Islam - What's your view on it?

[HenrySwanson]

I can't reply to everything so I'll try and address some points:

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.

No, no, no.

I said religion, in this case Islam, was a reason (one that may have not even have been present in previous wars in the region), not the reason of the current conflict (which, if you read the wiki, you'll see Islamism was). The bit about the Chechen Imam from centuries ago was just shown out of interest, nothing more (I actually forgot to edit it out hence why it doesn't really make sense as a sentence).

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?

But if there is a call on Hindus to fight this "Holy War", do we say that religion is off the hook as a cause because it's mainly a territorial dispute?

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.

Sorry but can you explain again?

That doesn't really answer my question...

If we collectively push the narrative that it needs reform and give more support towards reforming individuals/clerics/countries then we can see what happens.

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.

Fatal attacks are a good indicator because they're more reportable and (arguably) the most extreme form of violence. I get your point that there are other forms of violence however.

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.

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.

You have to draw a line somewhere. At some point you have to state a position based on what you could have reasonably expected to have found. Using just Google doesn't seem that much of an issue as it's highly unlikely fatal attacks with a religious basis are going to be found elsewhere at a sufficient frequency to disprove the claim. It's like only using PubMed for a literature review and then being criticised for only using that resource.

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.

I think the best way to start to analyse it would be looking at acts committed by overtly religious groups, or where the motives are unambiguosly religious. The examples I provided, however, all met those criteria. I see your point about the difficulty in ascribing certain attacks to religion when it may in fact play a background, or even prominent role (such as, for example, Anders Breivik) but then I see a similar dilemma when we talk about hate crimes and yet our judiciary can see fit to increase the punishment based on what amounts to a judgment call.

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.

*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.

Makes sense. Obviously there are limits to what I can prove, which became especially apparent when I looked up the problem of Hindu nationalism in India, however I think the evidence is there if we were to take a deep look at religious violence.

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.

I don't have a background in theology but would be fascinated to see an honest discussion on it by those well versed in it.

If you remember back to an earlier post I said that the early forms of each religions were probably the "purest" examples, or best representations of what each faith encompassed. The stumbling block I find with Islam is that it was created by a warlord, contrary to all the other faiths (although you could argue some of the patriarchs of Judaism/Christianity were war-mongering), and this approach to how it expressed itself and spread was continued on in the same way following on from his death. That's not to say it was all bad - think of the Golden Age of Islam - however I believe it carries the burden of having undeniably violent roots.

Quick edit:

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?

I was talking as a measure of violence, rather than violent attacks.

 

[UKMikey]

But if there is a call on Hindus to fight this "Holy War", do we say that religion is off the hook as a cause because it's mainly a territorial dispute?

It's "mainly" a territorial dispute but somebody mentioned religion so let's put the blame onto that. The trouble is that if territory is the cause, it's difficult to determine how much it's due to religion and therefore how dangerous that religion is in comparison to other religions.

Sorry but can you explain again?

No, I'm weary of repeating myself. You'll have to go through my eariler posts.

If we collectively push the narrative that it needs reform and give more support towards reforming individuals/clerics/countries then we can see what happens.

So propaganda backed up by military intervention then?

 

[HenrySwanson]

It's "mainly" a territorial dispute but somebody mentioned religion so let's put the blame onto that. The trouble is that if territory is the cause, it's difficult to determine how much it's due to religion and therefore how dangerous that religion is in comparison to other religions.

For the love of....

I'm not putting the sole blame on religion!

I'm saying it's a factor!!

In the wiki that I posted, under the part about the second Chechen war it says:

In August 1999, an armed incursion of 1,500 Islamic radicals, led by Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, and Arab jihadist, Ibn al-Khattab, in support of a Dagestani separatist movement, combined with a series of apartment bombings in Russia, gave Moscow sufficient reasoning for re-invading Chechnya, thus triggering the Second Chechen War, a conflict fought with significant Islamist overtones.

No, I'm weary of repeating myself. You'll have to go through my eariler posts.

You can copy and paste but your explanation was this:

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.

