What about my post that you have quoted is relevant to what you are saying? I cited three things that theocracies lead to. If you want, I can add a bunch more, including men who blackmail women to sit in a car with them getting flogged. But it doesn’t alter my post about the evils of theocracy. And I have to admit I feel a less sympathy in this case for the person who instigated the contact, through blackmail, taking advantage of the barbaric nature of the regime in which he lived, than I do for the person who was blackmailed into being in the car, resulting in a train of events of shocking brutality.
She’s saying that the wording you chose: “rape victims being lashed”, implies that the woman is being whipped because she is a rape victim. That may not have been your meaning, but that’s how it reads. I understood that clarification perfectly; I can’t figure out why the rest of you are having trouble with it. Of course it doesn’t make the situation any less odious, but it’s a mischaracterization to say OR imply that the lashing is because she was raped.
I’ve seen this sentiment in quite a few threads lately and I don’t think it’s strictly accurate. Of course, there’s only a tiny minority of Muslims actually blowing themselves up, but statements like the above tend to confuse the issue somewhat. I’m not picking on Quiddity here, I’m just picking his statement as a particularly concise example of a general sentiment I would like to, well, if not quite contest, then help inform.
In 2002 over 38,000 people participated in a global study conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The results constituted the first publication of its Global Attitudes Project entitled ‘What the World Thinks in 2002’. The study included the following question, posed only to Muslims.
Here are the results
Often / Sometimes / Rarely / Never / Don't Know or Refused
Lebanon 48% 25% 9% 12% 6%
Ivory Coast 25% 31% 17% 27%
Nigeria 21% 26% 19% 26% 8%
Pakistan 19% 14% 5% 38% 23%
Jordan 15% 28% 22% 26% 8%
Bangladesh 18% 26% 14% 23% 19%
Senegal 13% 15% 19% 50% 3%
Mali 9% 23% 22% 35% 11%
Uganda 7% 22% 11% 52% 8%
Ghana 5% 25% 14% 43% 12%
Indonesia 5% 22% 16% 54% 3%
Tanzania 4% 14% 14% 56% 12%
Turkey 4% 9% 7% 64% 14%
Uzbekistan 1% 6% 6% 78% 9%
Now, I’m going to make a judgement call and say that blowing up kids in defence of Islam is always pretty fucking heinous. I added up the numbers in the ‘Often’, ‘Sometimes’, and ‘Rarely’ columns, and came up with the following:
Often & Sometimes & Rarely
Lebanon 82%
Ivory Coast 73%
Nigeria 66%
Pakistan 38%
Jordan 65%
Bangladesh 58%
Senegal 47%
Mali 54%
Uganda 40%
Ghana 44%
Indonesia 43%
Tanzania 32%
Turkey 20%
Uzbekistan 13%
I then worked out the Muslim populations of each of the above countries using the figures found on the CIA World Fact Book. As far as I know this is a very accurate site.
Lebanon 2, 285, 689
Ivory Coast 5, 881, 674
Nigeria 65, 929, 865
Pakistan 160, 829, 435
Jordan 5, 434, 219
Bangladesh 122, 313, 242
Senegal 11, 267, 893
Mali 10, 545, 146
Uganda 4, 511, 320
Ghana 3, 585, 531
Indonesia 215, 998, 410
Tanzania 13, 105, 887
Turkey 70, 413, 958
Uzbekistan 24, 030, 277
Now, if the Muslim population of Lebanon is 2, 285, 689 and 82% of them support suicide bombing either often, sometimes, or rarely, that means 1, 874, 265 Lebanese Muslims support suicide attacks against civilian targets, at least to an extent. I worked out how many Muslims from each of the above countries support suicide attacks against civilian populations in the same way I worked it out for Lebanon. Here are the results:
Lebanon - 1,874,265
Ivory Coast - 4, 293, 662
Nigeria - 43, 513, 711
Pakistan - 61, 115, 192
Jordan - 3, 532, 242
Bangladesh - 70, 941, 680
Senegal, 5, 295, 909
Mali - 5, 694, 378
Uganda - 1, 804, 528
Ghana - 1, 577, 633
Indonesnia - 92, 879, 316
Tunisia - 4, 193, 883
Turkey - 14, 082, 791
Uzbekistan - 3, 123, 936
Adding this up, the total number of Muslims who support suicide attacks against civilian targets in defence of Islam is 313, 923, 126.
