New laws 'will alienate mainstream Muslims'

Times Online(UK) ^ | Rajeev Syal

[F16Fighter]

New laws 'will alienate weed-out mainstream Muslims'

There, that's better.

[Natural Law]

What the hell is a "mainstream" Muslim? Islam is a faith driven by the lunar calendar and there is a very real reason the Romans coined the term lunatic.

[Wombat101]

Firstly, Islam cannot be treated as a legitimate religion until it first acknowledges (and we understand) exactly what it is. In the strictest terms, Islam is merely a third-rate knockoff of Judaism, but Judaism for a self-selected Arabian elite. The fact that it both denies and enbraces it's Jewish origin is a serious sign of mental instability.

It stresses total submission to authority. It stresses violent conversion or death to those who refuse to submit. It denies the capacity of the individual to question authority or to engage in the scientific method of understanding his world and his universe. Because everything in Islam must be viewed through the lens of religious orthodoxy (much like Communists must bend to the will of political orthodoxy) Islam, as a civiliaztion, and a philosophy, is a dead end.

The particularly virulent strain of Islam being practiced by many in the Middle East these days has a more mundane explanation; we have a group of people who have suddenly awoken to find out that it's the 21st century, and it's passing them by. They look outwards and they see other people who are well-fed, wealthy, who have good hospitals, modern transport, modern education, opportunity, and realize that their own culture cannot/does not provide these things for them. Their culture more or less DENIES it to them because all of these things are the result of Western methods. They cannot seem to reconcile modernity with a culture frozen in time. However, their culture and religion also preach that they are the chosen people of God, and if that is true, then why do they live in such squalor while the infidel does not? Has God abandoned them?

The real power structures in the Middle East (the Imams), of course, have the answer to this question; "God hasn't quite abandoned you, but he is rather quite upset with you. You have fallen off the wagon. You have not been devout enough.You must be even more true and more merciless and then, God will reward us."

Which brings us to a very interesting crossroads. The advance of Muslim society in material, scientific and political terms is stifled so long as the Imams control the spiritual realm, and should the Imams ever loosen the religious bonds, the material, scientific and poltical floodwaters they release would sweep them away. Islam is in the same position that Communism found itself in at the end of the 20th century, when East Germans voted with their feet.

If you really wish to know just what a quandry Islam finds itself in, think about this: the 9/11 hijacker's toolkbox included credit cards, international air travel, airliners, flight schools, cellphones, computers and e-mail, international money transfer, and most importantly, respect for individual rights, whch enabled them to sneak around (mostly)undetected and unharrassed for so long. Note that not one of those items or concepts originated in a Muslim culture. Even the damn box cutters are Western inventions.
That should tell you something about the state of the Middle East right there.

If you think your typical Muslim-in-the-street is too stupid to realize which side of the street is better, you're wrong. They know. They like Western technology and so forth, but they just don't like where it came from. It makes them envious, jealous and angry that they cannot provide these things for themselevs. But, they cannot bring themselevs to blame their religion or culture for their plight. I believe in psychological terms, they are suffering from a massive dose of "transferrence". They are transferring their spite, their hate and their disappointment on us because taking responsibility for failure is a hard thing to do. The Imams egg them on because every potential dissident that blows himself up here is one less that threatens them.

Secondly, even if we did all submit and convert, it would make no difference. We would not be considered "true" Muslims, but merely "mawli" --- a Muslim of the second rank. There is no prohibition in Islam against continuing to persecute the mawli.

The assertion that there will be peace after all mankind has submitted to the will of Allah is a fallacy; the only peace will be one where the mawli serve at the will of the Caliphs (successors of Muhammed) and the remaining infidels are dead. They are merely attempting to replace modern hierarchal society with their own version, with them at the top, enjoying the fruits of everyone else's labor. No Caliphate in Islamic history (and there have been no fewer than 30 Caliphates) has done any less, and none has advanced the theme of "universal brotherhood" one inch in 1,200 years.

In this regard, Islam is no differen than Communism, Socialism and Fascism.

Finally, we can ostracize the bunch of them but it would take an effort most Westerners, and especially Americans, are not willing to make, and which at the present is unfeasible: give up oil. When the Middle East is bankrupted by a new non-petroleum power source, watch how quickly they want to become our friends. Until that time arrives, however, we have only one option --- fight them, on their turf, and hopefully we leave behind enough corpses, and enough Western institutions are left behind or rub off on them to transform the society from within.

When we discuss these things we must understand that the problem is not the people (for the most part). The problem is Islam, especially the way it is presented and preached to those who have nothing else to hold onto. Islam is an insidious ideology every bit as dangerous and pernicious as communism, and wherever it rears it's ugly head, it must be stomped on until such time as it either collapses on it's own or transforms itself. I do not sense a Muslim Reformation or Enlightenment in the same way Christianity had these things, so it must be destined for collapse. We should help it do so.

Sorry this was so long, but I had to explain my views completely.