Who Made Isis?

[Mojo2]

Fanatical MUSLIMS created isis and nearly all the other terrorists. It's only hard to understand if you're not paying attention.

Devil's Advocate (me): ISIS believes it's interpretation of the Koran is the correct one and they are fighting to kill the Middle Eastern rulers who make laws and whose regimes and governments serve and enforce MEN'S laws, because they all represent virtual insults to Allah.

Why and how?

These Modernist Muslims presume to know what is best for mankind. However, they only prove their blasphemy by making their own laws in contravention of or indifference to Allah's laws. Strict Shariah rule.

For this they are fighting. To purify Islam and with their struggles to rid the world of jahilliayyah, one infidel (modernist Muslims fighting for the Iraq or any government) at a time.

Doesn't this mean that we are pinning our hopes for future peaceful relations with Muslims on them all becoming traitors to "Old School" Islam?

They are fighting to determine which version of Islam will prevail.

In the meantime, they are doing what they can to press attacks on infidels, both near and far, wherever and however they can.

Aren't the ISIS fighters the more doctrinally aligned with the Koran?

Aren't the Modernist Muslims the ones who are the rebels trying to dilute and therefore make ineffective the 'beauty and harmony' of real Islam?

 

[frigidweirdo]

Anyone who perceives ISIS as anything but one of hundreds of different Islamic groups which ALL take as their guide the Koran and other Holy Islamic texts which tell them to do what they are doing, is blind to the truth.

Stopping ISIS is a fool's errand if you see it as only an independant warring entity.

It is merely the most notorious right now. But even if EVERY one of the estimated 20,000 - 40,000 ISIS fighters were dispatched, the list of groups and individuals STILL fighting in obedience to Allah and/or Muhammad, would continue.

Stopping ISIS would be like stopping Hitler's Africa Korps but leaving the rest of the Third Reich untouched.

Islam is the enemy of man's self rule.

They want Allah's laws to govern every aspect of our lives.

Here are some things which Iranian Amir Taheri says makes Islam incompatible with Democracy.

Spoiler: Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy

Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot

Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am glad that this debate takes place in English.

Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.

To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.

If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.

There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.

Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.

The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).

But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.

Nor do we have a word for politics.

The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.

Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.

It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.

Lest us return to the issue of equality.

The idea is unacceptable to Islam.

For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.

Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.

Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:

At the summit are free male Muslims

Next come Muslim male slaves

Then come free Muslim women

Next come Muslim slave women.

Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.

Each category has rights that must be respected.

The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.

The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)

Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.

(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)

Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.

In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.

But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.

The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.

That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.

But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.

Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.

What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.

To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.

On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.

In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.

The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:

Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us

For, if You do, woe be to us.

Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.

He says:

You are not reign even over your beard,

That grows without your permission.

How can you pretend, therefore,

To rule about right and wrong?

The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.

The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.

The great Persian poet Attar says :

I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)

What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?

Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:

I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise

Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation

Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.

Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.

Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.

He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."

Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.

Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.

He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.

The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.

" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."

Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.

In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.

How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.

In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.

And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)

The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.

Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.

Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.

Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.

Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.

Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).

Without that art man was heading for destruction.

So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.

Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.

Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.

Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?

Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.

Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."

Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.

The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)

The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.

In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.

Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.

The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.

In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.

To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.

Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.

One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.

This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.

In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.

The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.

He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:

Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!

Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.

If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.

Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.

They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.

Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.

Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.

The other way round, however, it does not work.

Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.

There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)

But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.

In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.

The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.

This debate is not easy.

For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.

On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.

The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.

On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)

This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.

They think they are doing Islam a favour.

The opposite is true.

Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.

The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Not one is yet a democracy .

The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.

Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.

Islam is the rule of immortal God.

Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.

Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.

We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.

If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.

Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.

Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.

I commend the motion.

Thank you

* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.

Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy

Well, to a certain extent I agree that stopping Islamic Terrorism is impossible. You don't stop terrorism. You have to make it lose its reason for being. The problem is the US is making more reason for ISIS and other groups to thrive.

