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In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

Dying for one's convictions is one thing, killing for them is another. Who must be sacrificed to sate one's convictions? Anyone can end their own life, some choose to make that decision for others before making it for themselves.

The concept of an individual sacrificing themselves to save others can be made to sound noble and heroic in the abstract. The devil as always is in the details. There's certainly a difference between a suicide bombing on an occupying force and bombing a popular ice cream shop in the middle of baghdad.


Suicide attack went out of style with the advent of advance aspect seeking ordnance. Of course not everyone has a standing army or billion dollar military assets.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his" - George S. Patton

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
In that context suicide bombing can be seen as rational as other means. Suicide bombing is an odd concept in the West. But dying for your country/freedom/independence is pretty similar as a more Western idea. The method of dying is different but they are both equally final. Dying for your convictions is what almost every culture has some form of. Kamikaze is a good example of another method with the same result.

Dying for one's convictions is one thing, killing for them is another. Who must be sacrificed to sate one's convictions? Anyone can end their own life, some choose to make that decision for others before making it for themselves.

The concept of an individual sacrificing themselves to save others can be made to sound noble and heroic in the abstract. The devil as always is in the details. There's certainly a difference between a suicide bombing on an occupying force and bombing a popular ice cream shop in the middle of baghdad.

Dying and killing for one's convictions can frequently be tied together though. Dying for one's convictions be they country/freedom/independence can often be linked to some violent conflict. To achieve certain goals bloodshed is required. These are the basics of political terrorism, its a strategy. Hitting civilians in conflicts is pretty standard when two sides aren't equal. It demonstrates to the public an inability of the state or occupying power to protect them. Furthermore it is designed to draw out a heavy handed approach to end this terrorism. This heavy handed approach the state/enemy employs is exactly how you lure in the next batch of recruits. Suicide bombing for example can be broken down into motivations. Emotional motivation such as the death of a family member at the hands of the state/enemy is as good as any. In that context civilians who don't support the underdog/terrorist organization are seen as supporters of the state. So for terrorism as a strategic approach hitting civilians make perfect sense. It enforces the idea of the state being weak. Yes we might find it reprehensible. But how many civilians have died as 'collateral damage' in the War on Terror in the ME? From their perspective, why is a drone hitting a funeral any different from a bomb going off in an ice cream shop?

We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

Imagine if only we counted and kept track of the cause of said dead civilians. We'd be able to see some kind of trend perhaps.

Collateral damage is just called innocent bystanders when it's a domestic gang war. I would still say there is a difference between a disregard for the lives of others and a flat out intention to take their lives as primary goal.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


We divide them up according to our morality. But at the end of the day both end in dead civilians. Its horrible, but its nothing new or exclusive to Islamic terrorism.

Imagine if only we counted and kept track of the cause of said dead civilians. We'd be able to see some kind of trend perhaps.

Collateral damage is just called innocent bystanders when it's a domestic gang war. I would still say there is a difference between a disregard for the lives of others and a flat out intention to take their lives as primary goal.

Well they do in the US. Discounting 9/11 as the unique attack it is right wing terror has claimed more lives in the US, including that of police and military personel. In Europe Islamic terrorism is currently the bigger issue. But not for all countries and certainly a lot smaller than the domestic terrorist organizations of the 70's-80's. Islamic terrorism is a problem, yet statistically its a tiny one. Its sad for the victims, but if the year holds like this the most violent act in number of deaths is the Vegas shooting, more than the number killed by Islamic terrorism in the US for this year combined. Offset that to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians that have died as collateral damage to the consequences of the Western War on Terror and any trend you identify is insignificant compared to that number. IS would have the hardest time existing right now if it wasn't for those consequences.

