HELPFUL TO WHAT END?

I put it in caps because this is CONSISTENTLY UNSPOKEN. You have a dangling adjective here. "Helpful" is describing what outcome? What are we trying to achieve?

I guess it's?:

Profiling migrants, then? Can we talk about that? We need to stop letting Muslims into the west from the Middle East? Or just the bad ones? Or like, some better surveillance? Is that the thing we need to do? Is that what we've settled on? We do we need to do what exactly, that needs help here?

Help me out here. Because I'm happy to talk about all of that, seriously, I am. Just lay bare for once what it is you want.

Tell me what I need to come to grips with. NOT "hurr hurr Sword Verses," because I ACKNOWLEDGE some super angry Muslims are inspired by the Sword Verses to blow up and shoot.

What do I need to come to grips with beyond a recognition that I already recognize?

Incredible the west's most toughest Realists who are quite certain You Liberals Just Can't Handle the Truth and are the Col. Jessep on the wall between radical Islam taking over are just super deep into blithering nonsensical post-modern truth movements. But whatever, I'm even giving you the recognition you crave. WHAT NEXT

I mean I at least have an end. Maybe it's bad, I dunno, but I at least have something of a coherent train of thought here:

- billions of Muslims are not blowing us up or shooting at us
- ergo reductive explanations for terrorism that settle on "Islam" are poor since they don't explain terrorism writ large or describe the billions of Muslims who don't terrorize people and
- they are needlessly antagonistic to people
- and in fact those explanations are inspiring consensus that lead to awful policies and decisions (e.g., the Iraq War, Presidential candidates calling Syrian kid refugees dogs, Trump looking for some kind of Muslim database)

If it's all like, "but DVaut, bro, I DON'T EVEN NEED A UTILITARIAN GOAL, I'm just truth-tellin', Islam is THE WORST." Coolest story bro. Refer to the third and fourth bullet points again and yes, I'm going to call you a flat out bigoted clown tard if you continue, no matter how sad it makes you, and I think qualitative impressions of Islam that are divorced from political outcomes and goals belong in RGT.

By the way, ITT Realists wonder aloud why they are called moronic bigots when they think the solution to terrorist activities carried out by native Europeans is solved by liberal westerners realizing horrible truths about the belief system of incoming migrants. And the effects these parasitic migrants have on the 'host society.' I guess "they" shoot up a concert hall? Oh, but not the migranty ones?

Excited to hear all about which country full of Muslims we now get to invade, or which refugees are no longer fit for entry, because a Muslim who grew up in Illinois and moved to Southern California shot up a Christmas Party.

But I get it guise, YOU DON'T EVEN NEED ANY POINT AT ALL. It's just important western liberals focus on the badguyness of the Mohammedmen, the end.

It's a very weak chain of logic but I agree with the thrust of the conclusion. If you accepted that people can see it differently because the logic is so weak then that would be better imo but whatever.

The difficulty is we cannot easily delve into the details of the argument without risking perceptions that work against the conclusions. That leads to a 'STFU' mentality which is understandable but doesn't support anything pejorative.

You keep projecting your bigotted logic on others.
We understand some people think like that - it seems including you - I and many others discussing problems with certain ideas and practices propagated by Islam don't.
If you can't deal with an argument without attacking straw men, there is no point in talking to you.

Hope this is just an empty threat, I thought you and I were really getting somewhere.

I've never understood what exactly you want from me here. I can interpret this one of three ways:

1) What is the thing I would like to ultimately accomplish?
2) What is my plan for accomplishing that?
3) What would I like YOU, or others like you, to do?

1) is the destruction of Islam as a belief system. If I had a button marked "Press this to make Islam no longer a thing" I would hammer the **** out of that in preference to doing basically anything else.

2) I don't have one. But as I've repeatedly tried to point out, this is an unfair standard to hold me to. For instance, Ben Carson and his various policy idiocies have been widely and intensively discussed on this forum, despite the fact that there are zero Carson supporters and that nobody has any plan regarding what to do about the fact that Carson is running second in the GOP race.

3) I would like you to stop promulgating obvious nonsense, such as that Islam is not a significant source of terrorism, that Islam is not particularly misogynist, or that the Hebdo victims deserved a wag of the finger for being mean.

I feel like the POLITICAL POINT argument is a bit like asking what the PRACTICAL POINT was of Franklin, Crick and Watson's discovery that DNA was a double helix. From a myopic point of view, there wasn't one. But basic knowledge of that sort lays the foundation for a lot of practical stuff later on.

So you are a fascist. Nice to know.

