I'm afraid the fundy christians and the fundy muslims are gonna get us all killed.

[braces_for_impact]

Originally posted by Warpoet

Except the "bad behavior" on the part of ordinary Muslims is an offense that exists only in your head, and in those of others who assign collective blame.

If you are a Muslim, a supporter and believer in the ideology espoused by the Koran and the Imams, in that you think that death is the proper penalty for mocking the prophet, then yes, you are part of the problem, even if you did not or would not commit such a crime yourself.

Why? Because you say so?

Sure, why not? There are others too. As a member of the populace that thinks no religion is above criticism and exercises that right occasionally, and as a person that recognizes that tyranny through force of arms is an inappropriate response to an idea, many of us wish to live in a society where these things do not take place.

By this logic, blacks and latinos who live in crime-ridden communities are collectively responsible for violence there, and are doing something wrong by trying to live their lives like ordinary people.

Obviously not. Blacks as a group and Latinos as a group do not belong to and support an ideology that is a driving factor in the violence of their neighborhood.

The polling was not ignored. It simply doesn't support the idea that the majority of the world's Muslims think mass murder against journalists and cartoonists is OK, which is what some people here want us to believe.

Have you read it? It shows clear support from large numbers of Muslims for such things as Sharia law, while showing widespread agreement for very harsh punishments for things like homosexuality and apostasy. It also shows very large numbers for suicide bombings being often/sometimes justified, along with other very backwards concepts that are a direct consequence of Islamic teaching. You are so casually dismissive. Why?

You can say my analogies are ludicrous, but if you support these policies then you are part of the problem, even if you don't turn to violence yourself. I doubt you could find other areas of an ideology where you would give such a flippant excuse.

Why don't you just go ahead and compare them to Nazis, like countless other hysterical posters have? It's about as rational an analogy.

Besides being fond of poisoning the well, you are so full of racist butthurt that you see people drawing parallels where they do not exist. No one here compared Muslims to Nazis, but it would sure make your argument easy if they had. You automatically assume the worst in your opponent in the discussion, shouting about how everyone is just racist, because no one could just honestly disagree with you without being prejudiced. It's as if the thought hadn't ever crossed your mind.

But you and others here insist that ordinary Muslims leading ordinary lives must be the ones to use their "influence" to stop them, even though that influence is largely just a product of your imagination. And that's hysterical bullshit driven by an emotional response to a tragedy, not reason.

By this any grass-roots movement is doomed to fail. Better to deny the problem. It has nothing to do with religion, it's all the fault of Western imperialism, and local lone wolfs who are mentally ill.

 

[Warpoet]

If you are a Muslim, a supporter and believer in the ideology espoused by the Koran and the Imams, in that you think that death is the proper penalty for mocking the prophet, then yes, you are part of the problem, even if you did not or would not commit such a crime yourself.

I did not know that "the Imams" were a singular entity espousing one ideology, or that Muslims in general, be it in France or elsewhere, subscribed to it.

You certainly haven't presented evidence to suggest this, nor have the others here towing this particular line.

Sure, why not? There are others too.

I'm aware. And I'm still waiting for one of you to actually back up your claims.

Obviously not. Blacks as a group and Latinos as a group do not belong to and support an ideology that is a driving factor in the violence of their neighborhood.

And neither do the majority of the world's Muslims. Most are too busy living their lives and are not supporting any ideology of terror and mass murder, and few have any contact or interaction with those who commit it.

If you have evidence to the contrary, present it. So far, you haven't.

At this point, it looks like you're simply running a double standard, as people almost always do when taking the position you've adopted.

Have you read it? It shows clear support from large numbers of Muslims for such things as Sharia law, while showing widespread agreement for very harsh punishments for things like homosexuality and apostasy. It also shows very large numbers for suicide bombings being often/sometimes justified, along with other very backwards concepts that are a direct consequence of Islamic teaching. You are so casually dismissive. Why?

Because the polling has been dredged up at least 100 times before, and it does not say what you want it to say.

Contrary to your assertions, I addressed it earlier in this thread, but you obviously weren't reading:

Yes, because this is all so very relevant to the question of whether or not shooting up newspaper offices is OK, or whether the entirety of the world's Muslim population bears responsibility for it.

That large numbers of Muslims, a gigantic percentage of whom live in backwards and/or authoritarian countries, have similarly backwards thinking about social issues is not some revelation. We can go dig up some polling and see what African Christians and Indian Hindus think about women's rights or how gays ought to be treated; this does not inform us about whether people think mass murder is justified, far less support the asinine suggestion that the entire religion ought to be held accountable when it occurs.