You might think there is much of a difference. But US drone strikes can be very 'random' in who they hit. They also indiscriminatly hit medical personnel and family. Just look up second strikes on first responders of drone attacks under the logic that the first strike always hits terrorists so those that show up to help must be terrorists as well. Again this is more a debate on morality, as both ways are at their most basic one of the end justifying the means to the parties involved.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out. Among other factors. And sadly socioencomic status didn't seem as big a factor in the radicalization of the perpetrators of the deadliest domestic terror attack on us soil.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out.

You want to include a spectacular incident that is highly unlikely to ever be repeated again to be included in a trend? That defeats the defenition of a trend, as small scale attacks vastly outnumber big scale attacks. But sure lets put Islamic terrorism victims in the West including and since 9/11 against gun violence deaths of a single year in the US. The number of people that have died in the West to the particular type of terrorism is still significantly smaller than that. On 9/11 about 3000 people were killed while in the overall year 15.000 were killed by guns. While tragic it just shows how statistically insignificant that is. 15.000 on a Western population of around 750-800 million is tiny, especially if you take into account that Islamic terrorism hasn't been able to add up to that in a period of 16 years. So trend wise its a tiny issue that gets an incredibly inordinate amount of attention and funds.

So a population of over a billion Muslims (because if you argue that religion is the prime/most important motivator, they are technically all a risk) have killed less than 15.000 people in the West over 16 years. Hardly a life ending threat, hardly makes Muslims or Islam any more dangerous to the West than your run of the mill car or murderer. Islamic terrorism is insignificant put into perspective. But it plays into base fears like no other cause of death really can.

So if so many Muslims manage such a small body count, it becomes important to look at motivations beyond those purely religious. As everybody has tried to argue that isn't blaming Islam. Most Muslims are good people, their version of Islam doesn't include terrorism.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As a side note, it's being reported that the suspect in question has been seeing driving around for weeks in a rented U-haul truck with the same 4 or 5 dudes in a really suspicious manner. There might be a fair chunk left to this story so maybe we can try not to get this thread locked just yet.

He had two cell phones on him. One had the numbers of person's already on the NYC radar.
Declare him an enemy combatant and ship him to Gitmo.

You know what would be better then that? A successful prosecution within our existing legal system. Since 9/11 there have been upwards of 600 successful prosecutions and convictions for terrorism related charges. In that same timeframe, military tribunals have had 8.

He'll spend the rest of his life in ADX Florence.

Please stop rooting for some of the worst stuff the US does. The continued existence of our extrajudicial gulag in Cuba is one of our greatest national tragedies.

To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

 Ouze wrote:
The continued existence of our extrajudicial gulag in Cuba is one of our greatest national tragedies.

One of, certainly. I seem to remember another that preceded it. It should be shut down, but where would you send erbody?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

Sure but may I simply point out that if you believe the ideology fully you've already got an excellent in group out group mechanic. Bad ideas can make good people do bad things. Leading to other good people doing bad things in response. Gitmo like islam was and is a bad idea, but one certainly preceded the other an is inexorably linked with its terrible conception. And any fair person for or against the continued existence of gitmo would have to admit there is no shortage of reasonable grievance for any radical to point to, genuine, projected or imagined.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The very difficult to solve problem is how to discover people who are in danger of becoming disaffected and resorting to this kind of random killing spree, before they do so, and then how to defuse the social pressures and triggers that are leading them down that path.

This is an area where a blanket distrust of Muslims is actively negative. One of the things that sets these guys off is feeling alienated from the society they live in.

It also hurts the frequency of Muslims reporting other muslims they suspect are planning to do something stupid. And that's a big issue, the overwhelming number of foiled terror attacks comes from tips by people in the terrorist's community.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stanman wrote:
If they hate the US and Europe so much maybe they could I dunno... stay in the middle east? I wouldn't consider moving to a new country if I felt that their standard way of living conflicted with or forced me to compromise my morals. If by some circumstance I found myself living in such a place I'd do whatever it takes to leave. Just as you're free to enter the country you're also free to leave if you decide you don't like it. Too many of these extremist want to glorify the way of living in their old world country but seem unwilling to continue living there, what's so great about it if they themselves can't endure their own homeland?

