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149406
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Gamer...Northern Ireland ring any bells? Not saying it's prevalent, but it's not unheard of either. Terrorism has a lot more to do with poverty, desperation and fear than it does with any specific religion. People use religion as a banner to gather under because it makes that kind of killing seem justified when you're doing it "for God," but in most cases it's the more earthly concerns that gives terrorist groups backing and members.
At different periods in time, most religions have been used as an excuse to commit atrocities. It almost always coincides with a situation where people in a region of predominantly that religion are having economic difficulties or are facing aggression from outside forces. When a single religion isn't available to separate the "us" and "them" in such a conflict, then people use nationalism, racism...whatever isms they can find to justify what they feel they need to do to escape their situation, and dehumanize the people they feel they have to kill (or have the right to kill) for putting them in that situation.
Post by
Adamsm
To be fair, when's the last time you've heard a Catholic make a death threat?That psycho preacher from a few months back who wanted to burn all those copies of Quran?
Post by
gamerunknown
@Gamer...Northern Ireland ring any bells?
Was born there, but I really meant in response to the media's portrayal of Catholicism.
As far as I know the writers for Father Ted are still alive and prospering, whereas one of the cartoonists involved in the Jyllands thingy was attacked in his home.
Post by
MyTie
Terrorism has a lot more to do with poverty, desperation and fear than it does with any specific religion. People use religion as a banner to gather under because it makes that kind of killing seem justified when you're doing it "for God," but in most cases it's the more earthly concerns that gives terrorist groups backing and members.I don't know if I buy this lock stock and barrel. There are quite a few acts of violence that are based in religious beliefs, not violence hiding behind religion.
To be fair, when's the last time you've heard a Catholic make a death threat?That psycho preacher from a few months back who wanted to burn all those copies of Quran?
Burning Qurans = Death threats?
Post by
ElhonnaDS
See my above edits. Right now, Islam is the religion where we're seeing this the most. But it wasn't always, and it won't be in the future. It has a lot more to do with everything I wrote above than with the specific religion.
Post by
Adamsm
To be fair, when's the last time you've heard a Catholic make a death threat?That psycho preacher from a few months back who wanted to burn all those copies of Quran?
Burning Qurans = Death threats?
He wanted to go past just burning books....
Post by
MyTie
Source? Need to establish this guy was a Catholic, and the death threats. Even if you could, this would be an isolated and radical case. Whereas... well.. Islam has daily acts of violence and murder, not just threats. The two are not comparable nor are they equal. To insist so would be disingenuous.
Post by
gamerunknown
Oh, well in that case, I'd say the comparison would be to Martin O'Hagan...
Also I still remember one of the times I went to Northern Ireland that someone had been shot a few days before in a drive-by shooting on a street we were passing for wearing a Celtic top (intergroup discrimination, easy visual marker).
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@MyTie- but you can say that about any religion, especially if you look at it from a historical perspective, and not just the last 10-20 years.
Currently, there are a lot of terrorist groups who are using Islam as a rallying banner.
Various branches of Christianity have, in their history, racked up the Crusades, the Inquisition, Salem Witch Burnings, etc. I more recent times the KKK claims to be bringing a return to Christian values, and small groups have planned a number of bombing and shootings at family planning clinics. Northern Ireland was plagued with violence and terrorism for years, and both sides of the conflict were Christian religions.
In the 1950's, a number of Jewish terrorist organizations were operating in Israel- Gush Emunim Underground, Bat Ayin, The Kingdom of Israel group- who planned and carried out numerous bombings. Not just against other religions, but against Jewish people who were not religious enough, in their opinion.
Abhinav Bharat and RSS are Hindu Nationalist groups in India who have been actively involved in bombings as little as 5 years ago.
And that's not taking into account similar behavior patterns that occur and have recently occurred in Africa, smaller Easter Europe states, pre-WW2 Germany (who killed many people who were not Jewish for being racially impure), etc. not over religion, but over ethnicity.
The important thing to remember, is that normally these people operate in fringe groups, and do not reflect the mainstream views of their society. The thing that makes these groups look appealing, during different phases of history to different societies, is when they are desperate enough to look to anyone with answers, even when the answers are nuts.
If you look for radical and terrorist type behaviors that have occurred within the last 100 years, they have been spread across a large range of religions, ethnicities, countries, etc. It's hard to find a single common factor when looking at it from an angle of trying to say X religion or Y ethnicity is more prone to violence when you look at history as a whole. But if you look at it in terms of what the economic conditions were, and how politically unstable an area was, you find a lot more common denominators.
Post by
Adamsm
I stand corrected
...of course, his stupidity incited some of the recent violence in Afghanistan.....
