by Ghassan Kadi
The world has got to realize that the ideology that underpins Daesh is coming to a head. It had been latent for a long time, and now it has fully awakened and will not put its case to rest before one of two things happen; either that it will get its way, or it will be crushed, both militarily and, most importantly, ideologically.
And if the world felt regretful because it allowed for Nazism to fester for two decades, affording enough time for Hitler to gain power and momentum, then it is now repeating the same mistake, but only to a much graver extent.
The more criticism these articles receive, the more this indicates that the challenge they raise is one that no one is prepared to undertake.
Some argue that the argument these articles bring should be addressed to Muslims only, but the problem with defining Daesh and combating it is global. Furthermore, those who refuse to see it for what it is, and the apologists who are giving it oxygen are by-and-large not Muslims.
Others argue that the Daesh Chronicles articles are designed to attack Islam, and I vehemently challenge anyone to quote any reference to this in what I have written. In fact, the objective here is to clean up the image of Islam so Islam and the whole world can move on.
For as long as Muslims, all Muslims, do not feel that they need to revise their understanding of the Holy Quran in a manner that sees it as it really is, a Book that clearly and vehemently condemns violence and coercion, then the recruitment drive for the Daesh mentality will not be put to rest.
And some have argued against the religious context altogether. Their argument is quite rational and questions the need for human interaction and behaviour for religious interpretations. Reality however dictates otherwise. Many people are driven by religions, and their actions mirror those beliefs. As one cannot talk them out of this modus operandi, it becomes paramount to present to them that, unlike what they believe and think, their religion (and in this case Islam) does not call its followers to kill non-Muslims. If they get convinced that their beliefs of Jihad, Fateh and Shahada are wrong and distorted, then the whole drive for militarizing Daesh will be shot in the foot.
And then we have those who argue that the Daesh Chronicles articles have neither generated a true challenge, nor did they attempt to engage in discussion. A good look at the previous articles and the comments they raised puts this argument to rest.
And how can we forget those who want to condemn Islam and proclaim that it is a religion of violence and that there is no such thing as misinterpretation that has led to the creation of Daesh?
And then there are those who will forever only blame America and the West.
How naïve indeed.
Others argue that “The Saker” is not the “right” forum for this discussion. The question is what is?
If anything, The Saker readership is a microcosm of humanity, and no one in his right mind can blame it from not wanting to deal with the Daesh issue in depth. Who really wants to after all?
The sad reality however dictates that the Daesh problem is not going to go away, and unless it is confronted from a position of both knowledge and strength as soon as possible, in time, it will get stronger.
If or when it gets stronger, dealing with it then will be much more difficult than dealing with it now. Ignoring it is not any different from ignoring a cancer.
Different definitions of Daesh can therefore continue to exist and people can think of Daesh in any which way they like, but this will only provide more time for Daesh to gather more momentum and move from Syria to other places, and it has clearly already created a stronghold in the EU.
I am not trying to be either alarmist or pessimistic, but I firmly believe that when it comes to Daesh, the world “ain’t seen nothing yet”.
We can ignore the real driving force behind Daesh now, but are we prepared to see attacks like the Paris and Brussel attacks happening more often? And how often? And at what stage will the rest of the world then say enough is enough? And what will it do then?
The Paris and the Brussel attacks were nearly four months apart, and, just before the Paris attack, a Russian jetliner was bombed in the sky. Three major terror attacks in six months, and this is not to count bomb attacks in Beirut, Kabul, Bagdad, Peshawar and other places that the world, especially the West, forgets to remember.
What if, just what if, attacks outside the so-called “Third World” become much more frequent? What if they become monthly? Will this trigger off a major scale war against Daesh? And who will lead it and how will Daesh be defined then?
What if they become weekly? Will this be the benchmark to start off a blind Western-led campaign against anything and anyone who could be remotely associated with Daesh?
If weekly attacks are not enough, how about daily attacks? And what if Russia is included in all of this? Certainly, if Russia gets targeted, there is no reason as to why China, Japan, India and all non-Muslim nations should be spared, is there?
Is this possible? I cannot see why not. Keep ignoring the source of the problem and it will only get worse.
What will the world do then?
This is all speculative of course, but possible, if sadly not probable.
The first reaction in the West will be a major boost in the popularity of ultra-right wing political parties. If and when such parties get into power, they will take the Merkel-like policies and do a U-turn.
Just look at the Donald Trump political platform. The man is virtually already asking for a Muslim-free USA, is he not? He is getting support for his draconian policies even though the USA has not suffered from “Islamic Terrorism” since Sep 11.
Could anyone in his/her right mind imagine what will ultra-right wing politicians do if they get power in the USA and in what will be left of the EU?
Did the world forget George W. Bush’s “Patriot Act”? Did we forget the Afghanistan and Iraq wars?
Now, let’s take Sep 11, Madrid, Ottawa, Sydney, Paris and Brussel and squeeze them in chronologically and try to imagine if they become weekly and daily events.
If Daesh still indeed acts only on America’s command, and whether it was in inside jo or not, if Sep 11 was alone enough to invade both of Afghanistan and Iraq, with very frequent attacks we would be looking at a worse American/Western reaction, wouldn’t we?
This is the nightmare scenario that I foresee in the EU, and possibly concurrently in the USA:
1. Daesh attacks in the EU become more frequent.
2. Ultra-right EU parties get in power in some countries such as France, Belgium, Germany and Holland.
3. The rest of the EU braces and waits to see how these countries will deal with terror attacks.
4. Muslim EU nationals will be targeted, and eventually some new Muslim migrants will be deported.
5. Ultra-right wing parties in other EU nations will capitalize on the clamp down of their “comrades” and ride on the electoral band wagon to get themselves into power.
6. As attacks get worse, EU citizenship will be taken away from Muslims associated with terror attacks.
7. As EU governments tighten the noose on Daesh, Daesh will get sneakier and smarter. Attacks will not stop.
8. EU countries will then resort to more drastic measures. Citizenships will be taken away from Muslims who are remotely associated with those condemned with terror attacks.
9. As those measures fail to fully provide the EU security needed, EU citizenships will be taken away from all Muslims, and Muslims will be deported from the EU.
10. Whether the events in the USA take the same turn at the same time and pace or not, America will be forced to act.
11. By then, the USA will have a president who will make Donald Trump look like Mother Teresa.
12. When Western nations wrongly and stupidly see that targeting all Muslim nationals inside the West is not enough to stop terrorism, they will progressively wage an all-out war on Muslim countries, beginning with the ones they deem to harbour terrorism the most.
13. This can progress into a war in which the world finds itself deluded enough to believe that it must fight against all Muslims, all Muslim nations and Islam in general, in order to stop terrorism. But, on the other side of the coin, Muslims will naturally see that they are subjected to a holy war against Islam, and this will lure in more fighters to defend the religion than anyone could imagine. Both parties will fight and fight, and very fiercely.
If any reader sees that the above scenario is a paranoid reaction, then all that he/she has to do is to wind the clock back twenty years or so and look at today’s events from that perspective. Who would have thought back then that what we see today was fathomable?
Either way, I much prefer to err on the side of caution in raising the alarm.
