Larssen
Member
+99|1858

uziq wrote:

i think it's entirely, depressingly foreseeable that macron's grandstanding over the issue and making huge political speeches about 'the nature of islam' is going to be used for maximal gain by national leaders like erdogan. as i said above, if macron has one eye on the populist right in his country and to vote capture based on their 'hot button issues' (british tories signal to the UKIP crowd on 'migrants' and 'brexit'), clearly there are also other political parties/regimes in power elsewhere in the world who are ensuring their electoral success through the SAME calculus.

i honestly have no good answers to what is happening in france. it is a clusterfuck. things are heating up and it's just as sad as when people take guns to rallies and protests in the USA and random people get killed. some people will see in it an end-of-days spectacle of dark forces in society, like antifa and communism, posing a grave threat; others will see over-excited or indoctrinated youths with guns who spend too much time on message boards. for whatever reason, and as i said in a previous post, again, france has doubled-down on this issue and is testing its 'freedom of speech' principles to the extreme. this is not a simple matter for anyone, even echt-liberal political theorists. should freedom of speech entail a society's ability to project religious leaders on the side of municipal buildings in acts of open ridicule? the context and dynamics are so complex that i really couldn't give a satisfactory summa to that. but what is depressingly foreseeable is that young, radicalised, on-edge people will go postal and that more beheadings will happen.

what i do see, and this isn't anti-western of me, is that a lot of political leaders are inflaming extremely volatile, impossible-to-control issues for political purposes and electoral gain. these tensions and paradoxes, everyday contradictions, grey areas, etc, are always with us in pluralist democracies. that is the standard, default mode of operation. democracies are characterized by contradiction: that's what keeps them from being authoritarian. as soon as a group starts pushing one of the many highly sensitive issues like 'freedom of speech vs respect for religious beliefs', shit is going to blow up. and that goes for any democratic country.
I reckon that's some pretty good observations. Honestly I don't think much or all of it is even just calculated for electoral gain, some of it is very genuine. People do believe the other party is manifesting as an existential threat, people do insist on testing their right to freedom of expression to the extreme. They want to prove the other party is in fact a threat, and to seriously make freedom of expression, i.e. the 'right' to generalise, denigrate and blaspheme, their sacred hill to die on. In a way it is also taken up personally to somehow go on that crusade in the name of the state; 'our values' ought to dominate whatever other identity group there is.

As I was semi-banned from that subreddit, I was trying simply to enlighten people to the point behind terrorist tactics, to how the resulting lashing out and inflamed dialogue helps create societal tension and widen chasms between communities, to how people talk themselves into violence etc. On top of that to point out nuances on Islam's various denominations and all the contextual factors that helped in the creation of Islamic fascism in the ME. The result was anger, bewilderment, disbelief - of course in a small, fringe internet group, but recognisable emotions in wider society. To tell others that freedom of expression is not to be abused is received as an insult to their very being and an argument that implies 'terrorists win'. There's multiple facets to this, some more sinister, but also a complete denial in the power of narratives and language. It's considered preposterous that others would lash out over 'mere words' or imagery, derived from an obliviousness to how we form our motivations and identities through language and imagery... Rather the point is even to pressure what they consider the forces of malevolence into accepting their dominance on notions of freedoms and respect.

In my more official role it's easier to convince people of these points (or so I may unduly think) because the suit conveys authority I suppose, but it's interesting how the gloves come off through the anonimity of the internet. There's a complete blindness to any form of argument, and a deep retrenchment into a narcissistic self-image coupled with a total refusal, rather inability, to understand the other. But rather than fight it out physically we do it verbally, if that is ever better, in the misplaced expectation that there can be or will be no escalation. Perhaps a darker side assumes that escalation will be the moment to finally 'prove the point'. Truly people consider their narcissism more important than the cohesion in their democracies.

