Suspected terrorist attack in London 4 dead including the attacker

[hot enough]

5 minutes ago, Rue said:

I would argue you refuse to see a connection between Islam and terrorism and justify that blindness by ysing the above argument.

This actually isn't astonishing at all, though it should be. Why haven't you made the same connection between christianity and terrorism. The USA is the biggest terrorist nation/group in the world. The US is the only nation to ever have been convicted of international terrorism. The world has been telling the US for the last 25 years to stop its terrorism against Cuba. The US has overthrown myriad sovereign governments by illegal invasion and by subversion - that is the dictionary definition of terrorism. 

[blackbird]

4 minutes ago, Rue said:

I would argue you refuse to see a connection between Islam and terrorism and justify that blindness by ysing the above argument.

Saying there is a connection between Islam and terrorism which you refuse to do, does not mean one blames all Muslims for being bad people. In fact Michael Hard. has in his own way made that point to me. I don't mistake him saying to me I can never draw a conection between Islam and terrorism. I get that from your words.

I don't think negatively assigning all Muslims blame for terrorists within their community is fair or logical and in fact it probably is what Muslim terrorists want but it is important we denounce the Muslim extremist ideology behind this terrorism.

Not all 3 million Muslims in Britain are terrorists but there is far higher a likelihood a terrorist today is calling themselves  a Muslim and comes from a Muslim community. That is not an excuse to hate Muslims but it is a fact we can't ignore.

I agree.  I have nothing against Muslims.   I think it is wrong to equate being opposed to Islam as being against Muslims.  There is a lot of that going on.

In western democracies where freedom of religion and freedom of expression is paramount, people are free to believe in whatever religion or no religion and free to express opinions about other religions they disagree with.  This is a historical right which has been exercised for a long time.  The problem with the word Islamophobia, which motion the parliament just passed a few hours ago, the word is not defined.  That leaves it open to individual interpretation.  However we still have a Constitution and historical precedents which uphold freedom of expression.  But if such a word comes into law, we may have a problem. 

 

[DogOnPorch]

 

2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I agree.  I have nothing against Muslims.   I think it is wrong to equate being opposed to Islam as being against Muslims.  There is a lot of that going on.

In western democracies where freedom of religion and freedom of expression is paramount, people are free to believe in whatever religion or no religion and free to express opinions about other religions they disagree with.  This is a historical right which has been exercised for a long time.  The problem with the word Islamophobia, which motion the parliament just passed a few hours ago, the word is not defined.  That leaves it open to individual interpretation.  However we still have a Constitution and historical precedents which uphold freedom of expression.  But if such a word comes into law, we may have a problem. 

 

 

The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.

[DogOnPorch]

6 minutes ago, blackbird said:

But if such a word comes into law, we may have a problem. 

 

 

In some ways...it ALREADY has in Canada...for quite some time. If you recall...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_against_Maclean's_magazine

Good ol' Ezra, too...and they're just the 'famous' ones.

Plus...as I've pointed-out a few times: many Canadians already pay a tax to Islam in the form of Halal Certification...a poorly regulated racket that any upstanding mobster would LOVE to control.

[Hudson Jones]

30 minutes ago, Rue said:

I would argue you refuse to see a connection between Islam and terrorism and justify that blindness by ysing the above argument.

Can you show something to back the following comment you made?

That is because 80% of Muslims remain unable to read and therefore are dependent on Imams.

 

[Hudson Jones]

This interview and comment by Simon Jenkins gives a perfect observation of the situation:

 

[Moonlight Graham]

23 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Any attempt to apply objective rules that implicate Islam as the cause of violence fails.  Therefore Islam can't be shown to be the cause.

For all of the complaints about people being called racist for airing their views, there hasn't been a solid proof made that this religion causes anything.  

Islam can't be entirely blamed, but it's a part of the reason.  Mohammad was a brutal conquering warlord.  Jesus was a anti-violence pacifist.  If you model your life closely after Mohammad, you're on the road to violence.  If you model it closely after Jesus, you're on your way to becoming Martin Luther King Jr.

