No, because then it will cost the shareholders, not the managers who made the decisions. Those guys will still get their bonus by saying at the stockholders' AGM: "We deserve bonuses because it would have been worse without our skilled intervention."
Don't fine the company, that punishes the wrong people.
Gee, you sure showed me. I'm such a putz. Good thing you were there to show me the error of my ways. You win, I lose. You smart, me dumb. I apologize for causing you inconvenience. Please accept my humility before your gracious excellence.
Look. I did not say portable computing was invented in the 90s, I said it became commonplace in the 90s. The original conversation was about market trends, not the time things were invented.
Oh yea also, from the Wikipedia article you linked: "The Gateway Handbook was a very small and lightweight subnotebook originally introduced by Gateway Computers in 1992..."
1992 is in the 90s, so unless you had a time machine, that wasn't lying around your house on Dec 31, 1989.
Settle down, you'll give yourself a nosebleed. Perhaps I was a little... enthusiastic in my description of how rare portable computers were in 1990, but here's a chart with data from Morgan Stanley Research that shows that laptop sales growth only really started accelerating at the end of the 90s, and only finally overtook PC sales in 2009. In 1995, when the chart's data begins, desktop PCs were the overwhelming norm. I was unable to find data that went back to 1990. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to presume that the proportional disparity between desktop PCs and portable PCs would have been higher, given that the cost difference between them is higher the further back you go. Perhaps your Google-fu is better than mine and you can find 1990-1995 data that shows that I'm wrong.
So my statement, that the 90s ushered in the era in which portable computing became commonplace, stands. Also, go easy on the ad-hominems dude. We're all friends here.
The 90s saw PCs fade in relevance and laptops become more commonplace. In 1991 a portable computer was a rare and expensive novelty, restricted to people with military grade budgets and business expense accounts that include annual maintenance costs in the private jet. By 2000 laptop sales outnumbered PC sales.
The 90s saw the emergence of mobile computing. That's a pretty big shift, and it ticks your "devices, jackass" checkbox.
It's good when the science is accurate, that doesn't happen often enough. I remember watching the Ninja Turtles movie and practically screaming at my wife:
Me: They just got bled almost dry and now they're being given ADRENALINE?! That wouldn't wake them up, it'd put them into cardiac arrest!!! Her: It's a movie about sewer dwelling mutant turtles, taught by a mutant rat, fighting a ninja war in America, and THAT'S your plot hole?
I, too, am a Concorde enthusiast. But this is financial lunacy. The cost per seat flight is too high, and maintaining an aircraft will require them to assemble a small army of maintenance guys and engineers who do not have a ready market for Concorde related skills, meaning they will require specialist training programs as well as a small industry to keep parts supplies flowing. All for ONE AIRCRAFT.
Not going to happen. Never. I bet this is just a scam to get rich people with too much money to hand over about... oh... say $160 million?
I do concede that there is little by way of historically accepted evidence supporting the CIA's Libya involvement. However, that Ghaddafi was anti-West isn't any indication of his suitability. After he took power, Libya nationalized all its oil interests, the majority of which were British, and the oil flowed freely on the open market. Britain lost a large amount of its pricing power in the petroleum market. That, too, was very good for US interests. Read into it what you will.
The CIA supported Saddam at one time, and he was never pro-West. They supported bin-Laden, and he at best had a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" attitude towards the west. Pakistan's ISI still receives massive support from the US, and it's not like Pakistan sings the West's praise. The politics of military support goes well beyond public rhetoric.
you're telling me you would love to leave a non-Muslim country to return to a Muslim dominated area? Interesting.
I love living in Australia. I find the place welcoming, civilized (aside from Australian rules football, but don't tell my mates that or I'm out), and prosperous.
However, if I were given the opportunity to enjoy these benefits in a country where I have religion in common with everyone else, I'd go. And I really, don't see how you consider this to be "interesting" rather than obvious.
Saddam and Assad arose as heads of POPULAR movements.
They are both Ba'athists despite their rivalry. Ba'athism cannot even be described as a "significant minority" in either Iraq or Syria. My history is just fine, thank you very much.
What role did the West play in Ghaddafi's rise?
