Islam - What's your view on it?

[Eunos_Cosmo]

So I just have to ask, what do you want.

Re-iterating what I've shown in previous posts:

I've shown you:

- the larger number of Islamic terrorist groups compared to other religions
- that every conflict that had a religious component from a few years ago has Islam as one of the religions
- that more terrorist attacks are committed by people in the name of Islam compared to other religions
- a rudimentary look at GPI and countries by religious belief

What do you need, to be shown that Islamic violence is disproportionate to violence in the name of other religions?

I've got to say, this is the only board I've posted on that refuses to accept this.


The statement was that Islam is over-represented in terms of violence today compared to other religions. Does the above satisfy your criteria to accept this truth?


What part? Where was my response inappropriate?


Have you tried the Depression and Anxiety thread? 👍

How many times have middle or upper class people of Islamic faith committed acts of extremism that were unequivocally religious in nature?

How much do you think extremism carried out in the name of Islam is directly the result of poverty, wealth inequality, or lack of resources?

 

[HenrySwanson]

How many times have middle or upper class people of Islamic faith committed acts of extremism that were unequivocally religious in nature?

There's this guy called Osama Bin Laden.... I don't know if you've heard of him but I could link a wiki page about him?

Ask silly questions, get silly responses

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

There's this guy called Osama Bin Laden.... I don't know if you've heard of him but I could link a wiki page about him?

Ask silly questions, get silly responses

Unequivocally religious is apparently not a concept you understand.

 

[huskeR32]

So I just have to ask, what do you want.

I wanted to do what I did do - comment on an aspect that I hadn't seen commented upon yet* - the difficulty inherent in doing what you're attempting to do.

*It's possible similar comments had been made, and I missed them. It's a 183 page thread.

Would have been nice to have you address those difficulties rather than just try and bury them under repetition, but oh well.

Re-iterating what I've shown in previous posts:

I've shown you:

- the larger number of Islamic terrorist groups compared to other religions

Sure. What is your end-all be-all source for which groups are included in that? As an American, I'm very familiar with the hesitancy to label extremist groups "terrorist", especially when they're largely white and/or Christian. Did you account for that in any way? How can you be at all confident that there is indeed more terrorist groups among one faith versus another?

Further, this seems only tangential to your main point. More groups does not necessarily mean more acts of violence, does it? Or more victims? I don't know which, because you never answered my question about which one of those things you're measuring.

- that every conflict that had a religious component from a few years ago has Islam as one of the religions

How did you go about determining which conflicts had a religious component, and which did not? I'd wager pretty much every conflict has people of faith involved in it. I'd wager that most of those people felt that their involvement was at least somewhat religiously justified. So where did you draw your line? How did you decide that? Where's the master list of all conflicts that you used to tally up the religious ones versus the non-religious ones? You haven't shared any of this, you just expect us all to trust that you've been thorough in researching your claims. Well I for one don't trust that. You seem extremely biased, and like a man in search of evidence for a conclusion he's already reached.

- that more terrorist attacks are committed by people in the name of Islam compared to other religions

Many questions have been raised about this point already, I don't need to repeat those smarter people. You should probably consider answering them, though.

- a rudimentary look at GPI and countries by religious belief

Sure, but I also recall questions being raised that seem pertinent, and those going unaddressed. Is religion the only reason that many Muslim nations rank low on the index? Or are other factors at play? How many of them have, at some point, found themselves the target of military intervention from the US or Russia? Does the US' fairly rampant Islamophobia deserve some of the blame for contributing to the US' mindset that continually meddling in the Middle East is justified? In that case, isn't Christianity at least partially to blame for the current state of affairs in many Islamic nations low on the GPI? Did you attempt to reckon with this at all? How did it inform your conclusions?

You keep making posts where you claim to have "shown" the things on your list. If by "shown", you mean you've repeated them a bunch, sure. But we know that's not what you mean; you think you've established these things. You haven't. There are still far too many unanswered questions for these things to be established in anybody's mind, unless they've already made their mind up.

What do you need, to be shown that Islamic violence is disproportionate to violence in the name of other religions?

I'd like to see answers to many of the questions posed to you. If I had to pick just one for you to start on, I'd want you to try taking on the immense challenge of untangling geopolitical issues from religion. For one example, how much of the violence in Iraq is attributable to Islam? How much to the United States (and therefore Christianity, as it does play such a large role in our national mindset) for decades of meddling? For leaving behind a gaping power vacuum? Is it really fair to lay the violence at the feet of Islam? Or is it just opportunistic actors using religion as a smoke screen for their power grabs? As for the civilians these actors are manipulating into committing violence, is their faith truly to blame? Or is it just human survival instinct telling them to get in the good graces of the local warlord, whatever the cost?

It's quite clear that you don't want to factor any of this in to your thinking. But personally, I'd never feel prepared to draw any confident conclusion from situations so fraught with chaos and complexity. You and I live far too comfortable of lives to even begin to understand what it feels like to live in such situations. To stand from afar and pronounce what those people must be thinking, what their motivations are, is sheer arrogance in my opinion.

You want it all to just be nice and tidy so that you can hold on to your conclusions. It's not tidy. At all.

I've got to say, this is the only board I've posted on that refuses to accept this.

Then you've just noticed one of my favorite things about GTPlanet.

