn't take decades to figure it out. If you don't know these things, then it shows you haven't spent any effort researching it, and/or you have an emotional block against believing it. It's that clear and obvious. It's not nuanced, complicated, or fine points of distinction, as many social issues are. This is in-your-face obvious.
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How many people of the Muslim faith do you personally know? The US has a large Muslim population. Yet, when you look at the reality on the ground, America (supposedly a Christian nation, although I personally take offense at that statement) seems to be the nation bent on world domination.
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You state the the Muslim anger is unprovoked, yet I just showed you behavior on the part of America and it's allies that certainly could be considered by others to be "provoking".
And I very much disagree with your interpretation. It is not at all in-your-face obvious. Most things are open to interpretation.
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O.k. Dave, we'll have to leave it at that. Have a good day.
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I know a few Muslims, actually. One of them on a very close personal level. We have had hundreds of conversations regarding the similarities and dis-similarities between Christianity and Islam. Many of those conversations have lead to the topic of the fairly recent reported instances of Muhammad cartoons and Koran burning. Now, before I go on, I would like to say that all of these people are intelligent, educated and fairly logical human beings. That being said, every single one of them, when asked their opinion about what should happen to someone who desecrates the Koran or presents Muhammad in a negative fashion, was in favor of violence to the offender. Violence, as in death.
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How many people of the Islamic faith do you know, David Hall? How many of them have you had in depth conversations with regarding the extent of their faith?
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I love having my opinions challenged -- by thoughtful, well-read, wise, insightful, truth-seeking people. That's how I've become so wise (and how to identify fools).
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"I love having my opinions challenged -- by thoughtful, well-read, wise, insightful, truth-seeking people. That's how I've become so wise (and how to identify fools)." - Interpretation: I love to have conservatives agree with me.
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I am thoughtful, well-read, getting wiser each decade, fairly insightful, and always truth-seeking. However, I can see that my simple questions to you are challenging you in ways that you do not appreciate. You do not seem to want someone to challenge your basic beliefs. And I thought I had the opportunity for an exchange of ideas with someone who does not agree with me on these things. I was obviously wrong.
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Aren't you the guy who wants to tax the "rich" guy down the street who owns a helicopter even after confessing that the combined income of you and your wife is close to $250K per year?
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What do you say to people who say that Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law are not compatible with Western civil society? In Denmark, people are being assasinated over satirical cartoons depicting muhammed.
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@Pamela Fast: I have known Muslims in the past (people that I have worked with in the past), and I'm sure that I have Muslim friends now (don't know, to be honest, because I have not discussed religion with any friends in quite a while). Non of them has been an inherently violent person, and all have been intelligent people.
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I have never discussed with any Muslim the issues regarding causing harm to those who show disrespect to the Koran or to Mohammed. I also, to the best of my knowledge, do not have any Muslim acquaintances who are particularly violent in nature.
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David,
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These people I mentioned are not violent in nature, either. One of them wont' even allow me to kill a spider in my own home :). However, I would encourage you to have conversations with your Muslim friends (and if you are not sure who is Muslim, ask them if they want to hit the deli with you for a BLT, that mystery will be cleared up quickly!) I honestly believe that you will soon discover that as non-violent they are in nearly every aspect of their lives, when it comes to their religion you will find a completely different view point.
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Technically that is inaccurate; the Crusades were calls to Arms and by Popes. They were to stop Islamic incursion; but, that has nothing to do with this situation. On the second assertion, only a minority have called for such massacres. They seem to be wider because of media focus.
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The word "is" represents the present tense, Aaron. So, unless you're living in the Middle Ages, then the Crusades aren't in the present. But it reinforces my point that you and others have to reach back 100s of years to find an example to support your opinion that Christians are violent. And even then, such violence was the norm back then. I.e., that's what they did, religious of all stripes and pagan: attack, take over land, kill or enslave the losers in battle and take their property (booty), etc. And BTW, it's telling that you used the Crusades to depict Christians as violent, but not Muslims, who were equally violent during the same period in history, if not more so. You're biased and prejudiced, stretching reality to the max to fit your bias.
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Re: Muslims, 10% is indeed a minority, but 10% of 1.5 billion, is a lot. And more troubling, is the 90% who are silent or quietly sympathize with the jihadis. And the number of Muslim leaders calling for the jihad warriors to cool it, is close to zero.
