BBC.com: Charlie Hebdo: Gun attack on French magazine kills 12

[Elessar78]

That is the House of Saud protecting its power base. 

Oil?

[zoony]

 

From your own source (which can be found at http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf)

 

"At the same time, the survey finds that even in many countries where there is strong backing

for sharia, most Muslims favor religious freedom for people of other faiths. In Pakistan, for

example, three-quarters of Muslims say that non-Muslims are very free to practice their

religion, and fully 96% of those who share this assessment say it is “a good thing.” Yet 84% of

Pakistani Muslims favor enshrining sharia as official law. These seemingly divergent views are

possible partly because most supporters of sharia in Pakistan – as in many other countries –

think Islamic law should apply only to Muslims. Moreover, Muslims around the globe have

differing understandings of what sharia means in practice"

 

"In most countries where a question about so-called “honor” killings was asked,

majorities of Muslims say such killings are never justified. Only in two countries –

Afghanistan and Iraq – do majorities condone extra-judicial executions of women who

allegedly have shamed their families by engaging in premarital sex or adultery."

 

Also your comment about the other quarter for violence against civilians, 25 percent of Americans don't know that the Earth revolves around the sun and 40 percent believe that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago....so taking a poll and extrapolating results especially around that 25 percent threshold can get some pretty wacky results. 

This is actually a pretty nuanced and interesting survey but I think making broad generalizations about it is dumb because once again there is no monolithic Muslim and like the poll states Shariah law means a ton of different things to different people so saying Muslims want Shariah law is actually pretty meaningless unless you get to specfic tenets. It would be interesting if you asked the Christian, Budhist, Hindu, or other populations in the regions what they thought because many things that people mistakenly attribute to Islam (such as FGM) are actually cultural practices for the regions (for FGM North Africa) and there isn't much of a difference in views between Christian groups and Muslim groups regarding it.  

 

 

 

 

A few things I think when I read your post

 

1) Who cares unless you are going to go there and live there. Even then you are white and have dollars and if there is one thing Muslims in that part of the world actually love, its white people who show up with dollars (and I am being serious)

 

2) They are no threat to your way of life and won't have an impact ever on your life, unless your taxes are raised to pay for George W's war to kill about 1 million of them during the first decade of this century, then they might have an impact

 

3) I was raised by a pretty traditional Pakistani mom who prays 5 times a day and fasts every day of Ramadan (I pray maybe twice a day and fast all of Ramadan)  yet somehow avoided being a misogynistic asshole who wants to stone adulterers. 

 

Is it because I am less Muslim then those people? Or probably because my parents raised me to be a decent human? 

 

I am curious how many Americans still think Iraq had WMDs

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/iraq-wmd-poll-clueless-vast-majority-republicans_n_1616012.html

 

A vast of majority of Republicans still do as late as June 2012

 

 

And 42 percent of Americans STILL think we FOUND WMDs in Iraq as of yesterday!

 

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2015/false/

 

.

 

 

Where is your outrage?  Serious question.

 

You both have a long history in this forum of equivalency every single time one of these situations pops up.

 

I guess, in my own life, I could use the example of the Catholic Church.  I was Baptized, raised, and Confirmed Catholic.  I had a strong Catholic faith.  My outrage at the handling of the Catholic Priest sex scandal steadily grew the more that was uncovered.

 

I guess it would have been easy, downright effortless, to draw equivalencies.  (as you've both done above)

 

Rates of pedophelia in the Catholic Church vs the general population, the Church's handling of a crisis vs other large multinational institutions, the NT's preaching about forgiveness, etc. 

 

I could have gone all day.  Instead, I left the Church.  Don't regret it one bit, I'm in a much better place spiritually now.  Even get to worship the same God, which is nice

 

Just wondering, again, where your outrage is.  I've never seen it, nor gotten even the tiniest of glimpses.

