Islam - What's your view on it?

[Scaff]

So this is a continuation on from another thread where it's being claimed that I was cherry picking data and that the conclusions debunk the theory that Islam is linked to violence/peace according to GPI scores.

I'll tackle just those found in this post in the hope that it covers any other questions brought up about the source

View attachment 880550
All of these facts are true, yet it is also true that:

• While it is not the main reason, religion plays a role in a majority of conflicts (21).
  
• Islam is one of, and sometimes the only religion in all 21 of these conflicts

View attachment 880551

This explains that there are factors that have more of an effect on conflict/peace than religion.

It has to be stressed that:

• it's talking about all religion grouped together (think of it instead as religious belief) rather than all religions individually.

What you're making the mistake of doing when putting that conclusion together with this one:

View attachment 880552

and saying that they debunk Islam being linked to violence/peacefulness (or at the very least GPI) is believing that the statements cover each religion separately.

I've already tried to explain it with the biased coin so I'll use a contempary comparison to explain why that's wrong:

In the other thread (where this debate orginated) I posted this paper which concluded that:



Now if we applied what you are concluding in this thread to that paper, you could say "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and the murder rate". Such a statement may seem to make sense (after all, they said crime rate isn't related to county-level racial bias) but dig below the surface and it isn't actually accurate. We don't know if the murder rate was included in the measurement of the crime rate and even if it was we don't know what its specific relationship is to county-level racial bias - we only have an overall crime rate and can only make conclusions based on that.

Similarly we can probably be certain Islam was included when measuring religion against GPI but we can't take the conclusions drawn when measuring religion against GPI and apply that to Islam against GPI as we don't know the values of the latter.

So it took you months to agree with me, that the GPI doesn't show causality between Islam and Confict, but only a correlation.

'A naked brutality worthy of the Nazis'

Links broken.

This works: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...centration-camps-aimed-educating-Muslims.html

And the comments section is the normal toxic mess you expect from the DM.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Links broken.

This works: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...centration-camps-aimed-educating-Muslims.html

And the comments section is the normal toxic mess you expect from the DM.

Thanks I fixed it.

So it took you months to agree with me, that the GPI doesn't show causality between Islam and Confict, but only a correlation.

If you remember the posts you'll remember that you were using the conclusions about religion not being associated with GPI as debunking my position. I showed that this didn't mean there wasn't a correlation between Islam and GPI.

 

[Scaff]

If you remember the posts you'll remember that you were using the conclusions about religion not being associated with GPI as debunking my position. I showed that this didn't mean there wasn't a correlation between Islam and GPI.

I remember my posts very well.

You were the one that cited the GPI as supporting a claim that Islam is more violent than Christianity (emphasis yours).

Did I say that Muslims were more peaceful than Christians? Nope. But it lends support to the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence. @UKMikey provided a link that went into further analysis

I simply used the actual GPI data and to show that it doesn't support such a claim at all, and in this post quoted directly from the GPI saying exactly that. You may remember this particular quote from them.

Now to attempt to claim that because they don't specifically mention Isalm that all can be dismissed is a strawman, particularly as it does (as I quoted in the linked post) and similarly explain that its not a primary causal factor and (as the quote above says) its at best a correlation.

Now given that you used it to support a direct claim that "Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence.", it quite clearly doesn't support that, and actually debunks it. You can try and dress it up as an 'idea' as much as you like, but it still doesn't support that either, regardless of the mental gymnastics you try and pull to force a causal link.

 

[HenrySwanson]

I remember my posts very well.

You were the one that cited the GPI as supporting a claim that Islam is more violent than Christianity (emphasis yours).



I simply used the actual GPI data and to show that it doesn't support such a claim at all, and in this post quoted directly from the GPI saying exactly that. You may remember this particular quote from them.

View attachment 942772

Now to attempt to claim that because they don't specifically mention Isalm that all can be dismissed is a strawman, particularly as it does (as I quoted in the linked post) and similarly explain that its not a primary causal factor and (as the quote above says) its at best a correlation.

Now given that you used it to support a direct claim that "Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence.", it quite clearly doesn't support that, and actually debunks it. You can try and dress it up as an 'idea' as much as you like, but it still doesn't support that either, regardless of the mental gymnastics you try and pull to force a causal link.

I'm not really sure how to explain it any clearer, so I'll ask a question.

