Islamists Murder 12 at French Magazine

[Megatherium]

Ha, found the thing I was lookng for.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2015/01/dismantling-prejudice-and-misconceptions.html

From the linked post (which has links to various relevant articles), I quote:

"In the U.S., 94% of terrorist attacks between 1980 and 2005 were carried out by non-Muslims. Around 10% of Americans killed in political violence and mass shootings between 2001 and 2013 were victims of Muslim attacks—and that’s without counting the majority of the country’s mass shootings. Less than 1% of terrorist attacks in the European Union from 2006 to 2oo8 were Islamist in nature; most of the attacks were carried out by separatist groups."

Though while I was trying to track that down I found this one:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/muslims-only-carried-out-2-5-percent-of-terrorist-attacks-on-u-s-soil-between-1970-and-2012.html

which notes (among some fascinating and rather surprising statistical analysis that's worth peering at for the couple of "Seriously?  That's what the evidence says?" moments):

"If we look at worldwide attacks – instead of just attacks on U.S. soil – Sunni Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism.  However: 1. Muslims are also the main victims of terror attacks worldwide; and 2. the U.S. backs the most radical types of Sunnis over more moderate Muslims and Arab secularists.)"

 
I think it is very important to remember how anti-Islamic some of the largest terrorist groups (specifically ISIL and Al-Qaeda) really are. These groups consider any minority Muslim sect to be heretics worthy of attack. They think that the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims are not "real" Muslims and that the global Muslim community needs to be "cleansed" in order to make them accept the caricature of Islam that such groups espouse. The same ideology used to support terrorist attacks in Western countries is used to support far more frequent attacks on Muslim minority groups, or any Muslims who do not support their ideology.

[SunflowerP]

Why aren't they talking about it...'here'?

But I think if one is going to discuss acts perpetrated under the aegis of a belief system, it has to be included.

 
For values of 'here' that mean 'on TC'... because no one has made a thread about it. This isn't so much a thread for discussing 'acts perpetrated under the aegis of a belief system' generally; it's a news thread about a particular event.

You are welcome to - heck, we encourage it: more threads! more discussions! - make a thread so that the event you'd like to see more discussion on gets some discussion.

Sunflower

[carillion]

For values of 'here' that mean 'on TC'... because no one has made a thread about it. This isn't so much a thread for discussing 'acts perpetrated under the aegis of a belief system' generally; it's a news thread about a particular event.

You are welcome to - heck, we encourage it: more threads! more discussions! - make a thread so that the event you'd like to see more discussion on gets some discussion.

Sunflower

 

No, I didn't mean here as in TC , I meant here as in 'here in North America'. The Habs played the La Marseillaise before the game tonight, 'hero' style portraits of the victims are being put on News outlets front pages,everyone is talking about this . But look at the sickening carnage being wrought in Nigeria by a group who claims to speak for 'Islam'. No 'hero' pictures of the children, women and elderly people who couldn't run fast enough so got slaughtered.

And if one wants to address some of the ways Islam is being used to great harm, what about this? :

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/saudi-blogger-first-lashes-raif-badawi

The Wahhabism practised in Saudi Arabia is barbaric and worse, state sanctioned.

The killing of the journalists in Paris was a tragedy, but both what is happening in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are every...bit...as terrible. But these events don't seem to capture too many people's imagination or deep conern.

And I wonder *why*.  Because you can't have a discussion about Islamic roots of violence without including these in the conversation. But of course S.A. is a big partner to the 'west' and Nigeria, well they probably don't have too many Starbucks there and they are pretty poor but still...

[sailor]

I don't know. Maybe when Jews stopped trying to destruct the religions of their neighbours? In the Bible there is plenty of evidence of it. It isn't proselytism but it certainly is not respectful either. Anyways, as I stated before on this thread, Jews did proselytize  historically.

 
2000 to 3000 years ago is an awfully large time period to be considered "nowadays".  With that kind of a standard to meet I don't think there is any currently surviving culture or religion that didn't kill, rape or enslave or do forced conversion.

