Manhattan explosion

[A'isha]

Judging religions by their current practice is hardly a double standard.

It is the way McHrozni was doing it, because he was explicitly rejecting the current practice of Muslims who don't interpret their scriptures the same way he does, saying he judges their religion not on their actual beliefs and practices, but what he thinks their beliefs and practices should be based on his interpretation of their scriptures.

EDIT: He literally said "my insistence on not judging Islam solely on what a majority of Muslims think Islam means is really, really appropriate" because "there is a disconnect between Islamic teachings and a majority of Muslims".

 

[Giz]

EDIT: He literally said "my insistence on not judging Islam solely on what a majority of Muslims think Islam means is really, really appropriate" because "there is a disconnect between Islamic teachings and a majority of Muslims".

I think the issue is twofold:

1- Most of the more objectionable parts of Christianity are in the old testament, which has been superseded. The opposite is true for Islam, where the more warlike passages come after and take precedence over the more tolerant ones.

(and more importantly: )

2- There are not sizeable numbers of Christians planning/supporting atrocities in the name of their faith and claiming doctrinal justification.

 

[A'isha]

I think the issue is twofold:

1- Most of the more objectionable parts of Christianity are in the old testament, which has been superseded. The opposite is true for Islam, where the more warlike passages come after and take precedence over the more tolerant ones.

Neither of which are actually true.

2- There are not sizeable numbers of Christians planning/supporting atrocities in the name of their faith and claiming doctrinal justification.

Which is both completely unrelated to McHrozni's rejection of the beliefs of Muslims who don't support atrocities in the name of their faith and reliance on what (he thinks) their scriptures say, and a perfect example of the double standard I was talking about since you're defending him for rejecting what Muslims believe in favor of what (he thinks) their scriptures say by rejecting what the Christian scriptures say in favor of what Christians believe.

 

[Klimax]

Their actions are entirely consistent with Islam as written in the Koran, Hadith and practiced by early Muslims. This is especially true for treatment of other Muslim groups.

McHrozni

They use fully and as literally as they can useful bits of Islam while bypassing, ignoring or twisting rest of it. Hence hypocritical bit. Like any other extremist group using religion or other things for justification of their actions.

I don't disagree on their classification.

 

[smartcooky]

"Separatist terrorism" isn't a confounder, it's a descriptor. Just like "jihadist terrorism" is a descriptor. And Europol's list of all the terrorist attacks in the EU includes both types of terrorist attacks because Europol is not measuring simply separatist terror, but all terrorist attacks from all sources.

I think you are entirely missing the point McHrozni is making, and the fact that he has is repeatedly tried to explain it to you in various ways, tells me that you are either deliberately not getting it, for you are suffering from the worst case of cognitive dissonance I have ever seen. For the record, I understood what he was saying the first time he explained it, so let me try

Yes, separatist terrorism is terrorism; no-one is denying that but the overall risk of any given person in the world being the victim of a terrorist attack is far greater from an Islamic jihadist attack than a separatist terrorist attack, and here is why

Separatist groups have a beef with the local governments and administration where they live, the people they perceive are oppressing them and not allowing them self determination.

For example Basque separatists (such as the ETA) have committed over 1200 terrorist attacks in the last ~40 years, killing over 800 people - all of them in Spain (and a few in the Basque Country part of France, near the French/Spanish border. If you live in Germany, Italy, Great Britain or anywhere other than Spain or in France near the Spanish border, your chances of being caught in a Basque terrorist attack is indistinguishable from zero. You will not find ETA cells flying airliners into buildings in New York or blowing up night club patrons in Bali, or gunning down theatre and rock concert attendees in Paris or driving trucks into crowds in Nice or killing coffee shop patrons in Sydney. Same applies to other separatist terrorist groups such as FLQ, IRA & LTTE. Their fight is with local and/or oppressor governments, not the west in general.

However, this is not so for Islamic Terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-qaeda. Their fight is with the whole world, anyone who is not devout to THEIR particular brand of Islam, is infidel and therefore a legitimate target. That includes you and me and every member of this forum. And their are dozens of different brands of Islam that all inspire their devotees to commit terrorist acts against the "enemies of their God", and those enemies are the residents of every country in the world who don't agree with them.

My chance of being involved in any terrorist attack are very slim, but within that slim chance, by far the greatest risk is from an Islamic or Islamic inspired terrorist attack and far greater than the risk from all separatist groups combined.

