Wahhabism / Salafist Islam, which is a very small minority of Muslims, is the one preaching the extremist reaction.
The majority of mainstream Shia / Shiite Muslims are actually peaceful. They kinda don't like the cartoons, but I don't know of any attack from "mainstream" Muslims. They all come from the Al Quaeda-inspired Salafist sect preached by Osama Bin Laden.
Every other religion, and atheism, and every government party, and ... Don't get this treatment. Just on page two of the newspaper in front of me is a depiction of green party voters as idiots. Apparently they're all women, ugly, fat and insane. This depiction is done to denounce what boils down to the actions of a city official.
Should I write the paper complaining that there are multiple branches, men, and a great variety of ideas while complaining of racism ?
An attitude like this will kill all humor.
Btw what do you make of the primary source material ? Like that list of people muhammad had executed ? Is that somehow excluded from "mainstream" islam ? It seems to me a very well established point that islamic literature is not exactly peaceful, and "the prophet" is at best a warlord ... At worst ...
Denounce Muslims all you want... I'm not going to stop you. Yeah, you have freedom of speech. But instead, I'll use _my_ freedom of speech to counter-argue a point.
>>> Every other religion, and atheism, and every government party, and ... Don't get this treatment.
Erm... thats not what I'm talking about. When Irish Catholics Gasoline Bomb British cities, people don't use the actions of the violent IRA as a denunciation of Christianity as a whole.
What do the Irish Catholic IRA have to do with Mormans? Nothing. Or Protestants? I'm asking you to understand basic Islam here. There are many Muslims.
The violent sect is called Wahhabism, and most mainstream Muslims denounce that sect (Shiite and Shia are mainstream IIRC). And much like how Irish Catholics don't represent Catholics as a whole (IRA violence was not condoned by the Pope), Osama Bin Laden's specific philosophy on extremely violent Wahhabism is only a minority opinion of that minority sect.
Firstly I would argue that other people in this thread doing just that. Well usually not the actions of the IRA, though the terrorist attacks against abortion clinics are mentioned (they were against buildings, of course, not people), and things like the crusades or the founding of America. Usually to advance the case of atheism by implying moral equivalence of all religions, and of course neglecting that atheists, specifically 20th century communist state atheists are by far the biggest terrorists and warmongers in history, certainly where death toll is considered. Christianity is in fact pretty far down the list when it comes to deadly ideologies. Certainly far below atheism.
Examples from just this thread:
> Don't forget Islam and Christianity along with many other religions also actively promotes violence. In the west we tend to whitewash things, but for a less controversial example if you look at say Peter Pain or fairy tales there very different pre Disneyfication.
> If you look at the century centered on 1500: Just finishing 400 years of named-as-such Crusades, conquering much of the world in the name of Christ, violently repressing non-Christians in the areas it controlled, and getting started with religious wars between various factions of western Christianity which would be particularly prominent through the 17th Century.
> Western christianity didn't leave all violence behind, see for example anti-abortion violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_S....
And so on ...
Secondly, an answer to that I often hear is that that's because making the case that Jesus was a terrorist is utterly impossible. An annoyance to the government, sure. A rebel ... if you seriously stretch the truth, you can probably make him a rebel. Making the case that muhammad was a terrorist (leader), sending out assassins, raiding parties and the like ... doesn't seem very hard at all. Not sure if he ever sent out suicide attackers though.
This is also the story you keep hearing about terrorist recruiters. There's a reason terrorist recruitment amongst muslims works much better than among, say, christians or hindus or buddhists or ..., and that reason is differences in the ideology.
But all of these facts are beside the point. Our society cannot possibly tolerate even a tiny minority of terrorists (and it will get worse over time : just think of what might happen if we discover portable and easy fusion power while having a small minority of terrorists among ourselves). Right now we still have margin, but it's blatantly obvious that that margin is eroding over time.
Equally plain is that there is a breaking point where moral, social and political arguments are completely beside the point. Given the public reaction to this attack, I don't think we're that close yet, but we're getting closer. People would not respond at all if they didn't think it a threat, so in that view the demonstration is an escalation, even though I doubt Al Qaeda sees it as such. Also I'd be willing to bet that the French police, whether the agent is muslim or not, will effectively treat muslims worse because of what happened to Ahmed Merabet. It is no different from what happens if the mafia kills a police agent, but of course it will be felt by innocents just the same.
But when demonstrating fails to stop terrorism and new attacks occur, public opinion will shift to include other solutions to terrorism. It seems to me we are maybe half a dozen shifts away from attacking groups ... Of course there are 4-5 terror attacks by muslims per week (thursday ... Charlie Hebdo, friday ... massive attack and massacre against a Nigerian town, Saturday ... suicide bombings one in a public market in Nigeria and one in Lebanon (Tripoli), Sunday ... two people beheaded on tape in Zuweid, Egypt). At that rate it could happen suddenly and really, really quickly.
