Frownland

Twitter was on its way out, then this election kicked off. I wonder if Twitter is involved with any of the Russian hacking?

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

duga

1. My point was this fundamentalist ideology exists in EVERY RELIGION. This gets to my belief that religion in general needs to fade away, but that's another discussion. There's a sleeping dragon waiting behind every person with a belief system that does not require proof but does require absolute devotion.

2. It's not a matter of "what if?", it's a matter of "what would it take?". Religious texts are vague, translated a million times over, and couched in metaphor. Anything like that can be interpreted to fit your world view. Replace Muslims with Christians and I guarantee you we would be saying Christianity is a religion of violence. ANY belief system coupled with poverty and poor education can be taken advantage of.

3. I never said I agreed with all of this up until Donald Trump. It's just that up until this point, our world leaders recognized the tenuous situation and threw in a splash of diplomacy to keep things from boiling over. This ban now signals to that side of the world that yes - we are at war with Islam, not just extremism. This will galvanize them further.

4. Planned Parenthood. Plenty of domestic terrorism going on there.

When you state that Islamic ideology is inherently violent, you apply that to every person that follows that religion. With claims like this, you can't separate the people from the ideology.

It has nothing to do with its origin. Again, replace Islam with Christianity and you get the same reaction, regardless of where you are in the world. The people there couldn't trust their government (since we've installed despot after despot in order to control the region) or the outside world (since everyone seems to want their oil). Who would you turn to? The only person who seems to be on your side and claims to have all the solutions. In this case, their religious leaders.

It is ALREADY AT THAT POINT. This extremist attitude is a REGRESSION, and one that ANY belief system risks falling into.

What influence? Seems to me to western world does what they want regardless of how much yelling the extremists do. Seeing it on the news all the time is not the same thing as having lots of influence.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Cuthbert

No. Islam is the religion. Muslims are people who may or may not practice Islam.

Chula Vista

Mus·lim
ˈməzləm,ˈmo͝ozləm/
noun
1.
a follower of the religion of Islam.
adjective
1.
relating to the Muslims or their religion.

If you are born Muslim you are pretty much predisposed to the Islamic faith.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Cuthbert

Why have you posted a definition from Google that doesn't even contradict what I've said?

The reason I worded my post that way is because I was considering 'cultural Muslims', in places like Egypt as far as I am aware there are ID cards with your religion printed on them, whether you practice the religion or not. I heard a doctor talking about it recently.

2:30 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UC2dr-PT0Q

riseagainstrocks

This right here is why terrorism exists, especially why it exists in 2017 in the Middle East and Eastern Africa. Poor countries, lack of government power to enforce contracts/too much government power abuse, and lack of exposure to outside ideas or culture. Islam, in isolation, isn't the driving force behind terrorism. If it was, we'd have so many more attacks in so many places. Islam is twisted, parsed, and manipulated by people with aspirations of power in this life and impressed on the young, the gullible, and the desperate. Point out a verse in the Quran calling for the deaths of unbelievers and I'll show you one in the Bible proscribing death for wearing poly-blend fabric.

Whether it's nationalism, racial hegemony, religious invocation, etc. all of these tribal mindsets, which as recently evolved creatures we're susceptible to, can trace their roots to the inculcation of the weak and the stupid (stupid as in 'not knowing', not a statement of intellectual capacity).

I recently finished a book by Brian Fishman (a counterterrorism fellow at International Security Program and former Combating Terrorism Center director at West Point) titled The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory. It was a fascinating read for many reasons but the last 3-4 pages or so should be passed around Capitol Hill. Think we have fake news in the States? Imagine what passes as news in authoritarian or semi-lawless areas of the world. Trump's complete lack of nuance fuels a wrongly held belief (although these days it's tipping into half) that America hates Islam. We don't give a damn about Islam. Much like we don't care about what any one person believes. Free expression - it's a glorious thing. But when Trump is quoted as saying "ban all Muslims" no matter the context he thinks it was in, it is blasted to all the poor, dispossessed, aimless, and hopeless youths in countries ravaged by Western meddling and local power squabbles and makes a compelling case for sticking it to the great Satan.

The language Trump uses is so un-nuanced (and this is me generously assuming that he truly has no problem with Muslims) that a casual Muslim observer in say, Indonesia, now thinks that it is American policy to exclude and possible persecute Muslims. Thus, this person is more susceptible to whispers of 'crusader invasions' and 'desecration of the holy land'. This travel ban was broad, preemptive, unreviewed, and as we've seen, unpopular. Trump claims he has a mandate for this action. Depends on which poll you read and how the question was posed. What this does show is that Americans have a FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding of what Islam is and what it teaches. Look at Catholicism in the 1500's. Look at Protestantism in in 1650-1750 in New England. And if you're thinking "well duh, but Christians grew up" I'd ask you to look at Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Istanbul at those same times - centers of civilization, learning, culture.

Long post and sorry if it's a bit ranty. I'm pretty convinced that most Americans know about Islam solely through bin Laden's propaganda videos and the bad guys in True Lies. But hey, they're brown and write in squiggles, so why should we try to understand their 1300 year old culture.

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One note timeless, came out of nowhere...

Chula Vista

^^^^^

Outstanding post. Watch Bourdain's episode where he visits Saudi Arabia to get a real perspective.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Psy-Fi

Looked like a bit of confusion from his Saudi host when he said "I'm blown away."

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She's a Brick House

DwnWthVwls

Amen. A bit of an extreme take on religious people, but overall I agree with you.

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I don't got a god complex, you got a simple god...

duga

Well said. I've also tried to throw Trump some benefit of the doubt and assume he doesn't actually hate Muslims - but there is a reason we leave diplomacy to the diplomats.

Of course. I was just using his language to make a point. I doubt there's a sleeping dragon behind my poor old grandma.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...