I never said it was bigotted, I said it makes serious mistakes and is incomplete.
Yes they adopt the takfiri view that anyone not believing exactly like them is wrong and kaafir, they practice excommunication to use the christian idea. Shia, Sufi. Everyone. This is an innovation, it is not in the classical theology to have this sweeping view.
Wrong?
it is a fact there are some thousands of lost persons seeking meaning in associating with this criminal band. the idea of the caliphate that the DAESH has invented is a weird rearranging of the classical (thus the universal denunciation).
This article is more useful discussion, allowing for the parts of the article that are founded and giving better context in my opinion.
Very few Christians truly believe in predestination, the notion that because God sees all, he knows before you are born whether you shall be saved or not. Of course, its right there in the Scripture, God knows all, all will be as He has forseen. And those who do not heed the call of the Lord are doomed. Many Christians hold that view to be heretical, others, ill-informed, but the vast majority think its silly and stupid, the triumph of theology over religion.
The apocalyptic crapola that ISIS lives for is just another example of this common human hubris. The notion that you can sit down and figure out precisely what God is up to, as if an ant wandering across Einsteins toe would suddenly understand calculus. Nothing “Muslim” about it, it is human, common, perhaps even universal. Just as soon as people get enough culture and ego to start in outsmarting themselves, they do it.
Christian, Muslim, atheist, Jew. Human, all too human. Perhaps agnostics as well, not quite sure about that…
Yeah, the OP was the epitome of sophisticated cleverness. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Starving Artist;18860670But when you start or participate in a thread where you’re making all sorts of outlandish accusations about a certain person and a poster comes along, and, bit by bit as the evidence comes out, show you to have been wrong on virtually every one of them, it’s hard to argue that poster lost the thread.[/QUOTE]
Dude, you have never ever been this poster in any thread anywhere.
They’re young men with no prospects and poor critical thinking skills, who have been tricked into buying into a series of scapegoats for their problems. They’re really not that different from young men in the US who are schooled to believe that immigrants, gays and liberals are the source of their problems.
They’re just more desperate, thus even more committed to their particular brand of nonsense.
Agreed. But, assassinating abortionists seems to have quite a bit to do with Christianity, so I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Fortunately, it’s also very, very rare, and so, while not completely irrelevant, is much less of a worldwide problem than what Islam is currently going through.
Obama’s much maligned quote on the people of Middle America seems also appropriate in describing what is going on in the middle east (minus perhaps the anti-trade)
[QUOTE=Obama]
it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
[/QUOTE]
For the most part religion doesn’t motivate people into action, it just helps them justify the actions they have already decided they want to take. And since it is based on faith rather than logic and makes promises to eternal paradise or damnation, it makes arguments stemming from it immune to rational thought. So those people who feel that their traditions and culture are under attack by an oppressive “other” who is trying to wipe out everything they hold dear, may look to religion and violence as a way fight these frustrations and humiliations.
It just so happens that Islam is the religion of choice in the part of the world that feels these tensions the strongest at the moment. If the situations were reversed, it is clear that many Americans would feel that it was their Christian duty to fight against the coming Islamic wave, even if that meant acting against civilians. Heck even with relatively little threat from the Middle East it is trivially easy to drum up support in favor of Nuking Mecca. So its not as if we are fundamentally different. Fortunately there is little need for individual Christians to go anti Muslim Killing sprees since we have a military which can vent our frustrations for us.
Uh, I think you mean “that isn’t happening currently in Christianity”. There have been plenty of situations in the history of Christianity where a significant percentage of Christians have signed on to hateful and murderous interpretations of their doctrines.
In any case, nobody denies that Islam has a serious problem to deal with in the significant minority of its adherents who are currently signing on to hateful and murderous interpretations of its doctrines.
But the point is that “Islam has a serious problem to deal with” != “Islam itself is the problem and is inherently despicable”. Which is how a lot of people try to spin it every time some Muslims do something awful.
No doubt that Christianity had (and has to this day, to a much, much lesser degree) a violence problem. If they revert to that next week, then that’s relevant to this discussion, and we should discuss what Christianity has to do to change it’s violence problem. But, until then, it just means that religions are a powerful motivator to make people into violent assholes. Currently, the religion with this issue is not Christianity.
So, do I assume correctly that you disagree with the Atlantic article in that it portrays ISIS as extremely adherent to religious dogma, and that the New Statesman article is correct to point out that their motives aren’t based in religion?
I can see both viewpoints as valid, because the same thing has happened in American history. Christian zealots were able to lead mobs because they capitalized on fear and insecurity.
The difference between the two statements is of interest to people who are themselves Muslims or theologians. Most people making claims of this sort are in neither of these groups, and are simply concerned about the significant minority of Muslims who are currently signing on etc. And to people in this category, the practical difference between these two formulations is very small if existant at all.
I don’t think it’s particularly helpful or accurate to say that a religion, per se, has “a violence problem”. The ones with the violence problem are the extremists who claim that their religion mandates violence. What the religion, per se, has is an extremism problem.
And I don’t think anybody’s denying that in this historical moment, worldwide, Islam has a much worse extremism problem than Christianity does.
Of course there’s a difference. But the difference is not meaningful as a practical matter to people whose concern is about the practical aspects of widespread support in the Muslim world for this interpretation of Islam.
No, you are not assuming correctly or even summarizing correctly.
Both the summary statements are some gross over simplifications of both articles, the New Statesman article of course in particular cites extensively from persons both seeing a mixed motivation and those who see it as being more cynical. My criticism of the Atlantic article is simply it is badly and narrowly informed about the foundation of the DAESH belief, as well read and founded.
Wow. Do you also see no difference between, say, the statements “Volkswagen has a serious problem to deal with in its diesel engine emissions regulation evasions” and “Volkswagen itself is the problem and is inherently despicable”?
Do you think that nobody but a Volkswagen employee or a tort lawyer should be bothered to distinguish between those two statements? Do you think it doesn’t make a huge practical difference which of them happens to be true?
Of course it’s meaningful as a practical matter. If the problem of terrorist violence actually inhered in Islam per se because of its being inherently despicable, instead of being a problem that Islam has to deal with because of a significant minority of extremist Muslims embracing terrorist violence, then all Muslims would be violent terrorists and you in all probability would be already dead in a terrorist nuclear strike or something of that order. Can’t get much more practical than that.