I've been Thinking

[Jdanz]

i disagree with you, but i don't really have any animosity towards your point of view, and i'm not going to argue with you, but simply question some of your assumptions.

You say that there is no point to living a life in which you are not free, with the obvious hypothesis that there is value to being free (freedom being as you define it, life liberty happiness, to you signified by the free market). I'm not going to disagree with this but simply say that your conception of where value stems from is an assumption and arguable as a fact.

If i were to say that the value of life comes not from being free but from moving the human community foward, or from submission to the will of god i believe these would all be equally worthwhile definitions of "value".

Essentially i don't disagree with your assesment for you however i don't think these are inarguable premises, just the ones you accept, while there are other equally viable and valuable ideas as to what makes life worthwhile.

edit: this thread is filled with people who believe they have a direct line on what is valueable and what is not, which is percisely what they see as anethma in their enemies thinking. There are different conceptions of "good" and "valuable"

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Yes, this is a big big conundrum. That poses the problem of how do you educate a population about democracy who have no understanding or frame of reference for the idea that no one is forcing them to participate in an immoral culture. I think of religious groups in America who do not let their kids watch TV or go to public schools. No one forces them to participate in what they consider an immoral culture. Their rights recieve equal protection.

The concept of equal protection even is foriegn to Sharia practicing Muslims. There is no penalty for killing a non muslim, etc.....

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Yeah, there is really no questioning that part of the world is a [censored] mess.

[MaxPower]

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Now, what makes a human being? This becomes a sticky point. I can only define it one way. An inborn desire to be free. My life is about freedom. My entire existance can be framed in the motif of seeking greater freedom. I cannot concieve of another human being on the face of the Earth who would seek a life leading to less freedom. To me, the inborn desire to make choices for yourself and seek, as much as you can, to determine your own fate ecompasses everything I can concieve as the human spirit. The freedom to worship what you want, [censored] who you want, marry who you want, be friends with who you want, buy what you want, do business as you want, think what you want, and most importantly learn what you want, define, for me, a human being.

What about a human being who seeks less freedom? Is that possible? What is the point of a life in which all the decisions are made for you? What is enriched by that life? What is learned in that life? What is the value of that life? All I can answer is nothing. Does that mean that anyone who actively seeks to have less freedom is less than human?


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What a bunch of nonsense.

[Exsubmariner]

OK, Maxpower, you have thrown down the Guantlet. Placing value on a human life is based on the pursuit of freedom is utter nonsense. Now tell me why. I dare you.

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I've been Thinking

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I thought i smelled something...

[Exsubmariner]

OK Jdanz,
Your response here was challenging. I appreciate it. You have caused me to examine my pretexts. I can only conclude the reason why I pursued this line of thinking was because as I learn more and more about the rhetoric of Islamists, I am motivated to come up with a line of thinking which puts them in the same light as they view me. That is, as immoral and sub human.

Now, the arguement you presented to me, is basically the moral equivalency arguement. My moral belief system is equivalent to a Communists or a Fascists or an Islamists or a tribesman on some isolated island somewhere because all moral codes everywhere seek to achieve the same things.

If you believe this, you are wrong.

I'll tell you why.

In fact, you mentioned it yourself. You threw out the concept of "moving the human community forward." OK now define it. If you define it by war and mass exterminations, then fascism and communism from the last century would win hands down. If you defined it by the creation of a society which has in two hundred and some years provided a higher standard of living for its people than has ever been seen in human history, more techological advancement in the shortest amount of time than has ever been seen in human history, more freedom of thought and social tolerance for it's people than has ever been seen in human history, more wealth for it's people, the longest average life spans in human history, the best health care for it's people in human history, then you have to unavoidably unmistakingly absolutely conclude that the Democracies of the western world are the benchmark for "moving the human race forward."

What major contribution to history has Islam made in the past thousand years? If you choose to set the standard for the value of morals based on the "moving the human community forward" standard, my moral code and my standard (i.e. free market and democracy) of defining the value of human life is clearly superior.

Choose your freedom or submit. Which one do you think will move your human community the farthest forward?

X

[MaxPower]

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OK, Maxpower, you have thrown down the Guantlet. Placing value on a human life is based on the pursuit of freedom is utter nonsense. Now tell me why. I dare you.

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First you need to tell me what you mean by pursuit of freedom.

Anyway, I think that starting to put value on human life by using some ideology is starting down a dangerous path.

I see your point that Muslims are anti-freedom. There may be degrees of difference, but aren't practically all religions including Christianity anti-freedom? I'm not defending Christianity. I'm pointing out that it should also be included if you want to make your argument/observation and I'm not sure if you are willing to do so or not.

