Nazis

[JonSetanta]

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1195180660[/unixtime]]Frank: you sure? I coulda sworn some Islamic zealots "officialy declared jihad" on Israel not too long ago, maybe a year at most.

Jihad on Israel =|= jihad on Jews.

True. And I never made that association.
However, some extremists do.

[Crissa]

Elect people who want government to fail, and guess what? They fail to make government work.

That's why we need to hold them accountable for their actions.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Important things about Islam you may not know:

Jihad just means "dedication". You can declare a jihad to read all the works of Martin Heidegger, you can declare a jihad to eat less fatty foods, and you can declare a jihad to free the Palestinian people from the yoke of oppression. It doesn't mean "blow yourself up", it just means that you intend to do something with your best effort. It's the equivalent of saying "I swear to god I will... fill in action."

Satan just means "adversary". When countries call the United States "The Great Satan" that literally means "Our Biggest Opponent." It's not particularly disrespectful or unrealistic. It's totally reasonable and correct under the circumstances. We are their "Great Satan."

-Username17

[Koumei]

Try explaining the jihad bit to the anti-terrorist unit that arrests you though.

"I was just declaring a jihad to buy less imported food! That's a declaration, a determination, nothing else!"
"He said it again! Get the taser!"

[Crissa]

Yes, well, there is a sect that has re-interpreted the Koran's Jihad to mean instead of the struggle to better oneself, it means the use of violence is okay.

It's not a popular view.

But when you have very little power... Violence becomes more acceptable to you. That's why poor people steal more, kill more, and get into gangs more. That doesn't mean overall crime is higher, merely physical violence is higher.

I don't know what my point is, at four in the morning. Just that people like Michael Medved are idiots who insist upon never making amends (or even acknowledging) for any damage done to the world by federal or corporate agents.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

Yep, winners define the jihad. Or at least, if you're living in a Western society, declaring jihad has certain (negative) connotations that, although you as an individual have kept true to original intent, can be and probably will be taken as something much more sinister.

I've fought The Majority for such a long time on many issues for most of my life to realize that no matter how many idiots you pummel, no matter how many morons you re-educate, there will always be more.
You one might as well start with the common mean and expand from there, when dealing with 'the public'.
Sadly this often entails seeking the lowest common denominator.

[Maj]

I've fought The Majority for such a long time on many issues for most of my life to realize that no matter how many idiots you pummel, no matter how many morons you re-educate, there will always be more.

150 years ago, people were saying the same thing about issues like slavery and allowing women to vote. Don't give up just because changing people's hearts doesn't happen over night. Isn't that why Moses "got lost" on a tiny peninsula for forty years?

[Captain_Bleach]

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I've fought The Majority for such a long time on many issues for most of my life to realize that no matter how many idiots you pummel, no matter how many morons you re-educate, there will always be more.
You one might as well start with the common mean and expand from there, when dealing with 'the public'.
Sadly this often entails seeking the lowest common denominator.

Or you might take my stance on the situation and say "Fuck the public! They're not worth my time!"

[CalibronXXX]

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I've fought The Majority for such a long time on many issues for most of my life to realize that no matter how many idiots you pummel, no matter how many morons you re-educate, there will always be more.

150 years ago, people were saying the same thing about issues like slavery and allowing women to vote. Don't give up just because changing people's hearts doesn't happen over night. Isn't that why Moses "got lost" on a tiny peninsula for forty years?

Moses was waiting for an entire generation of people to die off, but hey, what works works; except this didn't work anyway. So the lesson is: never try.

[Crissa]

However, the 'Majority' you're speaking of, literally aren't the majority. It isn't the majority of people in the world, not the majority of arabic speakers, not the majority of muslims or schools that define it as only violent struggle.

There's no reason to worry about this 'Majority'.

-Crissa

[Neeek]

You ought to keep in mind that you are literally trying to convince people that they are simply defining words wrong. That isn't anything like slavery and whatnot. All that takes is education. Or using a different word to describe the idea, which is the route I'd go.

