AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area Massacre in India

This wouldn't affect tourism by hitting Mumbai and this wouldn't affect relations between India/Israel/US. It will only entrench the current relationship. Terrorism is ancient in that part of the world, the difference is that it is now directed towards the West and it's allies.

I wonder why.

Just my luck, I'm scheduled to go to Mumbai next week. Wish I could stay in San Pedro. Safety is really relative.

HAHAHHA.....YU NOH SAY IT......

I wonder who was behind it. The Telegraph reports today that:

"Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamist fundamentalist group, is being widely blamed for the atrocity."

But that can't be true. Islam is The Religion of Peace�. Shirley there is some mistake.

Suggest you read "Freedom at Midnight" to get a (relatively recent) historical perspective on friction in this specific area.
Authors are Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

I don't know who Shirley is, but you are correct that there has been a mistake - it was made by the Islamist fundamentalist extremists who have grossly misinterpreted their religion to justify violence - in precisely the same way some Christian fundamentalist extremists have grossly misinterpreted Christianity to justify violence when killing people in the bombing of abortion clinics. The problem is not with the religion, the problem is with the extremists.

I agree Leah-Ann, but you don't see Christian Bishops advocating violence on the order of what is promoted in Islam.

While true that individuals are to blame and not religions, something is seriously flawed with a religion whose recognized leaders at the very least tolerate and in many cases advocate violence.

I cannot find any reference to Bishops advocating that entire nations be destroyed and members of their flock crying "Jesus Akbar" as they detonate themselves and kill women and children at crowded markets.

I disagree, Otter. Unlike Catholicism and many Protestant denominations, Islam doesn't have a defined hierarchy. There is no "Islamic Pope" and there are no official "Islamic bishops." There is an Organization of the Islamic Conference, which consists of somewhere around 60 countries and represents about one billion of the world's Muslims but it's not an official governing body, so there simply isn't a religious leadership with the authority to declare a religious war.
There are Islamic extremist factions with leaders who call themselves "Bishop" but I don't see any difference between them and the leaders of Christian extremist factions banding together for purposes of violence. And the vast majority of Muslim leadership has vociferously denounced the terrorists. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212.html I can't say the same for the Christian church, which sadly has been largely silent on all issues of violence.

If what you are talking about are the "shia-mullas" and ayatollahs, shia-Islam is thought to represent less than 10% of Islam. Interestingly enough, that faction is located almost entirely in Iran. As for "Al-Qaida" - that's more closely tied to the US than to any Islamic group. Al-Qaida ideology is probably most closely aligned with "Wahabism" and the greatest proponents of that ideology are Pakistan and Saudi-Arabia, who are supposed to be the strongest allies the US has in the Islamic world. Any guesses who has financed a significant portion of that teaching???

Regardless of defined hierarchy, it's very rare to find even self-designated Christian leaders that actively promote violence. They exist to be sure, but not with the vigor and prevalence as within Islam.

Please don't change the subject by going into who financed or supported who. That is irrelevant to the point I was making and will take us onto a tangent. Saudi state schools are religious and actively teach that Jews are inferior humans. This is true regardless of where they get their financing. This has a moral equivalent in the Christian world where exactly?

To which acts of violence to you find the Christian church largely silent?

All of the factions you mention have leaders that represent a cumulative flock of millions of Muslims -- and all actively promote stoning women for adultery, the death penalty for apostasy, and are at the very least tolerant of acts of terrorism that kill thousands yearly.

Name anything close in the Christian world to this widespread tolerance and outright promotion of violence.