And the media go to superhuman efforts to paint a rosy picture of Islam. It's comical at times. E.g., "Muhammad yelled 'Allahu Akbar!!!' while murdering Jews at a wedding party. Authorities are investigating possible motives for the attack...."
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What a dumb poll. Sounds like some multi-culturalist is in charge of the poll department today.
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This was the act of a deranged individual.
As others have pointed out, there is only one religion in the world that is actively promoting violence and mayhem. Just one. Not Christians, not Jews, not Buddhists, not Hindus, not Sufis. Just Muslims.
The leaders of the world should convene a summit to call upon Muslim leaders to stop calling for violence and acknowledge that murder is a sin. That would be a good first step.
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We invaded Iraq and you claim that Muslims are the only ones promoting violence and mayhem?!?
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Dave Hall - please list for us the number of American suicide bombers who are operating in Iraq. The U.S. pushed Iraq out of Kuwait, remember? Then kept Saddam penned up with no-fly and partial occupation for 10 years, then finally removed him--the U.S. wasn't the instigator of violence in that region. 99% of the casualties have been Iraqi or Iranian inflicted. Thanks for playing, though.
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Terry - Did you ever server? Plenty of American soldiers have gone on what can only be considered suicide missions. May not be the same thing as your idea of a "suicide bomber", but when a soldier must engage in an activity in the hopes of capturing or killing the enemy, and that activity is known to have a high probability of hurting or killing the soldier, is there really a difference?
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Additionally, WE invaded Iraq because Bush II decided to link Iraq to 9/11. Our invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Saddam's previous invasion of Kuwait.
And if you think that 99% of the casualties were inflicted by Iraqi's/Iranian's, then I wonder if you are suffering from dain bramage.
Thanks for playing, though.
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Please. The U.S. has acted with great restraint in Iraq. By contrast, Islamic militants have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis through spectacular bombings of mosques, pilgrimages, and thousands of lesser but still appalling acts. Then there was Saddam's government which killed tens of thousands of Kurds and Shi'ites.
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Poor Terry, who thins he understands how the world works, but shows through his writing that he really does not.
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Poor Terry then decides that Dave must not be thoughtful, well-read, or getting wiser, but merely arrogant.
How about this Terry, I am thoughtful, very well educated, quite well read, obviously getting wiser, and maybe slightly arrogant when I again encounter a chickenhawk conservative who claims to know how other think.
I truly feel sorry for you, Terry, that you should live such a deluded life. I hope you at least enjoy your delusions...
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Great restraint?!? Wow, you got some nerve. Please tell me what branch you served in?
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I mean no disrespect to the great soldiers that have and are serving, but "great restraint" is not quite the phrase I would use. Did you see how the prisoners are Abu Graib were treated? As a former member of the US military, I would say that the only time we show "great restraint" is on humanitarian missions.
Stop watching Fox News. They do not show the truth.
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The problem doesn't appear to be religious at all, but economic. People in industrialized countries are unemployed and struggling in comparison to what they have been accustomed to. Under circumstances like these people become desperate to protect they have or regain access to what they had. This makes anyone different - faith, race, ethnic background, education level, nationality - a potential threat. When afraid we show a natural tendency to either fight or flee.
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Religious leaders cannot solve this problem alone. And I would point out that there is at least one Christian organization that I can think of that advocates violence (can anyone say KKK?). Considering the wealth that exists globally I think the issue is more about protecting people's ability to get food, clothing, shelter and an education. Too many people are suddenly discovering they can't be sure they can provide these things for themselves or their children and they are desperate.
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Sorry to disagree but the Muslim clerics are the ones advocating extreme violence. To be sure, the ones who swallow their propaganda tend to be unemployed youths. Economic development in some of these countries might help matters, but then take a look at Saudi Arabia which is super-rich and yet they produced some of the world's most fiendish terrorists, many of whom were college educated middle class, or oil-rich like Bin Laden.
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Then there are the college educated suburban youths born and raised in Britain to Pakistani parents, who perpetrated their subway bombings a few years ago. They did it in answer to some imam calling for killing Christians and Jews.
