Muslims kill more Christians, this time in Pakistan

[Martinus]

I find it a bit funny, too, that the regressive left seems to be perfectly fine with calling a guy with his dick cut off a woman, but draw a line at calling a group that describe itself as Muslims Muslim.

[Tamas]

Good point, actually

[LaCroix]

The relevant fact is that nearly all violent terrorists today are Muslims. *That* is the relevant fact.

I don't think this is true

http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2015.pdf

Here is a nice one:

16/12/14 Iraq Fallujah 150 / — ISIL Assailants killed 150 women who had refused to engage in a jihad marriage.

Nothing to do with religion, of course.

yeah, isis and boko haram have killed a decent amount of people

[Valmy]

yeah, isis and boko haram have killed a decent amount of people

Mostly Muslims. And these groups just seem to keep getting bigger and scarier.

[CountDeMoney]

Once President Trump finally smacks them with an eminent domain suit and Twitter spam, Boko Haram won't know what hit them.  Then they'll wish they negotiated a better deal.

[Jacob]

Lot's of things - did you have something specific in mind?

Well, I'm curious to what extent the things you understand support or undermine the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc.

Sort of related, I'm curious about what sort of action or policy your understanding leads you to support.

[Berkut]

Lot's of things - did you have something specific in mind?

Well, I'm curious to what extent the things you understand support or undermine the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc.

Sort of related, I'm curious about what sort of action or policy your understanding leads you to support.

Still a very, very broad question.

I think that there are several levels happening within the Muslim world today. These levels are not unique to Islam, but the relative percentages in each of these levels is very unique.

You have Islam itself. As someone who thinks that overall religion is bad, as a religion it is considerably worse than any others as they are practiced today by significant numbers of people, for some specific reasons.

Forgetting about terrorism for the moment, the basic problem I have that separates it from other mainstream religions is it's demand that it have a roll outside of religion - that societies laws and practices should and ought to reflect the specific demands of its doctrine. This results in things like apostasy and homosexuality being death sentences for millions of people. This results in women being treated as second class citizens, and a host of other human rights violations that are supported in the name of "cultural understanding". There are similar feelings in Christianity of course, but the numbers are a tiny fraction, and are declining.

At the next level, you have Islamism, which is the more actively political aspect of Islam. Where there is a concerted effort by Islamists to make the religion a political force, and re-shape society in the image of religion. This shows itself in efforts like the Muslim Brotherhood to replace the secular state with a religious state, efforts that have succeeded in some places like Iran. This is ongoing in Turkey, and much of the Middle East. There are overtly religious political parties who want to replace secular government with theocracy. Again, I imagine there are some examples of this in other religions, but they are universally marginalized. Not so with Islam, and Islamism. Indeed, what happens in places like Egypt shows that this idea that secular law and secular political power is to be removed enjoys widespread support, at least in theory.

Lastly, you have the jihadists, who are Islamists who think that their religion demands that they use violence as necessary to further those political goals. The belief that Islam should be spread at the point of a gun if necessary. This is truly almost unique to Islam as a religion. Yes, there are other political actors willing to use force of course, and it is important to understand *their* motives as well, if you want to talk about why they do the things they do - we wouldn't just insist that what they want is false, and they are driven by some other factor.

Now, the real problem is that while there are many Muslims who are not jihadists or islamists, it is not clear from the Koran that they are right and the jihadists are wrong. There certainly is no consensus on it, and poll after poll has shown that even moderate Muslims are radically more tolerant of violence in the service of religion. I hope that this is changing, and I know there is a struggle going on in the Islamic world to define what it means.

But this is what I mean when I say the their beliefs do matter. There is a difference between various religious beliefs, they are NOT all the same.

In all these things, the idea that the doctrines and beliefs of the people supporting them are not important is beyond the pale. Of course it is important, it is critical. Tens of millions of people do not support the execution of apostates because <insert some secular reason here>, they believe that because the Koran says they should believe that.

Many do not believe that, of course - they (like Christians) have managed to move away from that concept of their religion, and see those passages differently.

