It is when the actual evidence contradicts that hypothesis. Excluding terrorist violence, Muslims on average are significantly less likely to commit violent crimes than Christians, which was the point iiandyiiii was making.
If you were truly looking at history you’d know the major religions were used as political tools. And you’d also know that was dismantled by Martin Luther in the case of the Christian religion. It was a different process for Judaism but the process also took place.
Islam hasn’t had that moment in history and we’ve discussed this over and over yet you continue to come back with your “everybody sucked in the past” argument and therefore it’s not the religion.
Islam has always taken a dim view of blasphemy and apostasy and that is still a major issue for hundreds of millions of Muslims. You keep ignoring this as if it has no bearing on anything. It’s a big deal. The recent shooting in Florida was from a US born citizen who was exposed to his Father’s Afghani background. In the age of the internet there are no thought barriers. He was able to tap into a very large segment of Muslim theology that exists around the world.
You keep posting that there are peaceful Muslims therefore it can’t be the religion. That’s not a logical argument given the high number of terrorist groups based on the religion and their non-stop violent acts. It’s not an indictment on peaceful Muslims to acknowledge the religion itself has problems. They are under just as much threat because of this as non-Muslims. Acknowledging problems with the religion is important because it can’t be stopped by magically removing all the “bad Muslims”. The violence based on the religion have to be addressed on a religious level.
:dubious: Oh sure, when it’s a case of violence being committed by Christians, you’re willing to admit that political and cultural factors play a role as well as religious ideology per se. But when it’s about violence being committed by Muslims, nope, you categorically refuse to admit any possible influencing factors other than religious ideology alone.
Your bigotry is so transparent it’s become almost funny.
If you were truly looking at history you’d know the major religions were used as political tools. And you’d also know that was dismantled by Martin Luther in the case of the Christian religion. It was a different process for Judaism but the process also took place.
Islam hasn’t had that moment in history and we’ve discussed this over and over yet you continue to come back with your “everybody sucked in the past” argument and therefore it’s not the religion.
Islam has always taken a dim view of blasphemy and apostasy and that is still a major issue for hundreds of millions of Muslims. You keep ignoring this as if it has no bearing on anything. It’s a big deal. The recent shooting in Florida was from a US born citizen who was exposed to his Father’s Afghani background. In the age of the internet there are no thought barriers. He was able to tap into a very large segment of Muslim theology that exists around the world.
You keep posting that there are peaceful Muslims therefore it can’t be the religion. That’s not a logical argument given the high number of terrorist groups based on the religion and their non-stop violent acts. It’s not an indictment on peaceful Muslims to acknowledge the religion itself has problems. They are under just as much threat because of this as non-Muslims. Acknowledging problems with the religion is important because it can’t be stopped by magically removing all the “bad Muslims”. The violence based on the religion has to be addressed on a religious level.
Martin Luther had a huge effect, and also strongly encouraged more violence against Jews.
I absolutely agree about religions as political tools – and in that sense, they’re all the same. They all have the same potential to be used for various purposes.
This doesn’t even conflict with my point – I agree that Islam hasn’t had a major liberalizing reformation, and I would love it if it had one world-wide.
But that lack of a reformation (so far) doesn’t say anything about the tenets of the Quran. If something happens and Islam changes in a major way in the next several decades, and the statistics change such that Muslim countries are no more violent than any other, would you start to say that the Quran is the same as the Bible?
I’m not ignoring this at all – it’s the same as Christianity at various points in the past. There’s nothing special about Islam in this.
I’ve acknowledged plenty of problems with the religion. It has tons of violence in its texts, and I wish it didn’t. So does the Bible, and I wish it didn’t.
I think the Bible is an interesting historical and mythological text filled with awful, disgusting, and morally reprehensible teachings (along with some decent ones). I think the same thing about the Quran. I don’t see them differently at all. If Islam changes worldwide as most of Christianity has, the Quran won’t have suddenly become more peaceful – just practices would have changed.
That’s why I say that the fundamental tenets are all the same – they all have violent portions, and peaceful portions, and bigoted portions, and tolerant portions.
The fundamental nature of a religion’s texts don’t change after a reformation, only practices do. I hope Islam has such a reformation, and I expect it will at some point (I don’t know how soon). Most people want to live peacefully and prosperously, no matter their religion, and that should encourage this. Painting with a broad brush and pretending that the Quran is especially bad as compared to other religious texts is both factually wrong and harmful to this effort.
Are you seriously going to ignore the use of all the major religions as political tools centuries ago and the changes that occurred?
Your bigotry is beyond stupid. You continue to ignore the historical transformations of other religions and assign any reason you can think of for the religious violence withing Islam except the religion.
What part of 400 million Muslims approving of sever penalties for blasphemy and apostasy do you not understand? This isn’t a handful of wackadoos, it’s a lot of people and it’s a mindset of absolutism that drives the violence.
Your insistence that criticism of Islam is an indictment of all Muslims is not a logical premise.
So we’re on the same page so far.