You have to face the hard facts--the Muslim world is infected with a very violent strain of extremism which has its roots in the religion's history of violent conquest down the centuries. Until the Muslims stand up and renounce violence, we're going to see continuing problems including among the affluent educated immigrants to America and Europe.
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"I think the issue is more about protecting people's ability to get food, clothing, shelter and an education."
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What a load of you-know-what.
This guy wasn't poor. He had access to literally thousands of dollars of disposable income to perpetrate his crime. So it wasn't about feeding his famlily.
Jeez. A Marxist will use any avenue possible to try and further class hatred.
This was the act of an insane right wing fascist fanatic over-reacting to a real problem occurring as the result of multicultural liberal idealism driving an open border welfare system that will soon overrun the historic cultural norms of Norway. I'm sure Norwegians at large are not happy about situation, but this guy's actions were not warranted and will not solve the problem.
There is no doubt that liberal elites have formed an unwitting alliance with the Islamic immigrants overrunning the social welfare states in Europe. People aren't happy about it, and unfortunately there are always outliers in the crowd who act impulsively and irrationally when confronted with major difficulties like what is occurring in Europe.
The heads of the major European states (U.K, France and Germany) have all now spoken out against rampant multiculturalism. It is clear to everyone that this is failed ideology.
The big question now is what to do about it.
Especially with regard to Islam, in any place where this doctrine bumps up against other cultures there is violence. That is a fact, and the average non-muslim person doesn't like it at all.
We need to collectively come up with a workable civil solution, or things will get much worse before they get better.
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Clearly you know very little of Islam, and nothing of radical Christians. Multi-culturalism is failing because people don't have access to the resources they once had, even the threat of losing the resources they currently have is enough to generate hate.
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Consider, why else would conservatives decry the notion that all human beings should have adequate food, clothing and shelter? Is it because they are cruel and don't mind watching another die of exposure or malnourishment. No, I argue it is simply fear of losing what they currently have if they wealth had to be shared.
I am simply arguing that excess consumption at the expense of your fellow man is cruel and will create continued situations like this as extremists on either side try to protect what they have or regain what they've lost.
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Ulla,
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To your comment below:
Look at your own words; "their propaganda". That is exactly what it is. THEIRS, not Christianity's. My point was this - when I see Palestinians and Iranis and Afghans and Iraqis (I understand that the religion is not limited to those countries) cheering and shouting "Death to America" while burning our flag, I don't see a follow up of Imam's across our nation denouncing these actions. Of course, if I were to ask most Muslims if they denounce suicide bombers and 9/11 they would say "Yes". But the world is not seeing that in a global scale. Most of the time, it is still turned around on America as the attacks being something we brought on ourselves for our ties to a specific ally.
And to preempt you from telling me that I don't know anything about Islam, please go read my comments to David Hall, above. I know plenty about the religion.
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@ Ulla, (again to your comment below)
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First of all I am sorry I can't reply to your comments where they are. And my apologies to Keith.
Same concept, different reality. The KKK is as active as their monthly clan meetings. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc, are in constant motion to maim and destroy that which does not agree with what they believe. This is evident in the consistent attacks on even their own innocent fellow believers. I can guarantee you, if there were large numbers of Muslims out in the streets denouncing the calls for violence against the United States and any other country who holds an alliance with Israel, we would be reading about it. Why? Because it would be a sensational occurrence. I know these people, American citizens, who with every breath proclaim their love for this country. But mess with their religion and all bets are off.
I am not trying to stir up hate towards my friends or even Muslims I don't know, but these are first hand facts and knowledge that I have discovered in conversations with Muslim friends.
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First and foremost, the KKK is NOT a Christian organization. Any true Bible-believing Christian will denounce the KKK in a blink of an eye. Just because someone, or a group of someones, says they are of a certain religion does not make their actions one that said religion would uphold.
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If more true Muslims would speak out against the violence perpetrated by the al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, et al, the world may have a different outlook on the proclamation that Islam is a religion of Peace.
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You can say it isn't so all you want, their propaganda says otherwise. Just like the hate-filled Muslims who have blackened the reputation of true followers of Islam.
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A LOT of true Muslims speak out against the violence perpertrated by these hate-mongers. But for some reason their stories rarely make it to print in the popular press.
