Thank you, your Honor, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I would like to begin in the name of Allah, the exalted and glorious, the most gracious, the most merciful, 'Allah' among the most beautiful names. Any act that does not begin in the name of God is separate from goodness.There is so much religion in there, and the main thing that's glaringly absent is any statement that within his understanding of his religion, what he did was wrong or was anything other than what God wanted. I'm hearing: I'm empathetic about the death and suffering, but it was all part of a difficult mission I was called upon to carry out.
This is the blessed month of Ramadan, and it is the month of mercy from Allah to his creation, a month to ask forgiveness of Allah and of his creation, a month to express gratitude to Allah and his creation. It’s the month of reconcilliation, a month of patience, a month during which hearts change. Indeed, a month of many blessings.
The Prophet Muhammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said if you have not thanked the people, you have not thanked God. So I would like to first thank my attorneys, those who sit at this table, the table behind me, and many more behind the scenes. They have done much good for me, for my family. They made my life the last two years very easy. I cherish their company. They’re lovely companions. I thank you.
I would like to thank those who took time out of their daily lives to come and testify on my behalf despite the pressure. I’d like to thank the jury for their service, and the Court. The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said that if you do not - if you are not merciful to Allah’s creation, Allah will not be merciful to you, so I’d like to now apologize to the victims, to the survivors.
I'm sorry for the lives that I've taken, for the suffering I caused you, for the damage I've done. Irreparable damage.
Immediately after the bombing, which I am guilty of - if there’s any lingering doubt about that, let there be no more. I did do it along with my brother - I learned of some of the victims. I learned their names, their faces, their age. And throughout this trial more of those victims were given names, more of those victims had faces, and they had burdened souls.
Now, all those who got up on that witness stand and that podium related to us - to me - I was listening - the suffering that was and the hardship that still is, with strength and with patience and with dignity.
Now, Allah says in the Qur’an that no soul is burdened with more than it can bear, and you told us just how unbearable it was, how horrendous it was, this thing I put you through. And I know that you kept that much. I know that there isn’t enough time in the day for you to have related to us everything. I also wish that four more people had a chance to get up there, but I took them from you.
Now, I am sorry for the lives that I’ve taken, for the suffering I caused you, for the damage I’ve done. Irreparable damage.
Now, I’m a Muslim. My religion is Islam. The god I worship, besides whom there is no other God, is Allah. And I prayed for Allah to bestow his mercy upon the deceased, those affected in the bombing and their families. Allah says in the Qur’an that with every hardship there is relief. I pray for your relief, for your healing, for your well-being, for your strength.
I ask Allah to have mercy upon me and my brother and my family. I ask Allah to bestow his mercy upon those present here today. And Allah knows best those deserving of his mercy. And I ask Allah to have mercy upon the ummah of Prophet Muhammed, peace and blessings be upon him. Amin. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.
Thank you.
This gets me thinking about the way Dylann Roof sat in a prayer study for an hour with the 9 beautiful Christians who were "so nice" to him that he "almost didn't go through with" the massacre. But he killed them anyway, because he thought he had a "mission." [Or so he's said.]
Tsarnaev may very well appreciate the humanity of his victims and be sorry they had to suffer, but still feel that he did the right thing, that he carried out his mission. That makes what he did, even as he's sorry for it, worse.
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99 comments:
I volunteer to push the buttons,
One appeal then shoot him in public.
I get the feeling that he'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Kill him. Send me the bill. Sooner the better.
He is not a white, heterosexual western Christian American republican.
So what is there to apologize for?
There is so much religion in there, and the main thing that's glaringly absent is any statement that within his understanding of his religion, what he did was wrong or was anything other than what God wanted.
That's because according to his religion he didn't do anything wrong, and he did exactly what his God wanted. We've been trying to tell you that for years now.
Notice the refrain of The god I worship, besides whom there is no other God, is Allah
He is not interested in coexisting with you. His religion is not interested in coexisting with you.
One appeal then shoot him in public.
Why an appeal? He confessed. He should be dead already.
I'm not sure that Tsarnaev didn't admit that he was, within the strictures of Islam, wrong in what he did. How else to parse
....if you are not merciful to Allah’s creation, Allah will not be merciful to you, so I’d like to now apologize to the victims, to the survivors.
if not as an admission that he did wrong. He admitted he was guilty. He most definitely needs God's mercy, so I think he now understands that within Islam, the road to God's mercy starts with some sort of apology to those he wronged.
Maybe he's not sorry.
Um, the fact that he won't shut up about his religion? The same religion that he used to believe told him to blow up a bunch of innocent people. The fact that the victims, and victims' families include non-Muslims who don't need to hear "The god I worship, besides whom there is no other God, is Allah" and the like?