Where in the research is there an analysis on a link between Islam and GPI? Christianity and GPI? Hinduism and GPI?

You keep using that quote but I'm not sure you're understanding what it means and its limitations. The research doesn't support my theory of a correlation between Islam and GPI but doesn't debunk it as it didn't investigate it.

You've got to remember I gave that source as something that goes into further analysis in terms of GPI and religion for the benefit of other posters. I never said it supports a correlation between Islam and GPI - that's what my own rudimentary analysis shows. The fact is if they did map Islam against GPI it would almost certainly have had a correlation, which is why they may have instead chosen to investigate Sunni/Shia differences rather than Islam itself.

 

[UKMikey]

The fact is if they did map Islam against GPI it would almost certainly have had a correlation, which is why they may have instead chosen to investigate Sunni/Shia differences rather than Islam itself.

Citation required.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Citation required.

So if you go here and look at the countries rankings you can see they are found spread top to bottom but with a greater amount near the bottom.

 

[Scaff]

I'm not really sure how to explain it any clearer, so I'll ask a question.

Where in the research is there an analysis on a link between Islam and GPI? Christianity and GPI? Hinduism and GPI?

You keep using that quote but I'm not sure you're understanding what it means and its limitations. The research doesn't support my theory of a correlation between Islam and GPI but doesn't debunk it as it didn't investigate it.

You've got to remember I gave that source as something that goes into further analysis in terms of GPI and religion for the benefit of other posters. I never said it supports a correlation between Islam and GPI - that's what my own rudimentary analysis shows. The fact is if they did map Islam against GPI it would almost certainly have had a correlation, which is why they may have instead chosen to investigate Sunni/Shia differences rather than Islam itself.

Once again you forget that you used it to support your claim that Islam is fundamentally violent.

Now by your own admission it doesn’t support that, as such the problem with making that source support a claim you made is yours not mine.

So if you go here and look at the countries rankings you can see they are found spread top to bottom but with a greater amount near the bottom.

And once again, in those, how many was it the sole factor for the lack of peace?

 

[UKMikey]

Citation required.

So if you go here and look at the countries rankings you can see they are found spread top to bottom but with a greater amount near the bottom.

That's not really a citation. It's your own reasoning that Islam is the sole determinant in the bottom countries' lack of peace while somehow being irrelevant to the relative lack of violence in those Islamic countries nearer the top of the index. Even the source you cited can't turn that weak correlation into a causation.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Once again you forget that you used it to support your claim that Islam is fundamentally violent.

Now by your own admission it doesn’t support that, as such the problem with making that source support a claim you made is yours not mine.

Errr where?

I have no issue with you saying it doesn't support the assertion that Islam is linked to GPI (as it didn't investigate that), but I do have a problem with you saying it debunks the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology than others. Can you point out where it debunks this? It actually can be used to support it if we look at its analysis on conflicts as if you do a little digging you'll find out that all conflicts with a religious component have Islam as one of the religions (sometimes the sole religion) involved.

And once again, in those, how many was it the sole factor for the lack of peace?

I never said it was. I said that there is a high probability that there is a correlation between Islam and GPI.

That's not really a citation. It's your own reasoning that Islam is the sole determinant in the bottom countries' lack of peace while somehow being irrelevant to the relative lack of violence in those Islamic countries nearer the top of the index. Even the source you cited can't turn that weak correlation into a causation.

Where did I say it was the sole determinant?

 

[Scaff]

Errr where?

I have no issue with you saying it doesn't support the assertion that Islam is linked to GPI (as it didn't investigate that), but I do have a problem with you saying it debunks the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology than others. Can you point out where it debunks this? It actually can be used to support it if we look at its analysis on conflicts as if you do a little digging you'll find out that all conflicts with a religious component have Islam as one of the religions (sometimes the sole religion) involved.


I never said it was. I said that there is a high probability that there is a correlation between Islam and GPI.

Where did I say it was the sole determinant?

Here

Did I say that Muslims were more peaceful than Christians? Nope. But it lends support to the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence. @UKMikey provided a link that went into further analysis

I quoted it a few posts ago, see how you claim the GPI source goes into further analysis to support the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence.

Except it does no such thing, ergo it debunks the claim you made. Quite literally the source you cited doesn’t do what you claim it does.

