It was a copy and paste job from wikipedia.

All religions and ideologies get 'used' for wealth and/or power by manipulative people. Islam was invented for power by Muhammed.

freediver wrote on Dec 20^th, 2015 at 1:14am:

Muhammad was given the offer of unlimited power in Mecca by the Pagan Quraysh if he would just cease and desist from calling the idols that the Pagans worshiped false gods and from calling people to monotheism. That would have had him the key to the Kaaba, complete control of Mecca and the pilgrims coming into it. It would have also made him even more rich, beyond belief.

Instead, he refused. That basically put his people into exile on the outskirts of Mecca and their tribulations lasted more than 10 years and struggled for the rest of his life.

If it was about power then why go through more than a decade of that?

freediver wrote on Dec 20^th, 2015 at 1:14am:



Blasphemy -

in Iran they would kill you.

freediver wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 6:59am:

So he chose to endure massive persecution and years of famine and war just to suit his own interest in having a religion where he himself was still seen as a man and not worshiped and he couldn't do as he pleased rather than accept the essential kingship full of wealth and everything he could ever desire on earth of the Meccans and have all of the surrounding peoples submit to him when they came to Mecca and for what exactly? He would have known he couldn't have the world in his lifetime?

His later mistreatment of the Meccans? Do tell? When he took Mecca he didn't treat the Meccans as they treated him, he also didn't massacre all of the men and take into slavery all of the women, despite the fact that this is exactly what the pagans would have done if they took Medina.

freediver wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 6:59am:

A lot of Muslims look at the world from a position of victimhood, as if they are the world's most persecuted people, as if it justifies atrocities later committed by Muslims

I'm a Muslim and I'll have none of that behavior. Certainly, there are factors that lead to extremism and terrorism that we can work on but it never justifies nor mitigates the responsibility that a person must take for their actions. 

I found this site a little bit interesting regarding this very topic...

http://www.novelguide.com/reportessay/history/general-history/religions-spread-t...

"To put it bluntly, as this article does, "Islam was mainly spread through Arab territorial conquests (Sudo, 4)." However, upon examination, it is not fair to make the generalization that Islam is a religion of violence, and one notices when looking at world religion on a whole, one finds that Islam was no more violent than any other religion. In fact, not only is Islam not a fundamentally violent philosophy, but we can also see that many other religions normally considered "non-violent," such as Christianity or Hinduism, have been spread through bloody conquest. Thus, in searching for a universal constant of history, we ought not fall into the "fallacy of abstractions," as Sydney J. Harris keenly puts it, and assume that because of isolated incidents and conflicts of territorial ambitions, that all religions have violent tendencies."

I have always thought to single out just one of any specific social grouping as the antithesis of all things evil is the product of limited critical thinking...

This of course is not to say that some who profess to follow Islamic teachings do not do evil acts, clearly they do. What it clearly highlights though, we are all capable of doing evil regardless of the social, ideological and/or religious teachings we profess to follow.

To my mind, the more we endeavour to label one social grouping, the more we facilitate ongoing perpetration of evil... In short, Muslim bash all you want, BUT you are part of the problem and nothing to do with a solution...

Baronvonrort wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 10:00am:

To be frank with you it is an incredibly broad subject, but my experience in having worked in the field of preventing Islamic Extremism in the USA, is that at its core, mental deficiency either through a lack of development or trauma in some way or another is a major common factor in all cases.

As is the case that people who have violent tendencies and urges, will find any justification that they can to carry out violence to satisfy their urges.

Any ideology can be used by any person to justify the usurpation of the wealth and rights of others. 

Terrorism in itself is a method of warfare and the more modern assertion that it is unjustified all the time is wrong. There are some times when terrorism can most definitely be justified.

What can't be justified however is the deliberate targeting of non combatants.

freediver wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 11:16am:

Mecca was a centre for Monotheism long before it was for idol worship. 

freediver wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 11:16am:

This was done after Muhammad and not during his life. During his life, the non Muslim tribes that were a part of the state had equal rights and not second class citizenship.

freediver wrote on Dec 21^st, 2015 at 11:16am:

So why didn't he exact vengeance on them for persecuting the Muslims so badly?

Vulgar displays? Preposterous.

Quote:


So what happened to those Pagans Gandalf? Do you hold Abu's delusion that they all voluntarily converted to Islam? Am I morally superior if I show you some Mercy first before driving you out of the city?