The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[Martinus]

Arab culture AD 2014 is primitive. Film at 11. What Viking misses, imho, is that the state of modern Islam is a symptom, not the cause.

And just so be clear, I still consider religion (especially of the Abrahamic kind) evil and vile. It's just that Arabs following Christianity would be just as bloodthirsty, imo (as Europeans were in the past).

[mongers]

Just listening to a professor of phonetics interviewed on bbc news, she said the speaker in the video has a characteristic "Jafaican" or Multicultural London English dialect.

She suggested he'd be not much older than early 30s, but didn't get into ethnic background. Said it was possible he was a speaker of a 2nd language or that English wasn't his first, though said nothing that wouldn't rule out he was English born and breed.

His speech may well have been rehearsed, so that could mask some characteristics, intentional or not.

No way of identifying on voice along, even if there was a secondary authenticated recording of a known individual for comparison.

Though that doesn't rule out someone recognising his voice and coming forward with the information to the police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jafaican

[Viking]

Viking, you are putting the cart in front of the horse here.

The mechanisms in Christianity/Catholicism you describe were not inherent in these religions - they were developed by the Western civilisation to cope with the issues you are ascribing to Islam (such as literalism, contradicitions, un-scientific-ness) - and it took the West a lot of blood and ink to reach these conclusions (e.g. dismissing more preposterous parts of the Bible as allegories). And these mechanisms were (again, as I said, none of us is a scholar of Islam, so our knowledge is based really on hearsay and websites with an axe to grind) also present in Islam as practiced for example in medieval al-Andalus - in short, they are what advanced civilisations develop to deal with the idiocy of religion.

Again, there is no such thing as TRUE religion or TRUTH in religion. Religions are what they are. They are what their adherents do. What a religion did but no longer does is irrelevant. The only real relevance the history of a religion has on it's status today is in the effect it has on modern religion and the modern religious believer.

What the prophet actually does is monumentally irrelevant. What matters is what was reported of his actions and what was reported of his motivations.

[Martinus]

Viking, I am not sure I understand what you are arguing any more. Can you restate the thesis of your argument in one-two short sentences?

[Eddie Teach]

Viking, I am not sure I understand what you are arguing any more. Can you restate the thesis of your argument in one-two short sentences?

Islam sucks. Muslims suck.   

[Martinus]

Viking, I am not sure I understand what you are arguing any more. Can you restate the thesis of your argument in one-two short sentences?

Islam sucks. Muslims suck.   

Oh, ok, then we agree.

[Agelastus]

Arab culture AD 2014 is primitive. Film at 11. What Viking misses, imho, is that the state of modern Islam is a symptom, not the cause.

And just so be clear, I still consider religion (especially of the Abrahamic kind) evil and vile. It's just that Arabs following Christianity would be just as bloodthirsty, imo (as Europeans were in the past).

So you're a racist, then? Arabs will be barbarians regardless of cultural or philosophical background then?

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In the last few pages of discussion I'm strongly reminded of one thing.

1400 years ago a follower of Islam told his soldiers to throw books in a river ("if it is good knowledge God has granted us better; if it is bad knowledge God has protected us from evil".)

700 years ago a follower of Islam ordered his servants to try and destroy the Pyramids.

Today I can point at followers of Islam across world advocating and doing the same as their ancestors above (Mali, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan...)

I can't really tell the difference between any of them.

[Valmy]

Well we have (or maybe had) lots of Arabs following Christianity so I find it being presented as a hypothetical a bit odd 

[Martinus]

Well we have (or maybe had) lots of Arabs following Christianity so I find it being presented as a hypothetical a bit odd 

Do we have any country with an Arab Christian majority? My point is that primitive religious cultures use their religion to justify their barbaric treatment of the "other", and that it only loosely correlates with the particular religion they follow.

[Eddie Teach]

I think Lebanon used to.

[Valmy]

Well Lebanon was supposed to be the Christian Arab country but that didn't work out well.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, the Uganda's "kill the gays" bill was supported by the local Christian (including Catholic) clergy and was in fact actively promoted there by fringe US-based Christian dominacionist group. Which kinda proves my point that Christians can be as murderous if sufficiently primitive and fanatical.

[Valmy]

Incidentally, the Uganda's "kill the gays" bill was supported by the local Christian (including Catholic) clergy and was in fact actively promoted there by fringe US-based Christian dominacionist group. Which kinda proves my point that Christians can be as murderous if sufficiently primitive and fanatical.

Wow thanks Marty this is totally new information.  Uganda is like 90% Christian so...yeah.  But Russia is also Christian.

[Eddie Teach]

90%? Then how the heck did Amin manage to take power? 

[Martinus]

Incidentally, the Uganda's "kill the gays" bill was supported by the local Christian (including Catholic) clergy and was in fact actively promoted there by fringe US-based Christian dominacionist group. Which kinda proves my point that Christians can be as murderous if sufficiently primitive and fanatical.

Wow thanks Marty this is totally new information.

Are you being facetious? Because I thought that was common knowledge.

Uganda is like 90% Christian so...yeah.  But Russia is also Christian.

And also sliding quite badly towards oppression when it comes to treatment of gay people, what with the systemic kidnapping and torture of young gay men over the last couple of years.