Holy Shit Paris!

[Andrew]

#notallmuslims etc.

Good post, Andrew. Glad to see someone delwing a bit deeper into the subject when we're first having this discussion. This was what I was getting at when I said that extremism is the symptom, not the disease. Sure, religion plays a huge part in this, but it's worth noting where extremism prospers and why. Extreme poverty, fucked up living conditions, anger etc. leads to young men joining the people that will give them guns to destroy a perceived enemy. Whether they're doing it for religion, nationalism, political ideology or whatever is of course interesting, but the result remains the same. In the west, ISIS can recruit poorly integrated muslims who feel out of place in the society they live in, and, as jwar pointed out, young men who just wants to point a gun at something. ISIS is hardly a uniform group.

Now, religion is a really handy way of recruiting people, as it's an easy tool to justify your actions. "Oh yeah, I don't have to argue with you, God says that this is right, and you can't argue with the big guy." Belief in a greater cause makes it easier to do crazy shit. So the young men gets to play with guns, destroying what they believe is the reason for their own misfortune.

Ugh, this was a bit simplified and all over the place, but there might be something in there somewhere. Honestly, I just get tired of this americanized (no offense, #notallamericans) way of debate where you're supposed to score points against each other instead of having a meaningful dialogue.

It's just a shame that every single human issue gets overwritten by high tension and nothing really resolves.

Now, this is fucking terrifying.

[UglyCasanova]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_5QlLQQH8[/youtube]

It's okay, I was going to cry today anyways

[Snufkino]

No I'm sorry your all making opinion based arguments. That does not mean I'm wrong. Religion is NOT to blame. Once again. The people who believe in it on the other hand, yes. How the hell can you blame a religion for something like this? How? It makes no fucking sense.
Religion is an idea or a belief system.
The PEOPLE (read the word and let it sink into your skull) are the ones committing the acts. Not the religion.

The idea that you can say "the religion isn't bad it's the people acting on it's behalf" is a cop out and an easy way to divert blame. There is a reason this stuff is being done, and the idea that it has no religious basis is totally wrong.

I'm not sure I understand the bit about diverting blame. You're right about religion informing behaviour, and so giving justifications for their actions and beliefs, but then that kind of echoes Jwar's view that there's something in them prior to having particular views put upon them. I.e it's the people, not the relgion itself. Yes, it has a basis in what they're doing, but you could say that about a persons' cultural/political surroundings too.

For example, in the UK there's a lot of white people with no religious leanings whatsoever, who are totally bigoted and have very specific views on immigration etc. It's because they were brought up that way, and that the people within their own cultural/social sphere act as a echo chamber, much like if you were born into a muslim society where the people in your immediate circle where hardcore, hateful IS types.

The worldview and values of IS, or similar groups (maybe like the "God hates fags" bridgade in the USA) are defined by an utter intolerance for other religions or views varying their own. People with that perspective are not capable of peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world at any level. The people I see in the UK who spout of about "bombing rag heads" illustrate that it's the culture you're brought up in and surrounded by, and -to be blunt- if you're a total moron, you'll blindly follow and believe you are the one who is in the right above all others. Thankfully these people don't have access to guns.

While the relgious aspect certainly holds far, far more weight on account of it's history, and the climate of war exacerbates it, I do think there's a lot to be said for focusing on the fact that it starts with people who just don't know anything else. I see it as kind of a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing, which is true, although of course guns make it a lot easier to do so, just in the same was as religion makes it a lot easier to justify.



TL;DR: I guess it's a bit of both religion and people just being shit in the first place, so Jwar's view shouldn't be seen as one-dimensional as it's perhaps being made out to be.

[Snufkino]

This was what I was getting at when I said that extremism is the symptom, not the disease. Sure, religion plays a huge part in this, but it's worth noting where extremism prospers and why. Extreme poverty, fucked up living conditions, anger etc. leads to young men joining the people that will give them guns to destroy a perceived enemy. Whether they're doing it for religion, nationalism, political ideology or whatever is of course interesting, but the result remains the same. In the west, ISIS can recruit poorly integrated muslims who feel out of place in the society they live in, and, as jwar pointed out, young men who just wants to point a gun at something. ISIS is hardly a uniform group.

A way more eloquent way of putting my rambling point.

[D.o.S.]

I would also say that it's fairly easy to say that something doesn't make sense when you divest it of the full context it was given in. I have little desire to defend statements I'm not actually making derived from snippets of what I've said in this thread.

as an aside: 'Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People' is totally fucking retarded, to avail myself of brevity.

tbh I'm a little impressed by the inability to follow along here, so:

Not to say that people wouldn't behave this way in the absence of religion (you can take a gander at a lot of the Cold War era atheist countries to start with) but this sort of insane fanaticism comes out especially when religion is involved.

So, once again, I'll explain it to you. You blame the religion because it is the defining set of rules that allow someone to make the moral equivalence that these sort of things are justified, because they're fighting "the good fight". The basis for "the good fight" comes from their religious convictions, and the convictions empower the act. QED

[Snufkino]

I have little desire to defend statements I'm not actually making derived from snippets of what I've said in this thread.

as an aside: 'Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People' is totally fucking retarded, to avail myself of brevity.

