I really don't buy into most conspiracy theories BUT.......

[Taso]

"pointless wars...for oil" ? Are they pointless or not?

[GoodCallYouWin]

What are you, some knee-jerk reacton [censored]? Shouldn't you be out telling people about the "evils" of global warming?

[Taso]

I just got in from a midnight global warming protest actually. I can't do it 24/7, I have weak knees. Now is my recovering time.

[surftheiop]

Bases on qoutes from suicide bombers in training it seems like they are pretty much religously motivated.

Ben-Eliezer: "If Yasser Arafat called for a halt to suicide bombings, would it have any effect on you?"

Stiti: " No. It's a religious imperative from Allah. It has nothing to do with whether Arafat says yes or no. Allah supersedes everyone. " He thinks for a moment and continues: "But maybe if he did call for it to stop, we might think twice about it."





Ben-Eliezer: "Now explain to me why you decided to commit suicide."

"Stiti: "No, that's not it. That's not right. I didn't go to commit suicide. I went to die a martyr's death. I wanted to get the reward. I spent a month in the mosque. I learned there how important it is to be a shaheed. It is the loftiest objective. It's very important for the Palestinian people, nationally and religiously. It's the biggest and most holy thing you can do. And then you receive all the rewards in Paradise."

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
Bases on qoutes from suicide bombers in training it seems like they are pretty much religously motivated.

Ben-Eliezer: "If Yasser Arafat called for a halt to suicide bombings, would it have any effect on you?"

Stiti: " No. It's a religious imperative from Allah. It has nothing to do with whether Arafat says yes or no. Allah supersedes everyone. " He thinks for a moment and continues: "But maybe if he did call for it to stop, we might think twice about it."





Ben-Eliezer: "Now explain to me why you decided to commit suicide."

"Stiti: "No, that's not it. That's not right. I didn't go to commit suicide. I went to die a martyr's death. I wanted to get the reward. I spent a month in the mosque. I learned there how important it is to be a shaheed. It is the loftiest objective. It's very important for the Palestinian people, nationally and religiously. It's the biggest and most holy thing you can do. And then you receive all the rewards in Paradise."

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I don't doubt that many or most terrorists believe their actions to be in accordance with some divine law. My only argument was that these terrorist beliefs don't flow from the religion. The vast, vast majority of Muslims don't do these things and don't believe what the terrorists believe, so it can't simply be a matter of Islam leading them astray.

Savvy fanatical religious leaders can frame the discussion in religious terms and garner support by convincing some of the downtrodden that it is their duty as Muslims to become terrorists.

[GoodCallYouWin]

Suicide bombing, for example, seems to have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with occupation.

[John Kilduff]

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Bases on qoutes from suicide bombers in training it seems like they are pretty much religously motivated.

Ben-Eliezer: "If Yasser Arafat called for a halt to suicide bombings, would it have any effect on you?"

Stiti: " No. It's a religious imperative from Allah. It has nothing to do with whether Arafat says yes or no. Allah supersedes everyone. " He thinks for a moment and continues: "But maybe if he did call for it to stop, we might think twice about it."





Ben-Eliezer: "Now explain to me why you decided to commit suicide."

"Stiti: "No, that's not it. That's not right. I didn't go to commit suicide. I went to die a martyr's death. I wanted to get the reward. I spent a month in the mosque. I learned there how important it is to be a shaheed. It is the loftiest objective. It's very important for the Palestinian people, nationally and religiously. It's the biggest and most holy thing you can do. And then you receive all the rewards in Paradise."

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't doubt that many or most terrorists believe their actions to be in accordance with some divine law. My only argument was that these terrorist beliefs don't flow from the religion. The vast, vast majority of Muslims don't do these things and don't believe what the terrorists believe, so it can't simply be a matter of Islam leading them astray.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's quite clear that the vast majority of Muslims don't do such things. How, though, would you know what the vast majority of Muslims believe? (if indeed there even exists any "vast majority" who subscribe to a single set of beliefs on such matters)

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Savvy fanatical religious leaders can frame the discussion in religious terms and garner support by convincing some of the downtrodden that it is their duty as Muslims to become terrorists.

[/ QUOTE ]

Without doubt that occurs.

I'd actually like to see a compilation of respective statements by the largest Islamic religious group leaders worldwide, delineating what each group or sect believes. Maybe such is available on the web, but I wouldn't know where to look. Obviously I'm not talking merely about basic Q'uranic beliefs but rather about group or sect-like doctrines also.

I think it's quite possible, even probable, that the average individual Muslim is considerably more moderate than the average Muslim religious group leader or official sect/group doctrine. If you're going only by what the large religious group leaders say (rather than individual Muslims), and what their group/sect professes as doctrine, I'll bet it wouldn't be anything like Westerners have in mind when they think of "moderate". Put another way, I'd bet that most of the large-scale official Islamic religious group leaderships around the world teach some pretty non-moderate things, thus when you say "Savvy fanatical religious leaders can frame the discussion in religious terms and garner support by convincing some of the downtrodden that it is their duty as Muslims to become terrorists." you might unknowingly and actually be referring to most of the major Islamic religious leaders.