This prognosis has gone far enough and it is as speculative as it may be, but it is not far-fetched. It is gruesome enough without including Russia.
But it is a scenario that can be avoided if the sane people of the world, Muslims and non-Muslims, stop for an honest moment NOW and make concerted and knowledgeable efforts to nip it in the bud, whilst they can, and if they sincerely want to.
Back to where we started. The Daesh ideology is coming to a head, but so are all similar fanatic religious and political ideologies. Leninist-Marxism imploded. Maoist China is now only Maoist by name. Western-style democracy will soon have to either redefine itself or face attrition. This is not only a case for religious ideologies to be seen for what they are. If humanity proves unable to analyze what it needs to analyze and face the upcoming challenges rationally, it will feel pushed in a corner and need to resort to wars.
Is it not time for rationality after millennia of irrationality?
I cannot and will not write about this matter anymore. I have said enough, and I have done my duty, and my conscience is clear.
Ghassan, I have appreciated your articles and you raise alot of points on which I feel I am insufficiently qualified to offer an opinion.
However, I would like to pose a few simple questions. What is the manufacturing capacity of military ordinance and weaponry in Muslim countries, even including Iran? Who supplies these terrorists’ their weapons? Who supplies these terrorists their transport? If this ‘clash of civilisations’ is engineered – who is the source – the fool or the fool who follows him? It seems that Muslim people are getting led around by virtue of other Muslims who have influence through money and religious rhetoric. Would it not be a better solution to first cut the funding of these terrorists rather than wanting to discuss with them?
I understand you want to discuss this ideology from an internal Muslim perspective, but can we really find the truth by ignoring a holistic viewpoint that includes the real powers in the world.
You mention that the root problem is being ignored but what is the root problem? What makes so many people join Daesh? What do they believe they are doing? I assume they think they are defending something but what?
Shia “oppression” is one way they’re sold into supporting daesh. The sect they spring from are wahabi / salafi which is a violent form of islam thatt doesn’t respect what the quran says any more than catholics followed the bible during their crimes against humanity including other christians
I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia’s oil rich region, like many during the oil boom days of the 80s. I was schooled there, have friends there, lived there and worked there. I was also subject to relentless religious indoctrination that somehow – by some good fortune – slid off like butter on a Teflon frying pan.
What non-Muslims/Muslims do not seem to grasp is the deep rooted state of delirium that Whabbist Islam introduces. The key takeaway is that Whabbi Islam has contaminated a lot of the traditionalist mixtures of Islam around the world. For instance, an average Sunni Muslim does not really understand how much of his/her daily indoctrination and action has roots in strict Whabbi thought pumped out via a billion dollar GCC network around the Muslim world.
Early days of Islam stories of families being torn apart due to righteous believers fighting the good cause are a common narration among the Muslim faith. The sadness of families splitting is almost never addressed in mainstream Muslim discourse. Instead these events serve to show the followers how much can be turned back on for the righteous cause.
Couple that with decades of false narratives regarding Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq,Syria & Libya , to name a few, you can imagine the mindset of a Whabbi indoctrinated sympathiser. His entire world is on fire and there is one banner (Daesh) being put forward for the hundreds of thousands of droned,bombed,tortured Muslim youth from Imperial wars. It is the perfect recipe to awaken a demon.
There are far too many disenfranchised and utterly humiliated (see from their shoes) youth who will make easy recruits for such a virulent ideology.
What we are up against are our own – NATO+GCC+Israel – that fund,direct,arm and support Daesh. That is the real picture. The rest is noise.
Thanks for the reality check, Augmented Ether. I am one of those who blames the CIA and US almost entirely. It’s sobering, and saddening, to hear your report from the ground. Do you have any suggestions on what could be done to improve the well-being of these youths? I’ve also heard rumours of a potential uprising within Saudi Arabia from the oil-rich regions. Do you think that is likely?
It is a very deep rooted problem of ideology and as it is with such things, logical reasoning accomplishes little in my opinion. My personal experience tells me that it is the change in perspectives and independent thinking that allows one to somehow start a journey towards recovery from religious dogma.
Of course this is more easily said than done, especially in a repressive society like the Gulf Arab countries. What could actually help is a united effort by the scholars who people look up to. But this lot is just as much ideologically trapped as the lost souls running to join Daesh.
The Saudi version of Islam goes further and disowns such “heretics” and the door is easily closed. It is a game of emotions and irrationality which is extremely hard to counter.
The fuel for all this is ultimately political as well as religious (needs more elaboration, some other time?). Without Western occupation of the Middle East, there simply would be no fuel for such virulent ideologies.
I do not think an uprising is likely, Saudi Arabia is a highly policed society and have the upper hand in terms of force and a rabid critical mass to rally to their ’cause’.
” What we are up against are our own – NATO+GCC+Israel – that fund,direct,arm and support Daesh. That is the real picture. The rest is noise.”
Well said. Thanks!
With all due respect to the author, who does make some salient points, I have to say the issue of radical Islam is but a symptom of the larger disease we are facing. The disease is the system itself, the central bank/corporate/ global elite petro world that uses divide and conquer strategy across all sectors of society- political, economic, cultural, religious, ethnic, ecological, sexual, and historical- everything is weaponized and distorted, driving us away from traditional ways of living, creating a false reality thru the media, devouring the planet, and enslaving humanity for the benefit of a relative handful of people. Their goal is total control of the planet’s resources, and that necessarily entails controlling the people. DAESH is one part of this, which can and should be confronted as a single issue but cannot be separated from the bigger picture. War, poverty, disease, pollution- the issues are momentous. That a large portion of humanity accepts this as just “the way things are” is the first problem that needs to be tackled, in my opinion. I struggle with it myself. I don’t particularly have any answers, beyond a vague awareness that without humanity itself on an individual level raising their consciousness and awareness to a higher state of being- myself included- things are going to get much worse before it gets better.
I’ll just address one item: Trump and Muslims.
All he has said is to halt the immigration of Muslims until we can determine what Muslim is safe to come into the US, and what Muslims are not safe to allow in.
For those allowed in with no documentation (refugees), he wants to send them to safe zones.
Domestically, he has indicated he wants scrutiny by law enforcement of radical or suspicious mosques (not all). And we have mosques that are radicalized.
And he has recently made clear that any American muslim who goes to fight for ISIS and tries to return will never be allowed back.
Sounds quite similar to what went on with Germans, Japanese and Italians in WWII. There is nothing new, racist or prejudiced in any of his policy concepts. And the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with these policies.
He has left the comments behind and only refer to them when asked, or when talking about Syrian refugees because the Obama administration is force-feeding communities in America with thousands of undocumented refugees (who we have no idea even if they are from Syria).
Just as a point of reference about myself:
For 4 years I rented a room in my home to a fellow from Bangladesh, and then he came back a year later with his wife who lived here another two years until the birth of their daughter. So I have lived with devout Muslims in my home. I have worked with devout muslims from Pakistan for six years.
I support Trump and his policy idea.
I also support Russia and Putin’s policy to kill all Wahabbi terrorists.
Further, I think something is very askew with Islam. It would be great if Muslims cleaned it up.