[Wildbunny]

You're refusing to consider the circumstances beyond 'muslims being sensitive'.  Look at these 'woe is me' books like 'The French Suicide' and 'Submission', bemoaning immigrants presence.  Well maybe if your ancestors hadn't have left their home in the first place like conquistadors, your country wouldn't be the place to go for poor people from French speaking countries...that speak French because...

 

The first book you quote is just bull****. It complains about one thing while exhorting those named in it to do it more... That's pouring gas into a fire.

So, that's pretty bull****. He can write its book if he want, that's mine not to buy it and not even consider because he's not worth it.

 

Haven't read the other, seems like fantasy with some kind of philosophical question behind it like "what are you up to agreed to succeed?.

 

Problem I do have, is that in the end, I think that people get offended way too much, and are way too much adopting the "victim position". Sometimes it's just best to just move on, and don't even consider those that mean to harm you in such way.

 

On a last note, I still find it funny to watch political to arrange a walk on sunday to remember those that died in the magazine. All of them being well know anarchists with not so much respect for politics of any kind.

[sacase]

The problem with modern immigration is that immigrants are increasingly not assimilating into their chosen country. For example when people were immigrating into America many years ago, many (not all) wanted to become Americans, they wanted to speak the language and adapt into American society. Now that doesn't mean forgetting where they come from or losing all of their traditions, but they assimilated into America. Now, many immigrants are economic immigrants. Essentially they want to reap the economic benefits of America, but maintain their foreign customs and culture without adapting to America. You see this same attitude happening in Europe as well.

 

Now with that said immigration is not a bad thing at all. But it needs to be a two way street. Bring the good from your country and meld it with the good from mine. The host country should not have to bow to the immigrants desires to allow them to form neighborhoods which do things the same way their home country does. This is part of the problem France is having, they were ceding neighborhoods to these immigrants so that they could run them like their home countries. Successful assimilation is the key to successful immigration. France needs to seriously think about the future of France and what it means to be French.

[PeterMP]

The problem with modern immigration is that immigrants are increasingly not assimilating into their chosen country. For example when people were immigrating into America many years ago, many (not all) wanted to become Americans, they wanted to speak the language and adapt into American society.

 

I don't know much about the French situation or the history of immigration in France, but my understanding has always been that the current (Hispanic) immigration wave in the US is similar to previous US immigration waves.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324787004578495393859698964

 

"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.

 

(My dad's family was from the region around what today is the Czech Republic.  His grand parents came to the US.  They spoke no English and never did.  My mother had no way to communicate with his grandparents other than having people translate for her.  His parents were bilingual, but realistically the mother tongue was their first language.  He was bilingual as a kid, but English was his first language and by the time I was older would only admit to remembering bits and pieces of their langauge.  I wouldn't recognize the language if somebody spoke it to me.)

[jpyaks3]

Where is your outrage?  Serious question.

 

You both have a long history in this forum of equivalency every single time one of these situations pops up.

 

I guess, in my own life, I could use the example of the Catholic Church.  I was Baptized, raised, and Confirmed Catholic.  I had a strong Catholic faith.  My outrage at the handling of the Catholic Priest sex scandal steadily grew the more that was uncovered.

 

I guess it would have been easy, downright effortless, to draw equivalencies.  (as you've both done above)

 

Rates of pedophelia in the Catholic Church vs the general population, the Church's handling of a crisis vs other large multinational institutions, the NT's preaching about forgiveness, etc. 

 

I could have gone all day.  Instead, I left the Church.  Don't regret it one bit, I'm in a much better place spiritually now.  Even get to worship the same God, which is nice

 

Just wondering, again, where your outrage is.  I've never seen it, nor gotten even the tiniest of glimpses.

Who should I be outraged at? Or rather what should I be outraged at? 

