The key component of any Republican argument is a tautology involving whatever it is they don’t like being the greatest threat to our universe since the Weeping Angels. As yesterday was Veteran’s Day, at least one Republican from Tennessee has decided that the Big Bad threat is Muslims in our military.
State representative Rick Womick (R-TN) has made no secret of his anti-Muslim views. A New York Times article from July described Womick on the statehouse floor, warning his constituents that Islamic law was the most urgent threat to their way of life. But in an interview on the sidelines of the “Preserving Freedom Conference” at the Cornerstone Church in Madison, TN, Womick went to new extremes to paint Muslim Americans as dangerous and seditious.
Somebody’s been watching too many episodes of Homeland. Back to back. While mainlining whatever Rick Perry’s been on for the last month.
“Personally, I don’t trust one Muslim in our military because they’re commanded to lie to us through the term called Taqiyya. And if they truly are a devout Muslim, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me.”
I had no idea Mr. Womick here was a theological expert on the Muslim faith, not only able to interpret the Quran and its meaning, but able to divine Islam’s tenets and their individual meaning to every one of our men and women serving in the military who are Muslim. I mean his argument is “If you’re a good Muslim, you’d be trying to kill me” seems, oh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Insanity to the point of a persecution complex that has probably already compromised his ability to effectively serve as Representative to his constituents, and that he should resign immediately after saying this?
But no, behavior like this is not only tolerated in the Republican Party, it’s encouraged because it’s a political plus with voters. Ten yeas after 9/11 and they’re still demanding the great purge of The Enemy from America.
Sad.
WereBear
This will only stop when people stop voting for The Crazy.
Svensker
Yes, but who is feeding him this crap?
I can see this ignoramus having heard of the Quran, but where the hell did he come up Taqiyya and Sunnah? It seems very unlikely that he has studied Islam on his own, so he is reading something or listening to someone who has got some good propaganda going. Who?
debbie
This craziness is definitely a Republican thing. Tea Partiers in Ohio are now busy drawing up a bill to get rid of unions — despite the election results.
beltane
@Svensker: Pam Geller and company no doubt.
debbie
@ Svensker:
This sounds like the work of Glenn Beck University.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Poor Kay. No resting on Tuesday’s laurels allowed.
Mark S.
@Svensker:
From Andy McCarthy and Pam Geller, no doubt.
maya
Sunnah or layta, if you drink lots of Taqiyya, they’s gonna get ya, Womick. Can’t be sunnah nuff as far as I’m concerned.
bnmng
The first sentence of this post hits the nail on the head. It’s not just “Muslims are all out to get us”, it’s “Taxing the rich will destroy the economy” and “Gay unions will destroy marriage”. Everything is either apple pie or a threat to our existence.
Chris
@Svensker:
9/11 had the unfortunate side effect of creating a community of instant experts on the Koran all across America who could explain to you how and why it was Islam that was dangerous and responsible for the whole thing. I don’t know any names, specifically, but there’s any number of “experts” he could’ve gone to for that shit.
gnomedad
@WereBear:
In a nutshell. Womick doesn’t feel persecuted, he’s performing. Dumbest mutherfucker wins. GOP “debaters”, take note.
Bill E Pilgrim
Sometimes I think Al Quaeda’s real plan was to populate our government with increasing numbers of blithering paranoid idiots who would destroy the country themselves.
Oh wait, that was Al Quaeda’s plan.
Samara Morgan
@Chris: this is a movement conservative phenomenon. It is analogous to the myriad of homeschooled neurologists that sprang up during schiavo, and also evident at Balloon-juice where commenters often try to tell me that i do not understand my own religion.
It is part of the pervasive anti-intellectual tradition of American protestantism….anyone can be a preacher/scientist/intellectual/etc.
Because they are smart in a different way– a better way–the only way that really matters….they are GodSmart™
President Bush believed that– thus the Global War on
TerrorismIslam.Islam is actually an uninvadable CSS vis a vis xianity. Scaremongering is xianity’s only resistance.
But shariah law cannot come to America, just like missionary democracy failed epically in dar ul islam.
:)
PurpleGirl
What is the asshat going to do when TLC premiers its new reality series “All-American Muslims” tomorrow night? I’d like to be there to see his head — ah, maybe his whole body — explode.
Maybe a real moment of spontaneous human combustion?
Joseph Nobles
The only silver lining to this lunatic’s message is that conservative fundies in the Protestant and Catholic versions of Christianity have a long way to go before realizing fundie Muslims would be a great political ally in the war against gayabortionsocializm.
WereBear
They don’t do “nuance” and it’s because their brains work in a binary fashion.
Svensker
@beltane:
Oh, I know that. But shouldn’t a journalist ask Womick what informs his views and how he is such an “expert” on Islam and Muslims?
Ha ha ha ha.
