What's the difference between Muslim wingnuts and Christian wingnuts?

The civil war going on in Iraq is a war between Sunnis and Shiites. The culture war that's been going on in our country for about 25 years is between right wing Christian fundamentalists and everyone else.

The Republicans have spent many years intentionally dividing us by using Christian wingnuts to drive a wedge that divides American from American in order to bring political power to themselves.

This is not an indictment of every Christian fundamentalist. (Jimmy Carter is a born-again Christian fundamentalist.) What I'm talking about are followers of nuts like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and many others like them. These people present a bigger danger to our country than any foreign "terrorists."

Whether we pull out of Iraq tomorrow, next month, or next year, Sunnis and Shiites will go on killing each other. And my question is, how do we prevent our homegrown fundies from creating the same situation here?

It's past time the vast majority of Americans woke up and realized that the brand of "Christianity" being peddled by the Republican party is the biggest threat to democracy we have ever faced. To put it another way, a vote for a Republican is a vote for the destruction of American individuality, the Bill of rights, our Constitution and all of our freedoms.

after all until 9/11 there was not even much discussion, let alone in the MSM that had much to do with Islam. Just like dumbaya 80-99% of Americans had no idea there were 2 main factions (3 if you count the Kurds, more if you count the other tribes that even now get no press, but that is mostly not relgion based) at odds in the are for the last 1,000 plus years.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

As a liberal atheist, I'm a better Christian than most of those (in power) who claim to be...

and am convinced they would still be if they had been raised muslim. They would be the same, just with different rituals. jackasses will use whoever they can to manipulate and use other people. THOSE kind need a boot to the head.

except one group lives primarily in the Middle east and the other lives in the States.

The conflict in Ireland has always been more political than theological.

As an old professor of mine once said:

"One of the greatest tragedies of human history is that the only thing that ever united England was an uprising in Ireland."

The religious schism was always secondary to property ownership and commerce. England was not too terribly upset about divesting itself of most of Ireland in the 1920s -- but they held on to Belfast because the ship-building and other industries were centered there. Thus the partition that remains to this day.

History has shown both groups to be extremely violent.

And now, here in the West, some Christians feel persecuted. Frustrated by their inability to turn this country into a theocracy, I believe the Christians here are becoming "radicalized", too.

The Muslims are much more pernicious and dangerous than the Xtians...BTDT and seen it with my own eyes.

methods of killing people.

A doctor that performs abortions is just as dead whether he or she is blown up in the clinic, shot while getting into or out of a car or beheaded.

Ask Dr. David Gunn or Dr. Bernard Slepian.

Oh, wait, you can't......they're dead.

Give our very own wingnuts time and they will become more openly violent.

I know a large number of xtians. Outside of the flakes at the far end, most are horrified at violence towards womens clinics, even those who strongly oppose abortion. However in many muslim nations, renouncing islam is not allowed and people are killed for it. This happens on a regular basis. When was the last abortion related killing in the US? Muslims, particuarly in the 3rd world, are killing over religion damn near daily.
- Teachers slain for educating women
- Sunni vs Shite
- Conversions
- Stoning or lashes for being raped

Yes the xtains have a lunatic fringe who are quite evil, but they are not nearly as pervasive as in islam.

Christians one, maybe 2 car bombs/suicide incidents.
Muslims, much greater than 2.

if not more. Christians just use different weapons.

people dont keep invading their lands.

ugh!

are defending their nation against occupiers, considering the large number of their own people they have killed in the process.

It's way too simplistic a notion to believe that just because Muslim nations are poorer they are that way due to Western imperialism and occupation.

And declared Catholicism the state religion. Made it illegal to be Protestant.

Are you telling me that you DON'T believe that white Southern Baptists would be blowing up Catholic school buses?

I think they would.

lionesspriyanka is right. We don't see Christians engaged in that type of desperate behavior, because most Christians don't live under those desperate conditions.

Bombs are about power. They are detonated by people trying to stay in power or trying to wrest control away from those who have power.

radical muslims killed 3,000 people in NY.
radical christians killed 655,000 people in Iraq.

Until then, I will consider Muslims a bigger threat than Christians.

But if you want to talk about rape victims...

but it does seem to get worse in the Muslim countries. However, the advantage we have in America in dealing with our religious extremists is that we have a Bill of Rights, which includes the 1st Amendment. "No establishment of religion". The reason it's so important to defeat the religious right and stop Bush's stacking of the Courts is so the Bill of Rights won't be completely erased in the name of religion. Just imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if EVERY country had a separation of church and state.