The traditional war no longer works. You have to get into the hearts and minds of people, and you don't do that by killing them, occupying them, annoying them, telling them what to do and how to think. You leave them be, and then they will find their own way.

 

[Mojo2]

Anyone who perceives ISIS as anything but one of hundreds of different Islamic groups which ALL take as their guide the Koran and other Holy Islamic texts which tell them to do what they are doing, is blind to the truth.

Stopping ISIS is a fool's errand if you see it as only an independant warring entity.

It is merely the most notorious right now. But even if EVERY one of the estimated 20,000 - 40,000 ISIS fighters were dispatched, the list of groups and individuals STILL fighting in obedience to Allah and/or Muhammad, would continue.

Stopping ISIS would be like stopping Hitler's Africa Korps but leaving the rest of the Third Reich untouched.

Islam is the enemy of man's self rule.

They want Allah's laws to govern every aspect of our lives.

Here are some things which Iranian Amir Taheri says makes Islam incompatible with Democracy.

Spoiler: Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy

Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot

Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am glad that this debate takes place in English.

Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.

To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.

If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.

There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.

Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.

The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).

But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.

Nor do we have a word for politics.

The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.

Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.

It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.

Lest us return to the issue of equality.

The idea is unacceptable to Islam.

For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.

Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.

Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:

At the summit are free male Muslims

Next come Muslim male slaves

Then come free Muslim women

Next come Muslim slave women.

Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men

Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.

Each category has rights that must be respected.

The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.

The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)

Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.

(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)

Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.

In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.

But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.

The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.

That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.

But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.

Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.

What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.

To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.

On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.

In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.

The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:

Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us

For, if You do, woe be to us.

Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.

He says:

You are not reign even over your beard,

That grows without your permission.

How can you pretend, therefore,

To rule about right and wrong?

The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.

The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.

The great Persian poet Attar says :

I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)

What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?

Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:

I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise

Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation

Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.

Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.

Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.

He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."

Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.

Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.

He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.

The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.

" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."

Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.

In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.

How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.

In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.

And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)

The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.

Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.

Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.

Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.

Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.

Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).

Without that art man was heading for destruction.

So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.

Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.

Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.

Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?

Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.

Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."

Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.

The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)

The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.

In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.

Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.

The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.

In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.

To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.

Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.

One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.

This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.

In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.

The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.

He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:

Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!

Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.

If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.

Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.

They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.

Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.

Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.

The other way round, however, it does not work.

Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.

There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)

But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.

In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.

The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.

This debate is not easy.

For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.

On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.

The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.

On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)

This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.

They think they are doing Islam a favour.

The opposite is true.

Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.

The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Not one is yet a democracy .

The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.

Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.

Islam is the rule of immortal God.

Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.

Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.

We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.

If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.

Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.

Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.

I commend the motion.

Thank you

* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.

Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy

Well, to a certain extent I agree that stopping Islamic Terrorism is impossible. You don't stop terrorism. You have to make it lose its reason for being. The problem is the US is making more reason for ISIS and other groups to thrive.

The traditional war no longer works. You have to get into the hearts and minds of people, and you don't do that by killing them, occupying them, annoying them, telling them what to do and how to think. You leave them be, and then they will find their own way.

And please paint a picture for us describing what the outcome of your strategy will look like. Your prescription was followed in Egypt and all they did was to elect a Muslim Brotherhood president! And what about the Palestinians who were 'left alone' to DEMOCRATICALLY elect HAMAS! Oy vey!

 

[EconChick]

I guess all the other Islamic extremists get a pass if they don't go by the name ISIS. I guess that means you're now bored with Al Qaeda. Oh wait, that's right, they were decimated. Or how about Al Nusra, Khorasan, Hammas.....

These extremists have been around for a long time, doesn't matter what spin off group they're part of.

It's amazing after the last decade there are still Americans too stupid to grasp this.

Please, try thinking strategically. I know for some of you libs in particular that's like asking you not to breath, but try it.

 

[dcraelin]

Very interesting article claiming the war is really aimed at Assad. Read somewhere that the US is using its latest fighters because they are invisible to Assad's radar.

