The implications of the Paris attacks

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

Yes I get that you think the fuckedupedness of these countries has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the people that live in them. It's the bad dirt, air, water in these nations that's the cause, that and western imperialism obviously. If only the people there could get to places with good dirt, air, water.

Or there might be these little things called history and political culture getting in the way, see tension between Sunni and Shia in Iraq is inevitable because of Saddam's discriminatory policies and the US backed government's failure to include Sunnis, in Syria it is much the same with different sects of Islam and different political viewpoints clashing.

Of course the wider problem stems from the fact that the Nations in the region, with the exception or Iran (which unsurprisingly is one of the most stable countries in the Middle East), largely only date back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, so Imperialism all around is the problem, not just Western imperialism.

The people living there have had culture and centralisation when western Europe and China were still in prehistory, so I find the idea that there is intrinsically something wrong with the people living there rather misinformed.

[MinDonner]

The "founders" of the USA may have been rich dudes who could afford big boats, but the wave of immigration that followed was definitely not. Potato famine Ireland? Pretty fucked up (Yeah, partly by we Brits, unless it was all the fault of the dissolute natives?). All those imported slaves and migrant labour from China? I'm sure their home countries were lovely. Good job the same people who fucked up their own countries didn't do the same to the USA. 

[Seli]

Do we know the causes?

Probably exactly the same that has young men and women turn to radicalization and violence at all points in our history. Fundamentally it seems the same process that created the Mafia, RAF, IRA, Red Brigades, or the gangs of the USA.

Which sadly means that individual cases slipping through the cracks are likely impossible to prevent.

[arya_underfoot]

As long as the US sees Iran as the big evil and not Saudi Arabia, as long extremist groups, be it AQ or IS, will exist. 

IS and AQ ideology is born in KSA. 

KSA is the source of much of the support for hard core Salafi's who are most of the "Terrorists".  We could embargo the Kingdom of SA until the end all support for Salafi's.  That would create incredible economic difficulties but might actually be effective.

Yup! You can add Turkey, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait in there too.

[peterbound]

Probably exactly the same that has young men and women turn to radicalization and violence at all points in our history. Fundamentally it seems the same process that created the Mafia, RAF, IRA, Red Brigades, or the gangs of the USA.

Which sadly means that individual cases slipping through the cracks are likely impossible to prevent.

 

You might be off a little on this one.  Profit and greed seem to motivate more 'gangs' in the US than the draw of belonging to a religious ideology.  

[peterbound]

Or there might be these little things called history and political culture getting in the way, see tension between Sunni and Shia in Iraq is inevitable because of Saddam's discriminatory policies and the US backed government's failure to include Sunnis, in Syria it is much the same with different sects of Islam and different political viewpoints clashing.

Of course the wider problem stems from the fact that the Nations in the region, with the exception or Iran (which unsurprisingly is one of the most stable countries in the Middle East), largely only date back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, so Imperialism all around is the problem, not just Western imperialism.

The people living there have had culture and centralisation when western Europe and China were still in prehistory, so I find the idea that there is intrinsically something wrong with the people living there rather misinformed.

It amazes me the lengths that people will go to take the religion out of the reasoning behind these movements.  If the Koran didn't provide the soil for these hateful plants to grow, it wouldn't happen.  Fact is the faith (and most of the big ones for that matter) advocate violence to eradicate their enemies and to spread their religion.  When you take that part out of it, and not looking deeper into the problems inherent in Islam you start walking down the wrong path.  

It's also a bummer that someone can't express that view without being considered some sort of angry bigot.  The world has convinced itself that any type of discussion that calls into question a belief system, even one that is as violent and backwards as Islam, is one that is centered around hate and not one that is based on common sense and simple fucking observation skills.  

[Toth]

It amazes me the lengths that people will go to take the religion out of the reasoning behind these movements.  If the Koran didn't provide the soil for these hateful plants to grow, it wouldn't happen.  Fact is the faith (and most of the big ones for that matter) advocate violence to eradicate their enemies and to spread their religion.  When you take that part out of it, and not looking deeper into the problems inherent in Islam you start walking down the wrong path.  

It's also a bummer that someone can't express that view without being considered some sort of angry bigot.  The world has convinced itself that any type of discussion that calls into question a belief system, even one that is as violent and backwards as Islam, is one that is centered around hate and not one that is based on common sense and simple fucking observation skills.  