I think that seperation of church and state is vital for a viable functioning state in a rapidly shrinking world.

aren't bad enough for ya?

Demetrius Van Crocker

...Want me to keep going?

That's the first I've heard of it. You can be born-again and not be a fundie.

There are millions like him and they are not nuts, or what we call "fundies." Unfortunately, there are millions of others that thrive on hatred, and "us vs them" thinking. They are the ones we call fundies. And it seems there's no way we can cleanse them of all the Kool-aid they've swallowed.

Redstone

I do believe there are differences. We do not live in a theocracy. I'll undoubtedly be told that we do, but that's simply not true. Yes, Christianity has a brutal and bloody history, but in this country in this time, radical fundamentalists don't have the power to effect widespread, violent change. Idiologically, there's little difference, practically, there's a significant difference. There's certainly some tension between religious sects (Christian) in this country, but we don't have a tradition of violent action and reprisals between Christian groups.

The religious leaders in Islam may, if they choose to, have a dual role as a religious/political leader. Let me add, however, that with the loose structure of Islam, anyone can rise to be a leader-just as anyone can decide to issue a fatwa. There is not an automatic allegience to an appointed leader, as there is with the Pope, for example.

The Sufi leaders I know have all said that they will not get involved in politics-they go on to say that followers can do what they wish politically, but not in the name of the Sufi order they represent. Sigh. Only wish the rwingers would follow the advice of Sharif Baba: "Don't worry about politics. Worry about your soul."

and I love having your perspective on DU.

Wish there was a bowing icon....
you can see a picture here, though

i1.trekearth.com/photos/38908/mevleviler2.jpg

don't have a centuries-old grudge against other Christians, as the Sunnis and Shia do (actually over a thousand years, I believe). And the evangelicals have found it politic to join with Catholics on certain causes, like anti-choice--even though many of the wingnuts have also said they don't like Catholics. If they ever came to power, they would fracture into many different squabbling groups, I think. As for violence-the Christian ministers do not hold a dual political role as do some of the mullahs. Only a few wingnuts, like that Rudolph fellow, have resorted to violence.

.

THEY ALL need to placed on an isolated island where THEY can conduct their anti-spiritual behavior on one another.

I'd prefer to live under the rule of one, not the other, despite the commonalities in the two.

The Republicans are, by and large, wishy-washy bleeding-heart liberals compared with
the governments of many (although by no means all) Islamic countries.

It is by no means the case that all Muslims are less liberal than all Christians, but if you select a random Muslim and a random Christian from around the world then on average the views of the Muslim on women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, abortion, crime and punishment, freedom of speech etc will be quite a lot more conservative (and in my view quite a lot more wrong) than those of the Christian.

One big difference is that the vast majority (although not all) Christians support at least some degree of separation of church and state - there are plenty of nominally-Christian countries, but the Vatican is the only one which is actually run by Christian clerics. On the other hand, a relatively large (I'm ashamed to say I don't know how large) fraction of Muslims live, and want to live, in countries run by Islam.

The Bible contains generic moral precepts; the Koran contains (deeply misguided, in my view) direct instructions on how to run a society and live one's life (the OT contains those too, to be fair, but the NT makes it clear that most of those no longer apply).

It's deeply unpopular on DU to say it, but I think it's fairly clear that Islam (by which I mean "the religion practiced by Muslims", not "some notional platonic form of Islam based on an interpretation of the Koran by wester liberals, from which most real Muslims are deviating", to forestall a common objection) is on aggregate a non-trivially more unpleasant religion than Christianity. They're *not* just as bad as one another, much as many DUers would like to claim it.

And yes, the Qur'an does give a blueprint as to how to run society. Personally, I would not say that current Islamic regimes are really following it at all; obviously the growing number of Muslims in Western countries indicates that at least some of them agree with me on this.

The main point of the Qur'an, as I understand it, is to put the responsibility of one's own life and one's own soul into one's own hands, rather than to rely upon a priest or minister or any other intercessor. That, in my viewpoint, is one of the main differences between the faiths.

I haven't been off the American continent, so I cannot say what a random Muslim in a country abroad might say about women's rights, free speech, etc, etc--but I know from my husband, who has been abroad, and from Sufi sisters who have been abroad how they have been treated. They have been treated with courtesy and respect--one lady I know is a senior teacher in our Order, and she is recognized and honored as a Shaykha in Middle Eastern countries where she has visited numerous times. I know that when I was married in the Universal Worship service, one Sunni young lady went to her father and told him that when she was married, she wished to have all the holy books represented as was the case with us, and he didn't object.