Southern Beale
I do not know who Rick Womick is. Funny. Of course, he’s not alone here in Tennessee, where we have turned Islamophobia into an art form. We’re the home of Laurie Cardozza-Moore, Pam Gellar’s acolyte in the Muslim hate.
You know, keep it up, GOP. The more you become associated with knuckle-dragging, recidivist bigotry and hate, the more you dig your own graves.
gelfling545
It would really help if the media reported this stuff in its simplest terms such as:
State representative Rick Womick (R-TN) has made no secret of his religious bigotry and paranoid delusions.
As it is, some people could be fooled into thinking he has some shred of credibility.
amk
remember that french herman cain ? the dsk dood ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/11/dominique-strauss-kahn-prostitution-scandal
Samara Morgan
@WereBear: their brains are apparently morphologically different as well as functionally different.
Samara Morgan
@WereBear:
scav
Ah, are the Nativists and ilk really trying to recreate their glorious past war against the insidious influence of the dreaded Pope ! but a simple search and replace?
cathyx
Womick just wants to return to the days when the US didn’t have Muslims.
Ben Cisco
Womick and his fellow travelers are a bigger threat to this country than the entirety of the WORLD’S Muslim population.
__
Yeah, I said it.
harlana
Don’t hit me with this much stupid this early in the morning. Meds haven’t kicked in yet!
scav
@scav: How does 9one get from a “with” to a “but”? Maybe I meant both. It’s rather like my fingers have an agenda entirely of their own and One Day, By Golly! they are going to Get Out, Be Heard and all sorts of other wonderful things, all at once.
ETA: I mean, I once typed a w for a m. Explain that one!
Samara Morgan
@Svensker:
then they do not kill indigenous infidels, they kill missionaries and occupier/invaders
this is interpreted in current islamic jurisprudence as a proportionate response to Proselytizers.
In the caliphate, jews were forbidden to proselytize including buliding synagogues, marrying muslimahs without reverting, or holding services in unauthorized places.
The arrest of the christian preacher and the persecution of the Bahai in Iran are both categorized under the crime of proselytizing.
/shrug
their country, their laws.
Yevgraf
Speaking of craziness and Republicans, now that Newt is surging as the next non-Romney and CNN is fluffing him, we get this bit of brilliance:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/newt-gingrich-hints-jon-bolton-for-presidential-cabinet/
This sort of thought from the GOP’s “intellectual” goes beyond nihilism. The string pullers want Netanyahu’s murderously fascist faction in Israel to feel free to be reckless enough to kill a few tens of millions and to leave a number of smoking craters across the Middle East and Iran.
Odie Hugh Manatee
If you gave conservatives the right to vanquish anyone they thought was a threat to their or the American(R) way of life, they would get rid of the gays, abortionists, muslims, anyone not white and all of their other boogie men.
Then they would turn on each other. Because they have to hate, they have to have that “enemy” to keep them feeling superior to others. That is the way they are wired. Political races would be just as bitter and vile as they are now, maybe even more so since they have to make it clear that their competitor “isn’t a Real American(TM)”. If they could rid the country of anyone they deemed not worthy of living here, they would keep purging until two people are left.
The Koch Brothers.
soonergrunt
@Ben Cisco: It was always ever thus.
HUAC and Joe McCarthy were a bigger, more real threat to America than the communists could have ever hoped to be.
LowProfileinGA
@bnmng: Perfect. Life with no gray tones. Not full-blown “insanity,” but suggestive of Borderline Personality Disorder, which in many cases is far more difficult to be around for the family, friends, and society, in general, than a major mental disorder.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001931/)
JGabriel
Zandar @ Top:
Womick wears cotton/poly blends, which the bible says are a sin, and therefore can’t be trusted. The State of Tennessee should impeach his Leviticus-disobeying ass before he sets a bad example for the children!
.
Mike in NC
Yesterday the US Senate voted 94 to 1 to give tax incentives to employers who hired veterans. Anyone want to guess the sole douchebag who voted against hiring out-of-work veterans?
{Drum roll} Why that would be none other than Jim Fucking DeMint (R-SC), the likely GOP nominee for 2016!
Amir Khalid
@Yevgraf:
As I recall, John Bolton was so intemperate that even Republicans hated him. Bush der dreiundvierzigte had to appoint him ambassador to the UN during a Congressional recess, and didn’t dare put him up for confirmation.
But Gingrich isn’t serious about running for president anyway, so why the hell shouldn’t he suggest the Yosemite Sam of America’s diplomatic corps for Secretary of State?
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
That was then. The current crop of Republicans has moved further right since the Bush years. I have a feeling they’d love Bolton.
Svensker
@Samara Morgan:
Matoko, please don’t quote me without reading the context and please don’t put words in my mouth.
Brachiator
The sad thing is that clowns like this guy will never run out of fantasy threats and enemies. His reality is founded on the notion of eternal vigilance against threats to his existence.
Linda Featheringill
As a single mother who survived many years in a major urban center not known for its kindness and mercy, I am here to say that discerning the good people from the bad people isn’t as simple as determining how they look or what they say in their prayers.