Meanwhile, ISIS and AQ must be liquidated down to the last soldier and Imam who teaches the vile, fascist, nihilist ideology.
The psychopathic practices of these people may soon have a unified opponent. Trump and Putin will certainly work together to end the scourge in the ME and NA.
Ridding the globe of the ideology will require a reformation within Islam, it has been proposed. I don’t see any alternative. Something human and generative of love will be needed to fill the hearts and minds of millions in Islamic cultures.
That is all beyond me.
But, dealing with the dangers is not. Trump has the rational, common sense solution. It is not hateful. It is prudent and wise.
Ghassan, we must applaud any effort at explaining and analyzing events and phenomena affecting us all. However, as one who keeps a foot in the present and the other in the past, I disagree on some of your premises, inevitably reflected in your conclusions. I must be short for this to be a comment.
Restive Arab nationalism has its origin in the disrespectful treatment of the Arab cause after WWI. However, matters remained calm until the imposition of a foreign entity on Palestinian land (1948).
Even so, there still was relative calm until after the 1967 occupation by the Zionist state of additional Arab (read Muslim) land. The first terror attacks on planes by Arabs date to then.
The color revolution that led to the (temporary) colonization of Russia by foreign capital and ideology, further fueled the aims of finance-capital, now even more strongly tied to Zionist interests.
I worked long enough in the Middle East to have formed a (hopefully) reasonably objective view of things the-way-they-are-there. I see Daesh as a complete outcrop of interests that have little to do with the Islamic religion or the Koran, and all with the furtherance of objectives ignored by all but the usual minute and irrelevant minority.
For men, as we know, see largely what they expect to see. And though people in a mass behave like sheep, it takes a master to create a flock.
The obvious intermingling and (technically satanic) convergence of Arab finance-capital with Israeli interests (and ideology), should sufficiently inform us on where the master is, or the masters are. Without even talking about 9/11.
Actually, mass migrations and induced chaos in Europe are part of a script formulated and printed by the founder of the European Union, historically recently (1930s), who, in turn was massively funded by Zionist capital. So far, (almost) everything seems to follow the plan of Baron Coudeneuve-Kalergy, who in his book “Praktischer Idealismus,” envisioned Europe becoming a continent peopled by a “Negroid-like” race, led by a superior elite, which of course would maintain a kind of racial purity.
And Ghassan, Marxism-Leninism did not implode, unless you mean something else. The fundamental tenet of the theory, derived from induction, is that the key feature of our patriarchal mode of society, is class struggle. And I believe you do not mean that class struggle has ended.
All evolutions, revolutions or involutions involve class struggle, leading eventually to finance-capital imperialism, occasionally tainted, by chance or design, with openly racist theories (see the ‘exceptional’ nation and the current apartheid state). With the added convergence, amusing were it not tragic, of imperialist Judaism with Southern-Baptist Christianity (see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJiepXOXeYk) .
Hi Ghassan, I think you might have described the antidote in another article.
But it would be nice at the end all your Daesh Chronicle articles, if you would lay out what you think needs to be done.
Not only abstractly but to work out a plan, as though someone were listening to you that had the power to implement it.
Love Ann
And what will happen if point 12 is, instead, all muslim nationals being expelled from US & europe ?
A few times I have gone against the grain. I would guess most here have at one time or another as everyone that comments here thinks for themselves.
For me mostly in small time engineering type problems. It is when I can put my own theory into practice and see that it actually works in practice, that I defend my theory no matter what.
I am sane and the whole world has gone mad? If I cannot demonstrate my theory in practice, then it is probably me that is mad. Or at the best my theory is wrong.
So… defeating extremism by changing the Muslim religion? I feel you have a big job ahead of you.
I’m more of the opinion that the extremists need to be killed wherever they’re found, and at the same time destroying or blocking their backers. Destroying the backers is also a big job. Something I cannot do or demonstrate.
Changing Islam, or changing the interpretation of the various texts, in thinking this is the only way to defeat what we have seen in the last few years… Perhaps in conjunction with killing off the fanatics and defeating their backers, but changing Islam as the only answer?
A lot of thinking people on this blog Ghassan. Free thinking people. A bit feral. They don’t run with the mob. When you think you are right because none of these people agree…..?
@For as long as Muslims, all Muslims, do not feel that they need to revise their understanding of the Holy Quran in a manner that sees it as it really is, a Book that clearly and vehemently condemns violence and coercion, then the recruitment drive for the Daesh mentality will not be put to rest.
Unfortunately, there are little chances that Muslims would be prepared to understand the Quran otherwise than in its most literal sense. Why did they repeatedly reject the “spiritual” interpretations?
In the words of David Cook, Understanding Jihad:
“Islam was not in fact “spread by the sword”—conversion was not forced on the occupants of conquered territories— but the conquests created the necessary preconditions for the spread of Islam. With only a few exceptions (East Africa, Southeast Asia, and to some extent Central Asia beyond Transoxiana), Islam has become the majority faith only in territories that were conquered by force. Thus, the conquests and the doctrine that motivated these conquests—jihad—were crucial to the development of Islam. While the Quran provides the basis for the doctrine of jihad, it is the tradition literature of Islam that describes how Muslims perceived it as they were fighting and what they were fighting for…
The conquests were seen from the beginning as one of the incontrovertible proofs of Islam. To disavow them or to examine them critically—which has yet to happen in the Muslim world—will be very painful for Muslims especially Arabic-speaking Muslims. At every point… when Muslims have tried to abandon militant jihad for the internal, spiritual jihad… the memory of the conquests and the need to rationalize them have defeated this effort. The problem may lie in the unwillingness to confront the fact that the conquests were basically unjustified.”
I saw on RT a moment ago where the US is now sending 250 more US troops to “Syria”. Totally without the permission (without even asking) of the Syrian government. Now there will be 300 US troops illegally inside Syria (at least 300). I’ll have to assume no one seems to understand (or care I suppose.),that once the US gets a toehold in a country they don’t leave peacefully. Can anyone point to a single victory our side has won against the empire in these last few years. And no, fending off total defeat doesn’t count as a victory to me. A victory entails freeing territory. Having allies join your side. Things like that. Saving tiny bits of territory out of huge lost territories. Stopping complete defeat by postponing problems. Surviving by the skin of your teeth collapse. All of that is “nice”,but in no way a victory of any kind. I really would like to see a victory for the right side before I get so old I pass away. But I don’t see any coming our way by retreating,and ignoring defeats.
just as absurd as Turkey bombing Christian Kurdish villages in Iraq
http://www.anna-news.info/node/57412
MOSCOW, April 25. / TASS /. Iraqi Kurds are grateful to Russia for its support and look forward to Moscow’s continued support in combating terrorism, member of the Leadership Council of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Iraq) Hemin Hawrami told a news conference on Monday.
“Relations with Russia are very important for us We share common values and common views on many issues, including on the situation in Iraq, Syria and the fight against Islamic State [IS, extremist organization outlawed in Russia – TASS]. Terrorists,” he said. “We are grateful to Russia for its military support and hope that your country will continue rendering assistance to us, including in the fight against the IS.”
