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The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them.
***Belgium had oil? Someone better tell them. These killers (so far) have been born in their country.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Yeah, frazzled, I'm talking about the phenomenon, not individuals or particular attacks.

If they were born in country and radicalized from without, would they have done so without the group attempting to radicalize them in the first place? I think not. Thus, remove the pressures causing radicalization in one area of the world and the influence is removed. Others won't follow an organization that doesn't exist because its fuel is gone. There's nothing to relate to.

I don't know the full extent of our taking advantage of third world countries. I just know that if you feth with me and I punch you, it's your fault. If you feed me and treat me well and nurse my injuries and I punch you, I'm the bad guy. We need to make more of the world think radical Muslims are the bad guys and remove their justification for association. Make sure they don't feel they relate to them. Killing them does the opposite.

 Easy E wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Obviously we need more than a pure military response.

Having said that, listening to the radio while taking Daughter to school, one guy opined 'The moderate Muslims are terrified of us, terrified we'll over react'. I submit they are not terrified enough to clean up their own mess, not terrified enough that they push their religious leaders to implement the type of reform Christianity went through, not terrified enough that they quit funding (zakat) and otherwise supporting (even if through inaction) the radical elements in their neighborhoods.

If I recall, the process in the West took centuries and was a pretty bloody business as well.

I really am perplexed lately by this "Moderates clean-up" line of argument. It really isn't that easy, because guess what; the extremists are always willing to go further than any moderate is. Once the Moderates can go just as far as the extremists, they are no longer moderates. CPTJake, I hope you can explain it to me, because I am unsure how it is supposed to work. I would really like it too, but I am unsure how it does.

When moderates don't let LEAs know there is a Imam preaching hate, the hate spreads. When they continue to go to that mosque and pay zakat, even if they are not radicalized they are enabling the radicalization of others. When moderates continue to fund the radicals, the hate and killing spread. When they see their kids becoming radicalized and don't fething stomp it out they are enabling the violence. I listed ways in the post which you cut out. I stated it is a long process. I'm not advocating moderates in Western nations begin civil wars in their neighborhoods. Yes, the radicals may very well strike out at their moderate brethren in the West, and the moderates need to turn them in and let the LEAs take them down. Standing aside and allowing the radicals to exist in your community just enables further radicalization.

One would think their videos of burning people alive, killing children, and gak would have taken care of the "who's the bad guy" issue.

 Formosa wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Childish point of view at best, people have been mass murdering each other since the dawn of time. They make up reglion or saying space mem are coming for you if you do this and so on. The average person reglious or not will not do harm on other people for no reason. To blame reglion is a folly of those who do not understand human nature.

People want what other people have and to get ahead by working together. Saying because he said islam they are terrorist is dumb. There is millions of reglious people in the world who do good far more then do bad.

There is more examples of non reglious people doing crimes then reglious so ya.... Dont go throwing stones in a glass house.

The Mahdi Army's hate for the West did not cause them to slaughter Sunni by the hundreds in Iraq. Nor did Al Qeada In Iraq's hatred of the West cause them to slaughter Shia by the hundreds. There is a bit more going on than retribution against the West.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Childish point of view at best, people have been mass murdering each other since the dawn of time. They make up reglion or saying space mem are coming for you if you do this and so on. The average person reglious or not will not do harm on other people for no reason. To blame reglion is a folly of those who do not understand human nature.

People want what other people have and to get ahead by working together. Saying because he said islam they are terrorist is dumb. There is millions of reglious people in the world who do good far more then do bad.

There is more examples of non reglious people doing crimes then reglious so ya.... Dont go throwing stones in a glass house.

Actually it's a well thought out and put post, we're told constantly that Islam (and other religions) are peaceful, contrary to all evidence, remove religion, remove the excuse.

You misunderstood what I said, clearly, OgreChubbs.

Also... there was plenty of time in which we didn't even exist, let alone mass murder eachother. Human existence is a very small piece of the earth's history.

I have to say I actually am having trouble understanding what it is you're trying to say to me, other than attacking me because you misunderstood my post.

Absolutely there is, Captain Jake. And it all has one root cause, one excuse, one common denominator. I merely think we should be passive and helpful, we can't fix their conflicts with others and simply shouldn't try.

 Formosa wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Childish point of view at best, people have been mass murdering each other since the dawn of time. They make up reglion or saying space mem are coming for you if you do this and so on. The average person reglious or not will not do harm on other people for no reason. To blame reglion is a folly of those who do not understand human nature.

