French church attacked by terrorists

[Giz]

ETA. He was generally regarded, by Jews also, as an untypical member of the NSDAP.

He died on 9 October 1974 and is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.​

That's the point. No ideological grouping will be perfectly uniform... yet you seem to demand this before discussion of groups as a whole.

 

[Belz...]

My point wasn't to compare numbers of attacks or victims (though Buddhists, whipped up by Buddhist monks, are currently engaged in the genocide of the Rohingya). It was to point out what Craig B did, which is that even one of the most purportedly peaceful religions around still resembles all the others at the extremist end.

Fair enough. I was only pointing out that Islamic terrorists have the, let's say, upper hand on those sorts of things.

 

[Belz...]

How many active KKKers vs. active Muslims?

And, yes, it is the point. When the 3 branches of your mainstream religious teaching all freely advocate wife-beating (among other violent stuff) and that religion has ~1.5M followers then it's not surprising that people wonder about the very fundamentals of the religion in question, including the sanity of its founder.

Sure, but what does that change of the fundamental point?

Plus, a significant proportion of Muslims in the world support death for apostasy and criminalisation of homosexuality. Let's just say they're a far cry from arguing over which bathrooms people should use.

 

[Belz...]

Sometimes I respond to random musings with my own random musings, but that is a more standard response, yes.

"Blah blah blah" isn't a musing. It's elementary school rhetoric.

 

[caveman1917]

"Blah blah blah" isn't a musing.

Given that not only did I not claim that "blah blah blah" is a musing, but even stated "blah blah blah" to be a more standard response different from musings, I'd consider this statement of yours a random musing. Given that you've gone from arguing the debate to producing random musings I might join you in this endeavour with something like "did you know that 'ble ble ble' is also not a musing?" or just declare "blah blah blah" which you are free to substitute with any musing you want.

It's elementary school rhetoric.

I adapt myself to the level of debate.

 

[Belz...]

Given that not only did I not claim that "blah blah blah" is a musing

It's even worse than a musing, then.

I adapt myself to the level of debate.

Tu quoque is a fallacy.

 

[caveman1917]

It's even worse than a musing, then.

It's an abstract musing if you will, allowing you to substitute any musing you want. It's the essence of any irrelevant musing in the context of a debate, namely that it might as well say "blah blah blah" for the impact it has on that which is being debated. What do you suggest as a response to a set of statements which might as well say "blah blah blah" for the impact it has on the debate?

Tu quoque is a fallacy.

There is a multitude of fallacies. I've found this to be a good, albeit incomplete, list.

 

[Craig B]

That's the point. No ideological grouping will be perfectly uniform... yet you seem to demand this before discussion of groups as a whole.

Schindler was not part of the Nazi Party as a whole. He secretly defected from it, and not only protected Jews, but went so far as to support the anti-Nazi Jewish resistance in Poland by facilitating its contact with Hungarian Jewish organisations.

He was an opponent of the Nazi party, from the beginning of the Holocaust. His formal affiliation thereafter simply has no meaning. Was he to phone his Party branch membership secretary and announce his resignation on account of his revulsion at the murder of Polish Jews?

 

[Belz...]

It's an abstract musing if you will

You just said it wasn't. Seems to me like you will say anything to try to win an argument, even one as insignificant as this one.

 

[Tolls]

Fair enough. I was only pointing out that Islamic terrorists have the, let's say, upper hand on those sorts of things.

Currently.

If we go back 100 odd years then we find a different set of people holding that position (well, I'm guessing, and a certain amount of that will be where you focus). Considering Islam is a little older than that then it appears to me that it's not an innate part of the religion.

Hell, if we went back 50 or 60 years. Islamic terrorism was way down the list compared to communist insurgencies and independence movements at the old terror game.

 

[McHrozni]

What I deny is that violence is the only consistent or logical outcome of being a Buddhist, Muslim, or adherent of the other religions.

This is rather meaningless. As I said, for now I'd be happy if we could all agree on some rather obvious facts: Islam condones and promotes violence and terrorism, and some (not all) Muslims are inspired to commit acts of violence and terrorism because of their Islamic faith.

Do you agree with this? I find it rather indisputable, but the usual response is "but Christians ..." with some nonsencial rambling that follows, which leads me to believe some people are unwilling to accept it. You're among them.

McHrozni

 

[Belz...]

Currently.

That is a pretty silly response. We're talking about a problem in the present. You using something that happened a century ago as some sort of counter-argument is pretty desperate.

 

[McHrozni]

Hell, if we went back 50 or 60 years. Islamic terrorism was way down the list compared to communist insurgencies and independence movements at the old terror game.

