Is Islam the new thing?

[Anachronous Rex]

I will not be engaging with you again due to the bizarre behaviour that you displayed in the following thread: http://www.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7640

So I guess you don't know the answer to your asspull pop quiz then? This isn't private chat you know: you can post for others to see without "engaging" me directly. In fact, if you add people to your foe list, their posts will be invisible. Check it out: it's under My Account -> Friends & Foes.

I'm quite sure he knows. Please refrain from this sort of thing for now on.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Anyways, back on topic...


I think the focus on Islam has to do with several factors, some of which apply especially in Europe. Obviously 9-11 and whatever. Also, some soft-headed politicians are confused about religious liberty and roll over for Islam where they pretty clearly shouldn't... which makes waves and draws attention because it is new and foreign and we're used to everyone rolling over for Christianity and Judaism.

Plus, we've got a shit economic situation worldwide. Whenever that happens, immigrants and minorities become a bigger target. In Europe, largely Muslim immigrants from less pale countries are being scapegoated left and right. They are an easy target for anyone who wants to score points with poor and unemployed people. Don't have an economic policy or job-creating plan? Blame the darkies!!! In America that tends to be Hispanics, and in Europe that tends to be people from countries where Islam is a majority religion. It is easy to point to an "other" and ascribe the worst excesses of individuals to entire groups with a broad brush.

 

[Lallapalalable]

Good points, and I understand 60 to 11 years ago (with the steady rise of extremist/fundamental Isam sects) Muslim targeting was a niche "thing", as in it was around and far from rare but not quite what post 9/11 years gave us, especially in the US and Europe. Plus, ImprobableJoe, your comments on over-accomodation and the recession are quite on, and it gave me some ponder material (wow that sounded dirty).

I was referring a bit more locally in time, though, and when I posted the topic I had neglected to consider that DMD2 was just a month and a half or so past, and that may have been an factor. Actually combing through my subs revealed all to be as it has been for the short time I have been following, so I guess that's an on my part. Given that, my stance may have changed slightly from the OP (it's hard for me to tell when analyzing myself, so forgive me either way).

Now, onto what was actually discussed;

Another point would be that the two sides have just gotten bored with bitching at one-another and have cumulatively joined forces against an easy target - even though most of the Muslims I know are more sensible than the Christians I know.

Hopefully this is another possibility, as it means that in time the line will be blurred to the point that actual belief in JC God and an upholding of the moral system it poses without subscribing to a faith in a deity wont matter to anyone but the most ignorant fundamentalists. It does seem to be headed that way, at least in the blue US states (PA is pretty even, a good purple if you will, but usually leans left in more extreme cases), as one of my best friends is stage 3 Christian with the full knowlege that I am equally atheist, and rare are the judgemental types. The internet may have a magnifying effect on the view, and perhaps all the YT banter is just overfocused and underoccupied zealots making a lot of noise via entertaining videos that a lot of people enjoy. And who doesn't love drama? These scuffs provide that and give a face to the contenders, so it's no wonder that those involved develop a decent following. Im willing to bet 90% of the more popular channels' subscribers (atheist and the not) dont share their exact views, and perhaps a lot of them only subbed due to one or two videos they enjoyed with the hopes that a similar one would be made. Tfoot (dont mean to single him out, he's just very popular and I only like his WDPLAC videos, so he's the best example from my perspective) has 140k subscribers, whereas his videos usually reach about half those views if they're lucky (excluding more enticing videos, such as his WBC interview), and Im willing to bet that kind of trend is prevailent on both sides. Therefore, we may tend to get all worked up over relatively isolated views and ourselves cast the blanket of "christian" to include the moderate and extremist.

Rambled a bit, but it was one thing supporting another and I kinda got carried away.

Anyway, back to your comment, yes I dont see why, in a broader sense, Islam deserves more ire than Christianity, because without that grouping into "Islam", the moderates are just as easygoing as their Christian counterparts. I have Muslim neighbors, one of my favorite bosses ever was Muslim, and same for a professor who was probably the best educator I have ever met, where I have encountered my fair share of uptight in your face "You are going to burn in Hell I hope it's today you disgusting baby raping dog!" variety of Christians. Point is, both sides are nice people and terrible pricks, but fundamental Islam, having been born in third and second world countries during periods of occupation and civil war, is what gives them the "shit stain". Christians have the advantage of having the Inquisition and the Crusades centuries behind us, so they only have to deal with that when defending themselves, not at first glance.