[Exsubmariner]

I have to concede your point that basically adherance to any particular religion, including Christianity, diminishes ones freedom, in so much as it limits your choices. I respect the right of everyone to worship whatever it is they want to. The problem comes in, though, when someone from the religion begins to preach about the immorality of the non believers and call for their extermination. Christianity, at least the Pope, hasn't done that since the crusades.

This is the line where religion begins to infringe on the rights of the non believers. This is what makes equal protection and separation of church and state so crucial in the Constitution.

I don't believe that anyone's desire to pursue any religious faith infringes on my freedom, unless the religion they are following calls for my demise. Christianity does not, Islam, or extreme sects of it do. This is where I have the problem and what motivates me to view them in the same light as they view me.

[MMMMMM]

I think there are a lot of Muslims who are not fanatical and who are mainly concerned with the simple things of life, like with their families and putting food on the table, etc. Many of them probably don't realize the full extent to which the Koran tells Muslims to fight and subdue the infidels, etc. In other words, they are not entirely dissimilar from some lay Catholics or Protestants in this country who aren't really all that devout. I think many of these people are not terribly concerned with us or with the West.

However there also exist many Muslims who are extremely devout and who take the Koran quite literally. A great many radical "anti-Western" imams fall into this category. Saudi Arabian Wahhabism is like this, as are the teachings in many madrassas in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Islam, taken literally and fundamentally, is diametrically opposed to our own values of free speech and equality; to governance by human consensus; and to anything that does not fit the mold of Islamic religious thought.

If all laws and customs come directly from God, what need is there for human modifications, or for other ideologies? There really is no middle ground, ideologically speaking, between such a world view and our way of thinking.

So-called "fundamental" Islam is spreading, and more moderate (or less fanatical) Muslims are often unwilling to speak up against it, in part due to fear of repercussions. Moreover, the fanatical or fundamentalist elements have the literal text of the Koran on their side. As Ibn Warraq put it, "There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate."

Sadly, I don't see a likely practical solution to these increasing problems. The best thing would be for gradual change or reformation to take place in the Islamic community, but while there are voices stirring in that direction, the larger tide has seemed to be moving in the opposite direction.

What I suspect may well happen--especially if the democratic experiment in Iraq fails and does not spread to neighhboring regions--is that increasing ideological polarization combined with economic pressures for resources will eventually ignite another world war focused in the Middle East. If this occurs a couple of decades from now, China may take part too, due to their increasing demands for oil. If that should happen, who can guess where it all might lead: we might end up at war with both China and the Middle East.

Very tricky and dangerous times ahead.

I have suggested that perhaps we might need a 10 or 15 million man army to actually take over the Middle East and re-mold it along the lines of a Germany or Japan. If the crazy Islamists keep attacking Europe and Australia, perhaps those citizens will get fed up with it enough to decide to do it along with us. Between all of NATO and ourselves, if we were to mobilize and prepare sufficiently, we could likely do it and maintain it for long enough to accomplish serious overhaul reform, although the time needed to actualize reform would be decades.

I'm not necessarly suggesting we do this, however. However if efforts to reform the region (as we are hoping to do in Iraq) ultimately fail, and if radical Middle Eastern countries acquire nuclear weapons, and if attacks on the free world persist and grow in severity or frequency, at some point it might well become the only solution. Whether we would have the will and the unity to do this would remain to be seen; at present we have not, nor are we prepared to embark on such a course. However if the Islamists keep attacking, and grow ever more powerful and threatening, it might force our hand in that direction. By the way, the indiscretion and stupidity of the Islamists in launching their attacks fairly indiscriminately, to the point of attacking even other Muslims (as in Bali), will help rally even fairly pacifistic opinion against them.

If France or other European were to suffer an attack or two on the magnitude of 9/11, for instance, you can bet that their general popular opinion would harden significantly against the Islamists. So in one sense, the Islamists might eventually prove to be their own worst enemies. If they keep attacking most everyone, sooner or later most everyone will be against them--and might become willing to mobilize for a major war.

In addition to the two groups mentioned at the beginning of this post, that is, the radical Islamists and the moderate Muslims, there are also many Muslims who fall somewhere in between on the political spectrum. For instance, bin-Laden has very high approval ratings in certain countries such as Kuwait. There are many non-activist or non-radical Muslims, who would not dream of attacking the West themselves, but who nevertheless tacitly rather approve of others carrying out such attacks.

All in all it is a very complex and difficult scenario. If democratic reform takes hold in Iraq and spreads, that may become enough of a solution. If it doesn't, we may end up seeing the equivalent of another world war at some point.