Thelemic Jihad
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"Those making progress in The Work learn discrimination and do not cling to bigotry and are not easily duped by the mass-media hype thrown their way, every day."
Some wise words there.
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Av, that quote was from a completely separate thread. Care to explain your point?
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That even you know that blaming Islam, or Muslims, for 90% of the violent conflicts after WWII (in addition to being untrue) is a diversion from any real progress in either the realm of managing human conflict or The Work.
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That even you know...?
?hmmm
Say we adjust to post 1974 conflicts.
Would you admit that the 90% estimate is reasonably close then? I mean, just look at the facts, from Bali to Baghdad, from Kashmir to Kabul, just look at the facts. From Bosnia to Grozny to the Paris suburbs... on and on....Put all the politically correct mass media nonsense aside.
"real progress in either the realm of managing human conflict..." (?!)
what the!?Is there such a realm?
Whoever that manager is must be out to lunch.
(or seriously deluded) -
Nice try. I'm not here to get into a debate with you.
People can google the facts*. I don't have any great revelation, or info that the next person lacks.
*Here's a googled resource for facts: users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm
I just know a phony 90% when I see one. And I know you know it's phony. But your advice from the other thread was great, and even if you ignore it, I think I'll follow it, and exit this conversation for now.
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Av, your warstat site lists deaths from past wars which is totally irrelevant. I see this a lot - some completely irrelevant reply based on tangential connection at best. For those who wish to remain in denial it is apparently an effective coping mechanism.
My point stands. It is not bigotry to observe a picnic table with a watermelon on it and say, "there is a watermelon on that picnic table". It is a simple observation of fact. If the object on the table is a religious icon, somehow the term 'bigotry' starts to get thrown around.
I see this a lot. People lose objectivity when religion is involved and especially when a politically incorrect comment is made.
Let's test my observation with some data;
www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htmThis site lists 26 recent violent conflict hotspots of the last few decades. When I add Uighur province it is 27 and only 3 of them are NOT involving Muslims. That is 89.9% (reasonably close to my 90% estimate). And note that the Iran, Kurdistan, Turkey conflicts are all glommed into one event called Iraq which artificially averages down the actual count. Similarly one grouping is simply called "Middle East" which is also multiple conflicts. The persecution of Christians in Lebanon is completely separate from the Jerusalem and Palestinian issue.
So, my comments are well supported by historical fact and present reality. No bigotry there.
I have wondered at how Crowley came to make certain observation concerning Mohammed and I think I recall that his formal education was completed in 1897 when really, very little was known about Islam in general and also his subsequent contact in India may have been with the Sufis and in the Middle East with the Druze. These are both mystical sects that are obviously heavily influenced by early Christian Gnosticism.
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You keep changing your parameters. You've yet to show any substance for your claim that "roughly 90% of all violent conflicts in the world since WWII have been Muslims against someone else."
I'll repeat: you made it up, and you know it's not true.
You're more like a guy at the picnic who says that 90% of the tables have watermelons on them, and keep changing which tables you're counting.
Separately, even though you have a new list in which nearly 90% of the items involve muslims, counting conflicts as of equal weight is misleading. It's like the guy in the joke who claims his rabbit stew is "50/50 horse and rabbit. 1 horse, 1 rabbit"
For some perspective:
The number of people killed as a direct result of the invasion of Iraq - high estimate - 500,000.
The number of people killed in the Second Congo War, 1998-2002 - 5,400,000. No Muslims involved. -
Who is changing parameters?
Again, how many times need I repeat it? Your reply of numbers killed is totally irrelevant! It has nothing to do with my point. (you could post it or a discussion of how Stalin and Mao were the biggest mass murderers in history as a separate topic or thread but it might possibly be moved to the off-topic list). My point is relevant to the Thelemic 'Jihad' discussion. Your reply about numbers killed in Congo war is totally irrelevant. Can't you see that?
What do you mean I made it up?! what?...? I made a simple observation and supported it with directly relevant data that wholly and directly supports what I said! ?? What are you talking about? Nothing was made up... the data is right there... this is simple. Are you saying the conflicts reported in that link are "made up"? If so you are in deeper denial than I supposed.
I changed no parameters beyond adjusting to your original challenge of my point from WWII to post 1970's... there is nothing wrong about that. It is simply narrowing the boundaries to make a demonstration of verity more doable. My observation and main point stands and it is supported with facts that those who are able to confront reality can recognize.
Now, if you would please reply to the data or logic behind my valid claim.
(oh and your repeated claim, "you know it's not true" is presumptuous, false and a minor violation of Spiritual Law)
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"The texts of holy books are not to be read literally. They're something to reflect on and gain insight from. All of this talk about war and conflict - is it literally about war or is it...possibly...something calling a metaphor! You know, a metaphor about internal struggle."
When they say "Kill the unbeliever", they mean "Kill the unbeliever in your heart".
Funny how some metaphors, when taken literally (nobody ever does that), exhort us to wage war and kill the infidel. Oops!
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Labyrinthus, while I'm not currently disputing your main idea, there are a couple of blind spots in the way you are quoting statistics.