So forgive me for asking again but, what does the part of your post about the Troubles and the Cold War have to do with the global threat posed by Islam and what does that have to do with Islam and its association with violence?

So propoganda backed up by military intervention then?

Wouldn't think military intervention would be appropriate.

Not sure it can be classed as propaganda....

 

[Scaff]

No, no, no.

I said religion, in this case Islam, was a reason (one that may have not even have been present in previous wars in the region), not the reason of the current conflict (which, if you read the wiki, you'll see Islamism was). The bit about the Chechen Imam from centuries ago was just shown out of interest, nothing more (I actually forgot to edit it out hence why it doesn't really make sense as a sentence).

Then I fail to see how this supports your claim at all?

For the love of....

I'm not putting the sole blame on religion!

I'm saying it's a factor!!

In the wiki that I posted, under the part about the second Chechen war it says:

In August 1999, an armed incursion of 1,500 Islamic radicals, led by Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, and Arab jihadist, Ibn al-Khattab, in support of a Dagestani separatist movement, combined with a series of apartment bombings in Russia, gave Moscow sufficient reasoning for re-invading Chechnya, thus triggering the Second Chechen War, a conflict fought with significant Islamist overtones.

Enough of a factor (and no-one has disputed that it can be a factor) for it to be counted in your list on the dangers of Mulsim side, do you think that region was actually stable between '96 and '99 (the period between the first and second Chechnian wars)? No, it was in a state of near collapse, with a major power vacuum resulting from the original war, one caused by Russian agreesion.

However let's explore that 'a factor' side a bit more, where do you stand on religion being a factor in the wars started by Bush and Blair?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Then I fail to see how this supports your claim at all?

It's observing how over-represented Islam is when talking about conflicts and their links to religions.

Enough of a factor (and no-one has disputed that it can be a factor) for it to be counted in your list on the dangers of Mulsim side, do you think that region was actually stable between '96 and '99 (the period between the first and second Chechnian wars)? No, it was in a state of near collapse, with a major power vacuum resulting from the original war, one caused by Russian agreesion.

That is interesting, but not relevant when talking about whether religion was a factor.

However let's explore that 'a factor' side a bit more, where do you stand on religion being a factor in the wars started by Bush and Blair?

That depends on how widespread it was known that the invading armies where fighting under the banner of religion, in this case Christianity. Having leaders believe they were "told by God" to fight is a reflection on individual beliefs and is a little different than an army fighting under a religion. It can't be doubted that Chris Kyle fought in no small part because of his Christian beliefs, but I'm not sure it's enough to say the coalition as a whole, or even his unit had a religious factor in that they were called to fight for Christianity by their leaders.

 

[Scaff]

It's observing how over-represented Islam is when talking about conflicts and their links to religions..

No it doesn’t.

That is interesting, but not relevant when talking about whether religion was a factor.

It’s absolutely relevant, and I’m 100% sure if we were talking about any other faith and particularly Christianity you would consider it so, as you are about to demonstrate.

That depends on how widespread it was known that the invading armies where fighting under the banner of religion, in this case Christianity. Having leaders believe they were "told by God" to fight is a reflection on individual beliefs and is a little different than an army fighting under a religion. It can't be doubted that Chris Kyle fought in no small part because of his Christian beliefs, but I'm not sure it's enough to say the coalition as a whole, or even his unit had a religious factor in that they were called to fight for Christianity by their leaders.

So why exactly do you only apply this to Christianity?

It was also well publicised at the time, not that it should matter unless you are once again applying double standards.

Let’s take a look at the British oath...

I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

...so they swear allegiance to the head of a religious faith and do so using God as a threat of punishment if they fail to do so.

As do the US Army...

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

...who swear an oath under threat of God again.

So you have two armies that swear an oath under threat of God, one of which does it to the head of a Christian faith and both of which were used by the heads of the countries who said they were told to invade countries by God!

However that to you doesn’t count as religion being a factor, give me a ****ing break, as your bias is absurdly clear.