The Catholic Church is a good example of a situation where you can rightfully be outraged at something. As an institution it failed with regards to paedophilia within the church. No such institution exists in Islam. It would be like me blaming every Christian for what went on with the Catholic Church. Should I be pissed off at a pentacostalist in Georgia or a Copt in Egypt or a Presbyterian in Northern Virginia because the Catholic Church ****ed up? No. I would say that as an institution the Catholic Church ****ed up and covered it up and I am outraged at them. That isn't the situation with Islam there isn't this institution that exists that has the power to really revise or change anything other than what they preach. And from that you get reactionaries condemning an entire religion for the actions of a few disconnected actors. That is why it is important to provide context because this isn't like the Catholic Church, this is like condemning all of Christianity for something they had nothing to do with.

 

So yeah there are certain strains of Islam that are, from my perspective, very damaging to Islam and society as a whole, but my outrage doesn't extend beyond that. Especially not to the religion that really has very little to do with it. I also view the problems from a wider view, Islam just happens to be the religion in a lot of oppressed places that have very nasty effects of colonialism. And just as I wouldn't blame Christianity for the Rwandan Genocide or the Congoan Wars I don't blame Islam for a situation where it didn't have much of a role in creating. 

To bring it back to a point I made earlier Female Genital Mutilation is something that I find horrific, and many attribute it to Islam; however, across the spectrum it occurs in Christian and Islamic communities in North Africa and Southeast Asia. That shows me that a lot of these views are much more based on contextual situations than on religion or any intrinsic difference. People in a similar situation regardless of faith acting in a similar manner, so there Islam isn't the problem those outside factors are and I think that applies to a lot of situations where we like to ascribe the blame to Islam rather than the socio or geo-political realities of the situation.

I don't know much about the French situation or the history of immigration in France, but my understanding has always been that the current (Hispanic) immigration wave in the US is similar to previous US immigration waves.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324787004578495393859698964

 

"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.

 

(My dad's family was from the region around what today is the Czech Republic.  His grand parents came to the US.  They spoke no English and never did.  My mother had no way to communicate with his grandparents other than having people translate for her.  His parents were bilingual, but realistically the mother tongue was their first language.  He was bilingual as a kid, but English was his first language and by the time I was older would only admit to remembering bits and pieces of their langauge.  I wouldn't recognize the language if somebody spoke it to me.)

People have always claimed that this group of immigrants is so much worse than the previous ones who have been forced to assimilate, it has literally gone back hundreds of years and is still trotted out today. Its just a version of kids these days have no respect etc. etc.

[sacase]

Who should I be outraged at? Or rather what should I be outraged at? 

The Catholic Church is a good example of a situation where you can rightfully be outraged at something. As an institution it failed with regards to paedophilia within the church. No such institution exists in Islam. It would be like me blaming every Christian for what went on with the Catholic Church. Should I be pissed off at a pentacostalist in Georgia or a Copt in Egypt or a Presbyterian in Northern Virginia because the Catholic Church ****ed up? No. I would say that as an institution the Catholic Church ****ed up and covered it up and I am outraged at them. That isn't the situation with Islam there isn't this institution that exists that has the power to really revise or change anything other than what they preach. And from that you get reactionaries condemning an entire religion for the actions of a few disconnected actors. That is why it is important to provide context because this isn't like the Catholic Church, this is like condemning all of Christianity for something they had nothing to do with.

 

So yeah there are certain strains of Islam that are, from my perspective, very damaging to Islam and society as a whole, but my outrage doesn't extend beyond that. Especially not to the religion that really has very little to do with it. I also view the problems from a wider view, Islam just happens to be the religion in a lot of oppressed places that have very nasty effects of colonialism. And just as I wouldn't blame Christianity for the Rwandan Genocide or the Congoan Wars I don't blame Islam for a situation where it didn't have much of a role in creating. 

To bring it back to a point I made earlier Female Genital Mutilation is something that I find horrific, and many attribute it to Islam; however, across the spectrum it occurs in Christian and Islamic communities in North Africa and Southeast Asia. That shows me that a lot of these views are much more based on contextual situations than on religion or any intrinsic difference. People in a similar situation regardless of faith acting in a similar manner, so there Islam isn't the problem those outside factors are and I think that applies to a lot of situations where we like to ascribe the blame to Islam rather than the socio or geo-political realities of the situation.

