Obama addresses the Muslim world

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I'm a convert. I love Obama. If he does address the Muslim world - there, in person - that'll just cement things.
 
Obama may be the biggest and best weapon the West has in winning the GWOT, which is at it's core a war of soft power that involves winning the proverbial "hearts and minds" and demonstrating the nihilism of fanatical, suicidal Islamism.

when you look at the difference between Obama and, say, Karen Hughes, the white lady becomes so laughable in retrospect.
 
Obama may be the biggest and best weapon the West has in winning the GWOT, which is at it's core a war of soft power that involves winning the proverbial "hearts and minds" and demonstrating the nihilism of fanatical, suicidal Islamism.

when you look at the difference between Obama and, say, Karen Hughes, the white lady becomes so laughable in retrospect.

I wouldn't call it that.. not even slightly. People who think that the terrorists are "Islamic terrorists" or "Extremist Islamists" are clearly wrong. When the religion itself says something like "when you kill one innocent soul it's like you've killed the entire human kind" then surely it can't be used to label these wrong doers. These terrorists are terrorists. They use a religion to justify their actions but it is more about their extremist culture, not what religion they falsely pose to be part of.
 
I wouldn't call it that.. not even slightly. People who think that the terrorists are "Islamic terrorists" or "Extremist Islamists" are clearly wrong. When the religion itself says something like "when you kill one innocent soul it's like you've killed the entire human kind" then surely it can't be used to label these wrong doers. These terrorists are terrorists. They use a religion to justify their actions but it is more about their extremist culture, not what religion they falsely pose to be part of.


look closely.

i was very careful -- i used the word "islamism." i also use the word "christianism." both of those words are used to describe people who wrap themselves up in the tapestry of a particular faith and use it to justify a rigid, fundamentalist, often medieval worldview that can result in mass murder. i use those words, intentionally, to distinguish from Muslims and Christians.
 
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BBC Tehran, Jan. 29


Nobody was expecting a long and warm honeymoon but the vitriol in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks to the new US administration was remarkable. President Barack Obama, in his first foreign interview earlier this week, offered what he called the hand of friendship if Iran "unclenched its fist." In response, Mr Ahmadinejad jumped back in the boxing ring and resumed a verbal volley of punches.

First he wished former US President George W Bush on his way: "God willing, he has gone to hell." Then Mr Ahmadinejad laid before his audience the ever-growing list of grievances Iran holds against the US: American support for the coup that unseated a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 American backing for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war; support for the "Zionist regime"; launching the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of 9/11--an incident as questionable as the Holocaust, he suggested. Americans had kept Iran away from scientific progress and injected the country with poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, he said. They had turned their embassy in Tehran into a "nest of spies", Mr Ahmadinejad continued. The US needed to stop talking down to the rest of the world, to change its language and act respectfully, he went on. All American troops should return home. And Washington should apologise for its crimes against Iran.

It was an exceptionally long and angry tirade, even by the standards of Mr Ahmadinejad. It was tempered only by a few slightly more encouraging words. If there really was a fundamental change in American policy, said Mr Ahmadinejad, then Iran would welcome it.
......................................................................................
Most observers in Iran believed Mr Ahmadinejad wanted some moves towards reconciliation with Washington, in order to help his bid for re-election in June. But with a long silence from Tehran on policy towards Mr Obama, it was already clear that a fierce battle was going on behind the scenes. In theory, it is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who is in charge of foreign policy, though in practice decisions seem to emerge from among a small group of senior officials, military officers and clergy. When there are differences over policy, the default is always to return to the old certainties: "Death to Israel! Death to America!"

For Washington, this sort of hostility at least helps resolve one dilemma: the administration must be in two minds whether to launch a diplomatic initiative towards Iran before the Iranian presidential election in five months' time. Why do anything now, when someone else might soon be in power? After all, dealing with Mr Ahmadinejad was always going to be a high-risk policy.

One of Mr Obama's consistent calls, in his election campaign, was for negotiations with Iran without precondition. For any new dialogue, this was not a promising start.
 
look closely.

i was very careful -- i used the word "islamism." i also use the word "christianism." both of those words are used to describe people who wrap themselves up in the tapestry of a particular faith and use it to justify a rigid, fundamentalist, often medieval worldview that can result in mass murder. i use those words, intentionally, to distinguish from Muslims and Christians.
But they are Muslims, and they are Christians.
 
I think they are as theologically justified as the most loving, charitable and respectful members of their respective faiths; I don't like the idea of defining true religion as good religion.
 
Nah, I think you can at least define by the degree to which some self-proclaimed believer deviates from the source scripture.

To take the Christian tradition, just for instance; Jesus preached certain things, in the written gospels. Those things are not particularly ambiguous or hard to understand. It is not difficult to spot when someone is preaching the very opposite. Even if they do call themselves Christian.

Now, whether those written gospels are good or not, I'll leave to the reader. But 'true' will have to be judged in relation to them, since they are the source document.
 