Please note, however, that the actual number of Muslims who support such attacks is even higher than this. The Pew poll did not ask this question to any Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, or the Palestinian Territories. I think it is safe to say that there are quite a few people in those countries who would also support suicide bombings against civilians in defence of Islam.
Quotes like Quiddities, while not technically inaccurate (after all I’m not saying there are 300 million potential suicide bombers in the Muslim world) do, I think, paint a false picture of Muslim tolerance.
Now let’s look at some verses from the Qur’an
Now, these are just the verses excoriating unbelievers in one half of one chapter of the 114 chapter long Qur’an. Frankly, anyone who can read verses like these and not see a link between Islam and Muslim violence should probably consult a neurologist.
My conclusions:
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A lot of Muslims, and I mean A LOT of Muslims, support suicide bombers.
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This is partly due to their favourite book.
Oh, here is a link to the Pew poll. The Pew Global Attitudes Report (Warning: PDF).
I think you’re missing the point. People are not claiming that there’s no link between Islam and Muslim violence. We’re just saying that one does not inevitably lead to the other. Think of it like this; I write a holy book in which I say “All men are evil”. Some believer in my faith takes that to mean that all people are inherently evil, and that we should work to improve that. Another believer might take it to mean that women may not be evil. Yet another believer may take it to mean that all men are evil, and so it’s perfectly fine to kill/rob/etc any man.
Is there a link between the third believer and my book? Yes, there is. Their interpretation of it is what dictates their behaviour. We may say that their particular belief is indeed at least partially responsible for their evil behaviour. But what can’t be said is that my faith is *itself * evil. After all, there are two other believers who believe in it but don’t do evil things, though they may have some fucked up beliefs (as any religion invented by me would inevitably have).
That’s the difference you’re missing. No one is saying that these suicide bombers, terrorists, etc aren’t motivated by their faith. They are. No one’s saying that there’s no link between Islam and Muslim violence. There is (in many cases). What we’re saying is that somtimes, a belief in Islam leads to evil acts - and sometimes it doesn’t. We cannot condemn Islam as a religion by the actions of some of its adherents.
We can condemn the people themselves all we want, though. Bastards.
I would object to your method. consider what would happen if you asked another group “do you think torturing a suspect is justifiable” often? sometimes? rarely? and you’d get the whole gamut.
the numbers you show indicate that it’s a small minority over all that “often” think it’s justified.
Because these middle eastern societies were bizarre, primitive medieval civilizations that were only yanked into the modern world in the last fifty years by oil money and globalization.
Why people look to religion in matters like this is way fucking beyond me, when Islam and Christianity are about as similar as two religions can be. Take a goddamn history class and learn some about the social context and a lot of this shit will be a lot less puzzling to you. The differences between the West and the Middle East in society and history are really fucking stark. The differences in their religious beliefs are minuscule. Do you think millennia of tribal tradition can disappear overnight?
Five centuries ago the West and the Middle East were more or less in parallel. Since then, in large part due to accidents of history, the West has progressed and developed modern civilizations, abandoning crazy tribal laws - and it wasn’t easy, either. It took Europe centuries of crazy fucking shit like witch burnings, pograms against Jews, and the Spanish Inquisition for a basic belief in things like religious freedom to take hold. Why would you expect the transition from primitive society to modernism to be any different in the Middle East?
Except I’m guessing you, like so many others, never stopped to think about it in the first place.
Bah! I’ve insisted no such thing. What I insist is that you cannot remove the Islamic aspect of the Saudi government. It is not the Islamic authority for everyone everywhere, but it is the final incontrovertible unassailable and unappealable law for Saudis — which this girl is — and it derives its laws directly from the Qur’an. Again, my only gripe is the double standard. Let’s just condemn this shit when it happens, and then condemn Christian shit when it happens. We don’t have to offset condemning Muslim shit when it’s the topic by condemning Christian shit. It’s okay to condemn shit just because it’s shit.
