Mohammedans (EB could be a prejudiced bigot, but at least he's not Dot)

[Twitter bArt]

She was kidnapped and killed by a bunch of damn dirty muslims.

if AD weren't here I'd say redundant

[AD]

if AD weren't here I'd say redundant

That's the thing I hate most about Muslims.

[Twitter bArt]

that they kidnap and kill...

[AD]

that they kidnap and kill...

That people think I am one.

[Twitter bArt]

i was referring to you being a Muslim sympathizer

[Twitter bArt]

you are definitely no Muslim

[Twitter bArt]

too metrosexual to pass off as a Muslim

[AD]

i was referring to you being a Muslim sympathizer

I'm a people person Arts. I love, I don't hate. I don't discriminate.

[Twitter bArt]

Religion is part of culture and culture will vary from group to group. What I would caution you against is trying to infer conclusions on "dangerousity" that would be applicable to Islam as a whole -it's just as unjust to claim that a perfectly peaceful follower of Islam in Jakarta, New York or London is somehow more prone to being dangerous (in ideas or acts) because of his faith than to claim that a black kid from a perfectly good home is more prone to being dumb. The problem with sweeping generalizations is that they sweep so large that they mostly catch people that are not what you label them (and exonerate people that would fit that label).

You want to say that there is a problem with radical islam, fine. But, you are wrong when you casually take that huge leap that goes from that and extends it to the whole of islam (ie. the belief of muslims). If you accept, as you state in your post above, that religion has little to do with it then it's futile to focus on it.

and D thinks I repeat muself

[Twitter bArt]

I'm a people person Arts. I love, I don't hate. I don't discriminate.

a great men and would have made an even better MVP

[Twitter bArt]

But AD and EB both speak english.

but they think in different languages

[AD]

Or perhaps socio-economic status?

Like how he's a right wing Canadian country bumpkin from suspect lineage and I'm an aristocratic liberal urban educated elite?

[Twitter bArt]

can these guys be trusted as reporting factual data

UberFacts ‏@UberFacts
ISIS released a Youtube video that showed jihadist militants recruiting young boys by giving them ice cream and cotton candy.

[Twitter bArt]

should we consult Rico on the bumpkins

[Twitter bArt]

it was AD's resolution not mine

[IcE ColD]

Exactly.

Language is the reason for all the shit in the world.


If all spoke English, this thread wouldn't exist.

Ta yeule, sti

[Twitter bArt]

I vote NDP

again proving AD's point

[Dr_Chimera]

if AD weren't here I'd say redundant

Yes, but did you know that eb has a particular set of skills? Skills he acquired over a very long career?

[jester]

I'm talking about the difference between american jews and american christians, muslims, mormons, Scientologists, etc.

You realize that the majority of the Jewish population lives in predominantly liberal political environments, right? Comparing a NYC anything to an Arkansas anything is going to display considerable difference.

This is without getting into the educational and professional trends in these groups.

[Sturminator]

Islam's deepest issue is that it built a new civilization that couldn't conceive of secularism without being an Uncle Tom, or a coconut, as the anglophone Akhis in IS and AQ are fond of saying. Muhammad's theocracy presided over all secular issues from the start, and there was no precedent other than Mosaic law. Iran and the Kurds swivel between Mecca and their former culture Islam placed itself upon. Islam is qualitatively different there because it encroached upon something that was already coherent. Islam never truly took root in the Balkans like it did elsewhere in the Ottoman strongholds because their culture was already fully formed.

Yes, Islam is essentially the beginning and end of Arab culture. No great wonder they're stuck in medieval modes of thinking; the idea of an Arab renaissance is ludicrous because there is nothing to which they might go back. But this is a problem of Arab culture, specifically, not Islam generally. Other Muslim groups do not choke in the same vacuum that the Arabs do.

The real lessons here are probably that:

1) when religion (any religion) is the fulcrum of culture, clusterfuckery ensues.

2) the Arabs are fucked. Their empire grew much faster than their culture, and they simply could not keep their shit together. As a result of their glorious past, they continue to suffer from delusions of grandeur and cultural chauvinism grossly out of proportion to the actual substance of their culture.

[AD]

Islam's deepest issue is that it built a new civilization that couldn't conceive of secularism without being an Uncle Tom, or a coconut, as the anglophone Akhis in IS and AQ are fond of saying. Muhammad's theocracy presided over all secular issues from the start, and there was no precedent other than Mosaic law. Iran and the Kurds swivel between Mecca and their former culture Islam placed itself upon. Islam is qualitatively different there because it encroached upon something that was already coherent. Islam never truly took root in the Balkans like it did elsewhere in the Ottoman strongholds because their culture was already fully formed.

Christianity was built to inhabit the non-secular realms, and it's intrusions there were reactionary and manufactured. Christianity was built on a Greco-Roman-German culture that was already formed that handled all secular practical laws. In the Renaissance, Europeans who relied on Salic Law and Corpus Juris Civilis had reified Roman institutions, as Machiavelli reified the mentality of pre-Christian statecraft that was beyond good or evil. As soon as The Discourses was printed, Christianity was obsolete as a cultural force. There never could be a Muslim Machiavelli because there was no institution to reify that wasn't foreign and from and for those massacring and colonizing you.

So emotional authenticity, much needed in times of historic turmoil and upheaval, can only lead back to Muhammad, and those of his interpreters who most resonate with minds assaulted by the Kuffar, like Ibn Taimiyyah whose severity and egotism was spurred by the Mongol destruction of Baghdad. It doesn't help any that Taimiyyah's intellectual progeny own the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, and that we're acting the part of the Mongols.

Yeah. And the strength of that "Islam in a vacuum" version of Islam is a result of oil money. The development of Islam for 1400 years was pretty normal. Even the interplay between secularity and Islam.

Nasser was the logical next step in the development of Arab political identity. The influence that Saudi Arabia and the Brotherhood has now is unnatural.

[Twitter bArt]

see, we're starting to get to the bottom of this. eb is a leafs fan who votes ndp. it's obvious now that his lines between belief and reality are blurred.

any chance you can recap this thread (ie where everybody stands-ie point of view) in a simple to follow chart

[Twitter bArt]

and i was just starting to follow the discourse...

[RTWAP]

Of course it's 'like' every religion. It's a matter of degree, not type.

What do you think of the observation that Muslim Americans (presumably among the most progressive muslims in the world, no?) are similar to evangelical, jehovah, and mormons (presumably among the least progressive christians in the world)?

So Muslims aren't especially conservative in the country that tends to foster very conservative versions of most religions, relative to the rest of the world. That sounds like a bonus for Islam, doesn't it?

[Craig]

Only christians. American jews, buddhists, etc. aren't

Evangelical Christians are Christians and there's like 90 million of them in America.

[Craig]

?

Evangelical Christians are very conservative.

[Craig]

I read your period as a comma. My bad.

[chicpea]

Oh, my goodness. I have 2,600 posts to read here. And will I be a better person at the end of it? Or will you be a worse one?

edit: for the record, I quite enjoyed those charts, Big Dee. Very pretty and fun. Like Joyce DeWitt.

[Sturminator]

I have faith in one thing: you can't reduce people to their history.

Groups of people do occasionally have new ideas beaten into them, yes. It would be pretty sweet if the Arabs went the way of the Japs and emerged from their coming cataclysm with a newfound love for blue hair, tentacle porn, robots and public groping. We shall see. At this point, they're like junkies who have not yet seen rock bottom.

[Twitter bArt]

The Economist explains
Why Islam prohibits images of Muhammad