 

[A'isha]

I think you are entirely missing the point McHrozni is making, and the fact that he has is repeatedly tried to explain it to you in various ways, tells me that you are either deliberately not getting it, for you are suffering from the worst case of cognitive dissonance I have ever seen. For the record, I understood what he was saying the first time he explained it, so let me try

Yes, separatist terrorism is terrorism; no-one is denying that but the overall risk of any given person in the world being the victim of a terrorist attack is far greater from an Islamic jihadist attack than a separatist terrorist attack, and here is why

The Europol data doesn't cover terrorist attacks around the world, but terrorist attacks in the EU. And the risk of terrorist attacks in the EU, which is the specific purview of the Europol reports, encompasses terrorist attacks from all sources that occur in the EU, because those are the terror threats in the EU. So if you're talking about the terror threats in the EU, excluding the separatist terrorist attacks as a threat from the Europol list of terrorist threats that explicitly includes separatist terrorist attacks as a threat is not just invalid, but mendacious.

EDIT: Remember, McHrozni's initial claim about the Europol data was not that it didn't accurately reflect the relative terror risk worldwide, but that it actually showed that the terror risk in the EU from jihadist terror was greater than other sources of terrorism. He even cherry-picked a single year from the Europol reports to try and prove it, (falsely) claiming that it proved his "Muslims commit terror out of proportion to their population percentage" thesis.

For example Basque separatists (such as the ETA) have committed over 1200 terrorist attacks in the last ~40 years, killing over 800 people - all of them in Spain (and a few in the Basque Country part of France, near the French/Spanish border. If you live in Germany, Italy, Great Britain or anywhere other than Spain or in France near the Spanish border, your chances of being caught in a Basque terrorist attack is indistinguishable from zero. You will not find ETA cells flying airliners into buildings in New York or blowing up night club patrons in Bali, or gunning down theatre and rock concert attendees in Paris or driving trucks into crowds in Nice or killing coffee shop patrons in Sydney. Same applies to other separatist terrorist groups such as FLQ, IRA & LTTE. Their fight is with local and/or oppressor governments, not the west in general.

Which is also irrelevant, since the Europol terrorist threat assessment specifically includes the risk of separatist terror attacks occurring entirely outside the territorial region where any given separatist group normally operates (such as considering it a possibility that the Kurdish PKK will strike in the EU).

 

[marplots]

My chance of being involved in any terrorist attack are very slim, but within that slim chance, by far the greatest risk is from an Islamic or Islamic inspired terrorist attack and far greater than the risk from all separatist groups combined.

This would only be true if you lived in an area where the locals committed fewer terrorist acts than the exported type. Mathematically, having to fight the whole world would seem to mean a dilution by that amount, lessening your risk - but again, depending on location.

When I lived in Detroit, the local terrorists were drug dealers and their customers. The gangs were pretty effective at making locals afraid of them. Home-brew, old school terror.

 

[Dipayan]

Maybe. Do you have anything to add to the debate perhaps?

McHrozni

I would if there was any chance that anybody on this thread was open to debate and reason. But unfortunately this is another one of those hot button topics that is not conducive to an open exchange of ideas.

 

[McHrozni]

Which neatly torpedoes your assertion that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than the general population.

No, it doesn't, not least of all because despite the connection being weak, it still exists. I covered why this is only a part of the puzzle and not the whole picture extensively, you simply prefer wilful blindness.

And I didn't choose the time period, Europol did.

For this debate? Tell me more

"Separatist terrorism" isn't a confounder, it's a descriptor.

If you want to determine whether Islam is a cause for terrorism, it's a confounder. You need to eliminate all sources of terrorism that don't apply to Jihadis and see whether or not they still significantly differ from the general population. That's the proper and honest way to answer the question, but you aren't interested in honsety.

A) When talking about Islamic terror in the West, the natural focus of the conversation is Muslims in the West,

Islamic terror in the West represents maybe 5% of all Islamic terror worldwide. I'm not talking about this small minority of Islamic terror for no reason, but because Islamic terror elsewhere in the world is usually chalked up to lack of opportunities, oppression, lack of education and whatnot. These don't apply in the West, and if Islam weren't the cause for terrorism, Islamic terror shouldn't exist in the West.

In other words, the reason we're talking about Islamic terror in the West isn't because Western victims of Islamic terror are any more dead than non-Western victims, but because other than Islam there is no plausible excuse for it.

B) if Islam itself were actually the problem here, there wouldn't be that difference between the two disparate groups of Muslims in the first place,

Assuming Islam is practiced in an identical way worldwide, and 'interpreted' in an identical way, and doesn't respond to surroundings, and ...

In other words, this assertion is ludicrous.

