Indeed. Books are just books. They can try to say something but ultimately a book has a different meaning to every different person. And the meaning to a particular person changes over time. What a book means is completely dependent upon the reader's upbringing, education, local culture, age, career, sex, etc.
The response is the same also. That would be true were the religion to merely be a matter of literary critique, but Islam has an established set of legal norms, sure, some issues may have scholarly difference but this one does not. The book, the Prophet (sullAllahu alayhi wasalaam) and the scholars are all clear on this issue. They remained clear. This recent making of such things permissible is the product of the last 60 years, and is itself a vast contradictions of the law as it is established.
sounds like you have your answer.
Damn. Seems like the older brother was sacrificing himself to try and let the other brother escape. Charging the cops like that... Damn. Can't imagine seeing all this outside your window.
Holy shit. That's intense.
http://news.yahoo.com/mass-mosque-bomb-suspect-had-2-recent-outbursts-014641792.html
the fact that the chair in front of the computer caught a stray bullet is TERRIFYING.
But my original point was books are books and can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. Just because you subscribe to one particular school of interpretation that does not in any way invalidate my point. You just go into the "Not a true Scotsman" song & dance. And as you admit, evenin within you school of thought there are conflicting scholarly opinions and thus not even your particular school of thought is internally consistent.
One of the comments on that guy's blog with the shootout pictures is already saying they're fake. That he clearly saw a brother stripped naked and arrested on TV.
I always figured because you need to be high as fuck to take it seriously.
Photographer says it was a bomb that the brother tried to use shortly after that photo was snapped.
Yes, like you said, your original point was about textual interpretation, which understands Islam as being fundamentally about textual interpretation. My assertion is that it is not, it is about tradition, and the reality that there is an established law on certain issues amongst the Muslim community, and on this issue, that law is in consensus.
In my analogy, we see that there is an established law in the United States, something that is agreed upon, for example the requirement to pay taxes. Is someone that says 'no, the constitution says otherwise' proof that the United States actually does not have a legal system, that there is no law? Simply because someone is able to interpret the constitution in a manner that contradicts established law does not mean that that established law is rendered non-existent or one amongst equal comparisons.
Again, you are missing the point here. Your focus is upon textual interpretation, rather than established legal doctrine.
You are asserting things about God's intent that I have not myself asserted. You are begging the question.
For you, it is your local muslim culture about following one specific tradition that drives your particular interpretation. And that interpretation has changed over time as I'm sure the scholarly stuff has changed over time. Other people have different interpretations. I'm sure you know other Muslims that drink, or smoke, or do other things that don't follow that particular tradition because they don't find those specific rules important.
I find this concept of 'legal doctrine' kinda humorous. The only want to have a legal doctrine is to have a sovereign country. There is no country of Islam! There are various independent Islamic-tinted countries but I think you'd agree that none of them is your "True Scotsman". It is just a set of arbitrary rules set up by some scholars that you decided to listen to. But your set of rules & traditions has no claim of authority! It is just one arbitrary set of many. It is mere inertia, local culture . . . AKA "tradition". I have no reason to believe that your interpretation is any more authoritative than Usama Bin Laden's interpretation.
I'm not begging a question, I'm asking a question. If you don't want to answer fine but obfuscation and avoidance is fucking annoying.
The conspiracy people will pick apart every pixel and find evidence to support their predetermined conclusion in every photo.
Typical conspiracy theory nonsense.