People here keep grasping for whatever excuse they can find to collectively blame Muslims for terrorism, and it isn't working.

You can say my analogies are ludicrous, but if you support these policies then you are part of the problem, even if you don't turn to violence yourself. I doubt you could find other areas of an ideology where you would give such a flippant excuse.

The application of sound logic is not a "flippant excuse."

You are essentially arguing that because Pew surveys show that a majority of South Asian Muslims think stoning adulterers is OK, that justifies blaming Hassan the Muslim deliveryman half a world away for not doing enough to stop these attacks from happening.

And that's fucking nonsense.

Besides being fond of poisoning the well, you are so full of racist butthurt that you see people drawing parallels where they do not exist. No one here compared Muslims to Nazis, but it would sure make your argument easy if they had. You automatically assume the worst in your opponent in the discussion, shouting about how everyone is just racist, because no one could just honestly disagree with you without being prejudiced. It's as if the thought hadn't ever crossed your mind.

Jayjay compared Muslims to Nazis at the top of the previous page. And your white supremacist analogy was no less absurd than his. Again, try reading before posting.

Reframe it however you want to; you are still using bad logic and double standards to assign blame for this kind of violence on people that haven't actually done anything wrong.

So don't bitch if my assumptions about your mindset are less than positive.

By this any grass-roots movement is doomed to fail. Better to deny the problem. It has nothing to do with religion, it's all the fault of Western imperialism, and local lone wolfs who are mentally ill.

If it were true that the only way to effect change were to unjustly blame others for wrongdoing and guilt/coerce them into correcting the behavior of others, you would be correct, but it isn't.

We could start by carefully and intelligently trying to understand why things like this happen, looking at the individuals involved and the factors which influence them - social, political, cultural and religious.

But that's far too complicated, and probably won't yield the simple answers you and others want. It's much easier to simply blame Muslims.

 

[Malintent]

Can't fear what doesn't really exist... like Biologists that believe that Evolution is a hoax... fear them?

Just to be clear, you're saying there are no atheists/freethinkers/skeptics that think there is no such thing as a peaceful muslim?

your adding stuff... just "freethinkers". It is conflict of terms to apply "freethinker" to the notion "all of group x is.."
It is internally inconsistent to say you are a biologist, but reject the basis of biology. That is all.

 

[Jayjay]

Yup, except that religion does not have to be alone responsible.

And in point of fact, is not, since the vast majority of Muslims are not killing anyone, or in any way involved in this sort of behavior.

Which is why your relentless attempts at blaming them en masse have and continue to fail.

It's a deluson to think people exist in vacuum and are not affected by the communities they reside in.

Good thing that's not what anyone is saying.

Except that you are, when you insist that muslims are not "in any way involved in this sort of behaviour". So which is it? Are muslim communities in no way influencing the people who commit these heinous crimes, or aren't they?

Did a random group of Germans,

here we go

just out of the blue start rounding up Jews, Gypsies, gays and other undesirables in camps and gas them to death, in a way that was totally unrelated to what German people in general believed at the time? And after world war two, was it just a conincidence that it has not happened again, that Nazi party got a bad reputation, unrelated to any shaming or ostracization of the holocaust, which you probably think was just unfairly putting the blame of Nazi atrocities on average Germans who just wanted to go on with their lives?

Muslims = Nazis.

No. In this analogy, Muslims = Germans. Do you think it was unfair towards Germans to expect them renounce the tenets of Nazism, that at some point in history quite a few of them openly supported or at least tolerated? Is it an undue burden for the average German to be vigilant that nothing like that ever happens again?

Or to use a less Godwinesque example, did the civil rights act of 1964 appear out of thin air when the white folks in power, just out of an inexplicable impulse decided to enact such a law out of the goodness of their hearts? Was the white majority up until that point totally blameless because they just wanted to go on with their own lives and it would have been totally inappropriate to call on them to consider that maybe they had a problem?

What the fuck are you even talking about? For one, I shouldn't need to explain the difference between laws/institutions and average people. And if I need to explain to you the difference between the situation of white southerners in the 1960s and European Muslims, you're a lost cause.

Laws and institutions are reflections of the communities that enact them, especially in democracies. The similarity that you are failing to grasp is that the white southerners at the time did not see a problem with segregation, and while themselves would condemn outright lynchings and other extremist acts, due to thir inaction and through the politicians they elected maintained a system that justified keeping the blacks in their place. Likewise, European muslims are maintaining a system of thought that justifies and sometimes even encourages punishing the infidels for offending Islam. Different situations, but in both cases the change can only come if the shared ethos of the people who are causing these things to happen is challenged, and the people are made to see that it's their looking the other way that's part of the problem.