People want what other people have and to get ahead by working together. Saying because he said islam they are terrorist is dumb. There is millions of reglious people in the world who do good far more then do bad.

There is more examples of non reglious people doing crimes then reglious so ya.... Dont go throwing stones in a glass house.

Actually it's a well thought out and put post, we're told constantly that Islam (and other religions) are peaceful, contrary to all evidence, remove religion, remove the excuse.

and insert another reason, crazy people do not need a good reason to be crazy. What abou cops shooting unarmed people, reglions fault? Or mass shooting i. Malls or schools because of bulling reglions fault again?

Is that what this thread is about, OgreChubbs? I was under the impression this was about terrorism, not individually deplorable actions.

I'm not blaming religion for all evil. Read my whole post again and do it without thinking I'm attacking religion on no basis. I'm speaking about the phenomenon this thread is about and nothing else.

I merely pose it as motive, reason, and justification for evil actions, if you want it to be. Incredibly effective at it, too. Historically it has been a very common factor in wars.

 Formosa wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Childish point of view at best, people have been mass murdering each other since the dawn of time. They make up reglion or saying space mem are coming for you if you do this and so on. The average person reglious or not will not do harm on other people for no reason. To blame reglion is a folly of those who do not understand human nature.

People want what other people have and to get ahead by working together. Saying because he said islam they are terrorist is dumb. There is millions of reglious people in the world who do good far more then do bad.

There is more examples of non reglious people doing crimes then reglious so ya.... Dont go throwing stones in a glass house.

Actually it's a well thought out and put post, we're told constantly that Islam (and other religions) are peaceful, contrary to all evidence, remove religion, remove the excuse.

At which point the terrorists will kill people for some other reason. Islam is not the root cause of the violence.

It's not very realistic to hope that everyone will switch to your worldview though - I mean how exactly is that going to work?

I think we need to work towards a world that can accept more than one viewpoint and which is less unequal, and hopefully most of the toxic hatred will drain away as people's situations improve.

*shrug* Like you say though, there's no easy answer to any of this.

Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

I though people already did.

AlmightyWalrus, I actually said that, too. My post also posed that THOSE attacks and their reasons can be actually dealt with, because they're real reasonable issues that have solutions.

I agree, DaBoss. It's not realistic. At least not in my lifetime. It's not something you can force or push or anything, it just has to societally evolve as we understand more about the universe we live in.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
The religion is violent, and justifies violence.

There is no easy answer. The religions we have today need to finally be accepted as pure myth, which will completely remove their ability to psychologically spur people into using their lives as a tool for some metaphysical ideal. They need to join the Mythology sections in libraries with titles like "Christian Mythology" and "Islamic Mythology". The Romans and Greeks are already there, just to name a couple. Nobody bombs anything screaming "For Aries!" Or "For the glory of Odin!"

I'm sorry to say this, because I feel like it won't ever happen, but global scientific literacy and a scientific paradigm that throws the metaphysical baby out with the bathwater is the only thing that can possibly stop these kinds of things from happening. Humans need to stop pretending things exist, and instead replace those thoughts with ones about how things actually are and how the universe actually works and what the feth we should ACTUALLY DO to solve problems.

If there wasn't a religion, these people would instead legitimately carry out attacks for ACTUAL REASONS. Then, we as the initial wrongdoer can think about objective ways to solve the problem or accept our wrongdoing and the inevitable fallout. As it is now, it's all just way too ridiculous, and they present their religion as a shield against moral judgement and preventative action even though it's actually invalidating any other claims they could make about western culture. A large part of the reason terrorists throw their lives away for the ideal is because they think there's something better afterwards, I wager.

"What's that? We've been exploiting your homeland and people for personal gain and you're angry about it? Geeze we're sorry, let's look at ways to decrease unrest and undo or atone for the mistakes of those before us." Is what it should be. If we as wrongdoers fail this task we should accept their bombings as a consequence of our greed and entitlement.

Instead it's "What's that? A completely fictional entity promises you reward for carrying out an attack against those who aren't of your metaphysical belief system, and you consider this completely justifiable and morally correct as well as worth your own lives? You trust this entity to treat you well in your afterlife even though it clearly is of an incredibly violent and vindictive nature and doesn't care about the suffering and pain of those infidels it also apparently created? Well then... there is no reasoning with you. I think we should back away from this conversation and explore other methods of dealing with our differences."

