Car attack in NY City

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**Disciple of Fate**

sebster wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

Heh, called it, it's just that absurd Ben Shapiro number. Anyhow, as I already said Ben Shapiro's claim is crap because having very conservative views is not the same thing as being radicalised. And as the article shows, Shapiro's work doesn't even do a good job of capturing the actually conservative portion of the population, because he doesn't know or doesn't care about the complexities of Islamic beliefs.

But more to the point, neither Ben Shapiro or politifact have either represented the current or former US government. So you claim of 400 million as a government figure is wrong in lots of ways.

Pew Research Center states that 8% of Muslims support Suicide bombing http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/ That's 360,000,000 according to them.

First up you need some work on your maths. For 8% to be 360,000,000 as you claim, you'd need there to be 4.5 billion muslims on the planet. There's 1.5 billion, so you're off by a factor of 3.

You second error comes from removing context, as you say support suicide bombing, when the actual statement was "are sometimes justified". So that would include people talking entirely about hypothetical, like if a foreign invader was literally going from town to town shooting people. Most populations would have 8% supporting suicide bombs in those situations.

So let's go with the actual worrisome amount, from your own link; "Just 1% of U.S. Muslims and a median of 3% of Muslims worldwide say suicide bombings and other violence against civilian targets are often justified" We'll even ignore that such lowball figures are often problematic and take the number at face value, 3% worldwide. Then we'll take the 1.5 billion muslims and multiply it by 3%, and we get 45m.

And so now we can stop, look back at your original claim, and then look at what your own figures have actually given us. You claimed official government figures state there's 400m radicalised muslims, but there's actually approximately 45m who have a view of suicide attacks that's leniant enough that would could consider them probably sympathetic to some terror groups.

And why did you link to quora?

Also, "radical" doesn't mean that you are actively polishing your AK47 waiting to take out the next Christian/Jew/ American you see. It's more of a frame of mind.

It's also a totally different issue. Let me put this very plainly - the chance that woman in the boonies of Pakistan might suffer an acid attack and local magistrates will show little interest in prosecuting is a serious problem and great human tragedy for people who suffer that bs. And it is directly caused by the teaching of a horrible interpretation of Islam in those areas.

But that issue not usefully discussed by linking it to terrorism. Discussion of both issues suffers.

An interesting comparison when talking about 'radical' Muslims is to bring in the view in one particular country as the culture they grew up in is roughly the same. If you look at US Muslims compared to other denominations they aren't so different in their views on violence (you could even say better) as other Americans, something 'radical' implies isn't the case. Culture matters as much or conservative views as you say. Here is the view of US Muslims compared to other US groups:

http://news.gallup.com/poll/148763/muslim-americans-no-justification-violence.aspx

Yes, I drag this out in every thread about this topic, but its worth considering every time in a religion versus culture/society approach.

**cuda1179**

Peregrine wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Even by politifacts estimates there are 181 million radicalized Muslims. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/05/ben-shapiro/shapiro-says-majority-muslims-are-radicals/

No, they really didn't estimate that. In fact, they explicitly stated that the 181 million number is NOT an actual estimate.

The broader definition of "radical" is useless in this context. If "radical" refers to "political beliefs that diverge significantly from mine" rather than "extremist who uses or attempts to use violence against civilian targets in pursuit of their ideological goals" then you end up including way too many people, the vast majority of them having very little in common with the terrorists and posing very little threat to society. And once you have that broad definition why is it only applied to Muslim "radicals"? What about radical Christians, with their radical anti-LGBT ideology? Should we put all of them (or, even better, all Christians in general) on the terrorist watch lists because a tiny minority commit acts of violence against LGBT people? Or what about radical libertarians and their radical anti-state ideology? Remember those s who occupied federal property and threatened the police with their guns? Definitely need to put anyone who ever voted for a libertarian candidate on the terrorist watch list, they're clearly radicals.

Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

**Spetulhu**

cuda1179 wrote:
Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

At least the article on Shapiro was about his dodgy statistics. And that's the problem with polls and statistics built on them - you can always make them say what you want if you ask the right questions. Where's this 15% from, for example? And what exactly was the question? I'm pretty sure close to 0% of humans, regardless of religion, would approve of a suicide bomber who blew people up just because he felt like it. A whole lot more might approve if their country was occupied by brutal invaders and the suicide bomber made an effort to target the enemy soldiers.

Besides, it does kind of remind me of one where a certain number of of American muslims said it would "sometimes" be OK to use deadly force against other Americans. Yet the piece said nothing about in what circumstances that was fine, or how many Americans in general think it's sometimes OK to use deadly force against other Americans...

**Dreadwinter**

Guys, Orlanth has admitted in other areas of Dakkdakka that he is intentionally trolling OT. This is brought up every time he comes in to a thread like this and posts intentionally inflammatory buzzwords to set people off.

Don't feed the trolls.

**Just Tony**

Disciple of Fate wrote:
Crablezworth wrote:
Disciple of Fate wrote:

Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

"You can make up statistics to prove anything, 14% of people know that."

Also, what you just said actually needs to be defended and I can't think you'll be defending the principles of stoning or forced mutilation or execution for homosexuals by saying in principle it's fine but if you act on it somehow it makes YOU evil. C'mon man. Now you're just boxing farts.

Religion was penned down by humans. Any element of 'good' or 'evil' was penned down by humans. Your argument is very weak, its to assume the book is the source of 'evil', but a book can't will itself into being. You will find I'm defending nothing. A book can't act on anything that is written in it, only people can. Its like saying catcher is the rye turns people into killers because of what people do. People will find ways to mutilate or execute homosexuals beyond religion and it has already happened in the past.

Maybe Catcher in the Rye turns people into murderers because of the frustration of having waded all the way through that gakky book. It's bad when you have to read Kurt Vonnegut to get the taste out of your mouth. Then chase it with some REAL literature...

**Peregrine**

cuda1179 wrote:
Being okay with suicide bombing is a bit more than "political beliefs that diverge from mine". If 15% of any population was okay with this, then yes, I would be somewhat suspicious of them.

Then you're going to have a lot of suspicion to give, because take a look at that poll a few posts up. US Muslims actually have the lowest rate of approving of terrorist attacks against civilians among the various religious groups. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, even the atheists, they all had significantly higher rates of approval.

**Orlanth**

Dreadwinter wrote:
Guys, Orlanth has admitted in other areas of Dakkdakka that he is intentionally trolling OT. This is brought up every time he comes in to a thread like this and posts intentionally inflammatory buzzwords to set people off.

Don't feed the trolls.

Out and out lie.

I challenge you to find a quote to support your accusation.

**Kilkrazy**

There are many things about which I disagree with Orlanth, but I don't believe he is a troll. He says things because he believes them, not to get a rise out of people.

**Relapse**

edited