Set like you I've thought about this problem a lot in recent years.
I agree the root cause of the violence is economic and political, not religious.
Yet religion is used to justify what the terrorist does (at least by the terrorist groups themselves).
Its quite possible today's outrage was perpetrated by British citizens. People born in Bradford or Birmingham, educated in the UK, often very bright (Sheik Omar was privately educated, yet he cut the throat of Daniel Pearl). What I'm saying is that these people are not oppressed. Yet like John Walker Lindh they get sucked into radical Islamism. They have no excuse other than religion. They believe they are doing their religious duty by fighting holy war on behalf of their oppressed brothers.
And whilst I think radical islamists would not be over here letting off bombs if we were not over there meddling and wheeler dealing over oil, it does not make me inclined to like or even respect Islam.
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:I agree the root cause of the violence is economic and political, not religious.
Yet religion is used to justify what the terrorist does (at least by the terrorist groups themselves)
Precisely. It is the priest who delivers the warriors to the front.
neologist wrote:It is the priest who delivers the warriors to the front.
sure?
this is very serious.. your opinion.
ebrown_p wrote:How do you propose to make that distinction Brandon? Before the 20th century, Jews and Muslims lived fairly peacefully (especially compared to Jews and Christians). The problems started with the Palestinian crisis. This is strong evidence that this is a fight over land (as most wars are).
The fact that religious rhetoric is called into service as part of an ethnic conflict is no help to you. Most wars have this feature. Was the civil war (which had a religious rhetoric on both sides) a religious war?
You can't make the claim that every act of violence that involves Muslims is "motivated by religion" and every act motivated by Christians is something else.
Kashmir is a fight over land, Chechnya is a fight for independence (that most Americans supported not so long ago)
In Uganda, the rebels call themselves "The Lord's Resistance Army". Even in this case I wouldn't call this a "religious conflict".
So, Brandon what distinction are you trying to make?
I hear a lot more about Muslims blowing up civilians deliberately for their religion than about Christians doing it for theirs. During the past 40 years, anyway. You have read the newspaper today, right?
I don't see the relevance of your point, First of all, your statement is based on your impression, not on facts. Most (if not all) suicide bombings have an overtly political purpose. Muslims and Jews lived peacefully together before there was a conflict over land.
But let's pretend you are right in this point. How does this even matter?
Are you saying the Christian murderers who butchered 800,000 innocent civilians are somehow less barbaric because they didn't invoke their religion?
You are all doing your best to justifiy a hatred of an ethnic religious group, but like most predjudice your logic is deeply flawed.
"You are all doing your best to justifiy a hatred of an ethnic religious group, but like most predjudice your logic is deeply flawed"
That my friend is what you think I think. And you have it wrong. Hatred of an ethnic group is racism, and I am not a racist. There are laws in this country against it. It is a serious offense and imo it is equally serious to make false charges of racism.
Religion is nothing more than a belief system. A set of ideas. How can it be wrong to hate an idea, when some ideas are truly hateful? It should be possible in a free country to change your ideas in the light of experience or better understanding. You can change your religion. (Except of course that Islam punishes apostasy by death, why?)
I don't hate anyone. But a bad idea is a bad idea. And I reserve the right to point out the harm that bad ideas can do.
I
Steve is absolutely correct that this has nothing to do with an ethnic group.
I also believe he is absolutely wrong about Islam. As has been pointed out, putative christians in Rwanda slaughtered one another in their hundreds of thousands. No one gave a tinker's damn. Were not the heartland and birthplace of Islam sitting atop a sea of "light sweet crude" we'd not give a tinker's damn about them. Afghanistan has been convulsed by a bloody civil war since 1963--more than half the population has known nothing else all their lives. The West did not give a tinker's damn until the Soviets invaded, and then the only substantive response was to give weapons and to idiotically fund and train bin Laden and his "base," his al Qaeda.
Then we have the idiot crew at the White House, who just couldn't wait to rush into Iraq. It would be so easy, it would be Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill all over again. Quick in, easy out, we come out smelling like roses. Oh My Fecking God, we are in the clutches of incredibly stupid idiots who have made us all into targets--and people waste their time condeming Islam as a whole, and smearing all Muslims by extension.