If you think about WWII and later the cold war, it would absolutely not be the first time that even America's state turns against minority ideologies that exist in their population, and the same is true in other countries. It's not like more than a tiny minority of US-Japanese would kill for the emperor, for instance.
You're so blinded by bigotry I bet you can't even tell the difference from an extremist Wahhabist Muslim and my Shiite next-door neighbor.
And you can't even admit to me that these two people have vastly differing philosophies and vastly different interpretations of the Koran. Quit denouncing Islam in general and start seeing the world for the complicated mess that it is.
I'm telling you the difference in ideology. Its called Extremist Wahhabist Islam. Again though, even this is a bit of an oversimplification as a good chunk of US allies in the middle east are in fact Wahhabists as well, and they're not violently attacking us. (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc. etc.)
Denouncing all of Islam is ridiculously ignorant. Denouncing all of Christianity is also ignorant (because the many sects of Christianity basically have nothing to do with each other outside of an event that happened 2015 years ago). You are defending bigotry and ignorance.
>>> Our society cannot possibly tolerate even a tiny minority of terrorists
Why don't you google American history? I mean, 1960s has an assassinated President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
The majority of Terrorist attacks within the US is... surprise... not Muslim related. This is a historical fact.
The last hostage situation in my town was by a Neo-Nazi, no joke. He got a few shots, killed a few security guards and had to be gunned down by the Police. Leftist Eco-terrorists have bombed labs. Anti-abortionists are shooting doctors and also bombing clinics.
Even if you Genocided all Muslims, the US will continue to have terrorists try to make points. The issue of terrorism is completely independent of Islam.
So stop being a Bigot, open your eyes to the facts. If you're gonna denounce Islam, do it correctly. Extreme Wahhabist Islam is a bad philosophy... growing in popularity. (ISIS, Al Qaeda).
But outside of ISIS / Al Qaeda inspired Wahhabists, Muslims are actually quite peaceful within the US.
Islam is evil. No question.
> Denouncing all of Islam is ridiculously ignorant. Denouncing all of Christianity is also ignorant (because the many sects of Christianity basically have nothing to do with each other outside of an event that happened 2015 years ago). You are defending bigotry and ignorance.
And what do all Christians have in common ? Well, easy : Jesus. That's what you're referring to.
What do all muslims have in common : "the prophet". This prophet :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Mecca
Of note : "Ten people were ordered to be killed:[14] Ikrimah ibn Abi-Jahl, Abdullah ibn Saad ibn Abi Sarh, Habbar bin Aswad, Miqyas Subabah Laythi, Huwairath bin Nuqayd, Abdullah Hilal and four women who had been guilty of murder or criticising Mohammed or had sparked off the war and disrupted the peace."
(note also the fact that the prophet violated the terms of the peace treaty he signed beforehand, real peace of work this prophet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Banu_Qurayza
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khaybar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_raids
...
The list goes on and all in all "the prophet" directly ordered the deaths of at least 1200 people, some sources say 18000 is closer to the real figure.
And let's just not mention that the guy did this to a 6 year old (don't worry, some muslim sources claim she was 8) (plenty of muslim countries realize that this is not moral, but always muslim clerics are fighting the state on this) :
http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/bukhari/0... (search for "fondle", and yes, that's not a mistranslation. For a modern view google "thighing" for how this is translated into modern law and ... into modern ways to do something to female toddlers (which is both legal and done in Saudi Arabia))
There is no gray area here. There is also no sane argument that "some" islamic sects don't include this. Every moral human being would consider islam's central figure a complete abomination. The rest (the large majority) is either ignorant or (some of them) malevolent.
So why is islam evil ? Simple. If you read the primary sources, there is no escaping the conclusion that the terrorirsts are right. If you consider massacring people for insults/criticism wrong, then the prophet is a monster, because he did that.
Such a viewpoint is completely incompatible with anything remotely related to islam, for obvious reasons (for over a millenia, muslims were referred to as mohammedans, because "muslim" means believer, not of any specific religion, and was used to refer to christians)
I fear to think about just how desperate you must be when holding up Saudi Arabia as an example of a "US ally", presumably to indicate the state itself is not extremist ...
Now look here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knjwOWJoY-k&bpctr=1421571560
Heh ... I wonder why anyone would consider that extremist ?
> The majority of Terrorist attacks within the US is... surprise... not Muslim related. This is a historical fact.
And any historical map of the world will tell you exactly why that is. Incidentally, by death toll, islam is by far the largest cause of terrorism. By death toll per decade it's 2 orders of magnitude worse than all other sources combined.
