Quote:
Originally Posted by JeanLucPicard
Here is the problem though: when you say to muslim countries something like: "your religion has problems, please reform it" - that cant work! Many of them are f-ed up with internal problems like corrupt politicians, wars/civil wars, theocracy, occupation, and so on. Of course that kind of long term environment will produce extremists groups. When you have ####-storms of conflicts where we the external parties (US, Can, etc etc) have taken sides and armed certain groups, of COURSE you'll see brutal reactions and fights between the sects/groups.
I think it is too easy to go up to muslims and debate how "primitive" their "fundamentalists" beliefs are. And that doesn't solve a single thing. What is hard is to not support their dictatorial regimes in countries like S. arabia for the sake of oil, to not invade them for baseless reasons, and to not supply arms to certain factions during civil wars - which is the most dangerous thing to do. THAT is something no one cares about when arguing! People seem to think that if they just blame the rise of extremist groups on religions that'll be sufficient for their argument. Bill and Sam are just hell bent on focusing on the religion factor and this is why I can't take them seriously.
So before taking the easy route that people like Harris take by criticizing the religion - Take a look at the whole picture and realize that you cant have people "reform" their religion just because you tell them to; and you cant just go up to western muslims and ask them to "protest more". There is simply no incentive.
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The policy your talking about would just result in a bunch of isolated dictatorships selling oil to China. There would be no reform there either.
What needs to be done is for major bodies like the United Nations to actually start holding up basic human rights. There needs to be real consequences for doing things like executing gays and minorities.