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Abdul Rahman Case

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... given the Koran was allegedly the work of one person, you'd expect more consistency.

If Muhammad had sat down and written it in one session, then I would have expected more consistency. But actually he wrote it over a long period of time. As he and his followers encountered new challenges, he would "receive new revelations from God" which dealt with those challenges. Amazingly, God always agreed with Muhammad, even if that meant contradicting himself. :)

Consider apostasy. ..... And that is true even if in the past there was an Inquisition, or Catholics were persecuted in Britain, or even if apostates were burned at the stake.

The Inquisition was not punishing apostasy. It was punishing people who pretended to be Christian converts while continuing to practice Islam or Judaism secretly (in order to avoid being exiled from Spain). This was thought to be a threat to the integrity of Christian beliefs.

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If Muhammad had sat down and written it in one session, then I would have expected more consistency. But actually he wrote it over a long period of time. As he and his followers encountered new challenges, he would "receive new revelations from God" which dealt with those challenges. Amazingly, God always agreed with Muhammad, even if that meant contradicting himself. :)

This is called the doctrine of abbrogation, which basically means that God is allowed to contradict himself. If he contradicts himself, you just obey whatever he said last. Interestingly, the suras which preach violence were written after the suras that preach peace.

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If Muhammad had sat down and written it in one session, then I would have expected more consistency. But actually he wrote it over a long period of time. As he and his followers encountered new challenges, he would "receive new revelations from God" which dealt with those challenges. Amazingly, God always agreed with Muhammad, even if that meant contradicting himself. :)

What's the use of inventing a deity if you will set limits on it? It would be interesting, perhaps, in a dramatic work. But worse than useless in a laundry list of subjectivist morality. Therefore an all-powerful being shouold mannage the relatively simple feat of making A non-A at will.

The Inquisition was not punishing apostasy. It was punishing people who pretended to be Christian converts while continuing to practice Islam or Judaism secretly (in order to avoid being exiled from Spain). This was thought to be a threat to the integrity of Christian beliefs.

I really am not aware of any instance in which Christianity has doled out the death penalty for apostasy. The Inquisition does come clos, though. I should have mentioned this in my previous post.

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islam, judaism, christianity -- all proud to claim lineage to the alleged 'prophet' Abraham, the would-be child-killer who heard voices telling him to kill his son.

The west is at war with islam; it is sad that most in the west cannot wrap their minds around this fact. Between the conservatives who share the same irrational abraham-based theology, and the liberals, whose multicultural longings forbid them from calling a spade a spade, it seems that only a few objectivist-atheist folks are able to see islam clearly.

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"I am serene. I have full awareness of what I have chosen. If I must die, I will die," Abdul Rahman told the Rome daily, responding to questions sent to him via a human rights worker who visited him in prison. "Somebody, a long time ago, did it for all of us," he added in a clear reference to Jesus.
I for once, am happy this whole circus took place. It went a long way to disprove the whole "Islam is Peace" myth. The evidence was right there in the face of appologists, although it would carry much more weight if they did execute him. All is not lost though:

Muslim clerics had threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if the government freed him. They said he clearly violated Islamic Shariah law by rejecting Islam.
Edited by Eternal
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According to a news report I heard this morning, the Afghan govt. will try to get him out of the country in one piece.

It’s perfect how reality slaps some people in the face though.

We initially went in after 9/11 to turn Al Queda members into a red mist.

Then the mission changed to “nation building” to show the world we are good guys and not just there to kill people.

Now that it’s clear the Afghan “street” does not want the kind of “nation building” we had in mind, people are asking why are there in the first place.

Do these people remember 9/11?

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As Dr. Leonard Peikoff wrote, "A proper war in self-defense is one fought without self-crippling restrictions placed on our commanders in the field. It must be fought with the most effective weapons we possess (a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld refused, correctly, to rule out nuclear weapons)." http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2635

If Abdul Rahman is executed, what is the case for NOT using nukes against the Muslim fundamentalists?

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This is one position where I differ from Objectivists. The idea that one nation, even one as powerful as the United States, can completely disregard world opinion and use nuclear weapons is ridiculous. Morally speaking, draw your own conclusions. Strategically speaking, it would do irreparable harm to the United States.