Gahrie: "That's because according to his religion he didn't do anything wrong, and he did exactly what his God wanted. We've been trying to tell you that for years now."
THIS.
What Gahrie said.
Actually, Tsarnaev's instincts are right on. God, conspiring with Satan in the Book of Job, managed to kill Job's children and servants, along with all his animals. When it comes to violence, Tsarnaev is a bit player compared to God.
Don't fall for the cheap assertion that Allah is great and likes mercy at all, BUT that is only to submitted Muslims, maybe, maybe not on strict legal conditions.
But there is never ever any mercy anytime or anywhere to a Christian or a Jew who must be despised as infidels in need of a sword that cuts off their filthy heads as a solemn mission assigned to every Muslim SOB.
"That's because according to his religion he didn't do anything wrong, and he did exactly what his God wanted. We've been trying to tell you that for years now."
Each individual is responsible for his religion. Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant. Tsarnaev could have been a Muslim without coming up with the version of it I think he's revealing he has. If you can't make that kind of distinction, you are part of the problem.
Each individual is responsible for his religion. Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant. Tsarnaev could have been a Muslim without coming up with the version of it I think he's revealing he has. If you can't make that kind of distinction, you are part of the problem.
Bullshit.
Shame on you.
@tradguy,
Don't fall for the cheap assertion that Allah is great and likes mercy at all, BUT that is only to submitted Muslims, maybe, maybe not on strict legal conditions.
Uhhhm, tradguy, for someone who keeps on claiming to be Calvinist, you seem to miss how much like your own faith that statement is. According to Calvinist doctrine, Christ's death on the cross redeems only the Elect, not anyone or anything else. So, yeah, maybe Tsarnaev's Islamic mercy applies only to the visible members of the Ummah. Your faith's idea of Divine Mercy applies only to the invisible Elect. Seems to me that of the two, it's tough to pick who has a more hard-ass notion of Divine Mercy.
Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant.
Is there a point where you quit hiding from reality in your ivory tower, Professor? Reality isn't going to change because it doesn't fit with the way you'd like things to be. And the reality is that there is a large population of Muslims who feel exactly the way Tsarnaev does, and they won't change until the last one of them is dead. Are there Muslims who don't believe in Tsarnaev's view of Allah and his commandments? Where are they? Have they helped US authorities find the next mad bombers or are they planning to celebrate Tsarnaev's coming martyrdom with more bombings and assassinations?
@Rob,
Bullshit.
Shame on you.
Well, Rob, if you truly believe that the Islamic faith in all it's forms leads to open warfare against the infidel, I suggest you start building your personal arsenal tout suite.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, so, no matter how you cut the math & the mustard, you've got an awful, awful lot of killing to do.
But what if there were only one Muslim religion memorized from Arabic Korans , and it turns out to proudly be the dedicated enemy of every living Jew and Christian on this planet. Then how does telling them they are peaceful and nice people do anything at all except postpone reality day.
Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant.
Fuck you.
Islam has been trying to conquer and destroy Western Civilization for centuries!
Try Googling Charles Martel, El Cid and Vlad III.
Try reading the Quran, Hadith and Sura. Islam does not preach turn the other cheek, live and let live. Islam commands Muslims to enslave, convert or kill unbelievers. It demands Jihad. It gives permission for Muslims to lie to unbelievers.
My generalization about Islam is based on facts. The facts of history, the facts of their religion and the actions of Muslims today around the world.
Shorter YoungHegelian: I am a complete idiot.
"Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant. "
Maybe hateful but not ignorant. You fail to understand that this is what Muslims are SUPPOSED TO DO. If they don't and choose a quiet life that harms no one else (except perhaps their female relatives), they are not being good jihadis.
Jihad is an obligation of Muslims. It is you who is ignorant.
A lawyer defending al Qaida-linked suspects standing trial for the 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul told a court that jihad, or holy war, was an obligation for Muslims and his clients should not be prosecuted.
“If you punish them for this, tomorrow, will you punish them for fasting or for praying?” Osman Karahan — a lawyer representing 14 of the 72 suspects — asked during a nearly four-hour speech in which he read religious texts from an encyclopedia of Islam.
I know you want to be tolerant but tolerance does not include pretending that the truth is not the truth.
Well, Rob, if you truly believe that the Islamic faith in all it's forms leads to open warfare against the infidel,
Regardless of what Rob thinks, it is what the majority of Muslims think. Yes, even the ones living in the U.S..
@Rob McLean,
So, Rob, don't pussy out on us. Are you up for religious genocide on a scale to dwarf the killing of all the wars in history or not?
Because if you're not, I would recommend not pissing the faces of people on the other side who just might be able to be your allies.