Really, we should just do our part for now and be incredibly pacifist and helpful. Quit taking their oil, cutting forests, taking all manner of resources and leaving them with nothing, and instead help them build up from the wasteland we've left them. It is more powerful to demonize them by making them look like they're killing us when we're trying to help them. This would cause them to dramatically lose recruitment power and coercion power, and cause other Muslims to abhor their actions. We know if they ever organize and attempt a real war, it wont go well for them at all. But as long as Islam has any footing in culture other than Mythology, there will be a reason for jihad, a justification for jihad, and thus jihad itself.

TL: DR- The entire world needs to advance towards a much more practical, scientific entity without metaphysical justification for actions. Then cultural differences can be worked out without large scale destruction and suffering.

Agreed

Childish point of view at best, people have been mass murdering each other since the dawn of time. They make up reglion or saying space mem are coming for you if you do this and so on. The average person reglious or not will not do harm on other people for no reason. To blame reglion is a folly of those who do not understand human nature.

People want what other people have and to get ahead by working together. Saying because he said islam they are terrorist is dumb. There is millions of reglious people in the world who do good far more then do bad.

There is more examples of non reglious people doing crimes then reglious so ya.... Dont go throwing stones in a glass house.

Considering religious people outweigh non religious people in most societys I very much doubt that is true.

If you mean there are more examples of people committing crime without religious motive than with religious motive I would agree. But if your argument is that religious people commit less crimes than the non religous people I would want to see some level of proof. Or I am going to assume you pulled that out of the air.

Its hard to be a moderate in an area where being a moderate and speaking out gets you and your entire family killed.

How did the secular dictators (Iraq, Libya, Syria) come to power in the first place? it may be that we have to wait for the dictators to return before a measure of peace can restart.

Yeah I wonder how openly liberal I would be if it meant my house got firebombed. That kind thing leads one to just keep their head down and their mouth shut.

I know Islam is not the point of this thread, but I was talking to a very good and very smart friend of mine the other day about all this.

He and I were both raised Irish Catholic, and both of us have a strong dislike for the Church and it's interference and crimes in Ireland. Both of us would like to see the Church forcibly ripped from the state and it's institutions collapsed, and have no problem saying so.

However, he became very uncomfortable and clammed up when we were discussing the Cologne attacks and some bad behaviour from Afghan refugees in and around Germany. He sort of tried to defend it as propaganda from the far right and so on.

It kind of annoyed me, and I pointed out that even moderate Islam has a terrible record on women's equality and various other issues, and they are taken as a whole far worse than the Catholic church. I related the experience of going to several Mosques in Istanbul and being struck by how gorgeous the space was for communities to come together in, how light and airy and beautiful. But then you notice the fenced off area for the women at the back and it all goes sour.

So there's a certain level of "I don't want to talk about Islam because I'm afraid I will come across as Islamophobic." Especially on the left of politics.

To me this is stupid. I can criticise without having hatred in my heart. If I can criticise Israel without being antisemitic, then I can damn well criticise islam without being islamophobic.

If we self censor, we only give credence to the far right that they can't discuss it with us and polarize things further.

Anyhow. Probably OT. But it really did strike me.

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

If I had a neighbor who I suspected was beating up anyone, gay or not, or who I suspected was putting together a bomb, I would turn them in. If my religion saw it as valid to use part of what they collected from the congregation to 'wage war on abortion clinics and gays', I would not put a fething cent into the collection, would encourage others to do the same, and would leave that congregation, looking for one who refused to fund violence and did not see the funding of violence as a religious requirement. If my priest or one of the other clergy/ministers was preaching a message I did not approve of, either during services or in other lessons, I would again let folks know why that message was wrong, and I would refuse to participate, leaving the congregation for one that dod not spread a message I did not approve of (and I have actually done just that). If the message was one I thought actually promoted violence, I sure as hell would let some LEA know.


Zakat is one of the pillars of Islam, and it only has a few things it can be spent on, and a couple of those thing directly help spread violence and radicalization. Like it or not, that IS a tenant of the religion. Most moderate Muslims don't acknowledge it, or believe (often correctly) their specific contributions don't go towards violence and radicalization, but their funds DO free up other funds to do so. If the tribute stops, the ability to radicalize decreases. When I mentioned needing reform, this is one of the key aspects needing reform in my opinion. You cannot have a major pillar of your religion be allowed to used to fund radicalization and jihad and expect to not have issues in the modern world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carlos13th wrote:
Yeah I wonder how openly liberal I would be if it meant my house got firebombed. That kind thing leads one to just keep their head down and their mouth shut.

 Frazzled wrote:
Its hard to be a moderate in an area where being a moderate and speaking out gets you and your entire family killed.