Back to Macron; it could also be a slight miscalculation, though I don't think his speeches are primarily responsible for further divisions, more the projection of the muhammad cartoons on government buildings etc. Principally I agree with most everything that was said, though some choice words may have conveyed an unfortunate and unintended meaning. Rather than explicate that he 'wouldn't give up cartoons', he may have been better off to simply underline some practicalities of freedom of expression in relation to blasphemy, or he could've highlighted the crisis of authority in Islam rather than simply note it a 'crisis of Islam'. Though I stand by it being a correct assessment, it perhaps misses the mark on political sensitivity.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-30 16:54:47)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

i think it's entirely, depressingly foreseeable that macron's grandstanding over the issue and making huge political speeches about 'the nature of islam' is going to be used for maximal gain by national leaders like erdogan. as i said above, if macron has one eye on the populist right in his country and to vote capture based on their 'hot button issues' (british tories signal to the UKIP crowd on 'migrants' and 'brexit'), clearly there are also other political parties/regimes in power elsewhere in the world who are ensuring their electoral success through the SAME calculus.

i honestly have no good answers to what is happening in france. it is a clusterfuck. things are heating up and it's just as sad as when people take guns to rallies and protests in the USA and random people get killed. some people will see in it an end-of-days spectacle of dark forces in society, like antifa and communism, posing a grave threat; others will see over-excited or indoctrinated youths with guns who spend too much time on message boards. for whatever reason, and as i said in a previous post, again, france has doubled-down on this issue and is testing its 'freedom of speech' principles to the extreme. this is not a simple matter for anyone, even echt-liberal political theorists. should freedom of speech entail a society's ability to project religious leaders on the side of municipal buildings in acts of open ridicule? the context and dynamics are so complex that i really couldn't give a satisfactory summa to that. but what is depressingly foreseeable is that young, radicalised, on-edge people will go postal and that more beheadings will happen.

what i do see, and this isn't anti-western of me, is that a lot of political leaders are inflaming extremely volatile, impossible-to-control issues for political purposes and electoral gain. these tensions and paradoxes, everyday contradictions, grey areas, etc, are always with us in pluralist democracies. that is the standard, default mode of operation. democracies are characterized by contradiction: that's what keeps them from being authoritarian. as soon as a group starts pushing one of the many highly sensitive issues like 'freedom of speech vs respect for religious beliefs', shit is going to blow up. and that goes for any democratic country.
You're still missing the major point, the average person doesn't want pluralism, multiculturalism etc.
The whites don't, the blacks don't, the muslims don't, the catholics don't etc etc.

Govts have pursued pipe-dream fantasies to allow free migration of incompatible peoples into settled democracies and the result is internal conflict, riots, beheadings, massacres etc.
I'm sure you'll pull up some article written 90 years ago by a sociological theorist who spent their life cloistered away from the actual world which says I'm a luddite or a nazi or whatever but it doesn't matter because your stupid theories have no connection with real people or the real world and they don't matter.

People can drone on about appeasement, laicite, pandering, affirmative action etc but this just pisses off the average person.

I'd say most of europe is too far gone to be recoverable now, there are too many blacks, muslims etc who have nil interest in becoming moderate or assimilating, they want their new home remodelled exactly the way they want it and they'll continue with the agitation, beheadings, riots, bombings, truck attacks etc until they get it.

You'll say its stupid but having allowed them in we should have stopped them at halal and kosher food and letting them mutilate their children, both abhorrent to the average person in the developed world - but yeah multiculturalism.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Tiny minority of extremists most moderate muslims ignore.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54751920
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

I'm pretty sure most of those people aren't going to go home, strap on a bomb, and go diving into a cafe. People protest stuff. I remember Christian outrage when a local airport took down a Christmas tree.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
And isn't it strange that 'colonising' is at the same time the worst thing white people have done but at the same time the absolute right of anyone in a third world country to do to first world people?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
you have no idea what a 'normal' person is. it's a convenient and constantly shifting concept to which you like to appeal, and a very lazy and predictable right-wing populist trick. speaking on behalf of 'the everyman', who of course must share your virulent racism and exhausting reserves of hatred.