In the late 1960s, King Idris was on the way out, and every political analyst knew it was inevitable. The CIA was active in the country at the time, attempting to ensure that whatever transition took place, Western oil interests would be preserved. Ghaddafi's FOM group were presumably identified as conducive (despite public anti-West rhetoric), and so were provided with intelligence and logistical support which allowed them to successfully pull off a coup. There are numerous reports by FOM members of meetings that took place with operatives from the US. Nonetheless, this has since been denied by the CIA.
While I suppose no hard evidence has emerged of the West's role in Ghaddafi's rise like in the case of Pinnochet or Bin Laden, I do point out that picking the winner from a bunch of rebel groups to "manage" the transition from a failing state is pretty much the CIA's main MO. If they were NOT involved, they'd have been specifically failing in the job that they are assigned.
I'm not an expert in the interpretation of hadith, so I can neither verify that that is an accurate translation, nor can I comment on its significance in deriving a religious rule.
However, I CAN say without a shadow of a doubt that all of the passages that talk about the killing of non-Muslims are in the context of warfare, where there are very strict rules in place. The hard religious principles that apply to this sort of thing include things like:
1) One may not attack a person who is a civilian. There is no such thing as "acceptable collateral damage". 2) One may not attack a person who does not pose a threat, or who is not an active participant in war. So there's no justification for, say, bombing the cafeteria at the civilian head office of a military contractor that makes bombs, or any other civilian target. 3) One may not kill a person merely because of their belief. The principle that there is no compulsion in religion is a hard principle with no exceptions. 4) One may not deliberately kill oneself in battle, or deliberately sacrifice oneself by one's own hand. So suicide bombing and/or harakiri is out.
Whatever the sound bites that get paraded may indicate, these principles are hard principles that any Muslim you ask will know about. Feel free to print them out as-is, just as I've stated them here, and take them to your nearest mosque and ask the people you find there if they agree with them all. I'd be surprised if you find a single person who says "well, I think we could be flexible on one or more of those".
If you're really interested, I can ask my local scholars about the background and context for this particular reference and get back to you. These recounted sayings obviously took place in the context of conversations, and the rest of the conversation's context and lead up are as important as the quoted phrase itself. Feel free to email me, my address is Nazeer Gassiep at gma il dott com, and I'll get back to you with a full explanation of that in a day or two. Alternatively, visit your nearest mosque and ask the Imam there. Or do both, and compare the answers.
"I don't personally believe these statistics, therefore they are false"
Well, I go so far into the article as to verify that the article said 61% when the referenced research paper said 8%. So I'm not denying the statistics, I'm denying the article.
How about the survey in 2006 showing the large minority of Muslims in the UK supporting Sharia law?
So what? I support Shari'ah law. Do I support its implementation in Australia and the forcible subjugation of my countrymen to it? No. The Qur'an clearly states that there is no compulsion in religion. It is a core tenet of our faith, that forced belief, or even blind, unquestioning belief, is not belief. Belief is a sincere internal state of a person, not merely forced or imitated actions or words.
This question gets asked all the time to Muslims, and the answer gets misinterpreted all the time. If the asked question is "Do you support Shari'ah law?" then Muslims will answer yes every single time, just like a Jew would answer yes to "Do you support Halakhah?", and a Buddhist would answer yes to "Do you support Dharma?". How a journalist looking to sell papers writes up those answers is another matter entirely.
You sound like a sane, good person, like so many other Muslims I know.
Awww shucks:)
That doesn't change the fact that Islam, along with the other Abrahamic religions, is a brutal, archaic religion that needs to be left to history.
That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. I invite you to actually go to your local mosque and ask whatever community members you find there to sit down with you and answer any questions you may have that have led you to this conclusion. I think you'll find that spending time and having the common misconceptions dispelled will change your opinion.
I call BS. I specifically do work in my community in de-radicalisation efforts, and also liaise with other efforts internationally. I seek out people like this, and I have to tell you, they're pretty hard to find. Admittedly, I'm in Australia, but if there are anything like double digit percentage chunks of our community who sympathize with bombers, I'd know about it. I'd be surprised of the number of Muslims who condone terrorism is above 1%.
The mosque I usually attend is mainly a Turkish community. My wife is Turkish, and I've spent time there specifically discussing global politics with them. Once again, there's no way almost 1 in 3 support suicide attacks in any form against anyone. Suicide attacks are, in any Islam 101 class, specifically ruled out, and the fact that brainwashed youngsters are conned into it doesn't change that fact. No mainstream Muslim who has had a modicum of Islamic education would condone a prohibited act....
