I don't think you are looking at the bigger picture. Persecute a group of people and of course that will galvanize their beliefs. Muslims who are engaged and accepted into mainstream society are just as peaceful and understanding as the next person. The Arab Spring happened as a result of western meddling. Every society has a group of uneducated and downtrodden people who are only looking for someone to lead them to a better life - in the west, the Republicans took advantage of that. In the middle east, it was Al Qaeda, ISIS, whatever extremist flavor of the month it is today. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - take a look at people from the 70's before the Islamic Revolution. I would say they were meshing just fine with contemporary society. I've been to Turkey, and while they are proud of their culture, it's not the oppressive wasteland people like to paint it as.

You don't think violent Christians willing to wage a war in the name of god exist? They do...and there are quite a few of them. The difference is, they currently have an outlet for their frustrations in the form of Donald Trump. If you think Christianity is beyond what is happening in the Muslim world, then again, you are kidding yourself.

If we ignore that frustration in the middle east is taking the form of religious zealotry, we can see that the real problem is just that these people want to be LEFT ALONE, free from western meddling. Just like anyone would want. Pinning this on the inherent violence of Islam is, as I said, ignorant and narrow minded.

Welp, Sessions was confirmed. What is it going to take for the GOP to realize that what they're confirming is worse for this country? Do people need to start dying before they get off their asses and do something for the people in the country?

1. I agree the west should have just left the Middle East alone as opposed to meddling circa WW2 and beyond. We are part of the problem too, but the fundamentalist ideology existed in Saudi Arabia and beyond for centuries before now. We woke a sleeping dragon, so to speak.

2. You must have missed it when I said "Yeah you have some minority nutjob denominations, but they generally keep to themselves and have no control over society, culture, etc." It isn't impossible for Christianity to become violently galvanized at the scale we're discussing in the Middle East, but now we're in "what if" territory which is a waste of time.

3. Everything we're talking about predates Donald Trump. Clinton and Bush fit the bill just as well (among others we've had in the past).

4. They don't like Western meddling for sure, but they're committing acts of terrorism in countries that have nothing to do with "Western" culture as well. Pulling out completely would be an interesting option, but you are naive if you believe that's the only motivation they have. Violence is a fundamental face to their belief system just as certain aspects of the Old Testament prevail in various Christian ideologies (and don't get me started on Calvinism lol). Difference is, fundamentalist Christians aren't strapping bomb vests on children and sending them out into the streets. If you really believe the violence isn't cultural or ingrained to some degree then you are deluding yourself. It is completely inexcusable.

You won't have a good handle on your credibility for long if you continue to define Islam by the middle east. There's a whole lot else that's wrong with what you've said but I'm too lazy to put all that work into being ignored.

You really are a bigot. Although a somewhat cultured one. I wish you could read the **** you type through a 100% clear lens. I think you'd be a bit ashamed of yourself.

You do realize that there's approx. 1.5 billion people all over the planet who are of the muslim faith, right? In all countries including the USA. And that 99% of them are modernized, cultured like yourself, educated, hard working, and as peaceful as could be. You realize that right?

Put away your broad brush man.

You guys have all completely missed the point. Why am I not surprised that liberals can't tell the difference between discussing PEOPLE and discussing IDEOLOGY. Question: Islam originated in "which" part of the world? That's what I thought. I agreed the world was full of peaceful awesome Muslims. I'm talking about a specific part of the world and ground zero for the purest form of cultural and religious ideology for the Islamic faith.

Oh wait, I'm a bigot for talking about problems in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Whoops! I also made a comparison point to the peaceful majority's practicing of Islam to the non-denominational Christians. That's the path of co-existence. But what can I expect from people with zero reading comprehension? Good grief.

You're conflating the ideology with the people. At least argue against the claim that was made.

So it's cultural and not actually related to Islam? And that defining the whole of Islam off of a small segment of people in that religion is a pretty ignorant thing to do? Oh okay, I didn't realize we were agreeing here.

Correct. Islam itself isn't the enemy, it's Wahhabism and related ideologies / interpretations of Islam.

