[General Battuta]

Right. And you can bet your socks that if, in some bizarre flip-flop, that part of the world was Christian and ours was Muslim, then we'd be dealing with Christian suicide bombing cartoon hating extremists to the exact same degree.

Which is why Kosh's decision to single out a particular religion and make simplistic statements like "Islam = intolerance" (therefore all Muslims are intolerant?) is so absurd.

[Bobboau]

if this was 500 years ago would it be inaccurate to say Christianity was intolerant/violent?
(irregardless about how you feel about today)

[Thaeris]

In many ways, yes. Of course, governments were much less tolerant and very violent indeed.

...Keep that in mind before you propogate the "all evil stems from religion" thing, as it's just not true.

[Bobboau]

no, that's not where I'm going

[General Battuta]

if this was 500 years ago would it be inaccurate to say Christianity was intolerant/violent?
(irregardless about how you feel about today)

I think it would be accurate to say that some Christians were intolerant and violent, yeah, and that the intolerance and violence of these power-holders turned into a major problem in many areas of the globe. But that problem arose because of geopolitical factors that compromised Christianity, not because of the faith itself. Islam today isn't even in the same position; in some places (Saudi Arabia) it really is as bad as Christianity 500 years ago, whereas in others (America, Australia, probably a large part of Saudi Arabia and other examples I could give for that first case) it's as inoffensive as any other major religion.

Islam, like any religion, is colored by the environment it exists in, and it in turn shapes that environment. In some places Islam is genuinely problematic, for example the Shi'a-Sunni divide in Iraq. But these problematic areas occur because people in general are intolerant assholes under certain conditions, no matter what faith they belong to.

If you're going to claim that Islam is particularly problematic than you have to cite some element of its doctrine which universally promotes this problem behavior. And the fact is, like Turambar pointed out, most Muslims are as human as the rest of us, and they really don't give a **** about all this ideological conflict any more than we care about the Westboro Baptist Church.

The problem is that we - including Kosh - have so few positive Muslim exemplars in our life that our prototype of Islam is largely informed by negative events that are widely reported. Kosh needs some quality exposure to real Muslims.

I would happily agree that Christianity 500 years ago played a role in a very negative system. But I don't think it was the root cause of that system. As always the root cause is resource allocation and human psychology. And so it is today. Any ideology can be rendered virulent.

[Flipside]

Most governments around that time were religion-centric anyway, that was part of the focus of protestantism, that the King was the direct link to God, rather than the Pope.

As I said before, the moment something like this creates a hierarchical structure, then power becomes more of a concern than goodwill, justice, understanding or peace. There's nothing wrong with having a faith, there's nothing wrong with believing homosexuality is 'wrong', but there is something wrong when a single man, be he Priest, Immam, Ayatollah, Prophet, Sage or any other title, feels that he is entitled to interpret the 'word of God' and dictate it to the group, because this is not interpretation, it is indoctrination, and just because one person does not like homosexuality, does not give him the right to form a group based on that hatred, for example.

Religion and power do not mix any better than anything else and power, it will always be subject to the whims, interpretations and prejudices of those who do the 'interpreting', much in the same way as 'what the founding fathers intended' is frequently re-interpreted depending on the position of the person doing the interpretation.

Take Evolution as an example, when Darwin announced Evolution, the Church was fine with it, the Catholic church has accepted Evolution as a given, after all, who is to say that isn't exactly what God intended, but there is power in Denial, money to be earned from those who are fearful or ignorant, and, sadly, ignorance and prejudice are some of the main leverage tools of religion, especially in poorer, more deprived areas of the world. Creationism was never about 'proving science wrong', it was about creating a power base for a 'new' style of religion, purely for the benefit of those at the top. Scientology is the Prime example of it in many ways, that's why it's hated so vehemently by other religions, because it displays the worst side of Hierarchical religion without all the stained glass windows and Gothic architecture to get in the way.

[General Battuta]

Right.

I'd be happy to join Kosh in condemning radical imams all day long. But assuming that these guys represent even a majority of Islam is the product of a cognitive fallacy.

As Flipside said the issue here is power (I've been calling it resource allocation); religion is just a tool.