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According to him, the Iraqi Kurds “need good coordination with Russia on the Middle East issues.” “We need coordination for a better understanding of what is going on in the region,” Hawrami said.
He noted that the delegation of the Kurdish politicians had held meetings with the political leadership of the United Russia party and spoke in favor of developing inter-parliamentary ties. Representatives of the Kurdistan Democratic Party discussed in Moscow, in particular, the fight against terrorism and economic investment.
Hawrami added that the Iraqi Kurds realized that “terrorism was a threat to the existence of Kurdistan as such.” “We support all those ready to fight against the IS and will accept any help and support,” he said.
Speaking about the role of regional countries in solving the problem of terrorism in the Middle East, he said that “none of the countries in the Middle East was immune to IS activities,” adding that “one could not score political points at the expense of combating terrorism. ”
More:
http://tass.ru/en/world/872230
It could be that Daesh is just another instrument or has become an instrument by the “Empire of chaos” to seed even more chaos around the world, Europe this time around. As always happen (and they never learn): Chaos (Daesh) will bite them back like in Turkey for instance.
> And if the world felt regretful because it allowed for Nazism to fester for two decades . . .
Nazism was not allowed to fester, but actively supported from abroad. Hitler was just another USA installed dictator.
NSDAP had luxury headquarters, airplanes, mass media, and a couple of 100000 men private army before it came to power. With resources like this, they didn’t need Nazism to take power. They might as well employ Mickey Mouse cult instead of it. More here:
http://www.hist-chron.com/eu/3R/Hitlers-financiers-ENGL.html
” And if the world felt regretful because it allowed for Nazism to fester for two decades, affording enough time for Hitler to gain power and momentum, then it is now repeating the same mistake, but only to a much graver extent. ” >>
Which world (that you noted as ‘felt regretful’) you are talking about ? Western world, I guess. USA and UK oligarchy-aristocrats still frustrated about ineffectiveness of Nazi Fascists to crush the USSR forces ! Also, why should West be regretful ? They created and nurtured the fascist forces which can ‘take on’ the (monstrous, as the AngloZionist felt) Soviet communists.
Now the West is repeating the same strategy – that is btw, not a ‘mistake’ as you noted ! This time the target is not only Russia, but the target is all Eurasian powers who are too adamant not to follow the directives from AngloZionist clique.
The West is the (Best) Pest. There has been an ongoing denigration of all culture and religion which is not western all over the world . This has mostly taken the form of utter aggression. Action and reaction are equal but opposite. The present so-called Muslim fundamentalism has at it base such a reaction against westernization and denigration. It is still very much there in most western people( just have a deep discussion with your muslim friend and you will feel it is there a feeling of sadness or hurt ) . But this “fundamentalism” was a minority hardly visible for decades. The British exploited that in India. The mossad exploited that in 56 when dressed as Muslims the stated killing their own.The western powers have exploited this fact to the maximum Afganisthan Libya etc etc. If one wants to get rid of Daesh get rid of those who use and sponser them. Next a little bomb or two on the darling of the western powers the house of Saudi Arabia would be very helpful. Get rid of the pest i.e. western fundamentalism exceptionaism or whatever one wants to call it and Islam fundamentalism will melt like butter in the sun.True also that all form of religion has or had some violence but most so the Christian religion..
@ bernie:
“The present so-called Muslim fundamentalism has at it base such a reaction against westernization and denigration. It is still very much there in most western people( just have a deep discussion with your muslim friend and you will feel it is there a feeling of sadness or hurt ).”
For most ‘western’ people, if they’re even able to have a “discussion with a Muslim friend,” that’s only because said Muslim is living in the west.
Why is that, I ask! If they feel so disgusted by western “culture” and/or humiliated, sad, or whatever… there are plenty of countries where they can feel right at home than they do in the west. Yet, they insist on being here! And to top it all off they then they feel entitled to complain about the many things they see around them as “wrong” or how it “offends” them.
Don’t like it? Leave! Who the hell is stopping them? Unlike the Gulf Monarchies where you need a visa to exit – not enter – EXIT the country, most western countries don’t have such rules, as far as I know, that is.
They’re free to go where ever they feel they might be happier. Yet they stay and then they seek to change their host country to something that it’s more palatable to THEM and only them. To hell with how non-Muslims might feel about it. And why is that? Because, in their view, non-Muslims are considered ‘heretics,’ in other words: non-persons, therefore their feelings don’t count.
Well… me and plenty of others have a problem with that, and I’m not even from the so-called ‘west’ myself!
I’m sorry (but I’m not really sorry), just like with the Jews and their eternal victim mentality – because of the holocaust, of course… *eye-roll* – the Muslims – living in western countries – and their eternal chip on their shoulder act is wearing mighty thin too. The only reason why their drama-queen act is being artificially tolerated is because powerful interest at the top are disproportionally protecting them from the natural backlash they’re bringing upon themselves.
-TL2Q
PS: btw… even non-Muslim Blacks are also getting sick and tired of the favoritism for western, or western-living, or western-born Muslims. Considering they’re also a minority, and a repressed minority at that, with slavery under their belts, yet they’re being ignored just as much as everybody else who’s not a Muslim. I can’t say I blame them :/
It all depends on the view what the agenda of the oligarchs could be.
I think the oligachs want to get rid of all religions and just using Islam to get their point across.
One of the reasons they choose Islam, in my opinion, is that it is the easiest crowd to manipulate.
Pardon me, but they are doing an excellent job.
I would’t call Judaism and any off its offshoots “peacefull” religions if history is any indication.
I really doubt that the Quran is “a Book that clearly and vehemently condemns violence and coercion”. I mean, it’s an Abrahamic religion after all. None of the other major books in the Abrahamic tradition clearly condemn violence and coercion. Rather, they are all mixed, sometimes condemning and sometimes (in the case of the Old Testament, most of the time) endorsing violence and coercion. And most other successful religions are the same–Hindu texts are certainly a mix, for instance.
More specifically, it seems clear that the Quran does endorse a fair amount of righteous warfare. And frankly, given the context of the times I really don’t think it could have become a significant force in the world if it did not. It does have written in a certain amount of tolerance for other “people of the book”, which is to say other followers of Abrahamic religions. Anyone else, like Buddhists and Hindus and polytheists, on the other hand, were fair game. Presumably atheists too, although I expect nobody was even taking that possibility into account at the time.
With any religious text, there are internal contradictions and there are writings which were apt to the time and place but do not translate well into universal principles. It’s perhaps presumptuous of me to even have an opinion on this, since I myself am an atheist. But that also to some extent makes me a neutral; I’m not inherently biased in favour of or against one or another specific religion. Taking that perspective into account: In my opinion the project of arriving at a worthwhile version of a religion is a matter of arriving at one’s best understanding of universal ethics, philosophically, and bringing that into a conversation as it were with the sacred text. Try to find an ethical core of the religion that is both as true to it as a unified vision can be and as true to intuitively and rationally reflected upon ethics as it can be. This will, to be blunt, in effect discard some of the text–no matter what text it is. But all attempts at “literalism”, usually in the service of finding excuses for following an unethical vision, are also forced to discard some of the text–they just don’t admit it.
