EPTTerrorist Incident declared in London after Van & Knife At…
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ZeromuS
Canada13395 Posts
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bardtown
England2313 Posts
Religion has always been a mechanism for control and consolidation. Whether the leaders of IS are conscious of that or not, it's what it is. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On June 06 2017 04:01 SoSexy wrote: So unemployement plays a role, but education does not. Don't forget that Al-Baghdadi has a PhD in Islamic Studies. This raises the provoking question: what if ISIS is actually true islam and moderate islam is the false one? There is no logical connection between the two sentences... | ||
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
On June 06 2017 04:37 TheDwf wrote: There is no logical connection between the two sentences... There is. The idea is that someone who knows the ins and outs of a topic is usually more qualified to talk about it. If we are discussing a medical operation, I am going to trust more a PhD in surgery rather than a random person. Do you? Therefore, it is not out of this world to imagine that, due to his PhD, Al-Baghdadi could know more about Islam than the average Joe. | ||
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nojok
France15845 Posts
On June 06 2017 05:08 SoSexy wrote: There is. The idea is that someone who knows the ins and outs of a topic is usually more qualified to talk about it. If we are discussing a medical operation, I am going to trust more a PhD in surgery rather than a random person. Do you? Therefore, it is not out of this world to imagine that, due to his PhD, Al-Baghdadi could know more about Islam than the average Joe. You're comparing hard science and soft science, speak about bending facts to fit your narrative. You don't need any specific religion in order to establish a violent ideology around it. | ||
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MoonfireSpam
United Kingdom1153 Posts
On June 06 2017 05:08 SoSexy wrote: There is. The idea is that someone who knows the ins and outs of a topic is usually more qualified to talk about it. If we are discussing a medical operation, I am going to trust more a PhD in surgery rather than a random person. Do you? Therefore, it is not out of this world to imagine that, due to his PhD, Al-Baghdadi could know more about Islam than the average Joe. Can't quote numbers, but I'd wager that most similarily educated people in Islamic Studies don't interpret the Islam the way that guy does. So no, it doesn't raise any provoking questions, only for fuckwits trying to find a reason to oppress one religion (disclosure: I'm not religious and think most organised religion is a tool for control). | ||
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
On June 06 2017 05:08 SoSexy wrote: There is. The idea is that someone who knows the ins and outs of a topic is usually more qualified to talk about it. If we are discussing a medical operation, I am going to trust more a PhD in surgery rather than a random person. Do you? Therefore, it is not out of this world to imagine that, due to his PhD, Al-Baghdadi could know more about Islam than the average Joe. I'm sure someone has to have said this, but to claim there is a false "sense" of a religion is a nebulous claim. Al-Baghdadi's taken name right now is Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi or literally Abu Bakr, the Baghdadi which in turn is taken from Islamic history. If you know your Islamic history then you know that Abu Bakr was father-in-law to Muhammad and the first caliph ever (Rashidun Caliphate). With that said it might be clear that this man has taken that name because in his studies of Islamic theology he has come to think that the time period where Abu Bakr was the leader of the Muslim world was a high point for the Islamic world. He might also have come to believe that the West's intrusion into that world over the last 1400 or so years has stifled its growth as the rightful power over the world under god. I don't know any of this for certain, but the point is that this is an interpretation of Islam that is very radical. There are other interpretations, other schools of thought, that are not so radical, and are in fact very moderate. Furthermore there are swathes of Muslims who are religious to a point - and just like many other religious people - go to worship every once in a while, follow the laws as they can, and that's about it. Those groups also have interpretations and follow the teachings of certain Imams and the schools of thought those Imams are a part of. What you should take away from this is that all of these are interpretations of a religion from its core doctrines and those doctrines assert the importance of certain parts over others. Saying that this PhD is showing a true version of Islam is a false statement because he has taken up a specific interpretation of the religion, not the religion itself, (in fact ISIS breaks so many rules they are hardly good Muslims in any sort of fashion). So a version may be truer to the actual statements of the books, but farther from the accepted doctrinal/theological interpretations of the book which lead to how people actually worship or believe in god (this is more similar to Judaism than modern Christianity). Secondly, just to put that idea to rest, no Al Baghdadi's version of Islam isn't anywhere close to right. His group breaks important laws that are delineated in the Koran (Killing during Ramadan). They take things so literally in some cases and then incredibly figuratively in others (Jihad against those of the book), and many other issues. So in this case, not the PhD is out for power and has transformed Islam into a binding agent, and therefore has made it less about being a good Muslim and more about Islamic-fascist-supremacism. So no, his interpretation doesn't have a lot to sit on. Grant you that I don't have the PhD he has, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. | ||