 

[UKMikey]

Even @Danoff's video that Henry said was "really good" because it appeared to bash Islam went against his point that as a religion it somehow has more potential to create harm than other religions.

Basing his argument on a snapshot of a particular time in history and ignoring all attempts to take global politics into account is failing to convince anyone who doesn’t already have a beef with it that Islam is the most evillest of all religions.

If one were to ask the people who originally lived in the Occupied Territories which religion was the most dangerous to them I doubt they'd say Islam. Geographical and historical factors are important too.

I lived through the time of the Irish Troubles, not knowing whether the next public litter bin or tube train I used would have an IED in. That's terror. At the height of the cold war we lived with the threat that a computer error or rogue state would nuke us all back to the stone age. That's terror. By comparison the threat from lone nutters or small groups seeking to kill those they see as infidels and being executed like any other criminal for it is lacking.

Combat and conflict weren't the solution to those other threats so I ask again, what is the endgame of this crusade? As for us not rolling over and accepting that Islam is harmful like those "other" boards... cry me a river.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Unequivocally religious is apparently not a concept you understand.

And being a factor rather than the factor is something you're not getting.

I wanted to do what I did do - comment on an aspect that I hadn't seen commented upon yet* - the difficulty inherent in doing what you're attempting to do.

*It's possible similar comments had been made, and I missed them. It's a 183 page thread.

Would have been nice to have you address those difficulties rather than just try and bury them under repetition, but oh well.

There are extraordinary difficulties when trying to say one religion is more violent than another. But you accused me of "flailing around" when I've offered evidence that can be discussed in its usefulness when backing up the statement that it is over-represented in violence today.

Looking back I think I'm seeing where the problem is, but if it isn't I'll address the other points in your post.

This came from a reply quoting this line (by me):

Thinking about proportions however, we have to try and find out why Islam is over-represented globally in violence carried out in its name compared to every other religion.

which said:

You’re assuming a fact, you need to prove this (which you have never managed) before you can start using it as the basis of an argument.

I can see how people might assume that this is talking about Islam in its entire history, but I was talking about our day and age (as the reply to @Danoff was about Christianity and Islam today. If you're saying that I'm assuming facts when I say Islam is over-represented in terms of violence throughout history, then that makes sense and is a separate issue. However if you were saying that it's an assumption based on weak evidence that it isn't over-represented compared to other religions today then I'll counter the rest of the post.

 

[huskeR32]

However if you were saying that it's an assumption based on weak evidence that it isn't over-represented compared to other religions today then I'll counter the rest of the post.

You've no more established it to be true today than you have at any other point in time. My question to you about modern Iraq, a question I very much derived from @UKMikey's repeated questions about untangling religion from geopolitical instability, is but one thing you still haven't made any attempts to take on.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Even @Danoff's video that Henry said was "really good" because it appeared to bash Islam went against his point that as a religion it somehow has more potential to create harm than other religions.

That's....a bit silly to assume I'm liking a video because of only a superficial (and wrong) understanding of the content (though that is a quality of the sneering Left I have found, as well as rushing to call people racists/sexists/whatever-phobes). Hitchen's spoke (unbelievably well) about the dangers of all religions with respect to how it can negatively affect the mind of its adherents. I don't disagree with that. What I'm arguing is that it's a more violent religion, just like how Christianity is more homophobic than most. That's not to say people can't be equally violent in the name of other religions - rather that its "promotion" of violence (or condoning of) is greater than others.

Basing his argument on a snapshot of a particular time in history and ignoring all attempts to take global politics into account is failing to convince anyone who doesn’t already have a beef with it that Islam is the most evillest of all religions.

Once again, global politics, history, socio-economic circumstances and whatever else can and do play a role. But to ignore religion as a factor, and say that different religions may have different strengths as factors is naive in the extreme.

I lived through the time of the Irish Troubles, not knowing whether the next public litter bin or tube train I used would have an IED in. That's terror. At the height of the cold war we lived with the threat that a computer error or rogue state would nuke us all back to the stone age. That's terror. By comparison the threat from lone nutters or small groups seeking to kill those they see as infidels and being executed like any other criminal for it is lacking.

What's this got to do with anything? Are you downplaying the threat faced by the world (rather than just the UK) by Islamic terror?

Combat and conflict weren't the solution to those other threats so I ask again, what is the endgame of this crusade?

Easy. Reformation - like what Christianity went through. Focus more on the Mecca Muhammad rather than the Medina Muhammad.

If we continue with the outlook that all religions are equally bad in every way what do you think the future will be like?

As for us not rolling over and accepting that Islam is harmful like those "other" boards... cry me a river.

Actually I said that it's the only one refusing to accept that it's over-represented when considering religious violence in the world now.

 

[huskeR32]

Once again, global politics, history, socio-economic circumstances and whatever else can and do play a role. But to ignore religion as a factor, and say that different religions may have different strengths as factors is naive in the extreme.

Apologies to Mikey here for stepping on his reply, but this is getting pretty old. Nobody is "ignoring" religion as a factor. I get that pretending we're all making absolute statements like that gives you straw men that you can keep punching and feel like you're still doing something here, but come on man, enough is enough.

I haven't seen anybody here discount the role religion can play in violence. I haven't seen anybody say that one religion can't be more violent than another. The pushback is directed at your specific claims that one religion is evidently more violent than the rest. If the claim was as solidly established as you pretend, you'd have counter-arguments to bring out instead of disingenuous crap like this.