Not to say all Muslims are violent, far from it, but the ones who aren't violent aren't living the way Mohammed lived.  The countless Muslims who name their children "Mohammad" are naming them after a warlord.  Most religions are pretty loony, but I'd rather be called Christopher/Christine.,

[Bonam]

7 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Islam can't be entirely blamed, but it's a part of the reason.  Mohammad was a brutal conquering warlord.  Jesus was a anti-violence pacifist.  If you model your life closely after Mohammad, you're on the road to violence.  If you model it closely after Jesus, you're on your way to becoming Martin Luther King Jr.

Not to say all Muslims are violent, far from it, but the ones who aren't violent aren't living the way Mohammed lived.  The countless Muslims who name their children "Mohammad" are naming them after a warlord.  Most religions are pretty loony, but I'd rather be called Christopher/Christine.,

Why? Warriors trump pacifists every time. History doesn't lie. 

[Rue]

2 minutes ago, Hudson Jones said:

Can you show how you came across this information?

Fair question. Depending on what you read literacy rates vary from 40-60 to higher percentages.

It depends on what countries you look at It depends on what gender you look at, and what age group y ou look at.

Also it depends what you mean by literacy.

It you define literacy as basic reading and writing, its higher.

If you define literacy as at a level to argue in writing and read nuances its far far lower

No one specifically has examined the level of literacy to be able to understand Koran passages.

Please do not confuse basic reading and writing with being literate to read the Koran.

The majority of Muslims go to madrassas and learn the Koran in  "Arabic", a language they don't necessarily understand.

 A  local Imam teaches tem very basic Arabic, not sufficient to be able to read the Koran on their own and be fluent in it..

Further complicating matters is that not all Muslims speak Arabic. Even then, Arabic speakers do not necessarily speak the language of the Quran.  It also has to be remembered that WRITTEN  Arabic contains a very large amount of vocabulary and a more complex grammar than any of the oral or spoken  dialects of Arabic that are actually spoken and limited to the Middle East.  Next, ne-quarter of the world's population in Muslim which means many do not speak let alone write Arabic so arfe not literate in the Koran.

So the question is how many Muslims can read classic Arabic and therefore be literate to read the Koran. Unfortunately the literacy rates don't address that but common sense tells you that less than 21% of Muslims are Imams. Thus the use of the term 80%. In fact I could have been much more accurate and said 20% of the Muslim world are not Imams, just 5%. However I am assuming a classic Arab literacy rate higher than it probably is.

The fact is most Muslims can not read the Quran for one simple reason, and that is because the Quran is very difficult to understand. it is written in the language of Kouriash, which was the ancient  language of the Arabs in Arabia and so many if not most of its  words are very hard to understand unless you use dictionaries. This is why Imams say the majority of Muslims can not read and understand the Koran.

The actual fundamental literacy rate in Muslim countries for arguments sake is somewhere between 40 to 50% of Muslims who can not read or write at all. Of the 50-60% who could read or write at a basic level its usually 20% who go on to universities and so I use the term 80% illiteracy rate to be able to read the Koran. I generaously assume the 20% who go to university could push come to shove use a dictionary of ancient Kouriash with their modern Arabic to try read the Korean but only Imams actually study it from cover to cover and there are no statistics on how many Imams are fully fluent or functional in reading Kouriash.

According to : http://bibleanswerstodayblog.com/muslims...he-koran/: they state:

"The truth is that less than 2% of Muslims are able to read the Koran (some say only .5%). Since this is true, how do Muslims know what is in the Koran? Since it is not lawful for the Koran to be translated into any other language, only commentaries on the Koran can lawfully be written. And guess what? Most of these commentaries are written by Imams and most of them have been taught by radical Muslims."