You guys can talk tough all you want. 1.6 billion. That number isn't going away. You tell the rest of us how you move 1.6 billion people scattered all across the globe towards any goal & then we have to take you seriously.
Each individual is responsible for his religion
I think I have found one of your problems. You either fundamentally misunderstand Islam, or you are ignorant of it.
Muslims have no responsibility when it comes to religion. They are slaves! That's what Muslim means! The only responsibility a Muslim has is to do exactly what Muhammad and Allah have told them to do.
YoungHegelian ranted:
@Rob McLean,
So, Rob blah blah blah
G'way, little boy, ya bother me.
Are you up for religious genocide on a scale to dwarf the killing of all the wars in history or not?
To be honest, this is exactly what we should do, but we don't have the stomach for it, and I don't like what it would do to us.
Instead, what we will eventually do is gather an army of volunteers, go over there and kill enough Muslims and destroy enough infrastructure that we will get a generation or two of peace.
@Rob,
Come on, Rob. Stop with the stupid insults & answer the question: tell us all just how many millions of people you feel we'll need to kill to fix this problem.
Of course, I bother you, because reality has a way of doing that when it intrudes on fantasy.
@young Hegelian...Calvinist faith is only as merciful as God is in his decisions on men He wants to save. But we are not in on whom that will be shown to be. So we just give everyone scripture preaching and full mercy on credit.
But killing a murderous Muslim or a foreign army attacking U.S.A.. Intent on murder and looting is not unmerciful. It deters the next one and thumb saves lives. Think of the Hiroshima ABomb which saved millions of Japanese, Chinese, and American lives by ending a war Hirohito was powerless to end before that was done. Therefore It was an as an act of mercy.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world
Is that all? I'm sure the Department of Defense has way more founds of ammunition than that.
Chris Kyle's American Sniper includes a scene where he has to shoot a woman holding her toddler because she's trying to be a suicide bomber. With her child. In her arms. Who'd die with her if she had completed her suicide mission. Explain to me how you convince people like that to be peaceful citizens of the Middle East or the US or wherever they reside? They're willing to die to kill us, and no one so far has found a way to stop that except by killing them first.
I think OldHagelin will be very upset when he comes home and finds you're using his computer again. You might get sent to bed without supper!
Are you up for religious genocide on a scale to dwarf the killing of all the wars in history or not?
To be honest, this is exactly what we should do
Don't be daft. The idea is not kill Muslims (or anybody), but to stop them from killing us. Accomodationists (like our hostess, it seems) have trouble understanding that.
Hopefully our federal courts will operate with top-notch efficiency and end his miserable existence within a couple of years. Ideally, there should be a few short last-minute stays, like a cat playing with a mouse.
Mark my words, I'm not a apologist here. Radical Islam, untethered for the first time in Islamic history by careful state control, is an absolutely horrifying development out of Islamic theology & culture. It's hard to imagine a worse development, because this one seems to suck all the oxygen out of each & every other form of Islam that might compete with it.
By the time we're all said & done with this, there will be tens of millions of dead Muslims, and God only knows how many millions of us.
The people who can really put the kibosh on this are the Muslims themselves, as it is a struggle for the soul of Islam. Sadly, a respect for any sort of secular wisdom died 900 years ago in Sunni Islam, and nothing has sprung forth since. I fear for the world.
I don't understand why people aren't willing to listen to Muslims and Islam when they tell us what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it. It is all explicitly laid out in the holy books of Islam. It was the same thing with Hitler and Mein Kampf.
Don't be daft. The idea is not kill Muslims (or anybody), but to stop them from killing us.
You get it. I get it. Who else gets it?
You get it. I get it. Who else gets it?
Not YH:
By the time we're all said & done with this, there will be tens of millions of dead Muslims, and God only knows how many millions of us.
It's like he's got some kind of hard-on for slaughter. Yeesh.
What would Jesus say.
@Big Mike,
Don't be daft. The idea is not kill Muslims (or anybody), but to stop them from killing us.
Gosh, I guess the whole Eastern Front of WWII can be summed up as the Soviets just trying to stop the Germans from killing them.
First you guys go on & on about how the Muslims are out, by their very nature to get all us infidels. But when you get pressed, it becomes "Oh, we just want to build our own little anti-Muslim Maginot line".
How do you keep millions of people who want to kill you from succeeding often enough (especially when you have a 1st world culture that magnifies every individual casualty) without going on the offensive & killing them? Isn't that called a war?
You ain't Jesus, lady.
I did get the sense that this was a duplicitous and carefully crafted statement.