 

[UKMikey]

Apologies to Mikey here for stepping on his reply, but this is getting pretty old. Nobody is "ignoring" religion as a factor.

No apologies required.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Sure. What is your end-all be-all source for which groups are included in that? As an American, I'm very familiar with the hesitancy to label extremist groups "terrorist", especially when they're largely white and/or Christian. Did you account for that in any way? How can you be at all confident that there is indeed more terrorist groups among one faith versus another?

The list I provided earlier was from wiki

Can you provide a list showing terrorist groups that have a religious component that isn't Islamic?

Further, this seems only tangential to your main point. More groups does not necessarily mean more acts of violence, does it? Or more victims? I don't know which, because you never answered my question about which one of those things you're measuring.

Doesn't necessarily, but it shows how widespread the problem is and less likely to be a "misrepresentation".

How did you go about determining which conflicts had a religious component, and which did not? I'd wager pretty much every conflict has people of faith involved in it. I'd wager that most of those people felt that their involvement was at least somewhat religiously justified. So where did you draw your line? How did you decide that? Where's the master list of all conflicts that you used to tally up the religious ones versus the non-religious ones? You haven't shared any of this, you just expect us all to trust that you've been thorough in researching your claims. Well I for one don't trust that. You seem extremely biased, and like a man in search of evidence for a conclusion he's already reached.

Source was page 7 here

I have a correction to make as it was 20/21 conflicts and so not 100%. Of the 21 conflicts that had a religious element, all 21 (apart from the LRA) had Islam as one of the religions (frequently the sole one). I found this out by googling each of the 21, although since I seem "extremely biased" you're welcome to look it up for yourself.

And yes, I did share it numerous times in this thread....

Many questions have been raised about this point already, I don't need to repeat those smarter people. You should probably consider answering them, though.

Talk about a dodge.

What question do you want answered with regard to this point.

Sure, but I also recall questions being raised that seem pertinent, and those going unaddressed. Is religion the only reason that many Muslim nations rank low on the index? Or are other factors at play? How many of them have, at some point, found themselves the target of military intervention from the US or Russia? Does the US' fairly rampant Islamophobia deserve some of the blame for contributing to the US' mindset that continually meddling in the Middle East is justified? In that case, isn't Christianity at least partially to blame for the current state of affairs in many Islamic nations low on the GPI? Did you attempt to reckon with this at all? How did it inform your conclusions?

This requires more research.

I'd like to see answers to many of the questions posed to you. If I had to pick just one for you to start on, I'd want you to try taking on the immense challenge of untangling geopolitical issues from religion. For one example, how much of the violence in Iraq is attributable to Islam? How much to the United States (and therefore Christianity, as it does play such a large role in our national mindset) for decades of meddling? For leaving behind a gaping power vacuum? Is it really fair to lay the violence at the feet of Islam? Or is it just opportunistic actors using religion as a smoke screen for their power grabs? As for the civilians these actors are manipulating into committing violence, is their faith truly to blame? Or is it just human survival instinct telling them to get in the good graces of the local warlord, whatever the cost?

It's impossible to say how much is down to religion and how much is down to, say, Western interference. What we can do is look globally at the problem, and notice a common link between acts of violence and religion, which can then inform our opinion on whether it is likely to be a determining factor and how it compares with other religions. We can then wonder why terrorism doesn't flourish in Christian communities in some of the most deprived areas of the world or find a foothold in places where they face extreme persecution yet in the same area Islamic terrorism may be a notable problem. Why are there little to no reports of Christian terrorists in Pakistan where they are a persecuted minority yet frequent instances of Islamic terrorism in France where Muslims are a minority?

 

[Scaff]

Source was page 7 here

I have a correction to make as it was 20/21 conflicts and so not 100%. Of the 21 conflicts that had a religious element, all 21 (apart from the LRA) had Islam as one of the religions (frequently the sole one). I found this out by googling each of the 21, although since I seem "extremely biased" you're welcome to look it up for yourself.

And yes, I did share it numerous times in this thread....

And you are still misrepresenting it, not that it surprises me at all.

Are you seriously, as one example, attempting to say that the four Russian based ones are actually because of Islam?

 

[huskeR32]

The list I provided earlier was from wiki

Is that as deep as you went? Where did the author of the wiki source that data from?

Can you provide a list showing terrorist groups that have a religious component that isn't Islamic?

I probably could, but why would I?

Doesn't necessarily, but it shows how widespread the problem is and less likely to be a "misrepresentation".

So you acknowledge that your list of terror groups doesn't necessarily prove your point, yet you remain incredulous that we continue to have some doubts about this whole thing?

Source was page 7 here

I have a correction to make as it was 20/21 conflicts and so not 100%. Of the 21 conflicts that had a religious element, all 21 (apart from the LRA) had Islam as one of the religions (frequently the sole one). I found this out by googling each of the 21, although since I seem "extremely biased" you're welcome to look it up for yourself.

And yes, I did share it numerous times in this thread....

Great. Now define "religious element." A warlord publicly calling for holy war while manipulating people behind the scenes with money, protection, intimidation, etc. has perverted Islam to such a degree that calling it "in the name of Islam" is extremely misleading. I'd wager that a lot of those people know damn well that what's happening to and around them has nothing to do with their faith. I might be wrong, because as I've said, it's almost impossible to know or quantify such things. You continue to make absolute pronouncements, so please do explain to us how you've managed to get down to the true heart of such situations.