You've missed most of the dynamics of the issue. Hardly any of these guys love the regimes in the middle east either. They are muslim states, but they are corrupted etc. You might have noticed most of the attacks happen in those countries.

You'll also note most of these attacks are suicide attacks. Suicide attacks aren't what you do when you're trying to build a new utopian society. They're what you do when you're chasing martyrdom, checking out of this life in pursuit of a fantasy in the next. The motivation, speaking very generally, is more just a crude suicidal/homicidal rage. This guy wasn't thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die, and then the New York caliphate will begin!' He was thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die.'

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To hook into the point of Ouze that perfectly demonstrates strategic terrorism at work. Gitmo is one of those heavy handed measures by the state in response to terrorism that terrorist organizations can hold up to show the evil of said state and use to recruit. What goes on in Gitmo is seen as validation for their actions, even if it was never meant to by the US, its exactly the type of response strategic terrorism strives for.

Sure but may I simply point out that if you believe the ideology fully you've already got an excellent in group out group mechanic. Bad ideas can make good people do bad things. Leading to other good people doing bad things in response. Gitmo like islam was and is a bad idea, but one certainly preceded the other an is inexorably linked with its terrible conception. And any fair person for or against the continued existence of gitmo would have to admit there is no shortage of reasonable grievance for any radical to point to, genuine, projected or imagined.

This is starting to become a bit silly on an eye for an eye level. Islamic radicals can and will point to reasons why 9/11 was justified and then it never ends. One country has to be the bigger person so to speak. You don't defeat your enemy by becoming your enemy. Like it or not the War on Terror and Gitmo have provided amazing recruitment tools and proving grounds for organizations that would have never become this big without the chaos Western nations cause and have caused in the ME. The US drone program is the biggest recruiter for Al Qaeda in Yemen for example. Saying its just bad because its Islam is doing a massive disservice to the history behind the rise and development of Islamic terrorism. Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

 sebster wrote:


You've missed most of the dynamics of the issue. Hardly any of these guys love the regimes in the middle east either. They are muslim states, but they are corrupted etc. You might have noticed most of the attacks happen in those countries.

You'll also note most of these attacks are suicide attacks. Suicide attacks aren't what you do when you're trying to build a new utopian society. They're what you do when you're chasing martyrdom, checking out of this life in pursuit of a fantasy in the next. The motivation, speaking very generally, is more just a crude suicidal/homicidal rage. This guy wasn't thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die, and then the New York caliphate will begin!' He was thinking 'I'll kill a bunch of people with a car, then die.'

You left out the paradise part. And the being proud of slaughtering other human beings now that he's able to reminisce and give us a play by play and look back fondly and with nostalgia on injustice he has done to his fellow humans.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.



Can we all agree that point to atrocities done by one specific ideology is generally more productive and topical when every other breath aren't trying to take focus away in any possible direction or tangent. Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks is even more evident and a lot harder when the elephant is still in the room. Again, it's all nuance/psychology/context when its islamic terror but when it's white supremacist terror it's a conspiracy that goes to the top and probably ordered by trump and everyone is actually a secret racist. Not tarring you specifically with the white supremacist comparison, speaking very much in generalities of what I've observed. I would never rush to the defense of human garbage like the guy who killed 9 innocent people in charleston. But if someone really thought the ideology at play wasn't primarily the white supremacy I don't know what to tell you. As an ex chrisitan myself, religion does great harm and certainly wasn't likely something that helped the sick bastard, but he chose his victims based on his racist ideology, that was where he got the idea that he should murder people because of their race and the victims themselves were chrisitan.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

All religions are a bad idea. Bad ideas are bad, no way around it. A lot of things sound good on paper but end up being bad ideas. Even the most seemingly ingenious or exciting ideas can go bad.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Beyond the incredibly offensive insult and marginalisation of Muslims of course.

