Oslo Attacks: Suspicion Falls on Attackers Rather than Religion I Don't Like

He oversimplifies it but this is a decent explanation of the decline in science in the Islamic world by Neil Tyson Degrasse.

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I figured it went without saying that non-sentient animals were exempt from this discussion, since they lack the physical/mental tools necessary to qualify, mostly due to a lack of self-awareness.

But if you insist on including them, then their culture would be a most basic one. A culture that mainly revolves around killing stuff and reproducing, because that's all they're capable of understanding, an "animalistic" culture, if you will. (There are some animals actually do live cooperatively, like say, monkeys, and some are just mindless killers, like sharks... but for the sake of argument I'm generalizing here, even though "monkey culture" > "shark culture")

The earliest humans were similar to this, but through evolution, they rose out of it. Two smart early humans got together and had a little smarter human, who then had another smart human, and eventually, some of them got so smart they decided that it would be a good idea to invent things (language, tools, cooperative society, etc) to make life easier, rather than just going around killing and screwing everything he saw.

Technology influences culture (for example, the internet, lulz brb omg), but the internet would never be possible if not for our species getting it's s**t together and evolving culturally to prioritize science, innovation, education, etc.

 

Just copied/pasted off an article.

Here's a few examples if you're interested:

http://www.1001inventions.com/1001inventions

Point remains valid, unless Muslims have managed to not invent anything.

 

You suck at implying stuff then, because I doubt anybody else saw it that way. A literal interpretation of what you wrote can lead to no other conclusion. So pardon me for taking you at your word.

Bottom line, violence related to fundamentalist Islam is much more prevalent and a greater concern than incidents like the one in Norway.

No one is trying to draw a distinction between "which act is worse" in terms of morality (killing people is wrong either way), but there is a definite distinction between which one is a more abundant and preventable problem.

A psychopath like the guy in Norway isn't a (easily) preventable problem, he was motivated by a multitude of things and causes, and his actions are a lone speck of madness in a sea of otherwise peaceful, reasonable people.

But tens of thousands of people getting stirred into a violent uproar over a cartoon is a very concerning issue, and presents a more common/abundant threat with a very specific cause.

Trying to equate those two things just doesn't fly.

 

Statistics show that most terrorism doesn't come from Extremist Muslims though.

 

Jesus Christ, it's like talking to a living, breathing toolbox.

What you said cannot be reasonably interpreted any other way.

I'm guessing you haven't bothered to look into the amount of modern incidences of Islamic terrorism, otherwise you wouldn't make such a stupid statement.

"Preventable" i.e. something has an obvious cause (drawing Mohammed, for example). That's pretty easy to trace the source, when you see someone pointing to a direct motive. There is a defined cause, from one singular source. Which is spread over a mass of people that act violently as a reaction.

Then you've got this guy, a singular incidence of a guy who lost his s**t that was inspired by a myriad of influences.

You equate the two and oversimplify this, which is nothing new around here.

I'm done with the derail, Sam. I'll see you in the Norway thread.

 

Sounds like the Texas school board.

 

By the way, isn't this an oxymoron? It is either literal or an interpretation. It can't be both regardless of what some self-educated preacher says on Sunday to convince his flock that what he's saying is the true word of God.

 

Haven't read too much on this thread, but I don't think it is "racist" to suspect an Islamic group when a terrorist action occurs.

I am sure the CIA. UN, Interpol, and even Islamic groups all had it in the back of their minds.

I have to admit though that the posting of such terrorist actions seemingly borders on the enthusiastic in this forum. As if such actions somehow validate all of one's political ideals. Totally sorry if I am wrong in that regard. What I wrote was probably pretty offensive.

 

Genius. That is like saying 2+2 is 4.

Show me anyone here who would have ever said that it is unique to Islam. I certainly have not.

 

For the attack in Norway. They(He) was(were) not Muslim.

 

Hi, I'm an ancient Greek Hoplite. My armor is made of bronze, a metal alloy of copper and tin. I fought more than 1000 years before the revelation of Islam to the Prophet Muhammed.

 

Ironically, the reason why we now know this is thanks to the Islamic cultures that were doing all of the pushing in science while Christian Europe was in ruins, and decay.

funny how history cycles sometimes.

