Prejudice or Perspicacity? Racist or Realist?

[Dak]

aquet = Al QUaeda Et Al

 

My problem with the above lists is that they both point (ok, pangaloss didn't offer it as such, but i've seen similar argument offered enough times that im going to address the argument here) to terrorist members of a religon mainly from a certain regon/society, and says 'see, isn't religon x bad'.

 

islamic terrorists, mainly centred in the middle east, prove that islam is violent.

 

catholic terrorists, mainly centred in ireland, prove that catholisism is violent.

 

I have many problems with the above arguments:

 

firstly, by homing in on the terrorists, we are of course going to find evidence of violence. any terrorist subgroup, of any group, are, by definition, violent.

 

secondly, the location and society are ignored. with the IRA, another unifying fact, as well as being catholic, is that they are mainly centred in ireland; the culture and society could easily be more relevent-a-cause than the religon.

 

with aquet, they are mainly centred in the middle east, hardly the nicest, most gentle of places.

 

this can basically be summed up as correlation/causation: if most of the problematic religos people are centred in a certain regon/society, then any other aspects of that society could be to blame for the terrorism.

 

thirdly, the politics are being ignored the ira, whilst catholic, are not fighting because they are catholic, they are fighting to 'free ireland'. aquet are not fighting because they are islamic, they are fighting to 'free islamic states'.

 

fourthly, other, exasperating factors are overlooked. in the ira's case, i think its very arguable that nationalism plays a large part in the origin of the violence. with aquet, fundamentalism would, imo, be a cause (which is significantly different from saying that islam is the cause).

 

fithly, the skill of the groups involved is overlooked: the IRA/PIRA and aquet are both very competent terrorist organisations. this in-and-of itself could contribute to the high insidence of terrorist acts perfomed by the members. note that there are several other terrorists of all religos inclinations (including atheism) that have not attained above notoriety, not through lack of numbers nor trying, but through simply not being as good at what they do as PIRA/al quaeda et al.

 

and, finally, the condemnation of the religon is overlooked. the pope, and several high-ranking muslim clerics, have condemned the violence, hardly lending support to the claim that catholosism/islam are inherently violent; it does, however, add support to the claim that the regon/society are highly relevent -- afaict, most muslims outside of the middle east, and most catholics outside of ireland, are opposed to the violence being commited by members of their religon.

 

basically, i have never seen any evidence nor argument that satisfactoraly places a significant amount of blame for terrorism on islam's (or catholisism's) sholders, as opposed to religon as a whole (religon binds people together, so seeing it used to form terrorist groups doesn't really suprise me; in addition, using religon to justify personal oppinions and rally others is hardly an unpresedented phenomenon), fundamentalism (allways a problem), the society/region from which the terrorism mainly originates, the politics of the situation, or any number of other possible/probable factors.

 

in short: islam may be a contributing cause of terrorism, but 1/ its unlikely to be the cause, and 2/ i've never seen it satisfactoraly argued that it's even a cause, at least not a significant one.

[Pangloss]

No you don't. You see things like I do but your mind handles it better.

 

Bee

 

Haha! Best retort I've seen in weeks. (grin)

[Pangloss]

Dak, that's an excellent response. Of course, it leaves one in a precarious "two wrongs" position, but it definitely underscores the point (at least with me) that this is really one of those "_____ don't kill, people do" arguments.

 

But I think the anti-Islam faction here (if they'll forgive me for calling it that) is actually quite supportive of this argument -- I've seen them (Bettina for example) acknowledge that there are plenty of Muslims (if not most of them) who are non-violent. So that brings us back to the validity of the question of whether Islam promotes violence, which is a question that is not answered by evidence that Catholicism promotes violence as well.

 

Of course the question may ultimately be unanswerable, and the best we can do is understand the "religions don't kill, people do" argument, and make the best of it.

