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OT: The News Thread

MindzEye said:
I don't necessarily disagree with this. With that said, I think there is something special (in 2017 anyway) about Islam that radicalizes nutters into, for example, turning themself into a not so smart bomb at a ****ing Ariana Grande concert.
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The notion that there is a vast Muslim majority of peaceful, tolerant, followers is nonsense.

The vast MINORITY are terrorists, of course...but...

[video=youtube;g7TAAw3oQvg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7TAAw3oQvg[/video]
 
While I agree with his general idea here, I don't know if equating supporting sharia = radicalized. Morally confused, sure but radicalized? Nah

That and the constant goal post changing takes a lot away from any conclusion he's going to reach. Frankly, twits like Shapiro are part of the problem in the conversation on the problems of islam
 
I think radicalized might be the wrong word too.

But his general point is that there is a huge swath of people that actually align more with an extremist Islamic religion than a moderate one.

Further, that so many in the media try to paint a picture that Islam is either terrorists or moderates. And that most certainly isn't the case.
 
MindzEye said:
That and the constant goal post changing takes a lot away from any conclusion he's going to reach. Frankly, twits like Shapiro are part of the problem in the conversation on the problems of islam
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It's not like he's claiming it to be a scientific study. It's to highlight the fact that we literally have 10's of millions of people who are the Islamic equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.
 
corksens said:
It's not like he's claiming it to be a scientific study. It's to highlight the fact that we literally have 10's of millions of people who are the Islamic equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.
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Which is roughly 25% of the United States as far as beliefs go.
 
For everyone getting their kicks out of every leak coming out of Washington about trump, this is the downside of what's going on.

These leaks actually need to stop, and really soon, because whoever is doing it doesn't care what harm their leaks are doing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...leaking-manchester-terror-attack-information/

Amber Rudd has criticised US security services for leaking information relating to the Manchester terror attack with the Home Secretary warning Washington it must not happen again.

A number of details including the identity of the attacker and the death toll entered the public domain in the immediate aftermath of the suicide bombing with the information reportedly leaked by security officials in America.

Ms Rudd described those leaks as “irritating” as she said that the UK had told its key security ally to stop releasing information which British police do not want publicly known.

She was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether she intended to look at the issue of information sharing which may be working against the wishes of the police.

She said: “Yes quite frankly. The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise, so it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again.”

Ms Rudd was also asked whether the American leaks had compromised the investigation.

She said: “I wouldn’t go that far but I can say that they are perfectly clear about the situation and that it shouldn’t happen again.”
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They need to find whoever is leaking this information and stick them in jail for a very very long time.

This is unacceptable.
 
corksens said:
And fortunately they've largely managed to keep that nonsense in check.
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Sure, but it underlines how useless (and in this case, broad) a term "radical" is. Using Shapiro's set of moving goal posts, one would have to conclude that 25% of the United States is comprised of religious radicals. Which is why I think Shapiro's either a moron, or intentionally disingenuous in his take on the matter.

I'm definitely in agreement that there is a special something about Islam that makes it particularly dangerous as far as religious belief systems go (There's definitely a pile more social engineering involved in Islam than in Christianity), but I really don't see where Shapiro's point is remotely helpful in the conversation. A much better place to start from imo is Majid Nawaz and his point on using Islamism as the dividing line. It's a pretty straight line that cuts through the muslim world. You either believe specifically in the political supremacy of Islam, or you don't. Within the group that do, to find those with legitimately radical views, you need to find those who believe in the application of violence to bend non believers to the will of their religious doctrines. That's a legitimately radical belief system that is dangerous and needs curb stomping. It's out of that pile of shit that the weed of modern jihad grows.

The reason why simply using belief in Sharia as the jump off point for determining a radical is that there is a shit ton of variation on which aspects of Sharia are supported where. For example, in Pakistan, where 84% are in favour of Sharia being the law of the land, 64% think that it should only apply to Muslims and not be forced upon non believers....Most countries polled by Pew on that question came back with that same answer in the majority. The major driver behind those who want Sharia as the law of the land tends to stem from it's abilities to handle property and family disputes as well (again borrowing data from one of many sets Pew has released on the matter) and not the more violent aspects of Sharia (though there are a number of countries that are big fans of killing apostates and cheating wives....). There's a lot of room in that shitty belief system for bad, terrible, but non radical ideas and trying to play number games like Shapiro did in the video is a combination of greasy and unhelpful.
 
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corksens said:
It's not like he's claiming it to be a scientific study.
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But he's expecting to assume he's being honest or remotely accurate...and he's just not achieving either.

It's to highlight the fact that we literally have 10's of millions of people who are the Islamic equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.
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Except he didn't highlight that...he stated that we have 100's of millions, not 10's of millions. It's impossible to fix a problem without properly understanding it. If you're going to discuss the problem of Islam in the world and your starting point is "Anyone who states that they agree with Sharia law is a radical", you've created an impassable road block. Which I'm sure was part of his point, he's not an honest actor in this conversation.
 