Looking down the rest of these "surveys", I can only speculate that they are the result of very skewed research, or perhaps loose interpretation of the answers to leading questions. Also, looking into the actual paper referenced in the one that states "World Public Opinion: 61% of Egyptians approve of attacks on Americans" I found that the actual research results showed that only 8% of Egyptians approved of attacks on Americans in America, and 7% approved of attacks on Americans working abroad (I'd have thought it'd go the other way, but meh). I was not able to find 61% approval of attacks anywhere.
At this point, I shall terminate evaluating that site, it's clearly (and I'm being charitable with my wording here) badly mistaken in the facts it is presenting.
Well, in January of this year I was part of a youth camp where we ran a program which explained to young Muslims the rules of warfare in Islam. A quick summary: 1. Killing anyone of any faith is never allowed unless they are a direct threat to you personally. 2. The state may not declare war on any other nation or group unless that group has first declared war or physically attacked first. There is no such thing as a "preemptive strike". 3. Under no circumstances may prisoner of war be killed while a prisoner. 4. Under no circumstances may a civilian be killed in the course of war. There is no such thing as "acceptable collateral damage".
To answer your other points: 1. It is forbidden to compel anyone to convert. A person's belief is an internal thing, and forcing them to say something does not make a believer out of them anyway. 2. Insults have traditionally been ignored in Islam. Unfortunately, in the age of the modern media, it's just too easy for an angry mob to form. Most educated Muslims just didn't care about the cartoons, but there are enough angry fools out there that things got out of control.
Muslims need intelligent leaders, not the current set of professional bullshitters.
And I think every Muslim who are not professional bullshitters or in their employment would agree with you. Stop the foreign support of the tinpot maniacs who are running the countries that make up the Muslim world, and Muslims will clean them out pretty quick smart.
Muslims would love to bugger off to a Muslim country. Except that Muslim countries are ruled by tinpot dictators who are all financed by external powers looking to expend their sphere of influence. Saddam, Ghaddafi, Assad, Mobarek, Sisi... all products of foreign powers. That's even true of the groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Leave our countries alone, and we'll go back there faster than you can say "They hate are freedums".
Quran (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."
OK so God is saying that he'll be unhappy with those who disbelieve. What's that got to do with me?
Quran (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"
If you read the immediate preceding verse, it is clear that this refers to those who have declared war against Muslims and have attacked without provocation. In fact it's right there in this one too. The following verse makes it clear that all are to be spared punishment if they cease fighting. Furthermore, punishments are only to be enacted by a valid government; it's not like any random person off the street can implement the rules of punishment.
Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"
Nice picking half the verse. This is a story contained in the Qur'an of the instruction given to angels during the course of a historic battle. The verse begins: "When God said to the angels:..."
Thank you for playing "Take Things Out Of Context", better luck next time.
The Qur'an is the most widely memorized book in history. It's print production is arguably the most tightly controlled and thoroughly verified print project in existence today. I most certainly do NOT have a copy that differs in any way from the authentic text that has been in circulation for around 1,400 years. Whatever your view of the Qur'an may be, historians both Muslim and non-Muslim agree that it's historical authenticity back to the time of Muhammad is certain.
Consider what harm the quran incites. Why would you want to inflict this on others?
I treat people in accordance with the principles in the Qur'an. It's why I do my best to conduct my business in an honest way, it's why I help my neighbours any time I see they need (no, they aren't Muslim), it's why I get involved in community work assisting the homeless and other people in need, etc.
If someone burned your book would you try to kill them?
Why? It's a bunch of paper. I have no reason to take it personally, and the vast majority of Muslims feel the same, notwithstanding the lunatics the media loves to parade.
Do you believe in cutting off human female sex organs? How about cutting off a human male's penis?
FGM and castration are both forbidden in the religion, with no exceptions. FGM occurs as a cultural thing in some places that happen to be Muslim. It also happens in places where the population are not Muslim. But it has nothing at all to do with Islam.
Would you do anything prescribed in the quran?
I do my best already to live my life according to the Qur'an.
From the looks of it Islam has declared war. On everyone. And itself.
From the looks of it, yes. So perhaps, rather than going by "the looks of it", you do some research, go to your nearest mosque, meet some Muslims, tell them you're an infidel, and then watch in horror as they... do precisely nothing.
