9-11 was not a Muslim happy-hour

Thank you for your response. Since the debate has become extremely bland, I'm just going to respond to my opponent's criticisms, as there is nothing much left for me to do. "My opponent has suggested different meanings to the passages I quoted and stated that some of them were taken out of context. But what does it matter? You personally may interpret things this way, but that doesn't mean every Muslim should or indeed every non-Muslim. ***These passages could be taken as meaning kill people.*** If Allah condemned this type of behaviour so much, he would not have made his book so ambiguous and subject to pretty much any interpretation." I'd like to focus our attention on the sentence between stars. My opponent is absolutely wrong; no where does the Qura'an mean to kill people at any one point. To have such a ridiculous interpretation, one must deliberately abuse the teachings of the Qura'an by taking verses out of context or mistranslating them to come up with what is modern-day terrorism. As an example, there is a verse that is commonly cited that says "slay the non-believers wherever you find them," or something along those lines. The problem is, this verse comes from a historical event- the "non-believers" in that passage is very specifically referring to the hostile family of pagan Mecca, the time period during which Muhammad was receiving revelation. Is a nation supposed to recite verses to a violent and armed Godless people like the Meccans were, who literally had a price on Muhammad's head? No, they would fight back, and I hope my opponent would agree. "It is a fact that 19 Muslims committed the 9/11 attrocity. I ask my opponent then to offer an explanation as to why they would do this. Also, if Islam did not exist, do you think the twin towers would still be standing." First, the 9-11 conspiracy theory leaves us all dubious as to whether or not the above is a fact [1]. I hope my opponent has heard of it. Even if it was the 19 "Muslims" my opponent claims it was, like I said, they aren't Muslims, and they don't follow Islamic doctrine or the teachings of the Qura'an. They are violence loving extremists who are militantly mobilized; they kill other Muslims, how does that make ANY sense? Because they're NOT Muslims. "It is also a fact that many Muslims reacted violently when a cartoon depicting Muhammad was published in a Danish newspaper. Is this not a sign of intolerance?" This is false. It seems my opponent didn't read enough about the event, but here is the truth behind it [2]. As a tl;dr: there is a group known as 'RevolutionMuslim' who claimed to be the violent outcry of Muslims when, in fact, not one Muslim really even cared about SouthPark's cartoon or the Danish newspaper. Meanwhile, this group was run by 2 'Muslims'; in fact, they were 2 zionist Jews pretending to be Muslim who smeared the name of Islam in America, and quite successfully if I may say so myself. At the end of the day, though, my opponent's claims are false. Islam is actually the most tolerant religion in the world that claims "Let there be no compulsion in religion." (Qur'an 2:256), read more about it here [3]. "Also, are Al Quaeda muslims or not?" No. "In Christianity, there are people even U.S. congressmen) who would consider a major terrorist attack, or perhaps a major natural disaster, as a god thing, as it suggests the second coming of Christ (it does not take much thought to realise how conter-productive and dangerous such an attitude can be). Similarly there were Muslims that celebrated the 9/11 attacks. Al Quaeda for a start." I'm not sure anything mattered up until the last two sentences. My opponent claims Muslims celebrated 9-11, but has provided no evidence. Anyways, for the celebrations I found these articles to more accurately depict the situation [4] [5]. To summarize what's in the articles, "Muslims" who celebrated were the more extreme, but the large majority of the Islamic world was very sympathetic and condemned the attack. "My opponent (rather defensively) seems to be suggesting that Islam could never be a cause for evil in the world. I'm afraid history would disagree. Would the world be a better place if people weren't tied to ancient scriptures and dogma? I think so, it'll be interesting t see how my opponent may argue against this." I'm afraid history would disagree with my opponent. The crusades, initiated by the crumbling Byzantines, brought Western Europe over to Jerusalem to reconquer it violently from the Muslims. The tale tells that the city was knee-high in blood; the women were raped, then killed along with the children and elderly. Meanwhile, when the Muslim tactician and skilled army general known as Saladin took his position at the age of 20, he reconquered Jerusalem. He is renowned for his benevolence and tolerance [6]. Here is an important passage from the article. //In return for an attack made by the Crusaders of the Kerak on Muslim pilgrims in 1187, Saladin moved his army to northern Palestine and defeated the much larger Crusader army in the decisive battle of Hettin (July 4, 1187). Three months after this battle, Saladin captured Jerusalem. Unlike the Christians 88 years earlier, who made Jerusalem a bloodbath, Saladin did not loot, murder or seek revenge for the Muslims. He spared the lives of 100,000 Christians and allowed Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem after its fall. In this benevolent act, Saladin was simply emulating Prophet Muhammad as the Prophet reentered his birth-city of Mecca. When Muhammad returned to Mecca with ten thousand people, he entered it without any bloodshed. He told its people with his famous words: "Go about (wherever you please), for you are set free."// My opponent has insufficiently upheld his burden. I urge a pro ballot, and thank everyone for their time. ---Sources--- [1] http://www.911truth.org... [2] http://www.loonwatch.com... [3] http://www.missionislam.com... [4] http://politics.usnews.com... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://www.islamic-study.org...(salahu_ad-deen).htm The above link is not working. Type in everything up to the ".org" then add "/saladin_(salahu_ad-deen).htm"