The United States would be a better place if less of its citizens were christians and if less of its christians were fundamentalists.
Please also replace US with any muslim country and christianity with islam ad required.
I disagree with this. It should be “fewer of…”.
I don’t really know what the fuck more peaceful Muslims are supposed to do. Imagine you are a Muslim, living in the US, perhaps. You know that elsewhere Muslims are living under an oppressive tyrant. The tyrant endorses suicide bombings and killings. Every day you live under the shadow of knowing other Muslims are dying for a cause that you don’t even think is worthy and don’t entirely understand.
But you have a family, and you have kids, and you have a job. WTF are you supposed to do?
Ok, now I am talking about myself. I am Hindu, or at least I was raised that way. Hindus do honor killings, despite our principle of ahimsa (non-violence) they kill and murder and rape.
But I have a family, and I have a job, and I have a life. What am I supposed to do? How do I stand up to the Hindus that are thousands of miles away, foolishly killing their daughters, or murdering Muslims, or burning down masjids? I don’t believe their cause is worthy, and no, I don’t really understand it.
The Muslims who don’t believe in these crazy shits are standing up as best as they can. A bunch of evil, evil people murdered some innocents in the name of religion. It’s not the first time we’ve heard it and it’s not going to be the last. I don’t really care what religion it is, to be honest, it’s what comes of dividing the world so sharply.
Saudi Arabia and few other relatively wealthy Islamic states are more primitive than many poorer non-Islamic states.
But yes, a 12 yr old with a smartphone in his hand is expected to turn out better than a 12 yr old with Quran - I agree.
Saudi Arabia is “relatively wealthy” only in the sense that the ruler’s relatives have a lot of wealth. That is, the Saudi nation itself, especially the ruling oligarchy, control very large sums of money, but that doesn’t mean that the average Saudi subject is prosperous. It’s estimated that somewhere between one-eighth and one-quarter of all Saudis live below the poverty line.
So in terms of social and cultural patterns among most of its people, we’d expect to see Saudi Arabia resembling a comparatively poor country more than a very rich one.
Euskal Herria. I’m a Basque from Navarre. I’ve had people attack me physically for being Navarrese, Dad was told several times that breaking into our car was justified due to the Navarrese plates, I’ve had people saying in my presence that “we should just carpet bomb any country where there have ever been terrorists”. In one of these last events (and yes, that’s a plural), the gent in question was an American who was a pretty nice guy when he kept his head out of his flag, but hey, the fact that he was asking to carpet bomb the countries of everybody in the room (including himself) required pointing out.
Do you, perhaps, realize that there are plenty of 12-year olds on Earth who (a) have both a smart phone and a Qur’an in their hands, and (b) will turn out quite well?
he is the same one who was calling for the banning of the religion (it would be easy he says) and in the pit thread telling Kimstu that the news of hindu religious extremists attacking etc christians was “mostly made up”…
You are not going to get anywhere useful with such a person.
I know the wealth is concentrated in hands of a few. But
- It is still wealthier and more primitive than many non-Islamic nations.
- It is an Islamic republic, expected to be ruled as per Islam.
Dichotomy is not at all my point.
A wealthier nation (which is to say, a wealthier citizenry) is more likely to be stable. Stability and wealth combine to engender secularism and a decrease in extremism. Instability and poverty foment religiosity and extremism.
Turkey’s secularism is a *result *of its stability and relative wealth, not its cause. As Monty points out, your hypothetical tween has both a smartphone *and *a Qur-an because he lives in a nation that values both.
I know you don’t want to believe but that is correct. Opposition, enemies of the state and corrupt people in media and elsewhere stoop to any level you know.
In one case, A petty theft in a Church was made to look like attack on Christian community and portray that Christians are not safe in India. Sometimes when you speak a lie a 1000 times, it appears like truth.
There is no “but.” The citizenry of Saudi Arabia is dirt poor and ruled by an almost god-like dictatorship. The wealth of the House of Saud is irrelevant to the living conditions of its subjects. SA is a poor nation, with poor citizens, controlled by an astoundingly wealthy monarchy that uses religion as one tool to keep the peons in line.
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Among other reasons, too much religion is also a major reason why many nations are not wealthier. That’s certainly true for Pakistan/Afghanistan (among other factors).
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Even in states which are comparable in terms of wealth, you will find a religious Islamic state much worse off than a non-religious state.
“Among other reasons.” “Among other factors.”
I’m not at all convinced you can support your assertion that correlation equals causation.
I have no idea what you mean by this. Unless it’s just another way to say “religion is inherently bad.”
*Too *much of anything will be a hindrance. But if you want to argue that Pakistan or Afghanistan would be wealthier, if their populations were less religious, you should provide some evidence. As it is, I find andros’ assertion that the countries would be less religious, if they were wealthier more convincing.
There is no such thing as a “non-religious state”.
The two countries with the lowest human development index are the predominantly Muslim Niger and the predominantly Christian DR Congo. I do not see how you are “much worse off” in one or the other.
I wish you great success in your campaign to stamp out those undesirable elements, comrade.
Look, I’m a (lapsed) Hindu in the US. You know what I see when I look at Islamophobia? The thin end of the wedge. If hatred of Muslims becomes okay, there’s really no reason that hatred of other “others” won’t be okay. Czarcasm alluded to what follows earlier:
It never stops with one. As a Hindu in a majority Hindu state, you are relatively safe from the spread of bigotry, but if things ever go where you hope they will you’ll be left with Hindus denouncing and even killing other Hindus because they’re in the wrong sect.
As Chris Rock puts it, “that train is never late.”
Few things that peaceful Muslims can do -
- Accept that extremism and intolerance (exponentially more than other religions) are part of core Islam.
- Don’t let their children into madrassas for education.
- Don’t let their underage daughters wear Burqas. Don’t expect the women in their family to wear Burqas.
From my POV, I just want a bit of honesty. I love and respect Muslims at individual level as much as any other people.
Pakistan’s lagging behind in education, GDP, HDI, health, disease control is directly related to excessive religion (made worse by Zia-ul-Haq we read) . Else they are capable of achieving much more.
Saudi don’t have democracy, freedom, and don’t have equitable distribution of wealth etc due to their rulers who say that they rule as per Islam.