[aruanan]

"There were no innocent people in those skyscrapers" - Chilling view from the other side

In the West, we have the underlying, unspoken, and often unconscious concept that all men everywhere equally stand in relationship to some kind of moral law. Now, we take into consideration the fact that a person's background or education or mental capability or age may make judgment necessary in certain cases to determine just how severely those individuals are to be judged, something akin to a handicap, but nevertheless, we have an idea that there is some general, basic, set of moral expectations that can be lived up to by any human being anywhere. That is, all humans are members of a single group and capable, at least, of bringing themselves into conformity to that basic moral law. Any particular nation's laws overlap this set of expectations to varying extents and are often taken by individuals living in these societies of being equivalent to them. Individuals who are unable in and of themselves of bringing themselves into conformity with these expectations (moral or legal) may be classed as mentally unfit. Those who are developmentally not yet likely to be able to do this are classed as children. Those who just plain refuse to do this are moral reprobates, sinners, or criminals (depending on which set of expectations are focused on). Those who are new to a particular region and are just plain unaware of them and make an infraction but otherwise would not have had they known are often classified as foreigners or barbarians or worldly (again depending on the focus).

Those of us who belong to this Western tradition believe to some degree that merely being born into a group--a family, a language group, a nation, even a religion--does not automatically make one guilty of things done by other members of that group.

This, however, is not how some groups throughout the world think and many more have thought throughout most of history. In their way of thinking, they are the human beings, they are "the people" (as their own language's name for themselves often indicates), they are the true people of Allah, and everyone else, just because they weren't born into their group, is not. Because of this, none of these other people are to be treated in any way other than what will facilitate the goals of one's own group, the truly human group. This type of thinking appears to be the default setting of the human heart. It is the core of tribalism. It is not restricted to the technologically unsophisticated because the same type of thinking was the foundation of Communism (forging the new soviet man) and Naziism (the true Aryan was only worthy of life and full membership in society). The two major religions that are absent this type of thinking are Judaism and Christianity (though you could make an argument that classical Buddhism is similar). Judaism still maintains that they are the chosen people of G-d (and I think that is true for specific historical and religious reasons), but they have not, for thousands of years, assumed this to mean that they have carte blanche to take out other groups with impunity (regardless of the propaganda of the Palestinians which is just plain factually, historically inaccurate). Even in the earliest documents of Judaism the people are told by G-d himself to treat strangers in their society well because they were once strangers in a strange land. And if those people desired to live among them, they were allowed to with no more restrictions than those laid on the people themselves. And if those people desired to convert, they could do so. Christianity made the distinction that morally everyone stood before G-d in exactly the same position, Jew and Gentile alike, Greek, barbarian, male, female. In fact, it is this tradition that underlies our "modern" concept of the family of man.

Islam, however, does not embody this concept. Radical Islamic groups certainly do not. There is just The Group. All outside the group is against the group. All outside the group is in and of itself an enemy of the group. Innocent is defined as being part of The Group. Simply to NOT be a member of The Group is to be guilty of everything that the enemy of The Group is trying to do against it. Simply being outside The Group is to be its enemy and worthy of whatever The Group deems necessary to advance its own goals. Combine this thinking with the conviction that everything they are doing they are doing for and with the approval of the supreme moral power and you've got something that represents extreme danger for everyone else in the world.

[dennisw]

Judaism still maintains that they are the chosen people of G-d (and I think that is true for specific historical and religious reasons), but they have not, for thousands of years, assumed this to mean that they have carte blanche to take out other groups with impunity.

My Jewish people can call themselves "chosen". And then what do we do? We don't recruit, convert by force or proselytize. 

But Islam tells you right to your face how "chosen" (they don't use this word of course!) they feel Islam is. How superior Islam is. How they submit to Allah and how you in turn will submit to them .......fancying themselves as mini Allah's. How you must convert or eventually be destroyed. Islam is involved in about 10 different wars at the moment and the Jews just one. One they don't even want....While Islam actively seeks war for it's always higher birthrate populations.