On the other hand, I have been to fundamentalist Islamic websites that claim we Sufis are heretics and set about to "prove" it. At the same time, my husband, who frequents Islamic message boards like these, gets into some pretty interesting discussions with fundamentalists, and I've read the exchanges. What strikes me is that there is no name calling, no condemnation; he is still called "brother" even by those whose opinions are extremely conservative.

I do not know if you have ever read any translation of the Qur'an or not; there is a difference in them, I believe, with the Wahhabist version most harsh and at times unpleasant. But kindly realize that not everyone ascribes to the Wahhabis' way.

I leave you with a rough translation of the first chapter in the Qur'an. I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me if there is anything in it with which a Christian might disagree:

In the name of God,
Most Merciful and Compassionate
All praise be to God,
Creator of the Universe!
Most Beneficent and Merciful,
Master of the Day of Judgement,
Thee alone do we worship, and to You only do we ask help
Guide us on the straight path,
The path of those who follow Your ways,
Not those who anger, or go astray.

There are as many, if not many more due to demographics, SECULAR Muslims as there are Christians and Jews. WHAT WILL IT TAKE for people to realize that "folks is just folks?" We, worldwide, who have the goals of raising our children, passing on our traditions, coming together as communities, opening ourselves to "others," singing, dancing, playing music and eating well together, have so much more in common than those who seek to enslave us all.

I've made no Xmas plans having been engaged to play the 24th eve Mass and 26th morning Mass for the Catholics. If I don't get it together to feed myself, I can simply ring my Turkische Mama's bell. She'll order me to sit on the couch, pass me the remote, tell me I'm underdressed, throw a blanket over me and insist I eat what she provides.

One can be a secular jew - I am - because Judaism refers to a race as well as a culture, but Christianity and Islam only refer to religions. If you're a Christian or a Muslim, you're not secular, i.e. irreligious.

One can more or less be "culturally Christian" or "culturally Muslim" - although "culturally Irish Catholic" makes far more sense, given the vast range of cultures encompassed by both Christianity and Islam - but that's a very different kettle of fish; it's not claiming to *be* a Christian or Muslim, just to have a culture in common with them.

As to your accusation of bigotry, unless you can produce any evidence to support it, I shall treat it with the contempt it deserves.

dealing with secular Jews? My brother in law claims to be a secular Jew, but he is also a minister in the Universal Life Church. Would that in some way negate his claim? Or, for that matter, is my husband a secular Jew and a Sufi initiate? I'm not trying to be flippant or sarcastic-it's just something I've always wondered about, and neither my husband nor my brother are really sure themselves.

It's used to refer both to a religion, and to a race; most adherents of the religion are members of that race and vise versa. Moreover, the technical qualification for "jewishness" is "having a jewish mother, or else having converted", which does not necessarily imply anything about either your genes or your religion - if a jewish woman marries a non-jewish (in any sense) man then her daughter's daughter's daughter's daughter will still be jewish in one sense, even if her genes are only 1/16th jewish and she knows nothing whatsoever about the jewish religion.

In practice, the correlation between followers of the jewish religion, members of the jewish race, matrilinear jews and people who are "culturally jewish" is fairly strong, though, so it doesn't cause as much confusion as one might expect. But it's still a really messy usage; differentiated terms for "jew" are on my list of "words the English language needs", along with a female equivalent of Sir and a word for the frustration engendered by not being able to remember the name of the tune you keep humming.

In general it's not clear which it's being meant to imply, and not relevant because probably either all of them do or none do, but a "secular jew" would be as much a contradiction in terms as a "secular Christian" if it were referring to the religion; a "secular jew" is someone who is racially and/or matrilinearly jewish but not religiously so.

If such a person follows a religion then one could argue that they were "a secular jew" even though they're not secular as such; it's an interesting semantic point which I would dodge by calling them "ethnically jewish" or similar.

This helps me a lot. My husband's parents and grandparents were deceased by the time we met and married, and his only family is his brother and his family, so I wasn't sure.

Ain't we got fun? We butt heads so often but if truth be known, I just love you! :hug: Cain't help mahsef! You're such a pip! I mean that sincerely and with an unconditional love of your spirit that I've seen on so many other topics.

