Paris Shooting

[The Doctor]

Agreed re Christianity. I've made the same point many times.

However, regarding Islam, I also believe that the majority of Muslims would not execute someone for leaving the faith. That's proven by the lack of executions in the UK.

Mostly because the UK is not an Islamic state - in Islamic States like Qatar and Saudi Arabia it carries the death penalty. Even in the uk, 36% of Muslims aged 16-24 think it should be a capital offence to renounce their religion: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/living%20apart%20together%20-%20jan%2007.pdf

[hejammy]

Twenty years years ago you don't think there was any Islamic extremism? Really? Al-Qaeda didn't spring into existence on the 11th September 2001. The GIA carried out a wave of terrorist attacks in the 1990's and beyond in Algeria and what is their desired aim? To overthrow the Algerian government and establish an Islamic state. Now, where have I heard that ideology recently ...

If you seriously think that Islamic terrorism (and yes, it is Islamic and it is terrorism) didn't exist twenty years ago, I'm afraid it's you that needs to get your head out of the sand.

Can you honestly say that 'Islamic terrorism' was so 'main stream' 20 years ago? Did you hear about it in the media all the time?

[Merging Cultures]

Mostly because the UK is not an Islamic state - in Islamic States like Qatar and Saudi Arabia it carries the death penalty. Even in the uk, 36% of Muslims aged 16-24 think it should be a capital offence to renounce their religion: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/living%20apart%20together%20-%20jan%2007.pdf

Not mostly because...

36% of 16-24 year olds is a minority, albeit a relatively large minority for that age group.

So, for the majority of people in that age group, and I imagine the rest of British Muslims, they would not consider capital punishment for leaving the faith.

A minority of Christians handle snakes, fall on the ground and shake... It doesn't not mean all Christians believe these things.

If you had said 85% of all Muslims across all age groups, I'd be with you. But 36% of one age group doesn't mean everyone or an entire religion.

[1993fox]

Not mostly because...

36% of 16-24 year olds is a minority, albeit a relatively large minority for that age group.

So, for the majority of people in that age group, and I imagine the rest of British Muslims, they would not consider capital punishment for leaving the faith.

A minority of Christians handle snakes, fall on the ground and shake... It doesn't not mean all Christians believe these things.

If you had said 85% of all Muslims across all age groups, I'd be with you. But 36% of one age group doesn't mean everyone or an entire religion.

 

You think 36% of a community believe an apostate must be murdered is not a scary figure? 

 

Keep ignoring the red flags, your descendants will face the consequence of this generation's liberal apathy. 

[The Doctor]

Not mostly because...

36% of 16-24 year olds is a minority, albeit a relatively large minority for that age group.

So, for the majority of people in that age group, and I imagine the rest of British Muslims, they would not consider capital punishment for leaving the faith.

A minority of Christians handle snakes, fall on the ground and shake... It doesn't not mean all Christians believe these things.

If you had said 85% of all Muslims across all age groups, I'd be with you. But 36% of one age group doesn't mean everyone or an entire religion.

In terms of a strict do more or less support than oppose, it's a minority (all be it a scarily large one), but in politics it's a substantial number. We've installed major governments on smaller vote shares than that.

[foxinexile]

Can you honestly say that 'Islamic terrorism' was so 'main stream' 20 years ago? Did you hear about it in the media all the time?

 

I don't understand your point about whether it was "mainstream" or not. What's the relevance? You stated that twenty years ago Islam existed but there were no 'Islamists' (or to give them their correct name, terrorists) which is not true. 

 

Just because terrorism wasn't perhaps in the same limelight then as it is now doesn't mean it didn't exist. Tell that to the villagers of Bentalha who were massacred or any other victim of terrorist attacks twenty years ago. The media is very different today in comparison to that time. Now we have rolling twenty-four hour news channels, twitter, facebook and a whole raft of other "social media" that didn't exist then so the exposure will be far greater. And, of course, a massacre of French civilians will attract far more media coverage in the UK than a massacre of civilians in an Algerian village.

 

However you look at it, terrorism is terrorism, whichever religious or non-religious group it surfaces from. But to make a claim that it didn't exist twenty years ago is not only wrong. It's naive. 

[Merging Cultures]

You think 36% of a community believe an apostate must be murdered is not a scary figure?

Keep ignoring the red flags, your descendants will face the consequence of this generation's liberal apathy.

I didn't say that.

What I was responding to was the stated comment that because a minority of people believe something all do. That is patently false.