Personally, I would love to see the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world convert to atheism. That doesn't seem likely to happen.

As an alternative, and this seems pretty unlikely as well (but certainly more possible), I would like to see more and more of them fall into the "Muslim in name" practice that we see dominate most other religions. I would like to see a clear and compelling demand within Muslim society to have a clear separation of church and state, which I think is absolutely necessary for any kind of free and liberal society. I despair about how possible this really is though - it seems like an insurmountable task. But what other option is there?

To the extent that it should lead me to support policies or actions, it leads me to support those within the Muslim community who would advocate for such change, and support the most moderate elements in the current war of ideas that is convulsing Islam in many parts of the world. It also makes me support taking what actions are necessary to protect us from those who have radicalized beliefs, and realize that people who truly do believe that murdering infidels is the will of god and the path to salvation are extremely dangerous in a way that other actors are not - and in a world where the power of small numbers of people to harm larger groups appears to be ever growing, that is very, very alarming.

The very, very least that the West can do though, is to stop pretending like this has nothing to do with religion. Starting your analysis of policy based on self delusion cannot possibly lead to a useful set of actions.

[grumbler]

The relevant fact is that nearly all violent terrorists today are Muslims. *That* is the relevant fact.

I don't think this is true

http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2015.pdf

I think that your evidence disproves your argument:

Terrorist activity is highly concentrated — five countries accounted for 78 per cent of deaths. Fifty-seven per cent of all attacks and 78 per cent of all deaths occurred in only five countries; Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. (page 5)

In all of those countries the terrorists are Muslims.

Two groups are responsible for half the deaths from terrorism — Boko Haram and ISIL. Fifty-one per cent of terrorist deaths that are attributed to a terrorist group were
by Boko Haram and ISIL.(also page 5)

Both of those are Islamic fundamentalist groups.  The other three members of the top five (al-Shabaab, Fulani, and Taliban; see pages 41-44) are also Islamic, though arguably the Fulani are not acting on religious grounds.

Perhaps you should read your sources before citing them.

[Jacob]

And if we were talking about what should be done about Mexican drug cartel violence, it would be foolish to claim that since rampant violence has happened where drugs were not involved, we should ignore the drug trade as a primary motivating factor in that particular violence.

Fair point.

But we might also not want to transpose our analysis of how to deal with Mexican drug cartel violence - including the impact of the drug trade - on to how we deal with Mexicans as a general rule, how we deal with Catholics as a general rule, or how to deal with everyone involved in the drug trade as a general rule.

F. ex. the kid selling weed to a few of his buddies at school should not be dealt with the same way the cartel driven violence in Mexico is dealt with, seems to me.

[Razgovory]

Lot's of things - did you have something specific in mind?

Well, I'm curious to what extent the things you understand support or undermine the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc.

Sort of related, I'm curious about what sort of action or policy your understanding leads you to support.

Still a very, very broad question.

I think that there are several levels happening within the Muslim world today. These levels are not unique to Islam, but the relative percentages in each of these levels is very unique.

You have Islam itself. As someone who thinks that overall religion is bad, as a religion it is considerably worse than any others as they are practiced today by significant numbers of people, for some specific reasons.

Forgetting about terrorism for the moment, the basic problem I have that separates it from other mainstream religions is it's demand that it have a roll outside of religion - that societies laws and practices should and ought to reflect the specific demands of its doctrine. This results in things like apostasy and homosexuality being death sentences for millions of people. This results in women being treated as second class citizens, and a host of other human rights violations that are supported in the name of "cultural understanding". There are similar feelings in Christianity of course, but the numbers are a tiny fraction, and are declining.

At the next level, you have Islamism, which is the more actively political aspect of Islam. Where there is a concerted effort by Islamists to make the religion a political force, and re-shape society in the image of religion. This shows itself in efforts like the Muslim Brotherhood to replace the secular state with a religious state, efforts that have succeeded in some places like Iran. This is ongoing in Turkey, and much of the Middle East. There are overtly religious political parties who want to replace secular government with theocracy. Again, I imagine there are some examples of this in other religions, but they are universally marginalized. Not so with Islam, and Islamism. Indeed, what happens in places like Egypt shows that this idea that secular law and secular political power is to be removed enjoys widespread support, at least in theory.