The largest amount of human beings negatively affected by the terrible ideology of Islam are themselves muslims. If being offended on their behalf achieved anything I'd pat you on the back.

Saying Muslims are the primary victims of Islam does not diminish in the slightest the fact that you're telling the main victims of Islamic terrorism their own religion is a "bad idea" and "terrible" anyway. If the first sentence was an attempt to deflect away from calling Islam a "bad idea" you only made it worse...

All religions are a bad idea. Bad ideas are bad, no way around it.

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

 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.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

From my understanding there's been very slight progress, but progress none the less with the saudi's. Women being able to drive is a sad thing to have to celebrate (they should have been able to drive from the inception of driving), but it's objectively positive.

 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.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Discounting 9/11

Yeah, probably best not to do that.

The irony is not lost on me either that a lot of the thread has felt like "discounting islam" the spread of religious ideallogical motivation for terrorism is all over the map and totally evenly spread and shows no trends or disparities at all. The room feels a lot bigger when you let the elephant out. Among other factors. And sadly socioencomic status didn't seem as big a factor in the radicalization of the perpetrators of the deadliest domestic terror attack on us soil.

It probably is best to do that. None of this started with 9/11. I know the news media and most north americans have forgotten the 70s and 80s ever existed, but car bombings against US military bases in Europe (particularly Germany) by people that fall under the current label of 'Islamic extremists' were fairly regular occurrences. The IRA was often fond of small scale explosives in mailboxes and trash bins as well, despite how well they're thought of over here. The 'norm' of terrorism is far more the small scale event, and has gone on a lot longer than most bother to remember.

I'm puzzled by your theory that socioeconomic status doesn't play into it- it absolutely does, very consistently.

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

People always find reasons to murder each other. Right and left wing violence and terrorism were king during the Cold War. Three decades from now we will likely have moved on to the next big terrorism thing. Religion isn't inherently good or evil, its always the people, and people always find a reason.

Probably, but if you could somehow hypothetically (for the sake of argument) change the brains of people who believe in these invisible sky wizards so that they did not believe in them anymore, do you think you would see an increase in these attacks? Would there really be anything lost?

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

I suppose it's possible. I don't know the answer. I'll concede that violence is capable of happening without religion. I'm still not convinced that it's not a significant contributing factor. And I'm not sure I see many tangible benefits to religion that couldn't exist without it, and I see a whole lot of bad happening in the name of it. I'm also probably at least a little prejudiced though.

 Crablezworth wrote:
We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

That's a straight up lie.

"However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention."
" I don't think he did it because of Islam. He didn't even seem to know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he expressed sympathies for Islamist organisations from both branches. His life was in shambles, his wife seems to have left him, he had no job, he faced deportation and he appeared to be spending his time mostly smoking and sleeping."
"any possible causes, marriage breakdown, financial stress etc"
"He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education."
"So it's important to ask how he's different. What mosque did he attend? Did he regularly attend, or recently change his attendance patterns? Did he have a prior criminal record? Was he in contact with ISIS figures on-line?"
"To do so ignores other factors. I find it hard to believe anyone in their right mind decides to just do these heinous acts. You have to be angry first, and have an excuse second. If someone has mental health issues, that's a far larger part of the problem than any given faith. "
"This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse."
"The other very common factor is that they're generally men in their early to mid 20s, when the instinct to turn rage and anger in to violence is at its strongest. By the time they hit 30 most guys just don't have that same urge."

If I applied the same tactic with, say, white supremacists, I'm sure all the same open minded and compassionate individuals would be agreeing with me in lock step just how rare it is for a white supremacist to commit terrorism or violence and many of them come less than ideal socioeconomic backgrounds and poor education and home life blah blah blah.

Are you genuinely ignorant of the masses of literature talking about how economic marginalisation drives white supremacy?

