The only ones whining in this thread are the ones grossly offended by cartoon drawings of 7th century warlords.

No, it isnt. Are you of the belief that nothing can be anything? We've done this before. Why CANT Islam be a violent religion? Can any religion be a violent religion? Can any thing be a violent thing? Can any thing be a thing thing? This is the sophist trap you are getting yourself into because you are afraid to say bad things about people. Which I'm sure fly will jump all over you for, since he has such a strong "anti-fear of saying bad things about people" stance.

I just dont get this reactionary fear. It is NOT a nonsense question to ask if Islam can be a violent religion. The answer may be yes, the answer may be no, the answer may be "it is a complex issue and there is no clear yes or no answer." But it is just laziness to say its a ridiculous question. Is Neo-nazism a hateful ideology? WHAT A RIDICULOUS QUESTION! Is Doctors Without Borders a charitable organization? NO ONE WITH HALF A BRAIN WOULD EVEN CONSIDER SUCH A QUESTION! Things cant have adjectives! They are complex and mixed and all colors of the rainbow!

It would actually be quite the feat for Islam to be a peaceful, enlightened religion, considering the time period in which its tenets were set down. It was a much more violent world, and a much more violent people, and violence was a much more acceptable way of solving problems. Christianity is an extremely violent religion. Christians arent violent, generally, like Muslims arent violent, but thats not BECAUSE of Christianity. Its in spite of it.

Then basically w/e. Seems like the crux of the thread is whether or not these demonstrations are Islamaphobic.

I didn't spend any effort trying to figure out how much credit to give Paul. He seemed to be referring to the guy in the SS shirt as a Nazi. A snarky comment about whoever was making that SS guy happy doesn't constitute calling anyone else a Nazi imo, but w/e if you disagree. You can argue with Paul about that.

I don't see pauld calling anybody a Nazi in the post you quoted.

It's not because Islam is or isn't violent, it's because it's both. It's too complicated for a yes/no answer. I get jumped all over somewhat often by various brainiacs and generally don't go out of my way to avoid it.

So, that's why no one with half a brain would just say yes or no. Why might they avoid the question? Well, perhaps because it's not helpful or useful in anyway. I certainly don't always follow the precept "don't say anything unless it's true, kind and helpful", but it's quite possible that people who do are wiser than I am.

Jesus vhawk, nobody here cares about your SMP "well aren't all religions violent?" bull****. When people want to talk about how Islam is a violent religion it's from the belief that it is uniquely so. If you want to have a conversation that nobody else in this thread is having, then take it somewhere else.

Well I'm glad the "religion of peace" idiocy has been finally beaten down and defeated.

SMPers seem like the sorts of dudes who want extra credit for showing their work for like, basic math.

vhawk, kid, you're ****ing YOU. Everyone else has skipped the steps you're struggling with.

When Microbet said
He meant that
For like, everyone else, it's that third one. Duh. Have you even like, read a book?

It's ridiculous because the answer is obvious, and it's ridiculous because given that obviousness the question is clearly just an excuse to say awful **** about a widely despised minority.

I realize it's not obvious coming from the position of unlimited ignorance and tortuous deduction from first principles that is the standard method of ending up wrong in the intellectual ghetto of stupid racists you generally confine yourself to. But like you should know by now, SMP is unusual. Everywhere else is full of people who know what the **** they are talking about.

.... what?

Dude, that post wasn't a troll of you, it was mockery of you. Me and the other growedups were having a laff at your expense.

Okay, so Vhawk et. al are not a Nazis per se, they're just deeply sympathetic toward the concerns of Nazi bikers vis a vis the neighborhood mosque. Can we move the discussion toward figuring out how weird it is that yous guys are marching in lockstep with the meth-addled white trash thugs? That's got to be a bit embarrassing for you.

Can you enumerate which posters here are personally offended by pictures of Mohammed?

Islam being a religion centered around violence is a fact. Both the Quran and Hadiths instruct muslims to either fight non-believers or force them to pay tribute/tax.

From the Quran:

'Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued' 9:29'

One of numerous Hadiths.

Yes, you guys are right that the vast majority of Muslims live peaceful lives. That doesn't mean that Islam is a peaceful religion. It actually advocates for quite a lot of violence.

Why do I feel like I'm one of the only people itt who has actually read the Quran?

If you actually read the Quran, you would have "reverted" to Islam. That's what i'm told anyway, or rather have read, in the past when I would RGT or make the mistake of reading comments on certain articles.

Seriously though, if there is an ideology or culture which indicates a direct threat to my existence , calls for the death of me or my family, or when practiced literally changes the fundamentals of the society that I live in and want to continue living in, why is it considered "phobic" to be aware of it?

Or is it simply an assumed extension that anyone aware of cultures / ideologies / groups who have those beliefs and then talks about it must be existing in a universe in which they think they are 24/7 under threat or that someone is "coming for them" almost like someone on a bad trip?

Is there some kind of happy medium?

Yup I think it is an important distinction in recognizing that nearly all Muslim people are peaceful, but that the religion itself has a miasma of violence. Mohammed lived a violent life, and preached that violence to his followers.

What's perhaps the worst/most tragic aspect of his teachings is that it permits attacks on innocent civilians in the name of the religion.

Isn't it a positive thing to desensitize Islam at large to depictions of the prophet through continued depiction? Of course, it is only a tiny tiny fraction who would commit violence against someone who draws the prophet, but wouldn't that fraction then be decreased?

As a point of comparison, as abortion and homosexuality become more and more mainstream in America, aren't we seeing fewer and fewer incidents of violence by Christian fanatics, and fewer Christian fanatics in general? I don't have the numbers on this, it just seems intuitively true.

How totally unlike every other religion.

Lol, Christianity and Judaism are violent religions by that metric. But you guys don't seem to worried about it even though there are extremists in both those sects.

I guess brown people really rustle your jimmies and you can't be honest about it.

The worst, most tragic aspect of any religion I know is the Christian idea that conquest, subjugation, and torture can all be done for the good of the victims' eternal souls.

That's hardly the entirety of Christianity though, either the theory or how it's actually practiced.

There are not extremists in these sects anything like the Islamists, either in numbers or propensity for violence.

The Tsarnaev brothers who blew up a bomb at the Boston marathon were Caucasian.

Extremist Islam spreads across many races, regions, and causes. Boko Haram is not the same race as Islamic State is not the same race as the Chechen separatists is not the same race as Jemaah Islamiyah.

The thread that unites is their religion, and the methods that they use in service of whatever their goals are. They target and kill innocent civilians.

Christians have more than enough warmongers in the mainstream to make up for any lacking extremists.

Bringing up something that was done a millennium ago and not done in 2015 (or anytime in the past couple of centuries) is relevant in your mind?

These arguments are so dishonest. What in your mind is leading you to go so far out of your way to obliquely defend an obviously violent religion? And don't pretend the "but this other religion was bad a few hundred years ago" isn't a defense.

Don't look now, but over in Texas there's an entire gang of these violent, bulling dip****s intimidating a mosque.

George W. Bush fabricated a case to go to war with Iraq because God told him to.

Ohai, Mr. Cherry Picker.

Females in Africa get circumcised by Christians. The Olympic park bombing was done in the name of Christianity. How many abortion doctors have been killed in the name of God? Do you really want to delve into the historical violence associated with Christianity?

It's kind of telling you Islamophobes are racist and bigots when you focus on one religions for extremist violence and ignore other religions for the same crap.