France showed a good example of what we should do instead of targeting Islam and muslims.

Muslims and catholics were praying together after the death of a priest who was assassinated by someone who pledged alliegance to ISIS. Both religions were together, united to honor the life of that priest.

Islam is such a barbaric religion, right, that's the best example of it... :)

21 minutes ago, ScarletDraconis said:

Islam is such a barbaric religion, right, that's the best example of it... :)

Name me another religion that in 2016 has a large group of people who belong to it that mutilates women's genitals, beheads apostates and wants to gain a nuclear weapon for the purpose of wiping out Israel. Even scores of people who don't commit these acts themselves approve and even applaud this behavior. There are reams of polling data to back this up besides taking a look at current events; it's not a diatribe.

4 hours ago, unr3al said:

Name me another religion that in 2016 has a large group of people who belong to it that mutilates women's genitals, beheads apostates and wants to gain a nuclear weapon for the purpose of wiping out Israel. Even scores of people who don't commit these acts themselves approve and even applaud this behavior. There are reams of polling data to back this up besides taking a look at current events; it's not a diatribe.

Did you see anyone in the US doing this? Or anywhere in the western countries? I didn't. If they exist, they are so scarce that it is a stat that can easily be irrelevant, and they are heavily condemned, both by the public opinion and by the justice. Mixing up muslims practicing a peaceful islam in western countries and the ones practicing an extremism in eastern countries is rude, unnecessary, and leads to people making generalizations and thus to a mass islamophobia, which at its turn leads to racism, segregation, profiling, and in less time than you need it to say holocaust, you end up in a 21st century Hitler scenario. Especially if a certain Trump ends in the White House.

Not even going to talk about Israel, first because I consider they are just as faulty for what is happening over there, and second because it's unrelated to the topic. :)

12 hours ago, ScarletDraconis said:

Did you see anyone in the US doing this? Or anywhere in the western countries? I didn't. If they exist, they are so scarce that it is a stat that can easily be irrelevant, and they are heavily condemned, both by the public opinion and by the justice. Mixing up muslims practicing a peaceful islam in western countries and the ones practicing an extremism in eastern countries is rude, unnecessary, and leads to people making generalizations and thus to a mass islamophobia, which at its turn leads to racism, segregation, profiling, and in less time than you need it to say holocaust, you end up in a 21st century Hitler scenario. Especially if a certain Trump ends in the White House.

Not even going to talk about Israel, first because I consider they are just as faulty for what is happening over there, and second because it's unrelated to the topic. :)

You do realize that a good majority of the terrorist attacks that have happened were western born, right? We're talking about "terrorists" that have either resided in any given Western country and then carried out an attack after being "converted" to attack the Western country they resided in, or any Western country for that matter. A lot of these Western born Muslims have been on the FBI's watch list for a good period of time too, but due to a number of reasons (the FBI being scared of potentially creating a scenario where they're profiling being one) good ol' political correctness, these terrorists more or less get away with what they set out to do. Propaganda is a nasty game. 

Oh please, don't bring in condemnation into this either.....the U.S/North America/Europe have condemned many countries, but that does absolutely nothing, it's the equivalent of your mother waving her finger at you for breaking your Grandma's finest piece of China. Do you honestly think that any of these terrorists care what you, or I think just because we condemn them, especially right after they've jogged their way into a marketplace and set off their explosive vest to kill as many civilians as feasibly possible to create mass hysteria? In short, no. 

Let's be brutally honest here, when was the last time any Catholic/Christian/Jewish/Buddha bearing man/woman strolled on into their local Wal-mart/Market and blew themselves up and killed many innocents in the name of their religion? Let's go further and say name ANY religion for that matter that has committed such a thing as of late. Let's go even further and name any religion that has gone into another Country and committed such things? Is there Islamphobia? Of course there is, can you blame people who are Islamphobic? No, not really. Not everyone is intolerant to Muslims because of their religion either, there is many, many reasons, but that is a different book altogether. 

 

 

I'll just say this: people who spend their time pointing to religion as the source of Islamic extremism and terrorism are intellectually lazy. That's my problem with people like Sam Harris. There are horrific things in the Quran AND the Bible, so to point to Islamic terrorism and say "see? Its always the Muslims that do it" is not a very enlightened way of thinking. The fundamental differences are economic and sociological, and the solutions are incredibly boring: education and secularism. Don't subjugate Muslims, don't label them as the enemy, and for the love of God can we please stop dropping tens of thousands of bombs and killing all of those civilians in the process. Its not working, and its only fueling terrorism.