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@Pamela Fast Same concept. If the people committing these horrendous acts are identifying themselves as Muslim and you accept it on face value without considering that they do not speak for all Muslims, then your logic argues that the KKK is clearly a Christian organization as they identify themselves as such. They have church leaders, members, etc just like the radical Muslims have leaders, members, etc.
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You seem to think that Christianity is a great monolith over which one body has control, this is not so, nor is it true of Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism.
With regard to the world not seeing certain actions, I would argue that the world sees what it chooses to see. Tabloidism and pap have replaced journalism. I rarely see any media that presents both sides of the story fairly. Too many have taken a side (whether the side is liberal or conservative) as opposed to simply reporting the facts.
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"I am simply arguing that excess consumption at the expense of your fellow man is cruel and will create continued situations like this as extremists on either side try to protect what they have or regain what they've lost."
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This is the foundation of Darwinian thought. We are all just "thoughtful" animals competing for limited resources, and we will do anything to ensure our survival, and the inevitable result is that people will get hurt by other people in the fight.
Consider that this is not a "zero sum" game that we are playing. In other words, by cooperation we can actually increase the "resources" and create more than what is needed for all.
Freedom and capitalism has been definitively shown to be the method by which the pie is increased. Even formerly Marxist China is doing it now.
Billions of people, with the freedom to make individual decisions, will work hard to build a bigger pie for themselves, and ultimately all boats rise on this sea of productivity.
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I agree with your comments. The pie is larger than it used to be. I only take issue with the fact that despite the size of the pie children around the world still die of hunger, malnutrition, exposure and inadequate medical care because capitalism at its extreme had determined they are too poor to have these things.
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"because capitalism at its extreme had determined they are too poor to have these things."
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"Capitalism" doesn't determine anything. It is an economic concept.
People make these decisions based on their moral principles.
We can now debate the moral principles being used in today's world. I would argue that Christian moral principles are as good or better than any others available to us.
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I would argue that there are those who make Capitalism a faith, such as followers of Ayn Rand. I would even go so far as to argue that the concept of capitalism gives justification to people of weak moral fiber to behave in way that would be considered a violation of their faith otherwise.
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In the United States for example there are many "Christian" churches that advocate that if you are living according to the "word of the Lord" he will reward you with riches in Heaven and on Earth. This makes it easy to justify overconsumption and poor treatment of the have nots, because God must have found them wanting.
I would argue that the basic moral principles of the largest faiths on the globe are essentially the same, but they get bogged down in ritual and deism.
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"overconsumption"
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This word is problematic. Who gets to decide whether someone is "over consuming" ?
I remember a posting here just a few days ago where a guy admitted to earning more than $250K per year, and he was advocating taxing the people "richer" than he was as long as his personal tax rates did not increase as well.
The American way is for the system to be free and for people to have the opportunity to work hard and see what happens. In a free society, people with talent can come up with ideas to serve others well and make as much money as they can.
What's wrong with this process?
Certainly there will always be people who lack talent, drive, or are unfortunately born into some very adverse situation that impairs their ability.
But a free capitalist society is the best choice. History is conclusive on this point, and there is no reason to believe that it won't be true in the future as well.
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Short Answer--NO.
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The radicals on the Right and the Left who kill innocents do not represent any religion other than a Faith in Government Control of Individuals (Thought Police.) They share that!
They use religious labels as a propaganda tool to spin up the masses. Makes the Mob more pliable.
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This question is loaded from the start. It isn't a fair question, because it doesn't address the motivation behind the massacre-that is, one madman's viscous acts all based upon his own skewed worldview. Does that mean we act upon another twisted worldview in order to counter it? No. This question is ridiculous on its face. It assumes that a group-think worldview is appropriate in the face of massacre. The Group-Think worldview and the worldview of this madman are two sides of the same coin. They both assume that an elite group should dictate the feelings, liturgy, and theology in some synergistic version of world pantheism. This is also a ridiculous proposition. The worldview suggested by the question and this madman's worldview are tyranny. The acts of this madman do not justify a uniting of religions or the synergistic melding of all denominations. Faith is the relationship between an individual and God. As a part of Christianity, association with, support of other Christians is part of the faith, despite any arguments that arise. I know of no religion that includes this. Of all other worshipers of other deities, they must simply obey and must obey those who are in control of the particular religion, be they priests or other designation.
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