WTF? Are you just pretending to understand how logic works, or are you hoping nobody the fuck else does? No, “all Muslims” is not the same thing as “Muslims in general” which is actually the fuck what Kimstu claimed and I endorsed as the implication of your position. And no, I don’t fucking “own” the implication of a faulty premise just because I explain it to some internet dimwit; the dimwit owns it if he continues to endorse the fucking premise.
One more “fuck” for emphasis: Look “reductio ad absurdum” up if you think its use means the user endorses the absurd conclusions. And I did, apparently, fucking nail that earlier prediction.
In the immediate short term I don’t think it has much practical significance. (This was in fact my initial comment on the subject in this thread.) The present situation is what it is. It has longer term significance, though. (More below.)
I’m not sure the question is answerable as asked.
For one thing, I don’t know that there’s a clear dichotomy between the “more extreme Wahhabi sects” and the “more moderate faiths”, and my understanding is that it’s more of a continuum than that.
And once you’re limiting yourself to faiths that are by definition “more moderate” then it gets a “No True Scotsman” aspect to it. To the extent that the version of Islam that these people follow eschews violence, then they would be in the same position as someone from a non-Islamic faith which eschewed violence to the same degree.
But the key question is whether the core teachings and traditions of Islam lend themselves more readily to the more extreme versions versus the more moderate versions.
As I’ve pointed out earlier in this thread, pretty much all religions have a broad range of teachings, and this enables people who incline in one direction or another to select for emphasis teachings that are in line with their inclinations. In addition, religious teachings tend to lend themselves to varied interpretations - literal to figurative, expansive vs restricted - and this too enables people to interpret the religion along the lines of their inclinations. And that’s why you find numerous versions and sects within each religion, and why religions themselves tend to evolve over time. But that doesn’t mean that religions are blank slates either. There is a certain amount of substance in each religion - based on the content and plain meaning of the sacred texts, the founding myth, the traditional core principles, the accumulated weight of centuries of tradition - that have a bearing.
Leaving Islam aside for a second, consider Religion A and Religion B. Religion A was founded via violence, the sacred texts are full of exhortations to do violent things in the name of the religion, with the notion of tolerance for other faiths and lifestyles deemphasized or absent, the preachings of religious leaders and scholars over the centuries has similarly been along the same lines. Religion B was founded without violence, and the sacred texts are full of exhortations to live and let live, these have been accepted for centuries as among the core principles of the religion.
Now does that mean that all followers of Religion A will be violent or supportive of violence and all followers of Religion B will abhor it? Absolutely not. Followers of Religion A who strongly incline to non-violence - whether because of political or economic factors, influence of outside ideas, or just personal temperament etc. - will tend to buy into interpretations of the Religion A which deemphasize the violent aspects or reinterpret them in highly restrictive or non-violent ways (or create such interpretations themselves, if they’re religious thinkers and leaders). And conversely, followers of Religion B who strongly incline to violence - whether because of political or economic factors, influence of outside ideas, or just personal temperament etc. - be tend to buy into interpretations of the Religion B which emphasize the violent aspects and reinterpret the non-violent teachings in restrictive ways (or create such interpretations themselves, if they’re religious thinkers and leaders). Nonetheless, over the course of time, and subjected to the same range of outside forces, the more violence-prone versions of Religion A will tend to flourish more than the more violence-prone versions of Religion B. Because the violence-prone versions of Religion A are swimming with the current, so to speak, while the violence-prone versions of Religion B are swimming upstream. And to the extent that any individual finds themselves in a position in which they’re contemplating adopting another religion or a different version of their current one, the violent version of Religion A and the non-violent version of Religion B have an edge over the alternative versions, in that they fit more naturally into the core teachings and traditions of that religion.