And no one has done that. They’ve simply pointed out that how the Saudi government defines Islam does not define Islam for all Muslims everywhere. Which is precisely the opposite of what you originally stated.
Which is funny, because what you’re bitching about is people pointing out a double standard: the evil of any individual Muslim are regularly held to typify Islam in general, but the evil of any individual Christian are held to be an abberation and not truly representative of his faith.
And for the third time, the point of making the comparison is not to condemn Christianity, but to point out that Islam is not unique in breeding people who pervert their faith to evil and inhuman ends.
What the fuck are you smiling about?
I think the problem is that the contrasting religion is actually by way of analogy (and we all know what problems many dopers have with analogies). Unfortunately, by making the analogy as close as possible to the original (as demanded by those same analogy-misunderstanding dopers), one ends up with something that looks like an insulting comparison.
As for why Islam isn’t mentioned whenever Christianity is criticised; well, I don’t see many Muslims around here - do you? I do, however, see a lot of Christians, and residents of nominally Christian societies. If you tried that on a liberal Muslim messageboard (if such a thing exists), you may find the “ah, but we Muslims say bla bla bla”. Maybe.
Again, I said:
And Liberal replied with:
I made the point that the Saudi Arabian government is not the same as all of Islam, and Liberal contradicted me. He said “you cannot seperate” them. Where the fuck did I say it was a “secular regime”?
If he agrees with me, then he should have said “I agree”.
Fuck, man - try reading the whole thread for a change.
If that wasn’t his point, he needs to learn to express himself more clearly. If people are going to act like ignorant assholes, I will throw out insults. If you don’t like it, too fucking bad.
True. And frankly, this extremely unpopular regime would have collapsed or been beaten down by now if it weren’t for the United States propping it up. That’s you and me (those of you who are Americans) tacitly backing one of the world’s most oppressive governments. Yay, us.
My response to this, which I also answered here
shows that you have skewed the statistics badly by including ‘Rarely’ in with ‘Often’ and ‘Sometimes’ instead of with ‘Never’, which is the proper way to group those findings. When you calculate it properly, the United States comes out fairly high in the stats, too.
Not to mention that, even if his numbers are completely accurate, it’s still less than a third of all Muslims, worldwide. Which is a huge number, no doubt, but still a definite minority.
Hi, Miller. But holy shit. You, while granting the accuracy of the numbers supplied (for the sake of argument) and acknowledging almost a third of Muslims are, in fact, barbaric assholes, still want to give the religion a pass because it’s not 51%? I guess Christianity has a looooooong way to go before Phelps and his handful of asshole followers taint Christianity.
You posted a little earlier this: (bolding mine)
Your argument here hinges on the three words highlighted, which is not what most people are saying. Now, or previously. The point is not that every single Muslim—or most, even—are barbaric fuckwits. The point is that there is something about Islam that leads people to be barbaric fuckwits. Thirty percent in the hypothetical you granted. This says to me that Islam is something to be watched, to be wary of. If there was another religion whose adherents were similarly barbaric, I’d say be wary of them , too.
Let me ask you this. If a rash of gay beatings and killings were to happen in the next year, and at that time it was discovered that all the criminals belonged to a new religion, Religion X, but only a third of all adherents to Religion X were guilty of the crimes, do you think that Religion X would be worthy of stigma? Of wariness?
I’m afraid you’re misreading the results. The question was based on a national survery of Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Uzbekistan, and non-national surveys in Indonesia, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Pakistan, and Senegal.
To start of totally fact-based, obviously these countries do not constitute the entire world. We can’t say that 30% of all Muslims think suicide bombings and violence against civilians is justified rarely-to-often; merely those sampled. Entering into the world of speculation, i’m going to guess that the responses of Muslims in countries such as, say, the U.S., the U.K, Canada, etc. might be somewhat different; including two asian countries, seven african countries, and a section of nations entitled “Middle East/Conflict Area” might very well skew the results culturally.