Not too many western nations where radicals are firebombing the houses of moderates to keep them quiet. And frankly if it does happen (and it just might, again, I pointed out in my original post that you can expect radicals to strike out) it is even more reason for the moderates to identify the radical elements to the LEAs, hopefully on a prevent time frame, but if not in a catch/punish after the fact time frame.

 CptJake wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

If I had a neighbor who I suspected was beating up anyone, gay or not, or who I suspected was putting together a bomb, I would turn them in. If my religion saw it as valid to use part of what they collected from the congregation to 'wage war on abortion clinics and gays', I would not put a fething cent into the collection, would encourage others to do the same, and would leave that congregation, looking for one who refused to fund violence and did not see the funding of violence as a religious requirement. If my priest or one of the other clergy/ministers was preaching a message I did not approve of, either during services or in other lessons, I would again let folks know why that message was wrong, and I would refuse to participate, leaving the congregation for one that dod not spread a message I did not approve of (and I have actually done just that). If the message was one I thought actually promoted violence, I sure as hell would let some LEA know.

And then ISIS shows up and burns your house down. Then what?

Considering how often 9/11 is used by conservatives here as a pretext to be intentionally offensive to Muslims, is it any wonder western interference in the middle east is used as a pretext for revenge terrorism?

 Da Boss wrote:
I know Islam is not the point of this thread, but I was talking to a very good and very smart friend of mine the other day about all this.

He and I were both raised Irish Catholic, and both of us have a strong dislike for the Church and it's interference and crimes in Ireland. Both of us would like to see the Church forcibly ripped from the state and it's institutions collapsed, and have no problem saying so.

However, he became very uncomfortable and clammed up when we were discussing the Cologne attacks and some bad behaviour from Afghan refugees in and around Germany. He sort of tried to defend it as propaganda from the far right and so on.

It kind of annoyed me, and I pointed out that even moderate Islam has a terrible record on women's equality and various other issues, and they are taken as a whole far worse than the Catholic church. I related the experience of going to several Mosques in Istanbul and being struck by how gorgeous the space was for communities to come together in, how light and airy and beautiful. But then you notice the fenced off area for the women at the back and it all goes sour.

So there's a certain level of "I don't want to talk about Islam because I'm afraid I will come across as Islamophobic." Especially on the left of politics.

To me this is stupid. I can criticise without having hatred in my heart. If I can criticise Israel without being antisemitic, then I can damn well criticise islam without being islamophobic.

If we self censor, we only give credence to the far right that they can't discuss it with us and polarize things further.

Anyhow. Probably OT. But it really did strike me.

There's a very good observation... particularly how some of us instinctively "self-censor" due to being feared of being labeled as "x"-phobes.

It comes naturally to me to recognize this a bit as I wear hearing aids.

I'm legally deaf... but, I can hear just enough to function w/o the need to use sign-language. (I crank up my metal music to eleventy-seven and enable closed-captioning on the telly)

People go out of their way to say that I'm "hearing-impaired" or require "listening-devices". All I can think of in my head is this:

I'd rather just short-hand the fether and say that I'm "deaf" and let's move on... you won't hurt my fee-fees.

So, to circle back to the topic on hand, let's cut the bs and stop worrying how after every terrorist attack, we ought to self-censor our reaction in order to shield other people's fee-fees, and start discussing how we can stop these specific radicalized jihadists attacks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skyth wrote:
Considering how often 9/11 is used by conservatives here as a pretext to be intentionally offensive to Muslims,

This makes no sense whatsoever...

is it any wonder western interference in the middle east is used as a pretext for revenge terrorism?

Revenge for what? Oil?

Not too many western nations where radicals are firebombing the houses of moderates to keep them quiet. And frankly if it does happen (and it just might, again, I pointed out in my original post that you can expect radicals to strike out) it is even more reason for the moderates to identify the radical elements to the LEAs, hopefully on a prevent time frame, but if not in a catch/punish after the fact time frame.

You are correct. I was referring to regions in the ME, North Africa, and Asia.

To your own statement on what to do. Well I could say for countries not in that region substantially increased police work and social policies to foster people reporting this or actively pushing against it (as you noted earlier). For the ME, thats hard.

 skyth wrote:
Considering how often 9/11 is used by conservatives here as a pretext to be intentionally offensive to Muslims, is it any wonder western interference in the middle east is used as a pretext for revenge terrorism?

You sure seem to push that a lot.

