Bangladesh blogger Niloy Neel hacked to death in Dhaka

[iapetus_rocks]

"A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say.

Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city's Goran area.

He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh. . .

"He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights - especially women's rights and the rights of indigenous people," he said.

BBC World Service South Asia editor Charles Haviland says that, like previous victims, Mr Neel was not only secular but atheist and, like two of the others, he was from a Hindu, not a Muslim, background."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33819032

..............................

It's a strange religion is islam.

Its claim is to be a religion of peace and in the Koran it is written that there shall be no compulsion in religion.

 see; http://en.islamtoday.net/artshow-262-3441.htm

and yet, we see things like this happening with revolting regularity.

The Sunni hate the Shia and the Shia hate the Sunni and they often engage in armed assault against each other. and both groups unite in their hatred of the non-Muslim "infidel".

People say "But, oh, they aren't real Muslims and this isn't the real Islam"

(a charge often levelled against people belonging to the group called Islamic State.)

So, can someone please explain to me what the "real islam" is and how it is peaceful at heart?

What is the true nature of the peace of Islam?

I know I'm asking an impossible question here because how can any non-Muslim claim to know what the real Islam is when even real Muslims disagree?

Is it a bit of an arrogance for any non-Muslim to say "but they are not following the true Islam" ? (how would non-Muslims know, anyway?)

It's as if we want Islam to be something which it seems not to be and it's as if we claim to know what it should be.

I'm sure we would all just love the religion of peace to be truly peacefull, but what is meant by this "peace" they speak of?

What is it and how is to be achieved?

[iapetus_rocks]

At least 55 people have been killed and 200 others injured in a massive truck bomb attack in Baghdad, police and sources have said.

The attack on Thursday morning took place in a crowded vegetable market in Sadr City, a Shia district in the northeast of the Iraqi capital.

"A refrigerator truck packed with explosives blew up inside Jamila market at around 6am [03:00 GMT]," police officer Muhsin al-Saedi said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a statement online claiming the attack.

"The attack happened in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood similar to an attack in Baquba city two days ago that also killed dozens of people.

"It is obviously an attack with a sectarian nature."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/scores-dead-truck-bomb-rips-baghdad-market-iraq-15081304571831...

It's not enough to say that the perpetrators of such incidents are abberant and not representative of their professed religion. They say that they are and they claim to be acting in accordance with their faith.

Who are we, who are not Muslim to say that they are mistaken?

What do we know? (an aside to She-ele . . .  have you actually read the Qur'an yet?

Have you read the Haddith? Have you asked a Muslim whether they believe that their prophet visited paradise by flying there on a winged horse?)

It's not good enough for the apologists for Islam to admit they haven't even read the essential texts which inform the religion they claim to understand and defend.

Be honest now, is it?

[bluecat*dancing]

Not all muslims are extremists and should not be put in the same basket as those who are. The actions of those who kill or endorse such killings - and other acts of violence - deserve to be abhorred, regardless of their religious beliefs.

[raptor_rebooted]

---

@iapetus_rocks wrote:

Well, Cat Stevens is a very famous person who infamously made the comments in this video.

The change from his former persona is radical.

and, see this also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThUgpNYr2Oo

---

for those with hearing impairement:

Robertson: You don't think that this man deserves to die?
Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Y. Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes.
[Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned]
Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?
Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing

[iapetus_rocks]

Well I heard it right  the first time. And I admit I was shocked by what the author of the song Peace Train had said.

Religion has certainly poisoned this man's mind.

The problem for the rest of us is that this poisoning doesn't stop with him or with people like him; it goes on to insult and assault anybody and everybody who takes a contrary position.

What arrogance. What gall.

What fascism is it to suggest that anyone who publicly disagrees with the b/s which is Islam should be attacked and killed?

Ayatollah Khomeini who proclaimed the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was not some out-on-a-limb ratbag extremist. He was a mainstream spokesman for Shia Islam in Iran.