Well, as you pointed out the 'soil' for hate in the Koran is also given in the Bible. Christianity had its fair share of extremism and violence under the pretext of spreading the 'right' faith in the past. Thing is in our secularized modern society Christian spirituality and tolerance can coexist despite those passages in the holy texts. And for that matter I also personally know quite a lot of Turkish and Iranian Muslims living here in Germany who adapted quite well. Blaming a religion is bullshit, extremism is born through a lack of perspectives and indoctrination by those who instrumentalize religion. Even if you somehow ban religion, those instrumentalizations won't stop. It is not about faith, it is about putting yourself into a position of superiority over others. If it isn't believes, people will use skin colour or descent or social background or anything else they can come up with to make up an 'us versus them' mentality. What is your solution then? Banning any pretext humans can find? Ridiculous. We need to fucking stabilize the middle east and improve social mobility in our own societies. Desperation, lack of perspectives and anger about this are the true soil of extremism. And it is the only aspect we can truly change through politics and action. Secularization comes as a neat side effect.

[Dofs]

When talking about ISIS and reactions to this I think it's improtant to understand hte concept of the "Greyzone" that ISIS advocates. The basic idea of theirs is that the greyzone is the area between western culture and ISIS's own ideology. They seek to destroy this. To prove themselves right to others and to most especially boost requirement by showing other muslims that the West does, in fact, hate them and that they need to join ISIS because they can never exist anywhere else. They have literally said they seek to provoke retaliation against muslim populations in the west in order to eliminate this greyzone and show those muslims that ISIS's rhetoric about how the West hates Islam in all it's forms is correct. They want to eliminate the idea that this is anything but us vs them and you have to pick one side or the other.

You speak about it as if the only choice the Muslims have is either be integrated in the West or join ISIS. No, there are a huge amount of normal, stable Muslim countries. Also, if there is anyone in Europe out there who is alright with joining ISIS and murdering and raping civilians, then I'm perfectly alright with them going to Syria and Iraq and die there. It would be even better if they are caught on the way there and jailed.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Hayyoth, Peterbound,

You must remember that Islam is a long way from monolithic.  It is divided into two major theological traditions, Sunni (the majority and what the Daesh subscribe to) and Shi'i (a minority but a sizable minority and what most in Iran follow).  

Then you have varying legal traditions regarding the way the Quran and Hadith are looked at and interpreted.  There are five or more different traditions with regard to Islamic law.  The most conservative are the Salaifi's (this is the Daesh tradition that comes out of Saudi Arabia).  It is the Salafi's who have sponsored much of what we see as Terrorism.

These varying theologies and legal traditions make viewing Islam as a monolitic entity foolish and a waste of time.  It also makes the Daesh's desire to unify the Muslim Umma under their self proclaimed Kalifa next to impossible, unless, we drive Muslims into their "loving" embrace by indiscriminately attacking Muslims and refusing to treat Muslim refugees as individuals.

[Dofs]

Well, as you pointed out the 'soil' for hate in the Koran is also given in the Bible. Christianity had its fair share of extremism and violence under the pretext of spreading the 'right' faith in the past. Thing is in our secularized modern society Christian spirituality and tolerance can coexist despite those passages in the holy texts. And for that matter I also personally know quite a lot of Turkish and Iranian Muslims living here in Germany who adapted quite well. Blaming a religion is bullshit, extremism is born through a lack of perspectives and indoctrination by those who instrumentalize religion. Even if you somehow ban religion, those instrumentalizations won't stop. It is not about faith, it is about putting yourself into a position of superiority over others. If it isn't believes, people will use skin colour or descent or social background or anything else they can come up with to make up an 'us versus them' mentality. What is your solution then? Banning any pretext humans can find? Ridiculous. We need to fucking stabilize the middle east and improve social mobility in our own societies. Desperation, lack of perspectives and anger about this are the true soil of extremism. And it is the only aspect we can truly change through politics and action. Secularization comes as a neat side effect.

If a Christian follows literally everything Jesus preached about, he would not be violent in any way as Jesus was a pacifistic hippie. If a person literally follows everything that is written in Koran, he would be an ISIS member because it flat out says that your duty as a Muslim is to spread your religion, that you should kill unbelievers and if they are not Christians and Jews, who can pay taxes to avoid being dealt with, it's allowed to massacre them and take their women as slaves and rape them, so that their children would be Muslims. It's simply silly to say that the Bible and Koran are the same. They are not.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Dofs,

Only following the Sunni/Salafi interpretation of Islam.  That is not true of the other varients of Islam and as such such gross oversimplification plays into the Daesh's desire to for the Umma to unite under their self proclaimed Kalifa.