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biology]major
United States2253 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On June 06 2017 06:49 biology]major wrote: For practical purposes a "moderate" interpretation of islam should be at the bare minimum be secular and tolerant. No caliphate ideas, and no imposing islam in any version/interpretation on others. How do we screen for this? dunno. You don't. The people committing these acts were born in the country or have lived there for years. They are likely specifically targeted by recruiters because they are less likely to be watched. As opposed to refugees, religious leaders or recent immigrants. There is no special amount of "radical Islam" the government can prevent from entering the country that will reduce these attacks. The goverment needs to figure out how they are being recruited and interrupt that process. It is like stopping spys from entering the country. Asking them if they believe in spying isn't going to get the job done. | ||
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Dapper_Cad
United Kingdom964 Posts
On June 05 2017 23:40 Reaps wrote: The foreign policy excuse a lot of people from the left seem to like to use isn't as simple as they like to think. The biggest victims of Isis are other Muslims in the middle east that have a different interpretation of Islam, these people do not have a foreign policy. The second largest victims are religious minorities like the yazidis who are being slaughtered in the tens of thousands, these people do not have a foreign policy. Sweden has a neutral foreign policy and still suffered a terrorist attack. Or the fact that this has been going on for hundreds of years and isnt new. That said, the West's horrible foreign policy could most likely be a factor in some terrorist attacks and frequency, but its not the be all and end all that many claim it to be (not really talking to you, but a lot of people from the left believe this) But yes with that, i agree we should stop interfering with the middle east as it'll only make things worse. As for number 6, you'd be hard pressed to find a country that appeases Muslims and other minorities than the UK does. ISIS is pretty much a creation of western foreign policy blunders. Invade Iraq, fire the military, commit atrocities, back a faction that you think you can control, support them as they commit atrocities. Support, with arms and training, radical elements of an insurgency in neighbouring Syria and refuse to stop the war and chaos because Assad is closer to your regional enemies than he is to you. Profit. + Show Spoiler + And for some actors I really do mean profit. Sections of our military-industrial complex and a few regional players are doing much better than they were 10 years ago. For quite a few powerful people this isn't a "blunder". Which isn't to say that ISIS was planned, that would be nuts, it's just that to some the consequences of this insanity are either of no consequence or useful so why try to avoid them? This isn't a guilt trip. It's not "We're very bad so we are being punished". It's "Turns out that if you destroy states, what replaces them is a blood bath and, if you're going to run a blood bath, you're gonna get some red on you." So again, the ultimate cause of this particular brand of nut job mass murder is our foreign policy, fixing that is the long term solution. Short term... Probably look at funding and focus of our police and intelligence services. One thing that really needs to be looked at long and hard is our burgeoning reliance on signals intelligence, partly because it's actual efficacy in doing what it's supposed to - stopping mass murder- is questionable and partly because this sort of mass surveillance in an attempt to detect "radicals" is handing the sort of powers to the state which are ripe for abuse. On June 06 2017 00:21 KwarK wrote: That final scene with the brother too. So good. Rubber dinghy rapids bro. | ||
Falling
Canada11413 Posts
On June 05 2017 23:07 Uldridge wrote: So what's enough for them to throw him in jail? Publicly praying to a symbol that stands for destruction of everything you, and your country, stands for, isn't enough? I think it can be argued that this can be classified as a hate crime already. If people on the internet saying things can be jailed/fined, why can't a man that does this gross gesture? I wonder if things would be a little more cleared up if the the West returned the favour and also declared war on ISIS, the same as they have already done with us. We have one side that thinks they are fighting a war and another side that thinks that they are not. But once both sides are definitely fighting a war, then things like sedition and treason come into play, even in a liberal and open society, plotting against one's country in a time of war. It's one thing to salute the flag of the Nazi regime, a loathsome regime that we are at peace and quite another to do so (and encourage other to join) when one is at war with that same regime. It's interesting to me how certain preachers that do the media circuit have managed find a perfect balance between legality and aiding ISIS. Anjem Choudary comes to mind- he finally made a mistake by committing his allegiance on paper but except for that he could have continued to doing the work of ISIS openly and freely. | ||
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Amarok
Australia2003 Posts