People have always claimed that this group of immigrants is so much worse than the previous ones who have been forced to assimilate, it has literally gone back hundreds of years and is still trotted out today. Its just a version of kids these days have no respect etc. etc.

I beg to differ. The Emphasis on Multiculturalism, the rise of cheap communication via the internet and cell phones as well as the ease of money remittance has made immigration much different than previous generations.

[PeterMP]

So yeah there are certain strains of Islam that are, from my perspective, very damaging to Islam and society as a whole, but my outrage doesn't extend beyond that. Especially not to the religion that really has very little to do with it. I also view the problems from a wider view, Islam just happens to be the religion in a lot of oppressed places that have very nasty effects of colonialism. And just as I wouldn't blame Christianity for the Rwandan Genocide or the Congoan Wars I don't blame Islam for a situation where it didn't have much of a role in creating. 

 

Hutu and Tutsi isn't religion.  They are both an ethnic group with a variety of religions by the people of those ethnic groups (including various strains of Christianity, but also other relgions) so I'm not sure that makes much sense.

 

The comparison doesn't even make any sense.

 

Catholics from all over the word did not flock to Ireland during the height of the IRA.  There was no need for extra security for British institutions in the US or even in Boston.

 

There are no Vietnamese organizations supporting the killing of French men or Vietnamese immigrants shooting of Paris (or the US).

 

Or Brazilians shooting up Lisbon.

 

While there are certainly customs that go beyond religion (e.g. female genitalia mutilation), I think only attributing issues to things like that might be misguided and an over simplification.

[Dan T.]

Jesus wandered in the desert and was visited by spirits who told him things.  Muhammad would hole up in the Hira cave in the Jabal al-Nour mountain alone for weeks at a time. There, another spirit, the angel Gabriel, appeared and revealed the first verses of the Koran to him.

This is the basis for the world's greatest religions? Smart, persuasive, good, but likely delusional men acting upon hallucinations, with the benefit of good timing historically.

Say what you will about the contributions to mankind about the world's religions, but the foundations upon which they are based don't hold up under unbiased scrutiny. That undermines their legitimacy, regardless of whatever good they do. Throw Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard in there, too, to show people still need something to fill a void. But they are more charlatans than delusional. Even they didn't believe their own bull****. At least Jesus and Muhammad had earnestness on their side.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Where is your outrage?  Serious question.

 

 

 

http://es.redskins.com/topic/385757-reuters-taliban-assault-on-pakistani-school-ends-130-dead-mostly-children/

 

Lets make one thing clear: Until I say otherwise, I am horrified and outraged at any terror attack that occurs anywhere. . Let us always move forward with that assumption that I automatically am outraged when something awful like what happened in Paris occurs. 

 

With that said, me sitting here typing "I am outraged and condemn this attack!" does nothing at all and has 0 impact on things. My conversation in this forum or other forums with non Muslims really has little impact or change on what is going on overseas

 

However, something like this http://www.imakespace.com/isis-recruiting-tactics-community-intervention/, which I had the opportunity to attend and be a part of, does far more to make our world a better place and hopefully prevent these things from happening again.

 

Making white people that I have never met, or might see a few times a year, happy by expressing "outrage" is really silly in my book. Sillier when I am not french, not poor, never raised in the ghetto, and besides a few daily customs, have nothing in common with them. 

 

Max Fisher had an excellent article on Vox.com about this

 

http://www.vox.com/2014/12/15/7394223/muslims-condemn-charlie-hebdo

 

There's a certain ritual that each and every one of the world's billion-plus Muslims, especially those living in Western countries, is expected to go through immediately following any incident of violence involving a Muslim perpetrator. It's a ritual that is we went through with theSydney hostage crisis in December, in which a deranged self-styled sheikh took several people hostage in a downtown café, and that is continuing now with the terrorist massacreat the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Here is what Muslims and Muslim organizations are expected to say: "As a Muslim, I condemn this attack and terrorism in any form."