Furthermore there are huge regions where that is not true at all. South Eastern Europe, North and Central Africa, India, and parts of China. Additionally, the largest massacre ever (the invasion of India by the Mughals) was also committed by islam's followers. And it's not like that's islam's only mention in the top-10 massacres by death toll.
It's only been 1,500 years. Lets give them a little more time mmm-k?
That is the real question in my mind, at least.
So they're effectively to be compared with pre-enlightenment Christianity and then the differences are much smaller. The world does not move in lockstep. Sooner or later Islam will also experience its enlightenment (hopefully sooner) and then we will see the end of this nonsense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
This guy had the right idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk
Sadly, missed opportunity and Turkey in spite of leading the way is currently in turmoil.
The Middle-east is such a hellhole because the Ottoman Empire got royally F'''ed up in World War 1. And its iddy-bitty pieces were redrawn by the Allies.
Whereas Germany remained strong and rebelled against the Allied rule by basically starting World War 2... the Ottomans were cut up piece by piece and distributed across the Allied powers. The clusterf'''ed map today was drawn by military commanders with no rhyme or reason to cultural unity, which leads us to how screwed up the Middle East is today.
Granted, the Ottomans were in decline by that point, which contributed to why they lost the Great War. But lets not forget the basis of history here. World War 1 screwed things up, quite severely, in this region.
In fact, the former map of the Ottoman Empire basically reads for where things are screwed up today.
http://www.zonu.com/images/0X0/2010-01-02-11578/The-Ottoman-...
Ignoring the major geo-political changes between 1850 through 1920 seems frankly insane. The current state of the Middle East can be easily explained by WW1 and the collapse of the Ottomans. Furthermore, the history and culture of the region _remembers_ when they were a great world power.
There's probably a bit of jealousy and pride in there, as the Persians / Ottomans were a great empire only ~150 years ago.
Religion is a personal thing.
There's one sect kinda-sorta preaching violence. And that is the Wahhabi Islam that followed Osama Bin Laden. Beyond that, your mainstream Shiite / Shia Muslims are rather peaceful folk within the Western World.
Frances 7%+ Muslim Population is a testament to that. Its pretty much those who get converted to the extremist violent sect that we have to worry about.
And as I stated in another thread: geo-political issues prevent the US from calling out the sect specifically. Saudi Arabia has a relatively large number of Salafists.
Even then... Wahhabi / Salafi aren't the same. But since they're more closely related (same geo-political area and a shared history)... I'll keep the terms close to each other. But honestly, these sorts of things are important to see.
You can't just paint Islam with a broad brush and make generalizations. At best, I'd say the attacks (Sept. 11, Anwar Al Awalki, Bin Laden, etc. etc.) are all derived from Wahhabi Islam at best.
The most accurate is probably "Violently Motivated Extremist Wahhabi Islam"... which is a rather small subset of Muslims. (Basically just ISIS and Al Qaeda)
Furthermore support of violence to suppress freedom of religion is by no means limited to a small splinter sect in the islamic world. For example in a Pew survey, 88% of muslims in Egypt support the death penalty for converting away from islam. When you consider that about 95% of Egyptians are muslim, that's a pretty mainstream view.
If you want to know more about muslim views, I highly recommend reading through http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religio... for perspective. Coming from a Western view you might encounter a lot of, "No, you think you are tolerant but what you think of as tolerance really isn't." And it is important to understand that.
The item I pointed to is kind of canonical. A muslim who lets others practice their religion believes that he is tolerant of those religions. And continues believing that even while saying that if a member of one of those religions convinces some other muslim that that religion is correct, then they need to be killed for the attack on the one TRUE religion, islam!
The first example that came to mind was the Unabomber - last attack was 1995, and he was explicitly opposing the technology-rich western world.
A simple google search for "terrorist attacks not muslim" brought up: http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/terrorism-in-europe/
"only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists."
"In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2006 to 2008 could be attributed to extremist Muslims."
> And as I stated in another thread: geo-political issues prevent the US from calling out the sect specifically. Saudi Arabia has a relatively large number of Salafists.
We're in violent agreement here, as long as our dependency on oil continues this likely will not change. That's one of the factors holding back meaningful progress on a quite a large number of stages.
"Christianity experienced enlightenment and Islam did not"?
Surely you're not so ignorant as to dismiss the thousand years where the Islamic world was the abode of knowledge, science and civilization while Europe was in the dark ages.
Yes, shit sucks for them now. But to say they never experienced enlightenment (btw, the effects of the Islamic world on the "enlightenment" is well known). Part of the problem is that we're not over our colonial instincts. Just look down on the other cultures, we're obviously the best. Our country, our people, our skin color, right?