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

 

Haha, this thread went in an entertaining direction.

Sidebar: Back to DD's post, I think it's naive to believe religion will ever completely die out. It may seem evident to an atheist that religion is an enemy to technology, but I don't see the same.

Religion at its core is belief in a higher power and/or a cause for life, and I don't think that kind of notion is going to be killed by any amount of human advancement, for better or for worse. The odd and polarizing customs that you use to typify religion will likely erode and fade away first, but I honestly don't think that core of human curiosity and search for answers ever will. In fact, I hope it doesn't.

 

You'll have to excuse my unwillingness to continue, but your snarky, sarcastic tone ("Donald", really?) pretty much advertised to me that you had little intention of listening to what I had to say. I tried to be straight up with you, but you couldn't be respectful back. That took a lot of my desire to continue away.

I'm not telling you when to be concerned, or what to be concerned over, nor am I trying to define what constitutes "extemist violence", I'm explaining to you what the difference is (both in prevalence and nature) between violent Islamic radicals and a violent Nordic xenophobe. I stand by my statement that your statement that the nature/level of violence/unrest a Jesus cartoon would bring is similar to that which a Mohammed cartoon would bring is a false equivalency, despite what you claim to have meant by it (which I don't buy for a second, mainly because you're too smart to illustrate a point like that so poorly/inaccurately).

This would require far, FAR more time to explain than is worth here, but I can assure you I'm not making this stuff up for the fun of it. I have no vendetta against other faiths or ethnicities, or "brown people", as you put it, simply because they're different from me, my problem is with violence. Quite simply, Islam and Middle Eastern cultures sponsor and condone violence at *alarming* rates. The *reasons* for this can take place in another discussion for another day, but the numbers don't lie.

For example, a Pew poll question posed only to Muslims (38,000+ of them, respectively) in the following countries:

Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is ever justifiable?

Lebanon: 82% Yes / 12% No / 6% Don't Know
Ivory Coast: 73% Yes / 27% No / 0% Don't Know
Nigeria: 66% Yes / 26% No / 8% Don't Know
Jordan: 65% Yes / 26% No / 8% Don't Know
Bangladesh: 58% Yes / 23% No / 19% Don't Know
Mali: 54% Yes / 35% No / 11% Don't Know
Senegal: 47% Yes / 50% No / 3% Don't Know
Ghana: 44% Yes / 43% No / 12% Don't Know
Indonesia: 43% Yes / 54% No / 3% Don't Know
Uganda: 40% Yes / 52% No / 8% Don't Know
Pakistan: 38% Yes / 38% No / 23% Don't Know
Turkey: 20% Yes / 64% No / 23% Don't Know

If those results don't give you pause, nothing will. And this doesn't even include places like Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, and Palestinian territories, where the numbers are almost assuredly higher.

I've already linked to a running rolodex of modern terrorism, which is, suffice to say, not lacking for Muslim representatives. (Mind you, not just Muslims who committed violence, but rather people who made it known that the violence they committed was done specifically for/because of their belief in Islam)

You're right, preventable was probably the wrong choice of words. Attributable was more accurate. The reason I bring that up is because it speaks to the nature of each event. It distinguishes them from each other in a way that allows us to understand which ones are random occurances that we can't really actively seek to stop, versus ones that are not random in nature and are very plainly motivated. I don't know about you, but I find a random singular episode of violence that resulted as a consequence of free speech and what looks to be a multitude of other vague factors (one of which is likely psychopathy) to be a lot less worrisome than numerous massive episodes of violence that result from free speech and one very obvious factor (Islamic blasphemy law). They both suck and it's terrible we have to deal with it, but let's not pretend that they both present an equally dangerous or abundant threat simply to feign some sense of fairness and/or to piss off racist BBS posters.

 

That one is far more common than the other, for one thing.

I'm not "sympathetic" to either (to suggest such is way out of line), but I think one is less of a cause for concern (i.e. a random, isolated incident) than the other.

I don't find a single individual getting pushed over the edge by a multitude of things (which seem to be rather complex in nature) to be as disturbing/unsettling as thousands of people getting pushed over the edge by a singular thing (which can be something as simplistic and innocuous as a cartoon, for example).