Is Islam Compatable With the Modern World? Obama Says Yes

Jawa Report ^ | April 14, 2008 02:44 PM | Dr. Rusty Shackleford

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Barack Obama seems to think so. Make sure to read Amy Proctor's comments as well. I think she gets some key points wrong, but they're worth the read.

Obama may be right, but I have serious reservations. It's something that Muslims are going to have to work out themselves.

Certainly I think that Islam will have a much harder time coming to terms with modernity than Western civilization did. And to think the transition was easy for us is to overlook several hundred years of bloodshed.

For Christians a move towards a more fundamentalist understanding of their roots was a move toward separation of church and state. For Muslims it is a move away from it.

It is this very basic problematic that makes equivocations between the two faiths so ill informed.

Nevertheless, I don't fault Obama for making the statement. Our politicians have to lie. It's called diplomacy.

Our political leaders have to say that Islam is peaceful and that Samuel Huntington's civilizational clash thesis is wrong. I expect them to say this. I want them to say this.

Because every time any one--let alone a political or religious leader--suggests otherwise, Muslims around the world erupt into violence, call for a return to the Dark Ages, and their governments promptly threaten a clash of civilizations if we don't take it back!

I only hope and pray that our leaders know they're not telling the truth. Because if they actually believe the garbage that routinely comes out of the mouths of both Republican and Democratic politicians, then we're screwed.

It's odd, too, that Obama uses his time in Indonesia [he was there under the successive secular dictatorships of Sukarno then Suharto] as a measure of how moderate & compatible with modern values Islam really is. For that matter it's not even fair to argue that since most Muslims just want the same things that you and I want--food, clothing, shelter, raising a family--that Islam itself isn't potentially dangerous.

Of course the vast majority of Muslims just want to raise their families, but so do the vast majority of communists, the vast majority of fascists, etc. It is not Islam as a religious movement that I object to, it is Islam as a political movement which is a problem.

An episode of Red Dwarf perfectly illustrates what Hannah Arendt termed the banality of evil when the crew went back in time to have dinner with the Hitlers. The Hitlers were described as throwing the most fabulous dinner parties.

I'll go to a ball game with a communist, hang out with them, compare notes on hot celebrity babes--and in fact, frequently do just this! I'm in academia, remember? A communist might be cool, but communism has been the source of more death, destruction, and oppression than any other political system of the 20th Century.

It's not how Muslims, as individuals, worship God that worries me. It's not how Muslims, as individuals, treat me that is a problem. It's what happens when Muslims, acting through the power of the state, tend to trample on the most basic tenets of religious and speech freedoms that I fear.

Islam will remain in the same category as fascism and communism as long as even 'moderate' & 'secular' Muslims demand legal penalties for criticizing Muhammad & leaving the faith.

[353FMG]

“MOST people, and sadly even our leaders, don’t have a clue about the guts of Islam and the Qu’ran.”

Our leaders know about it, alright — don’t underestimate their intelligence.

Every day one can find examples of Islam’s provocation right here in America and every time we give in to their demands. It is simply appease, appease, appease.

Yet, you don’t see one politician stand up to protest this slow encroachment of Islam for fear that he/she be branded a bigot and lose his/her job. And don’t you know it that the Muslims take full advantage of the situation? Even conservative talkshow hosts stay away from the subject.

Our politicians and the majority of citizens suffer from PC driven cowardice.

[Nam Vet]

Screw Obama-mama and the 'big mo'. They are both know nothing blowhards.

Nam Vet

[weegee]

It’s not even compatible with his scampaign message...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well too many Academics are involved in this:

***************************************

It’s difficult to imagine they are so blatantly antiAmerican!

See this :

Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left

And a review:

**********************************

By	Kat Bakhu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)

I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Related threads:

Obama remarks likely to hurt Pennsylvania effort

And

McCain Echoes Clinton's Attacks ( RE: Statements on rural Americans being bitter ...and Clinging..

[Irishguy]

makes you wonder what would happen ‘obama girl’ in that so called islamic paradise....

[raygun]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2001111/posts

[raygun]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2001111/posts

[OeOeO]

W-e-l-l since God or the angel Gabriel did not pass this info along to Mohammed (PEEEESS be on his head) let me issue theses fatwas.

It's unislamic to watch tv

ride in a car

talk into a telephone

listen to a radio

use electricity

attempt nuclear

fly in an airplane

get medical shots

read

use dynamite

use gunpowder

ride an elevator or escalator

wear glasses

use the printing press

use the Internet

ride on a train, subway or pogo stick.

Anything I left out.

[Biggirl]

...And English, the new universal language as well.

[Fred Nerks]

Most of our members do not know that my Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School was in the area of Islam in West Africa during the 19th Century — when the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was at its zenith. Islam has as many manifestations as Christianity and Judaism, but most Americans are only fed a media diet on Islam as it relates to the “war on terror” and the Palestinian Muslim problem in the “state” of Israel.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Memo to Obama: Not only no, but HELL NO!

[upcountryhorseman]

Since The Koran's inception in the 650’s; little has
changed with Islam. It appears, because of that, we have
to continue The Crusades.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thats ....UGLY...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks...I just posted this on the latest uproar over Obama:

Bad news for Barack: Media moving beyond “bitter”

[dervish]

Even many die hard leftist Jews finally are getting the picture.

[Marine_Uncle]

Hey. Any clown the whale from Boston supports and sings about has to be one dangerous dude.

[llandres]

yes, it’s deadly. Here’s a scary item I just heard on the evening news on FNC - Brigitte Bardot’s awaiting trial once again on charges (for the 4th or 5th time)for publicly lamenting the Islamization of France (her home country) and the rampant spread of Islamic dominance in Europe (which is true!). Bless her for continuing to speak out on this, but how horrendous that she’s arrested for it and charged with “inciteful hate speech”. America, wake up!!!