11 hours ago, Solidefiance said:

-snip-

You should read the post I quoted, I wasn't talking about terrorist attacks in western countries, so if you could keep your judgemental and bossy tone to yourself, it would be greatly appreciated! :)

12 hours ago, ScarletDraconis said:

so if you could keep your judgemental and bossy tone to yourself.

I could say the same thing to you, but I won't. Nevertheless, my overall point still stands firm, it just unfortunately blew right over your head. 

8 hours ago, Solidefiance said:

I could say the same thing to you, but I won't. Nevertheless, my overall point still stands firm, it just unfortunately blew right over your head. 

Sure, if that's what makes your e-penis feel hard, whatever floats your boat, mate. Hopefully one day you'll just be taught what 'respect' means, so you can debate with people without having to belittle them personally or without having to be rude and bossy :)

On 8/1/2016 at 7:19 AM, ScarletDraconis said:

Did you see anyone in the US doing this? Or anywhere in the western countries? I didn't. If they exist, they are so scarce that it is a stat that can easily be irrelevant, and they are heavily condemned, both by the public opinion and by the justice. Mixing up muslims practicing a peaceful islam in western countries and the ones practicing an extremism in eastern countries is rude, unnecessary, and leads to people making generalizations and thus to a mass islamophobia, which at its turn leads to racism, segregation, profiling, and in less time than you need it to say holocaust, you end up in a 21st century Hitler scenario. Especially if a certain Trump ends in the White House.

Not even going to talk about Israel, first because I consider they are just as faulty for what is happening over there, and second because it's unrelated to the topic. :)

I'm not talking about specific countries, I'm talking about a specific religion; stop going off topic and debate my points, not your emotions. Why don't you go door to door of every 9/11 victim's family or San Bernadino victim's family or Orlando victim's family, etc. and tell them that their deaths are largely irrelevant? If you didn't wind up bruised and broken as a result of at least one person kicking your ass for saying something like that about their lost loved one, I'd be stunned. Loss of human life as a result of a terror attack isn't something to be taken lightly, and I'm appalled that you think small numbers makes it okay.

Nobody here is mixing up Muslims who practice their faith peacefully and those who don't, because we're not talking about them. The subject is the religion itself, not those who practice it, like I said in the above paragraph. You're the one shifting the conversation from 'Islam' to 'Muslim' and those are two totally different things. One is a faith, the other is an ethnic group. Understand that talking in public, openly and without reservations about how bad Christianity was during the dark ages of Europe was what led to the resurgence of European culture, intelligence and ultimately; democratic governments that allow you the freedom of religion to begin with. There is no logical reason as to why people who have an understanding of the faith shouldn't be able to criticize the Qur'an and the Hadiths and the fact that they're being interpreted too literally for the year 2016.

And good, it's probably for the best that you don't talk about Israel if you consider them to be equally ill-behaved as many middle eastern countries. If you read the Qur'an, it's actually very related to this topic, but we'll have to side step that for now.

 

On 8/2/2016 at 1:36 AM, Riley24 said:

I'll just say this: people who spend their time pointing to religion as the source of Islamic extremism and terrorism are intellectually lazy. That's my problem with people like Sam Harris. There are horrific things in the Quran AND the Bible

And Sam Harris points that out. He's gone on record as saying the Old Testament is the worst book ever written in the course of human history, but the problem is that large numbers of people that practice of Islam still interpret the Qur'an's violent or inhumane passages literally, whereas people who take the Bible's violent passages such as Jesus saying those who don't follow him will burn, or those about slavery being okay or killing women for being unfaithful are very minimal in number and do not effect political policy or pop culture in America or Western Europe.

If anything, you're being intellectually lazy for commenting without reading more of Sam Harris's articles, listening to any podcasts or watching his debates with people from all faiths including Judaism and Christianity. Summing his life's work up by saying "Muslims are causing all the religious problems in the world" is very uninformed or maybe 'unenlightened', to say the least. And needless to say, he's not exactly the only person on the face of the earth talking about these issues (see the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Bill Nye, etc.). You picked a good example, however.

People continue to make the mistake of confusing the word 'Muslim' with the word 'Islam'. One is an ethnic group, the other is a faith. Young Muslims who practice Islam in a way that promotes or condones terrorism or unequal treatment of minorities and women are not always necessarily at complete fault for doing so, because they're being given an interpretation of the Qur'an that is literal and unaltered. This is primarily done in the middle east, but there are problems with this in the Untied States as well. The people who teach this faith the way they do need to be kicked off of their platforms and replaced with people who have a 2016 interpretation that is more in line with the "religion of peace" people so often claim Islam is. We can't help empower the young Muslim people who care about human rights if we don't talk about this seriously and openly. Attributing criticism of Islam or any other religion to a phobia is dismissive, and frankly dangerous.