What stood out most to me as indicating insincerity or a desire to allow the foggy-headed to read in what they want to hear was the comment about "immediately after the bombings" etc. He showed no remorse at all for days, then he went on to car-jack and murder, then he wrote the manifesto in the boat, and then he apparently showed no remorse to the FBI as they interviewed him in the hospital.
What some may WANT Those words to mean is not what they do mean.
I suspect that the lawyers told him what elements they wanted in there for a clemency appeal, and he included those elements as well as he could with uttering an explicit falsehood. At least that's the way I read it.
Isn't that called a war?
Once in a while you get something right. I have no idea where you got the "anti-Muslim Maginot line" shtick, but, basically it's a war that we didn't declare and aren't eager to prosecute. But it ends when the last surviving Muslims say whatever the Arabic equivalent of "we surrender" is.
What would Jesus say.
Before or after he was beheaded as a Christian?
What would Jesus say. [sic]
Which Jesus? The one who counseled his followers to turn the other cheek or the one who beat the snot out of the moneychangers in the temple who were just doing their job? The one who raised people from the dead or the one who cursed a fig tree for not having any fruit, even though it wasn't the proper season for bearing fruit?
C'mon and argue theology with me, ma'am, I'm an atheist and you'd think a prior that you'd win.
Jesus might say Muslims have lost their way, what with all the killing in the name of God. I'm pretty sure the Sermon on the Mount wasn't about that.
Anyone want to guess what would happen to you if you drove a car in Saudi Arabia with one of those co-exist bumper stickers on the back?
Why should anybody care what Jesus would say in some hypothetical world, according to those who would invoke Jesus in this discussion?
So who is this Rob McLean doing the Rhythm and Ball impression? I must catch his act somewhere.
Honestly Althouse, what's the point? It's so transparent now. It does drive hits- I'll give you that.
"By the time we're all said & done with this, there will be tens of millions of dead Muslims, and God only knows how many millions of us."
You might read the analysis by Tony Cordesman on an Iran-Israel nuclear exchange. He estimated 600,000 Israeli dead and 20 million Iranian dead along with millions of Egyptians. If attacked, Israel would probably take down the whole Middle East since,and I agree, they can't trust the other Arabs to take advantage of a weakened Israel and go for the kill.
He predicted the war for 2010 but his analysis is still a pretty good idea of what might happen. Of course, it was based on a weaker Iran nuclear program and Obama is doing what he can to help them.
There's nothing missing from his statement. He said what he wanted to say, regardless of whet others might deem more appropriate or politic to say on such an occasion. He also did not say why he did what he did, or why he regarded it then, and evidently now, as having been the right thing to do. Anyone listening will form his own judgment, as many in this thread plainly have.
He does not come across as someone afflicted with doubt. I wonder whether, like other true believers in a holy cause, he will embrace the role of martyr and demand a speedy execution. Having contested the death penalty at trial, that seems unlikely. But his statement today, proclaiming that there's no doubt about his guilt, didn't make much sense if he's planning to appeal.
Doing evil in the name of God.
The worst sin.
Jesus would say, and has said, Go ye into all the world and preach the message of the Kingdom of God. And also, "This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached to all nations as a witness and then the end shall come."
The END is a second coming as the Jewish Messiah as a warrior like David killing His enemies who rejected Jesus's people sent to them.
Doing evil in the name of God.
The worst sin.
Yes. Notice, for example, God's wrath poured out in the Civil War for the sin of American slavery and the invocation of God's name in support of it.
It's sad about the suffering but Allah commands it.
Islam does not play well with others.
Hopefully our federal courts will operate with top-notch efficiency and end his miserable existence within a couple of years. Ideally, there should be a few short last-minute stays, like a cat playing with a mouse.
6/24/15, 8:13 PM
Ya know, it was good enough for Tim McVeigh and John Muhammad.
I don't know -- nobody can know -- what's in his heart. Personally, I hope that he is beginning to realize what an awful thing it is that he did. But he thought he was doing what God wanted him to do, and he's clearly not ready to reject the understanding of God around which he's built his life. I hope that in whatever time is left to him on earth he comes to recognize and repent the sins he's committed. As a Christian, I believe in forgiveness, I believe that we can all be redeemed -- no matter how terrible our sins, we can be saved.
Gahrie said...
They are slaves! That's what Muslim means!
To make up for it they're also feminists and love animals, especially dogs.
"This is for that which your own hands have sent before (to the Judgment), and (know) that Allah is not a tyrant to His slaves.
Lo! the worst of beasts in Allah's sight are the ungrateful who will not believe.
O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence."
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant.
Leaving aside the fact that he was criticizing islam, a system of thought, and not muslims, what do think of the above about Disbelievers?
If you can't make that kind of distinction, you are part of the problem.
What problem?