So for instance, in Christianity modern American so-called “literalists” generally endorse modern capitalism and its practices, such as interest-bearing loans, and various forms of the idea that material success is something granted by God for some sort of virtue and those with material success must be presumed to deserve it (one implication being that if you just donate generously when you’re poor, you will get God’s favour and prosper materially–an evil scam). Which is to say, they ignore around half of what Jesus said in multiple gospels, as well as numerous sections (including at least one complete, very bloody story) condemning usury (including all modern banking with the possible exception of Islamic banking) as a vile, depraved sin for which deaths far worse than simple stoning are mandated. So much for literalism.
So I would argue that the project of refining the best Islam, like the best Christianity or the best Judaism, must necessarily be one of picking and choosing which bits of the books one is going to ignore–or, if “ignore” sticks in one’s craw when it comes to the work of holy scripture, let’s say “Treat as situational, relating to the particulars of that time and place, rather than as universal guidance”. Trying to pretend that the best, most ethical version of a religion (or any other consistent version) can represent the entirety of the text is an exercise in self-delusion, and the results will remain vulnerable to anyone who simply reads the text and finds the bits that are not consistent with the vision involved. It’s more robust and intellectually honest to simply be aware that any consistent “take” on a religion has to involve some interpretation and selectivity with the text, and to do that work as forthrightly as possible.
Overall, then, I generally think the project of coming up with the most benevolent, non-“violence and coercion”, and non-sectarian variant of Islam possible is an excellent one, and certainly no more inconsistent with the nature of the Quran than most other possible approaches to Islam. But trying to do so in a way that insists it is the true interpretation, that the Quran supports only that vision, is in my opinion a doomed exercise (as would be an attempt to do the same for Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism etc).
Thanks a lot for your comment. A LOT. Many articles on this site that talk about Islam always promote Islam as a peaceful religion assuming that violent islamic behavior is always related to a “misinterpretation” of the Qûran. This starts to irritate me. Islam is NOT a peaceful religion. The Qûran is in fact endorsing i.e. murder against non-believers, lapidation, whipping for adultrous women, etc. One quick look at Surah 4, 84-91, Surah 2, 191 and Surah 24, 2-4 should be enough to convince anyone. And there are a lot of other examples ; let’s not talk about the Hâdiths, which are even worse… And we could say the same about the Old Testament (as you already said it). So how can you blame people who act according to the orders of their prophet ? You can either blame the Qûmran in itself, or you can blame those people on the basis of a moral code that is not theirs, which would be unjust.
I disagree, however, on one major point : The New Testament is clearly a non-violent book. The most “violent” sentence one can find in the New Testament is in Mt 10:34 : “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And this sentence, obviously, has to be understood as a metaphor, since Jesus Christ himself was always opposed to violence against any human being. This is valid even for his enemies : when Peter tried to defend Jesus with his sword and cut a soldier’s ear, Jesus ordered him to hold it back (Mt 26, 52 : “Put up again thy sword into his place : for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”). At the contrary, Muhammad was himself a warlord.
So the only major religions that are condemning violence against other humans at 100% are christianism and buddhism. I may forget other religions, but Islam and judaism do not belong in this category.
The Old Testament is if anything probably more important to the Christian religion than it is to the Jewish religion (they’ve got the Talmud and stuff), so no, Christianity does not get a pass–particularly in view of its history, which is steeped to the gills in religiously-justified violence. Jesus, lest we forget, was a Jew; he wanted to modify some stuff, but he was operating within the Jewish Old Testament/Torah religious and legal tradition.
Buddhism, yeah maybe, but even there I think we tend to get a sanitized view of Buddhism because Europeans know little or nothing about what Buddhists get up to as a majority religion.
Problem:
This ignores the backlash against liberals, liberalism, and associated groups within western nations themselves who will be held to be responsible for weakening the West enough to allow Muslim attacks within our borders. It’s not reasonable to think that we will wage total war on Islam without first routing western liberalism itself. This will essentially lead to civil war, which will inhibit capacity for international war as well as invite conflict with China who will see a weakened West. In short, the Muslim WWIII scenario is entirely too simplistic.
In fact, fantastical hyperbole over hypothetical anti-Muslim total war only exacerbates the problem through the effect that it has on marginalizing rational solutions that may reduce terrorism; thus ironically driving us toward my above stated situation.
Ghassan Kadi writes well, and from the heart. Kudos
I am currently reading a 2000 page EBOOK which ALSO hypothesises that
the Holy Quran has been usurped by those would use it to gain power in
this world. Its a very detailed document, and can be seen at
https://quranite.com/the-quran-a-complete-revelation/
It seems that whenever a sentient being has been open to Revelation and
wishes to share the gift, within decades, or even sooner, it becomes fossilised,
corrupted and misused . Why should this be??
The Devil and his henchman were wandering about town looking for mischief to forment, trouble to manufacture, conflicts to inflame.
Suddenly, across the road they saw a Holy man, wawing his hands in the air and calling out ” I have found enlightement, I have seen the simplicity of salvation. It is ours but for the asking”
The henchman looked most concerned: ” this is a threat to our evil empire, the world of guilt, doom and destruction. What are we to do?”
The Devil just smiled. Meanwhile, the Holy man contined, obvioulsy joyful.
The henchman continued.” We have to act, or we are done. What to do??”
The Devil just smiled again, and said ” He has found paradise; I’ll just wander over and help him organise it”
There is far more here than Daesh, Islam or the specifics of this particular conflict. One might look to the ambitions of the Anglo-Zionist movement as well. I would point out that major national and world conflicts are increasingly coming along about every 80+ years or so. This suggests that the processes that generate these conflicts are much deeper than the issues of the day.
I strongly suspect that Daesh is simply one manifestation of a basic force for war which has not yet been adequately analyzed. Like some plague in a world without medical understanding it will have to run its course and then burn itself out.
The world did not oppose Nazism because it was not ‘convenient’. It would always cost too much at any stage of its advance until no cost was too much. So it will be again. It is likely the nature of the beast.
Your description of a war against Islam building in stages may come to pass, but I would argue that such a war would be a general distraction from a greater war arising from the dissolution of the West as we have known it. The dynamics of civilization for the last 500 years may well be ending or transforming. Current wars and their justifications may be mere epiphenomena floating on that vast change.
The current struggles in the EU do not make sense in any simple terms. The failure of the EU to stop Muslim antagonism and expel the immigrants for failing to assimilate long before now is astounding when you consider that 80 years ago national identity was an obsession in Europe and armies out of Germany were determined to exterminate peoples who did not fit a narrow concept of national and racial identity. This was an overall attitude prevalent in Europe throughout the previous 500 years in one form or another if not so extreme. Why should it pass simply because reformers want it so?
Now the EU celebrates tolerance to a fault, its politicians excuse rape and other assault from a flow of migrants or invaders it will not oppose, and fails to defend an identity that should on an historical basis call forth rivers of blood. This is not reasonable in itself. This entire situation should never have arisen if their were any conviction remaining in European identity. Europe has lost all conviction in itself. This opinion is not new, but has been around since the First World War. Recent events argue forcefully for its imminent, if not past, truth. What will follow after is yet to be seen.
