Europe submits voluntarily

[metacristi]

As a side note to my last post, Maimonides left us an account of mainstream Islamic philosophy during the Middle Ages:

Human intellect does not perceive any reason why a body should be in a certain place instead of being in another. In the same manner they say that reason admits the possibility that an existing being should be larger or smaller than it really is, or that it should be different in form and position from what it really is; e.g., a man might have the height of a mountain, might have several heads, and fly in the air; or an elephant might be as small as an insect, or an insect as huge as an elephant. This method of admitting possibilities is applied to the whole Universe. Whenever they affirm that a thing belongs to this class of admitted possibilities, they say that it can have this form and that it is also possible that it be found differently, and that the one form is not more possible than the other; but they do not ask whether the reality confirms their assumption....[They say] fire causes heat, water causes cold, in accordance with a certain habit; but it is logically not impossible that a deviation from this habit should occur, namely, that fire should cause cold, move downward, and still be fire; that the water should cause heat, move upward, and still be water. On this foundation their whole [intellectual] fabric is constructed."

God is primarily Willpower not Reason in islam, he does not act via secondary causes like the laws of Nature, no point to try to find laws of nature (moreover it is blasphemy to even try to guess his actions). No chance to develop Science given also the high level of coercion existent.

 

[Jokodo]

That's not how it comes across. It rather looks like you blame it on Islam whenever a Muslim has been within shouting distance.

And a comparison of the murder rates doesn't show the real picture. Most American murders are criminal on criminal and pose very little threat to non-criminals. The Islam-driven murders are of innocents, not fellow Islamists.

Everywhere in the world, criminals are at greater risk from other criminals than the population at large.

But hey, let's ignore that and pretend that all of this applies to not one of Germany's 5-600 annual completed homicides: Are you willing to go on record explicitly claiming that out of the 17,500 murders the US had in 2015, significantly less than 2500 (about the number we'd expect if the US had Germany's rate, already corrected for population) are of "innocents", and more than 15,000 criminal-on-criminal murders?

Do you have any figures to back that up?

Or is this just another red herring?

A follow up: I did not find a breakdown of US murders by whether or not they are due to gang infighting, but there are proxies we can use.

Loren Pechtel, I hope we can agree that the kind of "criminal on criminal" murders you claim are what makes the US rate so high are an almost exclusively male story. Sure, women can be criminals, but even female criminals are rarely if ever directly involved in gang shootouts. With me so far?

So if your story is right, we expect a highly elevated male to female ratio in murder rates in the US relative to e. g. Germany, right? The non-criminals that get randomly murdered should have a largely similar composition by gender, but the criminal on criminal murders, having almost exclusively male victims, should show up big time in the totals. Still with me?

It gets better: We can even use the degree to which the male-to-female ratio of murder victimization is elevated as a proxy to gauge the share of criminal-on-criminal murders in the US total. In other words, if you're right and the US murder rate is useless for the reasons you claim, we can just use the female murder victimization rate to gauge, at least roughly, the relative safety level of both countries instead. And we have those data:  Homicide_statistics_by_gender. And yes, the US does have an elevated male-to-female ratio of murder victims, but that doesn't fully explain its higher overall rate.

When you do the math, it turns out that even so, the US is at least 2.5 times more dangerous than Germany.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's not how it comes across. It rather looks like you blame it on Islam whenever a Muslim has been within shouting distance.

Because the cases where Muslims kill in ways that make the news are almost always religiously driven. The crimes that aren't religious in nature aren't big news.

And a comparison of the murder rates doesn't show the real picture. Most American murders are criminal on criminal and pose very little threat to non-criminals. The Islam-driven murders are of innocents, not fellow Islamists.

Everywhere in the world, criminals are at greater risk from other criminals than the population at large.

But hey, let's ignore that and pretend that all of this applies to not one of Germany's 5-600 annual completed homicides: Are you willing to go on record explicitly claiming that out of the 17,500 murders the US had in 2015, significantly less than 2500 (about the number we'd expect if the US had Germany's rate, already corrected for population) are of "innocents", and more than 15,000 criminal-on-criminal murders?

Do you have any figures to back that up?

Or is this just another red herring?

What I'm saying is that you are lumping all murders together and comparing the result.

I'm saying there are multiple categories of murder and they pose very different threat profiles.

