Nov 21, 2016

An Overview Of The "Muslim Debate" With Reza Aslan (Muslim Scholar)

What I've done here is put together a collection of videos with Reza Aslan explaining what's going on in the United States with the Muslim debate for the confused and curious. I also made a list of Christian scripture which is just too obscene to put on TV HERE for your perusal. (Note: A Christian says 'they have a religion of love' while they quote verses such as 'vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord' at the drop of a hat and kill millions with no investigation or accountability, i.e. the hypocrisy in American politics is so thick you could cut it with a knife)

Reza Aslan: GOP rewards 'anti-Muslim bashing' - CNN's Anderson Cooper gets his panel's reaction to GOP Presidential Candidate Ben Carson's statement that a Muslim should not be elected President.





Anti-Muslim slant by American media giants reaps criticism
FoxNews.com interview segment was widely derided online when the anchor kept asking author Reza Aslan how a Muslim can write a book about Jesus.
While Aslan patiently explains -- repeatedly -- that it's his scholastic expertise that qualifies him to do so, the anchor presses on with the same question.
On the other end, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd posited in an editorial that Huma Abedin continues to stay by the side of her philandering husband, Anthony Weiner, because of her alleged harsh upbringing in Saudi Arabia.
Foxnews.com interview
Aslan spoke to Piers Morgan on Monday night about his experience on Fox.
"Truly, I was kind of embarrassed," he said. He felt uncomfortable having to repetitively parade his academic credentials by Fox anchor Lauren Green.
"You really come off as a jerk, when you do that," said Aslan, who holds three degrees in religion. He has studied the life of Jesus for 20 years and calls him his "hero."
Green seemed wholly uninterested in Aslan's qualifications.
Her first question set the tone for the rest of the conversation, in which she spent nearly 10 minutes casting religious doubt on his motivations for writing the book.
"You're a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?"
The video of the interview went viral, and Green's reduction of Aslan to his religion triggered a backlash on social media.
"reza aslan's interview on fox news was so painful to watch, he was basically being interviewed by a wall," said @nimbaaa on Twitter.
Some lambasted Green for tenaciously skirting Aslan's academic credentials, posting satirical comparisons, like this one on Twitter from @RadhikaMadhani:
"I'm a vet who has a Ph.D. in treating animals. Lauren Green: But you're a human. Reza Aslan: But I have a Ph.D..."
"I have a Ph.D. in oceanography, I study the ocean. But you live on land. Yes, but my area of study is the ocean," tweeted @lamaquinapls in the same vein.
Critics from established media joined in.
The Los Angeles Times called the interview "strange," adding that Green gave Aslan the "proverbial third degree." Slate.com called the interview "cringe-worthy."
"Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?" BuzzFeed asked in a headline.
Aslan told Morgan that he feels bad for Green. People get emotional, when academics write about their religion, fearing it is being attacked, he said.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. The most important people in my life are Christian -- my wife and my mother," he said.
Aslan was born a Muslim but felt inspired by Christianity in his youth and converted, as he explains in an essay he wrote for CNN. "When I was 15 years old, I found Jesus," he wrote.
He later converted back to Islam, the religion of his ancestors.
The Fox interview and subsequent media coverage have garnered his book more attention. On Monday, it was the bestselling title on Amazon.
Times article
The New York Times' ethnic slant was less belabored. It didn't take up a 10-minute segment but instead just one single paragraph.
Huma Abedin is a longtime aide of Hillary Clinton.
Her husband, Anthony Weiner, has been caught twice sending explicit messages to women on social media. He was recently caught for the second time sending out lewd photos of himself.
Abedin pledged her love for him at a news conference.
Columnist Maureen Dowd explained Abedin's decision this way: "Huma was raised in Saudi Arabia, where women are treated worse by men than anywhere else on the planet."
First, Abedin is not exactly Saudi Arabian.
Her late father was from India; her mother from Pakistan. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but the family moved to Saudi Arabia when she was 2. She moved back to the United States to attend George Washington University.
She began her Washington career as a White house intern, before working in Hillary Clinton's office, when Clinton was first lady.
Some could not help but see the irony in the same situation connecting both women, in light of the Monica Lewinsky affair during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
"Commentary on Huma Abedin's ethnic reasons for standing by her man ignores the fact that her white boss Hillary Clinton did the same #Weiner," @SaeedShah posted to Twitter.
Moroccan author and novelist Laila Lalami tweeted:
"Maureen Dowd: Huma Abedin stands by Anthony Weiner because she was raised in Saudi Arabia. Remind me, where was Hillary Clinton raised?"

How strong is the link between faith and terrorism?

