So what, reading it for yourself doesn't make any difference, or the number of people who will believe anything doesn't matter?

The simple facts are that a significant number of muslims openly despise and try to undermine the cultural standards of non muslims.
Some even go as far to violently challenge the rights of non muslims to maintain their own culture, whilst demanding respect and tolerance for their sexist, violent and intolerant beliefs.
It is only natural that western people see this as the assault on their personal freedoms that it is.

mozzaok wrote on May 30^th, 2008 at 9:32am:


As there are Christian groups around the world doing the same with Muslims, Jews and Hindus.

The Pope is going to reinstate the Tridentine Mass which includes the Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews. After all the Catholic Church has done to them and after all the good Pope John XXIII did to atone for the Church's sins, the RC church is considering turning back towards an anti-semitic liturgy.

freediver wrote on May 30^th, 2008 at 11:43am:


Sure, sure... Like it doesn't imply there's something wrong with being Jewish? This kind of thinking has sustained anti-semitism throughout Christendom for most of the last 2000 years with murderous consequences.

John XXIII and John Paul II both issued bulls that turned the Church away from its anti-semitic tendencies... One Pope is known as 'The Good' the other is becoming known as 'The Great'. I think its wiser to follow the Good and the Great on the issue of anti-semitism and the Catholic Church's sinful 'acts of commission and omission' as John Paul II put it.

The original reference to the Jews referred to them as 'the perfidious Jews'. Hopefully Benedict XVI is not going to go that far... but who knows... it is the Catholic Church we're talking about.

Sprintcyclist wrote on May 30^th, 2008 at 3:28pm:


None of them?

See what I mean?

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52736

It's the secret question in official Washington, D.C., in the Pentagon, and in the White House. It's the question that is so radioactive that most in government and the press dare not even pose it, let alone answer it:

Is Islam inherently violent and expansionist?


In the days following 9/11, President Bush assured America and the world that Islam was a "religion of peace" and that the violent followers of Osama Bin Laden had twisted the true Muslim faith. Acting on this belief, President Bush and other Western leaders sent troops to the Middle East in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to the Muslim world.

But what if this "understanding" of Islam is based not on fact, but instead on equal parts wishful thinking and Islamic deceit? It would mean that the entire War on Terror is based on a faulty – and increasingly deadly – premise.

In a disturbing but thoroughly researched new book, "Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World," author and filmmaker Gregory M. Davis rebuts the notion that Islam is a great faith in desperate need of a Reformation. Instead, he exposes it as a form of totalitarianism, a belief system that orders its adherents not to baptize all nations, but to conquer and subdue them. Islamic law's governance of every aspect of religious, political and personal action has far more in common with Nazism than with the tenets of Christianity or Judaism.

Davis details how Islamic thought divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat: There's dar al-Islam ("House of Islam," where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb ("House of War," the rest of the world). This concise yet thorough book leaves no doubt as to why most of the world's modern conflicts are connected to Islam – and calls into question why Western elites refuse to acknowledge Islam's violent nature.

Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false, says Davis.

As the author and filmmaker wrote in WND recently:

    The mistake Westerners make when they think about Islam is that they impose their own views of religion onto something decidedly outside Western tradition. Because violence done in the name of God is "extreme" from a Western/Christian point of view, they imagine that it must be so from an Islamic one. But unlike Christianity, which recognizes a separate sphere for secular politics ("Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's"), Islam has never distinguished between faith and power. While Christianity is doctrinally concerned primarily with the salvation of souls, Islam seeks to remake the world in its image. According to orthodox Islam, Sharia law – the codified commandments of the Quran and precedents of the Prophet Muhammad – is the only legitimate basis of government. Islam is in fact an expansionary social and political system more akin to National Socialism and Communism than any "religion" familiar to Westerners. Islamic politics is inevitably an all-or-nothing affair in which the stakes are salvation or damnation and the aim is to not to beat one’s opponent at the polls but to destroy him – literally as well as politically.

Davis received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and is managing director of Quixotic Media and producer of the feature documentary, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know."

Relying primarily on Islam's own sources, "Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World" demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream.

"Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World" is a powerful and jarring wake-up call to all civilized nations – and one they ignore at their peril.

I think now is a good time to look back and try to answer my own question. I think I've learned a lot about Islam over the past six or more months.

In a few respects, Islam is inherently violent. For example:

1) Punishments are both extreme and physical, such as stoning to death, whipping, and amputation. These violent punishments apply to many acts that are not even considered criminal in civilised countries.

2) The rules for women and young girls and attitudes to love make their mistreatment highly likely and very difficult for police to deal with.

3) Islam commands it's followers to form an expansionist, theocratic military empire, of the sort that world leaders have been trying to prevent. Islam specifically permits violations of the Geneva convention, such as capturing slaves and the theft of all property.

4) Islam's rules on marriage and sex slaves would result in a large number of unmarried men who see war as a way of furthering themselves materially and sexually.

5) Islam defines those lands under Muslim control as being at peace, and those not under Muslim control as being at war.

6) Islam is antagonistic towards Christianity and Judaism by indoctrinating their inferioirtiy, and openly hostile towards other religions and atheism.

While each of these occur in other cultures and religions, and other religions have been used to justify such acts, they do not tend to specifically command all of them in the same way Islam does. That is, these things tend to be viewed as perversions of other religions, whereas in Islam they represent the 'true' course.