This expectation we place on Muslims, to be absolutely clear, is Islamophobic and bigoted. The denunciation is a form of apology: an apology for Islam and for Muslims. The implication is that every Muslim is under suspicion of being sympathetic to terrorism unless he or she explicitly says otherwise. The implication is also that any crime committed by a Muslim is the responsibility of all Muslims simply by virtue of their shared religion.

This sort of thinking — blaming an entire group for the actions of a few individuals, assuming the worst about a person just because of their identity — is the very definition of bigotry. It is also, by the way, the very same logic that leads French non-Muslims, outraged by the Charlie Hebdo murders, to attack French mosques in hateful and misguided retaliation. And it's the same logic that led CNN host Don Lemon to ask Muslim-American human rights lawyer Arasalan Iftikhar if he supports ISIS, as if the simple fact of Iftikhar's religion — despite the fact that he is exactly the sort of liberal human rights activist whom ISIS hates most — made him suspect.

 

 

I guess, in my own life, I could use the example of the Catholic Church.  I was Baptized, raised, and Confirmed Catholic.  I had a strong Catholic faith.  My outrage at the handling of the Catholic Priest sex scandal steadily grew the more that was uncovered.

 

I guess it would have been easy, downright effortless, to draw equivalencies.  (as you've both done above)

 

Rates of pedophelia in the Catholic Church vs the general population, the Church's handling of a crisis vs other large multinational institutions, the NT's preaching about forgiveness, etc. 

 

I could have gone all day.  Instead, I left the Church.  Don't regret it one bit, I'm in a much better place spiritually now.  Even get to worship the same God, which is nice

 

 

 

This part I find a bit ridiculous.

 

You made your choice to leave the Church based on the actions of others and the leadership of the Church.

 

A couple of thugs in Paris aren't the leadership in Islam. Neither are the Wahabbs in Saudi Arabia, nor Al Azhar in Cairo.

 

I am still going to be Muslim and I am still going to be American, and still be a Redskins fan despite assholes affiliated with all 3 groups that make it suck to be one of the 3. 

[jpyaks3]

Hutu and Tutsi isn't religion.  They are both an ethnic group with a variety of religions by the people of those ethnic groups (including various strains of Christianity, but also other relgions) so I'm not sure that makes much sense.

 

The comparison doesn't even make any sense.

 

Catholics from all over the word did not flock to Ireland during the height of the IRA.  There was no need for extra security for British institutions in the US or even in Boston.

 

There are no Vietnamese organizations supporting the killing of French men or Vietnamese immigrants shooting of Paris (or the US.

 

Or Brazilians shooting up Lisbon.

 

While there are certainly customs that go beyond religion (e.g. female genitalia mutilation), I think only attributing issues to things like that might be misguided and an over simplification.

I chose the Rwandan genocide because church leaders very explicitly called for people to follow the interim government who were committing genocide. 

 

 

here is a Roman Catholic priest at a medieval church an hour's drive from Paris who has been indicted by a United Nations court for genocide, extermination, murder and rape in Rwanda.

Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka was notorious during the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis for wearing a gun on his hip and colluding with the Hutu militia that murdered hundreds of people sheltering in his church. A Rwandan court convicted the priest of genocide and sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda spent years trying to bring him to trial.

But the Catholic church in France does not see any of this as a bar to serving as a priest and has gone out of its way to defend Munyeshyaka.

It's not an isolated case. After the genocide, a network of clergy and church organisations brought priests and nuns with blood on their hands in Rwanda to Europe and sheltered them. They included Father Athanase Seromba who ordered the bulldozing of his church with 2,000 Tutsis inside and had the survivors shot. Catholic monks helped him get to Italy, change his name and become a parish priest in Florence.

....

Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva was so closely attached to the Hutu power structure that for nearly 15 years he sat in the ruling party's central committee as it implemented the policies of discrimination and demonisation that laid the ground for genocide. His political affiliations left him well placed to at least try to urge the regime to stop the killing in 1994 and to have been a strong moral voice in public against the slaughter. Instead, he was incapable even of calling the massacres a genocide let alone condemning the politicians and military officers leading them. The archbishop became so compromised that witnesses said he stood by as Tutsi priests, monks and a nun were taken to be murdered.