MindzEye said:
But he's expecting to assume he's being honest or remotely accurate...and he's just not achieving either.



Except he didn't highlight that...he stated that we have 100's of millions, not 10's of millions. It's impossible to fix a problem without properly understanding it. If you're going to discuss the problem of Islam in the world and your starting point is "Anyone who states that they agree with Sharia law is a radical", you've created an impassable road block. Which I'm sure was part of his point, he's not an honest actor in this conversation.
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Because we do - alot of what he describes is as radical is more than just the WBC line of thinking.

Sam Harris also touches on this topic @ 3:15.

[video=youtube;vln9D81eO60]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60[/video]
 
Something Sam said in there was a powerful point though about the difference between Islamists and Jihadists (and completely in step with my overall point here which is pretty close to being in goose step with Sam Harris, I differ in some minor bits on the overall point but that's about it) is that many/most Islamists, don't advocate the use of violence as a means of achieving their goals. They have shitty regressive beliefs, but they're not radicalized in any functional sense of the word. You can have bad ideas without being a radical.

With that said, the weed of jihadism absolutely grows out of the horseshit that is Islamism, but the approach to dealing with the two problems has to be different, because they're not the same problem. One is an issue of dealing with violence and the radicalization of young men (many now, in the western world) and the other is in how to combat bad ideas on a global scale. There's some common denominators here (hi Saudi Arabia :seeya:) so while their venn diagrams overlap somewhat, they're not the same issue and don't have the same cure.
 
How did the christians stop?
Sure there are still some *******s...hey Westboro...but in general, christians stopped killing everyone that didn't agree with them a while back. How and why?

Is it as simple as money, or more specifically, being comfortable as opposed to struggling every day?

How did the West change, because maybe therein lies the answer for the East.
 
Bleedsblue&white said:
How did the christians stop?
Sure there are still some *******s...hey Westboro...but in general, christians stopped killing everyone that didn't agree with them a while back. How and why?

Is it as simple as money, or more specifically, being comfortable as opposed to struggling every day?

How did the West change, because maybe therein lies the answer for the East.
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They had a reformation.
 
corksens said:
They had a reformation.
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Which is exactly what we should be trying to help Islam achieve...and we don't get there by calling a Billion of them "radical". We get there by trying to isolating the proper nutters (by their scale, not ours) from the rest of the group, and then allowing legitimate Islamic reformers the freedom and safety to win hearts and minds with arguments from within the religion. Another point Sam Harris has made regarding the Christian reformation is the massive amount of water carrying one simple line in the bible has done, the "render unto caesar" line basically does the theological heavy lifting for dividing church and state. It's in our best interests to create as solid an atmosphere as we can for the islamic reformers to find their own "render unto caesar" arguments in theirs texts.

As they liberalize, other bad ideas currently sanctioned by the faith (and there's a lot) will also get cast aside.
 
MindzEye said:
Which is exactly what we should be trying to help Islam achieve...and we don't get there by calling a Billion of them "radical". We get there by trying to isolating the proper nutters (by their scale, not ours) from the rest of the group, and then allowing legitimate Islamic reformers the freedom and safety to win hearts and minds with arguments from within the religion. Another point Sam Harris has made regarding the Christian reformation is the massive amount of water carrying one simple line in the bible has done, the "render unto caesar" line basically does the theological heavy lifting for dividing church and state. It's in our best interests to create as solid an atmosphere as we can for the islamic reformers to find their own "render unto caesar" arguments in theirs texts.

As they liberalize, other bad ideas currently sanctioned by the faith (and there's a lot) will also get cast aside.
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We need more Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and less Linda Sarsour.

This starts with the Left, in my opinion. They are the ones who need to stop associating this desire and need for change, with 'islamophobia' and racism.

[video=youtube;EJbzokPbpiE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJbzokPbpiE&t=693s[/video]
 
Sure, but that's a direct reaction (an over reaction, but still) to the racism of white nationalism. With that said, both the chicken and the egg need to **** off.
 
1) Christians, up to a certain point, were not fundamentalist (despite what we see in the US today - that's a deviation). Violent fanatics, yes, but literalists re: scripture, not so much. That might have been an opening re: secularization. The Reformation was obviously important, so were a guys like Descartes et al. a lot of whom were Mary Worshippers.

2) Europe was notoriously unruly. Non-conformist warlords took religion into weird and wonderful directions. It resulted in appalling violence too, but it may have also put clerical matters on the back burner. Some religious violence was just the pretext for cyncial land grabs. See what the greedy nobles in Northern France did to the Cathars in Beziers and Carcassonne (with the Pope's blessing). But some of these greedy noble were patrons on science, especially if it meant military might.
 
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