 

[UKMikey]

Where did I say it was the sole determinant?

Presumably you think it's at least some kind of determining factor, otherwise you wouldn't be pretending it's proof of Islam's inherent violence without providing anything to back this up besides a vague correlation in a wiki table... none of which takes anything away from my point that you don't have a source to cite.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Here



I quoted it a few posts ago, see how you claim the GPI source goes into further analysis to support the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence.

Except it does no such thing, ergo it debunks the claim you made. Quite literally the source you cited doesn’t do what you claim it does.

Not quite.

Debunk =/= not supporting (remember I never said it did support regarding Islam and GPI, which it doesn't). If you remember I said exactly what the source does here. And doesn't the analysis over the preponderence of Islam involved in conflicts support that idea?

Presumably you think it's at least some kind of determining factor, otherwise you wouldn't be pretending it's proof of Islam's inherent violence without providing anything to back this up besides a vague correlation in a wiki table... none of which takes anything away from my point that you don't have a source to cite.

Yeah I think it could be a determining factor.

You've got to wonder why the analysis we're arguing about talks about Shia/Sunni differences and if this influences peace - likewise Muslim majority countries and the pillars of peace. No other religious majority countries has that investigation, despite Christianity being the largest religion.

 

[UKMikey]

Yeah I think it could be a determining factor.

Why?

You've got to wonder why the analysis we're arguing about talks about Shia/Sunni differences and if this influences peace - likewise Muslim majority countries and the pillars of peace. No other religious majority countries has that investigation, despite Christianity being the largest religion.

No you don't, since the report investigated these factors and still concluded there was no link between Islam or any other religious belief and peace or violence.

I can't believe we had to wait almost a week for this tenuous justification. This is getting exhausting.

"Yeah, but what they really meant to say was..."

 

[HenrySwanson]

No you don't, since the report investigated these factors and still concluded there was no link between Islam and violence.

I can't believe we had to wait a whole week for this tenuous justification. This is getting exhausting.

Show me, in that report, where this is concluded.

Please.

Just once.

 

[UKMikey]

Show me, in that report, where this is concluded.

Please.

Just once.

See my edit, @Scaff has mentioned it several times.

Now over to you. Please show where the report concludes a link between Islam and violence.

 

[HenrySwanson]

See my edit, @Scaff has mentioned it several times.

Nooooo!

It doesn't mean that!

You can't apply that conclusion to individual constituents! I really don't know how I can explain this!

 

[UKMikey]

Nooooo!

It doesn't mean that!

You can't apply that conclusion to individual constituents! I really don't know how I can explain this!

Erm, wut? No clear link between religious belief and peace except for Islam which is really violent?

No wonder you can't explain it.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Erm, wut? No clear link between religious belief and peace except for Islam which is really violent?

No wonder you can't explain it.

Nope, doesn't mean that either. If you look at the report, and the graph in the report especially, it looks at religious belief and GPI. That means it's looking at religious belief as a entity comprising of all religions lumped together. It doesn't look at individual religions and GPI, and so can't be used to say that one religion is not related to GPI.

I'll expand on the analogy I used previously:

if I had a coin that was biased towards Heads and another that was equally biased towards Tails and I threw them equally 50 times each to give 100 throws and got 50/50 Heads and Tails I could conclude (wrongly) that both coins are equally likely to land on Heads or Tails. This could happen with a result where one coin landed 40/10 Heads to Tails and the other landed 10/40 Heads to Tails. I could say, if I was looking at the overall result that "coins aren't linked to Heads/Tails" because they balance out. However I couldn't say coin 1 wasn't linked to Heads/Tails.

 

[Scaff]

Not quite.

Debunk =/= not supporting (remember I never said it did support regarding Islam and GPI, which it doesn't). If you remember I said exactly what the source does here. And doesn't the analysis over the preponderence of Islam involved in conflicts support that idea?


Yeah I think it could be a determining factor.

You've got to wonder why the analysis we're arguing about talks about Shia/Sunni differences and if this influences peace - likewise Muslim majority countries and the pillars of peace. No other religious majority countries has that investigation, despite Christianity being the largest religion.

Yes you did, I’ve quoted you doing so twice now.

