I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Greta »

Seleucus wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 5:12 pm... science, history and foreign languages are being cut out or reduced in the curriculum and religious education time slots increased. Survey shows that more than 80% of religion teachers support Shariah, additionally, 20% of total students are educated in madrasahs.
They are working hard to eliminate themselves from the gene pool. They may well succeed.

One more time for those who haven't seen the video of the Kiai Master and MMA fighter - mythology v reality, which wins? :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDaCIDvj6I
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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 1:53 am
Greta wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 1:20 am Which century would most appeal to you?
I'm not saying we're not privileged. I'm saying we're not average, and we're not typical of where the world is headed. This may very well be the best things get. But in many ways, it's been better. Look at warfare, disease, infanticide, international politics, or the environment, just for a start. There's no progress to see there...certainly not moral progress.

The key question: Do you believe that modern humans are smarter, more morally aware, faster and stronger than ever before?
No. I think human beings are pretty much what human being have always been. But "morally aware" is the really funny one. We've never, as a group, been more clueless or done worse things to each other than in the last century. We're not getting more moral, whatever else we're becoming.

However, I note we're getting away from the OP topic, so perhaps this is for another strand. We should be respectful of what the OP started.
It is exactly the topic. It's not Muslims, it's just natural dynamics. Muslims just happen to the "bad guys" of the moment. Germany, Japan, Italy, China, Russia, North Korea (and some would say the US).

You appear to have completely missed my point - the gains happen in the few. New Olympic and other records broken all the time while the average person becomes more sedentary. New findings and knowledge - even a school child (in a secular school) knows things about the world and the universe that only the wisest of elders knew. As a musician I find that many pre-teen children can play with the skill of what was once consider virtuoso. The number of virtuoso musicians capable of playing highly dexterous and sophisticated solos today is extraordinary.

So there are gains and losses, from landing spacecraft on comets to the twerking reality TV mentality, to the great geniuses ranging from Newton to Feynman etc, to an increase in ignorant conspiracy theory ideas (noting that a minority of the theories are probably right).

Look at the trends - the winners and losers in this re-forming world are making themselves more clear. Islamic fundamentalists are clearly doomed by their own hand - their harsh locations, their inability to live peacefully, their inability to organise their people in a way that can compete with more realistic cultures. Fundamentalist Islam is akin to a dying beast thrashing in its death throws.

Meanwhile, fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity eats away at the US like a cancer, creating ever deeper divisions, undermining education and thus weakening the society to benefit itself. However, this takeover is no encephalisation because avoiding the hard questions that science and research pose is the action of a servant, not a leader. The US is ceding its authority, letting the "grown up" nations work on the important global environmental issues.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:12 am Fundamentalist Islam is akin to a dying beast thrashing in its death throws.
"Throes"? Perhaps. I would wish so, for sure. When an ideology gets to the point of marginalizing and brutalizing half of its own population, and blowing up its young men, it's pretty moribund. It's pretty clear Islam has no way forward. But it's also a crazy, suicidal, self-immolating religion. Will it go quietly? I doubt it.
Meanwhile, fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity eats away at the US like a cancer,
That's funny. How many "Christian fundamentalists" are swathing their women in grave clothes and blowing up children in Manchester? You've got to stop watching the Liberal press...they grossly, grossly distort the situation in the US. If you listened to them, you'd actually imagine there's some kind of Right Wing conspiracy. There's no such thing.

They also want you to forget that the party of slavery, the KKK and segregation was the "liberal" pack, i.e. the Democrats. So who's the real fractious bunch in the US? It's not the Right -- the republicans or Christian conservatives: they're the classical, Lockean liberals, the "pillar" traditional Americans. All the racial politics, bad immigration policy and the selling out of the African American communities is being done by the big-government Leftists.

Anyway, back to Islam. That's the real topic. You'd have to know more about US politics for us to debate that, and if you think Christians are the US problem, well, that's just bizarre. There need to be SOME facts in a discussion for it to go forward. Prejudice won't yield much.
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Seleucus
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Justintruth wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 7:48 pm
.... The southern hemisphere does not have the psychological assets to develop independently and those qualities are not going to emerge on their own.....
What do you think about eliminating the idea of non interference in internal affairs. (Imperialism minus racism and minus nationalism with complete free trade in labor and citizenship and robust funding for education and a strong safety net with a form of multi-culturalism that is deliberately limited so it does not override values and the resulting benefits like promptness, queuing etc?)
Yes, you read me correctly. I'm suggesting Western leadership and assistance, which could be called interference, is desirable.