Your delineations on this issue make my point. YOU have decided what is legit. YOU define. In America it's known (by some) as white privilege. YOU can be a secular Jew, but secular Muslims and Christians cannot exist.

Your posts reveal that part of you to anyone paying attention, dear nemesis, and your comtempt is a balm for my soul.

Words have meanings. You can't simply use a word to mean whatseover you want them to mean, because if you do then communication becomes impossible.

I can accuse you of being a paedophile, and when you point out that you don't in fact engage in any form of sexual activity with children I can accuse you of trying to impose your definitions (and being racist and bigotted, bizarrely, although you still haven't produced any evidence for those claims).

It doesn't get us anywhere, though.

The word "secular" means irreligious (or "unspiritual"; "of this world as opposed to others", to be more precise). That's not my decision, or white privilege, or bigotry, it's simply what the world means.

"Christian" means "of the Christian religion"; i.e. not secular.
"Muslim" means "of the Muslim religion"; i.e. not secular.
"Jewish" means either "of the Jewish religion" *or* "of the Jewish race"; in the former case you can't be secular; in the latter case you can.

None of this is my decision, or in any way subjective; it's simply *what those words mean*. Using them correctly is not indicative of bigotry.

I'm an Ami. May I address you as Donnie? :silly:

You've accused me of "bigotry" and of indulging in "white privilege"; you've yet to provide any justification or even any explanation of either accusation. Do you have anything sensible to say, or are you just here to make trouble?

I've been here many more years than you "to make trouble." Aber the "trouble" I want to make has to do with us coming FIRST to the consensus and heartfelt realization that "All men are created equal." THAT severely troublesome point has to do with me being born and bred American.

As for what you call "accusations," I merely challenge anyone to read your posts and come to their own conclusions. :-)

Love you, Donald! <NO sarcasm>

is a proposition to which, in ordinary times, no sane person has ever given his assent - Aldous Huxley.

While I think that's not actually true, *I* certainly don't assent to it. All men (and women) *should* be born with equal rights, but that's a completely different claim, and neither implies nor is implied by the other (I'd love to be able to say "*are* born with equal rights", but unfortunately that isn't true, and probably never will be).

And even that equality shouldn't last past birth - a murderer should not have the same rights to liberty than most people do.

None of this has anything to do with how liberal or illiberal opinions correlate with religion, though, and nor has pretty much anything you've said.

:eyes:

as I understand it, you are saying that someone who has Jewish blood but does not practice the Jewish faith is a secular Jew--but only if he or she inherits this blood through the mother.

Am I correct in saying, then, that being a secular Jew is different than being, say, a descendant of folks who came here from England, because a person could say they were English American if their father or his ancestors came from England where his mother came from, say, Poland, or vice versa.

Or could a person who had a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother claim Jewish ancestry yet not be considered a secular Jew? I'm curious because I have a Jewish 5 or 6 great grandmother on my grandfather's side.

There is a "technical" definition of Jew that states that you're Jewish if and only if your mother was (I've heard it said that it's that way round because historically rape of Jews by non-jews was common, and in those cases they wanted the baby to be Jewish; whether that's true or not I don't know).

On the other hand, whether someone whose mother's mother's mother's mother was racially Jewish is "more ethnically Jewish" than someone whose father was is debateable. The latter was certainly enough to get you sent to the camps in Nazi Germany.

But yes, under Halakha (historical Jewish law) (and I think in the eyes of rabbinical courts, although I'm not confident of that) someone with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother is no more Jewish than someone without any Jewish ancestry.

If your Jewish great grandmother is on your grandfather's side then he'd count as a Jew if he's in strict matrilineal descent from her, but his children (and you) wouldn't, I think.

It's different from being English or English-American inasmuch as the technical Halakhic definition exists.

There's an article at wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F that goes into this and which I'm certainly not well-enough informed to contradict - my mother's mother's mother's mother was a practicing Jew, but my Judaism is more or less purely technical.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. :)

A "secular Christian" refers to a Christian who believes in the separation of church and state. The same goes for a "secular Muslim."

Any usage that leads to senior clergymen, members of cloistered orders, etc being referred to as "secular Christians/muslims" is deeply dubious, I think.

It's like the difference between being a communist and being a commune.

There are many secular DUers - most, in fact, as they value the separation of church and state.

Secularist does not mean "anti-religious".