Now before I answer these question even further, there is a very good reason why even people who think they can understand the Koran do not:

a-the chapters are not in chronological order, i.e., the order in which they were "revealed"-there's 114 suras (chapters) in order from longest to shortest-that in itself means they are not flowing in sequence of the actual thoughts that developed them;

b-each sura contains many subjects or issues that are unrelated and don't connect so necessarily the stories are disjointed, i.e., jump around without cohesion and logical flow;

c-the Koran in fact has a sequence where Muhammad goes from distrusting non Muslims to out and out hating them-it progresses but because of a and b you have to look for it;

d-then as I have mentioned to someone who came on this forum to preach the Koran and claims to be a young Turkish girl that she has no clue as to the principle of abrogation which means, many passages written after others written before the are said to over-ride the earlier passages but because the suras are not placedin chronological order trying to figure out what over-rides what is very very difficult-according to Muslims scholars only 43 suras are not over-ridden or contradicted and made obsolete by other suras;

e-you can't read let alone understand the Koran without first reading both the SIRA and HADITH which are stories about the life of Mohammed and then relate back to suras that are not contradicted by other suras to referencing them back to his life stories to get their actual meaning;

f-according to the Koran, you either live in the realm or place of Islam (the right life and way of doing things) or you live in a state of war (all non Muslims) and all non Muslims are viewed inherently and necessarily as the enemy until they convert to Islam-so even if a non Muslim thinks they have read a translation of the Koran in English they can not be said to understand it until they first convert;

g-the Koran is designed NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD by the average Muslim-ordinary Muslims are only supposed to lear on a need-to-know basis which means unless you are an Imam or Mullah you are not supposed to know or be able to know the actual true meanings even if you could read ancient Arabic.

So with all that in mind if you want to refer to literacy rates that if a Muslim can read basic modern Arabic they are literate enough to read the Koran knock yourself out and use these statistics which won't help you:

 

 

 

 

https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_-_Education_and_Employment

http://en.rafed.net/women-world-mainmenu/family-fun/did-you-know/1097-rate-of-literacy-in-islamic-countries

http://www.iinanews.com/page/public/report.aspx?id=10377#.WNQ-RI-cHFg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Muslims-have-lowest-literacy-rate/articleshow/17813189.cms

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001462/146282e.pdf

[kactus]

1 hour ago, Rue said:

 say that about mainstream Islam at this point. Unfortunately its stlll not at the stage where people have developed critical skills to question its clergy. That is because 80% of Muslims remain unable to read and therefore are dependent on Imams.

 

That statement in itself requires critical thinking....to avoid being accused of making things up can you please provide a cite that this bold statement made by you holds gravitas? Enquiring minds like to know....

[kactus]

13 minutes ago, Rue said:

Fair question. Depending on what you read literacy rates vary from 40-60 to higher percentages.

It depends on what countries you look at It depends on what gender you look at, and what age group y ou look at.

Also it depends what you mean by literacy.

It you define literacy as basic reading and writing, its higher.

If you define literacy as at a level to argue in writing and read nuances its far far lower

No one specifically has examined the level of literacy to be able to understand Koran passages.

Please do not confuse basic reading and writing with being literate to read the Koran.

The majority of Muslims go to madrassas and learn the Koran in  "Arabic", a language they don't necessarily understand.

 A  local Imam teaches tem very basic Arabic, not sufficient to be able to read the Koran on their own and be fluent in it..

Further complicating matters is that not all Muslims speak Arabic. Even then, Arabic speakers do not necessarily speak the language of the Quran.  It also has to be remembered that WRITTEN  Arabic contains a very large amount of vocabulary and a more complex grammar than any of the oral or spoken  dialects of Arabic that are actually spoken and limited to the Middle East.  Next, ne-quarter of the world's population in Muslim which means many do not speak let alone write Arabic so arfe not literate in the Koran.

So the question is how many Muslims can read classic Arabic and therefore be literate to read the Koran. Unfortunately the literacy rates don't address that but common sense tells you that less than 21% of Muslims are Imams. Thus the use of the term 80%. In fact I could have been much more accurate and said 20% of the Muslim world are not Imams, just 5%. However I am assuming a classic Arab literacy rate higher than it probably is.

The fact is most Muslims can not read the Quran for one simple reason, and that is because the Quran is very difficult to understand. it is written in the language of Kouriash, which was the ancient  language of the Arabs in Arabia and so many if not most of its  words are very hard to understand unless you use dictionaries. This is why Imams say the majority of Muslims can not read and understand the Koran.

The actual fundamental literacy rate in Muslim countries for arguments sake is somewhere between 40 to 50% of Muslims who can not read or write at all. Of the 50-60% who could read or write at a basic level its usually 20% who go on to universities and so I use the term 80% illiteracy rate to be able to read the Koran. I generaously assume the 20% who go to university could push come to shove use a dictionary of ancient Kouriash with their modern Arabic to try read the Korean but only Imams actually study it from cover to cover and there are no statistics on how many Imams are fully fluent or functional in reading Kouriash.