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The Religious Tolerance site that you cite specifically classifies the information presented as "Religiously based civil unrest and warfare." While 90% of that may in fact involve Muslims, your original claim was that "roughly 90% *of all violent conflicts *in the world since WWII have been Muslims against someone else." Your source information is limited to religious violence only. This may be your actual point, but the way you have represented the original information removes the same qualification that was the deciding factor in which conflicts were chosen for presentation on the Religious Tolerance website. Note that China isn't listed, in spite the violence of Tiananmen Square, nor is Iran, in spite of the violent put down of protesters there, many of whom were Muslim.
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Your calculation of roughly 90%, based on the number of conflicts listed on the Religious Tolerance website, doesn't take in to account whether the Muslims are on the offensive or defensive. For instance, in the entry under Uganda: "Christian rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army are conducting a civil war in the north of Uganda. Their goal is a Christian theocracy whose laws are based on the Ten Commandments. They abduct, enslave and/or raped about 2,000 children a year."
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You calculation of roughly 90% based on the number of conflicts listed on the site counts all conflicts as equal, from Cyprus, which is listed as stable but segregated and partitioned, to *two separate provinces * in the country of Indonesia, to Afghanistan in which there is currently open warfare and thousands have died.
I think the main problem you’re contending with here is the fact that you’re pretty adamant about your statistics when they haven’t been created or communicated according to the standard to which many of us have been strictly trained to hold them. Beyond that, you might have a point, but no one here is going to give your premise any weight until your statistics are less subject to question.
"...roughly 90% *of all violent conflicts *in the world since WWII have been Muslims against someone else."
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Frater LR,
Well done. That is a meaningful and well presented reply.
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Yes. Though I guestimate that if you add in all significant other military conflicts like the Congo war (which did include some Muslim involvement, though barely even secondary, and I do not want to nit-pik) and even adding Korea and Vietnam, etc. (irrelevant death tolls aside) the percentage does not change significantly to meaningfully change the intent of the original point.
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Correct. As you acutely observed it does not consider who is the aggressor. Though if you categorize them on that factor and do the math... well...never mind....
This basically was rooted in something more along the lines of bringing up whether Islam is able to play nice and get along with other kids... but that is another matter.
[your "Christian Rebels" comment was completely out of nowhere and is totally irrelevant... what the ...?] -
Right. re: Cyprus - the point did not even come close to saying the conflicts were continuous and ongoing, (though many are) just relatively recent.
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That's a quote from the site.
It is a fascinating discussion - and one I think I would never otherwise have the chance to participate in on this level if it weren't for this forum.
Other than that, I think I'll go back to listening. I'm learning from everyone on this one.
Love under Will.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Tarotica:
My wholehearted respect for having the courage to incite disagreement - with your beliefs and your opinions - which I'm confident was the overall aim of your essay. A rational discussion based on a literal interpretation of Crowley's Book of the Law is akin to taking any fundamentalist view of any holy text. That is to say, taking a Judeo-Christian text and actually believing that it meant that the world was created in seven days, could be considered a "fundamentalist" view. You will reap what you sow when it comes to the way you view any text.
I will not argue with your opinion. You are welcome to it. In fact, as I've stated earlier, I applaud you for it.
Interpretations are the beauty of the Law. Do what you wilt with your interpretations.
As a general rule of thumb, in any text (from a philosophical point of view), I like to take the writings of Jacques Derrida or, perhaps, Michel Foucault, to heart, and try to understand semiology and grammatology in any given text, or, for lack of a better term, to try to find the "spirit" in which something is written, even if it happens to be a "holy text". If I fail to understand that, then I feel that I fail to understand the author, and, in my opinion, what the author is driving at.
We can quote any text, divorcing it from the whole of the idea, and take from it our own meaning. Also, we can cite any source and consider it as a complete truth, such as one person's idea of Islamic history. Not to say that that's wrong - insofar as subjective interpretation can be considered "wrong" - it simply stands on it's own as a subjective opinion. Any one can take facts and slant them any way they want to, as any elementary school principal can tell you.
If it benefits you in your interpretation of Crowley, by all means, enjoy your benefits. But, as soon as one tries to assign one's opinions as something as objective truth, they seem to become pedantic and oppressive to other people's opinions. Which, in short, is as close to a dictatorship as any one can get, and, in my opinion, a direct antithesis to the object of Thelema. In my opinion, this is how trouble starts, by someone saying that their strict interpretation of ANYTHING is the "right" one. And yes, this is my subjective interpretation of things, whether it has any truth to me lies in whether or not it is beneficial to me.
Reiterating what I've said earlier, if your strict interpretation of Crowley's text means something to you, then, by all means, have your opinion. However, I don't see how your opinion has any objective merit when it comes to being an overall truth. At least, enough of a truth to say that it can be compared, in any rational way, to most people's opinions, Islamic, Thelemic, or otherwise. Unless you also believe that your opinions speak for someone other than yourself. Then, by all means, believe that too.
Again, I applaud you for your unique opinion. Every man or woman is a star. Whether a interpretation has any Truth, will lie in your sphere, plain and simple.
Love is the law, love under will.
Frater 639