Post by
MyTie
Elhonna - for clarity sake, I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying that your point can't be applied as a rule.
I stand corrected
...of course, his stupidity incited some of the recent violence in Afghanistan.....
I can't remember if that "Koran burning" even led to murder at the hands of Islamics, but if I remember correctly, some UN workers got beat to death in some far off country, due to this event. How cultural!
That's my new line. "How cultural!". I love it.
Edit: Actually, I can't really take credit for it. I saw it on Southpark. Some people were buying some crappy Panama flute band CD music and they were like "How cultural!", in South Park's way of mocking cheap snobby self enrichment stuff that if viewed in common sense would be idiotic.
Post by
Adamsm
/shrug It's true that pretty much all of the religions have had some nut job cause death and suffering at some point in history....due to humanity's mind set, we just focus on them and say they are the norm for the entire group.
Post by
gamerunknown
Oh, if you guys can watch it in the US, watch "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields": war crimes perpetuated against a Hindu minority by a Buddhist army.
Post by
MyTie
/shrug It's true that pretty much all of the religions have had some nut job cause death and suffering at some point in history....due to humanity's mind set, we just focus on them and say they are the norm for the entire group.
This is the point where someone stands up and explains that not all Muslims are violent. And, true, they aren't. No one was insisting that they are. That's not the point. Neither is it the point that Catholicism has had a history of violence. I find it ignorant to bring up the crusades or Bellfast when faced with the sheer reality that half the world lives under despotic violent religious rule. I find it cheap and senseless when people bring up some Christian pastor extremist who burned some books as some sort of balance against millions of rioting violent murderers. It's fake. It's fake selflessness. It's fake tolerance. The reality is that when open elections in Muslim countries are held (like Egypt, or Palestine), you get radical groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood elected by popular vote. While not all muslims are violent, large enough groups endorse terrorist groups that they elect groups of people that are violent. This is a very real problem, not just threatening the safety of western nations, but to a larger degree, Muslims themselves. Don't talk to me about Florida pastor Terry Jones. If you honestly feel that you can equalize violence to try to make it feel more tolerant, then you need to wake up. You need to read the news. You need to see the violence. You need to want to stop it more than you need to want to defend multi-culturalism, and other catch words that make liberals feel big and selfless.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Thanks Gamer- I couldn't think of one for Buddhism.
@MyTie- My point was not to "equalize violence." My point was to show that the connecting factors in situations like this are more economic than theological. Right now the voting patterns in Middle Eastern countries are reflecting this desperation the same way they have in other cultures when other political groups were put in power to horrible ends.
My point isn't to prove a point about religious equality for the sake of proving it, or because it's PC and I don't want to offend anyone. It's to point out that if we want to combat a mentality in a population, then it's important to combat the ACTUAL root causes, and not just whatever commonality this group has in this era. Because in 20 years, it will be another group, under a different religious/national/ideological banner, and we won't have learned anything about how to deal with them. If we get too hung up on combating "Islamic Extremism," rather than combating terrorism as a phenomenon, then we won't have anything useful to apply from this conflict to ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, continuing terrorism based on separatist movements in various countries, and whatever religious group from whatever impoverished area that next picks up arms.
Post by
Adamsm
And a lot of people need to stop acting like Religion is the end all say all, and just be human and stop hiding behind labels; then actually deal with the real trouble makers rather then white washing an entire group as the 'enemy'.
Post by
MyTie
rather then white washing an entire group as the 'enemy'.
No one here is doing that. No one. This is your strawman. Find a better defense for your argument, or push off.
Post by
Adamsm
I never said anyone here was doing that MyTie; it's the way the world itself seems to deal with problems; just look at all that idiocy that has popped up over the years since 9/11 in regards to Muslims in American(American born Muslims no less!)....it's the same *!@# that happened back during World War 2 after Pearl Harbor was bombed and how everyone treated both American and Canadian born Japanese.
Post by
MyTie
I never said anyone here was doing that MyTie; it's the way the world itself seems to deal with problems; just look at all that idiocy that has popped up over the years since 9/11 in regards to Muslims in American(American born Muslims no less!)....it's the same *!@# that happened back during World War 2 after Pearl Harbor was bombed and how everyone treated both American and Canadian born Japanese.
Ok, then who is doing this? Who is saying that all Muslims are violent? Very very few people are saying this. I've never actually heard it myself. If you aren't using this as a local strawman, then you are using it as a big picture strawman.
Instead of facing the issue of massive violence in the Islamic world, you are framing the issue in terms of how "people" think that all Muslims are violent.
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