 

[polysmut]

https://news.gsu.edu/2019/02/19/terror-attacks-by-muslims-get-disproportionate-news-coverage/

According to this, which is US based, "Terror Attacks By Muslims Get 357 Percent More Media Coverage Than Other Terror Attacks, Study Shows".

 

[TenEightyOne]

Having leaders believe they were "told by God" to fight is a reflection on individual beliefs

But Muslim individuals carrying out atrocities represent the whole of Islaam? I confust.

 

[HenrySwanson]

No it doesn’t.

How does it not.

It’s absolutely relevant, and I’m 100% sure if we were talking about any other faith and particularly Christianity you would consider it so, as you are about to demonstrate.

I don't understand. How does the history diminish the religious factor??

So why exactly do you only apply this to Christianity?

It was also well publicised at the time, not that it should matter unless you are once again applying double standards.

I think you'd have to prove it was a call to arms in the name of religion, rather than one guy saying he was inspired by his god. It's not bias/double standards - I wouldn't for example call the Burundi conflict religious if one of the leaders was found to have said he was inspired by Allah to go out and wage war.

Let’s take a look at the British oath...

I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

...so they swear allegiance to the head of a religious faith and do so using God as a threat of punishment if they fail to do so.

As do the US Army...

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

...who swear an oath under threat of God again.

So you have two armies that swear an oath under threat of God, one of which does it to the head of a Christian faith and both of which were used by the heads of the countries who said they were told to invade countries by God!

However that to you doesn’t count as religion being a factor, give me a ****ing break, as your bias is absurdly clear.

Wait a second....

You don't have to swear by God in this oath....

https://news.gsu.edu/2019/02/19/terror-attacks-by-muslims-get-disproportionate-news-coverage/

According to this, which is US based, "Terror Attacks By Muslims Get 357 Percent More Media Coverage Than Other Terror Attacks, Study Shows".

As you said in your post, those are US based. None of my examples were US terrorist attacks.

But Muslim individuals carrying out atrocities represent the whole of Islaam? I confust.

Not the whole of Islam, but a tenet - same as could be said of Mark Chapman.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Not the whole of Islam, but a tenet - same as could be said of Mark Chapman.

A tenet such as the part of Christianity that recognises the Queen and Her Country as its head? It seems to me that you're becoming mired in your own argument.

 

[huskeR32]

So why exactly do you only apply this to Christianity?

He didn't. You're doing that thing again; Somebody pushing back on something doesn't automatically mean they hold to the opposite extreme. Why is it so hard for you to simply stick to what people actually say?

 

[polysmut]

As you said in your post, those are US based. None of my examples were US terrorist attacks.

I wasn't commenting on your posts by posting what I did.

 

[Scaff]

How does it not.

You misunderstand, you have not demonstrated that it does.

I don't understand. How does the history diminish the religious factor??

Are you seriously attempting to say that these factors are locked in place, never changing over time?

As if that's your tact, then you've just screwed Christianity just from the standpoint of Europe alone.

So why exactly do you only apply this to Christianity?

I didn't...

"...I’m 100% sure if we were talking about any other faith and particularly Christianity ..."

...not sure you got mixed up on that, as those are my words that you quoted!

I think you'd have to prove it was a call to arms in the name of religion, rather than one guy saying he was inspired by his god. It's not bias/double standards - I wouldn't for example call the Burundi conflict religious if one of the leaders was found to have said he was inspired by Allah to go out and wage war.

It's clearly a double standard, as you applying that nuance to one faith here and not the other, unsurprisingly the one you are happy to apply it to is your own!

Wait a second....

You don't have to swear by God in this oath....

And how many take that option?

That also does nothing at all to change the fact that the British armed services have no choice but to swear allegiance to the head of an entire religious group!

You seem to be applying that nuance again in a selective manner.

 

[HenrySwanson]

A tenet such as the part of Christianity that recognises the Queen and Her Country as its head? It seems to me that you're becoming mired in your own argument.

Now I'm confused.

You misunderstand, you have not demonstrated that it does.

I think that being involved in 20 out of the 21 conflicts that had a religious element is a disproportionate amount but you're free to disagree that the burden of proof hasn't been met.