Talk about a dodge.

What question do you want answered with regard to this point.

It's not a dodge at all. It was my effort to make sure we remember who originally asked the questions that you've been avoiding.

Imari made several posts trying, in vain, to nudge you towards an understanding of why your arguments are lacking in hard evidence. Mikey raised the difficulty of untangling religion from geopolitical issues more than once.

This requires more research.

Great, I await your findings.

It's impossible to say how much is down to religion and how much is down to, say, Western interference.

My point exactly.

What we can do is look globally at the problem, and notice a common link between acts of violence and religion, which can then inform our opinion on whether it is likely to be a determining factor and how it compares with other religions.

Given the above concession, how did you suddenly get here? If western meddling is impossible to rule out as a factor, any further statements are assumptions.

We can then wonder why terrorism doesn't flourish in Christian communities in some of the most deprived areas of the world or find a foothold in places where they face extreme persecution yet in the same area Islamic terrorism may be a notable problem.

We sure can. And we could ponder several possbilities that have nothing to do with the inherent violence of any particular faith. Christian nations might be less likely to find themselves the target of western meddling, meaning they haven't experienced as much instability, which means bad faith actors can't find a vacuum to fill with their faux-religious power plays. Or they don't have stockpiles of weapons dumped on them by misguided western plots to steal natural resources, leaving any terror groups who do form unable to amass anywhere near the same offensive power as groups in the Middle East who have been subjected to it. Or Christian nations might be more likely to receive aid from nations like the US, giving them more incentive to tamp down any activity that would threaten that aid.

I don't think you've truly considered how deep and far-reaching the effects of western meddling can be.

Why are there little to no reports of Christian terrorists in Pakistan where they are a persecuted minority yet frequent instances of Islamic terrorism in France where Muslims are a minority?

See above. Could simply be a matter of weapons stockpiles enabling the latter while being largely unavailable to the former.

And now, to be clear, none of what I've said constitutes absolute claims of truth. Don't come back at me asking to prove any of this, because I haven't presented it as fact.

 

[Scaff]

Is that as deep as you went? Where did the author of the wiki source that data from?



I probably could, but why would I?



So you acknowledge that your list of terror groups doesn't necessarily prove your point, yet you remain incredulous that we continue to have some doubts about this whole thing?



Great. Now define "religious element." A warlord publicly calling for holy war while manipulating people behind the scenes with money, protection, intimidation, etc. has perverted Islam to such a degree that calling it "in the name of Islam" is extremely misleading. I'd wager that a lot of those people know damn well that what's happening to and around them has nothing to do with their faith. I might be wrong, because as I've said, it's almost impossible to know or quantify such things. You continue to make absolute pronouncements, so please do explain to us how you've managed to get down to the true heart of such situations.



It's not a dodge at all. It was my effort to make sure we remember who originally asked the questions that you've been avoiding.

Imari made several posts trying, in vain, to nudge you towards an understanding of why your arguments are lacking in hard evidence. Mikey raised the difficulty of untangling religion from geopolitical issues more than once.



Great, I await your findings.



My point exactly.



Given the above concession, how did you suddenly get here? If western meddling is impossible to rule out as a factor, any further statements are assumptions.



We sure can. And we could ponder several possbilities that have nothing to do with the inherent violence of any particular faith. Christian nations might be less likely to find themselves the target of western meddling, meaning they haven't experienced as much instability, which means bad faith actors can't find a vacuum to fill with their faux-religious power plays. Or they don't have stockpiles of weapons dumped on them by misguided western plots to steal natural resources, leaving any terror groups who do form unable to amass anywhere near the same offensive power as groups in the Middle East who have been subjected to it. Or Christian nations might be more likely to receive aid from nations like the US, giving them more incentive to tamp down any activity that would threaten that aid.

I don't think you've truly considered how deep and far-reaching the effects of western meddling can be.



See above. Could simply be a matter of weapons stockpiles enabling the latter while being largely unavailable to the former.

And now, to be clear, none of what I've said constitutes absolute claims of truth. Don't come back at me asking to prove any of this, because I haven't presented it as fact.

Bush and Blair said that god told them the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a moral thing to do, on @HenrySwanson basis, that would give the US UK invasion a religious element and automatically win the body count for Christianity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/re...o-to-war-to-fight-evil-claims-his-mentor.html

 

[HenrySwanson]

And you are still misrepresenting it, not that it surprises me at all.

Are you seriously, as one example, attempting to say that the four Russian based ones are actually because of Islam?

Nope, never said that:

that every conflict that had a religious component from a few years ago has Islam as one of the religions

Show me how that is a misrepresenation....

It's not a dodge at all. It was my effort to make sure we remember who originally asked the questions that you've been avoiding.

Imari made several posts trying, in vain, to nudge you towards an understanding of why your arguments are lacking in hard evidence. Mikey raised the difficulty of untangling religion from geopolitical issues more than once.

This was in response to the listing of the killings in the last week:

Great. I suppose that's almost a measure, now you just have to go and get actual numbers out of those links because I'm sure not going to do your work for you.

