Hyperion

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"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...."

"The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly"

kbdullah

You're going to respond to the killing of innocent people by killing more innocent people? Because that makes sense.

As far as that whole sidebar about Catholicism and democracy - my whole point was that there isn't anything intrinsic to Islam, Catholicism, or any other religion that preaches against democracy. The reformations that need to take place within the Middle East are political - a need for democracy and secularism, in that order.

e-monk

and now the Rushdie fatwa is back on

e-monk

I really miss Martin Scorsese, it was so sad when he got killed by that mob of christians for portraying christ as a whoremonger. It's a shame because I was really looking forward to seeing Goodfellas and Casino....

and then when those mobs just started killing anyone who happened to have bushy eyebrows because they kind of looked like him? seriously? wtf? those were crazy times....

R-Star

Salmon Rushdie.

It's like a sauna in here.

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King Joseus

They're real...and they're spectacular.


I don't know if that fits.

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R-Star

Fast forward to a hotel room with Jackie Chiles.


Chiles? Sounds right but maybe not.

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Prince

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kbdullah

Except that type of stuff used to happen in the Christian world, and those acts disappeared as a result of political reformation. The religion itself didn't change, just the politics of the regions it was practiced in.

e-monk

your ongoing thesis re political systems has a couple problems - Qaddafi and Mubarak are no longer in power and have been replaced by some semblance of democratic reform and fatwa and jihad are religious not political concepts

and the christian religion has in fact changed dramatically both in its basic tenents, it's place in society and power it wields - in fact it's awkward to even talk about the christian religion as unified thing

E.H. Munro

Yeah, it's kind of obvious now with the arrests in Libya.

About as awkward as talking about Islam as a unified thing. (And sort of forgetting that there are democratic Islamic states because it doesn't fit with one's preconceived notions of the religion.)

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"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

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e-monk

first of all the range of distinct christian churches and established practices dwarfs that of islam which is a much more orthodoxically unified belief system with far fewer schisms and sub faiths

and second did I just not say Mubarak and Qaddafi had been replaced by some semblance of democratic reform in the very post you're critiquing?

E.H. Munro

No, there are indeed a lot of subsects of Islam. And no real unified central authority to effect change. That's why it took Wahhabism decades to do its damage despite controlling Islam's holiest sites.

__________________
If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

kbdullah

My thesis had two parts a) democracy and b) secularism. There are Muslim countries that have had democratic governments placed, but which resolves a) but not b).

Until secular government is adopted, leaders can contort religion to promote their agenda.

Fatwa and jihad are religious concepts but are used to further political agendas. Fatwa is just an issuance of religious opinion, an op-ed. Jihad is an abstract concept of struggle. But because most the governments are non-secular, leaders can issue false fatwas, speaking of jihad and calling for war to the point where citizens adopt their views and people on the outside looking in think jihad means war.

Bogg

Like how Jesus wants low taxes for the rich and would abhor healing the sick and providing for the poor. Free-market industrialist, that Jesus was.