Eh, I would argue that even people at that kind of fanaticism would be willing to learn differently - even if their starting motivation was to find new things to turn back as ammunition. Which of course they’d immediately succeed with, if the attempt was made with insults, and might surprise themselves to not find it wasn’t. That, as I understand it, was largely what seems to have occurred here, though the creators weren’t intending for the audience that they got; there are people who are seeking out even of their own accord stuff they can then use to stir up further shit. It’d just be more so if similar media was outright designed for “education” purposes.
By and large, it’s not so clearcut, however, or those riots would’ve been outright attempts at genocide and war. It’s a continuum. I don’t think you’d be suggesting that education was a good idea for those calling for death, but for rioters or comitters of death-short violence, eh, live and let live.
when I was in the 8th grade I wrote a paper on racism. In it I thought it was futile to try to convert the most ardent of such opinion and just go around them and try to influence their children. 40+ years of lifetime experience has solidified that opinion. I don’t see much success in “teaching” the radical side of Islam.
One of the mechanisms of Islam is daily prayer. 5 times a day to be exact. Whether it was intended or not, it’s a form of brainwashing to repeat the same thing over and over again as a method of reinforcing the thought. Everyday is Sunday (OK Friday). This is a difficult thing to undo over time. Islamic states protect this methodology by restricting anything that contradicts the message or the messenger. If you can’t challenge the religion without incurring serious legal consequences then producing a student friendly enticement is not possible.
It’s a daily continuous reaffirmation of a belief structure. Did you think the riots against the embassies were a sudden desire to learn how to make s’mores?
A belief structure which doesn’t actually have anything to do with blowing things up. That’s why Warraq over there is able to post on the Dope rather than loading a truck full of C-4.
:dubious: Really? Rituals are how all religions create the ties that bind their flock to them. I’m not going out to bat for a direct causal link, but I think it’s safe to say that if Islam required no prayers/rituals at all, you wouldn’t find any of its followers blowing up embassies in the name of Islam.
If Islam required no prayers/rituals at all, it’d be atheism, and Muslims would be relaxed and groovy like me. However, since every major religion has a significant ritual component, there doesn’t seem to be much of a positive correlation here.
Clearly some Muslims are blowing things up, but I see no plausible causal link between that behavior and salah.
And this makes Islam more brainwash-y than other religions because … they do it a couple of times a day instead of one? I don’t really disagree with the idea of brainwashing through repetition, but if you’re kidding yourself if you think five prayers a day is intended to do anything different from one a day or one a week. It’s all the same thing. But this does create some hilarious irony and a chance to post this Simpsons quote I’ve always enjoyed:
Rev. Lovejoy: “This so-called religion is nothing but a pack of weird superstitions and chants, designed to take the money of fools. Let us now say the Lord’s Prayer 40 times- but first, let’s pass the collection plate.”
So you’re saying that Muslims blow up things because they pray more than Christians. Christians don’t blow up things because they only pray on Sunday and then by Monday they go to work and forget to do it, then before they know it, the weekend rolls around and they’ve completely wasted their chances to blow something up.
The word madrasah literally translates as “school” or “college”. As you’d expect, most schools in Muslim-majority states teach subjects like any other schools.
There are madrasahs which teach only Quranic memorization and philosophy, and those are indeed like joining the priesthood.
While Madrasa means school, at least in my experience, which admittedly does not range very widely, it is rarely used to refer to a regular school which teaches science, maths etc. It is usually employed to refer to schools that are run by maulvis and ‘teach’ Islam.
5 times a day, 7 days a week is 35 times a week times 52 weeks (+52 weekly prayer services) which is 1872 repetitions versus 52 times a year with other religious services. Does the phrase "Allah Akbar: sound familiar? It’s the beginning of every Muslim prayer.
this is precisely what we are seeing in the Arab world today. The resultant backlash and stiffening resolve of the old order is symptomatic of exposure to outside influence through the Internet and media. It will be a very difficult transition.