So it's okay for you to take snippets of my words, and call me retarded when I actually said:

I see it as kind of a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing, which is true, although of course guns make it a lot easier to do so, just in the same was as religion makes it a lot easier to justify.

tbh I'm a little impressed by the inability to follow along here, so:

Not to say that people wouldn't behave this way in the absence of religion (you can take a gander at a lot of the Cold War era atheist countries to start with) but this sort of insane fanaticism comes out especially when religion is involved.

So, once again, I'll explain it to you. You blame the religion because it is the defining set of rules that allow someone to make the moral equivalence that these sort of things are justified, because they're fighting "the good fight". The basis for "the good fight" comes from their religious convictions, and the convictions empower the act. QED

Which is actually fairly in agreement with your own statements.

And what's with the constant passive aggressive stuff about the "inability to read"? I'm not even arguing or saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it's difficult to understand how you (or anyone) can say that Jwar's post is totally 100% wrong. You even say yourself:

Not to say that people wouldn't behave this way in the absence of religion (you can take a gander at a lot of the Cold War era atheist countries to start with) but this sort of insane fanaticism comes out especially when religion is involved.

That's pretty much what I'm saying too.

[Harry_Manback]

Dalai Lama: Stop praying for Paris — humans created this problem and humans must solve it

“We cannot solve this problem only through prayers,” the spiritual leader said. “I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.”

He added his hopes that the record violence of the 20th Century doesn’t continue to bleed into the current one.

“We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony,” he said. “If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody’s interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments.”

In what the Friendly Atheist described as sounding like Humanism, the Dalai Lama also said that much of the violence is over superficial matters.

“Furthermore, the problems that we are facing today are the result of superficial differences over religious faiths and nationalities,” he told DW. “We are one people.”

He also said he was leaving it up to the people of Tibet whether they wanted to continue having Dalai Lamas serve as leaders in the future.

“If the people think that this institution is no longer relevant, it should be abolished. I am no more involved in political matters,” he said. “I am only concerned about Tibet’s well-being.”

[casecandy]

I'm not gonna quote the whole block of text, but suffice to say, the Dalai Lama is bae.

[D.o.S.]

I have little desire to defend statements I'm not actually making derived from snippets of what I've said in this thread.

as an aside: 'Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People' is totally fucking retarded, to avail myself of brevity.

So it's okay for you to take snippets of my words, and call me retarded when I actually said:

I see it as kind of a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing, which is true, although of course guns make it a lot easier to do so, just in the same was as religion makes it a lot easier to justify.

So you just gloss over the "as an aside" because, why?

And what's with the constant passive aggressive stuff about the "inability to read"? I'm not even arguing or saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it's difficult to understand how you (or anyone) can say that Jwar's post is totally 100% wrong. You even say yourself:

Not to say that people wouldn't behave this way in the absence of religion (you can take a gander at a lot of the Cold War era atheist countries to start with) but this sort of insane fanaticism comes out especially when religion is involved.

That's pretty much what I'm saying too.

Jwar is absolutely wrong. ISIS are inextricably and unarguably religious. There is no way you can turn this into a secular tragedy when you say shit like "I'd enlist to fight those motherfuckers" and "lets bomb the shit out of ISIS" because all it shows is that you don't have any idea what the fuck you're talking about.

His argument is, more or less, akin to saying that that kid that shot up the black church because of the impending race war (his words, not mine) didn't do it because he was a racist piece of shit, he just did it because he was a piece of shit. Isis didn't attack France because they are evil motherfuckers, they did it because they're evil motherfuckers who are actively trying to bring a holy war to Syria. That's their defining doctrine.

From that Atlantic article I posted earlier:

In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims “ancient” was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil.

Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.

[casecandy]

[frodog]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_5QlLQQH8[/youtube]

It's okay, I was going to cry today anyways

[D.o.S.]

#bumperstickerthinking

Like honestly so much of this shit is people who don't understand what they're talking about trying to feel better because they have (undoubtedly inarticulate and underdeveloped) 'spirituality' or 'religious tendencies' or some other stupid bullshit that probably manifests itself in a fucking Free Tibet sticker or some prayer beads or whatever bullshit or they're actively religious and identify as such and the resulting cognitive dissonance about something that is (in their view) a positive in their personal life being the root of so much misery makes them uncomfortable, but instead of recognizing that they just decide to throw in fucking useless qualifiers and cautions which have nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Thoughts to France, case you're a fucking retard.

[snipelfritz]

I think there are two driving factors behind ISIS and similar groups: The religious motivations of the leaders/much of the rhetoric; and the vulnerability of potential recruits who live in unstable parts of the world or places where their religious/cultural positions are marginalized.

That means there are two cures you can pursue: You can hope to change everyone to the same religious motivations (like ISIS, or megachristians, or militant atheists would want), or you can seek to create circumstances which don't leave violent extremism as a viable option for disenchanted youth.



That just seems logical to me.

EDIT: Not to poke ( ) but DOS it seems like you're trying to imply that if everyone had the same religious footing (that is: no religion), then things would be better. That's what I'm reading at least. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[D.o.S.]

[Jwar]

DOS just because you say I'm wrong doesn't mean you're right. Now leave my name out of it. I've said my piece and apparently my opinion doesn't matter. So I'm sorry to say I could care less about yours.