It's politics and it's money--it always has been and it always will be. Catholic France entered the ostensibly religious Thirty Years War against Catholic Austria for political reasons; Protestant Sweden took Richelieu's Catholic aid for the money. Nothing has changed in 350 years, other than the calibre of those involved. There is certainly no one approaching the military abilities of Gustavus Adolphus, nor the intelligence of Richelieu in the White House or at Ten Downing Street.
I might be absolutely wrong about Islam set. But then I'm not really trying to rank order religions in terms of which is the most murderous and put Islam #1. I must admit I find certain aspects about all the worlds monotheistic religions particularly distasteful. I think Judaism is racist, Islam is repressive, and Christianity at least in the form that I have been brought up with is just nonsense.
If I appear to be coming down hard on Islam, then I can only say I detest the idea not the man who holds them.
Sounds a bit pretentious but I hanker after truth. And when someone (of whatever faith) tells me categorically that the world is 6000 years old, when we can measure its age as being much older than that through radio isotope decay I dont shrug my shoulders any more and walk away. I say you are wrong. And if you persist in spreading such notions and call it education, you are bad. If this causes offense tough.
And of course like it or not, it is the name of Allah which is invoked as justification for today's terrorism, not Jesus Christ nor Yahweh. So yes I'll be honest I've got a big downer on Islam just at the moment.
First of all, I think it think it is very difficult to separate ethnicity from religion. The fact that they are considered separate in our cosmopolitian pluralsitic society is a new phenominon.
Is "Jewish" a religion or an ethnic group? The answer, of course is both. We talk of "Christian nations" and "Islamic nations". Values, traditions, holidays are they set by ethnicity or religion?
This is most certain when talking about war. Every culture invokes its God in times of war. This includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus... you name it.
Steve, Let's get to the root of your argument.
You are the member of one religion-- a religion that has been responsible for atrocities on numerous occasions. You are attacking another religion because it is responsible for atrocities on numerous occasions.
This hypocritical "my religion is better than your religion" really bothers me.
Christian groups advocate terrorism. One example is the KKK, an overtly Christian group. They have commited terrorist acts in the not too distant past. The reason the KKK doesn't commit terrorist acts now is because we have a stable society that can reject their acts.
Of course Most Christians are peaceful. There are Christian extremists who advocate terrorism. Christianity is really a spectrum with some Christians accepting part of the extremist philosophy (i.e. pro-gun and anti-immigrant stances) while not publically advocating violance.
Likewise Most Muslims are peaceful. There are similar extremists and a simlar spectrum of views.
The difference is that, at least in the US and Europe, we live in stable societies that are not the crux of violent ethnic conflict or outside interference.
But you are a Christian who wants to attack another religion to prove the superiority of yours.
You have no argument to support this "my religion is better than yours" crap.
Christian nations are involved in at least as many wars as Muslim nations. Christians are responsible for at least as many acts of violence that are at least as brutal and horrific. Christians use their religion-- their commitment to the "Lord Jesus Christ"-- to justify hatred and advocate terrorism.
There is no objective way to say that Islam is any more brutal, murderous or evil than Christianity.
It is just a matter of your predjudice.
ebrown_p wrote:It is just a matter of your predjudice.
And this, after all, is the object of the thread. I had a notion that most of the barbs would be aimed at Islam.
"Steve, Let's get to the root of your argument.
You are the member of one religion--"
sorry ebrown, got as far as this then stopped
no I am not a member of one religion
might read the rest later
That's very convenient.
You certainly have expressed a preference for one religion. Go back and read my post, and if you you are man enough to face the clear bias in your arguments, please respond.
History, at least the history of the 20th century, confirms quite clearly that the greatest application of force, mass terror & cruelty and extermination have come at the hands of irreligious, anti religious and atheistic states, each of which proclaimed that it, the state, was the highest power and subject to none other.
A great deal of slaughter and intolerance has been done, worldwide in the name of religion or its cultural trappings. It continues today in various parts of the world.