C) Pakistan is a dramatic outlier even among other Muslim-majority nations when it comes to ISIS,

So is the West in regards to, well, just about anything meaningful. Yet you insist on judging Islam solely on a small minority of Muslims, and tell us to disregard all others

D) Attitudes toward ISIS don't appear to be strictly correlated with religion, since in Malaysia only 67% of Muslims have an unfavorable view of ISIS but so do only 65% of Buddhists, in Burkina Faso only 64% of Muslims have an unfavorable view of ISIS but only 66% of Christians do too, while in Lebanon the unfavorability of ISIS among Christians, Shias, and Sunnis is 100%, 100%, and 98%, respectively.

ISIS doesn't claim to represent non-Muslims and leaves those countries alone for now, so understandably non-Muslims might not care much about it. Muslims should though.

And Salafism bears as much resemblance to the Islam of Muhammad's time as the various violent, radical sects (or even the major denominations) that arose during the Reformation bore to the Christianity of the first century.

Sure. Keep telling yourself that.

The Reformation most certainly had its Boko Harams and ISIS', and Europe was torn apart by violent religious conflicts for centuries afterward, with some of those conflicts even lasting until the present day. Either you know as little about the Reformation as you know about Islam, or quadraginta was right and you're applying a double standard again, excoriating Islam for the violence during the "Reformation" you say it's undergoing, while completely whitewashing the violence of the Christian Reformation.

Boko Haram and ISIS? Not really, no, that's another of your unfounded assertions. It had it's own share of religious violence though. What of it?

"Islam" doesn't exist as some kind of separate entity outside the actions and beliefs of Muslims.

Yes, it does. Aside from the contents of your holy books (that you ignore), Islam is also the amalgam of practices and beliefs of all Muslims. Those practices and beliefs include mutilation for petty crimes, death penalty for homosexuality and apostasy, supremacism, racism and more. You can't just hand-wave those away because a small minority of Muslims disagrees with them.

And that's another double standard, I see: Islam is to be judged not by what Muslims believe but by what you think its scriptures say, but everything bad that Christian scriptures say can be handwaved away because Christians don't believe that these days.

This is neither true nor relevant. You always go in the same defense mode, a pathetic "but, but, but Christianity ...". We're discussing Islam, not comparing it to other religions.
We can do that if you want though, but open a new thread dedicated to it. I also recommend you stock up on antidepressants.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

When I lived in Detroit, the local terrorists were drug dealers and their customers. The gangs were pretty effective at making locals afraid of them. Home-brew, old school terror.

Terrorism requires political goals and doesn't involve gang violence and whatnot. I realize that's a very small comfort to those suffering from it, but that's what the definition states.

McHrozni

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

 

[quadraginta]

Terrorism requires political goals and doesn't involve gang violence and whatnot. I realize that's a very small comfort to those suffering from it, but that's what the definition states.

McHrozni

Not such a stretch as all that. Gang violence is generally about territorial control and power disputes.

Local, sure. But as Tip O'Neil was fond of pointing out, all politics is local in the final regard.

The motives may be aimed at a smaller arena, but they are pretty much the same.

 

[McHrozni]

I didn't take that from what he said because he didn't specify fundamentalist Islam, just "Islam", and he's made it clear in the past that his thesis is pretty much that Islam is what the fundamentalist Muslims believe, and non-fundamentalist Muslims are Doing It Wrong.

No, it's just the Kaffir knowing more about Islam than our resident Muslim does. I get that a lot.

Qur’an 5:33—The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.

al-Muwatta of Imam Malik (36.18.15) - "The Messenger of Allah said, "If someone changes his religion - then strike off his head."

I could go on, but I you get the pricture. It's the stuff I 'misunderstand', but you are never quite able to explain what is it that I'm not getting despite constant pleading you explain it. Somehow every Muslim understands these in a strange, completely different way than what an honest and straightforward reading says and those who claim to be following a simple and straightforward reading are just using it as an excuse to cover up their evil agenda. In addition to never being able to explain what I'm missing when I'm quoting you your 'holy' sources you aren't able to explain what this evil agenda is. Why is that?

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

Not such a stretch as all that. Gang violence is generally about territorial control and power disputes.

Local, sure. But as Tip O'Neil was fond of pointing out, all politics is local in the final regard.

The motives may be aimed at a smaller arena, but they are pretty much the same.

If you really believe that I suggest you write a letter to the FBI to reclassify the thugs as terrorists then. Who knows, maybe it'll result in legislation that will allow them to come down on them harder.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

I think the issue is twofold:

1- Most of the more objectionable parts of Christianity are in the old testament, which has been superseded. The opposite is true for Islam, where the more warlike passages come after and take precedence over the more tolerant ones.

