# If radical Islam is violent due to culture and not religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741 "2015-09-11T23:24:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 72
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1422 "2015-10-30T15:59:31Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > And there’s no correlation… Can you please show the calculations you made to come to this conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1423 "2015-10-30T16:24:51Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > That is hearsay, not evidence. So are Khuldune’s tales of cocktail party liberals in Lahore. > [@](#): > > It is not his assertion: Yes, it _is_ his assertion. He claims that “120” verses were abrogated by the Sword Verse. You list three _tafsir_ which mention the abrogation of one particular verse, and both you and he completely ignore all the _tafsir_ which don’t abrogate that particular verse. He doesn’t even acknowledge that there _are_ major\* tafsir \*which have different interpretations to the one he presents in his Spencer article (indeed, he implies it’s is the only one, that the “120 verses” thing is a settled issue). > [@](#): > > There is no logical consistency to your arguments whatsoever. You use what you claim is the majority view when it suits your purposes, and then switch to minority viewpoints when the majority views are inconvenient. No, I’m pointing out that there are differing (often _wildly_ differing) views of abrogation, including the fact that the founder of the largest and most influential Islamist group in Khuldune’s own home country of Pakistan rejects abrogation entirely, which makes Khuldune’s blanket assertions like “the sword verses abrogate over 120 Quranic verses” how, abrogation is “necessary” to interpret the Qur’an, and how the verses about intoxicants in the Qur’an are examples of abrogation are WRONG. > [@](#): > > al-Azhar is a University, and includes both those with Salafist leanings and their opponents. All of whom, by the way, oppose secularism. Al-Azhar, as an institution, has been strongly against salafism since al-Wahhab first reared his head. That’s why it was the Egyptians who threw the first Wahhabi invaders out of Mecca. > [@](#): > > Yet most Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, and Egypt, support killing people for leaving Islam. So either your thesis about the limited influence of the Wahhabis is flawed, or the negative influence of Islam is not limited to their brand. And most Muslims in Tunisia, Indonesia (the largest Muslim nation on the planet), and Turkey don’t. > [@](#): > > That does not make it the only reason. The Brits used local militants against their opponents, as was their preferred method. Thus, the contributing factors included, the Brits, the locals, the locals’ militancy, and the\*\* militant Islamic traditions that informed, justified, and motivated them.\*\* Nope, which is why the holiest city in Mecca and the city of the Prophet himself had to have Wahhabism imposed from outside by an invasion. Because it was an ideology alien to both the Meccans and the Medinans! > [@](#): > > For if there is a ‘true’ version, what’s stopping the radicals from believing that theirs is the one?" And if there _isn’t_ a “true” version, there’s _still_ nothing stopping the radicals from believing theirs is the one. Khaldune seems to devote a lot more time and energy to attacking his fellow moderate Muslims than to going after the extremists he purports to oppose. > [@](#): > > That is one way of looking at it. Another way is that, by denying that Islamist violence is motivated by Islam, YOU are making things worse for them by refusing to grapple with a major factor contributing to their persecution. It’s easier to get people to change their behavior within their belief structure than it is to get them to change it by abandoning their beliefs entirely. For instance, all the railing of Islamophobes about how Islam causes female genital mutilation didn’t do a single fucking thing to end the practice in Senegal. But [getting an imam to work with an anti-FGM/C NGO by explaining to Senegalese communities how such a practice was not Islamic at all has done wonders towards ending the practice entirely there.](http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/aug/22/social-network-fmg-senegal) ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1424 "2015-10-30T16:26:40Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Can you please show the calculations you made to come to this conclusion? Yes, I compared the percentage of people in those countries which answered “single interpretation” with the percentage of people in those countries which support the death penalty for apostasy, and noted that they not only didn’t correlate, they had an almost inverse relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1425 "2015-11-01T10:22:19Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > > [@Monty](#): > > > > That’s utter rubbish. You’re assigning to the book magical powers that it simply does not have. People, not magic, are the cause of the violence. > > That is denialist and utterly ridiculous. There is nothing magical about a set of instructions. When a building is built and it ends up looking like the architect’s plans, the reason is both the people who built the building and blueprints that instructed them on how to build it. You’re still spewing rubbish. The cause in either case–erecting a building, or treating someone badly owing to a twisted interpretation of a text–is still the people doing the erecting/twisting. The text itself cannot be the cause, unless, of course, it is magic. It is you who attribute magic to the text. > [@](#): > > This is obvious if you pay even the slightest bit of attention. When ISIS kills gay people they do not improvise a method of execution on the spot. They follow the instructions of Ibn Abbaas and throw them off a high building and then stone them. And what magical power did that text have to cause those people to do that? None, of course. And don’t worry; I’ve been paying close attention to your nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1426 "2015-11-01T13:22:19Z")