The reality is that all these things factor in. Islam is a religion with deep problems and the fact such an interpretation is even within the realms of possibility should be more than enough evidence of this (and that's even before we start talking about it's more mundane problematic tenants). Similarly western interventionism over several decades has been extremely unhelpful, as has our continued support unsavoury groups and regimes (both big and small). People are right that the Muslim community are ultimately the ones that need to play the greatest role in solving this issue, but it's also true that they're facing an almost impossibly difficult problem and ultimately can't be responsible for authorities not having very good tools for dealing with potential radicals they themselves have identified. The spiritual void that so many feel in modern society likely plays a role in certain people becoming the combination of suicidal and violent that manifests in both terrorist attacks and school shootings, but getting a grip on that problem and formulating even remotely plausible solutions is obviously very difficult here. Point is, we need to talk about all these factors together, because no good solution is going to be achieved by focusing heavily on one and only one part of the problem. Both sides of the political debate have done well at identifying parts of the problem while completely denying or ignoring other sides. It's an issue that's completely inoculated by the abject level of political discourse in the west at the moment. It's hard to see that side of it getting better either. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4383 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12388 Posts
On June 06 2017 11:43 Amarok wrote: What tires me about this debate is how everyone seems to have the "one issue" that they push as the key cause that drives this garbage. It's all because of western interventionism! No it's all the fault of Islam! No these people are just Muslim versions of the school shooters! The Muslim community harbours these people! On and on it goes, as if a problem of this complexity and magnitude is all down to a single factor. The reality is that all these things factor in. Islam is a religion with deep problems and the fact such an interpretation is even within the realms of possibility should be more than enough evidence of this (and that's even before we start talking about it's more mundane problematic tenants). Similarly western interventionism over several decades has been extremely unhelpful, as has our continued support unsavoury groups and regimes (both big and small). People are right that the Muslim community are ultimately the ones that need to play the greatest role in solving this issue, but it's also true that they're facing an almost impossibly difficult problem and ultimately can't be responsible for authorities not having very good tools for dealing with potential radicals they themselves have identified. The spiritual void that so many feel in modern society likely plays a role in certain people becoming the combination of suicidal and violent that manifests in both terrorist attacks and school shootings, but getting a grip on that problem and formulating even remotely plausible solutions is obviously very difficult here. Point is, we need to talk about all these factors together, because no good solution is going to be achieved by focusing heavily on one and only one part of the problem. Both sides of the political debate have done well at identifying parts of the problem while completely denying or ignoring other sides. It's an issue that's completely inoculated by the abject level of political discourse in the west at the moment. It's hard to see that side of it getting better either. The problem with the whole "All factors are important" is that you can't really address all factors at the same time. If you're going to focus on how islam is an evil religion with problems, you can't really justify not fucking over muslims. What, are you going to let this evil person live next door to someone? Even if you do decide to do that, the simple fact that you've declared islam the enemy is going to damage your plans to make muslims integrate in your society, which is one of your key goals in the other approach. Very few people actually think that there's only one factor at play, you haven't discovered something big here. Now if we go further into it, we can see that all religions are "evil religions with problems", in that they can be mostly be used to justify anything due to being ideologies. We can see that islam itself has had periods where it didn't create this amount of radicalism and terrorism, despite the ideology being unchanged. This should lead rational people to want to address the contextual factors more than the ideological ones in an attempt to fix this specific situation, even though I agree that a world where more people are agnostics would generally fare better. | ||
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Amarok
Australia2003 Posts
On June 06 2017 16:14 Nebuchad wrote: The problem with the whole "All factors are important" is that you can't really address all factors at the same time. If you're going to focus on how islam is an evil religion with problems, you can't really justify not fucking over muslims. What, are you going to let this evil person live next door to someone? Even if you do decide to do that, the simple fact that you've declared islam the enemy is going to damage your plans to make muslims integrate in your society, which is one of your key goals in the other approach. Very few people actually think that there's only one factor at play, you haven't discovered something big here.Now if we go further into it, we can see that all religions are "evil religions with problems", in that they can be mostly be used to justify anything due to being ideologies. We can see that islam itself has had periods where it didn't create this amount of radicalism and terrorism, despite the ideology being unchanged. This should lead rational people to want to address the contextual factors more than the ideological ones in an attempt to fix this specific situation, even though I agree that a world where more people are agnostics would generally fare better. Geez I'm not trying to say I've discovered the big solution to the problem. That you immediately went down that angle underscores the problems with political discourse that make an issue like this impossible to do anything about. The rest of your post being a dismissal of Islamic doctrines as a key