According to : http://bibleanswerstodayblog.com/muslims...he-koran/: they state:

"The truth is that less than 2% of Muslims are able to read the Koran (some say only .5%). Since this is true, how do Muslims know what is in the Koran? Since it is not lawful for the Koran to be translated into any other language, only commentaries on the Koran can lawfully be written. And guess what? Most of these commentaries are written by Imams and most of them have been taught by radical Muslims."

Now before I answer these question even further, there is a very good reason why even people who think they can understand the Koran do not:

a-the chapters are not in chronological order, i.e., the order in which they were "revealed"-there's 114 suras (chapters) in order from longest to shortest-that in itself means they are not flowing in sequence of the actual thoughts that developed them;

b-each sura contains many subjects or issues that are unrelated and don't connect so necessarily the stories are disjointed, i.e., jump around without cohesion and logical flow;

c-the Koran in fact has a sequence where Muhammad goes from distrusting non Muslims to out and out hating them-it progresses but because of a and b you have to look for it;

d-then as I have mentioned to someone who came on this forum to preach the Koran and claims to be a young Turkish girl that she has no clue as to the principle of abrogation which means, many passages written after others written before the are said to over-ride the earlier passages but because the suras are not placedin chronological order trying to figure out what over-rides what is very very difficult-according to Muslims scholars only 43 suras are not over-ridden or contradicted and made obsolete by other suras;

e-you can't read let alone understand the Koran without first reading both the SIRA and HADITH which are stories about the life of Mohammed and then relate back to suras that are not contradicted by other suras to referencing them back to his life stories to get their actual meaning;

f-according to the Koran, you either live in the realm or place of Islam (the right life and way of doing things) or you live in a state of war (all non Muslims) and all non Muslims are viewed inherently and necessarily as the enemy until they convert to Islam-so even if a non Muslim thinks they have read a translation of the Koran in English they can not be said to understand it until they first convert;

g-the Koran is designed NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD by the average Muslim-ordinary Muslims are only supposed to lear on a need-to-know basis which means unless you are an Imam or Mullah you are not supposed to know or be able to know the actual true meanings even if you could read ancient Arabic.

So with all that in mind if you want to refer to literacy rates that if a Muslim can read basic modern Arabic they are literate enough to read the Koran knock yourself out and use these statistics which won't help you:

 

 

 

 

https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statistics_-_Education_and_Employment

http://en.rafed.net/women-world-mainmenu/family-fun/did-you-know/1097-rate-of-literacy-in-islamic-countries

http://www.iinanews.com/page/public/report.aspx?id=10377#.WNQ-RI-cHFg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Muslims-have-lowest-literacy-rate/articleshow/17813189.cms

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001462/146282e.pdf

Sorry I wrote previous post before seeing your reply...

there's however a difference between literacy rates that varies from one country to another and tge ability to read Koran. Not all muslim countries speak arabic.

Edited March 23, 2017 by kactus

[Hudson Jones]

13 minutes ago, Rue said:

Fair question. Depending on what you read literacy rates vary from 40-60 to higher percentages.

The rate is 40% and not 80% as you said earlier.

Nearly 40% of Muslim world’s population unable read or write: IINA Report

Which is pretty low compared to the average rate in the world, but it's not at the ridiculous number you made up earlier.

 

[Guest]

On 2017-03-22 at 4:25 PM, Michael Hardner said:

Any attempt to apply objective rules that implicate Islam as the cause of violence fails.  Therefore Islam can't be shown to be the cause.

For all of the complaints about people being called racist for airing their views, there hasn't been a solid proof made that this religion causes anything.  

Not Islam.  Muslims.  Some of them.  Based on their religious beliefs. 

Call that what you will.

 

[kactus]

Make up your your wavering mind up guys....First it was Muslims then the debate is islam and then some even suggest East versus West....

Edited March 24, 2017 by kactus

[Guest]

1 minute ago, kactus said:

Make up your your wavering mind up guys....First it was Muslims then the debate is islam and then some even suggest East versus West....