Are you seriously attempting to say that these factors are locked in place, never changing over time?

All I was saying is that Islam was a factor in the conflicts in those regions. That has yet to be disproved.

It's clearly a double standard, as you applying that nuance to one faith here and not the other, unsurprisingly the one you are happy to apply it to is your own!

Not quite....

If we look at a random conflict from my source where religion is said to be an element, say Algeria (AQIM) we can see that the Islamic belligerent in this case is an is an "Islamist militant organization (of al-Qaeda) which aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state."

Taking another random conflict, this time say Thailand South we have an insurgency that is made up of "insurgent groups (that) proclaim militant jihadism and are not separatist any more. Mostly led by Salafist hardliners, they have extreme and transnational religious goals, such as an Islamic Caliphate"

As you can see, they are a bit more weighty than "our leader got a message from God" or that their recruits have to swear an oath. I'm pretty sure our armed forces are composed of individuals of various faiths or none at all and so I'm not sure of the relevance (well I can kinda see it, but it's rather thin in comparison to armies fighting for a religious cause).

 

[Scaff]

I think that being involved in 20 out of the 21 conflicts that had a religious element is a disproportionate amount but you're free to disagree that the burden of proof hasn't been met.

Why are you still banging that drug, the report you cite doesn't agree with you, this has been pointed out more times than I care to mention, they don't even refer to it as a correlation its that ****ing weak.

"Contrary to common belief, there is not a significant correlation between levels of religious belief and peace with an r=0.14. Generally IEP considers a measure of at least r=0.5 to be significant. All correlations in Table 2 are extremely low, to the extent that no relationship was uncovered. Furthermore, the results are in divergent directions meaning that a linear connection between the presence of religion and peace is highly unlikely."

All I was saying is that Islam was a factor in the conflicts in those regions. That has yet to be disproved.

And your own source says that other factors are far more significant, to such degree that a link between religion and peace doesn't exist at even a level of correlation, let alone causality!

Not quite....

If we look at a random conflict from my source where religion is said to be an element, say Algeria (AQIM) we can see that the Islamic belligerent in this case is an is an "Islamist militant organization (of al-Qaeda) which aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state."

Taking another random conflict, this time say Thailand South we have an insurgency that is made up of "insurgent groups (that) proclaim militant jihadism and are not separatist any more. Mostly led by Salafist hardliners, they have extreme and transnational religious goals, such as an Islamic Caliphate"

As you can see, they are a bit more weighty than "our leader got a message from God" or that their recruits have to swear an oath. I'm pretty sure our armed forces are composed of individuals of various faiths or none at all and so I'm not sure of the relevance (well I can kinda see it, but it's rather thin in comparison to armies fighting for a religious cause).

You seem to forget that these armies have been shown to put aside those religious causes if the money is right!

You seem unaware that fighters in the groups you have mentioned are also coerced or paid, in addition to those who will do it for reasons of faith.

I do however note the use of the term 'our armed forces...', which is a rather large 'tell' in terms of subconscious bias. As a military that literally swears an oath to the head of a religious faction that is the largest on Earth is not a side issue, unless you are applying double standards.

 

[huskeR32]

As you can see, they are a bit more weighty than "our leader got a message from God"

Are they? How many of the individual soldiers did you personally interview? How many did you find transcripts of them being interviewed? How do you know the "weight" of their faith?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Are they? How many of the individual soldiers did you personally interview? How many did you find transcripts of them being interviewed? How do you know the "weight" of their faith?

Well, he said "as you can see" which suggests a hope that we'll be led by the same innate bias that (imo) is being demonstrated in the original claim.

 

[Danoff]

Wait... that's Trump's entire platform.

 

[polysmut]

All I was saying is that Islam was a factor in the conflicts in those regions. That has yet to be disproved.

That's not how you make things true.

 

[Rage Racer]

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.

So it was aggression for Russia to invade a part of its own territory in 1994, after three years of the lawlessness, money laundering and ethnic cleansings by the local insurgent regime?