If you have read my posts, you'll see that I had said extremists need to be rooted out. The Muslim community need help and support in doing this and you can't approach a group of people starting from the premise that they are all extremists. It just doesn't work.

And thanks for the concern for my kids. They are doing well. The God and my dogs protect them

[Merging Cultures]

In terms of a strict do more or less support than oppose, it's a minority (all be it a scarily large one), but in politics it's a substantial number. We've installed major governments on smaller vote shares than that.

I agree with that! But to be honest, and I see from your profile you are 21 so don't take this the wrong way, but the 16-24 age group have a lot to learn about life, and I'm sure their views will change over time. Sometimes they become more conservative when they start earning and want to protect their family, and sometimes they become more liberal when you experience other cultures. Either way, politics and opinions change over time.

The issue is who is teaching young kids to think this way? This is where everyone needs to work together to identify the triggers and educators.

I'm sure some of it is due to young Muslims growing up in a period when there is extensive media coverage of terrorist acts my extremists, which has stigmatised Islam and therefore I'm sure a fair number of Muslim kids feel ostracised from society. So the extremist preachers feed on that vulnerability.

We should not tolerate extremist views and we should expect people to live according to values of equality, freedom and justice. That means not judging people based on other peoples actions and working together to solve issues. Anyway... Off to play with my kids!!

[leicsmac]

Oi MC, don't come in here with your logical and reasoned arguments. Can't you see it's not wanted?

;-)

[Bellend Sebastian]

This piece helpfully provides a link to what I thought was an excellent piece by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian, coverage of our favourite Aussie mentalist's latest musings and the inevitable more coherent Twitter responses. Personally crushed that Rupes hasn't taken onboard my suggestion that we don't treat muslims as a homogeneous mass, but there you go.

http://religiousreader.org/rupert-murdoch-says-muslims-must-held-responsible-atrocities-like-paris/

[Dr The Singh]

No, foreign policy like supporting Israel. Our handling of the Afghanistan intervention. Not respecting territorial borders. Torturing and indefinitely detaining terrorist suspects without trial. An illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. Taking sides in a number of civil wars, possibly having a hand in starting them. Being hypocritical in our stance on certain regimes.

I disagree, Islamic extremism has been long around before Iraq or afghan war. The establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East has always been a aim. Let's not muddy the waters here, what's happening with ISIS and a establishment of a caliphate is not quite the same as the type of religious fundamentalism seen in this case

[Dr The Singh]

I agree with that! But to be honest, and I see from your profile you are 21 so don't take this the wrong way, but the 16-24 age group have a lot to learn about life, and I'm sure their views will change over time. Sometimes they become more conservative when they start earning and want to protect their family, and sometimes they become more liberal when you experience other cultures. Either way, politics and opinions change over time.

The issue is who is teaching young kids to think this way? This is where everyone needs to work together to identify the triggers and educators.

I'm sure some of it is due to young Muslims growing up in a period when there is extensive media coverage of terrorist acts my extremists, which has stigmatised Islam and therefore I'm sure a fair number of Muslim kids feel ostracised from society. So the extremist preachers feed on that vulnerability.

We should not tolerate extremist views and we should expect people to live according to values of equality, freedom and justice. That means not judging people based on other peoples actions and working together to solve issues. Anyway... Off to play with my kids!!

The thing is MC, majority Muslims in Europe are not native, and are ethnic migrants.

Immigrants as a whole, will bring there lifestyles and ideologies with them. The gap between where they have come from and where they go to can be massive, what they find is the place they end up as being immoral and possibly ungodly.

Now certain ideologies in western terms can be seen to be extreme but the norm in others. With educational factors, cultural factors, has shown in this country for some groups to be collective, form there own social structures, education of there own is seen more important then the schools provided and to some level isolate themselves. These turn into ghettos, crime, poor education and insular behaviour leads to hate. They do not integrate, these people will revert to the roots as there 'home'. Unemployment is high, they do not believe they need to contribute to society, only there own kind

These people are easier to exploit, they have no bond with the country there in.

We have to remember bulk of immigrants have been around for 60 odd years, slowly slowly you hope after each generation, integration and a merging of cultures should occur. It hasn't happened that way with a large enough proportion of some cultures.

[DennisNedry]

A few main points to take from this horrible episode:

 

1) The terrorists are NOT martyrs. Martyrs are killed because of their religion or beliefs.  The terrorists were not killed because of that, they were killed because they murdered a bunch of people. So by definition they are not martyrs.