[Bobboau]

so you are saying that 500 years ago all Christian were intolerant and violent, you are aware of the fact that there were many groups of Christians that did not participate in the crusades, right, you are taking the actions of the Catholic hierarchy and generalizing it onto the rest of the greater Christian.

much like how in the 1500s you had monarchs who used the Church to try and gain political advantage today in the Shiite and Sunni communities are manipulated by individuals with earthly ambitions. the collective actions of these people has unfortunately caused an environment, much like in Europe of 500 years ago, where people can be very easily manipulated via their religion. not every Muslim is brought up in this environment but in the centers of Islam this is pervasive. to say that Islam doesn't belong in this century is referring to this, the fact that what is generally referred to as the Islamic world, is dominated by the same problems that plagued Christianity centuries ago is a problem and needs to be addressed. you keep getting hung up on thinking that we are saying that all Muslims are evil, when we are talking about the cultural issues surrounding the Islam dominated parts of the world, your semantical requirements are absurd, quit trying to turn this into a sensitivity training session, we all watched sesame street when we were kids we ****ing get it now try and talk about things like an adult.

[General Battuta]

What? No, I said exactly the opposite of that. I said that 500 years ago not all Christians were intolerant and violent.

If you'll reread my last post you'll see that my analysis is essentially the same as yours.

I agree with your assessment of the problems Islam faces in certain areas of the world. Had Kosh framed his argument as being about Islam in those areas of the world (this including the geopolitical factors) he wouldn't have drawn this response.

But, my friend, he didn't.

His argument was simply "Islam = intolerance." There were no geopolitical factors included. He did not, as you claim, specify certain parts of the world or certain elements of the population.

Here:

You are making the assumption that Islam = intolerance.

It's not an assumption, it is an observation based on available literature as well as personal experiences (and the annecdotes of others). It openly expouses all kinds of massive intolerance and their society has not evolved past it.

He made a claim to unqualified knowledge about an entire religion. Note that this is explicitly unqualified: 'it', the religion, 'their society' - the society of practitioners. He did not, as others have, limit it to 'Islam in the Middle East' or 'Radical Islam' or anything of the sort. He made a claim about 'the society of Muslims'. He has established a hostile outgroup and is now producing generalizations about it.

In fact he went so far as to endorse the statement 'Islam = intolerance.' That direct. No mediating factors, no underlying variables, just black and white Baptist preacher material.

Ironically you could probably make the claim that radical Christianity has done about the same amount of damage in the last ten years, and you could come up with just as much evidence as Kosh has. Which makes singling out a particular religion even more illogical.

I think your argument is fine. Kosh's wasn't. He now seems to be trying to distance himself from it, which is wise. With luck he'll take some lessons away from this whole kerfuffle.

[Bobboau]

ok, well I'm going to wait for Kosh to comment on what I've said. I think you just misunderstood what he was trying to say.

[General Battuta]

He may have intended something different, but what he said was taken the same way by every poster on the first two pages of this thread. He should have known to qualify and parametrize his statement into something like the kind of reasonable, cogent analysis you just produced.

When he started agreeing with statements as simple as 'Islam = intolerance' he torpedoed himself. What he needed to do was specify that the toxic conflation of radical conservative Islam, the post-colonial Islamist movement, and political structures in the Middle East led to problematic radicalization. Instead he made a statement that covered the incredibly friendly Muslim guy who runs my local eyeglass store and the cute Lebanese computer science major down the hall.

He then went on in his first few posts to actively defend the position that single incidents (the Malaysia thing, the cartoon debacle) characterized the religion as a whole, rather than the religion taken in the context of the environment it existed in. As Ziame put it on IRC, it's like saying that the Catholics are a bunch of terrorists because of the IRA.

[Bobboau]

your problem is when you hear 'Islam' you assume someone is meaning the religion not the primary culture surrounding it. and the person saying it probably doesn't realize you are making this error even when you say it point blank because they are immediately put on the defensive when fifty people start screaming 'hate-monger' at them.

[General Battuta]

Well, those fifty people also made the same assumption. We've all made it clear that if he had specified 'radical Islam' or 'radical Islam in the Middle East', or taken the step to place the religion in a geopolitical context, it would've been less of an issue.

As it went, he was making claims that equated Islam on its own - the Five Pillars, basically - with radical behavior.

