That's quite a hyperbole (not to mention another tu quoque argument). Yes, some have indeed invoked many clauses of the Bible (not just leviticus) to support their opposition to gay marriage. But last I checked, there wasn't anybody in congress calling for gays or alcoholics to be punished in the manner prescribed by Leviticus. Yet in the mahometan world there are not only clerics who seek punishments prescribed by the Koran and hadith - there are clerics who actually carry out punishments as prescribed by the Koran and hadith.
And 40 years ago, plenty of "mainstream" (at least by local standards) preachers and churchgoers were all too happy to murder a black man (or boy) who committed what they saw to be sins of fornication.
Yet another false analogy. Lynchings are illegal punishments by their very definition. They occur without the sanction of law. Koranic punishments occur all over the world today with the full sanction of shari'a legal systems in mahometan countries. Furthermore, 20th century U.S. racial lynchings do not exceed more than a couple thousand over a period of the last 100 years - a number that also includes many convicted criminals who were lynched by mobs AFTER their conviction under the law. By contrast, tens of thousands of people are subjected to islamic punishments EVERY SINGLE YEAR and tens of millions of people have died at the hands of jihadis since the emergence of Mahomet.
Please explain more. The Mahometan thought as you understand it.
I am referring generally to the mahometan belief that the Dar al-Islam is locked in a perpetual battle with the Dar al-Harb, and must engage in coercive jihad to prevail over the Dar al-Harb. I am also referring generally to all mahometan sects who desire the establishment of some form of universal Caliphate, Mahdist regime, or other Islamic domain over the world. And I am referring specifically to Islamic scholars, be they "mainstream" or radical or shi'a or sunni, ranging across time from such persons as Taymiyya and Ghazali to Mawduddi and Qutb and bin Laden who, despite their differences in sect and period and origin, are alike in their respective espousals of Koranic literalism and the establishment of the aforementioned Islamic domain.
Also please understand why Heretic governments have by and large abandoned the rigors of "Just War" when funding Central American despots, etc.?
First, as a matter of clarification, the term heresy by its definition connotes a deviation from a previous religious orthodoxy, this deviation being achieved by altering or challenging the tenets of that which came before it. Since Mahomet (1) postdated and (2) altered and challenged the religious orthodoxy of the judeo-christian faiths, he is by definition the practitioner of heresy...which makes Mahomet a heritic. Should you wish to characterize the judeo-christian world in a context acceptible to jihadis, the proper term for you to use would be "infidel," as stated in respect to the mahometan faith.
As for Central America (again, for the time being, overlooking your tu quoque), a reasonable argument can be made in many cases that Just War was NOT abandoned. In fact, many of the alleged "despots" the U.S. has backed were in fact topplers of illegitimate communist regimes that openly waged war on the people of the countries they seized and on the Christian religion. In fact some of their U.S. backed successors are seen as "despots" only in the eyes of the communists they defeated and their sympathizers. Salvador Allende comes to mind.
I'm critiquing your logic, not the facts. If is it valid to condemn Ghazali for producing a Qutb 800 years after his death, why shouldn't we damn Linnaeus for giving rise to Verwoerd?
1. Because you misstate my logic. The jihadis of today are not misusing the jihadis of yesterday - they are following directly in their footsteps and repeating the same ideas today that their predecessors espoused in prior centuries.
2. Because people like Qutb, Mawduddi, and bin Laden concur in doctrine with their intellectual fathers of previous century, who also advocated violent jihad. (FTR the Sunni "radical" crowd today tends to prefer Taymiyya rather than Ghazali, who is percieved as too "moderate" for them...which should tell you a lot about just how nutty Taymiyya was).
And if you see no problem with reading 21st century Islamist terrorism backwards into 11th century Mahometan theology, you should have no problem with others condemning a similarly unitary strawman of Western Civilization based on its bitter fruits of the 20th century.
That is yet another false and tu quoque laden analogy. Nazism, communism etc. are rejected fruits of Western Civilization that other aspects of Western Civilization destroyed. In fact, a decent case may be made that communism and nazism were corruptions of Western Civilization - deviations from its intellectual course. And as noted those deviations have been soundly rejected.
This condition contrasts greatly with the mahometan world, which has never confronted or rejected its extremist views of past centuries (one significant muslim tried - Avicenna - but his refutation of the literalists was largely rejected in the islamic world and found its largest following in the west). Instead the 11th century islamic views I have referenced are still within the mainstream of mahometan theology today.
Had the west accepted and embraced Hitler and then continued his ideology for another 1000 years your analogy would be accurate. But it didn't. The west rejected Hitler, and his 1000 year Reich was dead in a decade. Not so with Islam though, where the Mahometan heresy and its jihadi theological doctrines have continued to wreak death and destruction around the world for some 1400 years now.
