The money line ...
"these images lost their impact long ago. We've seen them in the news a thousand times, much like images of Hamas supporters in Gaza, waving machine guns in the air and bellowing anti-Semitic slogans at the camera."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...well I said I found Fitna vanilla. But it doesn't lose it's critical nature by repetition.
I agree. But how can we be shocked any more? We have come to expect, that when the TV signal goes to static for more than 10 seconds, New York is gone, or Atlanta finally got whacked by anthrax, or Chicago is the victim of a dirty weapon. We are looking for an ebola outbreak with every local flu mini grouping. We see bodies galore whether it is the Israeli victims beside a pizza parlor, in a museum DEDICATED to the the murderers at the pizza parlor, or the Americans falling, falling next to the towers. I don't feel less rage, but I feel no shock.A desire to shock also compelled Wilders to include footage from the beheading of a hostage, uncensored and uncut. The camera fixes on the severed head as the scene fades out. The only problem is that the news value of this footage is absolutely zero. The viewer finds herself wondering: "When is Wilders actually going to shock me?"
And then...... the mistake, the excuse, the BUT:Niener niener, it's not just us? Well...Wilders' accompanies these "shocking images" with quotations from the Koran, an effort to expose Islam's holiest text as a well-spring of hate. That makes it difficult for me, a totally average Muslim, to defend Islam as a peaceful religion. These quotations are not made up -- they can actually be found in the Koran. Passages from the holy book that rail hatefully against Jews have, unfortunately, long been misused as propaganda. That is tragic, as it is tragic that similar anti-Semitic passages are just as common in the Bible.
But there is JUST ONE SMALL DETAIL here...those names, Matthew, and John...they are people, fallible, breathing, weak people. The Quran MUST be the immutable and revealed word of a perfect and RACIST god or it is NOTHING. Funny you forgot that. Oh and one other thing ,,, we dispute the hsitorical accuracy of this stuff ALL THE TIME. However ... she is right on here....A number of Christian scholars have concluded that the root of antisemitism in the [Christian]] community is ultimately found within the New Testament. Some Christian theologians such as Rosemary Ruether and A. Roy Eckardt claim that the entire New Testemant is antisemitic whereas others such as Gregory Baum claim that it is not antisemitic at all.
There are some verses in the New Testament that describe Jews in a positive way, attributing to them salvation John 4:22 or divine love (Epistle to the Romans 11:28) while others have been used by antisemites. The two harshest verses are those in which Jews prompt Jesus' crucifixion and say "His blood be on us, and on our children" Matthew 27:25 and when Jesus calls certain Pharisees "children of the devil" John 8:44
Al-Qaida could post Wilder's work as a promotional video on their Web siteOf course, that's a major part of his point, but you, seem to miss that
Worst of all, here is her fault finding on the reality of muslim extremism IN eurotopia
But he chooses to ignore certain realities of Muslim life in Europe: The high rate of unemployment among immigrants, the slim chances of receiving a good education, the daily encounters with racism and the countless immigrant children -- particularly boys -- who are abandoned.
So which came first -- the chicken or the egg?
If they were rich and educated, then Madrid, London and 9/11, even the necessity to blow up pizza parlors in Israel would be unnecessary?
Last time I checked Atta et al were all FINELY educated and getting more, able to live and go anywhere and CHOSE FREELY the path they took because they learned what the Quran says.
If it is not the economic, and non assimilation excuse, then what is left?
READ IT ALL, worth it for the education on the views and inner wishes of those whose consciences ARE appalled by the Islamist, but are stuck.
The New Testament does carry the seeds of antisemitism, but it is up to the individual Christian to recognize and transcend Judeophobia, which is always a possibility. Antisemitism, strictly speaking a 19thC. phenomenon, is more a failure than a realization of Christianity. The NT is Judeophobic kind of in the way that Methodists disapprove of Anglicans.
ReplyDeleteTHe Koran is much more obviously and consistently resentful of those who came before it in the monotheism contest. The divide between the Muslim believer and the Kufr is fundamental and inescapable in that book, one might think. If not, it is at least the resonsibility for the "Muslim moderate" to show how the deep resentment of the non-believer can be transcended, without this cowardly recourse to "your book is just as bad". It is scapegoating that the good Christian learns to overcome vis a vis the Jew. How many "moderate Mulsims" have yet learned anything like this?