I accept in general the clash of civilizations hypothesis, that the world is a war-zone of rival race-based gangs underlied by control of ancient trade corridor along which flow both material and intellectual resources.

That isn't to say that I don't also agree that love conquors all. No doubt love could prevent and heal a mad dog, but unfortunately, practically, protective use of force demands the mad dog be shot. I'm sure love and tolerance for Islam could eventually win (if not genocides by Islamists first), unfortunately, a much more brutal policy of elimination and exclusion is demanded to protect us from becoming martyrs to Islam.

Islamists are intellectually and morally weak people who looked at the gaping terror of the void of existential freedom and flinched and retreated into their ideology and dogma instead of facing freedom with intellectual and moral courage.
Justintruth wrote:
Meanwhile, there is no incentive for Western societies to intervene and show leadership or assist in the way that colonialism formerly made it profitable.
What?! No incentive?!

I guess I think we are in the kill zone ...

Perhaps you mean market incentives.
More likely there will eventually be a lock-out at national and local levels. This is what Deleuze and Guattari predict in their "Societies of control" as well as what Foucault and Agamben and so on's work on bio-politics prophesies. If you have seen the more recent film Elysium or the older one, Wings Over the World you can understand how it works. This was the standard setup during colonial times and continues to be in 3rd World countries today, in the West with it's majority middle-class the arrangement is not yet as familiar but is likely to become so as the middle-class evaporates.
Justintruth wrote:What if we gave international passports to 1% of 18 year olds by lottery, then 2%, then 4% perhaps with a throttlable rate?
This rate is roughly what is already being achieved through student visas, working visas, family class, and illegal immigration.

As I say, if 3rd World people are going to be imported into the West with an aim to cultural reformation in those home countries there also needs to be an organized and supported repatriation (as to Liberia after the slavery period). Randomly sending people back to Afghanistan only risks their own lives and will accomplish little without co-ordination. If the immigration is only one way, it is only a brain-drain on the 3 rd World. It would be better if Western countries were willing to get involved in development and show leadership and give assistance -- but -- how many doctors, professors, judges, police trainers, engineers, and experts in management want to work for 3rd World salaries? Very few! And who wants to pay the taxes to support such a project? Realistically, the more likely outcome is a lockout and at national and local levels with border-walls, compounds and all the other civil engineering tactics used to control space at the disciplinarian level, and pass cards finger print scanners at the "societies of control" level. As I say at the top, we live in a gang-land world where civilizations are struggling for survival, aiding whole other continents is not going to be a priority, especially if it means that developed continent now becomes a competitor. Furthermore, given how difficult it is to alter a culture, how defense mechanism in a culture prevent it, and how its elements are multiply reinforced, would an effort of development not be resisted and what could it accomplish? The important work is internal (mental). After their wars, Korea and Germany were reduced to mud, but they rebuilt in a generation, Indonesia and Nigeria are going nowhere because they lack the internal (mental) infrastructure to support an advanced state. To put it bluntly and rudely: the 'stupid and lazy' problem.
Justintruth wrote:I have an unrelated question. Do you think automation is causing those without strong intellectual endowments from presenting their needs and desires as economic demands because the automated economy no longer allows them to exchange labor for cash. In general how do you think the demand for labor as a function of skill matches up with the labor attainable with training. In equilibrium -and given environmental constraints - will there be a surplus of labor that drives the supply/demand equilibrium off optimal as measured by the desire and aspirations of the population.
Yes, there is an oversupply of unskilled labor which is why it is worth about $1 a day on the global market, granted, it sells for $100 dollars a day in the protected minimum wage systems of the West -- a bubble waiting to burst. But considering the value of having a majority middle-class and not a mass or poor and a tiny elite it might be a bubble worth keeping going. For those who are educated there will be plenty of work and much to do as we colonize Mars, cure cancer and so on.
Last edited by Seleucus on Fri May 26, 2017 4:33 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Seleucus
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Justintruth wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 8:00 pmThe best that can be hoped with is a walled - gated - community surrounded by a slum. Is that where we want to go? Isn't that a little....risky?
It is I expect the most likely outcome, for now.

