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Originally Posted by CptSternn
...the right-wing evangelicals are in essence no better than the Muslims people are blasting here.
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They may not be any better in terms of what they would do if they had a free rein. Certainly, they are potentially dangerous. It is not, however, possible to impute to them an equally lousy track record of respect for the rights of others. That's a difference that matters.
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Lets not forget the crusades...
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As for the crusades, like I said in another thread (this thread?), the Islamic world of today reminds me a lot of the Christian world back then. We can entertain ourselves by tallying up kills and atrocities or whatever, but it's an academic exercise. My interest is the present threat posed by these forces.
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...these people believe in their faith. I for one support them. It takes courage to stand up for what you believe in, especially on that level.
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It depends on what you mean by "stand up for". If it means speaking out, or if they really must be stridulent jerks, holding protests, burning Danish flags, boycotting stores, etc., well... I won't be happy about it, but I certainly won't try to stop them. It turns out, though, that in the instant case "stand up for" means something more like "premeditated murder."
Can I at least get you to denounce that?
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It also shows why no one will be able to bring a western style government to the Middle East. The people there support their religion to the point that they will do things like this.
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I'm with you on that. I have the feeling that the Middle East will slowly liberalize (with the process finishing shortly before the heat death of the universe), but I really doubt it's the kind of process that can be forced. If anything, efforts in that direction will probably just make the status quo stronger.
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You will find very few Americans or british who feel the same way about anything these days. They support it in name, and will even vote for a candidate they like, but anything farther than that they don't get involved, much less will stand up and risk their life, liberty, or freedom over.
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That does strike a chord. I just like to see people get worked up about something worth getting worked up for, like say, freedom (in the traditional sense of the word - not FreedomŽ). Being willing to kill people because you don't like something they wrote is not admirable. It's contemptible.
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Maybe if Americans truly had the same convictions of their beliefs they would be able to better understand and work with the Muslim world instead of trying to write off their culture as somehow 'crazy' and 'bad'.
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Quite the reverse, I suspect. To take the parallel you put on the table, the closest counterpart to these people that we have in the West is the evangelicals. Remember the lady from the beginning part of Jesus Camp, and her comments on Muslims?
Drake