MoreCoffee in Post #22 on Page 3 offered a comparison of sorts between the terrorist component of the Muslim religion and "christian" movements like Jones town, Waco, The Lord's Resistance Army, and the KKK.
Pedrito questions the validity of that comparison.
The terrorist component of the Muslim religion wages worldwide attacks on non-muslims. It also attacks other Muslims who do not share the Koran-based ideology of hostility that that terrorist component does, i.e. it attacks the peaceful ones. The terrorist leaders "selflessly" encourage the young and impressionable to commit suicide and reap a superior heavenly reward, while they themselves give up that hastened heavenly future to remain alive and well on Earth.
By comparison, Jonestown was the localised result of people giving their allegiance to a cult leader. Waco was the same. The Lord's Resistance Army was a regional backlash to violent persecution; it brings to mind the historical backlash persecution of Catholics by Protestants in response to prolonged violent persecution the other way; both are considered lamentable, yet are to some degree understandable. The KKK (actually three distinct movements) was and is primarily confined to the USA.
(And Pedrito does not remember seeing evidence of other religions embarking on worldwide terrorism to help impose their religion on others.)
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Readers may find it hard to understand how a religion called “Islam” (meaning “Submission” in Arabic) can give rise to such levels of violence, most of which does not make the news.
It is all to do with definition.
By way of example, let us look at the English terms “world peace” and “truth”.
A certain armed political movement which swept the world in the not-too-distant past, gained power by armed violence, and still holds power in some countries. That movement used those terms to recruit impressionable people in countries it did not control.
"Do you believe in world peace?” “Yes.” “So do we.”
"Do you believe in truth?” “Yes.” “So do we.”
The problem was that “world peace” as used by that political movement, actually meant “world domination by Co****ism”. Similarly, “truth” to members of that movement actually meant “anything that furthers the cause of Co****ism”. So we see that the same word or term can have radically different meanings in different cultural or political settings.
“Islam” translates to “submission” in English, and “Muslim” to “one who surrenders to Allah” (to whom “Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful" shows mercy). Isn’t submission a positive thing? Here is where different settings come into play.
“Submission” in the Christian cultural perspective, is something passive, something peaceful.
By contrast, in the setting of what used to be described as “Mohammedanism”, “submission” is an active thing, and not necessarily peaceful. “Submission” means submitting to the commands of Allah, including the directives to kill infidels (unbelievers). That is the basis on which organisations such as Islamic State (Isis, Isil) obtain justification for their continued killing of the innocent.
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It is because of that, that Pedrito questions the validity of the comparison put forward by MoreCoffee in Post #22.
