Quote (Handcuffs @ 15 Jun 2016 03:48)

It's not necessarily about having to criticize all religion if you want to, in part, criticize Islam. It's about recognizing that the bolded is especially important, and that it is a phenomenon that applies to all people, and all religions. It just happens to be the case that in our current national and global world, that it is manifesting primarily in Muslim communities and countries in the Middle-East, resulting in the proliferation of extremism and terrorism as extension of that extremism. That, however, doesn't make conclusive commentary on the religion (in this case, Islam) as a whole.

If people are concerned with radical Islam, then people should appropriately be concerned about the sociological, historical and geopolitical factors that are the fuels to that flame. To do otherwise and to just single out Islam as being "especially violent as opposed to other religions" seems not only myopic, but also doesn't contribute much in the way of contriving possible solutions.

Quote (ThatAlex @ Jun 15 2016 02:00am)

Go back and read my post on that verse.

My point is that a radical extremist might not read into that historical context or those exceptions and may instead just directly interpret the violent Jihadist verses that they read.

Your counter-point was that they could do the same with the Catcher in the Rye, which is a weak point, IMO, because a religous person's holy text is usually the most important book and text to a religous person, particuarly as it pertains to guiding behavior.



I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that not all holy texts are equally as bad or promote equal amounts of peace and violence, IMO.

In this topic, many posters have brought up how economics, politics, cultural factors, war, poverty, etc all have probably affected why so many Muslims have resorted to terrorism. And I agree with these factors, but overlooking the Quran as a source of the promotion of some of these violent and Jihadist principles is simply ignoring the facts. I think it is definitely a part of the equation.

Whenever I criticize Islam, I am always reminded of the fact by others that there have been Christian terrorists, too. Yes, of course there are. Religion can make people do crazy things. I've always said religion can make normal people crazy and crazy people insane. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, religion does not make most people any more violent than they already are, which is why I agree with your above premise.

I just fail to see why every time I criticize Islam for promoting some violence or principles I disagree with in their holy text, I have to criticize Christianity, or other religions, too. Obviously other religons can bring bad stuff to the table that aren't always compatible with modern Western society, I'm just focused on Islam because that religion is associated with more with terrorism than any other right now.

Quote (thesnipa @ Jun 14 2016 07:11pm)

I think it comes down to a pretty simple hypothetical. If you could hypothetically remove religion from the world, but you left all of the factors in that region the same. Same poverty, violence, etc. Would you expect there to be less terrorism?

I wouldn't.

If they weren't fighting in the name of Islam it would be something else, if they werent getting misled by Islamic leaders it would be political leaders. The reality of the region birthed some sects of Islam that tend to be violent, but if religion hypothetically didn't exist the violence would be carried out in another name.

Quote (thesnipa @ 14 Jun 2016 20:11)

I think it comes down to a pretty simple hypothetical. If you could hypothetically remove religion from the world, but you left all of the factors in that region the same. Same poverty, violence, etc. Would you expect there to be less terrorism?

I wouldn't.

If they weren't fighting in the name of Islam it would be something else, if they werent getting misled by Islamic leaders it would be political leaders. The reality of the region birthed some sects of Islam that tend to be violent, but if religion hypothetically didn't exist the violence would be carried out in another name.

Quote (ThatAlex @ Jun 15 2016 06:28am)

I would expect there to be a little less terrorism.

We've seen terrorist activity in the West that has been motivated by other religions other than Islam from individuals that are not suffering from poverty or violent/hostile conditions.

Ultimately I agree with your larger point that poverty, politics, mental illness, and basically all the other factors outside of religion are the much bigger driving forces behind terrorism.

But I think at least a part of the terrorism we see, and I'm not sure much, is driven partly by religion. It's a part of the equation there. I'm not sure how much, but I'm not willing to remove it completely.

Quote (Handcuffs @ Jun 15 2016 02:03am)

The human rights violations leave hundreds of people dead as well. It does so over time, and not as quickly as a single mass shooting, but still. Even then, non-Muslim or even definite Christian-based terrorism has occurred in the United States and globally.

- Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting (2015).
- The murder of George Tiller (2009).
- The Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting (2008).
- The murder of Dr. John Britton; connections with Army of God (1994).
- The Centennial Olympic Park bombing (1996)
- The murder of Barnett Slepian byJames Charles Kopp (1998).
- Planned Parenthood bombing, Brookline, Massachusetts (1994).

Many more of course.

Army of God, Christian Identity, Anti-balaka, The Ku Klux Klan, Lord's Resistance Army, The National Liberation Front of Tripura, The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Hutaree Militia, etc.

All not representative of Christianity as a whole though.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Jun 15 2016 02:09am)

My Religion: Obviously the bible doesn't call for violence

Their Religion: Obviously their text calls for killing infidels.