One of the root issues is that you have a surprising amount of thought leaders in Islam itself who adhere to elements of Wahhabism, which is evidence that Islam as a whole is still going through the teething stage I discussed before. Since this ideology persists strongly in Islam's geological place of origin, I believe it contributes greatly to the violence we observe today.

You have state-funded clerics in Saudi Arabia, yes, but using that as justification to suggest that Islam as a whole is culturally inferior to Christianity (let's just ignore Africa for now) ignores the diversity within Islam and, again, is very ignorant.

Also consider Christianity started in modern day Israel and look at where that country's at! It's almost like the country of origin isn't as relevant as a lot of people insist that it is when they want you to ignore the big picture.

I hate it when me and Frownland see eye to eye.

And I love it when wonderful fellows like Frownland point out what I've already said in regards to the evolution of Christianity.

I already explained the big picture: Islam will never get to the point where Christianity is at as long as Wahhabism and related ideologies / interpretations of Islam continue to dominate the global conversation. I doubt you'd have so much fear of Islam worldwide if you could just take that one "part" of the diversity out of the equation. Take one or two bad apples out of the barrel and the whole stigma disappears.

(I'm agnostic by the way...not that anyone cares)

Muslim's are of the Islamic faith. Therefore Muslim = Islam.

Christians are of the biblical faith. Therefore Christian = Bible.

Without a violent approach I doubt that Islam could reach Christianity's levels of popularity. It's how the Christians had to do it.

You realize that Wahhabism accounts for roughly 0.5% of the worlds Muslim population, right?

Yep. Scary how much influence they have despite being the global minority right?

That's just the nature of what's newsworthy and what isn't.

Or you could just take down Twitter. Cripple the extremists and Donald Trump simultaneously. :D

I wouldn't even be mad.

Same could be said of all of the extreme Christians who'd like to see all of the abortion providers shot dead.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

^^^^^

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

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

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

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.

Beautiful post. One of the best I've seen on this thread so far.

One minor point: Christianity, rationally speaking, doesn't relate much back to anything in the Old Testament since it predates Jesus's birth. The Qur'an is a different story: Mohammad and his life is the ultimate ideal, not Jesus's. That's where you start seeing fundamental differences in ideology.

My big issue with the modern, liberal conception of Islam is that so many people claim that the worst parts come from the Hadith (and other **** I don't know) as if that and other things have no importance simply because they aren't from the Quran. But if the Hadith is important to modern fundamentalist Islam then does it really matter if it isn't a part of the actual Quran? Like, so many ****ty parts of Christianity may or may not come directly from the Bible, but if they don't then does it matter if those ****ty parts are still believed?

The hadiths are controversial as to whether or not Muhammad actually said them. The Quran is universally accepted by the Islamic community as legit (well, generally; there's a lot of fuss about translations and all that).

Yeah, no, I know that full well, but how much of the Muslim world recognizes the Hadiths? It's kind of important the percentage of those who do and don't. If the Hadiths are ignored by a significant majority then it's whatevs, but if a large enough portion of Islam consider the Hadiths to be at least important then saying that they're not exactly 100% canon is kind of pointless.

Depends on what you consider accepting it, but I'm not sure if I could get any numbers for you. I think they're universally "accepted" but the level of dedication to them and their perceived credibility ranges quite a bit. I hope that my nonanswer is satisfactory.

The old testament of the bible is some of the scariest **** ever.

And I absolutely hate Christians that cherry pick. Either the complete bible is your tome or it's not.

I'd way rather deal with Christians who cherry pick and aren't Westboro Baptist types than relatively logical people who are lazy Christians. The former probably have personality disorders while the latter are just kind of lazy. Why would you want to deal with the former?

If you believe in God then the Bible is infallible. Old and New testaments. Read the bible and have your mind turned inside out. Most of that **** is insane.

Any world leader, politician, or court appointee who leans on that crap is not worthy of telling me how I should live my life. Or telling my daughter what she can or can't do. **** that ****.

I mean, yeah, but why would you rather deal with a Christian fundamentalist who believes the Old Testament than a cherry picker who doesn't?

From my (admittedly limited) understanding of Christianity, I thought the New Testament negated the Old Testament.