This War is Not Aimed at ISIS But at Assad CounterPunch Tells the Facts Names the Names

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

And I'm not saying it's just the US that has caused this.

Not the US but US liberals. They are opposed to freedom so you IS is appearing rather than George Washington.

Simple enough?

Simple enough for a 2 year old. Though it isn't true, it's just simple.

dear, if it isn't true please say why or admit you lack the IQ to defend what you say!
Notice the liberal will be so slow as to not know that being able to say why is necessary.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Islam is the enemy of man's self rule.

of course that's idiotic. Liberalism is the enemy. Islam wants control of the state as does everyone else on earth, and as did everyone in human history, except American Republicans. Freedom from liberal govt has always been the only issue in human history. IS is just another liberal organization fighting to control govt so it can impose its liberal ideas on you.

Taking out IS without taking out liberals too ultimately serves no purpose.

 

[georgephillip]

How poor will we be, and how many will die when fossil fuels vanish from the page of time?

100% stupid and liberal! If fossil fuel supply ever declines rather than continually increases as it always has the price of fossil fuels will begin to rise until it is more expensive than renewables. At that point the transition will be voluntary and hopefully increase our standard of living rather than kill millions as a liberal Nazi inforced transition would do if implimented today.

To what factor do you attribute our continually increasing supply of fossil fuels, Jurassic Park sequels?

fracking is best example dear

Do you think Oklahoma needs more earthquakes or less clean water, Sweetie?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

How poor will we be, and how many will die when fossil fuels vanish from the page of time?

100% stupid and liberal! If fossil fuel supply ever declines rather than continually increases as it always has the price of fossil fuels will begin to rise until it is more expensive than renewables. At that point the transition will be voluntary and hopefully increase our standard of living rather than kill millions as a liberal Nazi inforced transition would do if implimented today.

To what factor do you attribute our continually increasing supply of fossil fuels, Jurassic Park sequels?

fracking is best example dear

Do you think Oklahoma needs more earthquakes or less clean water, Sweetie?

dear, the moment anyone believes fracking poses a serious earthquake problem it will immediately be stopped. You're grasping at straws knowing in your heart that liberalism is based in pure ignorance.

 

[frigidweirdo]

And please paint a picture for us describing what the outcome of your strategy will look like. Your prescription was followed in Egypt and all they did was to elect a Muslim Brotherhood president! And what about the Palestinians who were 'left alone' to DEMOCRATICALLY elect HAMAS! Oy vey!

Oh God, leave them alone and they vote for WHO THEY LIKE and WHO THEY WANT. Clearly can't have democracy where the outcome isn't in the best interests of the USA, can we?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

. Clearly can't have democracy where the outcome isn't in the best interests of the USA, can we?

its not democracy or mob rule that will cause world peace and rapid economic progress but rather conservative/libertarian govt. So this is what we must impose on the world.

 

[Silhouette]

Well, to a certain extent I agree that stopping Islamic Terrorism is impossible. You don't stop terrorism. You have to make it lose its reason for being. The problem is the US is making more reason for ISIS and other groups to thrive.

The traditional war no longer works. You have to get into the hearts and minds of people, and you don't do that by killing them, occupying them, annoying them, telling them what to do and how to think. You leave them be, and then they will find their own way.

The war if there is one is not going to be between christians and islamics or islamics against christians and jews. It's a war that is wearing that shroud for sure. But everybody knows this is a war about oil...utlimately about capitalistic greed, American "manifest destiney" [code for invading brutality for greed]. This is a war about OPEC, and about money and the access and control of oil in the ME's "up for grabs" real estate right now.

What Cheney and them are unhappy about is that when they burned out the old tenants, Obama didn't keep his toe in the door long enough to claim squatters' rights. But they're creative and I believe their creativity is what ISIS is all about anyway.

