Remember the republican guy I spoke to? Check it out:
Egemen, could you please tell me how I can determine what is true sharia and what is not?Hi. My name is Egemen Birben; I'm a 16 year old Turkish-muslim who studies college here in the U.s. I have a few objections to make about your article ''Death Threats from Muslims.'' I would like to state some facts and ask a couple of questions to you (by quoting some parts from the article)
* * * * About the first 15th objections, what Khalil said were all false and I completely agree with you. This stuff, slavery, sexism, chauvinism, pedophilism, rape, murder; hundreds, maybe thousands of cases exist in a muslim community. But does this mean that my religion encourages such acts? Does that mean the community of Iran is a representative of a true Islamic community and it's laws are the representatives of the true Sharia?
In Christianity, there is one person who bears sole authority for determining what is true - the Pope.
While it is true that many Christians do not agree with the Pope, there is no one else in all Christendom who claims the kind of sole authority he claims.
Point to me the ONE person in Islam who claims sole authority to decide what is true sharia and what is not.
In fact, there is no one person who makes such a claim.
Thus, what constitutes true sharia and true Islam is not something even Muslims can determine.
Osama bin Laden's understanding of Islam is no less true than your understanding or that of any one of a billion other Muslims. You can argue that Quran and the Hadith all day long and twice on Friday, but you cannot appeal to an authority who can tell you for certain that one is wrong and the other right. There is no Muslim who claims to have sole authority over all Muslims - none.
As for the Crusades, give it a rest, Egemon. Islam launched holy war and swept over HALF of Christendom in a century. Christendom did nothing in response. You invaded Christian Spain and half of France.
Christendom did not declare crusade.
The Spaniards and Franks pushed you out of Spain, but then you pushed up through the Balkans over the next five hundred years. You enslaved Christian children, raised them as Muslims, often castrating them, and forced them to fight against their own relatives as slave armies.
Christendom did not call crusade.
You cut off trade routes and pilgrimage routes to the holiest sites in Christendom.
Christendom did not call crusade - we developed the stations of the Cross devotion instead.
Only after you destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and threatened Constantinople with such military might that the Emperor asked the Pope for assistance - only then was Crusade called, after SIX HUNDRED YEARS of warfare and provocation.
Now tell me, Egemon. If Christians conquered half of Islam, enslaved Muslim children, castrated them, forced them to fight in slave armies against their own relatives, and cut off access to Mecca and Medina so you couldn't make the Hajj, would you simply develop an alternate prayer devotion in response?
Don't give me that Muslim crap about Crusades.
I could write a similar tirade against your invocation of the Inquisition.
It's total crap to even start the conversation.
The only people who entertain that kind of idiocy is Western journalists and Muslims who don't know history, which seems to be most of you.
I'm not trying to be mean, Egemon, but I'm fed up with Muslims who haven't bothered to do their research.
Big deal, Egemon. The Chinese discovered gunpowder and invented movable type, but that doesn't make them scientists.''We'' did invent science - Invent is actually a wrong word to use, science is discovered not ''invented'', since your main language is English I guess you know better than I do-, the Islamic world contributed the science much more than you think. In fact, if you would grab an encyclopedia and look at names such as Khwarizmi, Cemshid, Takiyuddin, Al Jaziri, Al Pharabius, Averroes,Al Mahudi, Geber, Rhazes,Ibn Yunus,Omar Khayyam, Avicenna, Biruni, Kutbi and tens of them may God never let their names be forgotten, you would realize that these Leonardo Da Vinci's of the East:
a)founded Sybernetics.
b)founded the modern mathematics. (numbers -That's right, the numbers used in math are arabic, bynomes, the term ''x'' etc.)
c)founded Chemistry. (Chemistry is an arabic word Steve, ''al Kimya''
d)discovered the principle of pendulum (In case you do not know what it is, the concept of ''time''
If I continued by mentioning all the achievements in Biology, Astronomy, Optics, Medicine, Philosophy, I would've literally written a book. Where do you think the Europeans acquired the scriptures that would lead them to their renaissance? Yes, your guess is right. The people who follow the evil religion..
The Greeks invented atomic theory, but that doesn't make them scientists either.
To say that the Muslims stumbled across a few interesting things means only that they aren't complete fools.
Science requires the scientific method.
That was developed by Galileo in the Christian west and perfected by the Christians who followed him.
Like the pagan Chinese, Islam did better than most of the polytheists, but you didn't invent science.
Yes, Egemon, it was necessary to bathe the city with the blood of civilians because that's how EVERYONE fought wars back then, including the Muslims. If a city resisted, it was put to the sword. If it did not resist, it was not. Jerusalem resisted.a) Why should the crusades be given a rest? Just because it was ''supposedly provoked by centuries of muslim conquest (I have an objection there too), the killings are justified?. Was it necessary to sack Antioch, Damascus and Jerusalem? Was it necessary to bathe the temple of Suleiman with the blood of the muslim civilians in Jerusalem?*
I'm a Catholic, which makes me responsible for what other Catholics do in the name of Christianity, just as your being part of Islam makes you responsible for what Moslems do in the name of Allah.b) What is with the ''we'' use? Have you participated in the Crusades, my friend? It must be terribly sad to hear this from a 16 year old ''terrorist'', but that reminded of the class newspaper my classmates and I wrote in kindergarten.
Given a choice between Christian heretics and slave-trading Muslims who impose absurdities like sharia, I'll take the heretics. At least they can be reasoned with.In order to maintain supply lines and defend a territory, military men typically take more than just the single objective. They take the land and resources necessary to hold that objective. I don't understand your objection.
Yes, but they didn't assassinate one another. Look at your caliphs, my friend. The history of Islam is the history of assassination. Very scientific of you.You also seem to be forgetting the great Schism of 1054, 40 years before the crusades, that the pope and the arch bishop excommunicated each other. There wasn't a linguistic unity, nor a cultural one. So the Christians have been fighting each other long before the crusades, just take a look at the 4th one.
Until sharia is stripped out of Islam, Islam will not be a fit religion for the world.
It will be stripped away - that is what the imposition of democracy on Iraq and Afghanistan has begun.
Like the Jewish Deuteronomic code, sharia is on its way out, my friend.
Sigh, what a loser...