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Panich52

(5,829 posts)
Mon Jan 19, 2015, 11:52 PM Jan 2015

Blame zealotry, not Islam

America’s 10 worst terror attacks by Christian fundamentalists and far-right extremists

"Far-right white male radicals and extreme Christianists are every bit as capable of acts of terrorism as radical Islamists, and to pretend that such terrorists don’t exist does the public a huge disservice." -- Alex Henderson, Alternet

Full story on RawStory:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/americas-10-worst-terror-attacks-by-christian-fundamentalist-and-far-right-extremists/

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Blame zealotry, not Islam (Original Post) Panich52 Jan 2015 OP
This message was self-deleted by its author 1000words Jan 2015 #1
At the moment the Islamic fundamentalists are causing way more havoc Warren Stupidity Jan 2015 #2
I'll just blame religion, not the people who take it too far NightWatcher Jan 2015 #3
Blame the radical salafari-wahabbi movement for the things JonLP24 Jan 2015 #4
Muslim zealots. mr_liberal Jan 2015 #5
That's like saying "blame sports" for football concussions oberliner Jan 2015 #6
Enough with this old canard Augustus Jan 2015 #7
Bingo. Or dhould I say, 'Amen'? Panich52 Jan 2015 #8
Blame the accidents of a religion's birth. oneview Jan 2015 #9
No, don't tar other religions with the same brush as Islam. Donald Ian Rankin Jan 2015 #10
I've known a lot of zealots. Igel Jan 2015 #11

Response to Panich52 (Original post)

 

Warren Stupidity

(48,181 posts)
2. At the moment the Islamic fundamentalists are causing way more havoc
Mon Jan 19, 2015, 11:58 PM
Jan 2015

than the Christian fundamentalists, but indeed it is religion in general, and religious fanatics in particular, that are in the forefront of making the world a frequently very shitty place for peaceful humans to attempt to live in peace. Islam certainly has no monopoly on incredibly bad ideas, it just has more nitwits taking those bad ideas seriously.

NightWatcher

(39,343 posts)
3. I'll just blame religion, not the people who take it too far
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 12:13 AM
Jan 2015

It's not the extremes to which they go, but the message and the motivation to go to the extremes.

"So god is great but don't go crazy about it", is the new message? Maybe if these people didn't think they were acting on the behalf of a supernatural deity, we wouldn't have as many of these problems.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
6. That's like saying "blame sports" for football concussions
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 12:35 AM
Jan 2015

You should blame football, which is a sport, for football concussions.

And you can do so without needing to also point out that other sports lead to concussions as well.

 

Augustus

(63 posts)
7. Enough with this old canard
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 12:35 AM
Jan 2015

Religious zealots don't exist in a vacuum. You can't have religious zealots without a base of "moderate" religious people to support them. It is, in fact, from the vast majority of "peaceful" religious people which the zealots come from. Every single religious murderer started off as a "moderate". They were born, raised, and taught the religion from the birth, and were then radicalised through adolescence.

The only truth in your OP is that it can be applied to every religion, not just Islam, not just Christianity, but all of them. When you teach people to stop thinking critically, it's easy to convince them of anything.

 

oneview

(47 posts)
9. Blame the accidents of a religion's birth.
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 02:46 AM
Jan 2015

Jesus lived and his Bible was formed in the first two centuries AD as a an outsiders' religion in the Roman Empire. Muhammad lived and his Quran was formed in the 500s and 600s AD in the nomadic pastoral anarchy of Arabia of Late Antiquity.

One illustration of the resulting differences: here's an extensive and detailed article on Wikipedia --

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

I don't believe there's even a stub Wiki article on the military career of Jesus. Because he didn't have one. Because if he had taken up arms against the Roman Empire, he and his compatriots would have been ground into dust by Rome.

Muhammad and his followers, on the other hand, were able to spread their new religion by the force of arms so speedily and so extensively that the Middle East and the Mediterranean world would have to look back to Alexander the Great to find a parallel.

Muslims are required to emulate Muhammad as much as Christians are urged to imitate Christ.
Following the example of Muhammad is, unfortunately, rather problematic in the context of the 21st century.

Donald Ian Rankin

(13,598 posts)
10. No, don't tar other religions with the same brush as Islam.
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 05:08 AM
Jan 2015

All religions are mistaken, and there exist people who do bad things because of all of them.

But there are far, far more people whose interpretation of the moral teachings of Islam is grossly unethical than is true of any other religion - not just the murderous minority (which is a much larger minority than for any other religion, but still only a small fraction of Muslims), but the majority who oppose women's rights, gay rights, freedom of speech and religion, etc, to a much greater extent than is true of any other religion.

Igel

(35,191 posts)
11. I've known a lot of zealots.
Tue Jan 20, 2015, 08:00 AM
Jan 2015

They've all been pretty damned irritating.

At no point have I been threatened by any of them with physical or any other kind of harm. Nor did they do any harm to others--apart from telling others how wrong they were and that God loved them. ("Just go away," repeated frequently enough, worked much better than batons and rifles worked in Paris.)

It's not just the zealotry. It's the species of zealotry that's the problem. A zealous pacifist is a danger only to himself and family. A zealous militant is a danger to many. In trying to protect a specific class of people, you got it wrong: They don't need protection.

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