 

2) I'm glad that the terrorists were killed. I'd liken them to Smallpox (which humans eradicated entirely in 1980). Why risk keeping them somewhere where they could infect others or escape when it's much safer/cheaper/sensible to just exterminate them?

 

3) You'd be surprised how many ordinary law abiding Muslims support the terrorists. Sure, they wouldn't go so far as to murder anybody themselves, but they have an arrogant 'they deserved it' opinion towards the cartoonists. I've heard many being interviewed on BBC R4 and was frankly disgusted.

 

Also, this is a sweeping statement but I'd like to see if people can argue it: 'the world in the 21st century would be a better place without islam'

[The Doctor]

Also, this is a sweeping statement but I'd like to see if people can argue it: 'the world in the 21st century would be a better place without islam'

To what extent are we taking that - never existed, or gone the way of the dodo? If it's the latter I'd find it hard to disagree, but the expansion of early Muslims into Spain is what brought a lot of the Greek scholars work back into Europe after early Christians tried to destroy it under the pretext of there being no useful reflections on morality prior to Jesus.

[Merging Cultures]

The thing is MC, majority Muslims in Europe are not native, and are ethnic migrants.

Immigrants as a whole, will bring there lifestyles and ideologies with them. The gap between where they have come from and where they go to can be massive, what they find is the place they end up as being immoral and possibly ungodly.

Now certain ideologies in western terms can be seen to be extreme but the norm in others. With educational factors, cultural factors, has shown in this country for some groups to be collective, form there own social structures, education of there own is seen more important then the schools provided and to some level isolate themselves. These turn into ghettos, crime, poor education and insular behaviour leads to hate. They do not integrate, these people will revert to the roots as there 'home'. Unemployment is high, they do not believe they need to contribute to society, only there own kind

These people are easier to exploit, they have no bond with the country there in.

We have to remember bulk of immigrants have been around for 60 odd years, slowly slowly you hope after each generation, integration and a merging of cultures should occur. It hasn't happened that way with a large enough proportion of some cultures.

Not disagreeing with that at all.

[leicsmac]

A few main points to take from this horrible episode:

1) The terrorists are NOT martyrs. Martyrs are killed because of their religion or beliefs. The terrorists were not killed because of that, they were killed because they murdered a bunch of people. So by definition they are not martyrs.

2) I'm glad that the terrorists were killed. I'd liken them to Smallpox (which humans eradicated entirely in 1980). Why risk keeping them somewhere where they could infect others or escape when it's much safer/cheaper/sensible to just exterminate them?

3) You'd be surprised how many ordinary law abiding Muslims support the terrorists. Sure, they wouldn't go so far as to murder anybody themselves, but they have an arrogant 'they deserved it' opinion towards the cartoonists. I've heard many being interviewed on BBC R4 and was frankly disgusted.

Also, this is a sweeping statement but I'd like to see if people can argue it: 'the world in the 21st century would be a better place without islam'

If you're talking about people carrying out terrible acts in the name of their religion, Islam hardly has a monopoly on such acts. Doctors are gunned down in the US and gays emasculated and then shot in Uganda in the name of Christianity, for instance.

Personally, I strongly dislike pretty much all big organised religion as you get so many people in the same area believing the same thing in a really absolute sense and those that don't are going to get screwed pretty much every time. It may not be the spectacular kind we're seeing with Islam right now, but the past proves it to be the case with most of the pantheon.

You give a man a cause he's fully willing to die for because the next life is more important, then there's trouble ahead. Because then he starts thinking it applies to other people too.

[leicsmac]

To what extent are we taking that - never existed, or gone the way of the dodo? If it's the latter I'd find it hard to disagree, but the expansion of early Muslims into Spain is what brought a lot of the Greek scholars work back into Europe after early Christians tried to destroy it under the pretext of there being no useful reflections on morality prior to Jesus.

This is a good point too.

[1993fox]

If you're talking about people carrying out terrible acts in the name of their religion, Islam hardly has a monopoly on such acts. Doctors are gunned down in the US and gays emasculated and then shot in Uganda in the name of Christianity, for instance.

Personally, I strongly dislike pretty much all big organised religion as you get so many people in the same area believing the same thing in a really absolute sense and those that don't are going to get screwed pretty much every time. It may not be the spectacular kind we're seeing with Islam right now, but the past proves it to be the case with most of the pantheon.

You give a man a cause he's fully willing to die for because the next life is more important, then there's trouble ahead. Because then he starts thinking it applies to other people too.