No man is an island. If one identifies with a cause or a religion or a community that is constant source of things that one finds appalling on a personal moral level, it's always a cause for self-reflection.

What I find disconcerting is your insistence that doing nothing and looking the other way when evil prevails is not "doing something wrong".

You're really struggling.

"Cause" or "community" are words that can be thrown around and redefined as people like. They're certainly not limited to Muslims.

If we follow this absurd logic, the non-Muslims whom the shooters inevitably interacted with throughout their lives have far more cause for "self-reflection" than a Muslim delivery man living on the other side of the country. Oh, and I guess African-Americans and Latinos who happen to live in crime-ridden communities need to "reflect" every time someone there commits a crime, and are doing something wrong if they don't.

Fucking silly. You are still trying to argue that Muslims who have no contact or even knowledge of the people who commit these crimes bear responsibility, and you're still wrong.

It's the shared ethos of muslims that is the problem. These guys decided that it was a good idea to go shoot some blasphemers, because their whole lives they've been bombarded with sermons and speeches how bad blasphemy is and how the infidels are cause of their plight. I'm sure some of these imams are condemning the attack, but the point is that they are still continuing to preach the same old crap and uphold the value system that created the shooters. And the average muslims across the country upholds the same system by continuing to associate with it and not challenging it in any way.

It's a sick system, and it has the tacit support of the average moderate muslims.

Note, in this day and age one's immediate surroundings don't necessarily define the community a person self-identifies with. The hypothetical delivery man have interacted with the shooter most, but how much influence did he really have on his world view?

Who else can solve your moral conflicts, than you?

It isn't their moral conflict, and your insistence to the contrary is rooted in your own ignorance, not reason.

If it is not a moral conflict, then why should they feel compelled to speak out and condemn the attacks? The only reason they are doing it because they feel part of the same community and the same religion, as if they need to apologize for it... but that apology is hollow if at the same time they don't feel like they should change anything within their own community or religion, and instead deflect blame to the victims.

It's not me who's lumping all the muslims of the world in the same basket, it's their own self-identification as part of that group that does it.

I would love to be able to solve the cognitive dissonance of muslims with snap of my fingers: they should just all become atheists. Problem solved! But unfortunately I don't have godlike powers to alter people's minds, all I can do is persuade indirectly.

You certainly won't succeed by blaming law-abiding citizens for crimes they have not committed.

When you have some actual evidence, or sound logic to suggest that ordinary Muslims from all walks of life are culpable for these crimes any more than society in general is, come back.

Dealing with crimes is up to criminal justice system.

Dealing with societal problems is up to societies. Why is it that certain people commit crimes? How can we make them commit less crimes? How do we change the culture so that harmful criminal activity becomes less acceptable? Can we educate or enlighten people to change their behaviour?

For a really long time, western societies had the notion that women are inferior to men and should be subservient. That is still the same to some extent despite making progress. Imagine a man who believes that the husband is the master of the household and the wife should do what he says... and while that man might treat his own wife with respect, and be appalled by violence against women, by supporting a misogynist ethos he is supporting a system that will result some men beating their wives senseless for disobedience. Who's to blame? The wife-beater of course bears immediate criminal (or moral, if no criminal code exists against it) culpability, but at the same time, is it not fair to call out the well-behaving, moderate misogynist for his views as well?

 

[Warpoet]

Except that you are, when you insist that muslims are not "in any way involved in this sort of behaviour". So which is it? Are muslim communities in no way influencing the people who commit these heinous crimes, or aren't they?

You can't possibly be this obtuse.

Lots of people have "influence" of some kind over those who commit crimes. That does not constitute involvement.

No. In this analogy, Muslims = Germans.

And it's equally absurd. The Charlie Hebdo shooters, and those like them, are not the elected representatives of Islam. Again, you seriously can't be this obtuse.

Likewise, European muslims are maintaining a system of thought that justifies and sometimes even encourages punishing the infidels for offending Islam.

No, they are not, and you have presented no evidence to suggest this. Your repeated claim that they share the same ideology is not evidence.

It's the shared ethos of muslims that is the problem.

Which again, does not exist, except in your mind. You have presented zero evidence to suggest that the average Muslim shares the same "ethos" as the people who carried out these attacks.

It's a sick system, and it has the tacit support of the average moderate muslims.

Yeah, show us the evidence.

If it is not a moral conflict, then why should they feel compelled to speak out and condemn the attacks?

They shouldn't. Muslims do not need to apologize for or condemn every single attack done by someone claiming to speak for Islam.

They do so only because people like you keep demanding it of them, over and over and over again, and accusing them of wrongdoing or subversion if they don't.

