Posted on 01/14/2015 8:50:32 AM PST by Kaslin
It is much easier to count the dead in Paris than in rural Nigeria.
Islamist terrorists connected to al-Qaida or Islamic State (perhaps both) murdered 17 people in the modern, globally linked capital of France. Seventeen is a definite number.
Last week, Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist terror movement, murdered several hundred people. Initial reports claimed 2,000. U.N. and Nigerian sources have trimmed the death toll but confirmed the massacre occurred and most of the victims were women and children.
The Paris butchers claimed their slaughter of 12 in the office of the satirical journal where Charlie Hebdo avenged the magazine's publication of cartoons, which -- according to the terrorists' religious dogma -- blasphemed Muhammad. A terrorist pal, however, also killed five people in a Jewish deli. Brutally murder editors and satirists in order to intimidate the press and silence free expression, and then target European Jews: both acts of carnage engage a vast store of ugly history.
The Islamist murders in Nigeria also touch terrible history. The 10th Parallel north, as it cuts across the continent, crudely divides Muslim North Africa from Christian and animist South Africa. In Uganda in 2002, I heard a Ugandan call it Africa's "green line," with green denoting Islam. He said for a millennium, Muslim imperialists had pushed south with two objectives, conversion and enslavement. Arab Muslims were running African slaving operations in the early 20th century.
The 10th Parallel north crosses Nigeria. Boko Haram bases its right to rule the whole of Nigeria on its Islam. Allah gives Muslims the right to rule. For roughly the same reason, the terrorists in Paris thought Islamic law superseded French press freedoms.
Remember the Chibok schoolgirls, seized by Boko Haram in a raid in April 2014? The Obama administration made it a cause celebre, with the twitter hashtag, "bringbackourgirls." The girls aren't back. In The Daily Telegraph, David Blair recently noted that Boko Haram'semir, Abubakar Shekau, intends to sell the Chibok girls as slaves. "Allah instructed me to sell them (the girls); they are his properties," Shekau said. Blair dubbed it "a primeval business." Apt phrase, that.
Every culture has its rejectionists, people who have disagreements with modernity. Sometimes they get violent. Terror is a tactic. Three decades ago Catholic and Protestant terror gangs squared off regularly in Northern Ireland.
The 30 Years War, spurred by Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation, savaged Europe -- but it ended in 1648. Here and now in our time, the most violent and dangerous struggle of the terms of modernity is within the world's Muslim communities, and it spills out across the globe.
"Islam needs its own Martin Luther," a Turkish professor friend of mine mused in 1992 as we watched an Ayatollah Khomeini-inspired demonstration in Istanbul. Moderate Muslim clerics argue their religion has been hijacked by extremists (like Khomeini) who use terror to silence religious and political opponents. Presumably, a "reformed" Islam would tolerate political pluralism and accept Charlie Hebdo's cartoons as the inevitable consequence of democratic toleration.
The Turkish professor was a Muslim and a Kemalist (follower of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish Republic). He supported a secular state, arguing only secular state can ensure political pluralism.
Radical Islamists, however, contend this is impossible. Within their Islam, mosque and state do not separate.
Ataturk provided a model for modernizing a culturally Islamic society, but his secular state is under attack by Turkish Islamists.
Perhaps the reformers have a new protector and advocate, this time an Arab Muslim.
On Jan. 1, Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi delivered a speech to the imams of al-Azhar University in Cairo. The speech was rich with echoes of Ataturk.
"We are in need of a religious revolution," al-Sisi said. "You, imams, are responsible before Allah," el-Sisi said. "The entire world ... is waiting for your next move ... because (the Islamic world) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost -- and it is being lost by our own hands.
"Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims) should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants ... so that they themselves may live? Impossible! You cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset," al-Sisi said. "You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective."
Yes. Welcome to The Enlightenment.
The sooner and harder the feel-good brigade tries to ‘reform’ Islam, the better. Because that has one result. Massively radicalized ‘moderate’ muslime who move from a terror support role to open Jihad.