 

 

So the church was active in condoning and in some cases carrying out the massacres, that is why I chose the Rwandan Genocide. But I sure as hell don't blame anyone but the individuals and the institutions that directly contributed to it, I don't blame the religion or anything like that.

 

You other examples are examples of anti-colonial violence which is an entirely different beast. Although I think it is easily arguable that much of the violence that is being committed in the name of Islam is fundamentally anti-colonial as colonialism never really left the Middle East. However, yes you are right simplifying it to just that is reductive but its a piece that is often left out of the conversation all together, and I would argue its an important piece.

[PeterMP]

I chose the Rwandan genocide because church leaders very explicitly called for people to follow the interim government who were committing genocide. 

 

 

 

So the church was active in condoning and in some cases carrying out the massacres, that is why I chose the Rwandan Genocide. But I sure as hell don't blame anyone but the individuals and the institutions that directly contributed to it, I don't blame the religion or anything like that.

 

You other examples are examples of anti-colonial violence which is an entirely different beast. Although I think it is easily arguable that much of the violence that is being committed in the name of Islam is fundamentally anti-colonial as colonialism never really left the Middle East. However, yes you are right simplifying it to just that is reductive but its a piece that is often left out of the conversation all together, and I would argue its an important piece.

 

In Rwanda though it was actually though Christians (including Catholics) in many cases killing other Christians (including other Catholics).

 

The killing wasn't religions, but ethnic.

 

Right, the priest over saw the killing of members of his own congregation.

 

That isn't what is happening in the Arab world.  Arab and non-Arab Muslims are killing Arab Muslims, but in the name of religion (in Syria and Iraq) and non-Muslims (in the US, Europe, and Africa).

 

I don't think colonialism has left much of the world, including South America and much of the Asia.

 

Look at our actions through the 1980s and early 1990s in South and Central America.

 

Look at Panama.

 

But there is and has been no wide spread associated violence.

[Jumbo]

<edit>

I am still going to be Muslim and I am still going to be American, and still be a Redskins fan despite assholes affiliated with all 3 groups that make it suck to be one of the 3. 

 

 

I feel the same way about the demographic " humans." I are one, and carry the discomfort of endless shortcomings, both inherited and acquired. But I haven't found the "change status" option on "human."

 

BTW, a side note (and--yay--all about me), I have horrified the occasional Redskin fan over the years when they find out that for all my commitment to the team, if you're some drunk or  obnoxious (or both) asshole while manifesting your Redskins fanhood, you don't sit at my table nor do I want anything to do with you. Really ****s some folks up.

[PeterMP]

 

Max Fisher had an excellent article on Vox.com about this

 

http://www.vox.com/2014/12/15/7394223/muslims-condemn-charlie-hebdo

 

While I have no clue why Maher didn't bother to get his facts right with respect to the statistics on the polling of Muslims and in that sense, I think he should be criticized, is it bigoted or Islamophobic to point out that ~50% of Muslims living in Arab countries think that apostasy should be punished by death and in many Asian countries, the number is somewhat similar?

 

And even in a country like Britain the number is probably over 20%.

 

Can I make that point and try and have a conversation based on that point and not be a bigot?

[PCS]

Going to interrupt this discussion in the BBC CHarlie Hebdo gun attack thread with,well,actual news about the events going right now. 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30752239

 

 

 

Charlie Hebdo hunt: Police storm two hostage sites

French police have stormed two hostage sites in the Paris area, killing three hostage takers.

Two brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday were killed at a warehouse where they had held a hostage north of Paris.

In the second incident, in eastern Paris, anti-terrorist forces stormed a kosher supermarket where hostages were being held by a gunman with reported links to the brothers.

The gunman and four hostages died.

It is not clear whether they were killed before or after the police assault on Hypercasher supermarket, near Porte de Vincennes, began.