 

[none]

Let's not forget why Muslims don't like apologizing for other Muslims with sincerity: Muslims believe that a violent pedophile barbarian named Muhammad is worthy of respect and is the ideal for humanity and any complaint against violence, molesting of children by their spouse, or barbarism by a Muslim undermines their core belief that Muhammad is worthy or respect and the ideal for humanity.
Muslims don't criticize Muhammad why should they criticize any other Muslim?

 

[Jayjay]

How about preventing or stopping future terrorist attacks?

Which could be happening all the time and you wouldn't know because there is no evidence of things that don't happen.

What we do know is that this particular attack was not stopped. Nor the one before that, or the one before that. You probably know that every time shit like this happens, there are going to be comparisons between religions in the vein of "why don't you see Buddhist terrorists?" or "why are muslims twice as likely to commit terrorism in the US than Jews?"... the desirable outcome for all is if we can shift the islam on these arguments to the other of the equation and use them as positive examples when complaining about, say, Hindu arsonists or Pastafarian food poisoners.

Like I said, the easy solution is for muslism to just resign from their dumbass religion.

And what do you offer them in return?

For the French muslims, I offer Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. And bacon. They don't know what they are missing.

And why should they listen to you or me or anyone else who refers to the thing that shapes their world as dumbass?

Because we have other things in common.

If they don't want to do that, then it's up to them to figure out some other way to stop the terrorists. I am not part of their tribe, so I can only offer general advice.

So you should probably change the world insode your own tribe. Perfect your tribe and you can then perfect the other guy's

Can't we do both at the same time?

 

[Jayjay]

Which could be happening all the time and you wouldn't know because there is no evidence of things that don't happen.

But there is evidence that it happens. In the U.S. at least, Muslims are the single largest source of tips that lead to foiling plots.

But that's not good enough for people like Jayjay; until Hassan the delivery man and Fatima the grocery clerk take time out of their busy schedules of working and raising their families to track down potential terrorists they don't even know about and force every radical Imam to alter his sermon, or renounce Islam altogether, they're no better than the Germans who sat idly by and allowed the Nazis to murder millions.

I guess we are making progress, if you admit that the Germans who sat idly by allowed nazis to murder millions.

Besides, if Fatima and Hassan have time in their schedule to attend sermons and pray to Mecca five times a day, surely they can find time to stop and think about if the religion they support is harmful.

 

[Warpoet]

Besides, if Fatima and Hassan have time in their schedule to attend sermons and pray to Mecca five times a day, surely they can find time to stop and think about if the religion they support is harmful.

The vast majority of French Muslims do not regularly attend mosque, and there are similar numbers in other Western countries.

But again, don't let inconvenient facts like this get in the way of that absurdly broad brush you're painting with.

 

[none]

yeah don't let the bad Muslims speak for the good Muslims, it is a terrible thing to do... just reference the "prophet" Muhammad's life for a metric.

 

[Jayjay]

You can't possibly be this obtuse.

Lots of people have "influence" of some kind over those who commit crimes. That does not constitute involvement.

Influence, that you can predictably say has a certain outcome, is a form of involvement.

We are not talking about completely isolated causes and effects. If the Charlie Hebdo shooters were part of the same community, but the motive for the shooting had been because Charlie Hebdo refused to print their column that was really funny in their opinion, then the influence of islamic community would be totally inconsequential. But if the said community holds a generally strong belief that cartoons depicting prophet Mohammed are extremely blasphemous and immoral, then it's hardly a surprise if someone will take it in their hands to punish the infidels who draw and publish these cartoons.

No. In this analogy, Muslims = Germans.

And it's equally absurd. The Charlie Hebdo shooters, and those like them, are not the elected representatives of Islam. Again, you seriously can't be this obtuse.

The Nazis did not run on an open platform of outright extermination of Jews or plunging Germany to war either... they ran on moderate anti-semitism, anti-communism and nationalism among other things. The most horrific cirmes they were allowed to commit was because they got into power on the backs of the moderates who just agreed with the basic ideology. Same with these shooters, nobody here is claiming that all European muslims think they were heroes or representing Islam, but at the same time, many of them seem to be in denial that this is the result of their shared belief system.

Likewise, European muslims are maintaining a system of thought that justifies and sometimes even encourages punishing the infidels for offending Islam.

No, they are not, and you have presented no evidence to suggest this. Your repeated claim that they share the same ideology is not evidence.

It's the shared ethos of muslims that is the problem.

Which again, does not exist, except in your mind. You have presented zero evidence to suggest that the average Muslim shares the same "ethos" as the people who carried out these attacks.