[Dak]

But I think the anti-Islam faction here (if they'll forgive me for calling it that) is actually quite supportive of this argument -- I've seen them (Bettina for example) acknowledge that there are plenty of Muslims (if not most of them) who are non-violent. So that brings us back to the validity of the question of whether Islam promotes violence, which is a question that is not answered by evidence that Catholicism promotes violence as well.

 

Oh, the question is valid. the only validity problems here are in some of the answres.

 

hopefully, by contrasting the aquet/islam thingy with the more familiar ira/catholisism thingy, it should become more apparent that, without decent support, answres such as 'yes', 'not always but still yes' etc really dont cut mustard. this is not a clear issue that needs cursory corrobaratory evidence/supporting arguments.

 

in addition, the fact that we can switch islam for catholisism and get the same result is telling, adding weight to the 'certain aspects of religion' as opposed to 'islam' argument, tho i realise it's not that simple. maybe 'switching fundamentalist islam for nationalistic catholosism' would be better, and, obviously, the societys are different. the politics -- a proportedly percieved evil and dictatoral enemy that is percieved as only defeatable through violence -- is the same in both cases.

 

actually, now i think about it more, the evidence that 'catholisism' causes violence is actualy quite relevent, as it lets us compare the two and seek out common denominators, which, as suggested by lucascipidia in another thread, might be the best way of pinning down the actual cause of terrorism.

 

Of course the question may ultimately be unanswerable, and the best we can do is understand the "religions don't kill, people do" argument, and make the best of it.

 

religions dont kill people, people kill people. espescially if those religious people have guns

 

=========

 

two more quick points:

 

maybe the racism/valid commentry issue would be somewhat ameliorated if people clarify what they mean in statements such as 'islam is the problem'. do they mean 'islam, by containing islamic terrorists, is the problem' (same as if a box contains a bomb, the box is 'the problem', even tho boxes, in general, are unproblematic), or do they mean 'islam is the cause'? both very different, but both expressable as 'islam is the problem'.

 

secondly, having grown fond of the word, i move to formally adopt 'aquet' as refferring to islamic terrorists

[ParanoiA]

I, for one, have ammended my position on christianity since the start of this thread. Excellent response by Dak. I don't know why I hadn't considered those terror attacks by the IRA and such. Although, I do believe alot of that had to do with British domination in the region. Of course, the Arab region can claim the same.

 

But, I think Bettina's point overrides this because the advancement of weaponry, particularly nuclear, makes this kind of extremism more dangerous than any examples of it before.

 

You could make a case that Christianity and Islam are both guilty of racist or violent intent, albeit limited and sparse relevant to the total amount of content available by each religion's documentation. But, the extremism that resulted from this has not been threatening enough to wipe out so many people, so easily and with so little effort as is possible today.

 

I still believe that Islam has more of a blatant racist tone than Christianity, but I'm also beginning to think that's like saying Stalin was worse than Hitler. Neither have anything to brag about.

 

At this point it's too dangerous to all of humanity and its future, to allow this kind of religion to go unchecked when it is the law of the land rather than a freedom of worship under a secular government. The maturity of Islam needs to be on a fast track and I, admittedly, have no idea how to implement that.

[Severian]

There are plenty of atheist terrorist groups too of course.

[Pangloss]

Blasphemer!

[Pangloss]

(That was a joke, btw.)

[Bettina]

The maturity of Islam needs to be on a fast track and I, admittedly, have no idea how to implement that.

 

Unfortunately for the human race it can't because most are blind.

 

I started a thread a week ago on what worries me most but pulled it for fear that it would cause an uproar. I am going to reword it and post it again so it won't directly name names.....

 

Bee

[Aardvark]

I don't know why I hadn't considered those terror attacks by the IRA and such. Although, I do believe alot of that had to do with British domination in the region.

 

'British domination in the region'? You might as well complain about the American domination of Texas or New York.

 

Anyway, the IRA always publicly stated that they were NOT motivated by religion. The Islamic terrorists openly state that they are directly inspired by religion.