[CalibronXXX]

1195457406[/unixtime]]However, the 'Majority' you're speaking of, literally aren't the majority. It isn't the majority of people in the world, not the majority of arabic speakers, not the majority of muslims or schools that define it as only violent struggle.

There's no reason to worry about this 'Majority'.

-Crissa

Are you really sure that majority of the people in the world whom relate any meaning at all to the word jihad don't think of it as "Holy War", just through ignorance and the way it's been used lately on the global scale? 'cause such a scenario seems like a distinct possibility to me.

[Crissa]

What? A small number of islamic radicals and a slightly larger, but less radical, number of people who watch tee-vee?

That's something to worry about the definition of a word?

It doesn't mean holy war. It means struggle, one divinely inspired, but historically it meant the fight to retain knowledge and reason.

-Crissa

[Draco_Argentum]

Right, and gay means happy. Words get corrupted all the time and in the general usage Jihad now has connotations of violence. Just like gay has the connotation bad and is used to describe things that have no sexual orientation or assotiation with homosexuality.

[Username17]

The problem is that in this case the words aren't changing their meaning where they are actually being used. For example: Madrasa still just means "school". When the US media runs scare stories about how many children go to Madrasas in Dubai they are being deliberately deceptive to their audience. Yes, almost all the children go to Madrasa, and that is precisely as interesting or relevent as the amount of children who go to "Escuela" in Spanish Latin America.

You are being fucking lied to. FOX News walks into "Madrasas" in Indonesia and shit they ask the people there if they are intent upon starting a Jihad. And the students say shit like "Yes. I find the directional nomenclature of electromagnetism to be really confusing, and I don't want to fail physics." And they even have the balls to cut these guys off after the affirmative statement.

They go up on the street to people in Tehran and ask them if America is "The Great Satan" and those people say yes. They say it almost every time because that's what the fucking word means!

By casting completely normal structural words in Arabic as if they were some sort of world-wide plot to destroy civilization they are deliberately undermining open dialogue between the West and the Middle East. They are deliberately spreading hate and fear in Western countries in order to spread war and boost ratings.

And if you're going along with that, there's something wrong with you.

-Username17

[Catharz]

I didn't realize that "jihad" could mean something so mundane. I thought at least that it had some connotation as a greater struggle for the glory of God. But then again, I guess religious cultures are crazy enough to say things like 'I'm going to work hard studying physics for the greater glory of God!'

The madrasah things is hilarious, though. In the way that most things which are hilarious on Fox News are also both frightening and depressing.

[Captain_Bleach]

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You are being fucking lied to.

-Username17

FOX News is full of deceptive liars and scheming "fair and balanced" news reporters?! This is just unheard of!
/sarcasm

[CalibronXXX]

1195487753[/unixtime]]*typical long winded and well thought out post*

-Username17

I don't think anyone here has advocated support or even tolerance of this kind of behavior, just acknowledged the results of such; Right?

[tzor]

1195487753[/unixtime]]For example: Madrasa still just means "school". When the US media runs scare stories about how many children go to Madrasas in Dubai they are being deliberately deceptive to their audience.

But the general impression that I have had is when they use the term they are not just talking about a "school" but a religious school, thus putting into the minds of Americans those vile Catholic nuns and those places where they deny evolution in the classrooms.

But perhaps that is a moot question in any case. You don't need a religious school to indoctrinate students towards certain behaviors that others might find questionable. We have been doing similiar things in the United States for decades if not centuries.

And if you want to invert jihad, how about the "Crusade Against Hunger" which is an actual organization? Or Poverty or what have you?

Fox, fair and balanced? You sound like my mother. I love to show my one upsmanship on my conserative credentials (even though I listen to NPR) by pointing out the close ties Fox has with Guiliani and how they have been supporting him even though technically he is as far from a paragon of coserativism.