There is so much religion in there, and the main thing that's glaringly absent is any statement that within his understanding of his religion, what he did was wrong or was anything other than what God wanted
What he seems to be saying is, that, upon reflection, murdering and injuring these people has to be considered wrong, according to his religion (but the point is not obvious, and he comes to it on;;;y by sa process of slow reasoning.)
He also indicated he didn't want anyone claiming he was innocent, and that was a good thing to do.
I like what the judge said: (in part)
What will be remembered is that you murdered and maimed innocent people and that you did it willfully and intentionally. You did it on purpose.
You tried to justify it to yourself by redefining what it is to be an innocent person so that you could convince yourself that Martin Richard was not innocent, that Lingzi Lu was not innocent, and the same for Krystle Campbell and Sean Collier and, therefore, they could be, should be killed. It was a monstrous self-deception. To accomplish it, you had to redefine yourself as well. You had to forget your own humanity, the common humanity that you shared with your brother Martin and your sister Lingzi.
It appears that you and your brother both did so under the influence of the preaching of Anwar al-Awlaki and others like him. It is tragic, for your victims and now for you, that you succumbed to that diabolical siren song. Such men are not leaders but misleaders. They induced you not to a path to glory but to a judgment of condemnation.
The judge said In Verdi’s opera Otello, the evil Iago tries to justify his malice. “Credo in un Dio crudel,” he sings. “I believe in a cruel god.” Surely someone who believes that God smiles on and rewards the deliberate killing and maiming of innocents believes in a cruel god. That is not, it cannot be, the god of Islam. Anyone who has been led to believe otherwise has been maliciously and willfully deceived.
The judge didn't need to say, and should have said, "the god of Islam" but he should say something like "any possible conception of God."
Should NOT have said "the god of Islam" (because this seems to endorse Islam as the true religion - It is possible to have a completely wrong religion.
Rather, he needed to say, "any plausible theory of what God is like"
Islam is not automatically, NOT terribly wrong. It may in fact NOT be terribly wrong, but this can't be assumed a priori (although an argument that if it had been like that, it could not have lasted so long)
YH,
There is a profound difference between recognizing the truth about a belief system and wanting to slaughter all of it's adherents. Althouse has been cocooned for decades but you've always seemed like a smart cookie.
Has there ever been anyone, anywhere who committed mass murder who delivered an adequate apology? It can't be done. There's just nothing you can say. And, anyway, the personality dynamics of someone who commits mass murder are not of the type to lead such a person to repentance or regret.
Ann Althouse said...Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant.
I still don't get the rules about when generalizations are OK and when they're not. Suspiciously it sure seems like it's ok mainly when the target is someone the Left opposes, but I'm sure there has to be more to it than that.
"What do Dylann Roof's actions say about the need for white southerners to change their backwards ways?" Acceptable.
"What does Dylann Roof's use of Confederate symbols imply about Southern states that also use Confederate symbols (and of course its appropriate to apply Roof's usage and motivations to everyone else's usage)?" Not only acceptable, but necessary and praiseworthy.
"What does Tsnarnev's interpretation of his Muslim faith say about Muslim beliefs generally (or within his community, etc)?" A hateful and ignorant generalization betraying that anyone even asking the question is "part of the problem."
Ann Althouse said...What would Jesus say?
What would Muhammad command?
Just kidding, it's offensive to even ask! Just assume it's peace and love and sunshine and happiness. Any radical militants who say otherwise are mistaken and it's hateful and ignorant to doubt the truth of that assertion, even for a moment.
Tsnarnaev alone is responsible for his actions, of course, but remember it's wrong to ask any questions about where his beliefs come from, or examine his influences, his family, his community, etc. Certainly we can't cast any blame on anyone else (or any belief systems, etc) --no one else shares his guilt.
Dlyann Roof, though....well, you get the picture.
I wrote a post a while ago the role of God in Christian vs. Islamic meta-ethics, here. While a Muslim terrorist may be following what he takes to be the teachings of Islam, some have argued further that it's the Islamic concept of God that leads to violence and terrorism. I'm a little skeptical about that because people don't usually derive their ethical beliefs from their metaphysical beliefs.
"the main thing that's glaringly absent is any statement that within his understanding of his religion, what he did was wrong or was anything other than what God wanted"
Your faux surprise shtick again, right?
Muslim killer who takes Koranic injunctions seriously thinks killing for Islam isn't wrong. "What?"
I don't think for one millisecond that he wrote that. The prose is too polished. His lawyers wrote it, though they may have had to negotiate with him over what he would and wouldn't say.
