What in Islam could justify the beheading of a U.S. journalist?
Firstly. I'm not a Muslim and personally I don't believe in blindly taking your morals from any book without at least reflecting over it. But I also don't like people being intellectually dishonest by quoting things without the directly preceding context as Ali He has done for this question.He links a website that starts off by quoting Surah 2:191 and some Surahs following it. It's a nasty Surah saying one should kill all non-believers. Sounds bad, maybe i should keep some distance to my Muslim friends!But calm down now.... what could the preceding 2:190 be? Well looking at Surat Al-Baqarah it would be:"Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.."So basically Surah 2:191, often quoted on the internet out of context, is about defending yourself against someone who attacked you. The following Surah, 2:192 then also goes on to say that if the attacker ceases the attack you should through Allah have mercy on them. So even when ISIS has been beheading soldiers they have not been in line with these Suras.No reasonable person can say ISIS is nota. the aggressor against these journalistsb. being up to some serious transgressionc. being callous to people who have given upSure, there are some coarse parts in the Qur'an, but in historical context I wouldn't call it even particularly violent. Especially surprising to me are people of Christians faith who say the Qur'an is a violent book of hate. I only ask if they've actually read their own religion's mode d'emploi and thought about how egregious interpretations could easily be made?People have strong opinions about many holy books, their own and others', but I often notice I actually seem to know the books they are speaking about better than they do.
ISIS Beheads Japanese Journalist Kenji Goto (January 2015): How do people in Japan think about its government in handling the hostage situation?
I can't speak for all the Japanese people, but I can express my personal view as a Japanese man.I don't think that the Japanese government did anything terribly wrong. For example, I think not giving in prematurely was a good decision.That being said, it doesn't mean that they were perfect. For example, ideally, the government could have been more informed about the situation in the middle east, and had tighter connection with other countries.This was not an isolated problem between Japan and ISIS; Japan's action would affect all the nations dealing with extremist groups. Japan should have cooperated more with other nations, especially those in the middle east.
I'm not bothered by the ISIS beheading?
I don't think you're a bad person for not being bothered. It's very easy to feel distanced and unattached from things that have no direct affect on you, and this includes almost everything on the Internet. The man who was beheaded was not your beloved father, your missed brother, or your worshipped son. He was a helpless stranger, someone who was nothing more than another person to you. In the video, despite knowing it was scripted and he was told what to say, he seemed to accept his death since there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it. His lack of emotion and tears made it easy for you (and me) to walk away from the video indifferent. Not everyone has the same emotional depth, some of us will whimper over squishing a fly and others relentlessly murder families. And as long as we aren't the latter, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Very depressed and disturbed after watching this crap?
My advice...don't search the same thing happening to dogs. It's way more depressing. Someone posted a video of some towel head bastards throwing a poor little puppy off the top of a 10 story building. that happened a few months ago and it still is on my mind a lot. The world is a terrible place. I've filled quite a few people with bullets and it hasn't bothered me...but that poor puppy. :(. The world is a terrible place. BUT SERIOUSLY...need to be cheered up? Google search "booby kitty song"...pick the first option. :D