[Itse]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

However, there isn't currently a Christian equivalent to the Jihadists. Historically you might point to the inquisitors, papal armies, Jesuits, some missionary groups, and the Christian imperialism of the 19 century, but those aren't today.

True, but how much is that really about the re-interpretation of Christian texts, and how much of it is simply that we live in much better socioeconomical conditions?

As an atheist I'm prone to think that the same s*** is still around in religions or more exaxtly in the way people are prone to use religions in extreme circumstances. The reason it's not popping up in the west (much) is because people have no social or psychological needs for those kinds of interpretations.

If you take the example of the apocalyptic cults of Europe in the Middle Ages (some of which were pretty much exactly like ISIS both in ideology and in their brutality). They were mostly born after The Plague, which completely decimated many areas in Europe in a way that is almost impossible to grasp no matter how hard you look at the numbers and try to imagine it.

Large scale extremist movements are born out of large scale extreme situations. Like the complete clusterf*** that is the Middle-East. People often seem to forget that it took like a decade of essentially constant war before ISIS was born. Parts of Iraq were a really extreme mess even by Middle-Eastern standards.

Sometimes the causes that make the difference really can be narrowed down to a select few things like religion and culture.

I don't agree. I can't think of a single example from history where that has been the case, and I seriously doubt such an example exists.

The closest thing to a single-issue war I can think of right now is the American Civil War, which was in very large part about the slavery issue. Yet would anyone seriously suggest in an adult conversation that that war was simply an ideological/cultural fight over slavery?

As far as double standards go, why should I not speak as plainly and strongly about Islam as I do about Christianity.

I strongly agree that such a double standard should not exist.

I fail to see how crying bigot, islamophobia, racist before giving someone else's point of view even a moment's thought helps people better understand the quality of their point of view. It seems to me that these people are every bit as caught up in maintaining simple answers as those who would ban all Muslims because they think it will keep out terrorists.

I agree with all of this, mostly.

The only thing I would like to comment on is that not every accusation of racism is wrong, even if the person being accused does not recognize it.
People can be incredibly blind to their own biases, and while I seriously dislike the whole privilege discussion, there are absolutely a lot of times when people really should check their privileges before speaking. And maybe choose to let others do the talking.

Which brings me to the point that not all identity politics is BS. There is absolutely merit to the notion that white middle-class culturally-Christians in the west (especially middle-aged straight men like me) should where possible let others speak with their own voices instead of talking over their heads or for them. Many liberals are active in circles where this really is an issue, and they are essentially daily reminded of this in various ways. It's a very human mistake for those people to say that we should not be telling fundamentalist muslims what's wrong with their culture.

They're pretty clearly wrong in this case, but they're not IMO wrong in the general case. Criticizing cultures from the outside should be avoided if possible. It's just not always possible. There are not enough people like Maajid Nawaz right now to represent the critical voices in this matter. Us middle-aged western whites need to chip in.

But I would much prefer if we do it from the sidelines and try to keep the Muslim critics in the focus where possible. I also think it's vastly more effective.

It's striking how both sides see the other as holding to a double standard.

By the way I have a feelign that one of the fallacies around this topic is that there even are clearly definable sides. It seems to me the discussion is quite multisided when you start digging into it.

But of course double standards really are super common.