Certainly. Independence movements are a bit different, but the ideology of Communism has a lot of similarities with Islam. Communism, like Islam, is a totalitarian ideology that can't tollerate dissent or competition of any sort. With Islam this translates into rather rough treatment of unbelievers, with Communism it is enforced state atheism and suppression of all religious groups. One could also say all other religious groups, since Communism has a lot in common with religion, down to having their own prophets (Mary, Engels, Lenin) and false prophets whose adherents are considered heretics (Trotsky). It even promises paradise, but this one would exist on Earth and not in a mythical land created by an invisible wizard in the sky that you can only reach after death.

Islam is far from being the only problematic ideology out there. It's probably one of the worse ones, since it has shown to retard development of entire societies for many centuries, whereas for example Communism hasn't survived a single century in any state - it was overthrown within two or three generations through popular uprising (East Germany, Romania), through internal collapse (Soviet Union) or through reform, confining it's existence to name only (China). This durability of Islam is one of the reasons why is it so problematic. You can convert Communists through reason eventually, through generational learning of how wrong those ideas are. With Islam, this just doesn't get through.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Schindler was not part of the Nazi Party as a whole. He secretly defected from it, and not only protected Jews, but went so far as to support the anti-Nazi Jewish resistance in Poland by facilitating its contact with Hungarian Jewish organisations.

He was an opponent of the Nazi party, from the beginning of the Holocaust. His formal affiliation thereafter simply has no meaning. Was he to phone his Party branch membership secretary and announce his resignation on account of his revulsion at the murder of Polish Jews?

This argument is rather pathetic. One can argue that every non-violent Muslim secretly defected from Islam, in order to fight it from the inside with the exact same merit.

McHrozni

 

[Tolls]

That is a pretty silly response. We're talking about a problem in the present. You using something that happened a century ago as some sort of counter-argument is pretty desperate.

It was less a counter argument than a warning that current situations invariably get magnified in importance and can assume greater significance, possibly leading to erroneous conclusions. It was less a pointer at you than the topic in general, at least the current drift in it. If Islam is inherently prone to the things we see in ISIS and the general terrorism thing then we ought to be able to see it in the past. After all, Islam is hardly new.

That's why I said "currently".

Oops...meeting.

 

[McHrozni]

I If Islam is inherently prone to the things we see in ISIS and the general terrorism thing then we ought to be able to see it in the past. After all, Islam is hardly new.

Caliphate was a thing in the period of 632-1924. The relative absence of Islam from running the various states is the anomaly that was only briefly interrupted through vastly superior relative strength of western imperialism.

There is little evidence as a whole Muslims oppose the idea of Ummah under a Caliph. They might disagree on the timing of ISIS (they'd perfer it made a move later, when the relative strength of the Islamic world was greater), many certainly disagree on some of their methods and the choice of Caliph, but not with the general idea ISIS is built on: one faith, one ruler, one empire.
In typical Islamic fashion, they can only find agreement on the first point, but will fight to the end over the remaining two.

McHrozni

 

[Belz...]

It was less a counter argument than a warning that current situations invariably get magnified in importance and can assume greater significance, possibly leading to erroneous conclusions.

I don't think it's surprising that we put more importance on stuff that affect us in the present, Tolls.

If Islam is inherently prone to the things we see in ISIS and the general terrorism thing then we ought to be able to see it in the past.

We do. Islam has always been expansionist. Say what you want against Christianity (please!) but it takes some twisted logic to claim that Jesus advocated for murder and conquest.

 

[Tolls]

I don't think it's surprising that we put more importance on stuff that affect us in the present, Tolls.

No, no surprise at all, but it does lead to slightly myopic view.

We do. Islam has always been expansionist. Say what you want against Christianity (please!) but it takes some twisted logic to claim that Jesus advocated for murder and conquest.

Which is why I stuck to (relatively) recent stuff, hence the 100 years.
And I was specifically looking at terrorism, since that seemed to be the topic.

 

[Tolls]

Certainly. Independence movements are a bit different, but the ideology of Communism has a lot of similarities with Islam. Communism, like Islam, is a totalitarian ideology that can't tollerate dissent or competition of any sort.

I would agree on the first part, but disagree on what actually makes them similar.

They're both flexible in their interpretation, which makes them attractive to those who want to use them as a launching point for whatever gains (often personal) they desire.

Pol Pot's Cambodia was quite a different beast to the Soviet Union in any of its guises, for example. The wave of anti-intellectualism in the former bears little resemblance to the revolutionary and civil war period in the latter, or the Stalinist purges either.

In the same way ISIS bears little resemblance to, for example, Bangladesh or Pakistan.

That, in both cases, that the former ones (Cambodia and ISIS) appeared in destabilised regions might be more fruitful ground to search for reasons for their appearance where they did.

Note, I haven't a Scooby whether this would hold water. I'm putting it out there as something I can draw from recent history, and parallels I can make...or at least try to.

...on a Friday...

 

[Belz...]

No, no surprise at all, but it does lead to slightly myopic view.

Really? If one's using something that another group in the past has done to somehow minimise the real harm that this group is doing right now, how is that useful?