So now that you have a measure for Islamic violence, you need something to compare it against if you want to use that to justify your claim that Islam is the most violent religion (here measured by fatalities claimed in their name). You need to provide this, because if you didn't already have this information to hand then your claim has clearly been made based on little more than emotion.

It would seem reasonable to ignore relatively small religions and focus on the handful of larger ones. Given how the larger religions tend to be fragmented, you might want to be clear about how you're grouping them together.

After that you might want to think about expanding your case over a longer time frame, because the easy argument to make is that one can probably cherry pick a week to show that any individual religion is the worst at that particular time. What you want to show is that Islam is consistently the worst over some significant period.

I'm asking why is it up to me to provide links to fatal attacks perpetrated in the name of, say, Christianity? I'm saying it's disproportionate because I can't find any non-Islamic killings that comes close to that - the burden is on you guys to show otherwise.

 

[Scaff]

Nope, never said that:



Show me how that is a misrepresenation....


This was in response to the listing of the killings in the last week:


I'm asking why is it up to me to provide links to fatal attacks perpetrated in the name of, say, Christianity? I'm saying it's disproportionate because I can't find any non-Islamic killings that comes close to that - the burden is on you guys to show otherwise.

Then why did you not state that when pointing out the total number and say as much, after all you stated you had researched all of them?

The only logical conclusion is that you knew religion was not a causal factor in these four cases, yet still decided to include them.

Oh and it’s a misrepresentation because in that source it’s not a causal factor in religion being behind the violence (which is the point you are claiming), which I’ve pointed out repeatedly to you and you have repeatedly attempted to hand wave away.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Then why did you not state that when pointing out the total number and say as much, after all you stated you had researched all of them?

The only logical conclusion is that you knew religion was not a causal factor in these four cases, yet still decided to include them.

Oh and it’s a misrepresentation because in that source it’s not a causal factor in religion being behind the violence (which is the point you are claiming), which I’ve pointed out repeatedly to you and you have repeatedly attempted to hand wave away.

Dude, I'm so confused.

This is the wiki on it

Are you saying Islamism wasn't an element of the conflict in those parts of Russia????

 

[TenEightyOne]

Are you saying Islamism wasn't an element of the conflict in those parts of Russia????

Do you mean that Islamism was one of the causes of Chechnya's repression? Are you surprised that radicalisation occurred?

I hate to do this in a sensible thread, but... This is the wiki on it

 

[huskeR32]

I'm asking why is it up to me to provide links to fatal attacks perpetrated in the name of, say, Christianity?

Because you should already have the answer. If you're going to declare that A is greater than B, then you'd damn sure better have actually measured them both.

I'm saying it's disproportionate because I can't find any non-Islamic killings that comes close to that -

You'll have to pardon me if I don't believe that your search for that has been anywhere near as thorough as your search for Islamic violence. That's why I've asked questions like "Where's the master list of all conflicts that you used to tally up the religious ones versus the non-religious ones?"

the burden is on you guys to show otherwise.

That burden would only fall on somebody who has stated "Religion X causes more violence than Islam." And for the umpteenth time, nobody has said that.

 

[Scaff]

Dude, I'm so confused.

This is the wiki on it

Are you saying Islamism wasn't an element of the conflict in those parts of Russia????

Of course, Russian expansion and historic colonialism was caused by Islam, got you.

You seem utterly unaware that those conflicts literally go back centuries, yet you present it as if it has modern roots to suit your biases.

 

[UKMikey]

What I'm arguing is that it's a more violent religion, just like how Christianity is more homophobic than most. That's not to say people can't be equally violent in the name of other religions - rather that its "promotion" of violence (or condoning of) is greater than others.

So you're saying that despite the video concluding that all religions have equal capacity for harm, Islam is somehow special in its capacity for inciting violent followers? Because it sounds like your examples fail to show that they're violent because of Islam and disregarding other factors. It sounds like you're arguing that correlation equals causation. Maybe the sneering left have a point.

What's this got to do with anything? Are you downplaying the threat faced by the world (rather than just the UK) by Islamic terror?

Are you asking what mentioning other, more coordinated terror threats has got to do with a discussion of how Islam is violent due to terrorising the West? Islam isn't waging war against us like the IRA or the Soviet Union did. "Its" attacks in the West are sporadic and uncoordinated by comparison.

Easy. Reformation - like what Christianity went through. Focus more on the Mecca Muhammad rather than the Medina Muhammad.

I don't accept that it's an equal threat to Western society but, even if somehow it is, how do you propose enforcing reformation of the religion? Christianity took fifteen centuries to reform following a lot of violent wars and schisms and you're somehow expecting Islam to spontaneously achieve this in thirteen without telling us how you would go about this.

If we continue with the outlook that all religions are equally bad in every way what do you think the future will be like?

One without Muslim internment camps. Targeting everyone in a religion based upon the actions of a violent minority sounds to me like a recipe for disaster that's destined to create a war against innocent people as well as combatants. A recipe that would result in more soldiers for Islam, not fewer.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Because you should already have the answer. If you're going to declare that A is greater than B, then you'd damn sure better have actually measured them both.

I've tried, and it's hard to find recent fatal attacks in the name of Christianity.

You'll have to pardon me if I don't believe that your search for that has been anywhere near as thorough as your search for Islamic violence. That's why I've asked questions like "Where's the master list of all conflicts that you used to tally up the religious ones versus the non-religious ones?"

