FBI searching at Fort Hood shooter’s mosque

and

Obama runs interference for Islamic jihad at Fort Hood

The cognitive dissonance here is that Major Hasan and many other Muslims clearly believe that their faith does justify these “murderous and craven acts.” By ruling out a priori any investigation of that fact, Obama is foreclosing on any serious analysis of what motivated this attack. That in turn will foreclose any serious analysis of what can be done to prevent there being another like it. ”

He then quotes from the speech.

In the major religions, there are varying degrees to which followers adhere to the words of the leader, founder, or God of that religion. What we call ‘radical’ Islam is NOT radical in many Islamic countries around the world. They are the ‘true’ religion, and all others are apostate.

The thing is, our Western brains find it soooo hard to wrap itself around the Islamic theology. It is difficult for us to see Islam for what it is because it goes against our hearts, our psyche, our own understanding of religion is.

I don’t condone much of what was done during the Crusades, yet without people like Charles Martel, then all of Europe would have been ‘converted’ to Muslim.

I don’t know how yet to reconcile the two…Muslims and the very dangerous Islamists.

The idea of responsible, scholarly hermeneutics is to set up consistent principles by which to understand a text.

Wright is a dangerous man and those who are not conversant with the Christian church will take terms as they hear them, not as they are.

You cannot concede vocabulary to those who use it for evil.

Other than that words mean something. The use of words to obscure meaning is a longtime practice of those who are opposed to the truth.

Hermeneutics is the term used to cover the principles and practice of interpretation. I’m quite familiar with biblical hermeneutics–which include principles that, in my opinion, can be cross-applied to the interpretation of texts in general. Bad hermeneutics or the incorrect use of hermeneutics leads to bad or erroneous interpretation.

When it comes to the Koran, Robert Spence is someone to read about correct interpretation. I think he also makes a strong case for the misrepresentation of the Koran in order to deceive. Zakaria Botros is someone who uses the very words of the Koran to challenge Muslims:

Father Zakaria Botros on CAIR’s radar

Why do radical Muslims, such as CAIR, hate — and fear — Zakaria Botros so? (I first described him and his ministry on NRO; be sure to click on links that go to important video clips of him, with English subtitles, where he makes several impressive demands of Islam). The problem Muslims have with Fr Botros is that they simply cannot refute him: everything he says — no matter how scandalizing to Islam — is always based on, often revered, Islamic sources. Moreover, Fr Botros rarely makes any claims about Islam: he only exposes; he only raises questions and then invites Islam’s ulema to respond and “clarify” the matter. However, as this story indicates, their response is only to have him censored — or, for the more radical, killed.

It is an Orwellian hijacking of terminology designed, again, to obscure reality.

Unfortunately, INC, we are living more and more in an Orwellian world. Not recognizing it will not make it go away. Hanging onto your own values, setting examples with your own life are but a few ways I think might dull the fangs of the society we now live, helping to improve it.

I am not a theology expect, nor do I have the expertise that you tend to exhibit, INC, about religion. But, one thing I have observed is that “words,” whether they are spoken, included in some kind of religious context, an opinion piece, and so on, can be construed differently by different mind sets. For that reason, while I heed the words people speak, I tend to look at their “actions” as representative of their true value.

Islamic interpretation of the words found in the Koran is different for different people practicing that religion. Just like some people, of more liberal persuasions, have found words in the Bible to be harsh and offensive.

Interpretation is a very subjective measure of anything, which is often why there are so many arguments over words and definitions in what are the true virtues of humanity.

By fundamentalism I mean adhering to the fundamental tenets of Islam.

Radical Islam is a misnomer that obscures reality. I would use the terms Islam and apostate Islam because that accurately reflects the reality.

Having said that my reasoning behind post #5, INC, was just to post a caution sign in taking the obvious distorted religious fundamentalism of Hasan and applying too broad a brush to Muslims who practice a very different version of their religion.

As far as monitoring mosques, I think that is part and parcel of distinguishing between radical Islam and non-radical Islam. Of course the same kind of rhetoric also goes on in some Afro-American churchs like the infamous Rev. Wright’s. This is what happens in country such as ours that supports such a diverse population.

Said Mumia of Hasan, the greatest of all “convicted prisoner” thinkers: “Perhaps this was his verdict on the war.”

Hmm, I wonder what Mumia thinks about black on black crime or Muslim on Muslim crime. When a black man commits a crime on another black man, is that his “verdict” on the black race? When a Muslim straps explosives onto a childs back and sends the child into a market crowded with many Muslim shoppers, is that another “verdict”?

If you can stomach them, more of Mumia’s racism can be found here: http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm

By the way, just like with Mumia, the left is working really hard to find a legal defence that will work for Hasan. One “doctor’s” opinion is Compassion Fatigue

One reason may be so-called compassion fatigue, also known as vicarious traumatization or secondary traumatization.

According to the Psychiatric Times, the condition is defined as “indirect exposure to trauma through a firsthand account or narrative of a traumatic event. The vivid recounting of trauma by the survivor and the clinician’s subsequent cognitive or emotional representation of that event may result in a set of symptoms and reactions that parallel PTSD (e.g., re-experiencing, avoidance and hyperarousal). Secondary traumatization is also referred to as compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization.”