 

You could make a case that Christianity and Islam are both guilty of racist or violent intent, albeit limited and sparse relevant to the total amount of content available by each religion's documentation.

 

If you were to make that case you would be wrong.

 

I still believe that Islam has more of a blatant racist tone than Christianity, but I'm also beginning to think that's like saying Stalin was worse than Hitler. Neither have anything to brag about.

 

Trying to draw a moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity is foolish. Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, who preached peace and love. Islam is based on the teachings of Mohameed, who preached violent conquest.

[Aardvark]

Is it your opinion that Islam and it's followers should be treated like the Aryan Nation' date=' the KKK and the Nazi party with regards to our policies regarding Racist / Prejudiced Remarks?[/quote']

 

Of course the followers of Islam should not be treated like the followers of the KKK or Aryan Nation.

 

After all, the Aryan Nation and the KKK have never planted bombs on the train my brother takes to work, or on the bus route i occasionally use to get into town.

[ParanoiA]

'British domination in the region'? You might as well complain about the American domination of Texas or New York.

 

Anyway' date=' the IRA always publicly stated that they were NOT motivated by religion. The Islamic terrorists openly state that they are directly inspired by religion.[/quote']

 

The IRA can publicly state anything they want, but religion is a serious catalyst to the problems in Ireland. I get your point though, but if it wasn't for religion, I doubt they would have the same level of problems and perhaps may not have escalated to terrorism. I'm sure you'll disagree, but I think that's at least plausible.

 

As for british domination as an understatement...I simply do not have the knowledge of their history to comfortably blab about what territory the english have settled and what they just control. Sorry, but I don't know everything. My teenage son on the other hand...

 

 

You could make a case that Christianity and Islam are both guilty of racist or violent intent' date=' albeit limited and sparse relevant to the total amount of content available by each religion's documentation.

 

If you were to make that case you would be wrong.

 

If I were to make the case that Christianity flat out is not guilty of these things I would also be wrong. And since I have no vested interest in that outcome, I'd rather be diplomatic and concede its possibility. I have stated several times the problems I have with Islam in general. Since christianity seems to have put that mentallity in the past, it becomes irrelevant to the present - other than mere academics.

 

 

Trying to draw a moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity is foolish. Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, who preached peace and love. Islam is based on the teachings of Mohameed, who preached violent conquest.

 

Could you support that statement? If that's true, then that's a landmark discovery. Everyone keeps talking about how peaceful Islam is, and how the Islamic terrorists have "distorted" the religion for their purpose. If Muhammad preached violent conquest, then that would put that entire argument to rest wouldn't it?

[ParanoiA]

Of course the followers of Islam should not be treated like the followers of the KKK or Aryan Nation.

 

After all' date=' the Aryan Nation and the KKK have never planted bombs on the train my brother takes to work, or on the bus route i occasionally use to get into town.[/quote']

 

Yeah, cuz terrorizing and hanging minorities is cool, but when they start using bombs...

[Aardvark]

As for british domination as an understatement...I simply do not have the knowledge of their history to comfortably blab about what territory the english have settled and what they just control. Sorry' date=' but I don't know everything. [/quote']

 

Fair enough, but in that case you probably should refrain from such generalisations. Especially as there is a difference between the English and the British which is absolutely central to that issue.

 

 

Could you support that statement? If that's true, then that's a landmark discovery. Everyone keeps talking about how peaceful Islam is, and how the Islamic terrorists have "distorted" the religion for their purpose. If Muhammad preached violent conquest, then that would put that entire argument to rest wouldn't it?

 

'Everyone' can say what they want.

 

I suggest you look in a copy of the Koran. It is very clear and explict in its instructions. Such instructions as that non believers should be conquered and forced to convert by violence. I won't bore you with a list of quotations, suffice to say the Koran has no ambiguitiy, it orders Muslims to be violent and aggressive to non belivers.

 

Mohammed did preach violent conquest. His very last words were a call to spread Islam by conquest. Has that put the argument to rest for you?