A bit more speculation; i’m going to guess that the response rate in the U.S. in particular would be pretty damn different. It seems a reasonable conclusion (though i’m sure you may disagree). Yet, when you mention your wariness of Muslims, you don’t seem to break it down by country; you cite the amount of Muslims doing bad things in general, and then say that that can be used to ascertain how wary you should be in the U.S. of Muslims. Now, I could be getting the wrong impression here, but you appear to be implying something along the lines of “30% of Muslims worldwide are barbaric fuckwits - i’m right to be wary of Muslims getting power in my own country” which seems somewhat off.
Yes, exactly. If most Muslims are not bloodthirsty fanatics, then it makes absolutely no sense to treat most Muslims as bloodthirsty fanatics. Not only is it fundamentally unfair, it’s simply stupid. You’re wasting time worrying about people on the basis of a characteristic that is clearly not a reliable indicator of their behavior.
Of course it does. Where have I ever suggested otherwise? Hell, I’ve argued that calling Phelps a homophobe is unfair to homophobes.
You’ve just contradicted yourself. You claim that no one is saying that every Muslim should be treated like a terrorist, then turn around and say that we should be suspicious of every Muslim. Which is it?
Of course not. Why on Earth do you think my answer would be any different for Religion X than it would be for Islam? I know I can get pretty worked up about gay rights, but it’s not an “Override Rational Thought” button. I’m more than willing to judge individuals who exhibit homophobia harshly. I’m not ever willing to judge an entire demographic because some of them are bigoted fucks, even if I’m one of the people they’re bigoted against.
In fairness to magellan, he was reacting to my post where I took the numbers at face value, not to the numbers themselves. Although I don’t doubt that he does take the numbers at face value.
And yes, he does think that American Muslims deserve increased suspicion because a whole lot of Uzbek Muslims think blowing up communter buses is an acceptable pasttime. If you’ve got a week or so free, try reading the Keith Ellison thread from a month or so ago. He made exactly that argument: because Ellison is a Muslim, he’s concerned that Ellison holds radical Islamic beliefs, and that he might try to inject those beliefs into American government. This despite the fact that Ellison’s arguably one of the most liberal democrats in Congress, and is vocally pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and an ardent suporter of freedom of religion and the seperation of church and state. Because you just can’t be too careful. :rolleyes:
But if all (hypothetically) acts of terroism or barbarism are done by people belinging to one group, it would be terribly undiscerning to ignore that fact. Would it not?
Here is the crux of the disagreement in many of these threads. My position is that one can acknowledged that not all Muslims are terrorists without defaulting to equating islam with Quakerism on the suspiciousness scale.
I was just trying to use a religion without any baggage. Crime-wise, I was just pickiing one that was detestable on its face.
Thanks for the first part. TThat’s what I like about you, Miller, even though you’re wrong about every issue. As far as the numbers go, I have no idea what they are. But the impression I get is that it is a not a number so low to be dismissed a la Phelps. That is the important part. But even if it is 30%, we still don’t agree. let me ask you this: you’re pooint before was that the 30% did not constitute a majority. Let’s say the number was 51%. Would that change things for you? How about 61%? Or 81%. Is there any number? Now keep in mind, that I;m not asking you to condemn all Muslims based on the number, just feel comfortable stigmatizing the religion and being wary of it. If there is, don’t you really have the same problem of judging an entire group based on a portion of that group?
Where terrorism, barbarism, and mass murder are on the table, wariness is good.
See, may suspicion is well-founded.
I recall his voting record being on track, but I don’t recall him making the gay rights argument. Only that we had more important stuff to focus on.
Huh? You put a “:rolleyes:” where you meant to type “!!!”.
I think Miller cleared up the confusion, Revenant. I was using the numbers he was granting as a hypothetical.
Would it be fair to say that here in the 21st century, more people are murdered by extremists and terrorists who claim to be of the Islamic faith, and say outright that they commit these acts in the name of the Islamic religion, than extremists and terrorists who claim to be from any of the other major religions?
O.K., please tell me I’m gonna hear from anyone besides Muslim-hating assholes in my parody thread