[ SECRET POST #3571 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3571 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 20 secrets from Secret Submission Post #510.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The point is there's not an intrinsic connection between Islam and terrorism.

[(Anonymous)]

That's debatable. Jesus was a hippy that was crucified. Buddha sat under a tree. Muhammad was a warlord who spread his faith by the sword.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet all three religions have been involved in brutal religious violence. Yes, even Buddhism.

The specifics of religious doctrine have a deeply complex relationship with what actually happens in society and how people live their lives. You can't reduce it to that level.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

The difference is that Christianity and Buddhism don't call for their followers to kill. Islam does. (Killing unbelievers who refuse to convert is a major one, and a big reason they hate the west. Iran made atheism illegal.)

Thus, Christians and Buddhists who kill aren't following their religion. Muslims are.

That's not to say that most Muslims are violent, because they're not. Around 10-20% percent are radicalized. Since there's over a billion Muslims worldwide, that's about 300 million, by the way.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, don't give me that horseshit. Christianity and Buddhism have been incredibly violent at times; Islam has been peaceful at times. There is just not the kind of direct relationship between the religion and the violence that you want to see.

If you want to talk about the reason that Christianity mostly isn't violent in the West, it's because we've spent the last 350 years building intellectual, social, and political structures to support the idea that profound differences of belief, especially religious belief, don't have to lead to violence - that you can have different fundamental beliefs and live together peacefully in society. There's nothing intrinsic in Islam that conflicts with that idea, any more than there was in Christianity. and let me tell you, if you were a Christian in the 17th century, it sure as hell would have seemed to you that it would have been impossible to get to that point. You wouldn't have said that, oh, God commands us to live in fellowship with each other. This was not a consensus view. And it's not just a question of changes in the religion itself, either - it's a broader worldview and meta-understanding and series of conceptual structures that Islam can easily be accommodated to.

Of course radical Islam can't be accommodated in that structure. There is a fundamental opposition between radical Jihadist Islam and the kind of tolerant multiculturalism that we're talking about here. It is an existential opposition. I'm not denying that. But it's a problem with the radicalness, not the Islam. And opposing Islam as a whole goes against and risks throwing out the whole structure for no reason whatsoever. Opposing radical Islam in no way requires us to believe that there's something fundamentally dangerous about Islam as a religion. And believing that makes it harder for us to come to terms with the threat.

I don't agree that radical Islam is a widespread enough threat, or a substantial enough part of Islam, that we have to adopt a general skepticism and hostility towards Islam and Muslims in general. I don't think that's the case. I think we can respond to radicalism without going after the religion as a whole. But the argument you're making here goes beyond that idea: it's not just that radicalism is too popular within Islam. It's that violence and radicalism are intrinsic to and inextricable from Islam. That, I think is wrong, and I think it's shameful, and I think it's actively harmful.

[(Anonymous)]

I've read the Quran, so I'm no buying your argument.

[(Anonymous)]

I've read it too, but without looking for argument points.