I'd reply to others, but I just looked at the clock and I have shit to do tomorrow. Maybe later, unless the convo evolves too far.

 

[Laurens]

I'd like to see more people take on the Buddhists...

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

I'd like to see more people take on the Buddhists...

Those damned hippies and their peaceful ways.
Why can't they be like REAL Americans and shoot people who speak funny languages and wear turbans, huh?

:lol:

 

[aeritano]

I'd like to see more people take on the Buddhists...

Those damned hippies and their peaceful ways.
Why can't they be like REAL Americans and shoot people who speak funny languages and wear turbans, huh?

:lol:

you're forgetting the workers of Satan.. dem gays are public enemy number one!!!!!

 

[Unwardil]

I for one will not be siding with the Christians against the Muslims. If there are two people in a room and I disagree with both of them, I do not pick the side of the slightly less abrasive one, I continue to disagree with them both.

There are any number of reasons I disagree with both sides and my own 'side' for that matter. There's little I enjoy more than debating philosophy with other atheists. It's so much more interesting when you have to compile your own justifications for things and can't fall back on some piece of scripture. You actually have to reason things out and therein lies the fun. I have no problem debating philosophy with the religious either, just so long as they understand that they've lost the very instant they bring up their god, because I don't believe in it and I never will.

Generally though, it's the tribalism of religion that just plain bugs me and I don't care what religion you're talking about here because it's practically a requirement. If there was a church of atheism I wouldn't join it for the same reason I don't join any other church. Cause tribalism creeps me the fuck out. It is the death of individualism and I happen to like my individualism, thanks very much.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

And you can't disprove magic, there's just no evidence for it - if you're going to be an anti-theistic atheist, at the very least solidify to a sound reason of being an atheist instead of being just as illogical and irrational as Nephy's nonsense.

From what I could tell, UB's post on that matter referred to disproving magical spells and incantations, which is a far more specific thing than magic itself. And when you get specific about what does or does not happen for a given action, it becomes more and more open to outright disproof. Just as we can't exactly say that no hypothetical god according to any definition can't possibly exist because it's just too vague and too open to interpretation. But if you pin it down to the specifics like "God as defined according to the Old Testament," that sort of claim is absolutely disprovable because that definition gets all the way down to things that God has done and the logically self-contradicting nature of its defined, which make it entirely impossible.

I'd like to see more people take on the Buddhists...

Well, there are some aspects within Buddhism which are very easily ridiculous. Even leaving aside the supernatural concepts of a soul, reincarnation, For instance, Buddhism teaches the concept of an immutable and inseparable relation between cause and effect -- which is to say that any given cause necessarily implies a certain effect and any given effect always implies a certain cause. This is demonstrably false because complex interactions across populations can easily muddle the effects of causes, and similarly, identical effects can be created through multiple different causes or even a combination of multiple causes since the number of variables at play can potentially be very large. It is really a sort of Occam's Razor turned too far philosophy that teaches that the most reasonable inference is the one that is unit in its complexity. Being unable to find that unary complexity of cause and effect implies being far from enlightened.

Another basic teaching of Buddhism is that people should realize that there is nothing but pain and sorrow in the world, and that is why we should seek to drop our attachments to reality. Of course, if there was nothing but pain and sorrow in the world, why would anyone have any attachments to it in the first place? Formally speaking, all the forms of Buddhism founded by Buddha's direct followers said that even things like love for others, passions/interests, causes and activism... all of them should be shed wholesale (not just worldly possessions).

Still, for all I could go on, there's a difficulty here because Buddhism is not an organized religion. It, like its parent of Hinduism, is really a disorganized religion where people who follow it don't really know much about the actual teachings or anything of its source material, but are instead wooed by all the new-age hippie pacifism and serene imagery. It's fragmented so many ways and specifically offers the position that although "enlightenment" itself is unique, there is not merely one road to Rome. End result is that you can talk to 100 different Buddhists and not get the same response in what the believe overall. They'll likely only share a few basic beliefs and that's about it.