When IRA attacks the British army, police and civilians, they are terrorists, but when Chechen insurgents do the same (and worse) in Russia, they’re innocent Muslims resisting Russian oppression, did I get this right?

Which one(s) of the recent border conflicts haven't begun with Russian aggression?

Abkhazia? South Ossetia? Tajikistani civil war? Perhaps the Nagorno-Karabakh war that is going on right now? Or it's Russia's fault that Armenia and Azerbaijan can't divide this piece of land between themselves peacefully? There are more cases that are somewhat arguable (depending on what you qualify as "Russian aggression") but I'll stop on these.

I understand it is much easier to simply blame the evil bad Russia for everything than to bother learning about the history and pre-history of those conflicts, but I'd recommend to do the latter before calling anyone an aggressor.

It is true, however, that the Chechen conflict wasn't about religion to begin with. When it just started, it was more about money and power, to say briefly. In August 1991, Jokhar Dudayev, a former Soviet army general of Chechen ethnicity, took the lead of the local nationalist movement (that was on the rise as the country was falling apart) and overthrew the local government, gained control over the republic, and started getting money from it. He and his subordinates made billions of dollars by selling the local oil directly abroad, stealing the state's wealth (pensions & other social welfare from the RF government), robbing trains passing through the Chechen territory, laundering money illegally obtained from other regions of Russia (using fake remittance advices), selling weapons to hot spots all over the world, and more. Meanwhile, the local Russians were exposed to ethinicity-related violence - robberies, rapes and murders - under complete ignorance from the Chechen police. Thousands of Slavic residents of Chechnya were forced to abandon their homes and run away, becoming refugees in their own country. Eventually, Kremlin started to get annoyed by all of this (interestingly, why?), and what happened next is known as the First Chechen War.

BUT. It's not like there were no islamists during the first war. The islamist thugs like Khattab, Basayev, Gelayev and others were under Dudayev's wing, and they did their career there. In 1996, our alcoholic president was pulled back by his advisers from the West, who urged him to stop the war. Moscow signed the Khasavyurt agreement that marked its loss in the first war. Soon, islamists became the real power in de-facto independent Chechnya, and as @HenrySwanson said, the Second Chechen War happened when Basayev & Co decided to expand their little "caliphate" by invading Dagestan (the homeland of the current UFC Lightweight Champion), using religion as their excuse.

I find it funny how some people refer to IRA as an example of "Christian terrorists", but the Chechen separatists are, of course, "not islamist, even if they are, it's Russia's fault". That's hypocrite of you, people.

 

[Scaff]

So it was aggression for Russia to invade a part of its own territory in 1994, after three years of the lawlessness, money laundering and ethnic cleansings by the local insurgent regime?

When IRA attacks the British army, police and civilians, they are terrorists, but when Chechen insurgents do the same (and worse) in Russia, they’re innocent Muslims resisting Russian oppression, did I get this right?


Abkhazia? South Ossetia? Tajikistani civil war? Perhaps the Nagorno-Karabakh war that is going on right now? Or it's Russia's fault that Armenia and Azerbaijan can't divide this piece of land between themselves peacefully? There are more cases that are somewhat arguable (depending on what you qualify as "Russian aggression") but I'll stop on these.

I understand it is much easier to simply blame the evil bad Russia for everything than to bother learning about the history and pre-history of those conflicts, but I'd recommend to do the latter before calling anyone an aggressor.

It is true, however, that the Chechen conflict wasn't about religion to begin with. When it just started, it was more about money and power, to say briefly. In August 1991, Jokhar Dudayev, a former Soviet army general of Chechen ethnicity, took the lead of the local nationalist movement (that was on the rise as the country was falling apart) and overthrew the local government, gained control over the republic, and started getting money from it. He and his subordinates made billions of dollars by selling the local oil directly abroad, stealing the state's wealth (pensions & other social welfare from the RF government), robbing trains passing through the Chechen territory, laundering money illegally obtained from other regions of Russia (using fake remittance advices), selling weapons to hot spots all over the world, and more. Meanwhile, the local Russians were exposed to ethinicity-related violence - robberies, rapes and murders - under complete ignorance from the Chechen police. Thousands of Slavic residents of Chechnya were forced to abandon their homes and run away, becoming refugees in their own country. Eventually, Kremlin started to get annoyed by all of this (interestingly, why?), and what happened next is known as the First Chechen War.