Of the world's major religions, Islam is unique in that it asserts that there should be a unity between religious authority and that of the state, and the religious element should dominate. We see applications of this idea in Saudi Arabia and in the Islamist movements in nearly every Moslem country.
However, ideological intolerance does not always materialize in practice, and the lack of it does not guarantee tolerance in fact. Through history there are numerous episodes of terrible oppression and intolerance at the hands of various Christian sects, and many of prolonged tolerance and harmony in the Moslem world - contradictions abound and generalizations are certain to be wrong in many cases.
The long history of China also has demonstrations of oppression and violence at the hands of advocates of Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus - though long ago China reached a synthesis that wa stable, even static, for many centuries. All that was followed by murderous oppression by a revolutionary new state that persecuted religion in any form with singular vigor.
Conclusion? All religions have been at one time or another intolerant and murderous. In the modern world Islam presents unique systematic challenges to democratic principles. States that deny religion or any power above itself tend far more often to be disposed to truly horrific cruelty and oppression in their efforts to "reform" humanity.
That's a facile statement, georgeob1. Marxism was anti-religious, not necessarily atheist. Stalin may have been an atheist, but there is no conclusive evidence available on the subject. He did begin his life in public as an Orthodox monk. I do not suggest by this that he was religious, just that these are oversimplistic statements you are using. Hitler's propaganda was always very careful to portray the German state as a bastion of Christianity, standing firm against the pagan hordes who would bring her down. one might suggest that the PRC is atheist, but the Chinese as a culture have never been much given to a serious acceptance and furtherance of religion.
There is nothing in Islam which calls for a religiously controlled state. This was a construct of the companions, who set up the Caliphate to rule the remnants of the Sassanid Empire from the newly founded Baghdad. That didn't last long either--there were four Orthodox Caliphs, ending with Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and the founder of Shi'ism. Fourteen Caliphs succeeded in the Umayyad Caliphate, in a period of just 70 years--none seems to have lasted very long. The ten Abbasid Caliphs lasted just over a century, a little more successful individualy than the Umayyids. Although Ali was opposed to the principle, all of the offered Caliphs offered jizya--tribute--to the non-pagan infidels, i.e., the Christians and Jews. By paying this tax not levied on the faithful, the safety and sanctity of their holy places was guaranteed and their persons as inviolable as any member of the faithful. It was not until the rise of the Shi'ite Buwayid Emirs of Iraq that an attempt was made to impose a strict theocratic rule on any part of Islam. They fell in their turn to the Seljuks, whose one rule of governance was that all was permitted which submitted to the rule of the Turk. Within an Islamic community, there is no priesthood. The imams and mullahs can claim a special knowledge of the Qu'ran, and the qu'adis can interpret the Qu'ran and the hadith to expound Islamic law, but the governance of the community is always in the hands of the ulama, the aggregate of righteous men in a community. Any man seen as righteous by the community is accounted an alim, and if the opinion of an imam is at odds with this judgment, the imam is likely to be ignored. Islam is the most decentralized, least priest-ridden religion which has ever attained to the status of major religion.
That bin Laden declares a fatwah for holy war against the West constrains no one in the Muslim World. Iran is the only nation in the history of Islam to truly be ruled by a Muslim religious hieracrchy, and that only since 1979, and with a continuing use of the 1906 constitution, although the force of that document is likely only notional. The extent to which Muslim terrorists can command the obedience of other Muslims is exactly to the degree that Muslims feel put-upon and under attack by the West.
We have made this bed in which we are obliged to lie, due to the high-handed manner in which first the English from the Great War to the early 1960's attempted to impose upon the middle east, and then the United States from Truman's recognition of Israel in 1948 to the present. The simple-minded retort of the partisan conservative would be to demand if i blame America for this terrorism. Yes, i do blame the policies of previous administrations, of both parties, for stupidly creating the situation with which we have to deal. Yes, i do blame the current administration for not only failing to effectively deal with the situation, but to exacerbate it. No, i don't blame the American people for having naively trusted venal and selfish men who have made these policies. But it is long past time that Americans learned how this all has gone down, and demand that government begin to act effectively to deal with the situation. Declaring a crusade against Islam is certainly not going to do the trick.
georgeob1 wrote:History, at least the history of the 20th century, confirms quite clearly that the greatest application of force, mass terror & cruelty and extermination have come at the hands of irreligious, anti religious and atheistic states, each of which proclaimed that it, the state, was the highest power and subject to none other.
