ISIS militants attack and take over Iraqi northern city of Mosul

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

WRONG

LOL.

Let me ask you serious question Text? do you believe in GOD? like in a Christian god?

No 100 page response please .. just yes or no!

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Even if you completely discount the Bible as history, which in a lot of cases I'd agree and you of course discount it and all such books as religious nonsense, there is still a place to look at the Bible as a cultural resource. Like it or not a lot of our laws and societal norms come from the Bible and other religious texts. What I found interesting in school was to know what Shakespeare was talking about often required knowledge of the Bible. It's part of our lives whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

Agreed.

It's like reading Shakespeare. It's more about looking through the eyes of people that were alive at that time and seeing the world how they saw it. From an academic cultural and historical perspective, religious studies are not only helpful for understanding modern societies and politics, but it is mandatory.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by T@T

LOL.

Let me ask you serious question Text? do you believe in GOD? like in a Christian god?

No 100 page response please .. just yes or no!

Not that this is in any way relevant, but yes, today, I believe in God...

...that's not to say that there are days that I don't.

I know it's an answer without conviction, but it is the truth. So what of it?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by T@T

LOL.

Let me ask you serious question Text? do you believe in GOD? like in a Christian god?

No 100 page response please .. just yes or no!

How does that change the facts you are wrong about?

[northcrunk]

Is this thread about ISIS or T@T & Textcritic to piss at each other about religeon?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

Is this thread about ISIS or T@T & Textcritic to piss at each other about religeon?

I am more than happy to surrender the floor to any news about ISIS.

[northcrunk]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I am more than happy to surrender the floor to any news about ISIS.

Latest in the news today:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32957619

Sick #######s torturing and killing children. They need to be incinerated.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

Latest in the news today:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32957619

Sick #######s torturing and killing children. They need to be incinerated.

How desperate people must be to be consumed by this level of evil. It's the only way I can think of to explain it. An ethnic group on a large scale does not collectively lose its mind and its conscience—not to this degree. I think that deep seeded feelings of marginalisation and despair are triggered by ISIS' own brand of apocalypticism to forge a climate in which such atrocities become acceptable.

[bubbsy]

it's just so sickening. The world can't keep their eyes closed, or hands down with such atrocities happening.

It would be great if this thread stayed on topic rather than veering off on tangents about religion. As you read more and more about what's going on, it has very little, hell, nothing to do with religion.

Would like to see this thread just continue being a news thread. The more people that read/learn about what is going out there the better.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

How desperate people must be to be consumed by this level of evil. It's the only way I can think of to explain it. An ethnic group on a large scale does not collectively lose its mind and its conscience—not to this degree. I think that deep seeded feelings of marginalisation and despair are triggered by ISIS' own brand of apocalypticism to forge a climate in which such atrocities become acceptable.

I would argue that its not desperation or marginalization, especially in terms of the effective recruiting of people in the Western World. The majority of them are coming from good middle class families, and well educated people.

Their recruiting is successful because it attracts the idealists, the losers in society, and the crazies or psycho's.

For girls it speaks of romance, you get to marry a fighter, who will give you children and everyone loves everyone over there. You can help the poor and do good works.

For the boys its even more pronounced. You can go and fight to establish a Muslim homeland, where the perceived wrongs won't happen and you'll be part of a bigger thing, you'll be defending your land and your people. Its very much the same recruiting that the commonwealth did in WW!. You'll go to war, be a hero, and everyone will love and respect you.

For some its living by and enforcing a very strict version of Islam.

For some its go over and saw peoples heads off

For some its go over and have sex with an 8 year old girl.

It doesn't matter how inclusive Western Society is to the Islamic communities, the recruiting methods will still find someone, somewhere that is pissed off, or bored, or see's the romantic image.

Yes, they're absolutely getting people that are poor and beaten down.

But man

One of their best online recruiters is called the Bird of Jannah.

they have top notch production and a top notch PR brain in there doing the recruiting.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

today, I believe in God...

...that's not to say that there are days that I don't.

Lol, do you wake up in the morning, do a big stretch and ahhh it's a good day to worship the spaghetti monster?

Hate to say it Text but there's a problem when one looses his/her faith on certain days...it's called being weak.

[CaptainCrunch]

What the hell, seriously?

Its hard to believe that you can make that much of an !$$ out of yourself.

[Kavvy]

edit: my post doesn't help matters

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

What the hell, seriously?

Its hard to believe that you can make that much of an !$$ out of yourself.

It's because he's so strong

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by T@T

Lol, do you wake up in the morning, do a big stretch and ahhh it's a good day to worship the spaghetti monster?

