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TheGrungeDiva
Guest
Two responses to this.
1) How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
2) All kidding aside, though I'm no huge fan of Obama, he is one of the more honest presidents we've had. Unlike the Republicans, who claim they want small government then increase government's power once elected, at least Obama was honest about what he wanted to do. He said up front what he was going to do once in office. You may not like what he's doing, but you can't say he's breaking his campaign promises, because this is exactly what he promised to do.
If you can perhaps give us an example of some Obama lies?
Correct. Muslim is not a race. However, what it means to "follow the religion of Islam" and to "be a muslim" or identify oneself as a "muslim" does not denote a stereotype of person or behavior. The range is wider than many would think. The current islamist trend may have affected the views of some regarding this though. Something which is a little strange, taken that some decades ago secularism within the islamic world was quite dominant. See the palestinian or pan-arabic cause as an example. Do I have to remind about nasserism, the Baath parties of Iraq and Syria and even the Shah era (the Shah was anti-socialist however)? Gaddafi of Libya was in many regards decidedly socialist (although not marxist). In west africa and other parts of that continent there are other examples, some of them even marxist. Was muslim marxist president Toure seen as an apostate from Islam? Never heard of it.
Have you've missed that the muslim world also has its secularism? Although the words "secular" and "muslim" will sound like an oxymoron in most westerners ears there are plenty of sources available that will tell you about secularism within the islamic world. Which is nothing new, by the way. In fact, Islam was quite pioneering in this field in some regions. There has been a secular movement in the islamic world since the middle ages. Although it is NOT to be easily compared to the secularism within christendom and judaism there still is a secularism to be found in many muslim countries (whose presence varies in shape and form). Do a research if interested.
While atheists would find little or no acceptance within most muslim societies, and especially not among religious leaders, it is a long step to be taken to be seen as an "apostate" within non-islamist Islam of our day. Just because you may have some socialist ideals and political views it doesn't mean that you cannot be a muslim. There is quite much tolerance as long as people clearly identify themselves and are viewed by others as muslim nominally and culturally.
It depends on what you mean with "islamic law". Maybe you are somewhat confusing islamism with moderate islam. I would guess so. Or you go only by strict formal definition "by the book/s" and doesn't look at the practice. It seems to me that you are taking the two terms to their black or white edges and leave out the big space between them which has a spectra of color nuances. As said, as long as you identify as muslim and is seen by the muslim society as muslim you would have little problems. However - atheism would indeed be hard to get by with. But is atheism a requirement to be a socialist? Maybe dogmatical marxism (communist), but any kind of socialism? Marxism does not have monopoly on the term socialist. And all marxists are not dogmatic atheists. This must be taken into consideration here.
I don't know where you got it from that it is a "tenet". It is not a tenet, but traditional arabic culture (which has to some point influenced all muslim societies, regardless of their racial makeup) do view personal wealth as a blessing (a view it, not surprisingly, shares with many other cultures) IF you maintain it well (including helping the poor). But there is no religious “requirement” to strive to be "rich" in Islam. Zakaah (Charity) is the third pillar of Islam, which stresses aiding the poor and afflicted. And, by the way, a lot of the marxist socialist revolutionaries were themselves rich people or from the upper classes of society. Many jewish bankers supported the russian revolution as an example. Being wealthy and "rich" is actually not always necessarily an “evil” in itself for a marxist for that matter. Worse is it if you are one of those who own the means of production or belong to that class. This said, the ultimate goal of marxism is, or at least would be, common ownership realized as the final stage to bring about communism. A question over which the marxist movement is greatly divided. Those few who want to see this materialize literally may indeed have problem combining it with Islam. But not more so than any other ideology or religion.
I beg to differ. But then, again, the answer will depend upon how one defines both terms. It would be quite impossible to be a socialist and an islamist. Same would go for combining dogmatic-atheist marxism with being a muslim. But being a secularized muslim and (non-dogmatic-atheist marxist) socialist would not only be possible, there are many examples of them, some of them named. However Obama is NOT one of them
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I hope this message reaches the rock you've been living under.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/
Note that this is page 1 of 4.
