Pontential Way to Stop Extremists?

[Necromis]

I know what I am about to say might sound anti-Islamic, but it is not meant towards all of the Islamic faith. Only to the minority that has hijacked the faith. The Extremists.

It is a well know fact that Extremists are fanatical in their faith and following of Islam. Just that they also take this to the extreme in how it should be pursued. Within the Islamic faith pigs are considered unclean and of the Devil. If you were to execute any convicted terrorist in bacon grease, or as one urban legend reports, bury their body with a pig in the grave, you would be eliminating their chances of going to heaven. You could probably modify this to limit the slaughtering of pigs and simply bury the bodies covered in bacon grease. I know this is contriversal, and terrible to consider, but it also lends to taking away one of the biggest weapons Extremists have. Martyrdom. If they lose the ability to say do this and you will get your virgins in heaven they lose a large recruitment tool as well. After all who of the Islamic faith would wish to not go to heaven?

I know what I am suggesting is contriversal, and very hard to consider, but when people are dying across the world because a few wish to impose their will and religion on the whole you must decide if the ends justifies the means.

I would welcome others thoughts on this as well. Please understand I am fully supporting those of the Islamic faith that are the majority, and would not suggest this against any but radical extremists who use torture and terror to attempt and get their ways.

[marinaroz]

I've heard of the 'bury them wrapped in a pig skin' method before, and I must say - I approve. In my opinion doing something like that to a dead terrorist isn't really disrespectful - since the terrorist is dead already.

This action might prevent further acts of terrorism, as it goes against the religious sensibilities of Muslims. Those extremists who do terrible things in the name of religion might not want to have their ticket to heaven taken away. So I guess it can be a fairly successful method. I don't see why it couldn't be tried out.
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Tarakana NET

[ClickFanatic]

The terrorist leaders will find a way to brainwash their victims so they a) won't know about the pig burial stuff b) don't care about the pig burial stuff.
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Captain Jell-O Buster from the Future
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[Duck]

Well if there's one method that sure not to upset extremists any more than they already are, it's this. I don't see any way this could possibly go wrong!
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I've kicked the clouds, and punched lightning!

[Rashy]

I have a better idea. Instead of fighting the extremists, why don't we fight the reasons that extremists exist? Extremist leaders simply use Islam as an excuse (and a poor one at that) to motivate people to their cause, which more often than not is fueled by political reasons, and not religion.

One of the biggest causes is the governments of the Islamic nations themeselves. Often they fail to promote economic, health, and cultural advancement. This allows extremist leaders to point the blame for failure not at the governments, but at the greedy American pigs. "Since America is such a superpower and wonderful place, why didn't they come to our aid?" And then they use religious and cultural differences to demonize the western world ("they let their women run around like wild animals!") which allows them to build a backing and now they have the means to vent their hatred. In some ways they are right. In the United States most everybody lives very comfortably, while in many places in the world "plumbing" isn't even a part of their vocabulary.

Of course, there are many, many causes of extremism. I honestly believe that the only way we can properly fight extremism is to fight the causes of it. Promote education and economic prosperity in the regions, and already we would be taking large steps towards reducing extremism (I doubt that we could actually ever rid ourselves completely of it though).
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Rashy!

[Duck]

People don't seem to know a lot about the origins of Islamic extremism. It actually started out with a dude named Sayyid Qutb in the 1960s. Qutb was a dude who had wandered over from Egypt to get his Master's from Colorado State University and decided that he didn't like what he saw. He saw the individualism and civil rights that were so celebrated at the time as an evil that was corrupting all Americans, and eventually decided that people, such as Americans, who were not Muslim could justifiably be killed. One of his students was Ayman Zawahiri, who was a mentor to Osama bin Laden.

An interesting thing to note is that at the same time Qutb was deciding that America was pretty much a corrupt hellhole, a dude from the University of Chicago named Leo Strauss was coming to the same conclusions. The ideas that he came up with were what lead to modern Neoconservatism; some of his students included Francis Fukuyama and Donald Rumsfeld.

Both of these ideologies believe that American individualism as it existed in the 1960s spelled the end of Western society. Both need to set up the other as a boogeyman in order to scare their supporters into consenting to their worldview and the actions that it necessitates. Both lay out a string of myths, and teach its followers that they are great and noble, but outside of their own borders, there is no longer any need for ethics -- that the ends justify the means. Essentially, they're both the same ideology.

My point is, covering the bodies of dead Muslim fighters in pig guts is no different whatsoever than those Muslim fighters torturing, raping and beheading American soldiers. America has already pushed well past the boundary of what should even be conceivable treatment of these people, there's no need for you to dig yourself any deeper.
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I've kicked the clouds, and punched lightning!

[linuxdoctor]

[Duck]

[Rashy]

Steering clear from that topic (I think we've been over that enough...)

Either way, it comes down to maniacs who think they are morally superior to everyone else and end up using vague scripture writings in order to back up their twisted minds. Example: look at Fred Phelps. He can easily be considered a extremist and I am near certain that everybody knows he is wrong, has misread the bible, etc.

Phelps is trying to achieve a political goal, no matter what kind of crap he says, he is trying to achieve a political goal. He is exactly the same as what I mentioned earlier (in another thread I believe). Political goals, skewed religion as a backing. And nobody can make them believe they are wrong because their egos are infallable because they are so mentally screwed up.
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Rashy!

[linuxdoctor]

[Rashy]

[Duck]

[Xtreme]

The term "extremist" is a bit of a funny one. Usually it's used by "moderate" believers (or non-believers or followers of a different religion) to refer to people who actually take their beliefs seriously. Not that this is always the case, but it seems to be here.

For example. Let's say Islam [hypothetically] taught, in scripture, that all dead pets are to be cremated. So for a good while, all the Muslims go about cremating their dead pets. However, 350 years later, not everyone - and, indeed, almost no one - is doing that anymore; they've decided that that's "not necessary to go to Heaven" or that they just feel like flushing Goldy the Goldfish down the toilet instead of burning him.

Now they call all the dead-pet-burners "extremists." The normal people don't do that; the crazy maniac "extremist" burn their pets. Stay away from those guys.

Are they extremists? Or are they following that aspect of their belief to its fullest extent?

In reality, how are we to consider people following the explicit teachings of Islam "extremists?" Aren't they really just followers carrying out their beliefs to the fullest extent?

So are we pushing for cultural acceptance of Islam or the acceptance of a watered-down fluffy version of it? Clearly both cannot be accurate. I suggest that if the "extremists" are "wrong," then those watering-down the teachings of Islam must logically be wrong or at least not completely correct. This implies a straw foundation for the belief system on a fundamental theological level, not just a problem with fanatical terrorists.

Anyway, on a more pertinent note, it is interesting to consider the possibility of using arbitrary aspects of the beliefs of terrorist-Muslims to effectively turn their "martyrdom" back on them. However, to other non-terrorist-Muslims, it would seem to be an act utterly devoid of mercy and compassion to kill someone in a way that somehow damned them eternally. I can't see how a person who claims to believe in showing mercy and possessing the ability to eternally condemn someone to hell can possibly logically commit or allow such an act.

On the other hand, believing in the ability of a mortal being to eternally confine another person to hell is a logical, philosophical, and theological absurdity in the first place.

[linuxdoctor]

[Duck]