50% of Americans, and 80% of likely GOP primary voters, now support the Trump ban on Muslims

Christianity or Islam can't get better or worse. The followers of those religions can.

Followers of Islam will get "better", simply because information, knowledge is easily accessible and with that, they will see the craziness of their beliefs and will abandon the more extreme views.

 

So you preferred Hitler's government to the first government after Germany was freed militarily?

 

Nope. Many ISIS members have had full access to the Word Wide Web before they joined. Many are literate Arab speakers also who have read the Quran, it's tasfir and the Hadith long before joining. Many have also went through a Western secular school system also.

 

Access to world wide information is quite recent in the history of religion. 30 years ago, there wouldn't be a thousand active members of PAA in Pakistan.

 

Okay? Last time I checked ISIS began in recent history and we have European Muslims who went through Western public education joining as we speak.

 

So are suicide bombings and mass shootings by Islamists who went through Western school systems in European cities.

 

I'm talking about Islam as a whole.

Frankly, when the whole of Islam pull to the moderate side, government will slowly change and ISIS and their like would be harder to come to power.

 

When you mean 'moderate' you mean more secular right at least when it comes to Islam? See, that's the problem. I don't care if a Hindu is less secular. There isn't much that is going to happen if someone practices Hinduism isn't secular at all. Same with Christians and their 'personal relationship with Jesus'. Sure they might be annoying to hang around with but it's not like the less secular they are the more prone they are to joining a movment that loves killing civilians.

 

How do you expect that to happen?

So far, it seems like the WWW has been a useful recruiting tool to recruite young people - who are not uneducated and know how to use the Internet - as Islamist terrorists. Have you really had the impression that Islam has become more moderate as a whole since the WWW came about?

No, no. Technology by itself does not make things better. It is neutral. It can be used to transport good ideas and bad ideas. I would agree with you that we need to become better at making sure the good ideas prevail - on the WWW and anywhere. Radical Islam, like any radical and extremist ideology, is a terrible idea.

 

Probably 99.9% of Muslim growing up and educated in the US are more moderate than those living in said Saudi Arabia.

 

Saudi has a pretty prevalent middle class society with relative modern education and internet access which has some restrictions. It ain't Bangladesh. These people have access to information. They are also fluent and literate in Arabic which means they fully understand how to read and interpret the Quran. So the whole 'they were decieved' excuse doesn't work.

Majority of Muslim Americans don't even know how to read the Quran. It's quite literally the exact opposite of the Christian Reformation where more access to the text in native languages resulted in the collapse of political Christianity. In Islam, an 'awakening' actually strengthened political Islam.

 

Yes, and that is true although people in Saudi Arabia are relatively rich and educated. Doesn't really support your argument that it's just education and technology - what matters is which ideas are transported via technology and education. You can use technology and education to promote freedom, or to promote terrible values, such as in Saudi Arabia.

 

How the hell could you even determine who was Muslim and who wasn't in the first place?

 

More secular, yes. But also, a different perspective. Two people viewing the same text see different meanings. How you are brought up, the environment you are in affect your viewpoint.

I don't know how government is going to change.

Yes, technology is neutral. Human and their ideas are not. I strongly believe people are good and technology has and will continue to help close the gaps between people, eliminate isolation and will in the long run yield greater and "better" ideals.

Saudi doesn't have a separation of Church from State. Worse, they teach their population to hate and view some as enemy from a young age. That combined with Islam's extremist views is going to yield religious extremists.

Same as above.

 

So we agree that the Saudi interpretation of Islam (which at this point in history overlaps with the interpretation of hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world e.g. regarding treatment of women, gays, apostates, non-Muslims) is the actual root cause of the problem?

 

You didn't answer my question, wannabe-Marxist intern.