where are you getting your figures from? the brexit result? that overwhelming thing that wasn't, in fact, a consensus on multiculturalism?

so 51% of people are 'normal' and 49% are 'abnormal', because they wanted to stay in the european union?

what does a large nation-wide plebiscite like that have to do with multiculturalism, again? you do realize that all of britain's black and muslim citizens come largely from the ex-empire/ex-commonwealth, right? it wasn't a referendum on repatriating british-pakistanis or jamaicans who have been here for 50+ years, dilbert. leaving the EU is not going to change the racial or religious make-up of the UK.

as for me being 'out of touch' and 'dangerously isolated' from that result: you do realize the demographics of brexiteers, right? a huge proportion of them are well-educated, rich, conservative southerners. that's literally my socio-economic tribe: i've already told you that my parents and grandparents voted for brexit. what was i 'blindsided' by again? your attempts to portray this as a 'real volk' rising up to express their long-ignored desires against an 'effete, metropolitan, liberal, academic elite' is hopeless. another right-wing trick deployed by the likes of farage and bannon. look at the fucking data.

you haven't been to the UK in 20-30 years. your talking points, ventings and spleen is still directed at blair-era tropisms. you're still ranting about benefit collecting migrants like it's the hey-day of new labour. no doubt you also enjoyed demonizing single mothers and chavs back in 2003, as well. nobody here even regards those as talking points or relevant anymore (we've had over a decade of hard austerity, i mean why would we), and yet your imagination is still inflamed by the image of 'britain ruined' ... from 1987 or 1998 or whatever.

you have a complete ignorance of history, context and the power dynamics at play in all of these disparate issues. and yet you make grand pronouncements and sit in smug satisfaction in some basement somewhere. really not very clever at all.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-31 02:26:09)

Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Dilbert_X wrote:

You're still missing the major point, the average person doesn't want pluralism, multiculturalism etc.
The whites don't, the blacks don't, the muslims don't, the catholics don't etc etc.

Govts have pursued pipe-dream fantasies to allow free migration of incompatible peoples into settled democracies and the result is internal conflict, riots, beheadings, massacres etc.
I'm sure you'll pull up some article written 90 years ago by a sociological theorist who spent their life cloistered away from the actual world which says I'm a luddite or a nazi or whatever but it doesn't matter because your stupid theories have no connection with real people or the real world and they don't matter.

People can drone on about appeasement, laicite, pandering, affirmative action etc but this just pisses off the average person.

I'd say most of europe is too far gone to be recoverable now, there are too many blacks, muslims etc who have nil interest in becoming moderate or assimilating, they want their new home remodelled exactly the way they want it and they'll continue with the agitation, beheadings, riots, bombings, truck attacks etc until they get it.

You'll say its stupid but having allowed them in we should have stopped them at halal and kosher food and letting them mutilate their children, both abhorrent to the average person in the developed world - but yeah multiculturalism.
Dilbert to lay the blame with multiculturalism and to characterise this as a conflict borne out of multiculturalism completely ignores the fact that the social dynamics present in warring groups are the same no matter if it's a fight about race, religion, ethnicity or tribe. The narrative of 'irreconcilable' differences between us have repeatedly plagued society as long as it has existed. The smaller the seperations between groups, the more we revert into a narcissism of our minor differences. That's why catholics warred with protestants, french and germans fought for centuries, how localised seperatism gains ground etc. We spawn symbolisms like flags and iconography, plant them at imagined borders to claim our territories, create a sense of 'us' through anthems and cherry picked group histories, and weave a narrative of oppression and incompatibility with the nearest groups in our surroundings as a description of 'them'. When there is also an asymmetry of power, all the stronger the draw of that narcissism becomes, zooming in on either real but mostly imagined differences as points of unavoidable conflict.

