I've broken this exchange down to make it easier to follow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
1. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in the United States: According to the FBI, 94% of terrorist attacks carried out in the United States from 1980 to 2005 have been by non-Muslims. This means that an American terrorist suspect is over nine times more likely to be a non-Muslim than a Muslim. According to this same report, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism in the United States than Islamic, yet when was the last time we heard about the threat of Jewish terrorism in the media? For the same exact reasons that we cannot blame the entire religion of Judaism or Christianity for the violent actions of those carrying out crimes under the names of these religions, we have absolutely no justifiable grounds to blame Muslims for terrorism.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds
Any figures for the past decade?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
#1: as I said above about recent statistics...
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This discussion is about Islam in Europe and whether it is a problem
today. Not in the United States from 1980-2005. I presume the FBI didn't stop publishing statistics in 2005; why didn't you mention the numbers since then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
2. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in Europe: There have been over one thousand terrorist attacks in Europe in the past five years. Take a guess at what percent of those terrorists were Muslim. Wrong, now guess again. It’s less than 2%.
3. Even if all terrorist attacks were carried out by Muslims, you still could not associate terrorism with Islam: There have been 140,000 terror attacks committed worldwide since 1970.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds
1. Source?
2. I don't think the last 47 years are in dispute. Most people in this thread are focusing on the last 15, at most.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
#2: sources are all over the Internet - even sending some of you links won't dissuade you -
there's always a number of runaround excuses devoid of facts that follow.
#3: apparently 47 years (and more, not less) are in dispute
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I asked for your source on some specific statistics. "All over the internet" is not a good citation.
As I understood it, this thread's focus was on the situation in Europe today. I fail to see how worldwide statistics from 1970 (those mentioned in point 3) are relevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
Even if Muslims carried out all of these attacks (which is an absurd assumption given the fact mentioned in my first point), those terrorists would represent less than 0.00009 percent of all Muslims. To put things into perspective, this means that you are more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than a Muslim is likely to commit a terrorist attack during that same timespan.
4. If all Muslims are terrorists, then all Muslims are peacemakers: The same statistical assumptions being used to falsely portray Muslims as violent people can be used more accurately to portray Muslims as peaceful people. If all Muslims are terrorists because a single digit percentage of terrorists happen to be Muslim, then all Muslims are peacemakers because 5 out of the past 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners (42 percent) have been Muslims.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds
You can't make any sort of statistical "assumption" with a sample size of 12.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
#4: EXACTLY!!!
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Then what's the purpose of that paragraph?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
5. If you are scared of Muslims then you should also be scared of household furniture and toddlers: A study carried out by the University of North Carolina showed that less than 0.0002% of Americans killed since 9/11 were killed by Muslims. (Ironically, this study was done in Chapel Hill: the same place where a Caucasian non-Muslim killed three innocent Muslims as the mainstream media brushed this terrorist attack off as a parking dispute). Based on these numbers, and those of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the average American is more likely to be crushed to death by their couch or television than they are to be killed by a Muslim. As a matter of fact, Americans were more likely to be killed by a toddler in 2013 than they were by a so-called “Muslim terrorist”.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds
One could argue that those numbers are not surprising, given the increased security since 9/11. Why exactly was it left out of the study?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rostasi
#5: so if the numbers are not surprising, then what's the big scary bugaboo?
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There is no "big scary bugaboo." Given the increased security measures in America since 9/11, it's not surprising that very few people were killed by Islamic terrorists (and yes, I realize it says "Muslims," not "Islamic terrorists"). I'm not aware that such measures have been taken against lightning or toddlers. Additionally, I thought we were talking about Europe?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Man like Monkey
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I'm not challenging rostasi's claims; in fact, I'm not even interested in debating. I just dislike what Lisna refers to as "slinging statistics," especially when they're cherry-picked. Actually, I thought his post was one of the best in this thread. Too bad he didn't write it or cite it.