[sailor]

Well, if you're going to single out Muslims as fanatics, it kind of does put a dent in the argument.

I agree, Islamic extremism is a problem. But you know what is also a problem, and what no one ever seems to want to deal with, especially here in the US? Christian extremists. The ones who bomb abortion clinics, burn crosses, and stockpile guns and ammunition because they think the government is the Antichrist.

I was in Scotland when the attack in Oslo went down. Right away, the media fingered Al Qaeda. I remember having a weird (well...not really weird. Just rational) feeling that this was a rush to judgment. Was it a scary brown Muslim? Nope. Blond haired, blue-eyed Aryan racist who was dismayed at having to put up with people who were different from him.

 
Well, in the US it looks like the real problem is Puerto Ricans. Or to use the US Govt's standards, anybody who is an enviromentalist is a potential terrorist.

[RandallS]

2000 to 3000 years ago is an awfully large time period to be considered "nowadays".  With that kind of a standard to meet I don't think there is any currently surviving culture or religion that didn't kill, rape or enslave or do forced conversion.

The main source for the Roman era conversions seems to be Flavius Josephus -- if so that's not very strong evidence given that most historians consider Josephus' historical accuracy (in the modern sense) questionable. What is certain is that there is no "go forth and convert" directive in the Jewish religion as there is in the Christan and the Muslim religion.

[Darkhawk]

What is certain is that there is no "go forth and convert" directive in the Jewish religion as there is in the Christan and the Muslim religion.

 
My understanding is that there is not only no "go forth and convert" but that one has to be persistent enough to overcome being refused conversion several times.  (And possibly have a reason the rabbi considers good enough.)

[Altair]

Well, in the US it looks like the real problem is Puerto Ricans.

 
Wut?

[Darkhawk]

Wut?

 
Washington Post link I put above, though the impression I got from it was that the big bump there was late 70s/early 80s, not current on numbers of terrorist attacks.

[sailor]

Washington Post link I put above, though the impression I got from it was that the big bump there was late 70s/early 80s, not current on numbers of terrorist attacks.

 
AS Darkhawk said, although I was following the Pathos blog links that ended up at the FBI stats page.

It looks like the single biggest group of terrorist attacks was from a Puerto Rican group from the 70s and 80s.

[sailor]

The Wahhabism practised in Saudi Arabia is barbaric and worse, state sanctioned.

The killing of the journalists in Paris was a tragedy, but both what is happening in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are every...bit...as terrible. But these events don't seem to capture too many people's imagination or deep conern.

And I wonder *why*.  Because you can't have a discussion about Islamic roots of violence without including these in the conversation. But of course S.A. is a big partner to the 'west' and Nigeria, well they probably don't have too many Starbucks there and they are pretty poor but still...

 
I still think US forces mis-read their compasses after 9/11.  They went north to Bagdad rather than south west to Riyadh.

[Kaio]

The main source for the Roman era conversions seems to be Flavius Josephus -- if so that's not very strong evidence given that most historians consider Josephus' historical accuracy (in the modern sense) questionable. What is certain is that there is no "go forth and convert" directive in the Jewish religion as there is in the Christan and the Muslim religion.

 
 Originally Christianism and Islam are nothing but Jewish heresies. Did Muslim proselytism come up out of thin air?

[Kaio]

(...) With that kind of a standard to meet I don't think there is any currently surviving culture or religion that didn't kill, rape or enslave or do forced conversion.

 
 I think you can't state this with any degree of certainty.

[carillion]

I think you can't state this with any degree of certainty.

 

I actually laughed outloud at this. I choose to take it as optimistic and somewhat charming naivety. I think it would be easier to ask : name some empires or countries or even large cultural  groups that *did not* at some point force their growth by violent/mass intimidation means?

[sailor]

Originally Christianism and Islam are nothing but Jewish heresies. Did Muslim proselytism come up out of thin air?

 
While Islam drew heavily upon Jewish scripture, it was never a heresy of Judaism.  Islam might have gotten it's proselytism from Christianity, but not from Judaism. It is just as likely to home grown with it being inherent to how the religion started.