Please explain Ivory Coast. Please explain India. Please explain the conflicts in Thailand. How do you have a pretext for killing your own people for something that is theoretically happening thousands of miles away and countries that have nothing to do with you?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

If I had a neighbor who I suspected was beating up anyone, gay or not, or who I suspected was putting together a bomb, I would turn them in. If my religion saw it as valid to use part of what they collected from the congregation to 'wage war on abortion clinics and gays', I would not put a fething cent into the collection, would encourage others to do the same, and would leave that congregation, looking for one who refused to fund violence and did not see the funding of violence as a religious requirement. If my priest or one of the other clergy/ministers was preaching a message I did not approve of, either during services or in other lessons, I would again let folks know why that message was wrong, and I would refuse to participate, leaving the congregation for one that dod not spread a message I did not approve of (and I have actually done just that). If the message was one I thought actually promoted violence, I sure as hell would let some LEA know.

And then ISIS shows up and burns your house down. Then what?

Honest answer? I really don't fear that type of thing. I've had my house shot at, I've personally been shot at.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Here we go again.

"Hey guys, let's gak on an entire region, ethnicity and religion, exploit it, bomb it, topple democratic regimes and fund dictators and terrorists for our own economic gain... oh wait they're trying to strike back in the meager way that they can? KILL THEM ALL, THOSE MURDEROUS INHUMAN BASTARDS!"

Nonsense. The middle East and Europe/the West have been at each others throats for more than 2000 years. Starting with the Greeks and Persians up to Roman/Sassanid, Byzatine/Turk, Spanish Reconquista, France saving Europe under Charlemange, invasions of Sicily and Norman conquests in Italy, Ottoman Empire's attempt to commit genocide in Eastern Europe, to more modern times.

They aren't anymore innocent then we are if that is what you are driving at. The attacks aren't justified due to being the innocent victims given 2000+ years of invasion and counter invasion.

 CptJake wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

If I had a neighbor who I suspected was beating up anyone, gay or not, or who I suspected was putting together a bomb, I would turn them in. If my religion saw it as valid to use part of what they collected from the congregation to 'wage war on abortion clinics and gays', I would not put a fething cent into the collection, would encourage others to do the same, and would leave that congregation, looking for one who refused to fund violence and did not see the funding of violence as a religious requirement. If my priest or one of the other clergy/ministers was preaching a message I did not approve of, either during services or in other lessons, I would again let folks know why that message was wrong, and I would refuse to participate, leaving the congregation for one that dod not spread a message I did not approve of (and I have actually done just that). If the message was one I thought actually promoted violence, I sure as hell would let some LEA know.

And then ISIS shows up and burns your house down. Then what?

Honest answer? I really don't fear that type of thing. I've had my house shot at, I've personally been shot at.

Then they show up and burn you down, and you're not around to be moderate anymore.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Those who say its on moderate.Muslims to take care of this kind of thing. If you blame moderate Muslims for not taking care of extremism do you also blame moderate Christians when abotion clinics get blown up or gay people get beaten up by extremist Christians?

If I had a neighbor who I suspected was beating up anyone, gay or not, or who I suspected was putting together a bomb, I would turn them in. If my religion saw it as valid to use part of what they collected from the congregation to 'wage war on abortion clinics and gays', I would not put a fething cent into the collection, would encourage others to do the same, and would leave that congregation, looking for one who refused to fund violence and did not see the funding of violence as a religious requirement. If my priest or one of the other clergy/ministers was preaching a message I did not approve of, either during services or in other lessons, I would again let folks know why that message was wrong, and I would refuse to participate, leaving the congregation for one that dod not spread a message I did not approve of (and I have actually done just that). If the message was one I thought actually promoted violence, I sure as hell would let some LEA know.

And then ISIS shows up and burns your house down. Then what?

Honest answer? I really don't fear that type of thing. I've had my house shot at, I've personally been shot at.

Then they show up and burn you down, and you're not around to be moderate anymore.

You're making all kinds of very silly assumptions.

First: The bad guys know who ratted them out.
Second: There would not be a way to protect the informants.
Third: The moderates would not look out for each other.
Fourth, and specific to ME: Again, I'm not scared. They need to come heavy, hard and fast, and where I live that is about impossible.

Again, folks could/would get hurt. The types of change needed are not easy or quick. Read up on guerrilla warfare. A population friendly to the insurgents or hostile to the gov't, or scared to act always helps the insurgents, even if just by not acting. If you want change, it will take action. Yes, that entails risk. Risk can (and should) be mitigated and there are multiple mechanisms for doing so.

But if "I'm too fething scared' is the reason folks don't want to do what is right, then in the long run, a lot more people suffer and die. I personally am past the point where that is acceptable to me.