Paris: Dozens Killed In Terrorist Attack

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In defense of darling max if I were muslim I would seriously think about speaking out against muslim extremism as it would likely get me killed or at least hated. To my knowledge there are no MLK, JB, AS muslim types out there, no one to rally around, no muslim leaders on this score. Agree? That's a good discussion.

That there are no Muslim leaders out there on this score it indicates there is not a strong undercurrent of sentiment within Islam presently to produce one.

You could try and look at google. I found quite a few last time.

I did but found little. Rallies in the hundreds. Are there any prominent muslim leaders on the subject?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What you call goalpost shifting I call trying to elucidate more than "Those dirty Muslims support terrorism".

But that's not a point being made or argued. If you want to argue against a strawman in order to avoid having any actual discussion of a topic, then that's fine. Nobody is going to demand a level of intellectual integrity from you.

What you should do, however, is make a point of not quoting other users' posts when doing so, because it falsely leads them to assume that what you're writing has at least a minimal relation to what they wrote in the post that you quoted and that leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

 

[untermensche]

What you call goalpost shifting I call trying to elucidate more than "Those dirty Muslims support terrorism".

No its not simply me calling it something. Its exactly what you're doing. First you denied it happened in the west by suggesting "where Iran". Then you claimed they were protesting something else. And finally you dismiss it by saying it was just a "peaceful" protest while omitting the death threats to Rushdie.

But what exactly is the big problem with some Muslims protesting a book?

Why was it even brought up?

What is it evidence of? Are you saying everyone who protested the book also supported the murder of Rushdie?

Humans are ignorant and some protest books, Americans and Muslims in England.

 

[dismal]

Private citizens getting together to protest a book is fine. Killing authors, filmmakers and cartoonists not so much. It's this last one that tends to get Muslims criticized.

So we can apply the same standards to Christians and occupants of "Christian" nations?

You'd have to be some sort of moron or psychopath not to apply the "don't kill cartoonists" rule to christians.

If that's a tough call for you I'm a little concerned.

 

[Nexus]

People pointed to protests and book burning as evidence of....... well, evidence of something, I'm not exactly sure of what

Tom's been very clear about Muslims protesting over books and cartoons is evidence of. Its evidence that Muslims don't care as much about murders of innocent people in the name of Islam as worse than cartoons of Mohamed and other petty blasphemy.

 

[untermensche]

So we can apply the same standards to Christians and occupants of "Christian" nations?

You'd have to be some sort of moron or psychopath not to apply the "don't kill cartoonists" rule to christians.

If that's a tough call for you I'm a little concerned.

How about "don't kill doctors who perform procedures you don't like"?

 

[Nexus]

But what exactly is the big problem with some Muslims protesting a book?

Why was it even brought up?

What is it evidence of?

It's evidence they have broken moral compasses.

 

[untermensche]

People pointed to protests and book burning as evidence of....... well, evidence of something, I'm not exactly sure of what

Tom's been very clear about Muslims protesting over books and cartoons is evidence of. Its evidence that Muslims don't care as much about murders of innocent people in the name of Islam as worse than cartoons of Mohamed and other petty blasphemy.

But it isn't evidence of that.

Not within a mile.

You get more Americans protesting gay rights than to keep Social Security.

Do more Americans want to eliminate gay rights than to keep Social Security?

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But what exactly is the big problem with some Muslims protesting a book?

Why was it even brought up?

What is it evidence of?

It's evidence they have broken moral compasses.

No it isn't.

That is an insane conclusion.

 

[dismal]

You'd have to be some sort of moron or psychopath not to apply the "don't kill cartoonists" rule to christians.

If that's a tough call for you I'm a little concerned.

How about "don't kill doctors who perform procedures you don't like"?

OK, I'm down with that.

 

[ronburgundy]

I'd say that except in absurdly extreme cases which don't actually exist (ie - "I am a muslim because that's the best way to worship Vishnu"), anyone who self-identifies as a Muslim can be considered a Muslim.

Depends on the purpose for which you are considering or using those categories. For the purpose of holding people accountable and expecting certain reactions from them when others use that label for heinous actions, then it probably is reasonable to expect those who identify as Muslim and defend the group against injustice should either take responsibility for or decry the actions of others who claim that identity is served by heinous acts.


However, as a matter of trying to accurate capture the content of a persons's traits, beliefs, and values that are related to those of the major institutions and documents that founded and historically shaped and promoted that identity, then what people say they are should be considered skeptically and as unreliable, only slightly less so than a women should take the word of a man in a bar who claims to be a pilot.
If two people with directly opposing views and values claim to be a Muslim, then it must be the case that either one or both are wrong, or that the label Muslim has no relationship to the views and values in question. In the case of extremists and moderates, either one or both are wrong or the label is largely meaningless and just a string of letters arbitrarily slapped onto to things.

In fact, of all the things people claim they are, their claims about religion are the least likely to be accurate. People have massive motive to pretend they are something they are not with regard to religion, and they have every means to get away with such deceits since it is very hard to verify the actual contents of their beliefs.

BTW, as I have argued often on this issue, objectively the extremists and fundamentalists have the most valid claims to their respective religious labels as their views and values and actions are objectively far more in line with those who originated and historically shaped the religions and the terms.

 

[untermensche]

How about "don't kill doctors who perform procedures you don't like"?