Still, a war against Islam or a war for the reformation of the world. Whatever is growing out of recent events, it seems a dynamic beyond human control. We are all just along for the ride and our efforts to divert action in one way or another are just part of the show. We cannot know with any confidence the consequences of our own actions. We can only do what we must. Put down Daesh if you can but the action itself may be just part of a wider war waiting to burn its way across the globe.
Often, in these discussions, there seems to something missing. A very fundamental something missing. Which I think Ghassan Kadi alludes to.
My understanding is that Islam means complete submission to the will of God, so it is not possible to understand Islam without some understanding of God.
The Russian writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn summed this up is his Templeon Address:
More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.
“Men have forgotten God”, but so too can they find IT, however, they must find it within themselves. It does not reside outside of ourselves in the phenomenal universe.
There are two opposing forces at work in this world, and we as human beings, can generally be put in one or other of the two camps. Those whose lessons in life predominantly revolve around the experience of power, and those whose lessons are concerned primarily with the force of love. That isn’t to say that the people whose lessons are predominantly with the force of power, do not have experiences with love, and vice versa – they do, however, you can basically put people into either one of the two camps. The end result of all experience is to learn to become responsible for one’s actions, for starters. As Socrates said, Know Thyself.
You will notice that the spiritual lesson of karma lies at the bottom of most narratives that we are presented with, from the nursery rhymes of childhood onward. That is – that which we sow, we must also reap! We might ask, however, how come there is such a delay between cause and effect, ie; why do wrong-doers appear to get away with devious and destructive acts?
They/we dont. Its just that we do not always recognise the often delayed reactions, of the actions we put into motion! However, when something good happens we think of it as “good luck” or when its the opposite, we blame “bad luck”. It’s neither – there’s no such thing as good or bad “luck” – in fact the results of our actions are generally delivered back to us in “bite-size” pieces and we seldom put together a sequence of action and reaction. We must also consider that when we pass from this life, we take our little suitcase of karma with us on into the next. This explains why some are born in difficult conditions and others have it easier. Forms change, but Soul carries on.
The purpose of all experience is ultimately to bring the individual into alignment with the Great Spirit, called It what you will. This can only be experienced through the inner channels and in its purest form, as Sound and Light. The Apostles at Passover spoke of a “great sound such as the rushing of winds that passed overhead”, something to this effect. They were speaking of the Sound Current which can be heard as various sounds with the inner ears, but is in fact, the sound of the atoms reacting to Divine Spirit as It moves through the worlds of matter, energy, space and time.
The origin of the word “religion” means to re-connect, or to re-tie. This in effect means to bring one’s inner, or subjective self in line with the outer or objective self. In other words, we must nourish the spiritual aspect of our being, just as we need to feed, bathe, and rest our physical body. The word Human Being does in fact mean “God-man Being”, HU being an ancient name for God, and Man – Being. A spiritual/physical being! The great Persian poet Rumi, among others, spoke of the HU in his masterful poetry, but HU does not belong to any one religion – It is God’s gift to Soul! The word “Hallelujah” is in fact, a corruption of the word, or vibration, HU. The word AUM chanted by Buddhists, is an aspect of the HU as well.
For Soul, the divine spark within, there is no right or wrong! There is only experience – and the consequence – or price, of that experience! IT is given free will, the ability to postulate, to create and the freedom to have Its experience. Just like a child grows up, Soul too must one day mature and become a useful being, a co-worker with the spiritual hierarchy. Many work for peace in this world, but it will never happen because we live in a warring universe which will one day come to destruction. This is the natural order in the “matter, energy, space, time” or dual universe – all of life; men, nations, planets are born, live, grow and die.
The Deity, or God, does not favor one religion over another as men claim. It is concerned with Soul alone.There is a saying “God created Soul, then threw away the mold.” ( mould, vessel, matrix). This means that we are all individually loved for the unique being that we are, no matter what. However, some of us are “closer” to God, if you like, because we may have earned it, while many are still involved with the lessons of power in a major way. Love is the only force, which may overcome karma, and is that which links individual Souls together, even beyond the death of the physical body. Love, if you like, is the universal language of Soul.
You are the remainder why Allah, praised and glorified be he, said: “Verily, those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in Allaah and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” [al-Baqarah 2:62]
Peace be upon you!
Although religions have their origins in Divine Spirit, most metamorphose over time into something else entirely. As they grow in power and influence, the role of clerics, administrators and the like grows in importance, and the spiritual flame slowly begins to wane. The attention begins to shift from the things of Spirit to the things of a material nature. Most religious leaders are unqualified to explain the true meaning of their respective texts.
For example, St. George slaying the dragon is a parable describing the individual’s duty to overcome his lower nature. Same with Jihad, its a battle with one’s baser self, not an outer “enemy”. The enemy of Soul is the mind. The mind can justify anything it wants. The mind symbolically, is the Devil in that it acts independently of Spirit, ie; it follows its own dictates. The mind is a good servant, but a terrible master.
Bah. Lots of the worst damage has been done by people who are extremely adamant about remembering God. Of course you can say that all those people just think they remember God, and have actually forgotten Him, but that’s a “no true Scotsman” argument. Similarly, you could say that whenever an agnostic or atheist does something good, it’s because somehow without realizing it, in their hearts, like, they actually “remember God” even though they would claim otherwise. “Forgetting God” just becomes this placeholder for “doing bad things”, just applying to anyone you want to disapprove of.
In short, the only way to make the “Forgetting God is the source of all the troubles” claim not simply and drastically false is to make it a circular argument where you say the harm is all being done by people who forgot God and you know they forgot God because they’re doing harm. From my perspective as an atheist, it’s bigoted piffle.
Many atheists are closer to God or shall we say the “hidden energy or force that sustains all of life” – just in case an atheist might dispute the term, “God” – than so-called ardent believers…
You’re absolutely right that some of the greatest freaks the negative force has thrown up have all justified their acts in the name of God. It doesnt excuse them from payment in the true coin for their deeds, thats why we have various purgatories, etc.
And what on earth would Atheists do without God ? Think I’ll take Solzhenits’s writings over some of the pompous self righteous prose found here.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained… more power to you, Hayek!
Life is not a matter of belief, but of demostration, the rest is really just semantics.
Apparently by “pompous” you mean “stuff I can’t counter but don’t want to think about”.
The whole “all the problems are caused by people forgetting God” schtick is part of a trouble that is often, though not always, found among the religious. When people start thinking that there can be no good without God, it makes them morally lazy. They don’t think they have to do the work of actually being good, or figuring out what is genuinely right and wrong for any situation, as long as they’re religious. It gets really bad when they start thinking that anything they think their religion says to do, must by definition be right. That’s when you get crusades and ISIS and stuff. “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened” isn’t at that level yet, but it is on that slope.
Our best hope of coming closer to God, is through love. In order to do so, we must love something more than our ego or our baser self working 24/7 to satify its desires. Of course, people will have different interpretations of what love is, but we cannot deny that love gives, and its in the act of giving that we become “Godlike”. Giving opens and expands the human heart.