Here's a hint for all ideologues: Next time, say that he tried to keep all of his promises, but Republicans stonewalled him. Much harder to prove false. This was like taking candy from a baby.
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TheGrungeDiva
Guest
I asked for examples of Obama's LIES. You have only provided examples of things that Obama said he wanted to do once in office but was prevented from doing due to congressional stonewalling. It is not lying to say, "I want a million dollars" and then not get a million dollars. It's just an unfulfilled wish.
So if you have no examples of Obama's lies, I will ask you kindly to retract your statement.
Ah, you decided to go with the ol' move the goalposts after the fact routine. Nice.
You obviously didn't read the list, because it didn't fit in with your opinion, so here's one for you. PolitiFact | The Obameter: Allow five days of public comment before signing bills I know, it's the fault of Congress. They made him sign it. They also made him break his 'no lobbyists in The White House' rule. Those evil people!
You have no idea how amusing it is to the average person to see someone try to win an argument by making things up. Please continue.
Faulty logic. If I said I will have a million dollars, and I don't, I'm lying. Obama didn't say he WANTED to close Gitmo, he said he would. The same is true for every other item on the list I sent you.
Here we have 3 major possibilities for why he would say he would close Guantanamo Bay Prison.
1. He didn't know The President would need Congressional approval to close a military base.
2. He MEANT to say he would try to close it, but 'misspoke'. And misspoke again every time he said it. (Always a good choice, it's hard to prove otherwise, but is extremely unlikely.)
3. He said it because he knew easily led people would swallow it hook line and sinker.
I wonder which of these is most likely for a career politician who skewered his now Secretary of State to win the primary ?
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episcopotic
Guest
This is definitely a misunderstanding. While I'm certain there are some Muslims who view property as a blessing from God and something to be enlarged, they're no more a comment on Islam than prosperity teachers are on Christianity.
The Quran says that property is a means of support and that many love wealth with exceeding love; i.e. property and wealth are meant to facilitate a life and certainly are not goals in themselves. Sufis in particular, like ascetics of other religions, tend to teach that whatever goes beyond the necessary gets in the way of God. Sufi begging bowls are as characteristic as Buddhist begging bowls.
Furthermore, there are a number of injunctions against certain means regarding wealth - it ought not be done at the expense of the powerless, the orphaned, the widowed, the dispossessed, etc. Add to this the absolutely necessary zakat and you have a societal safety net for those who have less. From the Sunnah:
i.e. not all wealth is a blessing from God - some of it comes because you exploit other people. God does, however, bless those who bless others, but it's not through hoarding. Concerning hoarding up wealth:
9:54 said:
Keep in mind that Mecca was a very economically stratified society. One of the reasons the Quresh came after Muhammad is his condemnation of their business practices.
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episcopotic
Guest
Traditionally, all that is necessary to convert(*) to Islam is to say the shahadah with understanding and faith. Some schools of thought require two witnesses. There are other definitions, but these are in the minority. It's a little more complicated than simply calling yourself Muslim, but not so much more complicated.
Once you've done that, you're a Muslim. You may be a good Muslim, a bad Muslim, a clueless Muslim, an apostate Muslim, but except in a very few cases, you're still a Muslim; i.e. it is the self-declaration that makes you a Muslim, not your adherence to shariah. You can see this, for instance, in cases of apostasy - even after a person converts to another faith, they are still treated under Islamic law because they're still considered a Muslim.
Christians, generally, have a different system. Someone is not a real Christian, I often hear, if they don't follow the law. The Torah? No, but Christians have something very similar. There are various explanations - they never were a Christian, they lost their salvation, etc. Just because someone recites the Nicene Creed with feeling, for example, is not enough. Paradoxically, we seem to have more hoops to jump through than do Muslims as it concerns retaining our religious labels.
This is both good and bad for Muslims. They do not, for example, have to worry much with complex systems of classification - does the person identify as Muslim? Check. We can handle other adjectives later. They do not have to somehow test that Muslim's actual submission to Allah. Hindus are the same way - Buddhists are merely apostate Hindus. Buddhists are pretty much the same way - have you taken refuge? Check. I'm occasionally jealous.
(*) Muslims teach that people revert to Islam. Babies have not yet broken their connection to God.