Edited August 4, 20169 yr by unr3al

7 hours ago, ScarletDraconis said:

Sure, if that's what makes your e-penis feel hard, whatever floats your boat, mate. Hopefully one day you'll just be taught what 'respect' means, so you can debate with people without having to belittle them personally or without having to be rude and bossy :)

Nothing of what I said was rude, bossy or disrespectful. What I said was largely heated and that is what debates usually boil down to, heated. And as a U.S president once said, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the Kitchen. - Harry S Truman. 

And as unr3al said too, you're debating your emotions, not the overall topic. Also to add to unr3al's point, why don't you also go door-to-door in the Middle East and tell every Iraqi, Afghani, and Irani family that lost loved ones because of a suicide bomb or attack that their deaths are largely irrelevant? 

Sure, as I said, whatever floats your boat, mate :)

On 8/3/2016 at 0:56 AM, unr3al said:

And Sam Harris points that out. He's gone on record as saying the Old Testament is the worst book ever written in the course of human history, but the problem is that large numbers of people that practice of Islam still interpret the Qur'an's violent or inhumane passages literally, whereas people who take the Bible's violent passages such as Jesus saying those who don't follow him will burn, or those about slavery being okay or killing women for being unfaithful are very minimal in number and do not effect political policy or pop culture in America or Western Europe.

If anything, you're being intellectually lazy for commenting without reading more of Sam Harris's articles, listening to any podcasts or watching his debates with people from all faiths including Judaism and Christianity. Summing his life's work up by saying "Muslims are causing all the religious problems in the world" is very uninformed or maybe 'unenlightened', to say the least. And needless to say, he's not exactly the only person on the face of the earth talking about these issues. You picked a good example, however.

People continue to make the mistake of confusing the word 'Muslim' with the word 'Islam'. One is an ethnic group, the other is a faith. Young Muslims who practice Islam in a way that promotes or condones terrorism or unequal treatment of minorities and women are not always necessarily at complete fault for doing so, because they're being given an interpretation of the Qur'an that is literal and unaltered. This is primarily done in the middle east, but there are problems with this in the Untied States as well. The people who teach this faith the way they do need to be kicked off of their platforms and replaced with people who have a 2016 interpretation that is more in line with the "religion of peace" people so often claim Islam is. We can't help empower the young Muslim people who care about human rights if we don't talk about this seriously and openly. Attributing criticism of Islam or any other religion to a phobia is dismissive, and frankly dangerous.

We largely agree so there isn't a need for a lengthy debate.

But no, I haven't read everything the guy has every read. He's famous for pointing out whats wrong with Islam as a doctrine and blaming terrorism on Islam. He's also made a grand effort to paint increasingly larger amounts of Muslims as radical and dangerous (which has been largely debunked, I believe). Why I consider him intellectually lazy is because "yeah, no duh". When I hear someone say that there are parts of the Quran that are barbaric, I think "yeah, no duh". There are parts of the Bible that are absolutely HORRIFIC, and in some cases even WORSE than the Quran. But when other people hear Harris's message, they rally behind him and fill the comments section with bigotry. Its become edgy and cool to talk about how much disdain you have for Islam, and that has real-world effects on Muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with anything that's going on thousands of miles away. I think Sam Harris and others (its not just him, I don't mean to single him out) are piggybacking off of the same Islamophobia that has existed since 9/11.  No duh, Islam has strands of it that are barbaric and violent, but why do SO many people feel the need to constantly remind us of this obvious truth? It feels like they're more interested in marginalizing Muslims as "the enemy" than addressing the problems that actually cause terrorism.  Its like when the demagogue republican politicians say "As president, I won't be afraid to say the words 'radical Islamic terrorism'". There's no need to harp on the fact that ISIS is an Islamic organization, that shouldn't be the focus. If you magically replaced the Quran with the Bible, they'd still be killing people, because they are poor and uneducated and looking for some kind of glory. The dogma is Islam is NOT what is to blame for the rise of extremism, its the economic and sociological situations. 

The intellectual response to a terrosist attack with Muslim perpetrators is "man, how do we address this in our foreign policy so we prevent these guys from being radicalized" not "Man, its always the fuckin Muslims. Maybe they SHOULD be frisked at the airport. And lets shut down immigration from those countries ASAP"

4 hours ago, Riley24 said:

There are parts of the Bible that are absolutely HORRIFIC, and in some cases even WORSE than the Quran.

 

4 hours ago, Riley24 said:

The dogma is Islam is NOT what is to blame for the rise of extremism, its the economic and sociological situations.