My view on power systems is something like this: As wealth and knowledge accrue in a system it is initially maintained in the royal family. As wealth and wisdom increase it is shared with an elite class. If wealth and wisdom continue to increase it is shared with the artisans and so on. If wealth and knowledge continue to grow it may expand into a radical democracy. At each step on the way, those in the nucleus had a choice, either to fight for its privilege and not share the wealth and wisdom, or to expand the center. This choice is a risk. If there turned out not to be enough wealth and wisdom, the society collapses in looting. On the other-hand, if there turned out to be sufficient wealth and wisdom but the center cringed and didn't expand the franchise, the society ossifies. Looked at today, is the world ready for a expanded franchise that includes all the billions? The answer is obviously no. Expanding the center to all people now would lead to a total implosion of human civilization as the accomplishments of thousands of years are looted and spoiled by ignorant savages, a scene which has been witnessed many times in history. For now, at the global level, we sit somewhere beyond the point of a global elite and coming to a franchise of the artisans. Clearly there is no danger of a complete closure and ossification of civilization, however if the global/local lock-down and 'compoundification' lasts too long, progress will stagnate if there had been wealth and wisdom sufficient to expand. At some point in the distant future, the center of elites and artisans may be expanded to a radical global democracy when it appears sufficient wealth and knowledge exists to reasonably venture the risk.
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Seleucus
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Arising_uk wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 10:46 pmThese'll be those indigenous people who taught your pilgrims how to survive and saved them from starvation would it? Bet they wish they hadn't now.
Because they would prefer to cling to life as stone-age hunter-gathers rather than enjoy all the privilege and comfort of life as citizens of a modern developed country?
Arising_uk wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 10:21 pmYou think we whiter than white do you? So what do you call Christians who drop drone missiles upon wedding parties? Who fire depleted uranium rounds in urban areas? Who drop cluster-bombs and cruise missiles in urban areas?
It isn't comparable; the most advanced civilizations ever to have existed are attempting to use force tactically to bring freedom and prosperity to the suffering and ignorant by overthrowing dictatorial middle-eastern governments. On the other hand, backward medieval peoples are terrorizing random innocent children in the attempt to dominate the world with their cruel and heathen ideology. --Admittedly, there was a miscalculation. It was wrongly believed that all persons are equal and will make rational enlightened choices. It wasn't anticipated that the middle-easterners would choose the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS over democracy and free society when given the choice. Now we have learned the lesson. The psychology and culture of the people needs to be changed before a change in institutions can succeed. Like the Romans who defeated Carthage only to have to do it again the next generation, or who were continually drawn into Greek conflicts after withdrawing, the West will eventually learn that lesson and restore Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan as western countries as they were for a thousand years.
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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:24 am
Greta wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:12 am Fundamentalist Islam is akin to a dying beast thrashing in its death throws.
"Throes"? Perhaps. I would wish so, for sure. When an ideology gets to the point of marginalizing and brutalizing half of its own population, and blowing up its young men, it's pretty moribund. It's pretty clear Islam has no way forward. But it's also a crazy, suicidal, self-immolating religion. Will it go quietly? I doubt it.
Funny spelling error - I'll blame the GA for that.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:24 am
Meanwhile, fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity eats away at the US like a cancer,
That's funny. How many "Christian fundamentalists" are swathing their women in grave clothes and blowing up children in Manchester? You've got to stop watching the Liberal press...they grossly, grossly distort the situation in the US. If you listened to them, you'd actually imagine there's some kind of Right Wing conspiracy. There's no such thing.
Never mind that. Again, the issue is much more fundamental to human nature and humanity's journey than the petty party politics that takes too much of your attention. Consider this report about the neo-Nazi who then claimed to be an Islamic terrorist https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... pside-down

Also note the relative blindness in the US to the problems of the right wing, such as these things stand today:
According a recent report, A Dark and Constant Rage, from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), rightwing extremists have been responsible for planning at least 150 acts of terror in the United States over the past 25 years. They’ve killed 255 people in these attacks and injured 600 more. White supremacists and anti-government extremists are the biggest subset of rightwing extremists (which also includes groups such as anti-abortionists and anti-immigrant extremists) and are responsible for 85% of these incidents.

