Damn... this thread is getting good again. Nice post D9.

One bonus point for causing me to have to look up a word:
For the lesser educated individuals like myself....


apostasy: The word itself in its etymological sense, signifies the desertion of a post, the giving up of a state of life; he who voluntarily embraces a definite state of life cannot leave it, therefore, without becoming an apostate. Most authors, however, distinguish with Benedict XIV (De Synodo di£cesanâ, XIII, xi, 9), between three kinds of apostasy: apostasy a Fide or perfidi£, when a Christian gives up his faith; apostasy ab ordine, when a cleric abandons the ecclesiastical state; apostasy a religione, or monachatus, when a religious leaves the religious life.

:munchin

Thanks.

LOL, believe me, I'm still in training up to my ears.

I'm just trying to slip in a few intellectual push-ups on the side, LOL.

:lifter

Well D9: I'm not one for long verbose dissertations. To cut to the core, everything said about Islam was also true of christianity. Whole ethnic groups were wiped out in the name of Christianity. Now, if we want to talk about atrocities look at the middle-age church. They invented numerous "cute" means of exorcism and conversion -- the rack, drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, etc. Givin the choice between having my head loped off and watching my entrails boil in oil I think I'd take the knife.

Simply put: war is war is war -- two peoples trying to put the other down. No need for philosophical, or meta-physical excuses - er reasons. :boohoo

Welcome back, D9. Hope the training is going well.

Your last post was wrong on many counts. See this webpage for an exploration of the subject you are talkig about.

Just to clarify, I have zero sympathy for the Islamic world and am making no excuses for them.

Just read that, and I don't have any dispute with his points. But I don't think it's different from what I'm saying either. The particulars of the militant Islamists politics are new, and for sure are influenced by the Revolution, 19th c. European nationalism, and others. No disagreement there.

But as the website says, even before the 'ulama the political and religious life of Muslims were inseperable. Historically, the Islamic world has been ruled by a Caliph who was conjointly the religious and political authority, as the two were viewed as one indifferentiable approach to life. This is emblematic of the unity of politics and religion I am referring to. In this kind of society, I personally think there is limited value in viewing the politics apart from the religion.

Ok. I think that is very dangerous. I am very confident that with very rare exceptions, most influential clerics have politics that are markedly different than their faith.

How about an example so I can better see your point.

_Sistani_.

I think that's spot on. The other thing is you can't blame it off on a minority if the minority is the face that we have to deal with - it becomes Islam - at this time as practiced by these people. Drug dealers in Colombia are a very small minority of the population. They were, however, the face (may still be externally) of Colombia that the rest of the world had to deal with. Therefore, all policy decisions were driven by it. Not just US policy - their neighbors too.

qrq - in my opinion, your statement is off. It should read "Everything that is true of Islam was true of Christianity." And therein lies the problem. Even in the days of the Vatican's call for Liberation Theology, there were never more than a handful of adherents and no major wars were fought because of them.

Good to see D9 and Jimbo arguing again.

Outstanding post by D9.
In a true Islamic state the sacred will always control the secular, without fail.
When the "talib", or students of Islam pushed forth their extremist interpretaions, they became the political embodiment of those ideals - the Taliban, not the other way around.


"most influential clerics have politics that are markedly different than their faith".

I have to disagree with Jimbo here. I don't believe that one can become an influential cleric anywhere nowadays without adhering to strict Sharia Law. That same law is the overt driving force behind all political decisions. Understanding that their power and influence is derived from the religion first and foremost, they must rule accordingly.

I agree.

I think you're misreading me, Jimbo. I'm trying to highlight the dichotomy that exists in the West and not in the East. As an example of that, can you imagine Sistani standing up before his followers and announcing that he wants them to forget about Allah for a second, because he has a purely political point to make?

Islam invades their other philosophies the same way Nazism or imperialistic fascism did in WWII.

And you didn't read that article. There is a history of that same dicotomy in Islam. For example the Arab Nationalist movements of the early 1970s. It was not until the failure of Arab nationalism and the success of the Iranian revolution that we saw a sharp rise in ruling ideology that was BASED in Islamic law.

I don't get the sense from you that you have a good understanding of the basic history of the region.

Jimbo, what does that have to do with today and the war we are fighting now?