"Rev. Jim Sutter" - Surely not the Reverend Jim Sutter described in THIS website? http://www.phonyrev.com/ Best regards, Geoff

Maghi85: I have heard nothing of a recant of this position by the family lawyer, nor did anything come up in a Google search. I would indeed be interested to see a link supporting your position. Best, Geoff

Svend, Thanks for your reply. No one of sense would defend similar sentiments coming out of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community...although I'm sure you'll understand that I can't see for the life of me what they have to do with this question. Why, specifically, do you raise them as an issue of contention? Do they possess arms, explosives or terrorist cells? My understanding was that they refuse even military service. Again, your raising of them in an oblique tu quoque is odd. Furthermore, while I appreciate your deploring of the above individual, you can hardly dismiss him - and all the other presumably incidental religious bigots that invariably seem to get elected to high office or the ranks of official representation by islamic communities worldwide: CAIR, ISNA, the MSA, MPACUK and so forth, again and again, and all seemingly reflective of that very conservative supremacism that you deplore which is found throughout the Middle East. Should we assume no causative correlation here at all, or is it more reasonable to assume that the significant (not tiny" 20-30%) minority of muslims the world over have, indeed, interpreted their religion in the ways in which you allude to? Have you not yourself made similar generalizations about a far more mixed back of the visitors to JihadWatch.org, or to those agreeing in whatever part with Robert Spencer? It's not enough to wax rhapsodical about the enlightened members of your community that don't get involved in outreach - their voices seem to be not infrequently muted by 'internal discord', shall we say? And given the strong undercurrent of literalist, dogmatically conservative interpretations of sharia in that significant minority, can liberalistic muslims really say they represent their community so accurately. Or: what does it matter what the 'outreach' to non-muslims sounds like, when the evils of conservative sharia lurk just around the corner? The rights of women, homosexuals and non-muslims in the islamic world could illustrate a thing or two there. And how about that issue of sharia law in dar-al-islam? Shall we make no assumptions about it, all evidence to the contrary? Best, Geoff

Indeed. One does wonder at the involvement of so many of the ringleader's friends and family. It was almost as though there was a common thread uniting their hatred. I wonder what it could be? " Ilan's uncle, Rafi Halimi, reported that 'the gang phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to the recitation of verses from the Koran, while Ilan's tortured screams could be heard in the background.' " http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8802 Hmph. Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps it was just an error of geography. Best regards, GeoffP

Your pardon, sir: Nor are such sentiments as I alluded to present only in the islamic world. Far from it. I give you recent statements at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention: "One featured speaker was the Imam Warith Deen Umar, the former head of New York prisons’ Muslim chaplain program. He spoke about his books, Jews for Salaam: The Straight Path to Global Peace, and Judaiology. Umar repeatedly described Jewish conspiracies to control the world, saying: “You need to know that Obama, the first man that Obama picked when we were so happy that he was the President, he picked an Israeli -- Rahm Emanuel -- his number one man. His number two man -- [David] Axelrod -- another Israeli person. Why do this small number of people have control of the world…There’s some people in the world says no Holocaust even happened. Some of their leaders say no Holocaust even happened. Well it did happen. These people were punished. They were punished for a reason because they were serially disobedient to Allah.” " http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32685 Serial disobedience to God? It makes one wonder at your accusation of a "code" in which Mr. Spencer writes or speaks: surely he has no need of any imaginary code when naked hatred may be so easily displayed, and with such impunity? Best regards, GeoffP

Dear Svend, These are fine sentiments; yet, it is simply impossible to avoid the issue of islamic jurisprudence regarding other religions, women and homosexuals. This is the end result, you see, of the marriage of law and the dominant religion - true to some extent in all places and at all times, but none more so that for islam, then and now. (Ironically, in your quest for that never-realized but 'perfect' sharia in preference to Western law, you have turned your back on a legal system that indeed has thrown off most such shackles. A grand step backwards indeed.) You might make much - and you do - of individual variations, but when islamic law finds it necessary to legislate against minority religions, how much common ground do you possibly think you can engender? Best regards, GeoffP

Thanks for the kind words, Guy. The issue is not whether muslims are lowered to the common denominator of sharia law, or fiqh, but rather THAT those laws are indeed applied, to women, to homosexuals, and to religious minorities living under their rule. Systemic violations of such basic human rights - the rights to gender, to sexuality, to religion; indeed, to all choice - are to be found throughout the islamic world, for all the crying out that dar-al-islam is more diverse, more tolerant, more rightly minded than the West. It would be so much easier to believe these claims if such violations were confined, say, only to Saudi Arabia, or only to Pakistan, or only to Afghanistan, or only to Egypt, or so on and so on. But the grand experiment has failed, again and again, leaving some of the demagogues that I know of to fall back on a claim to superiority through higher birth rates, which is generally a thin veneer over an implicitly supremacist - dare we say bigoted on this austere forum? - stance. In the end, it's all very well to believe whatever one wants, whether it's that Jesus died or didn't die, was the Son of God or not, or didn't even exist. I think even Svend would agree on this point. It's when one disallows or delimits the reasonable representation - as in some nations near Israel that I can think of - that the problem occurs. Again, see that list of nations that Svend says he routinely criticizes, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world The upshot is the upshot. Will there ever be any common ground, when the one side rejects so utterly the other, to the point that it must actually LEGISLATE against it? Seems unlikely. GeoffP

Devin, I thank you for your comment, but I note that not even Shirazi signs off completely on violence. I note from his site: "And why did the imams Ali, Hassan and Hussain participate in wars?” The reply to this is that this was based on a question of priorities. The issue was to choose the lesser of two evils; just as when a patient reluctantly agrees to undergo a surgical operation to amputate a limb in order to prevent greater harm to his body and health. If the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him (pbuh), had ignored the pagans and their mischievous deeds and had left them to their own accords, that would have resulted in the loss of thousands, if not millions, of lives, whereas the given response of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) limited it to less than fourteen hundred. [7] So on the one hand we have violence with tens of thousands or millions, and on the other violence with less than fourteen hundred. Clearly the latter would not be called violence compared to the first." A more non-violent interpretation would be to simply refute all violence, and not to excuse such violence, even against "pagans". Best regards, GeoffP

Of course! Palestinian Christians must, in line with this reasoning, therefore be running muslim Palestinians out of their homes and lands! Their aggression must be evident! It isn't? And they're not? Well, never mind then. Prophet Geoff (And don't you bother to investigate the origins of the event, or whether or not it was an indigenous meme long before islam came to the Middle East. Not necessary. After all, cultural transfer by definition must be from non-muslims to muslims...no?)

"Anyone who knows me and my background knows that I'm not afraid to call out stupid and/or immoral behavior and ideas among Muslim. " Very well. Illustrate where you have done so, just for the amusement value. As for the issue of the kind of sharia you'd like to see, I read your answer as: "none of the current forms". Do you suppose there's some reason for that that a slight bit of introspection might reveal? Do you suppose that some "new" sharia will succeed in its purported humanitarianism, where the other 64 or so attempts have critically failed? Prophet Geoff

"Second-class citizens" indeed. Why, when CAIR - the unindicted co-conspirator presently-illegal organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas - is banned, we certainly know that muslims are being treated like second-class citizens. (Not like Christians in, say, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, the Sudan, or the UAE. Sure, they're constantly discriminated against, but come on - they're kuffar. Am I right?) Wait. What's that? You say CAIR and those that shill for it (hello Svend) HAVEN'T been jailed? Oh. Well never mind then, I suppose. Can't be right all the time. Prophet Geoff

Oooh! The hordes! A handful of criticisms? You frighten easily, little fellow. GeoffP