Canadian Muslim group raided, funneled money to Hamas

[Antithesis]

Originally Posted by Rerun

You left out a few countries such Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Yemen, Lybia, and Egypt.
All countries where Islam is the predominant faith and Muslim is the predominant ethnic group... and all countries that I would avoid visiting because extreme violence seems to be deemed acceptable when conflict arises between groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Egypt

Coincidence?

Dude, a Muslim is a practitioner of Islam. That's like saying Christians are an ethnic group.

[_Q_]

And I've been to a lot of the places on your list of countries where people are extremely violent. Lebanon is a fantastic place to visit with nightclubs that serve until 4 am, great food and fantastic people from all walks of life. It's not the greatest when there's a civil war happening, but I'm not sure what place is. Lebanon also has the highest percentage of Christians in the middle east, but I'm sure you wouldn't know that.

Egypt is also a great place to visit when there's no war happening. Jordan, UAE, Qatar are also great places with no history of violence at all.

Also Morocco, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia (except for that one time when Christians tried to ethnically cleanse Muslims, but you know it's probably the Muslims fault since they're all terribly violent people).

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Rerun

One could argue that Muslims are an ethnic group as much as those that state that Jews are an ethnic group.

No. Judaism is an ethno-religious group that no longer actively seeks out new converts. Islam is a religion that actively seeks as many converts as possible.

[Rerun]

My apologies. My mistake. I thought that the Muslims of the middle east, which is what we are talking about, met the definition of an "ethnic group"

"An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience.[1][2] Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history,homeland, language and/or dialect and sometimes ideology, manifests itself through symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual,cuisine, dressing style, physical appearance, etc."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group

Apparently I was mistaken.

[Antithesis]

Would you call Christians an ethnic group?

[ynwa03]

Originally Posted by Rerun

You left out a few countries such Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Yemen, Lybia, and Egypt.
All countries where Islam is the predominant faith and Muslim is the predominant ethnic group... and all countries that I would avoid visiting because extreme violence seems to be deemed acceptable when conflict arises between groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Egypt

Coincidence?

I think its important to take a step back and really look at this situation with open eyes and an open mind. Its easy to have preconceived notions about this kind of complex conflict. The media in many ways plays a significant role in closing people off from really looking at issues from all sides. I urge you to read the article below and give it some thought.
Islam is not the problem here. Muslims come in all shapes and sizes with varying political beliefs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rror-islamist/

Like i said, this issue is really complex and to dumb it down to unconsidered generalizations is at the least insensitive and at worst very offensive.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by ynwa03

I think its important to take a step back and really look at this situation with open eyes and an open mind. Its easy to have preconceived notions about this kind of complex conflict. The media in many ways plays a significant role in closing people off from really looking at issues from all sides. I urge you to read the article below and give it some thought.
Islam is not the problem here. Muslims come in all shapes and sizes with varying political beliefs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rror-islamist/

Like i said, this issue is really complex and to dumb it down to unconsidered generalizations is at the least insensitive and at worst very offensive.

Thank you. I also found many of the 56 comments to Mr. Fish's article to be very interesting.

This is also a very interesting article in rebuttle to Mr. Fish's.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/01/uc...stians-won-big

[_Q_]

Great article ynwa03

[jayswin]

We have auto-censor words on CP, can we also have auto-censor posts one day? So that when middle aged white people enlighten us with their views on Muslims or "those guys" the post will correct to "I'm not quite sure who Muslims are, or the shear amount of them that are living peacefully in this world, but I'm pretty sure it's all those brown guys in the middle east with a sprinkling of them that came to North America and don't respect "our ways".


"Well women are basically all kind of slutty and that's why they get raped sometimes. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of them aren't, but let's be honest, there's lots of news stories about women being raped and what do other woman do when they read those stories?

I don't see them condemning being slutty or advocating change, which probably means they accept that it's okay, so don't be surprised when guys think all women are slutty.

'Hey, what about when men are slutty?'

Well that's different because that's us."

Replace Men and Women with Christians and Muslims and that's how I feel these discussions always go on CP.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by flameswin

So that when middle aged white people enlighten us with their views on Muslims or "those guys"

Sometimes I am curious about the age/demographic of CPers given their posts.

I recall somebody losing their mind and posting various things and then something like "I'm no boy, and how about you grow up son" or some such. I couldn't help picture some crazy ignorant old white slave owner dressed up like boss hog.

Which to be fair, is likely at least partially prejudicial on my part regardless of the rash of crazy posts that led up to it.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Sometimes I am curious about the age/demographic of CPers given their posts.

I'm curious too actually, has an anonymous demographics survey been done before here? It'd be easy enough to set one up.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

I'm curious too actually, has an anonymous demographics survey been done before here? It'd be easy enough to set one up.

Yes, let's do that! It would actually be interesting to see. Let's set up a poll!

[scottish_flame]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Ummm... Islam wasn't around in 733 BC.