There may be some true islamic hatred of christians and jews...particularly American ones. And that is a fundamental difference in not the belief system necessarily; because the Bible, Torah & Koran are all fundamentally about the same principles in human behaviors. [Think of them as human behavior recipe books, all three mexican, but one is from Oaxaca, one from Juarez and another from Sonora...just minor variations on a similar theme]. The problem I think islamics have with christians and jews from America is that we no longer adhere to our moral mandates. We tout religion in name only and we do not walk the walk by and large. We bow instead to a god of gold. Oily gold for the most part but when you boil it down, it's greed.

The common denominator is to make both sides of the equation understand that their leadership is really putting their ideologically-faithful pawns up to fighting on a ruse...about religion...when rich Arab Imams and rich American bishops are all about chasing where the money's at...at the end of the day. What I mean to say is, if there's a question between religious interests [for instance, not using pawns to fight your turf wars over oil under the ruse of religion], those religious leaders are under enourmous pressure to fault on the side of money.

And hence we have arrived at the root of the problem...and the common denominator if such knowledge were dispensed to the footsoldiers, would change the course of human events....literally in this case....

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

everybody knows this is a war about oil...utlimately about capitalistic greed,.

dear, the entire world needs air and oil whether totalitarian, socialist or capitalist. You cant call human beings greedy because they need to breath.

Feel silly now,liberal!

 

[Silhouette]

everybody knows this is a war about oil...utlimately about capitalistic greed,.

dear, the entire world needs air and oil whether totalitarian, socialist or capitalist. You cant call human beings greedy because they need to breath.

Feel silly now,liberal!

Have you seen my stance on gay marriage "dear"?...lol... Not a liberal pal. I'm a pragmatist. Do your research on my posts and get back to me. We need less oil because we have ways of saving our daily use and cutting back on it.

1. Solar thermal hybrid installations in tandem with existing power plants.

2. Using catalytic conversion of unburned hydrocarbons in cars during the power stroke and not in the exhaust system where it does nothing to improve mileage.

3. Using more diesel cars where algae from scum ponds create our fuel source and drastically reduce consumption while improving mileage and power. [Diesels are more powerful than gas engines].

4. Utilizing geothermal steam to run turbines for power instead of using coal or oil burners to do so.

I realize all the foregoing cuts into your profit margin. And I'm sorry about that. But your profit margin isn't as important as the world so...yeah...sorry about that.... I guess someone has to lose in this equation. Better you than the entire human civilization.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

everybody knows this is a war about oil...utlimately about capitalistic greed,.

dear, the entire world needs air and oil whether totalitarian, socialist or capitalist. You cant call human beings greedy because they need to breath.

Feel silly now,liberal!

Have you seen my stance on gay marriage "dear"?...lol... Not a liberal pal. I'm a pragmatist. Do your research on my posts and get back to me. We need less oil because we have ways of saving our daily use and cutting back on it.

1. Solar thermal hybrid installations in tandem with existing power plants.

2. Using catalytic conversion of unburned hydrocarbons in cars during the power stroke and not in the exhaust system where it does nothing to improve mileage.

3. Using more diesel cars where algae from scum ponds create our fuel source and drastically reduce consumption while improving mileage and power. [Diesels are more powerful than gas engines].

4. Utilizing geothermal steam to run turbines for power instead of using coal or oil burners to do so.

I realize all the foregoing cuts into your profit margin. And I'm sorry about that. But your profit margin isn't as important as the world so...yeah...sorry about that.... I guess someone has to lose in this equation. Better you than the entire human civilization.

dear, you are deadly and stupid and liberal. If you use violence to impose alternative energy costs on mankind you will kill off 1 billion or so who live at subsistence and impoverish most of humanity.

 

[frigidweirdo]

dear, you are deadly and stupid and liberal. If you use violence to impose alternative energy costs on mankind you will kill off 1 billion or so who live at subsistence and impoverish most of humanity.

You really should go see our debate about gay marriage. Nothing else to say to you, it's a waste of time.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The war if there is one is not going to be between christians and islamics or islamics against christians and jews. It's a war that is wearing that shroud for sure. But everybody knows this is a war about oil...utlimately about capitalistic greed, American "manifest destiney" [code for invading brutality for greed]. This is a war about OPEC, and about money and the access and control of oil in the ME's "up for grabs" real estate right now.