Lastly, you have the jihadists, who are Islamists who think that their religion demands that they use violence as necessary to further those political goals. The belief that Islam should be spread at the point of a gun if necessary. This is truly almost unique to Islam as a religion. Yes, there are other political actors willing to use force of course, and it is important to understand *their* motives as well, if you want to talk about why they do the things they do - we wouldn't just insist that what they want is false, and they are driven by some other factor.

Now, the real problem is that while there are many Muslims who are not jihadists or islamists, it is not clear from the Koran that they are right and the jihadists are wrong. There certainly is no consensus on it, and poll after poll has shown that even moderate Muslims are radically more tolerant of violence in the service of religion. I hope that this is changing, and I know there is a struggle going on in the Islamic world to define what it means.

But this is what I mean when I say the their beliefs do matter. There is a difference between various religious beliefs, they are NOT all the same.

In all these things, the idea that the doctrines and beliefs of the people supporting them are not important is beyond the pale. Of course it is important, it is critical. Tens of millions of people do not support the execution of apostates because <insert some secular reason here>, they believe that because the Koran says they should believe that.

Many do not believe that, of course - they (like Christians) have managed to move away from that concept of their religion, and see those passages differently.

Personally, I would love to see the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world convert to atheism. That doesn't seem likely to happen.

As an alternative, and this seems pretty unlikely as well (but certainly more possible), I would like to see more and more of them fall into the "Muslim in name" practice that we see dominate most other religions. I would like to see a clear and compelling demand within Muslim society to have a clear separation of church and state, which I think is absolutely necessary for any kind of free and liberal society. I despair about how possible this really is though - it seems like an insurmountable task. But what other option is there?

To the extent that it should lead me to support policies or actions, it leads me to support those within the Muslim community who would advocate for such change, and support the most moderate elements in the current war of ideas that is convulsing Islam in many parts of the world. It also makes me support taking what actions are necessary to protect us from those who have radicalized beliefs, and realize that people who truly do believe that murdering infidels is the will of god and the path to salvation are extremely dangerous in a way that other actors are not - and in a world where the power of small numbers of people to harm larger groups appears to be ever growing, that is very, very alarming.

The very, very least that the West can do though, is to stop pretending like this has nothing to do with religion. Starting your analysis of policy based on self delusion cannot possibly lead to a useful set of actions.

You really need to stop listening to those Sam Harris Podcasts.

[Berkut]

And if we were talking about what should be done about Mexican drug cartel violence, it would be foolish to claim that since rampant violence has happened where drugs were not involved, we should ignore the drug trade as a primary motivating factor in that particular violence.

Fair point.

But we might also not want to transpose our analysis of how to deal with Mexican drug cartel violence - including the impact of the drug trade - on to how we deal with Mexicans as a general rule, how we deal with Catholics as a general rule, or how to deal with everyone involved in the drug trade as a general rule.

F. ex. the kid selling weed to a few of his buddies at school should not be dealt with the same way the cartel driven violence in Mexico is dealt with, seems to me.

I think that goes without saying, doesn't it?

[grumbler]

Lot's of things - did you have something specific in mind?

Well, I'm curious to what extent the things you understand support or undermine the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc.

Sort of related, I'm curious about what sort of action or policy your understanding leads you to support.

I'm curious:  what is " the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc?"  They don't seem to me to have a common narrative.

[The Brain]

Lot's of things - did you have something specific in mind?

Well, I'm curious to what extent the things you understand support or undermine the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc.

Sort of related, I'm curious about what sort of action or policy your understanding leads you to support.

I'm curious:  what is " the narrative advanced by the legbiters/ grallons/ CrazyIvans/ Jarons/ Brains/ etc?"  They don't seem to me to have a common narrative.

Thank you.

[Eddie Teach]

What is the Brain's narrative?

[Legbiter]

Proof of what a hateful religion Christianity is. If they hadn't been celebrating Easter this wouldn't have happened.