Likewise the Crusades had nothing to do with Christianity, I presume. It is good to have your perspective aired, and comforting to think how infrequently a pop concert is blown up, but a global view might suggests that violence in the name of that religion is not so rare as you suggest. In the last week:
2017.07.11 (Nigeria) Eight villagers are forced to the ground and executed for defying Sharia.
2017.07.10 (India) Seven Hindu pilgrims, including five women, are massacred by heavily-armed Muslim terrorists.
2017.07.10 (Iraq) Seven children are executed and hung from lamp posts by the Islamic State.
2017.07.08 (Kenya) Nine villagers are beheaded 'like chickens' by Islamic extremists.
2017.07.07 (Egypt) Islamic militants stage a brutal assault on a checkpoint that beings with a suicide blast and leaves two dozen dead.
2017.07.06 (India) A 65-year-old Hindu is stabbed to death during a Muslim riot over an 'offensive' Facebook post.
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Finally, apostasy. Remind yourself what the punishment for apostasy is in Islam. Then ask yourself if that really is the kind of thing we can pretend is compatible with western enlightenment values.
Indeed. One wonders why Peter is so keen to differentiate western terrorists from their counterparts in societies where religious dogma still prevails? Most western terrorists have spent time in such societies, so why should they not also be considered products of the same environment?
Peter, you point to how few terrorists there are in spite of the efforts of fundamentalist Imams to persuade them and how this shows that the religion is not to blame. Again, why do you only count western terrorism in your workings?
Also, how would your smugness be looking if all of the foiled attacks of recent years had been successful in the west? Would you be quite so ready to point to how few of them are prepared to die and murder for their beliefs?
Last edited by Monty92; 07-12-2017 at 01:22 PM.
Look closer to home. 250 years after the Enlightenment and 400 years after the Reformation, people are being killed in Europe for blasphemy again. Why? Islam.
UK: Salman Rushdie and his publishers terrorised, attacked and in one case murdered for 'blaspheming'.
Holland: Pim Fortuyn murdered for publicly opposing Islam, Theo van Gogh slaughtered for 'blaspheming'; Ayan Hirsi Ali chased out of the country, becoming the first refugee from Western Europe since the Second World War.
France: Charlie Hebdo's staff murdered for blasphemy
This is happening for one reason and one reason only: the existence of large numbers of devout and practising muslims in our countries.
Islam IS the disease. The individuals are just symptoms.
Last edited by Burney; 07-12-2017 at 01:27 PM.
Peter, what about the estimated 12-15 Muslim honour killings that take place in the UK each year? Or the gang-raping of literally thousands of young girls across the UK by Muslims that is now coming to light?
Mentally ill or a product of their environment? Just an exception to the rule that Islam cannot be blamed?
So we can agree on one thing then… other religions have potential for untold harm and are capable of being fundamentally separated from modern values by those who wish to do so.
This leads neatly on to the area where we seem to disagree. That it is not the fault of Islam but the fault of an interpretation of Islam- an interpretation that every single Muslim I have ever met, from Palmers Green to Las Vegas via Malaysia, does not share. I blame this interpretation every bit as much as you do. The difference between us is that I seem to be willing to divorce this interpretation from Islam itself and the very many more modern, peaceful interpretations accepting by hundreds of millions of muslims throughout the globe.
I take this to mean that Islam, like every other potentially lethal and ludicrous religion, is capable of change, of modernisation and of a more generous and peaceful interpretation that doesn’t require regular murder.
Look at Malaysia. A Muslim country. Homosexuality is illegal, particularly in public, and carries a prison sentence. Not stoning to death. And the attitude is slowly changing. The country is not becoming ‘less Muslim’. Simply more accepting (albeit slowly) of a modern world that it wishes to be a part of. You could argue that this is at least partly due to a western influence over two centuries, and in fact it is.
On the subject of geopolitics, you seem to be trying to sell Islam as the sole barrier to an acceptance of western values. Is it a barrier? Yes, of course. Not just as a religion but because it forms the backbone of their moral code, their notions of justice and their form of government. But also note that all the examples you give come from a certain part of the world where geopolitics has played havoc with people’s lives for generations. There is a distinct difference, geopolitically, between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia- many, actually. It is a little naïve to think that religion is the only one.
Either way….the fact remains that those countries adopting a more modern interpretation of Islam are not causing us problems. This is how religion is supposed to work in the modern world. Perhaps the more complicated point is which interpretation (the modern or the fundamental) is the real *******isation of Islam- but let us not get into that…..