 

You're just shooting buzzwords here and there to make a point you could have made in a sentence. 

 

Islam doesn't have a monopoly on religious violence but if you're blind to the fact that for the past 30 years the VAST majority of religious violence has been committed by Muslims then I'm losing hope for the Western civilization.

[MC Prussian]

In terms of a strict do more or less support than oppose, it's a minority (all be it a scarily large one), but in politics it's a substantial number. We've installed major governments on smaller vote shares than that.

Yeah, but is Islam democratic?

[leicsmac]

You're just shooting buzzwords here and there to make a point you could have made in a sentence.

Islam doesn't have a monopoly on religious violence but if you're blind to the fact that for the past 30 years the VAST majority of religious violence has been committed by Muslims then I'm losing hope for the Western civilization.

Yeah, it was too verbose, wasn't it? Here's a sentence.

All organised religion can be dangerous because you get lots of people thinking they can treat other people as things because they'll be rewarded when they die.

As for your point in the second paragraph, if you're talking about Europe and the Middle East I agree. If you're talking about the whole world, I'm not sure that I do. There are areas of the world Islam has barely touched yet people still die there over religion - South America for instance. And that's not counting he fundamentalist Christians in Africa I mentioned.

In any case, Merging Cultures made a much more salient post in reply to you above than I could, so I'm wondering if you have a reply for him as well as me.

[1993fox]

Yeah, it was too verbose, wasn't it? Here's a sentence.

All organised religion can be dangerous because you get lots of people thinking they can treat other people as things because they'll be rewarded when they die.

As for your point in the second paragraph, if you're talking about Europe and the Middle East I agree. If you're talking about the whole world, I'm not sure that I do. There are areas of the world Islam has barely touched yet people still die there over religion - South America for instance. And that's not counting he fundamentalist Christians in Africa I mentioned.

In any case, Merging Cultures made a much more salient post in reply to you above than I could, so I'm wondering if you have a reply for him as well as me.

 

Oh ok nice one forgetting fundamentalist Muslims in Maghreb and in Nigeria.

 

Nice one forgetting that violence BASED ON religion in South America is essentially non-existent compared to violence based on Islam all over the world.

 

Tell me the last 5 religious-based attacks in South America off the top of your head? 

 

The sort of defence you're giving Islam as an ideology makes it very obvious to me you just don't want to be painted as a racist. Read the Quran one day, look at what it says about those who don't walk on the straight path of Islam, compare it to other Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religious texts. Trust me, you can critique an ideology and you don't have to be worry about being called a racist. 

[Buce]

Just to add a bit of balance here, Muslims have been the victims of inter-communal violence at the hands of Hindus in India, countless times, both historically and recently.

[Merging Cultures]

I like this video http://mm4a.org/1vspe9j

[leicsmac]

Oh ok nice one forgetting fundamentalist Muslims in Maghreb and in Nigeria.

Nice one forgetting that violence BASED ON religion in South America is essentially non-existent compared to violence based on Islam all over the world.

Tell me the last 5 religious-based attacks in South America off the top of your head?

The sort of defence you're giving Islam as an ideology makes it very obvious to me you just don't want to be painted as a racist. Read the Quran one day, look at what it says about those who don't walk on the straight path of Islam, compare it to other Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religious texts. Trust me, you can critique an ideology and you don't have to be worry about being called a racist.

I'm well aware of fundamentalist Islam in Africa...Boko Haram killed a load more people today. Death worshipping fascists.

Perhaps I'm not making myself understood here...I've said it before above but I'll say it again, I'm not defending the ideology of Islam or any other organised religion. I think all of them have been used as tools to oppress and kill and the world would be a better place if humanity no longer believed such outdated, dangerous (in places) dogma. As far as supposed holy texts go...Leviticus is as bad as anything in the Qur'an.

I despise everyone who would use their religion as an excuse to treat people add things, Islam not excepted. But I'm not just going to focus on them as the only bad guys because they happen to be big news right now when atrocities in the name of a dozen different deities and ideologies are happening all over the world.

Every fundamentalist who wants to kill and die just so he can get his just reward in the next life is scum to me. Whatever their belief. Every person who keeps their belief private and personal and doesn't try to impress it upon others in a hostile way is a decent person to me. Whatever their belief.

[Merging Cultures]

Just to add a bit of balance here, Muslims have been the victims of inter-communal violence at the hands of Hindus in India, countless times, both historically and recently.

Very true, a number of years ago I visited a small bank I was working with in Meghalaya state. There is an awful lot of violence against Muslims there.