Danish Cartoons

[Henk]

Amen.

Henk

[Harvard]

Interestingly enough, I went to Indonesia last year. There is a town where half the folks are Muslim, and the other half are Christian. The Christians I met seemed a little more personable, always smiling and kind.

On the otherhand, the Muslims were a little more serious. They always prayed three times daily, and the mosque had a loudspeaker which had a 30 second statement 3 times daily.

However, nobody was extreme, and everybody got along. There was a civil war there 3 years earlier where the Muslims and Christians killed eachother by the thousands. People say it was instigated by the Indonesian government.

They say the Muslim religion was brought to Indonesia over a thousand years ago, due to trading w/ India.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by Harvard

Interestingly enough, I went to Indonesia last year. There is a town where half the folks are Muslim, and the other half are Christian. The Christians I met seemed a little more personable, always smiling and kind.

On the otherhand, the Muslims were a little more serious. They always prayed three times daily, and the mosque had a loudspeaker which had a 30 second statement 3 times daily.

However, nobody was extreme, and everybody got along. There was a civil war there 3 years earlier where the Muslims and Christians killed eachother by the thousands. People say it was instigated by the Indonesian government.

They say the Muslim religion was brought to Indonesia over a thousand years ago, due to trading w/ India.

Wow! Youve been there too! My wife is from Indonesia. Back the 90's I used to travel there all the time on business. (We used Jakarta as an eastern hemisphere satellite tracking site. Evans, if youve ever been through Fillmore, the hills above that city is where we had the western hemisphere track site)

I could tell you all about my impressions of the religious situation there, but Id bore you all. My brother in law is an officer in the Indonesian army, and he told me some real "eye opener" stuff about what goes on there.

If anyone has ever seen or heard of the famous "Javanese Shadow Puppets", then you have an idea. Somethings always going on in the background, in a shadow, never seeing the light of day.

Note - Islam made inroads in the region about 1200's-1300's. Mainly it was due to the Javanese rulers (the power brokers of the time) were increasinly concerned about Chinese pirates marauding their spice treasures. They converted (in part) to Islam as a way of gaining powerfull arab allies to stop the depredations. In the early 1500's, the first of the Portugese maritime expeditions made it to SE Asia and Christianity was introduced. Interestingly enough for the PI, Islam only made it into the extreme southern part of the islands. The Spanish converted the middle and northern parts to catholicism before Islam could take hold.

[marconi]

I think there are a couple of reasons why Muslims are acting so :
1)Islam is at least 500 years younger than Christianity.It hasn't formed completely yet.
2)Most Muslims live in third world country or came from such country and most probably are uneducated people.So, they can be easily forced to do what religious teachers tell them to do.
3)They do not have common spiritual leader like Pope in Catholicism: i.e. any imam can say: "That country is evil, it is against our God and therefore must be destroyed".And technically this will be at least religious dogma which must be executed.

[evangilder]

For #3, Jews don't have a common spiritual leader either, yet most of them are not doing this insanity. There is a very small group of Jewish extremists, but their numbers are far few than Muslim extremists.

[syscom3]

Both Christianity and Judiasm have under gone "modernizations" through out the centuries. Islam has not. Its no understatement to say that some Islamic countries are still wrapped in a middle ages culture.

[marconi]

Originally Posted by evangilder

For #3, Jews don't have a common spiritual leader either, yet most of them are not doing this insanity. There is a very small group of Jewish extremists, but their numbers are far few than Muslim extremists.

True, but I think that it is a combination of these problems with each other and with other problems which weren't mentioned by me that cause such actions.I also can't say that these statements are true for other religions, but they ARE true for Islam.

Both Christianity and Judiasm have under gone "modernizations" through out the centuries. Islam has not. Its no understatement to say that some Islamic countries are still wrapped in a middle ages culture.

Agree.That's what I wanted to say by my previous post.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Both Christianity and Judiasm have under gone "modernizations" through out the centuries. Islam has not. Its no understatement to say that some Islamic countries are still wrapped in a middle ages culture.

I have a Muslim acquaintance and he sites this as the #1 problem in the Islamic world today...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think the number one problem is the fact that they think they are gods gift to the world.

Well I got news for them: There are no 72 or whatever virgins waiting from them after they blow themselves up!!!!!!!!!

[Henk]

HA HA HA HA, can you believe virgins of everything you can think is up there it must be virgins. Is that all they think about?

Henk

[Maestro]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

I think the number one problem is the fact that they think they are gods gift to the world.

Well I got news for them: There are no 72 or whatever virgins waiting from them after they blow themselves up!!!!!!!!!

Well, in fact it's something like 500 or 1000 virgins.

Here are some cartoons I found...

[syscom3]

The poor martyrs didnt realize that the 72 virgins all have chastity belts on.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

And there all boys.

[evangilder]

[Gnomey]