A Call For A Statute Of Limitations On Cheap Equivalences

Posted on | January 12, 2015 | 32 Comments

by Smitty

I’ve had about a belly full of this noise, emphasis mine:

it’s plain that some branches or interpretations of the faith view any depictions of the Prophet Mohammed as blasphemy. That doesn’t mean that all Muslims who see such depictions as blasphemy think the appropriate response is violence; far from it. But a radical few do, and, as Middle East commentator Juan Cole has argued, they exploit such defamations against the prophet to try to radicalize others in the faith.
Unfortunately, there are some in the West who think all of Islam is tainted, and who — despite there being plenty of violence and intolerance in the texts and histories of Judaism and Christianity — believe Islam is somehow uniquely violent and intolerant. But when we mistakenly believe that a narrow and violent interpretation of Islam is the only true version, we play right into the hands of the radical zealots who want the world, including all Muslims, to believe precisely that.

So, are you saying that Bibi Netanyahu and modern Israel bear some responsibility for The Exodus and the Book of Judges? That modern Roman Catholics bear some responsibility for the Crusades? It’s hard to tell in what way contemporary people of faith are being equated with barbaric murderers here.

Perhaps Kohn could offer a URL to a more full treatment of the subject, so that the reader can determine to what degree she’s carrying water for the anti-Enlightenment force known as Progress.

The irony of “we play right into the hands of the radical zealots” is that this is precisely what Kohn and ilk are doing. Not that I wish violence on Sally: No, I wish consciousness.

(via Hot Air)

Category: CNN, Media Bias

Comments

32 Responses to “A Call For A Statute Of Limitations On Cheap Equivalences”

M. Thompson
January 12th, 2015 @ 11:22 am

Increasingly, it looks like the ghosts of Andrew Jackson, William T. Sherman, and Curtis LeMay may have to pay a visit to the Islamic world.
TubifexWorm
January 12th, 2015 @ 11:33 am

So the exonerating narrative of today’s religious zealots is that they and their kind have murdered fewer people than the religious zealots of the other brands.
RS
January 12th, 2015 @ 11:40 am

. . . despite there being plenty of violence and intolerance in the texts and histories of Judaism and Christianity. . .

Written by someone who a) has never read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation and b) has never bothered to try to understand the entire revelation contained therein whether s/he believes it or not. Yes, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the father but by me,” appears “intolerant” on the surface. But find me another set of beliefs where God humbled himself to pay the price for the rebellion of His own creation and I’ll look at it.

This comment could go on for many, many paragraphs, but I’ll leave it with an admonition to review Jesus’s encounter with Canaanite women who sought healing for her daughter and ponder what divine forgiveness and grace means, especially in contrast to radical Islam’s view of the nature of God.
Finrod Felagund
January 12th, 2015 @ 11:44 am

Sally Kohn will be one of the first up against the wall when the Muslim Revolution comes, and she doesn’t even realize it.
Matt_SE
January 12th, 2015 @ 12:26 pm

I’ve found that the primary way leftist lie is by telling the half-truth: the events or statistics quoted are true on their face, but are strung together to create a false narrative that goes beyond their surface-level meaning.

despite there being plenty of violence and intolerance in the texts and histories of Judaism and Christianity

All true on its face, but the violence of the Old Testament was superceded by the pacifism of the New Testament, at least for Christians. Further, modern practice of both faiths results in only a smattering of incidents, all of which are condemned. This, juxtaposed to the clear pattern of violence from Islam.
The conclusion one must draw is that Kohn and her ilk are either profoundly ignorant, or are liars. I choose “liars.”
RKae
January 12th, 2015 @ 12:56 pm

Also: the Old Testament occurred in a BLOODY world, and every one of its heroes is flawed in some way; drawn into that bloody world, tempted in their weaknesses.

It’s a history of slowly crawling out of the slaughter, and then along comes the New Testament to wash us clean.
RKae
January 12th, 2015 @ 1:01 pm

How ’bout examining what Christianity was for the first three centuries of its existence: an underground sect of pacifists who, when caught worshiping, were condemned to be slaughtered by gladiators, and went to their deaths praising God.

And then let’s examine Islam in its first 150 years: brutal conquest. Nothing but brutal conquest all across the Middle East, Northern Africa, Spain and then finally stopped at France.

Thus: no hope of reformation, because to have a reformation you have to get back to the roots of the religion. Whenever Christianity reforms it’s all about returning to what Christ wanted (removing all the worldliness that has cluttered it up). It’s a reset.

People say “Islam needs to reform.”

That’s what’s happening – right before our eyes, and it ain’t pretty.
Dana
January 12th, 2015 @ 1:31 pm

The problem with the lovely Miss Kohn’s argument is that we simply aren’t seeing those violent passages acted out by Jewish or Christian radicals. We had the Reverend Fred Phelps and his ~~cult~~ church utterly aghast at the tolerance of homosexuality in our society, so they took the highly lethal action of picketing funerals. And virtually every Christian group in the country bitterly condemned the Phelps’ action.

