Quote:
Originally posted by Sir Degrader:
I'm VERY hesitant to bring this up, but is it the fundamental differences in the religions that causes this strife? Please PM me if you know Islam, I'm quite curious, and sick of both sides throwing vitirolic statements around.
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Sorry, I haven't got the time to write you a PM on this issue, but the basic answer is that it depends on who you talk to.
All my moderate Muslim friends claim that such acts can never be justified, many others claim the opposte. There is no right answer due to the stupidity of trying to base your entire life around ambiguous texts.
If you want an "anti" view then you could do worse than start with
Jihad Watch. Many of the posters are monkeys and deserve ignoring, but the founder knows how to string a decent argument together and it's worth reading some of his articles. Also
The Religion of Peace.
For a neutral view, something like this
Wikipedia article is a good start, with plenty of links at the bottom.
As for a "pro-view", I haven't got any links at the moment, but trust me that there is plenty out there. Some focus on saying that the Qu'ran has been interpreted wrongly whilst most focus on the rather undeniable fact that the people of the Middle-East have been shat on by the West unlike any other region in the world and the anger is therefore reactionary.
Not a bad series of articles
here explaining the rise of political Islam.
Those with a bit of perspective however, will recall the total lack of political influence that political Islam had until the late 60s and the humiliation of Egypt and pan-Arabism - this is not something intrinsic to Islam. There is also a direct correlation between political clampdowns and the rise of political Islam - the brutal governments we help keep in power drive political discussion into the only safe public forum left: the mosque.
My personal belief is that a distorted Islam is used as a tool to incite the uneducated masses. It could do with an update and it takes itself too seriously in my view, but there's not much intrinsically worse than any other religion in the Qu'ran. All the supplementary traditions and texts are the real problem, and they are largely a function of the ultra-strict patriarchal society in which it developed.
If you want to go into this in detail, will be happy to respond to any questions you have via PM, although I don't claim to be a particular expert.
[ 02-03-2006, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]