1) Criminal on criminal. This is generally the majority of murders. These murders usually only pose a threat to non-criminals in areas where the criminals are so powerful that they will casually eliminate those in their way. (Pretty much only in cartel territory.) Defense: Don't be a criminal.

2) Domestic violence. Mostly this only poses a threat to those who are in violent relationships, although occasionally it also threatens the children of such a relationship. Defense: Exit the relationship at the first sign your partner is likely to engage in domestic violence.

3) Terrorism. Defense: ??? There isn't really one.

This is why people evaluate the threat of terrorism much higher than the raw murder rate indicates.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A follow up: I did not find a breakdown of US murders by whether or not they are due to gang infighting, but there are proxies we can use.

Loren Pechtel, I hope we can agree that the kind of "criminal on criminal" murders you claim are what makes the US rate so high are an almost exclusively male story. Sure, women can be criminals, but even female criminals are rarely if ever directly involved in gang shootouts. With me so far?

So if your story is right, we expect a highly elevated male to female ratio in murder rates in the US relative to e. g. Germany, right? The non-criminals that get randomly murdered should have a largely similar composition by gender, but the criminal on criminal murders, having almost exclusively male victims, should show up big time in the totals. Still with me?

It gets better: We can even use the degree to which the male-to-female ratio of murder victimization is elevated as a proxy to gauge the share of criminal-on-criminal murders in the US total. In other words, if you're right and the US murder rate is useless for the reasons you claim, we can just use the female murder victimization rate to gauge, at least roughly, the relative safety level of both countries instead. And we have those data:  Homicide_statistics_by_gender. And yes, the US does have an elevated male-to-female ratio of murder victims, but that doesn't fully explain its higher overall rate.

When you do the math, it turns out that even so, the US is at least 2.5 times more dangerous than Germany.

Your proxy is inadequate as you missed the domestic violence case.

 

[Jokodo]

A follow up: I did not find a breakdown of US murders by whether or not they are due to gang infighting, but there are proxies we can use.

Loren Pechtel, I hope we can agree that the kind of "criminal on criminal" murders you claim are what makes the US rate so high are an almost exclusively male story. Sure, women can be criminals, but even female criminals are rarely if ever directly involved in gang shootouts. With me so far?

So if your story is right, we expect a highly elevated male to female ratio in murder rates in the US relative to e. g. Germany, right? The non-criminals that get randomly murdered should have a largely similar composition by gender, but the criminal on criminal murders, having almost exclusively male victims, should show up big time in the totals. Still with me?

It gets better: We can even use the degree to which the male-to-female ratio of murder victimization is elevated as a proxy to gauge the share of criminal-on-criminal murders in the US total. In other words, if you're right and the US murder rate is useless for the reasons you claim, we can just use the female murder victimization rate to gauge, at least roughly, the relative safety level of both countries instead. And we have those data:  Homicide_statistics_by_gender. And yes, the US does have an elevated male-to-female ratio of murder victims, but that doesn't fully explain its higher overall rate.

When you do the math, it turns out that even so, the US is at least 2.5 times more dangerous than Germany.

Your proxy is inadequate as you missed the domestic violence case.

At this point, you aren't even hiding that you're making up shit.

Also, you realise that if that's your new excuse for why Germany's female murder victimization rate too is on 40% of the US's, you implicitly making the claim that the US has an enormous (not in absolute terms (only) but relative to other countries) problem with domestic violence. Ironically after you guys are accusing Muslims collectively to be prone to domestic violence at scales unheard of among the rest of the population, when Germany has 5-10 times the numbers of Muslims. You're sure you want to go on record making that claim?

 

[Derec]

UK Labour Party has already submitted to such a degree that they are waving the flag of a foreign, Islamist quasi-state at the party convention.

 

[bilby]

UK Labour Party has already submitted to such a degree that they are waving the flag of a foreign, Islamist quasi-state at the party convention.

What a shame you could only find a narrow shot showing a tiny part of an audience at an unidentifiable event.

A wider shot showing that the picture was taken at the Labour Party Convention, and that the majority of the crowd were participating, would be so much less 'pathetically not evidence at all other than to those who are already convinced', don't you think?

 

[angelo]

Here's more of the muslim gang rape scandal of Londonstan [ actualy Rotterdam] and beyond and the authorities turning of a blind eye.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+FidemTurbare/posts/TQCoUwdLK1T?cfem=1

 

[Derec]

What a shame you could only find a narrow shot showing a tiny part of an audience at an unidentifiable event.