This might seem an overly nuanced point for Miss Kohn, but there is a real qualitative difference between expression your opinion, sometimes vociferously and sometimes offensively, and killing people.
RKae
January 12th, 2015 @ 1:49 pm

I still contend that Westboro is guerrilla street theater performed by anti-religion leftists to defame Christianity. They’re acting out in the way they think Christians behave behind closed doors.

It’s way too fake. I don’t buy it.
JeffWeimer
January 12th, 2015 @ 2:01 pm

Exactly. That was in the *history* of the Christian and Jewish faiths. In Islam, it is the *present*.
Finrod Felagund
January 12th, 2015 @ 2:34 pm

This is why I refuse to call Westboro a church. I call ’em the Phelpsians, and don’t forget the whole bloody clan are registered Democrats.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:05 pm

You might as well add Carson, Pershing, Patton, etc., etc.

And for Smitty: Halsey.
M. Thompson
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:14 pm

Brutal effectiveness here, ma’am. Brutal effectiveness at the meaning of war and insulting the United States.
DeadMessenger
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:18 pm

She’s a mindless drone; a useful idiot.
DeadMessenger
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:21 pm

The salient point, which only a drooling moron or a pants-on-fire liar could overlook.
K-Bob
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:27 pm

But Smitty, if you take away moral equivalence, they can’t make a house out of their race cards.
richard mcenroe
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:41 pm

Since the Crusades were actually wars of liberation than conquest, I’d be OK with that, really. Kind of awkward about Byzantium, though…
richard mcenroe
January 12th, 2015 @ 3:43 pm

Particularly with all the lawyers in that family. Ever hear of them handling any other cases?
Leon
January 12th, 2015 @ 4:22 pm

Minor point: The first crusade was at the behest of the Byzantine emperor to help fend off the invading Seljuk Turks. Screwed up by Western European nobles playing politics. So the Crusades were actually anti-imperialist operations.
RS
January 12th, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

Correct. It’s fascinating that the modern world–with it’s love of the non-Western “other”–insists upon beginning the history of the Crusades with the Muslims in the Levant. How did they get there? What methods did they employ? Why did the Byzantium and the West suddenly feel compelled to travel to the Middle East? Under no circumstances must we be allowed to know the full history of the area, post Fall of Rome.
concern00
January 12th, 2015 @ 4:34 pm

The playbook of the left reads like a checklist of logical fallacies.
theoldsargesays
January 12th, 2015 @ 5:05 pm

” despite there being plenty of violence and intolerance in the texts and histories of Judaism and Christianity
theoldsargesays
January 12th, 2015 @ 5:25 pm

I would nominate Charles The Hammer Martel and George S. Patton as co-emissaries in convincing the Muslim of the benefits of peace coexistence with the West.
theoldsargesays
January 12th, 2015 @ 5:32 pm

While that may be the argument, it is by no means true.
Tamerlane’s campaigns on behalf of Islam are estimated to have killed approximately 17 million people , about 5% of the world’s population at the time.
No doubt that many of the faithful would consider him Islam’s greatest leader.
RKae
January 12th, 2015 @ 5:39 pm

It’s funny to listen to Europeans go on and on about how “sensitive” they are to “other cultures.” And how evil “Islamophobia” is…

…and then you hit them with the question “Really? Why did you move out of your neighborhood?”

Watch them squirm as they try to come up with some answer.

All these no-go zones have happened because Muzzies move in and the native population flees and abandons that part of town.

All of the talking heads on MSNBC (et al.) would flee their neighborhoods if Muzzies started popping up everywhere.
theoldsargesays
January 12th, 2015 @ 5:42 pm

She won’t be one of the first up against the wall.
There will be many before her while they are stoning her for being a lesbian.
But other than that they’re just like every other religion so we should quit picking on them.
DavidD
January 12th, 2015 @ 11:01 pm

“The Crusades were wars of conquest.”

Oh, yeah? Where are Galacia; Ephesus; Philippi; Colossae? What happened to the Christian communities in those cities to whom St. Paul addressed his 1st Century epistles?
richard mcenroe
January 13th, 2015 @ 1:38 am

Some of the Christian polities in the MidEast actually invited Islam in as muscle for their religious feuds, with predictable results. By the time the Crusades got there they were Christian states in memory only
Zohydro
January 13th, 2015 @ 3:03 am

Me, too!
Nan
January 13th, 2015 @ 3:11 am

I spent Christmas in Topeka a few years ago and because we wanted to see the Tiffany windows in the First Presbyterian Church, my mom and I went to their Christmas Day service – they offer tours but we didn’t think it reasonable to ask for a tour over the holiday weekend. On our way we passed a group of WBC picketers at a church. We also crossed the street in front of them as the FPC is welcoming to gays.

Charming way to spend Christmas with the family.
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