But we don't listen to the bible anymore. The book has been reinterpreted so much that now even the pope who supposedly has the most direct link to god has said that atheists can go to heaven, and there is no such thing as sin anymore, because Jesus died for all sins of mankind; past present and future. Muslim countries that do well economically and even educationally also share many of the same ideas that more primitive middle eastern countries to. The fact is that the majority of the 9/11 attackers were college educated and had good jobs. And the richest of people in countries like Saudi Arabia are in charge of government or at least have significant sway in politics; and that's a country that follows Sharia Law. It's not all about money and sociology. I won't sit here and say that doesn't play into it, but supposedly moderate or progressive middle eastern countries still have problems that stem from the religion.

Lets shelf the terrorist attacks on the U.S. and western Europe for a second. Who suffers the most underneath "Islamic Extremism" as we know it? Muslims do, especially the women of many middle eastern countries. Women who have their genitals mutilated, get stoned do death if they get raped by another man, must cover themselves from head to toe to protect against men's lust for them, or get their schools blown up because men believe they shouldn't learn and should live only to serve. While economic hardships and foreign policies can help shape a nation, these ideas of how to live life don't come out of nowhere. Christians did behave as badly, but that was hundreds of years ago in an age that predated assault rifles, suicide vests filled with C4 and nuclear weapons.

I understand your disdain for people who hop on the bandwagon with Sam Harris as an excuse to be bigoted, but you need to understand that there are folks who actually agree with him for the right reasons, many of which are Muslim people themselves such as Maajid Nawaz who co-write a dialogue based book with him, Irshad Manji, the founder of 'Moral Courage TV' or Raheel Raza, a Muslim journalist and interfaith public speaker who say that the way the Qur'an is being interpreted in many places around the world is an issue that needs to be addressed and that not talking about it will worsen things. The numbers Sam Harris and others gives unfortunately are not inflated. Some of them are based on opinion polls from Pew Poll or Gallop Poll, and are quite detailed on views of Israel, Democracy, Terrorism, ISIS, etc. If you were to shove Turkey into the spotlight as an example, a country that is in turmoil right now; about 8% agree with the ideals of ISIS. Now that doesn't sound like a large number, but Turkey is a country of 75 million people, so that makes 6 million people who have the potential to be undeniably dangerous; and that's just in Turkey alone. Keep in mind that number does not account for people who have negative views of minorities such as people of different faiths and homosexuals, nor does it account for people who would harm or kill people for apostasy or harm, kill or prosecute people for making fun of the prophet. Those percentages could be and likely are much higher. I'd have to go through all the poll data.

I can at least recall that in a 2013 Pew Poll, 75% of Turkish people hated Israel and 16% thought it was okay to suicide bomb people. That last figure was a 200% increase since the year 2011.

I dislike all organized religion, and in the U.S. I think Christianity has way too much influence on domestic political policies, but I'm picking on Islam in this scenario because since the IRA, no group of people has blown up more crap around the world repeatedly than 'Islamic Extremists'. When the Christians in this country stop taking legal action to keep trans-gendered people out of bathrooms and start killing them all, I'll gladly change my focus because it will become a more immediate problem and shift the tone of U.S. religious nonsense from being ridiculous to being dangerous. As Bill Maher once said (to paraphrase him): "In a civilized society, people sue each other. They don't kill each other." Both are crappy things to do, and the U.S. is indeed very litigious, but I'd much rather live here than almost anywhere else, and I'd much rather have people raise kids on U.S. values.

Edited August 5, 20169 yr by unr3al

On 8/5/2016 at 1:03 AM, unr3al said:

 

But we don't listen to the bible anymore. The book has been reinterpreted so much that now even the pope who supposedly has the most direct link to god has said that atheists can go to heaven, and there is no such thing as sin anymore, because Jesus died for all sins of mankind; past present and future. Muslim countries that do well economically and even educationally also share many of the same ideas that more primitive middle eastern countries to. The fact is that the majority of the 9/11 attackers were college educated and had good jobs. And the richest of people in countries like Saudi Arabia are in charge of government or at least have significant sway in politics; and that's a country that follows Sharia Law. It's not all about money and sociology. I won't sit here and say that doesn't play into it, but supposedly moderate or progressive middle eastern countries still have problems that stem from the religion.

Lets shelf the terrorist attacks on the U.S. and western Europe for a second. Who suffers the most underneath "Islamic Extremism" as we know it? Muslims do, especially the women of many middle eastern countries. Women who have their genitals mutilated, get stoned do death if they get raped by another man, must cover themselves from head to toe to protect against men's lust for them, or get their schools blown up because men believe they shouldn't learn and should live only to serve. While economic hardships and foreign policies can help shape a nation, these ideas of how to live life don't come out of nowhere. Christians did behave as badly, but that was hundreds of years ago in an age that predated assault rifles, suicide vests filled with C4 and nuclear weapons.