I get that you don't find my questions interesting but I think you are claiming that accepting some assertions about Islam is knowledge when it is very far from being so. You want certain conclusions to be true, like Islam is somehow fundamentally bad in ways that Christianity isn't despite both, in as much as beliefs actually motivate anything, being cited by those carrying out atrocious acts. This is the irony of you and VHawk01 deciding the libs are working backwards because this is what you are doing, it's why you discount alternative explanations for what is happening despite Islam being an awful explanation of these acts given so many people don't actually commit them.

Oh and thinking that Hebdo was wrong to publish cartoons of Mohammad intending to offend does not mean I think they deserved to be shot for it.

I dont think you actually know what niche population I'm talking about, even though I clearly laid it out in my post, and I certainly dont think we are talking specifically about the effect MY posting would have.

Is it that you have literally no point or response and so you figured your best option was to paint me as some sort of megalomaniac narcissist or something? The entire line of discussion at that point was that "the reason we need to be nicer to Islam is because of [insert suzzer video of idiot racists] and we dont want to encourage that."

The entire history of human progress on cultural, religious, ideological, moral and ethical fronts.

Happy to help.

Can you point it out to me how I'm doing this? Its certainly possible that I am since, like I said, its sort of the default way that human beings reason, and it takes a lot of effort to try to avoid making the mistake. Thats the main reason I post here actually, to get adversarial feedback.

Also speaking only for myself I have definitely never said anything like "Islam is bad in ways that Christianity isnt." Do you think I'm a Christian? Do you think I like Christianity or think it is a great set of beliefs? Let me disabuse you of that. Christianity is a vile belief system. It is based on fundamentally disgusting ideas like hell and scapegoating and original sin. These are deplorable ideas and they are held up as ideals. I think that, through a slow general process whereby we refused to allow people to believe disgusting things (or more accurately, to be vocal about their beliefs without social consequence and to ACT on their beliefs to the detriment of others) just because its what their religion teaches we have reached a point, at least in this country, where the actual practical damage caused by Christianity is at an all time low. That is not to say it is objectively low, because it is not, there is still a ton of harm being caused by it. Its just the best its probably ever been, and seems to be slowly getting better. Gay marriage would be the simplest example but there are countless others. When Dvaut asks what is the POLITICAL POINT or OAFK asks how we are supposed to actually DO anything, I would suggest this as a great example. Abortion in the US is legal, gay marriage is legal, evolution is taught in schools (mostly), these are amazing triumphs OVER RELIGION in a fairly short period of time and they were done without violence (mostly) and without military intervention. They were accomplished through a gradual process of elevating the debate and removing "idiotic Christian beliefs" from the protected sphere they had previous enjoyed and subjecting them to the harsh light of the sun, just like any other dumbass idea. No one had to burn any books, no one had to outlaw any religions, no one had to form roving lynch mobs and rough up a bunch of evangelical Christians in order to send them a message. It just became less and less acceptable to **** over women, gays and children because "God told me to."

Your argument that "Islam is a terrible explanation for these attacks given that so many Muslims dont commit terrorism" is a really, really poor point and I hope you understand why, but honestly I dont really even care that much about it. Terrorism is a LOLworthy part of the harm that Islam causes on a global scale. It literally doesnt matter, which is a fairly shocking point considering it results in the deaths of hundreds and thousands of people. It is still basically insignificant and certainly not my major sticking point with the "religion of peace."

With regard to my comments on Christianity they were specifically directed at ChrisV given his comments upthread however given your agreement with the post in which he made the claim it seems a reasonable inference.

So you may want to argue that Christianity is indeed a vile religion but not as bad as Islam but that doesn't seem consistent with ChrisV's view. The one you claimed was exactly right. Which is part of my argument you agree with the person who's larger view you generally agree with without concern for the rest of the views he's expressed. This is working backwards and ignoring the stuff you don't agree with.

As for my reasoning behind Islam being a terrible explanation for terrorist attacks I don't think my argument is as as poor as you do but you do this a lot as well, you tell people that surely they should see why a point they make is terrible without actually explaining why, this seems a bit daft given that they've made the point you think they shouldn't. The reason I don't think it's awful is that I don't believe that beliefs are of themselves motivational, you've read Hume you get the Humean arguments on motivation right that beliefs themselves are inert and so I'm interested in what distinguishes the believer who commits atrocious acts from the believer that doesn't.

You do realise that this thread is about the terrorist attacks right not greater problems with Islam so when I am speaking it is with reference primarily to terrorist attacks.

Chris, can you at least acknowledge that painting very large, heterogeneous groups with a broad brush due to the actions of a very small subset is a thing that sometimes happens and that it is usually bad? Lets keep this abstract for a bit. We're not talking about any specific group or any specific positions anybody itt has taken. We're solely in the meta realm of human behavior.

