Clearly there are. And they are following their beliefs based on the words and actions of Mohammad.
We should be worried that there is a book out there, and for tomndebb’s understanding, important supporting documents that condones certain god derived violent actions that some follow more closely than others. And if you want to rate that book compared to other such books, I’m quite willing to say one is worse than the other. I have supported my claims with facts that support my contention that some people follow the book very closely and by doing so they are following the actions of their prophet. Whether that be Saudi, Pakistan, or even Indonesia. The influence of fundamentalist Islam isn’t very good for the people who have to live under it and worse for those who aren’t followers. Fundamentalist Islam is attempting to follow the religion as closely as possible. Muhammad condoned stoning, so stoning is followed in certain areas. If he explicitly said stoning was wrong, it would be highly unlikely that it would be practiced by Muslims at all.
That the majority of Muslims ignore the more odious sections of their holy book, is not surprising as the majority of Christians pretty much ignore their book, too. Most people are Christians or Muslims in name only and go through the motions because of family, culture and societal pressures. Luck for all the rest of us that it is so.
We are worried about radical Muslims because of all the attacks that have occurred and artists threatened.
Well, what about the radical Christians who use their religious writings to justify their murders, the radical Hindus who use their religious writings to justify their attacks on others, etc.?
Look, the Qur’an isn’t the problem. If it were, then those who adhere so strictly to its precepts (according to you) to kill non-Muslims would also adhere strictly to its precepts against killing Muslims. Obviously, since there is Muslim-on-Muslim violence, including actual wars between Muslim countries, this isn’t the case.
Take a hint from tomndebb and identify the actual cause of the violence. That way you’ll not show your ignorance.
So saith Magiver: all bad things Muslims do are because they’re just following Mohammed, all good things Muslims do are because they aren’t, and all bad things people of other religions do are irrelevant.
Can I issue a fatwa against confirmation bias?
You can issue a fatwa for not reading the entire thread. We’ve discussed the difference between someone acting on their beliefs versus someone of a particular religion doing something bad. When someone issues a fatwa that a cartoonist should die, that is based on a religious belief. When someone yells “God is Great” just before killing people, that is driven by religious belief.
Here again, we’re dealing with a drastically different ratio of violence between Islam and than other religions. There are no equivalent mechanisms like fatwas or sharia law justifying the violence.
When a progenitor prophet of a religion justifies violence there is nothing illogical about different factions within the religion engaging in the same behavior. It is not a blanket reason behind wars nor is this discussion related to those wars. What Uzi and I have discussed is the violence inherent to radical Islamists who are clearly driven by their beliefs to kill people over ideas and perceived blasphemy.
When there is such a large disparity of violence between the various religions it is logical to look at the religion itself to see if there is a link to the violence and not attempt to assign the same political/social conditions that people in other religions experience as an excuse.
There are clear links to fatwas demanding the death of someone and their murder. There are clear links to people who yell “God is Great” just before killing a random group of people. There are clear links to people murdering other people over the suggesting that a book is burned.
Your inability to posit a rational response to what I’ve said and then suggest ignorance on my part is not a legitimate debate tactic. As a scientific advisor to this board you should be the last person to engage in such behavior as well as your previous passive aggressive threat of a pit thread.
Except that you have not proved any such thing as a “large disparity”, you’ve taken it as a given, an “well, everybody knows” fact. But is it a fact? Can you offer any such proof?
As far as offering an “excuse”, no, what we are offering is a clear motivation to violence, one common to other religious and ethnic groups who do respond with violence. Some of those are Muslim, others are not.
That is assuming they are the same group of people, isn’t it?
Does a Shia think that a Sunni is actually following Islam? Or the Sunni in regards to Shia? Protestants and Catholics have had very similar thoughts towards each other. Nor has anyone suggested that religion is the only motivational factor, rather I’d suggest it can be a tipping point towards actions that wouldn’t normally occur otherwise.
Yes, I’ve taken an everybody knows it stance. Where would you like me to start? Downed aircraft? attempted aircraft bombings? Number of people murdered in random bombings? Artists threatened or murdered? Shootings? Fatwas? Riots and murders over book burnings? riots and murders over statements made in public. Gays sentenced to death?
Well, if thats what you’ve got, you’ve already started, and repeated, with numbing redundancy. You have proven beyond contradiction that Muslims are human beings, and a number of them are very much not nice.
I can see the next Oprah special already.
Actually, i’d be interested in stats, too.
I don’t know. I was under the impression we were talking about any people who could be or were harmed as a result of that situation.
Jesus is quoted in the Bible. His life and his actions are set out for potential followers to emulate him. The problem you have is that it is not enough to draw a proportional claim, you have to draw an exact one. You’ve claimed that there are people killing and doing all sorts of unpleasant things because they are fanatic followers of Mohammed, and fanatic followers follow the words and actions of their prophets. Using that same logic, we must lay the sins of Christian fanatics at Jesus’ feet; if that does not work, then it does not work across the board.
You may as well, given that your argument requires that Jesus commands deaths, while also claiming that he didn’t. Christian fanatics have killed people. Fanatics follow their prophets. Ergo, Christian fanatics kill people because they’re following the words and actions of Jesus. If that conclusion is false, then it is because the argument is incorrect.
Really? The total sum of Christian thought is “No killing?” That’s it? You know, they could probably lose a lot of the Bible, then. Save a fortune on printing costs!
You really think that Phelps and his group argue strongly for the deaths of so many people but of course wouldn’t dare to go through with it? They only don’t because they’d be locked up. Plenty of Christian fanatics over the years have killed people, either because they didn’t think they’d be caught or they were nuts enough to not think about it.
But that still doesn’t matter, because for Phelps to be line with his actions Christianity must support all of the unpleasant things he does. And, since fanatics follow prophets, so too he must be Jesus-like in his character and actions.
Is he?
Then knock yourself out doing the research. I’ve already listed a few of the categories you can break them down my.
I’d have a go at it, but I presumed from the finality of your posts that you already had such stats to hand. When you say you’re talking about it from an “everybody knows it” stance, are you meaning that you’re taking that as your evidence for it?
When you post stuff like this: **Really? The total sum of Christian thought is “No killing?” That’s it? You know, they could probably lose a lot of the Bible, then. Save a fortune on printing costs! ** I don’t see where you really want to discuss or debate anything.
So you mean to say that you will answer the question, but only if asked by a poster with sufficient moral fiber and character references?
Perhaps if you gave us a short list of posters who qualify, we might ask them to pose the question?