Did I say that Muslims were more peaceful than Christians? Nope. But it lends support to the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology and a cause of more violence. @UKMikey provided a link that went into further analysis

Look, there it is again, and to repeat, the emphasis is yours, yet it doesn’t support that and doesn’t go into further analysis. So either you didn’t understand it or you lied about it. Whichever is irrelevant, as neither supports your claim, whether you consider that a debunk is utterly irrelevant, you are wrong in the claim.

You seem once again to be forgetting that it’s a source you cited, in support of a claim you made regarding a link between Islam and violence.

It doesn’t support that claim, it never did, and you are once again having to engage in dubious mental gymnastics to try and justify a false claim.

Nope, doesn't mean that either. If you look at the report, and the graph in the report especially, it looks at religious belief and GPI. That means it's looking at religious belief as a entity comprising of all religions lumped together. It doesn't look at individual religions and GPI, and so can't be used to say that one religion is not related to GPI.

I'll expand on the analogy I used previously:

if I had a coin that was biased towards Heads and another that was equally biased towards Tails and I threw them equally 50 times each to give 100 throws and got 50/50 Heads and Tails I could conclude (wrongly) that both coins are equally likely to land on Heads or Tails. This could happen with a result where one coin landed 40/10 Heads to Tails and the other landed 10/40 Heads to Tails. I could say, if I was looking at the overall result that "coins aren't linked to Heads/Tails" because they balance out. However I couldn't say coin 1 wasn't linked to Heads/Tails.

And yet you claimed it did.

 

[UKMikey]

Nope, doesn't mean that either. If you look at the report, and the graph in the report especially, it looks at religious belief and GPI. That means it's looking at religious belief as a entity comprising of all religions lumped together. It doesn't look at individual religions and GPI, and so can't be used to say that one religion is not related to GPI.

I'll expand on the analogy I used previously:

if I had a coin that was biased towards Heads and another that was equally biased towards Tails and I threw them equally 50 times each to give 100 throws and got 50/50 Heads and Tails I could conclude that both coins are equally likely to land on Heads or Tails. This could happen with a result where one coin landed 40/10 Heads to Tails and the other landed 10/40 Heads to Tails. I could say, if I was looking at the overall result that "coins aren't linked to Heads/Tails" because they balance out. However I couldn't say coin 1 wasn't linked to Heads/Tails.

Except that we know that coins aren't linked to heads or tails.

You've failed to prove that one religion is linked to violence.

What you've done is cherrypicked a number of countries near the bottom of the GPI, decided to ignore the fact that they're all economically disadvantaged, decided to ignore the fact that they're all theocracies, decided to ignore the fact that they're mostly in the same part of the world and completely ignored the other Islamic countries which aren't at the bottom of the list.

None of which point to Islam being a determinative factor in their lack of peace. No amount of coin-flipping will change this.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Except that we know that coins aren't linked to heads or tails.

Come on guys....

-Heads or tails is directly related to the coin toss.
-Coin is biased towards heads or tails.
-Coin directly influences outcome.

This is getting ridiculous now, I mean this is turning into the PC thread where I had to argue the definition was correct....

 

[Scaff]

Come on guys....

-Heads or tails is directly related to the coin toss.
-Coin is biased towards heads or tails.
-Coin directly influences outcome.

This is getting ridiculous now, I mean this is turning into the PC thread where I had to argue the definition was correct....

Come on what?

It’s the source you cited, it doesn’t support the claim you made.

It really is that simple.

 

[UKMikey]

Let's see if I have this right. We have a bunch of double headed coins, say ten. We flip them all and get heads. We then flip ten double tailed coins and get tails ten times. Then we add them together and conclude that coins are equally likely to come up heads or tails. Without examining the coins in any way.

Now we map this onto the GPI. We have a bunch of violent Islamic countries. Then we mix them in with a bunch of violent Christian countries and conclude that neither religion is linked to their amount of peace. Without examining the countries.

Therefore the GPI is biased, therefore:

The fact is if they did map Islam against GPI it would almost certainly have had a correlation, which is why they may have instead chosen to investigate Sunni/Shia differences rather than Islam itself.

(my emphasis)

Anyone else buying this? 'Cos to me, it sounds like a "you can't prove it isn't!!" god-of-the-gaps generalisation.

