Yasna wrote:You don't support violence.
Damn right I don't.
You obfuscate the causes of the violence, obstructing the process of identifying and combating a global problem.
No, I
analyze the causes of the violence. When violence occurs, I do not limit myself to the demagoguery of one viewpoint; I am interested in looking at as many viewpoints as possible so I can get as much information about it as possible. It's easy to criticize violence, but it's not going to be resolved by just blindly attacking it. If you want to solve violence, then you have to understand where it's coming from.
You fight tooth and nail against the blindingly obvious, which is that this wave of terrorism perpetrated by Islamists is substantially connected to Islam. Honestly, at this point there is so much evidence available that it takes the mental gymnastics of a climate change denier to remain in denial.
If it's so blindingly obvious, then why do you think it is precisely in the 21
st century that we are seeing such terrorist attacks? Why not earlier than that? Do you really not think there were Muslim extremists interested in physically attacking the West before that, in the previous century or the one before that?
By the way, here's another example of what is not so blindingly obvious: This whole discussion started with an article about the murder of Qandeel Baloch. That article says that
the Pakistani police claim her murder was an honor killing, and from that, you automatically concluded that her murderer was an "Islamist nutcase." But her father says instead that her brother killed her for her money, and in any case, honor killings are a global phenomenon, not one that is limited to countries with a Muslim majority. It's not that clear that the actual motive for her murder had anything to do with Islam.
Oh right, if you don't agree with an idea it must be propaganda.
No. Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. What you have been citing is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Therefore, it is propaganda.
And it really speaks volumes about your bias on this topic if all you see in these sophisticated ideas by Muslim reformers is propaganda.
I don't; just because they're propaganda doesn't mean they're nothing more than that. Of course I agree that terrorism is bad. Of course I realize that it's being done in the name of Islam. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with every word of what a few people say, nor does it mean I can't wonder what might be motivating them to say what they did.
I don't know where you're going with this.
Let me spell it out for you: The West has been interested in exploiting Middle Eastern oil ever since World War II at least. The US's foreign policy has largely been determined by its thirst for oil. It is largely because of oil that the US has fought wars in the Middle East and made both allies and enemies there for decades. It is precisely because of the US's meddling in that part of the world that these terrorist organizations have managed to conduct so many attacks in so many parts of the world in the space of just a few years; otherwise, they would not have been able to drum up nearly enough popular support in order to gain that much power. If a majority Buddhist country happened to have more oil than the US, I think there would be a very real possibility of Buddhist terrorist organizations gaining similar support there instead.
Once again, you completely dodged my argument.
I did no such thing. You said people on the left wouldn't say Christianity just happens to be used an excuse for terrorism just like Islam does (or indeed like any other religion), and I gave you an example of a person on the left
and another on the right saying some terrorists
happen to be Christian, rather than saying that Christianity somehow causes terrorism. If it was so unimaginable for a left-winger to say that Christianity is merely an excuse, then why would you see a left-winger saying someone tried to bomb a building and just
happened to be citing Christanity as his excuse?
And to address what you have just brought up, I of course believe that Christian terrorism should be named for what it is and combated by the authorities. I will go a step further than you though. You mention that "He isn't saying [...] there is some kind of fundamental problem with Christianity". I disagree. There is a fundamental problem with Christianity, the same one Islam has. Namely that parts of its holy book condone or even encourage barbarous acts. And these words of God (as they see it) encourage otherwise reasonable people (not to mention the less reasonable ones) to commit barbarous acts as we witness practically every day now.
Who is "they"?
mōdgethanc wrote:I don't see the incompatibility between "we should not use Islamist terror attacks as an excuse for Islamophobia" and "Islamist terror attacks are caused by a radical and extreme interpretation of Islam".
Me neither, but I get the impression Yasna is instead saying something more extreme than that, namely: "Islamist terror attacks are caused
by Islam," full stop. Not a particular interpretation of Islam, just Islam. To me, such oversimplifications are reminiscent of exactly the kind of logic that leads to warmongering - and terrorism, regardless of whether it's the US, ISIS, or anybody else that's doing it.