Musilms have been at war with everyone else since the Crusades.
Umm... I have no words...
You're aware that the Crusades were a wholly unprovoked war waged by Europe against Muslim lands, right? And you're aware that when General Allenby marched into Jerusalem in WW1 he declared "now the Crusades are finally complete", right? And you're aware that Bush declared the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to be a "new Crusade", right?
Perhaps not, but what have Muslims and the Middle East done for us lately other than cause problems?
Last I checked, your army is there, and not the other way around. And nobody buys the whole "we're stopping a repeat of 9/11 and they hate our freedoms" BS any more.
What matters is that the Middle East keeps making their problems our problems while contributing essentially nothing, except oil, to the progress of humanity.
And how are the middle easterners doing that? Are they sending planes and warships to your territory? Tell me, before the whole "War on Terror" thing, how many times did a middle easterner cause a problem in the US? According to Europol, less than 1% of terrorist attacks in Europe were carried out by Muslims. According to the FBI, 94% of terrorist acts in the US between 1985 and 2005 were carried out by non-Muslims.
The US foreign aid budget is far too small to bankroll the dictatorships of the Middle East.
That's because the aid budget does not include military aid, logistical support, or black op support of rebel groups. These things are specifically and carefully hidden from the public, and hidden in the military budget. Where do the expenses for the CIA's operations in Chile in the 70s show up in the aid budget?
Then why don't they stand up and fight instead of running away to Europe and begging for help?
They are farmers. Their governments are sporting high end weaponry courtesy of foreign powers. Taking your family into a war zone and going up against machine guns with a pitchfork is not bravery, it's stupidity.
If the Muslims oppose the barbarians of ISIS, why don't they march their armies into Syria and wipe them out?
Which armies? The ones commanded by the lunatics in charge who have no interest in stability and are only interested in preserving their own power?
Americans are perfectly willing to tolerate other people's beliefs.
After all, freedom to say what you want and believe what you want are top of the list in the US Constitution.
I suppose I'd be better off talking from a free speech zone, then.
But respect is a two way street and many Muslims don't seem to understand that. Instead, they want special protections and accommodations, which of course we cannot allow since doing so would completely undermine our fundamental rights to speak freely and associate (or not) with whomever we wish.
No. The ONLY thing we want from the US, the UK, and other foreign powers is that they stop interfering with the internal politics of Muslim nations by arming, financing, or supporting certain groups and then blaming us for the consequences. We want them to stop creating groups like the Taliban when a proxy fighting group is needed to fight the enemy of the day, and then later acting like the Taliban are a Muslim problem.
Remove foreign interference, and the lunatics will be gone the next day.
Dude, I'm a regular guy with a regular life. If you think I'm sitting in a dark room plotting global Islamic domination then you're the pathological xenophobe, not me.
Slashdot Mirror
No, because then it will cost the shareholders, not the managers who made the decisions. Those guys will still get their bonus by saying at the stockholders' AGM: "We deserve bonuses because it would have been worse without our skilled intervention."
Don't fine the company, that punishes the wrong people.
Jail the board of directors.
lol
Gee, you sure showed me. I'm such a putz. Good thing you were there to show me the error of my ways.
You win, I lose.
You smart, me dumb.
I apologize for causing you inconvenience.
Please accept my humility before your gracious excellence.
Look. I did not say portable computing was invented in the 90s, I said it became commonplace in the 90s. The original conversation was about market trends, not the time things were invented.
You're just being obtuse.
Oh yea also, from the Wikipedia article you linked:
"The Gateway Handbook was a very small and lightweight subnotebook originally introduced by Gateway Computers in 1992..."
1992 is in the 90s, so unless you had a time machine, that wasn't lying around your house on Dec 31, 1989.
Settle down, you'll give yourself a nosebleed.
Perhaps I was a little... enthusiastic in my description of how rare portable computers were in 1990, but here's a chart with data from Morgan Stanley Research that shows that laptop sales growth only really started accelerating at the end of the 90s, and only finally overtook PC sales in 2009. In 1995, when the chart's data begins, desktop PCs were the overwhelming norm. I was unable to find data that went back to 1990. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to presume that the proportional disparity between desktop PCs and portable PCs would have been higher, given that the cost difference between them is higher the further back you go. Perhaps your Google-fu is better than mine and you can find 1990-1995 data that shows that I'm wrong.