If we were so unlucky as to suddenly be without all the Muslims in the US, we would still have mean, vicious, dangerous people to cope with.
[I have found that Muslims make really good neighbors.]
Samara Morgan
@Svensker: i wasnt quoting you.
i was explaining Womick’s misunderstanding of the Quran to you.
Villago Delenda Est
Ok, great Google ad for this page…”Meet Muslim singles!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Frankly, I think he’s behind the times. The Klingons, the Cylons, the Daleks, and the Orcs are creeping up on the stupid motherfucker and he doesn’t even realize it.
Amir Khalid
@PurpleGirl:
I saw the Yahoo! News story on that show. Apparently someonee’s already put up an anti All-American Muslims Facebook page.
As for the Yahoo! commenters … ya Allah.
uh huh
@Samara Morgan:
This is the religion you were raised in, right? And you live in a community surrounded by people who are also in this religion, right?
Svensker
@Samara Morgan:
Womick has no understanding of the Quran.
Samara Morgan
So i have a question. US military regulations expressly forbid “proselytizing of any religion, faith or practice”.
So how can the American military be deployed to Afghanistan and (in the past) Iraq to promote missionary democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion? Isnt that proselytizing?
Remember this?
Samara Morgan
@Svensker: sure, he cherry-picks it like the counter-jihaadis.
But injunctions against proselytizing are all through the Quran.
Why do the cherry-pickers avoid those?
Svensker
@Samara Morgan:
He does not cherry pick. He knows nothing about it. He gets his information from Israeli propagandists and Christian Zionists.
GregB
The bottom line is that these dogmatic dildos think that everyone else in the world sees their faith through the same jaded, monochromatic eyes as they do.
I remember in the film The Control Room a soft spoken translator said that war against Iraq will silence the voices of reason and unlock the gates where the fanatics will come pouring out.
This Tennessee touch-hole hopes to do the same in the US.
Barry
In the end, it’s the Confederate Party’s search for the New N*gger. You can see it in action – ramp up the hatred of hispanics and muslims (teh Other Brown People). For a while there, gays were a useful target, but that’s faded away, so they’re ramping up the next group.
And yes, hating on hispanics has always been useful, but this is one place where the Right recycles.
Samara Morgan
@Svensker: okfine, those guys cherry-pick. Like Robert Spencer. But all of them ignore the fact that the Quran mandates an anti-proselytizer response.
It seems like resistance to proselytization and the fact that shariah forbids proselytization, freedom of speech and freedom of religion would be great talking points to lather up the christofascists.
Why doesnt anyone talk about it?
Villago Delenda Est
@Svensker:
In other words, his knowledge of Islam is probably on a par with his knowledge of Judaism and of Christianity itself.
All propaganda from various assholes with agendas that have to do with hating an “other”.
FSM will deal with twits like this, in the end.
Joey Maloney
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
There can be only one.
Joey Maloney
@Samara Morgan:
Because – since the chance of sharia becoming the law of the land in the USA within our lifetimes is zero – nobody gives a shit?
Samara Morgan
@Svensker: here is the translation from Muahmmed Asad…..its a little clearer.
Judas Escargot
@Yevgraf:
It does look like Romney’s going to run hard on a war on Iran platform next year. Both to show those to the right of him that he’s a Very Serious Person, and also to get the middle-aged white independents (who only ever seem to get excited about taxes, welfare, and bombing brown civilians halfway across the world).
Samara Morgan
@Joey Maloney: no, i think its because acknowledging that proselytization is forbidden by the Noble Quran means that America spent 14.3 trillion dollars and 7 thousand soldier lives on something that cant be done…
Samara Morgan
@Joey Maloney:
Just like the chance of missionary democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion becoming the law of the land in the ME within our lifetimes is zero.
See how that works?
Samara Morgan
@Samara Morgan: so, just so’s yah know, Svensker…..invading and occupying ranks right up there in the serious response category.
Johannes
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, and he should remember the Silence, too–ow, my eyepatch is hurting!
jcgrim
Cornerstone Church in Madison, TN has an infamous pastor, Maury Davis, who has a knack for self-promotion and raising money in the name of Jesus and gated neighborhoods.
Those of us in Nashville’s reality based community call Reverend Davis, Murderin’ Maury. Reference to his blood soaked past:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/a-grieving-son-finds-no-justice-on-rev-maury-davis-path-to-redemption/Content?oid=1201523
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: When I googled to find the show name (because I only half remembered it from the commercials), I saw that a bunch of right-wing sites already are talking about the show. I did not bother to read any of them; I learned some time back to not look at Yahoo comments. I usually need lots of brain bleach after doing so.