There are wider shot photos. And I identified the event - party convention for the UK Labour Party. Are we now down to quibbling over photo motifs?

A wider shot showing that the picture was taken at the Labour Party Convention, and that the majority of the crowd were participating, would be so much less 'pathetically not evidence at all other than to those who are already convinced', don't you think?

I just liked that photo. Would you prefer this one?

Message is the same: delegates of a major European party waving the flags of a foreign fascist quasi-state. That the religion of that quasi-state is Islam is hardly a coincidence given Islamophilia on the Left.

Oh, and look what other flag is flown right alongside the Palestinian flag in that quasi-state:

 

[Derec]

More on the "refugees" flooding into Europe.

Bosnian police detain two migrants, find weapons

Bosnian police have detained two migrants from Syria and Algeria and found hidden weapons during a raid in the capital Sarajevo, the police said on Monday.
“During the raid of several locations, the police found a rifle, four pistols, gun silencer and ammunition,”

Nothing says "refugees" than crossing borders illegally while being armed to the hilt.

Less sinister, but no less fake is this "refugee" from Morocco.

The caption of this Al Jazeera [wholly Qatar-owned propaganda outfit] article reads
Muhammad Burada, 16, from Morocco says Croatian police broke four of his mobile phones and beat him with a baton. 'Everyone here has been beaten. Each officer is like a monster,' he says
I am sure he is a real "refugee" given that he is
- from a country with no war
- able to keep his hair impeccably styled at all times
- wearing a relatively expensive Nike Brazil football team jacket
- owning at least 4 smart phones

And if he is 16, I am Neymar Jr. These fakefugees know that giving an age <18 gives them better chances of not getting deported even when they are purely economic migrants.

 

[metacristi]

UK Labour Party has already submitted to such a degree that they are waving the flag of a foreign, Islamist quasi-state at the party convention.

What a shame you could only find a narrow shot showing a tiny part of an audience at an unidentifiable event.

A wider shot showing that the picture was taken at the Labour Party Convention, and that the majority of the crowd were participating, would be so much less 'pathetically not evidence at all other than to those who are already convinced', don't you think?

Well when the leader of the Labour Party, elected with the largest margin in recent history I understand, shows open support for the Islamic terrorist group Hamas (proscribed by the European court of Justice) I would say we have a big problem. Inadmissible to praise the release of Hamas terrorists (so talking about Hamas 'brothers' is not only a sign of all-inclusiveness). He is as lost in chimeric ideals as the French philosopher Michel Foucault who was praising Khomeini (immediately after the Iranian revolution) just months before he introduced Islamic terror in Iran. Unfortunately for him History shows that islamists cannot be forces of progress (a myth widespread even in Western Academia before the advent of al Qaida). Corbyn has learned nothing even from quite recent History. Nor have those who assure us that 'Islam is tolerant' and most Muslims are peaceful so let's do nothing (censoring at the same time all criticism of Islam, no matter how rational).

 

[DrZoidberg]

More on the "refugees" flooding into Europe.

Bosnian police detain two migrants, find weapons

Bosnian police have detained two migrants from Syria and Algeria and found hidden weapons during a raid in the capital Sarajevo, the police said on Monday.
“During the raid of several locations, the police found a rifle, four pistols, gun silencer and ammunition,”

Nothing says "refugees" than crossing borders illegally while being armed to the hilt.

Less sinister, but no less fake is this "refugee" from Morocco.

The caption of this Al Jazeera [wholly Qatar-owned propaganda outfit] article reads
Muhammad Burada, 16, from Morocco says Croatian police broke four of his mobile phones and beat him with a baton. 'Everyone here has been beaten. Each officer is like a monster,' he says
I am sure he is a real "refugee" given that he is
- from a country with no war
- able to keep his hair impeccably styled at all times
- wearing a relatively expensive Nike Brazil football team jacket
- owning at least 4 smart phones

And if he is 16, I am Neymar Jr. These fakefugees know that giving an age <18 gives them better chances of not getting deported even when they are purely economic migrants.

When I volonteered in a homeless shelter I'd see these guys all the time. They all had mobile phones because they needed it. Without it they couldn't run their lives at all. So it was their one and only investment. They usually had cheap Chinese knock off phones. They'd never use them to call. Only use wifi. Because they had no money. Why four phones? Who knows. He could have been a drug dealer. Then he'd need more phones. Or it's a problem of translation and he either didn't have four phones, he was holding phones for others, or the other three were already broken and he was hoping somebody could fix them. Or more likely, he was lying about the other three phones.