So my statement, that the 90s ushered in the era in which portable computing became commonplace, stands. Also, go easy on the ad-hominems dude. We're all friends here.
The 90s saw PCs fade in relevance and laptops become more commonplace. In 1991 a portable computer was a rare and expensive novelty, restricted to people with military grade budgets and business expense accounts that include annual maintenance costs in the private jet. By 2000 laptop sales outnumbered PC sales.
The 90s saw the emergence of mobile computing. That's a pretty big shift, and it ticks your "devices, jackass" checkbox.
I said nothing of the sort, and that kind of deliberate misquoting is pretty dishonest.
It's good when the science is accurate, that doesn't happen often enough. I remember watching the Ninja Turtles movie and practically screaming at my wife:
Me: They just got bled almost dry and now they're being given ADRENALINE?! That wouldn't wake them up, it'd put them into cardiac arrest!!!
Her: It's a movie about sewer dwelling mutant turtles, taught by a mutant rat, fighting a ninja war in America, and THAT'S your plot hole?
I, too, am a Concorde enthusiast. But this is financial lunacy. The cost per seat flight is too high, and maintaining an aircraft will require them to assemble a small army of maintenance guys and engineers who do not have a ready market for Concorde related skills, meaning they will require specialist training programs as well as a small industry to keep parts supplies flowing. All for ONE AIRCRAFT.
Not going to happen. Never. I bet this is just a scam to get rich people with too much money to hand over about... oh... say $160 million?
I do concede that there is little by way of historically accepted evidence supporting the CIA's Libya involvement. However, that Ghaddafi was anti-West isn't any indication of his suitability. After he took power, Libya nationalized all its oil interests, the majority of which were British, and the oil flowed freely on the open market. Britain lost a large amount of its pricing power in the petroleum market. That, too, was very good for US interests. Read into it what you will.
The CIA supported Saddam at one time, and he was never pro-West. They supported bin-Laden, and he at best had a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" attitude towards the west. Pakistan's ISI still receives massive support from the US, and it's not like Pakistan sings the West's praise. The politics of military support goes well beyond public rhetoric.
I love living in Australia. I find the place welcoming, civilized (aside from Australian rules football, but don't tell my mates that or I'm out), and prosperous.
However, if I were given the opportunity to enjoy these benefits in a country where I have religion in common with everyone else, I'd go. And I really, don't see how you consider this to be "interesting" rather than obvious.
They are both Ba'athists despite their rivalry. Ba'athism cannot even be described as a "significant minority" in either Iraq or Syria. My history is just fine, thank you very much.
In the late 1960s, King Idris was on the way out, and every political analyst knew it was inevitable. The CIA was active in the country at the time, attempting to ensure that whatever transition took place, Western oil interests would be preserved. Ghaddafi's FOM group were presumably identified as conducive (despite public anti-West rhetoric), and so were provided with intelligence and logistical support which allowed them to successfully pull off a coup. There are numerous reports by FOM members of meetings that took place with operatives from the US. Nonetheless, this has since been denied by the CIA.
While I suppose no hard evidence has emerged of the West's role in Ghaddafi's rise like in the case of Pinnochet or Bin Laden, I do point out that picking the winner from a bunch of rebel groups to "manage" the transition from a failing state is pretty much the CIA's main MO. If they were NOT involved, they'd have been specifically failing in the job that they are assigned.
I'm not an expert in the interpretation of hadith, so I can neither verify that that is an accurate translation, nor can I comment on its significance in deriving a religious rule.
However, I CAN say without a shadow of a doubt that all of the passages that talk about the killing of non-Muslims are in the context of warfare, where there are very strict rules in place. The hard religious principles that apply to this sort of thing include things like:
1) One may not attack a person who is a civilian. There is no such thing as "acceptable collateral damage".
2) One may not attack a person who does not pose a threat, or who is not an active participant in war. So there's no justification for, say, bombing the cafeteria at the civilian head office of a military contractor that makes bombs, or any other civilian target.
3) One may not kill a person merely because of their belief. The principle that there is no compulsion in religion is a hard principle with no exceptions.
4) One may not deliberately kill oneself in battle, or deliberately sacrifice oneself by one's own hand. So suicide bombing and/or harakiri is out.