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hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting "Death to Christians!" marched through the northern Afghan Mazar-i-Sharif to protest the court's decision Sunday to dismiss the case.

Yahoo News of his release

I think this is the point I was waiting for, up till now I think a lot of the Muslims and even hard line ones have been hiding under this veil of "ohh we just want the US out of the Middle East that is why we are so radical". If this gains momentum I think that it will be made much more clear that Muslims are really opposed to anything but Islam (and well pretty much they are pitted against that too because there are so many different versions they all want to kill each other).

At least we have enough nuclear weapons to wipe all 1.3 billion of them out of existance. That is good to know, just in case.

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So, it seems certain folks within islam are willing to invoke psychiatry to resolve this one.

As long as those sheeple who convert can be said to have done so simply because they are not 'sane' enough for islam, then the arrogant islamo-fascists imagine that they save face. It is both funny and appalling the ways stupid people stretch concepts and twist meainings until their mumbo-jumbo is all that is left.

Moreover, I am so amazed by the utter stupidity of those who find contentment not in thinking, but rather in believing, and who proudly boast of having been given the 'gift' of faith by their maker.

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This is one position where I differ from Objectivists. The idea that one nation, even one as powerful as the United States, can completely disregard world opinion and use nuclear weapons is ridiculous. Morally speaking, draw your own conclusions. Strategically speaking, it would do irreparable harm to the United States.

The great 19th century capitalist William Vanderbilt (who might be the inspiration for Nathaniel Taggart) said, "The public be damned!" I say, "World opinion be damned!"

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And I agree. I don't give a $h1t about world opinion. But I care deeply about what effect the rest of the world has on the United States. If we were to do something that offensive to the rest of the world, we would basically be seen as the new Nazi Germany by every country in the world, including countries that we now call our allies.

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And I agree. I don't give a $h1t about world opinion. But I care deeply about what effect the rest of the world has on the United States. If we were to do something that offensive to the rest of the world, we would basically be seen as the new Nazi Germany by every country in the world, including countries that we now call our allies.

Too bad for them. If they want to support killing us then they get get the same.

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If we were to do something that offensive to the rest of the world, we would basically be seen as the new Nazi Germany by every country in the world, including countries that we now call our allies.
I'd be curious to see how we really stand in Germany -- I bet Felix can give us an unbiased view. I'm guessing that they already consider us to be the new Nazi Germany.

Now I think is should be clear to all that Mr. Henson has by implication misidentified the hierarchy of force and what should cause the US to act in one way or another. Iran is the obvious first target; North Korea is a reasonable candidate for the second. These are nations who governments threaten the existence of the US -- Afghanistan is not at present such a place: Belarus is more of a threat to the US than Afghanistan. Burma and Zimbabwe are much more repressive than Afghanistan; Somalia and Guinea are deeper into handbasket-to-hell syndrome than Afghanistan. But if the proposal is to obliterate all of the dictatorial hellholes of the world by whatever means necessary, rather than acting on whim, then we will have to act without fear of the scorn that would be heaped on us by the whiners of the world.

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I'm not talking about whining and scorn. I'm talking about WWIII in which the two sides are as follows:

1.) The United States

2.) The world - the United States

Even countries that are typically unwilling to engage in military force would be jumping all over that bandwagon.

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I'd be curious to see how we really stand in Germany -- I bet Felix can give us an unbiased view. I'm guessing that they already consider us to be the new Nazi Germany.

The sense I get from my German friends is they view us about like the semi-far left do in this country. They think we are (well our government at least) bullies hell bent on world opression. I don't think they view us as bad as Nazi Germany, but certainly as some sort of fascist militant killer of innocents.

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I'm not talking about whining and scorn. I'm talking about WWIII in which the two sides are as follows:

1.) The United States

2.) The world - the United States

I do not believe that the world (let's limit this to the major powers -- who really cares whether Swaziland sends 4 soldiers to invade America) would engage in a suicidal war against the US because we nuked an aggressor nation. Russia is obviously the problem, because they still have ideas about taking ovr the world. Apart from Russia, we can just ignore any opposition from the French, Germans, British, Japanese and Australians, not to mention the Finns and En-zedders. What reason is there to think that they would act against us militarily?
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