Otherwise we’re pretty much caught up in materialistic pedagogics. We’re willing to go to war over our differences. We claim “God” as our authority, but really its our ego, our lack of tolerance, of understanding, our attachments, our fear which is an offshoot of our inability to detach oursleves from our “hard won” state of consciousness. This is a trap of the negative force, to get caught up in the outer world and keep the attention away from the inner self. This inner self quietly observes everything around it, but if we don’t exercise it, it pretty much goes to sleep. An individual dominated by the mind will have no tolerance for another’s point of view and will argue differences and in the end, unable to come to an accord with his neighbor will go to war with him.
One of the most effective ways to exercise the inner self – or to make steps toward doing so, is to quietly sing the word HU – pronounced like the name Hugh, in a long drawn out manner. Its more effective than the Lord’s Prayer, thats for sure. And as I said, it does not belong to any religion, or dogma, its a vibration found in every human language, in every sound of nature. Its the fabled Music of the Spheres, spoken of by the Sufis and mystics throughout the ages. If we can bring a feeling of love into it, its even more effective.
Who is right, atheist or believer? Both are valid paths for the individual. Do we have tolerance for those with a different view of life? Is he willing to accept others unconditionally? We cannot be in touch with the Life Force and simultaneously commit destructive acts, regardless of whether we proclaim ourselves “believers” or not. At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding as the saying goes.
Where do get your morals from ? Nature ? There is no morality in nature . Just an invention of man then. So why is Hitlers morals wrong and yours are right, because you say so ? All you have then is a urinating contest.
@Judaism and any off its offshoots… Abrahamic religions
Can Christianity be defined as an “Abrahamic religion”? Is Christianity an offshoot of Judaism?
“the Jews, said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? … Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? 54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. 57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” (John, 8, 48-59)
Jews did not consider Jesus one of them (you are a Samaritan, born of fornication). Gentile Christians could never consider themselves the biological descendants of Abraham as the Jews and later on Muslims did. “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith”… For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” (Rom, 4). Actually, Abraham saw God in Trinity and it was the Son who spoke to him. Abraham was given bread and wine and blessed by and paid tithes to Melchizedek the “Priest of the Most High God” (El Elyon). And Jesus “has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
Jews and Muslims reject the Trinity, reject the Christ. The “Abrahamic religions alliance” was forged at the time of Islamic conquests with the specific aim to combat Christianity. Contemporary Armenian historians described the circumstances of this alliance.
One is ‘Ghewond’s Armenian History’ (7th Century):
“[The Arabs] began to form brigades and mass troops against Constantine’s realm, against Judaea and Asorestan, having for support the command of their law-giver, that sower of darnel, to “Go against the countries and put them under your rule, for the plenty of the world has been given to us for our enjoyment. Eat the meat of the select ones of the countries, and drink the blood of the mighty.” The Jews were their supporters and leaders, having gone to the camp at Madiam and told them: “God promised Abraham that He would deliver up the inhabitants of the world in service [to him]; and we are his heirs and sons of the patriarch. Because of our wickedness, God became disgusted with us and lifted the scepter of kingship from us, subjecting us to the servitude of slavery. But you, too, are children of Abraham and sons of the patriarch. Arise with us and save us from service to the emperor of the Byzantines, and together we shall hold our realm.” [The Arabs] were encouraged further hearing this, and went against Judaea.”
Another one is Sebeos, an Armenian bishop of the House of Bagratuni, eyewitness of many of the events described:
“The Jews called the Arabs to their aid and familiarized them with the relationship they had through the books of the Old Testament… In that period a certain one of them, a man of the sons of Ishmael named Mahmed, became prominent. A sermon about the Way of Truth, supposedly at God’s command, was revealed to them, and Mahmed taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially since he was informed and knowledgeable about Mosaic history. Because the command had come from on High, he ordered them all to assemble together and to unite in faith. Abandoning the reverence of vain things, they turned toward the living God, who had appeared to their father–Abraham… He said: “God promised that country to Abraham and to his son after him, for eternity. And what had been promised was fulfilled during that time when God loved Israel. Now, however, you are the sons of Abraham, and God shall fulfill the promise made to Abraham and his son on you. Only love the God of Abraham, and go and take the country which God gave to your father Abraham. No one can successfully resist you in war, since God is with you.”
So, the “Abrahamic religions” were from the start geared against Orthodox Christianity. The inclusion of Orthodox Christianity* among the “Abrahamic religions” is a deception. It assumes that it promotes the same violence (even higher) as the other two and therefore that it is in no moral position to criticise them. Many people fell for that and, crushed by an imaginary guilt, excuse and justify masochistically the actions of a Daesh and their ilk.
*It should be clear that Protestantism which made the Old Testament (Torah, the “portable Fatherland” of the Jews, as Heinrich Heine aptly called it) their sacred book, is nothing more than “pork-eating Judaism” (as the same Heinrich Heine so aptly called it).
@ WizOz:
“Can Christianity be defined as an “Abrahamic religion”? Is Christianity an offshoot of Judaism?”
To be fair, yes it is.
For the simple reason they’ve attached the Old Testament to the New one. If they had the balls to detach the New Testament from the Old one, then they’d be a non-Abrahamic religion on their own right (and I’m saying this as an Atheist, btw).
Christians, of any denomination, are of course free to believe whatever it is they want to believe, but in my personal opinion; Christians should follow only the Gospels, anything written prior or after them should be struck-off from their official creed and only be read as a curiosity, or for entertainment if so they whish, no different from reading The Lord of the Rings.
“[..] Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.”
^ Good quote (the old English is a bit annoying though, not your fault, of course). What he’s saying there seems to be in-line with what Christian Gnostics believe: that his Father/God is the true God, while the god of the Talmud/Old-Testament is a false-god known by the Gnostics as the “Demiurge.”
I’ve read about Gnostic’s believes and they’re quite fascinating. I would recommend it to anyone interested in mystical/spiritual subjects, and I must say… even as a non-religious person myself, their ‘theories’ (for lack of a better word) make a hell lot of sense.
While other religions are mired with endless and conflicting ‘interpretations’ of their holy texts, the Gnostics are pretty straight forward to understand. No dodgy interpretations required.
-TL2Q
Atheists do not have any knowledge of Christianity. The Christianity they are talking about is a strawman, a product of their own imagination. Their opinions about are therefore absolutely irrelevant. It is not (entirely) their fault, the apparently natural atheism of these days and the smug know-it-all attitude it induces is the result of centuries of anti-Christian brainwashing. In what regards the relations of the Old and New Testaments, their opinions are just the regurgitations of the (not even digested) ravings of the Gnostic impostors of yore, peppered with misunderstood Jewish criticism of Christianity and misunderstanding of the Old Testament itself.
You, throwing a hissy-fit at the mere suggestion that the old testament should be removed from the Christian bible (there are plenty of other texts that were taken out by the Church before) illustrates the very subject on the above article: why Muslims are so resistant to reform too, if not much more so than Christians are or ever were. And that’s the problem we’re all facing right now, including Muslims themselves. It’s particularly tough (if not, out-right life threatening) for the very brave Muslims advocating for reform.
Christianity and all its branches, in their current form are not a threat to anybody, the minute Episcopalians, or Baptists or whatever start blowing themselves up in crowded places I might have to revisit my last statement, but not before that happens.