Whatever the sound bites that get paraded may indicate, these principles are hard principles that any Muslim you ask will know about. Feel free to print them out as-is, just as I've stated them here, and take them to your nearest mosque and ask the people you find there if they agree with them all. I'd be surprised if you find a single person who says "well, I think we could be flexible on one or more of those".
If you're really interested, I can ask my local scholars about the background and context for this particular reference and get back to you. These recounted sayings obviously took place in the context of conversations, and the rest of the conversation's context and lead up are as important as the quoted phrase itself. Feel free to email me, my address is Nazeer Gassiep at gma il dott com, and I'll get back to you with a full explanation of that in a day or two. Alternatively, visit your nearest mosque and ask the Imam there. Or do both, and compare the answers.
Well, I go so far into the article as to verify that the article said 61% when the referenced research paper said 8%. So I'm not denying the statistics, I'm denying the article.
So what? I support Shari'ah law. Do I support its implementation in Australia and the forcible subjugation of my countrymen to it? No. The Qur'an clearly states that there is no compulsion in religion. It is a core tenet of our faith, that forced belief, or even blind, unquestioning belief, is not belief. Belief is a sincere internal state of a person, not merely forced or imitated actions or words.
This question gets asked all the time to Muslims, and the answer gets misinterpreted all the time. If the asked question is "Do you support Shari'ah law?" then Muslims will answer yes every single time, just like a Jew would answer yes to "Do you support Halakhah?", and a Buddhist would answer yes to "Do you support Dharma?". How a journalist looking to sell papers writes up those answers is another matter entirely.
Awww shucks :)
That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. I invite you to actually go to your local mosque and ask whatever community members you find there to sit down with you and answer any questions you may have that have led you to this conclusion. I think you'll find that spending time and having the common misconceptions dispelled will change your opinion.
Posting as AC means you likely won't get my response. But here goes:
I call BS. I specifically do work in my community in de-radicalisation efforts, and also liaise with other efforts internationally. I seek out people like this, and I have to tell you, they're pretty hard to find. Admittedly, I'm in Australia, but if there are anything like double digit percentage chunks of our community who sympathize with bombers, I'd know about it. I'd be surprised of the number of Muslims who condone terrorism is above 1%.
The mosque I usually attend is mainly a Turkish community. My wife is Turkish, and I've spent time there specifically discussing global politics with them. Once again, there's no way almost 1 in 3 support suicide attacks in any form against anyone. Suicide attacks are, in any Islam 101 class, specifically ruled out, and the fact that brainwashed youngsters are conned into it doesn't change that fact. No mainstream Muslim who has had a modicum of Islamic education would condone a prohibited act. ...
Looking down the rest of these "surveys", I can only speculate that they are the result of very skewed research, or perhaps loose interpretation of the answers to leading questions. Also, looking into the actual paper referenced in the one that states "World Public Opinion: 61% of Egyptians approve of attacks on Americans" I found that the actual research results showed that only 8% of Egyptians approved of attacks on Americans in America, and 7% approved of attacks on Americans working abroad (I'd have thought it'd go the other way, but meh). I was not able to find 61% approval of attacks anywhere.
At this point, I shall terminate evaluating that site, it's clearly (and I'm being charitable with my wording here) badly mistaken in the facts it is presenting.
Damn. You got me. I better dispose of the dynamite underpants I have hidden under my bed before the cops arrive.
Yea, and I planted it under your bed. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Well, in January of this year I was part of a youth camp where we ran a program which explained to young Muslims the rules of warfare in Islam. A quick summary:
1. Killing anyone of any faith is never allowed unless they are a direct threat to you personally.
2. The state may not declare war on any other nation or group unless that group has first declared war or physically attacked first. There is no such thing as a "preemptive strike".
3. Under no circumstances may prisoner of war be killed while a prisoner.
4. Under no circumstances may a civilian be killed in the course of war. There is no such thing as "acceptable collateral damage".
To answer your other points:
1. It is forbidden to compel anyone to convert. A person's belief is an internal thing, and forcing them to say something does not make a believer out of them anyway.
2. Insults have traditionally been ignored in Islam. Unfortunately, in the age of the modern media, it's just too easy for an angry mob to form. Most educated Muslims just didn't care about the cartoons, but there are enough angry fools out there that things got out of control.
And I think every Muslim who are not professional bullshitters or in their employment would agree with you. Stop the foreign support of the tinpot maniacs who are running the countries that make up the Muslim world, and Muslims will clean them out pretty quick smart.