Ahmadinejad's a fool. I can't believe any one actually takes him seriously. It's not like he even has any real power.
 
Nah, I think you can at least define by the degree to which some self-proclaimed believer deviates from the source scripture.

To take the Christian tradition, just for instance; Jesus preached certain things, in the written gospels. Those things are not particularly ambiguous or hard to understand. It is not difficult to spot when someone is preaching the very opposite. Even if they do call themselves Christian.

Now, whether those written gospels are good or not, I'll leave to the reader. But 'true' will have to be judged in relation to them, since they are the source document.

Thank you. This much better expresses what I wanted to say in Iron Horse's threads. Ha.
 
Ahmadinejad's a fool. I can't believe any one actually takes him seriously. It's not like he even has any real power.

Totally agree with you.

Yet we teeter on the edge of WWIII with military action on the table and Israel desperate for approval on pre-emptive strikes with nuclear weapons.

Obama's olive branch is smart and very necessary.
 
Totally agree with you.

Yet we teeter on the edge of WWIII with military action on the table and Israel desperate for approval on pre-emptive strikes with nuclear weapons.

Obama's olive branch is smart and very necessary.

I totally agree. None of us want to see WW 3.
 
I think what Obama said is a step in the right direction. I also think it helps that he has Muslim relatives and lived in Indonesia.

But watch, anti-Obama people would say this is proof that he is a Muslim :rolleyes:
 
I think what Obama said is a step in the right direction. I also think it helps that he has Muslim relatives and lived in Indonesia.

But watch, anti-Obama people would say this is proof that he is a Muslim :rolleyes:

Pearl, I think you are absolutely right. But, for the anti-Obama people, even if Obama was Muslim by faith, so what? That wouldn't have changed my vote for him. I still feel he is the best person qualified for the job. I don't understand why the "right wing" makes such a big deal as to where a presidential goes to worship, or doesn't.

Mr. Bush has gotten America into a horrible mess, especially with the Middle East and we need someone to help get us out of if.
 
I'm so glad I voted for Obama. Finally we have a president who has his head on straight.
 
Isnt Obama's middle name Hussein/Hussain?

He should drop the Barack when touring the middle east - get a few more fans on his side
 
Yes now we (he) can say it in the open.

His father was a Muslim. He went to school with Muslims. Members of his family are Muslims. There will be Muslims staying in the Whitehouse.

There will be a Muslim Prayer Room in the Whitehouse. Perhaps the Lincoln Bedroom? (probably not). Does it have to have a window facing East? It that required?


There is no god but God
Peace be upon you.
 
There will be a Muslim Prayer Room in the Whitehouse. Perhaps the Lincoln Bedroom? (probably not). Does it have to have a window facing East? It that required?

I believe it is a requirement for Muslims to face East, this way they are facing Mecca, the holy city of Islam.
 
I actually attended a brown-bag lecture awhile back about qibla location (how the precise direction to the Kaaba is determined); turns out there are tons of qibla locators on the Internet as well as a considerable amount of controversy about the proper method to use. Even among the Muslims attending there were some rather emphatic differences as to whether one ought to pray facing southeast or northeast (i.e. from here in the American Midwest). No mention of there having to be a window though, I've never heard that. Jews pray facing Jerusalem three times a day (the Amidah) but here in the US at least, we just settle for generally facing east; I've never heard of anyone using locators or debates about directional methods or anything like that.

Not that this has anything to do with the thread topic...
 
dont some prayer mats have a compass?

like this
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They discussed those too, I can't really remember what the problem with them was said to be...deviation of magnetic north from true north, something like that? Honestly I'm a moron when it comes to spatial relations, so I couldn't follow much of the more technical stuff that was said...all that really stayed with me from the talk was 'Wow, this is all a lot more complicated and controversial than I'd ever have assumed such a simple-seeming thing could be.' It was a specialized cartography lecture basically, pros and cons of various projection models and how to reconcile them with classic Islamic texts on the subject, stuff like that. I don't think the compasses are usually physically attached to the prayer mat, it's just a separate device you carry.
 
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I actually attended a brown-bag lecture awhile back about qibla location (how the precise direction to the Kaaba is determined); turns out there are tons of qibla locators on the Internet as well as a considerable amount of controversy about the proper method to use. Even among the Muslims attending there were some rather emphatic differences as to whether one ought to pray facing southeast or northeast (i.e. from here in the American Midwest). No mention of there having to be a window though, I've never heard that. Jews pray facing Jerusalem three times a day (the Amidah) but here in the US at least, we just settle for generally facing east; I've never heard of anyone using locators or debates about directional methods or anything like that.

Not that this has anything to do with the thread topic...

The main consensus is that you face the direction which if you "walk" in that direction you'll reach Mecca (shortest distance). Of course you can't be "totally" perfect, so people pray facing northeast. If you've ever been to Europe on a plane, or Asia, you'll notice the pilote takes you on a north east direction instead of going merely "east". It's much shorter to go north east than it is to go east. Has to do with the curvature of the earth - it being round.
 
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