Suppose for argument's sake that there are 1.6 billion Muslims, and further suppose that a clear majority, say one billion, condemn terrorism, do not condone or excuse it, and believe terrorism to be immoral and un-Islamic. (Polls consistently show that split between Muslims who support terrorism and those who abhor it is much narrower than that.) Their problem, and ours, is the plain fact that the jihadis practice a coherent and scripturally orthodox version of Islam. When those who abhor violence and wish to live at peace with their non-Muslim neighbors debate their jihadist co-religionists they quickly run out of forensic ammunition. When this struggle is fought on religious terms the terrorist win every time.
The situation has a parallel in our own history. The overwhelming majority of abolitionists were convinced, motivated Christians, mostly congregationalist Protestants and Quakers. They tried to defeat the institution of slavery by religious appeals to other convinced, motivated Christians, mostly Presbyterians and Episcopalians who owned slaves. The reasons why abolitionism failed to peacefully settle the question of slavery are legion, but one reason that stands out is that the Christian scriptures do not explicitly condemn slavery, nor were early Christians obliged to free their slaves. It is certainly possible that some Church Fathers prior to the Council of Nicaea demanded emancipation from their followers, however the doctrine formulated by the Council was largely silent on issue, only saying that it is better that Christians free their slaves. The injunctions that could be read as hostile to slavery were so weak that the Roman Empire continued to be a slave society right up the the fall of Byzantium in 1453. Priests owned slaves, bishops owned, even Popes owned slaves. Without a long-standing Western tradition of emancipation, and without a strong scriptural condemnation of slavery the Christian abolitionists of the early 19th century were fighting a war without sufficient weapons to prevail. Debates between abolitionists and slaveholders argued in religious terms always ended in stalemate, which was of no help to the slaves. Abolitionists could thump the Bible, but the "slavocrats" could thump just as loudly.
I notice he repeated the "irreparable damage" line word for word. Dead giveaway that the whole thing was memorized.
Being a martyr in Christianity means dying spreading the Word. Being a martyr in Islam means dying making others martyrs. HUGE difference.
Althouse needs to pick up a quran and then learn some history. Islam has spread by the sword. Allah commands it to be so. It does not play well with others. Atheists are considered as big an infidel as descendants of apes and pigs (people of the Book).
What would Jesus say?
I have always found that rhetorical question to be singularly unenlightening. Jesus said a lot of things, or at least the canonical scriptures quote him on many subjects. However, since Jesus expected the world to end within the lifetime of at least one of his disciples, most of his advice tends to total passivity -- don't get married, don't have children, don't save or accumulate an estate for one's heirs, don't strive to better oneself financially or socially, accept without complaint whatever station God puts you in. If the Romans march through your village, plundering your goods and raping your daughters, don't resist. So if you have kids, a 401K, and a pantry with more food in than you can eat in a day, then vis à vis Jesus you've got some 'splainin' to do.
Unfortunately, history didn't work out as the gospel writers surmised it would. Instead of God beating down the Roman Empire with fire and brimstone, he bequeathed it lock, stock, and barrel to Christendom. Thus a people reared on a theology of non-involment in the world were confronted with responsibilities to govern and administer an empire. Perhaps those people had asked themselves "What would Jesus say?" Nevertheless they were confronted with a choice between taking up the reins of imperial power, or witnessing passively the destruction of the culture that for the most part had let them live and worship in peace. Christianity as it emerged in the 4th century was equipped with doctrines of just war and just secular government which drew entirely on the Old Testament and on non-canonical sources such as Platonic and Stoic philosophy, the New testament being largely useless regarding questions of state. The plain fact is what we accept as Christendom owes more to the pagans than we'd like to admit.
Islam, on the other hand, is an empire-building theology with statecraft, administration, civil law, and a war-fighting doctrine built right in. When a Muslim asks the question "What would Mohammad say?" he's got lots of ready answers on the subjects of war and propagation of the faith.
(typos fixed)
Q -
I generally find your posts to be long-winded and bland and thus usually cannot make it through the first paragraph. Your post @ 3:08, however, is very interesting and thought-provoking. Bravo! Nicely crafted!
"@Rob,
Come on, Rob. Stop with the stupid insults & answer the question: tell us all just how many millions of people you feel we'll need to kill to fix this problem."
My answer is simple. All of them.
A question I put to people. On leadership. One of your planes is downed near an enemy town. Another fully armed plane is loitering waiting for the rescue chopper to show up. The chopper is 20 minutes out.
Q1: A 5 man patrol comes out from the town headed for the burning plane and survivors. The loitering pilot asks for weapon release. Do you grant it?
Q2: A 100 man company comes out from the town. Do you grant weapons release to kill 100 to save 2?
Q3: The entire town sets out to the crash site, men, women, children, and babes in arms. Do you grant weapons release to kill them all, including the innocent babes in arms in order to save your men?