A great deal of slaughter and intolerance has been done, worldwide in the name of religion or its cultural trappings. It continues today in various parts of the world.
Of the world's major religions, Islam is unique in that it asserts that there should be a unity between religious authority and that of the state, and the religious element should dominate. We see applications of this idea in Saudi Arabia and in the Islamist movements in nearly every Moslem country.
However, ideological intolerance does not always materialize in practice, and the lack of it does not guarantee tolerance in fact. Through history there are numerous episodes of terrible oppression and intolerance at the hands of various Christian sects, and many of prolonged tolerance and harmony in the Moslem world - contradictions abound and generalizations are certain to be wrong in many cases.
The long history of China also has demonstrations of oppression and violence at the hands of advocates of Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus - though long ago China reached a synthesis that wa stable, even static, for many centuries. All that was followed by murderous oppression by a revolutionary new state that persecuted religion in any form with singular vigor.
Conclusion? All religions have been at one time or another intolerant and murderous. In the modern world Islam presents unique systematic challenges to democratic principles. States that deny religion or any power above itself tend far more often to be disposed to truly horrific cruelty and oppression in their efforts to "reform" humanity.
Well said.
(I like the mispelling about the wa in China.)
I would add that today's Islam is a deliberate synthesis; an uholy alliance, as it were, with Fascist ideology and the Stalinist Kleptocratic welfare state - the two most murderous ideologies of the last century.
georgeob1 wrote:
The long history of China also has demonstrations of oppression and violence at the hands of advocates of Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus - though long ago China reached a synthesis that wa stable, even static, for many centuries. All that was followed by murderous oppression by a revolutionary new state that persecuted religion in any form with singular vigor.
you just betrayed how much fox news, cnn and others sorts of media, did your head in. (in your 1st sentence)
and then you yourself explained why china did what it did - despite the fact that "China reached a synthesis that was stable, even static, for many centuries" - 'cos it was "a revolutionary new state that persecuted religion in any form with singular vigor. " !!!
they are not socialist, not marxist(communist), but maoist. which is more ruthless, less tolerant, more anti-religion than the brand of communism practised in ussr.
there simply was no place for any religion or any kind in china. their preent generation(S) dont know anything of the chinese values of "Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus " - all that has been systematically supressed and uprooted from their lives.
so how is the murder, opression and violence that they carried out under totalitarian maoism - attributable to "Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus " - the same ones that they completely uprooted and almost obliterated from china ???
brahmin wrote:
so how is the murder, opression and violence that they carried out under totalitarian maoism - attributable to "Taoism, Buddism and the teachings Confuschus " - the same ones that they completely uprooted and almost obliterated from china ???
You are imagining a causal connection I did not make or even suggest. I said only that Mao's tyranny followed the long-standing and static Chinese synthesis. My main points were that intolerance and oppression has occurred in the name of nearly all religions. However, none of it has been so consistent or murderous as that practiced by irreligious states that place themselves abopve all other valyes of which Mao's China is perhaps the prominent example.
georgeob1 wrote: My main points were that intolerance and oppression has occurred in the name of nearly all religions. However, none of it has been so consistent or murderous as that practiced by irreligious states that place themselves abopve all other valyes of which Mao's China is perhaps the prominent example.
yes... mao's irreligious china placed themselves about all religious and philosophical values of china. a very prominenet example indeed.
but then how can you attribute the murders and opression to china's values and religions, when the very same was uprooted ? all the intolerance that maoists did - was certainly not in the name of chinese values or religions & was, in fact, very much in denial and opposition of the same.
so how could you say "Conclusion? All religions have been at one time or another intolerant and murderous.". china/chinese have been intolerant and murderous - precisely when they HAVEN'T been religious/traditional AT ALL. in red china, people could be persecuted if a book of taoism was found in their house !!
or did you mean the murder of "chinese values and religions" - attributabe to maoism ?