part of the problem does much the same. Of course being critical of an ideology as distinct from its adherents is a challenge, but we navigate that "tightrope" all the time when addressing particular ideas. Christianity is the obvious one (thank God!), but political ideologies are criticized all the time and the components of Islam that are not compatible with secular democracy need to be treated the same. The problem is that when most politicians/thinkers look to remove all culpability for the religion the racists who care more about a person's skin colour than ideas get all the oxygen. Ultimately this is the reason garbage like "OMG HE SAID ISLAMIC TERRORISM" gets traction with people. The other problem is that critics of the religion tend to end up dead or needing 24/7 protection. A pretty powerful deterrent if ever there was one. I really don't want my posts to come across as just laying this all at the door of Islam and I certainly wouldn't call the religion "evil". It desperately needs reform and won't get it in a world where one side denies there's a specific problem and the other is more interested in eradicating brown people. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12388 Posts
On June 06 2017 17:03 Amarok wrote: Geez I'm not trying to say I've discovered the big solution to the problem. That you immediately went down that angle underscores the problems with political discourse that make an issue like this impossible to do anything about. The rest of your post being a dismissal of Islamic doctrines as a key part of the problem does much the same. Of course being critical of an ideology as distinct from its adherents is a challenge, but we navigate that "tightrope" all the time when addressing particular ideas. Christianity is the obvious one (thank God!), but political ideologies are criticized all the time and the components of Islam that are not compatible with secular democracy need to be treated the same. The problem is that when most politicians/thinkers look to remove all culpability for the religion the racists who care more about a person's skin colour than ideas get all the oxygen. Ultimately this is the reason garbage like "OMG HE SAID ISLAMIC TERRORISM" gets traction with people. The other problem is that critics of the religion tend to end up dead or needing 24/7 protection. A pretty powerful deterrent if ever there was one. I really don't want my posts to come across as just laying this all at the door of Islam and I certainly wouldn't call the religion "evil". It desperately needs reform and won't get it in a world where one side denies there's a specific problem and the other is more interested in eradicating brown people. Dude read your own post maybe? You come here and say that the problem is that people think x and y when you think z. If you don't want people down that angle, don't push that angle. The fact that you read my post as a dismissal of ideological problems, when I factually acknowledged the problems and then gave you my reasoning to focus on the other problems instead, also tells me that you have a preference concerning which factors you want addressed. You also haven't even attempted to argue my core point, which is that those directions for the solution are antithetical to one another and as such can't be addressed at the same time. | ||
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Amarok
Australia2003 Posts
On June 06 2017 17:14 Nebuchad wrote: Dude read your own post maybe? You come here and say that the problem is that people think x and y when you think z. If you don't want people down that angle, don't push that angle. The fact that you read my post as a dismissal of ideological problems, when I factually acknowledged the problems and then gave you my reasoning to focus on the other problems instead, also tells me that you have a preference concerning which factors you want addressed. You also haven't even attempted to argue my core point, which is that those directions for the solution are antithetical to one another and as such can't be addressed at the same time. Your entire post focused on the parts of my post that referenced Islam. Why would I not specifically address that? Your characterisation of criticism as "Islam is evil" is the exact kind of reductio ad absurdum hinders any capacity for a discussion on the issue. And while we're talking about reading posts, how about you read mine? Of course being critical of an ideology as distinct from its adherents is a challenge, but we navigate that "tightrope" all the time when addressing particular ideas. I clearly don't think the problem you raised is one that has two antithetical solutions. Nor did I say it was one with an easy solution. I said in order for it to be possible the quality of public discourse needs to improve. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12388 Posts
On June 06 2017 17:53 Amarok wrote: Your entire post focused on the parts of my post that referenced Islam. Why would I not specifically address that? Your characterisation of criticism as "Islam is evil" is the exact kind of reductio ad absurdum hinders any capacity for a discussion on the issue. And while we're talking about reading posts, how about you read mine? I clearly don't think the problem you raised is one that has two antithetical solutions. Nor did I say it was one with an easy solution. I said in order for it to be possible the quality of public discourse needs to improve. Any presentation of the two sets of solutions that are offered by "Focus on context" and "Focus on islam" that doesn't display them as antithetical to one another mischaracterizes at least one of the two sets, probably both. | ||
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bardtown
England2313 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12388 Posts
On June 06 2017 19:43 bardtown wrote: Focus on context by necessity involves focusing on Islam. I refer you to a_flayer's list of propositions | ||
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