Canadian Muslim group raided, funneled money to Hamas

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by photon

So much this.

I think socioeconomic disparities are a factor, you mention homosexuality as a capital crime from NA Christians but that kind of thing is going on in Uganda, a very much Christian nation (they dropped the death penalty though so it's just life in prison now, yay!).

Homosexuality is illegal in many other African countries that would be considered Christian too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_ri...y_or_territory

Yeah, I agree. But how much of the socioeconomic disparity also tied to the slow embrace throughout Africa for modernity? There are reports of explosions of conservative Christianity all over the subcontinent, and this is arguably occurring as a result of the cultural overlap that already exists between modern, third-world, tribalised Africa and critically flaccid expressions of "authentic" Christianity.

Originally Posted by photon

As you say Christianity has reinvented itself over and over to stay relevant in a changing society, aren't Muslims living in more "modern" societies (for lack of a better term) doing that on a small scale too? Whereas in Afghanistan Islam doesn't have to change because it still fits the surrounding society.

Again, I tend to agree, but the process of change seems practically glacial by way of comparison to what happened in the Renaissance. I tend to think that some of this is also affected by fiercely natural "insider/outsider" community formation that provides another layer of insulation for the entire Islamic world. Where the Protestant Reformation was a grass-roots internal movement that changed the culture from within, Islamic traditionalists are also reacting against what they perceive to be an imperial threat: The western roots of modernity are reducing the process to a rather depressing, seemingly insurmountable standstill.

[photon]

Hm good points/questions both. I just wish the focus was on what can be done to improve things, to hurry along the reformation so to speak, rather than blaming people or cultures or other things which are in the end effects, not causes.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Yeah, I agree. But how much of the socioeconomic disparity also tied to the slow embrace throughout Africa for modernity? There are reports of explosions of conservative Christianity all over the subcontinent, and this is arguably occurring as a result of the cultural overlap that already exists between modern, third-world, tribalised Africa and critically flaccid expressions of "authentic" Christianity.

I'm having a hard time embracing (ha!) the slow embrace argument if it doesn't factor in external forms of violence / oppression.

For example, how were many African societies to embrace modernity when they were explicitly being oppressed, enslaved and disenfranchised?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by photon

...Religions are comprised of people. Cultures are comprised of people. Races are comprised of people. Countries are comprised of people. And people are interchangeable, if you took 1000 people born in Calgary and magically exchanged them with 1000 people born in whatever you care to define as the "worst" religion/culture/whatever would the end results be any different? I can't see how, the same % of them will still end up as extremists.

People's beliefs (religious, cultural, moral, etc) are formed as they grow, so I think it's kind of a waste of time to blame people, or even to blame the religion or the culture since those are just ideas and beliefs that are passed down when one is at their most credulous, and blaming an idea is like blaming a knife for cutting you.

Cultural and social evolution at work through population memetics. The fundamental sociological and behavioural "sameness" of all humankind is rather clearly revealed in the fact that so many different and isolated populations of humans developed very similar animistic religions—most of which were probably completely independent of one another, but a necessary result of predetermined biological tendencies.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I'm having a hard time embracing (ha!) the slow embrace argument if it doesn't factor in external forms of violence / oppression.

Hence the second part of my post...

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

For example, how were many African societies to embrace modernity when they were explicitly being oppressed, enslaved and disenfranchised?

Modernity was viewed as an adversarial movement that more sharply defined boundaries between insiders and outsiders. It was not native, and the exacerbation of its Eurocentric roots served to reinforce the problem that it was so badly abused in a campaign to pillage Africa.

[polak]

Just cause people apparently can't read my posts but attack them anyways...

I kept referencing the link which had statistics of the % of the population in pre-dominantly muslim countries that are okay with violence in the name of their religion. That to me is the most staggering statistic. I never said places like South America can't be just as or more dangerous then the countries that score high in "okay with violence in the name of islam" category. They're just violent for a different reason.

Killing in the name of religion is different than killing for criminal gain. The goal of killing for criminal gain isn't usually to kill as many innocent people as you can where as that is EXACTLY the goal of religious terrorism.

Also, just to make a point. If these were christians or jews doing the terrorism or saying that they are okay with violence in the name of their religion, I'd be posting the exact same crap. As an athiest, I think using religion as a basis for pretty much any decision or action is completely stupid, let alone using it as justification for harming others.

Oh if only one day people could come to grips with the idea of there not being an afterlife and this whole "my fairy tale is better than your slightly different fairy tale" thing could stop, that'd be great.

Maybe if we #### up the planet enough people will stop worrying about that and we can work together for once.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by polak

Maybe if we #### up the planet enough people will stop worrying about that and we can work together for once.

Or an alien invasion.