faetal on 21/11/2015 at 13:49

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I'm not talking about atrocities done in the name of atheism, I'm talking about violent tendencies not being restricted to the religious.
One very important point here which STILL no one has yet addressed, is how the average Muslim on the street is any any way connected to the actions of ISIL.
Because in absence of something solid, it's simplest just to assume a generalised prejudice towards Muslims for no good reason.

Dema - I included the groupthink tendencies above when I mentioned how group violence often benefits from having a uniting principle to get behind.
The burden of evidence for people blaming this on Islam is to show that Islam causes the violent tendencies and isn't just correlated with it (albeit ridiculously weakly given how few Muslims are violent). Another very nuanced factor is whether the violence is caused by religion (i.e. being Christian just makes a person more likely to be violent) or whether violence is caused by large scale disagreement on the nature of reality, which is a completely different issue entirely and while relying on there being differing ideologies, again, doesn't make a single religion the cause of the violence, as it stems from a greater social dynamic. I'd probably accept the hypothesis that if no one was religious, we'd have less violence, but I'd need convincing that the same wouldn't be true for if we were all Roman Catholic or Sunni Muslim or whatever.

This really requires some deeper critical thinking than just crusades + witch hunts + jihad = all religion makes violence. The issue is what is causing this problem now. If the answer is "Islam", then that needs a lot of backing up.

Gryzemuis on 21/11/2015 at 17:40

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They are not connected, of course.
Some people might reason that you have to become a moderate muslim before you can become an extremist muslim. Just like you have to smoke weed before you get addicted to heroin. I think that's all bullshit (both the religion- and the drugs-example).


Yes, there are people who blame "all the muslims". And they are wrong, of course. But when extremists do something nasty, and then claim they do it because of their religion, I think it is justified to see how that religion connects to their acts of violence. It's not the westerners that make the link. It's the extremists themselves who do that.

nicked on 21/11/2015 at 19:47

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Mm that is a bit like saying that because the school bully keeps claiming he is beating people up in my name, that I should be expelled from school to prevent it happening in the future.

Azaran on 21/11/2015 at 21:21

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Indeed. But the problem is in a lot of countries, Muslims who sympathize with Wahhabism are not a minority. The mobs who caused chaos, destruction, and murder because of the Prophet's cartoons were not a tiny minority.
Hence another reason for suspicion by many people.

In Pakistan and Bangladesh for instance, Hindus, Christians, and 'heretical' Muslims face daily terror, attacks, and persecution. Their homes are torched by mobs, their temples and churches bombed, and they're regularly lynched for any and no reason at all (by entire mobs, not by some handful of fanatics ), while their women and children are kidnapped to be forcibly converted and married off to older men

(http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-persecution-of-hindus-in-bangladesh-feels-scarily-familiar)

(http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/christian-hindu-girls-pakistan-kidnapped-converted)


I saw this video on Facebook, of a Muslim mob in India calling for the rape of a Peta activist, who simply asked Muslims to go vegan during Eid:
(https://www.facebook.com/HindusandHumanRights/videos/vb.836066413071348/1076898998988087/?type=2&theater)

(http://www.firstpost.com/india/attack-on-peta-activists-over-vegan-eid-bhopals-muslims-only-shame-themselves-1747319.html)



This doesn't look like an insignificant minority.

The Pagan Kalash people of Pakistan used to live in relative peace when the more tolerant Shi'a Muslims dominated their region. But as soon as Sunnis moved in, the end began. They're still around, but probably not for long.

The issue is not about blaming muslims in general. It's the fact that a large percentage of Muslims in many countries is increasingly 'Wahhabized' and sympathetic with terrorism. Which naturally makes many people increasingly suspicious of Islam as a whole

Gryzemuis on 21/11/2015 at 22:05

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And another thing that puzzles me.

It seems it is always the left who defend Muslims and Islam. I can understand you wanna protect regular Muslims here in the west, who have nothing to do with Salafists or Wahhabism. But why defend Islam ? Why totally ignore the fact that the governments in Saudi-Arabia and Yemen are bigger cunts than Assad and maybe even Saddam Hussein ever were ? Saying "Islam is love" is just as big a pile of bullshit as saying "Islam is terror". But why are it always left-wing parties and politicians that defend Islam ?

In the 19th century and before, religion controlled all life in Europe. And that was no fun. Then in the early 20th century, people started to try and struggle out of the power of the Christian churches. The French started earlier, but I just read that their (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9) laïcité only got into the law in 1905. I think (I'm not a historian) that we really started throwing religion out of our public lives after WWII. In the 50s and 60s we told the Christian churches to sit quietly in their corners, like good little dogs. And when they would try to get out of their corners, we'd kick em back. Religion's grip on Western-Europe was over.

Who did that ? It certainly weren't the right-wing parties. Those are conservative. They don't want to change stuff. It was the left-wing philosophers and politicians that made it happen. Socialists and communists. They were fighting religion. Look at Spain: Franco and the fascists and the Catholic Church against the socialists and communists and other left-wing groups. Religion has alway tried to supress the working class and please the upper class. Religion was always conservative and right-wing and supressive.

So why the heck do left-wing parties all over the world feel the need stand at the front to defend Islam ??? Islam is religion. Which means that it is the enemy of the progressive world. I consider myself progressive, and I don't like religion. I don't like Christianity and I don't like Islam. Why does it seem I'm the only one ? I really don't understand ....