BUT. It's not like there were no islamists during the first war. The islamist thugs like Khattab, Basayev, Gelayev and others were under Dudayev's wing, and they did their career there. In 1996, our alcoholic president was pulled back by his advisers from the West, who urged him to stop the war. Moscow signed the Khasavyurt agreement that marked its loss in the first war. Soon, islamists became the real power in de-facto independent Chechnya, and as @HenrySwanson said, the Second Chechen War happened when Basayev & Co decided to expand their little "caliphate" by invading Dagestan (the homeland of the current UFC Lightweight Champion), using religion as their excuse.

I find it funny how some people refer to IRA as an example of "Christian terrorists", but the Chechen separatists are, of course, "not islamist, even if they are, it's Russia's fault". That's hypocrite of you, people.

Well the point of my post went right over your head didn’t it!

Ever hear the saying ‘one mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’.

I’ve referred to the IRA as Christian Terrorists in the past to illustrate that exact point, that it’s not a simple binary point, oh and you missed my point that most of the conflicts mentioned go back far further than the 90’s.

 

[FoRiZon]

I wonder what people here actually respond after all these French attacks.

Maybe some people here would change their viewpoint after all of that and also their responses.

 

[UKMikey]

I wonder what people here actually respond after all these French attacks.

Maybe some people here would change their viewpoint after all of that and also their responses.

People say this after every attack. It's like expecting us to start supporting the locking up of all disaffected young white men after Dylann Roof gunned down a bunch of African-Americans in church.

If integrated Muslims (and even freaking Iran) condemning the attacks won't change your mind, why should your cherrypicked article change ours? There aren't five or six million potential murderers in France.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/29/how-the-world-reacted-to-deadly-nice-attack
https://web.archive.org/web/2020103...orld/europe/france-terror-attack-muslims.html

 

[HenrySwanson]

Why are you still banging that drug, the report you cite doesn't agree with you, this has been pointed out more times than I care to mention, they don't even refer to it as a correlation its that ****ing weak.

"Contrary to common belief, there is not a significant correlation between levels of religious belief and peace with an r=0.14. Generally IEP considers a measure of at least r=0.5 to be significant. All correlations in Table 2 are extremely low, to the extent that no relationship was uncovered. Furthermore, the results are in divergent directions meaning that a linear connection between the presence of religion and peace is highly unlikely."

:Sigh:

We went through this with how averages work, I thought that was sorted out?

The conflict statistics don't have anything to do with the conclusions you are talking about - they show that all bar one of the conflicts with a religious element had Islam as one of, if not the sole religion. This is likely disproportionate as the other religions don't come close. I'm not even saying this proves Islam is the cause, just that it is over-represented when discussing conflicts in the year of the study. Your conclusions talk about religious belief as a whole and GPI - I'm not really sure how else to explain it without repeating myself to the boredom of other users.

And your own source says that other factors are far more significant, to such degree that a link between religion and peace doesn't exist at even a level of correlation, let alone causality!


You seem to forget that these armies have been shown to put aside those religious causes if the money is right!

You seem unaware that fighters in the groups you have mentioned are also coerced or paid, in addition to those who will do it for reasons of faith.

I do however note the use of the term 'our armed forces...', which is a rather large 'tell' in terms of subconscious bias. As a military that literally swears an oath to the head of a religious faction that is the largest on Earth is not a side issue, unless you are applying double standards.

Are they? How many of the individual soldiers did you personally interview? How many did you find transcripts of them being interviewed? How do you know the "weight" of their faith?