If the answer is no to any of those 3 questions- you have no business leading men in war. The lives of the men you command are more important then the lives of the enemy- regardless of how many there are.
Same with civilizations. If you have to wipe out another to save yours, too bad, so sad. It doesn't turn you into monsters. Towards the end of WWII SS troops and officers captured in Europe routinely didn't make it to POW camps. They'd be executed on the spot. By SGTs, officers, PVTs, whatever. The equation was: SS=evil, and evil must be killed. In the Pacific, allied forces stopped taking Japanese prisoners. Too many instances of false surrender followed by ambush.
Yet the men who performed such actions came back to civilian life after the war, and functioned in a civilized manner around civilized people. It is possible to switch modes as needs dictate.
If a mob were attacking your house- a mob- threatening everyone within- how many of them would you be willing to kill to protect your own life? Again, my answer- all of them.
Strikes me as being the height of hubris, the epitome of arrogance, the pinnacle of presumtuousness, to speak for G.d.
Whether peon, terrorist, or Pope.
Harold:
You may not realize it,
but your reasoning is exactly the same as al-Qaeda:
Mass murder of enemy populations (including children) is regrettable but necessary in war.
Genocidist vs. genocidist.
It's a pity they can't both lose.
Ann Althouse said...
What would Jesus say.
Sell your cloak and buy a sword?
Which I take to mean, defend yourself.
Is the percentage of Muslims actively engaged in violence appreciably different from the percentage of Nazis that were actively engaged in violence?
Doesn't Althouse believe that most people who profess religious beliefs don't really believe them?
Can victims of Islamist violence make the same inferences about Islam that victims of racist violence make about the Stars and Bars?
"...the main thing that's glaringly absent is any statement that within his understanding of his religion, what he did was wrong or was anything other than what God wanted. I'm hearing: I'm empathetic about the death and suffering, but it was all part of a difficult mission I was called upon to carry out."
This is the sort of rationale we put forth when our military actions kill innocent non-combatants. Such deaths--the deaths of real people, with lives and hopes and loved ones--are neatly summed up and swept out of sight as "collateral damage." "Regrettable--oh, so regrettable--but unavoidable in our defense (sic) of freedom (sic)."
Sinz52, rightly chiding commenter Harold, said:
"You may not realize it,
but your reasoning is exactly the same as al-Qaeda:
"Mass murder of enemy populations (including children) is regrettable but necessary in war."
Again, this is the reasoning in every case where one band of people inflict violence on another band of people. It was (and remains) our rationale for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Harold also said:
"Same with civilizations. If you have to wipe out another to save yours, too bad, so sad. It doesn't turn you into monsters."
Well, yes...yes it does.
"Ann Althouse said...
Each individual is responsible for his religion. Your generalization about Muslims is hateful and ignorant."
Wow. Tsarnaev's religion is not his alone, nor were his actions. He did not read the Koran and say "Hey, time to kill some infidels". No, he was influenced by his brother, who was influenced by a radical imam with ties to Al Qaeda. This crap goes on abroad as well as here in the US. And is if not followed is generally accepted by the Muslim population.
The ignorance is yours.
Ann Althouse apparently has a taste for cheap controversialism.
Ann Althouse apparently has a taste for cheap controversialism.
Maybe. What's interesting to me is how she uses the word "ignorant" to mean "unaware of what the self-appointed culturally elite pretend to be true" instead of the more accurate "unaware of facts".
Rich said...
Being a martyr in Christianity means dying spreading the Word. Being a martyr in Islam means dying making others martyrs. HUGE difference.
Framed that way, the current situation sounds sadomasochistic. Aggression vs. Passivity.
I'm Sorry.
Minor correction to my comment posted at 8:09. I reread the passage in Chris Kyle's autobiography (it's on page 3). He does not describe the woman's child as a toddler in her arms. He just says that she exited the building "with her child." He does believe that her child was very much at risk when she pulled the Chinese hand grenade out from under her clothing to attack the Marines.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali apparently believes Islam can be reformed, although she admits that doing so would require abrogating some significant parts of the Qur'an.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/03/23/ayaan-hirsi-ali-reform-best-weapon-against-radical-islam/gUvfubXPEEcYJIYg8OkY6K/story.html?event=event25#
Yet the word "Reformation" is treacherous here, for the Reformation as it played out in early modern Europe was based on the assumption that the sole authority as to what was or was not Christian was Christian scripture itelf. Yet if Islam is to have a "reformation," it apparently must abrogate significant parts of its scripture in order to be able to exist peacefully with non-Muslims.
