Does Islam need better public relations?

reply to post by gdeed


gdeed has it right

Islams 'public relations' has made their point as clear as crystal to me

womens rights in Islam


martrydom YOUGOTTABEKIDDINGME!

I get it , nine out of ten people prefer Coke to Pepsi, and Muslims are effen nutz!

reply to post by gdeed


Well, I guess the Catholics had their run for the money and now it's Islam's turn! No, I am not sure world domination is a quest, but would like to see a more balanced view of Islam from the media as well as Muslims speaking out themselves.

reply to post by MrsBlonde


And the West is the last bastion of democracy and civil liberties in world? Of course not. Everyone is focused on the extreme elements to Islam and the faith's true nature is never portrayed. We can chastise womens rights under Islam as if it's medieval, yet we aren't demonstrating against the Catholic Church covering up decades of child abuse.

reply to post by LarryLove




No Larry now you're putting up a strawman argument

this discussion concerns Islam . When we have a discussion about the US as last Bastion of Democracy and Freedom , then I will weigh in on that .

But I won't mention what a great role model for personal freedom and Democratic Ideals any Islamic country I can think is .

and I won't say well Islamic Countries are worse because why compare apples and oranges?

It's pointless to talk about "Islam" when there are so many different ways of practicing that religion.

I've traveled to some relatively hardcore Muslim nations like Egypt and Tunisia and met totally cool Muslims, the kind of people I would do business with any time of the year. Intelligent, respectful, well spoken and just cool. I also witnessed the horror of 9/11 in person.

This is the case where generalization is the b!tch.

reply to post by MrsBlonde


Maybe, but as soon as you mention Islam, everyone is quick to jump on the extremist wagon and run with it. Open discussion about the faith can quickly derail into emotionally charged views - some of which a baseless.

Hey Larry

The quote that Republican08 posted (Hey Republican!) was generally translated correct, but he missed out one bit (sorry for the long length):

Surah 4:Verses 89-90
They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;- Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty (of peace), or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If Allah had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah Hath opened no way for you (to war against them).

Originally posted by MrsBlonde
Islams 'public relations' has made their point as clear as crystal to me

womens rights in Islam


martrydom YOUGOTTABEKIDDINGME!

It is kinda odd that you post about Islam's "public relations" and then quote from an anti-islam website, no?

Originally posted by dizzylizzy
I do think moderate Muslims need to shout louder, and denounce what others do in the name of their faith.

Hey lizzy. I'd think that muslims ARE pretty vocal, and I hate to bring out the old line of "peaceful news doesn't sell, so the media ignores it", but it really does appear to be true. For example, I cannot find a single reputable islamic website that actually condones suicide bombings (in fact, google asks me if I didn't actually mean "Islam condemns suicide bombings" ), and it even takes quite a lot of searching to find the nutter websites that DO claim that Islam allows it (I haven't been able to locate one).


While I understand the idea that muslims need to spread around how they are against such actions, and how it is not allowed in Islam, etc (which they are doing), people's arguments seem a little odd (not saying that you are personally acting like this, it is just a trend I've noticed), in the sense that they claim "it is not THEIR fault that they view Islam in a negative light, if it is wrong, the muslims should condemn the terrorists!".

Personally, I believe everyone has an obligation to search out the truth, but saying stuff like "More muslims should condemn them" as a retort is silly. I mean, I don't constantly ask white people to condemn racism just to make sure that they aren't against blacks.

Anyhow, yeah, I suppose that there is a bit of a PR problem. Most muslims I know seem to automatically assume that the non-muslims know stuff about their religion already, so they are fairly surprised when they hear people claim stuff like (for example) "Muslims don't believe Jesus was the prophesied messiah" (which is not true).

[edit on 3-7-2010 by babloyi]

I believe that reasonable questions would be:

What constitutes a 'radical' muslim?
What percentage of the adherents of Islam would be considered 'radicals'?
What does that amount to in actual numbers?

If there are more 'radicalized' muslims than are generally believed by the public, then I would say that Islam's public relations are going swimmingly.


Eric

reply to post by babloyi


one was an anti Islamic site one was an Islamic site

I have however read some writings of Ibn al-Wahhab and the Koran if that means anything and I have a book on Islamic horticulture I should say did have

maybe I'll get it back someday




[edit on 7/3/2010 by MrsBlonde]

reply to post by gdeed


Dunno if there is an element of sarcasm in your post or not, but you may need a reality check.

I won't let any islamist / muslim / christian / jew dictate to me. They can all erm, go to hell.

There's more to life than devotion to a god. (Just my 2 pennies worth)

Anyone who thinks they will be met by many virgins for taking the lives of innocent people is a fool in my opinion. No let me rephrase that, they must be perverts. Sex steers them to suicide.

Isn't it funny how it's always the youthful testosterone ridden gullible individuals who attempt such harmful acts? Well I say it's funny, where it's actually not very funny at all.

America is the capital of porn, maybe the followers should move to the good ole US of A and take their frustrations out in the porn industry. Burqas and all.