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episcopotic
Guest
This is worth commenting on, as it was one of the things that really jumped out at me when I first read the Quran. Taken out of context, the Quran does in fact seem as though it's commenting on all Jews, but this is very likely not the case.
First, it's worth keeping in mind that the Jews had been people of the book for much longer than both the Christians and Muslims. If anybody should have had their religion together, it was them. Nevertheless, as even Jesus pointed out, they didn't seem much better off than people to whom revelation hadn't been given. In other words, it's not necessarily against Jews because they're Jewish, but against a group of people who has had God's blessing and revelation for a while and didn't do a whole lot with it.
Next, it's worth keeping in mind that the early Muslim community in Medina was at the mercy of its Jewish hosts. The Constitution of Medina says that these Jewish groups were part of the ummah and, as such, had obligations:
Nevertheless, when the Quresh attacked, there was civil war - Jews against Jews and Jews against Muslims. Hence, when the Quran talks about Jews, sometimes it means the Jews who agreed to protect each other yet turned against each other at the first sign of the Quresh. Some of the harshest language in the Quran is reserved for these folks who were and were treated as military traitors.
Granted, many modern Muslims do entertain or encourage anti-Jewish rhetoric. The best thing you can do for them is point out that the Quran itself really doesn't indicate that they should always be against the Jews and to remind them of its historical context. They're like the Christians who think Jesus called all Jews a den of vipers - they're not paying careful enough attention to the audience.
Now, the hadith are much worse, but there's very little that can be done about that.
First of all all the selections make it impossible for me to vote. Second of all I dont think the person knows the definition of Communist or Socialist. Third of all Im surprised with all these silly voting options not asking about him being from another country or wanting to see a birth certificate even though it was shown. Since the person who made this probably also thinks that. Seems like a lot of Christians forget who Jesus is and think more about the cold war era battle of Communist and Capatilism. lol
When Russia comes in bombs the crap out of you and sends in lots and lots of tanks and infantry and you become part of the USSR and are still muslim doesnt mean the population chooses to be community but the country that took them over forced them to be. lol
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TheGrungeDiva
Guest
Thank you for this enlightening view. I must say, this does fly in the face of what I had understood about Islam.
See, here's where my thinking comes from. Maybe it is just a stereotype, but it seems to fit more often than not (at least among "Islamist" Muslims, as we're making a distinction). The ruling class of Islamic countries (that is, where Islam is the state religion) seem to be saying that their right to rule, to be dictators over their people, is a God-given gift. (Allah-given, if you will.) The sheikh with the most virgins, the most oil fields, whatever, has the right to rule however he sees fit, because Allah has made him that way. I have been told by Western Muslims that it is a far more common belief in the East -- much more like what most of Europe held in the Middle Ages, believing that Kings were ordained by God to rule.
Like I said, I am willing to admit that this understanding is incorrect. I would have to see more than a few quotes of Islamic Scripture, however, to contradict the evidence I have seen (the behavior of Islamic political/religious leaders in the East).
Let's go back to my example of Christianity in the Middle Ages. If you were a visitor from another planet and saw only what happened in Europe over those few hundred years, I would probably not be able to convince you that Christianity was a peace-loving religion, no matter how much Scripture I quoted; the behavior of those who called themselves Christian spoke louder. Know what I mean?
I guess I'm saying there's what a religion is "supposed to be" based on its founder(s)' writings, and then there's what that religion actually is, based on the actions of its followers. Today, the "prosperity gospel" is still somewhat common, but it isn't a majority, and a lot of Christians do denounce it (thank God, literally). If such charity to the widow and orphan is really such an important part of Islam, why are more Muslims not speaking out against the leaders who preach violence and oppression?
In other words, show me the money. Know what I mean?
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episcopotic
Guest
I'd argue, as an alien, that people are people and religions don't exist apart from them. I know that's trite, but it's what I believe. Truth is truth, but it's never practiced before it's filtered through us.
I guess the approach I try to take is that there is no "supposed to be," only possibilities within the tradition from which a person can choose. In going back to the history and minority sects, I'm not appealing to a true Islam, as though all others are somehow not true manifestations of the faith, but trying to argue that they have the bricks handy with which to build something much more ... good. I don't know another word for it.