One of the things that makes it possible to get on Islam or Christianity is because they're comparatively so well-defined, and because scripture is really part of the equation for all followers. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, etc... hardly any of them have read any of the Vedas, Sutras, Puranas, or even the works of philosophers who actually have studied it. They all tend to be built around localized traditions and practices rather than the written word. By comparison, the Bible is everywhere. The Qur'an is everywhere. You can find the Torah in just about any bookstore or library. Sure, you can also find the Bhagavad Gita just about anywhere, too, but it's not scripture at all; it's not even a story, but just one monologue that takes place in a much larger story. And even then, a lot of people don't read it, and just assume it's 100% good and beyond reproach.

Islam gets notice now partly because of 9-11, 26-11, etc...Things like Thuderf00t's row, South Park's Mohammed bear costume, DMD, etc... all bring to light the sort of sensation that we've been avoiding it, either out of fear or out of the fact that we never really paid that much attention before. Hell, South Park didn't even get a rise when they depicted Mohammed in the Super Best Friends episode, but that was also before 9-11... After 9-11, political Islamists probably also felt a little more empowered, so there's a reactionary component to it. Then again, there's also the fact that within most countries which were not Muslim-dominated, Muslims were honestly persecuted after 9-11, too, so their voices got louder in a reactionary way as well. I suspect that if the U.S. pulled out of the Middle East earlier, the whole thing would have died down sooner. That said, Christianity is a lot closer to home for a lot of people in Western nations, so it doesn't take much to at least briefly drown out the Islam rage and trade it for some thorough screaming at the insufferable idiocy of Christian apologists. As much as we might think a crazed Muslim terrorist might bomb our buildings again, we can't really escape the fact that we have people who make the laws in our own country who think the Earth is 6000 years old and that rainbows prove that global warming is a hoax... and that ultimately has more serious and far-reaching consequences.

 

[nefariousvirtuoso]

I live in the future Islamic Republic of Europe specifically England where the media and politicians are spineless appeasers.
I'm so pissed off with this Islam bullshit its a cult not a religion if it didn't have the religion tag to hide behind it would have been banned a long time ago.
I'm a big Thunderf00t, PatCondell and Sam Harris fan.

 

[australopithecus]

I live in the future Islamic Republic of Europe specifically England where the media and politicians are spineless appeasers.
I'm so pissed off with this Islam bullshit its a cult not a religion if it didn't have the religion tag to hide behind it would have been banned a long time ago.
I'm a big Thunderf00t, PatCondell and Sam Harris fan.

:facepalm:

Smells like The Daily Mail.

 

[Prolescum]

I live in the future Islamic Republic of Europe

Which flavour of Islam are we talking about? Sunni? Shia? Sufi?

specifically England where the media and politicians are spineless appeasers.

They are often spineless, but if you're going to call them appeasers, you better bloody well qualify it with facts.

Go on.

I'm so pissed off with this Islam bullshit its a cult not a religion

Yay! Let's demonize a billion people with generic arse wind! Let the power of weak manipulation through language commence!

if it didn't have the religion tag to hide behind it would have been banned a long time ago.

No it wouldn't. 1400-odd years and counting. By which criteria are you judging? Assuming you have any rational basis at all, of course.

I'm a big Thunderf00t, PatCondell and Sam Harris fan.

Oh great, a useless wanker, an incorrigible fuckwit and a wannabe. Doesn't say much for your taste...


Oh, and welcome to the League of Reason.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I live in the future Islamic Republic of Europe specifically England where the media and politicians are spineless appeasers.
I'm so pissed off with this Islam bullshit its a cult not a religion if it didn't have the religion tag to hide behind it would have been banned a long time ago.
I'm a big Thunderf00t, PatCondell and Sam Harris fan.

So that means you're a hysterical, unrealistic panic-monger, and possibly a xenophobic bigot, based on the people you admire and the foolish thing you said.