Neither means *anti*-religious; one means *non*-religious and the other is less well-defined but roughly means "in favour of non-religiousness" or, in what is apparently its usual usage, "in favour of separation of Church and state".

Consider the difference between a communist and a commune.

:shrug:

Both groups consist of flaming assholes who desperately want to push their agenda upon others.

The fact that one group is recognized by the Cross and the other group by the Star and Crescent is the only difference I can see.

Sort of like children trying to prove that their imaginary friends are better than the others imaginary friends.

in the US, they are a loud minority, whereas in the ME, there are simply more of them in one place. Other then that, not much.

Both are extremely intolerant of ideas that diverge from their mythic "reality".

Both can be violent and both want to impose theocracies on the inhabitants of their respective areas.

Both groups could be considered to be suffering from various forms of psychosis, hence my use of "nutty".

Religious people can be fundimentalist without the nutty part. They can be sincerely religious who believe from within, not without. They are often kind people who care about others, such as Jimmy Carter.

9/11, bali, embassy bombings, spain attack, london attack, Afghanistan oppression, Munich, to many hijackings to list. Active oppression of women, gays, and political dissent.

Plenty prior to Iraq.

I can't remember the last fundie attack, other than abortion attacks. Those are not mass casualty events.

Christians are nok killing in darfur and were not doing so before 9/11.

Opinion from right wing nuts and ak rounds and dead people are very different.

Apparently you have.

Every bit as much as Mohammed Atta was a muslim fundie.

I always love the latest trends.

dozens of incidents and a system of actual action killing many thousands. Give it up

Rightist, leftist, Christian, Muslim--they're all the same when you reach the ends.

The only difference is that the militants and fundamentalists who claim to be Christian are closer to home...

...And the fundamentalists over here use the power of the state to crush, oppress, and destroy everything they have no tolerance for instead of using guns and bombs.

Scratch that, fundamentalists here in the US use the same kind of terrorism when they blow up abortion clinics and kill gays or set fire to "rival" churches.

not fuckin' much. If we weren't stuck in the middle, I'd say let 'em kill each other off.

Your subject line made me think you were setting up a really great punch line!

My answer: You can draw cartoons of the Christian prophet. Other than that, nothing.

Same shit, different package...

um.........nope, can't think of the punchline but I'm sure I'll kick myself when I hear it.

Julie

are mostly relegated to the US. Christian fanaticism is not quite as common in other countries. Most of Europe is secular at this point. In this country, they obviously have too much power, but have not been able to persecute religious minorities the same way Muslim majority nations have.

Islamic fanaticism is more widespread globally.

I think the ultimate difference is while Christian fundamentalists are very problematic and intolerant and ignorant, there is still a greater respect for religious pluralism here than in the Muslim world. This is largely due to our constitution and its Bill of Rights and the Seperation of Church and State. This is a key component of any successful state - the seperation of religion from state and a secular government.

This is why the RW in this country is unable to really make a true alternative vision to the totalitarian Muslim extremists, because the two agree on so much. Their worldview is too similar and the Christian theocratic vision for this nation is very disturbing but we aren't a theocracy yet...

Just let the rest of us (the majority) opt out of their idiocy.

Look at the book of Revelation. They intend to blow up the world in a mass suicide/homicide.

The Muslims have a few individual, suicide bombers who intend to take out a few Jews/Christians.

But have no plans to bomb to smithereens THE ENTIRE PLANET.

For example, Muslim extremists may condemn a woman to death for adulery. Christian extremists may condemn a woman to hell.

boy you said it. so many people haven't the first clue just what the evangelical fundies would do when in power. AFTER they outlaw abortion they'd get down to work...

THIS illustrates perfectly their true views; "I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again with life and liberty to all who believe."

'life and liberty to all who believe.' indeed, and all others not need apply. WOMEN especially, for they simply perceive women as little more than chattel. margaret atwood wasn't wrong when she wrote 'the handmaids tale'.

AND THEY HATE IT!!!

is the content of what they believe. The process is the same.

The mindset is the same, but the behavior is different.

We do need to acknowledge that Islamic fundamentalist are, currently, more violent than our Christian counterparts.

Sure there is the isolated anti-abortionists etc, but our Christian fundies are more subdued than the Islamists.

But... and that is a big BUT, the Christian fundies certainly have the propensity and potential to act out in violent ways and if the climate within America was to fall apart, we would most like see the christofascists begin to act out.

and geography

otherwise, there is no meaningful difference