(CNN) -- The tragic murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau -- "a recent convert to Islam" as every media outlet in the United States would like to remind you -- has added fuel to the already fiery debate in this country over the inherently violent nature of religion in general, and Islam in particular. It seems that, in the minds of many, the only possible reason a Muslim convert would go on a shooting spree in the Canadian Parliament is because his religious beliefs commanded him to do so. Of course, it could very well be the case that Zehaf-Bibeau was motivated by his Islamic beliefs. It could be that he read a particular passage in the Quran, understood it to mean he should kill as many Canadian government officials as possible, and then went out and did just that.

After all, there's no question that a person's religious beliefs can and often do influence his or her behavior. The mistake lies in assuming there is a necessary and distinct causal connection between belief and behavior -- that Bibeau's actions were exclusively the result of his religious beliefs. The notion that there is a one-to-one correlation between religious beliefs and behavior may seem obvious and self-evident to those unfamiliar with the study of religion. But it has been repeatedly debunked by social scientists who note that "beliefs do not causally explain behavior" and that behavior is in fact the result of complex interplay among a host of social, political, cultural, ethical, emotional, and yes, religious factors. In the case of Bibeau, his violent behavior could have been influenced as much by his religious beliefs as by his documented mental problems, his extensive criminal past or his history of drug addiction. Yet, because Bibeau was a Muslim, it is simply assumed that the sole motivating factor for his abhorrent behavior was his religious beliefs. Indeed, there's even a term for this idea: Sudden Jihad Syndrome -- an imaginary contagion invented by the neo-conservative commentator Daniel Pipes to describe how any normal-seeming Muslim can suddenly snap for no reason at all and go on a murderous rampage (thus proving Pipes' point that "all Muslims must be considered potential terrorists").


Aslan: Let's talk calmly about religion Writer and professor Reza Aslan speaks out about having calm dialogue surrounding religion.



Aslan: Maher 'not very sophisticated' Reza Aslan offers his reaction to Bill Maher's recent remarks regarding the link between violence and Islam.



Reza Aslan: I feel bad for the reporter CNN's Piers Morgan interviews religious scholar Reza Aslan about his book about Jesus, "Zealot."


CNN's note: Editor's note: Reza Aslan is the author of "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" and a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

Note on CNN - they are careful not to contradict thier corporate narrative with facts in the form of context... but they are willing to put it online, sometimes. (They - corporate media - used the same tactic with black protests in Baltimore)

(CNN) -- The tragic murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau -- "a recent convert to Islam" as every media outlet in the United States would like to remind you -- has added fuel to the already fiery debate in this country over the inherently violent nature of religion in general, and Islam in particular.
It seems that, in the minds of many, the only possible reason a Muslim convert would go on a shooting spree in the Canadian Parliament is because his religious beliefs commanded him to do so.
Of course, it could very well be the case that Zehaf-Bibeau was motivated by his Islamic beliefs. It could be that he read a particular passage in the Quran, understood it to mean he should kill as many Canadian government officials as possible, and then went out and did just that. 
After all, there's no question that a person's religious beliefs can and often do influence his or her behavior. The mistake lies in assuming there is a necessary and distinct causal connection between belief and behavior -- that Bibeau's actions were exclusively the result of his religious beliefs.
The notion that there is a one-to-one correlation between religious beliefs and behavior may seem obvious and self-evident to those unfamiliar with the study of religion. But it has been repeatedly debunked by social scientists who note that "beliefs do not causally explain behavior" and that behavior is in fact the result of complex interplay among a host of social, political, cultural, ethical, emotional, and yes, religious factors.
In the case of Bibeau, his violent behavior could have been influenced as much by his religious beliefs as by his documented mental problems, his extensive criminal past or his history of drug addiction. Yet, because Bibeau was a Muslim, it is simply assumed that the sole motivating factor for his abhorrent behavior was his religious beliefs.
Indeed, there's even a term for this idea: Sudden Jihad Syndrome -- an imaginary contagion invented by the neo-conservative commentator Daniel Pipes to describe how any normal-seeming Muslim can suddenly snap for no reason at all and go on a murderous rampage (thus proving Pipes' point that "all Muslims must be considered potential terrorists").
Strangely, this causal connection between belief and behavior seems not to be as aggressively applied if the criminal in question claims a different religion than Islam. Take the example of the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, who slaughtered 77 people, the majority of them children, in 2011. Breivik explicitly defined himself as a Christian warrior fighting what he called an "existential conflict" with Islam.
Nevertheless, a great deal of the media coverage surrounding his actions seemed to take for granted that his crime had nothing to do with his Christian identity -- that it was based instead on his right-wing ideology, or his anti-immigrant views, or his neglectful upbringing, or even, as Ayan Hirshi Ali famously argued, because his view that "Europe will be overrun by Islam" was being censored by a politically correct media, leaving him "no other choice but to use violence."
**** End Showcase ****


I SMASH Corporate Media!!!


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