It's called arguing.  It's why we're here.

[kactus]

Just now, bcsapper said:

It's called arguing.  It's why we're here.

Arguing for the sake of arguing whilst shifting the goal post is a waste of time IMO....

[Guest]

Just now, kactus said:

Arguing for the sake of arguing whilst shifting the goal post is a waste of time IMO....

Well, I wouldn't know about the goalposts.  I can't think of another reason for arguing, though.

[kactus]

Just now, bcsapper said:

Well, I wouldn't know about the goalposts.  I can't think of another reason for arguing, though.

Let's rewind alittle....MH's point was that to blame everything on islam is futile. You say it's not about Islam and Muslims which I agree with to a certain extent as all religions are subject to interpretations. And then there are those who take it to another level of extremism by saying there's a cultural divide between the East and the West which has nithing to do with the initial point....

Now I ask again which is it?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, kactus said:

Let's rewind alittle....MH's point was that to blame everything on islam is futile. You say it's not about Islam and Muslims which I agree with to a certain extent as all religions are subject to interpretations. And then there are those who take it to another level of extremism by saying there's a cultural divide between the East and the West which has nithing to do with the initial point....

Now I ask again which is it?

I didn't say "and". 

Islam is an abstration.  I've argued long and hard on here, with people I generally agree with, that you can't blame "it".

Muslims are people.  You can blame them all you want.  Just blame the right ones.

East vs West?  I really don't know.  Where's the dividing line?

[Moonlight Graham]

3 hours ago, Bonam said:

Why? Warriors trump pacifists every time. History doesn't lie. 

MLK kicked the KKK's ass.

[OftenWrong]

36 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

I didn't say "and". 

Islam is an abstration.  I've argued long and hard on here, with people I generally agree with, that you can't blame "it".

Muslims are people.  You can blame them all you want.  Just blame the right ones.

East vs West?  I really don't know.  Where's the dividing line?

At Greenwich

[Rue]

5 hours ago, hot enough said:

This actually isn't astonishing at all, though it should be. Why haven't you made the same connection between christianity and terrorism. The USA is the biggest terrorist nation/group in the world. The US is the only nation to ever have been convicted of international terrorism. The world has been telling the US for the last 25 years to stop its terrorism against Cuba. The US has overthrown myriad sovereign governments by illegal invasion and by subversion - that is the dictionary definition of terrorism. 

I long ago linked Christianity to an age of violence and before it Judaism and have never shied away from admitting either. Also if you would care to point out the Christians running over Muslims with cars these days I would be glad to say I hate them as well thank you.

[Rue]

4 hours ago, kactus said:

Sorry I wrote previous post before seeing your reply...

there's however a difference between literacy rates that varies from one country to another and tge ability to read Koran. Not all muslim countries speak arabic.

No prob. He asked a good question though and I was not trying to be insulting about Muslims either. The fact is the language the Koran is written in requires much discipline and training to be able to be deciphered b y the average person. Because of that they repeat what they are told not what they thought for themselves after interpreting the wording. I don't think people get that. It was actually Muslims who told me that the majority of them might be taught to memorize passages but don't really understand what they memorized. Its a very very complex form of writing in the Koran. Because of it slack of chronology it makes if far harder than the New or Old Testament to read. The New Testament flows in progressive references to behaviour.  It follows a time chronology and a pattern of evolving standards that flow like the Old Testament. The Koran is very difficult to follow since the latter changes to its thoughts are all over he place and not further on necessarily.

 

[hot enough]

8 minutes ago, Rue said:

I long ago linked Christianity to an age of violence and before it Judaism and have never shied away from admitting either. Also if you would care to point out the Christians running over Muslims with cars these days I would be glad to say I hate them as well thank you.

Those ages of Christian and Judaic violence haven't ended. For the former they have been going on for centuries, for the latter, since WWII. 

What of the "shake and bake", much worse than running someone over? Saturation bombing, millions dead, much worse. 

[hot enough]

7 minutes ago, Rue said:

The fact is the language the Koran is written in requires much discipline and training to be able to be deciphered b y the average person.

There sure are a lot of experts ranting and raving about how well they understand it, you included.