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The dopers, match fixers, bribers, or knife users on the opponent player, are the examples which bring out the worst in the sports arena. In actual struggle of life,the extremists, terrorists, haters and people who use blatant lies to mislead and misguide others are their counter parts.

Sports is one example to illustrate the point. Nations or civilization do not interact exactly as sports teams. There is no Olympic Committee in their case. They interact autonomously, with power being the ultimate legitimizer. International dealings are anarchic. . Most of us err in judging the actions of the nations by the standards that guide communities and individuals. There is a huge difference. Individuals and communities live, like the animals in a dairy farm, where the state acts as the farmer giving each its share. The odd one out who tries to grab some one else's share can have his/her leash tightened. Nations have no farmer taking care of them, they interact as the wild life in the jungle. They have to grab their grub. If carnivores for example, did not kill, they would perish. But killing for food in the context of diary farm is unacceptable crime.
This is the dilemma of the leaders, when they are compelled to act in accordance with the dictates of "jungle" and then are required to justify those actions in the frame of reference of "dairy farm". They are compelled to tell them. They are going after WMD, world peace or war on terror etc because people at home would not acquiesce killing or being killed for "oil".

Now the question; what is unfit and what is fitter in case of humans? This is a tricky question which is faced by the humanity, since the beginning and has been addressed by all religions. There has never been a consensus on the answer. To assume, that there would be one, as a result of this post, is unrealistic. and unlimited greed for wealth. This attitude is so self centered that the beholder sees everything else and every one else as a consumable resource.
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Maybe we're not communicating effectively on this thread because some of us are using different rules or conventions about how to communicate, what discussion means, what a debate means. Like Jayb, I perceive 'discussion' as being evidence-based, truth-seeking, quite deliberately NOT bringing the personal into the discussion, but trying to keep on topic.

As well, some people seem to think that to even question something means that you are either attacking, or (to pre-empt the 'discussion') lying. No, to question merely means to question, to query, to raise issues that one is not clear about. But for people embedded in a more dogmatic world-view, to question is to attack. And as you suggest, Jayb, from this warped point of view, to attack is therefore seen as persecution, justifying a counter-attack.

How does one raise issues if one side perceives such queries as grounds for violent counter-attack ? How can one get across to such people that it is permissible, even imperative, that queries be allowed ? How does one learn but by asking questions and exploring whatever is put up as 'evidence' ?

I think we've got a hell of a long way to go yet.

Joe

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The beholders of this attitude only keep feeding themselves and become too big and unsustainable dinosaurs. Nature discards them and moves on with the help of leaner and sustainable specimens.
Second point is the focus of nature's improvement in humans; is it physique? Is it mind? Or is it both in the right balance? The last appears to be the preference of nature. Nature appears to favor the gentler souls who are mindful of fellow creatures. They live and let live. They do not waste, they dot destroy. They use natural resources to the minimum and care for sustainability and diversity. Improvement in humans is not in physical sense only but in character and in mental faculties too, that is the focus of all religions. This makes sense when Bible says "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Methew 5:5

I am aware that the last lines will not be well received by some. Please don't let that be a distraction. Don't start a side debate on this point, please go ahead and stick to your belief but remain focussed on the main point. The main point is that this mutual struggle must bring out the best among us and not the worst. The negatives like; hatred, suspicion and fear must be discouraged. That is the point that the article makes. We are different and so shall we remain. We must learn to live with and accommodate each other. Now a point about West.

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Me thinks Joe there is a long way to go for the writers on OLO, everybody has a different opinion to your opinion, some agree, some don't, that is what makes OLO interesting, let's keep the bullets at bay and leave it to the extremist Governments, they are all very good at it.

Hi Onjab,

No, I certainly don't expect all that many readers of OLO to agree with me on anything, but I'm trying to understand why and how people on this thread are sort of talking past each other, not on the same wavelength. And I do think it is a symptom of, not necessarily a 'clash of civilizations' as Huntington would have suggested, but certainly of different views - perhaps different civilizational views - of what counts as evidence, the interpretation of reality, the salience or not of divine revelation - different views on what counts as truth.

Not only that, but this also involves the perception of who is entitled to speak, to make pronouncements - in a standard Western environment, everybody is theoretically entitled to flap their lips equally, to express their opinions, to put their views to all and sundry and to put up with disagreement; in other, more dogmatic (can one say 'more backward'? perhaps not) cultures, questioning is forbidden, 'truth' is already there, revealed in magic books, or in books passed down by imaginary gods (and in a sort of magic language that few can read: sounds like Latin in the Middle Ages).

Here we are in 2015. The Enlightenment has been in painful process for two or three hundred years in the West. It has spawned revolutions, and in turn, reactions. As a human construct, if not the most crucial human construct, it is imperfect, unfinished, never rounded off and completed. Dogmatists hate it, fear it, on both left and right. But it opens the way to human discovery, to the overthrowing of crap ideas, and with them, outmoded authority structures.

So it is vital to get this 'discussion' onto the right track.

Joe

I'm only trying to genuinely understand, from an Islamic point of view, just what constituted an act of Hostility, or Persecution.

Is an Act of Hostility against Islam the drawing of a Cartoon of Mohammed?

Would an Act of Hostility be, the People of a Country, asking Moslems to leave that Country, after having accepted them as Asylum Seekers. The reason being that a number "Lone Wolfs" Islamist Fanatics have taken to killing random innocent unbelieving civilians. It is found that a lot more of these random killings are planned?

Would an Act of Persecution be any one of my previous posts reasons? See Page 18 Monday, 2 March 2015 1:51:24 PM. & Page 24 Thursday, 5 March 2015 8:37:43 PM.

Your Answers NC would go a long way in helping me, indeed a lot of us Infidels, to understand the Islamic mind & the interpretations in the Koran as seen by moslems.