But if we're going to go that far back in time, I think between the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, American Revolution, French Revolution, WW1, WW2, Vietnam War, Korean War, Iraq War, both Afghan Wars and countless other imperialist expeditions started by Europeans.... I think the Whiteys have Muslims beat in this category.

That's just racist

[Thor]

Originally Posted by ynwa03

I think its important to take a step back and really look at this situation with open eyes and an open mind. Its easy to have preconceived notions about this kind of complex conflict. The media in many ways plays a significant role in closing people off from really looking at issues from all sides. I urge you to read the article below and give it some thought.
Islam is not the problem here. Muslims come in all shapes and sizes with varying political beliefs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rror-islamist/

Like i said, this issue is really complex and to dumb it down to unconsidered generalizations is at the least insensitive and at worst very offensive.

That is truly an excellent thought experiment, I have often played this out in my head when trying to understand the feelings of the people in these nations, we cannot deny and forget history in its part to play in our current state of affairs. Sharing this article!

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by ynwa03

I think its important to take a step back and really look at this situation with open eyes and an open mind. Its easy to have preconceived notions about this kind of complex conflict. The media in many ways plays a significant role in closing people off from really looking at issues from all sides. I urge you to read the article below and give it some thought.
Islam is not the problem here. Muslims come in all shapes and sizes with varying political beliefs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rror-islamist/

Like i said, this issue is really complex and to dumb it down to unconsidered generalizations is at the least insensitive and at worst very offensive.

Originally Posted by Rerun

Thank you. I also found many of the 56 comments to Mr. Fish's article to be very interesting.

This is also a very interesting article in rebuttle to Mr. Fish's.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/01/uc...stians-won-big

I found both pieces somewhat disappointing in their failure to deal with the issue from a more historically sensible perspective. On the one hand, I would agree that Islamic texts prone to predispose predispose readers to a acceptance of religiously motivated violence. On the other hand, while some of the same problems preside in Christian scriptures, what is ignored by both commentators is the hermeneutical gulf that separates Christian and Muslim readers from one another. Even in those Christian circles in which the "plain truth" of biblical texts is espoused, this is always enveloped by a practically impenetrable layer of Christianised axioms that have nothing to do with the texts themselves, and which have produced a benign acceptance of "what would Jesus do" over and against the tribalistically conditioned intent behind most of the imprecatory biblical texts. In other words, while there is an alarmingly high number of North American Christians who would condemn same-sex marriage, there are hardly any who would support legislation against homosexual behaviour as a capital crime.

The real stark difference between Muslims and Christians is not primarily tied to socioeconomic disparities, but rather more straightforwardly to the relationship between each religion and modernity. Modern Islam has much more in common with mediaeval Christianity than it does with any current expression of the faith, and here is the fundamental problem: One faith has been forced to re-invent itself in the face of scientific and social enlightenment, while the other has not. Even the Christian biblicists read their texts and practice their religion in a context that is thoroughly beholden to humanistic principles in such a way that is only just starting to make (very small) inroads into contemporary Islam.

I am fairly confident that reformation in Islam is only a matter of time, and that its occurrence will inevitably change the face of religious terrorism. However, I am not at all convinced that there will ever be any sort of appetite on the same scale within Christiandom for violent responses to social and political inequities, and this is because of the impact that +250 years of critical engagement with the biblical texts has wrought in our society. There is no historically realistic model in which Christianity and Islam are straightforward replacements of one another.

[Thor]

Pfft you mean like I said on page 2!

Yep reformation is key, its gonna take time and we'll have a whole mess of more problems before that happens. Hopefully we don't see a rise of right wing movements in Europe, hopefully we don't see any major wars, but its not going to be easy.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Thor

Pfft you mean like I said on page 2!

Yep reformation is key, its gonna take time and we'll have a whole mess of more problems before that happens. Hopefully we don't see a rise of right wing movements in Europe, hopefully we don't see any major wars, but its not going to be easy.

Lies! You posted nothing on page 2!

[Thor]

Oh sorry I'm one of the elitists who changed his forum format to show way more posts per page. I don't know how you plebs do it with so few posts per page

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...4&postcount=64

[photon]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

The real stark difference between Muslims and Christians is not primarily tied to socioeconomic disparities, but rather more straightforwardly to the relationship between each religion and modernity. Modern Islam has much more in common with mediaeval Christianity than it does with any current expression of the faith, and here is the fundamental problem: One faith has been forced to re-invent itself in the face of scientific and social enlightenment, while the other has not. Even the Christian biblicists read their texts and practice their religion in a context that is thoroughly beholden to humanistic principles in such a way that is only just starting to make (very small) inroads into contemporary Islam.

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

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.

[photon]

I think this is the best question:

Originally Posted by Rerun

Clearly there are parts of the world that are more violent than others. Why is that?

So much time and effort goes into classifying and blaming one group or another, when in the end it doesn't really matter one bit.

Unless one is claiming that one genetically similar group of people is actually superior to another, it boils down to environment.

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.