LkoRas on 20/11/2015 at 13:38

---

Ok, i will simplify it for you. The entity called 'moderate muslims' does not exist. One is either a muslim believing in the whole word of allah or he is not. Some reading in Quran might help to get the context of what exactly is this word of allah. Islam is probably the only cult which spreaded not by mere preaching, or even with a semblance of charity work. It spreaded by the sword. The present day muslims living as minorities in ghettos crave for that lost power.

The people you describe as moderate are secret sympathizers and when they are seen condemning ISIS it's mostly to keep the heat off of them. If in their wildest dreams ISIS ever wins the world and destroys everything non-muslim, where do you think these so called moderate muslims will be? Protesting against ISIS or rejoicing the triumph of islam?

Still, i will give you two muslims who can be voices of reason. It's a pity though that nobody listens to them - M J Akbar and Tarek Fatah.

I don't think you can swayed though (not that i intend to). For a non-muslim, that will take some actual hobnobbing with muslims day in and day out, not on forums, but in the real world.

icemann on 20/11/2015 at 14:17

---

So by that definition then all people who play violent video games will be mass murderers in the future, since a small minority have in the past.

Or that all women who have their kids immunized will have their kids get autism later in life since there is a 0.01% chance of it.

That is the most stupid argument. You could apply it across any other argument going off minorities vs majorities. It's just a plain stupid type way of thinking.

You forget also that much of it (ISIS's way of thinking) is based off a warped interpretation of a holy book. One persons interpretation will not be the same as the next. We all perceive the world, and thus sentences differently to each other. That's fact.

Such examples are common across ALL religions.

The beauty of humanity is that each and every one of us is different. We are not all the same, we each are different in our unique ways which shape who we are. And whilst yes, you have some who have similar opinions on topics / ways of life etc, it does NOT apply to 100% of any religion, race or group. It's impossible. Does not happen.

It's the fear that organizations like ISIS create, that makes it far simpler to just label every Muslim with the same brush, because it's easier. Why wonder if this Muslim person or another is a terrorist or potential terrorist some day? Far easier to just paint them all the same. Kick em all out, kill em all etc, their all the same. Blah blah. Bullshit.

I call myself a Christian for example. But I completely disagree with the vast majority of the Bible from a logical + common sense stand point. I don't go to church, and I tend to pray only for the good fortune of myself, family or friends. But I still call myself Christian, as I believe in the overall message rather than the book itself. That's my belief. Many others in other religions including Islam follow similar lines. That's what we do as human beings. We read, we hear, we think, we experience and we decide. Each of us coming to different conclusions based off our viewpoint on things. We do not all decide the same things. We decide for ourselves regardless of our race, color, religion etc.

So your logic is completely flawed. And your an idiot.

Assidragon on 20/11/2015 at 14:25

---

The connection you're looking for is religion (as not just Islam but in general). (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/) Here is an interesting read about that, though take it with a grain of salt. But still, I agree with the sentiment that ISIL is roughly one literal interpretation away... because the Quaran does contain weird stuff, even if moderates would love to forget about that fact.

Now, bear in mind: I believe this to be a generic problem with religions, not just with Islam. The official stance on the Old Testament is "eh, that's too weird and not authoritive nowadays". Which is, again, just a question of interpretation.

Take a look at Catcholicism in its heyday: crusades, inquisition, banning books and silencing authors... they weren't as rabid as ISIL, but did a lot of grim stuff nonetheless. Those events, however, had lead to the separation of church and state, effectively stripping religion from most of its power. Were religion still an officially recognised authority with power (which is typically the case in the middle-east), I have little doubts we would see a lot of ugly things in Europe as well.

Seriously, applying thousand-years-old laws on the modern world requires a lot of twisting of words (reinterpretation, if you will) to not result in utter insanity. Which is precisely why such laws shouldn't be taken seriously.



Watching movies does not require one to ascribe to a specific set of values. Being the follower (actual follower, not just lip-service) of a religion does.

Assidragon on 20/11/2015 at 14:44

---

The problem is, if religion is institutionalised, then ignoring those bits is no longer possible. There's a reason they have mutawi (religious police) in Qatar or UAE, and I can firmly tell you that the reason is not so people can skip the rules they don't like.

You can make up your own religion by cherry-picking because Europe is secular. In this case you aren't really a christian believer of course, as you are sinning as far as the Church is concerned; I consider this is akin to muslims taking a more relaxed approach, such as allowing a drink of alcohol or two sometimes. But let me stress that this only the result of religious laws being powerless. One can follow them if that's their wish, but the only binding laws in Europe are those of the secular state. Which, may I add, do not require reinterpretation.

faetal on 20/11/2015 at 15:49

---

This is why I think everyone should be forced to study statistics. If something is causative, then it will definitely show up as such. Human violence is everywhere, murder, rape, mass killings and it really doesn't seem to localise to any one specific group. The simple fact is that violent people acting as part of a group usually have to have some uniting ethic - this can be used to bond the group and also, as a handy adjunct, allows one to justify their actions by some higher purpose or greater good.
Any religion can be used this way - the current issue being that Islam is the predominant religion in the attacks which are being plastered all over the news and it is being presented as such.

Foremost - we are being told via media that this is MUSLIMS, rather than a very small sub-set of Salafist Muslims who are interested in fomenting a global jihad (which they can only do by inciting non-Muslims to see this as all Muslims, so well done for helping them out). The media also conveniently downplays Muslim on Muslim violence, not only because it is far from home, but because of how human cognitive filtering works - MUSLIMS ARE KILLING NON-MUSLIMS stands out in capital letters in the perception of non-Muslims because it stands out as a threat, whereas Muslims killing other Muslims seems less of a worry, thus our very brains are weighting the perception of events towards a generalised model where Muslims are just looking for non-Muslims to kill for general reasons, mostly some stock de-humanisation which assumes that all of these wild-eyed Arabs with AKs over their shoulders are just born hating anything which resembles enjoyment or whatever.

So basically, if your sole source of information of what is happening in the world is your preferred news outlet, then you are likely getting a heavily abridged and disproportionate view of the actual situation.

Anyone looking to blame Muslims as a whole for the Paris attacks are probably the kind of person who didn't like Muslims for some reason anyway. Personally, I find all religion to be bizarre and I personally am agnostic / atheist (I don't *know* the supernatural doesn't exist, but if asked to put money on it, I'd bet that it didn't), but that doesn't mean that I think that religious people are less human than I am. I am genuinely more worried about small minded bigots who are able to allow their brains to generalise on an entire sub-set of people, than I am about Muslims. Because the former are more of a danger to the overall peace.