Whoops, that's what I get for skimming too quickly. I knew MLK talked a lot about his Christianity (although was admittedly unsure of how much he effected the liberalism of Christianity) and completely blanked on there being a much more relevant Martin Luther. The general point about change from within still stands though

And when someone says Christianity I hear Christians. What is your point?

I'm not sure that I would accept your premise ("the Western left working in concert with the greater Muslim community...") but since you seem to be riffing off my post I should clarify also that I did not advance any such argument in favor of harsh condemnation of people criticizing Islam.

What is a religion other than how it is practiced by its adherents?

Well you made the example of those people, why is it people’s fault when we are aware (woke) of that? It’s your example-making, so go ahead and proceed.

It's an ideology.

Well, my understanding is that most critics of Islam orthodoxy, especially from within and especially apostates, are subject to aggressive smear campaigns from the greater Islamic world and the left.

Like I said, I can’t think of a single individual who fits this description in contemporary times who is well received for their efforts, although maybe that is just my ignorance and I am welcome to being educated with examples.

Going by these numbers, republicans are far more fearful than democrats when it comes to the topic of radical islam, and the belief that islam ultimately encourages the faithful to be violent. https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/...ional-blog.php
Why does ISIS have so many child soldiers then if streams of radical (reform) Islam do not encourage violence?

I am actually curious if this trend of Muslim secularism and liberalism in the US will continue as Muslim populations grow, become more concentrated, and shift demographically.

I suspect like in other places they will reach a threshold where they will invariably shift towards conservatism, as the social costs for being liberal become higher and for being conservative become lower.

Again, time will tell.

lol, try telling Juan there’s a social cost to being liberal in the USA, see what he says about that.

I think Kelhus is saying once everybody has to start using the same bathroom there might be some backlash. I'm not sure "social cost" is the best term there. He's arguing that Muslims aren't actually on board with the "complete liberal agenda"--which whatever that is exactly seems reasonable from my own experiences.

Why did the Vietcong have so many child soldiers? Why do Christian militias in Africa have so many child soldiers? Why did the Confederate Army have so many child soldiers? ( 18 was the minimum recruiting age for the union. There was no minimum recruiting age for the Confederacy.) Why did the Germans and the Russians at the end of World War II have so many child soldiers?

This is islamophobia by the way. It's when there are very obvious answers that have nothing to do with Islam, but that's all you're really looking for.

No it's not and you don't get to answer with a question. Why are they using so many child soldiers? Hint if you don't already know I didn't reference any other groups, but you can also add them if you'd like, as it only strengthens the point. They are using a stream of Islamic interpretation to justify it, like the youth camps do with propaganda, and so on. That's not a phobia, its a fact, jack.

Muslims already identify as liberal at a higher rate than the general population, views on homosexuality are becoming liberal at a much faster rate than among Christians and secularism is also rising more quickly than among Christians.

Unless you believe a sudden wave of fundamentalism is going to take hold there's no reason to think the trends are likely to reverse. Personally I think fundamentalist Islam is as likely to become mainstream in the US as Westboro style Christianity is.

Hi, please cite this. Thanks!

Coerce and indoctrinate are very different. Your answer is wrong though. They use child soldiers because they are weak and think they need to. The Saudis aren't using child soldiers to attack Yemen. That's because they are more powerful. The Union didn't use child soldiers while the Confederacy did because the Union was more powerful. If the USA were invaded right now and we thought we needed them, we'd have child soldiers.

Everyone tries to justify everything they do. Christians tried to justify slavery ffs.

Well, I am sure that is part of it, but I was actually referring to how your local demographic population is going to exert social pressure on you to conform. For example, if you are an educated tech programmer and live in San Francisco and are the only Muslim on the block, there is probably going to be a lot of social pressure to accept homosexuality.

But if you live in a predominantly lower-class Muslim ethnic ghetto in Michigan there might be social pressure pushing you the other way. In other countries (eg. Britain) where Muslim populations have tended to become concentrated in less affluent, ethnic ghettos, attitudes seem to have shifted to becoming more culturally conservative; and I wonder if the same trends will happen here.

It's happened before in other places as the population has increased and become more concentrated, although as one would expect this is tied a lot into economic factors.

This is an interesting post because ISIS was actually a Western/Saudi proxy army. So you've got the Saudis not needing child soldiers and needing them at the same time (more or less).
I'd guess isis wasn't actually filled with child soldiers to begin with though.

Well, probably not until they started losing.

Anyways, doesn’t pretty much every movie glorify the child soldier who does what needs to be done for the cause in times of greatest need?

The Last Matrix movie, Empire of the Sun, and many of the X Men movies come to mind off the top of my head, but there has been a lot.

https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/...-social-views/

Various tables in that link show:

• 30% of Muslims identify as politically liberal, 28% of total population
• Proportion of Muslims accepting of homosexuality rose from 27% to 52% over the last decade, Christianity from 39% to 52% (I just noticed that I missed Catholics, who have always tended to be more accepting which means rate of change is unsurprisingly slower)

https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/...and-practices/

First table there shows that Muslims considering their religion to be very important to their lives is trending down, while for Christians it's trending up.

Micro, I used both words because they mean different things, and they are both applicable when giving the correct answer, which is what I gave you. Sure they're weak, that's partially why it's easier to coerce and indoctrinate (and coersively indoctrinate) them.

As for justification, sure, every group does it. Highlighting that stream of a religion for their dastardly behavior doesn't equate to manic phobia.

And their patriotic service and sacrifice would be extolled and glorified as much as ISIS propaganda did with their child mujahideen.

My understanding is a lot of historical data on "Muslims" in the US is confounded by a significant number of black inmates converting to Islam in prison and then many of them abandoning the practice at some point after they get out. I admit I don't know if the data you are using accounts for this somehow.

Is there any evidence of a causal relationship between professed adherence to Islam and reliance on child soldiers?

Put differently, does professed adherence to Islam (as opposed to a different religion) make a group more likely to use child soldiers or more likely to use religion as a tool of indoctrination.

Given the overwhelming number of historical counterexamples, I find it extremely unlikely that there is a strong causal relationship that is specific to Islam.