Another four hostages were seriously injured, but 15 were released.

Two police officers were injured in the rescue operation, AP reported.

It was launched almost at the same time as the assault in Dammartin-en-Goele, 35km (22 miles) north of Paris. A hostage at the warehouse was freed while a police officer was injured.

 

 

*Click link for more*

 

http://www.cnn.com/

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/09/world/france-woman-suspect/index.html

 

 

 

 

Massive search for woman suspected in Paris hostage-taking

(CNN)A new, massive hunt was launched Friday for the only surviving suspect from the two hostage situations in France, who may have escaped, police union spokesman Pascal Disant said.

That suspect is Hayat Boumeddiene, a 26-year-old woman who allegedly was the accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly, 32, in the standoff at a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris.

 

*Click Link For More*

[No Excuses]

I am glad you can speak for the culture of a billion plus people that spread out across the world.

A more realistic spectrum (without your arbitrary points to define it) would go more like

Super devout to practically non-observant some of whom will use violence to achieve their goals (just like with any other group on earth). And within each of those places on the spectrum are a dozen or so other differences, a salafi is very different from a Sufi who is very different from a twelver. To speak about a culture so casually without looking at all the random people and groups you lump into it is really counterproductive.

The fact is that a very small group of people committed an atrocious act but that act and the way a religion or an ideology manifests itself never happens in a vacuum and there are always outside factors and pressures that shape its development. That is why the Muslim population in Indonesia is very different from the one in Pakistan which is different from the one in Chile.

To simply ascribe a billion people from dozens of different sects and interpretations of Islam under one umbrella of culture is reductivist and just not useful at all because there is such a diversity of opinions and beliefs just like there is in any group.

 

The polls speak for themselves. On the topic of blasphemy, there is a significantly large percentage of population in the Middle East that is ok with death being a valid punishment for the offense.

 

When you have large sections of your culture in a specific region being highly sensitive to any kind of outside criticism or even satire, it creates a breeding ground for nutjobs to be empowered to do whatever they want to.

[visionary]

In Rwanda though it was actually though Christians (including Catholics) in many cases killing other Christians (including other Catholics).

 

The killing wasn't religions, but ethnic.

 

Right, the priest over saw the killing of members of his own congregation.

 

That isn't what is happening in the Arab world.  Arab and non-Arab Muslims are killing Arab Muslims, but in the name of religion (in Syria and Iraq) and non-Muslims (in the US, Europe, and Africa).

 

I don't think colonialism has left much of the world, including South America and much of the Asia.

 

Look at our actions through the 1980s and early 1990s in South and Central America.

 

Look at Panama.

 

But there is and has been no wide spread associated violence.

Actually it's much more complicated than that in the Arab world.  You have authoritarian leaders clinging to power, you have people fed up with the stagnation and wanting more freedom, you have others who want to keep things the way they are and support the leaders to protect their own status or out of fear of change, you have others who want to take advantage of current turmoil to force their own religious views on everyone or to kill others for ethnic or religious reasons, you have people who want to stay out of everything and just live quietly, and a lot of this is at least partially due to decisions made during colonization or it's immediate aftermath.  Religious violence is just one aspect of it, though it is currently the most prominent and visible aspect.

[visionary]

 is it bigoted or Islamophobic to point out that ~50% of Muslims living in Arab countries think that apostasy should be punished by death and in many Asian countries, the number is somewhat similar?

 

And even in a country like Britain the number is probably over 20%.

 

Can I make that point and try and have a conversation based on that point and not be a bigot?

Is that even true though.  What exactly do the polls say?  What were the exact questions asked and how were they answered?  Personally I'm pretty skeptical about this.

 

 

Here's one of the polls:

 

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

 

 

[tshile]

i feel like those numbers are completely meaningless without being put next to the % of people in those countries that want sharia law.

 

they're percentages of percentages... when you put them out there by themselves they allow too many people to make completely different narratives with them...

 

edit:

[Predicto]

The polls speak for themselves. 