We can fight them or let our kids do it later while we cower now. But one of us will. People ar going to have this reality forced on them. They can pearl clutch, hand wring and make all the excuses they want. It does not change their future.
Thanks for bringing Christians closer together. This gave you the perfect opportunity to get a jab in at non catholic christians. good job. /s
Since you started this line of posting, personally I believe if you want to draw parallels or analogies between other events, I’d say the Inquisition matches Islam far better than the Reformation. We could toss in the Council of Trent (ie “anathema-fest”) - which has never been rescinded -to solidify the viewpoint as well.
Islam cannot be reformed. THE KORAN COMMANDS ALL INFIDELS BE SLAUGHTED AND ISLAM SHOULD RULE THE WORLD.
Pray for conversion of moslems.
http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=40398
Better to fight them sooner rather than later, when there are twice as many of them.
Good point! That is a valid interpretation.
Yup. But we won’t. We won’t do squat until every major city in the western world is on fire. Because...Liberals.
Doesn’t help that the West has its share of Count Baltar’s, including the current one in the White House.
It is not possible to reform Islam without rewriting the Koran. Just ditching the “inappropriate” parts of Koran would truncate it severely. The Hadiths would have to be severely chopped down, too, and the Biography. The religion would then be based on a couple of pamphlets.
The biggest problem is that the west is populated with mewling cowards that surrender when anonymous people online and on the printed page say that people opposed it Islam are bigot ‘racists’. Thats all it tales to rule the west. Harsh language from people one does not even know. And the vast majority curl up in a ball and snivel like cowed children.
Terrorists/Muslims don’t kneed to blow up or kill anyone. All they need to do is walk openly into any town/city board meeting and say that henceforth that city will be sharia compliant and the gutless wonders will trip over themselves getting new signs printed and laws drafted to comply.
I see NONE!
I think you meant 15th and 16th.
Thank for the correction
Was it factually incorrect? Then correct it.
Was it a false argument? Then refute it.
Did it insult any living Christian individual or institution? It did not.
Was it unhelpful? I say it is helpful because it may explain why in the midst of a red-hot crucible of a religious reformation, the combatants' passions may not be quelled by argument. Calculations of benefit in this life, may not sway those whose eyes are fixed on the life to come.
You would do better to engage the topic --- which we can both do in a civil and charitable manner --- rather than ban the topic.
I show my respect for you by engaging your points regarding the Inquisition and the Council of Trent:
Your view of the Inquisition has perhaps been shaped by a flawed historiography which envisions it as an unmitigated crime and disgrace. It was not. It saved the lives of many unjustly accused persons from the fury of their nobility or of their own neighbors by acquitting them fairly. There were horrible abuses (e.g. torture is always a horrible abuse, then as now) but as a whole, it was neither a matter of unstained honor nor of unmitigated crime.
Did you know, by the way, that twice as many Catholics were killed by leftwing atheists during the 3-year Spanish Civil War than “heretics” were killed during the the 350 year Spanish Inquisition?
And that Muslims killed the same number of people in one morning, on 9/11?
Church inquisitions had authority only to investigate (which is what "inquisition" means -- it's an inquest) and only over church members. They had and claimed no authority over the unbaptized.
(This applies to Church inquisitions, not State inquisitions.)
Moreover, the Inquisition initiated and developed the practice of Procedural Due Process, making it far fairer than the secular courts of the time. An accused person would ordinarily fare better at the hands of the Inquisition than the only two other alternatives: mob justice, or prosecution by a prince or noble who was interested in seizing their estates. People even sought to have their cases transferred from civil to ecclesiastical courts, in order to benefit from the signficantly improved chance of being acquitted.
Even consider the worst cases only: 20th century researchers, like Edward Peters, Henry Kamen, and Thomas F. Madden (LINKS), with access to court records, transcripts of testimonies,and other archival material (much of which only was opened to the public after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975) discovered that the Spanish Inquisition applied torture in only 2 percent of its cases. Each instance of torture was limited to a maximum of 15 minutes. In only 1 percent of the cases was torture applied twice and never for a third time.