I understand your disdain for people who hop on the bandwagon with Sam Harris as an excuse to be bigoted, but you need to understand that there are folks who actually agree with him for the right reasons, many of which are Muslim people themselves such as Maajid Nawaz who co-write a dialogue based book with him, Irshad Manji, the founder of 'Moral Courage TV' or Raheel Raza, a Muslim journalist and interfaith public speaker who say that the way the Qur'an is being interpreted in many places around the world is an issue that needs to be addressed and that not talking about it will worsen things. The numbers Sam Harris and others gives unfortunately are not inflated. Some of them are based on opinion polls from Pew Poll or Gallop Poll, and are quite detailed on views of Israel, Democracy, Terrorism, ISIS, etc. If you were to shove Turkey into the spotlight as an example, a country that is in turmoil right now; about 8% agree with the ideals of ISIS. Now that doesn't sound like a large number, but Turkey is a country of 75 million people, so that makes 6 million people who have the potential to be undeniably dangerous; and that's just in Turkey alone. Keep in mind that number does not account for people who have negative views of minorities such as people of different faiths and homosexuals, nor does it account for people who would harm or kill people for apostasy or harm, kill or prosecute people for making fun of the prophet. Those percentages could be and likely are much higher. I'd have to go through all the poll data.

I can at least recall that in a 2013 Pew Poll, 75% of Turkish people hated Israel and 16% thought it was okay to suicide bomb people. That last figure was a 200% increase since the year 2011.

I dislike all organized religion, and in the U.S. I think Christianity has way too much influence on domestic political policies, but I'm picking on Islam in this scenario because since the IRA, no group of people has blown up more crap around the world repeatedly than 'Islamic Extremists'. When the Christians in this country stop taking legal action to keep trans-gendered people out of bathrooms and start killing them all, I'll gladly change my focus because it will become a more immediate problem and shift the tone of U.S. religious nonsense from being ridiculous to being dangerous. As Bill Maher once said (to paraphrase him): "In a civilized society, people sue each other. They don't kill each other." Both are crappy things to do, and the U.S. is indeed very litigious, but I'd much rather live here than almost anywhere else, and I'd much rather have people raise kids on U.S. values.

There have always been and will always be extremism within any ideology. Radical Christians don't kill or maim at the world-wide level that radical Muslims do, sure. But there seems to be this general consensus that it "doesn't count" when Christians kill people. Who called for investigating Christians after the mass shooting at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado? Who quoted the Bible's horrific verses and condemned "christian culture"? Did anyone poll Christians and asked them if they supported the killings? Did anyone assert that all Christians should condemn the attack, otherwise they're responsible as well? And what about the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilians that we've killed in the disastrously unsuccessful "War on Terror", does that not count? It absolutely counts. Our society doesn't have an ISIS, but we're only relatively more civilized. The Christians here that want to take away people rights are no different than the Muslim men who demand that their women wear hijabs. I think the problem is radical religion, not the religion itself. And out of the factors that contribute to radicalization, the dogma of the religion is perhaps the least important. There are radical Buddhist monks across the world that behead people, not because they're Buddhist, but because they found an aspect of Buddhism that gave them an excuse to kill. Christians do the same when they kill gay people or abortion doctors. The same is true for the 9/11 hijackers, who as you mentioned were wealthy and college educated, making them an outlier in terms of who usually gets radicalized. But they're just like the economically stable mass shooters in America, that shoot up schools and movie theaters to find some kind of glory in their lives. Islamic terror organizations are able to grow because there is a seemingly unlimited supply of young men willing to sacrifice themselves for glory. There's not a fundamental problem within Islam, there are fundamental problems within Muslim majority countries that lead to the growth of terror organizations. The question at hand is how do we keep them out of situations where they're eager to do so. 

3 hours ago, Riley24 said:

And what about the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilians that we've killed in the disastrously unsuccessful "War on Terror", does that not count? It absolutely counts.

I don't recall War on Terror being religiously motivated.

3 hours ago, Riley24 said:

And out of the factors that contribute to radicalization, the dogma of the religion is perhaps the least important.

I am a Christian, and I do not detest religion, but you can't have religious radicals without religion.

3 hours ago, Riley24 said:

Islamic terror organizations are able to grow because there is a seemingly unlimited supply of young men willing to sacrifice themselves for glory.

Glory that comes from them filling the obligations of their religion. If that's not a fundamental problem with Islam, I don't know what is.