And yes, if someone said 'oh that white supremacist just committed that act of terror because he hates black people' would also be a crappy, superficial and absolutely useless answer.

 daedalus wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Would we? Its impossible to predict, but it might. Where the divide now lies between Sunni and Shia in the ME for conflict it is not hard to assume that the dissapearence of that divide might cause (even) more ethnic/national struggles. The Shia/Sunni divide presents a comfortable divide, but European history showed that we would just as easily fight over a coloured piece of fabric or political ideology for which absolutely massive numbers of people died. The historical evolution and socioeconomic conditions of the ME have to be taken into account as a source of the current violence as well. There is more to it than just religion. For example, this whole IS thing might have never gotten off the ground if not for the Iraq invasion. So we might have never seen a significant increase in attacks if not for 2003.

Of course I'm not a sky wizard either and unless we invent some device to look into alternate dimensions who knows. Humans have had no trouble killing each other for reasons beyond/besides religion however. The most violent phase in Western history wasn't based on religion.

I suppose it's possible. I don't know the answer. I'll concede that violence is capable of happening without religion. I'm still not convinced that it's not a significant contributing factor. And I'm not sure I see many tangible benefits to religion that couldn't exist without it, and I see a whole lot of bad happening in the name of it. I'm also probably at least a little prejudiced though.

Yes, the trouble will always be weighing what part religion has to the overall contribution. Its hard, because a good number of countries that are majority Muslim do quite well, they have few problems with Jihadists going abroad to fight or internal problems. Then you have the ones with few problems but supporting terror groups, followed by countries that mainly supply jihadists that leave their country to fight elsewhere. Conditions have a lot to do with it. The amount of foreign fighters exploded with IS. But not many were willing to go and risk their lives for their religion (so to speak) when it was the Afghan or Iraqi slog pre 2014. The succes and amount of volunteers that IS attracted because of it really demonstrates the more cynical reasons for going beyond religious conviction. People like to be on the winning team more than fighting a losing holy conflict for the end of days as IS likes to put it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I will be and often am critical of certain facets of Islam, just as I am any religion, including militant atheists that give the rest of us a bad name.

But that doesn’t mean I tar all Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists etc with the same brush.

I can tell when a religion is an excuse, and not a motivation or cause. For instance, Israeli foreign policy is nothing to do with Judaism. Like, at all. Yet criticism is often stifled under a blanket of anti-semitism. And that accusation gains credence because anti-seimitism remains a global problem.

Bigotry of all stripes is holding us back as a species. Thanks to cretins like Britain First, English Defence League and their international counter parts, intelligent, ratioral assessment of the causes is obfuscated under a pall of rank stupidity and racism.

Yes, thankyou, well said. I too would like to have a decent conversation about the issues within Islam, but find that conversation near impossible because it gets swamped by bigots, and then by people who shout bigotry at any challenge to the religion.

 sebster wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
We're doing everything we can to try and obfuscate doctrine and principles with context. We hear weasel words like "many factors" without ever hearing much about what said other factors are.

That's a straight up lie.

"However, I believe it's at least as reasonable to believe he's a man unhappy with life who decided to commit this horrendous act and added Islam for extra attention."
" I don't think he did it because of Islam. He didn't even seem to know the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, as he expressed sympathies for Islamist organisations from both branches. His life was in shambles, his wife seems to have left him, he had no job, he faced deportation and he appeared to be spending his time mostly smoking and sleeping."
"any possible causes, marriage breakdown, financial stress etc"
"He's been in the US a long time, so maybe there's mental health issues at play, or he's been feeling marginalized; we can potentially do something about both of those with better mental health support and education."
"So it's important to ask how he's different. What mosque did he attend? Did he regularly attend, or recently change his attendance patterns? Did he have a prior criminal record? Was he in contact with ISIS figures on-line?"
"To do so ignores other factors. I find it hard to believe anyone in their right mind decides to just do these heinous acts. You have to be angry first, and have an excuse second. If someone has mental health issues, that's a far larger part of the problem than any given faith. "
"This is true. Also, the main factor that links most of the spree killings around the world, more than any particular religion, is the state of the perpetrator's personal life. No job, no money, no partner, and usually drug and alcohol abuse."
"The other very common factor is that they're generally men in their early to mid 20s, when the instinct to turn rage and anger in to violence is at its strongest. By the time they hit 30 most guys just don't have that same urge."

