[Itse]

Originally Posted by nik-

But this is taking the stance that it's only Islamists that are the problem. Clearly they are, even if they're non violent, just as any religious right supporter in the US who wanted to impose "christian values" on the nation would be a problem.

Islamists get their ideas from somewhere and it's not thin air. The Quran and the hadiths supply their ideology and as a result criticizing the source of those ideas is perfectly game.

Here are a few facts that studies have shown about Muslim terrorists:

- They generally know the Quran only very superficially
- They almost never have a particularly religious upbringing
- Religious Islamic upbringing actually protects people from turning towards violent extremism.
- Studies have found no difference in any of the major religions tendency to produce terrorists. In fact they have not even found religions to be any different from secular ideologies in that regard.

So essentially, your presumption that somehow Islam feeds these groups is counter to what the facts and studies have taught us.

The fact that a religious upbringing protects from violent extremism actually suggests that we should not be criticizing Islam for feeding these groups, but instead praise it for resisting it.

There is actually a stronger correlation between engineering and terrorism than there is between Islam and terrorism. (Quite a few notable terrorists have an engineering background.)

In other words, if you want to discuss world views that breed violent extremism, maybe we should discuss whether or not engineering studies breed potentially dangerous binary morals?

No one here is doing a blanket condemnation,

I'm not at all convinced that is true.

but if you think it's wrong to criticize the ####ty components of Islam, just as we'd criticize the ####ty components of Christianity, then we'll never be on the same page.

I don't think it's wrong to criticize the s***ty components of Islam, but as far as we know, terrorism is not one of those s***ty components.


And as I said, Islam is a huge tent, like Christianity. Discussing them as if they were one thing is IMO intelligently lazy and will never produce anything of worth.

If you want to discuss a certain part of Islam, go right ahead. I'm all for people going after religious fundamentalists in particular, such as Wahhabists.