> [@A'isha](#): > > Yes, I compared the percentage of people in those countries which answered “single interpretation” with the percentage of people in those countries which support the death penalty for apostasy, and noted that they not only didn’t correlate, they had an almost inverse relationship. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1427 "2015-11-01T13:24:30Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > And what magical power did that text have to cause those people to do that? None, of course. > > And don’t worry; I’ve been paying close attention to your nonsense. Forgive me if I’m mixing you up with someone else, but you’re a Mormon, right? Why do you, as a Mormon, practise your religion in the way that you do? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1428 "2015-11-01T14:07:02Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > Forgive me if I’m mixing you up with someone else, but you’re a Mormon, right? Yes, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What of it? How does that pertain to this topic? > [@](#): > > Why do you, as a Mormon, practise your religion in the way that you do? I cannot see how that is possibly any of your business. And, again, how does that pertain to this topic? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1429 "2015-11-01T14:14:11Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > Forgive me if I’m mixing you up with someone else, but you’re a Mormon, right? Why do you, as a Mormon, practise your religion in the way that you do? You mean by not terrorizing the entire planet with a small but consistent sub group of Mormon-radicals. What’s your point? The worst you get from a fundamentalist Mormon is a horny bastard who wants to add his mistress to his tax forms. Mormons are about as docile a demographic group of people you will ever find and I have zero love of the religion. The thread refers to radical Islamists. A subgroup that is consistently in the news for terrorist acts. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1430 "2015-11-01T14:23:22Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Yes, I compared the percentage of people in those countries which answered “single interpretation” with the percentage of people in those countries which support the death penalty for apostasy, and noted that they not only didn’t correlate, they had an almost inverse relationship. Take away the death penalty and you’re still left with a very large percentage of people who want apostasy punished. There’s a major distinction between how religion is dealt with in Muslim-majority countries and every other country. If you want to heat your house with a bible fed-stove it’s not even yawn among it’s citizens. Suggest a page is torn from a Quran and the Islamic world goes bat-shit crazy. There’s the definition of the problem in a nutshell. How are YOU going to change the way Muslims think and feel about such a trivial thing? ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1431 "2015-11-01T14:25:17Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > There’s a major distinction between how religion is dealt with in Muslim-majority countries and every other country. this will be news to the non-budhdhists in the Myanmar… but perhaps some air dropped moto-ninjas will solve that crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1432 "2015-11-01T14:45:28Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You mean by not terrorizing the entire planet with a small but consistent sub group of Mormon-radicals. What’s your point? The worst you get from a fundamentalist Mormon is a horny bastard who wants to add his mistress to his tax forms. Mormons are about as docile a demographic group of people you will ever find and I have zero love of the religion. Not to mention that those so-called “Mormon Fundamentalists” are, in fact, not Mormons. They’re in different churches. Anyway, I thought it was just his mistress’s kids he wanted to add? Did I miss a change to the tax law where you can now claim an ex-wife as a dependent? > [@](#): > > The thread refers to radical Islamists. A subgroup that is consistently in the news for terrorist acts. Yep. Now, if **Tithonus** wishes, I’ll be happy to post some rather recent events perpetrated by Christian extremists. Of course, as you say, that’s still not the point of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1433 "2015-11-01T15:08:44Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > this will be news to the non-budhdhists in the Myanmar… Myanmar, really? That’s your response to how the non-Muslim world deals with apostasy? Again I ask. What would YOU do to fix the way the Majority of Muslims feel about apostasy and trivial acts of disrespect over cartoons and other behavior deemed blasphemy? > [@Ramira](#): > > but perhaps some air dropped moto-ninjas will solve that crisis. Well I’d say the 69 people who were just liberated from imminent ISIS execution would agree with your suggested use of special ops “advisors” who dropped in to say hi. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1434 "2015-11-01T15:12:30Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Not to mention that those so-called “Mormon Fundamentalists” are, in fact, not Mormons. They’re in different churches. well then I guess it makes the true-Mormon the perfect solution to peaceful co-existence. Take the Missionary stuff on a tour of the Middle East. Problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1435 "2015-11-01T15:12:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Well I’d say the 69 people who were just liberated from imminent ISIS execution would agree with your suggested use of special ops “advisors” who dropped in to say hi. I think you are correct, that is precisely what you would say. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1436 "2015-11-01T15:52:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I think you are correct, that is precisely what you would say. uh huh. Obviously you think the people rescued from ISIS think differently. Do tell. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1437 "2015-11-01T16:11:02Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Yes, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What of it? How does that pertain to this topic? It just seems strange for a religious person to say that religious texts can’t have any effect on a person’s behaviour. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1438 "2015-11-01T23:40:14Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > You’re still spewing rubbish. The cause in either case–erecting a building, or treating someone badly owing to a twisted interpretation of a text–is still the people doing the erecting/twisting. The text itself cannot be the cause, unless, of course, it is magic. It is you who attribute magic to the text. > > And what magical power did that text have to cause those people to do that? None, of course. This argument of yours that text must be “magical” to be influential makes no sense. For example today I searched Google for instructions on how to turn on the wireless hot spot on my new smart phone. Being familiar with the Google sorting algorithm, I clicked on one of the first search results, assuming it would correctly tell me how to carry out the task. And then do you know what I did? I\* followed the instructions\*. Not because the text had magical powers, but because _I believed that it would work_, or put another way, because I was convinced by what I knew that it was the correct course of action. So tell me: why is it that ISIS throws people it accuses of being gay off of buildings, exactly? And why does the Taliban collapse walls on those it accuses of being gay? Why are those particuar methods of execution chosen? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1439 "2015-11-01T23:54:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > What about the 99% of the Muslims in Malaysia who don’t behead people? > > Violence is not inherent in a religion. Otherwise, Christianity would, itself, be proven a violent faith because of the Thirty Years War. However, wasn’t that 300 years ago? Today we no longer have vast regional wars going on between Catholics and Protestants. We do have radically fundamentalist sects here and there, like the FLDS Church, and these are known to harbor extensive abuse of women and girls as well as other lawbreaking. But you don’t see the FLDS saddling up with tactical weaponry and taking over Utah, nor torturing and killing anyone else who disagrees with their interpretation of Mormonism. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1440 "2015-11-02T01:42:22Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > However, wasn’t that 300 years ago? Today we no longer have vast regional wars going on between Catholics and Protestants. We do have radically fundamentalist sects here and there, like the FLDS Church, and these are known to harbor extensive abuse of women and girls as well as other lawbreaking. But you don’t see the FLDS saddling up with tactical weaponry and taking over Utah, nor torturing and killing anyone else who disagrees with their interpretation of Mormonism. There are plenty of Christian terror groups out there torturing and killing people. The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, Sudan, and the CAR are one. The National Liberation Front of Tripura in India is another. The Milícia Catalana in Spain. The Army of God right here in America. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1441 "2015-11-02T01:48:15Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > Cite? **Hank Beecher** ’s link. > [@Magiver](#): > > There’s a major distinction between how religion is dealt with in Muslim-majority countries and every other country. [Blasphemy in democracy’s birthplace? Greece arrests Facebook user. A Greek man could face two years in prison after being arrested last week for blasphemy after posting a Facebook page that satirized a famous Greek Orthodox monk.](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/1002/Blasphemy-in-democracy-s-birthplace-Greece-arrests-Facebook-user) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741.md?page=71) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741.md?page=73)