Another example. When you take a look at countries with a majority muslim population, especially ones in Middle East and Africa (from where most of the migrants come from), the support for Sharia Law as official law of their country is overwhelming. It can be assumed that such people would attempt to introduce Sharia in the countries they migrate to, either by legal means (being elected/voting for candidates that support Sharia) or by illegal means (on eg. local level). And given enough time, the Muslim voters will become the majority in countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands looking at the demographics. The question remains - what will happen to the Christian minority?

Sharia law, which is indeed a fundamental part of Islam that bases itself on the Quaran and other Islamic scriptures, is mandated by the Quaran (the divine law). Safe to say, it is not compatible with the Western ideals of democracy, liberty and separation of church from state.

In developed countries that have Sharia law as official law, such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar, freedom of religion is nonexistent, non-heterosexuality is banned, and as a woman you have no control over your life. Show me a country with a Christian majority that has similar laws. You won't find one, because Bibile is not the source of law in any country (well, maybe in Vatican). The truth is that Islam is incompatible with democracy and most Muslims are what media call radical, while the amount of Christian radicals that are willing to commit terrorist acts is minimal, at least here in Europe.

Edited August 8, 20169 yr by Yard1

1 hour ago, Yard1 said:

And given enough time, the Muslim voters will become the majority in countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands looking at the demographics. The question remains - what will happen to the Christian minority?

Except that it will never happen, most people exaggerate the numbers of actual muslims within the population. France people think there is at least 30+% of the population that is actively practicing the Islam religion, when only ~15% do, and numbers are similar in proportion across Europe, as well as here in the US. You know that the great theory of replacement, aka muslims will replace the western civilizations after a while, is one of the main fearmongering weapons of most fascist political parties? Just thought you should know :)

9 minutes ago, ScarletDraconis said:

Except that it will never happen, most people exaggerate the numbers of actual muslims within the population. France people think there is at least 30+% of the population that is actively practicing the Islam religion, when only ~15% do, and numbers are similar in proportion across Europe, as well as here in the US. You know that the great theory of replacement, aka muslims will replace the western civilizations after a while, is one of the main fearmongering weapons of most fascist political parties? Just thought you should know :)

It's a well confirmed fact that in Europe fertility rates in Muslim families are at least double of those in non-Muslim families. Besides, you have not responded to any of my arguments (I am aware you are not the person I was quoting).

Besides, isn't the mayor of London a Muslim? Most of the mayors of London run for PM afterwards.

Nice try trying to equate me with fascism. I detest fascism and any other ideology that aims to decrease individual liberty, like communism. Just for the record, I consider myself a conservative liberal, with live-and-let live approach to life (that is, I have conservative opinions but I will defend the right of people to do as they please, as long as they don't infringe on the freedom of others). However, one can't be tolerant to those who are not tolerant of others.

Edited August 8, 20169 yr by Yard1

3 hours ago, Yard1 said:

I don't recall War on Terror being religiously motivated.

I never said it was. What I was pushing back on was the idea that "we are civilized, and they are not". We kill innocent civilians with drones, and they do it with bombs.

3 hours ago, Yard1 said:

I am a Christian, and I do not detest religion, but you can't have religious radicals without religion.

So is Christian terrorism because of Christianity? Should we be suspicious of you as a Christian because you read the same book as Robert Deer? 

3 hours ago, Yard1 said:

Glory that comes from them filling the obligations of their religion. If that's not a fundamental problem with Islam, I don't know what is.

Christian terrorist believe just about the same exact thing. Is there a fundamental problem with Christianity? I'm not arguing that Christian terrorism is as far reaching or frequent as Muslim terrorism, I'm arguing that the religion itself is not the problem.

3 hours ago, Yard1 said:

Another example. When you take a look at countries with a majority muslim population, especially ones in Middle East and Africa (from where most of the migrants come from), the support for Sharia Law as official law of their country is overwhelming. It can be assumed that such people would attempt to introduce Sharia in the countries they migrate to, either by legal means (being elected/voting for candidates that support Sharia) or by illegal means (on eg. local level). And given enough time, the Muslim voters will become the majority in countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands looking at the demographics. The question remains - what will happen to the Christian minority?

Fox News has been crying about Sharia Law ever since 9/11. Its part of the facade of the War on Terror propaganda: "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here". If you're arguing that Muslims are going to infect the western world with Sharia Law and force the poor Christians to live under a Muslim regime, I would begin to question where you acquire your news from. The VAST majority of Muslims integrate into western society with no problems. Also, I hear the same thing about the Hispanic population in the US. People seem to think that white Christians are entitled to being the majority; they're wrong.

You also ignored the research in that linked that proved that the vast majority of Muslims are against ISIS, even in countries where large portions of land are under ISIS control. How convenient.