Surely the GPI guys would take this into account when concluding that there isn't a link. Otherwise why highlight that conclusion? Rather than provide a source that proves that Islam=violence, why poison the well instead by attacking the methodology of the cited source which contradicts your finding?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Let's see if I have this right. We have a bunch of double headed coins, say ten. We flip them all and get heads. We then flip ten double tailed coins and get tails ten times. Then we add them together and conclude that coins are equally likely to come up heads or tails. Without examining the coins in any way.

Now you're starting to critically examine something - it's what peer review/journal clubs are for.

If you look at this paper, which I've used earlier and in another thread and see its conclusion:

There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates)

You could say "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and the murder rate". Such a statement may seem to make sense (after all, they said crime rate isn't related to county-level racial bias) but dig below the surface and it isn't actually accurate. We don't know if the murder rate was included in the measurement of the crime rate and even if it was we don't know what its specific relationship is to county-level racial bias - we only have an overall crime rate and can only make conclusions based on that.

As it is, that study only looked at assault-related arrests and weapons possession arrests, so didn't even include murder rates!

Now we map this onto the GPI. We have a bunch of violent Islamic countries. Then we mix them in with a bunch of violent Christian countries and conclude that neither religion is linked to their amount of peace. Without examining the countries.

Therefore the GPI is biased, therefore

Not really - the GPI isn't biased. What I'm saying is the non-violent, non-Islamic countries may cancel out the violent Islamic countries. We just can't tell from their analysis.

Surely the GPI guys would take this into account when concluding that there isn't a link. Otherwise why highlight that conclusion? Rather than provide a source that proves that Islam=violence, why poison the well instead by attacking the methodology of the cited source which contradicts your finding?

Ask yourself why they are looking at Sunni/Shia rather than Protestant/Catholic for example.

Also you're asking about the conclusion about the link but, hopefully, you will see that it was the wrong conclusion to make - semantics wise. For the other paper you can see someone else who disagrees with the conclusion about police shootings and crime rates:

Unfortunately, the author only seemed to factor in two crimes in the paper; aggravated assault and illegal weapons possession, so it seems incredibly premature to make that statement. At the very least, you'd think the author would include the murder rate of the county as well - seems like a pretty substantial oversight/omission.

 

[Scaff]

Not really - the GPI isn't biased. What I'm saying is the non-violent, non-Islamic countries may cancel out the violent Islamic countries. We just can't tell from their analysis.

Which is not what you originally claimed and were challenged on and have repeatedly doubled down on.

Ask yourself why they are looking at Sunni/Shia rather than Protestant/Catholic for example.

No the question to ask, as we have repeatedly, is why did you claim it supported your position, when it quite clearly doesn’t. Did you fail to understand it or deliberately misrepresent it.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Which is not what you originally claimed and were challenged on and have repeatedly doubled down on.


No the question to ask, as we have repeatedly, is why did you claim it supported your position, when it quite clearly doesn’t. Did you fail to understand it or deliberately misrepresent it.

Does it support the idea of a link between Islam and GPI? No.
Does it debunk the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology? No.

 

[Scaff]

Does it support the idea of a link between Islam and GPI? No.
Does it debunk the idea that Islam is a more violent ideology? No.

Does it support a link between Islam and violence, which was your claim and you need to stop skirting around that fact?

No.

That you don’t believe it debunks it is irrelevant, it doesn’t support the claim you made.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Does it support a link between Islam and violence, which was your claim and you need to stop skirting around that fact?

No.

Erm, are we just ignoring the amount of conflicts linked to Islam? I said it provides further analysis, which it does....

That you don’t believe it debunks it is irrelevant, it doesn’t support the claim you made.

You're the one who said that!

It doesn't debunk it, and if it does in your opinion, where does it?

 

[Scaff]

Erm, are we just ignoring the amount of conflicts linked to Islam? I said it provides further analysis, which it does....


You're the one who said that!

It doesn't debunk it, and if it does in your opinion, where does it?

You seem utterly confused and keep contradicting yourself, that report at no point in its analysis provides a link between Uslam and conflict, so it’s analysis debunks your claim.

It’s really quite simple, you cited a source and claimed it does something it doesn’t, so you either didn’t read it correctly or you lied.

 

[HenrySwanson]

You seem utterly confused and keep contradicting yourself, that report at no point in its analysis provides a link between Uslam and conflict, so it’s analysis debunks your claim.

It’s really quite simple, you cited a source and claimed it does something it doesn’t, so you either didn’t read it correctly or you lied.