Islamism isn't about religions, of course.

[Berkut]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/world/middleeast/jordan-tones-down-textbooks-islamic-content-and-tempers-rise.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0


This is why we need to stop pretending like this isn't about religion. Even the most moderate of reforms are met with a serious backlash - the reform movement needs all the help it can get. Trying to pretend like there is not a *religious* problem in Islam is not helping.


This is absolutely a religious problem, and the problem is in fact particular religious beliefs. It is a very difficult problem, but one that we won't help solve by pretending the very nature of it is different from what is really is about.

[Jacob]

What is it that people are pretending? And how will things be better if they stop?

[DGuller]

I'll worry about our own deplorables before I worry about the ones half the world away.  It turns out we've got plenty of enemies of Western values right here at home, and it also turns out religion has far less to do with it than was originally thought.

[CountDeMoney]

"Obama and Clinton's schools are not for us!" shouted Mahmoud Abu Rakhiya, an Islamist in Maan, a desert town in southern Jordan, at a rally on a recent Friday in late September. In the capital, Amman, around the same time, teachers set a pile of textbooks on fire. A woman in a white face veil shouted: "We don't need these textbooks anyway! We will teach them what we want!"

So, not unlike Texas.

[Eddie Teach]

We don't need no education.

[Berkut]

What is it that people are pretending? And how will things be better if they stop?

I don't buy the premise of your question, Yi.

[The Brain]

He particularly objected to an image of a man vacuuming a house

I stand with my Muslim brothers.

[Berkut]

I'll worry about our own deplorables before I worry about the ones half the world away.  It turns out we've got plenty of enemies of Western values right here at home, and it also turns out religion has far less to do with it than was originally thought.

We can worry about both of them, actually.

And I don't think anyone ever thought that religion here had much to do with the people who are creaming their shorts over Trump.

Although I certainly agree that the Evangelical "all in for Trump, no matter what!" we are seeing puts their integrity and commitment to the supposed tenets of their beliefs to shame.

[LaCroix]

And I don't think anyone ever thought that religion here had much to do with the people who are creaming their shorts over Trump.

because it doesn't fit your narrative?

[Eddie Teach]

because it doesn't fit your narrative?

Or reality. Religiously motivated voters went for Cruz.

[Berkut]

There is a element of the religious fanatics in the US who are pretty damn scary, and they support Trump.

Read this:

http://www.trunews.com/article/if-youre-on-the-fence-about-voting-this-pastor-will-change-your-mind

It is fucking scary in its crazy - just as crazy as any Islamist or Jihadist, in fact. It is that fucking insane.

But so what?

There are crazy fucking religious whack jobs in America, this is known. But they don't have much impact, and the impact they DO have is declining. Most of their crazy is lashing out against that decline. These kind of people have been losing for a long time, so I am perfectly comfortable not worrying about them (much). They don't really matter that much, and to the extent that they do matter, they are effectively constrained to operate within a western liberal political framework that limits their ability to effect me. I will still speak out against them of course, and oppose their special American brand of religious fanaticism.

How is pointing out that there are crazy religious people in America any kind of reasoned response to the article posted? The crazy religious right in America has been largely defeated because of political activism and moderate rejection of their *religious* agenda. Nobody tries to argue that people pushing Creationism in schools are doing so for some reason other than religion. Nobody feels any need to carefully avoid calling judges demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in their courts "religious", or claim that they are really motivated by something other than religion.

And more to the point...how is it even relevant anyway? Trotting out Christian extremism in response to concerns about Islamic extremism is like saying "Yeah, but Hillary is a liar!" in response to someone talking about Trump lying about basically everything, all the time. It is non-responsive. It might be true that Christians can be crazy as well, or it might not, and in either case it doesn't make me any less worried when I see that even the most moderate of attempts at reform in Muslim "moderate" countries like Jordan is met by an extreme backlash by what we would all consider to be "moderate" Muslims.

[DGuller]

It's a not a rebuttal, it's a statement of preference.  We should fix our own culture first before we volunteer to fix other peoples' cultures, as deplorable as those are in their own right.

[Berkut]

It's a not a rebuttal, it's a statement of preference.  We should fix our own culture first before we volunteer to fix other peoples' cultures, as deplorable as those are in their own right.

I don't think anyone is advocating volunteering to fix anyone else culture though, but I appreciate the shift in the message from "This isn't a religious problem!" to "Maybe it is, but I don't care." Progress.

[Eddie Teach]

What is this "our own culture", comrade?

[Martinus]

We don't need no education.

We don't need no thought control.