Working in a homeless shelter, you learn pretty fast that these guys can't be trusted one bit. They'll say whatever to get stuff. They're all perpetual victims. For all we know he dropped the phone himself and told the story in the hope that he'd be given a new phone.

Usually they had one fancy piece of clothing, that they took meticulous care of. There's no way in hell they've actually bought it in a shop. Probably found in the street or stolen. Homeless people often look well taken care of, and are well groomed. It's very important for homeless people, not to look homeless. I remember seeing these guys out in the street and they'd look like anybody. There was nothing in their outward appearance that gave it away. Possibly the shoes. They can be a bit crappy.

His haircut is not meticulously done. His haircut is what you get if a guy in a homeless shelter, with a trimmer, did his hair. And that's all they did. You can see that the second guy to trim it missed quite a bit. I cut the hair of loads of these guys in the similar way. But I did a better job of it. Arabs have very thick hair. So they barely need to do anything with it to make it look nice

 

[angelo]

Thick hair ain't the only thing religious fundamentalists and many Arabs have in common.

 

[metacristi]

I said nothing about whether they are real Muslims. I was explaining why Islam is a bigger problem--it's still staying with it's evil roots rather than moderating over time.

Exactly. And the solution is rather that suggested also by Bruckner, Islam needs more, not less, criticism in order to flourish, and to move into a future it can share with other faiths.

Yea, that will be the day when pigs sprout wings and take to the sky! how can you reform a supremacist ideology that claims their holy book is the last word of god. unlike the Babble which has a new testament which preaches to turn the other cheek and to love your enemies the Koran preaches the complete opposite!

I am more optimistic than you, although I agree that Islam is much more difficult to reform (due to its specific 'fabric' *). A key part of the solution is to attempt to transform it via exposing muslims to the view that unaided Human Reason has primacy over tradition and even revelation (transformation involves fundamental changes, much bigger than in Christianity**). Strong rational criticism of Islam is of course a sine qua non condition for that. There are enough many in the Islamic world who would accept a less perfect Muhammad than taught today if given the chance (without leaving the fold of islam), opening the way toward a non-inerrancy interpretation of the Quran. Sure we have the 'small steps' attempts to reform Islam, including Kemalist style attempts to also move it outside the public sphere, unfortunately History in the last 70 years showed plenty that they are not enough (including the so called 'progressive' interpretations in the West, extremely far fetched and tackling only the literalist interpretations of the Quran, which leave the door large open for the return of the same discriminatory Islam of the past at all times; even more probable if the West declines).

So let's better empower the (progressive) radical reformers not the conservative forces, the more radical the better, let's make the attempts to develop a non-inerrancy Islam easy to be done (at least in the Islamic communities of the West first). Sure nothing gives us the certitude that Islam will be completely 'tamed' but this is a much better solution than to appease the muslims ad infinitum (I'd say that history shows that Islam modernized in the past mostly when little concessions were made, the progressive forces were given a chance exactly in those times). Finally the people in the Western world would be much better prepared to tackle even the 'stealth' jihad, not ultimately the truth about the nature of Islam (truth matters) would finally find its way even in Western Academia.


* neither Jesus nor Moses wrote or dictate something themselves for example, leaving much more space for fallibilism, not the case with Muhammad unfortunately. The idea that Islam do not pose more problems than the other major Abrahamic religions, be it finally because religion is seldom the primary cause leading to violence is extremely dangerous (I do not think we can generalize the latter so easily as done today). By the way the idea one can hear sometimes in atheist circles that Islam is still in the Middle Ages because it is ''younger' than Christianity is plain junk, all Abrahamic religions were strongly exposed to Modernity, only Islam is still how it is

** one can seriously 'dilute' Christianity (by accepting that the bible is not inerrant, retaining only Resurrection and a few other dogmas) and still have plenty of arguments to defend rationally this stance as being still recognizably Christianity (there is an internal logic here, stemming also from the fact that God is Logos/Reason), in contrast in Islam there is little internal logic to do that. To make Islam highly compatible with modernity one needs open rejection / serious weakening of some key basic tenets (like the view that unaided Human Reason has very little importance in religious matters, Muhammad quasi-'perfect', the Quran 'perfect' and so on) which involves in fact a plain transformation. A truly durable modern Islam (in name) would in fact need changes on a par with those done by the liberal Christians (in name, it's their right) who reject even the Resurrection of Christ.