However, as the ADL points out, while “rightwing extremists have been one of the largest and most consistent sources of domestic terror incidents in the United States for many years”, this fact “has not gotten the attention it deserves.” What’s more, “it has garnered far less notice than … Islamic terrorism”.

Can you imagine how much more press Brandon Russell’s basement full of explosives would have received if it had belonged to a man called Mohammed with a picture of a 9/11 bomber in his bedroom?

Rightwing terrorism doesn’t just get less media attention than Islamist terrorism – it gets less attention in policy. As the ADL report notes, the US still doesn’t have a federal domestic terrorism statute and “federal spending on training law enforcement on issues such as rightwing violence and terrorism is extremely low”. This is clearly ridiculous.

If the statistics don’t show how ridiculous it is, Devon Arthurs, a white supremacist turned Islamist who allegedly murdered his former neo-Nazi friends thinking they were about to commit acts of domestic terrorism, does.
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Seleucus
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta wrote:Rightwing terrorism doesn’t just get less media attention than Islamist terrorism – it gets less attention in policy. ... over the past 25 years. They’ve killed 255 people in these attacks and injured 600 more
75% of that count comes from a single incident twenty-two years ago, the Oklahoma City bombing. Islamists are currently banging that number off every ten days. Islamism is a significantly more serious problem.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Seleucus wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 7:42 am 75% of that count comes from a single incident twenty-two years ago, the Oklahoma City bombing. Islamists are currently banging that number off every ten days. Islamism is a significantly more serious problem.
What counts as 'Islamism' if we are counting? For example, if one Muslim kills another Muslim, is that included as an example of Islamist terrorism? In WW1 and WW2 millions of Christians killed millions of other Christians - but we would not conclude 'Christianity' was responsible.

And if we are looking at civilian on civilian violence today, the home of terrorism would be Latin America; cities in Brazil and Colombia and Mexico...other contenders being South Africa and the USA. The occasional terrorist incident in Europe is nothing compared to these places. What ideological label could we apply to these killings? Christian capitalism?

Regarding terrorism and inter-communal violence within Europe, by far the most involves separatist movements, one set of (notional) Christians against another.

So when you write 'Islamism is a significantly more serious problem' one asks 'more serious than what?'
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 2:24 am They also want you to forget that the party of slavery, the KKK and segregation was the "liberal" pack, i.e. the Democrats.
What would be the point of remembering? That both George Wallace and Barack Obama both ran as Democrats would give you no insight into the politics of either of them.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Justintruth wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 8:05 pm
attofishpi wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 4:46 pm
Londoner wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 4:40 pm

You are still being strangely restrictive with that list of weapons.

Is your argument that it is a religious requirement for ISLAMIST terrorists to use 'Semi-trailers\cars\knives\IEDs etc.' as opposed to atomic bombs, napalm, cruise missiles, drones, helicopters etc. If so, I have to tell you, I think that view is mistaken. I think that if they had the same weapons as Christians and atheists they would use them instead.

But don't trouble yourself by trying to work out what you are saying. I think we both know that Mr Logic rarely finds himself at home in this sort of discussion.
It amazes me that your brain is powerful enough to tap a keyboard, but that is the extent of it. To think you actually want me to list every type of weaponry that could fall into the hands of a Muslim. der.
Why don't you go re-read what he said? Maybe try to understand what you are responding to? Hint: He is not asking you to list weapons.
Hint: I real eyes that.
My point is talking about napalm bombing Vietnam etc etc is irrelevant to this conversation.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Arising_uk wrote: Thu May 25, 2017 10:21 pm
attofishpi wrote:Oh ok - could you point out the ones that drive semi-trailers through crowds of innocent people? ..and those that intentionally target children with IEDs?
You think we whiter than white do you? So what do you call Christians who drop drone missiles upon wedding parties? Who fire depleted uranium rounds in urban areas? Who drop cluster-bombs and cruise missiles in urban areas?
Let me get this right - you consider the US motives as Christian directed right? Just because some of the US politicians and military are 'Christian' doesnt mean they are claiming it is Christian inspired or motivated. They would have a hard time finding direction from Christ on such matters - not so hard for the Muslims (via Koran) who DO claim they are divinely inspired to do such acts.