Neither of which are actually true.

Which parts of the New testament do you find most troubling and why are they worse than what the Old testament says?

Which is both completely unrelated to McHrozni's rejection of the beliefs of Muslims who don't support atrocities in the name of their faith and reliance on what their scriptures say, and a perfect example of the double standard I was talking about since you're defending him for rejecting what Muslims believe in favor of what their scriptures say by rejecting what the Christian scriptures say in favor of what Christians believe.

Please define which groups of Muslims are representative of Islam and justify your choice. Furthermore you need to explain why are you disregarding other groups, justify it for all groups you've excluded. "I don't like them" and "I disagree with them" are not valid reasons.

It's actually kind of funny that you insist on including all terrorist attacks in EU to be defined as a background value when discussing Islamic contribution to terrorism in EU, but freely discard up to 98.5% of all Muslims when discussing what constitutes Islam. Cherry on the cake: you then whine about double standards.

McHrozni

 

[marplots]

Terrorism requires political goals and doesn't involve gang violence and whatnot. I realize that's a very small comfort to those suffering from it, but that's what the definition states.

McHrozni

I like the description of ISIS as a gang. Seems apt to me.

 

[McHrozni]

I like the description of ISIS as a gang. Seems apt to me.

Their behavior is reminiscent of one, yes. The context, ideas, goals and justifications - gangs in particular don't have the last one - are not.

In other words, they're no more a gang as an honest hair dresser salon is one. Both have the same goals (to make money), but differ in behavior, context, goals and ideas.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

It is the way McHrozni was doing it, because he was explicitly rejecting the current practice of Muslims who don't interpret their scriptures the same way he does, saying he judges their religion not on their actual beliefs and practices, but what he thinks their beliefs and practices should be based on his interpretation of their scriptures.

We're currently at war with a quazi-state whose goal is to establish an Islamic supremacy over the whole world. The said state has the support of five to ten times as many Muslims as there are Muslims in the West. Yet I'm supposed to ignore it, because a majority of another group of Muslims disagrees with them. Do you realize just how ridiculous this is?

You claim Muslims who live in the West are representative of Islam, whereas much larger groups of Muslims defined in other ways are not. Can you please justify this discrepancy? Why is it that Muslims living in the West are representative of Islam and why should I ignore the beliefs and practices of a significantly larger number of Muslims when judging Islam?

EDIT: He literally said "my insistence on not judging Islam solely on what a majority of Muslims think Islam means is really, really appropriate" because "there is a disconnect between Islamic teachings and a majority of Muslims".

Which part of this explicitly rejects practices of Muslims?

Only one person here explicitly rejects relevant factors, namely practices of all non-approved Muslim groups and that of Islamic teachings. That person is you. You haven't even attempted to justify those exclusions yet. Care to try for a change?

McHrozni

 

[CosCos]

Hats off to McHrozni for persevering in the face of the dogmatic stances taken by the head-in-sand apologists. It boggles the mind how western liberals will keep defending a religion that is so at odds with the ideals they hold so dear. Especially on an atheist forum! All in the name of political correctness, or more accurately because they can't be seen to be agreeing with the True Enemy (conservatives).

I grew up as a christian in egypt and have seen first hand what peaceful, loving Islam does to people, and I had it easy back in the 80s and 90s. Now we have an ethnic cleansing being perpetrated all over against anyone who doesn't think the right way, but the Aichas of the world will pervert all the statistics in the world to "prove" that there is no Islamic threat.

The best is when I check my facebook feed after yet another terrorist attack. 90% of my facebook friends are the moderate muslims Aicha holds up as paragons of virtue and "moderate Islam." These are upper middle class people who went to a very expensive, very exclusive private school under the british IGCSE education system. However, they are muslims first, and everything else after that. For every condemnation of the brutality being perpetrated, there are 10 diatribes of how "this is not Islam" and then 50 examples of people saying mean things about Islam, as if THAT'S the problem and not the killings that just happened. The point is that in my sampling of the "moderate muslims" that people like Aicha pretend are representative of true Islam, they do NOT see Islamic terrorism as that big of a deal. They see western attitudes against Islam as a a real problem and not the real acts of terrorism. This attitude is encouraged and bolstered by western "enlightened" liberals and the results are what's happening in the world today.

McHrozni is absolutely correct. Islam IS the problem and no amount of dishonest statistic twisting and rhetoric will fix it. Until "moderate muslims" and the collective West unite to first, honestly identify the problem, and second, eradicate this cancer, the situation will only get worse. And that'll happen when pigs fly because we're asking people to go against their hard-wired religious beliefs.