You are not hardwired to be in conflict with a black person merely over the colour of their skin, or with a muslim because of their religion. The same goes vice versa. But instead of discovering common ground we'll push to differ as much as possible, even over inane shit like the insistence in depiction of a prophet you don't give two shits about, but to stick it to the other. Had we all been a perfect union of white people, the same narcissistic behaviour would manifest in other ways, among other dividing lines. And you can often see it happening as well anyway in resurged separatist nationalism between catalans and spanish for example, or northern irish and the rest of ireland. Where the f is their real irreconcilable difference when both share exactly the same personal needs, wants, values and so on? But in comes a muslim or black person and now we move the goalposts to make it a conflict over religion and race...

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-31 02:38:45)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
^ this is essentially what i was getting at, and meant to respond to, in your above post. in one view the pushing of cartoons of muhammad is such an inane, absurd, non-issue: who really is passionately attached to this issue? but there will always be that group - call them idealists or crass cynics, either way - who want to be the fly in the ointment. in the case of france placing stress on its freedom of speech principles, really it's hard to frame this as a totally disinterested, noble, idealist cri de coeur for freedom. charlie hebdo and its readership are a distinctly boorish, upper-middle-class type, who for most of the publication's history have only been interested in shock appeal, low humour, and revelling in sub-jeremy clarkson controversy-making.

now, does that mean that anyone deserves to be the victim of violence or even death because of this? absolutely not, and it is so clearly an affront to democracy and the rule of law. counter-terrorism and the full force of the law should be applied to any extremists or radicals whose reaction and only recourse to being offended is to maim and murder. it hardly needs to be pointed out that 99.99% of people, even muslims who are the direct targets of such a provocation and offence, would not wish violence upon another person. you're rather conveniently ignoring the fact that to kill or cause harm to another is still against the mainstream religious morality of islam; the hardliner-radical sunni interpretations of jihad and martyrdom are not the norm.

i mention the demographics of CH's readership and the french who take up this liberal crusade generally by way of addressing the power dynamics at play. in this it's worth bringing in a small amount of perspectivism and psychology, too. the french in this dynamic have all the power, all the privilege, all the tangible freedom they ever want, really: no frenchman is drawing caricatures of muhammad out of some burning conviction or existential need. in contrast, they represent to the large muslim community of france an ex-colonial oppressor, an active agent in their subjugation and rule, a not-always-benign alma mater, etc. it's not hard to see why there is an aggrieved psychology at work among many muslims who have been cast out and ignored in poorly serviced banlieus for generations, effectively forgotten about. it's the same psychology you will find in frustrated, unemployed young men the world over, with the added historical import and weight of ruler-ruled, master-slave dynamics. what to the french is a 'noble' cause of 'free speech' quite easily looks to its muslims, already on the lowest rungs of the society's ladder, like the powerful lining up to take shots at the powerless. and terrorism, like any resort to violence, is nothing but a quick reversal and temporary seizure of power.

every post-colonial imperial society is dealing on some level with these structural difficulties. i don't think the fate of france's migrant community is in any way by malign design; i don't think france is a racist society, all-in-all, and i don't think macron really has any nativist or nationalist tendencies. french people really do believe in the ideals of the republic. but, like every post-imperial society, there are huge blindspots, willed ignorances, and a fair amount of naivety involved. not about the 'possibility of integration', but about the genuine, sincere efforts at bridge-building and reparation that must be made. all too often this project has failed and ended up with a shrugging gesture: we let you in/let you off the boat, what more do you want from us? the state and official culture - the powerful, those with resources - should share some culpability in any 'failure' of multiculturalism. creating ghettos without any meaningful opportunities has been short-termist in the extreme. again, i don't think this was by design: every government makes generational errors like this, such as in britain the equally short-sighted goal to get 50% of young people through university, even though no middle-class graduate-level opportunities awaited them on the other side. i think it's fair to say that france has an issue where several generations have slipped through the cracks in this way: in their case it's algerians, tunisians, moroccans, etc.