Most muslims condemn Charlie Hebdo's satirism, and continue to do so:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ran-calls-cover-extremely-stupid-9976873.html

So yes, it's safe to say that it is indeed part of muslim ethos to strongly and openly disapprove cartoons that make fun or criticise their religion and prophets. Sure, at the same time they might say that it's wrong to start killing people for it, but if there is a nutter who is willing to overlook the latter, it's a smaller step to go on a killing spree to punish the cartoonists than it would be if said cartoonists were not openly vilified by the muslim community.

The same thing happened with the Jews and Gypsies i Germany: the vilification of Jews and Gypsies and other undesirables by the society as a whole is what allowed Nazis to carry out extreme measures, that average Germans would have found appalling. And if the Nazi parallel is too blunt, consider modern day America with regards to race: African-Americans are vilified as "thugs", and while nobody would support outright shooting them on sight, you still get the occasional Zimmerman.

It's a sick system, and it has the tacit support of the average moderate muslims.

Yeah, show us the evidence.

Evidence of what? That Islam is a sick system? That hardly needs proving in an atheist board. Or do you want evidence that the average muslim supports the moderate Islamists? That evidence was already linked earlier, in the article someone posted containing tweets "condemning" the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Quite a few of them were qualified condemnations that at the same time bemoaned the cartoons.

If it is not a moral conflict, then why should they feel compelled to speak out and condemn the attacks?

They shouldn't. Muslims do not need to apologize for or condemn every single attack done by someone claiming to speak for Islam.

They do so only because people like you keep demanding it of them, over and over and over again, and accusing them of wrongdoing or subversion if they don't.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding what is being written? I've been saying that condemnation is not enough. And actually condemnations like this are meaningless rote without change in behaviour and thought.

 

[Jayjay]

Besides, if Fatima and Hassan have time in their schedule to attend sermons and pray to Mecca five times a day, surely they can find time to stop and think about if the religion they support is harmful.

The vast majority of French Muslims do not regularly attend mosque, and there are similar numbers in other Western countries.

But again, don't let inconvenient facts like this get in the way of that absurdly broad brush you're painting with.

If the vast number of French Muslims don't give a flying fuck about trappings of their religion, then they very likely don't give a flying fuck if someone is drawing crude caricatures of Mohammed somewhere either. As I said before, it's the ring leaders and the outspoken ones that need to be shamed and called out.

 

[none]

bad Muslims telling good Muslims what is appropriate? if it does happen there is going to be some bloodshed.

 

[Warpoet]

Influence, that you can predictably say has a certain outcome, is a form of involvement.

This is meaningless rubbish. The majority of the world's Muslims, or even French Muslims, have far less "influence" over people like the Charlie Hebdo shooters than Anders Breivik's friends and family did; so by your logic, the latter were "involved" in his crimes, to a much higher degree. And there are countless other examples we can use, until the entire exercise becomes meaningless.

But if the said community holds a generally strong belief that cartoons depicting prophet Mohammed are extremely blasphemous and immoral, then it's hardly a surprise if someone will take it in their hands to punish the infidels who draw and publish these cartoons.

You have presented no evidence that how the community perceives these cartoons will determine whether or not these attacks occur, or that the attackers are genuinely acting on its behalf. And certainly, being offended by something is not immoral in and of itself, and does not make one complicit in this sort of crime, except in the minds of irrational people.

The Nazis did not run on an open platform of outright extermination of Jews or plunging Germany to war either... they ran on moderate anti-semitism, anti-communism and nationalism among other things. The most horrific cirmes they were allowed to commit was because they got into power on the backs of the moderates who just agreed with the basic ideology. Same with these shooters, nobody here is claiming that all European muslims think they were heroes or representing Islam, but at the same time, many of them seem to be in denial that this is the result of their shared belief system.

Just stop. Your comparison is shit. Again, the Nazis were voted into office, and had a far more coherent agenda, even from the start, than do European Muslims, far less Muslims worldwide.

Most muslims condemn Charlie Hebdo's satirism, and continue to do so:

Your link does not indicate this. But even if you just mean "lots of the world's Muslims are offended by it," so what? This does not constitute wrongdoing, whether you agree that their being offended is rational or not. And it does not indicate any sort of shared ethos. Rational people do not accept that when someone kills someone else over a perceived offense, everyone else who took offense is guilty by extension, even if they do not advocate violence.

You are just throwing shit at the wall at this point, hoping some of it manages to stick.

Evidence of what? That Islam is a sick system? That hardly needs proving in an atheist board. Or do you want evidence that the average muslim supports the moderate Islamists?

Moderate Islamists? Try "people who murder cartoonists and policemen." That's what this thread is about.