There is no clear interpretation of any Abrahamic religious text. You can pretend all you want, but all interpretations of the bible are through the lens of the current culture and individual experience. This isn't a science textbook we're talking about where terms are defined, clarified, and testable by anybody with the capability, but subjective texts written and modified for political and personal reasons.

Quote (ThatAlex @ Jun 15 2016 02:09am)

Do you agree with Ainedespelczech and think my opinion on the Quran is out of context or stupid, or do you agree with my opinion that the Quran promotes violence and Jihadist principles in radical Islamic extremists?

Seeing your criticisms of Islam and the Quran on the previous page, it's pretty obvious where you stand on the subject, but I'm just pointing out that you can't critize my stance on this particular subject for the sake of defending Czech while simultaneously maintaining that the Quran promotes violence just as I do.

Clearly I don't profess to be an expert on the Quran or the religion of Islam, but am intepreting I Quran texts out of context or not when I say their spirital doctrine promotes violence? You have come to a similar conclusions, saying: "It's clearly much easier to interpret the Koran/Hadith as sanctioning terrorism vs. other religious texts."

Lastly, since you clearly think you are qualified enough to have an opinion on the Quran, I don't want to hear any complaining the next time I criticize the Bible. Because as you have shown here, it obviously doesn't take a historical or religous scholar to be able to see that the Quran has segments where it promotes violence that could lead to terrorism, and more broadly speaking, it doesn't require a historical or religous expert to read and get the gist of a holy text (and it shouldn't).

Quote (IceMage @ 15 Jun 2016 08:05)

Many of the instances you mentioned weren't motivated because of Christian texts, but rather political views.

I never said radical Islam is representative of Islam as a whole, I'm saying the religious texts of Islam are more capable of being construed as advocating the killing of innocent people.



I'm not looking at this through rose colored glasses. Do you think the KKK would of not been racists if they weren't Christian? Do you think these Islamic terrorists, especially the ones raised in the West, would still be terrorists if they weren't Muslims? There's clearly a difference here.



I think your opinion on Islam or Islamic texts is uninformed.

I already stated that I don't know enough about Islam to know whether the extremist interpretation is correct. I never said Islam promotes the killing of innocents, I said their religious text can be interpreted as promoting the killing of innocents. I will criticize you every time you pretend you know anything about a religious text you've never read. The difference between you and me is I never make the assumption that I can understand verses of the Koran or Hadith without actually researching the context, history, and theology.

Quote (ThatAlex @ Jun 15 2016 08:13am)

Well, you feel qualified enough to at least comment and have an opinion about Islam and the Quran. And I certainly know more about Christianity and the Bible than you do about Islam and the Quran, seeing as I grew up in a Christian family and in a mostly Christian nation. So based on your commentary on the previous pages of this thread, based on your posting, I'm qualified to speak about Christianity and the Bible in a similar manner (and more) than you just did about Islam and the Quran.

I've never understood why you must be a Christian or be a historical/Biblical scholar in order to have a valid opinion on Christianity or the Bible. Perhaps it is because Christians don't like non-Christians commenting on their religion, so their rebuttal is either the "out-of-context" approach or the "you are not even qualified to speak on this subject" approach.

Quote (IceMage @ 15 Jun 2016 08:21)

My main point in this thread was that Islamic texts are more likely to be construed as sanctioning the killing of innocents. I can make that observation without knowing much at all about Islam or Islamic texts. Christians don't have a bunch of preachers around the world preaching jihad against the world or justifying the massacre of innocent people.

Again, the distinction is that I'm not making the assumption that verses pulled from the Hadith out of context represents Islamic teaching. You constantly make assumptions about what scripture means without actually looking it up. You can comment all you want on the Bible, Koran, or the Hadith, but your opinions are uninformed. You don't need to be a scholar, or even a Christian. Plenty of PaRDians have a genuine interest in learning what certain verses of the Bible mean, so they research it.

Quote (ThatAlex @ Jun 15 2016 08:25am)

I agree with your main point about the Quran.

If you can come to that conclusion about Islam and the Quran, then based on your working definition of being qualified enough to comment on a religion, I should be able to be qualified comment on the Bible and Christianity without hearing much from you.

I'm not professing to be an Islamic, Christian or religous scholar. We have the internet now, we can all look up what holy text verse we want, its historical context, background, and etc. I have a genuine interest in learning about Christianity and other religions because they are interesting to me. You don't have to be a Christian in order to have a qualified opinion on Christianity. You just don't like what I have to say.

Quote (IceMage @ 15 Jun 2016 08:32)

It's just reasonable thinking. I don't have to know what Islamic verses mean to know that the Islamic religion has an extremist problem, and many verses can be construed as promoting the killing of innocents. My position does not assume anything about what certain verses of the Hadith actually mean.

That's what I just said, you don't have to be a scholar or a member of the religion to have an informed opinion on the religious text. You don't have an informed opinion on the Bible, which is evident by all the silly points you've made in various threads over the past number of months since you've been here.