So yes, the PR machine should start again, as the MSM has a lot of people blinkered.

[edit on 3/7/2010 by Thistled]

reply to post by MrsBlonde


Hey MrsBlonde!

Hope my previous response towards you didn't come off offensive or rude.
Neither site claims at all to be an "Islamic" site. One is set up particularly to be against Islam, and the other is a site for propagating the views of "free thinkers, atheists, agnostics and secular humanists", which while might not be exactly "islam-hate", can't be expected to have any good opinion about it.

I'm not too fond of some of Abdul Wahab's ideas, and honestly, don't think they would have survived a decade after his death if not for his alliance with the Saudis.

Also, Islamic horticulture sounds hilariously awesome. I'd be very curious to know what sort of stuff they had in that book .

reply to post by babloyi


babloyi, it is an awesome book about agricultural practices all over the middle east as well as local social customs of the areas that he talks about



anyway I want that book back I think it was published in the late 1800s
written by some Middle Eastern royal guy , sorry I can't remember

anyway I'm into the whole sustainable farming thing and it a goldmine for that
and the author was a fascinating person and I admired him for caring about that subject and taking so much effort to write it

reply to post by babloyi




Where have you been hiding!!!!!

Funny too, because I kept checking this thread like "where is he?"

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by proudcaptalist

 

Where in teh Koran does it say that?

In the surrah.

Oh, their public relations are just fine.

See today's story in Indonesia:

news.yahoo.com...;_ylt=AlzqlMNc4QuC69S7juhBYcas0NUE;_ylu=X3o'___'QyY3VvMWdxBGFzc2V0A2FwLz IwMTAwNzA0L2FzX2luZG9uZXNpYV93YXJfb25fY2hyaXN0aWFucwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzUEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNpbmRv bmVzaWFuaXM-
Indonesian Islamists eye proselytizing Christians

Summary: Peace and tolerance - yeah

BEKASI, Indonesia – A banner with a picture of a young, bespectacled Christian man is draped in front of a mosque, a fiery noose around his neck and the words, "This man deserves the death penalty!"

Churches are shut down. And an Islamic youth militia held its first day of training.

"He should be executed!" said Murhali Barda, who heads the Bekasi chapter of the FPI. "He tried to carry out mass baptisms!"

Days later, Barda's group joined nine others in recommending at a local congress that Bekasi mosques help set up youth militias to act as moral police and to intimidate Christians who are trying to convert Muslims.

They started training Saturday morning, about 100 young men turning out on a field wearing martial arts uniforms. Barda stressed there was no plan to arm them.

"We're doing this because we want to strike fear in the hearts of Christians who behave in such a way," he said. "If they refuse to stop what they're doing, we're ready to fight."

A regional leader of the Indonesian Muslim Forum, Bernard Abdul Jabbar, said the youths were given physical training and taught about Islam. "They will guard the Islamic faith and preach the right path to the people," he said.

Priest Andreas Yewangoe, a chairman of the Communion of Indonesian Churches, said the militia will only create fear, nervousness and unrest in the nation. "The government must protect all citizens from anarchist action as mandated by the constitution," Yewangoe said.

Religious-led violence has been on the rise for months in Bekasi.

Mobs have forced shut two churches this year. Last month, a statue of three women was torn down by authorities after hundreds of hard-liners wearing skull caps and white robes took to the streets, claiming the monument symbolized the Holy Trinity.

Weeks earlier, black-clad youths attacked a Catholic-run school over an anonymous blogger's "blasphemous" website.

[edit on 3-7-2010 by infolurker]

Originally posted by proudcaptalist

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by proudcaptalist

 

Where in teh Koran does it say that?

In the surrah.

In what surah. The Problem with the Qu'ran is that during time many have added hate causing words in it, most addressing against christians and jews. Those who "teach" the Qu'ran and Hadith with the sword in their hand have the same in mind then those who bomb innocent people with stars of all colors on their planes.

The Qu'ran is as miss-understood by Muslims as the Bible is among Christians or the Torah among Jews. Seeing in events that happen in your body things that happen in the normal material world outside is a dangerous games.

Some about what is miss-understood in the Qu'ran are for example, the winds that construct and create and the winds that destroy and blow all away and the same in another versets relating to the house of peace and the house of war. Those are only states of your mind and behavior. If you think good and creative you are constructive and peaceful and thus to the image of God, if you think bad and destructive you become evil and in war with all around you and yourself, you become Satan. Those are one example how freedom or peace and God, heaven fit together, how Satan, war and destruction or hell go together to compare it in different scriptures. In Kabballah the elements are Fire, water, air and earth, ind Bible they become 4 gospels, in Qu'ran the 4 wifes of Muslim, in Kabbalah the 9 month of creation of a human are symbolizes by the 9 sephirot following the Kether or brain where the thought comes from. In Qu'ran it becomes Aicha, the 9 year old wife of Mohamed. I could give endless examples of how we ignore what the books really tell you between the lines. Those books have all been written in times where any attempt to write anything that could cause religious powers to fall or buntrusted was prosecuted and sentenced with dead. This is why telling the way to the birth of a child became a stupid story of cabbage and flamingos or storks.