No, I wouldn’t say the Quran is the same as the bible and I don’t think that’s the question you’re asking.
here is the sticking point between us. I disagree. While the 3 related religions are sequentially based on each other the last one, Islam, is supposed to be a codification of what God wants. Call it Monotheism 3.0. However, within this codification are some fairly violent tenants. I think it’s harder to move past people like Moses if the main prophet reinforces the negative behavior.
well yes and no. I think the prophet/god behind the Bible has a different philosophy than Mohammad. I’m not discounting that the Bible is considered “Holy” and people literally swear by it but the core of it is a prophet more like Budha then Moses. Mohammad has a definite “Moses” side to his life and writings. It makes it harder to ignore.
yes to a lot of nonsense but the demons have yet to be exorcised from Islam. I truly believe it has to be fixed on a religious level.
If I haven’t posted this somewhere before I think the reason there are a large number of peaceful Muslims is that most people want to live peaceful lives. That doesn’t explain the violent side of it. There are violent writings and actions directly attributable to Mohammad which are followed by terrorist groups. They’re not following Moses or any other figure in the Quran.
You have used the argument that because some Muslims ignore parts of the writings and deeds associated with Mohammad then they are not valid. My argument is that these writings and deeds are difficult to ignore because they are made by Mohammad who is the main character in the religion and this is why hundreds of millions of Muslims still subscribe to them. The most ardent of such beliefs spawn the terrorist groups we see today.
And we’ve cited hundreds of millions who don’t, and many more who may have those beliefs but don’t act on them. You have used “correlation” as a means to accusing innocent people of being terrorists. I don’t think you even know what the word means.
I think it’s just as easy or hard to ignore any violent teachings and examples from Muhammed in the Quran as it is for Jews or Christians to ignore any violent teachings and examples from God in the Bible.
I think God is just as significant, or even more so, in the Bible, as Muhammed is in the Quran.
You disagree. That’s the basis of our disagreement.
I’m not saying any teachings are more or less valid than any other, just that whether or not believers want to be violent or peaceful, whether in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, they will be able to find passages to follow, and also passages they must ignore. The terrorists are ignoring certain peaceful parts of the Quran, just as most American Muslims are ignoring certain violent parts. The same is true for peaceful Christians, and violent or intolerant Christians.
that doesn’t make any logical sense. How can you acknowledge that people hold these beliefs and then go on to say it doesn’t matter in the face of behavior based on those beliefs? You don’t think there’s a statistical relationship between believing in something and acting on it?
This is the core of our disagreement. We’re not talking about peaceful or violent Christians or Muslims. That’s not the same as violence in the name of a religion.
There is a problem with the Islamic religion that centers on Mohammad. Until that is addressed it will never go away. If you can’t acknowledge the problem then the solution doesn’t exist.
Your argument is to ignore the cause because it condemns all Muslims. It’s not a function of interpreting the words and actions of Mohammad differently. There is no interpretation involved beyond creatively ignoring parts of the religion. That’s not going to make it go away. There are too many people involved. They have to be convinced what they are doing is wrong and it has to be done from within the religion.
The cause isn’t Muhammed any more than the cause of Christian and Jewish violence and intolerance is God. The cause is selective interpretation - I’ve shown, with passages, how it’s impossible to act as the terrorists do without ignoring some of Muhammad’s teachings. You disagree with this, but the text is very clear to me.
Peaceful Muslims also do this, but this kind of selective interpretation should be encouraged.
In my mind, the peaceful Muslims should be held up as examples. The peaceful pages should be highlighted, while any violent verses explained away as metaphor or allegory.
In essence, just what the peaceful believers are already doing, no matter the religion. It’s just as easy to do so with the Quran as with the Bible.
So, the vast, vast, VAST majority of cops don’t target blacks. So, cops killing blacks is meaningless. There must be something else going on.
Do you believe in blaming people for something that they are only “statistically” likely to do? Something they haven’t actually done themselves, but that someone similar to them has done?
You keep coming back to this ugly form of guilt by association. You won’t hold all Christians responsible for Christian extremist violence (abortion clinic bombings and sniping) but you somehow imagine that all Muslims are responsible for Islamic extremist violence.
Only one group, in the entire world, gets treated this way. That tells the rest of us that you’re making a specific exception to reasonable logic.
There are many things going on. Individual racism by cops is only a tiny part of problems with law enforcement and deadly force, IMO.
As long as you acknowledge cops bear no blame.
Some cops do. Not all cops.
Not that the issues are the same.
The “cops” analogy has not succeeded in clarifying any issue and is now in danger of creating a hijack.
Drop discussion of that analogy in this thread. If you need to discuss the accuracy of the analogy, go open a new thread with that as the focus.
[ /Moderating ]
that’s really the whole problem with this discussion, I’m not assigning guilt by association, nor holding all Muslims responsible, you are. You seem to have great difficulty separating people from religion.
There is an obvious problem with Islamic extremism. It stems from teachings within the religion and the violence is directly tied to these beliefs. that some people do or do not follow these beliefs means it’s not all inclusive as you keep insisting. It does not negate the religious influence on terrorist groups.
Tom is receiving a mod note for this post. Insults are not permitted outside the BBQ Pit.