Consider, for example, the Islamic State (ISIS, or ISIL). They have declared a Caliphate, and appear to be doing their best to emulate the Prophet Mohammad, especially as he behaved later in life when he'd become a supremely successful warlord. And who, either Muslim or non-Muslim, can say this is not truly the purest and most authentic Islam?
One can only hope Ayaan Hirsi Ali is correct, yet, what she is calling for is not "reformation" as the term is understood in European and Christian history, but something far more radical. Islam was founded by a warlord; why would anyone be surprised to find a duty to wage holy war in its scripture?
It's just very hard to find anything equivalent in other major religions. Jewish Scripture contains a good deal of violence, yet observant Jews do not even proselytize (let alone attempt swordpoint conversions), and the Christian New Testament explicitly declares a new covenant. Nor can one find anything similar to the Islamic duty of Jihad in Hindu or Buddhist scripture.
One of these is not like the others, yet Ann Althouse thinks it "hateful and ignorant" to point this out.
Perhaps Islam can reform itself so it can, as other major religions in the world today have, exist without demanding that fateful choice of "convert, submit, or die" to unbelievers whenever and wherever it has the power to force that choice. Perhaps, but no (including most Muslims) really knows if that's possible. In the meantime, it seems only prudent to maintain some separation between liberal, secular democracies and Islam.
Presumably Ann Althouse also thinks that demand for separation "hateful and ignorant." But the French may disagree when, sometime around 2050, that most secular of nations becomes Europe's first Islamic Republic, and Sharia totally replaces their existing legal system.
Althouse should watch this video excerpt from a speech given by Sam Harris.
"what she is calling for is not "reformation" as the term is understood in European and Christian history, but something far more radical"
When people blithely call for the "reformation" of a religion, they seem to forget that the 'reformation' of Christianity was a very, very, very bloody affair.
Supremacists
The 70 year Pax Americana from American military forces used and leading from the front stopped regional wars. But that has been carefully disassembled by Obama the evil planner and by Hillary the opportunist for profits. The "unexpected" result that were unleashed by various new war/Jihad has erased many of the old boundaries between Sunni Islamic countries and Shia Islamic countries and non Islamic countries.
It is the cruelist thing seen in my lifetime. Refugees are now invading Europe in a flood. So far Egypt has escaped by the skin of its teeth and Israel and Hashemite Jordan are still strong much to Obama's disappointment. But Libya and Syria have not escaped and are only merciless killing fields.
One has to wonder why this was done. It was not really "unexpected" by anyone.
Rusty beat me to it. "Sell your cloak and buy a sword." I bought a Taurus Judge Public Defender instead, but I didn't have to sell my cloak. It was on sale at Academy.
"The 70 year Pax Americana from American military forces used and leading from the front stopped regional wars. But that has been carefully disassembled by Obama the evil planner and by Hillary the opportunist for profits."
Oh, don't give Obama/Clinton all the credit...Li'l Georgie Bush can be given much of the credit with his illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, from whence all the rest has bloomed.
@ken, a Taurus can be very good but quality control is an issue. Recommend you get to a range and check it out. Some people love theirs and others report nothing but trouble. Friends who own the judge tell me that the .410 shotgun shells makes it a great snake killer.
Anyway, when I read this it occurred to me that even my basic disgust at Muslim males gives them credit for too much humanity. The money quote from this 2010 report:
"The predominant offender profile of Pakistani Muslim males... combined with the predominant victim profile of white females has the potential to cause significant community tensions.
There is a potential for a backlash against the vast majority of law abiding citizens from Asian/Pakistani communities from other members of the community believing their children have been exploited.
These factors, combined with an EDL protest in Dudley in April and a General Election in May could notably increase community tension."
Note that this is not Rotherham, a community that will live in infamy, but another location in England.
Li'l Georgie Bush can be given much of the credit with his illegal invasions
But you're fine with Putin's invasion of the Ukraine..right?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali apparently believes Islam can be reformed, although she admits that doing so would require abrogating some significant parts of the Qur'an
This statement alone is enough to get her executed, or life in prison, for apostasy in every majority Muslim country on the planet. That is why Islam cannot be reformed or moderate, to even suggest it is to risk death.
The fundamental duty of every Muslim is to do exactly what Allah and Muhammad have told you to do, and to do it exactly the way they have told you to do it.
Gahrie said...
Li'l Georgie Bush can be given much of the credit with his illegal invasions
But you're fine with Putin's invasion of the Ukraine..right?
Wrong question. It is a fact that any country that cannot defend themselves against an overwhelming aggressor deserve the resulting outcome.
Better question. What has Ukraine ever done for us? The bastards.
Gahrie said:
"But you're fine with Putin's invasion of the Ukraine..right?"
There you go again...believing propaganda promulgated by the United States.
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