You are aware of this Thing I'm talking about, yes? You seem like a reasonably smart guy, so I'm assuming you have some understanding that there is a human tendency to over-simplify and stereotype and lump together very diverse out-groups because we are still driven in part by tribal thinking from our primal days on the savanna. Still with me?

OK, now I'm also going to assume you have some understanding of the concept that the cumulative advances of society since the dawn of agriculture have given us tools to counteract some of those primal traits that are less advantageous in non-tribal environments where the sociology becomes increasingly complex. Have I lost you yet? Do you see where I'm going? Can you close the loop yourself and realize that putting 23% of the world's population on your Bad People list is at best unhelpful, and potentially much worse?

Can you recognize that your desire to mash the No Islam button is a manifestation of the lazy-as-**** neanderthal part of your brain, and that it is a wildly inappropriate reaction to something as complex as terrorism in the 21st century?

Chris,

Could you ascribe % levels to each of the causes of Islamic terrorism, as you see them? For example, something like:
60% adherence to Islamic doctrine
20% secular political disagreements (deprivation of rights in the western world, or occupation and exploitation in the middle east)
18% Generalized impoverishment and the crime increases that follow from it
2% mental illness

Could you do the same for Irish Catholic terrorists and Christian pro-life terrorists?

So long as we admit that in response to the actions of .001% of Muslims, ChrisV's ultimate participation ITT is that he has a fantasy that he has a button to make Islam go away, and what he really wants is for everyone else to sit in respectful silence while he shares his thoughts about this -- I'm happy to just let this thread go. I boggle it was really contentious 58353839 posts ago when I was like "so you have some coolstories about your Islam feels, anything else?" and in the end no, actually, there was really nothing else to this but ChrisV's daydreaming about a No Islam Future. #Realists

Back on, you know, planet earth, beholden to the sad realities where we lack of "Religion: Go Away" buttons despite ChrisV's best efforts into schoolmarming liberals into creating one, the rest of have Donald Trump suggesting a Muslim tracking databases and tons of ****ing idiots agitating for more wars in the Middle East. But I concede fully that is fit for some other thread entirely too.

Yeah we could do with a whole lot less of the rolling meta-commentary.

I'm pretty sure it is consistent with ChrisV's view actually. Why do you think it isnt?
Ok, no, no it isnt. That isnt what I'm referring to at all. At worst its lazy quoting. I agree with his overall point that people keep working backwards and shifting the arguments as they get defeated because the important part is always getting to the CONCLUSION. Agreeing with this general point without explicitly nitpicking one of the lines on his list that I only 50% agreed with or something is not an example of me "ignoring stuff I dont agree with."
This is because I generally give people credit for being at least as smart as me if not smarter, and I assume that when people make really poor logical arguments, its that they made them hastily without thinking them through and that if they were encouraged to stop and really think about them (and since this is a message board there is plenty of time to do so) that they will realize why they are mistaken. And that they are much more likely to accept the error that they made if they are the one who realizes it rather than if someone points it out to them publicly. But as a hint, your argument leads to the conclusion that either "nothing is an explanation for terrorism, its unknowable" or "there is some as-yet-undetermined secret terrorism gene that we just havent found yet that 100% of terrorists have in common and 0% of non-terrorists have." Neither of these is true. Terrorism, and in general all decisions and actions, are a complex set of incentives. Islam is, IMO, quite obviously and clearly one of those incentives. How strong of one it is is hard to say, I think for "murdering innocent people" its a pretty small one and others are much bigger, I think for less "bad" actions like simply oppressing women or imprisoning gay people, it plays a bigger role. Either way step 1 is admitting that it clearly is a positive incentive. That many Muslims have enough other incentives to NOT to do these bad things is not some great defense of Islam, its a great defense of humanity.
Beliefs are not inert, I dont really even know what that means. Humans respond to incentives, the beliefs you hold are one of your incentives (via cognitive dissonance, satisfaction of goals, etc) but they arent the ONLY incentive. I think it is certainly a very interesting avenue of discussion to think about what separates the believer who commits atrocious acts from the one who doesnt, since the interplay of incentives is extremely complicated and multifactorial. But step 1 in that is not just ruling out an entire category of incentives a priori because "religion cant be bad" or "beliefs dont do anything."
It isnt really, no, its a long thread that has gone in several different directions, but I wasn't mocking you or chastising you for talking about specifically terrorism, its certainly a reasonable thing to do in this thread, I was simply saying that my personal problems (and of course, what I think everyones problems should be) with Islam are like 3% terrorism.

Taking this as obviously correct are you accepting the downside of discussing the problem of religion in the context of these terrorists attacks as a necessary short term price for the general progress with all it's long term benefits? All these costs and benefits being almost entirely for others of course.

Ok fair point and I'm certainly open to considering ways to minimize the costs. I also doubt they are as dramatic as some would insist since many of those "costs" would be incurred whether we talked about it more or not.