 

Except they often don't.  As anyone who analyses polls could tell you, people often respond to polls in order to show affiliation with one side or the other, not to respond to the exact question being asked.  Thus, you get polls that say 40 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution.   In reality, a much smaller percentage don't actually disbelieve evolution, but a lot of people want to express support for traditional religion so they answer the way they do.

 

I would expect this to be an even bigger problem in third world countries, where you are conditioned to mistrust outsiders and don't want to say anything that might get your name put on a list or get you in trouble with your craziest neighbors.     

[PeterMP]

Is that even true though.  What exactly do the polls say?  What were the exact questions asked and how were they answered?  Personally I'm pretty skeptical about this.

 

 

Here's one of the polls:

 

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

 

I've already posted stuff related to this in the thread, and I did the math in another thread here.

 

For Egypt, it works out to be 68%.

 

http://es.redskins.com/topic/384218-affleck-vs-maher-on-islam/?p=10008914

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/ben-affleck-and-bill-maher-are-both-wrong-about-islamic-fundamentalism/

 

And that's for people that believe that Sharia law should be the law of the land.  You can imagine that might actually be an underestimate because there might be people that believe that Sharia shouldn't be the law of the land, but that apostasy should still carry a death penalty,

 

And that's for the death penalty.

 

Not other forms of punishment.

 

Now, Egypt is one of the higher countries in the Middle East, but still I think that's an astounding number.

 

"A similar pattern holds true when it comes to the question of whether Muslims who leave the faith — apostates — should be killed. Majorities of Muslims in seven countries say this should be the case. Support is particularly high in Afghanistan. By contrast, Eastern European Muslims are much less likely to support the practice."

[headexplode]

BTW, a side note (and--yay--all about me), I have horrified the occasional Redskin fan over the years when they find out that for all my commitment to the team, if you're some drunk or  obnoxious (or both) asshole while manifesting your Redskins fanhood, you don't sit at my table nor do I want anything to do with you. Really ****s some folks up.

As a (probably too frequently) drunk and/or obnoxious asshole who happens to be a Redskins fan, I do not see it as my responsibility to condemn the bad behavior of every drunk and/or obnoxious asshole Redskins fan you may have happened to have witnessed over the years.*

*Not a satirical comment, as much as it may seem, on posters in this thread who are surely more knowlegeable and articulate than I about the topic at hand.

[visionary]

I've already posted stuff related to this in the thread, and I did the math in another thread here.

 

For Egypt, it works out to be 68%.

 

http://es.redskins.com/topic/384218-affleck-vs-maher-on-islam/?p=10008914

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/ben-affleck-and-bill-maher-are-both-wrong-about-islamic-fundamentalism/

 

And that's for people that believe that Sharia law should be the law of the land.  You can imagine that might actually be an underestimate because there might be people that believe that Sharia shouldn't be the law of the land, but that apostasy should still carry a death penalty,

 

And that's for the death penalty.

 

Not other forms of punishment.

 

Now, Egypt is one of the higher countries in the Middle East, but still I think that's an astounding number.

 

"A similar pattern holds true when it comes to the question of whether Muslims who leave the faith — apostates — should be killed. Majorities of Muslims in seven countries say this should be the case. Support is particularly high in Afghanistan. By contrast, Eastern European Muslims are much less likely to support the practice."

What's the point of the quote?  It seems unsupported.

[Predicto]

This just in -  war racked and tribalistic countries tend to have values that we Westerners find deplorable.   Many of them are Muslim.   Many are not.  

 

Until a few decades ago, people in the New Guinea jungle were cannibals.  The most common cause of death in remote Amazonian tribes was murder.   Ethnic cleansing is sadly common when African tribes clash.  Approximately 2/3ds of rural Hindu Indians beat their wives.  and so on 

[PeterMP]

What's the point of the quote?  It seems unsupported.

 

The quote is the result of doing the math from the two questions in the Pew poll to determine a minimal percentage of people that support killing as punishment for apostates in the various questions.