I've read about outwardly atheist and vocal scientists and philosophers from the 1100's in the Islamic world. And he was pretty revered (although today they wouldn't be able to walk down the streets of most Muslim countries with their head intact).
Many of our principles are borrowed from Islamic civilization that preceded us. It's the equivalent of dismissing Egyptians and saying their problem is that they never achieved civilization like us.
I still can't express how shocked I am at the shallowness of your comment. I really hope it is because you're upset.
EDIT: btilly was kind enough to point out where I misinterpreted what jacquesm was stating. I took his comment as a slight, whereas it was far better thought out observation.
Credit belongs to the Islamic world for keeping classical knowledge alive and reintroducing it to Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance. However the Enlightenment refers to a later period in European history where people came to terms with the result of decades of very nasty civil wars over Protestant vs Catholic, and came up with principles which allowed people of different beliefs to peacefully coexist within society.
That is the source of Western ideas like "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech". Which very importantly say that while you can take offense at another's words or beliefs, you can't actually do anything about it. Like go over and kill them. And they have to reciprocate by not killing you in turn.
The Muslim world has nothing like this. Sure, they say that you're free to follow another religion of the book. But their teachings are very explicit that this only works so long as you don't do anything offensive to muslims. Like mock the prophet, convert muslims to your faith, and so on. Do that, and you die. Unless the Muslim world internalizes the Western version of that idea, we're going to continue having problems reconciling Islam and Western civilization.
Incidentally the golden age of Islam that you refer to traditionally ended with the sack of Baghdad in 1258. However contemporary scholars point to evidence that relative enlightenment continued until the great economic decline that resulted from Western countries establishing direct trade routes with the East, which reduced commerce along the Silk Road.
What I would argue is the viewpoint that the Muslim world or any other region that isn't us, needing to inherit or adhere to our viewpoint, as being short sighted.
I think I'm finally starting to see jacquesm was saying (I feel like a dumbass now). I just reread his original comment on the world not moving in lockstep. It will take time, hopefully some economic development, infrastructure & some super connected smart people who are part of the local & global community. I interpreted his comment to be a slight against an entire culture, which, thanks your comment I am able to see past now.
As for what the enlightenment was all about, maybe you should read up on that first before starting a rant like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
So no, Islam did not experience enlightenment. The closest they came to that was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk and his attempt to reduce the influence of religion on politics but it mostly failed outside of Turkey and recent events there should make you worried about whether or not his legacy will last.
The fact that there are anecdotes about atheists in the 1100's does nothing to contradict what I said.
What I was saying weren't just some anecdotes. May I humbly suggest you read up on the subject a little more before making such pronouncements. I don't care if some random person says something. But I think hope in the future rests in someone like you being informed and balanced in your views.
The internet is an amazing thing. It can help melt away prejudices and connect people who think from around the world. People who have the power to shape the future. We must be more sensible and informed. (It may sound elitist, but lets face it, this place in some way is a cafe that anyone from the US or Afghanistan can join in and discuss).
I'd argue that Ataturk was the wrong kind of leader. What the Muslim world needs is a Gandhi. Someone who doesn't force them to be this way or that way. All freedom need not look the same. I may be naive in thinking this, but maybe the world just needs better internet. There are people who destroy and people who build. If we could get the builders in the same community globally and get them communicating, there may be hope for a better yet.
(Advance apologies for the second rant)
> What the Muslim world needs is a Gandhi.
That would be a good thing indeed.
What I meant with the Ataturk reference - in case that wasn't clear - is that it should be possible to have an enlightened muslim state, one where the trend to fanaticism can be stopped maybe even reversed, and that such a state could set an example for the rest of the muslim world.
Right now Turkey is once again in turmoil, it's not unlike former Yugoslavia in composition and I fear for how that will all turn out. You are right in that this directly links back to how the union was achieved in the first place (mostly by force, rather than by consensus).
I agree that he was an improvement over the state of affairs in most muslim countries in the Middle East, but can't go so far as to say that he had the right idea.
But he did move Turkey from the state it was in to the next step. Keep in mind that most of the things that you add there were compromises, he was walking a very fine line between unification and all out civil war.
I doubt he could have done much more in one lifetime, I agree he probably could have done a better job but then again I wasn't in his shoes so it is hard to judge.
But putting Turkey ca. 1980 next to the countries surrounding it and you'd have to agree that his legacy had the potential to pay off.
But he ended 1500 years of war between islam and
The wast
Christianity
India
China
Africa
...
But yeah today it seems maybe he didn't so much end it as interrupt it for 100 years.
"Real" satire of Islamic culture has been performed for decades. For the most part, you don't have to include the image of Mohammed for every statement you want to make of Islam.
However, I do agree that you should be allowed to do so without fear of violent reprisal. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in at the moment. It's going to take a while before Islamists change their views on this issue.