But I think the fact that the costs AND benefits are entirely for others at least prevents me from being overly biased one way or the other. Different than if I were, for example, a Muslim woman in Pakistan.

The majority of racists dont blow up black churches or condone it
The majority of men dont sexually assault women
The majority of smokers dont get lung cancer.

These are obviously bad arguments, and for some reason (hmmmm) they are instantly recognized as bad arguments in every other thread on this forum. But:

The majority of Muslims arent terrorists

Is put forth with a straight face as an actual argument that Islam cannot be causative for badness? I think it is actually an extremely important area of research and interest to figure out WHY 90% of smokers dont get lung cancer, and what is specifically different about the 10% or so who do, and what we can do about that or how we can use that information in the future. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt stop smoking. And "people die from colon cancer too, focusing only on lung cancer is racist!" is not a great response, just to go ahead and nip that in the bud.

Its hard to know where on that spectrum Islam falls, and it depends on if you want to focus ONLY on terrorism. If so then probably pretty close to the "racism" end of the spectrum. If you want to be more inclusive, then probably somewhere between the violence against women and the smoking categories.

Because Chris has been at pains to point out that comparisons to Christianity levy a false equivalence and it seems that he considers Islam awful in ways that Christianity isn't. I do not think his view consistent with Christianity being vile. If I'm wrong I'll accept it.

Given that you agreed with a whole bunch of strawmen I disagree. Poor arguments are not restricted to one side, there are arguments in this thread from people who I ostensibly agree with that I think are bad. DVaut's are not among them.

I don't believe this. However if you want people to understand why an argument they've made is awful you should probably tell them why, not suggest they think about it. If anything it will clarify why you think it's awful to you.

The view which is still popular in philosophy is that beliefs are not motivational, knowing there is a coke in the fridge does not motivate me to get it without a corresponding desire to quench my thirst.

Moral Motivations

So if I'm interested in what motivates acts I must look beyond some belief. Now clearly certain religious beliefs appeal to common desires and so it's not such a leap to suggest these beliefs are motivational. But what distinguishes those that act from those that don't. This I do find interesting and I am not trying to take religion out of the discussion but understand where it belongs. It is not front and centre.

Okay but I am explaining why in this thread I am concerned specifically with the motivations of terrorists. I do not agree that sans religion these acts disappear and I do not agree that Islam is worse than other religions, I think people who argue this also run the risk of considering Islam a cause when a particular interpretation or manifestation of some belief is actually an effect from other political considerations.

Proving that smoking caused lung cancer wasn't trivial was it? And I think that is a lot easier than proving Islam causes terrorism. Conflating factors are way more complicated. Very hard to tell at an individual level whether crazy people flock towards extreme ideology or extreme ideology drives people to do crazy things.

At different times communism and anarchy most other religions have "inspired" terrorism.

Does Islam even cause ISIS? Artificial borders created by imperialists from Turkey, Russia, France, and Britain are crumbling. War is not unlikely. That a particular faction has a particular ideology may not say anything about the ideology.

You might even say the same about Nazism (which I'm not equating to Islam, just the extremism with ISIS). An empire crumbled (Austria-Hungary). Artificial borders were imposed. War happened. The particular terrible ideology might not have really been the cause.

I get that, but that isnt the role the analogy was playing, right? The analogy serves the purpose of destroying the argument that "X cant cause Y if not all who do X do Y". And I'd say I dont really have a huge burden to "prove" that Islam causes badness when the people doing the badness say, over and over and over again, "I am doing this badness because of Islam" and its written right there in the manufacturers instructions on the carton of Islam that "Islam leads to badness." Seems the burden should be on the other side, the ones insisting that every single one of those people are lying or mistaken and "I really know better than they do why they are doing things."
Right....is your goal to try to make me defend communism? Not interested thanks. But again, asbestos exposure causes lung cancer too. This does not exculpate smoking.

But you do bring up a nice extension of my analogy, namely that there was a strong resistance to blaming smoking and the smoking-deniers made a ton of really persuasive, at the time, arguments. Those arguments are identical to the Islam-deniers arguments, for the most part. And the global warming deniers. Etc. This isnt proof that Islam is bad, its proof that those who are so motivated will trot out the same arguments over and over again, even when those EXACT SAME arguments are ones they would mock if the shoe was on the other foot.

And this is why in Somalia they will execute a 15 year old girl who has the misfortune of being violently raped? because of artificial imperial borders? Seems unlikely, but go on.
Again the focus on "the" cause. This is artificially raising the bar to an impossible standard so as to avoid having the discussion. I am very, very certain that nothing was "the" cause of WWII, nothing is "the" cause of terrorism or racism or misogynism, and nothing is "the" cause of lung cancer.