[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

There are significant differences in between Muslim scripture and Christian scripture that also account for those behaviours.

Yeah, try and argue that with someone who is Opus Dei. Or anyone who is any of a number of bat#### crazy Evangelical sects of Christianity. The problem here is that we refuse to acknowledge the craziness of Christian identity, like Muslims refuse to acknowledge the craziness of Islamists.

The difference is not having a better publicist, it's a number of historical and social factors that have gone into tempering the application of Christian doctrine, in combination with different fundamentals of that religion.

Riiiiiiiight! Like Christianity did not go through a period of sever hundred years of oppressing people or anything.

There's a reason there are no Jain suicide bombers, there is a reason that Tibetan Bhuddists react to occupation by immolating themselves instead of blowing themselves up. These differences are sourced in religious precepts like martyrdom and jihad. Failing to recognize those differences, you can't even begin to have a conversation on how to solve the problem.

Yeah, that might have something to do with doctrine. You know, Jain having a doctrine based on non-violence and all. But that still doesn't acknowledge that there are radicals in all religions that lash out using terror as a means as well. Even Jainism can use terrorism as a means.

http://devdutt.com/articles/indian-m...terrorism.html

I'm not sure how you can claim to have listened to Harris and still hold the position you just expressed, given how well and how frequently he's argued against it.

I expressed my problem with Harris. I thought it was very straight forward. Harris is too cerebral; too rational. Humans are NOT rational animals, something a neurologist will readily admit. Harris' position that people with little to no education should behave in rational ways in specious, and Harris knows this too well based on his own research.

Unless you have some reasons for disagreeing with him that you haven't expressed there. This would be worth your time:

Thanks, I've been following Harris, amongst other neurologists for years. I actually have been involved in some peer reviews of some fMRI research that invalidates some of the claims made in the Harris discussion. This is what makes his discussion so difficult to support. It flies in the face of research on the subject.

As to the differing reactions, look at the evidence for the rationale underlying any particular attack and you can reasonably categorize it as motivated by racism, by some non-religious ideology (political grievance), by religious ideology, or by mental illness, or some other motivation, and often some combination of these things (I'd say abortion clinic bombings have some flavour of both religion and politics, for example). In any given case, you can argue that the media or public reaction is wrong - eg "I don't think this is a case of mental illness, I think that person knew precisely what they were doing and had political grievances they felt were legitimate". But in the case of much jihadi terror, the motivations are largely religious; again, with some flavour of politics mixed in.

Actually you can't. You, or someone else, is making an interpretation of that which may, or may not, be complete. The Ft. Hood shooter is a good example. A lot of conclusions were reached without considering the research and findings of the military tribunal. Nadal Hasan was never changed by the military for terrorist actions, let alone convicted. The military actually refused to charge Hasan with a terror related charge, much to the chagrin to the relatives of the victims. They refused to make this aspect of their investigation public, even thought the media had already convicted him of being a terrorist without knowing the full story. But that is our mass media in action. More than willing to jump on the salacious, but refusing to follow up after the headline. Again, here is yet another example.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...terrorist.html

It really is sad how one religion gets the free pass and the other gets crucified no matter what it does. You know, it annoys me that I have to defend any religion, because I find all of them ridiculous. But the fact of the matter is that they are all full of ####, and the only thing worse is when one person claims their flavor of theological stupidity is superior to others. Ironically, this is exactly the position Sam Harris would take when discussing religions themselves.