The Islamic ones are easy to find because....get this....they're frequent and disproportionate to other religions. It's the same reason we can say that Far-Right terrorism is over-represented in Western countries compared to the Far-Left.

That burden would only fall on somebody who has stated "Religion X causes more violence than Islam." And for the umpteenth time, nobody has said that.

And I've said I can't find examples in this day of many fatal attacks by Christians.

Since you're questioning my methods I'll say that I've googled attacks by the Christian terror groups I listed in a previous post (including the LRA) and found nothing (apart from the 17 killed by the LRA last year), I've googled terrorist attacks from a global perspective and found a report from 2018, and I've googled "Christian terrorist attacks 2020" and found a wiki list (which is far from exhaustive, but still doesn't really list attacks in the name of other religions).

I'm not presenting you with a lack of evidence from not trying - I'm saying I literally can't find reports of attacks and so it is on you to show that there are if you want to continue saying Islam isn't over-represented.

Of course, Russian expansion and historic colonialism was caused by Islam, got you.

You seem utterly unaware that those conflicts literally go back centuries, yet you present it as if it has modern roots to suit your biases.

So additional factors that help cause subsequent conflicts shouldn't count because they weren't part of the original roots (even though in this case - Around this time, Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen imam, began preaching a purified version of Islam and encouraging the various mountain peoples of the North Caucasus to unite under the banner of Islam in order to protect themselves from further foreign encroachments?

Hypothetical scenario - the civil war in Sri Lanka has only recently ended and was fought by Tamils and the (majority) Sinhalese government over the treatment of Tamils and their desire to have an independent state. If there was to be an insurgency in 2020 by Hindu extremists calling on a Holy War to create a separate Tamil state would you disregard Hindu extremism as a factor in this new war?

So you're saying that despite the video concluding that all religions have equal capacity for harm, Islam is somehow special in its capacity for inciting violent followers? Because it sounds like your examples fail to show that they're violent because of Islam and disregarding other factors. It sounds like you're arguing that correlation equals causation. Maybe the sneering left have a point.

It's not "special" in that regard - I'd say Christianity is more violent than Buddhism for example.

My point is that I view them on a spectrum.

Are you asking what mentioning other, more coordinated terror threats has got to do with a discussion of how Islam is violent due to terrorising the West? Islam isn't waging war against us like the IRA or the Soviet Union did. "Its" attacks in the West are sporadic and uncoordinated by comparison.

And yet people who do fight for Islam believe they are fighting a Holy War.

Still don't understand the relevance of the threat from the IRA or Soviet Union??

I don't accept that it's an equal threat to Western society but, even if somehow it is, how do you propose enforcing reformation of the religion? Christianity took fifteen centuries to reform following a lot of violent wars and schisms and you're somehow expecting Islam to spontaneously achieve this in thirteen without telling us how you would go about this.

Acknowledging there is a problem would be a good start.

 

[UKMikey]

Hypothetical scenario - the civil war in Sri Lanka has only recently ended and was fought by Tamils and the (majority) Sinhalese government over the treatment of Tamils and their desire to have an independent state. If there was to be an insurgency in 2020 by Hindu extremists calling on a Holy War to create a separate Tamil state would you disregard Hindu extremism as a factor in this new war?

There's nothing holy about fighting for land rights, no matter what religious leaders might say. They would be fighting for them regardless of whether they were Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs. Should territorial struggles like this be used as an excuse to clamp down on Hindus in other countries?

Still don't understand the relevance of the threat from the IRA or Soviet Union??

I know. I've explained it a couple of times and other people seem to have grasped my point about what constitutes a terror threat.

Acknowledging there is a problem would be a good start.

That doesn't really answer my question...

 

[Scaff]

And I've said I can't find examples in this day of many fatal attacks by Christians.

Since you're questioning my methods I'll say that I've googled attacks by the Christian terror groups I listed in a previous post (including the LRA) and found nothing (apart from the 17 killed by the LRA last year), I've googled terrorist attacks from a global perspective and found a report from 2018, and I've googled "Christian terrorist attacks 2020" and found a wiki list (which is far from exhaustive, but still doesn't really list attacks in the name of other religions).

I'm not presenting you with a lack of evidence from not trying - I'm saying I literally can't find reports of attacks and so it is on you to show that there are if you want to continue saying Islam isn't over-represented.

Why does it have to be limited to terrorists?

I gave you an example of a massive force mobilised to invade two countries and start wars that were decades in duration, which the leaders of the main two countries involved clearly stated that God told them it was the right thing to do, yet I guarantee that in these cases you hold only one of the two religions involved accountable in your trotting up of bodies. The lack of rigour and objective analysis in your claims leaves holes wide enough to drive a bus through, I'm actually surprised that you are surprised that people then point these holes out.

Take for example the Taliban, which I'm guessing you would count as fighting because of God and in the name of Islam, yet the most effective way found to protect troop and supply convoys in Afghanistan was to pay them not to attack! That right, the Taliban valued money (to the tune of millions of Dollars) over killing the un-holy infidel, which rather heavily undermines the 'in the name of god' argument quite a bit. The simple truth is that on both sides, some will fight for god, so will fight for duty and homeland and some will fight just for money. That regardless of the fact that the leaders on both sides said they were fighting for and justified by god! You however don;t seem to understand that this applies to both sides and have a clear bias that applies 'good' and 'bad' based on your quite transparent dislike of a single religion.