Muslims would love to bugger off to a Muslim country. Except that Muslim countries are ruled by tinpot dictators who are all financed by external powers looking to expend their sphere of influence. Saddam, Ghaddafi, Assad, Mobarek, Sisi... all products of foreign powers. That's even true of the groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Leave our countries alone, and we'll go back there faster than you can say "They hate are freedums".
OK so God is saying that he'll be unhappy with those who disbelieve. What's that got to do with me?
If you read the immediate preceding verse, it is clear that this refers to those who have declared war against Muslims and have attacked without provocation. In fact it's right there in this one too. The following verse makes it clear that all are to be spared punishment if they cease fighting. Furthermore, punishments are only to be enacted by a valid government; it's not like any random person off the street can implement the rules of punishment.
Nice picking half the verse. This is a story contained in the Qur'an of the instruction given to angels during the course of a historic battle. The verse begins: "When God said to the angels: ..."
Thank you for playing "Take Things Out Of Context", better luck next time.
The Qur'an is the most widely memorized book in history. It's print production is arguably the most tightly controlled and thoroughly verified print project in existence today. I most certainly do NOT have a copy that differs in any way from the authentic text that has been in circulation for around 1,400 years. Whatever your view of the Qur'an may be, historians both Muslim and non-Muslim agree that it's historical authenticity back to the time of Muhammad is certain.
I treat people in accordance with the principles in the Qur'an. It's why I do my best to conduct my business in an honest way, it's why I help my neighbours any time I see they need (no, they aren't Muslim), it's why I get involved in community work assisting the homeless and other people in need, etc.
Why? It's a bunch of paper. I have no reason to take it personally, and the vast majority of Muslims feel the same, notwithstanding the lunatics the media loves to parade.
FGM and castration are both forbidden in the religion, with no exceptions. FGM occurs as a cultural thing in some places that happen to be Muslim. It also happens in places where the population are not Muslim. But it has nothing at all to do with Islam.
I do my best already to live my life according to the Qur'an.
From the looks of it, yes. So perhaps, rather than going by "the looks of it", you do some research, go to your nearest mosque, meet some Muslims, tell them you're an infidel, and then watch in horror as they... do precisely nothing.
Umm... I have no words...
You're aware that the Crusades were a wholly unprovoked war waged by Europe against Muslim lands, right? And you're aware that when General Allenby marched into Jerusalem in WW1 he declared "now the Crusades are finally complete", right? And you're aware that Bush declared the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to be a "new Crusade", right?
Care to try again?
Last I checked, your army is there, and not the other way around. And nobody buys the whole "we're stopping a repeat of 9/11 and they hate our freedoms" BS any more.
And how are the middle easterners doing that? Are they sending planes and warships to your territory? Tell me, before the whole "War on Terror" thing, how many times did a middle easterner cause a problem in the US? According to Europol, less than 1% of terrorist attacks in Europe were carried out by Muslims. According to the FBI, 94% of terrorist acts in the US between 1985 and 2005 were carried out by non-Muslims.
The US foreign aid budget is far too small to bankroll the dictatorships of the Middle East.
That's because the aid budget does not include military aid, logistical support, or black op support of rebel groups. These things are specifically and carefully hidden from the public, and hidden in the military budget. Where do the expenses for the CIA's operations in Chile in the 70s show up in the aid budget?
They are farmers. Their governments are sporting high end weaponry courtesy of foreign powers. Taking your family into a war zone and going up against machine guns with a pitchfork is not bravery, it's stupidity.
Which armies? The ones commanded by the lunatics in charge who have no interest in stability and are only interested in preserving their own power?
I suppose I'd be better off talking from a free speech zone, then.
No. The ONLY thing we want from the US, the UK, and other foreign powers is that they stop interfering with the internal politics of Muslim nations by arming, financing, or supporting certain groups and then blaming us for the consequences. We want them to stop creating groups like the Taliban when a proxy fighting group is needed to fight the enemy of the day, and then later acting like the Taliban are a Muslim problem.
Remove foreign interference, and the lunatics will be gone the next day.
Dude, I'm a regular guy with a regular life. If you think I'm sitting in a dark room plotting global Islamic domination then you're the pathological xenophobe, not me.
I have a copy of the Qur'an open right now. Care to point me to that reference?