Surely terrorism - any terrorism - is, on a hypothetical scale of Left to Right - on the extreme Right ? And surely, if the great majority of terrorist attacks within a country like Australia emanate from the teachings of a particular religion, then the adherents of that religion, tarred unfairly as they may be by terrorism's brush, have a duty - more than people adhering to different ideologies and religions - to do something about it ?

Or isn't there such thing as a 'community' of those adherents ?

Perhaps we need to de-contextualise this: Imagine that, instead, over the past fifteen years, a fanatical Buddhist sect had arisen bent on world domination by any means, carrying out brutal terrorist attacks all around, say, south-east Asia and in Australia.

Imagine that the Temples here were suspected of being breeding-grounds for young fascist Buddhists, persuading them to go out and kill non-Buddhists - any non-Buddhists, it doesn't really matter - as long as they intone 'Ommm' while they are knifing somebody or blowing their heads off.

Imagine that those terrorists had been responsible for murdering hundreds in hotel bombings in Thailand or Sri Lanka, including, say, a hundred Australians, and launching attacks all over the Buddhist world, kidnapping and raping thousands of non-Buddhist women and young girls.

If all this actually happened, would we be all apologetic about Buddhist terrorism, and talk about disaffected Cambodian or Vietnamese youth, how they are all getting picked on daily, or about how Buddhism was really a religion of peace ?

Would we all breezily say that 'Let's all be one community, Buddhists have no special obligation for curbing this terrorism, we all have equal responsibility: after all, many Buddhists are being brutally murdered by these terrorists too' ?

No, I didn't think so.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Mr. Singer: "The taking of life is contrary to the principles of Islam".

No it's not!

The best way to sum up the Mohammedan view is to say that while in the overall theory of Islamic world domination diplomacy is encouraged up to a point after which violence is permitted but that Sunni imperialism in it's real world application is weighted heavily toward the tactics of intimidation, coercion and violent overthrow of non Muslim society.

Prohibition on taking a person's life can be said to be a tenant of most religions. But interpretation of scripture by priest, rabbi or imam can easily put the opposite position.

This is from an article in an Israeli newspaper.

“The book Torat ha-Melekh [The King’s Teaching], which was just published, was written by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the dean of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in the community of Yitzhar near Nablus, together with another rabbi from the yeshiva, Yossi Elitzur. The book contains no fewer than 230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew.”

Here are a couple of their reflections;

“When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noahide laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, no prohibition has been violated,”

and

“There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/

This settler mob are particularly nasty even to the extent of radicalizing a student to fire a Qassam rocket at a neighbouring Palestinian village.

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/749/429.html

But the book has earned the imprimatur of a number of other leading rabbis and continues to be distributed.

In truth Israel is one of the least religious nations on this earth ranking in the top 30 for irreligiousness with a Gallop poll showing that over half the population does not hold to a religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country

There is a very real sense that the 'walling out' of the rabidly religious whether in Gaza or in West Bank settler communities is the manner with which sectarian Israel is dealing with this blight.

Fancy, Singer daring to criticize Islam over its propensity towards violence. Isn't Singer a supporter of one of the most violent nations on Earth: Israel (which is closely followed by the U.S.A.)

Currently, the IDF is carrying out a bit of genocide against the Palestinians whose land in the main they have stolen.

Does Singer have any idea what 'hypocrisy' means?

Does he, as a Jew, understand what 'Thou shall not kill' means?

You're right, Steele, such vile and backward injunctions and practices should be condemned just as much as we - you and I and everybody - should condemn the equally vile and backward injunctions of the more conservative and fascist aspects of Islam, like al-Qa'ida or ISIS or Al-Shabaab or Boko Haram or the Taliban or ..... Or Buddhism. or Hinduism.

What is a cornerstone of these backward ideologies is their exclusivity - that 'community' is only for 'members': non-members are looked on as not really human, to be exterminated if and when required. This is in complete contrast to the Christian story of the Good Samaritan -of somebody who goes out of his way to help someone else who is NOT of his own 'community'. Now, that's MY kind of Christian, as an atheist :)

You may wish to spend a couple of hours combing through the Koran for any similar story. Please let me know if you find one. And if you don't, I expect you will follow up your post by an equal condemnation of those exclusivist and tribal aspects of Islam.

You may object that Kurds are mostly Muslim and they obviously ha e gone out of their way to help Yazidis and Christians. But, one could object, they do that NOT AS MUSLIMS, but as decent and wonderful human beings, as universalists, prepared to put their lives on the line for others, other not of their 'own' group.

Now, to me, THAT is the definition of 'progressive', and I earnestly hope that the US, Britain and Australia will soon de-list Kurdish groups like the PKK and YPG and YPG as so-called 'terrorist' groups, a complete absurdity and a scandal.

Cheers,

Joe