Republican nominations - Page 292

On January 18 2012 08:09 Jibba wrote:His training and fighting in Afghanistan had completely secular origins, pushing back against an aspiring hegemony with the help of its competitor.

He turned to an Islamic friend/expert for help with recruitment but he never lived a devout life at all. Look at the porn and other crap they found in his room. He was a poor student of Islam and while it might've fascinated him, he was never active in his religion. He never lived a particularly devout life, he just had people in place to capitalize on the vitriol religion creates.

"A number of years ago, before he went into government, he did some of the most path-breaking work not only on who was susceptible to being radicalized, but most importantly, who was the most resistant to being radicalized," says Christine Fair, an expert on terrorism and radicalization at Georgetown University. "And the findings that he came up with based upon his work really shattered some of the stereotypes we have about Muslims and radicalization."

As part of his research, Wiktorowicz interviewed hundreds of Islamists in the United Kingdom. After compiling his interviews he came to the conclusion that — contrary to popular belief — very religious Muslims were in fact the people who ended up being the most resistant to radicalization.

Fair, who has done a great deal of work on radicalization in Pakistan, said Wiktorowicz's work stayed with her forever. "It really was revelatory for me," she says.

Revelatory because, as it turns out, Wiktorowicz found that it was people who did not have a good grounding in the religion who were the most likely to be attracted by radical Islam.

On January 18 2012 08:09 Jibba wrote:

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Islam-Rising-Muslim-Extremism/dp/0742536416/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Wiktorowicz is on Obama's national security council and he specializes in social movements and terrorism. It's his work that debunked the stereotypes about religious terrorists and found that religiosity is usually not a primary factor, and may actually be a detriment to joining a terrorist movement . There are very few works dealing with actual terrorists and potential terrorists as comprehensive as Wiktorowicz's. The research done by Jurgensmeyers and other majors is fairly in line with that.

This isn't a Huntington-esque essay based on conjecture and inklings. It's thorough qualitative data that shows this.

Blurb from an NPR article about him

On January 18 2012 09:26 s4life wrote:


I see. Of course I haven't read the book yet, but I think it would be extremely hard to argue that in fact, it is religion what stops these very religious muslims from becoming terrorists -- which is what you are claiming. Other attributes, such as high spirituality for example, might exist that could explain away this apparent resistant to being violent. All in all, this seems to be a classic correlation vs causation type of argument.
This comes back to the point though that Hitchens always used to say in his debates. It does take religion, for a perfectly normal, regular person -- not particularly spiritual or devote -- to commit the most hyenous acts.

On January 18 2012 09:32 Probulous wrote:
" It does take religion, for a perfectly normal, regular person -- not particularly spiritual or devote -- to commit the most hyenous acts"

I don't agree with this at all. It simple takes that person to feel strongly enough about something. Take the shootings at Columbine or the JFK murder. There are reasons people do bad stuff that has nothing to do with religion so blaming religion for all the bad stuff is stupid.

On January 18 2012 09:58 s4life wrote:


Gosh.. it doesn't say, "It does take ONLY religion', and I am not blaming it for ALL the the bad stuff.. please read more carefully. The point still stands though, religion -- or better said, unconditional obedience to a celestial dictator -- is taught in schools in most countries.. a lot more shit goes wrong because of it... heh.

On January 18 2012 09:57 Jibba wrote:
You didn't explain what your causation actually is. That non-violent people tend to become religious, thus they're less likely to become violent terrorists?

On January 18 2012 10:06 Probulous wrote:


That sentence as it stands says religion is a prerequisite for a regular person to commit heinous acts. Sure there may be other factors but what you wrote their says religion is required. That is wrong.

On January 18 2012 09:59 s4life wrote:


Nope, that non-violent people may tend to become VERY religious.. the VERY is actually VERY important... don't omit it please.

On January 18 2012 10:07 s4life wrote:


No dude, the sentence says that religion is a sufficient condition but not necessary.