HRA
We would like to believe it is the uninformed and illiterate that believe the Muslims are out to get us. My personal experience does not support it. I had to pass on gifted materials whose subject material was about Islam to a very learned supervisor. The rant about shariah law coming to get us was unreal in not only the words but in the hate and derision shown in his facial features. I was too stunned to respond and only walked away. I regret it for I was raised in a home where my father’s boyhood Muslim friends were often there as guests. They were true friends to my family in our good times and in the times of our sorrow.
Sly
@Samara Morgan:
No it isn’t. Certainly not within the context of the Qur’an, where the prohibitions on proselytism are rooted in its discourses on disbelief; how people disbelieve, why they disbelieve, and the ethical ways in which one approaches or responds to a disbeliever. And certainly not within the Western doctrines of Free Speech.
You would have to classify speech as compulsion in order for your argument to work, and neither Islam nor the Free Speech doctrine does that for reasons that should be self-evident.
Samara Morgan
@Sly: no, the Quran forbids the proselytization OF THE POOR AND IGNORANT. Freedom of speech LEGALIZES the proselytizing of EVERYONE. In the context of the Quran, freedom of speech IS ILLEGAL.
And we are discussing American Military LAW.
so the context of the Quran is irrelevant to my question.
Missionary democracy promotion is proselytizing a practice, isnt it?
The practice of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Samara Morgan
HotAir review of All American Muslims.
The reviewer seems extremely distressed by how easy it is to become a muslim.
Nutella
@Mike in NC:
And who was the sole lowlife too cowardly to vote yes or no? Snowe voted ‘present’.
Samara Morgan
The comments are hilarious.
bi la kayfah
Mike G
Like any authoritarian, fear-based tribal movement, Repukes can’t function without a Scary Enemy to demonize. Communism filled this role until 1990, then they floundered halheartedly between Saddam Hussein and the Clintons until 9/11 relievedly provided them a new unambiguous bogeyman that could be sold to their base of low-information parochial Xtians.
These are the same people who were jacking off to Invasion USA and Red Dawn in the 80s. Improbable fantasies of impending takeover are hard-wired into their lizard brains.
Bill Arnold
@Samara Morgan:
Not sure I understand. “Freedom of speech” always has carve-outs for speech that the dominant cultures find abhorrent. Are Americans lobbying against anti-proselytization carve-outs?
OzoneR
Republicans ace in the hole are their ability to divide the country against each other and then bitch that its the Democrats fault.
They luck out because we Americans hate each other and the only reason we haven’t devolved into sectarian civil war is because it would disrupt Dancing With The Stars.
Sly
@Samara Morgan:
The prohibitions you list deal with compulsion. Two people of different religions, sects, or belief systems having the ability to voice their views to one another on equal footing does not fall within that prohibition. If it did, the Qur’an would basically be cutting its own throat. What you are talking about are political doctrines. And Islamic scholarship has generally, though not exclusively, treated political doctrines differently than religious ones.
The military prohibition on “practice” is with respect to rituals that may have or may have come to possess an areligious meaning. Commissioned officers cannot order those under their command to meditate or take yoga classes, as two examples, even though they might not frame such an order explicitly within religious lines. Washing one’s body and brushing one’s teeth are also practices, are they not? Yet the U.S. military has clear rules on maintaining proper hygiene without them existing in contradiction with the prohibition you listed. You have to look at the rules in context, because that is how they were written and how they are applied.
Amir Khalid
@Sly:
I have learned this the hard way: nuances such as you are trying to explain to m_c are quite lost on her. She understands things thus and so, and if you understand them differently — well, prepare yourself to face her withering scorn.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Indeed. Her obtuseness is legendary in these parts, as is her chronic reading comprehension handicap. Also her ability to attribute ideas to other posters that are in total opposition to what they just wrote about.
Bubblegum Tate
@Chris:
A wingnut I know recently opined that a Gingrich-Bolton ticket would be “kick-ass.”
Tim in SF
American religious fanatics that attack the United States are almost exclusively Christian. From Tim McVeigh on down.
Tim in SF
Wow. Thirty seconds on the Google was enough to prove the assclown wrong. Taqiyya doesn’t command anyone to do anything. Taqiyya *allows* someone to keep their faith secret if not keeping it secret would result in loss of life or property.
Why are people like this allowed near government?
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: well, i obviously can read the Generous Quran.
unlike some people.
:)
sharl
.
WOLVERINES!
[…someone had to post it…]
Samara Morgan
@Bill Arnold: im talking about Islam. shariah is the rule of law in islamic countries. free speech is INCOMPATIBLE with the rule of law in islamic countries.
@Sly:
NO.
There is no separation of church and state in Islam.
in islamic countries the rule of law is shariah law.
the consent of the governed is the consent of muslims.
middlewest
Shouldn’t we be worried about all the christian soldiers who will “turn the other cheek” instead of fighting? That seems like a more immediate problem for the military.
Amir Khalid
@Sly:
… As she demonstrates in comment #79.
Samara Morgan
@Sly:
political doctrines ARE religious doctrines in dar ul islam.
that is what westerners consistantly fail to understand.