[Chaircat Meow]

If a Christian follows literally everything Jesus preached about, he would not be violent in any way as Jesus was a pacifistic hippie. If a person literally follows everything that is written in Koran, he would be an ISIS member because it flat out says that your duty as a Muslim is to spread your religion, that you should kill unbelievers and if they are not Christians and Jews, who can pay taxes to avoid being dealt with, it's allowed to massacre them and take their women as slaves and rape them, so that their children would be Muslims. It's simply silly to say that the Bible and Koran are the same. They are not.

It is certainly worth pointing out that the Christian revelation (scriptures + the example of the early Church) mandates obedience to the current authorities (even if they are heathen) and has nothing to do with violence or dominating others by force. Islamic revelation and history, on the other hand, are all about Muhammad's ascent to power in Arabia, and the victories of his successors over the whole Middle East, by force and violence. The Koran, consequently, is full of warlike injunctions. The core of the two faiths is really night and day in this theological respect. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

And, as we all know, once the teachings of gentle Jesus meek and mild swept across Europe and Christianity became the dominant religion, there were no more wars. Because Christianity is just that night-and-day in difference from Islam, and that's the power of having a book with the right ideas (oh, but you'll have to ignore the first half, even though it's still part of the Holy Bible, God's revealed truth).

[The Marquis de Leech]

It is certainly worth pointing out that the Christian revelation (scriptures + the example of the early Church) mandates obedience to the current authorities (even if they are heathen) and has nothing to do with violence or dominating others by force. Islamic revelation and history, on the other hand, are all about Muhammad's ascent to power in Arabia, and the victories of his successors over the whole Middle East, by force and violence. The Koran, consequently, is full of warlike injunctions. The core of the two faiths is really night and day in this theological respect. 

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34.

[Toth]

It is certainly worth pointing out that the Christian revelation (scriptures + the example of the early Church) mandates obedience to the current authorities (even if they are heathen) and has nothing to do with violence or dominating others by force. Islamic revelation and history, on the other hand, are all about Muhammad's ascent to power in Arabia, and the victories of his successors over the whole Middle East, by force and violence. The Koran, consequently, is full of warlike injunctions. The core of the two faiths is really night and day in this theological respect. 

 

Sure. And on the other end you have angry Jesus coming down from heaven with a flaming sword in hand to punish the sinners. And large parts of the Old Testimony is about how the chosen people murder the hell out of the Canaanites to drive them out of their own country. Seriously, if you really want to spread hate you can always find such a passage. You interprete such a text how you want it to interprete. I'm also defending religion here because deriding a faith is no viable solution that is going to change the situation we have here at hand. I have yet to see a reasonable plan for fixing the near east by those who blame Islam. Changing the circumstances of those interpreting the texts however is a solution that could work better than just dropping bombs on them.

[The Marquis de Leech]

If a Christian follows literally everything Jesus preached about, he would not be violent in any way as Jesus was a pacifistic hippie. If a person literally follows everything that is written in Koran, he would be an ISIS member because it flat out says that your duty as a Muslim is to spread your religion, that you should kill unbelievers and if they are not Christians and Jews, who can pay taxes to avoid being dealt with, it's allowed to massacre them and take their women as slaves and rape them, so that their children would be Muslims. It's simply silly to say that the Bible and Koran are the same. They are not.

What about a Jew who literally follows everything in Leviticus?

[Dofs]

And, as we all know, once the teachings of gentle Jesus meek and mild swept across Europe and Christianity became the dominant religion, there were no more wars. Because Christianity is just that night-and-day in difference from Islam, and that's the power of having a book with the right ideas (oh, but you'll have to ignore the first half, even though it's still part of the Holy Bible, God's revealed truth).

The wars during the Middle Ages happened because the corrupt and powerhungry priests preached the spread of Christianity to increase their wealth and influence. All the people who actually fought for Christianity during the Middle Ages never read the Bible because the Bible existed only in Latin and only the educated priests could read it. There is a reason why one of the starting points of Protestantism was Martin Luther actually translating the Bible from Latin for the first time ever so that people could actually read it.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

The wars during the Middle Ages happened because the corrupt and powerhungry priests preached the spread of Christianity to increase their wealth and influence. All the people who actually fought for Christianity during the Middle Ages never read the Bible because the Bible existed only in Latin and only the educated priests could read it. There is a reason why one of the starting points of Protestantism was Martin Luther actually translating the Bible from Latin for the first time ever so that people could actually read it.

And then there were wars between Protestants and Catholics!

[The Marquis de Leech]

And then there were wars between Protestants and Catholics!

The Thirty Years War in particular being so traumatic that, in order to avoid a repeat, we still base international relations off its settlement, 367 years after it finished.

 

[Chaircat Meow]

 

 

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34.

This isn't an injunction to do with Christians using violence against others, or subjugating others by force. I suggest reading Matthew 10.