[Flipside]

Thing is, wear a 'Gay Pride' badge in certain parts of Alabama, and you'll certainly see that intolerance and violence are not merely the realm of the Middle Eastern cultures, there are cultures in the US that breed exactly the same kind of hatred. Yes, there are areas of Islam that still live in Middle-Aged intolerance, but if Islam doesn't belong in this century, then there are certainly several areas of Christianity that suffer from the same problem, only the Media isn't quite so eager to 'expose' those, because of the influence that they hold on home soil.

We complain about people being stoned for being Gay, or having out-of marriage relationships, and yet how is that different to the Top Gear team getting stones thrown at them in Alabama for having 'Man-Love rules' written on the side of their cars? It's the same attitude 'We don't like it, therefore it should not exist', it seems to me that mentality is rife on both sides of the divide.

As one comedian once put it, why is that, whenever an 'Islamic' point of view is needed, the News corps seek out the most radical, outspoken proponent of Islam they can find, in the UK it was captain Hook, who most certainly didn't represent most of Islam in the UK, but he was a 'show', and the Media loved him.

[Bobboau]

As it went, he was making claims that equated Islam on its own - the Five Pillars, basically - with radical behavior.

now I just finished rereading every post Kosh made in this thread, I noticed him say words like 'culture', 'societies' a lot, he is clearly not referring to the religion proper. you are putting words in his mouth.

there are certainly several areas of Christianity that suffer from the same problem,

who said there wasn't?

the difference between what happens in Alabama and what happens in Malaysia is that in Alabama it takes a friking parade for the gays to have rocks thrown at them where as in many Islamic countries it only takes an acusation of being gay to have you put to death. I think as much as it stands to improve Alabama is actually coming out quite far ahead relatively in this comparison.

[General Battuta]

I quoted it above. Here.

"Their society" applies to all Muslims. It was not parametrized.

[Flipside]

And that is because it is legal in those countries, the religious sect has too firm a grip on the Government, if it was legal to stone someone to death in Alabama, then it would happen far more often. The reason for that is the seperation of Church and State.

I'm not disagreeing that a lot of the culture surrounding Islam in the Middle East is somewhat thin on the ground as far as Human Rights are concerned, but it's only that seperation in the US that prevents it from happening, just as it's the same seperation that has prevented the WBC from being gunned down in a drive-by.

The fact is that the deliberate seperation of Religion and Government is what prevents it from happening, the religion itself in those areas would quite happily do it, were it not for a non-religious law system.

[General Battuta]

I'll happily agree that Islam causes problems in the Middle East due to its insinuation into political structures.

[Bobboau]

actualy you said that

he only went about making a case for what you proposed. and note the use of the word 'society' in said case, he was talking about the culture not the religion.

and then he goes on to talk about how he's not saying 'all Muslims' and how the problem is the governments that use the religion as a tool of control. but I guess you had more important things to do than read what he was saying.

You are making the assumption that Islam = intolerance.

It's not an assumption, it is an observation based on available literature as well as personal experiences (and the annecdotes of others). It openly expouses all kinds of massive intolerance and their society has not evolved past it. This is a real problem

You should know better than to tar all Muslims

I'm not taring all muslims, and when I criticize christianity am I taring all christians? Of course not, and to say such nonsense is to distract from the real issue with PC propaganda.

There are happy, tolerant, fair-minded Muslims on this very board.

Yeah, as though this board represents everyone in the world. I never said they don't exist.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I find your obsessive post modernism disturbing.

When for all we know, bad environment = intolerance, and it so happens that countries with bad environments also tend to be countries with a lot of Islam due to an underlying variable (Islam being popular in Third World nations, Christianity in First World.)

I'll re-iterate, in many of these countries Islam and government go hand in hand, and the religion's fundemental values is the state enforced ideology. So once again, how is religion not creating a bad environment in those states?

Maybe after Middle Eastern Islam goes through a similar transformation...

Yes, but the point I was trying to make was that is still HASN'T transformed.

[General Battuta]

While he's started to back down towards a more sane point there - and yes, of course I read it, reading posts is not difficult for me - he's still hung up on the idea that Islam creates these problems.

Again, if he'd been making the point that separation of church and state is a good thing, sure, but his first few posts were blatant flamebait and he endorsed some views that are truly asinine in their simplicity. He's guilty of making his argument too specific to Islam, endorsing what Holocaust scholars call a 'special path' analysis.

It's good that he's started to recognize what he was doing wrong in the earlier posts, but he isn't all the way there yet, as you can see from the continued discussion after that post.