You apparently know more about his motivations than he does, no cognitive distortions there at all. You presented some decent assumptions, but that's all they are and not everyone having a bad time in life becomes a terrorist, but an inordinate portion of those that do have a bad time and do become terrorists fall inordinately under one religion, one you seem positively hell bent to do anything to draw away from. All the parts matter, but in trying so hard to push relativism and remind us "not every" it seems like a pretty massive portion doesn't get examined. We got a lot of mind readers here I guess. And in all honesty. The fact that you're still seemingly of the opinion that "added Islam for extra attention." if it's so ancillary why keep up the farce? Does the lack of remorse and general hubris over his crime not point pretty much directly at islam?

When bill maher said, paraphrasing: "it's not fair to assume you're a racist because you're republican" he also didn't leave out "but if you are a racist, you're more likely a republican" I tend to agree with him and I'm no fan of the democrats. Not all muslims commit terrorism but most terrorists are musilm.

 sebster wrote:


Are you genuinely ignorant of the masses of literature talking about how economic marginalisation drives white supremacy?

And yes, if someone said 'oh that white supremacist just committed that act of terror because he hates black people' would also be a crappy, superficial and absolutely useless answer.

It would be an incomplete answer. But we don't get to choose the facts we like, I feel like we're explaining that to each other. Radicalism and victim hood (real or imagined) aren't solely found with the down trodden and those just trying to make ends meet. Victim-hood knows no exclusive economic status. The aggrieved are capable of terrible things with or without an ideology, certainly. But a miserable existence focused, forged and tempered by a terrible set of ideas is more destructive, clearly.

 Henry wrote:
So the President has said (on twitter no less) that he should get the death penalty. Is it normal for a sitting President to chip in like that?

It absolutely is not normal. A few year's back Obama wanted gitmo inmates moved to New York for civilian trials. Among other reasons this was opposed, it was claimed that they might get off in a civilian trial. Obama said that possibility wasn't likely. That caused one hell of a freak out on the right, claiming Obama was interfering in court processes. It was a reasonable complaint, Obama shouldn't have said it and it was reckless for a president to talk publicly about what a court should find.

So Trump talking about details of the case (wanting the ISIS flag, being proud of what he did) and giving his preferred penalty is miles worse, and could possibly make it hard for the prosecution.

 sebster wrote:

 Henry wrote:
So the President has said (on twitter no less) that he should get the death penalty. Is it normal for a sitting President to chip in like that?

It absolutely is not normal. A few year's back Obama wanted gitmo inmates moved to New York for civilian trials. Among other reasons this was opposed, it was claimed that they might get off in a civilian trial. Obama said that possibility wasn't likely. That caused one hell of a freak out on the right, claiming Obama was interfering in court processes. It was a reasonable complaint, Obama shouldn't have said it and it was reckless for a president to talk publicly about what a court should find.

So Trump talking about details of the case (wanting the ISIS flag, being proud of what he did) and giving his preferred penalty is miles worse, and could possibly make it hard for the prosecution.

He shouldn't be commenting. Its a political football better left ignored because no matter how wrong he was to do it, damage done. No sense ensuring his next election victory before you get to impeach him. When clinton wouldn't even say the words islamic terrorism after the terrorist attack in orlando, she all but handed trump the win.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Suicide attack went out of style with the advent of advance aspect seeking ordnance.

You don't know what you're talking about. While suicide bombing as a military weapon ended in WWII, as a civilian weapon of terror it's very new. It started with car bombs in Libya in '81, then became more widespread after the Tamils invented bomb belts and bomb vests.

As a terror tactic it's far from being out of style. It's 35 year old method that's increasingly prevalent.