There’s loads and loads of massacres with waaaaay more than 8000 dead that are not religiously motivated at all. How do you explain that, then?
Would you want to live in Haiti? Laos? Zimbabwe? Ukraine? Right this moment?
I think, quite honestly, you answered your own question. They were not religiously motivated. Where is the confusion? I’ve never said terrorism or genocide is caused only by religion. Look at the atrocities of torture, death and mutilation committed by the cartels in Central and South America. That’s some pretty horrific stuff. I’d much rather die quickly in an explosion than in some of the slow painful death you hear about in those situations.
How is this relevant? How does the fact that a bank robber steals more money than a mugger does make the muggers actions any more justified?
I would not want to live there at all. Are you being serious? I mean really really serious? There may be worse places to live than Yemen but that does not mean I want to live in Yemen.
It doesn’t. Nobody is justifying Islamic atrocities. We are discussing, as stated by your own original post, whether they are mostly socially motivated, or mostly religiously motivated.
If you just said that you would only consider 86 deaths or so to be socially motivated, how do you explain millions of non-religious massacres?
Right. So there are horrible places to live in the world where islam is not to blame. So what was your point, then?
I guess my point is that your defense, and seemingly the defense of every other apologist for Islam, would be to try to find some distraction that you rather talk about than, as you claim: Nobody is justifying Islamic atrocities.
Saying, well I never justified so and so, but instead changing the topic to look over there that is bad too, that is a mighty fine hair to split. It sounds almost like you know I’m right but because you don’t want to spend time talking about how Muslim atrocities are not justified, you’d rather talk about… Haiti or Pol Pot or the evils of making kids work in a factory using dangerous chemicals.
If you repeat this tactic often enough it - does - kind of sound like you are trying to justify something.
What are you talking about? I’m literally accusing YOU of derailing your own thread by going into non-sequiturs and weird tangents! Who’s the one who brought the “I wouldn’t want to live there” point? You were!
Well since, as you say, this is - my - thread I guess I’ll talk about whatever I want to talk about. I know you feel compelled to respond but there is nothing that is actually forcing you to, aside from your own ego.
And my own entertainment. But the fact that you started the thread, doesn’t mean that you aren’t causing the same damage to it than anybody else muddling the issue.
So you find this amusing? I don’t actually. I have a sad pathetic boring life and if I had any real life at all I wouldn’t be wasting my time here.
That does not make it any better to live in Yemen, by the way, that is just me making an admission.
What bothers me, actually, what bothers me the most, is the wall of defense around Islam. I think that 9 days and 12 pages of “debate” kind of proves that there are a certain amount of people out there who just really really really don’t want anyone to say anything bad about Islam. Of course, they will say they are just correcting my glaring flaws in logic or whatever excuse they have to justify their own sad boring life. But take note, there are pages and pages of topics people could be talking about and yet, we get 12 pages of people trying to explain to me, “well you see Robert… that right there is just a result of a bad — sect — of Islam… It has nothing to do with the religion!!!”
I see a lot of people trying to reach a conclusion by thinking about the issue. I don’t see the insane fanaticism you are seeing. And some of us find doing that entertaining, regardless of how much of a life we live.
People here likes to attack what they consider bad points because they consider them bad points, not because they are Islam-related.
Where?
Do you agree with the following statement:
Some religions are better than others and some are worse than others.
I think this is indisputable, right? Yet despite your claim that people are trying to reach a conclusion by thinking about it, I don’t see anyone else, none of my detractors at least, spending any time contemplating the idea that Islam may be (even slightly) worse than other religions.
I had stepped away from this thread for a few days. I think I shall do so again. The first few days the accusation was that I had no facts to back up my claims. Well, today, I have provided plenty of facts and details, or specific examples. All to no avail.
Well, good! Had me worried there, for a second, you don’t know if its accurate, its definitely biased,* but!*…it is detailed!
No. First of all, because I don’t believe in absolutes outside of pure science.
I don’t believe that it’s all, every little thing, about either the ideology or the culture of that time and place, but a mixture of the two.
I fall pretty much on the side of “the socio-economic forces of a certain area in a certain point in time will determine the success of a minority of fanatics, who will cling to any prevalent ideology, political, religious or philosophical, to justify their actions, and even take over.” Hell, even Isaac Asimov’s books were used for terrorism. Not even kidding.
Which is not to say that some ideologies don’t worsen the situation by being inherently more violent, but on the whole, the social context is mostly, key word here being “mostly”, to blame.
You believe otherwise? Great! Let’s discuss that! With actual points!
did you even compare the various sites I listed?
No, actually, I think some religions and some ideologies are worse than others. Full stop. They just are. I’m not going to deny that a multitude of factors are involved in things. But some ideas are still just bad.
Look, I’m tired, I’m tired because it is past 4AM, I’m tired because I am tired of this thread. I’m tired because I am tired of people being sarcastic and calling me a bigot, I am tired of a lot of things…
BTW… to be a bigot I’d have to actually treat people badly, wouldn’t I? I really dislike being called a bigot. I’m pretty much friendly to everyone I meet. I am all the time doing good Samaritan acts for people and it really never stops to occur to help or not help someone based on any other factor except that I can help.
What makes me feel bad is believe it or not, looking at men or women in Muslim clothing and thinking, that must be a difficult life, to have people judging you and and treating you badly/differently just because they can look at your clothes and tell you are from a minority religion… I am not sure if you are following me I am saying I realize, full well, that treating people bad based on their religion is bad.
But I still feel I am justified in my complaints to say that If I were homosexual, or female, or an atheist (which I am) I would not want to live in any of the following countries:
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan
But of course when I say something like that people get all mad and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about or that I’m a bigot or whatever.
But here’s the thing. We can wholeheartedly agree that women being forced to wear burkas is horrifying. We only disagree in that you believe that that particular sexist behaviour stems off mostly from the Islamic religion, while I believe that it stems off mostly from those countries being underdeveloped. And that this behaviour doesn’t happen in more developed countries, even in those with the same basic Abrahamic religion.
And that’s what we should be discussing. You accusing everyone contradicting one of your points of nothing short of being Al-Qaeda sympathizers doesn’t help the argument and is as bad as what whoever called you a bigot did.
Then why don’t they wear them in Ecuador?
(obviously, some women in Ecuador do, I think you will inherently see my point, even if you disagree with the point i am making)
Because underdeveloped nations are different from each other. Even in your own country, whatever people is wearing nowadays would be unacceptable a century ago, and that’s with the same exact, unchanged religion.