The above are hypothetical extremes. Any given religion could lie somewhere on a continuum between these extremes. But the point is that there’s no reason to just axiomatically assume that every religion is the same as any other religion in terms of its susceptibility to violent interpretations. So when considering Islam, you can’t just assume that the current state is solely the result of outside factors (though they certainly have great influence as well) and that there’s nothing about the religion itself which makes it susceptible to violence-prone interpretations. ISTM that the alternative is a reasonable possibility and unless someone has expertise and compelling proofs to one side or the other the question is an open one.
Just ain’t so, my friend. It’s a bit strange, because not only did she say “all Muslims” explicitly earlier in this thread, but I quoted it a few posts back. With a link and everything. It was in a post responding to you so I don’t know how you missed it. But, just because I love you, I’ll quote it again, this time with the relevant parts helpfully highlighted.
That post was the main basis of my initial exchange with Kimstu on that particular subject. In Round 2, she backed off that a bit, and, in a rousing finale to her recent post on the subject, she said:
Now I understood this (and the rest of that post) to be saying that while no one is explicitly advocating a position that “all Muslims are violent” it’s an implication of their position, in that there’s no coherent argument that the current violence is not entirely due to a “complex of historical/cultural/social/economic factors” which would not entail all Muslims being violent. And your take was somewhat similar, in describing it as a reductio ad absurdum, and you endorsed it with gusto. Bottom line was that she and you took the position that the alternative theory to the current level of violence being only due to a “complex of historical/cultural/social/economic factors” either was (Version 1) or necessarily implied (Version 2) that “all Muslims are violent”. This is the problem.
You’ve been struggling throughout this exchange in keeping the distinction between what a given position is and whether that position is correct, and this is what’s getting you tangled up here. The focus of the discussion here is not whether the alternative to what might be termed the “complex of historical/cultural/social/economic factors” position is correct, but what it is. Specifically, whether that alternative is, or necessarily implies, that all Muslims are violent.
Of course the maker of a “reductio ad absurdum” argument does not own the absurd conclusion that they’re asserting is implied from their opponents’ position. But they do own the assertion that this absurd conclusion is implied. To the extent that the alternative position can be structured so as not to lead to the absurd conclusion, then that “reductio ad absurdum” argument doesn’t hold. And to the extent that the maker of that argument insists on structuring their opponents’ argument in a manner that allows for the “reductio ad absurdum” argument, when it would also be possible to structure it otherwise, then they’re strawmanning.
And so, gentle Xeno, you can rest easy knowing that no one is saying that you personally belief the “absurd conclusion” that all Muslims are violent. What I am saying is that you’ve incorrectly bought into the notion that this is, or necessarily follows from, the position which is the alternative to the “complex of historical/cultural/social/economic factors” position.
To return to the point of departure here, the analogy of the logical process to a “dangerous corner” as presented in the Humanist.com article is a good one. From a logical standpoint it is possible to assert that a corner is dangerous (i.e. more dangerous than the average corner) without also maintaining that every car which passes it crashes. Conversely, the position that the corner is a dangerous one cannot be refuted by pointing to many instances of cars passing by and not crashing. And lastly - and pay close attention here, because this is the ultimate point of the analogy - someone who maintains that the corner is not a dangerous corner, and who attempts to support this position by pretending that the alternative position (i.e. that the corner is dangerous) is, or necessarily implies, that all cars passing it crash, is strawmanning. And this is, from a logical structural standpoint, what’s been happening here.
I tried to suss out what you felt the long term practical significance of this from the rest of your post but it was a lot of text to paw through and I couldn’t find it. Perhaps if you stated it more explicitly. But given that we are dealing with the here and now and not speculating on actions aren’t talking about actions we are going to take decades in the future, the lack of near term practical implications leads me to say who cares?
Why not just go ahead and say that some Muslims are violent while the vast majority aren’t. Whether or not Islam is “inherently” violent according to some omniscient score cared is irrelevant. Individual Muslims should be judged on their own actions a beliefs and tying them together in terms of violent tendencies is an error in judgement.