OK, I'm down with that.

Many Christians will tell you there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[dismal]

OK, I'm down with that.

Many Christians will tell you there is nothing wrong with it.

Well, there is a long history of military invasions of many christian countries so they can't really be blamed.

 

[Nexus]

There is no serious political push right now to suspend social security. So its obvious why people aren't taking to the street to keep it because there is no serious fight over it right now. The fight over gay rights in recent years has been back and forth in between the courts and state propositions so of course people have organized protests to tip the balance their way.

 

[untermensche]

Many Christians will tell you there is nothing wrong with it.

Well, there is a long history of military invasions of many christian countries so they can't really be blamed.

You seem to confuse excusing ISIS with understanding why it exists.

 

[Jokodo]

People pointed to protests and book burning as evidence of....... well, evidence of something, I'm not exactly sure of what

Tom's been very clear about Muslims protesting over books and cartoons is evidence of. Its evidence that Muslims don't care as much about murders of innocent people in the name of Islam as worse than cartoons of Mohamed and other petty blasphemy.

Except it's no such evidence because are routinely protesting the murders of innocent people in the name of Islam. Just not in the form of separate Muslim-only rallies.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'd say that except in absurdly extreme cases which don't actually exist (ie - "I am a muslim because that's the best way to worship Vishnu"), anyone who self-identifies as a Muslim can be considered a Muslim.

Depends on the purpose for which you are considering or using those categories. For the purpose of holding people accountable and expecting certain reactions from them when others use that label for heinous actions, then it probably is reasonable to expect those who identify as Muslim and defend the group against injustice should either take responsibility for or decry the actions of others who claim that identity is served by heinous acts.


However, as a matter of trying to accurate capture the content of a persons's traits, beliefs, and values that are related to those of the major institutions and documents that founded and historically shaped and promoted that identity, then what people say they are should be considered skeptically and as unreliable, only slightly less so than a women should take the word of a man in a bar who claims to be a pilot.
If two people with directly opposing views and values claim to be a Muslim, then it must be the case that either one or both are wrong, or that the label Muslim has no relationship to the views and values in question. In the case of extremists and moderates, either one or both are wrong or the label is largely meaningless and just a string of letters arbitrarily slapped onto to things.

In fact, of all the things people claim they are, their claims about religion are the least likely to be accurate. People have massive motive to pretend they are something they are not with regard to religion, and they have every means to get away with such deceits since it is very hard to verify the actual contents of their beliefs.

BTW, as I have argued often on this issue, objectively the extremists and fundamentalists have the most valid claims to their respective religious labels as their views and values and actions are objectively far more in line with those who originated and historically shaped the religions and the terms.

I have a fundamental disagreement with that point. Religion is nothing more than the opinions of those who self-identify with that religion. The fact that somebody blatantly walks around in mixed fabrics or finds a way to justify not stoning their kids to death if they get mouthy doesn't make him less of a Christian despite those being on the checklist of official things they shouldn't be doing according to a strict reading of what scholars say their faith should be. They can choose to deemphasize or completley ignore whatever parts of the faith they like or overemphasize or add in whatever parts they like. The definition of a religion is a dynamic and constantly changing thing with no one point of view being necessarily more valid than another.

The claims of the fundamentalists aren't more valid than the claims of the wishy-washy new agers. They all get to use the label equally.

That's entirely different than the claim that someone is a pilot, which is a definition based on his having a job which requires a particular skillset. Saying that you're a pilot when you don't know how to fly a plane means that you're lying. Saying that you're a Muslim when you believe that Allah is all about love and tolerance and working to have everyone live together in peace and harmony no matter what their individual beliefs are means that you're a Muslim.

 

[Nexus]

Tom's been very clear about Muslims protesting over books and cartoons is evidence of. Its evidence that Muslims don't care as much about murders of innocent people in the name of Islam as worse than cartoons of Mohamed and other petty blasphemy.

Except it's no such evidence because are routinely protesting the murders of innocent people in the name of Islam. Just not in the form of separate Muslim-only rallies.

When you can show me video evidence of Muslims protesting murder in numbers like they do when protesting cartoons I'll believe your claim.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Gore Vidal famously referred to the USA as the United States of Amnesia. The late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai put it a little more delicately, quipping, “One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory.”

In order to understand the rise of militant Salafi groups like ISIS and al-Qaida; in order to wrap our minds around their heinous, abominable attacks on civilians in the U.S., France, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, Turkey, Yemen, Afghanistan and many, many more countries, we must rekindle this historical memory.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/17/we_...0s/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 

[Nexus]

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

Islam spread throughout the middle east by violent extremists 900 years before there were even western powers or their foreign policy.

 

[Jokodo]

Except it's no such evidence because are routinely protesting the murders of innocent people in the name of Islam. Just not in the form of separate Muslim-only rallies.

When you can show me video evidence of Muslims protesting murder in numbers like they do when protesting cartoons I'll believe your claim.

I live in a predominantly Christian country, but the only form of protest against ISIS from Christians I've seen is putting Arabic 'n' (for Nasraani - Christian) in their facebook profile pic. I've seen daily street protests by the Kurdish (mostly Muslim) minority during the siege of Kobani, and fairly regular ones before and after that, on the other hand.

Glad I could help.