And that is why COIN and the Bush Doctrine and Peaceful Democracy Theory are FAIL in dar ul islam.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: again, at least i can read the Miraculous Quran, mufassir maftoon.
Bill Arnold
@Samara Morgan:
Am still not understanding. How exactly would free speech, with exceptions carved out for sharia law, be incompatible with sharia law?
Samara Morgan
@Sly:
and that is why the command burned the bibles in my link.
full circle.
because the bibles were against regulations.
Samara Morgan
@Bill Arnold: what exceptions would be carved out?
OzoneR
@Samara Morgan:
Turkey disagrees.
Amir Khalid
@Sly:
… And if she really fancies you, she’ll start calling you names as well. In Arabic, even.
Samara Morgan
@OzoneR: every two years the AKP tries to put shariah back into the constitution.
@Amir Khalid: im just pointing out that you are not, IPOF, an islamic scholar, and that you are a self-acknowledged maftoon, that is, a muslim charmed by western culture.
Carl Nyberg
@Svensker: Which interest groups benefit from peddling anti-Islamic bigotry?
1. The Israel Lobby
2. The Military-Industrial Complex
Any others?
Villago Delenda Est
Keep in mind that m_c is the ULTIMATE authority on what Islam is all about.
Those Imams who spend decades studying it, and who might not see things as she does, are obviously infidels, or heretics, or maftoons, or just plain poopyheads.
Samara Morgan
@Bill Arnold: if you could carve out exceptions it could work.
But how does one do that?
The Holy Quran forbids the proselytization of the poor and ignorant.
Will you carve out an exception for the poor and ignorant?
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: no, im just pointing that the juicitariat and Maftoon Khalid are not authorities.
I always use translations from actual mufassirs, like Ibn Arabi or al-Ghazali, or from the Generous Quran, like Asad.
Carl Nyberg
Christian churches didn’t start peddling the hardcore anti-Islamic and pro-Zionism stuff particularly aggressively until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Is it a coincidence that as the raison detre of the Military-Industrial Complex disappeared that the U.S. media and religious institutions increased their anti-Muslim and pro-Zionism propaganda?
PurpleGirl
I wonder when m_c will leave the US and move to where she can live under Sharia law; live where the church (Islam) = the state. Or is she so used to living in the US where she can say whatever the h– she wants that she couldn’t live some place where church = state and you can’t speak your mind.
Chuck Butcher
Trying to figure out the difference between m_c and the religious righter nuts who see the appearance of some biblical precepts in the US Constitution as the basis for a theological state is pretty difficult. You get the same appeals to “unrefutable truth” contained in whoever’s book and the vast sociological improvements assumed to happen in the face of all evidence present – whose failures are always attributable to insufficient adherence or “the other.”
Same victim class, same techniques, same old theocratic horseshit.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, President Obama is prioritizing the use of cluster bombs against the many enemies of the United States, and their children, both internationally and hopefully domestically. So beware, Muslims, Occupy traitors, and whomever the fuck. This president kills for many good, but unexplained and unspecified, reasons.
.
.
Samara Morgan
@Chuck Butcher:
oh its simple.
In America the rule of law is secular. So i can be a muslim, my friend david can be an orthodox jew, and Rick warren can be a christian.
In islamic countries the rule of law is islamic.
so there is no freedom of speech or freedom of religion.
All children are born muslim, and should be raised in their parents faith, until they are old enough to choose for themselves.
did that help?
:)
Samara Morgan
@PurpleGirl: why would i do that?
im an amerimuslimah.
do you think i should be killed for talking about Islam, like Baron Jrod?
you are the same as Womick as far as i can see.
Bill Arnold
@Samara Morgan:
In a theocracy, that would be the job of the religious scholars. I’m sure they could work out a set of rules that made (religious) sense, then tune them through a series of court cases. (Not being flip here.)
PurpleGirl
No, I don’t think you should be killed. But you seem to feel (at least that’s how what you write reads to me) that living in a sectarian world is better. It’s the way you keep, over and over, going on and on that freedom of speech is incompatible with Islam and I wonder then how do you manage to live here, if freedom of speech is incompatible with Islam. And you want to live an Islamic life.
Or is freedom of speech only incompatible in a country where the powers that be have decided that the non-elites cannot have freedom of speech (and thought, because the two go hand in hand).
FlipYrWhig
Can someone create a flypaper blog that attracts “Samara” and “Uncle Clarence” so that they can spend their time entertaining each other?
Chuck Butcher
@Samara Morgan:
Not on the basis of how you’re approaching it – it is law because the powers that be decided it should be – you propose that it is some immutable thing because … Islam. The RR/GOPers propose the same thing – I happen to dislike theocrats and I include your fluffing theocracies in the same catagory. YOUR book is infallible law – screw that. If you want to live by it, that is one thing; it is entirely another to give it force of law – anywhere, anytime.