This does bring up an interesting point, which is how can we know how much of a religious element there are in conflicts. Would the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan have a religious element if we found out the commanders had similar "contact" with god as Bush and Blair did or would it still be classed as an "ethnic and territorial" war. What if the soldiers fighting prayed every night for victory? I think there is a distinction between these conflicts and ones like those listed in the table as a certain standard has been met (at least in the authors's eyes, one presumes) to say religion was an explicit factor in these conflicts. If it's a problem with quantifying things, do we similarly look at evidence of religious persecution and say we can't possibly know how much is going on and who the victims/perpetrators are and not draw any conclusions because of its inherent difficulty in quantifying the relevant factors? What about racial hate crimes?

 

[novcze]

If integrated Muslims (and even freaking Iran) condemning the attacks won't change your mind, why should your cherrypicked article change ours?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/29/how-the-world-reacted-to-deadly-nice-attack

Funny how Iran said in the article you posted, that this attack was provoked by French:

“This escalating vicious cycle-hate speech, provocations & violence-must be replaced by reason & sanity. We should recognize that radicalism breads more radicalism, and peace cannot be achieved with ugly provocation.”


And "conservative" muslims around the world are protesting Macron instead of bestial murders.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54751920

 

[HenrySwanson]

Funny how Iran said in the article you posted, that this attack was provoked by French:

“This escalating vicious cycle-hate speech, provocations & violence-must be replaced by reason & sanity. We should recognize that radicalism breads more radicalism, and peace cannot be achieved with ugly provocation.”


And "conservative" muslims around the world are protesting Macron instead of bestial murders.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54751920

Yeah it seems to be a case of "we condemn the violent acts but you shouldn't be insulting the Prophet in the first place".

And before we get the double standards accusations I say the same thing for Christians who express that view with regards to the murders of abortion doctors or even the Pope's "curse my mother, expect a punch" statement

 

[Scaff]

:Sigh:

We went through this with how averages work, I thought that was sorted out?

The conflict statistics don't have anything to do with the conclusions you are talking about - they show that all bar one of the conflicts with a religious element had Islam as one of, if not the sole religion. This is likely disproportionate as the other religions don't come close. I'm not even saying this proves Islam is the cause, just that it is over-represented when discussing conflicts in the year of the study. Your conclusions talk about religious belief as a whole and GPI - I'm not really sure how else to explain it without repeating myself to the boredom of other users.

And you still don’t get correlation and causality, and you’ve failed to show either.

This does bring up an interesting point, which is how can we know how much of a religious element there are in conflicts. Would the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan have a religious element if we found out the commanders had similar "contact" with god as Bush and Blair did or would it still be classed as an "ethnic and territorial" war. What if the soldiers fighting prayed every night for victory? I think there is a distinction between these conflicts and ones like those listed in the table as a certain standard has been met (at least in the authors's eyes, one presumes) to say religion was an explicit factor in these conflicts. If it's a problem with quantifying things, do we similarly look at evidence of religious persecution and say we can't possibly know how much is going on and who the victims/perpetrators are and not draw any conclusions because of its inherent difficulty in quantifying the relevant factors? What about racial hate crimes?

Now apply that equally to all faiths and you will be playing in the right ballpark.

 

[UKMikey]

Funny how Iran said in the article you posted, that this attack was provoked by French:

“This escalating vicious cycle-hate speech, provocations & violence-must be replaced by reason & sanity. We should recognize that radicalism breads more radicalism, and peace cannot be achieved with ugly provocation.”


And "conservative" muslims around the world are protesting Macron instead of bestial murders.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54751920

I'm not defending Iran but the second article contained the opinions of liberal French Muslims who condemned the attack. I'd say those opinions matter more than those outside France. To the people of France, at least.

 

[huskeR32]

I think there is a distinction between these conflicts and ones like those listed in the table as a certain standard has been met (at least in the authors's eyes, one presumes) to say religion was an explicit factor in these conflicts.

You're presuming that the author of a wiki table, who could very likely be operating from a similar bias to yours, has been exhaustive with their research? I'd say that quite nicely sums up what I've been trying to get across to you for pages now.

 

[Liquid]

Posted here for relevance given what has happened in France.

At the end of the clip, Macron additionally says that Erdoğan needs to butt out of other countries' affairs, stop lying and pack it in with insults "as a minimum" which I do find pretty funny.