We have to do 2 things in religions. First is to remove all words that call up for hate and fight against other beliefs. The second is that we must start with comparing the texts and translate them in what they really tell and we will surely find out that all the scriptures, Torah, Qu'ran and Bible tell exactly the same. But, truth will cut of the flow of money that makes those that are at the head of all religious organizations rich and wealthy.
Look the pope who calls not to use preservatives in sex. normal, every payer not born is lost money.

Then, once we know what the scriptures say, take the warnings in it serious, come back to spiritual and moral values and stop doing what we do and exposing the human body as a respectless piece of meat just like animals. Drugs, sex, asses, tits, porn, pédo, SM and all what makes our world turn and brings money to those who sell it, all those things we don't need.

I can understand the thought of Islam and what he fights against, what I do not agree with is the way he does it, with extreme right systems and dictatures and bloody conquest. Who lives with the sword dies with the sword and also Islamists will find that out sooner or later. The power of weapons of the westernized countries is something you can't beat or fight against with shotguns and words of hate.

All is only business, a business where the small, the poor, the useless eaters (dixit Rockefeller) are expendable. The reason is simply overpopulation and thus, a good advise would be, stop fu..ing around, this counts also for Muslims. Billions of Muslims serve to nothing if they have no food and no place to go anymore.

What we need to get peace is telling the truth about the books.

[edit on 3-7-2010 by eurocrates]

Originally posted by LarryLove
Is the media to blame for the many misconceptions surrounding Islam or do Muslims need to do a better job at explaining the true nature of the faith?

i don't see that they are required to explain anything...to anybody.

it is the fault of the media, the government, christianity, and those who hold these misconceptions.

education is not impossible on a personal level. before assuming anything, research should be priority. not biased research but truly inquisitive investigation.

and most of all, we in American should know full well that extremists are not a true representation of any religion or other idea. if i were a christian, i wouldn't feel the need to justify myself based on the bad rap others might give me based on, say, the Ku Klux Klan.

reply to post by Republican08


Suppose a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey his father or mother, even though they discipline him. In such cases, the father and mother must take the son before the leaders of the town. They must declare: 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey. He is a worthless drunkard.' Then all the men of the town must stone him to death. In this way, you will cleanse this evil from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21 NLT)

"Suppose you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take captives. And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change all her clothes. Then she must remain in your home for a full month, mourning for her father and mother. After that you may marry her. But if you marry her and then decide you do not like her, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her." (Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NLT)

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the entire army and attack Ai, for I have given to you the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. You will destroy them as you destroyed Jericho and its king. But this time you may keep the captured goods and the cattle for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city." So Joshua and the army of Israel set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand fighting men and sent them out at night with these orders: "Hide in ambush close behind the city and be ready for action. When our main army attacks, the men of Ai will come out to fight as they did before, and we will run away from them. We will let them chase us until they have all left the city. For they will say, 'The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.' Then you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will give it to you. Set the city on fire, as the LORD has commanded. You have your orders." So they left that night and lay in ambush between Bethel and the west side of Ai. But Joshua remained among the people in the camp that night

When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it. They completely destroyed everything in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, donkeys – everything.

(Joshua 6:20-21 NLT

Originally posted by Republican08

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by proudcaptalist

 

Where in teh Koran does it say that?

If you die fighting for Allah, you'll be rewarded in heaven. 3:157

Believers fight for Allah; disbelievers fight for the devil. So fight the minions of the devil. 4:76

If the unbelievers do not offer you peace, kill them wherever you find them. Against such you are given clear warrant. 4:91

Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them. 4:89

I have absoloutely no idea where you found that but sorry to burst your bubble.

Transalated from my personal Arabic Quran.
[3:157] Whether you get killed or die in the cause of GOD, the forgiveness from GOD, and mercy are far better than anything they hoard.

[4:76] Those who believe are fighting for the cause of GOD, while those who disbelieve are fighting for the cause of tyranny. Therefore, you shall fight the devil's allies; the devil's power is nil. -This interperates people of no faith and blood in mind, not normal innocents.

[4:91] You will find others who wish to make peace with you, and also with their people. However, as soon as war erupts, they fight against you. Unless these people leave you alone, offer you peace, and stop fighting you, you may fight them when you encounter them. Against these, we give you a clear authorization. -An authorization for when you should do self-defense and fight back.

[4:89] They wish that you disbelieve as they have disbelieved, then you become equal. Do not consider them friends, unless they mobilize along with you in the cause of GOD. If they turn against you, you shall fight them, and you may kill them when you encounter them in war. You shall not accept them as friends, or allies. - This talks about the event of war, not personal relations or differences.

Now, please do some research.

Islam in America:

ATS thread

read it with an open mind.

Americans come in all flavors, including Islam.
we need to treat them as fellow countrymen, instead of enemies.