I acknowledge and share your concerns, but I hope people realize that Islam isn't inherently peaceful or violent. It has within it the seeds of both. I may mistakenly phrase that in terms of "it should be," but that's not "it should be because it's the way it was intended," but "it should be because it's possible and better."
I suppose, because I've gone seeking them, they're louder voices in my ears than they may be for many. Reza Aslan, Irshad Manji, Mustafa Akyol, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr can be found in almost any bookstore of decent size.
There are some loud Muslim reformers, feminists, etc., but they tend to be speaking Arabic and they're preaching to the people who need to hear it. We don't hear about it over here because of the language barrier, because it doesn't fit the 24-hour news cycle, and because we're not the intended audience. What do we care about debates on the details of Islamic jurisprudence? Explanations in English would be wasted.
It's the same reason too that Fred Phelps gets coverage while more moderate Christians don't get any airtime. We're boring.
If I was from another planet and saw people like that id probably take over the planet and steal their natural resources to continue inter-galatic planetary warfare.
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TheGrungeDiva
Guest
Okay, I almost NEVER do this ... But your post was so good, I'm going to break my usual practice of "snipping" a post and commenting on specific parts. I was just going to click "Like," but your post was so good (how good was it?) ... Just wow.
Thank you for sharing, I agree with you, I humbly repent, and I wish to join with you in your hope to make this world a better place. Very well done, sir.
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TheGrungeDiva
Guest
Why? It covers all possible bases.
First, do you think Obama's political/economic leanings are anywhere on the Communist/Socialist spectrum (see below for definitions)? If so, you would vote either "Obama is a Communist/Socialist" or "Obama is both Communist/Socialist and a Muslim." If you don't think he's anywhere on that spectrum (which is what I, the creator of this poll, think) you would vote either "Obama is a Muslim" or "Obama is neither a Muslim nor a Communist/Socialist."
Second, do you think Obama is a practicing Muslim? If you think so, then you answer either "Obama is a Muslim" or "Obama is both a Socialist/Communist and a Muslim." If you think he is not a practicing Muslim -- whether you think he's Christian, Jewish, Atheist, or neo-Pagan with Buddhist leanings, if you think he does not practice the religion of Islam, you would vote either "Obama is a Communist/Socialist" or "Obama is neither a Communist/Socialist nor a Muslim," depending on your answer above.
It's really not that complex. To Boolean expressions: Both could be true, both could be false, or you could have one each way. Four possibilities. Not sure why so many people seem to be having trouble with it.
If by "the person" you are referring to me, the one who created the poll, then I absolutely know the definition of both Communism and Socialism. I did provide definitions of both in the thread, though I realize you can't see the thread until after you vote. Don't blame me for that: I didn't set up the way polling works on this site, and each answer is limited in size, so I could only put so much into the poll. If you haven't sifted through the thread to see the definitions, let me know, and I'll reiterate them for you. I know there is some confusion about both terms, there's how both are defined "technically," and then there's how the two terms are commonly used, so I understand some confusion, because not everyone uses the terms the same way.
That is a strange assumption to make. I made the poll, and I absolutely do not think that. I am not a "birther," as they call people who think Obama was born in Kenya and keep wanting to see his birth certificate. In fact, I have some friends in Hawaii who have a child who was born the same week as Barry in Hawaii. They kept the newspaper clipping that listed the birth announcement of their child in a keepsake book, and it just happens to have the first few lines of Barry's birth announcement on the clipping, too. Of course, they had no idea he would be president, so they didn't keep the whole thing ... it's just that it was the next announcement after theirs, so the first few lines are still on the clipping, all yellowed in their scrapbook. "Barack Hussein Obama..." Not that I ever needed additional evidence, but anyone who does could just look at that.
I hear that Hawaii has been issuing his B.C. to anyone who wants ... for a fee. They're actually doing pretty well in this economy, thanks to all the insane people who don't believe. Crazy gringos.
I will agree with you there -- it does seem like there are a lot of Christians who forget Jesus, and are more worried about capitalism, or just "stuff" in general.
Still curious why you assume the creator of the poll would be a birther.