Secret Wars wrote on Jul 29^th, 2015 at 5:05pm:



that comment recently has certianly downgrade my evaluation of pecca. He's a coward anyhow. He said repeataedly that he would join and never even made an attempt. to be honest, the challenge has done little but show me just how bereft of ethics, intellgence and moralit so many posters are. And thats before we even talk about writing skill and talent.

Karnal wrote on Jul 29^th, 2015 at 5:13pm:



the best part about you Karnal is your ability to believe something hasnt happened even with the evidence right in front of you.

is it training? buddhist mind trick?  or plain stupidity?  and to prove my point here is (again) my last offering which has been around for a week (unlike yours).

Reprinted with permission

red baron wrote on Jul 29^th, 2015 at 4:48pm:


I’d be satisfied with evidence that Longy can type.

So it’s come down to you proving you can type, eh Longy?

Gee, we’ve come a long way from writing challenges, haven’t we?

polite_gandalf wrote on Jul 30^th, 2015 at 1:49pm:


Ive already done that and then listened to the Karnal/Aussie tantrum show.  This time I just wrote what I wanted to and was my own opinion.  I can do the 'opposite to my opinion' gig, but that needs someone to join the fun and so far, all takers have fled.

Why Islam is, and always will be evil

It is fashionable today to dismiss all atrocities committed in the name of Islam as a) unrepresentative of the overall muslim community and b) a distortion of the true teachings of Islam. While it is true that only a small minority of muslims commit and actively support such atrocities, it is fallacious to dismiss the culpability of core Islamic teachings and beliefs in the carrying out of these atrocities. In fact I will present the argument that the only force that Islam is capable of, is the force of evil - whether it carries the majority of muslims along with it or not. In making my case, I will not be engaging in the usual quoting (and misquoting) of Islamic texts: such an exercise predictably draws the inane too-and-fro 'misinterpretation' and 'quoting out of context' accusations - and is ultimately futile - even though the text undeniably paints a damning picture of Islam on its own. Instead, I will be focusing on the entrenched traditions, practices and dogma of muslims themselves to argue that Islam - as practiced by muslims themselves - never has, and almost certainly never will, be anything but a force for evil.

If we take the view that pure Islamic doctrine - that is the holy book Quran and the authentic traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith and sunna) - on its own represents a 'clean slate' upon which a religion and culture can be created that has equal opportunity of being 'good' or 'evil', then it is only through the actions and behaviours of muslims themselves that Islam can be judged. This is the premise from which I will present my argument. From the outset it would be tempting, and indeed seemingly natural to argue from this premise that while Islam now seems to represent everything that is retrograde and intolerant, there is no reason why it couldn't swing 180 degrees the other way - and be the epitomy of enlightenment. Indeed, even the staunch Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues exactly this. Such a turnaround would, so the argument goes, merely represent a return to what Islam represented during the so called 'golden age' during the middle ages.

Such an argument is deeply flawed. Firstly we must debunk the myth of the 'Islamic golden age', which has been a central pillar, if not *THE* central pillar to the argument that Islam is capable of being a force for cultural and political enlightenment in the future. The so called Islamic Golden Age was a period between about 800AD and 1200AD during which the areas under the Islamic Caliphate experienced a relative cultural flowering. However to attribute Islam to this flowering is a mistake, and the reality is the flowering happened in spite of Islam, not because of it. This can be seen by the fact that the cultural revival in the middle east was instigated by non-muslims - jewish and christian scholars, as well as scholars who were at best nominally muslim - mainly those who converted due to social and political pressures. On the other hand, the actual homeland of the Islamic religion - the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as the rest of the Arab Peninsula, society remained culturally stagnant. The only possible thing that Islam facilitated during the Golden Age was a kind of political stability courtesy of their military dominance. For Islam is above all else a military movement. In fact it can be reasonably argued that for all the resources and wealth - both in terms of material riches and culture - the Islamic Empire should have been far more culturally prosperous than it was.

Once we dispense with the nostalgic mythos of Islamic history, we get a far clearer picture of what Islam has really represented throughout history. For all the moral relativism that is fashionable in modern western intellectual circles, the fact is, Islam has only ever been a culturally repressive, intolerant and stagnant force for the world - in both relative and absolute terms. And here we get to the crux of the issue: if we are to take the view of Hirsi Ali and assume that Islam is equally capable of being a force for good as it has been a force for evil, we are forced to confront the inconvenient truth of history. Just purely in terms of probability - since Islam has never been a force for good in the world, how can we ever expect it to be a force for good in the future? Either the 'clean slate' of Islam has had an extraordinary run of bad luck - and by pure coincidence has always been picked up by the 'bad' elements of humanity - or there is something far deeper that has entrenched itself in the psyche of the muslim mind.

tbc...

Ahhhh, so this is where we can argue about arguments.