So additional factors that help cause subsequent conflicts shouldn't count because they weren't part of the original roots (even though in this case - Around this time, Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen imam, began preaching a purified version of Islam and encouraging the various mountain peoples of the North Caucasus to unite under the banner of Islam in order to protect themselves from further foreign encroachments?

So, in this case, you hold Islam the cause of the conflict because they resisted being invaded by an outside force? As that's the logic you are employing here, that they were to blame because they resisted being invaded by Russia in the past.

Do you also hold Ukraine responsible for being invaded by Russia and the subsequent annexation of the Crimea?

Hypothetical scenario - the civil war in Sri Lanka has only recently ended and was fought by Tamils and the (majority) Sinhalese government over the treatment of Tamils and their desire to have an independent state. If there was to be an insurgency in 2020 by Hindu extremists calling on a Holy War to create a separate Tamil state would you disregard Hindu extremism as a factor in this new war?

Using a hypothetical as false equivalence doesn't make a point, it only further shows your own bias. Which one(s) of the recent border conflicts haven't begun with Russian aggression?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia#Russian_Federation_(1991–present)

That Russian invasion of former parts of the USSR that happen to be majority Muslim creating conflicts that attract IS and similar offshoots is no surprise, but that doesn't make Islam the cause of it.

 

[Danoff]

And I've said I can't find examples in this day of many fatal attacks by Christians.

Well there is a wiki page on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

If you browse that page, I think you'll find that it pales in comparison to the examples on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism

Modern examples of Christian Terrorism (it seems like a broad application of the word terrorism, includes sects like the KKK) do not seem to stack up nicely against modern examples of Islamic Terrorism. And yes, even if you throw defending the acts of pedophilia among christian holy figures onto the barbaric pile.

State-sponsored religious acts are quite a bit trickier to pin down, because almost always nations are not acting purely based on religious reasons. In fact, I'm not sure I can think of any modern examples of a nation that could be said to be doing something solely because of religion. If you're trying to say that Islam poses a greater threat than Christianity presently, I think you'd find that case fairly straightforward to make (and the video I posted included some discussion about that, though mostly they took the proposition for granted). Islam posing a greater threat than Judaism today is a tougher case to make, but it's probably not an impossible one to make.

For the record, I don't care to try to make either of those cases.

But to say that Islam is inherently, scripturally, more violent than the other religions requires some expertise in scripture. I think one could make that case for Chrsitianity, but one would be trying to fight the many historical examples of barbarous Christian behavior. It's a tougher hill to climb (and honestly, I'm not sure why one would bother climbing it).

I think Hitchens made the deeper point though, which is that religion fundamentally teaches surrender of critical thinking and will, and that this is dangerous in every form, and difficult to predict how it will manifest in the future. So from that respect, all religion has the potential for great harm in the future.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Can you provide a list showing terrorist groups that have a religious component that isn't Islamic?

Did that ages ago.

 

[huskeR32]

I've tried, and it's hard to find recent fatal attacks in the name of Christianity.

Which could very well be because there aren't as many attacks. Or it could be that western media is less likely to report on Christian attacks, and when they do report them, less likely to attribute it to Christianity rather than lone wolf/mental instability/etc. I've seen that time and again here in the US.

And even if it were down to truly fewer attacks, that still doesn't get you all the way to your central conclusion. As Scaff asked, why are you only counting terrorist attacks? Violence exists in many other forms than that.

To expand on another thing Scaff alluded to, George W. Bush publicly stated that he was taking the US into war with Iraq because God told him to - a "mission from God," was his exact words. Have you attributed every death in that ensuing war to Christianity? If not, why?

The Islamic ones are easy to find because....get this....they're frequent and disproportionate to other religions.

Could be. I'd be more likely to believe it if you had answers to some of the questions being posed to you.

It's the same reason we can say that Far-Right terrorism is over-represented in Western countries compared to the Far-Left.

That statement rings alarms bells for me, probably because it neatly fits with a lot of my personal biases. You should have similar alarm bells going off for your crusade here.

And I've said I can't find examples in this day of many fatal attacks by Christians.

That doesn't suddenly make it somebody else's problem to solve for you. You've stated that A>B. If you can't confidently measure B, the next step is to retract the claim, not shrug the problem off onto your detractors and declare victory.

Since you're questioning my methods I'll say that I've googled attacks by the Christian terror groups I listed in a previous post (including the LRA) and found nothing (apart from the 17 killed by the LRA last year), I've googled terrorist attacks from a global perspective and found a report from 2018, and I've googled "Christian terrorist attacks 2020" and found a wiki list (which is far from exhaustive, but still doesn't really list attacks in the name of other religions).

And from the off, I can see a potential issue. You're ultimately working with a single bottleneck - Google. Did you try other search engines? Did you use a VPN in another country to see if that changed what Google showed you? Did you consider not using search engines at all? You could search archives of major newspapers around the world, for example. Pain in the ass? Yes. But that's the territory that comes with making a claim that's difficult to prove.