no democracy is perfect and nor can it ever be. it is all in the healthy coexistence of differences: i strongly believe this is the essence of democracy, not a fault of it. people coexisting in a common project, without need necessarily for perfect agreement in views or creed. desires for purity are inane and anyone with even a cursory grasp of history will see how they fail, time and time again. democracies are made up of moieties. no democracy has a perfect constitution, or a perfect elaboration of perfect principles. elevating any 'ideal' of liberal democracy, like freedom-of-speech, onto an absolute, transcendent pedestal is only asking, really, to see the cracks in the concept. because there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech, especially not in a complex, pluralist society in which many people are expected to coexist with many (very) different views. you have to temper these ideals with the everyday civility, good manners, respect, etc, that form the unassuming fabric of our lives. we don't all go around verbalising every thought we have in the face of people to whom it might cause offence, because that's simply no way to live in a society. on the other hand, yes, every society does require its rebels or originals who will push the standards and test its principles. but one should always be careful to sit these struggles in their historical and sociological context.

i agree with larssen that there's no such thing as 'irreconcilable differences', nor essential ones, either. but i can't be bothered to outline anti-foundationalism or pragmatism to someone as singularly obtuse and dimwitted as dilbert.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-31 03:08:46)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
I think it is fair to say that there are few if any "irreconcilable differences'" between Protestant and Catholic Irish or Protestant Black Americans and Protestant White Americans or Catholic Hispanics and Catholic White Americans or any Christian between any other Christian. Islam is different and to deny there is a genuine difference in worldview, and practices between Muslims and Christians is ignorant and/or naïve.

I don't subscribe to an idea that small amounts of Muslim minorities living society leads to a ceaseless drive to race war but again I will say that once Muslims reach a population threshold in non-Muslim society they begin to create reinforcing political/identity organizations that results in general alienation, resentment, and opposition to assimilation.

For instances, the role and power of women in Christian civilizations vs Islamic ones. Women do not enjoy the same rights in the Islamic world as they do in the Christian world or literally anywhere else. Accommodating Muslim's views toward gender comes at the expense of Christian/Buddhist/Hindu/etc women anywhere.

And the more minor things like Muslim dietary restrictions creates further problems when it comes to having to provide accommodations in Christian countries.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I think the western experience has proven that there is a capacity for change and accomodation far beyond what you're writing. It is also not necessarily uniform within muslim societies; the rights and lives of lebanese or iranian women in stark contrast with those living in saudi arabia or yemen. The oppression of women also being a near universal constant in the world to varying degrees in different societies, some african countries being no less restrictive if it is to be a contest, or our own history.

What I wrote above about group delineation and the narcissism in our beliefs is also not exclusive to any one identity group, muslims being just as capable to engage in such behaviour, and I've pointed out before that prevalent dogmatism within and rigidity of that community doesn't help. Though the point is not to wholly deny that there can be actual differences, but those would be of the sort subjected to articulated democracy rather than projected conflicts of identity. And an articulated democracy starts, ironically in this discussion, with a commonly agreed framework of principles and rules every party would abide by. Which in our societies includes a non negotiable tolerance on the topics you write on.

'But free speech is non negotiable too' some may write - though a very different right for which I'd refer above to uziq's post.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-31 04:09:00)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Women can't have their hair out in Saudi Arabia or Iran so I don't get your point. Lebanon meanwhile has a famous Christian influence which explains why their women live better lives.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
As if 'hair out' would be the only important factor between saudi, lebanese, iranian rights and views towards women, come on now. Let's also consider variance through time and what the societies looked like before religious fundamentalism took hold, or even before those periods.