Only 1% of their cases resulted in capital punishment, a rate far, far below that of contemporaneous non-Church courts.And after you'd been tried and acquitted by a Church court, you couldn't be re-tried by secular authorities or attacked by your neighbors. The Inquisition thus saved thousands of lives, and --- where it was most firmly established --- stopped fanaticism in its tracks.
A little more Inquisition historical background here (Link) with many sources cited for further research, if you're interested in the facts.
As for the Council of Trent. There is no wrong or aggression involved in defining doctrines and declaring anathemas. We do it every day in our secular manner here at Free Republic! No one's pocket was ever picked by a declaration of dogma, and nobody ever broke their kneecap on the anathematization of an error. The purpose of any church council ---including yours, if your church has ever had a council, synod, convention or annual conference -- is normally to separate truth from error.
Corrections? Rebuttals? Different perspective? I await your response. I love learning new things. I'm all ears.
“Radical Islam IS the Reformation.”
Got it in one ...
Where did I say I wanted to ban anything? I pointed out you took the opportunity to compare muslim jihad with the reformation and stick it to fellow Christians that aren’t Roman Church members. And I would not have done so but I have seen your screen name before and know the kinds of posts you post.
And give me a break about the Inquistion only being done on Roman church members. Or that only the protestants were violent. The Holy Roman Empire’s subjects included everyone who lived where it was whether they were Romanish or not. Didn’t stop them from persecuting the Anabaptists, or others that stated they were not Roman Church folks.
I think it was just in poor taste to make the comparison because it’s a narrow, one-sided taunt, ignoring the negatives the Roman Church contributed to the Reformation itself. Any excuse to get a dig in.
And don’t deny it. We see it all the time in the Roman pieces that get posted here and the back-handed slams at those who aren’t Roman Church folks. The articles that lay out the Roman Church position that can’t help but make little insults and barbs in snarky comments in said articles. No different than your comment here. But you couldn’t just pass up an opportunity to throw it out.
"And give me a break about the Inquistion only being done on Roman church members."
That's not what I said. I didn't even mention "Roman" church members. I said they had and claimed no authority over the unbaptized.
"Or that only the protestants were violent."
I never said that! That's a manifest absurdity
"It’s a narrow, one-sided taunt, ignoring the negatives the Roman Church contributed to the Reformation itself."
Once again, its not a taunt. It's a historical comparison. Anybody ought to be able to look at the list of bullet points and say whether they're true or false. I do wish somebody would critique it as factually correct or incorrect, historically true or false, without taking it as a personal affront, which I assure you it was not.
Moreover, I didn't say anything about what caused the Reformation. Everyone knows that negatives the Roman Church contributed to the Reformation itself. In my post I wasn't talking about the causes at all. (Where did I talk about causes?) I was talking about the historical characteristics of ardent iconoclastic, "back to the basics" religious movements.
"And don’t deny it...he articles that lay out the Roman Church position that can’t help but make little insults and barbs in snarky comments in said articles."
I do deny it. I don't think any Christian today embraces the position of either the Renaissance papacy or the 16th century Reformation. Catholics aren't selling indulgences, Calvinists aren't looting monasteries and smashing crosses and Madonnas.
I did not even attempt to lay out the "Roman Catholic Position." I didn't say one word about the merits or (many!) demerits of the Renaissance papacy. That was not the point of the post. The point of the post was that the Muslims are in the midst of their Reformation right now, motivated by their concept of religious purity and a return to their literal texts and norms.
That goes a ways to explaining why the Bush-era "nation-building" thing was bound to fail. They aren't looking for democracy, clean water, internet and soap. They're looking for a pure religious ideal: the Caliphate. It could be Catholic Florence (Savonarola). It could be Consistory of Geneva (Calvin). It's their conception of the Kingdom of God.
I would never willingly have offended you as a person, nor your faith community. I was making a comparison of powerful religious historic movements, 16th century and 21st century. For brusque words or having no sensitivity to tone, please forgive me.
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