3 hours ago, Yard1 said:

Sharia law, which is indeed a fundamental part of Islam that bases itself on the Quaran and other Islamic scriptures, is mandated by the Quaran (the divine law). Safe to say, it is not compatible with the Western ideals of democracy, liberty and separation of church from state.

In developed countries that have Sharia law as official law, such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar, freedom of religion is nonexistent, non-heterosexuality is banned, and as a woman you have no control over your life. Show me a country with a Christian majority that has similar laws. You won't find one, because Bibile is not the source of law in any country (well, maybe in Vatican). The truth is that Islam is incompatible with democracy and most Muslims are what media call radical, while the amount of Christian radicals that are willing to commit terrorist acts is minimal, at least here in Europe.

You are correct about the content of Sharia Law, but are you aware that Islam and Sharia Law are not synonymous? 

And if you would like, I could show you the verse of the bible that was in favor of murdering innocent people. So when you compare a war-torn Muslim majority country with a Christian majority and country and say "see? Islam is the problem"- you're being intellectually lazy.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

I never said it was. What I was pushing back on was the idea that "we are civilized, and they are not". We kill innocent civilians with drones, and they do it with bombs.

Fair enough. Still, I don't think killing civilians was/is the point of War on Terror, and they are not the main target but regrettable casualties. In a terrorist attack, the civilians are the target.

 

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

So is Christian terrorism because of Christianity? Should we be suspicious of you as a Christian because you read the same book as Robert Deer? 

You are twisting my words - I merely mentioned me being a Christian in order to make sure people don't mistake me for an atheist when I said religion is required for religious radicalism. You should rather take a look at the numbers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Union. There isn't even a category for Christian-motivated attacks. I suppose in some cases right-wing could be chalked up to that, but notice that since 2011 all attacks save one are motivated by Islam (the other one was mafia-related).  And let's not forget Madrid and London. Once again, I don't really know how the situation is in USA, but here in Europe you just don't get terrorists with Christianity as their motivation.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

Christian terrorist believe just about the same exact thing. Is there a fundamental problem with Christianity? I'm not arguing that Christian terrorism is as far reaching or frequent as Muslim terrorism, I'm arguing that the religion itself is not the problem.

Look at the numbers above - why is it that in European countries that are by a huge majority non-islamic, the islamists are nowadays the main, if not to say only perpetrators of terror attacks? There has to be something in Islam that makes Muslims want to carry out those attacks. Mind you, they all admit that it was their religion that pushed them to it.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

Fox News has been crying about Sharia Law ever since 9/11. Its part of the facade of the War on Terror propaganda: "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here". If you're arguing that Muslims are going to infect the western world with Sharia Law and force the poor Christians to live under a Muslim regime, I would begin to question where you acquire your news from. The VAST majority of Muslims integrate into western society with no problems. Also, I hear the same thing about the Hispanic population in the US. People seem to think that white Christians are entitled to being the majority; they're wrong.

It shows that over half of the Muslims coming to Europe right now are against the ideas of democracy, liberty and separation of church from state. How can you call it integration when migrants congregate in small communities, where you can only hear one language? People flock to ones that are a part of their group, and it's a fact that integration fails when a huge number of migrants come into a country at once.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

You also ignored the research in that linked that proved that the vast majority of Muslims are against ISIS, even in countries where large portions of land are under ISIS control. How convenient.

In that part, I was not talking about terrorism per se, I was talking about fundamental problems with Islam. It's true that majority says it's against terror, but look here:

More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say that such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified in these circumstances.

That means that 8% of Muslims in the US is not against suicide bombings. Let that sink it.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

You are correct about the content of Sharia Law, but are you aware that Islam and Sharia Law are not synonymous? 

I am well aware of that fact, but empirical evidence shows that any country with an islamic majority will at least use parts of Sharia of base it's law on it, if not use it outright.

5 hours ago, Riley24 said:

And if you would like, I could show you the verse of the bible that was in favor of murdering innocent people. So when you compare a war-torn Muslim majority country with a Christian majority and country and say "see? Islam is the problem"- you're being intellectually lazy.

So those war-torn countries have their laws based on their religion because they are war-torn? Or is it the other way around? I asked for a Christian country which has religious laws. As we all know, such a country doesn't exist, while many Muslim countries do base their law on their religion. And while that is not a problem in itself, we all know what that entails, especially for non-Muslims living there. How come only Muslim countries do that?

29 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

Fair enough. Still, I don't think killing civilians was/is the point of War on Terror, and they are not the main target but regrettable casualties. In a terrorist attack, the civilians are the target.