The anti-Christian sentiment you speak of comes mostly from globalists [in here referred to as: Anglo-Zionists] and liberals, both are currently aligned, at least in the west, with Muslims, mostly Sunni Muslims, btw.
Further on this point; the main reason why there’s an anti-Christian push in the west is because the ‘elites’ don’t see this religion as an effective tool to control the masses anymore. It used to be in the past, but at some point in the last 50 or so years, it lost its grip on people. For one thing; one can be a devout Christian and still be anti-establishment, that’s no good for the elites, neither is the fact that leaving Christianity has no real repercussions. Who the hell still cares about being officially excommunicated anymore?
On the other hand: try being a member of a conservative Muslim family and become an apostate. You’d be disowned at best or hunted down and “honor” killed at worst.
In my opinion: that’s why Islam – particularly the more draconian branches/sects of Islam – are being favored by the western ‘elites’ over creeds that don’t benefit them, nor help them to repress/control the masses to the point they police themselves, just like Muslims tend to do.
“In what regards the relations of the Old and New Testaments, their opinions are just the regurgitations of the (not even digested) ravings of the Gnostic impostors of yore [..]”
Aaaand that’s your opinion!
No different, really, from Sunni Muslims calling Shiite Muslims – and every other Muslim sect they don’t approve of as impostors.
That’s why we are where we are :/
-TL2Q
My question is why atheists and non-religious persons feel compelled to give advice to religious persons in matters in which, by their own admission, have scant (if any) knowledge?
WizOz, I really appreciated your first post where you quote the words of Christ, which are a like a balm for the spirit. I like your approach of just stating the Christian truth without getting sidetraked by the arguments of atheists. I have an atheist friend who is always putting me in the position of having to defend my faith. For him, the existence of God is indefensible. I have to concede his point on a purely logical level. However, thanks to him, I realized that the issue in Christianity, the proof, as it were, is when Jesus spoke of being the good shepard, saying, “My sheep hear my voice.” It is as simple as that! Either you hear his voice or you do not. If you sense the life giving force of the words of Christ, you are hearing his voice, otherwise you can argue about the existence of God “even to the edge of doom.”
Daesh is not a homogenous entity. Some are there for the ideology. Some are there having been released from Saudi prisons on the condition that they fight in ISIS/Daesh/whatever, some are there for the money, some are there for a multitude of reasons.
At the end of the day, ISIS/Daesh is where it is because it was enabled by the Anglo-Zionists. If it wasn’t useful to the Anglo-Zionists, it would have been squashed years ago. Daseh/ISIS is simply a disposable proxy mercenary army of the Anglo-Zionists, serving their purposes, sufficiently detached from direct control to give plausible deniability. Or so the Anglo-Zionists hoped in terms of plausible deniability.
Re.: “Who would have thought back then that what we see today was fathomable?”
Oh, come on! Very many did. Most of them were (and are) not in a position to do anything about it.
Exactly as you are.
Until the US and other’s stop the supply of weapons, Daesh will continue and grow! The WHOLE world population as a whole is NOW looking for their very own “why are we here, what is our reason, here on earth? And so many young Muslims and others, vulnerable and in desperate need for direction, get mis-lead by those seeking their own goals! This has always been and will always be!
What this world needs is to go back to a multi-polar world (my support for Putin), back to domestic economies and some wholesome truth! Thats what this world needs.
Generally today, as it has now been for some years, business has had to drop morals and take up immorality, just to survive. Those that don’t, generally have failed and it is obvious why.
Who do we have to thank for this awful mess? All evidence, and their is more than plenty, points directly to the US and Allies!
I saw this what Ghassan Cadi writes when 9/11 happened. I had just done Shahada on impulse during my first Ramadan celebrations at the end of the long fasting. I joined for instruction after having read 20 years earlier The Golden Bough by Sir, Frazier, knighted by the English Queen (Empire, India a colony) after she read his tome on all world religions. Living in the YWCA Berkshire Residence waiting for a government cost reduced Amsterdam flat to live as a Netherlands citizen from birth on 9/11, I had become fast friends with women from all over the world. Since I was bound to go back the part of the globe I was born to, at meals I sat only with those ladies, absorbing their realities with great interest, pleasure and curiosity. The morning 9/11 happened I had done Shahada only weeks before.
J. Edgar Hoover had opened a top secret file on me the year my first son was born, 1960. From the relentless 9/11 US propaganda spewed by CNN coverage of the planned demolition of the WTC buildings (I’d watched them being built, my second son in a pram, the first 2 years old)I knew this was as false flag to beat all other false flags. I, to protect myself, changed my religion immediately to Orthodox Greek Christianity with the help of a dear Greek friend from Thessolonica, Maria…my dueena religious advisor.And began reading the New York Times cover to cover every day, until I was
too poor to buy that or the other International Times paper and living in Amsterdam, about 9 years later.
That file was extended while I lived in the US with my growing brilliant sons on our own 100% owned house in a nice suburb of New Haven, Connecticut…, the home of Yale, where I had begun matriculation on a full course load. Each Yale student is subjected to CIA and FBI checks, no matter who they are. I was ordered removed from Yale. By any means. Killing me was contemplated but not tried yet as the US Feds intended to own my family name to use as their own. It’s history too going back to 7,000 ad.Those attempts started in earnest in Amsterdam after I was force moved out of the old city itself to a suburb. Back in the US the removal from Yale coincided with attempt to smear me as so dangerous that my top secret file to extinguish by 2009 could be extended another 30 years, to 2020.The New Haven lawyer I hired to clear me, accomplished that FBI extension, no problems, to 2020. I found out later he had become a useful arm of the US intelligence services, from another lawyer.
Under Bush1, the assassinations of family members began and have not ended yet. My youngest son horribly in 2013 while a summa cum laude student at SCAD in Georgia. My first son, to move here with his family in 20215, the Feds refused, not one reason, to send him his passport.All communications were blocked, still today. The last attempts on me 2015 in April, October and November.
A very forceful article and your items 1 through 13 really lay out what is in store. All I can bring to this discussion derives from my personal experience and “street” perspective, living in France. I can tell you that things are dire both for France and for me personally. What I see under my nose is that the jihadis never sleep, while the vast majority of French never wake up. It is like the ant and the grasshopper story. The jihadis are like the busy ant, storing up provisions for the winter–that is the jihadis are busily stocking weapons and explosives. They are preparing like a professional army, stocking up weapons, establishing networks of informants, infiltrating agencies and firms that represent important control points or give them access to sensitive information, etc. They are under no illusions that war is coming. Meanwhile, they distract us with their bad behavior, such as at Cologne, to make us focus on the question of assimilation, as if that mattered. The leftist governments pander to them, seeing them as a useful voting block.
Given that Europeans are, in a practical sense, umarmed, what self-respecting jihadi would not come here to pluck the ripe fruit so heavy on the boughs?
The European police forces were never prepared for a threat like this. European authorities are constituted for solving individual crimes, cracking down on tax cheaters, and the like. It is laughable to see them confronted by the overwhelming threat to their very existence, that they cannot even imagine in their worst nightmares.