RoR: Forum

Post 20

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 12:09pm

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Jeremy,

"Your deep-seated resentment of Israel and your passionate advocacy of Arab Palestine has long been noted in these forums. However, try as you might to introduce the concept of Holocaust revisionism here, you are comparing apples to oranges."

You have so completely misunderstood Hong's position that I suspect, that unless you are completely blinded by prejudice, you are going to be very embarrassed.

Post 21

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 12:43pm

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Well, we shall see.

Either I'm embarrassingly wrong or you are spinning like a top.

Post 22

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 1:01pm

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I truly believe that isl*m is uniquely evil. I think I've given plenty of unanswered proof toward that end. I realize now that your escalating accusations against me, Hong:

It's better not to post when your head is a muddle. ;-)
And Ted can not even spell out the mere phrases "Islam" and "Muslim". Geez. Are you that scared?
You really do not need to get so emotional. It makes one incoherent. So I will not argue with you because it�s simply no fun if one get emotional.

may reflect an initial response to an issue upon which you have a sore spot, which became a matter of an inability to back down and then a matter of lost face. But I want to address this issue without making you the issue. I invite you, or anyone who sanctioned or agrees with you to respond objecvtively to these points:

(1) Is there no difference between Jesus' call to love one's enemies, and the Butcher's call to take no Christian or Jew as your friend? Is there no difference between, "turn the other cheek" and "lie in wait for them, and slay them where you find them"?

(2) In what Western, "Christian" nation would a female ratial minority member and atheist fear to live? Which m*slim country would suc a person prefer to inhabit?

(3) To which religion did the African traders who introduced the slave trade to Europe belong? To which religion did the 19th century activists who ended the slave trade belong?

(4) Please match the following references to God with their religion:

Abdullah "Slave of God"
Melech Ha'Olam "King of the universe"
Abw�n d'bwaschm�ja "Our Father in heaven"

(5) Do you see no difference between slaves (force), subjects (law), and children (love)?

(6) What is the only major religion on Earth that currently calls on its followers to murder non-believers in the name of its god? Which one calls on its followers to spread what it calls the "good news"?

(7) Name any Western nation which has cast off its evil Christian roots and become a free secular society by adopting m*slim originated ideals. Name one m*slim nation or culture which has had its own internally generated Renaissance, Reformation or Counter-Reformation without being defeated by external foreign non-m*slim forces.

(8) The Turks and the Mongols were pagans until they encountered the monotheisms to their West. Which religion did they adopt due to its compatibility with their militarism?

(9) Which number is greater? The number of books translated into Spanish yearly, or the number of books ever translated into Arabic?

These are coherent points. I challenge anyone to address these issues, rather than what anyone imagines are my emotions.

Ted Keer

[This post has been very highly modified since it was posted earlier today. While eating lunch, I came to realize that the escalation of this argument has largely been due to a mutual failure to understand each other's emotions and motivations. I apologize for my aggressive but sincere methods.]

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 4/24, 6:39pm)

Post 23

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 9:20pm

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Ted,

I don't think you've done anything wrong in showing emotions. Emotions are the instrumental, motive force that the rational mind puts behind what it concludes must be done. So to show emotions -- mind you, emotions appropriate to the specificity and magnitude of the challenge at hand -- is absolutely essential.

In this light, then, certain folks who seem to narcissistically feed off of the pretense that only others show "inappropriate emotion" should be taken with a grain of salt. And, by "taken with a grain of salt", I mean largely just plain dismissed as psychologically dishonest, manipulative, and egotistically self-serving.

Finally, as far as this statement of yours goes:

While eating lunch, I came to realize that the escalation of this argument has largely been due to a mutual failure to understand each other's emotions and motivations.

I would say that you are far more generous than I am... if, in fact, you understand Hong perfectly and are just trying to rupture a disk bending over backwards in the interest of playing the peacemaker. I can't imagine that you really think she doesn't understand your emotions and true motivations perfectly, nor you hers.

Post 24

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 7:27am

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Ted, all I said is that there are Christians who are trying to rewrite history to make it seem the dark ages were good times.

Indeed they do.

Post 25

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 6:25pm

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Chris, "indeed they do" seem like good times?

Ted

Post 26

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 6:28pm

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What truly mystifies me is why, on a post about isl*m, when no one had compared it explicitly to Christianity, we got three posts in a row amounting to:
"Well... you know... Christianity is just as bad!"

Well, there are two problems. First, how did a thread on the supposed "Golden Age of Isl*m" become about whether or not the (Christian) West had a Dark Age? And second, the implied moral equivalence is absolutely false. Just as there is a difference between Bushido and Falun Gong, Between Buddhism and sacrifice to Baal Moloch, between the Distributism of G. K. Chesterton, and the Communism of Karl Marx, there is a clear and literal world of difference between the two largest monotheisms.

Not only would I like either an actual response to my questions, I'd like either a demonstration of or a retraction of the unsupported assertions of my "muddle-headedness," my "fear," my "emotionalism" and my "incoherence."

But even more than this, I'd like someone here to present some facts to counter my claim that isl*m never had a golden age.

And, if the fact that I write clearly, and with punctuation, wording and emphasis that makes my opinions clear, then I apologize for being expressive and unambiguous. I am sorry.

Ted Keer

Post 27

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 9:02pm

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Ted,

In post #4 Robert made an humorous aside that Christianity's golden age was the era known as the dark ages. He made no claim of moral equivalency - just a funny aside.

Post #5 - I replied to Robert that there are Christians on Wikipedia that are trying to change history to make it look like the dark ages were golden. Again, there was no claim of moral equivalency.

That's all that Robert or I had to do with all of this. Period. But you went over the top in post #7 and said,

In your apparent obsession with Christianity, are you, Steve or Robert arguing for moral equivalency? Or that isl*m isn't all that bad?

I tried to explain in the next reply (post #8),

Ted, all I said is that there are Christians who are trying to rewrite history to make it seem the dark ages were good times.

You never acknowledged my post.

Then in post #24 Chris quoted my observation from post #5 of the Christians rewriting history on Wikipedia. And you misread the quote entirely judging by your reply in post #25.

I would appreciate it if when you used my name or referred to my posts, that you read what I said a little more carefully.

Post 28

Thursday, April 26, 2007 - 6:15am

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Chris, "indeed they do" seem like good times?

They do try to rewrite history.

Post 29

Thursday, April 26, 2007 - 1:06pm

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Steve,

Since yours and Robert's posts were unmotivated by the thesis that isl*m did or did not have a golden age, the remarks, which would be otherwise inexplicable, did imply some sort of "equivalence" if one wants to go so far. Since you both dropped the matter after I posted as to why they were not equivalent, I saw no need to further address you. I apologize for not being explicit. I assume by your posts that you see the difference, and I am on no Jihad against any individual here.

As for Chris' post, of course his intention was clear. But he did not say what he meant, so I took the chance to get in a friendly ironic jibe.

After Hong's recent statement on the Lawrence of Arabia quote thread comparing WWI & WWII to Arab feuding, I see that she does have an agenda that she simply doesn't seem to be aware of, or wish to admit.

Nevertheless, I await a refutation of or answer to my questions from anyone who likes. Otherwise, my thesis stands unrefuted.

Ted Keer