You shouldn't mention it. You boasted that I would be "hard pressed to find a mainstream protestant theologian who espouses Levitical law public executions." I was not.
Yet in the mahometan world there are not only clerics who seek punishments prescribed by the Koran and hadith - there are clerics who actually carry out punishments as prescribed by the Koran and hadith.
You're comparing apples and oranges. "Clerics" are not "legislators" and we can thank the separation of church and state that Fred Phelps can only thank God for killing gays and not act on it himself.
Yet another false analogy. Lynchings are illegal punishments by their very definition. They occur without the sanction of law. Koranic punishments occur all over the world today with the full sanction of shari'a legal systems in mahometan countries.
All the more reason to keep church and state separate.
I am referring generally to the mahometan belief that the Dar al-Islam is locked in a perpetual battle with the Dar al-Harb, and must engage in coercive jihad to prevail over the Dar al-Harb. I am also referring generally to all mahometan sects who desire the establishment of some form of universal Caliphate, Mahdist regime, or other Islamic domain over the world. And I am referring specifically to Islamic scholars, be they "mainstream" or radical or shi'a or sunni, ranging across time from such persons as Taymiyya and Ghazali to Mawduddi and Qutb and bin Laden who, despite their differences in sect and period and origin, are alike in their respective espousals of Koranic literalism and the establishment of the aforementioned Islamic domain.
Bin Ladin, who seeks a restored Caliphate, is an Islamic dominionist who wants to return to a mythical time of perfect governance. Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, seems to be a millenialist who expects the inevitable return of Christ and the emergence of the Mahdi and who, IMHO, hopes to prepare His coming.
Of course there are plenty of millenialists inside Islam as well as outside. (I remember a recent survey indicating that something like 25% of Americans believe Christ will return this year.) Not all Muslim leaders base their policies on an imminent Second Coming. Consequentially, these are not the ones you hear about in the news.
First, as a matter of clarification, the term heresy by its definition connotes a deviation from a previous religious orthodoxy, this deviation being achieved by altering or challenging the tenets of that which came before it.
I am familiar with the meaning.
Should you wish to characterize the judeo-christian world in a context acceptible to jihadis, the proper term for you to use would be "infidel," as stated in respect to the mahometan faith.
Why would I want to do that? And while we're on the subject of PC here, let's get over the "Judeo-Christian" bit, okay? I fully appreciate the sentiment, but it's a term that gained widespread use (and public acceptability) when Christians stopped constantly persecuting Jews, i.e., in the 20th century. We all know what you mean.
As for Central America (again, for the time being, overlooking your tu quoque), a reasonable argument can be made in many cases that Just War was NOT abandoned.
Will every attempt to contextualize your proclamations on Islam be labeled as tu quoque?
In fact some of their U.S. backed successors are seen as "despots" only in the eyes of the communists they defeated and their sympathizers. Salvador Allende comes to mind.
Chile is (in addition to being outside Central America) probably the worst example to use in an argument about Just War. Unpalatable as he may have been, he was the country's legitimate president. But that's for another time.
1. Because you misstate my logic. The jihadis of today are not misusing the jihadis of yesterday - they are following directly in their footsteps and repeating the same ideas today that their predecessors espoused in prior centuries.
It is a posteriori logic. They cite the influences of their predecessors they find most favorable and you accept their reading as not only the single accepted reading, but the only one that ever existed over 8 centuries. With logic like that, of course you'll be right.
2. Because people like Qutb, Mawduddi, and bin Laden concur in doctrine with their intellectual fathers of previous century, who also advocated violent jihad.
I'm sure their intellectual fathers advocated Ye benefitial Aduantadges of alchemichal Magick as well, but they saw fit to dismiss that. The question should be why did thinkers like Qutb, etc. cleave to some medieval teachings and not others?
In fact, a decent case may be made that communism and nazism were corruptions of Western Civilization - deviations from its intellectual course.
Not as their proponents saw it. Nazism is easy to dismiss because of Hitler's spastic, ranting hatred, but Marxism-Leninism traced a very clear intellectual heritage from Feuerbach, Kant, and Hegel through the Enlightenment as a whole and back to the Greeks.
A decent case can be made that the political theologies of Qutb, bin Ladin, etc. are corruptions of the faith of Islam. I should hope that you don't reject such arguments.
Instead the 11th century islamic views I have referenced are still within the mainstream of mahometan theology today.
That's because you continue to define "mainstream of mahometan theology" as philosophies that follow the most ignoble of these 11th century views.