Well, the phrase “as little as” makes this almost tautological. A person can become a terrorist in the blink of an eye: imagine if your wife and kids died in an air-strike from an enemy country. As fast as that, you might become radicalized.
Jim David Adkisson, went on a school shooting spree as an act of terror after reading neocon Bernard Goldberg’s book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
Timothy McVeigh orchestrated was the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history previous to 9/11. He bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as revenge for the Ruby Ridge incident of 1992 and the Waco Siege in 1993.
Dylann Roof went on a terrorist rampage after listening to a Christian “imam” named Harold Covington.
So the question is why do you hold Muslims to a higher standard than Christians?
The verses are not so arranged; the surahs (chapters) are, generally.
Oops. I forgot to welcome Jefferson to the Straight Dope.
Well, you have me again; I thought the suras were the same as verses.
ANYWAY, wrong and wrong and wrong, I have pointed out something unique about Islam, right, yes, n’est ce pas?
I’d say millions of Jews disagree with that
What was the unique thing? The NT also is put together somewhat according to length of the maior divisions. Islam, Judaism, Christianity all share quite a lot.
I think you’ll find I would be too busy making the funeral arrangements.
They certainly share a lot, but the NT is not intentionally arranged by length of chapter. That just falls out as they put the letters toward the end, and the letters are shorter than the gospels. The Revelation is a big heavy lump at the end, the knot at the end of the rope.
The Koran was deliberately and intentionally re-arranged; that’s unique.
(It’s trivially unique! Every religion…and every denomination within religions, has some point of uniquity. Also iniquity.)
Cite?
Same with the Republic of Ireland, where divorce wasn’t legal till the mid 90s and required IIRC a national referendum where it barely passed.
It was a Government expert on terrorism and radicalisation on a documentary a few years ago. “Liberals” wouldn’t be so clueless on this sort of issue if they at least watched them. There have been some excellent ones over the last ten years including ones covering the parallel lives of Muslims and Muslim hate schools.
But they avoid them and remain ignorant.
It’s a big, bad world out there. Saying that there are extremists and people who are vulnerable to following extremism is akin to saying water is wet. Rates a big “No shit…really?” on the comprehension meter.
Blaming it on a religion is where we depart from reality.
Which expert? Which documentary?
Details, please. This is Great Debates–where cites are expected.
I would say there is no issue that is inherentmy unique to Islam that causes repressive societies. Sure, in 2017 the societies (in general, and not meant as a condemnation or praise of every individual in said society) of Germany and France are more progressive than those of Saudi Arabia or Iraq. But if I had been born in the year 1000 I would have much rather have been born in Baghdad or Mecca than in Paris or London. The problem is with the particular interpretation of Islam in places like current day Saudi Arabia, not with Islam in general.
The Las Vegas Line:
2-1 The Glenn Beck show
5-2 An episode of “24”
3-1 A Steven Seagal straight to video movie
4-1 An episode of “Homeland”
1000-1 An episode of “Frontline”
OK, let’s recap what I am supposed to have learned so far.
-
Muhammad did not “write a book” because he was illiterate. Instead the contents came into his head in some manner which we will leave open, and over the course of a number of years he dictated them to other people. I really don’t see that this is material to any of my arguments. It is, however, revealing of my (already-professed) ignorance about details of Islam and the Quran. Gloat on that as ye will.
-
Islam is no different from many/most other religions in what its holy book(s) say about issues such as patriarchy and subjugation of women, about apostasy, or about respect/tolerance of other beliefs. The differences in practice have to do with the relative prevalence of secularism in “Western” societies compared to some (many? most?) majority-Muslim countries. There might be various reasons for this, including the French Revolution which didn’t also happen in Arabia (worse luck). Maybe the Thirty Years’ War had a beneficial influence on Europe (and by extension the US) as well. In any case, as well cited above, “Western” societies are only ahead, if it may be so termed, by a matter of a few decades. Within my memory, in fact.
-
So the problem is not with the religion but with the cultures. We have, apparently, more than one culture to complain about, and other than the relative lack of, or slow rise of secularism we don’t seem to know what about these cultures it is legitimate to complain about.
-
And, as always, we know that we cannot blame one Muslim for the behavior of another, nor can we assume that Muslims are more (or less) likely to commit acts of terror than anyone else, nor should we discriminate against anyone because that person is a Muslim. But we all knew that already, as it is stated in the OP.
As my penultimate point, here is this from rat avatar:
No, it isn’t. It may be affirming a bias about a religious affiliation, but not a bias against individuals or groups based on religious affiliation. The attempt was to examine the religion itself and the manner in which it might or might not influence some of its adherents to perform anti-social acts. I believe that is different.
That being said, I give you the affirmation errors and confirmation bias as being very likely to blame for any errors in my arguments.
Finally (at last) I find this very encouraging, and as tending to validate someone’s point made earlier in this thread that interpretation of religious texts will change based on the prevailing (local, regional or national) culture’s tendency towards either conservativism or free thinking.
In France, Some Muslims Seek To ‘Adapt’ Islam To Secular Culture
That is the ‘official’ description of how the Quran came into being.
Based on some research I did a ways back, it seems likely that there was a fairly lengthy period after Muhammad’s death during which an unknown amount of modification seems likely. I don’t recall at the moment how long that period was. I do remember that there didn’t seem to be much information to go by, to try and reconstruct what might be earlier or later additions.
The printing press was invented in Europe and that kicked off the ability for the Enlightenment philosophers to get their heads together and come up with the idea of basic human rights and capitalist economics ahead of anyone else.
Since both basic human rights and capitalist economics directly contradict the teachings of Islam (and Christianity), the Muslims were able to watch as Europe was subverted against its own religion towards modern morality and finances and could see that it would do the same in their region. Moreover, Capitalist economics meant that Europe started to quickly pull away from the Arabic region, technologically, turning the Middle East from the center of science, learning, and progress to a backwards bumpkin-land. And, of course, there was the obvious divide that they were Muslim and Europeans were still (in name) Christian.
All of this formed a pretty significant rift between the Middle East and Europe, and though there were some who advocated for following a similar path as the Christians, accepting secular government, allowing interest-based loans, etc. it opened the path for the call to fundamentalism. Outside of a few places, fundamentalism ended up winning - largely with the backing of the British, who saw that religious fractionalization kept the region easy to control, by playing counter-factions off one-another. (Similar to how they kept control of India.) In later times, the US and Russia followed suite and continued to provide support to fundamentalists, or any other particular sub-group in the region to maintain or fight for power.
Allahu Akbar!!!
I wasn’t taking notes. Take your blinkers off and watch documentaries on the problem.