And you've presented no evidence that the average Muslim supports this behavior or is complicit in it - because you don't have any. The rest of this is a lot of handwaving, obfuscation and generally just bullshit on your part as you try to avoid acknowledging it.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding what is being written? I've been saying that condemnation is not enough.

I know. And I'm telling you that you are wrong, that your position is rooted in emotion rather than reason, not supported by the evidence, and just generally ridiculous.

And despite lots of misdirection, poorly-executed Godwinning and overly long-winded posts, nothing you've said has given anyone much reason to believe otherwise.

 

[Warpoet]

If the vast number of French Muslims don't give a flying fuck about trappings of their religion, then they very likely don't give a flying fuck if someone is drawing crude caricatures of Mohammed somewhere either.

But you just got done saying that they did:

Most muslims condemn Charlie Hebdo's satirism, and continue to do so:

As I said before, it's the ring leaders and the outspoken ones that need to be shamed and called out.

Then I guess only about 15 percent of France's Muslims can even be considered eligible for "calling out," if we use your arbitrary metric of mosque attendance as the criteria for determining if people are truly religious or not. It'd be far less, actually, as even fewer could be called "ringleaders," and in reality none or next to none actually bear any responsibility for these attacks. Only, now you've gone and admitted it yourself. Progress.

FYI, that sound you hear is your argument collapsing under the weight of its own irrationality.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The moderate Christians and the moderate Muslims need to join forces to stop the insanity -- would it work?

No.

But arranging for fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims to both have to compete for the same piece of (small geographically isolated) land would probably work. Texangenlicals love their guns and Islamists love their AKs. If we stick them both in Thunderdome, they'll probably solve our problem for us AND give us some after-dinner entertainment.

 

[Jayjay]

Influence, that you can predictably say has a certain outcome, is a form of involvement.

This is meaningless rubbish. The majority of the world's Muslims, or even French Muslims, have far less "influence" over people like the Charlie Hebdo shooters than Anders Breivik's friends and family did; so by your logic, the latter were "involved" in his crimes, to a much higher degree. And there are countless other examples we can use, until the entire exercise becomes meaningless.

Did Anders Breivik's friends and family instill him with his anti-Islamic, anti-Marxist, anti-immigration, and anti-feminist ideology? No, they didn't. He got his bullshit off internet conspiracy theorist and right-wing nationalist communities. If anything, Breivik could be seen rebelling against his parents. Your analogy is nonsensical.

Breivik is a good example, but not for culpability of his parents and friends, but what unchecked right-wing xenophobia can lead to. Just like what unchecked islamic thought can and did lead to in case of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and more recently the attempted attacks in Belgium that were fortunately foiled.

But if the said community holds a generally strong belief that cartoons depicting prophet Mohammed are extremely blasphemous and immoral, then it's hardly a surprise if someone will take it in their hands to punish the infidels who draw and publish these cartoons.

You have presented no evidence that how the community perceives these cartoons will determine whether or not these attacks occur, or that the attackers are genuinely acting on its behalf. And certainly, being offended by something is not immoral in and of itself, and does not make one complicit in this sort of crime, except in the minds of irrational people.

Oh please. Do you think the perpetrators chose the target randomly? It just happened to be a satirical magazine, and might as well have been a bicycle shop or a supermarket? It's obvious that the attackers were acting in defense of their religon, and how it perceives such cartoons. The catholic church has sued Charlie Hebdo twelve times, but how many terrorist attacks did the catholics stage? Zero. It's not simply being offended, it's that Islam tends to have dim view of freedom of speech, or rights of infidels in general.

The Nazis did not run on an open platform of outright extermination of Jews or plunging Germany to war either... they ran on moderate anti-semitism, anti-communism and nationalism among other things. The most horrific cirmes they were allowed to commit was because they got into power on the backs of the moderates who just agreed with the basic ideology. Same with these shooters, nobody here is claiming that all European muslims think they were heroes or representing Islam, but at the same time, many of them seem to be in denial that this is the result of their shared belief system.

Just stop. Your comparison is shit. Again, the Nazis were voted into office, and had a far more coherent agenda, even from the start, than do European Muslims, far less Muslims worldwide.

And again you try to twist the analogy by claiming as if I am comparing muslims to Nazis. As I said, the analogy is pre-WW2 average Germans to modern muslims. It's not the comparison that is shit, but your deliberate misunderstanding of it.

Most muslims condemn Charlie Hebdo's satirism, and continue to do so:

Your link does not indicate this. But even if you just mean "lots of the world's Muslims are offended by it," so what? This does not constitute wrongdoing, whether you agree that their being offended is rational or not. And it does not indicate any sort of shared ethos. Rational people do not accept that when someone kills someone else over a perceived offense, everyone else who took offense is guilty by extension, even if they do not advocate violence.