And even if you did find a way to confidently say you've sought out all possible cases of Christian violence, that doesn't satisfy all the questions that have been posed to you. For but one example, let's say a mass murder is committed by a member of a group known to hold white supremacist views. Such groups often have Christian beliefs inextricably tangled up in their racist views. History suggests that our media will be quick to report the racist element, and extremely hesitant to report on the Christian part of the story. Meaning, obviously, that no amount of Googling for Christian violence will turn that story up for you.

Such a situation would illustrate many of the problems that people have been trying to show you in this thread. How does one untangle all the aspects of any given situation? Did my hypothetical shooter kill a bunch of people because he's racist? Or because he's Christian? Probably both, so how much of his motivation needs to have been his faith before it becomes "religiously motivated?" How could you ever begin to determine such a threshold? How could you possibly measure the relative quantities of the various motivations in another human being?

I'm not presenting you with a lack of evidence from not trying - I'm saying I literally can't find reports of attacks

Fair enough, I'll retract the part where I said I don't believe you've tried. That was me making an assumption, and it was unfair. However, it doesn't resolve your problem. You struggling to find something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are miles of difference between the effort you've made to answer this question, versus what could be done with, say, a multi-year, grant-funded research project at a university, with access to many more sources, a network of international experts to tap into, the resources to put boots on the ground around the world, etc. If the threshold for accepted knowledge was "as much as one guy can do on Google with his free time," humanity would hold a lot of pretty shaky beliefs.

and so it is on you to show that there are if you want to continue saying Islam isn't over-represented.

*largest sigh in human history*

Je. Sus. Christ.

I never said "Islam isn't over-represented." I said that you haven't convinced me that it is.

If my five-year-old niece comes up to me and says "unicorns are real," I can decline to believe her on the spot without doing anything else. I don't have to go and find her examples of unicorns not being real. I can simply suspend my acceptance of her claim until she shows me they are.

I never told you that your unicorn is impossible. I told you that you haven't shown enough to convince me it's real.

 

[Danoff]

To expand on another thing Scaff alluded to, George W. Bush publicly stated that he was taking the US into war with Iraq because God told him to - a "mission from God," was his exact words. Have you attributed every death in that ensuing war to Christianity? If not, why?

I know I'm doing someone else's homework here a bit, but I did kinda poke at this. I don't think you can attribute Gulf War II directly to Jr, nor his reasoning entirely to Christianity. It's a tough sell to me that this is Christian-motivated, but I see the larger point you're making (and others are making), which is that some intellectual rigor needs to go in to what motivated what, and it's quite difficult to do. More on that below, but my main point here is that (modern) state-sponsored acts are probably almost by definition impossible to attribute to a religion.

Such groups often have Christian beliefs inextricably tangled up in their racist views. History suggests that our media will be quick to report the racist element, and extremely hesitant to report on the Christian part of the story.

This is perhaps most neatly illustrated with the KKK (and part of the reason I brought it up). It's attributed to Christianity on the wiki page, but is it really? When you really examine it, it's tough to nail down any other belief as coming from a particular place. Which makes this whole conversation very muddy. I think as a practical matter one could take an organization like the KKK, which is strongly associated with Christianity, and just say "close enough, this is Christian". And yes there may be no specific teaching, but those two are linked closely enough practically that they should be lumped together. Partly because the broader point that Hitchens was making, that religion can express itself in violent ways very unpredictably. So some things that might not seem to be connected (like religion and racism) might just as well be connected because the underlying problem with religion is also the underlying problem with racism.

Anyway, it's an interesting discussion we're having.

 

[UKMikey]

I'd like to know whether Islamists in the West all receive their programming from terror Imams or whether they can become self-radicalised via the internet like that horrible piece of crap Dylann Roof did for white supremacism.

I never told you that your unicorn is impossible. I told you that you haven't shown enough to convince me it's real.

I like this statement and believe that you're steelmanning his argument.

 

[huskeR32]

I know I'm doing someone else's homework here a bit, but I did kinda poke at this. I don't think you can attribute Gulf War II directly to Jr, nor his reasoning entirely to Christianity. It's a tough sell to me that this is Christian-motivated, but I see the larger point you're making (and others are making), which is that some intellectual rigor needs to go in to what motivated what, and it's quite difficult to do. More on that below, but my main point here is that (modern) state-sponsored acts are probably almost by definition impossible to attribute to a religion.

Agree with everything here. And to connect my loop, groups fighting for power in a region without a firmly established state, like Iraq, should probably be viewed through a similar lens. IS may not be internationally recognized as a state, but their actions are just as shot through with geopolitics all the same.

This is perhaps most neatly illustrated with the KKK (and part of the reason I brought it up). It's attributed to Christianity on the wiki page, but is it really? When you really examine it, it's tough to nail down any other belief as coming from a particular place. Which makes this whole conversation very muddy. I think as a practical matter one could take an organization like the KKK, which is strongly associated with Christianity, and just say "close enough, this is Christian". And yes there may be no specific teaching, but those two are linked closely enough practically that they should be lumped together. Partly because the broader point that Hitchens was making, that religion can express itself in violent ways very unpredictably. So some things that might not seem to be connected (like religion and racism) might just as well be connected because the underlying problem with religion is also the underlying problem with racism.

Again, agree with everything you've said here. Religion in general is something all people ought to be wary of. For all the good it can inspire, it can also provoke fervent irrationality. Everywhere it exists, it is tied up with so many other aspects of imperfect humanity, that attempting to quantify it becomes near impossible, and misses the forest for the tree.