I don't "decide" to believe things, because that is not how belief works. Nobody does. My beliefs are formed and shaped in accordance to my own accumulation of knowledge and experience; I don't make the choice about what affects them—they happen.

Originally Posted by T@T

Hate to say it Text but there's a problem when one looses his/her faith on certain days...it's called being weak.

Is "loosing [sic.] faith" the same as adjusting beliefs? I'm not sure about that.

In what way is my answer "weak"? I agree that it lacks conviction, but I am also not certain that conviction of opinion is at all a good thing. Is it? Why? ...

Besides, without knowing why my beliefs on the subject are malleable (recall that you are the one who insisted on a completely inadequate "yes" or "no" response), you also do not have any idea about whether or not my answer is a good one. You seem to think it is not. Do you know anything about why it is not?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I would argue that its not desperation or marginalization, especially in terms of the effective recruiting of people in the Western World. The majority of them are coming from good middle class families, and well educated people...

Yeah, there are a lot of recruits coming out of the modern developed West, but the majority of ISIS supporters? I'm quite sure that is not correct; the Islamic State is still primarily defined by ethnic and geographical boundaries.

A movement like this definitely attracts reps. from all the crazy and depraved groups that you point to in your post, but I don't believe these people were the driving force in its semination and its ongoing persistence. If so, then why has the movement not made a greater impact in larger numbers within Western culture?

No. Maybe the most frightening thing about what is happening is the recognition that huge numbers of the people who are swept up in the movement are probably ordinary people insofar as they are neither sociopaths nor psychopaths. Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinarily terrible and unthinkable things.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Yeah, there are a lot of recruits coming out of the modern developed West, but the majority of ISIS supporters? I'm quite sure that is not correct; the Islamic State is still primarily defined by ethnic and geographical boundaries.

A movement like this definitely attracts the all crazy and depraved groups that you point to in your post, but I don't believe these people were the driving force in its semination and its ongoing persistence. If so, then why has the movement not made a greater impact in larger numbers within Western culture?

No. Maybe the most frightening thing about what is happening is the recognition that huge numbers of the people who are swept up in the movement are probably ordinary people insofar as they are neither sociopaths nor psychopaths. Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinarily terrible and unthinkable things.

Actually I don't know how accurate this is but it comes from a CIA report, showing where the recruits are coming from

http://www.rferl.org/contentinfograp.../26584940.html

But it shows a pattern of recruiting that is heavily focused on Europe, more then anywhere else, the two biggests non European recruiting nests look like Jordan (fairly moderate state) and Tunisia.

If you look at Canada, they estimate that 2 out of every million people are recruited to ISIS which sounds right because it would be about 60 people with Canadian pass ports fighting over there.

Tunisia supplies 315 per every million people so they have sent about 3100 fighters over.

Sweden actually surprised me based on this chart, they have supplied about 3000 fighters.

Pretty good New York Times article on how ISIS works

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...773522000&_r=1

Sorry I want to throw some correctives in here because the first article might be off.

[CaptainCrunch]

I wanted to throw in another one to maybe balance off the first one. This one has a pretty good interactive map that maybe tells a better more accurate story

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/06/0...from/21189692/

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Actually I don't know how accurate this is but it comes from a CIA report, showing where the recruits are coming from

http://www.rferl.org/contentinfograp.../26584940.html

But it shows a pattern of recruiting that is heavily focused on Europe, more then anywhere else, the two biggests non European recruiting nests look like Jordan (fairly moderate state) and Tunisia...

But these numbers coming from outside the region still pale in comparison to the support that ISIS receives from within the region. None of the linked material has any information about domestic, grassroots support, which I would expect to be pretty high within their controlled regions. Regions which have experienced some pretty devastating harm in recent years at the hands of former oppressive regimes, and poorly handled US and European intervention. In short, ISIS is fuelled in large part by the collective ire and anger of huge numbers of the local citizenry.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

But these numbers coming from outside the region still pale in comparison to the support that ISIS receives from within the region. None of the linked material has any information about domestic, grassroots support, which I would expect to be pretty high within their controlled regions. Regions which have experienced some pretty devastating harm in recent years at the hands of former oppressive regimes, and poorly handled US and European intervention. In short, ISIS is fuelled in large part by the collective ire and anger of huge numbers of the local citizenry.

Which if you think about it is quite strange, because as a whole this is pretty much a war of Muslim sects (is that the right word).

While yes there's a chance that they can kill Christians and the odd person from the West, but this is a internal religious war.

So I don't know if I quite see how its super attractive to disenfranchised people.

I get it with the Western recruits because the recruiting message is that the evil Christians and the West hate you so come to our Caliphate where you will be protected from prejudice.

But this whole thing is about prejudice.