The problem is that the idea of Islam as an inherently violent religion is being used by some (such as the OP) as a reason to suppress it in all its forms, to assume that a given person is likely to be violent because they are Muslim, or to deny refugee status to Syrians. Thus for such people the violence inherent in Islam is of tremendous practical significance. And it is this notion that we are fighting against.
I would also posit that there might be practical implications of the statement that Islam is inherently violent that may not be immediately obvious. Not to suggest that you are racist (honestly I’m not), but your nuanced view recalls to me the claims of the Bell Curve which suggested that while not all blacks were dumb, blacks as a race were inherently less intelligent than whites. At some level one could argue that there was no practical significance of this result. After all you shouldn’t discriminate against an individual black as he might be one of the smart ones. However this idea does make it easier to not worry about under achievement among black students, since its just their nature. Similarly the notion that Islam is an inherently violent religion can lead us to not ignore the social, economic and political factors that leads to violent extremism, and instead just throw up our hands and say, they are just naturally going to be violent, so there is nothing that can be done.
On reflection, I was probably not explicit enough. Sorry. I was referring to the broader explanation of the nature of religions lending themselves to one interpretation or another, including: “Nonetheless, over the course of time, and subjected to the same range of outside forces, the more violence-prone versions of Religion A will tend to flourish more than the more violence-prone versions of Religion B.”
That’s pretty much what I think ,as a practical matter. As mentioned, that was my initial post on the subject. Kimstu indicated that the distinction was of importance, and my response was that it was of little practical difference (point being that for this reason people were probably not careful about the distinction when discussing the matter).
But the way things develop here is that discussions take on a life of their own and even matters that have little practical difference get discussed, and once the conversation took a turn that way I went with it. Myself, I post primarily for my own amusement - I have no delusions that I’m solving the world’s problems here - so what I respond to is mostly about what interests me at the time.
I don’t see that this is true. For the purpose of “assum[ing] that a given person is likely to be violent because they are Muslim, or to deny refugee status to Syrians” it’s not of much practical significance whether extremist forms of Islam are currently popular and gaining popularity because of “complex of historical/cultural/social/economic factors” or are (also) because of factors which are inherent to Islam. The main thing that matters is whether a given group of Muslims is likely to contain extremists among them, for whatever reason.
Anyone who doesn’t appreciate that social, economic and political factors can lead to violent extremism is an ignorant fool. If I was speaking to that type of ignorant fool it would be important to take this into account.
But now that you bring these up, let me ask you something. Do you consider the possibility that the great reluctance of some to even consider the possibility that Islam itself might also lend itself to extremism is possibly a reaction in certain circles to concerns such as you raise here?
Shit, they’re lucky! I fell asleep and dreamed I was trying to choke down an incredibly long and dense post, then woke up and realized that my pillow was gone!
Can anyone tell me if he ever just came out and said that he thinks Islam is more violent than other belief systems? Or was it all just this level of twaddle and obfuscation.
I’m never too good on this whole theist thing, so remind me - which ones were the pacifist ones. I’m guessing we can dismiss Hinduism, Islam, and any of the ones that hang off the old testament (seen any Canaanites lately?)
Maybe Buddhism? Ah fuck it, forget about the Nirvana sutra. Shit. That whole Buddha slaughtering the Brahmins thing kind of screws that pooch eh?
Nope, I’ll confess, I’m struggling. Which ones were the chill ones?
What prevarication are you talking about? I think that often the correct position to hold on complicated topics is something like “I’m not really sure, because it’s complicated and I’m not an expert, but I think that maybe there is some truth to X, but not a lot” or something like that. Or are you assuming that obviously, deep down, FP really thinks that everyone with a turban is a terrorist, and you wish he would just come out and admit it rather than coyly pretending that he’s not a comical monster?
He literally just said precisely that, with the qualifier that he isn’t confident, about that position and he thinks that’s only true to some degree.