Looking at seven pillars of wisdom in my bookshelf, it's also incredible how great the schism between the west/the east has become, from an admiration of the stoicism and dignity in Islam and idealisation of their exotic society to an entire rejection and revulsion of muslims. That change didn't truly come about until the late 90s/early 2000s.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-31 04:26:13)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
women can dress however they like in turkey so what is your point? again talking about a 'problem with islam' is isolating a quarter of the world's population. it is meaningless. islam is a religion as broad as christianity.

there are irreconcilable differences in theology between protestants and catholics, of course, i'm not denying points of doctrine. i am talking about the context of coexistence and shared life in society, i.e. within a secular-democratic framework. christians have a long history of killing one another over points of doctrine in other historical contexts, i.e. in the absence of a secular-democratic framework. i am describing the necessary 'mess' of those democratic systems, and pointing precisely to the fact that any desire for 'purity' or to stress/accentuate differences is a slippery slope back towards absolutism and authoritarianism. you seem to have a hard-on for monarchical-clerical rule but i don't think france wants to return to its era of disgraceful christian massacres.

the rights of women in the west were won over and from christian doctrine. women are still not widely accepted in ecumenical positions in the church. it is disingenuous of you to argue for a desirable 'christian west' and to claim for its justification 'the equality of genders' we enjoy in contradistinction to islam. feminists and other agitators in the secular west have made almost all of their increases in the last 100 years, a quick development in the historical view. an optimist could hope for the same thing in islamic secular democracies, too; it's not inconceivable. you acting like the west is enlightened and islam is beholden to eternal despotism is just dishonest. particularly when you make such a clamour in support of 'christian values'. christianity has wanted to keep women in the homestead as chattel-property of men for most of western history. many christian nations are actively taking away women's rights at this very moment. so i would have a much easier time listening to your skepticism and misgivings if you were in favour of more secularism rather than more 'western values' (whatever the fuck that means in your twisted noggin).

i don't think hindu or confucian cultures should really be put on a pedestal to shame islam, either. indian families overwhelmingly privilege and want boys; daughters are a second sex and effectively second-class citizens. and it's no accident that in china, particularly in the era of the one-child-per-family-rule, abortions were sky-high and everyone was having boys.

And the more minor things like Muslim dietary restrictions creates further problems when it comes to having to provide accommodations in Christian countries.
total and utter nonsense. every religious group has proscriptions on food/drink and some sort of ritual typically associated with meals. aside from a few flashpoint, for e.g. the point of state-provision of food in multi-faith schools, which again is a non-issue and hardly an insuperable difficulty, there is no need to stress this at all. you may as well make out that vegans or gluten-intolerant people are a radical fifth column, here to make trouble and destabilise our way of life.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-31 04:47:16)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
The pictures of Iranian women with their hair out and all sexy was westernized upper and middle class. When Christians lost their influence in the country it reverted back to oppression.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
if you want to discuss why iran turned away from secular development, you have again to look at colonial histories and the role the west had to play. not good enough to just blame bad old islam.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
A monument of Polish king Jan III Sobieski has been placed on a platform trailer in front of the Papal Window in Kraków.

The monument has been put on temporary display to remind people of its existence after authorities in Vienna withdrew from a long-term plan to erect it on Kahlenberg hill in Vienna, from where the Polish king launched his history-changing attack 336 years ago.
...
However, last July, the new mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, announced that he was withdrawing from the project.

In its letter to the organising committee, the authorities in Vienna, fearing that the monument may be perceived as anti-Turkish, stated that it was not an appropriate time to erect military monuments.
https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/ki … rsial-8780

Meanwhile in Turkey
On August 20, the Turkish president signed another decree that transformed the church-museum of the Holy Saviour in Chora into a mosque. The monument dates back to the 5th century and is a real jewel for the Byzantine mosaics and frescoes that can be admired there, including that of the famous Madonna, the Virgin of Tenderness. It was transformed into a mosque in 1511 and then into a museum by Atatürk in 1945
Double standards
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

re: iran - https://themuslimvibe.com/faith-islam/i … as-changed

'National Day of Fight against Global Arrogance' is coming up. I don't know about you all but I might bake up some khoresh-e fesenjan.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
All the talk about religious identity had me interested in looking up some things;

