Yep, I think it's more along the lines of young men all around the world want to kill and wage war, and some places in the world do a better job of curbing these behaviors than others. I don't think it is more complicated than that.

Like I say there are lots of good reasons why the two figures make poor comparisons. Jesus achieved way less than Muhammed and it took a long time before his followers really made an impact on the world.

He is selling Islamophobia and racism. He is straight up white supremacist in that most recent spew post.

From the Beirut bombing

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-1...ountless-lives

That's all you've got? Thanks for trying though.

ah, OOT, sweet bastion of hatred

Sorry to disappoint, I am not even remotely religious.

But yes, I am saying that the actual tenets of a religion are one of the least important considerations for understanding how any of its practitioners behave. For evidence, I point to thousands of years of religious history.

Wow, the man is a hero.

Look at this right-winger's (and previously banned poster, for racism) head EXPLODE at the realization that liberals, right now, are going to bat for a group of people that don't even agree with them!!

I mean, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??? People can DO that????

Too bad you'd never let him gain entry to the US because because

I agree that the tenets of a religion only matter to the extent they are believed and acted upon.

Many Catholics use birth control.

Few Christians take "turn the other cheek" literally.

But beliefs do affect behavior profoundly. Consider the difference between someone who believes he is a loser and someone who thinks he is "the man". Consider the difference between someone who thinks women are equal to men and one who thinks they are inferior and unworthy of rights. Consider the difference between someone who believes an embryo has a soul and and someone who doesn't. Consider the difference between someone who believes death is the end of experience and someone who believes it's just the beginning.

Alternatively give them a uniform and a gun and ship them overseas to 'defend the nation'.

Even if one's wrong that ideas aren't epiphenomenal it certainly can be the case that they are heavily molded and influenced by material issues.

Well, to be fair, you had even less and it didn't even count as trying. It sounded more like brainwashed crap.

None of that speaks to the claim, though. Leviticus calls for gays to be executed, but just about zero Jews or Christians regard the instruction as binding. So clearly, you can't make a necessary connection between the tenets of a religion and the attitudes of that religion's adherents.

And unless you think a given religion actually was divinely inspired, the sentiment behind a given instruction had to predate the instruction itself, no? Unless God literally told them to, whoever wrote Leviticus had to already be pretty down on the gays when they wrote that verse, right?

Bearing that in mind, the idea that people reach for the tenets to justify their predispositions, rather than becoming so disposed because of the tenets, starts to look more reasonable, doesn't it?

I think it's much more complex than that, but some naive count-the-verses appraisal of the impact of various doctrines is hopelessly simplistic.

Its important to distinguish between the arguments: Islam as a relative cultural phenomenon contributes to these attacks and Islam as a transcendent unchanging essence contributes to these attacks.

An interview with a Belgian counter intelligence officer with this insight.

https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/a-vie...federal-police

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/beca...paris-attacks/

Right wingers who made asses out of themselves yesterday

Yeah, this, too.

So then you concur that Islam isn't the problem? Because, like most religions, it offers a buffet of justifications for doing all sorts of things. Mix-n-match your own custom belief system to rationalize whatever you wish, and you still get to call yourself a Muslim!

There was a time when the Islamic world dominated all the scientific, mathematic, literary and cultural fields in a very open and tolerant society while Europe wallowed in the mud, only ceasing their internecine warfare long enough to suffer one of their many famines and plagues. Same Islamic religion then as now. Same sacred texts, same ethnic people following them. So I'm unclear on how people can claim the religion is the problem.

Good post, zz.

I think the former is still way too broad, and something like Tien's focus on Wahhabism gets a little closer to the part that matters.

The former is fully intended to be broad, that is pretty much the whole point.

People who dislocate their shoulders patting themselves on the back for how morally superior/intelligent/thoughtful they are by pointing out RW mouthbreathers are probably even more annoying than said RW mouthbreathers.

Congrats!

Yeah remember that little group that hijacked passenger planes and flew them into buildings?

The Iraq war was an unmitigated disaster, has clearly made things worse... but let's not pretend Islamic terrorism started with the invasion of Iraq.