[Username17]

But the general impression that I have had is when they use the term they are not just talking about a "school" but a religious school, thus putting into the minds of Americans those vile Catholic nuns and those places where they deny evolution in the classrooms.

I know you got that impression. Everyone gets that impression.

But the word just means "school." Every school in an Arabic or Muslim country has that word on it. It doesn't mean anything more sinister or impressive than "school."

-Username17

[Crissa]

PS, Catholic Nuns don't deny evolution.

Most private Madrassas are like cram-schools in Japan - rote memorization first, think about it later when you're in college.

-Crissa

[Maj]

You ought to keep in mind that you are literally trying to convince people that they are simply defining words wrong. That isn't anything like slavery and whatnot. All that takes is education. Or using a different word to describe the idea, which is the route I'd go.

See, you're trying to be all logical and semi-rational here. That really doesn't apply.

What I'm asking people to do is exactly the same in both cases: change a belief.

Slavery has been around for thousands of years, and in a span of less than two hundred years, we've gone from believing that slavery is perfectly acceptable to believing that slavery is not.

Now, we have an entire country full of people who believe that little brown people are out to kill us all, and those little brown people are calling it "jihad." And I want us to believe that's not the case.

The problem comes in when the people who hold the belief that I want to change realize they're wrong. I may not be telling them outright "You're wrong," but asking them to switch from one side to the other is essentially asking them to admit they made a mistake. People are rarely rational and logical about that.

By casting completely normal structural words in Arabic as if they were some sort of world-wide plot to destroy civilization they are deliberately undermining open dialogue between the West and the Middle East. They are deliberately spreading hate and fear in Western countries in order to spread war and boost ratings.

Agreed.

I didn't realize that "jihad" could mean something so mundane.

The word "jihad" shows up in the Qur'an somewhere around five times. And in NONE of those instances does it mean violence. It means striving, persevering, and never giving up.

Actually, I started going to church again (Yes, I'm Mormon, mock me later, please), and when I read this thread, I realized that Mormons totally jihad all the time. There are five basic principles to salvation: faith, repentence, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end (they even make cute little bracelets a la WWJD that say ETTE on them). You could sub in the proper verb form of the phrase "endure to the end" in for the word "jihad" in the Qur'an, and it would make perfect sense - their meanings are interchangeable.

And really, when I stop and compare Mormonism and Islam, they teach a lot of the same ideas. It's totally OK that I bring science experiments for my sunday school kids to do on Sunday, because God made the world, so we should obviously study it and learn as much as we can so we can see how truly awesome life is. It was that same idea that spurred the golden age of the Islamic Empire. So, yeah... Studying science to show off God's profile is actually something I get.

[JonSetanta]

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1195487753[/unixtime]]*typical long winded and well thought out post*

-Username17

I don't think anyone here has advocated support or even tolerance of this kind of behavior, just acknowledged the results of such; Right?

Right. If anything I'd advocate a technical new language not too far from an Orwellian "Newspeak Dictionary". No confusion, much resentment (discourages corruption, misunderstanding, wordplay, deception, which apparently many kinds of people depend on for day-to-day living).

[cthulhu]

I thought the shaytan was also the jinn/devil/theological concept I don't really understand that they threw stones at at mecca?

Well, thats iblis or something, but the qu'ran repeatedly and persistently refers to iblis as the adversary? Who is then also the actor that leads man astray in the adam/eve creation story thing.

And that same guy is the head evil honcho of all the jinns?

Which may imply that the term is more loaded than what it just means to use the English term adversary.

[Draco_Argentum]

1195502274[/unixtime]]those places where they deny evolution in the classrooms.

I thought this is what Fox stood for?

Jihad has taken on a meaning beyond the original. Actually this is exactly what I said about communism. It makes no difference at all what it originally meant, all that matters is the negative connotation assotiated with it. As soon as that happens the word is lost to rational discourse. Works great on Fox though.