You love to point to the failures of “xtians” when the part you seem to miss is that those egregious failures date to becoming force of law – same as your bunch. It is a feature of theocracy, not an isolated bug. You’ll have to do better than “not me”…
BTW, I’m not “anti-any-damn-religion” but I sure the hell am anti-theocrat.
THE
@Chuck Butcher:
Exactly. I think you are have it exactly right.
At heart m_c is an ultraconservative theocrat.
She believes Sharia cannot be challenged because, however she rationalizes it,
in reality, she believes Sharia is God’s law.(IMHO)
scav
loko’s increasing insistence on the physical and inevitable difference of conservatives’ brains / minds also has some grim undertones. Different, other than normal, physically not up to it — that sort of thinking about classes of people has led to some scary outcomes.
Chuck Butcher
@THE:
Yes, despite Christ’s comment about “render unto Caesar” the power draw was too strong…
m_c can’t seem to understand the difference between spiritual power and physical power in sociology/politics. (all the while fluffing Wiki-leaks) She makes appeals to authority in the breath after Wiki-fluffing – WTF? A disconnect like that ought to make a head explode…
Chuck Butcher
@scav:
It is kinda like my left-handedness ought to mean I shouldn’t have studied Engineering, got off on building hot-rods, or making a living in something as concrete (pun?) as construction but it does meant I ought to be … leftist?
Samara Morgan
@Bill Arnold: but they cant.
defense against proselytization is stuck in mutawatir because America has 150000 missionaries with guns there right now.
In order for defense against proselytization to stop….sending….America has to GTFO and stop proselytizing.
@Chuck Butcher: its LAW because the Rule of Law in islamic states is wholly derived from the Quran. That is what shariah law is, quranic law or islamic jursiprudence.
@PurpleGirl: of course freedom of speech and freedom of religion is better. im just explaining THAT IT CANT BE DONE.
And America just spent trillions of dollars and thousands of soldier lives trying.
try real hard here. America has separation of church and state, freedom of religion and freedom of speech MANDATED in american rule of law.
Shariah does not. There is no separation of church and state, the lawyers are the clergy and the clergy are the lawyers.
get it?
Samara Morgan
@THE: i have explained this to you before.
as long as al-Islam is stuck in defense against proselytization mode, there can be no reform exegesis. defense against the proselytizers is still sending, still in continuous transmission.
if the west wants al-Islam to evolve, then stop FUCKIN’ TRYING TO PROMOTE MISSIONARY DEMOCRACY.
Samara Morgan
@scav: well…my hypoth certainly explains the everyday empirical data, like the insane clown posse of GOP candidates, the latest conservative meme that Obama must be a metrosexshual because his wife is a “strong woman”, birtherism, palinism, and various other conservative idiocies.
H-null:
conservatives and liberals are both functionally and morphologically DIFFERENT.
aka …….We are not the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
I agree.
You are certainly no liberal. You’re a theofasicst, little different from Pat Robertson or James Dobson. Just superficial differences in the skin of your authoritarian sickness.
Chet
@Joseph Nobles:
In 1996, Boston College philosophy professor (and conservative Catholic apologist) Peter Kreeft penned a book that essentially made that very point:
Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Sorry, I took a while to respond; I’ve been away from my computer all day.
Personally, I’m OK with Islam not evolving. I think we already have all the competition we can handle with the rise of major new scientific civilizations like China and India. And I’m OK with different civilizations evolving along different paths.
But I suspect very strongly, that with the rise of new scientific, secular civilizations in China and India, which will probably end up much larger and more powerful than the West itself, the external pressure on Islam is likely to get even greater, rather than smaller, in the years ahead.
I believe that the competition between advanced scientific seculars will be the defining reality of the later part of this century. In such a world, anyone who does not keep up, will be rolled over. IMHO anyway.
In other words, if you think the lazy, tired, old West is intrusive, I suspect you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Samara Morgan
@Bill Arnold:
it is.
but its simply impossible to “carve out” an exception for free speech.
Shariah law forbids proselytizing the poor and ignorant.
Freedom of speech legalizes the proselytization of everyone, including the poor and ignorant.
@Chet: never happen. Islam arose initially as the counter-xianity. Defense against proselytization is an EGT strat to retain reps.
The killer app of xianity is proselytizing, and muslims are immunized to xian proselytizing.
Christianity’s only defensive strat against Islam is fearmongering and hatred.
To put it in EGT terms, Islam is an uninvadable CSS (culturally stable strategy).
John Maynard-Smith, Evolution and the Theory of Games.
Samara Morgan
@THE: in 20 years one out of four humans will be muslims. Universalist religions like Islam and Buddhism will spread via the web and social media, and exclusivist religions like white christianity and judaism will shrink.
Do you know the embodiment principle of Strong AI?
The idea that a silicon intelligence must have a physical body to achieve sentience? Islam and Buddhism are all over that.
Islam and Buddhism are all over SBH, Social Brain Hypothesis, the idea of prana/wadat al wujud.