He was the mainstream spokesman at the time.

That fatwa has still not been rescinded. after all these years.

Religion of peace? But not as we know it. There's Klingons on the starboard bow.

Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?

Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing

Peace Train. How did it get so de-railed?

[iapetus_rocks]

and since I didn't get a reply from She-ele to whom I asked this question, I'll ask it again.

It's not good enough for the apologists for Islam to admit they haven't even read the essential texts which inform the religion they claim to understand and defend.

Be honest now, is it?

[i-need-a-martini]

---

@iapetus_rocks wrote:

and since I didn't get a reply from She-ele to whom I asked this question, I'll ask it again.

It's not good enough for the apologists for Islam to admit they haven't even read the essential texts which inform the religion they claim to understand and defend.

Be honest now, is it?

---

Iapetus - you bring up the same nonsense argument time and time again.

I HAVE read a larger portion of the Koran. I have also read a a larger portion of the the Bibles. You don't have to have read either texts to understand the religions of either side. You also would be a complete idiot to think that the words of the Koran or the Bible are taken as "gospel" by those who follow either religion.

And give up on the "apologists" rants. Being empathetic, being fair and open minded, being willing to understand human society, being affronted by racist and baseless opinions about another race of human beings is NOT an apologist.

[moonflyte]

False analogies, excuses and moral relativism are what is trotted out on every thread that speaks out against radical Islamic terrorism.

Most are not attacking Islam per se but the terrorists. Most are not attacking Islam per se but the Koran which advocates Jihad. Most are not hate filled people but ordinary people who are aghast at the barbaric actions of ISIL.

Calling hate and racist does not add a thing to sensible debate but it seems to be the favourite mantra of the left to do so.

[iapetus_rocks]

Martini. I disagree with you entirely. The true nonsense argument comes from those who claim to understand Islam but who admit that they have not read its texts. Some people want their "understanding" to conform with some rose-tinted bespectacled version of reality and they refuse to see the true vision of horror which is Islam.

You know what it says about women and their rights. You know what it says about unbelievers and the contempt in which it holds them. You know that in some countries where Islam is powerful, this contempt is given the reality of expression in all its gory detail.

Wilfully choosing to be blind to the dreadful reality of sharia law, the law which sees people hanged for apostasy or stoned to death for what we would consider relatively harmless acts which harm no one else, is the true crime.

By being an apologist for this religion, people must, in my view, bear some small part of the responsibility for the horrors it commits.

Those who refuse to see the truth and label anyone else with the racist tag in an attempt to shut down their conversation might as well just go out in the streets and wave a black flag and spit on women who dare to show their faces in public.

My opinions and arguments are not racist or baseless. They are based on a reality which, even for those who choose to put their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, is still a reality for all that.

I would love it if things were different. But they are not. Things are as they are, in the real world.

[raptor_rebooted]

You also would be a complete idiot to think that the words of the Koran or the Bible are taken as "gospel" by those who follow either religion.

i disagree.

muslims believe the words in the koran came

directly from god. they believe the words have

not been corrupted and are exactly how it was

revealed to muhammad.

that is the argument they have against the bible -

that it has been translated too many times and

its been  corrupted.

so - it is not completely idiotic to think the

followers of islam take the words of the koran

as "gospel".   the opposite is more accurate. 

[the_great_she_elephant]

Wilfully choosing to be blind to the dreadful reality of sharia law, the law which sees people hanged for apostasy or stoned to death for what we would consider relatively harmless acts which harm no one else, is the true crime.

I doubt if anyone here is blind to the reality of Sharia Law. However:

1)Australia is not governed by Sharia Law.

2)It is HIGHLY unlikely that Australia will ever be governed by Sharia Law.

3)The majority of of Australian Muslims probably don't want to live under Sharia Law anyway.

And yes I do know that a handful of outspoken Muslims have argued for certain aspects of Sharia Law, referring to family law, should be recognised by Australian courts. That does not mean the majority of Muslims agree with them