 

[angelo]

It's mission impossible to reform a supremacists ideology such as islam. The proof is in the backwardness and the lack of progress [without some help and aid from western democracies] in most islamic countries such as Pakistan or Sub Sahara Africa and the Middle East.

 

[untermensche]

The length of this thread you'd think there was no more Europe left.

I suspect the supporters of this nonsense that one migration from an almost two decade long war zone is different from any other such migration are not world travelers.

Huddled in their safe box in the basement under the covers.

 

[metacristi]

Thinking that we can create safe and soundly a better society via protecting such belief systems like sharia Islam (as it is today) is the real delusion I would say, much bigger than accepting the mass immigration per se (which can of course be a problem even if people from very similar cultures relocate, much less important though).

f we want a real solution we should use the example offered by the Jews, equally thought at some point as incapable of radical reform. And yet they produced in Europe the Reform Judaism, stressing the constant evolution of the faith, the value of the individual and the fact that the Jewish Law is not binding. It is no accident that the many Jews coming in Palestine from Europe were secularly minded, creating a modern and not a theocratic Israel. Of course Islam is not Judaism (which still emphasise the value of reason even in its conservative variants) and we have the rampant political correctness of today.

But we should at least try to 'catalyse' such a change. The survival of islam in a form as close as what we see today or fearing that it may disappear if we help transform it should be no priority, not our fault that it is how it is. As I said we can start by emphasising the value of unaided Human Reason to muslims, namely that it can be more important than even what it is CLEARLY written in the Quran. If we manage to create a 'critical mass' of muslims capable to accept that in the open, without fear, there is hope I would say. The other choices to reform Islam are either to claim that God send another messenger (not viable) or that some passages of the Quran where it is clearly written 'black' mean in fact 'white' (via all sort of far fetched tortuous mental gymnastics, needing anyways at least an extra hidden belief that maybe Islam is not the last word in order to be a durable solution*).

On the other side there are those who claim that Islam cannot be reformed in any way, personally I am on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's side here, we must at least show muslims that conservatism cannot be the solution and encourage the liberal minded muslims to take action.


* otherwise important returns toward the past are very probable, unfortunately the old conservative interpretations remain more plausible overall than the 'progressive' ones, people dogmatically believing in the 'perfection' of Islam can always take, justifiably, the old discriminatory ones to the front

 

[angelo]

We can use the example offered by the Jews, equally thought at some point as incapable of radical reform. And yet they produced in Europe the Reform Judaism, stressing the constant evolution of the faith, the value of the individual and the fact that the Jewish Law is not binding. It is no accident that the many Jews coming in Palestine from Europe were secularly minded, creating a modern and not a theocratic Israel. Of course Islam is not Judaism (which still emphasise the value of reason even in its conservative variants) and we have the rampant political correctness of today.

But we should at least try. As I said we can start by emphasising the value of unaided Human Reason to muslims, namely that it can be more important than even what it is CLEARLY written in the Quran. If we manage to create a 'critical mass' of muslims capable to accept that in the open, without fear, there is hope I would say. The other choices to reform Islam are either to claim that God send another messenger (not viable) or that some passages of the Quran where it is clearly written 'black' mean instead 'white' (via all sort of far fetched tortuous mental gymnastics, needing anyways at least an extra hidden belief that maybe islam as it is today is not the last word in order to be a durable solution; otherwise important returns toward the past are very probable). On the other side there are those who claim that Islam cannot be reformed in any way, personally I am on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's side here, we must at least show muslims that conservatism cannot be the solution and encourage the liberal minded muslims to take action.

Good luck with that! The old saying that you can lead a donkey to water, but you can't make it drink applies in bucket fulls here.

 

[metacristi]

If we could somehow make the donkey follow Reason then it would be a good chance to convince him to drink. I am sure muslims fare much better in what Reason is concerned. Although I am rather pessimistic overall myself I would argue that this is a much better direction of research than proclaiming that there is no solution other than be eternal enemies. You know how it is said, never say never.

 

[untermensche]

You think Muslim's are a little better than donkeys?

There are words to describe this kind of mentality.

Putting millions into a tiny category and claiming they all behave the same way.

That is called ignorance.

Humans are humans.

If they are refugees many will be very desperate and many even violent.

That is the nature of humans.