We target civilians, this has been known for a long time. We even do "double taps", where we also kill the first responders that go to help the injured. "Oops I killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilians" isn't more moral than intentionally killing however many civilians have been killed by ISIS. The western world is giant glass house in that regard

29 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

You are twisting my words - I merely mentioned me being a Christian in order to make sure people don't mistake me for an atheist when I said religion is required for religious radicalism. You should rather take a look at the numbers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Union. There isn't even a category for Christian-motivated attacks. I suppose in some cases right-wing could be chalked up to that, but notice that since 2011 all attacks save one are motivated by Islam (the other one was mafia-related).  And let's not forget Madrid and London. Once again, I don't really know how the situation is in USA, but here in Europe you just don't get terrorists with Christianity as their motivation.

I wasn't twisting your words, I was proving a point. You don't hold Christianity to the same standard that you hold Islam. And I'd encourage you to skim through this:

https://thinkprogress.org/less-than-2-percent-of-terrorist-attacks-in-the-e-u-are-religiously-motivated-cec7d8ebedf6#.ubygb3ba6

And you're right, Christian terrorism is virtually non-existent in Europe. But are you really going to attribute the fact that they're Christian as the reason for that? 

And if you're curious about the terrorism threats in the US, check this out:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/non-muslims-carried-out-more-than-90-of-all-terrorist-attacks-in-america/5333619

29 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

Look at the numbers above - why is it that in European countries that are by a huge majority non-islamic, the islamists are nowadays the main, if not to say only perpetrators of terror attacks? There has to be something in Islam that makes Muslims want to carry out those attacks. Mind you, they all admit that it was their religion that pushed them to it.

I don't exactly trust the testimonies of insane people to tell me why they're insane. And your first point was addressed by the statistics that I linked you before. Muslims are not the sole perpetrators of terrorism, they barely make up 2%. The real weapon is fear.

29 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

It shows that over half of the Muslims coming to Europe right now are against the ideas of democracy, liberty and separation of church from state. How can you call it integration when migrants congregate in small communities, where you can only hear one language? People flock to ones that are a part of their group, and it's a fact that integration fails when a huge number of migrants come into a country at once.

I'm not entirely convinced those polls are accurate or a fair assessment of the views held by those people. People desperately trying to escape brutal murder from ISIS aren't exactly the kind of people you stop and ask "Hey, how do you feel about democracy?". Here in the United States, we call that freedom. You're allowed to believe whatever you want to believe, and think whatever you want to think. And here in the States, there are PLENTY of Christians that don't believe in separation of church and state, and would love to impose their religious beliefs on the entire population. But we feel OK about having them in the country, because they're good'ol white American Christians. 

Oh, and I'm afraid you're wrong about the last part. I live in New York City, where very large numbers of immigrants from all over the world flocked to. We now have a Little Italy and Chinatown. Integration is preferable, but countless cultures and nationalities have failed to integrate and are doing just fine.

29 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

In that part, I was not talking about terrorism per se, I was talking about fundamental problems with Islam. It's true that majority says it's against terror, but look here:

More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say that such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified in these circumstances.

That means that 8% of Muslims in the US is not against suicide bombings. Let that sink it.

That's only scary if you ignore similar polls done among different religions. There has been a massive effort to paint Islam as the enemy of the free world, and that has come with a lot of cognitive dissonance in regards to how we think about the different religions.

http://www.rawstory.com/2011/08/poll-muslims-atheists-most-likely-to-reject-violence/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/a-fascinating-look-at-the-political-views-of-muslim-americans/242975/

 

32 minutes ago, Yard1 said:

I am well aware of that fact, but empirical evidence shows that any country with an islamic majority will at least use parts of Sharia of base it's law on it, if not use it outright.

So those war-torn countries have their laws based on their religion because they are war-torn? Or is it the other way around? I asked for a Christian country which has religious laws. As we all know, such a country doesn't exist, while many Muslim countries do base their law on their religion. And while that is not a problem in itself, we all know what that entails, especially for non-Muslims living there. How come only Muslim countries do that?

Republicans fight for Christian legislation all the time. It was illegal for gay people to get married a few years ago because of Christians. It was illegal for gay people to visit their dying spouse in the hospital becuase of Christians. It was illegal (and still kind of is in some places) for women to choose to have an abortion because of Christians. Christians violate separation of Church and state all the time, but we don't care, because they're Christians. If you're arguing for Secularism, I am 100% on board with you. I don't want any country to have religious laws for the reasons you mentioned. For the longest time, Turkey was a Muslim majority nation that maintained a secular government. That is why I am in favor of Secularism, because it usually means that people are allowed to practice their religion of choice in peace. But when you look at a country like Syria and claim that they got that way because they're Muslims, I absolutely disagree with you.