Nonsense. The catholic church took offense also, but that doesn't make them guilty by extension either. The rason why muslim community should be pressured to fix their thinking is that while they do have a thin veneer of not advocating violence, they are also failing pretty badly at it, and are taking a much more vocal attitude against whom they perceive to be infidels. And if your community is looking extreme next to the goddamn Catholic Church, one of the most batshit insane organizations in history, then you have a problem.

Evidence of what? That Islam is a sick system? That hardly needs proving in an atheist board. Or do you want evidence that the average muslim supports the moderate Islamists?

Moderate Islamists? Try "people who murder cartoonists and policemen." That's what this thread is about.

And you've presented no evidence that the average Muslim supports this behavior or is complicit in it - because you don't have any. The rest of this is a lot of handwaving, obfuscation and generally just bullshit on your part as you try to avoid acknowledging it.

I gues you haven't seen the news lately... major protests all over the world , with at least four people dead already, against the latest Charlie Hebdo cover. It's you who seems unable to acknowledge that muslims have problems with violent extremism, and have a long way to go moderating it.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding what is being written? I've been saying that condemnation is not enough.

I know. And I'm telling you that you are wrong, that your position is rooted in emotion rather than reason, not supported by the evidence, and just generally ridiculous.

And despite lots of misdirection, poorly-executed Godwinning and overly long-winded posts, nothing you've said has given anyone much reason to believe otherwise.

Right. Want to tell how I'm comparing muslims to nazis again? Because apparently shooting down strawmen is what you feel is "rational" and presenting several valid comparisons how societies work is based on "emotion".

 

[Jayjay]

But you just got done saying that they did:

Most muslims condemn Charlie Hebdo's satirism, and continue to do so:

As I said before, it's the ring leaders and the outspoken ones that need to be shamed and called out.

Then I guess only about 15 percent of France's Muslims can even be considered eligible for "calling out," if we use your arbitrary metric of mosque attendance as the criteria for determining if people are truly religious or not. It'd be far less, actually, as even fewer could be called "ringleaders," and in reality none or next to none actually bear any responsibility for these attacks. Only, now you've gone and admitted it yourself. Progress.

FYI, that sound you hear is your argument collapsing under the weight of its own irrationality.

No, it's that the argument goes way over your head.

A few posts ago I pointed out that it is the self-identification of muslims that makes them feel conflicted. A muslim who is not practising and doesn't do much more than superficially wear the brand name is not going to be bothered as much as someone who actually tries to follow his religion. Hey, maybe for some non-observing muslims this might be a final straw to deconvert, more power to them. But it's really the fundies who are going to struggle with congnitive dissonance over the incident... one one hand, they don't like violence, but on other hand they constantly vilify blasphemers and infidels. So they need to resolve this moral conflict somehow, and they do get defensive about it, but that discomfort that they are feeling doesn't come the evil oppresive society putting burdening them, it comes from their own crackpot belief system and how it conflicts with their own personal morality.

I think in this thread or some other, someone posted a very good cartoon that depicted Islam as a bomb that the radicals were trying to set off, and which the moderate muslims were barely struggling to hold up.

 

[Warpoet]

Did Anders Breivik's friends and family instill him with his anti-Islamic, anti-Marxist, anti-immigration, and anti-feminist ideology? No, they didn't. He got his bullshit off internet conspiracy theorist and right-wing nationalist communities. If anything, Breivik could be seen rebelling against his parents. Your analogy is nonsensical.

Oh? And remind me again where your evidence is that it was the Muslim community, as in average French Muslims, who instilled in the Charlie Hebdo shooters the idea that it's OK to shoot cartoonists and policemen?

Oh, that's right, you never presented any despite my repeated demands because you don't have any. Just like you don't have a fucking leg to stand on here and haven't from the start.

The Charlie Hebdo shooters did not simply emerge out of nowhere; they followed a long path of radicalization that took one of them to prison and into contact with some of the most violent Muslim extremists in France, or the world, and at least one went to Yemen for training from al-Qaida. The people who carry out these attacks usually fall into a pattern very similar to this one, and there's rarely evidence that it's the mainstream Muslim community that pushes them down it. You sure as hell haven't produced any.

So no, my analogy works just fine, which is more than can be said for any of the ones you've made.