Let me just get things back in perspective.
Al-Queda take out two buildings in NY killing over 3000 civilians.
US intelligence has it that 'top brass' within AQ are attending a wedding and take a strike - causing some civilian casualties.
Its the Syrians using cluster-bombs on their own people - and the cruise missiles were used to attack chemical factories.

So long as this all allows you some comfort when children are DIRECTLY targeted by Islameists.

Arising_uk wrote:I'm sick to death of hearing our politicians say "How can they do such things?" "Who can understand why they do such things?" And most of all this 'innocent people' guff' as we give two tosses about the thousands of innocent dead children due to our foreign policies and actions.
I catch a lot of taxis - i speak to a LOT of taxi drivers from Iraq and Afghanistan and 95% of them SUPPORT what the US led coalition have done in their respective lands. I thinks thousands of children as a direct result of US bombs is an extreme exaggeration.
Arising_uk wrote:
attofishpi wrote:He wouldn't be a sage to do such a thing, nevertheless, I would tell him to fuck off - just like ive told him and 'God' to do countless times already.
Eh! Then presumably they've done such a thing?
You are sooo predictable. No, nothing even close.
Londoner
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 12:39 pm
Let me get this right - you consider the US motives as Christian directed right? Just because some of the US politicians and military are 'Christian' doesnt mean they are claiming it is Christian inspired or motivated. They would have a hard time finding direction from Christ on such matters - not so hard for the Muslims (via Koran) who DO claim they are divinely inspired to do such acts.
The US politicians and military do not claim what they are doing is contrary to Christian values, so presumably they think killing it is compatible with those values.

The same is (mostly) true of Muslims. The explanations they gave for 9/11 were entirely conventional (support for Israel, the sanctions on Iraq, etc.) And I am old enough to remember when the similar issues were cited by organisations like Fatah as motivating their attacks, but in those days the ideology of the terrorists was secular socialism.

They will say they are acting in solidarity with other Muslims, but US politicians also consider it reasonable to intervene outside the USA in support of those they consider share US values, and secular revolutionaries claimed solidarity with each other too

Of course, not all Christians in the USA support the actions of US politicians and military, but I suspect quite a high proportion do. I would guess a far, far higher proportion of US Christians support the US military than Syrian or Iraqi Muslims support IS.

Yes, certainly there are a few pure religious maniacs, but that is true of Christians too. They are not so evident in the USA because the USA has effective law enforcement (although there are occasional outbreaks, like Waco), but where central government is weak, e.g. in some African states, you get movements like the LRA which seem very similar to IS.

My point is that it is a mistake to think there is something special about the current (historically low levels) of violence that must be explained by Islam.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Londoner wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 1:27 pmMy point is that it is a mistake to think there is something special about the current (historically low levels) of violence that must be explained by Islam.
What differentiated the violence committed by Muslims from that committed by the West in the Middle-East is that Western violence is in the service of defeating Islamism and vanguarding Western civilization, Islamists by contrast pursue Islamic society. Western civilization is something considerably more valuable, it's worth killing and dying for; Islamic society by contrast is an abomination; ugly, retarded, and ignorant at best.

While your show of virtue is so admirable, the world is a gang-land turf war, a clash of civilizations fought over money and bitches, Western people are perusing their interests, if necessary, at the expense of others. That's the realpolitik of it.

(Islamic suicide attacks go back to the tradition of assassins from the time of the early caliphs.)
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Immanuel Can »

Londoner wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 11:40 am What would be the point of remembering? That both George Wallace and Barack Obama both ran as Democrats would give you no insight into the politics of either of them.
Oh, I disagree. I think you learn a very great deal by staying alert to the history there.

But see if you agree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_a7dQXilCo
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