And I have been wanting to ask you about this, actually. In Galtung I read that the reason the US is joined at the hip with Israel is that America took the mantle of the chosen people from the jews. Even though pro-Israeli policy is a loozer for Americans in general, the whole judeo-xian thing seems pretty intransigent…
I mean, there is no payoff in Theory of Moves for America supporting Israel, its just not cost-viable.
Do you think Galtung is right?
Razib would never even talk about Israel at GNXP if i recall correctly.
Because he prolly gets the underlying substrate.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
OK I’ll take the trouble to partly fisk that:
Which is only 3% more than it is now: i.e. 26% vs 23%. But with this important proviso: The increase is in the poorest part of the world. So also the least influential. Also I would not be too glib about these demographic forecasts if I were you. They also depend on death rates, which are very optimistically projected to not increase. But it seems to me that the food-importing, arid zones of MENA are very much in danger because of this: The relentlessly-rising competition for middle-class, animal-protein-rich diets, as well as fossil fuels, from China.
I believe you are dividing this very incorrectly. The real difference is between scientifically competent and not. In that struggle Israel-Judaism is a scientific superpower that punches way above its weight. it is also a demographic surprise because of the Haredi. Christendom is doing OK, except demographically in Europe-Russia but in any case seems resigned to secularization as the price of modernity. Even in USA, the secularizing trends are emerging. Not to mention the stronger secularization in Europe and Russia. Buddhism is starting to boom scientifically and so (in the last decade or so) is Hindu India. But Islam is a very mixed story. In the more progressive Muslim countries, East Asia, Turkey (up until recently), the performance has been OK if below the best Buddhist. say Japan-China-S.Korea. But the MENA region is lagging dreadfully, by any objective measure. Take away the petrodollar income and MENA is a real worry.
The Haredi are revolutionizing Israeli demographics. Israel will be a middle ranking, young-population, power, later this century. Like Italy or Spain now. Italy or Spain OTOH are aging, declining, deeply stressed by debt. I believe Israel could be the largest power in the Mediterranean Sea by the end of this century if the current demographic pattern continues.
4jkb4ia
@THE:
The assumption that Haredim and the people who are going to take Israel into the 21st century with science and technology are the same people or will want to share the same country in 50 years is a big, big assumption. However once you get technology down to the level of a trade that Haredim can learn to make a living, Haredim will be skilled workers.
As usual I can speak only for myself. But the Internet and social media benefit religion in general. In the internet and social media you can see how narrow things are within a particular religion, but you can also see how people are living it and thinking about it beyond the particular hole in the wall that you live in. SM, the exactly one time I have tried to go to the Internet to learn about Islam, the things I read were pitched at people who had been Muslims all their lives and the impression that I got was that I should get a book and learn to pray first. (There is going to be a joint Jewish-Muslim service day on Xmas Day in town, but probably asking these folks “What do you recommend to find out about just calmly being a Muslim?” is RUDE.)
4jkb4ia
Also too, if you don’t know Arabic, you don’t really understand. Race/ethnicity is only one kind of narrowness that Judaism as a religion gets unfairly accused of as opposed to individual Jews, and I am assured that if you go to Israel you will see all kinds of people who identify as Jews.
4jkb4ia
Why are America and Israel joined at the hip? Personal experience won’t get very far here. But this is a post-6-Day-War phenomenon. Fundamentalism has a lot to do with it but Americans can also appreciate what a huge success Israel is and how far they have come. Israel has made a very considerable something out of a very poor nothing even if it could be distributed better. That fits into American myths very well.
4jkb4ia
@4jkb4ia:
Crap, that was not what I meant to write. Race/ethnicity is only one kind of narrowness. Furthermore, Judaism gets unfairly accused of being narrow in that way. I did not mean to say that race/ethnicity is only one of the narrownesses that Judaism gets accused of, although that is what I wrote.
THE
@4jkb4ia:
I understand even secular Jews have a high birthrate compared to Europeans.
I think the biggest error is to see this century as Western. If you don’t speak Chinese you don’t know what most people on the Internet are saying. The rise of secular China and its growing cultural influence is what I expect to be the most powerful influence in the world by mid century.
I believe no-one really needs religion. We have science now. YMMV.
4jkb4ia
@Yevgraf:
Shrieks and runs away, not even to post about football later on. Rudy was surrounded by similar crazy people but they were not the reason he imploded.
4jkb4ia
@THE:
This is all I have got. I could not get the Central Bureau of Statistics to cough up anything on Haredi vs. secular. But the rate of natural increase is positive and in the double digits among Jews and European countries wish they had that, so you are likely to be right.
I am going with different magisteria. The science we have cannot yet explain what it is to be a human being. It can only teach us humility about that.
THE
I believe science explains everything that can be explained.
Religion doesn’t explain anything. It fakes it.