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/A173/production/_107513314_arab_survey_5_640-nc.png

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48703377

A related read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/opin … igion.html

How far can this secular wave go? Only God knows, to offer a religious answer. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that this wave differs from the kind of secularism imposed on the Muslim world about a century ago, under authoritarian Westernizers like Ataturk of Turkey or Reza Shah of Iran. Theirs was a top-down revolution, imposed by the state and was widely perceived as inauthentic. This time, however, we are speaking of a bottom-up trend, coming from society, from people fed up with all the ugly things done in the name of religion.
I reckon the chances that we'll see major demographic shifts in terms of religiosity in this century are very high. It already happened in Europe, with most young populations in northern Europe identifying over 50% as irreligious. My expectation is that as quality of education improves worldwide and most importantly more people get connected to and interact with the internet, attendance of existing organised religions will keep declining.

Of course, not without reaction, particularly in countries where government and religion are fused. It's likely that if deism, agnosticism or outright atheism rise in these places the reaction will be to crack down on information, education and particularly the internet. It'll be fun seeing governments try and fail to plug and censor access to the web.

Perhaps Iran will be leading the charge:

https://images.theconversation.com/files/356406/original/file-20200903-16-qml66z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip

https://theconversation.com/irans-secul … efs-145253

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-31 14:09:45)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

i don't think france is a racist society, all-in-all
Yes, the country which gave Marine Le Pen 34% of the vote isn't at all racist.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/5FcyXqO9iXVbPBIsE3id7H6L5irDKFGjuCgR78a-2-Esh_K7hZzRPj4mt4kqB3oE2rjOsGX3ln3H8-xXxRf_C1TfsPWF4TNHAdXnmcrvbpp8pB_mRRfboRU8PGrScofWh73e6TEL0V6k-oST7YTZyyFpgu5gl00
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
you have strange definitions of 'normal' people, 'average people', 'common beliefs'.

49% of remainers are 'abnormal' individuals with strange beliefs.

34% support for a far-right candidate means a society is racist 'all-in-all'.

it's almost like language doesn't matter to you, only gruff attitudes and lazy generalizations.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
and another terror attack in Vienna... if this keeps up it will be hard to contain an outpouring of anger.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Why would Jewish people even want to live in Austria? Obviously not safe.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
that area was attacked by palestinians previously, i think.

watch dilbert try to reconcile his love for palestine with his hatred for muslims.

e: just in case it's not obvious i'm not suggesting the motive/agents are the same.

Last edited by uziq (2020-11-02 15:51:15)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
The French teacher that got beheaded was kind of a dope. He should know that those cartoons get people killed in those countries.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i wouldn't go so far as to say that. i do think educational spaces should have a particularly privileged access to freedom-of-speech, or freedom of thinking at least. secular institutions shouldn't shy away from exploring things -- it's all a matter of the treatment. so long as it is respectful and impartial, it's a fair object of study.

the problem is that it comes against an incredibly polarized and highly charged backdrop; it's part of a 'culture war', for better or for worse. it hardly matters if we are all well-meaning liberals on the side of freedom of speech, thinking the rules around cartoons of the prophet/allah are ludicrous, and so on. they're now identifying points and ammunition in a pitched 'battle'.

i'm uncomfortable with any sort of victim blaming here. what is culpably stupid behaviour is town mayors grandstanding over the issue, projecting huge cartoons of muhammad on the sides of city buildings, etc. it's divisive, not inclusive, and only communicates a straight-up 'fuck you' to peaceful and respectful muslim citizens (and yes, again, they do exist, as a vast majority). it was dopes like that, provincial small-town politicos and operators, who should feel some measure of shame and regret at their actions, not schoolteachers doing their best to educate children on the world around them as they find it.

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