Oh please. Do you think the perpetrators chose the target randomly? It just happened to be a satirical magazine, and might as well have been a bicycle shop or a supermarket? It's obvious that the attackers were acting in defense of their religon, and how it perceives such cartoons. The catholic church has sued Charlie Hebdo twelve times, but how many terrorist attacks did the catholics stage? Zero. It's not simply being offended, it's that Islam tends to have dim view of freedom of speech, or rights of infidels in general.

"Islam" does not have a singular view on anything. Large numbers of Muslims may have been offended by the cartoons; so what? It does not rationally follow that this means that they support the murder of the authors, far less that they're collectively responsible for it. The only real question is why you can't comprehend this.

And again you try to twist the analogy by claiming as if I am comparing muslims to Nazis. As I said, the analogy is pre-WW2 average Germans to modern muslims. It's not the comparison that is shit, but your deliberate misunderstanding of it.

You're playing disingenuous games. Either you're arguing that the Muslim community instills the idea into people that it's OK to murder cartoonists and police, in which case you are comparing the average Muslim to a Nazi, or, you're just spouting a bunch of vague and incoherent ranting about how Muslims take offense to the cartoons, and they do bad things in other countries, therefore, they're responsible for incidents like this. Which is bullshit that no rational person will accept no matter how many times you repeat it.

Nonsense. The catholic church took offense also, but that doesn't make them guilty by extension either. The rason why muslim community should be pressured to fix their thinking is that while they do have a thin veneer of not advocating violence, they are also failing pretty badly at it, and are taking a much more vocal attitude against whom they perceive to be infidels. And if your community is looking extreme next to the goddamn Catholic Church, one of the most batshit insane organizations in history, then you have a problem.

Show us the evidence that it was this Muslim community you're referring to which instilled the "ideology" of murdering cartoonists and policemen into the shooters.

I've asked you repeatedly to do this, and despite lots of bluster and loaded rhetoric, you haven't. If you can't, then your argument gets thrown in the trash bin along with the rest of the anti-Muslim tripe this forum is regularly polluted with.

Right. Want to tell how I'm comparing muslims to nazis again? Because apparently shooting down strawmen is what you feel is "rational" and presenting several valid comparisons how societies work is based on "emotion".

See above. Either you were comparing Muslims to Nazis, or you're using even shittier logic than that to try and lay blame for these kinds of attacks at the feet of ordinary Muslims. My guess is you're not even sure which, or that you understand how you ended up with such an incoherent, indefensible position, other than you're convinced that these things happen because ordinary Muslims don't do enough to stop them, and facts be damned, even if they completely undermine your position.

- - - Updated - - -

No, it's that the argument goes way over your head.

In point of fact, it never got off the ground to begin with. You simply haven't figured it out yet, that's all.

A few posts ago I pointed out that it is the self-identification of muslims that makes them feel conflicted.

Yes, you claimed that. You've claimed lots of things in this thread, and most of them have been wrong. The far more rational explanation is mine: Muslims don't feel conflicted so much as constantly under threat from people like you, who paint them with an absurdly broad brush and blame them for transgressions that they did not commit.

A muslim who is not practising and doesn't do much more than superficially wear the brand name is not going to be bothered as much as someone who actually tries to follow his religion. Hey, maybe for some non-observing muslims this might be a final straw to deconvert, more power to them. But it's really the fundies who are going to struggle with congnitive dissonance over the incident... one one hand, they don't like violence, but on other hand they constantly vilify blasphemers and infidels. So they need to resolve this moral conflict somehow, and they do get defensive about it, but that discomfort that they are feeling doesn't come the evil oppresive society putting burdening them, it comes from their own crackpot belief system and how it conflicts with their own personal morality.

I'm sorry, did you think I or anyone else was interested in your unsubstantiated, uninformed, sweeping generalizations about how an entire group of people think?

You claimed that most of the world's Muslims condemned the cartoons, but now say that only those who are truly religious (those who attend sermons, apparently) would be offended, and thus be part of this group "instilling" values that somehow enable people to murder cartoonists and policemen.

But in France, that number is a mere 15 percent, and you've still given no logical explanation as to how those 15 percent are actually somehow complicit. So no, sorry, nothing went over my head. My characterization was exactly correct: you shot yourself in the foot because you either aren't paying attention or just don't know what you're talking about.

In fact, it's become clear that you haven't known what you're talking about from the start, and are more or less making it up as you go. You appear to be responding not out of a desire to have any kind of rational, intelligent dialogue or to better understand these issues, but out of some misplaced sense of moral outrage, which you are apparently dumping on the Muslim community even though you clearly know nothing about them and probably have next to no personal experience with any of them.

 

[untermensche]

2 crazed brothers commit a horrifying crime.

To some this tarnishes a billion others.

I think they are looking for any excuse to tarnish this billion.