 

[A'isha]

No, it doesn't, not least of all because despite the connection being weak, it still exists. I covered why this is only a part of the puzzle and not the whole picture extensively, you simply prefer wilful blindness.

Actually, you attempted to mangle the dataset when it didn't show what you wanted it to show in an effort to shore up your claims.

If you want to determine whether Islam is a cause for terrorism, it's a confounder. You need to eliminate all sources of terrorism that don't apply to Jihadis and see whether or not they still significantly differ from the general population.

When trying to assess the threat of jihadist terrorism versus other sources of terrorism, eliminating all those other sources isn't the first step towards an "honest inquiry", it's merely the creation of a tautology.

Islamic terror in the West represents maybe 5% of all Islamic terror worldwide. I'm not talking about this small minority of Islamic terror for no reason, but because Islamic terror elsewhere in the world is usually chalked up to lack of opportunities, oppression, lack of education and whatnot. These don't apply in the West, and if Islam weren't the cause for terrorism, Islamic terror shouldn't exist in the West.

We can see from the jihadists own recruiting manual that they not only focus their efforts on the isolated and the disaffected, they often try to establish a connection between the person they're trying to recruit and Muslims suffering from war and hardship in other countries, to tell them that they aren't fighting for themselves, but for those people there.

Assuming Islam is practiced in an identical way worldwide, and 'interpreted' in an identical way, and doesn't respond to surroundings, and ...

In other words, this assertion is ludicrous.

That's been precisely what I've been trying to tell you: Islam is most definitely not practiced in an identical way worldwide and interpreted in an identical way, and yet you keep making blanket assertions about what Muslims believe and the way Muslims act.

Boko Haram and ISIS? Not really, no, that's another of your unfounded assertions.

There certainly were. Especially among Anabaptists there were sects who behaved very much like ISIS does: taking over a locale, murdering anyone who didn't flee that didn't obey their extremist religious dictates, having an apocalyptic worldview, attempting to spread their ideology via mass communication methods, engaging in open warfare against the secular authorities who had ostensible control over the territories they occupied, and trying to convert and recruit others still living in areas ruled by the secular authorities to their cause and enticing them to come and help them in their conflict against those authorities.

Yes, it does. Aside from the contents of your holy books (that you ignore), Islam is also the amalgam of practices and beliefs of all Muslims. Those practices and beliefs include mutilation for petty crimes, death penalty for homosexuality and apostasy, supremacism, racism and more. You can't just hand-wave those away because a small minority of Muslims disagrees with them.

Hey, remember when you said "Assuming Islam is practiced in an identical way worldwide, and 'interpreted' in an identical way, and doesn't respond to surroundings, and ...

In other words, this assertion is ludicrous."?

This is neither true nor relevant. You always go in the same defense mode, a pathetic "but, but, but Christianity ...". We're discussing Islam, not comparing it to other religions.

You're the one that brought up the Christian Reformation and compared it to Islam. You even made an entire separate post just for that.

I could go on, but I you get the pricture. It's the stuff I 'misunderstand', but you are never quite able to explain what is it that I'm not getting despite constant pleading you explain it. Somehow every Muslim understands these in a strange, completely different way than what an honest and straightforward reading says and those who claim to be following a simple and straightforward reading are just using it as an excuse to cover up their evil agenda.

"Assuming Islam is practiced in an identical way worldwide, and 'interpreted' in an identical way, and doesn't respond to surroundings, and ...

In other words, this assertion is ludicrous."

Which parts of the New testament do you find most troubling and why are they worse than what the Old testament says?

I was referring to the "has been suspended" part.

Please define which groups of Muslims are representative of Islam and justify your choice.

There aren't any.

We're currently at war with a quazi-state whose goal is to establish an Islamic supremacy over the whole world. The said state has the support of five to ten times as many Muslims as there are Muslims in the West.

And has the support of far fewer Muslims in the Muslim-majority countries that border them (there, in fact, seems to be a pretty direct connection between proximity to ISIS and the number of Muslims who have a really unfavorable view of ISIS).

Those Muslims are currently engaged in a continuing military action against ISIS (making up the vast majority of the combatants against ISIS, actually), and have managed to drive ISIS back from their farthest extent, reducing them to a hold on just one major city these days.

Which part of this explicitly rejects practices of Muslims?

The part where you quote scripture and say that your interpretation is the only correct one, and any Muslims who interpret things differently from you are literally apostates.

This is, interestingly enough, the exact same interpretation of Islam that ISIS has, meaning you're actually taking the side of violent jihadists against the Westernized and non-extremist Muslims who are and have been ISIS' primary targets for violence.