Hmm...
That ought to bring the timid ones out of their cocoons.
Dead guys who can't get into Moslem heaven can't terrorize us or other Muslims.
That ought to bring the timid ones out of their cocoons.
Dead guys who can't get into Moslem heaven can't terrorize us or other Muslims.
They could. But it seems that they won't.
This is something 'nuanced' Westerners are going to have to come to grips with...
If we can't make this distinction real, we will be in for a religious war with Islam (ALL of it), will we or nill we.
We don't even see a fatwa issued in countries where you'd think the threat of terrorism against moderates would be nil. Kinda disgusting, if you ask me. I've been asked my one Moslem buddy why no fatwa? He was honest, and said that many Moslems are fence sitting on this one. The religious leaders won't issue a fatwa for fear of being shunned, killed, or worse, being thrown out of Islam.
When I was getting my MBA, I dated a Egyptian Moslem, and she told me that for it to go further, I had to convert to Islam. I tried to tell her that well, couldn't we just coexist, since I'm not religious? Nope. Doesn't work that way. Religiously mixed marriages are "verboten." And I would have to convert before we continued, whether or not it got serious. Funny, she didn't have problems drinking alcohol or other things. :-)
Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that my Hindu friends have been pushing on me for 5 years. And that is that Moslems more or less regard us all as infidels. Doesn't look like coexistence is high on their priority list. I would say that only a small percentage of Moslems are fanatical like Mr. bin Laden, but I gotta tell ya, it sure looks like they all tend to be somewhat clannish, like the Hatfields and McCoys.
Another thing pointed out to me. In any country around the world that has a significant Moslem minority (outside of Turkey and Bosnia, which are more westernized than the rest of the Moslem world) you soon see calls for the imposition of Moslem sharia law. Regardless of the feelings of the majority. This has been a source of the contention in Nigeria, and was a reason for the coup in the Sudan. And in the areas in Nigeria where Moslems are the majority, they impose this law anyway, despite what the central government says. In the Sudan the Moslem clerics have given permission for selling Christians into slavery, since after all, they're infidels.
In fairness, Christianity doesn't have a clean record here. But in fairness to those of us who come from Christian backgrounds, it's not 1455, which I believe is the current year on the Moslem calender.
I think we need to give 'em time to adjust to modern times. Moslems are only 20% of the world's religious population. "Other" is the rest. Islam expanded for hundreds of years, with no real impediment until the last several hundred years. Obviously, some groupings within the religion are having a tough time coming to terms with this. That was the main reason British India split into Pakistan and India back in the 40's. Moslems didn't want to live under a Hindu majority state.
It looks like, as the British used to say of the Germans, they're either at your throat or under your boot. Harsh to say that of Moslems, but sadly, I'm coming to think that it's somewhat true, the more reading and research I do.
BTW, Johnson's book is really good. Particularly the part about electricity and how people viewed it when electricity was a new thing. Puts the book Frankenstein in a whole new light. I think I already posted something about this, but ain't shore, as we say here in Virginia....
But it is the true teaching of the Q'ran.
Are those any words that could come from someone innocent of this crime? I mean if you were accused of a crime, as he knows he was, and you were innocent, you would proclaim your innocence, not "that crime was a great thing."
This statement by Osama was tacit admission of guilt, anybody who demands further "evidence" of Bin Laden's complicity in the crime is simply on his side.