4jkb4ia
@JGabriel:
NO, that’s wool and linen only, the translators made that up. Well, that translation is in JPS too, but the language is “beged klaim shaatnez”. “klaim” is a mixture and shaatnez is wool and linen, the specific thing. And in fact the priests are allowed to wear even that. Sorry if the whole thing was meant to be snarky.
What I was trying to get at is that people don’t need religion to explain things. They need religion to express their emotional understanding of things in a way that science hasn’t gotten around to but in a way that art and music can do. Part of the Neilah service (the very end of Yom Kippur. Keep it short and desperate) expresses part of this. “You taught us, HASHEM, our God, to confess before You regarding all our sins so that we can withdraw our hands from [theft/oppression] and so that You will accept us with a perfect repentance before You, as if we were fiery offerings and satisfying aromas, for the sake of Your word that You uttered.” (That Soloveitchik machzor was useful twice in three days :)) Science can maybe explain that desire to be a fiery offering and a satisfying aroma. But I don’t know if science expresses it for anyone who isn’t a scientist.
THE
If you are saying that religion is a cultural phenomenon like music or painting, then I have no argument.
But then the “truth” of religion is not truth as in science, it is “truth” as in art. It is an act of creative human imagination that expresses our own subjectivity.
But I have no reason to link that to anything outside ourselves (although it probably relates in some remote evolutionary sense for reasons that may well have disappeared thousands of years ago, and certainly in the enlightenment)
Samara Morgan
@THE:
So what? Can the Haredi maintain Israels security without the US? None of that matters. there is still no ToM payoff. Israel is a liability, not an asset. Its not even a Nash equilibrium. the US gets nothing out of the alliance but grief.
That 23% of the global population is concentrated in Israels neighorhood.
The neighbothood that sets the price of oil.
If the US doesnt support Israel, the neighbors will drive it in to the sea.
@THE: I believe science explains everything that can be explained. What about the Penrose-Hamerhoff Model of Quantum Consciousness?
Samara Morgan
@THE: sure its truth.
Religion benefits the memetic tribe.
It was a reproductive fitness enhancement in the EEA.
Vispassana meditation is good for humans.
Even militant atheist Sam Harris says so.
chanting, meditation, prayer all have positive biofeedback loops.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
no im saying religion is an EVOLUTIONARY phenomena like snake-fear…or music, painting, and dance.
;)
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Again I fisk.
Not so for Christian USA I think. They can read in the return to Israel the satisfaction of some kind of Messianic promise, so for many Christians it is one of the clearest proofs around that God exists. (The fact that this is fiercely inconsistent and contradictory is not a counterargument, because what religion isn’t?).
Many Christian Zionists see the rebirth of Israel as a real genuine miracle. Quite honestly they are as superstitious as all hell about it. And are terrified of doing anything against Israel in case it is against God’s will. You cannot understand the US attachment to Israel if you cannot understand the genuine sense of AWE in the sight of the Hand of God.
Samara Morgan
I think this is interesting.
its a great book.
;)
Samara Morgan
@THE:
wallah…..that is exactly what Galtung is saying…. and also fulfillment for the secularists like you Spock.
Iraq == loss.
A-stan == soon to be a loss.
THE
I remain skeptical. The high temperature of the brain @ 310K makes me deeply skeptical of any quantum claims. Anyway, I don’t believe “quantum” really explains anything where consciousness is concerned. We should discuss this offline or at my website. It is lengthy and detailed. Too off-topic for here.
Harris is nowhere near as militant as me. I agree with all you say and I could add more. But I think it is possible to substitute perfectly satisfactory secular alternatives, like humanism to define our values or sociaIism to define our communal responsibilities. You can think of these as secular a-priori philosophical beliefs or secular quasi-religions if you like.
The one thing I would add — is it Ayla’s agency theory? That early Man was constantly on the lookout for agents — predators — enemy humans and couldn’t afford a false negative so erred on the side of positive errors.
Consequently we see agents everywhere and end up with a world full of spirits or Animism. Religion is by this hypothesis a philosophical development of our agency bias. If you like, Animism is our first theory of physics.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
totally agree. superstition was an evolutonary fitness enhancer in the EEA.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
but im a purest. i believe in the biological basis of behavior, membah?
Neuropolitics.
Samara Morgan
@THE:
agreed. the juicitariat cant follow the argument.
But i was specifically reffing the skunk at the atheists convention.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Yes but my main argument with you is that I agree that religion is biological but I don’t believe that religion has to be supernatural.
It is perfectly possible for modern scientific man to substitute secular quasi religions like Humanism, SociaIism and the best of modern physics as a trueish creation myth. etc.
I can choose to believe in these because they improve biological fitness for the same reasons supernatural religions do.
Samara Morgan
@4jkb4ia:
alsotoo, if you dont know hebrew you dont relly understand.
Have you read Cavalli-Sforza?
Samara Morgan
@THE:
that might happen in the FUTURE.
it cannot happen in the present.
Which is why America spent trillions of dollars and thousands of soljah lives FOR FUCKING NOTHING.