What Cheney and them are unhappy about is that when they burned out the old tenants, Obama didn't keep his toe in the door long enough to claim squatters' rights. But they're creative and I believe their creativity is what ISIS is all about anyway.

There may be some true islamic hatred of christians and jews...particularly American ones. And that is a fundamental difference in not the belief system necessarily; because the Bible, Torah & Koran are all fundamentally about the same principles in human behaviors. [Think of them as human behavior recipe books, all three mexican, but one is from Oaxaca, one from Juarez and another from Sonora...just minor variations on a similar theme]. The problem I think islamics have with christians and jews from America is that we no longer adhere to our moral mandates. We tout religion in name only and we do not walk the walk by and large. We bow instead to a god of gold. Oily gold for the most part but when you boil it down, it's greed.

The common denominator is to make both sides of the equation understand that their leadership is really putting their ideologically-faithful pawns up to fighting on a ruse...about religion...when rich Arab Imams and rich American bishops are all about chasing where the money's at...at the end of the day. What I mean to say is, if there's a question between religious interests [for instance, not using pawns to fight your turf wars over oil under the ruse of religion], those religious leaders are under enourmous pressure to fault on the side of money.

And hence we have arrived at the root of the problem...and the common denominator if such knowledge were dispensed to the footsoldiers, would change the course of human events....literally in this case....

Yeah, oil is the new religion. However I get the feeling that a lot of people who join ISIS and who hate the US are ones who are stuck in the middle. They see the West as bad because they see invasions for oil, they probably don't understand the connection with rich oil states because they too will make the US the enemy, even if not publicly.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear, you are deadly and stupid and liberal. If you use violence to impose alternative energy costs on mankind you will kill off 1 billion or so who live at subsistence and impoverish most of humanity.

You really should go see our debate about gay marriage. Nothing else to say to you, it's a waste of time.

translation: I lost that debate so I'll stop. Ever see a conservative have to run from a debate? What does that teach you?

 

[Mojo2]

And please paint a picture for us describing what the outcome of your strategy will look like. Your prescription was followed in Egypt and all they did was to elect a Muslim Brotherhood president! And what about the Palestinians who were 'left alone' to DEMOCRATICALLY elect HAMAS! Oy vey!

Oh God, leave them alone and they vote for WHO THEY LIKE and WHO THEY WANT. Clearly can't have democracy where the outcome isn't in the best interests of the USA, can we?

Why create a situation which will require painful and costly sacrifices to TRY to solve down the road, when a situation can be solved much more easily and completely by taking the necessary steps now to assure a profitable and harmonious government from now on?

Why allow the creation of a terrorist nation if Israel is only going to destroy it anyway?

You are wasting your time and resources and dooming your people to death, deprivation, oppression and misery.

Shouldn't the world have stepped in to save the Germans from their own bad choices?

Well, of course I shouldn't ask you.

You probably still have pics of Herr Fuhrer on your ceiling.

 

[Kondor3]

Who (or what) made ISIS?

Militant Islam.

Islam is a warrior's religion, and is, in truth, a hybrid cultural-legal-social scheme with a sizable religious element tossed-in for good measure.

Its early sacred texts are simply saturated with permissions to wage-war and commit violence under various conditions, pre-approved by the godhead.

With such license and such bloody history behind it, various factions in Islam have oftentimes arisen to fashion an empire in the name of the faith and its godhead.

ISIS is merely the latest skin-rash that this cancer has manifested.

If it wasn't Western interference, it would have been Eastern interference, or an intramural hate-legacy, or any of a thousand excuses for resurrecting the caliphate.

Western interaction with Islam in recent decades may very well have been the trigger.

But it never takes much to load and cock the hammer on Islam.

Never mind it having a hair-trigger that is oftentimes pulled amongst themselves.

In many respects, they're their own worst enemy.

In some respects, they're ours (The West's).