Hopefully you are right when you assert that the "vast, vast majority" of Muslims don't believe these things. If that's the case though, then the vast, vast majority of Muslims don't really believe in Wahabbism, for instance, because that entire sect's official doctrines are quite fanatical from our point of view. As we know, Saidi Arabia has long financed to the tune of billions of dollars, promotion of its fanatical Wahabbi version of Islam throughout mosques and education centers and charities around the world. The U.S. State Department tried making some sort of deal with the Saudis about this, after having obtained some of the actual teachings which were clearly "hate literature". I'm not aware of the latest developments in this ongoing saga.

My own guess is that the average Muslim on the street is not nearly as fanatical as the average Muslim religious leader. I will also guess that there is a tremendous amount of fanatical religious preaching and teaching going on. And of course, the susceptible young males you refer to are, in effect, the religious cannon fodder.

[John Kilduff]

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Suicide bombing, for example, seems to have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with occupation.

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Eh, well, what about the al-Qaeda suicide bombings of Jordan or other places unrelated to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? There might well have been political grievances involved but it isn't always about occupation.

[Taraz]

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It's quite clear that the vast majority of Muslims don't do such things. How, though, would you know what the vast majority of Muslims believe? (if indeed there even exists any "vast majority" who subscribe to a single set of beliefs on such matters)

[/ QUOTE ]

Polling basically. If you take Muslims worldwide, the vast majority of them don't support targeting civilians. In some countries like Jordan the number is closer to 50%, which is alarming. But how many Muslims live in Jordan? How many live in Indonesia? Many of these fanatical beliefs are quite regional and these regions don't have high populations.

Here is the polling data: http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=830
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248
Here are the numbers for the Muslim populations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

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Savvy fanatical religious leaders can frame the discussion in religious terms and garner support by convincing some of the downtrodden that it is their duty as Muslims to become terrorists.

[/ QUOTE ]

Without doubt that occurs.

I'd actually like to see a compilation of respective statements by the largest Islamic religious group leaders worldwide, delineating what each group or sect believes. Maybe such is available on the web, but I wouldn't know where to look. Obviously I'm not talking merely about basic Q'uranic beliefs but rather about group or sect-like doctrines also.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can probably find this through google searching. I don't have much time right now, but I'll try to find it later.

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I think it's quite possible, even probable, that the average individual Muslim is considerably more moderate than the average Muslim religious group leader or official sect/group doctrine. If you're going only by what the large religious group leaders say (rather than individual Muslims), and what their group/sect professes as doctrine, I'll bet it wouldn't be anything like Westerners have in mind when they think of "moderate". Put another way, I'd bet that most of the large-scale official Islamic religious group leaderships around the world teach some pretty non-moderate things, thus when you say "Savvy fanatical religious leaders can frame the discussion in religious terms and garner support by convincing some of the downtrodden that it is their duty as Muslims to become terrorists." you might unknowingly and actually be referring to most of the major Islamic religious leaders.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it depends on who qualifies as a "major" Islamic religious leader. The fanatical ones have the biggest platforms because they get the most press. But I'm pretty confident when I claim that most Islamic religious leaders are not that fundamentalist. They definitely disagree with some of our Western values, but not to the extent that you would probably expect. I'm sure you can find this information in the google searching I recommend above. I'll try to find this too.

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Hopefully you are right when you assert that the "vast, vast majority" of Muslims don't believe these things. If that's the case though, then the vast, vast majority of Muslims don't really believe in Wahabbism, for instance, because that entire sect's official doctrines are quite fanatical from our point of view.

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Umm, yes. Wahabbism isn't that widespread of a phenomenon. It's very troubling, but it hasn't really spread significantly outside of the Saudi Arabian peninsula.

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My own guess is that the average Muslim on the street is not nearly as fanatical as the average Muslim religious leader. I will also guess that there is a tremendous amount of fanatical religious preaching and teaching going on. And of course, the susceptible young males you refer to are, in effect, the religious cannon fodder.

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I agree with this sentiment. I don't think that your average Muslim leader is as fanatical as you seem to think however.

[John Kilduff]

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My own guess is that the average Muslim on the street is not nearly as fanatical as the average Muslim religious leader. I will also guess that there is a tremendous amount of fanatical religious preaching and teaching going on. And of course, the susceptible young males you refer to are, in effect, the religious cannon fodder.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with this sentiment. I don't think that your average Muslim leader is as fanatical as you seem to think however.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't even think the average Muslim on the steeet is fanatical. I just think that most of the major preaching and teaching is probably leaning towards fanatical/deeply fundamentalist (definitely not saying it all specifically urges suicide bombing, of course) and that the average Muslim on the street is considerably more moderate by comparison. So the youths are being taught a steady diet of anti-Western, anti-Jewish beliefs and a separatist outlook with regards to all infidels.

I would guess that even most American mosques are probably Saudi-funded and therefore essentially Wahabbist in outlook. The Saudis have invested huge billions $$ in such things for quite some time now worldwide. That's troubling and worrisome, and combined with some political backlash, we are seeing the results of what has been brewed up.